Elementary School Shenanigans

I heard that the gas prices in the states are falling again.  If you live in the states and are complaining about gas prices, please know that gas in Japan is around $7.40/gallon.  And I drive here!

Today I went to my elementary school and played soccer with a bunch of 2nd graders who kicked my ass.  I found out just how out of shape I am when I was huffing and dying at around the 5 minute mark.  Even before I got winded though, the 2nd graders were still playing better than I was.  I need to start exercising so I can whip their candy asses and show them who the man is!!!

In the 1st grade class I had today we were going over basic greetings.  We went over "Hello, how are you?" and we walked around the classroom asking each other.  I went up to one student and asked "how are you?" but he didn't understand, turned around and yelled "OH MY GOD!" in English and ran away.  Kids these days!

I found I have a habit of thinking of a few things in order when I see a little kid who is a lot younger than I am.  First I try to imagine what they might look like when they're older, like in their 20's, and then I wonder what kind of job they might have.  After that I always think back to when I was that age and think "I don't remember us looking this young."  In 30 years I'll probably look at 25 year olds and think about the same things.  Sigh...

One girl in particular catches my attention, because I would be willing to put some decent money down that she will end up something similar to the picture on this honorable text's right.  I wish I could keep tabs on all the elementary school students and see where they end up in 20 years.  Yes, I am judging books by their covers and it is fun, so screw you!




FYI: If you don't know what's up with the girls in those pictures, they are called gyaru and they are girls who generally only care about living carefree lives, not working or doing anything really, dyeing their hair and wearing wigs, fake nails, and whatever else they can get on themselves that is fake.  Also not sure, but it sure looks like they spend a few hours in the oven each night.  If someone is reading this and can confirm, that'd be cool and much appreciated.

It's started getting cooler which is awesome.  I hated swimming in my own sweat every day, so even if it starts freezing I'll be fine with that.

Found out they are taking a sizable amount out of my paycheck for my pension.  It would suck except I can get that all back when I leave, so it's like an extra savings account that will add up to almost a month's salary at the end of one year.  SCORE!

厚生年金【こうせいねんきん】 (kouseinenkin)   (n) welfare pension; (P)

Continuing Forward

Some interesting stuff this time around.

First off, I think I enabled it so even if you aren't a member of Blogspot you can make comments on my posts.  Not sure if anyone is really following, but if you are, and are reading this, and are too lazy to make an account, but still want to comment on my posts, NOW YOU CAN!  Bam!

The other day a student came up to show me a picture she drew.  It was actually pretty good, and I was going to comment on how well of a self portrait she drew, until she jumped in after I said "That's" and said "This is a picture of a pig rabbit!  Do you know what a pig rabbit is?"  That day I was very happy that she interrupted me.

The SY who got first in the speech contest a while ago is going to a city called Sendai next week.  Sendai is the biggest city in our prefecture and the speech contest there is a big deal.  Her English for the speech she's doing is amazing.  She actually corrects everything I tell her to and I think if she doesn't lose to her nerves she has a chance of taking first place.  Of course if she takes first place it will be all thanks to me.  They really should put my name on the trophy, in bigger letters than her name!  Ha, but I am looking forward to it, and am rather nervous for her.

I think it's become a tradition that I lose my camera in any foreign country I go over to teach English at.  Pretty sure I brought a camera over to Taiwan, just to lose it most likely in some restaurant.  After that I bought a camera in Taiwan that was cool beans.  Then I went to Korea and lost the camera I bought in Taiwan on a bus somewhere.  I then bought a new camera in Korea that was even cooler beans.  Now here in Japan I lost the camera I bought in Korea and I have no idea where it is.  I don't have any beans anymore.

Blueberries from Hilsboro, Oregon!

In a supermarket, another ALT I was with, Tara, found Oregon blueberries and pointed them out to me.  I did buy them, and will continue to.  Awesome way to support Oregon all the way from Japan!

Wonder how long the line is

This is pretty useful if you're a woman in this department store and your period decides to bust in out of nowhere (or bust out).  Other than that, I can't imagine they get all that much business...

Mt. Bandai camping are

Over the weekend I went on a camping trip to a place called Bandai... or at least that's what the mountain's name was.  The resort was awesome.  I don't really like hang out events with a large amount of people so I probably won't go again, on the off chance I decide to stay here 2 years... which I'm not planning to by the way.  But if I did, I don't think I'd go again.  That said, it was still pretty fun!

Red, green and some other colors lake... river?

We hiked up Mt. Bandai, but I only made it around 80% of the way up because I wanted to go to a museum that was around before they closed.  Bandai was a nice mountain, but it confirmed how much I hate mountain climbing.  I won't be doing it again.  Unless I learn how to fly.




