I did make it home for the holidays, which was quite nice. Unfortunately, I was home at the same time that a rather nasty stomach bug was going around. Christmas just isn't the same when people aren't feeling all too well. I lucked out and didn't get it while I was there, but like I mentioned before it wasn't long before I caught something rather nasty. Luckily, there wasn't any puking or nasty bodily functions associated with what I had, but it did feel like there was a softball wedged inside my nasal cavity. I felt like I wanted to rip it out like in that scene from "Total Recall" where Arnie pulls out the homing beacon from his head. Not being able to breathe is a horrible feeling, add onto that a constant flow of mucus, a throat that hurts so badly that it hurts to even drink, and make that last for a week. That's basically how I felt. I think that I would have rather had a fever then not be able to breathe.
Okay, so I went off on a bit of tangent and lost my train of thought. That happens to me as people can attest to. Back to Christmas. I was home for almost three weeks. It was possibly the most relaxing time I've had since I left for Japan. Granted my time in Japan is relaxing, but it's just different being home eating home cooked food. Eating good broccoli. By the way, I've discovered that the quality of broccoli in Japan is just horrible. I think that they pick it before it's even had a chance to fully grow. Enough of food, on to something else.
After coming back from my trip home I met up with Toshi. He was planning a trip to Whistler in Canada for some snowboarding which brought us to the rash conclusion of doing something rather spontaneous. Spontaneity? Me? I know it sounds strange, but I had wanted to try snowboarding for a while. Well, since I had the day off that Monday, we decided to take a trip to Nagano. More on the Whistler thing later. The drive up there was rather dull. Ever since reading "Dogs and Demons" by Alex Kerr I've been taking a closer look at the scenery in Japan among other things. His book really opened up my eyes to many things that I now realize I looked at with some pretty heavy blinders. As we were driving, all I could see were concrete rivers and telephone wires, a rather major theme throughout his book. All the supposed beauty of Japan really isn't all that beautiful. Anybody that considers themselves to "know" stuff about Japan should really read this book to shatter some of the illusions that they have. Don't get me wrong, I still like Japan a lot, but not in nearly the same way as I once did. I now value the past of Japan even more, and when you find something historic here it makes it all the more special because it really is disappearing at an alarming rate. Along with all the natural waterways. Wow, I guess the book really did have an impact on me.
As for snowboarding, it was immensely fun. It ripped up my knees to levels I have never known, but I definitely would like to keep snowboarding. We went to Sugadaira Kogen in Nagano Prefecture (not Nagano the city) and I must say that it was quite nice. It wasn't nice because the snow quality was great, or there were a lot of trails. It was nice because there was hardly anybody there. There's nothing like being able to go down a slope and not be bothered with people getting irritated with you falling down every three seconds. I'm not exaggerating when I say I fell down every three seconds either. It took me over thirty minutes to learn how to stand up properly. Standing up on skis is definitely much easier. By lunch time I had figured out how to stop for the most part, turning was definitely a challenge. I could go down the hill one way and stop, but I couldn't stop going in the opposite direction. It was super frustrating, but I bet it would have helped if I had a lesson. I'm actually kind of proud that I was able to do as much as I did without a lesson, and minimal coaching from Toshi.
I switched to skis for the second half of the day because I thought I knew how to ski. How wrong I was. The last time I had been skiing was so long ago that I had forgotten all that I learned then. For me, skiing was not like riding a bike. I crashed so many times that I seriously considered not moving from the spot I crashed. I got so fed up with trying to put the skis on after I crashed that I started yelling at the skis as if they were listening to me. Typical Josh psychosis. The last crash was the one that really pushed me over the edge. It was a rather spectacular crash if I must say so. It ended with me in the woods in about 2 feet of snow with branches poking me in the ribs. It took me nearly fifteen minutes just to stand up. So I've come to the conclusion that I can snowboard better than I can ski after only doing it for 2 hours. I guess I know what I'll be renting the next time I go on a ski/snowboarding trip.
As for the Whistler trip. Toshi invited me along after our jaunt to Nagano, and I really wanted to go. This was all before I got sick though. There's nothing like missing a week of work to spoil plans for a trip. So unfortunately I'm not going to Whistler. I would like to go snowboarding again this winter, but only if it's a reasonable weekend deal.
