Hey all!
So, these past few weeks, I've been playing various games with my students to pass the time after we finish the main activities of a class. We had about 3 minutes left one time, so I decided to play Hangman. I decided to choose a hard word ("rhythm") and confuse the students a little bit. Usually, at least one student usually screams out "Z" or "Y" to try to kill the hangman, so I thought..."why not put a Y in there?" It ended up not being the best idea lol
The first three letter call-outs went like this:
Male Student 1: "S!!!!"
Me: NO! (draws a head)
Male Student 2: "E!!!!"
Me: NO!! (I wrote "E" above the hangman area, then drew a body....then I paused, hoping that this wasn't gonna go the way I think it was gonna go...)
Male Student 3: "X!!!!"
Me: LOL.....NOOOOO!!! (the students were rolling, but then I wrote X between S and E, much to the boys chagrin. hahaaa suckers!)
JTE: *in a slow, deep, menacing voice* "君たち。。。 (Ki-mi-ta-chiii.....You guys.....>.<)"
I couldn't hold it in....I'm pretty sure I was still laughing even fifteen minutes after class was over... xD
But that whole situation kinda gave me a reality check. Even though they're Japanese, they're still high school students. Normal high school students with a healthy interest in the birds and the bees.
In fact, a couple of my students asked me "When was your first kiss?" and I answered honestly "Last year!" and they were like O_____O "NO WAYYYYY"....how baffled they would be to know that it was actually earlier this year, upon more reflection...
So yes. I am forced to remember this healthy interest every once in a while.
Most recently, at my visit school, we played a categories game, where the students were split into teams of 6. A category was given and students had to write as many words as possible pertaining to the category on a piece of paper within two minutes. I rolled a 20 sided dice and the letter A came up, prompting me to write "Words that start with A" on the board. I was quite surprised by many of the answers.
There were really good ones like: android, angel, angle, accent, accident, etc.
Then, one brilliant group had written down "arse", which ended up being quite tame compared to the next group, which wrote "anal" (me: 0.0), to which I just shook my head. When I gave back the pieces of paper to each group, I shook my head and laughed while giving a light karate chop to the head of the student writing the words. "I DIDN'T WRITE THAT!", he vehemently protested. I asked him "Who did??" and one student proudly raises his hand with the smuggest look I've ever seen on a person and said "Me! Me!"
Commence more head shaking...
Oh, boys...
Well, these have been an interesting few weeks for me, to say the least. Students say the darndest things. Especially when the most memorable words in a language are often curse words, rude words, or words about sex. -__-;;;
Wednesday, December 5, 2012
Saturday, December 1, 2012
Wacky Test Answers
Hey everyone!
It's been another long while, but once again, I've been very busy...this time, with grading papers. When I took my UCSD Extension courses for my TEFL certificate, one of my teachers was always talking about the horrors of grading 200+ papers. I always imagined it would be bad, but I thought that maybe...just maybe...she was complaining a little too much.
Oh, how wrong I was. It was completely warranted.
My students recently finished their midterm testing. I have 6 classes at my base school, each with about 40 students (...two of those classes have 41 students instead of 40). I also have one class that has 7 students...so in total, I had to grade 249 papers after I had come back from a vacation.
My teachers also wanted them graded very quickly, so I had to finish within a day and a half. I thought this was doable...
I spent all day Monday grading tests...from 8:30am to 6:30pm (which was overtime for me) and I still hadn't finished it. I spent all my time between classes the next day grading, and then until 6:30pm again, and I had finally finished.
Let's just say that I am not looking forward to the next testing period...
Anyways, as soul-sucking as grading tests was, I managed to come across some great Engrish gems (and some clever answers too). You get some crazy stuff when you ask students to write sentences...
Here are a couple that I managed to take a picture of:
It's been another long while, but once again, I've been very busy...this time, with grading papers. When I took my UCSD Extension courses for my TEFL certificate, one of my teachers was always talking about the horrors of grading 200+ papers. I always imagined it would be bad, but I thought that maybe...just maybe...she was complaining a little too much.
Oh, how wrong I was. It was completely warranted.
My students recently finished their midterm testing. I have 6 classes at my base school, each with about 40 students (...two of those classes have 41 students instead of 40). I also have one class that has 7 students...so in total, I had to grade 249 papers after I had come back from a vacation.
My teachers also wanted them graded very quickly, so I had to finish within a day and a half. I thought this was doable...
I spent all day Monday grading tests...from 8:30am to 6:30pm (which was overtime for me) and I still hadn't finished it. I spent all my time between classes the next day grading, and then until 6:30pm again, and I had finally finished.
Let's just say that I am not looking forward to the next testing period...
Anyways, as soul-sucking as grading tests was, I managed to come across some great Engrish gems (and some clever answers too). You get some crazy stuff when you ask students to write sentences...
Here are a couple that I managed to take a picture of:
 |
| "Do you play any winter sports?" |
 |
| Huh? |
Here are a few more I came across:
Question: What month and day is Halloween?
Answer: I eat a Pumpkin.
Me: ..... 0.0;;; Watch out Ryan!
Question: Which is colder: Russia or India?
Answer: I am India.
Me: Really now...? lol
Question: Where is the flower?
Correct answer: It is under the tree.
Answer: Andre the tree.
Me: Maybe Dora the Explorer or Diego would know this tree...
Question: Where is the cat?
Correct answer: It is on the table.
Student answer: It is on your table.
Me: It's my table?? haha Well, I guess it could be...
Oh, one of my favorites...
Question: What month and day is Halloween?
Answer: I'm sorry. I can't remember!
Me: Well, at least you're honest (and have good grammar)! ^^;
I also recently had a student ask "How much do I cost?" instead of "How much does it cost?" haha
Poor kids. English is a tough language to learn, especially for Japanese people (most of whom aren't exposed to it at all in early childhood, which is the most important time to be exposed to languages). Well, I'm glad most of them are doing their best, even if they don't speak much in class. ^_^
On a somewhat related note...if it's one thing that I've learned from living in Japan, it's that you're always gonna make funnies when you're learning another language...it's a part of the process. And becoming better at that language involves realizing this, being able to laugh at your own funnies, and, most importantly, instead of being crushed by the inevitable embarrassment that comes from these mistakes, learning from them is key. I'll keep doing my best. :)
Saturday, November 10, 2012
NagaYES and Illuminations Festival
Hey everyone!
So, a few weeks ago, I went to my first NagaYES event! What's NagaYES? And why is the name/pun so lame? Sorry, I can't answer the latter, but I CAN answer the former!
My prefecture is one of the biggest prefectures in the country, so we have a lot of JETs and direct-hire ALTs. Because the prefecture is so big, the community of JETs has divided into four different regions (also called blocks): north (Hokushin, 北信), south (Nanshin, 南信, that's my block), middle (Chushin, 中信), and east (Toshin 東信). The entire JET community has a competition each year between the blocks, and each block hosts one event. The first event was a swan-boat race held by Hokushin up in Shinano-machi. This time, it was a capture the flag event held by Nanshin in Oshiba Kogen (a beautiful park with many trees, sports fields, picnic areas, and even an onsen!).
Here's a pic of a lake in Oshiba Kogen:
Before the event was held, Catie, and I went for a run with Emma. Emma was training for a half marathon, and we ended up jogging 7km! I wasn't too tired, but I sure was sore after the run. My mind still thinks that I can run a long ways, but my body might need a little more heads up before I suddenly spring so much activity upon it. My hip-flexers weren't too happy with me...
After that, Catie graciously offered to take me to the onsen to clean off and relax. Onsens are amazing places...they have a few rules and etiquette to follow, but they aren't too difficult. You enter the area, undress, and then clean off in the showering area before sitting in one of the many different pools. There are jacuzzi pools, outdoor pools (gated off from the public and men's pools, of course), a milky pool (that was supposedly good for your skin), a freezing cold pool, and a sauna. It was very relaxing. :)
The NagaYES capture the flag event was held inside the park...it was very confusing. There were many ways to earn points. We were given tags. These tags could be pulled off an enemy for points, so it ended up being kinda like flag football mixed with capture the flag. The main goal was to try to steal each others big flag, hidden somewhere in our area. The map below makes the place we played in seem small, but it took maybe 5 minutes to run the perimeter of my territory (area 3).
It ended up being fun for the offense, but really boring for the defense, since most teams didn't venture into our territory. ...Guess who was on defense?? :/
While capture the flags really wasn't too interesting for me, the Illuminations Festival held right after made up for it entirely. When I first heard about the Illuminations Festival, I thought it was going to be more tranquil and Chinese-esque (not sure why I thought this when I am in JAPAN...) with lanterns, but I was totally wrong. It ended up being more like Christmas light decorations on crack! There were lights from different animes, movies, and even holidays (not just Halloween, which was the closest holiday to the festival at the time). I took lots of pictures, which you can see below:
That's all for now! I'll see if I can write more tomorrow! :)
So, a few weeks ago, I went to my first NagaYES event! What's NagaYES? And why is the name/pun so lame? Sorry, I can't answer the latter, but I CAN answer the former!
My prefecture is one of the biggest prefectures in the country, so we have a lot of JETs and direct-hire ALTs. Because the prefecture is so big, the community of JETs has divided into four different regions (also called blocks): north (Hokushin, 北信), south (Nanshin, 南信, that's my block), middle (Chushin, 中信), and east (Toshin 東信). The entire JET community has a competition each year between the blocks, and each block hosts one event. The first event was a swan-boat race held by Hokushin up in Shinano-machi. This time, it was a capture the flag event held by Nanshin in Oshiba Kogen (a beautiful park with many trees, sports fields, picnic areas, and even an onsen!).
Here's a pic of a lake in Oshiba Kogen:
Before the event was held, Catie, and I went for a run with Emma. Emma was training for a half marathon, and we ended up jogging 7km! I wasn't too tired, but I sure was sore after the run. My mind still thinks that I can run a long ways, but my body might need a little more heads up before I suddenly spring so much activity upon it. My hip-flexers weren't too happy with me...
After that, Catie graciously offered to take me to the onsen to clean off and relax. Onsens are amazing places...they have a few rules and etiquette to follow, but they aren't too difficult. You enter the area, undress, and then clean off in the showering area before sitting in one of the many different pools. There are jacuzzi pools, outdoor pools (gated off from the public and men's pools, of course), a milky pool (that was supposedly good for your skin), a freezing cold pool, and a sauna. It was very relaxing. :)
The NagaYES capture the flag event was held inside the park...it was very confusing. There were many ways to earn points. We were given tags. These tags could be pulled off an enemy for points, so it ended up being kinda like flag football mixed with capture the flag. The main goal was to try to steal each others big flag, hidden somewhere in our area. The map below makes the place we played in seem small, but it took maybe 5 minutes to run the perimeter of my territory (area 3).
