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Friday, January 1, 2010
I sent 120+ new year's cards. I received about 17. I got only one from
a student, but it was my favorite student, so maybe :)
There's a second round where people can reply to those cards that they
received from people they didn't send them to. But the ones today are
from people who were thinking about me. Maybe the snow or the fact I
moved were factors.
Changes.
Sunday, January 3, 2010
I've actually been sticking to some of my changes. First I have been
eating much better these past three days. When Barbara and Megan get
back I'll have them teach me some healthy stuff to make. Secondly, I
walked to the grocery store today. It was freezing and 20 minutes
away, but it was decent exercise and about all I could do for the day.
I wanted to jog a bit, but there are patches of ice which make that
impossible. I have a semi-real plan of only driving to school and
walking/riding a bike to other places around town. I didn't have a car
for three years and got around fine, I can do it again here.
I have gotten a few more new year cards, but not nearly as many as I
sent. I think more might come in this week, but we'll see. Also, I've
been playing with a trial version of Adobe After Effects which is for
special effects and motion graphics. Man the learning curve is way
steep, but I am making some progress. Maybe I'll upload something when
I finish. I want to buy the program when the trial expires, but it's
$800 which will be tough.
Still Moving.
Wednesday, January 3, 2010
I walked to the grocery store today and filled out / turned in the
form to have my water bill automatically deducted. That should happen
at the end of January which will help me pay things on time from now
on. They send a bill and I pay it a month or so later just before they
threaten to cut it off. Now it will just be deducted and I won't have
to worry. I also checked the ATM and found I have less money than I
thought, but oh well. Before that I had a Japanese lesson with Kyoko
(someone you don't know) and we arranged to do one every week. I
really hope to get my Japanese up to a better level. I walked to that
as well and it was about 20 minutes.
I've been having second thoughts about having a car. I love the
convenience, but this year alone I will have to pay about $2,000 just
in repairs and taxes and that doesn't account for the $50+ a month I
spend in gas. I've just been thinking about how hard it would be to
walk or ride a bike to any place I want to go. Having the car is
really nice, but it's so expensive. I have to pay to park almost
anywhere I go and gas is so expensive. I've thought about using the
car only to get to school and back, but really I would only need it
for Konan and technically there is a bus that goes out there. If I
only go there twice a week the bus might not be that bad depending on
what time it leaves and returns. I could actually ride my bike or
catch a local bus to all my other schools. Hmmm, the verdict is still
out.
Minimalism.
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
I have been going through either a phase or hopefully a general life
change. For a while I have been getting really annoyed at how much
stuff I have and how I don’t fully live here and shouldn’t have more
than the basics. During the break I sent a box of stuff back to the US
and took care of a number of other things. I also went to the thrift
store last week and asked if they pick up stuff and they said they
did, but only once a week. So I made an appointment for today and they
will stop by after school with the truck. Hopefully I’ll get some
money, but even if they won’t give me money and just take the stuff I
would be happy. I know I’ll get some money even if it’s only $20 or so
(though they pay in yen). I’m getting rid of 2 computer desks, 2
chairs, a storage bin thingy, some old ties I never wear, two ski
outfits, my snowboarding boots that I have never worn, two
snowboarding/skiing outfits, and some other odds and ends. When I
moved it out of the room into the kitchen last night, the room
suddenly opened up and I felt like I had so much more space. They
won’t buy a stupid folding bed I have and don’t need.
Another change I am going to make is that I am going to
move everything into the main room. Now I have my main computer in the
front room and actually spend most of my time there, but my laptop,
projector, and heater is in the other room. I always have this need to
keep one room ready to receive people for all the parties I have, but
never seem to realize I don’t actually have the parties. So I’m going
to make the room livable and put everything in it. That will mean I
have two spare rooms, but I didn’t pick the apartment so there’s
nothing I can do. I am grateful for the space and nice apartment, but
all I need is a two room place really.
