Brian’s Japan Adventure

January 31^st, 2007

It’s Always About Money

I started off the day by doing the usual library routine.  I needed to pick up some graphic and sound files for one of the two big projects I am working on.  They were easy enough to find, and they are in the public domain as well, so I now they’ll be completely usable for what I intend. I researched a Hawaii trip a little more. I’m really, really on the fence on this one. I’d like to go, but for that kind of money, I could go almost anywhere in the world; is Hawaii actually my first choice?  It’ll also use up nearly every penny I’ve saved while being in Japan. That’s not really what I’ve been saving for.  I hate indecision!

While reading my usual news sources, I see that eBay has raised their fees once again.  They call it lower fees, but it doesn’t take much in the way of math skills to see that it’s just the opposite.  That’s not going to affect my new business model much, if at all, but when I return home, I have lots of old inventory from my old business that I had hoped to liquidate on eBay. Leave it to eBay to screw things up even more than it already was. Those guys are going to “greed themselves” right out of business.  Maybe they are just trying to pay for a Hawaiian vacation?

Mystery Greens

I stopped in at Co Co Ichi on the way home, and they now have my old favorite, the chicken and spinach curry back on the menu, at least for this month. I wish I knew what that green stuff was. I’m sure it’s not really spinach, but it doesn’t taste anything like the seaweed I have tried here either. What looks like cooked spinach, but isn’t?

Still, All About The Money

On the way home, it occurred to me that yesterday was probably payday. It was after 5:00, so the office was closed.  When I got to the apartment, I ran into Marc and e verified that he was indeed paid yesterday.  We’re never quite sure when payday is, but we’re pretty sure, it’s the first Wednesday after the 27^th. I can’t pick up my pay on Wednesdays because I’m out of town on those days. I guess I will have to go up the mountain tomorrow and pick up my money. That’s OK, because I have to print off copies of the final exam for N-Sensei’s class on Monday. I’ve had the written portion of the exam ready for a couple of weeks, but I need to come up with a listening portion before Monday. That should be no problem.

Most of the evening will be spent doing laundry and listening to more podcasts that I picked up this afternoon. I’m starting to get caught up with the good ones, and I am started on some new ones now. Some are really good, and some are a complete waste of time. At least it’s easy to unsubscribe to the ones I don’t like.  Pretty soon, I’ll have a decent sized list of regular “must haves” that I can wait for each week. Unfortunately, the best ones seem to be monthly.

Tomorrow will be Friday, and that means going back to the low-level class in Fukuyama. Remember, this was the “disaster class” from last week. Tomorrow, I plan to make it easy for them. Maybe too easy, but after last week, I don’t think there is such a thing as too easy.  I believe nothing short of “game day” is going to get them back on my side after the much-to-difficult lesson last time. I don’t supposed 50 minutes of English word games on a Friday is going to hurt anyone.  I just need to pick the right games!

January 30th, 2008

A Slightly Different Hiroshima Routine

I got up at a regular, normal, human hour this morning instead of the usual Wednesday 6:30 alarm clock bell. Since my trip to the kindergarten was called off this morning, I was able to go later than usual.  I checked my train schedules and decided to leave the house to catch the 10:30 train from Hokaiin and Okayama and then the 10:38 Shinkansen to Hiroshima. Normally, the ride from Hokaiin to Okayama takes about three minutes, but today the train was a couple of minutes late, so I ended up having to wait for the next Shinkansen at 11:02.

The 25-minute delay put me in a bit of a rush. I had plenty of time to get to Hiroshima, but I wanted to try and have lunch before going to class. I don’t usually get to have lunch until after the first adult class, around 3pm.  I arrived in Hiroshima around 11:45 and stopped in the Lotteria under the train station and had my “Straight Burger Combo.”

While sitting there, I started to wonder about the buses. I had no idea what the schedule would be, or even if I could in fact find one that was going somewhere that I knew. But it turned out to be no problem, I found one that clearly say it was going to so-and-so shopping center via the Peace Park. I figured at the very worst I could walk from the park, but I could probably get off somewhere before that. That is indeed exactly how it worked out. I got off the bus about halfway between Mos Burger and the big arcade area, and walked to class. It’s not even especially cold today, so that worked out well. I arrived about a half hour before class, which is just about my usual time.

