whenever encountering a blank page, i always consider the possibilities.
for this one, they are numerous yet i am struck by the understanding that at the moment i do not posses the ability to adequately describe any of it.
perhaps it is because i have just come back from reading David's description of Ben eating yoghurt, and my skills in the English language, whatever they might have been, now feel squeamisly inferior and want to run for the next dark corner.
but there are no more dark corners. they have gone with the rain. The rainy season they say is over, and am gland for that. It poured onto the island relentlessly for a month, stopping only to break up the pace a bit in mid afternoons to tease and spoil the mood when it would once again open up the kennel and let out the cats and dogs. The rain was only pleasant at times, spectacular in others. It poured like it meant it and later i learned that it was an unusual amount. Apparently Okinawa was in the news on mainland for having received 6 times the normal amount of rain.
At the close of the rainy season, mold exploded for a last chance before the sun regain its position on the island. The mold is greenish and blueish in color. It prefers the surfaces of plywood, attacking the undersides of tables, chairs and back surfaces of night stands and hutches. It was irritating to get rid of and screams of anger could be heard in my apartment when i discovered the tiny mold circles on one of my India tunics, a pair of orange "thai" pants and my lovely, black, 100% linen, embroidered dress. How dare it!! I can accept the shoes. But my dress?!
with a sigh i proceeded the cleaning process.

and now. the sun is out. it is back with a vengence. We are back to humidity in the 60th percentile and it is once again possible to dry out the entire load of laundry in an afternoon on the balcony.

and school? it's been uneventful yet blissful. This week is short, Friday off for Okinawan Memorial Day. On Monday and Tuesday, students took the midterms, and for the entire week i had nothing much to do. I corrected some tests. I made up the new English bulletin board, which admittedly took some time. The new board's theme is the World Cup. There's a profile of David Beckham, because students actually know who he is (who doesn't?), a list of all participating countries, photos of animated fans stolen from the official website, a worksheet to match up the fans with their countries, and a couple of other items. am proud of this one. hope the kids give it a glance.

yesterday was also the English Club evening. We spent it in the computer lab acquiring e-mail accounts. I wanted the girls to start creating their own webplace on bebo.com but none of them had e-mails, so we had to start there. took a while, but it was fun, and it was inspiring to see them all excited when they received a reply to their e-mail from me or their friends. i must have been excited in the same way.
but i am old now, and don't remember that innocent year of 1995 well enough to recall.

tonight shall be spend in the luminous company of Ms. Kelly, whose wonderful mother had just turned 50 years old. Many wishes! we shall do nothing much of anything, but perhaps go to Okuma around evening time to catch the 11pm game of US vs. Ghana.
Friday shall be rest day to counter all religions, except Islam, and Saturday is the Story contest. Am actually really looking forward to it. One of my students might have a chance in the competition if she doesn't get too flustered. All junior high ALTs from the north area will be present as we've all worked hard with our students in prepping them for the show down. Afterwards, food and drinks shall be had.
Sunday? Mayhap ultimate frisbee? Anyone keen?

and please say "hello" to my new friends aka pets, the five incredibly genki gold fish. I shall do my best to take care of them as well as did their previous owner, Isla.


cheers

P.S. finished "Pale Fire" by Nabokov. Would highly recommend it, can't stress how highly, to anyone looking to laugh out loud and meander through playful use of the English language. any and all knowledge of the Russian language is helpful in adding to the enjoyment.

how i spent my birthday

in the theme of summer write-ups, since it's summer, and reporting on things that have happened is the purpose of this blog.

On sunday (the day before my birthday) i watched Ogimi girls and boys play basketball. Baseball and tennis were cancelled due to rain, so the whole school was at the gigantic Nago gym with loads of other northern area junior high schools.
Ogimi girls won both games on the 11th, but the boys lost their second one. The girls were on fire: fast, furious, unstoppable. I'd never seen them play before outside of school practice, and was quite surprised. In the second game, they beat Ginoza JHS (Tracy's school) by 40 points.
On the 12th (my birthday) the girls played two matches. The lost the first one to Nakijin JHS (Rodger's school) and played the next game for 3rd place finish against a Motobu JHS. It was an exciting day of sports. I realized how much i cared for each of these girls and how much i wanted them to win and how proud i was of all of them, but especially of the twins, Mirei and Mikoto, who are awesome players, have great personalities, and celebrated their birthday the day before mine.
And perhaps i have a soft spot for them because my sisters are twins. Possible. :)


After the games, i rushed to meet David and Rodger so that we could drive together to Camp Schwab to meet Anna who agreed to accompany us with her pass to see the third XMen film. I liked it enough, but it not as good as the previous films. Direction was choppy, dialogue sometimes forced and filled with one-liners. The acting, however, was still good and basically the only thing that saved it, because there was basically no story to speak of. Sad, really. It could have been better.
A nice action flick, though, and fun in parts.

After the movie, it was dinner at Yukino with a few friends. I finally ordered something different at Yukino. I usually get the sashimi salad dinner set, but last night went for the sushi platter--fantastic. But the food wasn't as important as the company.
Josh surprised me with six tiny eclairs brighted by birthday candles and everyone sang. A bit later on, David came with a cake him and Ben got for me. It was delicious!! And the presents were great as well. The funnest were the watermelons i got from both David and Rodger, and they didn't conspire about it. The two watermelons made for a fun picture.
After the dinner we all went to watch the Japan vs. Australia match at a sports bar in central Nago. It was packed and the fans were excited. It was a fun game to watch, even though Japan lost. I drove home in very high spirits after a fantastic day. Even though i miss my family a lot, especially on my birthday, it was fantastic to feel how much my friends here care about me. I got e-cards and keitai messages from friends around the island, and they made me feel like i made a new family here, one that i love and care about.
Thank you all so much!!

and thanx to my sister who put together a great birthday surprise for me on the Fotki site and made my day!

what's in a game

It's official. An hour from now the majority of the world's male population will be immobilized by the recuring need to know the score of a football match.
Do you appreciate me calling it by its "real" name?
There are too many people on the island lost in the frenzy to ignore the subject completely, and while i have no pretentions of being a fan of the game or knowing anything about teams, players, standings, and favorites i have been caught up slightly in the excitment.
Thanx to my local footballing expert, Ben, i am now versed in groups, past winnings, some player stats, and of course who has what chance of making it to the semis and finals.
So for all those keen for knowledge, i will have a link to the Official Website for all FIFA enquiries. I might even catch a glimpse of a few games myself, scheduling permiting. We are, of course, at an inconvenient time zone. The live games are played in Japan at 1am, 4am, and 10pm.
So the first game is Germany vs. Costa Rica.
Goodluck all.
I'll be cheering for Japan, although they are in a tough group.

cheers
-e

i am late with the promised post. apologies.

the student teacher has dissapeared. it's the first period of the day, technically a free one, the one during which the JTE and i plan for the day. we have three classes in a row after this one and i have no idea what she has planned. it only confirms my growing belief that Japanese teachers of English consider us, ALTs, incredible English spewing machines, able to operate at any hour of the day or night, given absolutely no notice or expectations.
and to be honest, i suppose it's true in a way. we can do it. we can come up with things on the spot in our own language. simple things. not the entire lay out of a class!
anyways. that's my day. and it just started.
and it's really not as bad as i'm making it seem. i'm quite happy being a robot as long as i'm allowed to move about the kids and talk to them. and the student teacher is quite good actually. she's 22 and grew up in Ogimi, so actually went to this school herself. Whenever she leaves the teacher's office, she does like the kids: turns, bows and says "shitsurei shimashita" (meaning "really sorry a lot"...sort of). i think it's tres cute; some habbits must be hard to get rid of.
she's been good in the classroom. has a strong presense and will do well on her own. only problem right now is that she forgets she has an ALT. but that just might be the nerves of keeping it all together in her head. at least, i had a couple of months of observation before i stepped up to the teaching plate. she's in there right away and only for 3 weeks.

the students are getting ready for the big sports weekend. It's the 3rd graders last chance to play club sports before they have to give them up to study for HS entrance exams. So Sunday all sports clubs play in different areas in the north, and everyone from the school goes and watches. On Monday, we'll go watch any of the teams that have gotten to the top 4 rounds. Then we have Tuesday off to make up for "working" on Sunday. Of course, if the kids don't make it to Monday rounds, then we just have the monday off. works out well for everyone, especially me.

and the trip was great. it was an eye opener on Japan but more on the spirituality of Japan than anything else. I truly loved Kyoto, and Kobe was great. Osaka was so-so, but i was only there for 24 hours, so not a fair assessment. I did see an exhibition of Chagall's work in Osaka and that was one of the highlights of my trip. I saw the flyer for it at the Kansai Airport when i flew in and was beaming with delight for the rest of the trip just knowing that i would get to see it before i left mainland. It was a wonderful exhibition. 27 paintings and 100 prints.

