November already?

I've been saying things like this alot recently:

Wow, it's already November?
It's already Thursday?
It's been over a week since I last updated my blog?
It's already time to pay rent again?

Time seems to be flying by!

Last weekend I watched a wheelchair marathon here in Oita. It draws people from all over the world, and coincidentaly enough Shawn and I met two out of the three Americans racing at dinner one night. It was quite inspiring. Here are some pictures of the event:







Halloween is the first holiday I've been able to teach here so I went all out. I made a Halloween DVD consisting of clips from Hocus Pocus the movie, scary music and some clip art images. I wanted to give my students some visuals. Then, I designed a fun class with some games, etc. Little did I realize that after the EIGHTEENTH time of teaching this class I would be oh-so-over Halloween. I was excited, and now I'm glad I don't have to say the words, "Happy Halloween!" for at least another year.

Yesterday, on Halloween, I hosted a small party for the ESS club. I was promised some orange pumpkins from the fruit stand guy near my house, but I was delivered 7 very small, squat, thick green pumpkins. It was terrible, I was so disappointed because I had been telling my kids they would get to carve American pumkins... I accepted defeat, and we tried to carve the green ones. Guess what! We did it! And they really didn't look much different than American orange pumpkins once you got the candle inside. It also turned out that my high school has four big boxes of all kinds of costumes, so I brought them out. We had 'dirt cups' with chocolate pudding, oreo and gummy worms. And the whole time scary music and sounds playing in the background. We even toasted the pumpkin seeds! They were happy, I was happy, and the Jack-O-Lanterns were happy:





Shawn even stopped by!












It was a good Halloween.

As you may have read we also got a new couch! The arrival of this new couch prompted us to reorganize our entire apartment and rearrange furniture. It looks so great now! It seems like we have so much more space and we are feeling very comfortable. Love the new couch. Much better than the two split-seam chairs we have been sitting on!

I want to send a special thanks to my wee cousins DJ and Jessse - Thanks so much for the letters! They were great! I will reply very soon. :)

Hope all is well. Happy November!

Jammin' Session!

Let's try this one more time. I know some of you had trouble uploading the film, I made some changes and it should work this time.

At our BBQ in Hita a while ago I took this video with a digital still camera (hence the low quality). I had this crazy idea to upload it to YouTube and share it with everyone.

This could be the beginning of publicity for the band!

Enjoy!

Dove Evolution



Saw this video on someones else's blog. I think it's worth sharing.

