Home Stay

It's been forever since I made a post, I know. As such, I won't attempt to rehash everything in great detail, but it certainly has been an interesting couple of weeks.

Backtracking a couple weekends ago (ah, it was Sept. 11, I do recall), one of the teachers, Tsuiki-sensei, at my elementary school invited me to go stay with her for one night, have dinner, meet her family, etc. I certainly was not going to pass up the opportunity. Even though she is not an English teacher, she was one of the very few that spoke English at the elementary, and was always kind to me.

As it turned out, Tsuiki-sensei actually lived in an apartment with her husband, Raj, and young son, Taro. The apartment had about 4 rooms, counting the kitchen, with the tatami room and the kitchen area right next to each other, making one big room when the doors were open. It struck me that, even though the apartment had more rooms than my own, the hallways made it feel quite small. Having only visited one other Japanese home, quite a nice, large house, it was somewhat of a shock to me.

The evening was very nice. Raj also spoke English, which helped greatly. I felt like I was a bit of a burden to them, that they were busy but still felt the need to entertain me. Anytime my thoughts began to drift a bit, a head would perk up, "Oh, are you bored?" and would find something to do, even it it meant stopping what they were doing to just stand there and talk to me. It was quite sweet, really, though I felt bad about it. I was quite happy to watch them go about their lives.

Actually... we had Italian food for dinner. Or, a variation of Italian food. Tsuiki-sensei said, "Oh, I'm just so tired, and this is easy," but I knew she had done it for me, since she knew it was the sort of food I liked. Like a said, very sweet people. She had homemade pesto sauce for the pasta... ah, delicious. Actually, I've found, quite to my surprise, that Japanese people are quite fond of Italian food. Then again, who doesn't like pasta? One thing that was amusing was their son. He ate so much!! He was only... 3? but I swear he ate just as much food as the rest of us. I think he would have kept going if the TV hadn't finally distracted him. Amazing. Better hope those skinny Japanese genes get past to him!

At night, the three of them went to their bedroom to sleep (their son sleep with them, despite available space elsewhere... apparently this is normal), and I was given the tatami room. I do love tatami rooms. However, I did discover that, having adapted to my double-futon, one futon just wasn't quite enough! Sleeping on the floor.... it still gets me.

In the morning, we had a typical Japanese breakfast: miso soup and rice. To me, this sounds like lunch, but I go with the flow. As I am being served the soup, my sensei's husband says, "If this has a weird taste for you, don't worry about finishing it." Honestly, I had every intention of finishing it.... but... seeing the little minnow-sized fish floating around in the broth had me second guessing myself. I'll try anything [dead] once, but... it was certainly not the miso soup I was used to! Their son, Taro-chan, certainly had no problem with it; he licked those little suckers right out of the bowl!

Before taking me back to my apartment, the couple wanted to give me a little bit of a taste of Ota. They brought me to a Brazilian festival. While I have heard that Ota is full of Brazilians, I never see any sign of them. I think they must have all been located in the area we drove through, Oizumi (?), which seemed to be a Little Brazil. The festival itself was a ring of food vendors with a stage out in front. Most of the food though, seemed to be quite multicultural, but the dancing on stage was supposedly Brazilian. I though it looked a little like Vegas, with feather headdresses and dancing lines. I was very confused. lol. But it was fun. We hid from the rain under big tents and ate kabob.

I am sad to say that that sensei has since transfered out of my elementary. I will miss her more than I can say at the moment. However, before she left, she invited me to a BBQ which is actually this weekend. Perhaps I will remember to take pictures this time! I'll be sure to let you know how it goes.

Cheers,

Visting Baer

A Phase 2 moment

...mmf... A little venting, feel free to ignore.

I know I said in my last post how easy this job is. and, it IS pretty easy

but there are some things that make it really frustrating. One of my schools in particular, I just don't know what is expected of me, or how to plan, so I mess up a lot and a lot of time gets wasted because of it. I feel like... someone should be helping me in this respect, letting me know "Oh, you can only do this and this, so keep that in mind". I express this to fellow ALTs and they are like "Oh, that's your responsibility, you should know that, you should figure that out on your own." Honestly, I say, I have never done this before, so how do you just KNOW? They say, "Oh, we are new at this too, yet we are doing okay (a.k.a. what is wrong with you?)".

