Clever Title: Coming Soon!

My first shot at the Oral Assessment

2011-07-24T00:05:00.000-07:00

I just noticed that some of my blog posts about my experiences with the Pickering Fellowship and the Foreign Service Officer Test have had several hundred views... wow! Hopefully my posts were helpful to some people, especially concerning Pickering, as there was hardly anything at all online about the process when I applied. It feels like an eternity ago when I flew into DC for the interview, but it has been barely a year and a half! I still sometimes wonder how life would be like had I passed the finalist stage, but I can't complain with how everything has ended. I'm learning a lot at the University of Maryland, I've met some great people, and recently I obtained a SCEP position with the DOJ. I think working in a budget office will provide me with a great foundation in my government career, as budgeting is vital in any organization. This is even more relevant today, as the country faces a daunting deficit, an expanding debt, and questions of what to do about it all.

Now knowing that people are reading/have read my blog, I really ought to write a post on my experiences with the Oral Assessment. It's a pretty grueling day-long process, one that requires interpersonal skills, interviewing ability, and quick reading and writing capacity. Oh, and you have to both be well-educated and experienced enough to provide personal examples of how your past actions correspond to the Foreign Service's thirteen dimensions.

The exact specifics of questions and essay prompts are protected by a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA), so I can't mention those. This is why the best way to prepare for the OA is simply taking it.

There were over twenty of us who participated in the OA. The group was full of well-qualified and interesting people. There was a judge, several former Peace Corps volunteers, and many already worked in the government. Everyone was friendly, which helped ease tensions and made the long breaks between sessions enjoyable.

My day played out with the group exercise first, followed by the interview, then about a two hour break, and finally the writing section. I have a good guess where I messed up in each section (I failed all three) and a better idea of what I'll need to do next time. You do not get any criticisms or comments on how you did, which was frustrating as I enjoy addressing shortcomings and improving them.

If I could advise myself prior to taking the OA and within the NDA, I would stress that you need to know your personal experiences inside and out. These stories are your tools when you take on the questions in the interview section, so the better prepared you are to answer these questions the better you'll do overall. This includes knowing which experiences can apply to several kinds of questions (know the 13 dimensions!) and not being afraid of using stories from less professional events. Leadership can be shown in all sorts of ways, so don't discredit good examples just because they didn't occur in an office. Also, the writing section includes quite a lot of reading - prepare to be overwhelmed and try to pace yourself! I really should have prepared more for this section; I write plenty of 1-2 page memos in grad school, but this is different. Take advantage of the mock ones online, as well as the one in the official guide.

I have heard that at the end of the day, those with failed scores get called first to receive their results. So I slightly grimaced when I was the second person called, and left the majority of the other OA crew to get my score. I ended with a 4.7, which is below the minimum 5.3 necessary to pass. Individual scores are not given (you can get it through a long process though), but they do tell you if you passed any of the sections. I failed all three, so I have plenty of room for improvement! After getting my score I was escorted out the building and thus not able to chat with the others and see who passed. It does feel a bit anticlimactic in the end, but I imagine it's structured that way to dissuade people to break the NDA and talk about what they just went through.

With my first OA attempt under my belt, I then turned to my graduate studies and focused on my looming midterms. While taking the OA was an entirely new experience, I'm no stranger to tests and fared much better! It would have been nice to pass the OA on my first try, get my security clearance while I finish my classes, and start life as an FSO right after graduating, but it will taste that much sweeter when I do finally succeed.

Good news everyone!

2011-07-23T23:26:00.000-07:00

As I was biking my way to work a few days ago (I've been working for APSIA as a program assistant while I wait on internship news) I got a phone call that caused me to stop, offer up a quick prayer, and open my horribly antiquated flip phone.

It was the Department of Justice (DOJ) and they offered me a position with their budget staff! I had felt pretty good after the two interviews I had had with them; it certainly helped that I had been interviewing at several places and seen what answers worked and what I needed to improve. The office where I'll be working looks like a great place to work. It's structured very flatly, so everyone works together and assumes responsibility. Judging by the interviews, folks have a good sense of humor and aren't afraid to laugh at themselves. They even had a former employee recently join the Foreign Service, so the experiences I'll have here should be great for my future goal of becoming a diplomat.

Thus ends a four-month quest to obtain an internship. Although it took nearly the entire summer, it all ends perfectly as this internship is a SCEP position, meaning I will work with them until graduation and then have the option to convert into a permanent staff member. I am pretty big on having a five-year outlook and knowing the short and medium-term goals to keep moving ahead. While I still have to pass a security clearance, it is quite relieving to know that if all goes well I can set a solid foundation with the DOJ over the next several years. Hooray for good news!

Oh, hello there!

2011-06-16T23:56:00.000-07:00

So I just about went a full year without updating this thing - how about that? While I still intend to write some posts about my final days in Japan and my new adventures here in DC, I'll leave that writing for later. But seeing as I'm waiting for news on what I'll be doing this summer, (hopefully an internship with the DOJ or USDA) I sure have plenty of free time. With luck the wait for my next post won't be as long as this one was!

Asahi Heights

2010-07-27T19:11:00.000-07:00

Right around this time last year, I finally got to move from my rural apartment in Kagami of two years into the central area of Yatsushiro. I've really enjoyed the move into Asahi Heights, as I have always been a short bike ride away from things that used to take at least a 15-20 minute drive. Seeing as I've started the process of packing my bags and selling/tossing out those things not returning with me to the States, I figured I should have a post about where I've been living for the past year.

The living room, complete with World Cup information center! I'm going to miss that TV.

I divided up the room with a curtain and cabinets, so I had a kitchen and living room.

The other side of the living room, the sofa bed has its own story (I'll get around to telling it eventually!) The door in the back is to the bathroom, which is just a toilet. Shower, bath, and sink are in a separate room.

Here's the bathroom. I mostly used the one at the gym actually, as the hot bath there was quite nice after working out.

One side of the living room. It's pretty clustered, including some fabric from Sri Lanka, two banners from Kumamoto Castle, an America hammer that I used while cheering for Team USA, and a map of Barcelona (was so random when I saw it in a store in Kumamoto, I had to get it!).

The stairway up to my second floor. Reminded me of The Grudge a little bit.

The second floor comprised of two rooms with tatami flooring. I didn't spend much time up here, but it was a good place to hang my laundry. (no dryer, unfortunately)

Later today I'll be meeting some of the new ALTs, as they've just left Tokyo Orientation and are on their way to Kumamoto. This, of course, heralds that I'm soon to be leaving Japan and making way for the new guys to try their hands at this whole JET thing. With some luck (and lots of downtime at work) I should be able to finally catch up on the posts I've wanted to write about. (I could create a tag just for the number of times I've said that though!)

Champions!

2010-07-20T17:46:00.000-07:00

The 2010 South Africa World Cup is over and there is a new World Champion: Spain! The same team that faltered in their opening game against Switzerland, whose star striker was out of sorts due to a recent operation, and in all honesty they never got firing on all cylinders. But it's all academic now as they beat the Netherlands 1-0 in the final to win their first ever World Cup! It was also the first time that a European team won outside of Europe, the first time that a team won the tournament after losing their opening game, and the least total goals scored by a winning team. That last record is unfortunate, but along with Spain not reaching the dizzying heights of Euro 2008, most of the teams they played against were ultra-defensive in the hope of snagging a surprise win like the Swiss.

Like all the Spanish goals before the final, the sole goal that decided the winner was scored by a Barcelona player, Andres Iniesta. The poor guy has been in and out of injury ever since he played through an injury in the 2009 Champions League final, so it was amazing to see him score in the dying minutes of over time and spare the world yet another final determined by penalty kicks. It's even more amazing if you know that Iniesta hardly ever scores; he scored barely a handful for Barcelona last season. Seeing all the Barca players (seven out of the starting Spanish eleven will be wearing the blaugrana in the upcoming season) makes me even more excited to see FC Barcelona star in August. Hopefully the time difference from the States isn't that bad, and that I can find a Barca-friendly bar in the DC area to watch the games.

By winning their first ever World Cup, Spain have finally dropped the title of world's best chokers/best talent with worst results that they've held since international soccer began. I know it much too well, as I was in Spain for Euro 2004. Everyone there had already accepted that they were going to lose, and thus were nowhere near surprised when Spain didn't get out of their group. The constant disappointment was especially hard as each of those failed tournaments had great Spanish players, only for them to find some way to lose in the end. With both the Euro 2008 and World Cup 2010 trophies under their belt, as well as only losing twice in the past three years, the Spanish National Team has become more Goliath than David. Now if only Team USA would make a bit more progress at Brazil 2014.

Speaking of the US team, that goal that Donovan scored at the very end against Algeria, changing the results from an early American exit to them winning their group, was one of the best moments of the entire tournament. Not even taking into the account the enormous man-pile on top of Landycakes after he scored, but just the amount of drama, exultation, and pure emotion in that game was amazing. The talent is still developing, but their sheer will to win and keep running full-stop even after two hours of doing so, means that once the individual talent finally catches up to the world powers in soccer, Team USA is going to do really well. I can't wait!

It was great to see Spain finally join the list of World Cup winning countries, but it'll be even better once the land of AYSO, MLS, and "oh, you play soccer?" (with the sound of disdain poorly disguised) wins their first World Cup final. If the team can stop conceding goals so early in the game (although it certainly made for some dramatic come-back victories) and continue the growth of MLS (I'm gonna be seeing Henry and possibly Ronaldinho play next season when I live in DC!) then hopefully the positive signs that the US team is making will mean that I have more chances to yell out "USA! USA!"

With that ends the World Cup and my intense daily absorption of all things soccer while everyone else is asleep. It was a really fun month of futbol and flew by so quickly, but now I've got to do all the things necessary before leaving Japan. I'll leave you with a drunk with happiness Pepe Reina, introducing each player on the National Team after they returned to Madrid as World Champions:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOofApn78GU&feature=player_embedded

Wrapping up

2010-07-05T23:25:00.000-07:00

I just finished giving my goodbye speech to the kids at my super-rural mountain school (a massive five person audience!) It's been a fun year teaching them, as the small classes meant each student got plenty of personal attention and interaction. I only came by once a month at the most, but the kids were all teary eyed as I gave my improvised speech. It's crazy to think that I'll be back in the States in just a month!

But I really haven't had that much time to think about my return home, as the World Cup has completely taken my attention. With the US, Spain, and Japan all getting through the group stage, I had a glut of choices when it came to watching games, although the 11pm and 3:30am games have certainly done a number on my sleeping schedule.

Perhaps you could see the heavy bags under my eyes were it not for all the face paint that I wear to each of the games. Neither the U.S. or Spanish teams were doing all that well in the beginning (although Team USA benefited enormously from the English keeper's mistake) so I decided to go a step further in my soccer cheering and paint my entire face for their upcoming matches. I even got Sachiko to go along with the fun:

Full credit to Sachiko for painting this one!

After Spain's opening game loss, I adopted both full-flag-on-face and a concerned look for the second and third games.

Team USA jersey and an America hammer to go with my war paint.

She had to go study during the game, but she vowed to get painted up for the next one.

Prior to the US-Ghana game; seeing that we lost, we definitely should have gone full face that time!

Watching the Japan-Holland game in the Yatsushiro arcade via a reported 100 inch projector screen (I think it was bigger)

The World Cup is now near its end, with just four teams left battling it out for the title. Two of the teams are previous winners (Germany and Uruguay), while the other two have never won it before (Netherlands and Spain!). Spain hasn't yet impressed, especially not to the level of the Euro 2008 championship, but it's been great seeing this batch of players make it farther than any other Spanish team before them. With a little luck and some improvement in the upcoming Spain-Germany game (bench Torres!) perhaps I can blog on how it feels to see Spain finally lift the Cup. And as a Team USA fan, I can also reflect on how the US beat Spain last year, so it's somewhat a win for the US too, right?

In any case, it's just about time to leave the mountains and head on home to do a little bit of packing. This final month is going to fly right on by!

Ganbare Nihon!

2010-06-14T23:00:00.000-07:00

Last night was the start to Japan's World Cup and what a way to start! The Blue Samurai faced off against the Indomitable Lions of Cameroon and walked away with the scoreline stating 1-0; three points to Japan! It's also their first ever World Cup win on foreign soil; it's always great to finally break bad records like that.

I went to one of the local bars with Sachiko and met up with a few other ALTs to enjoy the game. Whereas the England-US match didn't draw a single Japanese person to the bar (we packed it with foreigners though!), this game saw quite a lively atmosphere for a Monday night. Especially once Honda scored the solitary goal of the game and got all the middle-aged men jumping around, giving everyone in sight two-handed high fives. やった！！

I had just gotten my Japanese jersey, complete with defender Tulio's name and number written on the back, a few hours before kick-off. The guy is a one man show: the last two games he scored two own goals while also scoring once for Japan and injuring Ivory Coast's best player! Luckily for both Japan and Cameroon, in Japan's opening game Tulio restricted himself to being merely a dependable defender.

No flash on the iPhone camera...

Despite the win it's hard seeing Japan make it out of the tough group, but even still, here's hoping I get as many chances to sport Tulio's jersey and get to see what else he gets himself into!

Seeing as part of my job description is "internationalization," the World Cup seems like a great time to introduce those participating countries' flags as well as Japan's exploits!

World Cup Kickoff!

2010-06-13T22:52:00.000-07:00

I'm pushing maybe four or five hours of sleep a night, I'm dressed up in bright clothes emblazoned with national flags, and I can't get that Shakira "Waka Waka" song out of my head; in other words it's World Cup time! I kicked off the start to the 2010 World Cup by hosting the opening game between South Africa and Mexico at my place, with a good 15 people showing up. For some inexplicable reason though, the high definition broadcast was scheduled two hours after the actual game, so we had to watch it in grainy analog. But nothing could stem the excitement that comes from the beginning of the world's biggest tournament, even if you had to squint to read the scoreboard! We even had a South African family and a Mexican-American on hand to give the game that extra dose of emotion that followed each break away or shot on goal. It was a fun game, with South Africa very nearly notching a win, only for Mexico to tie it up through Futbol Club Barcelona's very own Rafael Marquez. Or as they say, "goooooooooooooooallll!!"

I was too caught up in the actual game to take any photos that night, but all of us in the photo above were at the opening game; that counts right? This was actually taken during the intense 1-2 loss that Japan suffered to England, thanks to two very unfortunate own-goals. Zannen!

The much anticipated game between the United States and England was taken to a local bar, where we had a large crowd of both Americans and English folks cheering on their respective sides. I was lucky to find a few things sporting the Stars and Stripes and thus fashioned myself a little something to cheer on the US:

"I wear my sunglasses at night..."

The game was especially intense, as the US fell early to an English goal. It wasn't even at the five minute mark when Gerrard was left to pick up a pass and slot the ball past a helpless Howard. I had predicted it earlier, as the US coach refused to pick the better player Torres; his replacement, Ricardo Clark, could be seen a step or two behind Gerrard as the English captain made the next thirty minutes hard to watch.

Fortunately, Team USA held on and managed to scrape a goal before half-time, thanks to a horrible keeper mistake. When your team is trailing by one goal, however, you'll take any goal you can get, and likewise every American fan in the bar went crazy when that speculative Dempsey shot trickled into the net. USA! USA!

The second half of the game didn't bring any additional goals, although both keepers had to make some nice saves to keep the scoreline level. In any case it gave the States a crucial one point from the supposed group leaders while being incredibly fun to watch. I can't wait to watch the rest of the matches, including Spain's first match against the Swiss this Wednesday! Huzzah World Cup!!

Premier Revolving Door

2010-06-03T17:31:00.000-07:00

The soon to be adopted seal for the PM of Japan.

The current Prime Minister of Japan, Yukio Hatoyama, recently announced that he will be stepping down as head of the Japanese government. His dynasty spanned an impressive eight months, beginning way back in the days of yore, September 16th, 2009. His Democratic Japanese Party's (DPJ) rise was billed as the ushering in of much needed change from the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). The LDP had been in control of Japanese politics, barring one blip, for half a century; so the emphatic voting in of DPJ politicians showed that the Japanese public was ready for a new direction. Ideally away from the "lost decades" of the 90's and 00's, and if we're in the mood to be picky, how about improving the national soccer team? (a man can dream, right?)

Instead, Hatoyama stuttered on many of his election promises and saw his approval rating plummet to the kinds of depths that would make even our former president blush. Most prominent was his unfulfilled promise to move a US air base out of Futenma. The locals were angered by his ineffectual attempts to relocate the base, while American relations became strained as the US-Japan alliance is key to the security of the entire region. The LDP was firmly behind the US-Japan relationship, yet Hatoyama spoke of strengthening bonds between other countries in east Asia, notably China.

So here we are, less than a year into Hatoyama's running of Japan and already on his way out. In fact, each year that I have been in Japan with the JET Program there has been a new Prime Minister. Taken even further, while I was in Miami finishing my degree in 2006, then Premier Junichiro Koizumi stepped down. Since the lion-maned leader's departure, none of his successor's have had any staying power: 2007 saw Shinzo Abe, in 2008 it was Yasuo Fukuda's turn, and in 2009 with few options left, the LDP chose Taro Aso, a gaffe-prone self-proclaimed Manga fan.

Each Prime Minister served for merely a year before either removing himself from office or getting voted out. It leaves one with the impression that nobody actually wants to govern the country, or at least does not have the stomach to make hard decisions, accept the criticisms that come with the job, and get things done. Instead the position has become a Premier revolving door, with nobody actually getting inside the building and going to work. Can't somebody install a dang automatic door?

Passed!

2010-06-01T20:32:00.000-07:00

I uncharacteristically woke up two hours before my alarm clock this morning, and before returning to sleep I did my obligatory email check via the iPhone. There at the top of my inbox were the words "Foreign Service Officer Selection Process Results." So much for quickly going back to sleep!

Much like the rest of the process, the email didn't actually reveal the selection results. I groggily went through the various log ins and security checks to find out that yes, I indeed made it through the Qualitative Evaluation Panel! (QEP) Meaning that my five essays, as well as my education and work history were deemed sufficient to be given an invitation to the Oral Assessment!

I was worried that by barely passing the multiple choice section of the FSOT that I might have to wait till I passed it again with a higher score before proceeding to the OA, but instead I'll be rubbing shoulders with fellow FSO hopefuls later this year in DC. I have until November to prepare, so with luck I'll both be acclimated to living in the States again as well as mentally sharp from starting graduate school.

If I do indeed pass the OA I'll be just a few steps away from joining the Foreign Service. Hopefully with my extensive international history the background check can take long enough to ensure that I get enough time to complete my Master's. Otherwise I'll be having a rather interesting decision, as I'll be halfway done with my degree! Best not to worry about that unless (until?) I pass the OA though!

Moving forward

2010-05-11T17:45:00.000-07:00

As it turns out, FC Barcelona only managed a 1-0 win over Inter, which means they are out of the Champions League. Had the incorrectly judged handball leading to the second goal been allowed, I'd instead be getting ready to watch Barca in the final. I must say though, it was quite the change from last year when I watched the second leg of the semi-final in Hong Kong. Then, I was in an English pub of the rival team Barcelona was playing; the majority were Chelsea fans, but I saw some folks wearing blaugrana too. In any case, it was a great, tense atmosphere and Barcelona won with one of the last plays of the game. That wonder strike from Iniesta and the instant mayhem caused at the English pub is one of my best memories of 2009. The 2010 version was a bit more subdued, as I stayed home and watched through a streaming link on my computer, with probably everyone else in Yatsushiro still sleeping.

That week wasn't to be for me either, as I wasn't chosen as one of the final 20 winners of the Pickering Graduate Fellowship. The notification email was about a day late, which meant I spent most of the day persistently urging my iPhone to make that "you've got mail" jingle and alert me to the future of my next two years. When the email did eventually arrive, it was little more than an automated response, but at least with knowing I can finally get things in motion and finalize my grad school decisions.

I was a bit torn between the University of Maryland (UMD) and American University (AU), as both offered me scholarships. AU offered funding for 18 of my 24 credits, which is something around a $8,000 hole that I would have to pay for. UMD offered to cover all but $1,400 of my degree, but would give me $3,000 if I did a low or non-paying internship. So I could technically have my entire degree covered at UMD.

The other main difference is that AU would be a Public Administration degree (MPA), whereas UMD would be a Public Policy one (MPP). It seems that these degrees mostly differ in the emphasis rather than the overall content, though. With an MPA I would take more management and leadership classes, whereas an MPP would include more statistics and economics courses. One of my buddies who works in DC with the government also offered that an MPP is more valued abroad whereas an MPA is useful locally, so that is something else to consider.

In the end, I decided on the University of Maryland, where I will be pursuing a master's in Public Policy. I'm not sure which concentration I'll settle on, as many of them seem pretty interesting. I can see the utility of focusing on management and leadership, but also see myself enjoying the security courses that go with that focus...

I've already registered my UMD email and will soon be signing up for classes. I'll need to figure out where I'll be living in the upcoming months, as well as probably get out a loan for paying for housing. I don't think I'll be working for much money, what with the unpaid internship and all. Getting the Pickering Fellowship would have made things simple, as they would have paid for everything, but in any case it feels good to be moving forward and I'm excited for what's next!

A Day as a Pickering Fellowship Finalist

2010-04-27T18:05:00.000-07:00

I should be getting word on the results of the Pickering Graduate Fellowship sometime tonight, so I better write this before the results of how this plays out affects my writing. That's not even mentioning the pivotal game that will be played late tonight between FC Barcelona and Inter Milan. Barca is down 1-3 in the second leg of the Champions League semi-final, so here's hoping the blaugrana can make a dramatic comeback and get into the final!

