Rocko « Where I Intended to Be

3.14 = Pi Day! March 14, 2010

Posted by Earthdragonette in Apologies, Japanese GET, Julie Gets Philosophical, Time to Party.
Tags: elementary school, party, Rocko, running, the first years, the hippie, The Japanese Best Friend, veal stock, winter term
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It would seem that if I am consistent about anything, I am consistent about Having Good Intentions. We seem to have the “Early-Week-Blogging” routine secured, it’s just that “Hump-Day-Going-Into-The-Weekend” portion that continues to elude us. I blame it on Thursday. And Bad Luck. Between Chaos and Illness, Thursday night has started to become that “required Night of Comfort Food and Great Movies.” Last week featured spicy chicken with rice soup and Wayne’s World. It did not feature an update about how much I love the vice principal at Thursday’s elementary school.

Okay, so, pulling away from my errant nature, let’s regroup, focus, and do what needs to be done. We have memories – actual, honest to goodness memories – to peruse. And I must say it’s about time.

Thursday: I love the vice principal at Thursday’s elementary school
…because he was extremely generous and let me go home after lunch to finish recuperating from my cold.

In addition to this love, though, Thursday was special for me because I had a class with The First Years. It was our last class of the year, and things went particularly well. Their home room teacher was back with us (The Hippie), and so they were a lot more manageable this time around (she was absent for the last class and so we were all feeling a bit feisty and difficult). To put it plainly, on Thursday The First Years did everything that makes me adore them as much as I do. They were rabidly curious about all elements of the lesson, they were enthusiastic, when they made mistakes they were comically horrified, and they danced the macarena like nobody’s business.

I’m not sure if I’ll have a class with them next year or not (I haven’t been informed of any decisions to that effect), so it’s still up in the air as to whether or not that was my last class with them. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.

Friday: Sticker Please
At Friday’s elementary school, the 12th was the last day for students to earn and/or redeem stickers for this year’s sticker card. Demonstrating that the art of procrastination transcends all borders, races, and religions, the students waited until the last possible moment to crowd around me, grubby and well-loved sticker cards in hand, so that they could get the prizes that they finally chose to covet. Some students were so desperate to finish their cards that they spent the entire day stalking me between classes and writing me letters. It was perhaps not the most graceful end to this year’s Achievement Card program, but I suspect that things worked out for the best. The process was chaotic and enthusiastic, but generally positive. I didn’t have to deal with more than a few bad attitudes or similar points of conflict.

What really made this day for me, though, was that the teachers were incredibly kind, gracious, and helpful. Also, they invited me to have lunch with them next Friday after the graduation ceremony. If this by any chance involves leaving the school to eat at, say, a restaurant, then it will be the first time that an elementary school has ever extended a social invitation to me. That’s enough of an achievement to leave me feeling accomplished for at least the next two or three weeks. ~_^

Saturday: I Was a Social Hermit
The “hermit” part happened in the morning, and then the “social” in the evening. Friday evening found me the happy recipient of my lamb and veal bones, so I spent Saturday morning making a veal stock for Sunday’s soup. (I’ll post the recipe later.) I also cleaned and spent a significant amount of time chatting with my father and Jyona33, so it was most certainly a productive time.

In the afternoon, I drove out to The Japanese Best Friend’s house where we had a Sayonara Party for Rocko, who will be returning to the States on the first of April. It was a nice party, with good food and good company. The Japanese Best Friend’s husband was particularly engaging and hilarious, so we all laughed a lot. I’ll be honest, though, and say that my favorite part of the evening was the rest period right before we finished cooking and the guests arrived. Sitting down with her to talk and drink green tea is probably one of my most favorite things to do.

Sunday: Running skills – I still have them
As you may have surmised, I haven’t been running a lot over the last few months. The weather hasn’t really cooperated with me and it’s been getting dark so early that I can’t see anything by the time that I get home from work. With spring having finally, well, sprung, the time has come to dust off the running shoes and get back to work.

It was funny, because I went outside with the idea that I would just take a half-hour walk, but before I knew it, I’d started to jog. I was able to do one of my 4k runs without any problems, and so I don’t think it will take me that long to get back to 5k.

As I was running, I realized a few things that were important, and that brought a lot of the day into focus for me.The first was that I don’t have any real desire to run extensive marathons. I think that if I can get to the point where I can easily and consistently run 5k a few times a week, I’ll be content with myself. It’s nice to have a significant, yet not overwhelmingly challenging goal.

Having decided upon this, I also realized that my village is gorgeous. I think this is something that I forget about during winter but then suddenly rediscover every spring. With the plum blossoms in bloom and the cherry blossoms just on the horizon, the world around me is clearly waking up and stretching its wings. Being outside, I felt that same sensation inside of me. This feeling only grew stronger as I ran up and down the mountain hills, past the rice fields, past the Wisdom Shrine, across the old bridges that drape over the Ouchiyama river, and down old, moss-covered streets.

The air in my village changes significantly with the seasons. In summer it’s heavy and damp, and it smells strongly of grass and old wood. In the fall, the smoke from garbage fires and stoves is almost spicy, and it slices through the chill. Winter is disturbing because there aren’t many smells in the air – it’s as if everything really has frozen in time. It’s as if we’re all holding our breath.

But spring, though. In spring, the gardens are freshly plowed, the flowers are vibrant and sweet, and people have opened their windows and doors, welcoming spring and mixing the smells of the inside and outside worlds. It’s a time where we all exhale and savor every breath after.

Never giving in
Until we find the words to say

In a parallel universe, I update my blog every day. Part III. November 15, 2009

Posted by Earthdragonette in Apologies, Julie Gets Philosophical, Lessons Learned, Me Time, Student Moments, Weekend Recap.
Tags: america trip, christmas, disney, elementary school, fall term, football, Japan, Japanese, Mary Sunshine, Rocko, skype, The Savant
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And here we are – six memories away from settling accounts. I apologize again for how inconsistent things have been recently – the second term is a monster and I feel perpetually behind on just about everything. ^_^;

Okay, let’s go!

#21 Sometimes I Have Bad Days
Far be it from me to suggest that every day of my life is a slice of beatitude that begins with me watching scenic Japanese sunrises while drinking green tea and that ends with listening to traditional Japanese enka and meditating on the mysteries of the East. This is obviously not the case; I prefer coffee and, at present, I’m listening to Jay Sean. (Also, at this point in my life, meditation = sleep, which is the ultimate and long-sought-after goal of my daily existence.)

Furthermore, I do in fact have days that start off uncomfortable, persist through states of Awkward, and end with me hiding underneath my bed so that I don’t have to listen to people say… things. Things in Japanese. Things in English. Things in any language, really. Last Monday was kind of one of those days. The reasons aren’t really important (although traffic and being behind on work were part of it). Still, it was a state of mind that dramatically improved after a long, fruitful conversation with Morpheus.

Also, the truth is that I really can’t resent having days that are more negatively charged. Those kinds of days are opportunities to cultivate perspective and appreciation for the good days. At least, that’s what I can say objectively. ^o^

#22 They’re Back – My Favorite Duo!
Because our schedules have been so unusual lately, and the students have been out sick, it’s been some time since I really goofed off interacted with Mary Sunshine and The Savant. It helps that they’re no longer assigned to clean the downstairs bathrooms, so I can actually go near them during cleaning time without worrying that I’ll be blamed for their lack of productivity. Last Wednesday we swept one of the long hallways together, and although the conversation wasn’t particularly comical, it was quite interesting. I’ve been behind on the gossip and so they were kind enough to fill me in on the dynamics of the third grade. One of our couples broke up and there are not one but two love triangles at present.

I really do love that kind of stuff. It’s all going to be material for my literary masterpiece, the contents of which are still somewhat unknown to me. I just know that somehow that kind of information is going to be relevant.

#23 Moments of Clarity
There is a lot about my situation right now that is a bit obscure. As I mentioned in the previous post, there are moments when I’m not exactly sure what kind of life I’m living or what kind of life I should be living. (Purely American? Purely Japanese? Both? What does “both” even mean?) Still, one thing that remains clear to me is that teaching is something that I feel very passionate about and that I receive a lot of pleasure from. At my Thursday elementary school, I finally had time to sit down with one of my sixth year students who has been having problems with some of the recent alphabet worksheets I’ve passed out. We went through the worksheet together and I think he saw that he’s not as lost as he thought he was. Seeing the panic, fear, and confusion leave his face was incredible, and it made me really happy.

