Photos for the day

I know he's out of office (finally!) but that doesn't make these pictures I found today any less hilarious or, sometimes, inexplicable. Please enjoy ;)

Also this one, because after all this blog is about Japan:

Success!

For my lesson yesterday with the third years, my JTE asked me to prepare a listening activity on Obama. Normally when we do listening activities, it's me reading from a script and the students filling in the blanks on a worksheet. Which is fine for listening practice (although not really, because it's completely superficial and in no way real life listening experience). But at the conference in Kobe last week they were talking about communicative English teaching, and how you have to incorporate reading, writing, speaking and listening to make a good communicative activity. The benefit of having an ALT in the classroom is that we are native speakers and can help with speaking and listening exercises. But I haven't been doing much of that lately. The kids hardly ever speak in class, because we haven't facilitated it though activities.

So yesterday before class, I was preparing my script as usual ("Obama is from Hawaii. He is 47 years old" etc.) when it occurred to me that this could be turned into a perfect "communicative activity." Instead of having the kids listen and fill in the blanks on a worksheet, I would read the script, and they would have to take notes, and then get into groups and write a summary of what I had said. I proposed this to my JTE. She seemed really skeptical, like she wanted to say no but was too non-confrontational to do so. I almost backed down. In typical Miriam fashion, I started to quail under even the slightest resistance (and it was pretty slight). Normally my justification for backing down is that someone else must know more than me, and if a superior disagrees with me, my idea will probably fail. But this time I forced myself to trust my instinct. I definitely thought the kids could do this, even if my JTE thought it was too hard. They're going to be in high school next year, it's time to challenge them a little. It drives me crazy how they don't have to work for things in English class. The answers are handed to them. With this activity, I wanted them to have to dig in and really listen to English with no help, then compose thoughts in English.

So we did the activity. I read the script, and the kids took notes, and we broke them into groups. Each group (in theory at least) had one leader, one recorded and one presenter. During class there were a few times where I had to stand up to my JTE as she tried to simplify the activity. At one point, she asked me if it was ok for the kids to just say words, like "47" instead of "He is 47 years old." Which completely defeats the purpose of the activity, to compose real English sentences. She really thought this was too hard an activity for them. If anything, I think it is just at their level. With this kind of attitude, it's no wonder why the kids can only speak English is single words. ("Pen." "Pen what?" "Please." "Please what?" "Please pen." "May I please have a pen?" "Yes." I can't tell you how many times I've had this conversation. You see why I'm bowled over every time my speech contest student speaks to me in complete sentences).

The kids did very well. I think the lesson was a success. I want to do more lessons like that. And the best part was, after it was over, my JTE turned to me and said "I was surprised, they could do it!" I kind of wanted to throttle her (partly in amusement) because of course they could do it! They're 15 years old, it's not going to kill them to be challenged a little. Instead of handing them the bar, how about setting it a little higher and making them reach for it? This is my goal for the rest of the school year. 

Craziness

Yesterday something strange happened. I had a panic attack. Not like a little one, a full-blown panic attack. I've had maybe two or three of those in my life, and this one came out of nowhere. I was in Japanese class, and my heart started fluttering, which it does fairly often, but it's never more than an annoyance, and it goes away. But yesterday during class it wasn't going away, and I started having trouble breathing. I got dizzy and I had to excuse myself. I went into the stairwell and put my head down, and I had to cover my ears because all the noise of the different conversations in the classroom was making me crazy. After a few minutes I tried to go back to class, but I was still dizzy and my head was pounding and being in the classroom was so noisy and overwhelming that I had to go back to the stairwell. I was shaking, and for absolutely no reason I started crying. There was nothing to trigger it, I wasn't upset about anything. It was like I had suddenly lost control of my body and my emotions, which was frightening. I've never shaken so uncontrollably in my life. I think it kind of became a cycle, and I finally had to haul myself out of it and go back to class, even though my head was spinning, and force myself to try to calm down and sit through the rest of class. 

I was thinking about it today, what might have brought it on, when there was nothing overt to really cause a panic attack, especially one of that magnitude (the only other time I can remember feeling like that was during finals Freshman year, and even then it wasn't this bad). Yesterday I came back to school after the JET Midyear Conference in Kobe and had a new sense of purpose. I'm really trying to improve my work life, and overhaul the bad habits I've fallen into, because I definitely fell into a comfort zone last semester, and I'm not putting enough effort into my job. So yesterday went well in that respect. But I think the emotional strain of forcing myself out of my comfortable routine, and the intense fear of failing to better my work situation (which I'm unhappy with right now) may have all come to a head yesterday. 

