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Tuesdays Begin and End with ICE CREAM April 6, 2010

Posted by Earthdragonette in ice cream, Student Moments.
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Ice cream is definitely the theme we’re working with for Tuesday’s “memory to cherish forever.” Not only is it impossible for me to choose just one meaningful moment out of so many, but in the afternoon, The Awesome Vice Principal (in an action true to form) surprised the staff room with delicious soft cream and Popsicles.

So, let’s get started. ICE CREAM.

~ I really enjoyed seeing my new first year students, and was very proud when they officially matriculated. I think that they were happy to see a familiar face at the middle school, and I was able to help them with small bits of etiquette and direction throughout the morning. It’s nice to know that they trust me, and that I can assist them through this transition.

~ There were lots of opportunities to interact with my 2nd and 3rd years, too. I spent some quality time with Hannah Montana, The Child, Penelope, Avril, Aphrodite, Clemente, and Hermione. Listening to their opinions about school politics and gossip is one of the best parts of my job.

~ Speaking of Clemente, he said one of the nicest things to me during one of the mid-morning breaks. Every class year is assigned a home room teacher and a sub-home room teacher. They take care of class planning and various administrative tasks. He told me that the third years thought I would be assigned as their sub-HRT and that they were really disappointed when I wasn’t. I explained that my position as an ALT keeps me from doing things like that, but I was touched by the thought. As I’ve said in the past, little comments like that one make me happy.

~ After all of the students had gone home, the middle school staff dragged tables and chairs outside and we had a huge picnic lunch underneath the cherry blossom trees. The weather was absolutely perfect for it, too: warm and sunny with a slight breeze. The new school nurse is a really funny lady, and she declared the dessert platter the property of the female staff members and told the men that they’d have to pay rock-paper-scissors with us if they wanted anything from it. With stunts like that one, I can tell that she and I are going to be friends.

~ In the afternoon, I had a really nice meeting with The Mentor at Thursday’s elementary school. As I previously surmised, not a whole lot is changing about my schedule this year (despite the heart attack and nervous breakdown that my town’s administration gave me last February). I will still (more or less) be teaching the first through fourth years. The only real change from last year is that I’ll be teaching the fifth and sixth grades once a week, and so that increases my class load a bit. I’m not really worried about it, though. I have a feeling that things will work out fine.

~ A final memory from yesterday that I’d like to hold on to happened just before I left to go home. After we’d finished our ice cream, Apollonius invited us to the lunchroom so that he could show us how to use the new electronic Smart Board that our school just bought. It’s an electronic whiteboard that connects to computers, televisions, projectors… just about anything really. We spent about half an hour looking at its various features, and even took about ten minutes to play a game using Japanese kanji. Running back and forth to this blackboard to win points for my team was surprisingly fun. I liked how this rounded out the events of the day, and put many things into perspective. We’re all here to learn – even the teachers – and we’re supposed to do anything we can to help each other in this process. I like being a part of a team that takes this task seriously.

Wednesday will be the first day that the students are in school during the mostly-normal hours, although the first years will go home early. I’m sure I’ll have more than a few memories to regale you with when all is said and done. I anticipate a lot of very loud, very spastic interactions.

I’m a friend by your side
Never gonna be alone

Soup and Sentiment March 8, 2010

Posted by Earthdragonette in Just Bizarre.
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So… first things first. I present to you this week’s soup, as made by the International Father-Daughter Team. I have a lot of dried beans that I’m trying to use up, so I suggested that we make something with red lentils. This was what we found:

Turkish Red Lentil Soup (courtesy of this site)

  1. Bring 12 cups of water to a boil and add red lentils and 2 tsp salt. Simmer for 30 minutes.
  2. While lentils are cooking, put the olive oil, onions, and potatoes in a large saute pan and saute for 4 minutes or until the onions are translucent. Add the bulgur, paprika, cumin, cayenne, and stir until browned about 2-3 minutes. Then add the tomatoes, tomato paste, parsley, and stir for 2-3 more minutes.
  3. Add the contents of this pot to the lentils along with the additional 4 cups of water. Simmer for another 40 minutes or until the lentils and bulgur are soft.
  4. Some recipes recommend that you put the soup in a blender when finished and puree it. Normally, when I have it in restaurants it is pureed. The family recipes do not add this step, and I served it without pureeing. Either way it is equally delicious. If you want to impress guests, you might try pureeing. Otherwise, just serve as is.
  5. When ready to serve, add the lemon juice. You may want to serve with sliced lemon, fresh mint, plain yogurt, or sumac to add after serving, or you can add to each bowl for a beautiful and tasty finish!

