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.
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