In Which Mel Pretends to Know Things About Athletics

Remember the culture festival back in September?  Well in June, we have the Sports Festival! 

Those of you who know me know that, despite my desire to run (which mostly stems from my desire to use marathons as an excuse to visit Disney), I'm about as athletic as a sloth.  It just doesn't happen.  Never has.  Thankfully, it wasn't as incredibly awful as I was expecting, mostly because non-homeroom teachers have a very minimal role other than observing.  The student council asked me to be a judge for the performances in the afternoon, but we'll get to that later.

Sports Festival is basically a competition between homerooms (and, later in the day, clubs) to see who is the best at... I suppose general athletics?  But mostly track-type things?  Each homeroom designs a t-shirt that they all wear for the day, though, so that's pretty cool.  Some of them are really cute. 

The day starts out with a variety of events that had me flashing back to those godawful mandatory track and field days in elementary school, where everyone was forced to participate in two or three events, and I failed at everything because of aforementioned lack of athletic prowess.  There were stations for long jump and high jump, as well as tracks for sprint races.  The students' achievements in each component were recorded, which then translated to a score for the event for their homeroom.  I don't really understand how it all works.  Also in the middle of the track was a tug-o-war station, which was really entertaining to watch for a while. 

Before lunch was the "obstacle course," which is definitely not what you're thinking about, unless you watch anime about school life.  This was the point where basically all of my anime dreams came true.  It was amazing!  So.  What this is.  It's a relay race, with each person/group at each section of the relay tackling a different task.  It starts out with one runner, who spins themselves as quickly as they can 20 times when the pistol goes off, and then sprints forward to grab bread hanging on a line with just their teeth.  Once they've got that, they run to the pair waiting ahead and tag them in.  That pair runs to a bucket that contains the names of a bunch of the teachers.  Those teachers are waiting ahead, all dressed in ridiculous costumes for extra fun.  The pair must reach into the bucket, grab a name, locate their ridiculously dressed teacher in the crowd of ridiculously dressed teachers, and run with them to the next point.  They tag in the three-legged racers.  That part is pretty straightforward.  When that pair reaches the end of their section, they tag in a potato sack jumper, who jumps to a certain point and then is allowed to abandon the sack and sprint the rest of the way to the final section.  They tag in a team of five of their classmates (or sometimes four classmates and their homeroom teacher, which was just hilarious) who are strapped to those group ski things?  You know what I mean?

These things. 
Yeah, so they're the final section of the race.  It's all very exciting and very funny, and so much like what I've seen in anime that it pretty much made my day right there.

 After lunch (which was a bento provided through my social committee fees, so that was nice) was the time for performances.  Each homeroom created and rehearsed a two minute dance routine (which I still don't know when they had the time to do) to perform, and I was part of a panel of ten judges who would hold up a number from 1-5 after each routine.  It was really awesome, and of course the sports course homerooms for each year were the best because they had, like, acrobatics and gymnastics in their dances, but some of the other classes were good too!  I was out in the sun for about an hour straight doing that, and got totally sunburned, but it was worth it.

The day ended with relay competitions between homerooms, and then any clubs who wanted to compete together (the brass band has some surprisingly fast kids).

Everything since then has been pretty boring.  I did go camping ("camping" really, since it was a fully furnished cabin) with a large group of other JETs partway through the month, and got to swim at a fabulous spot in a startlingly cold river way down south.  That was pretty cool.  But yeah.  It's exam time at the end of first term, and then summer vacation starts.  I've got some super exciting things planned, including my parents' first ever visit to Japan!

Post-Birthday Post

So it's been more than a month, and that's super awkward.  Let's just pretend I did this sooner, m'kay?

Last time I posted we were talking about my birthday.  I took myself to Universal Studios Japan (USJ).  I went alone, which was simultaneously really awesome and really weird.  I mean, I've done theme parks on my own before (obviously, since I used to spend all my days off in the parks back when I worked at EPCOT), but I've never done a theme park for the first time by myself.  I usually like to have someone with me to exclaim over all the cool stuff I see.  But, as you'll see, it was kind of useful to be alone at some points.  Anyway.  I'll start back at the beginning.

