Hello! Spent the weekend snowboarding and lounging in Tateyama. There was great powder on Saturday - after 3 days of constant snowing, and temperatures finally below freezing, conditions were perfect. Rebecca (friend who also lives in Sunshine) and I went to Tateyama Fri. night to have a Nabae party with Justin and some of his Japanese friends. They are a fun group of people, and also amazing cooks. Nabae is a huge soup-like thing with mushrooms, cabbage, chicken, and the other day it was flavored with kimchee (korean spicy hot pepper stuff). Really nice, and there was plenty for breakfast the next day and to add some noodles for apres-ski. The also made yakisoba (stir fried noodles with a special sauce) and there was a ton of chips, snacks, alcohol, etc. It was pretty fun. Met up with them a bit on Saturday, and Becca and I are cooking for them tomorrow night.
Skiing Saturday was fun. Becca's good, and it"s fun to have a partner to go all over the mountain with. Also brought Justin up to the top of the mountain at the end of the day -- he's improving so fast! His second day snowboarding he was connecting his turns and following my lead pretty well. He followed us down a few black diamond mogul trails, which at this point we took him on for the humor of it -- when we first got to the top of the gondola after lunch, we hadn't spent any time with Justin at all and weren't quite sure of his level. we also misjudged the easiest hill end ended up taking him on something pretty steep. but soon enough, he learned how to edge, and eventually stop, and after some of the really steep stuff, the medium stuff seemed doable, and if he took things slowly he could manage some turns. so presto! good thing he's good natured and adventurous.
were going to go out saturday night but were so tired and sore from snowboarding (the powder was so soft it was really fun to wipe out and do somersaults, today my neck's a bit stiff, though) we ended up watching movies at justin's.
all for now, have to clean tonight and plan menu for tomorrow's feast.
later,
sarah
Thursday, January 23, 2003
alright, something weird is happening, and it's not been publishing my stuff!!! I've been writing, really!
Here's what I wrote yesterday:
[1/23/2003 4:03:07 PM | Sarah Broshar]
I have so much to write, and there's been no time to write it. And by the time I do have time (like now) my brain's a little too fried to make coherent thoughts.
But I'll start with the funny things, in backwards order.
Most recent - a moment ago my principal (the one I really like) was walking around the staff room, and I asked him if he wanted to use the computer, he said no, but walked over, and I proceded to show him my blog site and how I write about Japan and people read it. He was looking closely , and I realize the first comments are about my principal (spelled wrong, though) at my other school shoveling snow. I don't think he noticed, but I jumped and scrolled down to the bit about skiing.
Last night I took my wet clothes to a laundrymat (a wonderful thing - more later), and as I was dumping my clothes in the huge driers, I saw a pair of underwear I didn't want to ruin. I stuck them in my coat pocket and forgot about them. This morning, as usually, I spent about 5 minutes after I got off the train searching my pockets for the train ticket. I couldn't find it, and couldn't figure out what was in my pocket, so naturally I emptied my pockets in front of the station attendent and pulled out a thong. I never found the ticket but I got through okay.
Other funny things: about skiing.
Definetly interesting in Japan. Two things were particularly odd - first, that little children are allowed to take sleds up the lifts of the beginner slopes. And I mean little children. They actually have sleds you can rent. Most people don't take them up the lifts, but walk up a bit from the bottom of the hill where the rental shops and restaurants are, and send their 3-5 year olds out of control into a crowd of beginners. I've gotten hit before, and I've seen maybe a dozen other serious wipe-outs. I think it's very strange.
The second was just a random sighting - A middle aged woman, an older woman, and a young man were all wearing plain clothes (jeans, rubber boots, etc.) and walking down the main stretch of mountain carrying umbrellas. This is above the begginer slopes, maybe halfway up the main lift, and far from the gondola. Yet no one else seemed to be paying any attention to them.
