:Japan )

Okay so I was beginning to feel like I had a routine down as far as introducing myself, my state, country etc. Some students were impressed that I had two teachers for parents some could careless whatever … it all seemed like good fun. So I thought thing would continue to be cheery when they asked me to critique someone who was going up for a English speech competition. No problem I thought…and it wasn’t. The girl did really well… but there were about 3 areas I saw ( or heard even) that I thought could use a little polishing…so I started making some marks and discussing them a little. By the time I was done and looked up the girl was starting to cry. That was a big shock and suddenly I’m feeling like the biggest asshole in the world. I can’t think of anything I did that was extremely rude…at least by American standards, in the critiquing process… it looks like this is going to take a little more getting used to than I thought. I heard that most ALTs would be seeing tears before the year was out but dang on the second day?? My heart strings are still being pulled on that one. Luckily I wasn’t the only one in the room. My Japanese isn’t good enough to survive something like that. So the Japanese Teacher of English (JTE) stepped in and we both tried to give her reassuring encouragement. But in the end she was sniffling down the hall as I was asking what I did wrong to the JTE. Apparently the speech contest was that night and she was under lots of pressure. Oops. I hope she did well…

But yeah as far as differences in Japanese Junior high and American Junior high… they seem very similiar in class size but the structure of the school day is pretty different. Students stay in the same room the whole day and the teachers rotate. The cool thing I thought was that at lunch time everyone eats in their room as well. There is this massive cart with the day’s meal is hauled into each of the rooms and certain students are nominated / scheduled to serve the other students. I’m pretty sure that the person who is picked is based on some kind of rotating schedule. Anyhow everyong gets their meal usually consisting of 3 courses of some sort and sits. Seems like a pretty logical idea compared to all the chaos I hear about from my parents in their high schools as well as what I had to go through myself.
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Well the teaching has finally gotten underway. In the first days it will mostly mean I’m speaking for a long while about where I’m from, how many people are in my family, my hobbies, music I like etc. The kids are pretty fun so far but there are it’s already pretty obvious there are going to be a few cussing me out behind my back, maybe in front of my face since I don’t know all the language or making jokes about me. Oh high school mentality how I missed you so. Sadly though I’m moving around from class to class and school to school…at this point memorizing names seems like it will be nearly impossible. I hope that’s not the case but at this point I’ve only visited one school out of the 5 I’m ‘assigned’ and I can’t really remember anyone’s name.

Furthermore, I’m pretty amazed at the shear exhaustion from introducing myself to only 3 classes I felt yesterday. I could barely stay awake for the last 3 hours of the work day. All in all it was pretty fun. There were some interesting differences I saw in how the school works, specifically in reference to lunch time, that I plan to speak more about after today’s teaching.

I’m hoping today goes as well or better as yesterday.

This past weekend I went camping with many of the other new ALTs and veteran ALTs. It’s taken me a while to recover enough to post this, but seemingly like everything else camping Japan style is slightly ….off. You first notice this when you walk into your cabin that will bunk 4 people. As you look around and notice a practical kitchenette and TV you start to forget you came here to camp. Strolling into the bathroom with it’s huge heated soaking tub you realize you are just staying at a no-service rustic hotel…the only thing it doesn’t have is the toilets with heated seats and built in ass washers. Those Bastards! Ah well the cabin wasn’t really used until everyone stumbled back to the place where they dropped their sleeping bags from a long night of boozing and schmoozing. Apparently showing up to one of these functions with a bottle of Jinro and some mixing juice gets you major props, I don’t know why everyone is scared of it. I guess I’ve so far dodged the legendary hangover it causes. Unfortunately thanks to mister Paul Speed who thought it would be a great idea to mix half of a bottle of Early Times with some cider stuff I brought for the Jinro and then pass it around in our talking circle, I got quite sickish. I don’t know how I ever drank that stuff back in JC, TN I don’t know how that stuff ever made it across the ocean to this place.

All in all it was a great one last hurrah to see all the ALTs I came over with and all the ones who have been here Let’s Aomori-ing already. Tomorrow will be the start of classes, well it’s only a club in elementary school but it could be interesting.

Well I guess I need to update this thing some… I still don:t have internet!! So still no pictures. And I haven:t gotten to drive the car yet because of delays in getting the insurance papers finalized. However both of these issues should be settled real soon now and I should finally have some time to write a lengthy little piece on first impressions of Japan. Here is one little tidbit though, the sun rises freaking early as hell here! I:m talking like 3 - 4 am in the morning. I haven:t been able to sleep much past 5:30am yet. Remarkably though I haven:t been getting too tired later in the day… perhaps it:s all the coffee and tea that is in abundant supply here. (more…)

Well I didn’t think the quakes would come this soon but I got to experience a 4.0 quake yesterday for the first time. It started off kind of slow so I had to ask someone next to me if they felt anything…I was almost ready to think something was wrong with my head. Then suddenly a bigger shake rolled through and I began to think the “get under the desk fool!” thoughts. Luckily it ended pretty quickly. My co-workers say that there are about siz 1.0 - 2.0 scale quakes a year with two or three 4.0s coming every 2 or 3 years. I can’t remember how often a 6.0 comes through but I really hope I don’t have to find out.

Things have been phenomenally busy since leaving Tokyo and landing in Aomori City airport on Wednesday. Since then I’ve stayed two nights in yet another hotel for some unknown reason but just enough to make living out of a suitcase really annoying…especially when said suitcase has little to no leisure clothes, all professional clothes. When I haven’t been sleeping I’ve been meeting various principals at the different schools I’ll be assisting in or having some kind of contact with. I there is still more of that left on Monday as well.

Friday finally got some serious fun into it! (more…)

After 14 hours of flying, countless times waiting in very long lines, and 2 more hours of being bussed, I have finally arrived in Tokyo at my hotel. I have been taking pictures but I don’t have time to post them just yet. To further complicate matters the hotel’s “Free VDSL” is anything but. First it’s not DSL. Their first instructions was to use a modem cable. Barf, who cares if it’s “free” after that. So now I’m one of many laptop loungers in this little hallway trying to eek out as much wireless radio waves possible to post simple e-mail messages and blog posts. It’s past midnight here so I will have to investigate further how to get the photos posted tomorrow. Like any conference, they’ve loaded me down with pamphlets and papers and I need to decide which events I need to go to tomorrow. I need sleep now.