#24 But really, I’m a zookeeper
My sixth graders at the Friday elementary school are the loudest children in the world. I would bet money on this. We played a relay game during class last week and I do believe that their favorite part of the game was the part where they ran and tried to crash into me. Still, they’re a lot of fun and we work well together. Their home room teacher wasn’t actually present for class on Friday and so the school let me run the lesson by myself. I’m happy to say that things went relatively well (all things considering) and I don’t think I did too much damage in the 45 minutes that they were under my dominion.

#25 Dinner with friends
Yesterday, I had Rocko and some friends from Matsusaka come down for a small dinner. It’s a busy time of year for everyone, and so this party was a little difficult to plan because schedules kept shifting. Still, we managed to pull it off, and it was a rather delicious and successful potluck. I also got to watch The Emperor’s New Groove and Beauty and the Beast while we waited for everyone to arrive, and that (along with having my apartment decorated for Christmas) helped to make the weekend a few degrees shy of Ideal.

#26 Here we go, Gators!
Although the potluck party didn’t end until after midnight last night, I was up by six this morning so that I could call my father on Skype for the sole purpose of listening to the Florida VS South Carolina football game. My dad is pretty amazing about doing things like that with me, and so I was able to get a significant amount of work done while he kept me updated on the game.

Mornings like this reinforce the growing dichotomy of my life. On one hand, it was an enjoyable, relaxing morning and I got to feel as though I were part of the States again. I love football, I love watching football games with my father, and I really like it when my favorite teams win. On the other hand, football isn’t exactly part of the Japanese culture, and so whenever I walk into school on Mondays, all super hyped up about a game, I always feel as though I confuse everyone for a little while. (Although I did manage to get them excited about the Pittsburgh Steelers’ Superbowl victory last year. I made everyone at my middle school, including the principal, watch the Immaculate Reception Part 2 on Youtube.)

I guess in the end, I don’t have much of a choice in the matter. That’s to say that of the many things could be said about my character right now, it’s clear that I’ve been influenced by my time in the States as well as in Japan. I don’t think that I can separate the two of them, and to reflect or analyze it too closely might be a bad idea.

So, perhaps what I’ll do is just keep moving forward, and take things a day at a time. Every day gives me the chance to do something interesting with a group of people who I enjoy interacting with, and that’s enough for now.

And, speaking of doing interesting things with people who I enjoy interacting with, my special announcement is that I’ll be home for Christmas this year! Individuals in the Washington D.C. area take note, if you please. ^o^ I’ll be in town from December 23rd to January 6th (we aren’t going to Florida this year, so I’ll be around that entire time). I’m not sure when my next trip back will be, so this is an opportunity to catch up if there ever was one!

And on that note, I think I can confidently say that, to some degree, my Blog debt has been paid. Here’s to hoping that I manage to be more prompt this time around.

In a parallel universe, I update my blog every day. Part II. November 15, 2009

Posted by Earthdragonette in Apologies, Julie Gets Philosophical, Just Bizarre, Lessons Learned, Student Moments.
Tags: Aunt Mia, culture festival, dancing, elementary students, fall term, fievel, Japan, Japanese, Jyona33, karaoke, late posts, meetings, mochi, my little monkey, old middle school, Rocko, The Mentor, thursday elementary school, Two Terrific Teachers
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I hope you took the opportunity to stretch your legs, get a beverage, grab a snack, let the dog (or cat) out during our break.

Now, back to my attempts to end Rampant Procrastination.

#11: I Guess I Like Attention?
I do write a blog (kind of…) after all. In fact, I think that liking attention is a requirement if one wants to be a teacher. Those who feel unnerved by many sets of curious eyes on their person, seeking wisdom, answers, and snark need not apply. That sort of thing.

So, given this personality quirk that I have, it makes sense that I would want to find a way to participate in the middle school culture festival, which I did by dancing during a very brief talent show segment. The schedule for the festival went thusly:

9:00: Opening Ceremony
~ Performance from the elective music classes (students performed on traditional Japanese instruments)
~ Speeches from 10 students about a variety of topics
~ Presentation from the student health committee on drug abuse
~ Presentation from each grade
          ~ First years: 20 second speeches about their first year in middle school
          ~ Second years: small play about an activity they’ll be doing this month (For two days, they’re going to go out and work in a variety of the town’s businesses. They’ll work in everything ranging from restaurants to hospitals to gas stations.)
          ~ Third years: presentation about their trip to Tokyo last April
~ Lunch break (At about 11:15)
~ Huge BINGO Game
~ 1:00: Talent show (which included my dance)
~ Afternoon chorus competition between the different classes
~ Special Guest: Traditional Japanese storyteller
~ 3:30: Closing Ceremony

And that was pretty much it. I wandered around for most of the day, taking pictures and talking to students and their families. My dance was something I’d put together myself, set to Chris Brown’s Forever. I think it went quite well – the kids certainly had fun with it.

#12: Reasons that I love karaoke
I’m not the best of singers, but I do like to do it. Unfortunately, I’ve found more often than not that karaoke in the States is a very public, very embarrassing, and often very unpleasant experience. The Japanese karaoke experience is totally different, especially if you go to a karaoke establishment. You get your own room, your own television/stereo equipment, and you can use a phone in the room to order a variety of refreshments. Jyona33 and I probably owe the success of our friendship to Disney duets and Bonnie Tyler.

Recently, I went out with Rocko, and I’ll go ahead and let you know that the boy has game. He can rap. Seriously. I will admit to my superiority on Sir Mix-A-Lot’s Baby Got Back, but that’s about it. For the real deal, you need to hook up with 50cent, Eminem, and Rocko.

#13: The growing dichotomy that is my life
This isn’t a specific moment exactly, but rather a growing feeling I’ve had over the last month. Put very simply: I go to work and immerse myself in whatever school I happen to be in. I play around with my students, discuss a variety of topics with the teachers, go to planning meetings and training seminars, have dinner with friends on weekends, dance my heart out on Wednesdays and Sundays, and sometimes speak coherent and intelligent Japanese.

I also spend hours talking to friends on Skype, read Anna Karenina, memorize Shakespeare (because everybody should), stalk Jay Sean’s new singles, and have dreams of somehow marrying Stephen Colbert.

Sometimes, I’m not exactly sure which country I’m living in, or which world for that matter.

#14: Visiting old friends… my second culture festival
I’ve talked on occasion about The Middle School That Closed. Earlier this month, my town’s new middle school (the one that resulted from the merger of the three that closed) had their first culture festival. I wanted to see my old students, so I decided to attend. I didn’t stay for very long – just long enough to see their morning speeches and performances. They also had their chorus competition in the morning, and that was very cute. Aunt Mia was present, and she and I had the chance to talk a little before she had to run off. I still predict that she is somehow going to end up godmother to my children.

#15: And The Flu shall have no dominion (over me)…
Although it’s everywhere. My schools have been cancelling classes left and right and it’s been weeks since all of the grades have been present at the same time. Two weeks ago all of my third year JHS students were sent home for the week (14 had the flu) and then last week my second years were shut out (10 cases there). It’s the second time this year that my second years have had this happen to them. The teachers are really stressed because everyone is behind in their lessons, but the students are obviously enjoying all of this vacation time.

So far, by some miracle, I’ve managed to stay healthy. I had a scare two weeks ago, because I started to feel out of sorts. I’m not exactly sure what it was, but it passed by without making too much of a fuss, and I’ve remained well enough to venture into the wild and germy frontier. I still predict that I’m going to get Swine Flu.

#16: Fievel VS The Monkey, Part 2
I think it was on the 5th of November that I saw Fievel make an actual claim on me in front of The Monkey. It really stands out in my memory, though, because it just showed how feisty my previously silent one is becoming.

The students had to leave school early because of a big meeting that the teachers were preparing for. I had my work more or less under control, and so I spent some time with the kids while they were waiting for the last bus of the day. Fievel decided to assert his newfound power over me and asked me to give him a piggyback ride. The Monkey saw this, got jealous, and tried to interrupt the whole process.

I kid you not – as soon as The Monkey tried to block Fievel and climb on my back, Fievel looked at him and said (quite clearly and without any hesitation whatsoever): “NO. MONKEY DOWN!”

Success! English has been acquired!!!

#17: Playing With The Big Kids
On November 6th, my Thursday elementary school had a huge meeting that most of the teachers in my district were invited to attend. All of the teachers were required to have open lessons, which were then followed by a lecture from the 5th and 6th grade teachers. After a small break, everyone broke up into smaller groups to ask the home room teachers questions about their lessons.

