Hey there,
This is a just for me to share a student's work with you, as I feel I've been overdoing it on facebook lately!
This is one of the better answers I received - very few mistakes. But is this what's to become of my intelligent students??
Tell me your favourite part of Japanese culture:
I like the loyalists in the last day of the Tokugawa Shogunate. There is a lot of man who rise to greatness in turbulent times. One of these guys, I like Yodo Yamauchi. He was heavy drinker. He always drunk sake. I wanna be like him.
Oh man! lol
Today was graduation day. I was prepared for one hour of sitting in the freezing gym listening to presentations in a language I don't understand. It was two and a half hours. I finally ducked out for a toilet break after two hours, deeming disturbing everyone to be preferable to wetting myself.
I noticed many of the parents, students and teachers taking naps during the presentation, but I couldn't overcome my cultural notion that sleeping during important ceremonies (or, indeed, sleeping during work hours at all) is a total no-no. However, I had to question the Japanese love of overlong, overformal ceremonies, when they also love to nap anywhere, anytime. Surely one cancels out the other? Let's just skip to the chase and save ourselves an hour and a half of pomp, hey?
However, today I learnt an important Japanese fashion lesson. Apparently to be a woman dressed formally here, all you need to do is wear a black jacket and pin a huge fabric flower to your lapel. Bonus points for glitter, lace, pearls, or anything big enough to pull your top so it's lopsided. On one woman, it looks nice. On a whole tribe of women, all decked out in flowers of varying pastel shades with the odd metallic from the ones under 40, it looked ridiculous.
Personally, I felt stink that I had nothing special to wear today. Various outfits in my wardrobe are suitably formal so that I didn't feel underdressed, but it would have been nice to do something special when everyone else was looking so smart. So now I'm wondering if it's taking the piss if I get myself a nice black tie. I used to have Dad's black silk one on a permenant loan (he stole if from a Coke advertising set, so he couldn't complain too much!), so I'm thinking of getting my own. Then I can slap on a nice black tie with a white shirt and look suitably formal without having to go all Japanese with a pin-on flower. Opinions... is that rocking the boat crossing gender clothing norms, or just being acceptably non-uniform (which is what us foreigners do best!).
Ok, I'm going to head home now. I am pretty sure (haven't been told officially or anything) that I have no more classes for the school year. Which means I have three weeks to catch up on journal marking, Japanese study and all the other odds and ends that have been accumulating. And after that three weeks... NEW ZEALAND! Yay!
The only downside is that we have no downtime between getting back to Japan and starting work (I think I'll miss the first two days or something. On the bright side no opening ceremony. Yay!!). That means I'll have to prepare some lessons and stuff so I'm all ready to go. I still don't know what textbook I'm using and whether I'll have 20 students or 40 students per class. Obviously that changes things a bit... But I'm very excited about being able to train them from the start. I'll give them all a piece of paper with common classroom requests and phrases. It will include things like 'make a circle', 'where is it?', 'please read it' and other things they should totally know from junior high school but have forgotten or pretend not to remember. Grammar points to cover early will be that 'Are you ready?' cannot be correctly answered by 'Ok' and that 'I like baseball. Because it's fun.' is not, in fact, two sentences. No matter how badly you are trying to hit the five sentence minimum. I will also clearly establish my expectation that they will bring their notebook to every class and that they will stick loose paperwork into their book or folder. Then, if they don't comply with those things and get caught out, they will be performing Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes to the class.
It's been hard taking over from someone else mid-year, when I have no idea what type of classroom expectations he had or what type of classroom commands he used. As he was American, I think a fair number of the common commands and phrases would be different. Anyway, clean slate with these students. And because I'm staying for another year, I'll be taking them right through. I will start the journal writing exercise early with them (my recent experiments with it suggest it will be highly beneficial writing practise) and I hope to see the new students do better than the group that have just finished their first year. The school has been trying to fix an issue with English scores dropping, so I'm excited to potentially make a positive impact with instilling English journals. Even if they only improve by 3%, 3% each times 280 odd students is... well, a lot of percent! Writing it like this, it sounds egotistical/overly enthusiastic to think I can fix an issue a whole school is grappling with, but I really think regular writing practise in an informal format (eg. not just practising set phrases for the exam) could make a real difference in students enjoyment and understanding of the language.
Well, you'll hear all about it if I pour my heart and soul into this idea and it doesn't take off. And by 'heart and soul' I mean spare time and lunchbreak!
Hope you're all doing well. NZ... see you soon!!!