I headed to Osaka on the Friday night, because I had zero desire to get up and ride a train before dawn on Saturday.  I get excited about theme parks, yes, but not  that excited.  I'm still mostly not a morning person.  Not the point.  So I checked in the night before at the J-Hoppers hostel one stop away from USJ, which was really nice, and had a decent night's rest.  The park hours were from 9-9, with ticket sales beginning at 8AM (you can't buy tickets in advance unless you're getting them through certain travel agencies outside the country), so my goal was to be in line by 7:30.  I met that goal easily, actually arriving somewhere around 7:15, and had about 20 people in front of me in the queue I chose.  Ticket sales began promptly at 8, I got my day pass, and then moved into the massive throngs of people waiting to get into the park (there were a huge number of Chinese tourists with advance tickets plus the forty bazillion people actually from Osaka who have annual passes).  That's when things got weird.  At about 8:20, they start letting people through the gate.  But not, like, only certain people who get perks with something they bought (they had a separate line for that); I mean everyone.  So I figured, okay, it's like Wonderland in Toronto.  They start filing people through the turnstiles around 8:30, but then there are ropes stopping them from actually reaching areas of interest that don't get dropped until park opening.  Alright.  I head off to the right, determined to get as close to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter as I can, because I know that's going to be stupidly busy.  And I just keep going, and going...  I get into the area, and I still haven't been stopped.  I walk through Hogsmeade, and I'm still not stopped (none of the shops or food carts are open yet, though).  I get to Hogwarts, and they're welcoming people into the ride queue.  O...kay.... 

There were a few moments walking through the castle where we stopped briefly, but I don't think I actually ever stood still for more than two or three minutes at a time.  Once my locker was obtained (because they don't let you bring anything on the ride) and I made it through to the actual loading area, I was ushered onto the ride by myself, with three perfectly good seats empty beside me, and off I go.  I get off the ride at 8:58.  Awesomesauce. 

I proceeded to ride the other ride in the Harry Potter area, Flight of the Hippogriff (or something like that.  Whatever.  It has a nesting hippogriff, and it's adorable).  I browsed the shops a bit, but didn't really feel like carrying anything so early in the day, plus I was sure that my planned chocolate frogs would melt, so I figured I'd come back later.  When I exited that area, I found out that park attendance was high enough that I would need a timed entry ticket to get back into the area.  This was necessary for me, as I'd also planned to have a meal at The Three Broomsticks when I did my shopping, so I had to head to the area distributing those tickets and got one of the few left available (already!).  I could re-enter the area just before 1PM.  Cool.

On the "list of things I wanted to do" was the Hollywood Dream: The Ride coaster, and it was the closest thing to Harry Potter, so it made sense to stop there next.  There are two separate queues for this ride (not including the single rider one) because they've added a new experience; Hollywood Dream: Backdrop.  Using the same track, they reversed a couple of the coaster trains so that you do the whole ride backwards.  This was intriguing to me, and I usually like backwards coasters, but the line strictly for that experience was more than two hours, and the estimated wait for single riders was less than an hour.  In the single rider line, you have to be willing to ride either direction, because they're just going to shove you wherever they can.  Except the dude who was doing the loading queues really sucked at his job because he wasn't filling the rows like he should have been, so there were a lot of empty seats that should have gone to single riders and that was contributing to the long wait time.  But I got on a Backdrop train, so that was cool!  ...At first.  Okay, so it's not like it was a bad ride, but it wasn't stellar.  Because they literally just painted the train car a different color and threw it on the tracks backwards, the ride is, for lack of a better term, awkward.  You'd think a coaster is just a coaster, but there are definite differences between this and a coaster that's actually been designed  for backwards movement.  It just doesn't feel right to ride this one backwards.  But like I said, not a bad ride, and I still managed to get exactly what I had wanted at the time, so that was all good.

Moving on to Spider-Man.  I love this ride.  I loved it at Islands of Adventure, and I love it in Japan where I can only understand 15% of what they're saying but I don't even care because it's just that awesome.  Single rider was only 20 minutes, so that was great, too!  When I got off the ride, I saw a line of people across the street, and I was like, "Hm, might as well check what that's about," so I did and there was a photo spot where you could get a photo with a hanging-upside-down Spider-Man statue.  Obviously I did this, because how can you not?! 

