A Bear in the Tree

AKA: My Time as a Doll

One of my favorite people in Ikushina Jr. High is Kumaki-sensei. She is about 5-foot-nothing, and is 45 years old, though I honestly thought she was joking when she said so; she looks at least ten years younger, and rarely acts older than 25. She is self-depricating in a way that I, as a Southern woman, fully appreciate, but is in no way jaded - she takes delight in everything, from the electronic dictionary "game" for my Nintendo DS to the fact that I drink beer (a "vice" that she shares, unlike many of the female teachers at Ikushina). She gives me a big smile when I am heading off to class, which always gives me an extra boost. In short, she feels just like many of my mother's friends, being older than me, wiser than me, and an absolute blast.

Kumaki-sensei is a long-term substitute teacher; she's been filling in since January for an art teacher on maternity leave, and will be leaving Ikushina after December. Despite her temporary status, she's clearly qualified for the job. All I can say of her art is that it's beautiful, and I am secretly hoping that one day she will give me one of her pieces. On top of that, she's one of the hardest working teachers at Ikushina (in my opinion), as she's the only art teacher in the school, and thus teaches all three years by herself. (That's some 9 classes, fyi.)

One day, Kumaki-sensei asked me if I'd be willing to help her daughter, a third year in junior high, with her English speech contest material. I was glad to, as Kumaki-sensei had already won me over, and the next Sunday found me at her house with her daughter, Fumiko, working on her speech. At least, that was the original reason - in truth, I think Kumaki-sensei wanted an excuse to have me at her mercy. Of the four or five hours I was at her house, I probably spent 45 minutes working on the speech with her daughter. The rest of the time, I was looking at photos of her family, enjoying her food, having my picture taken around her house with her or her daughter, and, best of all, getting dressed up in a yukata (summer kimono) of her daughter's. She brought it out and said she HAD to see it on me, that she thought it would be so cute, and spent ten minutes clucking over me as she worked me into it. I couldn't help but feel like a doll at the hands of an overly excited six-year-old...and yet, I loved every minute of it. I couldn't stop smiling the whole time I was there.

After all of this, Kumaki-sensei drove me back to my apartment, having given me print-outs of the photos she took and several peaches as "souvenirs." Once we arrived, she asked me (ever so adorably) if she and Fumiko could see my apartment. It was absolutely adorable to see her "ooh" and "ahh" over my apartment and the things I had. In fact, most of the things I have bought for my apartment since then, while necessary, have been bought with Kumaki-sensei in mind. ("Won't Kumaki-sensei enjoy seeing this when she visits me next!") She also offered to teach me how to cook Japanese dishes, which makes me horrendously excited. I can only hope that I will get to experience this pleasure sometime soon. After nearly dying from laughter when I called my predecessor "a bit messy," she and Fumiko left to go back home...only for most of this to become her topic of conversation at school for the next week.

And that, my friends, was the time I spent as a Japanese doll. With all luck, I'll get to have this experience many more times!

Oh, and the title - the kanji (Chinese characters) for Kumaki-sensei's name are "bear" and "tree," something that came up when I was explaining that "Forrest" probably comes from "forest" and is just one of those little misspelled things that sticks around. I hope to sometime soon make something for her along the lines of a bear in a tree, but haven't quite decided how I'm going to do this yet. Maybe I'll sew something together...

My New Life

AKA: AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!

As of Monday, I have taught at least two classes in every grade at the middle school. It has been an experience. Most of this is summed up in classroom behavior.

When it comes to English class, the main thing that defines how a student will behave is their level of motivation to learn English:

- The third years, who have their (horrendously scary) entrance exams coming up，are very motivated to learn English, as it is a significant part of their exam. For them, the main problem is staying awake in class – as they are usually attending juku, or cram school, after class and studying late into the night, they are often unable to stay awake in class. If I act goofy, they wake up a bit, and it’s easier for everyone. For example, my teacher asked the students in a third year class if they had any questions for me. When no one said anything, I looked at the ground, shuffled my feet, and acted very sad in general. My teacher belted out, “She looks so sad!!” and I instantly got three questions. Lesson learned: be entertaining for the third years.

