TGIF! School's out for the week... the kids are bundling up and running to the doors... but I have to put in another thirty minutes before I'm officially out of here. I tried to work on some Japanese, but I'm too distracted so I gave up.

Today was the big English Lotto drawing! OOhhhh.. was it ever exciting. Took the lucky 4 Lotto tickets to the TV/Announcement broadcast room and waited around freaking out the students until it was my turn to announce the winners. I choose one student from each grade, plus another "Big Winner" from the entire school. The grade level winners win 2 cookies a peice (this month's are peanut butter... I must love them to sacrifice some of my very valuable Skippy!) and the "Big Winner" wins 9 cookies all for themselves (though my guess is that they share since "We Japanese don't like sweets... mmmm, yum!"). Lucky, lucky kids. I also usually bring in cookies for the teachers so they don't get too envious. ;) I make the announcement during lunch time and the winners are usually hovering at my desk before I get there. It has been a fun way to establish a mini-reward system (since I have absolutly zero control over their grades or discipline).

Great news! One of my favorite 3rd grade students just ran in here to announce that she passed her entrance exam for her first choice high school! She is one of the few students that have chosen a school outside of Nagano. Most students go to schools in Matsumoto, the big city about 10 minutes away (Misato has no high school). She flew to Fukuoka last week for an English interview and to take the entrance exam at a school with an international track. They encourage all their students to be exchange students at some point.. which I think is fantastic. She's a super student and really excited about travel and studying English. I'm so happy for her! All the 3rd graders are in major study mode. One of them told me that if you aren't accepted into your high school of choice, you have to either go to a back up or spend the next year studying to take the test again. I can't imagine such pressure just to choose a high school! Every time I ask one of them what they did over the weekend I get the same answers: "I went to cram school" "I studied _____"

Ok, off to run and then hit the onsen (public bath.. ok not so public but japanese style) that we've wanted to go to forever but couldn't because it is on the mountain and too painful to bike to! I'm so thankful to have a car!!

happy friday....

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow.... just let it stay above zero (on the Fahrenheit scale, that is)!

My house has no central heating nor sufficient insulation. If you happen to be Japanese, no shocker... most houses in Japan are the same. When I decided to choose Nagano Prefecture (a notoriously cold spot in Japan) as my first choice for my JET placement, I was hoping that an area as cold as home would take a few more steps to guard against it than they did down south in Wakayama. I was very wrong. I have no idea why my neighbors in Nagano haven't yet figured out a better way to stay warm than burning kerosene and curling under a small heated table, but it is certainly not my favorite aspect of life on this island. I have a two story house and it is currently "heated" using one (or all) of three kerosene stove-heaters and one crusty space heater (that though sketchy I have deemed necessary to my survival while I shower). I must also mention my heated toilet seat. Yes, that's right, my toilet seat is plugged in to the wall. Back to the kerosene heaters. Please try to imagine: the heater in my bedroom is approximately a foot and a half tall, a foot or so wide and another foot deep. It heats by burning kerosene which I lug in from the shed in my yard. I.E. I must go OUTside (in the COLD) to get kerosene to stay warm. Not only is the heater not something you can leave running (after 3 hours it shuts off automatically to prevent me from dying in my sleep due to gases), but it also runs OUT of kerosene. It did just that late last night, leaving me to wake up to a fabulously comfortable 32 degrees. That's FREEZING for you non-science minded folks. Actually its even more graphic because I'm in Japan so my heater doesn't say 32 degrees... it shows a nice, fat ZERO. Shocker, let me tell you. I am beyond finding being able to see my breath as I dress as novel. Pardon me if I think the lack of heating is more "insanity" then mere "cultural difference".

New Topic: I have my car!!! More accurately: Jaclyn and I have our car!!! The store we purchased it from arrived at our house yesterday after school (which was incredibly nice of them- they also came to my school to get my signature, a form that said I live where I live, and my hanko (official name stamp) last week). Jaclyn and I have agreed that it is possibly the cutest car ever... and VERY Japanese. Many JETs drive the ugliest cars in Japan so you can spot them coming from at least a block away. I do beleive that we are much more subtle about our foreignness in this little machine.. though Jaclyn the blondy may still give us away! We took a celebratory spin to Jusco (our neighborhood grocery store) and were tickled at how fabulously easy it was to transport ourselves and our food. Tonight we will certainly arrive at Shodo (caligraphy) class in style! Actually, Jaclyn is picking me up (such service!) in a bit so I will just leave you with this website to show off. See our car here. Ours is the dark green color. Oh, and we have been informed that there is a sticker you can buy that if you stick to the back of your car, other drivers will know you aren't used to driving yet and will back off! As dorky as this idea is... I will be running out to find us one as soon as possible- so don't you worry.

