My Musings Today

You know what I dislike the most about Japanese schools, in terms of physical structure? Surprisingly, it’s not the lack of central heating. In fact, on many days, I feel like I’m burning up. The staff rooms are usually quite warm, sometimes unbearable. Only the hallways are cold and it’s not like you’re teaching in the hallway. The doors to classrooms are closed and they keep in all the heat. I totally support central heating but right now, it's not killing me yet.

What bothers me is that there are absolutely no water fountains! I see my fellow co-workers drinking endless amounts of tea and coffee and my students drink from their water bottles…but this isn’t quite doing it for me. If I remember to bring water with me (which I usually don't, because I'm great like that) and since it’s so hot inside the staff room, I hardly want to drink something that will increase my own body temperature.

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Here's a fun thing that happened today:

Two of my sixth grade girls touched my hair and FREAKED OUT. I washed it without blow drying and flat ironing it straight, so I’m rocking the cocker spaniel look. They screamed excitedly and said things like, “It feels so nice!” One of them took me by the hand so they could find their homeroom teacher, urge her to touch my hair and then I stood there laughing as they all touched my hair. I love stuff like this.

SUPER HISASHIBURI DESU

(It’s been a super long time)

I’m terribly sorry for the nearly two month absence.  To make up for it, I have fun stories!

So, Tuesday was my birthday! I’m 23 now! Woohoo! A couple weeks before, the 3^rd grade teacher at Naka Takeno asked me when my birthday was and when I told him the date, he was pleased to know it was going to be on a Tuesday. I was too! I always have such a good time at Naka Takeno so I thought it was great I’d have my birthday there!

But first: Pictures from everything because writing it is exhausting lol

Tajima Halloween Party

Random Japanland Adventures

Adventures in Kobe

Wow, so, hello…it’s been a while. It’s November December now (when I started writing this, it was still November...)! And boy, is it getting colder! Not cold enough for me to figure out how to make the plug-in heater work in my room but cold enough to make me turn on the heat in the living room for a bit (It's gotten cold enough actually). I don’t keep it on for too long we’re trying to save on energy here in Japan but also, it gets really hot to the point of stifling quickly.

What have I done since I’ve last written? Quite a bit actually.

Bring Out the Bear Bells!

This afternoon, the staff room was ringing with the sound of bells and the cacophony of everyone talking at once. The talking I can usually block out but the bells were a new element. I looked around trying to figure out what was going on.

The principal caught the lost look on my face and started laughing. In between chuckles he said, “Someone please explain them to Talia-sensei!” The English teacher laughed and told me, “It’s Christmas!” 

I started giggling and responded sarcastically with, “Really?” More laughter erupted. I guess they didn’t catch my tone(/Japanese sometimes doesn’t do sarcasm). My other co-worker said, “Jingle bells!” and then the two of us briefly broke into song. After that he just said, “No,” in English (hilarious at that moment, by the way) and continued to explain in Japanese that they were bells to scare away bears. Or at least, let the bear know you’re coming  - I’m pretty sure you don’t want to surprise a bear.

My thoughts? Oh boy! The bear bells! I remember one of my co-workers told me about the bears in the area when school started. I believe there was a sighting near my school last night.

Anyway, the co-worker that kindly informed me what the bells were for was looking through the box of them and noted that there were two extras. The principal, looked at me feigning seriousness, said, “Give them to Talia-sensei,” and burst out laughing again.

My principal is super cool.

Festivals and Pocket Monster

Two weekends ago, I had my first mikoshi-carrying festival experience. I did not carry the mikoshi myself but it was the first time I’ve seen it toted around. A mikoshi is a portable shrine that is carried by men (women aren’t really supposed to do it) around the town/city during certain festivals. Supposedly, spirits live inside it. This one in particular is called the Danjiri Festival. The danjiri are the large wooden structures that men also carry with the sole purpose of ramming them into each other  or pretending to do so. Instead of a shrine on top of the wooden structure, there are people perched up in it playing the drums.

Danjiri Festivals <- Pictures

On Saturday night, I was in Kinosaki with several of my friends and watched people run around with the mikoshi and the danjiri. They’re all very nicely decorated. I ran into one of my co-workers from an elementary school – that took me off guard. You know how you see a person in the same setting all the time and you’re never ready to see them anywhere else? It was like that. We also ran into a pair of tiny junior high school girls who liked talking with us. It turns out that their ALT is my friend Alvin, so when my other ALT friends and I told them that, they were so shocked! Yes, us ALTs have a pretty tight circle – I think that’s one of the best benefits of the JET Program, having a network of people like that.

After we trailed after the people with the danjiri, we headed back to Toyooka for another ALT get-together.

Sunday morning I woke up to the sounds of drums banging in my neighborhood. Now, I knew that a mikoshi would be going around near me because one of the teachers at Takeno Minami told me about it. I quickly showered, got dressed, and dashed out the door to find it. And after a short search, I found a troop of elementary school aged children carrying a small mikoshi. My co-worker who told me about this happening said she’d be with the children. Unfortunately, I didn’t see her. I started hoping that some of the many children would be my students – that was not the case. Since I was unrecognizable to anyone and only appeared as a random foreign lady watching their kids parade around town, I took a quick picture and went back home. I felt a bit awkward.

I hitched a ride with Chi and her sister to go up to Izushi to watch that Danjiri Festival. This one was famous for fighting, and not just the slamming of danjiri together, but actual fist fights. How exciting! We got there early though so we could explore for a bit. We visited Izushi Castle and ate delicious soba, which Izushi is famous for, by the way. Before all of that, we met an old lady selling adzuki manju (little pastries full of red bean paste) and handing out samples. She happily gave us some to try and they were warm and tasty. She gave us a little card advertising a nearby soba restaurant. We told her we would go to it and then went on our way. After Izushi Castle, we came back to her to ask her where the restaurant she suggested was. Instead of just telling us, she took me and Chi’s sister by the hand and walked us there. Just left her shop to take us! She was even singing a little song and once we were in the restaurant, she jovially said, “The Americans are coming! The Americans are coming!” I couldn’t stop giggling at the sight I’m sure we were. Anyway, the soba was just as good as I hoped.

Once we ate our fill of soba, we ventured off to find the black team. In Izushi, for the danjiri smashing event, there are several teams composed of the people in certain neighborhoods in Izushi. Apparently, Chi managed to get herself on the black team one time, so we went to them, hoping that at least a few people would remember her. Also, if we were with the team and got to wear the happi (short coats often worn during festivals), we’d get closer to the action. Luckily, some of them did remember Chi and many of them were friendly to us anyway, so we stuck with them. Also, another ALT that we knew was on the team, so that helped us solidify our reason for hanging around like groupies. Only drawback was that they did not have any extra happi, so none of us could wear one – not to mention, we weren’t allowed to touch the danjiri. Women are bad luck, you see. To further imprint this idea, the black team at one point had won three years in a row – the year that Chi was on their team, they got in a tie. The coincidence was too strong to let that go. Oops.

Regardless, we had good times talking with some people, talking amongst ourselves while we followed them, etc. The actual danjiri smashing started a little slow at first and then began to get very interesting. Not a lot fighting this year since the police force definitely had a presence there. I don’t actually know the reason behind the danjiri smashing but it’s exciting and cultural, so that makes it cool! I later found out that my principal of the junior high school was on the red team. Too bad for him though because they lost to the black team!

When that finished up, we had some more soba and visited an ALT and her boyfriend that lived in the area. We had a riveting conversation about politics in America, education, our living situations, our students, and everything in between it seemed. It had been a long time since I’ve had such an in-depth discussion, so it was quite refreshing. We eventually had to leave them though because we promised to meet at Namaste, Toyooka’s Indian restaurant. Even though we sort of just ate, we couldn’t possibly say no to Namaste.

We ate our fill and then Chi brought me home where once I again, I completely passed out immediately. I really ought to get some rest on these weekends. Weekends are simply not long enough, that’s the problem. I need to have time to explore and have fun while I still can and yet, be able to reenergize. Oh well, if wishes were fishes… (what is the rest of that idiom anyway?)

