japan is really quite a funny place. . .
today is a snow day . . . despite the fact that, in town, the snow never stuck to the road and has now melted off every other surface. . . guess the students who live in the mountains are like the students in highland, kansas stuck out on the gravel roads. . .anyway, as always, i still have to show up at work for my eight hours and pretend to be busy. . . you can only study japanese for so long. . . i'm trying to plan a trip for spring break. . . maybe one for golden week as well. . .aside from that, i just stare at my co-workers blankly (and now at this random guy that is sorting papers faster than any machine could do. . . really, it's quite intriguing). . .
three of my friends sent me text messages last night, telling me that today was going to be cold and that i should wear lots of clothes so i don't get sick again. . . for once, i listened to them. . . i have on a tank top, a fleece turtleneck, a nice warm jacket, topped by another fleece jacket, and finally my trusty clv rain jacket (because the snow often turns into rain by the afternoon). . . oh, and of course my stylish leg warmers! . . .unfortunately, school was cancelled. . . i.e. i actually get to spend the entire day in a heated office. . . all but the tank top and fleece turtleneck were promptly removed when i arrived at work. . .
last week, another alt was being proactive and wore so many layers to school that she cut off the circulation in her toes and got frostbite. . . most people get frostbite on their way to school or playing in the snow after school, but in japan, alts evidently get frostbite teaching in school. . . crazy place. . .
whoa!!! that guy that i mentioned is almost finished sorting his papers. . . in the five or so minutes it took me to type one blog, he sorted over one thousand pieces of paper. . . talk about efficiency. . .
Thursday, February 09, 2006
Friday, February 03, 2006
せつぶん
today is せつぶん (setsubun). . . a little celebration where everyone throws まめ (beans) outside while shouting “おにはそと” (“devil get out”) . . . i was trying to post a little video clip of the two year olds at the nursery school crying as the “devils” (two of the comedians who work in the board of education) came after them. . .most of the five year olds were pretty excited to nail the devils with their basket of beans. . .
Wednesday, February 01, 2006
wake up, teach, dance, sleep. . . repeat
i know it has been ages since i have updated this blog. . . my most sincere apologies to all of you who are persistent enough to check this thing daily (if you only check once a year, you are in luck). . .anyway, i obviously have a lot to report and a lot i will forget to report. . . here it goes. . .
guess i will have to start with the most current topics because i am on a bit of a high at the moment. . .
i just finished teaching at the nursery school where the one and two year olds decided to join my class of three to five year olds again today. . . so cute!!! last week, i read a book called "where's the fish," which really is that simple. . . "where's fishy? [turn page] there's fishy! [repeat ten times]". . . and yet is the most brilliant book! they all own it in japanese and got really worked up to see an english version that they could read along with. . . afterwards we played hide and seek with this little brown bear that i bought at the dollar store that they are in love with! this week, we played hot/cold (but used "happy/sad") to continue with our "where's the bear?" theme. . . they were so excited that they begged me (in tosaben . . . the local dialect) to play again next week. . . in reality, this is a fairly normal wednesday for me, but. . . today is a nasty, dull, rainy day. . . the kind that makes you drag yourself out of bed and through breakfast and then the first hour of work sitting at a desk, falling asleep. . . all of a sudden, you walk into a room of bouncing japanese kids screaming "good morning エリン先生!" and singing "hello teacher" and "wheels on the bus" and making cute faces with the new complex :) vocabulary of "happy" and "sad". . . it really spices up the day. . .
i've also been on another high since monday at about 10:30p.m. when i discovered that a contemporary dance company called Noism is doing a workshop in kochi at the end of the month!!! i am registered for all four days, which means that i get to be in a mini-concert on the last day of the workshop. . . while i have never actually seen the company, i have seen pictures and read a bit about them. . . it should be absolutely amazing!! one of my dance teachers said that they were the "only professional contemporary dance company in japan". . . the artistic director, jo kanamori, danced with several european companies (nederlands dans theater, l'opera national de lyon ballet, the gothenburg ballet, etc.) but decided he wanted more opportunities to choreograph. . . so he returned to japan and started Noism. . .between the pictures and the bios of the dancers and artistic director and praise from other dancers in kochi, i have gotten pretty wound up about the opportunity! . . .oh, one of the company members is originally from kochi. . . which i am guessing is the connection to rural japan :) . . .if you want more information. . .