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Monday, February 27, 2012
Two Years
Hey there,
While we haven't been very subtle about it - posting on facebook etc - for those of you that missed the exciting event, Jeff and I have been married for two years! I always used to think (oh, naive child!) that marriage just HAPPENED, that you fell into it and as long as noone slept around, that was it for a successful marriage. My own parents recent marital issues have proved to me how incorrect that attitude was. When we were dating I viewed dates as just that. It was always a mildly surprising reminder of how long we'd been hanging out together and an excuse to go out for dinner. Now I'm married I view it as a whole different story. Our culture (and my recent family problems) is so full of news about divorces and marriages gone wrong that while Jeff having been my boyfriend for four years seemed like just a date, Jeff having been my husband for two years seems like an achievement! (And this touching little entry of mine is no time for any smart-arse comments about Jeff, thankyou! That goes for both sets of parents and Shelley :P ) (Note: I've long wondered about mentioning Mum and Dad's recent issues on here. I held back while it was in the thick of it, but I think most of you in NZ have heard Mum talk about it and if you're over here, you may well have heard me mention it. It was a pretty traumatic time all round, but now it seems like if the relationship lasts, it'll be a much, much more mutually rewarding one than the last few years. There have been important lessons learnt all round, even if there were things like 'don't let your parents stay in your tiny Japanese apartment when they're supposedly seperating'. :P It's ok parents, you're still allowed back xxx)
Anyway, we had a really fun night. I got dressed up in a new dress from Singapore, put my heels in my handbag and we walked up to the train station. I changed shoes on the train and we went wandering round the centre of town looking for somewhere to have dinner. The place I had chosen wasn't open, so we ended up at Italian place we had been to before (and therefore knew it was good). I had a yummy white wine (actually no idea what it was... the 'English' menu was actually Italian. Because those two are pretty much the same...) and Jeff had some imported beer. Not the one he ordered, but one he likes even more, so that was ok. We had bruschetta (translated as 'toast on tomato') and a wee cheese plate to start (oh blue cheese how I love you!), followed by pizza and pasta. It was all very tasty and a thoroughly enjoyable night, concluded by another meander through the wee streets of bars and restaurants, lit by strings of blue fairy lights, back to the station.
In other news, I wanted to tell you about an exciting wildlife experience I had a week or so ago. I was driving along a country road in Jinseki, at about 4pm, when a big bird flew overhead and settled on the power line on the side of the road. I did a double take, going "Was that...?"
I turned around and drove back, and sure enough it was a huge white and brown owl. It turned its head to stare at me. I fumbled round the car looking for the camera (I had left it on the table at home) and finally fished out my cellphone. By this point it decided I was enough of a concern to move further down the road. I followed it, inching along in my little Dihatsu Mira. I managed to click one crappy photo, enough to show that its foliage was perfectly blended to the bare sticks and snow of the background (by that I mean you can't see it on the photo. At all). Finally it turned its big dark eyes away, spread its wings and flew away across the snow covered rice fields. Amazing!!
I hope you're all doing well, wherever you are atm. If you're in NZ, hope to see you in three weeks!!!
While we haven't been very subtle about it - posting on facebook etc - for those of you that missed the exciting event, Jeff and I have been married for two years! I always used to think (oh, naive child!) that marriage just HAPPENED, that you fell into it and as long as noone slept around, that was it for a successful marriage. My own parents recent marital issues have proved to me how incorrect that attitude was. When we were dating I viewed dates as just that. It was always a mildly surprising reminder of how long we'd been hanging out together and an excuse to go out for dinner. Now I'm married I view it as a whole different story. Our culture (and my recent family problems) is so full of news about divorces and marriages gone wrong that while Jeff having been my boyfriend for four years seemed like just a date, Jeff having been my husband for two years seems like an achievement! (And this touching little entry of mine is no time for any smart-arse comments about Jeff, thankyou! That goes for both sets of parents and Shelley :P ) (Note: I've long wondered about mentioning Mum and Dad's recent issues on here. I held back while it was in the thick of it, but I think most of you in NZ have heard Mum talk about it and if you're over here, you may well have heard me mention it. It was a pretty traumatic time all round, but now it seems like if the relationship lasts, it'll be a much, much more mutually rewarding one than the last few years. There have been important lessons learnt all round, even if there were things like 'don't let your parents stay in your tiny Japanese apartment when they're supposedly seperating'. :P It's ok parents, you're still allowed back xxx)
Anyway, we had a really fun night. I got dressed up in a new dress from Singapore, put my heels in my handbag and we walked up to the train station. I changed shoes on the train and we went wandering round the centre of town looking for somewhere to have dinner. The place I had chosen wasn't open, so we ended up at Italian place we had been to before (and therefore knew it was good). I had a yummy white wine (actually no idea what it was... the 'English' menu was actually Italian. Because those two are pretty much the same...) and Jeff had some imported beer. Not the one he ordered, but one he likes even more, so that was ok. We had bruschetta (translated as 'toast on tomato') and a wee cheese plate to start (oh blue cheese how I love you!), followed by pizza and pasta. It was all very tasty and a thoroughly enjoyable night, concluded by another meander through the wee streets of bars and restaurants, lit by strings of blue fairy lights, back to the station.
