A Hootenany in Japan

Happy New Year

2007-01-16T13:20:00.000+09:00

Wow, how the time does fly when I don't bother typing out my life.

Let's see, new things....

I've kept up with pkaying the shamisen. I'm still no good at plunking at it, but for some reason I keep getting invited to play little places. Keep in mind this is mostly for grandmothers, but hey, a gig is a gig. On January 26th I'll play for the Kiryu ]International Music Festival. I guess a novelty act goes well in any crowd.

Over the winter holiday I took a 10 day trip through South Japan including Hiroshima, Beppu, Nagasaki, Hakata, and Miyajima. A gloriously fun trip made with my friend Jennifer Luk, who, before my dad can get excited, is just a friend. Sorry, dad. We travled almost exclusively by local trains which means that going anywhere took a long time. For example, the first day I travelled down to Himeji, which is a few hours shy of Hiroshima, just for a stop over. That leg of the journey took over 14 hours. But we had a special ticket that made it really cheap, so hey.

School has started and is rapidly going by. Only about 7 weeks until our third graders graduate. We're trying to plan some special English lessons for them. Here's hoping everything works out.

Also, in a little over 2 weeks my cousin is coming to Japan. He is 13 years old. I'm really excited about his coming, but I might be as nervous as I imagine he is. Well, maybe not. It's just a shame that for such of my cousin's life there has been a lot of space between us. I saw him about two and a half years ago, but before that he may have only been about 6 years old. That means this will be one of my first chances to really get to know my cousin.

No other news to really report. But maybe next time. You know, if there is a next time.

Happy Halloween

2006-10-31T09:30:00.000+09:00

But Halloween will not really play much into this post, but rather we will continue my adventures with my family. It sounded like, even though rainy, the nikko trip was fun for Poppie and Barbara. They came back safe and with smiles.

The evening they got back we went to dinner with my shamisen teacher, some of her friends and Alison. I was a nice fun evening in a suitably fancy place. And by suitably I actually mean pretty posh. The food was tasty, and I think Al and Barb had a fun time drinking a tad too much together.

They next night we did almost the same thing but with a different group of friends, and in a different location. On Friday night, I rounded up some of the other ALTs and as a group we went out to dinner for sauce katsu-don, which is fried pork served over rice. I think Barbara got fried rice and ramen. After that the grandparents called it a night and I went out on the town.

Saturday was a busy day. At 2:00, Mr. Ohshima picked the three of us up and took us to his home in the next town. There, they gave us enough food to feed an army and introduced us to the extended family. Four generations (kinda) live in the same house. I say kinda because Ayumi, their daughter, is in college and basically lives there, but I'm sure she has a room. The house is a massive, 100 year old piece of archecture. I think Poppie got a big kick out of that. He had is little smile plastered on and I could tell if he had the chance he would gladly spend weeks examining every board in the place. And to be honest, I probably could too.

After touring the house we went to dinner. But before dinner we were able to enjoy a tea ceremony. Which, was lucky because that was one of the things that Barbara was wanting to partake in, but we had no idea were to go, and then we just stumbled into one. A delicious dinner follwed. And then we we put up for the night in a hotel on the top of a large hill, in the middle of a golf course, and overlooking the city lights. It was a traditional Japanese room with futons and we slept three in a row, each with our own mat. I admit to being a little aprehensive, but since there was a seperate sitting nook in the room, I was able to stay up while my grandparents slumbered. And around midnight, I too went off to dreamland.

Sunday we woke up, had breakfast at the clubhouse, and were then picked up by Mr. Ohshima and wisked away to a Kyudo (Japanese archery) competition. I got an invitation from one person to come practice Kyudo, and another invitation to practice Kendo (Japanese sword fighting with bamboo blades.) If I have time I'd like to take up the offers.

After that wa lunch. Sushi. Now, I greatly appreciate the kindness shown to us by all the groups who took us out. However, since most of the meals were the type of meals used in celebrations, they were mostly the same. I love sushi, but I'd had it four times in five days, and I think the three of us were ready for a change. But it was really good sushi and still I probabably ate more than my fill.

A bell just rang in my school. I have about five minutes to finish this. Time to rush. After lunch we went to the oldest school in Japan and then to a little tea/coffee shop. Afterwards we parted ways and went home. The Ohshimas are more than kind and exceedingly fun people to spend time with. I hope I have more chances to enjoy their company.

Monday, Poppie and Barbara took off for Kyoto. They come back on Wednesday and on Thursday they are coming to my Junior High School. Should be fun.

Fun With The Folks

2006-10-27T11:07:00.000+09:00

I'm pretty sure I left off with the rather disappointing dinner Poppie and Barbara's first night in town. After that we did a wuick little walk thru the Asakusa area and returned to the hotel.

Next morning we got an early start of things by going to the local Starbucks for a little food and coffee. We wanted to try something a bit more Japanese, but in Asakusa at 8 that was about all that was open. After Starbucks we peaked at the prices of local fruit. An apple for $1.50, a melon for about $8. The off we went to the Asakusa bazaar and temple.

The Asakusa temple starts off with a huge gate complete with statues of wind and thunder gods. Then for maybe about one hundred meters is a line of shops selling any type of goods that can be linked to Japan. Kimono, sweets, chopstick, t-shirts, dolls, masks, and they like are on display wherever you look. We made it almost to the end of the line when it was time to turn around and go back to the start of the bazaar. At 11:30 we met two Japanese college girls who recently did a homestay with my parents. Together the five of us went to the temple and the garden nearby. The girls and I explained what we knew about the customs and history of the temple. And then we went to lunch.

For lunch we went to a little tempura place. The food was very good, and I think it made up for the previous meal. After eating that, it was time for sweets. We found a little cafe that specialized in Japanese desserts and each got something to share. Soon, the two girls had to make their goodbyes. And Poppie, Barbara and I were off on ou next adventure: the river boat tour out of Asakusa. That was something I did with my mother last year, and it was really enjoyable. This time, the ride was a little disappointing. This time the boat was fully enclosed, with big windows to look out of, making it quite difficult to see anything that wasn't to the window side. Also, it was a vary hazy day, making it even harder to see. Plus the gentle humming and rocking of the boat was putting us all to sleep. We ended up returning early than we planned and taking a breather at the hotel.

After about an hours rest Poppie knocked on my door and told me it was just the two of us that night. And off we went to Shinjuku, where some of the biggest buildings and flashiest lights are in Tokyo. We walked around just seeing the sights for a while before deciding on a meal of pizza for dinner. That was my call. While we were walking around I saw a place famous for tasting like American pizza. I asked and Poppie endulged me. Of course we ended up chatting at the pizzeria for a while and it was around 11:30 at night by the time we returned to the hotel.

The next morning the three of us went to the Meiji shrine in Tokyo. It is in a beautiful, wooded area of Tokyo and really was a nice change of pass from the bustle of the city. There were a few Japanese style weddings going on and we wre able to watch. Also, several little children were decked out in kimono to celebrate their being either 3, 5 or 7, these ages being important in Japanese tradition.

After finishing at the shrine, back to Asakusa we went to pick up our baggage and catch a train to Kiryu. Once we made it to my apartment Poppie and Barabara announced that they wre preety much done for the day and were just going to relax for the rest of the day. They went to sleep, I went out with friends.

The next morning we walked to a local supermarket and bought some groceries, had a light brunch, and then went to Kiryu Performing Arts center where there was a small festival going on. There, they were able to meet many of the other ALTs (my job title), some of my students, and other friends I have in the community. Plus, several groups performed music and dance. All in all, I think Poppie and Barbara enjoyed the chance to relax and let entertainment and people come to them for a change.

Soon, it was time to head back. We stopped by to buy some pillows, and of course during the walk there were several people we ran into for Poppie and Barbara to meet. Once we got back to my apartment, we planned a quick trip for the two of them. Monday thru Wednesday they went to Nikko. As luck would have it, it rained most of Monday and all of Tuesday. Wednesday, however, was sunny. Still, I think they enjoyed it.

That's all for now. I'll try and get another post up soon.

Enter: The Grandparents!

2006-10-25T08:42:00.000+09:00

First let me start by saying that I am sitting in the teacher's room typing furiously away before the bells start ringing for first period. I may suddenly have to abondon my post in order to enrich eager, young minds. Or drink some coffee.

On Thursday afternoon Poppie and Barbara arrived in Narita airport looking a little worn from the flight, but nontheless brighteyed and bushy tailed. There didn't seem to be any big problems. No hassles by either countries sustoms agents, and since Poppie is in his 70's they were allowed to take the express customs line.

In the airport we activated their railpasses, and went over the basics of travelling by train. I'm sure by the end of this week they will have perfected it. It's about an hour trainride from Narita to Asakusa, the area of Tokyo we were staying for their first 3 days. On the train we met a nice Korean family, and Poppie had a bit of a chat with them. While changing trains at one of the stations Barbara bought water, her first purchase, and decided she should save the receipt as a souvenir. (^-^)

We made it to our hotel a little before five o'clock and decided it would be best to get them a little food before retiring for the night. The hotels desk staff suggested a nearby izakaya (Japanese pub.) So off we went.

Well, it was a nice place. Pictures on the menu so Poppie and Barbara could have a rough idea of what they were eating. I ordered. They food came. And I was instantly disappointed. Not that the food was terrible, it just was nowhere near the qualities of any other izakayas I'd been to. Their first meal in Japan, and I'd taken them probable the lowest quality restaurant before fast food. Barbara and Poppie were too good to say anything, or maybe too exhausted by that point, but I felt I needed to keep repeating how Japanese food generally is much better than that nights sample.

Well, class starts in three minutes. Gotta go.

So Freakin' Annoyed

2006-09-12T11:18:00.000+09:00

It's speech contest time. So, naturally, I'm busy. I've been practicing with our student everyday, and she's really good. She might even be able to win, but I don't know the ability of the other contestants, so I don't want to think too much about it.

I'm of the opinion that practicing before an audience is a good idea. I mention this to the 2 English techers I work with and they agree. WE decide to set things up so that she can visit the first year class and give her speech. But to do so the girl will need to miss the first 7 minutes of class. Which means that whatever class she is in during the 1st year Englsih lessons, those teachers need to agree to let her out of class. I'm given the foot work.

And I get it down. Track down her schedule, find the teachers, get permission, talk to everyone I'm told to talk to. It should all be taken care of. The snag is, the day she will be giving the speech is the day I teach at elementary school. But that shouldn't matter, right? Wrong.

I go to my JHS after finishing elementary and am told it didn't happen. I don't know the full reason why. I know that the first four periods for 3rd graders were changed around. I hear that one teacher didn't think it was good for the girl to miss any of any of her classes. (awkward sentence, but not a typo. maybe bad grammar.) Whether that teacher had anything to do with the classes I don't know. Other teachers felt it wasn't fair that the girl would present to some classes and not all. I'm only getting half stories and when I ask for more details, I'm refused.

I want that speech to happen. I check with teachers and am given a hesitant okay. (Due to the "Some of the other teachers may think it's a bad idea...." reason.) I say "Let's try," I'm told okay. I spend the rest of my time talking with teachers, and trying to get this sorted out. Finally, I'm told that I'll have an answer tomorrow.

Tomorrow becomes today, the answer is yes! Huzzah and Hurrah. I tell the 1st year English teacher, who was the one telling me who I needed to talk to yesterday, it's going to happen, and she says: No. Some people feel it's a bad idea. It has become to confusing.

I am completly annoyed at the revolving door of bullshit. The "yes but no but yes but no" that I am getting. To have jumped through all those hoops just to told no by the person who pointed out the hoops in the first place.

Grrr.

Yep

2006-09-04T16:26:00.000+09:00

Today was spent teaching 2nd and 1st grade students. Some of the 2nd graders want to do well and are great kids, but many of them just want to sit around and do nothing. It's like they are making an active choice to remain ignorant. I want to ask if other teachers find them as unresponsive or if it is just in English class.

The 1st graders, on the other hand, are great. They get really excited about class and respond really well. Plus, they are active in that fun way that makes class more enjoyable. There is one boy who needs a talking to, but besides him those kids are a breeze.

There was some confusion about where I was supposed to be today. The kindergarten decided they wanted me to be there, but they never sent me a visit sheet, so there wasn't much I could do. I found out 20 minutes after their scheduled time that I had a class. But, hey, if they had sent the form like they were supposed to, I would have gone.

Getting worried about taking the 2nd Level Japanese Proficiency Test. Don't think I'll do well, but I still want to take it. The deadline for sending in the form is tomorrow and I just got one yesterday. And I found out many of the first year ALTs are trying for the 2nd level as well. Not that that matters, but I will admit there will be some embarassment if they pass and I don't. But chances are it'll work better for me. As in, I might be able to get a study group going.

Long time, no see

2006-03-03T15:55:00.000+09:00

I haven't written in a while. I think you may guess one of the reasons, but on top of that things have been very busy. It is the end of the school year and in a week from Monday will be graduation. I just got finished with the last class for the third grade students. Casically, I walked around and chatted with whomever I could. We had to pass out a worksheet (some of the students are still taking graduation tests) but Mrs. Ishihara told me it was okay to chat. She also pretty much told the students they didn't have to do it. ("You can take it home to finish and you won't have to turn it in.") At the end of class the students made a little announcement thanking Ishihara and I for teaching them. Then when it was time to leave they all kind of rushed forward to say goodbye. Not as an orchestrated group thing, but they just wanted to all have a farewell moment with us. A lot of the boys and I hugged and punched each other. After that some of the girls did too. They were a little shyer but also were sweeter in that way that girls cna be. I got a little choked up I admit it, but so did Mrs. Ishihara and the students so it was okay.

What I really want to write about happened after that. After sixth period students have to clean the school. During this cleaning period I generally hang out in the teachers room. (Some of the teachers frown on my chatting with the students, even if we still clean, and not chatting is almost an impossibility for me.) I'm sitting at the computer and Seika (3rd grade girl, very sweet) comes in to get hot water for cleaning. As her bucket is filling she comes over to me, with tears in her eyes to say "thank you." At first she goes for the handshake , but the tears start coming and I can't just sit there. I give her a hug and tell her what a good student she is. We break apart and the girl is just at the point before full fledged weeping. I give her another good hug and then the bucket is ready to be taken away.

Even though it was a very sad moment, being reminded of the effect I can have on students and being shown what I mean to them is a wonderful feeling. I am going tomiss my 3rd graders so much. I am already planning on bringing a box of tissues to the graduation, because I am going to cry like a little girl with a skinned knee and a broken dolly, and I don't care who knows it.

Expect the Unexpected

2006-01-26T23:24:00.000+09:00

We broke up.

Faster Snowball, Go Go!

2006-01-23T14:41:00.000+09:00

Today I am at Umeda. When I woke up this morning it was pouring down snow. No worries I thought, my first class isn't until 5th period. I'll just call in and let them know Im going to come in late so that I don't have to bike up in falling snow. Well, it turns out they my schedule got a little changed over the weekend and my first class was now at second period. My school offers me the chance to just cut all my classes and stay home during the day, but I didn't want to do that. I dress in layers, throw on some sunglasses to keep the snow out of my eyes, and take off.

It really wasn't that bad. Once I got used to not having feeling in my face I felt much better. The only bad thing is the sweat. All the layers that keep me warm start me sweating once my body heats picks up. This is about the third kilometer, so not quite half way there. That's why rule one of biking to school is always bring a change of clothes.

I get to school. The vice-principal lets me know he was concerned about me (a really nice guy) and the principal jokes around with me about biking a bit (also, a nice guy with a good sense of humor.)

The best part of the day is during the after lunch recess. I'm on the second story teacher's balcony and see a bunch of first years plaing in the snow. I do what any good teacher would do: throw a snowball at them. And they do exactly what I was hoping for: throw snowballs back. And for the next twenty minutes we're going at it. The snow is wet enough to really stick together, but not icy enough to hurt. At first it's just me and maybe four kids, but as other students see what's going on, they join in. It turns into a regular war; me against almost all the first year boys. (Admitedely, this is only about 20 kids, but hey.) I have the higher ground, they have the numbers. By the end, hands are numb all around. Everyone is smiling, and bonds of war are forged. I'm hoping that it snows again soon. I think next time, if I can, I'll use the period before lunch to make a nice little arsenal first. Maybe a good old fashioned ambush is in order.

By sure to scroll down a bit because this is actually post number two for today. Hate for ya'll to miss the tale of this past weekend.

All Night Nabe Fun!

2006-01-23T10:57:00.000+09:00

On Saturday night I had a proper shin-dig at my apartment. The occasion was nabe (a soup that is pretty much prepared at a table while everyone sits around and eats.) People started coming over at about 6:30 to help with the preparation. Now, I try o have people over every so often for dinner. I like cooking, but there is something about dooking just for me that feels lonely, so I usually don't go to any great lengths when it's just me. Spaghetti, or a rice bowl will do just fine. But when people come over I like to do it right. That was a little hard this weekend. I was pretty much kicked out of the kitchen.

Well, I'll back up a little bit. At 5:30 My frind Miho came over and together we went shopping for all the fixings. That was great for me because it would have been awful to try and gather every thing just using my bicycle. We got back to my apartment a little after 6:15 and almost immediatly Yasuko showed up. I met Miho and Yasuko at the same time and it is rare to have one around without the other. They are super fun gal's. Together we lug the groceries upstairs and start getting ready to cook. I'm getting things out of the cupbards and drawers, knives cutting boards and the like. Doorbell rings; it's Masaaki and his wife Sumiko. Brief reintroductions are made (four have met before but it was about 6 months ago.) Almost from the get go Sumiko starts working in the kitchen. I try and play good host by getting drinks for folks and offering to help, but I am pretty much barred from the kitchen. At my insistance, am allowed to get the broth ready for the nabe. This consists pretty much of opening a pouch of premixed broth and pouring it into the bowl. Of course we need more so I do get to add my own mix of miso, kimchi sauce, and water.

Also at the party were Alison, Chieska, Jeff, and Natalie. The food comes out delicious. One of the things that I really like about nabe is how it is eaten. The whole crowd of us gathered around the kotatsu (table with a heater attached to the bootom and a blanket covering it to keep the inside warm. Fantastic invention) with our bowls and chopstick and started eating. When the nabe in the pot ran down, we added more fixings and broth, turned on the portable burner and once it was ready kept on eating. In the proper eating method, once all the fixings are gone and you have just the broth that has been flavored by all that has been added to the pot, udon noodles are added. Man, was that good. After all the nabe was consumed, we had the perfect amount of food by the way, I decided it was time for desert. It was a special occasion to have so many good friends eating together, so a special dessert was in order. Smores. Such a simple tasty treat virtually unknown in Japan. And with a gas burner sitting in the middle of the table it only seemed proper to teach folks about smores. I have never met a person who didn't like smores. If I did, maybe I wouldn't trust them.

At that point many of us had had a few drinks, it was about 10:30, so we did the obvious thing; we went to karaoke. For two and a half hours we sang and even danced a few times. It was an occasion of sheer joy. Karaoke in Japan is how karaoke should be. A group of friends in a private room, singing songs, and having drink (and food if needed) delivered. We took advantage of the all ou can drink menu and every one got their fill of whatever liquids they desired.

Another great thing is that since in Japan there is a zero limit on drinking and driving, there very rarely is that question of if a person is suitable to drive. If someone is planning on driving that night, they don't drink alcohol. Since this is common, the all you can drink menu has a wide selection of juices, cocoas, sodas, teas, and the like. Threw this part in just to assure all readers that, yes, we were safe about no drinking and driving.

In short, the night was fantastic. Good vibes all around. Every single person who was there are incredibly kind, fun people. The only thing which could be considered a disappointment was that Mari wasn't able to come. But that is why "next time" was created.

Mmm, Mmm, Good

2006-01-18T13:16:00.000+09:00

The last few days have been really good days for school food. Not because of the school lunch itself, but because of the food that has come with it. Mostly.

On Tuesday I went to kindergarten and elementary school. The great thing was that it was time for the kindergarten festival. Or at least I'm gfoing to call it a festival. I figure any time regular classes are cancelled toi play outside and have special activities, it's safe to call it a festival. The point of this festival was to make mochi. Mochi can best be described as rice that has been pounded to the consistency of taffy, but it retains its rice flavor. I think it is quite tasty, but at the same time I know a lot of folk who don't really care for it. But to be fair, I think the being silly. The cool thing about making mochi is that it has an almost party atmosphere if you do it right. And they did it right at the kindergarten.

Many mothers and a few fathers were at school that day making preparations, boiling rice chopping vegetrables, grating daikon, and the like. Once the rice is boiled to the point of being really sticky, it is put into what looks like a stump that has been partially hollowed into a bowl. Then, people take turns hitting the rice with big wooden sledgehammers. Usually, during the pounding other folks gather around to watch and cheer. Once the rice has been pounded into the taffy-like mochi, it is collected and prepared into various styles. There is mochi wrapped around sweet azuki bean paste, mochi that is flavored by soy soyce and wrapped in nori (a type of seaweed), mochi that is topped with a sweet dry powder that almost tastes like cinnamon, mochi that is dopped with grated daikon (tastes like radish) and soy sauce, and of course there are other styles. But those are the ones that we made. Actually, I only helped pound the mochi. The moms and teachers did all the other food making.

