End of the Beginning

Wednesday there was a typhoon, and the warning wasn`t lifted by 11AM, so there was no class all day.

This is not actually my area.  This is a picture of Hamamatsu from the news.  But still.

But, like bus cancellations back home, teachers are still expected to be there.  I don`t even know how to check this, so I didn`t have an inkling that classes were delayed until I got to the point in my walk when I should have started seeing students and didn`t see any students...  My "rain" jacket that I bought for Norway is useless in the heavy rain here, but I found a sturdier one that actually fits me (and reaches to my knees) in the closet, so I wore that.  I tucked my pants into my boots, and off I went with my umbrella.  The problems: a) the jacket I found goes down to my knees, yes, but obviously the buttons don`t go down that far, so it flies open and most of my pants are exposed at the front; b) there was so much rain that the exposed parts of my pants were so incredibly soaked, my socks and boots were wet inside just from the water dripping down; c) capillary action means that the excessive amounts of water also travelled up, so I was soaking wet basically from the waist down.  And had to sit like that in the staff room all day.  Between the bottoms of my pants and my socks, my indoor shoes ended up soaked, so those had to come home with me to be stuffed with newspaper.

My work that I had yet to finish for Thursday next week`s lessons only took me until around 11 (it required creativity, but most of my brain was focused on how uncomfortable I was, otherwise it probably would have taken 20 minutes), so the rest of the day was spent alternating between looking up recipes, reading awful fan fiction, and typing out Beauty and the Beast in its entirety (because, you know, that`s a thing I can do...).  It wasted time.  I could have been printing out stuff for the rest of my lessons this week, but the good printer was being fixed, and I refuse to use the awful printer and photocopier unless I absolutely have to (translation: it`s 30 minutes before class and I`m desperate).

Thursday you`d never have known there was a typhoon if you hadn`t actually experienced it.  It was warm and bright and relatively cloudless.  I will never understand weather.  I also, for reasons unknown, had Call Me Maybe stuck in my head all day.  There are probably not that many songs I hate more than that one, and yet there it was.  All.  Day.

 You're welcome.  If I had to suffer, so do you.

My first class that day was fourth period, another first year English class.  These ones were actually really good at English and focusing, so we made it through all of my material in one class!  Then after lunch was my double-period third year English conversation class.  I like this class for a couple reasons: a) it`s an elective course, so the kids in that class actually want to learn English, and b) there isn`t a strict "they need to know this and this and this in this particular unit," so I have more freedom to make my own materials, like the texting worksheets I was talking about before (I showed them to Morita-sensei and she was impressed, so I`m really happy; I think it would have broken my heart if she thought it wouldn`t work).  There`s a particularly loud girl in this class, so I`ll have to work on finding the line between reining her in and just ignoring her.  She was excited for class, though, so maybe I can harness her loudness for class purposes?  I`m not above exploiting my students a little bit for the purpose of a lesson.

Today (Friday) was my last day of new classes (barring that one on Wednesday that was cancelled because of rain).  They were all first year classes, first, second, and fifth periods.  First period was okay, but again, most of the students didn`t really speak much.  Second period class had great English, and they weren`t as shy as the other classes at participating (though they weren`t as boisterous as the sports class; no one is as boisterous as the sports class).  Fifth period was really quiet.  And I got the boyfriend question in all three classes.  Seriously, I`m going to start a drinking game.

Well, after all that, I think I can safely say this will be a fun job.  I`m glad I don`t have to teach grammar, or I would like this job a lot less. 

I got the results of my health exam today, too.  My love of this country immediately died.  I have to go for further examinations and testing because I`m fat (Dear Japan, I`m aware that I`m not one of the tiny 52kg women in your country.  Go die in a fire.  Love, Mel) and my heart rate was high.  Yeah, heart rate.  That part where they shoved me in a room with someone who doesn`t speak English and clamped me to a table.  Gee, I wonder why my heart rate was high?!

But that`s it for now.  I`m heading with a group to Ise tomorrow for shrine and fireworks!  Yay!

Sometimes My Life is an Aerosmith Song

Wednesday was my mandatory medical exam.  That was so much fun, I think I`m on a fun overload and therefore can never do it again.  I love being poked, prodded, bled, and asked questions in a language I don`t speak.  Not to mention being clamped to a table.  I had to have an electrocardiogram.  I`ve never had an electrocardiogram before, but I figured it was just a matter of sticking things on me for a couple minutes.  Right?  Wrong.  Before the sticky things happen. you get clamps around your wrists and ankles.  How does this not automatically send anyone`s pulse through the roof?  It`s like the beginning of a horror movie, no matter how brightly lit the place is.

 (In reality, the whole thing is not as bad as I make it out to be, minus the blood sample because that`s always bad, but it`s really stressful when you have to keep having everything interpreted because they`re asking you complicated medical questions you don`t have the vocabulary for.)

