All alone . . . so very lonely :( 一人だ！さ・び・し・い (: _ ;)

Well, not exactly. I am almost all alone. There’s still one teacher let in the staff room. Everyone else is in the gym for the opening ceremonies of the term. I’m not sure what they call this third term actually. First term is April through July, the second term starts in mid August and is either interrupted by winter break and continues on right now, or it ends with winter break and a new third term starts now. Either way, all the teachers and students are standing in an unheated gym listening to boring speeches and also very likely to angry rants from the dean of students about all the inappropriate and shameful things that happened over winter break.

って言うか、一人ぼっちだ。まだ俺以外先生一人が職員室に残ってるけどね。他の人は始業式のために体育館に行ってる。そう言えば、この学期は何の学期なのかな？一学期目は四月から七月までで、二学期目は八月の真ん中から始まって１２月に冬休みに分断されて、今も二学期目が続いているか、冬休みで終わって、今からは三学期目が始まるか。まあどっちであっても、今は先生と生徒全員なかなか寒い体育館で、つまらないスピーチと冬休みに起こった不祥事について生徒指導部長がわめき散らしてるのを立ちながら聞いている。

But not me! I’m exempt from that crap, thank god.

だが俺は違う！俺はありがたいことに免除だ。

To supplement this article, I will add a picture of graduation from last year, because really, any formal gathering in the gym, be it the opening ceremonies or graduation or some other form of torture, all look identical. Well except there won’t be any big red striped banner-ish thing lining the walls, so try to imagine that that’s not there. I'd normally be on the left with the teachers there if I wasn't taking pictures.

この記事を補足するために、去年の卒業式の写真をつける。別に、卒業式でも開会式でも始業式でも、他の苦痛を与える方法でも、全部一緒に見えるからだ。いや、その大きなしま模様の旗みたいなやつを除いてはね。だから、それがないのを想像してね。写真を撮っていなかったら俺も先生たちと一緒に左側に立っているはずだけど。

I got a new game over the weekend. Well actually, I got the Japanese version of the game I bought in America. It didn’t work in my ps2 even with the swap disk (which is supposed to work with import games, dammit), so I felt my hand was forced and I went and bought a second copy. There’s not a lot of dialogue to read, and what is there is not crucial to the gameplay, so it didn’t matter too much that it was in Japanese and I couldn’t really understand what was going on all that well. You might think that after all the Japanese study and the year and a half of living here that I would be pretty set for understanding the large part of most everything, but no. Not at all. In this particular instance, the game is set in ancient Greece and as such the main character says stuff like “the gods have forsaken me”, which I actually know how to say, but they also use an ancient-ish sounding form of Japanese to convey the age. So those two things combined = me having zero chance of actually following the story in any detail.

週末に新しいゲームを買ったよ。っていうかアメリカで買ったゲームの日本版を買ったんだ。そのアメリカ版は自分の日本のＰＳ２でスワップマジックを使っても駄目だった（輸入版にも使えるって書いてあったくせにな）から、第二目を買わせられちゃったんだ。内容に読まなきゃならない対話があんまりなくて、あるとしてもプレイに対して特にに重要じゃないから、日本語で、話がよくわからなかったことは大丈夫だった。日本語をいっぱい勉強して、こんな一年半も日本で過ごしてるから、何の事情でも大体わかるようになったはずだと思ってるかもしれないけど、ちっともそうでもないよ。このゲームは、古代ギリシャに設定されていて、主人公がいつも、“神々が俺を見捨てた”のようなことを言ってる。実はそれの言い方がわかってるんだけど、多くの話は、古代だということを表すために昔のしゃべり方をするから、そのことで、話の浅い理解以上は俺に不可能だ。

Anyway, I spent all weekend playing. I haven’t actually been absorbed into a game for quite some time before now. It was fun. Good times.

とにかく、週末ずっとそのゲームをやってた。そんなにゲームにはまるのは、超久しぶりだ。楽しかった。

I think I’ll stop now, possibly making this the shortest post yet. It’s amazing how I can ramble on about the most inane of things, eh?

それでやめようか？やめたらこれは今までに一番短い記事になるだろうね。超つまらないことに取留めなく話せて、俺ってすごいよね。

Follow Up Pictures

Right. So my car would normally be on the right, but I gave up parking in my own spot. That car on the right is Satoko's car. The car to the left of her's is my neighbor Genta-sensei's car. Yesterday, his car was parked about 4 feet further back than it is right now. It's kind of hard to tell from this picture since I didn't capture the right hand edge of the lot, but there's not very much room.

There's also the matter of that gigantic mound of snow next to Genta's car. That was a person's space last year, but this year everyone is dumping their shoveled snow there. It sticks out alot further than a parked car and takes up way more space. Even if I didn't have someone parking next to me, I'd still have to do a 15 point turn to get out of my space because that giant mound is in the way.


And here is the driveway from hell. It's not as bad as it was yesterday though. Some snow did fall last night (I was right!), but not enough to raise the level back up to where it was before i had to plow through it with my car. But still, you can see how if you happened to slip off the track in either direction (which is alot easier than it looks. The densely packed parts formed from the tired tracks are narrow and uneven, so it's actually very hard to stay on.) you're in some deep trouble.

Welcome Back Me!

God damn this frozen wasteland I live in. I’d only been gone for about 11 days and in that time it must have snowed more than 5 feet.

このくそ凍ってる荒廃した地獄のような場所！１１日間いなかっただけで、その間に1.5メートル以上雪が積もっただろう。

Until my vacation away, I’d managed to keep my portion of the driveway completely snow and ice free. I dutifully shoveled and laid down rock salt and all that crap. My parking space and the drive in front of my house was still black. And this is no small accomplishment. Everyone else had been neglecting to shovel at all, and probably already had about 6 inches of hard packed snow and ice built up.

旅行する前、家の前の通路の自分の部分を何とか完璧に雪も氷もないようにできた。さっさと雪かきしたり、融雪剤まいたりした。自分の駐車スポットと、家の前の部分は、まだ真っ黒だった。これは、マジで大した成果だよ。他の皆さんのほうは、完全に雪かきをおろそかにしてて、もう１５センチの硬い雪と氷になっちゃってた。

Well I go away and it all falls apart. Satoko said she’d do it for me while I was away, and she did. But she was also really busy at the time, working a part time job from 1 pm to 6 pm and then moving to her normal job from 6 to 1 or 2am. So she was already working more than 12 hour days, factor in a long commute time, and she really didn’t have much time for anything else but sleeping and working. So I’m impressed she did any shoveling at all.

で、旅行に行ってる間に、全部駄目になっちゃったんだ。里子は、私がいない間にやってくれるって言ってて、実際少しはやってくれたけど、彼女はいつもすごく忙しくて、１時から６時までバイトしたら、夜は６時から１，２時まで働くんだ。それだけで、１２時間以上働いてて、長い通勤時間もあったから、睡眠と仕事のこと以外の時間が、ほとんどなかった。少しでも雪かきしてもらえてうれしかった。

But the little she did do really didn’t make that much of a difference. I now have that 6 inches of packed snow and ice in front of my house and it’s damn near impossible to remove. The other people who all also seem to have gone away on vacation, now have more than a foot of packed snow and ice in front, and that’s covered by about 2 feet of loose, freshly fallen snow. Since they haven’t shoveled at all, the packed snow is concentrated under the normal paths that our cars take. Meaning that the snow to the sides of the tracks and in between the tracks, is not so densely packed.

