waking up sore

So I found this picture on my camera this morning and was reminded of a great dinner that I had a few weeks ago. My neighbor Hiroki (holding the baby) invited me over and I spent the evening talking about psychedelic music with her husband Taka (in the back). A good night for sure.

These past few weeks have been busy. I've been buying a lot of things for my apartment and I finally found a new bike that I'll be picking up tomorrow. Having a a reliable bike is putting my mind at ease because I cycle for miles each day and I don't know anything about the one that I am currently riding now. Last night Theo and me practiced with the Tokushima women's basketball team. My legs are in shape from bike riding so I could handle the running (there was a LOT of it) but I still need to work on my shooting. Looking forward to doing it again next week.

naruto monthly dinners

Last night the Naruto teachers got together for our once-a-month dinner event. This time it was my turn to host the meal and I was happy to have the chance to cook for five people (Caitlin was there as well) instead of just myself. Here is what I made:

Mixed fruit/veggie salad
two bundles of spinach
one head of red leaf lettuce
1/2 of a sliced pineapple
4 sliced kiwis
3 sliced carrots
2 sliced onions
one container of cherry tomatoes
basil leaves
broccoli
one handful of sliced scallions
one package of clover sprouts
cashews
sesame seeds

Homemade sweet and spicy citrus honey mustard dressing
juice from one squeezed orange and 3 squeezed mikans (Japanese citrus fruit)
apple cider vinegar
pure honey
black sesame paste
sesame and olive oil
spicy dijon mustard
two large scoops of nutritional yeast
crushed black pepper

Sauteed sesame-style veggies
3 sliced red peppers
one large bag of mushrooms (sliced)
2 sliced onions
sesame seeds
sesame oil
salt/pepper as seasoning
(sauteed for 45 minutes on low heat and served over brown rice)

Pineapple yogurt granola
Three cups of yogurt
1/2 of a sliced pineapple (put in a food processor in with the yogurt)
2 sliced bananas
one bag of prunes (pitted and diced)
2 cups of granola
pure maple syrup for added sweetness


And the best thing about hosting is my fridge full of leftovers. Nothing like coming home to prepared food to make my Monday a little easier.

the highs and lows of motivation

If someone would have told me at 10:00am this morning that I would end this day in a positive mood I would have never believed it. The kind of experiences that I am having today while teaching are analogous to many of my thoughts about living here: many highs and a good number of lows. But the one thing that will keep me interested in this job is that you honestly will never know what will happen next.


I woke up this morning feeling pretty high spirited (or 'genki' for those that know the term). My usual routine of finding something to wear while prepping a nice bowl of miso soup went by quickly because of my excitement for the weekend. I got to school just before the morning meeting and looked over my lesson plans for my classes. Three classes to teach and then band practice after school. Should be a good day. Well, my good mood soon crashed after attempting to teach my first lesson. I walked into a room of about 15 high school students who were all busy doing their own things before class. The top three things that fall into this category are: 1) reading manga (comic books) or drawing; 2) listening to music via headphones; and 3) messing around with his/her keitai (cell phone). All of this is fine. All of this is usual at this school (it is technical high school, mind you) but today the lack of motivation in these kids hit me harder than it has since I've been here. I began my lesson (the 'lesson' was a simple game where groups wrote down words that fall under a category...i.e. RED- tomato, strawberry, etc.) and explained the rules in simple English as always. My co-teacher translated and we split the class into groups and I began our simple activity after passing out papers to the groups. Now, I knew that a lot of these guys (the school is 95% male) were just going to put their heads down, listen to music, eat convenience store food, or do whatever else that would keep them from participating. That is par for the course here and I have learned already to not let it bother me when I try to teach the really unmotivated classes. But in this case EVERY single student ignored the activity kept up the laziness/rudeness that was there even before I walked in. In most classes like this here I just take it as a challenge and handle it from there but every bit of my energy and encouragement hit a brick wall with this class. There are lots of 'bad' kids here at this school but I usually get along with them and feed off their energy in really positive ways, but the thing that puts me in a corner with unmotivated students is the COMPLETE lack of discipline at the majority of my schools. Since there is absolutely no punishment system at all for these kids then they have no reason to listen to authority at any time. I have never seen a teacher take any action against a student and I have already had kids jump out of a classroom window as I was teaching and I witnessed one student punch another in the face just to show off in front of his friends (this happened in front of me and another teacher...she looked at me and just shrugged her shoulders). At one school I brought up the discipline issue to a teacher by mentioning possible consequences for bad behavior and she shot me a nasty look as if to say "how dare you question our education system...."

