竹馬. . .bamboo horse

this summer at dance cream (my main dance studio) i tried to learn how to use 竹馬 (kind of japanese stilts made of bamboo – hence 竹~bamboo and 馬~horse). . . anyway. . . i failed to succeed. . . both of the little kids (sakura’s sister who is a first grader in elementary school and another dancer’s daughter who is a third grader) can hobble around the studio on them. . . many of the adults can even do low arabesques and work their way up to a slow jog. . . i eventually managed to stand for two seconds and a few times succeeded in taking one and a half steps before falling off. . .i just can’t seem to make the same arm work with the same leg. . .

earlier this month, i attended the nursery school 運動会 (sports festival) to discover that my problem may not be due purely to lack of coordination. . . maybe more a lack of training from the time i was in diapers. . . see for yourself. . . my kids are the coolest. . .

this is what i call the pre-takeuma stage. . . the three year olds start on these little can like things, as you can see. . .

these are the five year olds. . . they can go a full 50 meters or so on those things. . . and, as you can see, some of them are set at a level as high as the kids themselves. . . すごいですよ！

just for fun. . .

around may or june the old gymnasium was torn down in order to build a new, earthquake safe elementary school . . . which naturally makes me feel safe to be teaching in the old one ;)

anyway, the construction guys have pretty much taken over the parking area in front of my place . . .the dormitory i live in is literally right next to the elementary school. . . as in i have to make all my curtains are closed when i’m getting ready in the mornings. . .

today was one of the rare days that i was able to go home to eat lunch and relax a few minutes away from students (and away from soji). . . as i left to return to work, this is what i found. . .

i found it amusing to see all the construction workers sprawled out on the parking lot and in their trucks. . . there were at least six or seven more of them, but this was the only picture i could risk without fear of being caught. おもしろいね.

quirks

japan is an odd place sometimes. . . they believe strongly in this appearance over reality concept. . . this leads to me sitting at work for hours or days at a time having to appear busy even though i really have nothing to do . . .

although i personally am not having problems with the appearance vs. reality thing at the moment (teaching at seven schools and dancing every night keep me busy enough), but i just left the junior high school where a staff meeting was in progress (i am so grateful that i am one of the alts that gets out of those things). . . most of the teachers are sleeping, making midterm tests, or grading papers. . . no one actually listens to a word being said. . . why bother talking if no one is going to listen? the training starts early on (as i mentioned in the blog about my over-worked students). . .

more quirks in the system. . .i recently had the choice of staying at work for an extra hour and a half to eat school lunch. . . or returning to my office early and grabbing my own lunch along the way. . . apparently my decision to cancel one day of school lunch caused my supervisor an extra hour of work. . . he had to call to cancel the lunch, make a second call to cancel the charges to my account, and was apparently rather distressed with the fact that my one little bottle of milk could not be cancelled. . . i.e. i will be charged possibly thirty cents for a bottle that someone else will probably drink anyway. . .

that’s all i have time for at the moment. . . still so much more to say. . .and so many pictures i need to post! for now, here is one of a fisherman at the beach last saturday (no, i don't actually know who he is). . .

小さいブログ. . .ゴメンね！

i know, i know. . . it's time for me to write a real blog reporting on all my amazing experiences in japan. . . and although it is my now my second year here (and i therefore have a much better understanding of my surroundings and the events taking place), i do still have exciting new experiences to report. . . the problem is in the fact that i have no time to report them . . .

i suppose the place to start is dance. . . as i believe you know, i will be dancing as part of the guest team at yosakoi in osaka this november (my birthday weekend to be exact). . . if you can read japanese, here's the info (dance cream is the name of the studio i dance at) . . .
http://sasso-japan.org/expo-vol2.html
http://park.expo70.or.jp/facil/facil_04.html#yosakoi
i'm not really clear on all the details. . . all i know is that we have numerous street performances and a couple of stage performances. . . i think we only dance on saturday (the 18th). . . we are leaving kochi around midnight on friday night. . . taking a bus to osaka (3+hours?) . . . and then dancing all day staturday. . . i believe relaxing a bit/ sightseeing on sunday. . . and returning. . . while i am obviously extremely excited, i am also getting pretty stressed out. . . as the only person on the team who has never participated in yosakoi, i have no idea how to use narko or maneuver my happi or scream random words in japanese (it's like trying to learning things like woohoo in english. . . よちょれ　and わしょい are not particularly useful for daily communication). . . aside from those challenges, my teacher put me in all four of the dances both in the street version (which everyone does) as well as on stage. . . since we started learning the first dance in june or july, two of the dances have been pretty well drilled into my body (including the chants and narko and happi). . . a third dance is coming along (although we spend very little time on it in rehearsals. . . as in running it once maybe every week? if that). . . the fourth, however, is my biggest source of stress. . . apparently my teacher has decided not to actually teach it to me. . .i finally asked him for a video of it (but have no time to watch the video). . . we NEVER practice it in rehearsal. . . i have no idea how he expects me to be in this dance. . . learning combinations is my biggest weakness in dance. . . so, yeah, that should be interesting. . .

okay, i know that's just a start, but i really need to go home and go to bed now. . .

out of curiosity, who still checks my blog? is it down to just my mother? i know i've been neglecting my readers lately. . . sorry about that! i have so much to say. . . it's getting harder and harder to know where to start. . . anyway. . . hopefully more to come in the NEAR future. . . for now. . .おやすみなさい！





"well, art is art, isn't it? still, on the other hand, water is water. and east is east and west is west and if you take cranberries and stew them like applesauce they taste much more like prunes than rhubarb does. now you tell me what you know." ~ groucho marx