My social life is still quite antisocial. I've wasted so many opportunities to do stuff, but in many ways I don't care. I think the fact that most socializing around revolves around drinking has something to do with it. Since that's not really appealing to me, it's no wonder why I've been doing a lot less. I've just gotten sick of the whole alcohol culture here. It's so absurd in so many ways that I just choose to avoid a lot of places I used to go to. I don't see a lot of the people I used to so that's the biggest downside to it, but I feel much better physically.
I think that I'll cut this entry here. Since I'm at Minami this month, I'll probably have quite a bit of time to write another entry. If I didn't get around to anything this time, I'll try and get to it next time. Until then...
The week had started out as normally as it could have, but by the time the weekend rolled around I think I had kidded myself about her chances of surviving. I was definitely in a state of denial looking back and I truly believed that she would pull through. I had thought that I would be able to see her at Christmas again. That last weekend of June had started pretty well, or so I thought. I had lunch with a potential language exchange partner that genuinely seemed interested in improving her English and she turned out to be a very nice person in general. I had a day off on Monday because I didn't feel like working one day at Minami only to go to Seiga on Tuesday, and school on Tuesday went fairly well. I actually had classes, which was quite surprising. Then I got the email from Ben telling me to call my mother. There was an immediate sinking feeling in my stomach because there could have only been one reason for the rather cryptic email. He didn't have to say that Nan passed away, it was just kind of understood. There wasn't anything I could that day since I had to speak to my supervisor before I could go through with any departure arrangements. Wednesday was perhaps one of the worst days because I knew I had to find a ticket and make all the arrangements to get back. I don't think that I've ever felt more drained after one day than I did on that Wednesday.
The next few days were like a blur. I had to get all my stuff together on Thursday and make all the other necessary preparations before leaving. My flight took off on Friday and I was back in the States on Friday earlier than when I had left. Time travel is usually interesting but it wasn't that interesting this time. Once again Northwest was the wrong airline to take. My control panel wasn't working again. In the two times I've taken NW back to the States I've had problems with the control panel twice. Not a good percentage. So it definitely wasn't a very happy 4th of July weekend for my family. The funeral was on that Saturday, but before the service my family took a drive to the funeral home. I wasn't very sure about seeing Nan before they closed the casket, but I eventually decided that I needed to see her for there to be some closure for me. I still couldn't grasp the idea that the little spitfire that was my grandmother wasn't with us anymore. Seeing her finally pushed the idea into my head that she was gone. She was actually the first person I have ever seen like that. When my Aunt Margaret had passed away I was too freaked out to see her, and when my grandfather had passed away we saw him a few hours after he had died. It was a very different feeling with my grandfather because I was also able to see him the day before and I was able to prepare myself a bit better. It's a very odd feeling to describe looking at somebody in a funeral parlor. It really looked like she was sleeping and I was half expecting her to wake up at any moment. Needless to say, I knew it wasn't going to happen but the feeling of the possibility was there.
It was good to be around family that week since I had been helpless to do anything the week before her death. Living half way around the world while something like that happens is very hard and I wish I could have been home. Japan was the last place that I wanted to be. I'd like to thank all my friends in Japan and the States that offered their support to me. It was definitely appreciated more than you guys will ever know.
Well, I'm back in Shiraoka now. The temperature has been unseasonably cool, but I'm far from complaining about that. School finished up last week so the routine of going to the BoE has started once again. Simon, Kevyn, Claire and Poy are all making their preparations to head back home, and Taoe and I are waiting for the newbies to arrive next week. I'm not sure how this last year is going to go, but I hope that I won't go totally insane by the same time next year.
Well, that's it for now until I have something interesting to talk about. I just hope it will take less than 5 months next time or at the very least some happy news.