Then when I was finished, I started strolling towards Jurassic Park.  Before I could actually exit New York, though, I stopped by tape on the ground with "Violin Trio" written on it, and a couple people gathered around.  Violin Trio is exactly what it sounds like.  It's a street show they have with three violinists.  It was something I really wanted to see, but at the same time wouldn't have been devastated if I'd missed it.  I joined the small gathering, figuring, "Hey, the show probably starts within the next ten minutes, I'm making good time, and it's not like I have to worry about what anyone else wants; might as well stop!"  Yeah, more like "show starts in 30 seconds."  More awesome luck! 

The show was great, but after listening to a few pieces it was getting pretty hot, and I was ready to get wet!  I left New York, and headed over to the other side of the park. 

In Florida (at least when I was there), Jurassic Park consisted mostly of food and the one Jurassic Park water ride.  Here they have a new suspended roller coaster added that looks amazing.  The problem being that everyone thinks it looks amazing, so the single rider line was close to three hours, and the regular standby was even longer.  Uh, no.  Not happening.  I don't have that kind of attention span, even with my phone, iPad, and DS on me.  So I continued on and basically walked onto the water ride (I maybe waited 5 minutes?).  Oh man.  I forgot, because it's been 6 years and I only rode it that one time in Florida, but you get SOAKED on that ride.  And I was wearing jeans.  It was so incredibly uncomfortable, and yet 100% worth it at the same time.  And yeah, I closed my eyes as soon as we entered the warehouse in the carnivore area of the ride.  Dinosaurs are still scary.

After that I mostly just wandered around, in and out of shops and areas I wasn't particularly interested in.  Like, I've never seen Jaws, and I'm ambivalent about sharks, so I wasn't really raring to wait in a line for that, but walking through that area was nice.  I'm also not a fan of Back to the Future (sorry, Dad) so I wasn't going to ride that (even though it's closing up for good and I think it's the last one out there?), but I did take a picture with the DeLorean because it's iconic and how can you not? 

Lunch time!  That's right.  I did all this already and we're only halfway through the day!  Amazing, right?!  I headed back to Hogsmeade for my first time into The Three Broomsticks, where I had a lovely lunch of fish and chips, along with a necessary cup of butterbeer.  Because butterbeer.

 I also bought myself a birthday cupcake with a mini chocolate frog on it from Honeydukes!  The lady at the shop counter warned me to eat it fast so that it wouldn't hop away!  (In Japanese.  That's right, I'm just that awesome.  Or it was really obvious what she was saying from her gestures.  Take your pick.)

I think the rest of the day was just repeats of what I did in the morning???  I rode Spider-Man at least twice more, back to Jurassic Park (to walk on again) when I got too hot later in the afternoon, and satisfied my shopping needs (aka I got a Slytherin phone case and tie).  This was the point where it sucked to be alone, because I didn't have anyone to chatter to while I wandered, and I didn't have anything that I was really focused on as a goal to occupy my mind.  I treated myself to funnel cake after dinner, because I love funnel cake and I can't remember the last time I had one, and then picked an awesome spot for the night parade!  ...Which was really, really not an awesome parade and I regret that I didn't just go stand in line for the dinosaur coaster instead.  I thought it would be full of Snoopy and Harry Potter and other such things that they have at the park.  There was one Snoopy float that was literally just a giant Snoopy, one Hello Kitty, and an Elmo. 

The rest of the parade was all fairy tale stuff that just screamed "Look how we got around Disney copyrights!!!"  I think that was really my only disappointment for the day, though.  The rest of it was fabulous, and I look forward to going back again sometime!

Term One, Part One

I've been remiss in my postings again.  You really shouldn't be surprised.  I'm kinda flaky like that.

So we're reaching mid-terms for the first term of school, and it's been a lot busier than last year!  With the lack of guidelines for my first year classes, it's taking a lot longer to plan things out than it used to when I was using the textbook, plus I have my two new double-period classes to contend with.  But so far it's been alright!

I decided that my first years are going to learn an English song each term, to help with pronunciation.  Hopefully the rhythm of the music will help to lure them away from the horrifically syllabic katakana English.  This term we're learning "We Are the Champions."  Most of the students seem to be enjoying it, but some days it's difficult to persuade them to actually SING after we learn a new section of the song.  Mostly that portion of the class is me standing at the front of the room, singing my heart out alongside Freddie Mercury while my students watch and smile.  Thanks, guys.  I feel the love.  Now how about we participate?!

