My feelings so far

Well it's been a hot minute since I checked in here on the 'ol blog, so I thought I'd make a post about how things have been up to this point and how I'm feeling about it in general. I've mentioned this to a few people before I came to Japan, that I was afraid working here and experiencing daily life here would make me start to think of Japan as just, "any 'ol place", and after some time and certainly a lot of thought, I've been able to form more than an opinion or two. In general, I still like Japan and Japanese culture and there will probably always be a part of me that will. Is some of that magic/fantasy/romance about the "far East" gone now that I'm here working amongst the huddled masses; a bit. What's tricky is that when you fantasize about a place and how you'd love to live there and experience it like a local, you don't realize that it's just like being anywhere else and having a job with a daily routine. The reason a place is extra-enticing when we're at work and fantasizing is because we know that when we get there, we have no responsibilities and free reign to relax, to do and see whatever we want to. Living here, you don't really have that freedom. You see the same things on your commute to work and you learn the regular places to get a hot meal. You work five days a week (most of the time) and you have a couple of days to chill, unwind and recharge for the upcoming week.

So at this point you might be thinking, "hmm, what does this all mean Jason? Are you happy or what?", well the short answer is, "I'm alright, thanks for asking." I certainly have no regrets in coming here because no matter what, this is something I've planned on doing for an incredibly long time. I worked my butt off to get this opportunity and I'm glad that I took it. When I finish things up here, I can look back and say, "I worked hard for this. I did it and I'll never have to wonder about it again." I'm not miserable by any means and there are plenty of things that I like and I certainly don't want this post to come across as me bitching about my situation, I'm simply saying that it's not as glamorous as it can often be presented. It's still a job and work experience at the end of the day and not a glorified vacation. Duh. Do I miss America? Yeah, probably more than I expected I would considering how I was feeling before I left, but hey, part of this experience is also me being able to put my old situation, along with my home country into perspective and evaluating them both with a fresh set of eyes. The way I feel now, I can't imagine how anyone would do this gig for the long term, but that's just me and more power to those people.

Enough of my rambling and I'll sum this all up by saying that I'm thankful for having this opportunity (late Thanksgiving message?) and I'm proud of myself for doing it, but that there might truly be no place like home. I'll keep you posted.

I won this from a crane game at the game center. I love K-on!

I won this the same way. More K-on goodness!

Some sort of Japanese dish I prepared. Not bad for my first try.

Strange noodles with mayonnaise as a topping.

One of my preferred pastries from the convenience store.

Okay, Redbull and now Rockstar...where's the Monster!?

It tastes like...grape. Go figure.

Where does this guy live anyway?

Due to popular demand, or maybe just the fact that my mom really wants to see some pictures of the place, I've finally gotten off of my lazy butt and took some pics of the humble abode. Now for those of you that are gasping in excitement and can't wait to see the palatial accommodations I've been placed in, well let's bring it down a notch. The plus side is that my building is really quite new, having just been built a few years ago and that's it's super close to the main train station in Oita, which is great because I do plenty of commuting. The downside is that, and this goes for many pads in Japan, it's really small and there is zero insulation for heating. The space situation is cool because it's just me, but man it's starting to get freakin' cold and my built it heater is working it's butt off! Anyway, without further ado...some pics!

View of my building from the street.

The view from my front door.

Mail.

My building and a slight reflection.

Where you put your trash.

My door.

Narrow hallway as you come in.

That's all for the cooking station.

Tiny fridge and microwave but I suppose it does the job.

Doorway to the living area.

Save the messy comments please. I mean, it's obvious.

Ladder to the loft just as you enter the living area.

Closet space.

The dumper.

Dumper shelf space.

Washroom/Bath/Shower

It is what it is.

Expect the unexpected

The title of this post is pretty much the three words to remember in this line of work. You never really know what you're getting yourself into on any given day, before any given class. Hell, even if you've taught a certain group of kids before in the previous month, you never really know what kind of mood they're going to have coming into class. That being said, teaching here in Japan has been a job incomparable to any that I've had in the past. I've always had jobs where I've pretty much known what to expect in terms of the upcoming work day, and that's only partially true here. You start telling yourself, "well, I know I have these classes today and it's going to have this age group of kids, so things should go like this". Sounds all fine and dandy doesn't it? The truth is, you should just throw those preconceptions out the window because it's really about as random as it gets.

