But the system is us.
Okay. So. In my prefecture at least (prefectures to Japan are *kinda* like states are to America), the teachers move around kinda like the military. Every few years they might get a new ‘assignment” at a new school. This happens especially because of the islands. Most teachers don’t want to work in schools on the islands, even teachers *from* the islands. So every teacher has to do a stint away on a island for a few years then they get to go back to the mainland, and so on. This though is complicated by the fact that each teacher has a speciality, (Japanese, English, Math, Science, etc), so if say, a science teacher leaves a school, another science teacher has to be available to replace him/her. So this means that some teachers get left out on the silands for a while, and other teachers are switched around like ping pong balls to replace other teachers leaving.
In my school, 8, count’m *8* of the staff in my middle school are leaving. The principle is leaving. The vice principle is leaving. A social studies teacher, English teacher, music teacher, art teacher, Japanese teacher, and science teacher are all leaving. Unforutnately these are also most of my allies, so I am quite sad to see them go. And as both the principle and vice principle are leving, it means the rest of my time here could be radically different from these past 8 months, because the principle and vice principle really set the tone for how teachers act and such.
But more on that on a differnet blog. This is about the moving system.
So in Japan, spring is the start of the new school year. The kids graduate at the end of march, and then have about 2 weeks of spring break, before school starts again in April. This is try for all schools, even for college. How kids get enough time to go from one school to the other is beyond me, but there it is.
And then there’s the teachers. The teachers don’t find out if they are leaving or not until the *very* end of the school year. AS in they just found out about 3 days ago if they were leacing or not, and they need to be at their new school by April 1-2. So they really only have about a week ad a couple of days to get everything together. And because you don’t know if you will be leaving you can’t start prepacking, because you might not go. Or you might be leaving one school but going to a differnet school in the same area. One of my English teachers is leaving my school, but going to another school on the island (Dad, the area with the hardwarestore), so while she’s “moving” she not *moving*.
Anyway so I figured that, due to these extraordinary circumstances, that the prefecture probably made arrangements for the teachers to be moved from one area to another, kinda like with the military. I figured there was a system.
And there is. Only the system is us. While the prefecture pays for the travel expenses, packing and shit? That’s us.
And by us I mean us the teachers, and us the kids. Yesterday all the teachers got schedules of when teachers would be packing up and when they would be leaving. I (naively) though this was just so that we would know when we’d be able to sya our last goodbyes, or whatever.
Ha ha and also….ha.
So today I came in with all these grand plans. Even though its spring break, the kids still all come to school for their club atctivities for at least half a day. And today was the first day in a long line of days that dawned sunny, if a bit windy and spring-time-cold, rather than rainy and really cold. So today I had this great plan to go outside and watch and or participate in some of the club activities. Fate seemed to be with me with that plan, because when I woke up today I felt good. I’ve had a cold for the past week and a half, runny nose and a bad cough and being tired, but today I was finally feeling good. I had a lingering cough, but it was *dry*, not the muscusy shit I’ve been hacking up, and my nose was clear for the first time in days.
Today, I thought, would be a good day.
I biked to school, feeling invigorated, even more so when I looked aordn and saw there werne’t all that many teachers here today. But considering most take vacatin days during this time I wasn’t surpriosed. The less teachers meant the less I had to feel awkward cuase I had nothing to do. I could play with the kids for half a day, then just relax and surf the net after lunch until it was time to clock out.
And then my English teacher comes up to me, and points to the packing/leaving schedule.
“Today is the H-sensei and I-senseis packing day.” She tells me, “We are all going to help them pack, as well as the boys baseball club and the girls basketball club. You’ll help, yes?”
Well of course I’d help. You can’t really say *no* to that can you? Especially not when its apaprnelty a group thing. Oh Japan and their crazy groups. All for one and one for all to the *extreme*. But as she continued talking to me and a gew other teachers, it didn’t seem like things would take too long. After all this was Japan, and Japanese people are extraordinarly cclean and tidy. And this was teacher housing, which was extraordinarly small. How much could their be to pack?
So a group of teachers went to I-sensei, the music teacher’s, apartment, and the last three of us, my other englihs teacher, me, and the other Japanese teacher, went to H-sensei’s apartment. He is the social studies teacher who is leave.
Hol.
Ly.
Shit.
You people think *I’m* messy? You people think *I’m* bad? ??
I have never seen the like in all my 23 years of living. And from the wide eyes, and gaping mouths of the other two teachers, neither had they. It was as if the apartment hadn’t been cleaned since it was first built. There were layers upon layers of dust and cobwebs hanging fromteh celing. THere was dirt and grass littering the floor. The kitchen was almost black with grime, and the dishes, dear god, they weren’t fit for a wild boar to eat off of them, let alone a persn.
It was the single most disgusting thing I’ve ever seen in my life. Not only that, but he had a *lot* of shit, a lot of *useless* shit, most of which we thought was trash but he insist was not and that he wanted to take it with him. The baseball club and a couple of male teachers were already there, working on the upstairs, bringing down furniture and such, so it was up to us three to try and start the downstairs.
