If anyone ever says "Two hambugers and two colas, please" around me ever again, so help me, I can't be responsible for my actions!
Sorry for the long hiatus from blogging but life in Japan has been pretty uneventful lately! I'm still crazy busy, but it's just everyday stuff. Almost everyday in October I stayed after school at my jhs to help some of my students prepare for an English recitation contest. It completely took over my life! I swear, I never left school before dark! (FYI, Japan doesn't participate in daylight saving time so it get dark here really, really, REALLY early!) Working with them was a struggle, it's amazing how many sounds we make that they simply can't seem to comprehend. I spent a whole month working on the word "worry" with one of my students and she STILL can't say it correctly! GAH! What are they paying me for?! Alas, I am a failure as a teacher. :-/ Anyhoo, we finally had the recitation contest on Oct 26th and it was one of the longest days in my life. Let me explain. JHS is made up of 1st, 2nd, and 3rd year students. There is a textbook for each year with various dialogues, etc in a vain attempt to get these kids to speak English. The students get to choose to memorize and recite one out of 3-4 dialogues. Unfortunately, this means that many students choose the same ones. Even more unfortunately, those of us attending the contest are forced to hear the same thing over and over again all... day... long. Oh! Did I mention the terrible accents and bad acting!? Actually, those two things kept me going. It was a struggle not laugh at some of these kids. I mean, they were making random gestures for every single word! (For example, the horrid hamburger/cola dialogue required them to ask "Large or small?" and "For here or to go?" Now, as native speakers we all know that these are relatively inane questions that require nothing more then a short, some could even say terse, response. Not with these kids! I've never seen so many hands flying all over the place! Who knew that one had to point in the appropriate direction for "For here or to go" and that more gestures had to be made to indicate the relative sizes of "Large or small?") What it boiled down to is that they were freaking hilarious and there was no way I could take them seriously. Even my JTE was holding back on laughing the entire time!
Now, I don't mean to disparage the kids because they were all doing their best. A lot of the trouble is that some JTEs really push their kids to gesture all the time in an attempt to distract from less then perfect pronunciation. In my mind, however, it made the faults stand out even more! Oh well. It was an interesting day, to say the least. My kids weren't even close to winning, (although I'm proud to say they all refused to act like soap opera stars!) but they worked really hard and I'm proud of them.
Aside from the English Contest, not much of interest happened until this past weekend. I helped out at a Halloween Party for another ALTs students and they were so, so, so, so, so cute! I could barely stand it! I threw together a random costume, (I had 3 days to find a costume since I just found out about the thing on the Wed before the party, and there aren't any Halloween costume-y things around my island at all!) and had a great time. We played games, had a costume contest, handed out treat, etc. It was really fun! I'll try to get my pics up soon... when I'm feeling a bit less lazy! ;-)
After a relatively uneventful October, November is going to be crazy busy! I'm busy every Thursday taking Japanese classes in Hondo, (about a 45 min drive one way) and every Saturday I'm taking traditional Japanese dance classes. They are really fun! It's basically a private lesson, FOR FREE, and she dresses me up in a kimono and everything! The only condition is that I have to perform in her dance thingy this Spring. (What a hardship! Y'all know that I just HATE performing and being in the spotlight!) It's a really sweet deal and I'm excited about it. Not to mention Reiko-sensei is really nice and speaks very little English, so it forces me to practice a little Japanese without being too embarrassed.
Now, those are just the regular activities. I am also going to Nagasaki the first weekend in November, (I leave TONIGHT!!!) because there is a holiday on Friday so we have a three day weekend. I'm going with a couple of friends and it should be a lot of fun. We're going to visit the A-bomb museum and do some cultural stuff, do some shopping, and, of course, explore what nightlife the city has to offer! I'll take a lot of pics, don't worry! The next weekend, (11th and 12th) I'm busy again. This time I have a school event on Sat, (a hella long walk from Ooe to Takahama that is supposed to last all day. How do I get myself into these things!?) and then I'm going to a performance of some of Reiko-sensei's students the following day. (She tried to talk me into joining as well, but I've only had two classes! I don't want to embarrass myself that much!) The following weekend I may be having a joint b-day party with my tantosha because his birthday is 3 days after mine. We're still working out the details though. It might be nice to be a hermit for at least one weekend. Ok, moving on! The next weekend, (24-26) I'll be heading to Fukuoka to see my first Sumo competition! I'm really excited. I'm going with a group of ALTs from Amakusa, including this guy Adam who LOVES Sumo so he can tell us when and what to yell. Plus, we rented out a box which means we should be given free sake and beer. Oh yes, life will be good. (No worries, I'll take pics of that too! I know y'all want to see fat men in diapers as much as I do!) :-P Now, to finish it all off, I'll be heading to Kumamoto city from Nov 30-Dec 2 for the Kumamoto ALT mid-year conference. (aka get all the ALTs in the prefecture together. Make them pretend to be interested in boring seminars, then socialize all night and promptly forget everything we pretended to learn! It's more fun then it sounds, I promise) Hmmm, I think that's all for November anyway... hope I didn't forget anything! ;-)
Sorry to dump all that on y'all at once but, as you can see, I'll be even busier than usual so posts might be even more infrequent then before. Gomen nasai! (I'm sorry!) I promise to get massive amounts of pictures on-line to make up for it!
Ok, I think that I've typed myself out! If anyone can think of a way to send me an already cooked Thanksgiving turkey, please do so, I'm going to miss Thanksgiving dinner because none of the ALTs have an oven! Sniff! Ok ok, mata ne!