As for my computer complaining - it's practically died. I have to send it in, and possibly get the hard drive repaired/replaced. I'm not sure the exact problem - it begins to click and the spinning disc icon happens, can still move the mouse but can't do anything with it. If I shut it down and leave it for a day, it will work for about 20 minutes until it freezes up again. I had thought I fixed it last week by resetting the power manager, and it worked for several days - long enough for me to set up the wireless router (which doesn't reach my room anyways - only Victoria's). But as soon as I had it set up, it crashed, and I haven't wanted to move it again since it's acting so wierd.
On a positive note, I bought a new stereo Saturday. Justin, who has a much better idea of a good stereo, took me shopping and explained that the more features for the same price means worse quality. So he helped me pick out an Onkyo micro system for just a tiny bit more than the one I was looking at - it has a cd player and mini disc, and it sounds really good. really really good. After school, while I'm still sitting in the teacher's room, I dream about going home and listening to my stereo. Only small problem is I brought about 10 CD's with me - the rest of my music is on MP3's on my computer.
Teaching and life is going really well (except for this afternoon, which I won't go into, it's just impossible). I've been working with the teachers and planning some good lessons, and I like being in the classroom (except for Oizumi's 1-nensei). But my apartment is finally clean, and I have several loads of laundry properly dried (rather than hanging around my tiny apartment in the unheated winter - doesn't work and adds to the mess) and in my drawers.
Snowboarding's wonderful, I'm going Sat. and Sunday. Then next weekend I'm snowboarding in Nagano, at the same time and place as hundreds of other JET's in Japan (fun foreign invasion!). Then the next weekend it's Toga - the same secluded small town that did the theater festival, for the winter soba festival. Basically I go eat hot soba noodles, make large snowsculptures with the other JET's, then go snowboarding the next day!
I saw a few of my students on the slopes last Saturday, and it was a great topic of conversation for 10 minutes before class today. I find the better I know them, the easier it is to make small conversations. Lately I've been having good lunches with them, too. We still mostly talk about food, but if we all spoke the same language the same could be true.
All for now, maybe I'll update later.
Sarah
Here's what I wrote yesterday:
[1/23/2003 4:03:07 PM | Sarah Broshar]
I have so much to write, and there's been no time to write it. And by the time I do have time (like now) my brain's a little too fried to make coherent thoughts.
But I'll start with the funny things, in backwards order.
Most recent - a moment ago my principal (the one I really like) was walking around the staff room, and I asked him if he wanted to use the computer, he said no, but walked over, and I proceded to show him my blog site and how I write about Japan and people read it. He was looking closely , and I realize the first comments are about my principal (spelled wrong, though) at my other school shoveling snow. I don't think he noticed, but I jumped and scrolled down to the bit about skiing.
Last night I took my wet clothes to a laundrymat (a wonderful thing - more later), and as I was dumping my clothes in the huge driers, I saw a pair of underwear I didn't want to ruin. I stuck them in my coat pocket and forgot about them. This morning, as usually, I spent about 5 minutes after I got off the train searching my pockets for the train ticket. I couldn't find it, and couldn't figure out what was in my pocket, so naturally I emptied my pockets in front of the station attendent and pulled out a thong. I never found the ticket but I got through okay.
Other funny things: about skiing.
Definetly interesting in Japan. Two things were particularly odd - first, that little children are allowed to take sleds up the lifts of the beginner slopes. And I mean little children. They actually have sleds you can rent. Most people don't take them up the lifts, but walk up a bit from the bottom of the hill where the rental shops and restaurants are, and send their 3-5 year olds out of control into a crowd of beginners. I've gotten hit before, and I've seen maybe a dozen other serious wipe-outs. I think it's very strange.
The second was just a random sighting - A middle aged woman, an older woman, and a young man were all wearing plain clothes (jeans, rubber boots, etc.) and walking down the main stretch of mountain carrying umbrellas. This is above the begginer slopes, maybe halfway up the main lift, and far from the gondola. Yet no one else seemed to be paying any attention to them.
