More Pictures

For those of you reading this who aren't on facebook, I posted more pics AND I figured out a way for everyone, facebookers and non-facebookers alike, to see them-- just follow this link!

http://claremont.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2053186&l=8d790&id=13301566

The pics are from my school's festival, my apartment, and my neighborhood. Not as artistic as the last batch, but still interesting (I hope).

-Mandy

Almost October?!?

I really can't believe how fast the days are going by now that school is in full swing. Almost two months have passed since I got here! Last night I had a dream that my year here was finished, and I have a funny feeling that dream is going to become a reality in no time at all. I thought that graduating from college and no longer having any homework would mean having tons of free time on my hands... SO not the case. Already I'm behind on my to-do lists! Look at this blog, for example: it's been nine days since my last post, and I even have the internet in my apartment now. I'm currently posting at school. Where does the time go?

I'll tell you where it went two weekends ago-- all over Tokyo and back again. I promised to write about my weekend adventure, so here it is: Four other ALTs and I took the night bus from Toyama city to Tokyo, leaving at 11:45pm and getting in at 5:45am. We did not get much sleep that night, needless to say. So, we checked into what turned out to be the best hostel ever, and took showers and naps before heading out for the day. (A quick note on the hostel: it had opened only a month before, so it was brand spankin new, super clean, and super cheap-- such a great deal!) After resting up for a bit, we headed out to this huge garden and Shinto Shrine area that I am embarrassed to say I never actually learned the name of. (Much of this weekend was like that-- me not knowing what was going on. I blame it on the sleep deprivation, but really it was probably just laziness on my part.) We hung around there for a bit, and I bought one of those little wooden boards you can write your wish on, and I hung it up with all the others. I liked the idea of leaving something that might still be there even when I leave Japan.

After the shrine, we headed out to Yokohama for the Great Japan Beer Festival 2007-- all you can drink (more like all you can sip, considering the size of the glasses they gave us) for a mere 4000 yen (about $40). That was a lot of fun; Yokohama is a beautiful harbor city with really beautiful night views! My favorite beer was a raspberry flavored one that, again, I don't know the name of. (I sense the overall theme of the weekend developing here.)

Then, we went back to the hostel and freshened up for a night out. We met up with one of Sarah's friends at a bar, then at 1am headed to a club in Shibuya to see a Japanese funk band play. Turns out we just missed their first set, and they didn't start their second one until 4am. Soooo, 3 hours of sleep deprivation later, the band came on, and they were AWESOME. They covered James Brown songs, and they were really good! But, alas, around 5am, I had fallen and couldn't get back up, so to speak. Sarah, Ann and I took a delirious cab ride back to the hostel, and I was asleep by 6am. Thank god.

At 1pm on Sunday, it was time to get started all over again. We were going to go see sumo, but sadly the tickets for that day were all sold out. So, we headed to a Buddhist temple (you got it- I don't know the name) for a lantern festival. Of course, considering we slept until 1:00, it was night time by the time we got there, so the timing worked out perfectly. After that it was dinner at an American-style restaurant (they had REALLY good pizza), and back to the hostel for another late night of cheap wine and "Never Have I Ever."

We checked out on Monday at 11am, and headed out again for sumo, this time armed with tickets we had purchased the previous day. We got to the venue, and it was great because the sumo wrestlers were just walking around in their robes and top knots and buying snacks at the convenience store like it was no big deal, totally normal. (Wtf??) I was about to take a picture of this strange sight when I realized my camera wouldn't turn on. I opened the battery compartment, and sure enough, in my near comatose state the night before, I had taken it out of the charger and put it down in a mystery location in the hostel, which remains undisclosed to this day. I was SO bummed, and in classic Type A style, I silently fumed over my stupidity for the remainder of the trip and much of the next day, until I was able to bike to the nearest electronics store (about 40 minutes away) to buy a new one. Anyway- back to sumo: it was the BEST part of the trip, hands down. I loved it!! The whole thing was very ceremonius-- This little man in a brightly colored robe would chant something before each match, and then the wrestlers would warm up by lifting their legs in the air and waddling around one another, much like nervous mother hens protecting their nests. Then they'd throw some salt in the ring, and BAM, have at it. Sometimes the matches would be over in a few seconds; the best ones would last half a minute or longer. I really enjoyed the whole experience. And despite what my teachers at school now believe, that I "like fat man," it really had nothing to do with their gelatinous bodies. In fact, the truth is, many of them were more muscle than fat! Well, ok... maybe half muscle, half fat. Anyway, the point is, I do NOT like fat man-- but I do LOVE sumo!

After sumo it was back to the train station to catch the shinkansen (bullet train) back to Takaoka. Three long, exciting, *expensive* days later, I was home. My little apartment never looked so good.

Soooo that was my weekend in Tokyo! Since then I have been teaching during the week and generally trying to catch up on rest and errands on the weekends. This weekend I will be getting ready for my parents' arrival on Wednesday-- I've got groceries to buy, my apartment to clean, travel arrangements to make, etc etc. But I'm really excited for their visit!

