Jean Of mArc

Dear Everyone,

I’m sorry that I haven’t been keeping up on the posts. To be honest, I just plain forget about the blog a lot the time, or don’t think about it when there’s a good opportunity to do so. Anyway, there’s my apology, on with the post!

As the title of this post states, I have a test coming up this weekend all the way up north in Sapporo city. It is the JLPT test that I mentioned way back in fall on this very same website! Don’t believe me? Well check it out for yourself!

So, many people have been asking me if I feel ready for this test, and the honest answer is: I think so, but I’m not sure. I’ve been spending countless hours studying from various books for the past 4 months in preparation. I’ve learned over 2,000 words, numerous grammatical structures, about 1,000 kanji characters (or combinations thereof), and read countless examples.

However, there is a problem: in the practice tests that I’ve been going through, there are always a number of words that are NOT listed on the vocabulary list, or some new way of wording things that I’ve never seen before. So my thoughts are: if the material on the test only uses what I’m SUPPOSED to know (according to the standards), I should be fine. Not perfect, but fine. But if there are too many things on the test that they never even told me I needed to know, then things probably won’t turn out so well. There’s no way I can memorize the whole dictionary just in case I run into some words I’m not familiar with. And if you don’t know what a word is, sometimes it is possible to figure it out based on context, but sometimes you are just at a lost. So hopefully what I know will do. Also, my listening comprehension is kind of low, because the input is so much faster with a voice than it is on paper. Not only that, but you can’t go back and re-read something that was spoken. So, we’ll see how it goes.

The reason I chose the title for this post was because when I finished my last exam at Acadia, I was so excited, telling everyone that I just finished my “last test ever!!!” Guess that was a bit premature. At least this one has no barring on graduating from a school or anything.

It’s hard to believe how long I’ve been here: when I came it was hot and humid, and the students’ summer vacation was just starting! Now it is December and we are beginning to see winter. I’m already done 1/3 of my first year here! It went pretty fast!

In December, I am used to seeing Christmas decorations all around, stores get more packed, and Christmas music is always playing anywhere in public. I was not expecting this in Japan, since Christmas is not really important to most Japanese people; New Year’s is the big deal here. However, just as in Canada, there are Christmas decorations everywhere here, and Christmas music is always playing… but the stores aren’t any more packed than usual. I was told that in Japan, Christmas Day is a day where young couples celebrate their love by going to Kentucky Fried Chicken. No, I didn’t make that up.

On the topic, yesterday was my first full-day school visit to another school besides the one I teach at. This is a school for disabled children. Because of that nature, each child has their own care-taker, and classes are only between 2 to 8 students. It was tons of fun: we played games with them, and sang songs with them. This DOES have to do with Christmas, because we sang “Silent Night”, and they got me to dress up like Santa Clause, complete with beard and red clothes, and come in to give gifts to the students. The pants were way too wide for me, so I had to fight to keep them on. After I left and came back as my regular self again, the kids were telling me that I had just missed seeing Santa!

Anyhow, that’s all I feel like writing right now, so that’s all I’m going to write! But some day soon, I will put up a more amusing post… as soon as this darn test is over with!

In recent posts, I have been noticing a dwindling amount of comments after a post. The last one, about food, hit an all-time low of 0 comments. As a result, I must admit that I am much less motivated to write a new post. However this time, I am going to be asking for advice, so I hope you, dear reader, will respond!

As you know- or if you don’t know I’m about to tell you- my current employment is as an English teacher, and I am very much enjoying this experience. It has its ups and downs, as most things do, but overall it is very rewarding to try and share my language with the students to help improve their foreign communication skills. For my classes, the situation is always different: some teachers prefer to do most of the teaching, asking only for help with pronunciation and to read scripts, while others would like me to come up with activities for the students to do, while others want me to explain concepts in English, which is then translated into Japanese.

The problem with the classroom environment, though, is that there are too many students all at once, so getting them to improve their speaking skills is very difficult. Whenever I get them to speak out-loud to me in class, they are understandably very nervous because of the pressures not only of speaking with peers listening, but of speaking to a native. Whenever I get them to speak to each other, it’s very hard to monitor their pronunciation, grammar, understanding of usage, etc. Also, they could just be speaking in Japanese and I’d never know. Also, no matter how the class is run, the material must either come directly from or be closely related to the textbook material. This limits the possibilities.

However, on Mondays after school, I run an English Club, and I consider it to be such a unique opportunity for the students: it allows them to get a chance to really try to improve their English skills because there are only a few of them, so they can try talking with each other and with me in English. Therefore, when I first started the English Club, I was quite insistent that we try only speaking English with each other. Also, I tried teaching them some common English sayings that are not textbooky: for example “What’s up?” instead of “How are you?” We also did some self-introductions.

I handed out a survey about what they wanted from English club, and the biggest response was that they wanted to watch English movies. Fair enough. However, I also was getting the impression that they were having a very hard time with the English-only instruction that was being given. I tried going slowly and speaking clearly, but I could tell by the puzzled looks that not everything was being understood. When I asked if they understood everything, I just got blank stares, which I took to mean “no”.

So the next week, we were going to watch an English movie. I brought 3 to choose from, and we ended up going with Stardust. In order to help them out, I thought it would be nice to put the English subtitles on too, so in case they missed what was being said, they could at least read it. However, they seemed quite shocked that I wasn’t setting the subtitles to Japanese. However, having watched Japanese shows with English subtitles and barely learning anything from it, I know from experience that if you can see subtitles in your own language, you can more or less ignore the language it is being spoken in. You might learn certain words when said in isolation (for example, if they only say “Let’s go!” and the subtitles says “いくぞ!” then it’ll be pretty clear what it is). However, as a whole, it’s very hard to actually learn a language that way.

Because this was so difficult, I paused the movie and tried to explain things at very regular intervals. However, I think that even a slow, paced explanation in English may have been too much. After the movie, I asked if they would prefer to try and continue working with this method, or just put on Japanese subtitles. The latter got the favour.

