Belated Thanksgiving Post

Last month, I attempted to introduce Thanksgiving to my students. Thanksgiving, being an American holiday, is not celebrated in Japan. Many students hadn't heard of it.

Since I don't get asked to team-teach with my JTEs often, I asked them to hand out questionnaires to the students when they had time. The slips of paper asked "What (or who) are you thankful for?"

I received a plethora of replies, which I posted on my wall!

I cut each leaf by hand. Each class has a specific color/shape so that it was easy to spot their classmates and friends from other classes, too! It took a long time to make, but I'm proud of the results. :)

I was very proud that all of my students tried their best to write something, even those who weren't very good at English.

My favorites included:
1. Will Smith
2. Toilet paper

Most common answer:
1. My family (or variants including specific family members)
2. My friends

Most profound answer:
1. Peace

Thanksgiving time is always a good time to reflect upon the things that I'm grateful for. I'm most grateful for my life.

Although I personally haven't had many life-threatening moments (though one particular moment does come to mind...Kevin might remember it hahaha), after starting to learn martial arts and watching a YouTube clip on "People Escaping Death", it's really started to hit me how fragile life is and how easily it can be taken away from someone. I've had a pretty awesome life so far...and I've gotta treasure everything and everyone in my life while we're all together!

I have a wonderful family who brought me into this world, raised me with love, support me, and give me lots of advice when I am troubled. I miss every one of them, and I can't wait to see everyone and hang out with them when I come back!

I have a wonderful boyfriend who loves me very much. Even though I'm far from perfect, he accepts me as I am and readily helps me improve myself. He teaches me math/science, martial arts, life lessons, and often reminds me of information that I should've remembered from high school. He is a friend, a partner, a teacher, a master chef, an engineer, and a goofball that I'm glad that's in my life. I love him very much.

I met Sanam, who is another one of the best influences that I've had in my life who I miss very much. We pushed each other to be better people back in high school (whether it be for pushing each other for good grades, good decisions (or funny bad ones), or threatening to push each other out of moving automobiles), had loads of fun and shenanigans, and will always respect and love each other even when we're miles away from each other. She's also one of the ones who first introduced me to manga...if I hadn't met her, I might not have ended up here in Japan on the rollercoaster ride of my life!

Speaking of Japan, I'm thankful for my transfer up north to Aomori. Last year was an administrative mess...and communicating with the higher-ups was never fun. This year, the vice principal (Yamada-kyoto-sensei) and 3rd-in-charge (Saho-sensei) have been so nice to me! They do their best to include me in school-wide events, invite me to work-parties, and often give me treats. In fact, Yamada-kyoto-sensei just gave me two tickets to an AYCE Christmas buffet this Sunday! I am so grateful to have such a caring person in my life. I'm often forgotten about at this school, but people like these women make me feel appreciated and loved.

I have so many things to be thankful for (food, soccer, San Diego, etc). This experience in Japan is definitely one of them. There are days when I wonder why I'm out here, but I've got to remember that I'm only here temporarily and to keep having fun and experiencing everything that I can.

Anyways, that's all for this post. Another Facebook reporting event is coming up, so stay tuned! :)

Mt. Hakkoda and Nebuta no Sato

Hi everyone!

It's time for another FB reporting event! In addition to experiencing new things, these events are also very good because they force me to keep writing on my blog even when I'm busy...

This time, I went on a two-part tour. First, we went to Mt. Hakkoda to the south, took the ropeway all the way up to the top, and toured the "gold line trail". It was my first time seeing snow this season (even if just snow on the ground). This was perhaps the prelude to the random, crazy winter storm we got a couple weeks ago...

Please excuse the slantiness of the right side...I was a bit rushed when I was taking the 3rd part of the panorama hahaha Anyways, you could see Hirosaki City to the left, Aomori City (near the bay), and Mutsu (not pictured) to the far right!

The view was absolutely amazing. What a beautiful day for a hike!

The Hakkoda mountain range, which has the kanji for 8 in it's name (八甲田 <--the 1st character), is actually made up of more than 8 mountains.

It wasn't snowing in the city yet, but the leaves on Hakkoda were starting to turn white...

Our friendly tour guide, who is telling us about Hakkoda's famous "snow monsters". Snow monsters are actually trees that get covered in snow and become statuesque piles of snow! This only happens in a few places in the world where trees can get blasted by fierce snowy gales.

Our tour ended and we went back down the mountain. About half-way down, Ryan pointed out the ski-lift that we rode when we went snowboarding/skiing last winter vacation. I had almost forgotten that I'd already been there! Hakkoda looks completely different in every season...

 

Winter.

 For lunch, we went to a place called Willer Moya, which is right next to Moya Hill's "Hills Thunder" (the downhill go-kart track). We were served a san-kai soba tower (三階, meaning "three floors/stories") and we had to mix the dipping sauce ourselves.

三階そば (aka: "too many noodles")

From left to right: grated ginger and green onions, grated nagaimo (a potato that becomes really sticky when grated...apparently, it's also called a "Chinese yam"), and quail egg over grated daikon (radish)

The soba was pretty standard, but the dipping sauce was a bit strange; it consisted of the regular noodle dipping sauce (called tsuyu), but you could also mix in the stuff in the picture above! The sauce ended up being a bit sticky because of the nagaimo (Ryan wasn't a bit fan of that texture/taste combination), but it tasted ok to me! It's been a while since I'd had a Japanese food that I hadn't tried before.

