safely in the Philippines. :) Expect updates... sometime hopefully soon, as soon as I finish applying to grad school!

Ahhhhhhhhh I leave for the philippines TODAY. THIS MORNING. AH.

I haven't slept yet.

Christmas was fun.

I'm kind of sad I'm going to miss the Japanese New Year with my family. Last year was a lot of fun. My Japanese got sooo much better with my relatives too. I should go visit them again haha.

...I have so many relatives I "should" visit. Sigh. Don't get me wrong, I want to. It's just finding the time to, when getting up to Tokyo is kinda expensive in the first place. :x

Happy holidays and mexican fun!

Merry Christmas and Happy holidays!

I'm home for Christmas, but only for two more days. Then it's off to the Philippines for me, to visit one of my good friends from my study abroad. :D Hopefully I'll get the chance to update (I've been meaning to while I'm home, but yeah, we've seen how that goes... though, I do intend to get a new years post up!).

A quick word on Christmas in Japanland, since I spent last year there and did a bunch of Christmas lessons this year. I was really proud of my students; they all answered false to the question of "Do Americans eat Christmas Cake?" since that's one of the stereotypes/traditions in Japan. Christmas cake, and KFC. Last year everyone was really surprised that we actually did... neither.

I did manage to blow their minds with a couple of facts. Namely: a) Santa lives in the North Pole b) the red nose reindeer's name is Rudolph (the song in Japanese only sings about an anonymous red nosed reindeer) and c) Santa has 9 reindeer including Rudolph.

I think my new hobby is surprising Japanese people/blowing their minds ohohohoho. It's actually quite fun.

Today, one of my students made my morning when I logged in to facebook and found a happy christmas message. :) I was like, awwww. Yay. Warm fuzzy feelings.

Time to go stuff myself with breakfast casserole and glorious bacon and potatoes. OMMMMMMMMNNNNOOOMM. Real bacon! CRISPYYY.

Like usual, my uncle is very late and "breakfast" has turned into brunch since it's already 11 am. That's one of the traditions in my family; Christmas breakfast with the family at my parent's house. Usually (though not always) my mom and dad's siblings come over. This year is a little smaller, since we're missing two aunties and their spouses/families.

I guess I should go down and be like... social or something hahaha. Since this is what I came home for, after all! This and my friend's wedding. And driers. And Mexican food. OH. I should mention. While I was home, my family took me to Mi Pueblo, the Mexican supermarket. Oh my god. Mind = blown. IT'S AMAZING. THEY HAVE GIANT BARRELS OF HOT PEPPERS AND GUAVA AND ALL SORTS OF AMAZING THINGS AND THEY HAVE AGUA FRESCA THERE AND LIKE A HOT FOODS SECTION THAT MAKES BURRITOS AND TACOS AND ALL SORTS OF OTHER AMAZING MEXICAN FOODS AND IT'S LIKE SO FREAKING AMAZING BECAUSE I COULD PROBABLY LIVE THERE AND THEY EVEN HAVE AN OVEN SO I WOULD LIKE NEVER HAVE TO LEAVE THE PLACE CAUSE I COULD JUST COOK THERE AND I WOULD GET SO FREAKING FAT BECAUSE THEY ALSO HAVE A BAKERY SECTION AND THEY HAVE THIS AMAZING LOOKING FLAN AND TART AND I GUESS THEY HAVE OTHER THINGS TOO LIKE STRAWBERRY CROISSANTS BUT THEY LOOK MORE LIKE DANISHES AND THEN DON'T EVEN GET ME STARTED ON THE MEAT SECTION IT LOOKED AMAZING AND THEY HAD SAUSAGES AND CHORIZO AND THEN THEY HAD A WHOLE SALSA SECTION THAT GAVE YOU FREE SAMPLES AND IT WAS SO TASTY AND THEIR CHIPS ARE HELLA GOOD AND THEN WE FOUND TAPATIO FLAVORED DORITOS AND RUFFLES AND I WAS LIKE OMFG OMFG HAVE I REALLY FOUND HEAVEN BECAUSE DAMN THIS IS KINDA AMAZING BUT THEN I GOT DISTRACTED BY THE MEXICAN CANDIES AND THOSE WERE KINDA COOL BUT DID I MENTION THE SPICE SECTION AND HOW AWESOME IT IS AND HOW THEY SELL WHOLE CHILIS AND DRIED CHILIS AND OMFG THEY ACTUALLY SELL STALKS OF SUGAR CANE LIKE IN THE GROCERY MARKET JUST CHILLIN THERE NEXT TO THE GUAVA AND THE PEPPERS IN THE SHELLS AND STUFF JUST LIKE GIANT SUGAR CANES AND THEY ALSO SELL MASA AND THEIR TORTILLAS WERE GOOD AND OH GOD THE AL PASTOR STUFF WAS FREAKING AMAZING THOUGH IT SHAMES ME THAT I DIDN'T KNOW WHAT IT WAS BEFORE IT WAS LIKE WUTTT IT'S PINEAPPLE MARINATED PORK OMFG TASTYYYY AND REAL AGUA FRESCA NOT JUST HORACHA AND JAMAICA AND TAMARIND BUT ALSO MELON AND STRAWBERRY AND IT WAS SO AMAZING AND OH GOD WHY HAVE I NOT GONE THIS PLACE BEFORE ESPECIALLY SINCE MY BROTHER SAID THERE WAS ONE IN SAN DIEGO CLEARLY I FAIL.

