Nichi-youbi

so happy Sunday to me
i'm at school right now, 'cause we have school today...'cause that's a normal thing to happen in a Japanese education system. There's some sort of a get together with parents at an elementary school and junior high school teachers will join the discussion in the afternoon, so we have a regularly scheduled day with morning classes cut slightly shorter to fit in an early lunch. We get Monday off, for being here today.
So my week has been like this:
Monday--taught two classes--Halloween--started writing "the novel" at a Kijoka cafe
Tuesday--taught three classes--one Halloween, two regular--drove to Nago to have dinner with Tracy and Jason at kaiten sushi (rotating sushi) restaurant; Ben and Ben joined us.
Wednesday--taught three classes--two Halloween, one regular--drove to Nago, met for dinner with Mike, Ben, Aine, Josh, Charlotte, and Mike's friend Hideko (who is hoping to go to UW Madison for MA in TESOL); drove to Kin to drop off a book for Tracy, drove to Kitanakagusuku to spend the night at Kelly's.
Thursday--Culture Day (holiday). Kelly and i got up around 11am, made it to Shuri castle area by 1pm, walked around for a good 4 hours; drove to Nishihara Jusco to meet for dinner with Julie, Chris, and Yasemin; drove Kelly home and drove home myself.
Friday--taught three classes--drove to Nago to meet up for a drive down in Gina's car to Chatan for the book club meeting. Got home around 11pm, watched "West Wing"
Saturday--got up at noon, cleaned, laundered, went to Okuma resort to swim and read on the beach; drove to Nago to drop off DVDs and met for dinner with Aine, Mike, Ben, Theresa and gf, Anna. Went to Sababa bar for a half hour; got home aruond 11:30
Sunday--at school, no classes to teach, working on putting together a poster about Milwaukee, wasting time by writing this blog and taking a new test for Kelly's entertainment.

cheers

Your Hat Personality Is A

Fedora

What Hat Are You?

my fire drill is better than your fire drill

monday i was a pirate and a fairly convincing one at that. with hand made sword, hat, and patch, a white shirt with rufles sticking out from under the sleeves of a black jacket, black pants, tall white thin socks, platform black loafers, and even a neckerchief to seal the deal. The kids ate it up. It was a lot of fun. I played Halloween games with two classes and it was the first time i gave out candy as prizes. Tuesday and Wednesday i played the same games with the three other classes along with regularly scheduled programming for the other ones. Things went really well. Tomorrow is a national holiday, yeah! for Japan and its random mid-week holidays. This one is called Culture Day, so presumingly i will be doing something to expand my cultural knowledge of Okinawa.

so about the fire drill.

Monday morning, after the meeting, my JTE comes up to me and says that we will have "starto fire," and i somehow deduce correctly that we will have a drill. He says that it will be at 2:45pm and the science teacher will "starto fire"....i say, "wha?!" that's right folks, at 2:47pm i heared the science teacher yelling something at the entrance on the first floor, everyone was where they were supposed to be, 5 teachers with their homeroom classes and everyone else variously occupied throughout the school. I wasn't given an escape plan (who cares about the ALT, right?) so i followed the accountant lady, Noriko-san, out of the teachers' office. I walked into smoke! Real smoke and then i understood what they meant by "starto fire." Noriko-san and i walked out onto the athletic field where i expected to see all the students gathered. It took students another 2-3 minutes to come out of the "burning" building, led by their teachers. They lined up in rows as usual and three people proceeded to tell them things. One of them is the village fire marshall who came along with an assistant in a small fire pick-up truck. He spoke as a man knowing that he has a captive audience in teenagers...and they were bored out of their minds...and they could understand the man! imagine me..standing there in my pirate outfit, drawing skull and bones on the field with my loafers. he he
So in order to spice things up, the assistant brought out a metal pan and 4 big spray canisters. Several kids practiced spraying water into the pan from a 5 m distance. Then he brought out lighter fluid, dumped some in the pan and lit it!
See that happenning in an MPS school anytime soon?!
The science teacher put it out with a fire extinguisher and it was lit again for a 3rd grade girl to put out. (don't forget that 3rd grade J.H.S. is equivalent to 9th grade)....so not a tiny kid, but still..quite impressive.
The kids were talked at a bit more, I found out that this is done once a year, and we all piled back into the building. On the way in, my JTE confessed that he and two other taechers made a mistake taking kids out of the building. They walked their classes right into the corridor where the wind was blowing smoke in their direction, so the kids would have burned or died of smoke inhalation. But that was the route indicated on the plan and they just didn't think about another option that would have led the kids outside via another way.
When that was over, i only had 30 more minutes of my day, so if i remember correctly, i spent them on the net. :)

cheers
-e

kasu for me

at first i thought they said "kashu" and that would have meant an incredibly improbable language borrowing, but then it turned out that they were not refering to one of my lunch dishes with a russian word, meaning porridge...

ok.. so lunches this week have been...uhmm.. interesting. not bad or anything, just really different. well..allright.. they're always different, but i thought that after eating them for 2 months, there has got to come a point where i recognize a lunch dish every day of the week. nope. not so much. this week's special ingredient was seaweed. It was in pretty much everything and of all kinds. I have no problem with seaweed. I like seaweed. Yesterday there was something that looked like a falafel only slightly bigger, it sort of smelled like it too, which made me want fallafel; instead i got something that was filled with porridge like substance, mixed with seaweed and the outside crust, which resembled fallafel, smelled more like fish.

today, it was called "kasu" and looked weird...i mean, i don't know how to describe it.. i looked up the word in the dictionary and got back, "dregs" "impose" "loan" and "scum." great! but then it was explained to me, mostly with hand gestures, that "kasu" is made from putting tofu in a sack, squeezing all the water out and using the remaining substance. The "kasu" at lunch was mixed with peas, carrots, some meat-like looking cubes, and you guessed it.. seaweed! it wasn't all that bad, really..just kind of on the dry spot. I thought perhaps baking it with a sauce, or just dumping a bunch of barbeque sauce on top would have really done the trick.
The other side dish today was salty fish, not quite dry, not quite raw...little sardines, if you will. I had a couple then gave up. Some days it's easy to cut down on the food intake around here, although the dessert this week has been great--fruit all week. I've eaten more apple this week than i've eaten in the last 3 months on this island. And in case i haven't mentioned the reason for my lack of apple consumption, it's that an individual apple here costs anywhere from 1 to 2 dollars. They look great, though! Oh, and i'm not a huge apple fan, so it's no big.

It's kin-youbi...Friday!
Yesterday made a Halloween poster that every teacher commented on in the passing--they think i'm awfully creative...and i think i'm just glueing things together for kids to stare at in-between classes. It turned out well, though, i think. I'll have a pic of it on the fotki site sometime soon.

Oh, and here's an interesting little bit of fun i did.
Took another test, just to see if i can find something fun for Kelly ('cause, truly, anything i do during the day is for Kelly's enjoyment)...and i took "what language you should learn" test...and ...yep.. it's Japanese...i'm so glad i'm here and not in France!

You Should Learn Japanese

You're cutting edge, and you are ready to delve into wacky Japanese culture. From Engrish to eating contests, you're born to be a crazy gaijin. Saiko!

What Language Should You Learn?

cheers

what?

home from school. had a really good day of doing pretty much nothing. The JTE is gone for three days and i don't have to teach any classes--they rearranged the entire schedule for the week. In the morning, I studied Japanese and worked on India papers, but in the afternoon I got invited to join the 1-2 class on an excursion to make shisas. If i haven't mentioned shisas, i'm sorry, they are very traditional Okinawan lions that sit in front of people's houses or any other place that people could enter, such as bridges, restaurants, malls, etc...They are almost always in pairs and one of the lions brings in the good energy and the other one blows out the bad. They're usually made out of ceramics, and so today we went to a woman's house who has her own pottery workshop in the village. The drive was into the hills and fun, as usual and her house was fantastic. She has a beautiful two story place surrounded by an overgrown yard with dogs and one chicken and little paths that lead to garden patches...just really nice stuff...she even showed me her workshop and her kiln and invited me over whenever.
The students and i got to make shisas by using something akin to clay but not quite, have no idea what the mixture is called but when it dries, it kind of looks halway between clay and cement. We got to use shells, sea glass, broken bits of ceramics and roof tile to put together our shisa. I only had my cellphone camera with me, so i'm sorry i won't have any pics to put up until the dried shisas are delivered to the school sometime in the future.
It was a lot of fun, though--a nice break from the routine and the kids loved it.

so now, i'm home and i was putzing around on the net and took a short test that was supposed to tell me how old i act...and it spit back at me that i act exactly my age.
i'm sure if anyone else takes it, it won't do the same thing--that is, guess your exact age.. but it's fairly interesting that it did that for me.
I don't feel my age here, but i know i act it sometimes, and then i don't. And what does it mean, anyways to act 27? :))

You Are 27 Years Old

Under 12: You are a kid at heart. You still have an optimistic life view - and you look at the world with awe. 13-19: You are a teenager at heart. You question authority and are still trying to find your place in this world. 20-29: You are a twentysomething at heart. You feel excited about what's to come... love, work, and new experiences. 30-39: You are a thirtysomething at heart. You've had a taste of success and true love, but you want more! 40+: You are a mature adult. You've been through most of the ups and downs of life already. Now you get to sit back and relax.

