Mountain Trade of Triple Prefecture Won This Day

Sound like gibberish? Thank Google. But at least it's something. The school where I'll work is called "Ujiyamada," which translates to something like "Mountain Trade" (yama means mountain, I know that much). So when Google's Web site translation has its way with the school's home page, this phrase emerges. Meanwhile, "Mie" prefecture often comes back as "triple prefecture" because of translation issues.

But this is beside the point. The point, in short, is victory. Ujiyamada (aka Yamasho) won the prefectural baseball championship to represent Mie in Koshien, the annual national high school tournament. Unlike in the states, the high school tournament is treated as a big deal in Japan, with games being televised non-stop and plenty of attention focused on the ballpark in between Osaka and Kobe.

Says Yamasho's Web site, after a Google translation:

It won this day, the Yokkaichi haze at the inlet ball park in the 89th nationwide high school baseball championship triple conference, decided the Koshien participation. The koshien participation, after 4 years ever since 2003 becomes 3rd participation.

From this I gather that the championship game was played in Yokkaichi, Mie's largest city and an industrial center which has earned the nickname "the big smog." The latter part of the translation I take to mean that Yamasho is going to the tournament for the third time in four years.

In the summer of 2001 I was staying at a friend's house near Kyoto, and despite the ridiculous Kansai heat and humidity, I accepted the family's invitation to go to Koshien stadium for a day to watch a few games of the national tournament. Now, perhaps, I'll get to return and watch some of my students fight for the national title.

This, of course, fresh off watching the OSU Beavers win the NCAA title two years in a row (only once in person). At any rate, this is pretty exciting. The first game of the tournament for Yamasho appears to be Aug. 5, the day I arrive in Tokyo. So if they lose that day I won't be heading for the stadium. If the last beyond Aug. 8, when I arrive in Mie, I'll do what I can to get over there. Go Mountain Trade! Errr ... Yamasho!

Maximum Living

I picked up a few more details (and photos) about my living situation today thanks to quick chat online with my probably-predecessor (it's either her or the other JET at my school-to-be, but in either case I know I'll be in her apartment complex).

By bike, my most likely means of transportation (along with trains when necessary), my school is about 10 minutes away. A new "Max Value" (I think a large food and drug store) is under construction seven minutes away, and if it isn't ready, another (perhaps smaller) store is even closer. Also, a major train station is 10 minutes away (still on the bike).

My predecessor has survived for a year in Ise with no car, just a bike. I plan to try to make that work.

Also, my predecessor offered a few photos of her apartment, which will possibly be mine along with the furnishings and a few other things (like the TV, etc.). I do know that I'm in the same complex, so my place will probably look like the one in the photos.

My predecessor started out in an older apartment which was infested with cockroaches. She fortunately got out of that situation part-way through the year, and the new place was so new that she actually had to peel the plastic cover form the toilet seat.

That's pretttty new.

So it sounds like the apartment situation, based on its newnesss and its central location, is pretty solid.

11 Days in America

The Aug. 4 departure from Portland is fast approaching, and this week in Corvallis is all about the Great Separation. I'm going through the vast expanses of Stuff I have come to own over 24 years, deciding what will come to Japan and what shall be left behind.

While I imagined that this would be difficult, I'm finding it fairly easy. Basically, all I'm bringing is clothes, music, DVDs, books (most to be shipped), my computer, an iPod, toiletries, and a few other small items. I can find most everything else, like sheets or lamps or TVs, in Japan.

Meanwhile, I'm throwing away a lot of stuff. Lots of old school materials, magazines that were kept for unknown reasons, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

I know this is most likely too exciting to handle (please note the level of dry humor included in this sentence and apply to nearly all other comments you might not be sure reflect my true meaning).

For me, the trip taker, about to embark on a journey and a job, it is exiting. I dislike the chore of going through everything I own, but at the same time, I'm finding lots of old funny items, writings, pictures, or other such archival material. And it is quite refreshing to lighten my holdings. Do I really need two wicker baskets?