Haha, that was longer than I intended it to be.

TLDR; Mi Pueblo is a Mexican supermarket that's effin' amazing and kind of like my personal heaven.

Hope you have/had a fantastic christmas where ever you are!

Wedding Ceremony 結婚式

Today I had the honor of attending one of my college friend's weddings. She was getting married to one of my friends from high school, which is still kind of weird for me. The wedding was beautiful (and felt kinda short, actually, but you won't hear ME complaining about that), the bride gorgeous, the groom handsome. They're really cute together.

It reminded me of a post I had been meaning to write, about marriages. I've spoken to my JTEs several times about this, actually. Or well, one JTE in particular. This year, he sits two seats down from me in the first year section of the staff room at my base school, so it's easier to talk to him (last year, he sat in the third year section, which is pretty much on the opposite side of the room). We talk about a lot of different things, like alcohol, students, English/Japanese grammar, and cultural differences. Since he recently got married, he was telling me also a little bit about how Japanese weddings work, which, as it turns out, is a little different from the workings of an American or Chinese wedding.

Firstly, you don't give gifts. There's no gift registry, no wrapping stuff, no buying things for the new couple. You give them cash instead. And not just like one hundred dollars or however much you would have bought a gift for them for. Oh no. My teacher was telling me you give them a few hundred dollars plus, at least, depending on how close you are. I think gifts can also be average of like, 500 or 600 dollars or something high like that. Japanese weddings, to my understanding, also don't balloon up to epic attendances, as some weddings with large families have the tendency to do (I'm pretty sure mine will be one of them, if I ever have one).

Part of the reason, I think, is due to the fact that the bride and groom usually are the ones to foot the bill for everything - and I mean EVERYTHING. Not just the reception and ceremony and food and stuff, but also the cost of flying/train-ing/transporting their guests out as well as their lodgings. CRAZY. The huge gift makes a little bit more sense.

Also, the dresses. Women usually buy a wedding dress for the ceremony, as well as a different dress for the reception. And not any cheapo dress. Oh no. It's of the same caliber as the wedding dress, from what I heard. Or sometimes they'll do the ceremony in Japanese style, with the kimono and everything, and then have a western style dress for the reception or something. Either way. They're spending loads of money on a dress they will wear once, at most twice. Perhaps it's because they don't have prom to do that on. Who knows.

I'm glad I won't be socially obligated to do that. My extended family on my mom's side alone is around 50-60 people, since that's how many people we cram into our house/will be crammed into our house the day after christmas. I told my students this and they were all like "NO FREAKING WAY" and "YOUR HOUSE IS HUGE" My dad's side also has a lot of people. And that's not even counting friends.

Thankfully, that's not something I'll need to worry about for a long time.

*

Woah, random, but I hear someone snoring through the wall. I'm not sure who it is, but wow. Wow. It's either my brother, my grandpa, or (unlikely) my grandma.

Also, I think I might die a little when I go back to okayama and it's FREEZING COLD. Being at home is making me spoiled. It was 60 degrees today, and sunny. I was able to wear just a shirt as long as I wasn't sitting in one place for a long time. Woaaaaaah.

I've missed California weather. :D

christmastime

I'm still having a hard time believing that I'm in Osaka and am flying out of Japan back to home for a bit (and Christmas) before spending new years with my friend Maxine in the Philippines. It just feels so... surreal. I've finally gotten excited about going back (for the longest time, I wasn't. I'm still kind of like, aww, I miss Takahashi.). And what am I excited for?

Driers.

Man, I feel old saying that.

You know what else I'm excited for?

Elevators everywhere. Now I really feel old. But seriously, two of the five stations I was at today had no escalator or elevator, meaning I had to haul my suitcase up and down a flight of stairs. While I try to go by the golden rule of "don't pack what you can't carry" it's still a giant pain in the rear.

