Eeny Meeny Miney Moe~

Catch a tiger by his toe
If he hollers let him go
Eenie meeny miney moe~

What do we even call these things? Counting rhymes? Today in English club we had a fun kind of cultural exchange. The students were talking about counting/deciding rhymes from their hometowns - more on that in a bit - and they asked the other teacher if she knew any, which allowed me to ask them what the heck they were talking about (I thought they were talking about tongue twisters or something). Then they explained what it was and I was like "aaahhhhhhhhhhhh got it" which led to them asking me, which in turn led to me teaching them (and I'll admit, a small bit of showing off how fast I could say the rhyme) how to say the first half of the rhyme.

It was actually a lot of fun! I suppose that's what English club is really about - having fun using English.

I learned something too though. According to my students, each of the areas (generally separated by junior high school) had a different rhyme. Or well, the first half is the same, but the second half is different. I was super surprised! I mean, most of the people in the states I know use some variation of Eenie Meeny miney moe (most commonly the one above, followed by "my mother said to pick the very best one and it is not you" though I know there are more variations on that) but I've never quite heard of it so separated by region like what I heard from my students today!

It really makes me wonder why that happened. Perhaps it had to do with how originally, each of these small junior high school areas were a different village and different region, and how they wanted to differentiate themselves from each other. Why this manifested itself as a counting rhyme... I'm not sure, but Japan sure does like to differentiate each of its regions from each other, what with regional specialties, regional food, regional souveniers and so on. I suppose the US does that a little bit... with the food at least, but I feel like it's not to the same extent as here in Japan.

I mean, I'm from Concord and Berkeley. I have no idea what food we'd be famous for. Berkeley is famous for... I guess Vegan food? Or ethnic food? But that's not quite the same as how Takahashi's food is Yubeshi (and more recently tomato yakisoba or something), or even how Osaka is known for deepfrying stuff on sticks (among other things). I think Walnut Creek was probably famous for Walnuts. Gilroy does garlic. But seriously, that's it. Am I not paying attention or something back at home because I'm used to being there? The students here seem to know their foods though, even if they're from the countryside.

Anyways though, counting rhymes and tongue twisters and English club. We have five new members! ONE OF THEM IS A BOY. HOOORAY. One boy, fourteen or fifteen girls. Yikes. But I'm so happy we have so many members now! When I first got here there were like... not many. Maybe six or something. I forget. It was small though.

Granted, some of the girls in English club... I wonder why they're there, other than because they want to have parties all the time. It was like pulling teeth to get some of them to speak English! I mean, not even hard English. We asked them just to say one thing that they like - and these are third years, so I know they know how to say chocolate and candy. But they didn't want to! Me and the other teacher were like "... this is English club.... ne? NE? NE?!?!?!?!"

Sigh.

That's only some girls though. Others are a little less resistant to it, and some of them even want to speak it more! :) Yay! I've been trying to focus on doing cultural things though, and now that my Japanese is a bit better, it's not so bad. Before though, when I had no idea what they were saying, English club was suuuuuuuper boring because the girls would just chatter away in Japanese.

I'm trying to remember what our high schools do in Japanese club, other than watching anime. I don't think Northgate had a Japanese club. We had an anime club.... but yeah, we watched anime in that. Plus I don't want this to just turn into a movie watching club, though sometimes, certainly, it's fiiiiine.
Actually, my mom gave me this Easter themed movie she thought I could show my students, which was sweet. The movie didn't have Japanese subtitles though... so unfortunately, over half of the students would be completely lost. I thought about showing it to them anyways... but personally, having watched animes and dramas and movies without the subtitles and only a mediocre understanding level, things are kinda like... eh. Not as enjoyable, since you're constantly like, "wtf is going on."

Maybe some day though. Maybe. : )

Good things start with C

Like Calligraphy and Cooking Club. :D

(Ack, I've already managed to fall behind... I won't let this challenge defeat me even if it means I have to post twice in one day! I shan't let it fall further behind than that! ...shan't is a fun word to say. Totally going to say it more often.)

