is it too late to heal?

i got called back!! they fuckin did not call me all day. ALL DAY. i got up, i went to therapy, and i spent my day disappointed that i didnt hear back from them at all. i briefly moped on the couch. went to work. i was outside talking to lee, telling him they didnt call me back, and all the sudden my phone rang! and it was them! and he said he had some good news! he invited me back to do a demo lesson tomorrow. at 825am!!!! fuck. sooo i was freaking out, and i got the directions, and i called mike, who was halfway home. he said he would come back. so i calmed down a little, called my mom, and set off to work. OH! and my fucking topic was TOKUGAWA JAPAN! i know *nothing* about tokugawa japan. well, now i do, but then i didnt. my mom was my personal assistant, she did all the research for me, and when candace came home, she took out some books for me.. mike came by and hung out with candace till i got home from work.. then they motivated me, candace and i read text books while mike colored. then i looked at some model lessons, and molded then together to come up with a good plan. it has a 6-step procedure, which isnt bad, and i have it pretty much down. its basically the shogun period in japanese history.. so all i have to do is compare the hierarchy to that of europe during the middle ages.. except the shogun would be the king.. and the emperor was more like how the queen of england is today. the daimyo are like knights, large landowners who rule for the shogun. samurai are gentleman warriors, comprable to european nobleman. then under that are peasants and artisans, which hold the same station worldwide. ok so thats step one. definitions. step two is talking about the 15th century in japan, how the nation was warring and i have a haiku i am going to put on the board and get students perceptions of what life was like during that period in japanese history. this way, i get student interaction in the lesson. mission one accomplished. step three: talk about the unification of japan under toyotomi hideyoshi by 1598, but then tokugawa ieyasu took over and began the tokugawa shogunate. im going to talk about edo (the ancient name for tokyo) for a second, then mention that ieyasu was the first shogun, and that later shoguns would move japan toward isolationism, banning things like foreign books, Christianity, travel abroad, and eventually even associating with europeans. killer. ok, then step 4 is a cooperative learning, thereby completeing mission number two. my cooperative learning exercise is counting them off by 4's and having them read the shoguns moral precept and discussing what kind of leader they would expect ieyasu to be. then we discuss. step five.. talk about the culture that blossomed in japan during the bourgeoisation of society.. middle-class arts like haikus and colorful paintings due to the rise of the merchant class, since they could provide credit for the daimyos and samurai who needed money to keep up their crazy lifestyles. the merchants gained power through debt, and therefore became the dominant class. same thing happens in england after primitive accumulation, you have a rising bourgeoisie who eventually rise up and cast off the shackles of feudalism/artistocracy. aaaaaaanyway. step six is the last one, which is to talk about the rigid class structure imposed upon japan during this period, and how the shoguns were able to centralize power. they did this by making all peasants surrender their swords to prevent popular uprisings, by requiring daimyos to spend every other year in Edo, thereby making them have to maintain two luxorious residences, which kept them in debt, and also requiring that the daimyos wife and heir stay in edo all the time, even for the year that the daimyo spends running his rural estate. in that waym, they are like loyalty hostages. if the daimyo began to get too powerful, then the shogun could harm his family. that all takes care of another mode of teaching, which is lecture. bam, thats three different methods in one lesson. thats exactly what they should be looking for tomorrow. im going to end by talking briefly about the decline of the shogunate, when in 1868 power was handed back to the emperor during the meiji restoration, and the samurai was striped of their class status.

i finished just after 4am. its now 447am. i still have to shower. and dress. and look presentable. i will have been up 22 hours when i give my lesson. i think i look like hell. my contacts are stuck to my eyeballs. i need to do something about this, but i cant. i couldnt nap for 45 minutes. that would have been silly. so i blogged instead. the demo lesson is over at 855am, so i dont know if there will be chatting that follows the lesson, or if i will be thanked and let to go on my way.. im hoping for the latter, since i have to work at 5, and i want to sleep eventually. ideally i would get back here at like 10 or 1030, and sleep till 330. get up, get ready for work. thats 5 hours of sleep. work in the bar.. friday i have work at 5, so i can sleep as late as i like. wooo! maybe ill go to bed before 5. hmm.

oooh. and what else sucks is that i do not have a printer. therefore, mike and i have to leave here at like 6 to go to his house and use the printer. i have to print 25 copies of the moral precept, i wanna do 5 copies of my formal lesson plan for any observers who might be present, and then i have to print my two cheat sheet plans, the ones with notes for me to use as a guide. if we leave here at 6, we'll be to his house by like 640, done printing by like 715.. id like to leave a little earlier bc what if we hit traffic? i am *sure* we will, and i *cannot* be late for this. cannot CANNOT. i dont know how long i will take, i dont know if we have very good directions. i want to be sure to get there by like 815 LATEST. anyway. i must shower in order to get this show on the road.

wish me luck!