Out There on the Ice.

It's cold. There I said it. Are you happy Australians in your god damn summer?! I saw snow for the first time last week and I must be honest - at first I thought it was ash. Once I realised it was snow I freaked out (good way), put my rubbish in the pile and drove to work. It was a pretty pathetic fall though really - it wasn't until that night when I went to a bar in a nearby town to see some friends (and one of my second year students?!) that it began to properly snow and it was amazing! Just like on tv! I don't remember how I got back to my place-of-sleeping but the stroll to my car the next morning was WONDERFUL! I had a blast! The snow covered everything in a beautiful white layer that, despite being cold to touch, warmed my heart! I made a snow ball and threw it at my car because I didn't have anyone else to throw it at. I imagine my car enjoyed it just as much as I did though.

I'm not really used to such cold temperatures. The coldest I remember being was in New York where I just didn't have the right clothing the entire time (Miami sort of doesn't require warm clothing ... clothing at all really) and froze my ass off almost everyday. I'm not overly fond of such cold weather and so in the face of such devastatingly cold weather here in Japan I don't cope overly well. I feel that the snow balances out the cold weather (in terms of my appreciation) but when it doesn't snow and it's just frost I feel cheated. I feel nature is giving me a test and I'm only just passing. Nature is Year 12 maths.

So I woke up yesterday after a particularly shivery night and when I eventually made it to the shower I turned it on to find no response. TURNS OUT.... my pipes had completely frozen. I say completely as not a single source of water would yield me the life giving liquid. I was dry people. Drryyyyyyyy. Fortunately I had boiled some water the previous night to indirectly melt chocolate to make rocky road so I could brush my teeth but I mean COME ON!

Strategies for surviving the cold?

- Wear layer, upon layer, upon layer of clothing.
- Not overly practical as then I have a lot of washing. Washing = sucks.
- Buy a whole lot of thermal clothing and wear layer upon layer.
- My current plan.
- Leave heaters on in all location within my apartment.
- Expensive and with the possibility of dying it's not a bright outlook.
- Maintaining a constant level of drunkenness to forget the cold.
- Doable but I gotta drive and I don't think everyone needs the rude awakenings of drunk-Kris' brutal verbal diarrhea.
- Putting my mind into the body of an alien species to explore their alien (and presumably warmer) world.
- That's not something that people can do. Yet.
- Setting myself on fire.
- I would need to buy more clothes. And the the whole needing to go to the hospital thing wouldn't be good for my wallet. And the smell of burnt hair? forget it.
- Hibernate
- I have to work! And don't bears induce constipation or something? Doesn't sound pretty.
- Going to Hell
- Not ruling it out!
- Manning up and dealing with it.
- Ha.

Lately there have been a lot of end of year parties these days. I went to one for my Japanese language class which I began two weeks ago and that was nice. I also went to one for the ALT's in the Otawara and surrounding areas and met like 20 people I had never met before. They're all really nice and it's exciting that there are people in my area I can hang out with. One of the girls even works in the same town I work in (now there are TWO foreigners there!). Last night I went to another end-of-year-party for one of my schools. It was a lot of fun! The teachers want to take me skiing and after a discussion of the school uniforms of the surrounding area they decided they wanted to dress me up in the boys uniform. Sounds like fun! The other school have their party on Christmas which isn't really convenient for me.

I'll do a post for Christmas next! If you have any tips in keeping warm let me know and I'll give it a burl.

Merry Christmas :D

Life

I just wrote a paragraph on things to complain about but I deleted it. I'm sure there's something more annoying than listening to people whine but I can't quite put my finger on it. How annoying. SO! Instead I'm going to answer a question sent to me by my pal Brendan. I like the idea of an online talkshow so I'll try to answer this to the best of my ability. He asks;

What's it really like being a teacher in Japan, and how did you cope with the fact of not initially knowing the language?

When I first arrived in Japan I thought I would try to brush up on the Japanese I learned in highschool. Turns out I didn't really remember a whole lot but I saw it as groundwork at least. I had some education in this language so at least I wasn't approaching this from ground zero. That is to say, I knew a little bit of the grammar and at least had a mind-set for the language. A girl I know came over to Japan the same time I did but with no knowledge of the language and she still hasn't picked it up very well. So I had a phrase book and a dictionary and I did my best. Trouble was/is - I teach English, I have many English speaking friends and I know enough Japanese to go shopping, order food, carry small conversations and so on. Which means sometimes I lack the motivation to learn more. I went to a Japanese language class last week though and it was good! It's free and it's on a Wednesday night so it's not like it's interfering with anything. What annoys me though is that Japanese people aren't as used to talking to foreigners as we are (obviously a gross over-generalisation there) but often I'll be trying to talk to Japanese people but they don't slow down or use simple language and it's hard for me! I should point out that I live right next door to my company's conversation school and so the Japanese people inside there speak English too. Which means if I have a bill, or a problem or something I don't understand then they can help me. They helped me get a phone and a bank account etc. So I do owe a lot of my happy living to them.

To answer the other question, what is teaching like in Japan... well it's nice! The pro's are that it's a lot of fun to interact with the students. I'm only considered an 'Assistant Language Teacher' so there's no pressure and I'm getting paid to have this interesting experience in two junior highschools that I love. The teachers are all friendly (if unwilling to try to speak English) and it's interesting for me to watch the students slowly become able to speak more English even though they don't particularly want to.

The con's are that often I'll have nothing to do at work. Indeed some would not think that this is a problem but it is. I can have entire days without classes if the students are having tests, and I only have this computer at one school which means if I'm at the other with no classes I get SO BORED! Usually I have around 4-5 classes a day which is fine for me as I can use the other time to correct work and think about making some stuff for future classes. Most days it's fine but some days like today (1 class) it can get a little tiresome. Also, as my Japanese ability isn't amazing it is sometimes difficult to communicate with the other teachers and although they're all lovely and respond when I speak to them in Japanese they're too nervous to start talking to me. I do believe that the conversation channels have opened significantly more than when I first arrived but there's still quite an obvious language barrier there. The English teachers are very kind though and they help me if I don't quite understand anyone but it's awkward to have to use them as a conduit to carry out conversations.

But on the flipside, if I was good at Japanese I would probably have been sent to an elementary school and I'm not really such a massive fan of children. So maybe I would be able to communicate with the teachers more but not be having as much fun at school. I'm happy with the situation as it is but I will try to work on improving my Japanese and talking to the teachers more as I think that is really my only con.

To REALLY answer the question; the hardest part about being a teacher is thinking of games for the students to play. Japanese students are quite reserved and don't respond well to games that Australians might. Getting them to stand up and do something generally doesn't go down well so instead things like group activities (trivia, drawing pictures etc) work the best. But there's only so many times I can do these sorts of things, so often I struggle to think of things to do. The job itself is generally pretty easy so the actual teaching component is quite easy. The other week the 2nd year English teacher was sick so I taught some lessons by myself and they went fine! I played some games (this time it was hangman and something else I don't remember), I made a worksheet and I explained it all in English. I couldn't explain it in Japanese but if they repeated back in Japanese what I said in English then I was able to say whether it was right or not. If that makes sense? It's like I wasn't able to properly form the sentences but I knew most of the words so if they said it back then I could confirm whether it was what I wanted to say or not.

In anycase, it went well I think.

So if anyone else has question then feel free to send them in. It's a stimulus to write blogs which I am needing now that things have really settled down. So until next time I suppose! Perhaps I can explain the story of the annoying car that I get stuck behind at least twice a week on the way to work. I hate that car.

kris.