February: Running, Spoons, and Awful Candy

February began with our school's annual Marathon Day.  For those who don't remember or didn't read my post on last year's event, the first and second year students have to run a 6km course in 50 minutes.  Those who can't complete it in time have to do it again on the day for absent students.  I asked my supervisor what happens to the kids who do it again and still can't complete it in time, but she didn't actually know.  Either way, it's not a good time.  For the kids.  I had a blast, but my job is to stand there for a couple hours (the boys and girls run separately, so I'm out there for two 50-minute circuits) and cheer them on.  No pressure for me!

Before this, back at the end of January (and something I forgot to write about, which happens often) the second year kids had another run that they had to complete.  I have no idea how long it was, or what time they had to do it in, but they got fed at the end.  I was invited along with some other teachers to help make the soup that the kids would get to help warm them up.  It was my first time making authentic Japanese food, so that was awesome.  We made tonjiru, which is a basic pork soup in miso broth.  I'll be honest, there were some things the other teachers were cutting up that I have absolutely no idea what they were, but all in all it made a pretty good soup!  (I was given a bowl to "test" before we served the students.)

So, yeah.  My school runs a lot.  So weird.

I can't remember if I mentioned this or not, but way back when we had the exchange students from Australia, I introduced the game SPOONS to my conversation students.  My family's played this before, and we really enjoyed, and I have a scar from a rather intense game with friends in high school (rules to live by: 1. Never play with rings on. 2. Never play with long nails. 3. Never use plastic spoons).  Anyway, so I taught them this game, using erasers instead of spoons because obviously we don't have a bunch of spoons laying about in a language lab, but I made my own decks of cards rather than using a traditional deck.  It would have been too easy for the students to collect numbered cards, plus they wouldn't be learning or practicing anything since the game doesn't require speaking, so instead I made decks that required them to collect four tenses of the same verb (write-writing-wrote-written).  They really enjoyed it, so when I was stuck for lesson plans for my first years, I decided to introduce the game to my first years as well.  However, as lovely as some of my first years are, most of them are really, really bad at English and the verb tense cards would have been too difficult for them.  Instead, I made cards with different sets of four words that either we learned this year or they would have learned in middle school (animals, school subjects, colours, etc).  They LOVED it.  One class in particular even requested that we play it again at the end of the year, so I brought it back as their exam review lesson.

I also had a Valentine's Day lesson this year, since I wasn't following any kind of textbook or specific content guide.  I decided to introduce my students to Sweethearts, those awful conversation candies for Valentine's that taste like chalk that no one actually enjoys.  They thought my description was hilarious.
Me: So, we have these candies for Valentine's Day that are very traditional, and are a popular gift, especially when you have to give candies to a large number of people, like a whole class.  But no one actually likes them.
Class:  Eeeeh?!
Me:  Yeah.  You know how conpeto (a Japanese candy) just kind of tastes like sugar and not much else?
Class: *all nodding*
Me: Okay, so imagine that taste, but the feeling of eating it is like eating a piece of chalk.
Class: EEEEEEH?!?!
Sadly, you can only get them at specialty stores in very few places (Ros did find some in Tokyo) and they'll be in tiny packages that cost way too much for what they are, so I couldn't actually inflict them upon my kids.  What I did instead was made pages with hearts on them with actual messages that you can find on the real candy.  For my first years, they got a paper with four easy ones, and had to write at least one sentence for each of the words or phrases.  For my conversation class, each page only had one heart with a word or phrase, but some of them were more difficult, and they had to write a five-line dialogue using that word or phrase.  I got some pretty creative ones!

One of the last things I did this school year, just with a couple classes who ended up with more lessons than the other classes, was a "pub quiz" style lesson.  I had three rounds with the themes 'Grammar and Sentences', 'Vocabulary', and 'Dictation', plus a bonus round with general knowledge, questions about me and Canada, stuff like that.  They really enjoyed that activity, too, but it's definitely only something that you can do at the end of the year, otherwise you wouldn't have enough material to work from.

That's all for February (that I can remember right now)!  Not sure how much there will be to tell about March.  March is the "I get paid to click around the internet" month because there's nothing for me to work on for classes until we get the new staff and class assignments after April 1st.  Yay.

Shaking Things Up

Well, we`re gearing up for a new school year (finally).  April 1st was officially the start of the new year, so all of the new teachers started that day.  There were a bunch of meetings, all of which were in Japanese, that I wasn`t expected to attend, so I spent the entire day in the teachers` room, virtually alone.  The exciting part of the day came at lunch time, when all of the teachers were in the room (thankfully).  The new teacher who sits across from me had introduced herself (and I already forget her name), and was settling in with some of the other teachers, when all of a sudden a bunch of people`s cell phones start beeping and whirring like mad.  Some of the phones continue to scream bloody murder, while others start with a "5...4...3...2...1...0."  The new teacher and I are looking around, and then we look at each other with confused expressions and shrug at each other like, "What the heck?!"  ...And then we look up and realize that all the cables on the ceiling are swinging, and the ground seems to kind of be moving under our feet, and we went, "Oooooh.  Gotcha."  And thus was my first earthquake experience in Japan!

