(no longer) LOST IN JAPAN

My weakness

I check this blog out a lot. yeah, OK... so what... Newsflash: SAMANTHA IS A FLAKE.
Still anyone who praises BNL and Reel Big Fish in one post gets the thumbs up in my book.

posted by Samantha @ 1:28 AM 0 comments

Mmmmm.... Sleep

I got mad at that class again today... same one as 2 weeks ago. This time I actually flipped out though and I heard one girl say "Kowai"... Yes... You want scary, I'll show you scary... If you continue to piss me off I can indeed be scary. I honestly think this class is retarded. I mean they act like spoiled children... Getting the students to talk is usually like pulling teeth but this class is beyond help. It started off well because they all did their homework but then it deteriorated when I asked them to say "it's across from the hotel..."
All I ask is for a sign of life... is that so difficult?

Oh and I was checking out Japan: ....Mediocre Writing... although the blog desperately needs to be updated (hint, hint), I found this little gem in the comments. Apparently someone has been watching too many spy movies.

posted by Samantha @ 12:55 AM 0 comments

My Christmas List...

So I'm ready... When my parents start asking me what I want for Christmas, I have an answer... I WANT AN iPOD. Yes, I know that I'm about 3 months early but I've decided that my frequent train rides to and from places have gone music-less for long enough.
The new iPod Nano came out this month, a very sleek looking toy, but I want the real thing. The big fat 40gig storage unit. I promise if you get me one, I won't be doing this. I don't have that much time on my hands... or money for that matter.

posted by Samantha @ 3:01 AM 2 comments

I have proof!

Yesterday afternoon was Sports Day rehearsal at Oji. I had already been scolded that morning for leaving early so I figured that I should show my goodwill towards the school by watching and pretending to be interested.
Sports Day rehearsal is basically just the students practicing their marching skills. Whereas at Kashiba the students march together in a clump; at Oji, it's kind of like a mini Olympic parade. The students march around the field grouped by class and then after they come together in a clump in the middle and then march forward. It's a little complicated to explain in words but whatever.
Last year when I saw this for the first time, I was quite freaked out. 1000 students lined up marching to a band... they looked like an army. One of my friends had told me that at his school they even did THE salute... Yes, you know what salute I'm talking about: arm extended in front, palm down... Think Germany circa 1940... Well, I was shocked when he told me this but he teaches junior high in BFE Japan, so I thought he was in a unique situation. Yesterday I found out how wrong I was....
The band starts to play. Five students walk out carrying the Japanese flag followed by five more students carrying the Oji flag. After the flag bearers, class 3MA (M is for Mechanics) comes out and walks past the stage. Someone blows a whistle and OUT COME THE ARMS! For about 10 seconds, 35 boys are marching with their arms extended and my mouth is on the ground. And class after class, everyone does this salute... I guess it's not just up in BFE Japan... And yes I got proof. The second time they rehearsed the march, I took pictures.

posted by Samantha @ 12:09 AM 0 comments

Just for you

Since you are the only person who reads my blob... you know who you are... this is a special blog that I found just for you. All about your idol.

Edit: And by blob... I mean B-L-O-G...

posted by Samantha @ 3:00 AM 2 comments

The Party in Soni Mura

Well it's Monday afternoon and I just finished making a Jeopardy game that I apparently don't need. My week from hell ended quite nicely in some much needed stress relief (read in "drinking myself stupid"). Went up to Aaron's house in the mountains for a fantastic party. Drove there in the Devil's Death Machine (aka. Tom's 10-year-old Toyota Sprinter) thinking that we could shove it off a cliff somewhere but unfortunately the car seems to have a mind of it's own... And as payback for wanting to ditch it, I had to drive it all the way back to Haibara on a spare tire... 40 minutes up and down windy narrow mountain roads with 10 cars up my ass on a spare tire... I HATE DRIVING IN JAPAN!!!
The party was excellent and I really think that it was just what I needed to make up for my crappy week. Lots of drunken debauchery, including someone knocking Aaron's front door right off its hinges and a drunken kissing orgy in the driveway (imagine Spin the Bottle with no bottle)... Thanks Zack & Helen for getting the ball rolling... Man... Next time I take pictures.
Went to sleep in the Death Machine at 5AM... had a dream about Hillary Swank beating me with a handbag... woken up way too early by evil people... Then went to onsen to wash away the poison. Quite a lovely weekend until the drive home...

posted by Samantha @ 12:17 AM 0 comments

A three day week to remember

You'd think that a three day week would be nothing to complain about right? Wrong! This has been my worst week since last October when I was going through culture shock... Ever been kicked in the stomach when you were down... well this week has been worse. Oh and wait! It's not over yet! The fun has just begun.
And apparently I'm bossy... Great! Fat AND bossy... just what I've always wanted!
Excuse me while I go cry in a corner.

posted by Samantha @ 2:14 AM 0 comments

Back to Work...