I also got to spend time in rural Japan. I took a day trip after Kyoto on the way to Osaka and stopped in a small town of Asuka, famous for its archaeological treasures. Numerous earthen mounds were excavated in that area, dating from 1400 years ago. The Asuka temple is the oldest Buddist temple in Japan and its Budda, the oldest bronze Budda statue in Japan. I walked for hours, at one point joining hordes of elementary school kids through their walks of the same areas.

The best part of the trip, however, was the trip to one of the areas in northern Kyoto. I wanted to visit a temple complex in the mountains, but one of the reasons for picking that one in particular (as there are hundred of temples to see in Kyoto if not thousands) was the route. It was a 50 minute bus ride, a 5 minute ride on a cable car, and then a shorter ride on a rope way all the way to the top. At the top, i started a 30-40 minute hike down to the temples. It was one of the best hikes of my life. Rivals the hiking in the Blackhills of South Dakota. I was alone for most of it, only briefly seeing a couple walking in the oposite direction. As i walked through the tall, slim woods, every once in a while a temple gong would reverberate through them, creating a hollow sound all around, moving through the trees, bringing them to live for a brief moment and dissipating slowly.
It was a foggy, rainy day, and the clouds hung low. I don't know if outside of an airplane, i've ever "been" that close to the clouds.
In short, a walk to remember.
And the temples were pretty good as well. :)

I was sitting alone in the computer lab. It's later in the afternoon and all classes went off smoothingly. 5 1st grade girls just walked in, a bit of noise in the room.

I have an hour before story contest practice and then off to karate. I haven't gone for nearly three weeks now. Missed three classes because of the trip and two before that because i was being....meh...
but today am sick and can't skip.

the photos from the trip are up, as well as a few random ones from the keitai. i haven't written captions for all of them yet. too many at ones.

oh. saw "Inside Man" and "the Da vinci Code" on base. really really liked the "Inside Man" and not just because Clive Owens is one the best looking actors out there; the direction was great and the story good. Denzel Washington doesn't age, does he?
The "Davinci code" was passable. i haven't read the book but think i followed the story of the film in its entirety. I really liked the historical stories and the way they were recreated within the film. I also really enjoyed Ian McKellan and Paul Bettany's performances. Otherwise. meh.
:)

cheers
-e

this has nothing to do with anything, but i'm going to list the books i have read while in Okinawa. so in case you're looking for something different to read, please continue with the post. or maybe you're just curious. if you care not for either of the options, please come back at a later date (June 5th would be good) to read about my trip to mainland and my school days since i came back.

thanx to my dear friend Shelley who a year or so ago gave me a little book called "what i read" in which i have been keeping track of my reading, the quotes i like, and any wish list items for the future.
i'll rate the books i read out of 4 stars; and please keep in my mind, that i am by no means an expert on what you'd like. :)

Date:	Title:	Author:	Rating:
August 2005 re-read April 2006	Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince	J. K. Rowling	3 and a half stars
August 2005	A tree grows in Brooklyn	Betty Smith	3 and a half stars
August 2005	The Life of Pi	Yann Martel	2 and a half stars
Summer 2005	The Dark Tower III: The Wastelands	Stephen King	3 and a half stars
October 2005	Tuesdays with Morrie	Mitchell Albom	2 and a half stars
Nov-Dec 2005	The Dark Tower IV: The Wizard and the Glass	Stephen King	3 and a half stars
December 2005	The Giver	Lois Lowry	3 stars
Dec-Jan 2005-6	The God of Small Things	Arundhati Roy	3 stars
February 2006	Ishmael	Daniel Quinn	2 stars
February 2006	Crime and Punishment in original	Fyodor Dostoevsky	4 stars
March 2006	White Noise	Don DeLillo	3 stars
March-April 2006	Lady Chatterley's Lover	D.H. Lawrence	3 stars
April-May 2006	Razor's Edge	W. Somerset Maugham	3 and a half stars
May 2006	The Second Summer of the Sisterhood	Ann Brashares	2 and half stars
currently	Pale Fire	Vladimir Nabokov
currently	The Dark Tower V: Wolves of the Calla	Stephen King

when we're in Kobe for the recontracting conference it'll be 10 months since our arrival in Tokyo. what a trip!

a writer for UWM's Edline asked me a few questions for an upcoming article. Here are the answers i wrote. They could have all been different. I have been contimplating over them for a couple of weeks. At first, it was hard to sit down and write, to find the words, to decide on the "right" answer. I tried to answer as honestly as possible for the given moment. it was probably different 5 months ago and it'll be different 5 months from now.

but while i'm away enjoying myself on the mainland, here is something to read.

What are your plans for after you leave Okinawa?
I have been constructing all sorts of travel schemes in my mind. Most of them take me from northern Japan through Russia　and Central Asia into Eastern Europe and then home. But if you meant in terms of jobs, I am not certain. It’s looking like teaching is something I enjoy doing, even when it’s not in my own language, so perhaps I shall continue on that path.

If you will be teaching, where and what grade level?
Wherever I settle, I know it will be a city, either the size of Milwaukee or larger. I like being surrounded by options for entertainment. When I was leaving Milwaukee last year, I was starting to like it quite a bit, so perhaps going back there initially might be a good idea, especially since my family would appreciate being closer to me after such a long absence. I would prefer to teach high school but I have been enjoying working with middle school kids in Japan, so I won’t automatically turn down a job in middle school.

What is the most important thing you learned from your experience teaching in a different culture?
It’s difficult to quantify the learning that has taken place in the last ten months, and that is yet to come in the next 14 months. I think I learned that it’s important to acknowledge the differences within a new culture without judging them too harshly. I also realized that I may never understand the reasons for these differences, but should conduct myself as much as possible within the boundaries of the culture. It’s important to be reflective when living in a new culture. I found it easier to deal with “culture shock” by writing about my daily life on the net and in a personal journal. Thinking through writing helps bring out my frustrations but also my understanding of the culture. It’s also important to create a comfortable and personal place within the new surroundings. Because I am here for a limited time, I don’t feel the need to assimilate within the culture, so it’s important to have a place where I can be myself and act in a way that is normal and natural to me. And the most important thing I have learned is that smiling goes a long way. It’s the best way to dispel discomfort and to establish communication. Being open to and smiling through new experiences is the best policy while living in a different culture.

How will you bring your experiences into your future classrooms?
I hope that at some point I will have the freedom to teach high school students about Asian cultures and religions. They are very unique and unlike anything in the West; I believe students would greatly benefit from learning about different perspectives that coexist within Asian cultures. It would be great to show students how similar their counterparts are in Japan, but also how different and why. I would also like to teach students Japanese expressions and ways of behavior in the classroom. I think it’s important for teachers to show students the diversity that exists in our world and to encourage them to evaluate and think critically about those similarities and differences.

What is most different about teaching in Okinawa?
When compared to my teaching experience in MPS, I would have to say that most things are different. The schedule is flexible—classes are cut, skipped, lengthened and shortened depending on the needs of extra-curricular activities and teacher meetings. Sports and other clubs are an integral part of the school life and sometimes it seems that they take precedent over academics. Every student is required to participate in a sport or a club until the middle of their 9th grade, when the focus shifts to high school entrance exams and students are expected to study the entire time. I work in a small junior high school of a village. My students are respectful, motivated (most of the time), eager to learn, and good natured. The school structure here supports communal behavior and students are always working together on projects. Group relations are extremely important in Japanese society, and the skills for group communication and success are honed in school. Individuality, as it is exists in the United States does not appear here. Students are responsible for one another, they are competitive but they will also help each other. A student does not make a decision of their own when the group is involved; all decisions are discussed and agreed upon, whether through unanimous vote or a game of “rock, paper, scissors.” Students are responsible for their school: there are no janitors; students clean the school, tidy gardens, etc. Students also set up for lunch themselves after it is delivered, freshly made and healthy.
Teachers are responsible for students’ actions, academic achievement, and behavior in and outside of school. Because students spend some much time in school, doing homework and participating in sports, teachers become the first point of contact for any wrong doing, accident, or inquiry regarding a student.
I could go on and on. The differences are vast.
But I think the one difference that I am constantly aware of is how much students enjoy being at school. In America, it seems that schools are a punishment to the kids. Students can’t wait to get out—same goes for the teachers. Here, students spend more time at school than at home. Their primary social network is here, so are their surrogate parents who care for them. School equals friends, fun, sports, clubs, play, and of course, academics. Come long summer break and most of the students will be at school in the mornings, practicing sports, studying, or getting ready for major school events.


What is most similar to American classrooms?
The relationship between a teacher’s ability and enjoyment of subject directly correlates to students’ ability and enjoyment of subject. I work with a teacher who doesn’t seem to have changed the way he conducts his classroom in 15 years of work. He lacks enthusiasm for English and it shows and students are very quick to pick up on it. I don’t believe he is at all concerned with how much students have actually learned before he moves on to the next subject. I met teachers in MPS who were there only to get through the day and get their summer vacations. Teachers like that create apathetic and unmotivated students. It’s not different in Japan.

