Sports Day!!!

Hello, to those of you who stuck it out and actually hung on until I returned. I'd like to say I've been too busy readjusting to life after Japan, but when it boils down to it... I'm just lazy. :D So, I'm going to try and do a couple more blog entries about the last few months over there, hitting on a few noteworthy things that happened. (Just... close your eyes and pretend I'm still there while you're reading this... wait, what?)

Shortly after the below mentioned trip to Korea, the wonderful people of Ozu Junior High finally got around to doing Sports Day! They'd been practicing for weeks on it. We would take time during the day, or at the end of the day (sometimes leaking over to after-school territory, and the students would practice marching. Yes, marching. I would always joke, "Like good little military kids." They practiced for this just about every day. Arms rigidly out in front of them, knees up to a 90 degree angle, keeping up pace while everyone screamed, "ICHI!! NI!!" *step step* "ICHI!! NI!!" *step step* It was quite shocking to see the amount of discipline they had. 500 students in perfect unison (well, not ALWAYS, but you get the idea) stomping around is kind of... intimidating? I dunno, but it was something!

Lemme back up and explain a bit of what Sports Day is. Every year, all of the schools in Japan set aside one day to celebrate athletics. It's kind of a glorified Field Day. There is a very precise opening ceremony (the marching practice is for the opening parade), followed by a morning of track competitions, and an afternoon of various group and team building games and activities. The entire school is involved, and everyone's parents are invited to watch, often times participating in a race or two.

The downside was that it was on a Sunday, so our "weekend" was shifted to Monday. The other thing was that we had to work on Saturday right before it, meaning THAT day off was shifted to the Friday the week before. So, right after Golden Week, I got back to a couple days of school, a 3 day weekend, and then Monday through Sunday of school everyday before finally having a day off on Monday right after Sports Day. Eesh...

It wasn't so bad. Kinda fun, since it kinda gave me a little extra time to "play" with the students. Anyway, the students divided up into 3 teams, red, yellow, and blue, and that was how they practiced and competed, tallying scores for the whole day. After every event, eyes kept shooting back to the score board put up behind home plate to see how they were doing.

When that Sunday rolled around, all eyes went to the sky, however. The weather was looking rather ominous, and we all arrived at school wondering if it would actually happen that day or not... but we went for it. We shifted the activities around and had to cut out one or two (The parent-participation ones, actually... the one I would have gotten to run in), but we set off to get as much done as we could before the weather hit us. It was pretty windy, but GAMBATTE!!

Among the activities, there were the 3rd year boys doing a series of balancing and endurance tasks (which proved difficult and maybe dangerous in the wind), the 3rd year girls did a dance to "Girlfriend" by Avril Lavigne (swearing intact... haha), the second year classes all did a group jump-rope competition (imagine 40 kids all jumping in unison over two incredibly long jump ropes), and the first years played an awesome class game called Typhoon. Typhoon is played by having the class sit in rows. The first row grabs a long pole and runs as a line around a weaving pathway. when they turn and come back to the class, they lower the bar and the rest of the class must jump the bar as it passes under them. Then, they pass the bar back to the next row and continue on until the whole class has gone. This was AWESOME and I totally want to steal it for some future school event!!

About the time we finished all of that, though, the weather finally gave out and it started pouring rain. We canceled the afternoon and decided that we would pick up on Tuesday morning. The students went home, and the teachers just sort of... hung out... for the rest of the afternoon.

On Tuesday, we started up again, but this time with the track activities. Each class and grade competed in various types of races: 50 yard dashes, 4x4 relays, and even relays involving the entire classes. It was really neat to watch them all band together. (And on a self-centered note, it was really neat to hear a group of first years cheering their team on with a cheer I taught them, "Let's go yel-low! *clap, clap, clap-clap-clap*)

Once all of this was finished, it was on to the cheering competition. Each of the three teams had practiced the same cheer, but then added in a couple of their own. This was more or less a spirit competition. The Red team was freaking AWESOME!!! Yet again, about 150 students all doing the same thing in perfect unison looked great, and they were by far the sharpest. (My team, the Yellow team, was... uh... *ahem* "less" enthusiastic...)

Anyway, overall, it was a fantastic day/s. Certainly something I'll never forget. And I have tons of pictures and video, so maybe someday soon, I'll put it all together and put it up here.

That's all for now!

For the students...

So I've come to it. I'm just about to start my last week at school. On Friday, I will officially say goodbye to my kids.

Everything is happening really fast, and I feel like I'm not getting a moment to stop and think about it. That's probably good because I don't think I want to... I'll save the "being sad" part for the plane ride home. But on the other hand, things like this happen. I'm suddenly surprised that it's my last week, and I haven't really had it sink in yet.

I've been trying to avoid telling the students that I'll be leaving in August just because I don't want to be treated any differently by them (good or bad). A few of them knew anyway for whatever reason, but for the past few weeks, my JTEs have been letting them know that my last week is coming soon. And every time I hear it, I can only think to stare at the floor. I don't want to be arrogant and assume that they're going to miss me, but I don't want to look at those who I know are indifferent and feel like I've had no effect on them.

Everyday, now, I'm getting a student or two stopping me in the hall and asking me when I'm leaving. After the teacher makes the announcement at the end of class, I sometimes get a student or two that comes up to me and asks, "Really? So soon?" There's been this group of boys that I sometimes joke with outside of class. In class, they're rowdy, noisy, and not the best students. I thought they hated English and didn't really care about me. But just the other day, at the end of class, they came up to me, "Wait, so you're leaving?" "Yeah, guys." "Oh..." and they each decided they wanted to help me carry my books and materials back down to the teacher's office. This meant I had a group of boys walking with me, each of them only carrying 1 book, or a pencil case, or a rolled up paper (And the JTE with an armful of books and a CD player trailing behind). I like those guys. :)

I like all my students. What can I say? There are too many things that happen with them everyday to mention. There are way too many inside jokes and conversations and quick hellos and strange glances in the halls to type out. If there was ever a day where I was getting frustrated at anything, be it workload, other teachers, or just life in general, I would consciously make the decision to go into the hall between a class. Because I knew my students would make me happier.

And it worked. Every time. I'd wander over to my bulletin board to staple something up and suddenly there would be 5 kids waving at me and trying to practice English as they ran to PE. Or there would be a group of boys who learned the word "Cool" and would proudly shout at me, "Mr. Sandall! You... are... cool!!!" and await my reaction, only to shout, "Hai! Uso desu!" wink, then run off laughing. Or there would be that girl, Shoko, who I once told was always very polite in the halls, and since then is sure to give me a super-deep bow everytime I see her (which I of course return. It's funny to see a 6'3" American bow so respectfully ;) ). Or the "sex technicians." Or the pirate crew. Or that shy girl who used to lower her head when I said konnichiwa, and now smiles with a "Hello," everytime.

I was really afraid at the beginning that they wouldn't ever like me, as I'm sure most new teachers are. So I was content just doing my job and being there for those who needed it. I was in love with Japan, so it didn't really matter to me if I would grow on them or not. I couldn't imagine how it would be to be able to walk through the halls and almost instinctively respond to 400 Hellos, 100 Heys, and 20 japanese jokes every passing.

Now, I can't really imagine how it's going to be without it.

PS: My old principal who left in April, Mr. Higashi, came over to my apartment tonight to bring me a present and to say goodbye. Wow. I'm in shock. :)

Just a lil' bit of nothing

What I wouldn't give for things to get back to normal. After the busy weekend in Tokyo, I got right back to school for the ninensei/sannensei opening ceremony. Then the next day we greeted the new students with THEIR opening ceremony. Two days in a row of suit and tie.

I will say greeting the new students was cool. It was a ceremony almost as big as graduation. Parents lined the back walls, the band played warm-up songs, lots of members of the Board of Education showed up. I was actually given a job to assist... I stood in the hallway and greeted all the old BOE members, motioned to the left, and said, "Toshoshitsu wa kochira desu." (The library is over there.) Of course, I was standing next to a sign with an arrow directing them that way, but YOU CAN NEVER BE TOO CAREFUL! (Especially since a few of the older ones started to aimlessly wander past me, prompting me to proudly repeat my canned phrase.)

When the actual ceremony started, it was almost motion-for-motion the same as graduation. Students stood, teachers read names, students sat, other students stood, students sang... but then we had to sing. All of the teachers filed in a mob to our assigned places in the gym and sang to the new ichinensei. The nearest I could work out the lyrics in the single day that I had to practice is that it was something about giving the students flowers and dandelions or something. Though I suppose with Japanese imagery and metaphor, it probably meant each flower is the gift of knowledge, and each petal of that flower is a page of a textbook, filled with incredible information vital to the growing minds and bodies of the youth of Japan (The bumblebee on the flower represents cotton-candy... still trying to figure that metaphor out... silly Japanese poetry).

Probably the the most interesting moment was when the teachers had to introduce themselves to the crowd. We have a student with a hearing impairment, so to assist, all of the teachers had banners with their names on it. In traditional Japanese, their names, consisting of only two kanji, were all aranged vertically on two sheets of printer paper. When the moment came, we lined up across the front of the gym while the vice principapl read our names and subjects of each teacher. I was very last.

