Another Night

It's the end of the day at Ogawa (a.k.a. the school that I have a computer in) and I realised it's been a while. I haven't been up to much but I have started thinking about what I want to do for Christmas. For those playing at home I won't be there for Christmas I'm afraid. It's too expensive and not really practical - plus! This way I can have a Japanese Christmas and New Years which will be interesting anyway. I have maybe 2 weeks of holidays and whilst I was thinking of going somewhere in Asia, a friend made a proposition to go to Kyoto which would be just as fun!

Apparently KFC is immensely popular here at Christmas. Like... lines out the door popular. Christmas carols have just started in supermarkets and yet in class today a student thought Christmas was on the 24th. WRONG!

I'll still be home at some stage in March but these days I've been thinking that I would like to stay here a little longer. I've got a really good situation here; I love my apartment, I love the town I live in, I love where I work, the students are awesome and I'm still not bored yet! I miss everyone back home but this sort of thing might not happen again! I'll try to visit everyone in March but I do need to talk to my company and change my existing flight for like, 5 days earlier.

I want Australian food. If you want to see me it may be over some food that I've missed. Be warned vegans(sally). Haaaaaaaaaa just joking! Let's make vegan foccacias with a Mediterranean vegetables! I miss that too!

Lately it's been super cold. Mum sent over a package not so long ago with some thermals saying they were sent "half jokingly, half serious". Well, I'll let everyone know that I've been wearing thermals almost every night (half jokingly, half seriously). There was ICE on my WINDSCREEN. ICE! ON MY WINDSCREEN! People say it might snow and although the cold is a bitch, it would be nice if it snowed. A white Christmas would be priceless! It's fortunate that my Father and Brother both work in the area of heating/cooling and were able to fix my heater when they came to visit because it has been working a treat. However, if I turn on the heater and my toaster oven the power goes off so I have to be wary of that. Needless to say it happens all the time because I'm an r-tard.

For those wondering about my Japanese Skillzzzz then don't be expecting much upon arrival on home soil. I can understand moderately well and I can speak moderately well. That is to say, I can hold a conversation if I lead it (if I lead it, it stays at my level). Let's just say I know enough to get by quite well and that it's not a necessity for me to speak about the intricacies of life with the school nurse opposite me. Although she is lovely.

Last weekend I went to this place called Nasu which is really nice and beautiful. I actually went there to eat burgers because of a friend of mine wanted burgers and I wanted lunch which I guess includes burgers because lunch is such a broad umbrella (*breathes*). It wasn't quite a grill'd burger but it was good nonetheless! Expensive... But I now know that if worse comes to worse I can still travel about 30-40 minutes away to this burger place to indulge in a tricky to eat but delicious burger.

To keep up the trend of following every thought I have and regurgitating them onto this blog. I teach a class of kindergarten children every Friday. Two 4 year olds; Kotona and Shunsuke (Koto-chan and Shun-kun) which has been a bitch lately as they have become nigh on impossible to teach. For those in the know, I'm not crash-hot on children below the age of 10 so it was sometimes difficult for me. I find it difficult to deal with irrationality which Koto-chan was filled up to the brim of. I had just spent 30 minutes making this game where they use a magnet at the end of a fishing rod to pick up numbered fish. In the first few minutes Shun unwound the rod so I had to fix that... then he did it again... then Koto-chan shook the rod viciously and the magnet dislodged and I couldn't find it again.

LUCKY FOR ME Koto-chan's Father doesn't approve of how his children view English class (more fun than study) so he pulled them out. Which means the event that I begin dreading on Wednesdays (I'm not even shitting you) has now become significantly easier because this girl is really about 85% of the problem.

Tonight David is going to the Fleetwood Mac concert. I'm so jealous.

Everyone should start listening to a Fleetwood Mac song now. May I suggest 'Gypsy'? Any will be fine as long as it's the Fleetwood Mac with Stevie Nicks and not the kind before her appearance. You can listen to some Stevie Nicks if that's all you have but it's really the combo that does it for me.

