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Cut
Again.
Tuesday, December 4th, 2007
Last night I went into town and had Jintei with Stephanie. She had
taken the Japanese Language Proficiency Test on Sunday and needed a
fix. Jintei is a good fix and I ate a lot. I love the salad most of
all there. He told us the recipe last night, but I doubt I can
re-create it. Plus getting the salad there is a big part of the whole
experience. I might try at some point anyway since the dressing is
insanely good.
Speaking of insanely good, there is some wicked smell in the teacher’s
room and more specifically in the kitchenette area. It’s like a
coffee-cocoa-chocolate smell and I can’t find the source. Whatever it
is, it is amazing.
Friday, after the reserved class I did have dinner with Paula and then
we went to Lydia’s party. It was fun, but there were too many people
at Karaoke. Karaoke is fun, but more than 5-6 people is too much. The
ideal karaoke situation is 5 people of the same age (roughly) and same
nationality and everyone sings all songs. Sometimes people throw a mic
at you and say “here it’s your song, sing it”, but I put in some songs
that are just good to sing. I really hate it when there is a good flow
of energy going along and someone puts in a stupid slow song and
everyone nearly goes to sleep. Or someone plays some obscure Japanese
song that no one knows and no one can read. Karaoke, being a Japanese
thing, should be about the group, not the individual.
So this week I was supposed to have a full load plus a double class
with the 7th graders. Then a teacher came over and asked if
I would mind if some classes were cut. I didn’t reply very
Japanese-like. I said “is it really important, or is it something
small like you will be giving back tests?” She said it was to give
back tests and I said I really needed those classes since they have
been cut for several weeks. It wasn’t Japanese, but I am really tired
of having my classes cut all the time. Another teacher went straight
to the schedule making teacher and requested one class be cut and it
was so now the seniors can’t watch the second half of the movie they
were watching. Instead they will be doing the all important “self
study” which they couldn’t do anytime else, such as at home.
A friend of mine lives in Hong Kong and teaches English there. The
deal seems so much better than here. I really loved living and working
here until I talked to him. He lives in a luxury hotel that is cleaned
three times a week and includes a gym, pool, and several restaurants
and bars. Plus he gets a fat rent allowance so I think he makes a
little money off that as well. I pay low rent since some is
subsidized, but my utilities are absurdly high. If I use them freely
the are about the same, if I don’t use them at all to the point of
even not being here, they are still about the same. I’m pretty sure
there are minimums or something or they are based on an average of
everyone in the building. Anyway, his deal is looking really sweet. I
had considered staying here 3-4 more years, but I have realized there
is zero advancement here. I make the exact same as I did the day I
started. Some form of bonus or appreciation for staying on several
years would be good. We do get great vacation benefits, but in the
long run I need to feel like I am moving up in some way.
The elementary 1st graders are learning/practicing jump
rope in the big hall. It’s funny to watch them since they have no
sense of space. One kid will start jumping rope without looking around
and his/her rope will smack some kid. That happens about 50 times a
session. It doesn’t hurt too much since they aren’t pulling the rope
fast, but still it’s funny. A few times some kids came up to me and
said “Ryan sensei, please watch” and then they would smack me since
they were too close. It’s funny and no matter how often I say watch
out, they simply do what they were told to do, which is jump rope.
No
Clocks.
Thursday, December 6th, 2007
I got to school early to prepare for two elementary classes. One is
with the 1st graders and it’s about numbers 1-12. I found a
foam clock in the cabinet and told the teacher I would use it for her
class. She said the foam numbers would be nice. I told her after I
taught the class about the numbers 1-12 (they already know 1-10), then
I could ask them what time it was if the foam clock was “set” to a
whole hour with no minutes. I would ask in Japanese and they could
answer in English. All they had to say was the hour number like 3 or 8
or 12. When I mentioned this she panicked. She said they don’t know
time yet. I explained it would just be the number practice and she was
still panicking. She pulled out her curriculum schedule and showed me
they don’t learn time until the 4th grade. She was in a
frenzy so I realized, as I have many times, there is no point in
arguing in Japan. Things are done how things are done. I said ok and
went back to preparing.
