M-i-c-k-e-y-m-o-u-s-e

Mickey Mouse! Mickey Mouse! Forever let us hold your banner high....

For crying out loud. If this is not the most annoying song in the english language then i just dont know what is (okay, ignoring 'The Song That Never Ends" i suppose). Everday since the beginning of time - or at least the start of the school year - i have been subjected to this song during cleaning time, when all teachers and students drop what they're doing to clean the school building. Thats right, no janitors with mops in broom closets, no just students running around with cleaning rags sort of doing their job. I wonder how the school isn't filthy as most of the students i see are doing nothing remotely related to cleaning but rather talking, fighting with the brooms, racing around the halls with their rags on the floor as sleds or something, or flirting. The only students who seem to actually work are the poor souls (lowly first years) assigned to the corridor outside the faculty office. Yet as soon as i whipped out my camera to capture the moments of 'cleaning' everyone actually looked busy. Which is the opposite of what usually happens, which is when the stop what they're doing, interrupting the natural picture i wanted, and smile and put up a peace sign by both cheeks. Typical.

The worst part about it all though is that now instead of just being bombarded with the Mickey Mouse Club song once a day it happens twice! Because of bunkasai and/or because the third years dont have club activities after school anymore the schedule is changed. First and second years clean at the normal time (aobut 3.30) to the horrible music, but the third years dont do it till about 4.00, giving them more time for bunkasai prep or homeroom or something. So then they play the Mickey Mouse Club song all over again. And both times its on for about 15 to 20 minutes on repeat. Ahhhh!

The Land of Many Festivals

It turns out that school is all about festivals. Sport's Day is basically a big track festival complete with music, decorations, a competitive spirit, and a party for the teachers to get drunk afterward. Now its time for bunkasai, the cultural festival. As far as i can tell the bunkasai is basically a festival to celebrate the talents of those less coordinated and atheletic, although in the end, as reminds me of middle school and high school, the same kids who won the 100 Meter dash or long jump are now starring in plays and leading dance groups. But still, the main festival elements are there - a competition between classes involving tons of preparatory work, lots of canceled classes and rearranged schedules, and a general atmoshphere of fun among the students.

The teachers on the other hand seem more stressed than normal, running from building to building (the theater is in the Hearty Center across the street), shouting at students in rehersals to face the audience or memorize their lines or speak louder (i'm assuming anyway), learning to operate the sound and light equipment for the theater, organizing the painting of scenery, creation of props and sewing of costumes. Of course i'm pretty immune to all these responsibilities, and to be honest a little sad. I have to particular class to help with or root for. I watch whatever rehersals i can and paint when i'm free and help with cleaning or sewing or anything, but i'm really not invested in any of the plays (and dont even understand all of them). Maybe by next friday i'll get the gist of more than just the renditions of Pinochio and Snow White (which they have renamed Princess Ono for the head english teacher).

My main involvement in the bunkasai preparations has been choir rehersal. Next friday i will sing two japanese choral numbers with a group of about 35 adults - largely mothers of students but also a few teachers (and only 4 men). Its actually gone really well now that i've written in the syllables in english, not just hiragana, so i'm excited. Other than that i spend my days wandering between groups of students and chatting, generally about boys and who they think i have a crush on at school. So far they have been wrong, for which i'm quite relieved :)

down by the river

Just a few pictures from this weekends fun in Kyoto. Went down yesterday to meet up with Kristin, Andrea and Zach, and join some other JETs to celebrate the birthday of my esteemed block leader, Nate. The bar was quite classy and happening, but the real fun was down by the river - we hit up the water's edge before dinner, after dinner, after the bar, after our ritual snack at the pita stand, and even today to read our books in the afternoon sun. What a great place.
Zach, Kristin and Andrea by the river

Dan "not quite my brother" Hofer and Nate the birthday boy, both the leaders of my block - Higashiomi

Kristin and Nate. Being pirates.