Although I don’t always understand everything that’s said at these functions, I like to go because, well, it’s an opportunity to learn more about teaching theory (which is where I am admittedly pretty weak). For the open lesson and small meeting portions, I stuck close to The Mentor, since I find his lessons to be consistently well planned and executed.

Overall, I really enjoyed the meeting. I also enjoyed the Celebrity Effect, because a lot of people were not expecting me to be there, and I got to see my presence distract them from their own lives (if only momentarily). I found the overall theme of the meeting to be extremely interesting. It focused on a teaching model by which students are encouraged to approach problems individually, and then through their own efforts and discussion with their classmates, broaden and deepen their knowledge of the given subject. The open lessons were supposed to be examples of this model in action, and then the last meetings of the days were opportunities for other educators to respond to the model and to the way that the school is trying to implement it.

It’s a little frustrating for me, because there are so many things that I wish I could ask or discuss with my fellow teachers, but that kind of Japanese is still out of my reach. Still, I think that I benefitted from attending the meeting. I particularly enjoyed sitting next to one of the Two Terrific Teachers and being his comment partner through the last meeting. Do not be fooled – Japanese people are polite, but snark exists in this culture and it is alive and well. ^o^

#18: If you haven’t ever made sweet potato, tofu, and coconut milk curry…
…then you should, because it is delicious. It is so delicious that it actually qualifies as a memory from this fall season. I make it once a week, eat it for two or three days, and enjoy a slice of nirvana. When I look back on Autumn of 2009, I will most assuredly recall sweet potato and coconut milk curry.

#19: It’s Sunday – let’s go to a festival!
My third festival of the year was at my Friday elementary school. The schedule for this festival was a little different from the one that my middle school had:

~9:00, opening ceremony
~ Fun Corner (1 hour)
~ Mochi Making Event
~ Lunch and Recess
~ Fun Corner #2 (40 minutes)
~ Closing ceremony (at about 2:00)

The Fun Corners were a series of stations set up around the school that the students went to. There was a jump rope station, a juggling station, a station for playing with traditional Japanese toys (kendama and spinning tops), a station for origami, and one for wood crafting. I spent a lot of my time with the origami corner, where my superior motor skills were invaluable to the first and second year students. I had a very odd moment where I looked around and realized that I (the American) was actually leading Japanese school children through the origami process. I suppose that sometimes, authority figures are authority figures regardless of nationality.

(Also, just to squeeze this in here: mochi is a rice cake that’s made by pounding down a special kind of cooked rice. By itself it doesn’t have much of a taste, but it’s often eaten with special soy powder, fruit, or red bean paste. Fresh mochi is a gift from the gods, and I’m so happy that I have an elementary school where they make it once a year.)

#20: Did I say this before? Sometimes I am not very smart.
I’ve asked my Thursday elementary school if I can dance at their culture festival. I’ve yet to hear back from them, but I hope that they’re willing to indulge me as I really want to contribute something to the day. Besides, it gives me an excuse to make up a new dance routine.

In a parallel universe, I update my blog every day. Part I. November 15, 2009

Posted by Earthdragonette in Apologies, Dance Troupe, Just Bizarre, Student Moments, Taking Initiative.
Tags: culture festival, d.j. ozma, d.j. ozma jr., dance practice, Dance Troupe, elementary students, fall term, fievel, ice cream, Japan, Japanese, michael jackson, my little monkey, Rocko, thriller
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Unfortunately, that universe is so close to me, and yet so far away. Following Brian Greene / Elegant Universe - esque jargon, that universe and my universe are slices of cosmic bread on the cutting board of reality. Unfortunately, those slices are completely oblivious to each other, except in a vague way that occasionally inspires the bittersweet and humbling taste of guilt.

It’s sort of what I feel whenever I forget to answer e-mail (also one of my well-known vices…)

Ahem.

So, welcome back! How are you today?

Things have been quite busy, as usual. Let’s skip the chitchat and get down to business. I have 26 memories that need to be announced and elaborated on. To break it up a bit, and keep things from getting too long winded (too late…), I’ve got ten listed here, another ten listed in Part II, and the last six (AS WELL AS AN ABSOLUTELY FASCINATING ANNOUNCEMENT) in Part III.

Apologies as usual for the “Lists and Lists Galore” method of blogging that I seem to be embracing. ^_^;;

Here we go!

#1: October 21st: Dance Practice Hilarity
This was a dance practice that we held before a pretty substantial festival that we went to the following weekend. We all already knew the dance that we were going to do (D.J. Ozma’s Macchibo), and so we spent two hours sitting around, talking, and occasionally practicing the dance. At one point, we decided to work on our timing, and so we did the dance while standing in a circle. This was hard for me, though, because seeing everyone else dancing mirror-image fashion really confused me. I pointed this out, and one of the troupe members turned around and did the dance with his back to me, thus prompting a flurry of comments about his backside and me complaining just so that he’d turn around and give me a chance to look at it.

-__-;;;

There are times when I wish I didn’t understand Japanese. Although the whole thing was, admittedly, pretty hilarious.

#2: Fievel VS My Little Monkey Saga: Part I
As I pointed out in an earlier post, Fievel is becoming bolder, and I began to wonder at one point he and My Little Monkey would run into conflict with each other. I was right to expect some overlap, but surprised that Fievel is turning out to be the winner in the Epic Battle for Julie’s Love and Attention. The thing about My Little Monkey is that, while he is a persistent little monkey, he is also easily distracted, and if I don’t respond to his demands/requests/questions/comments/concerns RIGHT WHEN HE HAS THEM, then there is a chance (however slim) that he will lose interest in me and go off somewhere else.

Fievel, however, is constant, and never, EVER loses interest. Every possible break that exists in the school’s schedule, he darts to my side, English sticker card in hand. And he doesn’t leave. Come rain or hail or sleet or snow, the child simply refuses to go.

(Sorry about that.)

Seriously, though, he is, at present, the victor in the Fievel VS Monkey battle, if only because he just never gets up and eagerly seizes on any spare moments of attention that My Little Monkey’s absence allows. Also, he gets bonus points for being infinitely lighter than the Monkey, so I’m more willing to entertain his requests to be carried around.

You know, there are some days where I wonder if I mightn’t be a jungle gym.

#3: Disturbing Yet Heartfelt Movies are Disturbing Yet Heartfelt
I’ve been hanging out a lot with Rocko lately, and so he took the opportunity a few weeks ago to show me some of his favorite movies. One of them, It’s All Gone Pete Tong, was one of those movies that I started out kind of disliking, but then fell in love with. It’s, more or less, about a drugged out D.J. that loses his hearing and eventually finds a path to a redemption of sorts. It was extremely interesting, but one of those films that stayed with me for a while. Rocko felt the need to show me Children of Men the day after we watched It’s All Gone Pete Tong, and so by the time I went home that weekend, I was kind of in a state where I questioned my existence and the value of reality.

Because, you know, that’s what you do sometimes.

#4: A Significant Way That The Universe Wins: Baskin Robins Is In Japan
And not only that, but I was able to get Halloween flavors. Although, to be honest, I like their regular chocolate flavors better.

That’s pretty much it. I just like ice cream.

#5: Serious Bonding With the Dance Troupe
October 25th, the troupe all piled into a couple of cars and we drove down to Owase to celebrate the seventh annual Kumano Kodo festival. It wasn’t all that large, but there were a really large number of dance troupes there, so I was able to see a lot of different dancing styles throughout the day. There were some that were obviously influenced by Chinese dance styles, and then one group did a pretty respectable version of Michael Jackson’s Thriller (I was particularly fond of that one).

The day was really, really cold and rainy, though, and so when we weren’t dancing (we had a three-hour break at one point), we all huddled inside one of the buildings, ate festival food, talked, and occasionally napped. It was really relaxed and reminded me a lot of the trips that I went on when I was in band in high school. I also spent some time with D.J. Ozma Jr. – we played cards and, at one point, played catch with a ball that was in the shape of Doraemon’s head.

#6: Culture Festival Preparations Are Fun
The culture festival for my middle school was on Halloween, and so the week up to it we were all busy trying to clean and decorate the school, finish art projects, put the final touches on musical performances, and occasionally sleep. Every year that I’ve been in Japan, I’ve done a performance with the music club, but since the club doesn’t really exist anymore, I haven’t been doing anything this year. This left me with a little (a very little) free time, and so I was able to spend my afternoons wandering around and helping various student committees.