It ended up being fun for the offense, but really boring for the defense, since most teams didn't venture into our territory. ...Guess who was on defense?? :/
While capture the flags really wasn't too interesting for me, the Illuminations Festival held right after made up for it entirely. When I first heard about the Illuminations Festival, I thought it was going to be more tranquil and Chinese-esque (not sure why I thought this when I am in JAPAN...) with lanterns, but I was totally wrong. It ended up being more like Christmas light decorations on crack! There were lights from different animes, movies, and even holidays (not just Halloween, which was the closest holiday to the festival at the time). I took lots of pictures, which you can see below:
 |
| This is what I expected all over, but this ended up being one of the few Halloween displays |
 |
| This place was a mecca for One Piece references... |
 |
| One difference between Japan and America...kids are actually allowed to touch the displays. Although, a lot of kids ended up breaking a few of the displays. Pros and cons to each culture, I guess lol |
 |
| Yes, you see correctly. Garden gnomes. Disney garden gnomes everywhere... |
 |
| So creepy... |
 |
| They had some Valentines day decorations too! I already miss Pumpkin alot, but it made me miss him even more! I wish he could've been here with me. |
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| I believe that's Mount Fuji... |
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| Origami cranes |
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| A mecca, I tell you, a MECCA! |
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| Nekobus from Totoro! |
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| You could turn a steering wheel and move this dragons head! Kids had lots of fun with this one. |
Wednesday, November 7, 2012
School Festival Weekend
That weekend, my visit
school had a 文化祭 (bunkasai---a school festival), so I went with another ALT, Catie, the first day. I bought some deep-fried chicken called
karaage (much to the delight of the 3rd graders selling them) and made a
bookmark in the school library! Two students in one of my 1st grade
classes helped me make the bookmark...the student helping me didn't
speak much English, but the other student did his best to help the other
student. I heard them speaking about how to say certain things in
English and I heard the first student expressing his worries about not
being able to speak English in Japanese lol From the window, Catie saw a
play put on by the students. 5 students dressed up like Power Rangers
and fought 3 bad guys. While I didn't see them that first day, I got to
see them the second day...the video is below. After making the
bookmark, we watched a food-eating contest where students stuffed an
entire riceball into their mouth and another where they had to chug a
can of coke as fast as they could. Some students were surprisingly
dainty for high school boys, but others packed the food down (as
expected haha)! We then watched a concert by some bands in the
gym...some of the boys had no expression while playing music! It was
kinda funny haha Catie was wondering what would happen if she just ran
up there and started rocking out hahaha They probably would have
been so confused!!!
The next day, I visited the school festival again by myself to try to bond with some of the students. I bought cooked sweet potatoes (cooked in a box by depleted charcoals) first thing...and they were sooo good (and surprisingly filling, which may have been for the better, since I didn't buy as much food as I could have)!
While
I ate my sweet potatoes, I watched the play that Catie saw the day
before. It was about the 駒ファイブ （こまファイブ --Koma [short for Komagane
Kougyou] Five) fighting evil to protect the school and keep it clean. Or something like that. They used simple enough language that I could
mostly understand, but it was still a little confusing at times haha
Here's a picture of the bad guys in the play:
Here's a short clip of the play:
After re-watching the clip, maybe my guess about trash wasn't completely incorrect haha ^^;;
After that, I talked to Mami-san and a nearby 3rd year (whose English was surprisingly good). He and Mami-san were really easy to get along with and talk to, so I was happy to try to exercise my Japanese while they tried their best to speak some English. I ended up speaking mostly Japanese, but I was really happy that they were having fun talking to me :) Since the next event was starting, Mami-san and the 3rd year had to leave, so I went along my merry way and visited my 1st years rooms. My first years had 3 separate rooms set up, one for each class. 1-B made a haunted house (in the beginning, it was scary, but as it went on, it was more funny than terrifying for me...^^;), 1-C had some sort of set-up that I didn't understand, and 1-A had a station where you can make a design on a mug/cup and they'd print it out for you! While I don't care much about the design, I hope to get all the students to sign it before the year is over! I think that'd be a really cool idea. :] During the time it took to make the cup, I got udon, which also took forever to make due to the lunch rush (in addition to the cheap prices). As soon as I was finished, I got my cup, and then left to go home. It was a tiring day.
But, to be honest, I think speaking Japanese at length can be as tiring as walking around a lot. I guess this is what could be considered a mental workout haha ^^;
The next day, I visited the school festival again by myself to try to bond with some of the students. I bought cooked sweet potatoes (cooked in a box by depleted charcoals) first thing...and they were sooo good (and surprisingly filling, which may have been for the better, since I didn't buy as much food as I could have)!
Here's a picture of the bad guys in the play:
Here's a short clip of the play:
After re-watching the clip, maybe my guess about trash wasn't completely incorrect haha ^^;;
After that, I talked to Mami-san and a nearby 3rd year (whose English was surprisingly good). He and Mami-san were really easy to get along with and talk to, so I was happy to try to exercise my Japanese while they tried their best to speak some English. I ended up speaking mostly Japanese, but I was really happy that they were having fun talking to me :) Since the next event was starting, Mami-san and the 3rd year had to leave, so I went along my merry way and visited my 1st years rooms. My first years had 3 separate rooms set up, one for each class. 1-B made a haunted house (in the beginning, it was scary, but as it went on, it was more funny than terrifying for me...^^;), 1-C had some sort of set-up that I didn't understand, and 1-A had a station where you can make a design on a mug/cup and they'd print it out for you! While I don't care much about the design, I hope to get all the students to sign it before the year is over! I think that'd be a really cool idea. :] During the time it took to make the cup, I got udon, which also took forever to make due to the lunch rush (in addition to the cheap prices). As soon as I was finished, I got my cup, and then left to go home. It was a tiring day.
But, to be honest, I think speaking Japanese at length can be as tiring as walking around a lot. I guess this is what could be considered a mental workout haha ^^;
Sunday, November 4, 2012
Kindness from a Co-Worker
One day a while back, my same-age teacher friend (Mami) at my visit school
offered to take me out to dinner after my base school's marathon to celebrate my birthday! I'm surprised that she remembered!! What a nice gesture from a really nice person!!! I was moved!! :]
The marathon day came up really fast! After visiting my school with Pumpkin, I decided that the best day to explore my school was during the school marathon. It was an insanely long marathon (40km for boys, 30km for girls), so I didn't end up running. No, thank you! I'll do a few miles here or there, but running longer distances does not appeal to me in the least. I watch stuff like that on TV and I've never ever seen anyone after running one NOT look like they were in pain. I definitely prefer to exercise by biking, jump-roping, occasionally running a few miles her or there, or working out at home. :/
The school was empty during the marathon, so I decided to go on an adventure. I looked up the word "explore" on the jisho.com, and さぐる (saguru) popped up. I wrote it down so that I could tell people that I was exploring the campus in case anyone wanted to talk to me. The idea was nice, and I did talk to four people, but only 1 person out of the four that I talked to understood what I was trying to say (; __ ;). I got really really depressed about how no one was understanding me...so I ended up asking one of my JTEs how to say explore, and he gave me a completely different word, "探検する" (tanken suru), which apparently has an "african safari" kind of exploration-feel to it lol I was happy to put my humiliation behind me and explore more using the new word. :) But anyways, during my tanken, I found out that my school has 2 gyms, 2 music rooms, a cooking room, a word-processor club (shortened to "ワプロ部" (wapuro-bu), a computer lab, another English room, a Mandarin club, an outdoor stage, a weight room, and other things! I'm really glad I got to explore so much :]
As soon as school ended after the marathon, I rushed back to my home, got ready, and went to Komagane station to meet Mami-san. To be honest, I was really nervous about the meeting. While I really like Mami-san, I was worried about my Japanese abilities and thought that it might be really awkward with many misunderstandings. She was a bit late, but since I was practicing writing kanji anyways, I didn't mind. Both of us were fairly new to the area (she is a Suwa native, which is in the middle of Nagano Prefecture), so we didn't know where to eat! We found out that we're both very indecisive, so we ended up wandering around a lot until we finally found a restaurant to eat at. I ordered inoshishi-don (wild boar meat over rice) and she ordered vegetable tempura.
Here is a picture of Mami-san with her vegetable tempura:
While they were making the food, we talked about movies, food, Japanese vs American customs, and lots of other things, entirely in Japanese! I told her about my worries, and she told me that I was doing really well, which did wonders for my confidence. I didn't believe I could do something like that, but I surprised myself! :) After, she paid for me (she didn't let me pay, since it was for my birthday) and drove me back to my house, where she asked if she could see my apartment. I told her I didn't mind, so we ended up chatting for a long time about various things until I realized that I was late for my Skyping time with Ryan! She ended up meeting him and we talked about a few things until she had to leave. I had an awesome time with her...I hope I can do something for her for her birthday in November!! :)
The marathon day came up really fast! After visiting my school with Pumpkin, I decided that the best day to explore my school was during the school marathon. It was an insanely long marathon (40km for boys, 30km for girls), so I didn't end up running. No, thank you! I'll do a few miles here or there, but running longer distances does not appeal to me in the least. I watch stuff like that on TV and I've never ever seen anyone after running one NOT look like they were in pain. I definitely prefer to exercise by biking, jump-roping, occasionally running a few miles her or there, or working out at home. :/
The school was empty during the marathon, so I decided to go on an adventure. I looked up the word "explore" on the jisho.com, and さぐる (saguru) popped up. I wrote it down so that I could tell people that I was exploring the campus in case anyone wanted to talk to me. The idea was nice, and I did talk to four people, but only 1 person out of the four that I talked to understood what I was trying to say (; __ ;). I got really really depressed about how no one was understanding me...so I ended up asking one of my JTEs how to say explore, and he gave me a completely different word, "探検する" (tanken suru), which apparently has an "african safari" kind of exploration-feel to it lol I was happy to put my humiliation behind me and explore more using the new word. :) But anyways, during my tanken, I found out that my school has 2 gyms, 2 music rooms, a cooking room, a word-processor club (shortened to "ワプロ部" (wapuro-bu), a computer lab, another English room, a Mandarin club, an outdoor stage, a weight room, and other things! I'm really glad I got to explore so much :]
As soon as school ended after the marathon, I rushed back to my home, got ready, and went to Komagane station to meet Mami-san. To be honest, I was really nervous about the meeting. While I really like Mami-san, I was worried about my Japanese abilities and thought that it might be really awkward with many misunderstandings. She was a bit late, but since I was practicing writing kanji anyways, I didn't mind. Both of us were fairly new to the area (she is a Suwa native, which is in the middle of Nagano Prefecture), so we didn't know where to eat! We found out that we're both very indecisive, so we ended up wandering around a lot until we finally found a restaurant to eat at. I ordered inoshishi-don (wild boar meat over rice) and she ordered vegetable tempura.
