清流祭 - School Festival

I know it's been about a week since I posted. But I've had a hectic week, and believe me, this makes up for it. :-P

First and foremost: here are external links to view my photo's from the event, since I'm not going to upload all 80 of them to my blog.

Day 1: http://www.new.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2019350&l=c455f&id=62600704
Day 2:http://www.new.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2019384&l=f45ed&id=62600704

Ok, so, normally we have 5 periods of class each day, but for the last couple of weeks, we have been skipping period 5 as prep for the Seiryusai (school festival), to give you and idea of how much effort goes into this thing. The students absolutely dedicate themselves to making this a thing of beauty.

Well, I get to come in a bit later than normal, aka my actual time to get there, since I didn't have to go to the teacher's meeting. Unfortunately, a storm had rolled in the night before and had yet to stop, so the driving rain and wind, plus my recently broken umbrella (due to the wind the night before) left me in normal clothes making my way to work with my dress clothes in my bag. I made it to school and changed really fast, but blech, I was wet.

The festivities kicked off just before 9, which included a very epic intro video of the three 'hosts' running all across southern nagano getting to school, and ended with them running down the hallway of school, and then actually running into the gym with a host of other kids. They were carrying an old lamp too, 'bringing the flame of Seiryusai to Iijima Jr. High', and then lit a mock olympic torch-ish flame. hell of an opening.

Intro was then done by the Principle, as well as several members of the PTA, and then students giving speeches too. I more or less zone out through all of this, since I can't follow all the Japanese obviously. Before these speeches though, there was a big unveiling ceremony of the big banner with the 'challenge' theme. The unveiling ceremony was pretty overblown and funny. I took a vid of it, becuase it was so silly. But I was really blown away by how epic this thing is. No doubt there had to have been over 100 man hours put into this thing. I still really can't believe just how detailed the kids were when making this.



After that, I had just over an hour to go around and view different rooms and see lots of displays done by the different students. Which included everything from calligraphy, to artwork, fans done by the students, and even stools made by the first years! It was pretty neat stuff!


I also found the art room too, which ended up being a major treat. Considering everyone had submitted an artistic design for the seiryusai logo, as well as doing the landscape artwork, I had ended up forgetting that there would be work on display by the students in the art club. I ended up having my socks knocked off by just how good this work was. I was able to talk to the student who did this piece and she said she'll bring me one of her pieces from last year to give me, so that I have something to spruce up my wall.

Thursday, Friday, and Saturday I had bento (boxed) lunches, since the students were busy and we were off a regular schedule. The bento was a bit expensive at 10$ a pop, but super delicious and warm meals are always a plus, especially when they're this good!


the afternoon was filled with talents shows done by the different classes. They were both adorable and funny, and some had some pretty sweet music to them too! All in all, I ended up having a great time in the afternoon with the kids! The kicker though, was finding out just after lunch that the teachers planned on doing a skit too, and they wanted me to join in with them! And they were doing it in costumes. well, I wasn't going to miss out on the fun! So i just threw the clothes I had worn to school, plus a little kids had, and went as a kid. Lol. I didn't quite learn the dance perfectly, but that's ok, because it was still fun. Plus, I got to see kasuga sensei in a darth-vader helmet. Epic to no end.



Day one wrapped on up, and I had dinner and called it a night since I had to get up and be back at school again on saturday morning for day two!

Day two was 'performance' day, and had a one act play (that was pretty well done! although the story was kinda meh. A kid dies, travels to the afterlife, and says goodbye to his family.)

The band then performed, as well as the the choir. Then it was lunch-time, and over to the cultural center to see all the classes sing songs. I was really happy / proud to see the 3rd years of class 3 sing their song, as well as the 3rd year song of finlandia that I had ended up memorizing. :-P They did a fantastic job, and I took video of their performances. If you're up for seeing a fantastic performance, but a little long of a video, I'll link them once they're uploaded.

We then returned for the closing ceremony, which included a really touching closing ceremony where the students all lit candles, and quotes were read from different students about what they loved about the event, and then had a representative from each class say their thanks on behalf of their class, and then the class would blow out it's candles. The fact that 300 jr. high kids had open flame i think illustrates the gulf between the american and japanese school system.


Afterwards, the 3rd years of class three stuck around and had a picture taken, and then were ambushed by the rest of the 3rd years, and everyone ended up bursting into song, the theme song for this Seiryusai (the theme was 'Challenge'). Everyone was in a big circle and had linked arms, and it was just moving and awesome.


In japan, students take placement tests to get into high school, which means that after jr. high, oftentimes students leave many of their friends behind, hence the sense of comraderie.

I then dawdled around at school until it was time for the enkai (drinking party). I went to the party with kawai sensei, but got there a bit early and had to wait in a different room. I was one of 6 guests, the other 5 being teachers who used to teach at Iijima but now are somewhere else.

The food was absolutely scrumptous, and included some red tuna that just melted in my mouth, as well as great sushi. Also, per japanese custom, you get your drink topped off as a easy icebreaker and as a good way to keep the liquer flowing. It didn't take long for there to be lots of red-faced japanese etc. I myself had my fair share to drink (and at 50$, you darn right I was going to!). Well, then they had the guests give speeches, and I had to go about 1/2 through. which meant I had to do public speaking slightly iniebriated. Great. They wanted me to do it in Japanese, but I said I was too scared. :-P

I prefaced my speech by saying (and having someone translate for me) "Where alcohol flows, so too do true words.", to let them know I meant what I was saying. I told them how even though I had only been in Iijima a month, I saw many similarities to Washington, the friendship, the happyness. Especially among teachers, which I said isn't quite so common in America. I told them how Iijima felt like my new home and the teachers felt like my new family. Well, alcohol plus kind words = tears I guess. :-P I saw two teachers crying then, and two more told me later that my kindness moved them to tears. that was nice of them. :-)

Here's Kasuga-sensei enjoying the pleasures of the enkai.



Afterwards about half of us went to an afterparty, since we only get a certain amount of time at the enkai place. Kasuga was plenty drunk already, and this led to much laughter on behalf of all. The afterparty wasn't particularly interesting. Just fun and enjoyable. Although Kasuga and Kubota sensei both bailed while I was in the bathroom. Punks! I still had a good time, and everyone refused to let me chip in for the bill.