Never was there a more hopeless task. We just stood there for a while, trying to figure out where to even *begin*.
And it didn’t help that he had all the doors and windows open, probably to try and help with the smell, but it alsmot meant that a very cold wind was blwoing right through the living room right next to the kitchen, and thus right through me, where I was working.
My cold suddenly came roaring back to life.
But you can’t just leave. You can’t be like “Fuck man, you made this mess you clean it up!” to the sensei. This was a group thing. His mess is *our* mess, and it was our job to do our part.
Especialyu because the moving truck was coming *today* to get his stuff, and he had to be out of the apartment by *today*.
And by the looks of things, he had done _nothing_ before hand to prepare. Which was bullshit, because he was the only teacher who knew a *year* before hand that he would be leaving come March. Even I would have cleaned up before now!!!
As it was, it was such a day of mixed emotions. On the one hand, I was happy that I was invited to go along on this all together packing excursion. Foten all the teachers will go somewhere at school or have some sort of meeting, or something, and not invite me at all. And even if its something I wouldn’t understand or whatevr, it makes one feel the outsider, driving home that while you’re a teacher you really aren’t a *teacher*. And then not to mention the fact that in Japan your expected to not only hold up your own weight but take on everyone elses as well if need be, to kept he group afloat. I often feel like I’m not doing my part, just because I never have anything to do when everyone else looks so busy all the time. Part of it is that they’re not giving me work to do, but in Japan the thought is that youshould know what you need to do and volunteer to take on extra responsibility without anyone needing you to ask. The problem is that I don’t *know* what extra stuff I could do, so its just a downward spiral.
So at least here and now we were all doing this group teacher thing together.
But on the other hand.
Dear _god_. I just wanted to go home. It was so disgusting, and I felt so sick lol.
In the end, we got reinforcements. The people who went to the music teacher’s house finished in like 30 minutes, because her palcve was clean and organized, so they all came here. That’s the rest of the teahers and the girls basketball team. While it was a bit awkward cause these aprarmtnets aren’t meant to have that many people trooping thorugh them, at least ther was enough hands to get things done quickly, and Japanese teachers are *nothing* if not efficient.
Though both my English teacher and I almost fell over in disbelief when we opend up the bathing room to find *dishes* sitting on the floor there. Wet dishes. In the tub.
As it was, I was really wishing for mom and dad during that first hour when it was just me and the other two female teachers working downstairs. There was a lot of times where I had no idea where to even start or what to do with this mess, but I know Dad would have taken one look at the situation and known exactly how to best get all the furniture and such packed away, and Mom would have been able to know how to get some of the stuff cleaned and wrapped up in paper to be packed in a box with the least chance of beign broken. It got to the point there where we all just started stuffing paper into things and tossing it into boxes lol.
But now we’re back, at the school and all is well. We spent the next hour telling stories about the amazingly horrid state of the apartment, telling the other teachers who hadn’t gone (someone had to stay cause kids were having clubs), all about it. Both the two female teachers said again and again they were so glad I went, because just the two of them would have been way impossible, and *everyone* assured me over and over again that most Japanese did _not_ keep their apartments in such a state and to please don’ judge them, just judge H-sensei haha. I got to share in the tale-telling and the joking and teasing which was quite nice since that deons’t happen as often as I’d wish. And I even still got to hang out with the kids, even if it was while cleaning.
And H-sensei spent the rest of the day apologizing and bringing everyone coffee haha.
A random day this, but not a bad one.
Thursday, March 25, 2010
Friday, March 5, 2010
God this island is small.
I’ll give you an example of what I mean. I’ve recently joined in practicing volleyball with a group of mothers and grandmothers, (and one other jet), who can kick my butt five ways to Sunday (the mothers/grandmothers, not the other jet).
Seriously.
Most of them played in highschool or college, and continue to play to stay in shape. They are hard, lean, fast, and very competitive. They’re just as liking to spike a ball (hard) on one’s head as they are to pull out pictures of their children and grandchildren, to either agree at how cute they are, or tsk over the fact they aren’t married yet. (27 and still not married?? The horror. THE HORROR!) But anyway this last Tuesday there as a game (one that me and the other jet were invited to *watch* not to play haha). Usually practice starts at 745-8, and one of the women picks me up at 720. But I wasn’t sure if this would hold true or not considering it was a game. Luckily the woman called me on my cell, unluckily I was shopping and couldn’t hear her very well. I picked up “20 minutes”, so I thought she meant “20 minutes from now), and it was currently 6 oclock. I confirmed by asking “in 20 minutes?” and she said yes. (all of this is in Japanese by the by), so I rushed back home, ate a quick dinner and was out there by 620.
….20 minutes later I was still out there, and figuring I had gotton the time wrong, when the woman showed up, just as I was about to go back to my apartment and wait until 620. I was surprised to see her, especially when, getting out of the car, she asked why it was I was out there when she said she’d come at 720. I explained I misheard, and then asked her why she was out *here* if she hadn’t been expecting me until 720.
