The new AIM screen name will be AomoriOmelet. Add on up!
I've been really busy lately...elementary schools, baseball, and car issues have consumed lots of time lately.
Elementary schools are a mixed bag compared to junior high schools. Some days it'll be great, and other days it will suck. Big time.
Elementary school days start late and end early. This doesn't mean less classes then usual, it just means the day is packed. It's good because it keeps me busy and seems like its over before it starts it seems. Plus, since there's little to no English spoken, its the best chance to practice Japanese. But, on the flip side, that means I can't speak English all day (a brain-strainer). Classes are tough... they can be fun, sometimes the kids are eager just to hear words from the guy with blond hair's mouth. Other times, though (more common with younger kids), its out of control. Screaming, teachers attempting to keep order... it can get bad. In elementary schools, I also clean the school with them and play with them at recess, which can be equally double-edged. Rowdy classes and running games at recess are the perfect recipe for a bad day. On the other hand, though, a day with attentive students and baseball or soccer at recess equals a really good day. Either day is usually a recipe for a nap in the afternoon.
Something that always hangs on my mind when I go to elementary schools is the infrequency of visits and English. In Japan, English is not a subject taught everyday, of course, and the students very rarely use English outside of the one-class-a-month they have with me. They forget quick. I spend time reviewing greetings more than anything. But, I find that elementary school visits are more for the "making English fun!" cheesiness than for the actual learning. Which is good, maybe. Maybe I'm inspiring kids to study English harder when they are older.
Or maybe I'm just the foreigner. Which is good. Maybe.
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
Monday, June 2, 2008
Don't Try This at Home
Time to take a break from the school chats and go on to one of the "only in Japan" stories I've had so far.
One night last year, I was juggling two events between two groups of friends. I had gone to karaoke in Aomori and was planning to meet some friends for other shenanigans later in the night at Misawa, a town about 1:30 away by train.
I took the second-to-last train at 9:00 from Aomori to Misawa and arrived at my destination around 10:30. I came out of the station with some directions to a friend-of-a-friend's house where we were meeting up before going out. The directions, though, were a little shady, and I only had an intersection of two streets to go by, which in a medium-sized town like Misawa could take a little while to find. After wondering around a little while, I walked down a street with a sign pointing to one of the two streets that was part of that intersection. After walking for 2 or 3 minutes, a black car with blue neon lights on the bottom pulls up besides me. Theres one 25-ish looking guy in the driver's seat, and he learns over and asks me (in Japanese), "Where are you going?" I told him the directions that I was given, and after a second of thought, he says, "That's not close. Get in."
Here I was on a somewhat dark street in the middle of some town, with a stranger asking me to get in his car. All the alarms in my head back from those old, "Don't accept candy from strangers!" posters in elementary school were screaming in my head. No way...I thought...there could be any number of bad things that could happen if you get in that car. But, instead of politely refusing, my hand reached for the door, opened it, and I plopped myself onto the guy's rather comfortable leather passenger seat.
So we drive. We kept driving until we found the intersection, but it wasn't anywhere near a residential area. So what does this guy do? He doesn't throw me out. He waits in the car as I call my friend, who gives me more detailed directions, and the driver and I go through them step by step until I reach his house. On the way, we talk about music and movies, but I can't remember which ones he said he likes. It was strangely normal, and he was just an ordinary guy. An ordinary guy who took about 30 minutes out of his Saturday night to drive a foreign stranger to some house. And asked nothing in return. The only thing I had on me at the time was a few beers that I had to start myself off once I arrived, but I gladly offered them, and he took them.
If I were anywhere else in the world at that point, I don't think I would have gotten in the car. But its something about Japan... something that made me feel 100% comfortable about getting in.
People will talk about incredible events that restore faith in humanity. It wasn't one of those for me. Everything from opening the car door to get in and opening the car door to get out at my friend's house...just went its course. At that time, my mind said to itself, Everyone in Japan does this, and I went along with it. And in the end, what might seem a scary experience was just...normal. Wouldn't be weird if people everywhere else in the world were like that? And looking back, I have to wonder what the guy was thinking to pick up some random foreigner walking the streets. Was he scared? Or was it a normal thing to him, too?