Anyways.

Wednesdays are my awesome days, mostly because of what comes after school. School itself... well... Wednesdays are my first year classes at my base school - usually they're so-so. I only have three, so I can't really complain too much about having a heavy workload. It's just that usually, that's the first time we do a lesson (I feel so bad for my class who gets that first lesson... we're usually still working out the kinks). They're good kids though so... usually it goes alright. It's just that sometimes, they're so dead.

The last class of the day is a handful as well. It has the class with the really loud boy hahaha. But it also has the class full of the kinda smart boys; I don't know much about the relationships of the students in the class, but I'd bet that a couple of the kids with glasses who are the eager to please ones are kind of nerds. I think they get teased quite a bit too, or at least, one of them does.

Yesterday, my team teaching partner caught one of the students doing work from another class in our class, so she took it away. The paper was some advanced math homework (like, extra homework) so I'm assuming that the student was one of the good students. She was super angry, and didn't really want to give it back to him right away, since she thought it would mean the students wouldn't take not doing other class's homework in our class seriously. I mean, I was a little disappointed that it was one of the better kids, but I've been there before so like... yeah.

This kid though, I think it was the first time he'd been scolded by her like that, and the math paper was really important. So he was super down the whole class, and I think, actually started to cry during class at some point. I felt so bad for the poor kid! I don't like when people cry. I don't really know how to respond to crying people, whether they're my friend or they're a stranger or acquaintance. Sigh.

But yeah, the worst happened after class when he tried to get his paper back. She didn't want to give it back to him right away and wanted to talk to him but I guess he was crying too much to actually talk. The other students, who had been teasing him before, were also up there telling my partner that she should give the paper back. Since I couldn't hear what they were saying, to me it just sounded like they were trying to butt their heads in and be there so they could watch the other kid cry. So I'm not exactly sure... whose side they were on?

Dunno, if it were me, I'd take away the paper and give it back with punishment. Like an essay or something, since there isn't really detention here.

So that's my last class of the day, one of my academic ones.

The third class (that I have second, right before lunch) is my home ec girls. Boy are they loud ones. But they're super fun and they're always willing to volunteer, so despite how loud they get and how slowly we go in the class, I really enjoy them.

After school though, is what I really enjoy.

Cooking club meets on wednesdays, so I usually join them and have a kind of small(ish) Japanese one portion sized meal early on around 5pm. Yesterday we made gyoza and tenshindon, a Japanese Chinese dish that's basically an omelette over rice with thick sauce on top of it (we concluded yesterday that the sauce reminded us of mitarashi dango, these mochi balls covered in sweet sauce). SO TASTY.

Gyoza are ridiculously hard to fold though. Mine looked awful haha.

I also had this interesting conversation with my partner and one of the students about Chinese history, where we had no idea what time period the other was talking about. They were using kanji, and I was using romanized-via-the-Pinyin-system Chinese names. Maybe I'll write about that next.

Wednesday nights after cooking club, I get a ride to calligraphy class at this old lady's house in Takahashi with one of the other ALTs who actually introduced me to the classes. They're really calming and relaxing (though last night a bit frustrating since I couldn't figure out how to get the stroke right).

Calligraphy, as it turns out, is hard. But at least I get a tangible kind of thing that's made by my own power... unlike flower arrangement where I just have no idea what I'm doing and I don't know why one form is better looking than the other and the teacher comes over and rearranges most if not all of my flowers so they look better.

Jeeze, I didn't know that still bothered me.

Halloween!

Oh my god it's November already. WHEN DID THAT HAPPEN? I could have sworn it was still October last time I checked. That's probably why I haven't posted for a good half month (which, I suppose isn't too bad when you look at how long it's been since I've written a newsletter...).

The thing I've been the most busy with recently - in addition to studying for the JLPT and working on applications for graduate school - has been Halloween lessons. Since Halloween fell on a monday this year, we did all the lessons a week early, though I'm told by one of my Japanese teachers that a bunch of kids turned up on Monday and tried to trick-or-treat with her.