In Japan, or at least at my school and I assume the rest of Japan, the teachers move grades with the students.  So all of the teachers who taught first year are now teaching second year, the second year teachers are teaching third year, and the third year teachers are with the new first years, with some exceptions.  My supervisor taught all third year classes last year, but we`ll be teaching second and third year conversation classes together.  I don`t teach standard second year English, but there was enough interest for two conversation classes, so the second of those will be taught with my favourite of my first year teachers from last year.  The bulk of my teaching, the first year classes, will be with one former third year teacher, one new teacher, and my least favourite of my teachers from last year (not that she`s a bad teacher, because she`s not, but she`s fairly rigid, and seems to have expectations of me that she doesn`t actually tell me about until I failed to meet them).  The former third year teacher, Shimozu-sensei, approached me Monday morning, and the following conversation happened:

S: So Mel, I`d like to know what your team teaching lessons are like.  Like, what kind of textbook you would like to use.
M:  Okay, sure!  *gets last year`s textbook*  I used the same textbook as the JTEs for their grammar lessons.  So in my lessons, we would start with the more difficult vocabulary for that part, and read the passage, either together or in pairs, depending on the level of the class.  Then we would go over the two sets of comprehension questions, and then I would plan an activity based on the material for that lesson.
S: So you like using the same textbook.
M: I think so, yes.  It makes it easier to judge the level the students are supposed to be at, and I can see what grammar they`re learning and are expected to already know.
S: So you don`t want to use another textbook?
M: I could, but it might make things more difficult.
S: But what about other activities?
M: Well, like I said, I plan my own activites based on the textbook, plus I do activities without the textbook for special occasions like Halloween, Christmas, etc.
S: So, we`re going to discuss this and we will let you know.  We will probably ask you to do things you don`t want to do, so please be kind to us.

....So this conversation, combined with the facial expressions I was reading, was basically, "I`m asking you for the sake of politeness, but we don`t want to do what you want to do, so we`re just going to take your opinion and toss it."  Which I`m fine with, really, so long as they actually communicate what they want from me.  Honestly.  The lack of communication is the thing that bothers me most anywhere, but especially here.  So many of the world`s problems could be solved with proper communication! (Or tea.  Or duct tape.  One of the three, depending on the problem at hand.)

On a happier note, the new teacher who sits across from me speaks some English!  Her grammar needs some work, and she doesn`t have a ton of vocabulary, but she`s still easy enough to understand.  And she wants to improve, so I told her she`s welcome to talk with me anytime.  She seems super nice, so that`s a plus too.  I was sad when the previous teacher left, because even though we didn`t talk much, we had kind of a comraderie since she also attended our ladies` lunch days, but I`m pleased with this new person.  Even if I can`t remember her name.  (I`ll get it eventually.)

Today Shimozu-sensei came up to me again, and told me the teachers talked about their lessons with me.  They want the students to feel comfortable with English, and to see English as a fun thing, and as a useable tool rather than something strictly in the textbook (I completely agree).  So apparently they want my lessons to be maybe a few textbook things, but mostly games and songs.  I am... totally okay with this.  This requires so much less work on my part.  It`s often difficult to figure out the timing of textbook lessons, because you don`t know how quickly or slowly students will be able to complete a given exercise.  I would sit at my desk for 10 minutes sometimes, just trying to figure out how much time each section of a lesson would take, so that I had time to go through everything they needed to be taught.  Games are so much easier to time! 

Tonight is our welcome/leaving party in honour of all the teachers who have changed for this coming year.  Should be lots of fun!  Except for the part where it`s random seating again (like the holiday party), and there are still very few English-speaking teachers.  I just have to hope I get lucky enough to sit with one of them again!  But the food will be beyond fabulous again, I know, because it`s at the same place, so at the very least I have that to look forward to!

Alliteration Week, or Christmas Carols and French Food

Elementary school students are adorable, and I love all of them.  Particularly the ones in my Grade 1-4 class, because they get to do all the fun stuff.  Grade 5-6 has to actually do work and, like, count and stuff.  We get to sing in Grade 1-4!  ...Which, admittedly, is a lot harder when you`ve got a cough and are wearing a mask, but having 10 small children excitedly yell-singing "We Wish You a Merry Christmas" is entertaining anyway.

I had to drop The Chipmunk Song from my first year lessons.  I am displeased.  The only recording I could find to use was the one from the 60s, and it`s a bit harder to understand the voices, I think, as a non-native English speaker.  I know the one my family has on cassette that has Santa and the Chipmunks telling the story of Alvin and his golden echo harmonica is clearer, but I couldn`t find that version anywhere.  We only had time for one song in my class on Wednesday (they had exam stuff to go over), so I did Let It Snow, because it`s easier and shorter than Where Are You, Christmas?  The kids seemed to enjoy it, but I had a hard time convincing them to sing along after we finished the fill-in-the-blank lyric sheet.  I also changed the `Letters to Santa` to a Christmas vocabulary game, at the teacher`s request, so we had a Christmas word spelling race.  It`s so much fun to watch their teams freak out on the person spelling at the board.  Like when I gave them the word "present," and one team is screaming at their speller, "No, S, S!!! Not Z, S!!!"  Good times.

