Juxtapositions

Place close together for contrasting effect. Monochromatic mentions.

Today I had two classes back-to-back that epitomized the highs and lows of my teaching experience in Japan thus far. The first class was my 6 年生 with the Home Room Teacher who led class. 6先生 is a lovely lady who tries hard to keep under control a very unruly classroom. Some of these kids could have been the inspiration for Battle Royale. They are absolutely wild and rarely reigned in. Most of the kids are fine and some of them are really terrific. All of them are bored out of their minds. As am I. Here's why.

6先生 is a great lady and I'm sure she is a wonderful teacher of Japanese subjects, and without a doubt, a tough chick who can stand up to the pressure of dealing with the last year before kids leave elementary school for the soul-crushing stage that is 中学校. And she speaks English fairly well. But I think she might be stuck in the books, probably for the logical reason that books are very important and textbooks help you gauge where you are. But we've been where we are for three lessons now. We have done the same activity three times. The kids get it. They don't need to work on this topic any longer. They understand and they are bored stiff, because they understood it the second time around.

The worst is yet to come, I fear.

The book comes with a DVD which contains dreadfully annoying chants by over-enthusiastic-sounding-disney-show-turn-aways. The text of the chants is at best, repetitive and at worst, so condescending to ones intelligence, one wants to slap the TV screen (which is a touch screen, so I'm not sure what that would do).

By the way, I AM the human tape-player. I say what she wants me to say, when she wants me to say it. I repeat it six times if that's what she tells me to do. I try to use different intonation each time or I think my soul would slip out while I'm saying, I CAN play BASEball. I CAN'TTTTTTT SSSSki. I speak slowly enough. I look at the kids and listen to the kids and many of them are like, what's the big deal? Didn't we already do this? We get it.

So for our fourth lesson on the same topic, she wants me to play the infuriatingly cheery chants on the DVD. We might possibly have a student-riot on our hands, and I will be heading the assault on the antiquated barricades of pre-WWII Japanese educational philosophy.

Enter 5年生.

My 5th graders go back and forth between trying to decide they are too cool for school and still enjoying the process of an elementary education. But by and large, they all participate and they are all quite genki about whatever I ask them to do. For the next three lessons, we have to learn shapes; not just square, rectangle, circle, triangle, but also pentagon, hexagon, heptagon, octagon, and diamond. This is because we will be giving a demonstration class in a couple of weeks and so we must needs teach to the test for a couple of lessons. That's okay. I can cope.

We played games.

First we went through pronunciation, because none of these poor kids has ever seen a word with more than two syllables. I never even used the word 'heptagon' before preparing for this class. And if you know any Japanese at all you know that consonants and consonants never never never appear side-by-side in any word (all syllables are consonant-noun pairings, with the noun coming last - this is why when you tell Japanese kids to say "book" they reply "boo-ku"). I did my best just to keep them engaged with over-pronunciation and a totally enthusiastic personality. I LOVE phonics! Keep up the good work! How many sides does it have? We played a sit down/stand up game that turned out to be a pretty big hit, which is nice because I just made it up on the spot (not to say it was an original idea, but it wasn't in my lesson plan. My best ideas usually aren't in my lesson plans). 


Then we talked about size. Small, medium, large. I used pictures of a cartoon character who can morph himself into different types of animals of different sizes. They freaking loved it. After class, they all jankened (rock, paper, scissors) for the flash-cards. I had matching sets of animals, buildings, and nature to show small, medium, large, and we played a run-up game to match the picture to the size. Two rounds, one with the matching sets, and one where we had to think a little more and mix-match the sets. Had I been planning better, I would have made that round, Big Bigger Biggest! but it didn't occur to me until half-way through. But I wanted it to be more challenging. And they seemed to love it. 


Class flew by. 


6th year took about fifty-hours (thank you, Brandon!) and 5th year was over and I never once looked at the clock. 


