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Japan is soooo GREEN.
Tuesday, December 01, 2009
When I reconnected with someone on Facebook recently and she found out
I lived in Japan she said the standard phrases: “Oh wow, Japan is such
a magical place, the people are so kind and polite, it must be amazing
to live there. I saw a report recently that Japan was one of the
greenest countries in the world (referring to environmentally
friendly).” Well let’s just see how green they are. Here is a rundown
of the memos on my desk since Friday:
1) A handwritten newspaper of the events for December.
2) A handwritten newspaper of the events for December from the
student council.
3) A typed newspaper from the homeroom teacher of the 7th
graders talking about things they did
during November.
4) A typed newspaper from the homeroom teacher of the 8th
graders talking about things they did
during November.
5) A typed newspaper from the homeroom teacher of the 9th
graders talking about things they did
during November.
6) 2 copies of a chart showing what’s happening each day of
December from the lead teacher.
7) The menu for December (not a menu as in we can choose, just
what we are having).
8) A 10-page über-secret memo on the results of the recent
tests for all grades.
9) A memo on “how to NOT catch the flu”. It does not mention
circulating the air in the rooms.
10) A copy of this week’s schedule.
11) A copy of this week’s events day by day.
12) A 2nd updated copy of this week’s schedule.
13) A 2nd updated copy of this week’s events day by
day.
14) 2 separate newspaper articles relating to the school and/or
Fukushima’s education system.
All that since Friday and it’s a fair summary of what I
get on Tuesdays. Usually there are 3-5 memos on my desk, but around
the first of the month there are more. There are 23 sheets (13 + the
10 page one), but multiply that by 60 for each one. That includes all
the teachers, all the administrators, all the staff, and multiple
copies for each classroom (minus the test results). Everyone who is
part of the group must be informed, even if it in no way relates to
them. That’s 1380 copies that were made in Green Japan over 3 business
days. Here’s why I laugh at this:
#1 through #13 could be put on a web page on our internal server and
we could read it on our screens.
#14 could either be NOT copied or copied once and enlarged and put on
a bulletin board.
However, these suggestions A) make sense and B) take away
a job from someone of copying and distributing all the memos. I truly
and sincerely believe we have a paper quota that we must meet every
week/month/year. It makes no sense to copy this much stuff. What’s
worse is that when we have a staff meeting and each get 50,000 copies
regarding the meeting, they are then ALL READ TO US. Put them on the
server and let us read them (be read to) from there. There is actually
one meeting in March where we do read things off the server, WHY can’t
we do that for all these things?
[end rant]
Yesterday I went to Kozu Elem (coe zoo) (28 kids) and had
3 classes. One was good since it was 1-20 and I have a good plan for
that, but the two others were so-so. Well the one I planned completely
was good in the sense that the kids really used the target language in
context and really remember it. The other one used that stupid
worthless English Note(book) that the Ministry of Education forced on
people. I know people like to complain about things like that, but I
can usually see both sides. Our textbooks aren’t perfect, but I have
no real complaints about them. They teach things like “you mustn’t do
that” which is probably correct English, but I never say that. But
this English Note book is awful.
Yesterday we did “directions” so I pre-taught the stuff
and had told the teacher we don’t need the EN and I would prepare
everything. So I get there and all the kids have their EN out and are
ready to go. I teach part of it and then decide to appease him by
doing an exercise from the book. I asked if he had the CD so he put it
in and pressed play. The people started talking full speed about where
to go. It was (in Japanese – Find the person and follow the directions
to his destination) then in English (Hi, I’m Bob. Where am I going? Go
straight- Go straight-turn right-Go straight-go back-stop. Where am I?
I couldn’t even follow it and we had no idea what to do. Then we had
to sing a stupid, stupid chant that was also too fast. Clearly when
they wrote this they used their own advisors with no actual teaching
practice since it’s not even close to a good resource. Furthermore, it
is designed to replace the foreign teacher. If I am there all I do it
press play and pause on the CD.
