Apologetics

Note: I'm kind of cheating by pre-dating this post, but this has been a work-in-progress for the last few weeks. So if you're thinking, Wait, this post wasn't here a few days ago, that's because it wasn't.


The last two times I had to do it, deciding to recontract was an easy decision. "I'll stay!" This year I agonized over it. I was completely split down the middle. On the one hand, I've learned so much about Japanese culture (I hate this term now, "Japanese culture," but that's the most succinct way to say what I mean), about my students and the teachers I work with, the people I know in town and outside of town. Very little of my time now is spent tackling WTF?! questions, and I want to live in this knowledge, enjoy knowing what's going on sometimes instead of never knowing what's happening. People have gotten to know me, too. It takes so long to get to know people here—the national temperament seems to tend toward the introverted—that I feel like to leave now would be to lose everything I've worked for. Like I've worked really hard to create something, and now I'm just gonna walk away.

I've moved three times in the last two and a half years, and I finally have an apartment I like, and I've spent a lot of money getting it just the way I like it. But that's a lie, because the vast majority of my boxes are still sitting around, perhaps scrounged through, but never unpacked. (It's true, though, that I've spent a lot of money in the hope that I'll finally do something with all this stuff. I don't know how much I've spent, but it's been too much. I was buying things right up until last month....)

I also like to tell myself that I'll finally study Japanese if I stay another year... but that's almost definitely wishful thinking.

When I think about the job itself, though, oh the ennui! because even after two and a half years, my responsibilities are very few, and I still haven't learned to teach. The job isn't set up that way. Toothpaste Maniac told me, back in October, that she hoped I could teach a class once in a while. (This, after I asked her directly, "What can I do to be a better ALT?" which was shortly after I found out that the rules had changed--that I could recontract for a fourth and fifth year at the same schools--and I was beginning the process of making that decision.) The prospect of teaching an entire class excited me--finally a goal! A challenge! A chance to improve myself!

But then I had almost no classes with TM, due to exams or her busy-ness. Since October I've had, seriously, about five classes with her. Certainly no more than ten. (For comparison' sake, at my other junior high I teach roughly five or six classes each week with each JTE--that's 10 to 12 classes per week on average.) In the few classes I've had with TM, she'd already prepared everything, and then taught most of it by herself. It's been really confusing for me. Am I a crap ALT? I mean, why else would she say, "Please teach some classes," and then change her mind and not give me the chance for the next five months? It's been really discouraging.

The situation isn't exactly much better at my other school, though. Even though I spend more time physically present in the classroom, I still don't do much. Ms. Chipmunk is better at asking me to do various things in different classes (like last year when we arm-wrestled, which was so awesome), but New Sensei has pretty much the exact same pattern for all his classes, and that pattern is pretty bland. (It's not the fact that he uses a pattern that I take issue with—patterns can be helpful—it's just his patterns.) (And maybe one of these days I'll get around to thinking up a proper nickname for New Sensei, since he's new only to my school and not to the teaching profession... or maybe I won't.) Beckham, who was transfered to another school last year, used to come to me, maybe a day or a couple hours before a lesson, and say, "Our next lesson together will be about blahbitty blah. Could you prepare some materials?" And that was great. But most of the time when I ask one of my JTEs if there's something I can do to prepare for the next lesson, they're like, "Nope, I'm cool."

I used to wish I could find a low-stress job. But now I realize that "low-stress" doesn't mean "very little work," because this feeling of uselessness has been really stressful. Even when I've had the opportunity to plan a lesson, TM's always found something wrong with it. And the worst part is, her concerns are usually justified.

As for anecdotes, there is this:
TM actually did ask me to plan a lesson for the second-years' elective English class last month. She gave me carte blanche, provided the lesson reviewed material they'd already learned that semester. As a warm-up, I prepared a worksheet with six sentences using 'can,' 'have to,' and 'must' (like "I can run fast," or, "She must getting up early"). The students would have to correct the ones that were wrong, and recognize which sentences were right. Next, my idea was that the kids (seven girls) would break into groups, invent a simple game, and then teach me how to play their games using the same target words. To emphasize how simple the games should be, I invented one of my own: Roll up a piece of paper into a ball, lean your head back and set the ball between your eyes, then walk around the classroom without letting the ball fall. Winner is the person who can do this the most quickly.

