Earthquakes, Camcorder

We had a weak 5 earthquake the other day.  A lot of people post things about earthquakes on Facebook, rightfully so I suppose, but I don't really see why they bother with things below a 6 or maybe a strong 5.  Weak 5s don't do anything.  I've never seen a tsunami from a weak 5 and they aren't enough to do anything but get your attention and break some glasses if they were on the edge of your table possibly.  Living where I am though, it's hard to say that out loud.  People don't want to listen to where you're coming from, they just want to get offended at everything nowadays.  Anyway yeah, I think 5s are fun haha

I got my camcorder the other day!  It's very cool and I can't wait to test it out.  Tonight at Kevin's birthday party I probably will.  The only thing I don't like about it is that I can hear the mechanics of the camera on the video when it's otherwise silent.  If someone's talking it's fine, so likely just a minor irritation.

The flowers on the sakura trees are getting ready to bloom here!  They were early in most parts of Japan this year for some reason.  Just a while longer before we can go for Hanami!

The third years are on their school trip right now to Tokyo at Jonan.  2 periods today.  Good time to update the Kesennuma website!

地震【じしん】(jishin) earthquake

Spring Vacation, Speed Dating, New Computer, Migraines

So over the spring vacation I didn't actually do all that much.  I stayed around Kesennuma for the most part and just relaxed.  It was good times.  On the first Wednesday I went with Pierre-M and Tara to Oshima and volunteered my time getting flower beds ready to plant flowers, that was fun.  We got to go around and see Oshima too which I hadn't done before.  I played Saints Row the Third which is like GTA on steroids.  Good game, nice and short too, which is how I feel GTA should have been, with less busy missions to do.

The 2nd Wednesday I went speed dating.  This was interesting.  We went to a place in Sendai that was the size of maybe 2.5 living rooms or so.  We filled out a profile card then sat down and had 2 minutes to talk to the girls.  There were about 6 guys and 10 girls.  After we finished a round, we had to rate which girls we liked and wanted to talk to.  We got 2 approach cards that we could give to show them that we liked them.  I got flustered and didn't write anyone's name down so halfway through the first I was trying to figure out who was who.  We got a second round with the girls, after which we ranked them in terms of who we wanted a date with.  Then they announced the couples.  There were 3 couples, but I failed to get a date.  It was fun, and I'd do it again, but it costs $50 (5000 yen) for no guarantee, so I'm not sure how willing I'll be to seek it out again.  Good experience though!

We played beer pong one night which was fun.  I played 3 games and won them all.  We went to Kappa Sushi for dinner first, then to my apartment for the beer pong.  Kevin, Frisa, and Pierre-A joined in.

I finally got my new computer.  Not liking Windows 8 as I feel they catered more to the tablet people and forgot to transition it correctly to PCs/laptops.  Slowly getting used to things though, and switching things to match my preferences, so it's cool.

I got a migraine the other day.  Of course it had to happen the 2nd day back at work and the 1st real day of teaching with some of my new teachers.  One of my friends mentioned that she threw up due to the low pressure + lack of oxygen, so I might try to keep records on that to see if my migraines are related.  It would be nice to be able to guess when I'm going to get those things.  Such a pain.

On the upside, it's starting to get warmer!

カップリングパーティー (kappuringu/paatii) Speed dating

Graduation, Computer Problems

So graduation has come and passed.  I'm sad.  I really liked the 3rd years at Jonan this year, it's sad to see them go.  Each class was great, I can't say the same for the 1st and 2nd years.  In fact, I don't like the 1st year classes so much.  Well that might be a bit much.  The truth is that there are a few kids (read: boys) in each 1st year class that are attention whores.  It's ridiculously obvious and super annoying.  I hope they put them all in one class next year so I can at least enjoy 2 out of the 3 classes and then just have 1 class where it's hell for 50 minutes.