In other news, I wanted to tell you about an exciting wildlife experience I had a week or so ago. I was driving along a country road in Jinseki, at about 4pm, when a big bird flew overhead and settled on the power line on the side of the road. I did a double take, going "Was that...?"
I turned around and drove back, and sure enough it was a huge white and brown owl. It turned its head to stare at me. I fumbled round the car looking for the camera (I had left it on the table at home) and finally fished out my cellphone. By this point it decided I was enough of a concern to move further down the road. I followed it, inching along in my little Dihatsu Mira. I managed to click one crappy photo, enough to show that its foliage was perfectly blended to the bare sticks and snow of the background (by that I mean you can't see it on the photo. At all). Finally it turned its big dark eyes away, spread its wings and flew away across the snow covered rice fields. Amazing!!
I hope you're all doing well, wherever you are atm. If you're in NZ, hope to see you in three weeks!!!
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
Almost two weeks
Almost two weeks since I last wrote... how does that happen? I'm convinced I write really often, when pressed saying I write once or twice a week, but it's actually much, much less than that!
In all fairness, lately I've been pretty busy. The school speech competition is on this afternoon so I've been working late every day for the last couple of weeks to coach the students. Unfortunately it also coincided with the upcoming exam (Mar 2nd), which I was required to write a portion of. The Listening section was ok - I did the same thing last exam - but I really had no idea what was required of me for the Writing section. Usually the instructions are all in Japanese, so even looking at old exams wasn't super helpful. However, in looking through old exams I remembered that last time the teacher had borrowed one of my old in-class vocabulary quizzes and included that in the exam, so I thought maybe that's what the teacher organising this one was on about. He was super unclear, but I made a new vocab quiz and handed it over. He hasn't come back to me with any changes necessary, so I guess it was ok...
The only problem is, the teacher I was working with last exam is very confident. When I first started I got a bad impression of her because she changed my lesson plan, which had a follow-through effect of meaning that in following lessons, her classes had covered different stuff and in a different order to all my other classes, so I needed to make adjusted lesson plans for her group, when everyone else follows the same plan. BUT I quickly came to realise that she's confident because she's good and she's willing to tell me what to change because she knows her students capabilities. In a short time she became one of my favourite teachers to work with. As such, when my exam questions were too hard/easy she was perfectly happy to come back to me and tell me what to change.
On the other hand... the teacher maknig the exam this time is a shy little bird of a man. I know it's not the first time I've scared a bloke, but I'm not used to also feeling physically imposing when working with a guy. He is a slender, quiet man, almost a head shorter than me. I think his English is good, but he's so busy talking around the subject instead of being blunt and he would never be rude enough to tell me he disagreed or didn't understand, so I find him really hard to communicate with. He is one of those people that is so busy trying to be agreeable that it's very hard to find out what they want from a situation. As such... I have no idea if that was what he wanted or not. But I'm guessing that will be what goes in the exam!
Yesterday was a relatively uneventful day at Tode. I'm not sure why I always end up blogging about Tode. Perhaps because it's only my visit school I feel less disrepectful talking about them, Or maybe it's because I don't lead the lesson so I get to observe (and comment on!) the teaching of others.
Anyway, yesterday I DIDN'T scream at my teacher who compulsively translates everything, although I was fantasising about it. I admit I did snap out "I said I will read it three times, so I will read it three times" when he cut me off after once to translate the question for the students and ask a student to answer the question. If he is going to translate it for the students (and sometimes write it on the board), why does he bother preparing me with the question in English, but deletes it from the students handout? I assumed the point of the exercise was listening practise (and English practise), but when he's translating and writing, I wonder why he doesn't save himself the time and leave it on the kid's handouts in the first place...
