1 for Bad 2 for Good...

I’m at my third junior high school and feeling pretty good. The first graders here all come from the elementary school that I taught at last year. Walking into the class made me feel like a celebrity rather than a zoo exhibit. So far so good in regards to the school, nothing really crazy has happened. I think this school is much smaller than the other two I have been too. Just had al lesson with the second graders that went by much more smoothly than I had expected. For my introduction lessons, I have been using a different approach than what I did at elementary school. In elementary I just showed them a picture of something and kind of gave them a background antidote or something. But with the junior high kids I have been using a different method called “Gambling.”

It seems to be going over well since I everyone like s to gamble. I give them the jist of “me” first like “my age, my family, Hawaii, and etc”. Bur when I get into my favorites, that when I have them bet “fake money” on which one is to be correct. For example I ask them, “what is my favorite movie?” And then I show them a picture if Star Wars and Spiderman. Then they bet which is correct. I haven’t done a lesson yet that was a “miss”. I’m pretty proud of myself from stealing that idea from someone.

This past weekend was pretty good. Just being paid after a drought of “non-spending” makes one feel pretty good. Anyway on Friday we went to a surprise dinner thing for our friend The Miich. Michiyo is our P.A’s wife, which at times can be much cooler than our P.A. Anyway we went to this small restaurant with the hopes that nothing could go wrong ‘cause we were paid and because it’s a birthday party. Were we wrong…

The service there was pretty bad since the restaurant couldn’t support a 15-person party. They suggested to us that we get the set menu so that the cooks would have an easier time getting us all of our food but that turned out to be a disaster. It took about 3 and half hours for all the dishes to come out. And on top of that they didn’t finish 11 of the 15 courses because… they ran out of rice! Isn’t that absurd?! After 3 and half hours of no food and no beer (which they ran out of too) we decided that the importance wasn’t getting the rest of our food but getting the hell out of there and not paying for anything. The party started at about 8:30, we left the place around 11:45 foe the kebab place.

The kebab place, being a hole in the wall is our favorite place to go for a midnight snack and/or beer. William (P.A.) being guilty for recommending such a crappy place for a surprise party, treated everyone to drinks and a kebab. After filling our stomachs with good, fast food we headed over to the All-You-Can-Drink karaoke party! The karaoke was a good night seeming that I haven’t been to karaoke for a while. It was so good that we ended up staying out until 4!

Saturday was a lazy day seeming that we woke up at 1:30. We weren’t really sure if our fiend was going to come over for dinner but we decided to clean house nevertheless and waited for the important conformation call. The call came in around 5 and we had to scramble to out together a meal worthy of dinner guests. We had a really good temaki buffet with Akane, Morito, and Hiakru-kun. We met Akane at the volunteer camp we did in February and got to know her and her cute 5-year-old son. We first met her son at the most recent COSTCO trip and have been friends ever since. I actually that the night was going to be a night of adult conversations and issues but I had it totally opposite! They played video games with their son and even did some magic tricks for us. We showed them how to play Crazy Eights, which they were amazed to find out that anyone could play UNO with a deck of cards.

Then on Sunday we were told that they was a German food festival happening at the river so we just had to go. We had sauerkraut pasta, German potato salad, sausages, and beer. The beer wasn’t German but I didn’t hear too many people complaining. After another day by the river we decided to go home for some yakiniku. By the time everyone got to Kevin’s house we were all lazy so we decided to order pizza and play some video games. I don’t know of its because I7m getting old or what but I seem to really get into golf, XBOX Tiger Woods golf that it. We must have played until 1 in the morning, and on a school night! It was so dun and the most impressive thing about the game was that you could make a character to look almost exactly like you. In some cases it was really scary how close you can actually get it to look like you.

And then it was back to work. Well, I’m hardly gonna call this work since its gonna be a short week. On Thursday Krystal leaves for Korea and I leave for Taiwan. What’s in Taiwan? Tons of Chinese food, beaches, mopeds, and whatever 3 straight guys and a Gay dude can do in 7 days! See yah guys on the beach!

BREAKING IT DOWN!

We're going Back In Time!

Kind of getting into the groove of this whole “junior high assistant language teacher” thing, but I am starting to realize a lot of things about myself. For instance the deal about the under classmen and the upper classmen in Japan seems to be very different from back home, at least in my point of view. Let’s all go back to intermediate school shall we?

