Just a funny story from lunch today:
I am eating with a class of third years. In this class, the teacher passes around two small plastic bags to collect the milk tops: One for the plastic wrapper, and one for the cardboard milkcap that is sort of inside the milk bottle. The bags make their way around the room, and the last two boys are supposed to tie them and throw them in the trash.
Today the two boys decided it would be great fun to put air in the bags and pop them. Problem for me, since I do not like loud noises. But I was watching, so I knew it was coming and I was able to make sure I had nothing in my hands to spill. So the first boy (with the bag full of plastic) pops his. Its pretty loud, but the second boy says (in Japanese) something along the lines of "I can do better!" So he pops his bag. BAM! Definitely a louder pop, however, the 40 milk caps in the bag went FLYING all over the place!
Moral of the story: kids are kids and they do stupid things. Funny, but stupid. He had to spend the next 10 minutes picking the caps up from everywhere.
Friday, November 27, 2009
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
More things I have learned in Japan
As of November 24, 2009...
* Brown and black still don't match but you can wear them together anyway.
* How to not care if I wear the same outfit twice in a week.
* Laundry takes a long time to air dry when it is cold.
* When you air dry socks, they are stiff when you go to put them on.
* When it is cold, its hard to tell if your laundry is dry and cold, or still wet!
* Okonomiyaki is delicious. (As is most Japanese food)
* How to light a kerosene stove
* Definitely Definitely DEFINITELY wear gloves when handling kerosene.
* Don't spill kerosene in your apartment. It will smell bad for a while.
* When using a kerosene heater, it is important to (a) open a window and (b) turn the heater off every once in a while.
* Kanji are fun to learn! It's especially fun when the meaning clicks and you understand why the word for "weather" is "heaven" and "feelings" put together.
* Heated toilet seats are wonderful.
* Pre-heating your bed with an electric blanket is also wonderful.
* The things you fill with hot water and sleep with are also wonderful. (I don't know the name, but its not a hot water bag, cause its made of hard plastic)
* How to drink a scalding hot beverage without burning my mouth.
* Students and other teachers alike are fascinated by fast typing skills.
* Elementary students are like the energizer bunny.... they keep going and going and going...
* Elementary students are really good at pronouncing English. (its a linguistic brain thing, which is why we should start foreign language education in elem school!)
* It is NOT fun when you get out of the shower and you can see your breath in the bathroom.
...to be continued...
* Brown and black still don't match but you can wear them together anyway.
* How to not care if I wear the same outfit twice in a week.
* Laundry takes a long time to air dry when it is cold.
* When you air dry socks, they are stiff when you go to put them on.
* When it is cold, its hard to tell if your laundry is dry and cold, or still wet!
* Okonomiyaki is delicious. (As is most Japanese food)
* How to light a kerosene stove
* Definitely Definitely DEFINITELY wear gloves when handling kerosene.
* Don't spill kerosene in your apartment. It will smell bad for a while.
* When using a kerosene heater, it is important to (a) open a window and (b) turn the heater off every once in a while.
* Kanji are fun to learn! It's especially fun when the meaning clicks and you understand why the word for "weather" is "heaven" and "feelings" put together.
* Heated toilet seats are wonderful.
* Pre-heating your bed with an electric blanket is also wonderful.
* The things you fill with hot water and sleep with are also wonderful. (I don't know the name, but its not a hot water bag, cause its made of hard plastic)
* How to drink a scalding hot beverage without burning my mouth.
* Students and other teachers alike are fascinated by fast typing skills.
* Elementary students are like the energizer bunny.... they keep going and going and going...
* Elementary students are really good at pronouncing English. (its a linguistic brain thing, which is why we should start foreign language education in elem school!)
* It is NOT fun when you get out of the shower and you can see your breath in the bathroom.
...to be continued...
Friday, November 20, 2009
Drug education in Japan
I guess they teach drug awareness around the world! This is something I had not considered yet... I wonder if they do Sex ed too? Interesting to consider, if you keep Japanese culture in mind. I bet sex ed is something parents have to do. However, they do teach drug awareness. Or rather, they scare the sh*t out of the children!
Let me tell you about the video we watched on Wednesday.
First scene: Man getting on his bike when all of a sudden he screams, drops his bike and runs off. View moves over to reveal a dead girl on the sidewalk. It shows a close up, like big bleeding cut on her forehead and the blank look in her half-open eyes.
How did she die?
