Posting, Posting, Posting

Hi there! So, you may have noticed that I just put up several postings all at once. Well, two of my lessons were cancelled today, so I had plenty of time to write up a bunch of posts for your reading pleasure.

For you Twin Cities folks, I've been streaming the Current while posting and it's really off-putting to listen to Jim Ed and Dale on the Morning Show when I'm about ready to head to bed. I'm so used to hearing them on my way to work! This time difference is still so weird to me!

Well, anyway, I'm off to get some much needed sleep. Enjoy your day!

Dancing Machine

So, I mentioned dance practice in my last posting. I got myself talked into being involved in a performance at an International Festival that was held Sunday, 9/7. When we signed up they said anybody who likes to dance or sing or act or whatever was welcome to participate. Somehow that turned into a dance that another JET choreographed. Now, I’m not very coordinated when it comes to dancing. I have a really hard time remembering moves – I’m terrible at line dances and aerobics routines and such. Colette – I could have really used your help! Practices have taken up a lot of my time in the last week and I was super stressed out because we kept getting new moves to learn and things kept changing.

Most of the dance was with the group as a whole but there were also parts where small groups had to do their own thing. There were three of us in my group and we decided to do the robot. We even made robot costumes. We figured that people would focus more on our funny costumes and wouldn’t notice how terrible our dancing was. I was really worried about it beforehand but it went a lot better than I thought it would. The audience seemed to enjoy it and we got lots of compliments. (Keep in mind that most of the audience was made up of our friends.) I’m just glad it’s over with! It was fun, but I don’t think I’ll be signing up for another performance any time soon… I do like to embarrass myself though so I’ll post a link to the video once it’s available!

Sports Day!

The reason I had to go to school on Saturday was for School B’s Sports Day. The teachers and students had worked for days (even taking time off of classes) to practice and get ready for their Annual Sports Day. It’s pretty much a big deal. All the students in school are divided into 5 teams (blue, red, yellow, white and green) and compete in relay races and games. They each wear a headband of their team color.

There’s a lot of pomp and circumstance involved, with speeches by the principal, a parade of the students, and quite a bit of bowing (of course). Prior to the games everyone participated in a warm-up with stretching exercises choreographed to music.

Then the games began! All day long in the hot, hot sun… (it did rain in the afternoon for about 15 minutes but it was still sunny.) There was a giant tug of war game, a three-legged race, regular running races, jump roping with 15 or 20 girls at one time using really long ropes, and many other games.

All of the teachers and even the student teachers were in charge of and supported a certain color. I wasn’t given a color though so students would come up and ask me which team I thought should win. I would say their color if there was only one student there but if there was someone from the white team and the yellow team there I’d say I wanted blue to win. They had a cheering competition where each team came up with and performed their own cheer. My favorite cheer was done by the green team, so later on I had the students teach part of it to me and helped cheer for their team.

There were a few games that would probably not be allowed in the states due to liability issues. One of the games the girls played involved several ropes in the middle of the field between two teams. The girls would run toward the ropes and try to grab as many as they could and bring them to their side of the field. This turned into several mini tug of war games with girls running to help their teammates who were struggling to yank the rope away from the opposing team. As you can imagine, this involved a lot of rope burns and skinned knees. One girl even dislocated her thumb. Each girl had one glove to wear but it didn’t help much.

The boys had a few interesting and rowdy games that I wasn’t familiar with. One was described as some sort of horse game. Three boys acted like a horse and supported a fourth boy who was wearing a swim cap. Then the other boys in swim caps would try and snatch the swim caps off the opposing team’s heads.

My favorite game was a form of capture the flag that the boys played. Two teams would compete at a time. The defenders supported a large pole that was kept up by boys holding it at the bottom and also by several ropes held by the boys. A flag stuck out of the top of the pole. The offense would run over to the opposing team’s pole and try to capture the flag by climbing over and on top of the defense and trying to either shimmy to the top of the pole and grab it or have enough people climbing on the pole to unbalance it, tipping it over and grabbing the flag from below. While they are doing this, the defense is grabbing at them, dragging them back down and knocking them off the pole. I heard that at another school one boy got kneed really hard in the neck and I think one kid at my school wrenched his knee pretty badly, but I’m surprised more kids didn’t get hurt!

