Both Ways

It's Friday the 13th, and we return to cookie baking. I told myself, we're gonna do this again, and we're gonna do it right this time.

Planning well in advance, I got my wonderful parental units to supply me with a shit-tonne of the instant pudding necessary to make the cookies. The also brought along some chocolate chips to make my ordering load lighter.

I can't believe we're making them today. Not because it's Friday the 13th, but because this week has been so incredibly intense and it's only been like four days long.

I want to do a 'real' post about this.. complete with pictures and all that, but for now I'll just fill in the outline.

Last weekend was a sort of mess. Friday, I didn't go to work, but instead to Kobe where I was made an official Goodwill Envoy of Hyogo Prefecture. This just means that wherever I go I should spread the good word. This is easy; I'm liable to pimp out anything I think is truly any good (someone once told me I would be a good saleswoman when I vehemently extolled the virtues of some thing or other.. but the truth is I can only sell something I really know and love).

So that just meant no school that day. Saturday was supposed to be a school day, sort of.. we were to go to work and then after an hour of hanging out at school, go and watch kids compete all over town in various taikai things against the other schools (then get Monday off as a trade in day). But Saturday got rained out so hard they called in an O-ame (too much damn rain) warning, which cancels school in the city. (This happens way more than o-yuki, or too much snow warnings, actually... seriously, imagine a place where rain cancels school more often than snow does!)

So Saturday got pushed to Sunday, and we still had Monday off... I had a visitor in town to hang out and see the taikai, and we thought go to the beach Sunday, but no cigar.

Long story short, it was planned to be a sort of schedually challenged weekend and became EVEN MORE SO because of the rain.

This thrust me into Tuesday's 'last lessons day' at Small Elementary with little mental preparation (since I had Monday off and work on Sunday? I don't know). And then suddenly everything was happening at once. Tuesday was an exhausting run of six class periods conducted for all grade levels, including kindergarten, made heavy with the knowledge that it was the last one for each and all of them. By the end of the day I was a ragged mess. Wednesday was first-year classes back at the middle school (Mario Kart game ftw), and Thursday was the actual last day at the bigger elementary school, which left me less wrecked by still glad I wore waterproof mascara.

I felt better at the bigger school because they made a bigger deal of things.. I felt okay about crying because I could tell they wanted me to cry. They were doing things with the express purpose of making me cry. Then the entire school "hana-michi" style harassed me all the way to the front door. It was exhilarating, and exhausting. More about all that later when I get the photos ready.

In an oddly fitting gesture from the universe, the little girl who walked into the office on perhaps my first day (she was a second grader then) was in the office again during the end of my last day. She was the first student I have memory of speaking directly to; as a second grader she came up to me and told me that I was cute (which was a shocking thing to hear from an adorable second grade girl willing to walk right up to you), and gave a sort of botched self-intro in English. She's one of the special needs kids and is absolutely precious still. She's a fifth grader now and she thanked me for the time I've spent there before I slipped out to put all the presents I'd gotten near my desk at the middle school.

And since I realized (that afternoon) that I was going to be making cookies the very next day, I decided to just get all that stuff when I had my car, which I would on Friday, because I would need to transport said shit tonne of pudding mix (not heavy) and 5.5 kg of chocolate chips (kinda heavy) along with a few other odds, ends, and things.

So yeah. It's been a short week (too short... I almost wish I'd had Monday) and now I'm facing this weekend when I will rent that giant effing van I once drove, roadtrip to Shikoku with some of Shiso-plus-Alessandro, and go rafting and canyoning again. 

All that because it's a three-day weekend, which leads into another too-short (blasphemy, I know) week, which is the last week of this semester, the last week of my job in any actuality. Ending ceremony is the 20th, the day after our Salamander farewell dinner which is the same day as the BOE last 'greeting' for which I'll get out of school early (I am never sure these days whether skipping school time is a good thing anymore)... 

There is no time to think, little to plan, and I feel like I should have seen this coming, but I didn't realize it would come on so fast! I know there will be another quieter period once the school year ends (after my 'word' at the closing ceremony, etc.) for me to pack and clean and sort, but the way all this descended in a rush makes me feel like I should be packed and ready to go, like, tomorrow. Which just adds to the sense that there was probably a time to think and feel and plan, and that time has come and gone while I was marveling at June and how for the first time it wasn't a shit show. Whatever was missing from June has about hit the fan and here we are up on the final countdown.

So some moments I'm really happy, and some moments I'm hearing a song I just discovered on a CD I unearthed in the packing process and it's making me cry. And some moments I'm feeling relieved that I don't have to plan for/worry about/English educate this or that group anymore -- that their enthusiasm for or knowledge of English is no longer my responsibility. Other moments a particular face will come to mind.. a kid or a teacher, and I'll have to forget for the moment how much it sucks to leave a place.. how much I always did hate graduations.

One of the third graders summed it up pretty well at my send-off ceremony. "She's crying! Look! Now she's smiling. [confusion]" There's that saying, don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened. But I was always one to have it both ways.

Rabbits, Frogs, and Horses, and there's something in my eye

RABBITSU feeding time at elementary.

As you teach multiple levels of joined schools for long enough, two excellent perks arise naturally. One is finding siblings scattered amongst the year levels. It's always fun to find older and younger brothers or sisters of that student you love (or love to hate), and watch the ways they are different, and alike (some kids share facial features but not personality traits. Others show persistent strains of behavior...).The other excellent perk is class personality.

I know that in this blog I have on occasion bombastically decried one class group or another as 'awful' or perhaps worse. And maybe it's just the end-of-term blue tint that's coming over the whole thing, but I'd like to set the record straight: none of the classes are awful. Some of them are extra good. Some of them work really hard and listen to you, and you actually do teach them things. Other groups are too energetic to have time for learning, and so just spend their classtime not-learning and having a good time of that (and they'll take you along into that if you let them). So in my head I've started to categorize them loosely into "studious" classes, and "fun" classes. I love them for different reasons, in different ways, and sometimes on different days.