Me and Zach

Kristin givin' some lovin to our friendly pita stand worker

this week

Another rather uneventful week from Hatasho JHS. I have been teaching much less this week (and will continue to do so next week) because of rehersals for next months cultural festival and the ni nensei kids' work-study week. All of the second graders (8th graders) spend a week at work instead of school, most at the local grocery stores, hardware stores, library, kindergarten, etc. I have no idea what the actual purpose is for it (my theory is to scare the kids into taking school more seriously as all the jobs they work are fairly menial, which is probably the reason they allow the kids there at all) and no one can really explain it to me, kids are pulled from school from Wednesday to yet theWednesday of next week for work. I was lucky enough to spend the afternoon on Thursday biking around town to visit them in all their glory.

This week i also enjoyed my own preparations for the cultural festival - our first choir rehersal. Thats right, of all the times in my life when i was too shy or nervous or scared to join an actual choir i decide to get over it now and join a Japanese choir. Its been fun learning the music (which was luckily in hiragana and not kanji, so while i couldn't really sight read the music i decifered it at home and will be ready for next weeks rehersal).

And finally the weekend. To celebrate surviving another week of school and boredom and what-have-you i hit up Cannery Row with Candice (right, an elementary school ALT in my town from South Africa) and Shannon (left, the other JHS JET). Nothing beats this place with its drink bar of fresh juices and coffee, a salad bar, amazing pizza, and my favorite, a dessert trolley. So we pigged out and headed to karaoke for some classic girl tunes (luckily with pre-sanitized microphones).

Emergency!!!

Friday we had an earthquake emergency drill. For the most part it was a typical emergency drill - teachers lined up inside and outside of the building, ushering students onto the field and organizing them according to classes, timing the progress. To sustain the image of emergency the students even exited wearing their inside shoes! Many speeches followed, in typical Japanese fashion, from the principal, vice-principal and men from the fire department who had come to over see the drill.

Then the best part came. Students from each class were nominated to test out the new escape chute, to be utilized from the third floor in the event of all sets of stairs crumbling. The chute was really just a long canvass tube without structure or supports, with no rope or ladder inside, and with a small flap at the bottom to catch the escapees, held by one teacher. Each student jumped down the chute, emerging (carrying their shoes, later to be washed before re-entering the school in stocking feet) to the cheers of their classmates. Finally the teacher overseeing the whole operation (the social studies teacher who sits across from me in the office) decided to follow suit, tumbling out at the bottom and laying splayed on the ground shaking with laughter and listening to the cheers and laughter of the whole school. He came over to me, blushing and proudly displying his rug-burned elbows, probably happy to prove to me that i'm not the only one who can make an ass of myself in front of the school. What a good man.

Respect for the 80s Weekend

Okay, so the holiday is actually called "Respect for the Aged Day" but when Stacey misheard me on the phone i discovered what an amazing holiday it could really be. I mean i think we all need to remember to respect things like acid-washed jeans, hair bands, and Micheal Jackson pre-creepiness.

Anyway, in order to properly celebrate our 3-day weekend I joined about 40 other Shiga JETs on the west side of Lake Biwa for a watersports weekend. For 2 solid days we played in the water, ate, drank, "pier jumped," kayaked, windsurfed, waterskiied, sailed, ate and drank some more, and generally pretended it was Labor Day weekend. Given the recent entrance into Typhoon Season, we were granted a weekend of fairly pleasant weather (almost no rain, a cool evening, and enough sun sunday to get me a bit pink).

Saturday evening was devoted to truly international pasttimes - barbequing tons of meat, drinking beer, wine, and whatver booze was around, and ending the evening with a guitar-playing, song-singing circle o' love. We even enjoyed a few rounds of beer pong thanks to the red party cups delivered directly from the US by Shree. I swear, JET really is just college without the homework.