I'll leave all that difficult thinking to all you people out there. I have a day of insanity at an elementary school tomorrow, so I'm going to go sleep. Bye bye for now.
One night last year, I was juggling two events between two groups of friends. I had gone to karaoke in Aomori and was planning to meet some friends for other shenanigans later in the night at Misawa, a town about 1:30 away by train.
I took the second-to-last train at 9:00 from Aomori to Misawa and arrived at my destination around 10:30. I came out of the station with some directions to a friend-of-a-friend's house where we were meeting up before going out. The directions, though, were a little shady, and I only had an intersection of two streets to go by, which in a medium-sized town like Misawa could take a little while to find. After wondering around a little while, I walked down a street with a sign pointing to one of the two streets that was part of that intersection. After walking for 2 or 3 minutes, a black car with blue neon lights on the bottom pulls up besides me. Theres one 25-ish looking guy in the driver's seat, and he learns over and asks me (in Japanese), "Where are you going?" I told him the directions that I was given, and after a second of thought, he says, "That's not close. Get in."
Here I was on a somewhat dark street in the middle of some town, with a stranger asking me to get in his car. All the alarms in my head back from those old, "Don't accept candy from strangers!" posters in elementary school were screaming in my head. No way...I thought...there could be any number of bad things that could happen if you get in that car. But, instead of politely refusing, my hand reached for the door, opened it, and I plopped myself onto the guy's rather comfortable leather passenger seat.
So we drive. We kept driving until we found the intersection, but it wasn't anywhere near a residential area. So what does this guy do? He doesn't throw me out. He waits in the car as I call my friend, who gives me more detailed directions, and the driver and I go through them step by step until I reach his house. On the way, we talk about music and movies, but I can't remember which ones he said he likes. It was strangely normal, and he was just an ordinary guy. An ordinary guy who took about 30 minutes out of his Saturday night to drive a foreign stranger to some house. And asked nothing in return. The only thing I had on me at the time was a few beers that I had to start myself off once I arrived, but I gladly offered them, and he took them.
If I were anywhere else in the world at that point, I don't think I would have gotten in the car. But its something about Japan... something that made me feel 100% comfortable about getting in.
People will talk about incredible events that restore faith in humanity. It wasn't one of those for me. Everything from opening the car door to get in and opening the car door to get out at my friend's house...just went its course. At that time, my mind said to itself, Everyone in Japan does this, and I went along with it. And in the end, what might seem a scary experience was just...normal. Wouldn't be weird if people everywhere else in the world were like that? And looking back, I have to wonder what the guy was thinking to pick up some random foreigner walking the streets. Was he scared? Or was it a normal thing to him, too?
I'll leave all that difficult thinking to all you people out there. I have a day of insanity at an elementary school tomorrow, so I'm going to go sleep. Bye bye for now.
Saturday, May 31, 2008
Hello again
Well, I knew it was going to happen, but I didn't realize it would be so long. I feel like I've been in a sort of stasis lately. Nothing much has been happening since the last post, and it's not like I haven't had the time to post, but this place seems to have a way of draining any writing that I want to do.
I left off last time at schools and school sizes, eh... to sum it up, big classes are tough, small classes are better. This is the general rule, but of course, there are exceptions.
The way that Japan runs class is that for main classes (English, math, history, Japanese), teachers go to students, rather than vice-versa. I think they do that because it's convenient for the students to have everything in one room, and it also encourages them to not forget anything and to be on time. At most schools, if the students have something they forgot (wasuremono 忘れ物）, they have to skip recess and clean the halls with rags on their knees (which is pretty exhausting AND embarrassing).
In other news, I joined the town hall's baseball team this year. Its great to be out playing again, especially because I had once though that my baseball-playing would end with the end of high school before I came here. I practice every weekday with the team, but its been an interesting experience thus far trying to fit in with the team. On the outside, everyone is friendly, and encourages me to play different spots, and is amazed (and I mean like "Whoa!") that I can field a ground ball... but on the inside, besides not being able to speak with them real well (they speak in very thick Tsugaru dialect...more on that later), I'm not part of their group from work, so I'm 2x the foreigner. I still don't know my role on the team, but its fun, so I do it. It especially helps to play after a day at an elementary school, which is usually insanity.