What Age Do You Act?

serious fun

another wonderful Okinawa weekend behind me and lots of new memories, thoughts, discoveries, misunderstandings, opinions, ideas, and Engrish fun to add to the book of my experiences, but for now, here's just a bit of fun.






This weekend i noticed that Craig and Kelly have very similar, beautiful eyes. Kelly claims hers are better, Craig believes his take the cake. So here are two shots for your consideration. We'll label the ones on the right, A, and the ones on the left, B. You may vote for your favorite by leaving a comment on the blog or by e-mailing me directly. Thanx for participating, we hope to resolve this argument with your help. :)

___Earlier, this post experienced what in some circles is known as a "faux pas" or in others, more correct circles is known as "Elina is not very bright and should double check things instead of pressing buttons as quickly as possible"....so now that that has been fixed, although it did taint the earlier polling results, i hope it doesn't stop some of you from voting, nonetheless.

oh, and some pics are up from this weekend, and if you need the password for locked ones, please e-mail me.

cheers

ta-i-to-ru

that's the katakana for "title"

wanted to do a quick update, so as people don't think i'm melancholy all the time.

my jambalaya was very well received. they liked it and i even got to explain that it's a cajun dish, which means a mixture of culture and they get that here, 'cause Okinawa is a mix of cultures.. and they even use that word for a dish that's very traditionally Okinawan, called "champuru"...that literally means, "a mix" and there are four standard kinds: goya champuru, tofu champuru, fu champuru, and vegetable champuru (if i'm lying on this one, guys, please correct me).
The female teachers even asked me to explain the process of making the dish, so i had to admit that i use the spices from a packet and don't know what's in them.. but they really didn't care...and Hisako-san asked me to bring it again the next day...and good thing she did, 'cause i had plenty left over and was not planning on eating it...so today being Friday, my jambalaya has been fully devoured at lunch and my fridge is empty once again.

i had three classes today. With the 3rd graders we chatted about different gestures and some of them really got into it and were mimicking the gestures i was making. And i wanted to share with them a gesture from a different culture (it's all about internationalization, right?) so i commented on how "wait" is shown similarly in Japan and the States.. but in Israel it's a completely different gesture..and they loved that.. although there are chances that it means something in Japan and i just don't know what it is.. but i did show it to my JTE before doing it in class, and he didn't react in any alarming way, so i think i'm ok on that one..
("wait" or "rega" in Israel is shown by putting together the tips of the thumb, the index and middle fingers, turning the hand palm up and slightly raising it.)

the second graders were introduced to the "enjoy + -ing" grammar...example: I enjoy typing up these blogs.
Although how grammar can be introduced and explained in 2 minutes is beyond me.. but i'm not the teacher, right?
so we had a worksheet to have them practice the concept. they had walk around and ask their friends and me whether we enjoyed doing different things..and they had to create their own original question. and of course, i got simple stuff, such as "do you enjoy playing baseball/basketball/tennis/soccer" but everyonce in a while, a student would come up with "do you enjoy cycling"..."do you enjoying studying (and studying Japanese)"
i never thought i'd be so excited over hearing "do you enjoy reading books?"

the first graders as always were a treat. i did a mini self-introduction by putting together some photos and pictures of things i like and don't like, such as mexican food, strawberries, traveling (i had photos of me in DC, New York, and Israel), my hobbies...and then i wrote it up on a poster board as well..so they could look at the writing as i was saying it..and it acted as an example when we then asked them to start creating their own self-introduction..
they worked in groups and put their desks together and actaully wrote down ideas and asked me questions..which is also making me realize how many words i've learned so far.. i can actually say a few things to clarify directions for them.. it's pretty cool...and they get a total kick out of me saying "sumimasen" ("excuse me") if i disturb their work space by walking by....it was such pleasure observing a class full of students absorbed in an activity and making progress and seemingly enjoying it...
no matter what my day is like before or after.. moments like these are totally worth it
so their homework for the weekend is to put together a poster like mine, with pictures, cutouts, drawings of things about them...
i'm looking forward to the results...
it's fun doing things like that with the first graders because they had positive experiences with English in elemantary schools, thanx to Gabrielle's enthusiasm of the last three years...and they're not jaded to it like 3rd graders are ..and i can try different things and instill expectations in them that are above the ones asked of them now..and work with that for the next two years...it'll be great to see them as 3rd graders...

so things are good.. they're really good...
and i discovered that i can rent episodes of "the west wing" and that just totally made my night last night..
i know..
i'm a geek..
but Josh Lyman is such a sexy character, especially when he gets angry at something...

oh, and speaking of politics.. yesterday i said to one of the teachers who was asking me about my religion, "politics and religion are difficult...everything else is easy".. i kind of made that up on the spot..but i think i really believe that now--you try explaining to someone who barely speaks English in dictionary-Japanese the difference between being Jewish religiously or culturally..
ha!

cheers

tao for you

been feeling a bit moody the last few days.
It's nothing serious, just your regular, disgruntled stuff. Here it just seems all emotions are hightened, because all the usual ways of dealing with them are gone--i can't just go and walk Molly in the park, or call Shelley, or lay on the couch at mom's, or drink coffee at grandma's with Anna and Sofya. Those comforts, which somehow allay the feelings of depressions or nostalgia, or whatever other moodiness is happenning are not within reach, and so it is up to me to create new ones. Will it be taking a drive after school down an unknown road? Will it be watching an episode of "lost" and eating jambalaya? Or will it be driving to Nago to hang out with crazy Block 1 crew--who are, btw, the winners of the recent block game challenge--yeah yeah!!

i did cook a jambalaya.. and yes, it was done with the help of a Zatarain's box..but i added stuff, and it's better than the box, and tasted wonderfull and i will take a bit of it to school tomorrow to share with the teachers. It is customary to bring in boxed cookies and treats, especially if one goes on trips, but every once in a while a teacher will bring in a dish, or will have for lunch a bit of something students made in home economics (and it's actually good). So i thought i'd show off my knowledge of things cajun and have them try something a bit spicy, 'cause most lunch dishes are fairly dull as far as spices are concerned.

Today i got stuck in a ditch on the road, while i was driving around, looking for nothing in particular. The ditches here are about 15cm wide and 30cm deep and run along the roads on both sides...some sort of drainage system, i'm sure. well, i was Y-turning and miscalculated and the left front wheel went inside the ditch. And i was stuck in the middle of a country road with no knowledge of where i was (well.. i was somewhere between Ogimi and Higashi, north of Nago and south of Kunigami..but that wouldn't help anyone)...i can't speak Japanese, even if i were to call someone, and Ben, who lives in Higashi and can speak Japanese, would have no way of finding me. Oh, and my car was basically at the top of a hill, so anyone driving up would have hit me because they wouldn't have had enough time to stop. Brilliant! I know.
sorry, mom.
Well, i figured out that i can turn the wheel and put the car in drive and let the wheel drive onto to the other side of the ditch and then quickly back up. It worked, i'm safe, it's all good.. but i was a bit worried there for a sec. ;)

Today at lunch we had curry and talked music. The music teacher commented on my playing the piano, i think she said i was good, so that's cool, and practicing the piano has been a really good moment in my school days.

The monster post was just for fun.

Here's what i really wanted to share because it goes along with my mood.
This is from a postcard i bought before i came here.
I'm not sure if i'm getting everything i'm supposed to from this passage, but with all things, the meanings we get out of them change depending on who we are when we read them. So right now it rings differently to me then when it did when i first got it; i wonder what it will mean to me in a year or two.

Do you think you can take over the universe and improve it?
I do not believe it can be done.

The universe is sacred.

You cannot improve it.
If you try to change it, you will ruin it.
If you try to hold it, you will lose it.

So sometimes things are ahead
and sometimes they are behind;
sometimes breathing is hard, sometimes it comes easily;
sometimes there is strength and sometimes weakness;
sometimes one is up and sometimes down.

Therefore the sage avoids
extremes, excesses and complacency.
Text by Lao Tsu, from Tao Te Ching, Chapter 29

cheers

Blogthings - What's Your Monster Name?

Blogthings - What's Your Monster Name?: "

Your Monster Profile

Creepy Gaze You Feast On: Pickles You Lurk Around In: The Alamo You Especially Like to Torment: Groupies

What's Your Monster Name?

"

the tug weekend

This was yet another long weekend with the Monday off and we took full advantage. But first, on Friday night, I was taken out to a real sushi restaurant by my supervisor and the superindendent, aka my best buddy at the Board of Education. What a wonderful meal! Mr. Taira (the superindendant) reserved three spots at the sushi counter and we had a fantastic meal. I tried natto, which is some sort of a bean curd goo. It's really not pleasant--it has a very strong, pungent smell, and it oozes and stretches when it's picked. My students have been asking me since day 1 if i liked natto and now i can finally answer that i've tried it and no! i don't like it at all. But everything else during the meal was fantastic. We had some escargot from Kyushu, some tiny grilled fish that were eaten whole and best when with cold sake. So good times.