*

I'm actually kind of sad I don't have more time at my schools. Today we were doing christmas lessons in all but one class (we watched Marmaduke in that class instead, which actually wasn't too bad). I wore reindeer ears! They're little clip ons I bought from the dollar store, and they're friggin' adorable. Oh man.

Today was also a little stressful due to the ridiculous procrastination ability I have; I was still packing this morning and afternoon. Plus during 7th period, I went with my JTE to go buy stuff for English club, which was actually happening at my house. I suppose it's good, because my living room was pretty clean for that and was left in an even cleaner state.

Japanese people cleaning = no joke. My students... woahhhh. I mean, my version of clean was like, make sure the dead bug gets swept up, make sure there are no horrible stains or huge crumbs lying around, pick up the house, make sure you can see the majority of the table...

My kids managed to outclass me. Sigh. They came in and the first years, bless their sweet hearts, had nothing to do so they asked where the broom was and they started to sweep around my table and stuff. Every parent's dream - getting your kids to do their own cleaning. I suppose that's what you get when your culture has institutionalized cleaning in education, and doesn't actually have janitors to clean up after you at school. And then they wiped down my table. I felt kinda ashamed. My mother would probably kill me.

But I had thought it was clean with it you know... being picked up and all. Sigh.

Despite the huge amount of stress it added, I'm glad we had English club at my house. I made frosting from powdered sugar (thanks Jessi for the tip!), milk, and vanilla. It turned out pretty good! We used the frosting with graham crackers and the students went about making a gingerbread house with the zillion different candies I had bought for them. It was a lot of fun! I think (I hope) they enjoyed themselves. Sadly, there was no time to eat them, so they put the gingerbread house in the International Room (where I hope many people see it and go, "oh wow, English club is AWESOME I want to join!"

Hopefully they'll eat it soon though. Dunno how long that stuff lasts.

*

Speaking of clubs - I absolutely love my cooking club members. Yesterday I was helping a student out with speech contest practice (pronunciations, stresses, etc) and it took much longer than I expected, cutting in to my club activity time. I don't mind though, because I like doing these kinds of things. I mean, it's essentially what we were paid to come over here to do, so usually I'm more than happy to help students out with that.

But alas, by the time we finished, it was already like... 5:30, so they had finished making their food. As we walked by, the students saw me, flagged me down, and told me that they had left mine on my desk. What sweet girls! I got to my desk in the staff room and indeed, there was a little.

so much love to the students

ONE APP DOWN

New goal for the new year: don't fall asleep under kotatsu as much!

EDIT: this never ended up getting posted for some reason, so I'm backdating this one :)

Midyear Workshops

December feels like it's moving way too fast.

In about five days, I'll be back in California for my friend's wedding, as well as for Christmas. It would be a lie to say I wasn't excited...

...but at the same time I'm like "OH GOD NOT READY TO LEAVE JAPAN YET."

This past week (and by week, I mean wednesday, thursday, and friday) we had our midyear seminar (or, to go by the new name, "ALT skill development conference"). It was three days of seeing a lot of people I haven't seen in a while, and it was kinda weird actually seeing so many foreigners for three straight days in a row and hanging out with people three days in a row. I mean, that kind of stuff just doesn't happen very often. Usually I'll see people on the weekends at best. One of my friends was kind enough to put me and another girl with a 1.5 hour commute up in her house for the past few days (since we went to Kobe the day after - more on that later!).

At midyear, I was selected to be one of the speakers (an honor, really, as much as I complain about how much work and stress it caused hahaha) for a topic about "Team Teaching Positively." It was only given to the senior high school JETs, which was less than half of the overall JETs, which was nice. Everyone's Japanese Teacher of English (JTEs) was there as well, since our teachers attended the conference for the first two days, and my workshop was given on the first day as the last workshop.

I was really surprised that it went off quite well, since I felt a little under prepared for giving the workshop since I was constantly glancing at my notes since I hadn't the time to memorize the general outline of the presentation. All the feedback that I got from everyone else was positive (though some small part of me can't help but wonder if they're just being polite and not criticizing my presentation) and during the workshop itself, when we divided into pairs to make mock-lesson plans, groups were actually pretty enthusiastic and actually wanted MORE time to work on their things and needed MORE time during the group work. We were actually over our time by about twenty minutes. Twenty! But people wanted more time to share stuff, and thankfully the workshop before ours ran really really short. I'm taking that though, as a sign that people at least didn't think the workshop was boring, and that (hopefully) they got something out of it. And possibly even liked or enjoyed it. I know I thought it went pretty well. Hooray! Even our Coordinator of International Relations, who joined in as an ALT because we were one person short.

