the end of '07...

Well, the beginning of the end of the year is here. Today is the first official day of winter as well as my last day of teaching for a few weeks and I am feeling good. Thankfully, I'm not just feeling good because I'm off from work for a while (of course that's PART of the reason) but it seems that I'm ending 2007 year on an upswing. Last night I went out for dinner and drinks with some of the teachers from Naruto Jr. High while Curt stayed in and relaxed in my apartment (I've been keeping him busy so he was happy to take a day off). I was excited to spend time with this group because we all feel at ease with each other and often share good conversation. As we sat down to have our first drink, I began to reflect on how I felt a few months ago when I was going out to eat with group after group of unfamiliar faces. My beginning experiences with this current job and living situation are a bit hazy in my memory (possibly due to the late summer heat) but one thing that I have been able to do is track the progression of my relationships with the people that I spend my time with here. I think that many JETs would agree that it feels a bit like you are thrown into a life here at first and since I teach at four schools and have about 1,000 students it was hard to sort out the newness of everyone and everything. My classes all seemed to run together in my head and it took me a good amount of time to realize what I can and can't do (or 'should or shouldn't do' maybe is more fitting) with each group of kids. Also, I didn't recognize at first how the dynamics of a classroom are specific to the particular set of conditions in which you are faced with the moment that you walk through the door. For example, earlier today I taught a 7th grade class that is usually a very cooperative and enthusiastic bunch. But it's the last day before winter break, their assigned seats were just changed, and there was an assembly coming up the next period so the familiar feeling of class 1-C wasn't there this morning. But, I've gotta say, since I've already seen so much in my four and a half months here, Adaptation is my middle name.

But back to personal relationships. I certainly can't speak for every foreigner who teaches here or moves to Japan from another country but trying to establish myself an positive member of my community has been the thing that makes me feel the best about living where I do. I definitely have a lot more that I can do in order to involve myself in things around town but now that I've got my footing here I feel like I can easily lend myself to my community. Living in Naruto gives me the feeling of something like what it would be to live in a small city in West Virginia (and Curt agrees) so it's been an eye-opening experience to step out of the partial anonymity of six years of city life in Pittsburgh and now take on the VERY public role that I am in right now in rural Japan. Realizing that the people that I have surrounding me include a group of progressive-minded educators makes me happy that I can be in the position that I'm in. This thought really hit me at dinner last night when I looked around and thought, "Wow, I'm really getting to know these people" when, only months ago, he or she was just another addition to a list of new faces.

So here begins the winter break. My neighbors Jill and Theo are already in Vietnam and The Philippines respectively and in less than a week I'll be meeting up with Caitlin and Jon in Thailand. And if someone would have told me a few years ago that my brother Curt would be visiting me in Japan I would have had a hard time believing it, but we've already spent about a week together. Like Julia's visit in September, it's comforting to know that that another person has seen your day-to-day life when it can sometimes feel so solitary. I lucked out last weekend when my friend Stacie unexpectedly let me use her car for the week in exchange for a parking space while she is back in Iowa for Christmas. And I think Curt was pretty happy that we could bypass the miles of brisk bike rides to school, the grocery store, and other places that aren't a stone's throw away. Even though he didn't have to bike, I feel like I've shown him what life is really like here.

The mark of a new year is a logical time for reflection of what you're doing and what you have done to get where you are. If you ask Julia, she'll tell you that I'm notorious for periodically inquiring, "OK, let's talk about what we were both doing one year ago." Well, for me that answer could not be more related to the present. A year ago I was in Japan. I had a paid month off of work and I took 17 days to visit Julia and ride the the trains with my visitor railpass. Today would have been my last day in Japan before catching the flight back to the States (that I ALMOST missed). I applied for JET only weeks before, and so began my ongoing relationship with this country...

So this will probably be the last post for a while. Curt and I leave for Kyoto early tomorrow morning and on Thursday I'm off to Bangkok, Chaing Mai, Pai, Luang Prabang (Laos), and some nameless wooded areas for a nice change of pace for this New Year. I'll be loading up on pictures as always so expect a lot of new sights on here upon my return (January 8th). And if you send me something and I don't get back to you it's only because I'm not around....I'll try to write back as soon as I'm able!

Until then, take care and happy New Year!!!

(But of course I have to put a few more pictures of Curt up to show how huge he is compared to everyone else in Japan.)


Me, Curt, and my Wednesday night adult class.


Curt and the the Tokushima Women's Basketball Club after a few hours of practicing. A night we won't soon forget.

curt's visit to japan

friday in naruto

While biking to work today, I realized that I had my camera handy as I was about to board the ferry that takes me to Naruto Jr. High. The ship runs about every 20 minutes and it's free to use. There is another way to get to this particular school but it involves crossing a long bride and a major highway, so I'm pretty thankful for my ferry ride.


It was a beautiful morning and I enjoyed the view of the harbor as I waited for the ship to take off.


Sometimes the ride is crowded with cyclists but today it was just me and an older woman who looked like she was running some errands.