Last weekend, North Korea tested a nuclear weapon. Hmm...
Japan is a close ally of the US and if N. Korea can’t get their missiles across the Pacific Ocean, Japan is right here. It does make me a little nervous, but I wonder how the Japanese feel.
The BBC news talks about the possibility of a “North Asia Arms Race” in response to a nuclear North Korea. Everyone is looking on to see if Japan will start a nuclear program, but the new Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe, has declared that Japan will pursue no such course.
Japan has already felt the wrath of not one but two atomic bombs. Currently Japan’s armed forces have a pacifist policy. They do have a defense system and even placed some troops in Iraq; but only to help with humanitarian aid. I don’t see any room for nuclear weapons in the Japanese Defense Program.
North Korea has stated that any aggression on the part of the US will be considered ‘an act of war.’ We’ll see what happens.
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On Tuesday, Shawn and I went for a bike ride by the river on a popular walking/jogging path. We were cruising along when we both had to swerve and stop to avoid hitting a tiny ball of fur.
It was a white, brand new, eyes not even open baby cat! Someone had put this helpless little kitten on the path with a bowl of milk, abandoning it with the hope some other person would pick it up. The poor thing couldn’t even drink the milk because it was looking for it’s mother’s nipple. It doesn’t know how to lap up milk.
We sat there wondering what to do with it. Animal hospital? Apparently there isn’t one in Tsurusaki. Take it home? No way. Allergies, cat poop and just having an animal in general isn’t what we need right now. Although, I must say, I was working out in my head how we could just take it, make it a warm bed outside and feed it every once in a while in the back of our apartment building...
Luckily two other Japanese women were walking by and they also became attached. All of us were just standing there looking at that poor cat, thinking of what to do. We couldn’t just leave, we were bound by guilt. If we left it would surely die. The women placed several phone calls asking their friends if they wanted a cat, no luck.
Finally, we had to tear ourselves away from it. It was so sad, I felt like crying. We left those women with it, so we hope that it found a home or a hospital. There are a million reasons to justify why it’s ok that we just walked away, but I can’t help but feeling those reasons are selfish - I didn’t want to see it die. I didn’t want to be the last person there to walk away. I wanted to get to the post office to pick up my package. I didn’t want to take responsibility. I can’t have cats because of allergies. I don’t even like cats.
It was a sad situation.
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Next week is mid-term tests at my high school. As a result, many of my classes have been canceled because the teachers need to finish teaching and reviewing the text books. I taught 4 classes this week, usually I teach 14. I have to admit, I enjoy the break. I have had time to do other things, like plan vacations, write in my blog, write letters, etc.
One really strange thing about this week is that the students are not allowed to come into the teachers room. Usually, at any given time, there are students all over the place talking to teachers, handing in homework, asking questions, shooting the breeze...but this week they are barricaded outside the door so they don’t catch a glance of the tests the teachers are preparing. Talk about cautious. During the day there are shrill little voices, “Toyoda-Sensei!” or “Watanabe-Sensei” trying to get the teacher’s attention to hand in homework, etc. Kind of annoying actually.
Lucky me, I don’t have to prepare any test. The only test I do is a Listening Test during Final Exams.
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Speaking of vacation. We are definitely going to Thailand and Taiwan. Taiwan, you ask? Well, our connecting flight to Thailand from Japan is in Taiwan. Just so happens, our friend, Jen, is teaching English in Taiwan. We can stop over there for free on our returning flight. A few more days of vacation, and seeing an old friend. Why not? I’ve never had a desire to go there, but I have been reading about it during my enormous amounts of free time and sounds nice!
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Shawn and I discovered 24. They have all of the complete seasons for rent at our video rental store...this is dangerous. We are hooked. We have started all the way back at Season 1, and I hear right now in the US is Season 6. This will keep us busy for a while!
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I don’t know if I have ever mentioned the adult class I am teaching outside of school. It is every Tuesday night, and it is really really nice to spend time with them. They are all so sweet!
One woman, Aiko, invited me to play tennis with her on Sunday. She takes lessons at a local tennis school and on Sunday she plays outdoors with other women. I am not all that skilled at tennis, I’ve played it a handful of times. She is a grandma, and she will probably knock the socks off of me. It should be fun.
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A world-famous Taiko group, TAO, came to perform at our school. Taiko is Japanese drumming, a traditional art, and very very cool. If you ever get a chance to see Taiko, DO IT.
As part of some cultural program, the school invites guests every three years to do a performance. Lucky for me, it was this year. So we all filed into the gym to watch a 70 minute performance of drumming. I know, I thought it would be boring, but it was not at all. So amazing!
Then, they did a mini-workshop where yours truly and about 19 other students were called on stage to try it out. Yep, me and the students. Well, I’m basically a student, right? Anyway, I got to beat a giant drum and we played a little song. I loved it. I think I now want to look into a Taiko class.
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Back to work! I have been constructing the best bulletin board ever. It’s the “English Space” where I will post some comics, a word of the week, holiday stuff - right now it’s Halloween - and ESS events (my English Club). I have to admit, I am pretty proud of it! I want it to be interactive, so I’ll post a question in English and have people just write answers on a space using a marker attached to the board. Any question ideas?
Hopefully the students will catch on!

Culture Notes

I wrote this at the beginning of this month. Maybe it's interesting, maybe it's not. But here ya go.

Lots of interesting observations this week.