So, the next time we had English club, I’m sad to say that the number of attendees was much lower. I guess they found it too difficult. I brought some episodes of Full House (which my predecessor recommend that they liked) for them to watch. It was kind of funny watching them again because I used to watch it as a kid and it was strange to see it all over again. However this time there were Japanese subtitles. They had no problem understanding what was going on, of course, but I don’t feel like it was useful in improving English understanding.

I decided that the least I could do was make up a list of expressions that I heard in the show and give an explanation of how to use them. So I gave that to them the next week, and then we played some card games. However, they were very quiet games, because most of my attempts to initiate some English conversations were met with mostly silence, and there was very little chatting going on between them.

This past week, I tried something different: I booked the kitchen so that we could try baking some chocolate chip cookies together. I brought all the ingredients, but sadly, all the members had to back out that day, so we will be trying that again next week.

Anyway, I have to admit I’m at a bit of a loss. I feel like I know what to do for classes and such, but I can’t seem to find the balance between actually helping them learn some English while not making it too difficult for them.

I was talking to some other ALTs, and they have faced similar situations as well. One ALT, named Mark, is planning on sending me some ideas that I can try out. However, I want your advice too! What do you think I should do about this? Should I just choose non-language-related things, which end up being mostly silent, or should they be English-related, but then it’s very difficult and people don’t want to come? I don’t know.

And if your advice is to try and find out what THEY want, I’ve already tried that… but I’m not really getting much response about it. In general I find that if you suggest an idea, students are willing to go with it, but it’s because you are the teacher and they are the students and they think they should do what it is the teacher wants. How they actually feel about it is a bit of a mystery, even when you ask about it…

Anyway, this is by no means a complaint, but rather a request for some advice about how to find the balance between actually learning some useful English, while not making things too difficult. Many ALTs say that English Club should be relaxing and fun, but I find that even the “fun” things aren’t getting an enthusiastic response. So, I’m a at a bit of a loss. What do you think?

When I first arrived in Hirosaki, the students were on summer vacation. As mentioned before, summer vacation here is very different than it is back in Canada:

1. It is only for the month of August, not July and August.
2. It takes place 3 months after school has already started (the school years here are from April to March).
3. During summer vacation, students and teachers still attend school, but there are no classes. Instead, students do club activities, and teachers prepare lessons and such for the coming year.

It was good to come in at this time because it allowed me, too, to get used to the school and prepare some lessons before I stepped up in front of the students for my first class.

Now, I understand that there is some confusion about what my job is. I am an ALT, which stands for Assistant Language Teacher. From my understanding, schools in Japan (are required to?) have foreign teachers come in to help the students learn English. They are considered a valuable asset because they have native pronounciation, use natural speech, and are already experts in the language, just by speaking it every day. However, we often don’t know the grammatical reasons behind something, we just know if it is right or not. It’s kind of like a musician who can play anything by ear, but doesn’t know musical theory. However, the JTE (Japanese Teacher of English) is well-versed in English grammatical points, and in the proper way to teach to the Japanese students.

Together, these two forces combine to create *fanfare* TEAM  TEACHING!!! In this model, the JTE teaches the students about the grammical points and structures in a way in which the Japanese students can clearly understand, while the ALT speaks in native English, pronounces works, prepares some activities, and sometimes confuses the students by speaking too fast.

So, as you may have guessed, I am the ALT at Hirosaki Senior High School. I teach 5 classes a week, with a visit school on Wednesday, though I haven’t actually started doing visit schools yet.

Anyway, all this is to say that this past week was my first week of teaching in the Japanese classroom. Here is a bit of a run-down about what I prepared:

• It is customary for the ALT to spend the first class on a self-introduction. However, I didn’t want to bore the students by simply saying “I am Canadian. I like drums. I’m not a sumo wrestler.” I wanted to try and engage the students a bit by getting them to guess what is and isn’t true about me. So, I divide the students into 6 groups, and for each group, I have a list of 3 facts, for example “I’m a skier”, “I’m a soccer player” or “I’m a cheerleader”. In their groups, they must discuss which one they think is true AND WHY. The “why” part is to get them saying more than just want is already right in front of them.
• In another class, the topic is on movies right now. So for one activity, we get the students to discuss, in pairs, about their favourite movie with their partner (What kind of movie is it? What’s it called? What do you like about it?). Then afterwards, I thought it would be a good idea to set up a video-store-like scenario in which I am the clerk at the entrance, and the JTE is the check-out clerk. Yes, in real life they are often the same person, but we had to do this for 30 students! So, I handed out video membership cards, and on the back was a little “mission”, such as “rent a comedy movie”. We got the students to exit the class, and then they’d come in, in pairs, with a phrase list of things they could say and might hear from me. I would say “Welcome to Video World, how may I help you?” and the students could say something like “We’re looking for a comedy movie.” I would say “Are you looking for any movie in particular?” to which they could reply “No we’d just like to browse.” and I would direct them to the comedy movies. I had covers of different English movies pinned to some boards, so they had to take the proper kind of movie, and proceed to rent out the movie from the JTE.

So, this past week was my first week actually teaching! And every class was different, both in its reception of the activities, and in its general atmosphere. But in general, the students responded well to the activities, enjoyed guessing the facts (they thought some of the facts were really funny) and then getting some experience that would be similar to real-life in an English-speaking country.

The real test came on Thursday…

I was in the middle of giving a lesson, and while I was teaching the JTE left the room. I wasn’t sure why, but I went on with the lesson as usual. A bit later, he returned, but sat at the back of the class. I assumed that he was evaluating me or something, since it was my first lesson with him. We went ahead and did the movie store activity, which went over pretty well (the teacher later told me that some students came and told him that they enjoyed the activity quite a bit!). Afterwards, the teacher informed me that he wasn’t feeling well, and asked me if I would teach all his classes that afternoon by myself!!

