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November 29th, 2004
11:39 am
I'm not dead! I just forgot. For daily updates on the minutae of my life, if that's the correct word, please go to ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) missionbear.
All my geekiness will be exposed. Recently my camera has been acting up, so my picturetaking is quite limited. However, it is proof of life.
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May 19th, 2004
11:02 am
It happens that for the next three days the entire first year class plus most of the teachers will be in Seiki (?). They loaded onto buses at 8 this morning and away they go. They will be learning how to study, and hiking and so forth. I swear they didn't do this last year, so someone's idea obviously got taken up by our soon-to-be-retiring kochosensei. I'm not sure how they're going to teach them to study, or what sort of activities are planned, but Japanese organizations seem to thrive on things like this.
Like the hike, wherein I became an exhausted red lump of unhappiness, and the culture festival, and meetings and so on, everything will be scheduled down to the minute. Students and teachers will move through the schedule like well-ordered grains of salt, emerging from the other side with new memories of bonding with their social group, depending on others for answers, and making the appearance for appearance's sake.
Not to sound cynical, but appearing is 90% of the game. The other 10% is looking like you're participating and/or having fun. In fact none of the teachers I talked to liked the hike particularly well, but I, being the little bundle of annoyance that I am, was the only one to LOOK annoyed.
Which is not to say that foreigners don't have their own version of public/private face. I think that's something that Japanese sometimes misunderstand.
For example, anyone who knows me knows that I frown fiercely when I'm concentrating, and also that it takes a minute or two before I move from "studylearnconcentrate" space to "I care about what you're telling me" space. Now if someone sees me frowning blackly into my book, they may think I'm in a bad mood, when in fact I'm not at all.
Not quite the same thing, but I think something that has caused a little misunderstanding at times. Because foreigners supposedly wear their feelings broadly in their expressions, it's assumed that their feelings are always as simple as that.
I'm bored. I'm tired of studying and I'm going to take advantage of the school computer letting me on LJ. I have no other work today, so it seems reasonable.
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May 13th, 2004
04:04 pm
There's a staff at JHS, an admin or something, who seems to have decided that, having been fashionable once sometime in the 70's or early 80's, he was no longer required to pay attention to his hair.
Or maybe he admires Elvis.
This being Japan, it doesn't surprise me in the least that he can get the same haircut for 20 years. Parts of this country move at warp speed. Other parts never will, and collect in the corners like dust.
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May 12th, 2004
07:13 pm
I'm alive, I'm alive.
I update barely at all but I'm alive.
I just have to say, what kind of human beings videotape torture and murder?
What kind of human beings want to share that with the world?
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March 12th, 2004
02:23 pm
Today was results day for Maizuru.
Over the last three days students in their last year of junior high school have been sitting entrance exams at Maizuru, and today at about 8:30 the numbers of the students who passed and were admitted were posted on public boards in the front of the school. Then the boards were swarmed by terrified applicants. You could hear the screams of joy even up in the teacher's room. there were also flashes of white as the students whose numbers didn't appear tried to stifling their tears.
This is a huge deal here. Maizuru is a top ranked academic school. Most of its students go on to university. To get in at Maizuru means having a great chance at a university and good job. In three years they'll go through the same process, only much more grueling, at university entrance exams. So those students who didn't get in at Maizuru have to go to a lesser school, etc.
They seem so young for all of this.
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March 10th, 2004
06:45 pm - A note on school spirit
In December and January Maizuru's rugby team made it all the way to the national rugby championships. If I haven't mentioned, the school is really into rugby. I watched a televised match where they flattened the opposing team by a humiliating margin. IE, they were nearly in three digits while their opponents were not into digits at all. Anyway, the championships were held in Osaka. For those of you not conversant with Japanese geography and/or my current location:
I've highlighted the relevant...dots. Anyway, Oita is on Kyushu at the bottom, and Osaka is on the main island of Honshu. There's a ferry that runs from Oita prefecture to Kobe/Osaka that takes all night. There are trains and planes too. All of this is costly. The ferry is cheapest, the round trip costing in the neighbourhood of 14000 yen as I recall. The tournament was also held over the New Year holiday, so adjust plane fare for the busy season. Expensive. Anyway.
