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Category Archives: First Months

Starting Over

20 Tuesday Sep 2011

Posted by scalesoflibra in First Months

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I’ve been at my new school for about a month and a half now. I’ve gotten used to certain things, such as commuting to work by train, having different work hours, having to convince people that OMG I know what hiragana is, and having the beginning of class taken up by tests on the bane of every person who wants Japanese youth to actually learn English: the English vocabulary books.

If the makers of the JLPT realized that giving out word lists was a bad idea, when will English educators in Japan realize the same thing? @_@ I don’t get it.

Ahem…anyway…

Sometimes things still throw me for a loop. Just when I think we’re all on the same page, I see that we’re not. It can be very frustrating, and sometimes I don’t handle it very well. Read: I state my opinions directly.  I wish we’d hold the meetings in Japanese so that my ability to express myself would be crippled and I don’t end up saying things like “All humans are born creative, they just lose the ability if they’re put in an environment that doesn’t nurture their creativity.” Whoops.

My plan stands though. I’m gonna work as hard at the new school as I did at the old school. Every time ALTs rattle off all the things that are wrong with English education in Japan, I always think, “if we know the problem, why don’t we try to fix it?” There are of course things we can’t change, but anyone who believes they received a “superior” education in the West because it was focused on critical thinking rather than rote memorization should put their critical thinking to the test and find the loopholes that will allow them to teach the kids something more useful than a list of words with no relation to each other.

Sidenote: I don’t believe critical thinking trumps rote memorization. You need to memorize some things before you can think critically about them. Do we need to think critically about the ABCs in order to learn them? No. But once you have learned them, you may discover many wonderful things about them when you do know them enough to think critically about them.

On a slightly different topic, one thing that surprised me about my new school is how much older the building looks relative to my previous workplace. My current school is less than 10 years older than my previous one, so why is the paint all chipped and faded, the lockers so rusty? I also had assumed that the new school would be in better condition because it’s supposedly so much higher level academically speaking, but I guess they don’t take that into account when figuring out the building budgets. That would be a bit cruel, and it’s the sort of thinking that makes ghettoes, but since I was used to it, I was surprised by its absence.

Another thing that I found interesting was during the Sports Day festival. During rehearsals for said event, the teachers all have to go outside and watch the kids practice. Myself and so many other ALTs are always left surprised and somewhat worried about the kids’ apparent total lack of both body fat and muscle mass. This is particularly obvious on the boys, who are running around in just their gym shorts half the time. I’ve seen boys who were count-the-vertebrae skinny. And I do mean all their vertebrae.  However, it seemed that at my new school, there were hardly any such students. I thought to myself, “No wonder they get better grades, they actually eat enough calories to support all their bodily functions!” ^_^;

This, in turn, made me wonder how many of the dangerously thin students were thin by choice, and how many were thin due to circumstances. Countless studies in the US say that the lower a student’s social background, the lower their grades are likely to be. But in a country were supposedly every one thinks of themselves as middle class, does this play a role, and to what extent?

Well well, I’ve no slick way to end this post, so I’ll just end suddenly like a piece of traditional Japanese music. Saku–

Quick Note About Foreigner Registration

06 Friday Aug 2010

Posted by scalesoflibra in First Months

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Foreigner Registration Card, Gaijin card

I just want to put this out into the Aether since it seems many people don’t know about it.

Freshly arrived JETs (and any other foreigner coming to live in Japan): it can take two weeks to get your actual 外国人登録証明書 (“gaikokujin touroku shoumeisho”), that is your foreigner registration card or “gaijin card” as many say.  Without this card, you can’t open a bank account, sign up for a phone, etc.  I didn’t know of any temporary proof to stand in for the card when I first came to Japan, and apparently neither did anyone at my school, so I had to wait all that time to get the actual card so I could set up my bank account, phone, and everything else. It was a bit annoying.  Though on the bright side, getting my first paycheck in cash because they couldn’t deposit it anywhere was pretty funny and I got to take silly rapper style photos of myself posing with all those bills. XDDD

ANYWAY… ^o^;

Luckily, recently another JET told me about a “special blue form” that you can get at City Hall that acts as a temporary foreigner card.  I told my supervisor about it and they made sure to ask, so my new co-ALT, after being in Fukuoka for just 2 days, already has a bank account and phone, and started the internet set-up process!

The name of this special form, if Wikipedia fails us not, is 外国人登録原票記載事項証明書, that is, “gaikokujin touroku genpyou kisai jikou shoumeisho.” I translate this loosely as “proof of receipt of foreigner registration,” but I can’t find an official translation for it though there has to be one.  At my city’s City Hall it costs 300 yen.  You can spare yourself a lot of headaches if you just get this form, so ask about getting it if your actual gaijin card is still a week or more away.