Today I am at Konan with one whopping class. It’s the
demon class, but I am going to try to have them play with my foam
letters. I fear they will put them in their pants or throw them or
steal them, but I am trying to be optimistic. I’m also going to have
them write letters on other people’s backs using their fingers. Next
week I have another class with them and then a 2 hour class on the 15th.
They are going to make Christmas cards that day which is usually the
only thing that keeps them calm. Doing crafts I mean, not specifically
Christmas cards.
[later]
The lead “demon” wasn’t there so the class went relatively well. I
might go so far as to say it was the best one yet, though still not
good by normal standards. My standards are low for this class. When we
were trying to start class one group to the left were just chatting
away. The teacher said be quiet a few times and then the class leader
of the day also said be quiet a few times, but they couldn’t hear that
because they were chatting away. They weren’t being rude, just
chatting. Two girls even had their backs turned to us. That’s pretty
standard for this class. The teacher is a nice guy, but not strict and
it shows. Some teachers are nice, but firm and they always have great
classes. My current all time favorite class is the second grade at
Tadano Elementary. They have a great teacher who reviews what I teach
on days I’m not there. She is really preparing them for the future.
Sunday, boring Sunday.
Sunday, December 06, 2009
I had to come to school today for an observed class day, even though
I’m not presenting nor do I have anything to do other than type this.
I don’t entirely mind coming in on Sunday since I’ll get Monday off,
but I don’t really like driving all this way for nothing to do. The
worst part is there are only two classes and then I think all the kids
go home. Yes, checking the board now and it shows grades 1-6 leave by
noon and the JHS kids stay until 4 doing club stuff. I wish the grades
1-6 kids stayed since there are some I like to play with. I’m not even
going to say hang out with, since they are playing and I’m joining in
or playing with them. That’s a perk to this job, most of the time I am
just playing with kids or acting stupid in class (while teaching
them). I rarely have to be serious.
Since some families brought both parents and may not have
a grandparent to watch their younger children, there are some young
kids running around. Their older brothers and sisters are reciting
folk tales from Konan that they have memorized and many parents are
here watching. Some of these younger kids are running around screaming
and completely disrupting everything, but no one says anything. There
are no punishments or consequences here and this is apparently not
rude behavior. I’d like to have a kid just so I can loudly say “Rocky
Jr, sit down and be quiet, it’s rude to run around yelling like you
are an ignorant rude child with no caring parents. Come over here and
sit down and be quiet and stop disturbing other parents, that would be
rude.” They still wouldn’t get it. I’ve actually heard parents tell
their kids it was ok to stare at the foreigner (me).
Speaking of serious, one serious thing, which is stupidly
annoying and I hate it completely is that we use name stamps instead
of signatures. Of course the name stamps aren’t cheap and we need 2-3.
It’s a total pain and the world comes to an end when you lose it,
which I HAVE. I faintly remember taking it home in some bag, but I
have searched everywhere and it is not at home nor in my desk at
school. Now I am going to order 3 to have one at home, one at school,
and one at the Board of Education since they use it to stamp stuff for
us all the time.
There’s a prime example of why I don’t like it. What if someone steals
it and uses it to do something? You can’t do that with a signature,
but you can with a name stamp. Someone said that Japanese people use
kanji and if they signed things with kanji people would be able to
easily copy it since it would just be lines. Well that argument is
garbage since we too can write in block letters, but we sign using a
cursive script. Furthermore, you can write kanji in a cursive script,
that’s what some famous calligraphers. Kanji could easily be written
in a way to resemble a signature, or people could write their names in
hiragana which is all flowing curvy lines. But they use a name stamp
because they always have and no one wants to stand out and say “hey,
maybe this isn’t the best method”. Here's a chart showing kanji
written first in computer font block lettering then progressing down
to the impossible handwritten style which could easily be a signature.
"But you can't read it." You can't read my signature either. It's an
'R', something like a 'y' then a tail.