Wednesday afternoon there was a teachers` meeting at 3:00.  I don`t attend these because they`re entirely in Japanese and don`t affect me in any way whatsoever and therefore it would be pointless, so I stayed in the teachers` room by myself.  Normally these don`t take place until 4:00 anyway and Morita-sensei just tells me to leave early, but I couldn`t this time, so I was stuck by myself in the room, with a wall clock that puts my old one at home to shame and has me singing the Potter Puppet Pals` Mysterious Ticking Noise in my head ("It`s a pipe bomb!  Yaaaay!") because that`s what it sounds like.

Despite the fact that my draft isn`t actually finished (like, "gaps you could fly a plane through" unfinished), I`ve started editing my novel.  I`m hoping it will help organize or solidify the thoughts running through my head about what still needs to be written, and force me to focus on what is needed versus what is completely unnecessary and doesn`t warrant continued thought.  I`m working in three colours.  Green is for additions (though I`m not even really working in that colour yet unless I absolutely have to), red is for corrections, and purple is to note something that needs to stay in, but desperately needs to be rewritten.  Sometimes "rewritten" means "this is just a bit off and could be said better," but sometimes it means "what the bleep were you drinking when you wrote this?"  It`s... interesting, to say the least.

On Friday I had both of my favourite 1st Year classes, and we had a lot of fun with singing and spelling.  Also, I did a short "Christmas Quiz" to see how many things they knew/could guess about Christmas in general, Christmas in Canada, and my family`s personal Christmas.  My favourite question is:
"In Mel`s family, she and her sisters usually open their stockings:
a) In the afternoon
b) At 3:00 in the morning
c) After breakfast
d) After dinner."
So of course the kids like to pick b, because it`s the craziest answer and they think there`s no way it`s actually the right answer.  And then they freak out and are all like, "Eeeeeh?!?!" when I tell them that they`re right.  The JTEs think it`s hilarious when I proceed to explain the whole thing.
"Your stocking gets filled after you go to sleep.  So, my sisters and I wake up every Christmas at 3 AM (without an alarm, somehow we just know to wake up then), go through our stockings in the dark so that we don`t wake anyone else up, put everything back in the stocking, and then go back to bed until 7 o`clock!"

I also had my geekiest half hour at school to date.  Due to the impending Star Wars Episode VII release (which I desperately need to find an English-audio-playing theatre for, because there`s no way I`m missing that on opening weekend), I chose an ESL article about Star Wars Day on May 4th.  The thing is, Tetsuro has never actually seen Star Wars, so he had a lot of questions about the things mentioned in the article.  Despite that, it was a really great lesson, and we somehow managed to get in a good back-and-forth, which is good because when he told me that he hadn`t seen Star Wars ("Seriously?!?!?!" I said in my mind) I was afraid this would turn into Mel`s Star Wars Lecture.  But the article mentioned enough specific things (The Force, Darth Vader, blue milk...) that he could ask specific questions, rather than just, "So, what is Star Wars about?"

After Ros helped me navigate the horror that was buying a ticket in advance for Star Wars: The Force Awakens on Friday night, I did virtually nothing else with my weekend.  A lot of knitting and watching Christmas movies.  It was glorious!

Tuesday this week was my high school students (which turned into singular student, because one was out with stomach trouble).  Just before my lesson, one of the other high school teachers came rushing over to my desk.
Teacher: Mel-sensei, please come with me to the music room!
Me: ...Now?  (thinking, okay, my lesson is about to start in 5 minutes...)
Teacher: Yes, please come!
Me: Okay...
So I followed her up to the music room, where my student is playing Jingle Bells with the music teacher, using actual bells.  And we had to wear Christmas headbands while we listened, because Japan.  I was highly amused.  I was also awkwardly the centre of attention at one point (I think it might have been earlier that morning), when the same teacher had walked by my desk and saw what I was doing (studying Japanese).  She was like, "Mel, you`re studying Japanese?!"  This exclamation then brought three additional teachers over to my desk to see what I was studying.  There was some discussion in Japanese going on about what was actually on my screen at that moment, most of which I didn`t understand, but I did catch someone saying, "That`s difficult even for Japanese people!" which made me feel a lot better, because I just wasn`t getting it.

Wednesday was a kind of year-end cultural assembly?  I don`t know how to describe this thing.  The whole school went to see a play, but not like Panto or any kind of Christmas play.  It was just a play that they got to see because it was the end of the year and this is a special schedule time?  ANYWAY.  So, we went to see this thing.  It was almost two hours of me sitting there, not knowing what was going on.  There were three boys, and an old dude from Hokkaido, and some other characters that I had no idea what was going on with, and then the old guy died.  Whatever.  I got a bit more of the story from my supervisor after.  It`s based on a famous Japanese novel called "The Friends," and it`s about three boys who are fascinated with the idea of death, and want to see it firsthand, so they start spying on this old dude, hoping that they`ll see him kick the bucket.  They end up being friends with him, and then he does, in fact, kick the bucket.  But this is also not the point of my story.  The play was at the Cultural Centre, so I had to take the train and then walk to the Centre.  I walked with Haruna (from my third year class and English club) on the way there, but on the way back, I was just among this sea of students.  Then I hear someone calling my name, so I turn around, and one of my female JTEs is yelling to me from across the street.  The following conversation takes place at a crosswalk across a busy street while we`re waiting for the light to change (which took forever):