Saturday i drove to Kin and picked up Tracy, then we picked up a TV and a stand for Kerri from a marine kid, and then Kerri proceeded to drop the tv stand on her toe and we should have called for a refund, except the stand came free with the TV. On the upside, Kerri can now watch DVDs and we enjoyed that fact later in the weekend.
Saturday night was the fundraiser for the hurricaine Katrina at Paul and Mike's with lots of fun JETs and locals and DJing provided by Amul.
Sunday was the Naha matsuri, which involves the biggest rope in the world being pulled by hundreds (maybe thousands) of people on either side.
It was a very spirited and beautiful event and even the slight rain didn't dampen our spirits. We pulled and tug and crashed into our rope neighbors and our side (the west side) came out victorious.
I should probably let Kelly handle the historical aspects of the event, but I will mention that the tug of war has been around in the Okinawan tradition since the 1600s and is a part of the harvest festival. The rope, in its present, 40ton shape has existed since the 1997 when it was entered into the Guiness Book of Records. Every year the rope is remade because it is a symbol of good luck to take away a part of the rope, and people go all out.
We all walked away with a little bit of the Okinawan spirit in our hands and headed for the second portion of the festivities, The Orion Beer Paradise!
Chris, Kerri, Tracy, and I headed back to Kerri's to chill with a couple of bottles of Chianti and a movie. Kelly, Matt, and Yasemin (in a spectacular entrance) joined us later in the night, and we stayed up listening to Chris' guitar playing and chatting into the early morning hours.

The next day was spent drinking coffee at a Chatan Starbucks and lazing around on the beach. The weekend was capped off with a wonderful italian meal and Tracy and I headed north giddy from coffee and sweets and a feeling of yet another weekend well spent.


cheers

UWM: School of Education: New Teacher Blogs

ok..there's lots of things going on and today i hope to put up photos from the big Naha festival aka "the biggest tug of war in the world" so check the Fotki page in a few hours, but this is a link that was sent to me through UWM. Kevin and I are featured in the EdLine magazine and the links to our blogs have been put up at the UWM site. I guess I'll have to start talking about actual teaching in these posts soon. :) Too bad this week is the fall vacation and all I'm going to do is take care of business for the India trip and do some exploring down South.

cheers

what Okinawa is made of

i'm sure this topic can and will be covered in several blogs
if not in every one in one way or another

my days are filled with slight melancholy for things i knew and extreme giddiness for the things i've yet to discover. Finding a balance seems to be the growing experience everyone talks about.
I can play the piano on the second floor of the Junior high school. I'm learning new japanese songs and looking at the wall covered with pictures of composers i learned about as a kid but whose names i now can't read.
Even though katakana is used to write foreign words in japanese, knowing it(which hoooray! i do now) does not guarantee comprehension. Something written as "kohee" in katakana..means coffee. but that's almost too simple. names of composers are near impossible to figure out. but i'm working on it. still looking for tschakoivsky; that should be the most amuzing one.

watched my students compete in the Track & Field event. It was a very hot day but an enjoyable one. Every school was represented by a cheering crowd of supporters who relentlessly screamed, danced, whistled, and moved to show their athletes they were there for them.

My students did allright. A 3rd grader took a third place in high jump and a few girls took 4th and 5th places in 100m, 400m, and 400m relay. I walked around the field a lot and spend time chatting with other ALTs.

later that evening i drove south to Yasmine's apartment in Nakagusuku and had a wonderful time hanging out with Chris, Kelly, Martin, Priya and Yasmine. Yasmine is from Turkey and so she had the ingredients for me to make turkish coffee and even pretend i knew anything about fortune telling. (although, i did surprise myself and was able to see a few things and talk about them) and really missed my grandmother at that moment.
but that's the balance.

we played a game i brought from the states called catchphrase and it was a hit. The game uses a lot of American expressions and it was fun watching Yasmine try and explain them literally. stayed up way too late and had a late start but made it out to see yet another gorgeous castle in Nakagusuku, called appropriately, Nakagusuku-jo.
The road from the castle lead to the ruins of a hotel that was abandoned years ago because of hauntings and rumors and no wonder, there are tombs within the hotel grounds and it's next to a massive castle with shrines on every corner.
Okinawa is a deeply spiritual place; there is energy at work here the likes of which i've only felt in Israel; so i'm not surprised that the hotel had to be left behind, even though it looks like it was very near completion.

these are some thoughts i wrote down earlier when i was looking at the pics of the hotel.


[walking through the abandoned building, an eerie feeling crept through me. whether it was because i knew the hotel was left to squaters because it was haunted or because it was such a contrast between the castle ruins i had just strolled through. we expect to see something that is 700 years old on the brink of collapse..seeing a modern building in the same type collapsed state is onerous and near disturbing, although also very fascinating and exciting. Fascinating because things like this do not exist in the realities of most people. There are buildings like these out there some people call home, and the society doesn't think of them as people worth considering. Even though the building has been abandoned by those who would pay to stay in it and enjoy all the amenities it should have offered; it is still very much in use by teenagers, drunks, punks, partiers, and americans. However, the one things that disturbed me more than the haunted feeling was a swastika with an SS sign painted in one of the rooms. Yes, the hotel was covered in vulgar graffiti, but to have that in addition to everything else was sickening.]

So we went from the ruins of the old that are being rebuilt to the abandoned construction of the modern that has been left to ruin.

and that's the stuff of Okinawa.
that and the great people i meet here.
they make the balance happen painlessly and harmonously.

and for some reason i'm considering running. gabrielle has insisted that she'll get me to run soon enough, and i didn't believe her. although this is still just the thinking process, the fact that i'm thinking about it should put a few people who know me on alert.

cheers.

so, Dave, what's up with that gas flap?

it's been a long weekend. a really long weekend. and it was a really good one in all sorts of ways. but i'm not going to tell you about anything that happened to me. I am going to share with you David's story.
There's a couple of things you need to know before i proceed. First, David is a wonderful 22 year old guy who is a new JET and came in with my group to Okinawa and now lives in Motobu, about a half hour drive from me. Second, in Okinawa, and i'm going to assume, in the rest of Japan as well, gas stations are full service. All you need to know is on which side the gas tank is on and where the trigger is to open the gas flap. Oh, and it would help to know that when they're asking you something, they're probably asking you for garbage that they could help you get rid of.
So last night, Chris, Ben and I met David for dinner in Nago. On the way to my favorite izakaya, David called saying something about car trouble and that he was at a gas station and that he doesn't think he'll be too late but just to give us a heads up that he will be. I was a bit worried and told him to call us should he need anything.
We head to the izakaya, and by the time we get the table (the place was packed), David shows up and we proceed to order food, 'cause i don't know about David, but the three of us were starved.
So, of course, i ask David what was wrong with his car, and he's reluctant to tell us but finally he gives up the coyness and tells us that he broke off the flap door to his gas tank, so now we're really curious and he shares with us a truly "david crennen" type of story.
David was driving from Motobu into Nago, he decided to stop for gas at a gas station near the izakaya. He asks for a 1000 Yen worth of gas and flips open the gas flap. He watches as the gas attendant puts in the hose and then waits for him to finish, pay his bill and leave. As David explained, he waited for a good period of time considering that he always gets 2000 Yen worth of gas, and this was taking longer than usual. So the man comes around and David hands him the money (David.. maybe he was asking you for garbage..i just thought of that); happily to be on his way, David drives off. What David doesn't realize at this moment, is that the man was not finished filling him up and the hose has not been pulled out of his gas tank so David's car (also known as the "Exciting version") is dragging a long piece of gas hose that has been yanked off the top of the gas pump and there's gas spouting out of it and gas attendants running behind him.
David stops immediately, gets out of the car, by this point (to everyone's relief) the gas has stopped pouring out, and David is a bit more releaved, so without knowing what else to do at that exact moment, he shrugs his shoulders and says, "gomenasai," which means sorry.. :)
I'm assuming Chris will attempt to retell this story through his words, but i don't think there's a good way to sharing it without you knowing David and how he tells stories.
The point being, the gas flap was the monumental cap off to the whole thing.
After we've been laughing for a while, and David has told us that his supervisor was on the phone with the attendants, and through laughter told David to get to school in the morning where everything would be sorted out, i decided to ask what did actually happen to the gas flap with which David has so intriguingly started his tale.
"Well, you know, how in some action movies, when a car blows up, there's usually a hubcap that spins out of the blast and turns on itself with slowed momentum?" "Yeah."
"Well, when i looked back at the gas pump, i saw my gas flap doing that very thing, i don't know how it was able to spin on the ground like that, but it was doing it and i just stood there and watched for a few seconds before it stopped."

So there ya go.


And here's a picture to prove it.
After that we heard a couple of other stories, one of them involved David flattening three out of four tires in one go, but it's best when he tells it.


Oh, and my weekend, once again was beautiful.

