McSister

Well, hello again everyone! I haven’t blogged in a little while now. Mainly, that’s because nothing very interesting has happened. I’ve made a couple of trips to Tokyo that weren’t worth mentioning, and also stopped in Omiya, which is the biggest city in my prefecture – kind of like a half-sized Tokyo that’s half the distance away. I’ve been hanging out with ALTs in this region while in Omiya, and that’s fun too.

Honestly, though, things are starting to settle into a routine, and I don’t really do all that much that’s exciting. Maybe once I get my first check I can do some wild and crazy things – a bunch of the Heart School employees I met during orientation are planning exactly that on payday, in fact – but I haven’t had too much of a chance to cut loose recently. (I did recently get a care package sent from my parents, which included the first season of 30 Rock. Thanks mom and dad! 30 Rock is such a good show. If you haven’t heard me talking about it, you probably haven’t talked to me recently.)

I’m getting more settled in a ‘teacher’ role. During junior high hours, I basically sit at my desk and try to learn Japanese. (A doomed venture.) Then, I go up in front of classes and repeat things in English so that kids can hear a native speaker say it. It can be boring, but I try to goof around a little to get the kids to laugh, and that’s fun. Recently, some of the teachers have asked me to create some lessons for their classes. My favorite lesson was one I made recently, where I played Stevie Wonder’s “Superstition” and gave the students chopped-up lines of the lyrics, which they had to put into order. (Veterans of Mrs. Jackson’s class in Parkview might remember that exercise with a lovely song called “Aicha.”) When they were done with that, I talked about American superstitions and asked them about Japanese superstitions. I like when I get to be creative.

Elementary school classes are also kind of like that. I work at two elementary schools, and visit them each once a week. At one of them, I have to create the lessons beforehand, and at the other, I have to stick with the Heart School regimen of classroom lessons. Either way, it’s definitely more work than the junior high classes – I’m the head teacher in the class and I’m usually the only person who understands English.

Welllll, like I said – not much going on. I’ll leave you guys with some weird/funny things I’ve noticed about Japan…

-People slap each other on the back of the head, Three Stooges style. It’s hilarious. Students do it to other students, and sometimes teachers do it to students! I can’t help laughing. Then, the rest of the class laughs, because apparently my cracking up is hilarious.

-Stitch is huge. You know, of “Lilo And…” fame? You see that little dude everywhere in the Elementary and Jr High schools. There are keychains, pencil bags, patches on bookbags… I’d say 90% of kids in schools here have some sort of Stitch merchandise. It’s like, “Mickey who?”

-People wear face-masks if they’ve got a cough. Like, those masks you see doctors wearing during surgery. It’s weird to see little girls walk around school with those on… kind of creepy, as well…

-Maybe it’s just me being a cultural imperialist, but honestly, why do they have such a ridiculous writing system? In class, a teacher’ll write up something in English on the board, then write it in Japanese – which takes about 4 times as long as writing it in English. It’d just be easier to learn the English language!! Then again, I’m sure the brains of Japanese students get much more of a workout from learning thousands of characters instead of 26 letters, so maybe that’s why everyone thinks they’re smarter than we are.

Well, here’s hoping that everyone back home is doing alright – and thanks, everyone, for the birthday wishes! It was a pretty low-key birthday, but it was definitely all sorts of alright. Any birthday where Radiohead gives me an album is good by me.