After eating my fill, my belly was so packed with goodness that it didn't matter that later that day I was served one of the lesser of the school lunches.

The next day, Wednesday, we had curry for school lunch. The curry is pretty much agreed upon to be one of, if not the best items on the school lunch menu.

Today the served lunch was again rather mediocre. But to go with it we had a treat. Someone, not sure who, had killed a boar and given the teachers some of the meat. And so, we had a soup made with the boar meat and of course several kinds of vegetables. Man, is it good. So full of flavor and deliciousness it almost feels that eating at school should be criminal.

This wasn't exactly the most exciting of posts, but hey, you get what you pay for.

Fun and Games

2006-01-13T15:19:00.000+09:00

Yesterday I played tag with a group of first year junior high girls during the after-lunch break. It's usually pretty fun to take part in the kid's games, if for no other reason than to watch them play. Several times it ended up with two of the kids just taking turns whapping each other. What really makes it funny is that during the tag-back someone usually falls to the ground in their eagerness to get away, which means the other kid has no choice but to dive at them. At times these kids remind me so much of puppies playing I can't help but giggle. A neat thing about the Umeda JHS 1st years is that there is only 30 of them, so only one class (In most schools 41 is the magic number for requiring two classes.) I'm guessing this means that these kids has been in the same class since kindergarten. Umeda is not a big area and the liklihood of them losing about 10 kids to the few private JHS is pretty low. I bring this up because since they have been around each other almost every single day since about 4 years old these kids have some really tight bonds. Even in their games, like tag, it is obvious just by how they move that they have played these games together for ages and no how to get the most fun out of it. Not to say that everyone always gets along. It's just that they have acquired a relationship that borders on sibling-like, so everyone just kind of knows their role.

Sometimes this can be a limitation though. For example, if your trying to get them to do something totally new, at times they can't quite puzzle out the sense of it. It is not a recognized method of how to do things to everything is uncertain. This can cause problems in the "let's just sit here with confused stares stare" department. One of the reasons I think this is, is the dreaded "fear of mistakes." Many of my students seem to feel that if they make any form of mistake then the have commited a sin of enourmous magnitude. i'm not really sure where this stems from, but it's there. I've had kids completely shut down and refuse to say a single word in order not to risk making mistakes. One of the hardest parts of the job can be getting the students to understand that making mistakes is not only okay, but it is expected. We make mistakes so we can learn. It's how it works, especially in learning a new language. I make so many mistakes in a day with my Japanese, it is ridiculous. But that means I am that much closer to no longer making those same mistakes.

At times I try to give the students enheartening speeches that are aimed at encouraging them to try no matter what. The problem is, in most classes I'm supposed to only speak English. So, i usually have to get a teacher to translate for me. At my schools my English teachers all are pretty skilled with English. (I have heard this is not always the case, but that is neither here nor there right now.) But that doesn't always mean they make good interpreters. Nothing makes me want to cringe more than when I give the student's a message of encouragement complete with examples and reasons just to hear it condensed down to a simple "Mistakes are okay. Do your best." *sigh*

I really don'T know where that came from. I started out just wanting to say that playing taf was really fun. 'Cause it was.

My Winter Vacation

2006-01-10T11:02:00.000+09:00

It is Tuesday morning and the first day back to school. things started off with the opening ceremony, and now the two periods of classses are underway. It's only half day for the students so after lunch they will go to there clubs and then go home. I will be here for the regular working dy which makes me wonder what I should do. Part of me is tempted to use the free time to run to the bank and post office and do other errands that can only be done during working hours. But at the same time I want to show unity with the teachers by just hanging out at school for the entire day. Oh, decisions, decisions....

And now to talk of the holidays. For Christmas I spent time in Tokyo with Mari. I went there on the 23rd, and on the 24th we made Mexican food together. I had planned that in advance to be ind of a Christmas present to her and her sister, so I had scrounged around Gunma and managed to find some of the supplies; the bare necessities really in case we couldn't find one of the many foreign food stores in Tokyo. Luckily we found one in Roppongi Hills, which is a pretty area trying to be a bit more upscale than the rest of Roppongi. There we were able to buy old El Paso salsa, chips, guacamole seasoning, Corona beer, and various other products. We made sure to buy more than enough food and managed to have tacos for the next two days. I've said this before but I'll say it again, Mexican food is not readily available in Japan, and so it can be some what of a delicacy. I guess it would be like finding Indian food in the States ten years ago. maybe a few cities had indian restaurants but a vast majority of folks had never tried it. And the idea of homemade is almost mindboggling. Or at least that's what I think. Anyways it was a fiesta which was much enjoyed by all involved.

On Christmas, Mari and I watched King Kong. That movie is amazing and should be watched again and again. Also, we exchanged gifts, ate some of the cookies mom sent me, and just relaxed. On the 26th I had to leave at around 10. Mari's mother was coming over and doesn't know that on occasion I have spent the night at the apartment. I'm not entirely comfortable with the idea of "sneaking around." But I guess for now it can't be helped. So, after leaving that morning a went over to a nice bookstore in Shinjuku and purchased four books for the price of about $80. But seeing as how I was empty of unread English novels and they were all ones I've been wanting to read... Now I am almost done with the first of the lot, The Three Musketeers. Gotta say I'm pleased with it.

Around New Yeas things dipped a little low for me. Almost everyone I know were on trips over the holidays which left me at home pretty much by myself. Luckily I was invited by Masaaki and Sumiko to join them for New Year's Eve with Masaaki's family. We ate Nabe (a kind of soup) and watched TV. For midnight we went on Hatsumode, which is the visit to a temple at the first of the year. A very interesting experience. Less lively than an American New Year's eve, but still quite fun.

Finally, over last weekend Mari and I went on a little mini-break. We went to Karuizawa, a town in Nagano, for a little relaxing. There was snow on the ground and we got to do outlet shopping, and eat some nice food. Not a very active vacation, but it was just an excuse to get out of town a little before school started. And at that it succeded fabulously.

And now I'm back at school, and ready to get back into the thick of things.

One Day More

2005-12-21T15:45:00.000+09:00

The school term is almost over and soon I will be in the middle of winter vacation. Kinda. While I do have a few days off it isn't that many. Even though the school term is over I, and all the other teachers in Japan, are still considered working. The only actual holidays I have are a few days right around New Years. I don't really understand why this is. I know several teachers are in charge of club activities but I really don't know what else they do. I am thankful that over the almost-break it will be incredibly easy for me to take vacation days. So far, I plan to take one. If things go well then I will take a few more days in January and take a little mini-break. But since nothing is firmly planned yet, who knows if that will actually happen.

Last night was the Umeda Enkai (drinking party). It was at a pretty swank little place and much fun was had by all. Now, I had a good time at the Higashi Enkai, but I must say that the spirit at the Umed one was much livelier. There seemed to be more laughter shared by all, rather than just in certain groups. Unfortunately, this weel I am at Higashi and didn't feel going to the after party would be a good idea. I figured staying up half the night drinking would not help me in school today. Although it would have been a blast. I let the Umeda teachers know that if they wanted to go out during the break all they'd need to do is give me a call. Maybe they will.

Today's classes went less than good. I taught to lessons, and they were supposed to be rather light and easy game lessons. In the first class I showed some of the pictures my mom emailed to me while several of the students looked bored. There were many who were very interested in what I had to show them, but it still irked me. (Note: the two classes I taught today have a reputation of being total schmucks when the mood hits them. The strange thing is about half those classes are absolutely the sweetest kids, but when the other half are acting foolish there is little anyone can do.) The second part of the lesson was a game where we describe a picture of a person or thing and the students, in teams, try to guess what we have. That went over well and Ishihara-sensei and I felt okay about the lesson. The other class behaved a little better during my part, but then once we told them about the game just started whinning and acting really obnoxious. So obnoxious in fact that we cancelled the game and had them take out their workbooks. After Ishihara-sensei and I consulted we both agreed it was the best thing and then we each gve them a little lecture. When the class was over a lot of the really good kids stayed behind and we were able to give them the "It wasn't you, don't feel bad" talk. And that was how my last lesson of the term went. I guess I shouldn't be too surprised. Tomorrow is the closing ceremony of this term and the kids can smell the holiday.

Whose your Santa Claus?

2005-12-20T15:12:00.000+09:00

This morning I got to do something rather fun. At the Aioi kindergarten, they needed someone to play the role of Santa for their Christmas party. I was the chosen one. I got dressed up in a red suit, but it was ruled that my red beard-let would be better than the white obviously fake one. They were probably right.

I arrived at the school at a little before 10. I wasn't scheduled to take the stage until a little after 10:30, so I used the time to cool down from the bike ride over and change clothes. I was stationed i a little side office. Those in charge wanted to keep me secret. Couldn't have the little tykes spotting Santa outside of his uniform. Time came and I was escorted to the playroom. They had the lights turned down low, with only a candle and a Christmas tree casting light. That and all the light that leaked thru the closed cutains. My coming was announced by sleighbells.

I cam in "ho ho ho-ing and carting a bag full of little presents and cards for the kids. I answered some questions about me (Santa) all in English, and then handed out toys to the tots. They shyly accepted and sometimes shook hands. The gazed at me in wonder and amazement. There was a general feeling in the crowd (about 60 kids) that I was the real thing. After all, I had long hair, a real beard, was the right size. Who else could I be but Santa?

The teachers had a kick telling me that after I left the kids talked about how shy they wre seeing as how the real Santa was there. If it had been a fake they wouldn't have been so quite so tense. But this was the *real* guy! The big enchilada! The little ones couldn't help it. They were meeting a legend after all. (^.^)

Once my part was played I was whisked back to my little side office and given tea, cake, sandwiches and fried chicken. (Apparently there was an incredible successful advertizing campaign a few years back that showed how Colonel Sanders, was really St. Nick. Ever since then KFC is the place to be for Christmas.) I had to hang out in the little room until it was safe to go. Again, we needed to keep the Santa shrouded in mystery. When I finally got to leave, I had lookouts and everything to make sure no one ran into me. It was very cute.

Five more days until Christmas.

A Cold Day

2005-12-15T14:46:00.000+09:00

I'm at Umeda today and it has been very chilly. Earlier on this week we had the first snow of the season. But it happened kinda late at night so I didn't know this had happened until I was readin my bike up the mountain and noticed that it was ever so slightly dusted with snow. Nothing to intimidating but it was still there. I am so a little kid about snow. I see it and I just want to frolic and play. I remember last year how I ambushed some of the Umeda boys. I had spent about 15 minutes making snowballs on the balcony outside of the teachers room. And when the classes changed I attacked the guys coming out of the gym. I didn't want to be a total jerk so mostly I aimed to just miss them. Mostly.

Today the one class I was scheduled for was cancelled. Some of the student's cut off the strap to another's student's pencil case. This got a big discussion in the morning teacher's meeting and then another mini teacher's meeting was held between 1st and 2nd period. Since the English teacher is the homeroom teacher for the class where this happened he felt it would be best if he used the class period to give them a talking to. It is somehow refreshing that a small act of vandalism is one of the bigger problems that happens at my schools.

It looks like all of the other ALTs will be out of town during the holidays. I think from the Christmas to after New Years I will pretty much be on my own here when it comes to foreign company. Not that that is such a big deal. It will be lonely without Alison, Kristin, or Jeff to get in touch with, but other than them I don't hang out too much with the other ALTs. Plus, I've been invited a few places to enjoy traditional Japanese holiday activities, and that will most likely be a good time. And I'm all set for Christmas plans, but it is seeming rather likely that my New Years plan will involve me and a stack of DVDs. Maybe I'll go wild and buy a bag of potato chips.

Yes, I'm still around updated

2005-12-12T11:17:00.000+09:00

It has ben to long since I've written. Things have been busy. I've had presentations to give for all the Gunma JET ALT'S and many of our Japanese English teachers. Well, actually that statement is a little misleadng. I gave a presentation at a conference which all the Gunma JET ALTs came to. I actually presented in front of baout a quarter of them. And I had on of my teachers with me, so it was more like a joint presentation. That being the case we actually did more preparation than I would have done if it had just be me alone. I think it went over well. But to be honest, I've already told more about it than the thing deserves.

This past weekend I went to Kamakura with Mari. I woke up early Saturday morning in order to catch the train to Tokyo. There I met up with her and together we went off to Kamakura. It was a great little trip and also our first one together. We saw several temples, and of course the Daibutsu (the big statue of Buddha.) It's really impressive; one of those things that looks a decent sive and but keeps getting bigger the closer you get. It isn't until you're right next to it that it sinks in how huge this thing is. The other temples were also good. I really liked Hase-dera. One of its main attractions is that it has all these small, maybe 8 inch, statues of Jizou (one of the Buddhist figures). There are countless numbers of them. They represent lost children and babies who have died. Women will put clothes on them and give them little toys as a way of mourning babies they have lost. Seeing all those little statues, some adorned with bibs and holding hello kitties was really moving.

I'll write more about the trip but now I have to go teach a class.

*Updated*

After all the Kamakura fun we decided it was time to head back to the big city. The day before Mari had let me know that some of her friends wanted to meet me if I was willing. I said sure, so we needed to be back in Tokyo in time to meet them. Plus the weather was starting to look like it could get rather unpleasant. But before returning to Tokyo we decided we had enough time for a quick stop in Yokohama to see its China Town. It was an interesting place. We didn't really do too much but walk around and eat the hot buns stuffed with different fillings, such as mushrooms, curry, or (Mari's favorite) shrimp and chili sauce.

It was a neat experience meeting Mari's friends. There were two of them and they seemed like very nice gals. And we went to Tony Roma's (famous for its ribs.) They had never eaten there and I found the choice quite amusing. Nothing like food that gurantees you will look a mess to make that first impression. Being the brought up on ribs I had to assure them it was okay to eat the meat straight off the bone. (I certainly wasn't going to eat it any other way. Those were my first ribs in well over a year. I was going to savor every bite.) Between the four of us we split a half order of ribs, a big ceasar salad, half an onion log, and an order of fajitas. Fajitas were a completely new thing to them so I got to gallantly show them how to construct one. The food was tasty, but I have to say it doesn't compare to the ribs from back home. And by home of course I mean the kind dad cooks on the back porch. Now those are ribs. *sigh*

After I told the rib story to Alison, we both agreed that we need to go back to Tony Roma's and eat ribs like they're going out of style. It's a fairly pricey place place and we could more than likely spend $100 apiece on food alone. Maybe. But if we did it would be worth every penny. Its funny the things you don't even realize you miss.

So much to say, so little energy...

2005-11-03T19:36:00.000+09:00

Today is a holiday in the magical land of Japan. And I'm tired. Had a little bit of a sickness this week. Nothing to big, just the kind of sap my energy sickness. There are several things I want to write about, but I don't really know where to start, so I'm thinking a list:

1. Iaido
2. New ALTs
3. Classes
4. I dunno. Other stuff.

So, know I'm going to take a nap. Either that or stay awake for about four more hours and then sleep. Tomorrow is half at higashi, half at umeda. Which probably means no lunch. Instead I'll have a bike ride. Which will be delicious.

Recollections of Disney

2005-10-18T14:14:00.000+09:00

On Thursday I went to Tokyo. On Friday I went to Tokyo Disney Land. On Saturday Night I took the last train home. I'll elaborate just a bit.

I got out of work half an hour early in order to make the 6:07 train. That gave me a total of 2.5 hours to get home, completely pack, get money from the ATM, buy some supplies and then make it to the station. I was a little worried but made it with 20 minutes to spare. I arrived at my final destination about 8:00 and was greeted by Mari. We made dinner, which was shared by her sister. The poor sister. On average she gets home at about 11:00 every night and leaves for work at about 7:30 every morning. Damn business hours.

Friday morning Mari and I took off for Disney. We had a fabulous time. The last time I was at a Disney Park was this spring, but that was Disney Sea so not quite the same. Before that was when I was in elementary school. Me, my mom, and my brother went to Disney World in Orlando. Needless to say, there have been many changes to the disney I remember. For one thing everything seems smaller. (^.^) There have also been some updates. I remember the ceiling of Space Mountain being mostly black with a few blinking "stars." This space mountain was a bit more high tech. The screen showed various space scenes; asteroids, galaxies, etc.
Big Thunder mountain was still great. It might be my favorite of the Disney Land coasters. Splash mountain was interesting, especially because it is the Brer Rabbit ride. So I got to explain Song of the South to Mari, and relive a little of my redneck past.

We were able to ride 11 attractions, plus we saw the three parades. The music of the Electric Light Parade made me feel like a kid again. I couldn't help but remember all the times I listened to that music on cassette growing up. We had really good luck with lines. Several times we were on our way somewhere and noticed a ride we wanted only had a 5 minute wait. We managed Space Mountian with only a 15 minute wait. By the time we got off the wait had shot up to 45 minutes.

Alas, I forgot my camera at Mari's apartment, so I don't have any pictures, but I'm pretty sure I can convince Mari to email me copies of her's. On a picture note, at one point in the evening we were going around and getting pictires and were trying to figure out the best way to have our picture taken together. Her camera can split a picture so two people can simulate being in the same shot. She was mentioning trying this. About ten feet away from us stood another couple holding a camera and in conversation. Our groups made eye-contact, realized we we're both having the same dilema and proceeded help each other out. Not a fascintaing story of course, but it was the immediate knowledge of what we watned from each other that made it memorable.

The next day we hung out for a little while. I took Mari to T.G.I.Fridays, which is one of the few places that a person can get American style food. I feel silly for how much I was looking forward to a hamburger and honey-mustard. Plus, we ordered an appetizer of quesidillas. This was a first for Mari. There is nothing quite like watching some discover the wonder of Mexican (or quasi-Mexican) food for the first time. (If I suddenly found myself in Agua Linda I don't think I would be able to handle it. I would weep for the glory of plentiful mexican cuisine. Man, do I want a good burrito.)

I took the absolute latest train back, which was at 10:18, which felt far too early. I wasn't ready for my trip to end, but I needed to get back to Gunma.

A matter of taste

2005-10-13T14:11:00.000+09:00

I recognize that many things are different here. Different culture, different systems, people drive on different sides of the road. Every now and then little things happen that still catches me off guard. For a while know I have noticed that it is common to peel fruits among the Japanese people I know. Apples, pears, kiwi are all peeled. I've seen people peeling tomatoes. Even your average grape is peeled. I guess in a way I can understand that. I still just eat the fruit rather than wasting delicious peel by tossing it, but what they hey. I don't eat banana peels or citrus peels. I guess the same reasoning can be used for not wanting to eat the peel of other fruit. I've also known a decent amount of folk stateside who prefer their fruits skinless. So no big deal.

But won't I don't understand is this. Today for school long there was mixed tempura, which included shrimp tempura. These little bity, little fried shrimp had not been shelled. And people were eating them like that. I do not like unshelled shrimp. I've accidently bit into a shrimp that I thought was shelled only to find out I was wrong. It ruined the whole mouthfull for me. But agian, people eat what they like, or what they are used to, and that's okay. But what makes my mind stutter is how a person will, without any qualms, munch on unshelled shrimp, that same person will spend the time necessary to peel a tomato.

Huzzah

2005-10-11T17:22:00.000+09:00

Had a nice little three day weekend. The highlight was on sunday when a small group of us went out to dinner and then to karaoke. We managed to get an early start so I was back home by 12:30. But even with Monday to rest up, somehow I started today even more worn out than I would have imagined. Not in the mental or spiritual kinda way, just really honkin' tired. Gotta start getting more sleep.

While walking back from eating lunch on Monday, I ran into Kitazawa-sensei, the head teacher of the Iaido group. I haven't been recently. Recently being about month and a half. Due to rain and being at school way to late most days I just haven't had much time. And if ya'll want to read in between the lines and say that being lazy might have played a part in being absent, I wouldn't argue the details. About two weeks ago JC, who intrduced me to the group, told me that they were very unhappy with me and wouldn't let me resume practice. But yesterday, when Kitazawa-sensei recognized me, he got a big smile on his face and started off the conversation by telling me that it was a holiday and that there was no practice tonight. I apologized for not being there, he brushed it off and told me to be there next week and make sure I don't take anymore vacations in the near future. So, not exactly the "don't come back" message that was given to me. Gotta wonder if maybe the messenger gaffed, or was just adding to conflict. Some folk just thrive on conflict.

Today I went to Umeda kindergarten and Umeda elementary. So much fun, but I must of picked up over 30 students. Some of them several times. My arms and shoulders ache. It's great being a playground for the kids. I only wish I had the room and time to take a long hot bath while enjoying a good book. Instead I'll be going to my Adult English Class. Which'll be fun, but tonight I'd rather take a nap before going to bed. Man, those kids exhausted me. 5 hours of enjoying their incredible cuteness and constantly outpuring energy really wears a guy down.

Thursday after school I will be going to Tokyo. On Friday I plan to go to Tokyo Disney, although I haven't decided whether or not I should go to Disney Sea or Disney Land. Of course, that is only a secondary reason for going to Tokyo. The first is to see my friend Mari. Well, in the sake of not quite full disclosure, I should refer to her as my girlfriend because as of last Saturday night that is what she is. And Thursday will be my first time seeing her since the middle of September. Pretty excited. Or at least as close to excited as someone can be after being worn out from playing with kids all day.