After a full couple of days i'm glad to have today off. That means spending my holiday doing laundry, running errands, and watching Grey's Anatomy in an attempt to prepare for work tomorrow.

Pictures Top to Bottom: pier jumping, JET "kayaking" = holding one another's kayaks and chatting, and Scott making some windsurfing progress.

Ganbatte!

Ganbatte vaguely means "cheers" or "way to go" in Japanese. On Sports Day this past friday it was shouted so frequently and encouraged over the loudspeaker at high enough volume that even i remembered it. Japanese schools, at every level, devote not just one day but at least a week to the preparations for and execution of Sports Day, a school-wide track meet. The event is taken seriously, as the weeks leading up to it have seen many students absent from class to practice for their races and all day Thursday was spend rehersing Sports Day. Sports Day began much as rehersed. Members of the school board, neighboring schools, and city officials were there to make speeches and cheer on the first few events. The track had been drawn in perfectly, the students orderly attired in their purple jogging suits, white trainers, and sashes around their head signifying class colors. It was time for the games to begin.

Most of the events were pretty typical - high jump, assorted running and relay races, long jump, etc. However, a few of my favorites were the more unique ones. The Centipede race, shown here, involves tying the legs of 6 students together for a 50 Meter run. To make it more difficult its actually a 200M relay, so the ties have to be switched to 3 other groups of 6, all students from the same class. Its a site to see, especially when one false step brings down the entire team. The best part is that they run around the track shouting "ich, ni" to keep their steps in sync. There is also an all class jump rope competition, where the 30 + students from each homeroom class jump together with a 15 Meter rope. For the class ball throwing competition, each class stood in a circle trying to toss brightly colored bean bags into a 3-meter high basket. The best part was the fun music they played during the event.

As a final dash of fun the day ended with relays, some by class (and a relay of teachers which i was lucky enough to take part in for a whole 20 Meters) and others by club. Students ran off to change, returning to run relays in their sport uniforms. Soccer players dribbled soccer balls, judo members kicked, basketball players bounced basketballs, volleyball girls bumped to pass the ball, and the very best - the kendo (japanese fencing) members ran in their long pants, helmets, vests of armor, and passed the sword instead of baton. The dangerousness was second only to humor. Luckily the fun didn't end with the finale and awarding of trophies. After the events teachers and students together tore down the tents and scaffolding and cleaned up the whole field. And finally the teachers celebrated the day in true japanese form: by getting wildly drunk at that evening's enkai (in the pic from L to R: one PE teacher, the nurse, and the art teacher). Ganbatte to that!

my new J-Gma

Sometimes i am taken aback by the kind of people you can meet all over the world. Tonight i had dinner with Keiko, one of my English teachers, and a 60+ Japanese couple that have befriended many ALTs in my town. They were amazing. The wife speaks very good english, simply because she wanted to and had the time and money to learn. The husband does not, but his energy and humor and the experienced translation of the other two women allowed the night to go on smoothly.

He cooked many dishes hoping i'd like something and were amazed when i loved it all. The husband paints pictures and i was amazed to find among them images of Tuscany, the Sphinx, a scandanavian house, and the Empire State Building. Pretty soon we were heavy into a discussion of their travels - to Thailand and Laos, Italy, Spain and Portugal, Paris, London, a Scandanavian Journey (Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland), to Egypt and the Saharan Desert, to the US, to Canada, Turkey and Greece - and thats just what we got to today. They dug out old photo albums and we discovered unbelievable places, and we were invited on their next trips, to Taiwan in November and Switzerland in the Spring. The wife is also secretly planning a trip with her girlfriends through the English coutryside after reading a book on England with her book club (sadly not Jane Austen).

