- 806: minutes until I am officially past the quarter-century hump. (not excited) I think looking forward to and then enjoying my birthday is a thing of my past.
- 2,200: average number of steps I take every day at school. (not bad considering it is the bare minimum for just going to and from class, making copies, etc)
- 5: bruises I have from trying Judo last night. One of them is on my spine from trying to learn how to fall properly. The fact that I have a bruise there means I did not succeed.
- 3: books I have read in their entirety since Saturday (50 Shades of Grey...yeah I read them. And I liked them. And I just admitted that I liked them on a public blog)
- 2: kanji tests I took yesterday (don't know if I passed yet)
- 21: days of school where I will actually teach at least one class (!!!!!!)
- 43: days until I leave Iiyama
- 44376: 43 days in hours.
- 2662560: 43 days in minutes
- 56: days until I board a plane to return to America
- 5: members of my favorite J-pop group, Arashi
- 23: days until my last kanji test (probably not going to pass!)
Wednesday, June 20, 2012
some numbers
Thursday, June 14, 2012
well...
I lied. I know. I was supposed to write posts for last Thursday and Friday and I didn't!! But I am posting now, so...
Just a quick post about one thing in Japan I will not miss...bureaucracy.
I had to renew my driver's (drivers'?) license on Monday. I hear you thinking "what is so hard about that? send in the form! or go stand in line at the DMV and bam! done!" Well...no. In Japan, you have to sit through a lecture. If it is your first time renewing a license, then the lecture is 2 hours. After that, just one hour.
Let me walk you through the whole process.
Paperwork hours are 1-2. I got there at 12:50. There were already 30 people there. You get in the first line...they scan your license in this cool machine which prints out a paper that has your license (front and back) and then things to fill out. Then you pay (it costs 4000yen) and they have stamps for this, so when you pay, they stick stamps to a piece of paper. Usually they give you the paper and you go to a different window, but in this case, they stick the stamps on the paper, you write your name on the paper, and give it right back to them. What a waste of a piece of paper, eh! ok...proceed to tables where you fill out a form about medical stuff (I did it in japanese and they were all very impressed.) go to room to get eyes checked. that was fun. NOT. Last time I was there, I had some help explaining about my eye, but I was on my own this time, so it was a bit of a mess. but she let it go, thankfully. Go to a window and turn in all the forms filled out up to this point. receive another form and a colored tag. Go to a room to get new picture taken (No smiling!!) turn in form after taking picture. Go upstairs to classroom and sign in. OK STOP for a moment. I am not sure you are getting quite how hectic the process was. Also, please remember that this was all happening in Japanese and also that there were people everywhere at all the different windows and stations. It was really overwhelming.
Ok, let's proceed upstairs. I was the first one there, so I sorta wandered around a bit, took a picture of the projector cause I am weird, bought a bottle of tea and went back in. The lecture was the biggest waste of time ever. We started with a video that just showed accidents and how/why they happen. It broke down reasons behind accidents into categories: ignoring traffic sings (running a red light for example and hitting someone who had the right of way) or driver negligence? (there is a better word, but it was like the driver was texting or looked down to do something). After the video, the guy talked for an hour and a half. Besides the fact that I was the only foreigner suffering through it, the information itself was just irrelevant. It was all statistics about accidents and numbers of people who have licenses in all of Japan and then Nagano specifically. It was the kind of information that should be in a pamphlet for people to read while they are in the driving center waiting room or something. It is not something that they need to waste time saying out loud. I know there were people sitting behind me who kept falling asleep because the lecturer kept waking them up. It was seriously boring. But this is Japan. They have the power to make people sit through things like that, so they do. I am not sure what I think would be a good use of time, but not these stupid statistics. Oh well. It is done and I can now legally drive in Japan until July 21, 2015!
Just a quick post about one thing in Japan I will not miss...bureaucracy.
I had to renew my driver's (drivers'?) license on Monday. I hear you thinking "what is so hard about that? send in the form! or go stand in line at the DMV and bam! done!" Well...no. In Japan, you have to sit through a lecture. If it is your first time renewing a license, then the lecture is 2 hours. After that, just one hour.