The Hills Thunder track has officially closed (I believe) and is being prepped for the skiing season!

Last, we went to our final (and main) destination, Nebuta no Sato (ねぶたの里, literally the Village of Nebuta). There, we got to see, experience, and learn about all sorts of things Nebuta-related.

First, we were shown drawings and sketches of Nebuta before they're made. In addition, they had an entire wall dedicated to pictures of real-life Nebuta floats! I don't know how old some of these pictures were, but they even had a lot of black-and-white pictures.

Whenever I see beautiful paintings and sketches, I think of my Tia. :)

All of the sketches were very detailed.

The wall of Nebuta floats

Black-and-white pictures! This festival's been around a pretty long time!

Next, we were shown some Nebuta floats up-close and personal!

After that, we got to paste paper onto the wiring of a new Nebuta float! We had to take a special paper, place it on a square that we wanted to paste it on, and trace an outline of it with our finger and make an imprint on the paper. Then, we had to cut out the outline (plus a millimeter's worth of space around the edge). The most fun part was putting glue on the wires and pasting our work of art onto the new Nebuta. It'd be so much fun if we could make a float for next years parade! :)

Ryan pasting his paper on the sword section of the Nebuta while standing in front of the Pikachu Nebuta

 

Not only did we get to paste the paper onto the wirings of a float, we actually got to try our hand at moving the whole thing!! A finished Nebuta float is HUGE, so it requires about 20 strong men (in our case, 30 normal/weak people) to carry it. I don't have a video of us carrying it*, but it was a lot of fun!! :)

Just when we thought we were done after watching some traditional nebuta instrument performances and jumping with the Nebuta no Sato staff, we then got to play all of the instruments! The flute was incredibly difficult to play (only a few people could make sounds come out of it at all), but we ended up being pretty good at beating the small taiko drums and playing the cymbals. We even got to beat the HUGE taiko drum outside!

Note the small drums to the left of the huge drum. Those little ones are the ones that we first played...

All in all, it was cold, but I had an awesome time there. If my family and friends ever came to Aomori and they didn't get a chance to experience the Nebuta festival first-hand, I would definitely bring them here. Even though the staff didn't speak much English, they were incredibly friendly people who did their best to ensure we had a great time. I don't think beating the huge drum was originally on the schedule, but after Ryan earnestly asked if he could beat it later, the guide pulled some strings and we got to hit as our final hurrah of the night. What a great ending to a fun day~!

That's all for today! Until next time~!

Bonus pictures:

*Sidenote: The verb for motion/movement is called "unkou (運行)" and has the kanji for "carry" and "going" in it. So, the moving of this huge nebuta is "unkou suru (運行する)" in Japanese. It's a bit immature to say this, but I can't help but giggle whenever I hear that word. It sounds eerily similar to the Japanese word for "poop", which is "unko" (with a short "o" vowel sound at the end, compared to unkou's long "o" vowel sound)... tee hee

Apartment Tour Vlog

Hey everyone, here is the long awaited apartment vlog!!!

A quick introduction: since I transferred up to Aomori for marriage reasons, Ryan and I could live together. We could choose between my predecessor's apartment and Ryan's previous apartment. Since my predecessor's apartment was bigger, we opted to live there. It's not far from his old place either...it's only about a 5 minute walk.

Well, without further ado---
 http://youtu.be/w2ZN_Rf7Ico

Please enjoy our lovely faces and my excessive rambling~

Until next time!

Q&A: New Schools Edition

A few people have asked me about my new teaching situation, so this blog post is dedicated to you guys! Sanam and Tia Andrea in particular... :)

Sanam: I keep checking for an update on your new school, so [hurry up and post about it!!!*].

I now teach at one junior high school (Tsukuda JHS) and two elementary schools (Tsukuda ES and Hamadate ES). My base school, the school that I visit the most, is my JHS.

My junior high school has the 2nd newest school buildings in the city (Ryan's recently renovated school, Higashi Middle School, is the newest), so it's really, really nice. Compared to El Rancho (my middle school back in the States), it seems huge! Compared to the wide, usually one-story American schools, schools in Japan are build upwards because there is not much space to build outwards. My JHS has 4 floors: the 3rd years' classrooms are on the 2nd floor, 2nd years on the 3rd floor, and 1st years on the 4th floor. With at least 5 classes per grade and many, many extra empty rooms for miscellaneous club activities, the corridors are super long. In addition, there is a large gym, a music room, a library, cooking room, science room, a large field for outdoor activities, and many tennis courts. I'll take a picture of it one day and post it so you guys can see!

Tia Andrea: What age level are you teaching?

Before I answer the first question, I'll quickly explain the Japanese educational system up until high school. Like the one in America, it is divided into three establishments: elementary school, middle school, and high School. Elementary school is similar to that in America, where it is divided into 6 grades, from 1st to 6th. However, middle school and high school are three grades each. There is no "7th grade"; they simply restart from 1 upon graduating from elementary school and middle school. For example, one could say that he or she is a 1st year middle school student or an 3rd year high school student.

Back to the original question, the ES students that I teach are 5th and 6th graders, about Kevin's age, with ages ranging from 9-12 years old. JHS students are the same age as 7th-9th graders here, so they range from 12-15 years old.