She stated simply that a woman who worked at the hospital had saw me standing outside. Somehow she not only knew who I was (not surprising) but she also knew I was waiting for volleyball (surprising) and that this other woman was supposed to pick me up (very surprising) had *called* the other woman, and informed her I was waiting too early, and that she needed to come and get me.
Why I wasn’t just called again on my cell phone I’ll never know, but there that’s not the point of the story.
The point is that everyone knows my business, and presumably the business of the other jets, an dnot just my business, my business that *I* don’t even really know haha. And these are people whom I obviously don’t know, or at least don’t know very well, because I don’t remember seeing someone familier walking by.
This island is *small*.
And I was surprised, not to mention a little taken a back, at how small it really is, and how much everyone, and I mean *everyone* knows you, from this instance, but in general it doesn’t really bother me. And I think its because I’m kinda used to living in “small” places.
And now comes my comparison between living on a military base, and living on this island. Of course there are a lot of major differences, but there are some general simularities too. For example, on a military base, a lot of places are accessible by walking or biking, rather than a car. It might be a 20 minute or so walk from the home, but that’s really not bad. It’s the same with here. I can get to basically every store I need to by walking, or, in a couple extreme cases, by biking. I can’t explore the whole island by bike, but I can get to everyplace I *need* to.
But also, there’s a sense of…sorta security about both places. With a military base that’s obvious, because its, well, the military. What could be safer? And its this sense of security which has many a parent letting their children loose to wonder about the base unsupervised when they are way to young for that.
Tis the same thing with the children here, as I’ve mentioned before. Because parents think the *people* are safe, they seem to fail tot hitnk about such other dangers as traffic, or falling off of something high, wild life, etc. And they don’t think about how just becase you might know someone, or know someone who knows someone, or whatever, that doesn’t necessarily mean that someone out there isn’t still a bad person who could hurt a kid.
But be that as it may, that’s the general feeling of the area, that its safe, for children to wander around unsupervised (even those so young as 1st graders in elementary school), and for women to wander around alone at night (thought I still don’t do that, just in case. It only takes once).
Another simulartiy comes a little less from living on a military base in general, an dmore from being the daughter of an officer. On bases overseas especially, many military members and their familys will know who the officers are, and from that extent who the officers children are. Rather than racisim on bases, there’s a lot of…”Rankcism?” well that’s not really the right word, but people are very rank conscious, and this spills over to the children as well as the adults. The higher one’s parent’s rank is, the more likely people will know who their children are. Even if they don’t know *you* they’ll know *of* you, and quite possibily what you look like. And from there on bases, officer family or not, you are _always_ running into someone you know, or kind know, from that one thing or another.
It’s the same here, though its because 1. I’m foregn and 2. I’m a teacher of 7 differen schools. There are a total of 5 foreigners on this isaldn, all of us jets, all of us teachers, and most of us live in the area we teach. Thus its not hard for the people on the island to see a foreigner, (Especially now a foreign woman, since we’re all female too), and make a guess that we’re one of the English teachers. From there I teach *every* kid who lives in my district. *Every* kid. Which from there means I’m connected to each of those kids’ parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, neighbors, etc. Even if they’ve never seen me before, they can probably reconigize me from the children’s descriptions (darker skin, tall, huge fluffy curly hair. BAM that’s all that’s needed. Really the hair is all that’s needed lol), which means people I’ve nevr seen before will revvongize me when I’m at the grocery store, walking down the street, etc. It also means that people I’ve met maybe once or twice randomly will always know who I am, cause I might well be the only person like me they’ve ever met, looking _radically_ different from everyone else. Whereas for me, everyone here is obviously Japanese, and I have a much harder time distinguishing faces that I’ve only met once or twice from the random other faces I see pasing me by on the way to wrok, to the store, etc.
And despite the fact that I’ve been ehre for 6 months now, it means that, whenever I’m out, there is alsmot _always_ *someone* staring at me. Normally it’s the “holy shit a foreigner!” stare which is a mixture of interest, curiotsty, puzzlement, and maybe some fascinated horror (haha). Very few times is it the cold stare of disgust or hatred, and that’s only been a couple of times, and always by old men, and whom its easier to understand that, given the culture they grew up in. I don’t get it hardly at all from older women, tho. Sometimes I’ve thought maybe I was, but when I say goodmorning ot them n Japanese they almost always smile and their faces soften considerably. I don’t think they know (or realize) that it looks like their glaring sometimes haha, nor do I think they’re specifically glaring at me, I think they might just always look that way >.>;
Anyway, the last major similarity is how it feels to get *off* the island or off the base. Especially when over seas, getting off the base can be a mixture of kinda scaryness, and relief. On the one hadn when you leave the base you leave the familier, the comfort an dsecurity that comes with that “small town” esq feel, and familier more American surroundings. On the other hand getting off base can be an excivting adventure, not to mention a relief being somewhere where everyone doesn’t kinda know you/you seeing and doing the same thing every day. Basically, here or on a base, if you do something as small as trip and fall falt on your face, or as large as commiting a cultural blunder, if your on base or on the island, *someone* who at least *kinda* knows you will see, and it’ll be all over the area by lunch time. Like my volleyball incident lol. But at least if your off the island or off base, you don’t have to worry about it. Yes you still have to be careful cause you’re in another culture and you wanna be respectiful and mindful of that, but if you do blunder up, at least the whole world (as it seems) won’t know about it.