Actually, I want to clarify that. I am re-contracting for next year, no question. I like my life here, even when there are challenges. The biggest enemy I'm fighting right now is not culture shock or the Japanese winter (although the no central heating is a bitch). My biggest enemy right now, or I guess, rather, the biggest challenge, is my expectations of myself and what I can realistically achieve. I was so frustrated last term when I came up against the reality of my job as compared to the expectations I had, and as a result of my disappointed idealism, I fell into an apathetic rut. Now I'm trying to correct that. By far the hardest thing about being here is this job. But that doesn't make me want to leave. It makes me want to stay and keep working at it until I can do it well. I've never been faced with something like this: a job at which I feel like I'm failing. As a students, I always knew how I was doing, and because I knew how to be a student and worked hard, I was always doing well. But here, I have no idea how to be a teacher, much less one of a language I have no qualifications to teach in a country where I don't understand the language, the school system or the culture. It is incredibly frustrating, not to mention thankless, teaching junior high. With elementary schoolers, you know you've done well if the kids are having fun playing a game you made. Then it feels worthwhile. But junior high schoolers wouldn't be caught dead showing they were having fun. So you spend hours planning an activity, and making props and questions and lesson plans, and then, if (it's a big if) you actually manage to get them to do the activity, which is a feat in and of itself (you don't know how many times we've had to scrap an activity in the middle of class and give the kids word searches just to get them under control), you have no idea how effective it was, because they all look like they'd rather be having root canal surgery.

There's this, plus I've been stressing about the fact that I haven't been studying Japanese AT ALL. I had all these plans, and I do have time, if I use it effectively, but I haven't been, and I actually feel like my ability to speak Japanese has decreased in the last few months. Again, disappointed expectations of myself.

So when I said nothing brought on the panic attack, I take it back. Seemingly nothing brought it on, but in hindsight I guess the stress had been building up for a while before the cacophony and frustration of Japanese class pulled the trigger. But it caught me off guard because I wasn't expecting it. Though it may not have been completely emotional. I'm still dizzy today and I think I might be getting sick. Really hoping it's not the flu, it's going around, a lot of the students are sick. 

Pirates and Princesses Party

Saturday night we had a joint birthday party for Caitlin and Heke. The theme: Pirates and Princesses. It was our first party since everyone came back from break. Somehow I became the host of this party, and it was a crazy fun time, and a success, of the carnage Sunday morning was any indication. Does anyone know how to get beer out of tatami?

Spencer brought two of his friends from Chikusa, Sayaka and Hiroshi, both teachers at Chikusa High School, and both in their mid-twenties. They were both really fun, and I'm glad to be making friends with more and more Japanese people (especially young Japanese people).

Pirates and Princesses

Also, uploaded a few more pictures from Himeji.

Himeji

First Day of Classes

Today I taught my first class since the break. And why, God why? Guess who it was? 2B. The worst class in the history of organized education (well, perhaps the term "organized" is a bit of a misnomer...) Actually, it wasn't so bad today, either because they were better behaved, I had build them up a lot worse in my head over the break, or because I was expecting it and went in with appropriate expectations. Today it was my class, I planned everything and ran the class (only not really, the JTE and the judo coach were running interference the whole time). 

I decided this semester to put more effort into my work. This job can be really easy if you want it to be, you can just sit back and get by without doing much. I never wanted it to be that way, but last term I was really confused about my role and what I was supposed to be doing, so I kind of decided to hang back and just go with the flow, instead of following a course I chose. Now I know how things work here a little better, so hopefully I can direct my course a little more instead of letting it direct me.

Today I only had the one lesson, and the JTE asked me to prepare a lesson about Korea and New Year's in America. Normally for this kind of cultural thing I do a listening activity where I just read off a sheet, and the kids read along and sometimes fill in the blanks. I put pictures up on the board as I speak. I've always thought this was fairly boring, but I wasn't sure what else to do, and this somehow became the mode of doing things. This time, as part of my resolution to get involved in the actual grammar and such, I decided to find out where the kids were in the textbook and design an activity incorporating that and the Korea/New Year's stuff, which, really, is what I'm supposed to be doing. So I came up with this game where the kids are in teams and one person from each team comes up and they write the answers on the board. Each team has on the board a paper ball and post, and if they get the question right, the ball drops another notch. It's the Ball Drop game, and I thought it was quite clever. We managed to get through it, though not completely successfully, I had to cut some corners because we were short on time and the JTE had inserted a dreaded wordsearch into the middle of class, taking away 15 minutes. 

I spent 2 hours last night and all morning today working on this game, which I never did last term, and I'm hoping this will be a better term, where I'll actually be doing work and feeling like I'm accomplishing something.

