Speech
Yep, I gave my speech today in front of the entire student body today. It was probably only 2 minutes or so, but it was pretty tough. The principal introduced me and said some stuff that I ended up saying in my speech. You know, that I`m from the U.S. and grew up in Montana. So, I just basically repeated it. It`s not as though I could really improvise in that type of situation. I had a really bad American accent, but the teachers said that I did a good job. Don`t they have to say that?
The kids were all sitting on the gym floor (no bleachers). I thought that they were just sitting randomly about until I got on stage to do my speech. I then realized that they were in rows. They arranged themselves that way. Wierd. Also, at my school, it`s not mandatory to wear a uniform. This is very unusal in Japan. But, 99% of the students were a uniform anyway. I guess that most of them are upper middle class too, so you would think that they would want to wear street clothes. Well, I guess that`s why I really don`t have to dress up too much either. Although, I did wear a suit today for the speech.
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Yesterday, I went to Suma beach for a party. The drinks were half off for gaijin, so we took advantage of this. I only had 2 chu-hi`s because it was Sunday and I had what seemed like a blowout JET weekend.
Saturday evening I ran into some of the same people that I ran into at Pure. I couldn`t take going clubbing another night in a row like some of them wanted to do. Instead, we just hung out. Everyone else got a flashing drink (ice cube flashes different colors) and we hung out by the river and watched the ferris wheel with neon lights. Pretty chill. Took the last train home. (Perhaps you`re noticing a theme.)
So, Sunday, I really couldn`t go wild. My body is screaming at me. I think some other people feel the same way. Suma was therefore mostly us sitting on the beach people watching. The Japanese people seemed really wierd. A lot of the men had bleached (sort of) blonde hair that looked like they came from an old Poison album cover. Just hideous. A lot of them were really dark, as though they had gone to a tanning booth or slathered the fake tan on thick.
The gaijin that we didn`t know were also wierd. I think it`s because when you`re a gaijin, you can do almost whatever the fuck you want and nobody`s going to say anything. Needless to say, the people watching was riveting.
I really did contemplate just sleeping in my hammock all day Sunday, but I thought I should go to the beach because who knows when my next chance will be.
Club Pure
Oh you know I went out last night. Club Pure, baby. All you can drink for 2000 yen for women, 3000 yen for men. You get a plastic glass (that sounds wierd, but it`s not like the cup you get at a kegger) and a band. Head in for a lot of drinking.
I think I got there around midnight and it was pretty quiet at first. I saw more JET`s there that I wasn`t planning on hanging out with. They actually went to Pure last weekend too for a JET`s birthday. They were ready for more.
Top shelf liquor. Strong drinks. I think really I had 3-4, which means I got my money`s worth. (Most drinks cost about 500 yen, even non-alcoholic beverages).
Basically, it had been previously reported that Pure is a gaijin bar and this is totally true. Even the staff speaks English mostly. The guy at the door was from Mexico.
Anyway, I had a lot of fun. I need to let everyone know that riding on the back of a bicycle on the rack can be a lot of fun, but it hurts in the morning. It`s also difficult to balance. You don`t really think about it being so tough to ride because all of these Japanese kids are going a million miles an hour with someone riding on the rack or standing on the pegs. Almost every time I ride on the rack, I get a bruise. Hmm. I`m just not Japanese enough.
Alright, I had fun. Gaijin can be fun, huh, who knew?
Ugg...
What can I say? I`m nervous about Monday. It`s the first day of class and I have to give a 5 minute speech in front of the entire school (about 850 people)in JAPANESE! Okay, I`m trying to not think about it too much. Also, I am working on lesson plans. Really, I only have one done. I`m getting a headache working on lesson #2 and the anxiety from the speech. Actually, pretty much everyday at work I`ve had a stress headache. I`ve pretty much just been thrown to the wolves.
I am an "Assistant Language Teacher," ALT for short. So, I am working with 7 Japanese teachers that teach English. There are 3 grades, basically the last three years of high school. The problem is that I don`t know how much Engish any of them know, what they`re already learned, and I really haven`t gotten much help from the other teachers. The trick is to teach them something new everytime and try to thread together a goal of making the lessons fit together into something comprehensible. If I had gone to school to learn how to teach, this might not be so bad, but I have no clue. In every class I have ever taken, we had a text book. Ha! That is not the case here! Good luck to me.