Today, for example, was a pretty tiring day. I worked a whopping three hours total but two of those hours (two classes) were some of the smaller kids, where you're running around, singing songs and acting like you're 5 years old again. Two of those classes, back-to-back, made for a exhausting start to the day. Our classes are broken down in to color-coding, with colors denoting the age group and curriculum level for the students attending. My second class of the day, Green, consisting of mostly 4 and 5 year old's, was rough because one of the girls, after being left by her mother, started crying uncontrollably, constantly calling out for her mother. Another girl showed up with her mom and she too was balling her eyes out. Luckily this mom didn't bolt out the door right away and decided to hang out for the entire class just to make sure her daughter would calm down. I was actually grateful for this because she helped to calm the other crybaby down as well. So you see, the crying was unexpected. Also, there are times when the kids want to listen to everything you say and then suddenly, without warning, those same kids will start ignoring you to the point of driving you mad. I know that some of you reading this that have had experience wrangling children are probably laughing to yourselves and saying, "oh this poor sap...that's just children!", well I'm telling you to shut up because this is my story! Oh, and the language barrier with the kids makes it twice as difficult to corral them, but hey, I got myself into this.

Lucky for me, and this truly felt like a breath of fresh air, my last class of the day was what we call a Junior Pathways class. These kids are around 13 to 14 years old and the students for this class, at this particular school, are awesome. They have great personalities, seem eager to learn, have fun, and are generally just a pleasure to teach. I was, however, dreading this class a bit only because the lesson for this unit/term is a bit difficult to teach. It's on homophones; ya know, those groups of words that share the same pronunciation but have different meanings and can be spelled differently (bear/bare, sea/see, right/write, etc.). You get what I'm saying. My fears were tossed aside though because these kids are really just super bright and understood what I was teaching them, even though they admitted it was difficult. Just grasping the content is half the battle! Long story short, my exhausting, stressful start to the teaching day ended with a wonderful, relaxing class of smart, attentive kids.

My next teaching week starts on Tuesday and even though I've taught at this upcoming school before, I really don't know what to expect. Sigh.

Big energy drink...big disappointment.

Yakitori...chicken on a stick. As awesome as it sounds.

The lonely train home.

Salsa flavored Pringles...they were awesome!

Sometimes I don't know what I'm eating.

Honey and lemon cider. I love this drink.

He returns unscathed

I'm back at home in Oita, all limbs intact and no horror stories to report. Thank the heavens! Those who follow this blog know that a couple of days ago I headed out to travel the greater part of Kyushu in order to cover for some teachers in two different classrooms. One in Kumamoto and the other in Miyazaki. I'd like to reiterate that neither place is close to my home. However, when the company is in a pickle and they have no other teachers available, because it's their teaching week, they find the guy or gal who has a non-teaching week, that would be me, and they ship 'em out. I was given a packet full of tickets, pointing in all different directions, given two maps (one for each school area), and a Kumamoto hotel reservation sheet all in Japanese. My supervisor actually had the gall to say, "yeah, it's all in Japanese. good luck with that. haha", haha indeed. That's the type of guy I'm dealing with here folks. Anyway, Thursday morning came around and I caught the limited express train to Kokura at 11:45, arriving at 1:03. From there I had to hop on the Shinkansen (bullet train) to Kumamto at 1:22, to arrive at my destination by 2:19. My classes started at 6:15 but I'm on, what's known as "Status One", meaning that I have to check in with schedule control an hour before my classes start. Status one is over after two fulls working months then I only need check in a half hour before my classes start. Not to get too sidetracked, I arrive at Kumamoto and make my way to the hotel, thanks in part to a very helpful tourist group at the Kumamoto station. I had about 15 minutes to relax at my hotel before heading back to the station to start making moves to my classroom. Each classroom has a lock with a spare key for teachers that don't have the original classroom key. My supervisor provided me with the codes for the two classes I would be covering at, yet when I got to the Kumamoto classroom, the code he provided didn't work. So I try calling him, twice, and naturally he doesn't pick up. I call schedule control on my cellphone (which is a no-no because they need to know you're calling from the classroom), explained my situation and they were helpful in telling me that the code my bossman provided was totally wrong. I got the correct one and prepped for my two lessons. Again, all of this commuting for two hours of teaching boggles my mind. The first class I was covering was a bit intimidating in the sense that it's not a class I have any experience in because it's not in my regular rotation at my three schools. I just consulted the teachers manual and did the best I could. It went alright and the kids seemed to have fun. They were really young, about 4 on average, but were good kids. The second class was only 3 kids and they too were good kids. I lucked out and made my way back to the hotel to relax.

