How to Maintain Personal Space

(even on a crowded bus)

Well.

In Japan, personal space is often at a premium. People are pretty polite about it, but they do spend a lot of time in your bubble, so here is one way I discovered, somewhat inadvertently, for dealing with it.

It starts with your clothes. Since you live in Japan, you know about the rainy season. You also know about the way that drying your clothes is done by hanging them outside. While clothes dry quickly in hot dry August and take a freezing forever in the depth of January, the combination of heat and humidity you experience throughout June creates the perfect condition for the production of a 'lying shirt.'

A lying shirt is one which, when dry, looks and smells just fine. It also smells just fine when it is still wet but fresh out of the washing machine, laden as it is at that time with the smells of detergent and softener. But get it wet under any other conditions, and it will give off a muted but pervasive funk that will make you wrinkle your nose and look around, wondering if it could possibly be you.

It takes a while to figure out if what you have on your hands is a lying shirt, but once you have one (and by June's end, you should, and after two Junes you definitely should), it will hold true for you even when dried under the August sun. Since August is the hottest, it is also the time when it's nicest to have personal space.

Now, make sure you have all day clear, and get your stuff together for a weekend or overnight trip. Carry all this stuff preferably in a backpack, so you get nice and sweaty. You can leave the backpack in a train locker for this next step.

Find a mountain. I used the hike from Nakayama-dera to its Okunoin, which was described as being a one-hour walk. If you use a one-hour walk, give yourself exactly two hours to complete the round trip and you should be good. This will impel you to book it up the mountain and also back down again. Do this at midday for maximum levels of disgusting; if there aren't white traces of salt on your shirt as it dries, you aren't really trying. Make sure, of course, to stay hydrated -- keep buying those water bottles and Pocari Sweats (I prefer Aquarius, but whatever).

After you return from this endeavor, you should be pretty soaked. Allow yourself to dry off as you move on to your next destination - I used Katsuo-ji in northern Osaka. You get extra points if you work up another sweat, but at this point it isn't really necessary, because your lying shirt should be doing the work for you.

By the time the temples all close at five and you are on your way to stay at a friend's house, you will actually have people moving out of the seat next to you on the bus into seats some distance away. Congratulations!

"Miriam, for the first time since I became homeless, I actually smell like I am." - not the most PC thing I ever said. (She laughed at me because I had thrown my clothes outside onto the balcony and leaped into the shower almost as soon as she opened the door.)

As a side note, I was really tempted to see if a run in a good old American household dryer would cure my shirt of its lyin' ways, but in the end I just couldn't take it anymore and stuffed it in a trashcan in a bathroom somewhere in Miyagi prefecture. True story. Sometimes I still miss it. But not its lies.

Helpful Shit: Getting to the City (and beyond)

I'm amazed at the amount of stuff I now treat as common enough knowledge in my life that I simply did not know upon arrival.


Like that the main station of Kobe is Sannomiya station, not Kobe station, although there IS a Kobe station, it probably isn't where you want to get off the train (unless you're going to Motomachi I guess)...

And I've gotten to a place in my life where I just kind of know how to get to the helpful information I want to use by either google searching key words in Japanese or linking through a series of steps that are natural to me. But it's high time I gathered these transportation links into one place for easier access (both for my own benefit, and anyone preparing to or continuing to live in Shiso).

Searching up directions to Shiso on a google map will give you some alarming results, based mostly on our lack of trains. It'll say something like, train as far as Shingu, then walk forever to get to Shiso.

But around here, the word to know is Shinki Bus, and that sucker will get you most places that you need to go. Unfortunately, their website is still Japanese only, but if you can operate in Japanese (or make your way though a google translate version), you are good to go.

Most especially the navi feature, which like hyperdia does for trains, allows you to put in your departure and arrival locations to search bus times. It'll give you several of the upcoming buses as well as the cost of travel. I have used this basically just to figure out bus times from Himeji to Yamasaki and back, but I'm sure it can be even more useful than that so long as you know the name of the bus stops you want to use. This is a local bus so it doesn't have luggage space underneath like the highway buses do.

Then, there are the highway buses, most often used by me being the Osaka and Kyoto buses. The line goes from Tsuyama to Osaka and Kyoto but their uses are different.

The Osaka bus is way more frequent any way easier to use. It goes by almost every half hour or so, and to get on you just.. get on. Take a little ticket showing that you got on at stop like 9 or so, and keep it til you get to the end. The bus terminates at Osaka station, but pro tip if you are going down to Namba or Shinsaibashi areas, it's easier and a tiny bit cheaper (not enough to really matter.. the best thing about doing it this way is more the avoiding of the massive entity that is Osaka Station City) to get off at Shin-Osaka rather than Osaka Station and take the red line subway downtown.  On this bus it usually takes about two hours to get to Osaka.

