July 6th, 2006

Hello again folks! It's been a busy couple of weeks! Well...sorta. Last week was busy, this week has been really slack for me. So lets update!

Last week was finals at Nishi (West Izumo High). I had already given my first years (10th graders) an oral test the week before. For their exam, they had to introduce themselves, ask me two questions and answer two from me, and introduce a 'friend'. For the friend, I showed them pictures of famous people/characters and then introduced them and told me three things about them.

For example:
"Hello, my name is Yuuki Tawara. Please call me Christopher. What is your favorite food? My favorite food is yakisoba. Where are you from? I'm from Japan. This is my friend, Brad Pitt. He is from America. He is an actor. He is very cool. Thank you."

That was it. Very simple. Most of my students did very well on it. The other teachers were freaked out and said it would be way too hard for the kids. Bah! They have no faith in their own students and it irritates me. These kids have had English for 3 years already...they should be doing more advanced things. Grrr!

Anyways, so last week I had to give my 3rd years (12th graders) their exam. For them, I gave them a listening test. I read two short passages and they had to circle the right answer to a question. "What did mary buy at the food court?" "C. Tacos." They all did very well. The weirdest part though, was that half of my students missed the last question. I asked, "Who did Peter name his pet?" The correct answer was "Thumper" (it was a rabbit). Half of them answered "Snowball." I don't get it!! They don't sound the same at all! Oh well. The test was interesting for me because it was the first time I had to give a test. I was really nervous I would screw up and ruin their lives forever. I was afraid that my test would be too hard and they would all fail and then never get in college because of their poor Oral Communications grade! But! It turns out I gave a test of average difficulty. When I figured up the grades, I had a nice bell curve peaking over 82% correct. That pleased me. Only one student got a 64% and 40% is what is considered failing at this school. So yay! Doing the report card grades was weird though. It really emphasized that I am a REAL high school teacher here. Despite having no formal training whatsoever, Im in charge of two classes. It's weird. Very weird. Who would give ME that kind of responsibility!?

We also got our re-entry permits on Monday of last week (26th). That is exciting. We have to have re-entry permits so we can leave Japan and not invalidate our visas. Otherwise, when we came back, we would be stuck with no visa and in a lot of trouble with Mihara-san. Eek! We had to go to Matsue to get the permits so I got out of going to Takamatsu elementary. Woo! That was good because I would have had to bike in the rain...which I had to do the following Friday. Boo! I hate biking in the rain. It wasn't so bad because I bought a rainjacket and some pants covers. Unfortunately, I didn't put the pants on because, "it wasn't raining that hard." Boy...was I wrong. My bottom half was SOAKED by the time I got to school. I dripped my way around the school and wound up late to class. Oops. It's only a 15 minute class, so it really sucks when you are 10 minutes late.

On Wednesday (28th), I got out of Takamatsu again! Unfortunately, I had to go to a Super English seminar (Super English being the program that sends me to Takamatsu and Enya elementaries to teach 6th graders English). It was really boring. It was mostly in Japanese, but I convinced people that I didn't need a translater. It was pointless when they yammered at me because I tend to disagree with the Japanese viewpoint on how English should be taught (most native English speakers do, really). That was 2 hours of boringness. Although, I did get to announce my English Tea and have gotten so more interested people coming. Only 3 or 4 ladies really come at a time, but thats a nice turnout for what I do. Plus, its getting more class-like and I hope, more helpful to them and their english.

Anyways, back to the seminar! I did learn a few new games and activities that I might consider using after the break, but for the most part it was a waste of time. However, Titia was there (along with Yulinda but she's kinda recluse so I have probably never talked about her...although now she has rad hair because she cut ALL of it off because hair salons don't know how to deal with African hair. Im so jealous. It looks so cool (temperature wise). I could never shave my head though. I would look awful and I have a chubby skull. I think I have digressed from my point...). Titia is a very entertaining person. She's really upbeat, even when she's being cranky. She had a birthday barbecue on the 22nd and it was a lot of fun. Chris got to be the grill master and I picked up fish. I love Titia's house, too. It totally kick's our apartment in the shiri. Im digressing again aren't I? I don't remember where I was going with this story at all...oh well...moving on!

On Friday night (30th), we went to the Shimane Winery (shimane is the prefecture we live in, FYI) for a farewell dinner/party for Lisa. Lisa has not recontracted for next year so she returns to america about when we fly out. How sad. I like Lisa as well. She is entertaining and has been a big help to us. Remember, she's the one who took us to the hospital when Chris cut his finger. The dinner was really good. It was a yakiniku (grilled meat) buffet. All you can eat too. There was a LOT of food and it was tasty. Unfortunately, we were sat a table with two men who we didn't know. They preceeded to get a little tipsy and ask us almost insulting questions about being foreign and making fun of everything we ate (or didn't eat). Excuse, no, I will not eat cow stomach or other innards. I may be a pansy American, but you are eating cow stomache. Ew. I think Mihara-san was punishing us for being late by sitting us with them. Im on to her! The meal was really yummy though. They had the best grape juice that I have ever tasted. And before anyone teases, it really was just grape juice. It was thick and really sweet, but without the normal grapejuice aftertaste. Yum!