So, of course I said yes, but I had no idea what to do with them! What was I suppsed to teach them? I asked my supervisor and he said that I should just prepare a lesson about anything, it didn’t matter what the subject was. So, I quickly made up a quick lesson plan, taking some ideas from other JETs, as some things I’ve been meaning to teach them:

• First, we started off with a game where the students were divided into 2 teams (left and right) and each team had 3 minutes to write down as many English words on the board as they could. The trick is that they could only have one person up there at a time, each person could only write one word at a time, and the word they write had to BEGIN with the same letter as the LAST letter of the previous word.
• Second, I handed out some sheets with various ways of saying “Hello”, “How are you?”, “What are you doing?” and how to express your state. The students learn greetings from a textbook, so all they know is “Hello,” “How are you?” and “I’m fine, thank you.” If I go up to them and say “Hey, how’s it going?” they just get a terrified look on their face and then run to their friends for cover. So I wanted to teach them ways to say Hello: “Hi”, “Hey”, “Yo”, “Good day”. Don’t worry, I was clear on which ones were casual and which were normal. Then, “How’s it going?”, “How are things?”, “How’s life?” , “How’ve you been?”, and “What’s up?” Finally, I gave them a big sheet with many many different things they could say other than “I’m fine thank you.” I’ve since enforced a no-textbook-greeting rule on the students, since they have the tools now.
• Then we played Pictionary, which was good for me to test out which words the students did or didn’t know. They had never played it before, but they seemed to get into it. The hardest part was getting them to yell out the answer instead of raising their hand first. I kept telling them “Don’t raise your hand, just yell it out!” but I guess that can be a challenge when you’re not used to it.
• Finally, we practiced pronounciation of “r”s and “l”s, since that is very trickly for Japanese students. We also played a recognition game, in which there is a maze and I would say words that sound the same except for the r or the l (for example “collect” vs “correct”, “row” vs “low”, etc) If they heard the words collectly (I mean, “correctly”), they would get to the end of the maze.
• And then I was depending on the bell to ring, which it eventually did.

Overall the reception for this class was very good, and one of the classes especially seemed to like the games. This also gave me a chance to get more comfortable teaching and being in front of the students, and it was great to be able to jump outside the textbook and let them have fun while learning too.

I am continuing with the learning adventure tomorrow with the following new classes!

• In one class, there will be a debate. The scenario is that I can’t decide if I should rent a DVD or go to the movie theatre. One side of the class must come up with reasons why a DVD is a better idea, while the other side must argue why going to the movie theatre is obviously better. For each UNIQUE point that each side can come up with, they get one point. Whichever side has the most points makes the decision for me!
• Also, tomorrow one of my JTEs wants me to talk about Canadian television! I have to show them pictures and explain the shows as a comprehension exercise. They have to tell me some things about the shows after I have talked to them about it. I plan on talking about The Raccoons, Mr. Dressup, Corner Gas, and Road to Avonlea. That seemed like a good mix to me.

I’m really enjoying coming up and execution different ideas. Because it is a language, really any activity done IN THAT LANGUAGE is educational, so it gives a lot of creative lee-way.

Next time I’ll talk about… something else!

Soon after my arrival in Hirosaki, the Nebuta festival began. Nebuta is a festival held every year, exclusively in Aomori prefecture, and is one of the biggest festivals in the Touhoku region. It lasts for a week and is primarily celebrated all over Aomori, but the largest celebrations are in Aomori City, Hirosaki and Goshogawara.

In Aomori city, they have large 3D floats which are wire-framed and covered with a tough paper and then lit up, to depict a scenes of battles between warriors and dragons and such. I will hopefully be able to get a picture up soon. I was a part of this, as a Aomori JET event, and we actually got the chance to be on the streets as they paraded the floats down the streets. We all wore haneto, a very interesting kind of get-up, and had little bells hanging off of us. When the festival began, huge taiko drums were being beaten on, accompanied by flutes playing the same melody as a loop. As we went down the street, we jumped around Nebuta-style: left leg twice, then right leg twice. You keep doing this while a leader (basically whoever chooses to start) yells: “RASSERA! RASSERA!” (pronounced rah-say-rah) and in response everyone in ear-shot responds by yelling “RASSE, RASSE, RASSERA!”. Because we had bells on, we all jingled as we jumped. I think the native Japanese find us foreigners jumping around kind of amusing. When the bells fall off, or when you pull them off, you’re supposed to toss them into the crowd so they can collect them. Kids and mothers especially seem to like getting them. And that’s what you do for 2 hours all around the downtown of the city. It was loads of fun, but tons exhausting!

In Hirosaki (my city), they have small-to-giant floats that are shaped like a thick Asian-fan, and on them are various paintings of warriors and monsters and such. Some of them were very cool, and some were actually very gory. These floats are either on wheels, pulled by those who painted them, or they are carried on poles by men, the old fashioned way. Also, they had GIANT (and I mean HUGE) taiko drums, with four girls on top on both sides of the drum (yes, it’s that big) playing it full-armed as it is rolled down the street. And they play another melody the whole time, yelling “Yaayado!” (pronounced yaaaah-ya-doe). Again, very cool, and since I was only watching, it wasn’t nearly as exhausting.

Finally, in Goshogawara (a city with a long name), they have the tallest of all floats, over 20 meters in height! Sadly I didn’t get to see these ones, so I can’t say much about them, but I plan to make sure to see them next time!

To change the topic, life at the school is pretty low-key right now. It is summer vacation, so there are no classes, but teachers and students still go to school. Teachers prepare for the coming year, and students take part in club activities. However, last week one of the students got the Swine flu, and so all the students had no school at all for a week. Teachers still came in, however. Right now, I spend most of my days at my desk, and my job is pretty simple: prepare lessons for the coming term, and learn Japanese. I’m enjoying trying to come up with creative and effective ways of teaching the students English. The hard part is that I have no idea what it’s like. I’m not sure what would or would not be too difficult for the students, nor how well they’ll comprehend the lesson. But of course, I’m not teaching alone: I’m an assistant teacher, after all. So I pass off my lesson plans to the teachers that I’ll be working with to see what they think. So far I have a self-introduction game, where I try and get the students to guess which facts about me are true and which ones are false (from a list), and I have a lesson about negative statements (ex. I would like neither to eat bread, nor rice). Spending time learning Japanese is great because not only is it immediately useful, but I used to study it on my own time: now it’s part of my job.