[later]
Ok the classes are over now. The 1st class about numbers
went rather well. The difficult parts were dealing with the kids. They
are in a state of needing acceptance at every turn so they would
either stand up and show me each excruciating detail that they managed
to complete, or they would start crying if someone wasn’t constantly
giving them attention. Plus they have the attention spans of glue,
literally. I would say stop talking about 20 times and then start
clapping and eventually they would get quieter, but never quiet.
Then I had the 2nd class with the 4th graders
about lowercase letters. I spent 20 minutes preparing the computer
room for that class. I started up 21 computers and opened the internet
and then went to a particular website and loaded a certain page. Then
I turned off the monitors. As I was leaving another class came in. I
said I needed 21 computers and I had reserved the room. The teacher
said they only needed 5 so I pointed out which ones I had already set
up.
I go to class and teach lowercase and then bring the class to the
computer room. About 10 kids from the other class were using my
computers. Ok, that’s not the end of the world, when we came in their
teacher told them to get off the machines. What do you think Japanese
kids are told to do when they are finished using something?
About 3 kids turned off their machines. I saw this and yelled (in
Japanese) “everyone stop moving. Don’t touch the computers. Clean your
things and move back. Don’t touch the computers. Move away, but do not
touch the computers.” But what do you think Japanese kids are told to
do when they are finished using something? They all cleared their
stuff and then reached over and turned off the computers. Not to defy
me, but because that’s what you do. You do what you are told and do
not accept any variables. It took me 10 minutes to reset the computers
and by then there was no time.
[later]
I realized I am still using the bag I bought in Taiwan 2 years ago and
it’s still in good shape. It wasn’t too expensive, but I remember
seeing and trying to haggle. I asked how much and he said something
like $500, but that was $500 Taiwanese dollars so really around $15
USD. Then I said “how about $300” and he didn’t even haggle, he just
said no and walked away. It was great even though I ended up paying
the full price. Usually there is some whining about how nice the
quality is and how much of a steal it was already, but here he just
said “no” and turned around.
Just Another Day.
Friday, December 7th, 2007
Nothing really of interest to report today. I had three classes this
morning where I showed a movie in each class. Then I graded some
papers from the 4th grade class. Then I had lunch and now I
am typing this. Tonight there is another NT night out, where we get
together and chat about life as a Native Teacher and have a few
drinks. I’ll probably stay in town since the next morning, which is
tomorrow morning, I am going to a Kindergarten Christmas party with
Stephanie. She teaches really basic English and I have tagged along
before. The kids are too cute and I hope to keep going with her. After
that we will have lunch some where and then I’ll do some basic
shopping.
I was just thinking it’s about two weeks away from the next payday,
and then I realized I am going
back to the US. I had nearly forgotten about it. That will be fun to
be in my native environment where I can understand everything and more
or less know how things will work. I plan to stock up on some basic
needs like clothes that fit and personal effects with nothing odd in
them. I’m going to send most of my paycheck back so I have money to
use while there. I always seem to be broke when I go back, but this
year should be better. I still haven’t bought presents for most
people, oddly just my brother-in-law. I think many of the others will
have to be boring gift certificates since I just don’t have anything
else that pops out in mind. I have a few ideas for the parents, but
I’m not sure about them.
Monday I give a speech about An American Christmas to the whole
school. I asked my dad to scan some old photos of me around Christmas
so I could show the kids. I wrote a speech in English and the English
teacher will translate it later. It’s about our traditions as well as
some pranks I pulled on my sister. Once I took one of her books and
wrapped it and then gave it to her. She opened it and was forcing
herself to be happy. Then she opened the cover and noticed it was
already her book so she asked what was up. I told her my favorite part
of that book was page 100. She acted strange and then put it down.
Later she picked it back up and flipped to page 100 where there was a
one hundred dollar bill inserted.
Presentation.