だけど、その少しは、ほとんど全然効果がなかった。家の前には、さっき言ったような１５センチの硬い雪と氷ができてて、取るのは無理のようだ。他の人達は、旅行に出かけてるみたいで、彼らの家の前は３０センチ以上の雪と氷の上に、さらに６０センチ以上の新たな雪が積もっていた。ほとんど雪かきしてないところを無理やりに車を走らせるから、すごく深いわだちができてしまった。

This all means that if your car slips off the previously beaten trail, you sink into all the loose snow on the sides. If you sink into the loose snow, you have to back up and try again. If you find that you’ve sunk down to the layer of ice at the bottom, well then your really fucked.

わだちを少しでもはずしたら、その周りにあるゆるい雪のところに滑っちゃうんだ。そのゆるい雪にはまったら、バックして、もう一回試みなきゃならない。底の氷までめり込んだことになったら、どうしようもないね。

I went to take a picture this morning before I tried to drive out, but my camera had run out of batteries from the vacation home. So maybe (and by maybe I mean almost definitely) some more snow will fall tonight and I can capture the true terror that is my driveway tomorrow morning.

今朝写真を撮ろうとしたんだけど、アメリカの旅行のせいで、電池が切らしちゃった。もしかしたら、今夜も雪が降るかもしれないから（というよりは、絶対振るだろう）、明日の朝私の恐ろしい通路の写真を取れる。

Anyway, to make matters worse, my stupid neighbor did a tremendously bad job of parking last night and left the tail of his car sticking way far out and effectively making it impossible for me to turn around in the parking lot. Normally I would back out of my space and have plenty of room to turn left and drive out forwards.

とにかく、もっと困ったことに昨日おろかな隣人がへたくそな停め方をしてて、車の後ろが飛び出てた。で、私は曲がれなくなった。いつもならバックしたら、曲がれる場所がいっぱいあるはずなんだけど。

I rang his bell several times but he didn’t answer. I got impatient and idiotically tried to back out the entire way. Naturally, I didn’t get very far before I got stuck in the snow. I couldn’t pull forwards and I could back up any further either. My front tires were both spinning uselessly. And what’s more, I had slipped off the tracks toward the driver’s side so my door was right up against a 3 or 4 foot wall of snow. So I had to climb out the passenger side instead.

何回かベルを鳴らしたけど、返事はなかった。もう我慢できなくて、それにあほうらしくて道路までバックすることと決めたんだ。けど、やっぱり、すぐに雪にはまってしまった。前にもバックにも行けなくなったんだ。前のタイヤ二つも、役に立たずにぐるぐる回ってた。それに、滑った方向は、運転手のほうだったから、私のドアが、１メートルぐらいの雪の壁に面してしまった。だから、代わりに助手席のドアを出なきゃならなかった。


Oh yeah, I forgot to mention I broke my shovel last night. So I borrowed my stupid neighbor who blocked me in and caused me to try to back out in the first place’s shovel and started to dig my way out. After using a huge wooden plank, and several bouts of digging and crawling back into my car through the passenger side door and testing only to crawl back out and dig some more, I managed to escape the snow with much cursing and yelling.

ああ、そうだ。言い忘れた。昨日の夜に、シャベルを壊しちゃった。だから、私を閉じ込めた先生のシャベルを借りて、掘り始めた。大きな板も使って, 何回か掘り、助手席のドアを車に入って試し、戻ってまた掘り、ぶつぶつ文句を言いながらも、なんとか雪から逃れられた。


And now, of course, I was right back where I started, in my parking spot.

で、結局、最初に私が始めた場所、自分の駐車スペースに戻っただけだった。

I called my school to tell them I’d be late because my stupid neighbor blocked me in and wasn’t answering his door. At least they accepted that as an excuse and didn’t make me take vacation time for it. I’d probably have stabbed someone in the face if that had happened.

学校に電話して、あほな隣の人の車で自分が出られないこと、そしてその隣の人が出て来ないせいで遅れることを伝えた。ラッキーなことに、その言い訳が効いて、年休を取らせられなかった。年休を取らせられることになってたら、誰かの顔を短刀で刺し殺していただろう。

I went back inside to cool off for a few minutes, mentally and physically, before going back out and ringing my neighbor’s bell again. The bastard finally answers the door and comes out and moves his car forward a few feet so I can barely do a 15 point turn and leave going forward.

精神的にも肉体的にも冷やすために、家に戻って休憩した。その後、また隣に行ってベルを鳴らした。今回そのくそやろうが出てくれたから、車をもう少し前へ動かしてもらえた。ぎりぎりに１５ポイントの回転ができて、前進して出れるようになった。

This time I get halfway down the driveway before slipping off to the left and getting stuck again. I got out and was contemplating breaking my windshield with a nearby shovel, but with a Herculean effort I restrained myself. My mind was so clouded with rage that I almost gave up on the whole thing and went back to bed, but after a short break, I got back in the car and found that, while I couldn’t move forward, it was quite easy to back up.

今度は、通路の半分まで行けたんだけど、それからちょっと左に滑って、また雪にはまった。車を出て、もう少しでシャベルでフロントガラスを割りそうになったけど、なんとか自分を抑えた。あきらめてベッドに戻りそうになるほど頭が怒りで曇ってたけど、数分の休憩してからまた車に戻ってみると、前へ行けなかったんだけど、簡単にバックできるに気づいた。

I got some speed up and tried to ram my way through the 2 feet of snow that fell last night. I got about 5 feet further and then slipped off to the right. Again I could back up with no problem. This time, though, I got out and shoveled a bit so I wouldn’t have to plow through so much snow to get going. Shoveling all the way to the exit was not an option as there were still about 30 meters to go, and that would have taken 3 or 4 hours to do.

ちょっとだけスピードを出して、力で、昨日降った６０センチの雪を押し分けて進もうとしてたけど、２メートル進むと、今度は右のほうに滑った。前と同じように簡単にバックできたけど、またあの多すぎる雪を通らなくても済むように、ちょっと雪かきした。出口までは３０メートルぐらいあったから、全部雪かきするには３、４時間かかって、無理だと思った。

There was nothing to do except repeat the process of ramming the wall of snow and pressing forward until I got pushed off to the side and then backing up and trying again until I could get out. Well, it finally worked. After an hour of sweat and stress I managed to get out of my driveway. I got to work only a half hour late.

だから、道路に出るまで、雪の壁に衝突して、雪を脇に寄せるまで押して、そしてバックして、という過程を何回も繰り返すしかなかった。やっとでできた。一時間のストレスと汗をかいて、やっと抜け出すことができた。そして仕事には３０分だけ遅れた。

I am most definitely not parking in my spot again until winter ends. I will have some pictures to put up by tomorrow hopefully.

