11/29/11, Or, The Day I Ran out of Creative Titles

Happy almost December! It’s hard to believe I have been in Japan for over four months now, a thing which marks not only the longest I have been out of the States, but also the longest I have gone without driving. The days of being able to ride my bicycle are quickly drawing to a close as well, as the inevitability of massive amounts of snowfall draws nearer. Currently, we are experiencing a somewhat strange but still appreciated 50 degree streak. It’s rainy, but really quite warm, a nice change as my house begins to look more and more like a den where I will hibernate all winter and less like a pit stop on my way to doing more exciting things. I broke out the heated carpet last night. That was an excellent choice. I have this inclination that the more fabric I put around the warmer my house will be. I’m not sure this is actually true, but it’s the premise I am operating under at present, and it makes me feel warmer, if nothing else.

I am making a long weekend trip to Tokyo next-next weekend. That should be a hoot.

Yesterday at Kita Ko I literally had nothing to do all day. Exams are coming up next week, so every teacher is cramming to cover the material the students need to know for the exams, which basically means that I am not team-teaching with anyone. I have vocabulary review classes today and tomorrow at Araya, and then I don’t think any more classes till December 12. I am trying to think of things I could prepare that might be useful (life-size Scrabble pieces? Endless trivia questions, divided into categories by topic and level? Scategories worksheets?) instead of studying Japanese for an hour and then reading NPR for the next five hours like I did yesterday (in my defense, I was woefully behind on the news).

In all that spare time, I also researched all the different kinds of things you can make in a rice cooker, including but not limited to, rice, soup, casserole, and cake! I have no microwave, which means I have no oven, and I also don’t cook. So in an attempt to harness what little culinary pursuits are within my power, I looked up how to make biscuits on a stovetop (do-able) and cookies on a stovetop (definitely not so do-able), in the event that I decide my true calling is baking and I take it up. I doubt it’ll happen. But one can hope. I’ll probably just end up buying some candles that smell like baking cookies and call it good.

Side note on the oven business, when I was trying to explain Thanksgiving to my students, I told them about the turkey and the stuffing. They kept asking questions like, You cook a whole turkey?, and How big is the turkey?, and Does everyone do this?.

And then it dawned on me. A Japanese “oven” is a microwave, i.e., it is the size of a microwave, and there is no way in hell you could ever fit a turkey in there, much less a turkey stuffed with stuffing. No wonder they were confused! So I proceeded to confuse them further and explain that in fact, people in America had real ovens about the same size as their desks (“Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!”), and that, dear students, is how you could cook a whole turkey at once. They didn’t believe me that we all had ovens that large. They further didn’t believe me when I told them that my house actually had two ovens, and one of them was bigger than the desk. My JTE also looked at me like TWO ovens was inexcusable excess of kitchen appliance. But what can I say? Blowin’ minds, one class session at a time.

Snow, and Other Details

I’m on fire with these blog posts.

I really didn’t do anything over the weekend except clean house, watch Pushing Daisies, and reply to emails. Oh, I did move my bed from one corner of the bedroom to the other. That was exciting. It used to be under the window when it occurred to me that I would probably be warmer if I moved the bed away from directly underneath the window. So I did. And I actually like the way the room looks better now, as well being warmer while I sleep. Go me.

I am also going to force myself to get kerosene this week. Because the snow is happening and winter is a’comin’! Japan, for all its efficiency, missed the boat on winter preparations. Nothing has central heating. Nothing has insulation. And everything has single-pane windows. In addition, half their houses are made of rice paper and tatami, and they use kerosene heaters to heat everything. WHAT. This is the opposite of making sense. But I can’t do more than buy some thick curtains, blankets, a heated carpet (‘cause, yeah, we have those! And heated tables. Be jealous.), and settle down into the system.

Annnnnndddddd…It has just occurred to me that the minuscule details of my daily life does not become any more exciting to the reader just because they happen in Japan. My apologies.

Snow hasn’t actually stuck yet, but there have been several days of flurries. I was informed by some of my teachers that it is a bit early for snow in the area, but I was also told that this past September was unusually rainy and cold, so I’m guessing these two weather irregularities are connected. Fortunately for me, I have the Indian restaurant just a short 30 second walk away, so we at least know I won’t starve this winter.

Speaking of my friendly neighborhood Indian restaurant, I filled up my first point card there! 500 yen off my next purchase! In my defense, many visitors have also used my point card…I haven’t actually bought that much curry and nan. Point cards are the thing here. Even more than in the States. Every store is always giving away point cards. Malls have them, stores in those malls have them…so you can actually swipe two or three points cards with every purchase!

Tomorrow I get to use music in my ichinensei class. I have reused my relative pronoun Jeopardy game so many times already, and I will again, and the song was chosen partially because of the relative (adverb) in the title. This pattern of lessons has left me extremely aware of whenever I use relative pronouns/adverbs in speech or writing. Am I using them correctly…Do I really use them that often…Should I use them there…Why is there so much to think about when utilizing relative pronouns and adverbs…? It does mean, however, that I know “relative adverb” and “relative pronoun” in Japanese. I’m sure one day that information will be helpful to me.