The Kyoto bus only runs four times a day in each direction, and you have to buy the tickets in advance (I've gotten away without doing so, but it always seemed like a big deal to the driver). The easiest way I've found to do this is to roll up to Lawson and use the machine, because reserving online and then paying for them seemed to be a bitch. If you do this, though, you have to select the bus line first, so make sure you say you are going from Tsuyama (which is in the Chugoku region, not Kansai!) to Kyoto first, then later you can specify that you are getting on the bus in Yamasaki. The machines can be a little confusing and I mostly navigate it as I go each time on sight.

There is also a Tottori bus, which runs from Himeji to Tottori with a stop at Yamasaki inter. I don't know anything about this other than that it exists and some people I know have taken it before.


After that, there is the fairly new but apparently popular direct bus from Yamasaki to Kobe's Sannomiya Station, affectionately known to us as just "the Kobe bus." Unlike the other highway buses, this one leaves directly from the in town bus station, so you don't have to meet it at the highway gate unless you want to.

If you are driving, and planning to take the highway, and want to know how much that will cost you, check out this page, which can help you figure out your toll cost based on where you are going and what type of car you drive.

Flying? There are a bunch of small airports in the area, but I've only ever used Kobe, Itami, and of course KIX (kankuu) myself. I've heard good things about Okayama, and I know Tajima has an airport, but I don't know what it's used for. There is no longer a direct bus along the Tsuyama-KIX line, sadly, but from Himeji station you can get buses to both Itami and KIX. Kobe airport is accesses by the Port Liner, which runs from Sannomiya, which you can get to by direct bus.

Domestic flying in Japan is a breeze compared to doing it in the US, especially out of one of the smaller airports. There is security and paperwork, but it's nothing like the clusterfuck I'd learned to expect from flying. You can even bring your water bottle so long as you let them open it and check the contents (by machine but sometimes by smelling!). Skymark (Kobe) has some cheap fares, but the new carrier Peach (KIX) is even lower. There's always ANA and JAL, which you can sometimes get deals on too (I think we used someone's "birthday fare" once?). Sometimes it is cheaper and faster to fly to a place than to take a shinkansen (king of trains), sometimes not. If comfort and flexibility are a priority, shink is the way to go. If you need to save money, check out flights but also remember the cost of getting to and from the airport in your figuring!

International flights are predictably a bit more painful, and depending on where you are going, will cost a pretty penny more. Going international from Japan is almost always a flight, though there are some boats. To Korea, boat is a good option, but that's the only one I know. For Southeast Asia, I've had good experiences with the bare-bones low-cost style of AirAsia, though you may have to fly through Malaysia or something to get where you want to go. It's super cheap, but just know that the fare you are browsing does not include your baggage, food, or any other perks: those you have to add on as you go. Once you do, it's still pretty dern cheap.

My final confession on this topic will be that I've spent way too much of my life checking out the different options for how much it costs to get where by what different forms of transportation. 

bringing

So after being so eager to start up the tag "for my successor," I have added virtually nothing to the blog in that category since April.

I have thought about it, I really have. But I seem to get bogged down in the particulars which, when I examine them, seem to have potentially no relevance at all to an incoming person. I thought about including much more detailed information about the schools, the classes, the teachers, then reconsidered because that kind of thing is neither relevant nor particularly prudent to put on the interweb. I thought about making a list of stuff I wish I'd brought or wish I'd known... but even that seems out of date when I look at this blog explaining how you can get the stuff you miss.

I also keep thinking of the questions I want to ask this mystery person for all manner of different reasons. What is your shoe size? How's your Japanese? Are you the sort of person who prefers to inherit a minimum of stuff (clean slate), or that wants a bunch of used stuff to adopt and make your own (taker)? Do you like gardening?

But sidestepping all this for a little while, what I'd like to first do is just make a list of the stuff I import and the reasons for it. When I say "import" I mean ask family and friends for, and/or fill my suitcase with when I make a visit to the US.