Monday, December 10th, 2007
I spent about 2 hours on Sunday preparing for my presentation. It was
perfect. I had everything in Japanese written out and pictures to go
along with them. I even had notes so I could show the picture at the
perfect time. So I got to school at 7 this morning to double check
everything and prepare the room
for the presentation. When I checked the presentation on my computer
at home it was all perfect and in order. When I got to school it was
all jumbled. I don’t mean slides had moved since I was on two
different computers, I mean slides were numbered wrong and completely
out of place. Slide number one, the file name was actually “1”, was
one of the last files in the presentation. I renamed it 13 and then
fixed the others. I have no idea what happened. All I can guess is
that I am schizoid and I was imagining something before. This is what
I call Ryan Syndrome since nothing else makes sense. [photo: my
English message board]
Then I take the computer into the big hall and plug it into the
projector controller (since the projector is hanging from the
ceiling). When I came back from Thailand last year I showed some
photos and there was a good hour worth of problems getting my computer
to project, so this time I pre-empted it by taking all the cables I
might need. It took about 20 minutes of switching cables and pressing
buttons, but I got it to work. Then as it is showing the welcome
screen something blinks. It didn’t like me pre-empting it with all the
cables so it had to throw up another obstacle. This time it decided to
project all colors except red.
Normally that wouldn’t be a big deal, but this time it was. What is
the main color you think of when you think of Santa and Christmas? So
the presentation was a little odd looking, but I wasn’t going to get
upset about it so I said I don’t care and went on with it. The Santa
suit was white-ish, the trees were ugly and everything had a green
glow to it. Whatever. There’s always something.
Friday and Saturday were busy days. Friday night we had an NT party
which was a blast. We went to two places. One was an Asian Fusion
place and we all flirted with the waitress that spoke great
 English
for some reason. She was attractive in a 40ish sort of way. Then we
went to a bar called Radio Bar which is more of a hang out casual bar.
They serve Guinness and actually filled it up to the brim, which is
really odd for Japan. Then I stopped by the monthly DJ party called
PULL (first Friday of every month at Sharp 9 in Koriyama). Then I
crashed in a hotel. I woke up early Saturday and met Stephanie so we
could go to a Christmas party at the kindergarten she teaches at
occasionally. By Christmas party I mean it was in a huge concert hall
and there were about 500 people there. The mayor was there and gave a
speech. We both thought it would be a small Christmas party.
[photo: some drunk guy just passed out at a restaurant]
Then we had lunch after I tried to find the school at which my
volleyball team was having a tournament, but I couldn’t and gave up.
Lunch was at Milky Way which has cheap meat plates and a great salad
bar. Finally we went to the electronics place by the station and I
helped her buy a new camera since she is going around to Kyoto, Osaka,
and other places like that over the break. We had Starbucks and
watched some crazy Japanese band play outside the station. Some really
hot girl came up to me and smiled and I realized it was the cute girl
from the Konan 7-11 who I had a secret crush on until I realized she
was a senior in high school. She looked wicked hot in her regular
street clothes, but she’s still in high school. ARGH. Honestly, if I
met her in a bar for the first time and she said she was a 30 year old
dental hygienist, I would totally believe her.
Sunday I stayed in mostly preparing for my 5 minute presentation
today. Then I watched some movies and Googled some stuff and checked
out some stuff on Amazon.com. I’m thinking about going for something
called CELTA next summer which stands for Certificate of English
Language Teaching to Adults. Or something like that. Anyway, it’s in
Thailand and lasts 4 weeks and it is intense. It’s around $1,500 USD
just for the course and then living would be around $300-700 and food
just less. Transportation isn’t too bad since it’s the low season for
Thailand. I am also interested in going to Hong Kong (possibly with
Stephanie) during spring break. So I Googled all that stuff and now I
am just waiting on a few things.
[later]
Sometimes the kids can be so aggravating. Today I spent hours
preparing copies of the standardized English test for some kids who
haven’t taken it yet, but really need to before they graduate. I gave
copies to several students and most were reluctant, but took it since
they could take it at home in private. A few students, one in
particular, was just rude about it and I nearly had to force it in her
hand. I wouldn’t have, but she is really good at English. The kids are
so worried about failing and being excluded from the group of people
who have passed. There’s no actual group, but in Japan little groups
like that are unofficially formed all the time. Sometimes I just want
to say forget it and move on, but I always come around.
