Work on Saturday?

It's Saturday, about 1:30 in the afternoon, and I'm sitting at work with absolutely nothing to do. Everyone is here today because Yamasho's School Festival, a two-day affair, begins tomorrow, and students and homeroom teachers are preparing.

I have never been to a school festival in Japan, but from the looks of things it's a big deal. The students and teachers have been preparing all week. Classes are on hold. The usually quiet atmosphere of the school is erased as students alternate between actually preparing and playing around. Some of the softball girls were playing a pickup game with a wad of paper and an umbrella. One guy hit the wad out of the park -- through the window and onto the roof.

But back to why I'm here. You would think that since I am not a homeroom teacher and since I am not responsible for creating anything regarding the school festival, I would simply not come to work. But this is Japan. Simply being at work as all that matters (to an extent). My theory is that we have to work today beacuse everyone else has to work today. Everyone else will take a make-up holiday on the same day next month. So I sit here doing nothing. Or I roam the halls playing with my new camera. Or I read the newspaper. Nobody is watching over me, prodding me to 'get to work.' Nobody is taking note that instead of creating a lesson plan I am checking Facebook, writing e-mail, or taking a silly 'which character from the office are you?' quiz.

I am here, earning my wages. It gets old after a while ... I've got three more hours today. I think perhaps I will go take another lap around the school grounds.

Take One

The battery finished right after I submitted the last post, so I put in my memory card and began shooting. There's not much to shoot around the house so I opted for a self portrait:


Fear not -- the smudges are on the mirror in the washroom, not the lens.

Stay tuned for more.

Nee-kone!

Earlier today I bought a Nikon D40 digital SLR camera. This is my first high quality digital camera (as in, not a small point and shoot, although these days those are pretty good quality too). The SLR, which stands for "single lens reflex," basically means you can interchange the lens. The kit I bought comes with a basic lens and I can save up to purchase bigger lenses if I so please. The kit -- the body and the basic lens -- cost less than $500 at the electronics store.

I have not been able to play with the machine yet , as the battery is currently charging. I'm hoping it finishes soon so I can try it out.

It appears that I'll be able to load pictures to the computer, and therefore the Internet, with a USB connection.

This is my biggest purchase so far and perhaps my last big purchase for a few months as I save up and let funds regulate.

But this has been on my wishlist for a few years, so it's nice to have the new toy. Gift ideas? Any sort of accessories. Memory cards, camera bags, or lenses (however lenses are often more expensive than the bodies themselves so that might not work as a gift).

Anyway, I'm excited.

Meanwhile, one of the English teachers in town, who has been here for three years, is celebrating his birthday tonight down at Nanaimo, so the place will packed and festive. I'll make my way down there in about half an hour. I'm thinking about bringing the new camera but as I type that I'm realizing how bad an idea it would be. First, it will be dark in the bar and photos won't likely turn out. Second, it's a party, there will be drinking, movement, loudness, and too much potential for a $500 accident. So there. Seeing it writing sealed the deal. The camera stays home and I play with it another time.

Oh, and while we say "Ni-kon" in the states, this Japanese brand is called "Nee-kone" over here. That will require an adjustment period, but I can change.

Sports Day

Quick update on Sam -- it was a fracture indeed so they have updated her to a full cast which she gets to sport for two weeks.

Today was "sports day" or the "sports festival" at Yamasho. All the students dress down and spend the day outside competing in both fun and semi-serious events. Teachers too get involved -- I did a relay with other teachers in which I had to kick a rugby ball a quarter of the way around the track. Later I ran a more serious relay on a teacher team.

My high school certainly had nothing like this sports day, which is so serious that it required a half-day "rehearsal" the day before for some reason. Sports days are found in most Japanese schools, but since Yamasho is a sports-oriented places, it's more about actual events than a festive atmosphere. Fun things are mixed in with the serious races, though.

But I have to go to Japanese class at the moment. I've got Friday off and then I'm working straight though the weekend for Yamasho's school festival, which is also much bigger than any U.S. counterpart I've ever heard of. When they do things here, the REALLY do them.

Gotta run!

Crash Crash Bang Bang

In a flash of speed, propelled by gravity, she zoomed by me down the hill from Yamasho. I knew she was going down. It was a matter of how bad. Would it be my first time calling for a Japanese ambulance, or would she simply need some Band-Aids?

