Not Nearly as Interesting as Last March - March 2012

The past seven months have been a continuous déjà vu for me.  Novel experiences from my first year in Japan have, on the reliving, become familiar, better, or less interesting.  Every event in the school calendar is greeted with recognition: Ah!  It’s School Festival time again!  Can I attend any of the sporting events this time?  How am I going to spend this Christmas?  What?  You mean I have to do something for the skills-development conference this year?  So, of course, as we progress through the month of March I keep looking back to the previous one for cues on what to expect.  And about half-way through the month the system breaks down as I try to remember the last two weeks of the school year.

That’s funny, I think.  What happened at graduation last year?  Why can’t I remember the end-of-year party?  And what did I do for the last two weeks of class?  And then it comes back to me: Rice balls.  Sleeping on the floor.  Quiet desperation.  Earthquake.

My brain, seduced by the routine, finds itself anticipating disaster: looking forward to power-outages and emergency rations with the same inevitability as staff shuffles and spring break.  I wonder how my co-workers can avoid this trap, but then this is only my second year in Japan; everyone else is used to routines that don’t involve earthquakes.  The Friday before graduation I half expected an earthquake to happen, but 3:00 came and went and the ground stayed put.  And so I had yet another first-time experience in Japan: the experience of a normal March.

We had a lot of parties this March.  There was one for the “fourth year” teachers that was held at a miso-themed restaurant.  It made me appreciate how much I’ve grown to like miso during my time here, and how much I’m going to miss it.  We had another one the night of the graduation ceremony, and my tea lady organised one for some of her teacher friends.  We had karaoke again after that one.  I tried my vocal chords at “Ue o Muite Arukou” (a famous Japanese song known inexplicably to the English-speaking world as “Sukiyaki”), and freaked everybody out by screaming in the middle of the second verse of “Comfortably Numb” (What???  It was right there in the lyrics!!!)

I also met up a couple of times with the Australian ALT who’d been here last year.  She came back to Sendai to visit friends and participate in the earthquake anniversary observances.  Surprisingly, these weren’t nearly as big a deal in Sendai as I would have expected.  Perhaps it’s partly because I don’t speak the language, but it didn’t seem to me that the people around me were planning on doing nearly as much commemorating as one would have expected.  When I asked my co-workers they talked about staying home or maybe doing some shopping.  It seemed odd to me that people from Japan – i.e. those I’d expected to take the earthquake anniversary most seriously – seemed least interested in observing it.  Perhaps Japanese people just deal with things differently from Americans.

There were commemorative events happening, however, and I was sure to go to them.  On Sunday, March 11, a memorial service was held at the International Center.  It was attended by the mayor, the prime minister (the new one, not the one who’d been in office when the disaster happened), the emperor, and his wife.  It was all in Japanese, of course, which made me feel a bit excluded; still, I was glad to be there, and when we observed the moment of silence, I hoped that I was engaged in a process of collective grieving that transcended language and nationality.

Students in schools around Sendai made banners with messages of encouragement on them.  After the memorial service we went for a walk in the arcade and looked at them.  One of the ALTs who’d left last year also published an essay about the experience.

There was also an event the weekend before the anniversary.  The Tohoku Kibō no Saiten (Celebration of Hope) was a worship event featuring gospel artists from different countries and American evangelist Franklin Graham.  The event ran for three days, but I only made it to one of them.  I enjoyed some of the music.  The line-up included Tsutomu Aragaki, whom I knew of through my second-year textbook.  I quite enjoyed his singing, as well as Alfie Silas, the Tommy Cooms band, and 3rd Wave, a Korean group who sang in English and actually didn’t butcher the language!

I was less impressed with the sermon.  I’d heard Franklin Graham’s father Billy Graham speak in Ottawa back when I was in high school.  I seem to remember that I liked him at the time, though I was much younger and the situation was very different.  At any rate, Franklin Graham’s sermon was not what I was expecting.  It wasn’t subtle, or sensitive, or even particularly interesting.  It was one long alter call, relying heavily on repetition and shouting, and leaving very little room for genuine persuasion or argument.  The earthquake itself, supposedly the reason for the event, only came up once in the sermon – when he warned that anyone who left the stadium unsaved because of timidity or reluctance could have their lives snuffed out as quickly as the tsunami victims did, and lose their chance at salvation.  I was reminded inescapably of the “Death Comes Unexpectedly!!!” sermon in Pollyanna, and expected it to be equally effective.  For a long time it looked like no one was going to respond to the call, but eventually people started coming forward in a trickle, and then a rush.  Which I guess was a good thing, otherwise Mr Graham would have looked pretty silly.  For my part, I went away feeling disappointed and not a little insulted.

I decided to eat normally for Lent this year, instead forgoing entertainment for seven weeks.  I’ve given up some of my favourite web sites, which have of late been making too many demands on my time, as well as all movie and music rentals, purchases, and downloads.  Not books, though!  I thought it would be a big sacrifice, but I’m actually coping pretty well, and pleased that I now have more time for other things.

I didn’t do anything special with my graduating students.  One of the third-year classes, my favourite, gave me a “thank you” card, which was unexpected and sweet.  The five students who had written replies to the Canadian children I gifted with the Canadians’ original letters.  The rest I’ll probably have to leave with my supervisor when I go.  One of the girls actually got a reply from Canada!  I didn’t get a chance to see it, but it’s nice to know that some meaningful communication was able to happen between children on opposite sides of the world.