Here is a picture of Mami-san with her vegetable tempura:
While they were making the food, we talked about movies, food, Japanese vs American customs, and lots of other things, entirely in Japanese! I told her about my worries, and she told me that I was doing really well, which did wonders for my confidence. I didn't believe I could do something like that, but I surprised myself! :) After, she paid for me (she didn't let me pay, since it was for my birthday) and drove me back to my house, where she asked if she could see my apartment. I told her I didn't mind, so we ended up chatting for a long time about various things until I realized that I was late for my Skyping time with Ryan! She ended up meeting him and we talked about a few things until she had to leave. I had an awesome time with her...I hope I can do something for her for her birthday in November!! :)
Saturday, November 3, 2012
Busy, Busy, Busy!!
Hey everyone!
So these past weeks have been filled to the brim with lots of interesting stuff that has happened, so I have a lot to write about soon!
I touched on this last week, but Ryan came and visited Komagane! I've probably said this before, but it takes a LONG time to get from Komagane to Aomori and vice versa. As the crow flies, it is 100 miles from Komagane to Shinjuku (and would roughly take about 1 hour and 40 minutes-ish), BUT because there is a huge mountain range in the way, it takes about 4 hours to get from Komagane to Shinjuku. Bummer. >.<
But what's a bigger bummer is that the bus that goes to/from Komagane/Shinjuku is notoriously late in both directions. So far, we're 0/3 in the times that we've traveled on that bus (the train that he arrived on was super late), which is pretty awful. I was more than 1 hour late when travelling to Shinjuku, Ryan was late going from Shinjuku to Komagane, and also going back, he was late getting back to Shinjuku from Komagane! He couldn't meet with one of our friends from the TEFL program (Yumi) that he had planned to meet because of this. Stupid bus. But I'm going too far ahead. I digress.
So...rant aside, add another hour to the journey for lateness. :(
Anyways, from there, it takes about 30 minutes to get from Shinjuku to Ueno and, last, it takes 11 hours to get from Ueno to Aomori.
Here's a link from Google Maps to help you visualize this journey:
Komagane City to Aomori City
Adding it up: 4hrs + 30 mins + 1 hr (for lateness) + 11 hrs = a grand total of around 16 hrs and 30 minutes!
Long distance sucks, but at least we're on the same island/country/continent. I can't wait to be with him again!! :<
Once he finally got out here, he was pretty tired, so we didn't do much the first day. I made him some food and we went to sleep after watching some TV. There isn't too much to do out here, and, this weekend, no one seemed to be walking around...but nevertheless, we had a lot of fun in my quiet little city.
Side note: In Japanese RPGs such as Persona 3 and Persona 4, various Tales games, Harvest Moon, Pokemon, etc, etc, I noticed that the music changes based on where you are or what mode of transport you are using. I thought that these changes in music were solely for variety in the game soundtrack, but in reality, the similarities between Japanese RPGs and daily life in Japan are eery. All of the grocery stores have different tunes that they play over and over and OVER again. In my town, they play some strange elevator-like music or other happy music on the speakers when you walk around downtown. They sometimes play music on the speakers at school too! It seems that there's a sound for everything over here! I really do often feel like I like I live in a Japanese RPG... ^_^;;
If only the grocery stores near me had tunes this cute and catchy (and not annoying)...
Anyways, let's continue!
On the second day, I took him to a Nepalese restaurant called Pokhara in one of the far corners of my city. Because I have no car (and no access to a second bike), we walked all the way there. It was about a 40 minute walk there (not including a pitstop to check out a temple along the way), all uphill! I didn't quite realize how far it was without a bike...we both found our footsteps growing heavier as we walked uphill. Poor Pumpkin! Aomori is pretty flat, so walking around Komagane for a bit must have been a rather unwelcome change of pace... ^.^;;
When we got to Pokhara, there was a special combo meal where we could choose 1 curry, 1 type of naan, 1 drink, and one side dish. There were lots of different types of curry for us to choose from...we ended up choosing mutton curry and got sesame naan (later, we got a delicious slice of garlic naan, which was awesome)! The naan that came with the curry was HUGE. One of my co-workers once joked that you can use it as a baby's blanket! When I told Ryan this, he said "But that would be such a waste of food!" lol I quickly agreed. Nevermind the fact that the naan was burning hot (and would scald a child...or rather, anyone), the precious naan must not be wastedto cover a baby!!! hahaha We then were overwhelmed by the delicious sensation of Indian-ぽい (Indian-like) food. There isn't much spicy food in Japan, so I try to savor the flavor whenever I can!
Below is a picture similar to the food that we ate. We were too busy chowing down on the delicious food that we forgot to take pictures haha. There is a huge slice of naan, curry, salad, and a side of barbecue chicken. In our case, we had chicken kebab and also a glass of mango juice!
After that, we stopped by Bellshine, a huge department store/grocery store/100 yen store/arcade, to try out our hand at プリクラ. For those not familiar with プリクラ (purikura), it's a Japanese photobooth with lots of time-limitations on choices! You get inside the photo booth, and they give you about 10 seconds each to choose your preferences (beautiful-style or cute-style, how many photographs you wanna take, the frame styles, etc). Keep in mind that, while we know a good amount of Japanese (for me, if spoken slowly), this machine was blasting the instructions at us very quickly and gave us little to no time to translate and then choose what we wanted. There are so many options, and it was so difficult since we were indecisive! We had no idea what was going on, but we did our best!
Our time in the プリクラ was spent mostly like this:
"Aaaaaaaahhhhhhh!!! Whaaaat's going onnnnnn?!?!?!"
"What do you want?"
"You pick!!"
*computer makes an automatic choice*
"What?!? Oh god whyyyyy?!?!"
"NOW WHAT DO WE DO?!?!"
*countdown until picture is taken*
"What should we do?!?!?! AHHHH"
*smile, picture is taken*
[repeat process 1-6 times]
It was quite frantic and, quite frankly, really stressful! But, the kicker is that that wasn't the most stressful part for me. After you take pictures, you go into a separate section where you edit the pictures by doodling on them. We were really happy with our pictures...until we saw what kinds of automatic photo-shopping the machine did even before we were able to edit our pictures. Apparently, most Japanese girls like their プリクラ machines to make their eyes really big. I'm not quite sure what the appeal of this is (since it looks alien-like to me), but it made that effect on my eyes...and it was terrifying!!! MY EYES WERE HUGE. 0.0 I think I died a little inside when I saw those, but I guess it's a nice, laughable memory, so I'm not complaining...much...
I later showed my friend the pictures and she laughed so hard!! She told me they look nothing alike lol I don't have a scanner, but I think it's best if I keep those pics to myself...save your eyes from burning :P
After our Nepalese food/プリクラ excursion, we were pretty pooped out from all the walking we did that day, so we called it a night and went back to my apartment.
The last day he was here, we stopped by Delicia so that Pumpkin could buy omiyage for his co-workers, and then visited my base school for a little bit. He wanted to walk around, but I got nervous since it was untouched territory for me. It was then that he made me realize just how much of my school that I hadn't explored. It was kinda sad. How many months have I been here? I only have 2 schools, so I am at this school 80% of the time, but I had only been on one side of it! I made it a point to go exploring at school next time I had a chance. At the time, we didn't have time to explore, so I took him to a famous restaurant in Komagane that served the town specialty, sauce katsudon (deep-fried pork cutlets over rice with a special sauce on it). Naturally, we ordered the sauce katsudon, but we also ordered another Nagano specialty, chasoba (green tea soba). It took a while for the orders to come out, and in the meanwhile, we listened to the restaurant's music, which included a variety of Beatles covers on the shamisen, a traditional Japanese instrument. It was really strange, but interesting haha Both dishes came out eventually, and were really really good!!
Below is a picture of sauce katsudon with a side of salad, miso soup, and pickled daikon (not shown):
Below is a picture of chasoba (green tea soba):
While I was sad to see Pumpkin leave after that, I'm glad he got to depart on a full stomach from a good meal! :)
I wrote more, but I'll post more in a bit!! :] Thanks for being patient!!
So these past weeks have been filled to the brim with lots of interesting stuff that has happened, so I have a lot to write about soon!
I touched on this last week, but Ryan came and visited Komagane! I've probably said this before, but it takes a LONG time to get from Komagane to Aomori and vice versa. As the crow flies, it is 100 miles from Komagane to Shinjuku (and would roughly take about 1 hour and 40 minutes-ish), BUT because there is a huge mountain range in the way, it takes about 4 hours to get from Komagane to Shinjuku. Bummer. >.<
But what's a bigger bummer is that the bus that goes to/from Komagane/Shinjuku is notoriously late in both directions. So far, we're 0/3 in the times that we've traveled on that bus (the train that he arrived on was super late), which is pretty awful. I was more than 1 hour late when travelling to Shinjuku, Ryan was late going from Shinjuku to Komagane, and also going back, he was late getting back to Shinjuku from Komagane! He couldn't meet with one of our friends from the TEFL program (Yumi) that he had planned to meet because of this. Stupid bus. But I'm going too far ahead. I digress.
So...rant aside, add another hour to the journey for lateness. :(
Anyways, from there, it takes about 30 minutes to get from Shinjuku to Ueno and, last, it takes 11 hours to get from Ueno to Aomori.
Here's a link from Google Maps to help you visualize this journey:
Komagane City to Aomori City
Adding it up: 4hrs + 30 mins + 1 hr (for lateness) + 11 hrs = a grand total of around 16 hrs and 30 minutes!
Long distance sucks, but at least we're on the same island/country/continent. I can't wait to be with him again!! :<
Once he finally got out here, he was pretty tired, so we didn't do much the first day. I made him some food and we went to sleep after watching some TV. There isn't too much to do out here, and, this weekend, no one seemed to be walking around...but nevertheless, we had a lot of fun in my quiet little city.