After smashing into the wall at full speed, I was truly surprised to see Sam get up and shake it off. She appeared to have no serious injuries, so we rode home. Later, we went to a festival which reminded me of Portland's Saturday Market. After getting back home, her left wrist (she is also left handed) began to swell and her pain began to grow.

We tried calling friends with cars to get a ride to a hospital, fearing that there may be a fracture. Turns out, both friends with cars were fast asleep after a day out. Our next plan was getting a taxi somehow. Taxis don't just drive around residential neighborhoods looking for customers. They hang out at stations and hotspots. So we went to a nearby cafe where we know the owner. We asked him to call a cab for us. Instead, he called around to hospitals to find one that would take an accident victim even though most hospitals are closed Sunday for a day off (weird, yeah?). Fortunately some emergency rooms do operate around the clock even this strange society (ATMs actually close here ... why?). After finding an ER, the cafe owner went so far as to insist that he drive us there.

So Sam had an x-ray. Turns out it is not likely a fracture. They demobilized her left arm and told her to come back in a few days to have it checked again.

So now she's getting used to operating with only one fully functioning hand, and it's not help that it happens to be hear weak one. She will take the day off tomorrow as I travel with the English Club to a speech contest. More on that later.

Whew!

Apartment Tour

My apartment has some shelving. The box in the upper left corner is what allows me to continue living. Central heating/cooling is pretty uncommon here, so instead people use these awesome air conditioners, which are effective for a closed off room. I can't wait for fall so I can let the thing rest.

Nearby, rice is grown. They harvested (is that the right word?) it recently so the green has given way to barren emptiness.

The view out the front window of my apartment.

Upside-down pants. Rarely does anyone have a dryer in this country, so things hang.

You can see my low table and my "recliner" (the square the green thing ... I need a new chair).

This is my fridge. Shown here at actual size. But really, that's a regular standard water bottle, so you can see what we're dealing with. My friends had bigger beer coolers in college.


The kitchen. Now much to it. Looks like I need to do the dishes. Toward the back you can see the two burners that make up my "oven." There is no stove. I have a rice-cooker (at right) and a sweet toaster oven, so all is well. Also, you can drink tap water.

Not pictured is the "bedroom" which I use only for storage (I sleep in the main room with the air conditioner). Also not pictured: The toilet room, the shower/laundry/washroom area, and the steps leading up from my outside door to the second floor. Also not pictured: The spider who lives on my veranda the little tiny frog who was sitting on my bicycle one morning.

So that completes the apartment tour. In a couple hours I'll head for Nagoya ... for a couple hours before heading back. I'm beginning to curse the unfortunate planning of this Nagoya jaunt. If I had it my way it would have been an overnight but for some reason it had to be a Monday. Still, it will be good to see these people.

Some photos

This is the aforementioned Cafe Brian. Note the neat world map in the background which puts the southern hemisphere on top. Weird! Most of the others here are other JET people. The one dead center is my colleague Sam.


Can you tell which set of legs belong to me? Should be hard. This is where we had our welcome beach party for the Mie JETs on the first weekend.


Did I post this already? This is the day we arrived. I was exhausted after traveling from Tokyo and walking around for a while. You can see my apartment building back and to the left. Three Yamasho students greeted us when we arrived in Tsu before being driven down to Ise.


More people this time in a karaoke box, a private karaoke room. They are not at all expensive especially when you jam a lot of people in there. There are usually some English songs so even I can participate if I feel so willing. The girl second from the left is one of my predecessors. She has returned to Canada I believe. The guy on the right is Shun, friend of one of the other Ise JETs. They are a very friendly and nice pair as Shun often acts as the transportation for rowdy drunken JETs after nights out.


Here we are at a Nepalese restaurant in Ise. Good curry, fantastic cheese nan.

Update!

SUNDAY AFTERNOON -- I'm in the middle of a three-day weekend, so my current activity of sitting around the house at 3 p.m. seems about right. I have been out of the house for most of the weekend so far and I'm leaving again tomorrow afternoon, so I'm on a little break from my break.

On Friday, I went to a place called Cafe Brian, a restaurant that serves international food and caters to an international crowd -- and a lot of regular local customers -- near the Ise Grand Shrine. Two Fridays a month the place hosts an "international conversation dinner" or something like that. Up to seven foreigners can have a free meal and a few free drinks in exchange for speaking English to Japanese customers who pay a cover charge to get in. Obviously it's quite nice for the foreigners who get free stuff and have a chance to make local friends. And for Japanese people looking for a chance to practice their English or make new friends, it's also not a bad deal.