Looking at this you might be saying, "How in the world did he get that rather nasty looking bruise?" Well,
thanks to one of the guys at kendo a few weeks ago I was the recipient of this lovely bruise (that's not a picture of the
bruise at it's peek either). That bruise is the result of being hit, not once, but twice in almost the exact same spot. Did
it hurt? You bet it did. I had to roll the sleeve of my kendo gi back so that it didn't rub up against the bruise. About
a week later the color had shifted from that slightly purple color to a lovely yellow one. I think getting whacked in the
head so much from kendo has killed so many brain cells that I no longer have the common sense to just stop going. Oh well,
c'est la vie. Moving on.
The past 3 weeks have been fairly hectic with the new AET's arriving, and I've gotten to the point where I'm really looking forward to a few days off coming up next week. Since Taoe was so kind to take off on vacation I was left alone to show the newbies around. I have now come to appreciate how much energy Kevyn must have spent showing us around those first few days. I guess I could say that I've gotten something good out of this, which I have, but I'm absolutely dead tired at this point. I haven't had to do speech contest that much this year, but Yamaguchi had "volunteered" me for several things.
Firstly, I had to go a seminar for English teachers of 5 years. That was interesting in the respect that I found out how desirable it is to work in Shiraoka. At least from a Japanese teachers point of view. I also found out that the kids in Shiraoka are far better behaved than kids in a town next to us. The seminar itself was fairly useless for me, seeing as how I was brought there in the role of English monkey. I didn't have to prepare anything, which was nice, but the activities that I did with two different teachers were essentially the same. Both were activities about asking and giving directions. I have done this activity so many times I am absolutely fed up with it. That's not too great seeing as how I still have a year to go on my contract. The teachers were all very amiable and it was nice to actually speak with teachers that wanted to have a conversation besides, "How are you today? I'm fine."
The following week, I had to do a demonstration lesson with one of the teachers from school. I'm not too fond of doing demonstration lessons so it's quite obvious to say that I did it very grudgingly. That went fairly well surprisingly. However, like the seminar the week before it was pointless for me to be there. Again, I had no input into how the lesson would go. The funny thing is, after the demo had finished there was a question and answer session. Since I'm too kind hearted to completely screw up someone's career, I had to lie to the other teachers there about how much input I actually had for the demo. It was good to see that Japanese teachers are concerned about what the AET's they work with do, but they also seem to very tentative about asking us to stay around after school so there is time to talk. They all talked about being very busy and all, but none of them seemed to ask the AET's to stay a bit later so there is a chance to talk. I also found out that many other towns have their AET's stay at one school for more than one month. Oh, how I wish the BoE would change their policy so that I could actually get to know some of the kids. I guess that is wishful thinking though.
The last bit of "volunteer" work that I had to do was an English conversation class at one of the elementary schools. I hate doing English conversation classes and this one only reinforced my attitude towards that. The class was an absolute failure. I do chalk most of it up to me not wanting to do the class along with not really knowing what they wanted me to do. The teachers were nice enough, and I spent most of my time speaking in Japanese, but I kind of wish that I didn't have to do it. I think the teachers would have been better off if they had someone there that actually wanted to teach the class.
So that brings us to the present. I'm down to my last day and a half at the BoE, and have discovered that, once again, Mr. Yamaguchi has messed up the school schedule. He did it last year, and surprise (not really) he mucked it up again this year. Once again I have an 8 month break between visiting Shinozu JHS. I really have to talk to him about it, but then again he'll probably just do what he did last year and tell me that he can't change the schedule even though he changed it from the previous year. So hopefully, if I get Yamaguchi to see the illogic of his schedule I'll have a quick blurb on the main page. If not there may be another rant in the not too distant future. I guess you'll just have to wait and see.
What could I possibly mean? Well, I'll try and give you an example that will bring a smile to your face instead of making me sound like a complete and total jerk. Since I was starting my final contract year at Shinozu JHS I got to work with the "brighter" kids in Shiraoka. While it's nice to work with kids that can actually understand what you say, they still aren't that great at interacting and communicating with me. The third years from last year were an anomaly, I guess. The second year girl who was taking part in the contest this year wrote her speech about global warming and the effect it has on animals, in particular the sea turtle. This speech has some great lines in it, and for the most part I didn't write them. However, the best thing about this speech has got to be the title, "The Sorrow of Turtles." I had no part in making this up, which makes it so much cooler. One title that I did write in a joking manner was called, "I want to be like Carl." I said that it was only a temporary title and that it should be changed, but they actually kept the freaking thing! I thought the teachers had more sense than that. I guess they proved me wrong. For some reason when I asked the kids what title they wanted, only the kids at Shinozu were able to come up with anything decent. One girl came up with something in Japanese that the other teachers and I translated into "The Sweetness of Success." The Japanese was something along the lines of "The Crystalization of Success" but since nobody says that in English I suggested that we use "sweetness" instead. That girl went on to win the speech contest, which pleased me quite a lot.