Would you teach abroad again? Would you teach in a different place?
At this point, I can’t say for sure. A part of me would like to experience other countries and cultures first hand, but I that feel after I finish on JET my primary reasons for moving abroad will have been fulfilled, so it won’t be necessary to move again. And then again…

What is the most rewarding result of your experience?
Knowing that I can do it. I can live abroad, on my own, surrounded by a vastly different culture, language, people. I can teach. I can motivate. I can cause laughter in students and push them to success. I can be innovative and creative. It’s very rewarding to know all these things, and also to know that I get to learn something new every day, if I wish. Meeting, and getting to know, and becoming friends with exceptional people has also been a great plus.

What is the most frustrating or the biggest challenge for you?
Working within a school system that does not encourage critical thinking or student centered learning. Working with a teacher who is unwilling or unable to change for the better.
And the Okinawan drivers! Talk about frustration! It’s called “right of way” people!!

was looking at photos in Tanya's album. and loved the shot of a little girl staring at the gorgeous and perfect soap bubbles floating by. in her eyes there is confusion and fascination. it's a beautiful photograph that perfectly captures this moment in childhood. those magical and colorful spheres that are so easily destroyed and just as easily recreated. made me think of all those things that were simple and easy about childhood, and how much i miss it.
what did you use to blow your first ever soap bubbles? we used dandelion stems. If they're thick enough, one can cut an end into quarters and then dip it into a dish filled with water and washing detergent and blow through the other end. take off the flower part before attempting this, of course. and then of course we had the standard stick with a hoop from a bottle with premade soapy solution. but the dandelions stick in the mind.
the mother in the photos is not even blowing the bubbles. they're coming out of a mechanized apparatus that produces perfect bubbles at a set speed. it's fantastic. who cares that it's gone beyond simplicity and is now perhaps lacking a sense of quaintness because it's not a dandelion stem. the eyes of the child are still filled with wander. that's all that matters.

oh to be random on a friday.

wednesday the students sat through prefectural tests on math, japanese and english. i looked through the english tests and realized that i was not wrong about my assumptions. there is a lack of communication between the bigwigs at the ministry and what they want accomplished, and what is actually hapenning in the schools. big surprise there, eh? the questions were well beyond what the students are doing in the class. some, of corse they should have easily answered, we went over quite a few of the material. but the dismal number of students that were able to comlete a simple sentence for the test was dissapointing. so we need to work on writing, even though the ministry is now pushing for speaking.
i think the major problem in junior high school is the speed with which the material is thrusts upon students and the sheer lack of necessity for it. they'll have three more years of English in high school and they again won't have a choice on the matter. so why does a 3rd grader in junior high need to learn passive voice? and why is that followed with rapid succesion with uses of "that" "which" "whose" when they can't even tell me that "i'm going to play basketball this weekend".

i learned a new word today. very proud of myself. dainijisekaitaisen. long, right?
that stands for World War II. i was asking how long Mother's Day has been arond in Japan. and we figured, probably started after WWII. and i can say that too.
hahanohi wa tabun dainijisekaitaisen ata hajimarimashita.
intense

we saw "The Sentinel" on base this week. what a terrible terrible movie. apparently the KGB made contracts 20 years ago to kill the US president when the person who the contract was made with was in the position to do it. what? and it's never explained why would the KGB want that. and we couldn't figure out the accent of the actor playing the main KGB guy. it swung from aussie, to proper british, to irish. and his henchmen didn't even speak russian the few times they spoke. i think it was Polish actually. so so bad. and that's just one detail in a string of details we laughed about when leaving the theater. at least we were entertained and only paid 4$ for it.

karate practice this week was brutal but good. the humidity shot up a couple of dozen percent this week. it's now as hot at night as it is during the day. so karate practice is now a sauna. and it's amazing how much less the okinawans sweat compared to us, westerners. We are learning new katas every week. It took the three of us two months to learn three katas, and in the last month we have started learning four. A very rapid pase and by the end of the session yesterday my brain was no longer following what my body was supposed to be doing.
did i ever mention that carrying a small towel around is absolutely essential and is actually perfectly acceptable and even somewhat fashionable? the days on Okinawa are becoming more humid and it is now necessary to abide by the Hitchiker's essential dogma of always knowing where one's towel is.

i made a new bulletin board. this month we are learning how to greet in English, and to be fare to other users of English, i've included, "How do you do?" and "G'day"
not that any of the kids are going to glance at it. this month our featured English speaking person is Natalie Portman because i really liked her in V for Vendetta and she's in some Japanese commercials, or so i hear, since i don't own a TV. did you know that Natalie was born in Israel, speaks fluent Hebrew, graduated from Harvard, shares the same birthday with Johnny Depp (a fact not to be overlooked), and Portman is actually not her real last name? a very interesting personality and stands out so wonderfully from the typical crowd of 20 somethings in Hollywood. Doesn't live in LA apparently either; has a flat in SoHo.
and if you've never seen Leon, known in United States as The Professional , please treat yourself to a viewing. it's Natalie's breakthrough role, Jean Reno is fantastic, and Gary Oldman is ever graceful in his role as an eccentric bad guy. Directed by Luc Besson, the director of The Fifth Element another great movie, that i watched again while on Tokashiki. Doesn't get old and is still funny.

in slightly dissapointing news--i didn't get picked to be an assistant at the Tokyo Orientation in August. blah.
but am excited for the re-contracting conference at the end of May in Kobe. booked a dorm room in Kyoto for four nights. really looking forward to seeing a tiny bit of mainland Japan.

a few posts back, i ranted about the destruction of Babylon. If anyone's at all interested, the BBC radio is doing a program about the site of Babylon, its history and current condition. I listened to the first part this morning before school and would recommend it. It's called Battle for Babylon

and the weekend plans include a drive to Chatan for a Turkish dinner prepared by Reyhan. I will be providing the turkish coffee making skills.

cheers

in the sun

today is The National Holiday. seriously. That's what it's called in the JET calendar. Yesterday was the Constitution memorial day and tomorrow is Children's Day. Three holidays in a row--Golden Week. Actually there is another holiday the preceeds this on April 29th and it's called Green Day. Not because of any environmental reasons. It's actually because the emperor before the current one used to like the color green and his birthday was celebrated on April 29th. but now that he is no longer the emperor his birthday is the national holiday and celebrates his favorite color. nice, eh?

so the japanese are on vacation. they are traveling and i have joined in the fun. am now on Tokashiki island and enjoying the relaxing sun filled days. It rained non-stop monday and tuesday so i was really afraid of a rained out vacation, but the Japanese weather service has been right all along, and it's warm, sunny, with a cooling wind.

on the fun irreverent side of things. this past weekend had a wonderful time discovering new places to party in Naha. went to a live music bar where the band plays covers of japanese and western songs from 50's onwards. people get up and get down. was a fun time, and all the band members are actually employees of the establishment and serve the customers between sets. ate at a wonderful thai restaurant whose outside decor has peeked my curiousity for 8 months now and the inside was 10x better. beautiful place with reasonably priced delicious thai food.
also enjoyed some karaoke and at both places we went found TATU songs to sing in Russian. that was great fun. yes, i know and like TATU songs from their first album in Russian. and it was really strange seeing cyrillic letters on a karaoke screen with a nonsensical video playing behind it.

am tired now. might have been in the sun too long today.

cheers

面白いです

i only know one of the above kanji. but the neat keyboard system at school allows for kanji to be substituted for the hiragana that is typed out. the trick is of course to make sure that the right kanji popped up for the syllables. so for instance, the above kanji stands for "omo" and "shiro". the whole thing says, "omoshiroidesu" and means "it's interesting/funny/amusing"
i knew the "shiro" kanji, it means white; its other readings are (i believe) "haku" and "byaku". consider this your kanji lesson of the day.

the school is nearly empty right now. the teachers had to go to some sort of a meeting at one of the elementary schools in the village. most went. it's just me, the art teacher, the PE teacher and the accountant that are left. some kids are of course milling about--there are always kids milling about the school. there are usually two buses to take them home if they decide to stay for clubs or any other reason. one right after school and one at 6 or 7pm.
the teachers that left are going to have a meeting with all the elementary teachers and then play volleyball and eat. i said that i won't understand a thing in the meeting and can't play volleyball because i have to leave at 5pm to go to Nago for karate practice. so i'm at the school for another 20 minutes or so and thought i'd fill ya in on some details from life in Ogimi.

had a wonderful weekend. Friday night saw the african drums band again, except the drummer wasn't actually there. felt bad for having invited a bunch of Block1 JETs to the concert and having it be not as good as the night before. we still had a good time--it was nice to see people i haven't seen in a while and chill on the beach by the bonfire while listening to hippie music. :)
Saturday took it easy and then drove to Kelly's and hung out with her, Shawn and Matt both days. We even got to go on base. It's quite an exciting venture. Kelly said it was like Christmas and felt bad for wanting to buy a bunch of yummy, American snacks. But the guys were cool with it and so we shopped a bit. And then hit the Subway for a late lunch, grabbed it to go and drove off base to sit on the seawall in Sunabe (Chatan) and watched the surfers idling in the water with no promise of a wave. It was very relaxing and nice. A good weekend overall.
And really didn't want to go to school the next day. Mostly because i knew i had to prepare for the week's lessons and especially for the English Club's first meeting.
On Tuesday the sign up for the club was announced by the JTE in the general morning assembly and by the end of the school day i had 4 names on the sheet. All girls, all 3rd graders. The first meeting was on Wednesday and by that point i had 6 girls who signed up and 3 that showed up not knwoing that there was a sign up sheet.
so 9 total. All girls, all 3rd graders. Great!
I was hoping for　10 students at the beginning. Thought more than that would be too many. I was hoping for a couple of boys to show but didn't actually think they would. Didn't really want 1st graders to show up because it would be very difficult to communicate with them. Their English extends as far as "I like ~" and "It's sunny." Whereas the 3rd grade girls can at least understand what I am communicating some of the time.

