two of recent pieces of praise

Recently, I've been getting a lot of positive feedback from so many different sources in such a coordination, I hardly know what to think. I'd like to share a little of it, just to keep my head from exploding.

First, I'll tell you about the sixth graders. Although we've had middle school graduation already, they are still working their way toward a ceremony. The current 6th graders are kids I dubbed the "butterflies" back when I was in the business of giving them nicknames. They were just 4th graders then, and I have very little memory of why I chose that (probably just the progression downward from dogs to cats to mice to frogs to fish.. to butterflies. Maybe they were prettier?).

Anyway, as they move toward graduation, they undertake a lot of memory and forward-looking things, one of which is thanking teachers with written messages on plaques, and another of which is intercom interviews. They did present me with a plaque thing which to my surprise referred not to just this year, but to teaching them English for three years. The kid who was in charge of hanging it over to me had to make a little speech, and in it he said that he's grown to like English.

That is pretty standard; they weren't going to pick the girl who is always saying "I hate English!" (who, nonetheless, waves to me and calls out hello when I see her walking to school as I get off the bus in the morning) to give the little speech to me. But it sort of dawned on me that at the elementary school, especially having been there so long by now, the English program has slowly become my program. These kids had ALTs before me, but I've been the longest-standing and most current, so their English learnin' has largely been associated directly with me.

Also with that, the current sixth graders were 4th graders when I arrived; I don't see 1st - 4th grades as often, but I spend time with 5th and 6th once a week at that school. This means that this particular class is kind of my pinnacle performance because they didn't see as much of me during those first two trimesters, when I had no idea what I was doing, and came up through the years to be the first group with whom I even managed to finish the textbook.

The butterflies have always been pretty well-disciplined, I remember that from their time as 5th graders (and because they followed just after the fish, who as elementary kids made me want to tear my hair out sometimes, but which fish have later made excellent middle schoolers, what with the iron fist of authority dwelling here and all).

I suffered a spell of paranoia similar to what happened with the math teacher (and with similar results) wherein I really thought the guy hated working with me. We hardly communicated in the spring of 2010, but when he remained as my "English co-teacher" for the second year in a row come 2011, things just got a lot easier. I started joining his group for cleaning time (because it was outside and usually involved plants), and came to see that even though his English was less than fantastic, he really was trying. AND as a bonus, he is a great teacher, in the sense that the kids (even the worst of the 4th graders [umm, snakes class?]!) respect him totally. This may have something to do with the fact that he is a giant by some Japanese standards, but it's also a lot his way of dealing with the kids. I love it.

Last year's graduation.

Anyway, I've been invited to their tea party and all their graduation things, which is pretty new and I enjoy it.

What was I saying? Oh! Well, so it's normal to say something nice at the presentation of a thank you card, but no one is making the kids say anything in their barely comprehensible lunchtime intercom interviews. These are conducted by 5th graders against a background of terrible pop music (usually AKB, which I am against kind of in principle). It's difficult to hear and understand what's being said, and the first time I heard a kid respond "English class" to some question, I admit I didn't hear the question (but I still gave the air a fist-bump). Usually they are leading. "What do you want to do your best at in middle school?" "Studies and club activities!" Well... "What club do you want to join?" "What is your favorite memory from elementary school?"

So I have no idea what was being said or even if "English" was really what I heard. But it happened again on some other day, and I felt myself celebrating inside. Whatever the question was doesn't even matter.. some of these butterflies actually liked my class and look forward to pursuing English in middle school. Which, granted, they totally might have done with any other ALT and any other program. But they didn't, cause I was the one here.

Second, I'll tell you about the compliments at the party. Remember that post-graduation party my head wasn't in the game for? I spent my time at that thing alternating between so happy and overcome by emotion, and being a brick whose face felt so heavy I thought it might actually tip me over into the sashimi boat.

But here and there it would crop up within different topics. The other teachers were finding little ways to say really flattering things, which I hesitate to even print here because this blog is supposed to be partly for my successor, whosoever that may be, and I am shy to let them know how loved Ichinan was making me feel, by saying they wished I could stay, or if they had an unmarried son they'd try to make me part of their family, how they can't remember seeing me get angry.

I had been thinking a lot about my own departure and even what to say in my leaving speech during graduation, and I had come up with something that basically means, since I could have been sent anywhere, really, anywhere in Japan, I'm so glad I got sent here. Yokatta.