A handful of teachers and staff went off on their own time to watch the first couple of matches, support the team, and also take in the sites. Like Universal Studios Japan. I, being neither of the school spirit nor physically present in Oita, skipped all of that. Returning, though, I discovered that Maizuru had won their way to the finals, where they would take on a local Osaka team. Groups of teachers and students (this is vacation, remember) were suddenly gathering and plotting. I was invited along for the last game, but that group of teachers was going by shinkansen, which was just too expensive. Later, another staff member invited me along on a car trip.
...
At my puzzled look she finally took pity on me. "We'll drive through Shikoku."
Ooooh.
"We'll leave at 6."
*faint*
But I decided to go anyway, since it would only cost 10000. Students left the day before, more than a hundred strong, to take the overnight ferry. Everyone who could go was going, anyway. So I dragged my sorry butt out of bed and was ready, bundled up, and in my traditional black, which luckily is Maizuru's colour and not the opposing team's. We took the ferry across to Shikoku, then drove as only determined guys can drive, with warnings to pee quickly when we had to pee. It was just like taking a car trip with my dad.
Interesting Cultural Sidenote:
On the ferry, we had a public room to hang out in. Shoes off, curl up on the floor sort of room, just like the overnight ferry but without the uncomfortable futon. The staff and teachers instantly separated. We're talking oil and water. Not as teachers and staff, but along gender lines. Men in one corner and women in the diagonally opposite corner. Then all the women pulled out sweets. Except me. But I'll know better and buy some just in case the next time I'm invited to one of these things. At one point one of the women took some over to the guys. This was the only non-car-constrained male/female contact I remember seeing.
Anyway...
We were late, and had to pretty much run from the parking lot to the stadium to get to see the teams run onto the field.
Maizuru's supporters formed a formidable block of mostly black, and the official cheer people got instantly to work. 12 seconds of cheering Oita managed to muster over 200 people, including teachers, staff, students, ex-students living around the Kansai area, and very ex-students, some of them with rather grey hair. There were also photographers from the local news sources.
Maizuru fought hard. But were smushed. They didn't manage to score, though man they were so close..! I teach these guys and they seem like giants to me, but Osaka dwarfed them, making them seem positively lilliputian.
I was sad. But never so sad as when the entire team walked across to the stands their supporters were in and bowed. Okay, I cried. Fine. Happy now? You try keeping a dry eye in that situation.
No time to stop though. As soon as the official school meeting was over we were back in the car and on the road. Well, time to stop for pee break and doughnuts. The view of the bridge was spectacular, but the only pictures I got were after I'd accidentally hit random buttons on my camera in the dark. My camera, which is far more sophisticated than I am, took the following picture.
It turns out I can take black and white and sepia-toned pictures on my camera. one day I really have to figure out all the settings on it. Sometimes it does things and I don't know why. Digital cameras are people!
Interesting Cultural Sidenote:
Rest breaks on Japanese highways rock. No peeing down a hole in the dark of the woods here. Wide, tidy parking lots with non-overflowing garbage cans, restaurants, gift shops, and huge, sparkling clean bathrooms. You could fit an apartment or two inside just the ladies'. They're amazing. I strongly recommend that they franchise to other countries. And I almost wish I had a car so I could use them more often.
We arrived back in Oita at around 12 or 1 AM, which is way late. I was lucky, because they dropped me off, since my apartment is on the way to the school. Other people I know had to drive home another 1/2 hour or so. And everyone had to be at school bright and early at 8 the next morning.
That is school spirit.
