I’m really bad at this updating regularly thing.
The last few weeks have been good. I went to Thailand for a week, to visit my girl, Kaitlyn, from uni who is studying abroad in Bangkok this semester. And I know I’ve already mentioned this trip, but I’m going to talk about it again. Because this is my blog, and I can do what I want.
When I walked into the airport Bangkok airport at five a.m., I realized that I literally knew no words in Thai. I couldn’t say hello, I couldn’t say thank you – and that had never happened to me before. Every country I have visited, I have known at least a few words in the language. Even when I went to Sweden, I had spent enough time on Swedish websites leading up to the trip that I knew some words. And Swedish is a basically intuitive language anyway. Thai, however, is tonal and therefore not intuitive and also completely unavailable to me. Signs around the airport pointed to bathrooms and Muslim prayer rooms. The airport was strangely divided into floating levels, with escalators and elevators interrupting the flow of every floor and skyways providing views of the floors below. Thai script covered notice boards. The thing about Thai script is that some of the symbols look like English letters, just upside down and backwards, so when my brain saw the marks, it sought to make sense of them through the lens of what it already knew, so I would see English words, just upside and backwards, all the time. Even though they were completely not there. Like some twisted I SPY book, all the time.
Speaking of language, I spent several hours of my school week last week studying Japanese, partially because it suddenly occurred to me how stupid it was not to study at school where I was surrounded by Japanese people who could answer any questions I might have. Duh.
Also, I think I might finally be done giving my self-introduction lesson. I had a few straggler classes that I finished up the last two weeks. One of my ninensei classes greeted my JTE and I with “Good afternoon Ms. Imano and….*mumblemumble* New Teacher!” And then when I told that class that Justin Beiber was, in fact, Canadian, not American, they checked the nationality of every Western artist they knew.
“Beyonce…American?”
“Yes, Beyonce is American.”
“Lady Gaga…American?”
“Yes, she is also American.”
Glad we got that straightened out.
Today I have one reading class with the ichinenseis. I am spending every day this week at Akita High, and I am teaching three ichinensei classes entirely on my own on Thursday. My JTE told me I could do whatever I wanted, and since Halloween is only a few days after my classes, I am going to do a Halloween lesson with them. So I’ve been working out that lesson plan and preparing for it. It’s the first real lesson plan I’ve made, first class I’ve taught on my own, first class I haven’t had a translator for, first everything basically. Wish me luck! I really like the students at this school, especially the ichinenseis, and their English is comparatively better than my other schools, so I think it should go okay. I only have to make one lesson plan that I can use for all three classes, so that makes it easier as well.
In other news, I have only been to the Indian restaurant directly in front of my house three times, but they already all know me there and say hello to me whenever they see me. Which tells me that I am becoming Sandra Bullock in both While You Were Sleeping and Two Weeks Notice, when she calls Mr. Wong and orders way too much Chinese food all the time. I knew it would happen, but I don’t think I was quite prepared for it to happen this quickly. Their Channa Masala is just so good!
Sunday, October 23, 2011
Tuesday, October 4, 2011
How Office Attire is Beyond My Understanding
A brief note on Cool Biz…
Cool Biz is the term coined for the more casual attire allowed in the workplace during the Japanese summer, due to increasing temperatures and decreasing use of air con in an attempt to conserve resources. This means teachers ditch the suit jackets and don the shirt sleeves. Generally speaking, women get away with wearing more casual attire than men, so I’ll admit that I have worn basic tee shirts to work before. Because no one cared.
Cue autumn break.
Upon my return to the office yesterday, suddenly everyone, including the women, have suit jackets on. And ties. And pencils skirts. And all of those formal clothes we have been avoiding all summer. In their defense, the office and classrooms do get quite cold, because on the flip side of not turning on the air con is also not turning on the heat, so more layers is actually beneficial during those many hours where I sit at my desk at the end of the row of ninensei teachers, contemplating life and occasionally team teaching when I’m lucky. So it’s not actually the switch from tee shirts to business suits that I’m barraging here.
It’s the fact that no one mentions the switch out loud and that everyone just seems to know intuitively when it’s going to happen.