As for my computer complaining - it's practically died. I have to send it in, and possibly get the hard drive repaired/replaced. I'm not sure the exact problem - it begins to click and the spinning disc icon happens, can still move the mouse but can't do anything with it. If I shut it down and leave it for a day, it will work for about 20 minutes until it freezes up again. I had thought I fixed it last week by resetting the power manager, and it worked for several days - long enough for me to set up the wireless router (which doesn't reach my room anyways - only Victoria's). But as soon as I had it set up, it crashed, and I haven't wanted to move it again since it's acting so wierd.
On a positive note, I bought a new stereo Saturday. Justin, who has a much better idea of a good stereo, took me shopping and explained that the more features for the same price means worse quality. So he helped me pick out an Onkyo micro system for just a tiny bit more than the one I was looking at - it has a cd player and mini disc, and it sounds really good. really really good. After school, while I'm still sitting in the teacher's room, I dream about going home and listening to my stereo. Only small problem is I brought about 10 CD's with me - the rest of my music is on MP3's on my computer.
Teaching and life is going really well (except for this afternoon, which I won't go into, it's just impossible). I've been working with the teachers and planning some good lessons, and I like being in the classroom (except for Oizumi's 1-nensei). But my apartment is finally clean, and I have several loads of laundry properly dried (rather than hanging around my tiny apartment in the unheated winter - doesn't work and adds to the mess) and in my drawers.
Snowboarding's wonderful, I'm going Sat. and Sunday. Then next weekend I'm snowboarding in Nagano, at the same time and place as hundreds of other JET's in Japan (fun foreign invasion!). Then the next weekend it's Toga - the same secluded small town that did the theater festival, for the winter soba festival. Basically I go eat hot soba noodles, make large snowsculptures with the other JET's, then go snowboarding the next day!
I saw a few of my students on the slopes last Saturday, and it was a great topic of conversation for 10 minutes before class today. I find the better I know them, the easier it is to make small conversations. Lately I've been having good lunches with them, too. We still mostly talk about food, but if we all spoke the same language the same could be true.
All for now, maybe I'll update later.
Sarah
Wednesday, January 22, 2003
I have so much to write, and there's been no time to write it. And by the time I do have time (like now) my brain's a little too fried to make coherent thoughts.
But I'll start with the funny things, in backwards order.
Most recent - a moment ago my principal (the one I really like) was walking around the staff room, and I asked him if he wanted to use the computer, he said no, but walked over, and I proceded to show him my blog site and how I write about Japan and people read it. He was looking closely , and I realize the first comments are about my principal (spelled wrong, though) at my other school shoveling snow. I don't think he noticed, but I jumped and scrolled down to the bit about skiing.
Last night I took my wet clothes to a laundrymat (a wonderful thing - more later), and as I was dumping my clothes in the huge driers, I saw a pair of underwear I didn't want to ruin. I stuck them in my coat pocket and forgot about them. This morning, as usually, I spent about 5 minutes after I got off the train searching my pockets for the train ticket. I couldn't find it, and couldn't figure out what was in my pocket, so naturally I emptied my pockets in front of the station attendent and pulled out a thong. I never found the ticket but I got through okay.
Other funny things: about skiing.
Definetly interesting in Japan. Two things were particularly odd - first, that little children are allowed to take sleds up the lifts of the beginner slopes. And I mean little children. They actually have sleds you can rent. Most people don't take them up the lifts, but walk up a bit from the bottom of the hill where the rental shops and restaurants are, and send their 3-5 year olds out of control into a crowd of beginners. I've gotten hit before, and I've seen maybe a dozen other serious wipe-outs. I think it's very strange.
The second was just a random sighting - A middle aged woman, an older woman, and a young man were all wearing plain clothes (jeans, rubber boots, etc.) and walking down the main stretch of mountain carrying umbrellas. This is above the begginer slopes, maybe halfway up the main lift, and far from the gondola. Yet no one else seemed to be paying any attention to them.