Before I go I'd like to leave you with some excerpts from some student essays I graded this morning. Just for kicks. The topic was "What kind(s) of energy should we use from now on, and why?" Here are some of the ones I enjoyed reading the most:

"Solar energy and blow energy" -Sounds good to me.

"I think solar energy is very good. It is useful for us to use. Solar energy prevented warmming glove from wormming glove." -You tell em, kiddo.

"I think solar energy is the best. It's different from atomic energy that human being created. Its energy can get from sun and probably unlimitted. If we go on using atomic energy, the earth will collapse. It means our death. We should use "nature" resources for fear we die. We can use solar energy in place of atomic energy from now on. If you buy your house, you have seller fix the solar panel on the roof." -This kid's got green architecture down!

"What we should do at first is study for improvement. I want to protect our earth. I study hard to look for the way to use alternative energy sources. I hope our future is excellent and beautiful." -Now, if only our current president was so determined...

"I think hydroelectric power is best. Water is unlimited resource and Japanese people are familiar with water." -Good thing, otherwise this whole island thing would be a problem.

And finally, "The best energy source I think is cheap, safety, able to be used simply. because if it's safety, nobody would be killed by it, if it's cheap, it could be used everyone, if we can used it everytime, and in all over the world, we could save the poor." -In Jesus' name, Amen.

I hope you enjoyed reading these six even more than I enjoyed reading all two hundred.

Until next time,
Mandy

I heart Japan

I am writing my first post from my apartment!! YAYYY I finally have the internet! They sent me the modem and activated the service on Wednesday, and I set everything up all by myself and got it up and running! I'm so excited! Except now I waste a lot of time online. Haha.

This will be quick because I have to shower and iron my pants for tomorrow, but I just wanted to put this link to my first set of uploaded pictures out there: http://www.flickr.com/photos/13818753@N04/. It should be accessible to anyone. I've posted my favorite pics so far; take a look and I hope you enjoy them!

Here's one of my absolute favorites, just for starters (it's from outside Kenrokuen Gardens in Kanazawa; there was a festival going on):



I'll write a long post this weekend about my AMAZING visit to Tokyo and Yokohama last weekend-- SO much fun!! Some of the pics are from that trip, so maybe some of you can get a sneak peak if you take a look now. Also, tomorrow is Takaoka Minami's School Festival, meaning no classes, and all fun and games! The kids have been preparing like crazy, decking out their classrooms, cooking food, practicing music and drama pieces, etc. It's going to be awesome! I'll be taking a ton of pictures for sure, so look for a second installation of pics on the flickr website coming soon.

Til later this weekend (another three-day weekend, yay!),
Mandy

A Light at the End of the Tunnel

So, cross my fingers hope to die, I THINK I am getting internet in my apartment in a week. I hope I didn't just jinx it by saying that. For those of you who don't know, the whole internet thing has been a general pain in the ass. I originally applied for it a month ago, and was told it would take a month to process my application and get an appointment to get it installed. Sure enough, I got my appointment for almost exactly a month after the original date. They were supposed to come to my apartment on September 10th. Sadly, however, the company called on September 8th, saying things to me in Japanese that I did not understand. I had my supervisor call them on the 9th, and after a long non-English conversation, she got this look of sorrow and embarrassment on her face, and said "Sorry... Sorry... there has been a problem with your application. They will not come to your apartment on Monday." It was like all my dreams had been shattered by a fast-moving truck. Well maybe not that bad, but still pretty disappointing. It turns out the store where I had applied was supposed to send photocopies of my ID documents to the phone company, but they never did, so they sent me a letter asking me to do it, but of course the letter was in Japanese and I had no idea what it said, and my supervisor failed to read it carefully enough to tell me, and yadda yadda yadda long story short is I did not get internet a month after applying, as promised. I spent the weekend intermittantly hanging out with people, which was fun, and sulking about my loss, which was not so fun. Luckily, two friends of mine gave me the English line for a different internet company, and I called them on Monday and was able to apply through them and get an activation date of September 19th, only 8 days from now! Anyway, the moral of the story for anyone who is even thinking about ever living in Japan is DO NOT APPLY FOR YAHOO-BB IN PERSON. EVER. Do it online, or apply over the phone with NTT. That's my two cents of advice, for what it's worth. It'll save you a lot of trouble.

So, now I'm at school, and I just finished up my Tuesday of my second week. Classes are going well, and I'm getting settled into a routine here. Tomorrow I go to the deaf school, to teach my two classes, each with one student only. It's much more relaxed than Takaoka Minami, and I have a lot of down time to read and use the internet. I like my two students also; I help them read and write the alphabet and simple words. Last week I made up some bingo cards and crossword puzzles to make it a little more exciting for them. I'll bring prizes for them tomorrow too; stickers and keychains from home and whatnot. Woo!

Alright some students are here in the staffroom to sell tickets for ice cream for the school festival coming up, so I guess I'd better go buy some (by which I mean I want to catch them before they leave... mmmm ice cream).