But anyway, it's the "frogs" and the "horses" killing me lately. The frogs (zodiac animal being oxen, same as me) were in 6th grade when I arrived. I've talked about them a lot because I've loved them for a long time now. They are the 3nens now, the eldest class in the middle school, goofier and sharper than ever before. Having seen them be leaders in their elementary schools (kinda) as 6th graders, and now seeing them grow into leaders in their JHS, I am more familiar with them than almost any class. They're maybe more on the 'fun' side of the spectrum when it comes to class behavior, but their spirit makes me happy to the point that I don't care. They also tend to channel that energy into not being afraid to talk to me. It's just cause I been around so long, I know, but it's nice.

The horses are now in the 4th grade, but they were 1st graders when I arrived. Those tiny cute minipeople have turned into kids with actual personalities and a great presence I think is uncommon for kids their age. The funny thing is, this is so at both separate elementary schools. At the bigger elementary, the 4th grade horses are sandwiched between the sheep below them (who I casually tend to think of as joyfully 'having rabies,' because they are perhaps the most 'fun' class I have) and the 5th grade snakes above them, some of whom border on being belligerent. But this sandwich effect always made for a sigh of relief when I saw their grade on my schedule amidst what promised to be a chaotic storm of the other grades. Every class is kind of hit or miss, but with the horses everything is a big hit.

Watching these 'horses' at recess reminds me of how long I really have been here. Kids grow, things change, and there was a time to come here, and there is a time to leave. That time is approaching.

Remember this kid? See here.

Now she gives piggy-back rides to the smaller ones.

I keep thinking about my farewell speech and putting off the writing of it. It's just going to turn into a love letter to the whole school, and I know it, and it embarrasses me a little bit, to think of having someone check it over for me and stuff, make sure the grammar is right before I stand and attempt to deliver. I guess it shouldn't, I guess really it's okay that at the end of these three years, even though I want to want to leave them with some bit of wisdom about cultural identity and international exchange, all I'm going to be able to get up there and say is I love you. Cause that's just kind of how I roll; sentimental n' shit. ^_^

the bike, the bus, and the broken car

I just love the way that things come together and the way that they fall apart. I want to tell this story for very little other reason than that it's funny to me. It's long as hell, so if you skip this one, I'll understand. ^_^

So first, let me refresh you on our cast of characters. First, The Bike:

China Downtown. Nowadays she is a little more rust-spotted, and the front basket is all bent because this one time we had a typhoon which sent her crashing to the ground.  Her story is here.

I had thought about biking to school before, especially when the weather was nice. I see high schoolers doing it all the time, which speaks to me that it isn't really all that hard, and come on Lem, you are certainly fit enough to do it if they are, aren't you? I mean, aren't you? I even did bike up to Ichi a time or two, for afternoon events where parking would be hard to come by. But there was always a reason not to do it, that reason mostly being time. It takes longer to bike than it does to bus, and I have a hard enough time catching the bus some mornings.. the idea of leaving early enough to make it to work on time by bike was daunting, and always ultimately overthrown.

But on nice mornings, as I watched high schoolers biking by from the bus window, I would sigh and think, if only I could get my shit together. Alas.

As you already know, I have a weakness for charity bike rides, as best evidenced by my twice-yearly leading of the PEPY Ride Himeji since the spring of my first year. So of course I was interested in the Oita Ride, which sounded cooler and cooler the more I read about it (and also more and more insane for someone like me who cannot really call herself a cyclist). There are a lot of issues with this, mostly being the ride is in OITA and though it is on a weekend, the logistics of getting to and from Oita in the time available is a bit daunting (and expensive). But ticket prices be damned, if Japan has anything, we have speedy trains!

So I signed up (shut up brain). And some of the emails were like, you should do some training, bike some more, try to spend some time biking, and I knew that biking to work would be a good way to get that time in... because it would serve so many purposes at once and would even be kind of good for me; still I could not get my crap together and budget that extra 40 minutes.

Unrelatedly, I had to go to the BOE a couple of times to ask about visa things and return plane ticket request forms. At the end of my second visit, my BOE contact added, something to the effect of, oh, one more thing, don't drive to school, only bus. And I was too surprised to say anything but yes.

(Cast member the car: Robin Red:)

My tiny and oh-so-recognizably red vehicle.

But later, that 'reminder' began to stew for all its implications.

First of all, I get that taking the bus is better for me and the environment in a lot of ways. The bus gives me time to chill out, read, look out the window mindlessly, sometimes even nap awkwardly. It gives me a good excuse to leave earlier than other people (I don't make the schedule! I just gotta follow it... ^_____^ heh, bye guys!) at work, and removes the carbon footprint I'd leave k-car-ing up to Ichi and back every day. It's true.

But there are times and places in which it just makes more sense for me to drive. One is when I plan to spend the whole day in Ichi (when I have adult class from 7:30 to 9, as there are no buses after 9, I have to drive myself-- but if I am going to be driving there and back once anyway, why waste the time of busing back home and driving back up there between school and the evening class?). Another is when I go to small elementary: rather than either rush a connection (making bus connections at all  ;_;) or wait half an hour for the connection (which gets me there late anyway..!), it's way less stressful to just handle it and bring myself to school at whatever time I think is necessary or important based on what I am doing and what materials I need time to arrange.

Other less legit reasons include having stuff I need to do, like wanting to hit the bank or post office or grocery store for lunch in the middle of the day. Or having stuff to do on the way home. Or suspecting that we might get out early and wanting to be able to just go when the VP gives the word. Perhaps less legit, but they have been reasons all the same.

But mostly, the 'reminder' was upsetting because it implied more than a lack of sense. It meant, we know you've been driving, and we take enough note of it to say something about it.

See, in Japan, they have this handy way of dealing with stuff. There is the official line, and then there is what actually happens. Back home, this line is a bit blurred most of the time. Everyone knows there is the Way It's Supposed to Be, and then the Way It Is, with the Supposed to Be actually being a sort of ideal that is hardly ever achieved. In Japan, Supposed-to-Be is more like a set of rules that may or may not make sense, and then the Way It Is is just the thing that happens while the higher ups cheerfully look the other way. Which has been the way this whole driving thing has been handled by everyone here for a long time.