I could go on and on with arguments and examples but the fact is that it's my opinions versus an entire society's beliefs and that's a fight not worth taking on. I really never thought that any school would discard many (if not all) ideas on discipline. The fact remains at some of my schools is that I am the 'token Westerner' and I'm not there to teach but to 'promote internationalization' simply by showing up. This may sound like I'm getting really down on my job but I knew about this stuff before coming here. As my predecessor Jane once put it, "80% of my job is my existence." Right on, Jane.

But here is the other side of the coin.

After finishing up some sushi and tea for lunch I headed down the hall to attend my last class of the day. My co-teacher, Ogawa sensei, and I were talking about lesson plans as we walked to the room and I was feeling relieved that my last class of the week was finally here. As I entered the room I still felt a bit numb from that terrible first class of the day and thoughts like "What I am doing here?", "How am I a teacher?", and "Again, what made me decide to move to rural Japan?" were floating all around my head. So, I walk in to class. I see the eyes of the students all at once light up and am absolutely showered with positive energy and affection. "Ahh, Brad sensei! Good morning! How are you?". It was exactly what I needed to validate my existence here and to kick start my ambitions for doing what I am doing. This was homeroom 35- possibly my favorite class in the school. I see many of them around town and they are all such nice kids. One of them came up to me before the lesson and said (in Japanese) that he saw me at the local Kyoei (a grocery store) last evening. I remembered that I stopped there for a bottle of water and some lettuce after my Japanese lesson. You would have thought that this kid saw his favorite celebrity on the streets by the look in his eyes.

So, I do the lesson (Around the World Jeopardy) and it goes soooo well. At times where my teaching is right on like this I wish that there could be a audience witnessing it. The students are literally jumping out of their seats to answer questions and they're doing very well with some pretty difficult questions for high school kids. I know that they think I have some kind of prize at the for the winner...and that's fine because their motivation is very real.

At the end of the class, the student from before approached me again about my grocery store visit.

"What did you buy there??"
"Lettuce."
"Lettuce??"
"Yep."
"That's very cheap."
"Haha, yep...I'm cheap."

So that's how it is here sometimes. I think of my time in Asia as a long-term adventure because there will be a point when I say goodbye to all of things that I deal with in here, both good and bad. Every day has its challenges...but that's life, you know?

practice with the blue hearts

I'm glad to say that my drumming 'ability' will be put to use again on November 18th at Naruto Technical High School's culture festival. Me and three of my students will be performing three songs by the Japanese rock band The Blue Hearts- a group that I have not heard of until I was handed some sheet music and a CD by one of my band members. Our first practice was last week and I admittedly showed up without listening to the songs beforehand. This did not go over too well with the other guys and I realized that they wanted me to play the drum parts note-per-note with the original version instead of playing by ear (which is what I usually do). So I spent my free time on Monday afternoon listening to the songs on my ipod and mapping out the song structures for my own visual reference. Needless to say, practice went a lot smoother after I put some effort into my end of the deal. We all had a lot of fun and I'm looking forward to pounding the drums again tomorrow after school.


In other relevant news...I finally squared away my plans for the winter vacation. I was debating on where to go for a little while but a week ago I decided to buy a ticket to Bangkok, Thailand. From there, I will be catching a flight to Chiang Mai (Thailand) to meet up with Caitlin and her sister who is currently living there to work with Burmese refugees. As of now the plans are open ended for once we all meet but Cambodia and Laos are on the radar of places to visit. I'll be arriving in Bangkok on December 26th and I'll make my way out of southeast Asia on January 7th. It feels good to finally have my plans set. The other travel option that I was considering was a solo bike trip through New Zealand but think I'd like to give myself at least a month for that one. Maybe next winter, we'll see.

camping in the iya valley

This weekend I ventured out west to sneak in some camping before the winter weather settles in Tokushima. Caitlin was also up for an outside activity so after meeting her in Ikeda we drove even further west to the Iya Valley, also know as the 'Tibet of Japan'. Many guidebooks claim that the Iya vine bridges are the biggest attractions of the area but I think that just spending time camping in the valley was worth it alone.