One of the teachers used almost exactly the words I had thought up for that to turn it around on me, Emily de yokatta. We're glad we got you. I cried a lil' in my cloth napkin. Those are high compliments, from all of them, but even more than that it felt good to know that doing what I do has had this result.. that the work I put in does show (across culture and language barriers), especially over time, and that maybe they love me here because they know I love it too. I mean, yeah I'm awesome, but I can only be as awesome as my situation allows, right?

Well. It's certainly doing nothing for my humility.

Friday the 13th

(and the following Saturday) : banishing the rain.

So I'll skip right over the middle of last week because all I would have written then anyway was "omg itsstillrainin" (oh wait, I did). Friday the 13th came like a breath of not-so-humid air. Hazy in the morning, the air felt bright despite the “sand from China” hanging about the valley. I looked at the board at work to see that no one had any classes at all, everyone was on various field trips (the 3^rd year Mice in Okinawa, the 1^st year Fish somewhere else closer, and the 2^nd years were around, just about to go on their one-day adventure). I suddenly did not want anything to do with the busy work I’d made for myself, thinking I would have a normal staff room atmosphere. It was not to be a normal staff room atmosphere. I would be the only person there, aside from the one they leave to answer the phones, and it was the first sunny day after three straight solid heavy rain days.

Who, tell me, wants to sit at their computer on that day? Sure, I had plenty to do, but I no longer relished the empty day in which to do it.

To my joy, the band teacher asked, “Emily, what are you doing today?” I gave her an innocent and hapless look and shrugged. Nothing. I’m doing nothing. “Wanna go with the 2^nd years?” Um, YES. I love the second years (the Frogs). They are still my new favorite class. We stood under starling nests and gave instructinons, aAnd with that, we set off at a walk up the hill toward Sponic Park where the kids were to draw landscape sketches for the first part of the morning.

kids at work

From 2011_05_13

I wandered around a little, got bit by a leech for the first time in my life (those things are gross; but seriously, leeches, get some anesthetic to go with your anticoagulants, or you'll never be as successful with me as your brethren the gdmf mosquito) becuse they were living in the damn grass (what with all the rain). Some students were kicking them off their shoes as well, jumping on them to make them "kanpeki shinda" (I swear I heard that.. the first word is "perfect" and the second "dead"). Also saw a mukade (the poisonous Japanese manypede), all of these sightings/attacks were in the same area, too. The students jumped on the mukade, but it was not made perfectly dead before it was flung away off the hillside. We also saw a deer just chilling rather close to where we were drawing.

This is where the leeches live.

From 2011_05_13

Oh, mukade, you tiny dragons of the forest.

From 2011_05_13

After our juice break, we set off for part two, which was a walking "quiz rally" around the area. Kids were in their groups, all had maps of the checkpoints, and at each checkpoint there was a question. Lots of Japanese riddles, some kinda random questions (What number is equal to the ages of all these listed teachers combined?), for which kids would get points based on how close they got to the real thing. I carried my little parasol and wandered around with them, which of course led me to discover (as I had hoped it would) some new interesting points in the area.

Then we all ate lunch outside. After lunch, they went in to color the sketches, and I got done just a little of the work I had planned to spend all day on.

That afternoon I went back to the fuji, but it was pretty much destroyed by the rain. I stopped at Osaki-san's, and she gave me manju and cocoa, then I went to Miriam's, and she gave me some kind of apricot tart cake, then I went home, and really intended to eat a real dinner, but never did.

Saturday was really nice too, we're talking perfect weather. I spent a little time on the garden, then we had a little group picnic down by the river on the road to Himeji. Went home just in time to wash up and go to Young English Enkai, which went better than I expected it to go! The food was great, and everyone was very game. I thought only about half the group (err.. mostly the ALT half) would end up at karaoke, but actually everyone came but one! 

Strawberries!

From 2011_05_14

From 2011_05_14

From 2011_05_14

Saigai

I posted my last entry to the web at about the time a massive earthquake was shaking eastern Japan. A friend of mine who lives in Tokyo and I had been exchanging messages about plans for the upcoming three day weekend (I was trying to convince him to visit beautiful nature-filled Hyogo), and he added as a little addendum to one "Big ass earthquake just now btw" at 3:05 pm (my time). I hadn't felt anything and almost didn't give it much thought.