Let me walk you through the whole process.
Paperwork hours are 1-2. I got there at 12:50. There were already 30 people there. You get in the first line...they scan your license in this cool machine which prints out a paper that has your license (front and back) and then things to fill out. Then you pay (it costs 4000yen) and they have stamps for this, so when you pay, they stick stamps to a piece of paper. Usually they give you the paper and you go to a different window, but in this case, they stick the stamps on the paper, you write your name on the paper, and give it right back to them. What a waste of a piece of paper, eh! ok...proceed to tables where you fill out a form about medical stuff (I did it in japanese and they were all very impressed.) go to room to get eyes checked. that was fun. NOT. Last time I was there, I had some help explaining about my eye, but I was on my own this time, so it was a bit of a mess. but she let it go, thankfully. Go to a window and turn in all the forms filled out up to this point. receive another form and a colored tag. Go to a room to get new picture taken (No smiling!!) turn in form after taking picture. Go upstairs to classroom and sign in. OK STOP for a moment. I am not sure you are getting quite how hectic the process was. Also, please remember that this was all happening in Japanese and also that there were people everywhere at all the different windows and stations. It was really overwhelming.
Ok, let's proceed upstairs. I was the first one there, so I sorta wandered around a bit, took a picture of the projector cause I am weird, bought a bottle of tea and went back in. The lecture was the biggest waste of time ever. We started with a video that just showed accidents and how/why they happen. It broke down reasons behind accidents into categories: ignoring traffic sings (running a red light for example and hitting someone who had the right of way) or driver negligence? (there is a better word, but it was like the driver was texting or looked down to do something). After the video, the guy talked for an hour and a half. Besides the fact that I was the only foreigner suffering through it, the information itself was just irrelevant. It was all statistics about accidents and numbers of people who have licenses in all of Japan and then Nagano specifically. It was the kind of information that should be in a pamphlet for people to read while they are in the driving center waiting room or something. It is not something that they need to waste time saying out loud. I know there were people sitting behind me who kept falling asleep because the lecturer kept waking them up. It was seriously boring. But this is Japan. They have the power to make people sit through things like that, so they do. I am not sure what I think would be a good use of time, but not these stupid statistics. Oh well. It is done and I can now legally drive in Japan until July 21, 2015!
 |
| Picture of the screen. Cause I know you were curious. |
Wednesday, June 6, 2012
Wednesday, June 6
Wednesday...hump day.
Another relatively unexciting day.
I had 3 classes.
The first class I ended up teaching alone because the JTE was not feeling well. he came in at the end, but did not really do anything, so... what was interesting about this is this particular class of first years is usually loud and hard to manage, but with just me, they were angels! I don't know why, but they listened to me, and even enjoyed the class, I think. I did a word search, which you think would not be that fun, but they were really into it. It was their first time doing a word search, so that could be part of it. Either way, I was happy with them. for the last 15 minutes of class, I taught them hangman, which also went really well. It was funny, though, because to explain it, I just sort of start a game and let them figure out the rules themselves and finally one kid got this expression and then shouted out "OH! So we want to SAVE the person!!!" It was hilarious, and he was essentially right. So now I have change the name of the game to the equivalent of "save the person" game.
Since we are on the topic of hangman and I have nothing else to really talk about in this blog entry, I will tell you a story. One time, an ALT played hangman in his class and some of the kids wrote down the gallows thing and the dead person. And then one of the kids decided hanging himself would be a good way to commit suicide, so he did. And the parents of the kid found these random English class notes with people hanging and talked to the school and sued the ALT for giving their son the idea. true story. Anyway, I like hangman, but I always have to be really really careful to emphasize that it's just a game, just for fun. sometimes i hang a teddy bear instead of a person, just to be extra safe.
In other news, nothing else really happened!
We celebrated Megan's birthday after work with Korean food and ice cream cake. Those of you friends with me on facebook, can also watch the video and enjoy the fact that the chicken dance was also a part of the celebrations.