Flash back to one year ago. She is happy at work. She is leaving right on time because she has a date with a guy!
The guy steps out in the middle of dinner, goes down a sketchy alley and buys cigarettes from a sketchy looking dude in a dark coat.
The evening moves on to find the two at the girl's apartment. The guy pulls out his cigarettes and then pulls out a little bag of drugs. (I am actually not sure what drug it was, but they put it on foil, held a lighter below the foil and then inhaled it through a pipe thing... it probably said what drug it was but the video was in Japanese, imagine that, so I did not understand) ANYway, it shows the girl saying "please stop, please stop, dont do that here" (very weakly, i might add) and then it shows her succumbing to peer pressure and finally inhaling the drug for herself. She coughs a lot and clearly did not enjoy it. BUT then as it takes effect, she smiles.
She begins to miss work and over time moves on to heavier drugs. We watched as she injected herself. We saw the shivers when she needed a fix. She did not look good after a while, and her arm was really gross when they showed it. It was all purple and icky. (all the students gasped at that)
Last scene: She takes some drugs and starts having hallucinations of bugs crawling all over her and her apartment. She freaks out. Just as she sort of calms down, a delivery man rings the doorbell, causing her to panic and jump out the window.
And we have now come full circle to see her lying dead on the ground after having jumped out of her apartment.
It was a pretty intense video, considering these kids are like 12-14 years old. I do not remember ever seeing anything serious in school when we did the ATOD stuff. I think they were always hokey 80s videos that, while they didnt make drugs look cool, they didnt really make them look all that bad either. Just showed people being stupid and some coughing. Never any of the really serious effects of drug use.
I have always thought if they could show things a little more intense in the US, a few more kids might get the message but who knows.
Just another random blog post to show another small cultural difference between the US and Japan.
Let me tell you about the video we watched on Wednesday.
First scene: Man getting on his bike when all of a sudden he screams, drops his bike and runs off. View moves over to reveal a dead girl on the sidewalk. It shows a close up, like big bleeding cut on her forehead and the blank look in her half-open eyes.
How did she die?
Flash back to one year ago. She is happy at work. She is leaving right on time because she has a date with a guy!
The guy steps out in the middle of dinner, goes down a sketchy alley and buys cigarettes from a sketchy looking dude in a dark coat.
The evening moves on to find the two at the girl's apartment. The guy pulls out his cigarettes and then pulls out a little bag of drugs. (I am actually not sure what drug it was, but they put it on foil, held a lighter below the foil and then inhaled it through a pipe thing... it probably said what drug it was but the video was in Japanese, imagine that, so I did not understand) ANYway, it shows the girl saying "please stop, please stop, dont do that here" (very weakly, i might add) and then it shows her succumbing to peer pressure and finally inhaling the drug for herself. She coughs a lot and clearly did not enjoy it. BUT then as it takes effect, she smiles.
She begins to miss work and over time moves on to heavier drugs. We watched as she injected herself. We saw the shivers when she needed a fix. She did not look good after a while, and her arm was really gross when they showed it. It was all purple and icky. (all the students gasped at that)
Last scene: She takes some drugs and starts having hallucinations of bugs crawling all over her and her apartment. She freaks out. Just as she sort of calms down, a delivery man rings the doorbell, causing her to panic and jump out the window.
And we have now come full circle to see her lying dead on the ground after having jumped out of her apartment.
It was a pretty intense video, considering these kids are like 12-14 years old. I do not remember ever seeing anything serious in school when we did the ATOD stuff. I think they were always hokey 80s videos that, while they didnt make drugs look cool, they didnt really make them look all that bad either. Just showed people being stupid and some coughing. Never any of the really serious effects of drug use.
I have always thought if they could show things a little more intense in the US, a few more kids might get the message but who knows.
Just another random blog post to show another small cultural difference between the US and Japan.
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Elementary school visit!
I had my first elementary school visit yesterday. It was actually a lot of fun! First of all, I was at a tiny school. Like, 25 students total, in all 6 grades. Yeah, you read that right, 25 students. I taught the whole school at one time. They are all at about the same level, however, so it worked out. These kids are living proof that the younger you are, the easier it is to learn and remember a language. I actually think some of them are better than the students at my junior high school. Their pronunciation is better for sure, but that is an age thing. They are also not nearly as shy, at least not in groups. When I said hello, EVERYONE said hello back. When I asked how are you, EVERYONE answered! And they didn't just do the generic "I'm fine, thank you, and you?" I heard "I'm sleepy," "I'm fine," "I'm happy," "I'm hot," and "I'm cold." My students at sanchu don't even know all of those! Its also really cute to have a whole room of little kids saying "I'm~" at the same time. They are so energetic!