My favorite afternoon was the one that I spent with the student government. Every year, the school puts together a huge mural of 105 individual sheets of paper that, together, make a large and elaborate design (the art teacher likes me, and so I always get to do a piece of the mural, too). Anyway, the student government is responsible for assembling this to some extent, and I decided to help them out. It took us a couple of hours to tape everything together and get it ready to transport to the gym, but we had a really great time together. They’re all intelligent, somewhat quiet second year boys, but they were super lively when we worked together. We spent a lot of time joking around in English and Japanese. (They really surprised me with how much English they wanted to use around me).

It was an unexpected and lovely afternoon.

#7: No, Really, I Enjoy This
I must, because the week before the middle school culture festival, I averaged about 3.5 hours of sleep per night. This was due to trying to get my part of the mural finished, to practicing a dance that I performed for the students, to staying on top of my work, and also to doing some extra special Halloween-related preparations for my elementary schools.

God, I love coffee. And my students.

#8: Darkness falls across the land…
So, every year, I show my first year JHS students Michael Jackson’s Thriller. It’s short, sweet, and relatively easy to understand even if the students don’t have a Japanese translation in front of them (which I did provide them with this year, but still).

This year, though, my first year students have a very special, very intense love for the King of Pop. I think that knowing about him before his death made that unfortunate event more meaningful. It seems to me that they hold him as some kind of symbol of the English world and the link that they have to it. He’s their favorite artist to watch, and every time they see the projector set up for class, they hope that they’re going to see another one of his songs.

Anyway, given this interest, I decided that this year, I wanted to make the Thriller lesson a little more extensive and interesting. So, after we watched the music video, I gave them a copy of the spoken section (the part where Vincent Price scares everybody … ever). You know the part:

Darkness falls across the land
The midnight hour is close at hand
Creatures crawl in search of blood
To terrorize y’alls neighborhood…

I told the students that they had to memorize four lines of it and recite it to me for a speaking check. The bonus for them was that for every extra line that they memorized, they would receive two extra credit points. At first, the students were skeptical – although I made the worksheet in such a way that they could read the English words, they didn’t understand a lot of them, and I think that the idea of a recital really made them nervous.

But, they pulled through, and quite well! The activity turned out to be surprisingly popular – especially because they got to chant about blood, death, and zombies (which are all subjects that teenagers enjoy to some degree). (One student did manage to memorize the whole thing…)

I was vastly entertained whenever I heard them practicing in the hallways during cleaning time. It was particularly funny because as soon as one student would start, others would join in. I’m only half-joking when I say that at one point I began to have serious concerns about my students inadvertently raising the dead.

Luckily, though, that does not seem to have happened.

#9: I Turned My Kids into Animals
Halloween really is a great time of year for English lessons. As you saw earlier, it gives me an opportunity to be slightly wackier and more creative than usual.

This year, I switched my curriculum around so that my first and second year elementary students would be studying animals during the month of October. This was the perfect backdrop to, well, dressing up like a witch, turning on some Disney Parade music (which all of my students identified before the first measure had finished), and “casting a spell” that turned them into a variety of animals. It was something that my music teacher did when I was in first and second grade, and I thought that my students would like it, too.

I turned out to be right, although I’m still fending off questions as to why I drive to school when I claim to be able to fly on a broom. Children are such curious little beings, aren’t they? They also don’t forget anything.

#10: I Also Wore a Gypsy Costume
This was part of my strategy for the activity described in #9. With a few modifications, it easily doubled as a witch’s costume. I was really nervous about wearing it to school, though, because it looked pretty ridiculous to me and I thought that my schools might object to it on the grounds of it looking unprofessional.

Imagine my shock, however, upon discovering that all of my co-workers loved this dress. I guess they thought it was really cute, and they told me that it was the kind of outfit I should feel free to wear every day. I walked around for two days feeling like a small, vulnerable puppy dog that everybody wanted to take home with them. It was surreal, and just goes to show how this country can still surprise me – even after almost three and a half years.

Monkey Up! October 18, 2009

Posted by Earthdragonette in Apologies, Dance Troupe, Julie Gets Philosophical, Just Bizarre, sports festival, Student Moments.
Tags: dance practice, Dance Troupe, elementary students, fall term, festivals, field trips, fievel, hannah montana, Japan, Japanese, late posts, old middle school, Rocko, sports festival, The Savant, typhoon
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The blog! It’s alive!

IT’S ALIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIVE!

So, hello and welcome again after 12 days of Silence. Since I last posted, we’ve enjoyed the following:

~ A swine flu outbreak in my middle school that shut us down for an entire week
~ A typhoon
~ A field trip to The Ghetto Version of Epcot (Still fun, though!)
~ Not one, but two nearly three hour dance practices
~ My first and second festivals dancing with the troupe
~ Intense Apartment Cleaning

It’s kind of funny, because I have the beginnings of ten posts in my drafts folder. I really was trying to get caught up, but Life is a Finicky Creature and I just couldn’t pull things together before it became demanding and I was forced to abandon my efforts to take it for a walk.

For the moment, however, I’ve managed to distract Life for a while, and it’s off in the corner gnawing on its chew toy. It’s going to want play again in around an hour, but until then my friends, it’s just you and me.

I’ve been trying to figure out the best way to go about getting us all caught up. I hesitate to go into long, drawn out Paragraphs About My Life, because I really want to keep the blog from becoming bogged down by my every day activities (which really are very ordinary). So, what I think we’ll do, is stay true to form. This blog is about Collecting Memories, as it were, and we seem to be lacking twelve of them.

So, I hereby present to you twelve memories from the past twelve days!
(In no specific or meaningful order. I’m just writing them as I recall them.)

1) Monkey Up!
The title of today’s post, and most definitely deserving of some Context.
You may perhaps recall the character that I’ve named My Little Monkey. He’s loud, he’s persistent, and he’s convinced that I am a jungle gym.

Well, recently (I think he started this around October 7th), his new thing is to use English to tell me what he wants. Specifically, if he wants a piggyback ride then he says to me, “Julie! Monkey up!” He then attaches himself to my back for, oh, I don’t know – 20 minutes or so? During that time, his favorite thing to do is rest his head on my shoulder and mock the other children who come to talk to me in English. On one hand, it’s kind of rude and ever so slightly obnoxious, but on the other hand, it’s pretty funny and he ends up learning a lot of new English as a result. Anyway, as soon as we’ve had enough of Learning, he taps me on the shoulder and says, “Julie! Monkey down!” and then goes about his business. This has been entertaining me for the last twelve days.

2) Why yes, there was a typhoon
I live in the mountains, so I don’t tend to get all that worried whenever a typhoon heads toward my village. I grew up in Florida, and so I have a Fondness for storms. Whenever one approaches (preferably with Lots of Thunder and Lightening) I buckle down and enjoy the tangible feeling of Mother Nature’s Snark. On this particular occasion, my town was worried because it looked like we were going to be hit directly. So, I got to leave work early on Wednesday. I stocked up on some non-perishables and liquids, put up my storm windows, and snuggled with a blanket in front of the computer. At some point, Rocko called me, and we celebrated the storm via Skype. Isn’t technology wonderful??

3) And swine flu as well
So, this started on October 6th. I walked into school and over the course of the morning we discovered that five of the second years were at home with The Flu of Satan. By the end of the day, the entire second year class had been sent home, and then by the end of Wednesday, the first and third year classes were gone as well. All three classes resumed their normal schedule last Tuesday (Monday was a holiday), but we still have some kids out. I am convinced that I’m going to get this disease, since it’s at the elementary schools as well and thus I’m exposed to it every single day of the week. In addition, most of these children getting sick are the ones who enjoy climbing on my back.

Oh, well. It’s nice to go into the holiday season contemplating illness.

4) Field trips are fun
After postponing the fall field trip on account of Rampant Absences and Typhoon, we finally had our chance to go out and about last Wednesday. I went with the first years to Little World, a small theme park outside of Nagoya that really does aspire to be some kind of Epcot Center. It’s essentially a 2.5km circular road with small areas scattered around it that are dedicated to various countries. Some areas are more elaborate than others, but generally each area has a building, store, and/or restaurant associated with a given nation. Last Wednesday marked my third trip to Little World, and my game plan was simple: walk into the park, dash to Germany, find a bench, and read Anna Karenina while waving to my students as they wandered by.

Unfortunately, I didn’t plan on Hannah Montana and Co. They kidnapped me as soon as we got into the park and through a series of tricky and devious acts, convinced me to walk around with them the entire day. So much for Russian literature.

