A day off, kinda.

Today I got in and found out that I didn't have any classes today:
1st years were painting a picture all day
2nd years were on a hiking trip / visiting a castle
3rd years were taking their high school placement exams.

So I read through the last 2/3 of my Planet Eigo book and picked plans that I thought would be fun to do with students and classes in the future. That took most of my day, but I did have lunch with the 3rd years (I'll be switching to a new classroom each month to help me get to know the students.) and wished them good luck since the english portion was right after lunch.

Then, after cleaning period (which, lemme digress: Imagine how much you could get done if just over 300 students spent 20-30 minutes each day cleaning the school. Man oh man, they hit everything while cleaning and leave the place spotless. I even saw students picking up little bits of stuff from under teacher's desks during the cleaning period. And don't get me started on how they clean the gymnasium. I saw a phalanx of them running back and forth pushing little hand towels with their hands in a gym. And of course, absolutely no talking during cleaning period. I'll get pictures eventually, maybe tomorrow.)

The last two hours of school I spent checking student's tests for english, which wasn't too hard, and tallying up their scores. (the teacher's got a kick out of seeing how fast I could add up their totals.)

On the way home, it was raining, but of course today was the day I had forgotten my umbrella. So I was making good progress home, when not more than 100 yards from school, some car just goes barrelling past me, hits the puddle, and totally splashes me, like a bad 1930's movie. I couldn't believe it. Oh well, it was just water.

The view on the way home was so pretty, since a new storm was moving in from the east, but to the west was a relatively clear sky with low clouds moving along the mountain. The sunlight on all the green rice made it sparkle as well, which was just beautiful.

Day Three

I had first period off today, and with tests coming up for lots of the students this weekend, the two classes I was going to have with Kasuga-sensei today were cancelled as well. This meant I had a boatload of time off today, but I put it to good use by reading a good couple of chapters of my "Planet Eigo (english)" Book today, which gives me some more information about how to effectively team-teach. I talked with some of the other teachers and am working on getting to know them better. I finished up my day with studying some Japanese at school, then went to buy some groceries.

Off to home, made some dinner, and that's about it. I gave my neighbor Yuka her omiyage present today, which surprised her quite a bit. :-P

DayTwo and the continuing acclimation to life in Japan.

Today I was able to sleep in to 7:30, a pleasant change of pace. I got up, dressed, and somehow still didn't have time for a proper breakfast. Figures. Although it quickly became apparent that drinking that BOSS coffee was a bad idea, because it made me horribly tired for almost the entire rest of the day. On the walk to work, I realized that the person who cought up from behind me was Yuko, my next door neighbor. Turns out her car broke down yesterday at school and she's having it worked on, so we chatted on the way until we split, since she goes to the elementary school in the moring. Today I had 5 classes, which was a bit intense, although it wasn:t that bad, since I am still just observing. Although since I had two lvl 1 classes back to back with the same teacher, I offered to help her do the dialogue during the second class, just so I wouldn't fall asleep (again, that caffine crash).

4rd period was with Omori sensei again, and this time, instead of having a very rambunctious group, she had three girls, all of whom were mind-bogglingly shy. I couldn't believe it. I used a good portion of this class time to do some checking of papers for another professor, which not only was a good way to pass time, but let me get the hang of marking papers for the students. I can't help but feel bad for poor Omori-sensei, who seems to have the worst classes, but then again, she is the newbie here. (She was excited yesterday that I just turned 23, because it no longer leaves her as the youngest teacher at the school).

3rd period I had with Kasuga, who again seemed to be a hoot in class, I hope he stays this energetic throughout our time working together, because he was pretty funny. He was having his students come up with things they 'have to' do at school in Japan to help me get an idea of how things are differnt, and helped one of them come up with the line 'we must have girlfriends in japan', which not only got a laugh out of everone, but also gave kasuga-sensei the opportunity to ask the student if he had a girlfriend, and upon the response of 'no', immediately ask the girl sitting in front if she'd go out with him, since he 'needed' a g/f. lol.