The club went great! I overplanned. We ended up talking about things outside of my plans for 20-30 minutes. At first it was freeflowing because we were waiting for some girls to show up. Wednesdays is a day to make-up the Monday morning STEP tests all students have to take, so i figure at the beginning of each English Club we will just chat and look at magazines and such if more than 1 girl is absent for the makeups. Yesterday 3 girls were gone 'til 5pm or so (i started club at 4:30).
Then we went over the things they would like to do during English Club. Listening and singing foreign songs is at the top of the list, so is watching movies, cooking, and shopping. Don't know how we're going to go shopping and make it an English Club activity. There are flea markets on bases that are open to public and an ALT in Motobu did take her small English Club to one of them for conversation practice. So it's possible, but there are 9 girls and one small car. Something to consider.
We then went over the phrases I and they will say all the time while in English Club. It took me a while to explain what i meant by "i am going to say some things over and over again". The effort it took was almost sisyphean but i finally got that "aaaaah! i get it" look and the rock rolled down the other side.
the same effort happened again when i tried to illicit the kind of questions one would ask when filling out a questionnaire about another person. i asked them to interview their neighbor and to fill in the form i gave them, and then introduce that person--all in English. But first we had to review the kind of questions they would have to ask in order to get responses for: Age, Birthday, Favorite Subject, and so on.

So we didn't actually get to the introductions part and went 20 minutes past 6pm, my planned cut-off time. Next week we don't have a meeting because of a national holiday, so we shall meet in two.
I left the girls to arrange the tables, chairs and board. The kids are expected to do any set up and take down work. They automatically start doing it. I still haven't gotten used to that. But when i left they all seemed bubbly and in good spirits, and I felt pretty good about what had just transpired. I am sure I will be somewhat nervous every time we have the club, but i think it will be ok most of the time.
and it's fun picking up Japanese this way a bit. Not sure how usefull it will be for me, but it's possible that i'll learn a few expressions from them.
and yesterday i impressed them by writing kanji on the board for foreign. 外国. Fun, eh?

time to go home.

cheers

今日はちょっとさむいです

every day that goes by, i consider myself lucky. lucky to be here, lucky to have come, lucky to be surrounded by such a generous JET community, lucky to be in the school of well-behaved and funny kids, lucky to live in a village surrounded by forrested hills and near the ocean. lucky.

that was a rant that is not leading up to anything. just came into my head.

but i do have to mention the days when i don't like anyone or anything. i want to walk for hours with my music pounding through the headphones--an attempt to block out everything that is surrounding me. there are days when the weather is chilly and the sky is a bit on the grey side, and the waves come up looking dirty and angry; on those days, i want to curl up on the couch at my mother's house with the dog and flip through the nonsensical programming without stopping. they call it culture shock. perhaps.

yesterday, i was afraid of being literally shocked, though.
we had our mandatory physical testing at the school this week. the students went through it on tuesday, and the teachers had theirs done on thursday.
first i had to fill out a long questionnare that attempted to piece out my stress profile.
"do you eat more?" YES
"do you eat less?" YES
"do you have pains in your stomach and back?" (how is that in the same question?) YES
"do you feel apathetic towards things?" YES
"do you get regular amount of sleep?" YES
"do you exercise?" YES
"do you feel good about yourself?" YES
and so on and so forth...took nearly an hour to go through it with the JTE.

actually on the questionnare i made myself out to be the healthiest person mentally.
i don't suffer from anything that would cause stress, well, unless of course you don't count the "living in a foreign country without knowing the language" factor. then, no..absolutely no stress whatsoever.
that was easy.

so i turned in the questionnaire. was measured and weighed (yes, i gained weight, and apprently i also gained 10cm in height). then the urine sample for acidity?
don't know.
then my blood was taken to check for nutritional levels of things.
i guess.
and then i was asked to lie down on a bed while a nurse clipped on things that looked like carbattery chargers to my legs and put some sort of white, ceramic, cuplooking things on my chest. i am fairly certain this was the first time i was hooked to a machine. i thought that at any second now i was going to be accidently electricuted and no one would be able to explain to me later what they were actually attempting to diagnose. i still don't know. the read out looked promising, lots of up and downs but fairly uniform.

in the adjacent room i was asked to listen to faint sounds and they also checked how good my contacts are. i was saddened to discover that my right contact is not up to par--at some point in my near prosperous future, i will have to get laser surgery.

the test was finished, and i was slightly upset. i wanted my x-ray to be taken and i wanted to see it. oh well.

also last night went to see an African drums band. Mostly Okinawan musicians but the main guy is black with dreads and is a fantastic drummer. He has lived in Japan for nearly 15 years now, most of them playing in Jamaican band in Tokyo. Now he's on Okinawa and has an African restaurant in Naha (going to check it out this weekend).
The band was great. Really chill and nice to sway to. The show was at the jungle cafe called Yamagame in Higashi-son where Ben lives. He now knows the owners pretty well and was invited to check out the band. Two dozen people or so were there enjoying the somewhat chilly outdoors and jamming music. I enjoyed it so much, I'm going to see them again tonight but this time on a beach in Nago.

On the upbeat school news. Had fun chatting with some 1st graders when i stumbled upon them on my after lunch walk. They were picking weeds under the supervision of the vice principal and i joined them. Hillarious bunch. We've discussed our likes and dislikes. They're impressed with me, i know it. Had a good lesson with them as well after lunch. They were learning how to use the dictionary. It's an amazingly intricate skill, one that i don't think about much, but for most of them it took the whole class period to figure out. Some are still not quite on the ball, so hopefully we'll practice it several more times. It's amazing being able to help a kid who speaks zero to none of your language. Granted i know how to say "does it come before or after n ". Which is also an accomplishment in its own right.
actually had a good day speaking Japanese. I don't speak a lot, and i would certainly agree with anyone that would say that lack of communication is hampering my progress. I know. I'm just shy.
But today i told the office lady about last night's concert and about my plans for tonight, and she told me about her weekend plans. And then i chatted with a few 3rd grade girls about the English bulletin board i have just put up in the hallway.

It's the sun. It's put me in a good mood. That and the fact that it's Friday.

cheers

PS. due to momentary lack in creativity, the subject line says, "today is a bit cold."

Israeli Anti-Semitic Cartoons Contest

Israeli Anti-Semitic Cartoons Contest

saturday
rainy
grey
and i've yet to speak a word to another person or step a foot outside my apartment.
i like it.
rearranged my whole place. well, the scary room is the same. will change the kitchen around as well. maybe later tonight.
it's already after 6pm.

i found this contest site and think it worth sharing.

road crossing

this blog is going to be about cheerful things, i promise. but before i do that.

right before i started writing this blog, i glanced at a BBC article headline, US offers Babylon apology I had no idea what to expect, but what i certainly did not expect was an article detailing how the US army has destroyed a site that is home to one of world's seven wonders. Now i know you can argue this any way you can--there had to have been a strategical advantage to digging trenches and putting down gravel on an archaeological site, perhaps no other sand could be imported so it was necessary that sandbags be filled with artifacts from the site, perhaps a helipad built 100 meters away from the site would not have been as effecient, and collapsing roofs by flying helicopters in and out is deffinately one way of preventing looting--the reason the troops were apparently stationed there in 2003.
Some could say that this is just a place of dirt and gravel. So what if it is significant as a source of knowledge about the world's earliest complex civilization. So what if it has been deemed precious and was protected. It's just something that was built more than 2000 years ago ...there are tons of these in Iraq. Nearly 10,000 documented archaeological sites, in fact. They can't all be protected and secured. This is war--people are dying. The troops are gone now apparently. Have been removed when experts complained of irreversable damage.

and yet, i'm angry and near tears. explain that to me.
is it because i was an archaeologist in the past life? is it because i am one of those crazies who goes googly eye at a site of a thousand year old obsidian point? is it because i have been near human remains and think anything associated with them is sacred? is it because i believe that any knowledge of past culture can only be of benefit to us now? is it because i don't for a second believe that any precaution was taken by the US command to alleviate the damage done to the site? all of that. and more. i'm furious right now.
not a good time to write.


yet, i wanted to tell you about a funny thing that happened on the way to school.
a bunch of ducks crossed the road from the beach. they went from the beach side to the road station side. slowly and deliberatly they waddled their way across, paying now attention to cars that stopped for them. there were 6 or 7 of them. male and female.
apparently they belong to one of my students' parents. i have never seen them before.
but it's not unusual for animals to cross the road, yet why the animal crossing sign has a crab on it, beats me. i have never seen a crab cross and what if the little bugger decides to cross at nighttime? is there any chance at all of his survival?
last night i barely escaped hitting a dog that decided to wonder onto the road and stand there, waiting for something, indecisive about its next move. the dogs here are deffinatly suicidal. see this sort of thing all the time.

ok. am a bit more cheery now that i wrote about that.

i am about to have a serious meeting with the JTE. well, i hope it will be serious. we have decided to talk about how to switch things up in the classrooms. to change a bit the way we teach and how things are organized. i'm really glad that he wants to make this move. i hope we use some of the ideas i've been coming up with while bored stiff during lessons.

oh, and i remembered the second amusing incident of the day. i don't know about anyone else on the island, but for lunch today i ate colored, boiled quail eggs. whether it was because of Good Friday/Easter association has been undetermined by my probbing into the matter. i got shrugs and confused stares. someone in the Ogimi kitchen is having fun with this. One was bright pink and the other sun yellow.

