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.

Don Quixote

For today, let me tell you about Don Quixote.

Not a story about knights and windmills, but the large department store in Ota. It's likness can possibly be compared to Target or Walmart, in that it is pretty cheap and it has a bit of everything. However, it is not quite as large as either of those venues so... it is a relative comparison.

Anyway, given that there is nothing to do in Ota, most young people gravitate to the mall or to Don Quixote to hang out. Myself being a young person in Ota with nothing to do, I too have found myself there a number of times.

I explored Don Quixote thoroughly only recently. When walking through the Kids' Toys section, I noticed a short curtain to one side. Curious why there would be an "18 and UP!" sign nestled between the stuffed Rilakkuma toys and the Disney posters, I peaked inside. Naturally! Sex toys! Not just some discreet bottles of lube and DVDs on a high shelf, but literally everything you would normally expect in an adult toy store, including bondage ropes! I was really flabbergasted... I mean it was RIGHT NEXT to the children's toys, and the curtain out front wasn't even long enough to be noticed by anyone under the age of 6. I think I stood there for a minute, looking at the colorful packages, quite unable to comprehend the situation. Before my escape, I did notice some correlation to the children's department: Rilakkuma and Mickey Mouse condoms. What a disturbing image.

One thing I love about Don Quixote is that they constantly have their theme song/jingle playing on repeat throughout the whole store: "Don Don Don Don-Qui, Don-Qui-xoooooteeeee! [blah blah blah Japanese blah blah blah]. Don Don Don Don-Qui...". The first time I went, I thought the jingle seemed strangely familiar. The more I walked around, the more I was sure that I had heard the song before. Racking my brain, I realized that is was from playing the Playstation 2 video game, Yakuza. In this game, you spend a large amount of the time walking around Tokyo, and you can go into shops to buy things, including Don Quixote. Who said you can't learn anything from video games?

Cheers,

flabbergasted Baer

draw on my face, please

Wednesday was Chingyi's birthday, so the three of us went out to dinner at the Aeon Mall to celebrate. We discovered that every restaurant in the mall is asian food.... except for the one that happens to be a western (and I do mean western) all-you-can eat. I didn't even know such things existed here. It was pretty good except the pizza that I thought was sausage and turned out to be fish.........

Afterwards, we went to one of the puricura machines. These are big photo booth where you like about 8 photos in wacky poses with your friends, and then you draw all over them. They print them out in sticker form so you can decorate everything with your silliness. I was so excited because our machine let you send all the photos to your phone! So, I have digital copies of everything, which is awesome. Aren't we cute?

(it says, 'WE'RE AWESOME')

Cheers,
Sticker Baer

Shop (till you`re broke)

(green tea and vanilla, yum)

So, I am slow to update this week... Last weekend, Chingyi and I went to Tokyo. Pretty much, that is "the thing to do" on the weekends. However, I spent sooo much money, I wont be going back for a while. (a.k.a next month, lol). We got paid that Friday before we left, and even though I wrote myself out a budget with all my money meticulously accounted for, there were certain things I didn't take into consideration so... yes, I am poor right now. lol.

This time, we looked for the absolute cheapest way to get there. It took us 1/2 hour longer than my last trip, but we paid only ￥1170 one way! So cheap.

We went to Harajuku first and I showed her the wonder that is Kiddyland. I wont tell you what I bought there... but let's just say the spending started with a bang. lol. What I WILL tell you is that I bought the cutest little Kleenex box, er, case? Has a cute little llama on it. Always always I am looking for things to cutify my ugly apartment. Chingyi is equally enamored with cute things as I am, so it was fun to go through together. Ah! What a shock I got! On the Sanrio/Hello Kitty floor, there was a new line that had been released that day! You'd never guess (no, seriously...)... Yoshikitty... as in, Yoshiki from X Japan! Oh my gods, I think I may have burst out laughing when I saw it. It's kind of like... KISS doing a crossover with Carebears. Just not something you would generally think of.

Afterwards, we had Italian food at a restaurant overlooking LaForet. We got window seats, best seats in the house!, and watched all the people down below making their way through the busy Harajuku streets. We played "spot the lolita" and noticed that everyone we saw went straight into LaForet. You know where we were going! Yes! Back to AP! Afterward, we went to the ever famous Takashita Street. Tiny tiny street absolutely PACKED with people, stores lining both sides. We ate crepes and I went to spend more money in Closet Child. Yay!

Having finished with my spending binge, we headed to Chingyi's #1 stop: Akihabara. She is very into BJD, or Ball-Jointed Dolls. These were NOT the dolls they sell in Kiddyland, which are pretty but not BJD, and only about $136. Mostly the store we went to hand clothes and accessories, not the dolls themselves. However, they did had one line there.... I was shocked by the price even though I knew it would be a lot... I cant remember what it was now but $1000 wouldn't be an exaggeration. While they have very pretty faces, I am afraid the appeal is still lost on me... I was happy to admire, though.

We stayed out as long as we could, but we were pretty wiped out, so we headed to our hotel early, about 8:30. Finding a hotel for dirt cheap without it being....dirt cheap, was somewhat of a challenge. In the end, we settled on sharing a double for a measly $36 each. CHEAP! Despite the price, the room was really nice and spacious! I was most impressed. I took a picture but due to the shape of the room, it was impossible to get a good angle. You'll have to trust that it was nice. Nicer than our hotel in Ota had been.

