The Taiwan update
1. Highlights from our trip (in chronological order)
a. the first nightÕs hotel. We were meant to stay with RebeccaÕs great aunt, but she wasnÕt feeling well and was worried about us bringing SARS from the airport into our home, so she had made a reservation for us at a hotel. What a wonderful plan. The hotel was great Ð a suit, with a bathroom the size of both my bathrooms and kitchen combined, a bed bigger than my living room (plus a single bed for V), and a kitchen/dining room with free fruit. Breakfast |http://www.geocities.com/sbroshar/a1.jpg| was included with the room (well worth the 30 dollars a person). Highlights of breakfastÑwonderful coffee and fresh guava and papaya. |http://www.geocities.com/sbroshar/a2.jpg|
b. |http://www.geocities.com/sbroshar/b1.JPG| The square. I canÕt really explain this, but youÕve seen it in my pictures. Three large buildings Ð the big one |http://www.geocities.com/sbroshar/b2.JPG| is a monument to a leader, the smaller ones |http://www.geocities.com/sbroshar/b3.JPG| are a theater and concert hall. But itÕs great because so many people are there, just hanging out. We watched various college pep clubs |http://www.geocities.com/sbroshar/b4.jpg| practicing routines, 3 year olds taking roller blade lessons |http://www.geocities.com/sbroshar/b5.jpg|, various tourist groups from other countries taking group pictures, high school drum squad practice. The atmosphere was so fun, relaxed, laid back.
c. night markets. Crowded, dirty, wonderful. Illegal venders lay out blankets and goods on small pedestrian streets Ð shoes for around 8-9 dollars, imitation wallets, bootleg CDÕs, cleaning demonstrations, and a lot of food. Even if you donÕt need to buy anything, walking around the night markets is fun for people watching, and just being out somewhere exciting at night. I bought 2 pairs of sandals and some DV tapes (from a store). And the food is great Ð various meats, fruits, so many things I didnÕt try so canÕt explain.
d. search for a clean bathroom. Walking around the shopping area, needing to use a bathroom. Since Taiwan is very dirty and cramped, similar to Japan, we were thinking the best place to find a clean western style toilet would be a large office building. As we walked towards the building, we laughed at the cartoon condom billboards. We went into the building, and thought it was slightly strangeÐ sterile smell, strange counter with electronic board, waiting room chairsÉ Noticed the sign ÔCenter for Venereal DiseaseÕ and decided to continue our search elsewhere.
e. jasmine tea. Oooh, so nice, I brought some back with me. At the famous dim sum restaurant (I canÕt remember the name), they pour the tea from 3 feet above your tiny cup. And the pot stickers were amazing!
f. more tea. Karaoke bar after the dim sum was swank Ð high rise, every room had a private bathroom, and the Chinese songs have the original music videos under the lyrics. But the tea was good Ð got some hot herbal tea in a large pitcher and shared it. Strange brown Chinese herbsÉ plus skipping back to the tea shop the first night Ð I canÕt remember the name Ð but basically tons of teas, hot or cold, with fruits, as a smoothy, with the tapioca balls, etc. they have a branch of this in Berkely(?) or LA, so IÕm excited to frequent it next year. About as expensive as Starbucks. I had a green tea Ð green mango frozen thing. And there were weird balls in it, too. YumÉ
g. Chinese massage therapy. Apparently most masseuses in Taipei are blind Ð itÕs good work for them Ð donÕt need to see and people feel less uncomfortable. He was pretty amazing Ð Becca translated a bit at the beginning for me. I have been having back problems with Aikido Ð one place near my spine especially hurting. Becca told him this, and he ran his hands up and down my spine and found a flaw in my lower back Ð IÕm not sure if itÕs a slipped disc, but one is out of place. He said it was probably from my posture. He also found problems in my shoulders Ð he said that because theyÕre not strong enough IÕm probably transferring stress (from Aikido) to my lower back. The next hour was a lovely full-body massage. I was warned it could really hurt, but the only thing that was really painful was the pressure point between my thumb and forefinger he squeezed for about 5 minutes. Supposed to help the digestive system.
h. day markets. While V was getting her massage after me, and Becca was getting a facial, I explored the street market a few blocks from the apartment. Saw live chickens in their cages, plus through various stages of butchery. Stalks of sugar cane and their various stages of butchery. Small shrines, making gyoza on the sidewalk, and a lot of fresh fruit.
i. hairdressers. We didnÕt need a haircut, didnÕt need to have our hair washed, but got a wash and blow-dry just for the experience. We went to a small, crowded hairdresser in the above day market. Sat down, had the warm shampoo solution squirted on our hair while it was dry, and then a 30 minute vigorous head and neck massage. Vigorous is the key word. Followed by a very tedious blow-dry. It was interesting, and cheap (3-5 dollars). But I think I prefer the Japanese way Ð slow, perfect attention to every detail, etc.)
Thursday, June 12, 2003
HI. It's been a long long time since I've properly posted to this site, and I'm afraid this isn't going to be a proper post. But maybe it will be interesting. I've gotten in touch with my successor, and today I wrote her a long e-mail about life in Japan. In case you're curious:
> 1 ) Did you have any previous knowledge of the Japanese language? If not,
> did you find the lack of language skills
> a huge barrier in the classroom or out in the city?
I studied Japanese for a year and a half at NU, but many of my friends hadn't studied the language at all. I expected my Japanese to improve dramatically here, and while my listening, reading, and vocab have improved, I'm still a terrible speaker. But I think it's my personality. Some friends hadn't studied Japanese and don't study here, and they can pick it up and use expressions very naturally.
I think it will be pretty strange, maybe a little scary when you first get here, but you will pick up the essentials quickly. If possible, study before you come. I would learn katakana and hiragana before you come �Ekatakana will help you read menus since katakana is the script for words of foreign origin (example coffee when read in katakana sounds like 'kohee�E milk is 'miruku�Eand hamburger is 'hanbaaga�E.
Also learn numbers and money expressions. I can send you a list of what I think are essential Japanese phrases, or the ones that will help you most (what time is the next train, what platform, etc.) You really will pick it up quickly, though, and maybe your friends will speak some Japanese, or you can hang out with the 2nd years who speak some Japanese.
People in Toyama might know a few English expressions, but on the whole you can't trust people to understand English the way you can in Tokyo or Osaka. But the people are really friendly, and gestures, maps, pointing and bits of English will get you pretty far.
Once you're here, the best way to learn the language is to take Japanese classes. You have several options for studying Japanese �Ethis is something else I'll address in a later e-mail.
You don't need any Japanese for the classroom. I never speak Japanese in class. The Japanese teachers can take care of that. That said, I completely forgot to tell you about elementary school (it doesn'tadd up, does it? �E3 days at Nanbu, 1.5 days at Oizumi�E. Tuesday afternoons are at Shimizumachi elementary school. The teachers�EEnglish is terrible, and lesson planning and communication are a little difficult. I will tell the English teachers at Oizumi that I think they should accompany you to your first meeting to help translate lesson plans. Beyond that, there's a good website for teaching English at Japanese elementary schools (genkienglish.com), and they have explanations of games and lessons in both English and Japanese.
> 2)How big is Toyama City (population wise)? Is their a sizeable population
> of foreigners, besides JET people? What is the area like?
Toyama has around 350,000 people. There are a fair amount of foreigners �Equite a few Brazilians and Russians, Philippians, Chinese, and some English speaking foreigners, too. Generally, the only non-JET foreigners JETs socialize with are the NOVA or AEON people, who come from similar backgrounds and have similar non-levels of Japanese. There are also a handful of Mormons here on their 2 year mission, and I know some of them from various international events. But they speak great Japanese, have plenty of Japanese friends and are very busy with their work. The other English-speaking foreigners here tend to be high school exchange students, people here on business, or people who have started families in Toyama. It is a city, and I occasionally see foreigners I don't know on the streets. But it'smuch less diverse than Tokyo or another big city�E After being in Toyama for a few months, I find myself staring at foreigners out in the big cities.
The area. It's spectacular. Toyama is an industrial city by reputation (you got the idea from the Lonely Planet). You probably gathered from the Toyama website that they pride themselves on the high quality of living. This is the truth. Standard of living in Toyama is great. The air is clean (especially in the mountains �Eonly an hour away), the water is delicious (hence our soccer team takes the name 'Oishi mizu' (delicious water), the fish is very fresh and good, the rice is good. The people are friendly. The Northern Japanese Alps are amazing, and you can see them from your balcony and from the classrooms at school. It's a big enough city that there are plenty of restaurants, Japanese and western, and there are also plenty of foreign foods grocery stores.
That said, Toyama is a little boring. People here are families - many cool young people go to Tokyo, Yokohama, for their college years and a few working years before returning to Toyama to live in their parents - houses and raise families. There are some bars in the city, but they are a bit spread out, so most of the JET social life takes place in neighboring Takaoka city, where the bars are all in the same little strip. BUT, hopefully next year the Toyama JETs will be tighter than this year (out of all the people in Sunshine, I only hung out with 2 - this year Toyama was pretty cliquey, and the Toyama JETs didn't like to go out as much as JETs in other areas). The shopping in Toyama is okay, but overpriced. There is one club, where they occasionally have live Ska/Reggae concerts that rock, but the norm is cheesy dance music at a high price (so I've heard, I've only been for the ska nights).
But please don't get discouraged. My friend and I were talking the other day how Toyama is a little dull, but we think it's great for the life of a JET. The people are very friendly, you get special attention as a foreigner which overall is nice, and the lifestyle is cheap, comfortable, and laid back. Biggest perks - Kyoto's 3 hours by train, Kanazawa is an hour, Tokyo, Osaka, and Nagoya are 4. So you can take an easy weekend trip to the city, and return to your affordable, comfortable, beautiful home for the workweek.
> 3) At Nanbu Jr. High- How many classes do you teach in a week? Do you
> team-teach in all your classes there?
A good week is 4-5 classes a day. I like to be busy teaching. But lately the norm has been 2-3 classes a day. When I first got here, I would teach between 3-5 classes a day unless there were midterm tests or some festival. But in the winter it slowed down as we neared graduation, then there was a long break of classes during spring break, and since spring break I haven't taught so much at Nanbu. One reason is probably that my supervisor is pregnant, and takes a lot of vacation. So a lot of my classes with her have been cancelled (my one class today was cancelled because she's not here). The 1-nensei teacher is brand new �Eher first year of teaching �Eand I think I don't have as many classes with her since she's still figuring it out for herself a bit. 3-nenseis were supposedly busy preparing for the school trip, but I don't really see why that's an explanation for no TT classes. ??
Here's a good time for me to go through the teachers and talk a bit about their teaching styles.
Nanbu: 3-nensei. Kenda-sensei. Around 31, female, single, volleyball coach, has around 8 years being a full-time teacher, is really really nice, cool, and I think she's a really good teacher. I've had some fantastic team-teaching classes with her. We do the planning together, but she's a little more dominant. I think she likes to have a fair amount of control over her class, but I think this is the sign of a good teacher. She has clear goals with the students and with individual classes, and lessons are generally tailored towards these goals. She's very open to my ideas, though, and often we will toss out an idea for a class and work with it together until we're somewhere we both like. She also is really creative and takes risks �Emy favorite class I've taught with her was last year when she was teaching 1-nensei. I came into class and started without her �Ethe students were stunned �Ehow could they understand me? But I started writing on the chalkboard and teaching. About 5 minutes later Kenda-sensei comes in in a monkey mask, and I scolded her for being late. Then, she walked around the class kicking desks, swatting at students, taking their things, and throwing them around the room. She wouldn't stop until the students told her 'Don't hit!�E etc., with me along to coach them. It was great. Followed by a telephone conversations with paper cups and string. Such a fun class. We usually share responsibility for materials preparations. Her English is very good. She is the leader in the classroom (she uses a fair amount of Japanese for instructions).