But I am trying to work in little ways to challenge the kids, even if he is busy undermining his own teaching. I do simple things, like walk around the class to check the students have their textbooks open and at the right page (about a 50% hit rate); tapping their book during listening exercises to draw their attention to the fact they should be listening and writing, not talking or reading a comic; and my latest one being reading the question three times to allow the kids who want to try to get a good listen to the English and take a guess at the answer before the teacher translates it for them.
The other thing he does that drives me crazy is he tells the students who he will ask to answer BEFORE we do the exercise, so only the student(s) who will be called on ever bother listening. I can't blame the students for being so lazy when he never, ever challenges them, but it will really affect them when they change to a different teacher next year.
In the next lesson, with the teacher who often displays an assumption that Japanese culture is world culture ("You don't bow, even if you're really sorry??"), he again didn't really know how to use me. Two weeks ago he had asked me to prepare a slide show on 'travel', which I narrowed down to castles (I think I mentioned it on here?). Anyway, last week he was actually absent, but nobody told me on the assumption that he told me the week before, which he HADN'T. So I had this super awkward conversation with a relieving Japanese teacher, where I was trying to ask if he wanted me in the class but couldn't work out the Japanese to manage. All the English teachers had buggered off somewhere and there was no-one to ask for help. Finally I told him I would do my 20 min castles talk, by which time some English teachers were back in the office to be our translators. Considering there was no translator during the talk, it was pretty successful. I asked the kids if they knew a certain building and they all agreed they didn't. Then I showed a picture of inside - and they all successfully identified it with a scream of "Harry Potter!" Yes, it is the set of the hallways next to the courtyard in that internationally popular film!
Anyway, this week the teacher never mentioned his having been absent and never brought up the slideshow at all (I thought I would be showing it again with translation this time). Instead, he asked me to come in 15 minutes late because the kids had a test. When I arrived, they were still busy doing the test. Finally the teacher asked them to do an exercise in pairs. There was an uneven number, so I went and sat in the spare seat to work with the students. I don't know if it was because I was sitting with the kids so the teacher forgot who I was, or whether because I was tired I was understanding less Japanese and body language than usual, but the teacher kept giving instructions then looking at me expectantly. Only problem, the instructions were all in Japanese. I was too tired to be very helpful, just following the students or looking at him quizically until he threw out a page number of something English. He clearly had no idea he was doing it, because he never apologised or anything. Just gave me strange looks when I gave him my "you know I don't speak Japanese, right?" face.
In my last class, I had an amusing experience (apologies if you already read this on facebook). Three kids were discussing my hair colour and the difference between the dyed ends and the regrowth on top (a year's worth of regrowth, yikes!). I explained the top was my natural colour, that I only had it dyed in NZ. One boy (who looks like he spends a good two hours with the straighteners every morning!) scrutinised me, then declared it was 'pudding coloured'. I thought that was so funny! (For clarification, for those that are not up with Japanese culture, 'pudding' is the consistency of the old Instant Puddings that parents used to make when we were young, with the flavour of creme brulee. Likewise creme brulee colour. Oooh... 'creme brulee' hair... I might have just invented a new colour! I can sell it to L'oreal and make millions!)
Anyway, I totally cracked up, and the class did too. Only I was laughing at the pudding hair colour, while I think the class was laughing in surprise at seeing how much I was laughing. Whatever, it was totally a laugh-with, not laugh-at, because Japanese students are way less malicious than Western ones. Back home teenagers are nasty things (apologies to Laura if you read this!). That sounds dramatic, but you know what I mean. Looking back as an adult, almost all the behaviour I'm ashamed of occurred when I was a teen. Occasionally I torture myself by reading old diaries. I can never decide whether I was lucky to have friends, behaving like I did, or whether the question is why I hung out with some of the people who behaved like they did! So I'm not saying you're a bad person for being 16 years old, Laura, merely that you are not quite as good as you are at 11 or 22... :P
Well, this got super off track (although it does raise an important theme all ALTs can tell you about - the NICENESS of Japanese teens), so I will stop here!
Hope you are all well and I will try to blog again next week!
In all fairness, lately I've been pretty busy. The school speech competition is on this afternoon so I've been working late every day for the last couple of weeks to coach the students. Unfortunately it also coincided with the upcoming exam (Mar 2nd), which I was required to write a portion of. The Listening section was ok - I did the same thing last exam - but I really had no idea what was required of me for the Writing section. Usually the instructions are all in Japanese, so even looking at old exams wasn't super helpful. However, in looking through old exams I remembered that last time the teacher had borrowed one of my old in-class vocabulary quizzes and included that in the exam, so I thought maybe that's what the teacher organising this one was on about. He was super unclear, but I made a new vocab quiz and handed it over. He hasn't come back to me with any changes necessary, so I guess it was ok...