I started walking towards home with one of the teachers, the one who's class I'm eating with this month. I figured I'd keep him company instead of taking the direct shot home. We walked up the hill towards the school, and then he said he was hanging a right. He asked if my apt. was that way, and I said that It was in that direction, but I had never taken that route. I wanted to give it a shot though, since if I continued up to school, i'd end up doubling back later, and I know I had seen several streets that come out near my place, so I figured I'd end up on one of those. Along the way, we talked about how great it was to be able to see the starts, as well as constellations and stuff. I couldn't remember the word for satellite and wanted to ask if he had ever seen them at night. :-P I told him I'd bringn the word with me tomorrow.

Well, we got to a point where the teacher goes a diff way to get to his house, and I said that was fine, I'd go stright. Well, that was a dead end after a block. So I went back and went the way the teacher had, but he was already gone. I went down that road, hoping i would meet up with the road I normally take to and from school, but I had no luck with that either. I was pretty sure I was close to home though, because from my window I can see a cemetary up on a hill, and I was standing next to this cemetary now. But I'll tell you, this town is a different creature at night. I couldn't recognize anythiing. So i figure, what the hell, it's only 10:30, it's not that late, If i end up lost, I can walk for several hours with no problem. This town isn't that big, I'll just go back the way we came. well, I do this, and after not too long I realize i should ahve taken the fork on the road, and now I am lost. So I just start making my way towards what I figure is downtown. Well, I'm walking for a while, and notice that the hill i'm walking down kinda reminds me of Kansai. Then it reminds me of walking towards school. then I realize it IS the road to school. But I had been positive I hadn't turned onto this road, and the point I had realized I was on this road, I had been walking the path I take every single day for nearly two blocks. That was a bit of a head-trip, because I in essence, had no idea how I had ended up on this route. I turned around and started walking towards home, and all of a sudden I recognized everything (although this was the first time seeing it at night.). It was just really creepy how it all came into focus at once.

Today I took it easy, cleaned up (and now my apt. looks pretty darn spiffy!) and made some great spaghetti for dinner and an omlette for b-fast/lunch. I went shopping at a different grocery store today, that's only about a block farther than the one i normally go to, but I had been avoiding because I'd been having trouble getting to it on a day it was open. well, I'm going to keep going there from now on. A much better selection of stuff and it's cheaper. I had melon cream soda today, and nearly wet myself. Fantastic stuff.

OT Mini-meat in Matsumoto

My oh my, what I day I had yesterday. I woke up around 8:30 (even though I set my alarm for 9, stupid conditioning. I had a nice breakfast of eggs, bacon, and toast. I headed off around 10 for my train at 10:30. I am happy to say I was able to there without a hitch, including the changeover in Okaya. It was about a 2 hour trip. Once I got there I started looking around for Dave, the guy I was meeting. Of course I knew he'd have an easier time finding me, instead of vice-versa. We met up, and started walking around town, chatting. We thought about grabbing lunch, but then figured we'd stop on the way to the castle. We passed through a couple of shrines on the way which were pretty, and then made our way to the castle.



Matsumoto castle is the only still standing 5-tier castle in Japan and also one of the oldest: it has had no catastrophic damage since it's construction in 1517.

There were lots of relics and neat stuff in the castle as well as the adjoining museum. Unfortunately, the stairs in this thing are steep:

What does 55-61 degrees mean? It means it's like going up a ladder. Which means it's also like going down a ladder, except you are supposed to go down it like they're stairs. And you're in your socks. on polished wood.

The way up wasn't bad, of course. And the view was gorgeous:

That's from nearly 200 feet up. Pretty cool huh?


Going down though, that was a different matter. I was wound so tight, trying to make sure I didn't slip. This had ramifications. Having been over 24 hours since being at the castle, my quads are destroyed. That includes stretching off and on yesterday and today.

Afterwards, we meandered around, and found the PARCO shopping district, which was a good laugh for seeing people pay outragous prices for clothing (as well as check out the fly honey's). It was neat though, that on the top floor they had an art display, with some really neat works. Here is one of them:



We then made our way to the old city, and cought dinner at a hole-in-the-wall ramen shop, which was delicious because it was about 6 and we had ended up missing lunch. :-P

Afterwards we started walking around looking for an izukaya to snag some drinks, and we were having pretty crummy luck with it. Then it starts to rain, and we say 'screw it!' and ran into the nearest one we could find. Turned out to be a really nice place! We had a nice time trying some different things and sang happy birthday to a woman with the rest of the bar as she was surprised by a little cake with a sparkler on it (awesome!).

these greeted me above the door in the men's restroom. lol.

NWS: http://i477.photobucket.com/albums/rr133/dglinsma/DSC06256.jpg


It was getting late and the last train we could catch was at 9:07. It was just past 8 and we wanted to snag some karaoke still, so we found out that there was a karaoke place next to the station. So we made our way over there, and asked for a room. Well, I had to do the filling out of all the information because Dave had thought it would be a good idea to keep pace with me at the izukaya, and the guy's like, 1/2 my size.

The best of the entire night happened next: the lady tells us to head over to the elevator and head up to our room (lots of karaoke places have the first floor as a sign-in, and then you take the elevator up to your room.) Well, Dave heads over, and hits the elevator button. Except he actually hit the emergency button, which kicks out a lever. Well, his first response is to try and push this lever back in. I'm of course pretty much stunned / mortified that's going on. The kicker though, was that by hitting the button, a door started sliding down from the ceiling to block the elevator. A guy ran over and held it, and I asked him, embarrassed as anything, if everything was all right. He said it was fine and sent us to our room. As soon as we were in our elevator I burst into laughter. That was absolutely ridiculous. Here's the over the top control to pick the song you want:



Here are some other random shots from the day:



Old guns before they were outlawed by the Tokugawa.
bullet holes in this armor:








A woman picking flowers next to the river that goes through the center of town.

try these out?I did end up getting my phone on Friday too. It's fantastic! :-D Here's a pic of it:

Weekend Leadup

Yesterday wasn't a particularly eventful day, I had several classes which went well, enjoyed myself, and went to watch the 3rd year class 3 practice singing during 5th period. This was a fun time, and of course, they asked me for advice after they finished. I said that everyone was good, but that the bass section needed to be louder etc. I was thanked by their teacher later on for 'coaching his class', which was nice of him.