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February 1st, 2004
02:55 pm - Since it's February
it's time for my Christmas update! Yes, step inside and see all the interesting things I did around Christmas and New Years. Mostly, shopping.
( Come on in! )
( Christmas Cake )</center>
( New Years )
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January 22nd, 2004
03:27 pm
I realize that there is definitely a different educational philosophy at work in Japan. It doesn't take long to pick up on that, certainly. But I fail to see the edifying result of making 13 year old girls freeze with bare legs all day in unheated, frigid classrooms.
It's been snowing fitfully here for the last day. Usually just a little flurry of flakes too cold and miserly to stay on the ground. Worse, the wind is bitterly cold and chases out any ambient heat. Now, in Maizuru, once the forty-odd students are in their classroom for the day that's more or less it. They stay put for everything but lunchtime cleaning and PE. It's surprising how much heat 40 adolescents petrified of failing exams can generate. Or maybe it's not. o_O Anyway, the classrooms are warmer, is what I'm saying, though I always prefer it if the OC class isn't right after PE when the classroom has been open and empty for an hour.
Jyoto is different. The junior high school is older, for one thing, and there's a lot more open space. Not only that, but different classes are taught in wildly different rooms, so that occasionally the classroom hasn't been opened in a week. IE it's a ice-cube tray with a chalkboard. So students are wandering around and the classrooms are unoccupied...basically what this amounts to is teaching outside.
Even that, okay, I can deal. Today I was wearing four layers just for the teaching part. And under their uniform tops, the students are probably wearing a t-shirt and sweater too. The guys are in pants, of course. But the girls! They're wearing kneesocks, and while they might have shorts on underneath (most do) those are still bare legs!
Some days Japan bites. IT IS SNOWING! LET THEM WEAR PANTS! And let's not even start with the elementary school kids who wear shorts and skirts all year...
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January 5th, 2004
05:34 pm
Ah, it's amazing what you find on your hard drive!
I hope everyone had a set of happy holidays. For your viewing pleasure, here are pictures from the depths of my digicam!
( Fukuoka, July 2003 )
Fireworks are just not the same if you're not there. I realize that. But I'm still going to show you my pictures of fireworks, taken from the door of my apartment. I'm really glad they were so close, since the riverside was just packed to the gills with people for this. It was really pretty, and went on forever.
( Fireworks, Oita, August, 2003 )
And finally, ( Tokyo, July, 2003 (no, I'm not being very chronological, am I? )
And that's it. Hope you enjoyed. Pictures from the holidays are forthcoming. That could be tomorrow, could be forever. I'm so wacky.
Actually, this particular update was brought to you by one of those interesting no-work days I sometimes have. There are no students/classes, but I diligently (perhaps too diligently) show up anyway. A bit like a robot, I show up until I'm told otherwise. I suspect I could have safely stayed home and not been missed at all.
This afternoon there is a rugby game on tv. Our school won both their earlier games at the Japanese championships and are now playing more. Apparently there's a public viewing soon. Go team!
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December 22nd, 2003
10:08 pm
Bonenkai
Where else can you drink yourself blind, eat sushi, and shout banzai with co workers?
The red eyes started before the first course was finished and grew ever the glassier, until men found it utterly acceptable to be touchy-feely with other men. Although, since this is Japan, they do that anyway.
Note to self: no matter how delicious sake is, you should never, ever, lose track of how many of those little white bottles you've drunk. On your own.
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December 20th, 2003
02:00 pm - Cookie day
Well, cookie boxing day. Yesterday, having assembled what are roughly the proper ingredients (such things being something of a challenge) I set out to bake sugar cookies, and make cream cheese icing. Cream cheese was delightfully on sale.
All in all it went surprisingly well, though I don't think I have enough. I'm also not sure if I have the ambition to make more. ^^; Once I figured out that the dough had to be really really hard and chilled things went more smoothly. I've now sickened myself on them.