Xavi is awesome. (Rooney isn't half bad either) Here's hoping he both gets Barca to the CL final and Spain far in the World Cup!

Wait, what was I talking about again? Oh right, Pickering! So, the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation paid for my round-trip flight from Japan, as well as two nights in a really nice hotel. I was supposed to have a roommate, but somehow ended up with the big room all to myself. No complaints from me!

High definition cable in English was amazing, as was the double shower head in the bathroom!

The day started with breakfast at 6:30am in one of the hotel's conference rooms. I came in five minutes early and already was one of the last persons there! Punctual crowd... Everyone seemed very qualified, with all sorts of international experience, including the Peace Corp, internships with the State Department, and various NGOs. Our name-tags also listed our undergraduate universities, and I was proud to wear Florida International University's name pinned to my chest. Were I to get the fellowship, I'd be the second person from FIU to ever get it! And the first guy!

After breakfast we heard some speeches from the Foundation's key personnel, as well as a word of warning from a State employee who helps with the final "suitability review" that all prospective FSOs go through. It seems that 5-6% of people reach the very end of the selection process only to be denied because of moral reasons (frequenting prostitutes), financial (reckless debt), or recent history with drugs or excessive alcohol. It was quite a somber way to kick off the day, but all of the finalists were buzzing with too much energy to be down for too long anyway. The copious amount of Starbucks coffee might have had something to do with that.

I was lucky enough to be chosen to do my interview in the morning, followed by the written exam after lunch. Much better to get the interview done and over with, in my opinion. Plus, anyone who knows me could verify that the first thing I want to do after eating is take a nap, not be interviewed by three reputable government officials!

I also lucked out with my interview panel, as the main interviewer was an easy-to-talk-to and friendly former ambassador. You could tell why she used to represent the United States for a living! She was flanked on either side by two distinguished fellows, who unfortunately I never caught what they did. One of the finalists later on said that one was the head of an important organization that I also failed to catch, but in any case, as with the ambassador, both were sharp, incisive, and more interested in learning more about me and why I want to become a diplomat, rather than grill me on historical data.

They appeared to value my time as a Resident Assistant, and I think I was able to successfully explain the similar aspects between the RA life and that of the Foreign Service. I smirked when during the "warning speech" the State employee said that you never stop being associated with your job, as that is exactly how being an RA was. It was called "living in a fishbowl" back at Panther Hall, and no matter if I went to a party or event myself, my status as a Housing official meant that anything dumb or reckless that I did reflected on my job.

The panel also asked about my time in Japan, and here too I think I did well. The hours I spent writing my statements of purpose for college really paid off, as I had already analyzed and internalized what I have gotten from my time in the JET Program. It even bled into some unrelated questions , as one interviewer commented after, asking how I would address a disagreement I had with a policy I must follow. I guess my time here in Japan, as well as my own comportment, lead to a more group consensus way of thinking than they're used to from interviewees.

One potential pitfall that I avoided was saying anything when one of the interviewers mentioned how Castilian Spanish has a "lisp." Unlike the countless times in college where I debated with people on how exactly could it be a lisp and not just a deliberate, voiceless dental fricative (the counter to that is usually something silly, like how a former king used to have a lisp and somehow got an entire nation to emulate him. Right...) this time I ignored it and talked about how speaking with that accent in Miami often brought about a surprising amount of hostility from other Spanish speakers, and how I learned to adjust my language and even accent to better communicate in a region.

The rest of the interview also seemed to go well, including parts where I mentioned my year in Spain where we essentially scraped by while my mom worked on her doctorate, as well the experiences I had with bringing the Lambda Chi Alpha fraternity to FIU. They said that they liked my enthusiasm, with the ambassador adding that she's sure I'll be successful, even if the fellowship doesn't work out. As my interview ended and I shook hands with the panel, one of the male interviewers also chipped in with a "good interview," so that has to be a good sign, right?

I stayed around with the rest of my finalists group, chatting with them as they entered and left the interview rooms. Everyone seemed to come out thinking they had done really well with the interview, faces awash with expressions of relief and excitement. The group that has to decide on 20 winners out of the 40 finalists sure will have their hands full...

The second part of the day entailed a trip to the Foreign Service Institute (FSI), where we got to see where FSOs come to prepare for their jobs abroad. It's not just language learning, although the classes for that seem to be pretty intense, but also job training for specific career cones. They've built an imitation visa processing room for a mock country, which looks strikingly like the consulates and embassies that I've visited before. There's even a prison for role-playing the procedures that Consulate FSOs must go through when assisting Americans abroad that have found themselves on the wrong side of the law. The toy rats and spiders in the prison cell were a nice touch, I thought.

After that we made our way into a computer lab and had 60 minutes to write an essay out of three prompts. The actual essay subjects are protected by a non-disclosure agreement, but like I was told prior to coming, anyone who's up to date with current events shouldn't have a problem with the writing section. I actually wrote the most out of my group, if sheer bulk gets any bonus points. (four pages, bam!) The test proctors had a pretty snazzy touch projector screen that they seemed to be having fun fiddling with; the FSI itself had a nice and relaxed atmosphere, not unlike the grad schools that I had visited earlier.

The writing section turned out to be the last part of the day, as we were then driven back to the hotel and wished good luck. I had a beer with the few guys in the group (the women to men ratio was 2:1) and afterwards promptly passed out in my room. Luckily I managed to wake up in time to meet up with a college buddy and fraternity brother who helped me immensely in preparing for grad school. After which I stayed up watching TV that I could understand 100%, before heading back to Japan a few hours later. Now all that's left is to wait for an email sometime tonight detailing whether I'm to be a Pickering Fellow or not! And in the meantime, to worry whether Xavi and co. can stage an epic comeback and go for the unprecedented back-to-back Champions League titles. Visca Barca!

There and Back Again

2010-04-26T21:51:00.000-07:00

Traveling long and far? Check. Short hairy guy? Check. Riches at the end of the story? Maybe...

I am back from D.C. with stories to tell and Reese's to give to my teachers. The candy is given as a way to tell your Japanese coworkers, "sorry that I was gone and you had to cover for me, so here's something tasty from where I was!" The stuff I bring back from the States is always gone a few hours after I display it in the staff room, as most people here haven't ever had it before. The teachers have all left for their respective students' households, as we're nearing the end of 家庭訪問 (katei houmon) or home visits. Thus the school is currently just staffed by the few teachers who aren't homeroom teachers, the administrators, office workers, and me!

My trip to D.C. seems almost surreal in the sense that I was there for such a short time and the place could hardly be any more different than my area of Japan. Upon landing in Dulles International Airport, I was again surrounded by the diverse, bustling, and large crowds that let you know you're back in the States. And you can't get much more iconic than the landscape that Washington, D.C. offers... from rice fields to the White House is quite a change in scenery! As has become almost second nature to me since starting JET, I went to the nearest Starbucks to charge up before my long day, and was strangely struck by the small talk at the register, a few words exchanged with the others waiting for their drinks, and being able to pick out random conversations around me... funny how those little things can be so shocking.

Equally as jarring was the fact that I was without a cell phone. Throughout the trip I was able to make do by finding pockets of free wi-fi scattered throughout the city and using Skype through my iPhone, but it's crazy how difficult things become without a cell phone to coordinate things. Or GPS to direct you exactly how to get somewhere. Suffice to say that I was close to turning off Airplane Mode on my phone and incurring the ridiculous fees for using it abroad. (I actually tried to once, in a moment of weakness, but I couldn't connect...that doesn't count, right?)

I went to D.C. first and foremost to interview and take a written test for the Woodrow Wilson Fellowship Foundation as a finalist for Graduate Pickering Fellowship. Yet because I arrived a few days before my interview, I had a chance to check out some of the grad schools I got into.

I checked out George Washington University right after leaving the airport, and to be honest, at first I felt like I horribly didn't belong there. Maybe it was because I was dropped off in the thick of an undergraduate area, or maybe just because I've been away from the college scene for over three years. After exploring the campus for a little bit though, the feeling that I was some ill-disguised spy tromping around wore off.

I managed to find the graduate student center and was able to chat with some of the students there, who also helped me out by printing off directions for both the location of my interview as well as the location of the schools I was going to check out. I also was able to work out the kinks of talking intelligently again with them, as I've doubtless gained some Japanese mannerisms over my three years in JET. Better in front of them than in front of my interview panel, ne?

After that I went directly to my prospective program's building and met with the program coordinator. I was pleasantly surprised, as compared to the somewhat non-enthused correspondence I had had up to that point, the coordinator was enthusiastic and persuasive; a real pleasure to talk to. She certainly knew what she was talking about, as well as stressed that the MPA community was pretty tight-knit. Seeing how much impact the Honors Place community had on my undergrad years, the community aspect is a selling point that I hadn't thought about before.

I finished off GW with lunch at Baja Fresh and ogled at all the government buildings, ending with the White House and Washington Monument. Crazy to think that all of that could become regular and routine if I went to school there!

GW - Excellent government connections, right in the heart of the capital, but no scholarships.

Next I went to American University, which is further off in what seemed like the suburbs of D.C. That was fine by me, however, as the Metro stop that leads to the university has a Best Buy (I naturally couldn't leave without buying a video game) as well as several restaurants. Not a bad way to start off! Again I assumed the guise of a college student, and rode the student shuttle into the thick of AU, where they dropped us off in some sort of residential area. It was weird hearing people chat on the bus, as most bus and train rides in Japan are kept pretty quiet. In contrast to GW's professional, urban feel, AU seemed a bit more relaxed and low-key. I was able to find the MPA department, but unfortunately nobody was available to talk. I did, however, randomly run into a former resident of mine from way back when I was an RA. She was able to answer some of my questions about the school, as well as give her opinions regarding the other schools I got into.

AU - Reputable school removed from the bustle of downtown, offering free tuition up to 18 credits.

The next day I caught up with an old friend from high school (can a 25-year-old call people "old friends" yet?) and we checked out two museums. She was in town due to some sort of medical conference, stuff way over my head. Needless to say, we only shared English classes back at Ogden High School! It was great catching up and hearing the news from Ogden, although pretty shocking to hear that my former Japanese class teacher wasn't teaching anymore on account of hooking up with a student! And here I had wanted to come back to OHS one day and chat with him in Japanese...

The final school I checked out was the University of Maryland, which is the furthest away from Washington, D.C. I took a somewhat long Metro ride and again hopped on a student shuttle and was whisked away to one giant campus. Seriously, I ended up wearing out my socks after exploring the UMD campus! I was a bit taken back by the sheer quantity of undergrad students on campus, as well as the amount of on-campus housing. There was also a women's lacrosse game going on, which contributed nicely to the atmosphere. I caught a somewhat colonial feel to the campus, with the red bricks and expansive spaces. This university seems to be more along the lines of FIU, in that the campus is its own independent entity, where you could spend weeks without leaving and not be bored.

I found the Public Policy building and immediately noticed the change in ambiance; from the rowdy crowds donned in flip-flops and khaki shorts, I entered a quiet hall of suits and buttoned-up shirts. I loved my undergrad years as much as the next guy, but it was nice to see that some places carried a different kind of energy.

Again I wasn't able to find the program director, but at least this time I got to chat with one of the current students and based on how well she covered the program and answered my questions, she might as well have been working for the school. UMD seems like it could prepare me well for what I want to do in the Foreign Service, even if it's not as highly ranked as GW or AU. The Public Policy building did seem like its own little tower surrounded by rambunctious undergrads though, which could be good for making connections with fellow students, although perhaps a bit weird when I'm walking through the undergraduate areas. UMD is also the school which offered me the most funding: if I manage to get an internship, I'd be covered for all but $2,800 of my college expenses. Not too shabby!

UMD - large, pretty campus located a bit away from D.C. Offering sizable scholarship.

After visiting UMD I finally checked into my Dep. of State-provided hotel and got ready for my day with the Woodrow Wilson Fellowship Foundation! Seeing as my time at work just ended, I'll say how my day with the State Department went next time. また今度

Onwards to DC!

2010-04-19T16:37:00.000-07:00

I don't think we're in Kumamoto anymore...

Tonight after work I pack my things, play maybe a little more Fifa10, and then head over to Fukuoka for the day-long event known as flying to America. I'll be going to Washington, D.C. for an interview and written exam as a finalist for the Thomas R. Pickering Graduate Foreign Affairs Fellowship.

My two-way flight and hotel are actually being paid by the State Department via the Woodrow Wilson Foundation, which is certainly a new experience! Sure, I've earned big scholarships before (Go FIU!), and have been offered a nice bundle of financial aid at the University of Maryland for graduate school, but the last time I flew into the States over a year ago the ticket cost me over $1,200. The fact that they think I'm good enough to warrant that much money just to get a further look at me is some pretty heady stuff.

Were I to receive the fellowship, I'd get up to $50,000 a year for my graduate studies, a domestic internship at the end of my first year, an overseas internship after I graduate, a Foreign Service Officer (FSO) as a graduate school mentor, and a contractual obligation to work for the Foreign Service for at least three years after grad school. I hear that Pickering fellows also skip straight to the Oral Assessment (OA) in the FSO process, which would certainly simplify things. Although I might be taking the OA in the fall if I passed the previous stage anyway. Just have to wait two more months to get word on that...

The fellowship is named after Thomas Pickering, a retired US Ambassador who has quite the impressive resume. From the ever-useful Wikipedia, Mr. Pickering is known as

One of the most distinguished and capable American diplomats of the latter half of the 20th century. Mr. Pickering held the rank of Career Ambassador, the highest rank in the U.S. Foreign Service. He served as Ambassador to Nigeria, El Salvador, Israel, India, and the Russian Federation, finishing his career as Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs.

King Hussein of Jordan called him "the best ambassador (he's) worked with," while the New York Times thought highly of his work at the United Nations, saying that he was "arguably the best-ever U.S. representative to that body." (again, Wiki quotes!) He's quite the paragon of the diplomatic field and hopefully I can endeavor to that sort of career. But for now, I'll just focus on getting to the capital, fighting jet lag, and making my case as to why they should pick me over many other highly-motivated and qualified candidates to be chosen as a Pickering Fellow! Wish me luck!

FSOT Round Two!

2010-04-14T17:07:00.000-07:00

Early last month I went to Osaka and took the Foreign Service Officer Test (FSOT) for the second time. It was smack-dab in the middle of one really busy week, so while I didn't have a whole lot of time for last-minute studying, I didn't have time to worry over the test either. I felt good about the exam, especially since I've been consistently reading the Economist to keep up to date with current events and have also made a point of being more involved while in Japan. Yet while I have to say I was mildly confident that I had passed the test, it still came as a bit of surprise, especially considering by how much I had to improve from my last scores! I recently got my score breakdown, and the scores were as follows (with my first attempt's scores in green):

Job Knowledge: 53.53 (63.7%) 52.01 (58%)
Biographic Information: 51.16 (54%) 30.53 (3%)
English Expression: 50.34 (52%) 56.38 (74%)

Total score: 155.03 (154 needed to pass) 138.92

Essay: 10/12 (you don't get your essay scored if you don't pass the multiple choice sections)

The biggest thing of note is the vast improvement in the Bio section; I went from scoring only 3% to 54%! That huge jump of over 20 points would have been enough to have passed the exam last year, when I was 15 points short. I really have to attribute the improvement on getting out there and finding things to get involved in, like the two orphanages I volunteer at (although I've had to quit one recently, as my preparations for after JET heat up), the Eikaiwa English conversation club I manage, as well as the times I help out in general as a more senior ALT in my area. I also was more used to the test, so I was prepared for the questions and nothing really threw me off in this section like it did last year. (That non-disclosure agreement sure is a pain for explaining things! Sorry for the vagueness!)

I also added a point and a half to my Job Knowledge section, which means a 5% improvement from last year. I'm glad I improved on this section, as the countless hours reading/studying at Starbucks (OK, so going often to SB wasn't completely for studying reasons), not to mention the educational podcasts I listen to, made me feel more assured as I started the exam. I'm not sure I could revert back to not reading the news anymore though, so I guess I should stop thinking of it as Foreign Service prep!

The only snag in my scores was the English Expression section. I dropped 6 points from my first attempt, which had it been a little more severe, would have turned my second attempt into a fail as well. So I went from a 74% score to one of 52%, which technically is still better than the majority of test takers, but nevertheless seems bad. As the test is scored compared to the other people taking the test, perhaps the harsh job market increased the level of competition and thus the amount of correct answers required to do well. But still, I scored in the 97th percentile in the Verbal section on the GRE, so a 52% in the FSOT suggests that maybe I dropped the ball somewhere. If only I could get a detailed report listing each question and its answer...but oh well, I passed!

I wasn't all that worried about the required essay, as I had been to previous FSOT informational seminars and the diplomat in residence listed some basic standards for essay writing. Essentially, if you can make an argument and support it with evidence, you pass. I wouldn't be much of an English teacher, or a college graduate, if I couldn't manage that! And so I got a 10/12, with a 6/12 being the minimum passing score. FSOT done and dusted!

The next step in the Foreign Service process is the "Personal Narrative Questions," which asked me five questions based on things like leadership, communication, and cultural understanding. I had to answer those questions using examples from my personal history, and say what I learned from the experience. A panel reads those answers and combined with your educational and career history, test scores, and judged correlation between all of that and the career cone you chose, decide if you're qualified for the final step: the Oral Assessment. I sent in my essays early last morning, so now all I do is wait for two months and see if I get the invite!

And so that's it for now with the FSOT. I improved my test scores enough from last year to pass with a sole point to spare, and now wait to see if my essay entries, test scores, and overall background are enough to warrant an invite to the Oral Assessment. If they indeed are, it would most likely be in October while I'm already knee-deep into my Master's degree, so at least my brain should be sharp by then! For now, I'll be focusing on my interview as a Pickering Fellowship finalist, as well as my general decision on where I'll be going for graduate school next fall. On a side note, how many want to bet that I accidentally bow to my interview panel next week?

Flying high

2010-04-08T19:56:00.000-07:00

If my previous post could be read as rosy, I'm not exactly sure what the contents of this one would be called. Fortuitous? Providential? Saccharine? In any case, a good month and a half's worth of life could make this entry a bit long. For the abridged version of that busy week: it was too warm for snowboarding, so we spent the day in Kumamoto; Yokohama was interesting, but expensive; Osaka was fun to see again; I felt like I did well on the FSOT, and networked with a FSO at the consulate; I did well in both soccer tournaments, and no ankle injuries!

As for the lengthier version, I ended up spending about $1,100 in total throughout that super busy week in March. There was no snowboarding to be had on account of the heat wave, so Sachiko and I saw Avatar in 3D on Sunday, as well as a pretty nice day walking around Kumamoto. Granted, the temperature would drop soon after and snow again, but it's hard to be annoyed too much with great weather. Also, it's pretty nice having somebody to take ya to the airport and say goodbye to, but I guess that I now can't think snarky comments when I see couples giving emotional goodbyes at the airport, eh?

Mexican food made up for the canceled snowboarding.

The following three days of workshops in Yokohama were a nice way to get my mind back into the mindset of interviews, resumes, and suits & ties. Quite a change from playing tag at elementary school with my students! Each day had several workshops to choose from among several topics, with a sort of information fair the second day to chat with representatives from various Japan-related businesses and universities. The resume workshop was pretty reassuring, as many of the things they went over were things I had already implemented in the resume I sent to grad schools. The graduate school workshop seemed a bit untimely, as most schools already had their deadlines in early February, but it was nice to hear the information all the same. I also went into some random workshops, like psychology, marketing, and NGOs, which was nice in an inter-disciplinary way. Definitely the best workshop was one of the very last ones on the third day. We were divided by nationality, with the American audience getting to enjoy a workshop by three FSOs! All three looked young, competent, and ambitious, and I think they all worked somewhere in Japan. One had just recently been hired; it was pretty motivating to actually see a guy who went through all the internet research, test preparation, etc and ultimately made his way into the State Department. The strange part, however, was that the workshop was actually shorter by 30 minutes than all the other ones. I suppose the FSOs could have had other things to attend to, but it would have been nice to hear some more about each of their stories and their answers to the many questions the audience had.

Soon after the JET Returners Conference was over, I headed to Osaka (with a brief visit to Tokyo) to get ready for my second attempt at the FSOT. I had a full day to go over practice tests, review the Amendments, read up on soccer news... you know, the essentials. Early Friday morning I headed on over to the Osaka Consulate and immediately noticed the differences between this and the Fukuoka America Center (where I took the FSOT my first time). The entrance was manned by several armed guards, who were actually pretty friendly. Fukuoka didn't have an entire building to itself, nor was there anyone there besides the test proctor. So seeing a big and busy consulate, complete with a jovial Consular FSO (the same career cone I'm applying for!) to answer everyone's questions, was a nice change.

The test itself remains under the non-disclosure agreement (NDA), so I can't say anything about the contents. But as for myself, it was so much easier for me the second time. I knew exactly what I was getting myself into this time, and thus finished each section with time to spare. I again took the maximum amount of time on the essay, but that's not saying much when you only get 30 minutes to write. Much like with the GRE, I found myself actually enjoying the test, as these sort of things really get the adrenaline pumping and the brain racing. I was the last person to finish the test, and stayed afterwards talking to the Consular Officer and doing that which was quite ubiquitous at all the JET workshops: "network." He seemed to enjoy his job, which is a good sign for me! I now have the FSO's email, and can turn to him for advice if I get invited to the Oral Assessment and want to ask him questions. I also chatted with one of the other test takers as we both made our way to the train station, both of us still buzzing with the Foreign Service on our minds.