Today I taught four classes and all of them were doing mid-year speaking tests. What this means is that I had one-on-one interviews with 125 middle school (chugakko) students. This can make for a long day but I really like it when I have the chance to get to know everyone a little better. After the tests, I ate lunch with 3B- one of my favorite homerooms. These are third year English students that are really enthusiastic about English as well as my existence. They are responsible for the majority of the letters that I recieve and it's always so good to come to school and chat with them, especially after a long week.


School lunches in Japan are interesting. The students are responsible for serving food to their own homerooms so every day during lunch time the desks are rearranged as some designated servers put aprons and face masks in order to give out the meal of the day. When I tell them that students in America don't do this, they are pretty much in disbelief. It's even crazier for them to hear that the students don't clean the classrooms after school. Because it's such a tradition here it really blows their minds that schools in America don't do the same.


This group mentality brings about a kind of family atmosphere within these kinds of situations. I often feel a strange sense of security that I'm welcomed into this tighly-knit community of people. Although sometimes that feeling of belonging is the same thing that makes me homesick for my previous life in America. What always prevails though is the kindness and sincerity of the Japanese people.


After lunch I headed to the gym to attend the last 10 minutes of of a self-defense seminar. I listened to ten minutes of someone speaking Japanese and then everyone bowed to each other and said 'arigatou gozaimashita' for about five minutes. And sometimes at moments like this I wonder how I got here, but really it's just another day in Japan.

how to stay warm in japan

In a country with almost no central heating or insulation, wintertime presents and interesting opportunity to huddle next to your fellow teachers and chat by the kerosene heater.


This is what warms the staff room at Naruto Technical High School. Notice the tea kettle on top that heats up the water that we all drink throughout the day. There are still some warm days here once in a while and the heaters still run full blast so these particular days can be really warm in the staff room. I haven't been using heat in my apartment for the most part but I have been taking advantage of my kotatsu, which is a a heated table with a blanket draped over the sides to keep your legs warm. Ask anyone here- once you get under a kotatsu you've pretty much set the course for your evening...unless you're getting up to take a shower, which is simply another method of keeping warm here in Japan. At my schools, the teachers are all wearing coats to their classes at this point. A few weeks ago I was teaching in a my winter coat, a sweatshirt, a scarf, and gloves. I'm sure that I'll be layering up even more as the winter months press on.

Time is really winding down for this part of the schoolyear. Today marks the four month period for living here and I've only got two and a half weeks left of teaching before I'll be heading off to to some big cities with Curt and then to Thailand and Laos for my winter vacation. Thanks to Caitlin and her tactful planning skills, the details of the trip seem to be almost all in place. December and early January will be busy but it'll be nice to have a lot of activity during this time of the year.

kyoto!

What a time to be in my favorite city in Japan. The leaves were at their peak and the weather was perfect. Julia, Caitlin, and me spent the majority of our weekend in Kyoto on foot going to temples and exploring downtown.


On Saturday, we walked from our ryokan (traditional japanese guesthouse) to a temple that was a few kilometers from where we stayed. There was a zen garden and tatami (woven straw mats) rooms where you are encouraged to sit enjoy the view of the garden.


A stone path made its way around the structures in the garden. Most of the ground was covered with deep green moss, reminding me of the rocky/mossy terrain of Iceland.


This is what you'd see when you would look up. The sun made the colors look almost electric and we were in awe of the sight of it.






Julia, taking a break in the first temple.


Caitlin, all "Zened up".


Me, exploring a path outside.


After some coffee, we headed out to the Kiyomizu-dera temple. We knew that it would probably be crowded with packs of tourists but headed up the hill to see it at night. it was an impressive sight so we snapped a few photos and made our way back downtown.


The night ended at an amazing restaurant downtown where we ate dinner with some of Julia's Yamagata-ken friends. Afterwards we all went to bed, having been needing some rest because of walking all day and also due to staying up until 8:00 am the night before. In most Japanese cities, subways stop running before midnight so you either have to go home early or stay out until the trains start running again the next morning, which is usually around 5:00 am. Taking a taxi is always an option but in this case we went to Osaka on Friday night to go to club that Julia and me visited a few months ago so we were nowhere close to our ryokan.

Well, weather it was the lack of sleep or something I ate over the weekend, I ended up getting really sick once I got back to Naruto. Around 8:00 pm on Sunday I crawled into my bed and wrapped myself in blankets but could not stop shivering. I drifted off to sleep shortly after that and awoke at 7:00 am the next morning. I knew that I couldn't teach like this so I called my supervisor and told her that I was staying home. I fell back asleep and woke up at 3:00 pm only because my body needed some kind of liquid put in it. Somehow, I managed to get up and make my way to the Sunkus (a convenience store) down the road to buy something to drink. It was HOT this day as well, which made my condition a lot worse. I was running a high fever and feeling delusional as a result...my back was sore, I had a massive headache, non-stop stomach pains, etc. So what did I do? I drank a ton of Pocari Sweat.


