Day 30: Unofficial Start of Golden Week

Today is Saturday, but again we had school. (Yesterday was a holiday, however, so we had the day off.) We always have school on the Saturday before Golden Week, because it's the day when the students go home for about a week of vacation. Since the parents (or guardians) have come to get their children, the school takes advantage of the situation to have a PTA day.

As you probably guessed, I had nothing to do today, but I still went to school. I actually didn't mind going to school, however, because I had a chance, as usual, to chat with some of the kids, which I really enjoy.

I even talked to a few parents for a few minutes, but I didn't meet some of the parents I was hoping to see. Some of the teachers refer to the parents as "monsters," which is semi-understandable, since here in Japan, in general, teachers have much more responsibility toward students than they do in America or Europe (in most cases). If you're a good teacher, though, I don't really think the parents will act like monsters. Maybe that's why I have a good relationship with some of the parents. :-)

Anyway, today two of the students who just graduated in March were at school. One came to pick up his little brother, while the other came to talk to some teachers. The one who came to pick up his brother is one of the two students from the Class of 2011 who did not get accepted to a university. I talked to him about that a little bit and heard some interesting stuff.

Since he didn't get accepted to a university, about the only way for him to do so is to try again next year, by taking the National Center Test again next January. To prepare for that, he is taking classes at a high school. From Monday to Friday, he commutes to the high school by train. It takes him about 1.5 hours each way. He is the only student in the classes, he pays for the classes, and he has to wear his school uniform.

As far as I know, the guy has several options with regard to getting tutored in whatever subjects he needs to improve in, but he has decided to do what he's doing because it's the cheapest option.

I certainly applaud him for going to all the trouble to get into a university next year, but I also feel sorry for him, mostly because he has to wear his school uniform. Basically, he's a fourth-grade student at a school with three grades, and that has to be embarrassing.

I think he'd be a bit happier if he could have transferred to another high school and simply started as a senior, so that no one would necessarily know what boat he was in.

I imagine the guy must feel like a loser at times, given his situation, but he really shouldn't. He has to be at least partially responsible for not making it into a university, but I also believe he was a victim of the system. The teachers simply don't do enough teaching and place the learning burden on the shoulders of the students, which just isn't fair.

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The students went home today and don't come back to school until Thursday night. Why? Well, since we had to come to school today, we get Monday, May 2, off, and since Golden Week (not really a week!) is from May 3-5, a string of three holidays in a row, we don't have school again until Friday, May 6.

I don't understand why we can't have next Friday off and just add on an extra day of school at some other point later in the year to make up for it, but that's the way it seems to always go with school systems, especially in a workaholic-filled country like Japan.

As for me, well, I'm taking Friday off so I can have a nice little vacation. On Monday, I'm heading to Okinawa for the first time, and I don't come back until Sunday.

I'm not Japanese. I'm American. I believe in the importance of vacation!

Day 27: Teaching

Today is Wednesday, so I got to teach an Oral Communications class. (If you ask me, every English class at my school should focus on speaking rather than grammar and memorization of words and sentences, but the Japanese simply don't believe speaking a language other than their own is very important, so they limit the number of Oral Communications classes to a whopping one per week and only offer the class to the high-school sophomores.) Oral Communications is probably my favorite class, because I actually get to teach, which is a rarity. Most of the time in the other classes I attend, all I do is ask the students some questions for a few minutes, give advice to students, answer a few of the teacher's questions, or do absolutely nothing. (I often wonder why I'm getting paid.)

Anyway, when I teach Oral Communications, I'm really in charge of the class, which is great, but I make sure to get whoever I'm teaching with involved in the activities. Unfortunately, however, no matter how successful my classes are, no matter how much the students' English improves as a result of what I do, and no matter how little Japanese is spoken when I teach, my English teaching colleagues refuse to adapt any of my methods to their teaching. As you can imagine, that is not only disappointing, but also unbelievable.

The other little bit of teaching I did today was about a 5-minute warm-up lesson for the new students. Because they are learning the alphabet, I had them spell some words, but I also asked some fairly easy questions, just to mix things up a bit. The warm-up went really well, even though only a few of the 40 students actually volunteered answers.

The lame thing is, as soon as I was done, the main teacher took over and switched right back into Japanese. He also did a bunch of useless activities, so the rest of the class was actually a big waste of time. That's life here in Japan, though, and there's very little I can do about it.

I was actually quite surprised when the main teacher asked me to do a warm-up activity in the first place, because the last two times he asked me to come to his class, I did absolutely nothing. I think the vice-principal, who is going to be teaching half of the class, might have told the teacher that he has to use me in some manner or other rather than have me just stand around in the classroom. 5 minutes of teaching is still not nearly enough, however, but I am pretty sure that's all I'm going to get.

