Wednesday, Mar 17

IN A NUTSHELL: Why I Will Never Be A Receptionist

I Hate Answering The Phone... ...Especially when I know that I cannot help the person on the other end. So, all the staff left again for a meeting (a "short one" they promised) and, again, I had the strange dual event of the principal double-checking that I'd answer the phone and Moriguchi picking up the cordless and taking it with her. Two minutes later, the phone rang. I always glare at it for a few rings, thinking: 'So, is anyone else going to get it? Anyone? Going once? Fine!' before picking it up, but I eventually picked it up. Then, while I was on the phone, line 2 started ringing. The call was short, so after it was done, I picked up line 2. About three seconds later, line 1 started ringing again. Then, no joke, two minutes later, the short meeting was over and everyone came back. I'm like, for the love of god, why did those three people decide to call the FIVE minutes no one was in the room!?!? One call was from Maruyama, which was no big deal. One was from Funo and they said they'd call back. The third was from a very strange lady who was almost whispering secretively. She seemed embarrassed for me that I couldn't say o-sewa-ni-narimasu correctly (I think it came out 'osewanimasu' since I was mumbling being not exactly sure what it means, only that I hear it every time someone is on the phone) and seemed so confused until I explained that I'm the English teacher and my Japanese is not good. I think she said she'd call back. I told Moriguchi. And I asked, as she hung up the cordless, "is that phone not related to the actual phone, because I got three calls" and she said, "It didn't ring. That's taihen (tough)" Yeah, taihen. What kind of stupid cordless doesn't reach into the next room? And, really, I'm an actual (sort of actual) teacher, shouldn't I be going to the meetings while the secretary stays to answer the phone? Really, I don't get it. I only embarrass myself, the school, and can't even help the person who is calling, even if I am fortunate enough to understand what they are asking. I think having me answer the phone was a nicely intentioned, but stupid idea. It stresses me out. I don't even like talking to strangers on the phone in English, let alone in Japanese. It's a hopeless cause. I think they should just get voice mail.

Other Stuff In good news, I got more packages! Yay! At eikaiwa, I found out that the autumn bugs (which is only what I call them) are actually year-round bugs. They could not explain to me, though, why the first time I ever saw one was in November. I returned Yuji's journal to him. Indeed, he had written his sad story of unrequited love. It read like a drama, except for the grammar mistakes. Poor guy (though he really has fantastic English.) In today's activity, I introduced them to the phrase "Yeah, right." and talked a little about sarcasm. Someone told me that Japanese doesn't have sarcasm, but what I've seen has led me to believe otherwise. In general, my impression is that Japanese humor really is not very different from American humor. It was the final eikaiwa (maybe ever? though I made everyone promise to come to one in April so we can practice for the karaoke competition) so I gave everyone a present of a CD full of songs in English and English lyrics. Maruyama-san thought everyone should pay something to make up the cost of the CDs and I tried to tell her that blank CDs are cheap. Anyway, I hope they practice (and I hope the other eikaiwa leaders don't kill me for letting them do a Carpenters song.)

Thursday, Mar 18

IN A NUTSHELL: Moving Boxes

Trash Day I was running late this morning so I decided to wait until next week to take out my trash. I know my plastics are going to pile up, but I'm on a roll... I haven't been late to the morning meeting (that I'm still not actually sure I need to attend) in weeks. I'm just glad my regular trash comes twice a week and plastics once a week - it's better than some other towns!

Boxes The principal tried to rope me into 'guarding the staff room' (entailing answering the phone, no doubt) while everyone else did something, but I was like, 'No, I'll help' and he was fine with that. So I went upstairs and helped everyone - students and teachers - carry down a whole bunch of outdated computer equipment from the 3rd floor. They then carried it over to this empty building across the street (in other words: moved the mess?) Inoue-sensei told me that they were getting new computer equipment. This is the second bit of evidence I've had that maybe Sakugi is not losing money after all like I assumed would happen after the Merge. Maybe it is not such a bad thing? I will find out, I suppose.

Impressions! Oddly, I had just been thinking that it would be funny to watch the Japanese do impressions, and suddenly, there it was! This show was a mock Kohaku (music competition) where everyone either pretended to be a famous band, or just another personality. Lucky for me, they showed WHO they were impersonating on the side. It was very amusing. I wish I had known more of the personalities, though.