At Cafe Brian on Friday, myself and another area ALT sat down with a couple of women. Both were near 30, both were married, and both had kids. One spoke near perfect English because she's married to a New Zealander, the other hardly spoke a word. But we got along well enough that they invited us to join them the next night for some volleyball. Yes, volleyball. The one who doesn't speak English organizes via the Web what is called a "friends circle" over here. The meet for different events for time to time and we happened to cross paths with the circle in time for volleyball.

So maybe we felt a certain pressure to say yes, or maybe because we are living in Japan and have that sort-of "always say yes" attitude, we said yes.

The volleyball, on Saturday evening, took place in some kind of public gym much like you would see back home. There were several courts going at once in the big open space. The friends circle we had infiltrated was made up mostly of married people near 30 years old with children. The children -- maybe 10 of them in all -- were running around while the parents volleyed. Sure, it was fun to do something active, and obviously the people who invited us and the others were nice. At times the thought that it was strange to be hanging out with older people crossed my mind -- then I reminded myself that at 24 I'm not THAT far away from their age-group. It's just that they were all so far along in their life-making. Babies. Spouses. Mini-vans.

In the end it was quite nice to do something other than our normal routine of heading down to the same bar seeing the same friends. I love that same old bar, and my friends here are great. But it's good to mix it up a little.

So now that I've been well mixed, we arrive at Sunday. Monday is a national holiday ... respect for the aged day or something of that sort. In honor of that I'm going to Nagoya to hang out with some college students.

If you're reading this blog you probably already know that I worked with Japanese students for three summers at OSU. Each summer I stayed in the dorms with about 40 students from Meijo university in Nagoya. They were at OSU for a three-week language and culture program, and I did everything with them except go to their classes. So during the three-week program you become quite close with at least some of the students. So tomorrow evening I'll take the two hour trip to Nagoya to meet with about 15 of the students. I have no idea whether they're all from last year or if it's a mix. One of last year's students organized the whole thing, so it may be tilted toward the 2006 group. The 2004 group people have likely all graduated and some have probably moved on. I've lost touch for many of them. I'm happy to have a chance to see them again, but the downside is that it's going to have to be a quick trip as I have to work bright and early on Tuesday.

That about brings us up to speed. All is well at school, but more on that another time.

Some more things even

I have finished my class work for the day so it is back to killing time until the final bell. I am also hoping to talk with a couple of teachers about lesson plans for tomorrow ... some of the teachers seem to prepare at the last minute, which I must say is more my style, but when I am put on the spot in an unfamiliar situation I like to have some idea of what will be happening.

No English Club today (they actually call it the English Speaking Society, or ESS), so Sam and I are visiting the akido and kendo clubs. I forgot to bring athletic wear so I think I will just be watching today, but I think Sam may actually be aiming to participate. There are a lot of clubs at Yamasho, and not clubs as you imagine them back home. Baseball is a club; so is word processing. Baseball competes (nationally this year) and I assume word processing competes as well. I have not yet made contact yet but I am interested in visiting the photography club and the broadcast club -- perhaps visiting once in a while in those cases. We really can only visit non-ESS clubs on Tuesday and Thursday, so our options are kind of limited.

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SOME DIFFERENCES IN SCHOOL

-Did you know that in Japan the students clean the school? In the U.S. we are used to a janitorial staff keeping the school up to par. But in Japan, every day after 3 p.m., the relative quiet is broken by the thunderous roar of shifting desks in classrooms above the teachers room. Students fan out across the school grounds, under the supervision of teachers, and sweep or mop or pick up trash. You could hardly imagine kids in the U.S. going for a plan like this, but it is just a part of life here.

-In the states teachers generally work out of their own classroom, where they keep a desk and allowed out decorate as they see fit and store various materials. In Japan teachers keep desks in a teachers room. At Yamasho there are a few different teachers rooms. I work in the main one across from the administrative offices. In the states, the teachers room is considered a no-students area, a hiding place for secret soda machines and much more, at least in the imagination of creative students. In Japan, students pour into the teachers room between classes to check in with teachers, deliver messages and turn in work. After school students stay late to study for special exams or prepare for university entrance. Every morning at 8:30, the day begins in the teachers room with a staff meeting. The vice principal, who holds court over the room with a desk in the corner, moves through agenda items. It is all in Japanese of course, and I only pick up little bits of it. We have to operate under the assumption that if there is anything important for us to know, somebody will tell us. So far, no problems.