The International Author Speaks

The class initially started talking about my blog. It seems two of them have been reading it online, and a third is reading printouts given to her by one of the others. One only commented on how long it all was, but another really seemed to have read and understood a lot of it. I’m not surprised that they can understand it, since they are all pretty advanced. I am surprised however, that they found it interesting!  One asked me about Hawaii and my change in plans, and when I started to explain about the crazy airline fees, one said “oh yes, listen to this!” because she knew what was coming. This is going to make my portion of the “what I did last week” part of the class a little more challenging for me!

One thing that I would be especially pleased to see would be one or more of them actually signing up to the blog and making a comment here.  How neat would THAT be?

We talked about our weeks, and got into a brief, yet incredibly confusing lesson about causative verbs. They kept wanting me to explain about causatives, but as far as I can see, they mostly seem to understand them and use them correctly, so I am not quite sure what it is they want. I’ll look into some causative lessons this weekend though, just to see what I can do for them.

Somehow or other, we got started on the subject of politics. I ended up explaining about Democrats and Republicans and which “Primary Election” candidates were on which side.  They know all the names, and a lot of the details about all the major players. They watch American politics very closely. I wonder how many Americans can even tell the name of the Japanese Prime Minister. Probably not very many.

Anyway, after talking about the primaries, I explained which past presidents were part of which party. They seemed to like the Democrats more than the Republicans, and they seemed surprised that I tended to go the other way, but once I said I didn’t like Bush, they were OK with that. When I say I don’t like Hillary either, they seem a little surprised. Hillary is very popular over here. I see her on the news almost as much as the Japanese politicians. This eventually got into the discussion about the Bush vs. Gore election, which in turn led to the discussion of Electoral votes and the popular vote, and how Gore could be both a winner and a loser at the same time. I’m pretty sure they actually understood all of this. Then we talked about the individual candidates and where they came from. Obama was from the House of Representatives, Hillary was from the Senate, Rudy was a Mayor, McCain was in the Military, Edwards was a lawyer, and so on. I’m not quite sure about the past of Huckabee or Romney; they weren’t big before I left the States, so I haven’t heard much about them. I really believe this class knows more about American politics than the typical “American on the Street.”

It eventually came down to who did I like for the election, and I said my guess was it would come down to Hillary Clinton Vs. Rudy Guliani. They wanted to know whom I would vote for, and I told them I didn’t really like any of them. One mentioned that if Obama won, he might be killed. I had to agree, but also added that Hillary would be just as much a target for the same reasons, but added that any President is always a target. Again, they seem quite well-informed.

Then class time was up, and I filed away the big pile of class activities and games I brought along so that we could maybe get to them next time. This class likes to talk too much to get into serious lessons. That’s OK, I think they need (and want) practice talking more than they need more grammar lessons.

No Computer Today?

Since I had the burger and fries this morning, I decided to forego lunch and go straight to the computer room this afternoon. Unfortunately, there was a class in there when I went upstairs. That’s never happened before; I wonder if it’s going to be a regular thing? I guess it doesn’t matter too much. Now that I have Mondays and Thursdays off, I can post everything then instead of on Wednesdays. It’s not that much of a delay. Back when I was worked every single weekday, something like this would be more of a problem.

Suddenly, I had three hours to kill. I walked way out past where I got off the bus this afternoon and had “Second Lunch” at Mos Burger. Then I walked back and checked the computer room again. The class was still going at 4:15.  At that point, I went back to my classroom and fiddled around with the computer, writing all of this blog up to this point.

OK, Now I’m on the train home. Not much happened in the later class. A couple of the students who did not come last week returned, so it was a full house. Everyone got caught up on what they did on the break, and they all wanted to see my Miyajima photos. Fortunately, I had my laptop with me, so I showed them the slideshow. They talked so much tonight, once again, we never got around to a real lesson.  I wonder if they would even notice if I took a day off?

January 29th, 2008

The Principal’s Secret

I had to leave about an hour early today because of my appointment to have lunch with the Principal in Fukuyama. It was raining and slushy from last night’s snow, so I decided to walk rather than ride my bike to the station.  I’d rather be a little cold than wind up with a broken arm or something.