The week went by as usual but with a few highlights. Elementary school visits are always fun. Since I had no classes in the morning, during one period, the third grade teacher at Naka Takeno invited me to come outside with his students and dig up the sweet potatoes they’ve been growing. I kid you not, I was bit by a mosquito within the first five minutes of helping the kids. It’s all good though. The third graders were happy to have me help them and I must say, I don’t think I’ve ever done it before. One of the students taught me what to do. At Takeno Minami, fifth period was devoted to cleaning up around the town. I was assigned to work with the 6^th graders, so we walked a ways down the street to a mini rest stop of sorts to pick up trash. So many cigarettes! Since coming to Japan, my aversion to smoking has increased by 10 fold – I think it’s because people smoke a lot here and I never liked smoking in the first place. After we had come back and the students finished up their last period of class, we had some time to stay outside and play. This is when I had the pleasure of watching a bunch of kids riding unicycles. I guess in America, it’s rare for someone to be able to ride a unicycle, but here it’s totally normal! Or at least, at this school. They have a bunch of unicycles outside actually for you to ride on if you want – well, for the kids anyway.

Junior high school has been prepping up for their culture festival this weekend. At the end of the day, they always practice their chorus song. I like to come upstairs and listen to them sing. They sound beautiful! Also, there are two songs I have to learn by this weekend that I will be singing with the staff and the PTA. The fact that the song is in Japanese doesn’t worry me nearly as much as remembering the harmony. I haven’t sung in a choir in years! Hopefully, it will be like riding a bike.

This last weekend I went to Osaka! With some train ride/time coordination, I managed to meet my friends Kyle and Johnny on the train on the way down. We had a few places in mind to get to when we got there: The Pokémon Center, the Apple Store, and Shakey’s. Pokémon Center to feed into my 12 year obsession and the Apple Store to figure out what was wrong with Kyle’s Mac computer. Shakey’s is a California-based pizza/pasta buffet – I thought it was Japanese until Kyle told me otherwise. While the three of us rode the train in an energy deprived state, we decided that Starbucks needed to be added to the itinerary. We got to Osaka station and we went to this big building that I’m not sure whether you call it a department store but it had everything, including that much needed Starbucks. We got our delicious overpriced drinks and walked around the Disney Store, where I ooh’ed and aah’ed over everything. We headed over to the Pokémon Center which was obviously full of children and their parents. The three of us really stood out more than usual. I managed to not spend all my money there, content with a custom made Pokémon coin (with the new Black and White starters on it) and a hat – Ash Ketchum’s hat. I’m not a baseball cap sort of person, but often there are times when I’m expected to wear a hat when we go outside for sports or outdoor functions. Now, I have a cool hat. Now, I will probably be laughed at by my students/co-workers but I don’t care too much.

We had to wrap up things up and make our way to the Apple Store since Kyle had an appointment. Once Kyle was situated in line to get help, Johnny and I started doing what one does in an Apple Store – play with technology. We tested out iPhone/iPod speakers and took pictures of ourselves with Photo Booth on the iPad, which was entirely way too funny. Everyone else in the store actually seemed to have a serious reason for being there – I know we must have looked very silly. Kyle’s computer was successfully fixed, we met with some ALTs and headed off to Shakey’s to eat ourselves to oblivion. In the end, Kyle stayed out with the others while Johnny and I went back to Kyle’s place in Sasayama to crash for the night. The next morning, we picked up Kyle from the station and brought him back to his own place where he could catch up on sleep. At first, I thought I was ready to tackle the world and whatnot, so I played on Kyle’s Wii (Sonic and the Secret Rings!!!) for a while – until I got hit with fatigue just went back to sleep.

After the power nap, Johnny dropped me off at the train station so I could go back up to Toyooka. The ride back was uneventful as I was asleep for it. Back at home, I worked on my Halloween lesson plan and watched the movie 2012. It was fascinating to watch! I certainly don’t like watching the world fall apart in real life, but I absolutely love it in movies. I was cutting out pictures but when things started getting really crazy, I had to put the scissors down. I think I’ll have to watch it again.

Just a Snippet

There's nothing quite like coming to one of your elementary schools and finding a box of weird looking fruit on your desk. In Japanese, they're called akebi. In scientific terms, it's called akebia quinata. To me, they might as well be called fat-and-gray-speckled-grub-looking-fruit. The teacher next to me told me to try some. I just kept looking at them, trying to determine if I could see them as a little less unappealing. I proved unsuccessful.

She asked me whether I thought they looked gross - I guess she could see it on my face. I countered her question by saying I had merely never seen them before. I asked her what kind of flavor they had and she said they were sweet. And for my information, I wasn't supposed to eat the seeds - just spit them out.


In the end, I never got around to eating the things.


Has anyone eaten these before? Can anyone tell me whether I missed the chance to gorge on deliciousness or whether I saved myself from disaster?

Whirlwind Weekend

And suddenly, it has dropped to 50 in the morning, maybe going up to 65 in the afternoon, and then back down to 50 in the evening. It’s not that I’m not used to cold, I’m just not used to cold yet. Instead of smooth transition to cooler weather, it just took a plunge. Fortunately, I haven’t gotten sick like I usually do whenever the temperature changes drastically.

This past week, I had my first bad class. Well, maybe bad isn’t the right word, but I didn’t feel like anything successful just happened. I mean, it was bound to happen. I don’t think there’s ever been a teacher that had a lesson plan go smoothly every single time. I guess I’m having a hard time of figuring out how long it takes to do certain activities still. Either the kids take a painstakingly long time to do it or they complete it in five seconds. I’ve decided to always just try planning more stuff than I need because I’d rather not be able to complete an activity because I ran out of time than desperately coming up with a back-up plan to fill in the last 10 minutes.

I did a scavenger hunt with the 2^nd graders at the junior high school. I got the idea from one of the activity books (called “Team Taught Pizza” – it’s a weird name, but it’s a super convenient book) that other JETs came up with; it’s a great resource. It has saved me a lot of time thinking of stuff from scratch for games and activities. Anyway, I put various hints of places to go in different rooms like the art room, the computer room, and the music room. They would find a hint that would say something like, “Where do you go to read many books?” and they were to run over to the library to find the next hint that would lead them somewhere else. Again, it was one of those times where my activity went much faster than I expected.  Instead of taking 20 minutes, it took maybe 10. They were fast! They were also really excited, which is a huge plus for me. One girl seemed particularly excited when I was explaining the game in class. It makes me feel great when that happens: not only do kids understand what I’m saying but they’re interested! Yes!

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On Friday, there was a sort of conference for English teachers and the ALTs. It was at a junior high school in Tanto, one of the towns combined to create Toyooka.  There were demonstration classes for visiting teachers to watch, one of which featured an ALT and thus was team-teaching. I watched this and the other classes, seeing how those went and what those teachers did differently. After the demonstrations,  the JTEs (Japanese teachers of English, just in case you needed a reminder) went off to a lecture. Instead of boring ourselves to tears with Japanese we couldn’t understand, my fellow ALTs and I joined to have our own meeting. It was really great – we shared ideas, vented our problems, laughed at all the funny things that happen in our schools. I think it was pretty cathartic, actually. After we convened for about an hour or so, I felt like the trip was incredibly successful and productive. And furthermore, the other ALTs are so great and it’s always fun being in their company, even when we’re at a work-related event. 

Shortly after our meeting, I whizzed back to Toyooka. I was going to be getting a train to Kobe that would get me to a bus that would take me to Tokyo during the night. We left Kobe at 10:00 pm and arrived in Shinjuku around 6:30. I probably would have slept better if they didn’t wake us up every two hours for bathroom breaks. With my tired self, I took the train to Shibuya, dropped the things I didn’t need in a coin locker, and went straight to Starbucks. With an iced caramel macchiato, a sandwich and my Kindle, I had a very peaceful morning. Once the caffeine was slowly coursing through my veins, I decided to go on an adventure of nostalgia. I got on the train towards Eda, my old home town during my study abroad days. I didn’t actually stop there until Sunday.

I felt so emotional during all of this, which may seem silly, but I cannot tell you how much I loved this place. I missed it with my whole being when I left and to be back in it was just so wonderful. Even though the overwhelming throngs of people squirming around me made an irritated Talia, it was all worth it. My first stop down memory lane was Futako-tamagawa. I spent some very fun times there with friends, having picnics, and playing with fireworks. I dropped by Tama-Plaza with the intent of finding some new sunglasses (I broke my old ones the moment I was leaving my apartment…). I came out empty handed. I ended my search because I was due back in Shibuya at Aoyama Gakuin for some lunch in the cafeteria! You may think that eating food at college is lame, but Aoyama Gakuin is famous for its school cafeteria. Apparently, it’s the best in Japan. How awesome is that? For some reason, there were TONS of people and the cafeteria was so full. Until the crowd died down, I sat and chatted with Marie and Satoshi, people who I met while going to Aoyama. Satoshi couldn’t stay long and soon had to leave for class. By the time he left though, many people had finished their lunch and were leaving the cafeteria. Marie and I seized our chance! I got a dish called katsu kare or in not so concise English, fried pork cutlet with rice slathered with curry. Super delicious.