School: My Job

Whew. Onto school. I don't think I've really spent any time documenting what it is I do here. Besides all the craziness that goes on outside of school time... There is a LOT of craziness that goes on IN-side. Let's start with a little overview of my job. I am an Assistant Language Teacher (ALT) at Misato Junior High School. There are five full-time, fully trained ("real") English teachers here. My friend Ms. Takemura left at the end of last term (there are three, we are now in the third of three, the school year ends in March) on maternity leave and was replaced by Mr. Ishizone. Mr. Ishizone is worthy of an entire journal just on him... but I won't subject you to that. For now, I'll just say he is totally old school, uses only Japanese to teach and would probably prefer me to stop trying to teach his classes. We are working together on trying to work together. Fortunately he has a terrific sense of humor and is only here through March. ;) So. Usually it is my mission to create a lesson plan for the classes I share with the other teachers. There are three grades (refered to as first, second, and third.. the Japanese equivilants of American grades 7 through 9) and within each grade there are 5 classes. Each class consists of somewhere between 36 and 40 students who stay together for the entire day. Instead of the kids going to teachers' classrooms as in the States, here the teachers go to the students' classrooms. Students do go to the Art room, the Music room, certain Science rooms, P.E. and sometimes mix up for different Math classes. But mostly, they have class in the same room with the same kids in the same desks. Sometimes, these groups don't even change between school years, they just move to a higher floor in the building.

Ok. So, I teach in each of these classrooms one time in two weeks. There are 15 (you could have done that math, I suppose!) plus I have 3 "special" classes. More on them later, I am sure. Each class has one English teacher who teaches them 4 times a week (so 8 times in 2 weeks, again pretty simple). Then one of those 8 classes, the teacher "team teaches"... with (you guessed it!) me. Now "team teaching" is a pretty lame term because I haven't heard of too many people actually doing this. I am one of the luckier JETs on one extreme end: My teachers allow me to plan the entire class and I pretty much lead the entire 50 minutes (this is where Mr. Ishizone and I am struggling). Other JETs are asked to sit and watch or just help model the pronounciation of target vocab so the class can repeat them (this is what Mr. Ishizone would prefer me to do.... AGH). I am REALLY challenged by lesson planning but am REALLY starting to enjoy doing it and enjoy being mildly successful (i.e. my classes have moved from 100% entertainment to something bordering on teaching. at least I think so. Probably where Mr. Ishizone has a right to be concerned).

So last week, in first grade, we were practicing asking "where?" and "whose ____ is this?" and also using "she/hers/he/his/mine" etc. (Don't get me started on the horrid English textbooks and language learning system in this country. At least not yet.) I started class as I usually do, the teacher and I split a deck of cards with simple questions on them (ex. What time do you get up? Do you play soccer?). The students stand up and may sit when they have answered a question with a full answer. This term, we've also asked them to respond with "How about you?" so that the exchange more closely resembles a real dialogue. Still a bit akward. Then, I had three big drawings/posters, etc. of Santa, Harry Potter, and Shinjo (Japanese baseball player) and drew myself on the board. I had a bag full of objects and when I asked the class "Whose hat/ball/pen/present is this?" they had to pass the question relay style to the last person in the row who then answered. Then they passed the answer back to me and scored a point. Loads of fun. Next, I had them put their heads down on their desk. They thought this was hilarious; "We can go to sleep?" While they were "sleeping" I walked around stealing their stuff. muhahahahaha!! I would then ask "Whose is this?" The owner had to yell "It's mine" and the class had to yell "It's his/hers!" loud enough or I wouldn't give the object back. Wrapped up class with a tongue twister or a practice handout according to time. Pretty typical first year class. I can be as silly as possible, a la Mori No Ike. It is a HECK of a lot of fun.

Second grade: to practice using "There is/are" and prepositions, I made a worksheet that was an empty room. I told the class it was MY room and to draw objects in the room according to my description ("There is a calendar on the wall, telephone on the bookshelf, etc."). Then I checked by asking them ("Is there a _____ in my room?"). Then I handed them a worksheet with 2 rooms on it. The top room was theirs and they had 5 min. to fill it with 5-6 items. Then they paired up and drew their partner's room in the bottom listening to an English description. In the middle, they had to write the description out in English. This was pretty fun and I was reminded of the need to give the kids a time limit on activities. If I don't cut them off.. they never get started. Procrastinator teaching the procrastinators- yikes!!