It also seemed that there were quite a few first year JET's in the area, mostly because you could tell the people had no idea how to coach the kids. The "TH" sound is a very teachable sound and I always make sure that all the kids I work with for speech contest can do it. I heard more kids say "zis" and "zat" this year than ever before. As always, there were kids that stood at the podium like statues, but one of the new guys in Shiraoka decided to coach the kids at Shiraoka JHS as if they were college lecturers or evangelists. It was highly amusing to see the three girls pacing back and forth in the same manner. I guess I should have warned Jeff that unnatural gestures usually don't score well with the judges. There also wasn't a ringer this year, unlike in years past when there was always one kid that had perfect pronunciation and intonation. The three girls I coached were decent enough, but nowhere near the level of the winners the past two years. I also came across a speech that was nearly identical to a speech that Simon and I wrote last year for a girl up at Seiga JHS. Needless to say, I was mighty pissed off when I saw this. These speech were supposed to be the students own work, and I have a feeling that a teacher used this speech in order for their student to place in the top 4. I can't remember if they placed or not though.
Aside from that problem, the girls I helped from Shinozu did quite well. As I mentioned earlier, one third year girl won and the other third year girl placed 5th. There was another third year girl from Seiga who placed 4th, so there were two kids from Shiraoka that moved on to the next round. Unfortunately, the "Sorrow of Turtles" girl didn't make it into the top 8. Andrew (the other first year JET in Shiraoka) mentioned that the title sounded like a Prince song, and I can see what he means. But hey, I didn't make the title.
Just to wrap the speech contest story up, neither student advanced to the third round. I'm sure that Andrew and Taoe are happy that they don't have to keep coaching the kids, but it would have been nice to see the two girls move on. Of course, I'm only saying that because I don't have to go to either school anytime soon.
Changing speeds a little bit here, it seems quite possible that I will be taking part in my first kendo tournament next month. Taoe was informed that, at the very least, she should take part. Since I didn't go to kendo last Saturday I have no way of knowing if I'm supposed to be giving it a shot as well. I guess that I'll have to ask Mr. Inoue about it. While it's kind of exciting that there is the possibility of taking part in a tournament, my leg has been bothering me a lot as of late which makes doing kendo quite painful. I may only be 25 years old, but it feels like my legs are that of an 80 year old. I really enjoy doing kendo, but it's a killer on the legs.
I've also fallen into the trap of buying a new cell phone. My old one was getting kind of buggy, and the newest model of my phone had just been released, so I decided to bite the bullet and upgrade. The new phone is quite cool. It has not one but two camera's in it, it can also take up to a 15 sec video clip, comes with a 16 MB Mini SD card, a secondary screen on the front of the phone, an enhanced inner screen (with updated animated icons), and it can open with the touch of a single button. I do love me my toys.
I'd also like to mention how happy I am to be out of Shiraoka-chu. In the four weeks that I was there I felt ill a good majority of the time. I'm pretty sure it stems from the fact that most of the male teachers at that school smoke and the smell of cigarettes fills the staff room, even though they don't smoke inside. Granted, standing right outside the room and smoking doesn't make much of a difference. I shouldn't be too surprised though, this is the country that just had a court case that said there was no link between cancer and smoking. I don't like coughing up greenish-brown phlegm, so I can't stress how pleased I am to be away from that school now.