I know that other JETs have also been driving daily when "not supposed to," and that no one ever said anything to them. My own teachers and staff have sometimes joked with me about how "it's a secret" that I drove that day. It's not a secret; everyone knows, we just don't talk about it and pretend I take the bus every day-- I drive rarely enough that it's not predictable anyway!

The other irksome thing is this. I'm a grown-ass woman. I do my job and I don't make trouble. Most people around here like me, and those who don't at least don't have it out for me. After three years, trust me to handle this. Because really, I got this. I do need help in some things, but in a lot of others, I think I can be allowed to make the call, because I'm not a little kid anymore.

The other paranoia-inducing part is, this must mean someone sold me out. Because I highly doubt that the BOE people are concerned enough about it to ride by my house and note when my car is missing during a weekday. So this leads a person to stare shiftily around the staff room wondering which of these two-faced jerks is perfectly nice to my face but in the evening sells me out to the higher-ups, and for what?

Basically it made me really, irrationally mad. And was also the little push of rage I needed to start biking to school! Don't drive, you say? Only BUS, you say? What about my bike, jerks?! I'll show you!!

..yeah. I'm not really showing anyone. But I did start biking to school, because I finally got over being embarrassed about being seen doing it (the one time I had brought my bike to school after going to fall festival, the kids completely missed the part where they were supposed to be impressed with my strength and power and were more making fun of my bike for being a 'mamachari' -- which I now know actually includes the word mama, which is just what it sounds like, and it means instead of gaining cool points, I lost them for not having a sporty bike, wtf) the day I put "please donate money to Oita Bike Ride" flyers on all the desks and a colorful donation box on my own. Now, it might all make sense. Emily bikes to school not because she is insane, or stupid, or irrationally mad and trying to stick it to the man, but because she is training for her upcoming event!

On the day I went to small elementary, it was raining, so I took the two buses I am supposed to take. As I dolefully prepared to go home, the principal of that school asked me, "Are you going to drive home now?" to which I replied with a sad sigh, "No. I'm taking the little bus."

"Oh," he said, "I think it's better." 

Aha. Of course. The guy who is always like "Are you driving home now?" and then "Be careful." What are you worried about? That the road is too narrow, this road I've taken six dozen times? That I can't drive well? Why, because I'm a woman? Because I'm a foreigner? Because I learned on the right? Because I left that "beginner" sticker in my window out of laziness and because people are generally kinder to you when you have it, even though I've been driving for almost a decade? Do you think it's others I will hurt with my car, or me? Why don't you believe in me?!

The irrational anger was back with a rage-spiced vengeance for this poor guy who is only trying to look out for me by telling the BOE to tell me not to drive to school, as I now believe happened. Nonetheless, the discovery did help me feel more at ease about my upcoming days -- days on which I wanted to drive because I wanted to skip out early, mostly (all errands or departure for Oita, actually).

One of those days was Thursday. Because of inconveniently timed rain, my poor bike remained in the large-elementary parking lot (more like parking pit, kinda) Wednesday night as well. I drove to large-elem Thursday, but on the way noticed that something about Robin Red didn't feel quite right. Usually, I notice a smell or a sound first, but this time it was a feel. She had been acting a little weird when idling, sometimes running high in RPMs for no reason, but I had never driven her farther than to kempo or Jusco, both approximately six minutes away, and I hadn't called the car people about it yet. I studied the dash for a moment. Shit. The temperature gauge was high, not quite in the red zone, but way higher than normal and way higher than okay.

I was almost to school, so I figured I'd just try to make it there and turn her off so she could cool down. She died right in the road when I stopped, waiting to turn in to the school driveway. I managed to coax her to restart while all of Thursday morning traffic waiting, and nudged her down into the gravel parking pit, where she came to rest right next to China, shuddered, and died parked at a funny angle.

I hopped out and looked around. Shit shit shit. Not supposed to even drive to school, having done so for shady reasons, needing a car that afternoon to "go and come back" running errands-- but this time all the way to Himeji, goodness. I thought about procrastinating the phone call to the car people, because they might not be open yet, it's before 8am, and there might be a Scene, and the school will have to openly acknoweldge that I drove, and...

Sucked it up, called them anyway. The car people are kind of personal friends of ours these days, so I told them as best I could what had happened, and about how I needed to use the car later that day to.. do some stuff... "We'll give you a loaner," she explained, "but the only one we have right now is a bigger car than yours. Like one that six people can ride in. Is that okay?" Blink. A real car. No, more than that, a van. They're giving me a van! Question of how I think I'll get China home when I planned to drive both Thursday and Friday? answered.

After school, I walked down to the parking pit and was pretty much flabbergasted to see the van neatly parked between China Downtown and the edge of the gravel area by the wall where Robin had expired at a funny angle. Someone has maneuvering powers. I was delighted; I rarely get to drive a real car here in Japan these days.

I climbed aboard this beast and was instantly rewarded with songs of flight and power. It achieved so effortlessly the speeds which Robin shrieks and whines to attain. China Downtown fit into the back without so much as touching the front seats. And I felt like I had just gained like 600 more badass points, not to mention I was now driving incognito! No one who has seen Robin Red will expect to find me piloting this beast, this boat, this whale of a car, which for the time I have it, I will be calling Diesel (because that, my friends, is the type of fuel it requires). And if anyone is like, "why wasn't Robin parked at your house the other day?" I can be like, "Because she is in the shop!" I only wish I had some kind of party to take all my friends to, because when I drive Diesel, I feel like I'm driving a bus. And I kind of am.

This car is twice the size of Robin. TWICE.