The format was the same, "Matsuzaki Mariko," she'd step forward, "Yorohiku onegaishimasu," bow, and hold up her vertical scroll. "Iida Yuki," she'd step forward, "Yoroshiku onegaishimasu," bow, and hold up her vertical scroll. "Hiraki Kenichiro," he'd step forward, bow, hold up his scroll and say, "Yoroshiku onegaishimasu," just to mix it up. Then it got to me. The vice principal read my name in perfect katakana english, I stepped forward, bowed, said, "Yoroshiku onegaishimasu," and held up my horizontal scroll spelled out in English. 42 vertical scrolls, and finally the tall, lanky American guy holds up this horizontal thing so incredibly different from the others. It got a few chuckles from just about everyone, including myself. :) (Then I cried a little inside. :( (Not really...))

Since then, though, the daily routine has been orientations and introductions for the students. It's been a week, and I still haven't really taught a class yet. I've been bringing my laptop to school to hopefully fill the free time and get some actual work done, but after several hours of that, it's good to break up the monotony with an ebook or something (World War Z! Yay!).

The new English teachers are great, though. The new ninensei teacher has already had me come to a class (not that I did much, but the effort was there!). But I won't really start anything until next week. In the meantime, it's pretty dull. All my extra-curricular stuff is going well (band practice, japanese lessons, even ballroom dance, though it's still freaking hard). Also, I'm getting tons of ideas for lame videos to make, so maybe someday, if I get the drive and if I allow myself to look like more of an idiot, I might make them. :D

Sayonara, Sannensei :(

Pardon the long post (I think it's redundant to say that at this point... :D) but I have to write this all down. It's been quite the week over at school. Since school is only required through Junior High, graduation is a bigger deal here than back in the states. One of my teachers told me, "It's probably the most formal event of the whole school year." Man, she wasn't kidding. I felt like such a foreigner standing slack-jawed in awe of some of the stuff going on while the rest of the faculty looked bored as ever... silly Americans. :D

Practice, Practice, Practice
All week, the sannensei have been out of school. They've been taking their high school entrance exams (tests to get into certain high schools) and showing up for graduation rehearsals. Oh yes, rehearsals. At least 1 period a day all week was taken up by graduation practice (On Thursday, we took the entire morning to run a mock graduation... complete with reading all the names but sans parents). Everything from proper bowing etiquette to music rehearsals to what sounded like death threats from the teachers promising much pain and suffering to those who dared to even blink.

I must say, the first corrrect "kiritsu" made me jump a little. The procedure is like this. As the students are sitting like perfect little soldiers in a row, the MC says, "Ichido..." (All who are present) then stone silence... then, "Kiritsu!!" At that, EVERY STUDENT jumps to their feet in a perfect single move. "Rei!" Each student bows at the waist and counts to themselves, "Ichi... ni... san..." and stands back up again in perfect unison. Finally, a last word (I forget :( ) and all sit again as a large, robotic mass. Seriously impressive. The standing up and sitting down happened in a fraction of a second with a fantastic, "FWOOSH" noise... imagine 400 students with that sort of discipline. I now fear them turning that amount of discipline on me. :( (not really. :D)

The Big Day
Anyway, Friday morning, everyone arrived looking their best (Yay for walking to school in a suit in the rain... woo) and the ceremony was underway. Once it started, not a single student spoke unless required. Any teacher would say that's an impressive feat, but these kids did it. Of course, the teachers had to sit at the front, so there I was in a suit sandwiched in between a couple other teachers terrified to even scratch my face with the thousand or so people all sitting out in front of us.

The Order of Events
So, the national anthem started off and I quickly felt like an idiot for not knowing the words. (Silly Americans!) Then it was on to the most ingenious bit of thinking ever. At my school (Probably throughout Japan) They put the conferring of diplomas AT THE BEGINNING! And even better, they have it down to a science and got through 200 students in about 25 minutes. Each student (seated in prefect rows by class) stands up and proceeds through a series of seven stations to finally recieve their diploma (think of it like being "on deck" in baseball). Like a well-oiled machine. But during this, only light music was played. The only other sound was each student saying, "Hai!" as their name was called. No cheering, no airhorns, no "YOU GO GIRL!" to my sister at her high school graduation. (ugh... flashbacks... :D) Completely solemn, formal, and whatnot...

...with the exception of two boys. First, one of the "yankees" ("bad students") rose his hand all super-genki-like when his name was called and cheerfully shouted, "HAI!!" much louder than necessary (Oh, you're not supposed to raise your hand or do anything showy...) which got a few laughs from the crowd. But he's a decent kid. he shows up to school and is a nice guy, even if he doesn't do any work or pay any attention. The other kid was later in the ceremony... this was a student that I had honestly never seen before. Naturally, he had no idea what he was doing so he caused quite a disturbance while getting his diploma. But yes. He still got his diploma. This boy hadn't been to school for almost 2 years and he showed up on Graduation to pick up his certificate. See, in Japan, it's a student's right to come to school. Students can't fail out of school. No matter what a student does, or how a student does in class, he or she WILL graduate. They won't get into a good high school without the grades, but usually the kids don't even care to go to high school and just immediately enter the work force. Anyway, later on, the teachers were complaining about how disrespectful those boys were. Yeah, relatively speaking, they were loud and obnoxious... but they'd fit right in at an American graduation. :D

Yet more speeches
After the diplomas were given, there were a series of speeches by the Principal ("Saikosei!! Kiritsu... Rei!!"), the Superintendant ("Saikosei!! Kiritsu... Rei!!"), the Mayor ("Saikosei!! Kiritsu... Rei!!"), and the head of the PTA ("Saikosei!! Kiritsu... Rei!!"). Something I should've mentioned a while ago is the process for approaching the podium in an assembly (I had to do this my first day... good thing I paid attention). The speaker stands up and walks to the side of the stage. He turns to the highest ranking people, bows, turns to the other side (the teachers in this case), bows, walks up on the stage, faces the Japanese flag, bows, and finally gets behind the podium, where everyone bows together (synchronized to the "Rei!!"). After the speech is done, you reverse the process. This all adds about 45 seconds to the beginning and end of each speech. Imagine that for EVERY SPEECH.

Take it away, kids
Now the student portion starts. The sannensei all stand, turn their chairs around to face the ichinensei and ninensei, and sort themselves into boys on one side and girls on the other. Again, super fast and coordinated... maybe 30 seconds or less. In complete silence. :D Next years student council president (An awesome girl!) stood up and gave a short congratulatory speech. The student council came up from the back and handed out greeting cards to each row of grads (while saying in, again, perfect robotic unison, "Omedetto gosaimasu!" (congratulations)). Following this, the ichinensei and ninensei sing their musical tribute to the Sannensei. Just a single song, but a good one, anyway. After that, it's the sannensei's turn.

Sempai, show them how it's done
They had a presentation prepared where 4 students came to the microphone and talked about memories from their school days. After each speech, there was a song performed to the underclassmen. The most striking song was Tegami by Angela Aki. The lyrics are about a woman giving advice to the confused 15 year old version of herself. The melody is gorgeous. (and I know the lyrics sound cheesy, but it was the only song that I actually knew before hand... SHUT UP!!) It was interesting to think of it in terms of the sannensei "passing the torch," so to speak, to the ninensei and ichinensei.

After the students finished (To the first applause in about an hour and a half), there were a few more short speeches including the parents thanking the teachers for their hard work (and due to my position, she was standing almost right in front of me... it was a bit unnerving. :D). Finally the grads recessed. The teachers rushed to the back of the gym to form a tunnel for the students as the rest of the audience applauded loudly and the band played Kiseki, another pretty cool song that just sounded neat in the context. As the sannensei walked out, there were obviously lots of tears, but countless smiles. A few of my favorite students shot me quick toothy smiles and the occasional inside joke ("Wakachiko!") on the way out.

Teary goodbyes
And that was the end of it. The parents headed home, the rest of the students stayed behind to clean up the gym, and the sannensei went up to their classes for one final, teary homeroom with their teachers. I accidentally wandered upstairs as they were finishing and got snagged by a few students for pictures, yearbook signings and all that. One of my favorite students actually gave me a bag of cookies with a card (written in English!!) and thanked me. I hate to sound like I've got a big head, but dangit, the whole experience really made me feel like I'm doing a half-way decent job. Kind of a, "Ok... so they DO like me... I guess I'm doing this right." Confidence boosts are good and occassionally necessary, ne? :)

Anyway, I'm gonna miss those guys. The pirate crew is gone, the japanese comedians are gone, the guys who pretended to be MIBs when I was around are gone (if I'll even remember.. one of them mime-flashed me with a memory-eraser-thing before leaving). I was just starting to get the hang of this gig, the students were starting to open up, and wham. They're out.

That's life, I suppose. Looks like we get to start all over again in a month. :)

Takusan no soubetsukai

It's March. Aside from all of that usual stuff that comes with this time of year, I've got some new things to worry about now that I'm in Japan.

