Miscellaneous Musings...

As I was writing the date on the chalkboard in class, it struck me how removed I feel from my country today. My hope for everyone on such an anniversary is that we remember to count each and every one of our blessings! And now I will make a conscious effort to discuss happier things going down on this side of the Pacific.

My inner editor cries daily in this land where English is the second (if even) language. But it's always amusing!

This a placemat at Muche ("Moooooosh"), our favorite authentic "Italian" restaurant in the neighborhood:



Are you enjoy? I sure are.

And this is my favorite trash can!



Being creen sure IS wouderful.

Now, reading the placemat and the trash can is a bit like reading the first graders' summer essays. They don't have a command of English, but you can always understand what they're trying to say because it's simple enough. The third graders, on the other hand, are trying so hard to compose such complex sentences that they convolute their work beyond all logic. It's cryptic, much like this ten-dollar purse I couldn't pass up:


(?)


(?)

I love it here.

Here is something else wonderful about this city: gaijin traps. "Gaijin" is a not-so-nice term for a foreigner. Now, to be fair, Japanese people ride bikes too, but it's usually the Americans or the Australians that come home with cuts and bruises from top to bottom after sliding off the road into one of these:



Isn't it nice how the asphalt just kind of gently rolls down into the ditch? You can see another ditch on the other side of the road, too. Now, gaijin traps come in all shapes and sizes. Sometimes they're narrower, maybe only six inches or a foot wide. They're usually this wide and this deep, roughly two feet. Sometimes they're six feet deep. As necessary drainage, they are on EVERY road, but maybe only five percent have grates to cover them. The rest are waiting to eat me.

Now, let's talk about school, particularly the bathrooms:



Yeah! It's like camping every day of the year...in your work clothes!

This is the teachers' office. All of the teachers work in the same room. There are three groupings of ten desks, and the principal and vice principal sit at the front of the room:



These are some of my teachers:



That was the third grade boss and Kano-sensei (with the fan). Kano-sensei is so cool! She always gives me the Japan Times in English. And she always finds chopsticks for me since I usually forget to bring my own.

And this is Kawakami-sensei:



Unfortunately, her eyes are closed, but she is so pretty! And she's a dancer and she's just the nicest lady ever. Today, she randomly asked me how I felt about my schedule, and I told her my concerns, and she said she would talk to the other teachers about it. And when 4 o'clock rolled around, she was like, "Just go home!"

And, saving the best for last, this is Hamada-sensei:



All of the other teachers tease him because he looks like yakuza (Japanese mafia). When Enami-sensei asked me to explain the difference between cute, handsome and sexy, she asked me to classify Hamada-sensei. Without even thinking about it, I said, "HE IS DEFINITELY SEXY!!!" He looks totally scary, and he can be (I watched him make a disruptive fifteen year-old boy cry today), but he's the biggest teddy bear when you're on his good side. I think he's why I like teaching the third graders so much. (Yes, I am giggling like a school girl right now.)

And I took pictures of cleaning time as promised!

First they move all the desks to one end of the room, and they sweep and "mop." And then they do it to the other half of the room. All the while, a few kids are cleaning the chalkboards and the erasers...even brushing or vacuuming the chalk dust off of the tray! It's so fun to watch how much they get done in fifteen minutes!







But now, I think I'm going to go to bed. Sorry if this post was too picture-heavy. More stories later.

"Worklife"

Sorry the posts have been few and far between; I promise I will get into the habit of writing more often! There are definitely enough stories to fill pages and pages of intangible internet space!

On Wednesday it rained all day long. Solid sheets of rain from 10am to 6pm. It's charming until you remember that you rode your bike to work. And then it's charming again when you realize that you work with the nicest group of people ever! When I was getting ready to leave work around 5pm (that's super early in Japanland) and a few of my teachers came to the realization that I own absolutely no rain gear, the kocho-sensei (principal) offered to drive me home. And even though my school is only a ten-minute bike ride from home, they arranged for another teacher to pick me up the next morning so I didn't have to walk. Again, everyone is always so helpful!


This is my desk!

My first week at school was a little repetitive. I've been working towards introducing myself to over 550 students, two classes at a time. Every period I visit two classes and give the same spiel. I just tell them about myself and my hobbies, and about Arizona. Surprisingly, no Arizonan had ever told them about The Diamondbacks before! And I'm not even that big into baseball, but I mean, hello! We won the World Series; it's a talking point.

The kids seem really nice. Even though it's junior high, they are labeled as first, second, and third graders. So the first graders turn 13 and they are so cute! They giggle and they like answering the questions I ask them about myself for listening comprehension skills. And when given the chance to ask questions of me, they always ask, "What are your favorite fruits?" The second graders on the other hand, just stare into space. Maybe they're just a little more shy, as the teachers rationalize, if sleeping can be interpreted as such.

And I was so scared to meet the third graders! On the first day during cleaning time, there was this total punk towering over me. He was angry because my ears are pierced and they're not allowed to have ANY piercings. Enami-sensei (the teacher who has taken me under her wing) told me not to worry because the disruptive students are never in the classrooms. When I asked her where they were if they weren't in class, she didn't really have an answer for me... But it was true, there were no disruptive students in the third grade class. In fact, they were the most fun and they're easier to relate to because they're older (15) and their English is better.

You're probably wondering what cleaning time is! Everyday after lunch the kids clean the school for fifteen minutes. All the kids are assigned to specific areas. Some clean their classrooms (kids in Japan stay in the same room with the same peers all day long and the teachers move around). They move all the desks and sweep and mop and clean the chalk boards. Other kids clean the hallways or the teachers' office (all the teachers work in one big room). It's so funny watching the kids clean the hallways because they push rags along the floor, but instead of crawling on their knees, they race each other with their behinds up in the air. I promise I'll get pictures next week!

Worklife in Japan has definitely been the culture shock. The fact that I can't read any road signs or any labels in grocery stores, or understand a single word anyone says to me, that's all manageable. But adapting an American work ethic to Japanese expectations is a bit challenging. Here, it's most important that you show up and stay late. Even though my contract is for 35 hours a week (part-time), my teachers expect me to stay until 5pm, which is 45 hours. Most Japanese teachers don't leave school until 8 or 9pm, but I think that's just the cultural standard. He who stays the latest and attends the most staff parties shall succeed.

I think there's also some time management issues at play. For example, on Monday I was given a large stack of summer essays to grade. It was maybe four hours of work, and when I returned it to the teacher the same day she gave it to me, she was completely shocked. She didn't need it or expect it until the end of October! I spent the last ninety minutes of every day this week checking my email and reading the newspaper, and no one cared. In fact, it was one of the teachers who would lend me her newspapers (Kano-sensei is so cool). And teachers frequently sleep in the lounge!

A lot of the other Assistant Language Teachers from America and Australia who have been in the program awhile are upset about the expectations being placed on us. We were hired as part-timers, but we are expected to work "as hard" as the full-time teachers, even though we aren't receiving the same benefits or pay. They say the focus of the program has switched from experiencing Japan to just having a job, and they see more and more of the new ALTs getting walked all over by their teachers. They tell me I have to insist on leaving by 4pm at the latest. I guess it really isn't fair that I should be made to stay and do nothing. We'll see how it goes.