a quick update

hello!

things have been super hectic here recently: friends leaving, parties, new friends arriving and most importantly, my sister is visiting! she leaves tomorrow though... =(

i will get a real update out soon, before i go to hiroshima next week to check things out!

until then, some photos from the past wee while...

peace.

pilgrimage

i survived the weekend. i had no doubt about it. it's just difficult sometimes.

i was productive and today i had fun and continued the exploration, continued the pilgrimage.

let's all find ourselves, ok?

peace.

lazy

i'm feeling particularly lazy this weekend. no inclination whatsoever to do anything...

maybe it's the heat, maybe work has finally made me realise how unfit and tired i am?

whatever it is, i plan on doing very little this weekend, even though it's a long one... (gotta love japan's massive amount of national holidays, especially a week before breaking off for summer vacation!)

we'll see though, i'm pretty famous for big sweepy statements that don't get followed...

asides for the tired feeling it's an anniversary this weekend and it's the first time i've had it and not been in a place i really "know"... i'll survive though, we're built tough enough in my family.

yesterday saw the first of the alts in my area leave which was a little sad. sad because he was a genuinely nice guy and also because he's the first: he marks the beginning of the end for the rest of them...

there'll be a new batch flocking in soon enough but the folk i've met here are pretty amazing so it'll be tough to see them go...

we went out for dinner and then ice cream. there was beer too. =) a good wee send off i think!

i've collected eight mosquito bites in the last few days: one of the little buggers has managed to get into my apartment which isn't fun.

i smooshed a whopper of one last night so hopefully that was the chap using me as an all you can eat buffet... there's one on the sole of my foot (a bite that is, not a mosquito) which is particularly annoying... oh well.

i really should be cleaning my apartment because it's a bit of a tip: this last week has been pretty hectic and when i've not been bopping about town or working i've been waging war on the heat. my strategy is: if i'm asleep i don't feel the heat...

there have been more than a fair few naps this week...

i got a wee care package from my best friend this week which was ace: chewy sweeties from home, a gossip magazine because the confessional misery of "real life stories" makes me smile and cringe simultaneously, the local paper from my uni town ('mon the Tele) and a lovely paperchase card. fair made me smile so it did.

i'm saving the sweets for as long as possible but I've got a feeling i may be indulging over the weekend!


anyways: my apartment calls... more when i'm not being oppressed by the heat.

peace.

ps. happy birthday to my best friend (see "care package" above) hope you have a great day today Amy! =) x

tanabata

this weekend was the tanabata festival: you make wish trees and then tie your wishes to them in the hope that they'll be granted! the trees are super pretty. =)

i'd write more but this is the first hot sunny, not humid, day that we've had in forever. i'm going to go enjoy it. once i've done the laundry...


peace.

i am too hot to blog...

let a summer of moaning about the heat commence.

it's hot.

today there was no rain. which was nice. i got laundry done. go me.


but it was hot. and teaching in the heat isn't fun.

the classes were of the friday standard i've come to expect.

i was sweaty.

i played a colour touch game with a couple of the classes. they insisted on clinging to me when it was time to touch blue.

i sweated even more (but not enough to become child-repellent)


yeah. today was hot.

i want to go to bed because i'm tired. but it's too hot.


crap.

peace.

cheery.

hello.

i'm cheery today, not entirely sure why. i'm enjoying it.

today i had some really good classes, ate lunch with what i can only think to describe as an exchange student who spoke practically perfect english. he's half chinese, half japanese and speaks english with an american accent - this kid is either gonna be super messed up or could possibly take over the world. that decision is up to him... he has promised to write me a letter (very cool) and i asked him to take questions from the class - he was a little embarrassed to translate some of them, i think they were asking naughty questions... i told him not to worry. cool kid.

one of my teachers gave me kanji worksheets today - i was amazed that i actually knew a couple! so was he... he tried to hide his utter disbelief but i caught him... it's really sweet and kind of the teachers i work with to take such an active interest in my progress. i have to up my game and work harder, so as not to disappoint them! they're appreciating the fact that i'm gently rambling away in the background and they are very graciously humouring me when it comes to me occasionally just blurting something out in japanese and then smiling excitedly. i am five years old.

yesterday, one of my mountain school teachers told me that the whole school (five of them) look forward to me coming because i "make english time fun time!" i'm glad. because i love going there. we had typhoon-type weather at the start of this week but thankfully after a rocky night nothing really came of it: i was told to wait for a phone call before going to school... i was so glad that the schools here weren't closed: tuesday is my favourite day of the week and i would've been quite disappointed if i didn't get to go...

also, last night, i went to the adult eikaiwa (english conversation class) for the first time last night and met the folks there. they were all really nice and enthusiastic and welcoming. looking forward to hopefully taking over the class in the summer. it'd be nice and hopefully it'll help with my japanese...