All of the kids are soooo much smaller (and cuter...and wayyy more hyper) than the high schoolers that I taught last year!! T^T

Tia Andrea: Are you enjoying it? I know you have faced many challenges, so I hope it is getting easier.

Sanam: I hope that it is even better where you are at now!

If I said that I loved every day I spent here, I'd be lying. There are always ups and downs in the workplace, but my working situation has improved so much from what it was last year. My schools are much closer, the students are friendlier, and Aomori is a much more convenient city to live in. For the most part, I've enjoyed the new experience thus far, but to say that I've been "teaching" would be a bit misleading.

The workload in ES and JHS compared to HS is considerably different. In HS, I was always busy making lesson plans and tests, grading said tests, helping speech contest students, and helping the other English teachers with English grammar questions. Most of the work that I've done so far in JHS has been what is referred to by most JETs as being the "human tape recorder": reading aloud paragraphs from a book and asking students to repeat the correct pronunciation of vocabulary or phrases after me. At my JHS, in my free time, I'm often asked to grade quizzes. It's rather brainless work.

At my ES, it's the same human tape recorder kind of stuff, although I feel more like a dancing monkey while I'm doing it (...which can actually be a lot of fun if I don't take myself too seriously). The classes are required to make English fun by doing chants (songs) and playing games, mostly. They aren't supposed to learn the alphabet or any sort of grammar until they're in JHS.

Even though my co-workers (and students) speak even less English than they did last year, some of them (even non-English teachers) are more willing to talk to me! So far, I've made friends with a few cleaning ladies, my Vice Principals, Principals, a few office ladies, and even a calligraphy teacher! My students are (generally) a lot more interested in me now, so getting to know my students is a lot more fun than before. All of this means that I get to practice more Japanese! Yay!! Also, my caretaker at the Aomori Board of Education is much more on top of things than my previous caretaker...which is a huge relief~

Anyways, thanks for reading! If you have any more questions, be sure to ask! Next time, I'll post a video about the new apartment layout, where you get to see our lovely faces (or rather...Ryan's face and my rambling voice) and how big the new apartment is compared to the "Harry Potter's closet/room"-like apartment that I had in Komagane. Look forward to it! :)

*Those may or may not be Sanam's original words. Whether they are or not, I know that she was thinking it (and perhaps you all were...haha) :P

Hirakawa Apple-Picking

Before my eagerly-anticipated post about my new apartment and schools, I've gotta write about my experiences on a field trip! Here's why.

Since Aomori is so difficult to travel to, not many tourists come to visit the area (except during Nebuta season). To help boost the tourism industry, the prefectural office offers many opportunities for foreigners to explore, experience, and learn more about Aomori, so long as they write about it and post it to my Facebook account so that their experiences are shared with their friends and family from their home countries.

Here goes~!

Last weekend, Ryan and I went on a field trip showcasing an Aomori specialty...apples! I may have mentioned before that Nagano was famous for apples (if I didn't, well, now you know! ^_^)...but did you know that Aomori is the number 1 producer of apples in Japan? It accounts for a whopping 50% of the total apples produced! This tour decided to showcase some of these apples.

We took a bus to Hirakawa City with a lot of Aomori Chuo Gakuen University foreign exchange students from China, Taiwan, and Korea, to our destination. It was then and there we realized that were the only fluent English speakers on the tour. All of the university students' Japanese easily outclassed ours (especially mine), but they were super friendly and easy to get along with.

Our first stop was at an apple orchard. It reminded me of my grandma's backyard a little bit!! One of the farmers told us that the yellow apples growing there were called “Toki” apples and that the grove next to it had “Fuji” apples, which were a more familiar red color. After his explanation in Japanese, he gave us plastic bags and told us that we could take home 3 apples from the Toki orchard!

Thus, our apple-picking quest to find the biggest apples began.

The apple orchard!

It was a little difficult to judge which apples were good or not because you don't really see yellow-colored apples very often in America. In any case, we decided to set our sights on the biggest apples that we could possibly find.

Ryan had the biggest picks of the day! Here's a video of him caught in the action, although this video doesn't quite do the size of the apple justice... 

Ryan's spoils (with a nice view of Mt. Iwaki in the background)

After our great success (minus my shoes becoming very smelly thanks to the fertilizer on the ground), we headed back to the meeting spot, where we were offered some free apple slices~

Our next (and final) destination was a place called Hotel Appleland. There, our first order of business involved chowing down on a traditional Japanese-style lunch.

Sushi (salmon, tuna, sea bream [tai], and amberjack [kampachi]), soba, pickled daikon and eggplant, bamboo shoots with a goma dressing, and a side of cold apple juice!

After eating, they asked one representative from each country about his or her opinions about the food: compliments, critiques, and how it compares to the food culture of his or her home country. Would our families back home enjoy it? Why or why not? Etc.

Opinions varied from country to country. While I enjoyed the fish (not as much as nokkedon, but it was much better than anything in California) and thought that the soba noodles weren't that special, I got to thinking...would my brother or sister, who are a little bit picky, eat any of this? Maybe they would enjoy the noodles and the apple juice the most, but avoid the rest of the food, opting not to eat the raw fish, pickled eggplant, and bamboo shoots covered with some sort of sesame dressing. Would you have any objections eating any of this food? It must be very hard, as a Japanese hotel trying to cater towards tourists, to try to please picky eaters but still offer the experience of tasting the regional delicacies...

