A Day in the Life as an Assistant English Teacher

Uh, lemme see... Last weekend on Saturday night, I went to an Aikido yudansha seminar, which means that only people above a certain ranking are invited to attend. The practice revolved around variations of ikkyo 'first' technique, and Sensei promised to move through variations on many other basic Aikido techniques as we went through the year. The seminars are held every two months.

As for my progress in Aikido since I joined this group last March, well, I've made definite progress in some areas. My back rolls are becoming natural and smoother. I'm very quick getting up, and I've memorized many of the progressions of techniques that we do, including the basic long form with the jo(short staff), and some of the shorter bokken forms. But in many ways, I still feel quite weak, in some of the same areas I had weakness before I joined. I will keep those areas to myself in case we ever meet, because then you would know exactly how to kill me. No, ha ha, I'm just kidding. One area I have trouble in is that I often confuse my right and left. We generally follow the example showed by the teacher, and many times I will stand up to practice the technique with my partner and start with the opposite hand the teacher showed, or from the opposite stance, etc. This happened a lot even when I trained in Colorado. One teacher in particular would patiently repeat, "That's a fine technique, but the one we're doing right now looks like this..." I even pay special attention sometimes and still do something different, often opposite. Physical dislexia, if you will.

Okay, on to another topic. What I do at work these days(did it ever change?): Well, you'd all be proud to know that I plan on continuing my on-time streak(28 days and counting), but after I get to work, what do I do?

I have anywhere from 1-5 classes these days, and so first I plan for those. That is, after the morning meeting where we all stand up, bow to the principal and say "Good Morning" really loudly, have the morning meeting, and then meetings by grade. After that, I usually go get my mug from the kitchen and have some breakfast mix, followed by either some green tea or steaming hot water. THEN, I plan the lessons out for the day. Usually, I've already finished the plan for most of the lessons before the morning, so after that I sit and wait for class to start. If I have class, I consult with the teacher I'll be team-teaching with and grab the stuff we need and head for the classroom.

I teach one class by myself, which also happens to be my favorite class. It's called Advanced World Culture, and I teach all sorts of cool things about other cultures. The students choose a country (besides the US, because I'm from there) and do special research on it to make a poster. Their final posters are due tomorrow. I'm looking forward to it a lot.

That class aside, most of the other classes use this book called Marathon Mouth, which is the textbook I picked for last year. One class uses My Passport 2, a really great text that prepares students for traveling abroad, which I also picked out. It's just my opinion, but most of the students don't seem to know that the textbooks they are using are special because they are non-government issued textbooks. I'm not sure many of them care at all because I don't think the majority take English Conversation class seriously. Which is too bad for me because with the exception of 2 classes, English conversation is all I teach. These days, I find most classes to be humdrum, with 3 students at most actually excited about learning.

So then I return to my desk and choose which activity I'd like to fill my time with. Generally, I start with kanji because I can stay awake better if I do them in the morning. I'm learning several kanji a day, of course, because I've resolved to pass the next level Japanese test at the end of the year and there are a lot of kanji I have to know. To supplement that, as I said in the last post, I started calligraphy lessons 3 weeks ago. Those are going well.

Then I study grammar and vocab. It's still hard, but I really enjoy it. This learning is slow for me. I'm at an intermediate level now, even after all this time. I suppose I would do best to be patient with myself! Then I read surprise, a kanji book. I was reading Eat, Pray, Love, but I finished it last week, and the kanji book was right there.

I also got some stuff for my Nintendo DS, which is a rocking game system. I basically use it as my electronic dictionary becuse it's AWESOME, but I have a 'game' now where you can trace poetry and other Japanese texts. It might seem like I'm getting carried away with all this kanji and writing and stuff, but trust me, I'm only doing what it's gonna take to be able to read it eventually. It's super hard, yo!!

The other 'game' I got is from this manga comic that I found here. I only like one manga, as far as I can tell, and it's this one bout this cook and his friends and all the situations they get into having to make food for people. It might sound silly, but it just resonated with me somehow. Oh, check that. I like two manga. The other one is Doraeman, the cat-like robot from the future. But that's mainly cause I can read it. It's for kids. This other one is for anybody. Back to the game, it's a whole recipe book which actually tells you step by step how to make all the dishes from the comic, tells you how to prepare stuff, etc. etc., and get this, it actually times you to see if you can make it in the suggested time limit. All the pics are photos and there are also drawings from the comic, including what number in the series the recipe is located in. And I don't even cook!!!!

