It's been awhile since my last post, for which I apologize! Things got rather hectic after I made my last blog post, and it's really taken me until now to feel settled down--and to acquire some videos to share with you all!
Let's start with a picture: the entrance to Hirohata Junior High School. I'll have more photos coming soon!
First off, let's recap a bit of what happened last week.
I wrote about how on Wednesday, I'd be having my first lesson. That was a lie. Instead, I had my first day where the weather was "bad enough" for even teachers to have to leave school early. We had something of a "super storm" that day, with a typhoon making landfall at the same time as a storm front was moving through the area--and rather like Hurricane Sandy, but on a (fortunately) smaller scale, a hybrid super-storm was born. Thankfully, this typhoon had downgraded to a tropical depression by the time it hit Himeji.
The weather was still phenomenal. I got pretty soaked walking to school from the train station (a 10 minute walk, typically), and it had barely gotten started at 7:45 in the morning. The rain only got worse from there. No students at all, due to the rain. But the teachers soon weren't getting much work done, myself included, because we kept going to look out the windows in awe; this kind of weather was atypical for Himeji. The teachers kept huddling around whoever currently had their laptop opened up to the weather forecast diagrams. I had fun teaching them the word "storm front" to describe the "rain lines," or lines of clouds moving in.
Towards noon, the roof started to leak. I'm not sure where, or how many areas were affected, because all the teachers grabbed all the towels they could carry and ran off to save the day, leaving me confused in the Teacher's Room.
It was shortly after this that I was told that all the teachers who lived over an hour away (of which I am included) could leave early. I was given a ride back to Shirasagi, in what could only be described as a very interesting experience.
I've never seen rain like that in my life. (Not that someone from Arizona would have much experience with rain in general!)
I'll throw in some photos of this really big rainbow that was really close to my apartment--I could literally see where it landed, and the buildings behind it. Very cool!
Thursday/Friday the 5th/6th
Finally, I had my first lesson! It was with first year students (or the equivalent of 7th graders). Three other teachers sat in to watch, and as far as lessons go, it wasn't absolutely terrible. My English is apparently very clear (everyone keeps telling me this, so it must be true). I only had postcards with me, though, and no projector in the classroom (in hindsight, not the best idea). Okabe-sensei, the teacher in charge (and an awesome one at that!), would laughingly translate what I said for the students. I passed the postcards and photos around for the students to see; and like what any students would do in the same situation, they started to chatter. (Really really dumb idea, in hindsight!) After my introduction, they had time to ask me any questions they wanted. The cicadas had more to say, at the beginning. Finally, once they were allowed to ask questions in Japanese (which were then translated for me), they became a bit braver. The oddest question I got so far: "How much did your glasses cost?"
Of course, it took me two lessons to dump the whole postcards-without-a-projector lesson plan. The second lesson, on Friday, I at least had made giant maps of the USA and Arizona, so I could better demonstrate to students the locations I was talking about, and the distances involved. (Fun fact: very few of them know how many states there are in the USA. But most of them know where Arizona is, thanks to other ALT's.) The maps made my life a heck of a lot easier, so I've been using them every time now. I also brought along stickers, to give as prizes for the students who asked me a question--and this was a real hit. Japanese kids, like American kids, love stickers. Especially stickers from America, that say stuff in English.
I have a feeling I'm going to run out of stickers really fast. I'm "feeding the dolphins" as Katsuki-sensei put it. "You did a trick? Great, here's a fish!" I practically hand stickers out any time a kid is brave enough to try speaking English to me--even so much as saying "My name is ______." I figure baby steps are okay, until they get more comfortable seeing me around. And they're already learning that the more English they try to use, the bigger a sticker they get. And like kids anywhere, big stickers are way cooler than little stickers.
That weekend
Did I do anything particularly exciting?
Not really.
Saturday I spent about 4 hours deep cleaning my apartment. And after all that work, I really didn't want to do much.
I spent an hour alone on my microwave. It was that filthy. Apparently, the last person in this apartment never even touched the thing. So who knows how many years that microwave went without cleaning. But now that I have gotten it respectably clean, I have found out that it is white on the inside.
Random thing I found in my microwave: remnants of chocolate coins.
No joke. Someone, some years ago, tried to microwave chocolate coins. The aluminum foil packaging was still nice and shiny, and I'm assuming the crispy black stuff stuck in between the pieces is what remains of the chocolate. It was buried in quite a bit of grime, so I was rather startled when I discovered this ancient treasure. I felt rather like Indiana Jones. Or perhaps Lara Croft would be more apt?