I was able to miss out on cleaning time today since Kasuga-sensei brought me down to the bank to make sure my account got opened today. We had to rush because the bank closed at 3. yes, 3. wtf mate? I was surprised by how much I was able to catch here and there during the discussion between Kasuga and the bank teller. It was also so much easier to open a bank account this time than it was when I was at Kansai Gaidai. I also was relieved to find out that I will be able to withdraw money / pay with my Credit Card here until my bank account actually has money in it, but I'm hoping it wont be neccessary.

As a side note, you may be noticing that my writing lacks apostrophes or proper capitalization at points, which is because i'm still getting used to using a japanese keyboard at school. for one, the backspace key is about half the size, the right shift (which is the only one i use normally) is the size of a letter key, and the apostrophe is the shift & 7 key. freaking annoying.

It looks like the bank account will be officially going here in just a day or two, and I'll have my cash and bank cards as well, which means i can get my cell phone here soon enough.

I ran by my place to pick up my passport to open up my bank account, and there were workers out in the cordoned off area of my [front yard] which actually isnt my front yard but is still out in front. I'm interested to see what they do. Well, I'm getting ready to wrap it up here at school. I'm already learning the way of looking busy even when I'm not. ayiyi!

Check one thing off the list of life goals

So, after school, I went with Kasuga-sensei to city hall because Kasuga-sensei had gotten a call to come by to help them translate some stuff into English.

Turns out they are having an earthquake drill the next week and wanted to have an english translation. Well, after helping Kasuga-sensei with the translation and making it sound all official, they figured they might as well have me record the message for them.

So now, when they put a city / district wide announcement over the disaster loudspeakers (basically Tornado sirens, but used for earthquakes) sometime next week, it's going to be announced in Japanese, then in English using my reading. So at roughly 7:30 am next Sunday morning, I'm going to hear my own voice blanketing the valley.

Pure Win.

My first day of school

Well, today was my first day of work! I got up at just after 7, got dressed, made sure i had all of my stuff with me, and then took off work work. Because it was going to be warm and humid, i opted to walk instead of taking my bike. I got to work, and had my offical introduction to the staff. Then, it was off to my self introduction to the entire school. Holy cow, talk about nerve-wracking.

So I'm walking down this tunnel, sloping down, and i can see the students sitting down in extremely organized rows and columns. i walk in at the back with two others, and the gymnasium we walk into is about the size of the one at WHS, except full of students on the court. Then then stand up, and I walk in along the side, the vice-principle gives them orders to stand at attention, and i have to tell you, it scared me half to death to see 600 tweens go to military attention simotaneously. I then walked up onto stage, was introduced by the vice-principle, and was met by a chorus of "Ohayo Gozaimasu x 600". Then I was to give my introduction, in Japanese. Holding a mic. thats a dead giveaway that there's lots of people there. Ayiyi. I was jerky and nervous as all hell, but I got through it, gave a bow, and walked off stage.

Also, it's a big deal that I studied at Kansai Gaidai for some reason.

It's an even bigger deal that I'm left-handed. Eating or writing always elicits "Waaaa!! murmer murmer hidari (left) murmer murmer"


Then it was off to my first class. It was a `grade 2` (there are three grades for jr. high instead of doing the k-12 thing here). The students were pretty good and particularly Genki (energetic) for a Monday morning. I then went to a class with Kasuga-sensei, the head male teacher here. This 2nd class was for students who weren't quite as fast learners, but were not terrible by any means.

I still haven't gotten used to saying [hello] or [ohayo gozaimasu] or [konnichiwa] to every single person in the school that I pass, but being a big, white person in a colorful shirt will do that. :-p. My 3rd class was an optional one with Kasuga's exceptionally gifted @ english students, and it was really enjoyable. The class was just a free-speak class, but the students were remarkably engaging and Kasuga did a good job of asking questions to keep themn talking.

Next I went to a class with kawai-sensei, a 3rd level class. Kawai-sensei wants me to be doing a good amount of the teaching eventually, so today was pretty boring, as they had a ton of time to make up skits and present them.