Here I am, dorky, hidden, shy, quiet, and overlooked Chris. He has his usual group of friends that are also dorky, hidden, shy, quiet, and overlooked. At the most there are about 5 in this group. What to do, what to do for elective classes? Band? No, band has always been something I wanted to be in but a jackass of a teacher in 6th grade has forever kept me away from a musical instrument. In intermediate school what is left? ROTC and art. Honestly, if I can’t survive the halls a student what make me think that I would be alright in ROTC?　So art is the path that I have chosen. In art we have the school rejects, too shy and quiet for band, no musical talent, and students with actually artistic talent. And I’m in the middle of all this.

Upper classman to me has always been the “older” guys. Yeah hahahaha I know obviously, but I mean they were the ones that people looked up too whether their persona was positive or negative. These “older” guys were the ones that would copy my homework, ask me for answers and occasionally make me the butt of their jokes. And then you have the upper classmen girls. Some were nice and took on an older sister act for anyone but others were slutty, smokers, going out with the jocks, and etc.

In Japan I feel like the system is totally different. Having some extra time after lessons this past week, I went around and explored my school. The students are all pretty good no one has really stepped out of line, at least not towards me. I went into the gym where the table tennis, girls’ volleyball, and the boys’ volleyball teams were practicing. I’ve never seen a group of people that were so polite and respectful as I did in the gym. First of all the gym wasn’t as big as ones I’ve been to in elementary school. Yet you have three sports playing and practicing. I was watching the 3rd graders (9th grade) tutor and help the younger classmen. Not a foul word, negative comment, or ridiculing statement was made. The girls were practicing returning spiked volleyballs and when a ball was miss-hit or skewed, the girls are immediately bowing and apologizing, “sumimasen, sumimasen, sumimasen deshita”. I thought this was pretty cool since with a team of 20 girls and 20 boys and about 50-60 volleyballs flying everywhere does look chaotic. So if you think about it, the clubs meet everyday after school for about 2 hours for the 3 years they are there. Who wouldn’t get attached? I’m assuming this is why when the third years graduate most of them are in tears, even the boys. In some cases some of the students probably spend more time with the club than they do with their parents.

So why did I bring all this up? I guess I feel kind of jealous because the way the upper classmen treat the under classmen was something I never got to experience. They have a group to “belong to” when they most need it during adolescence. Not to say that I turned out to be a bad seed or anything but I bet there are people out there that have. Yeah, you might get bullied by the third years but mostly out of fun and nothing too harmful. But make no mistake that when they need help the upperclassman are always there to support people in their group.

Peer teaching seems to be an effective way to learn and through the hierarchy system in the clubs, it seems to be working. Kind of like a symbiotic relationship where the underclassmen need a group to belong to, someone to look up to, safety in numbers, and the upperclassmen need leadership skills, to be a role model, and a sense of leaving something behind at the school.

I only wish that I had something like this when I was in intermediate and even high school. I guess that’s what happens when you join a sport, band, or community groups. I guess I do have to give some credit to college and CK, since it did give me a place where I felt I belonged. It gave me friendships, enemies, leadership skills, political skills, and even taught me about myself. I was able to fulfill my role as an underclassman under Joy, Linda, and She-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named and my role as an upperclassman over Joel, sponsored youth, Cliff, and Daniel. I was even able to work together with peers like Jake, Krystal, Lisa (even though they are older than me), and others. Most of these people become my friends and I know that it was a positive experience.

Ok sorry for such an essay-esque blog, I promise the next one to be more of a college raunch movie.

Harry Potter Revisited

Being stuck at a school with no Internet I decided to re-read Harry Potter again. I guess it’s a good way to review for the 6th edition coming out in July. Just finished the second book and still a good 1 and a half hours left. I guess I’m some what excited for the 6th book, Harry Potter the Half Blood Prince. I think that’s the title. I guess everyone wants to know if the prince is Harry or some other character people have not been paying attention too. I know I know I know… I’m a big geek…

Anyway it’s second day at my junior high school. I had the second graders today (8th graders). They weren’t too bad. They were a little more enthusiastic about English and seemed genuinely interested when I was doing my introduction. They also seem to be a little more accepting since no one really laughed and/or started at me today. Some of the students actually came up and talked to me about normal stuff like what kinds of music do I like or if I knew a certain anime. I guess this is what I wanted while teaching at junior high, intellectual conversations about immature issues.