We met in the principal’s office and he offered me some cookies, which were fantastic. I’m not entirely sure if he is the principal of the Junior High school or the High School, but it’s most likely probably both.  Then we walked over to the same cafeteria that the assistant principal took Marc and I to a few weeks ago.  I had the “plate lunch” which consisted of:

• Salad. We would call this coleslaw in the US, since it’s basically cabbage with dressing.
• Cold noodles that were very thin and tasted a lot like plain bread
• Vegetables (Onions, potatoes, carrots, and mystery stuff) in some kind of broth
• Miso soup with little fishy things in it
• Giant bowl of rice
• A “Meat Thing.” It tasted like meatloaf, but was the color of chicken. It might have been salmon, but was not particularly fishy.

Can you guess which single item I didn’t eat? The term “fishy things” should set off some alarms right away if you need a hint. Everything else was quite oishii. The principal also didn’t eat quite so fast, so I didn’t have to inhale everything this time.

He spoke very little English, and my Japanese level is still minimal at best.  That being said, I have found that that doesn’t really stop communication if both sides are patient enough and really listen.  I found out, without a word of English, that he was a big-time chain smoker.  He had been smoking four packs a day for the past 35 years.  He had given up smoking as a New Year’s resolution on the first of January. He was using some kind of nicotine gum, but his time on that was nearly up. It was difficult at first, but it is getting easier for him. Yes, all that from a guy with no English.

I thanked him repeatedly and went on to my classes.

Classes Today

I met the teacher for my first and second class and she handed me a note from the teacher of the third class. They are having a practice test for the college entrance exams tomorrow, so today they were going to study for that, so I did not have to teach the third class today. That makes the day a little easier, but the third class is in the middle of the schedule, so that while I do get a break now, I can’t actually go home any earlier.

So I went to my first class, and we briefly reviewed last week’s movie lesson. Some of the students had filled in more movies on the worksheet from last week and wanted to try to stump their classmates, so we briefly played that game again today, but just for fun and without teams.

Then we moved on to another movie activity that came directly out of my TEFL Final Project. I knew those classes were good for something, ha! It was an activity where there were two worksheets, each having information missing that can be found on the other sheet. Students are handed one or the other worksheet and in pairs they have to ask each other questions to learn the missing material. It worked so-so. I thought this activity was actually easier than the one last week, but some of them didn’t quite get it. Still, most of them got through it before the bell rang.

The second class was a repeat of the previous one, but since these students were a year old, they caught on a little more quickly and we just barely ran out of time when the final bell rang. The same teacher, S-Sensei, teaches both the first and second class, and she can be more helpful by the time the second class comes around since she understands what I’m doing by that time.

Then it was time for the third class, which had been cancelled. S-Sensei followed me to the “chat room,” where I was to wait until the chat room scheduled time. She wanted to talk about my activities for future classes. She explained exactly what kind of thing she was looking for, and even gave me copies of activities she had used in the past and told me to use them if I liked them. I did like them, and will use several of them in future classes. Now keep in mind that I have been here for an entire five months, and this is the first time any teacher has actually sat down with me and tried to help me or suggest anything or even tell me clearly what they were looking for. The first time! Now that I actually think this through and come to that realization, I should probably be amazed at how well I have actually done here!  Yes, of course I have made a few mistakes; it’s all been trial and error for the most part.

During our conversation, S-Sensei told me she was “feeling depressed” because her English level is “not so good” and she didn’t know if she was qualified to teach English. Actually, her English is the best of anyone at that school, and yes, I told her so. There’s no way that anyone there could actually know about my blog, but it’s almost as if she had read my post from last Friday about teacher qualifications. I didn’t say a word, but from what she said, I suspect she feels just like I do about unqualified Japanese teachers teaching English. The only thing is she isn’t one of them; her English is slow, but completely understandable. Did you ever notice it’s the people who seem to worry and doubt themselves the most who seem to do the best job?

I’m Set!

