Some random musings:

There seems to be a disproportionate amount of gloomy Sundays and Wednesdays. Today was no exception. It wasn’t raining, but the sky and the landscape were a matching dull shade of blue-grey. Though this morning and the past few days have been beautiful. Sunday too, when I went to the Meiji Restoration Museum in the city. If any of you ever bother coming here, I’ll make sure to take you, as it’s not only very educational, but it combines two of my favourite things, Saigo Takamori and robots, into one amazing animatronic robot Saigo creation.

Nevertheless, most Wednesdays and Sundays are depressing. Sundays as they represent the end of the weekend and Wednesday just because it’s Wednesday. Coincidentally, it seems a great percentage of the gross kyushokus fall on Wednesdays too. Last week there was a cream stew which I couldn’t eat, although then there was a redemptive raisin cream sandwich spread. Today was another cream soup, but without any delicious alternatives. I made up for it by eating about 5 of those fruit jellies that come in individual packets shaped like coffee creamers. I ate them when all the other teachers were busy elsewhere.

Have I mentioned that I love my second year students? I’m a bit indifferent to the first years, with a lean towards liking them (because they’re so small and cute and have sword fights when they should be cleaning!), and I kind of dislike all the third years, but I absolutely adore the second years. Enough to contemplate staying a third year in order to see them graduate, although I highly doubt that that will happen. My desk is in the second year staff room, and I usually eat lunch with one of the second year classes. Today I didn’t, because when there’s gross food I like to eat in the main teachers’ room so I can eat what I want. As I was walking down the hallway, one of the second years dropped the giant Tupperware box that held forty sealed bags of three dinner rolls that he was carrying. All the dinner rolls fell out. This is not that noteworthy, and I wouldn’t even mention it if it wasn’t for the reaction from the kids around. They all seemed to burst into laughter. And not just a healthy chuckle, but tear-streaming, body-shaking, yelping, high-pitched laughter. One of my favourite kids, who I refer to internally as Fat Harry Potter (because he’s chubby and wears glasses!) and already has this incredible voice where it sounds like he’s always yelling, even when he isn’t, just lost it. His best friend, this tiny boy, Yamaguchi-kun, with his hairlip and squeaky cartoon voice, actually fell on the floor from laughing. From another kid dropping a box.

New Beginnings

On Monday, I had my first elementary school visit of the new school year. Over the two weeks that I was gone, much had change. This holds true for all my places of work. April is the start of the new fiscal year as well as the new school year. In order to prevent corruption in the workplace, most public employees are transferred to different departments after a certain tenure. As I arrived to my board of education office early on the Monday morning after my arrival, I was greeted by a new Office Lady and a new Supervisor. The old Office Lady (she of the Urine in the Cup) now works at a kindergarten in the town.　 My old supervisor has been promoted. I have no idea what he does, but I hear his voice every Monday morning over the City Hall intercom. I don’t know where the new supervisor and office lady came from, but it’s interesting to watch them go through the learning process and flub up every once in a while. It reminds me a bit of myself in August, except they actually have a bit of an idea of what’s going on. Again though, it’s a nice reminder of how much I’ve learnt.

It’s not just City Hall that’s gotten new blood. In the Kagoshima education system, teachers are also shuffled around every few years. The average time a teacher stays at one school, or in one district, is only about 5 years. Although the art teacher at my school is an anomaly: he’s now in his ninth year at Chiran, predating any other member of staff as well as the physical building itself.

Since there are so many small isolated islands in the prefecture, the teachers have to move to ensure that the same quality of education is available to all students regardless of where they live. It also ensures that no teacher is stuck permanently on an island that’s a 24 hour boat ride away from the city. Most teachers I know that have worked on an island have loved it. The schools are much much smaller, the students have less attitude, and the atmosphere much more relaxed. However, they all agree that four years was more than enough time to enjoy island life.

All but one of my schools has new teachers this year. All schools have gotten a new principal/vice principal. Last week the board of education had a big welcome party. Since I don’t actually teach ever, I was invited along beforehand to go on a bus sightseeing tour of Chiran. Most of the teachers fell asleep.

