Some Call Me Crazy, Others Call Me Stefu

"Sayonara!"... or, "I'm back!!"

2006-08-08T04:44:00.000+09:00

Well, after a week-ish of packing a year of my life away in two extremely large suitcases, I'm back home. Some of my last adventures included:

Closing my bank account. The actual process was just filling out forms, but the best part was once my account was actually closed. They handed me all of my savings in a huge wad of cash. It seems that Japan doesn't have any bills larger than the equivalent of $100, and having saved 1/3 of my salary over the course of the year, they gave me an envelope absolutely stuffed with bills. I felt like I had just robbed the bank, or struck a deal with the mafia, except for the fact that the envelope was bright pink and covered with cartoon fish, the trademark of my banking company. Go figure.

My last trip to the rotating sushi restaurant. Goodbye shrimp heads and octopus tenticles... I'll eat you next time... maybe.

Megan and I got to meet the new junior high school ALT. He seems like a good guy, he's a fellow alum of the study abroad program at Kansai Gaidai much like myself, and he's a red head. I think the town is in capable hands.

I cleaned my apartment up decently. It's not sparkingly clean, but it's respectable. I was told that no matter how clean I got my place, my supervisor would come and clean it all again, so I didn't have to work too hard. And, thus, I didn't.

I went out to dinner with Megan and two of our local teacher-friends, wherein I had my last Stephanie Sensei moment. One of my first graders was there celebrating her birthday. Now, for the record, this is a very classy Italian restaurant. Like, sometimes *I* felt out of place there because it was so classy. My parents would have never taken me there for my 7th birthday. If I had told them that I wanted Italian food for my birthday, they would have gotten a pizza delivered to my house. Anyhow, I guess Arisa-chan comes from a classier family than most.

Being a first grader, she noticed both myself as well as the school music teacher dining a few tables away, and got totally weirded out. I can completely understand the phenomenon. First of all- TEACHERS? Eating at a RESTAURANT?? I mean, everyone knows that teachers live at school, so that was crazy in itself.

Secondly, her first grader suspicion that teachers don't have any friends was shaken up. Stephanie Sensei, the music teacher and... two strangers!!! Who ARE these people?

Thirdly, Megan was there... which made TWO foreigners in the party. Some of my students honestly thought I was the only foreigner in the entire country, so they got confused when they see other ones. Other students assume that all foreigners are part of some sort of secret brotherhood so we all know each other. And in this case, Megan and I do know each other. Aha! little Arisa thinks to herself, look, there's another foreigner and she's friends with Stephanie Sensei. I KNEW it!!

Finally, sometimes Megan and I were speaking Japanese. Foreigners can speak Japanese? No way!!! And sometimes the music teacher and our other friend spoke in English. Omori Sensei and Nishio Sensei can speak English? Get out of town! SO. WEIRD.

Anyhow, Arisa decided that instead of coming over and saying hi, she should just make a big scene at her table so we'd notice her. She apparently is taking ballet lessons, because every few minutes she'd jump out of her chair and start doing pliet-ing, pataburet-ing, twirling or posing or doing whatever she could to attract our attention. Sadly, I just thought she was some random and weird little child. But eventually she took a pointed walk past our table on the way to the bathroom. I asked the music teacher if she knew the girl, and she did, and all was solved. We took some photos together (as if to document the fact that yes, Stephanie Sensei does in fact get out sometimes) and then we could eat our dessert without being distracted by our budding ballerina friend. Cutie.

The day of my ultimate departure could have gone more smoothly... Takao san, the man from the town hall who had volunteered to drive us to where we needed to be, came late which meant that we had to careen madly through the streets of Tsu to the ferry port to drop Megan off. She was planning on taking the 12pm ferry to the Nagoya Airport... so we raced in the door to the ticket window with all her suitcases in tow at 11:50 only to find out that there was no 12pm ferry, and she'd have to wait for the 1pm one. Luckily, she still made it to the airport the requisite 2 hours before her flight left. Then, due to Takao-san's need to stand and wave as the 1pm ferry pulled away from the dock, I missed the train I was going to take. So instead of only having to transfer myself and all my luggage once, I had to do it three times. But it's all good. I enjoyed my train ride and took plenty of photos out the windows.
Goodbye Mie Prefecture.

Goodbye my neighborhood.

Goodbye airport shuttle train that looks like Darth Vader.

And HELLO MASSACHUSETTS!

Thanks for sticking around and checking out my adventures. Some were more amusing than others. Thanks for the e-mailed comments, it was nice to know that people other than my dad were reading things. (Hi Dad) I'll maybe update every now and then with stuff from my new life as an RA at a dorm for Japanese college students in Boston (at Showa, for those of you in the know) and myadventures as a grad student at BU, getting my masters in education to become and English as a Second Language teacher. Woo hoo!
Peace out for now, I suppose!

stuff

2006-07-31T11:24:00.000+09:00

Stuff. That's what I've been doing. Here is some of it:
Eating food I have only recently become able to identify
This shot is my dinner at the Board of Education farewell party.

Festivals festivals festivals! If there is one around, I will go to it. I figure that I might as well wear my yukata as much as possible before it becomes nothing more than a Halloween costume for the rest of my life.

Traveling:
Hiroshima, despite the gloominess of war and destruction that one immediately associates with it, is a lovely city full of greenery and monuments for peace. It was well worth the trip. This is currently refered to as "the A-Bomb Dome," as it was one of the few buildings left standing after the bomb dropped. Its been left ever since as a reminder of the horrifying power of nuclear weapons.

Miyajima- A lovely island a 10 minute ferry ride off the coast of Hiroshima. Location of the famous "floating torii gates," with a temple built right on shore so that when the tide is in, it does (sort of) look like it's floating on the surface of the water, and is therefore known as one of the top 3 scenic spots in Japan. It also features wild deer and a monkey park!!

Okayama- I just hung out with my friend Hassen, no photos here.

Kobe- I saw what is ranked as one of the 3 most beautiful evening views... or something. Everything in Japan is one of the top 3 something. But you can the Kansai Airport, the city of Osaka, and lots in between too!

Home- I'm back in Mie desperately trying to organize myself and all my belongings. Some more goodbyes this week, some more trips around the area and finally a trip to the airport on Saturday! That's right, I'll be home at the end of the week, August 5th. So I'll leave things here, maybe talk to you all again soon!
(Just kidding, this photo was taken in Kobe, not Mie... but I'm back now... but you don't really care either way, do you...)

Viva Yamamoto

2006-07-17T19:04:00.000+09:00

Things have been quite exciting here in Mie prefecture and beyond these days.

Last weekend's camping trip was cold, rainy and wonderful! After a 2.5 hour drive down to Miyama we weren't about to let unwelcoming weather keep us from swimming around in the icy river, playing an epic (and soggy) game of volleyball, or grilling up a storm on the barbeque. I thought that being raised swimming in the frigid waters of Nantasket Beach and Cape Cod would have made me strong enough to handle a river in Southern Japan. But I found it to be totally freezing!! However, I was swimming with two Australian friends and I wasn't about to look weak in front of them. But when some Canadian friends arrived and proclaimed the waters to be chilly, I was relieved. It wasn't just me!

My school had Monday off so I spent the day in Osaka with a friend I had met back at Kansai Gaidai. He's been teaching English for AEON and he knows the city much better than I did, and taught me the secret of enjoying oneself in Osaka- if you're not spending money, you're not having fun. So we tried to spend in moderation, playing taiko only on the cheap machines, searching for tokens on the floor of arcades instead of buying them (which eventually got us semi-kicked out ...) as well as eating lengthly meals with minimal shopping. I'm not really into spending time in cities, but Osaka was my home away from home for a semester, so it was nice to run around and enjoy the bright lights, excitement of the crowds, and eat turkey twice in one day. (Subway Sandwiches and a Hawaiian burger and sandwich shop, yay!!)

This week featured two meetings with big wigs praising me for my work as an international diplomat... or, thanking me for putting up with the little brats in the Hakusan public elementary schools. Five of us had an audience with the mayor, and then the superintendent of schools in Tsu. We got to sit around sipping green tea and answer generic questions like "What do you think of Japanese schools?" and "What will you do after your contract ends?" and "Where is your favorite place in Japan?" The mayor gave us 15 minutes of fame. Not only the was mayor himself, some of his staff, and representatives from 3 of areas of Tsu City present, we also were observed by not one but THREE seperate newspaper reporters and a camera from the local cable tv station. I even got quoted in the Chunichi paper, talking about how enthusiastic (most of) my students are about learning English. Oddly enough, nobody included the part about how many ALTs work with older students who are far too shy to participate in class, which leads to poor communication skills. But hey. At least my grammar was good enough to be quoted!

This weekend was full of excitement. First came the cameo appearance by my lovely host family! They drove 2.5 hours from Osaka just to play with me for the day... and to visit the hot spring baths in town, which are supposedly the third-best baths in all of Japan! We took a brief tour of my apartment, followed by a slighly longer tour of the grocery store where we bought supplies for a riverside picnic. As temperatures have been in the low 90s all week, we heartily enjoyed splashing around in the river park in town, catching tadpoles and enjoying the laid-back charm of life in the countryside. That evening, Mika (my host mom) helped Megan and I dress up in our new yukatas so we could go to a fireworks festival down in Ise. [Yukatas are like cotton kimonos, nowadays mainly only worn at summer festivals.] Mika claimed to be inept at dressing others in yukatas (tying the obi, or belt, is an art form of itself) but once she saw Megan and I looking up instructions on the internet, she agreed to help. Came out pretty good!

It's a good thing that we payed attention to what she had done because Megan and I were too busy enjoying the festival and missed our last train home that evening. Luckily we went with a gaggle of ALTs and Lolly's last tain was a bit later than ours. So while it was great to have a spontaneous sleep-over party, we woke up in the morning with nothing but our yukatas to wear home... so we had to wrestle ourselves into them once again and parade for 15 minutes along the main road in Hisai and ride the train all the way home all dressed up as if for a festival. Although most of the town stared at us two foreigners all dressed up at 8am with nowhere to go, only two strangers were actually bold enough to stop us on the streets to comment about our bizzare outfits.

Finally, as this is yet another 3 day weekend, I was able to host 3 more visitors in my apartment. One visit was highly anticipated- my friend Hsiu from Vassar came all the way from Okayama to spend the weekend with me. Sadly, we had to share the apartment with two higly unexpected guests. Mukade... giant Japanese centipides that can give you a nasty bite. This was the first (and hopefully last) time they ever appeared in my apartment, and gave us quite a shock... I believe the entirety of Tsu city heard us squeal in disgust. But after I emptied about half a can of bug spray on them, they writhed themselves to a long and painful death. This shot shows the size of the "spawn of Satan" (as Sean poetically dubbed the little buggers) but doesn't do justice to the two enormous pincers on the back of their nasty bodies.

Hsiu and I made a pilgrimage to the Ninja Museum, a Ninja Tea House (run by a descendent of ninjas whose shop is full of artifacts that he adores showing off to foreigners... we were literally handed 400 year old firearms to play with while having unbelievebly sharp swords waved in our faces) and the (completely unrelated to ninja) geta shop where we bough handmade wooden sandals. Today featured a trip to Ise Shrine, followed by Hsiu and I eating our way around the various food stalls and hole-in-the-wall restaurants in located next to the shrine. Delicious and satisfying!

Here is our juxtiposition of traditional and modern Japan- geta and karaoke.

Always more to say, but we'll leave it here for now. Keep it real!
I'll be back in 19 days... Time, how she flies!

The end of the line

2006-07-03T20:59:00.000+09:00

So I'm getting down to the wire. I bid a not-so-tearful goodbye to Yatsuyama Elementary School on Friday and headed off into the sunset towards Ieki, the last of the five. You may recall that I had a wee bit of difficulty controling the energy of my little cherubs over at Yatsuyama... Well, this morning, the health teacher at Ieki was sent to Yatsuyama to be a guest teacher for the day. I met her in the bathroom after lunch as we were brushing our teeth. (Note: No, I didn't suddenly turn anal about dental hygine during my year abroad, it's just that everyone at school is expected to brush their teeth after lunch, which is actually kind of a good idea) Anyhow, she stood there with her toothbrush hanging out of her mouth as we vented our frustrations about those kids. "I taught the exact same lesson last week at Ieki and it went so smoothly! I had no idea how to get those Yatsuyama kids to settle down!" Well, lady, join the club. It's always a bit disheartening to hear that even professional teachers can't figure how to get things under control, it's kinda nice to know that it's not just me.

So other than whining about poorly behaved children, I've been enjoying myself quite a lot these days. I'm in "Last Chance" mode, knowing that as of right now, I will be here for one month and 2.5 more days. Last weekend, a friend from Kansai Gaidai (my Japanese alma mater) came to visit and I gave her the grand tour of Ise Shrine, the surounding town, and my lovely and spacious apartment.

This past weekend, I morphed into quite the social butterfly. Saturday evening was the JET Sayonara party where I got to run into all sorts of fellow English teachers that I only run into about once every few months or so. Needless to say, it wasn't a particularly emotional event for me, as most of these folks haven't been a very deep presence in my life, but it was nice to see them anyhow. I know I'll be seeing my closer friends again, so it was more of a Mata Ne (catch ya later) event as far as they're concerned. Sunday I went to Kyoto to visit one of my professors from Vassar, my dear Matsubara Sensei. Due to me getting lost trying to find her, and then getting us lost trying to get to the shopping district we were aiming for, we didn't get a lot of sight seeing in, but we had plenty of bonding time, which was truly the whole point of my expedition.

That evening was dinner with my host family in Osaka. Baby-chan (Reina) is walking up a storm now, she's absolutely amazing! She was obsessed with my backpack for some reason, so she kept dragging it around the floor, not quite able to heft it off the ground. She and Mirei-chan were also mystified by my cell phone, which I didn't quite understand since both of their parents have cells. But mine is blue, so that makes it more interesting. I kept turning it off so they didn't accidentally call my supervisor or do anything else embarassing, but for some reason, every time they pressed buttons they managed to hit the "on" one, so it was a bit of a back and forth battle. But nothing humiliating happened, so don't worry.

Reina is also infatuated by my host mom's Swiffer mop, so she enjoyed picking it up and strutting around the apartment with it. Although at first I thought she was a sort of Miracle Baby who would actually be cute AND clean the house at the same time, it turned out that she probably did more harm than good, knocking off all the bits of dust and stuff that had collected on the mop while she was waving it around. But once she learns to scoot the mop around the floor, she'll be a dream come true.

This week, as I said, I'm at Ieki Elementary School. The kids are just so amazing, and the faculty is pretty gung-ho as well. Today I was halfway through teaching a lesson when I realized I didn't have the cards I needed to play this game I was planning to do. I asked the teacher if she could grab them off my desk from the teachers room while I made up something to occupy our time. She came back with the wrong cards, so I decided to scrap the activity all together, but she wouldn't be stopped. I said maybe the cards were in my drawer. So while I continued to teach my original and simplified version of "If you're happy and you know it..." (scaled back to "Are you happy? are you happy?") Nakabayashi Sensei ran downstairs, PULLED MY DRAWER OFF ITS HINGES, brough me the ENTIRE drawer and said "Which ones?" Guess all that stuff they say about Japan having the world's best customer service is absolutely true!

Oh! AND! On Saturday before the Sayonara Party (and after my last Saturday morning English class in Toba! Yay!!) Megan and I treated ourselves to a trip to a mysterious land of wonder that we've been dreaming about since last summer. We got our hair cut at "Hair By Monkey," a salon we saw during our fateful trip to Ise.

I always get nervous about letting new people cut my hair, but I figured if it looked good, then it looked good, and if it looked bad, well than I have a great story to tell about when I let monkeys cut my hair! Anyhow, there were no monkeys involved whatsoever, just a very chatty hairdresser who gave me a very nice look, I'm completely satisfied.

Ok, off to dinner. Camping this weekend, then a trip to see a friend in Osaka... catch you later!

What teachers really talk about

2006-06-16T20:08:00.000+09:00

So as children, I'm sure that most of us never really gave a second thought to what teachers talk about in the staff room. But now I know. Boy do I ever! A hot topic at Kawaguchi was who liked who in the 4th grade... I mean, I always knew that Yuusei was a stud muffin, and that Tomomi could have done better, but I know a whole lot more now.

Get a bit of alchohol in the staff and things get much more abstract. We had my Welcome Back to Yatsuyama For The Last Time drinking party last night (not to be confused with the Welcome party I had during my first visit, nor my Welcome Back party in February, or with the Farewell Party they're planning for July. What can I say, either they love me, or they love to party... or both) Well, first the 6th grade teacher went on a tirade about which kids have smelly feet. I thinks she's been taking notes, she had a few culprits from every grade. Then everyone got on the vice principal's case because he has a funny way of erasing the chalkboard. Most teachers opt for the up and down scrubbing motion, but he has a side to side wipe... it's almost as if he's washing windows, he goes from right to left, all the way across, then systematically moves down one eraser length and traces back from left to right again.

Perhaps its because most of the staff has children my age, but the Yatsuyama teachers particularly enjoy taking me under their wing. The one young-ish teacher (just turned 30) now has the desk next to mine, and seems to have a lot of free time, so she likes to chat with me, which is way fun. My previous desk neighbor avoided eye contact like the plague. However, I liked sitting next to him because no matter how unproductive I felt on days when I didn't have many classes, he was always even LESS productive. He was always playing on his laptop, and he used to slam the screen down whenever kids would near his desk, so I was a bit suspicious of what he could be looking at. But it turned out to be nothing other than internet auctions. Ebay, yahoo auctions, anything. He looked at cars, watches, camera parts, plane tickets to Hawaii... I dunno if he actually ever bought or sold anything, but he certainly knew how entertain himself on those long days where he didn't have much to teach. Come to think of it, I can't tell you what he actually taught. Maybe he wasn't even a teacher! I have no idea. But he doesn't work there anymore. Could it be related to his lack of productivity? Or did he finally bid on those plane tickets to Hawaii? I may never know. Farewell, Ito Sensei.

Speaking of Yatsuyama, I have a better name for it. "Yatsuyama" literally means "Eight Mountains," because it's nestled at the base of a range of hills. I'd rather call it Attitude Problem Elementary School. Seriously, these kids are like nothing I've encountered at the other 4 schools in town. Must be something in the water out there... Either that, or it's just that the kids with the bad attitudes stick out more because there are fewer of them. I mean, if two kids out of 39 aren't paying attention, chances are good that I'll never know. But if two out of six are too cool for school, you betcha I'll figure it out.

My 3rd grade is scared of me now. I had them at the end of the day, after two rought classes. First, the Supreme Demon 2nd graders. I thought the other schools had ill-behaved 2nd grade classes. Here, one (out of 13... my lucky number) literally runs around the room, yells, draws on the chalkboard, steals stuff from off my desk, etc during the entire class while the teacher runs around after him quietly suggesting that he sit down. (Discipline at Yatsuyama is nearly non-existant. Ordinarily I'd try to do something, but the teacher is literally on top of him the whole time, and I wouldn't want to question her "discipline" system) Another boy likes to loudly and repeatedly tell me that he doesn't feel like doing whatever we happen to be doing. Meanwhile, the kid next to him LOVES learning English and takes every moment possible to announce to everyone various random vocabulary that comes to his mind. For example, while the rest of the class (or at least the 4-5 who typically participate) are reciting the numbers 11-20, Yuuya is loudly announcing that he can count to 100, and would we like to hear him do it? Ready? Ok! thiry five! thirty seven! See?? Fourty!! Oh dear.

Then comes the 5th grade. They're pretty good, as long as you set up everything as a competition. We placed a bunch of games... well, 6 out of 10 did. They were all pair games... except one girl was upset (at who knows what, it's always something new with this one) and wouldn't lift her head up off the desk. The rest of the class rolled their eyes- we all had a moment. So the boy who would have been her partner had to make a group of 3 with the pair next to him. Except they couldn't seem to keep the rules of anything we did straight. So while the other 3 groups got to play the Days of the Week board game twice through, the group of three didn't even make it halfway because they were too busy yelling at each other the whole time. And little Hikaru sat there alternately pouting at me, the wall, and the floor. I tried briefly to engage her, but the other 9 are a total handful, so I left her situation up to the Japanese teacher... who wasn't a lot of help.

Anyhow, then came the 3rd grade. They were such adorable 2nd graders, I loved them. And I still love them... I just don't love them when they give me attitude. So when we started to learn our new song, and Yuudai told me he didn't want to do it, I was mad. I was tired. So I gave him a look. Like, a Look. It's like I was Mr. Potato Head and someone has swapped my Benign Eyes for my Angry Eyes. And I said, "Would you rather leave the class?" [Note: though I feel like this is something an American teacher might say, a Japanese teacher would never EVER say it. Kids aren't sent out of the room when they are acting out, they're not sent to the principal's office, sometimes they are severely scolded, but often they're just supposed to stay in class and feel the disapproval of their peers until they are shamed into conforming with social norms.] So everyone was shocked at my wild suggestion. I'm sure the teacher would have been too, if he'd bothered to stick around once class started. Yuudai quickly said "No" and I suggested that if he were going to stay in class, that he join in the singing, and he agreed. I went back to Happy Sunshine Stephanie Sensei, but that flash of temper has them scared. When I stopped giving The Look, I said jokingly that they better not make me mad, as I have a short temper... and I later heard them whispering that I'm really scary when I'm angry.

Mwahahahahahaha. I love it! Me? Scary? Hahaha. Just don't tell these kids, ok? Fear and respect are not the same, but sometimes they're close enough.

And now for some soul-calming shots of the serenity that is my neighborhood.

The walk home.

Where dragons, koalas and ham collide...

2006-06-12T18:40:00.000+09:00

So Friday afternoon ended in a rush to get out of the rice fields of Mie and up to the bright lights and big city of Nagoya. Why, you ask? To see our boys, the Chunichi Dragons, battle the Nippon Ham Fighters in a game of good ol' baseball.

I headed up with the usual suspects: Megan, Sean, Lolly and Sharon. The interesting part is that Lolly is Scottish and Sharon is Australian, so this was their first "proper" baseball game. Luckily, I ended up sitting next to Sharon, who had a basic grip on how the game worked. However, being raised in cricket culture, she was constantly surprised at how easy it is to get 3 outs in baseball. (Cricket here refers to the game and not the insect) Despite having participated in not one but TWO of Sharon's cricket-related events, I still can't exactly work out how the game is played, but it seems like going from (their version of) inning to inning is far more time-consuming. Lolly was a complete freshman to the scene, and eventually lost interest in figuring out the details of what was going on, but she seemed to enjoy cheering along with the crowd.

Now, cheering is one instance where Japanese culture takes its tendancy towards fanaticism and runs with it. In the States, it seems customary to cheer when the spirit moves you, when the time feels right, when you need to give your team some lovin' or encouragement, or express appreciation for what they've done. But in Japan, there is a designated cheering section. Actually, there are two. The home team's section is the right field side of the bleachers, and the visiting team's squad sits in the left field bleachers. When the team of choice is up, the section positively erupts in sound. There are a handful of trumpet players, some drummers, and it seemed to be mandatory that everyone else carry those plastic thunder sticks to bang together. Each player is allowed to pick his entrance music that will be played as he struts to the plate.** And then the crowd goes at it. Although the composers are still unclear to me, as is much of the content, each player has his own personal cheer that is repeated ad nauseum as long as he is up at bat. Most of them go to approximately the same rhythm: clap. clap. clap-clap-clap. The main cheer is sung, then to the aforementioned beat, they chant "batto nosei [insert player's name]." The Japanese part means something like "put it on the bat," ie) get a hit. Sometimes they use the player's first name, other times the last, I assume they use whichever name is closest to three syllables.

Now, the presence of the elite cheering section is not to deter other parts of the stadium from cheering, but it becomes the responsiblity of the bleachers to support their team and lead the rest of the stadium in their enthusiasm. There are also some giant flags to be waved when the team does something good, in addition to the various banners that are held up for various players.

Although I initially thought the constant thunder of clap. clap. clap-clap-clap might make my head explode, it actually grows on you to the point where it kind of gets in your blood and you can't imagine baseball any other way.

Other oddities included the cheerleaders that would occasionally appear between innings to accompany the mascots. And these cheerleaders were the more traditional sort, with pink skirts and pom poms... that seemed a little weird, but I guess if other sports have them, why not baseball.

Speaking of mascots, one would think that the mascot for the Chunichi Dragons would be immediately obvious. And it is! Koalas! How natural, right? No joke!! Actually, they have three mascots. One is the koala, and the other two look like a blend of some sort of bird and the Nike swoosh. I suppose they could be considered "dragons..." but that's not the first thing that came to my mind when I saw them... what do you think?

Happily, the home team won 4-2, so all the fans went home happy... except for those in the Nippon Ham Fighters' cheering section. Additionally, since we won, we got the pleasure of listening to the Dragons' cheering squad run through all of the cheers over again! A good time was had by all... despite being up in the 5th floor nose-bleed seats.

Finally, Megan was so impressed with the stadium's overall cleanliness that with the promise of $10 American dollars and the undying admiration of all their friends, Megan and Sean were moved deeply enough to lick the floor... and believe me when I say that I only WISH I were kidding.

** Originally I erroniously said "mound" instead of "plate" here... I totally know better, and by mis-typing in such a terribly ignorant fashion, I have brought shame upon my family for generations. I whole-heartedly apologise for any negative outcome that may have resulted due to the slip-up in word choice. Oops.

Amaterasu-sama is watching

2006-06-04T20:16:00.000+09:00

So I got shooed out of the Grand Shrine in Ise last night, I feel special.

To backtrack, I think I need hobbies that aren't teaching English. I spend my weekdays teaching English. On Wednesday nights, Megan and I teach private English lessons to our Brazilian neighbors- the boy is one of her junior high students and the girl is in 5th grade at one of my schools. These are two incredibly cool kids, though, and to be honest it's half English lessons and half playing games. They taught us how to play marbles, who knew it would fun! And then on most Saturday mornings I teach English lessons down in Toba, about an hour south of here. It's all getting to be too much. But I'm heading home soon... to go to school to learn how to teach English. D'oh!