We lucked out and there was a fall festival going on this weekend. On Sunday afternoon a traditional march took place on the one street that parallels the river in the valley. Although it blocked our exit from the campsite, we weren't upset that we had to stay and take part in the the event.






We did see a vine bridge and even attempted to cross it (although from the wrong direction) until someone yelled at us because we didn't pay. Thankfully, we were on it long enough before being scolded to get whole bridge experience under our belts and we walked away without giving up our 1,000 yen.

たんじょおび！

Today is my 25th birthday. It's Friday and my plans for the evening are still open but I think I'll be happy no matter what I do tonight. The three English teachers that I work with at Naruto Tech are having a small get together for me during 6th period and I'm interested to see what all will be involved with a Japanese teacher-style birthday celebration. I'm thinking about spending this birthday (たんじょおび or 'tanjobi' [long "o" sound] in Nihongo) just taking it easy because I'll be attending a Halloween party tomorrow night and on Sunday I'm having dinner with a new Japanese friend who I randomly met because she was wearing a Pittsburgh Steelers shirt. Two years ago I was in Berlin when I turned 23. Looking back at pictures from that day it seems as if it were so long ago but I think I've just fit in a lot of activity in those two years...I guess that's a good thing.

10/24/07

Today is a Wednesday and I'm feeling a bit tired here at school but it's nice that I've already taught the majority of my classes and it's only 11:20 AM. My last class today will be at 2:00 PM so I've got some time to catch up on some emails, drink tea (the stuff that they've got in the faculty room is excellent!), and study Japanese. On Thursday nights I've got my Japanese lesson with Miori sensei, a retired teacher whose husband is a principal at an Elementary school in Naruto. Private lessons are good because if you aren't studying beforehand it's painfully obvious. Depending on the situation, this can be a good or a bad thing.

Jumping to an unrelated topic, I found a wonderful little macrobiotic health food store here in the city called 'Anew'. I've only visited here twice so far but I've been stocking up on things that I'll use in my day-to-day food preparation such as all-natural honey (in bulk), BROWN RICE! (I was very happy to find this in Naruto!), sesame butter, nori (seaweed), matcha (green tea powder used in tea ceremonies), apple cider vinegar, good quality olive oil, unsweetened organic cereal, and a few other things. When putting ones self in an entirely new situation you really discover the things that hold importance to you. My interest in foods and cooking remains as one of these things. I'm happy that I can still eat mainly raw foods throughout my day but at the same time not get bent out of shape if I break from my usual eating habits (which I often do).


Here's a bit on the philospohy of marcrobiotics (from www.wikipedia.com):


"Followers of the macrobiotic approach believe that food and food quality powerfully affects health, well being, and happiness. The macrobiotic approach suggests choosing food that is less processed and more natural, and employing more traditional methods of cooking for family, friends, and oneself.

One goal of the macrobiotic philosophy and practice is to become sensitive to the true effects of foods on health and well being. In this way, one goes beyond rules and regulations concerning diet to choosing foods that sustains one's health. Also, dietary guidelines help one to develop sensitivity and an intuitive sense for what sustains one's health and well-being in diet as well as relationships and activities.

Macrobiotics emphasizes locally grown whole grain cereals, pulses (legumes), vegetables, seaweed, fermented soy products and fruit, combined into meals according to the principle of balance (known as yin and yang). Dietary recommendations include whole grains, such as brown rice, and other whole grain products, such as buckwheat pasta (soba); a variety of cooked and raw vegetables; beans and bean products, such as tofu, tempeh and miso; sea vegetables; mild natural seasonings; fish; nuts and seeds; mild (non-stimulating) beverages, such as bancha twig tea; and fruit."

(Below- my new friends Mika [foreground] and Michiko at Anew.)