Happy Halloween! (almost)

Since this weekend is Halloween, I was requested to give some information in my first year classes. To make it a bit more fun and interesting, I also decided to wear a Halloween costume; my favorite Japanese character, Rilakkuma! Aren't I just the cutest thing? I think I look more like a hamster than a bear, lol.

It was pretty funny. I was just sitting at my desk after changing, being normal, except that... I am dressed as a big white bear. The principle comes out of his office and stands at the front of the teacher's room, surveying the room in silent contemplation...until his eyes comes to me, and suddenly he does a double take, and bursts out laughing. Every time a new teacher came into the room, this senario was repeated, with lots of wide-eyed staring it "Sugoi! Kawaii!...Nan desu ka?" (Wow! How cute!...um, what is it?) I got quite a kick out of it.


I only wore it to two classes, but it certainly livened things up! The girl students liked it especially.

Cheers,

Rilakkuma Baer

Let's Search for Tomoroooooow!

No theme this time, just some general comments.

First off, I just found out what the name of this show was, so excuse my excitement. I actually haven't turned on my TV since I got internet... but when I DID, every once and a while, this show would come on that was just the funniest thing; Otomen Shojo Manga. Even though it was completely in Japanese, I got the storyline somewhat and found it quite funny. It's about this guy (or guys?) who is, on the one hand, a manly (though beautiful) kendo player, but also has a secret love for girly-manga/comic books. It's so cute, go figure I just found out that it is a live-action adaption of a manga. Too bad the TV series is so new, I would buy it to watch even in Japanese.

A more reality based comment... the junior high school students are practicing for a singing contest tomorrow. (This contest has had them miss a number of classes since it, like pretty much everything else, is more important than English). As I sit here at my desk, I can hear them practicing in the music room. What drives me CRAZY is... they sing this song "Let's Search for Tomorrow" (those being the only words in English in the song) but instead of saying 'to-morrow' they say it 'tomo-rrow', so that, before I knew what they were actually saying, I thought it was a song about some person name 'Tomorow'.
Maybe it is just a bit irrational, but it reaaally grates on my nerves. I feel like busting in there, throwing up my hands and yelling "STOP! Sing it THIS way.."
...
What can I say? I never knew I had such an attachment to 'tomorrow'.

dork Baer

I love food

I had to laugh when I read this article this morning on the New York Times website:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/20/science/earth/20trash.html
It's about the growing "fringe" movement of "no waste" - efficient recycling- in the USA.

I laugh because Japan is so far ahead of the US on this matter that after being here for two months, reading this article is sort of like reading "US beginning to widely consider the revolutionary idea of the world as being round!
...
and I hear crickets in the background. lol.

Anyway, that is not really what this post is about! It's about my favorite subject: food!
I haven't shared my cooking with you in a while. Actually, for about a week, I got lazy and didn't cook at all. I've discovered the not-so-secret evil of living alone; while I don't mind, and even enjoy, cooking, and I don't mind doing the dishes, I hate doing both. So, sometimes the prospect of this eats away at my motivation. Pretty typical [of single life], I imagine.

Anyway... on to the food!
This delightful looking stuff was actually an experiment from a month ago:

I know what you're thinking: "Lindsay, that looks like something you scooped out of the bay." Well, you wouldn't be far wrong! It's seaweed, but don't ask me to tell you what kind, cause I have no clue. Hashiba-sensei told me that seaweed is good and can be used to make a green salad of sorts, so I decided to try it.... however, after soaking it in water (it comes dehydrated in small packets), it was soft but so strong I couldnt even cut it with a knife. I gnawed away at some of it for a while... it didn't have a bad taste, but... yeah...

More recently, I made the chicken rolls you see to the left. As usual, I was following a recipe, but it did not work out like it was supposed to... As you can see, my chicken was not quite big enough to fully wrap around the chives and asparagus... however, with some mustard, it tasted simple, but quite good. Maybe I will just skip the rolling next time.

The meal you see to the right, I actually finished eating last week, so it was very recent. Mmmm, this is definitely one of my winning recipes. It was... beef chunks, onions, potatoes, edamame, in garlic in sake, mirin, and soy sauce. I modified the recipe a bit, but it was so good! Yum. The potatoes were actually a gift from Snow.


I don't have a pictures, but last weeend was the first weekend I made pancakes! Yum. They made me nostalgic for the nearly weekly trips that my roommate, Nicole, and I used to take in college to the local diner for pancakes, on the weekend. I miss doing that. One problem though- Japan does not have Aunt Jemima's! I had bought some fake syrup, but it still tasted like maple syrup (yuck) so have to eat them plain.. bleh.

