Sensei and Sensibility
Sunday, November 30, 2003
Brain...Mush...Turned...ahh.
I don`t know if I can muster up coherence at the moment. I, well, you see, this weekend is the Japanese Proficiency Test. Stupidly, I signed up for level 3 in September, having visions of me studying every night until the exam. Which would have been possible had the wonderous thing called "work" not gotten in the way. So, now I have one week to study - it`s next Sunday!!! What was I thinking???? "Oh, I can learn 500 Kanji on the flight to Australia!" - except that the flight was an overnight one, and I immediately passed out when I boarded the plane...
"Oh, I can study in the evenings" Except for the fact that they added 2 new night classes to my teaching schedule, bringing it up to one full time job, and 5 other part time jobs.
"Oh, I`ll study when I am in the loo" - which would have worked if I would have had time to do more than just pee and run.
I am so stupid sometimes - there is no way I can pass this thing - MURI! Impossible!
Well, I`m, pretty sure that I`ll pass the listening section. The kanji and vocab section I might get about 50 % - or less if they choose the more obscure readings of the kanji and the words that I easily forget "like ER nurse whose sole responsibility is to put IV`s into the arms of heart attack patients". OK, well, I`m exaggerating a wee bit - they aren`t THAT obscure...but pretty close! The grammar section, I could do all right on - IF I understand the vocabulary in the sentences. Here, they tend to pick the more obscure stuff, and they do things like make you read "Who`s on first" in Japanese and then figure out who is on each base - things that would confuse me even in English.
Who am I kidding??? There`s no hope!!!
Now, before you write me off as being a pessimist, let me tell you that from all this studying, I was able to read most of the Kanji on the Enka songs at Karaoke the other night as a result of my studying!!!!!! And, I now know the difference between honourific and humble language - though I can`t remember the different words or how to use them!!!!
In short - Japanese is hard, but you have no idea how wonderful it is when you finally get something!
So, if you don`t hear from me until Monday, know that I am sitting here at school, with my head firmly planted in the books!!!
Wish me luck! Ganbarizo!!!
:)
 Sabine . 9:03 PM . Comments
Wednesday, November 26, 2003
Teaching Baby Conversation Classes
Ok, everyone has gone insane! I have now been asked to start teaching classes for the daycare. Kids are aged 0-3.
It all starts with a Christmas party. So, I think I`ll dress as santa and give out cookies. But what the heck do I do if this continues - the kids are too young for most crafts, and they can`t even speak Japanese yet. The most I could probably get them to say is "bye bye!"
I guess there is some merit to just being exposed to English, and foreigners, but me standing there, even if I sing songs, will get awfully boring awully quickly!
Anyone have any suggestions???? The Baby Einstein series perhaps? I mean, what do I do with a 1 year old in an English class? And how do I prevent them from attacking me and Kancho-ing me (giving me a finger enema, a very popular thing for excited kids to do here)?
?????? Help me please, my brain fails me. Is this some sort of attempt at the Suzuki method or something? ACK!!!!!
:)
Sabine . 6:15 PM . Comments
Monday, November 17, 2003
The Secret Journey
So, since I`m not supposed to talk about it, for reasons unknown to me, I have made up a little multiple choice quiz to see if you can guess how I spent the next 10 days. There was a trip, and because we are so short staffed this year, we did it the easy way: we hired a company to plan and organize almost everything for us. There is no way we could have done a full on exchange, like we did last year, so this was way easier. Actually, it wasn`t even an exchange - we just sent the kids over. See if you can guess the rest of the details. I can neither confirm nor deny whether or not your answers are correct, because I am not supposed to talk about it (for reasons still unknown to me)
1. We went to
a. Antarctica
b. Southern Timbuktu
c. Perth, Australia
2. During the day, the kids went to
a. The land of Mermaids
b. an arcaeological dig in the sub-sahara
c. An ESL school
3. We were gone for
a. 3 months
b. 3 weeks
c. 10 days
4. I got to
a. study rhinocerouses
b. eat at many fabulous restaurants
c. dive in the Atlantic ocean
5. The best part was
a. the Gay Pride Parade and after party
b. sitting on the ice pack
c. climbing up to Mt Everest base camp
6. The trip was
a. relaxing, peaceful, and calm
b. fun, stressful, busy
c. cold, snowy, and fattening
7. I
a. worked hard
b. enjoyed myself
c. baby sat
So, I didn`t actually tell anyone anything, now did I. You have to guess from the possibilities what happened while I was AWOL!!!!