Added at 11:20- I know that some people were worried about my new relationship due to Mari being the former girlfriend of my chum Kaz. Admittedley, I was also a little worried about this. Some people can react badly to a friend having an interest in a former flame. Even if they did breakup at least 5 monthss ago and have a new girlfriend. Kaz however, is not one of these people. I talked with him about it tonight and he didn't even blink twice. I pretty much got nothing but support and best wishes. Again I say "huzzah!" And now it's bed time. Tomorrow starts at 6:30 tomorrow morning and quickly launches into the 7km trek to Umeda.

Flower Park Hula Show

2005-10-04T09:29:00.000+09:00

On Sunday I went with a couple I know, Masaaki and Sumiko, and Masaaki's dad to watch a Hula Show at the Gunma Flwer park. It was a gloriously warm day, and the sky was a brilliant shade of blue. Several different groups performed, including the one Sumiko belonged to. Everything was very pleasant. I feel like I'm underplaying right now, but I'm pretty tired. After the show, we had lunch and ice cream and went back to Kiryu. The orginal plan was to meet up with other friends in the evening and do a quick karaoke, but everyone was feelinga little tired from being in the sun all day, plus our friends were still in Nagano and were going to be back much later than we originally thought. But we all made plans to make plans.

Sumiko and Masaaki are a fantastically fun couple. They randomly meet Brain and Christy at a kimono party about a month before they returned to America. I meet Sumiko and Masaaki at one of the farewell parties for Brian and Chirsty, and we've frequently hung out since. They area recently married couple and absolutely adorable. They're a pair that you just can't help but have fun around.

Yesterday, all of the Kiryu ALT's came to Higashi and yet again my kdis made me very proud. Almost all of them were very outgoing and using English. The girls maybe a little too much. One of the new ALTs, Jeff, is very cute. The girls practically had fits over him. They all wanted to to be in his group and repeatedly took turns giving him hugs. What's hard to describe is how there was nothing untowards about it. It's kinda like how little kids w9ill clutch a stuffed animal, ar stare at Santa. Maybe a little different, but it was nothing that left a dirty feeling. Except maybe a little jealousy, but what the hey. They see me almost everyday. I'm bound to be less interesting.

Sports Days Daze

2005-10-02T19:31:00.000+09:00

That is a really lame title. Maybe not so much lame as cheesey, but it could be both. However, it is an accurate statement. On Tuesday I went Umeda’s Sport’s Day. It was amazing. So much fun, the kids were great, a lot of laughs were had by everyone. For those of ya’ll unfamiliar with sports day, just imagine Field Day. And the vibe was great. There were a lot of laughs shared by the teachers. One of the highlights was during the folk dance, which is where a bunch of Japanese kids dance to “Turkey in the Straw.” Who knows why. So, the kids are dancing, most of them with pained expressions on their faces, like making boys dance with cute girls is a form of torture. But that isn’t the best part. There are far more boys at Umeda than girls, so the female teachers, and several of the kids mothers also joined in. And nothing is more embarrassing for an eighth grade boy than having to dance with your mom. Especially when all the teachers are laughing at you. And laugh we did. Poor Keisuke.

Another was during the club relay, where the different school clubs race and have to do so in silly ways. For example, carrying a ping-pong ball on a spoon, or answering a math problem. The basketball team had an incredibly hard time with their problem. What started off as one person trying to solve it turned into a team effort that took several tries and several minutes. Kimura-sensei, the basket ball coach and MC of Sport’s Day, jokingly announced that the week’s practice was cancelled so the time could get extra math tutoring. Guffaws abounded. Just to mention, another thing that filled me with joy was that when I first walked into the teacher’s room I was invited to the drinking party. Unfortunately, I had a class to teach that night and couldn’t go but it was still good to be invited.

The next day, Wednesday, I went to Higashi’s sports day. I love those kids. They make going to that school great. So many of them are so truly wonderful that it always cheers me up. However, that being said, Higashi’s Sport’s ended up being one of the lowest points I’ve had here. I feel I need to make it perfectly clear that this has nothing to do with the students, but rather the staff.

The feel was completely different. Everything felt serious and stiff. The students’ joy was authentic, but everything else seemed fake. Ishii-sensei, the MC for Higashi, might be the most serious teacher at a school of teachers who are too serious. Guffaws did not abound. But fun was had. On a side note, one of my favorites, Ai, had severely twisted her ankle the weekend before and couldn’t participate at all. I sat next to when the classes where doing the relay for the entire class (all students were supposed to take place and run 100meters.) Poor Ai was left sitting in her classes section alone and cheering. In between shouts of encouragement she would whimper how much she wanted to run with her class. She was so miserable it hurt.

After the events were over, I was told I could go home 10 minutes early since my English teachers wanted me to come back in 40 minutes so we could plan the ALT day. (All the Kiryu ALTs come to Higashi tomorrow. Should be big fun.) I come back and we spend almost the next 2 hours discussing how to make everything run smoothly. By now its getting late (almost 6:30) and Hoshino-sensei is getting antsy to go. She asks me if I’m going to the drinking party tonight. I tell her the truth, the only teacher to mentions it to me was Koike-sensei. (Koike-sensei taught at Umeda last year. Super friendly. He retired and now comes to Higashi twice a week as the school counselor. For the record, drinking parties are organized very formally because the numbers are very important. If a correct count isn’t given, the pricing and amount of food prepared is wrong.) So, Koike-sensei telling me the week before he is looking forward to our drinking together doesn’t count for much officially. Conveniently, the teacher in charge of inviting folk is leaving at this point. He and Hoshino have this exchange in Japanese. “Did you invite him?” “No.” I was then informed it would probably be okay if I came along. I decided not to.

I was in fact, pretty livid and pretty hurt. Since this new semester started I have stayed late at Higashi almost every single time I have been there, plus I’ve gone there on days when I wasn’t supposed to. After doing all that, not being treated like a member of the school was a slap in the face. Fortunately, Alison was home and helped me vent. I’m not saying I would have spent the night at home wallowing, but I’m not denying it either.

The third Sport’s Day was on Saturday. I was invited to Umeda Minami Elementary School’s Sport’s Day. Great fun was had. I played with many of the little tykes and had a grand time watching. The teachers were all extremely busy, but they all made time to come by and say hello. Plus, I was invited to their drinking party, but couldn’t make it. This is a school that I’ve visited once every two week since April, and I felt truly welcome. Something I don’t always feel Higashi, which is the school that houses my favorite students, and where I do the most.

Ah well, not much else I can do but buckle down and do my best and yadda yadda yadda.

But on a completly different topic, I would like to give a hearty congrats to Meg Kozinsky and Joe Mears who have recently gotten engaged. Best wishes.

Not Much to Say

2005-09-22T14:07:00.000+09:00

This week there have been few exciting thigns going on, or maybe it would be better to say the few things that have been exciting are not going to be written about. Now I'll just let people read and wonder. I could almost assure that whatever you imagine will be in fact more interesting than the truth, so in a way not writing about things is better. Right?

This week is only a three day week, which is nice. Although the weather has ben pretty grey the past few days. Guess I'll just have to stay in and watch my laundry not dry.

The week before was the English Speech Contest. Bryan, my student who is from the Phillipenes, did very well and won in his division. My other student, Mai, did a good job but a few days before the contest she became overly concerned with wanting to say everything correctly. Because of this she stressed out so much that forgot how to perform the speech and everything came out rather flat. I'm still proud of her, because she did do a good job, but I wish she was able to do her best. Another thing of interest, at least to me, is tht the 1st and 2nd place winners were from Jutoku and Niisato Junior Highs. Those are the schools that my friends Brian (not to be confused with my student, Bryan) and his wife Christy taught at before returning to the states, which they did about 1 month before the contest. I like to think that this shows the positive impact they had on their schools.

It would be correct to say I miss them. It would be also correct to say that with Brian gone I really don't have any close male friends. Plus, I no longer have anyone to really geek out over comic books or other things like that. Alas, being a geek is best done in the company of other geeks.

But there is one really neat hing that has happened: I have started to learn how to play the shamisen. (A shamisen is the three stringed Japanese intrument that sounds kind of like a banjo.) Alison and I are taking lessons together from a very cool teacher who also wants to learn English. It works out well for us because she has arranged for us to have loaner shamisens, and the price for three one-and-a-half-hour lessons are very reasonable. Last night was our third lesson. The week before was very cool because our teacher's teacher came to class. Alison and I both expected him to be somewhat stiff and maybe a little gruff. We couldn't have been further from the truth. He was super-friendly and amazingly talented. He chatted and played for us, and he even gave us beer. Turns out he is also relatively well known as one of the best shamisen players in the Kanto area. He didn't tell us this of course, but on of the other people who came by to meet us recognized him from a newspaper article that was written about him maybe two weeks ago. So, pretty cool.

Other than those things, not much has been going on.

My Laundry Never Dries

2005-09-14T13:57:00.000+09:00

I am the victim of a most foul curse. That curse is easy of others to dismiss as chance, but one that I know in my heart afflicts me. And that curse involves weather. Every time I hang up laundry, it rains. Or if it doesn't rain, it becomes so overcast that my clothes cannot dry. No matter how sunny the day begins, me putting clothes on a line causes the weather to morph into a grey smear of sky. But it get's even better. Often the weather decides to wait until the last possible moment to change for the worse. I'll go out to check on the drying progress, and will determine that in about half an hour everything will be dry. To make the best use of my time I'll start washing another load. No sooner is the laundry in the machine completely wet, then the sun disappears. It's a curse I tell you.

In other news, tomorrow in the Kiryu-Omama English Speech Contest. The students and I have been working on the speeches since a little before summer vacation started and tomorrow is the big day. Since school started I've been at one school or another every day, usually until around 6:00 working with them on the various things that need to be done to have a good speech. My kids could do a good job, but at times they would rather be tired than perform. Hopefully, tomorrow they will feel jazzed up enough where energy won't be an issue. I would just hate for them to have done all that work and then not do their best for the contest. But, to be honest, I'm not sure if my wanting them to do their best has more to do with satisfying them or satisfying me. It's always a little frustrating to put so much into something you ultimately have no control over. But once this is over I can use my time to resart doing all the things I like doing with my afternoons.

My Summer Vacation （＾。＾）

2005-09-07T09:40:00.000+09:00

I was writing an email to Beth telling her about the various thing I did ove the summer, when I realized that I should probably do the same for here. So rather than rewriting everything I taking things from the email I sent her and putting them here. This is also the second post for today, just so you don't miss the first one.

Last Thursday school started. For about one month before there was summer vacation. Except not really. Every day I had to go to the city office and basically bide my time. My job is to help plan lessons, teach classes, and talk to students. During summer vacation none of the things are there to be done, but I still have to pretend to work, thus I have very little to do. I even told my teachers that I had little to do and practically begged them to give me things to do. As a result I was able to go to Higashi JHS several times and teach. Sometimes it was helping students review, or doing English conversation activities. Also, since there is a big English speech contest on the 15th of this month we did lots of preparation for that.

One a side note, one of my student's mothers is an English teacher at Showa JHS. We've met several times and she was kind enough to invite my mother and I over to dinner one night while mom was visiting. (The food was delicious.) For a while during the summer Kakinuma-sensei was without ALT, and she knew I was looking for reasons to get out of the office so I was invited to her school to help their speech contestant.

The other days, days when I was at the City Office all day could get prety tiring. All I had to do was wait for time to pass and talk with the other ALT's. But even the talking had a strained element to it at times, because we were at work and most of us who were at the office would rather be doing something. When the new ALT's arrived we would use them as an excuse to get out of the office. We'd show them around town, take them to various places to eat, show them the post office and how to pay bills, take them to the grocery store. Sometimes we would get out for no real reason other than we could and we needed to.

I guess I really shouldn't say them. We did get three new ALT's, but one of them is in Kurohone, which meged with Kiryu but isn't connected to it. So he stayed in his area. Another ALT was a replacement for someone who cancelled at the last moment, so she didn't arrive until about one week before classes were to begin. So, basically we just showed Kristine around.

I've also been slack about Kyudo practice and other things I like to do. Hopefully once the speech contest is over and the schools no longer wasnt me to stay late every day I'll get back into the habit of doing the things I enjoy doing.

Lucky Guy

2005-09-07T09:15:00.000+09:00

I've been riding my bicycle to Umeda lately. Lately being the last five school days. It is a 7 km bike ride with portion of it slightly up a mountain. It actually is pretty fun and I enjoy riding my bike more than driving my car. Which is lucky because my international license expired in July and I've taken no steps to get a Japanese one. I know I should just because I think having a Japanese driver's license would be really cool. Quite a memento. But it is kind of a pain.

Anyway, the ride is good, but there is a typhoon near Japan and Japan is small enough so that a typhoon can mean it is raining in the entire country. At the very least it is raing a lot in Gunma. So the bike ride is a lot wetter than it should be. But I do' even mind the rain and the getting wet. Of course it would be nice if I didn't have to deal with a bookbag and things like that, but a change of clothes is essential. Even if it wasn't raining I sweat enough during the ride to require fresh clothes. Also biking in shirt and tie would be a bit annoying. If I didn't have stuff, I wouldn't even bother with a rain jacket. It gets hot and damp and the lining clings. Without I would be wet but cool, refreshed. Also since the first thing I do when I arrive at Umeda is change clothes, the being wet doesn't reallt remain an issue.

But what gets me is my luck. During the ride to it started to pour. Buckets of rain came down. I was soaked, my shoes are still sogged. Fortuanatly (a word I can never remember how to spell correctly *sigh*) the magic of a rain jacket combined with a bookbag that claims to be rain resistant means my stuff remains dry. So, the rain is falling and I'm soaking wet. So what happens? When I am about five minutes from my school the rain stops. Not clear skies, but no falling water. My first class isn't until fourth period, so I might have been able to call and say I would be in later, but since there was no gurantee when it would rain (it wasn't when I left my apartment, it had just stopped) I went ahead and chanced it. I also have the sinking feeling that it will rain on my way back home, just to stop when I get there.

It also deserves a mention that due to all the rain I can't wash clothes because the clothes I have hanging up can't dry.

Inclement Weather

2005-09-06T11:55:00.000+09:00

Competition is everywhere. Every place has to have the biggest and best, or at least say that they do. And this can be really bothersome.

As everyone knows, Katrina was huge. I haven't heard the official word, but many people are saying it is the worst hurricane to ever hit mainland America and that it could also be the greatest disaster to ever occur in America. If nothing it is a tragedy of emmense proportions. This week a typhoon is coming/has come to Japan. It is a monster of a typhoon, and it is named Nabi. Of course living in Gunma means that we'll just get some bad rain, and yesterday we did. Well, maybe not BAD rain, but rain for all day long.

And now I'll get to my point. Several people want to compare Katrina and Nabi. Okay, that's natural. People like to play whose is bigger. Always have and always will. What can get a little annoying is the certainty that people have that Nabi is more powerful. The reason this is annoying is that it isn't, at least not according to the readouts I've looked at. (Mostly found here: http://www.abcasiapacific.com/news/stories_to/1451925.htm and here http://www.abcasiapacific.com/news/stories_to/1452540.htm) People ask if I think Nabi is worse than Katrina. I say how Nabi is a powerful storm but not as strong as Katrina. They argue, I give the info I know, they argue more. With one person I told them the differences in wind speed (Katrina hit with winds at 225 km/h, Nabi had winds of 180 km/h but it weakened down to a class 4 before striking) they responded with Nabi's wind speed in m/s. I have no idea what 225km/h is in m/s, and I told them this. Apparently that meant they had trumped me. It didn't feel worth explaining how if Katrina is more powerful in km/h then it would also be more powerful in m/s.

I don't blame people for their stubbornness on the issue. After all, from what I've heard they are only repeating what they've heard on the news. I can't vouch for this firsthand, but enough people have told me that the news claimed Nabi beats Katrina that i don't doubt it to be true. This just goes to show that the Japanese news is apparently as trustworthy as the American news on certain topics.

Speaking of which, is it just me or is there a lack of press on the fact that while the worst hurrican in America was head to town, the President did nothing. I guess we should be glad he came back from vacation early. 2 days early. 2 days after the hurricane. Bless him and his do nothing attitude. Good thing he sent the national guard to Iraq where they can guard the nation. If someone knows of sites saying that he has yet again failed at his job, please tell me.

I've got to srite a listening assignment now. Maybe next time I'll update about me, instead of just complaing about little things and the idiot we have for a president.

ADDED: I just got pointed towards the Clinton interview where he says that the Fedral Gov't failed the people. (I whole-heartedly agree.) The article also said there were many vocal critics, but so far the only cries that have reached me have been Bill's and the mayor of New Orleans. Oh, yeah and apparently Papa Bush doesn't think his son did a lousy job. Whoopty-woo for him.

Me again

2005-08-29T16:57:00.000+09:00

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I really am bad about this whole updating thing. But I'll get better. All I need is love and support. And maybe a pie.

So recent changes in my life: not too much. Mostly I'm doing the same thing I've been doing for a while. Still teaching, still trying t o fumble with learning Japanese. School is currently in summer vacation, but Thursday is the first day of the new term. Looking forward to things getting started. Feeling a bit stationary recently, mostly due to not having anything to do at work for the last few weeks. i've been trying to go to my schools when I can, but they only need me occasionally. Most of the kids are so busy with clubs and other things that they don't need tutoring.

The biggest change in my life is that Brian and Christy have returned to America. It really hasn't sunk in yet that their gone. It's like they're on vacation. They did so much to make my transition into this country so easy. I was able to do so many things with them that probably wouldn't have been possible without. I guess I could look on the only positive side which is that now I'll have to force myself to get out and meet more people. Kind of a crappy positive side because I was always meeting new people thru Brian and Christy, but hey, gotta give it a silver lining somehow. I guess the only other positive side is that know I feel added pressure to update. They know where I live.

Dang Blogger

2005-05-01T23:12:00.000+09:00

I just got an email from my mom telling me the last post didn't make sense. Turns out that somewhere in between writing my update and posting it, about two paragraghs disappeared. But I rewrote them and now, hopefully, the story makes sense.

I just got back from bowling with Kaz, Mari, and Mari's sister Nozomi. One thing that needs to be said is that Mari's family has some great genes. All of the women in it are beautiful. They're also sweet, smart and funny. any day now they will take over the world, but I'm okay with that to be honest.

Before bowling they cooked dinner, and I got to eat it. I tried to help, but my efforts were in vain. I did manage to do the dishes, though so I felt like I contributed. I did have to physically push Nozomi out of the way to do them, however.

Kaz is working on his Master's Degree in an Engineering field that I can't remember. He also occasionally works for a race circuit. I don't know exactly what his job is, but I know it is more involved than selling popcorn or soda. He had this interesting little anecdote: This past weekend many of the drivers and crews were from the south. Their being from the south means that they, of course, used "Ya'll." Turns out that most of the other Japanese people there, who also spoke English, had little idea what "ya'll" meant. Since Kaz knows me, and has been taking one of my classes since October, he understood.

Not that this makes me a great teacher or anything, but I liked knowing that I made a difference, no matter how slight.

Explosion (of a type)

2005-05-01T10:57:00.000+09:00

This happened on Tuesday.

Brian and I rode our bicycles to the kyudojo seeing as how recently the weather has turned very pretty (and hopefully it will stay this way for a while.) However, my dogi (think practice uniform shirt) was in my car. It needs a good washing.

I was going to just wear my undershirt, but common sense said don't wear something that is probably full of sweat from the long ride. So, over it I wore the shirt that I went to work in. That day I was running a little behind so it was one of my hawaiians, a little bright for practice but since it is with the high school students no worries.

*I swear I wrote this paragragh before. It is a pretty important part of the story*
So I have on my hawaiian shirt, and all the other stuff I need to shoot. But I have forgotten about the pen that is in my breast pocket. As I release the bow string there is a loud twang as it strikes the pin. Out of the corner of my eye I see the pen fly into the grass. At first I think that is all that happened, but it turns out that the bowstring had enough force to shatter the pen and send ink everywhere. All over me, the kyudojo, everywhere.

My left arm was covered in ink. Somehow it had made it up to my armpit. I had ink on the left side of my face, and all over my pants. This really wasn't so bad, even if a little embarassing. The bad part was, of cource, that ink had also gotten all over the wooden floors, and, on Brian, who was behind me. I spent the next half hour using rags and trying to sop up as much ink as I could. I was mostly successful even though there is a shadow on the ground now. An Brian's dogi now has ink stains. (I'm replacing that by the way. You'll probably read this, so it's to let you know.)

I think the kids found it funny. Especially those we usually joke around with. One of the girls, Tomomi, who is a lot of fun teased me about it. While I'm on my hands and knees scrubbing the florr, she goes into the yard and gets the remenants of my pen, and brings it to me. With a big grin, holding the shattered pen, she tells me she has a present for me, and asks if I still need the pen. And she says this like five times to make sure I get that she's joshing me.

The good thing is that I tell Sunaga-sensei, the teacher in charge of the Jutoko High School team, and he is okay. Tell's me not to worry about it, and that it's no problem. Which help put me at ease because I felt (and still do, to be honest) like a total heel.

