It's been awhile

Happy 2009! I'm going to avoid the obvious... yes, I know, it's been a LONG time since I last posted on here.

Anyways... instead of filling you in on the past year, I will just tell you about today, it's more exciting.

The weather started out nice...but then got progressively worse. By the time I left school (6pm) it was a combination of snow/sleet/hail, it felt like nails piercing my skin as I was riding my bike. I hated it.

However today at school it went by really fast, especially considering that this week seemed like to last an eternity. Here's a list of the good/bad/so-so that happened today.

Good
- Had two new students show up to Friday English lunch.
- Looked at Yahoo Auctions for a snowboard.
- Did calligraphy for the first time, I wrote　心 "kokoro" meaning "soul, mind, heart"
- My JTE loaned me some snowboarding shoes for the season.
- Made it to school on time.
- Had a good dinner, yakineku! (Japanese BBQ)
- Then tried McD's new cinnamon rolls... yummy!


S0-S0
- I managed to practice writing a few Kanji
- Oral Communications Class... tried to explain "supply" I used the example of.... "I have a supply of 20 sock at home." The students starred blankly at me.
- My Bento (lunchbox) that I ordered today...

Bad
- The weather is crap.
- My school forbids me to go skiing with one of the schools I visit once a week, because they are afraid I would get injured and I wouldn't be able to teach Oral Communications to the other schools.... damn the authorities!
- Because the "snow" is like one inch (2cm) of slush, my feet were wet all night.
- My Japanese skills.

Convinced my school will engulf in flames….soon

The past two days haven’t been exactly bright, concerning the electricity in my school. Sometimes the lights will flicker and the electrical socket will even shoot sparks. Please keep in mind, that there about 600 people in the school everyday, safe huh? Fortunately, we had a fire drill two months ago so the students and teachers know how to evacuate and most importantly one student from each class can use a fire extinguisher, as they demonstrated it to the entire school at the all school assembly.

Not only is my school having electrical problems, there are several other ways that could start a fire. The first one is because of all of the gas, kerosene, and electric heaters being used at any given moment that could tip over or malfunction for something major to happen (refer to exhibit A). The second reason why my school could start on fire is because of all of the overloaded electrical outlets, which might be the reason why it is having electrical problems in the first place (refer to exhibit B).

If there was a fire in my school, I would give the burn down time slightly under 20 minutes before it just be cinders. Why do I think this? If you have ever been to Japanese staff room, or any office for that matter, you will find loads and loads of papers, boxes, books just sitting around collecting dust. I am convinced that some things haven’t been touched for decades. On another note, if you are a person who likes to have a tidy space, do NOT work in Japanese schools and government buildings, it will drive you crazy. If there happens to be a fire in my school, the staff room would be gone in about 3 seconds and all the papers and books would just add more fuel to the fire….Poof… Gone…. Just like that!

With the electrical problems that are happening at my school and my desk’s close proximity to the gas heater, I am always wondering how I can escape the school the fastest, luckily I am only about five paces to the nearest exit but I have to walk over a massive spool of an extension cords to get there….well, I guess I can’t win ‘em all.

Exhibit A

Exhibit B

Alive and sometimes kickin'

If you are a 'regular' viewer of this blog, please keep in mind this quote "Caroline, are you are the most consistently inconsistent," quoted from my wise HS Cross Country coach.

With that in mind I hope you enjoy my second post of the year!!

If I were to say every day in Japan or in life is bliss, I would be lying to you. Today is a day that does not fall into the 'Bliss' category, but rather a 'Mediocre' category. Every Tuesday and Thursday I travel to a school that is about a 45 minute train ride away from my house, the town is settled in the mountains and is quite nice and a good place for tourists, but not a good place for me to go twice a week. Usually the weather is always colder, more rainy and darker than in Masuda. On top of that after making a 45 minute commute I get to sit in a cold school and teach one class for the entire day! Yes, one 45 minute class, equivalent to the train ride to school. If I am lucky I will teach 2 classes in one day. In case you have forgotten the typical high school schedule is to have 7 class periods in one day. One of the classes I teach sucks every single 'Happy' particle from my body and then I become bitter by the end of the class.

Today was not my lucky day, I only taught one class and it was the class that makes me want to walk outside to the nearest bar and get a drink after I leave the classroom. It is the class that make 45 minutes seem like a lifetime. The class that makes car noises all period. The class that knocks over chairs and desks just to make a loud noise because the classroom is more or less a concrete/window cage with no sound absorption. The class that I dread the most. I've tried everything with this class, and still I get NOTHING but blank stare and random shouting and screaming. It's bad when they don't even understand the instructions given in Japanese.

I can only 'spoon feed' the students so much, but I can't speak for them, after all I teach Oral Communications.After a crap day of teaching a crap class and sitting in freakin' cold desk for 7 hours I will soon make the 45 minute train ride back to Masuda. Wondering why I am under utilized in a high school where the students barely know how to say 'Hello.'