I found out just how 'convienant' japanese conbini's are yesterday, when I was able to pay my electric bill at one while picking up some coffee and such. That was awesome! :-) I cooked myself some super delicious spaghetti for dinner last night. I think I'm really getting the hang of being a solo chef :P

A new girl came to school yesterday, her japanese name is 'Mayumi' but she's actually Stephanie from Brazil. I really like the foreign students here :-) they're really nice.

I've been watching 'Firefly' this week, and I have to say it's really a shame that FOX messed it up, because it's a great show.


Today I checked papers in 1st period with Kawai sensei, and that was about it. boring-desu.
2nd and 3rd period the lvl 2 classes were practing a dialogue that was about calling someone on the phone, so to practice, i went to the english teacher's room and answered the phone with the students to do a mock conversation. It was mildly amusing, especially the part where for one of the boys who i knew, when he called (for kubota's class she let me know the order of students) i picked up and said:

もしもし。これは飯島中学校です。京都先生です。　aka. Hello, this is Iijima Junior High School. Kyoto-sensei speaking. ahaha, I scared the poor guy a bit :-p.

So, I"m paying about 50$ a month for school lunch, which is pretty darn cheap considering the meals we get. For example: today I had caviar for lunch. Actually, I bit into the fried fish we were having for lunch, and found it was stuffed with caviar. Holy cow. It was pretty good too!

It's been rainy today (and yesterday too) so my umbrella has gotten used too.

I'm going ot get my cell phone after work today with Kawai sensei, so I'm greatly appreciative of that. Finally! The city office is also still working on getting me that new bike, but the vice-principle seemed to be adamant about me not getting my car. I'll be tenatively pushing this forward next week too, because frankly, I can have a car whether they want me to or not, but I want to be civil about it.

I don't have any particular plans for tonight, but tomorrow I"m heading to Matsumoto to meet up with an OT'er who is there visiting family. Kinda excited! I'm unsure what we'll be doing exactly, I'm wanting to avoid anything particularly touristy since he grew up there, so maybe visit the shopping district or something. It's supposed to be pretty cool. We'll see!

A fun and weird couple of days

So, tuesday was a good day overall! I had 4 classes which went pretty well, but there was a little bit of a hitch. I was in Omori's class with three girls who are extremely shy. Apparently there are several of these classes, and I was sitting in on one (and apparently they have friends in the same class to help alleviate some of the shyness. Well, class was going fine, and I was donig some readings with Omori. I had noticed one of the girls had been either stifling a yawn, crying, or something like that, and she never said anything while we were talking. Finally, Omori started freaking out and that was when I realized that the girl had a bloody nose and had made absolutely no effort to amend the situation, and Omori had only noticed when blood had started dripping onto her book. Yikes! No doubt the rest of her day was ruined! :'(

Then, I had a class with Kasuga sensei, and students were practicing have to / don't have to / must / must not grammar, and I would answer them using the grammar as well as elaborating a bit past their understanding and have Kasuga explain it to help facilitate some cultural exchange. well, things got interesting when a student said "In Japan, a man and a man must not get married, how about in America." I thought this was pretty interesting and was a great question. I also know that, from what I have heard, the conservative nature of this rural area of Japan was part of Jon's impetus for leaving for Tokyo. I'm not saying this particular student had any idea about Jon's lifestyle choices, but I'm pretty sure Kasuga sensei did, and I also know Jon and Kasuga weren't on the best of terms (and from what I've seen so far, I think it just makes Kasuga look extremely shallow, considering in almost every other respect I've gotten along with him swimmingly.

So, Kasuga started by saying something along the lines of "Can two men marry?" The first thing I said was "For the most part no, two men, or two women, cannot be married, although I think in San Francisco and Vermont it is ok."


Kasuga followed up with something along the lines of: "Dwight-sensei, I am concerned (I think he was looking more for the word apprehensive) about how many gay people there are in America, and then I have the recollection that he somehow asked if American's thought it was a problem, or if we think there are a lot of gays in America".

I at first pointed out how a major European (i think?) study suggested that 1 in 10 people in the world are gay, and it's by no way something resigned to America (Although I'm sure Iran's president would disagree, since they have NO homosexuals there. pfft.) I then mentioned how in San Fran and Vermont it's civil unions, which are different from marriages because it doesn't tie in religion (and don't even get me started on the whole state sactioning of religion that marraige is) and also how people in America still debate on the nature v. nurture aspects of homosexuality. Anyway, I didn't wanna force the issue too much with Kasuga, because I also realize he's a very conservative rural man in Japan, and by no means is everyone like that.

In fact, one of the largest selling genres of manga (comics) aimed at 13-16 year old girls are ones with young, pretty, boys flirting with / flaunting homosexuality. So pop-culture : 1 traditional values: 0.

In the afternoon I went to see the students sing at the cultural center and continue practicing for the school festival / something else I'm not sure about. That was a good waste of time. :-) I got a huge kick out of talking with Kubota sensei about how I just couldn't believe how, on the walk to the cultural center from school (all 3 blocks) that the students stayed in line, in order, didn't bunch up, and stayed quiet. Unbelievable. I also talked with Kubota about how she ended up teaching english (she went to america to study psych, but didn't have the english skills, so she enrolled to learn english, and ran out of money, came back to Japan, got her teaching certificate, and done. Lol.)

After school I made my way to the store with a group of students, which was an enjoyable, and fun to talk with them and in general have a good time. there are some really great kids at this school. :-)


Today went just as well / even better. I made sure to get a full night's rest and even treated myself to a nice hearty breakfast (eggs, bacon, milkcoffee and toast w/ jam!).

I got to see my buddy on the way to work, such a great kid! So that meant by the time I got to work I had a huge grin on my face. :-)

I had four classes today. First class was with Kawai sensei's 3-f group, who are 3rd years with a rather low english proficiency. We did work, and played Uno, which was pretty fun! I tried practicing my spanish with them, and in general it was a good time!

2nd and 3rd periods were with 1st year students, and these classes were actually a great time because of the fact that the students were energetic and Kasuga and I had a great time staying engaged. First, I played simon says with the classes,a nd I have to say, Japanese kids do not mess around when it comes to simon says. they are serious, honed, listening machines. To the point that with one of the classes I was playing as if I was with American kids and going so fast that I wasn't even paying attention to if I was saying 'simon-says' or not and was counting on others to see if the final few kids messed up or not. 学生は早いですね。　(they were fast!)