I went to Niitsuki's graduation this year.  It was good.  The graduation representative, Kana, gave a good speech to the principal.  I didn't get it on tape though.  Here's what I did get on tape (sorry if people actually read this blog.  I'm under the impression there's no one reading it, so you can't view the videos.  If you want to see them for whatever reason let me know).

Niitsuki Graduation 2013- Gunji Atsuya Goodbye Speech

Niitsuki Graduation 2013- 3rd years singing

Niitsuki Graduation 2013- School Song

Niitsuki Graduation 2013- 3rd years leaving

Niitsuki Graduation 2013- 3rd Years Send-Off

Here's stuff from Jonan

Jonan 2nd years singing goodbye song

Jonan 3rd years entrance

Jonan 3rd years exit

Jonan 3rd years memories pictures

Jonan send off Kouhai 1

Jonan send off Kouhai 2

Jonan 3rd years Last Class 3-2

Jonan 3-3 Last Class 

Jonan 3rd years Last Class 3-1 

Jonan Grad prep (National Anthem) 2013

Jonan Grad prep- Receiving Diplomas 2013 

Jonan Grad prep- Singing songs 2013 

Jonan Grad prep- School Song 2013 

Jonan Grad prep- 3rd years singing 2013 

Jonan Grad Prep- 3rd years leaving 2013

Jonan Grad prep- 3rd years leaving again 2013

I felt a little awkward with the Niitsuki 3rd years but I still love them all the same.  Hope they all do well in high school!  My favorite English teacher, Abe Shizuko sensei, is retiring this year.  I'll miss her.  I feel honored to be her last ALT!  There were goodbye speeches by all the teachers and of course some of the teachers cried.  I wonder if I'll get any crying teachers when I leave.  I don't think I've left that big of an impression for that.  That's kind of the type of person I am though, not so impressionable.

My elementary school kids graduated too as 6th years.  At the banquet at Plaza Hotel, the mothers of one of the classes dressed up and danced to AKB 48's Heavy Rotation.  The kids kept yelling "stop it!"  It was cute.

So really bad timing!  My computer decided to go bust on me.  Luckily, the guy I'm having "fix" it was able to recover the data on the D drive, but not the C drive.  There's a lot of stuff on the C drive too, but whatever.  Can't be helped.  I decided to fix it with really low specs and use it as a back-up of sorts.  I bought a new one, a Sony Vaio, for around $1,100.  I bought it off Amazon and am having it shipped here by my parents since they won't ship to Japan.  I also had to buy a new external hard drive because the one I have now is making clicking noises.  I hope I can transfer everything over to the new hard drive before it too goes kaput.  My computer breaking is the reason I haven't updated in a bit.  Right now I'm borrowing Tara's laptop.  Going to get the fixed one tomorrow in the afternoon, and hopefully the new one maybe a week later.  I'm actually kind of excited to get my new one.  It has Windows 8, which I could do without, but whatever.

On spring break now!  No real plans.  My spring break budget was completely broken by all the electronics going belly up on me.

卒業 [そつぎょう] sotsu/gyou: Graduation

End of the School Year

The school year is coming to an end.  I've seen the last of my 3rd years for my base school.  If they even have a class tomorrow, I'll see the last of my 3rd years for my other middle school tomorrow.  I saw the last of my 6th graders in my elementary school yesterday.  Well not really, they all move up to my base middle school so I'll see them again.  I really liked the 3rd years at my base school.  They were all very nice and had a perfect energetic energy.  Quite the contrast to my 1st years, which I largely don't like going to class to teach.  For the last class I had them tape a piece of paper on their back and walk around writing messages to each other.  Then I had them write a letter to themselves about their memories now that they could read 10 years down the road.  I hope at least one of them will keep it and read it years later.  I only need one student to read it years later to feel like the project was a success, but since I'll have no way of ever knowing, I'll just assume that out of the roughly 90 kids, at least one did read it.

Rachel is coming back this Friday for about a week.  I gotta clean!