i feel like i'm rambling a little here, just wandering from thought to thought. but you can't stop me, so i'll continue.

today i had an electrician come over and check the apartment. he also fixed my bathroom fan which hasn't worked since i got here. to be honest, i've just tested it and it seems to be pretty redundant... it barely does anything. still, it'll hopefully help in the constant war i'm waging on damp and mould. =) any ally is welcome. i made the electrician a coffee (the universal way of making friends) and we had a stilted japanese/english conversation. i love the look on peoples faces when i tell them i'm not from america. we talked about the weather, about schools and i think he talked about electricity for a bit (i picked out the word for electricity amongst the rapid-fire japanese) i smiled and nodded a lot. it was lovely. i think i made a friend.

anyways, i think i've recapped enough for now. gotta go get bits and pieces sorted now. might buy a fan today. starting to wilt a little in the heat now...

peace.

ps. my friend Mune made a rather awesome video of the rice planting i went to a couple of weeks ago. here's a link to it: linkety-link-link. even if you've already watched it, you should watch it again. it's very good. =)

pps. i've been playing about with the layout of the blog. expect it to change a lot until i find something i like. apologies.

rainy day...

hello.

just a short update today. no reason really.

i'm on a fidgety mood today, maybe because the weather is pretty rubbish and i can't do too much. i'm a trapped animal right now. my house is clean and most of my prep-work and paperwork is done for next week. so, what to do now?

last night i went to a friends for home-made sushi which was pretty cool. i tried goya for the first time (it's an okinawan vegetable, translated as bitter melon) and it was ok: looked like a knobbly cucumber and tasted the way a hedgerow smells after you've cut it. doesn't sound to appetising but i promised to try everything that i could so i went for it. not as bad as expected but not something i could eat huge amounts of...

i had a board of education observation randomly sprung on me during the week and it went well! when i say sprung on me, i really mean it. i was about halfway through my lesson (it was at one of my mountain schools where i'm pretty much told "the topic today is X. go get em tiger!") and these official looking folk wandered into the class. rather proud of the fact i took it in my stride and just went with it. the BOE officials looked happy enough and one of the teachers told me they enjoyed the lesson so all is good in the mountains it would seem.

i don't know if i'd have preferred a little notice or if this way was better? this way, i didn't have the time to get nervous and really, until it was over, i didn't have much of a clue what was actually happening. i guess that made it easier just to get on with my lesson as usual, not having to worry about what was happening or how i was being evaluated/judged. i just hope the positive, enthusiastic comments were genuine and that the BOE folk were indeed happy with me...

on friday one of my usual teachers was absent and i taught that class under the supervision of the head teacher.

in the schools here the "management structure" is: principal, vice-principal and head-teacher. my understanding of their roles is: principal deals with visitors to the school, vice-principal deals with the managerial running of the school and head teacher deals with kids and classes. only the head teacher teaches classes (at least at the schools i work in) while the other two are purely administrators.

the head teacher at this school is a good guy, he always has time for a quick chat with me which is nice because i still sometimes feel slightly displaced at that school. anyways, he was super impressed with the lesson i gave, he remarked that the kids at this particular school aren't as enthusiastic as some others (which is totally true) so he was impressed at the level of engagement and involvement that i managed to create. i didn't tell him that today was the first day that the classes at his school seemed to pay even the slightest bit of interest in what i was doing. i was too busy enjoying it and praying that it continues...

he was also curious about the nicknames i've given some of the kids. i explained that if a particular kid gets particularly involved in an activity, i tend to nickname them after that activity to (hopefully) inspire a little bit of camaraderie. in this class there was green! and monkey girl. not as mean as they sound, trust me. the kids who have nicknames respond well to them and i would certainly stop if they didn't seem to enjoy it...

at another of my schools, one of the kids couldn't quite grasp where i'm from and kept shouting "america!" when asked which country i come from. so now, when i teach his class, he is known as "americaaaa!" and he loves it. so does the teacher. i had lunch with his sister last week and she sidled up to me and elbowed me in the knee (she's a teeny tiny second grader) and in a really low voice said "americaaaa!" made me smile so it did.

so yeah, i really have nothing much else to say. guess i should go figure out how to waste the rest of today...

peace.

three day feast of words

word.

today was pretty epic. but that’s not where we’ll start this post, oh no… we need to go back to tuesday to really have a clear idea of how good this week has been. i’m purposely avoiding monday because it wasn't fun. not even a little bit.

but i’m not talking about the bad because it doesn't register with me, it’s all about the good here. oh yes!

tuesday

ok. so. tuesday is when i teach at “favourite school” aka “the happiest most fulfilling place i’ve ever worked. ever.” =) i found out that my classes were cancelled which made me sad. but… the classes were cancelled for their undokai (sports day festival thing) and i got to go. * result *

there were games and races and children using other children as bridges. i pretended that there was lava (i do live on the side of a volcano so this isn’t hugely unimaginable) and all but one of the children were immune to the lava. so they made a wee bridge for that one kid. these kids are troopers and they make me smile a lot.

i was on the white team and i helped secure a win in one of the events: we were throwing beanbags into a basket atop a pole. my height made up for my general sporting incompetence and lack of hand-eye coordination.

the undokai wrapped up with lunch on the grass with two schools (“favourite school” and it’s Junior High School counterpart). * satisfied *

wednesday

i taught at “second favourite school”. in 12 different languages.