The week ended with two soccer tournaments, both of which had some rain and cold to make things interesting. On Saturday I played with one of my elementary schools as a right back, and managed to score once in both games. I actually scored twice in the second, but the referee disallowed one because he was blowing the whistle as I took the shot. What ref blows for halftime when the ball is in the opponent's penalty box anyway? In any case, our two comprehensive wins meant that we won the tournament. :) The rain really made a mess of the field though, and on one particular defensive play I caused the other team's star player to slide through a particularly muddy section. I think he looked better that way!

Championship-winning team!

They all went afterwards for drinking and the like, but I had to decline since I would be playing even more soccer bright and early the next morning! The second tournament was with one of my junior high schools, and for some reason the competition is much harder at the JHS tournaments. We had a pretty solid team though, and the school's soccer coach had a wicked shot. I played as a midfielder on this team, which basically means I run like crazy the whole match. :P

In our fist game we were tied 2-2 against the host school's team. There were at least 30 students cheering on for their teachers when I got the luckiest of goals: a keeper fumbling the ball! A goal's a goal though, and the score went to 3-2. (and the cheering squad got decidedly quieter) Not soon after I got a more legitimate goal, which both put the game to rest and made it look like I was much better player than I really am. :) The second game was a bit more disappointing, as we gave away a 3-0 lead, as the other team tied the game and made it so we didn't win the tournament. But all in all it was a fun weekend of soccer, and playing with my students during recess definitely helped.

And now it looks like the junior high school 1st graders' entrance ceremony is about to get started. Time to head over to the gym! Just very quickly (and I'll go over it in more detail later): I got accepted into all four grad schools, University of Maryland offered me funding, I passed the FSOT, and I'm a finalist for the Pickering Fellowship! As a finalist they are going to fly me into D.C. and back to Japan for free, as well as pay for my hotel! Times be good for Mr. Ryan G. Bedford.

Spring already?!

2010-02-22T18:38:00.001-08:00

Look at all that freshly fallen February snow!

Here at my rural mountain elementary school, with the sun persistently beating down on me, I'm reminded that my last winter here in Japan is all but gone. Doesn't Japan know that I have plans to snowboard this Sunday?

I can't really complain, however, since I've been riding on quite a nice bit of luck recently. From getting a letter of acceptance from George Washington University's Master of Public Administration program (woot!), escaping quite harm-free from a snag at work (whew), to finally getting into a relationship here in Japan (やった!) , things seem to be going almost suspiciously too well. We'll see how long it lasts though, as I'm still waiting on word from graduate school funding. But if I somehow get the super-competitive Pickering Fellowship, I might just have to go buy a few lottery tickets...

Next week will be the busiest week I've had in a long time. As mentioned above, I'll be attempting to snowboard this Sunday in this increasingly warm weather (ten guesses who I'm going with! :) ), and with the return drive back I'll be stopping at the airport and flying into Tokyo. I have a three day seminar in Yokohama, where I'll get to see workshops on life after JET. I have a pretty good idea what I'll be doing, but it can't hurt to see what's out there. After the conference I'll be going further south into Osaka (awesome city by the way!) and taking my second attempt at the Foreign Service Officer Test. I haven't been studying per se, but I've been pretty diligent in reading The Economist and beefing up my resume. I mostly just hope to improve upon my November 2008 score rather than actually plan to become an FSO this time. If I did go through the entire process though and were offered a job, I sure would be in an interesting bind; I'd still have a year of graduate school left, but I'm pursuing an MPA in large part so that I'm better prepared for the FS... I'll cross that bridge when/if I get there!

Taking one of the harder tests the government offers is not the end of my week, as I have to quickly jet back into Yatsushiro and play in two all-day soccer tournaments! On Saturday I'm playing with one of my elementary schools. They're a pretty fun bunch, and I'll certainly be looking to avail myself after the badminton tournament I played with them last month. On Sunday I hopefully have enough left in me to help my junior high school do well in their tournament as well. I've been making a point of playing soccer whenever I'm at school, so hopefully my body is up to the task.

And once all of that is finally over and I'm back to teaching again, we'll most likely be in the middle of spring and cherry blossom viewing. Where did winter go?

Success!

2010-02-03T05:19:00.000-08:00

The JLPT was the last thing on my mind as I got home earlier today, but the test results slip lying on the floor of my genkan quickly changed that! After offering up a quick prayer, I tore open the slip and scanned the page for that ever-important 合格 (passed). And wouldn't you know, it was there!

I didn't do as well as I felt I did, but a pass is a pass. Unlike with the 3rd level of the JLPT where I got a solid 89%, with the 2nd level I scraped by with a 61%. Seeing as the passing percentage is 60%, I sure cut it pretty close! The listening section was surprisingly my weakest score, despite nearly getting a perfect score on it last year. The jump from ３級 to ２級 sure is huge, but I did it!

Passing ２級 was one of my main goals when I came to Japan; it feels great to finally be able to check it off the list. And it goes without saying, updating my resume with the higher level Japanese certification! It's a shame I didn't receive the notification earlier this week, however, as I sent in my graduate school applications in as a mere ３級 Japanese student. That's just me nitpicking though; huzzah success!!

The rest of winter break

2010-01-14T23:16:00.000-08:00

I've got around an hour to kill, as I'm staying at one of my elementary schools until they're ready to practice badminton. I'm going to be playing in the inter-school teacher badminton tournament next Saturday. My quite formidable experience in the sport amounts to the last time I went to one of these tournaments about two years ago. I think we won two, lost four in that tournament. Good times were had though, as I came with these orange, massive knee and elbow pads and was diving all over the court, and even sometimes managing to hit the birdie-thing!

So yeah, the rest of my winter break. This was my first Christmas completely away from my family, although two years ago I did go to Barcelona and spent Navidad with one of my brothers and the Spanish side. So no opening presents Christmas morning; I actually slept in! Seeing as Christmas isn't a huge deal here, I was able to get a nice long workout at Arest Gym. I also somewhat organized a get-together with the folks that were still in the area. We ended up watching Scrooged at my place, with everyone bringing their own dinner.

Following in the Japanese tradition, I opted for a giant bucket of KFC. Seriously, throughout Christmas Eve the nearby KFC was jammed-pack, with cars backed up into the street, and even a guy directing traffic! The bucket was pretty epic, with 12 pieces of chicken, a cake, salad, and a decorative plate to remember your $40 dinner. I split the bucket with someone, but also had eaten 12 pieces of chicken myself for Christmas Eve and the following morning and lunch; all-in-all I ate 18 pieces within 24 hours. Let's just say that I haven't gotten the urge to see Colonel Sanders any time soon since then.

You know that KFC started in Utah, right?

After Scrooged ended, Tropic Thunder had just randomly started on my one (yes, just 1) cable channel, so we ended up watching that too. Christmas Day was topped off with a trip to the friendly neighborhood bar called "Feak." Quite a different way to spend the birthday of Sweet Baby Jesus (c), but spending it with friends was pretty nice!

Best part about having tons of folks at your place? No need to turn on the kerosene heater and inhale the fumes!

A few days later, I ended up spending the day with a Japanese girl I've known at Starbucks for quite a while. It sorta just ended up like that, as neither of us had plans aside from having lunch together; my brain was pretty much mush after all that Japanese though! I haven't been studying much, if at all, since taking the JLPT. One of the best/awkward parts of the whole day was going to see "2012" and seeing a preview for a Japanese movie called, "My Darling is a Foreigner," some kind of romantic comedy involving a Japanese girl and her "gaijin boyfriend." Naturally, I was the only foreigner in the theater. The staring from the other movie goers felt just a bit stronger after that movie preview, but what can you do eh? The actual movie wasn't much better for Japanese+American pairs, as the one such couple hardly got any lines, if at all, before the world imploded all over them...again, good times! I've gotta say, though, that not having a friend come along when I ask a girl out ends up being much more fun. Huzzah progress!

For New Years a few of us left Yatsushiro and spent a few days in Kansai. We were kinda scattered throughout Osaka and Kyoto, but they're all so close and easy to get to that we still managed to hang out with each other for a few days. People in Kansai seem pretty spoiled for choices: they have Osaka, Kyoto, and Kobe all within an hour of each other I think? I took the slowest train from Osaka to Kyoto for under $10 and it took less than an hour. And these cities are all larger than the main city on my island that costs over $30 and two hours to get to! I know where I'd ask to be placed, if I could go back and redo the JET application. :) (Although I do love Kumamoto, and the living expenses here are ridiculously cheap!)

The New Year's Eve Trio (can you tell we just left an all-you-can-drink place?) on the Dotombori bridge, with the famous wide-armed Glico man in the background (well, his legs anyway!) I'm not sure, were the Japanese folks behind us also posing for a picture or jumping in on ours? haha

Said Glico man.

We ended up going to a club that a friend back in Yatsushiro recommended. The music wasn't all that great, but after a while I somehow could hear how salsa might fit into the techno/house music they were playing and started absentmindedly doing the basic steps. A girl came up to me and asked if I was from Spain; I wasn't going to tell her that salsa is about as Spanish as KFC is Japanese, haha. Good thing too, because the girl was an amazing dancer! Granted, I've only had that one semester of salsa classes back in my last year at FIU, (wow, it's now been three years, eh?) but she gracefully moved through each spin like it was what she was born to do, even the ones I bungled up. Even in Miami I've never had it go that smooth before, and they dance salsa in between classes! The techno somehow worked too, as the ever-pervasive bass beat strangely fit in quite well with the steps.

The wonder of Facebook means I found pictures of us dancing!

Why am I not in Osaka right now ?

We even went dancing again a few days later, but all the actual salsa clubs were closed for the New Year's break. A bunch of us went instead to some R&B club, but the salsa just was not happening. Just dancing wasn't all that bad though, and now I know somebody in Osaka if I ever go back! (I'll need to take some more lessons before I go back though...)

The day after New Year's I went to Kyoto and visited a temple that's supposed to give good luck to businesses. There's a main temple at the foot of a mountain, and then rows upon rows of orange gates that companies and people buy to give their business good fortune. It was quite a flood of people going up; I guess folks need all the business luck they can get nowadays, eh?

Yeah, I'm wearing gardening gloves. Fear not, for I replaced them soon after!

A whole lot of orange gates. I might be thinking about salsa in this picture, seeing my goofy face.

And that was pretty much my winter break! I came back with several days to relax, but I instead went into the Board of Education and worked on my graduate school statement of purpose. Turning in those grad school applications, as well as the big fellowship I'm aiming for, is the next thing on my plate. After that, I'll be organizing a snowboarding trip up in Hiroshima. Oh, and there's that whole "turning a quarter of a century old" thing that I'll be doing in a weeks time... I'm getting old!

A view into a Japanese work party (a.k.a. Enkai)

2010-01-06T06:46:00.000-08:00

Over the Christmas break I went to my first end-of-the-year party with one of my elementary school staffs. The past two winters I booked it to either Spain or Utah as soon as I could, and thus this year was the first time I got to join in on the drinking festivities.

Seats are determined by "kuji" or by pulling numbers out of a box. Luck would have it that I pulled the number that had me give the opening speech and say kanpai! (cheers) My Japanese always seems to be at its most elementary at such times, but luckily they wanted the speech to be mostly in English. I also got to wear a giant bow on my head for the rest of the night: woot!
I got a golden ticket...

So everyone sits in their randomly assigned seats and spends the next two hours eating lots of small dishes and drinking as much as they'd like (and maybe a bit past that for some folks...) Since this was the end-of-the-year party, they had all sorts of things planned aside from stuffing face and bladders:

Always a schedule, always a plan of action to follow!

Aside from a few other speeches and whatnot, the main event was a ten-part presentation from various teachers. Some teachers told jokes with background music playing (I didn't get 'em...) while others did some prop comedy:

This one had the two teachers comparing the teachers' running speeds, among other qualities. I'm still struggling with Japanese humor, hehe.

Flying melon bread!? Note that the sunglasses mean that she's being funny!

I don't actually remember what this one was about. The guy on the left is the principle though!

That black box is actually something we used in English class a few weeks back. The vice-principal had to figure out what he was touching without looking. They must really like melon bread...

I was involved in two bits: one was a comedy bit where I kept mispronouncing English words and my Japanese coworker guy (same as the above picture) would respond with the proper pronunciation. (well, close enough anyway!) It goes a long way to be a good sport in these sort of things! Especially considering the next section they had me in: they brought me up to the front and then had a small discussion of my "bad luck in love" and tried to cheer me up a little bit. It was a mix of cute and intrusive, but I've learned to roll with the differences in privacy while here in Japan. The luck they offered me must've worked though, since New Year's was a lot of fun! (more about that in a later post)

I'm not sure why Santa has some kind of eye scanner as part of his costume...

The enkai ended with Santa giving us all some candy, and maybe half of us going to the after party (a.k.a. "nijikai). These almost always end up at a "snack bar" which is a mix of karaoke and paying for girls to chat with you. A bit strange since our group had more women than men, but the establishment was pretty nice in any case! It's great getting to see how good some of the teachers can sing, especially when it's in English!

Unlike my first enkai here in Yatsushiro, this time my bike wasn't stolen; huzzah for remembering to lock it this time! Enkais can get pretty expensive if you go to an after party or two (over $100 in one night isn't unheard of) but it's definitely the best time for getting to know the staff; even if you gotta swallow some pride and booze in the process!

Christmas Eve with giant mallets and zombies

2009-12-29T18:48:00.000-08:00

I decided to stay in Japan for the Christmas break and use the money I would've spent going home to finally start saving up for grad school. Not a bad time to start either, with the yen doing so well against the dollar! It's been pretty quiet over here in Yatsushiro, as all but a few folks have returned home, but aside from a few days of absolute gaming vegging (I'm really a sucker for anything Bioware publishes), I've been keeping busy.

For Christmas Eve I was invited by my tiny school in the mountains to come make mochi. I'll leave it to Wikipedia to explain it:

Mochi (Japanese: 餅) is a Japanese rice cake made of glutinous rice pounded into paste and molded into shape. In Japan it is traditionally made in a ceremony called mochitsuki. While also eaten year-round, mochi is a traditional food for the Japanese New Year and is commonly sold and eaten during that time.

So throughout the morning I participated in mochitsuki, slamming a giant mallet into globs of rice. Aside from the teachers, everyone else was either a schoolkid or one of the retired folk; I imagine everyone else was working, seeing as Christmas isn't that big of a deal over here.

We all took turns pounding the rice, with one of the older ladies keeping the rice mush wet in between strikes and yelling out "hai!" for us to strike again. I kept expecting someone to mistime the strike and accidentally smash her hand, but these guys were pros.

Savoring that fresh mountain air.

After the rice was sufficiently pounded, we all went to the table and put anko (dark, somewhat tasteless thing. I'm not a fan) into globs of the mush, and then molded them into mochi balls. One of the student's moms helped make the mochi alongside me, and she was Filipina! She talked to her kid in pretty decent Japanese rather than Tagalog though; I wonder if that was just a courtesy thing or if they speak only Japanese at home too... I hope not! I bet the kid would prefer being bilingual, not to mention being able to speak to his folks back in the Philippines.

A whole lot of anko.
The mochi was still warm to the touch. Pretty nice since it was a bit chilly outside.

While mochitsuki was going on, some of the men were making "kadomatsu." Again, wikipedia to the rescue!

"A kadomatsu (門松^?, lit. "gate pine") is a traditional Japanese decoration of the New Year placed in pairs in front of homes supposedly to welcome ancestral spirits or kami of the harvest. They are placed after Christmas until January 7 (or January 15 during the Edo period) and are considered temporary housing for kami. Designs for kadomatsu vary depending on region but are typically made of pine, bamboo, and sometimes ume tree sprigs which represent longevity, prosperity and steadfastness, respectively."

The kadomatsu they were making indeed had pine, bamboo, and ume (plum) tree twigs, and was placed in front of the school's entrance.

The white stones symbolize snow. They said that highest bamboo pole represents the father, the middle is the mother, and the shortest one is the child.

Kadomatsu complete!

It was nice to finally get to try my hand at making mochi, as I've been gone for the holidays every time I've been asked to go. Afterwards I got myself an early Christmas present in the form of Fifa 10 (ahem, gooooooooaaal!) and ran into Kagami Jr. High's school nurse, who I got along with really well. Apparently the legacy I've left behind at Kagami is not, like the ALT before me, that of great Japanese speaking ability, but instead my great capacity to eat! The food at Kagami sure was good though, and it's a shame to see such food go to waste when there's seconds to be had...

I finished off Noche Buena with some Left 4 Dead 2 with one of the remaining ALTs; good times!

/shrug

2009-12-12T08:04:00.000-08:00

Why do difficult choices have to be so... difficult? I suppose it's the right thing to do, but it sure seems so much easier to just have kept with what I was doing. On the bright side, at least now my iPhone won't have the shoddy battery life it's been having for the past two months! Gotta think positive, right?

Was that cryptic enough? I hope so!

Anyways, here's to just one more week of work before the Christmas break! The plan is to stay around Yatsushiro for Christmas, and then head to Osaka for New Year's. Since I've only been to Osaka that one time I went to take the GRE, it'll be nice to get to see the city without the giant specter of analogies and analytical essays hanging over my shoulder. Although studying all that GRE vocab was actually pretty fun (yes, I am indeed a nerd.)

2kyu Revisited

2009-12-06T15:55:00.000-08:00

It's been a while since I've written one of these while at work. I usually spend my downtime between classes studying Japanese or reading the news, but my brain is still pretty fried from taking the Japanese Language Proficiency Test (JLPT) yesterday, so blogging it is!

The test yesterday was actually the second time I've taken the 2nd level (2kyu/２級) of the JLPT. It's considered the hardest hurdle for Japanese learners, as the jump in vocabulary, Chinese characters, and grammar between the 2nd and 3rd levels is pretty big. Half of the group I went with last summer to take the 2kyu passed, although I don't yet know if I did or not. Since I moved into my new apartment before receiving my results, it got returned to sender. Although I did find the test voucher under a pile of old study materials a few days ago, so I'll learn in a few weeks if this second attempt was even necessary!

I certainly felt more comfortable this time on every section. My kanji knowledge is still pretty good (all that Elementary school textbook practice!) and my vocabulary still has a ways to go, but is improving. But this time I got through nearly the entire grammar section, whereas last summer I had to just fill in a good third of that section with just 1s; spent way too much time on the tricky questions.

Now all I have to do is wait till February to get my results. Next up on my plate is getting grad school/fellowship applications in (I'm really, really behind) and to get to work on the Foreign Service Exam in late winter/early spring. I've been finding it a bit hard to concentrate and get things done like I usually do, but the reason for that isn't exactly a mystery to me; just look a few entries back to see what keeps popping into my head. For better or worse though, I'm not complaining! It sure makes life more interesting...

Claws and 'staches

2009-11-17T22:18:00.000-08:00

For Halloween this year I went as Wolverine: after several months of really short hair, I grew it out and let the beard grow out too. I probably should have stopped shaving my head a little earlier, but it would have to do! The claws I made from plastic katana blades gotten at a 100yen shop and spray painted gray. I couldn't really figure out an easy way to make them stick to a glove, so I just made some grips out of duct tape; it isn't fancy, but neither is Wolverine!

Not the most Wolverine-looking face, but check out the belt buckle! :D
This time in full flannel glory!

I ended up going to a big Halloween party over an hour's ride up north, in an abandoned strip mall. I'm not sure whose bright idea it was to build acres and acres of commercial property in the middle of nowhere, but it made for a great (and cheap!) place to have a party. There was even a fancy hotel right across from the empty shops; naturally they were really cheap seeing as the place was deserted. Much fun was had.

On a completely unrelated note, a few weeks back I was asked to emcee the Southern Yatsushiro English Recitation Contest. Along with a fellow ALT, I was to introduce each event, person, etc, in English to the audience and contestants. Now, here in Yatsushiro we've had quite a number of H1N1 cases in our schools, so we were asked to wear the now ubiquitous face masks while we were helping set up and mixing about before the event started.

Feeling in a silly mood, I decided to draw a big handlebar mustache on mine. I actually had first wanted to get a top hat and monocle, but I couldn't find either one; not exactly the hottest items in Japan right now I think. Anyways, my teacher said we wouldn't be wearing the masks during the actual event, so why not, right? My fellow emcee, seeing me in my mustachioed glory, drew one on her mask too. Instant classiness achieved!

Once all the preparations were ready and everyone made it to their seats, us two emcees sat in our spots near the front of the hall... but we were the only ones not wearing masks. My teacher, who turns out was going to do the Japanese portions of the event, sheepishly asked us to put on our masks. After shrugging to my equally bemused co-emcee, I wished everyone a Happy Halloween and put mine on; handlebar 'staches and suits go hand in hand, yeah?

I was chuckling under my mask (and mustache) throughout most of the event.

Warning: slightly cheesy post

2009-10-25T05:35:00.000-07:00

This last week and a half I've been in a really good mood. The weather has cooled down, the annual fireworks festival was impressive as always, and I feel pretty settled into my new apartment, where everything is only a short bike ride away. I think being in good spirits has affected my teaching, as I've had some of my best classes ever at elementary school. The kids have been more attentive, the classes seem to end quicker, and I've even had kids pick up some English grammar!

The class that comes to mind was a fifth grade class at one of my school along the mountains. The kids had played a shopping game earlier before, learning the words necessary to be both a customer and employee. Afterwards, each kid presented what he had bought, along with some basic introduction sentences. We were about halfway through when one kid really surprised me by stringing two sentences together with the use of "and." It completely threw me off, as every other student before him had just listed his/her own sentences one by one without any conjunctions. I heaped lots of praise on the by now somewhat embarrassed boy, and several of the students after him used the conjunction too! I know it's a really simple thing, and the kids will probably soon forget about it, since we don't have nearly enough English classes, but the whole experience felt really rewarding. I imagine being a full teacher would yield many more such situations, since you get to focus on the students and have some consistency, eh?

