Tick Tick... Boom! (Most of You Don`t See What I Did There)

So, this past week there was a bomb threat against the Mie prefectural government.  I don`t know a lot of the details, because I haven`t bothered to Google.  The only reason I even know about it at all is that my school is governed by the Mie Board of Education, and is therefore a prefectural property, so the teachers had to search the school for strange objects/bombs.  I got the short, translated version from my supervisor, after the news was delivered by the principal, but apparently the bomber stated that the bombs would go off on February 24th at 3:34PM.  That`s a strangely specific time.  And there are a LOT of prefectural buildings in Mie.  It`s likely this has something to do with the Summit being held in Ise in May, so there`s a chance the threat isn`t even coming from someone Japanese.  I suppose it`s rather callous of me to even think about it, and shows how incredibly desensitized we`ve become as a society to such threats of violence and terrorism (or maybe it`s just me), but all that`s really going on in my mind is, "What does a bomb threat from a Japanese person even look like?  I mean, the Japanese people as a culture are very formal, polite people...  It must be the politest, most apologetic bomb threat ever."

For those of you who are now panicked about my safety (Yes, you, Mother), I would like to remind you all that Japan is still probably one of the safest countries in the world, and that this is a very irregular occurence.  Also, I survived York University.  Which sits on the Jane-Finch corner.  And Disney gets a good few bomb threats that the public never really hears about (for obvious reasons).  I appreciate your concern, because it means you care about me, but I`m fine.  Seriously.

Today was my last day of classes for this Japanese school year.  I`ll miss my first and second period classes from Friday because they were awesome, but good riddance to my fifth period class!  ...Okay, I`m kidding, they`re sweet kids, but seriously, they don`t talk.  Even to each other.  It`s terrifying.  I`d say you could hear a pin drop, but you couldn`t because the room is carpeted and that`s why they won`t let us put a heater in the room, but that`s a whole separate issue...  Anyway, I thought I`d share some of my last homework gems.  I`ll be getting more next week, since I only assigned it to some classes today, but I have some of the earlier ones on my desk now.  So this assignment was to complete a chart in their textbooks about World Heritage Sites.  They had to choose a site to research and give its name, the date it was named a Site, its location, and two facts about it.  Most of the students wrote about either Mt Fuji or Himeji Castle, one class wrote almost exclusively about the monuments of Old Nara, and then I got this one:  Sagrada Familia in Barcelona.  Good for you, kid!  Branching out!  Googling!  One of the fact points, though, is...  I`m really not sure what`s happening here:
"Pope Benedict XVI came on November 7, 2010 and held mass and I poured holy water in a temple of Confucius and did sacring, and in Sagrada Familia, it was with Bali deer."

...

Yep, just let that sink in for a minute.

What does your mental image look like?  Because mine has the pope standing beside a Japanese kid (who was obviously not actually there and they`re not using the right pronoun), pouring water into a shallow metal bowl at the altar of a temple while a bunch of deer stand on either side of the temple.  And they`re anthropomorphic deer, so they`re standing on their hind legs.  And wearing priest robes.  And holding incense sticks. 

But why are the deer Balinese?  And what are Balinese deer doing in Barcelona?  Is there even a type of deer specific to Bali?  (I Googled it - there`s no such thing as a Balinese deer.  However, West Bali National Park is home to Javan Rusa and Indian Muntjac deer, and the Javan Rusa is technically native to Java, Timor, and Bali.)

Unrelated to anything else, I would like to take a moment to express how grateful I am that Japan embraces the lesser-known and not-as-popular musicals that no one likes but me.  I have a love of somewhat obscure musicals.  Not all of them, obviously, because some of them are obscure for a reason (they sucked) and no one should ever perform them again.  But some of them are fantastic!  An ad showed up on my Facebook last night out of nowhere for a revival production of Jekyll & Hyde that`s going around Japan, and I basically freaked out like the strange fangirl that I am and sent the link to Ros so that she could read it all for me.  She`s going to help me buy a ticket tonight.  She also found me a Japanese production of the German musical Elisabeth that`s going to happen in the summer, and I`m so stupidly excited about that.  I haven`t seen a Musical That No One Likes But Mel since the London touring company of Chess came to Toronto back in (I think?) 2011.  (I`m 99% sure I was the only person in the balcony who was there on purpose, and not because it was part of the subscription and therefore already paid for.)  Now I just need to convince someone that people would love to see Tanz der Vampire remounted, because there are few things as entertaining as hearing Total Eclipse of the Heart in German.