Marie and I visited the farmer’s market across the street and went to the bookstore. I didn’t have the intention of buying anything but I saw an art book devoted to VOCALOIDs that I love (Kagamine Rin/Len) and had to get it. After that, I left Marie to hop on the train to get to Aoyama’s Sagamihara campus. They were having a culture festival and those things are always interesting. A student ran over to me while I was there and asked me if I liked yakisoba in English. Thanks to listening to too many English CDs with over the top annunciation and silly voices, I replied, “Yes, I do!” in the same tone. (If you have ever used the elementary English textbook, Eigo Nooto, you know exactly what I sounded like).

He was pleased with this answer and eagerly asked me to come eat some. Although I only had lunch a short while ago, I couldn’t say no.  After he told me the kinds of yakisoba they had, (salt flavor and pork kimchi flavor), I requested the pork kimchi and he told me it was a good choice. He asked me where I was from and I said I was from America. Now here was the kicker: he said, “Oh, your English is very good!” I just burst out laughing and started saying, “Ehh…but, wait, huh? I’m American!” and then, “YOUR English is very good!” He was laughing since he told me my English was good but laughed even more after I said that. He said thank you and then led me to where I would stand in line for my yakisoba.

I ate my yakisoba and then walked around the campus, checking out the various booths, watching the school’s music groups perform, and taking pictures. I got there right around the end so it finished maybe 30 minutes after I got there. I knew this was going to happen but I decided it may be worth going – and it was. I got back on the train back to Shibuya where I planned on meeting my friend Noel. She is from Thailand and she was an exchange student with me at Aoyama Gakuin. Now, she’s going to graduate school in Japan! In the midst of too many people, we found each other and went to a place called MOS Burger. More yummy food – Japan is full of it. And they say you lose weight here…

Anyway, we went to MOS Burger because 1) We both love it and 2) I haven’t been there in such a long time, since Toyooka sadly does not have one. One of my co-workers got me all excited when she told me there was one in a department store and then she said, “Oh wait, no, I’m sorry. I’m thinking of McDonalds…the closest one is in Tottori….” (which is another prefecture, by the way, and about an hour away). Once we finished our food, we went to Book-Off to browse. Book-Off is a wonderland of not only cheap/used books, but video games, movies, manga (doujinshi too – doujinshi are fan-made manga based on already existing series’), and music. I managed to walk out of there without anything.  Although we just ate, we went to a cheap izakaya (restaurant-pub thing) and got some drinks and snacks while we talked some more. To make things even more fun, they were playing Lady Gaga’s “The Fame” album the whole time. Squee! I At one point we were talking about Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein, and in the background, I heard “Poker Face” …and I couldn’t help but dance in my seat.

It was good times.

After Noel and I parted ways, Marie met me at Shinjuku Station so she could lead me back to her apartment which is only 5 minutes away. I very quickly passed out. It was a good thing too because I had to wake up in the morning for a hair appointment in Roppongi. Although part of me regretted planning that appointment so early, I knew it would work best with my schedule. Roppongi is conveniently very close to Shinjuku so I got to sleep in for a bit. I easily made my way to the hairdressers. Thankfully for me, Ikko was still working there. Ikko is the guy who did my hair when I was studying abroad. And sure enough, he made my hair soft, shiny, and smooth! I think I had gone without a relaxer for about 2 and a half months? Yeah, the change is pretty drastic. I love it! It was a bit expensive but completely worth it. Following that, I went to my favorite crazy Don Quixote. Since Halloween’s coming up the place was decked out with decorations and costumes. They were playing Disney villain songs (particularly, “Be Prepared” and “Poor Unfortunate Souls” in one part of the store and “This is Halloween” from The Nightmare Before Christmas, so I just lingered between those two places so I could sing along. There’s a Halloween party that the ALTs are putting together so I decided that my chance of getting a costume was then. Similar to my Pikachu get-up, I bought a Stitch (from Lilo and Stitch) version. I’m going to have to ask my teachers if it’s okay, but I also bought Minnie Mouse ears that have a pumpkin in place of a bow to wear at the elementary school the week before Halloween.

Once I had what I needed, I made the trek back to Eda. Of course, some of it has changed: the McDonalds that my friends and I frequented was replaced with Sukiya (beef bowl fast food restaurant) and Lawson replaced the convenient store AmPm. AmPm was bought out apparently. I still don’t understand why that McDonald’s was closed…it totally had business! Oh well.

I walked around town and past my dorm. I didn’t try going inside – I don’t know if anyone I know is still there and the management was probably different. Also, I wasn’t sure how it would be like for me to just come in there saying, “I used to live here. Can I come inside? It’s nostalgic…” So, I didn’t. I made my way over to Saizeriya, a cheap Italian family restaurant that I loved to go to with my friends. I got the meal that I used to always order and quietly read on my Kindle. This is probably the laziest trip to Tokyo ever, but that’s okay, it was exactly what I wanted. Eventually, it was time to head back to Shibuya. I got there an hour before everyone else. But you can’t be bored in Shibuya. Not only are there tons of shops and arcades to explore, just people watching is fascinating. I forgot the degree of incomprehensible fashion that the people up there wear.  Also, all the men are so pretty (sometimes this is a good thing and sometimes I’m confused) and all the girls are so skinny (I was pretty self-conscious about my body before, but being in Tokyo honestly makes it worse). After a bit of examining people, I decided to just walk around. I ended up in a manga/anime/video game paraphernalia store and found something I couldn’t leave without. I succumbed to buying a figurine of a character from one of my favorite animated movies,  Summer Wars. Now that I think about it, I probably wouldn’t have found out about that movie until much later if my Japanese teacher at Aoyama hadn’t showed us in class as both grammar practice and entertainment. Full circle! I browsed around the giant Tsutaya back near the train station and later found my friends, Marie, Kazu, and Laura. We went to the same izakaya chain that Noel and I went to the night before. We gorged ourselves on food, followed by two hours of karaoke, and finished the night off with purikura (print club a.k.a. super advanced photo booth of excellence).  It was the grand finale for my last night in the city – for now.

Marie and I went back to her apartment where I again just dropped dead asleep.  The next morning I struggled to get myself off the futon Marie let me borrow. We said our goodbyes and had our hugs and I was out the door. With the help of some train station employees, I easily made it back home on the shinkansen and limited express train back to Toyooka. By the time I had returned I had about four hours before I would haul myself to Takeno for Canadian Thanksgiving. For the record, there was no school on Monday due to Sports and Health Day (a Japanese holiday). Although only two of the ALTs happen to be Canadian, a bunch of us all gathered at Ashley’s house for food and fellowship. It was great! Despite my slight exhaustion, I managed to contribute some mini hamburgs (a hamburg is a hamburger without any buns essentially – I didn’t make this up, Japan did) that I fried up at home. In addition to that, we had turkey(!) and gravy, kimchi and tofu spaghetti, meatballs, rolls, baked pasta and vegetables, stuffing, pizza, homemade bread, scalloped potatoes, mashed potatoes, cookies, homemade cheesecake, and ice cream! It was a feast! I had so much fun talking with people, meeting new people, and bonding over K-Pop. I guess I was in such good spirits, I couldn’t stop dancing around. Many people brought this up. My students bring it up a lot too, now that I think about it.

On Tuesday, I was back at Naka Takeno. My lesson on shapes with the fourth graders went really well. Everyone enjoyed the activities and they were willing to participate. I could tell that the special needs kids in the class were also happy with what we were doing and understanding it, so that was a huge relief. They gave me high fives at the end of the lesson. Due to a schedule mix-up, I only had 15 minutes with the 1^st graders but that’s okay, because it was enough time to have fun. A couple of mothers were in the class watching(it was “open school”), so I’m even more glad that it went without a hitch.