So IS any one part of this a blessing, or a curse? I can't really tell. It's complicated and silly. The icing on this long and nearly pointless tale is, I have developed a sore throat and I might not be able to go to Oita this afternoon after all. And I'm not saying that the sore throat is a result of any particular thing, but in my experience, I only get sick when I get stressed out/unhappy. So, there's that. I would call it irony, but I think irony is more like layering, and this story is more like interlocking pieces. It may be that I can't actually afford to go to Oita (timewise? money?) and am stubborn enough not to care, so the universe is forcing me to reconsider. Still, the event sounds awesome and I if I miss it, I will be very very sad.

false start

Today is one of the spring days of changes, in which the school assumes, or very nearly, the shape it will be in for the next twelve months or so. In some ways, I've been looking forward to this time because I felt I couldn't start preparing to leave until things were as they would be when I do that.

I can't tell my successor about where and who until the where and who have been set in place, as it were. Now we know.

My desk has been moved to one corner of the room, which I rather like. I don't like having my back to the rest of the room, and now I have a great (some might say commanding) view of the staff room. I can see everything, and to face the front, I need only look up. It's pretty sweet.

Today, MP-sensei is officially leaving, so my successor will never really know her; Twitchy and Mikan are staying, which is a good thing and a bad thing all at once (better the devil you know?). There is a new JTE coming in, whom I have not yet met but who Mikan-sensei said is his teacher. I picture her as an older woman, then, strict but well qualified as any seasoned veteran would be. Also I'm a little intrigued to see what kind of English teacher produced the Mikan-sensei, from a scholastic point of view.

I'm totally jumping the gun by writing this post right now because we're only halfway through the day, but I've kind of been dying to start the "for my successor" tab on this blog. One of the purposes of keeping it has been to pass on some knowledge and helpful info; I'm quite aware that after these three years, the blog (like my apartment) has become too full of stuff for any stranger to usefully sort without an abundance of spare time.

The "for my successor" series will be a lot of retrospectives and info I think might be useful to that person, which I will not expect myself to generate all at once, but to put together over the course of the next few months as I think of things. I have a tendency to just sort of think of things at random times and need to write them down right then. Like right now, even though I hardly have the info I'm trying to convey.

But I will. Today I have my meetings with the elementary school teachers to plot the year's schedule and figure out who the elementary English contact people are this year. It also says on the front board (which I can easily see!) that our new JTE will also be part of this meeting (but not Twitchy-sensei because he's a part-timer I guess).

It's rumored that I will be spending more time at Small Elementary and less at Big Elementary because of class size changes and so on. Rumors rumors!

Here's a mostly-blank diagram of the new desk layout.

The secretary is new, but she handles a lot of the paperwork and the previous one always helped me when I broke (or discovered a problem with) the copy machines. The new lady seems very energetic anyway.

The head teacher makes the schedules and distributes them, and also keeps the schedule for the front board. Sometimes he doesn't get to "tomorrow's" til the end of the day.. I think that is unusual, but he's a really nice guy.

The VP is the person you go to for all your personal scheduling requests (that is, when you want to take time off, or when you aren't sure what is up). He handles a lot of the official business of the school, and is really nice. He occasionally sends me home a little early and is understanding about things. I've heard horror stories about VPs who are super strict with vacation hours (yeah counting hours out for you) and who are loath to let you take vacay when you want to. Our guy seems to have no issues like this whatsoever. He is easily recognizable for his full head of mostly white hair. He speaks to me in Japanese like he has no doubt about my ability to understand, but also doesn't seem surprised when I ask about something I don't understand.

The principal has his own office (the door to it is between his desk and the copy machine, though there is another door to it in the hallway) where he receives guests and I suppose chills out when he wants to be in his own space and not in the crowded staff office. He used to be a PE teacher and looks (to me) like a Japanese Michael Scott. He's very friendly and likes to party; he doesn't know you yet but he would love to get drunk with you. He's good at karaoke and often communicates with me using one or two words and a lot of facial expressions.

Mikan-sensei is now starting his fourth year at this school, and is the JTE for the second year class. He has been the one to be in charge of me here. When I arrived, they (the BOE rep people) brought him along to the bank and cell phone place to help translate for me. He has been making my weekly schedule for me since then, and also attending at least one of every two-day conference, and the entirety of the one-day conferences I have been sent to.

Either because of these conferences, or because of his own personal awesomeness level, he is the best JTE I have ever worked with. He uses activities to teach and knows his students very well; he is very strict and very kind by turns (to the students) and depending on the situation (generally he's kind in class and strict as hell in club activity time) and also on the student in question (he knows who to be disappointed in and who to speak gently to). He has always been very nice to me. Mikan-sensei is in charge of a second year homeroom class and is also the kendo club leader, which means he can become very busy. I've always tried to find the balance between staying out of his way and trying to be helpful.

His wife is also an English teacher in a school further south (not in our city limits), and I hear she is as progressive and excellent as he is (perhaps even more so), and also I believe she has lived abroad in London and also in China at some point in her life. I've only met her like three or four times, but she's awesome too.

Twitchy-sensei is about 26 years old, and is starting his second year (at this school and also of teaching, ever). He spent seven years in Vancouver, Canada (attending high school and University), and his English comprehension is therefore very high. His interest so far has been in grammar and translation, but Mikan-sensei (and now I resolve to rejoin the effort) has been on task to get him out of that habit.

I feel like I just wrote a glowing review of Mikan-sensei in which my respect and admiration are pretty clear, so I feel like an asshole if I follow that with a dour report on Twitchy-sensei. But we must be honest, too. (Heh...) Twitchy tries very hard and is very friendly, so that makes it kind of sad all around when he falls short (which last year happened a good bit). Suffice for now to say that Mikan-sensei will be in charge of both the first year and second year classes, and Twitchy will be "like a TA," according to Twitchy himself. And from today's optimistic point of view, we'll remind ourselves that Mikan has a lot more experience than Twitchy, and maybe in the fullness of time.... or something..

Aaaand .....this is about all I can provide for now.

(Also, just in case it's not obvious, these are not their real names, nor do they [or should they probably] know these nicknames at all. It's just how I like to represent them on the interwebz because of all the biased misinformation I am spouting. Oh and libel. Etc.)

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.