So the elementary school I went to on Monday got a new Kocho-sensei (principal). I normally interact mostly with the Kyoto-sensei (vice principal), but when I got to school I noticed that the man who I though was Kocho was still there. He’s this cool old guy who walks with a crutch and has surly eyebrows, a gruff voice and his own office. The kids seem to like him. Since he had his own office, I always assumed he was Kocho. But he’s not. I still have no idea who Kocho is, both the old and the new one. Nor do I know what this man’s job is. But I do finally know all the names of the junior high school teachers.

Kyushoku

Here is an interesting article about the origin and nature of what may be my favourite Japanese custom, the school lunch. Every month I pay Y3000, or a little less than $30, in exchange for school lunch. School lunch is, if you can believe it, lunch served at school. There is no choice in the daily menu. It is planned in advance, with everyone, teachers and students included, receiving a monthly menu on the first of the month. All in Japanese, the menu lists not only the meal, but the amount of calories and protein in the meal, but the ingredients, broken down into three columns: protein, carbohydrates, and nutrients (vegetables). There is also a little box in the corner listing all the locally produced ingredients that are used in the meals for the month.

I don't think we ever have the same meal in a month. Every day is different. I teach at 8 schools, and all schools eat the same meal everyday. That's because all the food is prepared at the School Lunch Centre, and delivered in cooler-like boxes to each school. Each class gets three coolers. One giant one for rice, one for soup/stew, and one for miscellaneous (usually either some sort of salad or fish/meat). There is enough food in the coolers for 40-so kids. Our plates are aluminum (maybe). They look like they belong in a prison. But I like them better than the dirty plastic plates used at some other schools. Depending on the day, we have either two or three different foods. Usually a soup in a bowl, with rice in a large plate, and the various miscellaneous other on a slightly smaller plate. Sometimes when we have a stew-type food, we don't have the miscellaneous food. On Mondays and Wednesdays we always have a bread. The other days we have rice. Everyone gets a carton of whole milk along with the lunch. I don't drink because of my allergy, and because milk is just gross. Many kids hate it, but they are told from a young age that they have to drink it, so they do. At the elementary schools in Chiran they serve green tea along with milk. I like eating at those schools (only on Mondays), except that then I have to eat everything on my plate in order to be a good role model. Sometimes lunch is amazingly delicious, other times, disgusting. Last week was an anomaly of a week, with at least three amazing meals. Usually there's one fantastic meal a week, one really gross one, and three good ones. Today was a gross one. Unfortunately, I was at elementary school so I had to eat it. It was a gross tomato-based stew, which I knew had powdered cheese in it due to reading the menu. There was also a salad with satsuma-age, which is the local specialty of grated fish mashed into a sausage like form. As well, we had raisin bread. I hate raisins. They look like ants. Yet I managed to eat the whole thing, gagging the whole time. But I still wouldn’t give up school lunch, because all in all it’s awesome. Anyways, here’s the link. Enjoy. http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fl20070422rp.html

I am back from my whirlwind Canadian adventure, without much to say about it. It was great seeing friends and family, Montreal is as amazing as it always seems, Toronto is still the last place I would ever want to live, and Ottawa offers the same comfort that it always does, with me moping about my departure for days despite (or because) not doing anything productive for the majority of the time there. It was interesting seeing people and talking a bit about my past eight months here. Living in Japan, being surrounded by either people who have lived here their whole lives or are experiencing the same expat existence as me, it is easy to forget that most people can't read katakana or have no idea what a Japanese school is like. I will try to be better and actually explain what the Japanese experience is, from the scenery that surrounds me to the random events that occur from week to week, but I wouldn't be surprised if I completely forget this promise during the next month that it takes me to update again. Your best bet is to email me, or comment here about what you want me to say. I think I changed the comments settings so you don't need to have an account to post.

Hopefully my next post will be about the beginnings of the new school (and fiscal) year. I would write about it now, but we had the town welcome party for the new teachers at all the schools, and as a result my car has been stranded in the community centre parking lot. Tomorrow morning I must wake up early and claim it.