After the opinion exchange, we toured the hotel. We were led to a large guest room overlooking a somewhat blasphemous statue of a female buddha-like person holding an apple (one of the symbols of Aomori), a few large showrooms suitable for holding conferences or wedding receptions, a buffet room which would be used to showcase various Aomori apple dishes, and finally, we were led to the onsen area. We couldn't go into the onsen, but we could dip our feet in the 足湯...the outdoor footbath! This one had apples floating in it! I'm not sure how sanitary it was for those to be bobbing about in there, but they smelled wonderful~

In the information exchange after this portion of the tour, I was the next American up for commentary, but due to my incompetence, I only really managed to say that there should be more signs in English next to the art displays... >.<;;;

Our final activity of the day involved making apple pies!! As a food-lover, this was easily my favorite part of the tour. It was really fun learning how to peel apples (from Master Chef [Ryan], who was applauded by the host for being the most skillful at cooking) and it was interesting to note the differences between what Japanese people and I think of when apple pie comes to mind. Whereas American ones are usually big, round, usually have lots of added sugar, and have intricate woven top layers, the Japanese ones are more similar to what we would consider a danish or a pie tart.

Before baking...

After baking! Aren't we adorable?

The tour concluded after we ate the fruits of our labor (pun intended), and we were driven back home...but not before Ryan could take a ridiculous picture next to a Nebuta!

Ryan's Doppleganger

I hope that you enjoy my post as much as I enjoyed this tour! Please look forward to more of these kinds of posts in the future~

As mentioned above, soon (hopefully), I'll get around to writing a Q&A style blog post about my new apartment, schools, and life! Thanks for reading!!

Aomori

After 12 long months of waiting, I am now happy to say that I'm posting this from a computer in Aomori~! Sorry for the lack of updates; I've been pretty busy getting accustomed to my new town.

Unlike my first week in Komagane, my first one in Aomori was really exciting, thanks to the Aomori Nebuta Matsuri. Instead of being dumped off at a silent, dark, empty school for a couple weeks (most teachers went on vacation with their families during the summer holiday), I arrived in Aomori just in time to participate in arguably one of the biggest festivals in all of Japan!

This festival draws many tourists from not only Japan, but also many other foreign countries. Even though Aomori is one of the most difficult places to travel to (even for those who live in Japan), it still gets really crowded during this festival season. Normally, Aomori doesn't draw too many tourists due to the lack of convenient/inexpensive transportation going there. Basically, it's such an awesome festival that many people from all over will go to great lengths to come here and enjoy Nebuta!

During the first week of August, festivals stalls lined the streets, decorations hung from all the local stores, and many people were out and about touring Aomori City. At night, the streets downtown were lit up by huge floats (lit by fluorescent or incandescent light bulbs powered by portable generators and rechargeable batteries) that are so heavy that many people have work together to be able to carry just one! These floats line up and parade through the streets in a loop for a couple of hours. In between the floats, there were taiko performances, people playing the traditional festival song on flutes accompanied by cymbals, and groups of dancers that jumped through the streets. This goes on at night for about a week! The festival ends with a really big fireworks show on the last day. It's pretty crazy!

The awesome thing about Nebuta is that anyone can participate as long as they're wearing festival attire!

Picture stolen from Ryan's Facebook. This is "haneto", the traditional jumping attire worn by Nebuta Festival participants.

The song and the "dance" are super simple: you hop on one foot twice, then hop on the other foot twice while yelling "Rase-ra, rase-ra! Rase-rase-rase-RA!* Participating in the festival is "haneru", literally "jumping". Some people jump for half an hour on the first day...others will jump the entire night all week long! In fact, some JETs jump so much that they develop lasting injuries.

This is why stretching is important, kids.

Other notable festivals around the area are the Tachineputa Festival in Goshogawara and Neputa Festival in Hirosaki. I wasn't able to go to Hirosaki, but I got to see the Tachineputa. The streets in Goshogawara are really narrow, so it's impossible to have impressively wide nebutas. Therefore, they build UP instead of out. The resulting floats are really, REALLY tall...the average tachineputa float is about 20 meters tall. Yes, 20 meters!!! The chant is also a bit different; they yell "Yattemare, yattemare!"

Here's one of the tallest floats that I saw at the Tachineputa Festival!

Anyways, since coming to Aomori, I've been whisked around all over the place for signing official paperwork (address change notifications, etc.), greeting important people at welcome parties, doing welcome speeches, and, of course, for sight-seeing, taste-testing, and otherwise orienting myself to my new home.

A few notable differences between Aomori and Komagane:

1) Aomori is much bigger than Komagane and, as such, has much more of a big-city feel to it. There is always something going on somewhere, I can get anything you need (food-wise, home supplies-wise, hobbies-wise, etc.) thanks to the abundance of stores in the city, and most of the streets are actually lit.

2) Many JETs live in Aomori City. In Komagane, only one other JET lived in my city. The next JET closest was in the town over (about 10 mins away on the train). Other JETs lived pretty far away. Not having a car, it was almost impossible to meet up with others to hang out. On the flip-side, I was forced to actually speak Japanese. Anyways, seeing JETs all the time is nice, but a bit disorienting at times! lol In any case, I did feel a lot more welcome when I came here.