Working with my second and third years is interesting.  I'm using the same textbook and materials for the two grade levels, but their skill levels are .... I don't want to say vastly different, but vastly different.  It's a nightmare sometimes, trying to come up with things that won't bore the hell out of my third years, but that the second years can actually grasp.  I nearly bashed my head off the table the first time I tried to play Pictionary with my second years (they've since figured it out and now enjoy it).

In the last week of April, I got a chance to explore a place just outside Kyoto called Arashiyama.  It's your typical mountain tourist village with a giant shrine (that is also a World Heritage Site, though I'm really not sure why as it didn't seem any more impressive or important than any other shrine I've been to), except that it's also home to a giant bamboo forest!

 Bamboo! So much bamboo!

 "Watch out, there are wild monkeys here!  Don't do anything with the monkeys.  Whatever you wanted to do with the monkey you find, just don't.  Don't even acknowledge the monkey.  No."

 Temple gardens!

At the beginning of May was a three-day holiday known as "Golden Week".  I persuaded Ros to come down to visit me, and together we travelled to the seaside to risk our lives in a field.  Not even kidding, though we didn't know at the time that it would be so potentially hazardous!  So here's what actually went down, before anyone starts to panic: We went to Hamamatsu for their festival (aptly named Hamamatsu Matsuri) on May 3rd, the first day of Golden Week.  There are many things that happen over the course of this festival, but the biggest part of it is kite-flying.  I know what you're thinking.  Lame, right?  It's totally okay to think that.  That's what I thought when Ros first suggested it.  "We're going to watch people fly kites all day?  And this is... fun?"  So I googled it.  Turns out, it's more like Battle Royale: Kite Edition.  Basically all the neighbourhood communities in Hamamatsu are flying their kites in the field and trying to take down the other kites.  And these kites are HUGE.  Like,  probably a good 7-10 feet squared?  With hundreds of meters of thick hemp rope for a string.  It takes teams of people wearing gloves to fly these things.  So the kite festival thing is actually massively epic.  Which is cool.  Except that you, as an observer, are walking around the same field as these people who are flying kites with the purpose of knocking other kites out of the air.  Ros and I were nearly brained with a giant kite three times, and nearly run over I don't even know how many times.  But it was great!  The kites were really cool to see, and we got in a nice walk along the beach, plus festival food.  I also got a sunburn, thanks to the lovely temperature and the clouds clearing in the afternoon.

 Kites!  Kites everywhere!

 One of the neighbourhood kite-flying teams cheering themselves on.

 A kite, for scale.  Please note that this kite is twice the height of that man holding it.  And these were plummeting out of the sky towards us.  Sometimes more than one at a time.  Good times!

After we'd had enough of dodging lethal flying paper (and wood frames), we headed back towards the station for more food and laziness until it was time for the night parade.  We wandered around for a ridiculously long time, only really knowing that we wanted something sweet, before deciding to chill at Baskin Robbins for a bit (pun intended).  Then we found some kind of international food festival thing for dinner.  I had a lovely steak and fries, and Ros got some meat on a stick and cheese buns.  We hung out at one of the festival tables and listened to a brass band from one of the local middle schools, and then headed up to stake out spots for the parade.  Essentially, each neighbourhood that had a kite flying during the day had a luminous float at night and they all marched in a really, really long line.  There was a break in the parade at some point, so we decided to get a head start on our trip home.

On the Wednesday we were supremely lazy.  We watched movies, ate nachos, and sat in the park with books so that we could be lazy and still enjoy the glorious weather.  I got to introduce Ros to a bunch of rather odd movies that I nonetheless enjoy, including Repo: The Genetic Opera and Fantastic Mr. Fox.  We had originally planned to hike the Nakasendo trail on this day, but that involved a lot of traveling that would begin before dawn, so we basically said, "Hell to the no," as soon as we found that out.

Thursday we decided to muck about in Nagoya, since Ros would have to leave for Tokyo from there anyway and she hadn't really been around the city since our first trip there in 2010.  We wanted to find our favourite restaurant from that trip (which sadly no longer has our favourite item, their house-made ice cream, on the menu), using only our memories and my vague sense of direction (which should NEVER be followed, ever).  I also wanted to show Ros the observation platform-type thing outside the Prefectural Arts Center that I'd seen when I was there the month prior for Jekyll & Hyde.  We went up, it was awesome, I potentially got even more sunburned (even though I was actually wearing sunscreen that day).