A little while later, I messaged a few friends in Yamasaki, to ask if they'd felt anything. My fear actually jumped to my apartment, because sometimes it's snowin' in Ichi and springlike in Yama. I hadn't cut off the gas supply to the water heater or anything and I wanted to make sure stuff wasn't going down at home.

I live in West Japan. The Kansai region was largely undisturbed, from what I heard.

But nobody had felt anything. I looked it up on google news, finding one article about a megaquake shaking Tokyo. But we were too far to feel that, and about halfway between the north and south coasts. Someone said the TV was on at their school, and not too long after, commotion started in mine. We turned on the TV.


It took a moment to realize what we were seeing. It was apparently a live helicopter feed. A corner figure of Japan flashed giant red patches over sections of the map. The teacher behind me said, "What is that, a river?" Not a river, the ocean, come too far in, and far too fast.

The aerial we were seeing happened at that point to be Sendai. Relentless water pushed fire and debris and boats and houses, sweeping across rice fields. I kept thinking something would stop the motion, slow the movement of the sweep, there, a river, when the water hits the river, it'll just go downriver and be a big river. But the tsunami that pushed houses into rivers pushed them right back out of those rivers the next second. It didn't stop, and didn't seem to slow down.

Teachers started texting family and friends, calling them on cell phones and asking in low serious voices if everything was alright. I guess it was.

All of this was right about my bus time, so I haplessly shoved my stuff into my bags and headed down to the bus stop, wondering what it all meant. I texted my Tokyo friend, and resisted texting my Okinawa acquaintance as I figured she'd be swamped with "Are you OK?" messages, since Okinawa was flashing all red (along with Hokkaido, and basically the entire eastern coast, and most southern coasts other than those protected, like us, by other large islands and peninsulae).

This is for the 12th, but it's the type of map we were seeing.

Then... we carried on as usual. We'd just had graduation, and we were worn out from that, everybody cried. I wanted a nap before the dinner/drinking party and got half of one before my co-teacher came to get me and take me to enkai. I wasn't sure how to be, what attitude to assume, whether to be quiet or solemn, but things were progressing as totally normal in my little town, so we ate chicken and soybeans and I got "a little bit whiskey" trying to keep up with the art teacher in drinking (I lost). We all gave speeches about how moving graduation had been, and then the party ended and everyone went home.

Or, rather, I went to karaoke to join the others who had just finished their enkai, and I was so whiskey by then I didn't order a single drink at karaoke. I sang loudly and pretty badly, and fielded worried text messages. We stopped for snacks at Gusto on the way home. Still a bit whiskey, I got online and posted to facebook again, just to let everyone know I really was still in touch, and then I went to bed at 2. Embarrassingly, it was a really fun weekend night.

People asked me to keep them updated, but I had nothing to report. Nothing changed in my town, nothing happened here this time (we had flash floods shortly after my arrival, but that was from a typhoon).

I'd had plans to go to Nara the following day for the Omizutori festival, which you can see a bit more about here and here.

I had no real reason to cancel those plans, especially since it seemed good to go to a religious festival in the very-old capital. The festival was still on, I had bookings at a hostel, and my traveling friend was still up for it. So we went, and it took forever to get to Nara (it just always does), and we hung around and attended the last bit of the fire part of the festival (saw the last torch or two), and then meditated in the hall and hung around until 2, when the sacred water was drawn, made it back to our respective overnight places by 3 (I counted seven pairs of shoes in the genkan, making me the last to return for the night) and went to sleep.

This morning, I got up a bit after 9 and went to have breakfast. There was a free piece of toast per person, along with coffee and tea. I had the odd status of being a lone traveler at this place, and I also talked to the proprietor in Japanese. I didn't really know he knew English until I heard someone else talk to him. It's literally the smallest hostel in Nara, and we were all in the common room, me getting breakfast, the proprietor sitting at the table watching TV, one (English? Australian?) guy doing sudoku at the table, and one guy sitting with headphones and a laptop on the floor by the TV. Another guy was in and out of the sleeping room where the computer also was.

The proprietor asked me about Omizutori and I answered in English. Then I couldn't stop staring at the TV. It's all they are talking about, of course, and showing. The map of Japan was still there and flashing yellow now. It took me a while to realize it meant that those areas were still under tsunami warning, "but just a little one," the hostel guy explained to me when I asked in surprise.