Japan's ubiquitous "ion supply drink" actually did make me feel a lot better but I still needed to rest off my headache and I could tell that my stomach problems weren't going away anytime soon. I went to bed early again and in the morning I decided to stay home and rest so that I could shake this as soon as possible. I called my supervisor once again and she said that she'd call my school to tell them that I'd be home sick that day. Well, at 9:00 am I got a frantic text message from one of my co-teachers saying that I "have a class to teach at 9:30!! We are waiting for you!" I don't have the phone number to any of my teachers at this school or the school itself so I didn't know what to do. It turned out that my supervisor had forgot to call the school to tell them that I was at home with a fever. Knowing that it would be impossible to explain the situation though a cell phone text, there was nothing left to do but...yep...hop on my bike and go teach some classes. High fever, no sleep, no lesson plans and all- somehow I survived the day. The teachers were all very understanding at the circumstances and, actually, my supervisor forgot to call my school because she was out buying me sushi and okonomiyaki (she knows how much I like both), so there were good intentions on all ends.

This weekend I was going to run a 10k in the mountains a bit south of Naruto but I decided to skip out on it because of the whole sickness ordeal. Instead I'm spending this Saturday night catching up on some letters, doing some reading, and watching the movie The Holy Mountain. Next weekend I'll be visiting an orphanage near Tokushima City with some other JETs and we'll be spending a few hours with the kids there. I'm excited for it because I'll be buying a gift for a 13 year old girl and I'll be able to give her some company on a Saturday afternoon. In the evening I'll be having dinner with one of my favorite teachers at her house so it'll be a good day.

At the JET mid-year conference this week I was inspired to refine some of my lessons for the Naruto Tech kids. I met another technical high school teacher who was introducing a curriculum for her very low level classes that I'm excited to try. Now that I'm a hit with the students there I think I can now really get down to some meaningful lessons that may have some good effects on them over time...even if they don't realize it.

So that's about it here. Things are busy as always but being busy and sick in a foreign country is NO FUN. I'm happy to be recovered now, though. Oh, I've also been doing a bit more exploring on my bike throughout Naruto. Last night I went to a really fun yoga class and a few days a go I found an awesome retro/thrift warehouse that's right near my house. It's funny how places around here can look uninteresting or even closed down from the outside and then on the inside you'll find something really worth checking out. On the agenda for tomorrow is spending some time a coffee shop that's a stone's throw away from my apartment. Ahh, it's nice to take a weekend to relax once in a while, isn't it?

quote of the day

"I want to be a fireman so that I can delete fires."

-7th grade student, Diini-chu middle school.

naruto technical high school culture day

What a good day. Culture festivals are a great chance to get to know the students and faculty at your schools and I was hoping to be able to converse a good deal because I was taking part in the events of the day. Wow, I shouldn't have worried because I feel like I talked to almost everyone there.


These guys insisted that I take their picture and of course I was happy to do so. The student on the right did karaoke for what seemed like an hour on the main stage...his wig blew off about two songs into the routine.


Every homeroom either sold food or had games that you'd pay money to play. I was given multiple cups of french fries and small pancakes (they have a name but I forget what it is) and felt obligated to eat all of it in front of the students who were watching to see if I'd like it.


One of the first performances of the day was a group of teachers and students who did a dance to some really crazy, loud, fast techno music. As with many things in Japan I didn't understand it but enjoyed it anyway.


A big crowd started to gather once my band was up. I soon realized that we were the main attraction of the day.


We played and sounded great. I didn't mess up at all which was good.



Well, I can truly say that after I played with the band that there were students fighting for my attention. It was great because I got to learn some more names and become more of a familiar face to my students.





After the festival I took off on my new bike and headed out to pick up some things for dinner. Having a nice bike has made me so happy...my travel time has been greatly reduced and I can sleep in more on weekdays without worrying about giving myself an hour to get to my schools that are far away.



New bike.


Old bike.


On my way home I stopped at the sports park and happened upon some archery.


And I finally stopped at one of the temples that's only minutes from my apartment.

Yeah, it was a good Sunday for sure.

things that happened yesterday

Well, I am really happy because yesterday I discovered that there is a kaiten (conveyor belt) sushi restaurant in Naruto. Theo, Jill, myself, and our supervisor Sato had lunch there and I spent about $12 but I felt like I could eat twice as much as I actualy did. It's funny because around dinnertime I was considering more sushi but decided against it because bento (packaged lunch) sushi doesn't stand up to the taste of kaiten, mostly because the latter is generally made minutes before you eat it.


Later on in the day I biked over to Naruto Tech for band practice. Our three songs are solid and we're pumped for the show on Sunday. Practicing in this space is cool because it reminds me so much of the places back home where I spent years writing and playing music. These guys are so funny to hang out with. The guitar player is always straight up with me if I mess up or my tempo is off...and if we play a song well he'll look at me and say, "OOOKKKK!!"