I am trying to think of a diplomatic way to suggest some other games into our 6th grade curriculum. Anything to get out of the rut and get the kids into it. Anything to make them not hate English, or not be bored to death. Anything for ME not to be bored! Education can be fun. It should be fun. We all learn best when we play challenging games. 

Okayama

Momotaro

Momotaro is a boy who was born out of a peach and left his mother and father to go defeat the demons who were tormenting his town and stealing food and other-mono. Apparently, he is actually from Okayama. I didn't know this until I got there and saw all the man-hole-covers, each of which depicts different scenes from Momotaro's adventure. Along the way, he picks up a dog, a bird, and a monkey who help him fight the demons. Demons are big here. But they are easily conquered by children and friendly animals. 

This is a typical Japanese scene. If you have ever watched any anime, you have seen this picture.
If you have even scene an anime poster somewhere, you have had psychic visions of this view.
It is just typical Japan. A river, an overpass, and under the overpass, junior highers, shooting the breeze.

A very serene little river with house in the royal garden.
I want one in my house. I have rarely felt more relaxed.

Off, to the castle!
I kept saying this, and NO ONE got it...

Back to the blogging part. Okayama has a very beautiful garden and castle. We didn't get to see the castle, since we were there a bit late in the day. It was also incredibly sunny, which is why all my pics seem a little over-exposed. I am still trying to figure out the different functions on my camera.

My friends and I wandered around the garden and subsequently the city, trying to find a sushi restaurant that served the city-famous Bara-bara sushi. We didn't find any, but we did find a sushi-conveyor belt restaurant, which was about the most fabulous thing I have ever encountered in my life. It is so amazing, I have no pictures of it. But it was ridiculously delicious. Just so you know. 

It is funny the things you find yourself doing in a foreign country that you really wouldn't do at home. I've already mentioned to everyone I talk to how I eat fried chicken here because it is everywhere. I NEVER eat fried chicken at home. I also eat a fair amount of ice cream here, which I tried not to do at home. I don't even ride my bike that much right now!

So. A gratuitous picture of ice cream.

You're right BR. It would be profitable to sell it Regular Double

And a cute pic of me and melania

Okayama is quite a nice town. My friends kept trying to tell me it seemed more internationalized and cleaner than their city back on Shikoku, but I kind of felt like it was less internationalized and much more Japanese. I can't say about cleaner. It could be, I guess. 

Sports Day

I never heard of this show, but I love this poster.
So I may start watching the show. 

I really don't understand
how blogspot organizes
pictures. It is either the computer
or me, but one of us
isn't doing what we think
we are doing when it
comes to inputing commands.

People tell me that Sports Day is a little like Boot Camp for Japanese kids. They go to school and everybody assumes they are working hard, but the parents don't really believe it until they see their children running in synchronized movements to Offenbach. Or stretching to Celine Dion.

I went to as many of the JR High Sports Practices as I could. I was concerned, with my trip to Tokyo, I would be unable to attend sports day for real, so I cheered them on in pretend.

Thankfully, we had Typhoon. That's how everybody says it. Maybe, Typhoon. Last summer, we had Typhoon. Not a typhoon, or the typhoon, or the typhoon happened. We had Typhoon. On Sunday, apparently, or maybe all weekend so that the field was too wet to do anything until today, when I had returned from my trip.

I wouldn't have known anything about it, except I ran into one of my elementary schoolers right as I left my house on my bike.

"Hi Sensei! What are you doing?"

I'm riding my bike. What are you doing?

"Where are you going?"

Well, I was going to go that way, but you are going this way and I feel very affirmed that you are talking to me so I am going with you as long as you keep talking.

"Are you going to Undokai?"

This sounds familiar. I turn it over in my mind wondering where I have heard this word before, why I have heard this word... what context?

oh yeah. My friend from Ehime mentioned going to undokai a week or so ago. She said she was tired afterwards... she said it was-

Sports Day! Is it going on? What time?

"I think from 9 am."

Well, shite. That was a while ago now, but it won't be over for a bit. So I dash off to chuugakkou in search of tug-of-war and group potato-sack-races.

