the dog and pony continue to perform well

So, in the end, my evaluation was along the lines of, "um . . . so, I don't really have any advice to give you because, really, you're doing everything right."

Sweet.

Benni-sensei apparently had no concept of an "observation," because she generally acted like the guy was there to nitpick the school to death. Whenever he was around, she found an excuse to not be in the same room. And she kept asking my why I needed someone to come and watch me. I think she was more bothered by it than I was, because I was just "whatever." It had to be done. On the plus side, she and Hitomi-san could NOT stop talking about my complete and utter awesomeness. Seriously, it was almost embarrassing. But nice to hear. I really like my co-workers - they're not always the most reliable people, but they mean well. We get along, and that's important.

All in all, a pretty good day, made even better by the knowledge that I won't have any kids' classes the week of the 21st. After the Christmas lesson, I say goodbye to the kids until January.

Not that I have a major problem with any of my kids . . . okay, not the older ones. But, I swear, one day, I'm going to take my little five-year old terrors and plant them in separate corners with their noses to the wall for the entire class. Just ONCE, I'd really appreciate it if they didn't act like they were just released from the bowels of hell. I am little more than a babysitter in this class, and I've pretty much adopted the same attitude with them as I did with my ninth-graders: if you sit down and don't gad about the room, I'll be happy. These boys have no concept of keeping their foul, vile, germ-ridden hands to themselves. I have to hide my whiteboard markers, and lately I've been locking my door with the hook latch because one of the little darlings went in and started drawing on the board with a highlighter. Brat. I can't wait until he gets into school and gets some manners pounded into him. I like him better when he's just woken up from a nap and he's practically comatose. He doesn't do any work, but at least he's not shrieking at the top of his lungs.

Alright, speaking of children, here's my mini-rant about my kids' classes. First, what the hell is up with organizing them by age? I have an 8y/o girl who is at a higher level than a 12y/o boy, but she's in the low class and he's in the high class? Okay . . . figure that one out.

Second, the book for the 3-5 y/o class is a piece of crap. It's organized oddly, the dialogue is funky and generally not easy for the students, and its teacher's guide is mostly useless. The book assumes that you have a full class and therefore need to spend a lot of time making sure that each child knows what hopscotch is. It also seems to be under the misapprehension of believing that toddlers have a long-enough attention span to be interested in listening to some creepy voices on a cd. My boys don't have that capability. And they're not stupid, so they get the idea of the lesson pretty quick. And if I'm getting bored of making them run around in circles to get to the corner with the correct picture, then they are too. Wait, I take that back, I never get tired of watching them run around in circles and collapse in an exhausted heap on the floor. It keeps them quiet for a few fleeting seconds.

The older kids' books are actually not so bad. The phonics are straightforward and advance at a good pace. The conversation is mostly natural, and the vocabulary is stuff that they like and should know. Honestly, I like my kids (and thus did sara-sensei become a pod person). They're usually pretty good sports about things, and they do try really hard. They all do really well with phonics and listening, but speaking is very weak for them. The only thing I can figure is that the previous teacher didn't have them doing a lot of comprehension work - just listening and repeating. I only have 2-3 kids who can respond to questions with full sentences, when about 8 of them should be able to do that. They know the words, but they don't know how to use the language. So, that's becoming a big focus for me - getting them to create simple sentences such as "I like" or "I don't like." Because they can answer if I ask "do you like?" and that means they can use the full sentence. Something to work on in the future.

But yeah, I kids' classes are mostly fun. They're lively, alert, and willing. Who knew it was possible that kids could be so cool?

Of course, none of them are teenagers yet, and that could be a whole different kettle of fish in the coming year.

cross-cultural teaching truths

It's probably not a good thing that, in so many cultures, teachers are always given a hard time. Dealing with kids - no matter what age - is not easy, even if you enjoy it. Japanese teachers work very long, very hard hours - just like American teachers! They probably don't get paid very well either.

I actually have a few students who teach English, which is why they are taking lessons from me, to improve their skills. They're terrible at keeping up with homework because, of course, they have plenty of work to do at home already. I usually don't assign much homework unless individuals request it, and my teachers are often the ones that look at me with pleading "please, don't ask me to do this!" eyes because they feel bad if they don't do the work.