Anyhow, so after coming home from Toba yesterday, I realized that I had nothing to do in the evening and that most of my foreign friends were out of town for a conference in Tokyo. So I called up my teacher-friend Hitomi to see if she would play with me. Megan and I had hung out with her a few weeks ago and she was really keen on going to the shrine in Ise to check it out in the evening, but Megan has been there about 50 billion times and was in no mood to go back. Anyhow, I thought it had the potential to be cool, so we went down last night.

We met up and made it to the shrine just before 6:30. We were afraid it would be closed, but instead it was just empty. For those of you who don't remember my past trips, I went in the summer with some JET friends (cue flashbacks to our sullen trip to the eel restaurant) and for New Years Eve (wall to wall people and bonfires). Anyhow, unlike before, dusk was just settling in, so all the stone lanterns were glowing peacefully in silence, interrupted only by chirpy frogs in the river that flows around the shrine.

I couldn't believe how empty it was, especially compared to the New Years trip. We saw about 6 people the whole time. The sanctuary has been around for over a thousand years, and walking through the deserted wooded paths toward the main shrine really makes you lose your sense of time. It could be today in 2006, it could have been 1006, who knows. The only thing that's different is that the trees are probably much taller these days. Anyhow, here's the bridge that marks the entrance to the sanctuary.

After we paid our respects to Amaterasu-sama, who ironically enough is the sun goddess, we headed back. As we were leaving, we ran into a deer. Just one sweet Bambi-eque deer, just as startled to see us as we were to see it. Deer are messengers of the gods according to Shinto, so we wondered what it had come to tell us. While we were stopped to marvel at it, a security guard came up and told Hitomi and I that the shrine was closing, so we had to leave. We nodded, still looking at the deer. Then, seeing me, he told us again in English and asked us to hurry up... which we did. He walked us back across the bridge then told his fellow guards that we were the last of the visitors, and they could all go home now. For some reason this fact made me feel special. Sometimes it feels good to be last.

While I'm on my "living breathing history: kick, allow me to share one more photo. Last weekend I went with my honerable Harp Lady to practice some harp tunes in Ueno. She was recently drafted to play the harp part in this "West Side Medley" that the band there will be performing next weekend. She wanted me to take over for her, but with only two weeks before the concert, there was really no way I could do it. If I had a harp to practice in my apartment, I could give it a solid maybe, but while it was fun to try, it's not going to happen. Anyhow, we borrowed the harp at Ueno High School, which she told me was at the base of the Ueno Castle. And she wasn't kidding! Here's the view from the hallway...

If you're wondering, the castle part looks like this. (Roll stock footage from a trip with Sean over the winter)

I guess that's the end of my ramblings for today. It's been a slow Sunday.

Victory is mine~~!

2006-05-29T17:21:00.000+09:00

So the Mie JET talent show went off with a bang on Saturday. I got bullied into entering because there weren't enough acts, and because the show would be happening in my town's cultural center so I had no excuse not to join in the fun...but I wasn't about to go it alone. Instead, I invited my students from Omitsu Elementary School (how I love thee so) to join me, and I got ten of them (plus my supervisor and the music teacher) roped into things as well. I had a random set of 3rd, 4th and 5th graders at my disposal, but with limited time before the show, we settled on doing two toe-tapping numbers.

We started things off with a more politically correct version of the classic number "Ten Little Indians." I took the liberty to change the lyrics to "Ten Little Children." This seemed like a great idea, seeing as there were ten little children participating and all, but this left us with one not-so-little problem. Sing along with me to the second verse:
Ten little, nine little, eight little children, seven little, six little, five little children [what's the problem?] four little, three little, two little children [here it comes] one little child here.

Now, I know these particular kids, and I know they are bright and motivated and follow directions with precision. However, they also are adept at following patterns, and I quickly realized that no amount of rehearsing would be able to beat "one little children" out of their heads, so I let it slide, hoping that there wouldn't be any sort of gramatical upheaval from the other English teachers in the audience. Luckily, the kids mumbled enough that nobody noticed (or cared).

Since we had five minutes in which to perform, I figured I'd charm and astonish the audience by having the kids each introduce themselves with a simple "My name is~~." Aww. They were so cute. Their parents were so proud. The vice principal was there snapping photos with reckless abandon as well.

Next came the show stopper: the "Do Re Mi" song from the "Sound of Music." There is a Japanese version as well, which we started off with. No big surprise. But THEN! THEN we wow-ed the audience by singing the ENGLISH version! Finally we went back to the Japanese one, allowing the audience to clap (and sing, if they wanted to) along. Pure genius. I also choreographed some basic moves, including marching, knee bending, and the ever popular side-to-side sway. As one might imagine, it took the entire verse to get everyone swaying in the same direction, which is just part of the fun.

Now you see, it was imperitive to be as adorable as possible because the winner of the show was to be determined by the audience, so we had to charm them as best we could. It also didn't hurt that there was a pretty small turn out, and I'd be willing to bet that 50% percent of the crowd was parents/siblings/friends/teachers from Omitsu Elementary School. So perhaps I unwittingly stacked the deck. The rest of the show included a guitar trio, a clarinet quartet, some dancing, solo singing, piano playing, etc, all performed by English teachers and other adults. Therefore, there was nothing as cute as 10 little Japanese kids bumping into each other trying to sway from side to side while singing in ENGLISH. At the end, all the performers were called on stage so they could watch our faces rise or fall as they called the winner's name. As the guitar trio standing next to me whispered to each other, it was really only a competition for 2nd place. And it's true, the kids were unstoppable-- we won first prize! It was quite rewarding to see the kids jumping up and down and hugging each other and being extra adorable as we collected our prize.

Unfortunately, the prize would have been appreciated much more deeply by a foreign adult than by a Japanese child. The organizers of the event had gone to a foreign grocery store and packed a giant basket full of things like nacho chips and salsa, chocolate chip cookies, mustard, chili sauce, cashew nuts, all sorts of hard-to-come-by goodies... which my students insisted on splitting among themselves. (I ended up with nuts and salsa. Not bad, I guess) Anyhow, though the other English teachers might have appreciated it more, the kids probably enjoyed receiving it more. PLUS, everyone got a commemorative hand towel for participating, which my students were also strangly excited about.

So, for a close up look at the event, please click on the link to Omitsu Elementary's website and scroll around until you find the photos. They came out pretty well, it's worth the click.

http://www.schoolweb.ne.jp/weblog/index.php?id=2410002&type=0&no=1

In other news, have you ever seen a rice paddy? If not, you've clearly never been to Mie. Here's what my neighborhood looks like these days. They've flooded all the rice paddies so it is literally Mosquito Heaven around here... but at least it's green and pretty!

Who knew?

2006-05-19T19:32:00.000+09:00

I feel compelled to take this moment to thank Japanese television for answering a question I never thought to ask. The question is: Could one propel oneself into the air using fire extinguishers like rockets? (the follow-up question being: if so, how many extinguishers would it take to get airborne?)

Japan has a show called "Spring of Trivia" wherein viewers send in postcards with a tidbit of trivia scrawled on them. Some bits are selected, experts are called in to verify and expound upon said trivia, and then the findings are presented to a panel of 5 famous people. In Japan, when you are impressed or surprised by something, you often express this sentiment with the word "hey" (only with an extended vowel- heeeeeeeeeey) So each famous person on the panel has a button that, when pressed, says "heeey," and depending on how impressed they are by the trivia they are presented with, they can press the "heeey" button up to 20 times. Each "heeey" ends up being worth 100 yen (roughly one dollar) and at the end of all the button-pressing (heeey heeey heeey heeey heeey heeey), the total number of "heeeys" are counted and the viewer who sent in the tidbit receives cash, usually in the neighborhood of 7000 yen ($70 bucks).

Well, to extend the program a bit more, after impressing the famous people with the trivia sent in by viewers (Did you know that the trains in Iga City are decorated to look like ninjas? Did you know that if you write the Japanese character "a" enough times, you will subconsciously change and start writing the character "o"? Did you know that some spiders go nuts if they have caffeine? Heeey heeey heeey!!!) the show invents its own piece of trivia. One week, they did a study on how many dads who have never seen their child's face can pick their newborn baby out of a crowd. (A crowd being 3 babies) About 70 something percent could do it, pretty impressive. Well this week was, how many fire extinguishers does it take to lift a 65kg man into the air? (That's about 140 pounds for those of you who don't speak metric)

First he tried with one extinguisher strapped to his back like a rocket. Nothing. Then he tried with two. Nothing but lots of gas. They then made a contraption that could hold 10 strapped to his back, but when the staff set them all off and let go of the contraption, he just fell over. Once they got to 100 extinguishers, they built a sort of stage lined with extinguishers, and substituted the person with a 65k mannequin seated on top. Nothing. Finally, after interviewing various physicists, the stage was reconstructed to fit 200 extinguishers. At the last minute, the man originally slated to be powered into the air, and who was later replaced by a dummy for safety reasons, begged to be allowed to mount the stage in place of the dummy. He donned a suit and gas mask (extinguishers belch out a ton of fumes) and clambered on board. The dramatic count down began. The pins were pulled in synch and... the stage floated a few centimeters (an inch or so) off the ground. It was everyone's dream come true. Set up 200 fire extinguishers and you can attain lift off. Now how high off the ground could you get with THREE hundred, I wonder... the world may never know.

Thank you, Japanese TV, for enlightening me. Thank you, Internet, for allowing me to share this factoid with the world.

That's great, but it doesn't answer my question...

2006-05-12T18:06:00.000+09:00

So life is relatively good at Yamato Elementary School. This is the school where I am utilized the least, but it is nice to relax sometimes. Only sometimes. Sometimes it gets boring. But only sometimes. This school is not particilarly interested in introducing the students to English, so about 3/4 of the time that I'm in a class I'm the teacher, and the other 1/4 of the time I'm playing with the kids in PE class, working at kanji games with them (they didn't kick my butt, but it wasn't easy), going on outings, etc. So I guess my purpose is 3/4 to teach English and 1/4 to show the kids that foreigners are not scary.

The other day I had class with the Yamato 1st graders for the first time. (I'm sure we all recall that the Japanese school year started in April) I ran into two of the girls in the hallway that morning, and they were thrilled that I was coming to teach them that day. I'd taught them in kindergarten, and apparently I was more fun than a barrel of monkeys because the thought of English class had them jumping up and down with anticipation. I know I'm pretty fun, but I think the only thing that could make me excited enough to jump around would be if I actually got to see a barrel full of monkeys. So anyhow, they asked me what we'd be doing in class. I asked, "Do you remember the 'What's your name?' song that we sang in kindergarten?" They shyly but enthusiastically broke into "London Bridge is Falling Down."

... I'm glad they remembered SOMETHING I taught them, although that doesn't exactly address the idea of asking "What's your name?" I mean, when I hear the song "London Bridge," my first instinct isn't exactly to introduce myself. But it was truly a precious moment.

So I just got to enjoy the splendor of the Japanese holiday known as "Golden Week," which is basically the inverse of a normal week where are 2 "weekdays" and 5 "weekend days." Yay!! My favorite of the days off is called "National Holiday" according to my calendar, and it was basically invented to fill up the time between the two legitimate holidays that fall on either side of it. These holidays are the Constitution Memorial Day and Children's Day. The last 2 days of the weekend are the actual weekend days, Saturday and Sunday. So anyhow, I spent the majority of the week in Okayama Prefecture visiting a Japanese friend who I met when I studied abroad in college. When people in school asked where I was going for the week and I said "Okayama," many of them looked at me quizically for a bit before "correcting" me by saying, "Oh yes, you mean Okinawa, that sounds great!!" Okinawa is the Hawaii of Japan, and is an extremely popular travel destination. Okayama is known for... not much. But it was home to a friend, and I figured it wouldn't be bone-crushingly crowded like the typical hot vacation spots, so I was Okayama bound.

I spent a night and a day with my host family in Osaka. We had a big barbeque/picnic with a bunch of their childhood friends and their children, so I got to play with lots of babies and eat so many snacks that I got a tummy ache. Yum. The next 3 days I was in Okayama with my friend Hassen and her extremely hospitable family. We spent the majority of Day One sitting in traffic. They decided they wanted to try out this famous barbequed lamb restaurant in the north of the prefecture, so we joined the throngs of cars jamming up the highway and braved the streets for 4 hours to get to this place. The food was... fine, I guess. I don't know much about lamb except that it's baby sheep and it has a funny sort of smell and greasy kind of taste. It's apparently low in calories and becoming very popular with women. Meh. Near the restaurant, there was a huge Jersey cow farm with rolling hills covered with wide grassy fields. I honestly almost forgot that I was in Japan, it was acers of open space that WEREN'T filled with rice paddies. So we spent about an hour hanging out before we got back in the car to drive home. (For comparisons' sake, it was about an hour and a half drive back)

Here's the feast for which we so patiently waited:

That shot reminds me... Taking photos of your meals is a very popular thing to do in Japan. It kind of makes sense, seeing as the presentation of food is regarded as important as the taste. And clearly, my JET friends and I have been here too long, and thus make a point to photograph particularly delicious-looking meals. (please note that this photo is NOT posed)

Oh! Right! The weekend before Golden Week, six of us took a trip to Koya-San, one of the holiest mountains in Japan. It's been a Buddhist hot-bed since the 800s when it was established as the center of Shingon Buddhism. A popular option for modern visitors is to spend the night in temple lodging, enjoy the traditional Buddhist vegetarian cuisine and participate in morning prayer services. So, we are all capturing our tofu feast, which was both attractive and tasty.

Well, I'd love to ramble on more about Golden Week, including a dinner in a pirate themed bar, the coolest castle in Japan with a Vassar amigo and more about Koyasan, but I'd also love to eat my dinner. I have some amazing leftover curry and nan (not made by me) that's calling my name from the refrigerator. So I'll let you go for now.
Peace Out.

but what do you DO all day??

2006-04-28T17:12:00.000+09:00

This post ought to shed some light on the age old question that goes as follows:
"Look, Stephanie, I know you're an assistant teacher in Japanese elementary schools and you teach kids and play games and stuff but... seriously... what do you DO??"

Today was my last day at Omitsu (;_;) and I was bombarded with farewell letters and pictures from literally every one of the 199 children in the school. I also had a very interesting goodbye party with the faculty and staff. It's a funny feeling, being done with one school. They gave me this big send off, with a CD player blasting some sappy music into the parking lot while the principal of the next school in my rotation helped me to load all my teaching materials into her car... it felt like my time here is almost over! And it kind of is... but not really, since I still have three more months to visit four more schools. Anyhow, here are some photos I received from various members of the faculty.

What do I do all day?

First of all, if you would like a glimpse of the delightful world of Omitsu Elementary school, you can visit their webpage! http://www.schoolweb.ne.jp/weblog/index.php?id=2410002
I never knew about it until yesterday, but I am plastered all over it. If you'd like to join the game of Where's Stephanie Sensei, see if you can spot me jumping rope, eating lunch with the first graders, and teaching with my parents in tow. Who knows, there may be more appearing soon. Apparently they update it all the time- they have a picture of what the kids had for lunch every day posted on the site! School lunch is mandatory and all kids get exactly the same thing, so it's a picky child's nightmare. Luckily, being foreign, I am exempt from eating the school lunch if I so choose... and I did so choose ... you may mock my sense of adventure, but I find myself incapable of eating things with eyeballs... keep your eye on the homepage and you'll see what I mean someday.

But other than wandering around being photogenic, I occasionally teach kids stuff in English.

Here's me leading the 5th grade in a rousing rendition of the Beatles' classic "Hello Goodbye" song. I've been teaching it since my first week so it's becoming a bit tiresome for me, but the kids get really into it so I continue to promote it.

I humiliate my students in front of their peers!

No, he's not being led off to face a firing squad, we're learning English!! To teach basic direction-giving skills (go straight, turn left/right, stop, go back) I randomly select a group of students, one of them gets blindfolded and the rest of the chosen group must direct the blindfolded student through a maze of desks, created by the rest of the class. The kids LOVE this game, and usually just about everyone wants to be blindfolded... now I love the game too, but I refuse to play it 39 times in a row so everyone can get a chance. Hey, I'm tough but fair.

I eat!

I rotate around the classrooms, eating with each grade roughly once a week. Here's me and the 5th grade doing our "itadakimasu." It's customary to clap ones hands together and say "itadakimasu" (I humbly receive this) before eating, and it is always a big production at school. We have to wait for everyone to (finally) have their food in order, be sitting down, be quiet... it takes about 5 minutes of whichever kids are in charge of leading the "itadakimasu" desperately yelling for quiet before anything can happen. Look at my exotic lunch box. What wonders could it hold? If I remember correctly, I had a ham and cheese sandwich, some broccoli and pepper sticks on the side, and a teeny cup of yogurt. I know its hard to believe that I eat my vegetables raw, but it's even wilder that although I'm given free choice in my food, I purposely choose to bring vegetables. Most of my kids choke down their veggies with tears in their eyes, so they can't believe I eat them willingly. Hey- it's good fer you!

Of course I do lots of different stuff in different classes, but this is all I had photos of so that's going to be it for now. Until next time- hasta la vista!

Well, at least they're speaking English...!

2006-04-15T10:05:00.000+09:00

So I'm still at Omitsu Elementary school, which I think it's now safe to say is my favorite school. It was my predecessor's favorite, and I kind of wanted to forge onward and make my own favorite school, but the students and faculty are just so charming that I can't not love it there. But once the next two weeks are up, I'll never get to go back... ever... and that's kind of sad. Also regrettable is that my last school [name omitted just in case the faculty there ever learns English and decides to run a google search for their school] is my least favorite school, so hopefully it won't leave a bad taste in my mouth on the way home to America. I don't hate it there, but it can't hold a candle to beloved Omitsu.

As much as I love Omitsu, I can say with confidence that the students, while adorable, friendly and energetic, are NOT the brightest kids in Hakusan. Last semester I did a "How are you?" activity with my first graders. We had been working on the pattern "How are you?" "I'm ~insert emotion~." We had learned a "Hello, How are you?" song by heart, which included eight choices of emotions which we could insert into the dialogue. So when I thought the kiddos were good and ready, I gave them all a card with what, for that class period, was going to be their emotion. If you get the "tired" card, than you are currently feeling tired. If you get the "great" card, than by golly you are just doing great!! Next I gave them a piece of paper with pictures of all the eight emotions. They were to do a survey of their fellow students, crossing off each emotion as they heard it. When they has crossed off every emotion, they could sit down and (maybe if I was feeling generous) get a sticker. (Which is akin to getting a puppy in terms of generating excitement)

Well, the excitement grew to a fever pitch as I passed out the papers. Oh boy!! They get a PAPER!! And they get to WRITE ON IT IN PENCIL!!! Clearly these kids don't get out much. They felt SO important walking around with their surveys and pencils. We practiced practiced practiced the dialogue. They were pumped. They were ready. I let them loose. The dialogue ended up as follows:
Kid 1: How are you!!!!!!!
Kid 2: How are you!!!!!!! Ka-do misete!! [show me your card] (kids exchange cards and mark the applicable part on the survey)
Kid 1&2: YAY!!!!!!!
They weren't trying to be devious or lazy, they just couldn't get it. But they were truly precious as they marched around with their empowered-looking faces... all it takes is a pencil and a piece of paper.

Anyhow, that was last semester. This batch of little cherubs has become second graders. They have progressed in terms of their "How are you?" comprehension. In class, of course, they answer more or less correctly. "I'm hungry!" is popular with the boys, "I'm happy!" with the girls. But when I catch them in the hall and enquire after their health, it's a whole different story. For some reason, the new dialogue goes as follows:
Me: Hey ~insert child's name if I happen to remember it~, how are you?
2nd grader: How are you?? Nice to meet you!!!!!
I try and I try... At least they're speaking English and not running away in terror like they used to.

Second point. The faculty. The vice principal as well as the first and fifth grade teachers speak English rather well, which is unusual and exciting. However, the teacher with what is most likely the most limited English fluency but the most enthusiasm is Maehashi Sensei. You may remember him from the "many pockets" episode. Well, he's been down-graded from 2nd grade teacher to math tutor, so he spends a lot of time in the staff room. And if I'm around, he spends a lot of it trying to impress me by speaking English.

When my parents came to visit, I introduced them to him and afterwards they said, "Wow, Stephanie, you were prompting his speech just like you would do for one of your students." But it's because he acts like one of them, always looking for praise. I'll be sitting there planning a lesson or minding my own business and all of a sudden I'll hear, from across the staff room, "Stephanie Sensei, atteru?" which is like "Did I say that right???" And I'll say, "Did you say what right?" And he'll look really upset and say something like "Ee, kiitenakatta?" or "Aw man, you weren't listening??"

Recently he has dubbed himself "English Man" because he was particularly proud of himself when he was able to interrupt a conversation about the movie "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" to say "GREAT BRITAIN!!!!" that being where C.S. Lewis is from. He now makes it his mission to use as much English as possible, which usually amounts to exclamations of "It's a miracle!!!" when he uses the copy machine or outbursts of "Oh my God!!!" seemingly at random. He's also fluent in Elvis Prestley songs, so I frequently hear lines from "Love Me Tender" echoing from his corner of the room.

And now for something completely different:
So here's a nice shot of my parents during their stay at Chez StefuSensei. I made them sukiyaki for dinner- a very singable (and extremely easy) hot pot sort of dish. I was emmensely proud of them for spending three days crawling around on my floor, as my place is chair-less.

And here's what my hanami photo was supposed to look like. We were by this river, and they had huge koi shaped windsocks billowing in the breeze, it was really quite pretty!

And finally, my fellow viewers having and all-out, no-holds-barred brawl. In unison now... "awwwwwww"

Playing with matches, a girl can get burned...

2006-04-12T18:20:00.000+09:00

So since the last time I posted about my romantic life I got far more blog-related e-mail than ever before, I thought I'd start with that and hopefully my inbox will soon be overflowing with messages to amuse me.

Right. So basically all you need to know is that John is particularly good with women because he gets in more dating practice than most guys are able to do. Namely, he sees two women simultaneously. Now I don't think this is necessarily an unforgiveable sin. The problem is when you refer to one (not me, btw) as your girlfriend. This leaves the other one (me) to be "the girl [you're] currently seeing." And you don't tell either that the other one exists. But, I can see how such a thing could manage to slip your mind, or how you could feel unable to bring up the topic comfortably into conversation. However, the part I still can't wrap my head around is how you could deny the relationship you are having with one woman to the other, and do so with such stoic conviction not one, not two, but four times when the situation happened to find its way naturally into conversation. Anyway, eventually the "rumors" (what I now like to call "the truth") found their way out to the rice fields of Hakusan. After getting no further information from John when I mentioned them to him, I turned into a veritable Dragon Lady, eventually retrieved the phone number of the aforementioned girlfriend, had a very informative 30 minute chat, then finally called things off, to his surprising dismay. That's the short version. Anyhow, spring is a time for new beginnings. So let's begin by not being in a relationship... oh wait, that's the way I usually live my life. Well, I suppose we're back to square one now.

EXCEPT! Japan is exploding with cherry blossoms! Sakura sakura, as the song goes.

Although I can't exactly appreciate them to the extent that the locals do, I do believe that they are quite lovely blossoms. Most of them, or at least most of those in Hakusan, seem to be more white than pink, quite petite as a whole, but when the entire tree has blossomed and the petals start to fall like snow, you feel like you're walking in a fairy land... kind of. I enjoyed a Hanami, or "flower viewing" party this weekend with my local host family and half of their neighborhood. This included about 10 of my students who seemed completely puzzled to see me. I mean, I'm a teacher, right? I live at school, right? How in the world would I have gotten myself out to the "Cherry Blossom Tunnel" to take in the ephemeral splendor of sakura??! Anyhow, I managed to do it, and the weather was perfect, sunny and warm. Now the entire prefecture of Mie is bemoaning the driving rain we saw for the past two days which has knocked more than its fair share of petals to the ground and ruined many a picknicker's plans for a magical outdoor meal. A typical Hanami event includes copious amounts of alcohol, but mine just included copious amounts of small children... which is more my style anyhow.

Speaking of children, my parents came for a lovely two week visit. We enjoyed heading off the beaten path in Kyoto to find hikes, temples and wild monkeys (!!!), taking in some Japanese baseball (Go Chunichi Dragons, Go!), solving traditional Japanese puzzles (thanks sudoku for saving us on a very very rainy day), gazing at the snow-capped splendor of Mt. Fuji and hanging around in my quaint little town. For those wondering about Hakusan, it was described by my father as "like Ireland, but without all the sheep." One of the hilights for me (and hopefully for them) was bringing my parents to school for a morning and letting them be my "assistants" in my second grade class. I wasn't sure if my kids would immediately glom onto them or run as far away as they could in terror, so I didn't utilize my special guest stars as much as I could have, but they seemed to be satified by just watching the Stephanie Show. The show is back in full swing these days, with five performances scheduled for Friday.

Plenty of adorable stories, but they'll have to wait.

Since my computer is being finicky and not letting me post more photos, I'll leave you with my new favorite Engrish:
from the sweatshirt of a 3rd grade girl:
"Will you merry me?"

Oh... and I got into grad school. Look out, greater Boston area, here comes Stephanie Sensei!

a picture is worth a thousand words...

2006-03-25T19:19:00.000+09:00

Hey, man, I have a digital camera, I might as well use it to amuse you people.
So here goes nothing: this is my recent life in photos:

3/17: my friend Sarah arrives for a week and a day of Japan related excitement. The weekend includes Osaka Castle and Osaka Aquarium. The Aquarium is home to a whale shark, which looks kind of like if a flounder and a deer were to have an offspring, and then feed it lots of growth hormones until you need to put it in a tank half the size of Rhode Island. Truly spectacular. Also, they have a sunfish which, despite its bright and optimistic sounding name, is possibly the dumbest-looking and lonliest fish I've ever seen. Harsh but true.