Graduation as an anniversary, and cookie-baking

My last class with the 3nens was on their last actual day of class, from what I understand. This was unusual; normally our last class creeps up on us out of the calendar and I'm halfway through conducting it before we realize there won't be any more.

But this year was different. We planned ahead, and I wanted to make it special. So special, in fact, it would require the assistance of those abroad. I was callin' in the pudding cookies.

Other ALTs have done cooking classes with their students, but I never had before. Mostly I felt bad for asking to use the computer room, so the prospect of taking over and making use of not only a special room, but also a bunch of ingredients (which at first I thought, heck I'll just pay for, until I realized that chocolate chips have to be imported too, unless you want to bake with mini bags of mini chips and they just don't make cookies here like they do back home-- which is entirely the point of doing a class like this, after all), and making such a big mess and deal, well it seemed too much to ask, and to do. Plus, I'm not much of a cook. I don't know any really special recipes, right? Or super delicious representative foods?

But this year, I thought, no, let's do this. My favorite recipe is a fairly simple cookie recipe which is fairly cheap and did I mention really easy to make at home. The stuff you need is mostly already in your house. But for twelve groups of middle schoolers with a big shiny new kitchen classroom, it's a bit different. In Japan, everything comes in smaller bags and bottles, and since it was a class thing, we needed massive amounts of all the ingredients. First, we put in orders with Foreign Buyer's Club and YoYoMarket variously for all kinds of things. For the butter and eggs and sundry, we put in orders at the local grocery.

I was struck again with just how much butter and sugar goes into this recipe, but it's my favorite for a reason. The special secret ingredient (which my mom mailed me, thank goodness), makes the cookies really extra soft and forgiving. A few groups were instructed to make the regular "bag" recipe (that written on the choco chip bag) since we didn't have enough pudding mix packets for all 12 groups (that was my bad), but I think the substitutions of measurement and flour type and whatever the hell else happened in the process of procuring and measuring the ingredients in Japan vs. back home caused those poor groups to suffer very flat cookies.

All in all, the entire thing was a great experience, and a clusterfuck, and it gave me a cold. 

The clusterfuck aspect is pretty obvious: the recipe which is easy at home is not easy with a bunch of kids who have never made cookies before. I tried to tell them when a pile of the gooey dough was too big or too close to the others, but having never made cookies (having NEVER made cookies, at home), they couldn't really envision it. Also kids will be kids. I too remember looking at the pan and thinking, this extra dough could be one. GIANT. cookie. Oh awesome. Or, I wonder if we could make a pancake that was ACTUALLY the size of the PAN. So they had to try it, and it was pretty awful.

Also, there is the fact that this was all supposed to take place within one 50-minute class period, which I figured we could totally do. We could not.

Given one whole class period to clean up, we did restore the kitchen to order and were able to move the cookies during 4th hour.

Thirteen batches total. This is more cookieage than I ever made on my own.

The greatness of the experience was in their joy at being able to try it, and also at my own realization that they had just been given a little piece of something American iconic: cookies and milk. They didn't even know the two went together, and were horrified to see my dunk my cookie in the milk box. I was horrified that they had never heard of doing that.

That it gave me a cold is only in the way I stressed out about the whole thing in a manner that increased exponentially each day approaching the baking project. For me, colds aren't simply germs getting in and making a mess. Well it is that. But it's something else, because in my situation, that is, my age and general physical health and occupation, I am around germs all the time. Not like really bad ones, but I do work in an elementary school half the week. Shit goes around. Little kids TOUCH EVERYTHING. Germs are always there; I don't stay healthy by avoiding them, goodness knows. 

No. Getting sick is actually the rearrangement of stress and negative energy into bad physical reactions. It is conducted through the emotional wearing out of a person which leaves the mind and heart weakened against the ever-present opportunistic germs. It wasn't just the cookies thing that wore me out, of course: there are a great many things, mostly small, but too many of them nonetheless.

One is, of course, graduation. Graduations were not ever my forte, and this year there are the added bonuses of 1: these are my three-year students, meaning that when I arrived they were first-years, and now they are graduating, and 2: this is March, in Japan. 

March in Japan USED to mean spring (finally), graduation, and at the very end, hanami. But, and a lot of people don't think about this because it is so different from the western schedule, for a lot of us in schools, March 11th was, before it was the biggest goddamn earthquake of recorded history and tsunami of nearly unwatchable devastation, March 11th was graduation day. So we all sat in chilly gymnasia and cried a little while our teenage students fixed their wet eyes on the future and took flight from us. We all shook hands and took photos and sang songs and then, while we were puttering around the office, the chairs all stacked up, people already out of those black suits (always black suits for these occasions), while we were attending to paperwork or just now turning our attention to the next two weeks of school with the other students (graduates leave early or something), somewhere after the graduation while we were biding time before the evening teacher party, then that terrible disaster happened. 

I have heard other stories, from people in other places. One girl said they were already having the post-graduation party when they saw the shaking roll toward them across the horizon. Their boss said, "save the beer!" so they all grabbed one of the hefty bottles and held it up so the shaking table wouldn't spill it. 

So kind of.. in the way that you remember where you were when such and such a thing took place, and for those of us who lived in Japan, knew someone who lived in Japan, any of those related things, maybe this is one of those things. Everyone in Japan will remember where they were when they heard about the quake (or, if closer than we were, felt it). And for myself and many, many of my cohort, it was graduation day. I was exchanging e-mails, making plans with Sagramore in Tokyo, who noted in an e-mail at 3:05pm that there had been a "big ass earthquake just now, btw," and then failed to respond to my subsequent emails. I'm not into worrying, but I wondered just how big he meant, until others started getting phone calls and we turned on the TV.

So although it's not quite the year-anniversary of that event, it is, because it's graduation again, another Friday afternoon just like that one was.

Today, I'm in that in-between time again, just waiting til I can go home and hopefully take a nap. This graduation has been extra tiring because, as I mentioned, bonus number 1, they are my three-year kids, and also my last graduation, and I can't look at the departing students without seeing my own future, I can't hear their speeches without writing my own. I can't think about "Ichinan Family" without starting to cry. Splice that with the cold I got from cookie-baking and guess how many packs of tissues I've used up today. 