More later, perhaps.

A really long post about some things

My mother pointed out in an e-mail this morning that since my post about the approaching typhoon the blog has fallen silent. However, the typhoon merely brushed across the Ise-Shima peninsula on its way to Tokyo. On its course it left at least one dead, another missing and several others injured.

All is well in Ise, then, although it has been raining off an on in the last few days making bicycle travel an uncomfortable affair.

As of Monday of this week my marathon run of self-introduction lessons is over. I teach with eight classes this term, so that means I introduce myself eight times. Most teachers wanted me to use the full period for this task, so some creativity is required.

After some trial and error, I have settled on what I plan to use in the future. First, I hand out a sheet with questions about me and make a quick introduction speech covering only the basics. The students mark the answers they hear and/or slip into a boredom coma. Then I announce that the students will have a chance to ask me any question they would like.

The students then work in pairs to generate ideas for questions. After a few minutes of this, the press conference begins. They ask about hobbies (photography), whether or not I have a girlfriend (nope), what kind of Japanese food I like (just about all of it), whether I know about famous American track and field stars (nope), or what kind of music a like (Jazz?).

If there is more time, I usually try to engage some of the students in conversation about themselves, perhaps based on their own self-introduction sheet that they are asked to fill out.

This works much better than me talking for a long time and expecting them to follow along. Getting the students involved somehow -- forcing them to think of a question -- makes for a dynamic atmosphere and keeps everyone but the super-slacker crowd interested until the bell rings.

Although it can be good for the ego to be the center of attention for 50 minutes, I am glad to be done with self intros for now. In the spring when the new first-year students come in, I will get to try it again a few times, perhaps with a new spin. I would like to somehow incorporate more photos, but only one classroom I work in has the ability to display photos in a way that students will all be able to see them.

The commercial track and computer track classes each have 40 students, while the the international track classes are split into 20-student groups. Naturally the smaller classes are easier to work with, and it helps that the international track students are generally more enthusiastic about learning in general and learning English specifically.

The commercial and computer classes are more difficult both because of the class size and because many students do not seem to be interested at all in English. Whether or not these classes feel like a success depends heavily on the classroom atmosphere, which depends heavily on the Japanese teacher of English, because the classes have already been meeting together for a term before I arrived (this is the middle of the school year). But once I get more of a feel for what I am doing here I am sure I can play a larger role in the classroom atmosphere, hopefully figuring out ways to engage more of the students (some students I am sure are never going to change their attitude, but others probably could if prompted somehow).

Outside of work things are also fine. It is still humid and hot, but not as hot as when we first arrived. As September fades we should see a shift into more comfortable temperatures and therefore a shift into a more comfortable everything.

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And now, partially to organize my own thoughts and partially in response to feedback from my parents, I will attempt to outline the pros and cons of car-buying.

THE MAIN CON IS ...

The cost, obviously. First, you must buy said car. You must may insurance every year. You must pay a vehicle inspection fee. You must buy gas. While I do not have a good estimate for how much this would be, it definitely falls within an average JET budget. Of course not spending any money on a car would mean available funds for other things, like traveling (by train!) or going out on the town (karaoke nights build up).

A SORT-OF CON IS ...

The rules, and things. First, in Japan, they drive on the left side of the road and the steering wheel is also flopped. Also, phantom one-way streets that Japanese drivers seem to know about tend to surprise some foreign motorists. Also, while in the states you can go out for a beer and be OK to drive, the legal blood alcohol limit in Japan is zero, meaning that if you are driving you not drinking at all -- not even a sip would be wise. But these are small concerns, in that after I while I would get used to driving here, and not driving to bar excursions is a good habit anyway. At other times I could be the responsible designated driver and save money by having an iced coffee instead of a beer.

ANOTHER SORT-OF CON IS ...

The laziness factor. The fact is without a car I do a lot of walking and cycling. This is surely good for my health. If I had a car, would I use it for a lot of the small to medium trips even though a bike would be fine? Would I completely stop using the bike or walking? Hard to say exactly how I would use the car or how I would balance the car-bike situation, but it is certainly a concern.

SOME PROS ARE ...

Commuting! I live pretty close to school ... about a 10-minute bike ride. But sometimes it is either really really really hot and humid or pouring down rain. Rain is more survivable because I can wear a rain jacket or walk with an umbrella, but the summer heat is brutal. On the worst days you pretty much have to expect to be drenched in sweat by the time you get to school and then you hopefully brought some extra clothes or you will be dreadfully uncomfortable all day.

