RANDOM NEWS

If there was no internet I would have no news ... but since there is ESPN, Seattletimes, Yahoo, etc. all online its great!

Lets see the latest random news ...

Sonics going or leaving? Schultz is suing to get them back, I hope the Sonics stay
7.9 earthquake in China yesterday
Cyclone in Burma, but government too dumb to let in aid work
gas prices are crazy! Japan reinstated their .25 cent tax, so its like 157yen for one liter!
NBA playoffs, Boston and Cleveland tied at 2-2
Microsoft ditched out on the purchase of Yahoo, good idea i thought
Mariners suck this year, projected first, but really last
Hanshin Tigers baseball team is in 1st and killing everyone with a .710 winning record!
Mmmm... just started watching "Heros" season 1, I think I am a bit behind a couple of years, but hey its really good!!
Conan O Brien taking over for Jay Leno and Jimmy Fallon taking over Conan's spot ... wow saw Jimmy at the UW

RAIN RAIN GO AWAY ...

Today woke up and it was a nice sunny morning, hopped on my bike with my t-shirt and all. Then came the clouds, and more clouds, then came the rain, and it got cold. My t-shirt fashion didn't look so good anymore. It was pouring cats and dogs, next time I will have to remember to bring a raincoat or something. Just chilled around school a bit, saw the baseball kids studying hard for the upcoming mid-term tests. Thought I would poke my head in and bother them a bit, quizzed Mr. Ota and Mr. Shiroi, they got most of the words right, pretty good. Made my rounds and went over to the 3rd grade kids, I don't teach em but they know me and I know them a little. Funny bunch, always talking about muscles, wanna see the muscles. Talked to Mr. All-Star pitcher Sato a bit, nice kid. He is gonna be a future pro pitcher for sure. Coach Hirano was funny as he came around and told me, "He is baka" which translates to "He is stupid", haha. But I know the kids all try their best. After that I just jacked a umbrella from the custodian room, gotta get a good one of course for the ride back home in the rain.

EXPIRED LICENSE

Yesterday took the day off to go to Akashi to renew my license. Seems like the rules in Japan are much different than America. I was under the impression that you could renew your license anytime after it expired. In Japan there are different things you have to do depending on how long your license has been expired. If a person renewed the license before the ending date then it would be as easy as going to the local police station. But if it was after 6 months you would have to take the ridiculous paper test of 100 questions again. Being a foreigner I tried to weasel out of that, luckily the guy at the license office helped me out by telling me to go through the foreigner office, there I could simply resubmit my license. Lucky that, will have to head back next week, let you know how things go.

ITS GOLDEN WEEK

Its Friday! And its the start of the 4 day weekend. Its called Golden Week, but its random days off, but heck I will take any day off. Most of Japan is out and about as its a holiday for everyone, except for the poor kids at school which have tournaments and sports games during the so called holidays. Its the Japanese way, kids don't need holidays. The Tokyo peeps are coming for a visit, Taro, and the newlyweds Masa and Tomo. Then also with a special guest appearance of Hawaii Daniel, WOW! He is back in Japan! Cool, it be cool to see Daniel again. School is going good, no big issues yet, just busy as a bee, one again, a daily daily blog is in the works. Sorry for the super late update.

WHATS NORMAL?

Been in Japan for awhile, even just today Dillon mentioned St. Patricks day is coming up. I don't even remember when St. Patrick's day is, I only know about the Japanese holiday of White Day which lands on the 14th. aka the 2nd Valentine's day where boys give girls chocolate and candy and stuff. Plus one time I was eating broccoli and it sounded usual to add mayonnaise to it. But then I thought is that normal back home? I know we put cheese on it, but mayonnaise? Maybe I been here too long and I don't remember. Heck everything has mayonnaise on it and I think I am getting used to it. Yum, fried chicken and mayonnaise sounds good, but still on pizza its pretty darn gross.

THE PAST TWO WEEKS

Some random events the past two weeks ...

- Rolled by lil Shu on my bike on my way to school in the morning. He asked if he passed my oral English class. I said probably. He was a bit worried being on the border. Then he went on saying it was kinda easy this time. I said, "yup, lucky!" then lil Shu replied, "thank you!"

- The other week stopped by the gym at school to see the bball boys, then my boy Mr. Nakata came up to me and said one on one. Mmmm .. Nakata is probably the Allen Iverson of our school team, but I said what the heck. Of course he whooped my ass, quick little bastard. Then to try to recover my pride I challenged him to a game of free throws, best to 10. But damn he matched me basket for basket, then came sudden death. Then damn I lost again, ha ha ha. It was fun.