On August 9th, I had the chance to go see a Japanese percussion concert, and it was great! Rather than saying a lot about it, I’ll just post a clip for your own viewing pleasure.

Finally, I have been attending the Hirosaki Fukuin Kuristo Kyoukai (Hirosaki Gospel Christ Church). It is about as far away from my apartment as the school is (20 minutes on bike), and the services are Sundays at 10:30 AM… so about the same as back home. The church is small, and most of the members are either middle-aged, elderly, or children. The pastor and his wife have five of them, which makes up the bulk of the children. It is a small congregation, as Christianity is not popular in Japan: the pre-dominient religions are Buddhism and Shinto. The service was, of course, in Japanese, so I didn’t understand really what it was about. But I was able to sing the songs with them, since a lot of their music is translated hymns, and they are mostly written in Kana (phonetic characters rather than Chinese-style characters). Although my ability to communicate with them is minimal, they have been very welcoming of my presence at their church, and invited me to an English service which takes place on Sundays at 5:30 PM. Yesterday I attended it, and it was great to meet other Christians, as well as some Japanese friends who were close to my age! It is hosted by a Canadian/American married couple who have been living in Japan for the past 30 years.

That’s the end of my “Arrival” series, but stayed tuned for more exciting Adventures in Japan!

Next Time: Pictures of Everything!

Before continuing, I noticed that there were two details about Tokyo that I neglected to metion.

First of all, from my observation, Tokyo is clean clean clean. As you’re walking down the sidewalks its very rare to see any garbage, cigarette buds, etc. Also, garbage cans are hard to come by. See, in Japan, people don’t seem to eat or drink while they walk, so they don’t really generate much garbage on-the-go. Therefore, they wouldn’t really need cans everywhere, and there’s less trash on the roads. Not to mention that they have paid workers to clean up the place even if there WERE something to pick up.

Disclaimer: If the word “toosh” offends you, don’t read the next paragraph!

The other observation was that our hotel room had a bidet. For those of you who don’t know, that’s a toilet that can wash your toosh with water once you are done your business. I’ve noticed that it really cuts down on the amount of toilet paper you have to use!

Disclaimer ended

Anyway, onto Aomori…

After arriving in the small Aomori airport, I was quickly greeted by Steve (a friend from Acadia who is a current JET in the same prefecture), Michelle (my predecessor), and Sudo-sensei (my supervisor). After some hasty greetings, Steve headed back to his school, and Michelle, Sudo-sensei and I were off in the car. Michelle is kind, relatively soft-spoken girl who has been very hospitable and helpful in getting me used to my apartment and my future job. Sudo-sensei is a great supervisor, always willing to help me out and show me around. And he is very very patient with me, since I have no idea what I’m doing.

The first thing we did was go to a traditional-style restaurant. At the entrance you must take off your shoes and walk on an elevated platform, and sit down on pillows at lowered tables. The waitresses (no waiters) comes to your table and kneels down to take your order. Sudo-sensei recommended the katsudon to me. Katsudon is fried pork cutlets. I have had katsudon previously in Canada, but this was MUCH tastier. Along with my meal I had some soba noodles and other sides of which I unfourtunately can’t remember the name of. It was quite a delicious meal, and a great introduction to my new home. It was also the “what-the-heck-am-I-doing-here” moment that JETs warn you about. It was while at dinner there, in front of brand new people at a brand new place eating brand new food that I realized what I was getting myself into. But I got past it… for now. I’m sure it’ll hit me again sometime. During the meal, my supervisor commented that I wasn’t slurpping enough while eating my food! Of course, because I’m from Canada I always try NOT to slurp, but here slurpping shows an appreciation for the food… and then I noticed how loud everyone was eating. After that I made as much noise while eathing as I could… and I fit in. At the end, Sudo-sensei paid for the meal, for which I was very grateful.

As we left for Hirosaki, it started to rain harder and harder. We entered the city only to the fanfare of cars and water hitting the ground. I didn’t know where the city began, and it was hard to really see anything except the buildings around me. At the time, it seemed kind of depressing, since it was my introduction to the place. I was taken to my apartment, which is in a central location. It’s also right next to Hirosaki gas, so I hope there are no fires there. Fourtunately it’s quite humid here so we should be okay. Entering my apartment building, I was kind of wondering what the inside would be like. The entrance to the building, and the stairs and walls and floors were all just solid grey concrete, and I was wondering if I was just going to have a concrete room to live in. But when the door opened, I was pleasantly surprised to see a very nice, traditional Japanese apartment: I have 3 small rooms with tatami flooring, traditional sliding doors between them, wood and tiled flooring elsewhere. The kitchen is a good size for one person, with a stove and fish toaster (no oven though), a sink, a fridge, and various household items good for cooking and eating. There are plenty of windows, I have a balcony (though the view isn’t terribly interesting, it’s not bad), a tub/shower (kind of ghetto with a turn-to-heat crank) and a small room with a toilet. I will eventually give a video tour of the place.

The rest of the day was spent running around the city: getting an alien registration card, getting passport pictures taken for said card, and visiting the school for the first time. The school is an old one (over 100 years), though the building is fairly new. In Japan at school, you MUST change out of your outdoor shoes and into your indoor shoes. We all have little shoe lockers for which to store our indoor shoes. I was quickly introduced to the office workers, including the vice-principal and principal. They took me into the principal’s office, closed the door, got me to sit down, and started talking to me in Japanese. I only understood a little of what they were saying, but enough to respond with a simple phrase. Then they said a bunch of things I didn’t understand, we were served tea, and then we left to go run around some more. But after a while, he had to go attend a parent-teacher meeting at the school, so he got his wife to drive me home. She was a very smiley, genki (energetic) woman, who wanted to chat with my in Japanese. She was understanding of the fact that my Japanese wasn’t very good, but kept saying things to me that I didn’t understand. Well, sometimes I did but didn’t know how to respond. Other times I had no idea and just nodded and said “Hai!” (which means “Yes” or “I agree”).

