Look No Further

Truth be told, though, for breathtaking fall color, one need look no further than just around the corner. Yamasaki's Momiji-Yama boasts an astonishing collection of my favorite kind of tree, and Adina and I happened upon their heyday nearly by accident when we decided to "go for a walk" when we thought they "might be about in season."

Hot damn, the hills are afire with maple plumage.

And Now I've Been to Kyoto in the Fall

Aaaand? How was it?
Well, it was beautiful, and crowded. I decided to just take it easy, no worries, just wander around. I made for the Philosopher's Walk, because I'd read about it in my guidebook and wanted from the beginning to get on it. From there I imagined myself sitting in a little tea shop writing letters, looking out on the fall color.

Well.

From 2010_11_23

I took the subway to the station that looked closest to Nanzen-ji, the bottom end of the walking path marked out in the book. I just sort of moseyed in the bright sunlight, enjoying the autumn air. It wasn't too crowded until I actually got to Nanzen-ji temple area.

From 2010_11_23

I followed the aquaduct in the opposite direction of my planned walk for a while...

From 2010_11_23

I found a little park that smelled awesomely like autumn.

From 2010_11_23

Then I saw a little path that had tori gates, marking it as the way to a shrine, so I kept going in that 'wrong' direction.

From 2010_11_23

And it was pretty up there too.

From 2010_11_23

In fact, it was basically the most beautiful autumn weather ever.

From 2010_11_23

From 2010_11_23

And the colors were ridiculous.

From 2010_11_23

It took me a long time to even get to the Philosopher's Way. When I did find it, I walked it, stopping along the way here and there.

From 2010_11_23

By then, though I was pretty tired, and I didn't want to wait in line to get into Ginkaku-ji, so I just went back. I never did sit down in a tea shop to write letters, and I was even a little late meeting Nami-san for dinner!

All in all, I was worn out, but I think I would have regretted it deeply, if I'd missed going to Kyoto in the fall!

Aaaand...

I managed to spend one classless day accomplishing a whopping TWO things on my to-do list. Don't be impressed. If I had put my nose on the grindstone I could have done most of them. But the kids were practicing for a school-presentation-festival which I may or may not attend, and they were cute.

IN OTHER NEWS Christmas is approaching. I have heard tell that packages over like 400 grams might have to be sent from Japan by boat, which can take up to 2 months, so your presents are already late.

But let's talk about what you can do for me. There's not much I lack in the land of the rising sun, but I have two desired things if you feel inclined to send anything. Feel free not to.. that's not what Christmas is about of course, but here's the thing. Every house in Japan has a hot-water maker. It comes standard, right after fridge and stove, probably before microwave-oven. There are like two in every staff room I've ever been in. These exist mostly so you can make yourself instant coffee. Or instant ramen. But Japan for some reason does not have instant oatmeal.

I know. wtf right? So I bought eight boxes this summer and unboxed them and put them in plastic bags and packed them in my suitcase and brought them here, and at the time of writing I now have one solitary packet of oatmeal left. And everyone knows you need two packs at a time anyway.

I like the reduced sugar stuff because it's not too sweet, but really any flavor is okay, excepting maybe plain, because that would require me to be creative at 6:30am and that is pretty hit or miss. But, if plain is in a collection or something, I suppose I could stir some yuzu jam into it and call it even. Hmm.. that sounds kinda good.... okay, all flavors are a go. And with this gift you can't go wrong, because no matter how much oatmeal I receive, it will never be too much.

Secondarily, I really like the body cream type of lotion that comes from Bath and Body Works. Body cream usually comes in an upright tube that is round at the bottom and kinda.. triangular at the top. Like this:


In my youth, I used all kinds of crazy scents, but these days I like it pretty tame, so if you want to send me one of these, please exercise discretion in scent choosin'.. nothing too sweet or fruity. If you find yourself unsure, just send oatmeal. I am particularly fond of the brown sugar fig (third from right in that picture). Unlike the oatmeal, though, I can have too much lotion. I kind of already do, although it's all different, inferior, non body-cream kinds. Except this 99cent bottle of Walgreens lotion which for some reason is also awesome. Accept some substitutes?