2-nensei: Suzuki sensei. 35, now pregnant with her 3rd child. Excellent English (the best of any JHS teachers I've met) She's very nice, down to earth, and has a great sense of humor. We work together to plan lessons - usually we both bring ideas to the table, sometimes she'll rely on me more heavily for ideas. I'm not going to write too much more since you won't be teaching with her : - ( . I am usually the leader, and she uses English for instructions.
1-nensei: Hasegawa-sensei. 23, her first year teaching. Her English isn't so good, so she's pretty shy around me even though we sit next to each other. I don't know her very well yet, since she is new as of April. I have only taught with her twice - both times we did lessons I had already used at Oizumi, and I was the leader in the classroom. I get the impression she speaks a lot of Japanese during class. But she's really fun and bubbly, and I am sad she wasn't here when I first arrived - she would have been fun to go out with, etc.
Nanbu's students: as I said in the last e-mail, they are pretty studious and smart, but a little more hesitant to speak in class.
Oizumi �Ethe English teachers are Ms. Murashita and Ms. Iiguchi. Both are new as of April �EMs. Iiguchi is substituting for Onnegawa-sensei who is pregnant. But I don't think Onnegawa-sensei will be back for a few years. If you get a chance to meet her, I encourage you to: she's really interesting. She took a little getting-used to (very un-Japanese, very blunt and opinionated, I think she's hilarious), but once I got to know her a bit I really enjoyed talking to her. I think she's part of some cult religion, but that's besides the point. Ms. Murashita is very quiet. I don't think her English is very good. I also don't know how she is as a teacher. Since I team-teach with both her and Iiguchi-sensei, Iiguchi-sensei seems to be the person who is more involved, and Murashita sensei kind of stands off to the side. She sits next to us at Oizumi.
Iiguchi-sensei is also new as of April. She comes from my friend Brian's school, and was good friends with Brian �Ethey still have dinner together, etc. She's in her 40's, married, no kids, and chooses to be a substitute teacher so she can change schools every year (you'll learn about this system �Eteachers must take a test to become permanent, otherwise they change schools every year. Ms. Hasegawa is also a substitute teacher). Her English isn't great, but she's friendly, well-traveled, and likes ALTs.
Oizumi - Tsubosaka-sensei is the gym teacher/administrator. She's in her 40's (but don't tell her you know that - I thought she was much younger until she told me), married with kids, but I would never have guessed based on her personality - she's really cool. Doesn't fit into my idea of the Japanese housewife at all. Maybe because she's a gym teacher, she speaks really loud in class. I thought it was strange at first, but I like it, and think it's pretty funny. She really likes English, and studies it on her own just for fun. She talks to me all the time outside of class, and I've noticed she uses English all over the place in her normal job, which I think is really cool �EI saw a memo signed in English 'by Tsubosaka' or random English words on the staff chalkboard at school 'or' instead of the Japanese word, etc. Anyways, she has a really great personality and sense of humor, and she's fun to talk to.
Oizumi students - really genki (energetic, lively). One class of 2-nenseis is rough, some bad boys, but I'm working with the English teachers to figure out what to do in this class. And you'll be teaching them with Tsubosaka-sensei, who doesn't tolerate bad behavior. They're not very good at English, and higher-energy activities are usually better.
> 4)At Oizumi Jr. High- How many classes do you teach in a week? (i believe 4
> but i want to be clear on this :)
6 classes �ETuseday I teach 1-nensei 3rd and 4th periods (Tuesday afternoon is 2-3 elementary classes), Thursday I teach 3-nensei 1st and 2nd periods, 2-nensei 3rd and 5th periods. Your schedule will be different, but you will most likely teach 6 classes a week.
Tuesdays and Thursdays are the busier days, and there's not a lot of time for planning or grading. But I really enjoy these days, and it's nice to work hard.
> What is the elective that you team-teach with the gym teacher? How many days
> a week are you at Oizumi?
It's not really an elective - it's just technically called that since it's not an English class. MOMBUSHO (the Japanese government education branch) administers the number of classes for each subject per week at a Junior High. There are 3 English classes a week. In addition, there are elective classes. But Oizumi doesn't have enough teachers or probably diversity of students to offer various electives (at Nanbu students can choose advanced English, science, math, etc., or remedial subjects), so instead all the students take another English class, which is the class I team-teach with Tsubosaka-sensei (the gym teacher, also an administrator at the school �Enext in line after the vice-principal).
I basically plan these lessons like TT lessons, with less emphasis on the textbook and more emphasis on whatever inspires me at the moment. It's good to practice the grammar they're learning, but I also like the freedom to do cultural lessons or more artsy lessons.
> 5) Is all of your work team-teaching?
Technically. Elementary school is more like teaching with a Japanese assistant who really has no idea what's going on.
> 6)Do you supervise any school clubs, such as the English club?
No. There is not an English club at either school, and no interest in one.
> 7)Have you done any translation work ?
Never. Would never be asked. Sometimes I have the Japanese teachers help me with English - Japanese translation.
> 8)Has the school allowed you to use your vacation time during school breaks
> (which coincide with the big Japanese national
> Holidays)? How many vacation days did you get?
Nanbu's great about vacation. We get 20 days of Nenkyu (paid leave). I've taken 4 days during the winter holidays (I went home for 2 weeks), 3 days during spring break to go to Taiwan, a half-day some random Wednesday afternoon (while school was in session) to meet a guy in Kanazawa (I didn't tell my school why, and they didn't ask. I just asked about a week in advance if I could take nenkyu that afternoon, and they said yes�E You don't have to give a reason to take nenkyu, just make sure you ask in advance. If you're traveling, you need to tell them where and fill out a form with dates and places you're going, I think this is mostly for your protection). I also took a week off school (when I would have been teaching) to travel with my parents. So essentially, they're very very cool about it. I'm taking more time off when my sister comes this summer.
Plus, they're really nice about sick days. I've gotten pretty sick twice - strep throat once, influenza once. They give me sick leave, no questions asked (for about 3 days each time). Plus, if I'm sick and really not feeling well at school, they've told me I can just go home and nothing technical is done about it.
They were very kind about summer vacation �Ethis summer at Nanbu I would go home at lunchtime, and at Oizumi I would only stay an hour or two, or once the office lady took me to a flower arranging class. At the end of winter vacation, when I was back and school wasn't in session yet, Oizumi also told me not to come in one day I was supposed to work, and then told me to hanko (stamp) in the book that I had come.
So they're great. The people you will work with are really really nice, reasonable people. Very straightforward, down to earth. They're used to many ALTs, and I think they're very understanding that we want to travel.
There is a feeling of jealousy in the staff room if I mention I went to Tokyo for the weekend, of if I talk about the various countries I've visited. It's not bad, a little difficult to explain. I think the people here don't travel as much. They have families, they live in Toyama, and Kyoto, only a 3 hour train ride, is a major yearly trip for them. It is very expensive to travel in Japan, so that's a big reason people don't travel too much (it's also expensive to get out of Japan, since it can be a 200 dollar train ride to the nearest international airport). We ALTs make plenty of money, have a lot of free time, are young, adventurous, and like to do things. We go see movies, eat out at restaurants, travel spontaneously, etc. For these reasons, many teachers with more school and family responsibilities are jealous. But, that's why we're here - to travel. And the paycheck is enough to keep us here - I think it's not so much a reflection on the job we do at school, but the fact that we’re in Japan, living in a foreign culture, in the first place. Plus, we recycle a good portion of these paychecks back into the Japanese economy : - ) .
> 9) Do you teach any adult evening english classes?
Not by contract. Some JETs pick up these conversation classes (eikaiaw), on the side. I recently volunteered for one at the international center (and was thanked with a 5000 yen book certificate), and I had a lot of fun. I would try if you get the chance �Eit's a good way to meet some random Japanese people and hear about their experiences. A breath of fresh air from the conversations at JHS (What did you have for breakfast?)
Plus, staying busy is a good way to fend off homesickness/loneliness.
I'm going to go off on a slight tangent here: I am the kind of person who thrives on being busy. I have a ton of interests, and like to have my time filled, so I assumed I would naturally be the same way in Japan. When I got here I took Japanese lessons once a week and joined they gym across the street, but I wasn't aggressive about finding things to do and starting up new activities, even though I was really interested in taking Japanese cooking classes and learning a Japanese martial arts. I advise you to find a few things you're interested in and get involved as quickly as possible.
> 10) What time is your work day over with?
Technically 4:15 pm. Lately, since I haven't been busy, I've been leaving at 4:15. But previously, when I had been more enthusiastic about school, I would occasionally stay till 6ish to work on things, or go hang out and watch a club sport. When I'm busy, I'll leave around 5-ish on average. It starts at 8:30, but I'll come early if I need to finish preparations. I usually leave home between 7:30 am and 8.
> 11) What do JETers do in their freetime?
There are lots of options. Hmmm�E I think for this answer I'm going to let you in on my online journal sites. This is coming with a serious disclaimer�EI want to give you as much information as possible about the job and situation, but please take my opinions/impressions of life here with a grain of salt, as I’m sure you'll come and form your own. Of course don't feel obligated to read them (but I know I would have devoured my predecessor's, so I'm expecting you'll do the same)�E
The site I worked on since the beginning: http://sbroshar.blogspot.com
> 12) How do you categorize or describe the work that you do at Oizumi and
> Nanbu? Is it all team-teaching? Do you regard yourself as
> a human English speaking dictionary?
Nanbu- team-teaching. Oizumi �Eteaching. Elementary �Eteaching. I tend to be the dominant force in my classes, probably because I have a lot of freedom planning them. With Kenda-sensei she's usually the dominant force. It really depends on the lesson, who planned it, and how it's planned. Never and English speaking dictionary. See above for info on individual teachers�Estyles.
> 13)How much imput do you have in the classroom planning of the course?Are
> the head English teachers interested in your ideas or imput?
I don't have very much input in the scheme of ordinary English classes, especially when I came in halfway through the year. But at the year change, I did implement some long-term ideas for participation rewards. Actually, last year I designed the 3-nensei advanced elective at Nanbu�EI had an idea for a class to make English commercials. Kenda-sensei was the teacher, and she liked my idea and wanted to do it together. Unfortunately, we didn't have a lot of opportunities to plan it together �EI planned it myself but didn't have the right information from her about scheduling, etc. Basically, my plan didn't work because classes were rescheduled, cancelled, etc. Plus other technical problems. I liked the challenge of planning the class myself, but for it to work I would have needed a lot more cooperation, and we were both busy with our other English classes.
> 14) Are your weekends free or do you spend 3-5 hours on Saturday during
> work-related activities?
Free weekends. If we have a sports festival on Friday, we get the following Monday off.
> 15) Have you participated in any school trips or activities?
Nope, never been invited on school trips L.
> 16) Have the other English teachers been free with information about school
> policies, activities, events, or scheduling?
They are good about scheduling �Eat each school I know my schedule for the entire month. At Nanbu, Suzuki-sensei (pregnant supervisor), makes the schedule. At Oizumi, Murashita-sensei makes it, but it's pretty much always the same.
Activities and events you have to pry out a bit, mostly because they just forget. I can read a bit of Japanese, so I can usually figure out what's going on by looking at the chalkboard, but I think you'll be able to figure it out without Japanese. At both schools, if the hours are shortened or rearranged (probably the case around 50% of the time), it will say on the chalkboard. If there are a bunch of things written, just ask what's going on. It's best if you look out for yourself �Eevery morning ask an English teacher what's going on for the day.
> 17) Is the apartment monthly rent 54000 yen before or after the city subsidy
> kicks in?
We're paid every 15th, and the rent is taken out on the first. So I'm not sure if it's before or after�E When we get here you will have around 1000 dollars in key deposit. Within the first two weeks of being here, a random 1500 dollars will appear in your bank account �Ea small gift from the city BOE to cover 'start-up expenses�E : - )
> 18) How much money do you pay in monthly bills, such as electric, gas,
> telephone? An estimate would be great.