3/19: Day trip to Nara! Saw some deer, pagodas, shrines, Todai-ji Temple... Got to visit my friend the Daibutsu (the big Buddha) and I climbed through the "Nostril Hole" again, just for old time's sake. Introduced Sarah to the mind-boggling wonder that is mochi, the generic name for a variety of snacks made of pounded rice flour. The verdict? "It's kind of like eating tasteless goo." Well, I like it, that makes one of us...

3/20: 6th grade graduation in Hakusan. The kids got out at noon, and all the underclassmen and faculty made a sort of gauntlet that the 6th graders and their parents would walk though as they made their way home from elementary school for the final time. It was quite cold and windy that day, so we all had to do our part to keep ourselves warm. The school principal, in a full suit with tails, a cumberbund and bowtie, decided to break into the YMCA to generate a little extra heat for himself. (no joke)

3/21-22: Expedition to Kyoto! Hilights include the Fushimi Inari Shrine, a shrine dedicated to the god of the harvest, now associated with prosperity. Businesses build torii gates along the path through the shrine to pray for prosperity, and it results in a tunnel-like effect snaking all over the hill. We visited Kiyomizu Temple, a perrenial favorite, as well as the Golden Pavillion (shiniest building ever), Ryoanji Temple (for our moment of rock-garden Zen), and Nijo Castle where we experienced the "nightingale floors" designed to squeak at the slightest pressure, thus foiling the plans of many a ninja.

Oh... and we reveled in the plum blossoms. Ume (plum) blossoms cannot hold a candle to sakura (cherry blossoms) in terms of cultural importance and aesthetic beauty, but to tell the truth, all the delicate little flower blossoms look exactly the same to me... Clearly, by admitting that, I have just spat on thousands of years of Japanese history and might as well pack my bags and head back to the aesthetically underdeveloped United States.

3/23-34: I went to school and decorated my soon-to-be English Classroom at Yamato Elementary School. I think they decided to give me my own classroom in order to amuse me during the very slow weeks prior to spring break and the new academic year. I made extravagant posters for each letter of the alphabet as well as a lovely "Hello!! How are you?" banner with examples of the various answers, other than "I'm fine, thank you, and you?" that the students could give. Sarah joined me on Friday morning to help me tack everything up.

3/25: Back to the Ueno Ninja Museum, followed by a very productive trip to the 100 Yen store, topping it all off with some sticker pictures in Osaka. Said goodbye to Sarah, came back home and vegged out.

Tomorrow is the coming of my parents! Yay! Happy Spring Break, Japan!!!

If it aint broke, don't fix it.

2006-03-15T18:19:00.000+09:00

Did I spell "aint" right? Might be an apostrophe missing...but who cares, it's not like I'm an English teacher or anything, right?

So this weekend was my debut as the official Herbal Tea representative of America. Sharon held an event for the local folk called "Sekai Cha-kai" which basically translates to "World Tea Meeting"- basically she invited a few other CIRs (Coordinators of International Relations) to give a 10 minute presentation and then a 10 minute workshop on some sort of tea unique to, or popular in, their home country. So we had British Earl Grey and scones (ho-hum), Taiwanese black tea and dried mangos(mmm, mangos), Australian eucalyptus tea and ANZAC biscuits (for a cookie designed to last on a boat for months until it reached Australian troops in WWII, they taste pretty good), Brazilian green-ish tea and wafer cookies(bitter tea, sweet wafers!), and (ta-da!!) me and Megan touting the herbal remedies associated with assorted Celestial Seasonings teas, and corn muffins (baked with real American Jiffy mix, sent to me by my mom). I was mildly terrified at the thought of the event for a variety of reasons:

1) Although instructed to present on them, I don't know anything about the herbal remedies associated with assorted Celestial Seasonings tea

2) I have never given a power point presentation in Japanese to Japanese people (have done it in Japanese class in college, but that's so not the same)

3) I have never given a presentation in my decent-but-still-charmingly-incorrect Japanese in front of foreigners who are completely fluent in the language.
But luckily:
1) I don't know a lot about herbal remedies, but the INTERNET sure does!
2) People in Hakusan tend to find my Japanese ability to be incorrect, but charming
3) Who am I kidding, like the other foreigners were actually listening to anything I said....

Now let me step back and remind you that the participants (mainly women in their 60s, although there were some younger folk and some guys) knew they were signing up for an "international event" where they were expected to learn about foreign, different, unknown, new, unusual teas... yet almost EVERY person was disappointed to find out that we wouldn't be serving Japanese green tea. Um, duh. You people already KNOW what green tea tastes like. Why do we need to tell you about it? Some people don't understand the idea of "expanding one's horizons."

Fast forward to the workshop portion. Each "Tea Expert" entertained a group of about 10 people for about 10 minutes by letting them sample some tea, feeding them a snack, and letting them look through my photo album from home... well, I'm sure other tables did other stuff.

Since I was instructed by Sharon to discus herbal remedies, my speech was littered with factoids such as: did you know that Echinacea is actually native to North America? Did you know that raspberry can lower your blood sugar level? Did you know that chamomile can help with arthritis pain? Well, one guy had heard my speech and refused to drink anything except Raspberry Zinger due to its medicinal properties, and wanted to know exactly where he could buy some. In fact, the Raspberry was by far the most popular at my table. The chamomile in Sleepytime tea was too "bitter." The Echinacea in Mint Echinacea was "too stinky." ... I tried to explain how Native Americans used herbs as ancient medicine, and much like modern medicine, stuff that's good for you doesn't always taste good. But it didn't help my case too much. Anyhow, there were plenty of Sleepytime tea bags left over, so guess who's been brewing tea up a storm every night!

In the end, it turned out that most people didn't particularly care for any of the teas that we had risked life and limb to bring from all corners of the globe for them to sample... when forced to choose a favorite, most went with Earl Grey, it being fairly well-known in Japan already. Sigh.

So speaking of storms, it was nearly 70 on Saturday. And then it snowed yesterday. Like seriously white-out conditions. And it's supposed to be in the high 60s again by the end of the week. Where does Hakusan think it is, New England??!

And speaking of New England, I will be having some very dear visitors from home winging their way over the Pacific quite shortly. My friend Sarah (friendship established in 3rd grade, we go WAY back) is arriving on Friday and sticking around til the following Saturday, then I'll recover on Sunday, then go BACK to Kansai International Airport on Monday to pick up my parents! Woo! School graduation happens on Monday, so the 6th graders are packing their proverbial bags and getting ready to go from being the 17 big fish in the little pond of Yamato Elementary school and being among the 125 very small fish in the Hakusan Junior High School large and scary pond. These are good kids, they'll do fine.... probably.

Here’s a photo of some haggis I ate at a Scottish party called Burns Night that I went to a few weeks ago. Not as gross as you’d think... but it’s close.

Don't get directions from first graders...

2006-03-03T17:20:00.000+09:00

The alternate title I was thinking of for this entry was "why is my life so ridiculous" but I think that very same thought an average of 3 times a day, so I figured this other title fits the specifics of yesterday afternoon a little bit better. Without further ado, here is a typically bizzare happening in the Life of StefuSensei.

My current school is way-the-heck on the other side of town, so I commute by the community bus which trundles its way around through the hills and rice fields for the sake of me, some high school kids, and little old ladies. Or at least those are the usual characters on the 7:48am bus... often I get the 4:45 bus home all to myself!

But anyhow, regardless of the presense or absense of fellow passengers, I noted yesterday morning that I was running low on bus tickets. I only knew of one place to buy them which is not far from my apartment, but I knew that it opens after I leave and closes before I get home, which is a problem. However, Sharon claimed that there was another similar place near school where I could get them and recommended I ask someone and they'd be able to tell me how to get there. So I after lunch I consulted with the vice-principal. [Cultural note- the vice principal of a Japanese school is far more helpful than the actual principal, who is mainly just a figure-head. The VP takes care of all those random little problems, questions, and discussions that come up throughout the day. I love my VPs]

Basically I asked if there was anywhere nearby where I could buy bus tickets. He seemed totally baffled at the idea of needing to buy tickets. He knows I ride the bus and gets really bent out of shape if I don't leave school 10 minutes before the bus is due to arrive, just in case it comes early. (It's about a 1.5 minute trek from my desk to the bus stop, there's really no need for all the hubbub) Anyhow, he had no idea where tickets were sold so I told him about the place in my neighborhood where you can buy them. Now, Megan and Sharon and I call it the "mini-town hall" because that's basically what it is. So I translated that as the "small town hall," which quickly brought a smile to his face, immediately indicating that this is not actually what Japanese people would call such a building. "Well, I don't know about that, so I'll call your supervisor at the Board of Education and see what they say." So he calls, and the Board of Education was equally at a loss on where to buy bus tickets. But they promised to figure it out and call back.

About 10 minutes later, they call back with the information on the "small town hall" (called the 'shucchosho' for future reference) and my VP made me a map. Looked like a 10 minute walk, but he decided to let me go home early so I'd have time to drop by before getting on the bus. Well wouldn't you know it started to rain just as it was time for me to begin my journey. No, not rain. Pour. So being the all-around handy-man, my VP rounds up all these umbrellas hanging around the school and proceeds to open them all up to decide which is the most suitable for me. Eventually he decides on one and I'm on my way... except not really, because I don't have enough money to buy tickets. So I have to stop at the bank.

I knew I'd seen a bank in the vicinity of the school, so I figured I'd be able to blunder my way into it. However, first I blundered my way into two of my cutest first graders. "Sensei sensei sensei, where are you going??!" they asked excitedly, so I said, "I'm going to the bank." "OOOH!!!" exclaims one girl. "I went there once!!!" Apparently going to the bank in Hakusan is a very noteworthy occasion... anyhow, I decided to double check on the bank's location with her, and I said "Oh cool. Is it near the supermarket?" "Oh no," she replied. "Next to the supermarket is a Circle K, and it's next to the Circle K. Right next door!" Easy enough, I figured, so I thanked her and went on my way.

So by "right next door" to the Circle K, she really meant "turn left at the Circle K, go to the end of the street, turn right, and then continue down the street for about 2 more minutes." At the "turn right" part, I happened to run into 3 of my 6th graders. They being older and wiser and slightly (SLIGHTLY) more trustworthy, I again inquired about the location of the bank (in Japanese) and they all wildly exclaimed "bank bank bank" in English. "Yes. Bank. Good! Where is the bank?" I asked in English. "Bank bank!!" they said again. Eventually we got our wires uncrossed and I was able to get my money. Now, why was I getting money? Right. Bus tickets.

I found a very official-looking building not far from the bank and (foolishly) assumed it was the "shucchosho." So I walked in, and everyone immediately (and literally) dropped what they were doing and stared at me. Oh, right. I'm foreign. I almost forgot. "Can I help you?" one employee tentatively asked, while the rest of them chucked uncomfortably. "Yes, can I buy bus tickets here?" I asked. They all stared a little harder, wondering how I could both speak and understand Japanese... I mean... I'm FOREIGN, right? It's just crazy. "Um, wow, ok, well, no, this is the (some word I don't know) and you want the shucchosho... so just go down the street, it'll be on the left." The rest chuckled uncomfortably again. "Just go out the door and turn left, then go straight?" I reconfirmed. "Woah. Yeah. Yup. Left... straight..." she said, still seeming unconvinced that I had any clue what was going on. Well I thanked her and headed out to the shucchosho.

You'd think this was the end of the story, except the shucchosho has two doors... leading to two different offices. So of course I selected the wrong one. It happened to be the one with no one in it, so I waited for someone to come back and help me. But nobody seemed to notice I had arrived, leaving me no other option than to go back out, come inside again and make a lot of noise in order to be noticed. It worked, and the guy sent me around to the other office... and that's the end of the story. Went in. Got tickets. Went back. Got the bus. Came home. Went to dinner with the weekly Thursday band of ruffians.

Today is Girls Day in Japan, for all those wondering. I went to a party at a student's aunt's house last weekend and will go to another one at a teacher's house tomorrow, so once I can go to both events and compare and contrast, I'll let you know what it's all about. In the meantime, here's me and Rachel from Vassar (who visited last weekend) all dressed up at the party. Aint we pretty!

Since last we saw our heroine...

2006-02-24T23:57:00.000+09:00

As I mentioned, it's been quite awhile. I recently got an e-mail from a friend who chalked up my lack of communication to me being occupied with "educating young minds."... and yes, while that is my day job and I have been quite busy doing just that, it was simply the lack of internet that stopped my ramblings. But here are some more!!

So since we last spoke, I have been through two different elementary schools (the teeny one and the huge one), gone to three different prefectures (Osaka, Aichi and Hokkaido), been on seven dates (you can e-mail me for details, suffice it to say that he's another JET who I met on the ski trip I mentioned last month and I think he's pretty amazing), seen two movies, gotten my hair cut again, gotten manhandled by kindergarteners, given my autograph to a long line of 5th graders, and sung the "Do Re Mi" song (at the teachers' request) more times than I would like to recount.

I have had my various life skills both praised and deflated in the course of a week. So at my big school, I caught the second grade teacher in the staff room one afternoon to talk about the next day's lesson. He had written the words "English song, game (Teach Me), Classroom Facilities" on the lesson plan. Now, I figured everything out except the game Teach Me. Usually teachers just write "game" if they want me to play a game (which they usually do) but since this appeared to be a game with a title (I fell for the capital letters) I wanted to know how it worked. So I asked Maehashi Sensei to teach me the "Teach Me" game. Then he looks at me and says, in carefully halting English, "Stephanie Sensei, you... have.... many... ummm... pockets." At first I thought this was the first part of the game. So I said, "Yes. Then what happens?" And he earnestly repeats, "Yes, very many pockets." At this point I looked down at my outfit, wondering if my layers upon layers of clothing added up to an unusual number of pockets (central heating, I miiissss yoooou!!!)... nope. Two on my fleece vest, and my pants didn't even have ANY pockets. Then he said in Japanese, "That game from today was really fun, the kids had a great time." He looked down at the lesson plan again, repeated "many pockets" and kind of wandered away... so I assume he was going for something like "you wear many hats"... and by that he meant, "you know lots of good games, so let's just let this one slide." Considering that during my last visit to this school, I could barely get the 2nd grade to stay in their seats for more than 10 seconds and this time they sat there to learn the vocab, listen to the instructions and they played the game mostly successfully, I was pretty proud of myself and was happy that the Sensei was happy, too.

Then on Sunday I went out with one of my teacher-friends for "afternoon tea." Her daughter is my age and was visiting from Nagoya, so she thought she'd arrange a play date for us, and then tag along because let's face it, my company is just too good to pass up. We were sitting in the car on the way to the cafe and she was praising my Japanese ability to her daughter. "She speaks almost exactly like a Japanese person most of the time, it's really amazing." I was happy to hear this. Then unfortunately, she decided to continue her disection of my Japanese skillz. "But then every now and then she just says the weirdest things. It's just so funny, I don't know where she comes up with this stuff. I mean really, truly, I don't have any clue what she's talking about sometimes." Well thanks for announcing that one. "If I say stuff that doesn't make sense, PLEASE TELL ME," I begged, and she promised to do so... but it made me kind of paranoid. I mean, I know I say quirky things, but I always thought it was cute, and not totally befuddling.

Speaking of Japanese abililty, the test results are in. I passed level two of the proficiency exam... got 81%, to be specific. However, I have been scrupulously avoiding my JET Japanese corespondence course, as well as other study materials, so if I had to take the exam again today, I don't think I'd do nearly as well. But it doesn't matter anymore. Yay me!

So I went to the Snow Festival in Hokkaido. The trip was arranged by the Hokkaido JET association, which was pretty sweet because not only did they do all the most difficult parts of the planning for us (booking flights, hotels, trains, etc) but it was a national event, so there were about 100 of us up there, meaning we got group rates on EVERYTHING. It was so nice to see snow again- I know why there's never snow here in Mie, it's because Hokkaido is hogging it all. Here's me on the sidewalk.

They had snow and ice sculptures of just about everything you could think of... famous Japanese temples, Pokemon characters, octopus (made out of snow)... also had actual octopus frozen into blocks of ice... most stuff was displayed in this park which ran through 12 blocks of Sapporo, the main city up there. Some weren't much bigger than me, some were a few stories tall. They were lit with colored spotlights at night, it was really quite spectacular. More to say, but I also have to sleep. Here's Horyuji Temple in Nara recreated in snow... see, it's kind of like the Rose Bowl parade, except it's all made of snow... and its all stationary, it's not transportable like parade floats... so I guess it's not really like that at all.... yeah, see, this is why I need to go to bed.

Remember me?

2006-02-22T18:15:00.000+09:00

Wooooooooooooooooooooooooooo hoo, after almost 3 solid weeks sans internet in my apartment, I'm back online. This is why it took so long: I asked for help. 2 weeks after having asked, my supervisor had still done nothing to further my cause. So I called the internet company myself and now, just over 48 hours later, things are up and running again. This being Hakusan (the epitome of small town life) the guy who came to fix things was the father of one of my 5th graders and called me "Stephanie Sensei" the whole time. Anyhow, this incident just goes to show, if you want something done right, just do it yourself.

Out for a dinner date, but I've got plenty more exciting, amusing and uplifting stories of Stefu Sensei's trials and tribulations.

Thanks for checking in- peace out.

Here Comes Trouble

2006-01-29T22:17:00.000+09:00

Here they are, folks. My favorite 6th graders... guess which ones are the characters most frequently mentioned.

I'll give you a hint- Hiroki appears to be doing the tango and Shogo's head is floating above a cluster of peace signs. I needed to kill the last 5 minutes of my final class with them, so I told them we were going to take a class photo. Well, I think we could have taken class photos all day and kept everyone entertained, I shouldn't have bothered planning the class at all.

Actually, their last class ended up being postponed a few days. On Tuesday afternoon my lesson planning time got cut short because I had to go learn how to use the new defibrillator with the rest of the staff... Now, I have a few comments regarding this. If a child were to go into cardiac arrest, who in their right mind would seek out the lone foreign teacher to fix things? Second, how many elementary school children really go into cardiac arrest? Third, this machine can only be used on children who weigh more than 25 kilos, which leaves most of the school population ineligible. Lastly. Why oh why do we spend the town's money on things like defibrillators when we could purchase things like, oh I don't know, HEATERS?!? I think everyone would be much healthier if it were over 45 degrees in the classrooms.

But I digress. So I was getting trained in basic CPR and technical machine skills instead of planning a lesson for the 6th graders, and that night I went out to dinner with a bunch of JETs (I have my priorities) so I spent Wednesday morning frantically preparing my last lesson for the 6th grade- I wanted to go out with a bang, which meant lots of Hot Potato. Something is inherently exciting about passing around a stuffed Godzilla toy to the sweet sweet stylings of Jason Mraz or no-nonsense wailings of Alannis Morisette. So class rolls around, I set up my classroom and wait. And wait. 10 minutes after the bell, I went down the hall to their homeroom to investigate things, but it sounded quiet and class-like. I checked my schedule, as well as the one in the staff room, and all signs pointed to the fact that they were skipping my class. So I enjoyed a relaxing (and heated) period in the staff room. The next day I (stupidly) asked my teacher if I'd be seeing the kids at all before I switched to my next school and she let out a huge gasp and proceeded to bow at me for approximately 5 minutes in apology. She then decided to reschedule the missed class during my one (ONE!) free period on Friday. I got halfway through half-heartedly revamping my plans, but ended up with 5 extra minutes, and this is one of the photos that resulted. Farewell, Kawaguchi 6th graders. By the time I get back in May, you will have already graduated to the junior high school and will officially be Megan Sensei's problem. Mwahahaha. [Cultural enrichment moment: the Japanese school year ends in March and begins in April. Crazy!]

Anyway, starting tomorrow I'll be back at my teeny school, Yatsuyama. You know, the 4-kids-in-the-whole-kindergarten school. I arrived there on Friday afternoon only to find that I have 4 lessons on Monday, which meant I had to work on the weekend... not something I like to do, but Stephanie Sensei has no days off, she is always on duty, and she spent her hot Sunday night reviewing the lyrics of hot dance numbers like "Seven Steps."

Last Sunday was spent in a much more interesting fashion- learning about ninjas! Apparently Ueno City, in the north of Mie, was a hot-bed of ninja families during the feudal days and they still have folks who practice the arts of ninjutsu. The Ueno visit begins with a tour of a preserved ninja house, complete with secret passageways, trick floorboards for hiding things, false doors, etc. Then you go through the (fully bilingual in English!!) museum which shows some of the tools that ninjas used to sneak around and gather information/deliver messages stealthily/generally flip out on people. Lots of shurikens. Also broke down interesting stereotypes. Did you know that ninjas didn't wear black garments? That would actually stand out more in the dark, and so they wore navy blue instead. Hollywood, I hope you're taking notes. Next is a 20 minute ninja show, with real ninjas and real (stage) violence. It even has sound effects, just like a comic book come to life... except they are real honest-to-goodness ninjas. Last is another small museum with helpful information on ninja mind tricks and other inspiring tidbits enough to make even the least ninja-like of us (me) think twice about my chosen profession and consider the possibility of ninja school.

I went down with my friend Sean and two of his visiting friends who are English teachers in China. We decided that everything is inherently more interesting if you add the word ninja to it. Ninja museum. Ninja gift shop. Ninja ticket. Ninja information pamphlet. And the best one, of course...

That's right. Ninja restrooms.

Off to another exciting 6 day week... School on Saturday, but a delayed weekend that coincides with Hsiu's delayed weekend, meaning a trip to Osaka is in the works for Sunday and Monday to visit some Vassar folks studying abroad at my alma mater, Kansai Gaidai.
Catch y'all later!

Excuse me for having leg muscles

2006-01-18T17:02:00.000+09:00

Dear students of Hakusan Junior High School,
How in the world do you manage to progess so slowly when riding your bicycles? I admire your balance, because when I get stuck riding behind you, I honestly fear that the lack of motion will make me lose my balance and fall right over. But seriously. I know the town is hilly. I know sometimes its hard to ride up the hills, so sometimes you have to get off and push your bike. But do you have to flock down the sidewalk in droves, with 5 of you next to each other, blocking my escape? How do you expect to get any stronger and become able to ride up the hills if, when on blessed flat stretches, you have your bike on the lowest gear and are still pedaling standing up, somehow short of breath? I'm sure some times you don't want to go to school. I mean, sometimes *I* don't want to go to school and I get PAID to go to school. But biking so ridiculously slowly just means you have to leave your house earlier to make it on time... and so do I, in case I get stuck behind you on a narrow stretch and can't pass you for awhile. Maybe I seem like a snob when I get the chance and wizz by you, but seriously, I just can't take it.
Thanks for letting me get that out there.
Study English.
Stephanie Sensei
--------------------------------------
Whew. That's been driving me CRAZY lately. These kids are so slow, you honestly find yourself wondering if they are even making any progress. Argh.

So I can add another prefecture onto my "been there" list- I went to Niigata Prefecture last weekend with 19 other JETs for a ski extravanagza. We left on Friday night and drove for over 5 hours to a place where they have so much snow, they literally called in the army to help them dig out houses and clear paths to create some semblance of roads again. "Perfect!" we thought! "Conditions will be sweet! I just hope it's not too crowded..."

Well crowded it was not. We all awoke relatively early and headed for the slopes. I was without snow pants, but I figured as long as I was skiing and not snowboarding, I wouldn't be falling down and thus jeans and long johns would be enough to protect my legs. And it was, until the rain started. Just a drizzle until lunch time. Although I could have gotten udon, soba, ramen or curry, I elected to have soup in a bread bowl for lunch- it was a most excellent choice, I must commend myself for having a good eye and catching it on the menu. After lunch, however, the weather had turned out and out rainy. Despite our many layers with various levels of waterproofing, most of us ended up totally drenched... we all weighed about 10 pounds more upon returning to the hostel because of our waterlogged gear. Yet we were so overly-enthusiastic that most of us forgot to care that it was so wet. I clearly recall sitting on a chairlift with a few others, braced against the driving downpours, and having a conversation along the lines of, "Where is everyone? I can't believe there are no lift lines!!"

I found a good technique for enhanced confidence on the ski slopes- ski with Australians, they will make you look really good!! My friend Fern is a relatively new, although fearless, Australian skiier and by sticking with her on the intermediate courses, I had a very enjoyable and relaxing two days of skiing. We occasionally met up with 3 British snowboarding friends. One was particularly amusing. JC had read online about how to snowboard, and figured that even though it was his first time, with this background knowledge he would be comfortable on the slopes. And he was great at going straight, and sometimes he turned a little. But he seemed to have forgotten (or neglected to look up) how to stop. So while the rest of us swooshed our way along, he blew by like an out-of-control kamikaze wind. Amazingly we never actually saw JC fall, but we'd eventually catch up with him, sitting calmly along the side of the train, absolutely covered in snow. I'm sure the tumbles were spectacular, but I'm glad I missed them because just seeing him sitting there made me hurt in sympathy.

By Day 2, the rain had stopped, but we had the fog to deal with. It was eerie, like skiing in a big fluffy cloud. We could see the chair in front of us on the lift, but nothing beyond. The unloading areas would sneak up on us and we'd suddenly have to scramble to get our poles and stuff straightened out to get off the lifts. At one point early in the day, Fern and Alice and I were standing at the top of a slope about ready to head down, when we heard a low mechanical grumbling coming our way. It was a snow cat coming along to groom the trails, but we couldn't tell how close it was... just that it was getting closer. Then suddenly it popped through the fog to greet us, all standing there like spooked deer in headlights. It continued our way, backing us helplessly into a corner. To warn us of its presense, it turned on its theme song- so an electronic and beepy version of "Fur Elise" began blaring out of the speakers. It was actually really creepy, that song will never be the same to me. Luckily it turned away from us before it could groom us right into the trail... and we skiied swiftly away. Weird.