I almost feel bad for the ALT who will be replacing me eventually... these kids are all going to attack the person and try to trick-or-treat with them haha.
I really do enjoy giving them the candy though. Saying that makes me seem kind of creepy, but I swear it's not like that. I didn't do it as much this year since I got swarmed several times, but candy has been one of the best motivators to get them to speak English. In addition to teaching them the phrase "trick or treat" I also usually asked them a question. This year, in honor of the business I was giving Japanese dentists, the question was "What's your favorite sweet?" The kids who had better English had to answer in proper sentences heheheh.

There was also a Halloween party I went to with a bunch of other ALTs Friday night (since having it sunday would have destroyed us all). It was super fun, and I actually made my costume for that this year (though only a handful of people knew my costume, which made me kind of sad. I guess I'm used to having a bunch of really really nerdy friends lol). The costume was a white mage hoodie - a surprisingly easy thing to sew together (though technically, I cheated and glued the triangles on since I lacked the time). It was by no means good or perfect - the seams were laughably crooked and I forgot to save fabric for a liner for inside the hood so you couldn't see the seams, and completely forgot to sew down part of the triangles - but it still was pretty alright. I used the sewing machines at school, since my school has a dressmaking room for the home economics girls. Doing everything was actually kind of fun, though a little tedious. Hopefully, eventually I'll get pictures up. I wore that costume to my monday school and some of my kids thought I was santa. That made me even sadder. But I guess on the plus side they said it looked really cute?

We also had an "English in Takahashi" day the thursday before halloween. English club basically takes over one of the small shops owned by the schools in the covered mall area and does activities. Last year we played Simon Says for like... the whole time (I, for the record, am awful at Simon Says). This year, since it was so close to Halloween, we decided to do Halloween things. I wanted to carve pumpkins but those were kind of expensive, so we found crafts online instead.
Using pipe cleaners, we made little pumpkin finger... things... and spiders. We also used construction paper to make pumpkins and then we glued faces on them. There was also candy, and I went in my witch costume that I no longer have. Oh, and this water color thing I brought back from the states and some Halloween tattoos. Originally, I had intended for the kids to take like... one or two tattoos back with them, but there was kind of a communication error and they ended up taking a whole page of tattoos. Part of me was like "ARGGG NO WHY" but then again there were only 3 kids who came this year, which, I suppose, is still one more than last year. Yeah though, my Japanese Teacher of English really likes to start just giving things away and I was like noooo I have other uses for these. Oh well though, hopefully the kids are enjoying them. They were pretty cute, even if two of the kids there were brothers of one of the kids who does the Exchange Diary with me.

For all of my classes except for the one actually on Halloween, I wore a witch's hat, mantle, and orange feather boa to work. It was a lot of fun, and the reactions I got from people - both students and teachers alike - were amusing. It kept surprising people. They'd turn the corner, see me, and gasp, "BIKKURISHIMASHITA" which is basically shouted out "I'M SURPRISED." There's no swearing, just stating that you're ridiculously surprised. But yeah, that was fun. Sadly though, I only have the mantle from that costume now. The hat I forgot when we visited the orphanage for Halloween on sunday and the feather boa... well it was coming apart anyways, so I gave it to one of the girls at the special needs school. When I wore it there, she was just so fascinated by that that she played with the boa for the better part of an hour. I wish I could have given her a new one, since this one was constantly losing feathers (and they'd make her go pick up the feathers). Those things were from either Daiso or the cheapo section of Toys-R-Us, so I really didn't mind. I'm glad the feather boa has an owner who doesn't care that it's losing feathers. She just looked so happy when she was playing with it... how could I say no? I couldn't.

Halloween in Japan though... is really a kids thing and a retail thing, I think. All the candy goes Halloween themed. But there's not much more. A student told me that houses in Japan are a little small, so having parties at them... not so great actually. After seeing a couple of my friend's places, I can see why. THose places are *tiny*. My place isn't, though sometimes I wish it was. It's not like people come over to my place. I should probably fix that, but seriously... we usually either go into okayama city, or I'll go to the guys' places because they have video games or whatnot.