Side note: In Japanese RPGs such as Persona 3 and Persona 4, various Tales games, Harvest Moon, Pokemon, etc, etc, I noticed that the music changes based on where you are or what mode of transport you are using. I thought that these changes in music were solely for variety in the game soundtrack, but in reality, the similarities between Japanese RPGs and daily life in Japan are eery. All of the grocery stores have different tunes that they play over and over and OVER again. In my town, they play some strange elevator-like music or other happy music on the speakers when you walk around downtown. They sometimes play music on the speakers at school too! It seems that there's a sound for everything over here! I really do often feel like I like I live in a Japanese RPG... ^_^;;
If only the grocery stores near me had tunes this cute and catchy (and not annoying)...
Anyways, let's continue!
On the second day, I took him to a Nepalese restaurant called Pokhara in one of the far corners of my city. Because I have no car (and no access to a second bike), we walked all the way there. It was about a 40 minute walk there (not including a pitstop to check out a temple along the way), all uphill! I didn't quite realize how far it was without a bike...we both found our footsteps growing heavier as we walked uphill. Poor Pumpkin! Aomori is pretty flat, so walking around Komagane for a bit must have been a rather unwelcome change of pace... ^.^;;
When we got to Pokhara, there was a special combo meal where we could choose 1 curry, 1 type of naan, 1 drink, and one side dish. There were lots of different types of curry for us to choose from...we ended up choosing mutton curry and got sesame naan (later, we got a delicious slice of garlic naan, which was awesome)! The naan that came with the curry was HUGE. One of my co-workers once joked that you can use it as a baby's blanket! When I told Ryan this, he said "But that would be such a waste of food!" lol I quickly agreed. Nevermind the fact that the naan was burning hot (and would scald a child...or rather, anyone), the precious naan must not be wastedto cover a baby!!! hahaha We then were overwhelmed by the delicious sensation of Indian-ぽい (Indian-like) food. There isn't much spicy food in Japan, so I try to savor the flavor whenever I can!
Below is a picture similar to the food that we ate. We were too busy chowing down on the delicious food that we forgot to take pictures haha. There is a huge slice of naan, curry, salad, and a side of barbecue chicken. In our case, we had chicken kebab and also a glass of mango juice!
After that, we stopped by Bellshine, a huge department store/grocery store/100 yen store/arcade, to try out our hand at プリクラ. For those not familiar with プリクラ (purikura), it's a Japanese photobooth with lots of time-limitations on choices! You get inside the photo booth, and they give you about 10 seconds each to choose your preferences (beautiful-style or cute-style, how many photographs you wanna take, the frame styles, etc). Keep in mind that, while we know a good amount of Japanese (for me, if spoken slowly), this machine was blasting the instructions at us very quickly and gave us little to no time to translate and then choose what we wanted. There are so many options, and it was so difficult since we were indecisive! We had no idea what was going on, but we did our best!
Our time in the プリクラ was spent mostly like this:
"Aaaaaaaahhhhhhh!!! Whaaaat's going onnnnnn?!?!?!"
"What do you want?"
"You pick!!"
*computer makes an automatic choice*
"What?!? Oh god whyyyyy?!?!"
"NOW WHAT DO WE DO?!?!"
*countdown until picture is taken*
"What should we do?!?!?! AHHHH"
*smile, picture is taken*
[repeat process 1-6 times]
It was quite frantic and, quite frankly, really stressful! But, the kicker is that that wasn't the most stressful part for me. After you take pictures, you go into a separate section where you edit the pictures by doodling on them. We were really happy with our pictures...until we saw what kinds of automatic photo-shopping the machine did even before we were able to edit our pictures. Apparently, most Japanese girls like their プリクラ machines to make their eyes really big. I'm not quite sure what the appeal of this is (since it looks alien-like to me), but it made that effect on my eyes...and it was terrifying!!! MY EYES WERE HUGE. 0.0 I think I died a little inside when I saw those, but I guess it's a nice, laughable memory, so I'm not complaining...much...
I later showed my friend the pictures and she laughed so hard!! She told me they look nothing alike lol I don't have a scanner, but I think it's best if I keep those pics to myself...save your eyes from burning :P
After our Nepalese food/プリクラ excursion, we were pretty pooped out from all the walking we did that day, so we called it a night and went back to my apartment.
The last day he was here, we stopped by Delicia so that Pumpkin could buy omiyage for his co-workers, and then visited my base school for a little bit. He wanted to walk around, but I got nervous since it was untouched territory for me. It was then that he made me realize just how much of my school that I hadn't explored. It was kinda sad. How many months have I been here? I only have 2 schools, so I am at this school 80% of the time, but I had only been on one side of it! I made it a point to go exploring at school next time I had a chance. At the time, we didn't have time to explore, so I took him to a famous restaurant in Komagane that served the town specialty, sauce katsudon (deep-fried pork cutlets over rice with a special sauce on it). Naturally, we ordered the sauce katsudon, but we also ordered another Nagano specialty, chasoba (green tea soba). It took a while for the orders to come out, and in the meanwhile, we listened to the restaurant's music, which included a variety of Beatles covers on the shamisen, a traditional Japanese instrument. It was really strange, but interesting haha Both dishes came out eventually, and were really really good!!
Below is a picture of sauce katsudon with a side of salad, miso soup, and pickled daikon (not shown):
Below is a picture of chasoba (green tea soba):
While I was sad to see Pumpkin leave after that, I'm glad he got to depart on a full stomach from a good meal! :)
I wrote more, but I'll post more in a bit!! :] Thanks for being patient!!
Saturday, October 6, 2012
It's been a while, huh?
Hey everyone!
It's been another long while since I've posted, huh?
I haven't really been up to very much since I've last posted, to be honest...
Students are the same as ever. My first class of the week with the first years is by far one of the worst. No one participates or listens...and my JTE doesn't (or rather, is not able to) do anything about it. They really just don't care...and I'm not sure how you can teach to those kinds of students. :/ By contrast, the next class participates more and tries harder. So, I just ganbare until the 2nd class.
A couple of my other classes are really good though! They do their best and, even though they reply in Japanese about the topic, that at least means that they understand the English spoken to them. For example, I was doing an exercise about prepositions where the students had to draw something in a picture based on the location I told them. I told them to draw an ant on the sandwich, and in one of the worksheets, the sandwich was on the ground. One of my students loudly exclaimed "サンドイッチかわいそう！" which means "I feel sorry for the sandwich!!!" ...I look forward to classes like these...I hope I can help them speak more English though!
In my visit school, I teach 2 of my classes with a really quiet JTE. He doesn't really do much about controlling the noise level of the class, but the other class (that I teach with the my visit school caretaker) is fairly well-behaved. You can really tell that they respect her as an authority figure...and I hope that, by the end of my time on JET, I can pick up some of that presence while maintaining most of my original disposition. I'm not gonna become that teacher that yells and screams at their students to get attention -___-;
I must continually make my lessons easier for the visit school so they don't become bored or frustrated...which is really irritating! Some students have trouble writing the alphabet, so it's difficult to gauge how much English they actually know (or care about) >_>
On a better note, I managed to open a separate bank account! Why do I need two? My caretaker helped me open an account with a bank that is only in Nagano-ken...and if I ever travel out of Nagano, I must pay higher bank fees when I use other ATMs. Hopefully this helps when I travel to Aomori or Tokyo...
Because online banking isn't really done in Japan, it's kinda difficult to wire money back home for loans. So, in addition to it being more convenient with bank fees, it is easier to transfer money back home with this more well-known bank than it is with the one that's only in Nagano. To transfer money back home, there were multiple options to choose from...but I chose to set up an account with an overseas remittance company called GoLloyds. I choose however much I want to transfer (in yen), the exchange rate is applied, and then I pay 2000 yen to GoLloyds. Sounds simple enough, but I'm waiting for my GoLloyds paperwork to be accepted by GoLloyds. I hope this goes smoothly, as I would like to pay off my loans ASAP!
On an unrelated note, I've been practicing with my visit school boy's soccer team for the past month (about). They have me warm the goalie up, play goalie (yay!!) and play in small-sided scrimmages. So far, I've met the first years and second years, but not the third years. The third years are doing job-searching at the moment and are unable to participate in extracurricular activities, but I've been told that they will return once everyone is done with their searches. Who knows when that will be, but anyways, I was invited to watch the boys play a game versus a semi-local high school!
I'm not sure what I was expecting, but let me tell you the differences between Japanese-style soccer and American-style soccer. Japanese soccer is almost always played on a dirt field. We Americans are babied by grass fields and often complain when the grass is dying or if the field is muddy/uneven in some parts. Well...these guys have to deal with uneven dirt, a very hard surface to play on (the ball bounces much higher than on grass fields), and it is often very slippery even with cleats on. Because of this, their ball-control and passing are much better than other boys teams I've seen and they are much more team-work oriented than boys soccer in the US.
Having said that, they didn't really play all that well in the game. When they were pressured, their passes were not very good, their team organization wasn't pretty bad (poor defending from the midfielders and forwards led to a lot of counterattacks) and they were not very aggressive in the air. I'm not sure if some of the coaches know what they're doing either. They kept yelling at the kids to connect 3 passes like they did in practice. To be honest, I'd be more worried about controlling the ball and not passing when you don't need to pass the ball. It was a very high scoring game...and I'm surprised they came away with a victory. The other team had better moments, but I think they were just unlucky when putting away their chances. I think the score was 6-3? I couldn't really offer much help to the coaches (and I'm not sure how much advice they actually want to hear from me), but it really just made me miss playing college soccer...
