Another good reason to learn new instruments - it keeps you humble. I was in a room full of very patient old women today who stayed way late to help me learn a song on the koto while all the while I had very little idea what was going on. I did learn some though. Oh yeah, also, I think I mentioned last time how they brought up the idea that I could play in the cultural festival with them on the 16th of November. So today I found out that that actually means they've already put my name on the performance program flier which has been printed and is ready for distribution. Sooo, I had better learn this song quickly and well, haha. They shortened it because there isn't enough time for everyone (mainly me, I'm guessing, but hey maybe not) to learn all the parts. So, needless to say, after staying later to practice, I came home, made and ate dinner, and practiced koto for the next couple of hours, hah. And I actually got a lot of the new version of the song right! So, I'm going to keep working on it until I get it perfect! Two of the members of the group even offered to meet with me next Wednesday to go over the piece with me. I'm sure it will help me a lot. And, with interesting timing, the talks with a neighboring town's high school went through and I'll now be going over there once or twice a week to practice koto with them too. Wow, that actually ended up being a bit more than I bargained for, but I think I see a possibility for major fun and meeting new people. And musical DEVELOPMENT (?). That's not really the word I'm looking for. Just, music, and, me. Yeah, and others. Nice. I'm a koto MACHIIINE!!
I made a cool "stock" for stir fry made half of soy sauce, a quarter miso made in my town!, and a quarter white dashi (fish stock?). Mmm, I fried up some Japanese peppers (shishito), satsuma imo (sweet potatoes), another cool kind of sweet a little different tasting pinkish potatoe I found a while ago at the local market and started eating, tofu, two eggs that I randomly thought of and realized were 4 days expired so I used them, and shimeji mushrooms I got from an elementary school (so awesome) last Friday. I was actually going to write about that (getting awesome delicious food from that elementary school) last week but I just didn't. Huh. Okay.
I want to go to sleep.
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
cold
Oh yeah, and as of last night I am now sleeping in thermals. The JET before me said this house had no insulation, and everybody in town is continuously telling me it's going to get harsher from here on out. I think my predecessor said cardboard works pretty good if you put it on the windows...
Yes!
I just made another song that is maybe even trippier, no definitely trippier, than yesterday's and with which I am in love. This...is awesome!
Oh yeah, there was a blog called Donkey Dreams being advertised when I signed on. That's just silly.
Oh yeah, there was a blog called Donkey Dreams being advertised when I signed on. That's just silly.
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
My new schedule
My new schedule, if yesterday and today are any indication (and I hope they are), is becoming get home from work, make dinner, eat dinner, make music, go to sleep. For yesterday, I would add also playing with children and making music as soon as I get back home, too. That was cool. Today, I had music flow out of me immediately upon picking up my guitar and made a new song over the next near-two hours. It was cool. Goodnight.
Monday, October 27, 2008
Fire Festival
Hello, all you out there in T.V. Land. Today is a day,
yes, today is now night.
And what a great day it was!
First of all, let's set the mood. I'm listening to Avey Tare, of Animal Collective,'s project with Kria Brekken, of Mum (with an accent markie on the u), for the first time now. It is awesome. I'm not even a full song in. Yes.
Now, if you're listening along, you are also in a similarly tripped out mood and can follow my train of thought perhaps more real to the way I felt it when I had it (right now).
Today was midterm testing so I did...nothing. EXCEPT, three sections of practice in my kanji workbook, which was really nice and I learned a lot and felt productive. I also got a fairly good vibe from the other teachers, like the vice-principal, from whom I usually get a weird vibe. The past couple of weeks some of the teachers've seemed a little cold or removed, while actually others have been friendlier, so maybe some of them are just a little stressed right now, what with preparing for the midterms and what not. But anyways, we're definitely in free thought mode now, as my sentences are just kind of moving to the flow of my thoughts. Yeah, so I could've left at like 1, like any of the other teachers, but the others were staying longer to work, so I thought I would. For the first time, the English teacher I work with let me help him with something when I asked him if I could help him with anything. It was really nice to be able to be productive and do some work while others were working all around me. I got right on checking off marks by every student's name to mark that they had turned in their worksheets. Then, I realized, I had a list of all the students in the first year's names in front of me! So, I got to writing down all their names and trying to match them with some of the names that were written in English on the English worksheets, thus finding out some of the names I didn't know before. So much kanji today, though...my eyes were tired after writing the names of half the students in the school so I decided to call it a day and go home.
On my way home, I thought, "What should I do?" I had earlier thought about going into the city since I was getting home earlier by an hour now, 3 when I first had the idea, but my brain was warped from all the studying and up-close writing. I need some excercise, to move my body around, I thought. Maybe I'll go for a run, even though it's cold. In any case, I thought as I sat on the bench overlooking the school field, I'll walk home, because I just feel like a nice walk.
As I passed the city Health and Wellness Center (?), where they give cooking classes (I think) and activities for older people, as well as take care of elementary school children after school while their waiting for the bus, I ran into the usual group of kids waiting around in the parking lot, playing. I was in no rush, and the immediacy of riding a bike was nowhere to be found in myself so I stopped by to chat. They were having a relay and invited me to, "join us! join us!" Haha, okay, I can't think of anything to do right now because my brain's dulled, I'll just have some fun with these kids for a while. So I ran relay races around the parking lot with them, then we played tag, or "oni goko." I was the oni (demon) first so I ran around and tried to catch them. It was really fun, and actually really got me breathing. Then, the daycare teachers invited us all in for snacks! Snacks!? Yes!! I was happy to accept the invitation and enjoy a delicious rice cracker, candy, and warm tea snack with the kiddies and the two teachers. We translated some hard to translate Japanese customary sayings for before and after eating. Itadakimasu, or "we humbly receive this food that was given to us by the people who worked hard to prepare it and the plants and animals that gave their bodies to become it," became "Let's have our snacks!" and "Gochisousama deshita, or "the meal was delicious, thank you," became "Let's finish!" Haha. But hey, that's not too bad, I suppose. When the teachers asked the kids what they thought the English versions of the phrases would be one boy kept answering, "Let's go!" which was really funny. Really, haha.
But anyways, after that, we did more relays, oni goko, and then played badmitton. It was my first time! Really fun. And now I am going to eat home-made canned azuki (red bean) soup with mochi cubes chopped out of the parts of the mochi from that festival a long time ago that didn't get moldy. Mmm. Warm and with water. I remember I made this and ate it with a guy who lived in the same guest house as me when I was in Kyoto for a few weeks back at the end of study abroad. Wow. Cool.
It was interesting to see the different personalities of the kids. One was the confident boy who took charge of everything and told everyone how they were going to pick teams and in what order the people on his team would run and everyone just kind of took it as nothing special. There was another boy who was really attached to me, more sensitive than the other boy, and although just as athletic as the other kids seemed much more attuned to expressing emotions. The two girls I first ran with were not so keen on telling everybody what to do, just enjoyed running. Another boy, who I think was younger, got close to crying a lot more than the others, but had a beautiful smile when he was laughing and having fun. Later, a girl who was a little older came over and played badmitton with us. She was super confident, not forceful, just wanted to play, on any team, and she was good. Later, she brought out a unicycle and started trying to ride that around. Oh yeah, all the kids at the elementary schools have access to unicycles and one school in particular trains their kids to be suuuper good at them. They had an awesome performance on them at their sports day. It was sweet.
So, after about an hour and 48 minutes of that, I finally walked home. They gave me a wreath with candy glued to the edges and a card inside that says, "Thank you for your visit," wrapped in plastic. I was so surprised and happy. It was really awesome.
So now, this album is finally getting to the weird, dark song. Oooh, I like it. Although, I've been thinking, there are some happy-ish-sounding songs I really like, maybe I should move more in that direction and try making stuff like that.
I went to an amazing festival (haha, I typed frestival at first) last Saturday night. One of the JETs had been going on a mountain walk and happened upon a shrine, where he met an old lady who was some kind of monk who told him about a festival that would occur there after nightfall on Saturday night. He told us about it, and a few of us decided to go. I'm glad I did.
He asked us to bring flashlights, but I forgot mine, which is actually a headlamp, but lo and behold, when we borrowed a couple from his landlord, one of them was a big purple headlamp! Yeah, I called that one so fast. It kept slipping from my head as we were walking but it felt good just to have it there. Yeah, it was cool.
We weren't sure if anyone was even going to be there and the way up looked bleak, but when we got there, we found a bunch of people gathered around and by the looks of things, they were just setting up. As we found out, that night was to be a fire festival in honor of people who had died of unnatural causes, like suicide or accidents, as far as my ears could tell. Holy shit, the re-reversed version of this album is so cool!! It sounds completely different!! I didn't even know the whole first song was guitar-based. At first, I was a little surprised to see no food booths or loud taiko music, but not really too disappointed. It added an air of more seriousness to the event, which was only to deepen as the night went on.
So the ceremony was about to begin, or so the monk told us as he invited us into the coutyard of the shrine. The monks were off to the side, where they blew this cool horn that reminded me of Aztec conch horns or some kind of Viking horn, and read passages. It was pretty normal, nice, and -oh-some of the audience members are joining in on, that's cool. It added a nice feeling to be semi-surrounded by momentary prayer chants. Then, that's when it got intense.
The monks started chanting and one of them started hitting a rhythm on a little percussion box that looked like a little animal, I think. I think it was just straight eighth notes, now that I think about it. Just a constant rhythm. Then all of a sudden, EVERYBODY in the whole courtyard was chanting together, saying a syllable on every eighth note or more. Constant sound, words, human voices, in one flat tone, all around you. Everywhere. Then, it rises, maybe half a step. Then, back down. Still, constantly coming from all around us. And it didn't matter if someone ran out of breath (it would have been impossible for anyone to keep saying the chant the whole time without missing a beat to take a breath), because there were so many people that almost everyone else would be able to keep saying it during that moment. And then four monks starting shaking these rods with golden rings on them in a rhythm of down, down, up, down, down, up, and I figured out later that the two people in the back row where doing it one beat behind the ones in front, so they were constantly flowing in and out of each other. It was amazing! It made me think immediately of how people first started doing those kind of chants, who knows how long ago, to put themselves in another state of mind, so that they could truly connect to something beyond themselves, pray, in a focused state. I don't know if that's true, but I'm pretty sure it is, and I know I've heard it in some kind of class, plus being there, in that courtyard, I totally went into another state and could see how it would work. We did that for maybe 15 minutes, maybe 20 minutes? Maybe 25? I have no idea, but it was really long and I wanted it to go on forever.
Eventually, it did stop however. The monks moved up a stone staircase to an altar higher up in the mountain, as dramatic music played over a stereo. They wore maskes, like the Tengu, the god that is said to have always lived in the mountains in Japan. As they ascended, a younger boy dressed in casual clothes, rather than the white robes of the monks, read passages from the back of their area, marked off by a white sheet on the ground. I had seen him earlier and wondered if he was studying to become a monk.
They came back down after some time. And people began to chant again. Different chants, some I could actually make out partially because they were shorter and slower. But I couldn't pick out meanings, really. Something about two points and waiting, maybe. Another interesting thing was that that monk that the other JET had met before was the head monk. She basically led the entire thing, and had all the others waiting for her command. Veerrry interesting, especially for something as amazingly traditional as this ceremony seemed and taking into account that all those others taking her orders, besides one, were men.
After that part was done, they began distributing packages of wooden sticks with names written on them. The passed on? The family who was receiving the sticks? I don't know. What I do know is that monks started pouring sake on these standing iron torches arranged throughout the courtyard and lighting fires in them. Then people began putting the sticks in them and the fires grew really quickly. A kind woman who works at an old peoples' home in that city shared sticks with me. People gathered around the torches near them and stoked the fires. Children tried to throw sticks in from below, which would often sail through the fire to the other side, where an old lady, or maybe I, would pick them up and put them into the burning flames. It was a nice atmosphere. Just pick up any of the sticks you happen to find on the floor, or that were given to you, or that you just had, and stick them into the fire, as you felt the intense heat reflect on your face and brows pushing you back as soon as you had the stick in the blaze. And then drawing you back in when you had your next piece to add to the inferno.