(A note for the people who don`t get it but want to: The title of this post, "Tick Tick...Boom!", is the name of a musical that no one performs by the same guy who wrote Rent.  So it`s a reference to the bomb, as well as an obscure musical.  Get it?)

WTF, Sports School?

Hey guys.  Still not much going on around here.  The school year is winding down (Japanese school and fiscal years run April - March), so I`m teaching my last few classes this week and next week, and then I have pretty much zero work to do in March.  I`m going to go out of my mind.  I predict another "What`s Happening in Mel`s Head" post in your future.

I was talking with one of my first year teachers today as we were walking back from class, and she said that she was surprised that one of the boys in the class was participating.  Apparently he was bullied at the beginning of the year by the older boys on the soccer team, so he is always really reserved (even for a Japanese kid).  I am choosing to take some credit for his new confidence.  My English classes are just so awesome and engaging that he can`t help wanting to participate!  And he`s quite good at English, too.  At least, his reading aloud is, which is what he usually volunteers for.

Oh, and I can also tell you about the school marathon, because that happened right after my last post.  So every year at the end of January, my school has a race that all the students are required to participate in (first and second years - by this point, third years are pretty much exempt from everything).  I use the term "marathon" here because that`s what the Japanese say, but it`s not a legit marathon.  The Japanese use the term "marathon" as a title for any distance footrace, regardless of whether or not it`s 26 miles.  In the case of my school, there are separate races for males and females.  Normally, the girls` race is 6K and the boys run 8K; there was construction along the usual route for the boys though, so they ran 6.5K instead.  I knew about the race in advance, and had even considered joining the students.  Then I got the plague, and there was no way I was putting my lungs through that, so instead I joined my supervisor at her assigned post near the finish to cheer the students on.  It was while I was chatting with her that I learned that not only are the students required (unless there`s a legit reason for them not to) to run this thing, they have to do it in a certain amount of time.  If they don`t manage to complete it in time, they have to do it again.  I don`t think they have to do it again the same day, but I didn`t really get clarification because my mind was too busy freaking out about this.  What the heck, sports school?!?!?  The girls have 50 minutes to complete the 6K.  That`s a pace of 8:20 per kilometer.  I can do that on a good day.  With a lot of warm up.  And if I`ve been keeping up with my training.  It seems less insane now that I`m doing the math, but at the time, I thought it was cruel and unusual punishment (I still kinda think that anyway, but that`s because I`m normally about as athletic as a stick of butter).

But yeah, really not much going on.  I have another trip to Tokyo planned for mid-March.  There are events happening at Disneyland that I must experience!  Extra characters!  Limited merchandise!  Decorations!  Also, we`re going to the Kawaii Monster Cafe, because it looks like most of my dreams come true.  Seriously.  It`s ridiculously flashy, with bright colours and cute things...  My childhood dreams met with Lisa Frank and then plastered themselves all over every inch of a restaurant.

I think I`m also going to make some cards for my graduating students.  Not all of the third years, obviously, because I don`t know most of them.  But my class of 20, plus Mayu (the English Club VP that Haruna and I confused with our excitability over anime with strange premises) and Tetsuro (the boy I had conversation lessons with on Friday).  That should occupy me for a while, especially if I make them at school!  ...Except our graduation is on March 1st, so really I have to have them done by next week... Rats!  There goes my plan to keep myself busy during my dead month.

Heh.  My supervisor is talking with the Japanese teacher who sits across from me about Disney.  It`s funny.  There are so many times I`ve caught conversations about Disney around the room, even on the opposite side.  Like I`m conditioned to automatically start paying attention when that name is said in the same room as me.

