KONNICHIWHAT!?: January 2012

Sunday, January 29, 2012

Recovering nicely

Ahh, it's been about a week since my last post and in that short amount of time I've gotten another cold. I saw the signs fairly early this time around and made a trip to the drugstore to get the proper goods. Thanks to a Japanese friend of mine, I was able to get the type of medicine that I needed (sinus meds) in order to make a preemptive strike. I also stocked up on vitamin C drops and good ol' Halls lozenges. The sickness here hits me hard in the sinus region and I'm often hockin' up phlegm and blowing snot out of my nose until it passes. My apologies for the somewhat graphic description. I mentioned in my last post that I'm sick of this weather and I still stand by that. My body hates it and I'm just ready for the sun and the warmth that comes with it.

I also spoke about being responsible for the icebreaker welcome activity at the staff meeting that occurred this past week and I'm happy to say that it went over quite well. The meeting itself was alright I suppose, but it's always nice to have all the teachers together in one spot so we can chat and catch up on things. We use that time to pick each others brains as to what we're planning in regard to the job itself and our future involvement...if in fact there is any. As it turns out, most of the current NT's that I work with are finishing up their time here with the company. It appears it's time for most of them to return to their real lives and they all indeed have things waiting for them, whether it be a relationship or a different destination that interests them. I seem to be the only one in the group that's here for financial reasons.

Two days this past week were spent team-teaching with two of my currents, with me traveling out to their schools. With Rachel, I taught one of her classes and it was a bit challenging only because I was still new into my sickness and my throat was strained. The kids were great though and quite attentive. The next day (Friday) I went to teach with Ji-yeun and since she had a four-lesson day, I taught two of her classes. If it's a three-lesson day, the visiting NT teaches one class. So the two lessons I taught for Ji-yeun were interesting because the students were quite young, with the first class being hyper but good and the second class was super shy and quiet. One kid in the hyper class was telling me that his penis looked like a sausage. I just stared at him trying not to laugh and I looked at Ji-yeun and said, "you're aware of what he's saying right?'. This same kid had boogers smeared all over his nose and top lip. I wonder what his home life is like. Yesterday, I went to one of my schools to observe the JT's lessons. The last class of the day consists of mostly 11 year old kids and they seem to like me a lot. One girl in particular always grabs onto me and she made sure I was involved in every aspect of the JT's lessons. Then, when I had to leave to catch my train, the JT said, "say goodbye to Jason sensei. He has to catch his train now.", and the whole class gave a collective moan of disappointment which made me feel good. I guess I'm doing something right with some of these kids.

Mochi, cream roll cake. Bomb.

Wings...duh.

This was totally disgusting.

OG!

Thanks guys!

Oi vey.

Monday, January 23, 2012

Winter...piss off already!

This winter business...it's enough already. Granted, I spent a lot of time in the cold and snow during my days as a Colorado citizen, but my time spent in California was enough to acclimate my body to much warmer temperatures and quite frankly I liked it. Now I'm here in Japan, which has the proper season system that most are accustomed to, unlike Californians, and my body has taken it pretty hard. Not only that, but I was ill-prepared clothing-wise for the harsh weather. I guess what makes it worse is the fact that Oita is quite close to the sea, so those cold wind gusts coming in are brutal! I've been told that the sun will start making more frequent appearances come the end of March. It almost goes without saying that I'm looking forward to the warmer weather. Japan takes it too extremes in that the winter's are really cold and the summers are really hot and humid. No joking around here.

As for non weather related news, another week of teaching is behind me and it mostly uneventful. I was put to use as a carpenter this week, putting together various bits of furniture for different Japanese teachers in their classrooms. Us native teachers aren't just here for the students apparently, but we're your go-to problem solvers! I have a staff meeting tomorrow and I'm responsible for providing the icebreaker welcome activity to the group. This is usually a quick 10 minute thing, so it's not big deal and I have an idea that should work just fine. I plan to issue a celebrity with each staff member, with them unaware as to who it is, and the other staff members have to provide clues so that they can guess the celebrity. Basically, a who-am-I game.