After that, we decided to go back and visit Nagoya castle again, because it's kind of really awesome.  They had opened up the part that had been under construction while we were there before, so we got to see some new stuff, too!  It was really cool, because it had all these paintings of tigers everywhere on gold-painted doors, and when we asked the employees, they told us that the restoration crew used the same paint-making methods and materials as the original construction.

We did, as you can tell from my earlier comment, manage to find the restaurant after that, mostly thanks to Ros' sense of direction.  We didn't eat there, though.  Instead we headed back to the train station and found a really great place that served us quite a bit of food for how reasonably it was priced!  We had to part ways after that, so I headed home to crash.

Since then it's just been more of the same classes.  I really think I'm used to most things now, and that's why I'm blogging less.  I'm not seeing as many things where I think, "Whoa, I have to tell people about that!"  This week was exam week, except Friday, so I have classes to teach tomorrow.  But after that is the weekend, and I'm taking myself to USJ for my birthday. I'm going to Hogwarts!

Pre-School (As in before school, not the building full of tiny terrors)

Once again, this is something I forgot that I do.  The following was written on April 11th.  I just... didn't post it.  Expect my write-up on the first couple weeks of class by next weekend!

The welcome/farewell party last night was certainly interesting for me.  It was a lot more formal than the year-end party (calendar year end, that is, not school year; technically this was the school year end party).  Mostly we ate while people were speaking.  The party was about two hours long, and an hour and a half of that was speeches.  I`m not exaggerating about that.  We had the opening speeches from the MC and the principal, and then there was a few minutes of socializing/eating.  Eating continued to happen throughout the night, because it was, like, a 6- or 8-course meal and we didn`t really have much of a choice if we wanted to actually eat anything.  After the social bit, our four teachers who were retiring came to the stage.  One of the current teachers gave a speech about each of them, after which each retiree gave their own speech.  And let me tell you, these people could talk.  I have no idea what they were saying, but they were saying quite a bit of whatever it was.  After those eight speeches were done, we had another few minutes to socialize while they rearranged the chairs onstage.  Then they called up the teachers who were transferring to other schools (there were 11, I think?) and each of them gave a speech.  More socializing while the stage configuration changed again, and then all of the new teachers were called up.  Thankfully, they only went through their names, and then one of them made a speech on behalf of the entire group.

You`ll all be shocked to find that I actually did some socializing during the socializing times.  You`ll be even more shocked when I tell you that only some of it was in English.  I wasn`t lucky enough to end up at a table with an English teacher, so I had a halting conversation with the (biology? math?) teacher beside me, mostly about food and mostly in Japanese.  Then one of the PE teachers came over to visit him, and ended up conversing with me as well (also in Japanese), asking where I had been in Japan, and where I wanted to visit next.  During one of the breaks I went to speak with the English teacher who transferred out, the bio teacher I used to chat with who also transferred out, and the new English teacher who transferred in.  I got a bit of a surprise when I was approached out of the blue by our new math teacher.  She`s studying English on her own, apparently, and wanted to say hi and ask if she could come and speak with me sometimes.  Uh, obviously! 

The rest of the week was pretty standard.  I continued to mostly not do work, except for the brief meeting I had to discuss my conversation classes with the two JTEs I`ll be working with (I still haven`t really had a meeting with my first year teachers, but that`s par for the course, really; I think I`m just used to it now). 

On Friday, though, we had our first day of school, which meant an assembly for the returning students in the morning, and the entrance ceremony for the incoming first years in the afternoon (it`s a big deal, apparently; everybody`s parents were there).  It threw my JTEs for a loop when they asked me about entering high school in Canada. 
"You don`t have anything like this in Canada?" 
"...No.  On our first day of school, we just.... kinda show up?  And our homeroom is posted on the wall, and we go there?"
"But the new students who are there for the first time?"
"Yep.  We still just show up."