There were interviews with people (some who knew their families were safe, others who did not), pans of the wreckage, before and after shots, aerial footage from all over Japan, charts showing numbers by prefecture of the missing and the dead. It was horrifying. I was transfixed. The guy on the laptop burst out laughing, in his own little world and I wanted to kick him, then felt bad for being in my own little world just like that.

Because much like my readership, I didn't feel it, I only heard about it, I only worried about the people I knew or had met who lived in east Japan. I only saw what they showed on TV (which was unbelievably amazing in a terrible way). Then when I walked by the station, I threw my change into a box held by some high school students who had turned out in droves to chant please and thank you to passers-by. I saw a poster and made a mental note to give blood soon. Because in my mind, that's what it takes when disaster strikes, money and blood, and you give what you can of both. The other thing I hear we are giving is power. Kansai electric has asked people to be super conservative with electricity as we re-route some of our supply to the Tohoku region (the top part). I don't really know if everyone is okay. I don't know that knowing would help me.

On the bus home, I started thinking about what I could do. Part of me wanted to raise my hand and get on a bus (once they start organizing buses, as they likely will) to Tohoku to volunteer to help with cleanup the way high schools in Kobe sent their kids here to help haul away the mud and debris after our floods. Another part of me suggests that that kind of maneuver would not be in line with all the recent injunctions to stay safe.

Can you stay safe just by staying put? Apparently not entirely, not when the earth moves and the sea leaves its bed.

But what I did want to do was make a request to all my friends and family, to anyone who was glad to hear it wasn't Shiso and it wasn't me: please donate $2 to the Japan effort. You can do it any way you like.. I'm sure collections will be happening around you soon, and if not, collect some yourself and send it to me. I think the exchange right now is like 83 yen for a dollar, but I'll round every one to a hundred yen (they have direct deposit bank numbers on NHK, and you can give directly at kiosks in convenience stores). And give blood if you are eligible (this is always a need, but in times of any major disaster, the need increases). Thank you all who thought about me, and trust me, I'm just as glad as you that my evening was about graduation speeches and beer, not mud and broken beams.

I'll keep you updated, such as I can, but once again, what I know just comes from about the same sources as what you know. Stay safe, everyone.

The View from Friday, or Because shit is worth doin’.

Well, it’s Friday again, and you know what that means!

Actually, with the way the end of the school year is changing all the schedules, it does not necessarily mean anything at all.

But, it’s bright and pretty warm, so the window is open. I’m dressed down in my KU fan gear because of NCAA stuff happening far away (Vandy.. I heard the tales.. I am saddened). I spent the first part of the morning cleaning my desk, wiping off all the dust and organizing the binders. The sum total effect is it feels like a college weekend, right now. In which I would be at my desk a lot, but pleasantly so.

I didn’t have any classes to teach today, and yesterday’s intro to a third of the incoming 6th graders (I’m heretofore assigning animals to the classes to differentiate them so I don’t have to keep saying ‘current whatever-years, about to be nantoka-years’), or FROGS class, went really well. Awesome-sensei had approached my desk on Wednesday to ask if I would teach English with him to elementary students. For just an instant I thought he was personally informing me that he had been transferred to one of my elementary schools in the end-of-year teacher swap, but I soon realized he meant just the one class on Thursday afternoon.

Which I planned and prepped and which went off more or less without a hitch..! I am absolutely floored by his ability to interact with a class, somehow simultaneously joking with them and putting them at ease, and not taking any crap from them, expecting nothing lower than his exacting standard. Although Awesome-sensei has been difficult for me to work with at times, doing this class with him reminded me that his nickname comes from somewhere.

But I’d been looking forward to today for a long time. My first class-free day, without plans for the next day or even next week? Sounds like time to clean my desk! And catch up on a lot of things I had put off.

One of those was “look into PEPY riiiide”.. because one day I innocently inquired when and where the Hyogo-ken charity bike event would be held, if you please, though I have little biking experience or knowhow, and ended up being asked if I wouldn’t like to organize it myself!

As of yesterday I was thinking, oh yeah right. And honestly, I don’t think I could do it by myself. My initial reaction upon reading a bit more about the event and thinking about doing it was to ask Big Brother JET if he wanted to co-lead with me, but that makes little to no sense, because he has a marathon on the weekend the ride is supposed to take place.

So I asked The Illustrator JET what he knew about it, since I knew he biked to Himeji from time to time, and Himeji would be a lovely city in which to hold this ride… were it to occur.