There was also a sing along to Disney's "Be a Man" from Mulan, probably due to the fact that 5 of us ate an entire ice cream cake.
the end.
Another relatively unexciting day.
I had 3 classes.
The first class I ended up teaching alone because the JTE was not feeling well. he came in at the end, but did not really do anything, so... what was interesting about this is this particular class of first years is usually loud and hard to manage, but with just me, they were angels! I don't know why, but they listened to me, and even enjoyed the class, I think. I did a word search, which you think would not be that fun, but they were really into it. It was their first time doing a word search, so that could be part of it. Either way, I was happy with them. for the last 15 minutes of class, I taught them hangman, which also went really well. It was funny, though, because to explain it, I just sort of start a game and let them figure out the rules themselves and finally one kid got this expression and then shouted out "OH! So we want to SAVE the person!!!" It was hilarious, and he was essentially right. So now I have change the name of the game to the equivalent of "save the person" game.
Since we are on the topic of hangman and I have nothing else to really talk about in this blog entry, I will tell you a story. One time, an ALT played hangman in his class and some of the kids wrote down the gallows thing and the dead person. And then one of the kids decided hanging himself would be a good way to commit suicide, so he did. And the parents of the kid found these random English class notes with people hanging and talked to the school and sued the ALT for giving their son the idea. true story. Anyway, I like hangman, but I always have to be really really careful to emphasize that it's just a game, just for fun. sometimes i hang a teddy bear instead of a person, just to be extra safe.
In other news, nothing else really happened!
We celebrated Megan's birthday after work with Korean food and ice cream cake. Those of you friends with me on facebook, can also watch the video and enjoy the fact that the chicken dance was also a part of the celebrations.
There was also a sing along to Disney's "Be a Man" from Mulan, probably due to the fact that 5 of us ate an entire ice cream cake.
the end.
Tuesday, June 5, 2012
Tuesday, June 5
Well...my Tuesday was pretty uneventful, especially compared to Monday.
The good news: I managed to get all the pen pal letters (been working on collecting them since March) so I was able to send them to Carson yesterday. woo. I decided to just spend the money and essentially overnight them, especially since school in Fairfax county ends next Friday! I do owe 8 students cookies, but I am willing to make cookies for them, since they volunteered to write a second letter to help me out.
The rest of school was uneventful.
We had rice, milk, egg soup, bean sprouts and "matsukaze yaki" for lunch. it was good. Matsukaze yaki is sorta like meatloaf, I guess. Made with chicken, I think. guess I could check.....
...bam! I checked! Oh the wonders of the internet! Yes, chicken. Here is a recipe!matsukaze yaki (If it's all sesame to you, I recommend sesame seeds)
anyway....the rest of the school day was uneventful. I ran errands after work and then met up with Crystal so we could study kanji. We studied for like 3 hours tonight The test is July 13 and these kanji are exponentially harder than the last level I took. plus the test itself is harder, so pretty much, I am screwed! Oh well.
After studying, I got my craft on and made a rhinestone picture frame for Megan's birthday. I also learned that rhinestones bounce and that they stick to the bottom of bare feet if you step on them.
That is all for Tuesday.
The good news: I managed to get all the pen pal letters (been working on collecting them since March) so I was able to send them to Carson yesterday. woo. I decided to just spend the money and essentially overnight them, especially since school in Fairfax county ends next Friday! I do owe 8 students cookies, but I am willing to make cookies for them, since they volunteered to write a second letter to help me out.
The rest of school was uneventful.
We had rice, milk, egg soup, bean sprouts and "matsukaze yaki" for lunch. it was good. Matsukaze yaki is sorta like meatloaf, I guess. Made with chicken, I think. guess I could check.....
...bam! I checked! Oh the wonders of the internet! Yes, chicken. Here is a recipe!matsukaze yaki (If it's all sesame to you, I recommend sesame seeds)
anyway....the rest of the school day was uneventful. I ran errands after work and then met up with Crystal so we could study kanji. We studied for like 3 hours tonight The test is July 13 and these kanji are exponentially harder than the last level I took. plus the test itself is harder, so pretty much, I am screwed! Oh well.