- Its test time, and its been CRAZY! Had to give tests to all the 1st grade students, thats 12 class times 40 or so students, which equates to alot of fuckin tests to correct!!! Lucky there is Teranishi Sensei, my favorite guy at school, he is so nice to always help me out, probably my life saver. Even the other teacher Noma Sensei said oh did you finish correcting all the tests yet after one day? I laughed and so did Teranishi Sensei, who the hell can finish all those tests??? Then I asked him if he could help, of course he bailed and said he had other tests to do, whatever lazy foos.

- Damn I gotta input all those damn grades!!

- For the 2-4 class, luckily Mr. Miyahara Sensei is helping me out there. He is only a part time teacher and only about 70 years old but still genki and active! Plays golf like a young man every week. A good guy retiring this year, got him a nice black Nike Golf jacket for his retirement present. Nice guy, I like him. He even helped out to do all the grading for the 2-4 class. Nice!

- Well its a lot of fucking tests to correct, been trying to pace myself and relax, had a hard week last week preparing for the tests. Once in awhile I still think about Miyamoto Sensei. Even the teachers talk about him to me, slowly the memories come out. Sometimes I get some chest pains like I used to back in the days. I think its probably because of the death of Miyamoto Sensei and all this test stuff, so I have been trying to take it easy lately. Maybe I will check out a doctor over spring break.

- Snows been good this year. Went up 3 times this year. Brought some new rookies to the slope so they could feel the pain. Pretty good job, Dillon and Masa learned pretty fast, I think they can be pro in no time. As for Kayo we got her the finest state of the art snowboarding equipment in addition to the shortest legal board available, sometimes it looks as if she is riding a skateboard. A master of the leaf style. Next stop is the turn.

- Before the 2-4 test I asked the kids if they needed some help, but no one showed up. So I tracked them down. This isn't exactly the most diligent class but they got potential, they just need some help here and there. Tracked down Jimi and made him memorize a bunch of sentences. He did remarkably well, he went from a low score of 28 on the previous test to 49 on this past test. Pretty good I thought! Its a good start, because the average of this last test was 47, so he was a little over the hump. He is a good kid and Mr Miyamoto always looked after him. I will do my best to take care of him, I think he can do it.

- Lastly I was just chatting with the boys and girls bball team members. They are a funny bunch. Imade, Shuhei, Jun, and Saki. I was just clowning with them, teaching them about nicknames for body parts, trying to spice up school life. Then I remember the news that Jun is going to carry the sign for the baseball team at Koshien. So she is going to be on every TV and newspaper in the country. So I was just clowning with her about how the camera paparazzi will be after her and made some funny cameraman gestures, of course the boys were cracking up. Hahahaha. Can't wait til Koshien.

WORKING HARD

Been super, super, super busy lately. Getting off around 7pm ish. Usually I roll in lazily around 835, so that equates to just under 11 hours a day at work. Bummer, I don't want stay at work that long, but just been trying to be a good teacher and get all the classes ready for the Friday test. Sometimes it doesn't feel like work, then again I don't like to be trapped in a cement building all day, I want to go out and play. Oh well its for the kids! Even stayed after a bit today to help out the 2-4 class. They were surprised that they have to write sentences now. So I worked with the four youngins that were still hanging out, Misa, Yuki, Ta, and Jimi. Jimi is a great kid, but damn his English sucks, its the most random stuff you will ever hear, but I give him an "A" for heart and effort. He wants to learn, but just doesn't know a good method for him. Usually Mr Miyamoto always takes care of Jimi, but he isn't around anymore, so I thought I would help out. With some paper and my jumbled Japanese I got Jimi to amazingly put together some sentences. Going with the drill work and having him think of "easy" English he could amazingly do it after some work. He was putting together sentence after sentence just as if a miracle happened. This is the kid who had the lowest score on the previous test. I hope Jimi can buck that negative trend on tomorrows test!

5 HAPPY THINGS TODAY

So the other day I was reading that article about being happy. Honestly I am kinda bummed out today, but I will try my best and write 5 happy things that happened today.

1. Finished making the 2-4 class worksheet. I made a map of Himeji city including the cast members from the Japanese TV show called "Ainori", complete with member pics and convience stores, looked kinda smooth I thought, took a couple hours to make but it was fun, the kids had a good laugh when they saw it, but mmm .. didn't answer the questions. Maybe it was a little too tough, back to the drawing board.