Okay, well, for myself I do.

I haven't really been interested in getting any so-called 'real' games yet. I love the 'reality games.'

So I've been doing those things at work too. Then I check email and write people. Already 4 people are making noises about visiting in the spring. I can hardly wait til the cold is over and it gets warm again. Been keeping my hands warm, btw. No frostbite for me this year. No sir.

Finally, I often have a little nap after lunch. Many of the teacher take little snoozes a their desks, which is possibly unthinkable in most jobs in the US. But since everyone works so hard around here(it's all relative), I think people just assume whoever it is must need the extra sleep. I don't, but if I don't have something else to do I get sleepy.


It's not hard to find a cat-napper on any given day!

Then, before I know it, it's 3:20pm and it's time to clean the school. All this year, I've been cleaning with the 1st class of 10th graders. We move all the chairs to one side of the room, sweep the floors, wipe down the floors, move the chairs to the other side of the room, sweep, wipe, and put the chairs back. No janitors in these schools. Everybody shares the responsibility of keeping the schools clean.

Sometimes, instead of that, I'll clean my fish tank. I recently got 3 more goldfish from the Naked Man festival. I took video of the festival this time so you would actually believe how crazy nuts I tell you it is, but you also know that I don't know how to put videos on here, so gosh, that's just gonna have to wait. The fish came from one of the vending booths at the festival. My friend Brian won them for me, and he named them too: Ago, Higo, and Yugo. Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner. They were not amused.

When I hear the 5o'clock chimes, I know I'm free to go. But I often stay til around six to make sure lessons are ready for the next day.

Sometimes, on the way home, the little old lady who lives next to the school will see me hurrying by and call me over to her large garden. She'll share the days news about a half a dozen failed daikon radishes and show me the moth holes, or tell me about how it is getting old. Today, she had come from the dentist and they had to take out several of her teeth. So she talked to me from behind a gauze mouth-mask, saying 'I was too embarrassed to go around without any teeth while they make my new ones." I returned home with more broccoli than one person can eat without turning green and sprouting a 'fro.

Keep Going

I typed about half an hour yesterday about the Mt. Fuji trip before my computer crashed and I lost everything even though it was saved. I'm not really interested in this mac anymore, but it's the only computer on which I can write this blog. Since computers aren't my speciality and I don't want to send it away to get it fixed, I'll just keep on plodding and posting when the winds are favorable.

I got elected as the MVP of my Aikido school this year. I received a beautiful certificate and was asked to give a speech last Sunday at the New Year's party. I wrote the speech by myself, and then Etsuko helped me put the thing into formal Japanese. It was so fun, and I was so excited on the way over to the party. It was a pretty fancy affair, and for me, it was the first time I've been formally acknowledged for anything besides my work contract at school. I gave my speech, and we all ate and drank to our heart's delight. Afterwards, 10 of us headed towards a nearby karaoke bar.

Karaoke, although I adore it, is not my particular speciality. I want to sing and sound like everyone else; somehow, they all seem to have perfect pitch and lovely vibratos. And 8 of these 10 of us were men. When my voice comes out, for example, as I sing Eric Clapton's "Tears in Heaven" or Dido's "Thank You," I want to sound, well, like Eric Clapton or Dido, just like the others sound like the original singers of their songs--even their English pronunciation in right on, though not a one of them speaks English. But alas, I just sound pretty regular and like I'm trying a little too hard. Karaoke is a Japanese cultural tradition, since 1963. Before that time, no one here could sing. But now people are forced to do it from the time they put on their first business suit, so they have no choice but to become really spectacular at it. As for me, I think all those guys were looking at me, wanting Dido's voice to come out of my untrained lungs so they could praise me and clap along. But when it was my own, uh..., smurfy voice that surfaced, it was all they could do to... praise me and clap along, really well-intentioned-like. Gosh, this is a nice place.

I know you're wondering about my speech. I would be too, except that I wrote it. I spoke about how quickly the time has passed and how I was honored that I could earn this award having joined the group less than a year ago. I spoke about (and I kid not) the undiluted joy I felt when we all met for the first time off the mat at the 'hanami' cherry-blossom viewing party in March.