Festa da Bahia + How to Pick Your Placement

16 Friday Oct 2009

Posted by scalesoflibra in First Months

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Capoeira, Picking JET Placement

This is another “Catch-Up” post, but I decided not to put it in the title for the sake of simplicity.

Two weeks ago, I went to an event in Tenjin (downtown Fukuoka City) called “Festa da Bahia.”  It was hosted by the Amigos da Bahia, young adults who do capoeira and study other aspects of Brazilian culture.  It was a lot of fun to watch them do “capoeira angola” and dancing.

Eddy Gordo wins! (jk)

Eddy Gordo wins! (jk)

Midway through, they pulled people out of the audience to have them try to do capoeira.  At the end, they had dancing to Brazilian pop music.  I recognized Ivete Sangalo’s voice, lol.  They already had set moves for the dancing though, and at points it was almost like para para (or, somewhat strange Japanese pop line-dancing).  But it was lots of fun! I had met many of the Amigos da Bahia before, and one remembered that the day of their festival was my birthday, so she gave me a gift! I thought that was so nice and was surprised she remembered.  It was a cookie that said 「おめでとう」(“congratulations”) and a pair of hair clips.  Awwwww!

Before the Festa da Bahia I had gone to the Apple Store (also in Tenjin) to get an iTunes card.  Finally, I can get all those Japan-only tracks I’ve wanted! Now I can bump the Fuurin Kazan theme anytime, anywhere! ^o^

LA la LAA! Lala la’ la laaa, LA!

*ahem*

Anyway…as we were walking, an interesting point came up, that I would now like to give as advice to any potential new JETs: if you must have big city life, you are more likely to get it by requesting large cities off Honshuu.  Most people who apply to JET already know that getting placed in Tokyo proper is extremely unlikely.  So many choose cities around Tokyo, thinking that’ll get them close. Sometimes it works; more often, it doesn’t.  Even doing that, you will most likely get placed in the boondocks on Honshuu, and yes, even Tokyo (the prefecture) has a few rural areas within it.  Some people might say, “But isn’t all of Kyuushuu the boonies?” Depends on how you think of it.  If you think of it as the boonies because it’s far from Tokyo, then yes.  But if you think about the nightlife, events, concert venues, availability of foreign goods, number of foreigners, etc., then Kyuushuu’s big cities are not the boonies at all.  Even though I don’t live in Fukuoka City, I do live and work in decent-sized cities and downtown Fukuoka City is a mere 12 minutes away by limited express train.

Fukuoka Prefecture was my third choice, and a pretty random one at that, but I’m really happy I thought to pick something off Honshuu.  What I did was I visited the Wikipedia pages for Hokkaido, Kyuushuu, and Shikoku, found out what large cities they had, and went from there.  For me, the main consideration was that I wanted to continue living in a large city.  I know some people are infatuated with Tokyo in particular, and I guess for them being a few train rides away rather than an airplane ride away is preferable.

Anyway, I thought it was worth mentioning. ^_^

Random Life Stuff Vol. 23

02 Friday Oct 2009

Posted by scalesoflibra in First Months, Me Being Random

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Japanese TV, Kellogg's, Obama speeches

No, I haven’t actually done 22 other Random Life Stuff entries.  But I figured I would eventually lose count, so it would just be easier to use random numbers in ascending order.  ^o^

I feel the need to clarify what “Random Life Stuff” means, since I tend to use the word “random” a lot.  What I mean by RLS (don’t feel like writing it anymore, lol) is things that don’t directly have to do with working or being a JET, but with living in Japan in general.  Such as watching TV and geeking out.

So on with it!

Yes We Can! – Obama Classic President Obama is pretty popular in Japan.  So popular, that the pop record label Avex has made a CD of his speeches set to rousing classical music.  It was released this past Wednesday.  I’m very tempted to get it, for the silliness of it.  What do you think?  Should I spend 19USD so I can hear Obama talk over “Rhapsody in Blue”?  For the CD’s Amazon (Japanese) page: click here.

Password Protected So far, I only put a password on one post.  It is my name, spelled correctly.  If you don’t know me, well, don’t ask me what my name is! ^o^

TV Update Waaah, Buzzer Beat was in its ending chapters, and I missed the last episode.  But I missed it because I was out having dinner with my downstairs neighbor (a fellow JET) so it’s okay.  Maybe I’ll rent it when it comes out on DVD.