I’m totally a grass-is-greener guy and I hate it. I went
to a friend’s tiny apartment on Saturday to play Monopoly (that’s a
whole different rant) and they live in a tiny one room long apartment.
It’s like having two rooms with no wall. For some reason I kept
thinking about how cozy it would be to live there, but I have nearly
the same design as that room so I could recreate it if needed, but I
really have a much bigger and better apartment so why was I thinking
that.
We played the new Monopoly City game created this year or
last and it was WICKED complicated. I mean we didn’t even start for 30
minutes while we tried to figure out how to play. Someone suggested we
just play and figure things out as we went along, which we did, but
there were so many new things to remember. Each person’s turn took
about 3 minutes and sometimes longer. We didn’t like it, but could
also see what they were going for. We assumed people complained that
the original version was too simple and people wanted something
modern. I like Monopoly, but next time I will play the original.
I just went into the office to make a copy and the office
lady gave me $40 since I didn’t go to the year end party. I didn’t
have to pay, but they took it out of my monthly teacher’s fund. I
assumed they would just leave it or put it back, but I’m not going to
argue with free money. I’ve found a place where I can use a credit
card for groceries which is good since I was taking out $100 at a time
for spending money here, but now I can just charge what I need for
groceries. Food and the car are both my two main expenses. More on
that later.
Starting this week I have been taking Japanese lessons in
order to pass the level 2 test in December. I think they changed it
this year so it’s twice a year, but if I took it in July it would
really just be to see how it goes. I would only have a chance at
passing it in December I think. It’s a lot of kanji, grammar, reading
comprehension, and vocabulary as one would expect from a language
test. But here is no speaking interview at the moment. Last week I met
with the tutor and she gave me a week’s worth of things to study and
only yesterday did I start doing anything with them. We are meeting
Thursday to have a test and get stuff for next week. It would be nice
to be up to the level 2 which is a level of fluency. The level 3 and 4
are pretty much for beginners. They have changed or are changing the
test because the levels were so far apart it was absurd. Level 4 was
like “learn 80 kanji”, level 3 was “learn 200”, level 2 was “learn
1,000”, and level 1 was like “learn 2,000-5,000”. That’s a big jump,
but I guess they assumed once you take a test then you know how to
study and what to expect.
I’ve been not using my car much recently. Since the past
week or so I only used it to drive to school today. Before that I rode
my bike or walked everywhere I needed to go. I have been having
flashes of a thought of not having a car, but I would have to figure
out how to get to Konan. There is a bus, but from where does it
depart? I could easily ride a bike to Tadano, Ohse, and Kozu since
students living in that area ride their bikes to the city and back
everyday for high school. Plus the girls have to wear skirts and
nothing on their legs, even in blizzards. If they can do that, surely
I can ride a bike to the schools all bundled up. There might also be a
bus to those schools. Not having a car would save me:
$500 a year in the car inspection tax (really about $1000 every two
years)
$50 a month in gas ($600ish a year)
$200-$1,000 a year in various repairs (this year is going to be near
$1,000)
$400 a year for the separate May tax
Bringing the grand total to around $2,000 and I really
don’t use it that much. I have to change the timing belt around now
(100,000k) and while doing that you are supposed to change 3-5 other
belts. That whole bit costs around $600 and takes a day. Then I just
changed the muffler for $200, then in May there’s the $400 tax (might
be $350), then in November I have the big car tax which is around
$1,000 maybe $1,500. I have spent well over $10,000 on car related
things in the 5 years I’ve had a car. It’s such a headache to have it,
but at times it is convenient.
I turned in the form to renew for a 9th year
here, but I have had thoughts that might be my last. I don’t know yet.
I love teaching the kids, but everything else gets in the way. It’s
more about forcing me to become Japanese than caring about what the
kids learn. The culture is so rigid, that it makes it difficult for
me, as an American, to live here. It’s so different from my sense of
what’s right or what makes sense. I’d like to pay off my big school
loan and then save a little money, but I could be able to do that in
the time remaining. I’m not sure about anything yet.