My next experiment was definitely a challenge I set for myself. I wanted to make Ohagi, sticky rice balls coated in red bean paste. I love red bean! I was kind of hoping I could buy the red bean paste already made but... that was a pipe dream. So I made them from scratch! My first attempt, I was trying to follow the recipe pretty closely and.. they didn't really work out the way I wanted. As you may or may not be able to tell from the picture on the left, the paste ended up being lumpy. Also, the recipe didn't say anything about using special rice, so I just used regular Japanese rice... which is WRONG. In addition, it (the red bean) was not sweet enough... I brought some for my closest teachers yesterday, and Hashiba-sensei said that is was good.. but the rice needed work.

So the next night, last night, I took what I had left of the red bean and recooked it, adding water and sugar... and when it was still not smooth enough for me, I chucked it in the blender! What a moment of brilliance that was! The paste was smooth and sweet! Delicious! I even had some mochi gome (sticky rice) left over from my predecessor, so I was able to make the correct kind of rice. Actually, for Ohagi, you don't have to mash the rice, but I thought it tasted better, so I did it. So difficult!! Really exhausting.

To the right you can see the different stages of production: bowl of mashed rice, bowl of red bean paste, spread paste into a circle on Saran wrap with a rice ball in the middle, roll it up, and you have = ohagi.

Really, not cooking for the faint of heart. I only made about 10 balls and I was quite ready to be done. They turned out pretty well though. I brought a few to school again, and actually got a little mini round of applause. lol. I feel bad I didn't bring more for everyone but... it is just too much damn work!

Man, here I am talking about food and I'm starving...
Cheers,

chef Baer

Waterfalls

You might think that the title of this journal entry is intended to be a metaphor.
Let me tell you.
It's not.

Last weekend, I did something a little crazy. I went canyoning. Not to be confused with canoeing, canyoning involves sliding down a freezing cold river and jumping off waterfalls - with no other protection than a helmet and wetsuit.

Did I mention I am afraid of heights? I didn't really predict this to be a problem, but only because I don't think I ever really THOUGHT about what I was going to do before I did it. Nothing like a 20 meter free fall to bring about reality!

But I get ahead of myself.

I actually signed up for this event a month ago with little idea of what it was. It sounded exciting, so I signed up. Period. I took a train to Minakami, about 1 1/2 hours away, where I met up with 12 other Gunma ALTs, some JETs included. A bus took us to the base where we would get ready. We had two guides, both Australian, who took us around and gave us our wetsuits, with instructions on how to put them on ("This is a shirt. You know how to put on a shirt? Well first..." quite a funny-man). They warned us ahead of time that they were going to give us small wetsuits, to guarantee that we would be as warm as possible.

Despite this warning, I don't think any of us took the threat of the wetsuit quite seriously until we actually tried to get it on. It was like...trying to force yourself into a tire. I cannot even begin to express how difficult it was to put these things on. We literally all managed to get the first piece up to our thighs before we would have sworn on the life of our pet goldfishes that it was going to go no further. Talk about a team bonding experience, we were literally shoehorning each other into these blasted things. When we were not strong enough to help each other, we waddled out to the deck, where one of the guides would literally would pick us up by our pants.
...
Actually, I have to laugh just reliving that moment. Standing out on the desk, one slender muscular Australian guy watching, trying not to laugh, while another huge Australian guy is jerking me off my feet by my pants like it's a pillowcase and I'm a recalcitrant pillow.

Needless to say, we were all quite exhausted before we ever made it onto the river. The wetsuits were so thick and stiff that we literally had to waddle, penguin style, to walk easily; Effecting a normal gait was quite a workout.

We took another bus to the river. On the bank, out guides gave us instruction. Of course, we didn't quite expect him to suddenly say, "okay, everyone lay on your face." Although they had the slightly bored air of well-practiced professionals , there is no way they could not have been amused by our pitiful struggle to perform such a simple act. Soon, he had us rolling around on the ground, and we had been downgraded from penguins to beached whales. Affectionately (I like to imagine), our guide berated us for not being quite as quick as some touristing Marines had, the previous week.

Afterward, we took a picture ("possible the last!" he warned us with a laugh):

I am on the bottom right.
Next, we headed down the river:

While it may look like I am just floating there, as if in a swimming pool, I was actually moving steadily forward, head first, toward a small outcrop of whitewater and rocks. Yay.