It was the day before the class was to be held that I thought of this, and I ran the plan past TM that afternoon. The worksheet was okay, but the game activity....
"It's too hard for them to make a game."
"They don't have to make a complicated game, just a simple one. I thought of my game in two minutes."
"But all they will think about is the game; they won't think about the English!"
"So, should they explain, like, basketball to me?"
She shook her head, and then got W-sensei's attention and explained my idea to her. W-sensei agreed that it wouldn't work well, and then they came up with a different idea. "The students can explain some Japanese games to you."

I think I visibly bristled at this suggestion. The very last thing I wanted was to be The Foreigner, proselytized to about Japanese Culture once again.
"How is that different from them explaining basketball to me?"
"You already know how to play basketball. There's no need to explain the rules to you. The students know these Japanese games, but maybe you don't know them."
I grudgingly agreed to rely on TM's judgment to decide what Japanese games I didn't yet know*, when I realized what had just happened: TM was planning the activity as if I hadn't done anything. I hadn't saved her any work. I hadn't done anything more than type up a worksheet that would take 10 minutes to complete. I felt like such an idiot. And fine, you know, sometimes these things happen and I can learn from them. The problem is that these discussions over the appropriateness of various classroom activities happen so rarely, it's difficult for me to make any use of them.
*She was 2 for 3; I was pleasantly surprised.

The frustrations I felt before—adjusting to life, the universe, and everything—they've come and gone as various difficulties have presented themselves to me. But the frustration I feel in knowing that I'm basically useless has only grown since I've been here, and I see no way to overcome it in my capacity as an ALT. Not only is the situation intrinsically frustrating, but I also have way too much time to sit around and think about how frustrated I am. (I try not to, but it's like trying to hold water in my cupped hands.) It's gotten to the point now where some days I walk out of the school building ready to cry, and even the kids who wave and shout goodbye to me on my way down the driveway can't do much to lift me out of my despondency.

So it's time to go.

A wealth of words is not eloquence.

Several weeks ago there was an assembly at Yokota Junior High. I had been told that the assembly was about human rights, and was the first of its kind at this school. The students and staff all gathered in the gym, listened to one of the teachers give a speech, and then did a couple of activities. In the first activity, the students wrote down their birthdays on small sheets of paper, and then stood in a large circle around the gym in order of their birthdays. It took a bit of doing, cos most of the kids didn’t want to stand apart from their friends, and seemed more or less mortified to have to stand next to kids they didn’t know or didn’t like. I took my place in middle March, and heartily greeted the kids to my left and right, but they were having none of it. And that was the end of the first activity. In the next activity, the students gathered in one of the corners of the gym, depending on their blood type: A, B, AB, and O. I joined the O group. (I’m O, right Mom? Cos that’s what I keep telling everybody.) This activity was better received, cos they could hang out with at least a few of their friends, or people whose presence they tolerated. And that was it, and then the kids were lining back up according to their class (in typical assembly form) and being lectured to again. Thinking I’d missed some important information in Japanese, I found W-sensei and said, “So... what's the point?”
She thought a moment. “Mmm.... Mmm... yes,” she smiled, as a faintly puzzled look crossed her face. “What's the point?”

W-sensei is one of my JTEs, and has been since I arrived in Japan. I didn’t know what to make of her at first. Her English isn’t too good, and since she’s at the same school as Toothpaste Maniac, well, I usually went to TM when I had a question about something. But the more I get to know her, the more I like her. She went to school to be a math teacher, and depending on what school she’s been assigned to (Japanese public school teachers are shuffled around to different schools in the prefecture every few years) she sometimes teaches math instead of English. Her English is good enough to teach junior high school students, and quite good when I think of the other math teachers I know here. She has three young kids—twin daughters in the fourth grade (whom I used to teach when I visited their elementary school), and a son in kindergarten—and her classroom management skills are great. She’s teaching a couple of first-year classes this year, and these younger kids can get out of hand. She lets them have fun, but stops them before they get too crazy. I enjoy those first-year classes I have with her. And once in a while, when we both have the time, we’ll have a really interesting conversation. Though she’s too young for the part, she sometimes reminds me of my own mom.