And those are my thoughts on the subject. Of course there are a lot of differences too. One major one is that on a base I was never asked for my autograph lol. Whereas here with my elementary students, its like I’m Angelina Jolie or something. I wouldn’t be surprised if my signature was going for millions of yen off of Japanese ebay or something!
They are absolutely fascinated by my signature, and its because in Japan tehre’s nothing like it. You know the cursive scrawl of a signature Americans have? There’s none of that here in japan. First of all, names are written in kanji, the Chinese characters, and there’s no like “cursive” equivalent. Secondly, they don’t use signitures for like signing papers or whatever, they have a stamp with their name written in kanji on it, that they stamp on documents or whatever. So signitures or “signs” are unheard of. I began to sign bingo cards whenever we play bingo in class and a kid wins, and suddenly EVERYONE wants a signature. It gets to the point where at the end of the day as I start to walk home, I’m swarmed by elementary students, pressing pens and paper into my hands, begging for me to sign it.
Dude, here, I bet I’m *bigger* than Angelina Jolie. What now!
Seriously.
Most of them played in highschool or college, and continue to play to stay in shape. They are hard, lean, fast, and very competitive. They’re just as liking to spike a ball (hard) on one’s head as they are to pull out pictures of their children and grandchildren, to either agree at how cute they are, or tsk over the fact they aren’t married yet. (27 and still not married?? The horror. THE HORROR!) But anyway this last Tuesday there as a game (one that me and the other jet were invited to *watch* not to play haha). Usually practice starts at 745-8, and one of the women picks me up at 720. But I wasn’t sure if this would hold true or not considering it was a game. Luckily the woman called me on my cell, unluckily I was shopping and couldn’t hear her very well. I picked up “20 minutes”, so I thought she meant “20 minutes from now), and it was currently 6 oclock. I confirmed by asking “in 20 minutes?” and she said yes. (all of this is in Japanese by the by), so I rushed back home, ate a quick dinner and was out there by 620.
….20 minutes later I was still out there, and figuring I had gotton the time wrong, when the woman showed up, just as I was about to go back to my apartment and wait until 620. I was surprised to see her, especially when, getting out of the car, she asked why it was I was out there when she said she’d come at 720. I explained I misheard, and then asked her why she was out *here* if she hadn’t been expecting me until 720.
She stated simply that a woman who worked at the hospital had saw me standing outside. Somehow she not only knew who I was (not surprising) but she also knew I was waiting for volleyball (surprising) and that this other woman was supposed to pick me up (very surprising) had *called* the other woman, and informed her I was waiting too early, and that she needed to come and get me.
Why I wasn’t just called again on my cell phone I’ll never know, but there that’s not the point of the story.
The point is that everyone knows my business, and presumably the business of the other jets, an dnot just my business, my business that *I* don’t even really know haha. And these are people whom I obviously don’t know, or at least don’t know very well, because I don’t remember seeing someone familier walking by.
This island is *small*.
And I was surprised, not to mention a little taken a back, at how small it really is, and how much everyone, and I mean *everyone* knows you, from this instance, but in general it doesn’t really bother me. And I think its because I’m kinda used to living in “small” places.
And now comes my comparison between living on a military base, and living on this island. Of course there are a lot of major differences, but there are some general simularities too. For example, on a military base, a lot of places are accessible by walking or biking, rather than a car. It might be a 20 minute or so walk from the home, but that’s really not bad. It’s the same with here. I can get to basically every store I need to by walking, or, in a couple extreme cases, by biking. I can’t explore the whole island by bike, but I can get to everyplace I *need* to.
But also, there’s a sense of…sorta security about both places. With a military base that’s obvious, because its, well, the military. What could be safer? And its this sense of security which has many a parent letting their children loose to wonder about the base unsupervised when they are way to young for that.
Tis the same thing with the children here, as I’ve mentioned before. Because parents think the *people* are safe, they seem to fail tot hitnk about such other dangers as traffic, or falling off of something high, wild life, etc. And they don’t think about how just becase you might know someone, or know someone who knows someone, or whatever, that doesn’t necessarily mean that someone out there isn’t still a bad person who could hurt a kid.
But be that as it may, that’s the general feeling of the area, that its safe, for children to wander around unsupervised (even those so young as 1st graders in elementary school), and for women to wander around alone at night (thought I still don’t do that, just in case. It only takes once).
Another simulartiy comes a little less from living on a military base in general, an dmore from being the daughter of an officer. On bases overseas especially, many military members and their familys will know who the officers are, and from that extent who the officers children are. Rather than racisim on bases, there’s a lot of…”Rankcism?” well that’s not really the right word, but people are very rank conscious, and this spills over to the children as well as the adults. The higher one’s parent’s rank is, the more likely people will know who their children are. Even if they don’t know *you* they’ll know *of* you, and quite possibily what you look like. And from there on bases, officer family or not, you are _always_ running into someone you know, or kind know, from that one thing or another.