Day 22: Hungry Menu/Another Welcome Party

Today is the one day of the month when the school lunch is fairly skimpy. All we got to eat this afternoon was a bowl of rice complete with a few specks of veggies and meat, as well as two tiny dried fish (with an umeboshi, which is a reddish/pinkish dried fruit that is really sour and salty and some tsukemono, which is a kind of Japanese pickle that comes in many different varieties).

I guess you could say the meal's official name is the "Thanks for our daily rice" meal, but I call it the "Hungry Menu." The main purpose of the meal is to remind everyone that we are rather fortunate to be able to eat a lot of food and that we should not complain when we are served very little. I think it's actually a pretty cool idea. The problem is, just like most days, the students and teachers are allowed to get seconds. That makes zero sense to me, but if you stay long enough in Japan, you'll find plenty of things that don't make any sense!

The other thing that is going on today is the final welcome party of the new year. This one is for the one new teacher who moved in to the apartment complex where I (and many other teachers and their families) live. This year, three teachers and one person from the personnel department moved out, but only the one teacher moved in, meaning there are now several empty apartments.

Anyone out there care to move in?

Day 16: Practice Run/Costco

Yesterday was another Saturday here in Japan, but lo and behold, I didn't have to go to work. That doesn't mean that I wasn't busy, however. Because I have a half-marathon coming up in a week, I did a practice run this morning today along 2/3 of the course. The entire course is mostly up and down all the way, which makes it pretty challenging. I've practiced a lot on hilly roads, though, so I thought I could do well on the course. Boy was I wrong.

Luckily, however, I think the main reason I couldn't run very fast was not so much that the course was tough but rather that I lacked the energy to run it. Last night's baseball game wore me down, and I hardly ate or drank anything afterwards or this morning, which certainly didn't help. Just before I ran, I ate a bunch of junk to try to fuel up, but I don't think my strategy worked too well.

Anyway, I ran part of the course about as fast as I wanted to, which is a good sign, but after about 10K, I really burned out. I just hope that I will have the energy, determination, and will power to run a fast half-marathon come Sunday. I've only run one other half-marathon in my life, and that was about one month ago. The problem with that race is, it was unofficial. What I mean is, the actual race got canceled, but I ran on my own anyway. Since I didn't know where the exact turn-around point was, however, I think I only ran 20.5K or so (of the 21.1). My time then was 1:32:41, which is pretty darn fast, but obviously not as good over 20.5K as over a full half-marathon.

My time to beat on Sunday is 1:35:07, because that's the time a buddy of mine in the US finished in a half-marathon one week ago. I have no idea if I can beat his time. Based on my practice times, I know I can, but practice is one thing and the real deal is another. Based on my run this morning, I'd say there's no way I can beat his time, on the course I'm running, anyway. We'll see what happens.

Even though the event on Sunday is technically a race, and even though there's really nothing at stake here besides a bit (a lot?) of pride, I consider the "run" a "race" and will therefore be incredibly nervous at the starting line. Regardless of my time, if I finish in one piece, I will be very proud of myself. Of course, beating my friend's time would be nice, but heck, this is my first half-marathon, so my goal is simply to finish. No matter what, I will be setting a PR!

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The other big event of the day was shopping at Costco in Fukuoka. A buddy of mine flew back from Europe today and originally planned to take the bus back home, but since we both wanted to buy food at Costco, I decided to pick him (and his bicycle!) up, instead.

So many people I know who, it is important to note, do not(!) live in Japan often tell me they are jealous that I get to eat such great Japanese food every day. Well, folks, you're dead wrong! The food here really is not "all that," so being able to shop at Costco, where I can get a ton of delicious food from home, makes life a whole lot better. Luckily, there are also a few websites that deliver food from Costco right to your door here, which saves the hassle (but not necessarily the expense) of driving all the way to Fukuoka, which is nearly 3 hours away.

Besides the great bulk food that I buy at Costco, I also love to buy a slice or two of their pizza, since it's also much, much better than any pizza I've had in Japan. The pizza alone practically makes the drive worth it.

In case you're wondering, here's a partial list of what I purchased:

Onion and cinnamon-raisin bagels
Tortilla chips and salsa
Quaker granola
Havarti cheese
Cheddar cheese
Colby jack cheese
Frozen ravioli
Cereal bars
Mixed nuts
Indian food mixes

Some of the stuff I bought, such as dark chocolate and spaghetti sauce, I can also get in Japan (or at least something quite similar), but the prices are usually much better at Costco and having familiar brands sitting in my kitchen simply helps me get by on some of my tougher days.

Viva Costco!