Okuda-sensei: Are you going back to school or your apartment?
Me: School.
Okuda-sensei: Would you like to have lunch first?  With me, Hatori-sensei, Nagamatsu-sensei (the one who sits across from me in the teacher`s room), and the Home Economics teacher?  We`re having another girl`s lunch today.
Me: Okay...
Okuda-sensei: It`s a little bit expensive.  Maybe ￥2000? Is that okay? It`s French food.
Me: Sure!  Wait.  Let me check.  (I had topped up my train card that morning, and I couldn`t remember what was actually in my wallet.)  Yeah, I`m good. 
All of this, including small talk about the noisy street, opening my backpack, finding my wallet, checking my wallet, and then putting it back away, happened long before the light changed.  We still had to stand awkwardly on opposite sides of the street for a while before I could join her.  I love it when my teachers stop me on the street to invite me for French food at a semi-fancy restaurant at the Prefectural Art Museum...  So random.

Lunch was delicious!  My tuna/chickpea salad thing would have been pretty tasty, but this was so much better.  Instead of cold chickpeas and soda crackers at my desk, I got to have a relaxing three-course meal for a reasonable price.  The lunch set included either soup or salad (I had the soup - I have no idea what it was, but there was crab in it), fish or chicken (I had a lovely fillet of some kind of white fish that I`m pretty sure was poached, and there was lemon juice involved at some point because I could taste it, and then it was topped with toasted bread crumbs and herbs), and either coffee or tea (tea, obviously).  For a bit extra, you could add dessert, which we did.  It didn`t say what the dessert was, so I was expecting maybe a mousse, or (god forbid) creme brulee (I was really hoping not) or something.  What we ended up with was a plate of four desserts (that`s each, not for sharing).  There was a scoop of mango ice cream, a roasted banana with spiced nuts on top (not my favourite), a slice of chocolate orange cheesecake, and a slice of chocolate/matcha (green tea) cake with raspberry compote.  Don`t get me wrong, they were small slices, but still.  That`s, like, an afternoon tea spread.  I`ll have to go back sometime so that I can take pictures of these things.  I didn`t want to do it with my teachers, because that felt odd, but if I went with a friend I`d be cool with it.

L8r On

Wednesday
Oh look, it`s cloudy and they`re calling for rain.  It must be - No, wait, that`s pretty much every day for the past month.  Don`t get me wrong, I love rain.  Water and life and making things grow and all that happy nonsense, but this is getting ridiculous.  I would really love to keep up my running for more than one day per week.

This was my first lesson with the second half of the sports class, since their lesson last week was typhooned-out (it`s a word now).  They were... Well, frankly they were like every other class I`ve had, which shocked me.  I expected them to be more like the first half of the sports class.  Instead, they were quiet, didn`t really ask me questions (we crammed both my self-introduction and the regular lesson into the same period so that they weren`t a week behind), and stared blankly.  Their English is also not as good as the other half of the class.  We`ll work on that.

Thursday
Rain.  It started yesterday afternoon.  Mostly it`s just grey and drizzly and gross, but occasionally it outright pours.  Yesterday evening I basically just said "eff this noise" and went for a run anyway.  The universe took pity on me and it only spit while I was out.  But today it was back to full-scale drizzle/pour, so I walked to school with my trusty umbrella in hand per usual.  I spent almost two hours this morning prepping all the materials for today`s conversation class.  Today is phone/text day!  I`m so ridiculously excited.  And nervous.  What if this lesson isn`t as awesome in the classroom as it is in my head?  What if they don`t understand it?  What if I forgot to print something (even though I`ve gone through the lesson plan and materials three times)?

Before that, I had Class 7 of my first years.  I`m reasonably sure these kids are my favourites.  They`re not too loud, but they do actually talk to me and participate without much prompting.  I say the word "volunteer" and hands actually go up!

So, the phone/text lesson did not go as smoothly as it did in my head.  Obviously.  I thought my explanations and character sheets were simple, but I suppose I`m really not the best person to gauge what`s actually easy and what`s not.  But Morita-sensei still loved the idea, and if they "got" the characters (Haruna ended up with a character from our strange swimming anime at one point, so she had fun with that, and other people recognized some of the names I was using) they had fun with it, but it was too much, too quick.  Lesson learned for me.  Now I`m marking the sheets they completed, and the text message ones actually aren't that bad!  (The phone messages are a disaster, but that's my fault.)  My favourite so far is one of my Frozen ones.  It looks like this:
Anna: Let`s build a snowman.
Elsa: I don`t want to build a snowman.
Anna: Then let's go ice skating.
Elsa.  Yes.  And then I want hot chocolate.
Anna: OK!!! 
The juxtaposition of the two wildly different writing sizes for these characters is making me giggle like a madwoman at my desk.  It`s perfect!  ...I`m really glad the staffroom is mostly empty right now.