Monks would go around with bamboo sticks and push out the bottoms of the fire where the wood had turned to charcoal or was ashing. Ashes were flying everywhere, burning my eyes with the smoke. I was standing in between four tourches, tending to the one on my front left. This went on for a long time, and really put me in another state of being, as well. Being constantly surrounded by intense heat, trying to always be aware enough not to have a hot ember go into my clothes or let the flames lick my hair, face, or clothes. And the other people seemed to be in that kind of state too. Dedicated to dedicating these fires to those who had passed on, to world peace, and to every person's happiness. The monks would scream as if they were possessed when they shoved the bottoms of the fires out, the same kind of scream one of them had done a few times even during the chants.
It looked a bit like this:
Toward the end, I moved to the side. It was just getting to be so unbearably hot between those fires. A man began going around with blocks of wood, which he would hit with his fingers, move his hand around in a kind of form, say something that could have been some of kind prayer, give a barkish yell, and put one in each torch. And we listened to that woman describe the history of the ceremony, ask us to look into the sky at something I couldn't quite figure out, and slowly come down from our fevered wood-dashing and chanting into a relaxed through draining condition that felt somehow as if we had been purified by ourselves, though we were covered with the gray ashes of the trees we had just sacrificed to the blazing infernos of our prayers, emotions, and kindness.
The walk back was nice, as were the delicious azuki manju and amazake we received. We also were given fortunes but I don't know what mine says too clearly.
Life is interesting.
yes, today is now night.
And what a great day it was!
First of all, let's set the mood. I'm listening to Avey Tare, of Animal Collective,'s project with Kria Brekken, of Mum (with an accent markie on the u), for the first time now. It is awesome. I'm not even a full song in. Yes.
Now, if you're listening along, you are also in a similarly tripped out mood and can follow my train of thought perhaps more real to the way I felt it when I had it (right now).
Today was midterm testing so I did...nothing. EXCEPT, three sections of practice in my kanji workbook, which was really nice and I learned a lot and felt productive. I also got a fairly good vibe from the other teachers, like the vice-principal, from whom I usually get a weird vibe. The past couple of weeks some of the teachers've seemed a little cold or removed, while actually others have been friendlier, so maybe some of them are just a little stressed right now, what with preparing for the midterms and what not. But anyways, we're definitely in free thought mode now, as my sentences are just kind of moving to the flow of my thoughts. Yeah, so I could've left at like 1, like any of the other teachers, but the others were staying longer to work, so I thought I would. For the first time, the English teacher I work with let me help him with something when I asked him if I could help him with anything. It was really nice to be able to be productive and do some work while others were working all around me. I got right on checking off marks by every student's name to mark that they had turned in their worksheets. Then, I realized, I had a list of all the students in the first year's names in front of me! So, I got to writing down all their names and trying to match them with some of the names that were written in English on the English worksheets, thus finding out some of the names I didn't know before. So much kanji today, though...my eyes were tired after writing the names of half the students in the school so I decided to call it a day and go home.
On my way home, I thought, "What should I do?" I had earlier thought about going into the city since I was getting home earlier by an hour now, 3 when I first had the idea, but my brain was warped from all the studying and up-close writing. I need some excercise, to move my body around, I thought. Maybe I'll go for a run, even though it's cold. In any case, I thought as I sat on the bench overlooking the school field, I'll walk home, because I just feel like a nice walk.
As I passed the city Health and Wellness Center (?), where they give cooking classes (I think) and activities for older people, as well as take care of elementary school children after school while their waiting for the bus, I ran into the usual group of kids waiting around in the parking lot, playing. I was in no rush, and the immediacy of riding a bike was nowhere to be found in myself so I stopped by to chat. They were having a relay and invited me to, "join us! join us!" Haha, okay, I can't think of anything to do right now because my brain's dulled, I'll just have some fun with these kids for a while. So I ran relay races around the parking lot with them, then we played tag, or "oni goko." I was the oni (demon) first so I ran around and tried to catch them. It was really fun, and actually really got me breathing. Then, the daycare teachers invited us all in for snacks! Snacks!? Yes!! I was happy to accept the invitation and enjoy a delicious rice cracker, candy, and warm tea snack with the kiddies and the two teachers. We translated some hard to translate Japanese customary sayings for before and after eating. Itadakimasu, or "we humbly receive this food that was given to us by the people who worked hard to prepare it and the plants and animals that gave their bodies to become it," became "Let's have our snacks!" and "Gochisousama deshita, or "the meal was delicious, thank you," became "Let's finish!" Haha. But hey, that's not too bad, I suppose. When the teachers asked the kids what they thought the English versions of the phrases would be one boy kept answering, "Let's go!" which was really funny. Really, haha.
But anyways, after that, we did more relays, oni goko, and then played badmitton. It was my first time! Really fun. And now I am going to eat home-made canned azuki (red bean) soup with mochi cubes chopped out of the parts of the mochi from that festival a long time ago that didn't get moldy. Mmm. Warm and with water. I remember I made this and ate it with a guy who lived in the same guest house as me when I was in Kyoto for a few weeks back at the end of study abroad. Wow. Cool.
It was interesting to see the different personalities of the kids. One was the confident boy who took charge of everything and told everyone how they were going to pick teams and in what order the people on his team would run and everyone just kind of took it as nothing special. There was another boy who was really attached to me, more sensitive than the other boy, and although just as athletic as the other kids seemed much more attuned to expressing emotions. The two girls I first ran with were not so keen on telling everybody what to do, just enjoyed running. Another boy, who I think was younger, got close to crying a lot more than the others, but had a beautiful smile when he was laughing and having fun. Later, a girl who was a little older came over and played badmitton with us. She was super confident, not forceful, just wanted to play, on any team, and she was good. Later, she brought out a unicycle and started trying to ride that around. Oh yeah, all the kids at the elementary schools have access to unicycles and one school in particular trains their kids to be suuuper good at them. They had an awesome performance on them at their sports day. It was sweet.
So, after about an hour and 48 minutes of that, I finally walked home. They gave me a wreath with candy glued to the edges and a card inside that says, "Thank you for your visit," wrapped in plastic. I was so surprised and happy. It was really awesome.
So now, this album is finally getting to the weird, dark song. Oooh, I like it. Although, I've been thinking, there are some happy-ish-sounding songs I really like, maybe I should move more in that direction and try making stuff like that.
I went to an amazing festival (haha, I typed frestival at first) last Saturday night. One of the JETs had been going on a mountain walk and happened upon a shrine, where he met an old lady who was some kind of monk who told him about a festival that would occur there after nightfall on Saturday night. He told us about it, and a few of us decided to go. I'm glad I did.
He asked us to bring flashlights, but I forgot mine, which is actually a headlamp, but lo and behold, when we borrowed a couple from his landlord, one of them was a big purple headlamp! Yeah, I called that one so fast. It kept slipping from my head as we were walking but it felt good just to have it there. Yeah, it was cool.
We weren't sure if anyone was even going to be there and the way up looked bleak, but when we got there, we found a bunch of people gathered around and by the looks of things, they were just setting up. As we found out, that night was to be a fire festival in honor of people who had died of unnatural causes, like suicide or accidents, as far as my ears could tell. Holy shit, the re-reversed version of this album is so cool!! It sounds completely different!! I didn't even know the whole first song was guitar-based. At first, I was a little surprised to see no food booths or loud taiko music, but not really too disappointed. It added an air of more seriousness to the event, which was only to deepen as the night went on.
So the ceremony was about to begin, or so the monk told us as he invited us into the coutyard of the shrine. The monks were off to the side, where they blew this cool horn that reminded me of Aztec conch horns or some kind of Viking horn, and read passages. It was pretty normal, nice, and -oh-some of the audience members are joining in on, that's cool. It added a nice feeling to be semi-surrounded by momentary prayer chants. Then, that's when it got intense.
The monks started chanting and one of them started hitting a rhythm on a little percussion box that looked like a little animal, I think. I think it was just straight eighth notes, now that I think about it. Just a constant rhythm. Then all of a sudden, EVERYBODY in the whole courtyard was chanting together, saying a syllable on every eighth note or more. Constant sound, words, human voices, in one flat tone, all around you. Everywhere. Then, it rises, maybe half a step. Then, back down. Still, constantly coming from all around us. And it didn't matter if someone ran out of breath (it would have been impossible for anyone to keep saying the chant the whole time without missing a beat to take a breath), because there were so many people that almost everyone else would be able to keep saying it during that moment. And then four monks starting shaking these rods with golden rings on them in a rhythm of down, down, up, down, down, up, and I figured out later that the two people in the back row where doing it one beat behind the ones in front, so they were constantly flowing in and out of each other. It was amazing! It made me think immediately of how people first started doing those kind of chants, who knows how long ago, to put themselves in another state of mind, so that they could truly connect to something beyond themselves, pray, in a focused state. I don't know if that's true, but I'm pretty sure it is, and I know I've heard it in some kind of class, plus being there, in that courtyard, I totally went into another state and could see how it would work. We did that for maybe 15 minutes, maybe 20 minutes? Maybe 25? I have no idea, but it was really long and I wanted it to go on forever.
Eventually, it did stop however. The monks moved up a stone staircase to an altar higher up in the mountain, as dramatic music played over a stereo. They wore maskes, like the Tengu, the god that is said to have always lived in the mountains in Japan. As they ascended, a younger boy dressed in casual clothes, rather than the white robes of the monks, read passages from the back of their area, marked off by a white sheet on the ground. I had seen him earlier and wondered if he was studying to become a monk.
They came back down after some time. And people began to chant again. Different chants, some I could actually make out partially because they were shorter and slower. But I couldn't pick out meanings, really. Something about two points and waiting, maybe. Another interesting thing was that that monk that the other JET had met before was the head monk. She basically led the entire thing, and had all the others waiting for her command. Veerrry interesting, especially for something as amazingly traditional as this ceremony seemed and taking into account that all those others taking her orders, besides one, were men.
After that part was done, they began distributing packages of wooden sticks with names written on them. The passed on? The family who was receiving the sticks? I don't know. What I do know is that monks started pouring sake on these standing iron torches arranged throughout the courtyard and lighting fires in them. Then people began putting the sticks in them and the fires grew really quickly. A kind woman who works at an old peoples' home in that city shared sticks with me. People gathered around the torches near them and stoked the fires. Children tried to throw sticks in from below, which would often sail through the fire to the other side, where an old lady, or maybe I, would pick them up and put them into the burning flames. It was a nice atmosphere. Just pick up any of the sticks you happen to find on the floor, or that were given to you, or that you just had, and stick them into the fire, as you felt the intense heat reflect on your face and brows pushing you back as soon as you had the stick in the blaze. And then drawing you back in when you had your next piece to add to the inferno.
Monks would go around with bamboo sticks and push out the bottoms of the fire where the wood had turned to charcoal or was ashing. Ashes were flying everywhere, burning my eyes with the smoke. I was standing in between four tourches, tending to the one on my front left. This went on for a long time, and really put me in another state of being, as well. Being constantly surrounded by intense heat, trying to always be aware enough not to have a hot ember go into my clothes or let the flames lick my hair, face, or clothes. And the other people seemed to be in that kind of state too. Dedicated to dedicating these fires to those who had passed on, to world peace, and to every person's happiness. The monks would scream as if they were possessed when they shoved the bottoms of the fires out, the same kind of scream one of them had done a few times even during the chants.
It looked a bit like this:
Toward the end, I moved to the side. It was just getting to be so unbearably hot between those fires. A man began going around with blocks of wood, which he would hit with his fingers, move his hand around in a kind of form, say something that could have been some of kind prayer, give a barkish yell, and put one in each torch. And we listened to that woman describe the history of the ceremony, ask us to look into the sky at something I couldn't quite figure out, and slowly come down from our fevered wood-dashing and chanting into a relaxed through draining condition that felt somehow as if we had been purified by ourselves, though we were covered with the gray ashes of the trees we had just sacrificed to the blazing infernos of our prayers, emotions, and kindness.
The walk back was nice, as were the delicious azuki manju and amazake we received. We also were given fortunes but I don't know what mine says too clearly.
Life is interesting.
Friday, October 24, 2008
Oh my
Just as I predicted, I played koto for at least two hours today instead of studying Japanese.
Oh my.
Oh my.