I miss Russian Orthodox Easter. We got to eat tons of delicious, baked, sweet bread and play with colored boiled eggs.

Happy Passover, btw, to all those who keep holidays.

the weather's been as indecisive as the dog on the road. but it's consistent in being humid and rainy and windy. it's just the temperature that changes.

cheers

all new things

the TV was just turned off. what a shame. i rather enjoyed the Spam commercial that was just on. The thinly cut and frying pieces of conglomerated meat looked so good on the big screen that for a moment i wondered what it was about Spam i didn't like. mystery....
Spam, of course, is a substitute meat of choice on this island. it is in almost every traditional dish which beggs the question of how traditional can the dish be. Ordering a vegeterian champuru (mixed stirfy Okinawa style) does not mean that all meat products will be absent. It just means there might be Spam.

but onto more pleasant and important things.

И вроде бы не Сентябрь месяц и точно не первое число. И не работаю я в младших классах, а преподаю ученикам средних классов. Но сегодня, 7-го Апреля было ощущение того всем выходцам из Советских республик известного праздника. Сегодня 29-ять новых учеников вступили "в первый раз в первый класс."
Не было бантов и цветов. Не било звонка и нескольких первых классов. В этом году в нашу школу вступил один первый класс: 1-1. Были родители и слегка запуганных первоклашек ввели в спортивный зал девочка с флагом и их новый классный руководитель. Было очень красиво и торжественно. Первоклассников представили перед всеми. Они кажутся такими маленькими по сравнению со всеми рядом. Хотя если честно, трудно поверить что сегодняшние третилкассники били только во втором классе две недели назад. Всё таки странный здесь учебный год.

Ну всё. Хватит. Напечатать это всё заняло мне почти пол часа. В первый раз, как говорится...

i can safely say that today was my favorite school ceremony. it is the openning day ceremony of the new school year. The kids that two weeks ago left as 2nd (8th) graders are now a school year older. We ceremoniously welcomed new teachers early in the morning. Then the vice principal proclaimed the school year open, and we sang the school song and a couple of students gave speeches. Yes, i sang along. There was a booklet made for the parents of the new students and in it is a copy of the school song. I couldn't sing it before because even though the lyrics are up on a wall in the gym, they are mostly in kanji. The booklet's lyrics of the song have furigana written with the kanji, which made it easier for me. So i sang and felt a bit more a part of what was going on. Granted, a very small bit.
There were two good moments of the morning ceremonies. During the speeches of the openning ceremony the spongy kanji letters that were taped up to the overhead board drawn to the very top of the stage background fell down. First one fell down and sent a ripple of giggles through the girls section. Most teachers smiled. Then a few minutes later another one came down--this time it was much funnier as only one spongy letter remained at the top causing students to tense up with expectation and actually pay attention to what was going on on the stage at the time. a couple of teachers went to the stage, paused the proceedings, lowered the banner, taped up the kanji, and things finished off smoothly after that.
The second nice moment came when students were introduced to their new homeroom teachers. Apparently they change those every year; i assumed the same teacher stays with the class from 1st grade on, but that wouldn't make sense i suppose since teachers themselves move schools so often. So all the teachers lined up in front of the students and the new vice principal read out the names of the new homeroom teachers. Students cheered, yelled, claped, and i did see a couple of dissapointed faces. A couple of new 3-2 girls came up to me. They said that i should be the substitute homeroom teacher (every homeroom teacher has one, a helper of sorts). I kidded and said next year because this year my Japanese isn't good enough. They were dissapointed--they won't be here next year. It was funny though to see them so lively...they were just happy that the JTE was no longer their homeroom teacher. It was so obvious. sad, really.
but he has new responsibility this year--he is now the teacher in charge of the Students' Council. He seems to have been so busy this whole break that we didn't exchange one word about the classes we are to teach. Great.

but i've digressed.

the next ceremony was for the new 1st graders. Their parents and important village people filled the chairs that stood empty during the morning ceremonies. Kids rearranged themselves during the break. I was talking with two girls, one of them sang several Hilary Duff songs to me in almost perfect English. She's not the best English student, her friend was better in understanding what i was staying, but her pronounciation and enthusiasm are great. Am considering pursuading her to try out for the Story contest that is coming up soon. So after the break, the new first graders were led in by their homeroom teacher. They looked excited, nervous and scared all at the same time. But they know almost everyone. It's a small community and am sure that all the kids within the smaller villages know each other. So there were some winks, and waves, and smiles to the students as they passed them. It was really sweet, uninhibitted, and unpretencious. Touching, almost. Like the first day of school on the 1st of September as i remember it from USSR (that's what the russian portion of the blog is about, btw).


The Japanese society depends on ceremony. Everything has an outlined way of doing things. And if it doesn't then there is a phrase that says, "oh well, it can't be helped because there isn't a form that we know how to follow in this situation."
At first it seems ridiculous, mostly because i lack the linguistic understanding of all the ceremonial behaviors. It has grace but is absent of meaning. So it's easier to ridicule than to understand. But i am trying to understand.
And yesterday i participated in my first truly personal ceremony that contained both meaning and emotion. I received my blue belt in karate. We sat in front of the sensei. A black belt kid had the bag with new different colored belts. We were called one by one, the sensei presented us with a certificate and a new belt, i received them with both hands and bowed. I didn't cry or anything but it was somewhat overwhelming. Maybe because it was ceremonious or maybe because i did something i never thought i would and was acknowledged for it. Either way, it was nice.

And we've succesfully come to 4pm on a Friday afternoon. Time to go home.

cheers

the news

i have personalized my Google start page. i get the random headlines from Googlenews and from BBC. Sometimes i click on the items, and most of the time the news i check deals with elections in various countries, riots in France, Israel/Palestine issues. I very rarely will click on a news item that deals with Iraq or Iran. I am not certain that what i'll read will reflect a truth--and then i wonder whose truth am i looking to find.
What's been happenning in Iraq the past four years is difficult to define and describe--especially for someone like me, so far politically and geographically removed from the situation.
Recently, however, i came across a blog written by a young woman from Iraq.
Reading her blog has given me a hold onto what might be happenning in that country--not based on what is being reported on, but on what someone is actually observing. There are probably other sources like this out there, I haven't looked. Hers is overwhelming enough.
I will put up the link to her blog as a permanent addition to my list.
Baghdad Burning is the name of it.

I haven't watched televised news in i don't even know how long. Probably a couple of months. The last news i remember watching was the whale story out of London that i caught when at Josh's apartment in Nago. So i haven't followed the debate going on right now in the United States, and perhaps elsewhere, about what is being reported on in Iraq and what should be reported on.
I have a feeling that most newsorganizations are not inclined to show indepth analysis of what is happenning in Iraq and would rather flash between quick stories and debates. Jason sent me a link of how one reporter sees what is happenning in Iraq and how she views the attacks brought on against her and others' coverage of the situation.
Watch it here

i know. not the most uplifting of blogs.
i feel that i am more inclined now to read the news and ignore it at the same time. that sentence makes sense to me, so no worries if it doesn't to you.

it's quiet in school right now. most teachers have taken their vacation days today. and am sure tomorrow i'll be the only one here. maybe the accountant will show up. so it should be easy enough to skip out half day tomorrow.
today, i came in a bit late, but am staying 'til. 5. sorted out some vocabularly flashcards, chatted on google, had lunch, read. now gonna take a walk and then study.

i have my very first karate belt test tonight. David, Ben, and i are pretty nervous and excited about it. Wish us luck!

cheers

Happy Birthday, mom!!!