My dad and I both left out the bulgur, and I used a can of tomatoes instead of fresh ones (since they’re still not really in season here). We also cut the recipe in half, since 16 cups of soup is a lot of soup and freezer space is limited.

I very much liked this soup. The texture makes it great for pairing with bread (in particular this bread, which I also made yesterday) and a glass of wine. The taste is very earthy and has a lot of layers to it. I definitely recommend adding something sour at the end (lemon juice, yogurt, sour cream…) ~ I think that the balance is strange if it’s left out.

Culinary-wise, I’m particularly pleased right now, because thanks to The Meat Guy I finally found veal bones and lamb bones so that I can make something besides chicken or vegetable stock. I’ve asked my dad that we make this week’s soup beef-stock oriented and he promised to find something interesting.

So… besides cooking, what’s been going on? What kinds of memories have I been making?

To tell you the truth, whatever force it was that awoke in February and decided to Mix Things Up in my life, it has decided to stay for the month of March as well. Given the way things are looking at present, I have a feeling that it’s going to make itself at home for the duration of 2010.

The more that I think about it, this force, whatever it may be, isn’t exactly malignant. It’s not something as simple as Bad Luck. The things that are happening, I can see why they’re happening so there’s method to this madness. In many cases, what starts out as difficult and frustrating ultimately resolves into something positive. The process by which we get from the frustrating to the positive, however, is what’s taking a lot of energy out of me.

In addition, there is no middle ground as far as my experiences (and memories) go. I am not having “okay” days. I’m having days where my activities and interactions are EXTREMELY GOOD or EXTREMELY UNFORTUNATE. The highs are high, the lows are low, and there is most definitely not any “in between” to speak of. Moderation has all but left the building.

Here’s an example of what I mean. Let’s examine what happened to me on Saturday.

~ Got up, had breakfast, enjoyed a lengthy conversation with my father = Very Good!

~ Drove to the gas station and had a lovely conversation with the attendants (an older couple) who are very interested in me and asked a lot of polite, well-meaning questions = Very Good!

~ Went to an Italian Restaurant and was not given certain menus because they didn’t think I could understand Japanese. Was forced to order a more expensive meal than I’d wanted to = Somewhat Unfortunate

~ During the meal at this restaurant, the pizza crust chipped one of my tooth implants = Extremely Unfortunate

~ Went to see Mozart’s Don Giovanni = Very Good!

~ Got Starbucks and great cooking supplies on the way home = Very Good!

~ Woke up several times throughout the evening sick because of aforementioned overly expensive Italian meal = Unfortunate

So, in the end, I can’t say that Saturday was a bad day, per say. But the Goods were good, the Unfortunates were unfortunate, and I am trying to keep things in perspective as best as I can. My situation could most certainly be worse (knock on wood), and to mope about the Unfortunates would take away from the Goods, which I refuse to let happen.

Still, Saturday is more or less the paradigm that I’ve lived through almost every day since the start of February. This is one of the reasons it’s been difficult to write about my memories; I’m not really sure what to say since each day is such a marbled mixture of both Positive and Negative. By the time that the end of the day rolls around, I’m really only good for making dinner and listening to heavy metal on repeat. It’s as if… and forgive me the slight hyperbole in this statement… it’s as if my experiences are a little too vivid. I feel overwhelmed by the sharpness of my experiences right now, and it’s been difficult to write about them.

Thinking about this, it occurs to me that (as I more or less said before) trying to keep a grounded perspective is the best thing I can do right now. I suspect that such a perspective, more than anything else, will help me to navigate through the bizarre waters that I seem to have drifted into.

So, skipping over the second part of last week because, well, I can’t remember that much of it ^_^;; … let’s try to focus on Monday.