It feels weird being a guest at junior high. It just seems like everyone is busy. I walked around a bit after school thinking that maybe I would be able to join a club by sheer invitation but everyone is into their own work that no one noticed the new teacher, walking around, in a suit. My friend James was here last year and he told me to go hang out with the art club people since they were cool but when I got there they all just stared and then went back to their own business. I guess I could have taken the initiative and started a conversation but I chickened out. Not to mention that the person James said to look for wasn’t there. So what did I do with my afternoon? Played hearts secretively and then changed around all the desktop settings at this computer.

Today I was invited to join the tennis club by the other assistant English teacher. I found out today that she’s only 22! And she already has her own class, responsibilities, and a club to look after. I guess I could go and try to play tennis, but the fear of failure in front of students still holds me back. The teacher told me that she has a lot of first years and many of them were asking about me. (I taught the first years last year at the elementary school I had) I guess they would all be beginners too because you don’t really have clubs at the elementary school level. Unless some are tennis prodigies that have been holding a racket since they were 3 years old. Maybe I’ll go check it out, or even try again with the art club. Totally feels like Intermediate school all over again.

So we have a big tax problem on our hands. Krystal and I found out that we have to owe tons of money to State Taxes. I t turns out that I owe about 700 dollars and Krystal a little more than that. Well what happened is that we got our W2 forms and filled out the tax forms but then for HAWAII we need to include any sort of foreign income that we received in the past year. ISN’T THAT JUST FRICKEN CRAZY?!? To pay taxes for income not made or spent in Hawaii?? Doesn’t make sense at all! Anyway we have to file them since the grace period is 3 years in which we could get audited or some how the government finds out. Supposedly there are a lot of penalties and interest you have to pay if you ignore it. Worse part is that when next year comes around we might have to pay double because the figures that we got are only for half a year! This has got to be the most ASS BACKWARDS thing I’ve heard. Anyway maybe we won’t pay next year since we’ll have no W2 form for the dumb ass tax people to hunt us down. But then again and no one can run from the IRS, if Al Capone couldn’t do it how do we have a chance?

Break It Down

2 out of 12

So I’m at my second school of the new school year. The students here seem to be better than my base school students, English-wise. This school seems to be more geared towards academics compared to the other school. Hopefully this makes the transition from elementary to junior high a little easier. I also found out that some of my sixth graders from last year’s elementary school come here. The only thing is that the one student that I got into trouble because he spit on me also comes to this school. We kind of surprised each other this morning. He was probably thinking the same thing I was thinking, “What the hell are you doing here?”

This weekend was pretty awesome for some and terrible for others. Last week Friday we all decided to get together and play some kickball on the weekend. For some reason I was expecting people to brush it off and suggest drinking instead but it turned out that lots of people were excited that kickball was going down. We even got some foreigners (Australians, Canadians, Irish, and British) to play. They had no idea what the hell kickball was which made it that much more fun. I’m not really used to teaching my peers how to play kickball. Anyway we head out on Saturday morning to get our kickball on! We decided to go to this river by the park so we can have a nice outing outdoors. One of our friends even called the City Hall to make sure that the dirt field was available for play. We were all ready to play…

But when we got there we found out that everyone else felt the same about the weather that it was a perfect day to be outside. The dirt field was horded by the stupid little league soccer kids and the grassy areas were packed with picnickers. We had a representative to go over to the soccer coach and work out some field-usage treaty but the dude wouldn’t have it. They said they were there until 6 and that we could use it after. Bastard knew that the sun was going to go down around 7. Anyway we decided to play on this grassy area and it was fun until…

One friend Kevin was making his run around first when he tripped on the first baseman’s foot and had a small tumble. He got up and ran all the way to second only to find that his leg was bleeding. We all went to inspect the wound and we totally got to see his muscle and maybe even some cartilage. The cut was real deep! He ended up going to the hospital to get some stitches. Then we all teased the first baseman that she knifed Kevin on his way to second. Sorry Kevin… hope the knee gets better.

