Monday, November 29, 2010

Quotes From My Supervisor

So I went on a little trip yesterday with my supervisor and we had a nice hour and a half commute each way, so we got some good conversation in.  Here are some of my favorite quotes from seriously one of the nicest people I know.  

Most Japanese bullying is more like hiding peoples shoes, eating their lunches, or having everyone in the class ignore one student.  After I told her about bullying in the US usually just evolves into a fight between two people, she says.. 
"I think the American way is better, to just have a fight."

"In Tennessee they had lots of Black music...do you know?  R&B?"
 
me - "When did you last eat McDonalds?"
her - "I brought my children there Saturday and Sunday."
me - "whoa two days in a row nice!"
her - "Yes, but my husband does not know."
me - "why not?"
her - "he does not want me to eat there, but I often eat McDonalds, I love the food.  Since I had twins I have gained weight and he calls me fat and doesn't want me to eat hamburgers, so I keep it a secret."
me - "If I told that to my fiancee, she would slap me."
her - "Yes, that is only natural feeling."


as I get off the train:
"see you later alligator!"

Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Wait for the ending...

Lately I've had the bad habit of starting blog entries, writing a paragraph, then thinking to myself "gosh this is boring, I don't really care if I remember this random story, and people definitely won't find it very interesting or entertaining."  So that leads me to finish this blog post that I started a while back and it remains neither interesting nor entertaining.  Until the end.

So my morning started out like every other morning.  I woke up earlier than most people, but then proceeded to not make use of this extra time that I had.  Many people can get ready for the day in about a half hour or less, I usually take about a hour and a half.  And usually during that hour and a half, about the only things I do are eat/shower/brush teeth/get dressed/and browse reddit.  And in case you were wondering, no I don't know why I used slashes instead of comas right there in that previous sentence, I just started with the slashes and kept the trend going.  I thought about switching to comas after "brush teeth," but that would have just been silly.

After waking up, falling out of bed, and pulling a comb across my head.  I made my way downstairs (and by downstairs I mean my kitchen) and drank a cup (of tea).  Looking up, I noticed I wasn't very late and so therefore I had time to do my normal stuff.  I had a super delicious breakfast (like every morning) of yogurt, fruit (I forgot which fruit exactly I had, but suffice it to say it was a delicious fruit, since there really is no such thing as a not-delicious fruit in Japan, they have very good quality control with their fruit.  If it isn't ripe or has been bruised, they reject it before it hits the store shelves, so it's pretty impossible to find undelicious fruit here.) tea, and homemade granola.

As I get dressed for work, I notice a new feeling I have not had in quite some time...a slight chill ran throughout my body.  Since this was by far the hottest summer on record in Aomori, I was beginning to think that it didn't get cold here, but I was wrong (why couldn't climate change only affect winters?)  I spent my first two months sweating in my apartment and longing for air conditioning.  Now suddenly, I longed for central heating.  

The slight chill in the air caused me to reach for an article of clothing that I have not worn in a good 7-8 months, my winter jacket.  I thought nothing of it as I slipped it on, one arm at a time, not quite remembering my cool cross-armed style where I can put both arms through at the same time while flinging it high over my head like President Bartlett does in The West Wing.  Maybe in a couple of weeks I'll remember the technique.  But anyhow, the point is, I got the jacket on and headed out the door.

I didn't get to the bottom of my stairs before I realized that I had forgotten my gloves.  Darn.  My hands were pretty cold, so I put my hands into my jacket pocket...

[And it is at this point in the story where you are probably thinking to yourself, I've just wasted 4 minutes of my life reading this stupid story, I don't even like Tom, why the heck am I still reading this?  But really the reason that I'm posting this story is because in high school, there was a general agreement that any story, no matter how boring, could be saved as long as it had this ending.  So I tried to make a really boring post, in hopes of testing this hypothesis.]

...and then I found 20 bucks in my jacket pocket!

Tuesday, November 9, 2010

Questions?

My cousin asked me a few questions on Facebook so I thought I'd start a post here.  If you have any questions about Japan, me, Starcraft, Pokemon, Democrats, JET, wedding plans, bento boxes, Ichiro, baseball, coming to visit, teaching or whatever, feel free to ask me anything either on Facebook or in the comments here and I'll answer them.

What is the night life like?


Well, that's a really difficult question to answer.  I guess it's about the same as the US.  It is what you make of it.  My idea of a great time is going out to eat at a nice restaurant or have an and then walking around town to one of the 5 dessert shops in Noheji and getting some absolutely crazy dessert that I'd never be able to find in the States.


I guess the typical US night life of going out to a bar with friends is probably a lot more popular in big cities.  In my small town of Noheji, there are plenty of snack bars (place where old men go).  Japan's got kind of a darker side to it that I probably shouldn't go in too much to, but lets suffice it to say that women really don't go out much.  Rural Japan is pretty conservative.


What age are your students? 

 In Japan they go to elementary school for 6 years, junior high for 3 and high school for 3.  I teach first year high schoolers, or the equivalent of 10th graders for the most part (8 times per week)  Then once or twice a week I'll teach 11th or 12th graders.  So the 10th graders are 15ish, 11th graders 16ish and 12th graders 17ish.

Do they already speak English, and if not, how do you begin to teach them? 