冬が終わるまで二度とそのくそ駐車所に絶対戻らない！
明日の朝、写真が撮れると思う。

I'm not dead. I swear.

I have been terribly neglectful of this blog for the past 5 months or so.

I only sit down to write something when I feel like I’ve got something to write about. And lately (i.e. the past several months) I just haven’t felt like there’s been anything eventful about which to write.

Although, that’s only partially true. I’ve gotten so used to not writing entries that even when there are events, I neglect writing about them.

For instance I participated in the Hanamaki festival this year back in October? Late September? I forget. I think September. Last year I attended and had fun as a spectator, but this year I got in on the shrine carrying action with Mike’s neighbor Kozue and her group of friends from middle school. I got dressed up in full costume, drank myself silly and had fun parading around the street helping to carry what was probably a 500 pound shrine (what kind of shrine you ask? For what purpose? I haven’t the slightest.).

I have some pictures of this actually. Here's me, Brenden and Kozue all dressed up and ready to go.



Anyway, I can’t think of any other fairly large and interesting events like that which I’ve failed to talk about, but there have still been lots of other little things. Three JETs left Hanamaki in July and three more came to take their place in August.

Sad to see Mike go, but the new people are quite nice and we’ve hung out quite a few times already.

I’ll introduce them as interesting stories come up that involve them personally, for now, suffice it to say that there are new people in Hanamaki, and it’s a good crowd.

As of late, all the weeks and months are starting to blend. I’ve got to get out more and do more stuff to keep this from happening. A typical week goes something like this. Monday-Thursday, Go to work, come home, download the TV show(s) du jour, get some food, watch said shows, perhaps some video games, go to sleep. Friday, maybe we go out for dinner and drinks if enough people can be gathered. Saturday during the day, Satoko has until 6 o clock free, so we usually just lounge around the house and watch movies or something. Occasionally we go out for lunch and then head to movie theater for a change. Some Saturday nights we’ll go out drinking or something, sometimes I’ll stay in and continue the tv/video game cycle. Sunday is a near repeat of Saturday minus the night out.

Why don’t I get out and do things more often? Well, Satoko working from 6pm-1am every night except Monday makes it hard to go anywhere very far outside of Hanamaki. We have to be back at the house by around 4:30-5:00 for her to have enough time to get ready We have enough trouble finding time to get to the movie theater and back some days as it is.

Then at night, I’m just being lazy. I hate the process involved with going out anywhere other than this one izakaya relatively near all of our houses. Going to Morioka involves a 30 minute walk to the train station, and a 50 minute train ride. Then, the last train home leaves at 11 from Morioka, so you either have to cut the night short, find someone who lives in Morioka who will let you crash at their place, or stay out all night and take the first train in the morning home. All three of those options suck.

Even going out drinking at a place other than that one izakaya I was talking about it annoying. In summer it’s not so bad because we can bike. It’s still a 20 minute bike ride one way, and coming home it’s uphill almost the entire way. Still, it’s doable. In winter though, you can’t bike. And I’m definitely not walking for an hour in the freezing cold just to go to a bar some place different than usual. The only other option is to drive and take a “daikou” back. A “daikou” is a taxi with two driver, one who will drive your own car back home for you. Surprisingly, this is almost the exact same price as a normal taxi. So that’s not really that terrible of an option if you have 2 or 3 people.

This is how much I analyze simply going out to drink in my own town. Imagine the mental labors I go through just thinking about going somewhere for a weekend trip. This is why I never go anywhere. It all just feels like so much work.

Recently, however, I have been going to a free Judo “class” on Tuesdays and Fridays, so that helps to break up the monotony a bit. Although, I haven’t managed to go two consecutive times yet. I always find some excuse to skip one or both of the days. But it’s a good thing so far. I’m having fun, meeting some new people, using up some energy and getting some sorely needed exercise. I’m going to try to keep this up for a while at least. It helps that so many other of the ALTs do it too. Makes me feel a bit more guilty when I decide to skip for no reason. That helps keep just a bit more motivated to go. Although not much.

Satoko has decided to become a vegetarian. She decided this on a whim one day when I was telling her how Haley was a vegetarian for a long while. She thought it sounded interesting, and she wanted to challenge herself to see how long she could do it. I also told her about veganism, and somehow she decided that it would be less troublesome if she just became a vegan gave up all animal products entirely instead of becoming a vegetarian and having to worry about what she can and can’t eat (even though, in reality, it’s much more troublesome to worry about what you can and can’t eat as a vegan).

So in the space of 2 days she went from normal person to vegetarian to vegan. She’s keeping a diary of what she eats each day too. It’s been 5 or 6 days so far and she seems to be enjoying it still. It's particularly hard to do this in Japan too, so I’m impressed.

One of the reasons why I decided to start writing today after waiting for so long was that I came across another JETs blog. His was much more professional and regular. Filled with pictures, and tales of all his travels, endeavors and exploits. But what interested me most was that he translated every article he wrote into Japanese. That struck me as a great idea. So I figured I’d try to do the same thing from now on. I’ve gotten tired enough of arguing about God and free will and abortion and drug laws and other crap on internet message boards recently. I’m gonna need something to help fill the time at school, and this should help with the Japanese study as well. We’ll see how dedicated I can be to this.

I imagine like most things I do, I’ll start off relatively strong and quickly lose interest and just stop altogether a few weeks or months later. But hey, every little bit helps. I think I’m gonna wait until I have an electronic dictionary again before I start trying though. So look for Japanese translations of future posts starting after New Years!

Couple of Pictures

aa Hanamaki sure can be breathtakingly beautiful at times


And just for kicks, here's a link to a very funny story: http://www.livejournal.com/users/acodeblue/55716.html

Guam

Been another long while.

Since I’ve last written I have been to Hawaii and to Guam. Hawaii is about 20 times nicer than Guam is.

Hawaii is hot, but not too hot during the day and cools off quite a bit at night. It has low humidity, the island is well maintained and has loads of extremely beautiful scenery. While we were there the weather was almost always perfect and there was tons to see and do.

Guam is/has none of those things. It’s poor, and you can tell. The second you get off the main tourist road with all the brand name boutiques everything looks worn down and dirty. It’s very hot and unbelievably humid, and there aren’t really any really great beautiful scenes of nature either. We caught the tail end of a hurricane (or typhoon rather) that ran through Taiwan a few days ago. I’m sure you haven’t heard anything about it though because the Katrina disaster is about 1000 times worse (literally). Anyway, it rained pretty fiercely on Guam for a majority of the time we were there.

The single most irritating thing is that we had signed up for a beach package deal for Wednesday which got canceled due to the weather and they have a no refund policy. So they basically just stole 80 dollars from each of us. Grrr.

