I Don`t Care How Useful It Is, Math Sucks

For all of you who thought you missed my Friday Night Dinner post on Facebook, the staff at my high school had my enkai (welcome party) that night, so I wasn`t home and therefore did not cook.  Instead I went out with some of the teachers, including the Australian teachers.  I think, all told, there were fourteen of us, which is a decent number.  I was afraid everyone was going to be there, which would be forty-odd people, and that idea is terrifying.

Not because any of the teachers are scary, but just the sheer number of people to have dinner with...   I`m really happy with my posting here, partially because of the fabulous staff here.  There was a ridiculous amount of food, and some great conversation!  The rules of cricket were explained (I still don`t get it, and can really only think of Shaun of the Dead), I practically waxed poetic about animal cafes in Japan (like the bunny cafe in Nagoya or the owl cafe in Tokyo), and got into a discussion with the principal about Martin Heidegger and the merits of studying philosophy.

On the weekend, I did virtually nothing.  I`d still been running on holiday time (aka staying up a lot later than I should have been), so between not going to sleep until after midnight and getting up at 6:30 AM on Thursday and Friday, I was kind of already exhausted!  I did a lot of cooking, though.  In addition to my replacement Friday dinner on Sunday (deconstructed cabbage rolls), I also made a chicken and fruit salad, and salmon salad with roasted red peppers.  And I roasted my own peppers.  Please, take a moment to marvel at my culinary awesomeness.  No, really.  Take a moment.  I`ll wait. 

....Good? Moving on, then.  I also learned how to use my rice cooker, mostly by grossly over-complicating things, texting Ros in frustration, and then finally figuring out that all I needed to do was push one button.  I`m still awesome.

Monday was a couple of English classes (one of which still basically refuses to speak unless I pick student numbers out of a box and force them to answer me).  It was also the day I had to help with math.  I`ll admit, I was terrified.  Then I get into the class and find out that it`s not actually a lesson, so I don`t have to try to translate a bunch of things from the teacher.  Instead, Morita-sensei and I have translated what turns out to be the math section of a practice university entrance exam.  This makes it easier for me, but harder for the students, because there`s really no way for me to talk around a lot of this and try to help them understand.  It`s really just do or do not (there is no "try").  Between having the math presented in a strange way (a bubble sheet for answers in Japanese that we couldn`t entirely figure out, but it wasn`t multiple choice, and odd fill-in-the-blanks more than actually just solving problems), and things being lost in translation between the original text and Morita and I, the result was predominantly DO NOT.  I felt really bad, because the kids were trying, but it didn`t really seem like they had all of the information they needed to complete the work.  Like, they`re looking at a quadratic equation relating to some "Graph G" (which they didn`t have), so they`re working with variables x, y, a, b, and c, and then all of a sudden the instructions start talking about how d equals the square root of 7, and no one knows where d came from!  So we`ve established that I should never be a math teacher, and I should really never be a math teacher in a foreign country whose language I don`t speak or read.  Good to know that`s off the table, because I was so seriously considering it for a while.  (I`m sorry, was that sarcasm not tangible enough for you on the other side of the internet?)

(Live update 3PM Monday: I just got roped into another math class on Wednesday.  How do I get myself into these things?!?!  This is like elementary school softball all over again.  "Oh, Mel`s pretty good at throwing a ball overhand across the field.  Let`s make her an underhand pitcher!"  "What."  And I never played softball again.  Note to self: stop being likeable and helpful.  Or only be helpful in things like art and possibly home economics.  I can do those.)

Today was my day at the special needs school.  This week I had the elementary kids, which was all kinds of awesome.  I only had two classes, third and fourth period, which kind of made for a boring day overall, but the classes themselves were great.  My period 3 class was Grades 1-4, where we sang the ABCs, head and shoulders, and then played 'Simon Says'.  There were nine kids, and they were all super adorable!  Period 4 was Grades 5-6, where there were only three kids, and we had a search and find-type alphabet activity and went over the weather descriptions.  The elementary teacher I work with is fabulous, too.  I swear she skips all over the room, and I don't know how she could possibly keep that energy level up all day!  I spent the rest of the day switching between reading The Monuments Men (so, learning history), studying Japanese, and attempting to figure out how to manually calculate Zeller's congruence for math class.  I got a lot of, "Whoa, you're really studious!" all day.  Add to that the fact that the elementary teacher also knows now that I speak English, decent French, some Japanese, and minimal Korean, and I'm pretty sure what they're actually thinking is more along the lines of, "What the hell is this kid even doing?!"  (Answer: I have no idea.  Clearly a little bit of everything.)  One of the junior high school teachers also randomly came up to me, introduced himself, and taught me some Japanese Sign Language, which was awesome, but since I barely know Japanese, I sort of feel like this:

This evening my package from home arrived, so now I have all of the cozy sweaters, should it ever actually get cold enough to need them (I swear the humidity has spiked again this week).  And also a lot more of my teas.  Thanks Mom!

Chapter (Week) 5, In Which I Get Cultured

It appears that the habit of stating that the phone is ringing is not limited to the English language.  You know how the phone rings at home and most of the time, someone inevitably yells, "Phone!" as though it`s not the most obvious thing in the world and everyone else can`t hear it ringing?  It happens in Japan too.  I was sitting here, pretending to work as I so often do, and my supervisor is sitting here with her supervisor going over some stuff.  The phone for our desk-pod starts ringing, and he goes, "Ah, denwa (phone)," before proceeding to answer it.  I was amused (probably because I`m the most guilty of this habit at home and I like to know I`m not alone).