As for Haken no Osukaru, I’ve been thinking for a while that it’s an awful lot like all of the incarnations of Betty (Betty la fea, La fea más bella, Ugly Betty, etc.).  Sure, the title character in Haken no Osukaru isn’t ugly, her quirk is she’s obsessed with the manga The Rose of Versailles.  But otherwise, it’s the same thing: a lowly office worker has more courage and creativity than everyone else and constantly saves the arses of the higher-ups and the whole company.  Much to my delight, after tonight’s episode of Haken no Osukaru, I saw an ad for Ugly Betty!  Season 3 will start airing next week at 11PM, Wednesdays on NHK (analog channel 3 for those on Kyuushuu…and elsewhere in Japan?).  It’s dubbed into Japanese, but since I already saw Season 3 in the States, I think it’ll be particularly good for listening practice.

Renting DVDs One thing I really like about renting DVDs from Tsutaya is that new releases come with bonus DVDs.  Well, maybe places like Blockbuster in the States do that too, but my local video place didn’t.  Volume 1 of Heroes came with a DVD that had a long preview for Burn Notice and interviews with the Japanese dubbers, as well as the very first episode of House (called Dr. House here).  A full episode!  The only bad thing was that it was dubbed over and didn’t have subtitles at all, not even in Japanese.  I can watch simple Japanese dramas without subs and understand a good portion of them, but a sarcastic medical drama?  Though I wonder if the Japanese dub is even remotely close to the sarcasm that is possible with English. Well, it was really funny to hear Cutty say “House-sensei!!!”

無料レンタルDVD = Free Rental DVD = WIN!

無料レンタルDVD = Free Rental DVD = WIN!

Volume 2 came with a DVD that has the first episodes of Fringe, Sarah Conner Chronicles, and Gossip Girl.  Only the Fringe episode is subbed.  I’ve been too busy to watch them, unfortunately.

When I’m not in front of a screen I bet it seems like I’ve come to Japan to watch TV and be online. ^o^  But my time with the tele is less than in the States.  Yet, where does the time go?  Only on Wednesday nights do I go out relatively far, to downtown Fukuoka City (called Tenjin) for a Japanese class.  But that’s only a 13 minute ride away (since I always take the limited express train).  Tuesdays and Thursdays I stay after at school to draw with the Art students, but only until about 6PM (the students are there until 7 or 8! x_X)  Maybe I should monitor my online time more closely, lol!

Since I’m in the future I’m not sure when I should consider it my birthday.  ^o^

GACKT in Spain Waaaah, the 2010 calendar was all shot in Barcelona! Me want it!

Unpolished Rice Bread I’m going to send GACKT some and make sure he eats it. I have yet to find wheat bread.  But I did find genmai (玄米) bread, made with unpolished rice (read: rice that hasn’t had all nutritional value mercilessly beaten out of it).  I also found Kellogg’s Genmai Flakes.  ^o^  Forget cars, cereal shall be the export that saves Michigan industry!

You go, Battle Creek! Export that cereal!

You go, Battle Creek! Export that cereal!

Actually…the box says “Kellogg’s Japan” so this cereal is probably made here.  But still!

If all goes well, the next post will be about the Festa da Bahia with the Amigos da Bahia! Stay tuned!

Catch-Up Vol. 2: Silver Week

26 Saturday Sep 2009

Posted by scalesoflibra in First Months

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Dazaifu Tenmangu Shrine

September 19th – 23rd was “Silver Week.”  Three national holidays bunched up with the weekend to form a nice 5 day break.  Well, I had to work Saturday, so my 5 days were actually Sunday through Wednesday + Friday.

Lots of people took it as an opportunity to travel all over the place, even outside Japan.  I don’t know where they get the energy! I only went to Dazaifu Tenmangu Shrine, a mere two train stations away. ^_^;  I went with two other first year JETs (who had just gone to Nagasaki the day before!).  The place was PACKED! You can click on the pictures below to see them at a larger size.

A bridge on the way to the main shrine

A bridge on the way to the main shrine

Statue of a kirin with two birds

Statue of a kirin with two birds

A kirin is a mythical creature, depicted in Japan as kinda like a dragonish deer.  I don’t know what birds those to its left are supposed to be.  According to Wikipedia, kirin only appear where there is a wise ruler.  Dazaifu Tenmangu Shrine was built over the grave of Sugawara no Michizane, a scholar who later became deified as Tenjin.

Hand-washing before entering the shrine

Hand-washing before entering the shrine

Threshhold to the shrine

Threshhold to the shrine

Main shrine building

Main shrine building

Charm for those born in the Year of the Dog

Charm for those born in the Year of the Dog

At Shinto shrines, you can buy various kinds of omamori, or charms.  Some temples have one charm that they’re especially known for.  Dazaifu Tenmangu, being dedicated to Sugawara no Michizane, is known for its charms for luck in academic pursuits.  But they also have all the other standard charms: for health, safety transiting, relationships, protection from calamities, etc.  They also had cute little cell phone strap charms of the Chinese Zodiac, so I bought the doggy at left.  Awww!