- The first years are just hyper. They have a hard time paying attention because they are 13 years old and crammed into a classroom with 32 of their peers. The fact that a boring teacher is in the front of the class does not stop them from chatting with everyone around them. But, if you give them an outlet for their energy, they pay attention fairly well. We played a game called “Typhoon” for my self introduction. Basically, you answer questions for points, which equate into houses in your team’s “village.” To make this fun, you can occasionally get a TYPHOON card, which lets you select another team’s “village” to wipe out with a typhoon. The team with the most houses at the end wins. One of my students really won my heart because he was SO INTO this game. He would lean over to other teams and telling them wrong answers. He would JUMP out of his seat whenever it was his team’s turn to answer a question. In fact, he went nuts when he found out we were going to be playing Typhoon, pumping a thumbs-up in the air. He’s not even that good at English – he’s just excitable. (He went nuts when I said I liked Orange Range and Avril Lavigne [this last one being an outright lie, but hey, I need the bonus points with these kids and she’s really popular].) So, again – be entertaining and they will be motivated to learn.

- The second years…well, around the staff room, there is a general consensus that they are Satan’s Little Helpers. The problem is that they have no motivation to learn English (or any other subject, for that matter). They are bored with it, annoyed that they have to study it, and are starting to wonder why it is required when they don’t see a need to use it … ever. “My dad doesn’t know how to speak English – why should I?” This makes them the most difficult group with which I must work. To give you a better idea, this is what happened in one of my 2^nd year classes on Friday: three kids were asleep the entire class, despite being woken up by the teacher at least once. One kid was reading a comic book in class, and tried to steal it back from the teacher after it was confiscated. And then, of course, there was the Bad Kid – he spent the entire class mocking whatever I or the other teacher said, throwing things at other students, getting up and walking around, and so forth. (It was…fun.) Still, “every obstacle is an opportunity in disguise.” Because I am not the primary teacher, I can be friends with my students, which will earn me a lot of leeway. The fortunate thing is that my main goal is not to win over everyone, but the worst kid in the class – usually he or she will be the ‘leader’ of all of the bad kids, so winning one will win a number of them.

In short, it’s been a challenging week. I have learned that there are many things I have to do, and it’s hard to be energetic all of the time, especially if you’re getting negative results.

Still, the hard times are severely outnumbered by the fun ones.

1. I had a hard time discussing a class with my team-teacher when we are walking back to the staff room because so many students are saying “hello” to me.

2. One girl watched me with a dreamy look when I sang “Georgia On My Mind” (something I do to get the attention of the 2^nd years in my self-introduction lesson), which was better than all of the verbal comments about my singing made to date.

3. Two of my teachers were telling me yesterday that I was so nice and friendly, and that everyone thinks I must have a wonderful family to be such a nice person.

4. One teacher told me she was surprised at how polite I was, because I bow when I say “thank you.”

5. As I was leaving school yesterday, the whole soccer team stopped their cool-down stretch to say “goodbye” to me.

The good moments always seem to outnumber the bad, and that’s really all I need to survive, and even thrive, in this environment.

… And, of course, a lot of caffeine.

Memorizing Japanese Leads to Dreams of Hot Bodz.

(Proven Fact.)

Maybe a week or so ago, my principle mentioned that he would like me to give a speech at the opening ceremony for the school (today). On further pressing, I found out that it should be a couple of minutes long and preferably (aka: no choice) in Japanese.

In a way, this was good - I have a couple of students who are going to be in an English speech contest soon, and they enjoyed playing teacher and correcting my grammar and pronunciation in retaliation for my "attacks" on their speeches. But, in another way, this was bad, in that I had to give a speech in Japanese for two freakin' minutes.

I still had half of the speech to memorize last night. I studied so furiously that I had a dream in which Brad Pitt and Ed Norton came to visit "WashU" (which looked suspiciously like my house in Gainesville) and Brad Pitt started speaking in Japanese.
I wish I were joking.

This morning, I repeated the speech over and over again on the way to school. I repeated it again and again during the ceremony. And, suddenly, I found myself on stage, in front of several hundred students who were looking very, VERY confused.

