It has been a long time since I have come up with anything entertaining to write about on this blog. Life has been relatively calm in the last few months. I broke up with my girlfriend in April, passed my 1 kyuu (last brown belt) karate test, started a new school year in Japan, bought a Playstation 3 and a bunch of Blu-ray movies, started a low-sugar and low-carb diet which has resulted in the loss of a couple of kilograms and two belt notches, and I have seriously started studying Japanese.
I have been reading the news every day and it has me in a worried panic for the continued existence of the human race.
I have finally come to terms with my atheism and I am proud to be able to share that. Years of consideration and wishy-washy flip-flopping aside, I am much happier now than I ever was as a Catholic. The realization that this life is all I have, while short and seemingly uneventful so far, is a great motivator to get out there and live my life as I deem fit. It is an amazingly freeing feeling. Though this outlook can be bleak at times, I believe dealing with the reality of the world around me is more useful than worrying about the unlikely eternity awaiting me beyond the grave.
This is the season where old JETs begin to pack their bags and head home as their contracts expire in the next month or so. I have already said good-bye to a couple of good friends last year and there are a few more leaving (one is already gone) this year. It is sad, but I envy them for being able to pull the trigger and make a decision to leave this cushy job for the uncertainties of the Western world job market. Currently I am exploring the idea of staying in Japan and doing a Master's degree. It seems like a good idea now, seeing as I really enjoy living in Japan and teaching English as a foreign language is quite entertaining. If only for the occasional hilarious "Engrishisms" that pop up now and again. I also feel that mastering a second language will be useful in the job market. Whatever market that will be in the future...
As to the Japanese language progress; I have made a significant leap in my listening ability. My speaking is still sub-par, but I have a few Japanese friends with whom I attempt conversations. Attempt being the key word. I have been studying for a test next December, so I hope I can stay dedicated to my study methods. I have also started a new Kanji learning method which is based on associating elements inside the kanji characters with English meanings and using those vague meanings to create stories so that I can easily remember the English definition and the shape of the character. Over the past 4 weeks, I have "mastered" the writing and definitions of over 300 kanji. That, in addition to the other 200+ kanji I have come across over the 2 years that I have been here, should be enough to help me pass the test in December. I have also been studying grammar and reading manga in Japanese.
Well, I have successfully wasted the last 30 minutes of work today writing this update. So let's call it a day.
Showing posts with label Japan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Japan. Show all posts
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Monday, March 1, 2010
Graduation Observation
I had planned to wear a tie today, it being graduation for my 3rd year students and all. But planning and doing are fundamentally different. Right now, my fancy green and blue patterned tie is sitting on my bed where I left this morning.
Most of my readers have probably experienced the traditional American high school graduation; "Pomp and Circumstance" playing endlessly as the students walk into the hall, then the same song playing endlessly as the students accept their fake-diplomas, and then the same song plays endlessly as the students leave the hall. Of course I use the word "endlessly" very loosely but I think you all get my point. Japanese graduation is all "circumstance" and no "pomp." The students walk into the hall wearing their everyday school uniforms. The school band, which is comprised of a bassoon, 4 clarinets, 2 flutes, 2 alto saxes and 2 drummers, plays an unrecognizable version of the school song while the students enter the room. Once everyone is in place, everyone stands and bows to the front of the room. This is only the first of many bows.
After all of this, the Japanese national anthem is played over the loud speakers. This shocked me last year, but this year I made it a point of interest to look around the room and see who was sitting down during the anthem. Apparently, as a method of protest for some transgression or another, Japanese teachers sometimes sit through the national anthem. I vaguely remember a teacher telling me that the anthem hearkens back to a nationalist spirit from the Second World War that many teachers, history teachers from my observation, do not wish to revive. Yet, immediately after the anthem, the band strikes up the school song again. This time, the people in attendance are expected to sing along. Those same teachers have no problem belting out like a teenager driving in a car with her friends and their "jam" comes on the radio.
The format of the graduation is as follows: student attendance is called, the principal gives a speech, the leading mother of the PTA gives a speech (I find it unusual that the Japanese school system uses the PTA acronym because there are words in Japanese for "parent" "teacher" and "association"), a student representative from the underclassmen comes to the front to tell the graduating students how great they are, then a graduating student receives a diploma/letter on behalf of the class from the principal, then a new representative receive a diploma/letter from the PTA chief, then two students come forth and tell everyone how great the last 3 years were. (Yes, I know that was a hell of a sentence.) Between every new speech, there is a standing bow for the students.
Last year, the graduating students sang a song to the teachers and parents. This year there was none of that nonsense. The band began to play and the students rushed out.
All in all, we were in and out of the gymnasium in one hour and twenty minutes. Not too shabby. Of course, they didn't waste time giving each student a fake diploma up on stage. Lack of pomp, overflowing with circumstance.