Although the Japanese love their alcohol, they do not love drinking and driving and penalties are very severe. As school teachers we are considered public officials. Employed by the board of education we are expected to uphold a certain standard of public behavior. Seems logical, teachers are also public figures in the United States, but not to the extent of this.

The first day we arrived in Oita we signed our year contracts and were given the ‘responsibility’ and ‘appropriate public behavior’ speech. I remember being struck by the strict punishments for offenses not entirely in one’s control such as traffic accidents. As public officials, if we were to be in a car accident and people were hurt, it would be grounds for being fired. Yes, fired for causing a car accident. Of course each situation is different but our boss stressed this point very thoroughly adding that this is the same for Japanese people. Who gets fired for being in a car accident?!

Then, a few weeks after we got here, there was an incident where a public official was in a car accident, and he had been drinking some alcohol. This incident prompted special afternoon meetings at all schools mandated by the Board of Education. The principal gave a 30 minute lecture about drinking, driving, duty, etc, and various teachers were asked to stand up and pledge that they would not drink or drive. Then, as requested by the Board of Education, all enkai were to be postponed for 2-3 weeks. In the room a common *sigh* went up from the crowd.

Ironic that our employer can tell us what to do or not to do in our free time as a result of an accident that occurred in someone else’s free time. I guess the lesson here is in Japan you never have ‘free time.’ No matter what you are doing you are in the public eye and you have a duty to act according to the group which you represent.

This week there was another accident with drinking and driving, news quickly spread that that teacher was fired and this time in the special meeting each teacher had to sign an oath that they would not drink and drive. It’s amazing to me how much a person’s life can be regulated by their employer and other ‘groups’ in society. After growing up with a strong sense of American individuality all of this does go against my sense of boundaries between the personal and private life. That’s the beauty of cross cultural understanding...It is interesting to observe these differences.

At the beginning of each month, there is an assembly to award various student accomplishments, make announcements (the drinking and driving incident was also announced to the students), and to have the dreaded uniform check. During the assembly a teacher mentioned to me that after the speeches we would have the uniform check so the students are probably nervous.

Nervous?

It’s a uniform...how hard can it be to wear it correctly...there’s not much room for variation...
Shows how much I know.

Teachers were sitting on the ground, rulers in hand, to check the distance between the hem of the skirt and the top of the socks. It had to be so exact that they had to use rulers?! The girls had to be checked in the following areas:

Length of skirt and socks
No earrings.
No long hair. If the hair was long it had to be tied into a side pony-tail, not a down the back pony tail.
No obvious make-up. I saw girls who usually wear heavy eyeliner and eye make up wearing natural tones that day...I almost didn’t recognize them!
No nail polish, nails cannot be too long.
Must wear the school pin.
Must be carrying the school ID card in their pocket.

For boys, I also saw teachers on the ground checking the length of their pants. It’s crazy! Regulating even their hair... For offenders they were to sit in a group to later be lectured and then they would have another check in a few days. I asked what the consequences would be if they failed the second check - parents would be called, both parents and students would be lectured about offending the school codes, no respect, etc...and possibly an eventual suspension. I was assured it never really goes farther than the second check, but wow.
All the teachers were surprised that I had never worn a school uniform. I was glad.

Strict regulations in school, and in life in general, leave little room for individual expression. Perhaps this is why on the train and in all the department stores the school girls have rolled up their skirts so short that I am even shocked (and I am used to seeing short shorts/skirts). Perhaps this is why most students carry hair gel or make-up in their school bags so the minuted they step outside the school walls they can look how they choose. Perhaps this is also why in the fashion district, Harajuku, in Tokyo, there are young people dressed in elaborate costumes, if for no other reason to rebel against conformity. (Check out the book “Fruits” for fashion beyond your wildest dreams)