The next day... we went to more of Chingyi's stops. Most important among them was the Pokemon Center. She absolutely loves Pokemon. The "center" turned out to actually just be one store, packed with Pokemon. Man, she was so excited! It felt like role reversal from me with the loli stores. I sat back and laughed. Her purchasing competition was half her height and 1/3 her age.

The last stop of the day (before a mad dash to the trains home) was the giant Gundam in Odaiba. This is a life-size figure (not human size) of a Gundam (giant robot) from a very famous Japanese anime/cartoon. I have no interest in the show whatsoever, but hey, it was rather a once-in-a-lifetime thing to see, so why not? However, on the way there, guess what I saw...

...and you thought I was in Japan!! Ha! Joke's on you!

The Gundam area was completely packed. PACKED. Chinyi just took a picture and left. It was pretty cool, but since we weren't fans, it was not all that it should have been, you know?

...and because I don't have anywhere else to put it, here is a random 'FRUiTs' type modeling shot that Chinyi took of me in my new dress and shoes. Don't I feel fashionable.

(click)

yen

Airi was right.
I am going to go broke living here.

My wake up call today was provided by yet another earthquake. It was small and quick, but woke me off the couch. Quite a nice way to wake up, if I do say so myself. Much more gentle than my alarm blaring in my ear.

Yes, I slept on the couch. Sometimes, my futon bed is just too hard to be tolerated. I feel like I never get a good night sleep here; I'm always tired. The couch is too short and a little narrow, but still more comfortable than the floor. I had the fan smack in my face too. Normally, when I overheat while sleeping, I either have nightmares or just weird dreams. With no air conditioning, you can imagine the state of my dreams. Maybe that is why I don't get enough sleep.

Enough whinning (yes, I can read your mind!), let me tell you about my weekend. On Friday, Taylor and I went to a nearby festival, called Neputa Matsuri. I wore my new yukata, quite pleased with my new ability to put it on (I probably haven't been this happy about dressing myself since I was 5). I thought I would get strange looks for wearing it, but I think I actually felt a little respect wafted my way. I could have imagined it.

(click on any of the pictures to see bigger versions)

The festival was very very crowded and fun. There were these HUGE drums being pulled/motored down a street that was entirely blocked off for the festival. I couldn't say for sure what the drums where made out of but it was likely paper. Each were hand painted in great detail, mostly depicting warriors.

There were also drums, big drums, being motored/pulled along, usually several in a row, with people sitting on top of them, beating the drums in unison. It was very loud and had a nice feel to it. I made a recording of the sound on my camera. Once I have gotten it put together, I will post it here so you can hear it!


There was lots of food places set up along both sides of the road. It was sometimes difficult and sometimes not to figure out what the item was. One man was cooking octopus legs on a stick! I took a picture, but refrained from purchasing. Too chewy. I did try octopus balls though (see picture on right) and discovered that those were not to my taste either. Taylor and Chingyi both say they like them but... the fish taste is just too overwhelming for me!

I had a crepe for dinner. They had examples showing and I saw what I wanted but I wasn't sure what they called it. I politely asked the women in front of me what the item was called and they were kind enough, without prompting, to order it for me.

Unfortunately, we have missed most of the festivals for this year. I look foward to going to others next year.

On Sunday, I did more cooking. I was actually able to make some fish that tasted good! I made teriyaki salmon using a recipe for swordfish. Finding fish in the supermarket is so difficult! I cannot figure out what anything is other than salmon and tuna. Salmon I don't really want and tuna is too expensive. In the end, I just bought the cheapest thing I could identify, which happened to be salmon (sigh). Hopefully I can get someone to help me.

In addition, I attempted to make peanut butter cookies in my tiny convection oven.

I know what you're thinking: "Hey Lindsay, where's mine?" Don't they look delicious, all nice and BLACK like that. Yeah... if I'm not careful, my time in Japan is going to have a serious effect on confidence in cooking!! Despite the fact that the cookies were black, they were actually so undercooked that I couldn't pick them up. They are cute though, yes? Bunny rabbits, horses and bears, oh my! I think I need to find recipes specific to convection ovens...

Last night I cooked another recipe (squash and pork) in my new frying pan. What a difference! It doesn't spew oil at me like a viper! I think this recipe worked out as well, actually, but I haven't tried it yet. It went straight from the frying pan into the fridge for lunches. It didn't look anything like the picture in the cookbook though... I think those pictures are fake...

I am suspicious.

cookie Baer

Sing it, baby, sing it!

Ah, I finally got the pictures off my camera, so I will make another brief post about Gunma Orientation. After the first day, we had a reception, and after the reception, we had a "welcome party," A.K.A karaoke.

My first karaoke trip ever, in fact. It was rather a huge event with tons of people that I don't really know (and stuck in one of the rooms that just happened to have the only two people out of our group of 40 that I don't like) so I am told it is normally much more fun... but I think karaoke is just not the entertainment for me. I did sing two songs though: Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen and Basketcase by Green Day.

I did try to get into it, as you can see from below.

(afterwards, we reflected on how sad the death of Freddy Mercury was.... a reflection, I think, on how bad we were)

Cheers,

singin' Baer