Since the kids got to go home early, and nearly all the teachers were gone observing classes at other schools, my vice principal said I could go home early. I hope he didn’t catch me nearly falling asleep at my desk though. As I was sitting and thinking of warm-up games for the junior high students, I felt a rush of fatigue. Before that though, I played with the little kindergartners outside! We played hide-and-seek again (kakurenbo in Japanese). One of the little boys decided to point out a feature of my anatomy (my chest) and comment on how big it is. Lovely. Although I quickly made him stop talking and told him it wasn’t something to talk about, I was trying very hard to restrain from laughing. It was only a matter of time before that awkward topic would come up because children don’t know what awkward is and see nothing wrong with the topic. A couple of other children started tapping them – not in a, “I’m trying to get your attention and this is as high as my hand goes” but in a, “Hahaha, this is funny!” Yeah, I had to nip that in the bud real fast. When I said, “No! Don’t do that!” one of the girls said to her friend that bopped me, “When she says ‘no,’ it means that you mustn’t do that!” What a good little girl.

Today, I’m at Morimoto and all the kids are taking midterms. No classes today and the kids go home early…which also means no school lunch. Woops, I forgot about that. I guess I’ll be taking a trip to Lawson during lunch hour.

INTERESTING DEVELOPMENT:

There were bears spotted in Takeno! Eating persimmons! 

Takamatsu-sensei laughed and said, "So scary! We should go home now."


Pictures From the Weekend

It's Been Good

I was able to get off work early so I could meet my friends for our big three day weekend trip to Shikoku.  It didn’t cost me any yearly vacation time, so that was nice. With my other ALT friends, Ashley, Erica, Brian, and Alvin, we rented a van from the place where most of us bought our cars and headed out. It honestly felt like all the trips I’ve taken with my family. We reached our first destination, a small ryokan in Okayama, to spend the night. Friday morning we set out on the ferry to go to Naoshima, a little island famous for modern art (famous is relative it seems as nearly no one I talk to knows about it). Lucky for us, since the typhoon already swept through the area, it was nothing but blue skies and sunshine. The absolute perfect day for exploring. And exploring we did! We went to the Benesse House (art museum). A lovely place with captivating art exhibits. Around the island and the museum were other pieces of art outside. The giant polka-dotted pumpkins by Yayoi Kusama are probably the most famous. If anyone remembers when the Kennedy Center threw that huge Japan exhibition for a few weeks a couple years ago, think about those rooms covered in black and yellow dots. Same artist. She works with polka dots for rather disturbing and sad reasons (she allegedly was abused as a child and would see spots in her hallucinations), but it’s great that despite that tragedy, her art is so interesting.

Anyway, we cruised around the island either by car or on foot. As we looked up things to do, Alvin mentioned a cat café and I was totally and completely sold on the idea. Thankfully, I wasn’t the only one on board with this idea. After we were finished with the Benesse House, we went for lunch at a small okonomiyaki place that was pleasantly cluttered with nice things outside. Reminds me of how I would decorate. We intended to try making glass beads but because it was a holiday, the glass bead lady was absent. We headed over to the Art House Projects, old houses renovated into pieces of arts and mini museums. Unfortunately, the scheduled tours didn’t work well with our relatively tight schedule so we had to abandon the hope of going inside. Instead, it was off to the cat café.

Before anyone thinks that this is entirely unsanitary, do not fret! I’m not sure how all cat cafés work, but it was literally a small house turned into this establishment. The kitchen/dining room area was dedicated to the café aspect. It had yummy looking food and delicious drinks (I got a melon soda ice cream float. I haven’t had a float in years!). In the room that would have been a bedroom is dedicated to the cats.  After we had our drinks, Ashley, Erica, and I asked the workers for 10 minutes in the cat room. Usually, it’s 500 yen for 30 minutes and then 100 yen for every 10 more minutes you spend. Again, we were running short on time, so we got in for 200 yen. We washed our hands and stepped into kitty land! We sat on couches, petting the cats, playing with them, taking their pictures (without the flash, that was the rule), and enjoying their adorable company. Once we had our fix and the time was up, we paid and left. Now I can finally say that I have been to a cat café! That’s one off my check list.

We did another loop around the island for pictures and then set sail for Takamatsu on the main island of Shikoku. We got settled into our second ryokan, laid around for a bit due to being a bit exhausted from the day, and finally got the strength to get dinner. At first we went to this place that looked gorgeous but the food was bland and the service was unbearably slow. We left as soon as we could and went to the first Starbucks that I have seen recently. Much to our dismay, there were no pumpkin spice lattes or frappaccinos. Instead, they had this apple crumble flavor. Erica and I were determined to get our autumn drinks on/I know I wanted to try it, so we ordered frappaccinos. Once again, disappointed that it didn’t taste like heaven in my mouth but it was alright. I probably wouldn’t order it again though. Whomp whomp. Our next destination was an udon shop because Takamatsu is famous for it. We had to wait in line for a while to get seated but that must have meant the food was delicious, right? Well, it was! I got curry beef udon – it was the recommended dish on the menu. For curry udon, instead of broth, it’s curry that the noodles are in. So delicious. Wow, just writing about it makes me want it again!

Shortly after dinner, we bought some snacks for the next day, headed back to the ryokan and went to sleep. Saturday was going to be adventure day! In the morning, everyone went canyoning (not my thing, so I decided to wait it out), and in the afternoon, we all went whitewater rafting. The place is run mostly by Japanese people, but many of the employees are guys from New Zealand. Some of the Japanese people there spoke with Kiwi accents – so cute! In the morning to pass the time, I continued playing Okamiden. I bought the game in Japanese, knowing that there would be much I wouldn’t understand but every time I can get more than 70% of the conversation without just guessing and using context clues is great! I’m a bit stuck now. Instructions are difficult in Japanese when I can’t read most of the characters. Oh well, that’s what the Internet is for, right?

The afternoon rolled in, we had lunch, and after a while, we set out for the river. Honestly, I was a bit scared because…well, I’m always a bit scared about outdoorsy sort of stuff because I’m not that person. I do like water though, so that was mostly what kept me going. In the midst of all of the Japanese people, my group of people had a New Zealander named Bob (I think). After a run-down on instructions, advice, precautions and whatnot, we were in the river! It was so exciting! I couldn’t stop laughing! Like the way I can’t stop laughing when I’m on a roller coaster and subsequently, after the roller coaster – such an adrenaline rush! Giddy, even. It soon became less scary and more thrilling, in a good way. Left my arms exhausted though!

After that ball of fun, it was on to our stop for the night, the lodge called Leben. Now, Leben is up on the highest mountain I have ever been on. Numerous things bothered me with this part: the road was narrow and windy, we seemed to be going up forever and the drops continued to look more and more ominous and steep, there were only a few guardrails, and to top it all off, it was dark. I tried my best to keep it together and kept my hand tightly wrapped around the door handle (not the one that opens the door, but the other one…I don’t know what else to call it) to make myself feel better. I’m surprised how much it helped. We finally made it to the top and my hand was in pain. We were led by this nice young woman to come to another cabin that was close by for dinner. For dinner, we had yakiniku with fresh meat and vegetables (there’s a farm up on the mountain)! She gave us a rather interesting dish composed of a gelatin-like substance (but firmer) that had tofu and shiso (a kind of herb) stuffed in it. Once you topped it with a bit of soy sauce, it was very tasty. We continued our fun evening with the karaoke machine that’s conveniently inside the lodge. Once we sung our hearts out and we got tired enough, we went to bed. Compared to our other mornings, when we had to be up pretty early, this was our easiest morning. We leisurely made our way to the cabin to be fed another great meal. We paid, said our thanks, gathered our stuff and hit the road again. The mountain seemed far less terrifying during the day and now that I knew  it had to end at some point. We headed out for Naruto to see the natural whirlpools but our timing was once again a problem. The peak time was not for another hour or so. We decided to leave and go up to Awaji where we could see the same whirlpools, around the peak time and better yet, be closer to home. I didn’t really know what to expect when we went out to see the whirlpools. Part of me was worried that I’d be disappointed and not see much, but even though they were small, there were definitely whirlpools! It was rather odd, as I’ve never seen them before.  Before we started our trek back up home, we hit another convenience store for some ice cream.

That’s when we had our very funny and cute encounter with about five or six boisterous elementary school boys. The first one to walk out of the car was Brian, who is a pretty big tall guy, so the kids went nuts. They kept exclaiming to each other, “Whoa, foreigners!” and saying “Hello!” to us. The five of us waved back, smiling and greeting them back. A couple of the kids came in the convenience store a while after us.  Brian and I were on our way out at the same time and one of the kids held the door for me! I said “Thank you!” and then all of them started screaming, “Thank you! Thank you!” to each other. Brian started to drink the Coke he just bought and this apparently blew their minds. “It’s really a foreigner!” one of the boys yelled while laughing. They started joking around and calling their friends foreigners. Once the rest of my group was out, we headed back to the car while saying, “Goodbye!” to the kids and they happily replied back. Little things like that make me love living in Japan so much.