Last week started off with a national "labor" holiday, which gave schools two days off to make a three-day school week. On Saturday, one of my teachers came in for her class, and I asked her how her week had been. "Hard!" she replied. "The long weekend was nice, but at work, it was a short week and very hard!"

When I was teaching in the States, I had a love/hate relationship with short weeks. On one hand, it was wonderful not to have to go to work. On the other hand, they were always the roughest weeks ever. It feels like the kids take all that energy and punkishness and save it to spend during the days that they ARE in school, thus doubling the amount of trouble they get into. I usually felt like I needed another three-day weekend just to make up for the four-day school week.

So, I replied, "Yeah, I always hated short weeks too."

And thus, we had a nice little chat about teaching in the public school system. At least she enjoys it more than I did. But she's a pretty awesome lady - about my age and one of my higher-level students. She never seems to mind when I start off on one of my tangents about where English comes from (our current unit is about learning new languages and how language is developed), and she's very good at trying to figure out definitions by analyzing a word's parts. She's one of those students that makes class more fun than just work.

Also on the subject of teaching and related duties, I was considering that this is my seventh week in Japan and thinking, "hmm, I'm surprised I haven't been contacted by anyone to set up an observation or a check-in or something." And thus, I am proved psychic, because today I got a phone call from our region office informing me that I will be observed tomorrow. "Just wanted to let you know so you aren't surprised when I show up!" he said. Uh, yeah, could I request more than 24 hours notice next time? Yeesh.

Not that I consider this a problem, because while Friday is my busiest day, it's also my least varied. I have three kids' classes and three Sprint 7 classes, and he'll only get to observe half of them because he'll have to leave early to catch his train. It's Kids Challenge week, which means that the kids will be taking their tests and not getting an actual lesson. (and that's a posting all in itself, because boy, do these guys take their tests seriously) So, I can't think that there will be much to observe. My first Sprint class is a one-person class, and she's a real sweetheart and very quick to learn. All I have to do is remember to follow the Sprint outline that was hammered into us at training.

Gee, that sounds familiar. It's the dog and pony show all over again. Not that I expected anything else, because this is teaching, after all, and teaching is all about showing off the dog and pony. Here's hoping that I know how to make it look good. At least this time I won't be worrying about keeping the kids in line . . . that was also three-quarters of the battle to begin with.

Japanese Food Journal: food that moves

No, Sara-sensei did not eat anything alive. Very likely, that's the only definite line Sara-sensei will draw when it comes to trying new foods (that, and anything involving celery, yuck yuck yuck).

When serving extremely hot foods (as in temperature, not spice), if you sprinkle bonito (that is, dried fish flakes) on top, the heat travels up into the bonito and makes them move. The result is a flowing motion on top of the food - it looks like the food has tiny tentacles that move of their own accord. It's rather wavy in effect.

I'm told that this can be achieved with numerous hot foods, and so far, I've seen it twice, on grilled Japanese eggplant and on takoyaki. I probably won't be making my own takoyaki any time soon, but I certainly would try my hand at Japanese eggplant dishes, and I'm equally certain that I'd randomly throw bonito flakes on things just to see if they dance. I'll try to get a video of it sometime, because it really has to be seen to be appreciated.

Also to note, I've become quite fond of the takoyaki stand near the school. It makes a good lunch on a cold day because it's exceedingly filling and exceedingly hot. Mmm, yummy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Takoyaki.jpg

sara-sensei and the futile battle to keep warm

As far as I'm concerned, it is officially winter. Doesn't matter that we still have about three weeks to go before the solstice, doesn't matter that it's going to get even colder as winter draws nearer. For me, winter is here: snow is on the mountains. Not a lot of it, but enough to be visible from Isesaki.




Last week, some wet weather came down from the mountains - I'm getting pretty decent at weather prediction, but I think it's common sense to see clouds enveloping the mountains and looming over the valley and figure that rain is coming. Except, up in the mountains, it's not rain, it's snow, as you can see in the pictures.

You have to remember where I'm from (ahem, Florida). Snow is a big deal for me. Waking up to 14 degrees in my room (that's 57 degrees in Fahrenheit) is a big deal for me. Riding my bike to work in a freezing Siberian wind is a bid deal for me. Staying warm has become a pretty important part of my life lately.