isn't she lovely?! :)

on a rainy thursday

listening to: Vanessa Mae

the end of the school is upon us. tomorrow morning we will have a closing ceremony and the students will be free to roam the village streets for 2 weeks. i expect that some of them will come play at the school during the break. the school will be open because the teachers are required to be here during that time. this vacation time is used for staff rehauling. at our school we are only losing one person--the vice principal. and that's sad, 'cause he's wonderful. a really smart man with a really warm personality. when i first got here Gabrielle pointed him out and said, "doesn't he look like a giant teddy bear?" and that image has stuck with me and is right on the money. the new vice principal will be arriving from the island of Iheya, and i hope he's as computer savvy as Kamayama-san is.
on Saturday, OgimiChu's teachers and administritators will be partying in Naha city as a way to say "goodbye" to the departing staff members (singular in our case). The party is a big deal and all schools have them. Other ALTs have been torn between several parties from all their schools, but i have it easy--one little school, one party.

it's been hard to sit down and start this blog. i've been recently contimplating the reasons why i came here and whether any of them have been justified so far.
i am not complaining or regretting--far from it. just trying to take stock of all that has happened in the last 7 months. and it really has been that long already and it's really hard for me to believe it. feels like i just started here. actually it feels like that every day.
so i always have the dilemma of what to write about. i form entries as i drive from one side of the island to another, but they don't always make it here. like my recent fascination with the Japanese phenomenon of high suicide rates and child self-seclusion known as hikikomori . If you're interested for more info Google it .
am still reading up on it, but it does not seem to be a prevalent phenomena on Okinawa. would be hard to know for sure, though, because of its shameful implications for the families.

yesterday was taken out to dinner by Mr. Taira with my supervisor, Mr. Miyagi, and an office lady from the BOE, Keiko-san. Mr. Taira took us to the same sushiya we went to last time.
Once again i had an incredible meal.....i don't believe i could ever not like sushi and sashimi. there were new tastes last night: i tried an octopus from Hokkaido, a milky soup with a giant oyster, sea urchin, and i finally ate the giant clam (mirugai) and it was fantastic. i've seen the sushi guys cut up the mirugai at Hama and it always looked so strange and smelled a bit off, so i've never braved it. it was worth the wait to have it last night, at a first-class sushiya, delivered fresh from mainland Japan.

mr. taira and mr. miyagi are already talking about me staying here for five years. i would have to take a test to be able to teach elementary school after Gabrielle leaves. as appealing as that sounds, i really don't see myself doing it. some days are really difficult.
like today when i stood in front of the classroom and recited 20 words in a row because the JTE decided to cram two lessons worth of material into the very last English class. the kids were ready to fall out of their desks and i don't blame them. how boring to have their last English class be filled with material that is overwhelming, poorly taught, and mostly useless and/or repeat of stuff they should have already learned.
i am seriously considering starting an English club for the next school year. gonna work on the proposal during spring break.
if i am to believe that i am accomplishing something while i am here that is along the lines of what JET Programme anticipates then i need to start doing things outside of the classroom with the students. i won't be able to change the teaching style in use at the moment by the JTE--although i will not stop trying, but they need more genuine interaction in English, especially the ones that seems to have taken a liking to the language.

thanx to the wonderful planning of ms. Yasemine, a few of us got a chance to see whales off the coast of Okinawa on Tuesday. it was a national holiday and we stayed at Yasemine's monday night to get up early for an 8:30am boarding at a port in Naha. it was a windy three-hour-tour and we followed three whales for 2 out of those 3 hours. we saw one of them make two beautiful jumps. they played very close to the 5 boats that followed them. at one point, one of them came up for air within 5 meters of our boat. extraordinary sight. slightly unreal to experience a sight so natural and yet so rarely observed by humans. am so lucky. and yet i wonder if it doesn't bother them to be in such close vicinity to the boats. although, they didn't seem to mind that much because they didn't stray very far from the boats.
for a much more eloquent and informed account of the experience, please check out Kelly's blog--where she turns her historical skills to nature.

i didn't take too many pics, wouldn't have done justice to the experience but both Kelly and Yasemine lucked out and captured on video the jumps. i will post the photos i have and also from the weekend when Kelly, Chiye and i went to Katsuren castle.

we also went out for pizza last weekend at the famous Motobu restaurant at the top of a mountain.
it's one of those interesting things about Okinawa that a restaurant whose menu offers three food items: an appetizer, a giant salad, and pizza should be on the of the most famous on the island. granted, the view is wonderful and the pizza is well done.

cheers

farewell

that was one of the vocabulary words today in my 2nd grade classes.
appropriately enough the 3rd graders have left, are leaving, are yet to leave. Don't know which tense to use.
They graduated on Friday. It was a beautiful ceremony filled with cheers, songs, and tears. The whole affair is surprisingly different from any other graduation ceremony i have ever experienced. In the states it seems that we are happy when we pass from one place of schooling to another. We are cheered on and teachers are glad to be "rid of us"...not in any mean spirited way of course, but it is seen as yet another step to something else, something better and more important. In Japan, every step is as important as the one before it or the one ahead of it. Of course, i am generalizing here, but judging from the graduation ceremonies, i might not be far off. students are saddened to leave their junior high school. teachers are sad to let go. the homeroom teacher cried as he called out the names of his 27 students, and they yelled to him to be strong and keep going. The girls shed tears, the boys stayed strong and laughed; one of them cried, though, and it was as surprising to me as to others around him. but no one laughed at him. he was crying and it was understood why, and no one could reproach him of his emotion.
The teachers sang a song to the students, i was one of them, and i didn't cry but sympathetic tears did crawl forward as the homeroom teacher spoke to his students.
They gave growing trees to their mothers and fathers; they walked out of the gym through a passageway made up of cheering underclassmen and teary teachers. They were showered with paper conffeti and given presents and words of encouragement.
it was dramatic and over the top. but it made sense.
School is everything here. it is not just a place for education, it is a place where the primary group resides. students see their teachers and peers more during the week than they see their families. it's not surprising then that they are hesitant to let go.

so much so, that half of the 3rd grade class is right now at school. They are here today because the results of the high school entrance exams came out this morning. unfortunately two students did not get into the high schools of their choice. yet, one student got into the number one high school in Okinawa. so lots to cheer for, and everyone is thrilled for them. In between classes, all i hear are screams of 2nd and 1st grade girls as they encounter a new 3rd grader to congratulate.

i wonder if some of them will come back to school tomorrow and every day until the end of term. i wouldn't be surprised if they did.

Today is also "White Day," the opposite of Valentine's Day in Japan. On White Day women are to receive back the presents they gave their husbands and boyfriends on VDay. As a rule, i am told, men are usually forgetful of all the presents they have received from not only their co-workers but wives as well, and women don't expect much on White Day. Yet this morning all the female teachers at Ogimi Chu found a nicely wrapped box of chocolates on their desks. We don't know who they're from, but we're guessing that the vice principal is behind it.

The weekend was good.
The India crew did a great job for the India fundraiser--thanx to everyone who showed up at Paul and Mike's or gave us contrubutions but couldn't make it. It was a fun night for all and we raised a good amount of money to pass onto the Ananda Marga chapter in West Bengal, India. Thanx, again.

I saw the film, Narnia , on Sunday and loved it. Walked away with a warm feeling of wonder. A good story well told.

and last night watched once again, "He died with a felafel in his hand" and i would highly highly recommend it to anyone who appreciates quirky Australian humor.
cheers

International Women's Day

International Women's Day

Happy International Women's Day!!!

S Prazdnikom Vosmogo Marta vsex jenshin i devushek!!

yes.. i know. most of you will say, "huh?!" when reading this. of course, those of you with any connection at all to the former soviet union won't have to worry--it's been engraved into your brain, along with songs from "Cheburashka" (surprizingly popular in Japan) and a belief that Russian history is unshackably the best.

in other news, photos will be up because i solved the technical problem standing in my way.
i also discovered i am a decent cook.

cheers

Kin youbi kara

that says, i think, "from Friday.."
so let's start there.
Friday was a special day. Both nationally and locally. Nationally, it was the day of the Hina Matsuri or the Doll Festival. It is a festival that these days is meant to celebrate the daughters of the family and to ensure their happiness and future success in marriage. Beautiful dolls are displayed prominently in a family's home, they are usually dressed in Heian-era (794-1185AD) costumes and can be quite costly (a full set of 15 dolls can get to be as much as $25,000). It used to be that the dolls were made out of paper and were used to transfer into all the illness and misfortune that might have befallen a family and then tossed into the river or brook near the house that way assurring a healthy year for the family. But traditions change and currently the festival is a day to celebrate daughters, and to make sure that there is nothing standing in the way of them being married succesfully it is believed that the doll display must be taken down and stored away the day after the matsuri, thus preventing any procrastination.
Click here for more on Hina Matsuri .
The 3rd of March is also connected with Peach Blossoms. These flowering blooms come second on Okinawa after cherry blossoms, whereas on mainland they will appear first. So some families may display a twig of blossoming peach next to the dolls.