Yes, theme songs. Everything in Japan has a theme song. Go to the grocery store and the bread section will have a bread-related song, the fish section will have the sound of running water, the prepared sushi section will have a koto version of "Sakura," and the meat section will be playing the can-can. The recyle truck plays a different song than the milk delivery truck. At 11:30 every day, speakers hidden all over town play "Edelweiss" while at 5pm, a different "get-out-of-the-fields-and-go-home" song starts to play. So really, its only natural that ski equipment has a song, too... I should make my own theme song, I'm a little jealous that everything else has one.

But I digress. The trip was, as the British say, "good fun." I got to meet a few new people, get outside, fly down snow covered hills with wooden boards strapped to my feet... we had excellent crepes at a store in town, got 10 hours round trip in the van to bond. I was thinking that it was funny that I was in the minority as an American on this trip... but then I remembered that every hour I spend in this country, waking or sleeping, I am an extreme minority. Anyhow, at most JET events, the USA tends to be over-represented, so it was interesting to pick up some odd bits of foreign slang. Megan and I have become obsessed with the TV show "Lost," brought to us courtesy of her boyfriend. There is a British character (Charlie, played by one of the Hobbits from "Lord of the Rings") and now every British person makes me thing of that show. ... speaking of, I need to do something productive before tonight's TV time with Megan. Besides "Lost," and my new "Dr Quinn Medicine Woman" DVDs (the complete season two, baby, I'm so excited!!!!), we still have "Felicity" on TV twice a week... with all this amazing English TV, I don't think I'll ever have to watch junky Japanese TV ever again. Except Ainori... that is quality programing!!

OK. I'll stop rambing now and leave you with the view from the train platform. Peaceful. Elegant. That's Sakakibara-Onsen-Guchi station for you...

Non sequitors

2006-01-17T20:23:00.000+09:00

So my kids are adorable and I love them. My schools are weird and I love them. Last week I noticed that all the other teachers had trickled out of the teachers room after lunch, leaving me and the secretary. All the kids were swarming around outside, most of them apparently doing something productive. Usually when stuff like this happens, I do one of two things. If I'm feeling particularly energetic, I get off my lazy butt and join the fray. If not, I sit stonily at my desk and tell myself that if nobody feels like telling me what's going on, I don't have to feel like finding out. Anyhow, this time I was in a genki sort of mood, so I grabbed my coat and went out to the field and accosted the nearest student to see what was going on. "We're picking up rocks from the field. Once we get a handfull, we throw them in one of those buckets. I got almost 100 already!!!!"

I should mention that every school I have been to has a big dirt field for the kids to play in. Seems like growing grass is believed to be too much of a hassle, so instead we actually have some days where the whole school goes out for 15 minutes or so and rips up all the stray grass and weeds that have managed to plant themselves in the midst of the paradise of brown dust. So today's activity was to rid the field of all the tiny little stones that inexplicably appear in large patches of ground.

As I hunched down and started plucking rocks from the ground, my 6th grade fan club came over and struck up a "conversation." Hiroki's side kick Shogo, for literally the 3rd time that day, yelled "HOW ARE YOU???" And, to jazz things up, I yelled back, "I'M COLD!" He nodded, then turned to another friend and said in Japanese, "This sucks, all I can say in English is 'How are you?'" And the other guy said, "Cheer up, you know more than that. Like, uh.... APPLE!" Shogo perked right up and said, "Oh yeah! Hey Stephanie Sensei! APPLE!!!!" Not knowing how to respond, I said simply, "Wow, good word!" He thought for a few more seconds and screamed "GRAPE!!!!" Not to be outdone, one other guy grabbed my arm in desperation and said, very earnestly, "Cock-a-doodle-doo!!" This same boy caught me after class yesterday and made a big deal out of attracting my attention. Then he repeated "What a hot summer!" about three time until I figured out what he was saying... still not sure why. Anyhow, somehow my presense has inspired these otherwise academically un-stellar children to pull out every English phrase that has been shoved into their brains, so I suppose my job is a sucess.

Adventures in Edo and Beyond

2006-01-09T20:25:00.000+09:00

So I'm back from my Tokyo once again. It was a smashing success, although things started out a bit rougher than they did during my trip in September. First off, the bus that Sean and I took was slightly cheaper than the one Lolly and I had taken. But the exta 2000 yen ($20) we spent on the other bus were totally worth it because the seats were much much wider and reclined much farther, so it was a far more comfortable trip. However, the first bus took about 7 hours where this one took 6... oh well, we had more comfy seats in the first one so the extra hour didn't matter as much.

Also, when Lolly and I arrived in September, the sun was already rising and it proved to be a warm and sunny day in Tokyo. It was perfect for wandering around waiting until we met our respective friends and headed off to explore the city. This time, however, it was pitch dark and freezing. Sean and I sat bleary-eyed in a 24-hour McDonalds until the sun rose about an hour and a half after we'd pulled in. It was a relatively warm morning, getting up to the mid-30s, but not exactly the comfortable low-80s that I had found before.

The last regretable element was that, due to a misplaced cell phone and the ensuing lack of communication, Hsiu (my Vassar friend and partner in crime on this particular trip) and I were unable to meet our fellow Vassar friend as previously planned. But despite these three disappointments, the rest of the trip was pretty fabulous.

Being Japan nerds (ok, ok, and regular nerds, too), Hsiu and Sean and I managed to hit up 5 museums during our trip. The first one was, ironically, the Tokyo Museum of Western Art. We had planned on going to the Tokyo National Museum but it was still closed for the new years holiday when we showed up. But the art museum was nearby, so we figured that culture is culture, so we might as well take a look. The next day the Tokyo National Museum was open, and I really wish we had more time to spend there. It was huge, and even though Hsiu and I took only the "hilights" tour, we weren't able to make it through. There was ancient pottery, folding screens, illustrated scrolls, Buddhist statues, samurai armor and swords, ikebana (flower arrangements)... stop yawning, it was interesting!! The next museum was two days later in Yokohama- the Yokohama Museum of Urban History. It was small but had a lot of maps explaining how Yokohama grew from a small port town into an international harbor. Finally was an Ukio-e museum, featuring both wood block prints of Yokohama made when the port was first opened to westerners, and also some Yokohama artists' early stabs at Western-style painting and such. Pretty cool.

The last museum was actually a misnomer. The place we went was called the Ramen Museum, but it only had one small museum-like display. That was ok, though, because the rest was a recreated 1950s-era Japanese town filled with tiny branch restaurants of famous ramen stores. We only ate in one, but Hsiu declared it was the best ramen she'd ever tasted. We also got to design our own cups of Cup of Noodle ramen! You get to pick the flavoring and the topings and they seal it all up for you and it looks just like the ones you buy at the store... except YOU made it... and it was more expensive.

Other than museums, we did plenty of shopping, eating, karaoke, sticker pictures... Meal hilights include a lunch at the TGI Fridays in Roppongi with two of Hsiu and my former Showa Boston summer camp students! One of the two had been to the summer program 3 times with Hsiu as her counselor, so it was funny to see her in her element in Japan. We also spent our last dinner with my friend Ami, who had spent a year studying abroad at my high school. Her major is Spanish so sometimes she forgets her English a bit. We spoke about 50/50 Japanese/English, except when she was showing us photos of her trip to Cambodia and kept talking about the "dios." I guess she just couldn't help showing off her trilingual-ness.

My favorite day was our trip to Kamakura. Despite the many trips to Tokyo and Osaka I've wracked up over the years, I'm not a big-city person. Some fellow JETs sent to little country towns resent their positions, but I think I am perfectly suited to the rice paddy life. And I like history. Right, I'm a nerd, I think we discussed this in paragraph 5 or so. Anyhow, Kamakura was the political center of Japan from the 12-14th century, and the influence of Buddhism is just everywhere. There are dozens of temples, including one with the second-largest bronze Buddha statue in Japan. (The first is in Nara, see the entry where Megan and I crawl through the nostril-hole) I imagine that Kamakura is what Kyoto used to be like. Kyoto also has more temples than it knows what to do with, but the general surroundings have become a very modern city. There is no sense of city in Kamakura. Much of it is a fairly sleepy town with lots of green, small stores and restaurants, and temples. We started out at Jyochi temple, which although it was supposedly only the 4th best Buddhist temple in Kamakura, was still quite impressive. It had a lot of carved statues in little caves, such as this guy here. No, I'm not being sacreligious, there was a guide there who said rubbing his belly was good luck... or something... anyhow, other people were doing it.

We then hiked through the hills to the former site of Kotokuin Temple where the giant Buddha is. The Buddha was cast in the 12th century, but the temple was swept away in a tidal wave in the 15th century, leaving only the statue behind. It is really quite moving to see the enormous Buddha looming there so peacefully, despite being exposed to all the elements. Although the one in Nara is bigger, it's sitting inside a nice warm temple and, frankly, seems kind of spoiled when you compare it with this one. Also, according to local travel guides, the Kamakura Daibutsu is smaller but "artistically superior." So, take that, Nara.

The other cool thing is that for 20 yen (less than a quarter) you can actually go inside the Buddha. It is a bronze statue, but the inside is hollow, so during one of the renovations to make the base more secure in case of earthquakes, they decided to make the inside accessible to visitors. Its pretty surprising, even though the statue looks very solid from outside, the inside shows how thin it really is. And how many of YOU can say you've stood inside the belly of a giant Buddha?? I'll have to add that to my claim-to-fame list.

So that's probably about all the reminiscing you people can take, so I'll end by admitting that although I say that Kansai Japan is where it's at, there is a lot of cool stuff in Kanto too. Both Hsiu and Sean ended the trip totally entranced by Yokohama and Tokyo respectively, [and me by Kamakura] so it's only a matter of time until one of us will be back. School starts again tomorrow. Look out kids, Stephanie Sensei is back. And this time, she's got an apron.
I will leave you with a shot of Yokohama in all its twinkly glory.

2005... that was so yesterday!

2006-01-01T20:21:00.000+09:00

Happy New Year from one of the newest residents of Tsu City. That's right, everyone, you've officially missed your chance to come to the town of Hakusan because we have merged with a few other towns to become part of the massive conglomerate of Tsu City. I can now gaze at the rice paddies and bamboo forests as I bike to school, and wonder how this forgotten corner of the world became part of the bustling capital city of Mie Prefecture. This is not to say that the Original Tsu City is not a full-blown city, because it is. Movie theatres, 4 lane roads, people who wear suits... It's just that we in The Region Formerly Known as Hakusan don't fit in very well in this "city" images. Although it's exciting to know that I now live in the city with the shortest name in the entire world, and that somehow my water bill will be miraculously cut in half, I'm having an identity crisis. I don't know what to answer when people ask where I live. I don't know who I work for anymore or who my new supervisor is. I don't even know how to write the kanji character for "Tsu." ... I miss White Mountain.

But onto happier things. I did get to spend New Years in the "spiritual heart of Japan" (it said so on a sign at the train station). A few of us hale and hearty (or young and foolish) JETs trekked to Ise to spend our last moments of 2005 as close to the sun goddess Amaterasu as you can get. We arrived aroud 8pm and wandered through Oharai Machi, the shopping district next to the shrine that has remained virtually unchanged since the medieval days. Except they have streetlamps and toilets that flush and stuff. We walked around in the shrine, wondering where the sea of people we'd been warned about was. It turns out, however, it is not the last shrine you visit in the old year that is important, but rather the first shrine of the New Year. So people (not us) started lining up around 9pm in order to secure their spot as among the first worshippers of 2006. Apparently such noteable characters as the Imperial family and Prime Minister Koizumi were in town this morning to pay their respects. However, we were perfectly satisfied to be some of the last visitors of 2005. The paths around the shrine were full of bonfires and faithful pilgrims huddling around trying to stay warm. A few of us clever JETs decided instead to warm ourselves by finding a tiny restaurant in Oharai Machi with a not-so-tiny line and indulging in Ise Udon, the local specialty. The usually thick noodles are especially thick, as is the sauce they are sitting in. Pretty good, and at 400 yen/bowl, it's a bargain!

We rung in the New Year in the midst of the mobs in Oharai Machi surrounded by taiko drumming, checking to see if our cell phones were syncronized with the official count down clock, and counting backwards in Japanese from about 30 to Happy New Year! (Or, Akemashite omedetou gozaimasu) The plan was then to wait around until about 5:30am when we'd head over to Meotoiwa, the so-called Wedded Rocks, to watch the first sunrise of the new year. Word on the street was that the sun would rise between the two rocks, making for a splendid photo opportunity and an emotionally moving experience. However, that is a dirty lie and the sun rises about 90 degrees south of the rocks. And it was cloudy. So instead of this (not my picture)

we saw this.

But it was still nice.
Although I had uneasy visions of sitting cold and restless on a sidewalk somewhere waiting for sunrise to roll around, someone much smarter than me found a bar that was open all night so we could sit in a friendly and well-heated environment. I shouldn't have worried about being alone in Ise, though, as the streets were as packed with food vendors hawking everything from tako-yaki to corn on the cob, families, couples and priests dressed all in white at midnight as they were around 5am.

I must say that it was interesting to see the Wedded Rocks in person, but they weren't as grand as I'd imagined. Somehow I'd always thought that they were much larger than they looked in photos, and that it was simply that the camera didn't do them justice. Now it could just be that I was sleep deprived and cold, but after my visit, I'd say that they look about as moving in person as they do in photos. However, I'd like to go back when there aren't hoards of people around and police with bullhorns instructing us on exactly where to look for the sunrise, and reminding us that the sun WAS rising, it was just obscured by clouds. Thanks.

For those of you wondering, the rocks are extremely important symbol in Japan. They represent the union of the gods Izanagi and Izanami, who are the creators of many of the gods and goddesses (kami) of the Shinto religion... including the sun goddess enshrined in the Ise shrine. The rocks also represent, in a larger way, the union of marriage. So that's the deal.

As for other recent holidays, I had a very enjoyable Christmas. My fabulous host family took very good care of me, and was even kind enough to make sure I caught the family cold to bring home as a souvineer! That's the thanks I get for wiping the snot and drool off of Baby-chan's face for 4 days. Reina (Baby-chan) is quite a cutie, though. Her hobbies include putting everything in sight into her mouth, tinkling the ivories of her Anpanman electronic keyboard and crawling. Her most recent acheivement is having aquired the balance and the muscle necessary to pull herself up on things until she is in a standing position. Unfortunately, she gets very excited when she manages this feat, and often breaks into a big grin so large that her balance is compromised, leaving her tumbling back onto the floor. I made sure to always cheer her on, and she later chewed on my fingers as her own way of saying "thanks."

Mirei-chan, however, has turned into a real person since my study abroad days. Her favorite activity is Memory- when you take a deck of cards, flip them upside down and try to find pairs by turning over two at a time. I've made my own alphabet cards to use with some of my students to help them learn lowercase letters, but I've never played along, just supervised. It's a good thing I don't join them because as I learned from playing with Mirei-chan, I have an abbysimal memory. She kicked my butt all but twice. She's a genius, that's all I have to say. ALSO, she made us rice korokke without creating a scene. Yes. Korroke. That's the ill-fated dish I tried to make for my house-mates on a fateful September day my senior year of college and ended up with my kitchen in flames. Mirei-chan is 5 years old and pulled them off without even any smoke. What did I say? Genius.

Well, more about my visit later. My lack of sleep has caught of sleep has caught up with me and I need my strength for my trip this week! This Tuesday I will hop on a bus with my JET friend Sean, meet my Vassar friend Hsiu and explore the big city excitement of Tokyo and Yokohama! Talk about culture shock!!

Let it snoooooooooooow!

2005-12-23T09:12:00.000+09:00

We got about 5 centimeters of snow yesterday, and the entirety of Hakusan screached to a halt... these people wouldn't last 5 minutes in Massachusetts. Now I know what winters down south in the States are like.

Anyhow, despite the panic that ensued, by the end of the day everyone could agree that it did look quite pretty.

Enjoy!

Merry Christmas, Charlie Brown!

2005-12-21T21:33:00.000+09:00

And now for a moment of culture enrichment. Yes, there IS a Santa Claus, even in Japan. While there are many unique aspects of Japanese culture, many key elements of society and culture were borrowed from other cultures. The Japanese writing system is based on kanji, or Chinese characters. Buddhism made its way from India to settle in Japan and continues to have a strong influence on Japanese philosophy and in many ways blended smoothly into the native Japanese religion of Shinto. And in mid-October, Christmas decorations appear all over the country. Now in Japan, Christians are few and far between, so Christmas is celebrated purely in the secular let's-give-each-other-presents-and-spray-fake-snow-on-stuff kind of way. Many families have mini Christmas trees, about a foot tall or so, some with built in LED lights, others decorated so laboriously that it's hard to tell there's a tree underneath all the garland and ornaments. Not to be outdone, I took a trip to the 100 yen store (like the dollar store, only 50 times better. They have some truly excellet stuff there) and bought myself a little tree. And I do mean little. It's only slightly taller than my stuffed koala bear Watson, and bears a bit of a resemblance to Charlie Brown's wimpy little tree in the Christmas special. But it's mine and I love it and I decorated it with ribbon and stars and some Hershey's Kisses that were sitting around in my kitchen. And I think it's adorable. Here it is-
Anyhow, it brings some cheer to my quiet little hole in the wall apartment.

So as always, my kids are adorable. But happily, I don't have to deal with them again until January 11th!!! The last day of teaching was Tuesday, so now I just have to sit around and look busy/important/foreign for the next few days.

So I found out that some of my kids are actually paying attention in my class!! I ate lunch with my 2nd graders the other day not long after we had learned the pattern "What's this?" "It's a (noun)." The nouns we practiced with were animals and fruits. Although usually as soon as English class is over, everything we practiced goes flying out the window, my students seemed to really like this pattern. One girl started a revolution at lunch. She'd never spoken to me outside of class before, but suddenly she ran up to me, grabbed my arm and gestured wildly to the girl sitting next to me. "What's this???" she cried, pointing excitedly at the unsuspecting girl. "What's this? It's apple!!!!!! Hahahahahaha!" she cackled away to herself. "I made it up myself! Get it??" she asked me in Japanese. "Um, not really, no. But say it again, please!" I asked in my most encouraging Teacher-Voice. And she repeated it over and over, laughing louder each time. Turns out that the victim of this peculiar act of public humiliation was named "Rinka" and since the Japanese word for "apple" is "Ringo," this clever child decided that Rinka's new nick-name would be "apple." Actually, it IS pretty clever for a second grader to make puns in a foreign language, and Rinka thankfully saw the humor of ths situation too.

Anyhow, before I knew it, kids were all jumping around and pointing to each other screaming "What's this it's orange!" or "What's this it's snowman!" One little boy, named Tako-something, became "what's-this-it's-octopus" because Tako (the first and only part of his name I can remember) is the Japanese word for octopus... so be careful if a Japanese friend says you're going out for "tacos"- make sure it's Mexican food! I asked the kids what my nickname would be, and they analized my name carefully. In Japanese it becomes Su-Te-Fa-Nie, and they took the "Su" portion and decided I could be "what's-this-it's-Superman!!" Much better than poor "what's-this-it's-mayonaise" girl!

So speaking of tako, Sharon had a takoyaki party last Friday for friends and co-workers. She got a special takoyaki maker and we sat around frying balls of dough with octopus (and shrimp and hot dogs) in the middle. It's pretty good, you put a lot of sauce on it and you can totally forget you're eating tenticles! (Seriously, octopus isn't bad at all) She asked Megan and I what we wanted as appetizers and we eventually decided that it would be fun to have a plate of raw vegetables to munch on. (See previous entry regarding raw carrots) So we westerners gnawed away on raw carrots, peppers, broccoli and more, much to the shock and dismay of Sharon's co-workers. It was great!! Here's Lolly and Murakawa (our badminton buddy) mid-takoyaki-extravaganza.

So I may have mentioned that I'll be spending a few days with my host family in Osaka to celebrate Christmas together. And what better way to celebrate one of the most sacred of Christian holidays but by going to the circus. Yes, that's the plan for December 25th! I wonder what it will be like, if Japanese clowns will be less intrusive and unsettling than American ones... I've never actually been to the circus, so it will be an exciting experience on many levels.

Well, tomorrow is my last day at Ieki Elementary School, school #5. I DID IT!!! I have officially left my mark on every child in Hakusan between the ages of 6-13!! In the afternoon I have to lug my bags of posters, flashcards, stickers and stuffed animals back to Kawaguchi (#2). My little friend Hiroki (see raw carrots episode) has been waiting for me with bated breath... too bad every time I've seen him around town he still calls me Meghan-Sensei. (my predecessor's name)

Right, gotta wrap my Thank You presents for my co-workers and then call it a night.
Dat's all for now.

I'd have left my brain behind if it wasn't already wired to the rest of me!

2005-12-14T22:06:00.000+09:00

I'm a walking disaster. Or the town of Hakusan has nothing better to worry about.

So my mom sent me a package of Christmas presents. Yay! However, I could not receive the package because the Japanese postal service will not leave things on your doorstep like they do back home. Either your mail is small enough to fit in the slot in your door or they hand it to you directly. Those are your options. They also don't seem to understand that many people who receive packages go away during the day. And by "go away," I mean work their butts off for the sake of the local children. So I'm not home at 10:30am when they come by with my stuff. Supposedly if they are unable to deliver a package, they are supposed to come back after 5pm to try again, but they've never done me the favor of coming back. Instead they leave me a notice in my box.

And then I have to call the most uptight and easily flustered man in Hakusan- the guy who answers the phone in the Omitsu post office. (Omitsu is an exciting region of town, home to the Family Mart convenience store, Omistu Elementary school and Sharon's apartment) This man is so flustered that he can't even spit out "Thank you for calling the Omistu Post Office, this is so-and-so speaking" without stuttering. I have called this man at least 10 times, yet I have never caught his name. Well, you can imagine the shock in his voice when I start speaking. Now I've been told my Japanese accent is quite smooth, but you can't hide behind accurate pronunciation when you have to say, "This is Stephanie LaShoto. I live in Heights One Plum in Sada." This announcement is usually met with lots of stuttering, which I take means, "Holy crap, it's a customer, and not just ANY customer, it's that foreigner again, my brain is frozen with confusion." But, since he knows who I am at this point in the conversation, I go ahead and mention the notice in my mailbox that says they are holding my Christmas presents (or Halloween paraphanalia or winter coat or bottles of iced tea) hostage and that I would like them. And then I get "Shou shou omachi kudasai"- which means "please hold." And then I have to listen to a beepy version of "Home Home on the Range" while he pulls himself together. In Japan, you're never JUST on hold, they have to make it more irritating by playing electronic music at you.

Once he has collected himself (and, presumably, the package in question) he gets back on the phone and either informs me that they will drop by later in the evening to complete the delivery process, or that they are too busy and then we have to decide on what to do next. I used to try to find a convenient time when I knew I'd be home, but lately I have asked them to deliver my stuff to the school where I am working. And he always gets totally baffled by the fact that I work in town... although I admit that it is quite confusing since I am constantly switching from school to school.

So today I came back to the staff room after lunch and found my box sitting at my desk. Yay! But it's never that easy.... I TRIED to take it home with me. But at Japanese schools, you have to leave your shoes at the door when entering and put on your special "inside shoes." (or in my case, a pair of slippers from the hundred yen store... I am a classy individual) I put the package down on the shoe cabinet as I put on my "outside shoes" at the end of the day... and promptly walked out the door without the package. I was halfway home on the bus when I realized my error, but I figured I would just get it tomorrow.

So, I walk in my door and go about some business in my apartment. Suddenly, the phone rings. It's my supervisor at the board of education. Keep in mind that this woman has done everything in her power to interact with me as little as possible. I literally have spoken to her about 4 times in the past 3 months. And here she is, calling on the phone. Apparently the vice principal of my school found my abandoned package and was worried that there would be some sort of disastrous consequences because I hadn't been able to bring the package home with me. So, he called the town hall and asked to speak to my supervisor who in turn called me to see if I wanted her to drive the package to my apartment for me on her way home from work. It was very sweet of everyone involved, but I think I can wait until tomorrow to take it home. It's Christmas presents anyhow, so I won't be opening them for at least another week.

Anyhow. I may live in the middle of nowhere, but at least no one can say that people don't take good care of you here.

So here are some photos for you all! Yay! My time this past weekend was mainly devoted to preparation for the town Christmas party (organized by Sharon) and playing tour guide to Megan's boyfriend who is visiting from the States for the next few weeks. The party was pretty short, despite all the work that went into it. We decorated the room like crazy and cooked up a storm. We had all the elements of a "proper Australian Christmas dinner"- turkey, cranberry sauce, veggies, fruity stuffing, mince pies, "white Christmas" cookie bars... all us foreign volunteers talked a bit about how we all celebrate Christmas back at home, then we sang some carols, ate some food, played some games. Not bad. Since I work in town and help at all of Sharon's events, I had a lot of schmoozing to do with teachers, students, and random townspeople who have seen me in the grocery store. Here are some shots of the general craziness

the visit from Santa (someone decided Santa-san needed to wear glasses, and those were the best we could get on short notice)

and those of us who keep things under control. Check out our headwear... sigh...the things we do for Hakusan.

Nagoya. The city where dreams come true.

2005-12-06T20:03:00.000+09:00

No, the shocked look on my face is NOT because I am standing in front of the World's Ugliest Curtains (which regrettably happen to be in my apartment... one of my predecessors had exceedingly bad taste). The shock is that my hair is gone. Or, a lot of inches of it are gone. As I indicated previously, I thought it was time to get rid of some of my scraggly locks and after the Japanese exam on Sunday, Megan and I ventured to Tony and Guy's hair salon in Nagoya. Our hair dresser was recommended by a fellow caucasian JET, so we figured that she would be ok dealing with foreign hair. And she looked at Megan's straight and simple do and looked pleased. My hair was in a pony tail, as it was a rainy day. I took out the elastic and it proceeded to create a sort of fuzzy 360 degree halo around my face. The hair dresser just stood there and blinked. "I think she's scared," Megan whispered. "No, I think she's alright," I said. But I was lying. I could smell her fear. It's not just because I'm foreign, even American hair dressers are often uncomfortable with my crazy look. But this hair dresser pulled herself together and actually seemed pretty confident as she washed my hair and started snipping away.