I'm back in school today after a lovely three-day weekend. Tom is in Japan now and he's been a great houseguest. He brought me Belgian chocolates, episodes of American TV shows and he didn't wake me up at 4 o'clock because of jetlag (unlike some people....) He's only been here a few days but he's already experienced Japanese culture at it's finest... We did some zen meditation on Saturday evening, we went to a festival in Nara on Sunday and Monday we went to Osaka. I had to go back to work today though but I think he's off exploring the wonders of Japan on his own.

Tuesdays I'm at Oji though, which is a wonderful and happy place. Coming here for me is a real treat. So far, one boy has given me a rose (albeit an origami rose), one boy flexes his biceps every time I walk into the classroom, the boys in one class walk around in their underwear (!) (no, no, no... don't get the wrong idea... they were changing for gym...) I love this school!!! The only bad thing about being placed here (besides the super massive hill that I have to walk up in the morning) is that now I have something to compare my Kashiba students to. The students at Kashiba are great outside the classroom but inside they are like wet blankets... it sucks... Oh well, at least I have Friday off. Hooray for 2 national holidays in one week!!!

posted by Samantha @ 2:07 AM 0 comments

What is up with this computer?!

I don't know if this is going to work... For some reason, on the school computer, I can only see half of my blog... I can't scroll down anymore... Is anyone having problems seeing the content after a certain point? Please tell me!

EDIT: This sucks... I spent like 3 hours yesterday fiddling with the html on my blog... it no longer looks like gibberish to me... but for some reason, something stopped working and I had to reformat everything and now I have to start all over again... C-R-A-P...

posted by Samantha @ 11:11 PM 0 comments

ワーー！シンド！

What a morning!!! It was crazy... Today, first period, was the 2nd year prefectural English Listening Test. I was the one who did the recordings for his exam with James and Linsey so I was really excited to hear it and see the students reaction... So we did the sound check yesterday evening after school to make sure it would work today. The PA system wasn't being cooperative at first but after about 25 minutes, we got it to fixed. I must have listened to James read Huck Finn about 30 times...

Mais ce matin... the test is supposed to start at 8:55, at all the senior high schools in Nara. So I went upstairs and waited for the test to come on the speakers. 8:55 comes and what happens? NOTHING... there isn't even a humming from the speakers... 1 minute passes... 2, 3... 7 minutes go by and still nothing. So I went downstairs and all the English teachers were freaking out. We tried frantically to get it to work but still nothing. At 9:15, we were running out of time. We thought it might just be the connection from the tape deck so we tried a live broadcast from the mic... which didn't work either. Up and down the stairs, everyone was running around like headless chickens. The test is 10 minutes long so we needed to start the test by 9:25 and the PA was showing no signs that it would finally give up and cooperate. So all of the English teachers (even Kinoshita-san, the student-teacher) took the test script, went to a ninensei classroom and read it out loud to the students... It was so ghetto... We laughed about it after but everyone was so stressed out... And that was just first period.

Second period... moment of weakness... I have never gotten mad at the students. Even my Class of Doom (last year's 1-8A class), I managed to never flip out on them (because I knew that even if I did, it wouldn't make a difference since my JTE was useless and wouldn't back me up). Today though, the students (ironically, this year's 1-8A class) really made me mad. I didn't yell at them though... I just stopped talking. How am I supposed to have an Oral Communication class is the students refuse to communicate orally!?!?! It's just so infuriating! So I took a chair, sat down in the middle of the classroom and told them exactly that. And my JTE, who I adore, translated everything I said. Hopefully next time will be better but I don't think I've ever been so frustrated. I love teaching, which is probably why I hardly ever get mad but this class totally did my head in. Thank God for my JTE though because without her, I think I would have sent the students back to their classroom without giving them the lesson... too bad for them come midterm.