• Instant hot cereals. Mostly oatmeal, but also grits. Mostly I import this because it's cheaper and there's a better selection in the US than there is at the internet-international stores I've used so far. That plus the ubiquity of hot water dispensers makes instant oatmeal a wonderful thing on chilly mornings.
• Regular cereal. Again because I'm cheap and lazy... the local grocery only has four kinds of cereal: flakes, frosted flakes, choco flakes, and granola.
• Facewash. Because I know what I like and don't feel like working my way through bottles and bottles of stuff from the drugstore. Same goes for face lotion.. I have a particular type that I like, so I just stick with that.
• Makeup. Because I could maybe find 'dark brown' mascara, but I would rather just use what I know.
• Toothpaste. I hear this is totally unnecessary, but Japanese dental work scares me, and I like to use stuff I know what's in it. I also import toothbrushes, which actually is totally unnecessary, but I just do it because it's easy.
• Another totally unnecessary thing is Bath and Body Works body cream. There is plenty of lotion in Japan, but if you get this thick cream of a smell you really like at 1/3 price during the semi-annual sale, there's no reason not to bring it. You might need a lot of lotion in the cold, dry winter.
• Hand sanitizer in small bottles. It's just useful for all those bathrooms without soap.
• Sunscreen. Again, cheap/lazy.. you can get it here, but the selection and prices are better there.
• Deodorant. I hear you can get good deodorant in Japan these days, but I bought a huge multipack of my favorite kind a long time ago and have just been using it ever since.
• Over the counter painkillers. Your basic Tylenol/ibuprofen stuff, because if I hurt I can't be bothered to navigate the linguistic and cultural differences of my local drugstore. Plus I think it's cheaper back home.

That's the stuff I would regularly refill each year. In the beginning, though,  there is plenty of stuff I wished I hadn't brought, basically any products outside of those listed. You only get two suitcases, and you really can get most stuff in Japan that you want to find.

I wish I HAD brought better souvenir presents, more edibles basically. People even told me to bring edible stuff that was small, individually packaged, and preferably specific to that area. I was terrible at this. I think I brought mini bottles of lotion (because I just prefer 'real stuff' to 'snacks' personally as gifts? I dunno) and jelly beans or something, and then not really enough. I wish I had gotten ahold of little packs of peanut brittle or little jars of apple butter or some other such thing as my parents brought when they came to visit.

The problem at the time was partly that I was broke as hell. Getting a job with JET is great, and you will make some decent money doing it, but before you start getting paid, you might not have any money. Not having any money does not match up well with filling a house with new stuff, bringing presents for all the people it is probably appropriate to give them to (here, too, opportunities abound). Plus, unlike in Japan, those gifts can be hard to find or figure out, and that may be time you don't have in the process of packing, saying goodbyes, and otherwise preparing yourself for your whole new life.

Luckily, the local stores are at your service too. It would be best to bring stuff from your own local area, but failing that, anything from the home country is good (mini candy bars might have been a nice touch), and failing that (say, you get in and find yourself with enough to give out at your base school but nothing for your elementary staff-mates!), getting a gift box at a nearby shop is totally okay. I wouldn't necessarily do it, because no one will really mind if you don't pass out presents, but they'll be super impressed if you do.

I am GLAD I brought along an international driving permit. It was more than worth the hasslesome trip to the AAA office in the middle of the summer and the fifteen or so bucks to get, because a car is freedom etc. etc, and I live in a town with no trains.

I'm also glad of all the fake business clothes I brought; you need that kind of thing for official events and to give a good impression early on in your tenure. I wish I had brought more "work appropriate" sportswear for sports day practice.

In the very early days, before you have a life, you might want to have stuff to do to keep you happy or occupied. Books, games, video games, whatever. You can also spend this time exploring. The first week or so can be weird and rough because a lot of the staying JETs around the area are off on their once-yearly summer trip home, so there's all these ropes and no one to show them to you. You also might have to endure a state of internetlessness at the apartment for about a month (although there is some possibility that if you ask nicely, you can use the wireless from next door during that time)... so be prepared for this, as skyping at work is weird and skyping at home perhaps impossible, it might have to be email for a while.

As for furniture.. there can be some, though there need be very little, it all depends on your tastes. There is a recycle shop or four in town, and you can pick our your own stuff there, or buy new stuff, or buy my stuff (discounted extra for saving me the hassle of moving it/getting rid of it).. so are you the kind of person who wants a clean slate, or a mostly-there house?

And. How is your Japanese? Because one of my elementary contacts is really worried he won't be able to talk to you in English.

I write things...

Sometimes I write them and they go up on other websites.

Here's a fun story about how 6th graders are better at phonics than my JHS students!

http://www.hyogoajet.net/hyogotimes/2011/10/26/english-sensei-spirit-how-my-6th-graders-learned-to-spell/

"The Difference"

Well today is speech contest day. I've been really, really busy. You might be thinking to yourself, she can't be that busy, or she wouldn't have crafted such lovely photo-complimented blog posts and put them up within the last two weeks. Well, thank you for your kind words, but no seriously, I only wrote those because I was on shinkansen for hours and hours, and those kings of transport have electric outlets where you can plug in your devices.

Because my computer has begun informing me that my battery is "reaching the end of its usable life." Whatever that means is something I intend to deal with later. I have intended to deal with a lot of things later. A few of them got done on the train (I wrote those two entries and more, but the last is unfinished) or the bus or what have you.