Plus, the act of packing makes real the idea that I'm finally approaching departure. My jobless summer, in addition to being a bad fiscal choice, proved to allow long days lounging around, which while nice, are also boring at times. Now that Aug. 4 is 11 days away I'm finding myself busy.

My current task is importing various songs from CDs onto the MacBook to get a new playlist going on the iPod. Tomorrow I'll import more songs from the family CD collection. I've thrown out my DVD cases and placed the discs directly in a case along with the CDs. I've picked up my new black suit and I now have almost all of the clothing I think I'll need in Japan.

Now it's just more sorting. I regret at this time that this post was not made to be humorous, or really engaging at all. Just a quick dumping of where I am now. A historical record, if nothing more. I'll return to the blog in the next few days, and hopefully I'll have some new solid material. Any ideas? Comment.

A Roofer Listens to His Heart

Look out from on high,
Shingles seared by summer heat,
A roof incomplete

The above haiku captures the story of last week, when my brother Phil and my father and I attempted to re-roof the house without the aid of professional roofers or trained medical experts. We did manage to remove the existing roof, which as you know, is made of roof parts, which when removed, tend to break into sections roughly the size of toenail clippings.

Once the roof parts are piled up in mountains of dust, 3o percent of which are made up of live wasps, you have to move handfulls at a time to the edge of the roof and heave them into the back of a truck, into which you secretly want to jump to avoid having to continue laboring in the heat.

After working periodically on Saturday, Sunday and Monday, the old roof was successfully removed, and the optimists among us saw a complete roof within a coupe of days. I, however, expected that we would be working on the new roof for several months or perhaps years, forcing me to give up my placement in Japan and switch careers.

We hit our stride on the re-shingling on Tuesday morning, with Phil operating a nail gun which was designed so that it would break down every 40 seconds, requiring a complicated surgery involving several screwdrivers and possibly a spare kidney. My job was to line up the row of shingles to be nailed into place.

By late Tuesday, with Phil's roof vacation winding down and Dad's trip to Florida on the horizon, a real, professional roofer was called in to finish the job. As we approached the last two rows of shingles on the first section, his shiny white truck turned into the driveway and I knew we were free. He effortlessly climbed the ladder to survey the damage. It turns out we had been nailing the shingles in a less-than-perfect position. Small mistake, easy enough to repair.

Phil and I climbed down the ladder, having been laid off from a job for the first time. We took one more look at our work, a full section almost done, but two rows shy. Our goal not reached, victory not achieved. But it was approaching 100 degrees. On Friday, a crew of professional roofers came and casually finished the job by 6 p.m. Even the wasps were impressed.

I leave you with a long quote from "Clerks," offered by Jahozafat.com:

Blue Collar Man: "Excuse me, I don't mean to interrupt, but, uh, what are you talking about?"
Randal: "The ending of Return of the Jedi."
Dante: "My friend here is trying to convince me that any independent contractors who were working on the Death Star were innocent victims when they were destroyed by the rebels."
Blue Collar Man: "Well, I'm a contractor myself. I'm a roofer. 'Done and Ready Home Improvements'. And speaking as a roofer, I can tell you a roofer's personal politics comes into play heavily when choosing jobs."
Randal: "Like when?"
Blue Collar Man: "Three weeks ago, I was offered a job up in the hills, beautiful house, ton's of property, a simple re-shingling job. They told me if I could finish it in one day, I would double my price. Then I realized whose house it was."
Dante: "Whose house was it?"
Blue Collar Man: "Dominic Bambino's."
Randal: "Baby Face Bambino, teh gangster?"
Blue Collar Man: "The same! The money was right, but the risk was too high. I know who he was, and based on that, I turned the job over to a friend of mine."
Dante: "Bosed on personal politics."
Blue Collar Man: "Right! And the next week, the Foresie family put a hit on Baby Face's house. My friend was shot and killed. Didn't even finish re-shingling."
Randal: "No way."
Blue Collar Man: "I'm alive because I knew the risk involved in that particular client. My friend wasn't so lucky. Any contractor working on that Death Star knew the risk involved. If they got killed, it's their own fault. A roofer listen's to this [pointing to heart], not his wallet."

