Sports Festival

I haven't updated my blog in nearly a year and a half, but some things are just too amazing to convey over facebook. And I want to write about them here before I forget them.

Today was my all-boy's school Sports Festival (Tai-iku-sai in Japanese!) I visit this school once a week, and I was really happy when they formally asked me to attend Sports Day on the first Saturday in September. For weekend events like these, the teachers and students will get a weekday off in exchange, but since I have 5 schools, I often attend these events without any compensation. Which isn't a problem, because the students being so happy to see me supporting them is compensation enough. :)

But this time! I received a day off in exchange for attending...
And not only did I attend.
But I participated.

There's a popular event called 借り物競争 or "Borrowing Race". To be honest, I have no idea why it's called this because it has nothing to do with the event. Students select a member of the audience (teachers, parents, friends) and read a task they have chosen to perform with that teacher.

I was told I might be participating, and the task might be "Have a conversation in English with Christina-sensei."

Fast-forward to before the event, when I am told that a senior has chosen me as his partner, and his self-appointed task is to carry me in his arms across the finish line.

I wish I could show you what my face looked like.

The next option was a piggy-back ride.

What we agreed on was to hold hands while running the 50 meters to the finish line.

Other pairs did things like three-legged-races, riding toddler-sized tricycles, and leap-frogging all the way to the finish line.

In my next post, I'll tell you about all the ridiculous "sports" that the students did at Sports Day. Half of these would be met with a lawsuit in America before someone even suggested doing them!

One of the last things you expect to hear from your middle-aged male JTE during an example self introduction to a class of four high school students:

Hi, my name is ____________. I am from Shunan City. I like listening to music. For example, I love Lady Gaga.

He could not understand why I couldn't stop laughing for a good five minutes.

Oh, and we listened to Lady Gaga's "Paparazzi" at the end of class.

My life is hilarious!

More Firsts

Today was another first visit of the new year to one of my schools. I teach at this school every Friday.

So, as you might expect, I was again surprised by the changes. Gone is the adorable old lady vice principal who was always so excited to practice English with me. She left me a Burberry hand towel as a goodbye present. In her place is a male biology teacher. During first and second periods today, all the other teachers vanished to conduct health checks on the students. The only people left were me, VP, and another older bio teacher. We bonded over microscopy images. Swoon.

Also new is a fresh-out-of-school English teacher. Finally, someone more nervous than me! He's 25, and friendly, so I suspect we will become good friends. The first year class is enormous - 26 students! Normally my classes at that school are between 12 and 17. They're a lower academic school, so the kids can be pretty wild.

Today I went around and asked all of their names, and then shook hands and said nice to meet you.

Quote of the day goes to this kid:

CMT: Hi, what's your name?

Student: My name is... Capybara.

--cue class erupting into laughter--

For those of you who don't live in Japan, Capybara is the little stuffed animal up there ^^^.

He's an adorable "character" as they call these things (everything from Hello Kitty to Choruru is a "character").

I knew of capybaras before I came to Japan... they're the world's largest RODENT. Why Japan has chosen to cute-ify something so gross is beyond me, but hey, this is the country where you can find glitter stickers of steaming piles of poop.

First Visit of the New Year

Today I visited one of my special needs schools for the first time this term. Though I knew and was prepared for teacher changes at my base school, it still surprises me when visit schools have changed.

My old supervisor has been promoted to some kind of dean position, so I have a new supervisor who seems nice enough. But I got to school and my old supervisor said "Ah! I will introduce you to your new supervisor!" And I said "WHAT?! You're not my supervisor anymore?!"

See, Japan sucks at giving any kind of notice that your life will abruptly change.

Though I only teach at this school twice a month, I consider Old Supervisor to be one of my best friends here. I arrive each time around 9 AM and don't have class until 10:50, but each time we've just talked to fill the 2-hour gap. He's one of my favorite people. Now he sits only 3 seats away, but he's much busier. So I am sad.

At this school, I usually help teach a two senior high school classes of 3-5 students each in the morning before lunch. Then I eat lunch with a random class of kids who don't normally have English with me. They're always super excited to ask me questions about myself and about America, and they always prepare really hard before I come so that they can tell me their name in English

. It's adorable. After lunch, I teach a junior high school class of around 35 students who are amazing and adorable. Whenever they see me in the hallway they fight to be the first to run over and say "HELLO! How are you!" Even when they haven't seen me in a month and a half, they remember me. :) After that, I have class with one student, whose nickname is Kattan. I believe he has cerebal palsy, and he can neither move his body (minus his head) nor speak, but me and the JTE (and his personal aide, who is another awesome teacher) show him pictures and tell him about America.

I tell you all this to tell you that the English teacher I teach Kattan with was transferred to another school. So I am extra sad about that. One time, she gave me four People Magazine issues - in ENGLISH. English magazines are completely non-existent in Yamaguchi-ken, so this was awesome. Also, we both ag

ree that Robert Downey Jr. is the hottest man on Earth. So you can see why I am distraught about her departure.