Also if you want to give me lotion, please wait until the twice-a-year B&BW sale to buy it.. that sale should be like just after Christmas sometime. Trust me, it's worth it the wait.

Coming Soon!

This is almost more a note-to-self than a note for readers, but:

I'll be blogging backwards!
Kyoto in the fall (11/23)
Momiji-Yama (11/21)
Kobe Conference In Reivew (11/18-19)
Monkey Massage Weekend (11/14)
Himeji Bike Ride for PEPY (11/13)
International Festival (11/3)

As usual, too busy living it to tell you about it shikkarily, but I'll be on that soon. The next two days are pretty classless.

Toodles!

Thanks!

We had a very Shiso Thanksgiving about a week and a half ago. In the week leading up to that event, including actual Thanksgiving Thursday, I was totally not enthused. Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday, but I mostly failed to teach it to the kids (I thought they had done it a millions times... nope!) and then was buying important things like, oh, I dunno, green beans, midday on the actual day of the feast.

I was a lot more pumped last year, and more let down, too. This year felt a bit more like I was flying by the seat of my pants, and the whole thing went off great.

For reference, here are some photos from last year:


One of the most important being:

From 2009_11_28

This is what happens when 14 cook for 50 in a kitchen built for 8.

This year, our cooking team was about half of last year's, probably due to the paranoia of repeating last year's special brand of chaos. We also got into the cooking area at 9am instead of 1pm, which helped everyone's blood pressure a lot.

Last year, I invited a whole bunch of people, then didn't get to spend any time with any of them because by the time we were done bringing the food out, it was time for us to eat, then dessert, then it was time to clean up (and cleaning up took about six years, although we had to be out of the hall at 10pm). This time, we were able to clean as we went along, so wrap-up was a piece of cake. We actually had some time where we were just sitting around waiting for our food to finish cooking and our guests to come.

This time, I invited a lot less, and of them, only a few showed up. I ended up sitting with my JTE and his family and having a very pleasant time talking to them.

From 2010_11_27

We had games this time, too, which split up the feast time nicely.

Last year, I made pumpkin pie from a recipe I snagged at the Centro (one of the professor's there sent it to me upon request). It was amazingly delicious, but there were a ton of leftovers. Shiso enjoyed tupperwares full of my "pumpkin shit" for several days afterward.

Foolishly I assumed the same would be true of my sweet-potato souffle. Which I do believe I did as well as could be expected.. we didn't have mini marshmallows so I cut up some big ones. Yeah. Be thankful:



At the last minute (seriously, I didn't think we had the canned soup, so I nixed the idea of doing it until I got there and saw we had soup) I added green bean casserole, Campbell's regular recipe (mostly) to our menu.



So here's how that panned out:






Also, two people asked me for the sweet potato recipe, and one for the green bean recipe. I guess we'd call it a win. I still don't see how less people gave us less leftovers, but there you are.

I'm thankful for a whole boatload of things, and even though I spent all week missing my family and the US, I'm grateful too that Shiso Thanksgiving was such a good time for all.

Students in the USA

How much do you remember from middle school?

I'm supposed to present to the first-years (7th grade age) on Friday about American schools, and I am specifically targeting MS and JHS level just because that is what they are in and that is what they would identify with, I think. But it's staggering to me how much of my memory and even photo collection is almost entirely from high school.

I'm trying to recreate in my mind the kinds of classes we had, what it was like to be there, the lunchroom and food, the school bus. All things pretty much foreign to these kids who bike to school and eat in the classroom every day.

First of all, a "middle school" is different from a "junior high school" in that MS is normally grades 6-8 (in my case, 7-8), while JHS is 7-9. I didn't know that. But it does explain why 中学校 (chuugakkou), which is quite literally "middle" and "school" gets translated as junior high school.

