This weekend, I had one of the greatest moments since I've been here.
Our school had its road race and bazaar on Saturday. This meant that I had to work on Saturday. Unfortunate, but I got Monday off, so I guess it works out. I arrived at 8:30, like usual, dressed in my typical school attire. As I enter the office, one of the first things the secretary says to me is, "Are you going to run in the race today?" I just replied, "I didn't even know I was allowed to particiapte!" I quickly threw off my sweater and collared shirt, put on my track jacket, and ran outside with my dress pants still on. I confirmed with the teachers that I was in fact allowed to participate, chatted with the students for a while, and prepared for the moment when the starter would fire and off I'd go.
I'd never run that sort of distance before (what sort of distance that was, I'm not really sure). In all honesty, I didn't have a whole lot of faith that I'd complete it. But there I was, jogging next to one of my favorite students while he raises his arms triumphantly saying, "umaku iku!" (not sure how to translate this; literally, "going well", but maybe "git 'r done" is more fitting, given the circumstances), ironically quoting the back of my track jacket. So I responded, "umaku iku!" in the same fashion, and eventually we had this rhythm going:
"Umkau iku!"
"Umaku iku!"
They didn't place me, because I'm not a student, but I estimate that I was around 25th place. Plenty of others behind me!
At the bazaar afterwards, I ate a lot of carny food, chatted with a bunch of students who wanted to know if Manaka-sensei or Masshu-sensei was my type, and then bought salt and pepper shakers in the shape of a tiny duck and a tiny frog (they're actually the same characters featured in Metal Gear Solid 3 and 4 for those of you who might give a damn).
Saturday, I went to a festival in downtown Satte. It was mostly like a flea market with some performance art. Donald McDonald was there! Also, a monkey on a leash!
After that, I went with Marisa to Gongendo park. We sat, snacked, painted, read, talked. She's really one of my favorite people. As for Gongendo, you'll be seeing plenty of pictures of it in the spring when it explodes with pink cherry blossoms.
Today, I had no work. And nothing to report.
Monday, October 19, 2009
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Surreal Sabatical
Last weekend was insane.
Friday night after my college Japanese class (which I just realized I haven't mentioned before now), I went out for dinner with my friends, as we sometimes do. The class is taught by Japanese students of Bunkyo University who want to be Japanese language teachers in the future. Thus, the class is very cheap and a lot of ALTs around Northeast Saitama do it. Due to the sheer amount of people going to dinner with us that night, I ended up sitting with the Japanese student-teachers and having a long, and very strange conversation that covered topics as simple as conversational English, and as weird as Katahira-san's interest in The Klaxons. It was a blast.
You'd think the weekend would stop there, but then if that's the case, you haven't properly learned the order of the days in a week. Saturday, I attended a 4-person combined birthday bash in Tokyo. The location was (and here's the best part) a Texas-themed bar, complete with live country music, line dancing, and chili fries that are topped with CheezWhiz, as if it were some kind of delicacy. Listen: You haven't lived till you've been taught to line dance by a Japanese woman to the soothing strings of a Japanese man singing "All My Exes Live in Texas". His Southern accent was perfect! I mean, perfect! And don't get me started on the roughly 8 dollar price for a bottle of their "imported beer"--Coors Light!
By the way, Sunday comes after Saturday. We had Monday off for Health and Sports Day (despite what you may think, the Japanese love holidays), so once again, we were off to have fun. We ended up doing Karaoke in a town a few stops away called Kasukabe. Not so fun fact: A famous comic book author living in Kasukabe was found dead in Gunma prefecture recently when he went hiking and fell off a cliff while trying to take a picture. Going to Kasukabe to have fun just seemed sort of wrong to me at the time, but that didn't stop me from having a great time. We sang, drank, and we were merry. You'd think that at the end of this, I'd be too tired to do anything, but Marisa and I were in such high spirits that we decided to watch a pirated copy of Zombieland (look, I miss American movies).
And Monday I slept.
Friday night after my college Japanese class (which I just realized I haven't mentioned before now), I went out for dinner with my friends, as we sometimes do. The class is taught by Japanese students of Bunkyo University who want to be Japanese language teachers in the future. Thus, the class is very cheap and a lot of ALTs around Northeast Saitama do it. Due to the sheer amount of people going to dinner with us that night, I ended up sitting with the Japanese student-teachers and having a long, and very strange conversation that covered topics as simple as conversational English, and as weird as Katahira-san's interest in The Klaxons. It was a blast.