It’s the same here, though its because 1. I’m foregn and 2. I’m a teacher of 7 differen schools. There are a total of 5 foreigners on this isaldn, all of us jets, all of us teachers, and most of us live in the area we teach. Thus its not hard for the people on the island to see a foreigner, (Especially now a foreign woman, since we’re all female too), and make a guess that we’re one of the English teachers. From there I teach *every* kid who lives in my district. *Every* kid. Which from there means I’m connected to each of those kids’ parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, neighbors, etc. Even if they’ve never seen me before, they can probably reconigize me from the children’s descriptions (darker skin, tall, huge fluffy curly hair. BAM that’s all that’s needed. Really the hair is all that’s needed lol), which means people I’ve nevr seen before will revvongize me when I’m at the grocery store, walking down the street, etc. It also means that people I’ve met maybe once or twice randomly will always know who I am, cause I might well be the only person like me they’ve ever met, looking _radically_ different from everyone else. Whereas for me, everyone here is obviously Japanese, and I have a much harder time distinguishing faces that I’ve only met once or twice from the random other faces I see pasing me by on the way to wrok, to the store, etc.
And despite the fact that I’ve been ehre for 6 months now, it means that, whenever I’m out, there is alsmot _always_ *someone* staring at me. Normally it’s the “holy shit a foreigner!” stare which is a mixture of interest, curiotsty, puzzlement, and maybe some fascinated horror (haha). Very few times is it the cold stare of disgust or hatred, and that’s only been a couple of times, and always by old men, and whom its easier to understand that, given the culture they grew up in. I don’t get it hardly at all from older women, tho. Sometimes I’ve thought maybe I was, but when I say goodmorning ot them n Japanese they almost always smile and their faces soften considerably. I don’t think they know (or realize) that it looks like their glaring sometimes haha, nor do I think they’re specifically glaring at me, I think they might just always look that way >.>;
Anyway, the last major similarity is how it feels to get *off* the island or off the base. Especially when over seas, getting off the base can be a mixture of kinda scaryness, and relief. On the one hadn when you leave the base you leave the familier, the comfort an dsecurity that comes with that “small town” esq feel, and familier more American surroundings. On the other hand getting off base can be an excivting adventure, not to mention a relief being somewhere where everyone doesn’t kinda know you/you seeing and doing the same thing every day. Basically, here or on a base, if you do something as small as trip and fall falt on your face, or as large as commiting a cultural blunder, if your on base or on the island, *someone* who at least *kinda* knows you will see, and it’ll be all over the area by lunch time. Like my volleyball incident lol. But at least if your off the island or off base, you don’t have to worry about it. Yes you still have to be careful cause you’re in another culture and you wanna be respectiful and mindful of that, but if you do blunder up, at least the whole world (as it seems) won’t know about it.
And those are my thoughts on the subject. Of course there are a lot of differences too. One major one is that on a base I was never asked for my autograph lol. Whereas here with my elementary students, its like I’m Angelina Jolie or something. I wouldn’t be surprised if my signature was going for millions of yen off of Japanese ebay or something!
They are absolutely fascinated by my signature, and its because in Japan tehre’s nothing like it. You know the cursive scrawl of a signature Americans have? There’s none of that here in japan. First of all, names are written in kanji, the Chinese characters, and there’s no like “cursive” equivalent. Secondly, they don’t use signitures for like signing papers or whatever, they have a stamp with their name written in kanji on it, that they stamp on documents or whatever. So signitures or “signs” are unheard of. I began to sign bingo cards whenever we play bingo in class and a kid wins, and suddenly EVERYONE wants a signature. It gets to the point where at the end of the day as I start to walk home, I’m swarmed by elementary students, pressing pens and paper into my hands, begging for me to sign it.
Dude, here, I bet I’m *bigger* than Angelina Jolie. What now!
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Landmines and Children
Was the title of the English lesson in the second year middle schoolers (8th graders) book.
Yeeeeep.
The next three lessons are about the landmines in Cambodia and how children who go out ot play in the fields and forests get seriously injured or killed. It also shows a pciture of a little elementary school boy with only one leg going to school.
Vocab words include "landmine, kill, danger, injure, children/child, dangerous, and specialist" the grammar points taught are "use vs is used", "was cleaned vs cleansed" and "made vs was made by".
Now, maybe I just have a bad memory, but I have no recollection of any of my foreign language books in school ever having a chapter discussing how kids are being blown up by landmines.
And again, maybe its just me but....that title, "landmines and children", its ridiculous right? You have to laugh cause its so "wait what? for real" right?
Tell me if it's just me. Cause I definitely gave a little "for real?" laugh when my teacher pointed out the lesson we were going to do. And I think that definately offended her juuuust a bit.
She pointed out that the book talks alot about different international things as the topics of the english conversations, and I, trying to fill my grave back in as quickly as possible, totally agreed that i was great that the book was so culturally aware, and that it wasn't *funny* to me, as much as just *surprising* that a book for 8th graders would talk about landmines.
I don't think she bought it though. Chalk another up to a clash of cultures.
Yeeeeep.