I had a great time too. I watched a bunch of races, sat with one of my 1st graders, said hi to my supervisor, and eventually got scooped up by one of the kids from my office and the elementary school liaison. "Come over here, sit in the shade!" Everybody is always trying to get me to sit down. They don't realize that I am not a good sitter. I don't really like sitting. I can hardly stand still, as I explained to my JTE the other day. (Today at sports day, I reiterated this little tidbit because I want her to remember I have this difficulty. It would be best if I could someday convince her it is a medical condition.) 

Since I sweated off all my sunblock on the ride over here, I now look a little like Rudolph the 赤いはなたぬき, but I don't let that get to me. Besides, the sunburn that's really going to suck is the one on my upper right arm where the sunblock didn't even reach originally.

I felt reasonably encouraged by being there. My same 3rd years came to borrow my sunglasses, I had lunch with my star English student and her family, and several of the kids showed off their posters of anime and manga characters, commemorating sports day forever. And I totally impressed them by reading a few of their surnames off in kanji.　すげーメリ先生。

A few pics without faces. I think there are pretty strict laws about that sort of thing.

This was the one I wanted at the top of the page. But it is here.
You win this round, blogger.

Group running project to the tune of,
 ichi ni, beat beat.
ichi - ni, beat beat.

  

Every event has a ceremony. After every event
has another ceremony. Between each event,
there is a little ceremony to announce scores.
I'm sure there were secret ceremonies I just
didn't know were happening at the time.

I love this action shot. This kid (the flying one)
 is one of the more troubled
or troublesome at school. I like him a lot, but he
can be bit of a sulky mess. But he loves winning.
We are all the same, at bottom.

Tokyo

This past weekend, I went to Tokyo with my sister. She travels for work and it is my intention to meet up with her at all the exotic spots. Since she will be in Asia a fair bit this year, I intend to take full advantage of the free hotel accommodations (love you Em!). But here are a few pics from our trip and will follow up with dialogue later.

A friend of mine used to have the catch-phrase, "it will change your life."
I used to get mildly irritated, because I personally believe very few things really
change anyone's life. Living abroad, Jesus, falling in love, suffering death, torture,
trauma. You know big things.
Well, this is one of those big things.
Ramen. With pork and bean sprouts and chives.
Stewed in bone marrow and pork fat.
I didn't like ramen before this bowl. I still probably don't really like ramen.
But this stuff changed my life. I will return to this restaurant every time I am
in Tokyo. Even if it is a 3 hour layover. It is worth it. 

The view from Ebisu, I think? After stepping off some of the most modern and
efficient railways in the world, to see a little piece of history is
charming and refreshing. And to know that I don't have to ride behind a steam
engine, but may rest on the powerful arms of electricity and 21st century
transportation-al science. 

have I mentioned, I am afraid of heights?

This is braille. On the 190 meter high observatory floor.
If you look out to the north you can see the Imperial Palace.
Oh wait, you can't see.
しつらいします

View from pretty high up. the black bar on the right
is part of the window, I think. 

Imperial Palace. what is the difference between
an Emperor and a king? Dunno. I will
look it up. 

I love how universal Tintin is. And yet, how delightfully
esoteric. People who know follow Tintin's
adventures are in a little world-wide club
with a semi-exclusive membership.

Sidestreet in Harajuku on a Sunday morning.
The clothes weren't all that crazy. But it is the
beginning of fashion week. 

Pics

Just a couple fun pics from the last few days.

I can read the letters, I just can't figure out what we are advertising. I hope it's nothing naughty as this is my sister's name and the reason I took the picture!

View from third floor of my 中学校 (Jr High)

Band Room Storage

Outside the BOE

Somewhere over the rainbow...

Kodomo-tachi

Kids will be kids.

However, there seems to be something strange in the water.