Today is speech contest, the big event, what we've been preparing for these last few weeks, and I don't mean just my speech contestants (although I do, bless their hearts), but also the skit kids, and me, and the ALTs, oh and model speech (which I will type out for you, from memory, after this brief intro writing of mine). I'm actually kind of pleased with how the model speech turned out, although I despaired after my initial excitement, that I had too many things I wanted to say, that none of them were appropriate or comprehensible. What eventually came out of it was something that is about 40% crap and 60% awesome, so I'll settle for those stats. I have no idea how good the translation into Japanese is. I have my doubts, from looking over the page, but I'm hopeful, and also after this point, I can hardly care. Up or down, win or lose, it will be, oh thank God, over.

All that prep, all those evenings of staying late.. the pansies I bought that are still in little plastic containers because I was quite literally never home when it was light outside enough to do anything with them.

I like that image, of a battery that is used and recharged, used and recharged, but eventually it needs to just be replaced. Because it may seem small, the idea of an hour here, an hour there, staying late, missing one little thing, running to catch your transportation. But all those things add up. I think of being a JET sort of like having that battery. It gets drained all to hell sometimes, like this month, and then gets recharged, yeah, and it'll do, but it works less and less well, until such time as you need a major shift or change in your life. Some people upgrade regularly, but others can become stuck in a life pattern that never changes, and that's more my type. I won't get a new smart awesomephone until my old one actually ceases to function..!

Lately, I've had very little patience for anyone, including myself, and have been overly emotional when listening to Disney songs. I think about things while driving (since I can't bus and read) and have strange dreams at night. I can't wait to return to "normal" because I like the person I become better when I can be nicer to others (because I'm not so preoccupied trying to be nice to myself-- I do have to work at this, and when it becomes a priority, it's a lot harder to take care of anyone else, because shit, son, I'm a handful!)

ANYWAY! Today is the first day in a very long time I've not had a full schedule of classes (or been away on business) at work. I have no classes. And while I know it is frustrating and annoying to go to work each day and not have anything to do, I personally like these days now and then, to just sort of catch up, so I'm not clinging to the last edge of my sanity while crafting the crappiest of lesson plans at 6pm when I'm still at work on a Tuesday night.

I joked that it meant I could use the morning class periods to FREAK OUT ABOUT--haha, I mean "get ready for" speech contest, but honestly I won't get nervous until it's upon us, so all morning I'll just... do what I gratefully do with any given morning. Write, think, pace, try to get on top of the stuff I've let go in a big way, try to stay on top of the stuff I couldn't afford to let go.

My model speech is long, as has been noted by lots of people, but I have memorized it all, and fairly well. I paced around outside until that happened. How well I'll be able to keep it when standing on the stage remains to be seen, but I am sure that with my page in front of me to glance at surreptitiously, I will be able to give the appearance of knowing it excellently. And now, because I know you're dying of curiousity to know what today's model speech will say.

It's called "The Difference"

It seems like people are always asking me, do you have suchandsuch in your country? No matter what they are asking about, my answer is almost always the same. Yes, but it's different there.

Everyone wants to know what is different about a foreign place. My family back in America is amazed by some of the stories that I tell about how life is different in Japan. They want to know about Japanese toilets and Japanese festivals and Japanese hierarchy systems and Japanese food. Things that are different catch our attention, because they are more exciting and interesting.

People in Japan also want to know what is different about life in the US. Sometimes they are amazed by what I say. My school did not have uniforms, we didn't clean the classrooms ourselves, and we could eat snacks in class sometimes, if the teacher didn't mind. We never practiced for sports day, and we got to choose our lunches. Students moved from classroom to classroom, instead of teachers. Even though I didn't live in the city, there were 750 students at my JHS, and we rode the big yellow bus to school. But these are all examples of things American students do. This does not say who they are.

It is important to understand what is is different, but it is also important to keep in mind what is not. Because teenagers, whether they live in Japan or America, still want to be cool, and are afraid of being rejected. And people, no matter where they live, still want to matter and to do something meaningful with their lives. Families still love their children, and children still need their families. This is true not only in Japan, and in America, but everywhere in the world.

When people in Japan look at me, they can see right away that I am different. It takes a lot more effort to find out how like them I may be. If they only look at the surface, they will only see the difference. But if they open their minds and hearts, they can see what kind of person I may be, whether I am funny or serious, laid-back, or strict. Not everyone is what they seem to be at first-- for example, even though no one in Japan or America will ever think that I am Japanese, I'll tell you a secret. Inside my heart, because I lived in Shiso, I will always be a little bit Japanese.