Ise Ise Ise

I went to bed Sunday night expecting to wake up to an e-mail informing me of my placement within Mie-ken. Sure enough, I had an e-mail from Shintani-sensei, the English teacher who is in charge of the ALTs at Ujiyamada Commercial High School, or more simply, Yamasho.

Yamasho, says Shintani-sensei, is in Ise City (Ise-shi), "which is in the middle of Japan and is famous for Ise Grand Shrines." He refers to Ise-shi as "a small local" and quiet town. The Ise-shi guide on the Mie JET Web site says the city is home to 100,000 people. A map showing major train routes makes me rest easy -- two major lines make it to Ise-shi, but not further south (see map below).

(EDITED to add: I now think maybe a commercial high school is somewhere between industrial and high academic. Or maybe commercial is a low level but with a focus on commercial areas rather than industrial ones. But I'll leave my original speculation below in place. Either way I'm not concerned, just curious.)

I don't yet know much about my school, nor do I know exactly what the "commercial" designation means. At first I thought it meant it was a low level school, but then I recalled that there is also a kind of high school known as "industrial." Yamasho's 800 students can choose one of three courses: commercial, IT or English. Sixty-five teachers (I'm not sure how many ALTs) guide the students through their three years (Japanese senior high schools are U.S. grades 10, 11 and 12).

Adding to my new theory that Yamasho is perhaps a high level school, Google uncovered a 2005 brief from a Web site called "ELT News" which described an "English Boom in Ise."
(The brief was summarizing another article from Asahi.com). The ELT News item said Ise "has been caught up in the internationalization that has followed the opening of the Chubu International Airport and the Aichi World Expo, and residents are feeling a growing need to acquire English language skills." Specifically, "Ujiyamada Commercial High School became one of the latest additions to the government's SELHi (Super English Language High School) scheme...."

I have no idea what this means, but it sure does sound rigorous. I don't know how I would fare in a super English language program.

Ise itself sounds like a nice enough city. Bigger than where I am now and within two hours by train of Osaka and Nagoya, Japan's second and third largest cities, respectively. Here's a nice map of the region.

Above is a map showing two major train lines, which fortunately both have a bold line reaching as far as Ise. Looks like I barely made the frequent train grid. The Mie-JET Ise guide says there are frequent trips to Nagoya from Ise, but farther south trains are infrequent or not available. While I don't know my living situation yet, I'm hopeful that I'll be able to use public transportation instead of buying a car.

I've now scratched the surface of Ise-shi, capping an unusually early morning. The house cleaning lady comes Monday morning, and I usually sleep through the vacuuming. But today, with my placement info to research, I headed out in search of coffee shops with Wi-Fi. At Starbucks I bought an iced tea and a yogurt parfait but then found that their Internet access is not free. Starbucks = evil. I then headed to another place on third but their Wi-Fi wasn't working. I chugged my coffee and bounced to the Beanery on second, where I'm happily in the back corner, online and set for the afternoon.

I'm waiting for Japan to wake up so the people on the Mie-JETS forums can fill me in on Ise, and perhaps my predecessor (if I have one, fingers crossed) will find some time to e-mail me and give me some details.

About time:

It's 11:30 a.m. for me in Oregon so in Japan it's 3:30 a.m. ... my system is this: from Oregon time, count ahead four hours and switch from morning to night or night to morning ... daylight savings time standard time or whichever is not currently happening means it's five hours instead of four.

That's all for now. Since I have no job or class or anything to do but prepare (for four weeks) I'll have plenty more updates as I learn more.