I’ve been reluctant for most of my life to give the title of "friend" to a lot of the people in my life whom others might think I ought to call friends. A college friend (a real one) once told me about a two-hour conversation she had with a fellow she’d just met over lunch. “We became good friends,” she said. I thought she’d used the word too loosely, and I think many Americans do, but I also worried that I was adhering to too strict a definition of friendship. It’s always taken me a long time to get to know people and feel comfortable around them.

I’ve realized that the cultural reticence of the Japanese is more like my own personal introversion spread out across a nation. It seems much more common for a Japanese person to withhold the title of “friend” from an acquaintance for as long as I might prefer to... and I kind of like that. In the States, introversion is seen as a character flaw. Not by everyone, of course, but by enough people to have made my childhood kind of miserable at times. I don’t mean to say that there are no charismatic personalities among the Japanese, or that people here aren’t drawn to those who are friendly and energetic, just that it’s okay not to be that way, too. The longer I’ve lived here, the more I’ve gotten to know the people I’ve worked with for the last two and a half years—and, perhaps more importantly, they’ve gotten to know me better.

W-sensei is one of the reasons why I’m glad I’ve stayed this long.

My First IV

It's not serious, Mom. Just the usual vertigo, but this time the Board of Education found out about it, and they decided I should go to the hospital. The doctor prescribed an antivertigo medicine and an antienemic (nausea inhibiting) medicine, and then sent me down the hall for a drip of an antienemic and some fluids.

It got boring really fast.

Tonight, we dine well.

Christmas party in Hakuta, Yasugi City.

That's turkey! (And deviled eggs.)

Firecrackers

About a month ago I dreamt that I was walking down a tree-covered path and reading a poem. It was written on a bit of brown paper, and as I made my way to a cabin to meet my friends, I thought about what had inspired the man who wrote it.
When I woke, I found that I could recall the poem perfectly, and I quickly found a pen.

Firecrackers
Whistling in the night.
The night was whistling, too.

My First Endoscopy

Everything is perfect. Cheese! (*^_^*)

Adorable!

A small group of first-year girls at Nita JHS gave me this drawing just now. They made one for most of the teachers, if not all of them.

The poor dears think I'm from Canada, it would seem. I didn't have the heart to correct them.

My likeness is saying, "Hello Ms. Emily," with Emily in Japanese.

I'm just so tickled! They even drew in my braid.
o(^-^)o

Rain

It seems that the roof of my new apartment building has a fair bit of coverage beyond my balcony railing.
This is bad news for my potted plants, but good news for my laundry.

This Is an Update...

This is only an update.

I've just moved apartments. Glutton for punishment I am, but it feels good to finally be in a nice place. Unfortunately, I only got this place cos Orasa had to leave.

My internet will be back up by the end of this month. In the meantime, I can pick up scraps at the Board of Education and school.

P.S. How're the new colors working for all y'all?

Janelle, me, Orasa

at Saty last night, before the fireworks.
Mata, ne.

Meme'd!

I was "tagged" over three months ago by Himene, and it's high time I stepped up.

Eight weird/interesting things about myself:

1. I'm really obsessive compulsive about anything that grows on the surface of my body, namely my hair, my skin, and my nails. Especially my nails. The hair on my head is fine, but once in a while I get a hair in my chin, and I can't stop picking at it. Once it's out, I feel much more relaxed. My skin, when I get a sunburn, I love it when it peels; the bigger the sheet of skin I can peel off at once, the better. I also pick at my lips all the time. My nails, I'm always trimming them and trimming the skin around them. Or picking at the skin around them till I grow hangnails. I can't stand any growth on my toenails, and I will pick at them compulsively until I can trim them. I have a higher tolerance for fingernail length, but nothing that allows me to have a manicure. I'll pick at my hangnails and try to tear them out with my teeth, and sometimes they bleed.

