Story from last week:  I’m sitting at my desk during my planning period when a teacher and a fourth grader come into the staff room.  The kid takes a long look at me and the following ensues (all in Japanese):

Kid (to the other teacher): Sensei, there’s a foreigner here!

Me: Yup, and I can speak Japanese, too.  Good morning!

Kid: ~stunned silence~

Other teacher:  Go on, greet her.

Kid:  G-good morning.

I hope that gives her pause next time she sees a non-Japanese out and about – we may not “look” like we understand Japanese, but sometimes we do.

This marks a big change for us.  Up until now Ken has been mostly at home while I’ve been working mornings and afternoons.  I usually get home by four and we would have the late afternoon and evenings together.  No more.  Ken will probably be leaving the house around nine (the company gets a late start) and coming back around eight.  So those chores we used to share?  Those are mostly mine now.  Grah.

I knew this was coming.  Japanese companies value time put in at work, sometimes more than the actual amount of work done.  An hour of overtime each day is du rigueur at many offices with more around deadlines and other big happenings.

While doing a mad google search for “daily/weekly cleaning schedule” I came across the Flylady.  Her philosophy is that your house didn’t become dirty in a day so it won’t become clean in a day, either.  By slowly establishing a cleaning routine and not overwhelming yourself you can get a lot done.  One mantra on the site is to take baby steps and not rush anything.  The first baby step?  Cleaning your sink until it shines.  Sounds corny, but my kitchen looks much better with a happy, gleaming sink greeting me.  Not to mention that it’s such a big piece of real estate the shine adds an extra 10 watts of light to the room.

While there are a lot of things I’ll have to modify to fit my needs (“air the futon” isn’t exactly on her list) I think it’s a great foundation for my own cleaning routine.  Leo at Zen Habits advocates a similar approach but the Flylady makes everything dead simple, telling you where and how to concentrate your efforts each week.  I like.

In other news I had a very interesting class today.  One of the Japanese teachers I work with is part of a program developing new ways to teach English in Japanese schools.  This guy is amazing – he lived in England for over three years and is quite conversational.  He uses English every day and as a result his kids know things like, “Let me try!”, “One more time!”, and “How do you say ___ in English?”.  This is leaps and bounds ahead of most sixth graders.  In other classes I pretty much run the show but in his I sit back and enjoy, providing pronunciation models and playing the games with the kids.

Well, today a bunch of people came to evaluate his technique and discuss his methods.  I knew that much.  I didn’t know that there would be two people with home movie cameras recording us and that the people coming were mostly higher ups from the local Center for International Education.  Wah!

Luckily the class went off without a hitch.  The kids were great, the games were fun and everyone spoke a lot of English.  Success!

Afterwards a nice lady from the Center complimented me – she was surprised to hear I’m a first year teacher, my technique was so good.  Woot!  She also said my voice was clear, easy to understand, and overall very nice.  I was interested in a career in radio at one point (heck, I still am) so that made my day.

Only two more days of work before my six week summer vacation!  May it be filled with sunny days and gleaming sinks!

It went pretty well, I think.  The guy who came was quite strict during the initial training so I was bracing myself for the worst but everything turned out okay.  He even had some great tips on how to make particular parts of the lesson flow more smoothly.  He said that I did a great job controlling the class while being just the right amount of fun/silly.  I never thought I would be able to “control” a group of 35 sixth graders so I was really happy to hear that.

I’m finally starting to feel like I’m settling into this job.  I still get butterflies before I teach a new lesson or go in front of a demanding class but things are becoming easier day by day.

All of this being said, I don’t think teaching is the job I’m meant to do.  It’s something I’m good at, sure, but it doesn’t capture my mind and imagination.  At least, not when I’m travelling to five different schools and seeing roughly 1000 different kids every two weeks.  If I had my own class it might be different… but then again, if I had my own class I would have to deal with a lot of problems I conveniently sidestep now.

Originally I was thinking I would teach for one year and then move on to something where I can use my Japanese more effectively and learn more as I go.  But with the economy being so bad and jobs being so scarce I’m now thinking another year of teaching might be a good idea.  I get home in the afternoon and have lots of time to study.  Sometimes I even get the chance to study during work where there’s always a super-nice, understanding, patient teacher around if I have a question.  While teaching isn’t my life’s work doing it for a little longer may be my ticket to Japanese fluency.  I don’t have to decide anything right now (the school year runs April through March) so we’ll see how it plays out.

I also got a chance to talk about my schedule, especially the fact that, well, I’m not receiving any.  Turns out to be an email server problem of some sort.  That’s understandable but it’s stressful going to a school and not knowing what I’m doing.  Some schools tell me way in advance what to expect which rocks.  Others, understandably, convey that  information through the schedule.  Last week I went to one school at a little after 8 am and the teacher looked shocked.  “Didn’t you see that you start at 11?”  Well, I wish I did.  Hopefully things will be fixed by next week.

Before I get going I want to say that I won’t be naming specific schools or teachers.  I won’t even be calling them “school A” and “school B”.  I have five schools–there’s no way I could keep that straight.  Here are some things I will say after visiting four of five schools:

• One school is very small, with only one class (~30 kids) for each grade 1 through 6
• One school is very large, with nearly 1000 students in grades 1 through 6
• At one school I teach a special needs class
• One school is at the end of an amazing shopping street where I plan to pick up a lot of goodies on my way home from work
• At some schools I eat lunch with the kids

In general I’m teaching fifth and sixth graders.  Abilities, even in a single classroom, vary widely.  Some teachers know English pretty well themselves and have given their students a head start.  Some students go to an English juku,  or “cram school” (at their level it’s less about cramming and more about exposure, though).  Other students have never studied English before and don’t have much interest in it.