What is most important to people is the same for everyone. We share in common our hopes and our fears, our happiness and worries, even if our actions and ways of dealing with them are not alike. That is why communication between cultures is possible, and that is also why it is important. The reason we need to discover what is different between cultures is so that we can discern what we have in common as people, therefore, what is most human.

Students in the US and students at Ichinan may be different, but we are all part of the human family. I encourage you to open your mind to people who seem at first to be very different from you. Although we are all unique, we are also all connected. When you understand this, you can truly appreciate the difference for what it is, and what it is not.
Thank you.

Your Life Is Hard

An important lesson.

I’ve been thinking about Italy a lot lately. It’s partly the weather, partly the timing.. I went to Italy in 2007, in the fall, and it was a wonderful, important experience for me.

Allow me to share a moment from that semester abroad.

We lived in a converted nunnery, the 30-odd students from various US colleges and universities. Every Tuesday we had all-day field trips to some site visit or other, where we’d receive on-site lectures about whatever monument or event we were traversing that day. Other classes included Latin, Greek, Italian, and art history.

I was standing in a friend’s room, going on at length about some thing or other. I suspect it was complaining about Italian homework, and how unreasonable it was that we were expected to learn so many verbs before the next class, and how I was tired, and I maybe hadn’t had time to do this or that, and Greek, and friends back home, and…

My friend looked up at me and said solemnly, “Yeah, EmLem, your life is hard.”

I stopped, and burst out laughing. Good God, she was right! What did I have to complain about? What have I ever had to complain about?

I get reminders of this lesson all the time, but the latest one is delivered to my work desk as I eat lunch today. I’ve been reading about the experiences of one of my friends and former co-workers as he essays into the teaching world. Unlike my job, his is hard. Even my short spell as a Latin teacher was a blissful cakewalk in a lot of ways. Now, I’m just an assistant, and I deal neither with major lesson plan arcs (well, not above elementary level), testing, nor discipline. Basically I get to skip all the crappy sides of teaching and stick with either just the fun part, or ‘whatever I want.’ I can make lessons easy. I can make them only games. Basically, I am horribly spoiled and coming down from this into a ‘real job’ will suck very hard. Unless I find a way to never have a hard job, that is.

Summer vacation is hard in its own way. Mostly, JETs have to engage in whatever personal pursuit will most effectively fill their days and curb ennui. Some spend all their time playing various sports with their students.. I wanted to be that guy, tried to be that guy, but it wasn’t easy, with different teams all over the place at different times. I only Friday found the sannen (cats' class) dance party in the gym and joined in. They aren’t there today, though. I had many different ideas as to how I would do this, but in the end I’ve mostly studied kanji. I’ve “learned” 508 of those freaking things, some easy and others ridiculously complicated-looking. My plan is to try to nail that set flat before I try to pick up the other 1500 or so.

My thoughts turn over and I read about what real life classrooms are like stateside, especially in the higher-risk lower-motivation areas and schools. It’s not especially encouraging to someone considering teaching as a career move… although that does continue to be heavy on my radar as a post-JET option. I am thinking I would like to teach Latin, English, ESL, or Japanese. (After getting certified, of course)

Other options which I thought I would spend summer break researching (but have not) include: The Foreign Service (liiike being an ambassador or somesuch), Therapy (like, for your mind, yo), and as always, Editing Written Materials.

Well. I’m thinking about them, even if I’m not researching them. So there.

Another reason I have thought of Italy recently is that one of my centro companions, Ice, has recently contacted me to let me know she’s matriculated as a graduate student at Vanderbilt. Despite never having done that particular thing myself, it makes me feel nostalgic. I was a special undergrad, and I hung around the department office far more than your average kid.

One other notable summer-vacation thing is that I rarely use my computer at home, to the point that stuff I can’t do at work (consume youtube videos posted by my peers, for example… that doesn’t work here) online just doesn’t even get done, most of the time. When I get home, I just want to get out, or socialize, or clean up, or lie around… none of which are computer-screen friendly. I don’t even really watch movies. I guess that’s a good thing. I often end up feeling, though, like nothing ever actually gets done!

I guess, until summer vacation ends, I can kind of be okay with that.

Shocking

I’ve been thinking lately about fatigue.

When we were at orientation at the beginning of the whole JET adventure of mine, there was a seminar on “Culture Shock” which is now called “Cultural Fatigue.” The speaker kind of made a joke about how the “fatigue” term is harder for people to understand, and sort of elicits the response just take a nap, whereas “shock” seems a lot more dramatic.

But not to me. Shock is something that is short-lived, intense but momentary. Personally, I’m okay with crisis. My mind is much more geared to dealing with things like intensity-in-the-moment. In my naivety, I believe that there is no great shock I cannot stomach for that one horrible moment in time.