Day 15: English at 7:30

A student I know pretty well has expressed an interest in one-on-one English lessons, so we agreed to meet at 7:30 at school. Meeting a student so early in the morning is a bit crazy for me, since I usually don't even leave home until about 7:45, but it's not that crazy for a student, since they sometimes have extra early morning classes. Besides, since the girl in question usually gets to school at 7:30 anyway and is busy with basketball practice after school, meeting before school seemed to be our best option.

Until this morning, I had never left home at 7:00 to go to school. Even though I didn't enjoy getting up really early, I did enjoy seeing a bunch of elementary school kids walking to school. Way back when I first got here, I occasionally walked to school with a fellow teacher, starting at about 7:35, and back then we saw quite a few kids walking to school, too, so this morning's walk reminded me a bit of those bygone days...

I met the student and chatted with her for about 30 minutes. Her English is already pretty good, so my goal is simply to try to improve it as much as possible. The kids generally learn a lot of useless English, as well as a lot of Japanese English, so when I work one-on-one with students, I try to weed out all of that garbage and teach them "real" English... (to be continued)

Day 12: First Classes

Today I went to the first English class for the first graders (the first-year junior-high students). The class will eventually be divided into two groups, A and B, and each group will have its own teacher, plus I will help out one or two times a week in each class.

The class was pretty basic. Most of the time was spent on introductions. The teachers (including me) introduced themselves to the students first, and then the students introduced themselves to the teachers. The surprising thing was that the class was conducted almost entirely in English, which is a rarity. For whatever reason, the Japanese teachers of English who I have worked with do 95% of their teaching in Japanese. That, my friends, explains why most Japanese can hardly speak English.

Anyway, the teachers used the rest of the class to go over the syllabus and explain other matters such as what to bring to class and all that usual stuff.

After class, I had a brief discussion with one of the teachers who is in charge of the first-graders. He likes to do a lot of activities which I consider unnecessary, so I tried to convince him to run class more often using the communicative method like he did today. I also tried to convince him to jump right into things, rather than spend a lot of time on basics such as the alphabet and pronunciation drills. I don't think I will get through to him, but I'm going to keep trying.

(I'm 99% sure 99% of the students already know the Roman alphabet inside and out, yet the teacher wants to spend several weeks going over it. There's just no reason for that, and I hope the teacher quickly realizes that. These kids may not be rocket scientists, but they're not babies.)

About the only other thing to report is that after school, I practiced a little basketball with the basketball team, which was pretty fun.

Oh... And today I took a bunch of pictures of the sakura that is blooming. I've included a picture so you can have a look for yourself!

Day 11: Bombers Baseball

Like yesterday, I didn't do very much today, since I had the day off. However, there was one big event on the calendar: The first baseball game of the spring season.

I'd be willing to bet that the good majority of junior-high and high schools in Japan have baseball teams. My school counts as one of those, but not in the traditional sense. See, we don't have a team for the students. Instead, we have a team for the teachers.

When I first arrived in Japan, in August 2007, the baseball team, known as the Bombers (why the uniforms say "Bombs" is beyond me), was pretty darn good. We had fairly solid players at every position and, despite all of my experience, I felt a bit of pressure to perform. I did really well, however, and quickly established myself as one of the best players on the team. I had a blast playing and we won most of the (very few) games we had.

Unfortunately, the following spring our catcher was transferred to another school, and the team was never the same. We were still pretty good and we still won some games, but the magic of the previous year was gone. It's not even like the catcher was Yogi Berra or Johnny Bench, but as soon as he left, well, the whole composition of the team changed, for the worse.

A year later, about five more players were transferred, leaving the team pretty much decimated. Sure, we got new players (the new teachers!) in their place, but their level of talent just didn't match what we lost. I don't think we even won a single game that year.

The next year, last year, we lost a few more teachers as well as almost every game. I know we won at least once, however, and yes, that was reason to celebrate. I had completely forgotten what is was like to win.

This year, well, we just lost three more players and got pretty much nothing in return, I'm afraid, so it's not looking very good.

We lost tonight, something like 6-4 (or was it 7-4?), and I really can't see us winning another game for a long, long time.

Our defense simply sucks and won't be getting better any time soon.

Even I made an error.

I made up for that, however, by pitching a pretty good game. I think we played about 5 innings (we have a 1:10 time limit) and I struck out about 7 batters, including the final three that I faced!

The game got off to a horrible start when the very first batter hit a relatively easy fly to left that got turned into a home run. The worst part of that and all the errors that followed is that I had to keep pitching through it. I have no idea how many pitches I threw, but it was surely too many for the first time out. But that's just how it goes in this league, and I knew what I was getting myself into from the beginning, so it wasn't a big deal.

We have another game on Friday and I'll be pitching that one, too, unless my arm falls off. I'm really the only pitcher we have left. (Our ace was transferred two years ago, but because he moved to a neighboring school, he could still come play with us most of the time. He was just transferred again, though, and now he's nowhere close.)

Wish us luck!