Lately...

Things have been super freaking busy lately! and it's been very tempting to call in and take a 'sick day', but not only would that be severely frowned upon, I have also promised, almost begged myself to behave and work through whatever's being thrown at me until my oh-so-exciting-trip-to-Thailand on December 24th. Did I mention how excited  I am to be going?! Well, times that by a million and you're getting there. Jessie and I are going to stay at an island beach resort for a few days, and hopefully get some of that elephant riding in there that I've been so looking forward to. hahaha! CAN'T WAIT!! :D :D But there's still 20 some odd days to get through first. Le sigh...

So yeah, things have been pretty busy here. Now that I've been roped into doing the charity musical ( really seriously enjoying it, I swear! The traveling around every second weekend is a bit tough though :/) there's most of my weekends tied up.

I was able to do a weekend home stay with a Japanese family two weeks ago, and had a great time. The family had lived in the US for about 6 years, so their English was pretty good. What threw me off was the complete lack of personal questions that most Japanese people ask me when we first meet. And therefore usually have some sort of witty remark ready, so I definitely wasn't expecting this! It was fun though. My host mom (now to be referred as Kazumi), and her two children (Kenchi and Yuina) picked me up at the Murakami train station and then preceded to Sekikawa to make mochi. The ironic part of the morning was that we both already knew the main people in charge! It was with the same group who I had done the traditional rice harvesting with in October, so we had a nice little reunion. Even better, the rice we used was the stuff I had picked! and was able to buy some of it after :) Food always tastes better when you've worked for it, don't you think?

For those of you going "what the heck is this mochi stuff?!" let me explain. Mochi is rice mixed with water and beaten the crap out of with a heavy wooden mallet until its a gooey, delicious mess, and then topped with more or less what ever you want. My favourite is adzuki, or red bean paste. After we all had our way with the mochi, it was lunch time, which meant 6 different kinds of homemade curries. It was delicious. Not enough words to describe it. Personally, I'm a big fan of Indian and Thai curries, but that day the Japanese had definitely pulled ahead a bit in my books (sure that Thailand will inevitably put itself on top again :P). We eventually made it back to their house (really nice, by the way) after enduring a 45 minute traffic jam on the highway :/ and played almost a million games of Uno with the kids. I had also brought flashcards showing different things in Canada that I used for my self-introduction at my schools, so I explained a bit about my lovely country. Even though they had lived in the States for several years, they weren't able to get up to visit.

Dinner was amazing! Oh how I've missed real home cooking! Needless to say I pigged out. God knows when the next one will be hahaha Not at my house, that's for sure. Then the next day, Kazumi took me to her pottery studio. I've always wanted to try pottery, and was floored when I found out that it was a hobby of hers. In fact, all of the dishes we used at the house were made by her! She's really good too. So she let me mess around for a few hours,and I scraped together something that resembles a bowl. Surprisingly it takes awhile to complete, probably not until the end of December she said, so she's going to finish it for me. I'd like to try it again though, and was invited back again anytime. By the end of the weekend I was completely exhausted. I've been 'lucky' enough to have a cold that's been constantly with me for over a month now, and unfortunately it was still in full swing during that weekend. The downside to working with young children I guess.




 


This past weekend Murakami hosted the musical practice, in which Bryan and Nicole readily lent out their apartments for people to stay the night. I had offered my place initially too and have the most space out of everyone, but the almost hour drive back and forth seemed like a little much. Apparently it was American Thanksgiving this past week, so we had rented out a local community centre to have a dinner party. I'm still a little bitter on the whole topic. Canadian Thanksgiving, which was in October, wasn't given a second thought to. Nicole and I were kind of upset, but then again, I believe we're only two of a very small population within the JET community here in Niigata; everyone else is either American or British. Then a bit of irony set in..Nicole and I ended up cooking the turkey, stuffing and all. Granted, we were in Murakami territory, but it was the stressing ordeal. (To those of you other musical people reading this, don't be offended, I just like to complain).  There was a lot of excess running around to try and have the turkey both unthawed and cooked by the time the dinner started that night, and there was even location confusion where the place we thought we had booked for the evening wasn't the place we ended up being able to cook the turkey in, even though that was the REAL community centre we were led to believe we had booked and the one we had actually booked was called something else. Long story short, everything worked out. The turkey was excellent and the food everyone made was delicious. Then came the best part..nomihoudai! whoo whoo! (all you can drink)

Nicole, my Japanese friend Shigeko, and I went to see Harry Potter during the last holiday off. Best one by far! If anyone hasn't seen it yet I highly recommend it.

A week in the life of...

Lately I've been able to speak to more and more people from home  :) and have noticed that the conversations are following a similar pattern: What exactly am I getting up to over here? So today's entry will be dedicated to filling you all in on exactly what I'm 'getting up to', as I've so aptly named it (cue horrible British accent) "A Week in the life of.."