Instead of going to the beach we went into town, the girls did a bit of shopping and then we headed into the video arcade across the street where we paid 20 dollars for 2 hours of unlimited gaming. That worked for me. Afterward we sat around eating and drinking in the food section of the arcade, watching a movie. About 10 minutes before the movie ended they turned it off and switched to the world poker series on espn.

Neither of the girls knew how to play poker, so I bought a roll of pennies from the cashier and we spent the rest of the afternoon playing poker. After an initial learning period Satoko and Kaoru got the hang of it and we had a lot of fun doing that.

It was still raining on and off on Thursday so we spent the day in the hotel pool. I brought out the goggles from the scuba set we acquired in Hawaii, Satoko got to use her underwater camera and we had a really good time.

It wasn’t the trip anyone had envisioned, but it was a lot of fun, nonetheless.

Now it’s Monday and I’m back at “work”. My first “class” is in 10 minutes. I imagine I’ll go and stand next to the teacher while he speaks in Japanese for 45 minutes allowing for the occasional break to actually teach them some English. It’s fine with me though. I don’t have to do anything to prepare for class so it allows me to spend all my time doing things like write blog entries and figure out when the new season of West Wing starts.

Next time I’ll tell you about how my supervisor managed to irritate me again.

Okinawa: Days 3 and 4

The photo uploader is being finicky now, so photos for this entry will have to come later

Even though we went to bed at about 9:30, I found it a tad difficult to sleep, what with my arms, legs and back all sunburnt. I kept waking up all night, and it was always still dark out. The night felt quite long.

But, I did manage to get myself up and get ready on time. We caught the 10:00 ferry back to the main island where we rented a car and drove up north. Our car had GPS, and even in Japanese, it was a really useful thing to have. We could put in the phone number of anywhere and it would give us driving directions all the way there. I am definitely gonna have to get GPS when I get a real car (not the p.o.s. I’ll be using for the next two years.)

After about an hour and a half of driving we got to a small camp site with a trail along a river leading up to a really nice waterfall and swimming spot.

The trail was almost completely composed of wooden walkway with tons of stairways going up and down. It sort of felt like walking through the treetops though, so it was a really pleasant walk. It just happened to be really hot, and really tiring, but that made the waterfall and swimming hole at the end all the more wonderful.

We (and everyone else) blatantly ignored the huge “swimming is strictly prohibited” signs and dived right in. It was really nice. Wonderfully refreshing after a fairly long and sweaty hike. The waterfall was pretty too.

After cooling off in the water and resting for a good half hour or so, the trail home didn’t seem nearly as strenuous as the trip in.

We got back to our car at about 5 and we headed for the Bellevue Golf Resort, where we would be spending the night. The name, and the picture on the internet gave off a much more grand impression than the real thing. It was only 40 dollars a night, so that should have been a bit of an indication.

That said, it was definitely a nice room. We had a Japanese style room, and there was more than enough space for 4 people. Maybe even enough for 8. It was nice to sleep on a futon again after two nights on the pathetically un-comfortable tatami mattress things.

After I took my shower and re aloe-ed up, we got a call to the room. I answered and after a brief conversation, I hung up and burst out laughing. The front desk called and requested I come down and translate for some guests! I assume a marine and his girlfriend were trying to get a room for the following week, and they could hardly speak a word of Japanese, so I acted as the interpreter for them for a few minutes.

That was certainly something I wasn’t expecting!

After finishing up with the interpretation, we all piled back in the car and went out to dinner at a local izakaya, which turned out to be an excellent choice. The food portions were huge and really good, and the drinks were very reasonably priced. There were a couple of small children at the table next to us and they kept peering around the divider at us, so we played with them for a bit too.

We had another relatively early and relaxing night. I slept well, and was ready to go early the next morning.

Our flight was at 2:20, so we had to do a small bit of hurrying to get in the two things we wanted to do before we left. We were headed to a place called pineapple park, so we opted to skip breakfast, figuring we could get something to eat there.

We were right.

For the 500 yen admission price we got a carted tour and all-you-can-eat pinapple/various paineapple products (pineapple cake, cookies, castella, chocolate, you name it) as well as all-you-can-drink pineapple juice and wine.

I enjoyed the tour and then stuffed myself as full of delicious pineapple stuff as I could. It was a great deal. Usually they nickel and dime you everywhere in this country, so it was expecially nice. Of course the whole thing is really just one giant store. So the free pineapple stuff is just there to get you in the door to buy the other stuff. But I resisted mightily and escaped with a full breakfast for 500 yen.

After a little more than an hour we were back in the car and headed to our final destination, Shurijo. Shurijo was the castle located at the capital of the old Ryuukyuu kingdom. Before Okinawa was Okinawa, it was Ryuukyuu.

The Castle combines Japanese styles with Chinese styles and has its own unique feel. It was quite beautiful, and a good ending to the trip. We even met some Mormons who took a group photo for us.

The rest was just returning the car and getting on the plane, which was entirely uneventful. I hope you enjoyed reading about my trip as much as I enjoyed doing it.

Okinawa: Day 2

Mike, being the early riser he is, got up at 7:30 and went for a swim and a walk only to return an hour or so later and decide that it was time for the rest of us to get up also.

aaa Mike was so excited about swimming that he pooped his pants


We all slowly got up, scrounged for whatever food we had that didn’t require cooking (I still can’t believe they don’t supply any kind of cookware or utensils!) and got ready for the day. At about 9:30 or so we walked back to the town and found a bike rental shop. Zamami is a tiny island and the guide book said it was possible to bike on every single road Zamami has in a couple of hours. We figured that a bike would be a handy thing to have for a day on the island so we went all out and paid 2000 yen for an 8 hour rental.

We got on our newly rented bikes and set out for Old Zamami beach (supposedly the nice beach on the island). About 3 minutes after we set out we encounter a hill so steep everyone but Mike had to get off their bike and push it up the hill. Once we got to the top we immediately start going down the other side of the hill which was just as steep until we got to the beach. We stayed at the beach for the next 6 hours or so, making the 8 hour bike rental possibly the biggest waste of money of the trip (although we did get one good bike ride up to a look out point later that night).

The island even has a bus service which will show up at any stop you like whenever you call the bus driver! And it’s only 200 yen! We could have gotten the same effect with two bus rides for 400 yen and we paid 2000 only to have to push the bike up a hill twice.

Anyway.

Old Zamami beach was really nice. A nice beach with rentable everything. Pre-setup beach umbrellas and chairs, snorkels, fins, floatables, a bunch of other stuff that I didn’t even bother reading. I’d say it was a bit on the pricy side, but the islands only business is people coming to use that beach, so I didn’t mind paying for stuff.

aaaaOld Zamami Beach

I didn’t bring any contact lenses with me, but fortunately they had a couple of pairs of goggles that acted like glasses a bit. I rented one of those and it worked well enough. And it was definitely well worth it. The snorkeling was really cool. There were tons of fish all around. I even got one of the little fish to bite my finger once!

Ama beach, the one near our cabin, was really shallow really far out. I could touch the ground and keep my head above water almost 100 yards away from the shoreline. But Old Zamami beach was the complete opposite. I couldn’t touch about 4 yards from the shoreline. And a few meters after that the bottom dropped off significantly. With out the goggles I would have never known. It was really cool.