Thailand in a thousand words..

It's been awhile since I made my last posting on here, mainly it was because I was in Thailand from December 21, 2007 until January 4, 2008 and and then was in Osaka until the 6th. I made it back to Masuda on the eve of the 6th with a cold and exhaustion. Since then I've been getting back into the swing of school and my life in Masuda again, as well as battling this awful cold.

While I was in Thailand I spend one week in San Gklaburi providence along the Thai/Burma boarder volunteering with 30 other JETs at Baan Dada orphanage, http://www.baandada.org/boyshome.htm. Then I also spent one week traveling around in Chaing Mai and Bangkok with four other people that were volunteering with the group.

Instead of writing every little detail of my tip I am just going to post a few pictures and I will let the pictures do the writing for me, after all a photo is worth a 1,000 words, isn't it?

Top left: Elephants at a shrine, elephants were sacred creatures in ancient Thai culture and were at the base of most ancient shrines and temples.

Top Right; The King! On December 4th, 2007 the King of Thailand celebrated his 80th birthday, he has been in reign for about 60 years and has done a lot of great things for Thailand, because of this his picture and yellow flag bearing the crest are EVERYWHERE!

Middle Left: This is an election banner hanging on a house in Poloki Village for the election that happen on December 23rd.

Middle Right: This is my favorite photo that I took on the trip, is is a picture of one of the 'brothers' at the orphanage on a tractor.

Bottom Left: There I am during the first few minutes of 2008 in Chaing Mai lighting my wish lantern, that would soon float way high into the sky.

Special Needs School

I only visit the Masuda special needs school once a month, and when I do it is usually a busy day teaching all classes and visiting all of the students and doing activities with the students throughout the day. Today when I arrived at school I was told that my cooperating teacher was sick and I have to teach the classes myself!!! AHHHHHHH!! I know the lesson plans, but I don't know enough Japanese to teach the students! However, I came extra prepared with pictures and Christmas music, so I thought I could at least entertain the students for awhile, but my Vice Principal came to save the day and helped me with all of my classes. His English is very, very good, about 15 years ago he spent two years in Jamaica with the Japanese Peace Corp.

The three classes that I taught in the morning went really well, I had a little bit of a break and then it was lunch time and then the afternoon was spent on supervising the students voting for a student body president and vice president. Which was great to watch, the candidates wrote speeches as to why their peers should vote for them, after the speeches were completed the students went into the gym to to vote for each position. It was very realistic they had real voting boxes and voting booths set up for the students. Even though there are only about 50 students in the Jr. and Sr. High school, it was really well organized and taken very seriously, I hope that it encourages the students to vote once they have graduated from school.

Another thing that was really encouraging today was that three of the people on staff served two year in the Japanese Peace Corps I spent a little time talking to some of them about their experience, they went to Pakistan, Zambia and Jamaica. It's nice to know that that some of my colleagues have spent some time abroad and are familiar with the challenges that I face, they are empathetic and willing to listen to some of my problems about being a foreigner in Japan. I am excited to go to the Special Needs school next time and I hope that our friendship will continue to grow and I can learn learn about other cultures.

Natural High

Lately in my classes I've been struggling with activities to do, I have 40 students in each class and I've been struggling greatly to develop effective activities. I've done many of the activities with the student, however because there are so many bodies to coordinate and directions to say the activity usually ends with half of the class doing it correctly and the other have just bunched together in the middle of the classroom.

Last week during the exam period, I had four glorious days to spend planning lessons, grading papers learning Japanese etc... During that period I planned a lesson for the Shopping section of the book, I set up 10 different "store" around the room and selected 10 students to be the clerk at each store and gave each student 3 things to 'buy'. It went very well, and most importantly EVERY student participated and it appeared that they really enjoy the activity! It's always great seeing all my planning and set-up work and have the students enjoy it.

Tomorrow I am going to another high school where it is a little more challenging to teach, so we'll see how it goes...

Becoming Familiar with Japan

This weekend there was an AJET Christmas party in Hamada, so JETs from all over Shimane went there about 28 people total. Some of the people that attended the party brought their significant others that are visiting from their homeland. One of the them just arrived in Japan a few weeks ago and has never visited Japan before, so he was still in awe of everything. He made a comment about the bar being very small, which is was, however that is how all bars are like in Japan, very, very small. It was then when I realized I am becoming familiar with my surroundings, what I thought was different when I first arrived is now becoming normal. I am still in awe and surprised often, but I am becoming very familiar with my everyday surroundings and am starting to discover the little nooks of town that are hard to find, such as a fantastic coffee shop along a small service road behind the train station.

I am excited that I have more time here to discover more nooks of Masuda as well as the surrounding area.