Monday is the end of the year party. I will drag my butt to a hotel somewhere "near Oasis Tower" and eat and try to be festive and I have a convenient excuse in that I want to travel the next day if I want to leave early. Not to be uncharitable, but I'm not party type.
Which means, yes, I'll be spending holidays away from my apartment. Though I wanted to stay home, frankly. This is okay too. Get there, stay there. Sleep a lot...
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December 17th, 2003
04:10 pm
I can honestly say that baking stuff here is way more expensive than Canada. There's a reason everything is filled with strawberry or red bean paste here, man, and that's because normal stuff is too expensive! I'm reduced to buying cheap bars of chocolate and chopping them up in order to make cookies. I'm not sure what Christmas baking will cost, and in that case, I only want to make sugar cookies! Although I've never seen shortening here, either. Then again, I've never looked. But apparently mixing butter and margarine will produce the same results, so I'll try that if all else fails.
I'm determined to try this though. I want to give some out to the staff. If it doesn't kill me first.
Honestly though, why are chocolate chips so expensive!?
I don't think I can move past this. It's been months since I discovered this, and I'm still bemoaning my cookie-baking fate.
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December 15th, 2003
10:43 am - oh to catch up
I hope the computer doesn't eat this post.
Anyway, lately has been hellishly busy, and I haven't even gone anywhere. No fair! First it was studying for the Japanese Proficiency Test, which I think I failed by a nice margin. Then it was an English fair, which turned out to be a lot of fun, but meant staying after school until about seven.
Here's the thing. A lot of teachers stay until seven routinely. I can only hope that they have someone cooking for them at home, because I know that I, for one, had neither the energy nor the time to cook by the time I got home after that. Nor anything else. That means that my Saturday night and Sunday were taken up with chores and not doing any of the other things I'd like to do, like study. Many teachers routinely work on Saturday as well, at least in this school. In order to give their students that extra edge, which is not really an edge but simply just keeping up, this school has Saturday Seminars in the morning. Students get out at 12. I have no idea how long teachers stay in that case. Fortunately my presence isn't required.
But I don't understand why all the hard work that students and teachers put in in high school doesn't translate into higher levels of achievement generally. After 6 years of regular classes in a foreign language students in North America are generally expected to have a much higher skill level than students show here.
But they do work hard. A lot of that is needing to appear to work hard, but still...they genuinely work hard. I can't imagine wanting to spend 12 hours a day as a teacher. or much of anything else...
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October 11th, 2003
October 8th, 2003
09:24 am - It's actually cold here.
Coldish anyway. Overcast and so on. On October first right on schedule everyone is in long sleeves, and there is no more AC. They physically remove the AC remote controls from rooms. Last year I recall it staying hotter longer, because I was bemoaning the lack of AC for much longer.
There are exams this week, so there are three days of no classes. Yesterday once exams were over there was a staff volleyball game. The mere mention of this made me faint with horror. Every nightmarish scenario from my youth was suddenly vividly recalled to mind. Every dropped ball, strike out, malicious trip, and failed sprint. This was a return to the hell on earth called team sports.
My supervisor failed to mention this, though I keenly started to suspect something when the teachers all started trickling out, returning to the staffroom in their gym duds. I don't have gym duds, but even the most well-fed teacher here has special clothes for athletics. Usually brand name. I don't even have running shoes anymore. Well, not ones for actual sports.
Because I didn't know, however, I had scheduled to help a student with her speech for a contest at exactly the same time. I can of course hope that I would only have had to cheer on our team, whichever team that was, but the speech practice comes first.
In any case, first year teachers, of which I am a part, lost both their games and placed last. I can't imagine that the handicap of my taking part would have helped them in any great way.
ugh. The mere mention of volleyball caused my forearms to ache with remembered pain.