After the shrine, we had wanted to go to the Kyuushuu National Museum’s special exhibition of ancient Ashura statues, but there was a 200 minute wait to get in!  We decided we didn’t need to see Ashura that badly and instead went to the mall to see Ballad -名もなき恋のうた- (which translates to something like “Ballad: Love Song That Doesn’t Even Have a Name”).  It’s a movie about a little boy who travels in time (in Japanese they say タイムスリップ, “time slip” lol) to the Warring States Period, only his stuff goes along for the ride.  So you get funny scenes of samurai being astounded by bicycle riding and cell phones.  The ending is a little “huh WTF?!!”-ish, but it was still a good movie.

So, that was my Silver Week Monday.  I didn’t do anything special the other two days.  Tuesday I went to Tsutaya to rent Disc 1 of Heroes Season 3, which just came out here.  Since I missed many episodes in Season 3 it’s convenient. Then I went to get my bike’s flat fixed (yeah, I could do it myself but….aaaaagh). That’s pretty much it.  The Friday I took daikyuu for waiting for the KDDI people to come install my internet, and that’s what I did.

Riveting stuff, eh? ^o^

Catch-Up Vol. 1: Softbank Hawks Game

25 Friday Sep 2009

Posted by scalesoflibra in First Months

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SoftBank Hawks

I finally have internet at home!!! ^_______^

I decided to go with KDDI’s ADSL service because it was cheaper than Yahoo! BB.  People with KDDI phones get discounts on their internet, but there didn’t seem to be a discount for Yahoo! BB for people with SoftBank (to which Yahoo is connected) phones.  Oh well.

Anyway, two weeks ago I went with a bunch of other Fukuoka JETs & friends to a Softbank Hawks game at Yahoo! Dome.  Before leaving my apartment I made sure that I had batteries for my camera, since the ones I had a week earlier at taiikusai had left me in the lurch. But…I forgot to put the memory card in the camera!! >_< So much FAIL! At least there was my phone’s camera.

For those unfamiliar with major league Japanese baseball, all the teams have their sponsor’s name in their name.  Hence, SoftBank Hawks.  This also leads to some unfortunate names.  They may be a great team, but it’s really hard for me to take the Nippon-Ham Fighters seriously. ^_^;  Yakult Swallows is just funny.

But I digress…

So far away...

So far away...

We sat as a large group in some cheap seats way behind 2nd base.  This was actually my first time going to a baseball game, so I don’t know, but it seems like the stadium isn’t that big.  The seats were far back, but at least they weren’t up high.  Plus, they were right in the middle of the cheering sections, that which makes Japanese baseball games a bit different.  Well, so I’ve been told.  Not having gone to a baseball game in the States, I guess I really can’t compare.  But from the games I’ve watched on TV, it does seem like Japanese spectators feel it is their job to cheer for their team to a much greater degree than American spectators.  I don’t think American fans make bands to go cheer for their teams.

Yes, bands.  Kind of like marching bands.

The Hawks' cheering section waves their flags fervently!

The Hawks' cheering section waves its flags fervently!

Each team’s cheering section has some brass and percussion, as well as large flags.  When their team is at bat, they play.  There’s one piece where the audience joins in, beating their hollow cheering bats in time, and yelling out “ganbare,” (do your best) + the name of whoever is at bat.  Of course, not just the cheering section, but everyone in the audience joins in on that part.  It was kinda funny to hear everyone say “ganbare, ootizu!” for José Ortiz, one of the foreigners in the Hawks.

Speaking of foreign players…the funniest thing in this game was that we were sitting fairly close to the position of a foreign player on the opposing team, Todd Linden of the Rakuten Eagles.  Some of the people in my group took it upon themselves to tease him specifically. It was hilarious! They kept yelling out his name in funny voices.  When he didn’t catch a ball and the Hawks scored, they yelled out, “thank you, Linden!” ^o^  Who knows if Linden heard it or not.  I felt kinda bad for him, being a foreign player getting teased by other foreigners! Of course, that’s precisely what made it funny.  And acceptable. Oh, and one person was translating “who’s your daddy?!” directly into Japanese, yelling out to Linden when the Hawks scored, お父さんは誰ですか!! XDDDD The Japanese people sitting in front of us started turning back and looking at us funny. ^o^ Oh, it was great! And it’s really funny because one of SoftBank’s mascots is お父さん!(Otou-san, “father.”)

As for the game itself, Rakuten hit a homerun in the first inning, and the Hawks didn’t score until the seventh, at which point they rallied to score 5 all at once.  People had left before the start of the 7th, but when the Hawks started scoring everyone got their hope back and started cheering more passionately then before.  Alas, it was for naught.  They couldn’t catch up and lost 6-5.  But it was one helluva ride!

