Sunday, October 30, 2011

Parent Observations

During my first week teaching at the Usuki school, I started the week off with a bang by getting off at the wrong stop. Turns out that I needed to get off at the Kami-Usuki train stop and not the plain ol' Usuki stop. As you can imagine, this is not an ideal way to start off the work week, especially as a new employee. I immediately called the Japanese teacher at the Usuki school to let her know and then followed up with my boss to let him know what was going on. Luckily, there was a train arriving shortly and I would just hop back on and go back one stop. This threw my schedule off a bit, as I was trying to get to the school early for preparations and this was doing my first week teaching, which was also a week of parent observations. As a side note, let me just say that it is beyond my comprehensive as to why a company would place a brand new employee in a position of company representative when he or she has had little to no teaching experience. If I were a parent, I would wonder what the hell was going on and who this person teaching my kid was. The mind boggles, but I digress. So as I got back on the train headed for my actual stop, I asked this older lady if I was getting on the right train. She informed me that I was and even double-checked with the conductor just to be sure. I thanked her and she was quite curious to my situation. She asked if I were an English teacher (something about the way I looked that day must've implied as much...or maybe it's just a given when a foreigner is spotted), and I told her indeed that I was. She then offered me a piece of fruit and sweet pastry of some sort and told me, "Gambatte kudasai", which is like, "Go for it", or "Do your best", in English. Wow, how about that for a friendly gesture. It really did lift my spirits after realizing I'd gotten off at the wrong stop and immediately put me back in a motivated mood. Moral of this story: do something nice for someone. Just kidding, you don't have to, but it was cool all the same.

So the parent observation thing, while sounding completely intimidating and ultimately illogical for newbies in my opinion...still, it went alright for the most part. I found that the parents are mostly friendly and are rooting for you as much as you're rooting for yourself and they realize that you're working your tail off to corral and basically entertain their kids. Of course you have those few parents who are sitting in the back chatting or playing on their cellphones because they're there more out of obligation than interest, but it was mostly a painless experience. I made it through P.O.'s unscathed and at least I'll know what to expect when the next P.O's roll around come January and February. Yeah, that soon. 

"Gimme your money...or your train will derail!"

A gift from a little 'ol lady...not from Pasadena.

Now that's a lonely train.

The Japanese love pasta and all things egg.

No, that's not my food. It's my drink...which they put in a bag.

Hot and spicy sandwich from KFC...bomb diddly.

Where I lay my head at night. Simple, yet effective.


Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Home sweet home?

So now I'm in Oita, the sleepy little city that I'll call home for the next 11 or so months. It's not the most exciting place on Earth, that's for sure but it's also not in the middle of nowhere. I heard the jokes before leaving LA that I'd be living in a hut in the middle of some rice fields carrying my water in buckets over my shoulders. It's, of course, much more modern and "city" than that and my apartment is in a prime location; right behind Oita station, the main transportation hub of the city. That could explain why my rent is so damn high, especially in comparison to the others in my training group. They always say, when renting a place, you're paying for the location right? Right? Anyone? Back me up on this.

Aside from being in my new place, I've officially started the teaching gig and I'm about three weeks into that officially. In that short amount of time, I've also had my first staff meeting, which was nice because it gave me an opportunity to meet the other NT's (native teachers) in the Oita area. Everyone seems cool enough, which is a definite plus. One thing I hear from almost all of the NT's is that this can be a lonely job, mostly because your time is spent with commuting and hanging out with kids that don't really speak English. It's just you, your kids and the classroom. It's not like once you get to the classroom you have a bunch of school employee's hanging about doing admin work or something. It's literally just you and your classroom until the kids start showing up. Once they leave and your classes are done for the night, you're left to fill out some paperwork, clean up, hit the lights and head home. That being said, I'm glad the other NT's are cool people so that when I am looking to hang with some other foreigners, I can turn to them without hesitancy.