Today was, not surprisingly, somewhat bittersweet. It was the last full day of school for the third years; their graduation ceremony is tomorrow. On one hand, everyone at the school is proud of the them and we want them to move forward. On the other hand, they’ve been a really great class and the school will feel empty without them. The students themselves have similar feelings, and so everyone’s emotions are wildly fluctuating between merriment and, well, misery.

I spent as much of my day around them as was humanly possible. I went to see them in between classes, ate with them at lunch, cleaned with them, and signed dozens of yearbooks. Mary Sunshine, Macho Man, and, yes, The Savant stayed close to me, too, I noticed. Mary Sunshine made me promise that we would go running on weekends and during the summer, and that she would always be welcome to do a home stay in the States. We also took moments here and there to sing Jay Sean songs and to dance together. Macho Man and I spent most of the day flexing our muscles and proclaiming to any-and-everybody that “We ARE Macho!” The Savant took several opportunities to tell me that he respected me very much and that he still maintains that He Is Perfect.

I did manage to catch some time with the first and second year students as well. I spoke with Penelope, Aphrodite, Snow White, Avril, Clemente, and The Child at some length while we were cleaning the gym in preparation for tomorrow’s ceremony. I think it’s good for me to spend time with them, because although they’re sad about the third years leaving, they’re also looking forward to becoming third year students themselves. It will be their year to shine, and this is a bunch that notoriously covets the spotlight.

My first years were functioning on a completely separate plane of existence today; although they’re interested in the graduation, they’re more focused on what teachers will be staying at the school for the next school year. The teachers themselves won’t know their assignments until Wednesday, and the students won’t be told until the 24th. I suspect that we won’t see a lot of teachers reassigned to other schools for this next year, but that’s just a theory. The first years were particularly concerned with my assignment, apparently unaware that I don’t get moved around from school to school like regular Japanese teachers. They were happy to know that I’d be staying for another year, and violently adamant that I was not allowed to leave after that.

I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.

So, I suppose what I’m trying to communicate via this long, winding post is that things are busy. Not wretched, confusing, or disheartening. Just …  overwhelming and taxing on all levels. I’m certainly not bored, and I suppose I should be grateful for that. Every day is challenging and I’m having to think fast and move even faster. I suppose these conditions are what makes it difficult for me to stop, reflect, and select one ripened, meaningful moment from the day.

But, I’ll muddle through somehow – that I have no doubt of. I’m not sure where we’ll be at the end of tomorrow, this week, this month, or goodness knows this year. But, that’s more or less the way that life goes, now isn’t it?

Even if you don’t wanna speak tonight
That’s all right, all right with me.

Countdown to Graduation: 1 Week March 2, 2010

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This title means that as of Tuesday evening we have only two days left in the company of our snarky, funny, glorious third years. I just finished making their graduation presents and I can already feel the Empty Nest Syndrome hovering around the edges of my consciousness. I take refuge in the knowledge that the incoming first year class is going to be spectacularly fun, and that things will settle into a new and interesting routine. In the end, graduation is an emotional roller coaster whose highs and lows need to be put into the proper perspective.

This is what I keep telling myself.

We have a lot of little things that happened on Tuesday, so let’s ICE CREAM this post, shall we?

~ The Boss was really funny during lunch, and we now have a running joke about how we’re absolutely furious with each other. He claims that I told him he was gay (which I swear upon Galileo’s orange, rubbery soul I did not), and my claim is that he’s been trying to sabotage my happiness for the last year and a half. I regret to say that diplomatic discussions quickly degenerated into name calling via a rather unorthodox use of my electronic dictionary (I don’t anyone has ever called me a placenta before, even if it was in the heat of feigned anger). Now, our meetings in the hallway inspire mock rage, characterized by squinted eyes, and vague snarls that expose only the edges of our canine teeth. We part from these encounters yelling warnings about how the other needs to be sure to watch his or her back.

~ Mary Sunshine has been more or less attached to my person since the week began. If I sit down, she sits on top of me. If I stand up, she tries to climb on my back. It’s nice to know she’ll miss me, too.