The next three lessons are about the landmines in Cambodia and how children who go out ot play in the fields and forests get seriously injured or killed. It also shows a pciture of a little elementary school boy with only one leg going to school.
Vocab words include "landmine, kill, danger, injure, children/child, dangerous, and specialist" the grammar points taught are "use vs is used", "was cleaned vs cleansed" and "made vs was made by".
Now, maybe I just have a bad memory, but I have no recollection of any of my foreign language books in school ever having a chapter discussing how kids are being blown up by landmines.
And again, maybe its just me but....that title, "landmines and children", its ridiculous right? You have to laugh cause its so "wait what? for real" right?
Tell me if it's just me. Cause I definitely gave a little "for real?" laugh when my teacher pointed out the lesson we were going to do. And I think that definately offended her juuuust a bit.
She pointed out that the book talks alot about different international things as the topics of the english conversations, and I, trying to fill my grave back in as quickly as possible, totally agreed that i was great that the book was so culturally aware, and that it wasn't *funny* to me, as much as just *surprising* that a book for 8th graders would talk about landmines.
I don't think she bought it though. Chalk another up to a clash of cultures.
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Its indestructible! And its everywhere!!
This milk just won’t give up! It’s been 6 months and I’m still having milk issues!! It’s just with my middle school too. All my elementary schools, all *6* of them, have gotton the fact that I won’t drink the milk, and I don’t want the milk. I don’t know what becomes of the milk, but they’ve accepted the fact that I bring my own school approved drink (cold bottled green tea), and when I’m given my school lunch, it simply comes without a drink. I stick my bottle on the trey, and we’re good to go.
My my middle school just Does. Not. Get. It.
So first a little recap about what I do at lunch for my middle school. Remember that there’s a teacher’s room, where all the teachers have their desks and such, and continue to return to between classes. In the teachers rooms there are three stations, where teachers have their desk. The “teacher home base” if you will, rather than how it is in America, with teachers having their own room All the 1st year student (7th grade) teachers sit together, all the 2nd year (8th grade) student teachers sit together and all the 3rd year student (9th grade) teachers sit together. These teachers may still teach students of different grades, but they take responsibility for the students in their group.
Despite this, there are “home room teachers”. Then there are teachers and staff who aren’t home room teachers, like me, the school nurse, etc. All of the teachers without a homeroom go to a class within their grade to eat at, whereas the staff (the school nurse, the principle and vice principle, the school clerk, etc), take their lunches in the teacher room or the like. The students and the teachers (except for me), receive their lunches in the class room, with students doling out the lunches onto plates and seting them on treys for each student in the classroom, and the teachers eating there. The staff however has their lunches doled out by the two woman custodians who work at the school. Their lunches are set on a counter in the teacher’s room, to be picked up whenever the staff member is ready to eat.
I’m a special case. Even though I’m a “teacher”, and while technically I sit with the 2nd year teachers, I still divide my lunch time between every class of ever grade, rather than just the 2nd grade. Every day I eat lunch with a different class. Thus my lunch is put out in the teachers room with the staff member’s. I grab my trey from the teacher’s room, then walk to whatever classroom I’m eating lunch with.
So back to the milk.
When I first came here, I tried to drink the milk.
That was epic fail. It was *so* thick, that just drinking half of it got me sick to my stomache. And there’s no way to dispose of a milk carton that still has milk in it.
Believe me, I tried. There is No. Way. I treid asking, and they don’t even comprehend the situation.
So next, I would take the milk, but just not drink it, instead sneaking into the teachers’ fridge and slipping my milk in there after lunch time.
This however began to worry me that some day I’d be officially caught, especially as the fridge, a tiny thing to begin with, began to be filled exclusively with my milks.
So during lunch I began to give my milk carton to one of the students. Extra food (this included milk) is doled out to the students, usually boys, who want it. So I would put my milk on the desk with the other extra milks, feeling nice and smug when it was doled out later to the students as a milk extra.
However, this bite me in my butt later when one of the teachers realized that there was one extra milk than there were kids absent in his class. He began to question and scold his kids, demanding to know whose milk this was just as I was about to leave. I had to go back and be like “whoops that’s mine”.
The shame! The shaaame!
Thus I’ve never done that again.
Next, and most recently, I began to just take the milk off my trey and leave it on the counter in the teacher’s room. I noticed a couple other milks there, so I thought maybe this was where the teachers’ extra milk went, and it could just be disposed of in whatever teacherly fashion.
For about 2 days this seemed to work. Then one of the custodian ladies was like “Is this your milk?” and I was like “ummm yep.” And she was like “I’ll just put it in the fridge then from now on, k?”
And I was happy. Ecstatic even. YES! Finally there are begining to get it! After 6 months, they are realizing that I *do not want the milk*!!
This worked for about a day.
And then, at the end of my work day, just as I was about to leave on the second day of my milk-less state, the custodian comes up to me and sets two cartons of milk onto my desk.
“Here you are!” She said, beaming at me, “Here’s your milk, don’t forget to take it home ok?”
……..
Well, at least I’ll now have plenty of milk to make mac and cheese with…..
Now I must got and teach my kids about landmines.