My Car

By request, here are (finally) some pictures of my car. Enjoy!

Miriam-mobile

Himeji

Sunday I went to Himeji with Lara to hang out and do a little sightseeing, on the cheap since we're all broke after the vacation. We went to Himeji castle, climbed to the top and spent some time sitting in Starbucks reading. It should give you some sense of how very much we live in the countryside, that the nearest Starbucks is an hour away, and in Himeji it's known simply as "the Starbucks."

Himeji pictures

A Few Miscellaneous Posts

Michiko: Before break, I was over at Michiko's for dinner one night. I had just stopped by to drop off some Christmas cookies I had baked, and she invited me to stay for dinner. Gareth was there, and we cooked ramen on the stove in the living room. Michiko had suggested to Lara and Lana that we could watch a show called Winter Sonata as a fun thing to do for some Japanese practice. Actually, Winter Sonata is a Korean drama from a few years ago, that got HUGE in Japan. It's been dubbed into Japanese. It stars a really famous Korean actor named Bae Yong-Joon who is a megastar in Japan, particularly, I believe, among middle-aged housewives. Here, he's called "Yon-sama" ("sama" being an incredibly elevating honorific). We actually talked about this in my Japanese Civ class last year, that's how big this show is. Anyway, we watched the first two episodes, and it is melodramatic like you wouldn't believe. Two high schoolers have been best friends since they were children, he's in love with her but she doesn't know, then this new, brooding, handsome student comes to school. He's looking for his long-lost father who abandoned him. He thinks it's the girl's best friend's father. He and the girl fall in love, the friend is jealous, then, in a surprising twist, it turns out the new guy's father is probably the girl's father. Ew... He runs away leaving her heartbroken. Then he has a change of heart, is running back to her, when BAM! he gets hit by a truck and dies. Flash forward to 10 years later. The girl and her best friend are engaged, when back into their lives comes... guess who? It's the guy who died! Or is it? M-e-l-o-d-r-a-m-a. 

Student Journal: I was asked to correct an English journal kept over break by one of the third year students, TM. In one entry, he writes about his dream of being an interpreter and learning about many cultures. He says "Ms. Miriam speaks about four languages, and I think she is very cool." Yay! I'm cool :) I said during my self-intro at the beginning of the term that I spoke English, French, Italian and Japanese, but I may have neglected to mention I'm only fluent in one of those. I like when I'm asked to help out with things like this. The speech contest, editing students' writing, the English club, these are the times I get to know the students better. Just seeing them in class is useless for that. 

New Term, New Approach: I came into this job last term with no clue what I was getting into. I had a number of expectations, almost all of which were wrong, about what this job would be like. Now that I've done this for a full term, I have a better sense of what I'm getting into. I've set some goals for myself, such as being more assertive with lesson planning and communicating better with the other English teachers. I also know how things work here now--or rather, I know that any attempts to plan a schedule will be thwarted by the unpredictability of the school calendar, so I have to take it one week at a time, and make sure I'm proactive about seeking out the information I need, so I don't end up being surprised at the last minute as I always was last term. 

OMG: So I'm a little strapped for cash now that break is over (or rather, I've gone over budget and there's still over a week until pay day). So I was planning on not spending any money for the next 10 days--eating the rice and cereal I have in the house, for example, and not going anywhere this weekend. Well, back in November, my teachers had a drinking party. No one ever came to collect my money the next week at work, so finally I asked the English teachers about it. She said she'd find out how much I owed and let me know. We had another party before the break in December. Then I left for Korea. Well, today, finally, she comes to me: "Ok, for the two parties combined, you owe 16,569 yen"-- 170 dollars! Why, why, WHY this week of all weeks? 

Did you lose weight?: Today, the music teacher said to me "have you lost weight?" I really don't think I have, if anything I think I've gained weight since moving to Japan. I assume it's because I was wearing a suit, since today was the opening ceremony, and it's slimming. But there are two other possibilities: either I actually have lost weight (possibly from not eating for a week in Korea) or I've gained weight, and she was using the same reverse politeness Japanese people use when a foreigner opens their mouth and speaks terrible Japanese, and the Japanese person automatically blurts out "your Japanese is so good!" In the West we say "if you can't say something nice, don't say anything." In Japan, it seems the motto is "if you can't say something nice, say something nice."

Engrish: Added some more Engrish. Now with more Korean! Check it our here.