Wednesday I went to Tadano and had 4 classes which went
well. The 3rd graders played with some foam letters I
bought and then look at a Christmas drawing with letters hidden. The 5th
graders played the ever popular review game called Typhoon. The 6th
graders did a country game called “__ is famous for ___”. I didn’t
want to teach that since it’s useless for them now and they actually
learn it as 8th graders. I get really frustrated when I am
given a topic to teach and sometimes directions on how to teach it by
people that don’t even speak English. I could never in a million years
imagine having a Chinese or Greek exchange teacher and giving them a
plan of A) what to teach in the order I chose and B) giving them a
detailed plan of an activity to use. Especially if I don’t speak their
language. I imagine I would say “here are some things we want them to
know. Could you develop a year plan and submit it to me?” But Japan is
not about the end result, they are about the process. WE made a plan
and WE followed through with it. What’s the end result? Who cares, we
made the plan and followed it through. Let’s pat each other on the
back and say well done (although we did nothing in the end).
I’ve had to use the book I hate a few times recently.
Again, that’s like having a foreign teacher, who natively speaks the
target language, come to your school and stand by the CD player and
press play and pause. I wouldn’t mind if it were the greatest teaching
aid in the world, but it is actually flat out awful. They recently did
an Australian voice and it was like a Jim Carrey imitation of Steve
Irwin. There were some exaggerated “G’day mate, let’s put a shrimp on
the barby, is that a kangaroo and a koala?” Well not that bad, but
really insulting and I’m not even Australian. The argument FOR the
book from someone was that the kids really enjoy listening to the
funny voices and that makes them like English. AHA, another example of
Japan not caring about the end result (fluency) and only caring about
the process there (no one feeling stressed).
Then Thursday I went to Ohse and had 4 classes in the morning and left
after lunch. The 4 classes were 2 of 1st and 3rd
grades. For the 1st grade (7th graders really) I
made a conversation like the one in the book and copied it twice on a
page then cut the pages in half using an exaggerated cut like a
cartoon paper. I made 12 conversations and duplicated them so there
were 12 unique ones and 12 copies. Then I had them walk around and
make pairs and read through each line seeing if it matched. For the 3rd
graders (9th graders) I made up something on the way to
class more or less. One side of the class was red and one was white
and they had to make questions to ask the other side. The question was
a missile and they were attacking the other side. It seemed to be
planned out and went well. I left early to search for my stupid name
stamp.
Photo: Previously mention foam letters.
Friday I went back to Kozu for the second time in one week
which was strange. When I got there I greeted all the classes as usual
and said “long time no see” and they laughed. It was a special day and
they had observed classes 5th period. I taught from that
stupid English book again, but used a second period to play my own
dice game that the kids loved. They had to roll a special die that I
made with six countries on it. It’s a box I made about 2 inches square
or maybe bigger, I forgot how big an inch is. It’s a folder cut up and
folded into a box then the images are glued on and finally it was
wrapped with clear tape. Apart from stepping on it, they could throw
it around and not break it. Then I had my observed class teaching
“sports” to the 3-4th graders. We also reviewed days of the
week, months, and 1-20 and they remembered it all.
After the observed class there was a Christmas cake
workshop with all the students and their parents (mostly mothers) in
the Home Ec room. The cakes were good and had nothing stupid in them
like shrimp or raisins. One type was a fruitcake and the other was a
chocolate cake. Someone brought their 3 year old son and he was
running around being loud and disrupting everything, but that’s
apparently acceptable. For a while he was running around with a big
knife and I just avoided him. His mother saw it and smiled and said
nothing. WOW, I cannot believe the differences in child raising
techniques. He didn’t get hurt and put the knife down, but I think
that was the 1 in 100 chance of him not getting hurt.
Last night I had a small movie night, but it wasn’t planned very well.
That was completely my fault, but next time I will do better. We
watched “A Christmas Story” with Ralphie and Randy and the Daisy Red
Ryder Pump Action BB Gun on the projector. Then I showed them some
videos I made and some other things. Keiko brought some pizza and
Barbara brought a salad, but I think the salad had something in it I
am allergic too since I have had a weird feeling since I ate it. I am
allergic to Lecithin and it causes me to get slightly short of breath.
I felt like that last night, but I am mostly better now. The new thing
I have is a dry throat. I get like that easily in dry air. I should be
able to get over this with no problem if I keep my throat moist.