As for my computer complaining - it's practically died. I have to send it in, and possibly get the hard drive repaired/replaced. I'm not sure the exact problem - it begins to click and the spinning disc icon happens, can still move the mouse but can't do anything with it. If I shut it down and leave it for a day, it will work for about 20 minutes until it freezes up again. I had thought I fixed it last week by resetting the power manager, and it worked for several days - long enough for me to set up the wireless router (which doesn't reach my room anyways - only Victoria's). But as soon as I had it set up, it crashed, and I haven't wanted to move it again since it's acting so wierd.
On a positive note, I bought a new stereo Saturday. Justin, who has a much better idea of a good stereo, took me shopping and explained that the more features for the same price means worse quality. So he helped me pick out an Onkyo micro system for just a tiny bit more than the one I was looking at - it has a cd player and mini disc, and it sounds really good. really really good. After school, while I'm still sitting in the teacher's room, I dream about going home and listening to my stereo. Only small problem is I brought about 10 CD's with me - the rest of my music is on MP3's on my computer.
Teaching and life is going really well (except for this afternoon, which I won't go into, it's just impossible). I've been working with the teachers and planning some good lessons, and I like being in the classroom (except for Oizumi's 1-nensei). But my apartment is finally clean, and I have several loads of laundry properly dried (rather than hanging around my tiny apartment in the unheated winter - doesn't work and adds to the mess) and in my drawers.
Snowboarding's wonderful, I'm going Sat. and Sunday. Then next weekend I'm snowboarding in Nagano, at the same time and place as hundreds of other JET's in Japan (fun foreign invasion!). Then the next weekend it's Toga - the same secluded small town that did the theater festival, for the winter soba festival. Basically I go eat hot soba noodles, make large snowsculptures with the other JET's, then go snowboarding the next day!
I saw a few of my students on the slopes last Saturday, and it was a great topic of conversation for 10 minutes before class today. I find the better I know them, the easier it is to make small conversations. Lately I've been having good lunches with them, too. We still mostly talk about food, but if we all spoke the same language the same could be true.
All for now, maybe I'll update later.
Sarah
But I'll start with the funny things, in backwards order.
Most recent - a moment ago my principal (the one I really like) was walking around the staff room, and I asked him if he wanted to use the computer, he said no, but walked over, and I proceded to show him my blog site and how I write about Japan and people read it. He was looking closely , and I realize the first comments are about my principal (spelled wrong, though) at my other school shoveling snow. I don't think he noticed, but I jumped and scrolled down to the bit about skiing.
Last night I took my wet clothes to a laundrymat (a wonderful thing - more later), and as I was dumping my clothes in the huge driers, I saw a pair of underwear I didn't want to ruin. I stuck them in my coat pocket and forgot about them. This morning, as usually, I spent about 5 minutes after I got off the train searching my pockets for the train ticket. I couldn't find it, and couldn't figure out what was in my pocket, so naturally I emptied my pockets in front of the station attendent and pulled out a thong. I never found the ticket but I got through okay.
Other funny things: about skiing.
Definetly interesting in Japan. Two things were particularly odd - first, that little children are allowed to take sleds up the lifts of the beginner slopes. And I mean little children. They actually have sleds you can rent. Most people don't take them up the lifts, but walk up a bit from the bottom of the hill where the rental shops and restaurants are, and send their 3-5 year olds out of control into a crowd of beginners. I've gotten hit before, and I've seen maybe a dozen other serious wipe-outs. I think it's very strange.
The second was just a random sighting - A middle aged woman, an older woman, and a young man were all wearing plain clothes (jeans, rubber boots, etc.) and walking down the main stretch of mountain carrying umbrellas. This is above the begginer slopes, maybe halfway up the main lift, and far from the gondola. Yet no one else seemed to be paying any attention to them.
As for my computer complaining - it's practically died. I have to send it in, and possibly get the hard drive repaired/replaced. I'm not sure the exact problem - it begins to click and the spinning disc icon happens, can still move the mouse but can't do anything with it. If I shut it down and leave it for a day, it will work for about 20 minutes until it freezes up again. I had thought I fixed it last week by resetting the power manager, and it worked for several days - long enough for me to set up the wireless router (which doesn't reach my room anyways - only Victoria's). But as soon as I had it set up, it crashed, and I haven't wanted to move it again since it's acting so wierd.