But today was not all sad! We had a big opening ceremony where the first years great the older students. This was followed by a gym-wide game of True or False.

The last question was "Although we have many new teachers this year, one of them is a karate world champion. True or False?!"

After the votes were tallied, the announcing students said "(name)-sensei, please come out!"

And this world champion karate artist came out in full karate uniform and perfomed a karate routine to the wild cheers of the kids. Yamaguchi is sponsoring the national sports event in 2011 - of which Choruru (green haired dude on the left) is the mascot. So this karate champion is spending a year teaching karate at a Yamaguchi special needs school possibly because of the 2011 sports thing.

A note on Choruru: His name comes from the Yamaguchi dialect of Japanese. In standard Japanese, verb endings change to te-iru to indicate an ongoing action or state. Yamaguchians change te-iru to choru. So "doing" is normally Shi-te-iru. In Yamaguchi, it's Shi-choru. Thus, the mascot of Yamaguchi is Choruru. I think Yamaguchi dialect is freaking awesome, by the way. I choru as much as I can. :)

I don't know why you say goodbye, I say hello

In Japan, the school year ends in March and begins a few weeks later in April.

And every year in Japan, teachers face the possibility of being transferred to another school in the prefecture, or to the main prefectural board of education. They have little say in the matter, and most people seem to not last more than 5-6 years at any given school before changing. It's a really strange process, actually. On

the day the transfers are announced, Kocho-sensei (the Principal) comes into the teacher's room with a single A4 sized piece of paper which he attaches to the front board via magnet. Shortly following this, everyone rushes to see who made the "list." It's hard to believe you find out your coworkers and friends are moving to another school via a list posted on a blackboard, but that's how it goes.

So this year, we lost maybe 6 or 7 teachers. I knew four of them fairly well, so I was really sad to see them go.

The teachers on the "list" continue to work for a few days before going to their new workplaces on April 1st. At the same time, the new teachers came to our school for the first time.

Even teachers who stay at the same school don't necessarily get out of the odious task of cleaning out their desks for the new year. Every teacher has a homeroom - a first year, second year, or third year homeroom - that they stay with throughout high school. When I got here, my row was full of "first year teachers", which doesn't mean it was their first year teaching, but that they were in charge of first year homeroom classes. As their homerooms became second-year homerooms, they became second-year teachers. Which means they move to the second-year teachers' row.

So you may be thinking, what? So they pack up their desks and walk a few feet over and unpack?

No, because that would be logical. Instead, every single teacher packs up some of their things... but only to make their desks lighter... so that they can push them across the teachers' room. Every teacher has an identical desk. But for some reason, no one has ever thought to just move the contents. They move the entire. thing.

My seat didn't change, so I was free to stand there, mouth agape, watching everyone rearrange the entire teachers' room over the course of a half hour. In the end, it looked exactly the same, but everyone seemed out of place. I really m

iss my old row-mates, but hopefully over time I'll adjust to my new neighbors.

As for leaving teachers, the English teacher who sat next to me was transferred to a special needs school for the deaf that Steff works at. A really nice teacher who sat behind me has been transferred to Kencho, to work at the Board of Ed. When he visited a week later, he told me that now he works from 8 am until midnight every day. He also started wearing glasses, and looks considerably older than he did at the end of March. A nursing teacher who used to sit across from me moved to a high school a few cities over, but also invited me to her son's birthday party next week, so we'll keep in touch.

We gained two new English teachers, one of whom lives a four-minute walk from my apartment. We also got a new swimming coach who used to work at one of my special needs schools. I used to sit in on his two-period long class every other week, so seeing him at Hofu High School was a pleasant surprise. And where my supervisor used to sit, directly behind me, now sits a geography teacher who used to work at my OTHER special needs school. So the new batch of teachers was actually not so new for me!

Next time: graduation/Japan's obsession with ceremonies, work drinking parties, and a weekend of camping and horseback archery...

Whirlwind

So what have I done since Tokyo?

Let's see. Aug 18-20, I was in Kudamatsu City, about 45 minutes away from Hofu, teaching at an English camp. There were 8 ALTs (Assistant Language Teachers) and 70 students, plus a bunch of JTEs (Japanese Teachers of English).

We stayed at a traditional style Japanese hotel - futons, tatami mats, and communal showers (and no, I am not even slightly kidding about that last one). The kids were great, and we split into groups of 3 ALTs to design a 30-minute workshop and a 45-minute workshop. Considering it was literally the first time I'd ever had to function as an ALT, I think it was a lot of fun. I'll try to put up some pictures from camp includin

g the awesome drawing my kids drew of me for my poster.

Every night, the teachers had drinks and snacks from 10-12, which is how I discovered my unending love for Chu-hai. If you ask me, Chu-hai tastes like a mildly alcoholic version of Sprite. I don't know why I like it as much as I do. It might have something

to do with the fact that it costs 100-200 yen.

