April 28, May 1

I know, really bad blog posting. I'm not good at this game. Also, I think its only fair to tell you that I haven't been writing at school either. Its been getting hot, and the will to scribe just kind of goes out the door when it gets to be about 80 degrees and 100000000000% humidity in the teacher's room. On the bright side, it is getting warmer and sunnier, and that is awesome. I love summer, I think its been about 2 years since I've really had a hot summer, so the heat still feels heavenly.

Also, since I haven't really been writing, this installment goes a ways to catching us up to the present...sort of. This is maybe 10-20% of what I have written so far just to give a ball-park update type figure.

These are transcribed entries from the journal I am writing in at school. I started the journal for a number of reasons, one of the main ones being that I didn’t have internet yet so I couldn’t post things online. The other being that I had free time on my hands. These entries are slightly modified, but mostly for grammar. I suppose you’d never know either way. Surprisingly, I had way more to say than I thought. Unsurprisingly, I have been bad (abysmal) at keeping my online entries up to date with my written ones. Someday, the dates will match but for now…These are the voyages of a long time ago in a galaxy far far away:


April 28, 2009 (kayobi) Tuesday
Today I ate plankton for lunch. What else can one say? If nothing else happened today (and when is that ever true?), I think that one sentence would be plenty for the day. And a time efficient entry as well. (I was still handwriting at this point, remember.)

They finally have me working more than two or three hours a day, so I have less time to write, which is ok with me. I’m still mostly just a human voice box, which is also ok by me, but it means that my lessons require exactly zero prep time/effort by me. So I write, practice/study the Japanese, and today I threw the disc around with K. Sensei and my Kyoto Sensei, (Kyoto Sensei: Vice principal) which was totally sweet! We used Kyoto Sensei’s free-style disc, which is kind of weird and small and light- but whatever, man! Yay for frisbee, its so relaxing!

As for Japanese, I found a website that explained Japanese verb conjugation – yes, the Japanese do freaking conjugate verbs! Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. Its was a rather satisfying discovery. Rules! Also, I can start building my verb vocabulary because I finally get the whole verb thing…maybe…probably not, (definitely not) but it’s a good step. (Future flash: I still use that website, its timwerx.net/language/jpverbs – yes I have memorized the address, no I have not even come close to mastering most of the contents. I really like the site, though, its still really helpful.)

I also used a bit of Japanese today in class. Well, just one word really, but I said it with authority. Also, the kid understood me – yahoo! In class, he pointed at the English word “school” and looked at me, so I said “gakou” (school in Japansese) and he said “oh, ok!” Successful teaching momeeeent!

In addition, strides were made today in the dress code dept. (We’re teaching the passive voice to the third year students right now, sorry Furstenthal, I want you to know that it hurts me too.) I suited down to no-tie-no-jacket when I was playing frisbee and then I stayed like that for cleaning time with the kids. Then I sports-suited up for the kid’s track practice! Steps one and two towards my ultimate goal of going to school in a tracksuit: check. Further down on the list: getting a tracksuit. Track suits are cool. Exhibit: most of the teachers at my school own one, and a good chunk of them teach in them from time to time.


May 1, 2009 (kimyobi) Friday
So I’m a bit behind in the writing (at the time I was trying to write nearly every day; that fell through, let me tell you) and I only have a pen, (I don’t like writing in pens, something to final / illegible about my penmenship) but a man’s gotta do…The last few days have been pretty busy; four classes a day plus track practice after school means not so much time for writing. Also, Wednesday was Showa Day, which is a holiday to commemorate the end/beginning of the previous/current emperor’s reign – so no school. So, for my first month of teaching I’ll have had a 6-day week (Open house on the first Saturday) two 4-day weeks, and one 2-day week because next week is Golden Week- which is a series of holidays jammed together. It’s a hard life.

For Showa Day, Winston and I went for an adventure out to Kujukuri beach, which is on the Eastern side of the Chiba peninsula. On a map is that big long smooth ark; yeah, it’s as sweet as it looks. As I later learned from one of my teachers, kujuku literally means 99 (which I probably should have figured out) and ri was an ancient Japanese unit of distance, so Kujukuri beach is like saying 99 mile beach. More accurately, kujuku is used to express a lot of something, so kujukuri beach really translates as something like “the fucking long beach,” or something - my translation skills are still a little weak.

Anyway, just getting to the beach was quite an adventure, because our maps were not so great, and we have never really driven anywhere in Japan yet, and you have to drive on the wrong side of the road here, and, you know, the signs (and our directions) were mostly in Japanese. Fortunately, that actually worked in our favor, because the route we took was along major roads which all have English on their signs, so when we reach a stretch of road with no English, time to turn around. (This happened with some frequency)

The most exciting part, however, was when we took a highway going the wrong direction. And not like, oh no, we went West instead of East (well, ok, that is exactly what happened, but read on, read on) but more like instead of heading inland (we live on the West coast of the Chiba peninsula) we headed outland, like towards the water. This may not sound like a huge deal, but the road we were on actually turns into a bridge across Tokyo bay leading to Tokyo – which is decidedly not Kujukuri beach - and doesn’t really have lots of places to turn around, and it costs 2000 yen to get across. But for the eternal grace and patience of the Japanese bridge-toll-people…toll man figured out that we were ridiculously lost gaijin, and explained how to turn around before we ended up in Tokyo, and let us through for free.

It was a pretty classic moment. We were decked out for the beach, with maps to Kujukuri, (the opposite direction) on the road to Tokyo. We come up to the toll person and ask “kujukuiri?” to which the kindly toll person replies with a concerned shake of the head, “Kawasaki.” (the southern boarder of Tokyo) “Shimatta!” (“shit!”) And the learning process continues apace.

The beach was sweet, but really windy. However, just being on sand and near ocean made both Winston and me look forward for hotter days and rekindled Winston’s excitement for skim boarding: a sport he’s never tried, but is very passionate about. It’s a board sport where you run and throw a thin light board onto the very edge of the surf (like an inch or so of water) jump on and ‘skim’ along the water.

I’m more excited for track practice! The kids have a big track meet coming up, and I have started running with them. It makes me wish I had brought my track shoes. Well, almost wish. Running feels good, and I get to dress down, score points with the teachers, and be active. Ichiban! (number 1!)

In other news, one of the teachers (male) at my school (Sunami) just had a baby girl, which was exciting for everyone, including yours truly, because the teachers were excited enough about it to explain it to me. It was pretty cute. In the afternoon we got a call from the teacher to tell us that his baby had been born! I get the impression that we were the first to know, very Japanese. And, the next day, he was at work same as always, except he did make an announcement about his new kid at the teacher’s morning meeting.