It’s the moments that come after that really scare me. It’s the prospect of the time that will go on and on. This is what makes a thing like loss difficult for me. It’s the way loss means it’s going to be gone for a long time, the way the future stretches out before you suddenly lacking something. I’m not scared of having a bad day – I’m scared of real lingering unhappiness.

So the long-term-ness of the strain implied by fatigue is, to me, much scarier than shock, culture or otherwise. It’s not the moment of holy shit, there is corn and mayo on this pizza but no pepperoni, but rather the months and months you will go before you have decent pizza. But even that is fully bearable because, heck, what’s six months (and this example is just pizza—there are far less unhealthy, trivial things to deal with) of bad or no pizza? Really, what’s the rest of my life with no pizza? I’d say it’s pretty tragic, but in all seriousness, I wouldn’t care that much.

What’s scary about cultural fatigue is having to do things in a way that doesn’t fit with your own desires or ideas. It’s exhausting to want to make a difference and to feel that you don’t. In more general terms, it’s fatiguing to want something and not get it.

The scary side of fatigue is facing the prospect that it doesn’t get easier or better with time, it gets worse. Shock is something that happens, and sucks, and then slowly mends, like any old wound. Fatigue, to me, sounds more like a deteriorative disease.

The problem is not that you had a fight with your sig-O. Fights are good in a lot of ways.. and very often, they are pushes to progress that wouldn’t otherwise be made (in that way, they can keep you from stagnating). The problem is not a fight. The problem is when you have fights all the time. About the same damn thing. And progress never seems to get made. The problem is stagnation.

I never worry about a cough, or a cold, or a sore throat, even when it’s particularly painful or shitty. I only worry when it’s been three or four weeks, even if the cough is minor.

I don’t care that the kids are wild/incapable of attention for English class on the last period of the day on a Friday afternoon. But I do care if they are like that every week and I only ever get that time slot for the rest of forever, or they turn out that way in my class no matter what time of day I go. It will take three weeks for me to figure this out/admit that there is something I need to see about fixing.(Then I sigh and feel tired because of the prospect of the way I now know I have to do something ‘bout it, as opposed to being tired because of all I’ve done.. I get tired in advance.

But actually, the ironic thing is, sometimes you really do just need to take a nap or something. Sometimes you just need a little something to allow you to turn around on the way you look at a thing. Sometimes you just need a figurative breath of fresh air. It can start with something as simple as getting a better handle on your own physical health.. making sure you get enough sleep, eat well (I’m telling you, spinach has serious vitamins happening), get a bit of exercise (swear to goodness it helps with sanity), brush yo teeth, etc… well being on top of one thing leads at least me to feel better about trying to get atop another.

I’m writing this now.. from a point of view of being scared of fatigue, not really being mired in it. I’ve said that I fear or dislike change. But I also greatly fear lack of change (as a component of fatigue)—which is a logically flawed fear to have, since change is impossible to prevent.

I guess it’s like they say, though, the more things change, the more they stay the same. The overarching things don’t change. The atomic things don’t change. Stuff in between never stops changing. Shocking.

A few good ideas

Part of the reason I keep this blog is to disseminate information and ideas. When I arrived in Japan, my predecessor had left me so many materials and copies of her lesson plans, I had to do what was natural to me to continue a big paper (or digital) trail of what works (and what doesn’t) at work. I can still remember what it was like to sit down at my new desk and wonder, omg now what?!

Anyway, here are a couple things I discovered or reused recently:

Musical chairs – If you need to be able to single out a student to practice conversation with you, this actually could work well. It takes a lot of help from the homeroom teacher, but what I ended up doing in my 5th grade classes was make a long row of chairs back to back, the chairs numbering one less than the number of kids in the class. They move around the circle to the sound of American music until it stops. When it does, they sit down. It’s always funny because there is this scramble produced by the fact that a bunch of kids are so focused on making sure they have their butt near a chair that they leave open seats between themselves and the people ahead of them. Which other students who at first think, aw crap, I am the odd one out, suddenly spot and make a dash for.

Anyway, once everyone has a seat (or not), the seatless kid has to come and demonstrate the target conversation with me. Then they all have to practice the type of conversation demonstrated with the person whose chair is back-to-back with theirs. Seatless kid is free to gleefully spectate this part.

Concentration – The simple beauty of this game is that you can play with the whole class, and everyone has to pay attention the whole time. Too often when I am trying to do small group or individual stuff, those not in the spotlight see it as a great opportunity to slack off/talk to their friends/etc. But in concentration games (we recently did matching lower and uppercase letters) you can have one group at a time choosing a letter from those magneted to the board, and those who disregard others’ turns do so at their peril. I generally play in groups, although even there kids can sometimes get all overcome by shame and indecision.