So anyway after that incident the kickball spirit kind of died. But we did end up playing some ultimate Frisbee and even some catch football. But we were there to play kickball. And so we did. We ended up playing after everyone started leaving which was around 6. We played until it got pretty dark. We even had one of our friends move his car so we could use his headlights to light our kickball field. What a game, kickball.

Sunday was an uneventful day. Krystal and Val had tickets to go to a flower arrangement show so me and Kevin kicked it at home and played video games all day. He has an X-Box and got some new games sent to him from home. We did some dog fighting, Halo, and X-Men Legends. A perfect Sunday for a couple of geeks…

So now I’m here at my school, which doesn’t have Internet. So this is a Word document that is going to be pasted onto the web at home. So hopefully the rest of my day and week go well. Ok getting funny looks from the due across of me better get going.

Break it Down

Ham and Blowfish ball sandwich

Ok I know I know it has been a while since I posted anything but I guess one doesn’t really feel like jumping on the computer unless I’m getting paid to do it, such is the case today when I found out that my school this week has no internet I ran away to the center for some good surfing fun. Anyway recap to what has been going on…

This past weekend was the famous Hanami weekend. Hanami (flower watching) is when the cherry blossoms blooms in the beginning of spring. A little late but well worth the wait. At hanami, you have two objectives. !- Drink and be merry. 2- Look at the flowers. So in short a hanami is an excuse to go out into nature and get your drink on. So last Saturday we had a hanami by the river. The weather was remarkable the same as it would be on any given day in Hawaii. I guess I should also mention the sakura which was pretty impressive as well. I heard someone say during the winter, “don’t underestimate the power of the cherry blossoms” and I know exactly what they were talking about. We stayed by the river until about 10:30 at night enjoying the warm but breezy night. My friend Jamie also brought his fire staff and so we played with that for a good hour. Something about twirling a stick on fire that really makes you feel man-ly. Because the weather was so awesome we went back the next day and did hanami all over again. The forecast was calling for rain but it seemed like a nice day. Due to the mistaken weather forecast the river side was a lot emptier than the previous day. There was so much space that went to a sporting goods store and bought a football. We tossed it around and for that short amount of time it seemed for American in Japan. I guess all we needed to do was through the pigskin around.

School finally started. I guess from a JET’s point of view it’s a good thing because you finally get to do something that doesn’t really cost a lot of money. So anyway I finally got to see the junior high kids. They seem alright, already establishing themselves into their relative cliques and totally alienating the underclassman. Ahh to be so young and carefree again.

Actually there is something I wanted to talk about. Adolescence, what a horrible time in ones life. A friend pointed out to me that the adolescence has got to be the worst time in a kid’s life. Your body going through all the changes and everyone looks different. A teacher might wonder why the junior high kids are the worst behaviorally wise. It’s the damn hormones that make life unbearable. Let’s take boys for example. First of all no matter how tall you are as a boy, in adolescence, you’re only as tall as maybe 30% of the girls around you. Then your voice does freaky things, your arms seem to get longer and longer everyday, your face erupts with infected pores, and on top of all that you noticed that that the girls around you actually look nice and make you feel “funny.” So here’s what my junior high did to the incoming 7th grade boys.

First they made them wear uniforms. I guess one could say that its not bad but then sometimes your measurements are not as proportionate as it should be. A boy might come in with extra long sleeves and high water pants. Then they have the third year girls give them a name tag to be pinned on their lapel. Third year girls here are notorious for having a skirt that should only be worn by strippers let alone 9th graders. The third year girls if not academic or athletic, are most likely in slutty attire. This would give any number of 7th grade boys that funny feeling. Being a part of the staff I needed to greet anyone that came through the doors on opening day, I saw their faces go red with embarrassment, humility, and maybe even a look of terrified urgency., Poor boys…

Aside all this I was also “werided” out by the most creepiest camera guy one could of hired. He was a homeless looking man that wore clothes that didn’t match at all, his hair was grey and tied into a bun, he had a witch like pointy chin with stray grey whiskers sticking out, and to top it off he was very friendly. He liked the girls, in uniform, skirts hiked up, and faces painted. He made it a point to shake every girl that went pass the main entrance. I guess it would not have been so obvious if only took the time to acknowledge anyone else walking by.

That’s pretty much it for now. I’ll try to do a better job in updating. I’ll be at school more often so expect more updates.