There's an interesting thing about Japan. The business year (for lack of a better term) starts in April. At the very beginning of April, government officials get shifted around to new offices. Maybe it's to prevent boredom, maybe it's to keep people fresh on the job, maybe it's a way to evenly distribute good service, I don't know. Along with this, the school year also starts in April. It would follow, then, that the school year ENDS in March. This, ladies and gentlemen, is the midst of soubetsukai (leaving party) season.

As I've stated a lot in the past, I'm not a JET, but I'm lucky enough to be using the same program that they do meaning I arrive in August, I leave in August. I have a couple of non-JET friends who aren't so lucky. I'm in the exact middle of a 4 week run of weekly soubetsukai for a lot of friends. Two weeks ago, it was for Jaime who had to return to South Africa. Last weekend, it was for Julie, an ALT went home today for America after 4 and a half years, but has been a great friend for my relatively short time. This weekend, it's for Ryo, a government worker who is getting shifted to Tokyo next month (this is a much farther transfer than the average job... he's kind of specialized), which then leaves my weekly Japanese class/dinner group down one member. In a couple weeks, it's going to be for Jolene, another non-JET ALT who will have to return to Canada once the school year ends. All of these people are amazing. All of them have had second thoughts and wish they could stay longer. Sadly, though, that's just not how it works.

Now, as I said before about Government officials getting shifted around... Teachers are government officials. No one knows yet who will stay at my junior high school for the next school year. We won't find that out untill right before they have to leave. I've spent 7 months slowly building up an office rapport with the group we have now. It's strange to look around the office and imagine any other configuration of teachers scribbling frantically at their desks. I know of a couple that are leaving for sure. One may be a welcome departure, but the other leaves things to chance. Who knows if my new JTE will be better or worse than what I'm working with now? Who knows if they'll view my perhaps-crazy antics as good relationships with the students, or as distractions in their strict, lock-step classroom? And the Principal is retiring, too. Among other ALTs, I think I'm lucky. They always talk about how bad or impersonal their principals are. Mine is the opposite. Is my new principal going to be as eager to try broken english with me as this one is? Will he actually sit down occassionally next to me and practice reading english while looking to me for approval? I have no idea. Here's to hoping, right?

And of course it wouldn't be the end of the school year without Graduation. That time that seemed so far off back in August has now hit. I've spent all this time slowly building relationships with my sannensei. Real, honest relationships. The sannensei at my school are incredible people and I've enjoyed every strange joke, japanese comedian quote, confused expression (both from me and from them), and just plain conversation I've shared with them. All of a sudden today, I was having 2 very last classes. (Of course, we're going out with a bang: English Jeopardy game complete with cheesy game show host voice.) And these are 2 of my favorite classes in the entire school, and 2 of the most genki. One class actually asks the teacher when I'm coming on days when I'm not there. But, we wrapped up Final Jeopardy, and before we knew it, the bell chimed and I was standing in front of them for their last "Goodbye, everyone!"s, arigatou's, bows, and "See you"'s. It occured to me right then that this really sucks. I've spent 6 months getting comfortable in Japan. I'm finally here and these guys have to go. To say "Nuts," would be a massive understatement.

In the month to come, I'm going to say goodbye to more friends, more teachers, more students... and it's really sad because I don't know Japan without these people. They've all been "Japan" to me. Everyday, routine dictates that I will see these people at these times just because that's how things work in this new culture. Now it's all getting shaken up. However, I suppose with my new-found Japanese spirit, I'll be sad for the goodbyes but excited for the changes ahead.

After all. Thinking of all of these great people I've met over the last 6-7 months actually has me excited that I get to do it all over again for the next 5-6 months.

English can be fun

A couple months back, I was doing a reading lesson in an ichinensei class. I don't really remember the grammar topic, but it was a section where a boy was talking about his Uncle Nick in America. He was describing the energy efficient house that Uncle Nick lived in. We went through the usual routine and had the students listened to us read it first. A particular section passed by, "Uncle Nick's house has solar panels. He gets his energy from the sun."

Next, we do a read and repeat section with the students. The teacher reads as one character, I read as the other, and the students repeat every sentence. "Uncle Nick's house has solar panels." "Uncle Nick's house has solar panels." "He gets his energy from the sun." "He gets his energy from the sun."

So, we read, they repeated, and then they practice. The students all stand up and practice reading through the entire page on their own and we walk around and help them. Most students stumbled on words, a few stood out as excellent, but it soon became apparent that a few had no idea what the English meant.

After that, the teacher usually checks the meaning. He reads the sentence in English and then asks the students if they understand and to try and translate. 9 times out of 10 they don't, so the teacher translates it for them, which they then write down in their notebooks. It got to the section mentioned above.

"Uncle Nick's house has solar panels. Niku oji no ie wa soraru paneru ja arimasu." (I probably butchered the Japanese there...) The students wrote it down and waited for the next sentence, bored as ever.

"He gets his energy from the sun. (I don't know the japanese here.)" There was a brief pause and a few boys chuckled. One of them said, "Nani... mo ikkai!" (What... one more time!) The teacher repeated the sentence. More of the class giggled and the boys flat-out started laughing.

The boy who asked for him to repeat got really excited. "Oh, oh, OH!!!" he exclaimed, slowly rising out of his chair. As he gracefully spread his arms out to the sides and tilted his head back, as if basking in the warm glow of the Yellow Sun, he shouted, "SUPERMAAAAAN!!"

I laughed. Hard.

It's funny how awesome simple sentences can be when taken out of context. :)

Doin' That Thing I Do

It occurs to me that I do too much. Well, wait, lemme back up. I do lots of stuff. But I do so much of it that I forget to talk about it. Wait, lemme back up again. I do a lot of little random things that I keep meaning to write about but keep forgetting to. Wait, lemme back up. I do a lot of little random things that I keep meaning to write about but keep forgetting. Can't end that last sentence with a preposition. That's just bad. Wait, one more time, I gotta back up. In that sense, "to" is a particle... the original sentence stands. Are we clear? No? Good. Moving on.

The point is that I get all wrapped up in trying to be poetic and artsy that I end up forgetting to write about some of the weekly or monthly routine that I have going on. Or else I remember near the end of the post and think I should save it for another time because the post is already insanely long and I should spare you. Well, ladies and gentlemen, now is that "another time."

Every other month, I write an article for the town magazine. The two ALTs employed by the town office (Tim and I) switch off every month writing a "Cultural perspectives" type article Actually, that's the name of Tim's column... mine is "Nebraskan News." Gotta play up the sister cities relationship, yo. I wanted to name it "High Times" because I'm tall, but I hear that one is already taken... *rimshot* ANYway, we're asked to write a short piece on whatever we feel like that kind of gives our perspective on life in Japan. So far, I've written about how hard working the teachers are, how I love all the little things about Japan, and the differences between Hastings and Ozu ("Golly! We're not so different after all! ^_^ " *cue music, close curtain, applause applause applause*). Since neither Tim or I have good enough Japanese for print, we write it up in English and send it two months in advance to be translated by our tantousha. This makes for interesting conversation when the article finally comes to print.

It's great because in the first week or so of my month, I get people asking me about it. Even people I don't know. Members of OIEO, the checkout girl at the grocery store, my students even asked me about it today. I said "interesting conversation" because... two months later, I've forgotten what I've written. And since I can't read the kanji, it makes it difficult to reference it. So when English speakers say, "Oh, hey, Colin! We read your article! That must have been fun!" I either have to pretend I remember, or look confused and say, "Wait, what did I say?" (Yeah, real sincere writing, obviously.) And the people I don't know (The convenience store clerk I see once a week when I buy a candy bar while waiting for the train) all of a sudden know who I am. "Etooouu... Colin desu ka?" "Hmm? Oh... umm, yes! Er... hai... *puzzled look*" "OH! Ano... anooo... Ozu *japanesejapanese* zasshi *japanesejapanese* gatsu!" (I'm still working on listening comprehension... gimme a break. :( (Oh, and that means "Ozu," "magazine," and "month," btw))

Actually, the scary part about it is that a picture goes with it... I have a standard picture that goes with it every month (Think of those Dear Helen, or Ask Judy articles and imagine my beaming face at the top), and also a bigger picture that I submit to help illustrate the article. The first month I had one out, some of my sannensei boys cut out my face and pasted them inside their pencil cases, proudly showing me and yelling, "O-KAAAAAAAAAAYYY!!" Today, I had a girl re-enacting my enthusiastic thumbs-up, leaning pose from the February article. I try not to get a big head about it, but it's hard when you're so awesome. ;) ;) ;)

Another routine I keep wanting to mention is singing... every single sannensei class starts off with singing an English song. The teacher picks them out every month and we belt away everything from Don't Wanna Miss a Thing, to Bad Day by Daniel Powter, to All I Want For Christmas Is You. Needless to say, I know most of these songs by heart now, like it or not. The best part about this is that the first day a song is introduced, we take the whole lesson teaching it. First, they listen and fill in the missing lyrics on a whited-out copy. Then there's the part where they repeat after me. If you thought bad 80's rock tunes had dumb sounding lyrics before (Mr. Big's "Be With You" comes to mind as a particular favorite), imagine having to stand in front of a class of 9th graders and recite each line sans music (this even includes all the "oh yeah"s and "baby"s, too...). Then for the last bit, all the students stand up and take a stab at singing it while we wander around like prison guards listening to them. Hey, I'll admit it. Usually the songs are kinda fun. :D (But if you tell anyone I said that, I'll deny everything.)