Last week, during Sports Day practice, one of my 3 年生 at the Junior High through a pair of shoes at a teacher. He also swore (I don't know much Japanese, but I do know that) at the instructor, who calmly collected the shoes and walked away looking disgruntled, but otherwise non-reactive. I was a little astonished at the episode, but it was mild sauce compared to a friend's description of an out-and-out brawl between a student and a teacher (during sports day practice at her school). In that case, the student was definitely provoked, but over-stepped the bounds of appropriate responses.

Today, at elementary school, my 6 年生 class was out of control. Actually, only three kids were raving psychotics. The others were just fine, a little loud, but engaged and surprisingly responsive to what was going on in the lesson. And it was a dull lesson. I can assure you. I had a lesson planned, but the teacher had a different lesson planned, and though she agreed to change a few things, we did not change many. I still had a good time with the kids and thought it was fine, except for those three students. At the end of the lesson, the HRT insisted they all tell me good-by and see you again, which was nice, but a little unnecessary. I eat lunch with my 6th graders on the days I have class with them. One of the nuts-o kids ineptly yelled, Get await! (go away) By which, he meant, fuck oth - this being the more-or-less incorrectly pronounced English equivalent of whatever one would say in Japanese. There are no real swear words in Japanese, and the semi-obscenities are not as limber and versatile as English swears, so one is kind of stuck. I didn't think much of it, because it wasn't a really naughty comment, but the teachers were appalled and apologized right then to me.

Later.

I was walking back from the post office when the BOE Elementary School Liaison-fellow pulled up in front of me at the office. He got out and had the same kid by the elbow and was speaking to him very encouragingly and very seriously. The boy turned to me and apologized twice for being so rude in English class. The CIR with me exhorted him to pay attention in class and do better and I said thank you for your apology. The kid also executed an extremely deep bow.

In Japan, it is all about the apology. When we went to an enkai for an office colleague, a couple of kids ran around like wild things, to nobody's apparent annoyance, until one of them, quite accidentally, kicked an adult. This was the last straw and his mother quickly remonstrated him and told him to apologize. It was a big deal. It was the only time in the night when the kids were quiet and settled for any amount of time. My 6th year looked quite shocked as he listened to the Liaison-fellow talk to him and he looked incredibly shell-shocked as he bowed and apologized to me. I hope it lasts. I hate it when a couple of noisy rats interrupt everyone else's good time.

And the rest of the 6th years really are nice kids. They participate, they're smart, quite a few of them are quicker than the teacher gives them credit for (at English anyway), and the ones who don't want to participate are mostly quiet about it (excepting those few flats). And my 5th years are fantastic.

In the office, the same grown-up gentleman apologized twice more and I tried to play it down. Don't worry. Kids are kids. I feel confident saying this, because I know that we are all aware that kids don't have to be feral beasts. These kids need a wake-up call, before they mess it up for their hard-working compliant peers.

Japanese Are Shy

That's what the JTE said when she explained how to give a proper handshake for Western Introduction Practice. Japanese people are shy and don't like to show aggression so they avoid eye contact and shake hands limply, if at all.

2 年生 doesn't really fall into that category.

Apparently, this is the class which, three years ago when they were in the 6th grade at the elementary school, they caused a teacher to quit, because they were so out of control. They are rude, obnoxious, loud, and have bad attitudes. "Sometimes," JTE said, grimacing in irritation, "they make me want to go, *ptch-shoo!*" That is the sound of a blood vessel popping.

I understand.

The kids are wild, raucous, and entirely devoid of respect for anyone. They are most assuredly,  not shy. But they all did focus on their self-introductions, more or less. AND almost everybody wrote something in response to my writing in their notebooks! Which was awesome, because JTE didn't have time to explain what they were supposed to do, they just figured it out. There were a few who didn't reply, but I just wrote them new messages and put sparkly stickers in the other kids' books. Hopefully, they will try again.