2. Was asking daily questions in 2-4 class and I asked Sonoyama what she had for lunch. She looked toward her classmates for a bit and then said, "I love you", a bit shocked, I gave one of my funny oh my god looks for fun. Her classmates probably got her to say it, but anyways its always nice to have someone say "I love you", ha ha ha.

3. Mmmm ... nothing too major at the number 3 spot, so I decided to choose lunch. There are always two main choices for lunch and I am happy I picked the fried mince meat set, it was pretty darn delicious!

4. Today I taught the 1-12 class, the smart kids, only two more lessons before the test I was in super speed mode because all quarter they were doing speeches. Zoomed through lesson 9, thought I did a pretty good job knowing that usually it takes 3-4 lessons with the other classes. Went pretty smoothly, I was pretty happy with a good class.

5. Mmmm... getting tough at the end ... it was busy at work today, didn't get off til 630pm ish and headed to the supermarket "MaxValue", I knew I only had about 20 bucks and was cutting it close with the groceries, went a bit over my budget and had to get rid of some stuff. Lucky the clerk understood what I was talking about, whew! It's always embarrassing to go over in any country.

Well that was the 5 good things, I would be a liar if I didn't say I was a bit bummed today. Got off work a bit late and didn't finish all my work, desk looks like a war zone, don't think I can go to Japanese class cuz I got too much work to do. Got home and just chilled in front of the comp and read some news, wanted to hit the gym but no time so just pumped iron at home and drank beer. It would be nice to just pick up the phone and talk to one of my friends from back home, Amy, Ark, Ace, Jimmy, Ben ... But the time difference and stuff, and everyones busy. Sometimes you just gotta learn how to take care of yourself. Its tough and even tougher when your teacher and friend passes away. When things aren't always looking up and things come up ... You just have to learn how get through.

TODAY AT SCHOOL

Classes were alright, winding down the school year, just two more weeks until the final tests, the 1-11 class wrapped up their speeches, most students did pretty good. I think most students never did a speech before in English from memory. A big differance compared to Kobu Jr High where the kids starting in 2nd grade made speeches from memory. Non less very good. Todays homeroom period was dedicated to cheering practice. So all the 1st graders and 2nd graders huddled into the gym to learn how to cheer the baseball team for their big appearance at Koshien next month on the 22nd.

Study kanji a bit on my free time. Chatted a bit with Harada sensei about Miyamoto sensei, still hurts to talk about his death even for the teachers, I feel for the teachers and students. I always glance over at Miyamoto's desk and know he is not with us. Then going to the teachers lounge room is also tough for me, cuz thats where I always used to sit and chat with Miyamoto sensei, that was the last place we met. I always come into the room all empty expecting to meet him, but then I realize he is not there. Its always a sad emptiness to enter that room.

In the late afternoon, I hit the weights in the gym. Its kinda my new routine since I can't make it to the regular gym in Tatsuno, so the machine weights will have to do for now, but they aren't bad. Ran into the karate kids, Ohashi, Kawanishi, and Inoue, nice kids, they were Miyamoto sensei's karate members, feel bad for them, saw how sad they were at the funeral. Just had a little chat with them, always giving shit to Ohashi because he is huge for a high school kid and the only one that beat me at arm wrestling at school, damn gotta work those guns harder.

After pumping iron ran into the soccer kids, crazy bunch. They brought me over and shouted out "KY" which means "kouki yomanai" or you can't read the air or you don't understand what I am saying. So I taught them the what KY means in English. They were like "oooohhhhhh". Then we exchanged more words, learned that "deep kiss, aka french kiss" means "noride" or I hope thats what it means, I will have to double check that. Anyways good day at school.

BEING JAPANESEY

Been talking to Jimmy via email, Jimmy booked his flight and will be in Japan next month, pretty pumped to see my buddy in Nippon.