Yet another routine that I'm sure I've talked about, but not in depth is my Wednesday Japanese lesson. Now that I'm writing this, I remember it being featured in my "Wednesday" video. Anyway, they offer free lessons at the international center downtown, so I head over to hang out and converse in Japanese. This past week, I was able to get through about 70% of my lesson entirely in Japanese!! Of course, I was talking about basic stuff with a teacher who knows exactly what I've learned and thus fed my questions that would illicit responses I understood, BUT HEY PROGRESS IS PROGRESS!! Anyway, the real fun of the class is afterward. Class ends about 8:00 and then a group of us head out to dinner. It's cool because way back in September when I started, it was just Tim and I going out to dinner, but slowly, after inviting other people, there's now a pretty large group that heads out every week. Like it's a nice routine now. It's helped to be able to meet other students and teachers in the club. In fact, one Saturday last month, a lot of the members of the group were invited to a teacher's house for a sukiyaki party. Since it was good timing, Anna got to come to that, too. :D (Though she didn't have the guts to try the raw egg portion of it... something about egg allergies... whatever, wimp.)

A new routine that I've picked up kind of came about because of the dinner group. I figured now is a good time to admit this publically. Let me first apologize to those I'm going to offend by saying this. I'm sorry. It was peer pressure and I couldn't say no. Mom, Dad, I hope you still love me. Friends, please don't think less of me. But I have to tell you this. I... Colin Sandall...

...have taken up Ballroom Dancing.

I'll give you a moment to let that sink in.

...

I don't know. I've been interested for a while (Maybe after watching Adam Carolla and Shannon Elizabeth... curse my family for making me watch...) and one of the teachers said they were looking for more guys about the time I was looking for more activities to get involved in, so it clicked. Of course, the average age of the class is around 42, but it jumps to about 50 when you take me out of the equation. I'm the youngest person in the class by about 10 years. BUT STILL! It's a great way to meet some people! GIMME A BREAK!! :(

Right, well, I should excuse myself now before this post turns into an intervention. Hey, I can quit anytime I want! I don't NEED ballroom dancing!! :(

Later, folks.

The Christmas Post...

Merry Christmas everyone. Boredom at work leads to this. Enjoy. :)

An ALT's Christmas

'Twas the night before Christmas and all through Japan,
Not many noticed, aside from one man.
A tall, lanky Gaijin with hair all a-flutter.
(And whenever girls saw him, they melted like butter.)

The students were nestled all snug in their chairs.
Some half-asleep, most already there.
He came to teach English, He came to teach culture.
But the students would rather be thrown in a mulcher.

"How?" the man thought. He must snap them awake!
A lesson so vibrant and big, he must make!
Then an idea took shape, as if molded from clay:
He'd take the kids flying in a rocket-powered sleigh!

A lesson on "Christmas: American Style!"
They think they know Christmas? he thought with a smile.
"I'll teach these kids Christmas, if it's the last thing I do!"
But be careful... this Christmas, that wish may come true...

Since time was depleting, he used all his power,
And he had that sleigh built by the end of 4th Hour.
He smiled as he fastened the very last clip.
(And dizzily wiped off the drool from his lip.)

Class time was coming, he hauled it upstairs!
He passed by full windows of terrified glares.
He thrust the sleigh inward, he ducked through the door,
He watched as they picked up their jaws off the floor.

His left eye was twitching, "MERRY CHRISTMAS!!" he beamed.
Just a moment of silence... then everyone screamed.
"Aww, don't be like that! It's just Christmas Day!"
he bellowed, while stuffing the kids in the sleigh.

They ducked under tables, and one climbed the drape,
But not a single student in class could escape!
"On Kenta and Rina, Chisato and Tengin!"
he wailed, as he reached up and switched on the engine.

The rockets were rumbling! Their screams turned to pleading!
But slowly they saw 'twas too late for conceding.
As they soared out the window, one fact became clear...
You teach English, you dolt! You're no engineer!

The rocket shot out in, at first, the right ways.
And he couldn't help smiling when their screams turned to "EH?!?"s.
Their flight was magnificent! A success to resound!
...but in 4 seconds flat, the sleigh dove to the ground...

The gaijin looked nervous, aware of his error...
His face changed to match with his students in terror.
Everyone screamed as they started to fall!
(The gaijin, of course, screamed the loudest of all...)

What was I thinking? he thought, with a whine.
It seemed like a good idea at the time...
The ground approached fast, then faster and faster!
The students all crouched to prepare for disaster!

SMASH! went the sleigh as it crashed to ground,
BOOM! CRUNCH! and other extraordinary sounds.
Miraculously, everybody survived!
A great deal of pain, yes, but they were alive.

Out in the schoolyard, they made such a clatter,
That other teachers came running to see what was the matter.
They gasped when they saw it, breath caught in their necks.
Students were crawling away from the wreck.

A pile of machine, twisted bodies and groaning.
It seems not a student was left without moaning.
Said the beaten-up Gaijin, as the smoke billowed higher,
"Merry Christmas to all! NOW MY LEGS ARE ON FIRE!!"

PS: I designed these lights... a guy I know has them set up in Lincoln and he was looking for help choreographing songs. He sent me the program and the song, and I got to work. This is the finished product (with a couple glitches in the video... like the pause in the first section... heh). ((Oh, flashy light warning... woo))

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GOHo_-E4XHw



PPS: I bought a cheap-o used couch. Now I have a more comfortable place to sit as I type this. :D

PPPS: MERRY CHRISTMAS, AGAIN!

Kids say the darndest things!

I'd like to apologize in advance for the slightly inappropriate post you're about to read. All I have to say is "Eh. It's Japan." I usually shy away from writing about the questionably vulgar things on my blog, but there's starting to be a lot of them (and some downright hilarious ones, let's be honest) so I figured I'd lump everything thus far in to one post.

Imagine you were a junior high school student. Imagine you're a junior high school student being forced to learn a new language. Imagine you're one of those students that doesn't really care about the new language. Now imagine they put a native speaker in front of you who doesn't fully understand YOUR language. What's the first thing you'd do? Remember, you're a junior high student.

That's right. You'd look up all the dirty words and rude questions and start throwing them out when no other teachers are around. And that basically sums up the introduction of the group of boys who I work with during cleaning time.

Sure, they ask if I have a girlfriend. This seems to be a standard among students of ALTs across Japan. I don't always answer them, though, because it opens the door to many, many terrible things. That doesn't mean you can't take those terrible things and make them a learning experience, though!! Enter deflection procedures!

One day, a group of boys kind of wandered near me. I saw the bravest one bend over to have one of the smaller, smarter ones whisper something in his ear. The brave one smiled and looked at me. "Do... sex... you... uh... like?" Now, I know full well what he was trying to ask me. Evasive maneuver one, "hahaha. Umm. Eigo ga wakarimasen. Sumimasen! *deep bow*" ("I don't understand english. Excuse me/I'm sorry!") He looked back at his friend and I heard his friend almost whisper, "Do you like..." He tried again, "Oh... uh... Do you... umm... do.... do you like... eh? Oh, do yo-" I cut him off. He's not giving up, so let's spin this around!

"Oh, you're trying to say 'nani-nani ga suki desu ka?'" (nani-nani basically stands for "something something") He said,"Yes! Yes! Sex!" I ignore him and start the call and response. "Right. *ahem* Do..." "Do..." "You..." "You..." "Like..." "Like..." "Do you like..." "Do you like..." "Very good! There you go! Now just add in 'Tennis' or 'soccer' or 'japanese food' and you're all set!" At this point, I give him a thumbs up and get back to work, ignoring him. "Do you like sex?? DO YOU LIKE SEX??" I congratulate him again, "Omedetto! Yokatta eigo!!" ("Congratulations! Good english!") and start working. They soon realize I won't acknowledge that question. :)

Today was different, though. Another stock question these boys ask is, "Do you play sex?" This has come up a few times (boys will be boys, I guess) but today, they put a spin on it and completely blindsided me. There I was, sweeping up the entry way with some other students when this same group of boys comes over. The brave one walks right up and asks, "Are you a sex player?" I stiffle a laugh and play dumb, "Oh, am I a sax player? Like a saxophone? *mime a saxophone* No, but they are very cool, aren't they?" "No, no! Sex! SEX!" over-enunciating the E. Again, I say, "Aah! Eigo ga wakarimasen!" He smiles, knowing full well this routine, and says this little gem: "Are you a sex technician?"

WHAT??? You mean to tell me that this boy who usually falls asleep in class, doesn't know the answer to the questions, and is a general nuisence to the teachers went through the trouble to learn TECHNICIAN??? And he actually USED IT CORRECTLY??? I mean, heck yes that's a weird phrase, but grammatically, it's sound! I tried. I really really tried my hardest not to laugh, but dangit, it was just too funny. SEX TECHNICIAN?? That's like the name of some bad 80's song! (Note to self... write bad 80's song named "Sex Technician")

Of course, since I unfortunately laughed (hard... VERY hard) about it, the other boys picked it up, and all I heard for the rest of cleaning time was, "Sex technician! Sex technician!!!" It wasn't nearly as funny 10 minutes later.