15 minutes of my lesson was in english.

then about 10 minutes of french.

then 10 minutes of mangled russian.

then greek, welsh, italian, portuguese, german, korean, chinese, spanish and some japanese for good measure.

it went over well. =)

thursday aka today

today i was almost late. i slithered under the pole and made it just in time. lesson learned: go to bed earlier and get up earlier. instant no lateness. =)

taught some classes. they didn't bomb but they could have gone better. these classes are reaching the end of a section in the curriculum which leads me to think they’re getting a bit bored with repeating, reusing and regurgitating the same sets of vocabulary. had two free periods before lunch where i was planning to revise for the test i had later in the day (more on this later…) but no, there was to be no revision for me…

the free periods were there for a special reason: this school (it hasn’t really warranted a nickname yet but i think it’ll eventually get one…) had some special guests! oh yes, i was treated to a brass band performance. they were really good. however, i was to earn this amazing little treat…

the leader of the brass group (there were two trumpets, a french horn, a trombone, a tuba and a drummer) was engaging the children in a little bit of witty banter, from which i gleaned (it was all in japanese of course): japanese people don’t really have the glottal stop needed to make “ch” noises like in loch. which makes singing Frere Jacques a little difficult. he had the kids attempting to make “ccccchhhh” noises with little success.

it gets interesting when one of my japanese teachers decides to tell the guy that i’m scottish and speak french –  two of the languages/dialects which make extensive use of “cccchhh”.

i may have ended up on-stage, leading an entire elementary school in a what i’d like to think was a rousing rendition of Frere Jacques in french…

as my wee granny would say: “it could only happen to you gavin…” =D

the japanese teachers and i were then hauled up on stage to perform the actions to a japanese version of “DoReMi” from Sound of Music. i belted out the song in english, much to the amusement of everyone.

a good day? you betcha!

it doesn't end there however.

off to “mountain school II” i go, to continue the adventure.

i mentioned a test earlier. i’ve been studying hiragana whenever i can during my free time at school – which has piqued the interest of any japanese person who happens to wander past my desk. “mountain school II” have taken a keen interest in my advancement, to the point that they’ve been quizzing me and getting me to complete worksheets etc. super sweet of them, to take an interest like that. today had been designated as the day where i should have fully completed my learning and revision and they felt i should be ready to be tested on all 46 hiragana.

i get to “mountain school II” and teach. lesson goes really well, kids smiling. none of them died of boredom, one came close to choking from overexcitement. all good.

lesson over, i head back to the teachers room only to be grabbed and dragged into an empty classroom with one wee desk in it (“mountain school II” have more students than “mountain school I” but they still have a lot of empty rooms). on this solitary wee desk is a test paper and a pencil.

20 minutes later…

i’m back in the teachers room, kyotou-sensei (vice-principal of the school) is rabidly marking my test paper, my palms are sweaty. this test is basically for five year olds. i’m a 25 year old with two degrees… the embarrassment would be visible from space if i cocked this up.

100%

i am showered with gifts (in the form of approx. 30 little cakes) and presented with a certificate they made on the computer. my certificate is on the wall in the teachers room, a testament to the fact that when i’ve just been sitting at a desk i’ve been doing something productive.

only friday left in the week, unsure of how it’ll go. i haven’t taught at this school a great deal and it’s weird not to have a feel for the classes or the teachers yet. it’s also frustrating that i’ve been doing my self-introduction lesson after being here for a few months. things will improve once i get into the swing of things, i’m sure of it…

i’ll leave you with some lyrics which have been floating in my head for the past few weeks (temporarily knocked out of my head by the Sound of Music medley today…):

It was the winter of '86, all the fields had frozen over

So we moved to Arizona to save our only son

And now he's turned into a man, though he thinks just like his mother

He believes we're all just lovers, he sees hope in everyone

And even though she moved away, we always get calls from our daughter

She has eyes just like her father's, they are blue when skies are gray

And just like him she never stops, never takes the day for granted

Works for everything that's handed to her, never once complained*

these lyrics make me think of my family. i don’t know why. i get a wee lump in my throat when i listen to the song, a good lump though. missing things and missing people is healthy, i’m enjoying it.

absence makes the heart grow fonder…

*the song is “the gambler” by fun.     listen to it.