Then it was lunchtime, and I got to eat with a class, a note i maybe didn't mention earlier, Japanese lunches are served by the students in homerooms, an interesting change from America.

I had a fun time relaxing and talking with the students at lunch, and got caught off guard as they thanked me for eating with them when I had a mouth-full of veggies. Blah.

I then attended a 2nd level class for some slow learning students, which was fairly interesting. I'm not sure if they're just misbehaved or have learning disabilities, but Omori-sensei did a magnificent job of keeping her patience and not wringing necks.

Then it was cleaning time, which was pretty darn interesting, as everyone, and i mean everyone, put on bandanna and got to work. And lemme tell you, these kids leave no stone unturned. Although it was a hoot seeing the older guys put on theirs, and resume working on their lesson plans as if nothing had changed.

I then spent the last couple of hours at school / after school reading one of my handbooks for Team-teaching on JET before heading off with Kasuga-sensei to city hall, as detailed in the next post.

Calm before the Storm

Today I woke up at 7 (stupid JET lag) to pouring rain, got ready, and made my way to the train station. Bought my ticket, and boarded the train at 10:30 to meet a fellow JET who would take me to the BBQ today.

I met Neal, a thirty-something JET from South Africa, and went to his place for a few minutes to pass time until others were ready. We then went and met some others at Okaya station, which, Neal is a great guy, but cramming four into his teeny car was rough :-P Well, eventually everyone made it there, and there was about 15 of us.

Luckily, I was able to hop into Jesse's Rav4 with Nobo and Matt, two other JET's. These three guys are the three that live the closest to me, and were absolutely hysterical. I had a blast hanging out with them.

We also plucked a peach off a tree (from inside the car no less), which had some AWESOME freaking flavor. Japanese fruit, accept no substitutes.

Well, the huge group of us made our way to a steak-house since the original restaurant was scared of 17 (we snagged two more) gaijin just rolling into their place.

The food was decent, steak was mediocre, but had this amazing garlic miso sauce.

We then headed home, and I bid adeiu to Matt (from the UK) and Nobo(USA) and Jesse dropped me off at my place. I spent a couple of hours doing laundry, cleaning up outside, looking around my apt, etc.

Matt then stopped by, and we went to Jesse's, picked him up, and went to a NYC pizza place. It's really a cool change of pace to get around japan by car instead of train, something i never did at Kansai. Also, the area we were going through was kinda surreal, because the sprawl along this one major highway smushed all the towns together, and basically was like one big long Coralville strip. Kinda weird.

The pizza was fantastic (and I have leftovers, but I left them in Matt's car! D'oh!)

Tomorrow is my first day of school! I'm nervous and just want the day to start so I can stop worrying. I have to give a self-introduction in Japanese, on stage, to the entire student body and teachers. Shoot. Lol. Thanks to Gaby and Alberto for helping me make sure my grammar was right!

Another interesting point: I've figured out where History majors go after college: JET. I've met no less than 4 history majors so far, not including myself! :-P

Whew! It has been a very busy day and a half for me!

I'll start with Friday:

Marshall, my roommate from orientation who is going to Nii-gata, one prefecture north of Nagano. We had breakfast, and bid goodbye to each other and to other friends we had made over the last day. I met up with Ben, my Prefectural advisor, in the lobby at 8. We walked to Shinjuku station and boarded a train. The ride was about an hour and a half and I made small talk with Ben and read the paper. At Chino, a 1/2 point point between Nagano city (up north) and Iijima, Ben and I split up as I met Matsuzaki-san, a member of the Board of Education (BOE) and Kasuga-sensei, head english teacher in Iijima. They drove me back to Iijima, but along the way we stopped for lunch. After reaching Iijima, I dropped my luggage off at the apartment. While we were there, a representative from the gas company came by, turned on the gas, and gave me (through Kasuga-sensei), a tutorial on how to use the gas in my place (i.e. I need to turn it on to use my stove / shower) We then went to the city's municiple office, where I was introduced to the city's head of education, his office, and a few others. I was then given my 'contract' in a semi-official ceremony, accepted it, and then went upstairs to meet the Mayor. It was particularly intimidating because of the attitude that Kasuga-sensei had (which was extreme respect). I then had a discussion, through Kasuga sensei, with the Mayor, the vice-mayor, and two other big-wigs in Iijima. I had the realization that when under pressure, my Japanese is even worse than it is normally. :-( After the meeting with them, we went downstairs and began to fill out the volumes of paperwork I have to do, starting with making my 'Inkan', the stamp that Japanese people use to sign their name (Bethany attested they do this in Korea as well). Unfortunately it can be difficult to take care of all this stuff w/out the inkan, which they were making for me. I had the choice of choosing 'DG' or three kanji with the sound 'do' 'whi' 'to'. I'm pretty sure they used the kanji 'temperature', 'meet', and 'person'. Furthermore, we got some forms filled out so that my electrical, gas, and water bill will be taken out of my bank account automatically. I'll head back there in a couple of weeks to get my alien registration card, and drop off my omiyage for the mayor, matsuizaki-san. We also picked up my other luggage bag, and brought it back to the apt. When we got back, Kasuga-sensei and I noticed that I did not, in fact, have a bike (Jon gave his away, and I never thought to ask him beforehand). Kasuga sensei then took me to the school I'll be working at and introduced me to the vice-principal and the staff. It was nerve-wracking but fun to meet people. Kawai-sensei then accompanied myself and Kasuga-sensei to a local motorcycle shop to see if they had any extra bicycles to use temporarily until the BoE can get me a new one. The guy had a few, but wanted to get ahold of the owner in order to make sure I could use it. We then passed the interveining time by going around time and seeing where the train station, conbini's (convienance stores), and grocery stores are located. We then snagged some coffee at a nice place outside of Iijima proper, but still in the area. We then returned to the bike shop, and I was allowed to use one of the bikes, although it's rusty and looks like it was painted in 1992! Unfortunately, Kasuga sensei's vehicle couldn't hold it, so I had to ride back to the house on the bike, but of course I'm in my dress clothes and tie :rofl: I'm sure anyone that saw me couldn't help but laugh hysterically at me. :-P Once I got back, I bid farewell to Kawai-sensei and Kasuga-sensei. I went inside, and turned on my computer since I was told that my internet wouldn't be turned on for a week (although the router was on). I was happily brought to rapt attention when I heard skype beep for me, which meant I had internet! :-D I started to chat to Bethany.

Then, out of nowhere, I heard my doorbell ringing! I got the door, and was suprised to see an American standing there! It was Jesse, a 3rd year JET from a town over. Nagano is broken up into several 'blocks', and Patricia, the suwa-ina (my block) leader gave Jesse a heads-up that I was getting in and so he stopped by. I taked with him for a long time (as bethany can attest too, sorry!) and then as he was saying good-bye, my neighbor came up. Jesse talked with her briefly to help give me an idea of where some of the things in town are located. Upon his leaving, I got to know my neighbor. She was willing to take me to the conbini, which was a really nice gesture. Along the way I talked with her more, and I had a great time getting to try and use my Japanese and periodically trying to help her with her english. She's a lunch lady for the school, so hopefully I'll get to see her around either at school etc. in the coming days, as she's quite nice. After I got back, I had my dinner (cheap delicious conbini sushi!) and began my unpacking. By the time I had finished up, I was practically a zombie I was so tired. I went ahead and washed off in the shower and figured I'd treat myself to a nice hot bath. It was so fantastic to get to relax, although I nearly fell asleep in the tub I was so tired! :-p. It was a hectic, but interesting and fun day.

I woke up this morning at ten (although I first woke up at 7, damn jet (hah!) lag. I was surprised by a guy pulling into my front lawn. Kasuga-sensei and I had been laughing about the long grass (Kasuga joked that I could just pour chemicals on it), and this guy was there to cut it for me. He used a weed-whacker with a buzz-saw on the end of it, and spent the better part of an hour cutting and raking up my lawn, it looks much better now!