All I know is that I got quite ill with tonsilitis (but kept on going like the energizer bunny), and had to leave a day or two after I came back to go to a conference in Kobe (last week). This week, I am working my tushy off on Speech Contest stuff - this Thursday, I have 2 students competing in the speech contest for my county.
On Saturday, I am going to be going to my elementary school`s song festival - somehow in the middle of all that, I managed to teach them "Do Re Mi" and I want to see them perform it - the whole school is involved, from the pre school and Kindergarten, on up to the Grade 6`s - it will be cute! I won`t be able to stay long though - that night, I have to cook a Thanksgiving dinner for 20 people in my town....complete with a 20 pound turkey, shipped to my from the US.
Wish me luck!
Sabine . 5:12 PM . Comments
And Then....
The day after the Fall festival it was pouring rain and I was sick. However, we had gotten tickets to a little country Kabuki production. So we sat outside under tents, in the pouring rain, at a cold mountain side shrine, and watched a surprisingly spectacular Kabuki production. It was incredible!!!! I would have never expected such a professional production from a tiny mountain town! Apparently, it had been a long-standing tradition in this town for many years, but had been cancelled about 50 years ago due to a lack of attendance. This was the first year they re-instated it. There was no way I was going to miss that! Even though my cold got much worse as a result of the weather...
The next two weeks were spent frantically teaching - all day and all night. I was working literally from 8am until 10pm. Frantically, I had to prepare intricate Hallowe`en parties, to teach my ramaining Adult and Children`s classes, and to teach every night the students who were going on our exchange trip (that I am not supposed to talk about).
Hallowe`en arrived. There was a succession of three parties. 8 pumpkins arrived at school for me, special order from the US. I carved pumpkins with my friends (we needed an example, after all), I carved pumpkins with my adult class, I carved pumpkins with my children`s class. This was the first time anyone had seen a real hallowe`en pumpkin (sure beats carving acorn squash!). I had to go to another elementary school to help with their Hallowe`en Haunted House. I donned my cape and did my Witch makeup. Never get a former actor to do this for children. Apparently, my makeup was too realistic, and the haunted house too scary, for many, many children burst into tears and ran away. All I did was cackle!!!!!! Maeva hid in a box and when students came by, she grabbed them. And Andrew was a ghost who hid and poked out to scare people, shrieking! That same night, we were going to have a party with my children`s class, so we all went to the Izakaya together, all dressed up. You should have seen the looks on people`s faces!
And the next day, I left with my students to go on our exchange trip that I am not supposed to talk about. I think I still might have been a little green - the makeup didn`t come off so well!!!
Sabine . 4:55 PM . Comments
Hisashiburi!
Long time no speak!!!! I must apologize for going AWOL - things became suddenly INSANE at work, and then my site went down - I totally missed the renewal date for my domain! Ooops!
Let`s catch up! I`ll tell you what`s been going on if you tell me ;)
Where did I leave off... Oh yes, the millipedes. I`ll have you know that just last week I rode the train and there were no millipedes on the tracks.
And the fall festival... Gee I didn`t even write about how that went! OK....
I woke up on Saturday the 14th fully intending on cleaning my apartment. I think I ran a broom over the floors or something, but mostly I just continued sleeping until 10 or so. Then, I climbed into my Hapi coat, my tabi (two toed shoes) and made my way to the Shinmachi Komincan (community centre). We lugged the 3 tonne float around town for a good 7 hours that day. All in all, we probably only hiked about 5km, but it was all up hill. My part of town includes the silver mine - way up in the mountains, so of course we had to carry the darn float up there.