AAAAAARG

Aaaaaarg. I am kicking myself today for being silly last week. I did not go into work on Friday since I was feeling ill, and I assumed that I could take a sick day, and not a vacation day for it. However, since I did not get a doctor's note, that is not the case. So I have less vacation days left than I originally thought, which sucks since I like vacation! And I could have secretly taken more but I am too earnest and honest and not sneaky or cunning or forward thinking enough! And so aaaaarg!

On Friday, when I was home in my futon wasting a vacation day, the doorbell rang. Thinking it was my office bringing me food since they felt bad for me, I answered it. It was not my office. It was my new next door neighbours and their extended family, or at least I think so. They gave me a box of detergent. I think it's customary to give gifts to your neighbours when you move to a new place. When I moved in, the attached bungalow beside me was empty, but a single dude with glasses and lots of green pants moved in sometime in November. He rang my doorbell one evening a few weeks after he moved and gave me a raisin cake. I took too long to open it and when I did it was gross. Not that I like raisins anyway. Then one day in January I came home to find a giant van blocking my parking dirt. My neighbour apologized and said a bunch of stuff that I didn't understand but I didn't think much of it, just that he was bringing in furniture that he just got. Alas, that was the last I saw of him. Maybe my singing and talking to myself scared him off. I hope it will do the same to these new neighbours, who could be anyone from a seventy year old man, a thirty something dude or a twenty something lady. Hopefully all three, because the place is so small that they'll want to leave sooner. And not block my spot, which is on the side of a cliff, if I didn't mention before (although for story purposes I may be embellishing a bit). I don't like them much to begin with, but maybe it's because they made me get out of bed and brought me bad detergent and I think were disgusted by the state of my flat. But why would anyone give detergent as a gift to an already residing tenant anyways? I could understand if I was just moving in, because I would need detergent, but I do wash my clothes and I mistakenly bought extra detergent when I already had some so now I have three boxes and I hate them all.

Which brings me to the laundry paragraph. Maybe because I'm about to go home, or this upsetting office surprise, or that last week was terribly terribly cold after a previous warm spell would have had me believe that the frozen toes and seeing my breath inside while the heat's on spell was over, but I'm in a complaining mood. This is not one of those charming animals entries, although tomorrow I may write about the wonderful kids at school that I love. But now on to laundry machines, and detergent, and why my clothes have not been properly cleaned in seven and a half months.

My washing machine, a standard model found in most homes, is terrible. It does the exact opposite of what a competent washing machine should. It doesn't actually succeed in successfully cleaning clothes, yet, somehow, it will destroy them. Every single time. My washing machine does not have a hot water option. All clothes are washed in cold water. Liquid detergent is hard to come by, and I'm adopting the Japanese habit of mottanai by not wasting what I have, so I have (now) three boxes of crap detergent to use up. It's crap because stained clothes stay stained, and those that weren't stained become so, with streaks of white detergent that don't disappear. Tomorrow is graduation day and I can't wear my nice pants because of said streaks. Nor can I wear my nice white shirt, because it's no longer nice and white. Somehow, despite the lack of hot water, a certain red tank top manages to stain all my white and grey clothes, this despite it having been washed numerous times in useful washing machines for the past two years.

So that is partially why I hate my washing machine, and why I (ir)rationally hate my new neighbours. This diatribe is already too long, and I no longer feel so grouchy.

In the continuing theme of bad grammar and mislabeled dates, in my last entry it looks like I say that my half birthday was on February 16th. That is wrong. It was on the 15^th. I swear I know when my own birthday is, although Blogger will have you believe otherwise.

I feel like since I didn’t do anything recently that involved seeing tame wild animals this entry will be boring. I guess the most noteworthy thing was that I booked a ticket back to Canada. I will be visiting in late March, and I plan on eating a lot of bagels and smoked salmon, drinking club soda, and going to every used English book store.　　Maybe seeing some friends and family too, if bagel-eating time permits.

Since life these past weeks has had that weird feeling of just waiting for something to happen, I will write a bit about school life. Things are going well. The school year, which begins in April in Japan, is closely coming to an end. Tomorrow is the last day of classes for the third year junior high school students. Next week they will write various high school entrance examinations and then in the following week will be the graduation ceremony. There is so much pressure on these kids to do well, and I really feel for them. One of the English teachers was telling me that normally the girls don’t eat a lot, but with the stress of the past tests and the upcoming ones, they are now eating a ton. I didn’t really believe her, but you can definitely see on some of them a noticeable weight gain. As if they don’t have enough to worry about.