So, I`m on my lunch break trying to brainstorm what the hell else these kids can do in class to speak as much English as possible in lesson #2. BTW, the topic is hair. Hair styles, hair cuts. I`m going to teach them what a mullet is! American culture at its finest. WT style! Yeah baby!
Desk
I`ve been trying to concentrate on actually writing my speech (in Japanese, well romanji) or making a lesson plan. First, being OCD, I`ve been cleaning my desk. My predecessor left a big stack of unorganized handouts (lessons) in the drawers. There`s also a strange, black, sticky substance under the back rack on my desk. Yummy!!
So, here I am, blogging away while at work. Well, it is lunch time. Lunch was much better today than yesterday`s slimey veggie bento. Today, there was fried food, everyone`s favorite. Well, at least the school lunch is cheap--390 yen.
Yesterday, I finally paid my rent. They don`t have checking accounts here. The banks close at 3 pm, so I had to leave work early in order to have a banker help me pay my rent. Essentially, you go to the ATM and say that you are doing a transfer (my landlady banks at the same bank as I do). Many buttons and steps later, your rent is transferred. I had to use cash to put into the ATM, so it was not a direct transfer. It also cost 315 yen because I still don`t have a cash card, only a crappy pass book. (Not exactly cutting edge technology in this case.)
I guess I`ve procrastinated enough. I should either continue to clean my desk or write my Nihongo speech.
First Day of Work
Yeah, maybe most of you thought I have been actually working this entire time. Well, I`ve had a lot of meetings, seminars, orientations, and miscell. crap, but I really hadn`t been to my school that much.
Today, I actually made a lesson plan. Really, it took me most of the day. First of all, because I have no idea what level the students are at, I had to think about what I wanted to teach, and frankly, I felt like crap in general. I had a headache and some other problems, but such is life. Thankfully, Japanese people really aren`t productive. I know you probably think that they are, but that`s just a myth. It`s all about face time and seeming like you`re busy. Remind anyone of corportate America? Well, I think it might be worse.
Anyway, I think that my first actual class is next week. I have to prepare a 5 minute speech for next Monday that is going to be in front of the whole school--in Japanese.... Now, you know why I really joined Toastbastards. I mean Toastcocks. I mean Toastmasters. Whatever. You know what I`m talking about.
I went to lunch with 3 other teachers. We had the lunch special. Each of us had a (snapper?) fish head. You know, the fish head is really lucky in Japan? Of course it is. I guess that`s what working 2 years in the fish market prepared me for--the inevitable fish head meal. It wasn`t too bad. I wondered after lunch, what was sticking to the back of my teeth. Then it dawned on me, a fish scale! That`s all it could possibly be. And that`s exactly what it was. Hmm.
It might be bento boxes for me from now on. ;) Just kidding. I like bizarre food. Even natto. (Look it up. I`m paying for the freakin` internet right now. Geez.)
While I`m Still Here
I hate getting lost at Namba. It seems to happen too often. Namba is the second largest train station in Osaka, which makes it fucking huge. It has a four story underground shopping mall. Yes, four floors underneath all of the crazy shit at street level.
I get lost inside and out. The good news is that my broken Japanese can usually at least get me to the correct subway line. I managed to find the Cyber Cafe that I`m at now without too many problems.
BTW, Popeye`s Media Cafe has showers available. Massage chairs too. I guess that if you don`t make the last train, you can come and hang out here. You maybe be seeing future posts with me here, drunk, waiting for the first train home.
Future of Japanese Education
Yep, today I was helping the BOE (Board of Education) conduct interviews for Japanese people that want to become English teachers. The good news is that it was not for me to decide who is good enough. Apparently, it is quite difficult to become a teacher here. First, there are written exams. Then there are interviews, group discussions, and a reading portion. For these teachers, it was all in English. It was pretty rough on them. I guess this test is only conducted once a year. Whew! And they must pass all of the tests in order to qualify to become a teacher.
It was interesting to hear some of them talk about their ideas for teaching English. Of course, this is because I need to usurp their ideas for my own classroom. Many of the candidates had done homestays in the U.S. and Australia, so it was different to hear about those experiences as well.
I found one female applicants comment particularly interesting. She said that the other kids in school made fun of her because she had brown hair. Bizarre. Talk about MN`s duck, duck, gray duck. (Who knows about the first two ducks? What color are they?) Sucks to be different.
Well, most of the guys that were in my groups sucked at English. Plus, most of the applicants were women anyway. I don`t know what the deal is. In my school, it seems like most of the teachers are men.... Maybe it`s just that more women are interested in teaching English than men.