Well, anyway, she gave me a bunch of really good worksheets and lesson ideas that could possibly be enough to carry my through the rest of my time here. It’ll certainly help a whole bunch. Most of them can be adapted to any age or lower ability level, so they’ll be good for the kids on Friday, and I may even try a few with the old folks on Wednesday nights.

A Change For Tomorrow

After the chat room class, I walked back to the station (what no ride?) and rode home. I got a call on the train from Y-San about tomorrow. It seems many of the kids at the kindergarten are sick with the flu, so they have asked me not to come tomorrow. OK, now I have to day, that’s pretty darned thoughtful. One thing I really do not want is the flu.  I still have to go to Hiroshima for the Community Center classes, but I can sleep in a bit if I want.

I’m not quite sure of the best way to get to the Center directly from the train station, so I may need to arrive at least a little early in order to figure it out. Usually I take the bus to the Kindergarten and then another bus to the Community Center. I don’t know if there is a bus that goes near to the Center from the train station.  I figure I’ll either take both buses as usual, wasting a bit of time and bus fare, or walk as far as I can to where I know the second bus does go.  Now that I think about it, there must be a bus that goes to the Peace Park, and since it’s a major tourist attraction, they’ll probably have signs in English. It’s not a long walk from there, so I may be in good shape after all.

Then it was a walk back to the apartment because I didn’t ride my bike this morning. I stopped by the carryout and picked up my usual. I wasn’t even all that hungry after the large lunch this afternoon, but I managed to fit it all in anyway. I’m going to have to start cutting back on the junk food pretty soon if I want the people at home to recognize me. I’ve put on… well, only three pounds, but I expected to lose a bunch while I was here.

January 28th, 2008

A Cold Day In Okayama

Brrrr. Got up early this morning and headed straight to the office to print out some worksheets that I will use in various classes this week. There are quite a few good ones, but I am not quite sure which ones I will use in which classes. I’ll think about it some more tonight, but oe way or the other, I’ll have good stuff for them tomorrow. I just need to be sure to make it no harder, and maybe a little easier, than last week’s movie lesson. I already found one activity that is interesting, but very easy that I will use for the Friday kids.

I printed off my lessons, posted my stuff to the blog, and read my emails. Nothing much major happened to report online since Saturday. I came back down the hill and into the apartment to get some “work” done. I learned a new trick on the Mac about how to capture images. They have a program called “Grab” that you can use to make screen captures. That’s not big deal, but you can also grab the contents of an individual window, or just a certain selected area. I found it quite helpful in making little thumbnail images today.

I worked for a couple of hours, and the apartment got colder and colder. The heaters here just don’t keep up on really cold days. They could keep up, but they keep switching themselves off. I don’t know if they are working too hard or have some kind of safety feature that makes them cut off, but they are only on about half the time when it’s really cold outside. That also makes it really cold inside.

Finally, I gave up complaining about the cold and decided I wanted something to warm me up. I wanted CoCo Ichiban. Yes, I was going out in the cold, riding my bicycle, catching a bus, both ways, just for a plate of hot curry. No, it wasn’t worth it, but I wanted to get out of the house for a while.  Not only did it get colder, but it was raining on the way home. No, not raining, freezing rain.  I was gone for about an hour all together and the food was good, but probably not worth the trip.

When I got home, Marc had returned from teaching his classes today and he was making curry on the stove. He cooks. A lot. If he were cleaner, I’d try to get him to fix me something once in a while, but as it stands, I’m happy to get my own food. We talk about what we are going to do after the Japan trip ends. He’s considering joining the Peace Corps when we’re done here. Or maybe not; he isn’t decided yet. He doesn’t like that they decide where you are stationed. He thinks he’ll wind up in Siberia or something. He could be right, I don’t know.  I wonder if they’ll call me for my opinion on where to send him? I think I’ll have him put me down as a reference. Those poor Russians!

I did a little more work, and then listened to a few more podcasts. There sure are a lot of good podcasts out there, and it’s hard to listen to all the old broadcasts in order to get caught up.  The freezing rain quickly turned into snow, and now, around 10pm, the ground is covered, including the roads. It’s not as much as what we got last week, at least not yet, but I have my fingers crossed. I’d like nothing better than for a surprise day off on Tuesday. I don’t mind Wednesdays at all, which is odd because that’s my long day, but Tuesdays and Fridays I do not enjoy so much. Tomorrow is my day to have lunch with the Principal. Lunch meetings are especially scary here, because I never know what they are serving or what to order. This guy seems to not speak ANY English, so it’s going to be a unique experience.