Don't worry, it's only a Simuration.
Rank.
Wednesday, December 12th, 2007
When I left school yesterday around 5:30 I noticed another interesting
facet of Japanese culture. Students were getting on the bus to leave.
But some students were just standing by the bus in the freezing cold
waiting for other people to board first. Oh that’s nice. But now there
are no other people boarding and these people are still just standing
and waiting. They were waiting for their “senpai” to board first.
Senpai means upper-class or senior to you. Even though there were tons
of extra seats on the bus and they were only waiting on one person,
they could not board the bus until that person boarded first. One
student said “we wouldn’t expect you to understand”, which translates
as “you being an inferior lower class being could never possibly
understand our advanced superior ways”. I replied by saying I
understood the Senpai system, I just think it can be stupid at times.
Then I went to the store to buy dinner. When I got there for some
reason I HAD TO HAVE scrambled egg sandwiches. I mean there was no
other choice. I think it was my body’s way of saying it needed some
B12 since I have been feeling a bit B12-less recently. I usually take
a B-complex supplement, but I recently ran out and I will just wait
until I go back to restock. When I don’t have enough in the bod I have
some numb or “asleep” feelings in my limbs. Sometimes I can’t make a
fist or hold something tight. I read that B12 is in meat, dairy, and
something else and I don’t eat a lot of dairy so I figured my body was
saying “egg sandwiches are something we can eat and they are full of
B12, so we want it”. I do feel better today, especially now that I’ve
had my green tea.
I’ve got no classes to plan today or tomorrow, but there are several
classes I could go to as an ALT. During down periods I’ve got several
things to work on, one of which is finding addresses for the teachers
so I can send Christmas cards again. That’s a big deal in Japan and of
course there is a rigidly strict way of doing it. I’ve already put
about 20 through my printer and printed my return address on them, now
I have to send them through again and put the to: addresses on the
front. I seem to have lost the list from last year, so I have to
search again.
I had a class with the seniors today. They were learning “____ is a
teacher who likes baseball” and “A penguin is an animal which likes
cold weather”. I rarely use “which” in that case, but they are
required to learn both for the tests. Something that annoys me about
Japan (you’ve never heard me say that…) is that we have to baby them
and hold their hand. At no point are they required to really think
about solving a problem. We played a bingo game where I would say
“this is an animal that has a long neck” and they would search for the
word giraffe on their bingo sheet. But I would say it twice and then
it would get translated and then the answer would be given. Some
students would immediately find giraffe and circle it, but most would
just wait until the translation. I think that is a big reason why many
Japanese can read English, but not speak or listen well. I’m all in
favor of translation, just not all the time. Give clues and make them
figure things out and as a last resort then translate, but definitely
don’t do it immediately and all the time. It will be interesting to
teach in another country and see how they learn.
There are some Thai people I know who speak much better than Japanese
people of the same age or even older. Things are taught differently in
Thailand and their language accepts English easier. In Thailand my
name is Ryan and a certain soft drink is called Sprite. In Japan my
name is Ra-i-a-n and that drink is su-pu-ra-i-to. It must fit into a
mold and be converted into Japanese. Many of my students still speak
Japanese when they speak English. Whereas in Thailand things keep
their sound and people can say it. I’d like to learn Thai at some
point which could be easy if I live there after Japan.
Sometimes I am amazed at the level of interest Japanese people have at
the absolute smallest most insignificant things. Recently I had some
students laugh, actually laugh, at the way I erased the chalkboard.
Was I bouncing around telling jokes? No, I was going left and right as
opposed
to the standard up and down. Well to be excruciatingly precise, up TO
down only. Once I had a teacher comment that it was repulsive to watch
me eat lunch. I was horrified that I ate with my mouth open or
something. But no, it was merely that I ate a certain food before
another food. There is a strict order to everything and one must not
deviate. Shoes must be turned a certain way. Any other variable is
unacceptable and rude. I’m writing this now, because a teacher
snickered today when I ate something out of order and I remembered the
other things. [photo: guess which car belongs to the "do
things his own way" foreigner]
I wonder where this comes from. If I had to guess I would think it has
to do with how they have set ways of doing everything and I am being a
variable by doing something different. I mean all cultures have their
own way of doing things, but things like erasing a chalk board aren’t
too interesting and definitely not worth laughing at.