And my supervisor was just approached by one of the other teachers, which led to this gem:
Morita: Mel, are you good at math?
Me: (thinking she wants me to solve something for reasons unknown) Yeah, kinda.  Why?
Morita: The Monday after the holiday, there will be exchange students in the math class, and I need help translating these math worksheets and explanations into English.
Me: Uh...

Morita: So this is... (she translates it) quadratic function?  Is that right?
Me: Oh, right!  I remember that.  Vaguely.  From twelve years ago.
Morita: Please help me!
Me: Let me refresh myself on quadratics tonight, and we'll see what we can do tomorrow.
Morita: Thank you!  Do you have class second period on Monday?
Me: Nope.
Morita: So maybe you can go and help teach the math lesson that day?
Me: Uh...

So now I'm helping to teach math in a week and a half.  I mean, sure, I was good at it and could help explain things to my classmates when I was taking it, but that was when I was taking it,  not twelve years later.

Friday
I have two favourites.  My second period first year class on Fridays is also awesome.  They were super-awesome at volunteering for answers, to the point where I actually had to make them janken (rock paper scissors) to decide who got to answer my question.  My first period class this morning was alright, but these kids are so great!

The school bought me a set of lock/stopper things for my patio doors for extra security.  The nice man from the reception office and showed me how to use them!  His explanation was all in Japanese, but it was visual, so between the two media I understood everything.  To be sure, though, the VP called one of my JTEs over.  I just smiled and nodded through it, but internally I was like, "No, I get it.  I totally understand this.  I`m picking up what you`re throwing down, dude."  Ah well.  They care, which is the important part.

Last class sucked.  They just kind of stared, silently.  Even more silently than usual.  I`m going to start referring to this class as The Silence.

I spent the rest of the school day helping my supervisor prepare for the arrival of the exchange students on Sunday, and brushing myself up on quadratic equations and trig.  I discovered that I`m still really good at calculations, but the explanations of a lot of these things still elude me.  If you give me the information, I can crunch numbers until the cows come home, but I can`t honestly tell you why I`m doing it. 

Ah well.  After my cleaning spree tonight I`ll look up some more things and see if I can`t get some practical applications to cement my knowledge.  (The website I`m currently working with says "You can figure out how tall a building is just by knowing how far you are from the building and what angle the top of the building makes with the ground!"  My question is, "Why the bleep would I know what angle the top of the builing makes?  And wouldn`t that be `what angle the top of the building makes with the ground at my point?"  Otherwise this claim makes zero sense to me.)

In other news, it is now Silver Week!  I have three days off next week, but I`m going to Osaka with our exchange students on Wednesday.  Still.  Days off work are always fantastic.  In the meantime, Ros is coming over and we will paint the town... chartreuse, probably.  Maybe teal?  Red is just so overrated.  Anyway, my point is that Ros is coming, and we will be weird.  I`ll check in again after Osaka!

Getting Schooled (First Day of Classes)

Nervous left the building a long time ago.  Abject terror was the name of the game today.

My first lesson was first period.  Nothing like throwing me right in the deep end!  As expected, the students didn`t really talk, even to each other when they were supposed to be working in groups.... There was noise a few times, though.  It`s progress.  I was asked for the first time if I was married.  I expect that by the end of this month I will have wanted to start a drinking game with variations of this question ["Do you have a husband?", "Do you have a boyfriend?"... They never actually say, "Are you single?"], as it`s right up there with your blood type in "popular questions Japanese students ask."

I`m glad I already had the materials printed for my first class, because the big printer I use as my default broke, so I had to print things out for my other two classes today on the tiny, awful printer that puts creases in pages and sometimes skips printing letters.  Eventually I taught myself to use the photocopier (trial and error, folks, trial and error) so I only had to print out one bad copy, fix it up with my pen, and then make enough semi-decent copies for the rest of the classes, so I`m set until Thursday.  Which I keep thinking of as Wednesday.  Monday wasn`t an official holiday here, but since I had to be at school on Saturday for bunkasai I had Monday off, so now Monday classes are running on Tuesday, where normally I would be at the special needs school today.  Mostly my plan is just to get up on days when my alarm goes off, and sleep in on the days that it doesn`t go off, and go to class when the JTEs approach me to walk together, because otherwise I`m going to give myself a migrane trying to figure out what day of the week it actually is.

Anyway.  I had two free periods to do all of this prep work, which actually took maybe one period (technology is hard when it`s not in English).  My fourth period class was less scary, since I already had one class under my belt, but it`s still thirty-odd pairs of unfamiliar eyes staring at you and only understanding about 20% of what you`re saying. The second class was about the same level of non-noise, though.  You ask a group a question, and you get the, "You say it!" "No, you say it!"  ...And then no one says anything until you pretty much single someone out and prompt them to say it.