I`ve also decided that Friday is Tea Day.  When I had the plague, and Morita-sensei came back from her flu leave (seriously, it`s policy that you are not allowed to work if you have the flu, and you`re given five paid days to recuperate), I brought in some Organic Detox from David`s Tea.  I`d talked about tea before, when I got here, and when I got care packages/gifts from home.  But she never really understood the scope of Western tea-drinking.  So when I brought that stuff in, she went on the website to check it out.  I have never seen a woman so excited over everything before.  Like, I think I was less crazy when Ros and I discovered the original David`s store in university.  Everything was "so creative" or "so cute" (because she looked at the mugs and stuff as well)!  And the idea of chocolate tea pretty much blew her mind.  Last week I brought in Forever Nuts for her to try, since it`s my favourite and I now have a metric tonne of it thanks to Christmas.  She was so startled by the colour!  It took a bit to explain, though, that "herbal tea" to us means "hot flavoured drink made of dried things that are not tea leaves," and doesn`t always have healing properties or a purpose.
Morita:  So this is herbal tea.  What is it for?
Me:  ...To...taste good?
Today was Yogi Berry.  Less exciting than Forever Nuts, but still pretty good.  And oolong is a flavour the Japanese are much more familiar with.

Mostly Deer

Monday was my first day back to regular classes at my high school.  I was kind of dreading it, because I had this (completely justified, I swear) fear that I`d forgotten everything about teaching and I was going to screw up, or my lesson was horrible and wouldn`t work with the students...  This is why I just shouldn`t have breaks, ever.  Objectively, I knew I would be fine, but there was still that panic in the forefront of my mind going, "You`re gonna crash and burn so bad."

I was fine.  I asked for feedback from the teacher after my first lesson, and he was really enthusiastic about it.  "I think it was much better than the lessons before!"  Ouch, dude.  Way to trample on my professional feelings.  I know I have no idea what I`m doing, and I`ve been making this up as I go since I got here, but I didn`t think I was doing that badly.  I mean, I`ve always thought my first year lessons sucked in comparison to my third year lessons, because I get to do the crazy stuff with my third years, but they don`t have that comparison to make.  On their own, I thought my lessons last term were okay.  Ah, well.  Maybe this will teach them to actually communicate what they want with the ALT.  (But probably not.)

With my crazy schedule this month, I`ll be teaching my Monday and Wednesday classes Part 2 of this lesson before my Thursday and Friday classes have gotten Part 1, so I`m all over the place with my lesson plans.  Since I did a Canadian World Heritage Site lesson for Part 1, I`m thinking Part 2 will be a reading comprehension exercise.  I`ll write a short travel journal entry, but out of order.  The students will have to put the sentences in the correct order, and then practice reading it.  Man, this is not an easy lesson to make materials for.  I mean, the Sphinx?!  Who, in their right mind, thinks something so far removed from their daily lives is a good lesson topic for students who have to be reminded that there`s an `h` in `where`?  And then.  THEN.  We`re doing the comprehension quiz (true and false), and the first statement is, "The head of the Sphinx will fall off in a century if nothing is done."  This is true, but none of the students know this because the word century is not in their vocabulary and wasn`t used anywhere in the passage.  The passage they`re being tested on says "one hundred years."  Ridiculous.  I heard a rumour that we`re using different textbooks next year.  I can only hope they`re more relevant than this.  Except then I`ll have to remake all of my lessons so that I have relevant activities.

Monday night and Tuesday night were horrible.  Out of nowhere, the weather decided to get super cold and ugly.  The wind was blowing so hard that my windows rattled, and every little thing the wind picked up got flung against them, so I didn`t really get much sleep.  At least Tuesday was a Junior High day at my special needs school, and that doesn`t really involve much thinking on my part, because the teacher there plans the lessons out so well.  You`d think the Elementary lessons would be the easiest, but the teacher for those classes has less English, so it`s harder for me to figure out what she actually wants me to do.  Wednesday morning I woke up to snow.  SNOW.  And it snowed pretty much all day, blasting around in ridiculously high winds.  I was less than pleased.

Thursday and Friday were team-teaching conferences for JTEs and ALTs together.  They were... interesting.  And some were definitely more helpful than others.  It was definitely fascinating to hear from other ALTs and JTEs about the activities and work they do in their classroom, and their students` skill levels.  Many of my students are definitely below par.