~ Macho Man is really such a fun person for me to interact with. Although he and I don’t have thoughtful, intense discussions, I enjoy our exchanges because we say so much in so many unique ways. Take lunchtime for example. He was sitting at the table next to mine and we were facing each other.

I looked up and saw he was looking at me. I nodded my head. He nodded his head.

I nodded my head again.

He nodded his head and gave me a little wave.

I copied the wave.

He started to laugh, and I gave him a sharp look in rebuke.

He copied the look and then we regarded each other with suspicion.

Cue staring contest.

It was a tie – we blinked at the same time. (We may or may not have crossed our eyes in an attempt to break the other’s concentration.)

He flexed his right arm. It’s macho.

I flexed my right arm. This is also macho.

And that’s pretty much the end of the conversation.

~ Hyde, bless his little rocker soul, listened to my recommendation and tried out Edguy. It is no surprise that he enjoyed them, because they are in fact the best band in the world. Really, with the knowledge that he is aspires to follow their every move on twitter, my work here is almost done.

~ Because of all the focus on my third years, I decided to take time out and reconnect with my second years during the lunch recess. Penelope, Clemente, Aphrodite, and Avril were in attendance and all were fantastically hilarious. I guess they’re having drama with the first year class, and so they regaled me with stories of their grievances. Ah, middle school.

~ And last but certainly not least: The Child. The second years had a speaking test this week and I wasn’t sure how he would do on it. He worked really hard during the class when we introduced the test and practiced for it, but he is notorious for not studying *after* class. It was anyone’s guess as to how he would perform. I am pleased to announce that he did a spectacular job. He had moments of confusion, but he was really good about correcting himself, and (I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again) his pronunciation was amazing. I feel that now the time is right for me to push him with this Othello Rap for the culture festival.

I suppose I still have high hopes for reconciling these universes of mine.

Even… with graduation looming ahead of us … even if these universes are changing.

When you and I are alone
I’ve never felt so at home

Now we, too, shall start preparing for the new year. February 2, 2010

Posted by Earthdragonette in Background, Student Moments.
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First and foremost, I’d like to apologize for the rampant grammatical errors that wrecked havoc with my last post. I think I’ve managed to catch and neutralize most of them, but I suspect that it damaged my well-educated and scholarly image. I wasn’t joking about the necesity of using the ICE CREAM format; I only had about twenty minutes to write yesterday’s post and so there wasn’t nearly enough time to edit.

Okay, so now that that’s out of the way, on to Tuesday’s post. Thankfully (for all of us), I’m writing this in the evening and I have time to devote to all the joys of writing. The brainstorming, the webbing, the flow charts, the … awkward moments when I can’t think of the phrase I want to use to convey the actual process of writing without using the phrase “actual process of writing” because it sounds wordy, and the editing to make sure that my tenses are consistent!

Today was interesting because although my third years were back, they were so busy with preparing for their high school entrance examinations and interviews that I didn’t have many opportunities to interact with them. We’ll have a class tomorrow (the first time in a while), so I’m looking forward to that. In the meantime though (and as I tried to indicate indicated in yesterday’s post), I’ve been spending more time with my second and first year students.

I had a particularly entertaining conversation with Aphrodite today, because Valentine’s Day is quickly approaching and it’s the Japanese custom for women to give men hand baked chocolate goods on February 14th. (The boys are supposed to return the gesture with [store-bought] white chocolate products on March 14th.) The problem here is that Aphrodite hates (and I do mean HATES) cooking, and so she suffers through this holiday year after year. I think her problem is hilarious and find great satisfaction in teasing her about it.

The feeling of camaraderie that I felt with her and the other second years during this exchange was tangible. I wouldn’t say that it’s on part with the comfort I have with, say, Mary Sunshine, but I could feel the potential for a more substantial “older sister” kind of relationship. I do know everything about her love life, after all.

So, in the spirit of the season, I think that it’s time for us to get ready for the next school year as well. We can do this by reminding ourselves of our key first and second year students and including some new names. Tomorrow, assuming that nothing absolutely extraordinary happens, we can do the same with the sixth year elementary students.

So, what do we have?