I then walked around town for a couple of hours, saw the local shrine, found my way to and from some of the points of interest, and went to the station and talked with the attendant about times for the train, since there is a good chance I will need to take it to a BBQ with other new JET's in this block tomorrow afternoon (hopefully I can get a ride though!) I then went to the grocery store, and burned a quick 40 bux on food (but it's delicious and fresh!), made some soup-ed up ramen for lunch, and now am writing this HUGE blog entry. But I'm getting to watch and laugh at Star Trek on my cpu while I write this, I suppose that's why it's taking so long. :-P

I have to prepare a sel-introduction for monday that I will deliver (in japanese) in front of the entire school on stage. damnit. I figure giving my Japanese a shot will at least demonstrate my willingness to give Japanese a shot, even if I do bumble through it terribly! :-P

The weather today has been rainy and humid, but the upside has been that periodically I can see clouds alighting on the mountains off in the distance!

Hope this tides you guys over while I enjoy myself!

Whew! Today has been busy! I had a bunch of stuff for orientation today, including how things will be operating, how I can apply my knowledge to the classroom etc etc.

They were informative but in a way left us more worried than anything else because we don't have an opportunity to apply our knowledge etc etc since we aren't in a classroom yet.

I also met with my Prefectural Advisor Ben Raven, who I'll be traveling with tomorrow on the train to Nagano. unfortunately, the Nagano prefecture orientation has already happened (Nagano has a total of 109 ALT's, 49 of whom are new) and I'm the 2nd to last to arrive.

Luckily, I also found out that the 1000$ I brought with me should be plenty to last me the first month, including my rent. I'll have lots of stuff to take care of in the first few weeks, but I'm also looking forward to riding around my town (I believe Jon, whom I am replacing, has left me a bicycle) and getting to know / meet people. I believe that will be vital to just getting a feeling of comfortability in my area.

I have a nice dinner tonight, and after that I hope to hang out with some of the friends I have made in the last day before we all head on out to our regional areas. That has been difficult, knowing that all these people I've met will be moderately tough / nearly impossible to meet later on. Luckily, two of the guys I have really gotten to know will be just one prefecture away, so no more than 6-8 hours by train. Also, Nagano is big. :-P bottom to top by train can take up to 8 hours by train. Yikes!

Also, I met a guy today who I had met at Kansai, although neither of us realized it at first. We had been talking at a table with others for about 15 minutes before we realized we had both been to Kansai, at the same time! Marcus then said, "Do you know Larry?" and I started laughing and said yes. We also knew Haruka, Rika, and Miho as mutual friends. Small world! :-P

Well, Technically it could be 'up to a month' before I get internet at my apt., but most likely it will either still be running or just a couple of days after I get there, and even then, Hopefully I can access it at school briefly or something. I'll let you all know more as it happens. maybe even have pictures up of my place here in a few days!

Wish me luck!

In Japan, at Keio Plaza Hotel

And so far, so good. I ate at a hole in the wall restaurant with some of my fellow JET's and it was nice to get back to some Japanese comfort food that I had missed. I then also went to a conviencence store and got my old favorites "Boss Coffee: rainbow mountain blend" as well as the meiji brand chocolate covered almonds. Whoo, it brings me back. I also walked around for a bit, and went to an electronics store to pick up a 3-prong converter I needed so I could use my computer in the hotel. It started to rain, which was a bit of a downer.

I'm rooming here from a guy I met at the airport in chicago and get along with really well. He'll be one province over from me, so hopefully I can visit him some throughout the year.

well, time for some shower, shave, and bed (I haven't slept yet, so my body feels like it's been up all night.)

Thanks again everyone for all your help at getting me over here! I'm really looking forward to what should be a great time! :-)

Just a few more days to go

I'm going through all the packing stages right now, last minute stuff to make sure I'll be ready. Although I severely doubt I'll be 100% ready, but that's just how it goes. I figured I should get the blog up and going before I took off as well, just to be safe.