I was approached by a teacher at my high school a few weeks ago about the school's annual Parent/Teacher meeting they hold in November. He wants me to prepare a 13 minute powerpoint presentation on a comparison of high school club activities between Japan and Canada. Say whaat? It was pretty much out of the blue.. from left field. Apparently I'll be presenting it to a whole group of teachers and parents in an attempt to think of ideas on how to get the students more interested and involved in school clubs. You see, in Japan, once a student joins a club they basically sell their soul. They can only be in one club, have to go to every meeting/practice/rehearsal/etc. and usually stay after school for another couple of hours, and even meet on weekends, to be involved. My JTE said that most kids want to work part-time so they choose not to do any activities. It's gotten to the point where the men's volleyball team consists of 4 people, and the women's team.. 3.

It's a pretty interesting assignment and I'm definitely up to the challenge. It's different than my daily teaching routine and it gives me a chance to use my head again! I've missed doing things like this and doing research, makes me feel like I'm in University again. The catch is is that I have to present it in three weeks and I don't have much of anything done other than a page of chicken scratch for my ideas. The other catch is that it has to be in Japanese! Gahh.. I like challenges, but this is going to be like doing a rubik's cube while [insert witty metaphor]. I'll have to speed up my Japanese study if I want to do it in time... or I'll have to rely heavily on my JTE to make sure my garbled Japanese makes sense. Ganbatte ne!