3) Foreigners are very rare here. In fact, many of the shop-keepers tend to give extra special service to foreigners (or people who look like foreigners). Just the other week, Ryan and I were given free popsicles by a really nice shopkeeper after a meal! While this is a plus for me, poor Ryan often gets disgruntled when this subject comes up; since he doesn't look like a foreigner, he doesn't tend to get freebies as often (if ever). :[

4) We have a car! FREEDOM!!! Having the option to go anywhere any time we want has been really convenient and it will surely be a godsend in the winter, when our mobility gets limited due to the snow.

Other highlights of my Aomori experience thus far:

1) Feeding my students and the people at my workplaces tsukudani inago (locust preserved by soy sauce and mirin). Faces range from extreme disgust to happily surprised to intense discomfort. Some people have even screamed at the sight of it! (Relax people, they're already dead...)

2) Eating at an all-you-can-eat barbecue place that served horse meat

3) Hills Thunder: riding a go-cart down a huge hill at lightning-speed! Well, to put it more clearly, Ryan goes down Hills Thunder at lightning-speed. I finish after him around the same time that you hear thunder crash after you see lightning. :P

The view from the top of Hills Thunder on a clear day

4) Going to Asamushi Aquarium and seeing salamanders, dolphins, giant sea turtles, etc!

5) Going to Lake Towada and Oirase Gorge (where we hiked along a mosquito-ridden trail until we got rained on and had to run all the way back to where our car was parked [about 2km away])

That's all for this time! Next time, I'll write more about my new schools soon!

*It sounds like "rah-say-rah".
**It sounds like "yah-tay-mah-ray".

7 Typical Japanese High School First-Year Students

After teaching 18 different first-year classes at two Japanese high schools over the course of this past year, I've noticed a few trends that I'd like to share with you all.

Disclaimer: This is based on my experiences as an ALT while teaching at one regular and one technical high school. If you are an ALT, the extent to which this is similar to your situation will be based on the location you are placed and the level of students that you teach. To any Japanese people reading my blog, I don't mean to offend anyone by what is written below. I simply intend to record my experiences for cultural exchange purposes, such that other ALTs can compare/contrast these students to their own experiences with other Japanese high school students or such that other family members and friends back home can compare/contrast these students with typical American ones.

Without further ado...

7 Typical Japanese High School First-Year Students

1. The 2 students in the front row who stare at me the entire lesson

As much as I want them to participate, they never do! I try to give them the benefit of doubt; they may actually be good students. However, this doesn't exactly show in the oral communication class, since they really don't do much other than just sit there and awkwardly stare at me or at their own desks. If they're girls, they sometimes giggle at me...

I often wonder what they're giggling about...

2. The sleeper

There's at least one in every class that I've taught, no matter what time of day or what events have been planned that week. I've heard that most JTEs tend to let them sleep, thinking that they're tired from late-night studying, although mine try to wake them up. With the exception of my visit school JTE, they have very little success with this endeavor.

Some students are such great sleepers that I think I'm more familiar with the top of their heads than their actual faces. Quite impressive...

3. The "yeah, yeah, ok, ok" student

I finish explaining the activity. My JTE makes sure everyone understands, and then the activity begins. I walk around, monitoring to make sure everything's running smoothly. Everyone seems to be doing well...until I come across this student, who is casually talking with (aka: distracting) his or her friends. I smile. Maybe they don't understand?

I begin to explain the activity (again) and try to get him/her to participate. After every sentence I utter, he/she looks at me straight in the eye and confidently says "Yeah, yeah! Ok, ok!" while giving me an ever-so-condescending shoulder-shrug or hand wave.

Oh...so they don't understand AND, better yet, they don't care! :/

Unless the JTE comes around and forces them to do the activity, I've had a 0% success rate in trying to get these little turds to do anything productive. Often times, I'm forced to move on and monitor Student #4, the polar opposite of Student #3.

4. The 5 students who actually raise their hands

These are my best students. Even if their favorite subject isn't English, these students are usually the best in their class...and for good reason. They're the ones who actually try to understand my lecture despite whatever cacophony is erupting around them. When a lesson goes badly or there is poor classroom management, I can always count on these guys to pay attention.

They're absolute godsends in the 50 minute class. I take some solace in the fact that that there are at least some students that I may be making an impact on.

5. The class clown

These students can be annoying, but they mean no harm. These poor students are usually hated by my JTEs since they typically score the worst on the grammar tests. However, I tend to enjoy being around these students because they're very lively, funny, creative, and, more often than not, these students are typically some of the better conversationalists in the class. Maybe they learn a lot from making fun of me and the JTE all the time?

While they may not start out on task, unlike Student #3, these students might actually attempt my activities if prodded to do so (or if candy is offered as an incentive). If the activity is fun or interesting, they will get really into it, making everyone around them laugh with their wacky answers. They have the potential to be motivational forces to be reckoned with in the classroom.

If they start to get off-track though...it can be really tough to regain control of the class.

6. The "I LOVE YOU" student

These ones are very, very similar to Student #1. I sometimes hear love professions when they enter or exit the class, or during various parts of the class...often for no reason at all. These students will tell me that I'm cute every chance they get. What players! The raging hormones are probably to blame...haha Anyways, as creepy as these sudden outbursts may be at times, they can be huge mood-boosters if I'm ever having a bad day. I'll take what I can get in order to push through the work-day! :P

Sidenote: These student could be a combination of Student #1, Student #4, and/or Student #5.

