The Slings and Arrows of Outrageous Fortune

It's been a great week. We had a public holiday on Monday (Respect for the Aged) and Thursday (Autumnal Equinox). A kiwi from Wellington came to stay with us, Anna, she is a JET in Gunma which is just out of Tokyo, apparently great skiing in the winter. Guess where we're headed in the New Year.
Wednesday was the big bad Hagi Junior High speech competition, I sat there and chewed my fingernails almost as nervous as half the contestants. It was particularly hard for Dan and I since we had coached over half of the kids, unlike the other JETs who had done one or two. The great news was that the 3 girls from my base school all came away victorious. Two got silver and one got 2nd place gold. The girl that beat her had done homestays in England before, so it was almost unfair to compare them. Ayumi will now go on to take part in the prefectural competition in October, if she makes the top three of that she will go to Tokyo for the grand final which is performed in front of the Japanese Emperor and Royal family! We were so wrong in thinking that our speech coaching was over. But we can't complain, the teachers at Hagi Nishi (my base) have been overflowing with compliments about our help, and have inundated us with (oh no!) gifts of food.
Unfortunately Kana and Nori from Aishima performed brilliantly and yet were awarded bronze. I felt really bad for them and I heard from other JETs that sometimes the judging can be hard to take. However another boy I coached from Hagi Higashi got a silver and was completely stunned with surprise, when I first coached him I couldn't believe how quick a learner he was, with naturally good pronounciation. Like a diamond in the rough.
All us ALTs (Assistant Language Teachers) headed to our place that night since Dan and I have the biggest house out of everyone. Kirk and Ellen from down Yanai way headed up and met us at 9pm after Japanese class. It was sooooo much better for me this week, I was able to go at my own pace a bit more. I was just about to pull out so I'm glad to held on and perservered. Life lessons and character building and all that stuff.
So we all went out for drinks at No Side and had a good bonding session. Ellen and I had Bailey's shots at the bar and educated the barmen about what you call one of those topped with butterscotch schnapps. The next morning Christine did a mammoth effort and made her legendary banana and choc-chip pancakes for brekky, she fed herself, me, Dan, Sarah, Anna, John, Bruce, Ellen, and Kirk. We spent our Autumnal Equinox sightseeing around Hagi, we went to the lookout at Koshigahama (where Kirk had his barbequed corn cob stolen by big hawk-like birds not once but twice..) and pottery shopping. Kirk has demi-God status in our house because he brought us a spare TV/Video from his place that he never uses. It is heavenly to chill out and watch videos, and along with the new plants its made our house feel like a proper home.
We're going to yet another bloody Sports Day on Sunday (the school has 12 kids in total and needs the numbers) but hopefully a day to chill out on Saturday. Dan is pretty sick at the moment, sniffling away with a hacking cough. I think its just exhaustion. We went out to dinner tonight though, for yakiniku (barbequed meat that you cook yourself) which is super delicious. Ordering on our own with limited Japanese was farcical, but we made the effort because it was our one year anniversary :) It really has been quite a year and we've made it. Yay!!

The Hard Cold Facts

OK, so maybe some people are still in the dark about what the hell is actually happenin' over here. Dan and I live in a house in Hagi on our own, its Japanese style with tatami mats inside http://www.japaneselifestyle.com.au/culture/tatami_mat.html and rice paper slides for doors/walls. It's quite pretty. We have 3/4 bedrooms plus lounge and kitchen so its very spacious. We are next door to a tiny coffee shop called CoCo, Yokoyama-san owns it and shes lovely, she helps us with our rubbish and gives us food sometimes. The rubbish system here is amazing, even Japanese find it difficult. You have to sort it into burnable and non-burnable and heaps of different categories. Then there are all the different collection days. It's an aneurism waiting to happen, people.
When we arrived the house was empty bar two futons. And I mean empty. We didn't have predecessor JETs like everyone else, for reasons subject to gossip and dark tales. Everyone else arrives to a furnished house with stuff that other people have been buying for the last 5-10 years. Not so for Dan and Rosie! However we have now bought pretty much everything we need, including the exact same stereo as Macka has upstairs, except the buttons are in katakana. We even bought house plants (I've killed 2 so far, 2 out of 4 ain't bad).