Kasuga and I also did the dialogue with the students, which was a blast, because of how I did the reading :-P

the dialogue went somethign like:
Mike: lets have lunch!
Emi: all right!
m: oh no! my cola! I don't have any tissues. Do you have any?
e: no, but I have a handkerchief. Here. Use this.

Well, the students got a big kick out of 1) me reading Emi's part in a high-pitched voice like a girl, and 2) me sounding really upset at "oh no! my cola!" Kasuga would read it and sound angry, and I was going for this really disappointed sound, and so then we worked with the students on kinda doing a groaning sound as they said "oh no my cola!" as well as stressing any as if the fact they didn't have any tissues just made the situation worse.

This made the readings really fun when the students did it in frnt of the class in pairs. Some students would sound really bland and cold, which made people laugh because it was so detached after we had been so animated.

My personal favorite was Caitlyn, a first-year girl from Brazil* who did this dramatic arm motions before she started as if she was getting herself into character. coupled with the 'illness' mask she was wearing (asains wear masks when they are coming down with a cold or think they are sick to prevent it from being spread, no it doesn't cover their noses, so no, it doesn't make any sense, I know) and talked with a high-pitched voice that made her sound more japanese than the japanese kids. she was really into it and 元気（genki), so that helped!

the last thing I did with these classes was structured dialogue back and forth, where students would say,

"Dwight-sensei, do you want to _______?"
"All right!"
"Do you have any ____?"
"Oh no, I don't!"
"Here, use my ___"

This was fine and dandy, until I realized that a ton of people would ask me to do a sport with them, and ask if I had the coresponding ball. I of course would say, "No, I don't have a basketball / baseball / volleyball" to help them use it correctly, but more than once it went like so:

"Dwight-sensei, do you want to play volley?"
"All right!"
"Do you have any volleyball balls?"
"Ah, no, I don't have any balls."
"Here, use my balls."


To which I had to stifle generous amounts of laughter that was welling up inside of me. I'm such a juevenile. Of course the students had no idea. :-P

My last class was another with kawai sensei, that wasn't particularly interesting, but it was kinda fun, so that's all right.

In the afternoon, I mentioned to Kasuga sensei how I still didn't have any cable TV, even though my internet (also cable) was working, adn I had no luck trying to get it to work. Kasuga let me know that some people from the cable company may be coming by later and to contemplate having to be around for them. I said I get home at varying times, and if he know what time they'd be there. Kasuga said he'd give the company a call, and so we called, and while he was on the phone, I was explaining to the secretary (a nice woman in her late 30's I'd guess, she has such a genuine smile.) that my tv was kinda old, and Kasuga was trying to ask me something about my TV, and while he was running to get his electric dictionary, me and the secretary figured out they were trying to ask if I had an LCD screen, but of course in Japanese the abbrev. is something different, but me and the secretary felt really good when kasuga came back, looked it up, and we had been correct.

Kasuga then told me that it would cost ￥3000 (~$30) for them to come fix it for me. I told him I'd try a little bit harder to figure it out. Kasuga offered to come to my place this eveneing to help me figure it out, but he said he wasn't too confident about his ability to figure it out.

I said, "I can't read Japanese, but I know electronics. You can read Japanese, but don't know electronics. Between the two of us, I think we could figure it out!" he replied with, "Cooperation!"

the secretary and the woman who goes between the school and the town-hall also got a laugh when I showed them and kasuga how I hadn't been paying attention early on when I was signing in each day (I have to use my inkan and stamp in each morning in a log-book) and how I realized that at the beginning of a new month it goes back to the beginning, and I had just kept on stamping in order, and had logged about 7 or 8 stamps into the section for either sick / vacation days or something. Whoops! 外人スマシュGaijin-smash!

I had been hoping to leave school promptly at 4:30, but when I went down at 4 to discreetly pack my stuff up and then head back up to the english teachers lounge to continue doing my japanese homework in private so I could sneak out at 4:30 (no, it's not early), but a teacher's meeting had started at 4. I didn't wanna feel awkward by going in 10 minutes after it started (and everyone is there, including teachers I never see any other time, as well as the principle.) and start packing my stuff up. but I didn't wanna sit around there either. So i went back to the english teacher's office adn did work up there until about 4:45, then went down so I could start packing up. Instead I sat there and waited for it to end at 5-ish, and then went home. I walked home with caitlyn, the brazilian girl, and the 3rd year boy from brazil too. Both of whom have very good english and aren't so scared to talk to me, even though they aren't in the highest lvl english classes.

*Ok, so now for the divergence about why there are south american's in Japan. turn of the century, Japan looked to avoid some of it's over-population by sending lots of it's citizens abroad. Most to south america (and a good portion to the USA). This was also done so that the Japanese could gain a foothold of sorts in other nations. Well, many opted to come back to Japan after WWII due to a lack of promised support from the japanese govt while living abroad. So that's why this small school of 300-ish has two brazilians, a peruvian, and two other students with south-american heritage. Pretty cool! It was great to hear them talking in portuguese today and hearing EMOTION in the way they spoke!

As I was right near my place, we stopped and started talking about spiders (there were some really big ones over the flowing water along the side of the street) and kasuga and kawai sensei pulled up. I went inside and apologized for the state of my apt (but they both said it was pretty clean, so I didn't feel too bad.)

After about 20 minutes of dinking around, we got the cable to work! I was pretty eccstatic to see children's anime on TV :-P I also found out that on NPT, one of the big channels, from 7-10 pm every day (news and some other programs), I can hit a button on my remote and it will switch to english dubbing (not closed captioning) of whatever I'm watching! I thought that was really cool!

I watched an episode (or two) of firefly tonight while having my apple & honey hot curry for dinner (which was supremely delicious!)

I also wore a new gray w/ black stripes shirt today that I had yet to wear with my gray / red tie that I normally wear with my red shirt, and I got several compliments on it!

Lunchtime with students: yes, they eat in the classrooms, students get the food, bring it up, and dish it up. Responsibility!



On stage at the cultural center, the 3rd years practice singing Finlandia. I have this song memorized now. Lol.



the names of all the teachers on little wooden plates. If the name is black, the teacher is there, orange, they're out. Can you find mine?

Concert Time!!

So, I went to the band concert today, and it was awesome!! First and foremost, these were Junior High kids and they did stuff that was better than WHS as well as having a more diverse range of instuments (3 Euphoniums? I nearly cried!). Although I will mention that it was heavily lopsided in favor of the girls, well over 2, maybe 3-1.