I had class third and fourth period too but lucky for me, the class right after 1-8A is one of my best classes so I felt much better. And then after that, lunchtime eikaiwa wth the sannenseis. But I'm done teaching for the day so I finally get to sit down. Sitting is nice... Tonight I start my cooking lessons again so I get to be the student and not the teacher for a change. And tomorrow, Tom arrives from Belgium. Hopefully he'll make it to the train station without too many problems because I wasn't able to get time off to pick him up at the airport... Ganbare Tom-san!

posted by Samantha @ 12:01 AM 0 comments

So this is what it feels like to melt...

Ok, I know I come from the land of eternal snow and one would think that I'd be happy to be living in a country that actually has a summer that lasts more that a month but OH MY GOD, I'm going to die...

I finally started teaching at Kashiba... but the difference between the 2 schools is like night and day. At Oji, the students are so loud and active. Anything I do, as long as they get the chance to get a "SAMANSA" stamp, they are climbing all over each other to answer questions. The boys are so loud that sometimes I think they can wake the dead... At Kashiba, on the other hand, they are like wet lettuce (thanks Sasha for that expression... I had a good laugh... although it probably sounds better if you say it with a British accent). They just sit there and stare at me blankly... They are so quiet that sometimes I think THEY ARE the dead...

I finally started taking Japanese lessons. I'm doing an hour a week in exchange for an hour of French conversation. I knew that my French would come it handy at some point...

And I heard a rumour that they are finally making a live action Nancy Drew movie! OMG!!! Can it really be true?!

posted by Samantha @ 12:54 AM 1 comments

Stranded...

It's Friday and I just want to go home... BUT someone decided to issue a heavy rain warning and seeing as I'm on my bike and don't have my rain gear with me (because this morning was absolutely gorgeous)... I have to wait out the storm... grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

posted by Samantha @ 3:23 AM 0 comments

In the News...

I have stayed away from the political blogging (or anything that is even remotely unsuperficial) because every time I try my hand at it, I'm told that I'm wrong (or retarded...) But whatever... since when have I been discouraged by what other people think...
So just in case you don't like reading the news, here are a few interesting little things I picked up in my free time...

President Arroyo dodged impeachment... I can hardly say that I'm surprised...

President Bush is being blamed for everything Katrina related... I'm not a Bush supporter but come on people... This time it wasn't his fault... He didn't cause the hurricane, he didn't destroy the levees and just because some of the Louisiana National Guard is in Iraq, that doesn't mean that he should be blamed for this tragedy. If anyone should be blamed for incompetance, it's the people over at FEMA... Although, if you haven't seen the video of Kanye West dissing George Jr., you should check it out. It's worth the watch.

The election in Japan is Sunday. Although the international media is making this out to be a huge deal (and considering the billions of dollars involved in the postal reform, I think it is a big deal), the Japanese people seem to be generally unconcerned. But then again, Japanese people are good at hiding their true opinions so perhaps I am wrong... Go here and here and here for a few good articles.

Typhoon Nabi has caused considerable damage along the coast of Japan. 9 people were killed and 140 people injured... My part of the country remained untouched as usual... YAY FOR MOUNTAINS!!! Itsukushima Jinja was battered pretty hard again. The repairwork from the last major typhoon (Sept. 2004) was still being done when I went in July... Guess it's back to the drawingboard.

posted by Samantha @ 2:59 AM 0 comments

Kashiba Bunkasai

I can't believe that it's been a year... A whole year has come and gone... this time last year I was walking around the school grounds, an outsider, not talking to anyone, getting stares and whispers from the students... sometimes, the bold ones would say "Hello" and sometimes the even bolder ones would point to my once ample chest (oh why oh why does the weight come off in the assets that I like) and say "Nice!"
But school festival has come around once again and this time it was so very different. At the performances yesterday, I understood the explanantions, I understood what awards were being given out and for what (last year I didn't even know that they were giving out awards...) At the festival today, I was walking around talking to the students (granted in my broken Japanese) and to the teachers. It's a nice feeling... being part of something...

I was walking around taking pictures for Katy today. Some of the girls in her class were sporting the red maple leaf on their arms or cheeks. Probably parting gifts from everybody's favorite exchange student. It was a really nice sight. Internationalization at it's best! Go Katy! You actually made a difference...