Apparently some awesome bands (individuals that sing?) are coming around February next year so I can begin the long lead-up to that now. TWO MONTHS! WOOOOOOO

I'll write maybe 2 or 3 student evaluatations for funzies while I waste the last remaining minutes.

"The phantom of the opera is here..."

The influenza is still rife in Japan, it only seems to have gotten worse with the 1st years being sent home last week and now the 2nd years this week. This has lead to many students and teachers wearing masks to protect themselves. Personally, I hate wearing the masks as it muffles my voice and to be frank I don't like to smell my own breath. I also figure that if everyone else is wearing a mask - it eliminates the need for me to wear a mask. It's not so much an issue in the teachers room but in the classroom when the students are all wearing the identical P.E uniform and have a mask covering half of their face I soon find myself in front of a class of phantoms (from the aforementioned opera). Gender ambiguity skyrockets, students speaking softly also increases its altitude. The only good thing about masks is... nope... it's 10 minutes later and I still have nothing.

"pinheads"

There are a myriad of hairstyles in Japan which is probably due to an attempt at individuality from the thin, straight black hair they're born with. In junior highschool students aren't allowed to dye their hair or do anything really interesting so it seems a number of students have found that putting a single hair pin in their fringe is enough of a fashion statement for them.

What's the big deal about this pin you ask? Why even mention the pin you ask? What annoys me about the pin is the fact that it can't possibly be used as a method to keep hair in place (presumably in a nice-looking way) but it's sheer obviousness detracts from the look of the hair in the first place.

There you have it. Two. Yeyyyy.

'till next time!

kris.

Kids

It's the beginning of a long weekend (suck it Australia) and I've opted to begin it with a few drinks and an otherwise relaxed night. I just taught my kindergarten class at the conversation school next door after a big running session after school. All the clubs have been running for what I assume is for fitness but it's good for me to.
I haven't posted in a while despite previous suggestions that I would and in the absence of anything really important to blog about I thought I would begin a series detailing the inhabitants of my schools. I won't be going student by student of course, more a brief examination of the various categories they could slot into. So without further adieu;

"the desk is my canvas"
We're all a victim of this. We're faced with a boring situation that we're bound to commit to and all we have is a pencil in one hand and a blank desk in front of us. Oh sure, it begins with a scribble of the name, a scribble of 'hello'. Why not add some flowers, some animals, some other catchphrases? It's not long until the desk is at least half covered in the inane imaginings of a teenager. I have been witness to desk size portraits of faces, craploads of stickers, song lyrics and more recently a quite well drawn picture of a scooter. It is no doubt a combination of boring classes and a desire to express themselves in gray lead/table format but it's all entertaining for me.

"blink once for yes, blink twice for no"
The student that appears to be so utterly vacant that all of their bodily resources appear to be dedicated to important bodily functions, blinking, and looking stupid. Due to the system of Junior High School in Japan these students can actually advance years without being able to do anything. These students never give any input under any situations even when being directly spoken to, will leave worksheets completely untouched and have severely restricted facial expression. They stare ahead in class but appear not to be looking at anything and any thoughts about what they're pondering only ends up depressing me. They scare me a little.

"did you get lost?"
A seven year old walks into the class and sits down. Only, they're not 7 years old they just look exactly like it. Some students in Japan look so severely underaged that it looks as if they have been skipped ahead. Generally they're totally adorable and their marks are only average but they are definitely where they are supposed to be. On the flip side there are some elementary school students that look much older than they are. I don't really know why this is but people keep thinking that I'm 25 or older so I guess I fall into a similar category.

Shit.

More next time. I wrote out a list when I was bored at school so at the very least expect a few of these.

See the World

It's culture festival time ladies and gentlemen so strap on your bonnets, tip your top hats and sit down for the wild ride ahead. The term 'culture festival', for me at least, arouses such images as aboriginals doing their thing, stalls of food etc. A culture festival in a school probably has like a crepe stand, or someone singing a song in French or something. Generally it's all something we've seen before but at the very least it puts a welcome blip on our daily life seismograph.