The graduation was much as I remembered, except that this year it ran as scheduled.  Also, the female teachers of the graduating classes all showed up wearing kimonos!  This is apparently an annual tradition, but it was a shock to me, as they’d forgone the practice at the austerity ceremony.

The end of the school year has brought one more change: staff shuffles.  These were announced on the last day of school before spring break.  There are actually very few teachers leaving my school this year.  We’re losing our principal, but all of the English teachers are staying.  I knew a lot of that already, as teachers are told in advance whether they’ll be changing schools.  But there’s one group of people who aren’t told in advance, who have to wait for the very end of the year to learn where they will be in April: the support staff.  And as it turned out my accountant was staying, my nurse was staying, but my favourite person on the entire staff was leaving us.  That’s right: my tea lady.  My wonderful wonderful tea lady, who’s been my mother and aunt and big sister, my friend and tour-guide and teacher for as long as I’ve been in Japan.  I’m devastated.  I can’t imagine what the school’s going to be like without her.  True, we’ll probably keep in touch; true, I’ll have lot’s of chances to see her again.  But it won’t be the same.

I’m particularly annoyed that she’s being transferred to an elementary school.  At a junior high school she’d at least have an ALT, but at an elementary school the best she can hope for is one to visit once a week.  If she was getting a new ALT at least I could be philosophical about it and comfort myself with the knowledge that someone else could benefit from knowing her.  In my opinion, anyone so friendly, so helpful, and so skilled in the art of gaijin-go* is really wasted on a school with no foreigners.  Unfortunately, there’s nothing at all I can do about it.

In the news this month, Mexico had an earthquake.  This caused me some brief concern, as my sister is currently visiting the country, but she’s fine.  The Canadian government is enacting new “tough on crime” legislation.  The legislation involves things like tougher mandatory minimums for some crimes.  I’ve been listening to some of the debate around it, and it sounds like it has the same problem as a lot of similar legislation: it isn’t so much “tough on crime” as “tough on criminals”.  Which seems like a pretty poor substitute, if you ask me.  Dear Mr Harper, if I am ever the victim of a crime I expect it might give me a modicum of comfort to know that the perpetrator will serve ten years rather than five, but you know what I would find a thousand times more comforting?  Not being the victim of a crime in the first place!!!  With that in mind, how about you take the money you want to spend incarcerating prisoners for longer, and instead spend it on measures to reduce crime?  It may not sound as exciting, but I think we’ll all be happier in the long run!

Books I’ve read this month:

Grave Peril by Jim Butcher – I had the same problems with the third “Dresden Files” book as I did with the second.  I like Michael, the new character we’re introduced to, and I enjoy the mix of urban fantasy, medieval mythology, and film noir themes.  But I wish Butcher would let up on the violence a bit!

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson – A pedestrian, run-of-the-mill crime thriller, notable mostly for being quite long and taking a good while to get interesting.  I liked the title character and wished the book included more of her, but despite being a putative central character, she actually receives surprisingly little page-time.  The novel’s original Swedish title, Men Who Hate Women, gives a much more accurate picture of what the novel is about.

* “Gaijin-go”: A term I made up meaning “foreigner language” or “the way a foreigner talks”.  Basically, Japanese simplified for non Japanese-speakers.

The Half-Way Point - February 2012

February is the beginning of my last six months in Japan.  I anticipate it being a stressful and busy time, similar to my first six months, as I transition from my time on the JET Programme to the next stage of my life.  It’s a good thing I stayed two years, and not just the one!  But now I’m half-way through my second year, which feels at once like a short and a long time.  On the one hand, I’m far closer to leaving Japan than to arriving, and I only have a few months left to experience the country.  But as things are currently shaping up, it looks like I’m still only half-way through my time abroad.  You see…

I’M GOING TO AUSTRALIA!!!

It actually only took me a few days to hear back from the Australian embassy with the news that my visa application had been accepted.  In the event, it seems that all talk about having to send in my passport to get the visa attached was bunk; Australia has embraced the computer age and is issuing its visas electronically.  Now I have to start making other preparations, such as picking a point of entry, booking a plane ticket, and perhaps looking for a job.  Since I know very little about Australia, I don’t have much preference for which city I go to, but I have an acquaintance in Brisbane and another in Melbourne, and I think it would be sensible to start in a place where I have at least one contact.  Looking at a map of Australia, I found that the two cities mark off the country’s comparatively urbanised south-eastern coastline, with Sydney pretty much smack in the middle.  At first I thought that would make travel between them fairly easy, rather like travelling between Ottawa and Toronto, or Sendai and Tokyo.  Then I remembered that Australia is a continent.  Ha!  I’ve been spoiled by living in a small country.  It turns out it’s more like the distance between Ottawa and Fredericton or Sendai and Osaka!  And that’s just between Sydney and one of the other two.  That means that wherever I go, I’m unlikely to be making any weekend trips to other cities, so I’d better pick somewhere nice.