Wednesday is a public holiday here, so there is a Thanksgiving dinner potluck at one of the ALTs houses. I have never missed a Thanksgiving dinner before…Aunt Ruth, I’m gonna miss your rosemary rolls…so that’s a little sad. But Christmas is definitely in the air here. It has been since the day after Halloween. There are Christmas trees in all the stores and Christmas music (in English) being played at Starbucks (which does have gingerbread lattes!), though I still refuse to participate in Christmas until after Thanksgiving. Old habits die hard…or don’t die at all. So Happy Thanksgiving all!

Play-by-Play: Part II

The week continues.

Day Three

I have three classes, all sannenseis (the equivalent of high schools seniors). At Kanano I see the third graders all the time, while I rarely do at my other schools. Sometimes at Akita High, which is quite the contrast to Kanano because Akita High students have the highest English, and Kanano students the lowest. I think the two of those are my favorite schools.

The first class of the day we again played Jeopardy. 3E has 37 boys and two girls, and one of the girls was absent that day. Because it has so many boys, anything involving keeping score and winning is appealing, so they got really into it. We also did shiritori (write a word on the board, the next student writes a word that starts with the last letter of the previous word, and so on and so forth to infinity), and these boys came up with more words than some of the other classes had. I was so proud. These kids don’t really give a damn about English, so that fact they got into anything I had to offer at all makes me happy.

My second class was with 3H, a class with 38 girls and one boy. The gender ratios at this school are all over the board, because of the specialties they choose. E is engineering. H is home economics. I have had 3H twice before, more than any other class there, all of which I have only had once, if at all (there are still two straggler classes which haven’t been subjected to my self-introduction lesson yet. God help them…and me, because I don’t want to do that again). My JTE (the sweetest lady EVER) came up to me beforehand and basically asked if I had time to come to 3H because they really like me, wanted to see me again, and had been asking for me. Of COURSE, I have time! And hey, I give the people what they want. That, and I really like 3H too. The girls had little papier-mâché gyoza drying in the windowsills of the classroom.

Last period was a sannensei class I had never had before. That accused self-introduction lesson. I got cocky, though, about the ‘being able to pick out baseball player’ thing, and so the students had me spend a quarter of the class period figuring out who the seven baseball players in the class were. My hair give-away didn’t really apply this time, since only one of the seven actually had short hair. Every time I had one of the boys stand up, they would all say, “Eeeeeeeeeeeee.” And I’m thinking…Gee, kids, does that mean I’m right or wrong about this one? Eventually, though, we worked it out.

The baseball coach is also an English teacher at Kanano, and he sits behind me in the teacher’s room, so when he isn’t busy (which isn’t that often), we talk. I told the boys I knew their coach, and they all love him, so we bonded over a mutual tomodachi. One of the boys in that class is going to become a sumo wrestler next year, and it’s really interesting to see how much students in each class unite together. Every student in 3L wanted me to know that one among them was destined for fame, was special, because by being associated with him, they take part in that fame and special-ness. Each class becomes a little family. They take care of their own.

When I go to Kanano next month, the students have exams, so I don’t have any classes. Which makes me sad, because I love being in class at that school. I suppose I’ll just wander hallways instead, where my name gets screamed from classrooms and down hallways. It’s all so young and alive – like the plants they grow.

Days Four/Five:

I go to Akita High. Thursday morning I met them at Sensyu Park for a concert of “jazz and pops.” Every year each high school gets some special event for them by the Prefectural Office, and this concert was Akita’s. This was cool not only because I got to sleep in, but because I got to go to a free concert with some famous saxophone player named Malta. It was the strangest thing because he is Japanese, but he came on stage and screamed “Alright, alright, ladies and gentlemen, how are you doing?” into the microphone. I didn’t know what to think. But then he did this long explanation of how jazz worked…I think. It was in Japanese. I heard the word for ‘music’ a bunch of times. Eventually he did Stevie Wonder’s “Pick up the Pieces” with the piano, upright bass, and drum players he had on stage with him. It really took me back.

To America, that is.

On Friday I had two sannensei classes, which I just go to and correct the sentences they write on the board. One class, 3D, I was specially requested to attend by the students. Last time I was there, these two boys in 3D asked me to skip the class I was going to go to and come to theirs instead. So I talked to their sensei and arranged going to that class next time.

When I got to class, we talked about the phrase “a rolling stone gathers no moss” (the sensei gives them an English proverb and a riddle every class period), and whether it had a good meaning or a bad meaning. These kids are sharp.

I recognized the two boys I had talked to last time, and one of them made me a tiny, perfect pink paper crane, and he explained the Japanese custom to me. They also all asked me when I was coming back to that class. I think students are under the impression that I just show up to classes whenever I want, not that scheduling is a beyond complicated affair in these schools, ever-changing and sometimes I am not even informed about those changes until after they happen. But it’s cute they want me there.

And then I went home and watched Twin Peaks. One episode left!

I also watched my first anime episodes this weekend. Students talk about anime all the time, asking me what my favorite character in some series I have never heard of is, but I never have any idea what they are referring to or what information they want from me. And I’m so illiterate on the topic that I can’t even lie my way out it.