That... should count for three things right there. That was a lot. Yeah, sorry to anyone who was eating while they read that.

Okay,
4. If I step on a sidewalk crack with my right foot, I have to step on another one with my left foot. Have to even things out, you know? Not just sidewalk cracks, but anything I can feel through my shoes.

5. My eyes, my irises, they're like a circle within another circle. It's like I have an outer iris and an inner iris; the inner one is darker, and this has caused people to think my eyes were far more dilated than they really were.

Mmm... I'm running out of stuff....
6. I was a National Merit Scholarship Finalist. And I never got a scholarship out of it. :(

7. I'm right-handed, and my right-hand ring finger is longer than my right-hand index finger. This is normal. But... my left-hand ring finger is also slightly longer than my left-hand index finger, and this is unusual. Or supposed to be.

8. I love brussel sprouts.

As for choosing new meme victims... the violence has to stop somewhere.

The Turning Over

This is a difficult time of year, because the new JETs are coming in soon, which means the old ones have to leave. You know what I've discovered about myself? I don't much like people when I first meet them. At best they're just all right, but usually I find them somewhat annoying. Very rarely do I like someone immediately. It's worse when I feel I'm forced to interact and be friendly with new people, and especially in the case of first-year JETs, who are like college freshmen. While their enthusiasm is refreshing, it's also draining. So I'm forced by circumstance (the need to communicate in my native language with people who don't find American women intrinsically strange... and sometimes with American men, too) into these friendships with people I might not otherwise have been friends with, for better or for worse. And then when I really get to like someone... they leave.

Believe in Olive Fingers

When these commercials came out at the end of the last decade, I tried to find them online, but couldn't. This site seems to be a new creation.

The Orphanage nearly moved me to tears when I first saw it.

Yokatta! I'm so glad I found them!

Hide and Seek

I just found out from New Cheeky Supervisor (have I given him a nickname yet? He's my new supervisor, effective this last April, and he's cheekier than Cheeky Supervisor, but doesn't steal my candy)... anyway, he just told me that Okuizumo has found an ALT for the new elementary position. I don't know how I feel about that. I was a little relieved when Trevor wasn't able to take the position, cos I know he wants to recontract again next year, and that would mean I wouldn't be able to switch to an elementary position in Okuizumo (if I wanted to) when I finish my third year here. (But that's the only reason I was relieved, Trev, I swear!) Also, my current schedule has me visiting elementary schools around town every Monday—pending invitation from those schools, of course, which is why I have nothing to do today—and while they're exhausting, I really like seeing the kids.

So for at least one year I won't be visiting the elementary schools. And if New Girl (I'm sorry, New Girl, if the temporary nickname sounds cold and informal; I just didn't know if you'd want me posting your real name on my blog just yet)... if New Girl wants to recontract, then I'd have to find an open elementary position in another town, if I decide to stay a fourth year.

New Girl is from Auckland, and I've seen her photo, so I know I won't be the only white chick in town anymore. Don't know how I feel about that, either, but it's probably a good thing.
She'll be a first-year. This is unusual, because elementary-only positions, as a rule, are open only to ALTs who have already completed two or three years in junior or senior high school positions. Maybe she already speaks Japanese? I wasn't able to get a thorough look at her information, though I caught a glance at her e-mail addresses. Pointing to one of them, I asked NCS if it was okay for me to contact her. No! No, no, not yet. Not yet. Why on earth not? I don't know, but maybe later this week I'll be able to. Weird.

But he didn't say anything about posting almost everything I know on my blog. :)
So New Girl, find me! Google "Okuizumo" and follow the seventh link!
'Course the sixth link is interesting, too. Ooo...

The hills are alive...

Some weeks ago Toothpaste Maniac showed me a flier for a concert her friend would be singing in. It was a choir concert, and they'd be performing some Renaissance pieces. At one time in the past, this choir was selected to receive an hour of instruction from a particular famous choir director. I was mildly amused. "Ooo, a whole hour!"

A couple of days later it clicked, and I e-mailed TM to ask when and where the concert would be held. Unfortunately, I'd already made a commitment for that day and time in another town, so I wouldn't have been able to attend. I was hoping to hear them, hear how they sound, find out what kind of music they tend to perform (is Renaissance indicative of the norm, or is it an exception?).

