Flu Season

Well, the flu broke out at my school this week. One of my second year classes on Monday was missing thirteen students, a third of the class. It apparently started last Friday and has mostly been confined to the second years. However, it got so bad that the hardest hit classes, 2-1- and 2-2, were told not to come in Tuesday through Thursday. They should be back tomorrow, but their absence has made the school quieter. 2-2 is probably the loudest/most mischievous class and their classroom is located right by the central stairway I use on my way to all the first year classes. In the ten minutes between classes, the 2-2 students are always misbehaving loudly just outside their class, making it difficult to maneuver without catching them doing something they shouldn't be doing. I was a bit sick myself starting last Sunday, but I just had an unfortunate cold which made work unpleasant on Monday.

On a related note, all of the first year classes were out of school today as well. The students weren't in quarantine like the second years, though. They were visiting businesses and public offices around Mito. All of the first year teachers were also out, apparently constantly checking up on all of their students and calling in to the head first year teacher with updates. The second years did something similar in November, but they didn't leave on a day when I had three classes with the teacher. This makes the second week in a row that I've missed three classes as the same teacher was sick last week and was out today checking in on her students. We'll probably just have to skip these lessons to keep them track with the rest of their grade, which isn't too great of a loss for them. The Eikaiwa class is mostly just for reinforcement.

Anyway, aside from all that, things have been pretty normal this week. Other than the unfortunate presence of natto (essentially rotting soy beans) on the lunch menu today. It's been a good week. I guess that's all for now. Until next time.

School

Hello all.

I don't have much of anything new to report other than I go to work for five days a week and teach 4 classes a day on average, but I haven't really described what that is like yet, maybe now would be a good time to do so.
At my school, each class has English four times a week. Three are normal English classes and a fourth is the 英会話 class (eikaiwa, English conversation class). I only go to the Eikaiwa classes. Now generally AET's (or ALT's, depending on your region) are usually required only to read new vocabulary or the text for accurate pronunciation, check the students' pronunciation, and generate activities (i.e. games). How much assistance the AET gives is otherwise left up to the individual teacher, which can range from just standing in the corner for the majority of the lesson to explaining every part of the class in English first so the students can practice listening.

At my school, however, I am expected to lead the lesson as if I were the primary teacher and the Japanese main teacher were the assistant. This was extremely difficult at first as I had zero teaching experience when I started and there was apparently a great deal they expected to me know already. However, the teachers were understanding and helpful and I managed.
My main problem was (and to some extent still is) that I never went to a Japanese Junior High school and I never learned the protocol. As a result, I'm never sure what's the same as the U.S. and what's different. It's really the procedural things that I get hung up on the most. But as time goes by I am improving.

Today, I was supposed to have an additional class, making the total number five. However, I discovered upon showing up to my first class that the teacher I have three classes with on Thursdays was absent, which no one had bothered to tell me. Communication here seems to be like that pretty regularly, and by like that I mean nonexistent. So, I ended up having two classes instead of five. I actually wrote this entry on a piece of scratch paper between classes in my spare time. So I guess I found something useful to do with my extra time.

I suppose that's all for now. Until next time.

Merry Christmas/Happy New Year

Hello. It seems in the year after my first time in Japan that I forgot how much difficulty I have keeping a blog updated. I apologize for the delay in posting this. I meant to get one in before my break, but I never got around to it, so here we are. Without further ado, what I've been up to the past month or so.

Work at school proceeded much the same until the end of December. Then on the 22nd the teachers had the 忘年会, (bounenkai, literally the "forget the year meeting"). In Japan, this is usually the end of year office party at which the entire office drinks and eats to excess. However, last year a teacher in my prefecture apparently was arrested for drunk driving on the way home from his school's bounenkai, so this year the party was non-alcoholic. It was clear that some teachers were not very fond of this condition, but a good time was had by all regardless.

Then the 23rd was the Emperor's Birthday, and as that was a national holiday there was no school that day. The last day of the term was the 24th, Chirstmas Eve. The first half of the day went as usual, but the last two periods were taken up by the end of year ceremony. It was much like assemblies in the United States, except the students sat on the gym floor, they were not shushed once, and there was a good deal more bowing (Speakers bowed to the flag behind the podium every time they approached and left the stage and to the audience before and after
using the microphone).

Mt Fuji from Kofu, Yamanashi

After school, I went to visit a friend in Yamanashi Prefecture (about halfway between Tokyo and Nagoya, just north of Mt. Fuji). I spent Christmas there and visited some of the local attractions. The highlights are displayed below.