Due mostly to the disgusting humidity and hot weather, August was spent mostly indoors on my couch, eating my way through a plethora of delicious ice cream delights that Japan has been so kind to provide for me, and basking in the wonderfulness that is my air conditioner. Sadly this kept me from going out and meeting any of the locals..which I mostly alright with as the majority of them are older and would so 'smartly' veer towards me with their cars on one of my very rare outings on my bicycle (probably to just go to the grocery store for more ice cream ). Alas, I am sad to report that this veering continues; however I have my own car in which to scare them  back to their own side of the road with. I see that I am rambling now...what I was trying to get at was since spending so much time inside and more or less alone, I, as much as I hate to admit it, was beginning to become a little homesick. So on a sweaty bike trip up to see my Supervisor to inquire about local sports teams and the like, I was happy to learn that on Wednesday nights there's a group that gets together to do both aerobics and Yosakoi (a type of up-beat traditional type dance that I've always wanted to try). And even better, it was already Wednesday. Score!

Fast forward 3 months and the involvement has peaked to an all time high. I'm seriously having to turn people down now due to all of the things I'm doing! Never thought it would've turned out like this! So without further ado, here is an example of my typical week:

Monday: Work at the Junior High School during the day from 8-4, learn Tea Ceremony from 7:30-9ish. (From an earlier blog you can see that I've only just started doing tea ceremony and am still up in the air about continuing with it as it absolutely KILLS my legs and the tea keeps me awake late at night :S But the free sweets are just so good!)

Tuesday: Work at the Southern Elementary School 8-4, run an Adult English Conversation Class from 7:30-9 (at first I really wasn't looking forward to doing this, but my 8 students are all very nice and like to give me advice on places to visit in the area, as well as bring me food...that pretty much won me over right there!)

Wednesday: Work again at the Junior High from 8-4, then attend aerobics from 7:30-8:30 and Yosakoi practice 8:30-9ish. Thankfully they're both in the same place...with mostly the same people. (I've been able to take part in 2 festivals so far with my Yosakoi group, with another one tomorrow afternoon actually. Plan on doing something specifically Yosakoi related in a later blog entry)

Thursday: Work at the Northern Elementary School 8-4, and go to "Mama-san Volleyball" from 7:30-9ish. When I was first invited to go, not going to lie, I was a little apprehensive since I'm completely horrible at sports or anything else that requires hand-eye coordination. Everyday life can be a danger in and of itself, but all that ice cream in August was catching up with me and thought that a little extra exercise wouldn't hurt me. That and the lady who invited me said that most of them were older ladies, so I didn't think that it would that intense. Man, I was wrong! They consistently kick my ass in everything we do, except for running laps during warm up (thank you god for gracing me with long giraffe legs! even though it sometimes makes shopping for jeans a pain in the ass). They endure my horrible clumsiness though, and to be fair, I DID warn them that I was complete crap at it in the beginning anyways. I think that I've maybe gotten a little better in the past few months..no one has openly asked me to stop coming anyways, and I take that as a good sign. My absolute favourite moment since starting happened a few weeks ago. They thought it was smart to put me up by the net to block and spike the ball, cause hey I'm a freaking giant who doesn't even have to jump to reach the top of the net. Well, the ball came my way and I rushed up to spike it (or something that resembled a spike anyways) when my right foot got tangled in my left and I literally tripped myself mid-air, flying a few good feet under the net into the other side of the court...and then burst out laughing, cause in this type of situation what else can you do but laugh?! Everyone else was worried that I was hurt, and for some strange reason still insist I stand up by the net. I believe that I am their comedic relief. hahaha


Friday: Work 9-11 at one of the two pre-schools in the area, then back to the Junior High till 4. Friday evenings are my 'free' night, though there was a time when I went to my Junior High Volleyball teams nightly practices, and then life got in the way and that stopped. I love love LOVE my two pre-schools! This may shock some people, as I've constantly disliked small children for the past few years, but Japanese children are just too precious! And they love me too!!! They literally scream when I walk through the door and throw their little bodies at me in a chorus of "Gina-sensei!" and "Good Morning"s. They make my day. I'm always in my best mood all week after spending two hours running after and being chased by little kids, who are so excited to hear what lessons I have planned for them, and can't wait to rhyme off what words they remember from the last time I was there. They make me want to have little half Japanese babies.

Weekends: Weekends are usually a toss up, spent with the other ALTs in Murakami, or like recently, performing with my Yosakoi group somewhere, or my least favourite of all, being spent at school :( In fact, I had spent the entire weekend working during Culture Festival. At that time I still hadn't had my breakthrough with the kids yet, so it wasn't pleasant.

This is my only free Saturday this month! And I spent it making soup (yum! Mom will be proud!) and watching You-Tube allllllll day while sprawled under the cozy loveliness that is my kotatsu (a type of heated coffee table). Even glanced at my Japanese lesson book that the JET Programme more or less makes everyone take. Probably the most Japanese I've studied since coming here this time.