Relief.
Thursday, December 13th, 2007
I am so happy. I paid off the third of 4 loans. Unfortunately the 4th
loan is the biggest and is bigger than the three others combined, but
it has the lowest interest and I can start sending all double
payments toward it. First I paid off my credit cards which were
killing me. That was the summer of my third year here. Then I paid off
my ‘study in Japan’ loan a year later. Finally, I just paid off my
stupid annoying Sallie Mae loan which was for Microsoft certification
around 6-7 years ago. It was annoying because I didn't even finish the
classes. Everything was all going fine until they changed my schedule
at work so I was on the night shift. I got off around 7am, made it
home around 8am, but the school didn’t open until 11 and you had to
sign up for various classes. There was some free time, but it was just
scattered around and I could only go to the school on Saturdays and
they were only open for a few hours in the morning for free computer
time. So I couldn’t really take anymore classes, but I could wear my
Elvis glasses.
But that’s all water under the bridge and now I plan to send two
monthly payments to the last loan (which is a double payment) and
while I am doing that I will send about $300-500 to savings. I need to
build up a nest egg or at least some savings. Pretty soon I will have
enough in my account so that I don’t have to send money back
immediately each month. I’ll be able to set up auto payments and not
worry about it. Maybe around the summer of next year I’ll start
sending some serious money to pay down the loan. I think I could get
it down to halfway by the end of the year. I couldn’t possibly imagine
not having to send money back and actually profiting each month. That
is not real. I do not believe it.
Something that is really bugging me about teaching elementary school,
well technically it’s about NOT teaching, is that there is a
curriculum that the teachers go by. That’s fine and makes total sense.
However, sometimes I will not go to a certain class for a month or
more. When I finally do go to the class the teacher insists we do what
is listed on the curriculum chart for that month. I could almost
understand that except for the fact that many of the lessons build on
previous ones. For instance, I am supposed to teach “what’s this”
tomorrow, but since I haven’t been to this class very much I have
nothing to show them and ask “what’s this”. When I teach WT I should
have several categories to quiz them on, but now I don’t. I want to
play a game where they go around asking other kids WT, but now I am
limited in what they can ask because for most of the questions the
kids don’t know what it is. So next year I want to nip this in the
bud. I’m going to make sure I nip it. Right in the bud. I’m going to
demand two classes per month.
Say "what" again !!
Overwhelming.
Friday, December 14th, 2007
I didn’t throw away any memos I received this week, just to see how
many I got. I haven’t counted them, but if you look at the paper it’s
around 2-300. Sometimes it’s truly overwhelming getting so much
paper. I’m not even really a huge “save a tree” type person, but we do
take the memo thing a bit far. Most memos could easily be saved on the
internal server and viewed as a web page. Many are just FYI one time
things. Some are notices that a later memo will come and we should be
expecting it soon. Today we got a huge packet of info for our 3:10
meeting. All that stuff could have been saved as a web page and viewed
from our computers. We actually do that for the big monthly teacher’s
meeting, but not for everything else. The irony of it all is the
student council sends around a newspaper talking about ways to
conserve paper and recycle. I’m sure eventually (when our paper
contracts expire) more schools will adopt a paperless office, but
there are still so many trees left. What’s the rush really? Timber!
Tomorrow I am going to do that kindergarten thing with Stephanie,
although I don’t think she’s going. It’s 30 minutes of simple English.
We sing songs and practice the alphabet and do basic stuff and the
kids love it. Tomorrow I will give them Ryan Stickers. After that I
don’t know what I will do, but I will stay in town for lunch. I would
love to see a movie, but there’s not much playing and it’s $18. Things
are always either absurdly cheap or absurdly expensive. It’s either
$20 or $90 to get to Tokyo by bus or the Shink. It’s about the same to
fly to the US as it is to fly most anywhere domestically in Japan.