On Saturday I went to see a mountain on fire!  No, seriously.  Mountain.  On fire.  On purpose.  It`s called Yamayaki Matsuri, and it`s a festival that occurs every year on the fourth Saturday of January in Nara.  This means I got to see the deer again!  I haven`t been to Nara in about two and a half years, so I was definitely excited to be going.  And I dragged my friend Mary with me, so I wasn`t babbling at the adorable baby deer by myself.  It was COLD, though.  Really cold.  But we didn`t really care.  We had an enjoyable, relaxing day.  It`s about an hour and a half trip for me to Nara (Mary was already on the train, because it`s something like another forty minutes to an hour for her to get to me), so we sat on the nice, warm train and caught up, because we hadn`t seen each other pretty much since we met in August.  I found the greatest train snacks EVER (Kinako Ritz Bits Sandwiches)!

Our chat somehow came around to pizza (likely my fault), so we decided to search out pizza once we got to Nara.  Turns out there`s a Pizza Hut about a five minute walk from the station!  Huzzah!  Once we got there, though, we discovered it was strictly a take-out location, so we had to order our pizza and then head back out into the cold to find a bench somewhere to eat it.  The problem: it`s not really a thing to just eat in public in Japan, so things like park benches are really only found at bus stops, and something like wide, sit-able planters are few and far between.  Finally we found a bench in the area outside another train station, so we could stop and enjoy pizza-y goodness.  

The street leading up to the park and temple was peppered with festival food stalls, and despite being utterly stuffed from our pizza, we just had to get these chocolate-coated bananas.  Because reasons.

After that we strolled through the park, just chatting and bothering random deer.  I also heard the deer for the first time.  So, for anyone back home, the white-tailed deer that you see while camping or in your backyard sound a lot like sheep.  They bleat, okay?  Not so much the Shika deer (which is somewhat redundant.  The Shika is the only kind of deer in Japan, so the Japanese word for "deer" is "shika", but technically that word still only applies to the specific type of deer...).  The Shika deer squeak.  Not like short, high-pitched mouse squeak, though.  This is a long, drawn-out squeak like a dog`s squeaky toy being slowly squeezed.  Basically they sound like Wheezy from the Toy Story movies.  

So anyway, we chilled out in the park for a while, until we got to the point where we couldn`t really feel our hands or faces anymore, and decided to go warm up a bit.  It was still a little early for dinner, plus we were planning to grab festival food from a stall and that really wouldn`t help with the warming up, so we found a cafe that wasn`t packed and grabbed some hot beverages.  Then we dragged our rears out back into the cold for dinner (yaki udon, so basically hot noodles and cabbage with sauce), and found a spot for the fireworks and mountain-burning that would be starting shortly.  Around this time is when it started raining.  Partway through the fireworks, it started raining harder (and colder, I swear, and the rain was already pretty cold), so I stopped taking pictures and pulled out my umbrella since I could barely feel my fingers enough to operate my phone properly anyway.

  The fireworks were pretty spectacular, but the mountain on fire was kind of anti-climactic.  All of the pictures we`d seen for the festival showed honest-to-god mountain on fire.  So we went there expecting the monks to come with a few torches and for the mountain to kind of go "fwoosh".  It did not.  The monks all stood on the mountainside (which seems really unsafe when you`re about to ignite the thing) with their torches of sacred fire, and the mountain was ritually lit up using some sort of system that was impossible to determine from where we were standing. 

Many people were heading out, so we went and got Mary a baked potato (it`s a thing here, baked potato as a street food in the winter), and then came back to see if the mountain was more spectacularly on fire yet.  It wasn`t.  Given the rate at which it seemed to be burning, it wasn`t likely to be burning well until probably at least 9 or 10 at night, and there was no way we were staying that late in the cold and wet, plus we would miss our trains.  So we called it a night, and headed back to our homes.  Overall, I would only recommend this festival if you`re actually staying overnight in Nara, so that you can actually witness mountain on fire. 

NOTE: This was posted two weeks after I wrote it, because I got, like, the plague.  Nothing interesting has happened since then, though, so you haven't missed anything.