Goodbye dear friends

These have been my favourite trainers ever. I'm sad they're too knackered for Japan. Goodnight sweet princes.

Look what came in the post!

So much to say...

Christ, I can hardly catch my breath. There's so much to say! I need to tell you about:

• Jo and Simon's wedding
• Finding out my JET placement - Fukushima prefecture
• Lewis and Angela's wedding
• Moving out of Manchester and in to Catford
• Chris and Flora's wedding
• Coming to Ireland for Andrea and Anthony's wedding
• Hearing from my JET predecessor

As you can guess, it's been an ridiculously busy few weeks. I'm lucky enough to be sitting in a hotel room at the amazing Tankardstown house in Meath, so maybe there's a little I can do to catch up. Let's see...

My predecessor

Working as a JET in Japan normally means replacing another JET who did the same job the year before. A JET's predecessor can be a really useful source of specific information about the details of the post, accomodation, the local town, and many other general titbits. I asked my predecessor about three things:

1. The school, and teaching there
2. The city
3. The accomodation

He got back to me today, and this is what he said -

Yo DTRMCR,

Ireland? You must be having fun. Anyway about the questions.

1) The base school we go to is Koriyama Higashi H.S. it is considered a "shin gakku" (academic school) I have about 10 classes a week here, each about 50 min. I'm not sure who you'll be working with for team teachers, this changes every term.

Slane village, County Meath

God, what a tourist.

Chris and Flora's wedding

Chris and Flora were married at the Danish Church on Regents Park today. The reception took place at the Royal Institute of British Architects on Portland Place. We took a few photos, which you can see here via Dropbox. I've a few personal highlights, after the jump.

A poignant reminder as I left Manchester.

Final thoughts on Trinity Cert.TESOL

This afternoon we had our final moderation at the Openshaw Campus. Studying for the Trinity Cert. TESOL at The Manchester College has been a mixed experience, with generally high standards of teaching and tuition interspersed with some instances of shocking incomptence. I've learned a lot, though some of the most useful learning has been through repeated contact with the wheezing administrative organs of the College, rather than through the classes. A few thoughts:

• Lesson plans: idealism and realism. The course demanded precisely-timed lesson plans from students. Minute-by-minute timings were presented as standard practice. In reality, the detail within the plans was far greater than any full-time teacher could be expected to produce, and certainly not six or seven times a day. The course sets up new teachers with unrealistic expectations about their capacity to plan in such minute detail.

Moving from Whalley Range to Catford

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Whalley Range - Urmston - Whalley Range - Urmston - Whalley Range - Catford - Whalley Range. total distance: 429 miles; total driving time, as estimated by Google: 8 hours, 59 mins. Quite a drive to do in 24 hours. Well done Laura. As Tracy would say, "It's a shame you can't drive Dave."

Lewis and Ange's Wedding

photo by the lovely Jordanna over at Coterie Photos - check out the link for more. they're great!

Lewis and Ange were married in Wellingborough, and then had their reception at Tur Langton Manor in Leicestershire. As you can see from Jordanna's brilliant photo above, and others at this juicy little taster page, we had a brilliant day. Laura and I hung out with Chris and Flora for most of the day, which was brilliant.

The highlight of the day for me - happy joining together of two of my dearest friends excepted, natch - was a pizza oven for those evening munchies. Tasty!