After I was dropped off at my apartment, I was only in there for a minute before Steve came in to show me around a bit. But since Sudo-sensei wanted to take me out to dinner, we only went to the combini (convience store) to get an umbrella (it was a down-pour by now) and some basic food items. And then we came back to the apartment and chatted for a bit before Sudo-sensei came over, dressed in more casual clothes, to take me out to dinner.

His wife dropped us off at a yaki-niku restaurant. Yaki-niku is actually a Korean thing, where you sit at a table with a grill in the middle, and are given raw meat to grill up yourself. He also ordered me some sake (rice wine), which is actually a very good clenser. I can honestly say that it was one of the best meals I’ve ever eaten. It was so delicious I just kept saying “Oishii! Oishii!” (Delicious! Delicious!) over and over. I didn’t have enough of a vocabulary to elaborate though.

After having yet another meal paid for (I’ve very spoiled), we went back to my supervisor’s house for a few minutes just to visit and meet his dogs. His dogs REALLY don’t like strangers though, so it was quite noisy. He then took me back to my apartment.

When I came back, I got a chance to meet Dee Jay, Michelle’s boyfriend. He’s a hip-hop artist, and a very good one too. He’s done paintings for some shops both outside their shops, and inside. He also designs clothing prints, posters and tattoos. He even has some of his work published in magazines. Seems like you can get non-English-teaching jobs here, even if you’re not fluent in Japanese.

From then on is kind of a blur now, but here are some of the things that have happened since:

My school handed me my own Hanko, which is a stamp that is the equivalent of a signature here in Japan. With it, I was able to open up a bank account, and get a cell phone. After considering some options, I went with iPhone because I’m a fan of the huge array of applications you can get with it. Although the iPhone isn’t really popular here in Japan, it still is comparable to what they have here… and I can set it to English. I won’t give out my phone number on this site, but if you want it please ask me!

Also, I bought a bike. It was used, but in really great shape, and it was only 57$! In Japan, there are A LOT more people biking than there are back home. It’s a very common mode of transportation here. I even see old women biking home with their groceries! Most bikes here are only 1 speed, though, but that’s fine for where I live because it’s pretty flat here. And in fact, biking can be a faster way to get somewhere than driving here, since there are different pathes you can take, and most of the traffic speeds are only 40-50 km/h. There are also a lot of traffic lights, but with a bike you don’t have to wait behind other cars. I’m a fan!

The apartment I was put into was only temporary until the residents were gone, which ended up being a week later. I am now moved into the new apartment. It is actually just across the hall from the old one. Although the old apartment had a better view and more sunlight, the one I’m in now has some distinct advantages: it has hot water at the sink, there are already dishes, shelves, desks, a couch, a bed, a pretty big tv, a few fans, a better shower, and other items. It also has a room heater, which will be essential in the winter since these apartments have no central heating, which is pretty standard for Japan.

There is more to write about, but this blog is:

To be continued…

PS. Please leave a comment! I’d like to know you exist!

The Japanese airport was incredibly clean and very efficient. There was a very long line for customs, but it moved very rapidly. Other countries could take some notes from them. Mostly it involved looking at your papers, taking your picture, getting your finger prints, and saying “Youkoso” (welcome). There after, we followed a long time of JET orientation helpers who guided us along the way. There was pretty much one JET orientation leader every 3 meters, so it would have been VERY difficult to get lost. After stepping outside, the heat assaulted us. It was very sunny, hot and very humid the day of our arrival. Of course, we were expecting this and I had experienced it at other airports before (Hong Kong, Brazil) but this was the thickest air I had ever breathed. It actually started making my cough for a while. I’m glad that I was outside the airport when this happened, because otherwise they might have thought I had the Swine Flu and put me in quarentine for the next 2 weeks.

We then took a bus into Tokyo. Looking out at the world from our bus on the way, it really didn’t seem that foreign to me: the vegetation was similar to Canada’s (though greener), and the roads and signs were similar (in English and in Japanese). After a while though, we started to see more buildings, and there was a lot of Japanese writing on them (as expected), and when we were able to see a harbour, the water was a very very dark blue. We passed through Chiba city, and then popped into Tokyo. Originally I was expecting it to be more like New York City, with grids and grids of high-rise sky scrapers and flashing lights and tons and tons of people on the street, but it wasn’t like that at all. It was instead a really really huge city of buildings and roads. The sidewalks really didn’t have many people on them at all, at least on the routes we were taking, but we saw all kinds of buildings, restaurants, vending machines, etc. And then we arrived at the Keio Plaza Hotel, where our next 3 days would be spent. Again, the area was not very busy at all. We were led around the building to make getting our necessities (keys, books, etc) as efficient as possible. We were then given the rest of the evening off.

Altogether there were a few thousand of us all dressed up in our fancy suits in a giant room in a grand hotel in the middle of Tokyo. In fact, it was the tallest hotel in Tokyo, and right across from the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building. The view from our hotel room was awesome: it was right in front of that building, and on either side you could see greater Tokyo with its endless sea of buildings all around. I wish I had taken a picture, but I do have it on video (which will be here at some point).

Mitch and I decided to go out exploring the area a bit, along with some other guys. We walked a little bit to the left of the entranced, and noticed down the streets a bunch of neon lights. Like moths to a lightbulb, we were attracted to the area. When we got there, there was so much activity, many people, blinding lights and lots of noise. This was more similar to what I was expecting! It was hard to believe that it was so close to the quiet area where our hotel was. We just walked around, amazed by the flashiness of everything. We went into a restaurant to get something to eat. None of us could speak Japanese well enough (or read it) to figure out what was what, so we mainly went by pictures. I had to explain to the waiter that I was allergic to shellfish but not regular fish, while another guy that was with us had to explain that he was allergic to regular fish but not shellfish. The waiter didn’t speak any English, so our broken Japanese was hopefully understood. We then pointed to our chosen dishes. He said something about a 400 yen table charge (in Japanese), which we accepted… we didn’t realize it meant 400 yen per person until we got the bill. The food was alright, but I knew I’d be having better meals soon. It was more-so the experience of trying to order at the restaurant and going out for our first Japanese meal that was the exciting part for us.