I hope that I did my job well. I would hate to think that they didn`t get hired because I`m not doing my job well. On the other hand, only about 1 in 10 or 1 in 15 people actually are good enough to become a teacher here. Those aren`t good odds.
Hair Cut
I`m not sure why, but I was actually nervous about getting a hair cut. It`s wierd that I was nervous about it because I got my hair cut in Japan before and I when I went to Paris, I got my hair colored and cut. But, I`ve been putting it off because I just haven`t really wanted to do it and I wasn`t sure what a good price is. I asked Momo, resident expert, as I saw a place near my apartment for 1900 yen. She said that`s a great deal, but to keep in mind that sometimes things such as a shampooing cost extra.
So, I went into the salon around 10 am, when they open. I mentioned that I didn`t have an appointment, but that was cool. The girl that cut my hair and I looked at some photos together as my vocabulary for a hair cut really is non-existent. None of the magazines had short hair cuts for women and then she showed me men`s hair cuts. Maybe that was a little too much for me, but the hilarious part about the men`s cuts was that so many of them looked like women to me. This goes back to a conversation that I had with another JET--it`s difficult to tell the men and women apart sometimes. It`s mostly because the men dress so effemminate and apparently they get hair cuts to match. I would also mention that the women are very flat chested here, so you wouldn`t necessarily judge by that either. Hmm.
Anyway, I think it turned out okay. It seems similar to other cuts I`ve had in the U.S. Right now, after it`s been cut and styled, I feel like a cross between a poodle and a mad scientist--that`s normal for me. I just need to wash it again, per usual.
Beer Vending Machine
Did I ever mention how dangerous this can be? I`m staying in a hotel near Kansai airport where it`s pretty plush--especially by Japanese standards. There`s a karaoke room, it smells like a petting zoo. Outside of the room, convenient no?, is the beer machine. 200 yen for a 500 ml beer--malt too if you like.
Originally, I was planning to buy my beer at the conbini near by, but it doesn`t sell liquor. So, fuck it, just go back to the hotel. 200 yen is quite a bargain, I just didn`t know how the price before I was out and about shopping. Plus, can you beat the convenience factor?
I don`t even know how many I had. We were singing karaoke, drinking, smoking (that`s why the room smells like ass), and being belligerent. It was great, until we had to get up for breakfast.
The conversation at the breakfast table (hey, the only reason I made it to breakfast is because we were forced to pay for it in advance) was something about who was the most drunk. I say that there is no way you can quantify such a thing. One guy had 6 beers--do the math and you`ll soon realize that it`s 3 liters. He looked super drunk last night. Someone else broke the toilet seat. Oops. Well, you get the drift.
Too convenient, too cheap, and we`re too stupid.
Umm. Beeeerrrrr.
The karaoke was fun too. Can you believe that it has 2 Live Crew`s song "We Want Some Pussy"? Interesting. The English on screen was incorrect often as well, or should I say Engrish? (Yeah, I love that they have dry creaning here.)
Now, time for lunch and then a nap.
Last Train
Well, the deal is that the last train runs at midnight every night. This means it`s pretty much all or nothing. I have to catch two trains home from the hottest hang out spots in Osaka. This means I`m leaving by 11:30 at the latest. Or I can go for broke and wait until 5 or 6 am. I mentioned this before, but it really puts a damper on the night unless you can survive that long in the clubs.
The good news is that pretty much every club serves food. I went to a club last night--pretty cheap, only 500 yen to get in and you get a drink--and they were frying up some pot-stickers. Last week, the club I went to was serving food too. Plus, I think most clubs are open until the trains start running again. I haven`t tested that one out, exactly.
So most people I know have been going for broke. I think most of them are probably 22 or 23, young-in`s. I did catch the FIRST train home last weekend, so I think I`m good like that for a little while. I hate being drunk and awake for the sunrise. That`s not a good feeling.
Navigating your way through the station can be extremely difficult. I only recently realized that in some cases you need to exit from a specific exit to get to another train line. So, if you take the wrong one, you need to explain that you went the wrong direction, and go back to the platform and out the other end. I`ve done this several times. Now, I read pretty carefully which exit I need. Before, I just had no clue that it mattered. And I haven`t lived here long enough just to go for it without looking.