Most of my readers have probably experienced the traditional American high school graduation; "Pomp and Circumstance" playing endlessly as the students walk into the hall, then the same song playing endlessly as the students accept their fake-diplomas, and then the same song plays endlessly as the students leave the hall. Of course I use the word "endlessly" very loosely but I think you all get my point. Japanese graduation is all "circumstance" and no "pomp." The students walk into the hall wearing their everyday school uniforms. The school band, which is comprised of a bassoon, 4 clarinets, 2 flutes, 2 alto saxes and 2 drummers, plays an unrecognizable version of the school song while the students enter the room. Once everyone is in place, everyone stands and bows to the front of the room. This is only the first of many bows.
After all of this, the Japanese national anthem is played over the loud speakers. This shocked me last year, but this year I made it a point of interest to look around the room and see who was sitting down during the anthem. Apparently, as a method of protest for some transgression or another, Japanese teachers sometimes sit through the national anthem. I vaguely remember a teacher telling me that the anthem hearkens back to a nationalist spirit from the Second World War that many teachers, history teachers from my observation, do not wish to revive. Yet, immediately after the anthem, the band strikes up the school song again. This time, the people in attendance are expected to sing along. Those same teachers have no problem belting out like a teenager driving in a car with her friends and their "jam" comes on the radio.
The format of the graduation is as follows: student attendance is called, the principal gives a speech, the leading mother of the PTA gives a speech (I find it unusual that the Japanese school system uses the PTA acronym because there are words in Japanese for "parent" "teacher" and "association"), a student representative from the underclassmen comes to the front to tell the graduating students how great they are, then a graduating student receives a diploma/letter on behalf of the class from the principal, then a new representative receive a diploma/letter from the PTA chief, then two students come forth and tell everyone how great the last 3 years were. (Yes, I know that was a hell of a sentence.) Between every new speech, there is a standing bow for the students.
Last year, the graduating students sang a song to the teachers and parents. This year there was none of that nonsense. The band began to play and the students rushed out.
All in all, we were in and out of the gymnasium in one hour and twenty minutes. Not too shabby. Of course, they didn't waste time giving each student a fake diploma up on stage. Lack of pomp, overflowing with circumstance.
Thursday, May 14, 2009
I Call Shenanigans on You, Japan
So, as most of my six steady readers know, I am returning to the States for a triumph. (Yes, I expect four white horses, a Roman chariot, trumpeters, slaves throwing olive branches in my wake. All that jazz.) But it has come to the attention of my supervisors and the Kyoto Board of Education that my trip home to Arizona is planned right, smack dab in the middle of the most vicious, vile and murderous plague on humans since, well, the Plague of a blacker nature.
Yes, of course you all know what I am talking about. Now introducing, in the left corner, coming straight from the pig's mouth, transmitted humanoid to humanoid, the most delicious sounding of all the flues in human history; the Sultan of Swine, the Frothiest of Flues, the most Dangerous of Diseases, the most Porkiest of all Plagues: H1N1.
My upcoming trip to "ground zero in the fight against the Pig" has my supervisors and their supervisors up-in-arms. I'll start from the beginning of the story because, well, that's usually the best place to start. I will do my best to retell the story as accurately as possible, it may falter here or there but that is because during the meeting that occurred on Tuesday May 12, between 5:01pm and 5:32pm, I was laughing my ass off inside my head.
The Tuesday began as any other Tuesday, me sitting at my computer at my visit school about an hour and twenty minutes trip from my base school. When all of a sudden, the vice-principal approaches me and in his limited English tells me that, "After work today, You should go to your base school for an important meeting." I was a bit shocked and slightly alarmed. I knew my base school would have a meeting with me about my trip but what could be so urgent that they would need to talk to me today that could not wait until Thursday when I would return to the base school. I was afraid that they would ask me to cancel my trip because they needed me to do work at school. (HAHA, "work") So the rest of the day went off with out a hitch. After my last class I decided to check my email and relax until the bell rang and I could legally stand at the bus stop and wait twenty minutes for the infallibly late bus. (They really should just update the bus schedule if it is going to be late every day) It was at this time when a teacher came to me and told me that I was supposed to be gone an hour ago. Of course the difference between, "Go after you finish your work" and, "Go after work," was lost on the vice-principal.
So I ran two kilometers down hill to the train station so that I could make the early train and get to the other school fifteen minutes earlier (What a waste of energy this would turn out to be.) Eventually I arrived at my other school and sat down for my meeting with the vice-principal, the principal and an English teacher for translation. The principal showed me an article in the Kyoto newspaper that showed the numbers of the world wide plague, known as Swine Flu, broken down country by country.