I was not warned. I was not given the inside scope into the apparently inbred cultural knowledge of when it becomes time to take that jacket off the hanger in the back of my closet and wear it to work. Because God knows I brought enough of them, and I am actually excited to wear all those clothes it’s been too warm and too casual in the office to wear. I desire nothing more than also to put my pencil skirt and pinstripe jacket to good use. But I cannot do that in a timely manner when no one tells when it’s going to happen.
It’s also a fact that this knowledge is apparently school-specific.
I was not going to be duped twice. The next day, today, I was going to be prepared and not show up to work two notches below the formality of the rest of the teaching staff. I wore that pinstripe jacket with pride.
But then I got the office at one of my other schools only to discover that Cool Biz had apparently not ended there. The air was less formal in this office, as though casual dress eased its way out more gently and with less abruptness. Some wore jackets. Some wore the same cardigans they wore before autumn break.
I just don’t know what to think anymore.
Cool Biz is the term coined for the more casual attire allowed in the workplace during the Japanese summer, due to increasing temperatures and decreasing use of air con in an attempt to conserve resources. This means teachers ditch the suit jackets and don the shirt sleeves. Generally speaking, women get away with wearing more casual attire than men, so I’ll admit that I have worn basic tee shirts to work before. Because no one cared.
Cue autumn break.
Upon my return to the office yesterday, suddenly everyone, including the women, have suit jackets on. And ties. And pencils skirts. And all of those formal clothes we have been avoiding all summer. In their defense, the office and classrooms do get quite cold, because on the flip side of not turning on the air con is also not turning on the heat, so more layers is actually beneficial during those many hours where I sit at my desk at the end of the row of ninensei teachers, contemplating life and occasionally team teaching when I’m lucky. So it’s not actually the switch from tee shirts to business suits that I’m barraging here.
It’s the fact that no one mentions the switch out loud and that everyone just seems to know intuitively when it’s going to happen.
I was not warned. I was not given the inside scope into the apparently inbred cultural knowledge of when it becomes time to take that jacket off the hanger in the back of my closet and wear it to work. Because God knows I brought enough of them, and I am actually excited to wear all those clothes it’s been too warm and too casual in the office to wear. I desire nothing more than also to put my pencil skirt and pinstripe jacket to good use. But I cannot do that in a timely manner when no one tells when it’s going to happen.
It’s also a fact that this knowledge is apparently school-specific.
I was not going to be duped twice. The next day, today, I was going to be prepared and not show up to work two notches below the formality of the rest of the teaching staff. I wore that pinstripe jacket with pride.
But then I got the office at one of my other schools only to discover that Cool Biz had apparently not ended there. The air was less formal in this office, as though casual dress eased its way out more gently and with less abruptness. Some wore jackets. Some wore the same cardigans they wore before autumn break.
I just don’t know what to think anymore.
Monday, October 3, 2011
Two Months and Counting
It’s been a long time. I’ve been busy.
I have been in Japan for a little over two months now, and I love it. I am settling in and working to make my apartment the kind of place I want to live for the next two years (yes, I am staying at least two years). The temperature in Akita has plummeted over the past week, so now instead of fans and open windows, I have down comforters and socks. I’m going to order kerosene for my heater (Japan doesn’t believe in central heating) and buy an electric blanket when I force myself to go to Nitori tomorrow. I am also going to spend far too much money on a fancy French press at Starbucks. Pretty much because I can.
I spent the previous week in Bangkok, Thailand, visiting my dear, dear friend and loveliest of travel companions, Kaitlyn. I visited some tourist-y things on my own time – Grand Palace, unbelievably large Reclining Buddha – but mostly we just hung out and got Thai massages and ate street food and drank three chaa nom yens every day. It was a dream, to see my friend from home outside of that setting and to share that foreign setting with her. It was similar to meeting up with Olivia in Paris a year ago. Happily surreal.
The students have just returned from mid-term exams last week and their one day of fall break. Cool biz summer wear is over, so almost all the teachers and students have donned their suit jackets for the more formal winter season. I visited one class today, where I didn’t do much because my JTE was returning exams. In Japan, the students are given a copy of the answer sheet and their exams back, so in addition to the teacher marking the tests, the students also check to make sure the teacher didn’t make any mistakes. One thing I love about the Japanese school system is how much responsibility students are given over their own education. They clean the schools, they double check their exams, they come on weekends and during breaks so they can study and practice club activities. It gives them a lot of pride in their work and in their school, something which is painfully lacking in American schools, I think. It’s colonizing, yes. But that doesn’t mean it’s all bad.