But he immediately was able to tell me about last year’s ride, in which he was a participant, and ways he thought we might be able to schedule and plan it. I know very little about Himeji and bike riding, but I’m more than willing to do some of the legwork. I’m not very good at research, but I am good at planning when I put my mind to it. Plus I’m at the stage of my Japanese language learning experience where I see trying to make bike rental reservations as a fun, potentially impossible challenge and not an impossible task. It’s been a while since I put together a group event, and on this sunny Friday afternoon, doing it seems like a very good thing.

I intend to evaluate the route and plan as we formulate it as though it were my personal ambitious afternoon.. Where would I want to stop, what would I want to see or visit? This is probably not a bad idea, since I personally am not in super-biking-shape, but I am eager to get out there and try it. All of this is going down (weather permitting) April 17th, maybe with room to push back a day or a week for weather reasons. I’ll write about it more as it comes together. Today’s brainstorm mostly only washed out a “yeah, let’s do this,” and notions of beginning near the station where there is a handily located bike rental place, and talk of Shosha-zan around lunchtime.

In other news, my weekend-event schedule was changed without warning yesterday when my Kyoto-sensei informed me that the Okayama enkai to which I so looked forward was not any longer an Okayama enkai, but a Shingu enkai. And rather than an overnight stay (see: mental visions of carousing and karaoke late into the night, inexplicable images of poker games in a smoky room), the women are all leaving that evening. And I was like, where the hell is Shingu? Who is this bag?! What about my plans to spend the rest of the weekend in Okayama City’s environs?

But the view from this Friday is? It’s going to be great anyway.

Coming weekends:

3/19 – Three day weekend Tokyooo!
3/26 – Non-Okayama enkai and subsequent Himeji-area/Shiso weekend
4/2 – Okinawaaaaaa (from the 1st to the 5th)
4/9 - (take a deep breath)
4/17 – PEPY riiiide!
4/24 – Pepy uberrain date; 25th Hanshin Tigers baseball if I can get off the waiting list and onto the ticketholders list…
4/28 – leave for Hong Kong, return 5/4.

In the style of LNF, only partial, and Japanese

lies.

This, my third enkai, and “Graduation Enkai,” was by far, for me, the best, even though we all had school the next day (and it was Wednesday night—which means the next day? Yeah, was one of those dreaded Thursdays).

The office was so quiet Thursday afternoon when I got back from Big Elementary, though. Everyone was a touch hungover. But I get ahead of myself.

After most big events, school staff groups will have enkai. So graduation could be no exception. Ours happened to be at the same venue where we had Bounenkai, so out in the far mountaintops of EvenMoreRural Japan at a sort of resort up on top of this mountain. I had thought to myself, back in December when I was first there, that when the weather got better (oh you know, maybe in like March or something?) I might go back and explore that area a bit more.

The weather was not better in March. There was in fact more snow.

This time, I also did not go enjoy the hot-bath facilities, which is too bad because it would have been really pretty at the outdoor bath with all that snow still falling like mad.

Anyway. I've learned a few things about enkai by now which help me better enjoy them.

One: shit starts on time. It's not like the kind of party I'm used to, where we say 6, and you get there at like 6:20, and hang around until everyone arrives, and start eating at maybe 7:15. This wasn't a problem because I got a ride directly from school to the venue, but I did really appreciate it, since I (we all did) had work the next day. Anyway, if you aren't there and seated at six, no one is going to wait for you, unless maybe you are the principal and held up by a major earthquake or something. And we don't mess around with 'water now, drinks in a bit,' no sir. Things are properly kicked off with a toast at 6:03, everyone drains their little cute glass of sweet plum wine, and then we start on the rest.

Two: it is your job to fill everyone else's glass. It is also your job to make sure there is space in your glass if someone wants to fill it for you. I decided I needed to get out of my shell a little and make rounds with beer pouring, which I have never done in such capacity. I used to look up, see that everyone had a full glass, and feel silly for not participating in the custom of (especially junior staff members) running around filling glasses. How did everyone else do it? Finally I just got up and started to make rounds. I noticed an awesome thing. Anytime I got to someone whose glass was full, they would notice me, make a sound of surprise, and then drink some of whatever they were drinking so I could give them a tiny refill.

This is excellent because I felt like such a pusher. Here I go, round the table, basically forcing everyone to drink more. Such power. People are generally surprised/delighted when I/any foreigner make an attempt to do something Japanese, also, so there was that extra level of good-job. The English speakers asked me about whether we do that in America and I was like, naw, you help yourself, or the bartender (my brother or mother) helps you, or the waitress is in charge of that mess.