Thursday, October 23, 2008
Oh my gosh
Oh my gosh, I really think I should go to bed now. I've been playing the piece for which I borrowed the music from the koto group today for the past hour or so and it is SO BEAUTIFUL! I'm starting to learn the first part after the intro and the second part that flows into the time change (from 4/4 to 6/8!!!)!! Oh my gosh, all the feelings I got before when I played this instrument that make me instantly fall in love with it and that make me want to study and play it forever are coming back. Ah, love.
Another update, hehe
Yep, things are going pretty well, and I just have so much to write about!
Today, I taught at one of my elementary schools, the biggest one, and it was...AWESOME! The English teacher there helped me out so much, and not by leading the lesson or anything, but by supporting me amazingly. When I read cards with Halloween words or sports names on them, she would take them from me and put them on the board with magnets, repeating after me to get the students to say the words as well. She gently initiated demonstrations between the two of us of how to do some of the exercises and worksheets. I was just amazed at how easily and modestly she took the back seat and allowed me to lead the lesson, and in the end it was only because of her helping me so much as a back-up that we were able to get through the entire lesson plan on time for both periods. The classes at this school are huge compared to the 9 students in the combined 4th, 5th, and 6th grade class at one elementary school and the 12 or so students in the combined 5th and 6th grade class at the other elementary school. Today I taught a class of about 30 5th graders followed by a 6th grade class of about 25, and we made it through the entire lesson plan, which was made at one of the small schools. I couldn't have even imagined that after my first day of actual lesson-giving a couple of weeks ago in which I was either finishing 5 minutes early and using the back-up picture book or barely finishing on time. I thought for the first time today, "This must be how team-teaching is supposed to work," as well as, "Hey, I think I'm starting to get used to giving lessons!" It was a very exciting day. I never thought I would love teaching so much, but I was very happy after giving today's lessons.
Tonight's English conversation class was also pretty cool. The highlight, besides all the awesome explanations of prepositions and word origins from the main English teacher (I'm serious, I think this guy is really interested in etymologies and the like. I've learned so many cool and interesting things about English from him.), was when one of the members mentioned she was in correspondence with a friends of hers, also from Japan, living in L.A. Apparently, she's some kind of teacher, maybe of English (which would be really interesting). I ventured to ask the class member if she knew where her friend lived in L.A. and she said she didn't know. But then, she took out a post-it and started reading an address off. I looked at the paper and, lo and behold, her friend lives in La Puente! What the heck!? I got to explain to the class then that lots of cities and streets in the U.S., at least in California, have Spanish names, and also that lots of Mexican-Americans (yes, I've been using that oh-so-neutral term just because it's a lot easier for most people to understand than Chicano or Latino, plus it's surprisingly self-explanatory) live in La Puente, including some of my relatives. I'm still working on how to explain that there are lots of Latinos in general in Los Angeles, and not just Mexican-Americans. That was a cool point, though, in today's lesson. It came completely out of left field; I would never have predicted it, haha.
I finally took out my trash which had been collecting way too many little flies. I hadn't taken it out the first chance I got because the trash bag wasn't quite full, and I didn't want to waste it. Then, I missed trash day the week after that. Ew, no good. I was looking forward to today, when I could finally put my trash out to be taken away tomorrow, all week. :)
That's about it. Maybe I'll get some more sleep tonight.
Oh yeah, I found out I have an English bulletin board in the middle school hallway all to myself yesterday and set out immediately to make my Dia de los muertos bulletin. I finished it today, and I'm pretty happy with it. I've had some pretty cool conversations with the other teachers about the holiday so far and it's only been a day and a half. Some of them compare it to Obon, which I have also done, and really the two do have a lot of similarities. The whole life-death cycle, making the day a time of lively celebration, and the ubiquitous use of skeletons is pretty different, though, and draws a lot of attention. Besides that, the two main comments I've heard from kids is, "yabai," which means "crazy" in the most colloquial sense, describing how people paint their faces like skulls, and "oh it's not Halloween?" But interest in better than nothing! The English teacher I work with wanted me to write katakana (the Japanese alphabet used to write foreign words) so students would know how to pronounce "Dia de los muertos," but katakana English is bad enough (see earlier entry - "doguzu," "catosu"), I didn't want these kids speaking katakana Spanish, too (although I think Spanish has a lot more similar of sounds to Japanese than English). So I tried to write some kind of pronunciation key in Roman letters (is that what it's called in English?). It came out alright, but whatever, I'm not worried about that.
I'm a little nostalgic for Dia de los muertos this year, but I'm looking forward to hearing about it and seeing pictures from my family. I hope they enjoy it a lot!
Time to get ready for bed. Oh yeah, the Daily Show was really funny today. It totally expressed something like my feelings about how news channels just put random people on t.v. and interview them to push points they want pushed (and that they're owners want pushed) with its segment, "Who the F@#k is that Guy?" Hilarious.
Bilarious.
Today, I taught at one of my elementary schools, the biggest one, and it was...AWESOME! The English teacher there helped me out so much, and not by leading the lesson or anything, but by supporting me amazingly. When I read cards with Halloween words or sports names on them, she would take them from me and put them on the board with magnets, repeating after me to get the students to say the words as well. She gently initiated demonstrations between the two of us of how to do some of the exercises and worksheets. I was just amazed at how easily and modestly she took the back seat and allowed me to lead the lesson, and in the end it was only because of her helping me so much as a back-up that we were able to get through the entire lesson plan on time for both periods. The classes at this school are huge compared to the 9 students in the combined 4th, 5th, and 6th grade class at one elementary school and the 12 or so students in the combined 5th and 6th grade class at the other elementary school. Today I taught a class of about 30 5th graders followed by a 6th grade class of about 25, and we made it through the entire lesson plan, which was made at one of the small schools. I couldn't have even imagined that after my first day of actual lesson-giving a couple of weeks ago in which I was either finishing 5 minutes early and using the back-up picture book or barely finishing on time. I thought for the first time today, "This must be how team-teaching is supposed to work," as well as, "Hey, I think I'm starting to get used to giving lessons!" It was a very exciting day. I never thought I would love teaching so much, but I was very happy after giving today's lessons.
Tonight's English conversation class was also pretty cool. The highlight, besides all the awesome explanations of prepositions and word origins from the main English teacher (I'm serious, I think this guy is really interested in etymologies and the like. I've learned so many cool and interesting things about English from him.), was when one of the members mentioned she was in correspondence with a friends of hers, also from Japan, living in L.A. Apparently, she's some kind of teacher, maybe of English (which would be really interesting). I ventured to ask the class member if she knew where her friend lived in L.A. and she said she didn't know. But then, she took out a post-it and started reading an address off. I looked at the paper and, lo and behold, her friend lives in La Puente! What the heck!? I got to explain to the class then that lots of cities and streets in the U.S., at least in California, have Spanish names, and also that lots of Mexican-Americans (yes, I've been using that oh-so-neutral term just because it's a lot easier for most people to understand than Chicano or Latino, plus it's surprisingly self-explanatory) live in La Puente, including some of my relatives. I'm still working on how to explain that there are lots of Latinos in general in Los Angeles, and not just Mexican-Americans. That was a cool point, though, in today's lesson. It came completely out of left field; I would never have predicted it, haha.
I finally took out my trash which had been collecting way too many little flies. I hadn't taken it out the first chance I got because the trash bag wasn't quite full, and I didn't want to waste it. Then, I missed trash day the week after that. Ew, no good. I was looking forward to today, when I could finally put my trash out to be taken away tomorrow, all week. :)
That's about it. Maybe I'll get some more sleep tonight.
Oh yeah, I found out I have an English bulletin board in the middle school hallway all to myself yesterday and set out immediately to make my Dia de los muertos bulletin. I finished it today, and I'm pretty happy with it. I've had some pretty cool conversations with the other teachers about the holiday so far and it's only been a day and a half. Some of them compare it to Obon, which I have also done, and really the two do have a lot of similarities. The whole life-death cycle, making the day a time of lively celebration, and the ubiquitous use of skeletons is pretty different, though, and draws a lot of attention. Besides that, the two main comments I've heard from kids is, "yabai," which means "crazy" in the most colloquial sense, describing how people paint their faces like skulls, and "oh it's not Halloween?" But interest in better than nothing! The English teacher I work with wanted me to write katakana (the Japanese alphabet used to write foreign words) so students would know how to pronounce "Dia de los muertos," but katakana English is bad enough (see earlier entry - "doguzu," "catosu"), I didn't want these kids speaking katakana Spanish, too (although I think Spanish has a lot more similar of sounds to Japanese than English). So I tried to write some kind of pronunciation key in Roman letters (is that what it's called in English?). It came out alright, but whatever, I'm not worried about that.
I'm a little nostalgic for Dia de los muertos this year, but I'm looking forward to hearing about it and seeing pictures from my family. I hope they enjoy it a lot!
Time to get ready for bed. Oh yeah, the Daily Show was really funny today. It totally expressed something like my feelings about how news channels just put random people on t.v. and interview them to push points they want pushed (and that they're owners want pushed) with its segment, "Who the F@#k is that Guy?" Hilarious.
Bilarious.
Rock on! or Thank you so much ladies in the koto group!
Oh Wow.
Things got a lot better in the last, oh, hour and forty-five minutes, mainly because of one little adventure.
Today I left right on time from work and made it down to the weekly koto group meeting at town hall, where I was met by a surprisingly large gathering of smiling, old ladies arranged like shapes according to how their kotos would best fit in the small, little room. After the building manager introduced me, the first question the asked me was, "Did you bring your tsumi?" (Tsumi means "nails" and is the word for the picks you attach to your fingers to play koto.) YES YES!! I DID!! Then, what kind of stuff have you played before? Well, I actually I brought my old music from koto club two years and a half years ago (wow, has it actually been that long?)! I watch with nervous excitement as the group leader looks over Hana Ikada, the other song I learned besides Sakura, Sakura.
I tell them it's been a long time since I've played and their response is to have everybody retune their kotos to a song they've been practicing and have me play along with them! From the start! Stopping calmly and patiently for every part I don't get, which was almost every one, and showing me how to play. Oh my gosh. By the end, I actually starting to get back the feeling of playing the koto.
After, they said they would pick an easier song and let me play with them at the cultural festival next month! What?! Then, I start to pick up bits of conversation about if I could practice at home, who lives near me, what kotos I could use. No, it couldn't be. I dismiss it and try to figure out what they're really talking about. Then, they start gesturing toward a koto standing in the corner of the room. "This one's really old, but could you use it?" the leader asks. What? Uh, yes, it looks awesome! "Okay then, she lives close to you so she'll take it to your house by car and you can meet her when you go back home by bike." .... .... Oh my gosh, thank you so so so so much. There were plenty of sumimasens and arigatou gozaimasus to follow the whole way out the building, loading the koto into the car, and saying goodbye to the super nice old lady as she drive away from my house leaving me with this:
YES.
YES YES YES!
I am so happy and cannot wait to practice this thing all the time yes yes.
I was just so excited I had to tell you right away. So there you go, my life for the next year.
Oh yeah, also, I just had a revelation! I had starting thinking, and worrying a bit, about how no matter how good you get at a language, the moment you stop using it your ability starts to decrease, and how after a couple of years of not speaking it much you're nowhere near where you used to be and making back to point one. Now, this train of thought may be a bit exaggerated, but in any case, I just realized: koto is my connection to Japanese. I had this realization when I thought that I would definitely return to the U.S. with a koto, that it was something I was happy to invest the funds and time into. So that means studying it in the U.S.. I'm also guessing that my sensei would most likely be an old Japanese woman, or Japanese, and while my lessons may be in English, I think there's a pretty good chance they could be in Japanese, as would much of the society around that music. Just a thought, but an inspiring one.
People can be so kind.
I am excited :)
Things got a lot better in the last, oh, hour and forty-five minutes, mainly because of one little adventure.
Today I left right on time from work and made it down to the weekly koto group meeting at town hall, where I was met by a surprisingly large gathering of smiling, old ladies arranged like shapes according to how their kotos would best fit in the small, little room. After the building manager introduced me, the first question the asked me was, "Did you bring your tsumi?" (Tsumi means "nails" and is the word for the picks you attach to your fingers to play koto.) YES YES!! I DID!! Then, what kind of stuff have you played before? Well, I actually I brought my old music from koto club two years and a half years ago (wow, has it actually been that long?)! I watch with nervous excitement as the group leader looks over Hana Ikada, the other song I learned besides Sakura, Sakura.