On a positive note, I bought a new stereo Saturday. Justin, who has a much better idea of a good stereo, took me shopping and explained that the more features for the same price means worse quality. So he helped me pick out an Onkyo micro system for just a tiny bit more than the one I was looking at - it has a cd player and mini disc, and it sounds really good. really really good. After school, while I'm still sitting in the teacher's room, I dream about going home and listening to my stereo. Only small problem is I brought about 10 CD's with me - the rest of my music is on MP3's on my computer.
Teaching and life is going really well (except for this afternoon, which I won't go into, it's just impossible). I've been working with the teachers and planning some good lessons, and I like being in the classroom (except for Oizumi's 1-nensei). But my apartment is finally clean, and I have several loads of laundry properly dried (rather than hanging around my tiny apartment in the unheated winter - doesn't work and adds to the mess) and in my drawers.
Snowboarding's wonderful, I'm going Sat. and Sunday. Then next weekend I'm snowboarding in Nagano, at the same time and place as hundreds of other JET's in Japan (fun foreign invasion!). Then the next weekend it's Toga - the same secluded small town that did the theater festival, for the winter soba festival. Basically I go eat hot soba noodles, make large snowsculptures with the other JET's, then go snowboarding the next day!
I saw a few of my students on the slopes last Saturday, and it was a great topic of conversation for 10 minutes before class today. I find the better I know them, the easier it is to make small conversations. Lately I've been having good lunches with them, too. We still mostly talk about food, but if we all spoke the same language the same could be true.
All for now, maybe I'll update later.
Sarah
Monday, January 13, 2003
Hello,
I posted last week, but I think I either didn't delete, or I forgot to publish.
My main point last Friday was that on my way into school, I saw the principle outside in his shirttails shovelling the driveway alone. That's what I get for being judgemental.
Sorry if my spelling, typing, or English are a bit off in this post -- I slept terribly last night and am a little uncomfortable in the blazing heat of the staff room. This room is maybe 1/3 of the size of my other school, and it has the same number of heaters (2), each set to 3 degrees higher than my other school (21 degrees c).
I'm also using a Japanese keyboard now. My computer is starting to complain about its overuse (for silly things like watching DVD's and listening to music) so I think I might invest in a stereo (that I would bring home). I'm also in Japan - definetly the place for that kind of purchase. I already have one picked out, just waiting till a friend with a car will take me to get it. Pioneer, and it has 5 CD, minidisc, tape, radio (which wouldn't work in the US) and I think a USB in so I could maybe burn the MP3s from my computer to minidisc, but I'm not sure about that. I could at least make CD's out of them. My computer's getting very cranky - as in making loud clicking noises and randomly not working, so tonight I'm going home and backing up my hard drive, and this weekend I'll probably send it off to get it looked at. It's still under warranty, but I'm not sure how that will work in Japan. I am sad to part with it for several reasons -- I brought back a modem so I should soon be able to hook it up and get internet in my apartment, but more importantly, I am working on some English videos for classes on it.
Anyways, spring skiing conditions on the slopes this weekend. It's been really nice here -- I was only wearing a long underwear shirt and the shell of my coat, no hat, sunglasses. The powder was great, not fresh on Sunday, but still smooth, not at all icey. It's only an hour to the closest resort, and I can go to the train station by my apartment, pay 5000 yen (43 dollars-ish) and get a return train/bus plus lift ticket for the day. The mountain is pretty small, but definetly better than anything in the midwest. I didn't explore too much, but it didn't seem to have a lot of variety, and the runs were pretty narrow. But there was some steeper stuff, and some moguls.