Friday, Mar 19

IN A NUTSHELL: High School For A Day

Field Trip For Melf! I had no classes today (since Tomomi had an appointment and would not be in) and so accepted an invitation to go to Shobara and judge a 'music competition.' I was a good person and actually came to work in the morning, though I probably could have gotten away with sleeping in a bit, then left shortly before 9 and drove to Shobara, which is another twenty minutes past Miyoshi. It was a gorgeous day outside and a lovely drive. I had no trouble finding the school (even if the entrance to the parking lot was in a construction zone.) I felt a little weird since the school was huge and I had no idea where I was supposed to meet Helen (the local ALT.) I knocked on the reception window a few times, but no one saw me. I wandered around a bit. I came back and saw that another person had opened the reception window to get their attention, so I did that. The person inside first said he didn't know what I was talking about, then he led me right to the gym where the organizers were waiting. Shortly after, I saw Helen and the other two ALTs who had agreed to come judge.

Ooh, I'm a Judge and Stuff After sipping tea in the principal's office for awhile, we all went to the gym. We, the judges, had our own special judging table while the student participants (nearly 100) had to sit on the floor. Brr. We were given the song lyrics and a very complex judging sheet. The lyrics were original; all written by the students who either changed lyrics to an English song, translated a Japanese song, or wrote random English lyrics to a Japanese song. There were eight songs all together, at least two SMAP and one Carpenters, but I did not recognize any but the Earth Wind and Fire song at the end ("September"). After the necessary opening speech, we introduced ourselves (in normal-speed English) and I was surprised when I got a very enthusiastic "Hello!" back from the students. For some reason, I thought they'd be quieter, but they were very happy and excited.

Learning New Stuff I found out that they do not have a valedictorian in Japanese high schools. (I also found out they don't have them in British schools either since the English girl I asked had no clue what I was talking about.) Apparently, it is considered too competitive, despite that they have intensive entrance exams. I think it would be a good motivator, then again I know plenty of valedictorian arguments that break out in the States for no good reason, so this sidesteps all that. I wonder if they have an honor roll.

Way Too Cute The students had only a week to practice because of tests, so Helen was very worried they would mess up, but the worries were unfounded. They all did an amazing job, not only singing, but also doing synchronized movements along with the song. There were usually 15-20 people per group and all of them did something cute. One boy even dressed up in a huge wig and dress for the song "Ellie, my love" (which incidentally won at the end.) Usually, they swayed, or held up little signs in unison as they sang. Most groups did not use a CD and instead had a person playing the guitar or piano. One very funny group sang as they played the song over a keitai (mobile phone.) Anyway, I really enjoyed myself and, as usual, took my judging way too seriously, making overly elaborate notes. The people who counted the points had to wait for me.

Chocolate and Colorado As we waited for the points to be tallied, one group of boys kept looking in our direction with mischievous expressions. I wasn't sure what was going on there, but it did remind me that this is high school, not junior high. We gathered again in the principal's office and had coffee (and Easter chocolate from Helen who had given up chocolate for Lent. Wow, people with will power.) and chatted while they figured out how much they owed us for coming down. (We all said that we would do it for free, but they were very concerned with contacting all the right people and filing all the right paperwork and reimbursing us for travel expenses.) Helen's JTE is really neat and it turns out, she has visited Colorado about 5 times! I gave her my address in the states and invited her over :) I hope we can keep in touch! In fact, the only downside to the otherwise fun trip was that I didn't get lunch.

Saturday, Mar 20

IN A NUTSHELL: Shopping and Protests

Various Source of Irritation I actually was invited to a Super Bowl party of all things today, but I decided I had too much I wanted to do instead. (Not that I know who won or anything.) I went to Miyoshi bus station, planning to take the bus to Hiroshima, but the parking lot was full (note to self: after noon on Saturday is very crowded) so I decided to drive. I decided to REALLY spoil myself and take the freeway, except that I'm stupid and thought that the exit to downtown Hiroshima would, I don't know, be BIGGER than any other exit because, really, why else would you be on the freeway except to go to Hiroshima. But no, I missed it. I had to go to the next exit (Hiroshima-higashi, not to be confused with Higashi Hiroshima) and turn around and have a big truck honk at me in the process. When I finally made it, I found a construction zone. I eventually made it to the station (almost positive I passed Hotel New Hiroden on the way) so I could check out the parking situation for future reference. There is actual station parking, though I have no idea of its reliability. I want to park there when I pick up my parents in June. After that, I went back downtown and parked in a tower. As I walked out, the zipper on my backpack broke. Now, I know my backpack has been going for awhile, but that was sure interesting timing. I was able to use the other zipper for the time being, but I thought it would break any second.