Sushi costs anywhere from $1 a plate (for two pieces) or $1,000 a meal
for fine sushi (more if you eat it off a naked girl which you actually
can do). Food is either grossly over priced or really cheap.
Cantaloupes can be around $500 for one. Does someone come over and
clean your carpet if you buy one? Cars can cost as little as $300 for
a decent one, but then you have to pay over $2,000 in taxes per year.
Charity Case
Monday, December 17th, 2007
I love the way we handle charitable donations at school. First there
was that incident last year when I asked about collecting money for
the Thai orphanage and I was told we are not allowed to do that at
school. The teacher told me this as he was standing near a donation
box for another charity. As it turned out one could not collect money
for a non-Japanese charity at school. But that’s all water under the
bridge.
So this week and some of last week the kids are out collecting money
again. Their official spiel is something like “if you want to give
money please give as much or as little as you can”. But in reality
they have a list and point out to each person “oh you haven’t donated
yet, would you like to now?” So ok we have to donate, that’s fine.
Then they say the classic line “give as much or as little as you want
as long as it is at least 200 yen ($2).” They can’t say mandatory $2
donation, even though that is exactly what it is. Japan is the land of
beating around the bush about everything. It takes a while to get used
to it and I don’t think I am actually used to it.
For lunch, the “announcement club” asked me to do a little something
so I made a fun listening quiz. I brought some cool building up intro
music that was about 20 seconds. Then I told them to count how many
times they hear “yesterday” in the song cleverly titled “Yesterday” by
the Beatles. When the song finishes the first person to tell the
teacher the correct answer (9) will win. It went over well for the
most part and all but one class had a winner. There was a problem
though. Not a Ryan Syndrome problem, but what I consider to be a Japan
problem. There’s always something odd about things in Japan.
Everything will be normal and running fine and then there is just one
thing that is odd. Maybe I am at the World’s Fair and there is no one
in line, but the people make us walk all the way through the long
winding path to by tickets, rather than just jump to the front. Maybe
there is a nice cheap overnight bus somewhere, but they have to keep
the lights on full brightness all the time. Maybe we have to clean the
school one day and it has to be at 6am on a Sunday. This time it was
the CD player.
I have used hundreds of billions of CD players. I have even been a DJ
at my college radio station. I know how CD players work, but this one
had to be different. I put the CD in and it starts playing. Fine, I
hit pause and then ‘back’ so it would rewind. But nope, it won’t
rewind. We have to hit stop and pause really quick. Fine whatever.
Then we press play and it plays and when it finishes I press pause and
say something. Then I press play again and it won’t play. I press next
and it starts to play. Then I hit stop and forward, but of course it
won’t jump tracks. I have never had a more aggravating time with a CD
player than this. CD players are simple and there is no reason for all
this nonsense. Next time I am going to record everything at home and
just play the CD here. Unreal.
But overall it was cool. The intro music built up and some teachers
said the kids were surprised and got quiet. Then I started talking and
they were listening. There was a mistake and it was funny. I said
“here is the song”, but it was the intro again so I did a voice over
and said “please wait a moment” in a department store announcement
way. Not really that funny, but they laugh at anything. I want to make
it really fat next time, but I have to start thinking of some simple
songs. They have to be simple and clean and easy to hear and not about
anything bad. Although I have heard songs that offended me at public
places like ski grounds before. They love English songs and don’t even
care what they are saying. Sometimes the songs were so bad I would
cringe and I don’t get offended. It would be some kind of heavy metal
or gangster rap saying stuff like "I'm gonna take my %#&$ and shove it
up yo %#&$ until %#&$ comes outta yo %#&$ and squirts on yo %#&$
%#&$".
The kindergarten thing, without Stephanie, went fine. Well for the
most part it did, but time seemed to drag on there. I planned some
activities and mapped them out to take 15 minutes. Somehow, in magical
timeless Ryan-land, they took 2 minutes. I mean that is not even
possible based on how much stuff it was. But I looked at the clock
when I got in there and then I went averagely slow and when I finished
I looked again and it was two minutes. I ended up doing a few things
twice, but tried to make them look like I had planned to repeat them.