Scary that it's Scary

2005-04-30T09:14:00.000+09:00

I woke up bright and early this morning. Hell, I've been up about an hour now, and I still consider it bright and early. In a way it felt like sleeping in. After all, it's only a few days a week that I get to lounge in bed until 8:30. Normally, this would be scary, considering geting up at 8:30 as lounging. But this morning there was something that filled me with some genuine apprehension.

For some reason, for about he first half hour, my cell phone was not working. It was off, wouldn't turn on, so respnose, wouldn't charge, nothing. And this freaked me out. Every single number I have is in this phone. If it dies, then half the people I know vanish. For some I have computer email addresses, but most I don't. Also, I have no idea were the nearest AU (the cell phone company) store is. I think there is way nearby but don't really know. I was having all these images of just biking around, trying to find the place, and if I found it trying to explain. I wouls sound like a little kid. "It's broken. Last night it worked. This morning it's broken. I don't understand." Except maybe not that descriptive.

Also, tonight some new friends are going to come over for dinner. But, if they couldn't reach me, maybe the plans would change and yada yada yada. Basically my reliance on the cell phone just slapped me in the face. It hurt.

In other news, yesterday, and three days next week are holidays. Of course they are the middle three days, so I have work Monday and Tuesday. It would be the perfect time for a long vacation, but there are things I need to do at the schools. Plus, seeing as how I don't have any big traveling plans, it seemed wasteful to take holiday days just because I could.

It's early and I haven't eaten breakfast. I'll right more later.

Yes, I know that it is cheating if my three updates are all posted in a two day period. But hey, very few things of interest has happened this week. Really only two. And I'm not counting the cell phone thing because that really is only interesting to me.

Free Sample

2005-04-24T19:05:00.000+09:00

A very strange thing just happened. Well not strange actually, just kind of funny. I was shopping for groceries, and was given a free can of beer. A woman in the store was pacing out free beer. Just a promotional giveaway. I find that interesting enough to mention.

My weekend hasn't been all that exciting. Last night I did go out with some new friends to eat sushi and then go bowling. I am no longer utter crap at bowling, having bowled two successive games scoring over 110. Last time I went I didn't get above 75.

However one of the hazards of meeting new people is you can never quite be sure if they want to hang out with you, or with your English. We had a good time and have a night scheduled for next week. So, I guess maybe I'll know more then.

In other news, while I was eating sushi and bowling, Brian, Alsion, and Christy were being stood up by the family we met at Viking. Guess what happens at Viking is meant to stay at Viking.

Taste of Home

2005-04-21T10:53:00.000+09:00

This past Saturday I had a hamburger party for my Adult English class. It turns out that none of them have ever really had good old-fashioned American hamburgers. Japan has McDonalds, and recently a Wendy's has opened in Tokyo, and a few other places like that, but those aren't real burgers. Think of h0w little the average fast food burger tastes like a home made burger, and then keep in mind that here the fastfood is the Japanese version of American fast food. (On a little side note, we have a KFC here in Kiryu. The cole slaw is surprisingly authentic.)

I went out and bought over four kilos of meat, yellow mustard (a rarity), and I even found a jar of Hellman's Mayonaise. On Saturday the ten of us met at a local grocery store to do some shopping. We bought fixings, and chips, and drinks, and all the little things you need to have way too much food. One thing we didn't buy was bread. Kaz decided that since real hamburgers were hard to come by, he wanted the ultimate experience, and thus started the bun hunt. Hamnurger buns are one of many things that I have taken for granted. The ease I could purchase before has gone unnoticed. So unnoticed that ut didn't even occur to me that buns would be so rare.

Kaz and one of his friend went to the local Fressay, a grocery store that has a suprising selection of foreign foods. (It's were I hgot the mustard and mayo.) No buns. Then they went to the Ota mall, which is about an hour roundtip. No buns. By this point the bun lust had taken over the class. Not in an angry violent zombie way, but in the "that would be really nice" way. So, at 4:00, when the original plan called for eating around 3:00, a local bakery was called and an order was placed for 22 buns. This would take two hours.

I am not griping. I thought is was really cute, and the fresh baked buns were absolutely wonderful, so it definetly payed off. But what were we going to do while waiting? Some of the guys just hung out in the living room and talked, but almost everyone, in one way or another helped prepare the food. Earlier, I doctored the meat, but hadn't made the patties yet. When I started, people got really interested. Especially Mari.

Mari is 19, and recently moved to Tokyo for college. Since she has long been a member of our class, we made sure the party would be at a time she could come to. She is a beautiful, intelligent girl, and she and Kaz make an adorable couple. And she wanted to make hamburgers. After going over the basics of making a patty, it was time to add more meat to the mixture. I showed them about mixing the meat with eggs, black pepper, and beer and then told Mari to mix it together. There is just something amusing about watching people stick there hands wrist deep into a pot of raw meat for the first time. Once eveything was mixed, Mari had a question, "Can I make heart or star shaped pattied?" How could I say no.

Then there was Azuki, my cat. At first she was a little weirded out by so many people, and then she realized the poqwer she has over most Japanese women. It is the ability to entrance them, and make them dote affection upon her. It is a power I wish I shared. For about 7 hours Azuki was petted, teased, played with, and loved. Michiko, a 30 year old professor at Gunma University, could barely take her eyes off Azuki. Again: adorable. Azuki has been so exhausted from all the attention I think she only really woke up Tuesday.

At about six the hamburgers were served, and everyone seemed to enjoy them. One of the guys managed to eat four. After a few hours of eating and talking it was time for most people go home. A few stayed to watch The Iron Giant, which I recently bought for about 10 bucks. And since it was the Japanese DVD it had Japanese subtitles. Iron Giant is a great movie. It got really obverlooked because it wasn't made by Disney, and there was no singing. But it was directed by the same guy who directed The Incredibles. He also wrote both stories. Dasically I'm saying if you haven't seen this movie, go rent it, watch it love. It'll definitely make you laugh, it'll probably make you cry. If you don't trusdt me, trust Mari, who after the movie looked at me and said, with tears in her eyes, "That was a beautiful story."

One last note, there were 12 extra hamburgers. I had the last one for breakfast this morning. It is the end of an era.

Drunken Viking Women

2005-04-18T13:27:00.000+09:00

Last Thursday, at least I'm pretty sure it was Thursday, Brian, Alison and I had an adventure. We didn't set out to find adventure, but as usually happens it found us.

After Kyudo, Brian an I decided we should go to the local Viking restaurant. This is not European style food by the way, just the name of all you can eat places. Apparently along with the raping and pillaging Vikings are known for their buffets and plentiful amounts of Yakiniku. (grilled meat) There is also a 90 minute time limit, because Vikings have places to be and are good at being punctual.

At the place there is a family of three hwose daughter is wearing the blue jumpsuit of a junior high student, and we assume that this is one of the local Kiryu kids. Her and her mom act like they know us, and since we've visited all the Kiryu schools, its a safe guess that she does. Plus mopst people would be to shy to wave and stare and smile constantly, right? And even if that weren't true, a stranger wouldn't blue kisses across a restaurant, right? Wrong. We didn't know these people from Adam.

The mom and daughter, who was twelve, came over and sat with us. Turns out they're from Azuma, so there is no way we've met before. They just want to talk, and it's obvious the mama has done a little drinking, so we say fine, have a seat. They're interested in us, and what we do, and why we're in Japan. These are all the usual questions we get, and after they've hung out at our table for about 10 minutes we're invited to theirs so we can meet the Dad.

And we do. Dad is a real laid back guy, while mama is in a world of her own right now. However, own world or not, she has taken a liking to all things Alison. She's telling her husband that Alison is really pretty, and has a nice body. She uses the words "nice body" a lot and emphatically. Then she has Alison stand up, and gets her to do the slow turn around so everyone can appreciate the glory that is Alison's rump. We're all told how rare a butt like that is in Japan and that it is fantastic. Mama gets Alison to stand up and spin at least two more times. Papa is just laid back about, doesn't really seem bothered or embarassed, the 12year-old just explains "mom's drunk." No shame, nothing, just stationg a fact the same way we would talk about the weather. Meanwhile we are about to die from laughter and Alison is visibly blushing. Alison is black so saying that she is visibly blushing actually means something. It's not an everyday ocurence.

I want to give a little more info on the girl, cause she was just cool. Really super friendly and outgoing. She didn't seem shy or embarassed by Mama at all, which might say something about Mama's drinking. She's been playing volleyball for about 6 years, and has the arms to go with it. A strong girl is what I'm saying. But she was really eager to talk, and gave off the impression of a really good student, so we all took a liking to her.

Papa just had the attitude of a guy who was used to this. We think that he is a very patient man, who knows how to go with the flow. The kind of guy you can easily see being called pops and smoking a pipe, even though he's only in his mid-forties.

They give us their number and ask to us to call. Mama of course really wants to hear from Alison. By now our time is up, we all check out at the same time, and say our goodbyes. In the car we discuss whether or not we should actually call them. They never gave off the creepy vibe and both the daughter and Papa seemed really cool. Mama was kinda kooky, but since her interest was mostly with Alison, Brian and I are ok with it. Before we loose our nerve, we call and make plans to make plans for us all to go to karaoke together. We figure the environment will be safe. They can bring the daughter, and if things get weird we can easily avoid them from then on out.

Whether or not this karaoke meeting will happen, who knows? But the first meeting sure was entertaining.

Changing of the Guard

2005-04-13T12:06:00.000+09:00

We are in a new school year and classes are in full swing. There are 53 new students at Hisgashi (31 at Umeda, but I haven't been there yet) and all of them are wide-eyed and maybe a little spooked. They seem like good kids, and hopefully they'll get used to me soon. I think right now I'm just the big foreign guy who jabbers English at them in the halls. But then again I've only been to one of their classes so they don't know me yet, so...

One of the things that the new year ha brought is a change of coworkers. If I have it right teachers can only work at a school for 8 years, and then they must change. Also, sometimes they request a change, and sometimes they are just moved. It's kind of a crap shoot. Sometimes good teachers are replaced with bad ones, sometimes the opposite happens. Sometimes teachers get strange new job. One of my friends, Naoko, last year was changed from an English teacher to teaching special needs classes. There doesn't seem to be much rhyme or reason to the changes, they just happen.

That being said, a new to expect at least one change of English teachers. Koike-sensei, who taught at Higashi, was accepted into a program which sent her to Bangkok to teach in a Japanese school. I new this was happening and am very excited for her. Whe was a great teacher and I'm sure she is doing very well. Of course, I was worried for me. Koike-sensei was the one who let me know what was going on here, and I was worried that I would now be adrift. I am no loner worried.

The new teacher, Mrs. Ishihara, so far has been nothing but fantstic. This is her first year back after taking some time of to raise her children (the youngest is 2 now) so she is full of energy, and ready to go. Also, she has spent a lot of time talking to me about classes and students, and really seems to want to use me as much as possible in class. This excites me. I like having full days at work, and it seems this will be the case. Since classes have started I've been invited to every English class she has taught, and been used in all of them. I know it sounds a little odd to be excited over a teacher who wants me to do my job, but feeling useful is a wonderful thing.

It also helps that of the new teachers here, must of them are eager to talk and easy to apporach. After spending almost 9 months watching teachers look too busy, I think I'll finally be able to get comfortable in the staffroom.

Another major change is that our ALT supervisor is also a new person. Our beloved Imaizumi-sensei is now doing what he loves best, teaching in schools. Our new supervisor seems like a really good guy to, a Iizumi-sensei. I think he'll do a very good job. Expecially since on his first day he told us "This is my first day. I don't know what I'm supposed to be doing." Later we found out the he was told of his new position not wuite 2 weeks before changing jobs, and that his job training consisted of "You're the new ALT supervisor. Have fun." Basically.

One more thing, the gauntlet has been thrown down. Told Beth, my excellent good friend who loves soup and socks, that I intended to make regular updates here. She called me out by saying "I don't think your man enough to update regularly." It is an obvious ploy, and I'm going to fall right for it. She knows my weaknesses and how to use them against me for her advantage. So, I'll make a public claim that I will update this baby three times a week. No set schedule or anything. Sometimes my life cvan be pretty boring. It's true. So, if you check back here and want to know why an update is about nothing in particular, or what I had for dinner, blame Beth. I know I will.

St. Patty's, one month after...

2005-04-12T09:24:00.000+09:00

On March 12th, we decided to have a little party in honor of St. Patrick and all the good that he has done for the world. Like green beer, and shamrocks on springs theat you wear like antennae. I shouldn't really say "we", becuse it was more like Brian, Christy, and Alison decided, I was just along for the ride and the party. And thanks to the special packages taht came from all our folks to really turn the place faux Irish. Of course, I don't want to toot the horn of my folks or nothing, but their box helped out a lot. But we are from Savannah, and starting in January you can by St. Pat's decorations on every corner.

The party was a blast. It started around three, early enough so that the folks who came in from Tokyo could party for a while and catch the last train. It also ended around three, but more like four or five. Over 13 hours of partying is good for the soul. We introduced the idea of getting pinched if you aren't wearing green (of course we made sure to have several green bead necklaces to offer as protection) and we all could faithfully recite the history of such a noble holiday ("I think it's just an excuse to drink and pretend your Irich really.") Why we even had one authentic Irish person in attendance. That would be our friend Paul, who explained the holiday to me like this, "Really it wasn't that big a deal in Ireland or anything. It was more popular in America and other places. Then we found out about it, nad just kinda sucked it up as another excuse to have a party." This is paraphrased of course.

After being up to shenanigans in Brian and Christy's house for about 8 hours (they ar still sweeping up green glitter by the way) we decided it was time to Karaoke. Three hours, some random snuggles and a crying girl in the bathroom later, it was time to call the evening an end. Paul, his girlfriend Mika, and I returned to my place and crashed. I was a wonderful host making sure to grunt at them where the towels were before collapsing in bed.

The next morning, or the next noon at least, we followed up our party by meeting at Jomuna, the local Indian reastaurant, for some piping hot curry. Some how it was fitting. And of course delicious.

My Belated Graduation Post

2005-04-11T10:57:00.000+09:00

So, I'm about three weeks behind. I've been really slack about posting, but hopefully that is something I can change. I know I have my faults, but accepting this is the first step to recovery. Hopefully, if I pledge myself anew, than regular postings here can be achieved. Man, now that I think about it the graduation was over a month ago. Jeez I'm slack. But here we go.

First, I think it needs to be said, that I never got too close with the Higashi 3rd year students. At least not as a whole. There were certainly more than a few of them that were positively great, and were a joy to teach and talk with. But there were more who were just kind of... sucky. There were a lot of princesses who acted like English and anything that dealt with English was beneath them. I fell into this category. Also there were many boys who, while fun outgoing boys, the moment they heard an English word, they would become deer in headlights and needed to escape before someone noticed. It was a shame, but it ws true. I tried to talk to the ones who would let me, and the others, well... If I have to choose between spending my time with the ones who will talk with me and the ones who won't, it isn't a hard decision.

This being the case I didn't really expect the graduation ceremony to get to me that much. I like to consider myself full of iron, piss, and vinegar. Unfortunately, I am more likely full of marshmellow cream. I'll explain why. The day before graduation, at a time when almost all of the teachers were in the staff room, in marched one of the 3rd year classes. Each student had a a potted flower plant, which was to be given to a teacher. The head of the class then read an announcement that thanked the teachers for teaching them. I'm sure it was full of tenderness and respect. I hard a hardtime understanding it, but even I was a little touched. Then came the flowers, and with the flowers came a note. It was very sweet, written in simple English, even now when I read over it it gets me misty eyed. It's nothing too profound, but it just touches me. And it compliments my neckties, which I wear on an almost daily basis, and their loud bizarre patterns have earned me compliments from several people.

The next day was the actuall graduation, whcih took place in the school gym. The 3rd Years were in the fron center. The other students were behind them. On the flanks of the 3rd years were the teachers and the PTA. Beside the other students were the parents. Very early in the ceremony the diplomas were handed out. This procedure is almost the same as in America, but with a few small differences. There was an almost individual procession to the top of the stairs at the stage. Things were timed out so only about 4 students were standing at a time., and there were only two students on the stage at a time. One would recieve their diploma while the waiting students name was called out. This name calling is very emotional. A student will climd the stairs, face the audience and wait. Once their names are called out they are supposed to respond "Hai," and go receive there diploma as the next student climbs the stairs.

What makes this so powerful is the tears. During the ceremony almost every student is crying. This is the last year they will have together. After junior high they no longer will attend the neighborhood schools. And since junior high is an end to compulsory education, some students won't go to any high school. Must of them have ben together since pre-school, so I'm sure some very stong bonds have been formed, but do to thier busy schedule it is unlikely that they will be together en masse again. Thus the tears. From where I sat I could watch the tears roll ff their faces and hit the ground. Some of the girls were positively sobbing, and it is very hard to watch someone you know cry so unabashedly and not feel for them. Plus all this colors their "Hai." Some of the boys bellow it out doing their best not to let their voices crack. With some of the girls their "hai" is nothing more than a choked sob. And all the while music from the 3rd year chorus festival is being played.

After the diplomas are handed out things die down for a little bit. The attention is no longer directly on the students, but pushed onto those important idividuals who will wish the students well. This is one of the few things I didn't like. I don't see why in graduations (American as well) anyone thinks it's a good idea to get people speaking who are in no way connected to the students. Especially if these people are bad speakers or more interested in promoting themselves or their organization (if anyone reading this was at the UGA 2004 summer graduation, this is a perfect example of what I'm talking about.) After about an hour of speaches, some of which it was obvious even to me had little to do with the students, the emotional level picked back up. The 3rd years went to the front of the gym to sing the school song and one of their chorus songs for the last time. The crying resumed for this. Faces twisted, and voices broke. I don't know a way to accurately describe the sound of hearing 60 students singing while their hearts break.

After the the students leave the gymnasium by rows. As the exit they are presented with a gift by their homeroom teachers, and the younger students play on their recorders. A lone recorder can be scoffed at, but when you have over 100 playing a sad song the effect is truly powerful, haunting and ethereal. By this point there was scarcely a dry eye among teachers of students. Myself incuded.

The 3rd years return to their classroom for a final goodbye among themselves. During this time the entire school lines up along the main outer staircase to wish the 3rd years well as they leave. During this final bit of ceremony letters are exchanged, and the 3rd years give out parting gifts. The gifts are small but personal, the adrnments and stuffed animal the kept on their bookbags, their nametags, and other school items like that. The boys will take buttons off their jacket and shirt and give this out as a sign of friendship. I've been told that the collar button is rarely given away because it is a gift between boyfriend and girlfriend, or a least a sign of that kind of affection.

The next week, school continues but without the 3rd years. It is a much quiter place. I visited the rooms. They had cleaned everything out of their rooms leaving it bare. There was no sign of the students which had inhabited these classrooms. In both schools, out of four classes only one had left a token. It was a banner hung over the classroom declaring That they were the 3rd year students who had left. The entire class had signed their names, and left handprints in paint.

Various ramblings

2005-03-10T11:55:00.000+09:00

I went to Tokyo the other day. Just a fun little trip into the city to buy some shoes and meet some people. And eat mexican food. Mexican food is really rare in Japan. The only place I know of if in Shinjuku and is fairly similar to Ameri-mex. So nothing like Agua Linda. Those of you who can go there and eat a burrito foe me. And some cheese dip. Actually especially cheese dip, since there is none here.

But it was snowing when I left Kiryu. Which is strange for me. I mean its March. I didn't even think snow was possible in March. Unfortunately, the ground wasn't cold enough for any of the snow to stick, so no snowball fights or anything.

Trying to buy shoes is always a ...fun... experience. In Japan shoes are measured by centimeters, so my shoe size (maybe an 11 or 12 in the US) is a 30 here. The average store carries men's shoes up to around 27. I spent about an hour walking into various shops in Ueno in Tokyo, asking beople if they had shoes my size, and then being told no. Some places where really helpful, suggesting other shops and things like that. Some places were just rude, dropping any form of polite language, not being very helpful. In one store I asked a clerk if they had shoes my size. He briskly told me to choose a shoe and he'd check. I know this may seem reasonable, but keep in mind my feet are big here. It's probably like having a size 15 or something. Most places tend to know if they go that high, or which brands are more likely. But I look around a little, I see a few shoes I'd like to check on, then I ask another clerk. He politely tells me that none of the shoes on this floor will be in my size. If only I'd known from the beginning. *sigh*

The shop I bought shoes at was great though. (ABC shoes in Ueno, a quick plug/advice) They checked the backroom so many times for me. A few times they just did a general search of a brand and told me what shoes where in my size (usually only a few styles.) I ended up buying two pairs.

Hmmm, trying to think of something interesting I can add, which could make this update worthwhile. I mean, right now my days feel pretty ordinary. I teach when I can, hang out with people when I can. There are some things that happen which are really fun, some that aren't.