7. The silent one

The completely silent students are, admittedly, one of the rarer specimens of the bunch (at least at my high schools). There are many variants of this one, ranging from shy, but suggestible (meaning that they may volunteer answers from time to time) to others who will give me the cold shoulder. Some won't lift a finger to complete any worksheets in class. Others, even if I commit one of the deadly sins in the high school oral communication classroom and try to help them in Japanese...

...still...nothing...

Maybe these guys have vendettas against English? Maybe they're just shy? Maybe they have some sort of a learning or speech impediment? Maybe they hate my guts. I guess I'll never know because they won't talk to me.

Honorable Mention

Most of my students just come into class, do what they need to do, and leave when the bell rings. While not particularly memorable as individuals, the class as a whole (these ones and all the other special students above) come together to create the "class atmosphere", or "funiki". The group tends to be favored over the individual in Japanese culture, and the classroom is no different. The class atmosphere is crucial factor in how students will individually act. If the class atmosphere is dead, you can forget about anyone raising their hand, even if they are a Student #4. If the atmosphere is loud and crazy, even normally quiet students can turn into Student #3's.

Anyways, that's all I've got for today! Thanks for reading! Please comment below if you have any questions, similar students/experiences, complaints, or have other students that you'd like to share about! :)

Last Classes at Komako

I finally taught my last 1年生 classes at Komako yesterday.

If you had asked me one year ago if I would miss my visit school when I leave, I would've said confidently, "Not at all." With the exception of a few excellent students, most of the 1年生students last year didn't respect me at all: they never listened, they talked to their neighbors all throughout class, they played games or texted in class, and didn't lift a finger for any of the activities. Worse yet, the classroom management for two of the classes was awful; my JTE didn't like to help out and rarely did anything other than yell at the kids. His English wasn't much better than theirs, so explaining activities was rather difficult at times. I dreaded each and every Tuesday I went to Komako. Poor Ryan often faced the brunt of my venting after classes, whether it be on Skype or Google chat. It was almost apparent by the final class that I wanted nothing to do with them anymore.

Thankfully, this year was completely different for two reasons:

1.  I ended up teaching all of my Komako classes with my caretaker, Oshima-sensei. She, unlike the other JTE I worked with, genuinely wants students to understand the activities. We often moved at a slower pace than last year because of this, but the students got so much more out of classes this year. She is also one of the few JTEs I've seen to have such great classroom management. If the class was in an uproar, we waited until everyone was paying attention...and even the loudest class would be silent when we needed their full attention. She woke sleeping students up and disciplined students who played games or texted during class. The students respect her as a teacher, and I benefited as an ALT so much because of this. Largely due to her experience, I was able to teach these kids to my best ability. Thanks to her wisdom and kindness, I learned so much! :]

2.  The 1年生 that I met this year were very welcoming of me from the beginning of my classes to the very end. That's not to say that they didn't have their faults... They were still as rowdy, as perverted, and as averse to studying as the students last year were, but I did my best to improve upon last years lessons. This year, I created lessons that studied particular grammar points, but were heavily game-based. This entire time, they thought they were playing games rather than actually studying English. Sneaking in English-speaking time like a ninja really worked out for me~ ;)

For the most part, they ended up being pretty bright and motivated students. Once they learned to express opinions and give advice, I found that they were more creative than most of the students at my base school, a supposedly higher-level school!

For example, I asked my students: "Which do you like better: money or friends?"

One student replied: "I like money better because I don't need friends!"

These kids surprise me all the time! In fact, yesterday, my JTE asked the class representative of each class to make a speech (without my knowledge of it). She told him that it could be in Japanese or English, but one class rep wrote it entirely in English and presented it at the end of class! It was very heartfelt, meaningful, and...perhaps even better than the one I wrote in 5 minutes for the students at Akaho. ^^; Even in the ones entirely in Japanese, I almost started tearing up, especially during the last class rep's speech when he said:

「クリスティン先生のおかげで毎週の月曜日に楽しみにしてた。」
("Thanks to Kristin-sensei, I looked forward to every Monday.")

I thought back to all the times I dragged myself to Tuesday classes at Komako. I thought back to all of the frustrating times during awful classes where the clock just wouldn't pass time fast enough. Somehow, without my knowing, the exact opposite had come true this year. Like the student above, I looked forward to the start of each week. I began looking forward to calling on a plethora of volunteers and watching students try their best to answer a question, even if their answers were riddled with mistakes. Everyone (who wasn't sleeping or not paying attention) smiled and had fun. There just didn't seem like there was ever enough time to fit all of the fun activities into one class.

I saw shy students start to offer answers. I saw students who never payed attention when I first met them become super invested in the games that we played. Even the few girl students were starting to warm up to me outside of class and offer answers in class!

These kids may never use English in their semi-rural lives...but I'm glad that I had the opportunity to touch their lives, even if only a little. I hope I left them with many good memories of English oral communication classes and a good impression of American culture.

Thanks for a wonderful half-year, Komako. I really am gonna miss you guys. ; ____ ;

Farewell Speeches

My time in Komagane is finally coming to an end. Because of this, my caretakers have requested that I prepare farewell speeches to give to both the students and the staff at each school.