In April sometime, an ex-JET will visit a friend of mine
and I will hang out with him some. He now teaches in Hong Kong and I
have an interest in doing that. The problem is that program highly
prefers a teaching license resulting from a degree in education and
taking a test for the degree. They do hire people without that, but
those people don’t get the best schools. The biggest perk of the job
is the salary starts at more than I make now and on top of that you
get a big living stipend. It would be a considerable raise, but it’s
not easy to get into the ‘scheme’ as they call it. I don't want to
give up this stability for a risk at a better salary and different
job. I might know more after he visits.
[later]
They came and picked up the stuff and gave me....$23. Ha,
I was $3 off, but I really don't care since the stuff was just sitting
in my closet or in a corner. Them giving me even 100 yen would have
been 100 yen more than me taking the stuff to some garbage center and
filling out the 1,000's of nonsense forms. I still have a few big
things to get rid of, but for now I am happy with what little I have.
Now I need to start moving stuff into the other room (I accidentally
wrote 'otter' room).
Too Busy.
Sunday, January 24, 2010
I have been too busy to write anything, but I have some notes to make
an update soon.
Nearly Bubbling Over.
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
There are some things that are
really starting to really actually annoy me. One is a certain way of
thinking in Japan and I cannot understand it for the life of me. There
are two things that happened recently related to this that caused me
to write this. First, I was volunteered to be the American
representative at another elementary school next week. I’ll go for a
bit and the kids will ask me questions about America and how it is
living here. So far it’s fine. I love doing these things, BUT this
thing is a total of two hours long over TWO DAYS. So I basically can’t
go to two different schools on two different days since this thing is
at 10:30 and we need to be there before 10. That’s some kind of
strange thinking to me. Rather than have an all morning thing one day,
they choose not to re-arrange the schedule and choose to cause me two
disruptions. One would be fine, but I go there for an hour and then
have nothing to do and then go back two days later for an hour and
then have nothing to do. ARGH.
So that is one recent part of
the annoyance, but the big one is related to the second day. The first
day I miss going to Tadano since I would have to leave about 9:30 and
wouldn’t get back until afternoon and that’s pretty much when all my
classes are. Plus they are having a special presentation that day that
I will miss. The second day is a Konan Friday. So when the vice
principal was explaining it he said “it starts at 10:30 and you need
to be there just before 10, so you’ll come here and then leave.” WHAT?
It takes 45 minutes to get out here when there’s snow and ice on the
roads so that means I would have to drive out here and arrive around
8:30, sit for 45 minutes and then drive RIGHT BACK to my apartment. I
actually let out a little laugh when he said that. He could not
understand why I wouldn’t want to do that. It’s part of their culture
to be with your group as much as possible. I couldn’t imagine why he
would ask me to drive out here in the dangerous snow and ice TO SIT
FOR LESS THAN AN HOUR. There is no way I am doing that. I’m either
going to take vacation time or simply not come and say “oops I’m
stupid”.
Something else that annoys me, but is super polite in
Japan, is how everyone “sees me off” when I leave a school. At two of
my schools the vice principal and maybe the principal and other
teachers will walk with me to the lobby and just watch me get my shoes
on and put my coat on. That’s something that I personally hate, but I
can’t say anything because in Japan it’s an honor. I try to wait for
people to be on the phone or busy sometimes, but it rarely works.
I had the demon class today and they weren’t terrible.
There were loud parts and the main kid chose not to participate, but
he wasn’t loud and the others were ok. Granted any other teacher
coming in would think that class was horrible, but I have severely
lowered my standards.
