Hi, My Name is Ellie. What's Your Name???

Today at the fifth and sixth grade classes at Funakata Elementary School I must have introduced myself 50 or 60 times. Let me back up...I was in the computer room after lunch working on a lesson plan about Martin Luther King, Jr. Day when the phone rang in the computer room. Usually I never answer the phone because, yeah, I can't speak Japanese so it's kind of pointless! But the phone kept ringing, so I figured since I was the only one in the room someone was probably trying to get ahold of me. So I answer, and I was right. The office manager had called to ask me why I wasn't at Funakata Elementary School. I was supposed to be there at 1:30, and it was 1:40 now. Right...somewhere along the line I had missed the memo. I tried to explain on the phone that I didn't know I was supposed to be there- that didn't really work. So, I ran down to the office and talked to one of my English teachers who was like- "Oh, you didn't know you're going today?" Um...no. So he said, "Well, you better go soon." Ok. So, racking my brain as I drove the short distance I didn't come up with much- I thought of a few random games, but nothing really significant. Thankfully when I arrived I talked to the teacher who coordinates with me and we decided to do the same lesson plan that we had done with the first and second graders last year. Since it was my first time, we did the "greeting" lesson. But to kill time due to a lack of planning, we practiced "Hi, my name is ______. What's your name?" many many times. It turned out alright, but I was pretty irritated that my school had forgotten to show my the fax from the elementary school. On another note, you really feel like a celebrity sometimes. When I told the fifth-graders that I play tennis, they all said I looked like Sharapova. Right...like I resemble her in the least bit! But it certainly boosts my ego! "Arigato!" I told them. As I was leaving school one of the sixth-graders asked me if I was going back to America now. As if I came all the way to Japan just to come and have one English lesson with them today!