After studying, I got my craft on and made a rhinestone picture frame for Megan's birthday. I also learned that rhinestones bounce and that they stick to the bottom of bare feet if you step on them.
That is all for Tuesday.
Monday, June 4, 2012
Monday, June 4
Let's do that thing again where I write a post every day, no matter what happened, no matter how ranty, no matter how wonderful!
Today is Monday, it is about 2:15 right now and I have had an awful day! Well...awful is pretty strong, but I have had small frustrating moment after small frustrating moment today and it has all added up to a not fun day.. Ranty post alert!
ok...I will start at the beginning.
I got to school like usual, no problems there, and I was just getting set up when one of my teachers came up to me and said the equivalent of "I am counting on you for today!" and walked away. .......um.......... did I miss something? 20 seconds of PANIC, frantically searching through my schedule book to see what I had promised to do today that I had forgotten about found nothing, and followed after the teacher and asked him to elaborate. Turned out he wanted me to do the whole class by myself (he would be in the room, but I would be in charge of activities) which is fine, but then when I asked him for a theme of some sort, he gave me the very specific "nandemoii" (anything is ok) answer. Well, great. Thankfully I had first period to figure it out, but these kinds of moments just frustrate me. I need more warning usually, and I need something a little more specific. So that was 1 small moment of irritation.
Next...I went to the class I discussed above. I made a word search and then we were going to play spoons. Mostly the class went badly. The kids were talking, not listening to me, not playing the games right, etc. And the teacher mentioned above is not so good at disciplining, so he just let them go. moments of irritation to 2.
Next. You all probably know I like my space. I don't like people to touch my things or go through them unless I have given them permission. Well, another teacher was talking to me about 4th period and he came over to my desk and for one thing he does not know how to make eye contact, so he was looking all over the place, but then he started touching the papers I had on my desk! And commenting on them! (It was a stack of puzzles I have made...but still!!) And he also had no idea what he wanted me to do during class, so it was one of those incredibly awkward conversations that was mostly pauses. we decided I would just do a quick warm up game and then we would work on the textbook. Ok, cool. but still touching things+awkward = moment 3.
Well. I went to 4th period, did my quick game, we were working on the textbook in which the students learned new words including appear and disappear. The teacher decided this was a good time to point out the prefix "dis" and how it makes words mean the opposite. He then decided to give another example: appoint, disappoint. He told the kids the meaning of disappoint, and then he just decided for himself that appoint means to put at ease. (best I can translate the Japanese word he used). NO! THIS IS NOT RIGHT! What am I supposed to do with this?! Moment 4.
Sometime between moment 2 and moment 3, I came into the teachers room and there was cake on the table. CAKE! Just what someone who had already had 2 irritating moments needs!!! CAKE! So I get a piece, and a teacher says to me in a special* tone "oh, Elissa, that has anko in it, so be careful." Back story...anko is red bean paste, it is sweet and delicious and in a lot of Japanese snacks. I have lived here for 3 years and these people have ALL seen me eat anko and say I like it. so WHY WHY WHYYYYYY would this teacher pick today to give me that condescending-toned "oh...it has anko in it" warning. *Not sure if you know, but sometimes Japanese people get this tone...it is sorta condescending? I can't really explain, but other people who have lived in Japan will probably know what I mean.. Like when someone says to me "Iiyama has four seasons!" Basic statement, yes, but in the tone, there is this implied meaning: "aren't we wonderful? we have four seasons! bet your hometown doesn't!" So this makes 5 moments.
And one more for the list...this is a constant annoyance, though. We have a hot water pot in the teachers room that everyone can use. I wanted some coffee but then pot was EMPTY. I have never understood why someone would leave the pot empty. You finish it, you fill it back up! Why is that such a hard concept! But I filled it, waited the 10 minutes and then got my coffee, so, I will only count this as a half an irritating moment. it probably would not have bothered me at all if it were the first thing of the day.
today's total 5.5
Add to all of this the fact that I am trying to write grad school goal statements, figure out how to get letters of recommendation from people who don't know how to write letters of recommendation, work on a letter to my successor, and study really hard kanji and you have a frustrated Elissa.
here's to tomorrow being better! I think I will walk to and from my English conversation class tonight to de-stress a bit.