On a different note, I did the unimaginable and paid around $15 to see a movie this weekend. I'm not too sad about spending that much on Kill Bill though. I thought it was really fun to watch a movie that was bascially a tribute to film makers of the past. I can see why a lot of people might complain about this movie not being enough like Tarantino's other movies, but I don't really care what those people say. It was just a really fun movie to watch (that's the second time I said it). Apparently, the version released in Asia is supposed to be a little different so I guess I'll have to talk with some people back home to find out what was altered. One thing I'll compliment Japanese movies theaters on is being very comfortable. The theater is stadium seating so you don't have anybody's fat head blocking the way (it happens to me all too often in the States), and you don't hear Japanese people talking to each other throughout the picture. I can't begin to tell you how pleasant it was to just sit and watch a movie without some jerk yelling at the screen or laughing like a hyena at the stupidest jokes. Kill Bill had quite a bit of dialogue in Japanese so there were no English subtitles for those scenes. Luckily, what they were talking about wasn't too hard to understand so I got through it without too much trouble.
So to sum things up, no kendo tournament because I hurt myself. Nasty cold that won't go away. Saw a decent movie for once. Lastly, moved on to a school where the teachers don't smoke near the teacher's room. 2 out of 4 isn't bad.
The worst part about leaving on trips is always having to wake up at the crack of dawn to try and beat traffic, but in Japan that theory never works. We were on the road by about 6:15 a.m. but that didn't stop us from being stuck in traffic for what seemed like eternity. We passed the time joking around and complaining about Toshi's taste in music, but it was the fact that we had a sun roof and digital cameras to play with that made the time pass by a little less painfully. There were various pictures of the traffic and the extremely rare tree lined street in Tokyo (you can see one of the pics over at Andrew's site), but I think it was the fact that we were giddy from lack of sleep that made things entertaining. Once we got out of Tokyo the scenery changed dramatically, which is always nice, and we were soon driving into the mountains. We wound our way around a lake that had "Japan's Worst Ramen Shop" but unfortunately we didn't stop so I could take a picture. It kind of reminded me of the family stops at South of the Border during our trips down to South Carolina way back when.
By the time we arrived at Fuji-Goko (the Five Lakes of Fuji area) it was around 3 in the afternoon, which was 5 hours later than had been planned. We were able to make it to one of the view points that, if on a clear day, would have offered a spectacular shot of Mt. Fuji and the surrounding area. However, it was quit hazy which made seeing the mountain rather difficult. You could see the outline of it, but it wasn't nearly as clear as it had been on my first trip there nearly 2 years ago. The hike up to the vantage point was quite nice and it started making me a bit homesick for CT. Seeing all the yellow and red leaves was quite nice, but I surely wasn't the best time to be there.
Later that night we went to a festival at Kawaguchi Lake that had a bunch of red maples all lit up. I tried taking a picture using my digital camera, which came out okay I suppose, but I'm not so great with night time photography. I would have liked to have more, but none of the pictures turned out the way I had hoped. Oh well, c'est la vie.
The next day would reveal how out of shape I really am, but the pain was worth it. We had another hike planned for the next morning and we started the climb without much problem. After 20 minutes or so of climbing up some steep banks my legs began to feel the pain, and we hadn't even gotten to the worst part yet. The weather had also taken a turn for the worse and clouds had settled in around us. It was kind of cool to be walking through the clouds and such, but I was so hot from climbing that I didn't notice how cool and damp it was. When we got to the top we couldn't see anything but white all around us. Seeing as how we were close to 4400 feet up in the air it was quite a bit cooler than when we started, but we weren't nearly high enough to see over the clouds. I had a sense of accomplishment from climbing up that high, after all the tallest "mountain" in CT isn't even 1000 ft high. My energy seemed to spring back in full force once I was at the top, but coming back down was a lot more fun than going up and I ran down a good portion of it. It brought back a lot of memories of running through the woods in back of my house, just a bit longer and steeper.