I tell them it's been a long time since I've played and their response is to have everybody retune their kotos to a song they've been practicing and have me play along with them! From the start! Stopping calmly and patiently for every part I don't get, which was almost every one, and showing me how to play. Oh my gosh. By the end, I actually starting to get back the feeling of playing the koto.
After, they said they would pick an easier song and let me play with them at the cultural festival next month! What?! Then, I start to pick up bits of conversation about if I could practice at home, who lives near me, what kotos I could use. No, it couldn't be. I dismiss it and try to figure out what they're really talking about. Then, they start gesturing toward a koto standing in the corner of the room. "This one's really old, but could you use it?" the leader asks. What? Uh, yes, it looks awesome! "Okay then, she lives close to you so she'll take it to your house by car and you can meet her when you go back home by bike." .... .... Oh my gosh, thank you so so so so much. There were plenty of sumimasens and arigatou gozaimasus to follow the whole way out the building, loading the koto into the car, and saying goodbye to the super nice old lady as she drive away from my house leaving me with this:
YES.
YES YES YES!
I am so happy and cannot wait to practice this thing all the time yes yes.
I was just so excited I had to tell you right away. So there you go, my life for the next year.
Oh yeah, also, I just had a revelation! I had starting thinking, and worrying a bit, about how no matter how good you get at a language, the moment you stop using it your ability starts to decrease, and how after a couple of years of not speaking it much you're nowhere near where you used to be and making back to point one. Now, this train of thought may be a bit exaggerated, but in any case, I just realized: koto is my connection to Japanese. I had this realization when I thought that I would definitely return to the U.S. with a koto, that it was something I was happy to invest the funds and time into. So that means studying it in the U.S.. I'm also guessing that my sensei would most likely be an old Japanese woman, or Japanese, and while my lessons may be in English, I think there's a pretty good chance they could be in Japanese, as would much of the society around that music. Just a thought, but an inspiring one.
People can be so kind.
I am excited :)
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Geezers
I had the most "day care" day care day today of all my days of day care days.
I went through my self-introduction (this was the last school I'll be working at that I still hadn't been to), questions, played Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes, then did some other question thing I don't remember, and the class was starting to lulllllllll I was about an hour in and still had half an hour left okay now is the time to pull out my secret weapon I had been thinking of the whole time...RED LIGHT, GREEN LIGHT.
That's right. These four, magical words, which are really only three but so enchanted they seem like four, named the game that was a smashing success at Midori Day Care. Those kids got into it so much I had to move all the way to the back of the room just so they didn't get to me on the first green light. But the real kick-off was when I asked if any of them wanted to be "it." They were shy at first, but after one intrepid child volunteered, and they all saw how fun it was, every hand in the room was raising up after every round! And they started to get really good at it too, utilizing the red lights quite skillfully, although they usually just said, "Stop!" first. At one point, one of the boys was faced with a mob of day care kids all staring right at him right in the face from no more than half a foot away. He weighed his options, thought, and then, with the look of a pirate driving his ship right into the ocean's cruel waves, or man leaving life to fate as he jumps into a pit of snarling dogs, said that one word that would seal his fate, "Green," and they were upon him. Smiling! Laughing! Giggling! Drooling! Falling on the floor! Looking around with bright, shiny eyes! And I was beside him, engulfed in the flood of happiness, too.
Today marks the day I finally got drooled on by a day care kid (more than once), had to take a kid off of my back as I gave my lesson (same one that drooled on me), had to deal with multiple kids who started crying when it was their turn to say their name and favorite food, and drank warm milk from a kiddy cup during snack time. Actually the milk made me feel pretty weird, as in grossed out, which was only exacerbated by the kids coming up to me and opening their dried-snot-and-milk crusted mouths in my face, but hey it was allllllright.
I think it might actually be a special needs day care, but I'm not sure. I got the impression there was a higher number of special needs kids there than in the other schools I've been to. The two teachers were definitely doing more direct intervening to keep some kids still, or in her clothes in one case, and a couple of other kids were allowed to leave and go outside as they pleased. But some of the other kids seemed fine, so if it isn't a special needs day care, maybe they just have more special needs kids. The teachers didn't tell me anything, though, in comparison to the teachers at one of the elementary schools I work at who introduced some of their kids directly to me as having Downs Syndrome or ADHD.
In any case, I had a lot of fun with the kids, and they all seemed to enjoy their time with me, so I'm glad. And they learned the words "green," "red," and "yellow" really well!
Also, in every class I have with this one group of first years at middle school, I have to go through this whole routine about the date and weather that ends with, "Is anybody absent today?" and the answer is ALWAYS "Mr. Shimizu is absent." I'm starting to wonder what the heck that is all about. Well, not start wondering, I've been wondering like since I noticed he'd been absent for about a month and a half. The English teacher mentioned during class last week that he saw "Mr. Shimizu" at school after hours practicing guitar with the music teacher, but that's about all I know. Before then, I thought he might be a special needs student, because, from what I've heard, most teachers, at least in middle school and above, pretty much pretend like there is nothing going on with the student and don't give her or him any sort of special attention until something drastic happens, like they need to be restrained in class. So maybe everyone just got used to the fact that this kid is absent from class everyday? But if he was playing guitar with the music teacher after school? I'm not sure, but it's probably not my business to try to find out. I'll just see what happens.
I am a little concerned about this one student being bullied in class and the teacher not doing anything about it at all, even after I tell him what is going on. I've heard of pretty serious things coming out of bullying in Japanese schools (well in any country's schools, now that I think about it), so I'm going to keep my eye on the situation. I don't want to be overbearing toward the teacher, but to me bullying should be stopped asap, especially when it affects students so that they can't do their best in class, which was the case last week with this boy. He seemed okay today though, smiling and laughing with friends, so I felt better. I'm hoping things will get better.
Man, that post went into a downer real fast. Really though, today was great. I got along better with the English teacher I work with and even got to eat some super delicious honeydew melon the cafeteria lady brought in because I came back to the middle school after working at day care just because I felt it would be a good thing to do. Mmm, it was so juicy and good. Then I went home. So...I'm pretty tired and off to whatever weird dreams I may have tonight! I hope everybody's having an awesome day and night.
I went through my self-introduction (this was the last school I'll be working at that I still hadn't been to), questions, played Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes, then did some other question thing I don't remember, and the class was starting to lulllllllll I was about an hour in and still had half an hour left okay now is the time to pull out my secret weapon I had been thinking of the whole time...RED LIGHT, GREEN LIGHT.
That's right. These four, magical words, which are really only three but so enchanted they seem like four, named the game that was a smashing success at Midori Day Care. Those kids got into it so much I had to move all the way to the back of the room just so they didn't get to me on the first green light. But the real kick-off was when I asked if any of them wanted to be "it." They were shy at first, but after one intrepid child volunteered, and they all saw how fun it was, every hand in the room was raising up after every round! And they started to get really good at it too, utilizing the red lights quite skillfully, although they usually just said, "Stop!" first. At one point, one of the boys was faced with a mob of day care kids all staring right at him right in the face from no more than half a foot away. He weighed his options, thought, and then, with the look of a pirate driving his ship right into the ocean's cruel waves, or man leaving life to fate as he jumps into a pit of snarling dogs, said that one word that would seal his fate, "Green," and they were upon him. Smiling! Laughing! Giggling! Drooling! Falling on the floor! Looking around with bright, shiny eyes! And I was beside him, engulfed in the flood of happiness, too.
Today marks the day I finally got drooled on by a day care kid (more than once), had to take a kid off of my back as I gave my lesson (same one that drooled on me), had to deal with multiple kids who started crying when it was their turn to say their name and favorite food, and drank warm milk from a kiddy cup during snack time. Actually the milk made me feel pretty weird, as in grossed out, which was only exacerbated by the kids coming up to me and opening their dried-snot-and-milk crusted mouths in my face, but hey it was allllllright.
I think it might actually be a special needs day care, but I'm not sure. I got the impression there was a higher number of special needs kids there than in the other schools I've been to. The two teachers were definitely doing more direct intervening to keep some kids still, or in her clothes in one case, and a couple of other kids were allowed to leave and go outside as they pleased. But some of the other kids seemed fine, so if it isn't a special needs day care, maybe they just have more special needs kids. The teachers didn't tell me anything, though, in comparison to the teachers at one of the elementary schools I work at who introduced some of their kids directly to me as having Downs Syndrome or ADHD.
In any case, I had a lot of fun with the kids, and they all seemed to enjoy their time with me, so I'm glad. And they learned the words "green," "red," and "yellow" really well!
Also, in every class I have with this one group of first years at middle school, I have to go through this whole routine about the date and weather that ends with, "Is anybody absent today?" and the answer is ALWAYS "Mr. Shimizu is absent." I'm starting to wonder what the heck that is all about. Well, not start wondering, I've been wondering like since I noticed he'd been absent for about a month and a half. The English teacher mentioned during class last week that he saw "Mr. Shimizu" at school after hours practicing guitar with the music teacher, but that's about all I know. Before then, I thought he might be a special needs student, because, from what I've heard, most teachers, at least in middle school and above, pretty much pretend like there is nothing going on with the student and don't give her or him any sort of special attention until something drastic happens, like they need to be restrained in class. So maybe everyone just got used to the fact that this kid is absent from class everyday? But if he was playing guitar with the music teacher after school? I'm not sure, but it's probably not my business to try to find out. I'll just see what happens.
I am a little concerned about this one student being bullied in class and the teacher not doing anything about it at all, even after I tell him what is going on. I've heard of pretty serious things coming out of bullying in Japanese schools (well in any country's schools, now that I think about it), so I'm going to keep my eye on the situation. I don't want to be overbearing toward the teacher, but to me bullying should be stopped asap, especially when it affects students so that they can't do their best in class, which was the case last week with this boy. He seemed okay today though, smiling and laughing with friends, so I felt better. I'm hoping things will get better.
Man, that post went into a downer real fast. Really though, today was great. I got along better with the English teacher I work with and even got to eat some super delicious honeydew melon the cafeteria lady brought in because I came back to the middle school after working at day care just because I felt it would be a good thing to do. Mmm, it was so juicy and good. Then I went home. So...I'm pretty tired and off to whatever weird dreams I may have tonight! I hope everybody's having an awesome day and night.
Monday, October 20, 2008
Hm..M
Oh yeah, and I'm thinking South Korea and the Philippines might be two places to which I try to go from Japan.
And listening to music from my sister makes me feel better. Cachao y su orquestra.
And listening to music from my sister makes me feel better. Cachao y su orquestra.
Contest!
Today was the English Speech Contest, for which two students and I had been preparing for the last two weeks or so. I feel kind of bad because despite all our practice, they weren't able to give their speeches in a way that would win them a prize. I feel bad because I translated the girl student's into English for her, which was normal, but I wrote it in fairly high level English, or at least English that was above middle school level, and then with the boy, an English teacher wrote his English version and had me fix it up. In both cases, we ended up with speeches that had pretty complex English and were pretty long. At first I thought this would be a good thing because they would exhibit a better English vocabulary when giving the speech, but as it turned out, I didn't really know what the teachers and judges would be looking for. The students who won the contest gave their speeches with lots of exaggerated hand motions, and everyone seemed to put an inordinate amount of emphasis on memorizing the speech completely. I had pretty much ignored the first one because I remember learning to avoid making distracting hand motions and thought pronunciation, intonation, and rhythm would be more important than complete memorization. I always had the conception that good speech-giving depended more on being able to make it flow and improvise, even if that means looking at notes every now and then.
In any case, I missed the mark completely. The contest winners gave short speeches with simple grammar and vocabulary, without looking at their notes very often. When my kids went up, they ended up getting nervous and reading from their notes, even the boy, who had memorized almost the entirety of his mammoth of a speech! I felt kind of bad for not emphasizing complete memorization enough and making their speeches so long and hard in the first place.