Tonight is the teacher party and once again, my head's not really in the game.

Some second years, being goofballs.

Emily, it’s been so long since you updated! What have you been doing that is so absorbing?

A whole lot of not much to write home about.

Well. Let me tell you what. At work, as things continue apace, rocketing toward graduation, I finally took all my marbles in hand and chucked them in the river (so you can’t call them ‘lost,’ exactly..). Idecided it was high time I tried the old ‘cooking class’ with middle schoolers. I also decided that, instead of some kind of culminating lesson with the younger elementary students, we’re just going to do a ‘cultural’ lesson for the end of the year instead (see: play foursquare and HORSE in the gym). This is essentially my way of giving up on teaching 4^th graders anything but the alphabet, God love ‘em.

As for the cooking, I have chosen my favorite recipe perhaps of all time, the delicious cookies I have been making since perhaps I myself was in middle school, recipe received from childhood friend Cindy. I thought of them because once, in high school, a few friends and I made a huge mess of them (like the way you might make a ‘mess of biscuits’ with Pappy O’Daniel flour) in lieu of other Valentine’s Day activity, then went about the school dispensing them in decorative baggies to our favorite people.

The problem with them is they require special ingredients not found in Japan, specifically instant pudding mix and chocolate chips. And I know certain Japan-familiar friends are going to give me shit about chocolate chips, because you can get them at Jusco, so let me qualify that by saying I went to Jusco and the chocolate chips there are MINI chips and they come in MINI bags, and are not appropriate for this LARGER THAN LIFE recipe of deliciousness.

So I sent away for some chips from Foreign Buyer’s Club (along with some oatmeal, taco mix, and other wonderful things, although I yesterday rediscovered a box of Reese’s cereal in my pantry I had forgotten I hid there.. basically I mean to say, I’m hitting the food jackpot)and found myself wondering why I haven’t ordered anything from them ever before, or in fact why I go to the grocery store at all, excepting the fact that I don’t think it’s a good idea to ship eggs to me, and also that bread comes in packs of about 3 slices, so you run out of that pretty fast (which is actually a good thing, because it goes bad just as fast), when ordering stuff online is so very easy.

Because, why leave your house at all? Well, actually I’ve not spent as much time there as I had expected to. I’ve been writing, actually. That novel I keep going on about (do I?), I’ve actually started working on it again and have completed a lot more words. But before you say “send me the first bit,” halt, you who are ignorant in the ways of “NaNoWriMo” and other such ‘just-write-that-shit’ techniques, because the first bit is total tripe right now, because I’m just trying to push through to get any possible amount of the plot barfed through the keyboard into word documents, so it calls for massive revision, especially because on some days, I didn’t feel like writing ‘description’ of any kind, and those happened to be the days that certain scenes were set specifically so that I could describe the setting of the fantasy world as seen through the eyes of a visitor. So that section goes kind of like “There was a parade. It was colorful.” The end.

I got the best comment EVER from a first grader yesterday at go-home-kai. I’ve been swimming a few times a week, just to stay moving, and especially on the Thursdays where I have to skip kempo for evening English class (I just bring a bag and my car and spend the entire day up near work because the pool is right next to work, actually). So it was Thursday, and the week before, I’d been at the pool, so this little first grader said “You’ll be at the pool today, won’t you.” And I said, noooo, actually today I have shorinji kempo instead.

And that cute little kid’s eyes bugged out of his head and he cried out "Suge~ onna!" And I laughed right out loud, because “sugoi” is a word that means .. “awesome” or “incredible, terrific, impressive.” But sugei is the Kansai version, and truncating it is a way of intensifying the word to sort of import shock into that impression. Onna means woman, but is not the politest thing to say.. normally you say onna no hito, meaning female person, for woman. So overall it was pretty much an intense, very Kansai, rather rude, very flattering interpretation of me. The kid then went on to tell the kid next to him that I was scary and one should not mess with me. 

It was pretty much the highlight of the month.

Otherwise, things just keep on keeping on. Lots of changes on that horizon, lots to come. Keep feeling like the end is nigh (and it is, with graduation upon us as of the 9th), the end is nigh, but there's a lot to go between here and there. And beyond!

Officially Any Good

Well, it’s officially official. I turned in my paper yesterday.

It’s kind of silly how, when a decision is actually uncertain, I will submit the paperwork as soon as I know. And yet when I know ahead of time, dither to and fro, take out the form, look at it, put it away again, unwilling to submit to the inevitable, pushing back til the last minute the official sealing of my own fate. It is my way to go dragging my heels (not kicking and screaming, that is far too dramatic and noisy) through a change of any appreciable size, and this upcoming repatriation is appreciable.

When I finally did turn in the form at the last possible moment, nothing changed, no new sense either of despair nor relief washed over me. This is the next step in the way of things, it does not push its weight upon you, because its weight was meant to settle gradually, day by day, and you’ve already begun to feel it some time ago, and it will get more and more obvious, in some ways more and more strenuous, as the days go on.

But you’re doing it right, taking it slow, even being willing to enjoy, to some extent, the way that it hurts to leave. Let yourself wax poetic as you watch the snow falling between you and the dark of the evergreens.

Yesterday was a day that could have been any day. After school, I walked up the hill to Sponic, had a swim, showered, came back to school where some of the girls on their way home stopped to talk to me, then rode with the music teacher back to town. It was the first round of test for third years to get into high school, and there was a dinner party that night. We talked and ate, and I forgot, and the food was so good, and the guests between heartbreaking and a little annoying once the beer wore off in the karaoke box and the principal wouldn’t stop shaking my hand, asking if I thought he was cool.

At some point during dinner, the judo coach was talking about his time in America, mishaps and fast food restaurants, and I saw reflections of my home in his words. Then he talked about the kyoudai, the students I refer to as twins even though I am fully aware that one is older, who may work their way (is this small town gullibility?) to the Olympics in judo in a couple years. I wondered, will I hear about it? Will I see them on TV, grappling with French kids, and remember how they were when I called on them in class?