How long I’m going to stay is still a matter of some uncertainty.  My visa will last for a year from the moment I enter the country, but whether I actually stay that long will depend on my ability to find work.  There is also a possibility of staying longer, since the visa can be renewed once, but at this point I don’t anticipate wanting to do that.  The most likely scenario, therefore, is that I’ll be in the country for a year, bringing my time away from home to a total of three years, or thirty-six months.  Eighteen down…

Apart from my weekend in Tokyo, the only excursion I made this month was to Zao in Yamagata.  I went there to see the Juhyo, which I had missed out on last year.  Juhyo, or “Snow Monsters”, are trees covered with snow and ice.  That doesn’t sound too special in and of itself, but apparently there are unique conditions on Zao’s ski slopes that cause the snow and ice to form in unusual shapes, creating the illusion of limbs and faces.  Think “snow-Ents”, and you’ll have a pretty good idea of the result.

It was my first time in Zao in the winter.  We got there in the early afternoon, and enjoyed a soak in the sulphurous hot-spring before venturing up the mountain.  Temperatures at the resort were about average for winter here: minus single digits.  I’d been warned, however, that temperatures on the slopes were very cold, and bundled up accordingly.  It’s a good think I did!  The temperature at the top of the mountain was apparently -15°C, but it felt more like -30.  I’d forgotten what a proper wind-chill was like.  We’re talking physically painful exposed-skin-will-freeze-within-two-minutes kind of cold!  I was dressed for it, but just barely, and I only stayed outside for a few minutes before running indoors again to thaw my face and defrost my fingers.

Actually, indoors proved to be a much better place to take pictures from, though the change in temperature was so dramatic that my camera lens fogged up and I had to hold it next to a heater for several minutes before it was clear again.  In the end I was able to get some good shots, though.  It's hard to say whether the monsters were really worth the time and expense that went into seeing them, but they were pretty unique, and did indeed look as spooky, monstrous, and goblin-like as one could hope.

The school year will be ending soon, and I’ve already paid my last visit of the year to one of my elementary schools.  I haven’t talked about elementary school this year, so I’m going to do so now.  This year has been marked by an increased emphasis on English education at the primary school level, especially in grades five and six.  That means that, whereas last year I divided up my visits between all the different grades, this year most of my time has been spent with the fifth- and sixth-year students, with only occasional visits to the lower grades.  I much prefer this new arrangement for a couple of reasons.  Firstly, visiting the same classes consistently has allowed me to get to know one group of students well, and develop rapport with them and their teachers.  It means that I’ve been working with a graduated curriculum where the students study several different topics over the course of the year.  And because the students are getting regular English exposure, they’re able to absorb more complex language than simply practising the same “How are you?” greetings week in and week out.

The second reason is much more remarkable: I like the students!  If you remember grades five and six, you probably remember it as the age when kids were at their most obnoxious, rebellious, and disrespectful; when they made life hell for their teachers and classmates; when they’d figured out that adults weren’t infallible, but hadn’t yet realised that they weren’t either.  Japanese kids go through the same phase.  I’ve heard horror stories from other ALTs about how unruly their students are, and it sounds exactly like how I would expect kids their age to act.  But here’s the amazing thing: my kids aren’t like that!  I don’t know why.  I can’t explain it.  It’s most unnatural.  But they’re lovely.  Attentive, disciplined, good at absorbing information.  But not in the mindless, robotic way (unfairly) associated with Japanese schools.  They’re genuinely enthusiastic, cheerful, and eager to learn.  Teaching them over the past year has been a real pleasure, and now that our time together is finally ending, I find I’m really going to miss them.

It’s a mark of how much time I spent with those kids that the teachers apparently thought it would be good to plan special activities for my last day.  In all of my fifth-year classes, therefore, the students put together a special programme.  In two of them they ran games, and I participated.  But in the class before lunch, they went all-out.  That class is my favourite – for which I give full credit to the teacher.  He’s a really fun guy who clearly has a good relationship with his students and has created a relaxed atmosphere in his classroom.  The result is the most enthusiastic class of English learners I’ve ever encountered.  Because every lesson is a game, the kids aren’t nervous about using English; they even seem to enjoy it.  But the class isn’t utterly frivolous, either.  The teacher drills his students, and makes sure they get things right.  He regularly sets aside time at the beginning of each lesson for the students to ask me questions (which I like partly because it gratifies my ego, but also because it’s a chance for the students to have meaningful interaction with someone from another culture), and defers to me when questions of grammar and pronunciation come up.  I even know the students’ names – or, at least, ten of them, but that’s still ten more than in any of my other classes!

For the farewell class the students put on a talent-show.  There was piano-playing, a recorder performance, dancing, and even magic tricks.  Then the students and I asked each other questions.  They asked me in Japanese, of course, and I did my best to understand without translation, though for their sake as well as mine I answered in English.  Some of the questions: “What music do you like?” (One boy told me he liked Aerosmith and the Spice Girls.  I told him, truthfully, that I love Aerosmith, and suggested that we do karaoke some time.); “Have you eaten pizza?” (Yes, I’ve eaten pizza many times, but I’ve never eaten Japanese pizza.); “What’s your favourite Japanese phrase?” (“Sooo desu ka…?”  I had to say it twice before they got that that was the answer.)