The staff room may be air-conditioned, but most classrooms are not. So the bottom line is I could drive to school when the conditions make driving to school the best option.

Getting around. This is obvious. With a car you can drive places. My mom asked if the public transport is insufficient. Well, sort-of. I am about a 15-minute bike ride from the two train stations in town (I do not know why they are so close to each other ... literally a four minute walk from each other). The train grid in Mie is great for getting around Mie or getting out of Mie, but it does not get you all around Ise. The key here -- and perhaps broadly this is the overall pro -- is freedom and flexibility to go where I want when I want, a luxury I enjoyed in the US. The question is do I really want to pay for it?

I can survive without a car, no question about it. But it would make things easier.

At this point I am not pushing for buying a car, I am simply outlining some factors. Most of the advice I have received on the subject suggests waiting it out for a bit, which I think is a good idea. But I would want to figure it out before the year is up because by then I would have to get a Japanese licence, which allegedly can be difficult.

Longest post ever. It is over. Carry on.

Inverted Orientation

All I wanted to do was make it home without the umbrella inverting. But on the final stretch, with Apollo USB only a few steps away, a vicious gust of sea-brewed wind whipped by, turning the rain-blocker inside-out -- I'm lucky my convenience store yakisoba was safely secured in its plastic container. Just after the first gust, another came from who knows where, restoring the device to its proper orientation.

So it's a little stormy here. A few days ago, the forecast was that a typhoon (tropical cyclone) was coming directly for Mie prefecture. Since then it's made a turn toward Tokyo as a category 1 storm (I believe the same 5-point scale they use for hurricanes back home). But the storm has not completely forgotten Mie, it seems. The wind and rain make walking, cycling or anything outside pretty uncomfortable.

It's not enough to cause worry over damage here; if it were still coming right for us that would be a different story. It is making question whether or not I'll go to our weekly Japanese class tonight. I probably will seek out whatever's left of my rugged Oregonian spirit and tough it out. Also we go to the bar after and see friends, so there's even more motivation.

This of course is Thursday night, so one more day and the first week is over. I'll try to post an assessment of the first week at school sometime over the weekend. For now I've got to figure out how to get across town without ending up drenched. I left all of my rain-gear back home planning for it to be shipped, but I really didn't anticipate this sort of rain this time of year. But I should of ... in the weeks before I came another typhoon buffeted Mie. A Columbia Sportswear coat would be solid right now. That's your cue, parental units. Bottom drawer of the dresser in Corvallis.

THIS JUST IN: We may have a ride to Japanese class. Alllll riiight.

It's the end of the beginning

It appears I am slacking on the blogging.

I have a very early morning so this won't be a big post, but here's a quick update:

Our three-week period of sorta-work-sorta-vacation-partying-all-the-time is over.

Tomorrow begins the second of three terms in the Yamasho school year. There will be an opening ceremony in which I'll give a speech to the entire school using English and Japanese. It's a half day, so after the ceremony I believe we'll be meeting with our supervisor and perhaps the members of the English club.

And then it will have begun. My real routine will be established. While I will miss the fun times, the non-stop doing stuff has been exhausting, and the kind of exhaustion from real work is much cheaper than the going-out-all-the-time plan. So I'm ready for regular.

Plus, September features two three-day weekends. In a couple weeks I'll go to Nagoya to meet with a bunch of the Meijo University students who I worked with at OSU.

Also, my bicycle is doing well, but I'm secretly thinking about casually shopping around for a cheap used car, perhaps one another ALT in the area is selling. None of the new area ALTs seem to have cars, and of the people we hang out with, only an ALT's boyfriend and a non-JET teacher in the area do the driving.

Yes, I would survive with no car, but it would make like much simpler when it comes to buying things that do not fit in my bike basket, traveling to various area places that are just too far to ride comfortably, etc.

I have not yet made up my mind, but I'm looking into it. There are a lot of benefits to riding around. For one, it's physical activity that counts toward exercise some of the time. Second, it's cheaper to get around on a bike, of course. Third, I wouldn't have to worry about trying not to drive the wrong way down one-ways or other such mistakes. And finally I wouldn't have to worry about passing the Japanese driver's test after my international drivers' permit expires in a year.

So ... no decision. Feel free to vote in the comment section. What say you?