I am also working on learning Japanese myself. A community center in the city offers free classes on Thursday nights, so I have been going to that for the last several weeks, with many of the other city ALT’s. The textbooks are all in kana, which means I re-learned that during one long, unoccupied afternoon in the deserted teacher’s room. Today I printed out a four-page vocabulary list of the verbs I didn’t know, so I can learn those as well. The summer I spent cramming my brain full of Japanese definitely had its strengths, which I see far more now that I am here than I did when it was happening and causing me to dream in nonsensical Japanese vocabulary, but the class structure and textbook definitely lacked in learning the Japanese words for things. We worked with no more than ten verbs for one year’s worth of language. I’m trying to remedy some of that now.
When I am not in class, I hang out in the teacher’s room. If I’m lucky, I have things to mark or worksheets to prepare. But the thing about English is that it’s my native language – which means that it takes me far less time to do the same thing than it takes any of my JTE’s. So I finish stuff quickly and then resume staring into space. Now that I have Japanese textbooks, I study those, because I have free time, and it looks a lot better to be studying language than fiddling with my kaitai (oh, see what I did just there? That’s Japanese for cell phone).
I have thirteen classes this week, I think, at two of my schools. Tally ho!
I have been in Japan for a little over two months now, and I love it. I am settling in and working to make my apartment the kind of place I want to live for the next two years (yes, I am staying at least two years). The temperature in Akita has plummeted over the past week, so now instead of fans and open windows, I have down comforters and socks. I’m going to order kerosene for my heater (Japan doesn’t believe in central heating) and buy an electric blanket when I force myself to go to Nitori tomorrow. I am also going to spend far too much money on a fancy French press at Starbucks. Pretty much because I can.
I spent the previous week in Bangkok, Thailand, visiting my dear, dear friend and loveliest of travel companions, Kaitlyn. I visited some tourist-y things on my own time – Grand Palace, unbelievably large Reclining Buddha – but mostly we just hung out and got Thai massages and ate street food and drank three chaa nom yens every day. It was a dream, to see my friend from home outside of that setting and to share that foreign setting with her. It was similar to meeting up with Olivia in Paris a year ago. Happily surreal.
The students have just returned from mid-term exams last week and their one day of fall break. Cool biz summer wear is over, so almost all the teachers and students have donned their suit jackets for the more formal winter season. I visited one class today, where I didn’t do much because my JTE was returning exams. In Japan, the students are given a copy of the answer sheet and their exams back, so in addition to the teacher marking the tests, the students also check to make sure the teacher didn’t make any mistakes. One thing I love about the Japanese school system is how much responsibility students are given over their own education. They clean the schools, they double check their exams, they come on weekends and during breaks so they can study and practice club activities. It gives them a lot of pride in their work and in their school, something which is painfully lacking in American schools, I think. It’s colonizing, yes. But that doesn’t mean it’s all bad.
I am also working on learning Japanese myself. A community center in the city offers free classes on Thursday nights, so I have been going to that for the last several weeks, with many of the other city ALT’s. The textbooks are all in kana, which means I re-learned that during one long, unoccupied afternoon in the deserted teacher’s room. Today I printed out a four-page vocabulary list of the verbs I didn’t know, so I can learn those as well. The summer I spent cramming my brain full of Japanese definitely had its strengths, which I see far more now that I am here than I did when it was happening and causing me to dream in nonsensical Japanese vocabulary, but the class structure and textbook definitely lacked in learning the Japanese words for things. We worked with no more than ten verbs for one year’s worth of language. I’m trying to remedy some of that now.
When I am not in class, I hang out in the teacher’s room. If I’m lucky, I have things to mark or worksheets to prepare. But the thing about English is that it’s my native language – which means that it takes me far less time to do the same thing than it takes any of my JTE’s. So I finish stuff quickly and then resume staring into space. Now that I have Japanese textbooks, I study those, because I have free time, and it looks a lot better to be studying language than fiddling with my kaitai (oh, see what I did just there? That’s Japanese for cell phone).
I have thirteen classes this week, I think, at two of my schools. Tally ho!
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