My week at a glance…kind of

I want to quickly tell about my weekend and move on to this week, so here was our weekend at a glance:

On Saturday, a typhoon blew through, so it was a nice lazy day for us until Ian had to go to work at 2:30.  That evening all of the ALTs had a party, and it was great!  Ian and Yuusuke arranged for Reef Burger to come down and cater the event, and we all had a really great time! 

One thing that really made me feel like an oldie that night was text lingo.  I text Sara since she was a little late, and she text back “OMW.  Running a little late.”  I understood the meaning of the message, but I looked at Mollee, who was sitting on the couch next to me, and said, “What is OMW?”  Without missing a beat, she replied, “On my way.”  Both Mollee and Sara are recent college grads, and here I am the old twenty-six-year-old who doesn’t even know texting lingo!  *face palm*  While I generally don’t use text lingo because I think it sounds like a bastardization of the English language, I can understand it.  However, not that night……

On Sunday, my elementary school’s sports festival was canceled due to the typhoon blowing through, so we called a few people.  Margaret Skyped us to let me know that I had been selected to jury duty for the month of November.    I don’t think that it will be too difficult to get out of this one.    I think it’s actually a really funny story to tell!  I live in Japan, but I was selected for jury duty in America.  Ha!  I told Ian that I actually wouldn’t mind serving.  The last time I was selected was about five years ago, so if I’m randomly selected again (and I actually live where my driver’s license says I do!), I want to serve.

That afternoon, I made a delicious pick me up: cookie sandwiches.  When I told Ian that I was going to make them, he said, “Gross.”  “Gross????” I asked.  “Yeah.  What is that?”  I explained the process of cookie sandwiches: two chocolate chip cookies with a layer of icing between them.  “Ooooooooooh,” he said.  “I was imagining two cookies with ham between them or something.”    Really, I mean, REALLY??  Anyway, I made them, and they were great!  Delicious!

Sunday night was a little random and crazy.  Ian and I went to Margo’s house in the late afternoon to pick up the keg we had for the party and see if she needed any help cleaning up.  However, the people who spent the night with her had already helped her, and David took the keg back on his way through Hitoyoshi.  We drove to the super market and bought bentos (pre-boxed dinners) for supper and went back to Margo’s to enjoy.  We were eating when the phone rang.  Margo said that it was probably Brian, but from the conversation that she had with the person on the other end of the line, it was not Brian.  Ian and I could tell that it was someone wanting her to come out and do….something and to bring her friends (us) with her.  Within twenty minutes, there was a lady at the front stoop who wanted to escort us to a party nearby.  Oh, random Japanese events!!    It turned out to be a moon viewing party for the harvest moon.  There were probably about fifty people there from around Margo’s village who welcomed us with open arms and showered us with food and drink.  The old drunk guys kept trying to get me to drink a sip of their shochu, but I kept saying that I was driving and couldn’t. (Japan has a ZERO tolerance policy.  One sip and you’re technically not able to drive.)  We stayed for about an hour and a half enjoying the random event and people asking us typical introductory question: “Where are you from?  Do you like natto?  You speak Japanese so well!” (even though I don’t) 

It seems like we’ve been having a bout of bad luck regarding our Australia trip.  Ever since we found out that we need Chinese visas just to change airports in Shanghai, more and more of our plans are falling through.    In addition to airlines beginning to cancel flights between Japan and China due to the whole island conflict and fewer travelers actually traveling between those two countries, we’re having more problems.  On Sunday, I received a message from our Australian friend who we were going to stay with saying that she talked to her land lord about us staying there, and the lady said it was too many people for the apartment.  We went from having a free place to stay to having no place to stay JUST LIKE THAT.    I’m honestly not sure what’s going to happen now……  Melissa and Ian had planned on going to the Chinese Embassy in Fukuoka the following day, Monday, to get our visas.  It wasn’t until about 9:45PM on Sunday night that I remembered we needed passport size pictures for that visa.    It didn’t matter if Ian got his the next day or not, but I HAD to have a picture since I wasn’t physically going to Fukuoka with him.  I slicked back my shower wet hair, put on a jacket over my pajamas, and we drove to the nearest photo booth in Taragi.  My picture was horrible.  Absolutely horrible!  (see below)  I suppose that’s what you get for waiting until the last minute to take a picture.  I feel like I look like prison inmate #87346208 or something!    As we were getting back into the car, the lights from the photo booth and store behind it turned off.  10PM was closing time, and we BARELY made it!  I thanked the good Lord above for that!! 

The Chinese Embassy only takes visa applications from 9AM-12PM Monday-Friday.  Since Melissa had a day off on Monday, Ian woke up and left at 6AM, picked up Melissa, and made the three hour trip up to Fukuoka with her.  I called him around 11AM that morning to see if everything went well.  He said that once they successfully found the Chinese Embassy, they learned that it was CLOSED due to it being a CHINESE HOLIDAY.    This information was NOT on the website, and anyone wanting to visit the embassy that day literally had to GO there to figure this out.  The entire trip was for nothing.  NOTHING, I TELL YOU!!!!  Blaaaaaaaaaaaarg!!!!!  I am so angry with this whole process right now!  It just seems like one bad thing right after another is happening, and this fun trip is quickly becoming a much greater headache than it should be!! 