There is a period after high school graduation and before entering the career life of a ‘salary man’ where Japanese people do not have to act or dress according to someone else’s rules. For many this period is college...I think I may have touched on this a little before, but college is less stressful than high school. GETTING INTO college is difficult but once you are in, you are in, and traditionally will be sucked up by some large career firm after graduation. Although this is changing, it has been true that a certain college guarantees a certain job - for life. Loyalty to a company in Japan is a top priority and loyalty is awarded by promotions. Often senior people in the company will reach the top position based on seniority rather than skill. So, the deal is student works very hard in Jr. High to pass an entrance exam to the high school of their choice. Then, high school students work very hard to pass the college entrance exams for the college of their choice. This college entrance exam is what sends students to juku, or cram school, after the regular school day. A typical schedule for a student who goes to juku is this:

7:30- 3:30ish School
3:30-6:30ish Club Activities (sports, etc)
6:30-9:00ish Juku
get home around 10pm, sleep, get ready for the next day.

Students usually go to school on Saturdays and Sundays to study or to do their club activities. The basketball team practices for three hours everyday, EVERYDAY. No break on weekends. Can you imagine? On Fridays I always ask what students will do on the weekend. 95% of the time the answer is: sleeping, staying at home, watching tv, staying by myself. Now I understand why, it’s the only time they can relax - if they are lucky.

Even from nursery school, parents - especially mothers - are acutely aware of the track their kids are on. They fight to get their children into the top nursery school or elementary school so that they can then enter a good junior high, to get into a top high school, to enter in a top college, and finally be securely employed in a stable job. High school is the accumulation of all that pressure, the moment of truth, if you will. Once you pass that entrance exam to college, the pressure bubble bursts and college is lax. Students sleep in class, talk on their phones in the back rows, etc. They dress how they want, they sometimes live alone in their own apartments, they have part time jobs. They are free - or as free as you can be if you are Japanese. Free until they have to put on their ties and skirts for the workplace.

Miyazaki

I wish every weekend were a three-day weekend.

Shawn and I hopped on the train for a three hour ride south to Miyazaki City to visit some friends, Lauren and Erik. We met Lauren and Erik at Oreintation in Oregon and the roomed with them in Tokyo. They are frighteningly similar to us so we all get along really well! They were nice enough to show us around, and let us crash in their apartment.

We ate delicious food, sang karaoke, kayaked, saw a shrine and two weddings, made guacamole, secured a giant jar of peanut butter, rode bikes, and bought car. Ok, WE didn't buy a car, but Lauren did. It was very exciting. It was a very nice weekend with great weather and company. I'll leave the pictures to do the talking.











I can't take any credit for this artistic shot, Shawn's idea, I just held the camera.










Our esteemed hosts:





At the shrine:




This is traditional wedding dress. Most people also have a western style wedding:


Hope everyone is well.

Small heads

Many of my students tell me I have a small head. For a while, everytime they saw me they would say, ‘small face! small face!’ I never thought my face was particularly small, but now that I think about it, it’s true - most Japanese people have much larger heads than westerners! One of my students has the biggest head I have ever seen.

Last night I was in the book store, and I came across a “You Know You’ve Been In Japan Too Long When...” book. On one page it says, “you look in the mirror and think, wow, my head really IS small.”
Aha! It’s a cultural thing!! Westerners just have smaller head I guess. Funny thing is, just a few days ago I was looking in the mirror thinking that same thing...hmm..

Last night Shawn and I joined some other JETs for the bi-monthly Pub Quiz at a local Canadian bar, P.E.I. Apparently a ‘pub quiz’ is something every has heard of...? Everyone but Shawn and I. (Maybe it’s a Canadian thing?) Someone hosts it and creates a trivia quiz for various teams to compete against each other, the prize being a 5000 Yen bar tab (about $50.00). Last night there were two rounds, questions ranging from current events, music trivia, geography, etc. There were four teams in all, and Shawn and I were on a team with Tom, and we won! Our first pub quiz and we won! Our 5000 yen bar tab will be used probably next Friday...how fun. Love the pub quiz.

We are headed to Miyazaki this weekend to visit some friends we met in Tokyo. Will post pics when we get back!