But it's a pretty cool way to socialize, and you can talk to those you really want to, and just sort of be polite to those you don't, as you work your way around the table.

When I got to the principal, he took the lid off his miso-bowl and filled it with sake. And I drank it pretty fast, then filled it ("only a little!") for the VP, and then filled it for the principal, who drank it, and then I drank another one. Basically, I was comfortably drunk by 6:45. Which is good because enkai also end on time, I rightly assumed 9pm, which I appreciated so I could work the next day.

Whenever anyone came across me while doing their rounds, and asked me if I was drinking sake or beer, my reply was always, oh whatever, both are good. Because I am a team player, yes.

Three: there might be drinking games. And not like games where certain things happen and therefore you drink.. more like, you are drinking, so the game is more hilarious/difficult. The games this time were some more "which teacher are the students describing" kind, and a couple of memory games. The teams are always divided by year-level teachers, also desk clusters.. but even though I sit at the 1st-year desk cluster (in the office), I was on the 4th-year (extras) team for games.. so it was me, the principal, and VP, and we lost every game, but had a lot of fun. At some point, the non-English-speaking principal took up my habit of yelling "Waitwaitwaitwaitwait!" when we needed another moment to write our answer down.

Four: the food will be really good, and it will probably never stop coming. This was good, considering how terrible I'd been about dinner the night before. When I say 'comfortably drunk,' I mean on a full stomach and everything.

Other than these things, there were speeches by all the 3rd-year teacher block, one at a time throughout the night. It was weirdly reminiscent of the spirit of LNF (Last Night Fun.. the party after the kids leave GHP.. when the staff half-celebrates the success of the summer, half mourns and drowns the sorrow of the fact that it's over), in both tone and level of abandon. But, I dunno.. like, with adults instead.

I heard later from Big Brother JET that hardly anyone drank at his enkai, since they had work the next day. So, you know, so for them as for me.. it would have been responsible of me to attend, drink very little, and be ready for my classes the next day. But we laughed, and I really appreciate the "screw that idea" spirit of my school's staff. We were totally going to play as hard as we work. And I was ready for my classes the next day.. it was better to do enkai right than it would have been to do enkai wrong and resent my 5th graders the more for it.

VP and Kermit-sensei burst into song right at the end (I think it was enka music.. there was a karoke machine in the room, so..) and were way more epic singers than anyone predicted.

I caught the bus at 9 and went home to sleep. When I returned to the office Thursday afternoon, the VP asked if I were 'tired.' I thought he meant from dealing with 5th and 6th graders all morning (to which, why yes, I was tired). "You drank a lot of sake last night," he said. I laughed and said it was okay. But I imagined the staff meeting that morning being about as productive as the post-LNF breakfast meeting.

The Second Enkai

We had another enkai, work party, last night, and it was great. The venue happened to be a restaurant very close to where I live, so I grabbed my umbrella and made my way through the wet windy night. Walking or biking is always a great option, because the legal driving limit in Japan is zero. If you want to drink at all, you have to have arrangements.

I almost got seated next to Cutie-sensei, but wasn't; that was okay because I sat across from both the principal and the VP. I had a nice long conversation with the principal, for which the VP acted as translator. The principal ("Epic-sensei".. for his hair) has this habit of asking me questions about my life habits. Things like, "Did you eat breakfast this morning?" and the like.. I was sort of confused by it all, although it did seem to stem from a genuine feeling of goodwill and a desire to make sure I was doing alright.

Whenever someone walks by my desk and can see my computer screen, I always feel a little guilty when it's something clearly not work-related that I'm doing. Checking email, using gchat, etc... I don't feel abashed enough to close the window or try to hide anything, but I feel a little awkward. Occasionally when the principal walks by, he'll try to look at what I'm doing. He actually did this Wednesday, and since I had all of ONE classes Wednesday, and that one was the one-on-one special needs kid, and it had been first period, I was naturally on gchat.

As he walked away he asked me if I was doing something "difficult." Or tough or.. I don't know. Something taxing, basically. I said no (although it was a pretty intense conversation! ^_^), confused, until they pointed out that I was hunching my shoulders, a sign of stress. Honestly it was just me being haunt that he was cruising around my desk when I was doing anything but be productive (prepare lessons! make things for the bulletin boards! study Japanese!), but it took me by surprise that he seemed more concerned with my personal health or stress levels than my rainy-day work ethic.