But the school that won, and had both its boy and girl place first and second, really had started practice in earnest earlier than my school. As in, they started practicing as soon as their sports festival ended, which was like...a month ago? And their speeches were very good, so they definitely deserved the places they won. Still, I wonder about the point of this whole contest. About a week ago, I started to get the feeling that it was basically just a competition through which a school, and its adult teacher, could claim a special strength and place in the city to incorporate into their school pride/spirit. A number of the kids didn't really even seem that into it. I also wonder about how a speech contest that emphasizes complete memorization and gesturing to the degree it did would actually benefit students learning the English language. They definitely became more familiar with certain words and phrases, and were able to pronounce and read those phrases in a speech decently, but what are they going to do after that trophy goes up in their school's hallway? The whole things just seemed a little shallow to me, like it was more for the satisfaction of the adults running the whole thing than the educational betterment of their students, most of whom, especially those who lost, are likely to never look at their speeches again.
All in all, I got a very weird feeling from the speech contest, which most of the ALTs (Assistant Language Teachers, people on JET pretty much) seemed to share. I'm happy with my students for working as hard as they did, and hope they are able to draw something, or many things, from this experience. I learned a lot too, though I still haven't sorted it all out yet.
In any case, I got a pretty good amount of Japanese practice since I was hanging out with the principal all day long as we went from school to the contest to a farewell dinner for some exchange program students from Washington. I'm also really freaking tired. I was one of the judges for the speech contest and that took way more out of me than I expected. I think I'm just going to go to bed as soon as I'm done writing this.
It was cool seeing the dorky 14-yr. olds from Sequim (small town), Washington give their performances (one was a cosplay [dressing up like anime or manga characters] skit) and say buy to their families with awkward handshakes and hugs, or really awesome full-on hugs! I was really impressed by their lack of embarassment and seemingly pure desire to just have fun and enjoy their time with their friends. I might do well to approach life a little more from this point of view.
Tomorrow's kindergarten day care.
Oh yeah, I made a song the other day. It was...really good. :)
In any case, I missed the mark completely. The contest winners gave short speeches with simple grammar and vocabulary, without looking at their notes very often. When my kids went up, they ended up getting nervous and reading from their notes, even the boy, who had memorized almost the entirety of his mammoth of a speech! I felt kind of bad for not emphasizing complete memorization enough and making their speeches so long and hard in the first place.
But the school that won, and had both its boy and girl place first and second, really had started practice in earnest earlier than my school. As in, they started practicing as soon as their sports festival ended, which was like...a month ago? And their speeches were very good, so they definitely deserved the places they won. Still, I wonder about the point of this whole contest. About a week ago, I started to get the feeling that it was basically just a competition through which a school, and its adult teacher, could claim a special strength and place in the city to incorporate into their school pride/spirit. A number of the kids didn't really even seem that into it. I also wonder about how a speech contest that emphasizes complete memorization and gesturing to the degree it did would actually benefit students learning the English language. They definitely became more familiar with certain words and phrases, and were able to pronounce and read those phrases in a speech decently, but what are they going to do after that trophy goes up in their school's hallway? The whole things just seemed a little shallow to me, like it was more for the satisfaction of the adults running the whole thing than the educational betterment of their students, most of whom, especially those who lost, are likely to never look at their speeches again.
All in all, I got a very weird feeling from the speech contest, which most of the ALTs (Assistant Language Teachers, people on JET pretty much) seemed to share. I'm happy with my students for working as hard as they did, and hope they are able to draw something, or many things, from this experience. I learned a lot too, though I still haven't sorted it all out yet.
In any case, I got a pretty good amount of Japanese practice since I was hanging out with the principal all day long as we went from school to the contest to a farewell dinner for some exchange program students from Washington. I'm also really freaking tired. I was one of the judges for the speech contest and that took way more out of me than I expected. I think I'm just going to go to bed as soon as I'm done writing this.
It was cool seeing the dorky 14-yr. olds from Sequim (small town), Washington give their performances (one was a cosplay [dressing up like anime or manga characters] skit) and say buy to their families with awkward handshakes and hugs, or really awesome full-on hugs! I was really impressed by their lack of embarassment and seemingly pure desire to just have fun and enjoy their time with their friends. I might do well to approach life a little more from this point of view.
Tomorrow's kindergarten day care.
Oh yeah, I made a song the other day. It was...really good. :)
Friday, October 17, 2008
We listened to Green Day...American Idiot might actually be pretty deep and cool going by what they said.
There's nothing like drinking in a parking lot til twelve in the morning talking about spirituality, the past eight years, and music with two new friends.
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
This weekend
I cannot describe all the things I felt and experienced this weekend in words.
Maybe if I was physically near you, I could scream or flail or hum tranquilly or lay calmly on my side, or on you, and that might get my emotions across to a degree.
So many things inspired me, musically and generally life-wise, in such profound, enjoyable ways.
Really, I met such amazingly friendly and kind people, it made me want even more to be able to be a really friendly and kind person. And then the music! Oh man, that was just...incredible. Haha, I'm really tired because I've been working with two students all last week and this on their English speeches and last night I just found out that I will be performing three songs, one of which is an English of my choosing and that is presumed to be my specialty (I haven't played other people's music besides that Blur song for like the past two years, so...), this Sunday with a local band in front of the entire city (which includes three towns besides mine) for an International Festival. That plus moving all over different schools all the time giving different lesson plans, talking a lot to classes while trying to keep their attention, and such has made my schedule pretty, uh,...full.
BUT, things are good, and with some not taking things, like myself, so seriously (something I've been figuring out), I should be able to sail through this cooly like a ship high in the lightly cloudy skies.
Maybe I'll tell more about the music festival this weekend at another time and put some pictures up. For now, I'll just say...whoa, wow, yes, YES, YES!, AWESOME!, I CAN'T BELIEVE THEY JUST DID THAT!, I've NEVER heard that kind of music before in my life!, I am inspired being belief!, I cannot wait to do more.
Maybe if I was physically near you, I could scream or flail or hum tranquilly or lay calmly on my side, or on you, and that might get my emotions across to a degree.
So many things inspired me, musically and generally life-wise, in such profound, enjoyable ways.
Really, I met such amazingly friendly and kind people, it made me want even more to be able to be a really friendly and kind person. And then the music! Oh man, that was just...incredible. Haha, I'm really tired because I've been working with two students all last week and this on their English speeches and last night I just found out that I will be performing three songs, one of which is an English of my choosing and that is presumed to be my specialty (I haven't played other people's music besides that Blur song for like the past two years, so...), this Sunday with a local band in front of the entire city (which includes three towns besides mine) for an International Festival. That plus moving all over different schools all the time giving different lesson plans, talking a lot to classes while trying to keep their attention, and such has made my schedule pretty, uh,...full.
BUT, things are good, and with some not taking things, like myself, so seriously (something I've been figuring out), I should be able to sail through this cooly like a ship high in the lightly cloudy skies.
Maybe I'll tell more about the music festival this weekend at another time and put some pictures up. For now, I'll just say...whoa, wow, yes, YES, YES!, AWESOME!, I CAN'T BELIEVE THEY JUST DID THAT!, I've NEVER heard that kind of music before in my life!, I am inspired being belief!, I cannot wait to do more.
Friday, October 10, 2008
What do you call a meeting with 8 people, 4 handouts, and 10 tables?...
Today's ALT meeting which was way too freaking long. I am so glad that is over.
I had the best haircut ever today. I went in on the recommendation of the 3rd year English teacher at my middle school. No, not the extremely socially awkward one that brings frustration in little chocolate eggs like an annoying Cadbury Bunny, but the really cool, laid back one that is cultured and really good at and interested in English. When he told me it was going to be 3800 yen, around 36 bucks, I was like ?!?! in my head, but said, oh okay. 3800 yen? That is like...wow, I don't even need to say any more. Still, I figured I could go for it this time since he was going out of his way to show it to me.
So I get in the chair. Nice, comfortable. Get off to a nice conversation with the barber. Talkin' bout stuff. Get the hair down to a nice level, nice. He puts some cream about my cheek and chin, oh cool you're gonna shave my beard, okay, I guess I can go for that. Oh nevermind, you're just trimming around it. He goes off to the side, starts to have a smoke. Then his wife comes over, pushes a button, and my chair starts leaning back. Next thing I know, I've got some kind of gel all over my face, a steaming hot yellow cloth around the bottom half of my face, covered by another, cooler, white cloth. Soon, she's taking out a shaving blade and paper and going over my whole face. Holy what the heck. THEN, she pushes a button and something in the chair start pounding my back lightly like a masseuse! What?! Then, I'm back up after having all sorts of different towels and creams and blades on my face, and I'm having my hair washed in a sink basin that just unfolded out of the wall in front of me! Then guy comes back and finishes off my hair with some kind of spray-lotion thing that felt really good.
When I left that place, I felt so, so, SO relaxed and good. I just wanted to like...walk around or something...or just be there. Haha, I felt like I was going to fall asleep when I had my head in that basin. Definitely worth the money. That's the second time I've spent more money than I usually would on a haircut in Japan and been quite pleasantly surprised. I don't think my students would even recognize me now. My hair was getting reeeaally long and my beard was growing back in earlier today. So...that could be cool in case one of their older brothers or sisters, or sister's or brother's friends or some kind of acquaitance sees me at the freaky music festival this weekend in Osaka. Although with the possibility of rain tomorrow, and the fact that I'll be staying the next two nights in a campsite without a tent, it is too bad I just did away with some good, thick, long fur that could have afforded me some extra heat.
GOCHA MATSURI. A phonecall brought pleasant news of this event this weekend. Whereas I thought it would be cool to see Afrirampo on Saturday, little did I know that their show would be part of a two-day festival in a campground that you get to by taking a train from Osaka, then a bus from where that train takes you, then walking to a campsite from where the bus drops you off. Yes. And many good bands are to bed had, including Oshiripenpenz, Afrirampo, Water Fai, Melt-Banana, Tonchi (! I've been wanting to see her!...if it is, in fact, the same Tonchi of which I am thinking), Doddodo (I don't know if they're good yet, but they sure look cool!), plus at least 10 other bands. At least. And art. And a whole campground of people to talk to and get to know.
Latest cooking adventure: mochi. I went to an AWEsome festival which included children's sumo, starring the students from the most inaka (rural, isolated, NOT city) of my schools. It also featured DELICIOUS ODEN, which is for sure one of my favorite Japanese foods, with hardboiled eggs, daikon (radish?), chikuwa (fish sausage?), beef stomach, ginger, Japanese mustard (oh so gooodd), and other amazingly tasty treats. I love it. And they served amazake (I think it's called), which is hot drink made out of mochi rice, I think. It's really sweet and reminded me of champurado, but it was white and not as thick and not made of the same thing...haha, maybe just the feel of lots of people who know each other having a celebration together and drinking warm drinks as the weather starts to get colder reminded me of that ohhhh I want champurrado so muchOKAY but ANYWAYS. It was awesome. This old man, some kind of community figure, kept trying to get me to drink amazake with sake in it, but I had driven there so I couldn't. He kept saying, "Oh, it's the afternoon, it'll be okay," and I didn't know if he meant there were no police around or there were no other drivers.
At the end, some of the members of the community threw a BUNCH of little mochi cakes into the churning, swirling mass of people below. Actually, it was just them throwing them from a higher level of the shrine, where the festival was being held, to all the children and their families below who were trying to catch them and running around with smiles on their faces. I caught a few, but my supervisor gave me all of his, so now I have around 20-3o small mochi cakes. So those are the new, exciting component of my dinners! It seems that as soon as I use up most of one huge batch of food I received for free, I am blessed with another bestowance of free food! I love it. Yesterday, I melted some mochi into my rice in the cooker with satsuma imo (I love that stuff) and added in some fried mochi, okra, and carrots for a hearty meal. Today I fried/simmered/smashed up together thinly sliced kabocha with mochi in a shoyu (soy sauce), miso (made especially in my town and "matured" for three years!!), and honey "stock" (?). Then I added in chunkier bits of kabocha and satsuma imo and simmered that for a while. When it was done, I poured it on a good helping of rice for a delicious, and surprisingly filling meal. The miso was PERFECT this time! Just the right amount of taste. Mmm. No pictures this time, maybe later. For the sake of the people reading this from work and needing the strength to make it to lunch :).
Speaking of blessings, I've been thinking a bit about the way I pray. For the past couple of years, I've gone through cycles where I pray more formally, then more casually, then I go back, and write now I'm in a casual period. It's kind of cool, kind of not as cool. But I wonder if there are any other ways. Pondering.
My friends make awesome music.
I'm listening to pinx, Beetle Bug. So good. So trippy. So an entire third of the band I'm in.