[Afternoon 1:00ish]
Now we are having a teacher’s meeting. I assume it will
last about an hour. At the moment the principal is reading a memo to
us. So we get duplicates of all the memos and then they are read to
us. They pulled down the screen and are projecting the memos that were
copied and distributed and are being read to us. I wish someone would
give me a shoulder massage and translate everything that is being said
into my ear. I mean since we are being absurd…
I’ve been productive today. I went to a classroom to watch
one class do the folk tales for about 5 minutes then came back and
worked on various computer things. I made another “There Is – There
Are” worksheet. Where ‘there are’ for images nearly identical and
students have to explain each one and find the two that match.
Backtracking.
Tuesday, December 08, 2009
I went to the hospital for my monthly check up and the results weren’t
great. That’s a bit odd since last month they were much better and I
had eaten Indian food late the night before and had Starbucks a few
days before. Yesterday was a school holiday and I stayed in and ate
vegetables all day, but I think I might know what caused it. I missed
a few pills over the weekend and then Monday I did take a lot of cough
tablets. Not because I had a cough, but more because my throat was dry
and starting to get sore. Oh well, maybe I can start eating better and
get in shape. That’s going to be my singular goal of the year.
When I got to school the principal said there was a new
student in the JHS and he would only be here for two weeks. He wanted
me to meet him and talk to him, which seemed odd since I have never
been asked that before. I went into his office (the principal’s
office, the new student has no office) and said konnichiwa and he
replied “Hello, I lived in England for 6 years”. BOOYA. Wow that’s a
shame he’s only here for two weeks, it would be fun to have someone to
chat with natively. He’s really going to be bored here I think. He was
telling me about his weekly schedule and he said it included Latin,
French, English Grammar, and several other regular school classes.
Here we are learning “there is, there are”. So yea, he’s going to be
bored, but hooray to his parents who have set him up for success in
life. If he can speak English, French, and Japanese fluently, he can
get any job he wants in Japan.
Oh, while at the doctor I had him look at a rash on my
foot which appears to be something called Zoster or also Shingles.
It’s a small patch of redness that doesn’t itch, but clearly isn’t
right. He suggested I come back on a different day and see a
dermatologist which is what I plan to do during the winter break. I
might also go to a dentist and have them look at this gaping hole
where a cavity fell out 5 years ago. Yes, that’s sad I know, but it
doesn’t hurt. I feel like I need to have it looked since it’s clearly
not right.
I should be able to make a bigger update tomorrow since I go to Konan
which means lots of sitting. I have 2 classes, but one is 2 hours.
It's with the demon class, but they are making Christmas cards so
maybe they will be quiet for a while.
Gregor Samsa.
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Yesterday I went to Ohse and was more or less paid to read Kafka for
much of the day. I had three classes in the morning, but two were the
same and all three were review. For the 1st years (7th
graders) we played a battleship style game use “Can You ___”. Students
would randomly pick 10 spaces and ask their partner “can you” and then
choose an activity from the left and a timeframe from the top. If it
was a hit they would reply “yes I can” and likewise, “no I can’t” for
a miss. For the 8th graders I made a Read & Do game where
some students read a description of a scene and other students had to
recreate it. It was for “there is / there are” and preposition
practice. It went great and was fast paced which is what I think you
need to learn a language. When you don’t have time to remember you
can’t speak a language you end up just speaking it.
Regarding Kafka….hmmm….maybe I am not as deep as the
story, but it was only ok to me. I felt like it was good-great at the
beginning, but fizzled toward the end. When I flipped the last page I
was stunned to see I was at the end. There was some conflict and some
problems, but then he just died and his family got on a train and
started talking about their daughters young nubile body. Hmmm, what?
Maybe the ending had to do with his situation in life and just giving
up or it being hopeless. Plus I couldn’t reall y
figure out how big he was as an insect. Sometimes he couldn’t fit
through the door, but then he hid under the couch quite a lot. It
wasn’t a bad read, though it was written in what ’15 or ’20 and in
German so I’m sure some things were lost in translation.
It’s the end of the year which means it’s time for any
left over money to be spent and that usually means on absurd
completely unneeded or overly excessive construction projects. One
year they built a wood deck that connects the two buildings at Konan.