The only problem is, the teacher I was working with last exam is very confident. When I first started I got a bad impression of her because she changed my lesson plan, which had a follow-through effect of meaning that in following lessons, her classes had covered different stuff and in a different order to all my other classes, so I needed to make adjusted lesson plans for her group, when everyone else follows the same plan. BUT I quickly came to realise that she's confident because she's good and she's willing to tell me what to change because she knows her students capabilities. In a short time she became one of my favourite teachers to work with. As such, when my exam questions were too hard/easy she was perfectly happy to come back to me and tell me what to change.
On the other hand... the teacher maknig the exam this time is a shy little bird of a man. I know it's not the first time I've scared a bloke, but I'm not used to also feeling physically imposing when working with a guy. He is a slender, quiet man, almost a head shorter than me. I think his English is good, but he's so busy talking around the subject instead of being blunt and he would never be rude enough to tell me he disagreed or didn't understand, so I find him really hard to communicate with. He is one of those people that is so busy trying to be agreeable that it's very hard to find out what they want from a situation. As such... I have no idea if that was what he wanted or not. But I'm guessing that will be what goes in the exam!
Yesterday was a relatively uneventful day at Tode. I'm not sure why I always end up blogging about Tode. Perhaps because it's only my visit school I feel less disrepectful talking about them, Or maybe it's because I don't lead the lesson so I get to observe (and comment on!) the teaching of others.
Anyway, yesterday I DIDN'T scream at my teacher who compulsively translates everything, although I was fantasising about it. I admit I did snap out "I said I will read it three times, so I will read it three times" when he cut me off after once to translate the question for the students and ask a student to answer the question. If he is going to translate it for the students (and sometimes write it on the board), why does he bother preparing me with the question in English, but deletes it from the students handout? I assumed the point of the exercise was listening practise (and English practise), but when he's translating and writing, I wonder why he doesn't save himself the time and leave it on the kid's handouts in the first place...
But I am trying to work in little ways to challenge the kids, even if he is busy undermining his own teaching. I do simple things, like walk around the class to check the students have their textbooks open and at the right page (about a 50% hit rate); tapping their book during listening exercises to draw their attention to the fact they should be listening and writing, not talking or reading a comic; and my latest one being reading the question three times to allow the kids who want to try to get a good listen to the English and take a guess at the answer before the teacher translates it for them.
The other thing he does that drives me crazy is he tells the students who he will ask to answer BEFORE we do the exercise, so only the student(s) who will be called on ever bother listening. I can't blame the students for being so lazy when he never, ever challenges them, but it will really affect them when they change to a different teacher next year.
In the next lesson, with the teacher who often displays an assumption that Japanese culture is world culture ("You don't bow, even if you're really sorry??"), he again didn't really know how to use me. Two weeks ago he had asked me to prepare a slide show on 'travel', which I narrowed down to castles (I think I mentioned it on here?). Anyway, last week he was actually absent, but nobody told me on the assumption that he told me the week before, which he HADN'T. So I had this super awkward conversation with a relieving Japanese teacher, where I was trying to ask if he wanted me in the class but couldn't work out the Japanese to manage. All the English teachers had buggered off somewhere and there was no-one to ask for help. Finally I told him I would do my 20 min castles talk, by which time some English teachers were back in the office to be our translators. Considering there was no translator during the talk, it was pretty successful. I asked the kids if they knew a certain building and they all agreed they didn't. Then I showed a picture of inside - and they all successfully identified it with a scream of "Harry Potter!" Yes, it is the set of the hallways next to the courtyard in that internationally popular film!
Anyway, this week the teacher never mentioned his having been absent and never brought up the slideshow at all (I thought I would be showing it again with translation this time). Instead, he asked me to come in 15 minutes late because the kids had a test. When I arrived, they were still busy doing the test. Finally the teacher asked them to do an exercise in pairs. There was an uneven number, so I went and sat in the spare seat to work with the students. I don't know if it was because I was sitting with the kids so the teacher forgot who I was, or whether because I was tired I was understanding less Japanese and body language than usual, but the teacher kept giving instructions then looking at me expectantly. Only problem, the instructions were all in Japanese. I was too tired to be very helpful, just following the students or looking at him quizically until he threw out a page number of something English. He clearly had no idea he was doing it, because he never apologised or anything. Just gave me strange looks when I gave him my "you know I don't speak Japanese, right?" face.