The next day (Friday) I got up around 9am in order to make it to the station in time for my 10:51 Shinkansen to Kagoshima-chuo. My train arrived at 11:36 but from there I had to hop on a limited express train at 11:47 to Minami Miyazaki, which would be arriving at 1:46. As you can see, there's plenty of quality time with the trains. I got to Miyazaki and made my way to the hotel, which was wonderfully located just a short 5 minute walk away from the station. I had a bit more time to relax before my classes started and got to enjoy just chilling in my room, which I must say was quite nice. The class I was covering at this day was one that I'd been to before for the Autumn training seminar that our area had last month. That being said, it didn't make me anymore prepared for the lessons I had to teach. I was covering for a JT (Japanese teacher), which is total insanity because NT (Native teachers) have no training or experience in teaching a JT lesson and the lesson's are completely different. I was a bit stressed about it all, so I called the NT for that classroom and he's an awesome guy from Sweden that reassured me that we're (NT's) are in no position to be teaching a proper JT lesson and that my only goals should be to make sure the students use some English and that they have fun doing it. It really put my mind at ease and helped me to relax before the students came in, and by the time things got started, I was fine and making sure the kids were enjoying themselves while doing my best to incorporate elements of the lesson. I left my notes for the class and made my way back to the hotel, with my last class ending at 9:45 (bit late for kids isn't it?), and getting back to the hotel around 11 (due to the odd train times). I was able to relax in my hotel room, staying up till about 2:30 watching Women's World Cup Volleyball, Japan v. Italy. It was oddly engaging but Italy won.

All in all, things went as smooth as I'd hoped they would've, but those that know me, know that I hate surprises thrown my way. I tend to throw a fit because I plan everything out. However, once I was thrown into the thick of it, I adjusted and make the best out of it and the classes went well. I just hope that the next time I end up having to cover for someone, it's maybe only thirty minutes away.

Ogawa...home of a class I covered in Kumamoto.

Pizza Hut chips. I don't know where to begin in explaining the flavor.

Kumamoto hotel bathroom.

Kumamoto hotel.

Kumamoto hotel...again.

Miyazaki hotel.

Miyazaki hotel again.

Yep, you guess it...Miyazaki.

Not a bad set-up right?

Very comfy bed!

The view from my room...rather gloomy.

The train back to the hotel after class.

A universal beacon of convenience.

Kalbi bento box. It was delicious!

Most of what I saw on the ride back to Oita.

The part that's not so fun

So welcome to November ladies and germs. At first, I didn't think I'd even make it this far with how I was feeling,  but low and behold here I am. I can now say, after having taught at each of my three schools, that the job itself isn't so bad. Of course there are good and bad days, good and bad kids, but that's just the nature of the gig. However, the part that I'm not a big fan of is the spontaneous, "now I'm sending you to ______ to cover for so and so", aspect. That's exactly what's been thrown my way this week and I'm none to thrilled. Yeah, on one hand it's cool to see some different area of Kyushu (the island I'm on), but I'm a huge fan of organization, planning and structure. This company is lacking in those areas and it's been a challenge for me in terms of adapting to this off-the-cuff style of running things. I don't like being told a few days prior that I'm going to be doing heavy commuting, to two different cities, two days in a row. To make matters more obnoxious, I'm covering for a JT (Japanese teacher) in one area, because they can't find a JT (whatever that's supposed to mean), and we're obviously not trained on JT lesson's because we're NT's (Native teachers). Incredibly annoying. However, it's this type of crap that will eat one alive if their head isn't in the right place and I've been working hard to put mine in the right place. Now I'm going at it with a, "give 'em my best and if it's not good enough..." mentality and it's helped me relax a bit more. I should also mention that both schools are so far off that I'll be staying in a hotel on both Thursday and Friday night. I just have a hard time finding the logic in making someone commutes for three hours and some change, for two hours of lessons. They must really be hard-up for coverage I guess. One of the schools I'm covering at is so remote that the map instructions say to bring a flashlight! Here's to hoping I don't end up in a rice field with a broken leg, stranded at 1 in the morning.

Omerice (omelet+rice), but not as good as it looked.

Decent pizza, but crazy small.

Gourmet Doritos - Grilled Meat flavor.

Chicken + Mayo + Seaweed strips = surprisingly awesome.

This one's for Kevin...they made the trips overseas.

Green tea flavored Oreos. Total crap.