He decided to have this meeting to tell me that, of the 6,000,000,000 people there are in the world, 5,200 have Swine Flu. And of that 5,200 people world wide, 2,600 people have it in the United States. As a result, my trip to America was not only my concern, but a National and International concern. According to my principal, I am to:
1. Take my temperature everyday while I am home and keep a log to show the people at the airport.
2. Where a face mask, constantly.
3. Be prepared to give a blood sample at the Kansai Airport when I return.
4. Be prepared to be quarantined in a hotel near the airport if I have a fever.
5. Call my school the day before I am to come back to work to ensure that my blood test at the airport passed. If it does not, I will be suspended from work for ten days.
6. Wash my hands all the time, I think he said, "ichinichi" meaning "all day long."
7. Gargle with the patented Japanese brown garble sludge, which reputedly is supposed to kill germs and ward off evil hippo spirits (there's a hippo on the bottle.)
8. Don't come to work if you have the coughs, sneezes, farts or blinks.
9. Don't return if you to work if haven't bathed in fire and gargled bleach.
And So On. (The last two rules were slightly exaggerated.)
All-in-all, I am very excited to have the same exact meeting again on Monday to ensure that I understand everything. I wonder how freaked out they would be if I brought them bacon back as Omiyage (souvenirs).
Yes, of course you all know what I am talking about. Now introducing, in the left corner, coming straight from the pig's mouth, transmitted humanoid to humanoid, the most delicious sounding of all the flues in human history; the Sultan of Swine, the Frothiest of Flues, the most Dangerous of Diseases, the most Porkiest of all Plagues: H1N1.
My upcoming trip to "ground zero in the fight against the Pig" has my supervisors and their supervisors up-in-arms. I'll start from the beginning of the story because, well, that's usually the best place to start. I will do my best to retell the story as accurately as possible, it may falter here or there but that is because during the meeting that occurred on Tuesday May 12, between 5:01pm and 5:32pm, I was laughing my ass off inside my head.
The Tuesday began as any other Tuesday, me sitting at my computer at my visit school about an hour and twenty minutes trip from my base school. When all of a sudden, the vice-principal approaches me and in his limited English tells me that, "After work today, You should go to your base school for an important meeting." I was a bit shocked and slightly alarmed. I knew my base school would have a meeting with me about my trip but what could be so urgent that they would need to talk to me today that could not wait until Thursday when I would return to the base school. I was afraid that they would ask me to cancel my trip because they needed me to do work at school. (HAHA, "work") So the rest of the day went off with out a hitch. After my last class I decided to check my email and relax until the bell rang and I could legally stand at the bus stop and wait twenty minutes for the infallibly late bus. (They really should just update the bus schedule if it is going to be late every day) It was at this time when a teacher came to me and told me that I was supposed to be gone an hour ago. Of course the difference between, "Go after you finish your work" and, "Go after work," was lost on the vice-principal.
So I ran two kilometers down hill to the train station so that I could make the early train and get to the other school fifteen minutes earlier (What a waste of energy this would turn out to be.) Eventually I arrived at my other school and sat down for my meeting with the vice-principal, the principal and an English teacher for translation. The principal showed me an article in the Kyoto newspaper that showed the numbers of the world wide plague, known as Swine Flu, broken down country by country.
He decided to have this meeting to tell me that, of the 6,000,000,000 people there are in the world, 5,200 have Swine Flu. And of that 5,200 people world wide, 2,600 people have it in the United States. As a result, my trip to America was not only my concern, but a National and International concern. According to my principal, I am to:
1. Take my temperature everyday while I am home and keep a log to show the people at the airport.
2. Where a face mask, constantly.
3. Be prepared to give a blood sample at the Kansai Airport when I return.
4. Be prepared to be quarantined in a hotel near the airport if I have a fever.
5. Call my school the day before I am to come back to work to ensure that my blood test at the airport passed. If it does not, I will be suspended from work for ten days.
6. Wash my hands all the time, I think he said, "ichinichi" meaning "all day long."
7. Gargle with the patented Japanese brown garble sludge, which reputedly is supposed to kill germs and ward off evil hippo spirits (there's a hippo on the bottle.)
8. Don't come to work if you have the coughs, sneezes, farts or blinks.
9. Don't return if you to work if haven't bathed in fire and gargled bleach.
And So On. (The last two rules were slightly exaggerated.)
All-in-all, I am very excited to have the same exact meeting again on Monday to ensure that I understand everything. I wonder how freaked out they would be if I brought them bacon back as Omiyage (souvenirs).
Saturday, August 2, 2008
Initial Impressions and Realizations
1. I learned yesterday that my shins can sweat.
2. Living alone in a foreign country is pretty stressful.
3. Teaching English is going to be more challenging than I thought.
4. There is a rooster in my neighborhood.
5. It is going to take me weeks to get caught up on my laundry because my washing machine is so small and I dont have a lot of places to hang up clothes.