Lol, anyways, didn't really mean to go into full "soccer analysis"-mode on you guys... I'll get back to my daily life ramblings!! ^^;
Even though I've lost a lot of weight from stopping soccer and eating healthier, it's only muscle that I've lost...and I need to stay in shape to make sure I keep the fat off. Muscle disappears first, then fat builds up...and I don't want that to happen, so I started to exercise a little bit more than usual. I ride my bike everywhere (to/from work, to the grocery store, to the home store, to explore, etc), started jump-roping, and even bought two 5kg weights to work on toning my arms! Who needs to go to the gym anyways, right? I'd much rather pay a little and do a lot of stuff on my own for free. It doesn't cost money to use exercises that rely on using your own body weight (push-ups, sit-ups, Ryan's favorite [or maybe not his favorite, but my little brother's favorite] wounded turtles, tricep dips, etc)! Gym memberships out here are WAY too expensive and I need to save up as much money as I can to pay off my loans!! As it gets colder, I guess I can just keep jump-roping outside in my parking lot. I'll letcha guys know how that goes haha
I went to an all-Nagano ALT conference in Matsumoto this weekend. Matsumoto is in just about the middle of Nagano prefecture. It was kinda a pain to get to, but I met a lot of my fellow ALTs on the bus ride up...and it was really awesome being able to talk to them. It made the time fly by a lot faster. The conference itself wasn't too too informative...and I even had to go to a mandatory seminar about the winter in Nagano. I have central electric heating (which is uncommon in Japan), so it wasn't all that helpful for me. I guess I'm lucky? Yay for untraditional Japanese housing! One of my fellow ALTs, Jo, paid for my lunch, which was really nice of her!! I had nikuman, which is basically a steamed pork bun. It came with a salad and 5 potato wedges (kinda random lol). After lunch, there were more meetings and then I went back home on the bus. It was a nice break from school, but I don't know how much I actually learned ^^; I got a few good ideas to take away from the conference, but for the most part, it felt like a review session to me...
But...maybe the conference was so boring because I'm anticipating a more exciting event this weekend. Ryan is coming to Komagane!!! :D He took a bus from Aomori to Ueno last night and, this morning, he took the train from Ueno to Shinjuku and right now, he is on a bus from Shinjuku to Komagane! He hit some traffic on the way over, but he should be arriving soon!!! =] I'm so excited!
I should probably stop writing and get to the bus station to wait for him. ^^
I'll write again later!
It's been another long while since I've posted, huh?
I haven't really been up to very much since I've last posted, to be honest...
Students are the same as ever. My first class of the week with the first years is by far one of the worst. No one participates or listens...and my JTE doesn't (or rather, is not able to) do anything about it. They really just don't care...and I'm not sure how you can teach to those kinds of students. :/ By contrast, the next class participates more and tries harder. So, I just ganbare until the 2nd class.
A couple of my other classes are really good though! They do their best and, even though they reply in Japanese about the topic, that at least means that they understand the English spoken to them. For example, I was doing an exercise about prepositions where the students had to draw something in a picture based on the location I told them. I told them to draw an ant on the sandwich, and in one of the worksheets, the sandwich was on the ground. One of my students loudly exclaimed "サンドイッチかわいそう！" which means "I feel sorry for the sandwich!!!" ...I look forward to classes like these...I hope I can help them speak more English though!
In my visit school, I teach 2 of my classes with a really quiet JTE. He doesn't really do much about controlling the noise level of the class, but the other class (that I teach with the my visit school caretaker) is fairly well-behaved. You can really tell that they respect her as an authority figure...and I hope that, by the end of my time on JET, I can pick up some of that presence while maintaining most of my original disposition. I'm not gonna become that teacher that yells and screams at their students to get attention -___-;
I must continually make my lessons easier for the visit school so they don't become bored or frustrated...which is really irritating! Some students have trouble writing the alphabet, so it's difficult to gauge how much English they actually know (or care about) >_>
On a better note, I managed to open a separate bank account! Why do I need two? My caretaker helped me open an account with a bank that is only in Nagano-ken...and if I ever travel out of Nagano, I must pay higher bank fees when I use other ATMs. Hopefully this helps when I travel to Aomori or Tokyo...
Because online banking isn't really done in Japan, it's kinda difficult to wire money back home for loans. So, in addition to it being more convenient with bank fees, it is easier to transfer money back home with this more well-known bank than it is with the one that's only in Nagano. To transfer money back home, there were multiple options to choose from...but I chose to set up an account with an overseas remittance company called GoLloyds. I choose however much I want to transfer (in yen), the exchange rate is applied, and then I pay 2000 yen to GoLloyds. Sounds simple enough, but I'm waiting for my GoLloyds paperwork to be accepted by GoLloyds. I hope this goes smoothly, as I would like to pay off my loans ASAP!
On an unrelated note, I've been practicing with my visit school boy's soccer team for the past month (about). They have me warm the goalie up, play goalie (yay!!) and play in small-sided scrimmages. So far, I've met the first years and second years, but not the third years. The third years are doing job-searching at the moment and are unable to participate in extracurricular activities, but I've been told that they will return once everyone is done with their searches. Who knows when that will be, but anyways, I was invited to watch the boys play a game versus a semi-local high school!
I'm not sure what I was expecting, but let me tell you the differences between Japanese-style soccer and American-style soccer. Japanese soccer is almost always played on a dirt field. We Americans are babied by grass fields and often complain when the grass is dying or if the field is muddy/uneven in some parts. Well...these guys have to deal with uneven dirt, a very hard surface to play on (the ball bounces much higher than on grass fields), and it is often very slippery even with cleats on. Because of this, their ball-control and passing are much better than other boys teams I've seen and they are much more team-work oriented than boys soccer in the US.
Having said that, they didn't really play all that well in the game. When they were pressured, their passes were not very good, their team organization wasn't pretty bad (poor defending from the midfielders and forwards led to a lot of counterattacks) and they were not very aggressive in the air. I'm not sure if some of the coaches know what they're doing either. They kept yelling at the kids to connect 3 passes like they did in practice. To be honest, I'd be more worried about controlling the ball and not passing when you don't need to pass the ball. It was a very high scoring game...and I'm surprised they came away with a victory. The other team had better moments, but I think they were just unlucky when putting away their chances. I think the score was 6-3? I couldn't really offer much help to the coaches (and I'm not sure how much advice they actually want to hear from me), but it really just made me miss playing college soccer...
Lol, anyways, didn't really mean to go into full "soccer analysis"-mode on you guys... I'll get back to my daily life ramblings!! ^^;
Even though I've lost a lot of weight from stopping soccer and eating healthier, it's only muscle that I've lost...and I need to stay in shape to make sure I keep the fat off. Muscle disappears first, then fat builds up...and I don't want that to happen, so I started to exercise a little bit more than usual. I ride my bike everywhere (to/from work, to the grocery store, to the home store, to explore, etc), started jump-roping, and even bought two 5kg weights to work on toning my arms! Who needs to go to the gym anyways, right? I'd much rather pay a little and do a lot of stuff on my own for free. It doesn't cost money to use exercises that rely on using your own body weight (push-ups, sit-ups, Ryan's favorite [or maybe not his favorite, but my little brother's favorite] wounded turtles, tricep dips, etc)! Gym memberships out here are WAY too expensive and I need to save up as much money as I can to pay off my loans!! As it gets colder, I guess I can just keep jump-roping outside in my parking lot. I'll letcha guys know how that goes haha
I went to an all-Nagano ALT conference in Matsumoto this weekend. Matsumoto is in just about the middle of Nagano prefecture. It was kinda a pain to get to, but I met a lot of my fellow ALTs on the bus ride up...and it was really awesome being able to talk to them. It made the time fly by a lot faster. The conference itself wasn't too too informative...and I even had to go to a mandatory seminar about the winter in Nagano. I have central electric heating (which is uncommon in Japan), so it wasn't all that helpful for me. I guess I'm lucky? Yay for untraditional Japanese housing! One of my fellow ALTs, Jo, paid for my lunch, which was really nice of her!! I had nikuman, which is basically a steamed pork bun. It came with a salad and 5 potato wedges (kinda random lol). After lunch, there were more meetings and then I went back home on the bus. It was a nice break from school, but I don't know how much I actually learned ^^; I got a few good ideas to take away from the conference, but for the most part, it felt like a review session to me...
But...maybe the conference was so boring because I'm anticipating a more exciting event this weekend. Ryan is coming to Komagane!!! :D He took a bus from Aomori to Ueno last night and, this morning, he took the train from Ueno to Shinjuku and right now, he is on a bus from Shinjuku to Komagane! He hit some traffic on the way over, but he should be arriving soon!!! =] I'm so excited!
I should probably stop writing and get to the bus station to wait for him. ^^
I'll write again later!
Tuesday, September 25, 2012
Locked
Hey everyone!
These past few days have been a little stressful. I had a wonderful birthday, and then the next day, on Friday, I was back to work...busier than ever.
I had my lesson plans for next week and I was ready to give them to my JTEs. I often work with a couple students from my 3rd grade JTE's bigger class, so I had also prepared a CD that would help a student with her speech contest. I recorded myself giving the speech, saying problem words, and then saying problem sounds. I don't see this student often, so I gave my JTE that CD along with the lesson plan. There were no worries there...lesson plan, check, and CD, check plus! He was very excited that I took the time to help out with the CD. I then found out that the other speech contest student (who's a guy) dropped out, so I now only work with Suzuka and Kana. Anyways, things seemed to be going smoothly.
Then, I met up with one of my 1st grade JTEs. She had more complaints about how I ran the class and about the worksheet that I was going to do with the class. Anything creative with these classes seems to be a no-no, no matter how easy I make it. She really liked the boring lesson that I gave...lots of structure and almost no creativity...which left me with a problem.
Do I sacrifice creativity in favor of set patterns at the expense of having all my students fall asleep, or do I try to deviate from the set patterns at the expense of my JTE disapproving? I need to be on her good side!
So...I revamped my entire lesson. I still wanted to work on prepositions, but I decided to do a drawing activity instead and incorporated some of the set patterns that my teacher liked. It took me a couple hours to make and another hour or so for random revisions she had for me...but somehow I got it finished somewhere in the happy middle ground for the both of us.
My weekend went well! I love the weekends...I get to relax, watch anime, watch Running Man, and sleep!! I also try to work on my cooking on the weekends ^^
After the weekend was over, I went to school and my caretaker asked me for rent money, which I obliged (much too willingly). Classes went ok (one of my classes is absolutely awful to teach...), but after school, I went to the ATM to check my balance and it was dangerously low.
Side note before I continue:
In Japan, they give you a bank book and a bank card. The book is inserted into the ATM and the ATM can print out all the transactions that you've made onto the paper inside the book. It's a really nice way to keep track of your money.
Continuing:
So, I put my bank book into the machine, found out where the money went (rent money), and immediately sent an email to my caretaker, basically in the nicest way possible, "Please return my money!!". I was (and still am) very worried she's gonna do something with it... After some quick thinking, I thought that maybe, she would still be at the school. I biked all the way back and all the normal entrances were closed. I had to use an overpass in the school to get to the English teacher's room. When I got there, only one teacher was there. NOOOO......!!!