One thing that might be interesting is I'm really starting to wonder how my vice-priciple feels about foreigners. I'Ve been noticing little things, like he stares at me. I don't know if this is a "I wan't to talk, but can't" stare or a "dirty foreigner" kinda stare. He's an older guy, maybe in his late fifties or so. He shuffles around and has the attitude of crabby gym teacher. Also, his language is very guttural, and I think maybe especially so when he talks to me (which is one of the reasons I generally have very little idea what he is saying.) Now, especially language-wise, there is very much a hierarchy in Japan. He is higher up the totem pole than I am, so he gets to speak rougher to me. But I'm pretty sure the language he uses with me is about the same he uses with the students, not the other teachers. Of course, then again I could be wrong. OR he could be speaking like that because it will help me understand. All I know is most of our interactions feel unpleasant.

To go in a completely different direction, this past weekend was the Kiryu International Food Festival. Homemade foods from all over the world! Lots of fun! A live band that played music closely resembling ska! Needless to say I had an awesome time. After that party ended about 17 of us then went out to have some Karaoke fun. Lot's of singing and drinking, a good time had by one and all.

Well, this has been the written equivalent of rambling. I'm really bored at work. I wish I had a class to teach.

A Hit With the Ladies.... kinda...

2005-03-06T11:41:00.000+09:00

A little while ago I went with Brian and Christy to have some sushi for dinner. First kaiten-sushi places are pretty cool. They're the ones where the sushi goes around a counter on a conveyer belt. The plates are color-coded by price, and if you want something you just grab it. You can also order sushi and a few other things just off the menu. Like I said, pretty neat.

Back to the story: Also at the sushiya is one of Brian's students and his family, friends, grandmother. Well, the grandmother is tickled that Brian is there and wants to buy us drinks, and ice-cream. A real sweet old lady, who as also been drinking maybe a wee-bit too much. We find this out when Brian goes to thank her, and she starts patting him on the back. and then her hand starts going lower and she grabs his ass. A few times. After saying thanks again he returns to our table and we giggle about it.

Later both are groups are checking out at the same time, and it is now my turn to be introduced to the grandmother, and my tunr to grabbed on the butt. Also she finds out I work in Umeda, which is the distant part of Kiryu. She happens to live in Umeda and tells me to come on by, don't waste the oppurtunity. The family of course is a litle bit embarassed. Apologizes, confirms our belief thatshe has been drinking, and even scolds her a little for playing all the grabass. We just find it amusing, and Brian is looking forward to the next day at school when he can tease the student about his granny.

Sorry it took so long, mom

2005-02-25T13:14:00.000+09:00

A long silence may require a long blog as the last two weeks have been fairly eventful. So bear with me and I’ll see if I can make this entertaining.

First off, I went ice fishing with a group of friends on Friday the 12th. We left Kiryu bright and early (haha) at about 9:30 and took of for Mt. Haruna. At the top of Mt. Haruna is Lake Haruna, whee we could rent all they basic supplies we needed to look like people who knew what they were doing. Out of the eight of us that went only one person, my friend Kaz, had ever gone ice fishing before. Kaz became our resident expert and was consulted about every five minutes for the first hour about just about everything we did. (“Is this a good spot to make our hole?” “Should the ice be making that sound?” “Where do baby birds go when they die?”) I’ll cut the suspense by telling you that we didn’t catch anything. We were out on the frozen lake, huddled around coffee-can sized fire buckets eating tuna fish sandwiches, drinking beer, chu-highs, and not catching a single fish. But it was great.

At about 3:00-3:30, we decided we had had enough of the ice-fishing magic for one day and trekked back to Kiryu where we made Nabe (a type of one-pot stew/soup. Often the broth for it is miso or soy sauce based. Sometimes it is flavored with kim chi sauce. Shitake mushrooms, negi onions, Chinese cabbage, tofu, and sometimes various meats are added. Delicious I tell you.) and watched Day of the Dead and South Park: The Movie. So, a very traditional Japanese evening to say the least.

The next day I really didn’t do that much. Went to the Nagasakiya (the local department/grocery store) with Brian and Christy. The cool thing was that I actually saw several of my students there. Seeing students in public is a tricky thing. Sometimes they are overjoyed at the sight of a beloved ALT. Othertimes, they are confused that a teacher exists anywhere outside of the school, and yes, occasionally the students want to run away and hide. I’ve had all three reactions. But on this Sunday the first student I ran into was Seika, who is just cute as a little button. She is one of my Higashi 2nd years, which means I think she is great. And when she saw me, her face lit up, she flitted over to me and said hello. I felt loved and it was great. The good times kept rolling as I saw three other students and two seemed equally as glad to see me. (The other one fell under the confused category.)

The highlight of the next week (Feb. 13-19) was kyudo practice. I did pretty well for myself, which is kinda rare. Oh, I finally got the distance from where we shot, to the target (which is about the size of a steering wheel): 28 meters. Out of those three days I did pretty good. One day I even managed to make one out of two, although that was the day I only shot 15 arrows. The sad part was on Thursday my bowstring broke, I haven’t been able to practice since, and my back is killing me. This past Sunday I went to the Kyudo store in Maebashi and bought a five pack of strings, and yesterday went out to the Kyodojo to attach the string. There are a few problems (I might have bought the wrong size string, and none of the kids or teachers were there to help) but I think I did a satisfactory job. Brian helped.

One thing that has been frustrating lately is how few classes I’ve had the last three weeks. Before that I had about 11-15 a week. Which is good, great, and all points in between. For the last few weeks I’ve had between 5-9 classes; which sucks. First off with so little to do, I have way too much free time. I try and read or use the computer, but after a while I feel guilty, because it feels like everyone knows that I am doing nothing. I try to help the teachers when I can, but there is genuinely little for me to do. I think the reason may because the semester/school year official ends on March 11th. Now we’ve hit that end of year stretch where there are lots of tests and preparations to be made for the end of term. So, using the ALT is pretty far back on most people’s minds. I’m trying not to take offense from it, I just wish I had an assurance that people understood that the reason I’m doing so little nowadays, is because there is very little I have to do.

I’ll leave you with one cool thing though: This Thursday I got to have an English radio broadcast at Higashi, during lunchtime. I had twenty minutes to play music, talk over the loudspeakers, and feel cool. I’ve even had some compliments from the students about my choice of music. (But they were from the Seika and other 2nd year students who love me, so I’m not letting it go to my head. I have a feeling I could play John Tesh or something equally as lame and those students might tell me they liked it.)

Tonight I will attend a birthday party for one of my friends, Jenny, in Maebashi. Much fun is planed hopefully the weather won’t be too bad. Oh yeah, it’s snowed a few times here in Kiryu over the past few weeks. But it hasn’t stuck for more than an afternoon. Apparently it snowed late last night, because when I went to school there was still some on the ground. But, it is lunch time now, and no sign of snow lingers.

2 Posts in 1 Day! How Rare!

2005-02-07T14:44:00.000+09:00

I am fresh from a fun class. Just got finished with a 1st year English class here at Higashi. Today was focused on speaking. First we practiced the new lesson in the book, that took only a few minutes. After that the students were to get into pairs and memorize the little dialouges that are on almost every fourth page. (Most of them are pretty simple, but they get longer in the latter part of the book.) Once a pair had a dialouge memorzied they would go read it for either myself or Hoshino-sensei, and then we would sign off in their file that they read that page. The kids would get a little into it. I think maybe if they get so many signatures then something good happens, I'm not really sure. Most of the kids flocked towards Hoshino-sensei, but about five pairs used me almost exclusively. And these kids are so cute. Sometimes they got so excited after finishing a dialouge they would hop up and down and cheer. Or while they were talking they'd wave their hands in time with what they were saying. Plus I think one of the girls, Satoko, has a little crush on me. It's darling. But I've only had on full class and the first ten-minutes of another class today. The day just feels like it is dragging on. Especially because the last two weeks have been so full of classes and this week seems to be pretty light. Thursday there is a conference I have to go to, and Friday is a holiday. Okay, the joy of class has no run into boredom of nothing to do. I'm going to go read Get Fuzzy.

A Day at the Movies

2005-02-07T11:29:00.000+09:00

Howdy boys and girls! It's time for another wacky round of "How was the weekend?" Are you ready to play? Ok, let's go!

Friday was a good evening. Some friends and I went over to Isesaki, which is about 40 minutes away, to have dinner. There is a great Peruvian restuarant there that we frequent. The only thing I've ever ordered is the half chicken. It is a half rotisserie style chicken that comes with a green salad and french fries. La Bodeguita is one of the few places in this area we can get food like this, and it is absolutely delicious. Plus it comes with flavoring stuff. It's not quite a sauce, but more of a mixture of oil, garlic, and cilantro. Maybe some other things, but I don't really know. That stuff too is wonderful. The fries become little edible ships which transport its garlicy passengers to the iceberg of my mouth, at which point disaster strikes and the sink into the depths of my stomach. Mmm, good. (this food update dedicated to Meg.)

Saturday I really did a whole lot of nothing. Played with my cat. Wrote some emails. Napped under the kotatsu. Watched sopme movies. Nothing really special. But I did get some laundry and dishes done, so I still felt a little productive.

Sunday was set aside for going to the movies with JC's (not John Calvin, but Jeff Crawford) adult English students. The plan was to go see Finding Neverland. I'm a big fan of Peter Pan (the book, not the crappy Disney cartoon. The most recent movie was pretty good. They actually stuck to ideas that were in the book, instead of Mary Martining Peter.) and of course think Johnny Depp does great work, so I was colored excited. We get there and they check the times and it turns out that FN isn't playing for another 5 hours. This irked me slightly. Mostly because I worked in a movie theater for over 3 years and am a firm beliver in knowing what time a movie starts before you go to the movies. Especially if watching a movie is the soul reason for living the house. I didn't show I was irked, but to be honest it was there. So, the task was upon us to pick a new movie. The selection was pretty limited. Ultimately people decided we should watch Phantom of the Opera.

I love the musical. I'm not going to lie. It was the first big production of anything I ever saw (thanks, mom). Also, I was in that phase that everyone goes thru where slighty goth stuff is cool. The musical holds a special place in my heart and most likely always will. That being said the movie was awful. I mean grind your teeth and wince bad. There were several (mostly slight) changes to the script that served the purpose of dumbing it down. It was full of unneeded exposition, that I guess was only there to make the movie more accesible to... idiots I guess. A good example is before Christine meets Raoul, there is a conversation held between Christine and her ballet friend Meg. The purpose of this conversation is to go over all the history between the two young sweethearts. The dialouge was also badly written. Another thing that bothered me is that there was a feeling that mabye the people making the movie didn't want it to be a musical. Why else would you have actors reciting lyrics over music, and try to pass it off as an actual conversation? So you have actors having to be serious and moody, and slightly full of themselves while using rhymed lines. Oh, yeah, and since it is to music these lines have to be said to that they accentuate the rhyme and make it sound evn hokeier. It was like watching really bad Shakespeare where all the performers thought they were doing really good Shakespeare. (ahh, memories of the UGA drama department...)

Let's see, what else was wrong... The direction and camera work were mind-blowingly boring. Most of the time People were stuck in the center of the screen, so it felt like there was no movement. Also, it was your standard establishing shot/shot/reverse shot. No interesting camera work. It felt like there was a lot of time spent on design and things like that and the cinematographer was given the job to make everything look as boring as possible. And he succeeded admirably. And for most of the movie the Phantom seemed like a bad Darkman ripoff. We were given many shots thick black gloves doing evil things. I expected him to have an evil snicker reminescent of the less clever Scooby-Doo villians. Also, in there musical there are many times where we are supposed to be surprised by the Phantom's presence; scences where we are supposed to go "he was there all along and heard everything! oh no!" In the movie, however, we were repeatedley shown him hiding and listening. One time he was hiding behind the backside of a horse. I found this very ironic.) All in all, the movie was crap. Christine did a decent job, as did Minnie Driver (although the direction was made to take was a little annoying, she did it well). It would've be nice to see what they could've done had the director not been a hack. Joel Schumacher I'm talkng to you. The world still hasn't forgiven you for poisoning Batman with your crap.

Although, that was the one redeeming value of that horrible movie: the Batman Begins trailer. Oh my goodness, I am so freaking happy I could dance. It looks awesome. Right now there is nothing but fanboy love coming from me towards that movie. I'm not going to gush. Just going to beam silently.

Now for more hate. After the Batman trailer, my buzz was killed though. I saw the Star Wars trailer. I felt like going fetal and crying. I have absolutely no hope for that movie. I want it to be good... but it won't be. Instead of a good movie we'll get more bad dialouge with wooden delivery. Nothing important will happen for most of the movie. And then probably things will happen to quick. Or maybe it will just be a lot of quick things happening badly since the last too movies were more about fart and poo jokes the plot and character development. But hey, looks like there will be another crappy Yoda fight. Maybe this time they'll take the time to make the fight stand up to more than one viewing. Ooh, ooh! Maybe we'll get really lucky and Yoda will fight Boba Fett! yeah! And then Fett could be the guy who puts Yoda on Dagohbah! That'd be great! Like Yoda could say "12 year olds I fear not." And lil'Boba could say something pithy like "Fighting Jedi is Wizard!" or maybe "Now THIS is bounty hunting!" Of course a simple "I just aced Mace, now it's your turn!" would suffice. The most important part I think would be after the fight lil'Boba says "That was for you Papa Jango!"

And that was todays message of lameness.

Snow, Six-year olds, and Stupidity (in that order)

2005-02-02T15:07:00.000+09:00

My Wednesday at school is pretty much over now. The last classes have started and I have very little else to do but sit in front of the computer and type. Which is probably something a few people wish I would do more often. I've really been lax lately about emails, and updates and other stuff like that. Guess I should get work on that.

This week I am at Umeda JHS. It's pretty cool because the last two days have had pretty heavy snow flurries. Enough to be fun to play in but not enough to really stick. The teachers here find it really amusing that I am absolutely thrilled to see snow. Dare I say they may even find it cute. Speaking of lots of snow, last Sunday Christy, Brian, Alison and I went up into the mountains for a drive, and ended up at Mt. Akagi. It is such and amazing place because from it, on clear days, you can pretty much the whole Kanto plain. But what really made it great is that this weekend it was covered in snow. And I mean lots. Plus in the center of Mt. Akagi there is not only a lake, which is now frozen, but there is a small island with a beautiful temple on it. We went traipsing around the island; Christy took pictures; and all in snow that was abou three feet deep. Most of it was packed down enough so we could easily walk on top of it, but every now and then we'd sink in up to our knees.

Yesterday I taught at an elementary school. Those kids are just way too cute. The lessons were just my standard self-introduction; nothing too special happened. But lunch time a lot of fun was had. I ate with 1st graders, and was grilled by the 6-7 year olds about whatever you can think of. Most questions I couldn't really understand, and the teacher who was there didn't speak much English. But I honestly think most of the kids were more interested in asking me questions than waiting for answers, so my lack of responses weren't so bad. And after the actual eating was when the fun began. I don't know if you would call it wrestling, or ticking, or just playing, but whatever it was it was me versus the army of cute children. We rolled around, and I picked them up, and they got tickled, and I got tackled. This went on for about half an hour. Half of it was after I tried to leave the class and about six of the kids followed me into the hallways not wanting the games to stop. Since the numbers were fewer, I was happy to oblige them. Even some of the third-graders who passed us by got in on the fun.

It's strange to think that some of these kids mnay grow older into the onjes who think that English is a waste of time, and wish that they didn't have to deal with ALTs who are always speaking to them in English instead of Japanese. Yeah, that's a conversation I just had with one of the students (one of my good kids served as an interpreter). Of course it was with one of the punk students, so I'm not going to take it to heart. Like I've said before, my Japanese is not so good, but I can sometimes manage. So, it was kind of funny to me to hear what Jun(the punk) was saying, and then hear Seiji's explanation. Here is an example:
Jun:I don't like this guy(me), but since he can't understand Japanese I can say anything. This guy needs to study more Japanese.
Seiji(translating): Jun wants you to teach a Japanese class.
Jun: He shouldn't be in Japan if he doesn't speak Japanese.
Seiji(translating): He wants to speak to you, but he doesn't know English. So, he wants you to speak japanese.
Oh, the fun we have. One day I should just speak to Jun in Japanese. But here is the thing, if I did that then he would never use English in school, instead of the very rarely that he uses it know. But since he graduates in two months it really isn't my problem. It takes a better teacher than me to open a closed mind.

My Triumphant Return!

2005-01-23T23:19:00.000+09:00

Okay, first to answer the most basin of all questions, no I am not dead. Promise. I don't know, maybe a caught a little of the holiday blahs, or maybe at first I got to busy to write and then... Well, you know how things go. once you stop doing something for a while it gets a little hard to pick it back up. But here I am writing, and hopefully entertaining, the masses yet again.

Right now I am currently sitting in my Tatami room, and am enjoying maybe my favorite thing about Japanese winters: the kotatsu. What is the kotatsu you ask? Well I'll tell you. Picture a generic, rectangular coffee table. But, under the top of the table a blanket can be placed. So, I guess now you should be picturing a coffee table wearing a dress. The dress is a good thing because under the table is a place for a heater. That's right. It's a heated table that you sit under, and man is it comfortable. The blanket keeps all the heat on the inside. It's great. I love it. Enough table talk, let's get to the dirt.

The new semester started on January 11th, and I started off by going to Higashi. And boy was I ready to be back at school. After spending several weeks just going to the city office and being bored, it was great to actually have a job to do. Except, actually I didn't. You see, tomorrow one of my Higashi teachers is going to be in a conference all week. Because of this I am going to be the only teacher. To give me ample time to prepare, I only had one day of classes my first week at Higashi, and I think the main reason was that Koike-sensei noticed I was about to go insane.

But all in all it was good to be back. I got to play with the kids and catch up on what they had been doing. The highlight was probably seeing my 2nd year girls. They love me. I'm sure of it. Really, I think that only one of them has a crush on me. The others just think I'm lots of fun. But the important thing is that they are willing, and seem to look forward to, talking with me. It's all simple stuff, but asking about boyfriends and music and Disney is always fun. That and the fact that the kids are just adorable.

Here is an example of the silliness that I like: About four of my girls were joking around about how they were "idiots" (the word they used is the Japanese one.) It grew from there to not only are they "idiots" but they are in the school's idiot club. (Club activities are big deals in JH. Most kids attend their club activities seven days a week.) I'll give you one guess who was their coach. That's right me. And I then gave them pointers of looking confused, and example faces much to their hilarity. But I was a good teacher. I warned them not to practice those upper leveel faces without suppervision. Writing it down it doesn't seem like that great a story, but trust me, fun was had.

The next week I was off to Umeda. Test results for the high school entrance exams are coming in, and On of my students had great news. Eriko, who is one of the best English speakers at Umeda, has been accepted into the English focus classes of a very good high school. What makes it funny to me is that she was so excited to tell me about it that all of her English skills vanished.

At the end of the week I needed to stop off at Higashi to do a wee bit of preparing for class. Who do I run into but the 2nd year girls. We talked about their weeks, what they are going to do for the weekend, and how it had snowed in the morning but none of it stuck. Then one of them wanted to make sure I remembered the club. She looked it me with big, smiling, little girl eyes, and pointed at her self. "'Idiot' club," she said. I pointed to myself, "Coach." She laughed and I could have melted.

Recent Adventures

2004-12-13T13:36:00.000+09:00

Ha, ha! I am finally better from my cold/sickness of feeling crappy! And after only about one week! Huzzah and all is right in the world again. Except that right now my apartment is really messy, which is bad because originally last week was supposed to be my time of cleaning. The reason is that since last Tuesday and for the next few days Azuki is at the vet's being spayed. I figured that now would be the perfect chance for me to clean up the apartment and make sure that almost everything is cat proof. Of course then I got sick and spent most of the time just sitting around. But I still have a few days to get everything in order.

Now to tell what I have been doing that kept me from getting better; I’ll start with last Sunday, the 5th. It started out as an absolutely beautiful day. Brian and I decided that since the weather was great and warm, and since he likes to drive, that we would go for a drive. And we went all over the place. First, we went to the top of Mt. Akagi, which is a large set of mountain peaks in the area. The view from the top was amazing. The weather was clear and we could see forever. We saw all of Gunma, most of the Kanto plain; we could see Mt. Fuji and even make out individual buildings of Tokyo. Absolutely incredible. Then we continued our journey around our section of Gunma, and the weather decided to change. The skies grew dark. The air became cold. It started to rain. As it got even colder the rain turned to ice. Only a few scant hours before it had been so warm that we left our jackets behind, and now it was sleeting. I know that the weather can change real fast in Georgia, but I think this takes the cake. Of course being the responsible, non-foolish males that we are we pull over to get out of the car. Not because we are in any danger or anything like that, but because we think its cool to be in an ice storm. And it was cool, for about thirty seconds until we realize that it was freezing and that the wind was trying to throw us off the mountain. Over the gusts of wind I heard Brian yelling “Ok. Get back in the car!” We hoped in, cranked up the heater ridiculously high, and headed back to Kiryu.

The next day I went to visit Niisato elementary school along with JC, Antonio, and Christy. It was a nice little trip. The students were in small groups and their assignment was to teach as about Japanese culture. So we played traditional games, and folded origami and had a really nice time. After that they school gave each of us a large box of Japanese sweets and we went about our merry way.

