ネイティブが教える英会話のジェムスクール☆Teachers☆

Since I arrived in Japan I have, for the most part, been without internet on my phone. I didn't have much of a need for it and I was in a fight with my phone company back home. Then Pokemon Go happened. I saw Pokemon Go as the perfect way to get me some really needed exercise but I had no internet. I went ahead and got a sim card from bmobile. In my head I was sure I would be out there burning calories and playing by the end of the night. Well to my surprise I found out that my phone had been locked by my phone company back home. For the next week and a half I waited to see if a company I found through ebay could unlock my phone. 10 days and $100 later I was finally able to go play.

On my first day I was out walking and catching Pokemon until 3:00 am. The next day I woke up early and headed into Takamatsu to find a shirt for the upcoming event. The trip didn't yield a shirt, hopefully I can get one at youme town. It did however offer an opportunity to pass by Ritsurin Park on the way home.




Have you started playing Pokemon Go? What are your favorite spots? Read my next blog to get the inside scoop on Ritsurin Park.  

We have just concluded Summer Tour 2016! It was fantastic! This year our theme for Summer Tour was The Olympics and all of the kids had a great time. I especially loved seeing so many of my old and current students using their English with various people and having fun! I especially loved seeing one of my students from Baby Club playing with us during the Mr. Wolf game! She was so adorable! I thoroughly enjoyed Summer Tour and I can't wait for our next event! Halloween!  

Whew! Well, Summer Tour is over, and now it's time to relax and recuperate! This week is going to be an exciting one to be in town for, because the festival is in town! This Saturday and Sunday the Takamatsu Fireworks Festival is going to be going on, and this marks the beginning of my festival season in Japan. I'm planning on going to as many of the local festivals as possible! I love this time of year in Japan, it's so much fun to hear the music, and see the games and especially the fireworks! This weekend and the next couple of weekends are going to be a ton of fun!

Do you like going to the festivals? What's your favourite thing to do when you go out to one?  

My husband and I had the perfect summer day. We went to Tokushima to surf and the weather was perfect. The water temperature was perfect. After surfing we went downtown to Tokushima's center to eat BB's Pizza. It's amazing pizza. Have you ever been there? I go there as often as possible. They open at 7pm. BB's pizza is a hole in the wall kind of place. Holes in the wall usually have the best food.



  

Last week I told you about my newest project: my Bullet Journal. This week I want to talk about something that I use when filling in my Bullet Journal. I really like using a lot of different colours to make things stand out, so I have a nice collection of coloured pens (that I bought at Daiso). I also love to put stickers everywhere! I have a lot of stickers from Daiso, but I also have some character stickers that were from a more expensive store. I also have some washi tape that I use when I make mistakes.

Do you like to write with colourful pens, or use lots of stickers?



  

One of my favorite snacks back in America was Fig Newtons. I would get them any chance I got and I usually finished them quickly! If it was a small pack in a day.

Last weekend we went to Kaldi Coffee in the Youme Town in Mitoyo and I found some fig jam. I was really excited because I could make something similar to a Fig Newton. I've mostly been using it for peanut butter and jelly sandwiches so far. What's funny is that I've never actually eaten the fruit of a fig, just it's processed version.

Do you have a favorite snack?  

Whenever I talk to someone about Japan and their favorite place, or where they wish they lived it's always the usual suspects; Tokyo, Osaka, Yokohama, Hiroshima - The big bustling cities of this wonderful country. But I look at Shikoku as the best. You can always find a lot of hidden gems on this island whether it be surfing in Tokushima or Kochi, or the potential of hiking the mountains of this island. But one thing I see is the diversity that you can find here that, in my opinion, rivals those of the big cities. (Of course the bigger cities have them in quantity)

And that is diverse food.

Takamatsu itself is home to a diverse range of ethnic restaurants; Jamaican, Thai, Mexican, and not to mention the more common ones like Indian cuisine or Italian. But there is one that recently opened up that I absolutely fell in love with and that's Turquoise Kebab. It's a Turkish restaurant that specializes in Kebabs and Turkish ice cream. It's a real treat. But other than the wonderful food you always get a welcoming atmosphere that makes you want to keep coming back. The owner, Ali, is a great person that greets everyone with a kindness and familiarity that you don't always find in other places.

So if you want to have a kebab, this place is the one to visit.

Oh, and it's almost impossible to catch the ice cream, but you can try!

- James Barbosa  

Hello everyone!

This is my very first blog post for GEM School! How cool is that? Well, I think it is pretty cool!

I haven’t done too much while just getting to Japan, but what I’ve experienced in that time, is just WOW! The time I’ve stayed in Japan I’ve noticed that everything is done so pragmatically and neatly! I wish Canada were the same as Japan, in these regards! How cool!

Kagawa has much to offer in local sights and sounds! I will hopefully see plenty Shrines and Buddhist temples while I live in Kagawa. I studied Buddhism in University and I hope to learn more about Japanese Buddhism while working for GEM School!

Have you visited many Shrines and Buddhists temples in Kagawa?


  

Hello!

My name is Emily and I am one of the new teachers to join the team here at Gem School. I am in the process of settling into my life here in Japan--and it is all very exciting!