One of the native teachers that I had training with (who is in a different area than me), who I've been buddies with since before coming to Japan, told me that she's planning to quit. Her desire to be back home with her family has been growing more and more since she flew back home to see them for Christmas vacation. Not to mention the fact that she hasn't been adjusting to the culture shock of everything so well and you have a pretty good case for packing your bags. I've been trying to provide her with a shoulder to lean on during her decision-making process because one thing is for sure doing this job, it can be quite lonely and isolating. She was actually worried that I would judge her for her decision but I told her that it was great that she made it as long as she did (she's putting in her notice and will be out before the summer so they have enough time to find a replacement). I told her that no one could judge her for her decision unless they've been in the same situation and even still, not everyone adjusts the same. Some people never do properly adjust. I had a rocky couple of months in the beginning where I thought, "why am I putting up with ____ and ____?", and really just missed being home and hanging out with the people I care about. Now that I've had some time to settle in and assess everything, my motivation in sticking with it at this point is almost purely financial. I knew before I came that I wanted to send funds back home and hammer away at some annoying student loan debt and that's what I've been able to do so far. My point is this; it really helps if you have a specific goal in mind when taking on such an adventure. It helps in dealing with the ups and downs that the adventure throws at you. Cliche alert(!): keeps your eyes on the prize!

P.S. I'm really getting good at Tekken Tag Tournament 2!

Korean burger from McDonalds.

Looks like total deuce, but quite tasty!

Wasabi-beef flavored chips. The wasabi was too strong.

Habanero meat sticks. Supposedly great with beer.

Looks like a serious doughnut but it was weak.

A typical salad in Japan. Mostly cabbage based.

Again, doughnut fail.

See above captions.

Awesome English on the doughnut box though.

Thursday, January 12, 2012

'Bout that time

Here we are, a week and some change into January already. Wow...time flies no? Well, I've officially been back at work since last Thursday, the 5th. As all of you readers know, I went back to work and straight into parent observations and you also know that I teach at three different schools. Since I was going back to work on a Thursday, I only had to work two days (Thursday and Friday), then started at a different school with parent observations this past Tuesday. What that means is that I won't finish my parent observations at the first school, in which I started on Thursday, until the next time I go to teach at that school in it's proper rotation...so basically, three weeks later. Strange, I know. I'm one day away from finishing parent observations at one of my schools this week and I have to say, it hasn't been as bad as I expected. I certainly didn't have to be as nervous this time around as I was thrust into parent observations for my very first week of teaching back in September. If I can handle it then, fresh off the plane, then I can handle it with a bit of experience. That way of thinking turned out to be true for the most part. The only nerve-wracking thing this time around has been the fact that it was the first time I had parent observations at this particular school. The JT for this school has pretty high expectations and I definitely have to be on my toes around her.

I'll give you a quick rundown of how a parent observation class goes. The students come in as they usually do and I check their homework and go over their picture cards with them. Once I've done that with each of the kids in the class, I give them a writing assignment to work on, usually writing something out of their textbook and for the really young kids, they write the alphabet. While the students are writing, I sit with my JT while she addresses the parents in the room about the class, the plans we have for it and what the students and parents both should be focusing on in regards to the material. This lasts about five minutes. After that, I introduce myself to all of the parents and tell them a bit about myself and my JT helps to translate anything that isn't understood. I've been doing this about three times a day for each day of the week and I'm sure I'll be doing it at the other schools. Next, my JT tells the parents about a quiz that I've come up with (which is true) and the subject matter is things related to Los Angeles and California. I made a short, six question quiz that the students could take with their parents in order to learn a bit more about the place I flew in from. This part I enjoy because I play the role of a TV game show host, reading questions and answers aloud and making a big fuss when kids and parents get answers right. So far, no one has been six for six. Following the quiz, I teach the lesson as usual for the kids while my JT talks with the parents individually, this time around speaking to them about their students English tests scores. I have to cram a lot of the lesson into a considerably shortened time frame, due to the earlier speech and quiz, and when the lesson is over we give a small speech to the parents and thank them for coming. That's a P.O. class in a nutshell and I guess it's giving me a lot more experience in terms of presenting in front of large groups and being in front of people. I always feel like this type of thing is good for me, another reason why I took acting classes in the first place, because public speaking has never been something I've felt comfortable with.

After tomorrow I only have about a week left of P.O. classes at a different school and I'll be done with it for the rest of my contract period. As I've been telling the parents in class, all of this has been a good experience for me in which I'm learning a lot about myself and I feel like I'm growing as a person by being exposed to a life that was completely opposite from what I knew. We're almost halfway through January now and September honestly doesn't seem that far away. I'll let you know how I feel about that as soon as I know.