Our return home was uneventful until we reached our semi-last destination (Wadayama) to do some car switching  and whatnot. We accidentally hit the car beside us with our door handle and they called the police. None of our Japanese was good enough for this conversation so we quickly called in a friend who is perfectly fluent in both languages. I’m pretty sure Japanese policemen have very little to do here. Because for the tiny scratch on the car, we had three police cars come in, complete with sirens and running to the scene. Things got settled and everyone apologized to each other. Alvin, Ashley, and I left Brian and Erica in Wadayama and we went up back to Toyooka.

Now, I had a fantastic weekend.  But the ever present lingering of something kept me close to tears many times. At 4:00 in the morning on Friday, I got a call from my mother. I already knew it was something bad if my mom was calling me. She told me that my grandfather passed away. I can’t really remember what we said after that. I know that I locked myself in the bathroom for who knows how long so I could cry. Out of all the things that worried me about living in Japan for a long time again, it wasn’t radiation and earthquakes, but losing people I love when I’m thousands of miles away. After I cried, I went back to sleep to wake up when everyone else did. I continued texting my mother occasionally. I kept this awful information to myself until I couldn’t stand it anymore. I desperately needed to be comforted; I couldn’t handle it on my own. When I had a moment alone with Erica, I just blurted it out. We hugged each other tightly and cried together.  She knew all too well what I was feeling as her grandfather passed away while she was in Japan too. It was brief, the moment we had, but it helped me enormously. I couldn’t be more grateful  that I could tell her that and she could be the friend I needed.

Once I got home from dropping off Alvin and Ashley at the train station, I headed home and got on Skype to talk to my family. Thank God for Skype.

Monday was nothing remarkable but Tuesday was the best day of the week for me. My mother and I arranged for me to talk to my grandmother on the phone while everyone was in Georgia for the funeral. My grandmother was in high spirits and it was so good to hear her voice. My grandfather had been in so much pain and sick before he died, he prayed that God would just take him home. And he did just that. My grandfather quietly died in his sleep on the way to a doctor’s appointment. I know my grandmother misses him, she’s had been married to him for 66 years, but she and the rest of us are relieved that he doesn’t have to suffer anymore. I had the chance to talk with other family members briefly and it lifted my spirits. From the love from my family and friends, I felt myself getting better. Not getting over his death, but being at peace with it. What I didn’t expect was who would complete my healing process.

Kindergartners.

First period at Naka Takeno, I had the little guys. There’s about eight of them. Some of them are the same kids I played with in the sand and helped catch bugs. I did a self-introduction in a combination of Japanese and English. I helped form a simple template for a self-introduction (“My name is ___. I like ___.”). Everybody got a sticker for introducing themselves. They really liked that. We played hide-and-seek and they asked me questions. During hide-and-seek, for almost every child that I found, I had one trying to hold my hand. With four kids hanging on to me at once, it was more like holding my fingers.  They showed me their pets – two turtles and some crawfish. Right before class ended, they gave me a performance of what they did at their sports festival. They sang and danced just for me. I couldn’t stop smiling.I had a waving and smiling crowd bidding me goodbye as I went on to the next class. I did musical chairs with the fifth graders and they really had fun with that!

The next class was with the third graders. As I promised the fourth graders, I wore my Pikachu shirt that day. The third grade teacher started asking the kids what other things are popular in America from Japan.  They mentioned Mario (since I wore my Mario shirt the week before). The teacher asked me if I knew about Dragon Ball. I said yes and demonstrated the classic “Kamehameha!” for the students and they all giggled. At that, the kids started scrambling around moving their desks and chairs. One of the students handed the teacher a CD and the teacher told me that they performed a dance to the song from the show. He started to play the song and the kids started dancing! So cute! I told the teacher that we had the same song but with English lyrics (which make me laugh, by the way). I told him I would print out the lyrics and bring them to school with me next time.Anyway, the kids were told to do it relatively quietly but that was pretty difficult. The teacher didn’t mind too much though. I felt so happy to have a personal performance again. Once they finished, we went into the heart of the lesson of the day – shapes! Triangles, rectangles, ovals, hearts, squares…you know, as I’m thinking about this, I should have used Lucky Charms instead of traffic signs. Next time.  I made the kids go around the room to find various shapes and say them to me. It went pretty well.

Eventually, we had lunch and recess. I got bombarded with tickling by two of the fourth grade boys again. We had to play in the gym because they were putting down winter grass…at least that’s what someone told me. We have this intern who must either be in college or just out of college, because he seems to be the same age or closer to my age than everyone else. We were all playing with hula hoops and somehow, it got to the point of me throwing hula hoops at him so he could try jumping through them. When I say throw by the way, it’s more like rolling them across the floor…at high speeds. Sometimes he’d make it, sometimes he’d start to go for it and then give up at the end, falling on his hands and knees. Hilarious! I’ve watched many a dog show in my life and it reminded me of one of those agility races.

The rest of the day composed of reading more of The Hunger Games  series (I’m reading The Mockingjay now!), teaching one more class (6^th graders), and then tagging along with the students while they practiced for a marathon they’re apparently participating in. While they were taking a loop around the blocked off neighborhood near the school, I was walking leisurely behind them when I came across a group of mothers sitting on the curb chatting with their babies. I heard some tiny voices calling out, “Talia-sensei!” and noticed that two of the kindergartners were playing on the swings nearby. They ran over to me and one of them sort of jumped me. I gently swung her side to side and she found this to be fun. I waved to the group of mothers watching us and they happily waved back. We went back to the swing set and they suggested we play a game. The game that one of the girls came up with was that she would call out a color. The point was for me and the other girl to touch something of that color before she tagged us. If she tagged us, we would be “it” (by the way, being “it” is called “being the oni” in Japanese.  Oni means ogre.). After I confirmed what the rules of the game were, we started. Of course, she targeted me. Before she would even call out a color, she was creeping towards me! Little cheater, hahaha. I very quickly became the oni and the girls found this hilarious. After we played this for a bit, we decided to play hide-and-seek again. As soon as we started, Kometani-sensei found me and told me that it was well after my time to go home. I told her I was in the middle of game and she laughed. When I found the girls, I told them I had to go home and that we’d play again. They were okay with that and we said goodbye.

It was then I realized that my heart felt okay again. I’ve always loved kindergartners and feel like I have the best time with them, but the way they completely embraced me just felt so good. They were like little angels sent my way to comfort me by just being themselves. Needless to say, but I cannot wait to teach the kindergartners again.

I’d have to say that Tuesday was my best day.  The rest of the week went well.  It’s currently Friday afternoon and very rainy. At the junior high school, my first graders are still a bit reluctant to talk and every class feels like they have to warm up to me all over again. The second graders are a little more willing to participate in comparison. Third graders don’t like to talk as much either, but when they do, I can tell they’re getting used to me and it’s not so awkward for me anymore. They’re all good kids.

This weekend will not be action and adventure packed. I plan on getting my life a bit in order – my apartment needs some attention.

Pictures from the fun weekend:

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.1994129412801.2104548.1230390045&l=6cd7422a2b&type=1

Shikoku and Whirlpools

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.1993994729434.2104544.1230390045&l=f3cb7e6978&type=1

Naoshima

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And Grandpa, I will always love you. I am blessed that I had the privilege to have you in my life. Rest in peace.

My creative juices for a sweet title are presently absent.

As you can imagine, I love having Internet in my own home. Being able to Skype with family is great and I'm happy that I can chat with my friends in real time. What a treat! I’ve also caught up on all of True Blood (finally!). I decided to have a marathon of Modern Family  too – which I heard got a bunch of awards recently. It’s very quickly getting up there on my favorites list of television shows.

Anyway, besides relishing in the glory of the world wide web, I’ve been enjoying my classes. On Tuesday I was back at Naka Takeno. I wore my yellow Super Mario shirt which got a lot of nice comments from teachers and students alike. They were surprised I bought it in America, especially because it has Japanese written on it (I didn’t bother to remind them of the plethora of shirts with English written on them in Japan). They asked me whether I Pokémon clothes too and when I said yes, they told me to wear it next week. If this is how it’s going to go, I may just have to wear my Sonic shirt the week after that. Complete the chain of awesome.