I was surprised at the lifts - there were a couple incredibly slow chairs and then a gondola to the top. Otherwise you could take 3 chairs. The gondola was also slow, though. And some of the chairs were just a single pad for a seat, and a bar, no back or arm rest, no sort of restraining device. And you were 30 ft in the air. Strange.
I like the convenience of snowboarding every weekend (I'm going next weekend too!) but am very curious to travel into Niigata or Nagano for weekend trips to the larger resorts.
Time for class,
Sarah
I posted last week, but I think I either didn't delete, or I forgot to publish.
My main point last Friday was that on my way into school, I saw the principle outside in his shirttails shovelling the driveway alone. That's what I get for being judgemental.
Sorry if my spelling, typing, or English are a bit off in this post -- I slept terribly last night and am a little uncomfortable in the blazing heat of the staff room. This room is maybe 1/3 of the size of my other school, and it has the same number of heaters (2), each set to 3 degrees higher than my other school (21 degrees c).
I'm also using a Japanese keyboard now. My computer is starting to complain about its overuse (for silly things like watching DVD's and listening to music) so I think I might invest in a stereo (that I would bring home). I'm also in Japan - definetly the place for that kind of purchase. I already have one picked out, just waiting till a friend with a car will take me to get it. Pioneer, and it has 5 CD, minidisc, tape, radio (which wouldn't work in the US) and I think a USB in so I could maybe burn the MP3s from my computer to minidisc, but I'm not sure about that. I could at least make CD's out of them. My computer's getting very cranky - as in making loud clicking noises and randomly not working, so tonight I'm going home and backing up my hard drive, and this weekend I'll probably send it off to get it looked at. It's still under warranty, but I'm not sure how that will work in Japan. I am sad to part with it for several reasons -- I brought back a modem so I should soon be able to hook it up and get internet in my apartment, but more importantly, I am working on some English videos for classes on it.
Anyways, spring skiing conditions on the slopes this weekend. It's been really nice here -- I was only wearing a long underwear shirt and the shell of my coat, no hat, sunglasses. The powder was great, not fresh on Sunday, but still smooth, not at all icey. It's only an hour to the closest resort, and I can go to the train station by my apartment, pay 5000 yen (43 dollars-ish) and get a return train/bus plus lift ticket for the day. The mountain is pretty small, but definetly better than anything in the midwest. I didn't explore too much, but it didn't seem to have a lot of variety, and the runs were pretty narrow. But there was some steeper stuff, and some moguls.
I was surprised at the lifts - there were a couple incredibly slow chairs and then a gondola to the top. Otherwise you could take 3 chairs. The gondola was also slow, though. And some of the chairs were just a single pad for a seat, and a bar, no back or arm rest, no sort of restraining device. And you were 30 ft in the air. Strange.
I like the convenience of snowboarding every weekend (I'm going next weekend too!) but am very curious to travel into Niigata or Nagano for weekend trips to the larger resorts.
Time for class,
Sarah
Tuesday, January 07, 2003
Hello!
I'm back in Japan, and things are good.
I went home for Christmas and New Year's. I spent the first week lying around the house, shopping a bit with my sister, and attending various family parties. I had jet lag pretty bad -- the first few days I was tired and had little energy, and the next few days I woke up really early in the morning and crashed around 8pm.
Then, Thursday night, I made a sudden decision to go to New York for the weekend. I hung out with Eric and had a really good time being in the city. NY has such a great atmosphere, and I've definetly been craving for big city life after living in Toyama (which isn't so small, I think I just like cities). We saw Adaptations, which blew my mind. I now take back every time I've said that I can't stand Nicholas Cage. Well, actually, I still can't stand him in most other films I've seen him in, but this performance was amazing. Along with other aspects of the film.
It was also good to hang out with Eric for the weekend because I got a sense of what he's been doing with his career, and how much I miss film-related work. Being in Japan is great, but there's no reason to stay for too long when it's not what I really want to be doing. By the time I was back in Michigan, I'd pretty much decided to not recontract with JET, and to apply to grad school for editing at AFI. I'll probably move to LA in September whether or not I'm accepted.