On Sunday I started making headway exploring the shopping arcades Downtown. (Remember: they stretch for blocks and blocks.) I was on the hunt for a track suit, or some kind of athletic wear. I'd been told that starting next week (currently this week) that the students would be practicing during the school day for Sports Day; I'd need to wear athletic gear while this practice would be going on.
But of course, finding a place that sold sports clothing was more of an ordeal than I had imagined. I'd figure I'd just head to UNIQLO, a Kohls-esque clothing chain, and easily pick up a set. But the UNIQLO that's downtown is a very small version of that chain--I only managed to pick up some of their super-awesome-why-don't-we-have-these-in-Arizona undershirts that are super lightweight, and specialize in absorbing sweat while keeping you cool. You pretty much have to wear these constantly in the summer. Most women here seem to wear the long-sleeved version of these, even on the hottest of days. It's apparently cooler than skin alone (and most Japanese women are very careful to avoid getting their skin tanned--the reverse of Arizona, where being tan is usually a status-symbol). I'm still not quite brave enough to try wearing long sleeves in this heat, though, so I'm that one weird woman not in long sleeves.
Anyways, UNIQLO didn't have what I was looking for. Apparently I should have tried the three-story one that's about a 30-minute walk from Shirasagi. But I'm rather lazy sometimes, and I'll manage that trek once my bike-riding ability improves. So I wandered the shopping arcades.
It was, at the same time, both a great decision, and a terrible one.
Great, because I found some of the coolest stores down these arcades, and I really only went down a couple blocks' worth. Terrible, because I found really cool stores, and I really need my first paycheck to arrive.
So much as the temptation killed me, I only made one small purchase at this really epic hippie store. I am already making plans to visit that particular store again, in the near future. (I think I'll be visiting that particular store a lot...)
I found a little Sports Boutique that was having a clearance sale on some of their athletic shirts and pants. Which was fortunate, because at full price the clothes were rather (ridiculously) expensive. 7500 yen for a pair of (nice) sweat pants, anyone? (That's about $75.00, by the way!) I walked out with a pretty nice set, though, and for a pretty good price considering the high quality of the fabric. I had to work up the courage to ask where the dressing room was. But the employees understood me after a few attempts ("Du-re-su-i-n-gu ruu-mu!") and were very nice!
(You know how "they" say Japan's the nicest country in the world? "They" weren't kidding! I think it's the first time that "they" have ever been right about anything. )
Sports Day Practice (Monday through Wednesday)
The schedule this week (September 9th through 11th, so far) has been devoting about 3-4 periods for school-wide practice for the upcoming Sports Day on the 22nd or 23rd.
I still don't understand most of what's being said, but I'm getting better at picking up words like "stand," "bow," "right," "left," and the various grades and classes. I've been spending a lot of time standing, both inside and outside. I'm sure my feet will get used to it eventually, since I'm really just out of practice. After all, I'd have days where I'd stand for 5 consecutive periods (and sometimes longer) while teaching, and this is usually for about the same amount of time. And if I keep telling myself this, eventually my feet will get their act together, and stop hurting after just a few hours. (They're such wimps!)
The practice sometimes involves the entire student body (somewhere between 600 and 800 students. I keep getting different numbers), but most of the time the students are split in half: boys and girls.
The boys have their own practice for a performance during the Sports Day. It involves making lots of human pyramids. They do a lot of core-strengthening exercises at the beginning of each practice session (which lasts a full period, or 50 minutes). Push-ups, sit-ups, stretches, running, etc, but all in unison. There's nothing quite so impressive as watching 300-or-so students doing exercise with perfectly coordinated timing. The practice starts to heat up when they start doing these exercises to practice for their human pyramids.
Only a video could do it justice:
Then they started making even larger pyramids. Or should I say, longer pyramids. They still have some practice to do; fortunately, they have two weeks to go!
And finally, they started working on this monster. On a special note, they split the boys into what looks like 6 groups, presumably so they can work up to making 6 of these giant pyramids simultaneously.
Notice that there are teachers standing all around it (and side note: those are grown men, tallest standing at around 5'10", to give you perspective on how tall that pyramid is). These pyramids, though a tradition for the boys, are pretty dangerous. Broken arms happen every year, and other injuries too. I've already seen a couple boys with arms in casts, and if one of them was telling the truth, he did indeed break it during practice. (He got an extra large Lilo & Stitch sticker on it, of which he was very excited!)
The boys have been practicing for a minimum of a couple hours a day every day this week. Just pyramids and exercises, over and over and over. Their fortitude is amazing!
And not to neglect the awesomeness that is the girls! While the boys are climbing all over each other in the dirt, you can hear some of the chants from the girls practicing a traditional fishing dance, which I believe is called the "Soran Bushi." I've been watching them start learning it over the last few days, and it involves a ton of muscle pain for the girls--their warm-ups consist of lots of exercises to strengthen their thigh muscles.