Electric �E5000 yen. Gas �Ebi-monthly at around 3000 yen I believe. I have a cell phone which is around 7000 yen. These bills are all taken out of the bank account, and this is all set up the first day in Toyama. (Except for the cell phone, you might have to wait until you have your alien registration card to get your phone �E1 or 2 weeks) I also use an international callback service for my cell phone, which is billed in US dollars to an American credit card �E20-30 dollars a month.
> 19) Do you know if I'm taking over your lease?
I assume so, yes. Actually, no. You're taking my apartment, but I'm not sure how the lease works. I think the BOE has signed a lease with the building, and we are kind of subletting from the BOE.
> 20) what items did the apartment come with? Was it furnished with a futon,
> stove or burner, refrigerator, t.v., or heater,?
The BOE gives all JETs a washing machine, TV, heater, fridge, (I assume the stove/burner is included in the apartment), and a vacuum. Our vacuum sucks, I'll try to have them replace it for you. I tried to have them replace it for me, but they just came and fiddled with it, and told me to try again and if it really didn't work they'd replace it. It's over 10 years old!!!
In addition, I bought quite a few things from my predecessor and have added to it a bit myself. The apartment is another area I'll cover in detail in a later e-mail. Layout, furnishings, the neighborhood, etc.
> 21) Is their a wash machine in the apartment complex?
One in our apartment! Only cold water wash, and put all your clothes in nylon bags (there will be some under the sink when you get here). If you want to spin dry your clothes, the laundry mat is half a block away, costs 100 yen for 10 minutes, and is open 7:30 am till 11pm.
> 22) Did you have to pay any money upfront, such as a key deposit, for the
> apartment?
Around 1000 dollar key deposit, plus maybe one months rent. They will tell me this info officially in the next few weeks, and I'll pass it on then.
> 23)What is a tatami room :) ?
Tatami are Japanese-style mats. They feel nice, look gorgeous in the sunlight, and are more comfortable to sleep on than the floor (I have a bed, but prefer to sleep on the futons on the floor, another thing to be covered later).
> 24) Any teaching aids you can suggest I bring, such as English as Second
> Language activity books?
No. I really wouldn't bother bringing teaching books. You can buy good activity books here from AJET, and there are plenty in the apartment and at your desk at school. Bring materials from home �Epictures, prizes, stickers, postcars, picture books, etc.
> 25) Should I really bring extra toothpaste, stick deordant, and maxipads or
> tampons?
YES. I brought enough of all mentioned items to last me the year. My friends thought I was ridiculous for packing one suitcase nearly full with supplies and omiyage, but now theyre stuck with shitty Japanese tampons and I'm loving my tampax. Toothpaste and deodorant are also essential. I would bring allergy medicine, even if you don't think you'll need it. Note about customs: the JET handbook makes it out that it's really hard to smuggle things into Japan. Don't bring illegal drugs. For real. But do bring any other kind of prescription you feel like. I've been into the country twice, my parents have been in once, and every time Japanese customs just ask to see a passport and wave us by. They are friendly, and possibly a little afraid of foreigners. You can also get out of things by not speaking Japanese. Just shrug and smile.
> 26) Did you find the Prefecture orientation helpful?
Hmmm. Hard to say. There was a good demonstration class. One day was spent hiking Mt. Tateyama �Ethat was great! There are plenty of meetings when you first get here. Things are very organized �Eyou will get handbooks on living in Toyama, restaurant and shopping guides, maps, information on garbage, Japanese lessons, anything technical relating to the job (paperwork, etc). They really hold your hand throughout the whole process. Plenty of teaching resources, example lesson plans, ways to network and meet other JETs, parties, etc.
> 27) do you teach or visit any elementary schools in Toyama City?
Yes, see above.
> 28) what is the weather like in Toyama city? Does the area usually get heavy
> snow? Is it very humid in the summer?
Ahh, the weather. Hmmm. Very important question. Toyama's weather sucks a bit. It's very similar to Cincinnati, probably a little warmer. And much more humid. It will be sweltering when you get here �Eyou will bike somewhere and by the time you get there sweat will be dripping down your neck. That's why all Japanese wear neck towels. J If you don't bring one to school, they will all ask you where it is. I didn't, and still haven't caught on to the trend. Fall is nice. Drier, less rain, not too hot. Winter is gross �Enot too cold (coldest is around 32 degrees), but very wet and slushy. Which makes for decent but slushy snowboarding only 50 minutes away by train (winters are great- I went snowboarding nearly every weekend). There's excellent snow in Nagano- Happo 1, the great Olympic resort, is a little over 2 hours by car.
Spring is very pleasant �Esunny, not too humid, but for some reason the view of the mountains isn't so good. Now we're entering the rainy hot season �Eit's humid and warm, and it's raining today, but I don't mind yet, so far.
> 1 ) Did you have any previous knowledge of the Japanese language? If not,
> did you find the lack of language skills
> a huge barrier in the classroom or out in the city?
I studied Japanese for a year and a half at NU, but many of my friends hadn't studied the language at all. I expected my Japanese to improve dramatically here, and while my listening, reading, and vocab have improved, I'm still a terrible speaker. But I think it's my personality. Some friends hadn't studied Japanese and don't study here, and they can pick it up and use expressions very naturally.
I think it will be pretty strange, maybe a little scary when you first get here, but you will pick up the essentials quickly. If possible, study before you come. I would learn katakana and hiragana before you come �Ekatakana will help you read menus since katakana is the script for words of foreign origin (example coffee when read in katakana sounds like 'kohee�E milk is 'miruku�Eand hamburger is 'hanbaaga�E.
Also learn numbers and money expressions. I can send you a list of what I think are essential Japanese phrases, or the ones that will help you most (what time is the next train, what platform, etc.) You really will pick it up quickly, though, and maybe your friends will speak some Japanese, or you can hang out with the 2nd years who speak some Japanese.
People in Toyama might know a few English expressions, but on the whole you can't trust people to understand English the way you can in Tokyo or Osaka. But the people are really friendly, and gestures, maps, pointing and bits of English will get you pretty far.
Once you're here, the best way to learn the language is to take Japanese classes. You have several options for studying Japanese �Ethis is something else I'll address in a later e-mail.
You don't need any Japanese for the classroom. I never speak Japanese in class. The Japanese teachers can take care of that. That said, I completely forgot to tell you about elementary school (it doesn'tadd up, does it? �E3 days at Nanbu, 1.5 days at Oizumi�E. Tuesday afternoons are at Shimizumachi elementary school. The teachers�EEnglish is terrible, and lesson planning and communication are a little difficult. I will tell the English teachers at Oizumi that I think they should accompany you to your first meeting to help translate lesson plans. Beyond that, there's a good website for teaching English at Japanese elementary schools (genkienglish.com), and they have explanations of games and lessons in both English and Japanese.
> 2)How big is Toyama City (population wise)? Is their a sizeable population
> of foreigners, besides JET people? What is the area like?
Toyama has around 350,000 people. There are a fair amount of foreigners �Equite a few Brazilians and Russians, Philippians, Chinese, and some English speaking foreigners, too. Generally, the only non-JET foreigners JETs socialize with are the NOVA or AEON people, who come from similar backgrounds and have similar non-levels of Japanese. There are also a handful of Mormons here on their 2 year mission, and I know some of them from various international events. But they speak great Japanese, have plenty of Japanese friends and are very busy with their work. The other English-speaking foreigners here tend to be high school exchange students, people here on business, or people who have started families in Toyama. It is a city, and I occasionally see foreigners I don't know on the streets. But it'smuch less diverse than Tokyo or another big city�E After being in Toyama for a few months, I find myself staring at foreigners out in the big cities.
The area. It's spectacular. Toyama is an industrial city by reputation (you got the idea from the Lonely Planet). You probably gathered from the Toyama website that they pride themselves on the high quality of living. This is the truth. Standard of living in Toyama is great. The air is clean (especially in the mountains �Eonly an hour away), the water is delicious (hence our soccer team takes the name 'Oishi mizu' (delicious water), the fish is very fresh and good, the rice is good. The people are friendly. The Northern Japanese Alps are amazing, and you can see them from your balcony and from the classrooms at school. It's a big enough city that there are plenty of restaurants, Japanese and western, and there are also plenty of foreign foods grocery stores.
That said, Toyama is a little boring. People here are families - many cool young people go to Tokyo, Yokohama, for their college years and a few working years before returning to Toyama to live in their parents - houses and raise families. There are some bars in the city, but they are a bit spread out, so most of the JET social life takes place in neighboring Takaoka city, where the bars are all in the same little strip. BUT, hopefully next year the Toyama JETs will be tighter than this year (out of all the people in Sunshine, I only hung out with 2 - this year Toyama was pretty cliquey, and the Toyama JETs didn't like to go out as much as JETs in other areas). The shopping in Toyama is okay, but overpriced. There is one club, where they occasionally have live Ska/Reggae concerts that rock, but the norm is cheesy dance music at a high price (so I've heard, I've only been for the ska nights).
But please don't get discouraged. My friend and I were talking the other day how Toyama is a little dull, but we think it's great for the life of a JET. The people are very friendly, you get special attention as a foreigner which overall is nice, and the lifestyle is cheap, comfortable, and laid back. Biggest perks - Kyoto's 3 hours by train, Kanazawa is an hour, Tokyo, Osaka, and Nagoya are 4. So you can take an easy weekend trip to the city, and return to your affordable, comfortable, beautiful home for the workweek.
> 3) At Nanbu Jr. High- How many classes do you teach in a week? Do you
> team-teach in all your classes there?
A good week is 4-5 classes a day. I like to be busy teaching. But lately the norm has been 2-3 classes a day. When I first got here, I would teach between 3-5 classes a day unless there were midterm tests or some festival. But in the winter it slowed down as we neared graduation, then there was a long break of classes during spring break, and since spring break I haven't taught so much at Nanbu. One reason is probably that my supervisor is pregnant, and takes a lot of vacation. So a lot of my classes with her have been cancelled (my one class today was cancelled because she's not here). The 1-nensei teacher is brand new �Eher first year of teaching �Eand I think I don't have as many classes with her since she's still figuring it out for herself a bit. 3-nenseis were supposedly busy preparing for the school trip, but I don't really see why that's an explanation for no TT classes. ??
Here's a good time for me to go through the teachers and talk a bit about their teaching styles.
Nanbu: 3-nensei. Kenda-sensei. Around 31, female, single, volleyball coach, has around 8 years being a full-time teacher, is really really nice, cool, and I think she's a really good teacher. I've had some fantastic team-teaching classes with her. We do the planning together, but she's a little more dominant. I think she likes to have a fair amount of control over her class, but I think this is the sign of a good teacher. She has clear goals with the students and with individual classes, and lessons are generally tailored towards these goals. She's very open to my ideas, though, and often we will toss out an idea for a class and work with it together until we're somewhere we both like. She also is really creative and takes risks �Emy favorite class I've taught with her was last year when she was teaching 1-nensei. I came into class and started without her �Ethe students were stunned �Ehow could they understand me? But I started writing on the chalkboard and teaching. About 5 minutes later Kenda-sensei comes in in a monkey mask, and I scolded her for being late. Then, she walked around the class kicking desks, swatting at students, taking their things, and throwing them around the room. She wouldn't stop until the students told her 'Don't hit!�E etc., with me along to coach them. It was great. Followed by a telephone conversations with paper cups and string. Such a fun class. We usually share responsibility for materials preparations. Her English is very good. She is the leader in the classroom (she uses a fair amount of Japanese for instructions).
2-nensei: Suzuki sensei. 35, now pregnant with her 3rd child. Excellent English (the best of any JHS teachers I've met) She's very nice, down to earth, and has a great sense of humor. We work together to plan lessons - usually we both bring ideas to the table, sometimes she'll rely on me more heavily for ideas. I'm not going to write too much more since you won't be teaching with her : - ( . I am usually the leader, and she uses English for instructions.