It was needed, but they built it to survive a nuclear war. It sits on
a 3 foot deep concrete slab and is bolted to it about every 6 inches.
This year it means they installed a previously mentioned statue in the
middle of the kids’ play area. Not only is it a stupid location, the
statue is a boy riding a pelican and choking it to death. It truly
looks like a joke statue making fun of something, but it’s real. Also
they are building a small bypass in a really tight curvy area of the
road to Konan, that’s needed, but they are only working on it with end
of the year money so they built half this year and maybe the rest next
year. It literally juts out and just stops in the middle of a grassy
area. A few years ago they built a tunnel that bypasses a c urvy
area. I’m no engineer, but it seems to me that they could have easily
gone around the mountain and built a bridge connecting two areas, but
they built a costly tunnel instead. At Ohse they are redoing the pool.
I asked the English teacher how often the pool is used and he said
about one week during the spring. Same with Konan and the fabulous new
indoor pool, which gets maybe 2-3 weeks usage in the spring. It would
make sense for it to be used in the winter (being indoor and heated)
by local senior citizens for water-aerobics, but since it makes sense
the idea was laughed at.
Starting to get sick of the nonsense.
Friday, December 18, 2009
I’ve been putting up with certain stupid Japanese behaviors for nearly
8 years and it’s starting to take its toll. I find myself getting more
and more vocal about some things that make no sense. Today it snowed
heavily and I got to school late. I called on the way and explained
it. It was mostly my fault for leaving at the last minute of my window
of departure times, but also because everyone was driving ultra-slow.
So I get here and the vice principal is walking around and sees me and
comes to my desk. He points to a note that says 21-konan and explains
that there was some communication with the BoE and they said I was to
come to Konan on Monday instead of taking “special study” leave like
it was marked on the schedule. I’ve already made plans that involve
other people on Monday, PLUS, and this is the big thing, I have no
classes. You want me to drive in this blizzard for an hour to come out
here and SIT on a day which should be a holiday? N…NO.
So I quickly said, without even listening to what he was
saying, I’ll just take vacation time. He scoffed a bit since Japanese
people never take vacation. Not even if they are sick, or if their
wives are giving birth, or for any reason really. All the teachers are
going to drive out here everyday during the break and SIT DOING
NOTHING. They get a week off around new year’s, but all the other days
they will be here sitting and playing solitaire or doing some of the
redundant unnecessary paperwork.
He mumbled at the idea of me taking vacation time, but I
kept saying “so I should drive out here in the snow just to sit all
day? That sounds wasteful.” That’s a very non-Japanese thing to
actually say since they don’t find it wasteful at all. For the
Japanese, when the group is a whole it is the strongest so they
constantly want everyone to always be there. Maybe in case we are
attacked by another school, we will be at our strongest. For me, it
makes less than .00023 of a fraction of an atom of one bit of sense to
drive here, or even just be here in the case of having perfected
teleportation, when there is nothing to do. If I have to be somewhere
that’s not my apartment, I would prefer to be doing something at some
school or even the BoE. I don’t actually want to be at home, just not
here doing nothing.
I am really getting vocal about how stupidly wasteful some
things are here. I could never in a million years imagine having a
Japanese exchange teacher come to a high school that I teach at in the
US and saying “oh you only come here once a week and we should really
take advantage of your native speaking voice and insider tips, but the
fact is we are so fluent in Japanese that we don’t need your services.
Just sit at your desk ranting in your blog all day or read some Kafka
or surf the web using our extremely limited and highly restricted web
connection.” That’s what happens to me at half the schools I go to.
Yesterday I had 3 classes out of 6 periods. The English teachers went
to some other classes during my free periods and I have told them
several times I would be happy to go to all 6 periods a day, but it
was decided that my time would be better spent cutting out and folding
truncated octahedrons rather than doing anything in the classroom. I’m
really getting annoyed at how little they care about wasting my time.
Especially when nearly no one that graduates can make a comprehensible
English sentence.
Another annoyance is a cause of why no students can
actually produce English. They are good at receptive skills such as
reading or listening (to a degree and it must be almost identical to
the target sentences they learned), but they can’t actually produce
anything. That’s because they never have to actually produce English.