But yes, the music was fantastic! They had a wide selection of music, including a 70's tribute, a John williams tribute, the marine's official march (that was a bit wtf) as well as Disney music! Fantastic work kids! Of course, the program had a questionairre in it on things we liked etc, but I didn't fill it out.

I waved to my students as I left the concert and said hi. I also saw one at the conbini afterwards and talked to him for a bit.

Getting ready for the concert to start, this is the dad of one of my students, who also happens to be an english teacher!

The students pulled out garbage bags and put on headbands, I'm not really sure why. Awesome though!


For the disney tribute, they had tons of these cutouts with students running by holding them. It was so hard not to break out laughing really hard during this. absolutely hysterical.

Man, nothing to do on a Saturday night...I know, lets blow stuff up!

So yesterday, I spent a good amount of time looking busy and taking it easy. Not too hard to whittle away some time doing that. I had been awakened sat. morning by booms that I originally thought was someone knocking at my door. turns out Iijima was having some sort of festival or something, so they were setting off these loud bangs all day. Well, that evening, instead of loud bangs I had earth-shattering explosions. Well, I went outside and took pictures and video, and realized that since they were setting them off at the local shrine, it was no more than 2-3 blocks away - aka they were going off right overhead and were immensely loud. Here is a video, the bang isn't really captured, but the reverb off of the mountains nearby is :-P



I took a shot at making something I had in Kansai (karaage-don) although I used a fish instead of chicken. It turned out pretty darn good and looks awesome but I still need to work on perfecting it if I wanna have it more than just this once. I also had american spaghetti last night (and for lunch today as leftovers) and it was awesome. I can make some mean spaghetti!


I'm going to the brass-band's concert tomorrow, I look forward to it! :-)

Today I got to experience some of the reasons I made the decision to come here :-)

So on my way to work, if I leave about 5 after 8, I will pass a mother and her 4 or 5 year old son on the way to school. He likes to wave and I'll say good morning. He's pretty cute and fun. So I saw them this morning, and as I was walking up, I said "Hi!" and he ran up towards me saying "HELLLOOOOOO!!!!" and gave me a high five. What a champ. I had a huge grin on my face the entire rest of the way to school. Also, at school today I had a couple of classes, inluding doing baseball twice with the first years. Both first year classes were fun, but the first class was by and large much more fun, minus the little bit where one of the students missed a question and was on the verge of tears for about 5 minutes, poor guy. :(

After that first class, i was assaulted by a group of girls who wanted to know Bethany's name (they thought it was cute), and then went absolutely nuts when I told them that she 1. was an english teacher in korea, and 2. would come visit Iijima and the school. They're pretty fun and energetic! :-D

I also had Kasuga sensei take me to the bank to help me figure out how to use my debit card (turns out they had a button for english, so that was a freakin piece of cake, lol.) I wanted to wait until payday before I took a shot at using it, and so when I asked for my statement, I nearly fell out of my chair (even though I was standing) to see I had over 300k yen in there! (3k$). I almost teared up, I've never had that much money before! YAY!

Cleaning time went well today, I joked with Kubota sensei that there should be a contest to see who can clean the most, so I could win, because I keep shocking people with how dirty I get my rags during cleaning time.

And then we went to get my Gaikokujin card (my alien registration card). Now that I have that, I can work on getting my cell phone! :-) among other things! Woohoo!

So, in the teacher's office here, students come in, and say "excuse me, i'm xxxxx and I need to talk to xxxx" Well, a student came in today and asked for me, and instead of the general chorus of 'hai!' etc. from the teachers, it was more 'EH? Do-wai-to sensei??' lol. I had talked to one of the students and asked her to come get me the next time the choir practiced, so I went and joined them today, and they were fantastic. They asked me for advice and I really didn't have anything to tell them (although next time I might mention blending better or that the tenors are sometimes going flat, but it's no big deal!).

I love hanging out with these kids, they are such a blast! :-D I'm going to the brass-band's concert on monday, and hope to join them for practice here in the future too :-)

I'll get pics up on this post later, although I forgot to take my camera to school today, so I'll get the inside and some of my students on tuesday or monday or something. :-)

The latter part of my day...

So, after lunch today was a brief cleaning period (i opted to clean the railings outside the 2nd story (the earthquake escape route) so I could enjoy the outside). After that, I went to the gym and watched the three different 3rd year classes sing some songs as individual classes, which was neat to see classes with students who aren't even that big on choir still give it a go. They were all good, but of course the class with the choir students were incredible. In fact, they were on par with some of the stuff we did in high-school, awesome stuff.

I rounded out my day with preparing my lvl 1 baseball game, and then headed on out from school.

I stopped by the store to pick up some more soy sauce, veggies, and meat (to stock up). I saw a guy there who looked like a buff native American, mainly because he was driving a black Bronco pickup, and yes, it had the steering wheel on the American side, so I wonder if there are even laws about that in Japan (or america for that matter!).

As I was walking home, I turned a corner and saw three girls from the Jr. high, I stopped, pulled out my headphones, said hi, and asked if they were walking the same way I was. Man, those poor girls were completely blindsided. One of them tried to immediately turn up the street to walk a different direction, but the other two finally pulled her back, and they basically had no idea what to do. So I laughed, said I'd see them tomorrow, and continued on. I got to my turn, and started walking up the hill, I turned around and waved goodbye to them (since there's a little path to take straight ahead that i've seen numerous students take (originally i thought it was to a house, but turns out it just goes right by a house/through a garden and saves them all of 10 seconds of walking :P). Well, they waved back, and I just went on home. As I was getting close, I turned around to make sure it was ok to switch sides of the street I was walking on, and saw two of the girls walking up the hill.

So I turn into my driveway and start walking up it to the house, and as I'm walking along the front, I have a really good view (since there's no obstructions and I'm higher up) but from where the girls were, It's really hard to see anything, so I saw them running up the hill to see where exactly I lived. Well, I see this and I'm laughing pretty hard and wave at them again when they come into view. they look pretty sheepish again and wave back.

After I got in, I saw them reading my address (at the end of the driveway) to see exactly where I lived. Hah.

I had gyoza (dumplings) and fried rice for dinner. I gotta say, I'm loving making it, it's super delicious, filling, etc. I also snagged some coffee for tomorrow.

