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That Bites.
Friday, July 02, 2010
I’ve been busy since the last time I made a confession. On Sunday I
went to a BBQ that was planned by Keiko. It was near my uber-small
school in the mountains. It rained during the cookout, but it was
still fun. What was not fun was that I got some bug bites. I assumed
they were just mosquitoes, but in fact they were much more. Around
Monday evening my legs started hurting and it was hard to walk. It
felt like someone put duct tape all over my legs in little patches.
Apparently the toxin from the bites pulls at the skin around it. Since
I was already going to the hospital on Tuesday for the regular blood
test, I figured I would ask him about the bites and get some medicine.
He gave me some steroid cream and it seems to be working. I still have
the bites, but I can barely feel them.
On a medical note, I have been taking Magnesium
supplements and found they help me sleep. Sometimes I get sleepy
around 9pm and sleep until 6am the next day. I can’t even remember why
I started taking it in the first place, but one side effect seems to
be sleeping well.
On a different medical note, I have a rash on my foot and
it hasn’t gone away for months. Also some of my toenails have a fungus
I can’t get rid of. Since I only have 2 stupid dumb head classes at
Ohse in the morning I took the afternoon off and went back to the
hospital for the skin doctor (hifuka). She was a nice lady who
actually talked to me slowly which is unusual in Japan. She said it
was a form of Athlete’s Foot and it was the problem with my toenail,
red spot, and dry heel. That’s awesome since all three are annoying
and I have about 6 months to really attack them since the weather is
warm and I can apply the medicine and not wear shoes. That’s hard in
the winter since I have cold limbs and my feet are literally freezing
sometimes.
Getting back to the bbq, I talked to a friend of Keiko’s
who was involved in some group called KALMIA. It has something to do
with Koriyama and Internationalization. I remember telling Keiko I
thought it stands for Koriyama Active Life Makes It Awesome, but it
has some other meaning. Anyway, she said she was in graduate school
learning about educational technology. Then she said she was
disappointed when the big observed class day at Konan was cancelled
back in the fall. She said she signed up to see my class. I figured it
was just because she speaks English and knows me, but then she went on
to say that her whole class had heard about me. I asked what she meant
and she said “everyone was talking about Konan’s NT named Ryan who was
doing amazing things with video for teaching English.” WOW. What? How
did they hear about it? I was planning on doing an interesting video,
but I didn’t know anyone cared or knew about it.
Things like that have been happening often recently.
People hinting or suggesting I should pursue making videos. I remember
someone from the BoE saying that to me a few years ago and it came at
a time when I was really wondering what I should focus on as a hobby
or special interest area. So many things simply do not interest me and
for me to focus on one of them would be unfulfilling. But I love
making little videos and using CG and now I am steering away from
making normal videos to making more Ryan-esque stupid videos that do
teach a point, but are also fun to watch. Something I am planning to
make soon for learning ‘comparatives’ is Ryan vs Ryan. So there will
be a bad Ryan and a good Ryan. The bad Ryan will have a button that
magically controls good Ryan for some reason. So he might press the
FASTER button while GR is driving and it will speed up the car, or
SLOWER and watch the cars behind me crawl along. Then I can do bigger,
taller, fatter, and so on. Maybe it will be a 20’s style video so
there is no sound and stupid music in the background. I have a ton of
other ideas too, but I might need to severely upgrade my Mac to do
them. I did buy the absolute lowest model just to see if I could get
the loan. So I’ll see how that goes, but it seems this might be my
creative outlet I have been searching for.
I saw the remains of a wreck on the way to school
yesterday and it was obvious someone ran a red light and hit another
car. I wonder what the police are going to do when they try to fault
someone. “Did you run the red light? Yes. Well that is acceptable in
Japan. Was it longer than the first 5 seconds of the red light,
because that is less acceptable, but still ok. No it was within 5
seconds. Well what should we do, it seems no one is at fault.”
It looks like I have to change the film idea for the 2nd
years. There were about 5 classes where we couldn’t film so we are no
where near finished. Also there were some days where no one could
remember their lines and things took way too long. Mostly I’d say it
was my fault though.
I find it funny how schools hold the results of national
English test until some stupid point. There is a follow up interview
for the 3rd level of the test and the students need to know
if they have to go to it. PLUS I need to prepare to mock interview
them. But we get the results and put them off to the side and pass
them out later. When the old JTE was here I would see the results on
his desk and go tell the students right then.