I started off by doing my introduction, just like where I am from, pictures of my family and my pets, etc. Easy things. They loved looking at the pictures and could not believe I have so many pets. (or had, rather, but I just left it as 2 dogs, 2 cats and 2 turtles.) They were adorable when they did their little introductions to me individually. At first they were a little shy one on one, but then they got into it and were lined up waiting to talk to me. hehe
THEN I taught them animals. However, they knew them all already, except rooster, which I threw in there so I could teach animal sounds too. We played a few games with the animals, my favorite being where they each had a card of different animals and they had to get into groups with the same animal without saying anything. One of the boys in the snake group got on the floor and started slithering like a snake! It was excellent!
Follow up with the animals and a small introduction to "American culture" (sorta... it was a stretch) was to teach them animal noises. I pointed to a picture of an animal and asked what its "cry" is. They would all do it, and then I told them what it is in English. For example, a dog in Japanese says "won won" vs "bark bark" And the piece de resistance, the rooster. In Japanese its something like "Kokekokkoo." THEN I taught them "cock-a-doodle-doo!" and they had a blast with that one. The JTE explained in Japanese like "isn't it interesting how the animals say different things in English?"
The last part of the day, I practiced with 5th and 6th graders only. They are going to Tokyo and wanted to practice a conversation with foreigners. If you are ever in japan and school children approach you, please speak English with them! They want to practice, and they're cute!
Some challenges from the day: The JTE does not speak that much English and I do not speak that much Japanese! We managed, however, so it should be fine from now on, especially as I learn more and more Japanese.
Ok, the end!
I started off by doing my introduction, just like where I am from, pictures of my family and my pets, etc. Easy things. They loved looking at the pictures and could not believe I have so many pets. (or had, rather, but I just left it as 2 dogs, 2 cats and 2 turtles.) They were adorable when they did their little introductions to me individually. At first they were a little shy one on one, but then they got into it and were lined up waiting to talk to me. hehe
THEN I taught them animals. However, they knew them all already, except rooster, which I threw in there so I could teach animal sounds too. We played a few games with the animals, my favorite being where they each had a card of different animals and they had to get into groups with the same animal without saying anything. One of the boys in the snake group got on the floor and started slithering like a snake! It was excellent!
Follow up with the animals and a small introduction to "American culture" (sorta... it was a stretch) was to teach them animal noises. I pointed to a picture of an animal and asked what its "cry" is. They would all do it, and then I told them what it is in English. For example, a dog in Japanese says "won won" vs "bark bark" And the piece de resistance, the rooster. In Japanese its something like "Kokekokkoo." THEN I taught them "cock-a-doodle-doo!" and they had a blast with that one. The JTE explained in Japanese like "isn't it interesting how the animals say different things in English?"
The last part of the day, I practiced with 5th and 6th graders only. They are going to Tokyo and wanted to practice a conversation with foreigners. If you are ever in japan and school children approach you, please speak English with them! They want to practice, and they're cute!
Some challenges from the day: The JTE does not speak that much English and I do not speak that much Japanese! We managed, however, so it should be fine from now on, especially as I learn more and more Japanese.
Ok, the end!
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
"Elissa, eating an apple with peanut butter is stranger than eating octopus"
Yes, this was a real conversation.
Rewind to Sunday when I would not eat the octopus at the party. All the other teachers were fighting over it, and I was not interested in the slightest. They were shocked! "You don't like octopus?!" "It's delicious!"
I told them that in the US, we don't really eat octopus, so it's a little strange to me. I also tried to explain that when I can see the little suction cups on the tentacles, I get way freaked out. (they laughed at this one)
Fast forward to today: The conversation started because one of the teachers had a HUGE apple on her desk that was given to her by a student. I told the JTEs how in the US its one of those little cliche things where students give teachers apples. She laughed, and then we talked about different apples and how they are smaller in the US, and how there are so many different kinds. I told them that apples are cheaper in the US too. And then I just randomly mentioned that apples are delicious with peanut butter! That got quite a stare from them. One of the JTEs was excited and said that in the home ec class, they would taste apple with peanut butter. However, the other JTE said to me "Elissa, eating an apple with peanut butter is stranger than eating octopus."