Another hilarious moment I had was during Q&A. This is a game where the kids stand up and I ask a simple question. The first kid to answer correctly gets to decide who will sit down in his row: behind, in front, right, or left side of the row. The last kid standing is, well, not the loser, since we don't believe in losers in Japan, but not the winner. Whatever that may be. Anyway, I gave a very brief self-intro at the beginning of class, and one kid especially kept putting his head down on the desk, sighing, scratching his head, pulling his hair, and generally manifesting signs of annoyance, avoidance, and apathy. He was the first kid to get an answer in the Q&A, and the ONLY one to understand the question without JTE translating. You can't fool me, dude. I knew you were paying attention, even if reluctantly.

Their handshakes were just fine, but we still have to work on the not-bowing while we shake hands. They've even got ME doing it now. Not for long. Hopefully, I will vanquish. I know I will.

The only thing I regret is looking bored in class. I am trying very hard not to let me face change expression, but it is incredibly difficult when you stand at the front of the room listening to people talk about you in a foreign language, especially if you can understand a little bit. Not enough to fight back, but enough to be irritated. Sometimes this goes on for quite a while. Then I find myself checking the clock, and I can see some of the kids notice I am doing that. It's just that I am so bored of standing in one place, doing nothing. Still, I hope that I will be able to make inroads on the JTE and be able to participate more fully as time goes by.

Pigs may fly...

Can I Just Add...

Back to Jr High.

Second week of classes. No wonder the kids don't speak English well. Still %75 of English class is conducted in Japanese. I am supposed to stand at the front of the room, even if I am not going to do anything for the whole class period, so I have started walking around the room. I pace on the side, or wander through the desks. I am not standing up there pounding my vertebrae to polvo waiting for the teacher to decide to turn on the human tape recorder. And I don't stand still well anyway.

Had my first 1年生 class today, as well. Poor JTE was worried the kids would be too loud and crazy, just like elementary school. They were. But at least they were animated and totally into it. They spoke Japanese the whole time too. It's really irritating to be listening to a kid's self-introduction and know that they don't understand what they are saying to you or how it all fits together. They are just reading it off the board, often with the teacher prompting and translating. But that's okay. It's not the kids' fault. It's probably not even the teacher's fault, if it comes to that. Most of them came up through the system the same way and now they are English teachers, so it must be alright, right? Not if your inspirational note to your kids is, "Nothing is possible with a willing heart."

Sigh.

The kids really are cool, though. I went to music club this afternoon and site-read a horribly hard trombone/piano duet. We tried to argue about major and minor and how to pronounce them, and even though I understand the do system, I don't think I understand it in Japanese. The trombonist made me site-read the accompaniment twice, and the whole rest of the club sat and listened. I pointed out a quote from Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition and the kids were all totally excited because they hadn't noticed it before. I played scraps of pieces from memory and wrote down titles to go print out and bring tomorrow. One of the percussionists taught me the correct way to hold marimba sticks (?) and play a little ditty. He was actually quite good, surprisingly jazzy. And the trombone player showed me how to hold a trombone and let me try to play a few notes. Horrendously squeeky and fart-like, but I did make sound, to their hilarious amazement.

When we were all done, we packed up the room and some of the kids walked out with me. My trombone player was very concerned that I take my business name tag off, since work was over. We wandered back to our respective homes in jocular camaraderie.

I heart Jr High.

These People ARE Stalkers!

When I first went to Kochi orientation, the presenters told some rare-crazy stories about the local people noticing things we foreigners do and commenting on them. Stories ranged from the benign, "Oh, Steve-sensei, I see you running all the time," to the mildly creepy, "Stephanie-Sensei! You love bananas!" (the response being, "who ARE you?! have you been talking to my grocer?")

I felt very slightly hurt when after living here for almost a month, I had yet to hear any round-about commentary on my lifestyle. Didn't Tano care enough to watch my every move, judge me, and gossip about me behind my back?

And then I got my bicycle.

I have run into several of my kids (also riding their bicycles and usually calling out in slightly confused voices, "mey-ree-sensei?" and apparently I have been observed by quite a few of my teaching colleagues. This is in no way creepy, I'm just glad somebody noticed me!