I'm lucky and happy.
That sounded like I was talking about being married or in a relationship or something. Well, I suppose it is a relationship, but just not a romantic one. I don't think we need to follow this train of thought, although it would probably get pretty interesting talking about what defines romantic and is music romance.
Haha, okay, I'm going to go get ready for the weekend a bit.
Oh yeah, ADVISE PLEASE. I have been singing so much since I've been here. In my car. In my house. And I feel like I'm not getting better, just continuing with the same basic stuff I can do. And the past couple of weeks my throat has been getting hoarser. I think it has to do with singing so much and talking so much in a loud voice for English class. Any advice for singing without having to worry about always damaging my vocal chords? And maybe excercises to get better? Like increase my range and consistancy, ability to hold a note? If you don't leave any, I'm gonna hunt you down on the internet and ask you anyways. You know who you are.
And I know who I am.
I don't actually think any of us know who we are.
But we're finding out. Or making it up.
I had the best haircut ever today. I went in on the recommendation of the 3rd year English teacher at my middle school. No, not the extremely socially awkward one that brings frustration in little chocolate eggs like an annoying Cadbury Bunny, but the really cool, laid back one that is cultured and really good at and interested in English. When he told me it was going to be 3800 yen, around 36 bucks, I was like ?!?! in my head, but said, oh okay. 3800 yen? That is like...wow, I don't even need to say any more. Still, I figured I could go for it this time since he was going out of his way to show it to me.
So I get in the chair. Nice, comfortable. Get off to a nice conversation with the barber. Talkin' bout stuff. Get the hair down to a nice level, nice. He puts some cream about my cheek and chin, oh cool you're gonna shave my beard, okay, I guess I can go for that. Oh nevermind, you're just trimming around it. He goes off to the side, starts to have a smoke. Then his wife comes over, pushes a button, and my chair starts leaning back. Next thing I know, I've got some kind of gel all over my face, a steaming hot yellow cloth around the bottom half of my face, covered by another, cooler, white cloth. Soon, she's taking out a shaving blade and paper and going over my whole face. Holy what the heck. THEN, she pushes a button and something in the chair start pounding my back lightly like a masseuse! What?! Then, I'm back up after having all sorts of different towels and creams and blades on my face, and I'm having my hair washed in a sink basin that just unfolded out of the wall in front of me! Then guy comes back and finishes off my hair with some kind of spray-lotion thing that felt really good.
When I left that place, I felt so, so, SO relaxed and good. I just wanted to like...walk around or something...or just be there. Haha, I felt like I was going to fall asleep when I had my head in that basin. Definitely worth the money. That's the second time I've spent more money than I usually would on a haircut in Japan and been quite pleasantly surprised. I don't think my students would even recognize me now. My hair was getting reeeaally long and my beard was growing back in earlier today. So...that could be cool in case one of their older brothers or sisters, or sister's or brother's friends or some kind of acquaitance sees me at the freaky music festival this weekend in Osaka. Although with the possibility of rain tomorrow, and the fact that I'll be staying the next two nights in a campsite without a tent, it is too bad I just did away with some good, thick, long fur that could have afforded me some extra heat.
GOCHA MATSURI. A phonecall brought pleasant news of this event this weekend. Whereas I thought it would be cool to see Afrirampo on Saturday, little did I know that their show would be part of a two-day festival in a campground that you get to by taking a train from Osaka, then a bus from where that train takes you, then walking to a campsite from where the bus drops you off. Yes. And many good bands are to bed had, including Oshiripenpenz, Afrirampo, Water Fai, Melt-Banana, Tonchi (! I've been wanting to see her!...if it is, in fact, the same Tonchi of which I am thinking), Doddodo (I don't know if they're good yet, but they sure look cool!), plus at least 10 other bands. At least. And art. And a whole campground of people to talk to and get to know.
Latest cooking adventure: mochi. I went to an AWEsome festival which included children's sumo, starring the students from the most inaka (rural, isolated, NOT city) of my schools. It also featured DELICIOUS ODEN, which is for sure one of my favorite Japanese foods, with hardboiled eggs, daikon (radish?), chikuwa (fish sausage?), beef stomach, ginger, Japanese mustard (oh so gooodd), and other amazingly tasty treats. I love it. And they served amazake (I think it's called), which is hot drink made out of mochi rice, I think. It's really sweet and reminded me of champurado, but it was white and not as thick and not made of the same thing...haha, maybe just the feel of lots of people who know each other having a celebration together and drinking warm drinks as the weather starts to get colder reminded me of that ohhhh I want champurrado so muchOKAY but ANYWAYS. It was awesome. This old man, some kind of community figure, kept trying to get me to drink amazake with sake in it, but I had driven there so I couldn't. He kept saying, "Oh, it's the afternoon, it'll be okay," and I didn't know if he meant there were no police around or there were no other drivers.
At the end, some of the members of the community threw a BUNCH of little mochi cakes into the churning, swirling mass of people below. Actually, it was just them throwing them from a higher level of the shrine, where the festival was being held, to all the children and their families below who were trying to catch them and running around with smiles on their faces. I caught a few, but my supervisor gave me all of his, so now I have around 20-3o small mochi cakes. So those are the new, exciting component of my dinners! It seems that as soon as I use up most of one huge batch of food I received for free, I am blessed with another bestowance of free food! I love it. Yesterday, I melted some mochi into my rice in the cooker with satsuma imo (I love that stuff) and added in some fried mochi, okra, and carrots for a hearty meal. Today I fried/simmered/smashed up together thinly sliced kabocha with mochi in a shoyu (soy sauce), miso (made especially in my town and "matured" for three years!!), and honey "stock" (?). Then I added in chunkier bits of kabocha and satsuma imo and simmered that for a while. When it was done, I poured it on a good helping of rice for a delicious, and surprisingly filling meal. The miso was PERFECT this time! Just the right amount of taste. Mmm. No pictures this time, maybe later. For the sake of the people reading this from work and needing the strength to make it to lunch :).
Speaking of blessings, I've been thinking a bit about the way I pray. For the past couple of years, I've gone through cycles where I pray more formally, then more casually, then I go back, and write now I'm in a casual period. It's kind of cool, kind of not as cool. But I wonder if there are any other ways. Pondering.
My friends make awesome music.
I'm listening to pinx, Beetle Bug. So good. So trippy. So an entire third of the band I'm in.
I'm lucky and happy.
That sounded like I was talking about being married or in a relationship or something. Well, I suppose it is a relationship, but just not a romantic one. I don't think we need to follow this train of thought, although it would probably get pretty interesting talking about what defines romantic and is music romance.
Haha, okay, I'm going to go get ready for the weekend a bit.
Oh yeah, ADVISE PLEASE. I have been singing so much since I've been here. In my car. In my house. And I feel like I'm not getting better, just continuing with the same basic stuff I can do. And the past couple of weeks my throat has been getting hoarser. I think it has to do with singing so much and talking so much in a loud voice for English class. Any advice for singing without having to worry about always damaging my vocal chords? And maybe excercises to get better? Like increase my range and consistancy, ability to hold a note? If you don't leave any, I'm gonna hunt you down on the internet and ask you anyways. You know who you are.
And I know who I am.
I don't actually think any of us know who we are.
But we're finding out. Or making it up.
Monday, October 6, 2008
Holy...whatever,
I do not know what to do.
Well, I know some things I could do, but I am not sure which one to do.
I am basically in a situation where the main English teacher I work with is...extremely hard to work with. I'm not sure how to explain things except that...this guy does not seem very good at his job. I am not a professional teacher, nor do I have much teaching experience at all, so I am trying to keep my thoughts moderate (also for the sake of not having to be frustrated all the time), but...there are some things I just can't help but feel cynical toward.
I was prepared to go into some long rant about the whole thing, but I really can't stay upset long enough to get into one of those moods and I'd really rather not bore any of you all (or myself) with the negativity. I am going to describe the situation, though. The teacher seems to have no organizational skills at all, which means we waste on average 10 of the 50 minutes in the class just figuring out where we left off. Once we do get going, he wastes entire class periods on exercises that provide almost no English practice at all, such as: planning a complicated order in which people are supposed to ask each other their blood type in English but just end up talking in Japanese except for the one person in the entire class who is talking to me - that was our entire class today. Other classes are taken up entirely by him getting off track and just talking to the students in Japanese about the autumn solstice or how the sports tournament went over the weekend for the entire 50 minutes.
And during this time, I...stand on the side of the classroom. My role in the class pretty much consists of doing the morning greeting, getting the kids to say the date, weather, and who is absent, then being a pronunciation model for any words the teacher chooses.
It was almost painful the other week to stand by and watch him teach the kids to speak English with the stereotypical Japanese accent that comes from learning English by a Japanese alphabet and which I thought English curriculum in Japan was trying to overcome! "Dogs; it has an s at the end but you pronounce it z. Do-gu-zu. Do-gu-ZU. Now, repeat after after the ALT." "Dogs." "Yes, do-gu-zu. Mr. Shimizu, you try saying it." "Dogs." "Do-gu-ZU. The last sound is ZU." And I'm just standing there...in awe... I asked about why he chose to teach it that way after class and he said he knew it didn't sound like "natural English" (it doesn't sound like English at all!) but he uses it to emphasize it to the students. What?! But instead, I just said, "Oh, okay...."
Plus, his inability to speak English actually makes communicating with him extremely hard (he is very resistant to subtle attempts to get him to speak Japanese), which is frustrating when trying to plan for lessons or just get a question answered in less than 5 minutes.
The thing that really sucks is some of the kids in the class seem SO SMART. They adapt to the lesson points so fast and can actually use the grammar and vocab they use in exchanges with me. And they're often eager to do so! I have a bunch of students who love to raise their hands for every question, which is SO LUCKY! I just imagine what they could learn if they were in classes that were actually structured and had some kind of direction, instead of oops, I didn't plan for today's lesson so...it's ask the ALT questions period! Not being able to do one's own job, for which one applied and opted oneself, is kind of a pet peeve for me, I think. Incompetence just really gets on me. And even worse, when it affects others to the degree that it does in a teacher-student relationship (especially at the ages of 12-14!), it just seems like negligence.
I've found myself moving more toward wanting to just let it go so that I can be free of the frustration, but I just keep thinking about how unfair it is for the students. I want to keep my passion and excitement for the job, but usually when I get out of a class with him, I just feel down. Which is really a bummer because I was just starting to think I liked working at the middle school the most because I get to see the students the most and have been able to start building relationships with them. Plus, it should be the time when they start learning more in-depth grammar and the actual structure of English, which is so exciting! But it's hard to keep good natured with this bad feeling influencing so much of my work day. I'm just going to keep my temper for now and try to do the best I can in this situation. But really, if you have any advice, I would be so grateful to hear it, cuz I don't know how well it's going to work to just keep going this way.
In other news, one of the teachers has gotten really sick really fast and makes really gross hacking noises all the time. I'm on the lookout for germy infrectionsALERT!
Holy shit, Her Space Holiday looks like THAT?
Slothbear
http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=374436148
I just heard this for the first time (I think) right now and I love it. "The Exceptional Bastards" is awesome. Picture, yes...hm. Well this is a cool discovery.
Still listening to a lot of Beach House, Gowns, and some pinx and Yura Yura Teikoku.
I cannot wait to get into a show this weekend and see and hear some live...ness.
Oh yeah, I heard the first feedback flare I can remember that challenged my already somewhat damanged/resistant-ified ears - at the end of "Sing," that song by Blur. It hurt while I was driving with it at a high volume. Don't want to test that again. I'll be prepared next time ;).
*10/7
Wow, I was really frustrated. Today went better and I've starting trying out some ideas to make things easier, like keeping track of the lessons we do in class as best I can, and just realizing I'm not in a position from which I can make any big changes. I'll just have to take things, a little at a time. I also started finding at least one good thing that happened during the class, like a surprisingly attentive student or a good exchange between the kids and me. I'm also working with students on their English speeches for a city-wide contest on the 20th, which is exciting. It's cool to get some one-on-one time with the students, plus I can really see some improvement coming from their hard work. Here we gooo!
Well, I know some things I could do, but I am not sure which one to do.
