In at the deep end...

Yesterday I had to go to the yochien, it was the mama circle introduction day and when they pick the class reps for the PTA. Up until now hubby has come along in case there was something important that we need to know and that I would miss, with my Japanese not being so great but yesterday it was time to go it alone.

When I arrived I bumped into a mom who happens to be a student of my friends, Madi, she lived in the US for 3 years and has great English, it was good to have someone to hang out with instead of my being a billy-no-mates. The kids went to class and the moms headed to the hall where the various mama circles showed their stuff to entice you to join up, the classes available are..

• tea ceremony
• kimono wearing
• Japanese calligraphy
• ball exercise
• Hawaiian dancing
• chorus
• flower arrangement
• how to make flowers from bendy wire (can't remember the proper name)
• patchwork
• English
• Japanese doll making

I am very undecided about the the whole thing, I would quite like to try the calligraphy BUT I can't write kanji with a pencil so what hope have I got with a brush? Another of Madi's students introduced herself to me, she has already had one kid go through yochien and her 2nd is in the final grade so she is a bit of a yochien pro, so she dragged me over to the calligraphy sensei, who doesn't speak any English. I might go to the demonstration day - maybe. Part of the reason Ebi-kun is going to yochien is so that I would have some time to work, if I join one of the circles I will miss a day of work, what with the trip too and from the yochien plus I will have to pay for the class, rather defeats the point of having him there!

Anyway.... after that we had to go to the kids classrooms to have a meeting with all the moms. The kids played and the moms shouted over the racket. First the sensei went through what we would need for the next month, all fairly straight forward and I could follow most of what was going on THEN we were all asked to introduce ourselves, which totally took me off guard. Now I can managed to do this, in front of one person or maybe two but in front of twenty ? I managed to splutter my name and that I was Ebi-kun's mom (stating the obvious there, me thinks) quickly followed by me wanting the ground to swallow me up - I don't DO public speaking in English, let alone a foreign language! Luckily, this all played to my advantage, when it came to pick the class reps, no one would step forward so they decided to pick straws, there were a couple of moms except from the post, ones that had done it the year before and a mom who has twin 2 year olds and me :o)

Once all that was done, the kids tidied up and we hung around waiting for them. It appears that none of the moms in the class speak English but a couple did come and talk to me an I explained that I can understand some of what is going on I am just rubbish at speaking, languages really are not my forte!

We finished off then Ebi-kun and I went to lunch at an opticians, yes, you read the right, it is an opticians with a cafe attached, quite an odd concept but it was a nice end to a stressful morning.