Tex-Mex
Yeah, I know. I should be eating more of the local cuisine and not some knock-off bullshit Mexican food. I was with a group of gaijins, we were hungry, and didn`t know the area that well. So, we saw a sign for Guinness (I would say that the Irish guy likes it, but the real Guinness is found in Ireland) and had to go. It really wasn`t that bad. It wasn`t expensive, but the portions weren`t large either.
I did learn some interesting phrases and spellings from the Irish folk and the guy from South Africa. It seems that a girl "falls" pregnant, as though it were a disease or something. The letter "z" is called "zed." Realize versus realise--I always wondered why both seemed correct to me. In S.A., the traffic lights are called "robots," nobody understood that one. If someone is going crazy, you can say they`ve "taken mad" or gone "lolly." I know the list is longer, but I can`t remember them all.
It`s fun hanging around foreigners. Oh, wait, that includes me. (Of course, everyone knows I`m cool.)
Banking
I least understand some of the banking here. It really, really sucks. ATM`s are not 24/7, you can get charged (from your own bank) if you use the ATM past a certain hour. I swear that my bank is only open from 10 am to maybe 5 pm M-F. I`m not really sure. Apparently, every bank service costs money. To get your passbook (can you believe they still have that shit?) updated, it costs.
So, I just went to make a withdrawl from the teller line for the second time. (I don`t have a cash card yet.) It wasn`t so bad. Here`s the protocal: take a number (people don`t stand in lines), sit and wait for your number (so far this has been pretty fast), tell them what you want, fill out the slip (name, account #, amount), stamp it with your hanko (name stamp), and sit down with another number so they can get your money ready. When they`re ready, you come back and collect your cash. Seems somewhat inefficient in some ways. But, I guess that it is rather quick.
The scary part is that if someone has your hanko, they can use it to withdraw money from your account. It`s the same as your signature here--it`s good that the Japanese have more honour about such things in general. Otherwise, identity theft could be a major problem.
In summary, it`s best to keep cash. I really hate that because if I have cash, oops, suddenly I don`t have cash. In other words, I spend it all too easily.
66 Newbies
There are 66 new JET`s in Osaka-fu alone. Of those, 32 are from the U.S., 2 from Ireland (great people), 1 from South Africa, 3 from Australia, 1 from Holland, and the rest, who knows exactly? Of course, the U.S. is dominate. Figures. But I did just learn that Ireland only has like 4 million people anyway--total.
I don`t know a lot of the people, but I don`t think that I want to be friends with most of them. I did learn that several are closer to my age, but even that does not make me feel like a kindred spirit. One guy is 30 and his current girlfriend is his longest lasting relationship--4 1/2 months! I had a boyfriend longer than that in high school. Jesus! It`s a wierd gaizin world out here.
The entire Blow Bar (yes, the name of the bar is blow, I don`t know what it implies exactly) was filled with gaizin. There were maybe only 3 Japanese people in there, I bet they felt wierd. Anyway, lots of beer, lots of people. I did manage to get my ass on the train in time to get home and not wait until tomorrow. Whew! Navigating the trains drunk does really suck.
I saw a lot of people on the way home in kimono`s too. I really don`t know why. In general, a few people have been wearing them, but it seemed like a lot more than usual.
Strap
Yeah, I know from the title what you`re thinking you sick, sick bastard. Not that kind of strap....Momo insisted that I get a strap (tchotchke with a character on it) for my keitai. That was her entire mission today after we ate lunch.
I looked at hundreds, maybe even 1000 straps. Shit like Elmo, Cookie Monster, Anpan-man (Bread Man), any kindof anime character that you maybe familiar with. I finally (after many hours of shopping) settled on Paul Frank`s Julius monkey. I really couldn`t deal with Hello Kitty--at all--on my keitai. That would suck. Anyway, I got one. Momo was "worried" because otherwise my keitai would be "lonely."
I actually have to go to work tomorrow. It`s a meeting, but I don`t have the slightest idea of where it actually is. Hmm. Hopefully the map can help point the way. Osaka is fucking huge, so it`s easy to get lost. (Especially because most streets aren`t named and it`s not laid out on a grid format.) We`ll see how long it takes me to get there and if I`ll get lost or not.
Pizza and Beer
Well, it seems that a keitai (cell) can totally change your world. As confusing as the cell phone is in Japan, it`s so worth it. I only have about 35 minutes to actually talk, but I can send about 1400 e-mails a month! This explains why I usually see people looking at their phones and not actually talking on them.