There was a large section of coral to look at, although it was mostly brown and ugly. But the coral attracts all the fish, and the fish were really cool. There were all kinds. Some quite large (maybe 2 feet long), and others look like a blind and retarded 1^st grader had painted them. Cool stuff.

Even though I put on sunscreen, by midday, I was already turning pink. I spent the rest of the day in the shade of a giant beach umbrella, but I still just continued to turn redder and redder. My stomach, face, neck and lower back didn’t burn at all. I guess I put enough sunscreen on those places. But the rest of me took a thorough beating.

The rest of my trip was spent avoiding the sun at all costs.

It’s now been 6 days since I burned. 2 days ago, my back blistered up and yesterday most of those blisters popped and the gooey dead skin that surrounded them came off. So now I’ve got a large patch of fresh tender skin exposed to the air, which stung all last night, but is feeling better now. At least I’m healing.

Anyway, we finished our day at the beach at around 4:30. We headed back to the cabins, showered, I put on some aloe vera gel, and then we headed back into town to return the bikes and get some dinner. The bikes were an hour late, but no one was around, so we just left them and it didn’t seem to matter.

At dinner we all realized how incredibly tired and worn out we were from being pounded in the sun all day. Well, mostly me. Erin is black, so she was unphased. Mike’s girlfriend Emily is very tan, so she was also mostly unphased. Mike’s legs got a good sunburn, but he seemed to be generally ok as well. But everyone still felt fatigued, so after dinner we went straight home and went to bed at about 9:30.

It was another great day except for that losing battle with the Okinawan sun. I love swimming in that tropical (almost) water.

I would upload some pictures, but when I got back from Okinawa I discovered that my internet connection had been shut down due to illegal downloading. I seem to be having no luck at all with my rebellious attempts to flout the law and get away with it. At least there won’t be any lawsuits or anything (I fairly sure). But I do have to get a new internet provider, which is going to take a couple of weeks.

I’ll see if I can upload some photos while I’m at school, but the only way I know how to do it at the moment requires that I use a program called “Hello”, which I haven’t been able to use at school so far.

Anyway. Tomorrow I will write about our exicitng 3^rd and 4^th days. Stay tuned!

Edit: Now with photos! Check out Okinawa: Day 1 as well.

Okinawa: Day 1

My birthday was last Thursday. We went out to the Izakaya we always go to (although we hadn’t been there for several weeks) and had a good time. Satoko took off work and joined us. We ate and drank and celebrated the completion of my 23^rd year of life. Mike even got me a Cornell T-shirt as a present.

The following day we set out for the Sendai Airport at 7:30. Our flight was at 11:40, but we had no idea how long it would take to get there, so we planned on 3 hours. Amazingly, everyone was up and ready and we actually left at the exact time we planned.

Erin was driving, and as I learned when I got a ride back from the Tokyo Recontracting conference with her, Erin drives fast. I suppose for a number of years I would happily travel along the high way at 80-85 and think nothing of it, but then I got a speeding ticket and got paranoid. Now that I’m in Japan I’m way more paranoid because if you’re caught going 30 km/hr over the speed limit the fine is 800 dollars or so and includes a 1 month suspension of your license. If you’re less than 30 over the fine is 300 or 400 dollars and no suspension, so I always try to keep it below 30 over, even on the highway. Maybe these speeds sound high, or crazy or something, but trust me, they're not. When you’re on roads that would come with a speed limit of 45 at home and have a 30 mph speed limit here, going 48 isn’t all that crazy or fast. But it’s enough to get that 3 month suspension.

Anyway, Erin generally cruises at about 85 with occasional bursts up to 90 or slow downs to 75 or so depending on the traffic. At those speeds we got to the city of Sendai in a bit over an hour and we got to the actual airport in less than 2, even including a bit of meandering looking for a parking lot and such. So we were all checked in and ready to go at about 9:30. Fortunately, since we had all gotten up and left so early we were hungry, so we passed the time eating breakfast.

A few hours later we were on our way and 3 hours after that we had arrived in Okinawa. We had left a 70 degree cloudy Sendai behind and arrived in a steaming 90 degree Naha. I think I started sweating about 10 seconds after I got off the plane. The humidity was amazingly high.

We hopped in a taxi and got to the port where we were just in time to catch the 4:00 ferry to Zamami Island, where we would be staying for the next two nights. The ferry was fast and quite bouncy and a lot of fun. Everyone was in good spirits when we arrived an hour later and made our way to our wooden cabin right next to the beach. The cabin was a decent size and was *thank god* air conditioned. We dropped out stuff off and walked the 50 meters or so to the beach.

aaaErin and the setting sun on Ama Beach

I’d love to tell you that it was paradise, but the beach was full of rocks and shells and once you got in the water it was even rockier and shellier, with a bit of ugly coral thrown in for good measure. Still the water was beautiful and their were other tiny uninhabited islands not too far away and the sun was setting, so it was nice. It was a good start to an Okinawan vacation.

aaaThe sunset on Ama beach

Zamami is a a truly tiny Island with a population of about 700. The guidebook says there’s only one decent restaurant, so we decided to head there for dinner. We walked for about 20 minutes to get back into the main “town” and found our place, Muramiya (I think). It was a fine restaurant. Lots of options and the food was quite good. Erin tried the Goya Chanpuru. Goya is a local Okinawan vegetable which they translated as “bitter gourd”. When it’s whole it looks like a cucumber that was hit with a large blast of radiation blistered everywhere. In the dish it was chopped up and it looked a lot more appetizing, but as the name suggests, it was quite bitter and Erin ended up leaving a large portion of the Goya uneaten.

Mike was eager to try to local sake, Awamori. I generally like sake, so I ordered a bottle for the table. It was 2000 yen, and when she asked if we wanted water to mix it with, I was pretty sure we had made a big mistake. You don’t mix sake with water, you mix shochu with water, and shochu is just like a weaker version of vodka.

Sure enough, Awamori turned out to be shochu, not sake, and it was disgusting, even mixed with water. We each stomached a glass of it and I brought the rest of the bottle home for Satoko, because she actually likes the stuff.

After dinner we ambled around the town and stumbled upon a convenience store type place where we discovered that the Awamori we just paid 2000 yen for actually costs 900 yen a bottle (that’s about a 10 dollar difference), and we also bought eggs and other stuff for breakfast.

Before we started off for home we stopped into the only bar on the island and enjoyed a couple of drinks with the locals who are quite friendly and really liked to try using their extremely limited enlish. One guy came up to us and said “I am sorry. I am stinky” and he actually meant what he said. He grabbed his shirt and mimed taking a huge whiff and being disgusted. Later on he said the same thing again, so this time I replied “me too!”, he chuckled and then retorted, “oh really? But I am champion stinky!”