That Tuesday I had the pleasure of meeting some kindergartners. Or preschoolers…I’m not entirely sure, but they were super cute. I was outside watching the fifth, fourth, and sixth graders practice for their sports festival when a few of the little guys came out to play with their teachers. One of teachers told a little girl to say “Konnichi wa” to me. She was very shy, hiding behind her teacher but she said it to me and I replied back. She openly told her teacher how embarrassed she was! A little boy was running around the playground watching me and I started to play with him. I swung in circles around a pole and pretended I was dizzy. This got a lot of laughs. I kept doing it and doing it until I honestly felt dizzy. Of course, he insisted that I keep going as he started copying what I was doing. I told him I couldn’t! We eventually moved on to the sand pit where we started making  a “cake.” The little girl didn’t seem so shy anymore and she was happy to play with us in the sand. Another little boy with a big net ran over to me and said, “Let’s go bug catching!” Now at first, I was thinking, “Oh God, I’ve seen your bugs here and I don’t think I can do this!” but I decided to persevere. The little girl that was so shy before grabbed the bottom of my shirt and tugged me along to the spot where we were going to go hunting.  Eventually she was holding my hand. So cute! What wasn’t cute were the freaky looking grasshoppers that we found. I managed to catch a few and happily gave them to my students. They thought I was awesome and thanked me profusely. Eventually, it was time to stop running around in the tall grass (hah!) and go back inside. We waved goodbye and I still can’t wait to play with them again.

Wednesday was another day at Morimoto with the third graders. Nothing eventful or inspiring occurred. I’m learning how to work smoothly with my JTE. He usually lets me know the lesson plan a day or an hour before class starts. There’s no rocket science behind the lesson plans, but I’m always so nervous. Why I’m nervous in front of a bunch of 14 and 15 year olds, I’m not quite sure. It’s slowly wearing off. I’m getting into the groove of how class works – the pace that I should read things aloud, how I should walk around and help students out when they work together or alone on something, stuff like that. It’s tempting to speak in Japanese to help explain things but I’m trying to only use English in the classroom. Since my JTE is there, I shouldn’t need to use Japanese anyway. It’s not as if the golden rule of ALTs is to only speak English to your students, even outside of class, so I’m working on getting to know them and getting them used to me, by mostly speaking in Japanese with English thrown in. Not to mention, it’s been incredibly helpful for me! I realize how broken my Japanese is sometimes because I’m thinking too fast and the words aren’t coming to me in the right language. But there’s communication.

I spent Thursday at Takeno Minami. I had my first class with the fifth graders and that was really fun. I’ve already got the one kid who knows the phrase, “Yes, we can!”  One of the kids in the fifth grade is the one I bonded with over dance practice. He still makes a point to say hi to me whenever he can.  In class, we had a great time playing games using the new grammar point of “Do you like -?” and “Yes, I do/No, I don’t.” The kids are energetic and happy to be there, so it’s easy to feed off that energy. The teacher is just as energetic and the kids love him, so class is easy.

Friday, I had my introductory class with the first graders at Morimoto. In class, they’re a pretty introverted bunch. I know that two of the girls in the class like me so far, but they don’t really show it. And that’s okay! I’ve only been teaching here for how long? Not long at all.

Saturday evening was spent at Joshin and Namaste. Joshin is a big electronics store where I bought my nice TV and now have bought my own PS3. There was a sale so I had to get one. My first game for it? Portal 2! My reasons were thus: I’ve played the game ad nauseum, so I don’t need to depend on my spotty Japanese to get me through the game. Also, simply, it’s a fun game. But I was very wrong about the Japanese part – they didn’t translate the game at all! Not even the subtitles. I feel a bit silly for buying two of the same game, but now my friends who I left my first copy with don’t have to give it up. The next game I’m waiting for is Sonic Generations – it comes out in November and I’m so ready. I’ve got my eye on a Wii as well. I’ve always wanted one and never had the money to buy one. There are too many games I want for that system, like you would not believe. Maybe next pay check…

After I treated myself to that hefty gift, I met a few friends at an Indian restaurant called Namaste. I suddenly had a deep craving for Indian curry that day and I was sufficiently happy when I finished my meal. I went with basic butter chicken masala and got it with cheese nan – best decision ever. I helped Joshua out by driving him back to Hidaka with his newly acquired TV that he bought from Joshin while I was getting my hands on a PS3.

Sunday was the most exciting day this week. Bright and early, I set out to go to Minami’s sports festival. I would have gone to Naka’s sports festival too (do the morning at Minami and do the afternoon at Naka, for example) but I was told twice I didn’t need to come to the sports festival at Naka, so I decided not to go. I can’t figure out whether this was my failure at cultural understanding or they really just didn’t want me to come. Since that happened with Naka, I asked the principal at Minami whether it was okay if I came to the sports festival. He heartily said it was definitely alright and told the staff that I was going to come. He said it in such a way that…I’m having trouble smoothly translating into English but essentially, the message was that it was a nice thing for me to do and everyone was thanking me. I felt strange for being thanked for something like this but oh well. Anyway, I get there on Sunday morning and the kids were surprised to see me. Some were very happy to see me. Many of the students from Morimoto came. It turns out that some of their siblings attend the school.  I’m sure they attended Minami when they were little too. When I was at the festival, I was a bit conflicted. I wanted to talk and spend time with them, but I knew it’d be awkward. I did walk up to a couple of them or they found me and stood around and we exchanged greetings but it never got much further than that unfortunately. Despite that, the festival was fun and full of laughs, which included a secret activity, that I was gently forced to participate in with other adults. It was a bizarre race that involved holding hands with the guy next to me, dressing up in a yukata (not properly just wearing it like a jacket), grabbing bread with only my teeth from a string hanging from a pole, popping on a balloon by sitting on it, shoving my face in a tub of flour to find a marshmallow (and eat it), and doing a mini scavenger hunt.  Our item was a giant white ball, which was easy to find since it was used in a previous activity. In the end, I wound up with flour all over my face (and chest…) and some free pastries.

 I helped what I could with cleaning up after the festival before I took off for home. I tried to relax and recuperate as much as I could before heading back out again. One of my new friends invited me to come to a live house to listen to her boyfriend’s band play. I do love me some rock music and I missed out the last time she invited me, so I made a point to go. I decided to tough it out and go by myself, following the instructions she gave in addition to what I found online. Since I am Talia the Master of Misdirection, I was a bit worried. But I gave myself plenty of time to get lost and head out. It turned out that the place was ridiculously easy to find and only took a few minutes to get there. All that worrying for nothing! I was a bit early and was waiting for my friend to arrive. In the mean time, I found a cat hiding underneath a car. Well, it wasn’t hard to find considering how loudly it was meowing. I pretended there weren’t people around and started meowing back at it for a bit. During my kitty conversation, my friend showed up, I left the cat alone, and we went inside. The place is called Jack in the Box and it's a cool looking little place. The first band was a punk rock band, which I’m not into at all, so I didn’t find them too interesting. They also talked a lot and since I couldn’t understand what they were saying, their act was even more boring. After what seemed like forever, the next band called The 180 came up and rocked my socks off. Their music was catchy and made me feel alive, much like the band before made me feel a bit dead inside. Following their performance was JoLT, the band my friend’s boyfriend is in. Now that was a show! I thoroughly enjoyed myself. They were so good and crazy. I was just so happy I got my dance on. Toyooka is a nice place and I love it but it’s not Shibuya where there’s entertainment wherever you go, including places to dance. A guy who I sort of know, who was there told me I was the best dancer. XD After some chatting and drinking (soft drinks, mind you), a couple of us went to karaoke. We met two other friends while we were there and had a fabulous time, as usual.  For the record, “GO!!!” by FLOW (yes, one of the Naruto theme songs) is an AWESOME group karaoke song. We were so fired up! I definite recommendation.

Monday was the holiday Respect for the Aged Day so we didn’t have school. This was when I had my Modern Family marathon. I attempted to clean my apartment. It was a very uneventful day.