I am basically in a situation where the main English teacher I work with is...extremely hard to work with. I'm not sure how to explain things except that...this guy does not seem very good at his job. I am not a professional teacher, nor do I have much teaching experience at all, so I am trying to keep my thoughts moderate (also for the sake of not having to be frustrated all the time), but...there are some things I just can't help but feel cynical toward.
I was prepared to go into some long rant about the whole thing, but I really can't stay upset long enough to get into one of those moods and I'd really rather not bore any of you all (or myself) with the negativity. I am going to describe the situation, though. The teacher seems to have no organizational skills at all, which means we waste on average 10 of the 50 minutes in the class just figuring out where we left off. Once we do get going, he wastes entire class periods on exercises that provide almost no English practice at all, such as: planning a complicated order in which people are supposed to ask each other their blood type in English but just end up talking in Japanese except for the one person in the entire class who is talking to me - that was our entire class today. Other classes are taken up entirely by him getting off track and just talking to the students in Japanese about the autumn solstice or how the sports tournament went over the weekend for the entire 50 minutes.
And during this time, I...stand on the side of the classroom. My role in the class pretty much consists of doing the morning greeting, getting the kids to say the date, weather, and who is absent, then being a pronunciation model for any words the teacher chooses.
It was almost painful the other week to stand by and watch him teach the kids to speak English with the stereotypical Japanese accent that comes from learning English by a Japanese alphabet and which I thought English curriculum in Japan was trying to overcome! "Dogs; it has an s at the end but you pronounce it z. Do-gu-zu. Do-gu-ZU. Now, repeat after after the ALT." "Dogs." "Yes, do-gu-zu. Mr. Shimizu, you try saying it." "Dogs." "Do-gu-ZU. The last sound is ZU." And I'm just standing there...in awe... I asked about why he chose to teach it that way after class and he said he knew it didn't sound like "natural English" (it doesn't sound like English at all!) but he uses it to emphasize it to the students. What?! But instead, I just said, "Oh, okay...."
Plus, his inability to speak English actually makes communicating with him extremely hard (he is very resistant to subtle attempts to get him to speak Japanese), which is frustrating when trying to plan for lessons or just get a question answered in less than 5 minutes.
The thing that really sucks is some of the kids in the class seem SO SMART. They adapt to the lesson points so fast and can actually use the grammar and vocab they use in exchanges with me. And they're often eager to do so! I have a bunch of students who love to raise their hands for every question, which is SO LUCKY! I just imagine what they could learn if they were in classes that were actually structured and had some kind of direction, instead of oops, I didn't plan for today's lesson so...it's ask the ALT questions period! Not being able to do one's own job, for which one applied and opted oneself, is kind of a pet peeve for me, I think. Incompetence just really gets on me. And even worse, when it affects others to the degree that it does in a teacher-student relationship (especially at the ages of 12-14!), it just seems like negligence.
I've found myself moving more toward wanting to just let it go so that I can be free of the frustration, but I just keep thinking about how unfair it is for the students. I want to keep my passion and excitement for the job, but usually when I get out of a class with him, I just feel down. Which is really a bummer because I was just starting to think I liked working at the middle school the most because I get to see the students the most and have been able to start building relationships with them. Plus, it should be the time when they start learning more in-depth grammar and the actual structure of English, which is so exciting! But it's hard to keep good natured with this bad feeling influencing so much of my work day. I'm just going to keep my temper for now and try to do the best I can in this situation. But really, if you have any advice, I would be so grateful to hear it, cuz I don't know how well it's going to work to just keep going this way.
In other news, one of the teachers has gotten really sick really fast and makes really gross hacking noises all the time. I'm on the lookout for germy infrectionsALERT!
Holy shit, Her Space Holiday looks like THAT?
Slothbear
http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=374436148
I just heard this for the first time (I think) right now and I love it. "The Exceptional Bastards" is awesome. Picture, yes...hm. Well this is a cool discovery.
Still listening to a lot of Beach House, Gowns, and some pinx and Yura Yura Teikoku.
I cannot wait to get into a show this weekend and see and hear some live...ness.
Oh yeah, I heard the first feedback flare I can remember that challenged my already somewhat damanged/resistant-ified ears - at the end of "Sing," that song by Blur. It hurt while I was driving with it at a high volume. Don't want to test that again. I'll be prepared next time ;).
*10/7
Wow, I was really frustrated. Today went better and I've starting trying out some ideas to make things easier, like keeping track of the lessons we do in class as best I can, and just realizing I'm not in a position from which I can make any big changes. I'll just have to take things, a little at a time. I also started finding at least one good thing that happened during the class, like a surprisingly attentive student or a good exchange between the kids and me. I'm also working with students on their English speeches for a city-wide contest on the 20th, which is exciting. It's cool to get some one-on-one time with the students, plus I can really see some improvement coming from their hard work. Here we gooo!
Saturday, October 4, 2008
I forgot what I was going to call this post.
Hello.
First, let's start this off with some mood music.
Gowns
Hehe, typing something then attaching a link to it instead of just copying and pasting the link reminds me of learning how to make a website in middle school. Does anybody remember that?
DOES ANYBODY REMEMBER THAT?!?!
Actually, despite getting more and more into the Gowns, I'm listening to TV on the Radio right nowBUTDON'TLETTHATFOOLYOU! I don't really know much about them and have barely listened to them, but every single person I know who loves music loves them, and I've really liked the few songs I've heard by them, so now I finally have one of their albums. But it's only the newest one.
Pretty cool.
So, I feel great.
Yes, great.
Not particularly right now, although I do feel pretty good right now, here on my bed with the cold, overcast weather swirling outside in the sky and the streets as I think and take it easy, warm inside the house but cold enough to remember what it's like outside. It's nice.
I've been coming to really appreciate the place in which I live, out here in the mountains but only three hours from the nearest musical center. There are a lot of things I like about living here, but I don't think I could really express them well in writing; things just feel good here. It's interesting because one of the things I love the most about being in the city is the feeling of complete anonymity, being able to walk everywhere and watch people and try different things knowing that people don't know you and probably aren't that interested in finding out what you are doing. But here in this town of 4,400, pretty much everyone knows each other or is related to each other somehow. I run into my students and their families all over the place! It's really pretty interesting. I'm starting to get used to it and like it, in its own way. A lot of things here actually remind me of home, particularly when I went down to the nearest convenience store after work the other week and found like 12 of my students walking back up from it on my way down. I thought, "Huh, I guess in a little town like this, even a convenience store could become a main center for kids to hang out." Then I thought...,"Wait, what do I do with my friends when we hang around our city? We usually...walk around talking and...wind up at the nearest 7-11 getting a snack and hanging out there, haha." So that was fun to think about.
Whenever I get homesick while I'm driving, I just imagine I'm going the wrong way on the left lane and that I'm going to get hit by the next car that comes my way.
I've been eating goya champloo constantly for the past two weeks or so. I love it.
So here you can see my progression, from start to the latest try:
Hey, this album is really sweet.
Yes, that is delicious egg running all over the satsuma imo (potatoe) and goya and tofu and aahh.
However, the next experiment may be the crowning success of this endeavor...
What is that? Yes, yes, it is an egg dropped right into the middle of a sizzling goodness of goya, tofu, paprika (?...looks like just a big, delicious bell pepper to me, but they call it that here), and kim chi. Let's get a closer look:
This was awesome.
So, in the end, the third one, with the runny egg, and the kim chi one have been my favorite. The egg was just the perfect consistency in that number #3! I'm gonna want to try that again so I can get that perfect midway point between cooked and raw again. Number #6 was also quite delicious, but I think that's mainly because I just mixed in a whole package of kim chi, so for that reason I am more partial to number #3, which took more of my own ideas. Anyways, delicious!! All of them! I think it might be time to try some other vegetables as the main part of my dishes for a while now (although I still have one or two goya left that I gotta use before they get moldy oh wait they already started that and the last two I've used I've had to cut off the mold and think maybe the heat and all else will make it all okay...after all, mold is bound to have some kind of nutritional value, too?). I also made a goya mix yesterday and tried steaming it a bit with a lemon juice-shoyu (soy sauce) mix, but that wasn't as good. The sauce was, but I think I've begun to try to mix too much together at one time. I'm thinking of exploring some more simplistic foods next. I tried doing a miso kabocha, Japanese pumpkin steamed then boiled with some miso mixture. I ignored my sixth sense though and put too much miso in, which resulted in a really intense taste. I could try again this week.
But anyway, I think I have gotten to know goya champloo pretty well.
RUNNING!
Yes! I was feeling pretty sluggish and feeling myself get more and more out of shape was kind of getting on me, so last week, I just went out and ran to an area of town I've been wanting to check out. And it was AWESOME. I ended up running up from the main highway, along which I live, to a residential area in the hills with lots of farm fields, houses, windy roadage, trees, mountains around me, and the sky above me. I thought I'd run up to the Forest Station, which is up in the hills, but when I got to the 2 km point, the sky was looking like it was ready to get dark pretty soon so I made a good decision and turned back after looking up the road and telling it, "I'll see you next time, just you wait."
That was a great run. I was completely energized, didn't get any cramps really that lasted a significant amount of time, and found my breathing and rhythm really well and quickly! I think I ended up running about - Man, this album is really good. Damn! - 8 km, which I think works itself out to around 4-4.5 miles. And I felt great! It was getting into darkness when I got back home, so the fact that I had judged the sky well made me feel even better.
I started feeling so much better after that. I love the feeling of being sore for the whole week after I run like that.
After that I had been wanting to run more but was so busy this week I didn't get the chance. THEN, yesterday I just put everything aside and went out and ran again! The same course except this time I went all the way to the top. And oh boy am I glad I didn't try to do that the first time. I would have gotten back so much later. The last 2 km to the Forest Station were also entirely uphill at an angle that reminded me of Mt. SAC's course. I mean, pretty much the entire route is uphill, but the previous few kms didn't feel like anything compared to this. Man, at a couple of points, I was running at a speed that was barely faster than walking, but that was kind of cool, too, because it reminded me of doing the extra long, exhausting runs that have always made me feel alive. When I finally got to the top, it was so amazing. I rounded the flat top of this hill and found myself looking down on the majestic, small sprawl of the different lots and buildings that are the Forest Station. I walked around there for a while, looked at some motorcyclers that were taking a break too, checked out a river that ran nearby, just took things in.
And then I was on my way back. My mouth was pretty dry and I probably could have gotten some water somewhere there for a more comfortable way back, but whatever. Like I thought, the way down was pretty hard on my knees. We're talking some pretty steep inclines. And I was actually getting a little tired at this point, so I didn't feel like bounding down the entire way, yet stopping short of that was jerkier for my knees and got me a little more cramped in the breathing area. But really, that was nothing compared to the awesome beauty of the sun setting behind the mountains, shining its light through the lines of thin trees that filled the entire valley to my left. It took it easier on the way home this time than before, and when I finally got back, I was so happy. That was...just awesome. Haha, when I have experiences like these I find it hard to express them quite right with words. But I think you know what I'm talking about, especially if you are of the cross country persuasion.
It was also really cool because it turned out the house right on the corner to go up the last 2km is where a couple of my students in elementary school live. They were having friends over and playing when I passed by and it was really nice to talk to them for a while before doing into the final haul (which I had no idea was coming) up the mountain. Then, on the way back down, I was able to say hi to one of my middle school students and his mom in their van as they drove down, as well as the dad of the kids who live in that house on the turn. It just felt good.
Well, this is pretty long, but hey I haven't updated any of you all for about two week at least. I think those were my main enjoyments. I felt amazing after that last run, which I think averaged out to about 12 km, or maybe 7 miles. I'm happy because I've gone through periods of not running after which I get back into it for a little bit, ever since I left high school, and the first run is almost always the best, maybe just because I have so much stored up energy. Then the second and following ones take more actual discipline. But this time, I felt purely amazing for both of them. And 4 and especially 7 miles are way more than I usually do when I'm getting back into it. 7 was even on the longer side for high school practice. I am excited. I was more tired than I remember feeling after even a 7 mile run yesterday though, which was interesting, but hey, I did it purely out of desire and can allow myself to enjoy some tire sometimes.
If you would like to see the breakfast that got me through that run yesterday, here you go:
Yes, that is right! The greatness and simplicity of papas con huevos saves the day before it has even gotten past morning again!
