難しい

On Sunday I will attempt the 3rd level of the Japanese Language Proficiency Test (1 being the highest level, 4 being the lowest). It is the first academic test I've taken in four years and I must say, I dont think I am fully prepared.

I signed up for the test way back in September, my thinking being that with a test looming, I would be motivated to study this fall. Indeed I have studied quite a lot, but with mountains to climb, famous places to water ski, golf courses to play, onsens to enjoy, and a number of other diversions, I'm not sure it was nearly enough. I came to this realization late last week and thus, have been cramming since. Online practice kanji tests, grammar books, multiple choice practice tests; all have my brain overloaded with new information, but most of which I haven't yet shelved into organized usable knowledge.

With any luck, I'll be able to regurgitate enough of it for a passing score, and feel like the effort was worth it. Suddenly, I feel like one of my students, who memorize but don't learn!

Football and a Feast

I haven't been on American soil on Thanksgiving Day in over five years, and yet I always seem to be surrounded by many friends and too much food on my favorite holiday. This year was no different, though I did much of the planning and cooking. With the help of a few friends, we prepared quite a feast of turkey (the first I have ever cooked), gravy, mashed potatoes, mashed maple syrup-cajun sweet potatoes (delicious), cranberry sauce, fresh baked bread, mac & cheese, green beans, salad, pumpkin pies, and the oh-so special spam rice balls (you think I'm kidding but they're fantastic).

Before the meal however, we went down to the riverside and played some good 'ol two hand touch American Football. A fine day, a beautiful playing field, and countless perfect passes and defensive plays from both sides. However, despite what the lying, cheaters on the other team will tell you, my own squad was the actual victor.

Enjoy the photos below

Over a week late post

Nearly forgot to post some photos from last weekend's adventure. New buddy Aaron and I took a road trip up to Aomori (Blue Forest) Prefecture. A very good trip with fine weather, great tunes in the car, extremely curvy roads, good hiking, a 1000 person onsen, a largely unsuccessful attempt to paint the town of Aomori red, and a fruitless search for a Denny's Grand Slam.


Aaron descending Hakkoda-san


The leaves were unfortunately, just past peak


One of the many ravens


A view of Hakkoda-san


A streamside autumn wildflower


Myself, at the Hakkoda-summit

TGIF

Wednesday, my co-teacher had to leave mid-way through our 7th grade class, and left me to teach alone the last twenty minutes. No problem I thought, the kids are busy with a writing activity and the class is on cruise control. Yet, within 10 minutes of my co-teacher's departure, I made one of the students cry when I helped him correct a spelling mistake. The more I tried to tell him it was OK, the more he sobbed. Meanwhile, the other kids snickered at him and I couldn't do anything without drawing more attention to the student. I felt pretty bad until my co-teacher told me later that this kid cries about something every week. She said, "Oh don't worry about it at all, he doesn't even know why he's crying."

Today, a 9th grader told me I had a "10-head body". Apparently, this is quite a compliment in Japan, but I haven't quite figured out what he meant.

Sure am glad its Friday, this has been a most peculiar and busy week.

Ya'll have been fantastic...

Well the lecture came off much easier than I expected. My audience was at least polite enough to pretend that they were following my discourse. It was rather hard to guage how much they understood, as they didnt ask too many questions at the end. I'm not sure if it was because I spoke too fast out of nervousnous, or because my points were not well put together.

About 10 minutes into it, I posed these questions:

Does anyone here teach at elementary school? Nope, not a one.

Has anyone every taught at elementary school? Again, no one.

Does anyone wish to teach at elementary school in the future? Nobody.

Pretty stress free from this point on, felt like I could have spoken gibberish and no one would have cared.

Anyways, the keynote speaker after me was brilliant and backed up her talk (about the same topic, but in Japanese) with PowerPoint slides and scientific research and statistics, but she received fewer questions than I did. So yeah, the audience was well chosen.

Tomorrow I am the guest speaker at a seminar for Japanese English teachers. I am to give a 50 minute presentation on "How to teach English in Japanese elementary schools". Now, this doesn't seem strange until you consider three facts.

1. I rarely teach at elementary schools, and have little experience doing so.
2. I have no formal teacher training at any level. Thus, I have no educational background or experience on which to base my talk.
3. All of the teachers to whom I will be speaking are junior high school teachers. Not a single one teaches at elementary school.

Maybe I'll stay at a Holiday Inn tonight.

No, really, lie to my face, I don't mind.

On Monday, I arrived at school and was told we would have a fire drill later in the day. Not having experienced a Japanese fire drill (though I recall several of the Chinese variety), a question popped into my head: Do Japanese change their indoor shoes for outdoor ones before proceeding outside? Normally, wearing indoor shoes outside is a punishable sin. I posed the question to the teacher sitting across from me. "Absolutely not," she said, "we must pretend its a real emergency so we do not change our shoes." So an hour later the fire bell goes off and I proceed outside with my indoor shoes. All of the students did the same. But as I looked around, I notice that every teacher had changed their shoes. Every single one, including the one who told me not to do so. Perplexed, I called that teacher a liar to her face, and oh so carefully avoided the doormat as I entered the school with my now tainted shoes.