Fifth period was a "sports class".  I`m still not entirely certain what this means, but from what I understand it`s a specialty class for kids who want to go into professional sports or PE teaching.  I think.  These kids were the exact opposite of the previous classes.  Instead of getting them to speak, the problem was getting them to shut up!  They`re really enthusiastic, though, and they do try, so I think we`ll have fun.  I was actually able to play a real game of my "Jeopardy" self-intro instead of just going team by team!  Got some interesting questions that they wanted to ask me, too.  Like, "Are the UV rays in Japan strong?" (Uh... I haven`t really been sunburnt since I got here and I don`t own sunscreen, so... No?) or "What Japanese guys do you think are cool?" (Cool basically = super-hot-and-dreamy here.  The only Japanese celebrity I can name off the top of my head is Gackt, in the vague sense of "I`m pretty sure I`m picturing the right guy when I say that," and he looks like a girl, so I really couldn`t answer; I told the kid I`d watch Japanese movies and get back to him) or "What is your favourite Japanese word?" (I said "Shika!" [deer] with my hands on my head like antlers, and the kids thought that was hilarious).

I`ve heard a lot of people throughout our orientations say, "Don`t let your students know you speak Japanese!"  I disagree with this idea, and have taken a different approach.  I think back to taking French in high school. Our lessons were in French (unless we really didn`t get it, and then we got an explanation in English before switching back to French), we spoke in French in class, but we didn`t speak French with the French teacher in the halls! So I`ve adopted the same kind of thing.  In class, yes, I`m all-English because that`s what I`m contracted to be, and I`ll say "hello" and "good morning" in the halls in English because I know that they know those words, regardless of their level.  But otherwise it`s a mish-mash of Japanese and English.  Using my (admittedly limited) Japanese sometimes outside of the classroom makes me more approachable to students.  If they know that my Japanese is level with their English, it makes them more comfortable around me, and more likely to even just say "Hello!" to me first.  Like a conversation that happened recently (maybe at bunkasai?  I think it was with the anime club...):
Student: (Very haltingly) Do you enjoy live in Japan?
Me: Do I like living in Japan?
Student: Ah!  Yes!  Living in Japan!
Me: Yes.  It`s very hot.  Totemo atsui desu. ("It`s very hot" in Japanese.)
It just creates a more relaxed atmosphere when you`re not this intimidating, impenetrable wall of things they don`t understand all the time.

Fun Fact: Anteaters adopt this pose to intimidate their enemies.

My habit especially helps in the case of second year students.  I don`t have class with them, so if they know that they can still come talk to me and be understood even if they don`t know every English word and have to say a couple things in Japanese to get their point across, I think it will generate a lot more interest in English as a whole.  (And I never just answer a question, either.  If they need a word or some correction, I always give that before answering, like I did with the "living in Japan" conversation.)

Well, that`s about it for now, I guess.  No one cried, no one died; I'm calling today a success. I still can`t believe how often I`m updating this...  You`ll probably get less updates when everything becomes more routine, but right now everything is new, so you`re getting a barrage of "foreigner life in Japan."  Lucky you.

PS.  It`s raining again.  This seems to be the default weather setting in Tsu.  I`m not enjoying it.  It makes it difficult to go sight-seeing.

I'm Awesome: A True Story

Another weekend of nothing.  It was raining, it was gross, I barely left the house.  I did, however, go to the mall to get some household stuff and put together the shelving unit I bought earlier this week to go over the washing machine.  So exciting.  (No, actually, it kind of is.  Organization makes me really happy.)

Today I was in the school, doing a mixture of lesson planning and pretending to work.  I basically planned the best lesson ever.  Last week I was speaking with my supervisor about the lesson we teach together, English Conversation (third year, aka graduating class).  It seems like a pretty fun, laid back class, and there`s a lot of freedom for me to be able to make my own materials, so long as the kids are still learning whatever it is they`re supposed to be learning.  Awesome!  My first class will be my self-introduction lesson.  Cool, that`s already done.  Then I looked at the textbook, and the first real lesson I`m doing is "Talking on the Phone/Inviting." 

I was stuck.  I spent most of last week googling different ESL phone lessons, trying to figure out what to do, because the textbook is a) really boring, b) better than some of the horror stories I`ve heard about Japanese English textbooks but still not terribly practical.  The problem is that no one really uses the phone anymore, except for in business, so it`s difficult to come up with a lesson that will be teaching the kids actual things that they could potentially apply to their daily lives and not some vague future instance.  I messaged a friend who had taught Senior High in Hokkaido (thanks, Lina!), but she couldn`t recall teaching a class on phone conversation, and agreed with me that no one really calls to invite people anymore.  We text or Facebook (because Facebook is a verb now, as is text). 

So I`m walking home from the mall on Saturday and I have the most brilliant beyond brilliant idea.  It`s a double-period class (periods 5 and 6, so I have tons of time), so I`ll divide the lesson up! I`ll spend the first half of the lesson strictly on phone etiquette for business, with just a bit of informal phone FYI, so they're getting the phone part the curriculum demands for whatever reason.  Then the second half of the class, the "inviting" focus, I can actually teach the kids about texting, and have them practice inviting people to do things through text!  I refuse to teach them text "speak" until after they`ve completed the activity, though.  I don`t want to get them into bad habits.  I`ll probably just play some kind of mini-game to introduce them to things like "brb," "lol," and "l8r", but not dwell on it so it doesn`t really stick in their minds.  I`m designing worksheets that look like phone screens, with text bubbles and photos, and then I`ll give each partner the scenario for their characters and they`ll have to pass the phone worksheet back and forth as they send each other `texts.`  I`ll have things like, "Mickey is texting Minnie to invite her on a picnic," and then the Mickey sheet will have details of when he wants to have a picnic, etc., and the Minnie sheet will have her availability, interest in the picnic, and so forth.  The students won`t see the other character`s sheet, so they`ll have to respond on the fly based on what they get back from their partner.  I am so ridiculously excited for this lesson now.