So we live around the corner from the biggest shopping complex, its very convenient and a 5 min walk to the coolest bar in Hagi, called No Side. It's run by a couple of guys who used to go to a Rugby Academy here in Japan, so they have it on the TV and wear World Cup shirts. I think the name of the pub is a reference to being offside or something. I only just got it the other day.
So that's it. Any other questions just email em thru gloweNZ@hotmail.com

Tomato Icecream in Katamata

Here I am, 8.55am on a Sunday, exhausted but happy. We have had two very full on weeks of teaching. The speech competition is this Wednesday, thank God. We have done so much extra work tutoring after school towards this, to the point where even I question my own pronounciation of the words. I think I will be more nervous for them and guilty as I simultaneously cheer for 10 different kids!
We also taught Adult Conversation class at the City Hall, which takes so much preparation and gnashing of teeth, but the high I get at the end of a class is fantastic. Its my second lesson with them now and some of the people I thought couldn't speak English at all are coming up to me and saying how much they enjoyed my lesson. We have games at the end to lighten the mood and I even have a prize box of mini M&M's. This week we pretended to order Meat Lovers pizza on the telephone! The NZ$120 extra a week for community classes is also pretty nice. I'm gonna use it to fund my travelling whims.
In direct contrast to my fun language classes ... (Jaws music) Japanese language class. I went to my first one, the woman was prancing around gabbling non-stop in Japanese with a scary pointing stick. I tried so hard to keep up and I even picked up a couple of things. But in the end I just got angry because I could have learned so much more in 2 hours studying by myself at home. I was expected to do the exercises in the textbook, which were in hiragana. I can read katakana and a few kanji characters and thats about it. So choosing the correct answer and then writing it in sentences of hiragana was just very slightly above my level. I don't know if I'm going to go back :( Maybe I should just buy a copy of Japanese For Busy People ....
So after all that work drama, the crew decided to spend it up big time in Yamaguchi City. Saturday morning we got up and drove 30 mins out to Mutsumi in the wops to pick up Bren (Cal, US). As a tribute to Catholicism I rang Michelle beforehand and picked her up too. We went to Katamata, 20 mins up the road, yet more wops. The big thing in Katamata is growing lots and lots of tomatos. So they have a little store that has a novelty soft serve, you can get it plain vanilla or with a swirl of tomato syrup. Bren has had 3 of these things and said they were good. Hell I'm willing to try anything as long as it isn't offal. It looked like strawberry swirl, but it tasted like slightly sweet tomato, and it was pretty good. I did have a weird aftertaste for a while, but I'd get another one.
Sarah and Christine met us there and we zoomed off to the 'guch. Sarah and Dan went and picked up Victoria (NY, US) from language class and we hit the shops. We found some great stuff to send home, really good authentic Japanese homeware without the tacky feel. You could spend a fortune, but we all get paid this Tuesday sweet! John (Nelson, NZ) drove in from Hagi and we went to a good sashimi (sushi & raw fish) restuarant. Its on a conveyor belt but we order from the chefs to make sure its fresh. I ate sooo much salmon, they do it on little balls of rice with mayonnaise and onion, it just melts in the mouth. Each time I go I order something I haven't tried before and its the coolest feeling to be trying out so much new stuff. Also my confidence in ordering is so much better now, I try to keep a positive attitude towards how much I've learnt since I've come to Japan. Its difficult when most of the other JETs have studied Japanese at university. I work really hard to study and keep a positive attitude because otherwise the lanaguage barrier could really bring you down. That's why I was so pissed off I went to Japanese language class. It made me feel like shit and I don't think that was the intention.
So we have a long weekend, Monday is off as its Respect for the Aged day. We are expecting another kiwi, Anna Bishop, to turn up at our place to stay for a couple of nights. It will be fantastic to drive her around the Hagi sights and feed her Vegemite. Kirk in Tabuse (near Yanai) has promised to give us his extra TV/Video so we are thinking about driving down to the coast to get that. Maybe we'll take Anna with us. I just love having our car and being free to decide. The transition to driving in Japan has been so easy thankfully. My supervisor made me buy the Japanese equivalent of the Road Code, which came with a slip of paper to correct a printing mistake - apparently the word 'cramp' was meant to say 'clamp'. Need I say more?