After that joyous experience, we went to Mie University Hospital.  I`ll be working here about once a month with the inpatient kids.  I got to see the hospital classroom, as well as meet some of the kids in their rooms.  I`m really excited for this experience, because even though the kids are shy, they seem like they will be a lot of fun!!!  One girl in particular is going to be great fun.  Her room is cluttered with Disney stuff, and art that she`s done (much of which is Disney art or food art).

 As much as I hate Will Ferrel, this is accurate.

My supervisor and I had an interesting experience when we walked into the hospital, though.  We were supposed to be meeting the teacher from the hospital school in the lobby, and all we knew was that she said she would be wearing black pants and a black top.  So we`re standing awkwardly in the lobby, trying to figure out if she`s already there or not, and there`s only one person in the area wearing black clothing.  But it`s biker-punk type black clothing, including a sleeveless shirt to show off multiple arm tattoos, they`re wearing a mask (making them more likely a patient), and their long hair is looking like it`s never seen a brush.  So we decide this is probably not her, and continue to wait.  As we wait, a lady comes up to tattooed patient, they stand, and walk off.  We both watch for a minute, blink a few times, and then my supervisor turns to me and says, `Oh... It was a man...` And then we grinned and had a giggle fit that lasted pretty much until the teacher arrived to greet us a couple minutes later.

Once we finished up at the university hospital (including a lunch at the Chinese restaurant/cafe with an oceanview on the top floor, I kid you not), we went to visit the special needs school I`ll be visiting every Tuesday once classes start (except the times I`m at the hospital).  The teacher who showed me around had excellent English, and was really nice.  He showed me all of the school buildings, since I`ll be working with elementary, junior, and senior high students here on different weeks, and explained what types of special needs the students at the school often have.  It was a little overwhelming, and I`m not really sure of much at this point, but it seems like a great school and it`ll definitely be interesting to see how Japanese schools deal with special needs students.

Thursday.  Last day of summer holidays.

Last day to (easily) pretend that I`m doing work when I`m really not because the staff room is only about a third full.  Nothing much happened, really.  I realized halfway through my bike ride to work that I forgot my lunch in the fridge, so I had to hit up the conbini (convenience store) down the street from the school for food.  Breaded pork chop with sauce and rice.  Not bad.

I also learned that paying bills here is complicated.  Not the actual act of paying them.  Once you get the bill, you bring it to the convenience store (seriously), they scan it in, and you pay there.  The complicated part comes in when you don`t speak/read Japanese, and you didn`t know that prior to sending you the bill, they`re going to send you a separate notice to let you know how much the bill is going to be when you get it (the trees are crying).  If you`re like me, you`re under the impression that this is your bill, and you try to bring it to the convenience store to pay.  Awkward...

Today was the first day of school after summer holidays (though not the first day of classes; I won`t have a class until September 8th, due to other activities happening in the school).  I brought maple cookies for the staff (that I bought at the foreign food store last night, but we`re not telling anyone.  They`re Canadian cookies, so it totally counts), and my supervisor wrote out how to say that I brought them and to please help yourself.  And then the VP called me up to introduce myself during our morning teacher`s meeting and I completely forgot the sheet.  Fail.  So I had to write it out on another paper and my supervisor wrote it in kanji for me.  After that was a brief respite while the students cleaned the school (it`s a thing here, I`ll explain it at a later date), and then it was time for the opening ceremony, where I had to stand up in front of the entire school and give a longer introduction.  I brought a paper along for this one so that I didn`t forget anything/stumble over my words/stand there like a deer in headlights.  I was still terrified, but I think I did okay.  At least, my supervisor said my Japanese was fluid and and the teachers said it was a good speech, so I`m basing my thought that I did okay on that.  I am SO glad that`s over! 

The rest of the day was spent working on lesson plans, pretending to work on lesson plans, and trying to figure out how to use the computer lab for my self-introduction lesson because the PC in the language lab (not the 80s monstrocity, the other computer in the room, which might be from as late as the early 2000s) is broken.  All of the teachers I`ll be working with and I took a trip up to the computer lab with the tech teacher to learn how to work the network up there.  It`s a basic closed network set up with screen sharing, so I had no problem understanding how to work it, even though the tech teacher only speaks Japanese (we had to go through it a couple times for the other teachers, since they`re not used to working with things like this).

Also: My school has a song.  True story.  It has a theme song.  Like Hogwarts.  Except that it has a definite tune, and it`s super happy and cute and I have no idea what the hell it`s saying.  Sometimes I forget that I`m in Japan, and obviously everything has its own mascot and theme song.

Since all the teachers were back today, I got fed more.  Omiyage is a fabulous thing.