Still, I got to eat a taco, some pizza, and some gelato, and that was exciting. I also picked up not-easily-obtainable foreign food, and I enjoyed that, too. At one point, Hannah Montana stole my iPod and spent about half an hour examining the R&B list. I think I might be on the road to getting her away from Sugary Pop Music. We can only hope.

5) The Savant likes to break things
We haven’t mentioned him in a while, but he is still among us – causing trouble and asserting that He “MUST MAKE PEOPLE HAPPY.” Recently, his cleaning group has moved to a set of bathrooms on the first floor of the school, and they are as unproductive as (if not moreso than) they were when they were supposed to be cleaning outside. I try to stay away from them at least 2/3 of the time, though, because as soon as I show up it looks like I’m to blame for them not actually cleaning what they’ve been assigned to clean.

The first day that I went to hang out clean with them, The Savant got it into his head that he needed to use a wooden broom to show me how great his batting form is. What he didn’t count on was the broom being kind of weak – it snapped into two pieces the moment he swung it through the air. We spent about ten minutes arguing as to whether or not he should fess up to the Vice Principal:

Me:                      No, I will not tell him for you.
The Savant:     BUT I’M PERFECT. YOU MUST.
Me:                     You broke the broom
The Savant:     NO.
Me:                     Uh, yes?
The Savant:     NO
Me:                     Uh, yes?
The Savant:    Maybe, Julie, YOU broke the broom!
Me:                    Oh, don’t even think about going there.

And so forth and so on. Eventually, he was persuaded to To the Right Thing, and he was only mildly chastised for his mischief. I thought the whole thing was hilarious.

6) and 7) It’s a good thing I like dancing
Because it seems to be the main thing I’ve been doing recently. We had our practice canceled on the night of October 7th because of the typhoon, but we rescheduled it for the following Sunday so that we could get our routine down before Monday’s festival. The festival was in a town (city? kind of a city? a very small city?) about an hour to the south of us, and although not very large, it was definitely very cute. I had my debut there, and overall I think that things went well. I’m definitely a Curious Item, being a Foreigner and thus a Celebrity, but it seems to be a good thing for the group, so I’m glad I can help.

So we’ll dedicate one memory to Sunday’s and Wednesday’s practices, because both really are a blur in my mind. They both lasted almost three hours and I thought I was going to die by the time that I got home. Still, because last Wednesday’s practice took place after my official welcome, I noticed that the mood was significantly warmer towards me (not that it was ever cold). I actually feel as though I’m a part of the team now, and I really enjoy that.

The second memory we’ll dedicate to the two festivals, as they were both part of My Dancing Debut. Last Monday’s was my General Debut and then today’s festival was my Town Debut. Last Monday’s was fun, but today’s was significantly more personal. My students were super excited to see me dancing, and I had a lot of them come up afterwards and drag me around the festival to see their favorite foods or to meet their parents.

Also present, to my delight and entertainment, were a large number of The Really Horrible Third Year Class from three years ago. They were also amused to see me and tried to say horrible, mocking things about my dancing. What they didn’t count on was that I can actually understand their Japanese now, and I snarked back at them in not one, but two languages. I think we both enjoyed that, and it entertains me that they still have an interest in crossing swords with me. I told them point blank that they were horrible children (except for the girls), and I think that won me points. We spent a great deal of time together.

8) Rocko indulges my whimsical notions
Two Fridays ago (so, right after the typhoon), Rocko invited me to his neck of the woods for homemade curry and so that we could investigate this international bar that he’d discovered. I’m torn about this experience, because there are two memories that I really like from it. The first was just the conversation that we had – Rocko is a very interesting person to talk to. He’s really good about listening to other people’s opinions as well as clearly explaining his own perspective.

The second memory (which is more in line with the way that I’ve titled this section), happened the following day. The weather was absolutely gorgeous and I had a fanatical desire to find a swing set. Although we had to walk twenty minutes, Rocko managed to produce one for me and I got to be five years old again. ^___^

9) A new character! Introducing: Fievel
If you’re familiar with the movie An American Tale, then you will also be familiar with Fievel, the main character. He’s a shy, mischievous mouse and through the course of the movie he becomes brave and self sufficient. This is a lot like one of my students at my Thursday elementary school, and one of my New Favorite People on This Earth.

This student is currently a third grader, but I really only noticed him last April, when his class started the “Talk to Julie and Get Stickers and Eventually Prizes” program. He is one of the smallest, sweetest looking children I’ve ever met, and last April he was also Painfully Shy. I could tell that he wanted to talk to me, but it was very difficult, and he always spoke in a very soft, hesitant voice.

Still, despite the shyness, over the last six months, he has been without question the most consistent elementary school student in my Sticker Program. Every week, without fail, he writes me a very short (but cute) letter, and he always, ALWAYS comes to talk to me during breaks.

I think it was about two months ago that we saw a huge change in our interactions. He suddenly became a lot more outgoing, and after I spent some time with him and his family at the Sports Festival in September, he became almost as much of a companion as My Little Monkey. It is not unusual to see me walking around that school with both of them firmly planted in My Personal Circle of Space. He is actually more polite and English-inclined than the Monkey, and he takes conversations a lot more seriously. Recently, Fievel’s brother has started to hang around me a lot, too, and it’s funny to watch them to compete for stickers during recess.

10) Fall is the time to read Anna Karenina
Well, fall or summer…
I first read Anna Karenina the summer before my senior year at St. John’s. This was done while also reading War and Peace, so you could definitely say that the summer of 2005 was the Summer of Tolstoi. Of the two, I infinitely prefer Anna Karenina, and I’m now reading it for the fourth time. The second time was in the fall of 2007, the third was the fall of 2008, and seeing as now is currently fall of 2009, you can kind of see where this is becoming a tradition.

When I read through the novel the first time, it was done as part of a study group with a tutor at St. John’s. I remember that he once made the remark that if people would read Anna Karenina when they encountered relationship problems, then they probably wouldn’t need to go to a counselor. To a large extent I agree with him about this – Anna Karenina is fantastic for portraying a wide range of characters in extremely common and accessible situations. There are themes of love, lust, betrayal, adultery, reconciliation, forgiveness, mercy, revenge, and wrath. I am as dazzled by the novel’s structure as I am by the characters, and I inevitably find something new to appreciate each time that I go through it.

I could go on about this for quite some time, but we’ll go ahead and leave it at that for now. Just know that my daily ritual has now shifted to accomodate this monster of a book, and that it makes me very, very happy.

11) Fall is also the time to Make Things
Specifically, I’m talking about food, although I’ve been knitting (poorly…) again as well. Recently made dishes include:
~ tofu/spinach/mushroom casserole
~ whole wheat focaccia bread
~ chicken soup from scratch
~ adzuki/pumpkin stew
~ sweet potatoes in a variety of dishes including curry, casserole, and root stew
~ apple pie – dear God, apple pie

12) No More Sports Days! (Along with subsequent thoughts and reflections.)
Ah, yes. So, something that has not been happening over the last twelve days has been Sports Festivals! We are in fact done with them for the year. As I have said before, I am also probably done with them For Good.

It’s unfortunate that I never was able to get around to writing the big Sports Festival-centered post. I’d wanted to take the opportunity to explain more about them, and to muse a bit about the role that this festival has played in my life in Japan.

I’ve been to fourteen … maybe fifteen … of these festivals since I arrived here in 2006. Each year has been a different sort of trial by fire. The first year I was simply trying to wrap my mind around the concept of a sports festival, and I was trying to find a way to participate and make it an event that was relevant to my life. The second year I was able to appreciate individual student achievement, and I was less shy about entering PTA events since I understood how the majority of the events were run. The big challenge last year was trying to learn how to sprint so that I wouldn’t embarrass myself in a relay race that I ran at my other middle school (the one that closed down). I also started a tradition last year where I brought handmade rice balls in for the faculty and staff on the mornings before the festival started.

This year’s overall theme seemed to be: Let’s Embarrass Julie As Much As Humanly Possible And Them Some. From the bizarre relay race that I ran with my sixth years at the middle school festival, to a really unfortunate partnered relay race that I had to run at the Thursday elementary school’s festival (I was injured in this race because of what I had to do), to the absolutely disastrous centipede race that I ran at the Friday elementary school’s festival (my group fell twice), I did not manage to display myself as quite the athlete that I feel I have the potential to be. -_-;;

Still, if I’ve learned anything over the last three years, it’s that the people in my community appreciate valiant efforts as much as (if not more than) successful efforts, and I know that it meant a lot to them that I wanted to participate. So, in the end, everyone won – including me. I think what’s also nice about this situation is that it is another indication of how I have become accepted in this community. I don’t feel as though they were laughing at me during these events. The truth is that all of the participants looked ridiculous, and so it was a celebration of, well, our collective absurdity. I did it for my students, because I knew that they wanted to see me perform on the field in the same way that they’d been performing. It was us coming together to celebrate each other as a community.