Before we knew it the husband was late for his 'social dance class', and the three of us women were left sitting around the table, spinning the globe, drinking tea and listing the places we wanted to go in the world. This turned into a discussion of global politics and history. That somehow turned into one on Religion. Finally, after 4.5 hours in the same chair, we pulled ourselves up to get going and refuel for tomorrow's sports day. Luckily as we left she reminded us to be there at the same time next week. And every Thursday there after. I may have already found a J-mummy (as the Pants loves to call them) in my friend Yuko who is there to take care of anything and everything i could ever need, but now i may officially have the coolest J-Gma ever too!

ups and downs

So yesterday i wrote this in my journal while hanging in Kyoto (in a failed attempt to meet up with Ted & Michelle Johnson who were here on Term in Asia):

I'm really growing to love work. Okay, growing may be a bit of a cliche word to use, especially considering i've really only had 2 days of actual teaching, but they've been great. Partially it just feels good to have a full schedule and avoid sitting in the office all day, twiddling my thumbs and looking guilty at the teachers running around the building. With actual work to do the day passes much more quickly and happily, with visits from students i've met, papers to grade, and classes to visit. The students see me busy just like the other teachers, and I feel like i'm finally gaining the respect and ditching the resentment of the rest of the faculty. Plus the time in class lets me bond with my english teachers.

By far the favorite is Nishibori sensei, who i call by her first name- Keiko. At 23 Keiko and i have much in common - a similar love for Kyoto (where we both were last night) and boredom in Aisho, similar age and experience level in teaching, and actually similar levels of experience as she is not yet certified to be a full time teacher. She works with the special ed students (even though her only qualicifations for special ed teaching are exceptional patience and a huge heart) teaching them math, social studies, japanese, and english. I am welcome to come into her class anytime.

Tsutsumi sensei runs a close second to Keiko. She is in her 30s and completely adorable and sweet. She teaches english to the first and second years (7th and 8th graders) and is totally wonderful. Unlike lots of the other teachers, she never seems to busy for me or stressed out or abrupt or anything. The kids love her too, even if their behavior is a tad out of control in her class.

Ono sensei (the third year - 9th grade - teacher) is great too, and far better in class than i expected. She is perfectly willing (really expects) to let me take over class completely. Unfortunately she is exceptionally busy and we haven't really had any friendly conversations about my curiousities about students or certain classes or about my life. I'm really excited to see if she relaxes a bit at this weeks' enkai.