After the points were all tallied, speeches were made, trophies were handed out, balloons were released and team photos were taken. Things didn’t get wrapped up until around 4pm and when I left, they were still putting away chairs and cleaning up. (I tried to help but they politely declined.)

I had to get going anyway because I had dance practice (more about that later) at 5 but had to leave that by 6pm to go home and get ready for another enkai that was at 7pm. Quite the busy day!

This enkai was to celebrate being done with School A’s Sports Day, which was also that Saturday. I couldn’t go to it because I had School B’s Sports Day but they still invited me, which was really nice. School B either didn’t have an enkai or had one but didn’t invite me to it. I prefer to think they didn’t have one. Another JET goes to School A on different days than I do so he was at the enkai too, which made the situation a bit more comfortable. Several of the teachers speak really good English though and the principal’s English was pretty good too. It was a really fun time. The teachers felt the need to show us how to properly drink beer in the Japanese way. Most important rule: You never pour your own beer. You always pour for others. That’s a true custom, but they also claimed that whenever someone offers to pour you more beer you must down whatever you have left in the glass so they can completely refill it. You don’t really have to drink it all, they just thought it would be funny to try and get us drunk. For the most part, the Japanese don’t have a very high tolerance for alcohol though, so I’m pretty sure if we kept up with that they wouldn’t have lasted very long!

Several of the teachers went home after the meal but about seven of us went to karaoke. For the most part they sang English songs so we’d know them but they did a few in Japanese too. They seemed to prefer ballads. I thought it was hilarious that the first song chosen by the science teacher was Bette Midler’s The Rose. Took me back to eighth grade... A good end to a long day.

TGIF

Getting to school today was quite the adventure. It was my first day going to School C, my little mountain school with 26 students. I have to take a bus to get there and the bus company needs to be called beforehand to make sure to pick me up, as it isn’t a regular route. Well, my supervisor had called and told them to pick up the foreigner at the bus stop in Musashigatsuji (my neighborhood) and take me to my school. The bus never showed. It was a blue JR bus supposed to arrive at 7:25am. Well, there were three blue JR buses around that time and I got on each one, asked the driver if the bus went to the school and each driver said no. I finally called my supervisor to ask why the bus hadn’t picked me up but he had no idea. I ended up grabbing a cab to take me to school because I didn’t know how else to get there. Of course, the cab driver didn’t know how to get there and didn’t speak English. I tried to explain because I’d been there before by car but he didn’t understand and we had to pull over to wait for someone to radio back with directions. Even with the directions he pulled over along the way to consult with the driver of a van. Luckily, I was only about 10 minutes late and everyone at school was really nice about it. Unluckily, the cab fare cost me about $32!!!!

This school feels like one big happy family. Although I’m only teaching the junior high students, the junior high and elementary are combined, so there were a bunch of cute little kids running around the halls. One of the teachers said to beware – they might attack me at any time! The students were all prepared with their own introductions and questions for me. They quizzed me about the school and themselves, asking me questions like, “Which teacher is good at playing the guitar?” and “Which student is my brother?" Of course, I got most of the questions wrong but I know a lot more about them now than the kids at my other schools. They were also really well behaved and responsive, which is probably the difference between a class size of 11 versus 35.