1-nensei: Hasegawa-sensei. 23, her first year teaching. Her English isn't so good, so she's pretty shy around me even though we sit next to each other. I don't know her very well yet, since she is new as of April. I have only taught with her twice - both times we did lessons I had already used at Oizumi, and I was the leader in the classroom. I get the impression she speaks a lot of Japanese during class. But she's really fun and bubbly, and I am sad she wasn't here when I first arrived - she would have been fun to go out with, etc.
Nanbu's students: as I said in the last e-mail, they are pretty studious and smart, but a little more hesitant to speak in class.
Oizumi �Ethe English teachers are Ms. Murashita and Ms. Iiguchi. Both are new as of April �EMs. Iiguchi is substituting for Onnegawa-sensei who is pregnant. But I don't think Onnegawa-sensei will be back for a few years. If you get a chance to meet her, I encourage you to: she's really interesting. She took a little getting-used to (very un-Japanese, very blunt and opinionated, I think she's hilarious), but once I got to know her a bit I really enjoyed talking to her. I think she's part of some cult religion, but that's besides the point. Ms. Murashita is very quiet. I don't think her English is very good. I also don't know how she is as a teacher. Since I team-teach with both her and Iiguchi-sensei, Iiguchi-sensei seems to be the person who is more involved, and Murashita sensei kind of stands off to the side. She sits next to us at Oizumi.
Iiguchi-sensei is also new as of April. She comes from my friend Brian's school, and was good friends with Brian �Ethey still have dinner together, etc. She's in her 40's, married, no kids, and chooses to be a substitute teacher so she can change schools every year (you'll learn about this system �Eteachers must take a test to become permanent, otherwise they change schools every year. Ms. Hasegawa is also a substitute teacher). Her English isn't great, but she's friendly, well-traveled, and likes ALTs.
Oizumi - Tsubosaka-sensei is the gym teacher/administrator. She's in her 40's (but don't tell her you know that - I thought she was much younger until she told me), married with kids, but I would never have guessed based on her personality - she's really cool. Doesn't fit into my idea of the Japanese housewife at all. Maybe because she's a gym teacher, she speaks really loud in class. I thought it was strange at first, but I like it, and think it's pretty funny. She really likes English, and studies it on her own just for fun. She talks to me all the time outside of class, and I've noticed she uses English all over the place in her normal job, which I think is really cool �EI saw a memo signed in English 'by Tsubosaka' or random English words on the staff chalkboard at school 'or' instead of the Japanese word, etc. Anyways, she has a really great personality and sense of humor, and she's fun to talk to.
Oizumi students - really genki (energetic, lively). One class of 2-nenseis is rough, some bad boys, but I'm working with the English teachers to figure out what to do in this class. And you'll be teaching them with Tsubosaka-sensei, who doesn't tolerate bad behavior. They're not very good at English, and higher-energy activities are usually better.
> 4)At Oizumi Jr. High- How many classes do you teach in a week? (i believe 4
> but i want to be clear on this :)
6 classes �ETuseday I teach 1-nensei 3rd and 4th periods (Tuesday afternoon is 2-3 elementary classes), Thursday I teach 3-nensei 1st and 2nd periods, 2-nensei 3rd and 5th periods. Your schedule will be different, but you will most likely teach 6 classes a week.
Tuesdays and Thursdays are the busier days, and there's not a lot of time for planning or grading. But I really enjoy these days, and it's nice to work hard.
> What is the elective that you team-teach with the gym teacher? How many days
> a week are you at Oizumi?
It's not really an elective - it's just technically called that since it's not an English class. MOMBUSHO (the Japanese government education branch) administers the number of classes for each subject per week at a Junior High. There are 3 English classes a week. In addition, there are elective classes. But Oizumi doesn't have enough teachers or probably diversity of students to offer various electives (at Nanbu students can choose advanced English, science, math, etc., or remedial subjects), so instead all the students take another English class, which is the class I team-teach with Tsubosaka-sensei (the gym teacher, also an administrator at the school �Enext in line after the vice-principal).
I basically plan these lessons like TT lessons, with less emphasis on the textbook and more emphasis on whatever inspires me at the moment. It's good to practice the grammar they're learning, but I also like the freedom to do cultural lessons or more artsy lessons.
> 5) Is all of your work team-teaching?
Technically. Elementary school is more like teaching with a Japanese assistant who really has no idea what's going on.
> 6)Do you supervise any school clubs, such as the English club?
No. There is not an English club at either school, and no interest in one.
> 7)Have you done any translation work ?
Never. Would never be asked. Sometimes I have the Japanese teachers help me with English - Japanese translation.
> 8)Has the school allowed you to use your vacation time during school breaks
> (which coincide with the big Japanese national
> Holidays)? How many vacation days did you get?
Nanbu's great about vacation. We get 20 days of Nenkyu (paid leave). I've taken 4 days during the winter holidays (I went home for 2 weeks), 3 days during spring break to go to Taiwan, a half-day some random Wednesday afternoon (while school was in session) to meet a guy in Kanazawa (I didn't tell my school why, and they didn't ask. I just asked about a week in advance if I could take nenkyu that afternoon, and they said yes�E You don't have to give a reason to take nenkyu, just make sure you ask in advance. If you're traveling, you need to tell them where and fill out a form with dates and places you're going, I think this is mostly for your protection). I also took a week off school (when I would have been teaching) to travel with my parents. So essentially, they're very very cool about it. I'm taking more time off when my sister comes this summer.
Plus, they're really nice about sick days. I've gotten pretty sick twice - strep throat once, influenza once. They give me sick leave, no questions asked (for about 3 days each time). Plus, if I'm sick and really not feeling well at school, they've told me I can just go home and nothing technical is done about it.
They were very kind about summer vacation �Ethis summer at Nanbu I would go home at lunchtime, and at Oizumi I would only stay an hour or two, or once the office lady took me to a flower arranging class. At the end of winter vacation, when I was back and school wasn't in session yet, Oizumi also told me not to come in one day I was supposed to work, and then told me to hanko (stamp) in the book that I had come.
So they're great. The people you will work with are really really nice, reasonable people. Very straightforward, down to earth. They're used to many ALTs, and I think they're very understanding that we want to travel.
There is a feeling of jealousy in the staff room if I mention I went to Tokyo for the weekend, of if I talk about the various countries I've visited. It's not bad, a little difficult to explain. I think the people here don't travel as much. They have families, they live in Toyama, and Kyoto, only a 3 hour train ride, is a major yearly trip for them. It is very expensive to travel in Japan, so that's a big reason people don't travel too much (it's also expensive to get out of Japan, since it can be a 200 dollar train ride to the nearest international airport). We ALTs make plenty of money, have a lot of free time, are young, adventurous, and like to do things. We go see movies, eat out at restaurants, travel spontaneously, etc. For these reasons, many teachers with more school and family responsibilities are jealous. But, that's why we're here - to travel. And the paycheck is enough to keep us here - I think it's not so much a reflection on the job we do at school, but the fact that we’re in Japan, living in a foreign culture, in the first place. Plus, we recycle a good portion of these paychecks back into the Japanese economy : - ) .
> 9) Do you teach any adult evening english classes?
Not by contract. Some JETs pick up these conversation classes (eikaiaw), on the side. I recently volunteered for one at the international center (and was thanked with a 5000 yen book certificate), and I had a lot of fun. I would try if you get the chance �Eit's a good way to meet some random Japanese people and hear about their experiences. A breath of fresh air from the conversations at JHS (What did you have for breakfast?)
Plus, staying busy is a good way to fend off homesickness/loneliness.
I'm going to go off on a slight tangent here: I am the kind of person who thrives on being busy. I have a ton of interests, and like to have my time filled, so I assumed I would naturally be the same way in Japan. When I got here I took Japanese lessons once a week and joined they gym across the street, but I wasn't aggressive about finding things to do and starting up new activities, even though I was really interested in taking Japanese cooking classes and learning a Japanese martial arts. I advise you to find a few things you're interested in and get involved as quickly as possible.
> 10) What time is your work day over with?
Technically 4:15 pm. Lately, since I haven't been busy, I've been leaving at 4:15. But previously, when I had been more enthusiastic about school, I would occasionally stay till 6ish to work on things, or go hang out and watch a club sport. When I'm busy, I'll leave around 5-ish on average. It starts at 8:30, but I'll come early if I need to finish preparations. I usually leave home between 7:30 am and 8.
> 11) What do JETers do in their freetime?
There are lots of options. Hmmm�E I think for this answer I'm going to let you in on my online journal sites. This is coming with a serious disclaimer�EI want to give you as much information as possible about the job and situation, but please take my opinions/impressions of life here with a grain of salt, as I’m sure you'll come and form your own. Of course don't feel obligated to read them (but I know I would have devoured my predecessor's, so I'm expecting you'll do the same)�E
The site I worked on since the beginning: http://sbroshar.blogspot.com
> 12) How do you categorize or describe the work that you do at Oizumi and
> Nanbu? Is it all team-teaching? Do you regard yourself as
> a human English speaking dictionary?
Nanbu- team-teaching. Oizumi �Eteaching. Elementary �Eteaching. I tend to be the dominant force in my classes, probably because I have a lot of freedom planning them. With Kenda-sensei she's usually the dominant force. It really depends on the lesson, who planned it, and how it's planned. Never and English speaking dictionary. See above for info on individual teachers�Estyles.
> 13)How much imput do you have in the classroom planning of the course?Are
> the head English teachers interested in your ideas or imput?
I don't have very much input in the scheme of ordinary English classes, especially when I came in halfway through the year. But at the year change, I did implement some long-term ideas for participation rewards. Actually, last year I designed the 3-nensei advanced elective at Nanbu�EI had an idea for a class to make English commercials. Kenda-sensei was the teacher, and she liked my idea and wanted to do it together. Unfortunately, we didn't have a lot of opportunities to plan it together �EI planned it myself but didn't have the right information from her about scheduling, etc. Basically, my plan didn't work because classes were rescheduled, cancelled, etc. Plus other technical problems. I liked the challenge of planning the class myself, but for it to work I would have needed a lot more cooperation, and we were both busy with our other English classes.
> 14) Are your weekends free or do you spend 3-5 hours on Saturday during
> work-related activities?
Free weekends. If we have a sports festival on Friday, we get the following Monday off.
> 15) Have you participated in any school trips or activities?
Nope, never been invited on school trips L.
> 16) Have the other English teachers been free with information about school
> policies, activities, events, or scheduling?
They are good about scheduling �Eat each school I know my schedule for the entire month. At Nanbu, Suzuki-sensei (pregnant supervisor), makes the schedule. At Oizumi, Murashita-sensei makes it, but it's pretty much always the same.
Activities and events you have to pry out a bit, mostly because they just forget. I can read a bit of Japanese, so I can usually figure out what's going on by looking at the chalkboard, but I think you'll be able to figure it out without Japanese. At both schools, if the hours are shortened or rearranged (probably the case around 50% of the time), it will say on the chalkboard. If there are a bunch of things written, just ask what's going on. It's best if you look out for yourself �Eevery morning ask an English teacher what's going on for the day.
> 17) Is the apartment monthly rent 54000 yen before or after the city subsidy
> kicks in?
We're paid every 15th, and the rent is taken out on the first. So I'm not sure if it's before or after�E When we get here you will have around 1000 dollars in key deposit. Within the first two weeks of being here, a random 1500 dollars will appear in your bank account �Ea small gift from the city BOE to cover 'start-up expenses�E : - )
> 18) How much money do you pay in monthly bills, such as electric, gas,
> telephone? An estimate would be great.
Electric �E5000 yen. Gas �Ebi-monthly at around 3000 yen I believe. I have a cell phone which is around 7000 yen. These bills are all taken out of the bank account, and this is all set up the first day in Toyama. (Except for the cell phone, you might have to wait until you have your alien registration card to get your phone �E1 or 2 weeks) I also use an international callback service for my cell phone, which is billed in US dollars to an American credit card �E20-30 dollars a month.