After the game, I went with 4 other 1st year JETs to have dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe Fukuoka.  It’s right across from Yahoo! Dome.  It was one little boy’s birthday, so we got to see the Hard Rock style Happy Birthday song & ice cream.  About 30 minutes later, two other little boys got the song.  I found that highly suspicious.  I wonder if those little boys just threw a tantrum and made their parents tell the waitress that it was their birthdays! ^o^  We also walked around the Hawks Town Mall, and went to the Hawks Outlet Store.  Three cheers for deeply discounted merch!

Go Hawks!

Go Hawks!

Yup, reppin’ the D under my Hawks gear.

*facepalm*

I took that picture after coming home.  My friends were wearing their Hawks happi (法被) on the train, and got quite a few stares. Even some giggles.  I guess gaijin are one thing, but gaijin wearing Japanese-style major league baseball goods are another!

Lastly, asides from the Hawks’ mascots, Softbank’s (that is, the phone company’s) mascots, the Softbank Family, also cheer for the Hawks.  Everyone who went to the game got the following sticker, featuring Otou-san (Father).  Yes, Otou-san is a dog.  (Mother and daughter are Japanese women, and the son is a black man. Don’t ask.)

Softbank wants you to...

SoftBank wants you to...

There’s a “Climax Series” going on.  I think it refers to the games leading up to the championship match. So, that’s what this sticker’s about.  Not anything else.

And on that note, that’ll be all for now! Stay tuned for Catch-Up Vol. 2: Silver Week!

It’s ☆Show Time!☆

08 Tuesday Sep 2009

Posted by scalesoflibra in First Months

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taiikusai

Since I saw taiikusai practice a lot, some of the cheers are stuck in my head.  Such as when the Red Team girls said “It’s SHOW TIME!!!”

^o^

Taiikusai was this past Saturday.  It usually gets translated to “Sports Day Festival,” but as someone pointed out to me, that probably doesn’t really convey what this event is.  Taiikusai literally translates to “physical education festival,” and is perhaps a better way of putting it, given that there aren’t matches of the usual things one thinks of upon hearing “sports.”  Instead, it consists of PE stuff like relay races, tug of war, and tumbling (which is more about human pyramids than bouncing around like an acrobat, though there is an element of that), cheerleading (the girls do American style cheerleading and the boys do Japanese style support or rallying called ouen), and hitomoji (人文字, writing and drawing pictures by having lots of people hold up the appropriate colored boards in sync), among other things.

The students first marched onto the grounds divided into their teams, Red, Blue, and Yellow.  Teachers were also put into teams, but mostly for cheering and spotting purposes.  Myself and the other ALT were placed on the Red Team.  Everyone had the appropriate colored bandana.  The students saluted the principal with a Roman salute, then went to sit in their team’s bleachers.

Koi BB Small

Cosmos BB SmallLion BB Small

Then, there was relay, tug of war, tug of war racing (seeing who could get the most short ropes), and tumbling.

After the lunch break, each sports team* marched into the arena in their uniforms, saluted the principal as they marched by, and marched in place until it was time to sit down.  Don’t know if it’s like this in all Japanese schools, but there are no school colors here,** so each sports team picks whatever colors it wants for its uniform.  This school has teams for the usual stuff like soccer, baseball, softball, tennis, basketball, volleyball, kendo, archery, and track.  There are also rarer teams like the rifle team (not related to the military or police in any way) and boxing club.  Unfortunately, my batteries were running low, and I wanted to save them to record the ouen.

Then there was the girls’ dance.  It’s meant to be…”girly.”  It’s hard to describe.  (For City Year people: it’s kinda like a less militaristic, less exercise oriented cyzygy PT routine–although the Yellow Team did half a Flip Chart!)  Even though during practice they were using songs with lyrics, for the day-of most of the dancing was done to the instrumental tracks.  There were strange jumps from calm classical music, to epic-movie-battle pieces, to frenetic electric guitar tracks, to ABBA’s “Dancing Queen” and the Disney song “When You Wish Upon A Star.” @_@ I know the transitions were meant to represent something, and before each dance the dance leader said what it was about.  I heard stuff like “we wanted to celebrate family” and “we wanted to show the power of mothers.”  When I said to one teacher, “I don’t get the meaning of this,” he said (jokingly??) “don’t try to understand it, just feel it.” ^o^

Then, there were some relay races with a twist for the girls.  The teams split in half, standing across from each other in rows of four.  The front four ran while holding a long bamboo pole, but they had to circle about a cone at the halfway point, so the girl on the inside of the turn would have to slow done while the one on the outside had to speed up.  Sometimes the girl would be flung off the row!  Then, when they reached the other half of their team, the girls holding the pole ran it under the other girls’ feet, and those who didn’t time their jump right would fall on the pole.