Sometimes when we play games in class we use dice or rock
paper scissors. What I find really funny is that at the end of these
games, these games of chance, we congratulate a winner. There’s no way
you can really earn a win with dice unless you have loaded dice and
then we are congratulating you for cheating in a clever way. With RPS
I suppose you could cheat if you remembered what everyone does first
since people typically do the same thing first several times. I don’t
know, maybe it’s just me, but it seems funny that people are rewarded
for completely random events.
I know this is a touchy subject, but I have a problem with
some kids being in class. I understand everyone learns at a different
level, but there are some kids that simply need to be at a special
school. That rarely happens in Japan since parents of kids in one
grade form a group and no one wants to say “I am no longer in this
group, my child is different.” So they just ignore the fact and send
their special needs child to the regular school. I have had classes
with some kids that simply didn’t speak neither English nor Japanese.
I remember two kids were catatonic and would wander the halls. It was
clear they had no understanding of where they were. At each of my
schools now there are a few students who end up dominating the
attention of the teacher and quite often totally disrupting the entire
class. One girl screams during half my class and then walks around
hitting other kids. Tell me how this is fair to anyone???
This week I played the World Cup game and one student just wrote W
(for win) in several spots without even playing the game correctly.
She ended up winning, but some students started yelling because they
knew she hadn’t played correctly. There was nothing I could do and it
annoyed several people who played fairly. I taught at a special school
years ago in Japan and it was a perfect environment for these kids.
Low teacher-student ratios, more than one teacher in the room,
teachers who know how to deal with behavioral issues, and so on.
Everything was designed to handle children with special needs. As I
understand it, it’s almost completely up to the parents to put their
child in these schools. I think unless a child has an extreme
situation, he or she might be in the mainstream classes. This is
really difficult for foreign teachers since we don’t have any
authority/training/ability to do anything other than ignore the
students.
I just finished filming with the seniors and it went mostly well, but
many of the students are just annoyingly shy or laugh too much. I know
I was probably the same way when I was in JHS, but I remember not
being quite as giggly or shy. We are nearing the end of the filming
and I think I have enough footage. The story is rather weak, but
luckily they won’t care about that any. There are some gaps regarding
why people do certain things, but I might have time to film some
fillers for that. Overall I think it will be interesting, especially
with the secret ending I have planned.
Today the teachers had their pictures taken for the album. I seem to
remember having the same shirt on last year and my hair was unkempt as
well. I was thinking of getting a haircut tonight so my hair is
getting a bit sloppy. It seems like I am in some loop. It seems like I
am in some loop.
This weekend I have nothing major planned, but I need to get about 10
things done on the computer. The one that works that is. For some dumb
reason my PC is on the fritz and shuts down several times per hour. I
still don’t know what the problem is so I’m just going to upgrade to
Win 7 since I am still on XP. Maybe a clean install will solve some of
the problems. I have thought about getting rid of it and keeping the
MacBook and getting a new iMac, but I do have some PC Windows needs
sometimes. Some programs only run on Windows so I can’t commit yet.
For some reason I have an impossible time printing various things at 2
schools. I can check the settings on the computer and everything is
perfect, but when I print the printer goes down half the page and then
starts printing there which ruins everything. ARGH. Why does this
happen? I can print them correctly at home, but I am tired of using my
own resources for school stuff. I can print things at Konan with no
problems as well, but not my other schools. ARGH. Well one school
doesn’t even have computers or a printer.
Just Sitting Around.
Monday, July 05, 2010
I’m at Kozu today, my small school with 21 kids total, and the weather
is great. I had 2 classes before lunch and nothing much to do after
lunch. One class was good-great, but not awesome. It was with the 1-2
graders and I taught “animals”. It would have been great with more
kids, but there were only 7 and 3 of them already knew it from last
year. Teaching 4 kids really limits your plan. Then I had a break and
then a class with the 5-6th graders which was a disaster
for me, but probably fun for them. The teacher insists on using this
completely worthless English book called eigo notto (English
Notebook). It was created by the ministry of education and is very
Japanese in the way it “teaches” English.
What do I mean by “very Japanese”…I mean that the goal of
the book is not fluency in English at any level. It’s simply having
fun in English and never ever being stressed. In every chapter of this
book students listen to someone with a stupid accent and then connect
pictures. But the hints are so stupidly obvious anyone could do it.
One day we were doing shopping and the recording said “hello, I love
your blue shirt with hearts and yellow pants. Oh thank you, you really
like my blue shirt? Yes, it is a blue shirt that is blue and a shirt.
Yes, blue blue blue.” So not quite that bad, but the point is there
was one person with a blue shirt so when they heard “blue” they knew
it must be that one. This lesson is on the page before the explanation
of Japanese culture IN JAPANESE. How is that even remotely related to
ENGLISH?