After working with the teachers for nearly 2 weeks i feel less guilty about having favorites among them than i do about having favorite classes. Already i love the special ed class so much more than i can say. There are 8 students and they are all so eager to learn, to talk to me, and have much better english than i expected. I also love one of my third year classes like crazy. They were the only class to ask me questions after i gave a self introduction and their english is exceptional, making them soooo easy to teach and fun to talk to outside of class. They even understood my Horoscope board and could find their signs and read about them. It was great.

~~~~~

So yeah, rewriting this reminds me that not everything is shit. I mean, today i left school feeling really down but it really will get better. So the day was okay, but i was disappointed to find out almost immediately that my schedule conflicted with that of the special ed class so i wouldn't be able to be with them at all today (they do have some classes i'm not really supposed to go to because Keiko doesn't teach them). Then there was all this confusion with changing things around to practice for Sports Day (which is Friday) and one of my third year classes was cancelled so the whole school could go outside and practice lining up and raising the flags and stuff for sports day. It was also at this time that i noticed that i was the only teacher (besides the principal) wearing nice clothes - somehow no one had informed me that i should a) have sweats at school at all times and b)put them on for this occasion. Now i'm not even sure that i really have attire at my apartment that would satisfy the requirements, though i guess tomorrow i'm supposed to try. Hmmm.

The bad day continued during lunch when i spilled the hot water from my cup noodles all over my hand. Eeek. Then things were fine in my first year class, but my last class of the day, a class of third years, was miserable. This was only the second class i'd taught with Ono sensei and it was so different. This class was less gifted than the other 9th graders i'd taught, and also had WAY more attitude. Plus Ono sensei acted like it she was aligned with them against me, making things even more boring than they had to be. It was awful. 3 kids slept through class and she didn't even say anything. When no one volunteered in the class to answer questions on a worksheet she said nothing and didn't even try to cajole people into helping, so i read virtually every answer back to them. SO much for speaking practice.

The only glimmer of hope came after the class when the main group of 'too cool' kids noticed i had an eyebrow ring in my pictures (i have to take it out for school) and decided i was cooler than they though. What a hopeless situation.

Then it was after school. I graded a stack of spelling tests and headed to the pool to swim off my rage, only to find it CLOSED!!! Ugh. I decided instead to enjoy some great western food for dinner (mexican was the plan) so biked to the grocery store to pick some stuff up and came out to find that a) i had bought too much to fit in the basket of my bike and b) it was raining.

Needless to say not my best day. Hopefully the next few will prove themselves to be infinitessimily better, especially Friday's Sports Day and enkai. But i'll keep you posted.

on pizza and hooliganism

So last night i had one of the best and most needed meals ever. My new friends Candice and Nick took Shannon and I to Hikone for some fabulous 'western' cuisine. Cannery Row, the gourmet establishment, lived up to all expectations, especially when we discovered the juice bar/dessert cart combo add-on for only 500 yen. Heck yes. Fresh juices, coffees and teas plus a 3-piece choose-your-own dessert sampler! After an unbelievable pizza, good conversation, and tons of laughs, it really hit the spot.

Unfortunately, while my friday night may have been saved, Saturday continued to pain me. I was up bright and early this morning and headed to work for yet another full day of sitting at my desk. Luckily today was brightened by meeting my special ed english class, talking (through an interpreter) to the cute social studies teacher about our enkai, thoroughly organizing my desk, and my first run in with hooligan japanese middle schoolers.

Sometime in the afternoon i got up to go to the bathroom (located near the teachers office and far from any student classrooms) and noticed group of 5 or 6 giggling boys lingering and pointing to the bathrooms. As i approached they hushed, nervous, but didn't leave. Turns out someone in the group had gotten the bright idea to switch the signs, thus labeling the ladies room mens and vice versa. I did what any japanese school teacher would do meaning i let them get away with it. I nodded politely and went into the bathroom boldly labled Men. When i came out the group had dissolved, i changed the signs, and went back to my desk. Something tells me with a year of this i'm totally going to let discipline go out the window.

let the games begin

Today we celebrated the opening ceremony of the new school term at Hatasho Junior High. Basically there were lots of speeches in japanese, lots of awards to atheletes in basketball, judo, and baseball, and an awkward japanese speech by yours truly (that didn't end in my falling down) that went pretty well considering that i don't speak Japanese and understood about 5% of what i was saying to the students. Then a nice san nen girl (9th grade) came to introduce herself to me and tell me of the students' excitement. She told me to teach with an open heart so they could learn alot and we'd all have fun together. Something tells me she didn't actually write the speech.

But the best part of the ceremony was the opening song, a resounding chorus of the HJHS Song. The lyrics, in english, are as follows:

The glory of the morning sun,
over Mt. Hatakawa
The sun pours light into our homes
making our hearts sing.
In spring, the green rice shoots are planted in the earth.
Fall brings a sea of wavy, dancing golden stalks.
Aaahh... how rich our hometown is
a town we call Hatasho.

So instead of a rousing "On, Wisconsin" or even a lovely harmonized "Fram Fram St Olaf" in 3/4 time, the students sang, about 15 times, "A town we call hatasho." It began with everyone together, then the torturous assigning of parts, first the ichi nin boys (7th graders singing in many different octaves), followed by all imaginable combos of boys only, girls only, etc. It was intense. And what other way is there to welcome a foreigner into your school than by singing the same song, in Japanese, about 24 times before 9 am. Gotta love it.

I don't have to love, however, that its a friday night and i'm exhausted and only 13 hours away from another full day of work. Honestly.