Noism: http://www.ryutopia.or.jp/noism/top.html
jo kanamori: http://www.jokanamori.com/
interview with jo kanamori http://www.performingarts.jp/E/art_interview/0411/1.html
okay. . . those are my highs. . . time to backtrack a bit. . . excuses for not updating my blog. . . ;)
i was sick for the entire first week back to school in the new year but managed to go to my junior high school's staff new year's party on friday and eat whale nabe. . . in america, i believe it would be frowned upon to attend a party after missing work for a week (and still having a bit of a fever). . . somehow that rule doesn't transfer to kochi, japan (i say kochi specifically because they are big on the parties). . .
the second week back to school consisted of a jet conference. . . in my opinion, boring and for the most part pointless. . . except for the closing speaker on friday, whose lecture gave me some great ideas for my adult class. . . but he had something against linguists. . . thought they were rather dull. . . odd for an english teacher whose lecture contained a million references to linguistics :) . . . anyway, i don't particularly enjoy spending three days with loud foreigners who only care about the drinking parties that follow and then show up hungover to all the seminars. . .i missed my students . . . and i missed dance!!! . . .
i finally returned to dance last week (after a month off. . .ugh!!!!) and have been getting back into my normal schedule. . .wake up, teach, dance, sleep. . . if you ever need to know my schedule, that's it. . . almost everyday. . . a few things in between. . . maybe shopping, eating, going to dance or music concerts, visiting one of my few friends outside the world of school and dance. . . but really just teaching and dancing. . . it's a good life. . . it's nice to know that you can, in fact, get paid to live your dream life. :)
oh! i have finally started learning how to cook real meals! i cook maybe once a week and then the other teacher in the dorm cooks once a week. . . we are both single and not fans of cooking, but this way he gets to introduce me to japanese meals and i get to introduce him to somewhat american meals. . . my mom and grandparents sent some great stuff to help in this area (mac&cheese, soup mixes. . . all the great packaged stuff with instructions such as "add one cup of water, boil, serves 4"). . . i do introduce him to other more sophisticated (?) foods as well. . . but my favorites are still soups and salads. . . oh! he really enjoyed playing with jello :) . . .
what else can i share??? i have a nice long story involving a ninety year old japanese doctor who did not speak english and me with a fever of almost 104F and limited illness related japanese and literally five trips to the doctor in two days. . .
i also have a story about making sugar cookies with my jr high school english club using an american recipe (i.e. cups, teaspoons, tablespoons, degrees fahrenheit. . . none of which are used in japan) and searching ten stores to find cream of tartar. . . p.s. gma, your recipe was delicious even with the conversion confusions. . .
there is also the story of me waking up at 3a.m. (and thereby waking my neighbor up) to the town siren, which i swore was an atomic bomb alert but turned out to be kahoku's way of notifying the entire city of a fire somewhere in the city limits (which is quite an area with all the mountains). . . seriously, this scared me to death. . . my neighbor thought i was crazy :) . . .
anyway, it's lunchtime now. . . then dance. . . maybe two classes tonight? . . . finally sleep. . .
more quality inventions from this part of the world. . . :)
before the jet programme and any thoughts of working in japan, i promised to buy one of these if i ever made it to tokyo (or japan in general). . . now where to find one???
guess i will have to start with the most current topics because i am on a bit of a high at the moment. . .
i just finished teaching at the nursery school where the one and two year olds decided to join my class of three to five year olds again today. . . so cute!!! last week, i read a book called "where's the fish," which really is that simple. . . "where's fishy? [turn page] there's fishy! [repeat ten times]". . . and yet is the most brilliant book! they all own it in japanese and got really worked up to see an english version that they could read along with. . . afterwards we played hide and seek with this little brown bear that i bought at the dollar store that they are in love with! this week, we played hot/cold (but used "happy/sad") to continue with our "where's the bear?" theme. . . they were so excited that they begged me (in tosaben . . . the local dialect) to play again next week. . . in reality, this is a fairly normal wednesday for me, but. . . today is a nasty, dull, rainy day. . . the kind that makes you drag yourself out of bed and through breakfast and then the first hour of work sitting at a desk, falling asleep. . . all of a sudden, you walk into a room of bouncing japanese kids screaming "good morning エリン先生!" and singing "hello teacher" and "wheels on the bus" and making cute faces with the new complex :) vocabulary of "happy" and "sad". . . it really spices up the day. . .