 

Aaaand apparently, my “letter project” is about to get some press.. Mikan-sensei just asked me for copies of a few of the letters so he can include them in some kind of report he is giving. I’m totally flattered. I only wish we had gotten replies put together before American schools dismissed for summer! Alas.

All human affairs are like that of Saiou’s horse

If it weren’t for my horse, I wouldn’t have spent that year in college. –Lewis Black

But no, let’s focus on Saiou’s horse, okay?

I really, really like this. A friend included it at the end of a letter sent to me, written out in romaji: “ningen banji saiou ga uma.”

人間万事塞翁が馬.

I was unable to make any sense of it alone, so I presented it to the teachers at small elementary (that’s where I was that day) to get them to translate it for me. But even that was a trip. Because it doesn’t mean anything on its literal face. What I ended up with was “we don’t know about our lives, what will be good or bad” from the teachers.

WHAT?

But it turns out there’s a story behind it, which explains everything and which I will now present.

Once upon a time there was an old man named Sai. He had this horse. The horse ran away. All the neighbors were like “Man, it sucks that your horse ran away!” but Sai was like, “Oh, I dunno…” very circumspect, right? The next day the horse returned leading a second horse. The neighbors all said “Wow, now you got this horse, for free! That’s so great!” But Sai, he was still shrugging it off. Later on, his son was riding the horse. Let’s say it’s the new one. And since he’s not used to it as much, he falls off and breaks his leg. Now the neighbors are back again and they’re crying out “Oh no! It is such misfortune! That poor young man!” but good old Sai, he’s not so sure it’s the worst thing ever.. and sure enough in a few days, the Emperor orders all able-bodied men to join his army so he can take over a neighboring land. But Sai’s son can’t go!

So are all earthly affairs like Saiou’s horse.

When things change from perception-good to bad and back again very quickly, I shake my head and say, I just keep thinking about that horse.

Lunch with Sixth Graders

Yesterday, I was at Small Elementary. I laughed an evil laugh to see that I was eating lunch with the 6th graders again.

The last time I ate lunch with that class, the room was totally silent, and it terrified me. The girls in that class never participated, and to make it worse, that was back in the swine-flu scare of late 09, so they weren’t even sitting in desk clusters. I tried to make conversation after about fifteen terrible minutes by pointing to the nearest girl’s pencil case, which was sitting on her desk.

“Very cute,” I said. In general, people know the word “very” and they know the word “cute,” and I know these kids have had ALT training in their lives for a while now, and being a class of only like ten people, they totally get the attention they should want. So she understood the words I used, I am almost certain.

How did this kid respond to my attempts to bond over personal taste in school effects? She did not look at me, nor speak to me, but removed the pencil case and shoved it inside her desk, and continued eating.

Terror. Oh my GOD, get me out of here! She probably felt the same way. Eventually the boys (who do participate in class) asked if they could ask me questions and proceeded to do the whole stand-up-and-push-in-your-chair-to-address-a-teacher thing to ask me questions like “What countries have you been to?” .. which were a bright step up from my usual slew of “What’s your favorite color/animal/sport/food?” and “Can you eat ___?”

Aaaanyway, that was last time, so yesterday was round two, and this time I was ready and unafraid. I try to joke around with the students when possible. When I first got to the classroom, no one was there at all. Then, the girls arrived. They began to giggle and exchange glances, which I actually kind of hate. It makes you feel like you’re under glass or something. They won’t try to reach you, they’ll just talk about you and something that is hilarious to them from which you are excluded. I looked at them mournfully and said “Don’t be like that. You’re killin’ me!”

Then one of them asked me how old I was. Oh thank goodness, we are talking. I told her, and then she asked if I had a boyfriend. I was back on my joking bandwagon so I said “Oh yeah, I got three!” .. they did not seem impressed, so I went back to the standard answer which is, “No, no, no.”

I had used some Kansai-ben in class that day, when a kid asked me a question in Japanese I TOTALLY knew he could form in English if he tried, so I drawled out “Nihongo ga zenzen wakarahennnn..!” (I don't understand any Japanese!)

Anynway, next the girls were a little confusing, and they said something about Kansai-ben and then laughed a bit, then said Kansai-ben “Why?” and I wasn’t sure if they were just saying it to be Kansai or if they were still asking about the boyfriend thing, but right then the boys returned to class and were meccha excited to see that I was their lunch guest.

Once we got our food, this crowd of tiny kindergarteners came in to say thank you to their “big brothers and sisters” and present them with cookies of gratitude and congratulations for their coming graduation. It was possibly the cutest thing that has ever happened. I also somehow got cookies out of the deal, just for being in the room to witness this.