But at enkai, he told me about his three daughters, and how one of them lives abroad in Korea, and that's why he always wants to make sure I'm doing okay, because he knows it can be very difficult to live far from your family in a different place and amidst a different culture. His daughter lives with her husband, so he imagines my situation to be different and more difficult, being spatially and culturally much farther, as well as on my own.

Other things I found out at enkai include that he is probably retiring at the end of this school year, and that I'm not the only one who suspects we're going to lose both Awesome-sensei and Kermit-sensei from our ranks. When VP told me this, I insisted that I didn't want it to be so. There are days when I don't like working with Kermit-sensei and Awesome-sensei, but on the whole, they're pretty good, and far better the devil you know. Plus the sentiment of good-feeling was all pervasive for me at this enkai. I liked looking around the table at the staff members I'd come to know at least somewhat over the last several months, feeling generally quite content and good about being there.

It might have been the three beers and a cocktail I consumed, haha. I told them I was part Irish and that's why I can drink "so much," but I really denied being strong to alcohol. I'm not, really.. they just think I am because I don't get the Asian flush.

Then it promptly ended, and I was walked home by Judo-coach-sensei, and I contemplated the meaning of being home at 9:30, kind of drunk, while the wind tried (and succeeded at) sneaking in through the mail slot in its howling.

An Assortment of Random Information

Questions about bonenkai to which the answer is no:

Did you do karaoke? Did you have to give a speech? Did you sit quietly while all those around you talked to each other instead of you?

Questions about bonenkai to which the answer is yes:

Was there a ton of delicious food? Were some of your coworkers rocking some mad 'Asian flush'? Were there games and did you win a cute prize? Was there an onsen? Does that mean you got naked with some of your coworkers?! Did they gossip about the male teachers? And did you pass out long before anyone else in your room?


One of the topics of conversation was how my main JTE (Mikan-sensei) is overworked. I totally agree. At first I thought he would naturally have been assigned to me because he is both the newest and therefore not likely to be shipped off to another school in the near future, and because he has the least other bunch of crap to handle. But the latter's not really true. On top of the regular classload that basically everyone has, he also is more than just nominally involved with his after school club-- that is, he is their coach and teacher, and not just partially in charge on paper. He also has a homeroom class, and unfortunately his class contains two of the three most badly behaved students in the school. They're mostly harmless, just cut-up a lot and get out of line, and he has to deal with them all the time. The patience and good humor with which he does so is sometimes astonishing; sometimes these kids can get on my last nerve.

There are a few students in the 3rd year who really need my help when we do worksheets in that class, which we'd been doing a lot lately. At first I liked that, because it meant I didn't have to plan anything. But I've begun to not like it much.. it makes me feel pretty useless. But, like I said, there are a few kids who can use my help as we go through these grammar things. There are two that come to mind first, and they couldn't be more opposite. One kid like, basically tries not to let me look at his paper even though he should know by now I'm basically going to ensure he gets the right answer. He scooches as far from me as he can and will. not. look at me. And seems entirely uninterested in getting an answer at all, much less the right one. It's frustrating. His opposite is in the other class, a girl who actually looks for me and raises her hand when I walk by so she can ask if the answer she's written down is right. It rarely is, but she always smiles at me and gets me to help her, and goes along with my coaxing toward the correct answer, which soothes my sense of ethics (I don't actually just give her the answer, although I do lead her right into it). And generally makes my day helping with worksheets not a waste.


Anyway, back from that tangent... Now, today, all of the woman who stayed in my room at enkai (there were five total) are keeping an eye on each other, because one of our number is out sick with OMGSWINEFLU. And another just took her temperature, and has been sniffling all morning. And they are like, "Are you okay? No omgswineflu?" (so maybe that was a loose translation..)

No, but it does continue to affect my life. The teacher who is out is the math teacher, and usually English classes are half normal class size because we split them with math. This means that on a normal day at middle school, I teach each grade in four sections, though there are two 'classes' of students per grade. Each of the sections I teach is about 15 or so students, rather than the 'class' size of around 30. Today, though, I'm only teaching two sections of 1st years, and they'll be full rooms. I've only ever done this once before, with the 2nd years and Mikan-sensei, but the chaos that day was a lot of fun.