We walked around for a bit longer, but we were all starting to get kind of tired, since our clocks were all out of whack. We went back to the hotel to get some shut-eye until the morning.

Early in the morning we were greeted with a Western-style buffet breakfast, followed by a formal opening with the Board of Education. We were divided into our prefectures, so I was finally able to meet some of the JETs who would be in the same area as I would. Some were close to me (Hirosaki, Aomori city) and some are far away. After that there were presentations for all the JETs, followed by lunch and then workshops from which we could pick and choose which ones to attend. Pretty much all of them were either about teaching in Japan, living in Japan, or being a person of a certain type in Japan (ex. being of Asian decent, being vegetarian, etc). They were all pretty useful, but it was very difficult for some people to pay attention, either because they were too tired and had jet lag, or because they had a lot of energy and sitting down all day was very difficult. In the evening they hosted a welcome banquet for us, with our first “kanpai” (which is the Japanese equivalent for “Cheers!”).

The next day was pretty similar over all, except that at night I got to meet up with a Japanese penpal that I’ve had since September, and also a Japanese friend that I had met at Acadia. We went out for ramen and various plates of food, and it was their treat, which was so nice of them! One of the dishes I tried, which they specially ordered for me, was called “natto”… it’s sort of infamous among foreigners because a lot of people can’t handle it. Basically it is fermented soy bean paste. But I have to say that it’s smell is stronger than its taste, and although I probably would never choose to order it, it’s not really that bad… well, except that it’s really sticky. Anyway, it was great to meet up with them, and I intended to give them a ring once I’m in Tokyo again.

And then I went to bed fairly early, since we had to get up early to eat breakfast and head out to… Aomori!!! For those of you who don’t know (probably most of you), Aomori is the northern-most prefecture on Honshu, the main island of Japan (which contains Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto etc). Aomori means “blue-green forest”. A prefecture is similar to a province back home, except they tend to be more like the size of Nova Scotia or Prince Edward Island rather than like, say New Brunswick. Anyhow, my city, Hirosaki, is only about a 20 minute drive from the airport.

The flight over there was great, and I got to meet a lot of the people with whom I’ll be sharing a prefecture with. One guy was from South Africa and had never been abroad before. He had never seen snow… so he’s likely in for a surprise. There were other JETs going to Aomori whose jaw dropped when the word “snow” was mentioned. But from what I’ve heard, winters in Aomori are more mild than what I’m used to, so it sounds kind of tropical to me.

And then, after a very short plane ride in which some were getting a last-minute crash-course in Japanese, we arrived at the Aomori airport.

To be continued…

All my anticipating has just become a reality: I am now in the land of the rising sun! Actually, I’ve been here for four days now, but my days have been so packed I’ve not yet had the time to write anything about it. However, sitting here in my new apartment where I will begin my new life, I finally have a bit of time to sit down and share my tale. Here’s the story:

On Friday, July 24th, us future JETs had an orientation at a Hilton hotel in Montreal. There, we were pumped up to go, had some practical advise on lesson planning, got our passports back, and discussed some last-minute details. In my opinion, the most useful was the lesson planning because it gave us a chance to take some ideas, make a lesson plan and activity out of it, and then present it to the other JETs. The advice on how to evaluate it were pretty good too: is it interactive? does it get everyone involved? what do we learn from it? After every group had had a chance to present, the ideas were compiled into a document by Mrs. Giroux, who will soon provide it for us all.

Afterwards, I dropped by the bank to pick up some yen, and then headed back to Tristan’s, where the Bixi bike was STILL located, to get my stuff so I could head over to the hotel, which is by the airport. The hotel was called (and probably still is called) “Aloft Airport Hotel”. It was a very differen hotel than anthing I’d been in before: it had thin neon lights along the side, the reception desk was in the center and was round, the floor was made of different-coloured squares, the bar had each bottle in its own lit box behind the counter and they had different colours, it had futuristic furniture (although technically that’s impossible since it exists now, but you know what I mean), and was playing electronica/dance music in the lobby and hallways (not too loud though). The rooms were pretty stylistic too. But none of that mattered because I was quite tired, and it was time to go to sleep during the afternoon to start the battle against jet lag. I went to bed at about 4:00 PM… but then woke up at about 7:45 PM and could not get back to sleep. And when I woke up, that was the beginning of my looooong night.

I walked over to another hotel nearby which had a restaurant called “Eclipse”. I liked that because it reminded me of a good Java IDE, but I’m probably the only one that thought of that when going there because I’m a geek. Looking at the menu, I realized that it might be my last chance to have certain kinds of meals, so I got a Montreal Smoked Meat Sandwich and some Nachos. They were both excellent (although on the the pricey side): the Sandwhich was almost as good as Ben’s was (though not QUITE as good), and the Nachos were piled high with lots of chunky btoppings; exactly the way they should be. The only thing I didn’t like about them was that they already had salsa on them under the cheese. I know this is a controversial topic, but personally I don’t like having salsa on the chips because it makes them soggy quite quickly. I prefer the dip method when it comes to salsa. Call me a heretic if you wish.

Afterwards there really wasn’t very much for me to do. It was about 10:00 PM after I left the restaurant (I really took my time there), so I still had 10 hours until we were meeting up at the airport. I decided to go for a ride on the airport shuttle. There was really no reason to, but it was just an old man going around and around with no passengers, so I hopped on and provided some company for a round. Then I got out and went back to my room, but it was only about 10:30 PM. 9 1/2 hours left.

I spent most of the time watching some movies, writing some stuff, playing Xplorers online (basically Settlers of Catan) and basically trying to make the most of the time. My view was kind of neat because I could watch planes take off. But by 4:00 AM I was ready to give in and just go to sleep for a few hours, but I knew that might ruin it, so I managed to push myself. I left for the airport at 7:00 AM expecting to be the first one there. To my surprise, however, one of the girls from the team was already there! I chatted with her for a bit while other JETs started showing up.