That's just kind of how things go some days. I've heard stories of ALTs getting upset by those and getting defensive, but that only eggs it on. You gotta roll with it and play along. If you get angry, they'll keep doing it. So far, my approach of "subtly letting them know I understand them, but won't answer" has been effective. We still get along, and they've largely cooled it on those questions and slang (There are some words that have come up that are much worse, but I'll spare you). And after all, at least they're learning english. :D

Oh, and on another note, I was talking to a group of sannensei about the Mission Impossible movies today and one of the girls said that I look like Tom Cruise. I tried to ignore the crazy scientology ramblings of the New Tom Cruise and remember his dashing good looks. Sure, Tom Cruise and I probably look alike to her just like every japanese/chinese/korean person looks like Jackie Chan to most Americans, but I'll take whatever compliment I can get. :D

Schools and Responsibility

An odd thing happened last week. I got to school one day and noticed that the schedule had been changed. This isn't abnormal. Rarely a week has gone by where the schedule hasn't been outright mutilated in some way. Anyway, this time, first period was dropped and there was a student meeting scheduled.

We head to the gym in time for first period. All of the students are already in their neat little rows on the floor (It's like a crazy sea of black hair if you're standing in the back... I need to sneak a picture sometime) and the meeting starts. Since I, ya know, don't speak Japanese, I had a hard time following the meeting. I did pick up a few words, though... one of which was "jitensha" (bicycle). This word popped up a few times, so I figured the meeting was about a bike accident. We've had a couple meetings about things like this before in cases where a student from the school crashed into an elementary school student, or something, and they needed to find out who it was, so this would make the third meeting this year about that.

But it was different. The principal spoke for the bulk of the meeting, which is odd. During his speech, he actually got angry at the students. It was a pretty tense meeting. Afterward, I found one of my teachers and asked, "So... another bike accident?" He told me it was, and I said, "The principal seemed very angry... why?" The teacher explained the situation to me.

Apparently the night before, there were 2 bike accidents. In one, a student just dinged a car and caused some damage, but was fine. In the other, the student actually HIT a car and was sent to the hospital. He was alright, but he was out of school for a day. When he came back, he had cuts and scrapes and his arm was in a cast. It was one of my pirate crew guys, too. But he remained genki and actually got a little fame from teachers and students about it (Chicks dig scars).

Anyway, back to after the meeting. The principal raised his voice to the students when he was telling them to be more careful. Kind of the tough love approach. I asked, "Okay, so, did this happen in the parking lot, or something?" "No," he replied. "It happened when he was almost home." He explained to me that from the time the students leave home in the morning until they return home at night, the school takes partial responsibility for them. Even, in some cases, on days off, the students are sort of under the watchful eye of the school. This manifests itself in meetings and added warnings.

In America, if a student is injured or if something terrible happens outside of the school, the school might make a mention of it. But if it was off school grounds, it seems the initial meeting is the end of it from the school's standpoint. In a way, they kind of say, "Aww, that's too bad. Anyway, for lunch today..." Here, though, if something happens, the school is expected to hold a student meeting and explain the situation, then use that as a tool to teach more safety and such. The school is held somewhat accountable. Since I'm still figuring all this out, let me amend that by saying that it might be that they're only accountable to educate and take more precautions to stop it from happening again to other students.

The teachers seem to take a lot more personal interest in their students well being, as well. That's not to say that American teachers don't, but, at least at my school, it seems universal and, again, expected.

After the meeting, the students all went back to their homerooms for the remainder of first period and filled out a questionnaire asking their opinions on unsafe parts of their routes home. This all seemed like a bit much; to restructure the days schedule for this on the fly, to make up 600 worksheets on the fly... Regardless of how these students act to their teachers, it shows a great sense of community and, dare I be cheesy (wait for it... wait for it...), family.

How the Gaijin Stole Halloween

Let's face it. I love Halloween. I love Halloween an unnatural amount. I love Halloween so much that I... well, pretend I did something extravagant and over-the-top. That's how much I love Halloween. Needless to say, I was heartbroken when I learned that Japan doesn't come close to the great lengths the USA does in celebrating it. No matter! There was Halloween fun to be had by all!

The sannensei teacher ALSO loves Halloween. She talked about this a month or so ago and said she wanted to have some Halloween themed lessons. The other teachers mentioned this, too, but sadly, they didn't follow through. Now I think I mentioned all of this in recent posts, so I'll just cut to the chase and let you know how everything went.

Before my Japanese lesson last week, there was time to go shopping around, and we stumbled into this store called Don Quixote. Time assured me that they had everything, and that this "everything" included HALLOWEEN COSTUMES! Great, I thought. I'd already decided to be a zombie (since I tore some slacks on my bike a few weeks ago (Sweet! Free costume!!)), so maybe I would be able to find some accessories like make-up, masks, or whatever. Hanging from the rack, I found (cue trumpet fanfare) a pair of skeleton gloves! Ok, so I wasn't going as a skeleton. Whatever. Leave me alone, they looked cool. :(

I of course bought the gloves (and also some Halloween candy... woo!). The next day, we would be starting our sannensei Halloween lessons, but I didn't know if it was okay to wear the gloves. The sannensei teacher assured me that she'd be dressed as a witch on Friday, and that was all the persuasion I needed. The lessons that day went well, I think. I gave a brief listening quiz on the history and traditions of Halloween, and then we went into a Halloween mad-lib. Yes, I know. Mad-libs aren't funny. And if you think they weren't funny before, imagine how well they'd go over with a group that doesn't understand the language. As far as they knew, they'd just be inserting tab A into slot B and completeing the assignment, not really getting the joke. I was pretty nervous about it going in. It didn't help, also, that the mad-lib was written by a former ALT and pretty much sucked in terms of "bringin' teh lulz." ("it wasn't funny," for all you un-hip, non-internet nerds.)

I took it upon myself to write another one, at the request of the teacher, and it was... a little better. At least by contrast, maybe it would help the kids "get" a mad lib. ("Oh, you mean 'ugly Johnny singing into the creaky car noisily' is funny?? hahaha! Okay!" ...sigh... such is the mad-lib) Luckily, though, the mad lib went over GREAT!!! I read their creations line by line while the teacher translated. The bulk of the class laughed at the translations, while a handful chuckled at it when I read it in english (Good students!! Yay!!). I underestimated the power of Mad-libs + Japanese humor. In a society where a "comedian" equals some guy dressed in a tux and bowler tinking wine glasses and saying, "Yaaay, rennaissaaaance!" why WOULDN'T this be funny?? Anyway, the lessons worked.

And Friday, I got to wear my skeleton gloves... and scared the crap out of them. I walked into class, hands hidden behind my back, like I was naturally waiting for class to begin. They do the entire isatsu ("Good afternoon, Mr. Sandall...") and bow and all that, and finally, it was my turn. After having been in the class for 4 or 5 minutes, I finally fling my hands out while proclaiming, "I LOVE Halloween!!" Pause to enjoy the gasps, shrieks, and "Sugoi!"s. It was fun. :)

Friday night found me Make-up shopping... shut up. Shut up shut up shut up. All I could find was some eyeliner and white eye shadow, soooo... cool. Pale and dead looking. I used some red poster paint and chopped up my slacks a bit more and went as "Recently-turned-zombie-bitten-in-the-leg-by-a-crawling-zombie."

By "went as," I mean I went to the ALT Halloween Party in Tamana. People have been talking about this party for months, and since everyone loves Halloween, but no one in Japan celebrates, it's up to the ALTs to host their own fun. And fun it was. I saw a ton of old friends I'd met at other gatherings and met a few new people as well. People came from ALL OVER... like from all the way to the south of Kumamoto-ken ('sup, Cindy? Now that I know you read/stalk this... ;) ). Basically, the party was a blasty-blast (Yes, I quoted Dane Cook right there) and my costume actually turned out alright. Of course, there were a ton of other, WAY COOLER costumes (Giant Onigiri?? That's AMAZING!!). (It sucks because you can't see my mutilated pants on the picture... Oh, and I'm standing next to a Pocahontas and... any anime fans out there recognize the far right? :D )

That's all my Halloween rantings for now. but... just one last thing, before I wrap this up and head to Eikaiwa...

Monday, we had a day off. It was Bunka no hi (Or basically "Culture Day"), so no school. Tim had to make a run to Hikarinomori to grab some clothes and asked if I wanted to go along. I said sure, and made a quick shopping list. We headed out around 3:30 and wandered around the mall for a few hours, picking up random bits and pieces. I actually found shoes that fit!! (and-a... eyes that burrrn like... cigarettes...) I also picked up some workout clothes for the winter... since Tennis is probably going to go well into the colder months. :D I mentioned the prospect of dinner, and Tim said that there was this cool italian restaurant downstairs, but first he had to grab some coffee grounds.