Tuesday I went to Umeda Minami kindergarten. I was expecting just a regular lesson, when talking loud and slowly while the students hop about happily and get rewarded for speaking English by my picking them up. Instead it turns out they were having a mini-festival. They were playing games, and making foods. Parents were there to watch their kids frolic, and I was there to enjoy it all. It was really cool. Instead of a lesson I just hung out with a bunch of little kids. Pushed them on swings, played paper rock scissors with them. Basically I had a grand ole time. And when the hour and a half was almost up: They fed me. Homemade treats.

Here is description of the food (which should make Meg happy): Mostly it was mochi,, which was made that day. Mochi is basically rice pounded until it forms into a sticky, taffy like substance. The mochi is then used to make other dishes, usually based around it. For example a popular sweet is anko mochi, which is mochi that has been filled with sweet bean paste. The is nori mochi, mochi that is wrapped in seaweed and has a salty flavor to it; kinako mochi, it is kind of sweet but it reminds me slightly of cinnamon and something else, slightly hard to describe because I don’t know what kinako is. We also had karame mochi, which is mochi covered in daikon (think radish) and soy sauce. Also there was homemade miso soup with pork, potatoes, onions, and other vegetables. Basically it was good eating. (The words in italics are Japanese. More importantly, I have no idea if this is the correct English spellings.)

Also, there are many December Birthdays here in Kiryu, so this past Saturday we had a birthday bash for Brian, Alison and JC. Lots of fun was had in the celebrating of these lives. Over forty people met throughout the evening to join in the festivities. It started at about 6:30, and when I called it a night at around 2, things were still going strong. I think one of the coolest things about the party was that even though there were many people there, most of the not sober, there were no real bad moments. It’s nice to see that people can come together and not act like jerks every now and then.

So tired...

2004-12-03T14:53:00.000+09:00

I spent the past two days in Maebashi undergoing the mid-year seminar. Well, not quite the past two days, because i had to return to Kiryu each day, but I was there enough. It was basically what I expected from the seminar, lots of speeches, pretty dull. However there were a few times here and there where we had small gourp conversations with other ALTs and some JTEs. That was really useful. Its nice to hear what has been working for other people, and also to have a free chance to hear what the JTEs think. Sometimes communication can be a little challenging when politeness is the coninual rule of the day.

But now i am back at Higashi junior high. I had two classes here today, and also visited the elementary school to have a class with them. It really isn't that bad a schedule, but for some reason I am exhausted. Also a little worried because there has been lots of people getting sick, and it might be my turn. Monday I go to visit an elementary school in Niisato, and I also visit a kindergarten on Tuesday morning. If I get sick now there are going to be lots of disappointed kids. And its also been rumopred that if you miss a visit to elementary or kindergarten then the kids don't always take it very well. Not in the angry hate kinda way, but in the "Why don't you like us" way. Which of course is worse.

Because I've been so busy running around all week I haven't had a chance to go to the kyudojo. My back is sore from lack of use, and i know if I make it out there it would feel worlds better, but then we run into the really tired problem. Basically my world right now is feeled with petty inconviences that aren't really problems, but they certainly are pesky.

It was great being back at work tho. In the first class I felt extra excited, and realized that I was happy to be back in front of the class; actually doing my job instead of sitting around listening to other people tell stories of hopw they do theirs. Another thing I realized is just how fortunate I am to have Higashi and Umeda. My kids are wonderfully. Not all kids are. Not that the other ALTs had many stories about demon children, or anything, but my kids do seem to be a little better than most. The usually get excited during class, and are really friendly towards me. Of course as cool as I am how could they not be. :)

Wasting time

2004-11-30T17:34:00.000+09:00

Right now I am in front of a computer, and it is 5:30 on a Tuesday. Normally at this time I am at the kyudojo, feeling good about myself and life as I shoot. Today I am still at Higashi Junior High, with a back sore from not being used, and feeling just a wee bit impatient. Why am I here? Because this week is the end of term tests and i need to help one of my teachers record a listening test. She should be back here any minute. She had a meeting today in a neighboring town, and left a note saying she would be back by five. At five she called saying she'd be here closer to six. Of course I said it's no problem, because I can't really refuse to work because I want to go play. But that doesn't mean I'm not slightly fussy about it.

So the wine festival was great. Good wine, sunshine, many friends, some drinking themselves into a stupor. The wine was cheap and the food was expensive. Pretty much what I expected. I also got to watch Dermot (an ALT from Liverpool) being cute with his girlfriend and explaining when he can refer to himself as twattered (really drunk) but he wouldn't say it to his parents. That may have been the highlight of humor.

Thanksgiving here was practicaly nonexistent in the traditional sense. Although something did happen for which I am very thankful. I talked to my parents for the first time since coming to Japan. We chatted for about an hour over various and sundry things. And seeing as how it was my dad's birthday and I was at work a asked/made a group of third year boys sing him happy birthday. It took no enticing really, I just asked and they did it, plus they did a great job. It may have made me happier than dad, but who knows?

Tomorrow will probably be a hassle. It is the middle of the year conference for Gunma and so instead of teaching I will travel to Maebashi to listen to lectures about school, and teaching, and students and probably trying hard and our responsibilities and other stuff like that. Hopefully it won't be a complete waste of time, but I have my doubts. As snippy as this is, I find it strange that we're required to be absent from class to (maybe) learn about beign better teachers when maybe the most important, or at least a fundamental part, or being a good teacher is attendance in class. Can't be good if you're not their. That's just my disappointment at having to cancel classes in order to go to a conference that sounds like a drag.

On another note entirely, I saw my first movie here. Howl's Moving Castle, the new Studio Ghibli film. It was amazing, beautiful and I hardly understood a word. It is possibly the most complicated Ghibli film ever. Even my Japanese friends said they had a hard time understanding parts of it. But man was it pretty.

Another movie watching experience was that I watched Battle Royale yesterday on the small screen. For those, like my parents, who don't know about this movie I'll explain. It is a Japanese film that came out a few years ago and takes place in the near future. The plot is this: Since Japan is overcrowded and adults are disappointed in the youth once a year a third year junior high class is taken to an island by the military and forced to kil each other. The last one living wins. It may sound like a simple slasher film, but it is really good. I've seen it before, but that was before teaching in a Japanese Junior High. And that just makes the movie better. I could pick out certain students that I knew, and could really identify with them. That is one of the best parts of the movie is that all the students reactions to beng thrust into a death trap is handled so well and realistically. I remember when I watched it in States thinking certain perts were overacted, or just that kids wouldn't do that, but know that I'm here all the little touches fit so well. I practically broke my heart watching students who could be mine forced to kill each other. If you haven't seen it you should go out and find it. Which may be hard because I understand it isn't widely avaiable in America. The thought of Junior High kids being manipulated and killing each other is deemed unfit I suppose. But it really is worth a watch.

It is now six, and the teacher still isn't here. sigh. guess I'll keep waiting.

One of those days

2004-11-19T13:47:00.000+09:00

I know I’ve only been a teacher for a short while, but I’ve come to learn that you can’t always expect everything to go according to plans. Not matter how much time and effort I might put into a lesson I have to allow that something unexpected might happen and ruin the entire lesson. Maybe it will be too hard, or maybe the kids just won’t be interested. Maybe no matter how hard I try I will just fail to capture their interest. I’m sure that that happens to every teacher, and it has happened to me. Just not today.

Today I was on freakin’ fire, baby. From the moment I walked into the classroom I was pure gold for both of my third year classes. It was a pretty simple lesson. Read this dialogue about shopping, go over new words, answer some questions on another dialogue, and then the students wrote their own skit to go along with one of three comic strips. But more important than the lesson was the fact that I was on fire. I had those eating of my hands so hard you would of thought they were baby birds who had come to think of me as “mama.” Everywhere I wanted them to laugh, they laughed. Everywhere I wanted them to be serious they were serious. It was like a little bit of magic happened on the fourth floor of Higashi Junior High today. And that magic was me.

Of course I can’t take all the credit. Koike-sensei, my JTE (Japanese Teacher of English) for those classes does a very good job of making use of an ALT. Because of her, we always know the order of events, how we are going to handle an activity, and best of all she is comfortable using English in front of the students. Which, believe it or not, some JTEs aren’t. She does a very good job of only using Japanese to teach the kids important grammar, and to make sure they understand. Majority of the class is in English, and even with almost 40 students in each class she also does her best to give students the opportunity to speak.

Course I was pretty good to. Its days like today that really make this an awesome experience. I’ve chatted some with the teachers, we’ve slightly joked around together, and for Higashi that means something. The school lunch today was very good, and on a day when it is also incredibly cold inside a good lunch goes a long way. Even after the great morning classes I had if lunch had been cold, oily fish this post may have a very different tune.

Most people who know my have figured out that I don’t just enjoy entertaining people, but that generally I thrive on it. And these kids were entertained. And they were educated. The double whammy. Ahhh, I feel good.

There is one problem with today though, and that is the weather. It’s pretty yuck today. Everything is gray and cold; there is a slight drizzle in the air. Not enough to give off the joy of rain, but just enough that makes going anywhere a pain. Plus, since yesterday it started pouring in the middle of the day and I had no rain-jacket or umbrella I left my bike at the city hall so now I have to walk wherever I’m going. But after school I’ll probably walk over and pick up my bike.

This weekend is also the wine festival in Ashikaga. It is supposed to be an incredible amount of fun, and also pretty cheap. For about fifteen bucks you get a glass, a corkscrew, and a bottle of good wine and are allowed to picnic among the grapevines. Everyone here who has gone has described it as fantastic. Of course if it’s cold and dreary I have to wonder how fantastic it could possible be. I guess on Monday all my friends and family and other people who just read this site because they are really bored will find out.

Just a few more things. This week I have received a decent amount of email from lots of friends back home. So far I haven’t really responded to anyone, but let me assure you that every single one of them has brought a smile to my face and a (slight) tear to my eye. I may not get a chance to write back to ya’ll individually until next week, still no internet in the apartment, but thanks for the warm thoughts. And I’ll write more about the food.

A dodgeball report

2004-11-17T16:08:00.000+09:00

I think I might be able to do this now. It’s been a few hours; I’ve had lunch, played dodgeball with the kids. Maybe now I can relax and write a decent post about kyudo. But first I’m going to talk about the dodgeball game.

After lunch today as I was walking around I ran into a group of second year girls who were on their way to the gym. I asked what they were doing; they told me dodgeball and invited me along. So of course, I went. Now playing dodgeball with a group of junior high girls may sound easy, but trust me, it isn’t. First off I haven’t played in years, and there is a trick to catching a flying ball as big as your head. But the most important diffculty is throwing the ball.

Not that the actual act is difficult. I feel safe enough about my masculinity to say I can throw pretty hard if I need to, but I just couldn’t do it. I kept having these images of me belting some poor kid, maybe in the face. Next thing I know blood would be everywhere, maybe some of the kids would think I did it intentionally, and honestly I really don’t want that to be an issue. So, generally I would lob the ball ineffectually at their feet. Rumors may spread about my lack of dodgeball prowess, but maybe after a few more games I will feel better about whacking students in the head. After all isn’t that supposed to be the ultimate teacher’s dream?

Times up. Schools over. I’m going home to rest up for my night class. No report on kyudo today. Even though I wrote one. Freakin’ internet.

Dyarg!!

2004-11-17T13:10:00.000+09:00

I just spent the last half an hout writing an update about kyudo. Then the internet ate it. I'm not sure if I have the energy to write it all again. Plus there is the frustration of having to say the same stuff, or pretty much the same stuff. I need to learn to write these in Word or something first and after I save it copy and paste to Blogger. Then if it ate my posts I cvan just copy and paste again. Yeah that's what I'll do. But not now. Now I will mourn the loss of my love letter to kyudo.

Cause I was done, and I hit the post button, and then the next thing that came up was the error page and it was all in Japanese so I really couldn't read it. grrr. I'll try again later.

Just rambling...

2004-11-16T09:58:00.000+09:00

So I have some time to kill here at Higashi Junior high. I have a feeling that this week might go by a little slowly. I am only scheduled for seven classes total this week, which is disappointing to me. I prefer to be in the classroom teaching the kids than just hanging around doing nothing. Which is basically what I do when I'm not teaching.

Well that's not completely true. If I know what lessons we are going over later than I can play activities and make games, but I don't always have that information. I try to study Japanese as mush as I can, but after so long the mind just doesn't want to absorb any new information. It jsut seems strange to me that this school can sometimes feel so distant. Its not that any of the teachers are unfriendly, they just seem distant. The funny thing is that there are a few teachers here who speak absolutely no English. Maybe just "hello" and "how are you" but they seem to be the most welcoming of the lot. Yesterday I hung out in Kojima-sensei's elective Social Studies class. The students are working on power points, and I just walked around and tried to ask them questions. It was nice to not only have interactions with students that aren't solely based on me teaching them English, but also to have a teacher invite me to hang out in there class was pretty cool. Plus the students were doing reports on parts of history that I kinda know about so I got to flex my nerd muscle a little bit, which is always fun.

I'm slowly learning more and more of my students names. I'd like to learn them all, but who knows if that's possible. It isn't so bad for me because with both my junior highs I have about 360 students. The two ALTs in Kiryu who only teach at one junior high each have around 600 students, so I probably have a better chance of knowing all my students than they do. Plus the first couple of times I can call a kid by name they get so excited. After that the immediate excitement cools down a little bit, but they are a lot warmer to me.

Honestly, right now I'm pretty tired, and my typing has needed corrections about every fifth word, so where I could ramble along about how cute my kids can be, I should probably stop now. Also I just got asked by my JTE why its "good looks are~" and not "good looks is~." Apparently an ALT before me told her "good looks is~" and I think that way sounds strange. Of course once I try and explain why doubt starts creeping in, but I remain firm in my opinionn that I am right. But it also made me loose my train of thought, so I'll stop here.

Reminiscing of Nagatoro and Nov. 3rd

2004-11-11T14:09:00.000+09:00

On November third I did a little bit of travelling. Bright and early in the morning I struck out for the wonders and glory of Nagatoro, which is one province over in Saitama. In this lovely little villa I met up with Miori and then we went about town.

Nagatoro basically has two things: a small mountain to hike up, which we did, and also a 20minute river ride in a wooden boat. We did that, too. It was one of those fun days where there was really nothing that interesting that happened, but I still had a great time. There was one thing that sullied the day though, and that was in America it was November 2. I know I've been harping an awful lot recently about how I'm unhappy with the turnout of the election, but crap, its my blog and I'll whine if I want to.

Especially disheartening about it was that I was hanging out with a very nice lass who also could not understand why America would elect this guy, especially after we talked about it for a little while and I told her some of the crap he's pulled.

First a little more about Miori; she grew up and still lives in Saitama. She spent a decent amount of time, I think one year, in America. So her English is good and she does have some insight into the American way of things. The reason I bring this up is too try and qualify how sad it makes me to talk about American politics and the war in Iraq with someone I consider a good, samrt person, and to have them ask me "Why is it that most Americans don't care when people from other countries die."

Part of me wanted to try and leap to the moral high ground and proclaim how America is the greatest land, land of the free, brave, and educated masses. To snap at her about some of the things that Japan has done. But that would have been obnoxious, useless, and just wouldn't have been a good thing to do. Especially because she has a point. I'd like to think that most people in the world believe that September 11th was a horrible thing. But for America to use that as momentum to further its own selfish goals and intentions on Iraq and the Iraqi people is hideous. I wish I could only point the finger at one man, our President. I wish I could say he lied to us and its not our fault. But not only have we not done anything to punish him for his lies, but we have rewarded him for his intolerance, his bigotry, and for the shame he has brought to America.

I told Miori that its not that America doesn't care when people from other countries die, we do care. The problem is that many Americans have become so self-righteous that they truly believe that the war we are waging is the right thing to do, and that we have done nothing wrong in how we handled Iraq. I believe that removing Saddam Hussein from power was the right thing to do. But I do not believe that his removal was the ultimate goal of our Commander in Chief, it was merely a by product in his scheme for money, revenge and the desire to be considered a great war-time leader. And that sickens me.

Enough ramblings from me. Hopefully the next time i sit down to do some typy-typing I'll have something really fun to relate. Maybe something about food... Strange food stories can always get a laugh...

Halloween in 日本

2004-11-10T14:55:00.000+09:00

This Halloween (actually not Halloween, but October 30th) I accompanied a few of the other folks from Kiryu to a friend's party. That was held at TGIFridays in Roppingi (which is a part of Tokyo). That was the overall plan, now I'll break it down bit by bit.

I rode into Tokyo around 5:00 with Matt. At the main train station we met up with Emiko, his girl-friend and the girl who organized things. So, the three of us went off to a McDonalds in Roppongi where several of her friends were getting ready for the costume party. The best was the guy who was changing into women's clothes and having make up put on him. I got some great pictures of that, maybe one day I'll be able to put them up. After everyone got ready, off we headed to the TGIFridays, where we were kinda herded into a hot, smoky corner of the bar. Also at the party were Brian, Christy, and Manami and several other folks.

You may remember my mentioning Manami. She was the girl I went to Nikko with. Well, one of the things I gathered was that she is, in fact, not interested. This is how I learned: We were sitting next to each other at the bar, when one of the other girls walked up and entered the conversation. About 20 seconds later Manami had hopped up given Megumi her seat, and skidadled off. Which was ok with me, because I had lots of fun chatting up Megumi for the next hour.

After our two hours of unlimited drinking were up, half the people went home, and the other half went to a bar about the size of a decent living room, that also was playing horrible hip-hop way too loud. Nothing really that interesting happened the ten minutes we were here, so I'll skip ahead. Around 10 many of us went to a karaoke bar. I was exhausted. I'd been up since 8 because I had childrens pumpkin carving event to help with, and now my head ached. I slept on a couch for about 45 minutes and then woke up and found out I had some messages on my phone. My friend Miori and her friend Chioko were also in Roppongi. I got in touch with them and we met up for some coffee at the nearby McDonalds.

We sat and chatted, and I breathed air that wasn't full of smoke for the first time in about 5 hours. I started feeling good. We watched two girls help their really drunbk girlfriend to the bathroom. Brian called, asked where I was, and said he was going to come visit. He brough with him one of the former Kiryu ALTs who now lives in Tokyo. This guy had a little too much of the alcohol and was not having a good night. This made itself known when after Brian accidently knocked over a tray with some trash and fries, I asked the guy how he was doing. He responded "I am not good. I am doing very bad... etc" in a loud voice. Brian then stopped picking up the knopcked over trash, scooped up his friend and said goodbye. Those quick events were enough to convince Miori and Chioko, who looked like she us about to fall asleep, that it was time for bed. The time was around 1:30

I went back to the Karaoke bar, and for the next hour or so things were ok. I wasn't really interested iun being there, but it was ok. And besides the trains didn't start running again until 5:15 so there wasn't much else I could do. At 3:00 things changed. Out of a group of maybe 8 people I only knew Matt and Emiko. One of the guys was getting angry at the remote control because he couldn't work it and was squeezing it to the point it was making sounds. That's when he accidently knocked a glass on the ground. When his friend told him to be careful, glass can break the dude stopped on it sending glass everywhere.

I have a rule of thumb. If you don't know anyone, and they start breaking things: leave. So I did. I went back to the McDonalds where an ambulance crew were taking away the really drunk girl I saw earlier. Right after that I fight broke out in the middle of the street. I ordered a cup of coffee, waited at the McDonalds, and at 5 started heading to the train station to make my way to Kiryu. I had had enough of Roppongi.

Roppongi is basically the part of Tokyo where it seems to stop being Japan. I've heard that on an average night there are more foreigners in Roppongi than Japanese people. I'm not saying its true, but I've heard it and after going to Roppongi it looks true. The problem is that it also seems that all the foreigners who go there are looking to get really trashed and maybe cause trouble. Its the frat bar of Japan, except no one worries about being seen looking like a drunken fool.

I got home safe by the way.

A Question for America?

2004-11-04T08:51:00.000+09:00

Why?

Seriously, why? I do not support Bush. This has been stated. But not only do I not support him, but I think he might be the worst thing to happen to America since I've been alive.

Furthermore I don't understand how anyone could possible want him for a president. I don't understand. We had a chance to remove this taint from our office, a choice most countries who ar governed by monsters aren't granted, and insted our nation embraces him. What on earth are people thinking?

Please, please, please, if anyone who is reading this actually voted for Bush, tell me why. I really want to know. I cannot fathom how someone could tolerate such a man, let alone choose him as the man who will represent our country, especially after his last for years of making us hated through-out the world.

So please, explain it to me. I want to know why.

Oh, The Places I've Gone pt.2

2004-10-29T08:57:00.000+09:00

Another update that should have been posted about a week ago. By this time the details may be getting a little fuzzy, but I'm sure its ok. Hopefully, once I spill the details on the things that happened a while back I'll be able to regularly post on things that are currently happening. Man, won't that be a great day.

Ok, so here we go: On October 17th I took a trip with JC and some of his adult students up to Kusatsu Onsen. Kusatsu is apperently argueably the most famous bath in Japan, and one of the places the Gunma is proud of. What makes it even better for me is that since one of the people going ahd a hook-up with a hotel there, we got to go and stay really cheap. And that's always a good thing.