In the sixth-year classes, we finished up with “The Big Turnip”, now my favourite lesson from the elementary school textbook.  It’s a simple story of a group of people working together to pull a turnip out of the ground.  At my other elementary school they just had the students listen to the story and say the accompanying chant, but at this school they actually had them perform the dialogue as a play.  As I watched them rehearse it over a period of weeks, I came to realise that it was a really good play for English learners.  Firstly, it got the students pushing their personal boundaries by forcing them to get up and act silly in front of each other.  I’ve been told that the main goal of foreign language elementary school education is not to teach language but interpersonal skills, and I can see how performing a play together could be the logical culmination of that curriculum.  It also gives the students a lot of practice with simple vocabulary and language structures, hopefully with the effect of ingraining it in their brains for future use.

In one of the classes, only a few groups performed, but in the last class of the day (my favourite of the two) every group performed a part of the play, and I judged the best one.  Then I took a picture with all the students.  During the standard greeting, when they asked me how I was, I pretended to cry and answered, truthfully, “I’m sad.”  Then they told me that all but two of them would be going to my junior high school next year, and that cheered me right up!

In the news this month, singer Whitney Houston has died.  I only knew her for a few songs and a couple of movies, but I remember her having a great voice, and I’m sorry to see her go so young.

Books I’ve read this month:

In a Sunburned Country by Bill Bryson – Known outside North America as Down Under, this tale of the author’s travels in Australia was of particular interest to me as I hope to make it my next destination.  As in A Walk in the Woods, Bryson is mostly concerned with what’s out to kill you – in this case, everything, though he’s particularly focused on crocodiles.  I found it a somewhat useful introduction to the continent, and hope to retain some of the information in it for future use.  I was disappointed, however, that he never made it to Brisbane.

Fool Moon by Jim Butcher – Book two of the “Dresden Files”.  So far I’ve got mixed feelings about this series.  On the one hand, I like the author’s sense of humour and the self-deprecating tone and mix of cultural references with which his hero narrates.  I also like the fact that the magic is actually explained in a way that makes sense.  I couldn’t help thinking that if there were real wizards in the world, this is how they would operate.  On the other hand, I found the relentlessness of the action wearisome.  I don’t think a good story needs quite so much violence, and I wonder, if there’s this much blood-shed and trauma so early in the series, what are things going to be like in the later books!

Akemashite Omedetou Gozaimasu!* - January 2012

You know what I hate?  Visa applications.  As I approach the middle of my last year in Japan, I’ve had to make a decision about what I want to do next year.  I’ve had it in my head for a long time that I’d like to see more of the Pacific rim before I go home, particularly Australia and New Zealand.  After all, it’s unlikely that I’ll be visiting this region again any time soon, nor be this footloose when I’m older.  And it doesn’t make much sense in terms of time, money, or environmentalism to travel all the way home and all the way back.  I’m kind of homesick, but I think I could stand another year abroad, and I’ve saved enough money that I think I can afford some travelling.

So I’ve decided to apply for an Australian working holiday visa, which allows one to live and work in Australia for up to one year.  If I get it, I’ll be travelling there in the summer and staying till the visa expires or I run out of money.  I’ve had to obtain work visas for foreign countries before, but on previous occasions the process was handled by an employer or agency.  This is my first time applying for a visa on my own, and so far I’m not enjoying it.  First of all, there are all those questions that aren’t answered in the instructions, for which you have to call the Australian Embassy, which is conveniently open from 9:00-noon, Monday to Friday.  (I knew there had to be an up-side to getting influenza!)  The good news is that I can lodge my application through the embassy in Tokyo; I was terrified that they’d force me to do everything via my home country.  Asking about payment methods was a bit more complicated.

Me: “How do I pay the fee if I file a paper application?”
Friendly Representative of the Australian Government: ”Oh, you don’t need to file a paper application.  You can file on line and pay by credit card.”
Me: ”But I don’t want to file on line.”
FRAG: ”But the on-line application is much easier and quicker than the paper one.”
Me: ”No, really.  I prefer to do the paper one.  So how do I pay for it?”
FRAG: ”Well, if you do it on line you can pay by credit card.”
Me: ”But I don’t have a credit card.”
Awkward silence.

Okay, first of all, you have to love – and by “love”, I mean “be infuriated by” – the helpless confusion that sets in when you tell people you don’t have a credit card.  Admittedly I do have a credit card, and my frequent claims to the contrary are largely about being contrary, but for me it’s a point of principle.  It’s a pet peeve of mine how many services these days are only available by credit card.  What about all the people in the world who don’t have credit cards and can’t get them because they’re poor, homeless, or unemployed, or simply have lousy credit history?  How are they supposed to pay for things?  Are they to be denied access to airline tickets, video store memberships, and the contents of the Amazon catalogue just because of their socio-economic status?!

I admit that I’m ranting, and that this is an issue about which I know almost nothing.  But it just bugs me on an intuitive level.  Not to mention that there are all sorts of other downsides to credit cards.  I mean, seriously, you’d think in this day and age we’d have come up with a better way of paying for things than by punching in a sixteen-digit number (which can be stolen by a good enough computer hacker or anyone who gets a glance inside your purse) linked to a line of credit (which may have a limit way beyond anything you’d actually want to spend) that you then have to pay off every month (you know, with real money that you actually have) or risk paying compound interest on (‘cause debt is everyone’s favourite gift with purchase!)  I’m just saying…

Me: (Some time later.) “Oh, you mean you do still accept post at the Australian Embassy?  And you’ll know what to do with a money order if you get one?  Sweet.  Guess I might be coming to visit your country after all!”