One of the last events was the big one: the combination of hitomoji, cheerleading, and ouen.  First would be some hitomoji routines, then the cheer squads would come out, and some hitomoji was going on while they did their routine.  Then, after the wild music of the cheering, there would be the pounding of the taiko drum, and the boys’ ouen squads marched seriously forward.

Each ouen squad wore hakama and special jackets they’d painted themselves.  The ouen leader(s) had slightly different jackets.  This was the only event whose practice I didn’t see, so it was all a surprise.  A while ago I saw a movie called “Fure Fure Shoujo” which was about a girl who wanted to do ouen.  In that movie, the ouen was very militaristic and linear, and the students wore militaristic uniforms.***  But the ouen at my school was much more flowing, like tai chi sort of, and the students wore more traditional Japanese style costumes.

The Red Team had a point in their routine where they bent down, stealthily picked up a fistful of sand, and upon standing threw it out to alternating sides so it made a wide arc while having tough guy looks on their faces.  Everyone (myself included) ooh’ed at that one!  Then, the leaders went to the back, backs to the audience, and when they turned back around they were wearing oni (demon) masks!  I thought it was pretty cool, but another was of the mind that it was gimmicky. ^o^

Blue Team had the most beautifully decorated jackets.  They had a really cool point in their routine where they lined up and moved their arms slowly, giving the illusion of a windmill’s blades.  They were very well coordinated.  Yellow Team had a similar bit.  I liked the drumming for Yellow Team the best, it was very fast and rhythmic.

A point in Blue Team's ouen

A point in Blue Team’s ouen routine

Ultimately, Blue Team won the whole thing, for the third year in a row.  While I was cheering for Red, I have to admit that overall Blue did the best.  For each event it won, each team won a small trophy, and Blue Team got a huge cup for winning the whole thing.  It was a really fun day. ^_^

My next post may also be sports related, as I’m going to a Softbank Hawks (baseball) game with some other Fukuoka JETs this Saturday.

2013 Edits

*I originally had used the word “club” for what is more commonly called a “team” in American English, because Japanese had rubbed off on me. In Japanese schools, teams and clubs are nearly all marked by the suffix 部 (“bu”), usually translated as “club.” In the case of most sports, it’s not too strange to call those teams “clubs.” However, when talking about organizations that have some word in their names that means about the same thing as “club,” it gets redundant when translated back to English. For example, calling the brass band “brass band club,” or English Speaking Society “English Speaking Society Club.” I started seeing those mistakes being made in English by students, and it made me realize that they didn’t know the meaning of the words “band,” “society,” etc. Imagine my surprise to come back to this post and see myself calling the basketball team the “basketball club”! Ahaha…

**Now I know that Japanese schools, or at least the ones I worked at, do in fact have a designated school color. However, how that color gets used is still different from what I was used to as an American. It’s true that the school teams choose their own colors freely and independent of the other teams, whereas in the American system all of a school’s teams wear the school colors. Though I did get the impression at my second school that they were trying to make the school color a bigger part of the school’s brand.

***”Militaristic uniforms,” which I now know to be gakuran. My second school’s uniform consisted of gakuran for boys and blazers & skirts for girls. For the ouen, all save the 3 heads of the ouendan wore their gakuran with ribbons tied around their arms. The 3 captains wore hakama and jackets like the ouen squads of my first school, pictured above.

Back Boards for Taiikusai

04 Friday Sep 2009

Posted by scalesoflibra in First Months

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taiikusai

I wish I’d brought my camera to school today! >_<

Tomorrow (Saturday the 5th) is taiikusai (Sports Day Festival).  The students have been divided into three teams, Red, Yellow, and Blue, consisting of a mix of all three grades.  Each team has it’s own bleacher stand, which is decorated with a large painting, or back board.  They were put up today.  Unfortunately, since I didn’t have my camera, I took these pictures with my phone which doesn’t have a very good camera on it (kinda surprised by this, considering how good the camera on the Nokia I had in the States was).

Anyway, the boards were promptly covered up, and in the time I ran into the school to get my cell, the Red team’s painting was covered.  It is by far the most technically skilled painting of the three.  I’ll take a picture of it tomorrow. Hopefully I can get a clear shot.  It was painted by the 3rd year Art Course students.

The 2nd year Art Course painted the back board for the Blue team.  It’s my favorite of the three.

Close up of Blue Team's back board, before it was put up.

Close up of Blue Team's back board, before it was put up.

The clouds were cooperating, lol

The clouds were cooperating, lol

The Yellow team’s back board was done by the 1st year Art Course.  It’s pretty good too.