We were late to the dinner party because of Chris's toe. I may have not mentioned it before, but in late January, Chris smashed his toe against a door and it died and turned black. Well, it never fell off. We were getting concerned about it, but the dermotologist said that it would eventually fall off. Well, on Thursday (29th), some kid was being dumb around Chris. He tripped over Chris's toe and ended up ripping the toenail most of the way off. Chris had to go to the school nurse and have her take the toenail the rest of the way off. So on Friday after work, we had to go to the dermatologist and make sure everything was ok. But, we got stuck at the doctor's office late because of a little 5 or 6 year old kid. Apparently, he was getting some moles cut or frozen off. But the way he was screaming in the exam room, you would have thought they were cutting off his arm without any anisthetic. He seriously was sreaming bloody murder! Well, he was screaming "stop stop!" "idiot idiot!" "I hate it I hate it!" over and over again. And when I say over and over again, I mean he did this for about 45 minutes. It was really nerve wracking. I thought for awhile that maybe he was getting circumsized or something (that seems painful to me), but Chris gave me an unamused look when I mentioned it, so probably not. Plus, the boy had tiny circle band-aids on him that look like ex-mole spots. So that sucked. Plus we were really late. On a more amusing note, when we talked to the pharmacy about Chris's perscription, he kept telling us over and over that we couldn't put it in our eyes. That was bad. It might LOOK like eye drops, but its for toes only! I don't know why it was amusing, but it was. Sometimes, saying things in Japanese makes them more funny.

Ok! So that was friday. Whew! Long entry, Saturday we had birthday parties at the Friendship house! It was really fun. Chris and I brought hamburgers with ranch and cheese filling. It was really yummy. We were celebrating Mark and Jason's birthdays. It was a sort of pot luck. We played a game (which I completely rocked at, btw). Then, right before we left, we did pinatas! That was fun. Ang was really obsessed with putting red jelly in them (jelly = jello) because it was supposed to simulate smashing watermelons (some british birthday tradition or something). So we left English Mark take the first wack at the pinata. He had never done one before so it was hilarious. Plus, if you have ever met Mark, you would understand the hilarity that came from watching him flail in the dark with a yellow, plastic bat. He didn't bust it. So they let me have a go. I knocked it down (Mark loosened it up) and screamed because I was afraid that jello would get all over me. Ang just giggled and told me she lied about the jello. She got me, though. I just knew I was going to be covered in jello. Oh well. What a fun night!

Sunday...now there's a day of unhappiness and hate!

Sunday, we were invited to play Petanque with some weird club or something. We had to meet some people at 9:00 and then we would go play. Petanque is a fun game. It's french. It's also a lot like curling, but without the ice or brooms. You toss balls at a smaller ball and the team who is close to the small ball wins! Easy rule, easy game, fun. We are interested in maybe picking up a set when we move back to America. As long as you have room, you can play petanque. It is an outside game though. Anyways, that was great! Unfortunately, no one told us that it was an all day event. We thought we would be there for a few hours playing this game, go out and have lunch, and then be home by 12:00 or so. Instead, we were there at 9:30, the event started at 10:00 (but only so we could practice even though we had been practicing from 9:30). At 11:30, we had lunch. Then...for no reason other than to just sit around boredly and stare at each other, we had to wait until 1:00 before they were going to start up the tournament. Unfortunately, by about 12:00, Chris and I had started to get sunburned (see, no one told us we would be out for 6 hours in the sun, so we didn't think to use sunscreen). When the tournament started, we got in about 30 minutes of playing before the rain came and poured. But not enough to cancel the tournament. No...we had to wait the rain out. Then the tournament picked back up and we had to play until about 3:00. Now remember, we had been there since 9:30, in the sun. So by the time we FINALLY got home, poor Chris was so sunburned on the back of his neck. I mean, it was bad enough that I was worried about sun poisoning. No poisoning though. But the tournament thing really sucked. Not just because it was long, but because we liked pentaque but it was ruined because we were uninformed about what was going on and got sunburned (my face was sunburned, but not badly). Blah. We have decided not to participate in these events anymore unless we drive ourselves so we can leave when stupidness happens.

Anyways, this week has been much slower. I haven't really done much. Nishi is all but cancelled because of sports tournaments that the students have to particpate in. I only had one class with them. I had all my other super english classes, but they aren't that hard at (considering that 4 out of 6 of them are only 15 minutes long). I did manage to get rained on when going to Takamatsu (but I think Im cursed when going there!). Oh well. Yesterday (Thursday) we went swimming and that was fun. But that is really the only thing that we have done lately.

Ok! Im done talking now! I should update more frequently so the entries aren't so long and boring. Im sorry! Oh well. Now Im going to bed because its midnight and Im tired! Goodnight!