Typhoon Terror

Yesterday my supervisor rang me at work to say that we would have the day off school today, there was another typhoon coming in from Korea. It is forecast to centre over Hagi about noon today. After living in the extremes of Wellington I find this typhoon terror a little bemusing. Granted the wind howls and the rain lashes, but the temperature stays in the 20's and its all over before you know it. All the schools are closed can you believe! We kiwis are a hardy bunch I now realise.
Yesterday I went by bus 40 mins out to a little school called Koma, with only 7 students in the junior high and about the same in the elementary. I was team teaching with a young woman who had just come of of Teachers College not so long ago, so her lessons were well organised and fun. Some of our older associates have forgotten even how to make a lesson plan I think. They just wing everything! The problem with Koma is that because its so small and family-like there is not much competition, so the students don't try as hard as they would at bigger schools. The plus side is that they receive a couple of kids from the bigger schools who didn't fit in. Those kids are now thriving in a new environment. I had a really good day and each time I am in the classroom I pinch myself to think I have a great job where I am paid to hone my classroom skills and learn from a huge variety of other teachers. It is just the best. I am trying my hardest to get the kids to be confident with their spoken English and enjoy it.
At lunchtime I went out for a game of soccer with the kids. Wait til Dan gets out there they'll love that. Dan and I are doing some soccer training as AJET is putting on a big soccer tournament for all the JETs in Japan, to be held at a World Cup Soccer venue can you believe. If you want to check out just how amazing it is go to http://www.altsoccertournament.com/ and click on Western Division. I am lucky I have my own coach! I love soccer but I just have to work on my fitness, I don't want to have a cardiac in the first 5 minutes...We are even getting our own Yamaguchi uniforms made up. If only we could import Tim (Dan's bro) for the game.

We are doing a lot of extra speech coaching at Hagi Nishi junior high (my base school). Sakuma-sensei who organises it is a lovely old woman who has previously coached division winners that have gone to Tokyo to speak in front of the Emperor! It is a huge competition in Japan. She has a couple of pupils that have made major improvements with coaching, and they are our hopefuls. She thanks us by giving us food. At first it was kind and sweet but now we are running scared! It is the delicious kind of food you would never buy for yourself but if given, you will eat it - for example, crumbed deep-fried prawns! We call her the anti-Atkins, especially the time that she gave us a whole bag of yummy bakery delights. Oh the torture!
I am today going to plan for our Adult Conversation class on Thursday, I am with the very beginners so it has been a bit challenging to plan for people who in some cases don't know anything. I am going to try and make it really fun, I have had some good ideas so far to get them laughing and speaking English. And maybe a few Kiwi slang words as well!

"Watashi wa Nyujirando kara kimashita..."

Today I had my first lesson in a Japanese classroom. It was an awesome feeling. Back in early 2002 I had a passionate desire to be a secondary teacher. Going to Teachers College just about killed that. I still think I paid $2,500 to meet some cool people and find a husband. Dan is like my Russian bride. So finally after a year of crappy sections and then a full-on year of nannying (which I miss!) , I finally made it back into the classroom. As a nanny I spent all day with kids, and I was beginning to get withdrawls. (Macka, if you're reading this, I miss you!)
The kids in Japan are friendly out of the classroom, but in the classroom they pretty much stare blankly. They are shy and will act as if they are going to sleep, which is acceptable here. I hate it but what can you do. So I am gonna have to do some super-duper fun stuff that they will not be able to resist.
Tonight we did our first Adult Conversation class at the Hagi community centre. It was pretty good, we did a self introduction, showed a kiwi fruit, a map, pounamu, a stuffed kiwi soft toy, and described your typical Sunday roast with the fanau. The students are either really old people who know pretty good broken English or young kids who know nothing. It's gonna be a fun way to meet some young people in Hagi hopefully. I am glad we are finally working.
Our supervisor has informed us that he got our inkan and so we'll get our car next week. Yay!!!!!
Meredith has only got 8 weeks to go til she gives birth to our beautiful second baby. I think it will be a boy and I hope it is. However I also thought Jodi was a boy, and when I saw she was a girl I got the shock of my life. I wouldn't change puku for the world. So I hope our new baby is healthy, thats all. I really miss my sister at times like this :( I have promised Mum I will travel the world as much as possible without coming home too early, its so expensive to go back. Other than that, life in Hagi is ambrosial :)