Completing the application itself wasn’t actually such a big deal, but I ran into problems again when I realised that I needed to include a certified copy of my passport.  The web site didn’t give me any more helpful information on how to do this than to say that it would depend on the country I was in.  Great!  So, supposing I was in Japan…  I tried asking around about where I could find a notary public or someone else qualified to certify a photocopy, but no one seemed able to help me.  So I was back to calling the embassy again.

Me: “Where can I get a photocopy of my passport certified?”
Helpful Representative of the Australian Government: “You can get it certified at any of our offices.”
Me: “Wait, you mean I have to take the photocopy to the embassy to get it certified?”
HRAG: “Yes.”
Me: “I can’t get it stamped by a lawyer or something?”
HRAG: “No.”
Me: “Well where are your offices?”
HRAG: “We have offices in Sapporo, Tokyo, Osaka, and Fukuoka.”
Me: “None in Sendai?”
HRAG: “I’m afraid not.”
Me: “So, let me get this straight.  To complete this application I’m going to have to travel five hours to Tokyo and five hours back, arriving sometime during embassy working hours, so that you can look at my passport and make a photocopy of it?”
HRAG: “Or you could mail us the original.”
Me: “Mail you the original.”
HRAG: “Yes.”
Me: “You want me to mail you my passport.”
HRAG: “Yes.”
Me: “For an application.”
HRAG: “Yes.”
Long, awkward silence.
Me: “Are those the only options?”
HRAG: “I’m afraid so.  Well, unless you want to send us a clear photocopy of every page of your passport.  We’ll have to see the original eventually, though.”
Me: “I can do that?”
HRAG: “Yes.”
Me: “Just a regular photocopy?”
HRAG: “Of every page.”
Me: “And you didn’t think it would be worthwhile to supply this information at any earlier point in the conversation?”
HRAG: “If your application is accepted you will have to send us your original passport so we can affix the visa to it.”
Me: “Thanks.  I have actually travelled to foreign countries before.  Would you believe I’m doing it as we speak?”

I’d been told that the application process typically took about two months, so I was surprised when, less than a week after mailing the form in, I received an e-mail telling me that to complete the application I’d have to undergo a medical assessment.  As usual, this couldn’t be done just anywhere; it had to be at an embassy-approved travel clinic, the nearest of which was in Tokyo.  And it had to be done within twenty-eight days – not exactly the most convenient time frame for scheduling a doctor’s appointment in Tokyo when you a) live in Sendai, b) have a job, and c) are female.  Fortunately they weren’t too anal about it; I wrote back asking for an extension, and they readily granted me one.

Actually, I would have made the deadline anyway.  I scheduled my appointment for the first weekend in February, taking a bus there on Friday night and getting another one home on Sunday.  I could have made the visit shorter, but as long as I was going all that way I figured I might as well make the most of the trip.

My appointment was early Saturday morning, and took less than half an hour, leaving me the rest of the day for exploring Tokyo.  First I decided to walk around and look at some embassies.  Living in Ottawa, I’ve made an occasional hobby of embassy-spotting, but I’d yet to try it out in the Japanese capital.  I found the German, French, and Chinese embassies, and completely failed to locate the Korean one.  However I soon realised that the biggest embassies tended to be obscured by high walls, and that the most interesting and photogenic ones were the smaller buildings that weren’t too fussed about security.

After lunch I returned to Ueno for yet another visit to the Science Museum.  It took me three trips, but I’ve finally been able to complete my tour of the exhibit!  If you’re ever in Tokyo, I recommend it.  It’s quite good and has interactive guides in English, Chinese, and Korean.  Afterwards, I checked out Ameyoko (a popular shopping street), which wasn’t very interesting, and went to Harajuku to look for cosplayers (I only saw a couple).  I got the bus home the next morning.

Now it’s just a matter of seeing how my medical results turn out.  The cost of my visa application so far?  $220 for the application itself, $210 for the medical exam, $70 for a return bus ticket to Tokyo, and $30 for one night in a hostel (the other one was elective) comes to $530.  And that’s assuming one-hundred yen to the dollar.  The truth is Japan’s currency is actually worth rather more than that; putting the true cost at closer to $700.  Australia had better be worth it, is all I can say!

You know what else I hate?  The skills-development conference.  That’s what they’re calling the annual ALT conference this year; last year it was the mid-year conference.  Whatever you want to call it, I hate it.  Or rather, what I hated was having to prepare for it.  Last year I was a first-year ALT and didn’t have to do anything but attend and bring a poster.  This year I’m a veteran, which means I had to present about something.  In theory I was supposed to do the presentation along with my head teacher.  In practice, she deferred to me for most of the planning and decision-making.  I don’t think she would have contributed anything at all if I hadn’t specifically drawn up an outline designating time for her to talk and specifying what I wanted her to talk about.  That accounted for about five minutes; it was up to me to fill the other sixty-five.