In any case, despite having four elementary school days last week, (and a day-long seminar as well! That was a hard week!) I can honestly say I enjoyed going to work! The students seem to get into the class and lesson more if I'm in a good mood, (at least in elementary school, junior high kids can be quite lethargic. I certainly remember often falling asleep in class back in my South Ogden Junior High days!) which in turn helps make my job that much easier.

Maybe it's all the mountain air that's getting into my head, check out these schools!

This one's called Ryuhou Elementary School. One of the second graders is half French!

Deep in the mountains lies Miyaji Higashi Elementary School. Nine students strong!

Inside the log cabin-ish school, where I'm introducing myself to all of its nine students. This is from their school newspaper, sorry for the blurriness!

Oh, and another thing that might be influencing my mood is meeting a cute girl who's a "sucker for brown eyes." Best not jinx it though, so that's all I'm saying about that!

Miami weekend fun in Japan

2009-10-08T23:54:00.000-07:00

I finally have internet! It took me nearly two months to get it set up in my apartment, but now I can stop depending on the somewhat shaky wireless that my neighbor was kind enough to leave password-free. Having internet again also means that I've been a bit glued to the Xbox, reconnecting with the joys of online gaming. It's good to be back.

Hopefully now I can get back to posting more regularly, as I don't want to fall back into the habit of making jumbo posts that squeeze in a month or two of stuff. The past two years I was able to rely on long blocks of free time at work to blog for a bit, but at my new schools I'm usually working four or five periods, with the remaining time used to lesson plan with the teachers. So this is what it feels like to be an ALT!

Luckily today at school I'm only doing interview checks for 30 minutes and getting sent to the staff room for the remaining 15 of each period, which gives me enough time over the course of the day to get in a blog post. Who knows how fluid it's going to be though...

Thanks to "Physical Education Day" on Monday, last weekend I had three days off. My friend from college, who's now living two miles south of me, came to see a concert on Friday and we hanged out the rest of the time. I've been wanting to go salsa ever since I heard that a place in Kumamoto has salsa nights on Saturdays, and we had actually taken a salsa class together back at FIU; now was my chance! I got several people to agree to come with us, but perhaps asking them the night before while drinking wasn't the most prudent way to go. They all eventually decided not to come, but luckily two of my Japanese friends said they would. It worked out really well, as the group was two guys and two girls.

Not the best photo (thanks iPhone!) but you get the picture.

As my old salsa teacher used to say: enchufe! setenta! coca-cola!

We were the only ones dancing for about an hour or two, aside from the employees jumping in and dancing with the girls every once in a while. Around 2am, though, the place filled up with couples that could dance really well. Good thing us amateurs did our thing before they got there! They seem to have classes on Fridays, along with dancing on Saturdays, so it looks like I can finally add to the impressive three moves that I've got in my repetoire. Getting someone to drive an hour there and back will be the tricky part, as the trains don't run after midnight, and dancing is more fun with some sangria or cava. :)

I also managed to get one last beach day in this year, as the weather has stayed pretty nice. The jellyfish are all gone and so are most of the people, so we had the beach practically to ourselves. With a visit from a good friend from FIU and getting to do both salsa and the beach, this weekend felt very much like I was back in Miami. :)

This photo was actually from when my mom came to visit, but just imagine the beach nearly empty, five people playing frisbee, and a couple people gathered around a guy playing ukulele.

Is this thing still on?

2009-08-31T20:44:00.000-07:00

August has flown by and I'm back at work, enjoying the air conditioned oasis known as the staff room. I'm actually at my new junior high school, having successfully transferred out of Kagami and into Yatsushiro City. My new base school, Sencho Junior High School, is half the size of Kagami Jr High, and by far my biggest school now. Since I'm one of the few remaining ALTs with a car, I'm in charge of several tiny schools scattered along the mountains. They range from a log cabin elementary school of nine students to my second junior high school of about 80, which is just about to start using a brand-new building. Many of my schools are quite new, with the faint smell of sawdust; we'll see how they smell once they're packed with kids though.

Today was the first day of classes, so I was properly introduced to the school at the morning assembly. Compared to my introduction two years ago, this time I was able to just go up and present myself in both English and Japanese. I also understood a good chunk of the speeches, which is encouraging considering all the studying I do. Now if I could speak at the same level that I can listen, I'd be set!

I plan on writing in reverse order all the things that happened in August, so with some luck and ample free time, I'll be caught up sometime in mid September. Wish me luck!

I think I've got a Plan B lying around here somewhere...

2009-07-14T22:48:00.000-07:00

It's really been a full month since I last posted! In that time a lot has happened: from Spain losing to the United States in soccer in the Confederations Cup semi-final (the first time the US has even beaten Spain, and then USA very nearly beat Brazil!), to taking the 2nd highest level of Japanese in the JLPT, to a Fourth of July party and one of my coworker's baby shower... I've been pretty busy! I actually wrote about the July 4th party for the local JET newsletter, Voice of Yats; the procrastination and consternation with writing it brought me back to my college years!

But probably the biggest thing to have happened recently was the election for the two JET representatives for my district. These representatives help out the new guys (and the not-so-new ones, if they need help!) with their advice and experience, and also organize several events throughout the year to help foster a sense of community amongst the Yatsushiro JETs.

I had decided to run for the position sometime last fall, and slowly compiled a list of activities that I'd like to do if I were elected. The position seems pretty similar to my old job as a Resident Assistant, although with less defined roles. It would also help strengthen my resume for my second attempt at the Foreign Service Officer Test, as my dearth of that vaunted concept, "experience," was primarily the reason why I failed to progress to the next stage of hiring. So let's just say that I was really hoping to get elected and find a platform from which to be a bit more active this upcoming year.

Unfortunately I got beat out by two other guys that also ran for the position. One was the incumbent, and the other had much of the same platform as I did, but is quite a bit more charismatic. I think I could do a better job and would have added an additional dimension that will now be lacking, but I wish them luck all the same.

In any case, I'll have to continue looking for ways to be active outside of my work as an ALT and develop those qualities that will help me pass the FSOT or indeed get into grad school next fall. I actually have my first visit with an orphanage today where I'll be volunteering once a week. I'm not exactly sure what I'll be doing there, but if I keep putting myself out there and taking advantage of the random opportunities that I come across, something is bound to happen, right?

I also have been in contact with the organization I went to Cambodia with, Pepy, and might be able to work with them in some way. I don't have the funds to go and be a group leader for one of their tours in Cambodia, but maybe I'll do something more local here in Japan; I think they need help with publicity since many of their JET contacts are leaving this summer.

Whatever ends up happening, I think I'll have to branch out a little more than I have been for the past two years. I've gotten into a solid routine of work, studying, and working out, that while it has been good for my mind and body, won't exactly get me any closer to a meaningful job after I'm done with Japan. Maybe I'll find some inspiration this weekend when I climb Mt. Fuji, Japan's tallest mountain. If anything, it will at least give me something a bit more positive to write about!

Choose a side!

2009-06-15T16:59:00.000-07:00

Watching the USA-Italy soccer game late last night, one of the Italian player's peculiar circumstances really was a story in itself. The United States have never beaten Italy, but were ahead 1-0 after the first half of the game. They were down a man, but were surprisingly holding down their opposition pretty well.

All that changed when a guy named Giuseppe Rossi stepped in as a substitute. He breathed life into the Italian team, scoring an amazing goal soon after entering. Another Italian goal was soon to come, and Rossi scored yet again as the game was just about over, making it Italy-3, USA-1. What makes this interesting is that Rossi is actually an Italian American, born in New Jersey to two Italian immigrants. Seeing as he is a dual citizen, he had the interesting option of choosing either to represent Italy or the States at the international level.

Bruce Springsteen's "Born in the U.S.A." comes to mind.

Unfortunately for American soccer, Rossi chose the former rather than the latter. He was invited to play for the American side early on, but declared that he'd rather play for the azzurri. Like most of the world's best players, he soon found himself playing for a top-class soccer club in Europe.

Perhaps it wasn't much of a choice for the guy. Italy's national team is the current World Cup champion and are always one of the favorites to win. Unlike the US, they have a roster full of talent; Rossi playing as a mere substitute goes to show the team's depth. The American team, on the other hand, would certainly use Rossi as much as possible. The phrase "big fish, little pond" holds especially true here.

Being a dual citizen myself, albeit one from parents of differing nationalities, Rossi's story hits close to home. Like Rossi, when I lived in Europe I was called "the American," despite having family from Barcelona. Moving back to the States and into Michigan after a year in Spain, my close group of friends were all from outside the US. Speaking in English actually felt awkward those first months back, and I liked the more accepting and broader perspectives my friends had. It's hard to fault middle schoolers too much though; everybody is some sort of weirdo at that stage in life. So when Rossi and his dad moved back to Italy when he was just 13, I can see why he would choose to play for them rather than America; you're just beginning to fashion a sense of self at that age, and he saw himself more as an Italian.

I think if I had the natural soccer talent and had been asked to choose much like the young Rossi did, I would have had a hard time deciding. The differences in how soccer is seen in the States and Europe is pretty striking; it was a part of daily life when I lived in Barcelona. While in Utah there were guys who used "soccer player" as an expletive. Talk about being worlds apart!

After spending the majority of my life in Michigan and Utah, however, it's hard not to feel a sense of belonging and even patriotism for the US. I can't speak for the Italian guy, but I've got fond memories of boy scouts, 4th of July parties, and all the little things that helped shape my cultural identity. Also, unlike Rossi, I have the added weight of half my family being American. So, much like I'm looking to work for the United States' foreign service rather than try my luck in Spain, I'd like to think I would choose to do my part with Team USA rather than be a part of la Furia Roja. Even if Spain is on an incredible 33 game unbeaten streak and are one of the favorites for next year's World Cup. I think I would still ask for a few autographs after getting beat by them in a USA-Spain match though. :)

50th Post!

2009-06-07T19:35:00.000-07:00

It's been nearly two years of blogging and fifty posts written. I'm glad to say that I can mark off the blog milestone with some happy news! At my monthly ALT meeting in the city my boss notified me that my request to be transferred into the city was approved; I'm moving next month! Despite the new rule that requires a new ALT to specifically ask to be moved into Kagami before I can transfer, it looks like I'm indeed going to get that change of scenery that I wanted. There were actually two requests from the new guys asking to take my apartment; imagine that! I've certainly enjoyed my two years here and I bet the new guy will too, so it looks like it's all going to work out. Even with that gaffe I had with my senior boss. :)

The transfer means that I'll soon have to pack everything up and start the long task of cleaning my apartment until it looks like it did two years ago. I have piles of recyclable/non burnable stuff that has proven to be hard to get rid of, plus I'll have to fill out a bunch of forms to change my address on all my registrations. I'll do it all with a smile on my face though, as I always thought that my chances were slim of ever getting the move.

The icing on this week's cake came later on Friday, as my phone call to Microsoft Japan was really successful. Despite the difficulties in communicating via the super-polite version of Japanese, I was able to navigate through twenty minutes of conversation, and ending up getting my Xbox 360 repaired for free! I didn't even have to leave my house, as a delivery guy came by and picked it up on Saturday. The online site said that the repair would be at least $100, so that was a pleasant surprise. That experience certainly left a great first impression; let's just hope it's the last time I have to call their customer support line!
And now the waiting game begins...

Broken Xbox, messed up ankle

2009-06-02T19:51:00.000-07:00

This week hasn't been one for things not needing replacing or repair. Early in the week I had to replace all four of my tires for nearly $400. I was going to wait until August when my car goes through the mandatory car check-up (a.k.a. shaken) that would certainly have had me change all four, but my car skidded a few feet when I tried braking in the rain a few days back, so I figured I had better get that done before the rainy season...

In keeping with my now third annual spring tradition, I've also managed to sprain my right ankle while playing soccer. Each year it seems to happen at an even more low-key soccer game; this time I was playing 2 vs 5 with some elementary kids during recess. I was spinning and juking my way around them when a particularly energetic kid challenged me from the side. I lost my footing and rolled the ankle while cursing my fate: I was a few days from June and so close to getting past spring injury-free!

This third time around, however, I'm certainly more prepared and had already packed my heavy-duty ankle brace in my car's trunk. And luckily the school nurse had some medicated bandages available that really soothed the pain. They even sell them at convenience stores, so I was set for a long weekend of recovery.

I only took half a day off work last year when I got injured, and that was just to go to the hospital to get crutches...this time I was a bit more doting on myself. I took the whole day off and tried to stay off my feet for the majority of four days. This naturally led me to play my Xbox 360 quite a bit more, yet the second day into the weekend the damn thing broke! It had been just about a full year since I bought the thing; luck would have it that my one-year warranty expired about two or three days before the Xbox decided to follow.

I partially bought a Japanese one in case this did indeed happen, so I'm hoping that shipping it to get repaired in Japan will be much quicker than my friend's two month hiatus. (He sent it to the States) Perhaps this is also just a none-too-subtle reminder that my Japanese language test is in less than two months, and playing Fifa 09 isn't the best way to prepare for it.

Note to self- wear the ankle brace every time I partake in any sport, no matter if they're ten years old!

上下 (Highs and Lows)

2009-05-24T16:56:00.000-07:00

It's slam-tastic!
About a month ago I got one of my JTEs (Japanese Teacher of English) to come with me and ask the teacher in charge of the tennis team if it would be OK if I practiced with the team. Last year I simply walked into the soccer club's practice and started playing, so I figured this time I'd try to go through the proper channels first. The teacher had no problems with it, so for three or four weeks I'd join the tennis team with a bunch of drills and a friendly game or two before they clean up and go home. The sport is actually soft tennis, and instead of a normal tennis court it is made of dirt, so after practice we all grab brooms and make sure the dirt looks nice and smooth. This happens at my weeky (grown-up) soccer practices as well. Having always played soccer on grass and tennis on a hard court, I was surprised when the players afterwards started sweeping the field and later lined up and bowed, but it's common practice here.

Since I rarely teach at Junior High, I really enjoyed playing with and getting to know the kids on the team. I've seen these students for almost two years now, but due to the lack of classes, I don't get much time to talk to them or really interact in any way. It's a big difference from elementary school, where I teach often and we all know each other pretty well. I'm a bit rusty since playing for my high school team, but it works out well since it makes most of the games pretty close. I win most of them though; hopefully it helps motivate them to play better, or at least sprint for those hard-to-reach balls. (I love diving for them :) )

The day before my trip to Hong Kong, one of the girls on the team asked me if I would bring back some omiyage (food souvenirs that you bring back as a sign of saying "sorry for my absence, thanks for covering for me). I had no problem with it, since I was already getting six boxes for the various obligations I have. When I came back from my trip, I gave the tennis team a box of sesame snacks and had a regular day of practice (with an amazing come-from-behind win with one of the newer players!)

Little did I know that this was against school policy, and later that day the snacks were confiscated by the tennis teacher. Which was especially surprising because the next morning that same teacher came with one of the English teachers to thank me for the snacks and ask where I got them. After a few minutes of awkward conversation, the English teacher says, "oh yes, and we would like you to please refrain from playing with the tennis team for two months." Not only were they not mentioning anything about taking the snacks, but now it seems that I can't play tennis anymore! They mentioned that they have a big tournament in July that they're preparing for, but that still doesn't refute the fact that there usually is an empty spot somewhere for me to jump in, plus the fact that I add a bit more competitiveness to the games I play in. Wouldn't it have been a better time to say no when I asked about this last month? Surely the innocuous candy giving wasn't the deciding factor...?

A bit dazed from that conversation, and recognizing that direct confrontation isn't the norm here, I instead took it all in and went home. It also happened to be the end of the workday on a Friday... I'll get back to it on Monday!

Monday came and went without much incident, although the tennis team members that I talked to were equally perplexed about the whole situation. Even the two captains weren't sure why it was decided, and they're the ones in charge of practice! The teacher doesn't actually coach them, but is instead more of the manager, dealing with matches against other schools, administrative tasks, etc. One girl also pointed out that the time when I can return to practice is also when the 3rd graders stop playing: sometime in July everyone in the 3rd grade finishes whatever sport they're in and devotes the rest of the school year to studying and getting into a good high school. Needless to say that those were some frustrating days, and not being able to talk directly to the teacher without stepping on Japanese protocol didn't help matters much.

The next day after work I helped out a friend's former boss at an after-school English school. She needed a native speaker to record several stories that will be used to practice for a recitation contest. I've helped my school with this exact thing for the past two summers, so it seemed right up my alley. I was still a bit bummed from the whole tennis ordeal, but that quickly was forgotten as I got essentially got to voice act for four separate short stories. I had to speak a bit slower than normal, since these are for English learners, but other than that it think I did a pretty good job at making it sound natural. It was really weird to hear my voice in the recording, but the constant feedback and discussion on how to make it better felt immensely rewarding after the lackadaisical approach that English teaching is often given at the public schools. When I was a student myself , I always enjoyed the times when we read outloud the parts in a play, and voice acting has been one of those things that in another life I bet I could have become halfway-decent at. Maybe there'll be a time when they need someone to voice a US publicity commercial when I'm working in some far-off country as a FSO...

In any case, that experience certainly livened me up and helped divert my attention from what's happening (or not) at work. I've had good experiences with the random events I've been invited to so far; here's hoping they keep coming!

A week in Hong Kong

2009-05-17T18:24:00.000-07:00

Golden Week has come and gone, and so I've seen Hong Kong and now am back in Japan. It was great to leave Kumamoto for a little bit, as traveling always helps me appreciate what I've got here in Japan; especially living space, as Hong Kong is damn crowded!

I ended up renting a guest room in the post-graduate dorm next to my friend Paul's undergrad/graduate student dorm. Walking around the dorm hallways and seeing all the open doors that showed rooms busy and messy with college life really had me missing my time in FIU. I couldn't help but look at the place with the eyes of an RA, noticing that they have permanent decorations in the halls and that they leave their rooms completely open even when they head out. If you did that at Panther Hall you'd return to an empty room! The dorm (I think they call it a "college" instead. They also call studying, "working," which threw me off every time! "Working on an essay," sure, but simply "working" doesn't imply any meaning of "studying" to me. Anyways!) was mostly Hong Kong students, some Europeans and non-Chinese Asians, but no Americans strangely enough. They were a really cool group, although unfortunately all of them were busy with finals for most of the time I was there. Aside from one night where they had a goodbye party for one of the first girls to head home:
Paul wasn't as busy: apart from two days when he both read for and wrote a report that technically was to be done over a course of three months (hooray college procrastination!), he was able to show me around Hong Kong.
Due to a confirmed case of H1N1 flu (swine flu), we had to take precautionary measures when we went out.

That's better!

I was told repeatedly that the night-life is much better when it isn't finals week and a swine flu scare, but it was much better than what I've got in Japan in any case. We met up with some post-grad students who weren't bogged down with finals. I think they only have a thesis that has to be written in the indefinite future, so we also went with them to a suprisingly close beach the next day. Hong Kong seems to have everything within reach, as the mountains were nearby as well. Anyways, the beach had a set-aside area with grills and benches and all of them were full with people BBQing all sorts of food. It was a really cool idea and something that would have been nice back in Miami.

I came with the early crowd and was part of the team that took forever to start the BBQ fire. Eventually with some cardboard I made an impromptu fan and got it working!

I think I'll make this a two-part entry, so I'll finish this part with the city's skyline at night:

Hong Kong! Hoooo!

2009-04-29T23:02:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow morning I'm flying to Hong Kong for six days of sight-seeing and catching up with a good friend from high school that I haven't seen since... well, high school! The whole trip is really last minute, as I had initially planned to save up my money during Golden Week and spend that time relaxing and perhaps exploring Kyushu in my car. It would have been a great chance to finally catch up on some blog posts, as it has now been a full year since I went to Korea and Cambodia for Golden Week 2008! How's that for procrastination?

What was holding me from committing to the trip was that my friend is actually going to be smack dab in the middle of finals week when I get there, despite it being a week long vacation in Japan. I was practically a hermit during finals week back at FIU, so I definitely appreciate him finding time to hang out despite the bad timing. I've got a list of cool places to visit from a friend , so maybe I'll just explore some of those while he's cramming.

My boss says that the airports will be pretty hectic due to the swine flu outbreak, and that I might even be quaranteened when I come back to Japan if there's a chance I've caught the disease. It's therefore recommended that I get to the airport four hours (yep, 4!) before my flight. The DS was practically made for long lines and hours of waiting though, so I'm ready!

With some luck and less procrastination, I'll manage to write about this trip and last year's Golden Week trips before this time next year. :)

Philanthropy or profligacy?

2009-04-13T17:30:00.000-07:00

I finally managed to pay off all my credit card debts about a month or two ago; the yen being really strong against the dollar helped speed up that process. The plan, after paying for a few flights this summer and the quite punitive taxes I have to pay for driving an older car in Japan, is to start saving up for graduate school in fall 2010.

With that in mind, I'm a bit at odds with the way I'm still putting charges on my credit card: this weekend I both donated to my ailing fraternity that might be shut down at the end of the month due to insolvency, and also gave my third youngest brother a high school graduation gift that together with the donation, puts my card back at half capacity.

I don't regret doing either of them, but saving money sure can be hard when there are ostensibly better causes or friends/family that could use some help. And that's not even taking into account donating to a charitable organization, like I did last spring break! I was close to doing another volunteer/fund-raising trip during this year's spring break (to be more accurate, "Golden Week" here in Japan, and in May, not spring ;) ) but I decided to finally finish off my debt instead. So, was this week a momentary lapse before I start amassing my wealth in preparation to see it all go towards grad school, or should I start being more stringent with my money? Hmm...