Lion UpWell, tomorrow’s the big day!  Hope the weather stays nice.

Great Class + More Random Life Stuff

03 Thursday Sep 2009

Posted by scalesoflibra in First Months

≈ Leave a comment

Today, I taught my self-intro lesson to the second year Art Course class.  I’d already had a taste of teaching 2nd years, and they were pretty good about participating and paying attention.  But today was the first chance I got to teach an Art Course class.  What a difference!  They’re attentive, well-behaved, participate, and fun.  The fact that it’s mostly girls probably has a lot to do with it.  (Not that there aren’t girls who are chatterboxes in the other classes.)

The funniest part was the Bingo game.  It was “Human Bingo,” a game I learned in City Year.  Basically, the boxes contain questions/facts, and if it applies to a someone, you write that person’s name in the box and try to get 5 names in a row.  I used the basic grammar point “Have you ever____?”  I made a 5 x 5 grid, but left the bottom 5 boxes blank, for the students to make up their own questions to ask.  Now, when I was asked the usual question, (“Do you have a boyfriend?”) I had answered that I did, and that it was Tsumabuki Satoshi (an actor).  So, one girl filled in the bottom five boxes entirely with questions about that!  “Have you ever talked to Tsumabuki Satoshi?” “Have you ever seen Tsumabuki Satoshi?”  “Have you ever touched Tsumabuki Satoshi?” XDDDD  And she asked me each question, too!  She really called me out! 😛

Those kids are great!

Oh! And one girl wrote and asked me, “Have you ever bought FF [Final Fantasy] game?”  I couldn’t help geeking out and basically going “OMG I LOVE Final Fantasy!!! ::squeeeee::”  Then she asked me if I liked Cloud.  I said, “Yeah, but I like Sephiroth better!” She then started speaking in half Japanese half English, so I’m not sure if I understood correctly, but it sounded like she said she was doing an oil painting of Cloud. orz (Mad props!)

Must learn…to rein in…the GEEK! >o<

Whew…okay, here’s more Random Life Stuff:

I just noticed…that there are cupboards above the sink in my apartment. *facepalm* They had old stuff in them, probably from my predecessor’s predecessor’s predecessor.  A JET has lived in that apartment since 1993! Or so I think, since someone pasted the “Important Numbers for JETs” card into one closet and it said “Effective March 1993.”  Or maybe 1994.  Sometime in the 90s.

A Sea of Bicycles! Less poetically, a bicycle parking lot.  This one’s by Nishitetsu Futsukaichi Station.  Er….that probably doesn’t mean much to anyone, but since I’m used to saying it now… *sweatdrop*

Free bike parking by train station

Free bike parking by train station

I saw this cat walking around the juutaku (government housing) parking lot a while ago.  Looks pretty big!

(Stray?) Cat

(Stray?) Cat

Random Life Stuff

01 Tuesday Sep 2009

Posted by scalesoflibra in First Months

≈ Leave a comment

Here’s a bunch of random things that are too small to get their own posts.

Inkan–I wanted my personal seal to say ベガ (my last name), but since ALTs at this school have always been called by their first name, and I didn’t want to rock the boat on this point, I asked them to call me “Eli.”  Which in Japanese becomes “Eri,” a common name. Of two kanji versions of “eri” that I liked, I asked my predecessor which one was better, and to put that on the inkan.  Once I got here, I saw that they’d gone with 絵理 (“picture” + “reason”).  Get it?  Because I’m an artist? *rimshot* (The other version I liked was 永吏, mostly for the kanji for “eternal,” but the second kanji is “officer/official” and I didn’t want to be an eternal official, lol!)

Name Woes–On forms, the space for one’s name in kanji is where a foreigner writes their name the way they would in their own country, and the furigana space is where they write it in katakana.  The problem is, since there’s no place to put your name in katakana on the JET application, my name was initially katakana-ized the way Americans would think to pronounce it: all shades of wrong.

<Spanish katakanization rant> Instead of the ridiculously simple transliteration possible due to the similar sounds of Spanish and Japanese, until my predecessor brought up the matter of what to put on my inkan, the school had been writing my name as “erizaberu vega aruguetta”.  Why?! Why, when “erisaberu bega arugeta” is so simple, and 10 times closer to the correct pronunciation?  Why must they say “mekishiko” instead of “mehico”?!?!? </Spanish katakanization rant>

Anyway, the problem now is that since I filled out my Foreigner Card and bank account applications myself, some of the documents the school had prepared for me don’t match.  For example, I want to have the gas bill automatically paid from my bank account, but the gas company has my name written with a “za” rather than a “sa.”  Although, strangely, the rest is correct.  Which is the main reason I’d rather get it consistenly right on all forms, rather than deal with inconsistently wrong transliterations.