In my last class, I had an amusing experience (apologies if you already read this on facebook). Three kids were discussing my hair colour and the difference between the dyed ends and the regrowth on top (a year's worth of regrowth, yikes!). I explained the top was my natural colour, that I only had it dyed in NZ. One boy (who looks like he spends a good two hours with the straighteners every morning!) scrutinised me, then declared it was 'pudding coloured'. I thought that was so funny! (For clarification, for those that are not up with Japanese culture, 'pudding' is the consistency of the old Instant Puddings that parents used to make when we were young, with the flavour of creme brulee. Likewise creme brulee colour. Oooh... 'creme brulee' hair... I might have just invented a new colour! I can sell it to L'oreal and make millions!)
Anyway, I totally cracked up, and the class did too. Only I was laughing at the pudding hair colour, while I think the class was laughing in surprise at seeing how much I was laughing. Whatever, it was totally a laugh-with, not laugh-at, because Japanese students are way less malicious than Western ones. Back home teenagers are nasty things (apologies to Laura if you read this!). That sounds dramatic, but you know what I mean. Looking back as an adult, almost all the behaviour I'm ashamed of occurred when I was a teen. Occasionally I torture myself by reading old diaries. I can never decide whether I was lucky to have friends, behaving like I did, or whether the question is why I hung out with some of the people who behaved like they did! So I'm not saying you're a bad person for being 16 years old, Laura, merely that you are not quite as good as you are at 11 or 22... :P
Well, this got super off track (although it does raise an important theme all ALTs can tell you about - the NICENESS of Japanese teens), so I will stop here!
Hope you are all well and I will try to blog again next week!
Thursday, February 9, 2012
Jeff's birthday
Sorry that may not be a very appropriate title - I don't have much to say about Jeff's birthday but I have no idea what I intend to tell you in this update. Not that that concerns me. I usually think I'm going to write about one thing, title the post as such, then only remember to mention that thing at the end (because I re-read the title).
As for Jeff's birthday (29!), the one thing I wanted to report was that I got him an All Blacks polo. Jeff was pretty stoked, as expected. The most exciting thing was that it FITTED. None of this trying to squeeze into XXL (or is it LLL? I get confused...). I really went out on a limb to get it. He had been talking about wanting one for ages, so I thought if he knew I was doing online shopping he would immediately realise what I got him. And he would have to know, because my credit card is now an ex-credit card (my old one got changed for a new one, but the new one never turned up - either lost in the mail or lost at my parent's place. Not that I knew until a couple of months later when I was trying to book Malaysian trains. Whatever the case, I told the bank to just cancel it asap).
Anyway, I decided to pretend I had bought something here, but borrowed Mum and Dad's credit card. To make this convincing, I then had to work late, while pretending I was at the mall (I hid in the storage cupboard when he called, as I hoped the echo would sound like the mall bathroom, because my office doesn't have the blaring mall music!). I also hid some money in the wrong compartment in my wallet, so it looked like I had spent it. Sitting at work mucking around on my laptop I had to remember NOT to sign in to facebook, because that would have been a total giveaway that I wasn't where I said I was! (no, I don't have a fancy iphone!)
Mum and Dad's credit card turned out to be the most difficult part. Dad's sausage fingers typed in some wrong numbers, so when I went to buy, it didn't work. I then spent about three hours sitting at work long after I should have gone home waiting first for some family member to come online and rescue me and secondly to physically fetch the details (Laura misunderstood my 'need now' for a 'need soon' and left me hanging for an hour or so while she facebooked or something :P ). That sounds overdramatic, but I had an online voucher for Hallentsteins (where I bought a few other wee gifts too) and if I logged off to wait at home I would have lost my voucher. So I was going to sit at my work desk until midnight if I had to, to get my 20% discount!! While that may not be altogether practical, I was digging my heels in!
The last slight complication was that I wanted the boxes delivered to my school (again, obviously, so Jeff didn't know about them). I asked a teacher for the school address so I could have something sent here. She looked unsure and went to phone the office and ask. She came back to me saying that the office couldn't give out that information, that it was private and teachers couldn't do that, that we had to use our own. I wasn't sure WHAT was going on, but it was pretty clear there was some major miscommunication going on. I tried to rephrase my request, explaining my letterbox at my apartment was too small to put a parcel in, when the penny dropped. "Oh, you don't want an email address?" "Ah, no, like the physical address." I thought that was so strange, that when I used the word 'address', there had been an assumption I meant email! Anyway, another phone call was made, I was given the school's address and the packages were delivered with no further drama.