I have a connection to this place, and while it will thin and grow taut, I like to think it will not break entirely. I don’t skim easily over change because I sink into things, or they sink into me. I burrow, I feed my need to explore, to find out shit. Some of it also comes by accident.

The band teacher said something in the car on the way back to town, about how good the school has been this year, all three classes stacking up well. Last year the third years weren’t very responsible, they were full of troublemakers, but this year, there’s a harmony in place that is rare in middle schools. She called it a “miracle” and I agreed, because middle school is a tough crowd, a tough age to be, and somehow this student body makes it looks easy. I sighed to myself. All that will change in a month, as graduation hits us and a new school year begins, so it’s not that I’m losing that. It’s just that I’m glad I got to be part of the miracle year, I guess, to watch them grow and become.

One thing I remember from my kepmo homework that sticks out still is something about how, not only is it important to believe in your ability to change yourself, but it is impossible to remain the same. I’ve had a tendency all my short life long to try to keep everything, to hold on to things, even when I knew I knew better. There are pieces of that I’ve been seeing recently in my iTunes, of all places.. I don’t use iTunes, or didn’t, but have been more lately, and a lot of the music I have isn’t stuff I sought out on my own. I’m not very good or motivated at chasing down music I like. I much prefer asking for my friends’ music and then letting it sink into my consciousness by just having it in the car until I get tired of it. There aren’t a lot of people in the world I have actively cut out of my life.. I can think of two, actually. And I still have the music they gave me.

Why? Ah, why not? Because it was theirs? It’s not theirs anymore. Because it reminds me of them? So it does. Is it so bad to be reminded? That’s not what I cut out; I didn’t want to deal with them anymore. Is keeping the stuff they gave me dealing with them? Remembering them is bittersweet, and I kind of like that.

So anyway, it’s impossible to remain the same. Like, even if you stay in the same place and do the same thing and get the same result, even if you never move forward, you still can’t stay the same. If you never take a step, or a leap, if you never try, you still won’t be the same old thing (theoretically, good thing, since you wanted to avoid that change, right?) you wanted to stay being.

It echoes into the contractual paperwork. It is impossible to stay in your apartment and job forever, even if you wanted to, which you must admit (while there are some thing of which you may never grow tired), you don’t even want to.

But if it’s impossible to remain the same, then why not try to become better? In whatever way. Stronger. Happier. Better at math. More patient. More kanji in your head. Whatever. My JET life is in its final one-sixth, but my ties to Japan could just be beginning. They will be different, in six months, but that doesn’t mean they won’t be any good.

nescio, sed fieri sentio et excrucior

It's finally here: Wednesday. I've been looking longingly at this day on the calendar since sometime last week when I realized what was happening on that pattern of numbered squares. It's a desk day, a nothing but do as you will you little ALT you day (oh, and o-souji), after weeks and weeks of classes and lesson planning and elementary and children being horrible brats and snide comments and terrorizing each other and I need a vacation for the love of God...

As usual, there's a lot going on. A lot of fun things, a lot of exciting things, a lot of tiring, tedious things, a lot of normal things, daily grind things, online course-taking things (did I mention that my TEFL course has been both more interesting and helpful, and also more demanding of me than I predicted it would be?).

I just checked to make sure my flights are all in order (that is, that I actually do have tickets for all the different flights I thought I had tickets for). Now I'm putting all the info on to one handy page, registering with the travel website of the US, and trying to generate a packing list.

But when I say there's a lot going on, it isn't all just out there in the physical world.. I also mean inside my head. It's been a bit of a mess in there lately. I don't mean to complain, but I do mean to be honest. I've been riding right up on the edge of a nice toasty meltdown.

A lot of it has to do with my ever more precarious position, timewise. As the weeks go by, things shift more and more. Everything becomes a game of now or never. I look outside and I resent having to leave this place. I look down and can't wait to get out. I say, it's my third year, so that means I have to go. "They've changed the contract," my fellow ALTs tell me, "look, you can stay up to five years, now."

Five years, three years: neither one is really permanent. The more I learn and the better I get at my job, the more frustrating become the confines of the system within which I am wrapped. They don't know what I mean when I say, it's my third year, so I have to go.

It feels connected to an inner need to own something, or build something, rather than just subsist comfortably between the lines of what the teachers expect and the students enjoy.

You can always tell a Dutchman, but you can't tell him much. When I arrived, I was daunted because the shoes were bigger than my feet, but the more I learn about language, about teaching, the more I wish I could run the city's English program (does it officially have one?), design its curriculum, lay out its calendar, and direct its activities. I want to do things my way, but not just my things. I want to be in charge of the entire affair, albeit in small scale. I would say, let me open a language school, but there are already plenty of those. Besides, I want it to be available publicly, to everyone; I want the English classes already happening four times a week to really accomplish something. I want to go at it in a systematic and real way, I want someone to see what a multi-layered approach to foreign language education starting in elementary school and pursued in earnest can really do. I mean, you'd have kids, like, fuckin'... speaking English and shit!

My dreams and desires are too big for my pigeonhole. So even though I like my salary, and I love my school (I seriously think my particular position is one worthy of envy) for its wonderful students and excellent fellow staff members and sweet new building, and I like my apartment, and I like my ALT friends, and my travel opportunities, and my Japanese townies and their gifts and their pets, and my Japan seasons and small town life, I don't like my job anymore, and I honestly think that for that reason, someone else will do a better job than me next year. Because they'll be excited to teach Halloween or whatever cultural holiday, and I skipped it entirely this year. Because I'm tired of fighting fourth graders, and enduring exuberant shouts of "gaikokujin!" (though it is pretty friggin cute that a four-year-old is able to include the "koku" part of that word... it's much more polite that way) I'm tired of "harro" and "ohashi jouzu," and all the stares and trepidation I encounter when I try to deal with people that don't know me.