You'd think the weekend would stop there, but then if that's the case, you haven't properly learned the order of the days in a week. Saturday, I attended a 4-person combined birthday bash in Tokyo. The location was (and here's the best part) a Texas-themed bar, complete with live country music, line dancing, and chili fries that are topped with CheezWhiz, as if it were some kind of delicacy. Listen: You haven't lived till you've been taught to line dance by a Japanese woman to the soothing strings of a Japanese man singing "All My Exes Live in Texas". His Southern accent was perfect! I mean, perfect! And don't get me started on the roughly 8 dollar price for a bottle of their "imported beer"--Coors Light!
By the way, Sunday comes after Saturday. We had Monday off for Health and Sports Day (despite what you may think, the Japanese love holidays), so once again, we were off to have fun. We ended up doing Karaoke in a town a few stops away called Kasukabe. Not so fun fact: A famous comic book author living in Kasukabe was found dead in Gunma prefecture recently when he went hiking and fell off a cliff while trying to take a picture. Going to Kasukabe to have fun just seemed sort of wrong to me at the time, but that didn't stop me from having a great time. We sang, drank, and we were merry. You'd think that at the end of this, I'd be too tired to do anything, but Marisa and I were in such high spirits that we decided to watch a pirated copy of Zombieland (look, I miss American movies).
And Monday I slept.
Sunday, October 11, 2009
A few of my favorite Silver Week pictures
I'm having trouble uploading these to facebook for some reason. Anyhow, here's a few of my favorites.
Here's the bullet train I rode (I think). It's so fast that when trees pass the windows, it causes the light to strobe so fast that I think a epilepsy warning should be written on the back of every passenger's ticket. It's much, much more comfortable than an airplane though.
This is a pachinko parlor in Osaka. That strip on the front is some sort of elevator that takes you to a platform dangling in the middle, or something.
There we are.
And now so that you can actually see what that wonderful building in the background is. That's Todaiji, the largest wooden structure in the world. Inside, there's a Buddha statue that makes the statue of Lincoln in the Lincoln memorial look tiny.
There's that bad motha'.
A Taiko rock band in the middle of Osaka Castle park.
Osaka Castle!
A famous spot along Dotonbori in Osaka-- just look at those lights.
I couldn't resist posting at least one more deer picture. Honestly, could you?
Here's the bullet train I rode (I think). It's so fast that when trees pass the windows, it causes the light to strobe so fast that I think a epilepsy warning should be written on the back of every passenger's ticket. It's much, much more comfortable than an airplane though.
This is a pachinko parlor in Osaka. That strip on the front is some sort of elevator that takes you to a platform dangling in the middle, or something.
There we are.
And now so that you can actually see what that wonderful building in the background is. That's Todaiji, the largest wooden structure in the world. Inside, there's a Buddha statue that makes the statue of Lincoln in the Lincoln memorial look tiny.
There's that bad motha'.
A Taiko rock band in the middle of Osaka Castle park.
Osaka Castle!
A famous spot along Dotonbori in Osaka-- just look at those lights.
I couldn't resist posting at least one more deer picture. Honestly, could you?
Monday, October 5, 2009
A Month in the Life
As you may expect, I've got a lot to say.
I just bought a new keyboard today. Now I can continue, but its a little hard to decide exactly where to begin. Well, in the words of Lewis Carrol, "begin at the beginning and go on till you come to the end; then stop."
I've started teaching. I teach 14 classes a week in about 20 sessions. Granted, I like some classes better than others, but at the end of the day, I love my job. I mean, L-O-V-E it. Here's a metaphorical snapshot of my day:
I've started something at school which I call "Mr. Clark's English Box". Original, I know. Basically, I provide the students with a non-mandatory writing prompt every month, usually pertaining to the month in some way. There are also other fun little writing activities like filling in speech bubbles in a comic strip, and whatnot. I've made it clear to the kids that if they don't want to write about the prompt, they don't have to. Anything's fine as long as they're studying English.