I'll continue with elementary school vs. middle school next time. Also, be on the lookout for another screenname in IM shortly, if you read this. I need to get rid of the old one. Until then, peace.
I left off last time at schools and school sizes, eh... to sum it up, big classes are tough, small classes are better. This is the general rule, but of course, there are exceptions.
The way that Japan runs class is that for main classes (English, math, history, Japanese), teachers go to students, rather than vice-versa. I think they do that because it's convenient for the students to have everything in one room, and it also encourages them to not forget anything and to be on time. At most schools, if the students have something they forgot (wasuremono 忘れ物）, they have to skip recess and clean the halls with rags on their knees (which is pretty exhausting AND embarrassing).
In other news, I joined the town hall's baseball team this year. Its great to be out playing again, especially because I had once though that my baseball-playing would end with the end of high school before I came here. I practice every weekday with the team, but its been an interesting experience thus far trying to fit in with the team. On the outside, everyone is friendly, and encourages me to play different spots, and is amazed (and I mean like "Whoa!") that I can field a ground ball... but on the inside, besides not being able to speak with them real well (they speak in very thick Tsugaru dialect...more on that later), I'm not part of their group from work, so I'm 2x the foreigner. I still don't know my role on the team, but its fun, so I do it. It especially helps to play after a day at an elementary school, which is usually insanity.
I'll continue with elementary school vs. middle school next time. Also, be on the lookout for another screenname in IM shortly, if you read this. I need to get rid of the old one. Until then, peace.
Thursday, March 20, 2008
Hiranai Town について...
Before going further with stories, might as well start from the beginning...
Right now, I'm living in Aomori Prefecture in a sparsely populated town called Hiranai. About 15,000 people live here, but spread over a fairly wide area. I teach English at Hiranai's 3 junior high schools and 7 elementary schools. The schools vary greatly in number of students, ranging anywhere from 20 to 200. The discrepancy comes from the difference in number of school-age kids between different parts of town. Hiranai actually used to be a number of smaller towns in the past, and back then schools were built accordingly. Many of them have special traditions local to the area - for example, in one small elementary school in a fishing village, all the students play big daiko drums to honor the scallop fisherman's lifestyle (Interestingly enough called the "Scallop daiko", or ほたて太鼓). So, going to each school can be a different experience, especially in smaller elementary schools where it seems like they try hard to preserve a area's traditions.
Besides school traditions, the size of classes makes for different experiences in different schools as well. At the biggest school of over 200, some classes have 35-40 students. At the smallest schools, classes can be less than five students. Some schools combine grade levels because there are so few students for one grade. Each size has its pros and cons, of course, but that is for another time.
Sleepiness has hit me pretty hard, so I'm done for now. More about schools and some about the town next time.
Right now, I'm living in Aomori Prefecture in a sparsely populated town called Hiranai. About 15,000 people live here, but spread over a fairly wide area. I teach English at Hiranai's 3 junior high schools and 7 elementary schools. The schools vary greatly in number of students, ranging anywhere from 20 to 200. The discrepancy comes from the difference in number of school-age kids between different parts of town. Hiranai actually used to be a number of smaller towns in the past, and back then schools were built accordingly. Many of them have special traditions local to the area - for example, in one small elementary school in a fishing village, all the students play big daiko drums to honor the scallop fisherman's lifestyle (Interestingly enough called the "Scallop daiko", or ほたて太鼓). So, going to each school can be a different experience, especially in smaller elementary schools where it seems like they try hard to preserve a area's traditions.
Besides school traditions, the size of classes makes for different experiences in different schools as well. At the biggest school of over 200, some classes have 35-40 students. At the smallest schools, classes can be less than five students. Some schools combine grade levels because there are so few students for one grade. Each size has its pros and cons, of course, but that is for another time.
Sleepiness has hit me pretty hard, so I'm done for now. More about schools and some about the town next time.
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
A long time coming
Japan:
I decided to start this log (finally) to document a few of the experiences I've had here on the other side of the world. Updates will come as things happen and when I shunt my laziness to write about what has happened until now. Until then, ciao.
I decided to start this log (finally) to document a few of the experiences I've had here on the other side of the world. Updates will come as things happen and when I shunt my laziness to write about what has happened until now. Until then, ciao.
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