Soccer in the city

2009-04-05T23:32:00.000-07:00

For spring break I went with two of my friends to Osaka, Japan's third largest city. I took the night bus, which while being less than half the price of the corresponding train ticket, makes up for that fact by taking almost three times as long to get there! The ride was a bit too hot but no worse than the long rides I used to endure between Ogden, Utah and Los Angeles, and nothing compared to the few times I drove from Utah to Miami! I have no room to complain anyways, as I've yet to be charged for the bus ride, so for the moment, it was indeed a free ride. :)

With my two buddies we explored some of the usual spots, like Osaka castle, the aquarium (biggest fish I've ever seen!), and several shopping areas, but I mainly went to take the GRE. I had started preparing for the exam in late November, but didn't study in earnest until January. The test day happened to be the last day of our trip, but I didn't study all that much during the four days in Osaka. You would think that I'd get at least take it easy the night before, but...

The second of two Spain versus Turkey World Cup qualifying games was Thursday night! I couldn't find a bar that was going to play the game live, as that would have been at 5am. However, with some persistant Google Maps searching I indeed found a "Football Pub" a few blocks away from where the night bus had dropped us off. And right on their website it showed that they were going to show a replay of the Spain vs. Turkey soccer game! I watched all the 2008 Eurocup Spanish games late at night on my home computer; it's so much more fun to be watching them with people, especially since Spain has been on a 30 game winning streak!

As I entered the bar, I was welcomed by paintings of soccer players and fans on all sides:

Screw uric acid, I enjoyed 600 yens-worth of Guinness during that game. :)

Where's the FC Barcelona or la Seleccion love?

Even the bathrooms were amusing. :)

No Villa, Iniesta, Puyol, or Fabregas...but let's do this!!

The bar had maybe six or seven others ready to watch the game, and everyone was a Spain fan. I was, however, the only one rocking a "Furia Roja" jersey. I actually had met a couple Turks when I went to Korea, and they quickly recognized the jersey. (I was wearing it then too, what can I say, it's a nice jersey!) They were really cool about the World Cup rivalry and were looking forward to these two games, but who knows how cordial it would have been during the actual game, eh?

Unusally, Spain was down 0-1 in the first half, and only managed to edge out Turkey in the waning minutes of the game. I think some of the guys there already knew the score in advance, because they kept consoling me throughout the first hour or so while Spain was behind. I much prefer to watch without knowing, if I can't watch the game live in the first place. In any case, whenever I watch a game back at home, it's always some time right before or after the sun rise, so whenever I cheer at a potentially fruitful play or an almost-goal, I afterwards hear some creaking or rustling somewhere upstairs or below. I'm sure I've woken people up with my soccer watching...so it was a nice change to be screaming at the TV with others joining me. The guys even caught on to some of the phrases I used, and started yelling at the players in Spanish and English as well. :)

Aside from the emotional and unpredictable game, the place had some pretty good food too. I got an order of legitimate taquitos and a sufficiently greasy burger, and was really tempted with a whole host of other foreign foods that taste better while drinking and enjoying some futbol. After the game was over, the bartenders congratulated me on the win and hoped to see me again (they show la Liga games too), but unfortunately the city's on a completely different island! Here in Kumamoto I enjoy the benefits of a low cost of living and great access to nature, but I think when it comes to watching soccer I'll be limited to waking up my neighbors whenever Spanish players enter the field.

So, how'd it go?

2009-04-03T20:06:00.000-07:00

For my lunch with Mami (and her friend, unfortunately) I went to an Italian place quite in the middle of nowhere. I was recommended it by one of my coworkers at elementary school; there's no way I would have discovered this place on my own! It's actually pretty close to the gym I always go to, but you wouldn't know unless you perused the small back roads.

In preparation for the day ahead, I went the day before to find where exactly the restaurant was, and sent a cellphone picture to Mami to help her find it as well:

Quite a cute-looking restaurant for a place surrounded by empty lots, a shady liquor store, and not much else, eh? Mami quickly responded to the photo, saying she had no idea where it was; she lives on the opposite side of town I think. In any case, when I received that message I was already at Starbucks studying, so she told me again in person. :) Luckily with the iPhone's Google Maps feature I was able to show her exactly how to get there. After that, I tried somewhat successfully to clear my head and study GRE vocab words alongside my cup of "drip coffee."

The next day we finally met up and had lunch. I felt bit underdressed compared to Mami and her friends, but girls here really know how to dress to impress! My jeans and polo are from Uniqlo, the Japanese equivalent of a Old Navy, so about that... hopefully my "foreignerness" helped make up for it.

Fashion gaffes aside, the food was pretty good, with several different courses served to us throughout an hour. I was able to talk to a decent extent in Japanese, with my electronic dictionary at the ready whenever Japanese explanations for words I didn't know weren't enough. The place filled up soon after we all arrived; good thing I had reservations... can you imagine if after spending months getting Mami to hang out, we arrive to a completely full restaurant?

You'd think I'd have taken a photo of us three, right? ちょっと恥ずかしかった。。。

As we were finishing up lunch, Mami got a text from another friend from work (the English-speaking one married to an Australian). Not wanting to end just yet, I suggest going to Baskin Robbins to meet up with her. After paying for all of us (I told her, "You can pay for next time if you'd like!" when she objected to my paying. Here's hoping there's a next time!) we headed to the icecream place and had some icecream/chatted some more. This time, however, I understood quite a bit less of the conversation. When it was just the three of us, I could often contribute to whatever we were talking about, but since the three of them all work together and have inside-jokes/similar experiences to talk about, most of what they said just went over my head. In my defense, I probably would have had trouble keeping up with three girlfriends chatting in Spanish or English too, hehe. Sitting across from an attractive and good-humored girl isn't torture by any means though :D

And thus ended my first experience hanging out/kinda not really "dating" here in Japan. Hopefully the next girl I try chatting up isn't just about to leave the country and/or wants to bring a friend when I ask her to go have something to drink with me!

I don't think that word means what you think it means.

2009-03-26T23:57:00.000-07:00

I got a little bit of Inigo when I wanted her to think "ven comigo!" Hmm, there might be a better play on words here...

I'm knee-deep in GRE preparation, as I'm taking the test in seven days. (ack!) Earlier in the week I didn't do as much as I'd like, so today I got two caffeine-filled Starbucks coffees from 7-eleven and made some good progress at work. School is out for spring break, so I'm free to do whatever I want. :)

Anyways, I finished doing a timed essay descontructing the logic of an essay prompt, but it's almost time to go home. With my coffee-powered energy I think I can finish this entry in time though!

So, I've been talking to and getting friendly with a cute girl at Starbucks for a good while now. I met her while I was going nearly every day to the coffee shop to study for the JLPT. (Which I got I passed with an 89%! Almost perfect on the listening! Woot!) She works there sometimes, and we seemed to enjoy talking whenever she wasn't busy being a barrista.

Over the course of a few months, I asked her for her number, as well as inviting her to hang out sometime, but she evaded the question every time. What was strange, however, was that she continued to be very friendly and, dare I say, flirty. I chalked it up to my still nascent Japanese ability and figured I just had to try from a different angle.

From the advice of a buddy who has witnessed this conflicting behavior, I gave her my cellphone email address, and asked her to email me so we could chat. That same night I got a response from her; great success! After a week or two of simple correspondence (with some scattered German, as she's moving there in the summer) I asked if she wanted to go get a coffee next weekend. She said she'd like to, but was way too busy. I tried again the following week, and she said that when she had some free time, she'd like to go get something to eat. Hmm, well, that's close enough to getting something to drink, but isn't lunch a bit more friendly than what I had hoped for?

So this week, one of her fellow coworkers and fluent English speaker (she's married to an Australian) came up to me and asked when we were all going out to lunch. Apparently it's become a lunch for three! I say it's fine for me, as long as Mami (that's the girl's name) comes and that I'm looking forward to it. Maybe Mami wants a potential translator, although we do fine whenever it's just the two of us chatting.

About three days before we go have lunch, Mami again emails me saying that the friend can't make it, so "what should we do now?" I naturally reply that we two should just go have fun. Perhaps the "inviting my friend" thing is some kind of mind game that a foreigner doesn't get? Yet today, the day before we finally meet up, she emails again saying that "luckily" her friend can show up. Hooray. We'll see how it goes, but I don't think Mami understood what I meant when I said I wanted to spend some time with "you."

Everything must go!

2009-03-24T16:55:00.000-07:00

Since buying my iPhone last December, I've become an unintentional promoter of the thing. I'm quite conspicuous when using it, as most phones here in Japan have the same general shape. So whenever I take a call, text somebody, surf the internet, etc I'll usually go through the same conversation with somebody nearby:

Japanese person: "Oh...touch screen? Is that an iPhone?"
Me: "Yeah, check it out!" *Poke the iPhone a little bit*
JP: "Nice! It must be expensive, right?"
Me: "Actually, they're free right now! There's a campaign to give them away, because they're not doing well in Japan. You should get one!"
JP: "Eh... about that..."

It seems that all the things that people like about the iPhone over in the States, such as the slick interface, easy connectivity with your computer, an array of programs, etc aren't what sell cell phones in Japan. Instead, they prefer a more complex user interface, one that takes time to learn, and a range of specific features.

Those features that the iPhone notably lacks, but people see as necessary include infrared sensors for directly sharing information, TV reception, and a feature that lets you put money into an account, and then swipe your phone at certain stores as a type of debit card. My old Japanese phone had all three features (I wanted a top of the line Japanese phone, hehe) but I rarely used them. The TV signal was really spotty indoors, plus I don't have a long train commute to make use of a portable TV.

The same conversation with a westerner living in Japan, however, has lead to four people getting iPhones! (or on there way to getting one) Just yesterday in the span of a few hours I was telling people at a Hanami party (cherry blossom viewing, with some eating and drinking) about the iPhone sale, and showing some of the cooler features. It brought me back to my days as a Cutco salesman, but this was loads easier to pull off. $900 knife set vs. free iPhone... Cutco knives have penny-cutting abilities going for them at least. :P

A Ryan by any other haircut

2009-03-10T16:52:00.000-07:00

Buddhist monk in religious training. Junior High School baseball player. A suspicious thief. David Beckham. What do these all have in common?

They're all first impressions I got from my students and teachers yesterday, commenting on my new haircut. It's starting to get warmer here in Yatsushiro and I felt it would be good for a change, so I asked for a buzz cut when I went to the barber shop. It took nearly an hour, as the barber was very hesitant to cut off most of my hair. It'll grow back anyway, what's the big deal? I suppose he hasn't seen any of those war movies where the hero gets his hair promptly buzzed off in a handful of swipes.

Perhaps the best reaction was from the girl who works at the gym; I've known her for almost two years now, and as I ascended to the second floor where she was working, she yelped out, "aaaahh!" Usually whenever someone enters the gym, all the employees yell out "konichiwa!" so this greeting was especially noticeable. :)

Now if only Starbucks girl would say I look like Beckham...

Bend it like Bedford?

A Tale of Two Sundays

2009-03-08T22:47:00.000-07:00

The past three Sundays have all been eventful, but for the sake of (some) brevity, I'll just be writing about the first and second.

Three weeks ago, one of the ALTs in the main city of Yatsushiro asked if I wanted to plant mushrooms in the mountains on Sunday at 9am. Much like the Noh workshop, I wouldn't have gone last year, but it's 2009 and I'm pushing myself to do new things, so that Sunday I found myself in lightly drizzling rain, learning how to plant mushrooms into trunks of wood. The mountain is actually just a 10 minute drive from my apartment, and the day was a sort of local event at a friendly guy's house.

I'm not really sure how mushrooms grow or anything, but the entire day was taken up by drilling holes into logs, placing bits of mushroom-growing things in the holes, and then cramming them into the hole with a hammer.
It's log..it's log...it's big, it's heavy, it's wood. It's log...it's log... it's better than bad; it's good!

As it was lightly raining, we did the job over a tarp next to the mountain man's quite nice house:

After filling up a bunch of logs with mushroom bits, some of us guys went further up into the mountains with our ponchos and unceremoniously stacked the logs up. I guess you don't need to be all that exact with growing fungus, eh?
After the day was over, the host took us up to another mushroom farm of his and let us take some of the all ready grown mushrooms. I'm not a huge fan, but I took some Shitake mushrooms, along with a banpeiyu (giant citric fruit), probably 5 pounds of bean sprouts, and an orange. Hooray for generous farmers!

Maybe Super Mario Bros creator Shigeru Miyamoto found his inspiration in Kumamoto?

The next Sunday was the annual Junior High School teachers' soccer tournament. Schools from across the prefecture compete in three different skill levels. Most of the schools didn't see themselves as all that great, including mine, so all but six schools competed in the "C Division." There weren't even enough teams for a proper A and B Division, so they put those two together; tough luck for the B teams!

Much like last year, my school didn't practice even once; the gym teacher had made plans for some practices, but it rained the entire week leading up to that Sunday. The tournament is pretty relaxed in any case, with no off side. Again it seemed a bit demeaning to the female teachers, as they simply stayed put on the opposite side of the field, waiting for a ball to come close kick it into the goal. I don't think any female soccer players back home would want to be automatically relegated to cherry-picker, but all the teachers seemed to have fun in any case.

Also like last year, I scored once out of the two games, both with pretty weak shots. I imagine their goalie had just as much practice as we did, as he was able to stop my shot, but then dropped the ball inside the goal; hooray for me! The school office guy, however, was on fire. He scored a hat trick in the first game and had plenty of almost goals in the second. In the end, we won the first game 4-3 and lost the second game 1-6. At least I scored once in that painful game... we down 1-2 at the end of the first half. After about 10 minutes in, our lack of stamina was really evident, and the opposing team proceded to own us. Fun!

After the tournament the teachers planned on going to an enkai (drinking party), but the skin on the bottom of my foot had been scraped completely off; I wasn't exactly in the mood for getting my drink on, least of all on a Sunday night! Luckily I was taken to one of the teacher's houses and properly bandaged up. The guy lives in a really nice neighborhood, but his commute to school every day must be around an hour!

The next week our team's exploits were on the school newspaper, but I'm not sure who did the reporting. They gave the nickname "S-Striker" to a teacher who didn't score even once, "Offense and Defense Star" to an even more timid player, and never even mentioned the hat trick! Perhaps I stumbled upon some Japanese irony, eh?

It worked in my favor this time!

2009-02-25T15:30:00.000-08:00

At the moment I'm just sitting at one of my elementary schools, enjoying a cup of coffee before a string of four classes back-to-back. As it usually goes, my supervisor at this school went over with me the theme of the classes, in this case, "my family members."

I brought up the point that it might be good to gloss over the "do you have a ..." sentence structure when it came to mothers and fathers, since nontraditional families are becoming more common, and the kids here hate to be singled out for anything.

My supervisor agreed with me, saying that three of the students didn't have a father living with them. This is being done all in Japanese, of course, and my ability to be discrete with words has already been shown to be a bit lacking! Seeing as I don't know the word for "abadonment," I went with "run away." In this case I got several laughs from a few other teachers listening to our conversation; I guess my choice of words doesn't always end up being a gaffe!

THAT's what I said?

2009-02-05T21:27:00.000-08:00

A few days ago I finally had the meeting where my bosses told me whether I could move into the city or not. The town I'm in has some great schools, but I drive into the city every day for the gym, buying stuff, studying, etc. I'd have an extra hour each day if I didn't have to drive back and forth, so I was interested to see what my bosses were going to say.

Unfortunately, they weren't able to give me a definite answer, as my request has galvanized the board of education to draft some new rules regarding Yatsushiro transfers. Fearing that those in the outskirts will quickly want to transfer into the main city, the new rules state that an outer-limits ALT has to work for two years in his current situation before applying for a transfer. What's more, that transfer will only be accepted if one of the incoming ALTs agrees to living in the more rural locations that the former ALT is leaving.

It wasn't what I was hoping for, but for now it seems that the transfer process is out of my hands, and only the new JETs can determine whether or not I'll get to move. I suppose the red tape of bureaucracy prevented me from simply transferring without necessitating any new procedures. Oh well, what can you do? I said as much in Japanese, or at least I thought I did, saying, "Sho ga nai..."

The elder of my two supervisors let out a loud gasp and repeated what I had just said, "Sho ga nai?" with a really high inflection. He was plainly bemused by what I had just said, but my younger boss just picked up where we had left off. The meeting ended with them being more optimistic about someone taking my location, while I was still quite skeptical. I certainly would have chosen the city with easy access to two gyms over the town that requires a car to do most anything, had I been given a choice!

After my staff-wide meeting, my younger boss, who is luckily fluent in both English and Japanese, pulled me aside. What I had thought meant simply, "It can't be helped," was actually quite the loaded phrase. In this context, he explained, that sentence meant that I thought my two bosses hadn't worked hard enough on my behalf, that I didn't appreciate their efforts, and that what they did hadn't amounted to anything. Rather than say something negative, even if I was just commenting how it was out of our hands, I should have just thanked them for their efforts.

I suppose I was just thinking of it in my cultural perspective, in that I thought by pointing out our limited influence on the results and that whatever happens will happen anyway, I was lessening both my disappointment and my bosses' responsibility from what will happen. My bilingual boss saw that, but also understands the Japanese way of saying things; thankfully he was able to tell that to my other boss, in fluent Japanese, and get him to understand that I wasn't in any way demeaning him or saying that I thought they were a waste of time. That was how he translated my sentence into, "mottai nai," or wasteful/unworthy of. I definitely know that sentence, and would have never said anything close to that meaning! I said as much to him, and hopefully my use of the language that second time was clear of any gaffes. I don't think I explained the idea really well, but he already heard it from my first boss anyway. I think my apology was more about clearing the air and getting past it.

The first thought that sprang to my mind when my verbal slip-up was explained to me was, "Am I going to have to buy him some omiyage now?" It was recommended that I do so, back when I scraped some paint off my neighbor's car. On the other hand, I didn't get one single cookie from the lady who backed right into my car. I suppose such gestures of "preserving the wa" (和, harmony/peace) is more about the people you know and interact with, as opposed to random strangers. Seeing as he's my boss I figured this incident, although unintentional, would warrant some wa-preserving. I've yet to get such advice from my younger boss though, so perhaps in this situation you just try to forget about it.

The second thought that raced through my mind (I tend to overanalyze things, especially when things go wrong) was that this sort of problem is something I'll have to be very careful about if I ever become a diplomat. Speaking in one's native language about delicate matters can already be troublesome enough, just ask Joe Biden, so imagine how it would be when you're saying it in a foreign language! I know the State Dept. goes to great lengths to train its FSOs, so I don't doubt that I would be prepared if I did ever get the honor of serving... it's just something to think about. I wonder if I still have my Honors class "cultural relativism" notes lying about somewhere...

Thinking about it, I think my only other major foreign language slip would be way back in high school. I was in my interview for the Utah regional Sterling Scholar competition in foreign language. For the first portion I spoke in Spanish with one interviewer; no worries there, although I slipped in that I much preferred speaking Spanish over French. Luck had it that the second interviewer was a French teacher, and I was so startled that, despite all of junior high and half of high school learning French, I completely bombed the second interview. They didn't even have anyone to test my Japanese anyway, nor was I planning on going to school in a Utah school and accepting the Sterling Scholar scholarship - I already had my FIU scholarship by then! :)

Oh Noh!

2009-02-01T04:05:00.000-08:00

Taking a page from the movie "Yes Man," when my boss Ray passed around a sign-up sheet for a UNESCO Noh workshop, I put my name down. I have a list of traditional Japanese things that I want to experience before I go home, and so far I've only done one. (Watch a sumo match, up in Fukuoka) I skipped out last year, and like the me from last year, nobody else from Yatsushiro came to see the Noh workshop this time. A bunch went last year, I hear.

It was actually nice that I went alone, as I met two women from Honduras and was able to practice my horribly rusty Spanish. On the ride up to the top floor, it was us three and a Japanese lady. The two Hondurans were loudly talking about whatever in Spanish, with the Japanese trying hard not to look uncomfortable. I was enjoying listening to them talk, as outside of calling my mom, hearing Spanish is pretty rare for me now. As we exited the elevator, they asked me if I was also going to the Noh workshop, and I said, "por su puesto!" We were both happy that they hadn't been talking about me in the elevator. :)

It was really weird to meet foreigners who didn't know what the JET Program was, as I thought that was known by every gaijin stepping foot into Japan. But in any case one was a teacher and another a student at a university in Kumamoto. The teacher was here in Japan studying, but not on sabatical. She said what she was studying, but I didn't catch it, and I didn't want to show how rusty I've become in Spanish and ask her to say it again slowly. :P

The room got filled pretty quickly, mostly with non-Japanese Asians and a few Westerners.

The workshop had the grandmaster of the "Kano" style of Noh and his main disciples. They did a rendition of "Angel's Robe," or "Hagoromo." The row of kneeling guys sang the song, while the master walked around in very deliberate steps and hand gestures. I think this picture is actually the closing act of another play, but you get the idea. :)

The second half of the workshop involved three groups of volunteers each getting time to learn how to do the special glide/walk of Noh called "suri-ashi" or "hakobi." I volunteered and got placed in the last group, so I got to see the Noh performers teach the first two groups and get a good idea how to do it. You place your arms in front of you at an angle, with both fists clenched. Your right hands holds a fan, like one of these:

The walk itself is somewhat like sliding your feet on the ground, each foot going forward a foot's length. You don't raise your heel, and your knees are slightly bent. We just did some basic walking back and forth across the room, as you can kinda see two pictures above. After about 10-15 minutes of the regular walking, with the Noh performers giving us instructions, it was time for the masks.