After that hike, we headed towards some of the caves that spot the area around Mt. Fuji and it was nice to go to some of the more touristy places that the area has to offer. The first cave was the "Wind Cave" which was quite short, but cool (as in 30 degrees cool). It didn't really have too much to offer aside from a little alcove that had a silver color to it when you shine light on it. We also went to the "Ice Cave" which offered the confrontation with an old Japanese guy that muttered "gaijin da (look a foreigner)" under his breath, which happened to reek of booze. I've been here long enough to come to expect that everywhere I go, but it still annoys me when I hear it. The cave itself was quite fun to climb through because it was so narrow that you have to either crawl on your knees or walk in a squatting position. Luckily, I can waddle along like a baseball catcher so it wasn't much of a problem for me, Andrew on the other hand almost fell over from crouching down so low. While the caves were kind of cool, they don't come close to the caves in the Shenandoah (sp) area of Virginia. I would really love to go back there now and take a look around. I don't think that I really appreciated it back when I was a lot younger.
After the caves we headed over towards the 8 pools of Oishino (I think that's what it was). These are 8 springs that are supposed to come from the water that melts on Fuji and what not. The pools were very clear and there was a spot where you could drink as much of it as you wanted. It also had a sign basically daring people to try and stick their hands in the water for 30 seconds. I couldn't resist, so I stuck my hands in the water. I don't know what the big deal is supposed to be, it was basically like sticking your hands in a bowl of cold water. Maybe Japanese people have a lower threshold for the cold than I do, but I think that anybody that has had to shovel snow for an hour or so wouldn't have any problem with keeping their hands in the water for 30 seconds.
One of the more interesting areas was a garden that was open to the public, but it wasn't just any public garden. It was actually somebody's house. I thought that it was very surprising, but also very pleasant, to know that somebody would open up their home like that and let anybody walk in to take pictures. I took a couple of pictures there that were the kind that would have a gong ring in the background when you show them. That was the last place that we stopped at and we headed back to Saitama after that. The drive back was another agonizing 6 hour drive in traffic, but this time of season is always busy. It kind of reminds me of traffic jams leading up to the Whitestone Bridge during Thanksgiving time before they installed E-Z Pass. Ah memories.
So this year I thought that I would try to get out of it using "legal channels" i.e. talking to my supervisor and asking him to allow me to go to school instead. Now, wouldn't you think that the people that hired me to teach in their schools would actually be enthusiastic to hear that I would rather be at school than at some conference that I told them, quite clearly, was a waste of my time? Apparently not. Instead of taking any kind of initiative on his own, the only thing Mr. Yamaguchi (whom I'll refer to as twit henceforth) did was read the pieces of paper that I had been given and circled the line that said, "Attendance is compulsory." I guess I should explain one thing before I go further with my rant. My contract is with the municipal Board of Education (in other words, I am NOT an employee of the Prefecture). The terms that I signed the contract under were that the municipal BoE is my employer, NOT the Prefecture. Therefore all decisions related to my job go through the municipal BoE and NOT the Prefecture BoE. So by terms of that agreement, it should not be "compulsory" for me to do anything the Prefecture BoE asks me to do, right? Wrong. We AET's have been told time and time again that neither CLAIR nor the JET Programme are our employers and that they only act as a liaison of sorts to place people throughout Japan. So you'd think that a decision such as saying whether I should go to the MYC would be at the disgression of my BoE. I found out otherwise.
When I saw that twit had only circled and underlined the line in question I asked him about it. He then proceeded to get all humpty about it and kept saying that I should take it up with the Prefecture BoE. I then proceeded to ask him "why?" and the only answer he could manage was, "talk to the Prefecture BoE." I thought that a paltry decision like this could easily have been taken care of him. Would you rather me go to a conference I didn't want to go to, or would you rather me do what you hired me to do? I kept prodding twit to see if he could give me a straight answer but all he did was deflect the question or ignore it. So I got fed up and said quite clearly, "Well then, I'm just not going to go." I think I got through to him a little because it seemed like he was about to start screaming at me. Unfortunately the conflict was avoided much to my chagrin. I'd been looking for a way to tell him off ever since he volunteered me to do various things this summer without asking me once. *Twit has never really been good at his job and this year seems to be particularly bad (just go to Andrew's page to read about some of the things twit didn't take care of. Cleaning the apartment before Andrew moved in and such). After that meeting the wheels starting turning in my head. How can I avoid this conference? JET's in the past had skipped out on the MYC without any repercussions I eventually came to the conclusion that the only way to make it look like I went was to sign in during the morning check-in and head home after that. Now the adventure begins.