In the end Jeff was totally surprised and I managed to not say anything to give the game away - even though there were a couple of close calls (you know where you're several words into a sentence when you realise you can't mention that thing...). Not surprising when you look at how much I went through to secure his presents!
As for Japan... We are not doing AWESOMELY atm... We seem to be paying money hand over fist, although we are not sure why. Of course, the parking drama didn't help. Neither did the 20,000 yen I was told I owed a couple of days later (2,500 per month for the time that I've been in my apartment. Only they never mentioned it until now, so I got hit with a hefty sum!). Apparently it covers communal stuff like outdoor lights and sewage. By that point I just sighed and handed over the money. Well, not quite. I had to go to the bank to get out more to pay a bill like that, but there was no way I could get around it. I just wish I had been warned! Of course, it's always the way - when you are trying your hardest to save, all those annoying, unexpected and unnecessary bills crop up (just before we left NZ was the last time we felt like this - we needed all our money for Japan and I went and pranged the car!). A month and a bit from NZ, when we really want all our extra $$ to put in our savings account, we feel like we are pouring our money down the drain. Jeff is further frustrated by the high NZ dollar - the highest it has been against the yen since we came to Japan. Not the ideal time to be bringing home large amounts of cash! We will probably investigate that ASB foreign currency account, so we can bide our time.
It's been a funny time, since we got back from Singapore. All the ALTs talk about is who is staying and who is going. Several of our good friends are leaving, so next year will be quite different. We are bad enough at meeting up with and staying in touch with people, but with two of the ALTs we see the most of leaving (Emma - our 'neighbour' only half an hour away and Gabby - the other ALT who came in at the same time as us and brought her lovely family), we are going to have to make an effort to socialise more with some of the newer ALTs. Although I suspect the ALTs who started in my year who are staying for a second year will be in the same boat. It seems like lots of ALTs are leaving after their first year this time round, so those staying for a second year will probably also be looking to shake up their social circles (yup Katie, you still need to get back to me about Indian!).
It feels like a sad time, actually. The winter makes everyone a little down and we are preparing to farewell lots of good friends. Plus most of us have signed (actually, I think today is the final day to make your decision!), whether we signed to say we are staying, or signed to say we are leaving, and everyone is now having doubts about their decision. There will, inevitably, be people who, come August, will leaave wishing they were staying, or will stay wishing they were leaving. For us, it seemed like a no-brainer - we are finally on a good salary and I'm enjoying the new job. But then (after we had signed!) Jeff pointed our that if we leave after three years, we are currently only halfway through our time here. Because we are signing now for the third year, we FEEL like we are already two years in. But Jeff's point about being only halfway now was a little scary. It's always hard feeling like you have commited to something for a long time (my contracted one year in America was much, much harder than my here-and-there ten months in Europe) and it feels like we have been in Japan for such a long time already. Who knows how we will feel about the place in another year and a half!
Hmm... just heard an intense three teacher discussion. All I could pick out was my name and Monday. Repeated a bunch of times. Who knows...
Ok, time to get myself ready to teach. Have a good day all.
As for Jeff's birthday (29!), the one thing I wanted to report was that I got him an All Blacks polo. Jeff was pretty stoked, as expected. The most exciting thing was that it FITTED. None of this trying to squeeze into XXL (or is it LLL? I get confused...). I really went out on a limb to get it. He had been talking about wanting one for ages, so I thought if he knew I was doing online shopping he would immediately realise what I got him. And he would have to know, because my credit card is now an ex-credit card (my old one got changed for a new one, but the new one never turned up - either lost in the mail or lost at my parent's place. Not that I knew until a couple of months later when I was trying to book Malaysian trains. Whatever the case, I told the bank to just cancel it asap).
Anyway, I decided to pretend I had bought something here, but borrowed Mum and Dad's credit card. To make this convincing, I then had to work late, while pretending I was at the mall (I hid in the storage cupboard when he called, as I hoped the echo would sound like the mall bathroom, because my office doesn't have the blaring mall music!). I also hid some money in the wrong compartment in my wallet, so it looked like I had spent it. Sitting at work mucking around on my laptop I had to remember NOT to sign in to facebook, because that would have been a total giveaway that I wasn't where I said I was! (no, I don't have a fancy iphone!)