I had made something like papas con huevos before that looked like this,
and was delicious as well, but yesterday was the first time I made pure papas con huevos since I've been in Japan (and maybe ever...?). It tasted so good. Haha, that's all I can say. The eggs were so puffy and it was just perfect. It brought back memories and images of eating breakfast at the table at home and at grandma's house when I was a little kid. Happy.
Oh yeah, a bunch of cool cultural stuff happened, too.
No, I'm just kidding. I mean, it did really happen, if you can really separate that from anything else I've been talking about, but...yeah whatever, it's not really a joke anymore.
The moon-watching festival was nice, even though the moon didn't come out. The town mayor said to remember tonight as the night we came out to the moon-watching ceremony and thought, wouldn't it be nice if the moon would come out. I think that is really awesome. There was no koto music but there were music bells (apparently different from hand bells because they are the "Japanese imitation of the foreign music bells" according to the group...?)! One difference I noticed was there were no big bells and they used more of the chime-looking ones. All woman group, most of them were housewives, the leader said.
So that was a nice night. I got to know some more members of the community as they asked me where I was from and responded with surprise to me saying "the United States of America." Hah, but beside all that, yeah, very nice.
My supervisor came by and dropped off a couple of ice creams for me a couple of weeks ago.
Yeah, insane right? Well, I've eaten all but two by now and might be addicted. They are so, so good. Plus, I love this:
Reads: Danger! Falling Crunch! We have put a large helping of big pieces of crunch on the outside of this ice cream. It falls off easily, so when you eat it, please use this carton as a tray.
I get to now think of "crunch" as a noun, as well as take extraordinary measures to ensure that I do not spill any of this "crunch" on myself, or even worse on my floor.
Well, I think that's about it, seeing as I've been writing for 52 minutes now. TV on the Radio goes really well into UA. And I really like Dear Science,. I'm moving through music faster than usual right now for some reason. Kind of cool. Still really into Beach House, though. And the Fernandez have been my staple for driving around. I'm also beginning to think that I will never get tired of Blur. So good. Speaking of which, on impulse I decided to cover one of their songs, "Sing," the other night, putting myself into another state of mind as I strummed three chords over and over again for 20 minutes, singing, screaming, moaning, crying, laughing, throat-singing, and just existing. Hm, that was pretty personal, but yeah, that felt amazing. I feel like I've been able to express myself to myself a lot more lately and it feels great.
Three-day weekend coming up with prospects of more hijinx in Osaka and an Afrirampo concert.
First, let's start this off with some mood music.
Gowns
Hehe, typing something then attaching a link to it instead of just copying and pasting the link reminds me of learning how to make a website in middle school. Does anybody remember that?
DOES ANYBODY REMEMBER THAT?!?!
Actually, despite getting more and more into the Gowns, I'm listening to TV on the Radio right nowBUTDON'TLETTHATFOOLYOU! I don't really know much about them and have barely listened to them, but every single person I know who loves music loves them, and I've really liked the few songs I've heard by them, so now I finally have one of their albums. But it's only the newest one.
Pretty cool.
So, I feel great.
Yes, great.
Not particularly right now, although I do feel pretty good right now, here on my bed with the cold, overcast weather swirling outside in the sky and the streets as I think and take it easy, warm inside the house but cold enough to remember what it's like outside. It's nice.
I've been coming to really appreciate the place in which I live, out here in the mountains but only three hours from the nearest musical center. There are a lot of things I like about living here, but I don't think I could really express them well in writing; things just feel good here. It's interesting because one of the things I love the most about being in the city is the feeling of complete anonymity, being able to walk everywhere and watch people and try different things knowing that people don't know you and probably aren't that interested in finding out what you are doing. But here in this town of 4,400, pretty much everyone knows each other or is related to each other somehow. I run into my students and their families all over the place! It's really pretty interesting. I'm starting to get used to it and like it, in its own way. A lot of things here actually remind me of home, particularly when I went down to the nearest convenience store after work the other week and found like 12 of my students walking back up from it on my way down. I thought, "Huh, I guess in a little town like this, even a convenience store could become a main center for kids to hang out." Then I thought...,"Wait, what do I do with my friends when we hang around our city? We usually...walk around talking and...wind up at the nearest 7-11 getting a snack and hanging out there, haha." So that was fun to think about.
Whenever I get homesick while I'm driving, I just imagine I'm going the wrong way on the left lane and that I'm going to get hit by the next car that comes my way.
I've been eating goya champloo constantly for the past two weeks or so. I love it.
So here you can see my progression, from start to the latest try:
Hey, this album is really sweet.
Yes, that is delicious egg running all over the satsuma imo (potatoe) and goya and tofu and aahh.
However, the next experiment may be the crowning success of this endeavor...
What is that? Yes, yes, it is an egg dropped right into the middle of a sizzling goodness of goya, tofu, paprika (?...looks like just a big, delicious bell pepper to me, but they call it that here), and kim chi. Let's get a closer look:
This was awesome.
So, in the end, the third one, with the runny egg, and the kim chi one have been my favorite. The egg was just the perfect consistency in that number #3! I'm gonna want to try that again so I can get that perfect midway point between cooked and raw again. Number #6 was also quite delicious, but I think that's mainly because I just mixed in a whole package of kim chi, so for that reason I am more partial to number #3, which took more of my own ideas. Anyways, delicious!! All of them! I think it might be time to try some other vegetables as the main part of my dishes for a while now (although I still have one or two goya left that I gotta use before they get moldy oh wait they already started that and the last two I've used I've had to cut off the mold and think maybe the heat and all else will make it all okay...after all, mold is bound to have some kind of nutritional value, too?). I also made a goya mix yesterday and tried steaming it a bit with a lemon juice-shoyu (soy sauce) mix, but that wasn't as good. The sauce was, but I think I've begun to try to mix too much together at one time. I'm thinking of exploring some more simplistic foods next. I tried doing a miso kabocha, Japanese pumpkin steamed then boiled with some miso mixture. I ignored my sixth sense though and put too much miso in, which resulted in a really intense taste. I could try again this week.
But anyway, I think I have gotten to know goya champloo pretty well.
RUNNING!
Yes! I was feeling pretty sluggish and feeling myself get more and more out of shape was kind of getting on me, so last week, I just went out and ran to an area of town I've been wanting to check out. And it was AWESOME. I ended up running up from the main highway, along which I live, to a residential area in the hills with lots of farm fields, houses, windy roadage, trees, mountains around me, and the sky above me. I thought I'd run up to the Forest Station, which is up in the hills, but when I got to the 2 km point, the sky was looking like it was ready to get dark pretty soon so I made a good decision and turned back after looking up the road and telling it, "I'll see you next time, just you wait."
That was a great run. I was completely energized, didn't get any cramps really that lasted a significant amount of time, and found my breathing and rhythm really well and quickly! I think I ended up running about - Man, this album is really good. Damn! - 8 km, which I think works itself out to around 4-4.5 miles. And I felt great! It was getting into darkness when I got back home, so the fact that I had judged the sky well made me feel even better.
I started feeling so much better after that. I love the feeling of being sore for the whole week after I run like that.
After that I had been wanting to run more but was so busy this week I didn't get the chance. THEN, yesterday I just put everything aside and went out and ran again! The same course except this time I went all the way to the top. And oh boy am I glad I didn't try to do that the first time. I would have gotten back so much later. The last 2 km to the Forest Station were also entirely uphill at an angle that reminded me of Mt. SAC's course. I mean, pretty much the entire route is uphill, but the previous few kms didn't feel like anything compared to this. Man, at a couple of points, I was running at a speed that was barely faster than walking, but that was kind of cool, too, because it reminded me of doing the extra long, exhausting runs that have always made me feel alive. When I finally got to the top, it was so amazing. I rounded the flat top of this hill and found myself looking down on the majestic, small sprawl of the different lots and buildings that are the Forest Station. I walked around there for a while, looked at some motorcyclers that were taking a break too, checked out a river that ran nearby, just took things in.
And then I was on my way back. My mouth was pretty dry and I probably could have gotten some water somewhere there for a more comfortable way back, but whatever. Like I thought, the way down was pretty hard on my knees. We're talking some pretty steep inclines. And I was actually getting a little tired at this point, so I didn't feel like bounding down the entire way, yet stopping short of that was jerkier for my knees and got me a little more cramped in the breathing area. But really, that was nothing compared to the awesome beauty of the sun setting behind the mountains, shining its light through the lines of thin trees that filled the entire valley to my left. It took it easier on the way home this time than before, and when I finally got back, I was so happy. That was...just awesome. Haha, when I have experiences like these I find it hard to express them quite right with words. But I think you know what I'm talking about, especially if you are of the cross country persuasion.
It was also really cool because it turned out the house right on the corner to go up the last 2km is where a couple of my students in elementary school live. They were having friends over and playing when I passed by and it was really nice to talk to them for a while before doing into the final haul (which I had no idea was coming) up the mountain. Then, on the way back down, I was able to say hi to one of my middle school students and his mom in their van as they drove down, as well as the dad of the kids who live in that house on the turn. It just felt good.
Well, this is pretty long, but hey I haven't updated any of you all for about two week at least. I think those were my main enjoyments. I felt amazing after that last run, which I think averaged out to about 12 km, or maybe 7 miles. I'm happy because I've gone through periods of not running after which I get back into it for a little bit, ever since I left high school, and the first run is almost always the best, maybe just because I have so much stored up energy. Then the second and following ones take more actual discipline. But this time, I felt purely amazing for both of them. And 4 and especially 7 miles are way more than I usually do when I'm getting back into it. 7 was even on the longer side for high school practice. I am excited. I was more tired than I remember feeling after even a 7 mile run yesterday though, which was interesting, but hey, I did it purely out of desire and can allow myself to enjoy some tire sometimes.
If you would like to see the breakfast that got me through that run yesterday, here you go:
Yes, that is right! The greatness and simplicity of papas con huevos saves the day before it has even gotten past morning again!
I had made something like papas con huevos before that looked like this,
and was delicious as well, but yesterday was the first time I made pure papas con huevos since I've been in Japan (and maybe ever...?). It tasted so good. Haha, that's all I can say. The eggs were so puffy and it was just perfect. It brought back memories and images of eating breakfast at the table at home and at grandma's house when I was a little kid. Happy.
Oh yeah, a bunch of cool cultural stuff happened, too.
No, I'm just kidding. I mean, it did really happen, if you can really separate that from anything else I've been talking about, but...yeah whatever, it's not really a joke anymore.
The moon-watching festival was nice, even though the moon didn't come out. The town mayor said to remember tonight as the night we came out to the moon-watching ceremony and thought, wouldn't it be nice if the moon would come out. I think that is really awesome. There was no koto music but there were music bells (apparently different from hand bells because they are the "Japanese imitation of the foreign music bells" according to the group...?)! One difference I noticed was there were no big bells and they used more of the chime-looking ones. All woman group, most of them were housewives, the leader said.
So that was a nice night. I got to know some more members of the community as they asked me where I was from and responded with surprise to me saying "the United States of America." Hah, but beside all that, yeah, very nice.
My supervisor came by and dropped off a couple of ice creams for me a couple of weeks ago.
Yeah, insane right? Well, I've eaten all but two by now and might be addicted. They are so, so good. Plus, I love this:
Reads: Danger! Falling Crunch! We have put a large helping of big pieces of crunch on the outside of this ice cream. It falls off easily, so when you eat it, please use this carton as a tray.
I get to now think of "crunch" as a noun, as well as take extraordinary measures to ensure that I do not spill any of this "crunch" on myself, or even worse on my floor.
Well, I think that's about it, seeing as I've been writing for 52 minutes now. TV on the Radio goes really well into UA. And I really like Dear Science,. I'm moving through music faster than usual right now for some reason. Kind of cool. Still really into Beach House, though. And the Fernandez have been my staple for driving around. I'm also beginning to think that I will never get tired of Blur. So good. Speaking of which, on impulse I decided to cover one of their songs, "Sing," the other night, putting myself into another state of mind as I strummed three chords over and over again for 20 minutes, singing, screaming, moaning, crying, laughing, throat-singing, and just existing. Hm, that was pretty personal, but yeah, that felt amazing. I feel like I've been able to express myself to myself a lot more lately and it feels great.
Three-day weekend coming up with prospects of more hijinx in Osaka and an Afrirampo concert.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)