My caretaker at Komako told me to write a long speech to the students, explaining where I'm going after leaving, saying thank you and goodbye, and encouraging the students to keep studying English. I wrote it, rehearsed it many times, and managed to say it in intelligible Japanese in front of all the students at an assembly two Fridays ago. Even though I was really, really nervous, hearing my students and fellow teachers laugh during funny parts of my speech helped me get through it. There was a long round of applause after I concluded my speech and exited the gym.

After my speech, there was quite a bit of confusion. This farewell speech was given rather early: I still had two more classes to teach to my 1年生 before I'd officially leave. Many of my students thought that my farewell speech was the last time that they'd see me, so they were really confused when I came back to school the following Monday. ...Happy, but confused! After explaining my situation to the students, they laughed and the mood lightened up, much to my delight.

My farewell speech at Akaho, however, was not as well prepared as the one I gave at Komako. My caretaker had mentioned in passing about a month ago that I should start thinking about writing farewell speeches for both the students and the faculty; the length was to be the opposite of the one at Komako: the shorter the speech, the better. She told me that it could be in English or Japanese, and that the date for the speech to the students had yet to be determined. She said she'd let me know in advance the date and time that I'd give my speech to the students.

I'm not sure if she forgot or what, because, last Friday, when I arrived at school, my caretaker noticed I came in and ran over to me.

Caretaker: You're giving your speech to the students right now!

Me: WHAT?!
Caretaker: Yes, in ten minutes!

Completely mentally-unprepared, I then had to scramble to write up a speech. I'm glad I had already given a speech at Komako, so I hurriedly wrote a shorter summary of what I said during that farewell speech. Thank goodness I had begun to write it in Japanese, because, in the middle of writing it, my caretaker requested that I deliver the speech in Japanese, as she wouldn't be able to translate for me.

Five minutes later, I found myself on stage, flustered, delivering a somewhat meaningful, yet half-assed speech in Japanese to my base school students at the opening ceremony of their school festival.

This...wasn't quite how I imagined that I'd be wrapping things up at my base school, the school that I had visited the most over the course of my year here in Komagane...

To add insult to injury, they made me to go up on stage with the rest of the teachers to sing a song in Japanese in front of all of the students. Normally, this wouldn't have been too bad, but after being stressed out since the morning started, the very last thing I wanted to do was sing. I just wanted to be alone to recompose myself, but I sucked it up and sang. One teacher was kind enough to share her music sheet with me. Thankfully, it was written entirely in hiragana, the simplest Japanese writing system. I was wary at first, but became pleasantly surprised when I realized that I can still read music decently!

Anyways, I guess I'm 1 for 2 in these farewell speeches. I do have a chance to redeem myself, since the next two speeches to the faculties at each school are already planned and the dates are saved in my calendar! I should be able to do just fine in those. Wish me luck! :)

Thanks for reading...next up is about my last class with my 1年生 at Komako!

P.S. Speaking of 1年生, I still have 2 more classes with my 1年生 at Akaho too! I suppose that I'm going to end up with some confused students at school tomorrow... Explaining that I'm not leaving quite yet to 6 different classes again is gonna be fun...

Golden Week (Part 3)

Our adventures during Golden Week continued into Aomori, where we showed Kevin and Wesley around the city and ventured into the far east-countryside of Aomori. The pictures and events below are in no particular order...

Places Highlights

1. Kabushima Seagull Shrine

I've had enough encounters with these guys from this trip alone to last an entire lifetime...

Japanese people tend to put shrines in places where naturally occurring phenomena take place. So, of course, they had to come to Kabushima Island and place a shrine in the area I like to call "Seagull Hell". I thought my middle school was infested with these guys, but I was sorely mistaken. Surprisingly, I entered and left this place unscathed, but Ryan and Kevin were blessed/targeted by the sacred seagulls: Kevin, on the back of his jacket and, poor Ryan, smack dab on his face. It was an interesting place to visit, but I'm definitely not returning any time soon.

Seagull Hell at it's finest

2. Yagen Valley/Shimokita Peninsula

Our second trip to Eastern Aomori entailed going to the Shimokita Peninsula. Our main reason for going was to see Osorezan, one of the Oshu Sanreijou, considered the three holiest places in all of Tohoku. In case you were wondering, the other two places are called Dewa Sanzan (Yamagata Prefecture) and Kinkasan (Miyagi Prefecture).

Osorezan, literally Fear/Dread Mountain, is fabled to be the Buddist 'Gateway to Hell', where departed souls pass on their way to the underworld. It's totally understandable where they get these ideas from: the nearby Lake Usoriyama is too poisonous/sulfurous to swim in or drink (even the smell is quite atrocious...it's very similar to bad eggs); a yellow river (due to sulfur) believed to be a representation of the Sanzu River in Japanese mythology (considered to be the equivalent of the River Styx); and there are piles of rocks and Jizo statues everywhere that pay homage to the souls of children who have passed on before their parents.

The black-ish colored Lake Usoriyama

The bridge over the Sanzu River

Jizo statues

The Main Temple area, which we paid 500円 to enter and explore around

A panoramic view of the lake, temple, and rocky landscape

A Sulfur Vent Bubbling Pool at Osorezan!

3. Yagensou Ryokan

After our long hiking adventure through Osorezan, we drove on over to the small ryokan (traditional Japanese-style hotel) where we stayed for the night. The super friendly owner invited us in and we had some tea and wagashi (Japanese sweets) while (mostly) Ryan chatted with her. She told us that we had about an hour before dinner was ready, so we hung out at a nearby onsen to kill some time.