But anyways.

I'm stealing this idea from one of the other JETs here: NaBloWriMo. Since I don't have the time to be writing a whole entire novel during this month with studying for the JLPT and with applying for graduate school (which, ahem, I should be doing now, rather than writing this blog post) the goal is a blog post a day! And to get the godforsaken newsletter out at some point in time. Yeah. Yeaaaaaaaaah.

LET'S WRITING.

Culture and Sports Festivals

Two of the big, all school events at most Japanese high schools (that I've seen anyways) are Sports Day and the Culture Festival. By "Culture Festival" really, it means the school's culture. When I first got here i thought it meant learning about foreign cultures and stuff, but I was kind of wrong on that account.

All of my schools, and pretty much all of the other ALTs I talk to, have these two events. Sports day tends to be held in September, while the school culture festival can range anywhere from September around when classes start back (rendering any attempt at actual teaching relatively useless) to Octoberish. One of my other schools doesn't have theirs until later.

Culture festival is broken up into two parts at my schools. The first day, usually a week day, usually a friday, is dedicated to student performances as a whole class or block. Most of the time it's by class. Classes will put on skits, plays, sing songs, make videos... just about anything for this part. Unfortunately, I missed most of this because I was at other schools on every single day one of my schools was doing this first day.

The second part, usually a second day, is dedicated to a bazaar bit where students will sell food that they make and decorate their classrooms and have exhibits and stuff. The clubs, at least, the academic clubs, will often decorate a classroom and have something as well.

This year I helped out with the English classroom and I (kind of) did an ikebana display. By kind of, I mean that I made the poster for it and watched the teacher put in all the flowers. She gave me the last bunch, a handful of purple flowers, to place around the main flowers she had set in. So I did. And she made approving sounds so I hurried out afterwards to watch the students do their performances. That was not my happiest time. I still don't quite understand why I couldn't have done it after watching the students; it's not like the teacher wasn't there after. But whatever. It's the past.

Either way though, I got back to the classroom afterwards and the sensei was there carefully rearranging all the flowers I had put into the bowl. So I really really just don't understand ikebana. Oh well.

Anyways, the second day is all I'e been able to go to, but it's pretty fun to see what the students come up with. Today, I visited Niimi South Campus's culture festival ("Lightning"). They had a bunch of interesting things, including a ghost house (which I did not partake in) and a Tonari no Totoro maze room made for small people (that I partook in anyways). Thankfully, I went through with one of my students who already knew the way, so I didn't get lost. Almost got stuck, but at least I didn't get lost haha. It was really hot so I kept sticking to the plastic things they were using to decorate the inside of the maze. Really cute idea though, since Mei-chan goes through the mazes and stuff in Totoro too. The food was pretty awesome too. I think it's a rule that if you're selling some kind of consumable thing in the summer, shaved ice, or kakigori, must be one of them. They also had these really tasty (and probably unhealthy) rice balls that were flavored with either curry or tomato sauce/spaghetti sauce, then rolled in panko and deep fried. Sooo tasty. It was a lot of fun, and I saw a bunch of students whom I haven't seen in a while.

One of the students I saw, I'm proud to say I knew the name of haha. Mostly it's because last year for Halloween, I gave them candy, so after that he was always asking me for candy. Eventually, instead of saying "Please give me candy" he switched instead to shouting "I LOVE JESHIKA" whenever he saw me. Now, (I think/hope) it's become something of a joke between the two of us. We chat, usually in Japanese with English thrown in here and there, and he helped me learn his name by asking me every time I saw him if I remembered his name. Eventually, I did. When I saw him today, I guess he must have seen me earlier or something because he was selling tickets and was like "OHHHHHHH JESSHIKAAAA" and then showed me his shirt (one of the special ones they were wearing for festival). "I love ジェシカ" was written across part of it.

I think I just kind of laughed and asked him what he was selling. Fried potatoes, it turned out. Those were pretty tasty.