Mum and Dad's credit card turned out to be the most difficult part. Dad's sausage fingers typed in some wrong numbers, so when I went to buy, it didn't work. I then spent about three hours sitting at work long after I should have gone home waiting first for some family member to come online and rescue me and secondly to physically fetch the details (Laura misunderstood my 'need now' for a 'need soon' and left me hanging for an hour or so while she facebooked or something :P ). That sounds overdramatic, but I had an online voucher for Hallentsteins (where I bought a few other wee gifts too) and if I logged off to wait at home I would have lost my voucher. So I was going to sit at my work desk until midnight if I had to, to get my 20% discount!! While that may not be altogether practical, I was digging my heels in!
The last slight complication was that I wanted the boxes delivered to my school (again, obviously, so Jeff didn't know about them). I asked a teacher for the school address so I could have something sent here. She looked unsure and went to phone the office and ask. She came back to me saying that the office couldn't give out that information, that it was private and teachers couldn't do that, that we had to use our own. I wasn't sure WHAT was going on, but it was pretty clear there was some major miscommunication going on. I tried to rephrase my request, explaining my letterbox at my apartment was too small to put a parcel in, when the penny dropped. "Oh, you don't want an email address?" "Ah, no, like the physical address." I thought that was so strange, that when I used the word 'address', there had been an assumption I meant email! Anyway, another phone call was made, I was given the school's address and the packages were delivered with no further drama.
In the end Jeff was totally surprised and I managed to not say anything to give the game away - even though there were a couple of close calls (you know where you're several words into a sentence when you realise you can't mention that thing...). Not surprising when you look at how much I went through to secure his presents!
As for Japan... We are not doing AWESOMELY atm... We seem to be paying money hand over fist, although we are not sure why. Of course, the parking drama didn't help. Neither did the 20,000 yen I was told I owed a couple of days later (2,500 per month for the time that I've been in my apartment. Only they never mentioned it until now, so I got hit with a hefty sum!). Apparently it covers communal stuff like outdoor lights and sewage. By that point I just sighed and handed over the money. Well, not quite. I had to go to the bank to get out more to pay a bill like that, but there was no way I could get around it. I just wish I had been warned! Of course, it's always the way - when you are trying your hardest to save, all those annoying, unexpected and unnecessary bills crop up (just before we left NZ was the last time we felt like this - we needed all our money for Japan and I went and pranged the car!). A month and a bit from NZ, when we really want all our extra $$ to put in our savings account, we feel like we are pouring our money down the drain. Jeff is further frustrated by the high NZ dollar - the highest it has been against the yen since we came to Japan. Not the ideal time to be bringing home large amounts of cash! We will probably investigate that ASB foreign currency account, so we can bide our time.
It's been a funny time, since we got back from Singapore. All the ALTs talk about is who is staying and who is going. Several of our good friends are leaving, so next year will be quite different. We are bad enough at meeting up with and staying in touch with people, but with two of the ALTs we see the most of leaving (Emma - our 'neighbour' only half an hour away and Gabby - the other ALT who came in at the same time as us and brought her lovely family), we are going to have to make an effort to socialise more with some of the newer ALTs. Although I suspect the ALTs who started in my year who are staying for a second year will be in the same boat. It seems like lots of ALTs are leaving after their first year this time round, so those staying for a second year will probably also be looking to shake up their social circles (yup Katie, you still need to get back to me about Indian!).
It feels like a sad time, actually. The winter makes everyone a little down and we are preparing to farewell lots of good friends. Plus most of us have signed (actually, I think today is the final day to make your decision!), whether we signed to say we are staying, or signed to say we are leaving, and everyone is now having doubts about their decision. There will, inevitably, be people who, come August, will leaave wishing they were staying, or will stay wishing they were leaving. For us, it seemed like a no-brainer - we are finally on a good salary and I'm enjoying the new job. But then (after we had signed!) Jeff pointed our that if we leave after three years, we are currently only halfway through our time here. Because we are signing now for the third year, we FEEL like we are already two years in. But Jeff's point about being only halfway now was a little scary. It's always hard feeling like you have commited to something for a long time (my contracted one year in America was much, much harder than my here-and-there ten months in Europe) and it feels like we have been in Japan for such a long time already. Who knows how we will feel about the place in another year and a half!
Hmm... just heard an intense three teacher discussion. All I could pick out was my name and Monday. Repeated a bunch of times. Who knows...
Ok, time to get myself ready to teach. Have a good day all.
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