Haha

So at about 11 or so we left the bar and headed home to our cabin. Upon arrival we discovered that they did not in fact supply any sort of pans or plates or cups or utensils at all, despite having a stove and a sponge . . . So we weren’t having eggs for breakfast after all.

It was late, so we ignored that and went to sleep on our ridiculous tatami “mattresses”. Imagine sleeping on 2 or 3 towels wrapped in bamboo and you might get the idea. Despite all that, I was quite happy and content with our first day and I slept fine.

The trip was off to a good start.

About That License . . .

So, I failed my driver’s test. Apparently I take my turns too fast.

What you’re supposed to do is turn slowly enough so that when you complete the turn you’re already lined up perfectly straight along the left hand side of the lane. What I did was turn just fast enough so that I ended up in the middle of the lane and then made my way back to the left of the lane after the turn was over. In other words I forgot myself and turned like a normal person.

Well normal just isn’t good enough. And apparently there’s a 10 point deduction for each time I did it, which was 4 times, so that put me below the required 70/100 to pass.

I hate this ridiculous fucking test. I think when I pass I’m gonna start driving even faster than normal just to spite the idiots who thought that this kind of crap would make people safer drivers.

I go back next week to try again. This would be less annoying if I didn’t have to use a vacation day every time I have to attempt the test as well as pay 2400 yen for the test and 2800 yen for the highway fees to get to the testing center.

I suppose it’s nothing compared to the 1000 dollars I’m gonna have to pay next month to have my car be declared road worthy for another 2 years.

Blah.

New Neighbors and Shenanigans Galore

Mike finally met his neighbor. Her name is Kozue and she’s 32 and lives at home still (which actually isn’t all that uncommon), and she speaks English reasonably well.

So she came out with us one night when we went to check out a newly discovered beer garden in Hanamaki. The beer garden is on top of a 5 story building so you can get a nie view of the surrounding scenery, which was definitely nice. Kozue was good company. Laughed at all our jokes and such.

Afterward we did a bit of karaoke and then Kozue gave us a lift home (I drove there and left my car at the bowling alley/karaoke place). The following day when I went to get my car it had a boot on it which some parking lot guy just removed for me when I apologized for leaving my car there.

Anyway, Kozue invited us all to a barbecue party at her house last Friday. It was raining pretty hard, but her dad constructed a tarp tent which sort of kept us all dry. The barbecue itself was very impressive. Tons upon tons of food and meat to grill. Lots of different things to try, and some really excellent sauces. It was great.

About 2/3rds of the way through Kozue’s dad, who is already drunk as a skunk, tries to stand up and manages to fall right onto the grill. Looking back, it’s really hilarious, but at the time it didn’t really seem like something to be laughing at.

After the barbecue we went to karaoke again, which was fun again. Karaoke definitely gets old after a bit, but it had been a while since I’d done any karaoke, so for the last couple of weeks I’ve had a blast singing my voice out. I’ve discovered a talent for singing in that scratchy rock star voice and I can’t help doing it every time we go nowadays. It’s fun, but I always feel it the next day.

Mike is leaving in a month, so I guess one of us will have to get Kozue’s phone number or email or something to we can continue to hang out occasionally. I’ve got my own barbecue equipment, so maybe I’ll invite her to the next American style barbecue I hold.

I got a girlfriend!

I got kittens!

Little Frustrations Add Up

Gotta get a Japanese driver's license. And since they don't trust americans, we have to take a written and technical skills test to get one.

Never mind the fact that I've driven for 6 years, and 1 full year in Japan with no problems. No, that's not important. What's important is that the American license test doesn't meet that Japanese stringent standards, so they require us to take their test. What a bunch of crap. What I acutally hear is that the decision on whether a certain country's citizens have ot take the test or are exempt is based on how Japanese driver's are treated in that country.

So I guess we make Japanese citizens take the american test (although it's a great deal easier to pass the american test)

So, I went to take a one hour lesson at the driving school with an exact replica of the official testing course (only smaller). During that hour I learned that you must drive within 10 centimeters of the extreme left side of the road. You must not brake clutch or accelerate when going around a curve. When making a left turn you have to do an 8 point check. It's not accpetable to put the car in neutral when waiting at a red traffic light (you must keep it in gear with the clutch held in down). And various other inanities. But you don't have to parallel park!

Oh fucking joy! I can't wait to go take the real test and fail because I forgot to do the "baby check" before getting in the car.

Ugh.

I think I'm going to start talking in Japanese to my supervisor because I don't think there's been a single time when I've asked her a question in english that resulted in what I wanted to happen.

Today I asked her who I should call to get the airconditioner in my house fixed. This of course led to her going ot the office and a 5 minute discussion about whether the airconditioner is the school's property (which everyone knew beforehand it wasn't), and the final result was that she told me I have to call someone myself and get it fixed! Then, on top of that, before I can explain again that that's not what I wanted to know, she asks if I have a fan. I knew where this was going, but I said yes. She then asks "isn't that enough?"

GRRRR

So, after all that, I made it clear that all I wanted was the phone number of somewhere or someone that can come take a look at my airconditioner, to which she replied. "Oh! well in that case, I don't know."

So useful having a supervisor that doesn't know anything about anything.

I don't know why I keep going back to her. I guess I just think that she's my supervisor, so I should be asking her.

Anyway. I'm just gonna ask the gym teacher who sits next to me from now on.

Got my computer back!

Finally. The whole ordeal took about 5 weeks, but now my screen stays nice and bright all the time. During those 5 weeks I suppose a good deal happened, but most of it wa sjust business as usual. Work and play.

The only real new development is that I now have a new girlfriend!

So, let me elaborate ust a bit. Her name's Satoko, she’s 25, works at a bar in a nearby town called Shiwa. She works every night except for Mondays, so we tend to meet on weekend days and Monday nights. And basically, since we met we’ve hung out every chance we could get. It’s been a bit more than a month now, and it’s going really well.


Other than meeting Satoko (who I'm sure I will talk about more and more from now on, so just be satisfied with that teaser introduction for the moment), nothing of real note happened. So let me write about what's on my mind instead.

Been thinking about my future a lot. During college I figured I had basically two choices. Go to law school or go to grad school for Philosophy and try to become a professor eventually. Well, I decided that I wasn’t interested in the ridiculously stiff competition for positions in philosophy grad programs and then even more stiff competition for professorial positions after that. So, for a year or two now, I’d basically committed myself to going to law school after I finished the JET program.

Well, it looks like working at the collegiate level as a teacher is still a real possibility. I don’t think it would be as a professor though, because I think you need a PhD in something to qualify as a professor. And it wouldn’t be in Philosophy either. I’d

A fellow Hanamaki ALT named Rob will be finishing his second year at the end of July, after which he is going to assume a position at Morioka College as an English teacher. His salary is doubled, he will work 4 days a week and he receives instant tenure. This sounds like an excellent job, and one that I’d enjoy doing a lot.

As far as I know, Rob doesn’t have particularly outstanding qualifications (he doesn't even speak Japanese . . .). He does however have a masters of education and a few years experience of teaching elementary school in the states, and 2 years of teaching English as a JET. It wouldn’t be that hard to go back to school for a year or two and get a masters of education, so in terms of qualifications, it looks like I could be qualified for the same position quite easily (unless there's more to it that I don't know).

