English Camp!

English Summer Camp August 18th 20th: English camp rolled around so much faster then I thought it would. I was lazy about my craft I was to prepare for the kids, but thankfully it was simple enough that things couldn’t go TOO wrong. XD So once again I went with Rosa to the game early Wednesday morning and we were the first Jets to arrive. Then David the new Kurobe Jet came. It was the first time I had met him so we talked for a short while as the other ALT’s were making there way in. My group ended up being a nice group of girls and two rowdy boys. We went through the normal ice-breaking, getting into teams, making a team name and flag ( our name was the Amazing Happy Cherry Fighters!) and getting to know each other. The first day went by pretty smooth and even though I organized sports day to be a water sport day it didn’t go as smoothly as I wanted it but apparently most of the kids thought it was fun anyway. My workshop (making paper sun catchers) went well also. The kids patiently made their sun catchers and in the end it turned out to look very pretty. I love it when things turn out well with little to no planning! XD

One day two I was pretty exhausted because the night before we had gathered together to have a “meeting” around ten o’clock with all the ALT’s, JTE’S and other BOE workers that stayed over night. This meeting consisted of eating snacks and drinking (my kind of meeting) and ironically enough the Japanese people talked amongst themselves and all the ALT’s talked to each other. Despite it being kind of a split room we all had a good time.
Despite that day two started bright and early. We had work shops and team time (which is when we made our English skits for last day presentation) we made it to the BBQ. It was interesting cooking all the meat for the kababs and on this day high school students came to assist the each group. They were a nice bunch of kids and typical High schoolers. It’s honestly really weird to note that High School was closing in on seven years ago.
Later on that night we had a campfire and we played games around it and ate smores. Smores are sooo delicious and every time I eat one I think of my girl scout days. Going to have to get back into the girl scouting community when I return to the states. Much like the night before, once the kids were showered and in their rooms we had another meeting and pretty much the shame shenanigans ensued. However Tommy and I met up with two college baseball girls chatting in the hallway as we made our way up to our rooms. We ended up stopping and having a long and fun conversation with them. There was dancing and singing and Tommy coaxed me into singing the one line of “Country Roads” I knew for the girls. I did and one of the girls cried. It was kinda shocking. For some reason that song is like Y.M.C.A for Americans. Everyone loves that country roads song and I have NO idea why! XP

The last day comes and I’m ready to go home. However I had much better sleep this summer camp then last. I came prepared with extra pillows and blankets so I won’t feel like someone punched me in my body all night as I slept. The last day was fairly simple. Breakfast, final workshop and giving our English skit presentations. My group did alright but possibly took on too much. Nevertheless we received a warm applause, and at the very least we all looked rather fancy in our cherry hats made out of construction paper and glue!