I've been asked by Ben (the nagano PA (Prefectural Advisor) to make sushi at the nagano JET workshop in early october. Apparently Matsuda-sensei mentioned that I make sushi in my letter of rec. to JET way back, and so now they have this notion that i'm some sort of freakin chef! ahah. We'll see :P

Baseball Grammar goes to the bottom of the Ninth

So, first period today was my first time leading a class all the way through, and we played baseball grammar. I explained the game to the kids for about 5-10 minutes, and then we started. They were a little lost at first (which I expected) but within 10 minutes or so they had gotten the hang of it. The girls started, played it safe by only choosing 'singles' (which are the easiest questions) and ended up making it through their entire team and racheting up nearly 10 points. I was worried that everyone would take this approach and I'd run out of 'single's, but the boys came out and picked 'home run's for the most part, and did well which encouraged others to take shots at the harder ones.

It was of course a learning experience, and I figured out that the little pictures I used weren't too accesible to the rest of the class since they couldn't see it (but I'll amend that by using the large picture cards that come with the 'New Horizon' books we are using next time). I also have to remember to talk slowly and clearly so everyone can hear and understand me, but again this was my first time doing it :-p. I also got to work with dicipline in a class, since a game this engaging obviously riles kids up. I had to also be a bit hard and call outs if students shouted answers out or tried to whisper it to their partners who were 'up to bat'.

The best part of the game though, was that with only 10 minutes left, the boys were down by 8 and started to storm back, making the game interesting. This included a 'grand slam' (aka the bases were loaded from 'singles' and a student went for a home run, aka very hard question) and answered it correctly as the time limit expired.

The finale included the boys being down by 1, with a person on third, and the student coming up holding this big 'An-pan man' statue thing (an-pan man is a super-hero who looks like 'an-pan', the sweet red bean paste inside of a pastry food that is hugely popular here.), and taking a shot at a home run to win the game on the last question of the day. The kid nailed it with less than a second left, and pretty much sent the room wild.

I particularly loved playing this game because classrooms are, for the most part, never anywhere near this engaged or relaxed during an actual class (this says nothing for between classes though).

I'm pretty stoked because I get to play the game again on friday with the first years. :-)

Running a class and enjoying the week

After such an intense saturday, I figured I'd take it easy Sunday and just took the day to enjoy games, had some delicious food, and pretty much just took it easy.

Monday, I had an enjoyable day with my classes and students. There were only 4 classes, with the 5th being moral education. At lunch, I had a fun time talking with the students I was sitting with (as opposed to last week, where I sat at the front of the room since I only ate in the class a couple times last week. One of the boys I was eating with is pretty talkative. The guys at my table got a kick out of learning the word 'dumpling'. :-P

I also talked with Kawai-sense who wants me to lead a class on Wednesday, so I came up with the idea to do a 'baseball grammar' game.

In the afternoon I went to the gym and watched the 3rd years singing with a couple other professors. After the period ending, I stuck around with the choir teacher's homeroom which is also the 'select choir' of a sense. They were fantastic, energetic, and fun. the teacher asked me if there was anything I wanted to add after they got done, and I just gave some basic tips about how to stand and stuff, which was fun.

The teacher also was a little shocked I think that I actually had some experience singing.

After school got done, I left and walked 1/2 to the train station with some of my students and had a fun time with them. so far I'm really enjoying getting to know these students.

for dinner I made some curry, and although I had a tough time getting the rice cooker to work, I finally got it, had tons of curry, and basically felt like awesome.

today, I dropped off my garbage on the way to school, got in and had several classes with some beginning students and still did my self introductions, which was a tad boring, but these were classes I had on the first day of class, so it was neat to see them again.

I also had class with the 'amazing' students with Kasuga, which was fun just because I'm always surprised just how good these students are. I also gave some cd's to one of the girls in the class who I had told I would bring some music to after she played some music last class.

Today, I finished up the baseball game work, which went well, and Kubota-sensei told me that some of her students talked to her today saying that they walked with me yesterday and that they were shocked that I could speak japanese. But she told them it was just a bluff on my part. :-P

I was planning on taking some pictures of school today, and although my camera was fine this morning, as of this afternoon it was on the fritz. I'm still trying to get it to work. Hopefully all will be fine here in the 24 hours.
I made some fried rice for dinner tonight, which was interesting to try and make. But it all turned out well!

I'm looking into making a trip up to Matsumoto this weekend to meet up with an OT'er who's going to be there, and it's only a couple of hours away.

Whew! Today was long, exhausting, cold, wet, and a blast! I got up, got some food in me (delicious toast!), showered, got ready, and headed out. I made my way to the station, and got my ticket (less than 10 bux there!). Here's a picture from the train station platform, it was really pretty today!

But the train heading the opposite way as mine came in just a few minutes before mine did, and the window went down, and I heard some "Dowaito-sensei! Hallo!" So I waved and said hi to some of the boys from the jr. high, but then I noticed a stream of girls getting off the train from school! Their faces were blank, then a slow understanding and dumb-struck awe at seeing their teacher on the platform in regular guy clothes! Ahaha. Kawai-sensei was with them, and asked me where I was going, and they were all surprised I was going to the place of the fireworks show so late after the original show, but I assured them there were fireworks today. :-P

So I got my ticket, and rode the train. I got off at Okaya, and asked an attendant where I needed to go to catch my next train, got on the right platform, cought the next train, as was to Kawa-suwa with no hitches! It also helped that I was just following a huge stream of people. :-PMe following the stream of peeps.


So I got there, and I had detailed directions from Erica, the head of AJET (who sponsores a lot of events for JETs, including this one). I made my way where I needed to go, and noticed that since I was early, the gates weren't open yet. So I figured I'd save some of the time instead of standing in line, and walked towards where I was supposed to go. Well, I find a nice place in line, after I got to wander through the delicious smelling venders row:



Although this picture was taken later on that day, it still smelled delicious.

So I'm standing in line for a while, and finally 3 o'clock rolls around, and they start letting people in. Well, I finally get there, and the guy asks me something, and I pull out my headphones, and he asks me for my ticket. I told him I didn't have a ticket and asked wehre I could get one, and he pointed me in the direction. I was a bit confused though, because I was under the impression that this was a free event for me to attend. So I finally get down to where the tickets are sold, pick one up (for 2000yen, which upset me), and start walking back. As I'm walking, I'm thinking "man, there are a ton of people sitting outside of the fenced in area". And wondering if the AJET tarp could possibly be outside of the area? I didn't think so though, because I was told we were along the jogging path, and this area wasn't so wide, so it couldn't be the jogging path.