My students didn't take a place in the story contest, which is complete rubbish, but it was a learning experience for them and me, too bad that i get to try again next year with new students, but because they're third graders, this was their last chance..although they could try again in high school i suppose.
MCing was fun, and i'm told i did a wonderful job.
I have a few pics up from the speech contest, and i'll have more pics up for the weekend, as soon i figure out a way to get them from Chris.
cheers

this will not be brief

so i've been slacking on updating this place. my apologies to those of you anxiously waiting for any and all news on my life here. Please stop biting your finger nails and listen here.
So i've been busy and i figure that's how it's going to be for a while, until i decide to stop spending money and start doing things that are closer to home and don't cost much.
If you've checked the fotki page, then you might have noticed several new additions, including a special folder for events that necessitate separate albums because there are too many photos involved.
So i'll start in the beginning, then, shall i?
Last week thursday, i got a call from my supervisor who urged to leave my apartment, where i was about to cook some chow, and walk across the street to the community center. His english is not that good, but i did make out "turtles" and "ocean." When i get there, i see a party of several children and adults who are checking plastic bins filled with tiny sea turtles. Apparently, they were rescued from the beach as they hatched by a local enthusiast prior to the typhoon of two weeks ago. He let them grow up a bit and decided to organize a "releasing of the turtles" party. He wasn't the only one who had collected them off the beach near my apartment. Several other people had buckets of turtles that they brought with them when we all gathered on the beach.
Here's what a week old sea turtle looks like.


So that was a very unique experience and i'm very thankful to my supervisor for remembering to invite me. It was fun seeing a bunch of villagers gathered around these tiny creatures and the kids were just having a blast, picking them up and running down to the ocean to set them down and watch them scramble their way towards the water.

Friday was an all day rehearsal for the sports fest at my school. I have created a separate album for the sports fest, including pics from the rehearsal and then the execution on Sunday.
The kids worked incredibly hard; i haven't been a part of such a communal experience in a really long time, if ever, really. All the kids' parents were there to watch and quite a few participated in relay races. The PTA was involved in organizing some fun races, and even the high school students came in to volunteer with the background stuff, such as serving the important men and women tea and buiscuits and cleaning up after the event.
I think my favorite part was the Ogimi female dance. I didn't know it was about to happen, but all of a sudden, i was being called to dance with 40 or so women. These were mothers, sisters, aunts of the students and they gathered in a large circle and there were 10 or so who knew the dance very well and the rest of us just watched them as the music played and tried to follow along. It was a very enjoyable experience; the people here are so giving in all kinds of ways that it just makes me wonder how they are this way and how come so many others around the world aren't.
The sports fest was a great time, and i even got to participate by running in a relay and dancing in a folk dance with the 3rd graders group. I am told that i ran very fast, but i keep joking that those 200 meters were all i could run.
The students were exhausted by the end of the day; and some 3rd graders were teary eyed at the closing ceremony because they worked really hard organizing the whole event and this was their last sports festival.
Oh yeah, forgot to mention that students basically ran the whole thing. There were several leaders chosen during the summer to organize the events; teachers were of course in charge of the overall planning, but the lead students were the ones teaching others the events, such as Eisa dancing, Bo fighting, folk dancing, female dance, etc. And during the races, students kept track of the scores, fired the starting guns, and told everyone where to be and where to go at specific times.
So that was very impressive to me, and certainly added a very special charm to the events. Class 2-1 won the entire competition and have a small trophy now in their classroom that will stay there until next year's sports fest.
Here's one of my favorite photos from the fest.

OK. After the sports fest, i drove south, picked up Kelly and Chiye and we headed for Naha by way of stopping at Kerri's in Urosoe, dropping off my car and taking the metro to the Kokusaidori (main drag in Naha). The islanders, Andy, Brett, and Craig, organized this crazy get together and provided a wonderful drink called, habusho sake, which involves putting a live venomous snake into a bottle of sake, sealing it up, watching the snake die and release its poison into the drink. This makes the sake have that very special power of turning a gang of happy JETs into a roudy bunch of gaijin who won't stop at anything to have a bloody good time. There was some dancing, some dancing on the bar, some dancing on the tables, some more drinking, chatting, laughing, picture taking, and just general, crazy time.

Here's a sneak peek at a locked album, if you're a JET reading this, e-mail me for the password.

The rest of the weekend went like this. Saturday, Kelly, Chiye and I checked out the main castle of the Ryukyu kindgom, the Shurijo. For a more detailed description of the history and to look at pics from that day, check out Kelly's site from the links on the right. We got a yearly pass, so i'll be back, when the weather is not so hot and i'm not so hung over.
Sunday, Ben from Higashi-son (he's from Manchester originally) and I went to a castle in the north, called Nakijin-jo (jo stands for "castle") and i have some pics up from that day. Whereas Shuri castle has been mostly reconstructed, the Nakijin castle is basically ruins that have been partially excavated. The outer wall is still intact and very impressive. THe inner grounds have several shrines and a nice paths to walk. It was nice seeing archaeogical digs "in process," they were covered up by tarps and looked like they haven't been touched in a week or two.
Sunday night was the fest at the Okuma resort 15 minute drive north from me. It's a military resort, but once a year they open it up to the whole island and have games, shows, and an Okinawan band. A bunch of ALTs were there and so were almost all of my students, who kept asking if any of the guy ALTs were my boyfriends.

Ok. I'll stop right here, and just say that i had a monday off, and taught on tuesday and wednesday, which went well. Thursday (today) we have off as well, and tomorrow is the speech contest, which i'm MCing..and i'll be sure to tell what happens. So keep your fingers crossed for my two students who have been practicing for this thing for over a month.

cheers

sunset boulevard

These were both taken tonight, two minutes apart. I'm perplexed by the dramatic difference the zoom made. And this view is only a 3 minute walk from my apartment building.

Okinawa Churaumi Aquarium

This is a link to the map of the Ocean Expo Park and the Churaumi Aquarium.
Okinawa Churaumi Aquarium map

Kelly, David and I were there this Sunday after a night of partying at Tracy's apartment in Kintown. The Aquarium is in Motobu, which is the pertrusion on the west coast of the Okinawa main island (if you've ever seen a map of Okinawa main island, that would make sense). David lives and works in Motobu, and I live about a 40 min drive north from him. This was Kelly's first venture to the north of the island, as she is one of them southern city folk. We started off at the South Gate, if you're looking at the Aquarium map, and wandered all the way to the Central Gate to see the dolphin show at the Dolphin Studio. The walk was wonderful. The place is filled with botanical wonders of Okinawa. We walked at a leisurely pace, stopped often and took pics. What this map doesn't show is the abundance of bathrooms at the Expo Park. I swear that there is a bathroom house every 500 meters or so, and they're all nice and clean, as most public bathrooms on Okinawa are.
It doesn't cost a yenni to explore the Expo park, this includes the manatee house, the dolphin show, the dolphin lagoon, the native okinawan village. The small museums cost 600 to 800 yen and the main Aquarium is 1800 yen or a yearly pass for 3600. We didn't pay any money on sunday (well, except for purchasing ice cream snacks) and spent three wonderful hours at the Expo Park. The dolphin show was great, as were the manatees and the sea turtles. You've got to check out my fotki page to see the funniest sign we encountered that day; it supposedly explained about the turtle birthing rituals, but that's just a guess.
I'm deffinately going back to check out the actual aquarium; it is the 2nd largest in the world and might be worth a yearly pass.

It's difficult to go back to school after a relaxing weekend spent amongst JETs; the weekends here are deffinately always filled with some goings on, so much so sometimes, that one has to pick and choose as to what to do.
However, school is also fun. Today, for instance, I got to jump rope with 2nd graders, and got to try a game out in a 2nd grade classroom as well. So it's all good, and I'm happy to be here every day that I am.
And for lunch today, we had egg drop soup and a vegetable stir fry. As always, i gave away my school milk to an eager student. And played junken over who would clean up the lunch trays. I'm happy to say that I won.

cheers

a "typical" school day

and none have been this week, 'cause the students are getting ready for the "Undokai," which, if i'm undersstanding this correctly, is a sports show. All over the northern area the schools will be showing off their sports ability. This, however, only includes track and field as the sport, but students will also be performing an Eisa drum dance, some sort of a karate show, and a folk dance. The preparations started in earnest on Monday and will continue until next week Friday, when there will be a major rehearsal all day and the Undokai is on that Sunday (the 18th). Preparation means that there are no classes after lunch. Starting at 2pm, students and teachers take off for the gym or the outside or both and start getting ready. On Monday, we watched a group of students show the rest of the school the Eisa dance they prepared and which the rest of the students will learn. On TUesday, students were outside practicing the karate show with long sticks; yesterday, they were outside again working on the Eisa and today we started on the folk dancing and Eisa again. Today, was the first day I joined in the activities. To me, the practice times mean that i have to stay in school until 6pm every day, because the two students i'm prepping for the English speech contest can't practice that until they're done with the Undokai stuff, so i see them after 4:30.
Today was special for two reasons. I got to try a game activity in the 1st grade classroom and i joined in with the Undokai prep outside.
My JTE told me in the morning that he wanted to take the 1st graders to the computer lab to play on the GenkiEnglish.com site. "Genki" btw is a very very popular word and it basically means "excited" or "pumped up" or "in a good mood"..well..you get it.. if elementary school kids run their heads off all day for no reason, that just means they're very "genki"....and being "genki" is important.
So this website is put together by some former JETs and it's very resourceful and they've basically turned it into a business, supplying English teachers in japan with loads of activities, CD-Roms, games, worksheets, etc. Of course, most of it has to be ordered, but the website does offer some neat games for the kids to try. Most are geared towards the younger students, so perfect for the 1st graders who are still having trouble with the alphabet.
But that fell through, and i'm almost glad it did, 'cause he didn't have anything prepared for it; i actually went on the website and made a quick worksheet for an activity i thought we'd have them do, in case we did get in.
He apparently, didn't clear us using the comp. lab with the vice principal, so we were back to square one and he had nothing planned for the classroom either.
So i jumped at the opportunity to push for a game. I changed up the "scattegories" game we were introduced to at the Naha conference and it worked beautifully. The kids were very "genki" about it and i gave out prizes to the winners and my JTE said, "they liked it, ne?"...and i was pleased, 'cause that means that maybe next time i suggest a game for a class, it might go through.. yeah!! one little victory on behalf of the little people.