Third grade can be REALLY tough. These kids are NOT as in to silly as the first graders, that was clear on day one. They also have senioritis... BIG TIME. I usually teach with 2 other teachers because in all their other English classes, they are split into ability levels. This makes teaching them together a potential for nightmare. Fortunately even in the most anti-class classes, there are some really terrific kids. Some of the third graders are just totally neat. They make me grin even after a whopper of a class. Anyway, last week's class: we started by reviewing a doctor/patient conversation out of the text ("Hi. What's wrong?" "I have a headache" and so on). Then, using a sheet I drew up, the kids had 10 minutes to practice MY version of the dialogue (added useful vocabulary and phrases like "My ___ hurts.") They got points for each person they spoke with (1 point for same gender, 2pts for guy/girl, 3 pts for practicing with a teacher). For the second half of class, we made 8 groups (I am still trying to get the classes used to counting off to make groups.. who'd have thunk?) and each group got the same copy of a version of the Paul Bunyan story. Then they each got a question from one of the teacher. They had to answer the question, tell it in a complete sentence to a teacher then get a new one. This sounds lame, but was great excercise in skimming for keywords and meaning for kids who have been taught to read by translating every word literally. Doubt any of them learned much about Paul Bunyan... but the stories in the text are much weirder so it probably didn't phase them! I may go back to tall tales at a different time.

I had a great week last week which basically means I got through all my lessons and the kids were involved throughout the class. I had fun and they had fun, which is a bonus. During my non-class hours (which are more frequent than class hours) I read student journals and write messages back, work on my lessons and materials for the next 2 week cycle, tweak/write notes about the current ones, work on my monthly English bulletin board, create the weekly English puzzle that hangs from my bulletin board (usually a crossword/word search or something similar with seasonally appropriate word that the kids earn lotto tickets for completing and then can enter themselves in the montly lotto for handmade cookies.. handmade by me, of course!) read e-mail, read the news, surf the internet, and study Japanese. It isn't crazy busy but it has been enough to keep me happy, interested and challenged so far this year. I also have plenty of free time to spend enjoying other stuff: traveling, hiking, reading, skiing, running and studying among others. And yes, in case you haven't heard.. I am staying another year.

Brrrr... Japanese January

I'm trying, I'm trying. I have yet to figure out the photo thing, but I will attempt to keep writing while I brainstorm. Of course, I am looking to do it for free and that may or may not be possible. We shall see.

Anyway: I definitely should document the fact that I'm having the most terrific January in recent history. Maybe February will just truly bite, but so far this winter has been a real blast. Last week was perhaps my best week of teaching yet, then on Thursday we got almost 2 feet of snow, and on top of all that I should have a car by the end of the day!!

Ok I will slow down. After Christmas in Hawaii and New Year's (plus) in Tokyo at Tom's apartment, I was surprised at how happy I was to return to Misato. The man who runs the train station welcomed me home, and though it was just a random greeting, it was exactly how I felt. It was butt cold here when I got back. Literally half of my house was frozen. The kitchen sink was thankfully still working, but my bathroom sink water was frozen solid, as was the water in my shower and bathtub. Here's an image for you: My shower head is actually attached to a hose which links to the bathtub faucet. I usually leave it hanging on the wall in "shower position" but sometimes take it down to rinse out the tub, etc. Well, the water inside the hose had frozen... so when I tried to take it down it wouldn't even budge from its snake position!! I was a bit shocked. Fortunatly it thawed a few hours after plugging in a space heater and closing the door. Not so lucky with the washing machine. I thought it was fine, but halfway through my first post-vacation load it just stopped... soap suds, frigid water, and clothes hanging out in a lovely laundry stew. After some head scratching I realized that the hose & drain combo were frozen... so I could fill up and start laundry... just couldn't finish it. I was forced (by images of frozen scummy mildewy clothing) to reach in and rescue the clothing then bail out the soapy water. My hands were bright red (have I reminded you that the inside of my house in spots without a kerosene heater reach freezing regularly?) but the clothes were now out of the laundry and instead in a drippy corner of my shower. I then boiled pots of water and dumped them into the laundry machine until I successfully got the laundry machine to start draining. I am a genius!! Thank you St. Olaf!!! (sarcasm warning).

Oh, but the BEST part of my frozen water situation was the bathroom sink. The hot water faucet remained frozen for a few days. In retrospect, I guess I probably had turned it on and off (to check for water!) so many times that I simply forgot which way was "off". On this side of the "incident", this seems like it should be an important thing to remember... but I had yet to learn my lesson. Boy did I. When I returned from school on our first day back, all dressed up and ready to (sigh) relax.. the first sound I heard when I opened my door was water. The gloss of the floor really resembled that of water. I won't share the first WORD I said aloud when I turned on the light to see my entire first floor covered in at least 2 inches of water. The faucet had thawed (duh!) and instead of being on a trickle... it was on full blast and flowing into a sink bowl that drains pretty slowly. Hence the water and overflowed and had been doing so for hours. The water streamed out of the bathroom, through my hall and spread throughout my entire kitchen. I'll sum up by saying it took Jaclyn and I over an hour, 2 brooms, countless towels, and all my heaters to clean up the mess. Of course since it was so cold, all the water swept out of my house instantly froze into my very own front step skating rink. Lesson learned.

1/22/03
Happy New Year! Ok, seriously. I vow to work on this thing enough so that it may actually be worth sending the address out to folks. So far I haven't quite figured this all out, but I haven't written in my journal in ages, so I am beginning to think this could be the answer to a number of unfulfilled ideas.