思いで【おもいで】 (omoide) memories

End of School Year, Yearbooks, New Restaurant Mondays

So the school year in Japan ends in March, right when spring break in the US would be starting.  I've been asked to come up with an idea for the last class of 3rd years and I think I've got something good.  Basically we'll tape a piece of paper to the back of the student and then we'll let other students walk around and write stuff on the paper.  Positive comments of course.. at least for the main part!  I've watched these kids grow up since they were in 2nd year, not even halfway through their middle school years yet, and now they're graduating.  It's hard to believe, and makes me feel even older.

This year I'm finally buying all 3 year books.  The year books here are ALL in color, but only include the graduating year.  It sucks because that means there will be kids whose year books I won't get to have when I go back home.  Also, these things are EXPENSIVE.  I'll be paying 34,000 yen, or about $370, for all of them.

I'm on a quest to get to as many restaurants in Kesennuma as possible.  I've been going every Monday and so far I've been liking what I've been going to.  Last Monday I went to Sushi Taihei and it had DELICIOUS sushi.  The sushi second on the lower left (right above a pure white sushi) is called uni, or sea urchin.  The difference between fresh and not so fresh uni is the difference between day and night.  Kappa sushi has uni, but it's not fresh so it tastes like garbage.  Taihei's uni is AMAZING.  I will likely go back, even though it was a bit expensive (4,000 yen to get full.  Ouch!)

卒業アルバム【そつぎょうアルバム】 (sotsugyou/arubamu) classbook; yearbook; graduation album

Chiko Sensei

In February of probably 2005 or 2006, my Japanese teacher from both high school and college passed away due to cancer.

I remember the 1st year of taking Japanese in high school.  We had a non-Japanese teacher, Mrs. Nielsen (on? en?  I don't remember).  You couldn't even really call her our teacher because there might have been all of 1 or 2 days where she actually taught us.  The rest of the time we were taught by her assistants.  They knew all they needed to know in order to teach us, but they were still just high school students.  We learned a very simple self introduction and how to write hiragana and katakana that year.  That was it.

The 2nd year we had a Japanese teacher come down from MHCC (the community college I'd end up going to) to teach the Japanese classes because Mrs. Nielsen had a full schedule.  She found out we didn't know anything and started over teaching us how to do self introductions.  I barely remember the 2nd year because she was so nice that she would let me sleep during class (it was right after P.E. and I was always on the phone at night time during sophomore year).  The 3rd year I actually started studying and learning stuff.  Our 3rd year class was 8 students.  There was no 4th year.  During my senior year in high school, I found out she had cancer.  It was an especially humbling day.

I retook the beginner classes in college so I could get an easy A.  During the summer after the 1st year we went to Kyoto, Japan with our Japanese class and her.  Lots of stuff happened, and I'll never forget it.  The 2nd year of Japanese was good, but she quit her job midway through to deal with the cancer.

She was strong.  She never once even hinted at complaining about her cancer or the chemo treatments she received that made her lose all her hair.  She was always understanding, kind and personable.  She was my favorite teacher and has been since then.  I like to think she is a big part of why I'm in Japan today and I appreciate all she did and the influence she still has on me today.

いつも有難うございます、渡辺千鶴子先生。

影響【えいきょう】 (eikyou) influence

Japan American Differences Part 4

As I live longer and longer in Japan, I get used to things more, and these become harder to write.  Maybe I'll think of more when I go back home.

61. Japanese police drive around with their lights on even if they aren't chasing anyone.  I've heard it's just to provide more "police awareness" but who knows.

62. Teachers here go to school on Saturday... and often Sunday.  Ouch.

63. The way people say no to hanging out with you is to act all interested, then say that something came up later on through a "don't have to see your face but can still turn you down" method, such as texting.

64. The milk here is like 3.5-5%.

65. The space bar on a computer is about half the size of English keyboards.

66. Wi-Fi is still pretty rare here.

67. The word "difficult" in Japanese is often used to mean "no."

68. Japanese people do not laugh during movies.

69. Japanese school year books only include the graduating class.

70. Japanese snowmen have 2 bodies while American ones have 3.