Monday just honestly wasn’t my day.  In addition to that information, there was a major miscommunication between my supervisor and I.  About two weeks ago, she emailed me to ask if it was okay to cancel my eikaiwa class on September 27th.  I got excited about not having the night class, didn’t ask any questions, and replied back that yes, it was absolutely fine!  It was the kids’ eikaiwa class, and I assumed that since the kids were working so hard practicing for the sports festival and not getting home until late, maybe they thought it was better to cancel the class that week.  On Monday, she emailed me asking why I wasn’t at my eikaiwa class on Thursday (the 27th).  She said that the kids waited for me, and when I didn’t show up, they went to my house to see if I was there.  (I wasn’t.  We went to Hitoyoshi that night.)  I was completely taken back with this information and replied to her, saying that she had sent me an email telling me to cancel class on September 27th.  She replied back that no, her email was in reference to canceling class on DECEMBER 27TH, as in one of the days of my winter vacation.  It just so happens that both 27ths fell on a Thursday.    I know that her email said SEPTEMBER 27th, but I couldn’t prove it since I already deleted it and apologized profusely as if it really was my fault.  I felt HORRIBLE for the kids…..they just wanted to have their English class.  When I went into the BOE on Tuesday morning, I apologized again for the miscommunication, but my supervisor seemed to brush it off like it wasn’t too big of a deal, so hopefully that’s the case!

Monday was a demonstration day for all of the teachers at school….meaning that members of the Board of Education and higher officials from nearby towns come and observe classes at Yunomae JHS.  One person is assigned to sit and observe a class, and the rest of the officials travel from classroom to classroom jotting down notes to tell the teachers at a later meeting.  Demonstrations are taken VERY seriously.  It is probably the most structured class of the entire year.  If demonstrations DON’T go well, teachers can be fired for it. 

It frustrates me to no end because demonstrations are pointless and ridiculous.  It’s all a show.  Class that day is PRECISELY planned.  No one can tell if a teacher is teaching well if he or she knows that he or she will be monitored.  Of course he or she will plan fun games and do well THAT day!  Forgive me if I seem frustrated, but I am with this process.  Most days, class has the same structure: I read the homework sentences, students repeat, learn a new grammar point, students repeat after me, and the last 25-15 minutes is spent giving the students various worksheets to work on on their own.  This is pretty much the formula for EVERY class at the JHS.  So let me tell you how the demonstration went:

My JTE told me about this demonstration in August.  He even asked me to create a dialogue and card game to play.  We had two “meetings” in which he told me how the lesson was going to go and asked if I had any questions.  He wanted absolutely NO surprises with this lesson.  When the time came, he went up to prepare the classroom and told me to come in five minutes.  When I walked in, he was actually giving instructions to the students about how to act.  It was basically a “DON’T SCREW THIS UP FOR ME!” speech.  The demonstration was with my 2-1 class, and they’re good kids.  However, I’m pretty sure that he gave them a warning to not even THINK about acting up in that class.  Don’t act out, don’t fall asleep, and don’t hate this class like normal.  If you do, I WILL BRING MY WRATH DOWN UPON YOU.  

Everyday at the beginning of the class, the students give a Japanese greeting instead of an English greeting.  (We used to do both, Japanese followed by: Hello.  How are you?  How’s the weather?  What’s today?  What time is it?)  Now all my JTE wants me to say is good morning/good afternoon after the Japanese greeting.  HOWEVER, on demonstration day, he wanted me to ask the students “How are you?”  In those five minutes before class started, we practiced me asking and them responding.  Ridiculous.  During the demonstration,  my JTE gave instructions (Such as “Take out a red pen”, “Open your textbook to page ___”, etc) in English.  He NEVER does that.  Rarely is anything except for the sentences that I read and the students repeat said in English.  The entire demonstration was basically one game right after another, making it seem like the students have fun while learning English.  It started out with a short listening quiz (which we never do), following by a dialogue that I wrote to introduce the new grammar point (also something that we never do), a power point, board game (never do), my card game (never do), and finally a worksheet to finish up class.  When the students are doing worksheets, generally my JTE stands at the front of the classroom and waits for students to finish them so that he can grade them.  I walk around and help the students.  On demonstration day, guess what my JTE did?  He also walked around and helped them.

It’s so frustrating to know what ACTUALLY goes on in class day-to-day but see something completely different happen when there is an observer in the room.    Ugh!  After the demonstration, we had to meet with the observer so that he could tell us what we did right or wrong.  The meeting was conducted in Japanese and was awkward since it was only him, me, and my JTE.  I couldn’t catch a lot of it, but I’m pretty sure that my JTE lied quite a bit.  I think he told the observer that we usually used dialogues at the beginning of class (we don’t!) and that communication between us is actually a lot better than it really is.  Ugh!  Frustrating! 

Anyway, if you’ve made it this far, then you know that this was a super long blog.  Sorry about that!  We’re heading to Osaka tomorrow to pick up Margaret, () so I’m sure my next blog will have lots of good details about that trip!