See you later, take care, goodbye!

So the day finally arrived when we toasted Damian for being the star of the show at Luna for last 3+ years, and into the bargain welcomed Laura back to our car park BBQ (she joined us last year with her parents, remember?!).

For a while there, sad & lonely Jim was on his own there snuggling his beer & reflecting on how lucky we (Luna) have been with his endless enthusiasm for the "job" here - which is as much as a teacher can make of it...and he has made it a very big job with countless attributes & thorough preparation.

Therefore, no surprise when a whole host of students and rugby types rocked up & shared fabulous munchies, smothered the lad with hugs and sayonara messages.

He's not gone yet though - covering Jim's classes for a final hurrah and to help super cheerful Laura find everything!

Find the rest of the photos here https://flic.kr/s/aHsmvPx9sE and also on our FB page

We toast Yuki & Tana a fond farewell

A massive thank you to Yukari for organising a very good party for Yuki & Tana's farewell, and to Tomoko for her help on the night. We had a really good turn out of students, former students, mums and brothers & sisters - the younger ones enjoying the crawl space under the tables to have their own little party!

The waitresses were not the fastest, so by the end of the evening we had a backlog of drinks on the tables that we were forced to abandon. Criminal!

There was a steady stream of good food, which found a hungry audience - the kids devouring all the spring rolls as soon as they arrived. The layout was less than useful for speeches, which was a relief, instead messages flew around by paper and on a voice recorder - I'll be cleaning up the background noise if I can. Presents also landed on Yuki's lap and Tana's, which were very gratefully received.

It was all over in a blink - unlike both girls' time with the school. Some of us carried on to a second party, babes in arms headed home. Thank you everyone for coming, as well as for all the messages from those who couldn't make it, far and wide. We gave them a good send of, but it won't be quite the same as having them around all the time!

Meantime...anyone got any good photos? Please email them to Jim!

Takako's leaving party

Once again we are saying goodbye to a favourite student :(

Takako has been in my class at NHK for the last two years and has been very popular with her co-learners. She hasn't always been able to come, with work commitments and a busy social schedule, and her homework book mysteriously vanished ages ago, but she has consistently done very well in class and added a bit of sparkle.

Last night, her classmates went to Rakura for a meal and a few drinks to say goodbye & wish her well as she heads off to Sydney. With a bit of luck, she'll catch up with my brother Mike & mate Greg. The food was fairly ordinary (the cod was about as bland as it could possibly be!) but the drinks kept coming to wash it down. Kouichi was throwing down the sake...

As you can see everyone had a great evening, and a quick 'second party' at one of Teruki's friend's bar finished us off nicely. Thanks to all for making Takako's sayonara lots of fun. Let's wait for her to blog her from Downunder?!

Jigsaw

The last couple of months have been rather trying for everybody at Luna; we've been limping along without a full-time teacher since Dan left. Our students have been very understanding, accepting schedule changes or substitute teachers. Change in itself is not always a bad thing, but too much at one stroke can be tough to handle. I think all our kids especially have done really well adapting; I really need to thank Yuki for being so patient and careful in explaining our circumstances to parents, who in turn trust our intentions. Thank you too, teachers, for accepting it's not always possible to manage transition smoothly.

This week is certainly an historic one for Luna; we have no less than four new members of staff joining us this week, and are saying goodbye to two. In the course of this year, we will have an entirely new staff. I can't think of many companies that are capable of working through such a tumultuous turnaround in personnel. A large part of the reason we are able to do this is the degree of trust the school has established with our students & clients. I put this down to three things, in no particular order:

• Yuki's awesome abilities to communicate complex messages to each & every student personably, personally, and utterly professionally.
  
• The excellent track record our long-term teachers have built up over the years.
  
• Our students' ability to 'function' beyond the personality cult of any one, particular teacher.

July 25th we managed to get most of our people in the same place to wish Michelle (and Adri) "adieu" (possibly "ciao"?). Michelle has been with us for the best part of two years, working busily part-time. We are indebted to her careful, conscientious, and considerate approach to her students and obligations at the school. It has been a pleasure to see her confidence & teaching arsenal develop, and we owe her a big thanks for her hard-work. I know her students are sad to see her leave ( and I am deeply sorry that one class we simply cannot find a sub for right now, God knows we're trying) and will join me in wishing her well...with a new house to organise in Kobe, Adri's new job, and a baby due in Feb., I think she's going to be busy. Future teachers would do well to spend as much of their own time attending workshops & prepping materials.

I will introduce our new recruits at a later date, as well as thanking mystery leaver number 2. I know, you want to know everything now, don't you? Be patient! This blogging thing is new! In the next couple of weeks I promise they'll introduce themselves, OK? Kind of homework for teachers...

For now I'd just like to thank everyone for being really patient with us; we've had to change teachers around & jiggle class schedules a bit. Hopefully, we're back to normal services; on yesterday's evidence I'm confident Luna's winning team is looking as good as ever.