Don’t get me wrong, I still hate that centipede race. With a passion.

But, it’s part of the Sports Festival experience, and I can recognize that. Sometimes, you do things just because it really is the right thing to do. This year more than any other, I believe I’ve learned that lesson. This is a good thing, and it’s a fitting way to end this chapter of my life in Japan.

289 days to go.

I can see clearly now… September 24, 2009

Posted by Earthdragonette in Japanese GET, Taking Initiative.
Tags: abu cafe, achievement, days off, fall term, Rocko
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Oh, and this is going to be a very, very, very short post!

I spent the day (the last of my vacation days for a while) running errands and trying to get my act together. I was semi-successful, but I still have a lot to do for tomorrow. Highlights from the day include:

* Going to the eye doctor’s all by myself and getting new contacts. It only took me three years and, what, two months, before I managed to stop importing them from the United States. Nice.

*I also had lunch at an extremely cute and unique restaurant. The whole thing was more or less Asian themed, but the inside of the building was full of columns, plants, and Egyptian statues. They also played Johnny Depp movies on the wall and had a parfait that was over two feet high. (I didn’t eat one, but I have plans to return.)

* Saw Wolverine today – the movie, not the animal. I know that there is a fuller, more official name for this movie but I can’t remember what it is and it honestly isn’t that important. I was entertained, but not exactly thrilled with the experience.

* Had dinner with Rocko and his parents. They are very, very nice people!! I enjoyed our discussions of American politics, the Japanese culture, and how much fun sports festivals are. I also gave Rocko a rubber chicken for his birthday. Because, well, who doesn’t want a rubber chicken???

Speaking of which, I have my last sports festival on Saturday. It will most likely be my last sports day ever.

I shall definitely have to make the most of it.

“‘Cause I am hanging, on every word you’re saying”

Rocko Was Right – I am a dork. September 11, 2009

Posted by Earthdragonette in Just Bizarre, Student Moments.
Tags: Catch up, fall term, field trips, Japan, Macho Man, Mary Sunshine, Rocko, The Savant, world gymnastics
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But not because I can make BEAUTIFUL and INTERNATIONAL menus. But because I forgot when I posted the last time that Fridays are my Nights to Talk to My Father (which equals a two to four hour phone conversation), and they’re also the Night After My ADD Elementary School.

Father/Daughter Bonding + Exhaustion + Saturday Sports Festival = BLOG? WHAT BLOG? HAHAHA. MORPHEUS.