One of the more interesting foods they had there was 流しそうめん "nagashi somen" which is like "flowing somen" when they told me. Instead of just eating it straight from the bowl, they give you a cup filled with somen sauce and you stand by this big bamboo trough. At one end is a bucket with a thing to caulander kind of thing. The other end is elevated and starts in the kitchen. From that end, they put the noodles in the bamboo trough and then pour water down the trough. The water pushes the noodles down, and you have to pick it up with chopsticks and dump it into your cup. As it flows down. You can't miss, otherwise it'll keep flowing down into the bucket. The whole time I was doing that, I was like "aahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh" in my head because I was super worried about missing it completely. ._.

Last weekend was Takahashi's culture festival, and it was a little different. For one, I (shamefully) woke up late and didn't make it to school until 10 o'clock. No idea what happened either. They were selling kakigori, ice cream, curry, tapioca... and for some reason they had TWO haunted houses this year. I feel kinda bad, cause I didn't go into either of them. Our school has a tea ceremony club too, since there's a tea house in our school, so I had some tea, Japanese ceremony style. Last year it was ridiculously bitter, but this year... was actually tasty.

The cooking club also made gyuudon (beef bowl) again this year and it was suuuuper tasty.


One of my favorites though, was the "science is mystery" room. A couple of my favorite students were in charge of that room, including one student whom I'm doing interview practice with. It was really cute haha, he was like "JESSICA YOU MUST COME IN HERE" and showed me all the things they were doing. It's a bunch of stuff that like, I did as a kid that you can do with cool sceincey things. For example, the cornstarch thing, and another thing with dry ice. They put it in some film cases (though damn, film cases!) and left it covered, and after a while it exploded. They also had soapy water they dropped dry ice in. This made the soap bubble like... a lot. But the cool thing was, when you burst the bubbles, smoke came out~ It was super fun. :D

Little punks also shocked me through a chain though, lol.

Oh, another really cool thing they did was a demo of large scale calligraphy, by the calligraphy club. It was pretty sweet.


Sorry for the lack of pictures, especially on this. A lot of the pictures I took have my students in it (to the point of where you can really see their faces) so it felt a little weird putting those up. :) So you'll just have to take my word that it was a really awesome show. :3

Food club

There's a FOOD CLUB here! OMG~ I'm so excited! :D :D :D :D I am slightly worried though, that it will conflict with the English Club, which is my priority club since really, I'm here for teaching English and so on and so forth. Plus Suga sensei is the main one on that.

Also on the note of food, I need to really start bringing my lunch more often. Or I should. Cause I'm spending a good 500 yen every day on buying lunch at school which, I suppose, isn't too bad but still. I feel bad about buying my lunch all the time. One of my super-pred (since I'm assuming it wasn't Andrew) left me a bento box buuut I think I'm going to throw that away. I wish I knew where there was like, a goodwill or something here.

That being said though, the food that we can order through school is pretty tasty. Your standard range of foods: bento boxes (which I don't care for very much) yakimeshi (fried rice), curry, yakisoba/udon, udon... but I'm sure I'll get tired of it eventually. It's just that it's way too hot to cook right now. And bento boxes are small. Like seirously. The teachers next to me all pretty much bring their lunches and they're so tiny! I'm like, I would need to eat FIVE of those to not feel hungry. Maybe when it cools down, I will attempt to bring my lunch to school every so often.

It's been super hot lately, to add to the misery that is muggy humid weather. I don't hate much but this is just awful. That, and heat attracts bugs. Yesterday, on top of the excruciating humidity, the temperature was 37 C, which is about 98 F. 98 F is hot on it's own but then you add in the fact that you feel like you're being smothered by some intangible yet tangible thing out there every time you step outside... Oh and the sweat. It just doesn't stop. It's disgusting. I live in fear that someone will try to shake my hand (gotta love bowing) or touch my arm or shoulder or back or something (doesn't matter where) and they'll be all "EW GROSS IT'S ALL WET."

Yay humidity.