Am I awesome or what?!

I spent this afternoon with the English Club students, because they had to make posters about me and my country for the school Culture Festival happening later this week.  So we got chatting, and that always eventually leads to, "What do you like about Japan?" which leads to, "Do you like anime?" which leads to, "Which anime do you like?"  The following conversation happened between me and my two third-year club members, partially in English but mostly in rapid Japanese (which I could understand, because I have the context for it:
Me: I like Polar Bear Cafe...
Haruna: Ah!  I love Polar Bear Cafe!
Mayu: (this is where the Japanese starts) Polar... Bear ... Cafe...?  Like, a polar bear-themed cafe?
Haruna: No, no.  It's a cafe owned and operated by a polar bear.
Mayu: What?
Haruna: Yeah!  And there's a penguin, and he talks like this [imitates old-style Japanese comedian voice].  And there's this panda, and he's super lazy and his mom is always cleaning the house, so when he says something lazy or doesn't do what he's told, she vacuums him!
Mayu: ....What?
Me: "Don't suck me up!" (the panda's catchphrase from those moments)
Mayu: Seriously.  What?!
Haruna: Yeah, that's what the panda says every time!
Mayu: Because she's vacuuming him...
Haruna: Right!  She's got the vacuum on against his side and his fur gets all messed up and stuff!  You have to watch it!  It's so funny!
Mayu: ...Right.

So by this point we've pretty much convinced her we're crazy.  It gets even better, though, because Haruna and I continue to talk about anime, and I mention Free! Iwatobi Swim Club, which she also enjoys (this girl and I are going to get along really well, I can tell).
Haruna: I like Free too!  Sousuke is my favourite!  And I like the voice actor for Rei.
Me: Haru is my favourite.
Haruna: Ah, Haru! (laughing)
Mayu: (again, switching back to Japanese) What is this?  Why is it so funny?
Haruna: Free!  It's about a swim club.  Haru is funny because he always wears his swimsuit under his clothes and he strips off his other clothes every time he sees water!
Mayu: He's always wearing his swimsuit?
Haruna: Yeah!  And then he just takes off all his other clothes whenever he sees enough water to get into, no matter where it is!

 And that was my day.  Now I'm sitting here, digesting supper and trying to convince myself that I want to go for a run (I really, really don't.  My thighs are like, "Nah, we're good.  We biked to and from the school today," but my stomach is like, "Uh, hello?  Do you realize how much fat is sitting on me?  We need to get this off!").

The First Couple Weeks (Or, What Am I Doing With My Life?!?!)

Well, I`ve been here a week and a half now, so I`ve had time to process things and adjust (except to the heat.  The heat in Mie [pronounced like me-yay] is disgusting.  You don`t even understand how hot and humid it is.  I thought I would be fine after my time in Florida.  I was wrong).  Now, sit back, relax, and bask in the glory (aka alternating boredom and panic) that is my re-telling of my journey here.

So we got on the plane in Toronto and flew for almost thirteen hours.  Joy.  I traded for a window seat, and both my seat buddies were cool, so that was all good.  The meals were okay (I always go vegan/veg on flights now because a) rubbery chicken skeeves me out, and b) it`s safer with my egg intolerance on flights that serve breakfast), but the ones to and from Denmark were better. I was my usual movie-obsessed self, watching Age of Ultron (because how could I not watch that if it`s offered?!), The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (still quality, but not as good as the first), Big Hero 6 (again, how could I not?), and The Duff (this was when I had reached the point of pretty much just staring blankly at the seat in front of me, I wanted something I hadn`t seen before, but not necessarily something I wanted to pay much attention to).  I also kicked ass at the hidden object game when the three of us in my row played together, thus proving yet again that I really need a life.

We got to Tokyo and the `air conditioned` airport (this is a lie).  Customs took only about 30 seconds longer than it normally does when I`m a tourist, which frankly scares me a bit, but I have my residence card, so whatever.  Collected luggage, and had to haul it halfway to bloody China outside in the heat and humidity to reach the buses, whereupon one of my suitcases was mysteriously whisked away to be sent to my school (but without really being labelled with anything other than a JET card with my name on it, so I was worried about it actually making it here), and the other was loaded under the bus.  During this trip, multiple people stopped to ask me if I was alright because I had to keep stopping and readjusting my grip on my suitcases/wiping the excessive sweat from my face.  Yes, thank you, I`m fine, just horribly out of shape, uncoordinated, and unused to the heat.  Please disregard my burgundy face.  It looks worse than it actually is.  Finally got to the hotel, checked in, collapsed on the bed for a few minutes, met the roommates (equally awesome ladies), and connected to the internet to let everyone know I was alive and to write the previous post.  By this point, it was about 8PM and we were starving, so it was down to the konbini (convenience store) in the hotel basement for a quick dinner.  We were super lame and went to bed between 9-9:30PM.