Last week, after finding out she wouldn't be attending the concert either, I asked TM if she'd be able to do me a favor. "Could you ask your friend if that choir is looking for new members?"
She shook her head as though she didn't have the answer. "I don't know."
"I know. You'll have to ask your friend. That's why it's a favor. Onegaishimasu (please)," I bowed.
She said she would, so I added, "I sing soprano... but most choirs don't need more sopranos." And then I felt awkward, so I thanked her again and ran off. Which wasn't so strange a reaction as it might otherwise have been, since I was running around the track field after school, and she was keeping time for some students in the track & field club.

An hour later I asked her if she knew what kind of music the choir usually performs. She said she didn't know, then paused. "Most of the choir members are music teachers, or they've sung in choirs for a long time, and they're very good."
"Mmm.... I don't read music so well."
"They can."
Well, this was good news and bad news. Good, cos this sounds like the kind of choir I want to join. Bad, cos this sounds like the kind of choir that might not want me to join. But in case TM thought I'd lost interest, I took a chance and bragged a bit.
"The city of Syracuse has an orchestra, the Syracuse Symphony Orchestra. They have a choir that sings with them at concerts, and I sang in that choir for a year."

Soooo... yeah. I hope it works out.

A Valuable Lesson

If you tried recently to reach my blog and were greeted with a 404: Page not found, or by a list of Japanese websites and little else, that's because I accidentally deleted my blog on Monday afternoon.

Oh, the humiliation! But more than that, I'd lost two and a half years of public journal in under 2.5 seconds. In a panic, I wrote to Blogger support. It took a few days, but they were able to restore everything, and even return to me my original URL, which had been snagged by a spammer in the interim.

So now the next time I need to change some blog settings from my computer at the Board of Education, I'll remember this:

Happy Mother's Day

Today I visited Ai Kindergarten. Last year there were only 12 students. I visited the school several times, and it took a while for the kids to warm up to me. This year there are maybe 20, and they're all "supah genki" and warmed up to me during my first visit two weeks ago. They're great, I love them. They ask me crazy questions like if I'm going back to America tonight, and how to say 'butt' and 'poo' in English (I said "bottom" for the first, and one of the teachers interrupted before I could answer the second). They're also nuts. It's really theraputic to be able to speak English fluently. As long as I keep my tone cheerful, I can say whatever I want, and the kids are none the wiser:
"I'm pretending I don't know that you're asking me to push you on the swings, cos I've already been pushing you for the last five minutes. I'm going to go over here, okay?"
"And your face is buried in my butt. How 'bout we stop doing that.
"I'm a jungle gym!"
"You guys are insane."

But I can't get by without a little Japanese:
"Itai!" ("Ouch!" This one's really useful.)
"Dame!" ("No good!" A common reproof, like, "Don't do that.")
"Yada, yo!" ("I don't want to!" I get this from the kids all the time.)
"[Japanese word]? Wakaranai. Gomen, ne." ("I don't understand [Japanese word]. Sorry 'bout that.")

Today I had a short break in the morning, and I took the opportunity to call Mom while it was still Sunday in New York. The kids were all outside, so I snuck into the large play room to talk to her. It wasn't long before five-year old Minami found me. She was like, You're speaking English? I said, "It's my mom." Oh, cool. Are you a big sister? she asked me. Yes, I'm a big sister. After a little while, she was like, Why are you speaking English? Why aren't you speaking Japanese? I said, "My mother doesn't understand Japanese." She made the cutest little scowl and stamped her foot. Mom was absolutely tickled. "'Why doesn't your mother speak Japanese?' I love kindergarteners; they're so concrete at that age." A few minutes later, two of Minami's friends joined her, and she filled them in. "Emily-sensei's talking to her mom. Emily is a big sister." So they were all intrigued, and I passed the phone to one of them. "Say 'Konnichiwa,'" I said. With a bit of prompting, she did. Then we passed the phone around between the three of them, and they all had a turn saying "Konnichiwa," and hearing Mom say "Konnichiwa" back to them. Then all the kids came running into the big play room, and Sayuri, one of the teachers, escorted me to the balcony where I could talk in peace.