The ride up there was pretty uneventful. There were a total of seven of us, and I was placd in the car that had the more middle age car, while JC managed to swing the car that contained the towq mid-twenty year old women. I'm sure he drew straws when I wasn't looking. So on the way up into the mountains we talked a little about random things, using a little hodgepodge of English and Japanese. It was a pretty good time, but maybe just a teensy bit dull, which is the way it is with car rides. Sometimes they are great, other times you just kinda stare out the window.

Once we actually got to where we were going things became incredibly fun. Just being able to get out, strech our legs improved the atmosphere tremendously. That night we explored the twon of Kusatsu. Its a very pretty place that also has a tremendous amount of people selling souveniours and other omiyage (gifts for home, kinda.) but it was still done in a fairly classy way.

One interesting thing is that the local specialty was a sweet bean cake, so of course, there were many stores which specialized in making sweet beancakes. To get people to buy from them the stores pass out freshly made, hot from the oven, beancakes and also they pass out green tea to wash it down with. So as your traveling down the side streets looking at this interesting little town every 50 yards someone is giving you a cup of hot time and a freshly made beancake. At first its great, but by the end of the night you've been given so many that you feel the need to hide whenever you see a food store except your fairly thirsty so you still want the tea.

Oh yeah, one thing I forgot to mention about Kusatsu. Its pretty much a hot spring. Except, not the kind I'm used to, so not like a big/little lake/pond that happens to be warm. The water that comes out is harnessed and pumped into the baths. The water also contains a good amount of sulphur. So, needless to say, when you first get to the area near the baths its stinky but after about fifteen minutes you get used to it and forget about it.

Back to the story. After exploring the town, we went back to the hotel and cooked dinner. Well, to be honest WE didn't cook dinner, mostly the women cooked dinner. But I tried and that should count for something. I offered and with a suspicious eye I was allowed to help finish cutting the cucumber into strips. Once this was doen I was oh so politely kicked out of the kitchen. I then hung out on the bed and talked about the fine art of picking up women with JC. Well, actually we more or less talked about how we approach the opposite sex in little different ways.

The reason I bring this up isn't to give insight on that subject, but to give illustrate fun of talking in English. Most of the weekend when we talked it was slow and deliberate to allow people a chance to understand us, and join in the conversation. This conversation however was to be more secretive. We were talking about real stuff, and we didn't necessarily want it to be public knowledge. Our tempo increased, and we were using more slang and jargon than you'd find outside of an edgy high-school drama. Sometimes not even we knew what we were talking about, but neither did anyone else. And this is a fairly decently used tactics. You never know who speaks English so if you're in public, sometimes you just slip into unintelligible English. I think we should just speak like pirates when we want to be secretive, but that idea hasn't flown. Dyarrgh.

Dinner was great, and afterwards everyone pretty muched crashed, the boys in their room the girls in theirs. The next day we were off to the baths.

The baths were great. Incredilby relaxing, parts of it were outside and the scenery was gorgeous. It was such a great atmosphere that I almost forgot that I was bare-ass naked and surrounded by a bunch of bare-ass naked men. It wasn't that bad our weird or anything. Its just a little strange when everywhere you look is man ass. But like the smell of sulphur, you get used to it and forget about it. kinda. Plus, once you sit in water that is 46 degrees C, the last thing on your mind is the naked guy to your left. I was pretty much thinking how long I shgould stay in the water before leaping out. 46 is a bit to hot for me, but I had to try it. Mostly because most of the opther people there were just looking at the water, and also because how often do you get the chance to boil yourself. I have to say that between 42-44 degrees is my favorite.

Just so it can be said, the baths for women were seperate from the baths for the men. At least where we were.

After the baths, we packed up and headed home. But first stopped by a historic town which still looked like and old time village. It was like the samurai version of Williamsburg. It was a very interesting place. The best part was that in one of the houses was a guy who spun Japanese tops. The kind that have a string wrapped around the bottom and you throw on fabric stretched over a bucket. It looked pretty tricky, but before I tried it I was told it was pretty much the same motion as throwing a frisbee. I got it on the first time, and the man was shocked. He had me do it several times. Everyone in our group got a kick out of watching me spin tops. I guess all those years plaiung ultimate frisbee payed off after all.

And that's your message of love for today.

Last Week

2004-10-25T09:51:00.000+09:00

To promote truth in advertising, this update will in fact describe the events that took place last week. I hope you enjoy this refreshing bit of honesty.

So, last week the junior high I was scheduled to teach at had exams. Instead of hanging out there with nothing to do I was shipped over to the neighborhood elementary school for three days and to a kindergarten for one day. And the time spent there was great. We played games, sang songs, and also spoke a little English. Basically my role during these excursions out into the world of primary education is to be a big friendly gaijin teddy bear. And honestly I'm okay with that.

Here is a quick note about the schools here. Their kindergarten, I don't think is really kindergarten. The kids there are between 3-5 years old and they don't have to go there. So, I'm pretty sure its more of a pre-k. The elementary schools go from grades 1-6, which I think reflect our American k,1-5. Of course seeing as how I don't remember how old kids are when the go to school in America I could be completely wrong, but I'm willing to take that chance.

These kids are so incredible cute. One of the neatest things they do is qhen they want to talk to me, and maybe impress me they come up and speak English. But some of the kids I taught are only in the second or third grade, so their English is more a recitation of words. My first day there I read a book to the third graders that had the days of the week and types of food in the story. For the rest of the week whenever those students saw me they would come up to me and say "spaghetti, apples, chicken..." and other things like that.

I also taught some of the kids who are fifth and sixth grade, which to me was pretty cool. Mainly because since this elementary school is in the same neighborhood as my junior high I was meeting my future students. Hopefully, I will visit more times throughout the year so that when April roles around and the school year changes, I'll know my new students at Higashi. Its a little thing but it will be nice to maybe already have a small repoir with the students.

I'll leave you with this final note because I think its great. I was walking thru the halls of the school when around the corner comes a teacher and a student. The student was maybe a first or second grader. On seeing me, the kids eyes get reall big and he turns to his teacher ansd says "Sensei! Mitte, gaikokujin!" This translates into "Techer! Look, a foreign person!" I smiled, waved, said hello, and once they passed I just started giggling.

From the mouth of babes.

Oh, the places I've gone pt.1

2004-10-21T09:25:00.000+09:00

First off, I'd just like to say that this will be the second time I've written about this topic. The first time I was writing the final sentence and then the computer ate it. But there is some good news. I was pretty tired while I was writing that update, and it was acutally kinda crappy. So you weren't actually missing out by not having an update. Now I'm up and peppy, so maybe this update won't suck. Maybe.

And now a cast of characters:
Matt - another one of the first year ALT's in Kiryu. He teaches at high schools, so he misses out on some of the fun when all us jr. high cats have an orientation or meeting or something. He's from Texas by the way.

Emiko - A friend of Brian and Christy. We meet here at Christy's birthday party a little while ago. She cool and zany, and its also a safe bet to say that she and Matt are dating.

Manami - another friend of Brian and Christy who I also met at the birthday party. Very petite and sweet. She is who some folks really want me to date. I wouldn't have a problem with it, but she seems to be on the fence about it. There's nothing quite like ambiguousness combined with a language barrier. Fun, fun, fun.

Me - your lovable hero.

October 11th was a national holiday here in Japan, so instead of waking up bright and early for work, I woke up bright and early in order to catch a train. I was going to Nikko, which is a very famous place here in Japan. Travelling on the train with me was Matt and Emiko. We were meeting Manami at Nikko seeing as how she was coming from another direction.

Trains in Japan are very convenient. They get you there in one piece, aren't that pricey, and they keep you from having to drive. So after about two and a half hours on our various trains, we arrived at Nikko, and met up with our fourth. Finally I wasn't a third wheel.

Nikko was beautiful. Fragrant nature, waterfalls, a lake, great hiking trails.... Or at least that's what I've been told. The truth is that it was so incredibly misty on the day wwe went that we couldn't really do too much of the outdoor stuff. We did go to the famous waterfall, and I can tell you that it sounded very impressive but as of yet I haven't seen it. But it was still a good time to flirt with a pretty girl, so I was happy.

One thing we did get to visit in Nikko were the shrines and temples in the area. And they were gorgeous. Incredibly intricate carving and designs. The buildings managed to be very busy without ever crossing over to gaudy, and when you're covered with hundreds of carved and colorder dragons, cranes, and phoenixes that's an impressive statement. Another cool thing was that at Nikko is Tokugawa Ieyasu's burial shrine.

For those who don't know and want a brief lesson: Tokugawa Ieyasu is on of the three great unifiers of Japan after its era of about 200 years of civil wall. He managed to cement peace in place, and the peace lasted also for a good 200 years. So, he's a pretty big deal. And I'm kind of a history nerd so i was real excited to visit his shrine.

So after a long day of walking and talking and taking pictures and flirting and catching trains and buses the day was over.

The girls left us halfway thru the train ride to go to their hometowns. Matt glowed, and I talked about how frustrating ambiguousness was. We got back to Kiryu, Brian and Christy invited us over for chilly, and then we watched Cannibal:the Musical.

It was a good day.

I can be political

2004-10-19T14:07:00.000+09:00

Ok, so admitedly I am not the most up-to-date person. i want to keep track of what is going on in the world, but its pretty hard. I can't understand whats on TV, and I don't have much access to the internet. Basically in many ways I'm cut off. On those times when I do have time to lounge in front of a computer I try and do a few main things. Firstly I check email, maybe respond here and there, maybe weep over the lack of new messages (hint, hint.) Usually after that if there is time then I update this site. Since my last update was the fifth, that should give you an idea how often I get my fingers on a keyboard.

After the song and dance of writing about my, I check out what's going onin the world. Or really just in America. I only today found out that Christopher Reeve died. The death of Superman for real, huh? But thats not really the point.

I try to look at politics. As everyone in the world knows election day is wuicklty coming upon us. Soon many of us will practice our nationally given right to choose who will represent us as a country to the world. And the world takes this pretty seriously. I've recently met many, many people from all over the world. Oftentimes after the fun few minutes of getting to know you questions they start asking the questions which have been on their minds since first finding out I'm an American. "Do you like G.W. Bush?" And I'm going to try and elaborate on how this qustion is asked. So, imagine you've moved to a new town, and you're old home is known for, I don't know, eating babies. Not to say that everyone eats babies, its just a thing that some people do, and it seems to be approved of by the country your from. Now, people asking me "Do you like G.W. Bush?" is a lot like being asked "Do you eat babies?" in the above example. Everyone wants the answer to be know, but you can tell they are afraid the answer is yes. They don't want to believe that anyone one actually support such a man.

And I can try and argue that we, America, really don't. I can say, well Florida was a mistake, he wasn't really elected by the people so much as hi stole the election. But that is almost the same as saying "hi, our way of government doesn't work." Even if it is true, you don't want to say it. So know here is our chance to prove to the world that we don't support this guy who has managed to turn America into possibly the most hated nation in the world.

I'm going to take a moment know and just try and list a few things that I know about our president that I find appalling. And this is off the top of my head. To start of with he's done cocaine. The drug that makes you addicted the first time you try it. I'm not saying the Bush is currently doing cocaine, but that he wants to. Its a medical fact. Or at least I'm pretty sure that it is, and when it comes to cocaine that's enough for me. Plus I can mention how he's put us in a war by lying to America. That's right he lied to us about Iraq. Lied, lied, lied. There were no WMD, the UN said there were no WMD, Bush said they had proof, we invaded (for the first time America launched a preemptive assualt which is the spin way of saying we attacked) amd found no WMD. None. We found sand. And it seems no one cares, or at least not in the government. I would love it if a senator would just call him out. Just start refering to Bush as the liar in the oval office.

To further rant about this topic I want someone to explain to me this scenario : Clinton gets kinky with an intern in his office. Clinton is almost impeached. Bush lies to America and sends us to war and no one says anything. I don't get it. Oh, yeah and just for kicks while he sends us to war he cuts benefits and pensions and money for getting shot that goes to the army.

So, our economy is terrible, personal freedoms are being threatened as are civil rights, it is harder for workers to make overtime if the make less than 20,000 a year, we're destroying the environments, his friends and business partners are making more money off his administration than America is, and now he wants the WORLD to ban stem-cell research. And maybe they should. Cause otherwise Bush may tell us that the world has WMD and we'll invade.

I don't understand how any thinking person can support Bush. Not only for the reasons above, but because he comes accross like an idiot. I know that any one who reads this and doesn't like what I'm can easily attack my grammar and spelling, but keep in mind I'm not president. I don't have a full staff of people whose jobs are to make me NOT look like an idiot.

He acts like a total bastard, as well as a moron. One or the other would be bad enough but both.... What a schmuck. God I hope he's not elected. I don't want to spend my years abroad feeling like I need to apologize to everyone I meet.

I only wish that I could say something really good about Kerry. He seems ok. I approve of parts of his platform, when I can find it. His beliefs seem to be hidden behind the mud thats being slung between him and Bush. Its easy to find his political rhetoric, but it always is for politicians.

So, no we have a chance to shake things up a bit. The contest is between Bush and Kerry, Evil and Unknown. What great choices.

I'm going to go study kanji now.

The Age Range

2004-10-05T14:16:00.000+09:00

This morning was my very first visit to a Japanese kindergarten. It was only for an hour, there wwere twenty-four children, and now I feel extra tall. Not the the kids are too much smaller than American kids. Well, actually I have no idea how the size compares. I don't know what the average kindergarten kid in America looks like, all I know is that in both countries the children are much smaller than I am. And these kids are cute.

First we started with me telling about myself. I did this mostly in English with one of the teachers helping to translate, but I also used the occasional word here and there. Then the kids asked me questions, what foods do I like, how tall am I, do I have a girlfriend. Surprisingly enough these are the same questions I get from my junior high kids. Atfter this we played fruitbasket. All the students put on a string necklace that had either a laminated orange, grapes, apple or banana. I'd be in the center of a ring of benches, call out a fruit and then grab a student. Much fun was had. We also had hello handshakes and goodbye highfives. They awed over how big my hands are, and I marveled about how little theirs were/. Like I said, by the end of the hour I felt like a giant. I think everyone had a good time, I talked with the teachers for a little bit afterwards. They mostly wanted to know differences between American kindergarten and Japanese kindergarten. Mostly it came down to in Japan the kindergartens are seperate from the elementary schools.

What makes this update's title pertinent is that last Wednesday night I had my first adult education classes for intermediate English speakers. It was basically the same as the kindergarten but without the translator and the game of fruitbasket. Although I may try fruitbasket this week. The conversation class feels a little weird right now, mostly because its all on me. I'm the only teacher and its my job to have the students learn English. Which makes me wonder what am I going to teach？ I don't really know. We've done the self introductions, and I'm trying to come up with some themed lessons, but it is a conversation class. I feel I should be teaching them conversation.

So, to those of ya'll who read this sight I'm asking for help. But not to much. I want ideoms. Those saying we use everyday that really don't make sense except we know them. For example, "let the cat out of the bag" or "its on the tip of my tongue." i want more and I'm forgetting them. I've figured out how to make it so you don't have to join blogger to comment, so please do, and if you want to leave an ideom you enjoy; many thanks.

Now I'm off to think of tricky grammar to include in this week's lesson. Hee hee hee, just imagine it. A whole group of people learning to talk like me. Zany isn't it？

Oh, yeah. The total age range of my students is now 4 to 77.

No clever title

2004-10-04T11:26:00.000+09:00

Not that the titles are usually that clever, but sometimes they are. Or at least I think they are. I just wanted to start things off with some refreshing honesty: this updates title is not clever. Also, with all the errors I make in these things I'm not sure if I'm a bad speller or a bad typer. But that really doesn't matter. Enough with the preamble.

I never told the story of how I got my car. Because I have a car and the story of how I got it is a kind of amusing little rant with an uplifting ending. And it all happened the thursday before I tried to go to Mt. Fuji. So I think that makes it September 9th or something like that.

When I first arrived in Gunma, one of the older ALTs was selling a car for her friend that had left the country. The car was pretty cheap, about 6 hundred, so I thought I'd take a look, and so did someone else. The car is a stick-shift, and despite not being very familar with sticks the other girl was willing to buy the car on the spot. I wasn't in that much of a hurry so she got the car. A few weeks later word makes its way to me that the car has been returned. I get in touch with Liz, the car's keeper, she says the car is back on the market but there is a catch. The timing motor is out of whack, the car needs 200dollars in repairs, but the new price is $300. I say I'll do it if the car checks out. We try to make plans (she lives about 45minutes away,) she never calls. Then I get an email saying that the car is free, just someone (me or another girl Liz had recently talked to about the car) needed to pick it up over the weekend. I wanted this car. In four days I was starting at Umeda with is far and up a hill. I wanted the car and told her so, but unfortunately that Saturday I had to be in Tokyo, I couldn't meet her, but I could see her on Sunday. Liz said she'd call back. When she did it was to explain that my only option was to come that night, or she'd give the car to the other person.

So, that night, the moment I'm done at work, a start journeying. And the journey sucks. I can't make it to Maebashi until after 7, and after 7 apparently I can't get rides to the peoples houses I'm supposed to go. I have to change trains based on the directions of a person who doesn't know where she's going. I'll explain this. Liz is selling the car for a friend, but she can't have the car at her house, so its somewhere else. Liz doesn't know how to get to Courtney's house where the car is being kept) So, the directions I'm given are both bad, and they keep changing. In the end the only reason I find where I'm going is due to the kindness of strangers. But before I get to that I'll highlight some great moments on the trip: 4)Finding out while I'm on the train that the plans have changed and need to go to another station, and the person giving me directions doesn't know how to get there (thank goodness I can speak just enough to ask people to help me) 3)I'm told to take a taxi. In the taxi I learn the direction are bad. When I phone Liz, I'm told to go back to the sataion where I caught the taxi in the first place (Even the cab driver was shocked at that one) And now for my two favorites 2)When I'm about to call Courtney for directions, Liz tells me she feels bad about interrupting Courtney's Japanese lesson(by the way her tutor is the same guy helping us get the car fixed, so he knows all about it) 1) and since Liz felt bad for Courtney she wanted me to get back on the train, go to her (Liz's) house and she would drive me to Courtney's.

At this point I also found out it was only a ten minute from the station I was at to Courtney's. I decided to walk and was given bad directions yet again. At this point it was funny. And now its time for the uplifting segment. So, I'm kinda lost in the middle of, basically, nowhere. I see two high school kids (one walking, one on a bike) and ask them how to get to the landmarks I'vew been told about. They don't know, but they ask me to wait a moment. The kid on the back flies off in the other direction, about 4 minutes later he comes back with excellent directions for where I'm going, and even manages to explain in a way where I can understand. Then the boys ask if I want them to come with me. I thank them, tell them I'm ok, thank them again, and start walking. I go forward, they go left. A little bit later the kid on the bike comes riding towards me, he shoves his bike in my hands, tells me he's on the basketball team and needs to run so I should ride his bike to where I'm going and he'll keep up. I try to tell him I'm ok, but soon realize I can either ride the bike or be really rude, so I start riding. I'm much taller than he is. My knees are coming up to my chin, the kid is jogging beside me, we're making small talk. 5 blocks later we find where I'm going, and the other kid is waiting for us. Which means they must have took the back way to get there, so they wouldn't embarass me by scouting ahead. After making sure I know where I am they go home, which I'm pretty sure was right next to where I first talk to them. Whether the went out of their way because they are that nice, or because here I'm pretty exotic, who knows.

But I made it to Courtney's, go the car and got home. So it was a learning experience. So, that's how I got my lavender 95 Mitsubishi Mirage.

Soft Tennis and English extra credit

2004-09-21T14:47:00.000+09:00

Firday was my last day at Umeda until next week. It was a very good day. I had two classes, both of which were self introductions. Hmm, I don't think I've gone over self introductions yet, so let me describe this integral part of being an ALT. The first time you meet a class, you perform basically a one act play that is introducing you. You bring any props you have, you try to get the students to both be excited and also listening any way you can. Plus you speak a language many of them can't understand. It can be incredibly fun, or if the class is not responsive at all, it can be sheer torture.

With me I usually bring a map of the United States, pictures from back home (about 6-7), and a bright Hawaiin shirt, my staw hat and sunglasses. I also have the psychology pictire that is both an old woman and a girl depending on how you look at it. It sometimes is a great way to show a psychological demonstration(it was my major), and other times I have 25 kids looking at me like I'm an idiot. To start I tell my name and age. I tell where I come from. Then I either do the psychology thing, or maybe talk about clothes. If I talk about clothes I pull up a student and proceed to drape them in my shirt, which looks like a kimono on some of the smaller girls, put my hat on their head and put sunglasses on there face. It almost always brings the house down. I tell them my hobbies and stuff like that, usually while running around the room and talking in a big voice. And I show them pictures. That's basically my self-introduction. In two weeks I've done it 14 times. Yea, fun.