Then suddenly, she disappeared. For 10 minutes. She just up and left me with half of my hair about 5 inches shorter than the rest. The receptionist hurried over to give me a cup of coffee to sip while I waited and examined my lopsided look. Megan, sitting while her hair dried in the chair next to me, joked that my hair dresser had run out back to go online and look up "unpredictable curly hair." I thought maybe she needed a cigarette. But it turns out that she had another customer getting a dye job in the other room and she had gone to attend to her. Once she got back, she evened things up then hacked away haphazardly with some thinning shears. As she decided she was finished, she stood back and heaved an audible sigh of relief. I casually mentioned a passing interest in getting a straight-perm (opposite of regular perm) and she nearly jumped for joy, saying she could do it any time. But I'm satisfied with how things turned out... except my neck is cold. I need to get in the habit of wearing scarves.

So now that you guys are totally sick to death of hearing about my hair, I'll tell you about the exam. The subway was completely packed with foreigners as we approached the stop. I went up with a few JET friends and ran into a few more JETs once we arrived. The kanji and vocab part was ok. It was hard, but it was basically what I expected. The listening comprehension was mostly a breeze. I was sitting there thinking that I might have been able to take the upper level test this year. And then it hit me like a ton of bricks: Reading comprehension. My brain just slammed to a halt, it was so hard. I guess it was karma's way of kicking me in the face after I was so cocky about the listening section. Grammar was, like kanji and vocab, just what I expected. So as long as some of my half-hearted guesses on the reading comp were accurate, I should get a decent overall score... I'll let you know in February.

Anyhow, now that the exam is out of the way, I can get back to fun stuff that directly impacts my immediate future- polishing up and sending off my grad school applications! Wow, do I know how to have fun...

New Jersey? Does such a place truly exist??

2005-12-02T20:48:00.000+09:00

So during my self introduction lesson with my 4th graders today, I opened the floor up for questions. One of the posters I pass around is a map of the US in Japanese, and a girl in the front row was studying it carefully. She looked up and asked if there was a place called "New Jersey" in America. Somewhat taken aback, I confirmed her suspicion regarding this mystical place known as Jersey and pointed it out on the map. She became very excited and told me that she had seen the American movie "Dangerous Beauty" and that the story was supposedly set in "New Jersey" but she wasn't sure if it was a made up setting or not. For some reason I know that "Dangerous Beauty" is the Japanese title for the Sandra Bullock movie "Miss Congeniality" about an undercover FBI agent at a beauty pagent in (probably) Atlantic City... so clearly, this girl was paying close attention!

Anyhow, here in Japan I occasionally engage in activities that I otherwise would not have the opportunity to do. Like, say, eat eel. Or go to an outdoor all night techno concert. Well. I also got to speak into a megaphone the other day. I spent last Saturday afternoon volunteering at another JET's elementary school English activity day. There were over a hundred children literally running wild, and hoping to save everyone's voices and with no microphone in sight, a megaphone appeared and we all used it to keep the crowd under control. We also used it as amplification when we introduced ourselves to the sea of youngins. It's really hard to sound friendly and non-threatening (as we were instructed) as your voice thunders across the room, even though all we were saying was, "My name is Stephanie... Stephanie desu. I'm from America... Amerika kara kimasita."

I also found myself crouched in a near-fetal position on the field behind the school the other day, surrounded by children in a similar position, as a giant helicopter thundered overhead for a few minutes. No, it was not air raid training. It was actually an art project! Someone designed an pattern of two flowers in pots and drew the outline on the field. We all proceeded to crouch along the outline of the petals. They had set up some very large tubes to spell out Ieki (the name of the school) and 2005. Then a helicopter flew over from Nagoya, snapping photos of different schools doing roughly the same thing all across Mie Prefecture. I'm still unclear as to the purpose of this... could have been some sort of contest, but I'm not sure. All I know is that most kids had never done it before, and the most exciting part was not the ultimate picture, but the promise of seeing a helicopter. And thanks to that helicopter, someday we will have a picture of a birds-eye view of the entire school crouching around outside in some vaguely-flower-like shape.

I was really excited about the whole project, due to a favorite Garrison Keillor story from my youth. For those of you familiar with his Prairie Home Companion, my family had a set of tapes we used to listen to on long car rides and one of the most memorable episodes for me was the Living Flag story. Basically, the whole town wears red white and blue hats to make a big human flag for the 4th of July or something... but then they all want to see what it looks like, so they spend the rest of the day taking turns going up to the top of a nearby building to take in the view. I thought this flower deal was going to be a similarly big production, but there were no props or costumes or even color coordination involved... just crouching along the outline of the flower petals. And thanks to the wonders of digital technology, one teacher went to the roof of the school and took some pictures as well, so she printed them out at lunch time and we all got to see them before we went home... don't know why we bothered to get the helicopter to come in the first place. Anyhow, it was nice to get out of the staff room and stand/crouch around outside for awhile.

So Sunday is the big day... the Japanese Language Proficiency Test. I took a practice exam and got a 78%, which was a pleasant surprise. You only need 60% to pass, so that shouldn't be a problem. An unpleasant surprise, however, was finding out that I have to get on a 6:35am train in order to make it to the test site in Nagoya on time (things start at 9:45 on the dot). To reward myself for all my studying and to make my travel time worth it, I am getting a haircut in Nagoya. I'm kind of nervous, due to my curly-hair situation... I get some pretty awful haircuts back home where naturally curly hair is common... but this salon comes highly recommended by some other JETs (and if I mention a certain JETs name, I get 10% off!) so I'm going to give it a try. Worst case scenario, I get a terrible cut, immediately buy a funky hat and say I'm internationalizing the classroom through berets... or something...

Since pictures speak a thousand words, this one explains why my hair is getting cut.

"A little bit of this, a little bit of that"

2005-11-29T12:14:00.000+09:00

Dearest loyal blog readers (Hi Dad)-
First off, if you can place the quotation used in the title of this entry, I'll send you a prize.

Secondly, I appoligize for the lack of thrill-a-minute, knee-slappingly-funny, tear-jerkingly-poigniant blog updates. Some of you may have thought some sort of disaster must have occured which has kept me from updating all of you. Others may believe that I was having such wild adventures that I couldn't possibly have been bothered to take 15 minutes at the computer to dash off an entry.

Neither is true. Life has been more or less the same old routine, school, a few nights out, a short weekend trip... basically, "a little bit of this, a little bit of that...." so, to put it plainly, I have just been too lazy to sit still and post. But, at long last, here comes a run down on the Exciting Life of Stephanie Sensei! Fasten your seatbelts, kids, here we go.

First of all, here is my joyful reunion with my beloved digital camera!

I finally broke down and got it fixed and suddenly, I am snapping photos left and right again. Although it's incredibly cool that my cell phone can double as a digital camera, once you download the shots onto the computer, they just don't look as good as they did on the teensy little screen.

Next... I have performed my cultural duty and sat through over 3 hours of a traditional form of Japanese theatre known as "Noh." Or, after a 2 hours or so, "Noooooooooooooooo!" Hahaha, just kidding folks, it was actually quite enjoyable. I even got a significant discount on my tickets. A former Vassar professor was working at SUNY Albany last year and invited these two masters of Noh to come from Kyoto and put on a 5 day workshop, in which I was able to participate. These two masters regularly perform in Kyoto and I was invited to see them last weekend. Tamoi Sensei (who was the star of the last act of the show) told me the ticket prices... 8000 yen (about $80) for the "cheap seats" and 22000 ($220) for the best ones... Haha. Cheap seats for me!!! Or so I thought. But he took the trouble of getting setting aside 2 mid-range seats (about $150) for the price of the so-called "cheap" seats for me and my friend Sharon, leaving us in the sweet sweet second row.

I realized that Noh is a lot like Shakespeare. In fact, the first Noh playwrites were roughly contemporaries of the Bard, as Noh began to flourish in the 1400s. The "comedic interludes" were probably very funny, as most of the audience was chuckling. But thanks to the 600+ years between Noh's prime and now, my usual Language Gap yawned even wider, leaving me smiling uncomfortably instead. Though archaic, as long as you know how to appreciate it, Shakesperian comedies can be quite amusing and the same goes with Noh. We saw some short (5 minutes a piece) dance/chant combinations in the style of what I learned in New York, which were probably the hilight of the day. The last act was a very long play about a god who (inexplicably) gets trapped under a bell in a temple. Once the god is finally extracted from under the aforementioned bell, it is revealed that the god is not actually a god, but a demon! Much running around, banging of drums and wearing of scary masks ensues. When the show was bright and lively, it was really very engaging.

But there was one part where I thought clawing my own eyes out might be more fun than sitting and watching the play. The god went in circles around the bell. Again. And again. And again. Slooooooooooooooooooooooowly. While some drums clattered around (seemingly) at random. Suddenly the god would strike a pose. The same pose. Over and over. For literally 10 minutes. It. Was. Dull. I thought about taking a bathroom break, but I knew that under that god mask was good-hearted Tamoi Sensei who had gone through great trouble to secure me good seats so I could watch him go in circles up close and personal. So I stayed. And as soon as the movement picked up, things were better, and all thoughts of eye-clawing were dispelled from my brain.

Late that night, Hsiu-Hsien (a dear fellow Vassar/Showa camp alum and fellow MA resident who is currently teaching down south in Okayama prefecture) finally arrived at the hostel in Kyoto and we spent the next day frolicing about the city. We stopped in to take in the history and the famous foliage of Ginkaku-ji, the Silver Pavilion... which isn't actually silver, unlike the Gold Pavilion which IS plated in gold. You may have seen President Bush and Prime Minister Koizumi posing for the cameras in front of the golden one. Many Japanese collegues expressed regret that I chose to go to Kyoto the weekend AFTER the President had visited. I think they thought that somehow if I were to meet Bush on the streets of Kyoto, he would grant me an audience and we could discuss foreign policy or something. But, alas, the timing just didn't work out. Anyhow, Hsiu and I spent the afternoon hunting for food (or, looking for a restaurant, we aren't quite that primitive), drinking coffee, and taking sticker pictures. I was all Japanese-cultured-out after my Noh experience, so we didn't make it to anywhere else of historical note, but we are both old pros at Kyoto, having both studied abroad a mere 30 minute train-ride away.

The next noteworthy even was my Thanksgiving party last night!! Here's a photo of the grand feast.

I promise you, we are far less awkward than we look in the photo. Although we work in 3 different towns, when we combine our powers, the 4 average-looking foreigners in this photo become... the Thursday Night Dinner JETS, sometimes called Meccha Meccha Mokuyoubi. But. Anyhow. We ordered Thanksgiving necessities over the intenet as it is nearly impossible to find things like turkey, cranberry sauce and canned pumpkin pie mix here. But our comestibles didn't actually arrive until Thursday... and the turkey had been flash frozen and took days to thaw out... so we had to delay our feast a bit.

After passing out Thanksgiving stickers to my 2nd graders on Thanksgiving day, the more inquisitive children began to ask about the weird looking bird on their stickers. I explained that it was a turkey ("shichimencho" in Japanese- literally "bird with 7 faces," though I don't know why). I said that the turkey was a major symbol of a very important American holiday and asked if they had any idea what the day might be. A genki lad yelled out "Shichimencho no Hi"- literally "Turkey Day." Overexcitedly, I said, "Well, yes, some people DO call it that!!" And they got confused. But I briefly (BRIEFLY) explained the customary Thanksgiving meal. And I explained that I had ordered a turkey online to recreate the meal here in Japan. And the kids all stared in disbelief at their stickers and said, "Woah, you have a turkey coming to your house???" And I said, "Yeah, it should be here any day now." They continued to stare at their stickers, and asked how big it was. One boy happened to be out of his seat, bending over to tie his shoelace, and I said, "Well, they're about as big as Yudai-kun over there." Then they got really excited (lots of "eeeeeee??") and asked if they could come over to my house to see the turkey... to which I replied, "Um, no..." And that's when I realized that these kids actually believed that a real life turkey covered in feathers was going to be gobble-gobbling around in my kitchen. I mean, who wouldn't want to see that? I tried to explain that no, I was just getting the meat, but clearly these kids have never been to the store because they don't seem to know where meat comes from. But we had some good quality intercultural exchange that day.

So, yesterday Megan and I spent all afternoon running back and forth between each others apartments in order to utilize both of our convection ovens and share our measly collection of pots, pans, utensils and ingredients. It wasn't quite the same as at home, but it was quite a tasty meal. We even downloaded the tune "Alice's Restaurant," played annually on many Boston radio stations at noon on Thanksgiving Day, although none of my friends had ever heard of it.

However, I still have some dishes left over to clean up, so I should hop to it.
This was a doozy of an entry. Congrats for making it all the way to the end. Now, did you read it in 2 sittings? ... Be honest, I won't judge you...

Because you just never know what's going to happen next...

2005-11-17T12:11:00.000+09:00

Welcome back to Hakusan, one of the strangest places on earth.

First of all: Kids Say the Darndest Things-
One of my 4th graders, upon learning that I go everywhere by bike because I don't have a car: "Oh, my dad has a car, I bet he'd let you borrow it if you need to."
Hahaha. Right. But thanks for the offer!

What happens when you try to teach the words "octopus" and "eggplant" in the same lesson (don't ask) -> the word "egg-topus."
[Side note- this happened today when the school principal decided to come in and observe my class. She thought it was absolutely the funniest word on the planet, and broke into peals of laughter every time the kids started exuberantly yelling "egg-topus, egg-topus" when I showed them a picture of an eggplant]

When one of my kindergarteners learned I am 22 years old: "Wow, 22, that means you'll have babies soon!!"

Next: Out and About Town.
I love the Hakusan Citizen's Bus. It drops by the bottom of the hill near my house about 4 times a day, and it's how Megan and I went to the Town Hall every day in August, and thus I have many a bus-related story. I take it to get to school sometimes when it's raining, but it's slooooooooow, rarely comes and is expensive. Anyhow, there is another bus that goes by that same stop about 2 minutes before the Hakusan bus comes by. I don't know where it goes, but I DO know that it does NOT go by the town hall. And I know this because, without ever having said anything to the driver, he always stops, put his head out the door and says "No Yakuba" (yakuba= Town Hall) before driving away. I guess he doesn't want Megan or I to get confused and end up who-knows-where when we are trying to get to work. I often wonder what he'd do if I ever got on. Before I go back to the States, I will take a ride and see what kinds of adventures are to be had on the 7:46 bus that the 7:48 bus doesn't have to offer.

I think the Hakusan bus driver misses having Megan and I around (not that he ever spoke to us) because whenever he drives by me on my bike, he beeps the horn and bows at me as he passes. It's kind of sweet, although being beeped at always makes me jump.

So the other day, as I was riding home, I passed this house that I pass every day. And a lady was in the driveway. And I said "Konnichiwa" (the polite thing to do) and she started waving frantically yelling, "Wait a minute! Wait a minute! Stop!!" So, feeling alarmed, I pulled over wondering what had gone wrong and how I could possibly be of any help. She then disappeared into the house, suddenly emerged bearing keys, and hopped in her car. I continued to stand with my bike at the ready, staring in confusion. She eventually emmerged with an envelope of photos. Photos that she had taken of me. I started to get totally creeped out, but then I opened the envelope and saw that they were photos from the homestay event that Sharon had arranged. There were some pictures of all us foreigners dressed up in yukata (the summer version of kimono), and two others of me making this bookmark. The weirdest part was that I was smiling at the camera in one of the photos, as if I knew what was going on... but I have no recollection of the photo being taken.

Anyhow, apparently this woman had been keeping the photos in her car since mid-October when the event happened, just hoping that she'd run into me. She even offered to make copies for the other JETs featured in the group shot. Again, sweet but unexpected. Now when I see her in the driveway, we bow and wave at each other. (Guess which one of us does which)

Wimpy McWeakling

2005-11-15T12:51:00.000+09:00

So here I am trying to warm my hands over my freshly-cooked pasta. My apartment feels totally freezing, although it really isn't that cold at all. It's 13.6 degrees (C) in here, which I know for a fact because I have the world's coolest alarm clock which not only tells time, has an alarm with a snooze, tells me the date, tells me the day of the week in Kanji but it ALSO has a thermometer inside. OH! AND I never have to set the clock because it somehow connects to a sattelite and sets itself. All this for 1000 yen (about $10). Anyhow, according to my trusty online farenheit-celcius converter, 13.6 is about 56 degrees. What a wimp, eh? Well, think about it- when's the last time you let YOUR house get below 62 degrees or so? Hmm?? Bet it doesn't. Because it's cold!! I'm just worried about what I'm going to do when it ACTUALLY becomes cold here. I do have a heating unit in my bedroom but I've heard that it's outrageously expensive to use it, so I am going to wait until I can see my breath before I turn it on.

People here seem to be less concerned with heating things than they are back home. Central heating is a pretty rare everywhere except Hokkaido (because it's actually cold there, not wimpy-cold like it is in Mie). I always wondered why lots of people have seat cushions on their toilet seats (it's kind of gross) but now I know that it's because people don't heat their bathrooms and the seat can get really cold! There is no heating in any of the schools here in Mie, except for in the teacher's room. I'm told I should look forward to working at Omitsu Elementary during the winter because there are about 30 kids in each class and the body heat keeps the temperatures slightly higher. Although they're not allowed to during class time, I'm told some kids bring gloves to put on at lunch. Now, I always have a problem in the cold weather because my hands and feet are perpetually icy, so I really don't know how this whole winter thing is going to work. Even though the outside temperature rarely dips below 32 here in Hakusan, indoors and outdoors are often about the same temperature, so I have a feeling I'll be shivering until April.

In other news, life is going well. Hilights include the 4 kindergarten students at Yatsuyama Elementary. Yup. 4. Actually, one boy was absent during my first class, so it was me and 3 of the most charming children on the planet. These kids are absolutely the most precious children I have ever encountered, and I work with small children every day. The teacher gave me a list of topics she wanted me to cover in class, though, and she got a little angry at me because I didn't play "Fruit Basket" like she asked me to. Well, Fruit Basket is one of those games where everyone sits in a circle but there's not enough chairs for everyone, so you every kid belongs to some catergory and when you call the category, the kids in in have to jump up, run around and try to sit in an empty seat. But there's always one kid left over without a chair who picks the next category. This worked great in my 28-student class in Omitsu, and 18-student class in Kawaguchi but I honestly didn't see how it could possibly be fun with 4 kids, even if the teacher and I participated to bump up the numbers to 6 so I planned other games. But she grabbed me on my way out the door and said, "Looks like we didn't have enough time for Fruit Basket, so make sure we do that first next time, ok?" Now I thought a Memory Card game with animals would be more appropriate, and since the kids happily played 3 times in a row, I think it was successful. But, she wants Fruit Basket, I'll try Fruit Basket next time.

Went on an honest-to-goodness Japanese Bus Tour on Saturday. My host-mom for the Homestay in Hakusan that Sharon arranged works for a tour company and she invited me and Megan out to go on a foliage tour. Having grown up in the heart of New England, I never understood the need to make the effort to go out leaf-peeping because all I ever had to do was look out the window or walk down any street. But apparently you haven't lived until you go out and see the Japanese maple trees (momiji) in their autumnal brilliance. So we got on a 3 hour bus to go look at leaves. My host-mom said it would be "good for me" to go on this tour because all the explanations for everything would be in Japanese... at this point, I wondered how much there is to explain about leaves. But the only explanations were about the stuff we passed on the highway as we drove through Nagoya, including the dismantled sight of the World Expo. As we pulled up to our final destination, I had these depressing visions of getting off the bus and trouping around Korankei (the park we were going to) in a line, cameras at the ready, following a woman in a uniform holding a yellow flag high above her head so we wouldn't get lost amongst all the other tour groups. Luckily, the bus just dumped us at the base of this river running through a ravine and gave us a few hours to amuse ourselves. They had paths up and down the river, a huge cluster of souvineer shops at the base of the trail, a few small shrines up the hills, and a restored "mountain village" where you could look in old fashioned houses (looked a lot like what you see in Hakusan), and see people making crafts like Japanese paper (washi), bamboo baskets, dyeing, paper umbrellas etc. It was like a Japanese Sturbridge Village. The peak foliage season isn't for another week or so, but there were some really beautiful trees and it was nice to go somewhere with someone who knew what they were doing for once. This tour company sure trained my host well! (She was off-duty, so she was our personal guide, and didn't make us wear badges or follow her umbrella or anything)

Well, there's always more to talk about but I have to get back to the books. I have hundreds of more kanji to slog through before I can feel somewhat-ready for the Japanese proficiency exam in December... which is not to say that these are the last kanji I will ever learn, because kanji is a life-long endevor. It will never cease to amaze me that even the dumbest kids in my 5th and 6th grade classes can scrawl down such complicated characters... but when I ask them, "Do you like ice cream?" they give me a horrified look like I have 3 heads, and all of them have fangs, bloody from attacking their classmates, and I have snakes instead of hair. And the snakes have bloody fangs, too.

Arrrrrrrrrrr!

2005-11-07T14:54:00.000+09:00

First off, about this rave I attended last weekend. Yeah. So Megan and I are very proud of ourselves because we (collectively) made a Japanese friend who is NOT old enough to be our mother. Hakusan is a fairly international town as far as Japan goes and we have a handful of Brazilian families who found work in a nearby factory. Our friend Hitomi studied Portuguese in college and splits her time between Hakusan Junior High (Megan's school) and Omitsu Elementary school (my School #1), so both Megan and I got to know her pretty well. Her English is also quite good, which is why Megan likes her, and she was my desk-neighbor in Omitsu and spent a lot of time slacking off in the teachers room with me, so we got along quite well. Anyhow, the best word I can think of to describe Hitomi is meek. She is quiet, she is reserved, she is shy, she is, in a word, meek. But surprisingly, she loves underground music and going to clubs and she invited Megan and I to go to this "Open Air Party" with her last weekend. Basically, everyone camps out halfway up this mountain in the north of Mie-Prefecture and bands and DJs play for two days straight.

Now, anyone who knows me well enough to be reading this blog ought to know that this is absolutely NOT my thing. But it was an opportunity to socialize with my one Japanese friend less than 30 (she's 26) so Megan and I decided to join Hitomi, her cousin and her cousin's boyfriend. So besides meek, the other best adjective to describe Hitomi is flaky. Camping? Great. But she didn't have a tent. So we decided to go anyway and wing it. And wouldn't you know we were the ONLY people without a tent, sleeping bags, a grill, flashlights, all those other things that most people think of when they coordinate a camping trip. [Did you know that in Australia they call flashlights "torches?" Sharon says it and I think it's funny] It was also in the lower 50s so we decided not to spend the night and to drive home about 2am.

So there were a few huge bonfires, a tent with a DJs, dozens of tents set up along the river, and a crowd of people dancing. Now Hitomi kept asking all the way to the concert whether Megan and I like dancing, because she loooooves dancing. By the time we got there, Megan and I were pumped to learn some sweet moves and see our meek little friend go wild. So we hit the dance floor-ish area in front of the DJ tent and find people neatly arranged in rows, all facing forward, stepping from side to side. That was the crazy clubbing dance. Left, together, right, together, left, together, right, together. Megan and I were astounded. WE had better moves than all those people put together. So we went absolutely NUTS, dancing around like lunatics. Honestly, we were trying to lighten the mood by being "those people." You know: "We can dance as wildly as we want because no matter how bad we look, we'll still look better than those people." And although people did stop by to take photos of the two wildly-flailing Americans, nobody got into the dancing spirit. Anyhow, I don't do club music, and after a few hours of jumping around like a lunatic I was exhausted, so I don't know that I will ever join Hitomi on one of her concert adventures. But at least I can say that I've jammed at a Japanese outdoor rave. Weird.

Next- so I got a 3 day weekend and took myself to Hakone up in Kanagawa Prefecture. It's famous for its shrine and lake with a great view of everyone's favorite symbol of Japan, Mt. Fuji. It looks like this (not my photo, sorry folks- these days the leaves are turning colors, so it is actually more beautiful than this)

It is peaceful, it is scenic, it has places of both historical and religious value, it is full of natural beauty... but of course, it wouldn't be Japan without one utterly ridiculous element. And in Hakone, it is the pirate ships that circulate the lake. Yes. Lake Pirates. The ships are quite nice faux-European pirate ships, one complete with the Union Jack emblazoned on the side. The ships are quite lovely, and appear much more well-maintained than any pirate ship that ever crossed the Seven Seas. Take a gander:

Anyhow, I spent a day there with Kae (former TOYO kid @MB) and her mom, then spent the night and took myself around the next day. I did a little light hiking up to a tiny shrine up in the hills with these really unusual statues. They were like chubby children made out of a dark and shiny stone, kind of the shape of the Pillsbury Dough Boy. I had heard there were stone Buddhas along the trail, so I guess that's what they were supposed to be...although the shrines were distictly Shinto... it's really interesting to see all the religious inter-mingling that happens in Japan. But that's another story.

Today was hours of Halloween craziness here in Hakusan at the town Halloween Party. It was 7 foreign volunteers vs 110 wild Japanese elementary school students. Luckily, Sharon (the coordinator) managed to wrangle 5 guys from the Town Hall to pitch in and do some crowd control. There were cookies, crafts, masks, games, costumes for dress-up, but the most popular attraction by far was the haunted house. The Town Hall guys made it their labor of love, tracking down all sorts of spooky stuff to hang around in there, making tunnels to crawl through, attaching tape to the floor so the kids' feet would get stuck... The hilight was the end, however, when Sean (a Tsu ALT) who was dressed up in fully mummy gear jumped out and chased the kids out the door. Now, not only is he dressed up like a mummy, he is a foreigner and he is TALL (as far as people over here go) so he scared the crap out of these kids. Like, we had children crying buckets and wailing in fright. But of course they wanted to go back in again and again. So he had to vary his routine, my personal favorite being when he "lay down and played dead" in the middle of the corridor until they came by, when of course he jumped up and grabbed at their fleeing little legs. Priceless. Since it was a Hakusan event for elementary kids, I knew almost everyone there.. and the ones I didn't know, I will know by December.