Today was the last class with the good elective English class. There are two elective English classes, and for some reason the one on Tuesday is filled with a ton of boys who don’t actually like English. I think they all colluded to take the class together, and it can be pretty painful. But the Thursday class is amazing. It’s mostly girls, but the boys that are in it are awesome. For the last class, Iyo, the teacher, made them bilingual certificates of completion, with a class picture on the right hand side and the student’s written future goal on the left. I had to write their names in hiragana on their certificates, and took the time to read their dreams. Many of the girls had written that their dream was to pass the exam, or to be a beautician or a designer or a careworker, with a smattering of ‘My dream is to make a dream come true’ and my favourite, ‘To go to the Bump of Chicken’s concert’. The boys’s mostly the same. One boy wants to be a diplomat, a couple want to be a public employee or a ‘salaried man’, but there were two that really made me laugh. One kid wrote, in neon yellow highlighter, that his dream is to ‘Go to the sun and finish my life’. I spent a good five minutes trying to figure out if he’s suicidal, or if he just really wants to be an astronaut. I know if the answer is the former, then it shouldn’t be this funny, but I can’t help it. It was just so unexpected, and I just love goth undertones.

The second dream to make me laugh is a bit simpler. This kid, Ryuu, who had been one of my favourites since the beginning, wrote that his dream is to ‘be a burglar’. I’m cracking up just writing that. I can’t think of how he would know the word burglar without having looked it up, since I don’t think the New Crown textbooks really cover that line of work. When I told Iyo about this, she just shrugged it off and said that Ryuu really likes naughty English. My friend Carolyn and I, during our week long Japanese course in September, then again at mid-year in November, would think of dirty pick up lines and translate them into terrible incomprehensible Japanese. So basically Ryuu and I have the same sense of humour and maturity level, except that I’m not a male fourteen year old junior high school student.

Aaahhhh!!

It's been too long without a post, so though it's past my bedtime and I have yet to accomplish any of the things I set out to do today, I will write a short update.

Today is my half birthday! I always liked my half birthday better than my actual birthday mostly because I tend to not be disappointed on this day and I like that it's the day after Valentine's so if you go to the store chocolate is on sale. Although I didn't eat any chocolate today it was a good day. Mostly because I remember my birthday six months ago and looking back I can see how much I and my situation have changed. In a good way. Also, today is fairly cold, but in the good getting warmer sense of the temperature, and six months ago it was still too hot and uncomforatble in the evenings.

I went to Kyoto this past weekend! I took a ferry with a friend from Shibushi, a port town on the east coast of Kagoshima. The overnight ferry took about 15 hours, but we were given futons and blankets and there was a hot spring on board so the time passed fairly quickly. It helps now that I sleep regularly on a futon. I have to admit that the thing I probably miss the most from home would be the amazing bed I had in Halifax, but I do appreciate this sleeping on the floor on futons if only for the fact that now I am a much more flexible and comfortable traveller.

Kyoto was pretty awesome. I met my friend Tim and we went to a bunch of temples and wandered around together. There are some pictures that you can find through his blog, which is linked in my last post. I thought the Golden Pavillion would be overrated, but it is not. It was awesome and amazing and very beautiful. We also saw a geisha, or at least a meiko (I think), which is an apprentice geisha. We were walking on this narrow old fashioned street behind her, and there was this huge crowd of tourists on the other side of the street taking pictures. It was a little crazy. We also ate at this delicious middle eastern restaurant, which was worth braving the rain and the little snow to get to.

It snowed in Chiran! This happened a couple of weeks ago, and it lasted for all but 5 hours, but it was beautiful while it did. I got to school to see that a bunch of students made snowmen. Snowmen in Japan are two-tiered, not three like back home. Very strange, but I guess they don't have as much snow as we do in Canada.

Last week I had a comparatives lesson with my favourite second-year junior high class. One student came up with the sentence 'Michael Jackson has the whitest skin in the world.' To all of you not living in Japan, trust me, this is much more impressive than you think.

Off to bed!