2nd Years:

The Familiar:

The Child
This student is one of my favorites. Ever. But he has been my greatest challenge since I first conceived of striving against adversity in any form. He is temperamental, extremely intelligent, unapologetically sarcastic (which is kind of amazing because Japan doesn’t do sarcasm), easily bored, easily frustrated, easily discontent with losing, easily discontent with winning. Some days he loves me and no one else is allowed to talk to me, and some days he requests that I go somewhere and die. His English is the best in the school as far as pronunciation goes. He likes to collect English translations of Japanese comics.

Clemente
Like Roberto Clemente, this student is the epitome of charity and work ethic. He is also one of the most genuine individuals that I’ve ever met and is honest beyond question. He often helps me work with The Child and he’s just a fun kid to be around. Clemente is in the baseball club and he is both a fantastic first baseman and an amazing catcher. Recently, I’ve been talking with him more often and he’s quite hilarious.

Penelope
Just as Penelope is the literary icon of faithfulness, ingenuity, work ethic, sincerity, this girl plays this role at the middle school.  She’s the kind of person to go to a presentation that nobody else cares about. She will not only go to it, but she will sit up straight the entire time, take notes, and then ask questions afterwards and it’s all completely authentic. She cares that much. This is one student that has made me a better person for having known her. She is the current Student Council President.

Aphrodite
She is one half of the school’s Super Couple – we spend a lot of time talking about our love lives (both the good parts and the bad parts). She’s quite lively and sweet; I really enjoy interacting with her and I get most of my romance gossip from her. She’s also one of my best letter writers, so I’ve learned a lot of great Japanese from her. I suppose it would probably be okay to mention here that she’s been dating Macho Man for the last year.


The Newcomers:

Snow White
There is just something about this student that tugs at my heartstrings. She is incredibly sweet, and she has this unusual combination of insight and innocence that makes her remarkably genuine and empathetic. I think that I feel the most like a teacher when I’m around her. Perhaps she is one of the few that looks at me as an authority figure, and she takes what I say to heart.

Avril
Smart, sassy, and more than a little rock and roll, Avril will say the things that other people are thinking. This isn’t to suggest that she’s rude or mouthy, she’s just very clever and does not suffer fools. I like her because she’s very direct and clear about her opinions, and this makes interacting with her both entertaining and enlightening.

1st Years:

The Familiar:

The Whistler
My favorite first year student. He’s genuinely interested in English and always goes the extra mile to make sure that he understands what’s going on. I call him The Whistler because we have a thing (dating back to his elementary school days) where we whistle when we’re around each other. It’s quite fun – we copy each others’ responses, try out various songs that we both know, and comment on what happens around us.

Hannah Montana
This girl knows more about current American pop culture than I do, thus the name. High School Musical is, I believe, her favorite. She’s Penelope’s younger sister and she has that same honest spirit. I like to eat lunch with her and her friends because she always does her best to use the recent classroom grammar to communicate her feelings. She’s on the kendo team and I respect her a lot for trying such a difficult club. Recently, she’s started to write me letters about once a week and so we’re starting to get to know each other better.

Sailor Moon
Kind of a Japanese culture reference here, but let’s just say that this girl has two unbelievably long pigtails, an overwhelming addiction to junk food, and an equally overwhelming addiction to the spoken word. Still, she is hilarious, and she says the most ridiculous, sensational things. Her mom and I are buddies and we always spend a lot of time together at festivals (usually with her mom repeating the only five English words she knows while I try to keep up).

Newcomers:

Hermione
Just like her namesake (from Harry Potter), Hermione is extremely studious (at least about English) and very energetic. She takes great pride in overcoming the challenges that I throw at the students in class, and is extremely vocal when I do things she doesn’t like (say, for example, not showing Michael Jackson videos). She thinks that my Japanese is funny and takes it upon herself to quiz me whenever she can. I haven’t been doing so well recently and she’s starting to declare me a lost cause. I told her that we could trade and SHE could teach English, but she was pretty vocal about not liking that idea.

