MeySen

I thought Id give you all a little bit more about the place I'm working at for at least the next year. I know when people asked me the for the past several months about what I was doing over here, I was pretty vague because I honestly had no idea about what exactly I was doing. MeySen just had a way in making me feel comfortable in going forward with this job.

First, there are about 20 or so of us that came from the United States to MeySen academy and are pretty much going through the same thing I am. It makes transitioning much easier. We are all spread between two campuses Maruyama and Takamori. I'm at Maruyama. Both campuses are relatively the same just in different areas of Sendai. We all live within walking distance from our campus so that we don't try to drive on the wrong side of the road and take out half  the Japanese population. I live about 5 minutes (walking) away from where I work. Its all uphill so I will have calves of steel when I come back.

When we need to go into town for a doctors appointment or pretty much all of the paperwork we have had to fill out the past few days, we have people that pick us up and take us there. We essentially live in this English bubble. The more Japanese we learn the sooner we will try to pop it.

The academy is basically one huge jungle playground with a few buildings. There are tons of slides much like this along with ladders and other equipment. You'd be surprised how close the ends of slides are to wall and the lack of nets to catch kids if they fall. The kids are taught how to properly use the equipment though.

This is the Immersion building where I will be teaching.

Here is the waterfall that extends from one of the buildings. The funny thing is this whole campus sits in the middle of a neighborhood and city. You wouldn't think that in these pictures.

The path from the main campus to the immersion building.

MeySen has their own petting zoo with a horse, a donkey, a goat, and a sheep

Notice where this slide ends

Each MeySen campus has an Immersion (completely taught in English) program and one that is taught in English and Japanese. Japanese kids can start coming here when they are toddlers for a daycare. By kindergarten, Japanese kids come here for schooling. The kindergarten program is taught more like a traditional school. Between 1st and 6th grade (I'll be teaching here), students go to local public and private schools in the morning and are bussed to MeySen in the afternoon. Students are only admitted to MeySen in 1st grade. So 6th graders would have been in MeySen the previous 5 years. Part of the bonus for students getting to the 6th grade level is that they get to go on a trip to the USA. All the other grade levels get to go on other random trips. When I know more about what and how I'll be teaching, I'll be sure to post about it.