Instead of going back in where I originally was, I kept walking just to see if I could find them anyway, and lo and behold, turns out the fenced in area wasn't the only place, and there were other areas that were free. Awesome. Ugh. So I ended up walking past the AJET tarp, because I figured, with everyone signing up for AJET, at 20$ a pop, they would have an EZ up or something. I then realized that not only did we really just have a 'blue tarp', there were only 3 people there, and none of them were block leaders. Whoops. So I meandered down, introduced myself to Nicole and Bren and their Japanese friend, and just kinda settled in. It was warm though, which was a bit of a bummer but the sun felt nice.

after a while people started showing up, and by 5-6 we had a full tarp of people, and I had introduced myself another million times, and was having fun chatting with people. The sun finally went behind some clouds before settling behind the mountain, which was great. The only problem was that if it went behind clouds, it meant that rain was on the way. LAME


So it finally got dark, and after grabbing some karaage (friend chicken) and a chuhai (fruity beer, MMM!. Also, hooray to Japan's OK attitude to public drinking) I went back to watch the fireworks.

The fireworks show is held in the same place as the major one on August 15th, but this one is done by competeing agencies to see who gets to do the job for the next year. The fireworks, as you can see from the video's ,were amazing. after this first video you watch (aka the first show) finished, I let out a resounding "YAY AMERICA" which got a lot of laughs. :-P

Some of the highlights of the fireworks included ones that blew up into pictures of shapes (personal favs: hearts and little piggy faces), as well as one that blew up, and then all the end points just HUNG IN PLACE and trailed off / rained white light from them. I have no idea how they did it, but it was the coolest effect I've ever seen with a firework.








So then, it was getting about time for us to go (we wanted to beat part of the rush and catch our trains) and a big wind came rushing in, which we were promptly informed meant that a huge storm was about to hit. It had been sprinkling earlier, and some lightning had been going off around us, but the woosh of air was kind of a good hint.

So we're packing up hurridly, and had thought the show had finished, when they set off the finale. the finale was done down at water level on the lake, not more than 400 feet from us. so when the first boom went off, it was like the firework was coming right for us, hah! This next vid is the finale, doesn't do it nearly enough justic.


So, like I had said earlier, the wind is just whipping through here, and the rapid and constand explosions combined with the wind to partially block the explosions while at the same time send huge clouds of gunpowder smoke flying over us. Well, we're walking away as this is finishing up, and after the finale (which was HUGE, intimidating as anything, and in general just amazing), we're all rushing away trying to beat the crowd (which was going to be impossible anyway), and the smoke is just everywhere. With the streetlights, it combined to make everything like a bad horror movie with people coming out of the smoke as you walked along. Kinda a post-apocolyptic / horror thing.




Well, we're making good time, and we can see the lightning seemed to be moving closer / over us, but we're getting close to the station. well, not more than 1 1/2 - 2 blocks from the station, the line stops. It was a complete jam of people up until the station, and that was with trains shoveling them out as fast as possible. So fast, in fact, that you didn't pay for your ticket until you got to your destination to speed up the trip. Well, as we're standing there, it starts to rain. And of course, I don't have my umbrella.

Then it starts to pour.

Then all of a sudden, I'm in a monsoon.

Wind is whipping, rain is just POURING, and i'm getting soaked. We're slammed-packed so close that people's umbrellas are emptying off onto me. First I feel my shirt start to get wet, and feel it spread across my shirt. then my shorts, then my underpants. Then I can feel water running down my leg and pooling in my shoes.

I turn to Tony next to me, and just go, "I don't know if I should laugh or cry, this situation is just so ludacris." I also turned to a young japanese guy standing next to me, also lacking an umbrella, and gave him a clenched fist and said "ganbatte" (Do your best / try and put up with it). We both had a "what else can I do in this situation" kind of look on our face.

so after 30 minutes in the rain, we made it to the station and out of the rain. I was wringing out my shirt and shorts, and trying to squeeze it out of my shoes too. Luckily, another jet gave me a ziploc baggy to put my zune, psp, and camera into. Bless your soul, JET who's name I've forgotten.

So then we cought the train to Okaya, and thank goodness, a train was there for us to hop on, and left not more than 2 minutes after we boarded, saving us 40 minutes of standing there waiting. I then had another hour and a half to ride the train, wet, until Iijima. By the time I got to Iijima, was was only damp! :-P

I walked home, shucked the wet clothes, and hopped into nice dry ones. Now a hot bath, and I'm going to crash. Today really threw off my schedule, it's 2:30 am, and while I'm definitely tired, I'm not nearly as exhausted as I should be. I think the whole rainy experience kinda 'reset' me. :-P

Earthquake DRILL!

Another fun day! Although I'm starting to get a bit tired of being the best-dressed everyday. Polo-shirts would work, but of course I didn't bring any with me.

I did some introductions again yesterday for two classes, and also had class with Omori's 3-d class, who are supposed to be a less advanced class, but I love 'em. The brazilian kid is in that class, and he's awesome. I'm also eating lunch with a good portion of the students from that class, so that makes it more interesting. :-P

The highlight of the day though, was that we had an earthquake drill. So I was asked if I would hold the flag that the students run to. Answer: an emphatic YES. So, I head outside with a teacher who I need to get to know better (tangent time!): this guy is always energetic, funny, seems kinda subdued but commands a lot of respect from the other teachers. In other words: Awesome. He smiles and says hi to me several times a day, and in general rocks.

So I go outside with him, carrying this flag, unsure what it exactly means. This flag also looked like one of those old flags that samurai wore on their backs.

So we go outside, and set this flag up on the soccer field. The soccer field is right next to the school and is obviously a good point to go in case of earthquake. So the guy and I are set up, looking at the school, ready for this to start.

So then we hear the alarm bell and the warning over the PA. The student's had been doing some cleaning, so were more or less unsupervised for this, on purpose.

Then you see the students come jogging out of the school, along with the teachers, just pouring down the steps and onto the field. there was a safety supervisor from a japanese safety agency or something too watching.

So the kids come running out, and all have assigned places they go to, by homeroom, and in order within the line for homeroom. Certain kids are designated class leaders etc. But it was pretty amazing to see kids run and find their spot, silently, unaided by teachers. Impressive stuff, these kids.