Tuesday, I was back at Morimoto since Naka was spending the day off to make up for the sports festival. My JTE forgot about this, so he quickly explained the plan for the class with the first graders. Class went well. Next class was my introductory class with the second graders. They were a more lively bunch. Many of them positively responded to my brief segment about Harry Potter (the other grades didn’t seem to care). Following my self-introduction, I had the students write out a very basic self introduction about what they liked. I had to help many students spell “Harry Potter.” They gave their introductions with ease and we opened up the floor for questions. They weren’t feeling too curious so I suggested we play a quick game.  We played a modified hangman – modified in the sense that no one is getting hanged, but I drew a stick figure on the board with a face and I told the students that if they guessed a letter that didn’t belong, I would start erasing him bit by bit. I chose this modification because I read an article once about an ALT using hangman in the classroom without knowing that one of the students at the school had actually committed suicide (possibly by hanging, I can’t remember now) and the game left the other children feeling pretty distressed. To avoid that bag of worms completely, I used the example that one of the team teaching handbooks that my predecessor left for me. Anyway, I made the phrase an easy one (“I like Pokémon”) since we didn’t have a lot of time. They quickly figured it out and they enjoyed the game. Success!

Once that period was over, I was done for the day. During lunch time, I whipped out my Kindle to continue reading The Hunger Games (oh my goodness, why is it so good? Why is it so messed up? I love it). Takamatsu-sensei asked me what the Kindle was and as I explained that I could read books on it, I watched as her mind was being blown away. I let her hold it and showed her how it worked and she was just elated. Now she wants one too!

The rest of the school day went by uneventfully. Oh! Except that one of my students in the band found me and gave me a little Fullmetal Alchemist picture card. It was my present. Another student who was with her, the one going to Seattle for a week, asked me when I would come to school again. When I told her I would come the next day, all she gave me was a thumbs-up and the other girl said she’d bring her Fullmetal Alchemist DVD. Why are these kids so nice? After school, I went to listen to the band practice. I asked the teacher whether it’d be okay if I could sit and listen and he said it was perfectly fine. I brought a notepad and a pencil and drew to my heart’s content. When the girls first came in the room, they were happy to see me and raved about how nice my picture was. Due to the flooding thanks to another typhoon (by the way, we’re in the middle of a typhoon), they had to finish practicing early. Once they finished practicing, one of the girls told me to come tomorrow too. I happily agreed and headed home.

This morning I woke up to the sound of rain and wind. The typhoon must be right over the area now. To add to my reluctance to get out of bed, the weather has gotten a bit colder. I dragged myself out anyway and started working on putting together the last touches to the lesson plans my JTE already made. In the midst of this, my JTE called me to tell me that school was cancelled…but I still had to come into work. He laughed and apologized. I knew that this was protocol so I wasn’t surprised. I sort of hoped for a “Please don’t come in” message (because who doesn't like a due-to-inclement-weather-cancellation-day?) but this was fine too. It certainly lifted the pressure of making sure my contribution to the lesson plan was okay. So now, I’m at school, watching the never ending rain pour and pour outside. I’ve gotten the chance to wear my cute rain boots and two of my teachers have commented on how cool they are J. One of the teachers said I always looked so fashionable. I’ve never been told that before! XD

All this rain makes me sleepy though and makes me want to drink hot cocoa. Lucky me, there’s hot cocoa in the teacher’s office but I can’t very well take a nap. It’s all good though.

This whole JET Program thing was a good idea

Morimoto has been wrapped up in practicing for their sports festival so they only have two periods of class and the rest of the day is devoted to preparation. It’s been quite a thing to watch, especially their…gymnastics? Not sure what to call it actually. I was Skyping with my parents the other night, trying to explain it to them to no avail. Only pictures will do. Sometimes I’m sitting there watching and thinking, “Are you kidding me? You’re really making them do that?” Some of them look so hard! But it’s great when they manage to do it. Anyway, now that school has started, I will be at Naka Takeno on Tuesdays, Takeno Minami on Thursdays, and then Morimoto the rest of the weekdays. On Monday there was no English class so no work for me.  Tuesday was my first day working at Naka Takeno.  Naturally, I had to do another self-introduction.  Once I finished addressing the entire school  (less than 40 students), I watched them practice for their sports festival for a while. When they finished that, it was soon time for my first class with the first graders. One of them came into the staff room to fetch me. So cute!

My first class went like this:  I made a picture board with photos of my family, our house, where Maryland is in the States, some monuments from D.C., my pets (Plecky and Axel), and my hobbies (drawing and playing Sonic. By the way, the amount of times the kids, of all ages, were whispering, “Sonic! Sonic!” and pointing it out to each other during my introduction was hilarious.) I also brought some American dollars and coins with me to show them how it was different from Japanese money. I wanted to learn about the kids too and wanted them to practice giving a self-introduction, so I had them write down their name, what thing they like, and what they’re good at doing.  One by one they did a little presentation. Afterwards, they were free to ask any questions about me. They ranged from – what is your favorite Japanese food (katsudon is my standard answer), where do you live, do you like Takeno (yes!), how old is your grandmother, how old are you, etc. After that class was the combined 2^nd and 3^rd graders. I did the same thing with them but oh, how they loved the American money! Explaining the rough conversion was even funnier (I decided to just ignore the economy and go with a basic  1 dollar is about 100 yen conversion because they’re children and I hate math, so this was easier for everyone’s brains. And plus, if you round up, that’s almost correct, right? Right.). I made them do the same sort of self-introductions too. Their reward for introducing themselves was a University of Maryland sticker. I did this with all of the kids.

Before the next class, we had a short recess – yay! One of the fourth graders showed me the bunnies they have outside in a pen. I noticed – to my slight horror – that there was an absurd amount of dragonflies in the air. I have never, ever, seen so many dragonflies at one time. Of course, the kids were eagerly running around with nets, trying their hardest to catch them. One of my first graders who said he was good at catching bugs during class lived up to his word and had many dragonflies in a little planetarium alongside a massive grasshopper. I’m glad they didn’t take it out to show me. I probably would have screamed. Break was over and it was now on to the fourth grade. Same process of self-introduction, showing off American money and laughing at their reactions, and then it was question time. I can’t remember all their questions and I can’t even say I understood all their questions. When their curiosity seemed to be running out, I decided a game would best to pass the time instead of us looking at each other awkwardly. I thought of doing I Spy with the idea of looking at a specific thing but it soon turned into something else probably much easier for the kids to handle. I said I saw something pink and everyone ran around the room saying they found something pink. Realizing that’s how they thought the game was played, I decided to stick with that. I called out different colors and they dashed around the room to find things that matched what I said. It was funny when I got to brown because some of them started touching my arm and saying, “Brown, brown!” Then all of them were up at the front, touching my hands and arms. When they were looking for blue things, I noticed one of the boys had a blue Pokémon shirt and told him I liked Pokémon too. This got the greatest surprise. “You have Pokémon in America? You know it? Can you do wireless with foreign countries?” they all asked at once. I said I had Pokémon White (one of the newest games) and they all got very excited. We started discussing their names (how some are different and how some are kept the same from Japanese) and what level Pokémon we had, if I have seen the newest movie (not yet) and whatnot. I then started drawing one (Mew) without telling them what it was so they could guess. I wrote it in English for them so I could at least appear like I was still doing my job.  It’s hard trying to do the “only speak in English” approach because unlike the junior high school kids who are learning it academically, everyone else is just getting early exposure. Only fifth and sixth grade have textbooks in the elementary schools. Anyway, even though I wasn’t exactly teaching much at the time, I felt like at least they were  getting comfortable with me. Next time I see them, they won’t be as shy because they know I’m a cool person in their eyes XD.  After that class was lunch time.

Now, let me tell you about school lunch if I haven’t already. I usually don’t remember to read the menu until it’s too late and it’s already lunch time, so I’m bit anxious whenever lunch time comes around. I was told that if I don’t have any major aversion to Japanese food, I should get school lunch. Because it’s cheap and delicious, so I was told. Well, yes, it’s pretty cheap and sometimes quite tasty. So far, I’ve only had to struggle a great deal once. Other times it may be the texture makes me feel weird so I don’t enjoy eating at as much but it doesn’t taste bad. And there are days like one Monday when I’m looking at three skinny small fish (with heads) on my plate. I’m thinking, “I eat fish. Not the head really, but I can do fish. Come at me, school lunch.” Then I opened the fish to find nothing but eggs. I do not really fancy fish eggs. There wasn’t really any meat. Just eggs.  I ate them the best I could, paired with rice to nullify the somewhat bitter flavor. By the time I’m on my third one, picking out the eggs to eat, my vice principal is commenting on my eating. I don’t actually know what he’s saying, but he’s imitating my motion of tearing the fish apart. Tamura-sensei then kindly told me that I was supposed to eat the fish whole.

Oh. Is that so?