Saturday was awesome.  I went into Nagoya to see Jekyll & Hyde at the Aichi Prefectural Art Museum Theater and it was amazing.  I knew all the songs and the basic plot already, being the utter nerd that I am, and I`m not terribly concerned with the nuances.  The performers were great, especially the guy playing Jekyll and Hyde and the woman playing Lucy.  The costumes were standard period musical fare; nice, but nothing crazy spectacular.  The set and the lighting, though...  I was floored.  And they just kept doing new things with it.  Every time I thought I had a handle on what they could do, they pulled something new.  My favourite was the first time we saw Jekyll`s lab.  Until this point, we`d seen him writing in his journal in his drawing room, so I expected we`d eventually see that desk covered in his potion equipment, but no.  As he`s singing This is the Moment, he moves up to the second level of the set (because safety), his drawing room glides offstage, and from behind a scrim comes  the lab.  It`s this hulking split-level piece, with a worktable covered in potions at the bottom, and big mechanical...thing with two levers up the small staircase.  On the back, mounted above all that, is a circular vent with a fan that is easily about 12 feet high.  Then, still singing, he dismounts the main set stairs onto the lab set, goes up to the mechanical things and yanks on the levers.  The desk lights up as though the liquids in the bottles and test tubes are luminescent themselves (like a particularly well-lit bar shelf), and the fan starts turning.  Like I said, I was floored.

My first year teachers (two out of three, anyway) came up to me today and basically said, "We`ll have a meeting when we can, but we want to have fun communicating in English, so you`re in charge and we`ll just do what you say."  O...kay.  Wow.  Like, no pressure or anything, right?  My first class in on Thursday, so we`ll see how things go.  I`m just going to do my self-introduction stuff, though, which I`ve done before so at least it`s familiar material.

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!

Another Tokyo Adventure

So it`s been three weeks.  Again, I kinda forgot that this was something I do.  I think partly it`s because I`ve been reading, and partly because I`ve hit a wall of ennui due to the utter lack of work I`ve had for a month now.  Everyone who knows me knows I don`t do well with boredom. 

Almost literally nothing has happened to me since my last update (again, see my lack of work).  But I guess I can tell you about my trip to Tokyo?  I mean, most of it was focused on Disney again, because I`m me and I really don`t go to Tokyo for anything else, but I can still tell stories.

So I got into Tokyo at 6AM on March 16th, thanks to the glory (torture) that is the overnight bus, and made my way to Disneyland without incident, despite having to change trains at Tokyo Station (AKA Hell on Earth).  I met up with Ros, and we stood in line for a little less than an hour, waiting to get into the park.  We`ve never done actual restaurants at Disneyland before, so we`d decided that was something we wanted to do this trip.  We headed over to the Crystal Palace and had a lovely breakfast wherein Ros was startled by five different Winnie the Pooh characters as they came around to our table from behind her.  Did I laugh every time?  Yes, yes I did.  I`m such a caring friend.

When we finished breakfast, people were lining the streets for the first run of the event parade for Frozen Fantasy (the reason we were there - I still don`t love the movie as a whole, but it`s pretty, and Let it Go is a fun song to sing at the top of your lungs while flinging your arms about dramatically, which is something I already did so it justifies it).  The park wasn`t terribly busy, though, being a Wednesday of a non-holiday week, so at half an hour before parade time we got bench seats right outside the restaurant.  It was a big deal, and so luxurious-feeling!  I held our spots while Ros went to get Fastpasses for Space Mountain.

We managed to get done everything we wanted to, but a lot of our day was just spent wandering around.  We got a lot of Fastpasses, and other things didn`t have particularly long lines, so we just sort of strolled, ducking into shops and people-watching.  There were some really interesting pseudo-costumes (often known as "bounding", but that`s a lecture for another day)!  Ros also managed to get us some priority seats for the stage show One Man`s Dream II: The Magic Lives On. 

It`s your typical "characters on stage, with lots of dancer extras (most of whom are white, and that`s actually kind of really jarring)" thing, but it was really well done.  Plus the fact that we managed to get tickets was kind of awesome, because priority seats are given out via a lottery system that I can`t really explain.

Thursday was my lazy day.  I got to sleep in (thank god, because I didn`t really sleep on the overnight bus, and then going all day at Disneyland... I was exhausted!), and then just spend some time wandering around wherever I wanted.  I`ll be honest: Tokyo doesn`t thrill me, as a whole.  It was huge and exciting the first time I was there, six years ago, but since then it`s lost a lot of its awesome factor for me (I don`t think it helped that I went to Hong Kong).  So I went and got my train ticket for Sunday, and then wandered (AKA got lost in) Tokyo Station City, had some lunch, and then headed over to Ueno Park with my book to sit in the sunshine for a couple hours.  Turned out a couple of the park`s cherry blossom trees were blooming early, so I got to see those before I found a nice bench to park myself on. 