> 19) Do you know if I'm taking over your lease?
I assume so, yes. Actually, no. You're taking my apartment, but I'm not sure how the lease works. I think the BOE has signed a lease with the building, and we are kind of subletting from the BOE.
> 20) what items did the apartment come with? Was it furnished with a futon,
> stove or burner, refrigerator, t.v., or heater,?
The BOE gives all JETs a washing machine, TV, heater, fridge, (I assume the stove/burner is included in the apartment), and a vacuum. Our vacuum sucks, I'll try to have them replace it for you. I tried to have them replace it for me, but they just came and fiddled with it, and told me to try again and if it really didn't work they'd replace it. It's over 10 years old!!!
In addition, I bought quite a few things from my predecessor and have added to it a bit myself. The apartment is another area I'll cover in detail in a later e-mail. Layout, furnishings, the neighborhood, etc.
> 21) Is their a wash machine in the apartment complex?
One in our apartment! Only cold water wash, and put all your clothes in nylon bags (there will be some under the sink when you get here). If you want to spin dry your clothes, the laundry mat is half a block away, costs 100 yen for 10 minutes, and is open 7:30 am till 11pm.
> 22) Did you have to pay any money upfront, such as a key deposit, for the
> apartment?
Around 1000 dollar key deposit, plus maybe one months rent. They will tell me this info officially in the next few weeks, and I'll pass it on then.
> 23)What is a tatami room :) ?
Tatami are Japanese-style mats. They feel nice, look gorgeous in the sunlight, and are more comfortable to sleep on than the floor (I have a bed, but prefer to sleep on the futons on the floor, another thing to be covered later).
> 24) Any teaching aids you can suggest I bring, such as English as Second
> Language activity books?
No. I really wouldn't bother bringing teaching books. You can buy good activity books here from AJET, and there are plenty in the apartment and at your desk at school. Bring materials from home �Epictures, prizes, stickers, postcars, picture books, etc.
> 25) Should I really bring extra toothpaste, stick deordant, and maxipads or
> tampons?
YES. I brought enough of all mentioned items to last me the year. My friends thought I was ridiculous for packing one suitcase nearly full with supplies and omiyage, but now theyre stuck with shitty Japanese tampons and I'm loving my tampax. Toothpaste and deodorant are also essential. I would bring allergy medicine, even if you don't think you'll need it. Note about customs: the JET handbook makes it out that it's really hard to smuggle things into Japan. Don't bring illegal drugs. For real. But do bring any other kind of prescription you feel like. I've been into the country twice, my parents have been in once, and every time Japanese customs just ask to see a passport and wave us by. They are friendly, and possibly a little afraid of foreigners. You can also get out of things by not speaking Japanese. Just shrug and smile.
> 26) Did you find the Prefecture orientation helpful?
Hmmm. Hard to say. There was a good demonstration class. One day was spent hiking Mt. Tateyama �Ethat was great! There are plenty of meetings when you first get here. Things are very organized �Eyou will get handbooks on living in Toyama, restaurant and shopping guides, maps, information on garbage, Japanese lessons, anything technical relating to the job (paperwork, etc). They really hold your hand throughout the whole process. Plenty of teaching resources, example lesson plans, ways to network and meet other JETs, parties, etc.
> 27) do you teach or visit any elementary schools in Toyama City?
Yes, see above.
> 28) what is the weather like in Toyama city? Does the area usually get heavy
> snow? Is it very humid in the summer?
Ahh, the weather. Hmmm. Very important question. Toyama's weather sucks a bit. It's very similar to Cincinnati, probably a little warmer. And much more humid. It will be sweltering when you get here �Eyou will bike somewhere and by the time you get there sweat will be dripping down your neck. That's why all Japanese wear neck towels. J If you don't bring one to school, they will all ask you where it is. I didn't, and still haven't caught on to the trend. Fall is nice. Drier, less rain, not too hot. Winter is gross �Enot too cold (coldest is around 32 degrees), but very wet and slushy. Which makes for decent but slushy snowboarding only 50 minutes away by train (winters are great- I went snowboarding nearly every weekend). There's excellent snow in Nagano- Happo 1, the great Olympic resort, is a little over 2 hours by car.
Spring is very pleasant �Esunny, not too humid, but for some reason the view of the mountains isn't so good. Now we're entering the rainy hot season �Eit's humid and warm, and it's raining today, but I don't mind yet, so far.
Wednesday, May 28, 2003
Wow, Japanese have some strange tastes.
Today's subject: coffee. My parents brought Godiva gourmet coffee and little chocolate rocks in for each of my schools. The chocolate rocks were a big hit - they are really tiny, multiple pastel colors, and they really look like small rocks. They called them the Japanese word for the small rocks in a bonsai garden. They were great.
The coffee, on the other hand, didn't go over so well. We had given Nanbu their gift while we were travelling, so I didn't get to see anyone's reaction to drinking it. I have noticed that the coffee is still sitting by the coffeemakers at several stations.
Today I brought the coffee and rocks in to Oizumi. This morning, the wonderful smell of vanilla hazelnut coffee wafted into the teacher's room. I was in heaven. One teacher walked in and said (japanese) What's that wierd sweet smell!? They were very sceptical. They drank it, but they didn't enjoy it. I was amused.
This afternoon, one of my teachers came over and asked me about the coffee. 'Sarah, that coffee you brought, do Americans like it?' 'Yes, why, Japanese don't?' ... wait for a moment while she pulls out the dictionary 'It's very bitter, and it has a strange smell. We don't like it' 'Interesting...' I think it's fine that they don't like it - many Americans don't like flavored coffee either. But I thought it was really strange she discribed it was bitter. I would say Japanese coffee is disgustingly bitter in comparison - I often am cringing and gulping down my coffee at Oizumi - drinking for the caffeine buzz rather than the pleasure of coffee.
I told her about how I thought coffee culture was different in the US - as with most things we have a huge selection, and Americans can choose the size, flavor, caffeine, type of milk, etc. We talked a bit. Then she asked the office lady if she liked the coffee. The office lady said no. I'm taking the second bag (chocolate cream) home with me tonight. I figure I'll appreciate it more than they will! Maybe they'll secretly appreciate my taking the bag, so they won't have to drink it again!
Interesting... I thought coffee would be great omiyage since their coffee is so terrible. But just a difference in perspectives.
Today's subject: coffee. My parents brought Godiva gourmet coffee and little chocolate rocks in for each of my schools. The chocolate rocks were a big hit - they are really tiny, multiple pastel colors, and they really look like small rocks. They called them the Japanese word for the small rocks in a bonsai garden. They were great.
The coffee, on the other hand, didn't go over so well. We had given Nanbu their gift while we were travelling, so I didn't get to see anyone's reaction to drinking it. I have noticed that the coffee is still sitting by the coffeemakers at several stations.
Today I brought the coffee and rocks in to Oizumi. This morning, the wonderful smell of vanilla hazelnut coffee wafted into the teacher's room. I was in heaven. One teacher walked in and said (japanese) What's that wierd sweet smell!? They were very sceptical. They drank it, but they didn't enjoy it. I was amused.
This afternoon, one of my teachers came over and asked me about the coffee. 'Sarah, that coffee you brought, do Americans like it?' 'Yes, why, Japanese don't?' ... wait for a moment while she pulls out the dictionary 'It's very bitter, and it has a strange smell. We don't like it' 'Interesting...' I think it's fine that they don't like it - many Americans don't like flavored coffee either. But I thought it was really strange she discribed it was bitter. I would say Japanese coffee is disgustingly bitter in comparison - I often am cringing and gulping down my coffee at Oizumi - drinking for the caffeine buzz rather than the pleasure of coffee.
I told her about how I thought coffee culture was different in the US - as with most things we have a huge selection, and Americans can choose the size, flavor, caffeine, type of milk, etc. We talked a bit. Then she asked the office lady if she liked the coffee. The office lady said no. I'm taking the second bag (chocolate cream) home with me tonight. I figure I'll appreciate it more than they will! Maybe they'll secretly appreciate my taking the bag, so they won't have to drink it again!
Interesting... I thought coffee would be great omiyage since their coffee is so terrible. But just a difference in perspectives.
Sunday, May 25, 2003
Hello!
School is dragging. My only classes of the week were cancelled today for mid-term preparations. So I have at least 4 days of no teaching, nothing. I thought this would have been a great opportunity to watch the Nanbu soccer team play the final game of the city tournament this afternoon - they're competing for first or second. But I asked my supervisor if I could go, and the answer was no. I have to sit at my desk, as I'll do the rest of the week. Pretty disappointing, as I'm sure the team would be excited if I were there, who doesn't like spectators? And I love soccer, want to see my students play. And it's the city championships! ( a really big deal, maybe 20 teams, and soccer's huge here!)
Anyways, I'm sure I'll spend plenty of valuable time on the internet this afternoon instead. Maybe I will have a chance to write more on this site.
But now it's time for lunch.
Sarah
School is dragging. My only classes of the week were cancelled today for mid-term preparations. So I have at least 4 days of no teaching, nothing. I thought this would have been a great opportunity to watch the Nanbu soccer team play the final game of the city tournament this afternoon - they're competing for first or second. But I asked my supervisor if I could go, and the answer was no. I have to sit at my desk, as I'll do the rest of the week. Pretty disappointing, as I'm sure the team would be excited if I were there, who doesn't like spectators? And I love soccer, want to see my students play. And it's the city championships! ( a really big deal, maybe 20 teams, and soccer's huge here!)
Anyways, I'm sure I'll spend plenty of valuable time on the internet this afternoon instead. Maybe I will have a chance to write more on this site.
But now it's time for lunch.
Sarah
Thursday, April 24, 2003
I'm not sure if it's wise or lazy of me to exploit my friends for their storytelling skills... possibly wise in that i recognize they're more talented than i am, and their perspective is different and interesting. probably lazy in that i'll use them for their stories instead of working to make my writing more interesting. i feel like i used to be able to carry a good story. why have i gotten so lazy about it here? especially when i have so many stories, and all this internet space (and i'm sure a large mass of devoted readers) to tell them.
So here's the latest rip-off: Becca's account of the Tochigi soccer tournament.
Becca's cockroach addition was great, but why just steal one story when she tells them all better than I do...? So I hacked my way onto her blog site and decided to rip off the following description of the Tochigi tourney... Thanks Becca!
"Oishii mizu...clap...clap....clap clap clap...oishii mizu...clap clap...clap clap clap..." [sarah's editorial: oishi means delicous and mizu means water -- our team name and slogan, you know toyama's water is the best in japan... if you lived in toyama you'd understand]
If you told me 6 months ago that I was going to be on a championship winning JET soccer team, I wouldn't have believed you. But last weekend, there I was in Tochigi, playing soccer with some of the best playuers in the ken.
To be honest, getting on the field that day, I really had no idea what to expect, and nothing could have prepared me for what I saw. There were cheerleading girls and jig- dancing boys. There were bagpipes and beaver suits, wet t-shirts and fierce contests, muscle flexing and video taping and all this before the games had even started.
On the field was a hodge podge of players. Experienced atheletes played along side soccer fans and first time players. Regardless of our strengths and weaknesses, we were the team to beat. Dressed in green, the Toyama girls were quite a force to be tackled. We had runners, water polo drivers, chain smokers, beer drinkers, snowboarders, script writers, habitual shoppers, and jazz dancers. We were a great team, 15 strong, and we were giving them the "blue steel," which until that day I would've thought was some kind of metal. At one point, I overheard one of the other girls teams watching us finish up a game. "Are they getting tired?" she said. "It looks like they're wearing them out." This of course was not the case. We went on to beat Nagano, 4 to 1.