Stuff I like to watch on the tele–I don’t have cable, but since I don’t watch that much TV anyway the 5 analog channels I get are plenty.  Here’s some interesting things I watch every week.

Buzzer Beat A drama about a college student who plays basketball.  He’s got a problem with his leg though.  His ex-girlfriend is being suuuper trifling, torturing the girl he is currently with by talking about how (smooth?) the boy’s hands were and such.  Then, she neglected to take her umbrella on a rainy day, preying on his kindness and making him miss his date with his girlfriend.  She’s so evil! >_<

Tenchijin(天地人) Okay, I don’t exactly watch this one.  It’s the current NHK Taiga drama.  It doesn’t hold a candle to Fuurin Kazan.  It looks like people from this age pretending to be in the 1500s.  In other words, it’s not convincing.  I think it’s because everyone is so clean-shaven, and the music is rather uninspired.  I watch a little bit of it for the handsome protagonist.

…what?  There’s no Days of Our Lives here…

Shin 9 Gakari (新9係)I’m not sure if “shin kyuu gakari” is the correct reading for the title.  It’s a cop drama.  So far, I’ve only seen murder cases on this show, don’t know if they ever have episodes about other types of crime.  It’s not like Law & Order where they have both the police and lawyers.  Actually, when I first arrived, the first ever jury trial in Japan was going on (in real life, I mean).

Haken no Osukaru ~ “Shoujo Manga” ni Ai wo Komete (派遣のオスカル〜「少女漫画」に愛をこめて)The title means something like “Temp Worker Oscar – putting love into girls’ manga.”  The main character is a temp worker in love with the manga The Rose of Versailles, in which a girl dresses like a man, goes by Oscar, and saves France (or something like that).  The Rose of Versailles was (partly) the inspiration for Revolutionary Girl Utena, which is why this drama is interesting for me.  The heroine imagines that the people around her are characters from the manga, and when she needed to get up strength to face her bosses, she imagined that she was Oscar.  It’s pretty funny (not sure if it’s meant to be).

Like the flow of a river–that’s what many students are like in class.  I was warned beforehand that talking in class was tolerated in Japanese schools to a much greater extent than it is in American schools.  Now, I don’t know if the students are as verbose in their other classes.  I think they are, given that most of the teachers don’t get on them for talking in class.  And I mean blatant talking.  Today, I got to know the back of one girl’s head pretty well.  I walked up to her and asked her questions specifically (the ALT isn’t supposed to be the disciplinarian, so I didn’t directly tell her, you’re being rude!) but she just acted bashful while I was around and went right back to talking and playing with her hair the moment I left her side.

So far, I’d say there are three types of students: those who are really loud and participate (even if they’re just shouting out random things), those who are silent as the grave, and the chatterboxes.  I like the loud, random kids, because even if they’re a ways off, I can tell they’re paying attention.  The quiet ones need to be bribed with rewards.  The chatterboxes annoy the crap out of me.  It’s not too bad right now, but I can feel the annoyance building.  I can talk to people about it all I want, but I know that I will inevitably bust out on some kid who won’t be quiet.

I’m trying to be a good cultural relativist, but I really, really don’t understood why a kid got completely, loudly, humiliatingly chewed out for making a paper plane, yet constant talking in class is tolerated.  I’m hoarse after just two classes from trying to talk over the chatter!  Maybe teachers are stricter at other schools.

Metric — My co-ALT, although an American, has been here for a while so he talks in metric.  I still have to do a conversion (thank Apple for the conversion widget!) before really understanding what’s being said.  Ironically, what little Japanese I know, I don’t have to translate into English for myself.  But say something about kilos or centimeters and I’m like, uh…so what’s that in pounds/inches??? LOL!

Capoeira — This past weekend, a previous JET with great Japanese ability helped myself and other n00bs with various set-up tasks (in my case, getting internet set up at home).  Then, one of that former JET’s friends got invited to dinner.  In turn, the friend invited all of us n00bs.  His friends were a group of Japanese, American, and French people who practiced capoeira.  I didn’t get to see them practicing, but they had their berimbaus.  They were very nice, and the yakitori place we went to had excellent food! (Poor chickens and cows and pigs…why must you be so tasty? TT_TT)

Vocabulary — Eventually I’ll get around to making a vocabulary page, because I really don’t feel like explaining what things are each time they come up.

Okay, that’s my Random Life Stuff for today.


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As my time on JET has ended and I've said all I wanted to say about it, I will not be adding any new content to this blog. I leave it up for reference. However please keep in mind that the usefulness of this reference may drop as the years go by, because sometimes things change. Anyway, thanks for dropping by! ~September 2014

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