After a while of Air Canada employees arguing amongst themselves trying to get us all organized and out of the way, we said our goodbyes (well, the people whose families were there said their goodbyes; I said goodbye only to Mrs. Giroux, the program director from Montreal) and we were off to Vancouver. I can’t really recall much about that trip though, since I think I passed out on the runway, woke up every time they were offering some water or juice, and then I woke up when we arrived in Vancouver. I was told the trip was 5 hours, but for me it was about 30 minutes. Then we had to get out to transfer over to our next flight, which would be twice as long as the previous one. After having one last subway sub, we met up with some of the other JETs from Alberta, and we were on our way to Japan.

The flight was kind of long, as expected, but it didn’t feel too bad for me. Because it was now 6:00 AM in Japan, I decided to stay awake since I had to act like it was day time now. The interesting thing, though, was that because we were heading west the whole way, the sun never got ahead of us, and we were always smack dab in the middle of the sun’s light location on Earth. And because I saw the sun rise in Montreal at 5:00 AM July 25th, and it fell at about 8:00 PM July 26th in Tokyo, I was able to see the sun for a total of 26 hours straight. Needless to say, my biological rhythms were a bit off.

On the ride to Japan, I was sitting next to a Japanese man who was a Doctor of Meteorology. I was able to speak with him a bit in Japanese, and whenever I was stuck he would switch to English. He was in Canada on a 1 week business trip, and was returing home to Kyoto. He says that his work involves a lot of travel around the world.

Along the way I only slept for an hour: I stayed up for the rest, either chatting tiwh other JETs, or playing cards with them, or watching the on-board TV screen, or listening to iPod, or anything else to keep myself busy. Having done it for 10 hours at a hotel before, it was even easier to do it wither others around who all had to do the same thing. Of course, every once in a while I’d get up and walk around.

I’m not sure, but I think the flight crew was addicted to serving drinks, because they came around and did it, it felt like, about every half hour. But hey, when you’re on a 10 hour plane ride and that’s your job, I guess you really want to do it!

Eventually we were getting close to the Narita airport, and everyone was getting excited. I was lucky in my seat placement, because I was able to see quite well from where I was. I took some videos that I’ll upload soon of our arrival. Upon landing, the JETs on the plane all started cheering and and clapping. We were all quite genki to be there: after months of anticipation, we had finally arrived.

To be continued…

I know I’m kind of jumping around in time like a time traveller here, as in, this post is not the sequel to the NS trip as promised before, I know a number of people are curious about the status of my being in Japan. Well as of my writing this, I am not there yet. But here’s the journey to get there.

The last few days before leaving were busy, but also calm and bitter-sweet. I got to spend a lot of time with my dog Tigger, which was very important to me. He has been my dog since I was about 12, so he is 12 years old now himself, which is pretty old for a dog. Factor in that I’ll be gone for maybe 2 years, and there’s the possibility that I may not get to see him again. This is of course saddening for me; saying goodbye to man’s best friend. However, it was a good goodbye because I was able to walk him every day, take him to Papa & Gam’s (my grandparents’ house, which he loves going to), and play around with him. I also gave him more treats than usual. Although he doesn’t understand what’s going on, it was great to see him active and enjoying life during what may be my last time with him.

Also during this period, my parents spent most of the time at the cottage, and weren’t home very much, which gave me a lot of time to chat and eat with my grandparents. Growing up I spent a lot of time with them and sleeping over at their place, so this was also an nostalgic experience.

Finally, I got to hang out with my brother, sister, Father, Mom, Andrew, Peter and Cecil before I left. I basically got to see everyone in Halifax that I was hoping to before heading out!

And it was great to have Masashi, Yuko and James at the airport as well for the send off. We got there early, so we were able to hang out and chat for about an hour before I went past security. There were some tears from some of the women in the crowd, and it made me feel a bit guilty for leaving. However, this has been a dream for 4 years now, and it is finally coming to past, and I’m very excited. I will miss everyone here at home though.

So off I went! The plane trip to Montreal was (THANKFULLY!) uneventful, as was the taxi ride to Tristan’s, who is graciously letting me stay at his abode until my departure.

Today I rented a bike at one of those Bixi rent-a-bike stands that are all over Montreal. We rode down the streets to the market place, which is like a huge farmer’s market which happens every day it seems. A lot of people would like it, I think, especially those who like fresh, local food (like me!) And they have free samples: one of my favourite things!!

Unfortunately, the Bixi bike stand was not very good to me, and wouldn’t accept the bike I was returning. I called the technical support line, to which they asked me to “take the bike home until we can pick it up”. It’s not an elegant solution by any means. So I had to babysit (bikesit?) this thing and lug it around the marketplace while getting strange looks from passers by. Then I had to take it back to Tristan’s place, and I called them to tell them where it is, but here it still sits. Bixi, if you’re reading this blog, please come get your bike.

Tonight, JET held a banquet at the Consult General of Japan’s house. It was great to meet up with the JETs who were at the orientation, as well as those who were unable to make it. There are a surprising amount of participants from the Maritimes going out this year (including 2 others from Acadia!) as well as a surprising amount coming from Florida. Well, there’s only 1 of those, but that’s a surprising amount for a Canadian send-off. She was born in Canada but grew up in the States… but never switched her citizenship. Anyhow, because everyone has been asking me “how many of you are going (from Montreal)?” and I’ve always said “I’m not sure… 15 of us?” I have a more definite answer for you: 23 of us, hand-selected by the rigorous JET selection process. Those are their words, and not mine just to make us more exclusive.

We were taken to the house in Westmont, where we got to meet the Consult General, a man with a humble and gentle demeanor. There were speeches all around that made us feel proud and got us pumped up, followed by a delicious buffet of unspeakable delights. Well, they are speakable, but I can’t remember what each delectable thing was called. So let’s say a large selection of well-prepared meat, with salad, noodles, rice and curry. There was also some other interesting, though deadly to me, seafood dishes. I can’t really comment on their taste though.