By the end of the first day we were 3 games played and 3 games won with our most challenging game behind us. Despite our victories, the tide had changed. After game three we had twisted ankles, swollen thumbs, grass burns, bruised shins, scraped knees [sarah's editorial: this was me!], and black and blue bleeding toes [sarah's editorial: this was me too!]. Yet with three wins and only one game to play, it was in the bag. The girls had won and it was time to party.
So here's the latest rip-off: Becca's account of the Tochigi soccer tournament.
Becca's cockroach addition was great, but why just steal one story when she tells them all better than I do...? So I hacked my way onto her blog site and decided to rip off the following description of the Tochigi tourney... Thanks Becca!
"Oishii mizu...clap...clap....clap clap clap...oishii mizu...clap clap...clap clap clap..." [sarah's editorial: oishi means delicous and mizu means water -- our team name and slogan, you know toyama's water is the best in japan... if you lived in toyama you'd understand]
If you told me 6 months ago that I was going to be on a championship winning JET soccer team, I wouldn't have believed you. But last weekend, there I was in Tochigi, playing soccer with some of the best playuers in the ken.
To be honest, getting on the field that day, I really had no idea what to expect, and nothing could have prepared me for what I saw. There were cheerleading girls and jig- dancing boys. There were bagpipes and beaver suits, wet t-shirts and fierce contests, muscle flexing and video taping and all this before the games had even started.
On the field was a hodge podge of players. Experienced atheletes played along side soccer fans and first time players. Regardless of our strengths and weaknesses, we were the team to beat. Dressed in green, the Toyama girls were quite a force to be tackled. We had runners, water polo drivers, chain smokers, beer drinkers, snowboarders, script writers, habitual shoppers, and jazz dancers. We were a great team, 15 strong, and we were giving them the "blue steel," which until that day I would've thought was some kind of metal. At one point, I overheard one of the other girls teams watching us finish up a game. "Are they getting tired?" she said. "It looks like they're wearing them out." This of course was not the case. We went on to beat Nagano, 4 to 1.
By the end of the first day we were 3 games played and 3 games won with our most challenging game behind us. Despite our victories, the tide had changed. After game three we had twisted ankles, swollen thumbs, grass burns, bruised shins, scraped knees [sarah's editorial: this was me!], and black and blue bleeding toes [sarah's editorial: this was me too!]. Yet with three wins and only one game to play, it was in the bag. The girls had won and it was time to party.
I'm not sure if it's wise or lazy of me to exploit my friends for their storytelling skills... possibly wise in that i recognize they're more talented than i am, and their perspective is different and interesting. probably lazy in that i'll use them for their stories instead of working to make my writing more interesting. i feel like i used to be able to carry a good story. why have i gotten so lazy about it here? especially when i have so many stories, and all this internet space (and i'm sure a large mass of devoted readers) to tell them.
So here's the latest rip-off: Becca's account of the Tochigi soccer tournament.
Becca's cockroach addition was great, but why just steal one story when she tells them all better than I do...? So I hacked my way onto her blog site and decided to rip off the following description of the Tochigi tourney... Thanks Becca!
"Oishii mizu...clap...clap....clap clap clap...oishii mizu...clap clap...clap clap clap..." [sarah's editorial: oishi means delicous and mizu means water -- our team name and slogan, you know toyama's water is the best in japan... if you lived in toyama you'd understand]
If you told me 6 months ago that I was going to be on a championship winning JET soccer team, I wouldn't have believed you. But last weekend, there I was in Tochigi, playing soccer with some of the best playuers in the ken.
To be honest, getting on the field that day, I really had no idea what to expect, and nothing could have prepared me for what I saw. There were cheerleading girls and jig- dancing boys. There were bagpipes and beaver suits, wet t-shirts and fierce contests, muscle flexing and video taping and all this before the games had even started.
On the field was a hodge podge of players. Experienced atheletes played along side soccer fans and first time players. Regardless of our strengths and weaknesses, we were the team to beat. Dressed in green, the Toyama girls were quite a force to be tackled. We had runners, water polo drivers, chain smokers, beer drinkers, snowboarders, script writers, habitual shoppers, and jazz dancers. We were a great team, 15 strong, and we were giving them the "blue steel," which until that day I would've thought was some kind of metal. At one point, I overheard one of the other girls teams watching us finish up a game. "Are they getting tired?" she said. "It looks like they're wearing them out." This of course was not the case. We went on to beat Nagano, 4 to 1.
By the end of the first day we were 3 games played and 3 games won with our most challenging game behind us. Despite our victories, the tide had changed. After game three we had twisted ankles, swollen thumbs, grass burns, bruised shins, scraped knees [sarah's editorial: this was me!], and black and blue bleeding toes [sarah's editorial: this was me too!]. Yet with three wins and only one game to play, it was in the bag. The girls had won and it was time to party.
So here's the latest rip-off: Becca's account of the Tochigi soccer tournament.
Becca's cockroach addition was great, but why just steal one story when she tells them all better than I do...? So I hacked my way onto her blog site and decided to rip off the following description of the Tochigi tourney... Thanks Becca!
"Oishii mizu...clap...clap....clap clap clap...oishii mizu...clap clap...clap clap clap..." [sarah's editorial: oishi means delicous and mizu means water -- our team name and slogan, you know toyama's water is the best in japan... if you lived in toyama you'd understand]
If you told me 6 months ago that I was going to be on a championship winning JET soccer team, I wouldn't have believed you. But last weekend, there I was in Tochigi, playing soccer with some of the best playuers in the ken.
To be honest, getting on the field that day, I really had no idea what to expect, and nothing could have prepared me for what I saw. There were cheerleading girls and jig- dancing boys. There were bagpipes and beaver suits, wet t-shirts and fierce contests, muscle flexing and video taping and all this before the games had even started.
On the field was a hodge podge of players. Experienced atheletes played along side soccer fans and first time players. Regardless of our strengths and weaknesses, we were the team to beat. Dressed in green, the Toyama girls were quite a force to be tackled. We had runners, water polo drivers, chain smokers, beer drinkers, snowboarders, script writers, habitual shoppers, and jazz dancers. We were a great team, 15 strong, and we were giving them the "blue steel," which until that day I would've thought was some kind of metal. At one point, I overheard one of the other girls teams watching us finish up a game. "Are they getting tired?" she said. "It looks like they're wearing them out." This of course was not the case. We went on to beat Nagano, 4 to 1.
By the end of the first day we were 3 games played and 3 games won with our most challenging game behind us. Despite our victories, the tide had changed. After game three we had twisted ankles, swollen thumbs, grass burns, bruised shins, scraped knees [sarah's editorial: this was me!], and black and blue bleeding toes [sarah's editorial: this was me too!]. Yet with three wins and only one game to play, it was in the bag. The girls had won and it was time to party.
Tuesday, April 22, 2003
I got into AFI!
Things are good, really good. I'm quite tired, but at least now the chronic stomach pain isn't due to AFI anxiety (now it's lack of sleep and cockroach anxiety). I was getting really stressed about it. My address isn't printed correctly on the envelope, so it may have delayed delivery a bit.
I had a great weekend playing soccer. You can see a few pictures of the tournament at http://members14.clubphoto.com/simon619630/1262445/guest.phtml
This weekend was a retreat from reality - in a bus with 30 native English speakers, then at a soccer tourney with several hundred native English speakers. Add in McDonalds and the Irish pub Saturday night (with pizza, fish and chips, black and tans, and Bass), we could have been in any semi-urban part of the world. We just happened to be in Tochigi, Japan, about an hour from Tokyo.
We spent Friday night on bus for the 7-hour drive to Tochigi - barely got any sleep due to lots of other people to talk with, frequent stops, and of course the incredibly cramped bus. We got to Tochigi at 6 am Saturday, so we had breakfast at a rest stop (rice and miso soup for me), and showed up at the pitch around 7:30... our first game was at 1:30. Saturday was a gorgeous day, and it was really fun to sit around in the grass talking, playing soccer, watching games. We played 3 games on Saturday and won all of them. Things were a little rough at first (I hadn't played since high school, and many girls had never played), but eventually we all got into a pretty good groove.
This groove was broken Sunday morning, in the cold rain, after a late night out. But anyways.
We were exhausted and starving after our 3 games - I hadn't eaten since my 6am breakfast. We checked into our hotel, which was great - everyone had a single room with private shower/bath. A long hot shower, and a few hours at the Irish pub. Luckily we went there for dinner and got seats - beat out the rest of the Jets from other teams who came for drinking later.
Sunday after hours of rain and cold (without proper clothing), we took the trophy home (girls won first place). Stopped at a sento for a too-quick but necessary bath, then another 7 or so hours home - got to Sunshine around 1am, to bed around 3... Still sleeping at Becca's, but the cockroaches are another story. Becca, care to jump in?
And Becca's contribution:
Cockroach Nightmare Came True
After the staring contest from hell, S had laid out several roach motels and after a weekend of soccer playing in Tochigi it was time to see if the mouse had taken the bait or in this case, the roach. S had been hearing sounds all last week and those sounds were confirmed to be the pesky little monsters when upon her arrival home last night, she saw a roach still moving and desperately trying to escape. This was when the craziness began.
Monday evening I received a phone call followed by an email to my cell phone - "I need serious help, when will you be home?" There was no mention of the roaches but I knew from the tone of her email that they were back! Trouble was, I was in the middle of an evening English lesson with the cutest English speaking 22 year old Japanese man I've ever seen (more on that later) and wouldn't be home until 9:00pm. And so, S made a smart move - "I'm going to leave and eat out..."
Later that night we made our way up to S's apartment to face our greatest fears - cockroaches, cockroaches and more cockroaches! There were three motels total, each of which had to be checked for roaches. Our first task, the motel behind the stove, which S had drenched with insecticide a few hours earlier.
"There's a roach in that one. I saw it moving earlier," S said.
"Where is it? I can't see it?"
"Its there,...look...."
A plastic bag shuffled at my feet.... "AHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!"
"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
S grabbed my arm and both of us ran screaming into the other room. Shivers ran up my spine as both of us tried to catch our breath.
"Wait, wait, wait... I've got to get this on video!"
I chuckled, happy for the bit of comic relief, but the place still reaked of fumes and personally, the chemicals along with the idea of squirmy little roaches made me sick to my stomach. "I don't know if I can do this again," I said to S. I took a deep breath and tried to regain a bit of courage. "Do you have any rubber gloves?"
A few minutes later, rubber gloves on, hanger and shoe in hand, and a plastic bag ready to disgard the traps, I made my way to the motel.
"OH MY GOD!!!"
"WHAT WHAT WHAT!!!?!?"
"There are two of them in there!?!?!"
"No..no.. don't tell me, I don't want to know..........Wait maybe keep a silent count in your head and tell me later!"
More screaming, video taping and silent counting later I managed to get the first motel into a plastic bag. One down, two to go I thought to myself. Whew! I made my way to the second trap and saw an antenae peeking out through the motel window. Ugh! Even recalling the scene now is sending shivers down my spine. By this time, S was at the other end of the apartment with her back to me and the music blasting. But like the true film-maker, the camera was strategically positioned and zoomed in on the cardboard trap.
"This music may forever be remembered as roach killing music," I told her.
Perhaps it was the music and the video taping or maybe it was all the screaming and running around that had released my apprehensions because by the time I had reached motel 2, I was totally relaxed, and what had initially felt like my worst nightmare began to feel like a science experiment and a mission to recover the findings!
Here are the results:
Motel 1 - 2 cockroaches
Motel 2 - 2 cockroaches
Motel 3 - none
Then, with a tie of the plastic baggy, the roaches were secured and ready to be taken out with the trash. YATA! Another mission completed!
Things are good, really good. I'm quite tired, but at least now the chronic stomach pain isn't due to AFI anxiety (now it's lack of sleep and cockroach anxiety). I was getting really stressed about it. My address isn't printed correctly on the envelope, so it may have delayed delivery a bit.