The only problem would be if Rob just got lucky and happened to be in the right place at the right time. His job during JET was a little different than the average ALT. His home “school” was actually the Hanamaki education center, which has very close ties with the prefectural board of education. I’m sure Rob was in a position to get to know several higher ups with many connections. If it’s those connections that led to him getting his next job, then it might not be so easy for me to follow in his footsteps. Especially since I’m not impressing anyone here at the Hanamaki Agricultural high school.

So, I’ll talk to Rob and hopefully find out his circumstances. But this is now something I’m seriously considering. Even if he did happen to get his job through connections, I imagine that I could get a job at some college somewhere and work my way up from there.

But there are lots of things turning round and round inside my mind. I really like it here, but I really like it in America too. There would be a lot of things I’d miss wherever I end up settling. I do know that I enjoy teaching, and I’m very confident I’d enjoy it a lot more if I didn’t have to be an “assistant” teacher and was actually teaching students who wanted to learn. Whereas I don’t know how much I want to be a lawyer or what I would even do with a law degree. I do know that the larger sums of money are attracting me towards law (which all those older more experienced people are gonna tell me shouldn’t play a large part in the decision and I should just do something I really like to do). Well I have no idea if I’d like being a lawyer. I don’t see how I could know that until I’ve tried, but in order to even try I’ve got to spend 3 years in law school, which I’m not keen to do. Another non-reason reason for wanting to do law school is the excellent score I got on the LSATs. I know, another stupid reason, but it’s still there.

After writing this, it seems sort of one sided leaning toward trying to get a job as an English teacher at a college in Japan. And there are times when I think that that’s definitely the only right choice. But I just don’t know. I can’t say that I’d love being a lawyer, but it might turn out that I do. And it might turn out that I get really tired of teaching English after a few years and get tired of living in Japan.

Here’s another big point in favor of going to law school. Were I to go to Law school right now, I could use my great scores and probably get into a good school, and I could probably do really well at law school too. So then I could probably get a job doing what I wanted to do, somewhere. So if I got a job and after 3 or 4 years (I’d be about 30 or early 30s) I decided that being a lawyer really wasn’t for me, and I really wanted to go back to Japan and get a Job as an English teacher, I imagine I could still do that pretty easily, and I’d probably have a decent amount of money stored up to do it with.

BUT, if I did it the other way around, and became an English teacher at a college, and then in my early thirties I decided I was tired of it, then what? I’d have to retake the LSATs, go to law school for 3 years (which probably isn’t unheard of in your early thirties, but it still feels a bit late). I’d likely have considerably less money saved up, so those three years of Law school could be a burden, whereas the 1 or 2 years to get a masters of education wouldn’t be.

Thoughts. These are the thoughts I have.

Then there’s more. Let’s just say I got married to Satoko. Well she doesn’t speak English. She is somewhat interested though, so it might not be the worst thing in the world to move to America and be forced to learn English, but it also might not be fair. Without English she’s gonna have a tough time getting a job anywhere or making any friends outside of me, so it would be probably at least a year before she could even really have a semblance of an independent life. Maybe that’s exciting to her, maybe not. Anyway, this isn’t a real issue at the moment since I’ve only been dating her for a month and a half. Just a few more things I turn over in my head when I’ve got free time to think about my future. Which is all the time.

Wasn’t that neat? I started off this entry talking a tiny bit about Satoko, then I launched into a two page tirade about what I’m gonna do with my life, and then there at the end I managed to bring it all the way back round to Satoko.

Anyway, I’ve typed enough on the subject of what I’m gonna do. Even though I have several more thoughts. Let’s just suffice it to say that I’m leaning fairly strongly toward getting a masters of education and looking for a collegiate English teaching job at the moment.

Golden Week

Well, since I won’t have my computer for the next week or two, I had better make some sort of updating post.

I haven’t even mentioned Golden Week here yet. I had been planning on waiting to get photos from the other people so I could complement the story with spectacular visuals, but alas, I can’t.

So, we had a two day road trip over Golden Week. We visted three famous scenic places in northern Japan, Kakunodate, Hirosaki and Lake Towada.

So Will drove up from Yamagata prefecture to join me, Mike and Evelyn for our little trip, and we ended up taking his car since it’s bigger.

We set out for Kakunodate at noon on Tuesday. We had been told that it would only take about an hour from Morioka, so we figured we would get there by 2 or 3 if traffic was bad. After 10 minutes on the highway we hit our first slowdown. There was a 2 kilometer line to get off at the Morioka exit. That alone held us up for 40 minutes or so, and it only went downhill from there.

About 6 or 7 kilometers away from where we wanted to go we ran into another line of cars, all headed to the same place we were, and all using the only road that goes where we need it to. But being the adventurous sort we decided to go use some uncharted back roads to jump up our place in the line. Amazingly that worked ok, and we rejoined the line probably 2 or 3 kilometers ahead of where we would have been. But then, naturally, we’re just back in line, so we get antsy again, and head off onto another back road. Only this time, it was a farm access road. A very rough dirt road that we weren’t even sure we were allowed to be on. At one point we had to drive over a “bridge” that was more like someone laid down a couple of planks of wood to span a gap. That was a nerve wracking moment.

Even more surprisingly, after we had traveled for 5 minutes on this road, more cars appeared! A whole line of cars had taken some other back road routes and ended up on the same road as us. So there we are, a line of 15 cars all driving down some farmers path in between a river and rice fields. I bet the locals are used to it by now. People must do it every year at Golden Week. After a few more minutes we found our bridge across the river and we were back on course, and eventually made our way close enough to park and walk the rest of the way. That was maybe about 4:30 or so.

We brought a tent which we used as a tarp to sit on and sleeping bags and other stuff and we camped out alongside the river which was lined on both sides with Cherry trees in full bloom for 2 kilometers. Very beautiful place. It’s a shame I forgot my camera. The four of us hung out drinking and snacking until round about midnight by which time it was very cold, and we needed to get to sleep. Although sleep was a bit hard to come by.

I woke up several times during the night, some part of me being frozen. Round about 4 it starts to get light, and then at 5 I could hear people milling about, and I knew I wasn’t gonna be able to sleep any more. I got up and walked the length of the cherry trees in the early morning light and very sorely missed my camera. It was really beautiful. Particularly with so few people around. When I get some good photos, I’ll put them up here.

So by about 6 everyone was up and we took a walk around the town, which is famous because it contains an old samurai town section. We walked along a street at 6 am and it was already chock full of photographers, every single one with some giant telephoto lens. If you want to take great pictures you gotta get up early, apparently.

So we saw some samurai houses and by 8 am we were on the road.

We made our way north, stopping at an onsen to bathe, and reached Lake Towada at about noon. Lake Towada is one of the deepest lakes in Japan, and it’s also 1000 meters above sea level. The lake is inside a giant crater. We didn’t spend much time there, though. Just enough to snap some photos and keep going.