Britney
Brittney is interesting. Normally, it would be easy to categorize her as one of the non-studious popular girls that only cares about boys and makeup… but she’s very intelligent. Extremely intelligent, really, and she likes English so she does well in my class. I’m not exactly sure what it is about English that she likes and I can’t say anything about how she performs in math or science class, but she always knows what’s going on in my lessons and I like the kinds of things that she says. And, outside of class – you guessed it. We talk about boys and makeup … in English.

Lewis
Lewis was particularly taken with The Jabberwocky, and even to this day greets me by saying: “Julie! One, two! One, two! And through and through!” Lewis is entertaining because if he doesn’t talk, I think he forgets to breathe and loses consciousness. So, he pretty much talks all. the. time. Still, what he says tends to contribute to the conversation/lesson/positive nature of the environment, and so it’s pleasant to hear – once you’ve gotten used to it.

Carroll
Lewis’s partner in crime. Also a fan of The Jabberwocky, although not exactly a fan of English. He’s a very nice boy, though, so I forgive him for more or less spending my entire class praying for the clock hands to move faster. My entire plan for the rest of the third term revolves around getting him caught up so that the second year of English doesn’t destroy him.

And, there you have it. The big names that will be playing more prominent roles over the next few months. I’m sure that there will be others that we’ll have to add in the future, but this should do for now.

I believe in miracles
They happen every day

Shall we gyre and gimble in the wabe? January 13, 2010

Posted by Earthdragonette in Student Moments, Taking Initiative.
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I would like first to take the opportunity to tell you that it’s currently 46 degrees in my apartment. Well, generally speaking, that is. The temperature is about 63 where I’m sitting, but if I go too far from my space heater then I can see my breath.

Winter. I love it because of it’s the time of year where I can enjoy my birthday, the Christmas season, the baking season, and the multitude of hot, tasty beverages. I also like it because Japan’s nasty, poisonous centipedes are nowhere to be found. I am slightly averse to it, however, because central heating is more of a gift than a given here, and there are some days where I miss feeling my toes.

~ ~ ~ Moving On ~ ~ ~

 Today, I did something kind of daring. I’m hoping that it wasn’t stupid, but we’re going to have to wait until next week to see if I grievously erred or not.

You might recall that last October, I had my first year JHS students memorize a stanza from Vincent Price’s monologue from Michael Jackson’s Thriller. It was a risky move on my part, because the grammar and vocabulary were far beyond their abilities and they’d never had to memorize anything in English. Still, about 95% of the class rallied and did a remarkably good job on their speaking tests. After seeing this success, My Japanese Sister told me that she’d be interested in doing something like it again.

Today was the day when we were finally able to do this activity again. After a lot of thought, I decided to assign the students the first four lines of Lewis Carroll’s Jabberwocky.

It took me awhile to come up with this idea; I had a lot of problems finding a poem that would be near their level, and I couldn’t find any songs with lyrics that were easily divided into four or five meaningful lines. After hours of scouring the internet, I was irritated and almost to the point of giving up when, suddenly, I remembered The Jabberwocky. More specifically, I remembered that I was in first grade when I memorized The Jabberwocky. It’s a pretty demanding poem for a six-year-old, but in spite of this (or perhaps because of it), my first grade teacher was adamant that we needed to know this poem. I think it took me a couple of weeks, but I was able to memorize all of it. And now, almost twenty years later, I still remember it.

So, then it hit me: why not make my first years memorize this poem? After all, *I* certainly didn’t understand it when I studied it for the first time, so in that way my students would be going into this task about as blind as I was. Getting the materials together to make a viable lesson plan was a little tricky, and it took me forever to find an acceptable video to show them so that they’d understand what was happening in the poem (the language may be obscure, but the words do tell a story).

Still, I pulled everything together and I think that class went well today. Initially, the students were a little put off by the level of difficulty, but all it took was one repetition of “jubjub bird” and they were hooked. I like to think that my dramatic reading of the poem also helped to sell it to them.

Considering that these students don’t even know how to use the continuous tense yet, much less the past tense or passive voice, this still may not have been one of my best ideas. -_-;; Still, I want them to have opportunities to memorize English that has a place in our culture, and that sounds interesting and fun. Even if they can’t understand all of the words, I think that they’ll gain confidence from being able to say them.