First, I had a chance to try my hand at some pottery. It was a lot of fun, but...

As you can tell from my first attempt in the foreground, I wasn't very good at it. I decided to keep that one, even though the woman who worked there tried to talk me out of it pointing out that it had a hole in it. I told her I planned to put change in it and she then suggested that I use a cheaper finish for it. Again, it was a lot of fun.

Next, I got a chance to make mochi. My friend is also an English teacher at a Japanese public school, and a coworker was kind enough to invite us to join her family in making the New Year's mochi, which is a tradition in Japan. Below is a picture of the traditional New Year's offering at a Shito Shirne.

It's a mandirin orange on top of two balls of mochi.

Mochi is essentially sticky rice mashed into a chewy mass. You make it by steaming rice, putting the rice in a huge bowl and smashing it repeatedly with a large mallet, pictured below.

Sadly, I forgot my camera, so here is a picture of someone else making it. My friend's coworker took pictures though, so maybe I'll be able to get my hands on some of those before too long. Regardless, it was hard work, but it was a lot of fun.

I also got a chance to visit some shrines in the area. We took a tour of some smaller shrines tucked away in small neighborhoods like the one below...

...and we also saw some larger ones like the one below. The tradition is to go to a shrine on New Year's Eve and pray for the new year. We went earlier in the day to be ahead of the rush, but we expected more people to be doing the same. Apparently people trying to avoid crowds go late rather than early.


So that was the end of 2010. I met Amelia in Tokyo on New Year's Day as she was returning from Hokkaido, the northernmost of the four main islands of Japan. Then we went back to Mito together and I showed her around here a couple days. Then, Firday the 7th was my first day back. In the morning, we had an year opening ceremony which was very similar to the year closing ceremony. That was followed by a three day weekend (yesterday was coming of age day, so everyone who turned 20 last year celebrated their new rights to buy alcohol and tobacco). and then the first normal day of the year was today.

And now I'm up to date. I'm sure I've left some things out that I will probably add sometime soon, but this is all for now.

あけましておめでとうございます！
akemmashite omedetou gozaimasu
Happy New Year

Happy Thanksgiving!

I hope everyone in the states enjoys turkey day. It will go completely uncelebrated here. There was a much smaller holiday on Tuesday though, Labor Thanksgiving Day. It used to be a Shinto harvest festival in which the Emperor would dedicate the year's crops to spirits. Postwar, it was decided that the holiday should represent Japan's new constitution's move towards human and worker's rights. I guess that translates to everyone gets off work Tuesday with no fun traditions like the National Dog Show, because that's what everyone thinks of when they think about Thanksgiving.

The past couple of weeks have been a different schedule than usual. The teachers have had conferences with the students and their parents after school every day. Last week, all classes were shortened by five minutes, the cleaning period that happens at the end of school was moved to after lunch, and school ended after fifth period. This week, classes were normal length but school still ended after fifth period. Both weeks, all after school activities were canceled. Regardless of this, I had to stay at school until 5:00 every day. This meant that on several occasions, school ended at 2:00 and I had three hours to spend working on activities that it took about half an hour to plan.

Thankfully, tomorrow we will be back to regular schedule. Other than that, I don't have much to report. Maybe I can take this weekend to get around Mito with my camera, which I've forgotten every other time I've gone sightseeing. There's not much to see, really, but I can see what I can find. Until then, be thankful for something you have that I don't have access to. (I'd suggest either affordable dairy products or Mexican food).

Mostly About Food

Well, I seem to be failing to keep to my schedule. As such, this is going to be a bit long, so feel free to skip down past the festival description to find what's probably the most interesting bit (the pictures of the school lunches).
It has now been two weeks since the festival. I took quite a few pictures of the proceedings. However, as I was about to post them here the following day, a friend informed me that it is in fact illegal to put any pictures containing students online and pictures of teachers can only be posted with their express consent. So, I'll just have to make do with a typed account.
As I may have mentioned, I had Tuesday the second of November off to make up for having to attend on the sixth. School started at the normal time (8:15) and the students went to homeroom and the first three periods on Tuesday's schedule. Then there was some more time in homeroom followed by lunch. Below is a picture of what the teachers had for lunch. The miso soup was good, but the sushi and soba were not as good as the lunches here tend to be.