i've also been on another high since monday at about 10:30p.m. when i discovered that a contemporary dance company called Noism is doing a workshop in kochi at the end of the month!!! i am registered for all four days, which means that i get to be in a mini-concert on the last day of the workshop. . . while i have never actually seen the company, i have seen pictures and read a bit about them. . . it should be absolutely amazing!! one of my dance teachers said that they were the "only professional contemporary dance company in japan". . . the artistic director, jo kanamori, danced with several european companies (nederlands dans theater, l'opera national de lyon ballet, the gothenburg ballet, etc.) but decided he wanted more opportunities to choreograph. . . so he returned to japan and started Noism. . .between the pictures and the bios of the dancers and artistic director and praise from other dancers in kochi, i have gotten pretty wound up about the opportunity! . . .oh, one of the company members is originally from kochi. . . which i am guessing is the connection to rural japan :) . . .if you want more information. . .
Noism: http://www.ryutopia.or.jp/noism/top.html
jo kanamori: http://www.jokanamori.com/
interview with jo kanamori http://www.performingarts.jp/E/art_interview/0411/1.html
okay. . . those are my highs. . . time to backtrack a bit. . . excuses for not updating my blog. . . ;)
i was sick for the entire first week back to school in the new year but managed to go to my junior high school's staff new year's party on friday and eat whale nabe. . . in america, i believe it would be frowned upon to attend a party after missing work for a week (and still having a bit of a fever). . . somehow that rule doesn't transfer to kochi, japan (i say kochi specifically because they are big on the parties). . .
the second week back to school consisted of a jet conference. . . in my opinion, boring and for the most part pointless. . . except for the closing speaker on friday, whose lecture gave me some great ideas for my adult class. . . but he had something against linguists. . . thought they were rather dull. . . odd for an english teacher whose lecture contained a million references to linguistics :) . . . anyway, i don't particularly enjoy spending three days with loud foreigners who only care about the drinking parties that follow and then show up hungover to all the seminars. . .i missed my students . . . and i missed dance!!! . . .
i finally returned to dance last week (after a month off. . .ugh!!!!) and have been getting back into my normal schedule. . .wake up, teach, dance, sleep. . . if you ever need to know my schedule, that's it. . . almost everyday. . . a few things in between. . . maybe shopping, eating, going to dance or music concerts, visiting one of my few friends outside the world of school and dance. . . but really just teaching and dancing. . . it's a good life. . . it's nice to know that you can, in fact, get paid to live your dream life. :)
oh! i have finally started learning how to cook real meals! i cook maybe once a week and then the other teacher in the dorm cooks once a week. . . we are both single and not fans of cooking, but this way he gets to introduce me to japanese meals and i get to introduce him to somewhat american meals. . . my mom and grandparents sent some great stuff to help in this area (mac&cheese, soup mixes. . . all the great packaged stuff with instructions such as "add one cup of water, boil, serves 4"). . . i do introduce him to other more sophisticated (?) foods as well. . . but my favorites are still soups and salads. . . oh! he really enjoyed playing with jello :) . . .
what else can i share??? i have a nice long story involving a ninety year old japanese doctor who did not speak english and me with a fever of almost 104F and limited illness related japanese and literally five trips to the doctor in two days. . .
i also have a story about making sugar cookies with my jr high school english club using an american recipe (i.e. cups, teaspoons, tablespoons, degrees fahrenheit. . . none of which are used in japan) and searching ten stores to find cream of tartar. . . p.s. gma, your recipe was delicious even with the conversion confusions. . .
there is also the story of me waking up at 3a.m. (and thereby waking my neighbor up) to the town siren, which i swore was an atomic bomb alert but turned out to be kahoku's way of notifying the entire city of a fire somewhere in the city limits (which is quite an area with all the mountains). . . seriously, this scared me to death. . . my neighbor thought i was crazy :) . . .
anyway, it's lunchtime now. . . then dance. . . maybe two classes tonight? . . . finally sleep. . .
more quality inventions from this part of the world. . . :)
before the jet programme and any thoughts of working in japan, i promised to buy one of these if i ever made it to tokyo (or japan in general). . . now where to find one???
finally for those of you who hate a cold seat in the winter. . . japan forges US toilet revolution
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