So what does a Japanese cultural festival entail? Well. It's not so much 'culture' as it is essentially a day-long performing arts night. About a week and a half ago I went to school on a Saturday for my smaller schools' culture festival (Ogawa). It had been coming up for quite a while and I guess there was what you could call 'hype' about it. One of my students for the speech contest was a member of the student council so she was practicing for 4 performances on top of the speech contest (possibly why she came 4th...) and she would sometimes tell me the goings on.

(class 3-1 singing)

It all began at 8:45am with the choral competition where each class sang a song and all the teachers judged them. After this ordeal it was the PTA's turn to sing. I was invited to join the PTA choir and I was sort of keen to sing a song in Japanese so this was a lot of fun for me! We had practiced a few times and we were sounding good! We sang our songs very well and the students liked that I was singing in Japanese so that was probably my highlight for the day.

(Student Council Taiko performance)

After a break the day became interesting. All the windows were covered up and it sort of became like a talent show minus judging. It began with this awesome, fantastic taiko performance which was really, really cool. From then on, however, it was plagued with poor organisation, microphone issues and a nasty case of quantity over quality. I feel obliged at this stage to point out that when it comes to events like these I compare it to performing arts nights at my highschool. Everything was well planned, the performances were top-notch and it was generally pretty impressive. Of course it's not fair to compare the two as performing arts is a bigger deal in schools in Australia than it is in Japan...

But to the student's credit some of the bands were pretty cool. The microphones weren't working properly so it was impossible to hear the singer most of the time but they did look pretty cool up on stage. All the students watching would rush up to the front and mosh every time a band came on. The dances and singing all looked like they were conceived the night before and yet I know that can't be the case as all the 3rd years had special t-shirts signifying the occasion. One redeeming act was the whole school choir who sang this amazing song with awesome harmonies and everything.



The 3rd year students also sang a song in English! "We are the World" is one of those charity songs that never goes very far but holds a decent melody. The 3rd year English teacher had been making the students sing it in English class and so I think the tone was slightly mocking but they tried their hardest with each member singing a sentence each. They didn't have to perform it on stage like that - they chose to! Which I'm going to take as a good thing.

Next cultural festival was at Bato. This festival also began with a choral competition only this time I had heard most of the songs from my prior cultural festival (I was an expert at this stage) which made things, like, massively interesting for me.......
I offered to join the PTA choir at this school but it I couldn't go to any rehearsal so I was surprised to find out (on stage) that they had a skit and dance moves involved with the first song. I should have known that something like this would happen and it was su-per embarrassing to be standing there on stage watching everyone do things that I didn't know about in front of the whole school. The second song was kinder to my soul (*sigh*) and involved simple standing and singing...

(The 1st years contribution. Flipping cards that spelled various things I couldn't understand)

After this experience, instead of having bands and so on perform, each class had to put on a skit. Some were interesting and funny. Some were awful. It was a bit of a mixed bag really but again - it was fun to see my students up on stage doing something fun like that so I didn't mind sitting there all day again.

(Some art from the students at Bato)

After both of the cultural festivals there was a drinking party with the teachers. These parties usually cost something like 4000yen (which is like what, $47? I don't know exactly) and are supposed to include all I can drink but as I live about half an hour away by car, I have to drive. Which makes these nights an expensive endeavour indeed! I do like spending time with the teachers in an informal setting though and everyone is more inclined to speak English to me when they've been drinking which is nice.

In both cases it was an interesting experience to observe. I'm sure the students had a good time too and that's the goal really so mission accomplished!

P.S. Couldn't really be bothered dealing with formatting issues so it's pretty much picture, writing, picture, writing...... as you probably know at this stage.

P.P.S. I read some of Averil Byrne's emails and boy she has a poetic way of putting things. I'm sorry my best writing is of cynicism and sarcasm. It's what I do best. Apparently.

P.P.P.S. Halloween was last weekend! I went to a halloween party on the Sunday. I was a pirate.

kris.