After lunch, students went to the rooms they had decided to spend the next three hours in. There were 22 rooms, each with a different subject. Most were led by someone from the community. In each room, the students and some of their parents worked on projects. The subjects ranged from traditional things like tea ceremony and stone stamp carving to things like making waffles or doing yoga. The science room really stole the show at the end of the day. They spent their time making water rockets (which they made out of two liter bottles and launched using bicycle pumps) which they were launching for the last hour or so across the sports field behind the school. Some of them could clear the entire field while others made it about ten feet before slamming into the ground. It was fun to watch. I spent the day moving from room to room to see what each group was working on. I was allowed to try serving tea in the 茶道 (sado-tea ceremony) room. That was an interesting experience, as the woman explained what I should be doing in very fast and polite Japanese, both of which made it difficult to understand what she was telling me to do. I managed to not scald anyone though, so that's a plus.
So that was the 6th. I then had Sunday off, as per usual, and then launched into another full week. Below are the meals I managed to photograph. It turned out to be difficult to do as I was attempting to do so without being seen weirdly taking pictures of my food. I've started eating with the students, which as given me the opportunity to be alone while in transit so I can take pictures, so my apologies if they're not too clear.

This was last Tuesday's lunch. Monday I ate in the staffroom (where I always have to get my tray of food) so I didn't get a chance to take a picture of it. This was a pretty standard meal. We always get milk and we usually get rice in a tin box. We also always get a bowl of vegetable products and another bowl of something, usually soup. It seems Tuesday was Miso. Also, Tuesday I was lucky enough to get the little cup in the bottom right. It's one of Mito's famous products: natto. Natto is fermented soybeans that tastes worse than it smells, which really says something. So far, it's the only thing I've been served that I couldn't finish.

Wednesday must have been the day that there were people in the hall everywhere between the staffroom and the classroom I ate in, because the picture above is of Thursday's meal. Again, we had milk, vegetables, and a soup broth. However, Thursday we had noodles instead of rice. The noodles were put directly from their packet into the broth, though only about half of them would fit in the bowl at one time. I remember this being pretty tasty.

Friday's lunch was an apple, another vegetable medley, milk and gyudon. Gyudon is a dish made up of thin strips of meat, onion, and other goodies on top of a bowl of rice. There are a lot of gyudon chains in Japan, and they're all pretty cheap. I think one chain, Yoshinoya, has even made it to America. I think they have one in Times Square, so next time you're in New York you might consider trying it.

Sadly, someone started to come around the corner as I was taking this, so it came out blurry. Sorry about that. Regardless, Monday's lunch was a bit odd. We were served a sort of bean chili, which I was surprised to see, along with our vegetables and milk. We had bread instead of rice (making it the third time I've had a meal without rice at the school, both of the others are also pictured in this post). The bread was kind of strange. It was a weird mix of sugary and salty which I don't know I've ever encountered with bread. Anyway, the chili was unexpected, but it was ok.


Finally, today's meal. We were fed a thick soup of some kind along with the vegetable bowl, today smother in dressing. As I'm not the biggest salad dressing fan, I could have done without. However, Japanese dressing seems to be lighter than American dressing, so I didn't have any problem with it. As I mentioned before, we're encouraged to eat everything on our trays to set a good example for the kids, though that can be difficult to do when they're talking to you and you're trying to figure out what they want to say and tell them how best to say it. So far, I've only had to be told by the homeroom teacher (teachers always eat with their homerooms) that time was up and I needed to be finished.
All in all, I think the lunches are pretty tasty. In any event, the food here is miles beyond what I used to get at my middle school. Also, they're not at all what I expected. I'm not sure what I was expecting out of Japanese public school lunch, but chili never crossed my mind.
Well, I think that's all for this post. I wrote more for the blog on paper at school today, but I think I'll save it for later in the week as this post has already dragged on for a while. I hope you enjoyed the food pictures. I think it's a pretty representative sample of what I've had there so far. Sometime I'll take get a few pictures of the inside of the sushi restaurant near me. But, I think that's all for now. More coming soon, I promise.

First Full Week

Due to tomorrow being a national holiday and there being some sort of community festival on Saturday, I had today and tomorrow off. I figured I could take a little time to blog about last week. I've now had 16 of my 18 classes (of the two I didn't have last week, once the Japanese Teacher of English [JTE] was going to be somewhere else that period so no class and the other was a third year class on a practice testing day). The students are fairly bright and for the most part very easy to teach. Of course there are a few who are clearly trouble, but even they are respectful. I think my favorite classes so far have been the first years. They seem to be the most energetic and the most excited to participate.