January 27th, 2007

Turbo Day

About once a month I seem to have a “Mental Turbo Day” where I seem to get ten times as much done and think ten times as fast as any other day of the month. It sort of makes up for those days when I’m dumb as a rock and even slower moving. This was that day. I decided to start working on my new project at 11am and promised I’d put 8 hours into it today. At 8pm I stopped that project for the day, having finished everything I could do without an Internet visit. I have now restored and updated all aspects of one of the businesses I shut down last summer before I came over here. Tomorrow I will be ready to add new things and expand upon where I left off before. None of it is actually online or active yet, but could be very quickly. 

The only break I took this afternoon was to watch the last half of the “Howard The Duck” movie that Marc was watching on TV. You don’t know real entertainment until you’ve seen “Howard The Duck” dubbed into Japanese. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Or at least I hope it is.  When that was over, I rode over to the carryout and got dinner. It was really cold today again, and I didn’t really want to go out, but it was that or a noodle bowl. I can live with the cold more than the noodles.

While working, I saw several new ways my idea could be expanded to integrate with several of my other websites, as well as integrate my experience with blogs and my newfound interest in Podcasting.  I’m going to be very busy upon my return to the States. In many ways, my lack of Net access might be a good thing in this case. If I had been at home, all these ideas would be implemented and started by now…as far as they go. I’m seeing new plans and new ideas at a crazy rate. This will be without a doubt my most well planned “business adventure” yet.

Aloha, Hawaii?

One thing that came up at the library yesterday was some goofy research about Hawaii. One thing that I learned is that they have few or no buses in Hawaii. Unfortunately, my driver’s license expired last week, so if I were to go straight there, I couldn’t even rent a car. That’s going to be a problem.

Even more crazy, the airline wants $600 for a flight from Japan to San Francisco and then to Hawaii or I could pay $900 for a flight directly there (not!). In case you’ve never seen a map, Hawaii is about half the distance from here to San Francisco. If I were to forget the whole thing and go home to Dayton for while and buy a ticket from Dayton to Hawaii later, it’s well under $900. If you can figure out that logic, explain it to me!  Ad to that the fact that the airline wants an additional $125 just to change or cancel the ticket I already have, then the cost for a Japan-to-Hawaii flight goes up to $725. I can already think of a list of things I’d want to have mailed to me before going to Hawaii, so I’ll throw in an extra $50 for postage costs, bringing a Hawaii vacation to $775 at minimum, without any transportation options once I get there. No, I think I’ll pass.

If I’m dead set on Hawaii, I can still go with much less hassle for slightly under $900 (not including hotels etc…), which still isn’t bad. Or I could take that $900 and drive around a while within the States to squash my “travel bug.”  I’m single and don’t mind fast food and camping, so I could make a $900 road-trip vacation take a long time I think.

Tomorrow

I have tomorrow off. The final exam for N-Sensei’s class isn’t until next Monday, so there’s nothing required on the agenda for tomorrow.  I’ll go up to the office first thing in the morning to print off lessons and materials for the rest of the week. Even when I don’t have any classes up there, I’m going to have to go anyway because that’s the only computer printer I have access to here. Too bad their copier is so bad. I used to print lessons up there and then print off my copies in Takahashi. I may have to start paying for copies at the convenience store now. Sigh.

The library is closed on Mondays, so I know I won’t be going there. I can spend a little time “playing” on the Internet up in the office, but not for too long. Maybe I’ll go to Megalo again, or maybe not. I think I have plenty to keep my occupied at the apartment for one more day. Tuesday will be another long day in Fukuyama, followed by the regular routine in Hiroshima on Wednesday.

Bwahahahaaa!

Look at that, I got all the way through the blog and didn’t say a word about Mom calling me at 5am because she forgot about the time difference!  I didn’t mention it all!  I am so generous to not tell the whole world about that. Oh… Whoops!