Junior High Jazziness

So with the English speech contest this past Saturday, I was looking for this student Kengo everyday after school on the 3rd year floor so that we can practice and get him ready for the big day. In the process of searching for him, I would always stop and see what the students were doing after school. With the school festival only 2 weeks away, they are all busy making posters and banners and other fun things and anytime I ask them about it, they are more than happy to explain things to me. It seems a lot better if I go and just chill with them after school than if I were to see them in class. They really do put on a different persona. Anyhow, there are a few 3rd graders who are particularly friendly to me. One of them is Takeshi, who always says hello and makes it a point to answer questions in class. After school, the one day, he asked to have a picture of me. I felt like a true celebrity. I did like how he asked me first unlike the other students who just run up and snap a picture and run away giggling. I think I would like to be friends with some of the 3rd years. I would really like to know what they like to do and where they like to go, really get into the mind of a Japanese middle schooler. Sometimes I think I was destined to be a field sociologist.

Let's see, so yah, on top of that all the students take part in singing various songs for the school festival. They have been practicing since I arrived here and song amazing. I will be sitting at my desk lesson planning and hear the echoes of their songs from across the courtyard or through an open window. It is fantastic, being seranaded while I work. One of the songs the 3rd years chose to sing is We Are the World by Michael Jackson. They are slightly obsessed with this song, I've found.

Let's see, what else. Oh yes, the speech contest. It was good but really long. I arrived there at 11am and it went until 6:00 or so. 7 hours was waaaaay too long, especially because I was not told how long it would be and did not pack a lunch. I figured a few hours and I could grab a late lunch/early dinner. Well, guess it's my fault for not asking how long it would be. My students did not place, sadly. But the students of other JETs I know did which was great. I was genuinely impressed by the skill of all the students and wish them the best of luck with their English endeavors. 

After the contest, I went out to eat with Brynn and Emma at a ramen shop. Fan-freaking-tastic! It was some of the most enjoyable food I've eaten thus far and filling too. After that, celebration in Ueda which included doughnuts, alcohol, and good people. Hung out with Kazu, a Japanese guy I had met at Karen's party a while back. I offered to help him out with his English because I know how hard it can be in the company of native speakers (having lived in the Czech Rep.) and try to pick up things when no one is willing to explain context or what was said. He seemed quite excited about this and I'm sure that he will return the favor and speak with me in Japanese. :)

3rd years working on a countdown sign for the festival. Takeshi is on the far left.

Two 2nd years playing table tennis with their hands. They were hilarious.

These are meant to be snacks. Served at lunch, I found them to be disgusting, covered in some light sugary stuff and seasame seeds. Bleh, bleh, bleh. Trust me, don't eat these!

Mika giving her speech on 'Language'

Kengo giving his speech on the 'Nature in Nagano'

All the contestants, judges, and honorable attendees

It's Exciting to Me

Had another full day of classes. Apparently me teaching 3-4 classes a day is a lot compared to other ALTs. Most only teach 1-3 a day. After school, I coached Mika with her speech for the speech contest and she is doing fantastically. Her pronunciation has improved dramatically and she has almost the whole thing down without being stuck on any words. It is still a bit hard for her to work out the ‘th’ sound. Despite people making fun of the Japanese because of the difficulty for them to distinguish between l and r sounds, ‘th’ seems to actually be more difficult for most of the students, commonly saying ‘sa’ [sank instead of thank] for the soft ‘th’ sound and “d” for the buzzing or harder ‘th’ sound [dis instead of this]. I am only thankful that English has all the sounds used in Japanese because I know how hard it is having tried to master the initial ‘p’ sound in Czech and having failed miserably.

As for memorizing it, she already has about 1/3 of it committed to memory which is fantastic. This means we have started to focus more closely on hand gestures and motions along with voice volume, pitch, tone, and all that other jazz that really makes a speech come to life. She is going to be fantastic come time for the speech contest.

Went to the mall to get a few things that I wanted/needed like hooks for putting kitchen utensils on the wall and a microSD card for my phone so I can take more photos with it. I was also looking at Nintendo DS games to occupy my time on the train and waiting for people but well I couldn’t find anything that I really liked or that I knew to be good. So I will wait until I can go to a bigger electronics store. While in the video game section, I ran into one of my students and we chatted a bit about this antenna that you can buy for the DS that gives allows you to watch tv. What a novelty! He told me to wait and ran to get his mom and brought her to see me. I introduced myself but she already knew more about me than I thought. She was super nice and her English was remarkable. We started in Japanese but it was apparent that she wanted to try her English so I decided to switch. It was really neat because we chatted as if we had known each other for quite some time. I think it is neat that I keep running into my students everywhere I go and meeting their parents is always a treat because they are so appreciative of what I am doing for their kids. We parted ways once her daughter came over and asked to go to the bathroom. I will be teaching her one of the elementary schools soon.

That evening I went to a yakiniku (grilled meat) restaurant with about 20 other people from the Saku area, all of us teaching English or just friends living in the area. It was nice because there were a lot of new people but perhaps too many to keep track of everyone’s names. I ate next to a Japanese woman named Sai. She was crazy. I have never seen a person so full of energy and life. Everything was exclaimed with WOW! and you could barely keep her from sitting still. She was fun but you could tell it was a tad abnormal. I personally loved talking to her and seeing life from such a fast-paced high-energy all-over-the-place angle. Perhaps this is something that I envy about her. But maybe thinking about it, I am very content with the way I view life and live it. In my world, things don’t have to be exciting 24/7 and not doing something is not a loss of life. Sometimes it is the downtime in life that really allows someone to grow as a person, contemplating, understanding, discovering things about oneself. If I were always on the go, never stopping, I would have a shit ton of experiences but not really understand them I fret.

I think this is an important aspect to mention to some of you reading this blog who claim your lives are not “as exciting” as mine because I am in Japan seeing and doing something different to you. But in reality, the same is true for me. I see your lives as exciting because I, too, am engaged in something that is not your experiences. Perhaps it is the tiniest thing to you like a server at a restaurant being really mean, but to me that is something I need to hear because otherwise I may forget that some servers can actually be rude. It helps me realize the similarities and differences in life. If nothing else, it makes me happy to be a part of your lives. So please, don’t think that anything is too small or insignificant because I am sure I will find it interesting especially because it is going on in the life of someone I know and care about.