[update]
I just saw a teacher run from the pool to the school
entrance to get umbrellas for the students at the pool so they
wouldn’t get wet on the way back from the pool in the rain.
My Dream.
Tuesday, July 06, 2010
What would my perfect job be? My dream job? Right now it would be
someone who is in charge of escorting Japanese principals,
vice-principals, and people that work at various boards of education
around the US. Specifically I would take them to American schools and
BoEs and have them see how other places do the same thing, a cultural
exchange of sorts. BUT the one thing that would really make it
worthwhile would be showing them how stupid some things are about
teaching English in Japan. I would schedule a presentation or meeting
for them at some school on a Friday. Then I would tell them they have
to show up Monday to sit and do nothing until Friday. They can’t leave
the building, they have to dress formally, there’s no air conditioning
and it’s broiling hot outside, they have no computers or they have
ultra old ones, most anything useful on the internet is blocked, they
can’t read newspapers, and they have to drive 45 minutes each way to
get there. Around Thursday when they say “this is stupid”, I will jump
in and say “yea I agree, but welcome to my life in Japan.”
It’s not that I don’t want to be at school or I don’t want
to work, it’s that IF I am at school I want to be working. I don’t
even mind coming here occasionally when there is nothing to do, but
they want me to drive 45 minutes twice a day to sit and do NOTHING.
There’s not even a word to express how wastefully stupid that is and
yet they can’t even acknowledge the absurdity. If they were to say
“yea it sucks, but it’s the rule so….” that would still suck, but far
less. It’s the attitude of thinking that I should just sit here and do
nothing that annoys me. It’s like Japanese people are embarrassed of
their country and don’t want people to explore it and see the
historical sites. No, please don’t visit Kyoto. It would be better if
you were sitting here sweating and typing on the world’s slowest
computer.
A First.
Wednesday, July 07, 2010
I saw my first fight at school in 8 years in Japan. I don’t mean boys
merely hitting each other or rolling around on the floor, I mean
actual punches and that ‘rage’ look, then ending with whimpering and
tears. It was between two boys at an elementary school waiting for the
bus to go home. At first they were play fighting and both laughing.
That went on for about 10 minutes. Then they stopped, but one boy was
trying to mess around a bit more. The other said quit a few times, but
the first one didn’t. He just kept on pushing and laughing, so the
other one (who was the weaker one early on) gave him a firm punch and
then they started going at it. I was close and moved away, but another
teacher was there that leads me to my other comment.
When I was either in a fight at school as a kid or saw
one, a teacher would step in and promptly say “STOP IT NOW”, but that
is too direct for Japan. The teacher standing near them was saying “oh
now this horseplay should stop, is this really fun, well I think you
should stop, hmmm, you boys should behave now.” It was just a bunch of
vague round-a-bout comments avoiding the actual issue of them
fighting. I didn’t do anything because A) it’s certainly not my place
as an Assistant English Teacher, B) there probably would have been
some weird Twilight Zone Bizzaro World result from me stepping in like
me having to apologize to them, and C) sometimes it’s better to let
them work it out, which is exactly what they did. They fought for a
minute and stopped and one kid whimpered while the other laughed and
unofficially declared victory.
So Close, but I Should Have Known.
Friday, July 09, 2010
Yesterday I went to Ohse and had 3 classes, which is much better than
the 2 I usually have. They were all in the morning and I thought the
afternoon would drag on as usual, but I managed to create a print
during 5th, help them do an extended cleaning, and then
help three students prepare for a national English test (interview).
Of course the interview is not an actual interview designed to test
fluency, it has a rigid style that is easily teachable. I have taught
several students how to pass even though they couldn’t really say
anything in English. Plus they have Japanese people (who allegedly
speak English) as the interviewers and that means it’s even easier to
pass. Foreigners would listen for fluency traits, but Japanese people
listen for certain cues. I can teach those cues and help the students
pass.
At some point in the day we got next week’s schedule and I
thought it would be the ultimate schedule ever. I had classes 1st,
3rd, 4th, and 6th. Wow that’s great,
that will make the time fly and there will be a minimum of sitting
around. Then I noticed that during the 2 open periods the other
teacher had classes with the 1st years and OMG could I
possibly have 6 classes in one day? That would be great since I HATE
sitting in teacher’s rooms doing nothing. As soon as I got my hopes up
the other teacher dropped the bomb and said “oh sorry I won’t have
time to prepare so only 4 classes next week”. This is annoyingly
amusing for 3 reasons which are, vis à vis, the following:
1) He doesn’t actually have to prepare anything.
2) Not only does he not have to prepare anything, he would just
tell me to make something.