He kind of laughed, mentioning how it must be a bit scary to eat the head and I laughed too because I wasn’t sure what else to do. Then my inner turmoil began: “I can’t really eat the whole thing. But maybe if I eat enough of the body, they’ll forgive me. Why is this so bitter? I have to eat it. Do I have to eat it? Can I pull my G-smash card on this one? I don’t want to eat the vertebrae…can I even eat it? He said everything...” In the end, I left nothing but the heads and vertebrae. Also, the pickles and pickled bean sprout combination just made me feel worse. I felt bad for having to throw away any of it but I didn’t want to throw up either. *Sigh*

Despite this, school lunch, as I said can be delicious! I ate lunch with the sixth graders The three schools I teach at have the same school lunch, for the record. Going back to my first day at Naka Takeno, we had lunch and then another recess. I ended up with the fourth graders again – who decided to discover whether I was ticklish or not. Curses.  I had to run away into the staff room where they couldn’t get me. Gotta love the safe zones. One of the girls pretended she lassoed me and started reeling me in. I started to struggle but I let myself be “dragged out” of the staff room, much to their delight. I heard a couple of them giggling, saying that I was funny. One of the boys found a humongous dragonfly and decided to present it to me. While I genuinely thought it was awesome, I didn’t want to touch it or be too close to it! I went outside with the fourth graders and we found a kitten! That was fun.

Then it was class with the fifth graders. It’s a very small class (five students) and they’re all pretty shy. Kometani-sensei, who teaches English with me, and I got through the class with ease and the kids seemed to have had a good time. Next was sixth grade, who were a much more lively bunch. One of them has mastered, “Oh my God!” which kind of makes me laugh because I want to know where he learned that (probably a movie or TV show, I imagine).  Today, one of my sixth graders said, “no idea.” I like these guys. Once I was done with all my classes, I retreated back to the staff room and handed out more omiyage. They were very happy with what I brought for them  (more key chains).

Alright, so that was Tuesday. 

Wednesday was my first class with the third grade junior high students. For them and the rest of the junior high, I created a Power Point with pictures of America and things related to me. In one of my pictures was of a paper bag I brought back from Wicked and the JTE mentioned they had seen it! Awesome sauce. At the end of my presentation, I wanted them to interview each other and then present their partner to me. It went alright. They weren’t all to enthusiastic. I can’t blame them. The rest of the day was devoted to Sports Festival practice. When the day ended, Takamatsu-sensei took me to see one of the third grade girls who wanted to talk to me. So, together we went to the band room where she was with her friends. The girl then showed me her collection of Fullmetal Alchemist collection cards! Due to my enthusiasm for that series, I was very much excited and loved that she showed them to me.  The girls asked me to draw a character so I decided to go with Edward,  one of the main characters.  The girls loved it, asked me to sign it, squealed when I did and they put it up on the whiteboard. One of the girls loved Wicked so much that she bought the soundtrack. She told me that she would let me borrow it. She was ready to let me borrow it the next day but I told her I wouldn’t be at Morimoto on Thursday so she said she’d bring it on Friday! *squee*

The next day at Takeno Minami was a good one. There was another opening ceremony for me and I did another self-introduction.  I then met the student who was the head of the student body and he read me a message in English. I then received a tissue paper flower lei by another student. So cute!  After the ceremony, it was time for them to practice for their sports festival! Now this time, I was really able to get into it. They were doing Soran Bushi – exactly the same song and almost the exact same dance that UMD’s Japanese American Student Association has performed several times. I readily agreed to practice with the kids – which left me exhausted and pain in my legs for days but totally worth it. I sort of bonded with the kid next to me and after we danced together, every time he saw me, he’d say something to me. I only taught sixth grade that day and that went without a hitch. At one point, some of the kids were practicing Soran Bushi again and a group of kids found me and urged me to come to the gym to practice again with them. My legs weren’t so willing but I knew I couldn’t say no to those little guys! I did it with a little less effort but it was just enough to keep my students happy. I ate lunch with the first graders who were more interested in looking at me than talking to me sometimes. They asked me how old I was and when I said I was 22, they said I was really young. One of them said his mom was really young too; I asked him how old his mom was and he admitted that he didn’t know. So funny.  The same kid pointed out that I was dark and told him I was born this way (I decided it would be much easier to say this then try to explain – which I can’t – that I was a bit lighter as a child but I got more brown as I grew up). He looked at himself and told me he was born the way he was too.

Friday was ALL-DAY SPORTS FESTIVAL PRACTICE at Morimoto. The only way I was really participating was by playing the drum during the opening ceremony (which was to a song from the movie Kiki’s Delivery Service) and to join in the folk dance (to the song “Turkey in the Straw” – which, by the way, I never knew the name for it. I only remembered the tune from Animaniacs when Wakko sang all of the US states and their capitals…). After school, I joined the girls in the band to A) practice the opening song and B) to enjoy listening to the Wicked soundtrack in Japanese! On Wednesday, I told the girl with the Wicked soundtrack that I liked the song “Defying Gravity” and so on Friday, she played the song for me. And she printed out the English lyrics so we could sing along. Can I just tell you I was on Cloud Nine? So ecstatic! She had a cute voice too! If you do not know me very well, I love singing with my life. Many of my happiest moments are with my friends and/or family singing together. So, to have this moment with one of my students just made my day. I felt like I was slowly getting past the “new teacher barrier” into a more friendly zone. Afterwards, she let me borrow the CD and I told her I would bring it back the next day (since we had more sports festival practice).  She insisted I keep it longer than that.

Saturday was practice from 9 to 12. A lot of running around setting up the school grounds for Sunday, the actual day of the festival. I spent more time with the girls from the band (ranking up my social links). I also discovered that one of the girls likes VOCALOIDs which is splendid, because I love VOCALOIDs. (I suggest you Google it for a more complete, comprehensible explanation but I’ll give a short shot:  A VOCALOID is a human sampled voice synthesized with a computer. It is then represented by a character such as Hatsune Miku or Kagamine Rin and they have surprisingly good music. There have been concerts. Naturally, this is a Japanese product. Yeah, I love this country, by the way.)  Once practice ended, I received more loot! One of the second grade girls let me borrow the complete set of the opening and ending theme songs of Fullmetal Alchemist. Oh snap! And it came complete with pictures of the singles and a DVD of all the animation sequences. It’s all so nice and pretty, I sort of want to buy it myself. But for now, I will enjoy it and give it back to her soon.

Sunday was the day we’ve all been waiting for! Starting at 9:00, I played the drum with the band and the kids marched. I introduced myself to the children’s families, the PTA, and anyone else who came for the sports festival. And then we just enjoyed ourselves watching the kids run around, sometimes with their parents, playing games and whatnot. It ended around 3:30 or so. I got home with just enough time to relax for a bit before sprucing myself back up for the enkai. An enkai is essentially a party and in this case, for employees to relax and unwind after a big event. Lucky me, the izekaya that we went to was on my street, so I only had to walk 15 minutes to get there. The evening was spent eating delicious Japanese food and enjoying the company of my co-workers, which included English pronunciation practice with Takamatsu-sensei and the principal teaching me an assortment of unusual but relatively useful Japanese phrases you wouldn’t find in a dictionary. The running joke soon became that I was expected to eat everything because it couldn’t go to waste! I told them I was saving myself for dessert and then they started talking about how there was always room for dessert, since there are different compartments in your stomach, you know. Compartments for main food and then a separate one for desserts – I’ve also heard that tea was another space from someone else. (Pam, was that you?)

So, instead of being able to sleep in on my compensated weekend day (since sports festival ate up our weekend, we were given Monday and Tuesday off from school), I had to rise and shine for the Internet installers to come! Oh, the glee I experienced! They installed it in less than an hour and then I was on the Internet…all day. So many shows to watch, so many people to talk to, so much email to read (Gmail is blocked on the city server…for some reason). I finally broke out of the apartment to enjoy some more Sushiro. Thank you Japan, for serving sushi on a conveyor belt for about 100 yen a plate, you have made me so happy. 

P.S.

Wow! How have I forgotten about this before? PICTURES!

Arrival into Japan and an Assortment of Activities and Sights:

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.1871957398577.2099541.1230390045&l=fcaa82d6bf&type=1

Random Good Times and Sights:

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.1912577214047.2101449.1230390045&l=b1fcd8ac45&type=1

Morimoto Sports Festival:

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.1958632445399.2103345.1230390045&l=7da488846a&type=1