In the evening, I headed into Yokohama for the first time ever to meet with Ros for supper.  Yokohama has a really large Chinatown, and I`ve been craving Chinese food for months.  That craving hasn`t entirely gone away, because I want the sugar, MSG-infested, highly Americanized Chinese food, and what they have there is, like, legit Chinese food, but they still had sweet and sour pork, so that was alright.  Then we wandered around the harbour area so that I could see some of it, got brownie sundaes courtesy of the local Hard Rock Cafe, and called it a night.

Friday I got the chance to meet up with my friend Hitomi, who was one of my housemates for a while when I lived in Florida.  We met up in Asakusa, where the Kinryu no Mai (Golden Dragon Dance) was happening at Senso-ji.  This was actually a new experience for both of us, since being somewhat local means Hitomi doesn`t often do the big tourist things.  This was also her first temple visit of the year, so we made sure she did the obligatory fortune telling and such as we watched the giant dragon-on-a-stick parade around and dance.  It was really neat! 

We stopped for lunch at a really famous ramen restaurant, and I was surprised at how much I liked it!  I`m usually rather indifferent to ramen, but this stuff was really good!  Then we took a stroll around Hibiya Park before heading to our reservation for afternoon tea at The Peninsula Tokyo.  Hitomi had never done afternoon tea before; I`ve had it a few places, but The Peninsula Hong Kong was my favourite, so I knew the one in Tokyo would be high quality.  I was right!  The service was sakura (cherry blossom) themed (like everything else in Japan at the moment), but not overly so. 

The savory plate had a poppy seed waffle cone filled with green pea butter (this was actually my favourite savory item), egg and shrimp salad on a sakura bun, smoked salmon and cream cheese in a wrap, and I honestly have no idea what the tiny triple-decker sandwich was, but it was pretty good.  The scone plate featured both plain and strawberry scones, with dishes of Devonshire cream and raspberry-mint jam for spreading.  I didn`t think I would like the jam much, but it was actually delicious!  The dessert plate featured two kinds of cake (raspberry mousse and strawberry sakura, both of which were typical Japanese cakes), a strawberry tart, and a strawberry sakura madeleine that I probably could have eaten an entire pan of on my own.  We ate at a leisurely pace, so we each ended up having a different kind of tea with each plate.  I started out with the chocolate mint tea, moved to a rose hibiscus (which was much stronger and more hibiscus-y than I`d anticipated, unfortunately), and finished with some kind of vanilla tea that was really smooth. 

Saturday involved getting up at the crack of stupid to head out to DisneySea (worth it, always).  As soon as we were through the gates when the park opened, we waited in the half hour line for Fastpasses for Toy Story Midway Mania (which were for, like, 5:20-6:20 that night, and it was only 8:45AM!).  It started spitting while we were waiting to get into the park, and it just kept going, often a bit harder, for most of the day.  By the time we were out of the Fastpass line, we discovered that you can actually fit, like, four fully-grown humans under a standard umbrella when you`re not worried about silly things like personal space (welcome to Japan).  We went back and forth across the park I don`t even know how many times that day, checking the times on various rides.  Despite the fact that, at one point, the standby line for Toy Story was 4 hours long, all the popular rides were still at least an hour and a half wait, with most of them sitting around the two hour mark.  After hitting up the Arabian Coast for our beloved Nap Ride (it`s not actually called that; that`s what we call it.  It`s like `small world` but telling the story of Sinbad, and it`s very relaxing) and the carousel (which Aladdin was riding while we were waiting in line, and it was forty different kinds of exciting), we were able to get a Fastpass for something else, so we grabbed one for Tower of Terror and then went and stood in line for Journey to the Center of the Earth for two hours.  It was relatively warm, and definitely dry, so we were happy to wait.  Plus it`s not like we had much of a choice at that point.  We had a nice lunch of barbecue pork sandwiches at the Cape Cod Cook-Off, by which point my jeans were soaked from ankle to knee and my shoes were sloshing with every step.  It was gross and cold, but there was good food so I only complained a little.  We grabbed a Fastpass for StormRider, which was the only thing I was adamant that we needed to do that day, because they`re closing it permanently and I`ll never get to ride it again, and then... I dunno, did some shopping?  Whatever.  Not important.  We circled back to do all of our Fastpasses (once we returned to Toy Story, we still had to wait at least a half hour in line before we got on the ride), and then we had dinner reservations at Magellan's, which is one of the two fancy restaurants in the park.  It was so good!  It was a four course meal, with hors d'oeuvres, a soup or salad, a main course, and a dessert. 