So we wandered back over to Starbucks (In Japan... I know... their global domination is nigh) and he began sifting through the bags to find a good flavor. As we were standing there, we're all ofa sudden approached by Maki, a friend from Ozu. She's just there shopping, so we talk with her for a bit. Suddenly, Kana shows up also, just randomly shopping. This isn't terribly odd, since Hikarinomori is the hip, cool place to be (or something like that) and we were standing in a pretty high traffic area. To further compound this coincidence, about 5 minutes later, Miyuki and her friend Shingo show up, also out shopping. So we all stand and chat for a few minutes, and finally Tim says, "Hey, we were just headed to grab dinner, you guys wannna come?" "Hey, sure!" was the general response from the crowd.

We walked down a few floors to find the "fancier" restaurants and the 6 of us get a table. Oddly, they gave us 8 chairs... I thought nothing of this. They then brought out 8 waters. I think, "Meh. Must have miscounted." And about 5 minutes later, Nick and Mari (The Mifune gang) show up. "Oh, sorry we're late," says Nick. This is my first sign to go, "Wait, what?" and I start to put things together. Through the course of the meal, Nick and Mari start making jokes about birthday spankings since Tim "mentioned" my birthday was in a couple days, Kana and Miyuki mysteriously disappeared for about 10 minutes, and there's a lot of winks and short comments in Japanese... none of which I understand. Basically, I have a hunch. A BIG hunch.

Kana and Miyuki come back looking all suspiscious, and not a moment later, I notice the servers standing a little ways away all huddled around something. I hear a few flicks of a lighter and my eyes widen. They turn around and bring over this pie with candles sticking out spelling, "Happy Birthday!!" Everyone breaks out into song, and I just sit there with my jaw on the floor. Complete and utter surprise. My friends rock. :D

Yes, I should have noticed the string of strange coincidences sooner... but whatever. I loved it. Kana went through the awesome trouble of making a "cake" (pie) that was AMAZINGLY DELICIOUS (It wasn't "bimyo," Kana... I was joking. :D).

After dinner, there were talks of going to a late movie, but we thought better of it... and went and did purikura instead. "Puri-kura" = "Purinto Kurabu" = "Print Club" = "photo booths where you can add designs and print ouf stickers." 8 of us crammed inside one of the larger ones, took some random shots, and then went outside and drew all over them with the image editing stuff. I'll let the images speak for themselves. :D (And yes, I know my name is spelled wrong in that one... whoever did it, I WILL FIND YOU!!!!)

Okay, fine. I'll rate.

Since I highly doubt any of them will magically stumble upon this blog, I've decided to give the skinny on the teaching situation I'm in... the good, bad, and ugly (you love cliches, and you know it). This, of course, comes after a particularly weird day...

So amidst the flurry of ramblings so far, you've probably gathered that things aren't always entirely peachy amongst my JTEs (refreshin' yer memory... 'japanese teachers of english,' or else my 'cooperating teachers'). Well, wait, lemme back up... amongst them, it's fine, since they rarely work together... I guess it's amongst me and them... and the support teachers. And not so much them... more me... because of them. See the "It's not my circus" post to get a sense of things...

Have I circle-talked enough? K. Well, basically, the scoop is that I work with three teachers: One for the ichinensei, one for the ninensei, and one for the sannensei. There's also a support teacher that "floats around" (more detail on the quotes later). I can safely say that 1 and a half of my 3 main teachers completely rock. 1 being the ninensei teacher. I love working with her. She's always got her head on, knows what's going on in the class, effectively teaches the english to the students, and does her very best to let me know what I need to do (AND SHE ACTUALLY USES ME AS MORE THAN A HUMAN TAPE RECORDER!!). She's amazingly hard working, and can usually be seen running in and out of the staff room with an arm load of folder bins, still managing to smile and say, "Hello!" as she dumps them off on her desk, only to turn around and toss some posters and a CD player at a line of students that have followed her in to help carry things back upstairs. Then off she goes again. I completely respect her as a teacher because she really seems to be in it for the students. And she's totally confident in her own ability, too... we actually have conversations outside of the required, "Ok, so for class 2-4 today, I would like you to..." The only complaint is that sometimes I feel like I let HER down, either by asking too many questions or taking up too much of her time.

Let's talk about the half, shall we? The sannensei teacher has good control of her classroom, it seems. She's always got a good plan in mind and usually implements it fairly well... even if I'm not necessarily included in this planning. The impression I get, though, is that she isn't confident in her english ability. Therefore, we rarely talk except for the usual dialogue above (I'm not retyping it... seriously, it's, like, 9 lines up there). Even if I don't always know what's going ON in the classroom (since she speaks mostly in Japanese to the students, other than a few routine phrases that shoot out every class period), I relax because I know she's got it under control. There have been a few times where she'll suddenly pass me the ball and I'll have no choice but to stand there blinking until I get sacked. One story comes to mind... I asked what we were doing for the next period, and she told me lesson 5-1. We get up to the room, go through the routine opening ("Hello everyone," "Hello, ___-sensei and Andy-s... uuhh... Mr. Sandall" "You're getting closer... Good morning, class."), and while the class is settling down, she looks at me, "I made mistake... we are doing 5-2 today." Oh... great. Ok, I can fake it... she won't throw random stuff at me, right? Wrong.

In retrospect, I should have realized that she'd want me to exercise the grammar point. I should have known that just by glancing at the book, I would have seen that the point was "His name is James, but his friends call him Jim." But since I'm still the new guy and still learning the way these teachers work and the way the books are set up... I was left with no choice but to have the following conversation in front of the class. "Mr. Sandall, what do you call MacDonalds in America?" "Umm... MacDonalds...?" And she just kinda stared at me, visibly thinking "Umm... crap... what do I say now?" She kinda smiled and tried again, "What do you call MacDonalds in America?" I reply more confidently this time, "It's just MacDonalds." Score, Colin. You TOTALLY got that one right! Again, the blank stare. She turned to a student and asked, "What do you call MacDonalds in Japan?" The student glanced at the book and said, "Oh! Eto... we call MacDonalds 'Mac.'"

I smashed my head against the door frame, trying hard not to laugh at my own idiocy. But the moment had passed. I knew the answer to every single question from that point on, but she never passed to me again for that period. :D Between classes, I could only laugh, shake my head, and apologize. She laughed, too, and said it was okay, since we didn't have time to talk about it. I said, "Yes, but in case you were wondering, in America, we CALL it MacDonalds. And we also CALL Kentucky Fried Chicken KFC. I understand now." And we laughed. But I nailed it that next period. (Congratulations, Colin, you just passed middle school esl.)

Anyway, we have a lot of miscommunications, but nothing terribly serious, and nothing that doesn't get sorted out within a few moments. ...which brings me to exhibit C.

This is the teacher I heard about before I set foot in the building. I had recieved a warning by way of Tim from the old ALT about this guy. Only I didn't realize how frightened I should be. I think at one point, I said, "I haven't seen enough evidence to really call him a bad teacher, per se..." well I take that back. I have. This guy is terrible. Sure, he's shown improvement over the time I've watched him, but not much, and he's still leaps and bounds behind the other staff. Speaking of other staff, remember the quotes from earlier? Told you they'd be back. The support teacher, the nicest lady in the world, "floats around," or at least she did last year. This year, she's been asked to go to every single ichinensei class to help teach. This teacher has had parents come to the school complaining about him, he's had the principal and the vice principal down his throat for as long as he's been there, and his inability to teach is what the support teacher told me one day was a "public secret." (And I really was completely serious when I said she was the nicest lady in the world.) All the other teachers know he's not good, but there's nothing anyone can really do about it.

So why all the hub bub? The guy speaks amazing english. Really, he does... he's probably tied for best english speaking teacher, if not actually having first place. Does that mean he's able to explain anything that much better? Oh, don't be silly! Of course not! Then that would be TOO easy! It's okay, though. To be fair to all languages, he can't explain much better in Japanese, either (The support teacher told me). He teaches out of order (how can they understand the dialogue if they haven't learned the grammar point yet?), he constantly misplaces things (leaving me to tap dance while he goes back to fetch his flash cards), he lacks control of his class, and even fears his students. I've seen students openly stand up to him in class and he does nothing... one student refused to work, and while he tried to get the student on task, the student simply gave him an insulting expression... this caused the teacher to do what any good teacher would do... er, wait, no... the... the opposite... my bad (I think someone flipped my note cards around). He just looked shocked, and turned around and went back to the front of the classroom angrily... He didn't say a word about it. In another class, I noticed a student was off task. Since I wasn't sure exactly what they were supposed to be doing (Nihongo ga wakarimasen, remember?), I pointed the student out. The teacher said to me, and I quote, "Oh... haha... yes. He should be working. You should tell him. I don't want to go back there. He... he sometimes makes fun of me."

I'll give you a few spaces to really let that one sink in.



Pick up the jaw and let's continue on. Anyway, routinely in class, the support teacher finds herself having to step in and reteach the lesson of the class. I can literally hear students going, "...ooooohhhhhhh....." when she finishes. Of course, this is after they've spent 10 minutes fumbling through a worksheet.

