Feb 28 - March 5

This week's post is a summary of events, emotions, thoughts, and plans. Since we last spoke, I was a few days away from receiving the alien registration card, classes were going well, and my Lakers were at the top of the table mid-season in NBA 2K11. 

I shall start with the kids classes. Tuesday's terrorizers were better this week, but that's not saying much. Thursday came with a bit of a surprise because one of the students decided to be absolutely out of control the entire lesson. For example, he felt the need to try to climb on everything, take all my markers out and start drawing on the board, take all the magnets and throw them at me, and kick the other students. It can become extremely frustrating reprimanding kids because what I say carries no meaning compared to being reprimanded in Japanese. The pre-school kids in particular are changing at such a pace that the cute quiet girl last month could be the new terror this month. However, the child is not always out of control because of privileged treatment at home, it can be because the child doesn't understand what is going on in the lesson. That's something I need to work on because if the child understands my instructions and points I'm trying to introduce, they might not feel out of place and will want to participate. That doesn't mean it will work on all students and those who still refuse to participate can roll around on the floor like maniacs all they want. 

What really helped was the feedback I received from my Head Teacher who observed one of my kids lessons on Thursday. She suggested some techniques on certain areas of the lesson as well as for student control. They proved extremely affective because my Friday and Saturday students demonstrated a much higher retention of the material. I really noticed signs of fulfillment in their eyes. I am quite lucky to have really great coworkers.

Moving onto adult lessons, this week was really useful for building a niche with my students. They had two weeks to analyze my personality and presentation as a new teacher. Now it was time to start connecting with them. Many Japanese adults who are learning English are really successful individuals. One woman is a retired Architect who wants to travel the world and communicate with those who speak English. She also plans to live in Canada this Summer for 3 months. I have two college professors who are extremely intelligent men; one of them must be a physicist or mathematician because he's questions always require precise answers which is quite a bit of pressure to be honest. There is also a man who owns a movie theater who studies because he wants to know all the native speakers' nuances he hears in his movies. Possibly one of the most unique reasons I heard was from a young lady who is learning because she wants to go to Disney World and speak fluently with Mickey. They all have different self fulfilling reasons, but seem to make the same flabbergasted face when I tell them my age. The previous teacher was a 35 year old math, science, and English teacher who knew the absolute technicalities of English. Now they are faced with a 23 year old American "young buck" who only teaches based off experience with the language. I hope they don't figure out my secret that I don't know any linguistic terminology besides morphology, phonology and syntax : ).

Oh, and when I gave the response to my student about the "food" and "foods" question, stating that since it is a category that covers many things (just like furniture, tableware, silverware, etc.) it is used as singular. So of course his response came back as, "Oh ok, but what about sports? 'I have alot of sports to play.'" All I could say was, "GENERALLY speaking they are singular, English is full of irregularities, let's move on."

Another lesson this week proved to be very successful. We were discussing invitations and the final task was creating a party invitation. We brainstormed as a class and many ideas were really creative; some were cherry blossom viewing, hiking, barbecue, tacoyaki, and gardening. One student, Masashi, decided he wanted to have a Girls Only Plus Masashi Party on the beach in the summer at his house. So the girl sitting next to him decided to make her party the All Girls Definitely Not Masashi Allowed Party at the local karaoke bar. Japanese people are not all as shy as it may be perceived.  It's all a matter of creating a comfortable environment for anyone, nonetheless this one being one in English, and they start drawing out great ideas. 

On Friday I went with one of my coworkers to pick up the Alien Registration card. We also went to the bank and the gym. Signing up at the gym and bank was really fun, because I had my coworker as a translator for any cloudy spots in the conversation. The applications are of course in Japanese, so it's best to know how to at least write your name and address in Japanese and read somewhat simple instructions. These tasks may prove impossible without any knowledge of Japanese and may be overwhelming. So for me, who has been labeled as chuugakkou ichi nen sei (middle school first year) level, it was good to have a security blanket when signing up. 

After feeling confident about sign-up procedures, I decided to go by myself to the cable company to sign up for internet on Sunday. The first words I used were an apology for being a beginner at Japanese. The woman laughed and was extremely helpful from there. From what I THINK I understood, I bought a cable modem with a really good speed that will be installed on March 20th. 

Saturday I was asked out on a date! By a guy. After class one of my students asked me if I wanted to get dinner together with him. In America this would have absolutely been considered a date, but in America guys don't carry "man-bags" and keep themselves as manicured and pedicured as women like they do in Japan. I knew his intentions were only friendly, but I still had to keep my guard up to be safe, I am not a cheap date. We dropped in at the same restaurant I went to last week, and Youichi-san (chef and owner) served some awesome food again. I was able to draw a hetero-conclusion once we got to talking about past relationships. He's a real cool guy and it was nice to make friends with a local.

Final highlights on an overall nice week. Lost some sleep because of over analyzing things, won the NBA Championship on XBox, noticed that all toilets have a "big flush" and "small flush" feature, and broke 2 dozen eggs in two days; one dozen I dropped my bag the moment I exited the store. The second dozen on the next day I fell down the stairs on the crosswalk in the rain, perfect timing in front of a cute girl too. 

Living in a foreign land is still great, but at times can feel isolating. May feel frustrating at times because there is still a language barrier to an extent. And not for anything, I'm a half-Italian half-Scottish white guy trying to fit in with a mostly hegemonic culture. I don't blame those who aren't interested in socializing with the different guy, because its like if a kid with blue skin moved next door to me back in New York. Yea he's different which could make people interested in knowing how he became blue, or arrived in New York, but there is still that select group who wishes not to participate with blue guy. 

Have a great week! Internet will be in the apartment in two weeks! Cheers.