Then I did some shopping and came home. Then Stephanie called and
asked if I wanted to go to Jintei, which I did even though I had to
drive all the way back into town. It was great and I ate way too much.
Sunday I packed for next week and wrote some Nengajou or Japanese new
year's cards. I expect a problem flying back to Atlanta since many
airports are closed, such as the ones I am flying to/through.
Should have
known…
Tuesday, December 18th, 2007
I was up most of last night with stomach pains and other stomach
related things, but it was all my fault and I should have known
better. I had my usual two glasses of green tea in the morning, but
then I noticed for some reason things weren’t flowing so well in the
digestive department of the colon. I decided to move things along by
drinking a small can of coffee from the store. That always upsets my
stomach and causes the trains to move along. Well this tore my stomach
up something fierce for hours, like 12 hours. I was still feeling bad
this morning and technically I am still feeling a bit off. I wonder
how lunch will be.
Apparently I downloaded some virus yesterday at 8:15am since the board
of education called the school and told them about it. I don’t
remember what I was doing then, but it might be related to the
undelete program I was searching for. I deleted my entire point system
for the whole year for some stupid reason. I go through phases of
pack-ratting and stock piling and then 6 months later I purge
everything, sometimes literally everything. So I deleted that and have
been trying to undelete it, but it’s been too long so I can’t recover
it. Oh well, I was thinking about doing something new anyway. I guess
I will start something new in the 3rd term and change it
again for the new year.
I’m making my final arrangements for heading back to the US on
Saturday. Most everything is in order, the only thing I am worried
about is the ice storm in the Northwest part of the US, which is
exactly where I am flying into. If I can get to Chicago, then I should
be ok getting to Atlanta. I don’t really care about coming back late
as long as the airline doesn’t charge me for anything. I’m sending
back most of my paycheck since I’ll only need a week’s worth of money
to live on when I get back. A night in Tokyo, the bus or shink back to
Koriyama, then food for a week. I’ll need most of my money back in the
US for gifts and anything left over can go to savings or the credit
card since my other loans are paid off (minus the big federal school
loan – argh).
I am really getting sick of certain things in Japan. For one, there
are no grades and more importantly students know my "homework/tasks"
don't have to be done. I mean when the big 5 subjects don't have
grades, why should the extra English class matter. Let me clarify,
there are grades. There are As, Bs, and Cs. They all reflect to what
degree of great achievement the student accomplished. An A grade means
the student was great. B grades mean the student was still great, just
to a slightly lesser degree. C grades mean the same, but slightly
less. The kids that DON'T EVEN SPEAK graduate beside the kids that
bust their butt studying. To get a C you really have to make an
effort. Further, when teachers write the reports they can only say
good things. If a student is a complete #$%&*%$#@, he still gets good
comments on his review. If a girl chooses NOT to come to any classes,
something positive is written about her.
So what am I getting mad at? Well today a first year (7th grader)
asked what the class needs for tomorrow's lesson. There is always a
subject representative that asks what is needed and then tells the
class. She asked which game we would be playing tomorrow and if not a
game, which movie. I told her we would watch a short movie if HALF the
class did a weekly assignment that no one has been turning in. I've
long since given up on getting the whole class to do something, so I
shot for half. She put her arms up in the X formation which means "batsu"
or no, bad, uh-uh, not gonna happen. She said "that's no good". I
started to cave in and she said how about 10 or maybe 5. Then I
started to get mad. That's just rude telling a teacher NO we don't
want to do this simple assignment. Plus, they would NEVER do something
like that seriously to another teacher. Sure, jokingly they might say
something, but they are being serious with me. They simply don't want
to do anything other than games or movies and they flat out tell me
so. I already show them movies as a bribe to get them to do basic
assignments and even that rarely works. I almost snapped and said
"that's just rude, telling me no like that, it's just rude, how about
all 30 kids doing an assignment for once", but I realized I wouldn't
be able to explain it as I wanted in Japanese so I just walked off. I
have prepared a nasty not fun assignment for tomorrow and I will drop
it on them when no one turns in their assignments.