Locally, friday was special because it was the last day that 3rd graders attended a full day of school at Ogimi Junior High School. In the morning we had classes as usual but in the afternoon we had a unique PE class. The boys played soccer against each other outside, and girls prepared for a dance show in the gym. The girls were split either by class (the entire 1-2 class performed together) or they were split among friends, so 2-1 and 2-2 girls mixed. The performances were hillarious and spirited and were all done in good fun and to cheer up the 3rd graders.
I have photos up in a separate School Folder on the Fotki site--check them out. The biggest surprise for me was the win of 1-2 boys over 3-1 boys. I was sure that the older boys would win, after all they are two years older, taller, stronger...but the 1st graders surprized me scoring 2:1 and winning that match. Pretty cool.

So Friday night I got together with Kelly and we went to hang out at Keri's. It was a good night of girls hanging out and even though a TV was brought up to watch a movie, we never quite got around to it. The next morning Kelly and i went for an American style breakfast buffet at Awase golf course, and i drove down to Itoman.
That evening I had the pleasure of attending with Yasemine and Ayse, the Itoman HS Brass Band concert. It was an incredibly well performed concert. The band performed several numbers as a whole, then individual performers were showcased, and the same students also sang two songs (one of them a hymnal in English and Latin). In the third portion of the concert we were treated to a full band performance of "Take the A Train," "Star Wars" main theme, and "Sing Sing Sing." And of course it was awesome to see our very own Chris Madole perform those numbers along side his students. Chris played two different saxophones and did a solo with two other sax players during one of the numbers. It was a great concert and also an emotional one for 3rd graders of Itoman HS. Before the last song was played, all 3rd graders came out front and center and were given flowers and special words, written by 1st and 2nd graders were read about each one of them.

Sunday, we got to watch Ayse participate in a kayak race on the beach near Chris' place, had a late breakfast of delicious banana and chocolate chip pancakes and Chris and i headed off to do some exporing in the southeast of the island.
Will have photos from that and the concert up in the next two days-still working out the technical difficulties.

But the coolest thing taht happened this weekend was being invited into the home of Chris' neighbors when we were coming back to his place later Sunday. The family was hosting a dinner for one of Chris' neighbors who is from Hokkaido and will be leaving on the 2nd of April to go back home. We were given food and drink and actually managed to talk to them for nearly 2 hours. It was really fun and between the two of us Chris and i decided that we speak Japanese well enough to be understood. I was actually surprised by how much i could say and understand--it was good knowing that all the studying and attempts are not going by wayside and some things are actually remaining inside my head.

I drove home after and got in around 1am.

The weekend was so eventful and tiring that i had to take a Monday off. The best decision ever! I had a day to clean, call family, launder, figure out the clothes line situation (now i don't have one at all), and to take a walk in Okuma, study there and have dinner.

I also watched "Some Girl" a 1998 film with Giovanni Ribisi, his twin sister Marissa, Michael Rappaport, and Juliette Lewis. I enjoyed it.

So now back in school. This Friday we will have the graduation ceremony for 3rd graders; on Thursday there will be rehearsals and cleaning all day. So tomorrow will be the last day to teach for this week.

oh. and hooray for Japanese scientists who have found a way to extract gasoline from cow dung!! Not only that, apparently it is also a source of fragrance. Check it out!

cheers

on my mind

a few things of note.

i am considering applying to be an assistant at the Tokyo Post-Arrival Orientation at the beginning of August, 2006. As a part of the application I have write up a proposal of what my presentation would consist of. I am chosing to flush out my ideas for a presentation titled, "Independent Japanese Study: Beginner." The only problem is that I don't recall what the presentations in Tokyo were like. I would like to organize mine better than those, and perhaps have some interesting ideas for activities that could be done with a crowd of jet-lagged, wide-eyed foreigners. To be honest, I only attended two of those seminars. Both were somewhat helpful and i have a vague recollection of what was said, but most of it didn't stick. I guess i still have the handouts, so those should be a good source. Of course, we all left Tokyo with 10 extra pounds of books and handouts so who's to say that mine will be the one kept?

am also thinking that my second graders are the most disengaged students in the world. a bit of an exaggeration, i understand, but what a lousy 45 minutes for them and me. don't know how my JTE feels about it. he seems to be as disengaged from the process sometimes as they are. i know that learning language sometimes is boring and i know that learning grammar of a language you don't care to learn is even more of a consternation: but can they all be that uninterested? is it the teenage hormones that are preventing them from expressing any possible emotion?
that's not true. whenever we have an activity that involves moving around and asking each other and me questions, some students do get a bit genki. For the most part they are happy for those moments because they give them the opportunity to move around the room and pretend to be working on something while chatting with their friends. it's difficult to think of things to do that would make it fun for them; i am somewhat limited on time within the curriculum and the less i get to do creatively in the classroom, the more stagnant i feel and the less i want to do in the future. it's a bit of a vicious cycle. but i will get out of it. today, i had two seeminly fun ideas for vocabulary activities while bored out of my skull in the classroom. hopefully, i'll be able to put them into action.

also on my mind is the political development in Taiwan and Palestine. I have been reading up on both and so thankful that i have access to the BBC from school. Their website is wonderful for in-depth analysis of the situation. I wonder if the money EU sent to the Palestenian Authority will be put to good use--i certainly hope so, but with Hamas weeks away from taking power--who knows. Yet, i wonder how an extreme terrorist organization will reinvent itself as a governing body. Some parts of that organization are going to have to be sucked into the bureaucracy of running a country that has been slowly going financial under. They will have to rethink their primary objectives as an organization--perhaps helping their people will become more important than destroying others.

ha.
who am i kidding.

what a sad world.

also would like to apologize for not putting up any photos for a little while. the USB cable from my camera has decided to take a sabbatical--i have been very pursuasive for it to come back, but nothing seems to be working. perhaps i'll have the pleasure of using friend's YahooBB and camera connections this weekend, until then, cross your fingers for my poor little Minolta and its issues.

today for lunch we had yakisoba, a kroket, and some fruit in a milky sauce. not too shabby.

in the afternoon the entire school will be listening to a concert of visiting mucisions. don't know what they will be performing, but it's nice anyways.

later today i get to use my brand new karate gi for the first time in practice. went through a kata at home wearing it last night. that's a nice snapping sound it makes. i like it.

cheers

too random to call

for lunch today: carrot puree soup (yummy), sloppy joe looking meat stuff with beans (not bad..good sauce), a salad made of tofu dregs and some sort of veggies (reasonably tasty), and a bun. no dessert today. though the Ogimi lunch ladies have been slacking on desserts lately. but we do have a lot of mikans (orange/mandarin) around. 'tis the season, after all.

on friday, Ogimi Chugakko was visited upon by near a hundred teachers and administrators from all over Okinawa. They came to observe lessons and to talk. The school had been in prep mode for over a week for this. There was major cleaning done and lots and lots of posters and scrolls printed and drawn.
From what i understood, this was a conference that takes place annually on Okinawa. A school is chosen geographically, and this is Ogimi Chu's first time. I am not certain whether the topic of lessons and discussion is always the same. This year it was concentrated on showing students how to best make a decision about their future plans. 5 teachers taught five exemplary classes that focused on the subject of future occupation. In Japan, students are not required to attend high school, but attendance of a good/specific high school can be essential to the future plans of a student. Teachers feel that students need to take junior high school and high school education more seriously if they are to achieve their future goals. There is a somewhat high rate of high school drop out; usually (this is all from what i've been explained by teachers) this happens after the first year. Students go to high school, live in dorms sometimes far away from their parents' homes, they get jobs, they have a good time. ONce they start making money, they think that they don't need high school and drop out. Same thing happens in the United States; it's a known phenomenon. In Japan, however, it is probably harder to get back into gear and get back those years that are lost to dropping out. I've been told that switching majors is usually not done in Japan, because when students apply to unis, they apply for specific programs and it's hard to switch. So it must be equally as difficult to be admitted into university/college/technicum if one has lost out on all or some of high school.
Jobs are scarce in Okinawa. It is the highest subsudized prefecture in Japan (some of it is because of the bases). The bases are a whole different topic and i am not yet ready to tackle it on this blog. It's a tough issue, and it also effects us, ALTs. Certainly not in the same respect as it effects the Okinawan population, but i just want to say, that we are not ignorant to it.

I also learned this weekend that the divorce rate is on the rise in Okinawa, predominantly among young couples.
The teacher who explained this to me used interesting gestures. Pinky seems to indicate a woman and a thumb, a man. Hooked together they represent a relationship or marriage. Unique.
She tried to explain to me that when women don't work, marriages in Okinawa last. But now women are working, they are bringing money home and they are leaving their husbands. There must be deeper cultural reasons for this but the effects are very visible among the students. She pointed out at least two students in her homeroom class whose parents are separated, and one of them is a bright student but always gloomy.

Friday night, walking along the 58 with two good friends. It's 4 am and we meet two Okinawan women. We struck up a conversation. Turns out one of them is moving to South Carolina (or was it North) to be with her new American husband. The other is a single mother who works on one of the bases. She says she likes it enough, it's a decent job. She said, as a single mother, it's the best job on the island because it provides good pay and great benefits.
So there you are. It all rolls into one person. All issues of Okinawa that i thought about this weekend brought out in one conversation with a random stranger.