All I can say is I'm already doing the best I can, obviously, so that fact that I make mistakes is an indication that I don't KNOW what mistakes I'm making. They say "Well, then, just fix it" and I keep asking "Fix WHAT?"

Perhaps they don't realize what their lack of empathy does to me, but... it's like, if other ALTs don't know what I am going through, then who does?

At such times, I feel so incredibly alone.

...

Today we all got comments from our schools about our performance. While the things they tell me I need improvement on frustrate me, I did get good comments on my overall attitude. Sometimes, I get so frustrated and upset because I don't know what I am doing and there is no one who can help me but... I always try and come back to that. To have a good attitude, to be cheerful, THAT, at least, is something that I can do, is in my control. Have to remind myself to use that attitude when dealing with all this frustration, to use it to keep moving forward, to take the negative and make it into something I can improve on, not just drag me down.

It mays seem stupid to some people that I even have to go out of my way to say such things. However, for me, it is very difficult, that part of the challenge of this whole experience is to remember to always be positive. This is not part of my nature.

I do want to say, since this is a sort of Phase 2 (a.k.a. "I hate Japan") post, that these are just moments, just days, where things overwhelm me. They do not overshadow my whole experience here. Don't worry about me too much.

coping Baer

School Life

Ah, well, school started and I fell out of love with my blog. Sorry for the delay.

Perhaps it would be a good time to describe school life. Schools here have quite a few differences from schools in the states.
I arrive at school usually about 8:15am and go to the teacher's room. Here, the teachers all reside in one room, their desks made into four groups, one for each grade level (and one 'other' group). I sit in the 1st year group, next to one of the English teachers. At 8:20am, there is a teachers meeting. I have no idea what they talk about, but I have to be sure to arrive before this time or else it is rather awkward. My first class is not until 8:55am, and until then, I do nothing.

My schedule changes everyday, and sometimes week to week as well. I usually am involved in about 3-4 classes a day, 50min each. I either go to the class with the teacher I am teaching with, or students from the class will come and get me. Students in each grade are divided into 3 classes, A, B, and C. There is no difference, it just specifies which room they reside in. Rather than moving from room to room like they do in the states, the students stay in one room while the teachers move.

How much involvement I have in the class varies depending on the teacher. Mostly, though, I am a human tape recorder. I read phrases off the chalkboard, out of the book, off worksheets or flashcards. This is my primary function at the junior high school. Thus far, I haven't been asked to do my planning on my own, which is fine by me. I much prefer being a tape recorder to making lesson plans.

The students are.... sometimes quite a challenge. Discipline is done differently here, primarily, out of class. Thus, sometimes the students are quite rude, loud, or just plane crazy, running around, interrupting the lesson, making things difficult. The sort of things they put up with in class would never be tolerated in the states. I am not sure how discipline is handled here, but it is away from the eyes of one's peers. To me, this is very frustrating just as a matter of principle. At the same time, since I am not expected to plan the lessons, the fact that we don't usually get through them isn't really my problem, so I don't worry about it.

Actually, to me, the way English is taught here seems to be completely inefficient. I feel as though, if anyone was to learn English, it would be in spite of the lessons, not because of them. The emphasis is heavily on 'communication'. This is very important of course, but generally, I think, should be taught in addition to grammar, not replacing it. Learning only 'conversation' basically means they learn only set phrases and set vocabulary for those phrases, often in a rather random fashion (so they don't build on each other). Personally, as a language learner myself, I believe that if you don't learn grammar, if you don't know the meaning behind phrases and know how to build them yourself, you will never be able to speak a language. I find evidence of this in the fact that my elementary school students and my junior high school students seem to be at the same level: "My name is Naoki. I like dog. I like book."

At 12:45, school lunch begins. As I said before, everyone eats school lunch, even the teachers. Homeroom teachers eat lunch in the classroom with their students. Everyone else eats at their desk in the teacher's room. This is where I eat. The meal is so packed with calories, I usually am full half way through. Students carry the food in bins up the classroom, put on smocks and hats, and serve the food to their peers in the class where they eat, at their desks. It is very cute to see the smaller students in their little white serving uniforms.

After lunch, all the students clean. Desks are pushed out of the way, broom are taken out, the floors are swept and scrubbed. This includes not only the classrooms, but the hallways and stairwells as well. No janitors are employed here. The students do it themselves, everyday.