I received my first entry today. Last week, the girl lamented to me that she couldn't write one for me, but that she'd do it next time. When I came in today, it was in the box on my desk. She hadn't written about the topic, but that didn't matter to me. The fact that someone submitted something at all had me all antsy. Her essay was titled "My Dream", and was about how she has dreams of being a famous actress, so she's taking classes with a local theatre company and working really hard to get the roles she wants. That sort of thing. It made me think, though. The idea of self-motivation is a lot different in Japan, but I'm sure that when I was her age, to some extent I felt the same way. I wasn't constantly thinking about my future the way this girl does, but I can't deny that I had that same dream at some point.
I was very moved by the way she had bared herself like that. I corrected it quickly, left her a note on the bottom, and handed it back just before lunch. When I came in to her class, she quickly stood up and just started repeating over and over again, "thank you, thank you" (in English, thankfully) and reaching out to shake my hand.
I was going to make some sort of judgment at this point, but now I'm not sure to think, so just decide for yourself what that means.
I really failed at starting at the beginning, eh?
So I go to work 5 days a week. Lately, by bicycle through the rain. I get along with most of my teachers really well. In fact, the vice principal of one of my elementary schools took me and my predecessor out to dinner this past Saturday. I had 'red clam' sashimi for the first time.
Last month, we had a five day vacation. A series of holidays just happened to line up in the perfect configuration, the kind of thing that happens once every 9 years. As a sort of joke, people called it Silver Week, a play off of Golden Week, another 5 day holiday week that happens every May.
For Silver Week, I went down to Southern Japan and visited my friend Lauren and Mr. Joseph Carter, the one and only. I was constantly moving that weekend, all around the area, so I bet it'll just be easier to let the pictures do the talking.
In Nara, there are wild dear that wander the temple grounds. They are considered sacred animals, and you are encouraged to feed them. Yes, the picture below actually did happen.
I just bought a new keyboard today. Now I can continue, but its a little hard to decide exactly where to begin. Well, in the words of Lewis Carrol, "begin at the beginning and go on till you come to the end; then stop."
I've started teaching. I teach 14 classes a week in about 20 sessions. Granted, I like some classes better than others, but at the end of the day, I love my job. I mean, L-O-V-E it. Here's a metaphorical snapshot of my day:
I've started something at school which I call "Mr. Clark's English Box". Original, I know. Basically, I provide the students with a non-mandatory writing prompt every month, usually pertaining to the month in some way. There are also other fun little writing activities like filling in speech bubbles in a comic strip, and whatnot. I've made it clear to the kids that if they don't want to write about the prompt, they don't have to. Anything's fine as long as they're studying English.
I received my first entry today. Last week, the girl lamented to me that she couldn't write one for me, but that she'd do it next time. When I came in today, it was in the box on my desk. She hadn't written about the topic, but that didn't matter to me. The fact that someone submitted something at all had me all antsy. Her essay was titled "My Dream", and was about how she has dreams of being a famous actress, so she's taking classes with a local theatre company and working really hard to get the roles she wants. That sort of thing. It made me think, though. The idea of self-motivation is a lot different in Japan, but I'm sure that when I was her age, to some extent I felt the same way. I wasn't constantly thinking about my future the way this girl does, but I can't deny that I had that same dream at some point.
I was very moved by the way she had bared herself like that. I corrected it quickly, left her a note on the bottom, and handed it back just before lunch. When I came in to her class, she quickly stood up and just started repeating over and over again, "thank you, thank you" (in English, thankfully) and reaching out to shake my hand.
I was going to make some sort of judgment at this point, but now I'm not sure to think, so just decide for yourself what that means.
I really failed at starting at the beginning, eh?
So I go to work 5 days a week. Lately, by bicycle through the rain. I get along with most of my teachers really well. In fact, the vice principal of one of my elementary schools took me and my predecessor out to dinner this past Saturday. I had 'red clam' sashimi for the first time.
Last month, we had a five day vacation. A series of holidays just happened to line up in the perfect configuration, the kind of thing that happens once every 9 years. As a sort of joke, people called it Silver Week, a play off of Golden Week, another 5 day holiday week that happens every May.
For Silver Week, I went down to Southern Japan and visited my friend Lauren and Mr. Joseph Carter, the one and only. I was constantly moving that weekend, all around the area, so I bet it'll just be easier to let the pictures do the talking.
In Nara, there are wild dear that wander the temple grounds. They are considered sacred animals, and you are encouraged to feed them. Yes, the picture below actually did happen.
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