The teachers were concerned the bus wouldn’t come pick me up to take me home (as was I), so one of them walked me to the bus stop and waited with me. The scenery around the school was beautiful - green trees and huge flowering plants everywhere. A river flows right by my bus stop and there’s a little waterfall there. The teacher told me that they had seen bears around and there were also a lot of deer. I told one of my friends that if for some reason I don’t make it back to the city one Friday it’s either because the bus didn’t show or that I got eaten by a bear. This particular Friday, the bus did pick me up. I was awfully glad because I didn’t really want to pay for a cab again – I don’t even know how I’d get a cab to come all the way out there to get me. Instead, I got a 45 minute bus ride through the mountains and small farms back into the city for a measly $6.70. Still a pretty expensive commute, but it could be much worse!

I made it home in time to change and head to Katamachi, the downtown and entertainment area of Kanazawa, for my first enkai. An enkai is like one very big happy hour. (So, basically one of my favorite things!!!) It involves dinner and drinks, then people usually move on to a second party, usually involving more drinks and karaoke. Sometimes there are even third parties.
This enkai was just our supervisor and all of the ALTs that work for the Kanazawa Board of Education. We had a fancy dinner with a set menu and all we could drink in two hours for about $50. We headed to another bar after that but I couldn’t stay out long because I need to go to school in the morning… Yep, school on a Saturday. So much for starting the weekend off right!

I’m a TV Star! (Well, at least at my school.)

Today I was back at my main school (School B) where I’ve been hanging out this past month. The students had tests all day, so no teaching for me. The only thing I had to do was introduce myself to the entire school via the television. The school has a small studio where the students videotaped me and broadcast it live to the televisions in each classroom. At least I only had to introduce myself in English. Much less pressure than using Japanese but still, it’s always a bit nerve-wracking to have a camera in your face! At least that’s what Angelina and Brad tell me…

Well, today’s lunch looked delicious when they were dishing it out. Thought it was curry. Turned out the main dish was some ground meat, green beans, squash, and white cubes. I couldn’t tell what the white cubes were – they had a strange consistency and they weren’t tofu. All of this was in a yellowish-orange sauce that I suspect was egg… raw egg. I don’t have proof to back that up but I’m going to ask somebody about it tomorrow. To top it off there were two small silver fish with it. They were cooked but they were whole except for their heads. I did try everything but I can’t say it was my favorite meal. Thankfully, there was a broth-like soup and bowl of rice to supplement it. Once again, no spoon. Maybe this whole school lunch thing was a bad idea after all.

The real highlight of my day though was in the afternoon when my vice principal told me, “You sweat very much.” Thanks buddy. Maybe if you’d turn on the air conditioning I wouldn’t be over here dripping all over my desk!!!

First Day of School

While you were all enjoying your long Labor Day Weekend, September 1, 2008 marked my first day of actual teaching! It was also my first day at School A. It definitely made me nervous that I was going to have to teach at a school I had only visited for 10 minutes a month ago but I think things went pretty well. At the beginning of the day I had to introduce myself in both English and Japanese on the stage in front of the entire school. I wrote my 5 line speech on a note card because I was worried I wouldn’t remember the Japanese, no matter how many times I had practiced it! Luckily, there was also a new Japanese teacher that had to introduce himself. He was pretty funny and beforehand kept saying, “Pressure! Pressure!” to me and fanning himself with his hand. When I went up to the stage I just copied what he had done. Later, my supervisor complimented me on how I did it just like a Japanese person because I had bowed in the same places he had! Whew!

In addition to my introduction to the school, I had two seventh grade classes to teach. I had to fill up 50 minutes with a self-introduction lesson. 50 minutes to talk about my favorite subject, me! J I’ve calculated that I will have to do this same self-introduction lesson 26 different times. I think I’m going to get extremely bored with myself.

At School A I will only be teaching the seventh graders but there were about 35 students in each class and there are 5 sections of each grade. School B also has around 35 students per class but is even bigger with 6 sections of each grade and I’ll be teaching sixth, seventh, and eighth grade. These schools are just a bit larger than Midland! School C is completely different though. It’s up in the mountains and only has 11 students in sixth grade, 4 students (all girls) in seventh grade and 11 students in eighth grade.

