The end of August is almost upon us. Summer holidays end this week, and starting Monday I`ll be spending my time in my schools rather than the Board of Education office that I`ve been based in this month.

I have 7 schools, although I`ll only really be visiting 6 of them.

Daini Junior High is the closest thing I have to a base school. It`s about a 20-25 minute bike ride from our apartment. It`s a pretty big school by local standards- maybe 500-600 students? I`ll be there about 7-8 days a month. The school is on one edge of town, and the ride to it takes me past several sweet-potato fields. I`ll try to get a picture of the building when I go there for my first lesson next week. I visited last week to say hello to the teachers and staff I`ll be working with. The PE coach offered to give me kendo lessons, which is frankly terrifying.

Not far from Daini JHS are two of my elementary schools, Hayasaki and Satoura. They`re both a bit smaller than Daini. When I visited Satoura last week, I ran into a group of 20 or so 1st through 3rd graders who were at the school for some kind of summer program. They were shy at first, but after a bit of hiding they warmed up to me. I got my first crotch-grab within 5 minutes (no kancho attempts yet), and by the ten minute mark everyone was laughing and I was serving as a makeshift jungle gym. Good times. I visit Hayasaki 2-3 times a month, Satoura once or twice.

On the other side of town, along the ocean, is my second base school- Seto Junior High. It`s about a 40 minute bike ride from the apartment. A long ride, but the terrain is flat and the scenery is very nice. Seto`s about the same size as Daini. They get me 7-8 times a month. Near Seto JHS is another elementary school, Seto Elementary. Seto Elementary also hosts the solitary student from Shimada Elementary, which is up in the hills on one of the nearby islands. Shimada is pretty sad- it`s a lovely school building that could probably handle 250-300 students, but it`s almost empty. The school has one student, one teacher, and the principal- that`s it. That lonely kid gets driven to Seto Elementary when I`m there... I don`t think I`ll ever have to go out to Shimada again. Along the way to the two Seto schools is my last elementary, Akinokami. I stopped by there this weekend and watched baseball practice. It was pretty funny in a 1950s sort of way- all the kids out there busting their butts while the men lounged back smoking and the ladies served tea. I visit these elementary schools once or twice a month.

I have the remainder of this week to finish work on my self introduction (10-20 minutes, with pictures and visual aids) and steel myself for actual classroom work. I`ll miss the BoE office- friendly folks and lots of free time, but I`m looking forward to working with the kids.