My first week of teaching was a bit hectic for me because I had no real experience actually teaching aside from the intensive two weeks of training in Osaka. Along with that, my first teaching week was P.O.'s, or parent observations, meaning that the parents would be attending the classes to watch the NT with their children. No pressure right? My trainer and PS (performance supervisor) had told me beforehand that P.O.'s weren't a big deal and not to sweat it, but doesn't that sound like a big ol' fashioned case of easier-said-than-done? I think so. You can't control your mind from racing to various thoughts, mostly consisting of, "my God, what must they be thinking?" and "I'm paying how much for this!?" So every night for that first week I would stand in front of the class of kids and their parents and be introduced to them via my JT (Japanese teacher) and field questions from everyone for a few minutes. That wasn't so bad, and to be honest, P.O.'s really weren't that big of a deal after all because once the lesson begins, you're not really focused on anything other than the lesson and your students. When I did make eye contact with the parents, I occasionally saw them mouthing the lesson that I was teaching their kids. Good stuff. Also, a lot of the parents were super nice to me after the classes and thanked me for my hard work. They could see me breaking a sweat chasing their little 5 year old kids around the class. All in all, my first week went well aside from a child in my Orange class (classes are broken down into colors that correspond with curriculum and age), because he was just an unruly nightmare. My JT told me he's always like that, which really did nothing to ease my frustration but I learned that sometimes you really can't do anything and you can't waste your time on the "bad" kids and have to make sure the "good" kids are having fun.

I have three "regular" schools that I teach at and with each week I'm in a different school for the week. So in my first week I went to the same school each day and for the second week I went to my second school all week and so on. My second week went quite well overall. My first day there I had my PS show up and do a team-teach day with me. Team-teach is where another NT shows up at your classroom and teaches one of your classes for you. It helps to lighten your load for that day plus you get to provide feedback to each other in attempts to help each other improve. It's a pretty good idea I'd say, but I was a bit anxious because this was my PS and I knew I was going to be evaluated. I gave him my rowdier class for that day (9-10 kids!), and I took the other two classes. He gave me mostly good feedback, but I've heard from the other NT's that he's always rough on us NT's. The classes at this school went well for me all week and I even had an odd Thursday class in which only 1 student showed up and I just gave him a bunch of games, incorporating lesson elements of course, for the entire hour and afterwards he told me he had fun. Mission accomplished. Naturally, the whole week couldn't be peaches and cream and indeed there was a difficult Orange class, again with the Orange, in which one boy in particular was just bouncing off the walls like a madman. Again, my JT for this school had warned me about this class and boy, she wasn't kidding. Luckily the class after that was much more tame, even though there were 9 girls and 1 boy, so I was able to cool down for the last hour of the day.

Now I'm in a period of a few days off and I'm spending it in big-city Fukuoka, 2 hours north of Oita. I'm really loving it up here and I'll certainly be back often. I took the bus...I know some of you just fainted reading that, but I was able to watch TV on my laptop on the ride. Something I could never consider doing back home without being robbed. Ah, the little things. I return to Oita on Thursday to prepare for the Autumn Training Seminar, which is like a two-day work retreat for NT's. So many odd and new things I'm experiencing with this job. I wonder if it's good for me...

Goodbye T-Mobile, hello SoftBank.

Just a grocery store...random, I know.

One of my schools. This is the one that's 90 minutes by train.

Get to learnin'!

Ya hear me!?

Welcome indeed.

Thursday, October 13, 2011

A hop, skip, and a fart...but not really

So the journey to my current location, and the place I call home, was about a four hour trek from Osaka. I first had to take the infamous shinkansen (bullet train) from Osaka to Hakata, Fukuoka. After that I had to transfer lines to the super express train bound for Oita. To be honest, super express sounds faster than bullet train, but maybe that's just me. I will say though, there's nothing quite like the shinkansen as a passenger. It wasn't my first time, but that thing definitely hauls ass and it's incredibly comfortable. Anyway, if there were any doubt that I were leaving the bright lights of big-city Osaka, the journey to Oita was that friendly reminder. The countryside was sprawling all around, to sound dramatic, but really it wasn't a problem for me. I'm down to see and experience all sides of Japan and while it may not look like the most exciting place on earth, that old expression comes to mind, "you get out what you put in", and I'm pretty sure that applies to how you think about things and not just your actions. I've been lazy and haven't taken pictures of my apartment yet, but more than likely I'll just record a short "tour" video of sorts to give you a rundown of the layout. For now, enjoy a picture of the express train I rode and a short video of some of the scenery on the way to Oita.

The head rests look like little sausages.