Being able to speak Japanese has been a big help with the other teachers.  It seems some of my schools have had foreign teachers with no Japanese, so me walking in and doing a self-introduction in their language has been a shock.  The teachers at one of these schools were super cute and said, “Oh, we can relax this year!  We don’t have to worry if we’re being understood or not!  This is going to be great!”

My first lessons have been self-introductions.  I draw a squiggle outline of the US and point to where I’m from.  I have pictures of my house in January which gets a lot of ooos and aahhhs because of the piles of snow.  The kids are shocked to hear how tall I am–172 cm or nearly 5’8″.  This is giant by Japanese standards.  I’m taller than all the female teachers and 90% of the male teachers.  On days where I do a lot of talking with the kids my back starts to hurt from bending over.  I’ve tried bending my knees to get lower while staying fairly upright but I can only do it for so long.

It’s been fun to go over culture differences between Japan and America.  In Japan you indicate yourself by pointing to your nose, not your chest.  The “okay” sign is turned a little and means “money” instead.  “Come here”, a palm up gesture in the States, is flopped and done palm down.  It almost looks like you’re waving a cute goodbye.  When I first learned Japanese I was told the American gesture is only used for pets so I make sure to teach it right away.  I want the kids to know they’re better than a dog–it’s just a culture thing.

Telling kids that shoes are okay inside American homes gets the biggest reaction.  Shoes are always, always taken off in the entryway here and are seen, along with feet, to be dirty.  The thought of wearing shoes while watching tv or having dinner blows their little minds.

In the classroom I use all English, except for those few moments I mumble with the homeroom teacher about what to do next.  I tell the kids that I can listen to and understand Japanese but I can’t speak it.  They totally believe it.  They end up using English has much as they can and then ask the burning questions (“Do you wear shoes while you sleep??”) in Japanese.

One point of contention is school lunch.  It’s designed for little growing bodies–roughly 900 calories with full fat milk and cheese, red meat, and so on.  In other words… loaded with nasty cholesterol.  I can’t eat it.

So I should brown bag it, right?  Well, in Japanese schools everyone, down to the teachers and office staff, eats the school lunch.  There’s a “clean your plate” rule–nothing can be left behind.  Nightmare.

One school gets around the problem by having me teach all morning and sending me home right before lunch.  Another school has been awesome explaining my situation to the kids.  During the first lesson the teacher said (in Japanese), “Next week Karla-sensei is going to be eating lunch with us and she’s going to be bringing her own lunch box.  Why is that, Karla-sensei?”

So I looked at these kids, sixth graders who just learned how to say “my name is ___” and “nice to meet you” and said in English, “Well… I have high cholesterol.”

Confused stares.

“So… no meat.  No milk.  No cheese.  No shrimp.”  The teacher did some translating and the kids got all concerned.

“If she eats those things would she die??“

Oh no, the homeroom teacher said.  It’s not an allergy.

“Is it like… a law or something?” another kid asked.

Well, yes, the teacher replied.  The kids didn’t know what to think.  I think they took pity on me–no cheese?  No milk?  No meat??  How sad!

I’m really grateful the teacher took time to explain, though.  I don’t want to seem prissy for getting special treatment; it is indeed for a very good reason.

Oh geesh that turned into a long post.  Hopefully next time I’ll have more pictures for you guys.  I still have shots of a couple of day trips that I need to show you.  In lieu of a picture I’ll tell you this:  tomorrow’s high is 75.  Woo!

Training is a little bit of everything, from paperwork to “cultural sensitivity”.  We get chances to give parts of lessons in front of everyone which is good.  The days feel long and I get home exhausted but I’m learning a lot.

Odd thing–in our group of about 50 there’s a girl that grew up maybe 15 minutes away from me.  The odds of that happening must be really slim, especially when we’re from little ol’ Upstate NY.  I told her my hometown and she asked, “Do you know Dennis?”.  Just like that, no last name or anything.  And you know what?

I did.

Scary.

It would be nice if I could get to New York City and back for so little money but alas, Amtrak is much more expensive than that.  A little envelope filled with paperwork makes the trip for that discount fare though.

And my, the paperwork.  The most important piece is a Certificate of Eligibility, a letter from the Japanese government saying that I can come over and work.  It proves that education requirements are met and that somebody has given me a job in the first place.  Along with that I sent a copy of the CoE (front and back), an application form with my photo, my passport, a SASE, and a release waiver.  A release for what you say?  If my passport gets lost I can’t blame them for it.  Kinda scary, isn’t it?

When my passport comes back it will have a large sticker in it–my new visa, complete with my pixelized face.  My ticket to the promised land.  Well, not really… that ticket costs much more than $26.

It arrived in Alaska before it was even picked up.  The international date line rocks.  ^_^

The best baristas are chefs, rock stars, baby sitters, comedians, bartenders and therapists all rolled into one.

I think I covered four out of six well.  I’ll leave you to guess which ones.  ^_^

And for all who work at Starbucks, here’s Ben Hensley with Taylor’s Response:

I enjoy these more than I probably should.