So then after getting in line, class leaders do a head count, report to their teachers, who double check the head count, then report to the vice-principle, who in turn reports to the principle. The safety inspector guy talked to them for a bit about the importance of being prepared etc.

Then they thanked him, and the students (i still can't get over this) were given an order, did a 1/2 turn, and went back in, two rows at a time, silently again.

After school I picked up some cheap sushi again, and crashed early.

I'm now getting ready to head on out to okaya, fireworks tonight! :-D

Since I have nothing else particularly interesting to post: here's a picture of a mantis eyeing a frog on my window.

Almost the weekend!

So, first and foremost - it's been what, 2 days since I did that Rakugo reading, and my legs are still sore from that stupid seiza position. yowza!

yesterday I had to stick around until nearly 6 because of a teacher's meeting, which I felt obligated to do, even though I didn't understand a lick of it. I did catch the part where they congratulated me about being in the local paper (I gave them an 'interview' I had done previously with Kasuga-sensei), and had an official picture taken as well as the photo op in the classroom teaching.

Thanks again mom for getting me those pictures of Washington, I've been doing slideshows for the classes about Washington as a 'self-introduction' of sorts. They love the pictures, and think the courthouse is beautiful, as well as being shocked at all the corn, and love making the realization that we have a McDonald's too.

I had a great time yesterday finally going over my stupid garbage schedule (I haven't taken out any yet, and i've been here two weeks. Yuck!), but I finally understand it thanks to Kasuga and another funny and nice teacher helping me figure it out. (Kasuga gave me the great hint of just bringing lots of my recyclables to school and putting it in the school recyclables. For example: PET bottles (plastic pop bottles) are only collected once a month, and the same with aluminum or steel cans, LAME).

I've also done some work with reading and stuff in the classroom, but the best part of today was having a class with myself, the teacher, and the one (yes, 1) student. We talked, played uno, showed pictures. I also had class with my class I ate lunch with last week, the 3rd years, so they already knew me, which made the self-introductions more fun. One of the girls even took a shot at (and correctly pronounced) Glinsmann, which was awesome! (I don't think Kawai sensei cought on until the end that myself and the class already knew each other).

I also went down and watched the student choir practice, and I still can't get over just how good these kids are. This is the entire school, divided into 4 parts, and everyone sings, well. Awesome stuff: here's a vid:





Tonight I went out to get some chinese food with some other ALT's, and had a great time. The food was absolutely amazing, and I had a ton of it, although it was a bit expensive (ちょっと高い）. Now I'm back, enjoying my night, and ready for friday.

I now officially have the internet in my name, and supposedly have cable TV too (since my internet is though the cable company) but I don't have it yet. So i'll talk about that tomorrow and see if I can't figure it out.

I've also gotten addicted to doing the crosswords every morning in the paper, but I realize that despite my robust vocabularly, I'm still not so hot at crosswords :-P

This weekend I'm going to a huge fireworks show in Okaya near lake Suwa. It's the biggest in the prefecture and the 24th biggest in Japan. It has a huge showing on August 15th that draws somewhere around 300-400k people, but the one i'm going to saturday is where different companies compete to get to show the fireworks for the following year and always has significantly less people at it. Awesome!

Rakugo and Uno!

Today was a fun day! I had some time early in the day to start a book Jon had left at school about how to understand the inferences and subtleties of language, which will be beneficial to help explain meanings behind things in english later on this year. I'm about halfway in, and while it's obviously a scholarly text, it's still pretty interesting to understand why we say what we do. :-P

I then did my rakugo-reading for kasuga's class. And of course, he gave me a fan to use (because you use a fan to help demonstrate things in rakugo), but the hardest part, was that I had to sit on a pillow in the dreaded seiza position. Which is where you kneel, then sit back on your haunches. which is rough when you're anyone (the japanese sometimes use it as punishment), but particularly rough when you're a big guy haha. I did get to kneel on a pillow (in traditional rakugo fashion) and tell the story. I was thinking "well, this is uncomfortable" but just told the story. Then Kasuga has me repeat it again, and while i was talking with him in-between, i got up on my knees, and was thinking 'wow, i haven't sat in the seiza that long ever'. But then I did the story again. The punchline kinda went over the kids heads, but then i finished up, got up, and realized just how much that position hurt!!
My legs were sore the rest of the day! Ouch!

My next class was with Omori-sensei, and after doing some work with the students, I played Uno with them, using colors and numbers (this was a remedial class). Then I had some time off in the afternoon due to some scheduling conflict.

the 3rd years when to their choir presentation today, so I ate with the teachers / principle that don't have their own homerooms. Today's lunch was...a bit different. I resigned myself long ago to not think about what I'm eating, but rather to just enjoy the taste. today we had dried mini-fish (minnows?), bits of potatoes, and some crunch bean thing with lots of green spice on it (along with salad and a good soup). but it was weird because the fish were whole. i distinctly remember holding my chopstick with a little fish-head on it, the dead eye staring into my soul. the crunchy flavor of it's kin resounding in my mouth.

I went to pick up cheap sushi from the convienance store, but I guess i keep going there too late, as they didn't have what I wanted (i don't wanna pay 6.50 for the shashimi, even though it's great!). so i bought more coffee, and came home.

I made some garlic salmon for dinner, super delicious.

yesterday I bought 2 peachers for $3. I've just given up thinking about how expensive japanese food is. It's no good to worry about it. But lemme tell you, these peaches. Best I've ever had. Bar none. You just don't do fruit this good in america. Man oh man.

Beginning of week 2

Today wasn't too bad, with some classes in the morning, but the afternoon being off as the students had some special events going on. they were going over their tests from last friday.

Which reminds me, I helped them check papers on friday, and Kasuga & Kawai sensei were both impressed at how fast I could add up the scores for the test, which made me laugh. but then of course when they came by to watch me add it up as I finished up I of course had problems donig my addition. :-P

I didn't have to do my Rakugo reading today, but was told I'd be doing it tuesday since they were going over tests. I spent time studying Japanese, continued to go through my teaching guide book, and ate lunch with a new class.

A modest weekend

The weekend wasn't too eventful. I did some prep work for school on monday, cleaned my apt, did laundry, and relaxed around the apartment. I also spent time going around town to see more places and just meander.

Sunday I did some Japanese language study as well as some more relaxing, which was a nice relaxing day. I also made sure to get my omiyage gifts off to the teachers before I left on friday.

That was about it!