The windows are almost entirely fogged over because our warm snap ended last night. I accidentally bought 47 New Year cards instead of like 20 (even the saleslady was like "That's a lot, isn't it!"). But when I made a list of all the families and friends I haven't seen for a while, to whom I should send assurances that I am still alive and well (the once-upon-a-time reason for these cards), I hit the 47 mark easily. That's what you get for having a huge family I guess.

Bounenkai impending: let's forget!

An enkai is basically just a work drinking party. I've been excited about the prospect of going to one ever since I arrived, because I'd love to see what the other teachers are like outside of school. Basically everyone else has had two or at least one enkai since I arrived in August (one after Sports Day, the other after Culture Festival), but my school has either had none or hasn't invited me along. I joked to my fellow JETs that I was simply being secretly excluded, and while that was an actual theory of mine for a day or so, I don't think it's the case. We had this typhoon back in August, like three days after I arrived, and that was the reason Sports Day enkai didn't happen (I asked Mikan-sensei). By Culture Festival, I'd given up.

But a few weeks ago, I heard the teacher who sits next to me on the phone. I heard the word enkai, and a number of people, and December 11th. I heard a price. And I filed away that little bit of information by promptly sharing it on gchat with a fellow JET. If they didn't invite me to this one, I would certainly know about it!

I talked to my fellow ALTs about it, and they speculated that it was maybe the "Bonenkai" or 'the big one' which happens at the end of the year (as in, even if they skipped the Sports Day and CultureFest enkais, they would still definitely have Bonenkai).

Then on Monday as I was frantically downloading Christmas songs and trying to get a CD burned for elementary classes, one earbud in my ear, the other dangling into my lap, totally not paying attention to anything going on around me, the teacher next to me (who is actually pretty cool.. he's an older-ish guy, a math teacher, and an artist) was having a conversation with some of the others in our desk cluster.. he said "[Ah, Emily-sensei too]!" and I looked up like "Wah?"

They try to speak English to me. I forget this every time. But it still seems sort of sweet when random teachers with whom I've had very little interaction go out of their normal habits to say "Good morning," or "Have a good weekend."

So he said, "[December eleventh!] Big year end festival party!" and I just blinked and said "Bonenkai?" and everyone laughed and I was invited.

Now to me, who is a disciple of Latin and Latinate language, "bon" means 'good' quite literally. Not that I actually believed the Japanese have a party called "good party" every December, but it was hard for me to divorce the image of the year-end party from Christmas parties and the word "good." I found out while I was on the Dino-Weekend trip from another JET that Bonenkai literally comes out to "Forget-the-year-gathering." I laughed when I learned this, since it's a drinking party, and forgetting is fairly likely.

But the more I thought about it, the more I really liked that idea. First of all, I like when parties have themes; it gives me something to focus on. If it's a birthday, I can focus on a person, and other times and places, I can focus on an idea. Also, what better way to prepare to welcome a new year than to have a party dedicated to forgetting all the "unfortunate events" of the last? Because all that shit is gone now. The good too, when you get down to it... so whether this year was good or not, you still don't get to keep it. I personally can always do with a little more letting-go. And I can really get behind a culture wherein this concept is a yearly phenomenon.

Tonight is bounenaki, and I've toted some PJs and a toothbrush to work with me. I really don't know what to expect. I don't even know if I need to pay, or if the coffee-and-other-stuff-fund I've been paying into all semester takes care of it. It would be far easier to enumerate the things I do know rather than those I don't, so:
1. It will be in Haga, just northwest of where I work (which is just north of where I live).
2. It will be a spend-the-night, though there will be the option of going back early, I think.
3. There will be beer.
4. Everyone else will be Japanese.

I've been excited about enkai for so long, but now I'm kind of meh with it hanging right over me. It's a rainy, chilly day, and I am a bit tired. I had four classes today, but didn't actually do anything almost at all in any of them. Some days, it feels easy to try speaking Japanese, and some days it's a lot of work. Some days, you feel really "on." Some days, you don't. And today is a better curl-up-with-Harry-Potter-5 day than a let's-getting-drunk-with-non-English-speaking-coworkers day. I may be asked to make a speech. I was going to prepare something.. crap. My back is a bit sore still from kendo. Despite my hesitation to get naked with coworkers, I'll do it in a second if there's a hot spring where we're going.

Maybe my speech can be something silly like, "I had a great speech but.. I forgot."