Last week I ordered a jogging suit from the salesman that
comes here every week. I asked him to let me try some on back in
November or so and we found my size is called XO in Japan which is a
nicer way of saying 4L. I found some that were nice, but they were
$200 and that seemed steep for a track suit. I looked at a catalog
last week and picked out a cheap set that was $120. When he got here
on Friday he brought that, but also a nicer version and said I
probably wanted that one. In fact I did, but it was $170 and I didn’t
want to pay that now. Then he said that was the “first price” and the
special price was $130 so I went with it. I’m glad I did since it is
warm. I went jogging last night and it was great. I also noticed I am
getting closer to wearing size 38 pants again which will be nice. I
think I can buy clothing in Japan that goes up to about 38 waist. Plus
I have some pants I bought in the US last December assuming I would
lose weight.
I had my health check on Monday the 18th. I think it went
well even though I didn’t lose any weight or cm around my waist. I
prepared for it much better by not eating garbage for the days leading
up to it. Then I went to the hospital on Friday and had my bi-monthly
check up and the results were better as well. Some tests were still
too high, but most were just slightly out of the range and I expect
them to be normal when I go back in March. I should get the annual
health check results in a week or so. You know the younger people
whine about this test, but at my age I thoroughly appreciate it and
even more so since it’s free. They check our heart, blood, I had a
barium drink x-ray of the whole digestive system, eye test, glaucoma
test, hearing test, urine, poo test, chest X-ray. Man we get it all.
So here are two more annoyances that came up recently.
There’s a habit of dropping things on people at the last minute for
some reason. They told me about the changes to my job last April,
LITERALLY while we were standing in line to get meatballs at the
welcome party. The changes were something they CLEARLY had planned and
worked out for several months leading up to the new year (starts April
1st) and somehow they could never find the time to tell me
that I no longer had any classes until the welcome party. BIG #$%&-ing
OOPS. Then last week a teacher called me the day before he had to go
on some business trip, that was also clearly planned weeks in advance,
and asked if I could plan/prepare/teach two classes for him the next
day on top of one I already had. Seriously, what’s with the lack of
notice?
The other one is a big all-encompassing problem that is
everywhere in Japan and really shows its face in the education system.
Oh that made me think of another one. Anyway, I, being an American, am
goal oriented. As long as the goal is achieved I am less concerned
with the process and how we got there. I teach so that kids learn
something each class. Today we are going to learn about Animals. If
the kids can remember the names of the animals and had a reasonably
fun time then that is a success to me. If there is an event that is
next week and someone plans more than someone else and the event runs
smoothly, that is a success. In Japan, however, the goal is not as
important as the process of getting there. We made a plan (maybe a
good one maybe a faulty one), we stuck to that plan, we all did our
parts to the best of our abilities, and that’s all that matters. The
kids didn’t learn anything….who cares. The event didn’t go well since
the person in charge of X knew more about Y….who cares. My lesson was
ruined because a teacher over-reviewed and gave away all the
answers….no problem at least no one felt stressed about the process.
To me this causes so many problems in Japan, but it’s just
how things are done so they keep on doing it that way. Kids either do
their work and get an A and graduate or they don’t do their work/don’t
EVER speak in class/don’t even come to school everyday and get an A
and graduate. The goal is not graduation it’s following a plan, no
matter how illogical that plan may be. When I tried to plan the Winter
Meeting at Konan years ago where all the ALTs came and played with the
kids, I thought it would be nice to plan it all and let the teachers
not worry about things, but they kept trying to interfere since to
them it’s normal for everyone to participate in the process. To them
the event was frustrating since they didn’t plan much of it and since
there wasn’t a lot of time wasting open ceremonies or excessive
greetings. To me it was frustrating since they kept trying to add
these time wasting things and ended up hijacking the plan on the day
to force some in.
Half the time when I get a plan for a class it has
explicit directions for each step of the way. They want things to
follow a certain process. For me I like to change things on the fly to
adapt to slow or fast learners. Once I got a plan for teaching a grade
1-20, but I knew they already knew 1-60. We politely argued/debated a
bit and then I did the Japanese thing of backing down and simply doing
what I wanted during class. She was more interested in me following
the plan than what the kids already knew. It would have been a mark on
the process of we skipped it. Even if the kids became fluent in
English magically by skipping it, she would have been frustrated we
didn’t follow the plan.