The dinner was intended to last until 8:00 PM, but it ended up going until about 9:00 (or so). We were just having a great time getting to know each other, and ask each other over and over “so where are you headed?” to which someone would reply “(Japanese city name)” to which person 1 would ask “where’s that?” to which person 2 would say “(prefecture of city mentioned)” to which person 1 would say “Ah! That place!…. Where’s that?” to which person 2 would explain it. Then person 3 would join in the conversation and say to person 1 “so where are you headed?” Of course, this was because everyone was interested in each other, not just because we couldn’t think of anything else to say!

Afterwards we took a bus back, and we have another orientation in the morning tomorrow. However, it is 3:50 AM and I am still awake. Why? Let me tell you why:

I am trying to fight off the evils of jet lag by preparing for it in advance. As Mitchell put it, I’m doing a “Jet Lag Pre-emptive Strike”. Simply put, I’m staying up late tonight so that I’m really tired tomorrow during the day. Why? Good question! It’s so that I can go to a hotel and sleep the whole day after the morning orientation. Why? Well, that’s the same question as before, but I’ll humour you: because then I can easily stay up all night. “BUT WHY?” you say? I’m going to tell you: so that I can sleep again during the day on the plane, and stay up during the night. I hope you’re piecing this together: Japan is on the other side of the world, so day here is night there and vice versa. Therefore: if I’m already sleeping during the day here and awake during the night there, what is it going to be like there? The answer… is out there.

Anyhow, that’s pretty much the update.

Oh, and if you have Skype, could you please send me an e-mail and tell me your Skype name so I can add you? And if you DON’T have Skype, could you please install it and then make a username and then follow the steps at the beginning of this paragraph? Thanks.

That’s it my friends! I will update you more soon. If I can. Maybe. Yes, for sure maybe.

This year, after a lot of paperwork, an interview in Montreal, and months of anticipation, I have been given the privilege to join the JET Programme’s 2009 Team from Montreal. What’s that? The JET Programme has been up and running for 22 years, sending successful applicants across the world to Japan to teach English. Our applications were due in November, our interviews were in Feburary, we found out our results in April, our orientation was this past weekend, and we leave in July. Woo, did I forget anything?

As preparation for our brand new lives in a foreign country, which speaks another language, and doesn’t contain anyone or anywhere we are familiar with, JET has an orientation weekend a month before departure to help us get ready for the big change. Because the Consulate of Japan in Montreal is also the consulate for Atlantic Canada, I went to Montreal to attend this event for the weekend, and it was 100% worth-while.

First of all, it was a great opportunity to meet the other JETs that have been selected to represent Montreal this year. There were a little over a dozen of us (I think) as well as a number of previous JETs who are now part of the JET Alumni Association.

Second, it was a chance to get to know more about the programme and the people who run it. For example, we were able to get better acquainted with the JET coordinator of Montreal. When I first met Mrs. Giroux (the coordinator), it was at my interview and I was extremely nervous. At the time, she was relatively straight-faced and it was quite intimidating… though I assume that the straight-faces to make sure you can handle the pressure, since being in front of students in a foreign country qualifies as stressful for many people. It was great to get to talk to her more, though, because she is very friendly, inviting, and shared lots of helpful and useful information with us. She mostly facilitated the time between the talks, presented primarily by the aforementioned JETAA.

The topics of the orientation were many:

• Clothing and Packing
• Culture Shock
• Spare Time & Networking
• Money and Taxes
• Inaka (being in the country)
• Conflict Resolution
• Team Teaching
• Lesson Planning
• Classroom Management
• Language & Etiquette
• Reality Check
• Love and Relationships
• Q & A Panel

I won’t go into the details of each one, but suffice to say, there was a lot to take in! The JETAAs had great information to share. It was all very relevant, important to know, and there was a lot that was mentioned that we otherwise would not be aware of. They all had fun personalities as well, turning some topics that might normally be quite dry into interesting and hilarious descriptions of what to expect. What I found most useful, from the information, was mostly about culture: what to expect from the kids, the other teachers, and to be ready for anything because things will spring up on you, etc. But there were also a lot of things I didn’t know about that I can prepare here as well: getting an international driver’s licence, (maybe) registering medication, teaching materials to bring, what to ship, etc. Also, it turns out that our first month will not be spent teaching: we don’t actually start until September. Instead it is a time to get settled in, to begin lesson plans, to get to know the teachers you’ll work with, to get familiar with the schools/students (who are still around even though there’s no classes), etc.

If there was one down-side to the orientation, it was just that it was information overload and I couldn’t think about it all at once! Of course, that was just the nature of a weekend orientation. Good thing I took notes to read and got a handbook for future reference! And by the same token, there is only so much that other members can say and prepare us for. A lot of what we’ll need to know about teaching in Japan will only come from the experience of doing it and the time dedicated to the endeavor.

For those of you who don’t know, I have been placed in Hirosaki city, which is located in the Aomori prefecutre. Here’s its location on a map:

I’ve heard that it is very beautiful there, they have delicious apples, its in a good location and is neither too big nor too small. It’s population is 184,675 people, with a density of 352.7 people/km2. To compare this, Halifax (not the HRM, just Halifax) has 119,292 people, with a density of 1226.9 people/km2. As you can see, although Hirosaki has more people, Halifax has almost 4 times the density. So for everyone who thought that if you live in Japan, you must be shoulder-to-shoulder to your neighbor: if you don’t feel crammed in Halifax, you probably won’t feel that way in Hirosaki. Of course, these are just stats and I have yet to say anything from experience.

For any JETs out there who are reading this, this might be helpful to you:
Christian Lepierre, one of the JETAAs who was presenting at this orientation, has generously donated his teaching materials for download. You can get them here.

While I was there, I got a chance to stay with Donald Hunt, and meet up with Bradon Adams as well. They were both in musicals with me in High School, and it was great to see them again. Donald was very hospitable to me, and it was great to catch up. I also briefly met his girlfriend Hillary, who was very nice. We didn’t really get a chance to talk though.

Only 39 days until departure!!!