Another time we might go back and do the scenic drive through the valleys around it, or take a ferry ride through the lake, but we were on a tightish schedule, so we set out for Hirosaki, which would turn out to be the highlight of the trip.

After the nightmare traffic at kakunodate we were prepared for another long line to get to Hirosaki. But Hirosaki is a real city, which many many alternate routes and side streets, so it wasn’t nearly as bad. It was slow going, but we eventually got close enough and found a parking garage where we leave the car and head for Hirosaki Park.

Hirosaki park supposedly contains 5000 cherry trees. The park is entirely surrounded with a moat which is lined on both sides with cherry trees the whole way round. We got there a few days after the trees had bloomed, so they were starting to lose their petals already, but the trees still looked spectacular, and all the petals collected in the moat below creating a beautiful light pink surface layer to the water. It was really nice.

The park is surrounded by a moat because the “park” is actually a castle grounds. If you’ve ever seen pictures of those red wooden bridges surrounded by cherry trees, well then you’ve got a good idea of some of the sights inside the park. It was really magical. The paths were lined with trees that were big enough to create a canopy of light pink flowers giving the whole place a surreal atmosphere. The castle could be captured from one of the bridges which made for an excellent background to a group shot (which was taken by a Christian missionary who was handing out propaganda to all the passerbys).

One of the best features of this park is Mount Iwaki. Mount Iwaki must be a volcanic mountain because it is completely by itself. It’s got the perfect mountain shape too. It’s like a smaller version of Mount Fuji, and it’s right in plain view a perfect distance from the park. Again I was kicking myself for not having a camera. This has to be one of the most beautiful spots in Japan.

We had thought about continuing the trip and going farther north to see Osorezan, or Mount Fear, but we were all quite tired, and we couldn’t find a single hotel room anywhere, even in neighboring cities, and last night was so cold that none of us wanted to repeat the experience, so we just set out for home instead. It was probably better that way. Marathon sight seeing has a way of making you appreciate the latter sights a lot less. Osorezan can be done on another weekend sometime when we’ll actually be rested and fresh enough to appreciate it.

So that was the highlight of my Golden Week. Other than that I did lots of drinking. One might even say I drank too much.

Hanamaki's Hanami Spot

‰Hanamaki Agricultural High School

Spring!

It’s been a while since I’ve written here.

It’s because the “blogspot.com” domain has been labeled “adult” by the school’s internet security. So, I can’t check my own or anyone else’s blog at work now. And that just happened to be the only time I would write my entries.

Anyway, I’ll try to be a bit more proactive about it.

So, it’s springtime in Northern Japan, finally.

The sakura (cherry trees) have just begun to bloom, and everywhere is starting to become really beautiful.

I went to take some pictures around school today, and of course, the batteries have run out. I’m gonna have to go home in the middle of the day to charge them up because we made plans to go to eat dinner in the park with all the sakura, and I wouldn’t want to be unable to take pictures then too.

I’ve got all next week off, so, me and mike, are planning to do a mini roadtrip up north to a few hanami (sakura viewing) hotspots. There’s two major ones. One is in the prefecture north of us, Aomori. It’s a castle with something like 5000 trees on the premise. And then we’ll make our way back down south and head to this samurai town which is rumored to be the most beautiful spot in Japan. This should make for some excellent photos, hopefully.

School is going normally. I’m planning very simple lessons. Usually, I just make a tiny sheet with about 4 example sentences, and then I call on random people over and over again asking them questions which make them manipulate the sentence a bit to get it in the right grammatical form.

For example:

Me: What do you do on the weekend?

S1: I play basketball

Me: What do you like to do on the weekend?

S1: I like playing basketball

Me (to another student): What does he do on the weekend?

S2: He plays basketball

Me: What does he like to do on the weekend?

S2: He likes playing basketball.

And I repeat the process over and over again. Some days I actually feel like most people have started to get the idea by the end. But many times I just feel like the good students who already got it are the only ones who can do it, and the weaker students don’t listen so they don’t learn anything from the other people, so when it’s their turn, they still suck.

Anyway, whatever. It’s pretty easy to plan this sort of lesson, and really, it should be the most useful thing I could do for them. Rather than having them play inane games, or trying to use the text book, they’re actually practicing speaking English correctly, and even manipulating a sentence on the fly to make it grammatically correct.

Eventually, I will probably just end up going back to planning games for the classes that really get on my nerves if I take them seriously.

English Class in Japan (also known as The Largest Waste of Time on Earth)

I hate English classes in Japan. They suck.

If I didn’t have to teach with Japanese teachers who suck at English, and didn’t have to use one of their horrendously awful text books, then I think I could actually teach the kids something.

But as it is, classes that I haven’t totally given up on are the ones that frustrate me the most.

I actually relax and have fun in the “bad” classes now. But the classes that actually pay attention and have the slightest bit of skill are annoying. They’re annoying cause I basically feel trapped. These kids could learn a bit of decent English if everything was different, but as it stands, they’re doomed, and there’s precious little I can do about it.

Japanese people going through the Japanese school system have to be language phenoms to actually come away from school being able to hold a basic conversation consisting of natural grammatically correct sentences. And I really do mean phenom. Just your average smart person won’t cut it.

For instance, here’s the first dialogue in the first chapter of the 2^nd year high school student’s textbook:

Ken: Aya, this is John.

Aya: Hi, John. Nice to meet you.

John: Nice to meet you too.

Aya: Where are you from?

John: I’m from New Zealand.

Aya: Where do you live?

John: In Wellington.

Aya: Really! How nice! I hear it’s a beautiful city.

John: Oh, yes. It’s great.

Aya: And do you have any brothers or sisters?

John: Yes, I have two sisters. How about you?

Aya: I’m an only child. And, what are your hobbies?

John: Listening to music and playing soccer.

Not so bad, right? Wrong.

There’s no Japanese translation anywhere to be found. There are no new vocab words listed. Not one single grammar point is explained. In short, what I just typed is all the kids get to learn from on their own.

In class, yes, the teachers can provide all the things I mentioned. Wait, let me rephrase that. In class, the teachers should be able to provide all the things I mentioned. But they can’t, or they don’t.

When we do this lesson next week, we’re going to read the dialogue, have the students repeat after me, and possibly read it in pairs.

The only ability they’re working out is their reading ability. They will still have no clue what the stuff they’re reading means, or more importantly, why it means what it does. If it were up to me, we would skip the dialogue entirely, because it serves no purpose at all.

And since they have no idea of anything, it’s all meaningless. They might be able to retain the few isolated explanations they get from the teacher long enough to pick out the right answer on their multiple choice tests, but by the time the next lesson roles around they’ve forgotten it and the teacher will never mention anything in the previous lessons again. There’s absolutely zero progression. Each lesson they start with a blank slate and learn next to nothing only long enough to use it on the test then it’s gone forever. Or maybe they’ll learn it again next year when their new textbook goes over all the same things it did the previous year.

It’s retarded.