Just when I thought my feet would fall off, it was time for me to leave (we were at the old people`s home, a few KM from my house) to pick up my friends at the train station. These guys were from Kobe, so they neglected to calculate in the fact that trains don`t run every 5 minutes, they run every 2 hours. So, I had to drive to another train station about half an hour away to get them.
The Izakaya was too quiet, so we decided to down our Okinomiyaki quickly and head home for a wee drinking party. We all donned our hapi coats and drank a few litres of sake and then played drunken Hello Kitty twister.
FUTSUKAYOI! Hung over, the next morning we rolled out of bed (one or two of us were still in our Hapi coats - the festival coats) and made breakfast. Andrea wanted to make potatoes, which took forever, so we missed the Opening Kanpai for the festival. We ran to catch up with our team and they were all laughing at us - they knew we`d be hung over, I think.
And so we paraded around town, hoisting up the 3 tonne floats, getting very drunk as we stopped every 30 minutes or so to fortify (numb?!) ourselves with sake. The Shinmachi team consisted of about 50 men, and another 50 women and children carrying two floats. Poking out amongst the uniforms were 5 obviously foreign heads. Myself, Andrea and Colin from Kobe, and Paul and Michi - the Germans who work at the home for the elderly. I think that the organizers were very proud of their international team - all the foreigners somehow ended up on the Shinmachi team, and everyone was talking about how cool we looked. Pretty easy to be cool here - all you have to do is look foreign! Strange.......
And so it went, for hours upon hours, drunkenly lugging huge floats around town and lifting them up and shaking them every 5 minutes or so.
Then we arrived in Mayumi - the southern part of town. Andrea was taking a picture with her cell phone when a wasp flew into her sleeve and stung her. To be fair, it was a big wasp, and she had never been stung before. But, she freaked out - absolutely terrified (and convinced) that she`d have an allergic reaction and die. My students still comment on the foreign girl standing in the middle of the road, wailing and crying. Poor Andrea! People here like to take care of other people, so they kept insisting that she go to the hospital - just in case, which upset her even more. She told me that she had trouble breathing (not surprising since she was hyper--ventilating!), so they called an ambulance (I kid you not!) to take her to the hospital. It was busy however, taking a guy from Yoshi`s team (who had the float fall on his foot and crush his ankle) to the hospital. So, Mrs Fujiwara, my wonderful neighbour, drove. Andrea had her vitals checked, was given a paper bag to breathe into and an icepack for the sting and left to sit for a few hours. She became embarrassed when she started to see all these people around.
You see, EVERYONE in the emergency section was wearing Hapi coats - it is the big fall festival time of the year, and everyone was carrying floats. They were all in casts and lying on stretchers (really absurd, still all dressed up for the festival!). One man was sitting outside for a smoke with his hapi on over his pajamas - his foot was crushed the day before and he was in overnight for surgery to reconstruct it. It was like a hospital filled with clowns!
Needless to say, a few hours later, we made it back to the Festival grounds for the big parade of all the floats in town. Andrea was a bit on the shy side, after seeing a 6 year old girl with a broken ankle just sitting calmly in the waiting room whilst she was wailing from a wasp sting... so she was a bit on the shy side.
I hurriedly drank more to catch up with the rest of the team (this is the most painful part of the day, as the float isn`t wheeled, but carried on the shoulders). Finally, it was over, and everyone was exhausted.
This is the part of the festival that I hate. The Shinmachi team must trek back to our community centre a few kms away, while the other teams are only a few hundred metres away. Everyone is drunk and exhausted and the road is uphill.
The evening was filled with eating and drinking and singing songs. They taught us foreigners the "Shinmachi Song" and we taught them "Ein Prosit", a German drinking song. Tzikke Tzakke Tzikke Tzakke Hoi Hoi Hoi!"
(Which the men managed to turn into a dirty Japanese song: "ch*inpo tatte, ch*npo tatte hoi hoi hoi") ahem. For those of you who do not know, ch*npo is the word for a part of a man`s body, and "tatte" means "stand up". My mom would be so embarrassed!
Finally, drunkenly, we all rolled into beds, futons, on the floor - wherever really, and passed out.
I`m really gonna miss the fall festival next year!!!
Sabine . 4:30 PM . Comments
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