Sunday, October 9, 2011

Osaka, you'll be missed

Osaka was "home" for two hectic weeks and for the most part it was a semi-enjoyable experience. The days were long, the nights were way too short, but when we had time off, we certainly tried to make the most of it. The Takatsuki Sun Hotel was a decent enough place to rest our head at the end of the day and even though it was only two weeks, it stated feeling like ours. I'm a long way from Osaka now, but I'll always be able to reflect on it as the place that really got this ball rolling...this ball being this whole excursion in Japan. It's where we learned to do the job we're doing and where we (my fellow trainees and I) were able to form bonds with each other. Our last night together, we decided to have a very low-key meal at McDonald's (mostly because everywhere else was closed), and "the Tank Engine" shocked, and possibly disgusted, by ordering 14 hamburgers. Much to our delight, he sat and consumed each and every one of them. A group of kids and teenagers were super excited to see foreigners in their local McDonalds...especially one that was consuming enough to feed an entire extended family. They asked for photos and we happily obliged. The food coma hit Tommy hard and after we had made it back to my hotel room for a final hangout session, he was out in no time. Thankfully we're all still in touch via email and text, so the story isn't entirely sad. Anyway, enough of this sappy business, let's look at some pics.

At Takatsuki station. Some of you will get a kick out of this.

Logan in awe...of something.

Oh-saka.

Taiko time!

New Dragonball Z game that people seem to love.

Metal Gear Arcade...say what!?

MGA

Wow...

Completely content.

Done and done.

What an odd photo.

Thomas was out and the best we could think to do was put FF on him.

Burger of Death: the video!


Tuesday, October 4, 2011

Natto: The legend continues

Some of you may or may not be familiar with natto; the fermented soybeans from Japan that create a great divide. Rich in protein and probiotics according to Wikipedia. You either hate it or you love it. Natto, it should be pointed out, is notorious for it's smell, hard-to-acquire taste, and mucous-like texture. I wanted to give it a proper go before making any remarks on the stuff, so I did. The following video is my attempt to eat it and then my video of Thomas and Logan giving it a fair try. It did not bode well.
The infamous food.

Sunday, October 2, 2011

Adventures in eating

I've certainly had my fair share of interesting dining experiences in the short amount of time that I've been here in Japan. There's been some tasty traditional Japanese fair and there's been the Japanese take on some of the more familiar American style food that I'm more accustomed to. The fun part is always seeing how Japan can take a tried and true food and shape it into their own vision. I admit, I'm a sucker for this. Logan and I hit up a restaurant for the sole reason of having a "Mega Hamburger" in it's display window. Trust me, when you see this thing your American senses, relating to food at least, kick into overdrive and you can't wait to go to town on this thing. I couldn't even tell you the name of the restaurant that sold it, but who cares. This was a patty of hamburg with cheese on it, then a strip of pork, another hamburg patty with cheese, topped with a sunny-side-up egg. For good measure they decided to throw in some green beans, corn and carrots on the side, but let's be honest, they just get in the way. The waiter assumed we'd want the English menu, but when we got a hold of it, the language appeared to be English but the grammar was beyond horrid. It was a hilarious read.

A good part of my training group headed to a place called "T's Star Diner", which was fairly close to our hotel. It was designed like an old fashioned American diner and they claimed to sell American-style diner food. How could we resist such temptation!? Going in, the decor was pretty awesome I must say, regardless of how cramped it was. The menu did in fact have plenty of American style foods on offer, but one item in particular caught our eyes; The Burger of Death! It was five different hamburgers stacked on top of each other through a skewer. More than enough food for any mere mortal and to top it off, it cost 3,500 yen which is roughly $45. The only one willing to step up to such a challenge was Tommy "the Tank Engine" Turner, and step up he did! Not only did he eat every burger, including the pasta salad that came with it, but he ate all of his fries, some of my fries and a banana shake. After that, he went to the convenience store and ate two ice cream bars, a melon bread and some cookies and claimed he was still hungry. This boy, from Santa Clarita believe it or not, is a beast. There's more on him and his eating habits later. I ordered a chili dog that was by no means small and I could barely finish it. I guess that American-style pretty much translates to LARGE. This is all merely the beginning of the food quest here, but I'll be sure to post pics so you can see what you're missing (you decide if that's a good or bad thing).

The group ate here on lunch one day...no regrets.

You simply have to read this menu. LOL
Behold! The Mega Hamburger!
Logan prepares.
Tommy shamelessly prepares for the Burger of Death.

Speaking of shameless...
I believe this is moments before the Burger of Death. Tommy and Logan unaware.

Matt was the sensible one.

Bob!

Believe it or not, the green one is cream soda.

Erica's chicken strips. They look wack but she said they weren't bad.

Logan's burger. I'm like a creepy voyeur.

My God.

You couldn't help but laugh.

Logan illustrates that point.

He really took it to that tower.

My chili dog, looking almost plastic in this picture.

What a champ. Plate cleaned! Logan looks disgusted.