Brian’s Japan Adventure

You might wonder what I’m doing now that TEFL courses are done, but it’s not time to leave yet. Well, I still have a couple of those TEFL projects to work on, but those are on the back burner at least until the weekend. As of Monday, I started a course on Memoir Writing. I still need credit for one more course, and this class was the only one available in the time I have available to me. The whole thing is very intensive, with very long classes every day. The upshot is that the whole thing is done in just two weeks!  The fact that it just might be useful in documenting my future travel stories is purely coincidental, but nice nevertheless.

So anyway, I have to write a memoir piece every night, and a few special essays over the weekend. I also have to submit stuff to magazines and contests, but I won’t know all the details about that until next week.  To be honest, Monday night I didn’t have a clue about what to write, but by tonight, I already have a list of stuff that could make good topics. The real trick is just getting started.  Once I got past the hurdle of not having a topic, the rest is fun. I’ve found that even the stupidest little incidents can be retold in an entertaining light.

I still have to squeeze in the last two TEFL projects somewhere and finish my Independent Paper and Learn Japanese and prepare for my trip and buy suitcases and a whole mess of other stuff in the next two weeks, but I’m getting there.

I’d like to call this a week off, but that’s not completely accurate. True, there were no classes this week, but as I previously mentioned, there is still a lot of written work to do. To make a long story short, I have finished two research papers for the TEFL classes, and a large portion of my final Independent Paper for my Master’s degree. I still also have a culture project for one class that I haven’t given much thought to yet.

The real problem is the collaborative course project. I’m “collaborating” with two other students from the TEFL class, one of whom is my Japan traveling partner, and the other is just a girl from class who has been to Japan in the past. We had an “organizational meeting” for this project about two weeks ago, and we split up assignments. I was eager to take on the role of “leader” and do the organizational work since I know what I want done and I know what grade I want- I don’t want those decisions made for me by some slacker. Well, to sum up the problem, the girl from class has sent me her share of the work, and it’s a little weak. She knows this and promises revisions soon, so I can’t complain too much there (yet). My Japan partner, on the other hand, has done nothing but contacted me to let me know he couldn’t attend a meeting last week. ZERO work on the project.

This thing is 50% of the grade in one course.  I already have a pretty good idea how this thing is going to play out.  Two of us are going to have this thing finished next weekend. Someone will be emailing me a few days before it is due wanting to know how the project is going. One of the three of us is probably going to fail the course. I am NOT nice enough to sign his name to the paper without a significant contribution. I do not tolerate “slackassiness” (a new word!). Will this keep him from going to Japan? No, not by itself; if he gets dropped from the program, it won’t be my fault.
I’m patient; there is still time before this thing is due.  Oh, how I hate collaborative projects!

Actually thinking about this whole project… How or when will I *EVER* collaborate on designing lesson plans in the future? My understanding is that I’ll be very much on my own when teaching overseas, so it seems worthless to assign us to collaborate now.

Friday was the last day of TEFL classes. Five weeks down, just as promised. Well, not exactly. You see, they realize that the workload in that five weeks is crazy, so they give additional time for some of the work. I have two research papers, a cultural project and a huge collaborative project to work on.  they generously give us all month to do these things.  The problem is, I have another tough class starting on the 23rd, so I only have a week to get as much of this stuff done as I can.

Today I went to school for a meeting with my collaborators on the collaborative project. One of them didn’t show up, the other had nothing done. I had my syllabus all typed up and ready to fill in with their lesson plans. No dice.
I don’t know why this was set up as a collaborative project, those things are nothing but a pain in the butt. I’ll probably NEVER collaborate on something like that in real life.  I set a “due date” of Thursday for the lesson plans, let’s see if they listen to me. If not… Well, I can always turn in the collaborative project missing a name or two, right?  Since it’s 50% of their grade, they ought to be motivated.  OK, so I’m a slave-driving taskmaster. I can live with that.

Still, the six-hour-a-day classes are over, and things are on the downhill slope now. I’ve got a few more hurdles to get through this summer, and you’ll be hearing about them shortly!

Japan by E-mail! 

I just created a “Google Group” for this blog. Google groups are basically mailing lists. If you sign up for the mailing list, you will automatically receive updates to this site in your email. It save the necessity for checking the site, plus you find out about new things more quickly.

http://groups.google.com/group/japan-tefl

Sign up today and get the news faster than ever!

This just in, straight from Japan:

Yes, my existing ticket is fine.  At least unless there is a problem with my visa, which is completely possible.

But that’s not all!

we have classes set up for you at a kindergarten and nursery school besides the universities/culture center/ junior or senior high schools (schedule is currently being planned). You will be going to the kindergarten in Hiroshima,

OK, so the Hiroshima/bullet-train thing was dead-on accurate and actually going to happen. Cool.

But..preschool? AIYEE!

From the context of the letter, I suspect it will only be once a week, so that’s not so bad. Yep, it’s going to be an experience all right.