The masks were treated with a lot of respect. You had to hold them by the strings (which was a bit tricky, since you definitely didn't want to drop it!) and you had to bow before putting on the mask and after taking it off. Doing the special walk is much harder with the mask on, since you can hardly see anything. All you really get is a tiny, tiny hole to see directly in front of you. Since you have to keep your head up straight at all times, you have to memorize the distance it takes to reach the end of the walk. It reminded me a bit of swimming actually, since there are so many things you have to remember when swimming that also apply to this, from the distance thing, to breathing properly, to the corrections on form that your coach/Noh dude tell you.

This was my mask; the only one with horns. >:) We were the last group, and the workshop was already going past the schedule time, so we didn't get as much practice as the others. Still, I was somehow selected to be dressed up a little further. Standing by myself center stage, they put a giant red wig on top of my mask and put me in various poses. It was pretty embarrassing, but I was under a mask anyway. :) That wig was surprisingly heavy though!

Afterwards I was given a microphone and asked to give my impressions. The previous volunteers had already said some of the things I was thinking, like how the walking was really hard on your shoulders and that it was harder than it looked. I summed it up as, "something like ice skating, while having extreme tunnel vision, while you're also working out your shoulders." I then thanked the Noh performers in Japanese, making a rookie mistake by saying, "tanoshikatta deshita." Oops, double tense conjugation; my bad!

In any case, I'm definitely glad I went; if anything, just for all the puns I was able to say online. :)

FSOT Score Breakdown

2009-01-29T16:06:00.000-08:00

My test scores for the Foreign Service Officer Test came back recently; I actually did better than I thought I did. The test is a bit different than others I've taken before, as on each section you're graded compared to all the other test takers. Your score is therefore dependent both on how well you did, but also the strength of the test taking group. This percentage is shown as its equivalent T-score, and you need a combined T-score of at least 154 from the three sections to get your essay graded.

Here are my results:

Job Knowledge: 52.01 (58%)
Biographic Information: 30.53 (3%)
English Expression: 56.38 (74%)

Total Score: 138.92 (15.08 off from passing)

I wasn't worried at all with the English Expression portion, as I scored well on the practice tests and tend to read a lot. A quarter of the test takers scored better than me, however, so I've got room for improvement. I wonder how many questions I got wrong though, since a competitive group would mean even a few missed questions would drop your percentage drastically. I think I can add another 4-5 points come November in any case. Which reminds me, I should go buy "Elements of Style."

I was quite surprised how high I scored on the Job Knowledge section. I suppose that my International Relations major came into play, but I certainly feel that there is so much to learn about the world, and that any time I forgo studying to go work out or play video games, that some other guy is getting a leg up on me. This section also contains questions on management theory and constitutional amendments, which I'll be sure to study for next time. With all the Economist I've been reading, I should be OK with any current events. I want to say that I can get a 60 next time, but I'll be cautiously optimistic and say 58 (6 point improvement). Those cultural and art history questions will probably be my Achilles' heel, but maybe my daily NPR Fresh Air listening will help.

If I were to actually improve that much on the English and Job Knowledge sections, I would need to boost my Biographic Info section by 5 points. Unlike the past two portions, this one doesn't receive any benefit from studying hours at a time over at Starbucks. The questions ask for you to answer using your own experiences, which is what I sorely lack. Being a dorm RA and JET ALT just don't provide me enough material to answer the questions, but at least I know that now. Were it not for the Bio Info section I might now be preparing for a flight to Washington D.C., where my dearth of relevant experiences would certainly have been apparent at the Oral Assessment. I like jumping into challenges, however, so I wouldn't have minded. In sports they say you have to play with those whom are better than you if you want to improve your own game; this can't be much different, so it would have been great to interact with so many potential diplomats.

But anyway, in preparation for next year's test I'll have to find some positions of leadership here in Yatsushiro. Perhaps I can help out with the local newspaper some ALTs write or volunteer to present at the conferences that JET does for new employees. I know what I'm getting into this time, and if I can improve my previous score that'll at least vindicate all this studying I've done. And since I'm at a lowly 3% in the Bio Info section, getting a few more points can't be all that hard, right?

Pow! Right in the kisser!

2009-01-26T20:32:00.000-08:00

Yep, I basically let the guy at the hair stylist do whatever he wants whenever I go in for a haircut. I think this time it's supposed to be a mini faux-hawk, but I never put the gel in.

Hooray for easy picture taking with the iPhone! I just took this right before writing. It's hard to see, but the upper part of my nose is turning a nice shade of purple. I haven't been to the boxing gym since late October; this is actually from a kick boxing class called "Dragon Shape" at my regular gym. It's like a mix of Body Combat and Body Shape, although I wish it were simply Body Combat. Anyways, the instructor likes to jump in and punch where we're supposed to dodge, block, etc after we get the hang of whatever combination we're doing. When it's my turn I sometimes mess up and promptly get smacked, thus the bruise! It looks worse than it feels though, as the jabs I got to my nose when boxing were much more painful but harder to notice.

I just finished grading about 120 essays from the junior high's 2nd grade, but my usual refuge in Facebook is apparently down for maintenance, so I might as well do one of my backlogged posts, right? So on a related note, for about two months I was a member of the local boxing gym.

The place was actually quite tiny; their boxing ring was much smaller, the assorted punching bags were bunched together, and the open space for shadow boxing, jump rope, etc was maybe the size of my living room. It's the only boxing gym in the city, however, and from years of Body Combat and now Dragon Shape, I've gotten interested in learning how to box. If I wanted to learn a Japanese martial art I'd have tons of options, but this seemed more appropriate for me. I'm horrible at all sorts of kicking. :P

Despite it's tiny size and only being open during school days (it's primarily used for the nearby high school boxing club), the monthly fee is even more expensive than my regular gym! $80 versus $63, but you can also opt for paying as you go, which is then $8 a visit. The first month I paid each visit, but feeling that I'd go more often if I paid in full, I bought the monthly pass in October.

Joining the gym wasn't as hard as I'd thought it be. Granted, going any time before school finished meant that the place was completely empty (I came twice in the early afternoon to sign up to be greeted by an abandoned gym), but as in soccer, I got one of my Arest Gym employees to serve as the middle man. Actually, the instructor who gave me the purple nose was the one who wrote a note for the boxing gym's coach. So when there were actually people in the boxing gym the third time I came, I was able to easily introduce myself and get some basics on how to jab, cross, etc.

The attention I got from the coach that first lesson was great, and subsequent visits had me learning from the older boxers. Despite none of them being all that big, they could punch pretty dang hard. I didn't know that your feet placement and swerving of your hips had so much to do with getting power into your punch!

Anyways, for the first two months I was able to squeeze in two or three days of boxing each week, in addition to going to the gym. I'm not sure where the energy came from, but after boxing for an hour or 90 minutes, I'd pack up and go straight to the gym and lift for 90 minutes or two hours. I really liked how toned my shoulders were getting, but as soon as I got sick at work and couldn't go for a full week, I lost my momentum. One week off became two, as I would prioritize going to the gym and studying for the looming JLPT and Foreign Service exams. Eventually the whole month of November passed with me only going once to tell the coach that I had been sick and focusing on studying.

It's a shame too, since I was starting to get invited into the ring and joining the system they had where you box for two rounds of two minutes each, a new person each time. It really wore me out, but I'd almost get that same kind of adrenaline that I got when wrestling; that sense of my body being utterly spent but my ego pushing me on, if just for a little bit more, to beat my opponent. That would just be one round though, and after a quick 30 seconds, I'd have to get off the ropes and try to keep my arms up for another two minutes. These were all friendly matches though, so I'm sure if I somehow got to box in some kind of competitive match my blood would be sufficiently boiled to please any berzerker. But there are only so many hours in a day, and spending four hours just exercising was consuming most of my time outside of work.

Approximate visualization of what I looked like after boxing for two months.

I don't think I'll be going back to boxing, but I still really hope I can find a gym near my eventual graduate school and take some Body Combat classes. If the Foreign Service thing takes longer than a few more tries, maybe I can even become an instructor and start giving other slow-reacting gym members purple noses. :)

I think I'm getting the black lung, Pop!

2009-01-18T19:00:00.001-08:00

A quick Google search showed that I'm not at all clever using this quote as a blog entry, but I'm going to use it anyway!

Back in October every teacher in my school was required to get a physical at city hall. I exercise regularly and don't eat too bad, so I didn't mind going during work hours. I tend to get skewed BMI results since my legs are practically tree trunks, but everything else usually comes out OK. There were definitely some weird questions on the health survey though, including what kind of drinks do I prefer and what kind of container do I usually drink them in! Does the packaging really affect anything besides taste?

A few weeks back I got the results and noticed the regular numbers: BMI's a bit high, I'm still short, and I haven't really changed in weight since college. One column stood out though: a really high uric acid level. I'm not especially keen on the sciences; I took the easy courses at FIU and never looked back. Luckily my boss knew about it, but unluckily the high amount signals a risk of getting gout. Again, I had no idea what this meant either, but apparently it's a form of arthritis that is extremely painful.

Actually, my dad had a case of gout when I visited him this Christmas vacation, but since he didn't make a big deal of it, I never asked what it was and why he got it. All I remember was him joking how exercise doesn't help reduce the risk of it, thus his lack of such a lifestyle wouldn't have helped him anyway. What he didn't tell me was that protein and especially beer lead to increased risk of getting gout! It now seems that I've inherited everything from my dad except his height; my Spanish genes must have been particularly obstinant about that one.

It's a shame because I really enjoy drinking a beer when I'm relaxing at night, plus all the work and social parties here in Japan focus quite a bit on drinking the stuff. Apparently spirits should be avoided too, but wine is OK outside of extremes. So I suppose that'll have to be my drink of choice, although I can' t see most beer gardens serving any of that. The protein is going to be much harder to reduce, since I really need it for working out. It seems that in this category there are also varying levels of risk, with red meat and seafood being the worst culprits. So perhaps I'll have to opt for nuts and tofu over slabs of meat for my after-gym meals. My high-protein shakes are definitely out, and the powder already given to the other gaijin gym goer in Yatsushiro.

I suppose changing my eating and drinking habits to reduce my chances of getting this thing will in the end lead to me being healthier in general, but it does irk me to have to now think about gout whenever I'm deciding on meals; especially since I really love eating seafood. Wow, that was a long sentence. :P And maybe just drinking ume-shu at the work drinking parties won't be that bad; it's what I usually switch to after the kanpai anyway.

Clever Post Title: TBD

2009-01-18T17:19:00.000-08:00

I love how simple it is to use the iPhone I bought last month. Back when I had the Japanese phone, uploading photos was an extreme pain of transferring photos from phone memory to micro disk, then pinching the micro disk out of the phone and hooking it up to a converter, and finally getting the photo on my computer through that converter. Now that I think about, I suppose I could have emailed myself with the photos...whoops.

Anyways, the ease with uploading this photo of what my work desk looks right now (without emailing it, booyah!) helps rationalize my purchase of a phone a little bit while I still have 10 months of payments on my other phone. I'm still not quite adept at using it tho, as I just had the thing ringing at max volume at work. I guess the "silent" option doesn't mean it'll always be silent; who knew?

The coffee in the picture is a new Starbucks drink they're selling at the local 7-elevens: Double Shot espresso con panna. No idea what panna is, but the drink is tasty enough and now I'm way too alert to go on Facebook or the like. Caffeine "me pone las pilas" as a recent comment put it. :) So I've already done my Japanese Clair test (it's due tomorrow and I did a good 80% of the book yesterday...), did some Foreign Service studying, and now some blogging. Nothing actually JET related, but last week was surprisingly busy at work, so this downtime is much appreciated.

I had planned on finally catching up on a nearly year-long backlog of posts, but I got a stack of essays to grade that took me a good two days to finish. These students are nearing the end of their three years of junior high English, but some of the sentences they come up with are still a bit crazy. I suppose it comes from directly translating from Japanese to English, which I catch myself doing sometimes in reverse, but nonetheless it makes grading them take a while. I'm too stubborn to let any kind of typo go ungraded!

Barring any mountains of paperwork coming my way, I'll hopefully get to work on those past posts this week. It'd be really embarrassing if I managed to procrastinate writing about last year's spring break volunteer trip past this year's one (hopefully the Philippines!), so I've got the threat of shame working for me; woot!

Signing in...

2009-01-04T22:46:00.001-08:00

Christmas break has come and gone, and I'm nearing a full month without updating! Since I've only got 25 minutes before I finish work today, I'll just use that time to list what I want to write during this week of no classes.

1. Christmas break/US visit post-mortem
2. Korea trip 1 (late April, 2008)
3. Cambodia trip (early May, 2008)
4. Korea trip 2 (September, 2008)
5. Getting hit by a lady, who neglected to look behind as she promptly backed into me
6. All that happened after getting a replacement kei-van while my car was in the shop
7. The rise and fall of Bedford Boxing

I'm sure I'm still missing some things I planned on writing, but this is at least a good reminder for me anyways.

Maybe next year!

2008-12-11T22:09:00.000-08:00

Heh, ok, maybe it wasn't THAT bad....
Much earlier than expected, I have already received notice from the Foreign Service. As soon as the notification letter loaded up, I immediately scanned for one of those key words and found it: "regrettably." Crap!

I was actually more worked up while typing in my log-in information and clicking through the various agreement statements than I was throughout the whole process of taking the test. Even though I went into this process accepting that I was going to fail the exam, I think at some level I was hoping that I would pass anyway. I had even entertained some fleeting thoughts of going to Washington D.C. in the spring to take part in the Oral Assessment and afterwards checking out some of the graduate schools. And I have to admit, going through the recruitment process while in JET and ultimately getting to go straight into the Foreign Service afterwards sounded really nice. I guess the secret hoping stemmed from me tending to do pretty well on standardized testing. Of the questions that I remembered well enough to later check for the correct answer, all but one turned out to be correct. But this wasn't some test on Geography 101 back at FIU, nor can I exactly use my gut to answer the biography questions if I don't have the relevant experiences to write down. In any case, with some luck and studying I can hopefully get farther next year in the selection process.

Strangely enough, since taking both the JLPT and FSOT in the past two months, I've actually been going more often to study at Starbucks after work. It hasn't been completely related to my quest for erudition, however, as there's a cute Starbucks employee that is almost always working there. It could perhaps be that vaunted Japanese customer service, but we usually end up talking for several minutes if the place isn't too busy. Most of the times I go, she'll give me one of those sample cups of coffee; something that happens maybe once a month at the other Starbucks I go to. (Can you guess which one I've been going to recently?)

After one such conversation and my free coffee, I asked for her number, but for some reason she said she'd write it for me on a piece of paper later. After reading another 90 minutes of Guns, Germs and Steel, I had to finally leave and go to the gym. I still had no number, and of course, the Starbucks was swarmed with customers. After my workout I came back and got another coffee, since I had to wake up early the next day and do some lesson planning for elementary school. (A bad habit from college, I'm working on it!) She was still there, but didn't make any action to show that she even remembered. Maybe "I'll write it on a piece of paper" is code in Japanese for "check's in the mail?"

A Testing Test

2008-12-07T19:09:00.000-08:00

This past Sunday I finally took the 3rd level of the Japanese Language Proficiency Test (JLPT). I had wanted to take it last year, but I was too late to apply by the time I decided on taking it. Seeing as I've had a year of studying and living in Japan since then, I really hope I got a score quite above the passing 60%. I took several past tests under the same conditions, and scored really well, but who knows the effect of actually being in that room taking the test had on me.

Coming from the FSOT I took last month in the same city, the JLPT was just as foreign in procedure as it was in content. Whereas the FSOT is taken on computer and extremely casual in test taker identification, the JLPT went to extremes to make sure the test taker matched their records. After each section the test proctor would walk by once to hand out the answer sheets, again to pass out the test itself, and then again to check your face against the photos we all sent in on registration. This happened at each of the three sections, lasting at least 30 minutes each time. Additionally, they had yellow and red cards for people that violated the rules of the test, and they spent another 10 minutes at the beginning of each section detailing how one received a foul card and what would happen. I think I've actually taken three of the past JLPT tests in the time it took to take this one! Perhaps the patience required for the JLPT is part of the criteria tested for this proficiency in all things Japanese.

In either case, I've finally gotten the test behind me and can now focus on the GRE, and sometime in the near future, the second level of the JLPT.

Oh, and I am now an owner of an iPhone. :D

Squish!

2008-12-04T05:02:00.000-08:00

Remember that big hunter spider that used to roam around my apartment, hopefully eating bugs and freaking me out as he scampered across my walls? Well, he came back a little while ago, but this time even BIGGER! I don't know exactly if these kind of spiders live that long, so it could perhaps be a new one. He definitely acted bolder this time; at one point of the night he would crawl over to my side of the room, and run back towards my pile of cables near my TV when I stood up. As soon as I sat back down though, he'd start again towards my bed... we did this for a good 3-4 times before he sped back into the darkness of the adjoining kitchen.

While a bit creepy, what happened later was much worse. As I went to the bathroom around 2am or so, I turned on my kitchen light to go through into my bathroom, and there's the big hunter spider on one side of the room. About three feet from him is this huge cockroach! Two giant bugs and they were just chilling next to each other in the darkness... obviously they should have been battling it out, ala mini-King of the Monsters. I did wait there for a bit to see if maybe the spider would do his job (creepy or no, it felt like there were less bugs since he moved in), but with an apparent truce between the two, I prepared to do some evicting.

Now, seeing big bugs outside is pretty normal here in Kagami. My kids in the summer love to capture the biggest ones they can find and dangle the hapless things in front of the girls. But inside my apartment, at 2am, and having to keep my attention on two separate mini-godzillas...well, I was just not going to have any of that. Luckily my predecessor left a whole can of "Gokiburi Kira" (Cockroach Killer) and a handy broom, so I was well-armed for the confrontation.

After steeling my nerves, I managed to get close enough to the cockroach and spray the can on him, but the damn thing sped away! I had to follow him around my kitchen, and I swear I heard some kind of squealing sound coming from him. Not only that, but I emptied so much of the spray can into him, that my smoke alarm went off. (it now being 2:30 in the morning, and I didn't even know I had a smoke alarm!).

After disposing the still-twitching cockroach and shutting off my fire alarm, I prepared to fire my wanna-be bodyguard. Not wanting to wake up my neighbors again, I just swatted at him with the broom; not so creepy anymore, are ya?

For some reason having both of those bugs come into my apartment made me think that I needed to finally clean the mold that had taken over my bathroom. In any case, I haven't seen any more bugs since, but that could just be because of the weather. Let's hope I don't need to get invaded again before cleaning the bathroom next time!
Look at its eyes! Its eyes....

Foreign Service Test!

2008-11-25T18:58:00.000-08:00

On Friday, November 11th I took a day off from work to wake up even earlier (5:30 am) to take the train north to Fukuoka. I took the written test of the Foreign Service Officer Test in the American Center. While I don't consider myself ready yet to pass the exam, I put my best effort into each section, and felt pretty good about the essay section.

The testing center itself was a lot more casual than I had imagined. I went through a metal detector, but was able to keep the various things that usually fill up my pockets (it's starting to feel weird when I DON'T carry around my electronic dictionary, SoftBank cellphone, mini-notebook, and stack of GRE vocab flashcards) Anyway, there was only one other guy taking the test with me (an austere-looking guy in a full suit), along with the indifferent staff member that "administered" the test. Since the test is now fully online, he was mostly there to ensure that we didn't cheat and to show us where the bathroom was.

Since all test takers sign a non-disclosure agreement, I can't actually talk about the questions on the test. Quoting exact problems aside, I think I did well on the English language portion and was pretty "meh" on the biography questions. They ask questions that require you to use your own lifetime experiences as proof that you're a good candidate for the position. I think I'm going to need some experience running some projects, maybe when I get to grad school? And naturally, the job related information section. The questions in that section are so varied and random, that I might be better served watching Jeopardy than reading the 50+ books on the Dept. of State's reading list. (of which I'm on my 2nd of that list)

To help increase my general knowledge, as well as expand my perception beyond the Japanese POV, I've started listening to podcasts from NPR and watch Meet the Press every Monday night. Last year my only source of news was Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, which while quite funny, not exhaustive enough to be one's sole news source. Yet, shortly after listening to NPR, Colbert was a guest on Fresh Air; I guess I can't escape my college-aged demographics.

Now on to the Japanese Language Proficiency Test! At least this exam I'm practically guaranteed to pass. The fun will begin after this exam, when I truly start preparing for the GRE and the 2nd level of the JLPT.

Vindication!

2008-11-13T19:03:00.001-08:00

Last year around this time I somewhat helped a few students with an English "recitation" contest. The kids memorize a bunch of lines from their textbook and compete with other schools to see who has the best pronunciation, rhythm, and gestures. Unfortunately, I had less than a week to help my kids, as the teachers apparently waited until the last moment to choose the contestants. The 3rd grade team of two boys and a girl actually did surprisingly well, taking 2nd place. The 1st and 2nd graders, however, were among the lowest scored teams. The kids were pretty down about it, but what can you expect when you don't put in the effort?

This year I had wanted to make some recruitment posters to put around school to hopefully grab the best English students. The new English teacher, however, was already ahead of me and had chosen the 1st grade team during summer vacation! We ended up practicing most days for 15-30 minutes after lunch and a little bit after school. We had a good four months of practice, and I got to use some of the linguistic things I learned in my last 2 semesters at FIU.

The 2nd and 3rd grade teams were chosen a bit later, and they each had one student from the previous, embarrassing run. I was a bit hesitant, since they were pretty unimpressive in 2007, but it seems that these events are appointed rather than won by audition. Still, we had about two months of practice with the 2nd and 3rd grade teams.

The day of the competition, I was naturally scheduled to teach at one of my elementary schools. This had happened last year as well, but an extremely lucky assembly meant that I taught two classes at once and jetted to the town that held the competition right after lunch. This year there wasn't such a fortuitous assembly, but one of the teacher's whose class I helped teach was the mother of the competing 3rd grade. She knew I had coached her son, and was willing to help reschedule my classes so that I could make it in time for the contest.