But back to Umeda. After school I often have kyudo practice, which means I run out at the first chance in order to make it to practice. Days where there is no kyudo i try and linger and talk to students, who have club activities every single day, including weekends. Friday while I was walking around the girls soft tennis team invited me to join them, which I did. And boy was it fun. We did drills and they explained to me what to do, and had a blast watching me wither do well or royally suck as the case may be. But it was a great time. Its hard to describe, because not only was I having fun playing a sport I like, but they were thrilled it seemed to have me there. The double whammy of joy.

Also, and there is no better way to say this, Japanese girls are just adorable. Its true, they are absolutely precious. This is especially true watching them play sports, because its an incredibly polite competition. At kyudo there are 16 year old girls who are just lethal with a boy and arrow. They become very serious when shooting. They have intense concentration. And after nailing a paper target the size of a dartboard from 30 yards they flit to the back of the line. And that doesn't do it justice. In soft tennis(called after the incredibly spongelike balls used) these girls are nailing the ball, but they still manage to maintain an aura of just sweetness. Its a very bizarre yet wonderful combination of tom-boy and princess.

Another fun event during my practice was when the track and firld girls squad tracked me down in order to be taught some English. They wanted me to tell them what "unko" is in English. When I didn't know the word they drew it in the ground. It was poop. Or crap. Which were the two words I taught them, and explained how to use. They wanted the really bad words for it but after hearing that after only one week at school it is too early for me to teach them swears, they agreed. So, probably next week I'll get more questions. Maybe the boys will be brave enough to ask, but maybe not.

I get a kitty, and Higashi comes in second

2004-09-16T11:08:00.000+09:00

I have now entered the world of pet ownership. It is a strange and scary place, especially because I really didn't intend to become a pet owner. It happened like this. On Tuesday, my friend Brian and I went to Kyudo(Japanese archery) practice. I've been doing this for about 2-3 weeks now, and its great. I'm still traing on form and everything so I haven't even lifted a bow yet, but I'm sure any day now I'll get invited to join the wasp clan. (A joke that only my Athens boys will understand.)

Back to the kitten part: During the whole of practice I hear a constant mewling coming from outside in the bushes. Finally at the end of practice I go check it out and there is this little kitten who is just adorable and tiny and hungry and I just melt. I can't just leave the thing there, who knows what would happen to it. It'd probably get eaten by bears. Well, maybe not, but bad things would happen to this little kitty if I didn't take it home. Or actually I took it to Brian's home. His wife, Christy, loves cats, and they have ferrets which means they have kitty chow and litter. We give her a bath (the kitten, not Christy), which she adores as only cats can. We marvel at how many fleas come off of her, and how big Japanese fleas are. Finally, after they lend me a pet carrier and give me the name of a vet who speaks English, they drive me home. I barricade the kitten in the bathroom section of my house and then after playing a bit, go to sleep.

The next day after the local Junior High English Speech contest, Brian and I take the cat to the vet. There we learn that 1) the vet nurses find her adorable; 2) She has worms, which is treatable and expected; 3) She also has cat herpes. Yes, that's right, my cat has herpes. Laugh it up. I should tell that this is pretty common in cats, and that it is in no way dangerous to people. Otherwise that cat would be gone. But since all I have to do is give her eyedrops for about a week she should be okay. She'll occasionally break out, but if she lives astress free life it shold be okay. And once she gets a bit more potty trained I'll introduce her to the rest of the house. Her name is Azuki, or in English just Beans.

Now about the contest: Wednesday we (the JET ALTs) judged the local English Speech contest. Many speeches, many about wanting peace, or going to homestays were made. It was a pretty group of English kids. One of Alison's girls came in third, Brian's came in first (he was such a proud mother), and my girl, Chisato, came in second. Chisato did great. Her speech is good, even though it does contain the power to depress everyone who hears it. The title is "If love dies, does love also die？”　It has lines like "My grandfather died two years ago. He did many things for me, but I didn't even get to see him in the hospital before he died." Its good, and at the same time really cute because she has a hard time with "r" and "l" sounds, so she will say "Austrwawia." She has reallt good pronunciation, and can put some emotion in her voice. On October 8th she goes to either regionals or a prefectural competition, and I'm excited for her. I think we can polish this speech up and then see how she does. But I'll be proud regardless.

And that is your message of love and hope for this day.

Man, Tokyo is big.

2004-09-14T10:53:00.000+09:00

I know that everyone who visits this site does so for the profound words of wisdom that I spew forth. So, I will repeat a lesson: Tokyo is big. Very big.

This past weekend started with a trip to Tokyo. The plan was on Friday night to have dinner with the Smiths (those responsible for bringing Mike Smith into the world) and hang out for a little on Saturday before going on to climb Mount Fuji. The first part of the plan was easily accomplished. I met up with the Smiths, they were very kind and took me out to dinner where I had a hamburger. Its been over a month since I had a decent hamburger and I didn't even know I was missing them. It was covered in cheese and barbacue sauce. Oh, man was it good. Plus they allowed me to crash on the sofa bed in their hotel room, so I owe them an eternal debt.

Saturday I met up with JC, also in Tokyo, and we prepared for our Journey by meeting a very nice lass for Mexican food, which is another hard thing to find in Japan. Mexican food, not nice girls. Not that I've found a nice girl... I mean there have been nice people I'Ve met... Its hard to get a good burrito is all I'm saying. Most @places base their menu off of pictures of Mexican food. Rumor has it that at the "Mexican" place in Kiryu, you can gert your "taco" with whipped cream on the side.

But I'm getting my story out of order. Before lunch we went top by direct bus tickets that would take us to where we would start our climb on Fuji-san. Those buses were sold out, but we could take a train to the area near where we wanted to start our climb. But, from that train station it was too far to walk, and there were no buses to Fuji-san until Sunday. We could take a taxi, we were told, but it would cost about $300 dollars. I don't knoiw if this was round trip or not, and didn't really care. It was far too rich for my blood, and we just decided to meet up with some of JC's friend and spend time in Tokyo.

I've only been in New York a few times, so I am not an expert on it or anything, but from what I saw I can tell you that New York has absolutely nothing on Tokyo. Its that big. There is a train/subway station in Tokyo called Shinjuku station. Shinjuku station is bigger than Atlanta's Hartsfield Intl. Airport, and Hartsfield is one of the biggest airports, if not the biggest, in America. So, while Tokyo is fun and there's lots to do, it may be just a bit to big for a guy like me. I'm not used to that closed in feeling you get when you are constantly surrounded by maybe 1,000,000 people. Also, I was constantly worried that I'd accidently whap some tiny Japanese woman in the face with my elbow. When majority of the women you see only come up to your shoulders and weigh maybe 100lbs. this is what you worry about.

i should also add that Saturday night was spent in a capsule hotel. I slept in box. But to be honest I was pleasantly surprised by how roomy it was for a box. And it was by far cheaper than getting a real hotel room.

This Monday i started at my other school Umeda. Its nice, and I'll probably have a bigger report on it later.

Derek- Alison is not my girlfriend. She's the only female JET in Kiryu, and she's really cool. Plus she lives in the same building as I do so we often hang out.

If anyone else has questions, send 'em in. I love letters. (Beth, I promise I'll respond to you very soon. Don't send a vampire after me.)

And so it begins

2004-09-09T13:20:00.000+09:00

The school year has begun here in Japan. Well, actually not the real school year. That began in April, but the part of the school year where I start teaching, that parts begun. Here's the deal: I teach at two Junior high schools. The one that I have been working at since September first is Higashi Junior High. Next week I start working at Umeda Junior High. I will rotate week by week between these two schools. Starting the last week in September I will begin visiting local elementary schools and kindergartens. Also that week I will begin teaching an adult English class on Wednesday nights. So, pretty soon I'm going to be a teaching machine.

But let me go on about the first few days of my teaching career. The first day has an opening ceremony where the entire school goes into the gym. Bythe way the entire school is a little under three hundred students. So they're in the gym, and the sing the school song, and listen to speeches. So thrilling stuff for them I'm sure. Then I am introduced, and am supposed to make a speech in English that can be understood by kids who some have only been studying English since April. I had one prepared, but in the intro for me, all the basic info about me that I prepared was said. So I winged it. And I killed. The third years (8th grade) were cracking up, the first years (6th grade) were looking at with awe and wonder. I was hoping around the stage being bigger than life, and they loved it. Afterwards I spent the next hour walking around the halls talking to everyone I could and generally feeling like a rock star. Which was good.

Since then I've been at Higashi every weekday, and am still a kind of rockstar. So far I teach as many as three classes or as few as one class a day. And depending on whom I'm team teaching with I have various control over what goes on. I'm somewhere between a real teacher and a guy who hangs out and plays games in English.

The staff at Higashi are all very nice, and I am starting to feel comfortable trying to talk to my co-workers. They all seem to talk varying degrees of English and I practice my Japanese with them. Hopefully next week Umeda will be a friendly.

I`m the guy.

2004-08-25T08:39:00.000+09:00

Yes that is correct. It`s me. For a bit I wasn`t sure, but know I am practically entirely convinced that I am. I am the one guy in Japan who does not like hip-hop. Not that I completely dislike it. I suppose there is some hip-hop out there that has but, but in the recent years any music that has come out with the label of hip-hop has pretty much been crap. If you can`t tell why it`s crap than either you haven`t been listening, or perhaps are deaf. But even then you can probably feel the repetitive bass and drumline and will soon grow bored and then annoyed with the so-called music that is hip-hop.

Here is where that came from, and this is a pretty boring story all things told. Last weekend myself, J.C., and Alison went to Takasaki (bigger city near Kiryu) to go to a dance club. At first it was kinda fun, and even now I`m glad I went. But soon it started to suffer from massive amounts of cigarette smoke, being to loud to hear anyone, and of course bad music. Another thing strange about the music is that in the four hours we were there there were certain songs that the DJ played 3-4 times. I don`t know if this is standard practice in the states, but hey, there you go. I should also add that all the songs were in English and from America. If only you could place an embargo on crap music.

In all fairness to the music scene of small Japanese clubs, the previous Saturday I went with several people, mostly other gaijin, to a ^disco^ night at a dance club. (Just pretend disco is in quotations. That key doesn`t seem to work.) This place was tremendous fun. There were only about 6 disco songs that night and the rest were mostly eighties music or something like that. And we gaijin brought the party with us and were dancing up a storm. A high point of the evening was when the DJ played Living in America. We were pretty sure that was for us. By the end of the night everyone was coated in sweat and exhausted and the better for it. It was a great time. So I guess the secret is to avoid clubs that advertise hip-hop because that is pretty universal in its crapiness, where as disco I imagine is widely misunderstood here and so opens up several decades of music that has a fun sound, and maybe a funky beat. Kind of like disco parties in the States. I guess it is a small world after all. (yuk yuk yuk)

The Update for two weeks ago

2004-08-23T09:30:00.000+09:00

The 10th thru the 13th all of us new ALTs in Gunma went to Maebashi, which is the capitol city. The reason for the massive influx of kids was to attend the orientation for new JETs. We spent two nights and three days learning such varied and thrilling things as how to handle taxes, how to use an ATM when you don`t speak the language, and what to look for when buying a car. Of course there were also workhops on teaching and how to get the kids interested, but that might come accross a little two glamourous.

All in all the actual orientation was pretty entertaining. It was organized and enactd by current JETs, must of whom were fun people, who have spent the last few years trying to puzzle out how to make even the driest of school lessons enjoyable, so they were able to keep us educated and entertined. A two for one special if I do say so myself. And on the thrid day we just had cultural workshops which were very cool. They had traditional music demonstrations, and karate, and shiatsu massage, and traditional dancing lessons. Freah from the wild dancing of the Yagibushi I attended this workshop and found out that it was pretty much only for the ladies. But since I was there I got put to work taking pictures. Loaded down with three cameras I took snapshots of western girls in kimonos,, which I feel should be a special workshop all in its own.

I guess you could say there where evening workshops as well, if you allowed a bunch of us roaming the streets of Maebashi looking for food and drink. The people in charge did a good job of leading us around, and taking us where we wanted to go, and making sure that everyone got home safely. Of course some folks ended up staggering home, but at least they staggered home safely. I think one of the high points was when over seventy of us descended upon a karaoke bar. First a note on the differences of karaoke. In America all the karaoke I have been to is usually one large room where everybody takes turns singing. In Japan there are many rooms of various sizes, where people break into groups and then sing there hearts away. All while drinking massive amounts of course.

And since both the presenters and the attendees of these workshops went out, at time it made for some interesting workshops.

One more thing I need to touch on. New Zealand. The Kiwis as they call themselves. Everyone that I have met who is from New Zealand has been supercool. No lie. IT makes me think that New Zealand might possibly be the coolest place to live, or that maybe they put something in the water that makes New Zealanders good people. And its not just me who has this opinion. I have had several conversations with several people about the coolness of New Zealanders. Just letting ya`ll know.

A Note On Jargon...

2004-08-23T08:44:00.000+09:00

One of the things that I have been told about this site, other than that I have already become lazy with my updates, is that I am using a teensy bit of jargon. So, here is my attempt to define some of the terms that may come up.

JET (Japanese Exchange and Teaching) Programme - this is what I`m doing, the reason I am here in Japan, and how I got a job teaching junior high kids.

ALT (Assisstant Language Teacher) - This is what I am. Pretty self explanatory. I am a language teacher, and I am an assisstant to the:

JTE (Japanese Teacher of English) - The Japanese teacher ... of ... English. Another hard one.

Shak Shou - a bad spelling of the Japanese term for city office. This is where the Board of Education is, and where I work until I start teaching on Sept. 1st.

The Morning After

2004-08-09T10:17:00.000+09:00

That was a long, but very enjoyable weekend. Three days full of parades, vendors, and dancing in the street. And when I say there was dancing in the street, I mean there was an incredible amount of people dancing in the street. But more about that later. First: the enkai. After going thru one I have to say that it is an excellent idea. It was about, maybe, 25 people all from the education office with maybe seven of us being foreign. OF course a lot of people spoke decent English and I got to practice my bad Japanese so communicating wasn`t that bad. There were welcoming speeches, they talked, us new ALTs talked and then there was the kanpai, or `cheers` and the drinking and eating began. This went on for a little over an hour and a half of people talking and drinking and laughing and drinking and taking pictures and drinking. And it served its purpose. I know feel a lot closer to the people in the office who in reality I still barely know.

But the night did not end there. After that we, in small groups that soon got seperated in the crowds, walked to another point in town where our part of the yagibushi dancing was to take place. While walking I raninto Setsuko, a woman in an English class I`ve been visiting, who wanted me to meet her daughter and husband. They were all very nice people, and the husbdan, who was a yagibushi musician decided to teach me the dance.

A quick note　on the dancing. Throughout the town Kiryu had these tiered floats set up where musicians and a singer group together to play. Very festive and traditional music, lots of drums and flutes. Around these floats people form circles, and rings. This whole area is called a Yagura. Basicaly in a happening area, there will be one circle on each side, and each circle will be several rings of people all dancing and singing and chanting. So to learn the dance, which is very simple but can be filled with flair, I got tossed into the center of one of these circles and was jostled about, very good naturedly where a whole circle then taught me the dance, while dancing, and using only the English of `One two one two` and `easy easy.` But I did learn. And on the thrid night I even felt comfortable adding the flair to my movements.

Te feeling of the matsuri really is hard to describe. Imagine Savannah`s St. Patricks day on a little smaller scale. The streets are blocked, people are everywhere drinking and eating from little stands. Most people are wearing Yukatas and jebbeis, kids are all over the place, usually hailing the ALTs whenever the see them, and almost every one hundred yards is a Yagura where people are dancing like crazy, and everyone is having a good time, and for the whole night. So when the party stops, usualy despite the urging of the crowd, everyone is covered in sweat, and tired from dancing. And then one of three things happened for everyone: sleep, drink, or people forming their own Yaguras with just chants and whistles.

So after a late night of dancing and and masturi, today I`m at work at 8:30 in the morning. Someone get me a coffee.

Its Matsuri time!

2004-08-06T11:10:00.000+09:00

The Kiryu Yagibushi Matsuri is upon us. Or at least it will be tonight. So, here is what that means: Matsuri is a festival, and yagibushi is a type of traditional dance. So now it is a huge party that is done downtown Kiryu. In this town of about 112,000 maybe 300,000 people show up, so things are supposed to be packed. Also tonight is our welcome enkai, which is a party designed to get everyone who attends as drunk as possible. It should be a fun night, seeing as how it is being hosted by the School Education group. So it`ll be all the people I`ve been seeing in the office this week just getting tanked. Of course if I abide by the rules of the culture than I won`t be able to reveal any of the shenanigins, but maybe I`ll use my gaijin exemption powers. If anything interesting happens that is.

Today I`m wearing my new jenbei to the enkai and matsuri. It is a traditionalstyle shirt and shorts outfit. I feel kind of like I`m wearing pajamas around but people are getting kick out of seeing us in the clothes. Especially out of Alison and Jason who are wearing yukatas (summer kimonos.) Getting an outfit that would fit me was a little adventure in and of itself. Most of the places we visited took a look at me and said ookii (big) and that it would be very difficult to fit me. We had to go check out the big and tall shop in Ota, the next town over、in order to find me clothes.

Well, we just went around the board of education pasing out ice cream, and then had a talk with the head of the building about westerns and John Wayne. I guess there is nothing quite like westerners walking around in old fashioned outfits passing out icecream that reminds people of the cowboy lifestyle.

Its Moving Day!

2004-08-03T07:32:00.000+09:00

Yes the day we have been eagerly anticipated for the past bit is upon us. Later on in the afternnon I will move into my new apartment. I'll be able to unpack my suitcases. Life will be filled with the little pleasures of having my own place. But enough rambling about that, I have plenty of other things to ramble about.

I spent Sunday wandering thru Kiryu yet again. Allsion and I made are way thru the little streets and now both feel confident that we can make our way from the our apartment building to the City Office, no problem. So, that's agood feeling. Also, we discovered a little parek area that is right on the way that is just wonderful. It has abig field in the center with an absurd amount of dragonflies around. There were little kids and parents with bug nets, and these kids were just adorable. We were allowed by a nice lady to take some pictures of here wee little son, so maybe later I'll be able to get that picture posted.

To vastly change subjects, it is a thrill to try and order food in another language. Especially in places where you cannot at all read the menu. And not in that "its in French and I can't read French" way but that "I don't know this kanji so I can't even sound it out" way. This isn't a problem when we are with the other ALTs seeing as how they can read and speak with a much greater ease. But when it is just me and Allison it becomes my duty to see that we get feed, because she has no Japanese language. I've done well for myself tho, mostly do to the incredibly nice shopkeepers who take the time to talk to us. So far its been very easy, and then we "talk" for a little bit. But I don't want the folk back home redaing this getting the wrong impression. I am not fluent, I have not mastered the language. But I can order soba.

A New Hope...

2004-08-01T18:38:00.000+09:00

Well, for those of you who are reading this and don't know, I'm in Japan, and have now lived here almost one week. The adventure started early on last Saturday morning when 103 of us Assistant Language teachers left Atlanta to spend the next year in Japan teaching English. Flash forward a mere 26 hours later and we reach our hotel in the Shinjuku part of Tokyo. Completely exhausted, in a strange city were a vast majority of us were now functionally illiterate, and with most of us only knowing each other since the day before we did what any young person would do. We hit the town. In my case that meant going out with about 6 other people, mostly American but we did have one very cool Irishman, finding a restaurant near the hotel, then eating udon and drinking sake with a charming blonde. And of course after settling the bill: sleep. It had been a long day.

Over the next two days there were meetings and workshops and trying not to fall asleep during the day and trying to fall asleep at night. Or at least trying to go to bed at a reasonable hour. One of the neatest things was that even tho few people knew each other from before, there was a great sense of comraderie between most people, and it was usual quite easy to find onesself among a grop pf new friends. WHich I guess may actually sound kind of lame, but it was true, so get over it.

Now however, I am in Kiryu city in Gunma prefecture, which is going to be my home for however long. there are about seven of us junior high ALTs in Kiryu, three new and three staying. Everyone I've meet has been really cool, and our supervisor Imaizumi-san (pronounced long E-my-zoo-me) has been really great. We completely lucked out when it comes to him. He's shown us around the city, taken us to buy things for our apartments, and really been tremendously good to us.

Speaking of apartments that is the one kinda bad thing right now for me. I haven't been able to move into mine yet. I'm taking over an apartment from an ALT who is leaving, but she doesn't move out until the 3rd, so I'm staying at JC's apartment. JC is form Decatur and is a cool guy. I've mostly been hanging around with him and Allison (another new ALT) the past few days, and its really good having someone to introduce me to new people and help me find out where everything in Kiryu is, but I'm still living out of a suitcase. That's actually the only bad part really. I want to unpack. But it is hardly a cross to bear, so I don't want to complain, I'm just bringing up as part of (mostly)full disclosure.

This is an absurdly long update, and most won't go on this long, but I have a lot to cover, and only just a little bit more: Today I went with JC and Allison to watch the Junior high girls basketball team play in a tournament. They were a good group of players, but they only won their first game. I'm mostly bringing this up as an example of getting out in the community, but I guess a better example would be when I helped teach an adult English class a few nights ago, but really I think that this has gone on long enough. So peace out for now, and drop me a line if you know how to get in touch with me.