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September 22nd, 2003
12:59 pm - September
has not, I'll admit, been overtaxing as far as work goes. Between school festival and various changes, etc. of which I am more or less oblivious, I've barely been in the classroom. This is a common complaint among JETs and leads to many of the more underused ones becoming somewhat cavalier towards schedules and so on. I know some JETs who work their asses off, and a lot who become really good teachers and together people through it. I don't appear to be heading in that direction.
Then again, I never made that claim.
Today the teacher who I'm supposed to teach with is away at a wedding. Since the classes is a listening test followed by the giving of answers, explaination of grammar points, and occasional spoken English, all my classes are cancelled.
Well.
And it's another absolutely gorgeous day outside too. Bright sun but lots of cool breezes. Kind of like a nice day in high summer back in the hood - er...Prince George. Really, it's a sin to be inside, yet here I am.
PS. As to pictures of the festival, I want to give a hearty raspberry to the batteries in my digicam, which chose that day to die.
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September 17th, 2003
09:54 am - So, onwards!
I spent last weekend in Fukuoka, where I naturally spent money. Even a little extra spending is annoying right now, but I bought a lovely skeleton Jack figure from "James and the Giant Peach." It seems that both that and "Nightmare Before Christmas" has been licenced to death in Japan. I don't recall there being this much merchandise for these movies in North America. Although recently there was a little bubble of it, I think. In any case I bought it at Mandarake, the store where spending a fortune is made easy. Used comics and weird American collector toys. My worst nightmare.
The reason for going to Fukuoka was to attach my cd burner to Jen's computer, in order to clear off some of her hard drives. However, there was a fault in the computer, and it wouldn't really install the drive. It would read disks that were already burned, but it wouldn't pull up a blank disk in order to burn. Very frustrating.
Now, Monday is a national holiday in Japan. In fact it's called "Respect for the Aged" day. So I naturally came home Monday instead of Sunday, and got up bright and early for school on Tuesday. I walked to school, lunch packed and ready. Only to find the gates locked.
Hhhhhuh. I'm certain of my days.
Now, last Wednesday to Friday was school festival. Friday was a sports day, which was to take place at a local park. However, Oita was hit by a typhoon (which are never as dramatic as I think they should be) which caused a lot of rain and bad weather. Sports day was cancelled, but would possibly go on Saturday instead. This is the only reason I can think of for the school to be closed on Tuesday. If Sports day was held on Saturday (which being in Fukuoka I would have missed) then they would take a substitute holiday.
Either that, or it was a huge joke played on me.
Or I smell.
Anyway, back to school today, which gives me a grand total of half a week of work this week. next Tuesday is also a holiday. It makes me eager to start counting down to that vacation I can't really afford but am committed to anyway.
I swear, no more vacations.
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September 11th, 2003
09:17 am - Hello
Welcome to the new site of my Oita journal. Frankly, I hope that I'll simply update more if the journalling is taken care of by LiveJournal, rather than having to do chunks of coding at a time. Soooo, call me lazy, go ahead.
Today is festival day at the high school. We're now officially into repeating things in Japan. :P This year it's not as hot though. Also, they're expecting a typhoon this weekend. A really mean part of my hopes it rains tomorrow simply because I don't want to go to sports day.
Actually, yesterday was the first day of festival, the day held inside on stage. Once again I was in awe of the work that the classes put into what they did. There was a great deal of talk about the third years, and everyone puts in that extra effort for them because this is their last year, and their last festival. That's the gist of it as I understand it. Currently there are speeches going on outside, which you'll forgive me for not hanging out for because Damn! I don't understand a word and it's difficult to keep that polite "I'm enjoying myself really" smile on, even when I'm getting a translation. Eventually the eyes DO glaze over, and I defy anyone to claim differently. I suspect this will go on until about 10, when everything seems scheduled to start. More or less. I'm hoping to sneak up and watch Lilo and Stitch, since I've never seen it and while I don't have a burning desire TO see it, it IS the English club.
Today, actually having a camera, I'll get pictures. Yesterday I was cruelly without, having forgotten it at home.
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