The folk dancing was hillarious. I was asked to join 'cause the 3rd grader boys didn't have enough partners in their own grade. So four of us, my JTE, the head teacher (she's the math teacher), the student teacher and I, stepped in as the partners. Now, don't go thinking that the folk dancing was Japanese.. nothing of the sort. It was some sort of simplified version of a very generic European dance. I don' tknow where they got it, or what is the origin of the music, but it reminded me of all the folk dancing i've done when i was a part of a dance group back home. THe boys were shy having to dance with their teachers, but most of them knew the steps and it went swimmingly. Of course, i was sweating buckets, 'cause i wasn't prepared to spend two hours in the sun and did not have a hat, or appropriate footwear (sorry, mom). But it was fun and hopefully they'll ask me to dance during the Undokai, 'cause at least i'll be somehow involved and won't just spend hours watching from the sidelines.
After the "folk" dancing we had a short break and it was onto the Eisa practice. I joined that as well and am happy to say that i'm doing well with all of the three parts of the dance. Unfortunately, it's difficult to explain what that means.
Basically, a typical Eisa drum dance will have several repeating dances. The music changes and so do the steps. Each musical number will go on for 3-5 minutes and then it will shift and we do another dance repeatedly for 3-5 minutes and so on. The adult groups do 5 or 6 different dances, which can be very streneous, so the kids are only doing 3, but they're complex enough, so it'll take me a few practices to get it right.
after that, there was speech contest prep and that's going well; very proud of the two girls, i think they'll do well ... (i'm mentally spitting behind my left shoulder right now) :)

and as a lesson for the day:
do not leave a box of Mentos in an "empty" box, if you're not planning on finding it for over a month, because the ants will.
yep. that's the lesson.

cheers

back to NOLA

of all the cities that I've visited in the United States, New Orleans, was the most charming, the most peculiar, the most spirited, the most unusual, spiritual, weird, historical, stunning, yummy, and depressing. Honestly. I loved every moment i spent in that city both times i was there; and now i realize how lucky i was to have been there for Mardi Gras--i saw NOLA at its finest and and its worst, simulteneously...and at its worst, it still kept the humor and ease it's famous for.

I'm not surprised by what happened in the aftermath of the hurricaine there; I am not surprised at the level of ineffeciency and misconduct shown by the local and federal authorities towards a large population of people. I am not even surprised that it was in a BBC report that I first actually read the words, "The majority of those in most desperate need of relief were impoverished black people who may not have had the means to leave the affected area ahead of Hurricane Katrina."
But i am surprised by the amount of violence that has erupted in that city and at how merciless people can be in a time of absolute and dire need. How can we possibly expect a population that is capable of such acts of violence to stand up for itself and give support to any other part of the world. We can't help ourselves, how can we help others? I am stunned, as I'm sure most of you are by the reports of shooting at rescue workers and contractors; who are these people that strike against a fellow humans whose only purpose is to help, whose life is as precious as the lives of those who perished in the disaster.
sorry. I'll stop. just extremely upset and i thought that things like that wouldn't phase me now. they do. they should touch and unnerve and disturb everyone. they are disturbing.
a few days ago i posted a link to a blog being kept by a group of very dedicated people keeping track of things in NOLA and posting about what they see on an hourly basis. please, check it out.
and i just wanted to include what the writer wrote about politics, in case you don't read that specific post. He makes a very good point and I believe it should be shared.

From Interdictor : So yeah, I'm not going to support or condemn anyone specific for what's going on here.

And another thing to think about when we start pointing fingers is this. The government is never equipped to handle a crisis like this. There's too much bureaucracy -- initiative-stifling bureaucracy which prevents swift, effective action. I would like to hear from government employees on this. The nature of that bureaucracy is such that you have very specific guidelines to follow for even the most minute tasks. You need approval for just about everything, and the person you need approval from usually needs approval to give you the approval.

It's not as easy as say rounding up 4 of your co-workers and saying, "We've got someone at such and such an address, let's go grab her and get her out of there." Now add a destroyed or disabled command and control center to that bureaucracy and you've got a total and complete mess.

You (as a civilian) don't need "Approved" stamped on 3 different forms before you can run into your neighbor's house and pull them out. I hope this makes sense.

Anyway, I'm sure there's been human error in this catastrophe. How could there not be? But what I'm saying is that I've come to expect poor decision making and a total lack of initiative from government. They can't even balance a budget, at the federal, state, or local levels. I could balance my checkbook and spend within my means when I was a teenager. But I'm not gonna point fingers and get into the blame game. If you want me to blame something besides the storm herself, I blame the nature of government in the first place. It's too big, it's too slow, it's too inefficient, it's too bloated, and it's too intiative-stifling to be effective in normal circumstances, much less in a disaster. It's a systemic issue, more than an issue of individual people in government.

Ok, that being said, I see more civilians on the street now -- although many of them appear to be journalist types.

Hope everyone is well out there.
Miss you all.

cheers

my buddy typhoon

in the midst of a typhoon Nabi, i'm learning that staying in my apartment for a while can be a good time to do things i've put off for weeks now..such as decorating my living room and going through my "scary room" of stuff from packages and tokyo orientation giveaways.

"Nabi" means butterfly in Korean. i don't know why a typhoon would get such a pretty name but it did. It was a level 5 two days ago and now as it's hitting Okinawa it's reduced to 3. The winds are strong and the power went out briefly three times so far. I don't know if we're getting the worst of it now, or the worst is yet to come. If the wind doesn't drop below 25 knots per hour by morning, school might be canceled and i'll have one more day of doing stuff at home; although at this point i'm running out of things to do. i suppose i can always read and write these blogs. :)

school lunch:
it happens like this. After 4th hour, which could be at 12:25pm if it's a "B" schedule day or almost at 1pm if it's an A schedule, all homerooms get lunch. students each lunch in their homerooms; there are students assigned to getting lunches from the cart and bringing them into the classroom and then those same students set up trays and serve their peers lunch. Lunch for teachers works the same way; we get the same food as students and someone needs to set it up for everyone. It usually involves a couple of office ladies and a couple of female teachers doing it. On friday, I helped out, because only one woman was setting it up. There are usually three dishes at lunch and dessert. Everythign has to be served out of large pots and square dishes. So on friday we got rice and thin grilled beef, as well as a vegetable soup, a salad, a fruit medley, and a quarter of an orange. I helped pour soup for everyone and put the beef pieces on top of rice bowls. THen when i was setting out the trays in front of chairs, a teacher pulled me aside and told me that i set up the trays wrong.. she wasn't mean about, she was being helpful. She explained that rice is always put on the left of the tray and in front. soup, if there is one, is always on the right and in front; placement of everything else doesn't really matter, but chopsticks have to be in the front and easily accessed by the right hand. The reasoning is that Japanese eat with a bowl of rice in their left hand and then pick at everything else on the tray. This is not only for school lunches. As she was explaining this, i thought of all the meals i've had on Okinawa so far and realized that everytime i got a "set" meal, rice has always been on the left and soup has always been on the right. It is customary to be served everything at once in Japan. There are usually several dishes to be picked at and sampled. At my favorite izakaya (a small restaurant) a set consists of the main dish, a miso soup, a rice and five other little dishes ranging from salad, to broccoli, to seaweed to melon pieces. those five dishes vary from time to time; so onetime we got a potato salad and another time, there was an okra salad.

Once lunch is eaten, everyone picks up after themselves and clears their trays of dishes. Students do the same. In their classrooms they have their toothbrushes and five minutes is allowed on the schedule for everyone in the school to brush their teeth. Then students proceed to cleaning of various areas of the school for about 25 minutes, then they have 20 minutes or so to finish up and to do whatever else and at 1:50pm the 5th period starts. It's a very communal system and reinforces the idea that school is like a second home and teachers are like surrogate parents. It also forces students to take ownership of their environment and to take care of the "house" they learn in. Or at least that's the idea.