While we're on the topic of being noticed.

I have never in my life felt popular or noticed in a positive way, but I have always been exceptionally terrified of people looking at me, for reasons that I cannot fathom. This paranoia has caused me to change my cute feminine outfit when I have become unreasonably worried that someone will see me looking like a girl. It has prompted me to never wear several super-adorable skirts and dresses that I bought because I loved them, and let them languish in the closet untouched by sunlight.

I am hoping to be working beyond that problem.

In inaka, I am a singular sight. We have another foreigner, but he is half-asian, so if you don't look too closely, you don't all-of-a-sudden realize that he is not Japanese. But I fit in Kochi-ken like a canary fits in at the penguin house. I'm different colored, I'm different proportioned, I sound different, I act different. Just like Tigger, I am the only one. So people stare all the time. When I whiz through the rice paddies on my bike, they stare like it's part of their tea-break. They're not mean about it, and it's not really "oggling", it's just that they cannot help it.

And since it is part of daily life, I am learning not to mind it.

Actually, it doesn't bother me in the least, and it has really empowered me to wear my water-shoes to the supermarket and my bright green t-shirts to taiko. I can't help it. I am different. And I'm not even as crazy as whities come.

Bike Riding!

Just a quick little post to say I live in a very beautiful place with lots of lovely scenery. My poor little camera is quite overwhelmed by the magnificence of it all and my amateur 写真 are but a dim reflection of the breadth and width of Kochi-ken.

The mountains/hills of Kitagawamura

View from the Kitagawamura bridge, looking down the river

Happy Birthday, Emily!

It's my older sister's birthday. She is a young and plucky 28. Congratulations, sis. Congratulations.

Today, I fulfilled a long-cherished wish and bought a bicycle. I went to my local hardware store that carries anything and everything you may possibly need in inaka - except ___. Here I was trying to be obnoxious and cynical, but I honestly can't think of what else I might need. Hm.

The bicycles were lined up outside, soaking up the hot September sun, and one of the salespeople led me over to view them. I pointed out the ones that had caught my eye as being not horrendously old-lady-ish,  and added that I thought they might be too small for me. (I have long white girl legs - they're not long by white people standards, but they're definitely long compared to the petite frames of Japanese ladies.) He thought about this and pulled one out, messed with the seat and said, give it a try. I didn't have to figure out how to tell him, "I haven't ridden a bike in over 10 years" in Japanese. He knew that by watching. He was very polite about the whole adventure, even though he looked a bit nervous letting me on the next bike after the first one was so shockingly uncontrollable.

I tried several bikes. On more than one of them, I burned my tush because of that hot September sun and the extraordinary ability of black latex to soak it up. (The salesman did laugh at that.) But eventually I settled on a cheapish black bike, very svelte and sturdy looking, no strange hangy-out parts to catch on passing trees and bushes, and a practical little basket on the front for my groceries. Ossan tried to show me a bike that changed gears, but I told him it would be too difficult for me to learn how to use. I only just learned to drive a stick-shift with any sort of confidence. I really think the bike version is beyond me.  He laughed at that too.

On a side-note.

Inaka is very different from the rest of Japan. Many JETs and former JETs during Pre-departure Orientation, Tokyo Orientation, and Kochi Orientation said that the Japanese are very formal and distant and really separate home and work and won't be very accessible. This is probably quite true in big cities, or even relatively large cities, but in the rural world of mura and cho, just forget it. Say hello to everyone, smile at everyone, and say I'm sorry and thank you to everyone, and you would be amazed at the response. Old ladies who look like they can't find a smile under all their wrinkles suddenly break out beaming at me and returning my shy "konnichiwa" with a strong, self-confident, "KonNIchiWAAA". Men who are as dark as red clay from working in the rice paddies or on construction sites start giggling when I do a little half-bow-while-walking, and return my greetings gladly. Not that there aren't some people who ignore me. But for every one villager who walks by sulkily, there are twenty who smile, bob, and grin happily when I try my hand at a cheery Ohaiyo Gozaimasu or Atsui, ne? The people who work here are the same way. When I say silly little nothings in broken Japanese, they get a huge kick out of it and chuckle along and seem to try to tell me similar things, but I cannot understand them.