At least, that’s my theory. I suppose we’ll just have to see how they do on their test next Wednesday.

*Also, I’d like to note, even though it’s not central to today’s memory, that Penelope really is a gem, much like Mary Sunshine. I had an absolutely enchanting lunch with her today, where she asked me a lot of great questions about my trip and tried her hardest to speak to me in English. She and Aphrodite are beginning to ask me serious questions about how they can go about doing a home stay with me when I finally move back to the States. It’s nice to see that this story continues to twist and turn in unexpected ways.

  

Here’s the story of a brother by the name of Othello
He liked white women and he liked … green … jello….
And a punk named Iago, who made himself a menace
‘Cause he didn’t like Othello, the moor of Venice

  

 

Sometimes, I wonder if it’s possible to plan anything. November 25, 2009

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^o^ Happy Early Thanksgiving ^o^  

This post is going up on Wednesday for most of you, but it’s already The Official Day here in Japan. I think I mentioned earlier that I won’t be having my turkey dinner until December 5th, so today I’m living vicariously through you all. I hope you have a wonderful holiday.

Wednesday was a very ordinary day in many respects. I had lessons with my first and third years, got caught up on Aphrodite’s love life during life, danced with Mary Sunshine during lunch break, and talked to The Savant during cleaning time.

Wednesday also brought with it some pretty significant news – the contents of which give me the opportunity to address an issue that’s been developing with respect to this blog.

I started this blog in August of this year – more or less a year from when I’d planned to leave Japan.  The JET Program allows its participants to stay for up to five years, but I’d decided that a four-year experience was enough for me and that the time had come to return to the United States and develop some other areas of my life. Specifically, I’m interested in going to school so that I can become a full-time teacher; I yearn for my own home room class.

The difficulties started about a month ago – right around the time that I stopped posting regularly. I’ve been considering a number of graduate programs, but the majority of them start in May. There are some part-time programs available that begin in September, and for a long time I’d assumed that I would come back to the States in August of next year and then just do one of those. When I examined the programs a little closer, though, I realized that I the full-time programs were more to my liking and that I’d rather enroll in one of those.

This then left me the problem of what to do from August of 2010 until May of 2011. Health insurance was a big concern of mine, and I also wanted those months to be productive. I discussed a number of options with my father, including enrolling in a local community college or looking for other temporary jobs with benefits. At one point, though, he asked how I would feel about staying in Japan until May of 2011 and if it would even be possible.

The idea of staying here past August of 2010 has never been abhorrent to me. It’s no secret that I love my students, respect my coworkers, and feel challenged and inspired by my responsibilities. I have friends and family-like members here, and I think I have a lot of opportunities to learn new things. The difficulty is that there are areas of one’s life that are difficult to develop when one is not in their country of origin (and when one plans to return to that country at some point). Still, I’ve consistently been tempted by the thought of a fifth year for a variety of reasons (not the least of which being the chance to continue working with my elementary students).

So, about a month ago, I went and spoke with The Supervisor. I explained to him that I couldn’t sign up for a full fifth year (that would end in August of 2011), because that would mean I couldn’t start graduate school until May of 2012, and that’s too long of a wait. However, if my Board of Education was interested, I would be able and willing to stay until April of 2011 (thus giving me enough time to go back to the States and start graduate school the following May).

I won’t bore you with the details of the conversation, or the one that we had on Wednesday, but the bottom line is that my town is interested in hiring me privately starting next August. The contract will last until April of 2011, and I believe that the conditions of that contract and my current conditions will be about the same. Generally speaking, I’m really happy with this arrangement. It’s taking me a little time to get used to this new universe that I’ve wandered in to, but I think that things are working out for the best.

So, this also leaves me in a strange position with this blog. Instead of 251 days of memories left, it seems that I have more in the realm of 520.* This is difficult for me because I really liked the simple and direct theme of this blog: 365 days = 365 memories. More than anything, I don’t want this blog to become a “Daily Account of Julie’s Life in Japan,” because I don’t think that perspective is particularly interesting. ^_^;;

So, right now, I’m thinking about how to adapt this blog to my new circumstances. Until I do, I ask that you pardon my mess. The posts may be a little irregular and the focus may seem a little fuzzy at times.