I`ll spare you most of the actual orientation stuff, because it was excessively boring, mostly common sense, and stuff you`ll only understand if you`re already here, doing this.  If you`re leaving from Toronto, you get at least 75% of this information before you go.  Dinner the first night was a reception with finger foods, and we were organized according to our prefecture so that we could socialize with the people we`re likely to see the most over the next however many years.  After that, again I was lame and went to bed.  There was a tour and drinking party organized for the Toronto JETs by Japanese people who had visited Toronto in the past, but I was tired and lazy and therefore skipped out.  Plus I`ve been to Tokyo before, so it`s less of a big deal for me.  The next night, however, was a reception for Canadians at the Canadian Embassy, which was awesome because there was PIZZA.  There was also beer, but PIZZA.  I have issues, I`m aware. 

We traveled as a group, of course, to Mie on the train.  This was an interesting trip with a 27lb backpack and probably 20lb purse.  But I made it!  My supervisor and one of the other Japanese English teachers (JTE) picked me up when we got to the Board of Education office in Tsu.  They brought me to my apartment, to my high school to meet with the principal (for which I wore my jacket and thus was sweating an embarassing amount, but at least my clothing was appropriate), and to the mall and supermarket to get things/so I knew where they were.

Since that time, I`ve mostly been at school, introducing myself to all of the teachers (98% of whom I don`t remember now), touring the school (I know where the teacher`s room, washroom, and front office are; everything else is a blur), and trying to figure out what the hell I`m doing.  I found out that we`ll be having an open house for potential incoming students on the 25th, at which I`ll be expected to do a demo lesson with one of the JTEs.  He came up to me on Thursday and asked if I had any ideas.  Uh, no.  In a big way, no.  I have zero idea what I`m doing right now.  This was followed on Friday by a meeting with him and one of the other JTEs to let me know what parts of the lessons in the textbook I should be concerned with.  Great.  I still have zero idea what I`m doing.  I`m just going to make this up as I go along.  So now we have a meeting set for late next week to discuss what I`ll have come up with by then.

On the weekend, I went to the mall and the grocery store by myself (scary!).  I`d just like to point out that I didn`t get lost on either trip.  Probably because I was using the Maps app on my phone, but I`ve been known to get lost before even with a GPS, so it`s still kind of a big deal. 

The beginning of this week was Mie Prefectural Orientation, which was infinitely more useful than Tokyo.  We learned practical things, like what a lesson plan actually is, useful Japanese phrases for the office (ie, how to ask for cake/vacation time), how to prevent and deal with pests (mukade are the most terrifying things in existence), how to use an ATM, and how to not die in an earthquake (probably).  There was also a Mie JETs party for both new and returning people.  Conveniently, this took place in my neighbourhood, so I could just walk there and back.  We played an icebreaker game where we had a list of words we had to try to get people to say in conversation without obviously soliciting the word, which led to a lot of really interesting and odd conversations.

And now I`m back at school.  Many of the teachers are off right now for their summer vacation, especially because it`s time for Obon (kind of like the Mexican Day of the Dead; it`s about honouring their ancestors, and there are huge festivals and stuff), so mostly I just sit back here in my corner and don`t talk to anyone because no one who is in the office can communicate with me.  It`s a little awkward.  But there was one funny interaction around lunch time, involving a teacher I hadn`t met yet because he was on holidays last week.  The following takes place entirely in Japanese.

Teacher: (Comes into the teacher`s room, looks at me. Squints, looks closer at me.  Turns to the Japanese teacher sitting across from me) Who`s that?
Japanese Teacher: The new ALT.  Mel.  (She turns to me) Right?  Or, Melanie?
Me: Yes.  I`m Mel.  I`m from Canada!  Nice to meet you!
Teacher: Ah, Canada.  And...sorry, the name was...?
Japanese Teacher: Melanie.  Mel.
Me: Mel is okay.
Teacher: Ms. Okay??
Me: No, no.  Mel. (Cue internal facepalming)
Another teacher who`s been listening to us: Man, it`s a good think you teach math!

So I`m sitting here, typing this up, trying to kill time.  With no one to talk to, I`m blazing through my work.  What I planned on taking me from now until Friday at least to work through is already about 85% done.  I can hear a bunch of sports teams practicing outside, and I`d love to go watch them for a while, but I don`t actually know how to ask that...  It`s not really a thing to just up and leave your desk to wander without letting someone know where you`re going (unless you`re only stepping out for a quick minute, like the washroom, or it`s really obvious where you`re going because you have a class to teach).  Plus who knows if the sports teams want some random foreigner watching them (they probably do; apparently it`s a big deal when ALTs show up for sporting things), so I`d like to be able to check with the coach/manager first.  And I can`t.  I will look it up for tomorrow, because I don`t think I can take another full day of `busy` work, and there`s only so many lessons I can plan without guidance from the JTEs as to whether or not what I`m planning is remotely what they want.  I should have taken the rest of this week off.  They tried to tell me to, but I was all like, I don`t know what I`m doing and I want as much time in school as possible to figure it out and plan.  That was stupid.