The performances yesterday and today were excellent. It's amazing to see the students do the things that they like to do. The school band was awesome, as usual. The students work so hard all summer on this festival and it's really nice to see that their hard work pays off. The stage performances today were just as fun to watch. We had budding DJs, hip-hop dancers (and choreographers for that matter)... there was breakdancing with a friendly dance-off between the second and third year breakers. The main theme for the festival this year was "When You Shine Most--君が一番輝く時" which in retrospect is really very appropriate. Bunkasai is definitely a shining moment for all students...

posted by Samantha @ 2:30 AM 0 comments

Typhoons and Technical Schools

It's Tuesday and I already want the week to be finished... I'm still sore from the butt-kicking I received on Sunday and the fact that I can barely lift my arms up over my head isn't helping much... There's a typhoon on the way so the air is really heavy but once it blows over, it'll be nice again.
I started at Oji Technical High School yesterday. Made a PowerPoint presentation for my self-introduction. I'm getting good at the PowerPoint. If only I'd known how easy it was, I'd have used it for all my presentations in University.
The students' English level is VERY low. They can build robots but they can't speak English... but they try. They are definitely a much more lively bunch. I just hope I'm a good enough teacher to keep them motivated. Apparently, I'm the first female ALT this school has had. Many of the teachers have told me that the students (95% boys) were all very excited. A couple of the male ALTs warned me about the personal questions I'd be getting but I've been disappointed so far. I get the standard "Do you like Japanese food?", "Where do you live?"... nothing ground breaking...
I'm currently trying to work on the AJET October Newsletter but I'm seriously lacking in inspiration... I really need to get back to it though... so off I go

posted by Samantha @ 10:57 PM 0 comments

Bruised and Broken

As predicted, got my a** severely kicked. 大変だったな。全部負けちゃった．．．I've even got the footprints to prove it... Guess that's what I get for going to a tournament unprepared... 今から練習するよ！
I start in Oji tomorrow. However, since I completely forgot about the JLPT registration deadline, I have to get permission to leave at some point so that I can go to the post office and send in my application form... or else I'll be going home to Canada as a san-kyuu-less brown belt...

posted by Samantha @ 7:28 AM 0 comments

First Day of School

School has finally begun and this year, I've got plenty of stuff to keep me busy. I'm starting at Oji Kougyo next Monday, where I'll be teaching the 3rd years. I now have 5 classes at Oji and 8 classes at Kashiba... bringing my total number of classes to... ummmmmm... 13, right? Math isn't my strong point.

Yesterday was the first day of school at Kashiba. I'm sitting at my desk, minding my own business, and all of a sudden, I raise my head and there is NO ONE in the teachers room. This isn't unusual, in fact it happens all the time but I've been here for a year and I'm sick of people just not telling me what's going on just because I don't speak Japanese... So I get up and walk to the gym thinking that opening ceremonies had started without me... again. But there is no one there. I check the classrooms on the way back but they are also empty except for a few students sitting on the desks... Where is everyone?! I hear voices so they must be around somewhere, right? So I go to the student entrence thinking that maybe the teachers are out welcoming the students... BINGO! Well except that they weren't doing any welcoming. It was uniform inspection. All the students were lined up outside, in the sweltering heat, waiting to be poked and prodded.

Here's how it worked. Each student would walk up in turn and the teachers would look them up and down. Since students at my school (and at most schools for that matter) aren't allowed having dyed hair, wearing make-up or painting their nails... this is what the teachers are looking for. However, during the summer, many of the students do just that. So if the teachers find that the student is not "properly attired" (i.e. the black hair spray is not properly applied), then the students are sent home to do it again. It was quite a spectacle actually. It looked like the teachers were checking for lice or something. I was thoroughly amused watching the students squeal and squirm and complain under the prying eyes of the P.E. teacher, until one of the girls who I knew had naturally lighter hair came up to the plate. The teachers looked at her hair and hemmed and hawed... I honestly thought that they were going to send her home. Instead, they cross-checked her name with a second list of students. I'm guessing that this was a list of students who were "different" to begin with because she was let through without being sent home. I'm glad that's what happened because had it gone any other way, I probably would have flipped out. And people laugh at me when I said I went to a private, all-girls Catholic school... The nuns were strict but nowhere near as strict as what I've seen in Japan.

I let myself slide this summer and have gained weight again (too many McDonalds' cheeseburgers). So I have to get back in gear and back onto my Okinawa diet. Hopefully it's not too late for me to get my stomach under control again... Besides... after I get my a** severely whooped at the black belt tournament on Sunday, I'll have serious motivation. Back to the gym and back to the Judo club. Ganbarimasu!

posted by Samantha @ 7:19 PM 1 comments