Winter Break: Tokyo

After I got back from Korea, I spent a few days recuperating and watching TV. Then on the 3rd I went to Tokyo to meet up with my friend Lee, who spent the break with some friends in Yokohama. It took longer than I had anticipated to get to Tokyo, and by the time I arrived on Saturday it was already dark. I couldn't find the hostel, so I had to take a cab (it turned out to be right around the corner, but it still cost me 8 dollars. In Seoul, the 20 minute cab ride from the city center to Lana's aunt's apartment cost less than that. Go figure.) I hung out for the evening with an Italian guy I met at the hostel who's name I think was Adriano. I remember when he said his name, I had a sense of a body of water, presumably the Adriatic, but then later I forgot his name, and I kept thinking of the Baltic Sea. But I think it was Adriano, because that makes more sense than Balto. 

On Sunday I spent the morning in Ueno park. I went to the art museum and a small shrine. Lee got into town around 1, and I went and met up with him near the hostel. We went to the Imperial Palace (you can't go inside, because it's actually the Emperor's residence, right there in the heart of Tokyo. Two days a year they open it to the public: Dec. 23, the Emperor's Birthday, and January 2nd. I missed it by one day.) After dark we went to Tokyo Tower, because the view of the city is supposed to be better at night. It was pretty impressive. After that, we went to Shinjuku, which is a cool area of the city, and tried to find a movie theater, but failed, so we went to an Irish pub (I know, very Japanese). 

Monday we went to Tokyo Disneyland! I'm on a quest to visit all four Disney parks. I've now been to three: Disney World in Florida, EuroDisney in Paris, and Tokyo Disney. Someday I'll make it to California. Tokyo Disney was a lot smaller than I had expected, but it was a lot of fun. I flagrantly disregarded the warnings about people with bad backs and motion sickness riding the roller coasters and went on Space Mountain and the Star Wars ride where it's like you're riding in a runaway spaceship. We did Pirates of the Caribbean (they've added the Johnny Depp character to the ride since the movies came out) and the Haunted Mansion, all the Disney staples. The weather was great considering it was January. It only got cold at night. 

Lee left to go back to Yokohama on Monday night, and I stayed intending to do a little more sightseeing on Tuesday morning before heading back home. But by the time I had checked out of the hostel and gotten to Tokyo station where I was going to check my bags while I went sightseeing, I was to hot and tired from lugging my stuff all over the subway system, that I just decided to got on a train and go home. Plus, I was re-reading the last Harry Potter book, and I put it down at the worst possible moment the night before, and I really wanted to finish it. I'll be back in Tokyo, probably more than once, so it's alright.

Tuesday night after I got back, we had a New Year's party with some people from out Calligraphy class (me, Lana, Lee, our teacher Fusako, and Yukako from the car dealer and her mother, Mrs. Miyawaki). We went to this restaurant called Maiwai, right around the corner from my house, which Fusako's son owns. It's also right under the calligraphy studio and in front of Fusako's house. I love living in a small town :) We had some great food, we played bingo, we chatted, it was a lot of fun. After dinner I drove Lee home, because he had just gotten back on the bus from Yokohama and his car was at his house in Ichinomiya. As I left his house,  backed out of the space and made a U-turn to get back on the road. It was about 11 pm and there are never any cars in Ichinomya, so it took me a moment to realize I was driving on the wrong side of the road! That's the first time I've done that since I started driving here. There are times when I get a little confused, but I've never actually turned into the wrong lane before. Luckily it was in Ichinomiya and there was no one around. 

Tokyo Pictures

Winter Break: Seoul

Over New Year's I had about 2 weeks off, so I went to Seoul for a week, and to Tokyo for a few days. 

I went to Seoul with my friend Lana, who's aunt lives there. We left on December 24th, around 9am, and took the bus to Osaka. We had bought a package train and ferry deal from Osaka to Seoul, which was cheaper than flying. From Osaka we took a train to Shimonoseki in southern Japan, and then took the overnight ferry to Korea, arriving in Pusan the next morning. Then we took a train to Seoul, and finally arrived after a day and a half of travel. 

It was freezing cold in Seoul. Somehow I didn't think about how much farther north it was than where we live in Japan, so I didn't pack any pants (just tights and leggings with sweater dresses and what not). Lana says she told me it would be really cold, but... it's debatable. We did a lot of shopping though, since things are so cheap in Korea. We saw two movies. Cost of a movie in Himeji (not even Tokyo, but Himeji, a pretty small city): 20 bucks (1800 yen). Cost of a movie in Seoul: 6 dollars. We saw Australia, the new Baz Luhrmann movie. I didn't really have any desire to see it, but it was actually really good. We also saw Twilight, another movie I had not desire to see (this is how cheap these movies were) but which I also enjoyed. 