My school`s Culture Festival is this weekend.  I`m ridiculously excited.  Before that happens, though, there are two days of performances at the Prefectural Cultural Centre in Tsu.  I guess our facilities aren`t large enough or something.  But the classes who are doing foodstuffs on Saturday are already going around with their tickets (pre-buying means a discount), so I now have tickets for a tea ceremony and yakisoba (fried buckwheat noodles.with sauce, veggies, and sometimes a meat or shrimp).  I love food!  And Culture Fest!  Overall, it just makes me really excited, and like I`m really a part of the community to be able to attend an event like this (school`s culture festivals are usually attended by the community at large, but at the very least by friends and family of the students, as well as the teachers).  Also this is something that appears a lot in anime and they make it seem like one of the greatest things to happen all year.

Wednesday was a plethora of guest performers who are apparently famous, but I`ve never heard of them because I`m not Japanese.  There were four sets of comedy duos, and one guy who seemed to be a combination comedian/singer.  I didn`t understand a lot of it (like, 98%), but sometimes I could get enough of a basic context to understand that they were, in fact, funny even if I didn`t know the exact joke.  One of the Science teachers here has pretty good English (he went with our exchange students to Australia), so he explained to me some of what was going on beforehand, and then a bit after.  We also chatted during the break between programs, and he asked how long I had studied Japanese, since my Japanese is apparently very good (what little I can speak of it).  Naturally, I had to admit that I have zero Japanese training outside of the "Japanese for JETs" textbook and most of what I know is from about 8 years of watching anime.  He then told me that that was how he had learned some of his English pronunciation, by watching English-dubbed anime!  VALIDATION!  Anime is a legitimate learning tool!

I spent the afternoon on Wednesday (the performances only took up the morning) at my desk, looking up some grocery-related kanji (ideographic Japanese writing based on Chinese characters, as opposed to the two phonetic alphabets also in use in Japan.  Because everyone needs three writing systems) and making myself flashcards.  I tried not to draw attention to myself as I did this, because I know I got the stroke order really, really wrong on most of them; I can`t find it online, and I don`t want to offend anyone.

Thursday was full of performances by student clubs and classes.  I will admit that most of the time I had no idea what was going on.  The morning started with a performance by the brass band club, which was fairly talented.  I prefer strings to brass, though, so the second performance was a bit more to my taste.  There were seven students playing the Japanese harp (koto) and one playing the shamisen (Japanese guitar, but I think less a few strings?).  Then there was a video that seemed to be a giant sporting montage done by one of the classes, which was amusing, and full of high-energy English music.  There was some kind of skit about a sports team practice by another class, but beyond that description I have no idea what it was about.  Then came the acoustic guitar club, and holy hell are those kids talented.  They sounded awesome.  My favourite, though, was the last performance of the morning, the dance club.  I was absolutely blown away.  I forget sometimes that dance can actually be a competitive club activity.  (Also, my favourite student - the one from English club who likes the same anime - is in the dance club.  Yes, I have favourites.) 

In the afternoon there was an attendance-optional performance by the drama club, which of course I went to because it would be wrong of me to not support a club I belonged to when I was in high school!  ...And also I didn`t want to go back to the office.  Anyway.  So that was an hour-long one-act play with four cast members, three girls and a boy.  I got the part where one of the girls had a boyfriend that her friends didn`t know about.  Then the boy character comes in and is all awkward with the boyfriend-girl, so I thought it was going to be revealed that he was her boyfriend. Then they were helping her rehearse to break up with the boyfriend for reasons unknown, and the boy character was helping, and I got really confused because it makes no sense that he would be her boyfriend if he`s helping in the breakup rehearsals!  At the end, he`s all dejected and walks away to an empty classroom, and the girl with the boyfriend-breakup goes running after him, so I was assured by the student I was sitting with (my other 3rd year English club student, Mayu) that it was a happy ending, but I really have no idea what exactly was going on.  It was like watching Spanish soap operas on a weekday afternoon when you`re sick and there`s absolutely nothing else on TV.

Also this week was a welcome party for all the new JETs specifically in Tsu (my city ...sort of.  My area used to be its own city, and then it got absorbed).  There was a lot of food from our delicious set-menu meal, some fabulous drinks, and excellent company.  Basically we discovered that we`re all compatible brands of weird, and no one really likes bugs.  (Clarifier: pest-type bugs.  I don`t mean that the restaurant served us bugs and no one liked the dish.  That did not happen.  We were fed meat and seafod.  Normal things.  Just because I know some people`s minds went there.)

Unrelated: I fell off my bike for the first time (shocking, considering I`ve been here for a month and am a competition-level klutz)!  That figures.  My last bike-related injury (slamming my leg off the back when attempting to dismount, causing a bruise at least the size of a tennis ball) is pretty much gone now, so I needed a new one.  But I fell on the way to school, so I got to visit the school nurse`s office!  Our school nurse is a super sweet lady, so I was glad to meet her!  It would have been better without tiny bits of road speckling my arm, but whatever.

Anyway, I`m super-stoked about all the awesome things set to happen tomorrow!  I just have to make it through today in all its utter boring-ness.  It`s Culture Fest prep day, so I think I`ll take to wandering the halls and checking out all the preparations.

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.