No joke.
My my middle school just Does. Not. Get. It.
So first a little recap about what I do at lunch for my middle school. Remember that there’s a teacher’s room, where all the teachers have their desks and such, and continue to return to between classes. In the teachers rooms there are three stations, where teachers have their desk. The “teacher home base” if you will, rather than how it is in America, with teachers having their own room All the 1st year student (7th grade) teachers sit together, all the 2nd year (8th grade) student teachers sit together and all the 3rd year student (9th grade) teachers sit together. These teachers may still teach students of different grades, but they take responsibility for the students in their group.
Despite this, there are “home room teachers”. Then there are teachers and staff who aren’t home room teachers, like me, the school nurse, etc. All of the teachers without a homeroom go to a class within their grade to eat at, whereas the staff (the school nurse, the principle and vice principle, the school clerk, etc), take their lunches in the teacher room or the like. The students and the teachers (except for me), receive their lunches in the class room, with students doling out the lunches onto plates and seting them on treys for each student in the classroom, and the teachers eating there. The staff however has their lunches doled out by the two woman custodians who work at the school. Their lunches are set on a counter in the teacher’s room, to be picked up whenever the staff member is ready to eat.
I’m a special case. Even though I’m a “teacher”, and while technically I sit with the 2nd year teachers, I still divide my lunch time between every class of ever grade, rather than just the 2nd grade. Every day I eat lunch with a different class. Thus my lunch is put out in the teachers room with the staff member’s. I grab my trey from the teacher’s room, then walk to whatever classroom I’m eating lunch with.
So back to the milk.
When I first came here, I tried to drink the milk.
That was epic fail. It was *so* thick, that just drinking half of it got me sick to my stomache. And there’s no way to dispose of a milk carton that still has milk in it.
Believe me, I tried. There is No. Way. I treid asking, and they don’t even comprehend the situation.
So next, I would take the milk, but just not drink it, instead sneaking into the teachers’ fridge and slipping my milk in there after lunch time.
This however began to worry me that some day I’d be officially caught, especially as the fridge, a tiny thing to begin with, began to be filled exclusively with my milks.
So during lunch I began to give my milk carton to one of the students. Extra food (this included milk) is doled out to the students, usually boys, who want it. So I would put my milk on the desk with the other extra milks, feeling nice and smug when it was doled out later to the students as a milk extra.
However, this bite me in my butt later when one of the teachers realized that there was one extra milk than there were kids absent in his class. He began to question and scold his kids, demanding to know whose milk this was just as I was about to leave. I had to go back and be like “whoops that’s mine”.
The shame! The shaaame!
Thus I’ve never done that again.
Next, and most recently, I began to just take the milk off my trey and leave it on the counter in the teacher’s room. I noticed a couple other milks there, so I thought maybe this was where the teachers’ extra milk went, and it could just be disposed of in whatever teacherly fashion.
For about 2 days this seemed to work. Then one of the custodian ladies was like “Is this your milk?” and I was like “ummm yep.” And she was like “I’ll just put it in the fridge then from now on, k?”
And I was happy. Ecstatic even. YES! Finally there are begining to get it! After 6 months, they are realizing that I *do not want the milk*!!
This worked for about a day.
And then, at the end of my work day, just as I was about to leave on the second day of my milk-less state, the custodian comes up to me and sets two cartons of milk onto my desk.
“Here you are!” She said, beaming at me, “Here’s your milk, don’t forget to take it home ok?”
……..
Well, at least I’ll now have plenty of milk to make mac and cheese with…..
Now I must got and teach my kids about landmines.
No joke.
Thursday, January 28, 2010
I thought it was beef.
Just let me say that straight off.
I. Thought. It. Was. Beef.
So yesterday I was talking to my neighbor, also a JET, and we were discussing our normal complaints about the school lunch, mainly that its too much to eat in too short a time. She told me how on that day, they had some extra chewing beef, beef that was cooked or fried too much because it was really dark, almost black, and that for once no one was able to finish their lunch on time due to the extra amount of time needed to chew.
We chuckled over it, moved on to other topics, and I promptly forgot the conversation.
Until today, when I went to my elementary school, and I saw that lunch was some very dark, almost black meat. Huh! I thought to myself, this must be the beef Kelly had.
Anyway I go to the class I’m eating lunch with (3rd and 4th graders today) sit at the desk they have for me, and proceed to eat my lunch. Just as my neighbor stated, the beef was very chewing. It also tasted a little…odd.
Not bad by means, just unlike any beef I had ever tasted before. It was chewing and a but crunchy, and had…more of a tangy kick than the beef I was used to.
Interesting! I thought to myself, it must be the sauce. For there was a molasses-texture like seasoned sauce that the meat was all but drowning in. That combined with the fact that it must be burnt, given the color, explained the taste.