Over the last two days i've also been learning about bit torrent system of downloading things; so that's also been fascinating and taking up some time during this bad weather period. Although it was clear enough yesterday night for me to drive to Nago and go to an Eisa festival there, which was wonderful. I absolutely love Eisa drumming. i can't explain this draw to it that i've developed by it's beautiful, and unique only to Okinawa and so forceful in its spirit and enthusiasm.
If you're ever in Washington DC area in April, find out when the Cherry Blossom festival takes place and where; an Okinawan Eisa dancing group is sent every year. It must be a fantastic show to see; 'cause it's gotta be the best group from the islands and that would be tough to decide; the groups i saw last night were fantastic.

i'm debating whether i should go to sleep at a timely fashion, since tomorrow i might have to go to school, or to stay up for a while, since i might not. :)) difficult decisions.

cheers

The Interdictor

The Interdictor

the village of Shioya

The last two days, the village of Shioya was celebrating the Ungami festival; this translates to "seagod," and is a time for celebrating the fall harvest/season. Shioya is a part of Ogimi but like Kijoka where I live and the smaller village of Ogimi is a separate entity as far as people who live here are concerned. The three small villages are united by one infrastructure of the Ogimi village office but were historically separate even though they are all right next to each other. Shioya is actually comprised of three distinct little neighbrohoods whose names i don't remember now. I learned all of this because of the Ungami celebrations. On the first day of the Ungami, a boat race takes place. The three boats represent the three small villages of Shioya and female priestesses (females of families of those villages) stand in the waters of the Shioya bay and encourage their men who are in the boats to steer harder and win the race. They beat drums and sing and wave colorful cloth. The three groups of women wear distinct colors as do the men in the boats. Once the boats reach the shore, the men lift up one of the main priestess from their group and bring her onto the shore.
--Unfortunately i did not witness the carrying of the priestesses because I had to go home to let two guys into my apartment to install the airconditioner; by the time i got back the priestesses were on shore and the men were carrying away the boats--

This is all very traditional and unique to Shioya because it is the only village that has females preforming all the important tasks of devotion and offerings to the shrine. These are very loose details and I apologize for that. All of my Okinawa books are at the school and I will insert more detailed information tomorrow or next week when I get my hands on them.

After the boat race, the Shioya village hosts sumo wrestling match. A stage is set up where all the important men of Ogimi sit, among them the mayor, the former mayor, the principals of schools and others. Of course, as the new "prom queen," (as Gabrielle refers to me) I was asked to sit on the stage as well. My whole school came out to the event, so I have photos of my students on the site, as well as some teachers. The sumo matches start at the elementary school level and move up through the young adults and finish with a big guy from Ogimi who is always the winner.

--ONce again, the installation of my airconditioner prevented me from seeing the entire sumo event and I had to leave when they were finished working in my apartment, which was around the time my junior high students were competing--

Today (Thursday) I came to the school, and even though i should have been in four classes, I instead spent the morning and early afternoon constructing final exams for the 1st Term for all three grades. At two o'clock i took off for Shioya once again to watch various traditional dances. Some of my students participated and i recognized some women from the village and my school's "office lady." The dancers were beautiful and very precise in their movements. It's hard to have you just look at the pics knowing that you won't know what the accompiniment is. They danced to the beat of the drums and the singing of older women. The drum beats were slower for more regal dancers and slightly faster for the "peasant" dancers. THat's the distinction I'm making but i think it's visible enough that some dancers are wearing more expansive looking outfits while others are dressed more plainly.
--this might seem like it doesn't connect...and it really doesn't, 'cause i just inserted the whole bit about the dancing after having written the rest of the blog...sorry--

It's a difficult task constructing exams for material one did not teach, but I was given old exams to look at and the textbooks which students use to figure out what to include in my versions. I am only responsible for constructing the "Listening Test," and the JTE makes up the grammar portion of the exam. My part is only worth 20% but i put in 2 days of work and i'm very proud of it, i might add. I made it colorful with clipart and photos from milwaukee and postcards of wisconsin. The old tests are similarly filled with random images; Gabrielle's logic is that it would make the students regard English with a bit of warmth rather than complete hate at having to sit through tests filled with nothing but grammar. I feel for them; it's quite boring. I don't remember how i learned German, really, but i do remember putting together sketches, making some sort of posters, reading stories and even a novel. These kids are not doing any of it; they can barely speak the language and that's by third year of instruction. It makes me wonder what is considered acceptable in the Japanese language instruction. Yet i'm here to entertain and speak English so i won't be stirring up waters just yet. But i do hope to push through some activities by mid year.

So i started in Shioya and finished on a ramble about school. Check out my fotki page; there are pics up from the Ungami celebrations; there are no descriptions as of yet, but this weekend, with a big typhoon coming, i should have plenty of time to sit on-line and give you all more details about the intricacies of Okinawan culture, including a bit about its beautiful textiles which you could see from the photos of the dancers.
The picture above was taken as i was leaving Shioya today. I meant to catch a group of girls as they sat by that wall on the left but by the time i got my camera ready, they all got up to leave and i just caught the tail end. I still think it's a good shot.

cheers

first day

all in all i can say that i had a succesful first day experience at the Ogimi junior high school. I had three classes today, two 2nd graders and one 1st grade class. In elementary school kids go through 6 grades and then 3 grades in junior high school and i believe 3 more in senior high. So a 1st grader in a junior high school is on the average 12 years old. In Japan, kids are not asked how old they are, they are asked in what grade they are in. School is everything--they inhabit it almost the entire year. Kids get to school around 8:00am; they have meeting with their homeroom teacher around 8:15am and then there are 20 or so minutes for them to hangout in their homeroom until the first hour class starts at 8:50am.. that schedule may change daily. There are two schedules my school follows: the A schedule allows for 50-min classes and the B schedule is for 45 min classes. The type of schedule is chosen depends on the activities that have to happen after school. Or so is my understanding. Right now all junior high schools are in the midst of preparing for a Sports Day, which is a huge event, and they stay after school to practice and i am told that certain classes during the day might be canceled as we get closer to the event in a couple of weeks to allow for more practice time.
but back to my first day. The students are generally excited to meet me, but are reserved, as is understandble with meeting any new authority figure (although, honestly i don't know how much authority i really have). Some kids have already seen me around the school in the last couple of weeks, but most i met for the first time today. The 1st graders were more enthusiastic and outspoken then the 2nd graders. The introduction plan was generally boring. I stood in front of the class and told them about myself with the help of visual aids (pics of family and friends and milwaukee i put together on friday). Then it was recapped for the students by Chinen sensei in Japanese, and students were then allowed 5 minutes to review their own introductions. Before the summer holidays they were given a worksheet to fill in the blanks for "My name is:...My favorite food is:....My favorite sport is:....My hobby is:... I like:....." It turns out that most kids like basketball and their hobbies are "games" and they eat nothing but apples. :))) A few students took the initiative and looked up actual answers and it was awesome to hear a student say that his hobby is "taking pictures" or another student say that he likes "grilled meat" and some girls found a way to say, "i don't have any hobbies". that cracked me up the first time i heard it, 'cause i don't have any hobbies either. :)
then the students were supposed to ask me questions, but it was like pulling teeth getting anyone to ask anything. I think in general they were afraid of mispronouncing any words in the questions they formed. From what i understand, they don't do a lot of communication activities in junior high school, so no wonder they're intimidated by an english speaker. But a few were brave and the questions were good. My last class, 2-1 (2nd graders, 1st group...in russia that would be 2A), were really fun, actually and asked quite a few good questions. I even got asked whether i had a "special boyfriend" and whether american kids wear braces.

at the end of the day there was a teacher meeting, but i spent that time working with speech contest students. Teacher meetings will be entirely lost on me; i foresee being told of what is happenning 5 minutes before it happens, and i'm accepting that. I do know, however, that tomorrow morning i get to give a short speech of introduction to the entire school. I'll be reading it. :)

Although amusingly enough, i am learning japanese words here and there, so there is progress being made and i'm looking forward to understanding a 10th of what is being spoken.

Went to a mall today to get an air con. The suckers are expensive and the installation is not cheap either. The whole thing is costing me 500$ and will be installed on Wednesday...hopefully. there are rumors of a typhoon approaching the islands, but it might be that it will bypass the main island and go for the islands near Taiwan.

i have also been wondering about the power of packiging. What will make me, a person who can't read a lick of japanese, buy a certain product versus another one? And i'm a sucker for labels to start with; give me the funkiest looking bottle with the most colorful or imaginatevely designed label and i will pay that extra 200 yen to have it. but seriously; advertising is everything for me right now, and i can't even read it. i do like the fact that most japanese items will have pictures on them of what its intended use is; so that's been saving me so far.
however, i did buy something that is not yoghurt but reminded me more of sour cream that's been watered down.. so it had to go down the drain. I'm still on the lookout for yoghurt.

i've got to get these blogs to be slightly shorter, eh? some new pics are up on the fotki page and check out Craig's blogspot--he's got a few pics of what an awesome archy site looks like (i'm so dang jealous) and a pic of yours truly.

cheers

Here it is--my pride and joy. Mind you it's not first thing i've had to construct for my apartment, but this one deffinately caused me more grief and joy. And i included a pic of my two sided garbage can just for fun.