Back to the story.

You have to register your bicycle like you would register your car. I tried to explain that I can write my address in kanji, but I couldn't say it correctly, so the gentleman wrote it down for me. And as it turned out, it was pre-printed, so really all he needed was my apartment number. We finished all the money handling and wheeled my LBB (little black bike) outside. The gentleman, with parental anxiety, showed me how to work the kickstand and anti-theft key-ring-thing. Ten minutes later when I proved I understood how to use both, he handed the bike over and watched me nervously as I ineptly climbed on and set my sights on the open road.

Arigatou gozaimasu.

Hai, arigato gozaimashita.

After one truly alarming wobble, I set out for the parking lot to practice my turns.

I ended up biking for about an hour or so, and no not because I couldn't figure out how to stop. I live closer to the ocean, but Tano actually stretches pretty far back into the hills, rolling green on rolling green, tall trees, short rice paddies, a few rivers, some tiny waterfalls, and a surprising number of dilapidated houses. I almost had a stroke going up one hill and decided to stick to the flats after that. But here are some pics from the mount.

View from behind random small shrine, looking inland
toward Tano

View from small random shrine, looking seaward towards Tano

My new bike and random shrine

Hey look! For some reason, I can type after I posted pictures! Woop-dee!

By the way, I know I'm not Ansel Adams or someone. These are just for fun. 

Happy Birthday Emily!

Inspiration

Because your school supplies really do have that much influence over your life's success.

Clear plastic binder with pockets. Every CEO bought one in JR High.
If you do not buy one, your future will be dark and poor. 

kiddos

So my 6th graders are pretty nuts. And not in the fun way my jr highers are.

We had a very boisterous class today. First I went to the kindergarten and played songs while the kids tried a move/freeze game. I was very proud of my skills at Pop! Goes the Weasel and Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. I also had a dandy time playing our warm-up song, Hello! Hello! Hello!, courtesy of Dean. Our self-introductions went well and some precocious young-uns asked questions. I was invited back any time by one little girl who also shook my hand and said, Nice to meet you! It was great.

Then we wandered over to the elementary school.

Elementary is awesome, don't get me wrong. I've been to first, third, fourth, fifth, and sixth grades and I like them all to different extents. I love the fourth grade and they LOVE me. We played our game in class and when they left all the little girls came up to me and said, you speak Japanese, right? Will you speak Japanese to us? (In Japanese) to which I replied, in the classroom I speak English but outside I will speak both English and Japanese to you! But you should practice your English too! At which point they laugh. Silly teacher. Foreign languages are for foreigners. We are Japanese. We speak Japanese. And you are here in Japan. So you speak Japanese.

They really wanted me to play tag with them, which I would have hated to do, because I do not run. So I blamed it on my dress shoes and they agreed with me. Such impractical shoes for playing tag. Or climbing the amazingly insurmountable-looking apparatus that acts as a ten-foot high jungle gym, all gym and no jungle. I will have to take a picture.

Speaking of pictures. A few little gems for the road.

JR Highers Continued

I don't know what I am doing wrong, but every time I "insert picture", it tells me I can no longer type anything new. Curse you Google Blogger!!!

Anyhooselbies, my introduction went great. I insisted on explaining my family tree as far back as being not white for the last 100 generations. It is kind of funny, because of course everyone in the class is Japanese and his father was Japanese, and -

And His father was Japanese, and HIS father was Japanese. (And the guy his father bought his house from was Japanese...)  

You get the picture.

*Bonus points for picking up the movie reference.*

Everyone all over the world is not Japanese and may have not been their ethnicity for the past eons. It sounds like a tough concept to grasp, if you lived in such a homogenous society as Japan.