Those of you who know me (which I guess is everyone, because I'm pretty sure my blog doesn't have much of a following beyond my family and friends) know I can sometimes be a slightly picky eater ;) I wasn't sure how I was going to do with Korean food. I realized I'd never actually had it before. The first few days we were there, Lana's aunt was preparing all these meals for us, and I didn't want to be rude, so I made a real effort to try everything. I can't honestly say I enjoyed it, but Lana's aunt was being so hospitable, I didn't want to hurt her feelings. 

We arrived on Christmas day, which was Thursday. From then until Saturday night I ate nothing but Korean food. Lana's aunt was accompanying us around the city, and she took us to a bunch of restaurants. Saturday night we went out for Chinese food. It was very different from American Chinese food, and I assume it was more authentic, seeing as we were much closer to China. I had been feeling kind of queasy all afternoon, a fact I attributed to an unpalatable lunch and a ride on the second deck of a double-decker city tour bus. The Chinese food didn't help matters (I'm getting nauseous just thinking about it). That night I got so sick. I was up half the night vomiting, and the next day I couldn't keep food down. I spent Sunday alternately sleeping, moaning and chewing on a bit of bagel Lana's aunt scrounged up (I think the first bread I had eaten since arriving in Korea-which is a big deal for someone like me, who's diet consists 99% of bread products). By Sunday night I was able to be vertical for more than a few seconds without feeling like I was going to pass out. But for the rest of the week I was unable to go near Korean food (or really any food). I mean, literally go near it. I couldn't look at the table when Lana's aunt put food out. For the next four days I lived on mini loaves of molasses bread and sweet butter from Outback Steakhouse (Lana wanted to go, and I was glad of an opportunity to eat Western food. However, my appetite hadn't really returned, and there was no simple pasta dish (they had all been Korean-ified) and so I ended up ordering fettucine alfredo, not what my stomach needed. I ate maybe a quarter of it. It was really good but my stomach wasn't very happy about it. But they gave us all these loaves of bread and butter to take home, so I subsisted on those for the rest of the week). 

Other than that, we did a little sightseeing. We went to two palaces and N. Seoul tower, which is up on a hill and has a great view of the city. Beneath the tower, there is a teddy bear museum

that had dioramas of Korean life throughout history. After that we spent another afternoon shopping. There is a big department store, something like nine stories tall, which is unlike anything I've ever seen. Each floor is dedicated to a different thing (women's clothes, men's clothes, accessories, shoes, home goods, food court, souvenirs, etc.) The layout is nothing like department stores back home. For one thing, everything is packed much more tightly into the space. It's not big and open like department stores back home. It's like carts in an outdoor flea market stacked practically on top of one another, but it's inside, and they are little stores, not carts. The aisles snake around like a maze. I got separated from Lana and her aunt a few times, which was a little frightening because I know zero Korean, and, I realized the first time this happened, I don't know her aunt's name, her address, or even what part of the city she lives in. And my cell phone didn't work over there. So pat on the back for me.

Shopping in Korea was a little bit of a blow to my ego. It's pretty hard to shop in Japan, because the women are so much smaller. I've never been, like, a size 2, but I'm not that big, so I've never really had a problem finding clothes that fit back home. But in Asia, it's like I'm morbidly obese. I wear a size 8 1/2 shoe, which I think would be about a 25 or 26 in Japanese sizes. The largest I can ever find is a 24, which feels like a 7. I haven't even tried to buy pants (which is how I ended up wearing leggings so often). and it's next to impossible to find shirts that can fit my shoulders (actually, that was a problem back home too). But in this store in Korea, it was worse. They only had smalls and mediums, if they had sizes at all. A lot of the clothes were simple "one size fits all," which I don't understand, because there are fat people in Korea (more than I've seen in Japan). The large sizes were in a special plus-size section in the basement. Ouch. 

So overall it was an up and down trip. I am glad I've seen Seoul. But I much prefer Japan. One thing I really hadn't counted on was how much culture shock I experienced in Korea. I guess I didn't think I would, because I've been living outside my own culture for a while now. But in hindsight, I think I experienced some pretty bad culture shock, and, in the second half of the trip, it manifested itself as the nausea I continued to feel even after the food-related sickness had ostensibly ended (or at least was a contributing factor to it).

So, Lana and I left Korea on the 31st, at around 8 in the morning, took the train to Pusan, the high-speed ferry to Hakata, and the train to Himeij, before barely making the last bus back to Yamasaki and arriving at 10:30 on New Year's Eve. We had planned on going to Osaka (our tickets were good that far) to celebrate New Year's there, but we were so tired from traveling, that we just went home. I ushered in 2009 by making macaroni and cheese and skyping with my parents. Not a particularly exciting New Year's. 

Here are the Korea pictures.