As it turned out, the first waterfall of the day was also the biggest. Quite a thing, to be floating along, and suddenly have the current pick up and have no real way to stop yourself from hurdling over the edge. I am being dramatic, however, for our guides took good care to keep us from falling - yet. I was second in line, and as I was peering over the edge, unable to see the bottom, I was definitely wondering WTF I had been thinking in signing up for this. "Holy s**t," doesn't quite cover it.

To mark the occasion, our photographer took one last photo, second before being pushed over the edge:

The smile you see was strictly for the camera; it was preceded and follow by a look of abject fear. The guide and cameraman had to continually persuade me to move closer to the edge, I am not embarrassed to admit. I have no idea exactly how big the waterfall was, but at least a three story fall. One of the guides lowered us halfway, or so, sliding us down the vertical rockface by a rope. The water was intense and completely overwhelmed me, blinding me, blocking out everything else, and trying to push my body away from the wall. Then, the rope was released, and I plummeted the rest of the way down, crashing into the water below.

Fortunately, rubber floats. and I was wearing quite a lot of it. So, I was spared the trouble of swimming while initially trying to get my breath back.

The rest of the trip went similarly. We floated/swam along, going down small rocky inclines headfirst, feetfirst, and backwards headfirst as the occasion called for it. The water was so cold. Even with two inches of rubber on, some of my fellows had violently chattering teeth. We didn't see any more waterfalls as big as the first, none requiring ropes. Instead, on the next one, I slid off headfirst, got pulled into a whirlpool (loving called the "washing machine"), tugged out of the whirlpool, and made to shimmy between rockface and waterfall to escape. On this same waterfall, we were given the option to climb back up and go again. I have to tell you, wetsuits, or at least ours, made the absolute WORST climbing gear imaginable. What a workout! Not only fighting gravity, but the very movement of your arms and legs! Gods, it was exhausting. This time, at the top, we were told to jump off the cliff of the waterfall, rather than slide down the water. Waaaah, it was so much scarier to jump than it was to slide. Looking down, all you can see are the rocks, and it seems impossible that you will clear them and make it to the water.

It was at this point that I realized bungee jumping was probably not for me.

On the last waterfall, the smallest one, went down headfirst and backwards, reclining as one would watching Sunday morning cartoons, before slipping over the edge.

All and all, it was quite an experience! I was glad to have done it, but... don't think I will do it again. For one thing, it was quite a lot of money for a short period of time. Mostly though, I think I am just not an adrenaline junky. Next time, I want to try white-water rafting.

Cheers,

adventure Baer

BBQ

Last Saturday, Tsuiki-sensei was kind enought to once again invite me out, this time to a picnic. They picked me up in the morning along with another friend/co-worker. The area we went to for the picnic was really lovely. I guess it was sort of a community area, with a huge, well-cared for garden, lots of green green grass, and a sort of mini-golf place.

The coworker that we picked up on our way was the only othe person besides Tsuiki-sensei and Raj that spoke English. It worked out well enough for me, with three people to talk to, one excited child, and a group of very friendly Japanese happy to stuff me full of food without any exchange of words. I can't tell you for sure what we ate, but it was really really good. "Barbeque" here certainly doesn't mean hamburgers and hotdogs. I think we started with pork belly. I don' t even want to know how unhealthy it was, as I imagine it had to be pretty bad, but it was so damn good. They made waaaay too much food though! I can't imagine how anyone says that the Japanese dont eat plenty of meat, because I think I got a months worth in one day. It just kept coming.

It was a simple and relaxing day. I talked with the other English speaker a bit. We played "guess my age".... and he said I was 32! 32!! My students sometimes think I am 19! Man, what a blow... lol... The time not spent talking was filled with Taro-chan, who was, in the tradition of children, ever to happy to take up our attention. I still don't have a great fondness for children, but I can fake it quite decently.

Seeing me eyeing the mini-golf course a little longingly, Tsuiki-sensei invited me to play with Raj, Taro, and his friend. It was pretty fun. Raj's friend was strong, but so bad. He kept hitting his ball into every possible obstacle. Taro-chan was hopeless. Tsuiki-sensei was quite good and Raj was even better. It was pretty fun.

Tsuiki-sensei and Raj are so kind to me. Since she is not actually my sensei anymore, I wonder if it is okay if I call her Tsuiki-san. Maybe after a few more visits?

Cheers,
grilled-sweet-potato Baer

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