So, we’re going to start slow. Here is what I wrote for Monday’s post. Consider it a substantial appetizer. A bruschetta/salad combination, if you will.

~~~~~~
Okay, so, here we are. Finally! The problem that we’re running into here is that I have this tendency to give 150% to my schools. Jyona33 calls me a workaholic, but I maintain that I love my job and enjoy existing in such a way that my presence is helpful. When my kids are happy, I’m happy. Still, I am not just a happy, sticker giving foreign plaything teacher. I also have my own interests, my own life.

Yeah, that sounds kind of hollow to me, too. What can I say? I love my kids.

Although today, I did not like my kids. Those are two very different things – loving and liking.

Today was interesting. I had two classes with my third years in the morning, one of which was hilarious because The Savant was in rare form. He borrowed my English textbook last week and forgot to return it to me afterwards and so he started off class today by trying to sell it back to me. The book has “ALT” written on the back of it, instead of my name, and so he kept saying that he couldn’t just GIVE it to me, because I was “Julie” and what if “ALT” came looking for his book? It took me the better part of five minutes to get him to give it back to me. He kept up this theme throughout most of the day, going so far as to steal my sunglasses when we were on our excursion to see some of the 2009 Rhythmic Gymnastics World Championship. It took me fifteen minutes to get those back. Mary Sunshine was likewise in a feisty mood; every time I walked by her desk in class she would sway to the side and drape herself on top of me. If I ever had physical space boundaries, I think that working with Japanese students (especially the elementary school ones) has killed it. In Japan, my body is not a temple of God, it’s a jungle gym. And, now, we’re moving away from that topic before everybody gets uncomfortable.

As to the World Gymnastics competition, that was interesting. We had the chance to see a portion of the hoop and rope floor routines – two events that I’d never known about before. The countries that performed during our time slot were Italy, Israel, Japan (a crowd favorite if there ever was one – the audience clapped from the moment the athlete came out until she left the room at the end of her routine) (no really, the audience clapped if the athlete turned her head, not to speak of the times when she caught her hoop or rope), the U.K., South Africa, Brazil, Romania, and Azerbaijan.

My kids were, generally speaking, fairly well behaved. Whoever assigned us our seats made the mistake of putting us RIGHT BEHIND the announcers, so whenever they were shown on camera those watching at home also got to see about a hundred and four Japanese middle schoolers screaming and frantically waving little “World Championship” flags. This kept the students entertained for the better part of an hour. I’d like to say that the teachers were more well behaved, but both of the Two Terrific Teachers were right up front with the students, screaming their hearts out. Which just goes to show that everybody fancies him or herself to be a movie star. Even the people who claim that they don’t want the attention secretly covet it, and believe that they harbor vast amounts of untapped talent that will at some point be discovered and dragged out into the light of day – much like the 23,472 bottles of wine in my uncle’s basement.

Once the opening comments were done, though, the students split off into one of three groups. One group fell asleep, the other group watched intently, and the third group became obsessed with clapping. They clapped to the rhythm of the music, to the syllables in the name of the competitor, and in counter-rhythm to the beat that the current athlete’s team was clapping. Not surprisingly, we can credit The Savant and Macho Man for starting that third group.

The ride back to the school was slightly on the exhausting side, and it’s where my students demonstrated (quite stunningly) that they are immature, ridiculous little things. I was sitting on a bus with some of my first years and on the way to the arena, I had to listen to this one girl ask everybody on the bus who they currently had a crush on. This was the only thing that she would talk about for the entire 45 minute trip, and she was particularly persistent with this one gentleman that was sitting in front of us. She even quizzed ME about my love life, but it was frustrating for me because her Japanese is incredibly informal (perhaps rudely so). There were a lot of things that she was asking me that I couldn’t understand, and she wouldn’t actually help me figure out what she was saying. On the way back to the school at the end of the day, she was STILL stuck on this theme and nothing I did would shift her to other, more welcome topics (anything, even an intense discussion of back acne, would have been preferable). So, I had another 45 minutes of her asking the same question and making fun of people’s responses. Just as I thought that I was going to make it back to the school with my sanity relatively intact, one of my other first years decided it was time to speak in English.

“Hey, Julie! DO YOU HAVE PENNIS?”

Yes, it’s back. The mispronounced, volatile, and endlessly entertaining to children around the world weed that systematically destroys my Garden of Speakin’.

Pennis.

Rhymes with tennis.

No relation.

This time, though, I was so sick of talking about crushes, romance, and anything having to do with two people spending time together under the pretense of mutual admiration, that I willingly took up the topic with all of the enthusiasm of a chocoholic at Hershey Park. Unfortunately for me, although I could play with fire, I could not contain it and the use of the word soon got out of control. By the time that we got back to the school, half of the bus was (to my horror and to add insult to injury, still with the wrong pronunciation) chanting: We eat pennis! We eat pennis!

Yes. It’s days like this that make me consider working with animals.

Animals that don’t talk.

“ I hear you laughing from the loge above
[At my expense for your entertainment]“

Super Express 土日曜日 Recap – September 6th September 6, 2009

Posted by Earthdragonette in Weekend Recap.
Tags: beach, cooking, dinner party, fall term, Japan, relaxing, Rocko, running, the Other ALT, Weekend Recap
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As I write this, it’s still Sunday in the States, but it’s Monday morning here in the land of the rising sun. Which means that I have about 21 minutes to post this before I have to run and get ready for work. I intended to post last night, but then I was distracted by coffee with Bailey’s Irish Cream and The Emperor’s New Groove. The combination proved to be too much for the Form of Productivity and instead I blissfully sought the arms of Morpheus around, oh, 8:45.

So, very quickly, Saturday and Sunday’s Reasons to Be Happy and Grateful

Saturday (土曜日)
Friends and Food, Friends and Food!
I had my first dinner party on Saturday, and at the risk of sounding less than modest, I do believe it went well! This was largely due to the helpful and calming nature of my friends, who not only willingly cut up vegetables, boiled noodles, and entertained each other while the food cooked, but also made sure that my wine glass was filled and that I didn’t take myself too seriously. The Other ALT gets bonus points for letting me borrow her table, her oven, her silverware, her cups, her dishtowels, and her patience. Rocko loses points for calling me a dork because I made a (BEAUTIFUL and BILINGUAL) menu highlighting the evening’s dishes. Although, I guess we can give him points because he was the primary one cutting up vegetables and keeping my wine glass full. Jyona33, although not physically present, was responsible for introducing me to the three guests that really made the party for me, so he gets Causality Points.

Mathematically, this works out to be something like:
4 hours of cleaning + 3 hours of cooking + 17 text messages + 9 phone calls + 2 Dishes I’d Never Made Before but Thank God They Were Delicious Anyway + 9 Awesome Guests + 5 courses + 5 hours of dinner party = 1 Amazing Night and An Infinite Number of Unforgettable Moments and Memories

We will be doing this again very, very soon. Although the theme is probably going to be less Italian and more Japanese. Let’s expand those Cultural Horizons!

Sunday (日曜日)
This was … Return to the Beach Day!! I woke up and felt less than productive (a good theme for a Sunday, I believe), and opted to take myself down to the Happy Place for a little while. It was super warm and sunny, and although the beach was eerily abandoned (with only, like, two families and the concessions stand completely shut down for the season), I had my iPod, some Japanese comics, and a feeling of accomplishment to keep me company. There was also a 6 km run in the evening that made me quite pleased with my lot. Then there was Baileys and a movie, so I do believe that I finished my weekend in a state of beatitude.
Now, I just need to make it through the next six days of work …

“City lights are calling
Slowly coming back to life
Speeding in the fast lane”

A farewell to summer… August 31, 2009

Posted by Earthdragonette in Top Ten.
Tags: baseball, beach, Characters, enkai, ice cream, Japan, Jyona33, last, Mary Sunshine, PoEM, Rocko, running, summer, table tennis, teachers, The Awesome Vice Principal, The Savant, Two Terrific Teachers
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Aaand, we’ve hit a benchmark in this blog. My first missed post!

Admittedly, when I started out writing this blog, I didn’t expect to be able to post every single day, but I did hope to come close. Unfortunately, illness happens, and I was curled up in bed on Sunday night, hoping for those oh, so sweet arms of Morpheus. Morpheus though, is a jealous companion, and he doesn’t like me blogging when he comes to visit. I tried to catch up this morning (when it was still technically Sunday in the United States), but my Muses are fickle and they prefer coming out to play in the evening.

So, Jealous Morpheus + Moody Muses = No 土日曜日 Recap.

And yet, because I didn’t go into work today, the sense of weekend has continued. I could go ahead and write about Saturday-Monday’s poignant memories, but I think I want to do something a little different. This is the last “last day of summer vacation” that I’m going to have in Japan, and I feel that this merits a special post.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you:

Julie’s Top 10 Moments of the Summer

10) Dinner with teachers from the Old Middle School
From the August 9^th post.
This really was a spectacular dinner. I was sad that we didn’t have a chance to go out for karaoke, but it was still amazing. I miss working with these teachers, and having a chance to catch up with them, remember old times, talk about new developments, and listen to The PoEM is a special memory from this summer.

9) Stalking Supporting my middle school’s baseball team
I don’t think that I really wrote specifically about this (some of it happened before I started the blog), but I spent a lot of time this summer watching my middle school guys’ baseball practices, practice games, and real games. They lost the district championships early on in the season (I felt really bad for The Savant because he was the team captain and took it really hard), but the first and second years trained really hard for the rest of the summer. I’m looking forward to seeing how they develop as a team – especially after they get new members next spring!

8) Running
I actually started running around February of 2007, but I was only able to keep it up through last October. After that, the days got really short, my schedule got hectic, and I got shin splints. This summer, however, I really started to miss it, and after buying the proper footwear, I hit the pavement again. I’m glad I did – I think I function better with my daily dose of Zen.

7) Fish festival!
From the August 23^rd post.
This was just fun. I mean, the fish was delicious, my elementary students were cute, the families were nice, the onigiri was fresh, and the ice cream was divine. I got to be a team player and enjoy a picnic. Really, what more could one ask for?

6) Eating that stupid fish eye
From the August 18^th post.
I can’t in good conscience put this in my Top 5, because it was gross. To date, I still have not eaten the following: grapes, blueberries, olives, or corn. Still, it’s a badge of honor that I will proudly wear. (EWWWW.)

5) The Trip to Toba (aside from eating the fish eye)
This trip happened before the blog, but I did write about it in the August 18^thpost. I appreciated the isolated-third-worldish-we-actually-WAIT-THREE-HOURS-for-a-boat feeling. I liked walking around the island with the Two Terrific Teachers, and I especially enjoyed the dessert that The Awesome Vice Principal got for me. Actually, I loved anything having to do with my middle school teachers this summer. We had a great time together.

4) Hiking the Kumano Kodo with Rocko
Described in the 土日曜日 Recap from August 16^th/17^th.
I like Rocko, and I like the Kumano Kodo, so this was pretty much solid win all around. Discussing philosophy and 90’s television shows while wandering around an ancient forest road to the top of a mountain is a great way to spend one’s morning. This was then followed by The Beach, and we all know how I feel about that.