Also, I am never going to have a better excuse to watch anime than the fact I live in Japan right now. So now is the time to dapple in this huge culture experience I have never, well, experienced before. And I quite enjoyed the foray.

Play-by-Play: Part I

Let’s talk about my week so far.

Day One:

I went to Kanano, my agricultural high school. I had one class, during which we played a relative pronoun Jeopardy game I had created for another school (recycling lessons, for the win). I learned that at Kanano, they just expect me to have activities prepared to do, before I know what classes I will have, how many, what levels, and if I have had that class before. I had had my schedule for about ten minutes when my JTE came up and said, “We have class together today. What activities do you have?”

But it’s okay. Now I know that’s how that school operates. The students’ level of English is across the board the lowest out of all my schools, but I always love going to Kanano. So I had the one sannensei class, and I ate a dried persimmon (kaki, in Japanese). I left early that day because my base school needed me to come and coach a girl for her college English interview this Saturday. Apparently, my taking nenkyu last Friday threw off their preparation schedule (oh, well – it was approved, I was sick, and I don’t feel bad about that), so my supervisor wanted me to come in and coach Yuki. I’ve been working with her English essays for a while now. So we talked, and I went home and watched Twin Peaks.

Day Two:

Because I had left early the day before, one of my Monday classes got moved to Tuesday, which means I taught five out of the six class periods. That’s a lot, even by Japanese teacher standards, because they rarely teach more than four in a day, most of the time three. Four of these five were self-introduction lessons, the lesson which I could do in my sleep because I have done it at least fifty times since school started back up in September. I literally never want to do it again.

First period, ichinenseis. I had second period off. Third period I had 2L. I have had this class before, so we did Jeopardy again, and they were awesome. “An animal that is often kept as a pet, is bigger than a mouse, and doesn’t like cats” was met with shouts of Tiger, Lion, Cheetah, Capybara (a word which every Japanese teenager seems to know), Marmot, Hamster, and Rabbit. The answer we are looking for is Dog, kids. Dog. Which they finally did figure out, after I stopped laughing hysterically at the names of Safari animals being shouted at me. They also guessed Zebra as the Oregon State animal. Wrong continent, guys, but good guess.

After we finished all my questions, they demanded Round 2 (which does not exist), so I gave them the task of figuring out what my middle name was. I gave them the first letter, “M,” and their first guess was Michael, followed by Mark, and Matthew. We finally got around to Mary, which they pronounce like Marie, so I let them have it. A group of boys in front were the closest to the correct answer, so I gave them fifty bonus points, and then another ten after they said, “Jessie-Sensei so beautiful, so beautiful” very emphatically and about thirty times. I can be swayed by flattery.

Two more self-introduction lessons.

Cue 2B Class. Last period of the day. Self-intro lesson. Okay, so generally there are a lot of boys at this school, and generally they tend to talk a lot. The extroverted kind of boy. Almost half of every class is on the baseball team or the rugby team. My time in Japanese schools has taught me to make friends with the baseball team, because again generally they have the most hilarious things to say in their broken English. I walk into class, hear rumblings of my name sweeping through the aisles of desks, along with “beautiful,” and “cue-to, cue-to.” I still haven’t quite figured out why they say everything twice.

So I do my little speech about myself and where I’m from, show pictures, etc. There were these five boys sitting kind of in the middle of the classroom, and every so often one of them would throw out some hilarious phrase in English. For example, I said I had been in Japan for about three and a half months and it was my first time here, and one of the boys smiled and yelled Welcome! at me. Later, I said that I spent one semester of university in England, and another boy sighed and said, A wonderful life. And the whole time I’m thinking, I love this class, and these kids will be my friends. I found out one of the girls in that class (who didn’t look overly Japanese and was wearing what I would deem to be hipster glasses) lives right next to me, and the girl sitting behind her told me that since I didn’t have a boyfriend, all of the boys in the class wanted me, so I could have them if I wanted. There were fourteen boys. I told her that would be a lot of boyfriends to keep track of. The class also thought I was psychic because I picked out all the baseball players by sight (secret: the baseball players cut their hair very, very short, shorter than the rugby teams does. That's how you can tell).

Then I got a tour of the farm. When I say this is an agricultural high school, I don’t mean that it is located in the middle of nowhere. What I mean is that the students are studying agriculture. It’s like a specialty they pick when they enroll. The letters after their year number indicate which track they are on. So on campus there is a working farm that the students run themselves. The ichinenseis every year plant rice in the rice paddy behind the school. There are orchards, vegetables, greenhouses full of flowers, a hen house (they sell eggs at the school office), pigs, and two cows. I fed a cow, and the English club told me about how the farm works and what they have growing there. It was really beautiful – everything about that school is alive. The students spend their time learning how things grow and move (my 2B class told me their previous period had been a lesson in fruit), and that has a definite effect on the atmosphere of classes, students, and teachers. Everyone is very kind there, and the students very young and lively. It really is lovely.

And then I went home and watched Twin Peaks. I only have about seven episodes left. The plot’s getting’ crazy.