So tomorrow is my first day at Yatsuyama Elementary, school #4. This school is TINY! Only 65 kids in kindergarten through 6th grade! I'm ready to run through my Self-Introduction lesson for the 21st, 22nd and 23rd time tomorrow! Also ready for the 30 minute bike ride... sigh. Did I tell you Megan got a car? Megan got a car. She is my new favorite person EVER. But sadly, she doesn't go to Yatsuyama Elementary school... maybe I can hire her out like a taxi.....

Change is good

2005-11-02T10:29:00.000+09:00

Soooo, what do we all think of the new color scheme? I thought it was time for a more autumn look.

Well, life here continues to move forward at speeds so quickly I'm surprised I haven't gotten windburn. Tomorrow is my official last day at Yamato Elementary school! It's weird to end on a Wednesday, but Thursday is a national holiday, so there's no school. Add to that my compensatory leave (I had to go to school all day on Saturday) which they kindly are giving me on Friday, and you get an extremely short week! Here are some of my favorite memories of Yamato:

-The sweetest second grader ever. His name is Kawa-something (I'm the worst sensei ever) and he decided he's my little brother. (Move over, Greg). He likes to run up to me, grab my arm and say, "Stephanie Sensei, how do you say 'crow' in English?" And I say, "Crow." And he starts going crazy, yelling "Caw caw caw caw caw" and flapping around like a crow.

-Going to the 1st grade classroom is like a day at the zoo. Now I must preface this with the statement that this is, without a doubt, the most well-behaved 1st grade class on the planet. When they get noisy, the teacher says quietly, "Are you listening to Stephanie Sensei?" and they ALL shut right up. But the two remedies to Silent Child Syndrome that have worked for me are animals and aliens.

To review the animal names that Meghan Sensei had taught them last year, I brought a bunch of picture cards to hold up. The children were supposed to yell out the word in English as a class, and they were actually being very brave about the whole thing. But as soon as we got to the word "horse," a sudden chorus of "hihiiiiiin" erupted out of nowhere! As you might have gathered, this is the Japanese word for "neiiigh." Similar things happened with "cow" (mooooo- pronounced like "moe" of Moe Larry and Curly) and "pig" (buu buu buu). Maybe someone had said that you couldn't say Japanese words in class, but you could go crazy with Japanese onomonopia. I actually cracked up the first time they did it, which kind of scared them, but as soon as they began to learn the word, things stopped... that is, until the next lesson when they had all forgotten everything all over again.

Next. Aliens. Best game ever. Take a pile of vocabulary cards. Have the kids push their desks against the wall and stand in a line facing you. Put a few cards with a picture of an alien in the mix with the vocab cards. If you show the kids a vocab card, they say the word. (ie. strawberry) If a card with an alien comes up, they have to run to the back of the room before you tag them. Vocabulary review has never EVER been so entertaining. In fact, no student had ever specifically requested that we play a vocab review game before I introduced this game (I found it online, I'm not clever enough to make things like this up). But now there is a near revolt if we don't play "the alien game" in class. Good thing I'm leaving tomorrow, I don't think I could keep that one up for much longer.

-Carrots. This school has a cafeteria where all 91 kids, plus all the faculty, eat. So my daily Carrot Fiasco quickly became common knowledge. I got to rotate from table to table every day, and without fail, my new table always asked about my carrots. But they wouldn't ask outright. They'd slyly say things like, "So Sensei, what is your favorite vegetable?" Or "Hey Sensei, so-and-so-kun likes carrots. What do you think of them?" One day I ran out of carrots and brought something else instead and my table felt like they'd been cheated out of an opportunity to watch the foreigner eat carrots up close and personal.

Well, I'd love to tell you all about the River Rave I attended on Saturday, but I have to go to a Halloween Party planning meeting. Yes, due to the extreme time difference between the US and Japan, the Hakusan Town Halloween Party won't be happening until Sunday the 6th.

Strange but true. I leave you with a photo of my after school commute to the grocery store.

dumb and dumberer

2005-10-27T09:15:00.000+09:00

So I fell off my bike today. I don't think I've done that since I was, oh, about 6 years old. I was on my way home and for some reason I was riding down the wrong side of the road- Strike One. Suddenly I noticed a car coming my way, so I decided that I could stay on the wrong side, but I should probably ride on the sidewalk. Sidewalks are fairly rare here and I usually take advantage of them. But for some reason, I had not been today. Strike Two. The curb dropped to allow for a driveway at about the point where I decided to get on the sidewalk, which I thought was perfect timing. However, I was not going fast enough to make it over the now lower but still prominent curb- Strike Three. The bike didn't make it over the curb, although my momentum carried me forward, so I hit the ground and the bike fell on me. It was not injury-worthy except for a little bruise on the back of my leg where the bike fell. I didn't even scrape my hands!! ... I guess that shows how slowly I was going. BUT!!! It must have looked fairly dramatic as all my school stuff in my bike basket went flying all over the curb, and the car which instigated the entire incident stopped to check if I was ok. And I was. So he kept going.

As I picked myself and all my crap off the ground, all I could think was I can't believe I fell off my bike. Moron. Then a happier thought hit me. I had just stopped traffic. Wooo hoo! I have caused traffic to slow down before while people got a good stare at my foreign-ness, but never before had anyone brought their vehicle to a full and complete stop. This was a big day.

By the way, here is my bike. My single mode of transportation. My connection to school, to the super market, the bank, the post office. Everything.

Hot stuff, right? Check out that handy basket. I actually often wish it was bigger. But then it would probably wreck my balance. The bike's name is Silver, although I have never actually spoken about it in the 2nd or even 3rd person. See, I don't even know it's gender, it is still an It. But every time I get on it, I think "High-ho Silver." Yes. I am a big dork. Sometimes I wish it was really a horse, like the Lone Ranger had. Then I could create an even bigger stir than I already do. But I don't know how to keep a horse, so I'd need a stable hand. And a stable. And actually I don't really know how to ride a horse. So, I guess the bike will have to do.

So I'm sitting here killing time until badminton practice. 30 minutes until I can show that birdie who is boss.

Hakusan Pride

2005-10-25T10:29:00.000+09:00

So this weekend was the Hakusan Fureai Festival... Basically what that means is that local organizations sell food and crafty-things anyone who is anyone shows up to buy them. Being a prominent member of the town myself, Sharon, Megan, two other nearby JETs and I ran the "International Booth." Sharon decided we would feed the masses with foreign foods, so we spent the better part of the morning cutting veggies and grilling like crazy people. The menu included some kind of Taiwanese beef stir-fry (courtesy of one of the out of town JETs), Australian sausages (Sharon's an Aussie) and New Zealand-style lamb chops. It was kind of a greasy menu, but as soon as people figured out it was free, we had a line nearly across the park. I'd like to thank myself for a large part of the line... a handfull of my 5th graders came by to harass me and I offered them food. They politely declined until Sharon mentioned it was free. So, at the top of their estatic 5th grade boy lungs, they yelled, "What? It's free!! Oh, sweet, free food!!!" The rest of the town pick up on their cries of "free free" and then jumped straight in line, despite not knowling exactly what we were giving away. But the faster people ate the food, the faster we could finish up and abandon our booth and check out the rest of the stuff, so there were no complaints from us.

It was a day to see and be seen. I enjoyed running into student after student and proving to them that, contrary to popular belief, teachers do NOT live at school 24/7. Some of them excitedly introduced me to their parents or threw random English phrases at me like, "Stephanie Sensei, Stephanie Sensei, I like baseball!!! Ichiro!!!!" My favorite 6th grade boys from Kawaguchi kept running into me, and during one encounter Hiroki felt the need to come and shake my hand. Unexpected, but charming.

The festival was also a perfect opportunity for those citizens of Hakusan who had yet to notice Megan and my grand appearance in town to stop by and gawk. Now, I know it is a rare occurance in Hakusan to see 4 foreign women grilling sausages, but I didn't realize it was something that needed to be photographed. I feel sorry for the relatives who have to sit through those photos: "Here's one from another angle, look at how they're flipping the meat. Fascinating..." Other people had clearly heard of us but had yet to see us in the flesh. Megan and my photos were featured in the town news letter, along with a little self-introduction speech we'd written, and apparently people had been paying good attention as they read. As she and I walked by a gaggle of old men, one of them pointed to me excitedly and announced to his friends, "Look, that's the one that speaks Japanese!" Yes, yes I do.

City people often say that country folk are a little backwards in their ways, and I am starting to agree. My personal favorite example was when Megan and I stopped by a booth selling candied potato wedges. I don't know what they're called, I think they're a Chinese dish where you take potato wedges and then dip them in some sort of sweet glaze. Anyhow, our friend Murakawa was handing them out, so he made sure to give us the freshest ones (this is the guy who originally invited us to join the badminton club because he is in love with Megan). As Megan and I complimented him on how tasty they were, he warned us not to eat too many because, as he put it, "you'll fart a lot."......... Talk about good salesmanship...

The afternoon ended with a 60 year old woman dressed in sequins. Apparently she was a singing sensation about 40 years ago, and Hakusan was lucky enough to get her to serenade the end of our festival. For a woman who hit her stride two decades before I was born, she's held up pretty well.

I had my biggest "Duh" moment of my teaching career today. I wanted the 2nd graders to do a card matching game for vocabulary review. They would each get a card with a picture of either a fruit or an animal, and they had to go around the room asking "Do you have a (whatever was on their card)?", find the person with the matching card, and then sit down. Since there were 22 kids in the class, I counted out 22 different fruits and animals and made sets of matching cards. See the problem yet? I didn't until I handed out the cards and realized I had 22 left over. Right. If you want each kid to match their one card with a strawberry on it to the one other strawberry card, you only need a total of 11 types of cards. So, I had to collect them all, sort through them to get 11 matching pairs, then re-deal out the cards. The homeroom teacher laughed in a friendly way and didn't seem to mind my stupidity, but I think I lost a bit of respect in her eyes. As well as self-respect in my own. But hey, man, I've always said that numbers were not my thing.

So that's the deal. Keepin it real. Over and out.

Watership Down?

2005-10-22T10:02:00.000+09:00

Here's my buddy Madoka in Bunny Heaven. I figured out why she is so diligent about inviting me along with her. Turns out you can't go in unless you are accompanied by a teacher, and most of them have no interest in watching first graders feed cabbage to a hoard of rabbits. Good thing I'm a cool teacher.

Also, here's a (fuzzy) copy of me in the Buddha-Nostril hole. I'm rocking the vertical space with the peace sign always at the ready.

Off to Sharon's birthday dinner at the "Yellow Potato." Like most things here, it tastes better than it sounds.
Byebye!

I Don't Know Why You Say Goodbye, I Say Hello...

2005-10-19T14:06:00.000+09:00

Right. So, once again I have been ripped away from all that had become familiar to me and have been shipped from Kawaguchi (school #2) to Yamato (school #3). As happened previously, I am feeling resentful to my new school simply because it is not my old school. But here are some wonderful things that have happened:

1) The fifth grade teacher stopped by my desk yesterday and dropped off a lesson plan that I should follow in class. A lesson plan not made by me! See, this is how most JETs and Assistant Language Teachers work- they assist other teachers. And for once, I got to stand around and be the "human tape recorder" that my other teaching friends talk about. I introduced myself for about 2 minutes, then listened to the kids introduce themselves. The teacher reviewed a song that Meghan (my predecessor) had taught them. Then I recited the alphabet and the kids repeated after me. Then we played bingo- I read a word off a card (prepared by the 5th grade teacher) and the kids marked the appropriate letter on their sheets. Then we played a game organized and executed by the teacher. It was so easy. But I realized something. It was boring. I like my classes better. So, I will stop whining about how I have to work so much harder than all my friends- because I get to do what *I* want to do in my classes. See. We all learned something here- the Stephanie Show is Awesome.

2) Only 10 kids in the 3rd grade. TEN! And they all LISTEN when I talk to them! They are amazing! I mean, Omitsu kids were fun, but 39 in one room was too hot to handle.

3) Rabbits. So many rabbits! So this first grader that I had sat next to during lunch came to me in the staff room yesterday during recess and invited me out to visit the rabbits. I LOVE rabbits!! In my self-introduction speech I always make sure to mention that rabbits are my favorite animal. So, this girl took my by her teeny little hand and dragged me out to a shed full of bunnies! Seriously, there are about 20 of them. The shed is empty except for lots of dirt, holes, hay, some wooden boards and bunny poop. Oh, right, and the bunnies. This girl (Madoka) goes out every day to feed the bunnies weeds from the garden after lunch, and I think I will be joining her. Coolest bunnies ever- they will climb all over you if they think you have food, and they are so sweet and soft and I LOVE bunnies! Madoka, you are an angel in disguise, thank you for leading me out to Bunny Heaven.

Let's re-cap on my life for a little while... The trip to Nara was good times. Megan and I met up with her Kyoto JET friends and we trekked around town in the pouring rain on Saturday. Spent the night in the Super Hotel, which lived up to its name- SO cheap, clean, convenient, relatively spacious AND with free breakfast. FREE! Beat that! Sunday we did our cultural duty and visited Horyuji, a Buddhist temple just outside the city over 1000 years old. Our tour guide, an English speaking volunteer we happened to run into as we were exiting restroom in the visitors center, kept trying to impress us with dates, but I was more impressed that I knew a lot of the history that he was talking about. Thanks to my History of Buddhism class back at Kansai Gaidai, I am well-versed in the ways of Prince Shotoku and his crowd. After lunch, we split up by prefecture and parted ways with our Kyoto-dwelling friends. Megan and I went to Todaiji to visit the aforementioned giant Buddha. In the back of the hall there is a giant pillar with a hole in the bottom, and it's said that those who can squeeze through it will have good luck. It is also said that the hole is roughly the size of the giant Buddha's nostril. Well. There was a line of Japanese families sending their kids to squeeze through the hole and Megan and I joined in the fun, both just barely making it through- we got oohs, ahs and applause... and our picture taken by strangers- I'll admit it, we are just a bunch of weird-o foreigners. I'll get the photo up when Megan sends it to me, it's quite amusing. Here are 2 from my last trip to Nara. It was 2 years ago, but nothing much has changed. Here's the Daibutsu (photos don't do it justice).

Here's my little host sister squeezing through the "nostril hole"- now imagine me doing it. It's funny, I promise. One hint- forget horizontal, try vertical.

This past weekend was "Homestay in Hakusan" weekend, organized by Sharon, so a bunch of other JETs came to spend the weekend here and hang out with local families. Although I have both experienced daily life in Hakusan AND lived with a host family in the past, Sharon really wanted as many people as possible to participate, so I hung out with a nice family on the other side of town. They had 2 daughters, one of which was one of the Butt-Slapping Menaces from Omitsu kindergarten. Luckily, she was far more polite under the watchful eyes of her family.

Anyhow, that's the news from Hakusan. More laterz!

Internationalization Through Carrot Sticks

2005-10-09T02:50:00.000+09:00

So I may have mentioned that every day I eat lunch with my students. On the first Monday of my visits, I eat with the first graders, work my way up to 6th grade, then go back again. I can speak Japanese with them as we eat, so it's a great time to get to know them a little better and get them to like me more as a person so that perhaps they will be more attentive and enthusiastic when I am their teacher.

Well. We all know that I am not much of a cook. We also know that I don't do the whole seafood thing. The result is that unlike everyone else in the entire school who eats school lunch, I frantically throw together some sort of food on my way out the door every morning. Usually it consists of a ham and cheese sandwich, (no other deli meats unless you go to a Subway sandwich shop- and the closest one I've found is in Osaka) some veggie sticks, and crackers. I've found that carrots are realatively cheap and easy to prepare, so I started to bring them along every once in awhile. But I found out quite swiftly that it absolutely boggles the children's little minds that anyone would even think to eat carrots raw! Yes, I am a raw carrot chomping fool in a carrot-boiling society. Even some of my teachers can't hide their surprise.
Teacher: "Is that raw?"
Me: ::crunch:: "Yes."
Teacher: "But that's not.... a carrot, is it??"
Me: ::purposely crunching louder:: "Yes, it's a carrot."
Teacher: "Is that... normal where you come from?"
Me: "Yup. It's tasty and good for you! Want to try one?"
Teacher: ::shudders:: "Um... er... no, thank you, I have to, er..." ::walks away::

Well, my 6th graders wouldn't take "it's a carrot, I swear" for an answer. One boy, Shouhei, asked incredulously, "What are you, a rabbit?" Now, on short notice and in a foreign language, my retorts are somewhat limited so the best come-back I could think of was, "No, I'm an American!" For some reason I had happened to bring along more carrot sticks than I could have possibly eaten that day. I really like my vegetable peeler, so I guess I had gotten carried away. Anyhow, I had a ton of carrot sticks that I wasn't planning to eat, so I offered him one. He declined in disgust but my buddy Hiroki (see last entry), in an act of loyatly and bravery, TOOK the carrot! Then there was a big, dramatic production as he mentally prepared himself for the shock his system would undergo as it encountered a raw carrot. He plugged his nose with one hand, squeezed his eyes shut and bit in.
"Woah! It's really sweet!"
"See??" I told them. I don't know what they expected raw carrots to taste like, but apparently it was good enough for Hiroki. After making sure that Hiroki's toungue didn't swell up or and he didn't pass out or anything, his little friend Shouhei, after another dramatic preparation, decided to give the carrot thing a go. He was less impressed, but managed to chew and swallow the whole thing, which is more than I can say for some of the other kids who followed suit.

Moral of the story: In Japan, eating raw fish is not weird. Raw seafood is not weird. Raw eggs? Not weird. But raw CARROTS?? I mean, are you TRYING to make yourself SICK??

So, weekly photos. Here is the entrance to a shrine in town that Megan recommended I check out.

It's at the top of this hill we have to scale every day getting to and from school (the junior high is in the same part of town as Kawaguchi Elementary). It's just a short walk to the tippity top of the hill but offers a great view of part of the town.

The green is rice paddies. You can actually see Kawaguchi Elementary in the background, I think it's the large beige building. The smoke is from the farmers buring brush in their fields... I'm not exactly sure what kind of brush, but I've been told that this valley gets kind of hazy this time of year with all the burning.

Off to Nara with Megan! We have a 3 day weekend, so we'll be there today and tomorrow, hanging out with the wild deer and visiting the Daibutsu, this absolutely ginormous Buddha statue. (dai=big, butsu=buddha...) We're meeting up with her two Kyoto JET friends that we met up with when we were in Kyoto back in August, so it'll be fun catching up with each other.
Right then- later!!

I don't know how to put this... but I'm kind of a big deal

2005-10-02T07:17:00.000+09:00

Yes, that's right. It's not easy being Stephanie Sensei. Especially now that my new school expects me to (gasp) teach classes!! I know my math skills are not as sharp as one might hope, but I have done some calculations and figured out that I have to teach a LOT more at this new school. Example- I had to teach 16 lessons in 3 weeks at School #1. (Known henceforth as Omitsu). I have taught 12 lessons in 1 week at School #2 (Known henceforth as Kawaguchi). Now, 16 is greater than 12 BUT 16 divided by 3 is about 5, which is less than 12. So I am working much harder. And when I teach class, I TEACH the class. Like, the teacher shepherds the kids in, sits down in the back and says, "dozo," which pretty much means, "go ahead!" So here are some gems from my first week at Kawaguchi Elementary school.

I revamped my self-introduction lesson from the one I gave at Omitsu. The grades 4-6 lesson now includes an interactive portion where I draw a big map on the board with 6 "x" marked, and some volunteers are given names of US cities/states (Boston, NY, Washington DC, New Orleans, Seattle and California) and famous things in the cities (me- hahaha, Statue of Liberty, the White House, Hurricane Katrina, Ichiro/Seattle Mariners, Mickey Mouse/Disneyland) and they have to match them. Quite successful.

One of my first grade students wrote about my class in his journal! It was kind of a backwards compliment... He wrote that in his English class, he played a color game and it was so much fun that he forgot he was learning English! Now, I'm super glad he had fun, but I was sad that he thought English class had to be boring. It is my mission to make every class that fun!... which will be hard. The color games were two-fold. First, I held up different colored cards and the kids would scream out the appropriate color. Then, I put up posters of different colors on the wall, and the kids made 3 lines. I would call out a color's name and the kids at the front of the line had to run to the color on the wall. Pandemonuim. But happiness. Then, we played Color Karuta- they had groups of 4 and a deck of cards with lots of colors. I'd call out a color and they'd have to slap the card with the corresponding color. They're really good at yelling out colors when I ask them, but not always good at listening, so sometimes they'd get so excited that they'd just slap a random color so I had to go around and check to see they got the right one. Good times. Kids like to slap things.

The 6th graders at this school are really cool. Not fun-cool, but too-cool-for-everything cool. But luckily, I won the heart of the coolest boy so he pays attention in my class, which makes the other cool kids want to pay attention too. For my 6th grade introduction lesson, we played a reeeeeeeally easy self-introduction game. They all made 3 cards with their name on them, then they had to go around and introduce themselves to their classmates. They'd say "My name is ***. I like ***" and the other would respond in kind. They'd then say "nice to meet you," then do rock paper scissors. The winner took one of the loser's cards, and at the end the one with the most cards got a sticker. (I've explained this before, I think....) Anyhow, the thing they like could be anything- sport, food, color, animal, anything. So I was going around playing along and I got to this one boy. He said "My name is Hiroki. OK? Hiroki. I am Hiroki. I like... STEPHANIE!!" Aww. He and his friends came by my classroom the other day to ask how tall I was. (Desperate for conversation) Since I don't speak metric, I had to answer in feet/inches, which was kind of disappointing for them. But they were satisfied. Then the other day as I was leaving school, Hiroki and his friends were playing soccer. From across the field I hear him scream "Stephanie Sensei!!!! See you again!!!!" It was really cute.

Side note- this is how I used to end every class. I say, "Everyone stand up please." (In Japanese schools, you stand up, greet the teacher and bow at the beginning and end of every class) I point to myself and say "Thank you very much!" then gesture to them and they say "Thank you very much." I say, "See you again!" (since I can never remember when the next time I'll see them is) and they repeat. Then I wave and say "Goodbye!" It wasn't until dear old Hiroki yelled "See you again!" to me that I realized how awkward that sounds. So I have changed it to "see you later," so it will sound more natural when kids yell it to me... which they do... a lot. You see, I am kind of a big deal here.

I think the vice principal at my school knows exactly 3 words in English. They are "coffee or tea." She always grabs me at some point in the day when I am sitting in the teacher's room, takes me over to where they have the coffee and tea stuff and makes me make myself something to drink. I usually just drink water, but I guess that's not enough for her. But it's nice that she wants me to be caffenated- these kids eat up lots of my energy!

I have my first translation assignment. The 3rd grade teacher at Kawaguchi lived in Australia for 3 years (although his English is still fairly rusty) and he asked me if I could do a favor for him. He told me that he needed help studying "Old English." Now, I don't speak Old English. But then he showed me what he meant. He had a packet with paragraphs from English books, such as The Scarlett Letter, Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Wolf, The Great Gatsby, some T.S. Elliot poems, and a passage from the Bible. First he said he wanted help translating them because they were a little too dense for him. But by "help" he didn't mean "let's sit down and discuss them." He meant, "you write down a translation for me." So the other day I spent my free time in the afternoon trying to translate stuff like "yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil for Thou art with me." I had to write one line literally translating it, and then one line giving my own interpretation of parts like "Thy rod and thy staff comfort me." It was... challening. But kind of fun. I hope he can make sense of what I wrote!

So. That's my life at school in a nutshell. I leave you with a picture of Pure Cutenss. Here is me and Baby-chan (aka Reina) from when I went to visit my host family in Osaka.

it's like a merry-go-round for dead fish!

2005-09-28T14:50:00.000+09:00

Kaiten-zushi, also known as "conveyor belt sushi" or "revolving sushi." They conveniently place the chefs all throughout the restaurant so you don't have to worry about other people grabbing all the good sushi before it gets to you. Pay by the plate- it's so easy!

Me and some 2nd graders after a hard day of work. Halloween came early this year at Omitsu Elementary school!

"and you spoke Japanese influently."

2005-09-27T12:06:00.000+09:00

“influently..." so went the goodbye card that my desk-neighbor at Omitsu Elementary school handed me as I walked out the door heading for my next school. That's right, folks, more than 3 weeks of classes have passed so I am off to the other side of town to single-handedly internationalize Kawaguchi Elementary school for the next 3 weeks. Though my home address doesn't change, I am a traveling JET, and although I had just settled happily into my routine at Omitsu, I was escorted away on Friday... well, I'll be back there in February. I was discussing this with some other JETs and we came to the conclusion that it actually made the most sense to have the elementary school JETs rotate around because your limited presence makes you a constant novelty. And that's what I want to be- a limited-time-only super star. I felt like Brittany Spears or someone as I got swamped with a line of 2nd graders looking for my autograph after class on my last day. The funniest thing was not that they wanted my autograph for themselves, but rather that some of them wanted multiple copies for their parents and siblings. I hope they appreciated the scrap of papers with my name and the message "see you!" scrawled in pencil. I should make some more and put them up on e-bay...

Well, due to Sports Day (and subsequent compensatory leave), Respect for the Aged Day, and the Autumnal Equinox, I have gotten a fair amount of time off, so I have not spent much time at home recently. I spent two days/one night in Osaka last weekend and just got back from Tokyo. Osaka was nice- I spent a day browsing in Shinsaibashi, then picked up some donuts at Mr. Donuts in Katano (where else would someone looking for donuts go?!) and headed to the Yamamoto’s. We had Mika's homemade pizza for dinner at my request... mmm, potato, corn and asparagus pizza, I missed you so. (REALLY!) Mika and I had an Ainori-watching party that evening (Ainori is our favorite TV show) and then went off shopping with Baby Reina-chan the next day while Kenji went to work and Mirei went to school. Hahaha. Then I went off to visit Kansai Gaidai, my ol' university, and met up with Amy (my friend from high school currently studying over there). We went to lunch with some of her friends at the "round cafeteria" then went to the Planet Entertainment Center for some sticker pictures and 2 hours of karaoke goodness with my Japanese friend Kayoko from Gaidai. Total blast from the past.