3) He started out really cool, but has become lamer each week.
So I still have 4 classes and I won’t complain. That’s
twice as many as I have had for several weeks there. Today I am at
Konan and I had a class with the devil class (which ironically has
some of my favorite kids as well). We played my online English
computer games, but this time I beat the system. The networks here are
horrendously slow and bottleneck my games even though the whole site
is only 4mb. I have seen the computers download larger videos from
Japanese educational sites, but my site always goes slowly for some
reason. So this time I burned 10 small CDs and copied the games onto
some of the computers and then had the last 10 kids play them directly
from the CDs. There were no technical issues apart from kids being
stupid and closing the browser window. I would say “DO NOT CLOSE THE
WINDOW” and then a kid would close the window. They just tune me out
sometimes. So as punishment I would refuse to help them and make them
bug another kid. Overall the class went great. I plan to make some
more larger games with video or better recorded sound since a full CD
is around 700mb and so far the whole site is only 4mb. Clearly I have
some space.
I bought a ticket to go back to the US for the summer and
as it turns out I think I will be moving around that time as well.
Someone in a smaller apartment wants my bigger apartment and I really
don’t need my 3 room apartment so I said ok. The apartment is longer
and a little wider which will be good for my green screen, but only
one room. That’s all I really need so I don’t care. The timing is bad
and I would have liked more than a few weeks on the official notice,
but whatever. I should be able to save some money in the new place and
there are 11 other foreigners living around me. Now there are 3
others, but they are married or reclusive and I never see them. So I
guess all that will be happening around late July. I need to start
packing and cleaning soon I suppose. It’s going to make my summer
travel awkward in the sense that I will be coming back to no apartment
and having to move stuff in while jet-lagged. But it should be great
overall.
Other news, perhaps I have mentioned this, I plan to buy a
nicer computer in the fall for my video stuff. I really want to level
up what I can do since I am getting near the point of being proud of
things I make and possibly being able to pursue it as a career. I’m
not quite there yet since I have the lowest model computer out there
and it frequently maxes out when I am working, but I have made some
impressive things. In August I plan to make 1-2 projects a week and
post them somewhere.
A truck selling bread just pulled up and everyone went
F-ing crazy to go get some bread. SOME BREAD. Is it laced with heroin?
I don’t know, but everyone truly goes crazy when this bread truck
pulls up. They have come probably 100 times since I have been here and
I have never understood it. They pull up, the office staff announces
“the bread truck is here” and people literally scramble and trip over
themselves to get out to it to buy…..bread. Simply bread that can be
bought at the store. The only thing I can possibly imagine is they
have some special contract with us and the teachers are showing their
appreciation or something, but still it’s a bread truck. Now if the
truck were made of bread, oh I’d run out to see that.
So tired.
Friday, July 16, 2010
I have been so tired recently because I am so busy and have too many
things going on. It’s the end of the 1st term and the
stress is really building up for me. I get home, relax for literally a
minute, and then start planning the lessons for the next day. Or if I
am making a video I do that. I keep doing that for a few hours and
then it’s 11-12 and I go to bed and get up at 6 and start it all over.
The reason I am more stressed than usual is there are 4-5 different
things I am working on at the same time. Everything has some strict
deadline as well. I am working on the skit contest stuff since they
are going to the prefectural finals, I have some private English
lessons I teach during the week, today I had two extra classes that I
had to plan for, next week there are some English Day Camps that I
haven’t even started planning for, 3 kids are in the speech contest
and I am helping them, and there are a few other things. I am always
so tired and looking forward to the break.
My break won’t really start for a few weeks. Next week I
have the skit contest and then the English camps and the following
week I have another English camp on Monday and then I may or may not
be moving apartments. Finally I will be leaving for the US on the 29th,
but probably heading down there on the 28th to see a friend
in Tokyo. So my break won’t really start until I get to the US. Even
then my dad wanted me to immediately jump in a car and drive 6 hours
to his relatives house to hang out while he went to his 50 high school
reunion. I politely said “not a chance”. After flying 14 hours and
completely changing time zones, that is actually the LAST thing I want
to do. I need 3-4 days to start recovering and getting over jetlag.
[later]
It’s now 3pm and I asked when the 5 students would be able
to practice for the speech contest (2 ppl) and skit contest (3 ppl). I
was told they could come at 4-4:30 depending on when the track and
field practice finishes. I reminded him I had to leave promptly at
4:15 today and he nodded as if to say “oh well”. I somewhat laughed
and explained in the US we don’t have after school activities in JHS
and when we do they take a clear second place to anything education
related.
2005-2007
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