Brian's Japan Adventure

January 13th, 2008

Correspondence Class: Case Closed

Before class, I filled my time by doing some laundry and captioning photos in iPhoto. I only found out how to do it last week. I had not realized that the captions from iPhoto upload directly into Picasa, so I can caption everything once and only once. Previously I did it separately at both places, and that was a real waster of time.  So now I’m getting my iPhoto stuff in order, and I’ll redo all the online photos when I get all that finished.

My class today began at 2:00, and Marc did his at 1:00.  It was just up the hill, so there was no train or ticket involved. I sort of messed around at home first, since it was early enough that I couldn’t go anywhere or start any real projects, but late enough that I couldn’t schedule much after it either.  For a 45-minute class, it couldn’t get much more inconvenient. At least all my course materials were worked out and approved over a month ago, so there wasn’t any preparation or worry involved. This thing was supposed to be so structured that pretty much nothing could go wrong; there would be no surprises.

OK, to begin with, this isn’t exactly a correspondence course.  It’s a class where students who work or for some other reason cannot come to class during the week. They come once a week on Sunday and do the rest at home. Where was this when I was in high school?!?!

Shingo’s Search for Shiny Shoes

I walked up the hill at 1:30, and waited at the escalator until about 10 till 2. While I waited, Shingo walked by. He didn’t have any classes today, but needed to get some shoes out of his laboratory.  That’s a heck of a walk to get shoes, but then I’m a lazy American, what do I know?  He asked what I did over the holidays, and I told him. He is originally from Hiroshima, and knows Miyajima well.  He told me that I should have taken the ropeway up the mountain in Miyajima, and said it was hard to go the other way.  Yeah, no kidding!  He did the traditional New Year meals and noodles and stuff, and spent Christmas at his girlfriend’s house. Time was getting short, so we rode the escalator up and parted ways.

I checked in at the high school office.  The big campus on top of the hill is not just the university. There is also a junior high school and high school as well. The idea is that your kids can get a complete education at just one facility. They can keep their friends and not have to relearn everything new. I’m not sure whether that’s a good idea or not, but that’s the way it is.  The principal asked me about my holiday, and I told him about Kyoto and Miyajima, leaving out the mountain part. Everyone seems to know about the temples in Kyoto, when I say the names of the places, they all nod like they’ve been there themselves. Well, they probably have, travel here is easier than in the States. Travel and vacations in the States would be so much easier and cheaper if we ad something like these train lines there. Unfortunately, I doubt passenger trains will make a comeback in the USA anytime soon.

Anyway, an assistant teacher took me to the classroom, where the real teacher has already begin the lesson. When I walk in, he very quickly tells them my name, but nothing else, and signals me to start reading my script.  I read the first paragraph slowly, and write a few things on the board; a map, comparative sizes of Dayton and Okayama, and map of the USA. I posted the whole script here back in the blog report for December 9th, so I’m not going to repeat all of that here again. After finishing the paragraphs, the teacher would translate the whole thing into Japanese. I must actually begetting better at Japanese, cause much of what he said was clear to me. It was probably because he was using the same simple sentences that I had used in English. Simple in English makes it simple in Japanese too. He was very thorough and took a long time in his explanations. Then he signaled me to read the next paragraph and we alternated for the next half hour.

Short Simple Script: Sensational Success Story

Five short paragraphs in a half hour didn’t seem like enough to me, but it actually took the whole time. The last fifteen minutes, we went over the multiple choice questions that I had prepared, and I guess most of the students got most of them right, because the teacher looked pleased. About the time I finished asking and answering the last question, the 45 minutes were up. The students didn’t have any questions for me, but I expected that.  I was told this group was especially shy and not to press. Then I thanked them and left. Everything went exactly as planned, according to the structure, and even ended down to the minute on time.  I wish they all could go like that!

Dreaded Diminutive Dryer Disorder

Then it was back down the hill to take the clothes out of the dryer.  Yes, I do actually have a dryer, but it’s so small and takes so long that it really is far easier to use the clothesline.  This load had two shirts in it, and took about two and a half hours. I knew I’d be gone just about the right length of time, so today I did it that way. It’s just as well that I did, since it rained while I was up at school.

Extra Excellent Egg-citement

I’m out of Pepsi Nex and Iced Tea bottles, as well as bread, crackers and cheese, so it was grocery day. Naturally, I stopped in to visit Ronald and make sure he was still in business after missing me yesterday. He was, and he even had a new sandwich for me today. This one is smaller than the “tomato/tomago” thing I described a while back, but it is similar. This is a double-burger with very good spicy sauce and a “McMuffin-style” egg on top. I never tried the “Tomago” burger last month, as it was just too big. Today, I gave the newer burger a shot. MMMMMMMMMMM!  I doubt they have them in America, but go look on your way home tonight.  If they have some kind of “egg burger” buy it and try it to show your support. They need more egg burgers.  And the sauce on it is great too.

Then it was back home to unpack.  Now what? Tomorrow is a holiday, so the library is closed. I’ll probably go to Megalo, since there was some stuff that I started there last week that I can’t finish in the library. I cannot do ftp file transfers at the library, just web-surfing. Most of the time, that’s enough, but not always.

Plans, Preparations, Printouts, and Poetry

What else?  I have a final exam to write for N-Sensei’s class on the 21st.  He didn’t tell me to do it, but I know it’s coming. If I can get it done now and hand it in on the 21st, maybe I won’t have to go on the 28th.  That’s a long way off no matter which way it goes. I also have to get K-Sensei’s final article setup for class. I downloaded a few more science articles yesterday, and I’ll look through them tonight. Hopefully one of them will be good. If not, I still have that poetry stuff from last week that I didn’t use. I’m not going to prepare anything new for Tuesdays classes since those are going to be more first-time introductions like last Friday. I do need to come up with something for Friday. No ideas yet, but I want to get the other stuff done and out of the way first. Then I can focus all my time on the new classes.

Nihongo’s New Nastiness Nixed

I have decided that I really am going to make the minimal effort for Japanese Class’s final exam on Thursday. I suspect she’s going to make it ridiculously easy for us, and if I am wrong, studying won’t help that much either. I figure I can beat Marc on the test even he studies from now till Thursday non-stop. And they aren’t going to fail us both.  Yes, I have a serious attitude problem with this class.  Its so tempting to just walk in there on Thursday, declare that I studied and feel healthy, then tear the paper in half and walk out. At least then somebody important would ask me WHY I did it. Then I could tell them. I am really at the position right now where I don’t HAVE to play the game in the usual way.  But I won’t do all that, even though it’s fun to think about it.  I’ll go and take the test, but I am not going to stress over it anymore than I already have.

Finally this evening I spent several hours captioning photos. I have all of Miyajima done, and about ¾ of the photos from Kyoto. This is a good thing, because there were so many places in Kyoto that I visited in a single day that they were starting to run together in my memory.  As I sat down with my tourist map, I was able to put names on places that I didn’t even know at the time I was there.

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This entry was posted on Sunday, January 13th, 2008 at 10:14 pm and is filed under Japan, Teaching. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.