I would definitely go there again, but there are so many other places to try!

Sunday was my last day in Tokyo, with my train departing in the late afternoon, so I coerced Ros and Hitomi to come with me for lunch to the Kawaii Monster Cafe.  I'd been wanting to go to this place for quite a while, because bright colours and cute things, so it was awesome to have willing company!  The food was pretty good (though Ros's sandwich took forever to come to the table), the atmosphere is awesome, and there's entertainment, too!  ...Ros and I ended up being part of the entertainment, which was unexpected, but a lot of fun.  We're just standing there, watching the Merry-Go-Round stage like everyone else, and then one of the hosts comes over to us and reaches out her hands to us, and we're like, "O...kay?"  So then we get pulled up onto the stage, and they're like, "We're going to dance together!" So we're taught this basic dance that's vaguely reminiscent of the Thriller hand motions, and we go round and round on the stage, doing this.  I felt a bit ridiculous, especially since my outfit was a clear statement of "Yes, I'm out for lunch, but then I'm going to sit on a train for three hours," so I wasn't exactly at my best to be stared at by everyone in the restaurant like that. 

And then we hung out around Harajuku and Shibuya until it was time for me to head off.  End of vacation!
 

Graduation

Well, our third year students graduated this past week.  Graduations are fairly solemn affairs in Japan, and definitely formal.  I had to wear my suit, which hasn`t seen the light of day since my first day here.  I hate wearing suits.  I violently dislike not having full range of motion.  I wore my pants, though, because I woke up Tuesday morning and it looked like a snowglobe outside.  I was displeased, and there was no way on this Earth I was wearing a skirt, even if that is what actually came with this blazer when I bought it.  Anyway.  Formal affair.  The principal, who wears a regular suit every day, was wearing a tailcoat.  TAILCOAT.  Do you even know how ridiculously awesome that is?!?!  Anyway, it wasn`t so terribly different from graduations back home. I`ll highlight some of the key differences:

1. It takes place during the day, rather than in the evening after school.
2. No gowns or caps.  Students graduate in their school uniforms, with a corsage pinned to their blazer.
3. Instead of each student going across the stage, the students remain at their seats, standing up when their name is called.  After all of the students have been named, the first student goes up and accepts some sort of group diploma on behalf of the class.  (I honestly have no idea if they get individual certificates after the fact or not.)

Other than that, it`s just a lot of ceremony.  There`s music and speeches and standing and bowing, and I didn`t really understand any of it.  I stood when all the other teachers stood, and sat when they sat.  Basically I was that person who never goes to church and just follows the cues from everyone else when they have to.  Thankfully, because non-school people would be in attendance, they decided it would be a good idea to pull out the BIG portable heaters, because normally the gym is absolutely frigid in the winter.  The only thing those walls keep out is the wind.

(I would also like to add that apparently most of the teachers around here hate suits as much as I do.  Many of them brought a change of clothes for the rest of the day, especially the PE teachers and teachers who have athletic clubs.)

The graduating students from my English club brought in bouquets for Morita-sensei and I, which was unexpected and sweet and gave me warm fuzzies all over!  What made it even better is that the arrangement contains my favourite flowers - Gerbera daisies!

I was also asked to sign one girl`s yearbook.  But not a girl from English club.  Or my third year class.  I have no idea whatsoever who this kid was, but she was really excited about having something in English in her yearbook. 

After that, things calmed down quite a bit.  Until announcements are made about what assignments the teachers are being given for the coming year, we don`t know who I`m going to be working with, plus I`ve heard comments in passing that we`re getting updated versions of the textbooks, so I can`t plan anything.  I`m going out of my mind with boredom.  But next week I`m headed to Tokyo again, so that will be a nice break for me.