Okay, here’s why I hated the skills-development conference.  It wasn’t just the question of having to do work (which is reasonable), nor of having to become an expert in some element of English education (which is a bit more intimidating).  It was the lack of support we got throughout the whole process.  There was no information session, no instructions on how to structure our presentation, no suggestions of topics they wanted covered.  All the information I got was delivered in Japanese, and came to me via my head teacher, who expected me to explain it to her.  The work of assigning topics was carried out by having each ALT pick their three favourites out of five broad categories, and then assign one to each of them.  Within that category, we were allowed to present on anything we wanted, ideally sharing as much (or as little) as we knew.

I chose to present on technical aspects of English, with an eye to focusing on pronunciation.  It was one of the few elements of English I could claim to know something about, having spent a good part of last year learning the the I.P.A. and trying to teach myself various British accents.  (What?  I have a lot of time on my hands.)  Afraid that wouldn’t be enough, I threw everything I had into the presentation that had to do with pronunciation, reading, listening, and language-arts, only to discover that it would have taken me twice the allotted time to present it all.  Feeling a lot better, I trimmed it down, made a slide-show and a handout to go with it, and got it into a state that was more or less presentable.

In the event the presentation went really well.  I assigned several blocks of time for group discussion, which seemed reasonably productive.  My audience was polite, asked good questions, volunteered answers to my questions, and even gave me good feedback at the end.

The rest of the conference was a mixed bag.  One consequence of all the disorganisation was that we had effectively no say in which seminars we attended.  We’d been given a form to fill out, with the names of all the proposed seminars but no details on their content.  I filled it out, but I could discern no correlation between my choices and what I actually ended up attending.  For instance I somehow ended up in a seminar on elective English classes.  But my school doesn’t have an elective English programme…

There is one good thing about the skills-development conference: it’s over.  And since I’ve already made up my mind that this is going to be my last year in Japan, I know I’ll never have to do it ever again!

Back at work, five of my students ended up writing reply letters to the students from Canada.  There were others who’d expressed interest but never got around to doing it.  The ones who did finish, however, put a lot of effort in.  Not only were the letters so long that I was sure they must have gotten help with them, but most of them wrote them on nice paper and decorated them with pictures.  They brought rough drafts (often themselves very nice-looking) for me to check, and I corrected them only enough to ensure that the recipients would understand them.  I sent them all off in a big envelope along with a letter of my own and a picture of the School Festival display I’d made.  I know I’m sending them ten months after the original earthquake, and that the Canadian students will all have moved up a grade in the mean time.  I also don’t expect I’ll ever hear back from them or learn how the letters were received.  But hopefully a late reply will be better than none.  Especially when it’s coming all the way from Japan.

I mentioned that this fall didn’t seem a cold as last year’s but the temperature seems finally to have dropped, and I’m once more miserable in my apartment.  I’m coping by practically living under my kotatsu, from which I barely move all evening.

In the middle of the month there was a festival called Dontosai, which is apparently a Miyagi specialty.  It includes a half-naked pilgrimage, where the participants run through the streets wearing only shorts, a headband, and sandals (plus a vest for the girls).  I have enough trouble dealing with freezing cold on a regular basis; getting naked in it really isn’t my thing.  So I didn’t participate in it last year or this year.  I did go out with my tea lady to see it, though.  We ate some festival food, saw the big bonfire for ritual burning, and even ran into the group of ALTs who were participating and my school principal, who was also doing the pilgrimage.  They looked cold but brave, and I respected them for it, but I wouldn’t want to be them!

* “Akemashite Omedetou Gozaimasu!”: Japanese for “Happy New Year!”

Mix and Mingle - December 2011

December was a busy month again this year, thanks largely to the reestablishment of the ALT carolling group.  We met for weekly rehearsals throughout October and November, and began performing at the beginning of December.  Our first performance was for sick children at a hospital, which we actually got permission to take time off work for.  When we did our signature number, “The Twelve Days of Christmas” with actions, we got the kids to join in with us.  Afterwards, we joined them for a card-making activity.  We did another performance as part of a YMCA Christmas party.

One of our bigger events was a weekend trip to Kesenuma, one of the tsunami-hit towns.  We visited temporary housing camps for people who had lost their homes, most of them established on school grounds.  One of the ALTs had gotten donations for Christmas presents, and he dressed in a Santa Claus outfit and handed them out to the children there.  We did six performances in all, with better turnout for some than for others, but the people who came seemed to enjoy them, and some of them even joined in with the singing and gestures.

Our singing instructor works at Sendai’s international school, and at the end of the month we joined him for his school concert.  It’s a marker of how small Sendai’s international community is that I ran into several people I knew at the concert, including some of my former classmates from Japanese class, and the missionary family from my church.  At the invitation of one of our members, we went to sing for some orphans, and some of us (though not me) also sang at Donald McDonald (sic, don’t ask) House for Sick Kids.  Finally, we sang and collected donations in the Ichi-ban Chou.  This year the money is going to go to the tsunami victims.

I had a lot of fun with all the events.  It reminded me of being back in my high school choir.  It’s one element of school life I really miss.

The ALT Christmas party was held at the same Indian restaurant as last time, and my school’s end-of-year party was once again held at a hotel.  At school I did the same Christmas lessons as last year, plus a lesson for my special needs class.  All my lessons went as well as or better than last year.  The only disappointing things was that I was unable to deliver the second-year students’ Christmas cards to them personally, because I spent the last three days of the year out with the flu.