Anyways, have to work next Saturday due to Parents Day, when the parents come and look into how well their kids are learning; then traveling to some random part of the prefecture for Musical Practice. Yes, that's right..musical practice. The JETs in Niigata Prefecture put on a charity musical every year and I wasn't going to do it since I'm so far away from everyone else, but they made up a special part for me, Nicole and Bryan, so I more or less have no option in this. Doing a home stay weekend with a local family the next weekend, and then Murakami is hosting the musical practice/having a Thanksgiving dinner the last weekend of Novemeber. Makes me sad that yet again things are based on the American Thanksgiving while Canada's was completely and utterly ignored (pfft!), but we're seriously outnumbered here anyways. Nicole once told me that there's a total of 4 Canadian JETs in all of the prefecture...and that's including us. Sadness.

This post is long. I'm done.

Making Progress

So today was probably the first time since I got here that I really felt like I was making some progress..with my junior highers! Gone (mostly) are the days where they wouldn`t even say konnichiwa to me when they walked by; some are even saying Hello to me first now! And they no longer run away from me! Am I really that scary?! hahaha Sure, I`m monsterously tall, but still.

But I really started to feel good about my being here this morning during a 3rd year class. As soon as I walked in a few of the guys were all like `Sensei, sensei..which is colder, Canada or Japan?`...an actual question! And of course I said Canada, but holy frig! I may start to rethink my answer if it continues being this freaking cold! Really wish I could get my heaters going at home...it was a very cold night last night.... Anyways, we continued to have a lovely half English conversation about how cold we all were. Later on during the class, the Japanese English Teacher asked me to walk around and ask questions using the day`s new grammar, and I was surprised that they all actually answered me in pretty flawless English. Wait...I`m not sure if I`m properly getting across how exciting this is to me. Until now when I tried this in any class the kids would just look around like they were in pain `What the heck is she saying to me?!` so needless to say I feel good that the kids are beginning to be more comfortable speaking to me in what English they do know.

Then, as usual before lunch, we were all milling around waiting for the food to be laid out, when a few of my 2nd year girls started asking me questions. Again, mostly focused on how cold it is, and why I was wearing a suit (I have no other warm clothing! My mom didn`t send my winter stuff to me until a few weeks ago, so there`s at least a few more weeks of suffering through the cold), but again! They spoke to me first! Usually I`m the one to ask them questions and try to get them to talk to me. Unfortunately I could never really make any progress with them, causing a crippling downward spiral of `Why don`t they like me? What the heck am I doing here?` that usually ends in a deep depression of staring blankly at my computer screen for the rest of the afternoon...or in tears in the bathroom. (This has only happened a twice, I swear!)  Then in the lunch room some other 2nd years invited me to sit with them instead of my usual `Hey, can I sit here?` followed by frantic looking at each other to confer if I they should let me or not., which of course they would say yes cause it`s rude not too, but then I`d feel like I was encroaching for the rest of lunch. (Off topic: many of the older community ladies tell me I have a Japanese heart..not sure how I feel about this... :/ )  But what made me the happiest of all was the same 2nd years telling me that most of the students` favourite subject was English, and how sad they were that we didn`t have class this morning due to the other English teacher being sick.

Overall, a very good day with some definite progress. Nowhere to go but up now, right?!

Tea Ceremony? Sure, I'll give it a go...

So I was invited by a lady whom is also in my English conversation class, as well as Yosakoi group, to join her and a few older ladies in their Monday night Tea Ceremony practice. Shigeko and I arrived fashionably late at 7:30, where we were immediately rushed in to get started. There were about five other ladies there already, all dressed in beautiful kimonos and sitting in the seiza-style that all Japanese women can do so well.

Overall the experience was very enjoyable, minus the constant throbbing from my legs. No matter how I sat they just weren't happy :( Tried my best to sit seiza, but after ohhhh 2 minutes my legs would go numb and would end up sitting cross legged for the rest of session. It's okay, they said, cause I'm foreign hahaha Oh the things I get away with because of that! Everyone was so nice and complimented my Japanese pretty much the entire time, which can be a little tiring, but I know they mean well.

My favourite part was definitely the treats. We ended up going through three different styles of tea ceremony in the two hours we were there, and each time brought with it a new way of receiving and drinking the tea, which was a tad confusing. Trying to remember what we did during the previous time, and then they would tell me to forget that and just watch the women before me. But, more elaborate sweets! Lots of red bean and mochi, so needless to say I was over the moon~ :) Then at the end they gave me what was left and invited me to come back again next week. I don't know though...if I keep on like this then all my exercising and 'attempts' at eating healthier (which is already going extremely poor by the way) will all be wasted. Will power..where are you when I need you?! hahaha  I  haven't decided if I'll keep on with tea ceremony though, since I'm busy the rest of the week, but I haven't really done too much with it up until now, so why shouldn't I? Besides, if it means more free treats... :P Plus, there's also the chance of getting to wear a kimono, which is always fun. They were saying that by wearing one it changes the entire mood of the session, and they were right. I felt kind of out of place (nothing new there haha) in my normal clothing. Oh well, fingers crossed on that free kimono next week!