Super props to my JTE though, since she was giving the workshop with me! I mean, it's hard enough getting up there and speak in front of a bunch of your peers in your native tongue... but she did it all in English. I'm super proud of her. :D I really enjoy working with that JTE, and she's nothing but supportive of me, so I'm really really lucky that she works with me. Thankfully, I've had little to no problems working with her and planning the lessons. Like really, she's one of the best JTEs I've had.

This brings me to the next thing I want to talk about. Well, rant, really. I'm still not happy about it. The first workshop, the one before mine, was supposed to be about Problems with Team Teaching. In theory, we were notified at least two weeks in advance, since we had to turn an outline of our workshop in to the prefectural board of education by November 25th, while the seminar itself wasn't happening until the 9th.

I don't understand then, how the presenter managed to talk about absolutely NOTHING RELATED TO TEAM TEACHING. I honestly couldn't tell you what the point of her presentation was. The only things I got out of it were: Different grade levels have really similar interests but different things they're worried about; Use pop culture in the classroom; the opposite gender is on JHS people's minds; my group was really not creative and really kind of Gold/Green groups (aka, had really strong personalities and had to Make Lists First and Use Bullet Points before we could even THINK about drawing pictures); If You Use Pop Culture For Lessons Things Will Probably Be More Interesting. I guess I should elaborate. For the workshop, we were split into groups by trying to find the animal we were given without talking (save for animal cries, but I got a kangaroo so I just looked for everyone else who was jumping). Then we were told to "use our imaginations" to draw a student from X grade (ours was 3rd year senior high school - they ranged from 1st year Junior High to 3rd year senior). This took the entire time, along with doing a presentation and her small conclusion at the end of the workshop.

Yeah. Nothing to do with team teaching AT ALL. In fact, her JTE pretty much introduced himself AND THEN STOOD TO THE SIDE THE WHOLE TIME AND DIDN'T SPEAK FOR THE REST OF IT.

I guess I'm kind of annoyed because I know I put a lot of effort into making my workshop. I put effort into creating it and making sure my JTE could share part of the presentation since it was a presentation about team teaching. We didn't get any feedback from the BoE... but seriously, how did this girl's presentation even get through?! How did this girl become an ALT if she can't even give a workshop that's on topic?

Perhaps I'm being too harsh. There was also a mix up of time; she thought that she had gone over in time or something, because she apologized at the end. So perhaps she got the workshops mixed up? Maybe she was given very little notice to make this workshop? Maybe there was miscommunication about the topic and the time?

Either way though, even if there was short notice and communication failure, I still think it's not that hard to make a workshop that's at LEAST on topic. Even if she thought her workshop was about I-don't-know-what-the-hell, and she didn't get the schedule from the prefecture (which she should have) she should have seen on the day of that her workshop was going to be on "Problems with Team Teaching" and panicked and either changed her workshop or at least said something before her presentation about the change of topics.

Hell, I would have been willing to come up with a freaking workshop over lunch and I'm willing to bet it still would have been better.

I think I'm also annoyed/angry because that workshop had real potential to actually be useful. I was looking forward to talking about problems with team teaching, as well as solutions to said problems. Like how to approach your JTE about being used as a tape recorder. What JTEs think is the best way to solve the lack-of-time-to-talk-to-you problem. The not-being-used-in-the-classroom problem. Or I don't know, SOMETHING useful.

I am disappoint. D: But I guess at least my workshop went well-ish, and the people at the JHS/Elementary seminars heard workshops on the right topic.

The rest of it was alright. There were some good workshops, but there were also some bad. One talked about "Self-Access Learning" which is basically a pretty good way to go about teaching a language to students who have a high level of motivation and provides a framework for doing self study. It encourages the use of materials the student finds interesting and the teacher is there to guide the students by offering ways to evaluate learning, strategies, and material sources. It would work really well with students who choose to take a language, or at a university setting. But for a bunch of students who are required to take English? No. It would end up with a bunch of students who aren't doing anything but pretending to study. Maybe. And he was telling us that we should implement this kind of study, and asked us where we thought we could do something like that. Us high school teachers were lucky, since we at least have English Clubs/English Speaking Societies, but at JHS and Elementary? Or at Technical high schools? Fat chance. It's not a realistic expectation, so that workshop was not helpful at all since we couldn't really use anything he talked about. Shame, because there was another workshop that should have been two hours instead of this one.