But even when they are being blatantly disrespectful and rude, in true
Japanese style, they are oh-so polite about it all. To the point that
I almost wanted to apologize for causing them to be rude.
Slight Backfire…
Wednesday, December 19th, 2007
I told the 7th graders, mentioned above, that we would
watch some short movie if at least 15 people turned in their required
weekly journal. Of course the usual two turned it in so we did a word
search. Normally word searches are about 15 letters wide by 15 letters
tall and there are about 20 words to search for. It takes nearly a
whole class. Well I made this one 30x30 with 50 words and some were in
Japanese so they had to translate them first. It took the whole class
and they didn’t finish and I even let them work in pairs and then the
pairs could share results at the end. They seemed to enjoy it which
was a slight backfire since I wanted it to be a punishment of sorts. A
few students asked to do these again which was not the point of the
lesson. I wanted it to have a review aspect, but I also wanted it to
be not fun to an extent.
I had the idea of making a life sized word search where each letter
was printed on a standard A4/8.5x11 page and they were lined up on a
grid in the gym or some room. It would take up about 1 foot per letter
so that would be at least 15x15, but it would be cool I think. I’d say
about 6 students could be participating at once. They’d be pulling
string or colored ribbons across the letters to mark words. I can
faintly see some logistical problems with it already, but I do think
it would be fun. I’ve also been thinking about a huge Indiana Jones
style game in the gym with different stations. One station would have
small cardboard boxes turned upside down. Under some of them would be
small stools so you could step on the box and not go through. On top
of the boxes would be various things like lowercase letters with some
being incorrect. Maybe you have to walk across the boxes and step only
on the actual letters in order. They couldn’t be high enough to cause
a student to fall, but enough to go through the box if it were wrong.
I could also use something like “step on only verbs or adjectives” or
even “irregular verbs”. I like taking things to absurd levels of
realism.
Waiting.
Thursday, December 20th, 2007
Tomorrow is payday, Saturday I leave for the US, today I have no
classes, so I’m really just waiting. I’m in limbo. I’ve made a list of
all the last minute things I have to do and I am checking them off
little by little. I might take some time off today so I can get my big
bag to the baggage delivery place and they will send it to the airport
where I can pick it up Saturday before the flight. It’s really
convenient and it only cost about $20 which is more than fine for me.
If it were around $30 or more it would be questionable, but my time
and effort of struggling with the bag all the way down to the airport
is worth more than $20. Plus they pick it up right at my door and even
fill in the form for me.
In the US I plan to take it easy and just chill. I don’t have anything
special planned apart from going to our lake house in Alabama for a
few days. I’m going to eat too much American food and shop for some
basic supplies I can’t get here and then just chill with the family
and my two new nieces. Sounds pretty boring, which is exactly what I
want.
I’m getting bored and frustrated sitting here. It’s life threatening
important that people physically be AT work regardless of what they
are doing or not doing. I have some things I need to do at home, but
I’m just sitting here doing nothing. I am most likely going to take
vacation time after lunch since I know I will go insane waiting around
for 5 when I could be at home packing or cleaning or _____ (fill in
the blank with anything other than sitting at school doing nothing).
I just logged into my online bill pay and deleted the payee for the
loan I just paid off. Oh how sweet it feels. Now I only have one loan
left as well as a goal of having a little something in savings. I
would love to leave Japan debt free though that would take some
hardcore sacrifice, but it would be great starting whatever I do next
with no loans and no urgent need to wire money back as soon as I get
paid. The other thing would be not having to worry and countdown until
my next paycheck. I couldn’t imagine how that would feel. That and
being able to pay for things in full when I wanted to do some big
ticket item like a trip somewhere whereas now I have to plan a month
or more in advance. There have been some times when I had to just stay
home and do nothing since leaving the house would end up costing me
something and I was that broke. Sometimes people would take day trips
or go camping, but I’d have to make up some cheap excuse. Same with
BBQs by the lake, I’d have to back out since they always cost a bit
getting meat and other stuff. There are some things I’d like to buy as
well as places I’d like to go, but most are going on the back burner.
I have to have some cushion not matter how small and pay down this big
loan.
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