I actually missed my 2nd graders' performance, but got to see both the 1st graders and the solitary 3rd grade guy do their thing. The 3rd grader, to be honest, is a lanky, awkward guy who had the strangest inflections and intonation when he competed last year. Over the last two months, however, I hammered out the strangeness and got him sounded pretty close to native speaker. The formidable teacher naturally had her say on his practice, and gave him a certain amount of flair that I wouldn't have done, but the end result was pretty good. He played a scene where first he was a professional newscaster, then an on-the-scene reporter, and finally a guy in an extravagant commercial. Even though he was sick and coughed in a few inopportune times, it was miles above what he did last year.

Anyway, all that hard work paid off and the 1st graders were crowned yuushou 優勝 or champions. For the 2nd and 3rd grade divisions, the judges were split and decided to give out two 2nd places instead of a 2nd and a 3rd. My school was rewarded 2nd in both, giving those two kids who did horribly last year a silver medal! Even the dorky kid! Last year we barely scraped by with a single 2nd place, but this year we took home a victory in every division. :D While the new English teacher was certainly the main force behind this kind of change, I'd like to think that my help with the students over the past few months helped push them that much higher. The 1st graders competed yesterday in the prefecture-wide competition, and even if they don't progress beyond that, they can rest easy knowing they kicked butt in the city-wide one. :)

PS: Whatever formatting bug that won't let me put spaces on text (in this case, to put a sentence right underneath the picture I have) sucks balls. My blog might not yet have an actual title, Google, but come on, fix this!!

Brains...

2008-10-19T05:33:00.001-07:00

How do I look?

One of the girls that teaches high school needed to make an educational Halloween video, so I volunteered to help out. It so happens that one of the other ALTs is a former make-up artist, so she did a quick job of making me into a zombie. This was a photo just as I wiped it all off; the gash on my left cheek had some rubbery skin stuff before, but it still looked pretty cool by itself, right? Hopefully I can get her to do me up for the Halloween party coming in 2 weeks. :D

This weekend has been good, but very short. I had planned on finally catching up on all the blog entries I wanted to write, plus finish up the writing section on the Foreign Service Exam application, but I had something going on most of the time; hanging out with friends, the yearly fireworks festival, and then today's Halloween video. The fireworks festival was even better than last year though, and I got to practice my Japanese with a friend of a friend, so I'm gonna write off my Japanese study time at least. :)

I'm also thinking of taking the GRE next month along with the FSE. Maybe December or January, though. I don't think it'd be smart to do three important tests in a single month, especially when they all are only given every so often. Postponing the GRE too late would mean that I accept staying in Japan for a third year, however. At the moment I feel like I could be good saying goodbye to Japan in August, but I could definitely use the extra year to keep studying and keep reading the books on the FSE's enormous reading list. And also give me time to properly prepare for the GRE, so I can snag some funding and fellowships. :)

Man, the life of a zombie sure would mean a lot less to worry about. ....Brains...

Go FIU!

2008-10-07T19:58:00.000-07:00

The football program at my alma mater, FIU, is one of those teams that you expect to lose most games. The team wasn't half bad for the first few years that I lived in Miami, but after the guiltily entertaining brawl with the University of Miami, the gutted team (18 players were punished and 2 kicked off the team) seemed on a mission to the bottom of the ranking. At least we're the best at not winning! (http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/news/story?page=bottom10084)

Or have I spoken too soon? This season after two games of losing 40-10 and 42-0, the Golden Panthers held 12th ranked USF to 17-9. Even better, the next two away games, FIU won 35-16 and 42-10! It's been years since they've won an away game, and now they've gotten two of them! Well, that second one was against the winless North Texas team (0-4), but it's great to see FIU on the winning side, even if it took them so long to start winning that I already graduated and moved to another country.

Go FIU!

Of updates, plans, and resolutions

2008-10-05T23:00:00.000-07:00

I'm toying around with different blog set-ups, as I can't really find a design that I completely like. So there's a good chance that some of the later entries look pretty screwed up due to the new layout, but I don't want to go back and change them all until I finally settle into a design.

With that out of the way, this past week or so I have been continuously thinking about my plans after JET. As said in my previous entry, I've given renewed interest in taking the Foreign Service Exam. After doing some research and talking to one of my more successful buddies who works in DC, it seems like working towards a Master's is next for me after JET. With that in mind, I think I'll apply for the Pickering Graduate Foreign Affairs Fellowship when it comes time to leave Japan and continue my book-learning:

http://www.woodrow.org/fellowships/foreign_affairs/pickering_grad/index.php

Other than that, I've begun a sort of resolution and some goals for my remaining time here in Kumamoto:

Read 5 chapters a week, hopefully from a book on the FSE's recommended reading list. I certainly have the time during Jr. High days, and during elementary days I'll just have to cut back on time wasting during those last 1-2 hours of the day when I usually web browse.
Wake up early enough to read the Economist in the morning during breakfast. I already check out several news websites at work, but by doing this I can hopefully curtail some of my crappy breakfast eating habits, along with learning me some world affairs!
Fill in two pages of Kanji writing practice daily. I also have to find some set ways to study more grammar.
Look into the GRE and find out what the heck I gotta do to prepare for that.
Look further into the FSE and take any practice tests I can find. The mini-version I found gave me confidence in easily passing the English portion, but I need work on lots of topics, including management theory, world and US history, and US government.

Once I'm done with the 3rd level of the JLPT in December, I should really start the treck to the 2nd level. The difference between two and three is said to be the hardest jump for Japanese learners, but that's what I'm here for! Hopefully splitting my studies between these goals doesn't impact my Japanese learning all that much. But being completely fluent in Japanese wouldn't exactly get me a free pass with the GRE and FSE anyway, right?

Well, that's how my thinking is going nowadays. I've been able to keep up with the 5 chapter reading for a solid week, but I tend to get lazy with the Japanese studying in favor of working out at the gym and going to the boxing gym. I've been able to exercise 5 times a week for 2 weeks now, but going to the gym after my boxing days is really hard as I get completely covered in sweat. I'm not sure if I'm cheating myself, but I tend to go home after boxing, rather than heading over to weight lift, like I had originally planned. Will only two or three days of weight lifting be enough, added with the boxing?

Hopefully I can find some happy medium with everything, including video games and going out, that lets me get good progress across the board.

Is this one of those "ah ha!" moments?

2008-09-28T22:29:00.000-07:00

Yeah, I know, I really should be talking about my recent trip to Korea (or the much procrastinated trips to Cambodia and Korea back in May), but my laptop at work can't read the memory cards that has all the photos from those trips. So instead I'll rabble a little bit (or a lot) about my thoughts on career, studies, and generally my life after Japan.

My five-year plan has been pretty much the same since my last semester in college; go to Japan on the JET Program, and learn Japanese for two or three years. After that, see if I can get a job working in a Japanese consulate back in the States, and if not, go to grad school to learn whatever it is they needed that I don't have. It wasn't an exact plan, but it seems that most JET Coordinators are hired straight from leaving the JET Program, and my major was in international relations. Not to mention the fact that in my JET interview, the interviewers had mentioned that they could use more help at their consulate, and that I reminded the current JET Coordinator of himself when he joined JET!

The goal was (and still is) to pass the 2nd highest level of the Japanese Language Proficiency Test (JLPT). Now, I've been studying on and off between nothing and 4 hours a day. It's tough to keep myself disciplined when the test I'm taking in December (the 3rd highest) I'm practically guaranteed to pass. This morning I took a practice test and scored 88%. The passing point is 60 or 65%, so no worries there. But it does remove a good chunk of the motivation I had in the summer, before I had taken any practice tests and therefore was studying loads after school to better prepare myself. I imagine the smart thing to do now would be to start studying for the 2nd level of the JLPT, as it's an immense jump from the 3rd to the 2nd. My recent studies, however, are split with another priority...

About two days ago I was browsing the websites of the various Japanese consulates in the States, along with some search engines for jobs related to Japan and using Japanese. There was nothing in there that could fit with my 5 year plan! Ack! Granted, there might be a specific representative for the consulates when I ulimately go to the final seminar for returning JETs, but that seems like such a tenuous thing that I really can't rely on it. Also, the US embassy in Tokyo, as well as the consulates scattered throughout Japan, require you to already have a visa to apply! I really don't see myself married by the time I finish JET, and besides a spousal visa I don't think there's another way for me to pursue that combination of international relations and Japan...

My internet searching eventually found me at the State Department's website. What was it again that I was researching and preparing to test for, before my interest in Japan rekindled and JET became my main focus during senior year? Whose entrance test is reputed to be one of the hardest anywhere, with thousands applying and barely any getting in? That's right, the Foreign Service!

Website I stayed up too late looking at: http://careers.state.gov/officer/index.html

Before applying for and getting into JET, before my brief interest and communication with the Navy (lol), I had been planning to take the Foreign Service Exam and become an officer. There was a small group of us that had been thinking along the same lines, and had attended some of the seminars at FIU presented by the International Relations department and FIU's diplomat in residence. The writing portion seemed brain-dead easy, but the absolute quantity of information necessary to pass the multiple choice section is ridiculous. And for the 10% or so who pass that test, there's still some type of interview!

Just recalling the weight and severity of that procedure...yikes. No wonder I opted for JET; it might be a nearly year-long process as well, but at least I felt I had a good chance of getting in. (And I did, woot woot!)

But in looking at the prospects of my post-JET career and planning what I want to actually be doing when I get back into the States, the idea of somehow snagging a job in a consulate and using Japanese doesn't seem as concrete as I would like. The test may be ridiculously hard (my high school history teacher saying how he had failed comes to mind...) but I'm in a job with an excess of free time that I could use to study for that exam. Sure, the State Department's recommended reading list has a good 100 books, but if I cut off an hour of video gaming every day, I'm sure I can make a dent out of that list eventually.

Up until now, I've been pretty focused on simply learning Japanese while in Japan. Language ability is certainly useful, but I'm not sure how marketable I'd be with simply knowing English, Spanish, and Japanese. Hopefully by brushing up on (and learning more!) on everything a Foreign Service Officer would need to know, I can pass that demon of a test in as little tries as possible. Much like the JLPT, the Foreign Service Exam is only given once a year, so I had better make each attempt count.

I'm even toying with the idea of taking vacation time to fly back and take the test, along with visiting family or maybe my friends in Miami. It's either that or waiting for the test to come around again after I've finished with JET. But what would I do while waiting for the test, and God willing, waiting again for the interview and the finals results? Go to grad school? But what the heck would I study? Argh, so many questions. At least studying Japanese and taking the JLPT is a pretty set thing. For everything else, I'll just have to wait and see. And in the mean time, sink my teeth on some 100 books.

Goodbye Arisa!

2008-09-11T23:27:00.000-07:00

As mentioned in my previous post, I won't be visiting one of my elementary schools anymore. I think it'll be the first time that a Kagami school is taught from someone outside the town, but that's just me guessing. All that driving someone has to do when I can get there by bike... (I almost always drove ;) )

Anywho, digging through my phone and camera memory cards I found a few things from Arisa:

This is actually that class that I mentioned in past entries. I had often dreaded going to Arisa because this class would never react to anything I did or taught; although a few did smile when I quickly took a picture with my camera! I felt like a bad stand-up most of the time I taught them. They are now safely dispersed amongst the Jr. high school population, where I'm not put on the spot nearly as much. I'm not sure where that teacher went either... the teacher shuffle in April is pretty confusing.

Bah, it cut off the video! Well, it later pans out to show the beer machine right next to the elementary school. Off in the distance you can hear the kids singing in music class. Such a contrast that I put down my beer and took a video of it. (Kidding!)

That whole "teaching" thing

2008-09-11T17:47:00.000-07:00

I haven't talked much about my job in a while, which is weird since it's what takes up most of my time here in Japan. Seeing as I have all of today to myself at work (kids are preparing for Sports Day), I've brought my laptop to school to get some "work" done. "Work" meaning that I do something other than study Japanese or surf the web all day...

Anyways, back in the spring the Japanese school year started. It runs on the trimester semester, somewhat like at Ogden High School. Quite different from back home, however, is the rule in Japan that a teacher can only stay in the same school for seven years. Most are transferred much earlier than that, apparently to keep things fair and move the experienced/newbie teachers around. It seems like a lot of extra work, but they seem used to it at least. The jury is still out on whether this constant teacher swapping is good for the students...

So at the beginning of this school year, I lost one of my school's English teachers and gained a much more experienced teacher from the village nearby. (The teacher from the Pumpkin Ordeal of 2007, if you recall) The replacement is actually the older sister of my boss down in city hall! It actually being a good four months since she got here, I've been able to get to know her and teach a few classes with her. The stark contrast between her and her predecessor is quite apparent, in a good way. :D It makes me feel relieved, as I was worried the kids I taught in 6th grade in elementary last year wouldn't get the proper education with the last teacher. No worries now!

Last semester there was something even more changing than the teacher swap; I was moved from being a primarily Jr. High teacher to an elementary school one. Reading back on previous entries I notice that I wrote how I enjoyed the younger students, but that they were pretty draining. Well, going from teaching four or eight such classes a week to a constant 12 was certainly tiring. I would get Monday to plan my lessons for the week and maybe teach a little bit at Jr. High. The next three days would involve me visiting the local elementary schools, with Friday as a day of paperwork and web browsing.

It was quite a bit more work than my other two semesters here in Japan, and I think it was sapping at my energy. Some of the teachers would even remark on how I looked tired most days... I still went to the gym five times a week and tried to sneak an hour or two of video games as well!

Well, I eventually got accustomed to the increased work load and imagined the following semester (the present one) would be the same. The new English teacher, however, had complained to the Board of Education that I went to the elementary schools too often and wasn't able to teach at the Jr. High. It's nice to be wanted, eh? The solution they came up with was dropping my second largest elementary school, and having me go to Jr. High that day instead. Unbeknownst to me, however, that elementary school complained to the BOE as well. They didn't want to lose me! With both sides wanting my apparently precious time, they compromised and I instead stopped visiting my second smallest elementary school. Apparently, there isn't enough of me to go around...

Back when I first got to Japan, I usually dreaded going to that school. The kids weren't bad; most of them were actually great and I even got to teach a girl that usually lives in Arizona! I did have problems getting the 6th grade class to be even a little bit lively, but they graduated to the Jr. High school soon enough and weren't a problem anymore. I also even got used to not receiving a lesson plan from that school; I just made my own. So although it used to be the sucky school, I still was sad to lose it. I had started a program with the 5th and 6th graders throughout my four elementary schools: every class for the first 5-10 minutes I would teach them some of the alphabet. At the end of the school year, those who had done all the worksheets would get a gift bag of assorted snacks and souvenirs I had attained throughout my travels.

Seeing as I would never visit this elementary school again, I instead told them that any of the kids who managed to find me during the upcoming town festival would get to choose any of the festival foods they wanted and I'd buy it for them. Most of the snacks were between $3-5, so preparing for the worst I brought about $120. The festival is called juhachi-ya, or literally, "the night of the 18th." Can you guess what day and at what time it was held? ;) Kagami's main street was blocked off and filled with tiny shops of food, drinks, and games. I think I only met about 15 of the 50 students, which was both nice for my wallet and sad as this would be our last goodbye. They were all excited to get free food, and the more popular snack booths thought I was some kind of rich guy, treating the local kids. :D

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Here are some pics from that festival:
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The view from the 2nd floor of the grocery store and the center of the festival.

Elementary school boys and girls that I teach. Only the girls wore Yukatas. The boy doing a practice baseball swing is actually really common. My Vice-principle at Jr. high loves to practice his baseball and golf swings whenever he's bored. o.O

The mouse is "Metabo," or a meaning-twisting version of "metabolism" that somehow ends up meaning "fat." Presumably from eating hamburgers and drinking Coke. The guy on the right reminded me of Mystical Ninja on the SNES. :-P

The stage had several performers, including a Flamenco group! There was also a parade.

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That was last semester; I'm now about two weeks into the second semester of the school year. The new change for this year (they can't leave well enough along, can they?) is that at my elementary classes, I am now assigned as the assistant teacher. This has always been the case at Jr. High; the teachers have a set curriculum and I'm mostly there to show native pronunciation and maybe come up with a game or two each semester. Not the most taxing job, is it?

At elementary, I was the main teacher. I would usually get a "lesson plan" that just said what the topic was, but that was sorely lacking in what actually was to be done during those 45 minutes. After a few pathetically bad lessons, however, I got into the swing of things and became the English teacher/"gaijin monkey." It's a mix of appropriate games that are fun and assist in remembering the words, and also being their sole contact with the non-Japanese world. This sometimes calls for being especially energetic and ultra-foreign, a.k.a. gaijin monkey. It's a title I wore proudly, and I took command of the class with authority. The homeroom teacher would likewise discipline students that got out of line, maybe learn along with the students, or sit at his/her desk and grade homework.

Such days are over, however, as the BOE has asked the homeroom teachers to become the primary teacher in the classroom. My elementary and junior high classes will now be similar in that I mostly assist, while the Japanese teacher will do all the preparations for the class, as well as run the thing. It'll be a lot less work for me (especially coming from last semester!) but hopefully it won't end up leaving me too bored. Time will tell! (and it'll probably end up changing into something else next semester anyway...)

Legal to drive!

2008-08-18T21:43:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago my international driver's permit finally expired. It only lasts for a year, and after that you need to convert your license into a Japanese one. Most foreigners go through a simple process of translating the license into Japanese, paying some money, and going home the same day with their new license.

For a few countries, including the States, the process is much more annoying. For reasons of red tape and legalities, American license holders have to take written and driving tests to convert into a Japanese license. Because of this, I had been looking to that 1 year anniversary of August 5th with a mix of hope and dread. Would my Japanese be high enough by then? Could I even pass the driving portion, when my driving record back home wasn't exactly perfect?

Well, the Japanese aspect seemed to be OK; I was able to call in and schedule my appointment without too much trouble. I was pretty nervous calling in, but having to recite my by now 2nd nature address in Japanese, I managed all right. The receptionist did seem a bit haughty, but whatever! At least their face-to-face business manners are top notch, right?

So a month passes after setting my appointment, as apparently every other foreigner's international permit expires in the summer. I'm given advice from several coworkers, and even recommended to take private driving lessons, but I scoff at the idea. I was pretty bad at driving when I got here, but since I bought an average sized car (most people drive these tiny, tiny cars that are on a complete different category when in comes to parking, insurance, etc) my driving ability has increased considerably. I can almost forget that time I backed into my fraternity brother Tim's Mustang, or when I scraped the side of a truck while driving in deep fog! (I sure picked the wrong time to pull over during that fog... who knew there'd be a truck parked there already?)

The roads around my town, especially getting to my two smallest schools, are incredibly narrow. I always dreaded getting to that portion of my drive, since a car coming from the opposite side meant that one of us had to either back up or tuck into some small corner to let the other pass. The months and months of that drive, along with the general driving around Kumamoto whose roads aren't that wide to begin with, has given me a sense of confidence in my driving. Just don't remind me of that one time I scraped my neighbor's mini-van; I was careless that night and his van was taking up a good portion of the corridor! That incident cost me 30,000 yen...bah! ($300)

Anyways, back to the driving test. I took a day of paid leave to go to the driving center. The Board of Education doesn't like us driving, since it's a much riskier way of getting around compared to biking or Japan's extensive public transportation. Some BOEs accompany their ALTs to the test, but I kinda like going on my own. If I truly want to become fluent, then doing some big, official ordeals like this in Japanese is certainly a good milestone, eh? The DMV is a good ways off from my village; it takes me around 2 hours when you take into account the bike ride to the train station, the train ride, the tram to the bus center, and then the bus all the way to the DMV. It beats paying for gas though! I paid over $11 a gallon about a month earlier...

The DMV is huge; it looks to be four stories tall, with an even bigger range outside with dozens of driving courses available. It looks like they test for scooters and commercial buses here too. I find the office where I'm supposed to start my application process, but some guy in a uniform grunts at me and tells me I'm not allowed in here. Already extremely nervous, I mutter something about making an appointment, but he dismisses it and makes for me to leave the office.

Luckily the person responsible for foreign license conversions picks up our "conversation," and comes to my aid. What the hell was that guy's problem anyway? I'm sure he sees plenty of wayward foreigners stumble into that office. Rather than gruffly pushing me out of the room, he should have just directed me to the person every foreigner comes to see. Honestly...

Anyways, the DMV lady was pretty capable in English and guides me through the application process. I was still massively nervous, as seen by the chair armrest I broke as I took my seat! I guess that's a good sign that my workouts are taking effect at least... I wasn't done bumbling about, as I also wrote my name so sloppily that she started giving me a mini-lesson on writing Katakana...the simple phonetic alphabet that I learned way back in high school! Hopefully she didn't think I was a complete idiot, as I was able to write everything else without a hitch, including all the kanji (Chinese characters) required.

The written test was pretty ambivalent in its questions, but fortunately there was an English version. It's hard to know the actual letter of the law when all my neighbors do whatever they want. I have people parking on top of sidewalks, leaving their cars on the side of through ways, double parking so I can't get my car out, you name it! I passed the test regardless, although I'm sure I missed a few questions.

Now came the driving test... the test varies between two different courses, but they both cover the same driving skills. The two tricky parts include a "crank turn" that has three consecutive 90 degree turns, and a nasty curvy corridor. Both were quite narrow, but the test car was also pretty narrow. It was still a regular car and not the small class of tiny cars as I mentioned before, but my Civic is quite a bit bigger. Hooray for advantages! The rest of the course involved several turns into other roads, a stop light, a construction site, a broken down car, a crosswalk, and many left hand turns.