The weather is gorgeous and i have nothing to do at school, except study some Nihongo and read a Roshia no hon. Wish i could just go outside, though.

Oh, and as a side note. It is very difficult to get clear directions in Okinawa.
very very very very difficult. near impossible, actually.
arrgh

cheers

photo blog

listening to: Oi Va Voi
found them by mistake while downloading another British band, Crimea. Both are great. Check them out.



a good example of "engrish" fashion. shirts that prove that in Japan most english words are used in fashion just for "cool" factor and not at all for meaning. check out more photos i took of my students' primary source of English.


The orchids on display at the International Orchids Show in Motobu's Ocean Expo Park were magnificent. See more here


Chiye and i got to see a scene from an upcoming Okinawan movie being filmed in the village of Shioya. Residents of Ogimi, Shioya, Ie-jima, and Nago gathered to sing a song, Endo no Hana against the beautiful backdrop of Shioya Bay in Ogimi-son. It was truly one of the best experiences so far on the island.


an image i should have posted at the very beginning of my stay here. The vending machines are prevalent here...but the cigarette vending machines are still amusing to me. And it's curious that they are turned off after a certain hour in the evenings.

cheers

human relations

on monday i found out that today, thursday, was going to be special. the 3rd graders are almost done with school and so the other two graders are throwing something of a going away party for them. the party involves playing games that are meant to build cooperation and communication among students. good idea, ne? oh, and i also found out that i was written into one of the teams.

so today, i am told to go to the gym around 1:50. mind you, i had no idea what kind of games these were meant to be, but i was prepared, i brought gym clothes; i lacked foresight and did not bring gym shoes (outside shoes are not permitted). so in my white socks, with my feet freezing, i stand on the periferee of a student body mess. the teachers don't seem to know what's going on. two guys are at the front, explaining something; i think they are meant to be leaders. the students split off into four groups, arranged not by classes, but randomly, it seems with all the grades intermixed. i am in the green group and i sit down and "chat" with some of the first grade girls.

we play two games: we pass the basketball in two different ways, and then some sort of a tag game. kids seem to be engaged, some are sitting by the wall and staring at their peers. but a handful are fully involved.

the main guy is upset. why? don't know. he gives a speeche. i can tell the kids are subdued by it, somewhat deflated even. all of a sudden, the 3rd grader girls decide to talk, they call all the 3rd graders over to the side (mind you the guy from Professional Adventures is still talking). all 3rd graders stand up and walk over to the side, sit in a cirlcle and start talking. well, the girls are talking, the boys in that class are just for show.

so, what's going on, i ponder. it's obvious that 3rd graders decided to disengage from the activities. why? all of a sudden i see 2nd graders attempting to break away, and 1st graders have formed two disjointed circles.
i walk over to the JTE, sometimes he's helpful. He tells me that the organizer/speaker/leader/PA dude was not happy that not all the students were engaged in the activities. He said that they should be having fun and they weren't. He didn't like that some students were not following his explicit directions not step outside certain lines. So he said that if students don't want to continue with the activity, they should have their leaders speak with the group and then tell him how to proceed. Brilliant! My JTE tells me that obviously 3rd graders have great "human relations" judging by the way they all got together so quickly. and then points to his own class (he is a homeroom teacher of 2-2) and tells me to notice how the girls have their own circle and boys are separate from them on the other side. His class, admittingly, does not have good "human relations." At this point most grades have somehow organized into circles, but kids are goofing around and obviously are not discussing whether they want to proceed with the Adventures exercise.
The teachers are everywhere but not anywhere near the students. Like my JTE, they are just standing around, observing the situation.

after 20 minutes of this, 3rd graders are obviously fed up. This is meant to be their going away present, and it's not hapenning. the other grades are being childlish and so they go over to talk with the dude about the situation. at this point the head teacher is involved and 2nd graders have chatted with some 3rd graders and are getting nearer a decision (the girls even invited the boys to be in their circle).

another 10 minutes go by. the students have been told to sit according to class. third graders are standing in line at the front. one of them speaks, to what effect, i know not. the dude walks in front of the lines of students sitting down and asks them (i think) whether they want to participate. guess what? all the students raise their hands. surprised?!? ha!

they split off back into the color teams. a couple of the 3rd grade girls are crying. they play games.

i had to leave after a while because too much Japanese speak in one day makes my brain hurt.

so. i'm a bit confused here. these students are taught via the teacher centered method. it's not just from being in English classes. I've seen it happen in other classes as well. The teacher talks, the students passively receive information. lecture after lecture after lecture and sometimes they make a salad.

so why is it that within the classroom the kids are not expected to engeneer their own education; but outside of it, the teachers are nowhere near what happens within the student body?
students lead their own activities; they decide on clubs, they create their own projects...yes, of course there is always a teacher to guide them, but just like it happened today, the students are first allowed to organize their own chaos.
and inevitably, there are only two or three students who show leadership qualities and are going to answer for the whole group...so not everyone is ever fully involved in the process.

i'm so confused. i will continue to observe this strange behavior. i know the group is what matters in this society--little is done in solitude and individually.
but why aren't students allowed then to guide their own education as well?
and i'm not saying that they will get to choose their subjects, or whether to study or not. no. i'm talking about student centered learning; it doesn't exist here--or at least i haven't seen it....

*big sigh*

cheers

wednesday chill

this will be short but sweet.

nice, huh?

things are good on this island of ours. I am starting to think that i may actually enjoy learning kanji more than learning to talk. It's fun figuring out that some kanji actually make sense. Or rather, it's that now i sometimes notice the kanji i've learned and how they fit together with the other kanji. For instance, Kelly lives in Kitanakagusuku, and this weekend her and i were happy to notice that we now know all three of the kanji (can't write the "gusuku" part, though, too difficult) and can discern that it probably means "castle in the north." ha!!

so in honor of Kelly, who took me to my first ever oil massage on the island and most deffinately not last, as it was near an hour and a half of bliss, and spent the Sunday going to numerous second hand shops and a hair salon, where we once again were pampered. She was also incredibly kind enough to bring up a purchase of mine that fitted near perfectly in her car when we shopped, but would not even consider squeezing into the backseat of my Cynos.

It's been too long without silly quizes on this site.

cheers

You Are Most Like Miranda!

While you've had your fair share of romance, men don't come first Guys are a distant third to your friends and career. And this independence *is* attractive to some men, in measured doses. Remember that if you imagine the best outcome, it might just happen. Romantic prediction: Someone from your past is waiting to reconnect... But you'll have to think of him differently, if you want things to work.

Which Sex and the City Vixen Are You?

the five senses

Hearing--right now the students are cleaning the school and i hear the brooms being pushed across the floor by two second grade girls. they are laughing.
yesterday, my ears were ringing with the sound of giggling from two other second grade girls. i have apparently become and unwitting supplier of "kakkoi" and "kawaii" celebreties to these girls. I noticed a photo of a some american kid on Kotono's desk two days ago. I asked who it was. She said, "Jesse McCartney"....through miming and broken english and japanese, i figured out that Jesse was a very popular, cool (kakkoi) and cute (kawaii) singer from America. i googled him in the office. Sure enough, there's an 18 year old star on the rise, and i couldn't care less. But the 2nd grade girls do. A pack of them (students never travel alone) came into the office, asking to see me ( i don't get that a lot)....and all gathered around the computer where i was just happened to be checking out Jesse's official website. Wow! the screams! the squeels! the giggles!! nonestop! in my ear! hillarious!!! i image.googled and found a bunch of photos of this young hunk, put them in Word and printed out a coule of copies. I made their day.
So yesterday i had to do the same for Eminem. At least he's been around for a while, so that i knew who he was and could hum one of his songs. Elina sensei is apparently cool. Fantastic!!

Taste--today there were whole chunks of chicken in the lunch soup. Not bad, lunch ladies. Not bad at all. We also had what is known as a kroket, from the French, croquet...and is a mush of potatoes, panko fried. Good stuff. I also got to eat some beans that came in a package with a picture of a very cute little red devil. It was explained to me that today people will throw some beans outside of their homes to ward off the evil spirits and to welcome the good ones. I believe the name for the cute, "chotto bad" devil is Oni. I was told that this is done because today is the day before the first day of spring, except it's not so i'm confused.
Hopefully, our local Okinawan expert can fill us in on what is hapenning today in Okinawa. The beans in the packet were nice and crunchy, and i was told to eat 28 of them at home (am 27 now, so one more to make sure i live to 28).

Sight--last night. walking along 58, with the ocean on my side. Complete darkness except when the bright lights of passing cars would light the way and create scary looking shadows in front of them.. I swear i saw a cheetah speed away in front of an uncoming car. i saw a group of high school students practice at the bat at Hentona high school. In the dark, under swaying bulbs, they stood in pairs and hit the ball over and over and over.
I wish i had such dedication when it came to kanji and studying.

ok...tired now. will write about the other two senses at some later time.

oh..and if you guessed "C" for the Simpson trivia, you are a winner!! i will be sending out gift packs of "snake bashing bats" sometime next week.

cheers