3) Spending time with Mary Sunshine prior to the All Country Table Tennis Tournament
Anything involving Mary Sunshine has to make my Top 3. She is The Favorite after all. I think that we had some great conversations this summer, and I liked being able to share even a small part of her training and anticipation. She didn’t place very high at the nationals, but she told me that she learned a lot and that she’s even more determined to keep it up. She has some tournaments scheduled for the fall, and I can’t wait to see how she does.

2) The Beach!!
From the August 8^th, August 9^th, August 12^th, August … you get the idea.
Sun, sand, water, an iPod, and delicious Japanese food. It’s no wonder that I went, like, fifteen times.

1) A visit from Jyona33
This was something else that happened before I started writing this blog. It also involves a character that you have not yet met. I give you:

Jyona33
This was an ALT in a nearby town a couple of years ago. We met when he was a second year ALT and I was just in my first year. Although our initial exchanges were awkward, our friendship soon bloomed and now he is one of The Best Friends.* He’s back in the States now, but we talk often and he schools me on All Things Japanese and the General Direction My Life Should Take. He’s a funny person.

Anyway, Jyona33 has been out of the country for awhile, and he came back to visit for about two weeks in mid-July. He stayed with me for the better part of a week and we had a rather fantastic time exploring our towns and just talking. I got to meet some new people, see some new places, and just enjoy the frequent use of the English language outside of the telephone conversations I have with people back home. I think that his visit really marked the beginning of the summer for me, and it set the tone for the rest of it.

So there we have it. 6 weeks. 10 memories. As far as I know, my last summer in Japan is at an end. I’m a little sad – it’s bittersweet, after all. Still, there are a lot of things on the horizon and I’m looking forward to seeing where this is all going to go.

*I would go further and refer to him as the wind beneath my wings, but that would embarrass him. Assuming he ever actually reads this blog as he’s been promising to do for weeks.

“Mysteria – the spirit arising
Eldritch cries from the hill
Mysteria – the fires are blazing”

土日曜日 Recap – August 23rd August 23, 2009

Posted by Earthdragonette in Weekend Recap.
Tags: beach, elementary students, fish event, ice cream, Japan, pride, relaxing, Rocko, summer
1 comment so far

And … here we are! This is our third Weekend Recap, and the eve before my last week of summer vacation. This summer has gone by quickly – perhaps more so because I’m grew up having three months off thanks to the Florida public school system.

Still, despite this background, I don’t feel as though the students (or the teachers) are being denied a decent break. Six weeks feels just right to me – I’ve had a chance to relax, to travel, and to procrastinate to prepare for the second term.

It all starts again on the first of September. From that point on, I think that these posts will be shorter and more student-focused. This is of course assuming that I’m able to keep up with my posting schedule, which has yet to be seen. I shall do my best. d(^o^)b

So, what did this weekend bring us?

Saturday
Saturday was another day spent with Rocko. He’d asked me to come up with an adventure of sorts for the day, but I was feeling lazy contemplative last week and so I suggested another sojourn to the beach.* Since all the cool people go to the beach on the weekend, he was up for it. The weather was mostly cooperative, the crowd wasn’t overwhelming, and we had a really great time.

I think that my favorite moment from the day had to be when we had left the beach and were on the way back to my village. We stopped at convenience store to pick up a few things, and as we were leaving, I managed to catch sight of myself in a mirror: Bride-of-Frankenstein hair, sunglasses, sand stuck to my arms, and a tan (okay, slightly reddish) complexion.

“Dude,” I said to him. “We look like we’re totally beach buzzed.” He kind of gave me a funny look and said, “Uh, that’s because we are.”

There was just something kind of special about that realization – a feeling of accomplishment. Maybe it’s my Floridian ego (somewhat repressed but still Very Much Alive). Maybe it was just that I’ve tried so hard to relax and enjoy this summer and the beach has been central to that. Maybe it’s just that I’m weird. In that moment, I was quite proud of myself and pleased with my lot. It’s not that I did anything spectacular or profound – I’d been lying on a towel all day for goodness sake. But it was a testament – a declaration if you will. I was declaring to one and all: “Hey, it’s warm, it’s the weekend, and I went to the beach. I am enjoying the summer.”

Hmm. Actually, it’s more than that. I was telling myself, “Hey, Julie. It’s warm, it’s the weekend, and you just spent another day at the beach. You are enjoying the summer. You are relaxing. You are taking it easy. And you’re not feeling guilty about it.”

So, yes. I was proudly, unashamedly beach buzzed on Saturday.

*I swear upon my loyalty to the Pittsburgh Steelers (May They Reign Forever) that I do in fact go to places besides the beach.

So, this then brings us to Sunday.
Today was the make-up day for the fish festival that was originally scheduled for the 9th but then postponed on account of The Rainy Season that Wouldn’t End. I met The Supervisor at about 8 o’clock and followed him through the back roads of my town to a small creek about forty-five minutes to the north of my apartment.

This was another one of those days where I had a general idea of what would be happening but I really wasn’t sure about the details (this really is the perpetual state that I live in). The gist of the day was this: my town purchased approximately 1,200 small freshwater fish called ayu and sectioned off a portion of the creek. They then released the fish and invited the elementary students of my town to catch them, grill them, and eat them.

I would say that about 150 people came out for the event. The creek wasn’t that big, but there was plenty of room for everyone to try catching fish. Some used nets, some used Japanese-style fishing poles, and many just caught them in their hands. I was also encouraged to go out and catch fish by hand, but this was challenging absolutely impossible for three reasons.

1) It’s hard to get close to a fish when you have children running in front of you, behind you, and occasionally on top of you. For some reason, the fish don’t like loud, screaming children (I can’t imagine why…). So, I wasn’t very good about getting close to my prey.

2) One of my elementary student’s little brothers (who I would guess is about four years old) became fixated on me early on in the day. No, really. HE LOVED ME. And what was even better than warm, dry, happy-looking foreigner person? Why, soaking wet, standing in a river and trying to catch small fish foreigner person! Perhaps for the same reason that fish don’t like to hang around loud, screaming children, they seemed to express a similar disinclination for the company of a loud, shrieking child attached to a less than graceful woman.

Which leads me to the third reason. (Really, it’s hardly worth mentioning but I’ll go ahead anyway.)

3) Every time that I did manage to touch a fish, some primitive and long-forgotten part of my brain responded very vehemently to the presence of a LIVE SQUIRMY THING. Which is one way of saying that I immediately did whatever I could to get away from it. This was counterproductive considering the purpose of my being there in the first place was in fact to catch a fish. (Or, ideally, several.)

I am quite aware that this primitive part of my brain blatantly ignored the more logical part of my brain that was saying, “Hey, live squirmy thing = future food.” The lack of communication has been noted, and may be addressed in a future post where I theorize how I will survive the aftermath should North Korea decide that they really don’t like Japan.**

So, okay. After about an hour of (me not) catching fish, my town’s board of education members (who were running the event) took buckets of the caught fish up the side of the ravine to the grills. The fish were washed, stuck on sticks and then cooked with a little salt. It was simple, fresh, and delicious. Given that we had about 1200 fish and only 150 people in attendance, there was more than enough to go around. Combine that with rice balls and green tea, and it was the perfect lunch.

The specific memory that I want to hold on to today, though comes from the afternoon. (Although I will probably never forget my brief partnership with the Shrieking Toddler of Doom.) After everyone had more or less finished lunch, the board of education served everyone shaved ice and ice cream.

The thing about this whole fish-focused event was that although I went there with intentions of helping, I felt a bit useless. (This is a normal part of going to any kind of community event for the first time.) Considering my total fail at catching fish, I couldn’t exactly walk around and expertly instruct the youngsters as to how they could improve their technique. Not when they were walking by me up to their elbows in self-caught fins and gill.

I was also not good at sticking fish on to sticks. I tried. The Supervisor helped me. Then he told me that I looked tired and should take a break. (Translation: Ohmygod, go away!!!) =(

I also opted to stay away from the fire because whenever I went over there to learn about what they were doing, the cooks just assumed that I wanted a freshly cooked fish. The longer I stayed, the more fish I got and after the fourth one I resigned myself to not taking a turn at the grill.

So, this pretty left me to wander around. I talked to my students, chatted with parents, splashed in the cool water, and ate even more fish. It was fun, but I still wanted to contribute.

I finally got my chance once we started to make the crushed ice/ vanilla ice cream desserts. The general idea was that each person got a small bowl of shaved ice with a scoop of ice cream. We had plenty of people to do the shaved ice part, but not so much for the ice cream.

I may not be able to provide for myself in the wild, but dangit, I know ice cream! One doesn’t live fourteen years in Florida and four in Annapolis (the ice cream capital of Maryland and quite possibly the universe) without picking up some scooping skillz.

So, I manned up. I tied my hair back, grabbed an ice cream scoop, flexed some muscle and got our line moving. I will confess that because I am a flawed human being, my students were rewarded with more ice cream than people that were not my students.

\(^o^)/ Cultivating Favor With Children = Good Idea.
Fairness = Not Relevant.

Aside from spoiling my students, and the warm, fuzzy feeling of being able to help with an event, the experience was just fun. Cold, wet, sugary, demanding, everybody-better-work-as-a-team-because-these-kids-want-their-dessert-five-minutes-ago chaos. I liked it. I liked being in the middle of it, liked using Japanese to hear what everyone’s preferences were, liked answering in English and prompting students to make their requests in English just because I was standing there. I even enjoyed the part where I accidentally flung ice cream on this guy from the board of education that I’ve always had kind of a strange relationship with. He just laughed at it and dismissed my apologies; I think that we may actually be on the other side of his snark now.

(So, take that to heart, my friends. When you find yourself in the middle of an international conflict, just throw ice cream at your adversary during a community event involving children.)

I was exhausted when I came home and have not been the slightest bit productive for the rest of the day, but that’s fine. I can live with that. I can take the memories of Beach Buzzdom and Ice Cream Craftsperson and be content.

“Is it really the treasure of gold
Or the dance in the rainbow itself?”

** Through totally disregarding my healthy/whole foods lifestyle and cultivating a tolerance for ramen, Pocari Sweat, and Soy Joy bars.

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Where I Intended to Be

3.14 = Pi Day! March 14, 2010

In a parallel universe, I update my blog every day. Part III. November 15, 2009

In a parallel universe, I update my blog every day. Part II. November 15, 2009

In a parallel universe, I update my blog every day. Part I. November 15, 2009

Monkey Up! October 18, 2009

I can see clearly now… September 24, 2009

Rocko Was Right – I am a dork. September 11, 2009

Super Express 土日曜日 Recap – September 6th September 6, 2009

A farewell to summer… August 31, 2009

土日曜日 Recap – August 23rd August 23, 2009

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3.14 = Pi Day! March 14, 2010

In a parallel universe, I update my blog every day. Part III. November 15, 2009

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In a parallel universe, I update my blog every day. Part I. November 15, 2009

Monkey Up! October 18, 2009

I can see clearly now… September 24, 2009

Rocko Was Right – I *am* a dork. September 11, 2009

Super Express 土日曜日 Recap – September 6th September 6, 2009

A farewell to summer… August 31, 2009

土日曜日 Recap – August 23rd August 23, 2009

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Rocko Was Right – I am a dork. September 11, 2009