But, I’m sure things will shape up.
They always do.


So keep me awake for every moment
Give me more time to feel this way

I am perverse and contrary September 3, 2009

Posted by Earthdragonette in Student Moments.
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I went to a nearby (and by “nearby” I mean an hour’s drive from my apartment) town tonight to do some shopping for this Saturday’s dinner party. As such, I am currently what is recognized in intellectual circles as being exhausted. Morpheus calls to me, and as I have suggested on more than one occasion, he is an extremely demanding companion.

Still, today was not without its moments. I submit the following:

~ I taught The Child how to play Minesweeper today. I was using my computer to show a PowerPoint presentation to the second years, and he came to chat with me before class started. Given that he has a pretty solid fixation on my computer’s games and my iTunes playlist, it was only about three seconds before he grabbed a chair, sat down in front of the screen and found Minesweeper. He’d never seen it before, so it was only natural that he demand that I show him how to play. (And then he yelled at me every time he found a mine.)  The nice thing about this is that I was able to explain it to him using simple English and he gradually got the idea. I like to think that clearing the easy level before the bell rang was what put him in a good mood so that he was inspired to behave himself during class.

~ I got into a vocabulary … well, the phrase I want to use is “pissing match,” but that doesn’t exactly scream “sophistication.” So, let’s go with a vocabulary showdown with The Savant during lunch today. He’d spent a good part of the first ten minutes of lunch asserting that he was an incredibly honest and friendly person. He, and I quote him on this, “makes other people happy – JUST BECAUSE.”

So, I told him that I thought he was “crafty” – using my electronic dictionary so he knew what I meant. 

He responded by telling me, with the dictionary, that NO, he was actually “invincible.”

I told him I thought that was “arrogant.” 

He retorted that I was “perverse and contrary.”

I agreed with him, but said the word that he was looking for was ”snarky.”

He told me that he was the ”Russian czar.” (I’m not making that up.)

(I decided not to point out how that particular title contradicted his claim of invincibility.)

Instead, I countered that it didn’t matter because I am, in fact, “omniscient.”

At this point the showdown came to an end because he couldn’t find the retort that he was looking for. He ended up somewhere among entries about battleships before he gave up. Unfortunately, the electronic dictionary has its limits.

~ Poor Aphrodite - being part of the school’s Super couple isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Especially when she’s having to fight to keep her Sweet Baboo in the midst of an intense attack from a rather formidable third year. Oh, middle school love…

~ I’ve been invited to go on a field trip with the students in October. This is something that I’ve done for the last two years, but it’s the first time that my presence has been a given. We can thank The Awesome Vice Principal for that one. The trip will be to Little World – a small theme park outside of Nagoya. It’s kind of a poor man’s version of Epcot, but I’m quite fond of it. I think that it’s tastefully done, and it’s a great opportunity to buy foreign food. 

What’s particularly funny about all of this to me is that for some reason (and I really have no idea why), The Awesome Vice Principal is convinced that I have some deep appreciation and love for alligator meat. This can be found at Little World, and so he’s been talking about nothing else for two days. He is not only convinced that eating alligator kabobs is the one desire burning brightly in my heart at this moment, but he is very happy that he KNOWS that it’s the one desire burning brightly in my heart at this moment. I really see no reason at all to correct him on this – it’s an assumption that’s making us both happy. Besides, alligator kabobs are tasty. 
 
~ Last but not least, I had a nice meeting with my Friday elementary school today. It was one of the first where I didn’t trip over my Japanese or feel alienated by a confused and nervous teaching staff. I also saw that one of the teachers has really gone to great lengths to prepare his own English lessons for this upcoming term, and that is fantastic news indeed. Not only does it take pressure off of me, but it allows us to work together more (instead of me simply directing the class).  

So, in summary, today will stay in my memory because I was fulfilling my potential while being-at-work-staying-myself. I may not be the Russian czar (like some people, apparently), but I can be happy with my own perverse and contrary humble circumstances.
 

“You tell me what you’d do if you were me
But you are you and I am I!”

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