6. It takes a very long time for clothes to dry in this humid place.
7. The students at my base high school are very nice and courageous.
8. I don't know how to differentiate between important mail and junk mail because I can't read kanji.
9. I tried to go food shopping but couldn't read the boxes or bags. Also, I don't have a stove to cook on right now.
10. I never realized how important communication was to me. I used to think that i could be an island and not need other people very often. These last couple of days have changed my perspective on this, I need interaction with other people in English...Or I need to learn Japanese very quickly.
Every work day I have a meeting with an English teacher and one of the school office managers. The meeting consists of a long itinerary of things I have to be aware of or what I have to do. The catch is that this list is all in Japanese, so the office manager reads off the list at the English teacher in Japanese, then the English teacher acts as a translator and tells me what the manager just said. More often than not I am able to pick up the gist of the conversation because of Japanese words that i know or because of English cognates.
The ability to communicate has become a central focus of my days at work the past two days. I spent 6 or so hours yesterday learning Japanese so that i could go to the store and ask "sekkan wa doko desu ka" = Where is the soap? It is the little things like not being able to find the soap in the grocery store or not knowing if you bought bleach or laundry detergent, is the frustrating aspect of all of this. I am left scratching my head at the little things that even an 5 year old can do, like order food a restaurant.
I am the only foreigner that I know of in my town. That is pretty difficult to deal with. I laughed at the "culture shock" presentation at Tokyo orientation but it is pretty clear that the excitement of being here in Japan has been replaced by the frustration of not knowing anything and being pretty lost.
Speaking of being lost, that has been my biggest fear these few days. I don't know how to get to Kyoto city or even my town center. People dont seem to like to give detailed directions to places here in Japan. It is always like, "get on the train, and go east, go out of the station and go left." That is not enough for me, I am a very detail-oriented person. I need addresses and street names...not that having those would help me.
Overall, I am still very excited to be here. This is a great opportunity and I am having fun. I have a feeling that once I get my bearings here in my town and finish cleaning and setting up my room, I will be in a better place.
On a happy note, this is one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen. Around every street corner there is a different view of something gorgeous. If you can get by the fact that everyone is staring at you whether they are looking at you or not, then this place is really amazing.
Plans for today: Find an electronics store, get some food that I have never tried, maybe buy a stove and try to figure out how to work my rice cooker.
~Gio
2. Living alone in a foreign country is pretty stressful.
3. Teaching English is going to be more challenging than I thought.
4. There is a rooster in my neighborhood.
5. It is going to take me weeks to get caught up on my laundry because my washing machine is so small and I dont have a lot of places to hang up clothes.
6. It takes a very long time for clothes to dry in this humid place.
7. The students at my base high school are very nice and courageous.
8. I don't know how to differentiate between important mail and junk mail because I can't read kanji.
9. I tried to go food shopping but couldn't read the boxes or bags. Also, I don't have a stove to cook on right now.
10. I never realized how important communication was to me. I used to think that i could be an island and not need other people very often. These last couple of days have changed my perspective on this, I need interaction with other people in English...Or I need to learn Japanese very quickly.
Every work day I have a meeting with an English teacher and one of the school office managers. The meeting consists of a long itinerary of things I have to be aware of or what I have to do. The catch is that this list is all in Japanese, so the office manager reads off the list at the English teacher in Japanese, then the English teacher acts as a translator and tells me what the manager just said. More often than not I am able to pick up the gist of the conversation because of Japanese words that i know or because of English cognates.
The ability to communicate has become a central focus of my days at work the past two days. I spent 6 or so hours yesterday learning Japanese so that i could go to the store and ask "sekkan wa doko desu ka" = Where is the soap? It is the little things like not being able to find the soap in the grocery store or not knowing if you bought bleach or laundry detergent, is the frustrating aspect of all of this. I am left scratching my head at the little things that even an 5 year old can do, like order food a restaurant.
I am the only foreigner that I know of in my town. That is pretty difficult to deal with. I laughed at the "culture shock" presentation at Tokyo orientation but it is pretty clear that the excitement of being here in Japan has been replaced by the frustration of not knowing anything and being pretty lost.
Speaking of being lost, that has been my biggest fear these few days. I don't know how to get to Kyoto city or even my town center. People dont seem to like to give detailed directions to places here in Japan. It is always like, "get on the train, and go east, go out of the station and go left." That is not enough for me, I am a very detail-oriented person. I need addresses and street names...not that having those would help me.
Overall, I am still very excited to be here. This is a great opportunity and I am having fun. I have a feeling that once I get my bearings here in my town and finish cleaning and setting up my room, I will be in a better place.
On a happy note, this is one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen. Around every street corner there is a different view of something gorgeous. If you can get by the fact that everyone is staring at you whether they are looking at you or not, then this place is really amazing.
Plans for today: Find an electronics store, get some food that I have never tried, maybe buy a stove and try to figure out how to work my rice cooker.
~Gio
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