Today is Monday, it is about 2:15 right now and I have had an awful day! Well...awful is pretty strong, but I have had small frustrating moment after small frustrating moment today and it has all added up to a not fun day.. Ranty post alert!
ok...I will start at the beginning.
I got to school like usual, no problems there, and I was just getting set up when one of my teachers came up to me and said the equivalent of "I am counting on you for today!" and walked away. .......um.......... did I miss something? 20 seconds of PANIC, frantically searching through my schedule book to see what I had promised to do today that I had forgotten about found nothing, and followed after the teacher and asked him to elaborate. Turned out he wanted me to do the whole class by myself (he would be in the room, but I would be in charge of activities) which is fine, but then when I asked him for a theme of some sort, he gave me the very specific "nandemoii" (anything is ok) answer. Well, great. Thankfully I had first period to figure it out, but these kinds of moments just frustrate me. I need more warning usually, and I need something a little more specific. So that was 1 small moment of irritation.
Next...I went to the class I discussed above. I made a word search and then we were going to play spoons. Mostly the class went badly. The kids were talking, not listening to me, not playing the games right, etc. And the teacher mentioned above is not so good at disciplining, so he just let them go. moments of irritation to 2.
Next. You all probably know I like my space. I don't like people to touch my things or go through them unless I have given them permission. Well, another teacher was talking to me about 4th period and he came over to my desk and for one thing he does not know how to make eye contact, so he was looking all over the place, but then he started touching the papers I had on my desk! And commenting on them! (It was a stack of puzzles I have made...but still!!) And he also had no idea what he wanted me to do during class, so it was one of those incredibly awkward conversations that was mostly pauses. we decided I would just do a quick warm up game and then we would work on the textbook. Ok, cool. but still touching things+awkward = moment 3.
Well. I went to 4th period, did my quick game, we were working on the textbook in which the students learned new words including appear and disappear. The teacher decided this was a good time to point out the prefix "dis" and how it makes words mean the opposite. He then decided to give another example: appoint, disappoint. He told the kids the meaning of disappoint, and then he just decided for himself that appoint means to put at ease. (best I can translate the Japanese word he used). NO! THIS IS NOT RIGHT! What am I supposed to do with this?! Moment 4.
Sometime between moment 2 and moment 3, I came into the teachers room and there was cake on the table. CAKE! Just what someone who had already had 2 irritating moments needs!!! CAKE! So I get a piece, and a teacher says to me in a special* tone "oh, Elissa, that has anko in it, so be careful." Back story...anko is red bean paste, it is sweet and delicious and in a lot of Japanese snacks. I have lived here for 3 years and these people have ALL seen me eat anko and say I like it. so WHY WHY WHYYYYYY would this teacher pick today to give me that condescending-toned "oh...it has anko in it" warning. *Not sure if you know, but sometimes Japanese people get this tone...it is sorta condescending? I can't really explain, but other people who have lived in Japan will probably know what I mean.. Like when someone says to me "Iiyama has four seasons!" Basic statement, yes, but in the tone, there is this implied meaning: "aren't we wonderful? we have four seasons! bet your hometown doesn't!" So this makes 5 moments.
And one more for the list...this is a constant annoyance, though. We have a hot water pot in the teachers room that everyone can use. I wanted some coffee but then pot was EMPTY. I have never understood why someone would leave the pot empty. You finish it, you fill it back up! Why is that such a hard concept! But I filled it, waited the 10 minutes and then got my coffee, so, I will only count this as a half an irritating moment. it probably would not have bothered me at all if it were the first thing of the day.
today's total 5.5
Add to all of this the fact that I am trying to write grad school goal statements, figure out how to get letters of recommendation from people who don't know how to write letters of recommendation, work on a letter to my successor, and study really hard kanji and you have a frustrated Elissa.
here's to tomorrow being better! I think I will walk to and from my English conversation class tonight to de-stress a bit.
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