I swear, every year I start out with all sorts of good intentions about getting the flu shot, and every year I completely fail to do it.  Usually I manage to avoid it anyway, but eventually my luck had to run out, especially given the line of work I’m in.

It started over the weekend with a sore throat and the loss of my singing voice.  On Monday I went to school feeling lousy, and stumbled through three periods before finally begging for time off to go see the doctor.  He berated me for not getting vaccinated (I was meaning to do it, honest!  I’ve just been busy…) then gave me a flu test.  Have you ever been tested for the flu?  It’s not pleasant; you lean back and they stick a swab up your nose till it almost touches your brain!  The test came back positive, so he gave me some medication and told me I’d have to stay home for the rest of the week.  So that, effectively, was the start of my Christmas vacation.

The medicine must have worked, because I felt much better the next day and my temperature had returned to normal.  I still had to stay home to avoid infecting anyone else, though.  That evening my tea lady came over with loads of food, evidently worried that I wouldn’t be able to get out to do any grocery shopping.  I’d actually stocked up the previous day, but her concern touched me, and made me feel even guiltier than I was already about spending the entire day under my kotatsu reading Television Without Pity recaps.

I had a very relaxed Christmas holiday, though I did shape up and start doing slightly more useful things, like working on my blog.  I went to the Christmas Eve service at my church, and afterwards joined the youth in some door-to-door carolling.  Since Christmas Day was a Sunday, I went to the morning service and also stayed for the Christmas lunch and youth party, where we had chocolate fondue.

I didn’t get up to much for the rest of the holiday, until New Year’s, which my tea lady invited me to spend at her place.  I went on New Year’s Eve and stayed for two days.  Her elder sister was visiting with her two sons and daughter – who are considerably cuter than her younger sister’s kids (the ones I’ve been tutoring).  She also had an uncle there, and with her and her parents it was quite a crowd.  She and her sister spoke only a little English, and everyone else spoke almost none.  In spite of that, I had a surprisingly warm and friendly time there.  It was nice to be spending the holiday with family, even if the family wasn’t mine.

On New Year’s Eve we watched the New Year show on T.V. and ate traditional foods, like soba.  As a “thank you” for the food she had given me, I gifted her family with what I consider to be traditional western holiday snacks: cheese and crackers, mixed nuts, shortbread, and a big Toblerone bar.  On New Year’s Day we tried to go to Jogi-san, but there was so much traffic on the road that we forewent the traditional New Year’s temple visit in favour of an onsen.  We did go to a smaller temple the next day, and then spent the afternoon doing “hatsu-uri” (New Year’s shopping).

In the news this month, to the dismay of millions and the surprise of no one, Canada announced its intention to withdraw from the Kyoto Protocol.  You know, when I was growing up (still not such a very long time ago) we were taught that Canada’s commitment to environmentalism was a source of national pride.  So I can’t say I’m exactly thrilled to have one fewer reason to be proud of my country.  In international news, everyone’s favourite North Korean dictator, Kim Jong-Il, is dead.  I’d say this was good news if I thought things were going to improve under his successor, but losing one Big Brother figure doesn’t mean anything if he’s simply replaced with another.

Movies I’ve seen this month:

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire – Wow!  The Harry Potter films have finally grown up!  Obviously this is the point at which the books start getting more adult, but it’s more than that: this is the first film of the series that works as a movie in its own right, and not just as a dramatisation of the novel.  At the same time, it remains largely faithful to the source material.  Remarkably, given the length of the book, it manages to get all the major plot elements in without feeling rushed.  Several subplots had to be trimmed, of course, but the cuts are so seamless I barely noticed them.  The child actors have even grown into their roles and stopped grating on my nerves.  As for the adults, I was rather amused by the number of familiar faces among the new cast; I had to keep reminding myself that the movie came out before the Twilight series or the second season of Doctor Who.  Ralph Fiennes without hair or a nose is a bit of a novelty, but so far I’m willing to buy him as Lord Voldemort.  The only sour note for me was Dumbledore, who comes off as oddly grouchy and ineffectual – quite unlike his portrayal in the book.  (Four stars)

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix – This one was more of a disappointment.  To be fair it is based on my favourite book of the series, and thus had more to live up to.  Much like Prisoner of Azkaban, it feels like so much exposition has been left out that the story barely makes sense.  I also didn’t feel it did justice to the nastiest moments in the story.  Umbridge wasn’t how I pictured her, nor did I like her as much as her literary incarnation, which was especially sad for me as she’s my favourite villain by far.  On the bright side I’m still liking the younger actors and I thought Luna was well-cast.  (Three stars)

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince – Only the second film of the series that feels like it can stand on its own.  The story had to be compressed and isn’t as well-developed as that of the book, but it still makes sense, and I was impressed by how many quiet, character-focused scenes the film made room for.  Unfortunately the film has the same weaknesses as the book, in that it is merely set-up for the conclusion., and leaves many storylines unresolved.  (Three and a half stars)

T.V. shows I’ve seen this month:

Being Erica (Season 2) – I didn’t like this season quite as much as the previous one, although I’m not sure whether that was due to changes in the show itself, or simply the premise feeling less fresh and original than it once did.  There seem to be a lot more episodes focusing on sex and romance this season, at the expense of other kinds of stories.  I did end up liking one of the major sub-arcs involving a new character, which didn’t go in the direction I was dreading it would.  I also liked the episodes focusing on Dr Tom.

