Most of the girls started with a short self introduction, listing their name, birthday, hobbies, and of course blood type (for some reason, EVERYONE knows their blood type in Japan and it's common as part of an introduction). One girl wrote a diary, telling me what she did each day since I last saw her.
Another girl told me about her favorite Korean drama called "Stairway to Heaven" and about how she's also interested in Christianity.
Mana (blood type AB) told me that she wants to join the badminton club when she becomes a university student. She also enjoys the music group "Orange Range" because "their music has many unique things."
Another girl talked about how she would like to do a "study tour" in a poor country to help needy people, but it's too expensive. She concludes with, "let's part-time job!!"
I really enjoyed reading what the students had to say and I think these journals will give me a good idea of what to talk about in future club meetings. It takes a lot of time and effort to have a conversation with these girls because my Japanese is as low as their English, but somehow we always manage.
After work, I rushed to the other side of Tokai train station to make it to my Japanese lesson on time. I met a really nice lady on the train on the way home from my Tokyo trip in September (check out my photo gallery here). She offered to give me Japanese lessons for free at her house every Tuesday. Her house is a twenty minute walk from Tokai High School. I feel so lucky that I met her! She's a Japanese teacher in Tokai and has a ton of good resources for teaching Japanese (last week, she gave me a book with simple Japanese folktales written in Japanese and English). Today was difficult because we started reading Japanese out of a textbook. I feel bad because she always speaks Japanese and sometimes I don't understand what she's asking me to do. But in the end, it all worked out ok and she even gave me a persimmon for the ride home. :)