Later in the week back in Mie after our weekly group dinner out, Lolly and I split off from the pack and went up to Nagoya, where we boarded a bus bound for Tokyo. Now. We made it to the bus with LITERALLY 2 minutes to spare, but at least we had plenty of time to rest. The bus departed at 10:30pm and drove through the night until we arrived at Shinjuku Station in the heart of Tokyo bright and early at 5:30am. Lolly and I were most struck by the ratio of people around to closed restaurants. The streets were busier than we thought, but there was nowhere to go, so it wasn't until 7:30 when we finally happened upon an open Starbucks. Well, it was cool to see Tokyo at such an unusual time. But I don't think that I ever need to do it again. I met up with Max from Vassar around 10am and Lolly went off to meet HER friend from HER university.

Max and I spent most of the day getting shamefully and repeatedly lost. We are both reasonably intelligent college graduates, with a decent Japanese ability when we put our heads together, and were well-equipped with maps and in were in Tokyo where everything is in English. But somehow we just seemed to keep ending up where we started instead of where we were trying to go. Anyhow, after a nice walk through Shinjuku, we belatedly found our way to Asakusa (the only remaining structure of historical significance in Tokyo), then to Ueno park (biggest lotuses EVER). We nearly got ourselves kicked out of the restaurant where we got lunch, as Max decided to announce (in Japanese) that the table we were sitting at was dirty right as the waiter was coming over to clean it, so the waiter defensively asked "What are you saying is dirty?" That shut us up rather quickly. But we were willing to eat at a dirty table to have an all you can eat Indian buffet for 1000 yen (about $10). Such good nan. (I know, I know, why did we have Indian food in Tokyo... but it was just so tasty)

Well, that night we met my Japanese friend Asuka (who spent a year at my high school) for dinner in Shibuya. You know how when you think of Tokyo, you inevitably think of an intersection with crosswalks going 5 different ways, blinking neon lights and about half a million people? Yeah, that's in Shibuya- we were 3 of those half a million! We ate at the self-proclaimed cheapest revolving sushi restaurant in Japan. You had to eat 7 plates minimum, but for 105 yen a plate ($1) it was just so reasonable! Asuka and I did some more sticker pictures/karaoke that night, which for some reason Max passed up, then I went back to spend the night at Asuka's place in Yokohama.

Next day I trekked to Kashiwa City in Chiba, aka Max's 'Hood. We spent the day touring the two grocery stores, talking to the lady from the census bureau (she came to Max's door THREE separate times... at least he got a free pencil from her, although she said she'd be back to collect it in October), accepting gifts of food from his landlord (boiled peanuts, then sweet potatoes and eggs), lesson planning and playing with his new computer.

Sunday I reunited with Lolly (remember Lolly?) and two of her fellow British friends and we went to Harajuku to visit the freaks. No, seriously, have you ever heard that new Gwen Stefani song in tribute to the wildly costumed weirdos who hang out there? It is Goth/Lolita/cross dressing/Marilyn Manson to the extreme... There weren't as many costumes as we'd hoped, but my absolute favorite part of the day was when we encountered a Shinto procession marching along. One of the Shinto float carriers jumped out of his procession to get his photo takes with two of the Harajuku costumed weirdos. (Side note- that's basically what you do in Harajuku- gawk and take photos of counter culture folks... although we stumbled upon an expansive and beautiful temple, and then a groovy coffee shop with a great view of the city.) That evening Lolly and I took the Shinkansen (Bullet Train) back to Nagoya, then made our separate ways home.

Wow. This entry reminds me of what my grandmother said when she received my postcard. "It sounds like she's having fun," she told my mother, "but I thought she went over there to teach!!!" Well, I DID! It's not MY fault they keep having holidays which are conveniently positioned to make 3 day weekends. Now that I'm at Kawaguchi Elementary school, I have 3-4 lessons every day, so I will not be getting bored at work. The kids are cute, although I have yet to warm up to the faculty yet... ah well. More later! Photos forthcoming... .com is being difficult...

From October to Octopus in 8 seconds.

2005-09-19T12:37:00.000+09:00

"Stephanie Sensei. Halloween. When?"
"October."
"Ah, October. October. Octoooobaa. Okutooobaaa. Okutoopaa. Octooopaaas. Octopus?!?"
Ah, 6th grade boys. The joy of misconstruing whatever I say will never get old for these kids. Hey, at least they have to listen to me in order to purposely repeat what I said incorrectly.

So this week was sloooooooooow in terms of classes, thanks to incessant sports festival practice. No classes on Monday or Wednesday. But, of course, I still had to show up to school... this is one aspect of Japanese schools that is hard to get used to. Just because you have no work to do doesn't mean you are exempt from coming to work. Sigh.

The classes I actually had to teach went pretty well. The Beatles "Goodbye, Hello" worked so well that one 6th grade student even asked if he could borrow my CD so he could burn his own copy and learn all the words!! (THANK YOU GABE!) I think I have the most admirers in the 4th grade class. They just can't get enough of asking me about my favorite this or that. There is one kind of strange girl in that class, though. She always talks to me in Japanese (not strange) but she purposely stresses the wrong syllables of all the words. (wakarimaSEN turns into waKAriMAsen). She's not doing it to make fun of me b/c her accent isn't like mine, and she's not doing it to be rude b/c she's a total sweetie. But her friends all laugh at her and ask why she talks so weirdly to me (and only to me)... mysterious.

The 4th grade teacher is also my new friend. It turns out that she played the harp in college too, and she is still in touch with the orchestra teacher there and is on perpetual key permission for the building, so she can use the harp whenever she is in the mood. She and the music/art teacher and I went down to Tsu today to do some harping, which was pretty cool. I think she thought I was some sort of concert harpist or something b/c we got the harp out, wheeled it into a practice room, she tuned it, then turned to me and said "Ok, play something!!" I haven't touched a harp in 4 months and I was never that good to begin with, so I played some lovely scales for her. Then she brought me a book and I picked out some easy songs to play, which was more interesting for everyone. Then she played some scales and stuff, then we played piano/harp duets, with the music teacher on the piano and the 4th grade teacher and I taking turns with the harp. She said she wasn't all that good, and while I first assumed she was just being modest, she was nothing spectacular either, which was quite a relief. I'm going to try to get my hands on some of the music I played in college so I'll have something familiar to play next time.

Afterwards, we went to the cutest Italian restaurant- it was at the base of Matsusaka Castle and looked just like all the other houses in the neighborhood except it had Christmas lights out front. My tomato and mozzarella cheese pasta was surprisingly spicy, but quite tasty.

Oh right! Yesterday was the school sports festival, the reason that my job has been so easy. The kids sang, danced and ran their little hearts out. There were relays, tug of wars (8- each team got to go twice...), short dashes, Okinawan songs, taiko drums, community dancing (I took a spin around the circle doing the official 'Hakusan town dance,' much to everyone's amusement), choreographed dances, speeches... it was a LONG day, from 9-4. Of course, with set up and clean up, I earned a full day of work, despite the fact that it was Saturday, so I get to have Tuesday off! Apparently the second half has been cancelled due to rain for the past 2 years, but this year it was sunny and cool, much to everyone's relief.

Afterwards was the obligatory office party where half the staff gets totally drunk and the most unexpected teachers whip out their previously unannounced English ability. I found myself being serenaded by the 2nd grade teacher with such Elvis Prestely numbers as "Love Me Tender"... funny how Elvis seems to come up at these lively office parties. This teacher really doesn't know much English, and the words he did know were very strange. As he was eating, he kept turning to me and saying "mmmm, satisfied." ... I think was his translation of "oishii" (usually translated as 'delicious'). He also made an earnest effort to explain what the various dishes of Japanese food being served were. There were lots of tofu and bean-related things, but he couldn't for the life of him remember the word "soybean" (which he kept using to describe stuff) so he'd yell across the table to the poor 4th grade teacher and ask over and over again, even though everytime he said "bean bean, ummm.... bean... ummm..." I knew exactly what he was talking about.

So, that's the week in review. I'm off to Osaka for Monday-Tuesday to enjoy my displaced weekend. Staying with my host family on Monday night, so I'm excited to see how big the baby has gotten... such a cutie! Ok, more later!

TOUCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2005-09-13T12:16:00.000+09:00

Ah, very small children. So last Thursday was the absolute best day I have had at school. Wednesday, you might recall, was destined to be kindergarten day. So, I ditched my frumpy skirts and nice blouses and chose instead to wear a t-shirt and Addidas wind pants. I'll take this moment to introduce the fact that many teachers at my school weart outfits nearly identical to this on a daily basis. Well, something doesn't quite feel right as I walk to school. It's a bit... empty... quiet, even. Turns out that due to the typhoon we were having, school was called off for the kids. However, us teachers were supposed to muddle through potentially dangerous weather conditions in order to... sit around in the staff room and goof off all day? That's what I ended up doing. Anyhow, I walked into the room and everyone's jaws dropped with shock that I a)showed up and b)showed up looking like I had just crawled out of bed and somehow managed to roll myself onto the train and up the hill to school. Here I was, properly dressed for a day spent scambling around the floor with kindergarteners when really all I did was chat with a few teachers, study kanji, and stare out the window.

So Thursday, I get to school bright and early, get myself and my loads of posters together, and march over to the kindergarten. I wander into one of the classrooms and everything freezes as 12 pairs of eyes stare at me and 12 jaws hang a little slack. The teacher announces my presence and then turns to attend to some sort of business. One brave little child creeps up toward me, stopping at my side. "Good morning!" I say in a friendly and encouraging manner. She looks at me with big innocent puppy-dog eyes, then smacks me on the rear end. "Itai!" I say, quickly covering my butt with my hands. That girl could hit hard! Suddenly, the room erupted into peals of laughter. Did you hear that? The foreigner said "itai!" Nothing funnier had ever happened in that classroom. It was rolling on the floor funny. And it became the objective of all the little girls to ensure I said "itai!" as frequently as possible. Sadly, not all the girls were as brave as the first (she was a young woman with vision!) and they had to come up in pairs to slap me. Figuring that the majority of the humor being derived from this situation was my outbreaks of "itai," I quickly switched to saying "ouch!" (and trying like mad to play good sport while trying to cover my sore rear) The teacher misheard my this as "touch," and then she praised both me and the children for this wonderful English-learning opportunity! Now they were no longer ganging up on a helpless newcomer- they were having an Adventure in Conversational English! So, the butt-smacking was immediately preceeded by an exclamation of "TOUCH!!!" which gave me a split second heads-up. But those kids were fast.

Any-who, as they alternated between trying to climb up my arms and the TOUCH game, the teacher called the other class in and then we all processes in a calm and orderly fashion to the multi-purpose room where we did self-introductions. I had lots of pictures. The kids all stood up and said their name, followed by "yoroshiku onegaishimasu" which literally means "please be kind to me," and is the set phrase in such a situation. Well, the teachers decided not to be outshone by their precious and adorable [if hard-hitting] little students, and tried to one-up their English introduction. Instead of saying "yoroshiku onegaishimasu," they said "please." ... which... is a good translation... but is not something one would ever say when meeting someone new. "Hello. My name is Stephanie. Please." It would leave the other party puzzling it over, wondering "please WHAT?" However, we were told time and time again at orientation not to make the teacher look lose face in front of the students, so I smiled and let it go. I made those kids sing and dance their little hearts out, which was sooooooooooo fun. I honestly didn't want to leave, but leave I had to after a short hour. As I left, the Original Chaos-Instigator called out "I'll smack your bum again next week, too, ok?" A promise? Or a threat?

So then I moved onto second graders. I think the teacher was more excited than the kids were, and the kids were pretty excited, so that is saying a lot. However, they were kind of wiped out because they had just come from running practice, so when we learned the words to the "Hello, how are you?" song, no one wanted to go farther than "I'm tired!"

First grade was also cute as buttons, but they too had recently returned from running practice, and it was now the period right before lunch, so they were content to just repeat, "I'm hungry!" [Well, at least they were using English] We did some singing and some impromptu arm motions [thanks to my years of musical theatre training!], but then came the climax of the class.
A butterfly.
Now, I will admit, it was a really beautiful butterfly. It was dark blue and black with tendril things, and looked like something off of a fantasy novel cover- all we needed was a flying unicorn. But no need for equines, the kids were satisfied with being distracted with the butterfly. The teacher helplessly interjected pearls of wisdom such as, "OK, kids, the butterfly came in here to watch you study, so you better study hard!" and "The butterfly is just here to say 'do your best at learning English,' so you don't have to look at him anymore." But what could I do. Even I, Stephanie Sensei, could barely take my eyes off that butterfly. Luckily, it made its appearance right before lunch and stopped the constant chorus of "I'm hungry" which was a nice change of pace.

So. This is my life for the rest of the year. Hand gestures, butt-slapping and wild animal intrusions. Oh, and swing-pushing. I have been adopted by a gaggle of 2nd graders as the official recess swing pusher- hey, it gets me out of the office!

And, for the weekly picture- the view from the Town Hall, at the "center of town."

Yes. It's THAT kind of town.

"Drug Store- A Symbol of American Happiness"

2005-09-07T14:42:00.000+09:00

....or at least, that's what one of my fourth graders' shirts said. So yes! Stephanie Sensei I am! It was like some sort of bizzare name-giving ritual. Last Thursday, the whole school gathered for their Fall Semester Opening Ceremony and I was supposed to introduce myself to all of them, only using English. Seeing as I work at an elementary school, I figured it shouldn't be terribly complicated. So, making an executive decision, my self introduction went as follows:
Me- Good morning!
Kids (in chorus)- Gooooood mooooorniiiiiiiiiiiingu.
Me- My.... name.... is..... Stephanie......... LaShoto............ It's... nice.... to.... meet.... you!
Kids (spookily in sync)- Niiiiiiice to meeeeet yooou tooooooooo.
The principal then hopped up to the microphone and asked if any of the kids had been clever enough to figure out my name. About half of them shouted "Stephanie Sensei!" And there it was. The funniest thing is not the fact that the kids call me this, as some of my Showa summer campers have used this epithet before. I just think it's funny to hear the other teachers (the REAL teachers) call me Sensei. Makes me feel like I have some sort of authority or expertise in something. Cool cool.

So, with the exception of Earthquake Practice, which was extremely informative, that was the gyst of my first day at Omitsu Elementary School. I also met with all of the teachers I will be working with. We talked about what exactly they want me to do in their classes, and they gave me helpful directions like "The kids like playing games." Well. I was going to preach grammar at them, good thing they gave me the heads-up! On Friday, I got to actually interact with children and eat lunch with the 6th graders. The kids at Omitsu all eat in their classrooms, so the teacher pushed an extra desk up to one of the groups and that became my seat. I immediately figured out which child was going to be sitting next to me because I saw a boy in the back, holding his head in his hands and moaning "yabai yabai yabai" which basically translates to "this is going to be awful." But he was able to communicate the fact that he likes baseball and that he was drinking milk, all in English. Sparkling conversation. I have to say (and I may live to regret this) that I found that I actually enjoyed the company of the 6th grade boys more than the girls. They had much more personality, hamming it up, while the girls were just too cool for school.

This weekend was "Me Time Weekend," which was a nice break from Mass Exodus of JETs to -insert-famous-location-here. I did have a taco dinner with Sharon and Megan (along with Megan's predecessor Aileen and Helen from Taki-cho) on Friday, and then went to taiko club with Sharon on Saturday night. We also did a dramatic reenactment and reading of "The Turnip," a Russian picture book, at the library on Sunday afternoon for local kiddies. But otherwise, things were pretty quiet, I didn't go farther than Kawaitagaoka Station, 3 stops down from here.

Monday was the first day of real classes. I was nervous. No. Not nervous. I was scared! So, at 10:45, two representatives from the 4th grade class came down to escort me to the classroom. I had prepared some lovely posters with pictures from home while I was hanging around at Town Hall, and I also brough a Red Sox t-shirt (thank you Greg!) and a picture book of Boston. So I ran through my self-introduction speech, then fielded questions from the kids. In the lessons I have taught, questions have ranged from "How old is your brother?" "What is your husband like (hahahahaha)?" and "What kids of flowers grow at your house (the answer, for the record, is "pink flowers")?" Don't be shocked at the high vocab/grammar level, the kids were allowed to ask in Japanese. Anyhow, then the teacher made them all stand up and introduce themselves to me. Most of these self-intros more or less amounted to "(deep breath or two) My name is (pause) Kenji. (pause) I am (pause) nine years old. (pause) I like (painful pause) I like (painful pause) um... baseball." The teacher made them all shake hands with me, too, which was cute. The end. Class #1. Over. I had prepared a ton of stuff, but I'd MUCH rather have too much stuff than having the kids (and teacher) stare at me as I desperately think up some lame activity.

In the 3rd grade class yesterday and 6th grade today we had time to play a Self-Introduction Game! They all made a few cards with their name on them and they had to introduce themselves to a partner. Then they play rock paper scissors (or as it is locally know, Jan-Ken-Pon- this is an immensely popular game and is used as a just manner of solving any number of disagreements without any further argument). The winner gets to take one of the losers' cards, and the 3 kids with the most cards at the end got to get (gasp) a shiny sticker with the American flag on it. Seriously, if you saw how hard these kids tried to win the stickers, you would have thought I was giving out bars of gold... or puppies. The third grade teacher was surprisingly able to quell all the introducing/jan-ken-pon-ing/general loudness in one fell swoop- by blowing the whistle he always keeps around his neck. With 39 super "genki" 3rd graders to contend with, I think it is a brilliant idea for crowd control. Sadly, the 6th graders were supposed to spend the extra time learning a song, but my CD decided not to work... the teacher looked at me expectantly, as if I had an endless bag of tricks with which to amuse her students. Luckily the self-intro game was easy enough to play, and the Beatles can wait until next time.

Speaking of insects, there is a cockroach in my apartment. And not a lame one the size of a penny like Megan had. This bug means business. It is at least the size of my thumb. There was a similarly sized roach in the hallway at school today and all the 4th grade boys ran after it with excitement. I decided that the way to deal with my roach-situation is to invite the 4th grade over to my apartment. The girls can draw me pretty pictures for my walls and the boys can catch bugs. Are you thinking what I'm thinking? I'm thinking 3 words. Best. Field-trip. Ever.

So that's school in a nutshell. Tomorrow I get to go play with the kindergarten. Word on the street is that they are adorable. They better not disappoint. We are going to sing and dance to a song with lyrics such as "left and right, spin around, stand up, sit down." I will have those kids more than ready for nap time!!

Oh. I have to show you my cool new restroom accessory!! At the 100 yen store (the Dollar Store of Japan!) I noticed a sign that said "Create a Garden in your Lavatory." I was intrigued, so I investigated further and found an adorable clip-on flower costume for the sink on my toilet. Yes. Sink on my toilet. It came with the apartment- apparently the water comes through the sink BEFORE it reaches the toilet bowl, although it still grosses me out a little. Anyhow, gaze upon the photo and be amazed at the wonder of technology which exists here in Japan. Lightyears ahead here, seriously.

Officially Stephanie Sensei... I like the sound of that!

2005-09-05T11:22:00.000+09:00

Here I am on my first day of school. I almost missed my train because I was taking pictures of myself in the mirror with my cell phone... I hope you're happy, Mom! I have been formally introduced to both the staff and the students (Thursday) and had my first lunch and cleaning time with students (6th graders- Friday)... So, Monday (tomorrow) marks the first of my actual lessons! I am trying to inject some "cool" into the English curriculum here in Hakusan. While last year Meghan Sensei taught the 4th graders "Twinkle twinkle little star," I will start my first lessons teaching them "The Lion Sleeps Tonight." Come on, don't you think the kids will love learning such useful English phrases as "a wee ma wep" ??! WISH ME LUCK!!!!

This is my cool hat from the Aichi World Expo. My friend Jess and I bought matching ones in the African Pavillion. We were so cool. Plus, it made finding each other in the crowds a whole lot easier!!

from Africa to Zen- the week-(ish) in review

2005-09-02T15:19:00.000+09:00

So, it's been awhile. The worst part about not writing is: the longer you don't
write, the more stories you accumulate that you feel like writing about. Let's see.
Hilights of the week include:

-Weekend in Kyoto!! Megan and I met up with some Kyoto JETs she had met at Tokyo
Orientation and we explored the city. After spending a full hour in the train
station trying to FIND the Kyoto folks (and we all had cell-phones!!! This place is
utterly massive), we finally got on our way to temple viewing. Because of my
stellar Japanese skills (haha) and my extensive experience as a tourist in Kyoto, I
ended up as the tour guide. We went to Sanjusangendo, or the Hall of 1000
Buddhas.... Actually, it should be 1001 because there are 500 Kannon statues on the
left side and 500 on the right side of the main statue.... or is one side
unbalanced? Suffice it to say, there are many golden and serene Kannon statues and
(supposedly) they are all slightly different. Next was Kiyomizu, one of those Must
See temples. It's pretty massive, and boasts having a waterfall which spews healing
water (which we didn't actually try). You have to walk up a really quaint and
narrow street lined with small souvineer shops, and get a great view of the city
once you finally reach the temple. We spent the evening in Sanjo, one of the
flashiest areas of the city, full of bars, karaoke, pachinko and a Wendy's
restaurant (which, for the record, was not where we ate).

Funny story- we passed this convertible car parked on the side of the road with
these mean-looking and street savy characters covered in "bling" hanging all over
it. They turned on the car speakers full blast and started to serenade the street
with their hot tunes.... They then proceeded to sit there, wearing sunglasses (in
the dark) and chain necklaces nodding their heads along to "Love, love me true! You
know I love you! I'll always be true!" A group of middle-aged American tourists
walked by singing along and one of the Japanese ruffians yelled "Beatles, saiko!"
which means, more or less, "The Beatles rock!" ... priceless.

Spent the night in a cute hostel called Tani House, north of the city center in a
fairly large, traditional Japanese house. Even though we didn't arrive until
midnight (we'd already made reservations), we were greeted by Mrs. Tani herself, who
shuttled us to our tatami room and fed us green tea and cookies. Mama Tani won our
hearts right there, and she made it better by giving us a really nice pack of
postcards as we checked out. The one drawback to staying in a Japanese style house
is that the walls are LITERALLY paper thin- yup, those sliding paper doors were all
that separated us from our neighbors, so you could head a pin drop from each and
every room. But it was really a neat place!

The next day was a lot of wandering around in Daifuku-ji, an expansive complex of
small temples, and Ryoan-ji, a Zen temple with one of the most famous sand and rock
gardens. We got side-tracked on the way there by a wood block print shop, and we
loaded up on postcards and decorations for our walls. They even had a cool display
where you could make your own copy of one of the prints. (which, of course, we did)

That night we met my friend Amy, who is studying at Kansai Gaidai, for dinner in
Hirakata. After a hearty Italian meal at Caplichoza, we took some fabulous sticker
pictures (of course!!) in the Vivre department store and headed home. Ah, good
times.

The "Africa" in the title refers to our trip to the World Expo, being held in Nagoya
which is in neighboring Aichi prefecture. Under the guise of escorting us to get
re-entry visas for our passports (which we did), some older JETs coerced our bosses
into giving us the day off... and after we took care of the visa, half of us went
shopping and half of us went to the ginormous expo. I've heard of people visiting
up to 15 times, and after having gone, I can understand. It takes more than 30
minutes just to walk from one end to the other, and there are long long lines for
some of the more popular countries. My friend Jess and I spent a particularly long
time in the African pavilion since there was a downpour, which continued on and off
for the rest of our trip. But we bought these cool hats for only $1, so that made
up for the rain. Morocco had a particularly cool exhibit, as did the Nordic
countries (they all teamed up). We were inches away from missing the last train
home to Hakusan (aka Middle of Nowhere), which added an additional element of
adventure to the trek home.

So. After all this travel, I am a tad worn-out, so I think I will spend the weekend
at home. Today was my first day of school- I'm currently making very productive use
of my time in the teacher's room. More later!! I'll let you know how the rest of the day went, as well as fill you in on the scoop from our weekly Thursday Night Fiesta!

"Hey everyone! Jellyfish Fight!!!"

2005-08-24T09:35:00.000+09:00

So let's see... last time we spoke, I was beside myself with excitement about going to the beach in Toba on Saturday. Well. I did indeed go to the beach in Toba but, as they say, it was nothing to write home about. [Although I will anyhow, haha] It was a man-made beach hidden behind these huge concrete tsunami-breakers, which means no waves and not a lot of fresh water coming in. Add to it some pollution from the nearby docks and oodles of (admittedly harmless) jelly-fish and you get... well, not exactly paradise. It was an outing arranged by a JET and a local international outreach type clubso there were about 60 people there, a few JETs with whom I was friendly at orientation and stuff, so it was nice to see them. I also learned that jellyfish are surprisingly solid creatures. As the hundredth or so jelly floated by me, I decided to poke it and see what happened. Well, it was like poking a cup of jello, not like poking a floating plastic bag as I had imagined. Later as things got rowdier in the water, some people started tossing (and then hurling) jellyfish at each other, causing some of the poor creatures to actually rip in half or even explode upon impact. Strange and gross, but true.

We also had a nice beach-side BBQ (at which no jellyfish we consumed) and I earned a few new freckles, so I guess the excursion was worth checking out after all. On the way back, Megan and Jessica (a Southern Mie JET) and I took a detour en route to the train to get some gelato and take sticker pictures, which in my book was a perfect way to end the day!