So the second week of my vacation was pretty stressful - the actual decision to apply to AFI came around Tuesday afternoon, and New Year's plans, packing, and flying back to Japan made the application process pretty stressful - the application had to be postmarked January 6 (which it was!)
I had a great time seeing Claire and her boyfriend, Ben, and Annika and her friend Damien. Monday night Claire, Ben and Annika came over and we stayed up really late catching up (it had been a year since I've seen Claire, and years since Claire and Annika have seen each other). Tuesday night we went to Connor O'Neil's, an Irish pub in Ann Arbor, for dinner/party, where a few other people joined us.
New Year's day, my friends had spent the night again so we spent the morning lounging and talking, then I worked on my application while my family watched football. We also had a nice traditional-holiday type dinner, as kind of a special treat since I was returning to Japan.
Saturday night, as I pulled into Toyama, it started snowing. It continued snowing all day Sunday (50 centimeters) and a little through Monday. Insane amounts of snow, and totally gorgeous. It is melting fast, though, because it's well above freezing, the sun is shining, and warm water is continuously squirting from the roads and sidewalks.
So in order to venture out on Sunday, I stopped at APA and bought some rubber boots (Victoria calls them Wellington's, or "Wellies" affectionately - is this a British word?). They are like moon boots - knee high, and a lovely grey and blue. The style is to tuck the pants in, so they don't get wet or dirty. These boots were great, the snow was at least knee-high, nothing was plowed (I haven't seen snowplows here at all!), and my feet stayed dry.
Today was the school-opening ceremony, where the entire school sat silently in the gym to listen to the principal ramble for about 45 minutes about nothing. You might say "Sarah, he might have been saying something important - you just can't understand him!"
But no. I've had my suspicions confirmed today by one of the English teachers that he is a total moron (of course my teacher didn't say this). Every time he opens his mouth, he seems to stumble through a longer-than-necessary monologue... I first noticed this when he introduced me to give my speech at the first day of school - I had no idea how he could be talking about me for nearly 10 minutes when he'd never spoken to me -- of course he did have my JET application for notes. Then, at one of the schools firedrills he talked for about a half hour.
Today I asked my teacher what he says for so long. She said that he never prepares for his speeches, so he usually just gets up and talks. I asked her for specifically the kinds of things he says, and she said "I don't pay attention. I remember him saying something to the students about not being noisy, because he doesn't like it when it's noisy."
Today at the staff meeting he went into an opening speech, and literally half of the teachers were _sleeping_. The system of hierarchy and respect here is pretty strange... I'm sure this man does something (and this middle school has a great academic reputation), but he spends much of his time in his office watching television, smoking, and eating. He rarely comes to school early or stays late, and he barely speaks to the other teachers. When he tells one of my English teacher he's concerned for my safety, and to look after me (after that strange man in my apartment incident), I'm prompted to go bow to him and thank him for acknowledging my existence.
This man entertains me very much, as you can tell. It's just very interesting that he's obviously in a fairly powerful, prestigous position in the Japanese educational system (or at least he thinks so) and his social skills are so awkward. He actually fell asleep at the enkai, or teacher's dinner party.
Changing the subject, I feel my Japanese has really slipped. I'll need to study quite a bit to get back to conversaitional around the office -- my teacher was asking me about my vacation and I had a rough time telling her the basics of what I did, as in I couldn't think of the word for 'weekend'... bad, sarah, bad.
goodbye for now.
sarah
I'm back in Japan, and things are good.
I went home for Christmas and New Year's. I spent the first week lying around the house, shopping a bit with my sister, and attending various family parties. I had jet lag pretty bad -- the first few days I was tired and had little energy, and the next few days I woke up really early in the morning and crashed around 8pm.
Then, Thursday night, I made a sudden decision to go to New York for the weekend. I hung out with Eric and had a really good time being in the city. NY has such a great atmosphere, and I've definetly been craving for big city life after living in Toyama (which isn't so small, I think I just like cities). We saw Adaptations, which blew my mind. I now take back every time I've said that I can't stand Nicholas Cage. Well, actually, I still can't stand him in most other films I've seen him in, but this performance was amazing. Along with other aspects of the film.