I had a great weekend playing soccer. You can see a few pictures of the tournament at http://members14.clubphoto.com/simon619630/1262445/guest.phtml
This weekend was a retreat from reality - in a bus with 30 native English speakers, then at a soccer tourney with several hundred native English speakers. Add in McDonalds and the Irish pub Saturday night (with pizza, fish and chips, black and tans, and Bass), we could have been in any semi-urban part of the world. We just happened to be in Tochigi, Japan, about an hour from Tokyo.
We spent Friday night on bus for the 7-hour drive to Tochigi - barely got any sleep due to lots of other people to talk with, frequent stops, and of course the incredibly cramped bus. We got to Tochigi at 6 am Saturday, so we had breakfast at a rest stop (rice and miso soup for me), and showed up at the pitch around 7:30... our first game was at 1:30. Saturday was a gorgeous day, and it was really fun to sit around in the grass talking, playing soccer, watching games. We played 3 games on Saturday and won all of them. Things were a little rough at first (I hadn't played since high school, and many girls had never played), but eventually we all got into a pretty good groove.
This groove was broken Sunday morning, in the cold rain, after a late night out. But anyways.
We were exhausted and starving after our 3 games - I hadn't eaten since my 6am breakfast. We checked into our hotel, which was great - everyone had a single room with private shower/bath. A long hot shower, and a few hours at the Irish pub. Luckily we went there for dinner and got seats - beat out the rest of the Jets from other teams who came for drinking later.
Sunday after hours of rain and cold (without proper clothing), we took the trophy home (girls won first place). Stopped at a sento for a too-quick but necessary bath, then another 7 or so hours home - got to Sunshine around 1am, to bed around 3... Still sleeping at Becca's, but the cockroaches are another story. Becca, care to jump in?
And Becca's contribution:
Cockroach Nightmare Came True
After the staring contest from hell, S had laid out several roach motels and after a weekend of soccer playing in Tochigi it was time to see if the mouse had taken the bait or in this case, the roach. S had been hearing sounds all last week and those sounds were confirmed to be the pesky little monsters when upon her arrival home last night, she saw a roach still moving and desperately trying to escape. This was when the craziness began.
Monday evening I received a phone call followed by an email to my cell phone - "I need serious help, when will you be home?" There was no mention of the roaches but I knew from the tone of her email that they were back! Trouble was, I was in the middle of an evening English lesson with the cutest English speaking 22 year old Japanese man I've ever seen (more on that later) and wouldn't be home until 9:00pm. And so, S made a smart move - "I'm going to leave and eat out..."
Later that night we made our way up to S's apartment to face our greatest fears - cockroaches, cockroaches and more cockroaches! There were three motels total, each of which had to be checked for roaches. Our first task, the motel behind the stove, which S had drenched with insecticide a few hours earlier.
"There's a roach in that one. I saw it moving earlier," S said.
"Where is it? I can't see it?"
"Its there,...look...."
A plastic bag shuffled at my feet.... "AHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!"
"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
S grabbed my arm and both of us ran screaming into the other room. Shivers ran up my spine as both of us tried to catch our breath.
"Wait, wait, wait... I've got to get this on video!"
I chuckled, happy for the bit of comic relief, but the place still reaked of fumes and personally, the chemicals along with the idea of squirmy little roaches made me sick to my stomach. "I don't know if I can do this again," I said to S. I took a deep breath and tried to regain a bit of courage. "Do you have any rubber gloves?"
A few minutes later, rubber gloves on, hanger and shoe in hand, and a plastic bag ready to disgard the traps, I made my way to the motel.
"OH MY GOD!!!"
"WHAT WHAT WHAT!!!?!?"
"There are two of them in there!?!?!"
"No..no.. don't tell me, I don't want to know..........Wait maybe keep a silent count in your head and tell me later!"
More screaming, video taping and silent counting later I managed to get the first motel into a plastic bag. One down, two to go I thought to myself. Whew! I made my way to the second trap and saw an antenae peeking out through the motel window. Ugh! Even recalling the scene now is sending shivers down my spine. By this time, S was at the other end of the apartment with her back to me and the music blasting. But like the true film-maker, the camera was strategically positioned and zoomed in on the cardboard trap.
"This music may forever be remembered as roach killing music," I told her.
Perhaps it was the music and the video taping or maybe it was all the screaming and running around that had released my apprehensions because by the time I had reached motel 2, I was totally relaxed, and what had initially felt like my worst nightmare began to feel like a science experiment and a mission to recover the findings!
Here are the results:
Motel 1 - 2 cockroaches
Motel 2 - 2 cockroaches
Motel 3 - none
Then, with a tie of the plastic baggy, the roaches were secured and ready to be taken out with the trash. YATA! Another mission completed!
Wednesday, April 16, 2003
It's been a while. I've been reluctant to post until I finish the soon-to-be Taiwan masterpiece. But since it hasn't been finished, I'll write a few notes about the past few weeks.
Getting back from Taiwan was rough. I loved it. I loved the energy, the dirtiness (sp?), the food, and how the people were so down to earth. It was really easy to feel like another human being in that culture, I felt much more at ease than I often do in Japan. So coming back from 85, sunny weather to 40 degrees, ever-raining Toyama was hard. Especially since I've spent the past 2 weeks sitting in the office or through ceremonies rather than teaching.
But this past week's been much better. I'm sure the weather has something to do with it - it's been sunny and beautiful. I'm also back in the classroom at Oizumi, which is good. I'm playing in a soccer tournament this weekend, and have been getting up and running, and playing soccer a little in the afternoons. Despite an upsetting cockroach incident, I'm loving my apartment, and it is getting bigger (changed the bed to a couch) and is now very clean.
So a few updates taken from e-mails, etc.
First weekend post-Taiwan. miserable, cold, rainy:
***Friday- feeling sick, basically just hung out, went to bed. Saturday, went to Nagano with a few teachers. Really fun, but terrible weather (rain/snow/cold) and I wasn't dressed appropriately. I would have been, because I brought a bag of extra clothes including gloves and a hat, but the teacher who picked me up was dressed very cutely, and insisted I didn't need it. She froze the entire day too... why would I trust Japanese for sensible clothing advice??? But I was in for a treat, and the first stop was one of my favorite museums (small scale). It's the Chihiro museum, she was a famous children's illustrator. The museum is dedicated to children's picture books from around the world, and it was amazing. So great. They also had some statues, installations, I won't really go into it because I'm feeling particularly inexpressive. But it was a beautiful museum, wooden, wonderful smell, nice cafe, etc. I was happy and at peace with the world. art museum: http://www.chihiro.jp/english/azumino/main.htm
Then off to lunch - a soba restaurant, really nice. Then a wasabi farm - interesting but too cold. wasabi can only be grown in very clean water. did you know that? then a glass museum (which was really a store - the glass products were all for sale) and an herb store where i drank herbal coffee (made from dandelion and chicory, not a good idea), and other teachers got aromatherapy hand massages. from there we drove home, and i slept in the back of the car. a really interesting, relaxing day.
sunday i did brian's tax seminar, and i now understand how to claim my tax exemptions as a foreign resident (woo hoo!). from that I ran into shay and taeko at a festival at the castle, and i partook in some hanami, or flower viewing. (http://nytimes.com/2003/04/06/international/asia/06JAPA.html) basically, it means picninic - when the cherry blossoms bloom the japanese go for eating and drinking by the banks of a river. my first impressions of hanami were good, and i'm doing it again next weekend. but the japanese obsession with sakura (cherry blossoms) are a bit obsessive: the cherry blossom front is alwyas on the news, and any speech begins with comments on the blossoms (even in feburary.. the cherry blossoms are coming... and in june i'm sure we'll still be hearing about it: the cherry blossoms have fallen or something). but they're nice.
futzed around my apartment, went to gusto's for dinner with justin. gusto's is great i've decided. When I first came to Japan, I didn't really care for japanese family restaurants (equivalent of big boy, denny's, etc. in the us). but it might have been the chicken elbow thing that turned me off. lately i've been having some decent food, cheaply. i've always loved the drink bar, of course (hot chocolate, teas, sodas, juices, coffees, what more could you want???). Last night I had bibinbop - not as good as jim's grill in chicago, but not bad! I think the difference is that since i'm accustomed to eating japanese food, i can eat the bad versions of japanese dishes and find them satifying. strange.***
So coming back from Taiwan, my schools have changed a bit. New teachers, new systems. Here's a bit about the new Nanbu (which after all the enkais, is still a stifling place to spend 8 hours of near silence...
***My enkai last night was insane. Nanbu has been transformed! The new people here are so fun and great, and I'm getting along really well with everyone. They are outgoing, go out of their way to talk to me in Japanese and English, and like to smile and laugh and drink a lot. And the 2 new young female teachers (23ish) are total party animals - they were smashed last night and pretty funny - one was flamenco dancing on stage for everyone. One is an English teacher, and the other loves movies and really wants to speak English a lot. We've already made a pact to go drinking in the near future - near being the opperative word.
I think a big differenence is the new principal - he's younger, attractive (not like that) always has a broad smile, and walks around and talks to the teachers in the staff room. He's nice!***
I also had my interview for AFI last week. Wednesday morning, 7:15 am. I'm not sure how it went. I was a little out of it, woke up with a cold, but hopefully that wouldn't affect my chances. I just found out today that Anna (my roommate from NU) got into the directing program at AFI - congratulations Anna! I should hear anytime - they were supposed to mail the descisions on April 15th.
Last weekend was good, but busy. I hung out with Justin Friday night - we were going to have a movie theme night of Brian de Palma, since I'd never seen any of his films (apart from Mission Impossible), and just read some interviews with his two main editors. But that night, I knew I wasn't up for Carrie (had been having bad dreams, especially after seeing Vanilla Sky (yuck) Wednesday). So we got The Wild One, with Marlon Brando, and The Wild Bunch, with a lot of people. Unfortunately, didn't make it through the Wild Bunch yet.
Saturday was supposed to be Hanami (picinic under cherry blossoms) with Justin's Tateyama crowd, but it was pouring. Instead, we ate Hiroshima-style okonomiyaki, which is hard to explain. Basically, two pancake type things of pork, egg, flour(?) sandwiching yakisoba - fried soba noodles with special sauce. I had mine with kimchee (korean red pepper spice that's used in Japan with cabbage). It was wonderful, but threw my digestion off track for the rest of the weekend (or maybe it was the alcohol).
Then to kareoke, which would have been fun if we had stopped after 2 hours. After 3 and a half, I was outside on the rainy sidewalk alone, in severe stomach pain (think kareoke, florescent lights, and a chain smoker in a cramped, unventilated room for that long), waiting for everyone to finish. They did, and we went back to Sunshine.
At this point, Becca and I weren't feeling like calling it a night (8pm) so we got sushi and a salad for dinner and went to Takaoka (Ann Arbor-sized city a half hour away) to join a small house party and visit a bar.
Next morning, we had proper hanami. It was a beautiful day, and the park in Takaoka is amazing. The sakura were in full bloom, and the park was full of families and friends having picinics (there was literally nowhere to sit, and the line for the bathroom took 30 minutes). But it was great. We hung out for a while and made it back to Toyama for girls soccer practice. Playing soccer again is fun!
Next is the cockroach incident that happened earlier this week. I'll let Rebecca explain this one (from her website)
***First off....HOLY COW was that cockroach big! Okay...here's what happened.
THE CALL FOR HELP:
After hitting the snooze button a few times my phone rang. "Are you awake?" she said. "Yeah...I'm awake," in my groggy morning voice. "There's a huge cockroach in my room. Can you come up?" Realizing the extent to which the cockroach had paralyzed poor S, I agreed to go upstairs, but not before brushing my teeth, or so I thought. As I got myself out of bed and into the bathroom, the phone rang again. "I think you should bring a book or something to hit it with....and hurry!" I could see things were getting intense upstairs. Oh well, I thought...morning breath can wait.