I've decided to include some pictures of what I've been doing. Below are activities I've made for my classes. The first was for the first year classes (6th Grade equivalent). They were practicing the word "where" and prepositions in, on, by, and under. I had them fill in the blanks with one object, one place, and preposition of their choosing. After that was done, I would pick an object, read it aloud and then the class would ask in unison, "where is my ____?" I'd pick a place from the pile (I had cut both objects and places and put them in piles on my desk) and answer, "It's in the ____." I told them not to worry about the prepositions in order to have a higher success rate. I believe "cat in the box" was the most popular, though "hamburger on the Moon" was also very popular.

I regretted the inclusion of "shoes" as they haven't studied how to properly use "are" yet, so every time I drew shoes, I was greeted with, "where is my shoes?" I guess I know for next time.

The next was for the second year students (7th graders). It was based on a dialogue in their textbook in which Mike was speaking with a doctor who diagnosed him with a cold. It was the same as regular Battleship, except they only had three ships (one 4 spacer, one 3 spacer, and one 2 spacer) and instead of numbers and letters, they would ask if so-and-so had a something-something. In case it's too small to read, the ailments are cold, broken arm, sotmachache, fever, and headache.

On this one, I regret writing "Their Ships" down below as technically it should have been "His/Her Ships" considering they weren't playing against multiple people. I feel less bad about this one though. I feel like most people say their instead of his or her regardless of what's actually correct. Still, something to avoid next time.

The next activity I was only able to use once due to the crazy practice testing schedule for the third years (in Japan, everything builds up to the High School Entrance Exam, which determines how good of a high school you can get into, which determines how good of a college you can get into, which determines how good of a job you can get, so the test at the end of 9th grade is incredibly important). Regardless, this activity was a competition between the different rows they were seated in. They were studying how to say that they didn't know when asked questions using to be, which is kind of weird because the order when you ask questions is different than when you make statements. For instance, "What time is it?" and "I don't know what time it is." The verb moves around, so I made an activity in which they had to unscramble the word order. There were five students in each row, so the first student would write the words in the correct order for the first question, and then pass it to the student behind them who would answer the second one, and so forth. The first group to finish with all the answers right would get a point, though usually it ended up being the first group to get four of five right. I actually had five rounds ready, but neither of the classes had time for more than the first two shown below.

I think this one went pretty well. You can also see here the evidence of the whiteout tape used pretty widely here. I don't know that I've seen it outside of Japan. I've been using it pretty frequently. I've already used half of the one I bought at the dollar store just before I started working. I was surprised to find that even though it's much brighter than the paper, the copier never picks it up. Maybe that's one reason I've already used half of one.

Well, I know there was a request for food, but I don't really have anything to show yet. The school lunches are pretty interesting. Also, they're pretty large and surprisingly tasty. I'll try to sneak pictures of some before I post again. I guess that's all for now though. Thank you for being patient with how long I go between posts. I'm going to attempt to post every weekend, though I tried that last time I was in Japan and it lasted maybe 3 weeks. I'll try to do better this time. がんばります!

First Day

Well, Friday was my first day at Kasahara Junior High, picture below. It has around 400 students, all of whom participated in the event on Friday. It turns out that it was a choir competition between all of the classes. In Japanese Junior High Schools, students stay with their homeroom class in the same classroom all day as the teachers come in to the rooms to teach the different subjects. Each of these classes sang one song, which took quite some time as there are 16 classes total and many of the 3rd years (equivalent of 9th grade) sang pretty lengthy songs. Not surprisingly, the third years were the most impressive. Of course, these weren't select choirs so everyone had to participate, which guaranteed that there were a couple students in each class that couldn't sing who stuck out quite a bit. Still, I was very impressed. My Middle School didn't have that high of a percentage of kids who could sing.


Anyway, that's it above. I hope to get pictures of the inside sometime, but I'm not sure when I'll get a chance to do so without it being too odd. Below is the Ibaraki Prefecture office. It's just a few blocks north of me, so it's a good way to be able to where I am in relation to my apartment when I'm out and about.

Just across the street from the school is my favorite restaurant so far. It's called Hamazushi and is a conveyor belt sushi place. (They make sushi in the back room and put it on plates on a conveyor belt that runs by where you sit and you take whatever you like. At the end they charge you based on the number of plates you have stacked up in front of you). It's pretty good considering it's price (usually runs about a dollar for one plate with either two nice sized pieces or six of the kind of rolls that you get in the US).

I apologize for the poor picture quality. It's a busy intersection with a long wait for pedestrians and cyclists if you miss your light, so I took this while riding the opposite direction. I'm mostly surprised I was able to get it into frame.

I only taught one class on Friday, so I'll be able to comment on the students more next week after I've had all of them in classes, so more coming then.