"every child is an artist. the problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up." ~ pablo picasso

overworked

**tired staff costing japan $30bn**
a survey suggests tired workers are now costing the japanese economy $30bn a year in lost productivity.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/fr/-/2/hi/business/5063670.stm

having worked in japan for a year, this article is not at all surprising. . . although i have to disagree with the guy who said it’s a “global problem”. . . i know that work hours have become ridiculous in many parts of the world, but i swear it’s not the same as japan. . . especially at a young age. . .

most recently, my junior high students have been falling asleep in class. . . not just drowsy, daydream sleeps but really deep sleeps. . . it’s really frustrating. . . when i first came to japan, i would get kind of angry. . . after working so hard to make these materials or plan this lesson, the students are just going to ignore us? and why don’t the teachers do something about it? . . . but after a year, you begin to see just what is expected of the students . . .and begin to feel sorry for them instead. . .

many of my students start their day around 5:30 or 6:00a.m. . . . some ride their bikes over 10km from their houses in the mountains to school. . . others take public transportation transferring from bus to train to bicycle. . . others are lucky enough to live in town . . . and a few (very few) are lucky enough to have parents who drive them to school. . . (this one rather chubby boy in the junior high school always conveniently ‘forgets’ his bicycle. . . don’t know how anyone can forget a bicycle, but that’s how it was described to me. . . so he calls his dad to pick him up every day. . .pretty funny kid). . .

anyway, at certain times of the year (late spring through fall), the sports clubs meet for practice at 7:00a.m. . . .classes start at 8:25 and run until 3:00 or 4:00. . . classes are sometimes followed by committee meetings (e.g. library, student council). . . or they may be followed by practice for extra-curricular activities outside of club (e.g. swim team, track and field, undokai/ sports day, kanji or english proficiency tests). . . finally, following all of this, the students attend their real clubs (english, art, soccer, volleyball, kendo, etc.). . . at the latest, i believe the students are supposed to leave school around 7:00or 7:30. . .

while that concludes the daily life of a junior high school student at school, their days are far from over . . . what do they do after school? some of my students take piano lessons. . . everyone has their school homework. . . and finally, most of them attend juku (cram schools). . . some begin attending in elementary school, and almost all students attend by their third year of junior high because they have to prepare for their high school entrance exams . . . at juku they study all of their main subjects (again) in smaller groups or private lessons (with teachers outside of the school system). . . correct me if i’m wrong since i’ve never actually attended a juku class. . .when i was asking about my students' plans for christmas day last year, one girl replied, ‘i have to go to juku. . . all day’. . . granted christmas is not a widely celebrated holiday in japan. . . but it was even on a weekend last year. . .

which reminds me, the students also have to attend club activities on saturday and sunday (every weekend, all year). . . as well as all through the summer. . .

so. . .what would you do in a classroom with a schedule like that (not to mention the whole no air conditioner issue with temperatures around 30degrees celsius). . . i would most definitely sleep. . . or drink tons of caffeine (which is not permitted at school anyway). . .

on top of all that, there are perfectionists or overachievers. . . one day at sports day practice i noticed a huge red, cross shaped scab down one girl’s forearm. . . when i asked her what happened, she seemed surprised and said, ‘you’ve never seen it before? we do it when we have stress’. . . she had scratched it into her own arm. . . i am no longer surprised to see junior high students developing grey hair. . . or hear stories about high school students whose hair is falling out. . . it’s so sad. . .

finally, here is a poem one of my english club girls wrote the other day. . .

study
let's start
sleep, sleep, sleep
it's already morning
cry

by kanako


to end on a happy note, here is a poem by another girl . . .

cows
clear eyes
catching, roasting, eating
how poor they are
delicious

by natsumi

thunder stealing

note from my boss concerning the day's thunderstorms. . .

there is a japanese old tale to be careful not to have a navel stolen when thunder sounds. please be careful.

brief update. . . more later. . .

i have been insanely bored at work since my return from korea almost two weeks ago (yes, i plan to post a blog about that in the near future. . . just haven't been in much of a blog-writing mood). . . anyway. . . random stuff. . .

i've been here (in japan. . .kahoku) for over a year now, and these messages from my supervisor still crack me up. . .

it is cut off a dormitory from 1:00p.m. of august 30 to 5:00p.m. please be careful about the contents of a refrigerator. ice cream melts.

translation, i will not have electricity for four hours next wednesday. . . the part i love is that my supervisor still types his messages into the online yahoo translator (which comes up with translations like the one above) and prints them out on little half pieces of paper. . . and then stands next to my desk as i attempt to translate it into real english. . . i also love that he always includes the oh so caring details like. . . "ice cream melts" . . .

in other news, i recently paid for my shakken (car inspection) and next year’s insurance. . . the guy came to pick up the money (really nice guy and he did give me a slight discount on everything but still). . . i just glared at him the entire time i was handing over the money. . . it makes it worse that they do everything in cash here. . . i had to stand there and count out all 148,000 yen. . . and i was doing so well saving my money. . . :(

hmmm. . .it's 3:10 and my iced coffee and two little pieces of chocolate have not yet arrived at my desk. . . not sure where the office lady responsible for that went (yes, it is always a lady. . .). . . anyway, i feel a bit lost without my 3:00 snack time. . . kind of like a kindergartner entering the realities of first grade. . . is that when you lose nap time??

oh, found this in the news the other day. . . always nice to see my home state in the news. . . a little piece of kansas culture to share with my community in japan. . .

** u.s. police chase naked man **
a burglary suspect in kansas tried to evade capture by jumping in a river and taking his clothes off.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediaselector/check/nolavconsole/ifs_news/hi?redirect=st.stm&news=1&bbram=1&bbwm=1&nbram=1&nbwm=1&nol_storyid=4797803