The speaker was also using really academic language to give the workshop, which would have been alright if he were only talking to native speakers of English (aka, us ALTs). However, the JTEs were also in that workshop, and there were some teachers whose English wasn't super strong; academic English was far too advanced for them. I guess it was probably a good thing that my other JTE didn't come with me, because I'm pretty sure that would have shattered her confidence in speaking English. Having watched Tale of Genji today in Japanese and having understood only when they say things like "wake up" or "goodbye" or "good night,"my Japanese confidence got pretty shattered as well.

Guess I'll have to work on that. Sigh.

Ahhh I'm leaving too soon! NEED MORE TIME.

Brain = 'asploded

The JLPT (Japanese Language Proficiency Test) was today. Ugh. Ugh ugh ugh ugh.

Basically, the only day I really properly studied for it was yesterday, where I spent the majority of my day indoors in my pajamas studying or working on finishing my application.

Two applications down, lots more to go. Sigh. The next is due on the 15th, so I have a small breather. I need to open up my other applications though.

I got my ass kicked (again) by the JLPT. The grammar and reading section... was just wow. I don't remember it being that hard last time. Last time I took it, I finished the grammar and reading with time to spare, but this time... I'm not sure what happened. I kept zoning out during it, and I don't actually remember that part of the test. It's like one big giant black hole in my memory. After that test... oh man. It had felt like someone had kicked me in the intellectual balls.

The listening section wasn't so bad though. I'm so thankful that we ended the JLPT with that instead of grammar, cause it was a bit of an ego/mental capacity boost. Have you ever had your brain just shut down when you're reading too much that you can't understand? Yeaaaaah that happened in the middle test.

It was a little frustrating though because there were hella people cheating who weren't being punished at all. They would have their test books open, and in a test like this, time is very very precious. The proctors kept waffling on giving them yellow cards, so a lot of people got away with looking at the questions, to my annoyance.

Afterwards, to celebrate (and/or drown our woes) we went to the new mall and the buffet place there that had steak (!) and also a chocolate fountain (!!!!). Oh god, chocolate fountain. <3 I only dipped bananas though... but they were amazing. It made me miss Sixth College a little, since our college has an annual chocolate festival, where student fees are put towards excellent use and free chocolate and chocolate fountains.

I think I set a new record for the number of mikan (clementines/tangerines) eaten in 24 hours. Because oh man. I ate so many. When I study I can't help but munch on something while I study and usually I chew gum... but I haven't really found any gum that I like here in Japan.

This week is midyear seminar! I need to give a presentation for it. Ahhhhhh....

And then two weeks from last friday, I come back to California! WEEEEEE. I'm excited.

On a related note, the topic of recontracting came up. Seeing as how I'm applying to graduate schools this year, I'm probably not going to recontract, but it made me think. If I don't get in to graduate schools, would I still want to stay another year?

Who knows.

Ahhh I'm almost done with this wave of applications. Finally.

I was going to sleep instead of type, but today stuff happened that I want to remember, so sleep will have to wait a little linger.

Today I super failed at riding my bike. I was going down the start of the hill, and just after I gained enough momentum to be going rather fast, I decided to put the finger cover of my gloves on. Normally this is fine but today for some reason I must have clipped my handlebars because before I knew it the handbag was turning and then I was flying forward in the air with one of those 'ohhhh craaaaap' expressions on my face.

Amazingly, I managed to come out of the whole thing with my bike mostly intact and only a hole in my gloves and a couple of bruises. At least I'm hoping they're all just bruises. I landed pretty hard on my knee (there's a part of my kneecap I can't feel) but people think at worst it's a torn ligament. Kneeing, squatting, even getting into my futon hurts though. Oh, so does lying on my stomach.

A couple things made my day better though. First I saw a baby duckie on the way to work. It was sooo cute!

Second, during cleaning time one of my students wrote that he was happy Because I was cleaning with them. I didn't have the heart to correct the usage of Because. I did teach them to spell my name since they had written it in katakana, bless them. That made my day. He also said my voice was nice when i was singing today lol. And after students kept going "OH, JESHIKA" from the hall whenever they passed the room, he was like "you're popular at Niimi!" and i asked him why and he said because I was interesting. I'm sure he meant that as a compliment lol. but I was like aw, what a nice kid. I should learn his name. It made me sad I don't go there more often.

My exchange diary student also gave me these bead animal things. I'm really sad the diary with her is ending though. Sigh. Guess I need to find a new victim. :D

But yeah that was today. It was raining so I made dumpling soup. I forgot how much I like soups.
My application is almost done though, I just need to wake up, edit it, and then submit it in. Weeeeee!

So much pain. X_x