Books I’ve read this month:

The Girl in the Picture by Denise Chong – Biography of Vietnamese napalm-victim Kim Phuc.  Now I remember why my Political Science teacher told us to read biographies: I think I learned more about the Vietnam war from this one book than from everything I’d read or seen about it previously.  Also, war is disgusting.

Storm Front by Jim Butcher – The first book in the “Dresden Files” series of pulp urban fantasy novels.  Not a great story, but interesting for the way it presents magic and the interaction between the fantastic and mundane worlds.

And Nobody Knows (Tiddely Pom) - November 2011

This month I was finally able to share the letters from Canada with my students.  The third-year teacher generously let me devote an entire class to them.  First I showed the students some Canadian maps demonstrating where the school was.  Then I told them that the kids at the school had heard about the earthquake and tsunami and had felt moved to write letters to Japan.  I read them the cover letter that the Canadian teacher had written, and my teacher translated it for them.  Then I put them in groups and gave each group two letters to share.  Each student got a question sheet and a glossary.  The former was to give their reading some direction; the latter was to help them with difficult words and phrases.

For the most part, I was impressed with the response.  Not all of the students took an interest in the letters, but a surprising number did.  Even students who struggled with the regular class readings worked hard to understand them and find the answers.  It was a welcome change to see them actually engaging with a reading, rather than simply doing the mindless repetition and translation work they’ve been trained in.  I think they appreciated that they were holding real letters written by real people, and that made them much more meaningful.  Most gratifying of all, a few of the students even asked if they could write responses.  Of course I told them they could, and offered to give them any help they needed.

In my second-year classes, the teacher has finally started implementing her idea about having the students do short English speeches.  So far the the students have complied reluctantly, and most of them have been doing only the bare minimum, but my hope is that they will warm up to the idea once they get used to it.

Fall is officially underway here.  The trees have changed colour and the temperature has dropped.  I seem to be dealing with the cold better this year than last, though I’m not sure whether that’s because I’m acclimatised or because this November is simply milder.  One thing that’s certain is that my toes are freezing!  Cold digits are a fact of life for me, and in past years I haven’t worried too much about frozen toes – after all, I can think of way worse things than not being able to feel part of your body.  But last year I actually got an infection that took weeks and a lot of medication to cure.  I want to avoid that happening again this year, so I’ve been wearing warm socks and also bundling up, drinking hot beverages, and making liberal use of my kotatsu.  Still, it’s hard to keep my extremities warm when I’m outdoors, and with no central heating indoors can be pretty cold, too.  I wish I lived in Korea; I hear they have heated floors!

At the beginning of the month the English teacher at my church put on a “harvest party” to share some traditional American cooking with the locals.  I went and brought my tea lady along with me.  The traditional dishes we ate were chilli and cornbread.  I was especially fond of the latter; I haven’t had cornbread in ages!  The event was the closest I came to celebrating Thanksgiving this year.

The fall colours haven’t been as brilliant in my area as I remember them being last year, but I have been making the most of them with a few different excursions.  My tea lady and school nurse invited me to go with them to Matsushima to see the evening light-up of the trees.  I went with my church to an onsen in Akiu, where we got to admire the leaves.  I also finally made my own trip to Yama-dera, which my buddy from Korea had visited the previous month.  Yama-dera (literally “mountain temple”) is built into a mountainside, and it’s a steep climb to get to the top.  From there we had a nice view of the surrounding countryside with its multi-coloured hills.

Movies I’ve seen this month:

Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone – The only adaptation of the Harry Potter books I’d previously seen.  It succeeds in covering most of the plot of the novel, but does so in such a flat and unimaginative way that it hardly seems worth the effort.  Part of the problem is that it there is so much exposition and it feels rushed and charmless.  The biggest fun to be had is from seeing which actors are playing which characters.  Maggie Smith seems well-cast as McGonagall; I’m less sanguine about Alan Rickman as Snape.  More important to the film are the child actors playing the main characters.  Sadly, none of them has the talent needed to carry a whole movie.  Of the pint-sized cast the one I found myself warming to the most was Draco Malfoy.  (Two and a half stars)

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets – This film holds together better than the previous one, having less exposition to get through and more time to focus on the plot.  Unfortunately, I had all the same problems with it that I did with the book: the adults are useless, the kids are dumb, and I can’t stand Dobby.  Kenneth Branagh feels reasonably fitting, if a bit wasted, as Gilderoy Lockhart.  I’m still not big on the child actors.  (Three stars)

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Three stars) – In contrast to the slavish fidelity of the first two films, this one is willing to get a bit creative with some plot elements.  The result is a somewhat more enjoyable movie; I especially liked the climactic sequences.  On the down side, a lot of exposition gets left out, to the extent that the story wouldn’t make sense to anyone who hasn’t read the book.  (Notably, one could get through the entire film without a clue that the Marauders ever got up to anything besides map-making.)  Lupin isn’t how I pictured him, but I think I like him, and Gary Oldman seems to work as Sirius, though he doesn’t get much screen time.  (Three stars)