Yea they're good.  Starting this year, every student in Japan needs to take an English class.  Most elementary and middle schools were already teaching English, so by the time they get to me, they're pretty good at sputtering out things.  I'm at a low level high school though, so my students aren't the best.  If you go to an academic high school, those students will speak better English than my 9th graders did last year in the US.


Also, what is the time difference from here to there? 

 Since daylight savings time ended, I am 15 hours ahead of Central Standard time.

Where do you stay?

One great thing about being a teacher in Japan is that the government subsidizes my rent.  I thought Japan only had 1 room apartments that were a thousand bucks a month.  I have a huge apartment (relatively speaking) in Noheji at a great location (like a 5 minute walk to the train station, a 5 minute walk to the ocean, and a 5 minute bike ride to school.) And it costs me about 300 bucks a month.

How you ended up in Japan and what your life is like there.


Well theres a long story and a short story, I'll start with the short story and if you want me to elaborate on the super long JET application process, I will, but it was quite a bit of work and lots of waiting.  To make a long story short, I applied for an awesome program called JET (they hook you up with an apartment, cheap rent, good pay, no taxes, give you lots of support, etc) and was lucky enough to get selected.  


My life here is, I guess, pretty normal.  When I thought of Japan I always pictured super crowded cities and high tech and what not, but thats not my experience at all.  JET places its people in rural areas to teach English, so I'm in a small town of about 12,000 people.  It's so amazing, I can't go more than 10 minutes in a store in Noheji (my town) without running into someone who is like "Tomasu-sensei!! Konnichiwa!! Picture ok?"  All my students are super nice and energetic and awesome.  Other than that though, my days usually go something like this:


1)Wake up around 6ish, eat/workout/shower/waste time on the internet
2)Get to school around 730ish, teachers meeting at 8.  Teach a class or two.
3)School ends at about 330 (or I should say, cleaning begins at 3:20, there are no janitors in Japan, the kids clean the school for 10 minutes at the end of each day.
4) More often than not, I go to badminton or basketball club until about 6:30
5) Get home cook dinner, either play starcraft, talk to heather, study japanese.
6) Repeat

Saturday, November 6, 2010

Noheji Alumni Event

Yesterday I went to an alumni event for Noheji and my supervisor was working at the front desk.  I paid for my ticket and she was just like "go sit wherever you find an open chair."  I go to the nearest table and as soon as I sit down, everyone around me started getting introduced to massive applause.  I guess I sat at the head table accidentally.

Thursday, November 4, 2010

Academic High School

On Nov 4th, I got my first taste of an academic high school in Japan.  For the record, high school is not mandatory in Japan and there are pretty much 3 classifications for high schools that students apply to; academic, technical, and low.  Noheji is a low level high school.  Now I always thought that my students were pretty good.  As 10th graders, their English is about as good as my Spanish was when I was a 12th grader, so I haven't ever really thought that my students were bad, nor have I thought they were fluent.

Then yesterday I go to Misawa High School and got my first taste of an academic school.  About 40 kids from Misawa are going to Hawaii on a school trip so I was lucky enough to be one of 5 ALTs chosen to participate in a day-long crash-course on what to expect in Hawaii.  We began the day introducing ourselves.  I did my best job to speak nice and slowly and enunciate every syllable in every word.  I began; "helllllo.mmmy......naaame..is...tooomasu.  I aam froom aaahmerikuh"  And I went on and on and was thinking I was doing a great job.

Then after our introductions, one student stood up and gave a speech in perfect American-accented English and included things like "I am speaking on behalf of our class and want to extend to you a very warm welcome to Misawa High School.  We look forward to learning all about various aspects of Hawaiian culture from you." 

I was stunned, some of the students spoke better English than me.  At first I was in charge of a little shopping skit where I gave the kids fake money and they had to buy some items.  Like 20 seconds after we began, I was walking around, putting my Hy-Vee skills to work and asking people what they would like to buy.  One girl was like, "Excuse me, this camera is broken, why does it cost $80 dollars?  Even if it worked it would only be worth about 40 bucks."  I didn't even try to answer her question, I was just like "so, are you from an English-speaking country or how do you speak so well?"  She was just like "oh I am a member of English club, I haven't been outside of Japan, Hawaii will be the first time I leave."

The whole day was filled with students who basically taught me English.  It was nice to see where all of the stereotypes come from.

Then today I am back at a my nice awesome low level school (I'm not saying that sarcastically, I actually do absolutely love it here and look forward to work every day), and I asked a student "Yesterday, what did you do?"  and he answered "I goed shopped"

Tuesday, November 2, 2010

Everything you need to get from Narita to Noheji

 I created a nice little sheet you can print off and bring with you to Japan.  If you meet a person that doesn't understand English, just bring out this piece of paper and point to whatever you need.


English
Japanese

Where is JR East Travel Service Center?

JR East Travel Service Center
は どこ ですか?
Walk to the travel center.

1 Flexible 4 day JR East Pass please.
1、Flexible 4 Day JR East Pass
Where can I buy a train ticket?
どこでチケットを購入できますか?
When you get to the ticket window:

I want to go to Noheji
野辺地まで行きたい
You’ll be given a few tickets, if you show them to people, they’ll point you in the right direction.

What time does the train depart?
何時に列車が出発しますか?
What time does the train arrive?
何時に列車が到着するのですか?
What track number?
何ばんせんですか?


Where is the bathroom?
トレイはどこですか?
I’m hungry
お腹が空いている
Where is a restaurant?
レストランはどこですか?