Saturday was the last sunny day we had in awhile. On Sunday, Megan and I were planning on exploring the river that runs through town that apparently can be swum in. Sadly, it rained all day, so instead we brainstormed and ended up taking ourselves to Tsu (the capital "city" of Mie), where we went shopping and saw a movie. Now, I thought it might be fun to attempt to watch a Japanese movie, but since Megan doesn't speak any Japanese, we decided to see an American movie b/c they are usually (usually!!) subtitled in Japanese instead of being dubbed. We settled on the CGI movie "Robots," but as I went to order the tickets, I decided to double check on the language of the movie. The lady looked at me and said, "Uh, it's in Japanese." And I said, "You mean Japanese subtitles, but the audio is in English?" And she said, "No, I mean that the characters all speak in Japanese." Well. Megan and I had an impromptu conference and then I asked "Is 'The Island' in English?" We saw posters for a movie called "The Island" although we had no idea what it was about, and she checked and said that yes, it was an American movie in English. So, we bought tickets to a random movie simply by virtue of it being in English. By the looks of the poster, it was a sappy romance with Ewan MacGreggor and Scarlett Johanson.

Hahahahahaha. Sappy and romantic it was not. I don't want to spoil the movie in case anyone is planning on seeing it. In fact, by simply telling you the premise, I guarantee you can guess the rest of the story, but I will say that it's about clones who are unwittingly raised as "insurance policies" for rich people, and they are kept in an underground lair trained to think that they have escaped a huge contamination and their goal in life is to be selected by the random lottery to get a spot on "the island." ..... Yes, whatever wacky misadventures you are thinking will ensue are absolutely right.

The excitement of this week is that we have been displaced from the Town Hall to the Yatsuyama Elementary School until school starts. Funny thing is that Megan is working in the junior high school, and I won't be formally teaching at Yatsuyama until November. But, a change of scenery is nice. Now we spend our days sitting around in their teacher's room. Today Megan helped me color things, it was fun! We also got a nice tour of the school, the smallest one in town. The largest class has 15 kids, the smallest has 6. There are 4 kids in the entire kindergarten. However, Omitsu Elementary School, the first one I will teach at, has about 35 kids per class... so I will have to take care when planning activities for each school!!!

Tonight Megan and I are off to Hisai to check out their free Japanese tutoring. They match you up one on one with volunteers, so they can tailor lessons to whoever happens to come. Then tomorrow is badminton night- apparently 6 of the Town Hall Club players competed in a regional badminton tournament on Sunday... Strange, they never invited us to be on the tournament team... Maybe b/c we are terrible!! Well, that will be my goal- to be invited to play in tournaments before I go back to the US. Mom, Dad, I may be in Japan for quite awhile at this rate!!

A Festivus for the Rest of Us

2005-08-20T11:57:00.000+09:00

So it's been a busy week here in Hakusan-cho. Although our days are still spent sitting around at the Town Hall, our evenings are jam-packed with excitement. We went to three festivals in 2 days, which is pretty exciting in itself. They were all pretty different, so it didn't get dull! It's O-bon season, when the ghost of the departed come back to visit their home towns and families, so there are lots of festivals so the relatives have something to see and enjoy when they swoop down to cehck on life on Earth again.

The first one had some food stalls with shaved ice (yum), some Bon-Odori (you dance in a big circle around some taiko drummers- although regrettably out of season, we often do it at the Vassar Cherry Blossom Festival) and lots of little kids and old ladies wearing yukata (summer cotton kimono). The second one also had dancing, but it wasn't the type where you all join in. There were about 10 guys dancing this time, each with a long pole tied to their backs which was decorated with white strips of paper as well as paper flowers. In addition to the taiko drums were some flutes and conch shells. Apparently the village where we saw this dance is the only one in Japan that still does this dance, so it was a rare and interesting experience. It was odd to me that they blew on the conch shells since the village was inland and away from the ocean, but I guess it's one of those left-over traditions from when it was danced in other places. The second day of festivals was similar to the first, with group dancing, lots of yukata (this time Sharon dressed me up in one we borrowed from the wife of a co-worker) but ended with a nice fireworks display!

Wednesday was Badminton Night. (Of course) We 3 JETs are still not good enough to join matches with the good players (our ultimate goal), so we pratice by ourselves (or with a few souls kind enough to humor us by smacking the birie around with us).

Thursday night was a local JET Night Out- 7 of us hit up the foreign food store a few towns over. It was pretty fun- we looked like some bizarre parade as all us foreigners headed in single file down the narrow streets of Hisai. They had all sorts of food there, German snack food, Mexican spices, Korean noodle mixes, everything. It was kind of an odd experience to realize that I am living in a country that finds things like Heinz ketchup to be foreign and exotic (and overpriced!!!!!). I mainly stocked up on cookies and taco supplies. (Yes, that's taco with a "c" as in the Mexican food, not tako with a "k", the Japanese word for octopus)

Monday we got off of work to go on a tour of the town. It was kind of funny to do it now, seeing as we've been here for awhile, but we saw a few shrines we hadn't noticed, each of the schools I'll be working at, one of the mountain resorts on the edge of town, and one of Hakusan's claim to fame! There's a spring which apparently has healing water- we were there on the middle of the day on Monday and there were people there lined up with bottles to collect water in. This water comes highly recommended- it is mentioned in the Nihon Shokki, one of the most ancient records of Japanese history!!! A nice guy let us cut the line and fill up one water bottle to sample. We all drank some and so far none of us are ill in any way, so I guess it's doing a decent job.

The hilight of today was a huge thunderstorm. The rain was lashing down so hard that you could hardly see out of the windows and the thunder and lightning was honestly like nothing I've ever seen/heard. They made us all unplug our computers (just in case) and everyone in the office just stared out the window at the storm for about 20 minutes. As it died down, people just couldn't seem to get back into the swing of working again, so they turned on the TV that is usuall reserved for only lunchtime viewing, and we all watched the Dragon's baseball game. As Megan and I went out to catch the bus, we saw a huge, strong rainbow. Not a bad way to end the week.

As promised

2005-08-20T11:24:00.000+09:00

Here's the Hakusan Town Mayor-- They let this man be in charge of my town! Check out this suit!!
Don't you think he kind of looks like Elvis?

"Well, this IS an eel restaurant.........."

2005-08-16T14:32:00.000+09:00

Hello once again! Well, I have been in Hakusan for not even 2 full weeks yet, but I am settling in quite nicely. I guess it's a good thing that it feels like I've been here forever. However, that does not mean that everything is old hat... quite the contrary, the surprises just keep coming.

Surprise #1- the Town Hall Badminton Club! Mind you, before I tried to write an e-mail describing my badminton experience, I didn't even know how to SPELL badminton! (It sounds just like Bad-Mitten, how was I supposed to know?!) But there Megan, Sharon and I were last Wednesday, rackets and birdies in hand! Mind you, Megan and I were drenched with sweat by the time we arrived at practice, having just ridden our bikes in muggy disgustingess for 15 minutes along a steep and winding and incredibly narrow road with only about 6 minutes-worth of sidewalks, so we were emotionally and physically drained on arrival. Add a lack of air-conditioning in the gym and 2 hours of slamming that poor birdie around, and we were completely sweaty and smellier than we have ever been by the time we left. Although our quasi-host Morikawa-kun claimed that they were all just beginners, the other club members were some HARD CORE beginners!! No matter how hard I swung the racket, the birdie would float gently up in the air, but the other people there were brutally whacking it at each other. I have a lot to learn about the fine sport of badminton, let me tell you. It's fun, though, I might have to start a club once I get home!

The 2 day Mie Prefecture JET orientation on Thursda-Friday was... boring. I'll admit it. It was 2 days of seminars, each of which started off with, "Now, this may not exactly apply to the way things work in everyone's schools," or "Now, your situation may turn out to be different than this," which was frustrating b/c this is exactly how the 2 days of seminars at the Tokyo Orientation worked. Not surprisingly, most of what I was told does NOT apply to me. However, I was able to meet some nice fellow Mie JETs and also buy my cell phone! It is light blue, cute as a button, has a decent camera and was FREE!! (I have to pay for the plan, but the phone itself cost me nothing! Now THIS is living!)

3 of the other Mie JETs and Megan and I managed to organize a trip for ourselves to Ise on Saturday, which was 85% awesome! (15% was downright miserable, but the rest more than made up for it) Now, according to just about every guidebook on the face of the planet, Mie Prefecture (my home sweet home) does not exist. Ise, however, does. Funny thing, though, is that Ise is the name of a city IN MIE PREFECTURE, although most books couldn't be bothered to mention that!!! Since it seems to be the only thing worth mentioning in any books, we decided Ise was worth a visit. Let me tell you, it certainly was awesome. Ise is the sight of an extremely holy shrine in Japanese Shinto religion- Geku, the "outer shrine," is dedicated to some lesser gods and servants of Amaterasu. The Naiku ("inner shrine") is dedicated to Amaterasu herself, the sun goddess, and the most revered goddess in the Shinto pantheon. The shrine is so holy that you can only see the rooftops, as the building itself is hidden behind a number of walls and other shrines. The inner shrine in particular is stunning, set inside a huge, deep forest which is 3/4 surrounded by a shallow river. Because it is obon season, the city was completely packed, although you didn't really notice at the shrine. Even though the shrine is one of the most ancient in all of Japan, you'd never know by looking at it because the buildings themselves are rebuilt every 20 years. The arcitecture and decorations are fairly simple and really in harmony with the nature around it, unlike many other flashy or almost gaudy shrines... probably b/c it's not worth making too ornate, since it will all be torn down every 20 years.

So, the shrine visit was amazing, as was the trip to the medieval era village beside the inner shrine, where souvineer shops abound. We had "real Ise udon" for 400 yen (less than $4) for lunch, but got really hungry for good ol' Western food and tried to find some for dinner. One of my fellow JETs had a restaurant guide that her predicessor had left for her, so once we were all shrined-out, we located 4 Italian restaurants on the map and set off to find one of them. The first one was closed. Sad, but we went on to the second. Although the lunch buffet was cheap, dinner would run in the neighborhood of $80 per person. Yeah right. The third restaurant was also closed. What we thought was a 4th restaurant turned out to be a Fila clothing store which happened to have an Italian flag in front. By now we had walked ALL around our neck of Ise, passing the train station 3 times, with absolutely no luck in the Dinner Department. We then decided to settle for non-Italian food, but found ZERO restaurants! We found closed cafe after closed cafe (they all closed at 5:30 and we had arrived in the area around 5:45), and got faked out by an Indian clothing store that looked remarkably like a restaurant from the outside. By this part, we had killed 2 whole hours searching for food and were both ravenous and exhausted. We settled for an eel specialty restaurnt, the ONLY thing we could find that was open. The signs outside proclaimed that they also served fried shrimp and tempura, so we non-eel-fans figured we'd be able to find something to satisfy us.

Well. We sat down and found nothing but eel on the menu. I was forced to ask the waitress the embarassing question of "Do you serve anything other than eel?" Her tactful response was "Kore wa unagi-ya nan desu kedo..." which roughly translates to, "Well, this IS an eel restaurant, but...." leaving me to fill in the "...." which I figured more or less meant "what else were you expecting, you foreign moron?!" To add insult to injury, after inquiring after non-eel dishes at a specialty eel shop [and finding only fried shrimp (which they happened to be out of that night)], two of us had the audacity to simply order a bowl of rice with a side of edamame (beans). How rude of us. The other 3 members of our party attempted to eat eel, with varying degrees of success, and we all left the restaurant still hungry and disheartened.

What could make the night better? It seemed nothing could... that was, until we found a beauty salon with the unfortunate name of "Hair By Monkey." For some reason, this brand name struck us all the right way, and after each taking rolls of photos of the "Hair by Monkey" sign, we spent the train ride home having an impromptu "Hair By Monkey"-inspired haiku contest. It certainly ended the night on the right foot.

Morals of the story: If it's after 5:30 pm, don't expect to find anything to eat in Ise. (And we were there on a SATURDAY NIGHT, no less!!)

Moral #2: If you don't want to eat eel, stay away from eel restaurants.

[PS- my digital camera is on the fritz, so no photos for awhile ;_; )

this is only SLIGHTLY terrifying

2005-08-11T14:02:00.000+09:00

So, what do you think this photo is? I'll tell you- This is the hottest office party west of the International Date Line~! So, Japanese business-related parties are called "enkai," and I have had the pleasure (?) of going to two of them.

First was the Welcome Party for Megan and I, held at a local sushi restaurant (not pictured here). Now, Megan and I present an interesting problem to our supervisors here in Hakusan. You see, Megan is a vegetarian, although she will eat fish. I am NOT a vegetarian, although I don't care for fish. So when it came to selecting a restaurant where both of us could eat comfortably, they realized that they could not make us both happy, and booked the event at a local sushi restaurant. I guess they figured that it would be easier for me to grin and bear it and eat fish instead of making poor Megan starve. You might be wondering why we didn't got to a restaurant with both fish and non-fish options.... well, Hakusan is not a very big place, so there's really not much to choose from, especially when it has to be a restarant that can seat a bunch of people. Now, the theme of these parties really isn't what you eat, they are really about drinking lots of alcohol. This need to drink is a cultural thing, though. It's not about getting really trashed, it's about getting comfortable enough to say what you really feel about other people. Somehow, no matter what you say or do, you will be forgiven in the office the next day, and people won't even mention it.

I didn't really understand what this meant until I went to my Welcome Party. There's this one woman (Tani-san) in the Education part of the Town Hall that apparently everyone hates. She loves to make a big scene and have people pay attention to her, as I came to realize as she started a sort of impromptu rendition of a traditional rain dance and singing away while everyone was trying to have a nice conversation. (There were about 10 of us there) Anyhow, so she eventually gives the song a rest and starts to monopolize the conversation, talking about space shuttle launches. (This was all translated for me by Sharon, by the way, the dialogue was too rapid and slangy for me to get the true meaning of it all) She wondered what it would be like to go up in space, and one guy quickly answered, "You have your head up in space all the time, you should know!" The conversation slowly moved along, and suddenly someone told her that she had some dirt or something on her neck. The same guy said, "Maybe you should clean your neck with a knife!" Another pipes up with, "How about a guillotine?!" Now, this is getting harsh, right? But NO! It's all ok, it's just office party chit-chat and it was all forgotten the next day.

This is all thanks to a philosophy called "nomunication." This is a hybrid word, joining "nomu (to drink)" and "communication." I had read this term in a Japanese text book once and thought it was a ridiculous word. However, it turns out that Japanese people REALLY USE THIS WORD! I was shocked!!! At big office party number 2 (in the photo), the 3 of us foreigners decided to get our photo taken with the mayor. We waited for him to get a little tipsy before heading over to him, as we didn't want to surprise him too badly. After the photo, he started yakking away to Sharon, and the guy next to him turned to me and asked me what I thought of Japanese enkai (office parties). I said something like "well, they're very lively" and he said "It's all because of 'nomunication.' Do you know what this means?" Wow, here was someone in a real life setting using this word- it was shocking and rewarding, knowing that I had studied things that actually apply to my life. People get tipsy really easily at these parties because it's customary to fill up other people's glasses. You're not supposed to pour yourself anything, so everyone is watching and waiting for other people to take sips from their cups so they can fill them up again. Megan and I are not big drinkers, but we decided to go with the flow and get in the spirit of things. (No puns intended) There were about 60 people at this party (it was for everyone in the Town Hall) and lots of them were excited to see foreigners, so we had plenty of random people topping off our glasses. We'd barely take a sip and someone else would come over and fill our cups to the brim, making them nearly impossible to lift and drink from without spilling.

The mayor later came over and started chatting it up with me, excited that I could speak Japanese. He asked me what I thought of him, and I guess I had had a bit too much to drink because I immediately answered: "You look like Elvis Prestley." (It's so true, that's what Sharon and Megan and I all decided)- Luckily, he thought it was hilarious, so I didn't totally humiliate myself by saying so. Now, at first glance at this guy, the last two professions I would select for him would be Town Mayor and Buddhist Priest, but apparently he is both. He smokes like a chimney and looks like he just walked out of a 1970s fashion magazine (black seersucker suits??)... except for his hair, which is styled just like Elvis. When you sit down in his office to talk to him, he waves a cigarette in one hand while sprawling out all over his chair- he's seriously a riot, when Sharon send it to me, I'll put up the photo we all took together.

Well, that's the enkai experience in a nutshell. We're off to our prefecture orientation in Tsu, the capital city, tomorrow so I'll let you know how that goes!

Heights One Plum I

2005-08-10T22:03:00.000+09:00

The view from my front doorstep.

Two sinks. One room. Who could ask for anything more?

Woah, 6 tatami mats, I am living la vida loca out here!!

Oh look, another rice paddy!

2005-08-09T12:36:00.000+09:00

Welcome to Hakusan-cho, Mie-ken, my new home away from home!!!!!!!!!

Things here are quiet, peaceful and beautiful. That is to say, I am living in the middle of nowhere. But so far, it is charming :) Also, there is a pretty major train station that I can actually see from my window, so there's an opportunity to get out of town about every 20 minutes or so, from 5am to 11pm.

We JETs were shipped out of Tokyo bright and early on Wednesday morning, boarding various trains, planes and buses. The Mie Prefecture group, along with the Aichi and Osaka groups trekked down the street to Shinjuku Station and joined the throngs of people vying for the same 1/2 an inch of space on the Tokyo subway. We headed to Tokyo Station where we boarded the Shinkansen (Woo, Bullet Train!) and headed south. Our train car was packed with us foreigners except for 2 random Japanese guys who somehow ended up sitting next to me. They spent the first 10 minutes of the train ride trying to figure out how they ended up in the "foreigner car" and wondering what on earth we were all doing there. I spoke up and explained our purpose and we ended up having a nice chat. Mie and Aichi got off the Shinkansen and parted ways in Nagoya, and then we Mie-folk boarded local trains and went off to our new homes away from homes.

Once we reached Hakusan-cho, Sharon and I were met by Megan, Taki-san and Yamane-san. Sharon actually had been in Tokyo with me, she's a 3rd year JET person- she's a CIR (Coordinator of International Relations) who's been in Hakusan-cho for the past 2 years, so her Japanese is flawless and she knows all about the area, so she is such a blessing to have around. She's the resident Aussie, although she claims that being around Megan and I makes her English turn more American. Megan is the other ALT (Assistant Language Teacher) in town, a recent graduate of Alfred University. For now, we all work at Town Hall together, although Megan will soon head off to one of the junior highs in town and I will begin my circuit around the local elementary schools/kindergartens. Taki-san and Yamane-san are technically our supervisors, although Yamane-san seems to resent having anything to do with us. Taki-san is hilariously funny and speaks a little English, but she is too busy to deal with us much. We went to Town Hall first, then to the grocery store so I wouldn't starve, then they dropped me off at my new home.

It's actually bigger than I expected. There's a kitchen with a fridge that comes up to about mid-chest, a gas range with 2 burners, a convection/microwave oven, two sinks (one is a kitchen sink, and one is like a sink you'd find in a bathroom, although it's located in the kitchen right next to the stove for some reason). It's probably 8 square feet. Then there's a toilet room, a bathroom (they're seperate here) and my sleeping/living/dining room. It's 6 tatami mats large (about 8 by 8ish also? I'm terrible with this kind of thing), but I sleep on a futon which can be rolled up and shoved in the closet, so if I had people other than me in the house, I could put it away and the room would seem much bigger. I do everything on the floor- I have a low table and a cushion and a futon, although I'd like to get a beanbag chair or something. I finally got an adapter so I can plug in my laptop, and I have cable internet and a TV. All and all, a pretty sweet deal. I regrettable ant problem in my kitchen, but it's better than the cockaroach problem that plagues the apartment complex next door.

Speaking of next door, Megan lives right across the street. Like, it takes about 45 seconds, door to door from my place to hers. She is literally a stone's throw from the train tracks, which means when the aforementioned train goes by every 20 minutes it's a bit of a racket. However, the station is about a 5 minute walk away, which is super convenient. Sadly, that's about the only convenient thing. It's really really hilly here and although it's a comfortable 20 minute downhill coast to school by bike, it's a heck of an uphill workout to get back home. Actually, I have no first hand experience with this, since Megan and I have opted to take the 20 minute bus ride instead. Stop shaking your head, if you were here, you'd understand. The temperature hovers around 35 degrees every day with about 70% humidity, so you sweat just standing there unlocking your bike. The MaxValu supermarket is also about a 20 minute bike ride (45 minutes one way walking, I tried it once), and the "convenience store" is even farther away than that, rendering it not particularly "convenient." But, everything is so pretty! Green rice fields (and lots of them), green hills, lots of people have veggie and flower gardens (in there teeeeeeeeeeny tiny yards) so it's very scenic.

I have plenty more to tell ya'll, but I'm sure your nearly bored to tears by now, so I'll give your eyes a rest and update more later. Sneak preview of what's to come- 60 town hall employees (and Megan, Sharon and me) hit up Osaka for a shockingly wild office party, a visit to the Yamamotos (my old host family) to check in on everyone and finally meet Reina, aka New Baby-Chan, and the adventure of foreign washing machines, staring Me, Megan, two piles of dirty clothes and my Kanji Dictionary.

I can run, but I can't hide!

2005-08-03T09:35:00.000+09:00

What a long, strange trip it's been

So after a computer glitch that delayed our 8:45 AM flight out of Logan Airport back to 10:15, the Boston JET contingent was ready to roll. Not to worry about the lost time, though, as we still had a 3.5 hour layover in the charming Detroit Airport. I hung out with this guy I had met back at orientation, enjoying a hearty meal at the Quiznos in the food court, riding around on the Terminal A tram and watching the water show at the central fountain. My last purchase in the United States was… a diet Coke with lime. I don’t even know why I bought it, but I got a Mississippi quarter in my change, which is one of the nicer of the state quarters. My new buddy and I were having such adventures that we nearly missed the flight (they were boarding all rows by the time we got back to the gate), but it was one of the most enjoyable layovers I’ve ever experienced.

So, then came the beginning of the end- the 13 hour flight to Tokyo. I sat down and had a nice chat with the JET sitting next to me. As the conversation died down, I pulled out my project for the flight- Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince- of which I’d tackled about 80 pages during the first flight. My neighbor noticed and asked how I was enjoying the book, as he pulled out his own, partially read copy. He was about 100 pages ahead of me, and we occasionally took breaks and discussed the novel together, and he was kind enough not to spoil the ending. Between the chatting, all the food I was served and the naps I took I didn’t get to the end until just as we were flying over Japan, so I timed things well. And by the way, Dad, the ending wasn’t nearly as surprising as the other books tend to be, so you might want to try reading it.

After the maze of immigration, baggage claim and customs, we followed the crowd of current JETs snaking along to the bus, which brought us to the hotel. 4 of us Bostonians went to a nearby noodle shop, where my Japanese saved the day and then we crashed at the lovely Keio Plaza hotel in the heart of Shinjuku, Tokyo.

Today was a mess of bleary-eyes and too much information. I had to wait in line to iron my clothes this morning, as they had about 10 ironing stations set up in the Hospitality Room and over 1000 JETs with wrinkled clothing staying in the hotel. My roommate and I nearly missed breakfast because her alarm clock, though plugged into the wall, was somehow losing time and when it said 6am, it turned out to actually be 8am. We’re getting a wake-up call tomorrow.

The theme for my day, though, was Unexpected Encounters. There were volunteer students from local junior and senior high schools here for us to chat with during our free time so we could get an idea of what life is like for them. Wouldn’t you know that there was not one, not two, but FOUR of my former Showa campers there as volunteers. I was greeted with some of the most genuinely confused “heeeeeeeeeeeee???” of my life. [For those in the know, it was Adorable Misaki, last year’s Adventure student who was sick all the time, Ayumu (aka Get’s!!!), Shoko (aka the one with the largest mouth on the planet, aka Sadako), and Emi Sugishita (… she has glasses).] Later during one of the info fairs, I was tapped on the shoulder by Akina, a former classmate and rising Vassar senior from Yokohama who is working for Lloyds banking company, so we were able to catch up a bit. As if 5 unexpected encounters were not enough, I found myself being stared and pointed at by 2 people at the evening banquet. As I stared back, I realized that I had studied at Kansai Gaidai with both of them (Sarah from Alaska and Travis from Louis & Clark) so we sat on the floor (oooooh, taboo!!!) and people-watched for other former Gaidai students, of whom we found a handful.

For dinner I had an Anticipated Encounter with former Toyo students Nanami, Asuka and Yuri. We went to this restaurant nearby that Nana-chan had taken me to 2 years ago when I was on my way to Osaka. We had a dessert party, which included a “fruit pizza” (fruit on fried dough) and a gigantic parfait that was served with 2 lit sparklers stuck in the top- we sure live dangerously!! When I say “huge,” I really mean it- the goblet was seriously about a foot and a half tall. Ah, Japanese parfait… alternating layers of fruit, ice cream and cornflakes. (I kid you not)

I skipped the Mie-ken night out on the town to hang out with the Toyo peeps, so now I am back in the hotel room alone… my roommate (a fellow Bostonian also destined for Mie-ken) is fabulous, but this is the first time I have been completely alone since I left home, so I’m enjoying the quiet. And, in 15 minutes, I will be able to watch a broadcast of AINORI!! The pink bus is back, yo! (Actually, it never went away, it was *I* who abandoned it)

So. That’s my life so far. Tomorrow is more meetings and Wednesday is the big move. Ganbarima----su!!

Welcome!

2005-07-22T10:24:00.000+09:00

Hello!!!!!!!!!!
Welcome to StefuSensei.blogspot.com!
This will be the best place to track Stephanie [aka Stefu] and her adventures as an Assistant English teacher [Sensei] in the various elementary schools of Hakusan-cho in Mie Prefecture Japan.

Since I am setting this up while I'm still in the US, I don't have much insight into how my life abroad will turn out, but hopefully I'll be able to update this more or less weekly, so feel free to check in on me as frequently (or infrequently) as you'd like. I will always answer e-mails, too, and letters from home are like gold when one is abroad, so if you send me one of those, I promise to send you something cool back!

I'm leaving in 9 days. Holy crap.... That's very soon! Why am I writing this entry, I have so much to do??????!!??