Yagensou (outside)

My side of the onsen

When we got back, dinner was served~! Aaaaand it was a FEAST. Both dinner and breakfast were phenomenal. To top it off, we ate the meals in yukata, completing the Japanese dining experience :] I'd totally recommend this place to anyone who wants to visit the area!

Dinner at the Ryokan (there is mushroom soup (10 different kinds of wild mushrooms), grilled fish, cantalope [which the Japanese simply call "melon"], mountain vegetables, sashimi, clam, ginger, salad, and soup)

Breakfast at the Ryokan (a pot that has a steamed egg and ham inside, grilled fish, a tangerine, a super goopy food called nagaimo, squid sashimi, a yogurt drink, seaweed, picked cucumber, picked eggplant, and pickled plum, and miso soup)

Yagensou (inside) After the meal, a happy and full Ryan napped on my lap.

4. Wild Horses near the Shiriyazaki Lighthouse

After our trip to Ouma, we visited Cape Shiriyazaki, where wild horses (called kandachime) roam the pastures near the lighthouse, grazing for food. They are quite the gentle giants. You could even get close enough to pet them! They aren't scary at all, but I was nervous to touch them because, had they decided to attack me, it would have been GAME OVER, considering those beastly muscles of theirs...

Doesn't look that big here, but the video below will help give you a better idea of the size of these guys...

A video (courtesy of Ryan) of me petting the huge horses!

Food Highlights

1. Matabe Ramen

On our first trip west towards Hachinohe, we had lunch at Matabei Ramen. This place gets very crowded around lunch-time because of their tasty, cheap ramen. In fact, I think they only have that one ramen on their menu! However, you can decide the size of the bowl: medium, large, or extra-large.

I'm glad we got there early...it seemed like we got there just before the afternoon lunch rush! We were seated and served very quickly. The fishy shoyu soup was a bit much for Kevin, but everyone else really loved it. On the bottom of each bowl, "マタベイ！" is written, which means "See you again!" in Tsugaru dialect. How cute! :]

2. Milkshakes

After our trip to Matabe, we stopped by a small rest stop (みちのこ) that's popular for their milkshakes. Maybe it's because I haven't had a milkshake since I left the states, but these shakes tasted so good! I got a strawberry chocolate shake and Ryan ordered a coffee-flavored one. They were reminiscent of In-N-Out milkshakes: rich, thick, and delicious! At first, I thought it was a bit small for the price (~￥400), but it ended up being the perfect sized dessert after lunch.

Not my picture/shake, but this shows the shake size and has the shop in the background (the red signs)

3. Okonomiyaki

On our way back from Seagull Land, we decided to hit up Doutonbori, a chain okonomiyaki/monjayaki restaurant that greets all guests loudly with an "Irasshaimasei! Pon-poko-po~n" when you enter and a "pon-poko-po~n!" whenever you finish ordering something! Quite adorable and incredibly catchy...

Okonomiyaki is one of the famous street-food specialties of the Osaka region. In particular, there's an area in Shinsaibashi, Osaka, called Dotonbori, the eponymous street which this restaurant is named after. Okonomiyaki is often referred to as "Japanese pizza". As the name implies ("okonomi" means "what you like" and "yaki" means "grilled/baked"), there are many flavors and toppings that you can put on/in it! Monjayaki is pretty much the same thing as okonomiyaki, but with a more liquidy batter. We grilled up 4 different kinds of food...and by the end of the night, we left full and happy.

Waiting eagerly in anticipation for the okonomiyaki to finish cooking...

4. Ouma Maguro

On our Shimokita Peninsula trip, we stopped by Ouma, a town famous for its tuna-fishing. Some of the tuna caught here have been sold for 30,000,000 yen ($300,000). The most expensive tuna from this area has sold for 350,000,000 yen, which is 3.5 million dollars! That had better be some godly tuna!!! Anyways, we just had to try out some of this town's famed tuna for ourselves. Ryan and I ordered a tuna bowl featuring some cuts of medium-fat tuna and high-fat tuna. Kevin went with some tuna curry! It was expensive, but well worth it. It just melted in my mouth...~

Delicious, delicious fatty tuna~

5. Gyoza

For my last meal in Aomori before heading back to Nagano, Ryan took us to a little gyoza shop near Aomori Station. Even though it was pretty small, it had a very homey feel to it: the waitresses were really friendly, the gyoza was crispy and flavorful, and the drunk guy who sat next to us seemed super excited to have the opportunity to chat with us. He even bought a drink for Kevin~

Miso-flavored gyoza and black-colored gyoza

So concludes my long-overdue trilogy of posts about our awesome Golden Week Vacation. Hopefully I'll have a few more blog posts out before our upcoming trip to Hakone and Kansai! Thanks for reading!

Other Notable Highlights of the GW Trip Pt.3
1.  Getting nokedon at the start of the trip. Nokedon is always, always, always going to be a highlight for me. ^__^
2.  Getting 20 apples for 300 yen in Asamushi Onsen
3.  Seeing Ryan get embarrassed over his students getting excited that I was there with him at the hanami festival in Gappo Park
4.  Almost dying because an idiot driving a black car decided to make a 3 point turn on an unlit highway at night...