One of Benni-sensei's students, Kazuhiro (I think I've mentioned him before), suggested to us one day that we go to UniQlo and check out something called HeatTech. It's a very thin material, and it's made as both shirts and shorts, meant to be worn under regular clothes. It's designed to keep heat in the body, thus keeping body temperature up. It's very warm and very comfortable, and the XL size fits me nicely.

Can we say awesome? The fact that I can fit into Japanese clothing thrills me to no end, even if it is the largest size in the store. What's really great is that it really does an excellent job of keeping me warm. The heater in my room at school doesn't quite get the job done, and even wearing a long-sleeved shirt and suit jacket didn't help much in keeping warm. The HeatTech shirts have really helped with that. At home, I usually wear one under a t-shirt. My apartment heater works fine, but because I'm heating such a small space, it can get stuffy really fast, so I usually only turn it on in the mornings.

This means that, while riding around on my bike, I usually wear 4 layers: HeatTech shirt, blouse, suit jacket, and overcoat. And gloves. And leggings and tennis shoes. That's how cold it is. During the day, when the sun is shining, I usually leave the overcoat at work, but sunset is around 4:30pm, and it gets cold really quick after that. I am now enamored with vending machines that sell hot drinks, because they are HOT. I'm especially fond of hot green tea, and every once in a while, I'll treat myself to one of the sweet cream lattes from the school machine.

But, it's going to be a struggle for me to not freeze to death this winter, because it's not even winter yet. And everyone tells me that the wind will get worse and the weather will get colder. And then they cheerfully tell me that it's usually dry, so there's not much snow. This doesn't really make me feel better, because there's that whole "cold Siberian wind" thing that bothers me. I'm starting to believe that the overcoat is the second-most important thing I brought with me to Japan (the first being the laptop, of course, I'd be going stir-crazy without it).

But, yeah. FREEZING.

Nanowrimo: 50,000 words FTW!

Drum roll, please . . .

Yes, for the second year in a row, I managed to beat my computer keyboard to death until I got a total of 50077 words onto the screen. Astonishingly enough, most of it makes sense.

Unsurprisingly, the novel is not finished. But, that's okay, because I have most of the major scenes already written or outlined (except for the jailbreak scene, but I don't count that because it came into being quite suddenly last week when one of my characters decided to get herself arrested, and that was NOT part of my original plan). Most of what's left is filling in the gaps and finishing/polishing off important scenes.

I'm very happy with the story so far. I'd intended it to be all about how Dark Man forced the girls to compete to be his bride, but that turned out to be only the first half of the story. The second half (and the major plot, as it turns out, because by the end of the third chapter, Del and Sha'as are talking about this) is about how the girls escape from Dark Man and their attempts to get as far away from him as possible. Characters got shuffled a little bit (the salamanders have a small but still pivotal role), and a few popped up when I hadn't even known they were there (hello, Wollton Symphony Orchestra!). It's been hard work, but it's been a lot of fun to write and discover where the story is trying to go. And pretty much everybody ends up happy.

Even though the story's not finished, I'm proud of myself. It's not easy for me to stick with a story idea long enough to get 50000 on it, much less to have a plan for how I'm going to finish it. Even last years Nano novel fell to the wayside after November - but that was actually due to real-life issues than anything else.

My next goal is to get the rest of the novel outlined by the end of December, if not entirely finished. I've got a busy month coming up, what with at least two parties to attend and a trip to Kamakura planned, but if I keep up with my writing in the evenings, it's entirely possible that I can get at least another 25,000 words written by the end of the year.

And then comes New Year's and a whole week of vacation for which I have nothing planned. I see much editing in my future.

Non-Japanese Food Journal: guacamole

Yeah, this year's Thanksgiving went mostly unmarked by me, other than exchanging greetings and well-wishes with a lot of people. The one special thing I did was make guacamole.

Okay, before everyone starts thinking that this is a little weird, I'll admit that it is. Most people don't think guacamole is a Thanksgiving food, and I doubt it'll ever be considered such, it's not like I'm trying to start a trend here. But it amused me to make it, and it was something I wanted to do. It just so happened that I decided to do it on Thanksgiving.