Trash in Japan has to be separated and taken out on different days and the system of days and garbage bag colors differs from prefecture to prefecture. So here in the north for instance, the burnables go into "red" bags and have to be put outside on Mondays and Thursdays. The non-burnables go into "green" bags and come out on Wednesdays. I have no idea what happens to the recyclables. I think there is a separate bag and a day, i've just been collecting mine and dumping them into the recycle cans near stores. Oh, and there are no litter boxes anywhere on the streets. They are only outside convenience stores and supermarkets. Some times random recycle cans appear on big streets but they're useless if you have some paper to toss. It's all a bit weird, really, but good entertainment.

tomorrow i'm off to the waterfalls again; JETs from the south are up here exploring so i'll be joining them. Then we're all off to a beer and Aisa festival in Okinawa City and then on sunday, Chikara's party at the beach. One more "vacation" weekend before school starts on Monday.

cheers

Whoever decided to put pictures in instruction booklets was a smart person. Who needs to know what it says, when you can look at a picture 100 times to make sure that you deffinately have the part with one groove and three holes and not two grooves and no holes. Wow. I never thought constructing something could be so painfully fun. I guess now i can tackle any IKEA project. But seriously folks, if you know me at all, you know that this is the last thing i want to be doing; however, for the lack of any willing company, i spent 2 and a half hours sweating and grunting and laughing and swearing, but i only screwed up once and it wasn't a big deal and i'm very proud of myself in the end. I'm going to sell this baby for twice the price i bought it for, 'cause the time i spent putting it together is certainly worth it.

what a wednesday is for

wednesdays have always been a day of the week i liked the most.
wednesdays in japan are proving to be the best.
actually i haven't really had one bad day in Japan yet, so i suppose it's hard for wednesdays to stand out but yesterday's wednesday managed just that.
and i don't want you to expect anything extraordinary in this post. it was just a good all around, interesting day with an ultimately accomplished feeling at the end.

i took a day off yesterday, 'cause i "worked" (hung out with friends in Naha for the conference) on Friday and Friday was an Okinawan holliday, so i get to take a day off for that anytime within the two weeks after that happens.
I decided to do some shopping and maybe put together the kitchen cabinet i bought.
the later plan failed as soon as it started when i realized i would need a screwdriver (good call, mom) and lacked one. Gabrielle didn't have one, so i decided to drive north to another village and see if i can locate one.
i discovered that a lot of little, tiny, grungy shops sell exactly the same things but they do not sell hardware supplies.
by the time i found a screwdriver (at school) i had decided to drop the idea of any handywork and drive to Nago to do some shopping for the apartment and maybe hang out with Mike (a canadian ALT).
I found quite a few things that i liked and bought; spent a couple of hundred dollars, actually. but it's all useful stuff, i'm sure.. it's still sitting in bags at home.. so i'll get to find out today after work how well i did yesterday.
towards the evening i got a call from two Group A JETs. One was in the north with his teachers and students and was wondering if i'd like to come out for dinner with them. and another called saying that she was heading north and was meeting a few people for dinner in Nago (where i already was). So i decided to stick around and 8 of us ate sushi at a mall in Nago. Good time. It's fun being surrounded by different English accents; i could most of time understand new zealenders and australians...but the irish can still be a bit difficult.
After dinner and then doghnuts at "Mr. Doghnut" (is that an American company?) Ben said he'd show me where his friend, the kite surfer aka hairdresser, has his shop.
Mind you, it was already 9pm.
So we get to the shop..which was by far the most interesting hairdresser shop I've ever been to, a little after nine. I play with the dog, a customer is seated and we wait. and wait and take the crazy puppy on a walk...and wait a bit more, and i sit down in the chair around 10:30pm.
Chikara is a cool surfer dude. His shop is celebrating one year in existence this Sunday and i'm invited. There will be jetskies and surfing and food, of course.

His shop is decorated with surf boards of all kinds, crazy, menacing comic book models, mountain goat's head hangs over the mirror in front of which hair is cut.
Equipment and decor are placed around the room on large, yellow barrels. The bathroom is a "dangerous" place, however. I thought of the show the "Young Ones"--their bathroom would probably look like the one i went into at Chikara's shop (although, if i remember correctly, the crew on the "Young Ones" managed to destroy their bathroom very frequently).

My hair was washed after it was cut. Ishikara took time massaging my scalp and i almost fell asleep...The haircut turned out to be great, i love it; and it only cost me a 1,000 yen (~9 bucks) and there's no tipping anywhere in Japan.

i left with such a good feeling, i can't even put it in words. It felt that I was at the right place at the right time doing exactly what i should be doing.
it was perfect.
now i have a new haircut in a new country that teaches me something new daily and it won't stop until the day i leave. yes!

cheers

Tokashiki island

long weekend away

drove to Naha last wednesday night for a new JET orientation..first time driving a long distance (two hours) but it went well.. was stuck in traffic in Naha for a while (it's the capitol of Okinawa and quite busy) so i don't regret being placed in the north where it's calm and quiet..the conference went really well.. saw some JETs i came in with almost a month ago.. some of them are on remote islands so i haven't seen them since the airport and won't see most of them again until the mid-year conference in November..
the seminars and workshops were very useful..conducted by "old" JETs they were geared towards classroom activities, school culture and miscommunication that is likely to happen.. dealing with teachers of English and other teachers in the school..a bunch of questions about vacation time and sick leave were answered..and lots of other info was given.. we partied in Naha thursday and friday nights.. there's a bar run by two canadians in Naha called "Paul and Mike's" where JETs and other foreigners gather...good spot for strong drinks and conversation.. met an Israeli guy who's in Naha studying karate for a few months.. he might be coming up north mid-week to check out the waterfalls and i offered to drive him around the area..
checked out a dance club in Naha thursday night.. japanese kids are funny about dancing.. they all sort of line up in front of the DJ and never really face away from him, dancing in one spot without too much movement.. some kids were getting a bit crazy..but mostly just faced front and some even lit their lighters to really good breaks in the music..
the DJ played a lot of american hip hop and some reggae..

saturday 64 JETs took for the island of Tokashiki on a ferry..it's about an hour and a half trip..gorgeous green island.. sandy beaches, blue waters.. good snorkeling.. not even close to what i experienced in the Sinai but still good...
lots of good time was had.. there were block games on the beach.. (our block came in a strong second)
there was guitar playing (which i missed out on), drinking games of all sorts, rain in the night, sleeping on the beach, skinny dipping in the ocean (which i didn't miss out on) and lots of good conversation
got back on the main island mid-day sunday.. drove three people home and stopped by to get some kitchen stuff on the way.. checked out an English bookstore in Okinawa city.. it's near a lot of bases so it has a lot of stores geared towards americans.. the bookstore had some good books about okinawa and learning the japanese language, as well as lots of magazines and fiction books.. but all of it is way too pricey and i think i'll be ordering most books on-line..

still feels like i'm not in Japan some days.. feel like i'm on an extended vacation with no set rules or schedule.. although today i spent some time tidying up my apartment so it's starting to feel like i'm settling..
think i'm going to invest in an airconditioner.. it's a pricey venture but it'll be useful as a de-humidifier and a heater as well.. so might be worth it..
for all those that are wondering about gas prices...i filled up a 34 liter tank for 4200 yen today (about 40$)..you do the conversion..i'm too tired right now. :)

pics are up for the island trip and also some from Naha..i'll add descriptions over the next couple of days.. sorry..i'm lacking on time to do all of it at once..

will write more soon.. i'm told i'll have plenty of free time once school starts next week.. :)

cheers

an island life for me

short blog, 'cause i'm tired.
internet has been out for a few days and before that i was too busy relaxing on the island to bother with posting.
started working with two students on the speech contest. "th" sound and "v" sound seem to give them the most trouble, so if anyone has any ideas of how to teach that, aside from showing how the lips, tongue and teeth move while making sounds, please let me know..
the past weekend was a really good one, although it has been hot, it's been fun.
saturday went to check out waterfalls in the north and went swimming there. beautiful spot, lots of people, and a few marines in the bunch. was kind of weird seeing other "gaijin" (foreigners) checking out the spot where so many japanese feel that we're invading their territory.
saturday went to the Ogimi matsuri (festival) which was nice but nothing special. that evening went to Okuma navy resort, which Gabrielle and I, as residents of nearby Ogimi are allowed to enter. the resort is for all branches of the American military.. it is basically a vacation spot for the the forces on the island. there's golf, restaurant, nice beaches, water sports, activities for kids, a small store, etc.
we had mongolian barbeque there, which was very good and then watched a few drunken marines make fool of themselves by dancing in front of a live band..
a bit strange, once again, to have the ability to "enter" so to speak American territory and see young american kids everywhere..
i don't know if i exactly like having it so close, but at the same, it really makes the Okinawa experience that much more unique. One the one hand, Sunday night i enjoyed watching very traditional Okinawa drum dancing and ate Okinawan food..and the night before that i listened to an American band play "Sweet Home Alabama" while drunken boys swayed to the rhythm.

tomorrow night i'm setting off for the south. We have a conference for the new Okinawa JETs and then we're off to an island called Tokashiki or better known as "paradise" for Saturday and Sunday.