The end.
Rewind to Sunday when I would not eat the octopus at the party. All the other teachers were fighting over it, and I was not interested in the slightest. They were shocked! "You don't like octopus?!" "It's delicious!"
I told them that in the US, we don't really eat octopus, so it's a little strange to me. I also tried to explain that when I can see the little suction cups on the tentacles, I get way freaked out. (they laughed at this one)
Fast forward to today: The conversation started because one of the teachers had a HUGE apple on her desk that was given to her by a student. I told the JTEs how in the US its one of those little cliche things where students give teachers apples. She laughed, and then we talked about different apples and how they are smaller in the US, and how there are so many different kinds. I told them that apples are cheaper in the US too. And then I just randomly mentioned that apples are delicious with peanut butter! That got quite a stare from them. One of the JTEs was excited and said that in the home ec class, they would taste apple with peanut butter. However, the other JTE said to me "Elissa, eating an apple with peanut butter is stranger than eating octopus."
The end.
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
I get it! I get it! I'll get the door! He's got the milk!
My students keep telling me that English is hard. I'm always like "No, no its not! But Japanese is hard!" And then we have a discussion on why Japanese is hard for me and why English is hard for them...
However, I was playing on the internet today in all of my free time, and perhaps English is a little harder than I thought.
Example: the verb "get" Let's take a look at some of the possible uses and meanings, shall we? It might give you a whole new respect for the language you speak. You just might feel lucky that you grew up speaking it and did not have to learn it.
"I got the letter yesterday" (meaning: received)
"I practiced so I got better at dancing" (meaning: became)
"I get it! I get it!" (meaning: understand)
"The phone! I'll get it!" (meaning: answer)
"I got these shoes last weekend in Tokyo" (meaning: bought/acquired)
"You need milk? I'll get it." (meaning: retrieve)
"It's 3:00? I've got to go!" (meaning: must, required to) NB most of us would say, "I gotta go!"
NOW, some idiomatic uses. I am not going to type out the meanings, but note that some of them have several ways they can be used:
*get away
*get away with
*get back
*get back to
*get around
*get around to
*get along
*get along with
*get in
*get on
*get off
*get into
*get out
*get out of
*get over
*get over with
*get rid of
*get through
*get going
*get up
*get used to
And now, some very specific uses of get, also idiomatic:
"Get real!"
"Get a life!"
"Get lost!"
"Get a move on!"
"Get to the point!"
"Get with it!"
WHEW! So, after that, new respect for people trying to learn English, right? Clearly there are other ways to say most of these things, but if you really want to sound natural speaking a language, you have to get some of the idiomatic meanings in there. It is most definitely difficult, and I think English really has a lot of idiomatic phrases and expressions that make no sense if you try to break them down into separate words.
The end.
However, I was playing on the internet today in all of my free time, and perhaps English is a little harder than I thought.
Example: the verb "get" Let's take a look at some of the possible uses and meanings, shall we? It might give you a whole new respect for the language you speak. You just might feel lucky that you grew up speaking it and did not have to learn it.
"I got the letter yesterday" (meaning: received)
"I practiced so I got better at dancing" (meaning: became)
"I get it! I get it!" (meaning: understand)
"The phone! I'll get it!" (meaning: answer)
"I got these shoes last weekend in Tokyo" (meaning: bought/acquired)
"You need milk? I'll get it." (meaning: retrieve)
"It's 3:00? I've got to go!" (meaning: must, required to) NB most of us would say, "I gotta go!"
NOW, some idiomatic uses. I am not going to type out the meanings, but note that some of them have several ways they can be used:
*get away
*get away with
*get back
*get back to
*get around
*get around to
*get along
*get along with
*get in
*get on
*get off
*get into
*get out
*get out of
*get over
*get over with
*get rid of
*get through
*get going
*get up
*get used to
And now, some very specific uses of get, also idiomatic:
"Get real!"
"Get a life!"
"Get lost!"
"Get a move on!"
"Get to the point!"
"Get with it!"
WHEW! So, after that, new respect for people trying to learn English, right? Clearly there are other ways to say most of these things, but if you really want to sound natural speaking a language, you have to get some of the idiomatic meanings in there. It is most definitely difficult, and I think English really has a lot of idiomatic phrases and expressions that make no sense if you try to break them down into separate words.
The end.
Monday, November 2, 2009
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