The students were really cute. They’re shy in class but would shout hello to me and ask me questions as I was walking down the halls. They all seemed really small and acted younger than I was expecting. Discipline in the classroom is quite a bit different in Japan and there was a lot of extra chatter and sleeping in class. The teacher assured me it wasn’t that I was boring but that the kids are always really tired. They get to school early in the morning then have club activities for several hours after school. After that some have cram school where (strangely enough) they cram for exams and such then they still have a few hours of homework to do. I had given them a worksheet to fill out with their favorite things and several kids wrote down that “sleep” was their hobby.

After the first class, the English teacher and I had to pack everything up and move to the next classroom. Unlike in the US, students stay in their homeroom all day (even for lunch) with 10 minute breaks between classes and the teachers move from classroom to classroom. After my second class of the day, it was time for lunch. I’ve signed up for school lunch at each of my schools for the experience of it. Plus, it’s a pretty cheap option and I'm terrible about actually making a lunch in the morning. There also aren't any restaurants attached to the school by skyway. No one at school goes to a cafeteria, the food comes to us. The students in charge of the lunch go to a big elevator where carts full of the lunches are delivered to each floor of the school. They then roll them to their classroom and dish everything out to the other students in their class. The students eat at their desks then put everything back on the carts and it’s all wheeled away!

Lunch consisted of a small piece of pork, a salad made of potatoes, edamame and beans, a large roll, a bowl of soup and a carton of milk. I asked if there were spoons but the teacher replied, “Not today!” I’m thinking that there are never spoons though. I had to eat the big pieces in the soup using my chopsticks then drink the rest right out of the bowl. Mmm. Can’t wait to see what’s on the menu for tomorrow!

Atsui desu! It's hot!

The love of talking about the weather must be a universal trait. Since I’ve arrived, one of the most frequently used words around here has been atsui. Atsui=hot. It’s been ridiculously hot and muggy here. As we say in the states, it’s not the heat, it’s the humidity! I can count on three fingers the number of days that I haven’t started sweating 10 seconds after I’m out of the shower. I do have air conditioning in my apartment but it’s only located in the living room and it’s quite expensive to run. I’ve really tried to do without it (I do have a few fans and usually a breeze) but a couple of nights I’ve turned it on and slept on one of my sticky, vinyl-covered couches. (If any exposed flesh touches the couch, it feels like it’s being ripped off when I move.) Once the temp gets comfortable I try and turn off the air but a minute later it’s super hot again. Japanese homes are not well insulated.

The staff room at my school is also air conditioned but for some reason they like to turn it off in the early afternoon when the sun is beating in. The rest of the school building is just plain roasting. On the positive side, I’m never freezing at work like I was everyday at the WF!

People here cope with the heat in many ways. Many carry around the traditional folding fans or plastic fans which are usually printed with advertisements. I’ve collected a few of the latter and they're very useful. Umbrellas are used for portable shade as well as for the surprise downpours. I especially love the ladies that use the clear umbrellas to ward off the sun. What??? People also tend to cover up more here when it’s hot. Apparently there’s an aversion to being tan – very unlike home. Hats are common as well as arm coverings when wearing short sleeved shirts (think leg warmers only lighter material and on your arms). There are even some (mostly old ladies) that have long gloves attached to their bike handles so they don’t get sun on their hands or arms while they bike. I’ll try and post a picture soon. So far I’ve been unable to surreptitiously photograph the crazy-looking ladies as they bicycle past.

As far as the sweating goes, I’ve become resigned to always looking shiny and feeling gross. Along with my plastic fan, I carry around a little towel with me which I refer to as my sweat rag. Pretty glamorous, I know. Most everyone here carries around a towel or handkerchief with them for the same purpose. A lot of people wrap them around their necks – I guess it stops the sweat from rolling down your back. I just keep mine in my bag and pull it out when necessary (every 5 minutes).

I’ve been told the weather should cool down soon. The autumn is supposed to be lovely – until the rain starts… :)