I recalled the trip with Katsuki, Kato and Sensei to Yakushima Island last May. I congratulated Sensei and some others on their decision to come to Aikido Camp in the US this July. I welcomed the new students and wished them good luck. I thanked Furu-san for his endless help and patience. I thanked Sensei for his devotion to us, and his dedication to maintaining the heart of O'Sensei's Aikido. Lastly, I told everyone that I was so happy to accept the title of MVP for 2007. Through training, particularly falling down and getting up over and over again, I am taught how to overcome obstacles and find a spirit which perserveres. I told them to throw me a lot, as much they like after this(everyone laughed). Then I thanked the group for allowing me to speak.

Sigh... a real moment in my life.

Afterwards, my friend Shaggy was having his 24th birthday party in the city, so I joined up. I'm starting to fall in love with this particular group of friends. I told you about some of them already, but mix in a couple of us from the West with this group from the East, and there's a certain green with silver sparkles firework that goes off. We're talking fun, fun, fun, until my Daddy took the Daihatsu away. (Thanks to my brother for sending me off last summer with CDs of the Beach Boys. I'm still trying to decide what I think of one of the other ones, 'Bad Plus,' btw. Any opinions, let me know.)

Today, I taught Joe English. His name is 城, so we call him Joe. He's an awesomely enthusiastic student. And this week, he brought me organic Camomile tea, which we drank during the lesson. Last week, he brought me a bottle of sake, which we... uh... And he brought beer the week before. Um, okay, you're starting to understand why Joe is an interesting student. I've known him for almost three years, longer than I've known most of the foreign language teachers around here. He's a crazy and charasmatic 23ish-year old with two girlfriends(uh, what?) and a knack for JENGA. I'll tell him how to say a word in English, like say, "relative," and he'll do a cartwheel and refill my sake cup. He puts the 'Joe' in 'mojoe,' I'm sure(but to be safe, I'll say that I wouldn't personally know).

And I went hiking last Saturday with Ike. We went to collect huge logs of firewood from this shrine deep in the forest so his friend could make Buddhist statues out of them. It was a 'kapa' shrine; this half-turtle, half-friar, demi-god's shrine. His friend made incantations and we poured two huge bottles of sake into the mouth of the resident dragon-guardian statue. I think this statue only gets visitors on special wood-taking ceremony days like that day. We had to pulley some of the larger logs up the hills back to the car because none of other big, burly Ike-like men could lift them. Ike actually isn't burly, but whatever. It was so amusing being a part of the whole thing, and afterwards we relaxed at some natural hot springs.

And I started Japanese calligraphy lessons last week!! Yay, it's going to be great!!!


I dunno. I'm always doing stuff and getting into stuff, but I hadn't been writing about it. I needed a break for a while, I suppose. Things change so fast. I needed to catch up to all the changes, maybe.

Well, it's the start of a new year, and, having put a good four months between today and my previous post, I can't think of better time to start fresh. Of course, New Year's is already over here, and probably where you are too. But you're probably still dreaming about Mt. Fuji or eggplants or something like that if you are from the good ol' West where it's about 3 am.

Which brings me to today's topic. It is said here in Japan that the three luckiest things you can dream of on New Year's Eve, from lucky to luckiest are 1. an eggplant, 2. a hawk, and 3. Mt. Fuji.

Would it count as lucky if you were actually at Mt. Fuji, but unable to sleep?

That's where I was, basically unsuccessfully trying to catch some z's on an overnight bus to Fuji. I made these (in restrospect, odd) plans to travel with my Aikido teacher to Tokyo and Mt. Fuji for the New Year. Let me say, right off the bat, that my teacher and I did not make ideal traveling companions. He's my teacher, so there's this teacher-student relationship thing, which had me carrying his luggage and opening doors for him and so on, and on top of that a rather large generation gap, which had him trying to buy my meals and looking with fascination at my Nintendo DS(used for translation purposes only, I swear!!). At times, this awkwardness left me futzing with my Rubik's Cube or feeling slightly devastated when my cell phone ran out of batteries. But all in all, it made for a more interesting trip, if anything. I found my smile eating fish liver, or bathing with about 50 other naked ladies within view of Fuji.

Among other things, we went to the Aiki Shrine in Iwama, Honbu Dojo in Tokyo(the headquarters of the largest branch of Aikido in the world), this neat little town called Yanaka just outside of Tokyo (now my official 'I want to live here' town), and of course, to Mt. Fuji to watch the first sunrise of the 2008.

First thing after arriving, we left our stuff off at the hotel and went out to Iwama to find the Aiki Shrine.


to be continued...