I filmed a couple of their practice runs through as much of the dance as they have learned so far. Hopefully some of the girls dancing lazily right now will shape up in time for the actual Sports Day. Although, to be fair, it's been pretty hot and humid out, and they only get to break once every 50 minutes.
As far as lessons goes for the last few days, the bulk of the school day has been devoted to sports day practice. Monday it was for 4 periods, which are 50 minutes long, with 10 minute breaks in between (for the teachers to move classrooms; in Japan, teacher's move during each period, and students remain in the same classroom). That meant Monday's Sports Day practice lasted about 4 hours. Tuesday and Wednesday the practice was reduced to three periods, so three hours outside for the students.
I've spent the remaining periods teaching!
The introductory lesson is immensely better now that I'm using projectors (aka doc cameras in teacher's terminology). We have to rent out the science classrooms though, but so far it hasn't been much of an issue. I've had 8 introductory lessons in total, with 10 more to go; this means I only need to rent a science classroom 10 more times, and from then on I'll make a point of using much larger pictures when the need arises.
I get to change things up when I work with the third year students (equivalent of 9th graders). I cut the introductory part to 25 minutes or so, and then spend a lot more time having them ask me questions. I shake things up for these more advanced kids, though (they've presumably had 3-5 years of English at this point. Depends on how recently the elementary schools have been required to teach English to 5th and 6th grade students), by asking back to them the same (or similar) question that they asked me. Only after they answer in a complete sentence do they get a coveted sticker. Their last 10 minutes or so of class is spent writing, in English, a letter to "Ms. Julia." (I can't quite get them to call me Ms. Daley, but I'm flexible.) I'm still working through grading those, and writing comments, but they have been very enjoyable reads!
I'm currently developing some nice flashcards with Arizona-themed vocabulary (like Saguaro, scorpion, Palo Verde, etc) in clear black-and-white line drawings that I will be able to show the students easily. It's nice to break out my copy of Photoshop to make these--I'm really feeling like this experience will have me using all of my skills to their fullest. I'll throw some pictures up once I get some good progress going!
Thursday, 9/12
Final section, I swear!
Today I had my first round of lessons at my elementary school, Hirohata Daini. It is, quite literally, across the street from Hirohata Junior High, so my commute didn't change too drastically.
As far as elementary schools go, it's pretty big. I gave a (much simpler) version of my Self Introduction lesson to the entire sixth grade, which has five classes of about 30-35 students each. Each classroom had a projector, which was fantastic!
I brought rolls of stickers I got from the USA. A student who answered a question correctly (and I really encouraged them to use English, or Eigo) would get a sticker. I had to limit them to one sticker per student, but they seemed to understand that pretty well. Though a few clever individuals figured out they could get extras if they hid their first stickers... Devious children are devious, no matter what country they're from!
The kids seemed to have a blast, and I had a lot of fun too. They'd get so excited every time I'd put up a picture. Even using a very simple vocabulary, I was able to convey quite a few concepts about Arizona and my family (and I have enough vocabulary in Japanese to translate the key words I was using. Desert = sabaku, Cactus = saboten). They loved the pictures of my pets. They thought my family were the coolest people ever. ("This is my mother. This is my brother. Who is this person? How old are they?") Scorpions were cool--Steve, my scorpion-in-a-bubble, was quite a hit. It took a lot of explaining about why most families in Arizona have swimming pools in their back yard; I had to generalize it to "everyone" to make life easier, talked about the sabaku, how it got atsui (hot), converted a high of 119 into Celsius, and explained how we got no ame (rain). Hirohata is a pretty rich area, with a lot of big houses by Japanese standards, but the Arizona standard for a big house is very different.
The kids are pretty autonomous at the elementary schools, just as they are in the middle school. The kids even serve their own classmates lunch at lunch time (of which I got to partake in: fried fish head, pasta with marinara and mushrooms, and a hot-dog-looking piece of bread). Eating every bite is very important here, wasting food is kind of shocking. Works well with my own personal policy of not wasting any food, though, so I fit right in!
And I shall end this very lengthy blog post here! I'll really really try to avoid waiting so long in between posts. I'd try and give excuses about how the videos were giving me a harder time than I was expecting, but excuses are excuses. I'll work on keeping these to every other day intervals, and hopefully that will help to keep their length manageable. I've only begun to scratch the surface at explaining just how different Japanese culture is--so I'll try to take more photos and write about Japan, in general, as regularly as I can.
I think Ms Julia is the one who deserves a big LILO sticker! Great post - you made it come alive!
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