They repeat it quite often, but I could repeat Arabic or Greek most
likely. Their listening skills aren’t really that great either and
that’s because it’s a horrific monstrosity if a student feels slightly
uneasy about learning English. To counter this many teachers just give
them either the answers or such blatant hints that they can figure out
the answers. Yesterday I gave the students a listening gambling quiz.
I would say some hint and they would write their answer then make a
bet then I gave the answer. This worked great for most, but a few
times the teacher would give them absurd hints. For example, one hint
was “this is a machine that is used to talk to people. You have it in
your house. “ I read it a few times and some groups got it, but some
didn’t. Then the teacher started making a telephone gesture with his
hand. WELL DUH? Why bother listening if you are about to get the
answers. Then the kids started looking at me while I spoke, then
immediately to the teacher for the mega-hint. So then I tried to make
a scene about it and say “since he GAVE you the answer you get only
half points”, but that didn’t work since he did it almost every time.
Not to spite me, just because that’s how things are done in Japan.
It’s more about the process of getting there than the end result
(fluency).
There have been times in elementary school classes where I had to
shush the teacher several times. For a while in one grade I was doing
a listening quiz before each class. There were 5 words and I would say
them in English. Students were to write either the English letters,
the alphabet of Japanese letters that were use for phonetic sounds, or
the Japanese meaning. Invariably the teacher, who is nice and caring
and I like her, would give some absurd hint. If I said “dog” she would
make the dog’s voice. Then I started subtly saying “ok no Japanese,
don’t say any Japanese, no one, not one single person, at all, no one”
trying to imply that the students shouldn’t say the answers if they
knew them, but I would also ask the teacher “ok sensei” and she would
say ok and do it anyway. It’s like telling someone “don’t breathe”.
They might say ok, but they will breathe anyway since that’s what you
do. Photo: an industrial drill attached to a boat propeller
that is used to mix ramen stock at a nearby ramen shop. It was as loud
as it looks.
Twice this week there was a teacher’s meeting at a school
and it would have made perfect sense for them to send me home early,
but they don’t care about wasting my time. Once was at Ohse on Monday
and the second time was at Tadano Elem. At Ohse I was just stuck there
in the teacher’s room while it went on, but I left at 4:30 while they
were talking. Then at Tadano on Wednesday I thought she was sending me
home when she said “we are having a meeting now so happy new year
since I won’t see you until then.” But they had the meeting in another
room so I had to sit, alone, in the teacher’s room for an hour and 15
minutes. Hmmm, just send me home for the love of all that is sacred.
Tonight I have a Christmas party to attend and I need to
bring a used gift to re-gift (that’s the actual plan which is smart I
think) and some food. At these things people always bring crap like
drinks or bread or salad and then you have no real meal. I’m going to
try to bring something of substance like a casserole or quesadillas or
some meat product. I have some tortillas and I made impromptu
quesadillas last night and they were good. It’s not really
Christmas-like, but it would be filling for 10 people. Maybe I’ll make
5-6 and cut them up into triangles.
Earlier today that new student that speaks fluent English
gave a violin recital during the break between 2-3 periods. He was
amazing and I assumed he was gifted, but when I asked him later about
it he said that he wasn’t gifted at all. In England at his previous
school they had to give recitals often. There he learned Latin and
French and often gave speeches as well. Here students barely learn
English and never have to stress themselves out with the horrid
thought of using what they learn. They semi-learn instruments as well,
but only give small recitals playing simple things as a group, rarely
solo. He’s going to be so bored back here where the standards are so
low. I’ve never heard of one person advancing a grade for excelling
nor anyone being held back for not doing anything. Everyone graduates
together, it’s just a waiting game.
Festive and Quaint.
Sunday, December 20, 2009
I went to a nice party on Friday at Megan and Dave's apartment. Their
daughter Zinnia is getting more friendly towards me which is nice.
The party had about 10 people or so and there was so much good food.