The first day of the MYC was last Wednesday and I did indeed catch the 9:11 train to get into Omiya for the check-in. I signed in, told the other Shiraoka AET's I was going home, and beat a hasty retreat out of the front door. I've been here long enough to feel absolutely no guilt about missing one of these conferences. It's always the same thing and I can guarantee I would have been bored out of my mind. I got back home around 10:30 perhaps and sat down to enjoy a lazy day of doing nothing (there's a good chance that would have happened at school too). Every thing was going along as planned, but at 3:30 or so there was call on my phone. Once the machine picked up I waited for about 5 seconds and then heard twits voice telling me to call him back as soon as possible because the Prefecture BoE contacted him about me missing the afternoon session. I decided to wait a little bit and then I called him back with the excuse that I got violently ill after lunch and went to the doctor, thus missing the afternoon session. He seemed to buy that, but I was waiting for the next time I had to go into the BoE for some kind of confrontation. I later found out that they were doing checks in only some of the afternoon groups and that I happened to be one of the unlucky ones (go figure). So I went to school the next day and near the end of the day I received a fax from twit that was basically saying that if I got sick I should contact somebody in charge and tell them. So I thought that it would probably be a good idea to actually go to the second day of the MYC even though I knew it was going to be useless. Surprise, surprise, I was right. Another waste of a day. On the bright side, twit didn't call to check up on me.
The weekend went by fairly uneventfully and it was back the hum-drum school on Monday. I had been anticipating the conflict with twit at the afternoon meeting all day, but when the time for the meeting came I was met with major disappointment. Nothing. Nada. Zip. Zilch. I was waiting for the explosion that never came. I have a feeling that if I had skipped the second day of the MYC all I would have gotten was a slap on the wrist. Oh well, I guess things had been stirring in my head so much that I really needed some kind of major event to happen, or I needed one more thing that was the straw that broke the camel's back. It didn't happen so I'm still plodding along in the muck of English language education that is Japan. Was a third year really such a good idea? Probably not, but hindsight is always 20/20.
On the plus side, I've moved on to Seiga, so at the very least I'm at a school where the teachers actually let me get away with breaking from a script. I'm back to actually making activities and having classes, which is a major switch up from Shirachu and Minami. I barely had any classes at either school, and only made activities for classes with one teacher at Minami and none at Shirachu. So getting back to doing some actual work has been rather strange as of late. I have to get back into the swing of things so to speak. On the down side of that, the third years at Seiga have had all the life sucked out of them from their previous teacher that we called Captain Slacker. I tried doing an activity that dealt with giving directions in NYC. I thought this wouldn't be too bad because the city is laid out in a grid pattern (for the most part), and all the students had a copy of a NYC map. About 3 kids were able to get to their destinations, but the rest of the kids were completely lost. It's very frustrating that after almost 3 years of studying English these kids can't follow simple directions. On the other hand, the second years at Seiga seem to have surpasses the third years in almost all areas of English. Just shows that the teacher really does make a big difference in how the students approach the material.
With less than a week left to go I'm looking forward to getting back to CT even for a short time. I really love the holidays at home, but this year will be quite different now that Nan has passed away. We could always expect the pot to be stirred on Christmas morning when she and Dad would start the verbal battles. I guess I'll just have to give him a double dose this year. No more large Cadbury bars in the stockings either I guess. It will be good to be home for a more or less normal visit, and I'll be able to recharge my batteries to help me get through the final 7 months of my contract. It's really sad that I've started my countdown this early...
I've also been correcting some students attempts at translating/making a fairly tale "picture book" here. Some of the second year kids did very well with it, but it was quite obvious who the kids that had no interest were. I'm dreading what the third years versions will look like. There is no more kendo as well, which is probably a good thing since I had my foot stompped on by one of my students. I now have a wonderfully purple toe nail, but unlike the other kendo bruise I won't take a picture of this one. I guess that will be all for this year seeing as how I don't expect anything superbly interesting to happen before I leave.
One more week until home cooked food.........hmmm....doughnuts.....