So, I left a note on my caretaker's desk and tried leaving the school. I tried going out the door I came in, LOCKED. Tried going through the automatic doors, LOCKED. Tried going through the student entrance, LOCKED (with chains). Tried going through various exits...all LOCKED.
Just my luck! I somehow managed to lock myself INSIDE my school. This WOULD happen to me, of all people.
After some aimless wandering, I heard voices from down the hall, so I ran over and asked "出口はどこにありますか？" ("Where is the exit?") and they laughed at me (the poor ALT locked inside the school), and showed me the way out.
Ryan asked me if I was starting to hate Japan because bad stuff seems to keep happening to me. I'm not sure how to answer that question...part of me feels really jaded and the other part wants to keep believing that it'll all be ok. It really will all be ok eventually, but I think that I need to change a lot of things about myself before that can happen...
So, in the meanwhile, I'll just keep trying to do my best and see what comes of it.
Well, that's all for now, see you next time!
These past few days have been a little stressful. I had a wonderful birthday, and then the next day, on Friday, I was back to work...busier than ever.
I had my lesson plans for next week and I was ready to give them to my JTEs. I often work with a couple students from my 3rd grade JTE's bigger class, so I had also prepared a CD that would help a student with her speech contest. I recorded myself giving the speech, saying problem words, and then saying problem sounds. I don't see this student often, so I gave my JTE that CD along with the lesson plan. There were no worries there...lesson plan, check, and CD, check plus! He was very excited that I took the time to help out with the CD. I then found out that the other speech contest student (who's a guy) dropped out, so I now only work with Suzuka and Kana. Anyways, things seemed to be going smoothly.
Then, I met up with one of my 1st grade JTEs. She had more complaints about how I ran the class and about the worksheet that I was going to do with the class. Anything creative with these classes seems to be a no-no, no matter how easy I make it. She really liked the boring lesson that I gave...lots of structure and almost no creativity...which left me with a problem.
Do I sacrifice creativity in favor of set patterns at the expense of having all my students fall asleep, or do I try to deviate from the set patterns at the expense of my JTE disapproving? I need to be on her good side!
So...I revamped my entire lesson. I still wanted to work on prepositions, but I decided to do a drawing activity instead and incorporated some of the set patterns that my teacher liked. It took me a couple hours to make and another hour or so for random revisions she had for me...but somehow I got it finished somewhere in the happy middle ground for the both of us.
My weekend went well! I love the weekends...I get to relax, watch anime, watch Running Man, and sleep!! I also try to work on my cooking on the weekends ^^
After the weekend was over, I went to school and my caretaker asked me for rent money, which I obliged (much too willingly). Classes went ok (one of my classes is absolutely awful to teach...), but after school, I went to the ATM to check my balance and it was dangerously low.
Side note before I continue:
In Japan, they give you a bank book and a bank card. The book is inserted into the ATM and the ATM can print out all the transactions that you've made onto the paper inside the book. It's a really nice way to keep track of your money.
Continuing:
So, I put my bank book into the machine, found out where the money went (rent money), and immediately sent an email to my caretaker, basically in the nicest way possible, "Please return my money!!". I was (and still am) very worried she's gonna do something with it... After some quick thinking, I thought that maybe, she would still be at the school. I biked all the way back and all the normal entrances were closed. I had to use an overpass in the school to get to the English teacher's room. When I got there, only one teacher was there. NOOOO......!!!
So, I left a note on my caretaker's desk and tried leaving the school. I tried going out the door I came in, LOCKED. Tried going through the automatic doors, LOCKED. Tried going through the student entrance, LOCKED (with chains). Tried going through various exits...all LOCKED.
Just my luck! I somehow managed to lock myself INSIDE my school. This WOULD happen to me, of all people.
After some aimless wandering, I heard voices from down the hall, so I ran over and asked "出口はどこにありますか？" ("Where is the exit?") and they laughed at me (the poor ALT locked inside the school), and showed me the way out.
Ryan asked me if I was starting to hate Japan because bad stuff seems to keep happening to me. I'm not sure how to answer that question...part of me feels really jaded and the other part wants to keep believing that it'll all be ok. It really will all be ok eventually, but I think that I need to change a lot of things about myself before that can happen...
So, in the meanwhile, I'll just keep trying to do my best and see what comes of it.
Well, that's all for now, see you next time!
Thursday, September 20, 2012
Kids Say the Darndest Things...
Today I'm gonna talk about random funny things that my students have done over the past month or so...
On the first day, I had the students write a few of their favorite things, and some students surprised me with their answers:
What is your hobby?
Student 1. Date
Student 2. Girl
Student 3. ゴロゴロ in room ("gorogoro" in room, which means idling about...or perhaps the appropriate English equivalent is "chillaxing" lol)
Favorite Place in Komagane:
Student 4: TOIRE (which is "toilet" in English) (I don't EVEN wanna know what this guy eats on a daily basis hahaha)
Favorite Subject:
Student 5: No thank you (.......huh....? lol)
Student 6: 英語 ("eigo", which means "English" in Japanese. Yes, they wrote this in Japanese. *sigh*)
Some students were very creative with their answers, even if they just wanted to get a laugh out of me lol Mission accomplished, kids, mission accomplished...
I already wrote about the students at my visit school who were calling me pretty and beautiful in class...and apart from this, I get some random girls squealing about my hair! However, I had a new experience today in class regarding all the attention I sometimes get! You probably already saw on my Facebook, but, when asked "What are 3 things that make you happy?", one of my students replied "Love, sweets, and YOU make me happy!!!" I was flattered and gave him 2 stamps for the good, grammatical answer, but told him I had a boyfriend and he and his friends looked disappointed. LOL At least they're enthusiastic. I hope I can make exciting lessons for them in the future to keep that creativity alive! :)
Also, when I was teaching my third year students about giving advice, I gave an example "You should NOT punch that bear!" My students really liked the word "punch" from then on out. Simple to say, but it has a funny enough meaning, I guess! Anyways, I each gave them situation role plays to act out with their fellow students. They were to ask their classmates for advice for a particular problem that I wrote on their worksheet. For example, one of the students had "There is an angry bear in my room! What should I do?". One of my students told her "You should punch the bear!!" LOL I really hope none of my students decide to go try and beat up some bears in the woods one day... xD
Anyways, if anything else interesting comes up, I'll let you guys know! Thanks for reading!
On the first day, I had the students write a few of their favorite things, and some students surprised me with their answers:
What is your hobby?
Student 1. Date
Student 2. Girl
Student 3. ゴロゴロ in room ("gorogoro" in room, which means idling about...or perhaps the appropriate English equivalent is "chillaxing" lol)
Favorite Place in Komagane:
Favorite Subject:
Student 5: No thank you (.......huh....? lol)
Student 6: 英語 ("eigo", which means "English" in Japanese. Yes, they wrote this in Japanese. *sigh*)
Some students were very creative with their answers, even if they just wanted to get a laugh out of me lol Mission accomplished, kids, mission accomplished...
I already wrote about the students at my visit school who were calling me pretty and beautiful in class...and apart from this, I get some random girls squealing about my hair! However, I had a new experience today in class regarding all the attention I sometimes get! You probably already saw on my Facebook, but, when asked "What are 3 things that make you happy?", one of my students replied "Love, sweets, and YOU make me happy!!!" I was flattered and gave him 2 stamps for the good, grammatical answer, but told him I had a boyfriend and he and his friends looked disappointed. LOL At least they're enthusiastic. I hope I can make exciting lessons for them in the future to keep that creativity alive! :)
Also, when I was teaching my third year students about giving advice, I gave an example "You should NOT punch that bear!" My students really liked the word "punch" from then on out. Simple to say, but it has a funny enough meaning, I guess! Anyways, I each gave them situation role plays to act out with their fellow students. They were to ask their classmates for advice for a particular problem that I wrote on their worksheet. For example, one of the students had "There is an angry bear in my room! What should I do?". One of my students told her "You should punch the bear!!" LOL I really hope none of my students decide to go try and beat up some bears in the woods one day... xD
Anyways, if anything else interesting comes up, I'll let you guys know! Thanks for reading!
Birthday in Japan
Hey everyone!
So, I have a post full of good news on my birthday in Japan!
And, as a side note before I begin,...I don't know if I said this last time, but it's been kinda cool and rainy the past few days in Komagane/Nagano, but the top 5 places where it is hottest in Japan now is up in the Tohoku/Hokkaido regions. Aomori is in Tohoku, which is the northernmost part of the main island in Japan. It's supposed to be 5 degrees (Celsius) colder than Nagano during most points in the year, but for some reason it's flip-flopped right now lol Poor Pumpkin... :[
Anyways, I shall begin!
1) I made it back to Komagane safely after my grueling trip to and from Aomori! Woohoo!!
It was so nice to be able to be with Ryan for that period of time, no matter how brief it was! I look forward to his next visit! Hopefully, we have learned from all of my mistakes lol
Anyways, on my way back from Aomori, I needed to stop by the Regional Immigration Office in Nagano City to get my zairyuu card fixed, since my municipal office couldn't do it (and I needed to have this correct in order to get a phone). Which leads me to my next point of elation...
2) I FINALLY GOT MY ZAIRYUU CARD FIXED!!!!
It's amazing how having one letter omitted on my card had caused me so many headaches over the past 2 months. Unbelievable. I was continually turned away from the cell phone company because of this mistake. The cell phone company employees made many calls to their main branch to see if the mistake could be overlooked, but every time, they were denied permission to sell me a phone. I went to 3 separate stores and each time, the phone calls took at least 10-20 minutes each. Some employees tried really hard to help me.
Because this problem was giving the employees such a hard time to maneuver around, I was expecting this mistake to be fixed in an hour or two. I was half-expecting to be turned away and told to go to Tokyo to clear this up.
It took less than 5 minutes for them to print a new card out for me.
...
While I was a little bit frustrated that this problem couldn't have been fixed from Komagane, I was more relieved than anything.
FINALLY.
I wish I could put up a photo of my card up here to show you guys, but I can't bring myself to actually do it. The picture they used is the one they took when we just got off our plane from LAX to Narita Airport, so I look god awful haha
I can, however, tell you that my name is too long to fit on one line on my zairyuu card, so it looks like this:
ARMSTRONG KRISTIN ELIZABET
H
Well, to be honest, I don't really care how funny my name looks on any of my cards as long as they work! ^__^
3) I got a present from one of my students!