AN END TO THE STARING CONTEST
I came into a very very tense room. At that point, it was pretty much a stand off between S and the roach. The starring contest had left S petrified and standing by the door when I arrived. "It's under the tin," she said." Apparently the roach had made its way under an oven tray to take cover. I peeked into the kitchen to survey the scene. WHOA!!! I almost couldn't do it myself. *UGH* I thought, if I didn't hurry up and get it over with, I'll be exactly where that roach wants me...huddled in the corner calling for backup. I took a deep breath and signaled to S... "OKAY I'll just do it!" *SMACK*.....wiggle wiggle wiggle........ *SMACK* "Okay, its done." WHEW! That wasn't so bad, I thought to myself.
"Do you have something to sweep it up with?" I asked.
"Uhh...how bout some toilet paper??"
"No..no no..too thin!!!" I said, grossed out at even the idea of touching a juicy dead roach with a thin piece of toilet paper.
Sarah handed me a flyer. I had to do this without thinking and so, with one swift scoop, I swept the monster onto the flyer and into the trash it went.
Wow...can you imagine?? All this excitement and I hadn't even brushed my teeth! I don't think I was even fully awake. What a morning!***
And then yesterday (from my other site):
***This cockroach thing has scarred me. First, I should say that yesterday afternoon I gave my apartment a very thorough cleaning, disinfecting, vaccuming, etc. I also permanantly made my bed into a couch and am now sleeping on a futon on the floor. So last night, on my floor in my clean apartment, I woke up around 2,2:30 am, sat straight up in bed, and I think in my mind or dream I saw a cockroach. So. Lying wide awake on my floor, I heard these little noises. clicks, little thumps. I was convinced there was another cockroach in my kitchen, and it was flying around or something. I was terrified, had no idea what to do. I would have called Becca to call her up to search and destroy, but it was now near 3am, so I called my mother who told me to just go turn the light on, see if there was one, and kill it. Instead, I moved my futon into the tatami room, shut the sliding doors, turned on the music, and lay awake for another 30 minutes, dying to go the the bathroom and get a drink of water, but too scared of going near the kitchen.***
Cockroach update: in addition to the poison that's been out all year, I bought cockroach hotels and garbage fresheners yesterday (even though I mean to take out the trash daily, doesn't hurt if it smells lemony!)
Since I didn't want to listen to the cockroaches checking in last night, and couldn't close my sliding doors due to laundry day, I slept at Becca's place.
That's it for now. Taiwan stories are soon to come. Take care, Happy Easter,
Sarah
Getting back from Taiwan was rough. I loved it. I loved the energy, the dirtiness (sp?), the food, and how the people were so down to earth. It was really easy to feel like another human being in that culture, I felt much more at ease than I often do in Japan. So coming back from 85, sunny weather to 40 degrees, ever-raining Toyama was hard. Especially since I've spent the past 2 weeks sitting in the office or through ceremonies rather than teaching.
But this past week's been much better. I'm sure the weather has something to do with it - it's been sunny and beautiful. I'm also back in the classroom at Oizumi, which is good. I'm playing in a soccer tournament this weekend, and have been getting up and running, and playing soccer a little in the afternoons. Despite an upsetting cockroach incident, I'm loving my apartment, and it is getting bigger (changed the bed to a couch) and is now very clean.
So a few updates taken from e-mails, etc.
First weekend post-Taiwan. miserable, cold, rainy:
***Friday- feeling sick, basically just hung out, went to bed. Saturday, went to Nagano with a few teachers. Really fun, but terrible weather (rain/snow/cold) and I wasn't dressed appropriately. I would have been, because I brought a bag of extra clothes including gloves and a hat, but the teacher who picked me up was dressed very cutely, and insisted I didn't need it. She froze the entire day too... why would I trust Japanese for sensible clothing advice??? But I was in for a treat, and the first stop was one of my favorite museums (small scale). It's the Chihiro museum, she was a famous children's illustrator. The museum is dedicated to children's picture books from around the world, and it was amazing. So great. They also had some statues, installations, I won't really go into it because I'm feeling particularly inexpressive. But it was a beautiful museum, wooden, wonderful smell, nice cafe, etc. I was happy and at peace with the world. art museum: http://www.chihiro.jp/english/azumino/main.htm
Then off to lunch - a soba restaurant, really nice. Then a wasabi farm - interesting but too cold. wasabi can only be grown in very clean water. did you know that? then a glass museum (which was really a store - the glass products were all for sale) and an herb store where i drank herbal coffee (made from dandelion and chicory, not a good idea), and other teachers got aromatherapy hand massages. from there we drove home, and i slept in the back of the car. a really interesting, relaxing day.
sunday i did brian's tax seminar, and i now understand how to claim my tax exemptions as a foreign resident (woo hoo!). from that I ran into shay and taeko at a festival at the castle, and i partook in some hanami, or flower viewing. (http://nytimes.com/2003/04/06/international/asia/06JAPA.html) basically, it means picninic - when the cherry blossoms bloom the japanese go for eating and drinking by the banks of a river. my first impressions of hanami were good, and i'm doing it again next weekend. but the japanese obsession with sakura (cherry blossoms) are a bit obsessive: the cherry blossom front is alwyas on the news, and any speech begins with comments on the blossoms (even in feburary.. the cherry blossoms are coming... and in june i'm sure we'll still be hearing about it: the cherry blossoms have fallen or something). but they're nice.
futzed around my apartment, went to gusto's for dinner with justin. gusto's is great i've decided. When I first came to Japan, I didn't really care for japanese family restaurants (equivalent of big boy, denny's, etc. in the us). but it might have been the chicken elbow thing that turned me off. lately i've been having some decent food, cheaply. i've always loved the drink bar, of course (hot chocolate, teas, sodas, juices, coffees, what more could you want???). Last night I had bibinbop - not as good as jim's grill in chicago, but not bad! I think the difference is that since i'm accustomed to eating japanese food, i can eat the bad versions of japanese dishes and find them satifying. strange.***
So coming back from Taiwan, my schools have changed a bit. New teachers, new systems. Here's a bit about the new Nanbu (which after all the enkais, is still a stifling place to spend 8 hours of near silence...
***My enkai last night was insane. Nanbu has been transformed! The new people here are so fun and great, and I'm getting along really well with everyone. They are outgoing, go out of their way to talk to me in Japanese and English, and like to smile and laugh and drink a lot. And the 2 new young female teachers (23ish) are total party animals - they were smashed last night and pretty funny - one was flamenco dancing on stage for everyone. One is an English teacher, and the other loves movies and really wants to speak English a lot. We've already made a pact to go drinking in the near future - near being the opperative word.
I think a big differenence is the new principal - he's younger, attractive (not like that) always has a broad smile, and walks around and talks to the teachers in the staff room. He's nice!***
I also had my interview for AFI last week. Wednesday morning, 7:15 am. I'm not sure how it went. I was a little out of it, woke up with a cold, but hopefully that wouldn't affect my chances. I just found out today that Anna (my roommate from NU) got into the directing program at AFI - congratulations Anna! I should hear anytime - they were supposed to mail the descisions on April 15th.
Last weekend was good, but busy. I hung out with Justin Friday night - we were going to have a movie theme night of Brian de Palma, since I'd never seen any of his films (apart from Mission Impossible), and just read some interviews with his two main editors. But that night, I knew I wasn't up for Carrie (had been having bad dreams, especially after seeing Vanilla Sky (yuck) Wednesday). So we got The Wild One, with Marlon Brando, and The Wild Bunch, with a lot of people. Unfortunately, didn't make it through the Wild Bunch yet.
Saturday was supposed to be Hanami (picinic under cherry blossoms) with Justin's Tateyama crowd, but it was pouring. Instead, we ate Hiroshima-style okonomiyaki, which is hard to explain. Basically, two pancake type things of pork, egg, flour(?) sandwiching yakisoba - fried soba noodles with special sauce. I had mine with kimchee (korean red pepper spice that's used in Japan with cabbage). It was wonderful, but threw my digestion off track for the rest of the weekend (or maybe it was the alcohol).
Then to kareoke, which would have been fun if we had stopped after 2 hours. After 3 and a half, I was outside on the rainy sidewalk alone, in severe stomach pain (think kareoke, florescent lights, and a chain smoker in a cramped, unventilated room for that long), waiting for everyone to finish. They did, and we went back to Sunshine.
At this point, Becca and I weren't feeling like calling it a night (8pm) so we got sushi and a salad for dinner and went to Takaoka (Ann Arbor-sized city a half hour away) to join a small house party and visit a bar.
Next morning, we had proper hanami. It was a beautiful day, and the park in Takaoka is amazing. The sakura were in full bloom, and the park was full of families and friends having picinics (there was literally nowhere to sit, and the line for the bathroom took 30 minutes). But it was great. We hung out for a while and made it back to Toyama for girls soccer practice. Playing soccer again is fun!
Next is the cockroach incident that happened earlier this week. I'll let Rebecca explain this one (from her website)
***First off....HOLY COW was that cockroach big! Okay...here's what happened.
THE CALL FOR HELP:
After hitting the snooze button a few times my phone rang. "Are you awake?" she said. "Yeah...I'm awake," in my groggy morning voice. "There's a huge cockroach in my room. Can you come up?" Realizing the extent to which the cockroach had paralyzed poor S, I agreed to go upstairs, but not before brushing my teeth, or so I thought. As I got myself out of bed and into the bathroom, the phone rang again. "I think you should bring a book or something to hit it with....and hurry!" I could see things were getting intense upstairs. Oh well, I thought...morning breath can wait.
AN END TO THE STARING CONTEST
I came into a very very tense room. At that point, it was pretty much a stand off between S and the roach. The starring contest had left S petrified and standing by the door when I arrived. "It's under the tin," she said." Apparently the roach had made its way under an oven tray to take cover. I peeked into the kitchen to survey the scene. WHOA!!! I almost couldn't do it myself. *UGH* I thought, if I didn't hurry up and get it over with, I'll be exactly where that roach wants me...huddled in the corner calling for backup. I took a deep breath and signaled to S... "OKAY I'll just do it!" *SMACK*.....wiggle wiggle wiggle........ *SMACK* "Okay, its done." WHEW! That wasn't so bad, I thought to myself.
"Do you have something to sweep it up with?" I asked.
"Uhh...how bout some toilet paper??"
"No..no no..too thin!!!" I said, grossed out at even the idea of touching a juicy dead roach with a thin piece of toilet paper.
Sarah handed me a flyer. I had to do this without thinking and so, with one swift scoop, I swept the monster onto the flyer and into the trash it went.
Wow...can you imagine?? All this excitement and I hadn't even brushed my teeth! I don't think I was even fully awake. What a morning!***
And then yesterday (from my other site):
***This cockroach thing has scarred me. First, I should say that yesterday afternoon I gave my apartment a very thorough cleaning, disinfecting, vaccuming, etc. I also permanantly made my bed into a couch and am now sleeping on a futon on the floor. So last night, on my floor in my clean apartment, I woke up around 2,2:30 am, sat straight up in bed, and I think in my mind or dream I saw a cockroach. So. Lying wide awake on my floor, I heard these little noises. clicks, little thumps. I was convinced there was another cockroach in my kitchen, and it was flying around or something. I was terrified, had no idea what to do. I would have called Becca to call her up to search and destroy, but it was now near 3am, so I called my mother who told me to just go turn the light on, see if there was one, and kill it. Instead, I moved my futon into the tatami room, shut the sliding doors, turned on the music, and lay awake for another 30 minutes, dying to go the the bathroom and get a drink of water, but too scared of going near the kitchen.***
Cockroach update: in addition to the poison that's been out all year, I bought cockroach hotels and garbage fresheners yesterday (even though I mean to take out the trash daily, doesn't hurt if it smells lemony!)
Since I didn't want to listen to the cockroaches checking in last night, and couldn't close my sliding doors due to laundry day, I slept at Becca's place.
That's it for now. Taiwan stories are soon to come. Take care, Happy Easter,
Sarah
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