Here's what I said:

"Good morning! (I had to repeat this, because I didn't get enough of a 'good morning' from the students the first time around. ^_~) [then, in Japanese] My name is Leslie Forrest. Please call me 'Miss Leslie.' I am from Atlanta, Georgia in America.　Georgia is in the south-east of America. Atlanta is famous for Coca-Cola and the 1996 Olympics. 'Georgia Coffee' [a popular drink here] is NOT from Georgia!
My major in college was Philosophy-Neuroscience-Psychology. I like German and Italian.
This is my first time in Japan. I am happy to be teaching at Ikushina Junior High and in Ota. Please talk to me anytime, anywhere. Japanese is still a little hard for me, so I'll keep trying! Thank you very much."

Amazingly enough, I did not have to think about what I was going to say before I said it. Either I was so nervous that I went on auto-pilot, and was thankfully accurate, or I managed to transcend the mental repetition and just go straight to saying it. Either way, it went without a hitch, though I was still thankful to be off of the stage.

Afterwards, several of the teachers told me they were amazed that I memorized such a long speech in Japanese. Apparently, that either wasn't required or wasn't expected. (Thanks for letting me know! -_-;;) But hey, at least it's over.

...until I have to give it again to the elementary school! Ahahhahahahahaha. Ha.

Saito-sensei and the Bento Box

AKA: "No, this isn't the 8th Harry Potter book."

One of the hardest things about Japan, for me, is preparing my own food. This is for two reasons:

1. It’s often hard to know what I’ve bought at the store, or how to prepare it.
2. I’m lazy.

What this usually means is that I cook something in the morning for lunch, run out of time to do things like put on make-up and eat breakfast, and then eat the leftovers from my cooking in the morning for dinner. This is less than conducive toward my presentation abilities, which, in Japan, is a pretty major failing of my lunches.

Japanese food presentation is an art. It is expected that the food will look as delicious as it tastes, if not more so. When it comes to lunches brought from home, called ‘bento,’ this is no exception. I recently heard a Japanese teacher confess that she got up at 4:00 every morning to prepare her daughter’s lunch. That is about 2.5 or 3 hours devoted to cooking one (rather compact) meal. Add to this that the aesthetic of the bento box, or lunch box, itself is almost as important as the presentation of the food inside of it, and you begin to realize how time consuming the venture of making a lunch can be. (And to think, all I got for years on end was PB&J and celery sticks in a paper bag…)

Because I am a foreigner, I am not held to the same standards in my bento-making as a Japanese person would be. The art of food presentation isn’t in my blood; I can’t help my inabilities. Thus, the mere fact that I cook my own food amazes my fellow teachers. Plus, I am doing my best to make Japanese foods, as the materials are cheaper to buy at the store, making the total level of surprise at my bento jump dramatically. My rushed cooking and presentation, then, does not really matter.

Enter Saito-sensei, stage right. Saito-sensei sits next to me in the staff room. This must be strategic fate, as he is very paternal in nature and goes out of his way to take care of me. For instance, he found out that I liked an anime called “Cardcaptor Sakura,” and within a few days he brought me the entire set of the Cardcaptor Sakura comic books as gift. (His daughter had the series, but no longer read them, so ‘she’ gave them to me.) I have many stories like this, but let it suffice to say that Saito-sensei is one of my favorites.

Now, back to bento. Saito-sensei thinks, like many of the other teachers, that the fact that I make my lunch is amazing. Unlike the other teachers, however, he makes sure to get a good look at my lunch every day. He usually will then brag about it to the other teachers: “Hey [so-and-so]-sensei! Did you see that Leslie brought udon to school today?”

I won’t lie; at first, this really irked me. “Yes, I can make stir-fry. Yes, I eat rice. Gasp! … GET OVER IT.” were my general thoughts at his regular interest. Since the first few days, however, Saito-sensei has become the inspiration for my lunch-creation schemes. His interest is a challenge to me to cook something interesting. Once I get a better feel for cooking Japanese food (more on this to follow), I hope to churn out better bentos. And, when I become a world-class lunch-creation queen, and my children’s lunches are the envy of all the other children, I’ll be sure to send a postcard Saito-sensei’s way.

Settling in...

みさしぶり! (Long time, no see!) Yes, I'm still alive and doing well. It's been an intense (almost) 2 weeks since I arrived in Japan.

TOKYO
... was intense. I didn't get to see much of the city because I was constantly in meetings during the day, and too tired to venture out at night. The few times I did go out, however, impressed me with one thing: Tokyo is a big and scary city. Everything is of concrete, everything is packed in as tight as possible...it is the epitome of the Japanese stereotype. I'm glad to no longer be there.