tonight we went to see the film "Island" at Camp Schwab. 4$ will get one into a newly redone movie theater...it was an interesting experience in finding settle advertisement hints.. oh wait.. they weren't subtle..were they? no... quite blatant, in fact.. the film was entertaining and the acting was decent. I especially liked Boromir as an evil scientist.

the air is cool outside my window. it rained tonight and brought the temperature way down. last night it was hard falling asleep in the heat, even with two fans going at top speed. tonight will be nicer.

cheers

it's a rough living out here

my new car.. the minivan is Gabrielle's

Japan's schools: now too lenient? | csmonitor.com

Japan's schools: now too lenient? | csmonitor.com

I signed up for the Anthropology Special Interest Group within the JET community. This is the first article i was sent; thought it was interesting enough to share, especially if you're inclined towards the education field. I would love any responses to this. I'm hearing lots of different opinions from JETs about the Japanese Education system; none are too positive, but until i experience the classrooms on my own, i will decline to make a judgment as of now.

cheers

ketai away

"ketai" means "cell phone"..and i've got one and it's spify..and boy oh boy does it have too many functions and buttons and options and camera and e-mail and just way too much stuff!!
and you can be a cool kid by e-mailing my ketai directly by sending a message from your computer to elina.kats@docomo.ne.jp
and if you want the number, e-mail me at gmail.

cheers

oh and photos are up and more photos will be added shortly of my apartment in dissaray..

and now we're off

internet at home! what a brilliant idea...
got it hooked up today with the help of a vice principal.. the NTT (phone company) guy showed up and brought in the line and the adapter and said something in Japanese about not being the person to hook up the internet. So i thought, hey, no problem.. i'm computer savy.. i can hook this thing up. Opened the instruction booklet and started following along with the pics, ignoring all the japanese scribbles..no go.. got stuck on the third picture..some sort of fault occured..but i couldn't understand what..very irritating to have the capability but not the ability to accomplish something.
but now it's up and running and is at a decent speed.
if anyone has Skype, let me know. My nickname is huliganjetta and i will have microphone and headphones in a couple of days. i'm also considering establishing a phone number with a Wisconsin area code for Skype so that anyone without the software could call while i'm on-line, or leave a voicemail if i'm not. brilliant, eh? (that's a mix of british and canadian for ya)
very few american JETs on Okinawa. I'm making friends with aussies, kiwis, brits, canadians, and there's even a woman from Turkey somewhere on the island. No russians, i'm afraid.. there's only a handful in the JET program and they're all on the mainland.

Block 1 had a party on saturday. First we had an athletic event that took place at a children's playground like i've never seen before. Huge constructions, made it really challenging and fun. We raced in teams and unfortunately my team did not win, but we finished at a very strong last place. :)))

Then off to the beach and grilling. Swam in the ocean for the first time. The water was quite cool because of the departing typhoon that never hit, and there were still some waves. Very nice swim.

Later there was eating and drinking and off to the bar for a late night cocktail.
The bar, interestingly enough (for anyone with any hebrew knowledge) is called "Sababa," and for others not in the know, it means "all good" or "cool" or "allright!" ..kind of like "dajobu" on Okinawa.
The owner is a Japanese surfer dude who lived and worked in Tel-Aviv for a few months. Very nice establishment with a full size pool table and fussball table.
Fun was had. I lost several games of pool and won two..

check out my photos website..the link is provided on the right. Now that i have home access, i'll be putting up all the ones i've taken so far.

cheers

russian musings

bit of a lag in posts, i'm afraid.
got back from the south sunday, vacuumed up some roaches, and stayed up late into the night finishing Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Good book, btw, if anyone's interested. Very saddened by the ending.

my apartment is still bare but i have most of the big essentials. On monday picked up a washing machine and a rice cooker at a resale shop for 1000 Yen. (the U.S. dollar right now is at 112 Yen). now i just need to unpack my luggage and buy some storage bins to put it all into.

last night went down to Naha to meet the group B JETs. Actually i just wanted to go to the party that evening for all JETs but had to come down earlier with our Block's leader, Ben (check out okinawajet.com for explanation of the Block system...i'm in Block 1). Don't think i mentioned that it's traditional to hand an arriving JET an Okinawan beer, Orion, as soon as they walk through the arrival gates. Everyone gets one whether you drink or not. So Ben and I handed some out, and I had one as well. NOt the best beer but doable. All the new JETs were whisked away by their supervisors, as I was the previous week, and Ben and I drove into Naha to check out an underground Naval base that the Japanese marine units fought Americans out of. Close to two hundred of them died "honorably" in the end, which in Japanese means they committed suicide as I'm sure some of you know is required of a soldier/samurai.

The shindig was held in a huge hall called appropriately "The Beer Dome"--another all you can eat and drink festivity. Lots of JETs came, old and new. I spent the evenings chatting with my group's JETs, catching up on the exciting first week's experiences. When JET programme people say "every situation is different" they really aren't kidding. Not one story is the same. Some people had homestays with supervisors. Some are sharing apartments. Some live in posh places, some are on secluded islands. Some have started teachind already, others, like me, have only been to the school once or twice. But the stories are good and fun to hear. And everyone has picked up some important Okinawan words: "dajobu" and "sugoi"...the first one has many meanings, but mostly means "all's good" "allright"...and the second one means, "excellent"....

ah. perhaps you're wondering why the post is called, "russian musings"...well, my dear friends..it is because i experienced something entirely surreal on Tuesday.
I met most of the teacher that day, they invited me to go kayking with them. Fun! A very chill way to meet the staff of my new school. My JTE (japanese teacher of english) and I were partners in a kayak..it was his first time and we chatted a bit about this and that. He seems very nice and his English is decent. All the teachers were super nice and excited to see me. Most have some English ability and we were able to communicate with gestures and facial experessions.
In the evening I was invited to their little get together .. i think the reason for it was to thank all the teachers for their hardwork during the first term and to look forward to the second term (the school year here starts in March/April, so even though the summer vacation is long, its end does not indicate the start of a new year, only the start of a new term in the middle of september).
It is traditional at these get togethers to order numerous plates and then share them by passing them around the tables. I'm glad Gabrielle and I stopped by to have a bit to eat at an Okinawan restaurant, 'cause the portions at the party were small.
The principal was getting slightly tipsy and we talked and he found out that I speak Russian, and am in fact from the former Soviet Union. So all of a sudden he starts humming an old russian tune...and then another one...and then a third one...and i'm sitting across from him with my mouth open wide in amazement. what is going on?!!?
hillarious, right? turns out, russian music and culture were very popular on okinawa a couple of decades back and some Okinawans learned russian music in junior high schools. The music teacher at the table also new a bunch of songs and composers. And then i asked if the principal knew the song "katusha," the only older russian song i could remember the words to..and lo and behold.. he is directing the whole table of teachers into singing "katusha" in japanese..as i'm singing along in russian....
ha!!!..
that's pretty sweet!...and funny..and really unique, i think.. so i have a total "in" with the principal now...they love that I eat anything, drink almost anything.. 'cause Gabrielle is a vegan who doesn't drink, so she has a hard time eating when they're all out..but it seems that they've gotten quite used to it after three years..
knowing sushi terms has been very helpful as well. at least i can order a dish and know that i'll get something i like.

wow.. long post. lots going on.
my car is in front of my apartment..but the paperwork has not been completed as of yet, so i can't drive it.
today the phone company was supposed to stop by to install my new ISDN phone line, but because of the approaching typhoon canceled the appointment. So next week i'll have more time on the net.
Right now i'm at Camp Shwab and the computer here is not allowing me to log into the mail servers.
Next week i'll also get a "ketai" (a cell phone)...and they're very cool here. can take video, pictures, download different media files..just lots of cool stuff.. i'll probably get the cheapest one available which would still be more high tech then my little Nokia at home.. :)
the typhoon is bypassing Okinawa; it hit some islands to the south and is heading for Taiwan. It's windy here and has been raining on and off, but not a real typhoon by any means. Ogimi village is holding a welcome party for me tonight and it's at a restaurant right on the ocean with a patio, so hopefully the rain will subside and we can be outside for it....i'll take pictures.

oh..and i had a question come in, so i'll answer it here. The question was from Rosemary, and she asked if i was the tallest among little people.
The answer is that i am as tall as some men..and taller then most women. Okinawan people are not Japanese for the most part..they look a bit different and some men are quite tall....but boy oh boy..the women here are extremely tiny...i've never seen so many petite women...shopping here is going to do a lot of harm to my self-image.. :)) i'm a "LL" or "extra large" in most sizes....it's quite funny actually. and i'll never be medium..'cause medium here is size 2 or 4.
it is amusing though to see people like Ben (our blockhead) stroll through town. He's gotta be at least 6'5'' so he towers over everyone! at the underground naval facility he had to bend in half in order to walk through the tunnels.... :))
i should have taken a photo of him doing it.
and i've noticed how the japanese will stare up at his height. very amuzed.

So thanx to Rosemary for the question..keep 'em coming.

hope all's "dajobu" with you'all..

cheers