I suppose this post comes after a weird day... I had two ichinensei classes today, and both went terribly, and by that I mean "as usual." The teacher and the support teacher were all but fighting in front of the class while I stood off to the side being genki and happy, and continuing on in my little tap dance ("Not my circus... not my circus... not my circus..."). Later that afternoon during a free perioid, as I was trying to prep for my adult ekaiwa class tomorrow night (details later), they were in some sort of heated discussion in the staff room. I heard my name get dropped a few times, but didn't try to pick out any other words and just kept my head down. I went to the copy room to make some worksheets, and when I came back, the conversation had moved to my desk... they were standing at my desk, continuing the argument, and using my text book to point things out (it was the closest text book, which is why I assume they were at my desk... I hope... *gulp*). I found other projects to work on away from my desk and killed some time. I looked back about 5 minutes later and the vice principal had joined the fray... all still standing around my desk. Tell me that's not unnerving.

So about the time the period was over, they finally wrapped up the conversation and I was able to get back to the safety of my little metal fortress. But still... I wasn't able to talk to either of them the rest of the day, so I don't know what went down... nor do I think I want to know what went down. Just smile, nod, be happy, do your job, and all will be well. :)

Ok, so, aside from all this rambling, I don't want you to get me wrong. I completely love it here. Sure, there are some downsides, but that's the hazards of the job, I suppose. Every ALT has a "that guy" at their school, so I'm in good company. We all just manage and enjoy the fact that we're in freaking Japan.

...and marathon Scrubs on days off...

Ever notice Kyoto and Tokyo are the same syllables, just reversed?

Ladies and gentlemen, I now hold in my hand the tickets required to get me to Kyoto this Saturday. Well, I assume they're tickets. Since I can't read most of it, I'll resign to calling them "magic slips of paper that transport me to enchanted faraway places." ("mspttmefp," for short) Tim, Kana and I met up in the city last night after my Japanese lesson to head over to the station and buy the shinkansen tickets (Bullet traaaaiiiin!). Again, I must clarify. They set up buying the tickets, I stood behind them like a drooling idiot admiring the floor tiles until they prodded me and said, "Colin, Money. Now." Anyway, the point is we got them. And our 5 day trip to Kyoto, Osaka, and Kobe is READY TO START! we'll spend Saturday night through Tuesday morning in Kyoto, Tuesday morning, take the hour train ride to Osaka and stay there until Wednesday morning. Wednesday morning, it's off to Kobe to see a couple things, and then grab some Kobe beef for lunch, and then we hit the train and head back to Ozu that night. I'm expecting some fantastic pictures, since, you know, Kyoto has a lot of that "classic Japan" look going on. (Work it, honey!)

Our english recitation contest looms ever closer, though... specifically, it's the Friday after we get back from the trip. So, 2 more days to practice with the kids before they perform. Are they ready? yes, no, and I don't know. Yes, because a few of them are phenomenal. No, because there are a couple that I have not even worked with once. I don't know, because I haven't been to anything like this before, so I don't know the expected level of each grade... I THINK we're doing great, but who knows, really? I guess the point is that they're really great kids, and we have fun working on the speeches. To resolve the language barrier, and also get them to relax a little more, I've resorted to goofy gestures and over exaggerated expressions. It seems to be working with a lot of them, so... sugoi! I hope. :gulp:

Also, some of my students are dirty. The ninensei were working on a worksheet where they have to introduce a person and use the word "looks." As in, "This is Ichiro. He looks happy because he will play baseball today. He loves baseball. (etc. etc.)" I was walking around the classroom reading sentences, helping out here and there, and I stumbled across a students response (One of the class-clown types... generally a really good kid, but he needs to stay focused!!). He wrote one about the teacher: "This is Ms. Matsuzaki. She looks beautiful." I chuckled and motioned for Matsuzaki-sensei to come read it. She laughed, too, and told the student that he gets 10 bonus points, then walked away. I patted him on the back, laughed, and gave him a thumbs up, then walked to the other students. When I came back around, I checked to see what progress he made. *ahem*

"This is Ms. Matsuzaki. She looks beautiful because she is easy."

I stopped. I re-read that. I looked at the student's smiling, proud expression. I suppressed laughter. I smiled, said "good job!" and walked away. Because she's EASY?? Really?? I know he didn't mean it the way it came out, but it was hilarious, either way.

The next couple days, I started checking the other classes worksheets as they came in. So, I was sitting at my desk checking sheet after sheet and making marks and corrections all over... and stumbled across another one. "This is Maki. She looks happy because she is easy." And then another one. "This is Saito. She looks excited because she is easy." (My personal favorite right there)

I could not figure out if there was something I just didn't get, if the students were making jokes, or if Ozu really IS full of scarlet women (and raaagtime!! Shameless music that'll grab your son, YOUR DAUGHTER with the arms of a jungle animal instinct, MASS-TERIA!! ...er... I mean... 'scuse me).

The answer came later. I was telling this to Tim during the train ride into the city and he kinda chuckled and said, "Ooooh... no no no... Ok, that's because the word for 'easy' is 'yasashii.' Yasashii ALSO means 'nice.'" Oh. OOOOOHHHHHH... Here I was, thinking my students were perverts and in reality, they're just complimenting each other... eh, I guess another one of those lost in translation things. But I refuse to have the lesson where I explain what that phrase actually means in America... who knows what kinds of things the students will say to me in the halls after that?

...speaking of which, I think my pirate crew is moving on to another gag... or at least another group of sannensei have found a new phrase. "Because I love you." This has taken the shape of all different phrases... "Sandall-sensei, do you love me?" "I love you!" "I will do it! Ok! Because I love you!"

My greatest fear is that these phrases will combine forces. "Mr. Sandall! I love you because you are easy!"

*sigh*

Japan: 2, Typhoon: 0

That's right. For the second time, the threat and worry of an imminent typhoon turned out to be for naught. The sucker passed south of us again. Except this time, we didn't get the awesome weather that accompanied the last one. :(

Anyway, it's been a long week, and lots of random bits to go on about... so let's get crackin'! (Or... crackuhlackin'... if you're into that sorta thing) And it should be noted that I'm watching this cool show right now, while typing this... there are about 12 people dressed in flamboyant clothes walking around a city... there are also 3 or 4 (I can't figure out how many) guys dressed in suits and sunglasses walking around like weird cyborgs ("hunters") trying to catch the 12 people. Like a giant televised game of tag... there's a timer ticking down from an hour, and a money counter going up... it's some weird reality TV game show... nice. :D ANYway...

Strap yourselves in... this is a long one.

After my Friday night spider escapades, I called it an early night to get up at 6:15 AM ON A SATURDAY!! I had to be to the school at 7:20 to meet my ride to go with a student to an English Recitation contest in Kumamoto. It was a pretty good morning and I'm really glad I went! The contest was part of the school's culture festival (Ours is coming up soon... I can't wait!) so the first part of the morning was to go watch the students put on an english play. They did Cinderella with a little bit added onto the end, and it was HILARIOUS! The students acted great, the costumes were delightfully over the top... man, good stuff. I sat with a bunch of other ALTs and they helped translate the few jokes that flew over my head. After the show, we headed back to the contest room and watched 14 students from all over Kumamoto Prefecture perform their speeches (the same speech 14 times that we've all practiced for the past 2 months... I swear, if I hear about Peter getting home from school late ONE MORE TIME...). It was a solid win for Kikuchi Gun, though... First, second, and third place all came from my gun, so all the Kikuchi ALTs celebrated. MY STUDENT GOT 3RD PLACE!!! WOOO!!!! (Not that I did a lot to help her... the girl was pretty much awesome before I got there, BUT I GAVE HER A FEW POINTS OF ADVICE, DANGIT!!)

(Somewhere I missed it... they're down to 8 people... the hunters are catching the contestents... eesh. And everytime it shows the people in the jail who have been caught, they play COWBOY BEBOP MUSIC!! "The Egg and I!" SUGOI!!)

The evening was great fun. I thinkk I'm getting better at Tennis... well, I KNOW I'm getting better, because it's hard NOT to improve from "terrible" after almost 2 months of it... I still feel like I'm the weak link, but my "accidentally awesome shots" are getting more and more frequent (like from once a night to... twice). After that, I headed up to a little ramen shop with a few friends and finally had some real ramen. That stuff is GOOOOOOD. I don't think I can go back to the instant stuff! (Don't give me that. YOU knew what this was all along, Top Ramen... )

...6 people left... 20 minutes to go... 272,000 yen at stake...

Sunday morning brought our second Kikuchi Gun trip into the Kikuchi Gorge. It was kind of a nice nature walk, but nothing ramarkably spectacular (though the 2 pictures in the post are from there... click to make them bigger). Though, the car I was in went to the higher parking lot that's free, but requires more walking, and got seperated from the lazier rest of the group. So we had a good time with just the four of us wandering around the forest/mountains. Eventually, we found the group and had a big picnic near a stream (in a little pavillion area with modern toilets... yay nature) and chatted for a while. That was pretty much the end of that, so we headed back to the cars and went our seperate ways. It was good the have the evening off to relax. I watched some english TV shows (thank you, SurfTheChannel.com) and saw this awesomely scary spanish horror movie called REC. (The upcoming movie, Quarantine, is the American remake... but do yourself a favor and watch the original one, instead. The trailers for the remake look like it can only ruin this perfect gem of a movie)

6 people, 15 minutes, 360,000 yen... and they're adding more hunters while minimizing the play area. INTENSE!!! Oop... 1 more down. 5 people left.