To tell you a little bit about myself, I am 21 years old and I am from California. I just graduated from UCLA with a degree in English and psychology. I love to travel, cook, hike, bike...and teach English! I'm very excited to be here and I can't wait to learn more about my new home!

This is my second week teaching with Gem School, and so far it has been great! All of my fellow teachers and staff have been incredibly welcoming, and all of the students are just wonderful! I can't wait to get to know everybody better. Thank you to everyone I have met who has been so warm and friendly, and to everyone else, I can't wait to meet you!


  

There is never a good time or a good way to say good bye. I think I prefer "See you later." instead. I have really enjoyed my time here, it has been a great experience. Thank you all for being a part of my life and showing me to much kindness. Each and every student is super important to me and I hope that we can all meet again in the future. Please take care and keep having fun learning English!

Thank you for reading!

See you later,

Kristen  

Most of my family is Cuban this means that growing up my diet consisted of rice, beans, pork and almost nothing else. Well that's not really true but you get the picture. As far as fruits or vegetables were concerned I saw very little of them. We had the occasional lettuce, cabbage, avocado, cucumber, tomato, or an apple. Once I met Sadie I began to try new foods. For the most part I always had this idea that fruits were not satisfying or even pleasant. Sadie introduced me to various fruits and vegetable such as green beans, broccoli, asparagus, and many more. Previously I also had consumed apples, bananas, mangoes, grapes, and strawberries. I don't like bananas except for tostones and I can't go anywhere near a mango without wanting to barf.

Well now that you have a basic idea we can get to the topic of Japan and its fruits. In Japan I tried melon (I already liked watermelon,) wow. It was so juicy and flavorful. Then we went to strawberries which back home I never liked. They tended to be on the sour side. In Japan I can eat strawberries all day long. 2 days ago I went into the store and bought a peach. Never before had I ever even been curious about what a peach would taste like. First bite was a juicy explosion of delight. Wow I might have just found a close contender for my favorite fruit, Five years ago the phrase favorite fruit was something that would not even entertain.





What fruits do you like? What do you recommend i try next?  

In the midst of a very busy summer, it's nice to finally see your friends and do something...or nothing. With the promise of a visitor, I spent Sunday cleaning my apartment. It was a good idea, and I found that I got a lot done while listening to scary story podcasts. Every time I dropped the broom or knocked something over though, I jumped!
Podcasts are like radio plays or shows that you can listen to on your phone. I listen to a lot of podcasts, but usually at night, so I never find the time for scary ones.

On Monday, Jillian and I locked ourselves in my clean apartment and vowed not to set foot outside all day!

It's too hot out, horribly so, so we blasted the air conditioner, ordered pizza, and watched scary movies. We even watched a movie set during Christmas time, and marveled at how cold everyone looked. Ooooo cold. We reminisced about snow.
If we had had more time, I would have played only cold horror movies like The Thing or 30 Days of Night, but we had planned to watch only new movies that day. It's pretty hard for us to find a good scary movie that we haven't seen!

To end our Spooky Summer Spectacular, it began to rain and storm a little. ^_^

  

Recently my friend Laura and I took a trip to Shodoshima. I was super pumped (pumped means excited) because I'd never been on a boat before. At least not a big one. There isn't a lot of water in Ohio. When we got there we rented bikes and rode to the beach. Laura did most of the work, because she had the map and I am bad at responsibility and navigation. It was a fantastic day. We saw Angel Road, but didn't cross because it was too hot. I actually ended up burning a little, which is rare for me.

I talk a lot about my friends back home here because they mean a lot to me and I miss them sometimes, but I do have some fantastic friends here, too. Laura is one of my favorite people. We met during Bon last year, so this is right around our one year friendship anniversary. (Huzzah!) She's super relaxed and really funny. She also speaks great Japanese. I'm really lucky to have her as a friend.   

Last week I was able to have my first Homestay Club! It was awesome! I had so much fun with the kids. We did so many fun things including making dolls and banana shark cakes! The kids I had were absolutely amazing, many of them were my students and it was so nice to get to know them better! We all had fun and had a great time playing games and enjoying English!



  

Hello! This is starting to be an exciting time for the school and for everyone we work with Summer Tour is coming up! In about a week, we'll be making our way to set up our booths, and then teach and entertain kids for two whole days! It's going to be a long, process, but it's also one of the most fun extracurricular events the school puts on! I'm really looking forward to it, and just after it is the Obon holiday, so we'll have lots of time to recover!

What are your plans for the holiday coming up next week? Any exciting events or trips planned? Let me know!  

I like mystery shows and novels. Sherlock is a very popular BBC show, featuring the actors Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman. They solve crimes and get into mischief. It is a wonderful show and after watching it, I find myself analyzing the things around me. If you like a good mystery show then I recommend giving Sherlock a try. Movies and shows with unexpected twists are fascinating. Though the twists either make it better or can make them really dumb.

Do you have any mystery shows or novels to recommend?
  

We learned about some aspects of France in Home Stay Club. We talked about the Eiffel Tower and had a lot of fun constructing our own tall towers. I made one of my favorite breakfasts, French Toast, to share with the students. They liked it a lot. My favorite part of the lesson was teaching them about Monet. We made our own versions of Monet's water lilies. They turned out beautifully.