GUNMA
We left Tokyo on the Wednesday before last (the 1st of August) and were sent out to our prefectures. Some thirty of us were going to Gunma, my prefecture, so the bus ride was interestingly enjoyable. There was a short ceremony to introduce us to our supervisors, and then we were off to our individual towns.

OTA
I am one of three new JETs to be arriving in Ota; one has yet to arrive, and another arrived with me. That being said, there are many ALTs (assistant language teachers) here...about 20. These others are privately contracted, and apparently think that the JETs are stuck up brats. I'm going to do my best to change this opinion of us... Nevertheless, what this effectively means is that I'm not the only English speaker around, though I am still very much in the constant presence of Japanese people. I hope to learn Japanese quickly, and think it very possible.

Ota is a fairly large city, as far as things go - it's the third largest in the prefecture. I feel very much at home here. I sometimes forget that I am in Japan, as my surroundings are very comfortable. Then again, as of late, I've been treading the same path again and again: to school, to the store, and back home. It's easy to feel comfortable when your world is that small.

SCHOOL
I'm already going to school on a daily basis. Teachers do not get breaks when the students do, so the fact that the students will not be starting class again until September does not prevent us from coming in. I rather like being at school, however, if only because the staff room is air conditioned (unlike the rest of my school), which is a great luxury for the teachers and, more importantly, for me, as it is cool air that I don't have to pay for. A/C is mostly provided through a window unit here, as the idea of central air is a complete novelty, and is rather expensive. This not only means that my apartment is always hot, but that the rooms are not connected by vents in any way. If a room is closed, it is CLOSED.
So, Georgia-esque heat and humidity and a general inability to run the A/C? Of COURSE I want to be at school!
If the fact that this is a break does not prevent the teachers from being at school at all hours, it most certainly does not prevent the students from being here, either. There is a big emphasis on sports teams here, with nearly all students being involved in some sport, so they are always here for practice. Also, the school is cleaned by the students, so every morning has a troope of students coming through the staff room and taking out the trash, vacuuming, etc. It's wonderfully adorable. (Especially when they walk past the windows to the staff room, or come in to talk to a sensei, and freak out at seeing me instead of a redheaded guy.)

That's already a lot of information, and my lunch break is almost over, so I need to get back to work. More after this weekend!

In Japan!

It's almost 5 in the morning here, and thanks to a combination of jet lag and my roommate's impressive capacity for snoring, I find myself awake.

So...Japan!

We arrived in the Narita airport around 5:30 last night after a 13 hour flight, and then enjoyed a two-hour bus ride to our hotel in Tokyo proper. After a flurry of "go this way"s and "pick up these"s, I found myself on the streets of Tokyo with a couple of acquaintances I made in Hartsfield. We had an amazing curry dinner, which was very fun to order - the ordering and paying process went through an elaborate vending machine. Still, a large plate of curry (the "small" size), a bowl of miso soup, and a 17 ounce beer for approx. $4? I think I'm in love.



----
It's a beautiful morning thus far - Tokyo is apparently always misty in the mornings, and today is no exception. As my roommate's snores are lessening and I find myself tiring, I'll leave you with another photo - the view of Tokyo from my hotel window.

I'm going back to middle school...*sob*

I've heard from my predecessor (finally!), which means I now know a little about my job assignment in Ota. I'll be teaching mainly at Ikushina Junior High School, as well as spending one day a week at a local elementary school.

Now, putting aside the fact that I don't even want to THINK about being in middle school again, I'm horrendously excited. I love the idea of getting to teach at an elementary school as well as a middle school, and I'm beginning to think of things I want to try out with them (in very broad terms). Also, look at this:


Those are some of the elementary school kids with my predecessor.
SO. FREAKING. CUTE.
(And yes, every picture he has taken of his kids has them doing peace signs.)

Outside of that, I don't have much more information. I sent Pete (predecessor) a ton of questions, and will hopefully get my answers soon. I bought an external hard drive recently,and just received my copy of the Blair Handbook, a grammar reference recommended by Rafael. Woohoo for some light, bedtime reading. O_o

And...that's pretty much it. More for y'all when there's more for me. :D