On the side, just some thoughts about daily life in Japan ... just like Utada Hikaru "Easy Breezy"
.... "You're easy breezy and I'm Japanesey"

- drink green tea everyday at work
- always have two pairs of shoes at work, one to change into before entering the gym, another pair for class
- carry a hand towel in my pocket
- use B5 size paper, not A4 paper
- shop at the 100 yen store
- carry lots of cash (200-500 bucks at a time), no debit card here
- ride a nice grandma bike with a basket in front

HAPPY CHINESE NEW YEAR 2008

Me and the gang ventured out to Kobe's chinatown to check out the Chinese celebration. Nankinmachi the name of the chinatown was packed full of visitors and had the traditional lion dances bringing good fortune to all. Since it was New Years we decided to hit up some Chinese food, not bad but not as good as the real Chinese food from back home and not as cheap either! Heck its Japan, even Dillon tried to use some of his Chinese skills, but the cute waitress kindly escaped by saying she could only speak Japanese. Making our way back to the station we ran into the Jumbo karaoke. Bad news as of course we gotta get a round in, and a round is never alcohol free, so we got our usual whiskey and coke. It was kinda a big bottle and I thought me and Dillon would only get down half way, but we finished the whole thing via train and lastly in the parking lot. Oh that was bad news, lets say lucky I had the next day off. Happy Chinese New Year!!

SNOWBOARDING AGAIN

Finally hit the slopes this year after a year absence. Sure did feel good, after I figured out how to use my new damn Flow bindings, not bad feels a lot better than the old skool style, just took some time getting used to it. Headed out to Banshu Tokura with Kayo via bus for a whopping 5000yen, about 50 bucks. Not bad of a deal since it included a 2 hour bus ride, lift ticket, and free lunch. I am too lazy to drive and damn gas is expensive now a days! Snow was nice, it was holding up and the weather was not too cold. Just cold enough to have the "yukidaruma matsuri" snowman making contest. On the kiddie slop, there was a big blow up dog, with kids in full force, looks like a elementary school set base there. The resort was super small as it had a whopping 3 lifts, kinda like Snoqualmie but 1/2 the size, but it got the job done as I was playing snowboard instructor for the day as poor Kayo was learning the ropes of snowboarding or maybe it was falling and falling and falling. I remember those times! But she did good, just like all those other people I brutally trained. Its a boot camp and if you want to learn how to snowboard you have to feel the pain, ha ha ha .. no pain no snowboard! Hopefully back to the slopes next week for more snowboard boot camp!

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NEET

NEET? What is it? Its Japanese English! One day one of the teachers asked "what do you want to be in the future?". Most students gave the usual, "I want to be a engineer, doctor, teacher, etc" but one student wrote "I want to be NEET". I thought it was a mispelling of the word "neat" but it didn't make sense, so I asked my teacher. He said it is short for ... "Not in Education, Employment, or Training". Wow, I thought that is a neat answer.

THROWING THE FOOTBALL

Today was a continuation of mid term tests, so in the morning corrected some (better than final time when i have all 15 classes compared to 2 this time) and delivered some tests. Observed an math class, interesting how universal math is. Probably the only class you can take without understanding what the teacher is saying. Math is math wherever you are in the world. After class I went to grab some lunch at the cafeteria and ran into the soccer crew. One of the guys, Mr Sato, aka Kirin (looks like the comedian guy) wants to play football in college. He is pretty buff, but doesn't know anything about football. Suggested some positions, RB you are the man, WR you are pimping, FS you can run and kill, QB don't do it people want to kill ya. He brought his own ball so we were throwing it around with his soccer crew. Probably the first time any of them threw a football before, taught them some different ways to throw and showed them a couple drills. It was fun to throw in the sun rather than be in class.

NICE WEATHER

This week is mid-term week for the kids. Tests started today, Tuesday thru Friday. They have about 2 to 3 tests for 4 days. Talk about not fun. Anyways, good news for me, I get out around noonish to enjoy the day, if I had a car, so I will exchange that time to ride gracefully on my bright yellow bike in the perfect autumn weather. I love autumn here in Japan, why can't it be like this year round. Reminds me of the Seattle summers! It was so nice that I came back to my apartment to chill inside and talk to Ace and Ark back home, ha ha ha.

CORRECTING TESTS SUCK part II

About 130am, got the sports class done, not so bad, knowing that I wasted a bunch of time chatting with people. Tom, I be there for the cabin event, Amy I looking into the camera, Jimmy how was Transformers for the 3rd time? Aight back to work, two more classes to go. Looking at a 4am bedtime.

CORRECTING TESTS SUCK part I

Its about midnight, and I got 3 classes to correct by tomorrow morning! Lets see how much sleep, or how much I don't sleep tonite. Well the ghetto red pens are already failing. Correcting the sports class right now, and well, there grades aren't looking too hot. It possibly could be that cuz they just sleep in class and practice their baseball 8 hours a day, 7 days a week. I would get tired of everything too. Had some high scores in the 90s, then of course the lows around 25 out of 100. Hope they can pass the class. Got the Okinawan chillin music on, more posts to come on later.