Monday was a fun day, but it was busy. First of all, I woke up to pouring rain... and since it's illegal to bike with an umbrella up (and since I probably would kill myself trying), I had to walk to school. The morning was busy, and I was looking forward to having some free periods to make up some games for classes later in the week, but it turns out that the last half of the day was a big assembly (Oh the things you miss in the meetings when you don't speak Japanese... :D ). The assembly was awesome, though. A travelling theatre group was hired to come in and perform Don Quixote. I was expecting some little tiny production, but it actually was pretty awesome. we went into the gym to find the front 1/4 of it taken up by their massive, multi-layered set that spanned the length of the gym. The windows were covered (the walls are all glass, so this was a big effort) and the play began. I knew the gist of the story of Don Quixote, so I was able to follow the play pretty well. but I couldn't help but chuckle at how "Japanese" it was. All the knights and princes, and all that stuff looked like characters straight from a Final Fantasy game. The comedy was largely physical humor, and the actors did some amazing acrobatics during the sword fights. The audience laughed, they cried... and a good chunk of my pirate crew was called on to stand in as soldiers in a scene, each of them given lines to deliver. :D

3 people left... one got caught, one actually finished and made it to the phone... and there are 7 hunters out now. 5 minutes left, and 483,000 yen at stake... OO, OO, PURSUIT!!!! oh man oh man oh man... HE RAN INTO ANOTHER HUNTER!! 2 HUNTERS ARE CHASING!!! GAAAAHHH BAM got him. 2 left. Man, that was exciting... can you feel the excitement???

Monday night was great... I got to go shopping!! Finally I bummed a ride to Jusco and picked up all sorts of foods to stock my kitchen. I shall survive on Bentos no more!!! Now I just need to decipher how to make everything... (I think the bilingual cook book I bought last night can help me with that!!) Anyway, I was so excited about having food that the next night, I ACTUALLY COOKED!! Hooray for Yakisoba!! Easy to make, and good, too! (Just not terribly good FOR you... "yaki" - fried, "soba" - a type of noodle... yeah)

oh man... 20 seconds.... 2 left... they;'ve dodged the hunters... just make it to the phone.... THE PHONE...hey, wait! They don't NEED to go to the phone?? They just have to out last the hunters?? Nice!! 2 winners walk off with over 500,000 yen!! (And it's occuring to me that this is a sort of Matrix themed game...)

Last night, I had another english lesson. It was fun, but tiring... reading hiragana/katakana for an hour and a half straight while trying to pronounce it all is hard work... afterwards, I was feeling like my brain was going to 'splode... but all the ALTs there were feeling the same way, so yay. It'll be one big pile of ALT brain mass (wtf, really, Colin? Did you really just say that?). The other ALTs all had to bail on dinner, so Tim and I walked over to Shimotori to try out this Sri Lankan curry place tha he said I definitely needed to try. The stuff melted my face. Seriously. But it was awesome. :D

After dinner, we went to a few shops quickly before driving back home. And walking around downtown Kumamoto, we played a fun game of, "Guess who paid for their date?" Oh man, the prostitutes were out in full force, and the guys weren't even hiding it. Everywhere you looked, there were business men as well as average middle-aged men walking around being closely followed/accompanied by younger girls who looked dressed to go to homecoming (I'd say prom, but come on. They're not THAT classy). As a fun side note, if you want to anger a girl, walk up to her and say, "Ikura desu ka?" (We had to resist the urge to mockingly ask a large group of the homecoming queens this... "How much?" But feel free to use it on friends who don't speak japanese! You'll insult them, and they will have NO IDEA!! It's pronounced "ee-koo-rah dess kah" just to make sure you do it right! (You're welcome!))

We made it back to the parking garage and drove down the 8 floors (yes, we drifted... this IS Japan, after all) to head home.

I think I covered all of it... I left a few things out I wanted to say (to save you from being here longer than you already have been... Gomen nasai) so I'll catch them another time. Basically, my students continue to be awesome, and a certain teacher continues to be terrible... but more later!

"My favorite food is lice,"

Ok, I know I usually am an advocate of not mocking the Japanese accent (katakana accent?) but I was helping grade papers today when I stumbled across a kid who wrote that. I had to work pretty hard to stifle a laugh, and the teacher next to me kinda smiled and looked at me like I was insane. I just shook my head and went back to checking. Seriously, though... imagine you're sitting there for 15 minutes checking sentence after sentence of different student's introductions... and you suddenly come across that little gem. And I really hate that I find it hilarious, but IT WAS HILARIOUS!! I think I have a pretty good handle on the pronounciation of the language, I even understand why the katakana accent sounds like it does (i.e. why the Ls and Rs sometimes switch, why there's often an "oo" added to the end of words), but when you see a gag straight out of about 18 different movies played out in real life, you can't help but chuckle. (I don't even wanna hear it, mom...)

Overall, my students are great, though. Despite the usual grammatical error, most of them actually try really hard to get it. Of course there are the glaring exceptions. I mean, what class wouldn't be complete without a kid who sits in the back with his emo hair pulled over his face and stares at his textbook while the rest of the class is up doing the activity? But aside from that, there are enough nice, interested (and interesting...) kids (and/or pirates... yes, they're still at it) that make it fun. There are always times when you completely misjudge a student, too. For one of my ninensei classes, I walked in the first day and saw a couple of guys in the front looking like the class clowns, like they were too cool to be there. I kind of rolled my eyes, "Oh boy, here we go..." and just went with it. But one of the boys has turned out to be the most active student in that class, if not still a big class clown... BUT AT LEAST HE MAKES HIS ANSWERS LOUD, STRONG, AND MOSTLY CORRECT! (The other kid... well... yeah, he's what I said above)

There are several big language projects this week I get to participate in, speaking of which. The ninensei are doing an oral reading test, meaning I get to sit in another room and the kids come in one by one and recite a passage for me. It's great because I really get to know the students this way. I watch for the ones that come in all shy and nervous, and give them a big (sometimes goofy (Okay, often goofy)) smile and make some genki American joke to helop lighten the mood. Usually, they exhale and crack a smile, and they loosen up. I think that's still the problem. I'm still the new guy, so a lot of kids are nervous because they haven't figured me out yet... but that'll change with time, and it's projects like these that help with that.

Another project is working with students individually for the oral recitation contest next month. 3 ichinensei, 2 ninensei, and a few sannensei (I don't know how many, because I hahve yet to work with them) are all learning a passage from their textbooks to recite for judges at a Prefecture-wide contest next month. And I'll be danged if I haven't gotten to know these students pretty well, too. But again, it started out with nerves. The students were embarassed to attempt english around me, so I'd try and make jokes and be goofy just to break the ice. It's worked so far, and now out practices are actually FUN and PRODUCTIVE! And it's almost just like giving a voice lesson, so I'm able to apply teaching techniques from vocal ped. into it. We can communicate with almost no Japanese, too... I use examples, modelling, visual aids, big elaborate hand gestures, and it all seems to work. Again, though, it's about 5% me, and 90% these students applying themselves (The other 5% is the teacher getting in the way... grrr... but I shouldn't go into much detail... it's a public blog, after all). Overall, a great time, and I'm excited to see what happens next month.

ON another language note, I started going to the International Center to take free english lessons. Tonight was my first night. First off, it was cool to get into the city a bit more. Really helps break up the inaka life (countryside life... for those of you playing the home game, that was a 4 point word). But the lessons I think are going to be great. Tonight I worked one on one with a language teacher, so if that format continues, I hope to make some decent progress on my japanese. We covered the basics... repeating a lot I already knew, but uncovering a lot I didn't, or skipped over in the process. Also, I feel like I can completely read hiragana and katakana now! The entire lesson, I don't think I read one bit of Romanji out of all the worksheets she gave me.

...and.. just between you and me... my ego was a little bruised when it came to learning nouns... and out came the Baby Einstein flash cards... :( ("Ohana" means flower! Eff you, Lilo!!)

...shut up. :(

Anyway, the lesson was great, and it's something to do every week rather than jog across the street, grab a bento, and watch internet TV on a boring night. :D

(...wow that sounds lame...)

I best be off now. I've got some great pictures I need to upload, but I continue to be lazy, so you'll have to wait. Until next time!

PS: Oh, next month, we're planning a bigger trip... it's either going to be 5 days in Tokyo, 4-5 days in Korea, or 3 days in Kyoto... we're leaning towards Kyoto, simply because of convenience and timing... so, expect an update soon about that!

PPS: Special thanks to Mary for pointing out Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog... I can't believe I missed this when it came out. Seriously, everyone go look for it. Hulu has the entire 42 minute thing, but if not, it's in pieces on Youtube.