After lunch, I told Sayuri that the three girls had talked to my mom. "Which girls?" When I pointed them out, she told me to write about it in their report books to their parents. The teachers exchange notes with the parents through a notebook each student has. Whenever I visit, I write a short note in English (Sayuri proofs it to make sure it's simple enough) to explain what I did that day. So today it was, "Today [student] learned animal names. We played an animal game." And for the three girls, I added, "[Minami] talked to my mother in New York on the phone. [Minami] said, 「こんにちは！」 My mother enjoyed it very much. ^_^ "

Oh!

I've gone an entire month without writing anything!
Well, that's not entirely true. A couple of weeks ago, I started another post, but got bored and moved on to something else—this makes three unfinished posts I need to publish. I'll see what I can do today while I'm at the Board of Education. No school visits scheduled for the day, so if I don't get distracted by something else on the internet, I just might post something of substance up here.

But in the meantime, I am well.

The Trouble with Blogging

The trouble with blogging, at least for me, is that I'm usually far from my computer when something happens or I remember something that seems blogworthy. And then a few hours (or days) later, when I find myself both within proximity of an available internet-connected computer and with enough time to write something, either I can't remember what I was going to write, or I decide (often rightfully so) that it really wasn't interesting enough to publish.

But now I have both motive and opportunity, so let's go.

I rented a car for the first time when I went home for spring break. That was fun. A toast to being older than 24! The car was expensive, not extortionate. Also, a toast to unlimited mileage: I drove that car from Poughkeepsie to Syracuse, to Niagara Falls, to Syracuse, to Delaware, to Syracuse, and back to Poughkeepsie. I was really nervous at first about driving on the right again, since the vast majority of my driving experience has been in Japan, but it wasn't as hard to become reacclimated to driving on the right as it was getting used to driving on the left in the first place. And not hard at all when I returned to Japan and had to drive on the left again, except for the couple of times I threw the windshield wipers instead of the turn signal.

I had three Sundays to split between two churches, and in retrospect I should've spent more time at the church where I knew more people. The only reason why I go to Poughkeepsie at all is to see Mom and Kreg and the cats, but I can't really see any of them while I'm at church. Mom and Kreg are busy working, running around; I can't have them to myself. And the cats, well, they just don't feel they're being fed at that church. ("We need milk and solid food," Bapes told me while I was there, "and those communion wafers aren't cutting it.") There are plenty of familiar faces at Faith, but for the most part, that's all they are: familiar faces. In contrast, I only spent one Sunday at Rez, and that wasn't enough time to catch up with anyone, really. It didn't help that I forgot to set my clock ahead and missed Sunday School. D'oh.

I met up with some of my students in Niagara Falls, Ontario. I knew that they'd be traveling to Canada during spring break, and I found out from James "The Canadian Guy in My Town" that they'd be eating lunch at the Planet Hollywood at 1:30pm the day after they arrived, so I drove out there with Uncle Jonathan (who was bored as a Thruway tollbooth attendant in Pembroke), and surprised them. Well, James knew I was coming, but the students didn't. That was cool. They all ordered nearly identical burgers, and then had to figure out how to fit them into their mouths; they've probably never seen a burger larger than a BigMac.
And since Toothpaste Maniac had written to me, expressing her jealousy of the book she'd lent me who was enjoying herself in America while TM had to work, I brought the book with me and took a photo (well, several, to get the shot right) in front of Horseshoe Falls.

Work's over at the BoE, and it's time to clean up. Since the Blogger interface on this computer is all in Japanese, I'm gonna hit one of the buttons below this field, and it's either going to save this post or publish it. Which one will it be?

Yukon

When I flew over Japan, grey fields filled in the valleys of the green mountains, and I could be sure that there were many, many people below me.

When I flew over the Yukon, the winding rivers and oxbow lakes ran through the white mountains, the snow, in the pale purple-orange sunrise, everything was snow, and I wondered if there were a soul out there.