It was a better mix than last year. I forgot the aforementioned
re-gift. I got in late from school on Friday and had to rush to
prepare my dishes for the night and then leave early to walk over
there (since there is no parking anyway). While there I gave Keiko my
gifts which were the photographs of her recital. She put in so much
work I couldn't just give her a DVD of all the photos which she would
then have to sort out or print. Instead I put each performer's shots
on a CD with some other group related shots. I even scanned the cover
of her program and put that in the CD case with the student's name on
it. Then I set up a new domain name for her which is
www.keiko-piano.com. She
already had a site, but the URL was wicked long and complicated. She
was happy. By the end of the night I was not happy as I ate way too
much since it's always good food there. I had a piece of incredible
pumpkin pie and some awesome cookies. I plan to copy her hummus recipe
too. The whole night was festive and quaint.
So Productive.
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
I had a fajita party last night with about 7 people over. We ate
through a good 20 or so of the tortillas John gave me recently. I
still have 30 left so maybe I will have a quesadilla night soon as
well. Before that I got so much done. I mean for one day I got
literally more done than I did in the month preceding that one day.
There were things that I have been putting off for weeks, if not
months, and I managed to knock most everything off the list, at least
all the big stuff. Here's what I did:
1) I
sent two big boxes of old used books to a bookstore in Tokyo.
2) I sent a big box of stuff to the US. Things to keep, but aren't
needed here.
3) I bought a needed kerosene heater (and bought kerosene).
4) I bought 100 new year cards which are a required kind thought thing
here.
5) Had the oil changed in the Pajero Jr.
6) Had the snow tires put on ( a tad late ).
7) I paid for all of 2nd term for Tadano lunch money and the extension
school.
8) I bought all the needed things for fajita night (though we ran out
of chicken early)
9) I paid the wicked late water bill and got the auto-withdraw form.
10) I bought a cheap room lamp and weight scale to remind me of my
grotesque obesity.
Today I did a few more errands such as laundry and picked up some
cards that Tadano students made. I'm about to go back out and say "I
did a good job" to the BoE which is required. It seems like having 26
people constantly disturbing you would be annoying, but it's
apparently crucial that we each say the exact same line to the head of
the BoE. Then I will eat dinner with the yoga teacher that I might be
interested in as well as a few more minor things. I also put my big
computer back in the spare room since it takes up too much space in
the main room. I had planned to get some new glasses, get a roof rack
for the car, possibly tint the windows, and a few other things, but
those will have to wait.
Meh.
Thursday, December 31, 2009
It's been two weeks of
winter vacation and I've stayed busy for the most part. There's
another week, but people will start coming back from their vacations
so it won't be as lonely. So far I've gotten so many little things
done that I had been putting aside for months. I listed most above,
but I've gotten even more done since then. This week I downloaded a
trial version of Adobe After Effects and I have been watching some
videos about how to use it. I want to buy the program which is for
special effects and motion graphics, but it costs $800 so I'm going to
play with the trial version for a bit and then see what happens around
next payday. I know I can't afford it, but I can wish.
Tonight I went to a party at the Mexican place. There were all of two
people there including me. I ate the dinner and had a few drinks while
watching Japan's version of Ultimate Fighting, K-1. It was boring so I
ended up leaving about 9:30 and riding my bike home in a blizzard,
which was not fun in the least. There was some major fire or accident
somewhere since all the fire trucks passed me while I was on the main
road. I'll probably go to sleep early and not even watch the
countdown. I remember when I cared about that. Something I am looking
forward to is getting some new year's cards tomorrow morning. That's a
Japanese tradition I like and I sent out 120 or so. All my current
teachers at my two JHS's and one to all teachers at the two other
schools since I didn't know their home addresses. I also sent some to
various students and one card to each grade at some of the schools. I
don't know how many I will get, but I am looking forward to it.
But in general, staying here alone over the break was not a good idea.
I had no money so no real choice, but in the future I will plan
better. I plan to really make some changes this year. Not too many,
just a few big ones. Mainly paying down (or off) my big school loan
and losing some serious weight. Getting to at least 100kg would be
great. This year I'm not setting 50,000 goals I won't keep. Just these
two. Engage warp engines, make it so number one.
2005-2007
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