Once all that was done, they started doing the formal questions again. They were generally upper-elementary level of though provoking. “How big was your elementary school?” I did some math in my head and estimated it at 500. I don’t really know, though. I just figured, about five classes a grade, twenty kids a class, six grades. That came out to 600 and I figured that was way too high, but it’s probably about right. It’s still staggering to work in schools where the population does not swell, but actually tends to drop, with every incoming class. They were astonished to hear 500, though (their school having 60), and I tried to explain that it’s partly because kids can go to school by bus instead of walking. If we had to walk like the do in Japan, there would be smaller schools because there would be more of them.

Then one kid asked, “When you graduated, were you sad? Did you cry?” That one sort of startled me out of my fried-tofu-scarfing fest.

I’ve had several graduations.. the ones from elementary and middle school kind of not counting as much as the high school and college ones. I don’t even remember graduating from the lower schools because for the most part it was just moving myself and everyone I knew already into another building.

I wanted to give him an answer that was close to the question I thought he was asking; I wanted to go for the lower graduation so I settled for high school. And then I basically lied to a kid. I told him I didn’t cry. He said, “Not sad?” No, not not sad. I didn’t cry at graduation, but I was sad inside.

And I guess I was. I did cry, but not on graduation day. I was a lot of things, at that time. I was happy and excited (and I knew where I was going.. something I only half had at college graduation), and I was scared, and I was angry, too, about the actual graduation ceremony. I was frustrated with others, and with myself too I’m sure. I had a great graduation party at which I was happy, but also felt sick. Graduation is just hard. There’s just so much pride, loss, excitement, love, regret, happiness, promise, and uncertainty in it. College was worse. I brave-faced my way through the ceremony, hugged my friends, genuinely enjoyed those strawberries, and went to my dorm to bawl about it in the first free moment I could find.

And I know that I’m just in my own head on this one, but I do want to think that these 6th graders are interested.. maybe even the girls, who have (maybe??) just been intimidated by the outgoing presence of the boys.

Where Your Feet Are

Be where your feet are.
Wait, does that sound familiar to anyone else?

I've been more than a little distracted for a while now. I'll give you more details in person or something, but for now suffice to say that the sitcom that is my personal life had some kind of epic season finale (complete with potential cliffhangers) this weekend. At the same time, it was a working weekend (Sunday was International Festival, Monday afternoon speech contest, Monday night was the Sequim farewell party, etc.)... so I and my cohort have been extraordinarily busy even just with that.

And when I wasn't busy with work, I was busy complaining about work, preparing for work, or bitching about that sitcom bullshit that all happened in a row (seriously, it's great.. my life = ridiculous, squared). I had basically no time to do things like wash my dishes, put away the laundry that has been dry since Saturday, clear off the table, etc.

Today started out in an existential funk, the kind of day where you don't really know what anything is worth. I spent the whole morning hating life for no reason and pretending to be super excited and genki for 2nd, 3rd, and 4th graders about Halloween.

Try explaining to kids who don't speak your language that one night a year, all the kids in your country put on ridiculous clothes, go knock on other people's doors, yell "Trick or treat" at them and expect to receive candy. And you thought the akimatsuri was weird (okay, you haven't had a chance yet to think it's weird because that was last Friday and I haven't had a chance to post the photos yet... haha).

Anyway, after lunch I put my face down on my desk and zoned out completely until it was cleaning time. I wordlessly swept almost the entire genkan (students' entrance) and left piles of dust for the kids around me to dustpan. Somehow, my last class of the day was the best (again, even though last time I was at the Small Elementary, and today I was at the Big Elementary).. I suspect their awesome homeroom teacher. At the end, they gave me stuff they made for my birthday. It was pretty much the most amazing birthday card(s) I have ever seen. And I was thinking.. there are kids here, and they want my attention too.

And then it was dismissal time, and kids were literally crawling all over me, and I was giving them hugs and high-fives, and they were.. like.. hitting my arms too (I gave blood Sunday, and one of them kept hitting me right in the crook of my elbow.. ow, kid!), but then I was laughing, and looking at the way the sun was cast over the mountains, and the trees in the background were reddening as fall deepens, and all of that sitcom crap seemed very far away (because, um, it is far away. Freaking America), and there were these kids, and they loved me. And the one of them was dragging me across the field, and I wasn't wearing good shoes to be jogging after her, and I didn't know where we were going, or if we had time before we had to line up and dismiss, but we got to the edge of the field and she said, "Look. It's probably the last cherry blossoms of the year," and it was so cool, these little flowers here and there on this otherwise totally barren tree. And then my heart was in the same town as my feet, and I felt a lot better.


Because yeah, I did need to spend some time being upset about the drama. But for better or worse, this is where I am. Yamasaki town and Ichinomiya town are my towns. It does me no good for my confused heart to wander anywhere far from my feet. It only leaves me spaced out and sad.