The major differences between my middle school life and the lives of my Japan JHS students might surprise you. I've already mentioned taking the bus to school, while most of my kids bike or walk. This is perhaps part of the reason for the small sizes (relatively) of the school where I work, compared to where I grew up. (The other reason is shrinking population and location of course) There are more schools serving smaller areas. I went to a larger school serving a larger geographical space.

Teachers where I'm from have (more or less) their own classrooms which they decorate to their subject, and students rotate based on their schedules into the corresponding rooms. Here, the teachers ferry themselves and their materials for each class from the teacher's office into the classroom. Ownership, then, of that room is more the class. The major advantage is that the kids are more responsible for taking care of it, here. In the US we do not have "souji," or cleaning time. In Japan we have it every day, about fifteen minutes in which everyone cleans their assigned space. This eliminates the need for a custodial staff (kinda.. there is the one lady who is in charge of all that, but she doesn't clean every room each day) which makes sense, at least in a school as small as this one (student population about 170).

But the major drawback of teachers not having their own subject-specific rooms is that every room looks the same. In this case, pretty dingy (old building, years of half-assed cleaning technique by generations of students), and each classroom is decorated with general announcements and some photos or memorabilia of the class's achievements to date. Rather than the math room being full of math posters, stocked with math materials. I like to have all my shit at hand in case I want to change the plan (ever so slightly) on the fly. There is a special room for science lab, and one for art, and a music room, but all the more regular subjects just use the class's room.

This also means that all the students in a class will be taking their classes together. Where I'm from, we mixed it up. It was more exciting because, even if your BFF wasn't in your homeroom, they might be in your science class, or English, or something.

Of course the food is different. The eat in the classroom and everyone gets the same stuff. You don't really get a choice here, and are expected to eat all of it. At my MS, there were like four lines of choices, and if you had some extra money you could buy an ice cream or some other little side item. The cafeteria experience is so fundamental to my concept of school lunch that I hardly differentiate between elementary, where there was one line and you chose your food as you moved along it, to the upper schools where you first picked a line, then the sides that went with it.

I'm trying to recall it, and I think we had seven classes a day (my students here in Japan have between five and six). Rotating within your "team" you went to math, science, social studies, language arts, and English lit, then there was the trifecta of chorus, band, or PE (of which you were in one), and finally a six-week stint in each of the rotational classes: art, technology, Spanish, French, computers and typing, and possibly music. I feel like there had to be six, but I can only generate memories of those first five.

Sports at my middle school were never my cuppa, but I'm looking at their webpage now and it seems like there isn't much on offer. Basketball teams exist, then there is an intramural volleyball thing, then all the clubs are very service-intellectual oriented (Jr. Beta, Science Olympiad, Yearbook, Peer Helpers, Student Council, etc.), and I remember only meeting with my club like once a month or something (I was on the Perspicacity Press, or student newspaper, you betcha). Here where I work, clubs are a huge deal and meet every day, morning and afternoon, to practice. Most of them are athletic clubs, with the exception of maybe the band, because they don't march much.

The band at my old middle school looks like it's still in swing, along with chorus and an orchestra. Nice.

Anyway, I'm going to have a field day because the first-year class is the group who likes to ask questions and is full of kids who show genuine curiosity about what I have to say. It is for this reason I love them.

Finally, I'd like to note that the photos from American schools in the textbook are all pretty awful. I'm trying to figure out whether it's the awkwardness of that age, or because all the pictures are from the early-mid nineties. I think it's both.

Pilgrim

I'm going to Kyoto today, just for the day, because it's a national holiday, and because I always told myself that city was just a hop, skip, and jump from my own town. It's sunny and windy and mid-late November when the momiji trees are at their best (photos pending).

I've decided that November is in fact the best time to visit Japan (maybe outside of cherry blossom season, but I think I like this one better, personally).

I know I ought to clean my house some more, run more errands, write more here and there and everywhere. But when the weather is good and it's the season to be out there, I just gotta go. Which is why I think I can't do NaNoWriMo very well.

So anyway, maybe as a maple-tree pilgrim, maybe just as a pilgrim, I'm going it hitoride by highway bus and back.