Sorry for the long hiatus from blogging but life in Japan has been pretty uneventful lately! I'm still crazy busy, but it's just everyday stuff. Almost everyday in October I stayed after school at my jhs to help some of my students prepare for an English recitation contest. It completely took over my life! I swear, I never left school before dark! (FYI, Japan doesn't participate in daylight saving time so it get dark here really, really, REALLY early!) Working with them was a struggle, it's amazing how many sounds we make that they simply can't seem to comprehend. I spent a whole month working on the word "worry" with one of my students and she STILL can't say it correctly! GAH! What are they paying me for?! Alas, I am a failure as a teacher. :-/ Anyhoo, we finally had the recitation contest on Oct 26th and it was one of the longest days in my life. Let me explain. JHS is made up of 1st, 2nd, and 3rd year students. There is a textbook for each year with various dialogues, etc in a vain attempt to get these kids to speak English. The students get to choose to memorize and recite one out of 3-4 dialogues. Unfortunately, this means that many students choose the same ones. Even more unfortunately, those of us attending the contest are forced to hear the same thing over and over again all... day... long. Oh! Did I mention the terrible accents and bad acting!? Actually, those two things kept me going. It was a struggle not laugh at some of these kids. I mean, they were making random gestures for every single word! (For example, the horrid hamburger/cola dialogue required them to ask "Large or small?" and "For here or to go?" Now, as native speakers we all know that these are relatively inane questions that require nothing more then a short, some could even say terse, response. Not with these kids! I've never seen so many hands flying all over the place! Who knew that one had to point in the appropriate direction for "For here or to go" and that more gestures had to be made to indicate the relative sizes of "Large or small?") What it boiled down to is that they were freaking hilarious and there was no way I could take them seriously. Even my JTE was holding back on laughing the entire time!
Now, I don't mean to disparage the kids because they were all doing their best. A lot of the trouble is that some JTEs really push their kids to gesture all the time in an attempt to distract from less then perfect pronunciation. In my mind, however, it made the faults stand out even more! Oh well. It was an interesting day, to say the least. My kids weren't even close to winning, (although I'm proud to say they all refused to act like soap opera stars!) but they worked really hard and I'm proud of them.
Aside from the English Contest, not much of interest happened until this past weekend. I helped out at a Halloween Party for another ALTs students and they were so, so, so, so, so cute! I could barely stand it! I threw together a random costume, (I had 3 days to find a costume since I just found out about the thing on the Wed before the party, and there aren't any Halloween costume-y things around my island at all!) and had a great time. We played games, had a costume contest, handed out treat, etc. It was really fun! I'll try to get my pics up soon... when I'm feeling a bit less lazy! ;-)
After a relatively uneventful October, November is going to be crazy busy! I'm busy every Thursday taking Japanese classes in Hondo, (about a 45 min drive one way) and every Saturday I'm taking traditional Japanese dance classes. They are really fun! It's basically a private lesson, FOR FREE, and she dresses me up in a kimono and everything! The only condition is that I have to perform in her dance thingy this Spring. (What a hardship! Y'all know that I just HATE performing and being in the spotlight!) It's a really sweet deal and I'm excited about it. Not to mention Reiko-sensei is really nice and speaks very little English, so it forces me to practice a little Japanese without being too embarrassed.
Now, those are just the regular activities. I am also going to Nagasaki the first weekend in November, (I leave TONIGHT!!!) because there is a holiday on Friday so we have a three day weekend. I'm going with a couple of friends and it should be a lot of fun. We're going to visit the A-bomb museum and do some cultural stuff, do some shopping, and, of course, explore what nightlife the city has to offer! I'll take a lot of pics, don't worry! The next weekend, (11th and 12th) I'm busy again. This time I have a school event on Sat, (a hella long walk from Ooe to Takahama that is supposed to last all day. How do I get myself into these things!?) and then I'm going to a performance of some of Reiko-sensei's students the following day. (She tried to talk me into joining as well, but I've only had two classes! I don't want to embarrass myself that much!) The following weekend I may be having a joint b-day party with my tantosha because his birthday is 3 days after mine. We're still working out the details though. It might be nice to be a hermit for at least one weekend. Ok, moving on! The next weekend, (24-26) I'll be heading to Fukuoka to see my first Sumo competition! I'm really excited. I'm going with a group of ALTs from Amakusa, including this guy Adam who LOVES Sumo so he can tell us when and what to yell. Plus, we rented out a box which means we should be given free sake and beer. Oh yes, life will be good. (No worries, I'll take pics of that too! I know y'all want to see fat men in diapers as much as I do!) :-P Now, to finish it all off, I'll be heading to Kumamoto city from Nov 30-Dec 2 for the Kumamoto ALT mid-year conference. (aka get all the ALTs in the prefecture together. Make them pretend to be interested in boring seminars, then socialize all night and promptly forget everything we pretended to learn! It's more fun then it sounds, I promise) Hmmm, I think that's all for November anyway... hope I didn't forget anything! ;-)
Sorry to dump all that on y'all at once but, as you can see, I'll be even busier than usual so posts might be even more infrequent then before. Gomen nasai! (I'm sorry!) I promise to get massive amounts of pictures on-line to make up for it!
Ok, I think that I've typed myself out! If anyone can think of a way to send me an already cooked Thanksgiving turkey, please do so, I'm going to miss Thanksgiving dinner because none of the ALTs have an oven! Sniff! Ok ok, mata ne!
posted by VW | 12:17 AM
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