SCHOOL THOUGHTS

Sometimes I have random thoughts about the Japanese education system ... dunno why, maybe because I am a nerd and enjoy analyzing things ...

ENGLISH
With all the 1st grade high school kids coming in with various English backgrounds (ie. high, medium, low level students, students who had good teachers and some with not so good teachers in their jr high days) How come there is no review course?? It definitely would help the kids grasp what they learned in jr high and apply it to the high school English courses. But of course things like that wouldn't work. So regardless the kids are just thrown into the fire to learn hard ass English just to pass an university exam. Learning English they don't know how to use or even understand. Where is the review class! Kids can't even write a sentence, how can you move to the next stage if they even haven't learned the basics.


DIFFERENT PACES
In America kids in high school and junior high can choose their own classes. Choose their own class levels and their interests. But as for schools in Japan, life up until university is a one class system. Students are stuck to learn the same thing as their classmates, the same 40 students throughout the year, and sometimes throughout their entire 3 year school tenure. The problem is if a smarter kid is in there, they are stuck with the same level as the other classmates and this is vice versa with lets say the not so smart kids, or the kids that just need to work a little harder in studying but are having a hard time catching up. Those who are advancing more quickly or not so quickly should be able to go to a different class more suitable for their level. In America level problem is sometimes adjusted by changing of the class at quarter or yearly break. But in Japan this can't be done, unless the student at the time of junior high graduation advances to a higher or lower level high school. But then the problem still exists within the high school for the following 3 years.

Talking to one of my teachers Iwabuchi sensei who came from Suma Nishi High School, a public high school near Kobe. He informed me that his school before was a pilot school of sorts in testing out the American style of class selection. Students don't study with their homeroom, they move to various classes in accordance with the class they selected. Iwabuchi sensei told me he much prefers the American system for good students, and it works very well. But for some other schools that system may not work very well. It was interesting to hear that they actually had an American style system, it was the first time for me to hear of it. It definitely would be interesting to go and observe.

NO TGIF THIS WEEKEND

How was the weekend? Busy I tell ya. First of all whoever heard of school on Saturday? Well, come to Asia or Japan, cuz they got it. So no TGIF love here, since thats right there was school on Saturday. The clicher it was a makeup day for a Wednesday earlier in the month where everyone got the day off for the school's founder day. But of course you can't get away that easily, so I had to teach 3 classes on Saturday morning, arrgghh. Then print out a lovely 500 tests for the 1st graders test on Monday.

Continued the day by meeting up with Daniel, Kayo, and Madoka for dinner at Blue Plate. Nice food, haven't been there for awhile so I forgot how it was. Madoka is heading out to Vancouver for one year. How cool is that. Going in opposite directions, I am sure she will have fun there. Caught up with Mike and the frisbee gang for a bit too and finished off the night with 3 hours of karaoke in the new improved VIP blue light Shidax room.

Of course if things weren't busy enough I had to finish up the 3rd graders test for Monday as I worked into the wee hours of the night, finishing up around 330am. Before that took a mini break to meet up with Daniel and get his lovely autograph for the photobook, and then caught up with Masa to help him out with his upcoming interview. Masa great guy, big guy and smart, heck even got 940 out of 990 on his TOEIC. Um, can't get much higher than that, thats already good. Even native English speakers can't get that high of a score, ha ha ha .

Then rolled in Monday today. First period all 500 of the 1st graders had to take my test. I wasn't so much nervous, I just wanted everything to go smoothly and be prepared. Got to use the broadcast room to announce the listening part of the test. It was kinda fun and there was no hiccups. Also stopped by the small room to give the listening test to 4 students. One of them had a hearing problem, but I didnt know which one, so it was a bit funny signaling with the teacher on which student it was. Anyways first test is done, but now the bummer, correcting all 500 of them!!! Also gave the 3-4 class their test. The mid term test was a bit too easy as all of them scored pretty high. So as directed, I was told to make a more challenging test, and boy did I. Muhhhhhhaaaa. Poor kids.

もうすぐ蒸し暑いくなる

Its starting to get humid and muggy, I figure another week or two til it becomes a sweatfest. Lucky I got the fan from Noriko just in time.