New Toys After getting my passport and stuff sorted, I went Shopping with a capital 'S' and bought all sorts of nifty stuff, the most expensive and fun being an electronic kanji dictionary! My favorite feature of my new Canon Wordtank G50: it DRAWS out kanji for you. I'll never have to worry about stroke order again! The cheapest, but second coolest thing I bought, was a color movie booklet from the movie Clue when it was released here! That has to be 15 years old. It will be some fun Japanese to practice translating. One of my disappointments today was that I apparently missed Master and Commander entirely. It was no longer playing at downtown cinemas (though I found out later it is still playing at a few outer ones.) I also realized my 'trying on men's XL' trick only worked for sweats. The jeans I tried on didn't fit at all (really, you'd think they'd need MORE space down there, not less.)

No War I love protests in Japan. They are so peaceful and organized. The crowds stop for traffic and stand neatly on one side of the street so most legitimate shoppers aren't bothered. I knew it was happening today (since JETs were invited to participate) but I didn't think they would be marching outside of the Peace Park. I was surprised that I didn't see more foreigners, though I did recognize at least one. Lots of signs, a few spurts of chanting. All in all, a nice protest.

Peter Pan My last shopping stop was Peter Pan, a store I kept hearing about over and over, but only now actually found (because it is waaay on one end of Hondoori, the big pedestrian shopping street downtown.) It did pretty well living up to its reputation for having all sorts of overseas sweets, though ironically, the one brand of foreign peanut butter they carried was not Peter Pan, but Skippy. They had something that was almost, but not quite, nutella. Unfortunately, no Easter candy, though I did not really expect any. The best thing about it: Way cheapo backpacks! Nice! And good timing! I did resist the various brands of chocolate, but not the chips and salsa.

No More West Wing My nachos for dinner were only a partial success because I realized I had bought taco sauce instead of salsa, which is not bad, just not chunky. I used my microwave 'oven' setting to get the cheese nice and melted but some jalapenos and chunky tomatoes would have made it better (or even better, some marinara sauce for Old Chicago Italian-style nachos. Excuse me while I drool.) Anyway, when I remember to stay up until 11pm on Saturdays and don't get distracted enough to forget to actually turn on the TV at 11, I watch West Wing. The finale (season 2?) was tonight and sadly, they were not continuing the series, but starting up with a new drama next week. No more of my 'what I wish the White House really was' fix.

Sunday, Mar 21

Monday, Mar 22

IN A NUTSHELL: Exchange Rate Drama

Fire Alarm I walked into work this morning and right as I reached my desk, an alarm went off next to my ear. I recognized it as a fire alarm, though after the alarm, a woman started talking. Her voice came out of the speaker conveniently placed on the wall next to my desk. I did not catch enough to understand what was going on, but nobody appeared to be evacuating, so I didn't either. The message said it was coming from the town hall but minutes later, I saw a fire truck speeding toward the town hall building. Really, you don't need to tell US you're on fire, you need to get out of the building. I saw no smoke, though, and it has been pouring down freezing rain all morning, so I can't imagine it is bad. There were a couple more announcements, but that was it. I wonder what that was all about.

Let Us Stand And Welcome This Monday For absolutely no reason that I could discern, the entire staff STOOD for the morning meeting. Lucky for me, I was still standing (kind of waiting for word on what to do about the fire alarm) but then everyone else stood, too. And we remained standing. There were no guests. Today is not the last day of classes. What's the deal?

Picture! Misawa-sensei was cool and made sure I got a staff picture (taken the day of 9th grade graduation.) It cost 700 yen, but it was a pretty nice picture. They chose a shot where I was wearing my 'serious-expression'. I'm getting that expression down.

Evil Stuff? The kids apparently have even MORE tests this week (sheesh, we've only had a class or two since the last test! They haven't learned anything new!) but there will be another class afterwards so they have the time to write letters to some students from my school back in the States. I was going to send some money home but the exchange rate is fluctuating strangely. It was really low this morning then totally jumped this afternoon (when I wanted to go to the post office) and now it is dropping again. Man. Remind me never to be a stock broker. I couldn't deal with the stress.

Tuesday, Mar 23