I'm starting to really settle down here for the most part which is awesome for me, and it took about the amount of time I thought it would.  Good fun experience!  If for whatever reason you need something new to do and have a bachelor's degree, I suggest teaching English overseas.  I think a select few places have things like Summer programs and such.

I'm going to meet a 24 year old Japanese doctor tonight for drinking/dinner.  Hope it works out well.

ブタサギ (butasagi) pig rabbit

Speech Contest

Sometimes I wonder if the small/big things I do with people will be remembered by them in the far future.  10 years later, will someone remember a one-liner I randomly said that I don't even remember anymore?  Will they remember a random night, a conversation, or something I helped them with?

Near since the day I got to Kesennuma (the city I'm living in), I have been helping two middle schools with two students each for a speech contest.  That contest was yesterday (Wednesday) and the results are as follows (withholding names, sorry)... oh by the way there were 2 sections of the contest, the first was recitation, where students could pick a passage, memorize it and vomit it back to the crowd.  The second section was a speech section where students wrote their own speeches, translated them into English, and then puked them back on to the crowd.  And now for results!

Recitation
SY: 1st out of 25.
SH: 7th out of 25

Speech
TY: 2nd out of 5
OC: 3rd out of 5

This was really awesome as the student who won first actually wanted to win first.  She had a goal to go on to a bigger speech contest, which she could do if she won first.  Freaking sweet!  I felt a little bad for SH who got 7th, as they handed out trophies to the top 6.  As happy as I am that my students did well, I must say that these speech contests aren't so much determined by the work of the ALT(Assistant Language Teacher, aka me) but rather by the students' innate ability and motivation.  This is obvious by the fact that us native English speaking teachers don't see all that much improvement in the things we try to teach them.  That said, out of all the other ALTs, I had the most students win something, which means I am the best teacher out of all of us.  OH YES IT'S TRUE YOU PUNKS!!!

I am happy that it's over though.  I was staying up to 3 hours later than I am normally scheduled to in order to help with the contest.  It's over, and I can finally go home on time now!  I would post pictures, but you're not supposed to post pictures of students.  Maybe I'll black their faces out and post them later, if I'm not lazy.

On an even more exciting note, with the help of another teacher (Rachel) I figured out how to tether my phone, which means I now have INTERNET!  This has been the most exciting thing to happen to me since arriving in Japan.  Banzai!

優勝【ゆうしょう】 (yuushou)   (n,vs) overall victory; championship;

Pictures!

Japan has been great.  I've been sucked into the school teacher life that a lot of Japanese teachers live (10-12 hour work days) but that's not going to last much longer.  I've been trying to help some students out for a speech contest that's on the 14th of this month and it's less than a week before sweet freedom!

There is still no answer on when/if I'll get internet at my apartment.  If I don't have it by mid winter I will destroy something valuable... of someone else's of course.

Not sure what I'm going to be doing in the meantime.  Been thinking of ways to make some friends and ideas are coming and will be put into plan in 2 weeks or so.  Hoping they work.

I have a car, it will be officially paid off and MINE on the 21st!  Her name is Maria and cost me around $1,200.  She is the smallest thing I've ever ridden in and will get a picture or two of her up soon hopefully.  In the meantime, here's some pictures:

This is a picture taken of a place near my apartment.  The place itself got off a little lucky.  Most of the other places are filled with rubble.  We just got our first convenience store reopened like 5 days ago.  It's still a little crazy to think about.





This is a picture of a boat... obviously.  There are a few other boats around, a few bigger than this one.  There used to be some on the road I drive on to go home, but those have been taken off, luckily.






Here is a picture of one of the bigger boats.  Check out the larger version of the picture by clicking on the picture and you can see 2 kids playing under the back of the boat.  At least they're trying to enjoy the irony.







Great examples of why the Japanese need English if they're going to attempt to use it.  Check out the bigger version of this picture too.  She's obviously never been to college.







A $1/plate sushi bar where you can order stuff on the screen that you see in the picture.  The ordered sushi comes along on bullet trains (really fast trains they have in Japan).







When I went to meet one of my schools, I walked in to this.  The school is great and the students are cool too for the most part.






It doesn't look like it but this spoon with a crack face eventually became miso soup.  It was probably as good as crack.  This was during a teaching orientation that I had a little over half a month ago.







 This is about a 10 minute drive from where one of my friends, Tara, another ALT lives.  It's awesome for a view and if anyone else is reading this from where I'm at and feels like getting laid, this is the place to take that special someone.  They won't be able to turn you down!

 自閉症【じへいしょう】 (jiheishou)  (n) autism; (adj-no) (2) autistic