After my trip back, I went to school the next day and taught a couple of classes. After classes were over, Suzuka (one of my speech contest students) came to work on her speech with me. I recorded a CD of myself giving her speech, so she can listen and practice sounds on her own, and also recorded her speaking the first two paragraphs of her speech, so that she can see what she sounds like compared to me. While I was giving her a few pointers about what could be improved upon (mainly th sounds and some specifically English vowel sounds "ih" and "uh") and my caretaker rushed in, telling me that we needed to leave now in order to get a phone (!?!) ! I had to give her the unfinished CD and cut off the meeting quickly...but she gave me a bag of peanut senbei (peanut cracker cookies) as a thank-you present (いつもありがとうございます～= Thank you for everything/always!)! :] They are so delicious!!! Thank you Suzuka!! I'll have to find these and bring them back to Ryan (and America, when I do go back)!
This abrupt halt to my speech contest training leads to my last point:
4) I NOW HAVE A PHONE!!
I had been told that getting a phone would take an hour or two, but I got my phone in less than 20 minutes. My caretaker explained almost nothing to me about my phone (and even less about the data plan, which I intend to ask her about today), which normally would've been a cause for concern, but Emma explained a little bit about my phone to me the last time I visited AU with her. I can access the internet, call in case of emergencies, and I even have access to a map! Plus, I can show students a picture of my boyfriend when they ask me about him...hehe :]
While a ton of things went wrong this weekend, I think the worst is over with (I say this before I have experienced winter, so I might regret saying that...)! I learned many lessons about the trains and buses in Japan. People keep telling me "Oh, it's ok if you don't know Japanese because I know English!", but after this weekend, I realized how much Japanese I can't use...and I really need to exercise my Japanese more often if I want it to get better. I will do my best though! :]
Ok, for reals, next time I will upload some funny things that my students have written to me!
Until next time!
So, I have a post full of good news on my birthday in Japan!
And, as a side note before I begin,...I don't know if I said this last time, but it's been kinda cool and rainy the past few days in Komagane/Nagano, but the top 5 places where it is hottest in Japan now is up in the Tohoku/Hokkaido regions. Aomori is in Tohoku, which is the northernmost part of the main island in Japan. It's supposed to be 5 degrees (Celsius) colder than Nagano during most points in the year, but for some reason it's flip-flopped right now lol Poor Pumpkin... :[
Anyways, I shall begin!
1) I made it back to Komagane safely after my grueling trip to and from Aomori! Woohoo!!
It was so nice to be able to be with Ryan for that period of time, no matter how brief it was! I look forward to his next visit! Hopefully, we have learned from all of my mistakes lol
Anyways, on my way back from Aomori, I needed to stop by the Regional Immigration Office in Nagano City to get my zairyuu card fixed, since my municipal office couldn't do it (and I needed to have this correct in order to get a phone). Which leads me to my next point of elation...
2) I FINALLY GOT MY ZAIRYUU CARD FIXED!!!!
It's amazing how having one letter omitted on my card had caused me so many headaches over the past 2 months. Unbelievable. I was continually turned away from the cell phone company because of this mistake. The cell phone company employees made many calls to their main branch to see if the mistake could be overlooked, but every time, they were denied permission to sell me a phone. I went to 3 separate stores and each time, the phone calls took at least 10-20 minutes each. Some employees tried really hard to help me.
Because this problem was giving the employees such a hard time to maneuver around, I was expecting this mistake to be fixed in an hour or two. I was half-expecting to be turned away and told to go to Tokyo to clear this up.
It took less than 5 minutes for them to print a new card out for me.
...
While I was a little bit frustrated that this problem couldn't have been fixed from Komagane, I was more relieved than anything.
FINALLY.
I wish I could put up a photo of my card up here to show you guys, but I can't bring myself to actually do it. The picture they used is the one they took when we just got off our plane from LAX to Narita Airport, so I look god awful haha
I can, however, tell you that my name is too long to fit on one line on my zairyuu card, so it looks like this:
ARMSTRONG KRISTIN ELIZABET
H
Well, to be honest, I don't really care how funny my name looks on any of my cards as long as they work! ^__^
3) I got a present from one of my students!
After my trip back, I went to school the next day and taught a couple of classes. After classes were over, Suzuka (one of my speech contest students) came to work on her speech with me. I recorded a CD of myself giving her speech, so she can listen and practice sounds on her own, and also recorded her speaking the first two paragraphs of her speech, so that she can see what she sounds like compared to me. While I was giving her a few pointers about what could be improved upon (mainly th sounds and some specifically English vowel sounds "ih" and "uh") and my caretaker rushed in, telling me that we needed to leave now in order to get a phone (!?!) ! I had to give her the unfinished CD and cut off the meeting quickly...but she gave me a bag of peanut senbei (peanut cracker cookies) as a thank-you present (いつもありがとうございます～= Thank you for everything/always!)! :] They are so delicious!!! Thank you Suzuka!! I'll have to find these and bring them back to Ryan (and America, when I do go back)!
This abrupt halt to my speech contest training leads to my last point:
4) I NOW HAVE A PHONE!!
I had been told that getting a phone would take an hour or two, but I got my phone in less than 20 minutes. My caretaker explained almost nothing to me about my phone (and even less about the data plan, which I intend to ask her about today), which normally would've been a cause for concern, but Emma explained a little bit about my phone to me the last time I visited AU with her. I can access the internet, call in case of emergencies, and I even have access to a map! Plus, I can show students a picture of my boyfriend when they ask me about him...hehe :]
While a ton of things went wrong this weekend, I think the worst is over with (I say this before I have experienced winter, so I might regret saying that...)! I learned many lessons about the trains and buses in Japan. People keep telling me "Oh, it's ok if you don't know Japanese because I know English!", but after this weekend, I realized how much Japanese I can't use...and I really need to exercise my Japanese more often if I want it to get better. I will do my best though! :]
Ok, for reals, next time I will upload some funny things that my students have written to me!
Until next time!
Monday, September 17, 2012
Aomori
Hey everyone!
So, over the past few weeks, I have been having passport trouble. Because my name was misspelled, I was issued a misspelled residency card (zairyuu card). Because that is misspelled, I have been turned away multiple times in my attempts to get a phone!
Having said that, I still wanted to go on a trip to Aomori to see Ryan! There aren't any direct ways to get to Aomori, so I needed to get on a bus from Komagane to Shinjuku (Tokyo), take the train from Shinjuku to Ueno (another area of Tokyo), and take a night bus from Ueno to Aomori.
We planned the trip out about half a week before and reserved all the bus tickets online. The hard part about this, though, was paying for the tickets at the convenience stores. In Japan, you can pay your bills and buy bus tickets at conbini! I ordered the tickets online, and one of the deadlines to pay for the ticket from Ueno to Aomori (lest I forfeit my spot on the bus) was the day I bought my ticket. After school, I went home to get money to pay for the ticket. After eating dinner, I set out on my journey to pay for the tickets. There were so many issues with buying one of the tickets...
I went to the Circle K by my school and couldn't get the ticket from Ueno to Aomori to print, so I left to go back to my apartment to check if the reservation number was correct. Then, I went to the Circle K by my house and tried printing the same ticket, failed, then tried to see if the other tickets would print and they did. After asking the clerk, he told me that I should check to see if my reservation number was correct on the other ticket. So, I went back home, double-checked again to make sure it was correct, and then returned to Circle K with my laptop in tow to show to clerk. The confirmation number didn't go through still...so the clerk told me to go email the customer service email address and ask for a new confirmation number. On my way back, I tried to buy it at 7-Eleven, and it didn't work, so I went home and tried asking Ryan what I should do, since nothing was working...
Then, I went to the Lawson's convenience store and it didn't work, so I returned home. However, I went back to Lawson's because I thought I forgot my phone there, but I didn't, so I went back home. After that, I decided to cancel the reservation and reserve a new one-way ticket in order to get a new confirmation number. I got to Circle K this time, but my phone died and I didn't have Ryan's cell phone number on me (and I needed his number to confirm the purchase of the ticket). This was 15 minutes before the Circle K closed (if if the Circle K closed, the ticket deadline would pass and I would've lost my reservation)...so I rushed back home, got his number, then went back to Circle K and managed to get the train ticket a couple minutes before the store closed!
In all, I speed-biked about 10 miles within the span of a couple of hours just for a chance to see Ryan!!! :] That's how much I love him! <3
So, everything was going ok. I was going to take a Saturday bus from Komagane to Shinjuku at 3pm and be in Shinjuku at 6:45pm. The train from Shinjuku to Ueno takes about 25 minutes and my bus from Ueno to Aomori left at 8:30pm.
On Saturday, I made it to my Komagane to Shinjuku bus on time and I was super excited that I was going to see Ryan. However, on the way to Shinjuku, the bus came across a freeway traffic sign that said "Tokyo, 120分" (Tokyo, 120 minutes). This was at 6:30pm.
I swear I went through all 5 stages of loss and grief as soon as I saw that sign. If you have not seen this Robot Chicken clip, please do so now, as that is the best way to describe how I felt at this point in time during the trip.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_Z3lmidmrY
Disbelief. (AKA: "LOL no way...I'm sure it was wrong. My Japanese is bad, so maybe I read that wrong...) Oh, but I actually read that correctly, much to my dismay.
Anger. ("TRAFFIC. Come on bus! MOVE FASTER PLEASE") I used significantly less swearing than the giraffe did. :P
Pleading. ("Come on, please??? You can do it bus!!! If there is a higher power somewhere that'll get me to Tokyo within the next 30 minutes, I'll be really good! I promise!!")
Depression. This was at 8pm after I came across another sign that said 90分 to Shinjuku. That was when I finally realized that this bus was never gonna get to Tokyo on time. ("What am I gonna do??" *insert bawling here* "THERE IS NO GOD")
Acceptance. At 8:15pm. (ok, so I don't think I ever really accepted it, I just decided to call Pumpkin and see what I should do in a more calm manner than I had while I was in my Depression stage...)
So yeah, the bus hit a ton of traffic and I ended up getting to Ueno at 8:45, two hours later than the expected arrival time of 6:45. My bus from Ueno to Aomori was at 8:30, so I completely missed that.