Until next time (maybe I'll have my own internet by then??),
Mandy

Back to school

So, it's Tuesday, and the second official day of the term. School resumed yesterday, and I was so excited that I had to write about it last night even though I couldn't post until today! So, I've copied and pasted below what I wrote at home yesterday about my first day:

I just finished my first day of school! It was fantastic. Let me give you a run down:

School officially started at 8:35am, with the Opening Ceremony in the gym. I was given very specific instructions for my role in the ceremony—i.e., Number 1: stand at gymnasium door. Number 2: Enter gymnasium. Number 3: Walk to stage… And so on. In short, I was introduced by the principal in a very proper manner to the entire school (500 students and about 40 faculty), all who remained standing for the whole ceremony in very neat rows. It was a little military-esque, to be honest. But, I guess that’s Japan for you: very proper. After I was introduced by the principal, I had to give a self-introductory speech—in Japanese! All I did was read it off of a piece of paper (my speech had been translated into Japanese by my supervisor), but still, it was a little nerve-wracking! I made it through with only a few mistakes though, at which point I was very relieved to leave the stage and go stand in line with the rest of the teachers. The ceremony concluded after a few more speeches and introductions (the new student government, for instance), and then it was off to my first class!

At 9:35, Oral Communications, a class for 40 first-years (so many students!), began. I had prepared a self-introductory lesson, complete with a Power Point slideshow, a quiz, and an activity to help the students get to know me better. I think the class went well, but it was a little hard to tell, primarily because students in Japan do NOT respond when you ask them something! I went through my whole slideshow (very slowly and clearly, of course) and then explained the first set of instructions for the quiz; “Please make pairs with the person sitting next to you.” The response from the students? Blank stares and a complete lack of movement. I had been warned of this response (or lack thereof) in all of my orientations, so I wasn’t entirely surprised. However, it did make it difficult to judge if anything I had just said had been understood! Eventually, however, with my team-teacher’s prompting, the students made pairs and began working on their quizzes. Thankfully, it seems they did indeed understand my presentation and the quiz questions, because almost everyone got every question right! After the quiz, we moved on to the next activity: Interviewing Amanda! (Pretty self-explanatory from the title, but basically students worked in pairs to come up with at least two questions in English that they would like to ask me.) Many of the questions were the same, for instance, “What is your favorite Japanese food?” (answer: sashimi). However, there were the occasional unique ones, like “What is a good place to visit in Hawaii?,” and, of course, the question I had been warned about by many an older ALT: “Do you have boyfriend?” I had thought a lot about how I would answer this question, and I was prepared with my somewhat-witty response: “I have many, many boyfriends! Hundreds of boyfriends!” This is, of course, not an entirely accurate response, and in all honesty it felt a little weird lying about such an important aspect of my life. But, I got some laughs out of it, and avoided students knowing a little too much of my personal information.

So, that was Oral Communications, section 4. I went on to teach the same class for section 1 an hour later, and I will teach it twice more by the time this week is through. Then, thankfully, we will move on to more exciting topics than my autobiography, for instance, how to converse with a doctor in English and how to invite friends to a party. (Wheeee!)
I then ate lunch, and spent the remainder of the class day grading third-year English exams and writing responses on my “Interview Amanda” worksheets. Not the most stimulating activities, but at least the time passed quickly. Then, at 3:45, I was invited to join the school’s Tea Ceremony club—this turned out to be the highlight of my day! For this club, about 10 girls and their sensei meet every Monday in the school’s tatami room (tatami being woven bamboo mats that cover the floor) and practice the ancient Japanese art of making and serving green tea. I mostly just watched at first, as girls took turns mimicking their sensei in kneeling, elaborately folding their tea cloth and using it to ceremoniously wipe the tea cups and utensils, making the tea, serving the tea, and cleaning up the tea set. I had no idea it was such a detailed, beautiful process! It truly is a very impressive act. I went along with whatever the other girls did, using a small wooden spear to eat my mochi, accepting my tea and bowing with my head to the floor, etc. Then, the sensei asked me to try making tea! I was tickled, because secretly I thought it looked like a lot of fun! She led me through the process, and I tried my best to do everything just so. I think I did pretty well for a beginner, except for the outcome of my tea—apparently too strong, and not frothy enough. Oops. I felt bad for the girl who had to drink it. The girls also seemed to enjoy watching me try my hand at their art form; they even brought out a video camera to tape it! All in all it was great fun, and a really wonderful way to spend some time with the students outside of the classroom. I will definitely be attending again in the future!

By then, it was 5:15pm, and my day was over! It went by very quickly, and I’m excited for tomorrow! In addition to my Oral Communications class, I will teach two writing classes for second-year students. And, with any luck, maybe I’ll be invited to another club meeting!

For now, it’s time for dinner and some Desperate Housewives (the third disc of season two of Sex and the City was all rented out! How disappointing.). It’ll be leftovers tonight, as I made chicken curry last night—it was the first time I cooked meat here! And it actually tasted pretty good. Go me.

Mata ne,
Mandy

Back to Tuesday: today was good too; a little more hectic because I had 4 classes instead of 2. And tomorrow is my first real day at Takaoka Deaf School! Wish me luck!