And I'm tired too of missing holidays, family gatherings, weddings, funerals, parties, and babies. I'm tired of telling kids about holiday traditions in which I don't get to participate this year, and furthermore, knowing that they don't quite get it, because you don't know what it's like unless you're there, and moreover, there again and again every year. What is Halloween really like? How can I simulate or explain the experience of trick-or-treating, costumes, and also how your Halloween evolves from age 5 to 15? What is the true meaning of Christmas, especially to a roomful of Shinto-Buddhists?

I'm not part of Japan, not really, and in many ways never can be. In other ways, it could be a matter of time. Language barriers shift, weaken, and in some sectors come down, but in others they remain annoyingly in the way. But I'm not part of the lives of the people back home either; how much does anyone really know or understand about how my life goes on a normal basis, about what annoys, delights, gratifies, or frightens me? About what I enjoy, what I'm grateful for, what I need, and what I want? And what do I know about what it's like to be over there now? That feeling of disconnect has been approaching fever pitch.

I've complained before about people who say they want to start on their "real lives," how I think being here is just as real and just as part of life as going back home to a non-existent job and a bigger picture. But I do have to admit that there are a lot of things that are on hold while being here. This is another case of totaling up the little things -- each on-hold item is not a big deal by itself, but enough of them, and for long enough, starts to tip the balance over. Professionally and personally speaking, I can see the way the scales have slid, and I know it's time to go (relatively).

But I still hate to have to.

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/

Faking It

I now sit on my second shinkansen ride within this week. On Monday, I took one from Kagoshima back up to Himeji. Today, I take one from Osaka to Tokyo. Then, I was dressed in the ragged remains to be expected from one who just went hiking in the pristine natural wonders of the island of Yakushima, and today I sport the business suit look appropriate for a young professional on her way to a smart-looking conference.

Sometimes I like to step back and imagine myself from the outside looking in. What does it look like, the foreigner in the brown business suit who could not be older than 20?

I am older than 20, of course, and I suppose by Japanese standards, I do look it. In the US, I still get asked if I’m alright taking such long flights by myself, and I will be carded until I’m 35, but I’m alright with that. The business suit is mostly a ruse; I’m faking it, right now. A glance at my luggage will tell you that much. Where the men (it is mostly men, in their business attire) around me have their sleek black briefcases and tiny travel rollerbags, I am hauling the same stuff I dragged around Kagoshima last weekend: my tattered (what do you want, it was ten dollars two years ago) black backpack that gets my crap to school every day, and the weekend bag I recently inherited from Caito that has a picture of a lion on one side (“It will be dressed up with a ribbon”), and Sakurajima ash stains on the bottom. I like the lion bag because it’s just the right size for the kind of weekend trips I’ve been taking, and it doesn’t have a lot of confusing compartments. I have tried to be organized and sort things into pockets here and pockets there, but in the end, I can’t help it: I’m a throw it all in there kind of kid.

My hair is different too; got it cut in a sort of bob which it seems to be handling rather well (although one of those 5^th graders called me Mr. Willy Wonka the other day and now they’re all doing it), and I have the straigtening to thank for that. The elementary teachers like to compliment my cute new styles, and it seems like I’ve been changing them a lot lately. I got my hair straightened in early June, and wore it like that to work for one day enjoying the attention it garnered, before much worse news came down—after that, every compliment seemed a mockery because I wanted to be invisible, and wondered how I, how anyone, could be expected to give one single goddamn about whether or not I changed my hair. It’s too easy, though, to say something about a changed look, even to someone to whom you can rarely find anything else to say. The bob, though, it’s still easier to control than the curls, though the old ways are coming back.

The business suit I bought in Hong Kong, very cheaply of course, but it does the trick.

The conference I’m headed to at the moment is the PA (Prefectural Advisor) conference. We PSG (peer support group) members get to attend because there is a lot of counseling training offered at this conference. I attended last year, and I remember really liking the learning feeling, and also the chance to meet the other members of our otherwise phone/skype/email-only group.

I tear myself away from my hectic ALT life to attend.

And while that normally would be just me, being sarcastic, I do mean it this time. Yesterday, we finished speech practice early. As usual, I’m very proud of my kids, and pleased with their progress. As usual, I think we have a fighting shot at first and second place, but I’ve been wrong so far.

Since we finished early, I knew it was my chance to memorize the second half of my model speech, an oration which is approximately twice as long as the student speeches. I took it outside so I could pace up and down by the river, muttering and proclaiming to the trees and clouds. I had initially planned to memorize it a paragraph a day, but that pretty much failed. I had to really buckle down, and walk laps around the elementary school during my free period to memorize the first half.

Now the whole speech is safely stored in my head, but if I know myself (and I do, better now than before at least), it will have a tendency to fly me when faced with a distraction as large as someone watching me. The other teachers don’t seem concerned. Of course you can memorize this much; it’s English, your native language. Why should you feel nervous? It’s English, your native language.

Having nothing to do with the language, I color red whenever I am placed in front of a large group of people. I can prepare and prepare, but I will still get flustered, if only for a moment. The key is to not allow that moment to snowball!

But I digress. Speech contest preparation, planning the skit to entertain my students while the judges deliberate, memorizing my own shit, and weekend travel are just set atop the usual go-round of planning elementary, and putting together entertaining (educational!!) activities for the daily grind. Oh and October, so kempo tourney, Halloween, and my birthday are coming up, not to mention tis the season to go festival-ing!

Immediately following this PA conference is the Japan Writers Conference, in Kobe (conveniently on the way home from Tokyo, for me). I’m not fully decided on how long I’ll stay, since Sunday (the 16^th) is also Iwa Jinja’s major autumn festival and it is my last year, after all.

Until just now, I hadn’t considered how this week has neatly lined up the three different futures I still hold possible for myself: counseling, writing, teaching. The big three.

Anyway, I just wanted to check in with this before going on to write of a few long-weekend adventures: Kansai By the Seat of my Pants, and Kagoshima By the Skin of my Teeth. To complete the image of a young lady on a busy schedule, I will continue to get to work!