It was also good to hang out with Eric for the weekend because I got a sense of what he's been doing with his career, and how much I miss film-related work. Being in Japan is great, but there's no reason to stay for too long when it's not what I really want to be doing. By the time I was back in Michigan, I'd pretty much decided to not recontract with JET, and to apply to grad school for editing at AFI. I'll probably move to LA in September whether or not I'm accepted.
So the second week of my vacation was pretty stressful - the actual decision to apply to AFI came around Tuesday afternoon, and New Year's plans, packing, and flying back to Japan made the application process pretty stressful - the application had to be postmarked January 6 (which it was!)
I had a great time seeing Claire and her boyfriend, Ben, and Annika and her friend Damien. Monday night Claire, Ben and Annika came over and we stayed up really late catching up (it had been a year since I've seen Claire, and years since Claire and Annika have seen each other). Tuesday night we went to Connor O'Neil's, an Irish pub in Ann Arbor, for dinner/party, where a few other people joined us.
New Year's day, my friends had spent the night again so we spent the morning lounging and talking, then I worked on my application while my family watched football. We also had a nice traditional-holiday type dinner, as kind of a special treat since I was returning to Japan.
Saturday night, as I pulled into Toyama, it started snowing. It continued snowing all day Sunday (50 centimeters) and a little through Monday. Insane amounts of snow, and totally gorgeous. It is melting fast, though, because it's well above freezing, the sun is shining, and warm water is continuously squirting from the roads and sidewalks.
So in order to venture out on Sunday, I stopped at APA and bought some rubber boots (Victoria calls them Wellington's, or "Wellies" affectionately - is this a British word?). They are like moon boots - knee high, and a lovely grey and blue. The style is to tuck the pants in, so they don't get wet or dirty. These boots were great, the snow was at least knee-high, nothing was plowed (I haven't seen snowplows here at all!), and my feet stayed dry.
Today was the school-opening ceremony, where the entire school sat silently in the gym to listen to the principal ramble for about 45 minutes about nothing. You might say "Sarah, he might have been saying something important - you just can't understand him!"
But no. I've had my suspicions confirmed today by one of the English teachers that he is a total moron (of course my teacher didn't say this). Every time he opens his mouth, he seems to stumble through a longer-than-necessary monologue... I first noticed this when he introduced me to give my speech at the first day of school - I had no idea how he could be talking about me for nearly 10 minutes when he'd never spoken to me -- of course he did have my JET application for notes. Then, at one of the schools firedrills he talked for about a half hour.
Today I asked my teacher what he says for so long. She said that he never prepares for his speeches, so he usually just gets up and talks. I asked her for specifically the kinds of things he says, and she said "I don't pay attention. I remember him saying something to the students about not being noisy, because he doesn't like it when it's noisy."
Today at the staff meeting he went into an opening speech, and literally half of the teachers were _sleeping_. The system of hierarchy and respect here is pretty strange... I'm sure this man does something (and this middle school has a great academic reputation), but he spends much of his time in his office watching television, smoking, and eating. He rarely comes to school early or stays late, and he barely speaks to the other teachers. When he tells one of my English teacher he's concerned for my safety, and to look after me (after that strange man in my apartment incident), I'm prompted to go bow to him and thank him for acknowledging my existence.
This man entertains me very much, as you can tell. It's just very interesting that he's obviously in a fairly powerful, prestigous position in the Japanese educational system (or at least he thinks so) and his social skills are so awkward. He actually fell asleep at the enkai, or teacher's dinner party.
Changing the subject, I feel my Japanese has really slipped. I'll need to study quite a bit to get back to conversaitional around the office -- my teacher was asking me about my vacation and I had a rough time telling her the basics of what I did, as in I couldn't think of the word for 'weekend'... bad, sarah, bad.
goodbye for now.
sarah
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