Not knowing what to do, I called Ryan, who told me that it was probably best to sleep near Tokyo and take the earliest Shinkansen (bullet train) to Aomori in the morning. He made a reservation for me in a place called Business Hotel Issa Anex in Hitotsubashigakuen, about 20-30 minutes away from Tokyo by train. There was a lot of difficulty telling the clerk that I had a reservation due to my lack of Japanese, and after Ryan talked to the clerk, we had to pay for a night's stay because there was no way to verify that he paid for the room. They were pretty unorganized with their filing...I don't think they even had a computer. >.>; But, in the end, I finally had a place to stay for the night. We worked out how to get to Aomori and I promptly passed out for a short night's sleep.
In the morning, I went to Tokyo station, where I had to pull out money to ride the Shinkansen (which is really expensive...). There was a lot of difficulty with that, since my bank card is not a JP (Japan Post, the biggest bank in Japan) card. After an hour of figuring out how to pull out money and when to (because Japan has different operating hours for banks than America does), I made it to the Shinkansen and, finally, to Aomori about 3 hours and 45 minutes later! Ryan was waiting for me at the gate, and it was the best reunion ever!!! :]
Hanging out in Aomori has been a blast. While we didn't explore too much, I got to see where Ryan does his shopping, where a really good Thai food (they serve amazing ramen there too! My first time eating ramen this time around in Japan) place is, and where he goes to the beach! I'm really envious...the water is beautiful! It is pretty hot and humid up here...I'm not sure if my place is like that (and I'm not sure because I'm inside with the AC on a lot hehe). While we didn't go to many places, I'm really happy that we were able to just simply hang out and talk at his house! It's amazing to me how much and how easily we can talk even though we have been separated for so long! :] He's treated me wonderfully and cooked lots of delicious food for me~ I miss him (and not just for the cooking :P) and it's gonna be a long year not being like this all the time!
He made a lot of really delicious food (Spanish rice and Mexican food with guacamole [a dish which he called "the food of [my] people"] for the first meal and clam and tomato sauce spaghetti as the last, to name a few) but here's a picture of some really cute hash browns that Pumpkin made for me this morning! :]
Even though I just came here yesterday at noon, I've gotta leave tonight because Ryan has work tomorrow and I've gotta sort out some passport stuff at my Regional Immigration office in Nagano City tomorrow. I really hope all the buses are on time this time!
Anyways, wish me luck! I'll upload some pics of some funny things that my students have written to me next time. Ciao!
So, over the past few weeks, I have been having passport trouble. Because my name was misspelled, I was issued a misspelled residency card (zairyuu card). Because that is misspelled, I have been turned away multiple times in my attempts to get a phone!
Having said that, I still wanted to go on a trip to Aomori to see Ryan! There aren't any direct ways to get to Aomori, so I needed to get on a bus from Komagane to Shinjuku (Tokyo), take the train from Shinjuku to Ueno (another area of Tokyo), and take a night bus from Ueno to Aomori.
We planned the trip out about half a week before and reserved all the bus tickets online. The hard part about this, though, was paying for the tickets at the convenience stores. In Japan, you can pay your bills and buy bus tickets at conbini! I ordered the tickets online, and one of the deadlines to pay for the ticket from Ueno to Aomori (lest I forfeit my spot on the bus) was the day I bought my ticket. After school, I went home to get money to pay for the ticket. After eating dinner, I set out on my journey to pay for the tickets. There were so many issues with buying one of the tickets...
I went to the Circle K by my school and couldn't get the ticket from Ueno to Aomori to print, so I left to go back to my apartment to check if the reservation number was correct. Then, I went to the Circle K by my house and tried printing the same ticket, failed, then tried to see if the other tickets would print and they did. After asking the clerk, he told me that I should check to see if my reservation number was correct on the other ticket. So, I went back home, double-checked again to make sure it was correct, and then returned to Circle K with my laptop in tow to show to clerk. The confirmation number didn't go through still...so the clerk told me to go email the customer service email address and ask for a new confirmation number. On my way back, I tried to buy it at 7-Eleven, and it didn't work, so I went home and tried asking Ryan what I should do, since nothing was working...
Then, I went to the Lawson's convenience store and it didn't work, so I returned home. However, I went back to Lawson's because I thought I forgot my phone there, but I didn't, so I went back home. After that, I decided to cancel the reservation and reserve a new one-way ticket in order to get a new confirmation number. I got to Circle K this time, but my phone died and I didn't have Ryan's cell phone number on me (and I needed his number to confirm the purchase of the ticket). This was 15 minutes before the Circle K closed (if if the Circle K closed, the ticket deadline would pass and I would've lost my reservation)...so I rushed back home, got his number, then went back to Circle K and managed to get the train ticket a couple minutes before the store closed!
In all, I speed-biked about 10 miles within the span of a couple of hours just for a chance to see Ryan!!! :] That's how much I love him! <3
So, everything was going ok. I was going to take a Saturday bus from Komagane to Shinjuku at 3pm and be in Shinjuku at 6:45pm. The train from Shinjuku to Ueno takes about 25 minutes and my bus from Ueno to Aomori left at 8:30pm.
On Saturday, I made it to my Komagane to Shinjuku bus on time and I was super excited that I was going to see Ryan. However, on the way to Shinjuku, the bus came across a freeway traffic sign that said "Tokyo, 120分" (Tokyo, 120 minutes). This was at 6:30pm.
I swear I went through all 5 stages of loss and grief as soon as I saw that sign. If you have not seen this Robot Chicken clip, please do so now, as that is the best way to describe how I felt at this point in time during the trip.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_Z3lmidmrY
Disbelief. (AKA: "LOL no way...I'm sure it was wrong. My Japanese is bad, so maybe I read that wrong...) Oh, but I actually read that correctly, much to my dismay.
Anger. ("TRAFFIC. Come on bus! MOVE FASTER PLEASE") I used significantly less swearing than the giraffe did. :P
Pleading. ("Come on, please??? You can do it bus!!! If there is a higher power somewhere that'll get me to Tokyo within the next 30 minutes, I'll be really good! I promise!!")
Depression. This was at 8pm after I came across another sign that said 90分 to Shinjuku. That was when I finally realized that this bus was never gonna get to Tokyo on time. ("What am I gonna do??" *insert bawling here* "THERE IS NO GOD")
Acceptance. At 8:15pm. (ok, so I don't think I ever really accepted it, I just decided to call Pumpkin and see what I should do in a more calm manner than I had while I was in my Depression stage...)
So yeah, the bus hit a ton of traffic and I ended up getting to Ueno at 8:45, two hours later than the expected arrival time of 6:45. My bus from Ueno to Aomori was at 8:30, so I completely missed that.
Not knowing what to do, I called Ryan, who told me that it was probably best to sleep near Tokyo and take the earliest Shinkansen (bullet train) to Aomori in the morning. He made a reservation for me in a place called Business Hotel Issa Anex in Hitotsubashigakuen, about 20-30 minutes away from Tokyo by train. There was a lot of difficulty telling the clerk that I had a reservation due to my lack of Japanese, and after Ryan talked to the clerk, we had to pay for a night's stay because there was no way to verify that he paid for the room. They were pretty unorganized with their filing...I don't think they even had a computer. >.>; But, in the end, I finally had a place to stay for the night. We worked out how to get to Aomori and I promptly passed out for a short night's sleep.
In the morning, I went to Tokyo station, where I had to pull out money to ride the Shinkansen (which is really expensive...). There was a lot of difficulty with that, since my bank card is not a JP (Japan Post, the biggest bank in Japan) card. After an hour of figuring out how to pull out money and when to (because Japan has different operating hours for banks than America does), I made it to the Shinkansen and, finally, to Aomori about 3 hours and 45 minutes later! Ryan was waiting for me at the gate, and it was the best reunion ever!!! :]
Hanging out in Aomori has been a blast. While we didn't explore too much, I got to see where Ryan does his shopping, where a really good Thai food (they serve amazing ramen there too! My first time eating ramen this time around in Japan) place is, and where he goes to the beach! I'm really envious...the water is beautiful! It is pretty hot and humid up here...I'm not sure if my place is like that (and I'm not sure because I'm inside with the AC on a lot hehe). While we didn't go to many places, I'm really happy that we were able to just simply hang out and talk at his house! It's amazing to me how much and how easily we can talk even though we have been separated for so long! :] He's treated me wonderfully and cooked lots of delicious food for me~ I miss him (and not just for the cooking :P) and it's gonna be a long year not being like this all the time!
He made a lot of really delicious food (Spanish rice and Mexican food with guacamole [a dish which he called "the food of [my] people"] for the first meal and clam and tomato sauce spaghetti as the last, to name a few) but here's a picture of some really cute hash browns that Pumpkin made for me this morning! :]
Even though I just came here yesterday at noon, I've gotta leave tonight because Ryan has work tomorrow and I've gotta sort out some passport stuff at my Regional Immigration office in Nagano City tomorrow. I really hope all the buses are on time this time!
Anyways, wish me luck! I'll upload some pics of some funny things that my students have written to me next time. Ciao!
Wednesday, September 12, 2012
Pictures from my Excursion to Tenryu River
Hey everyone!
So, there are the pictures I promised to put up. I went on an excursion last weekend by myself to go see a temple (that is much easier to get to than the last temple I went to) and I figured, the temple is along the way to the river, so I should go see the river, right? I was so excited to get out of my house to go exploring that I didn't check the topography of the region I was going to go exploring in. The terrain was pretty flat all along the way going to the temple, so I took my pictures and decided to go see the river after! I noticed I was going downhill, but didn't think much about it. It was only about halfway down a monster hill that I realized that the uphill hike would suck to climb/bike back up. But...even though it was going to be a pain (especially on a mamachari bike), I didn't want to wimp out and turn back...and I'm really glad I didn't. The river was really big and beautiful! I didn't stay too long because the huge spiders creeped me out. >__> There were also no sidewalks, so I was afraid of being run over. Sometimes, Japanese drivers aren't the greatest...
I also found a park on the way back! It was right next to the temple that I went to. In between the temple and the playground/park, there was a really creepy forest (made even creepier by the sounds of the cicadas, the huge spiders, and the setting sun/increasing amounts of darkness)! After seeing that, I think I can understand why the Japanese are so good at horror manga/films, etc.
On a side note, just before I wrote this, two girls came up to me and introduced themselves in English! They were so cute. I thought they just wanted to say hi, but they also asked how I was doing, which made my day. I don't think they're in any of my classes, but I'll do my best to remember their faces/names. One introduced herself as Saki, and the other shy girl said her name was Moe (pronounced Mo-eh, not Mo lol). It's little things like this that keep me going when I feel lonely or don't have such good days...
Well, without further ado, here are my pictures! Until next time!
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