Wasted Time.
Thursday, January 28, 2010
I went to Ohse today, but almost didn't. One
of the teachers there mistakenly sent me a message that said I
wouldn't have any classes today. He meant I wouldn't have any 3rd year
classes, but I ended up having 4 total with the other grades. But then
when I asked about next week the other teacher said I would also have
4 classes on Thursday, but only 2 on Monday. I might leave after lunch
if they are morning classes. In Japan there is no concern for wasting
someone's time. It's simply a non-issue. We are expected to be at work
and ready if/when we are needed. If I have one class a week, I am
expected to be there all week doing nothing. The thought of me not
being there doing nothing never comes up. Sometimes when I try to take
vacation time I get a chuckle at how I don't like sitting there doing
nothing. I want to yell and explain how stupidly ignorant and wasteful
it is for me to be sitting literally doing nothing when I want to be
working. I want to be doing something. I don't want to be at home,
just not here doing nothing. Efficiency is irrelevant.
After Ohse I stopped by Trial (a discount store) on the way home. I
realized how noisy Japan is. You never go to any store and enjoy the
peace and quiet. There is constantly something going on or someone
yelling. In the store there was an annoying repeating jingle about
coming to the store. The store at which I already was. Then all the
employees are yelling "welcome to the store" when someone enters. Then
I went to the veggie shop right beside it and they were yelling it as
well, but stretching it out since they weren't a corporate chain and
could have their own style. I mean there was nearly no pause in them
saying the welcome bit. Just over and over and really in a loud voice
too. Then when I got home I heard some truck driving around the
neighborhood playing, no blasting, old music over speakers. Seriously
that would last about 1 minute anywhere else before someone came out
and shot the speakers. Here it's ok for some reason.
Walk a Mile...
Saturday, January 30, 2010
I had an urge to get out of the house today,
but didn't have anything to do. I previously cut out my regular habit
of going to the station and having McDonald's breakfast and then
Starbucks Venti Caramel Frappucino, so what could I do? Well I did go
to the station and had the McD's breakfast, but no SB. To add to the
plan I walked there and back which was 7.7km or 4.8 miles round trip.
I wore my headphones with Nike+iPod so I could log the walk as a
workout.
I have nothing really interesting planned this weekend. I might sort
out one more room and get some things in order, but other than that
nothing worth remarking about. Maybe I'll see a movie, maybe not.
Boring Week Ahead.
Sunday, January 31, 2010
I have a boring week ahead. Tomorrow I have
two classes with the 7th graders even though there are 3 other English
classes. For some reason I'm not needed in those. Then Tuesday I have
just one at Konan. Wednesday is completely shot since I have a one
hour meeting regarding something I have to do on Friday. The meeting
is at 10:30, but I have to be there at 10 so I would have to leave any
school at 9:15 which is during 1st period and I would finish around
lunch. Then there's no point in going to a school for 5th period only.
Then Thursday I have 4 classes which is the bulk of my week and
finally Friday I have this one hour seminar where I get to talk about
differences in American and Japanese culture. 7 classes in one week,
awesome use of resources Japan.
On a lighter note, I walked around the park twice today and that felt
good. I tried to jog some, but felt so heavy and lethargic that I
couldn't really pick up the speed. Then I ate dinner with Jake at an
Indian food place semi-near my apartment and walked to that as well.
I've been really good about walking as opposed to driving and I hope
it's paying off. I've also been eating better as well.
I've been trying to rearrange my finances to pay off my big
outstanding totally unnecessary college loan. I've been paying on it
for years and really just nipping at the interest. Recently I've been
sending $500 to it, but I plan to pay off my credit cards and then
start throwing some severe money at it per month and hopefully get it
paid down or close to down in a year or so.
2005-2007
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