Throughout my musing and eating, my kids are trying hard to make conversation with me, (since when they’re in elementary school, they have no qualms with talking and eating at the same time), but are rapidly running out of questions to ask me. Now it just so happens that on that day, I had just had a lesson where I taught them the names of animals, one of them being “cow”. So as the questions dwindled, I thought to myself, now is an excellent time to bring a little lesson into lunch! I’ll ask what the meat is, they’ll say its beef. I’ll ask what animal is beef, and they will either look at me blankly, say “chicken”, or say cow either in Japanese or in English. Either way I can either praise or gently correct them, and it can be a nice way to bring the lesson full circle.
And so, feeling all nice and pleased with my teacher ways (I’m finally getting the hang of it!) I point to the last couple of pieces of meat on my plate and ask, “what’s this?”
And all 12 students announce, in Japanese, as one,
“It’s whale.”
Whale.
As in whale.
Like it’s no big deal.
Whale, in the school lunch.
You have your rice, you have your veggies, you have your soup, and you have your whale.
…Well.
I hope Greenpeace isn’t reading this.
I. Thought. It. Was. Beef.
So yesterday I was talking to my neighbor, also a JET, and we were discussing our normal complaints about the school lunch, mainly that its too much to eat in too short a time. She told me how on that day, they had some extra chewing beef, beef that was cooked or fried too much because it was really dark, almost black, and that for once no one was able to finish their lunch on time due to the extra amount of time needed to chew.
We chuckled over it, moved on to other topics, and I promptly forgot the conversation.
Until today, when I went to my elementary school, and I saw that lunch was some very dark, almost black meat. Huh! I thought to myself, this must be the beef Kelly had.
Anyway I go to the class I’m eating lunch with (3rd and 4th graders today) sit at the desk they have for me, and proceed to eat my lunch. Just as my neighbor stated, the beef was very chewing. It also tasted a little…odd.
Not bad by means, just unlike any beef I had ever tasted before. It was chewing and a but crunchy, and had…more of a tangy kick than the beef I was used to.
Interesting! I thought to myself, it must be the sauce. For there was a molasses-texture like seasoned sauce that the meat was all but drowning in. That combined with the fact that it must be burnt, given the color, explained the taste.
Throughout my musing and eating, my kids are trying hard to make conversation with me, (since when they’re in elementary school, they have no qualms with talking and eating at the same time), but are rapidly running out of questions to ask me. Now it just so happens that on that day, I had just had a lesson where I taught them the names of animals, one of them being “cow”. So as the questions dwindled, I thought to myself, now is an excellent time to bring a little lesson into lunch! I’ll ask what the meat is, they’ll say its beef. I’ll ask what animal is beef, and they will either look at me blankly, say “chicken”, or say cow either in Japanese or in English. Either way I can either praise or gently correct them, and it can be a nice way to bring the lesson full circle.
And so, feeling all nice and pleased with my teacher ways (I’m finally getting the hang of it!) I point to the last couple of pieces of meat on my plate and ask, “what’s this?”
And all 12 students announce, in Japanese, as one,
“It’s whale.”
Whale.
As in whale.
Like it’s no big deal.
Whale, in the school lunch.
You have your rice, you have your veggies, you have your soup, and you have your whale.
…Well.
I hope Greenpeace isn’t reading this.
Saturday, January 16, 2010
Random happening of the day
I just went out to do a little grocery shopping for the week right? And I'm walking along and I;m about to pass what dad calls the "kmart" when i hear two kids call out "Robin-sensei, Robin sensei!" I turn and I see two little kids, maybe about 7 years old, about to dash out of the parking lot and cross the street to me, but there's a car coming! So I call out, "wait wait!!" in japanese, with my hand out and the kids stop just in time to not get hit by the car. (the car didn't see them until the last moment cause they're small and were about to come out from behind a parked car). Once the car passes I cross the street to them instead of hte other way around, and ask them what they're doing. They were shopping at the kmart (they each had a little bottle of juice and a snack). I asked where their mom was and they said she was working. So I'm like "okaaay two 7 year olds just out and about". So I'm about to leave and I notice they are follwing me, so I'm like "where are you going?" and they're like "to the grocery store!" (i had just told them thats where I was going), so they tag along with me, and i make a big show about looking before ways before i cross the street and such, and they 'help" me shop and all that, and as we're walking back I ask them where they are going now, and they said they hang out at the little arcade in the osada (kmart) until their mom gets off of work. So I drop them back off at the arcade on my way home, but I still notice that every now and then they'd pop out into the street to watch me walk away and wave. Finally I quickly turn a corner in hopes that if they can no longer see me they wont keep going out into the road lol.
They are not the only little kids I've seen wandering the streets without adult supervision here! People think their kids are so safe cause its japan, a small town, and a little island, and it just amazes me! Like even if there's not that big of a chance of them being abducted, they could still get hit by a car or something! Like they almost did trying to get to me. Makes me worried lol, like I could never imagine being allowed to roam the town, or just being dropped off at the arcade and told to wait when I was that young.
They are not the only little kids I've seen wandering the streets without adult supervision here! People think their kids are so safe cause its japan, a small town, and a little island, and it just amazes me! Like even if there's not that big of a chance of them being abducted, they could still get hit by a car or something! Like they almost did trying to get to me. Makes me worried lol, like I could never imagine being allowed to roam the town, or just being dropped off at the arcade and told to wait when I was that young.
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