I only go to the elementary school once a week, on Friday. Things are done a little differently here. First off, I have to write the lesson plans for the 4th grade. This is very difficult to me, and I have so say, I absolutely loathe doing it. I always make them too difficult. Everyone says to me 'oh, just make it easier', but that is not so easy to do! I am given a list of vocab and a goal to accomplish, but I discovered, the students cannot read or write or repeat phrases of any length. I discovered that I actually cannot even use all the vocab I am expected to teach. Learning all this has made for some pretty painful planning lessons. Now that I know they they can do basically nothing except repeat after me, perhaps it will be a little easier. Most likely not, since that severely limits the sorts of lessons I can do.

For the other grades, there is a lesson plan already set out by the book. It is generally more equal (as far as involvement between myself and the Japanese teacher) than the JHS lessons. We do little skits to introduce vocab, and usually have flashcards with much repeating. Other differences... I eat lunch with the students in the classroom and I clean with them as well.

Generally, I have to say this job is pretty damn easy. It may get a little more challenging later on, as I may be expected to do a little more planning, but, for the chance to make good money, to be in Japan, I think it is a pretty sweet deal.

School Lunch

To everyone who told me I'd lose weight in Japan.... I laugh at you through my tears.
Gods.

My first day of classes was today. It went well. I did two 'Hi-my-name-is-Lindsay' lessons with the upper level Junior High students. They didn't talk hardly at all, but were well behaved. I like the 2nd class a little better because I had already had one go at it, so I had practice, and the students were a little more interactive. However, the lower level class was... so disruptive. Had to shout to tell them anything. Really, it was more than I would tolerate if it was my class alone.

Now, back to my opening statement. School lunch.
Yesterday, even though I didn't have any classes, was techniquely my first day. It was also the first day of school lunch. This is not an optional sort of thing. Everyone eats it, no exceptions, including the teachers. We pay for it monthy, 4100 yen, I believe, which averages out to about $2 a meal, which is pretty damn cheap. So, price is not the issue. In fact, my first day, we had bread, alphabet soup, a piece of corn, and a small hamburger steak. Really, it didn't look like a lot of food and I thought, `no way this is 1000 calories, as they said it would be in orientation`.

Today, we had curry rice with seaweed salad (I'm not a fan) with a small piece of frozen pineapple. Again, it looked like a pretty reasonable meal. Still, when I finished, I felt sooo full. Way more full than a small bowl of rice and a bowl of curry. Even an hour later, the feeling had not dissipated. So, growing suspicious, I pulled out the lunch menu, which, I discovered, has calories written on it. GODS BE! So many calories! I can hardly believe it. 1000 calories was no joke! It made it all the more difficult to watch one of the teachers eat two helpings of everything. Ugh, I can't imagine.

I know I have gained weight already, which is bad enough. I tend to go the Japanese way and eat rice with lunch and dinner, because it is easy and filling... but I am not Japanese, and the calories from all the rice do not burn quite they way this should... However... this is just too much! Bah! I shared my pain with Chingyi, who felt the same. She suggest something brilliant that I will try from now on; eat half of lunch and bring the rest home for dinner. So brilliant. Not only do we save on calories for lunch but save on money for dinner! $2 for lunch AND dinner? I'm in heaven. I can halve my grocery money and buy more clothes. lol.

I am already tired of fish. Not good.

bleh,

stuffed Baer

PA Death

oh man, I feel like such an idiot...

Today is the opening ceremony for the junior high. Everyone is afraid of swine flu, so we did not have a general assembly. Instead, speeches were to be given over the PA. I was given some notice that I would have to give a short speech.

No one gave me any help as to what I was supposed to say in this speech... but I metally prepared some pretty general 'looking forward to the year' type comments... mmf.

WELL. I was (understandably!) quite nervous... and after I gave my short intro in Japanese... I only managed a couple sentences before... forgotting everything I'd memorized in English! There was this long pause.... and I finally just blurted out something, I don't even remember. Gods. So bad. One of the English teachers then translated it for me, so hopefully she made me sound less retarded.

The principle was standing there, ever a jovial sort of man, and he smiled, but even he could only say it was 'a little okay'. Not even 'okay' but a 'little okay'.

...
I'm going to go be mortified over here now (under this rock).
See you.