The world of the home phone is also confusing. It costs money to dial to another home phone, and even more to a keitai. I really don`t understand. It`s very complicated.
I forgot that you can drink pretty much anywhere here. There aren`t any open container laws....So, I spent Friday night watching some skateboarders, drinking beer in downtown Osaka. Namba station. That`s where all the little hip-hop kids go to breakdance(actually there was an article about it in a local `zine). A lot of crazy goth, I guess, kids hang out too. It`s pretty fresh.
Saturday I went to Kyoto again for an all-you-can-eat pizza buffet. Wacky-ass Japanese pizza. One pizza had shrimp, squid, and canned (I swear to gawd) tuna. I`ve had similar pizzas in the past, but they were of course gourmet, made by Chef himself. Another pizza had what seemed like hotdogs on it. The salad bar had shredded cabbage instead of lettuce. But, don`t get me wrong, it was good and greasy. It`s called Shakey`s Pizza--wasn`t there a chain in the US with that name?
Apparently, along with no open container laws, you can light fireworks too. I saw a whole bunch of people chillin` next to the river in Kyoto drinking and lighting off fireworks. I watched for awhile, but my friends each had a long train ride home. The trains stop at midnight and don`t start again until 5 or 6 am.
Tomorrow, back to Namba for me to meet my friend. Who knows what we`ll do. (At least have lunch.) Yummy!
Finally
Well, today I finally got my home phone connected (should be working by tomorrow afternoon) and a keitei (cell). All of this and a bank account took about 5 hours to set up. I`m not sure where the time went. If you hated paperwork in English, try it in Japanese!! Sign here, hanko stamp there. Is English okay? Then the explaination of everything from Japanese into English--yeah, it takes awhile. As for the bank account, my debit card is going to have Hello Kitty on it--are you jealous?
Now, hopefully I can get the internet at home so I can post photos. We`ll see about that! E-mailing photos from my phone will cost about $3 each time, so I will use that very cautiously....
Hirakata-shi Exploration
Well, I didn`t want to leave the house this morning because I had a headache last night and woke up with it this morning. I told myself that I need to challenge myself everyday--especially when I`m here in Japan living on borrowed time. So, I managed to rid the headache with some excellent coffee.
I set off on foot (I don`t have a bike, a car, or a scooter) down the other side of the hill where I live. (I live on a rather steep hill, so maybe it`s better without a bike.) I thought that maybe Hirakata koen (park) might be near by. Actually, it`s an amusement park and the train stops there. So, I thought maybe just finding that station would be good. Plus, my mission today was to buy shoes for school (these shoes will only be worn INSIDE the school. They can be any type of shoe--slip-ons are best.)
Amazingly, the first place at the bottom of the hill was a shoe store. There were cheap shoes that I liked, but I wanted a different color that they were out of. I really thought about just buying them anyway, well, I should have. So, for the next several hours, I wandered around looking for shoes. I did finally find the 100 yen shop that I went to on Friday that I couldn`t find again. (I have no idea why I couldn`t find it. Maybe I`m just too overwhelmed and illerate.)
So, I had a lot of fun wandering around for about 4 hours. What the fuck? I must be really bad at directions. I thought I found the shoe store again when I went back because there was a McDonald`s across the street, NO, it was a different Mickey D`s. I`ve found 3 in my area alone. (There`s also a KFC and Baskin Robbins near my house.)
Now, I`m sunburned, my feet hurt, and I`m tired. But, it was worth it. I really need to get an English map of the area. All I have is a train map (although, that is also a necessity).
Subway
So, I was originally worried to meet my friend Momo at Umeda station today. Umeda is the largest train station in Osaka, second in Japan only to Shinjuku. Believe me, it`s easy to get lost there. I`ve kinda got lost before. Kudos to me, I actually was able to navigate the trains by myself and didn`t get too screwed up. (I`m glad I know enough Japanese to ask where the hell things are located. Mighty useful. Whew!)
I finally bought an alarm clock. I was looking for a digital LED screen one, right? Seems easy enough. When I looked with my sensei a few days ago, the only like that cost about $50! Fuckin` A. Crazy. So, I bought a digital alarm clock today, but it only lights up if you press a button. The bargain price of about $20....I told Momo that they give this shit away in the U.S. I have about 5 at home. Why are they so expensive? Also, most of them only run on batteries. So, hopefully the batteries won`t die the night before an important meeting.
Anyway, the internet cafe time is out.