For the record, I don't like Thanksgiving. Oh, the sentiment's alright, but it's totally at the wrong time of the year. In the northern hemisphere, who is doing their harvesting at the end of November? Here in my little region of Japan, it seems that the only things that are really in season right now are persimmons and apples. Of course, turkey is pretty rare, and most people wouldn't eat mashed potatoes, but that's not my point. All I'm saying is that it's a ridiculous time of year to have a harvest festival. The Canadians are way more logical about it - their Thanksgiving is in the beginning of October and thus makes sense.

And I'm not going to get into the whole "Indians and pilgrims" thing, because, man, what a line all that is. I'll believe that happened when I believe that Benni-sensei will actually clean her room (seriously, she's going to get trapped in there one day if that stack of books and papers on her desk keeps multiplying). But, yeah, color me cynical on that one.

A couple of weeks ago, Benni-sensei and I went to the grocery store for something, and we were hanging around in the produce section when she grabbed me and yanked me toward a pile of avocadoes. Benni lived in California for a long time, and she loves Mexican food, and she stared at those avocadoes like they were ambrosia. Then she asked me if I liked guacamole, to which I of course replied that I love guacamole and also enjoyed making it. She laughed and said, "Hey, maybe you can make some for me some time!"

I said maybe I would, and we went on our merry way. Later that same day, we were talking to Naofumi, and he mentioned that he'd spent some of his childhood in California, and Benni immediately asked him if he liked guacamole, and he said he thought he remembered liking it. This led to a mostly-Japanese conversation about living in California, which Naofumi looked kind of embarrassed about because he insisted he was too young to remember most of it. I snuck away and went home because it was late.

When it comes to saying that I'll make food, I usually end up making it. Maybe it takes me a little while to get around to it, but I do get around to it. I love to cook; I think it's relaxing. And I miss it terribly. I'm almost convinced that I miss my oven more than I miss my family! (sorry, family!) And this week, I got it into my head that I should make guacamole.

Let me say that avocadoes in Japan are really small and really expensive. Indeed, this is probably the most expensive guacamole I've ever made, but that's probably because I had to buy some ingredients that I would normally have stocked - like cayenne pepper, jalapeno tabasco sauce, and cream cheese. Dairy products are kind of frightening when it comes to price, but I expected that. It took me FOREVER to find Tostito chips and they were insanely expensive, but totally worth it. I think most people were more impressed that I'd even found a bag of them than they were with the guacamole.

But, it was all worth it. I ended up using sour cream as a base (I found the tiniest container of it, a major victory as far as I'm concerned because Naofumi seemed pretty convinced that I would be unable to find it) because it was more like cream cheese than the cream cheese was. It had the right consistency and a better flavor. But it turned very nicely, and everyone who tried it exclaimed, "Oishii!" which seems roughly equivalent to "holy crap, this is really good!"

Benni-sensei was especially pleased because she was having a bit of a crappy day due to scheduling problems with her vacation. She was going to Thailand, but there are some major protesting issues going on right now and the airports are closed to traffic. So, she's currently on her way to Taipei, which she was not all that thrilled about but she felt obliged to go because her travelling companions wanted to go. Also, on the plus side, Naofumi had showed up to (finally) renew his contract, so it was nice to offer him some guacamole as a thank you, even though he'd been debating about this for three weeks now.

Ultimately, I enjoyed my Thanksgiving, even though it was a pretty typical day for me. The only thing I really miss about Thanksgiving is the cooking and especially the baking. I don't think I'm going to survive the Christmas holiday without doing some kind of baking, so this weekend, I'll probably end up heading over to Cainz Home and buying a new toaster oven. I already have one in the apartment, but I hate it, and I couldn't bake with it anyway because I can't regulate the temperature. It'll probably be an expensive purchase, but I have the money to spare, and it will definitely be worth it. I'll just have to figure out where to put it . . .

Anyway, Turkey Day is come and gone, and I hope it was a pleasant day for all!

UPDATE: commercial love, part deux

http://www.japanprobe.com/?p=4207

As it turns out, there are 16 Tommy Lee Jones commercials made by Boss so far. The above link has a playlist of 13 of them with English subtitles.

Enjoy!