The kids then went around and did little self-intros for me. They recited some things off the blackboard that the teacher wrote down, and by and large I thought they were really making an effort to talk to me, so that was cool. And we totally ran out of time, so we didn't have to play any other repetitive games.

On Tuesday, I showed up for school lunch, which is the other part of my job. Regardless of where or when I go to class, monday - thursday I eat lunch with the kids somewhere. Sometimes at elementary, sometimes JR High. I had lunch with the same class and they were pretty self-controlled. My table was singularly quiet until we had finished our food (as it should be!) and then they started trying to dialogue with me and talking to each other. Actually, the farther the day progressed, the more different kids just walked up to me and tried to have a conversation. So that was cool.

I am looking forward to getting to see the other JR Highers and sharing their actual shenanagens (sp?) with people. They are a hoot and their grasp of English is something to write home about. Next time. This time, eikawa.

JR Highers Should Not Be Allowed Out of the Home

Just a quick, non-picture post about my first couple days at Tano Jr High.

Almost every JET I have talked to says their schedule changes frequently. Some weeks you may visit 20 schools, some weeks you only go to a few. There is no apparent rhyme or reason for this, it just seems to happen that way. My Jr High is no exception. Yesterday (monday), the Japanese teacher of English (JTE) told me we only had one class all day. And then no classes tomorrow (Tuesday). Perhaps I would like to go to the elementary school tomorrow?

You're not getting rid of me that easily.

Our first class was pretty exciting and a pretty clear picture of what one might expect from the students and ourselves. The kids were quite voluble the whole class. They listened to me some of the time, to the teacher some of the time and to their peers most of the rest of the time. They are all nice kids, don't get me wrong. They just seem to have a lot on their minds that they want to confess to their BFFs before lunchtime.

No problem.

I wandered around the classroom, interjecting into conversations, putting people on the spot, describing my hometown of San Francisco, California, and handing out postcard-sized flashcards of major scenery, chocolate, the Spanish flag, and my puppy (KAWAIIIIIIIIIII!). Yes. Puppy always wins them over.

More Typhoon

Yesterday the typhoon let up a bit in the morning, so I decided on a stroll down to the ocean and back. A friend in a neighboring town said after 03/11 she had nightmares in her seaside apartment and asked to be moved, which she was, to a slightly more inland dwelling. Although I live four blocks from giant walls of concrete and tetrapods of contorted construction, neither of which will hold back Poseidon's storm should it happen in my time, I am singularly unconcerned with it. I don't know why. I guess I would prefer to live in mortal fear of the plethora of poisonous insects and centipedes rather than the off-chance that the ocean will try to kill me in the next 50 years. Which, statistics say, it will.

I tried to capture the drip, drip, drops falling into this
trench, but I think I need a more advanced camera
or a more cultivated eyeball.

 The fact of the rain also makes this a tropical rainforest subclimate (maybe?). We have gobs of neon-colored flowers that I have only recently decided to actually take pictures of. But they are everywhere, probably thirty different kinds that I have noticed, some of which I don't think I have seen before, some I have seen in Spain and California and Texas.

That's all. Just some pretty flowers in the rain. 

雨は何時かやめのでしょうか。

It is typhooning outside. My little rose and unknown-white-flower garden is taking a slight beating and the fake grass has rolled up at the edges. It is so windy, the rain is falling at an angle, a very steep angle. Were I better at geometry I would here insert  clever joke about angles and degrees. In layman's terms, it is practically raining sideways. 

This means, however, that I got to try out my brand-new sen-en wellies! 

I really wanted the little black and pink ankle ones, but they didn't have my size. In fact, from the waist down, nothing really fits me in Japan. It is a sad story. But these ones are grand because they are my first ever self-bought pair of rainboots. In fact, I can't remember the last time I had rainboots. 

I tried to take a dramatic picture of the rain, but I don't think it worked. 

But you can see how gray and gloomy it is. And keep in mind that it is still 85 degrees Fahrenheit.