The day after English camp ended, we had another orientation at Kencho. Kencho is the name of the giant government building in the capital of Yamaguchi prefecture (coincidentally, this is called Yamaguchi city). That night, Friday, Steff (the other Hofu ALT) and I went over to Tokuyama for dinner/hanging out with the JET who lives there (Al). Tokuyama is one city over from Hofu, and is slightly bigger population-wise but seems to have a lot more shopping than Hofu. It also has a shinkansen stop.

The next night, we went over to another city in Yamaguchi, Ube City, which is where the airport is. It's almost an hour away by train, and we got there at 8, so instead of getting on the last train back at 10 pm, we stayed over and hung out with the Ube JETs - Ryan and Kholo - until the sun came up!

Then we finally had to go back to work. September 1st was our opening ceremony, where the entire school gathers in the gymnasium. My main school has 1000 students, but luckily 200 of them were on a school trip. As the new teacher, I had to give a speech entirely in Japanese, which was fairly nerve-wracking.

I finally started teaching last Thursday at one of my visit schools. To get there, I have to ride my bike to the train station and then take a 45 minute bus ride, which somehow costs 820 yen. So roundtrip, for one day of teaching, it costs 1640 yen. I think I get reimbursed, but it's pretty expensive! The first day of teaching went okay. The kids are really loud and friendly... in Japanese. Getting them to speak English is a pretty big challenge.

Friday I had my first class at my base school, which also went okay. It's really hard to spend 50 minutes on a self-introduction so I suspect it'll become easier as the

year goes on and the lessons have actual content.

On Saturday, one of Steff's schools had a bunkasai, a cultural festival. The entire school is decorated and food stands are set u

p. A couple of us ALTs went and it was a lot of fun. One of my students from my school actually recognized me! Being an ALT kind of makes you a mild celebri

ty around your city. We stayed to watch the brass band perform, since we were told they were the best in the prefectur

e. It was incredible

- I've never heard a high school band play like that. There was singing and dancing, too! We talked with the conductor afterwards and I think he's going to set me up with an ensemble in Hofu since I've decided to start playing the violin again, now that I have all this free time. The only thing left is to actually find an affordable violin somewhere.

On Sunday, we went over to Yamaguchi City for dinner and bowling! Bowling in Japan is pretty much the same as bowling in America except the shoes are MUCH cooler here. I lived up to my title of regional bowling champion with scores of 55 and 43 for the two games we played. Next time I'll aim for mid 70s if I'm feeling ambitious.

Anyway, that gets the blog up to date, so people can stop wondering what I've been doing with my time. From here, I've got two more weeks of classes until there's a 5-day long national holiday, which I'll be spending in Yokohama, the second-biggest city in Japan!

The conclusion of our Tokyo trip!

Alright! So the second morning in Tokyo was spent entirely trying to find the Sakura House Hostel in Asakusa, Tokyo. It took quite a while, but it was SO much nicer than the Mayflower House. For instance, we weren't sharing our unsecured bathroom with a random tenant and there were no dogs. The hostel was awesome and I would definitely stay there again.

To be honest, I can't really remember what we did during the day, but I know at night we went to the VAMPIRE CAFE which was one of the most awesome experiences I've ever had. It also involved navigating my first entirely in Japanese phone call which was horrifying. The vampire cafe is not just a name - the ENTIRE place is decorated. The waitstaff is all wearing full vampire gear, including face paint and fangs and capes. The food is ALL themed. I got cross-shaped pieces of toast with spreads, for instance. I'll have pictures up later but all I can say is: if you go to Tokyo, you must go to the Vampire Cafe. If you're lucky, maybe you can sit at the table that is actually a real coffin!

Saturday in Tokyo was probably my favorite day because it was spent at.... TOKYO DISNEYLAND! Going to Disneyland Paris was one of the highlights of my time in Paris, so naturally I had to make it over to Tokyo Disneyland. Space Mountain was incredible. I wish I could ride that rollercoaster all day. Surprisingly, we only saw maybe 5 other foreigners at the park. We were expecting a lot more. We were at Disney from 10 AM to 10 PM so we were pretty exhausted by the end.

Sunday was pretty leisurely. After a brief visit to Akihabara, Steff and I trained it up to Ueno Park. Ueno Park is absolutely gorgeous. I spent most of the time in the Tokyo National Museum which was GREAT. They had a free English tour, and they had a free set up where you were able to make your own woodblock print! Woodblock prints are essentially my favorite art form of all time. To make them, a series of plates are carved - one for each color - and then dipped in ink and applied sequentially to the same paper. Each template has only the raised parts that will need whatever color is being used for that template. I'm not describing it very well, but if I could spend my life studying woodblock prints, I would.

Sunday night was awesome because I got to see AKI!!!!!!!! While I'm making very good friends out of my fellow Yamaguchi JETs, at this point I hadn't seen anyone I'd known for more than a few weeks in quite some time. We grabbed dinner in Shinjuku and hung out until our bus back to Hiroshima left. Seeing a friend made me day and I highly encourage all of you to visit me in Japan ASAP. I'll provide the futons!

Anyway, we caught our 10-hour bus ride back to Hiroshima and then had 5 minutes to catch our 2.5-hour train back to Hofu, at which point we passed out completely.