Also taking the test with me was an Indian Ph.D. student who had already failed it once. Indians, along with South Africans and maybe Jamaicans, are the unlucky people who have to also suffer through this ordeal. We took the test together, with him going first and me doing the same drive after he finished. The test giver seemed civil and gave us a brief review of the course before taking us to the cars. I got the privilege of seeing the Indian guy drive first, with me in the backseat. The guy was even more nervous than I was; he repeatedly said "check, check" every few seconds, but would only quickly glance at his blind spots. At both of the tricky portions, he had to back up, as he turned the corner too late.

After he pulled up to the start line, it was now my turn. I did away with the silly "check, check" every few feet, but still did check my blind spots before making my turns. I pulled off both the crank and S curve flawlessly; much smoother than the other guy, and no backing up! I was pretty nervous that I would mess up, since I have never in my life had to drive on such a road. Who would make a 6 foot wide street anyway?

I'm feeling pretty good with myself as the instructor takes us back into the office. On the way back, he tries using some English and both of us give him some light banter back. It's easy for him to be outgoing; he already knows our fates! So we get back to the office and first he talks about the Indian guy. His blind spot checking was bad, he drove too far away from the curb, and he didn't signal early enough. After listing all this guys faults (and he didn't even mention his main fault, which were the two tricky parts!) he then makes the "no good/fail" sign with his arms (a big X) and points it to both of us.

Ooooh man, was I pissed. Not only was he lumping me up with this bad driver, but he does it in an abrupt and childish way! I got angrier than I can ever remember being; I obviously couldn't shout or give a retort to this guy, (who was still rambling on about how bad we drove, mind you) but I'm pretty sure I looked incensed. All sense of my Japanese vanished as this guy continued talking about even more of our faults, including my pulling to the right to make a 90 degree turn. I see people doing this every day, since most wide cars can't make that turn while hugging the curve. (Which we weren't apparently doing anyway, make up your mind!) I try explaining to the guy how my car could never make such a direct turn, but in my anger I use the boyish form of "I," and the instructor wastes no time mocking my word choice before saying that the test is the test and the outside world doesn't matter. Badgering instructors aside, how relevant is a test that tests you on something you can't do outside?

I zone out everything else the guy has to say after that, which is luckily not very much. The much kinder lady involved with our applications comes back, but I'm still much too pissed to be sociable. When she asks me what were the reasons I failed, I simply say "no comment," and start filling out another application form. If had I opened my mouth, I'm pretty sure I'd regret saying something. Each test attempt is $24, along with the $11 train ride, $8 bus, and $3 tram. It's costing me nearly $50 per attempt, not to mention the day of paid leave I have to use! I storm out of the DMV and have to wait nearly an hour for the next bus ride, which simply gives me more time to stew and brood about the damned driving test. I think what was most infuriating was that the instructor pointedly talked to the other guy about his faults, giving me hopes that I had passed. Instead, after listing the Indian guy's bad driving traits, he paints us with the same brush! And with such a childish gesture too!

Needless to say, I was in a horrible mood for the rest of the day and the next morning as well. The only positive I can see from my anger was that I added 10 pounds to my biceps curls when I worked out that day. It wasn't as therapeutic as punching the instructor in the face, but it helped.... On a side note, on my commute back home I was pretty much scowling the whole way back. I think I might have bumped shoulders with a few people too; luckily I didn't start a fight with anybody, eh? I was pretty crass with the other ALTs though, and I think my buddy that I usually study with kept her distance from me. Thinking back about it though, I basically was an asshole for the next few days. Unlike most assholes, however, I didn't have a hot girl fawning over me! What the heck! Maybe my "bad boy" phase has to be longer than 3 days...

The next day passed pretty much the same way. Although I just had to to take the driving test, I was still required to come in several hours before the actual driving. I brought some Japanese study materials with me, but my mind was filled with so much vitriolic thoughts that I couldn't get much done.

My second attempt at the test didn't fare much better than the first. This time I preceded the Indian, and I felt I did even better than my first attempt. I was practically touching the left hand curb, I checked every time I needed to turn, and I again passed through the crank and S curves without a hitch. I even did it the stupid way of turning next to the curb rather than pulling away first. Think I passed?

Nope! This instructor instead focused on my stopping before entering a road; he wanted me to do a rolling stop if there wasn't a stop sign present. This was completely ridiculous for me; I specifically remember my US driving test about seven years ago when my instructor docked points for me doing that exact thing. And now this guy WANTED me to do it! Not only that, but he failed me for not doing a rolling stop! He also mentioned something about me not checking my sides before crossing, but I know that was complete bull. I imagine that is something they just say every time they fail someone.

This time when the friendly lady came back to give us (the Indian failed as well, obviously. He had to back up for his turns this time too) I had lost most of my patience and asked for two or three of the damned applications. By taking the 20 minutes to fill them out, I was missing the bus back home and was thus forced to wait nearly an hour for the next bus. If I'm going to fail automatically, I might as well accept it and make the best out of the situation, no? She didn't let me fill out multiple applications, naturally. I wonder how sarcastic and how big of a smart ass I was going to be by the end of the week?

For my third attempt, I had made it a point to accept that I was going to fail. I steeled myself for whatever inane reason for failure they were no-doubt going to give. It's draining to be angry for such a long time, and I didn't want to explode at one of my friends or get in a brawl with some poor passerby. I think I achieved a mix of a poker-faced countenance along with a somewhat fatalist but stubborn determination that I was going to come here no matter how many times I failed. I was either going to use up all my paid leave days taking this cursed test, or eventually pass.

The third day's test instructor was a friendly sort of a guy, but I steeled myself and kept myself cool in both head and discourse. I wasn't going to start up a conversation with this guy; I was here for one thing only! The other dude did his drive first, but it wasn't much better than his attempt that first day. When it was my turn, I did everything exaggeratedly. I spent a good three seconds turning my head completely to the left and right as if I were doing neck stretching exercises. I didn't leave out the blind spot either, and got a good back stretch out of the endeavor. (Which was actually pretty handy, since I had worn myself out at the gym and could use the extra stretching!) I was so deliberate with my "safe driving" that when I got to the S curve I actually hit the curb! Luckily I didn't drive on top of it, as that calls for immediate termination of the test. Not only that, but at one of the stop signs, the instructor got out of the car and checked to see if my wheels were past the line! You've got to be kidding, right? I was deemed OK to continue, however, and finished the course without any troubles.

Rather than pulling us into the office, we were given our results at a table where the Japanese test takers were waiting for their chance at the course. Much like the first time, the instructor turned to the Indian guy and listed his faults. This time, he was again faulted for not checking when he drove, but more importantly, he failed to check his blind spot when he made several left hand turns. Rather than some silly gesture, he simply stated that he failed. Where was this guy the last two times?

Although I had prepared myself for failure, having the results announced separately still gave me a glimmer of hope involuntarily. The instructor shows the same map, and says how I indeed checked my left side blind spots. (score!) I also was suitably careful when checking both ways (looking good...) and that hitting the S curve curb isn't enough to fail. (whew!) He then congratulates me for passing the driving test. :D

I got the required chiding for small matters, such as cutting it too close on the crank turn, and to be more careful on the S curve, but it was all water under the bridge. The problem, however, was that I had prepared myself so much for failure that I couldn't relish the success! Just when I had finally accepted the stupid process and how I would most likely fail, they give me an instructor that is both cordial and doesn't dock points for not doing a rolling stop! It's pretty funny now that I look back on it, but man, I wasn't able to properly celebrate until I was at the bus stop waiting for that damned bus again. This time, however, I had spent another 90 minutes at the DMV finally getting my license created. I couldn't exactly celebrate with the English speaking application lady either, which is a shame since we got along great that first day before the driving test. She seems to be too nice to be working at a DMV where most of the driving instructors act annoyed that they have to deal with foreigners. Although the process would have certainly been much harder had there been some gaijin-hating person in her place; so thankfully she was there!

When I first was told that I failed that first time, I was absolutely sure that I had failed primarily because I was not Japanese. The points that I was marked down for were either too inconsequential, or were wrongly attributed to me when in fact the other guy had done them. After a couple weeks to cool down, I don't think that was entirely the case, but it certainly feels like I was discriminated against. A counter to this, however, is that I met a girl at a bar last weekend who said it costs them $2500 to get their license! We were both drinking, but she was pretty adamant about those two extra zeros... so while I had to go through three horrible days, at least I only spent $170 rather than $2500!

And all for this silly little thing:
PS: I'm not even sure if my Japanese license number could be used by identity thieves, but it's probably better for me to blot out that info, eh?

PPS: The first day I came in I was wearing my "Kagami Staff" orange polo. I had brought my own pictures, but they wouldn't accept them since they were the leftovers from my Foreign Registration card. So I had to take a picture in my orange shirt, and you probably guessed it, I looked like an inmate! Thankfully they seem to just like taking pictures, and my card's actual photo was taken the day I passed.

My gym

2008-07-22T20:36:00.001-07:00

So when you search for "Yatsushiro gyms," this blog is #5 from the top! Huzzah!

My posts about said gyms have been pretty scant, so I'll write about my gym, Arest Sports Club. In Japanese it's written as アレスト・スポーツ・クラブ. It's a building with two floors, with the first floor mostly taken up by the pool and several rooms that are used for non-gym type things. One such uses is for music lessons.

Sorry for the crappy quality; I quickly took them with my phone since I don't know the gym's policy on taking pictures. I took them as they were closing though, so the place is empty. Shouldn't be any trouble...

A standard pool. I don't notice much chlorine, and it's often full of kids taking swimming lessons. When that's the case, one lane is reserved for swimming and another for treading water.

The cardio room. On Monday nights I do a class that is a mix of Body Combat and Body Pump.

I also do spinning on Wednesdays when it isn't too hot. The instructor doesn't turn on the AC for that class, so I tend to not go during the summer.

The main part of the gym. Has dumb bells up to 20 kilos, a bench that has plenty of weights for me, some machines, and some treadmills and bikes. I do miss a 90 degree chair and the 45 degree bench for working my back and sides though.

It sure beats not having a gym, plus the employees are really friendly.

So that's the gym. I pay 6,300 yen a month; about $60. Back home it would be a rip-off, but this seems to be a pretty standard price for what I'm getting. What I wouldn't give for a proper Body Combat class!

New Roommate!

2008-07-22T19:32:00.000-07:00

I really should bring my laptop to work more often; it's so much easier to do this when I'm stuck behind a desk. It helps that school is out and I'm just at work to look like I'm working. Why can't teachers here get vacation when there aren't classes anyway?

Anyways, I should make this post before it becomes irrelevant. Several weeks ago a fairly large spider crept into my genkan, much to my freaking out. He didn't leave the entrance, so I let him be. The next morning, however, he was making himself comfortable near my drying clothes. I figured the benefit of having something eating all the bugs outweighed the creepiness factor, so I didn't squish him.

He stayed in that area for a day before finally creeping into my room. I learned of this while playing Xbox with all the lights out; he looked MUCH bigger as a shadow scampering across the wall right behind my TV! Ever since then, he's always been a presence just outside my vision, either sitting in the crevice of my patio sliding door, and even once chilling underneath my printer while I was watching the Colbert Report.

I haven't been woken up to him eating my brains, but I also haven't been awoken to mosquitoes or flies right in my face. That used to happen quite often last summer, actually. I like to think he's eating everything that gets in, all hunter-spider style. He's not as big as the giant spiders that are as big as a hand. Those are found in an even MORE rural part of Japan, but this guy's big enough. I even saw one of his kind near the postbox that must have been twice this guy's size. I'm not sure I could handle one like that.... I actually haven't seen my roommate in a good week though; maybe that was him?

The domestic life

2008-07-22T17:40:00.000-07:00

Wow, the last entry was in May, eh? It's almost August! Anyways...

I noticed I haven't posted any pictures of my apartment, so I'll get to that now. Several weeks ago (maybe months, now :P) I was marveling at my freshly clean apartment and decided to take photos of it. So here you go; this is where I've been living for nearly a year:

Electronics, computer chair, and my attempt to exercise before I found the gym.

The queen-sized bed is a bit much, but there's my high def. TV :) Yeah, I'm actually using sheets BTW. I just have a futon over my bed for extra padding. :P

The kitchen/dining room. I don't cook all that much, but it's there when I need it!

The other half of the kitchen/dining room. It's mostly just a place to put my clothes to dry...

I've replaced the big TV box with a shelf from Costco.

The bathroom is divided into three rooms: sink/washing machine, bath/shower, and toilet.

My town, Kagami, means "mirror" in Japanese. (Insert a witty joke here)

Here's my genkan, or the place where you take off your indoor shoes. A bigger genkan is probably the one thing I have over the nearby Yatsushiro Jets. Well, I do lack their infamous "fat kid" that vandalizes their property. Yay?

So that's my apartment. It's very rarely this clean. Maybe once every 2 weeks or so, when I don't have something scheduled on Sunday. On the last Sunday of the month, however, I have an apartment-wide cleaning hour. How I came about knowing about this power-hour of residential cleanliness is a story in itself:

Sometime around March or so I was awoken around 8am or so on the weekend. I figured it was just the mailman giving me another package. They're great here; they come during the weekends, later in the day, and will even call you for a pick-up time if they can't catch you at home.

Unfortunately, this cold semi-winter morning was not one of those days. It was instead two unfamiliar Japanese men wearing layers upon layers of clothes, adding to their physique to make them look quite thugish. I, on the other hand, came outside sans shirt and shoes. I figured I was just signing a package and then running back indoors into my propane-heated room!

After brief introductions, the two men state that they're here to collect a monthly "tax" that has been accruing since August. They can't explain what the tax is, just that everybody in the apartment pays it, it's 2000 yen a month, and if I could kindly pay the roughly 2man ($200) to them they would leave. Now I consider myself a rational guy, but my tepid grasp of the language and the frigid weather that I'm experiencing partially naked are not proper circumstances to be debating a charge of $200!

After several minutes of me refuting and debating their explanations, the leader of the two asks if I know a certain person. She was my host mother back when my apartment was being cleaned by the BOE and I lived in her home for 3 days. As I call her and hand my cellphone over to the "tax collector," I rush back in and get some proper clothing.

Even with a fully bilingual translator in my host mom, the situation isn't completely dissolved. I'm apparently absolved of the monthly taxes before February, but will be responsible for all the following months. Now, every apartment member is required to help clean the outside of the apartment grounds on the last Sunday of the month. This doesn't sound too bad, but everyone has to pay the whole year's "tax" and then gets the money back if they participate in the cleaning! Why the heck do they need to hold the money? They're not repairing broken lights as the lights outside my apartment have been broken since I got here... It all seems very fishy, but I accept it. As long as I don't have to cough up those $200! Thankfully we could get a translator, as I was starting to get pretty angry. This isn't how I relax from a busy workweek!

Anyways, after all of this, the bigger of the two guys invites me to a "kodomo-kai," or children's meeting. Everyone in the local area is taking their kids to a cheap all-you-can-eat-and-drink for some reason or another. Now this is much more up my alley!

The kids are naturally all my students as I teach everyone in this village until they reach high school. Seeing their kids helps me picture these guys as less money-grabbing thugs and more in a positive light. Also, the shedding of all those layers of clothes show them for the skinny Japanese business men they are and less of the sumo/yakuza/thugs that they appeared at first. :)

What's strange, however, is that I was treated to this eating/drinking party by the "tax collectors." They were just demanding a huge sum for me; now they pay for me to stuff my face with yakiniku and Asahi beer? I'm not to look a gift horse in the mouth (and I swear, some of that meat looked like the local cuisine of raw horse), so indeed I face-stuffed. I guess this is strike two for me, if you count the sugar-mama spending spree. I'm finding it hard to say no to free stuff, no matter who the giving party may be!

Anywho, a good two months later I finally showed up to the Sunday cleaning. Lucky for me, this was a special occasion where they spent TWO hours cleaning! Hooray! Although it was May, the task of the morning was to clean up all the fallen leaves and handle all the weeds. The leaves actually accrued in my parking spot, since the giant tree from which they belong lies right above my parking area. This tree is the bane of my car's cleanliness; in spring and winter the birds give my poor Civic a white paint job, and during the fall my car could easily sneak through a forest with all the camo it has on. This summer hasn't been all that bad, thankfully. I guess the heat is too much for my avian nemeses. (that's the plural for nemesis, right?)

Here's proof of the cleaning:

Looks pretty docile, right?

Don't be fooled, this tree is EVIL.

I'm not just taking pictures, I'm working, I swear!

I'm pretty sure they just burned all the weeds eventually. The pile was there for a good two weeks though.

All that work at 7am... was this worth the $20 I could have just paid?

There was actually a mukade hiding underneath the leaves when we cleaned my parking spot. They're the giant, deathly poisonous, centipedes. This one was just a baby though.

Well, that's enough domestic crap for now. Cheers.

A quick blurb

2008-05-27T06:57:00.000-07:00

Was it coincidence, or God just telling me to stop spending, that when I finally went to the store to buy an Xbox 360 that my credit card was rejected? I had actually used the same card last week to buy an external DVD player for my computer, so getting the "I'm sorry, but..." speech in Japanese was certainly unexpected. I even bought it at that exact store! I gotta collect me those store points and earn 500 yen off my next purchase! (even if by going to this store exclusively I am forgoing several 1000 yen's worth of sales, hehe) And I was feeling good for myself since I was maintaining a fairly nerdy conversation with the shopkeeper about video games in Japanese! Meh, He giveth and taketh I suppose.

Anyways, the convenience of Indian-run customer service allowed me to call my credit card company and find out that my card had been suspended for being used in Japan... 10 months after moving here. Thanks a lot for the "theft protection" Capital One! I mean really, how much damage can one do in 5/6 of a year? (check out them fraction reduction skills!)

So anyway, with my card now ready to plunge me further into debt, I'm still debating whether I should go back tomorrow and actually buy the stupid thing. For one, I got a tad angry after I accumulated 6 or 7 attendants (which I shouldn't have, seeing as I merit the use of 5 people whenever I visit the post office). After hearing several minutes of polite Japanese that I'm completely inept in (what can I say, my main source of immersion is an elementary school), I just shrugged them off and said I was heading to a different store.

Naturally as I was driving in my car, I cooled off a tad and just went home. No need to get my card rejected twice in one night! And maybe God doesn't want me to hit $4000 debt after getting it down to $1700 several months ago.

PS: I'll get to writing about Korea and Cambodia eventually! My schedule at work is much busier than before. Seeing as I mostly wrote in this blog at work...and you can see why I haven't updated in a while. O:)

Boo Weber St. Credit Union...

2008-04-25T22:10:00.000-07:00

I'm going to Korea in two days!!

I fly out to Cambodia a day after I get back from Korea, too. I only had one minor snag in the plans...money :P I had over-sent cash to my account in Utah, and needed to take some back. Easy enough with my ATM card, right? Luck would have it that my card is somehow unable to withdraw money anymore! It worked when I first moved to Japan; I guess they blocked my card since I'm using it in Japan. Doesn't make THAT much sense since I also put money into the account with Japanese money as well... I'll probably just keep most of my money as yen from now on, especially since the Dollar is pretty weak anyways.

Luckily one of my good friends in JET was willing to let me borrow some money for my Korea trip, seeing as I can't exactly do much in Korea with the $7 or so of Korean currency that my predecessor left me. I hear the shopping is cheap, but I'm planning on stocking my whole "cool biz" wardrobe if I can! Unluckily, my good friend is also REALLY forgetful and left for Kyoto today without any swapping of Yen. Putting me right back where I was before, but now even closer to my departure and most of my other friends out of town as well.

Thus today has been a morning of me going around Kagami trying to somehow extract some cash from the various ATMs with little to show for it save for several different rejection receipts and a scrapped credit card. I didn't like the design on my Capital One card anyway...

Running out of ideas and already short one of my two credit cards, I actually prayed right there in front of the ATM for a little bit...and sure enough, I remembered the movement I would do for entering a certain PIN several years ago. (I have to think hard about the numbers involved, but the motion is easy to remember...well, at least it WAS easy to remember before I forgot it) I only withdrew 20,000 yen, but hopefully the more important bank account with the man upstairs doesn't charge too much interest :) I owe you one!!

PS: Weber St. Credit Union, you're on notice!

How much does being nice cost nowadays?

2008-04-20T21:00:00.001-07:00

The parking at my apartment is a bit cramped; we even have people parking on the curb, backyard, and in the through lane. I've been OK with that so far, though, and have luckily managed to wind my car through to my little corner behind a huge tree that gives me loads of bird crap from Fall to Winter and an insane amount of leaves in the Spring. I sometimes hear about how Japan proudly has four distinct seasons, but why the heck did every leaf fall on my car in March? I get the distinct smell of Autumn as I approach my unintentionally camouflaged car, while the days are getting longer and I progressively wear less clothing. :P

Enough of the weirdness of my parking spot; I've got to complain about something else, but it's related! Last Saturday as I was leaving my parking and going through the passage that leads to the main road, I passed by the big van that parks in said passage. I was a bit lazy and scraped some paint off the front left bumper. Several years ago I did something similar on a foggy Utahn morning, but sheepishly kept driving. Not this time! In my pidgin Japanese I wrote a letter apologizing and stating that I will pay for them to buffer and paint the bumper again.

This morning I get a call from my boss; apparently the guy whose car I hit wanted to call the board of education and get everyone involved, including insurance! There went my hopes of just quietly settling this without raising insurance premiums and notifying my employers about the incident... I meet with my boss and the car owner after work today.

Fate decided to be nice and balance out that day, however, in the form of gifts. When I finally made it to the Mr. Donut (unlimited coffee!) to study, one of my students from elementary recognized me and introduced me to his dad. Five minutes later, the dad gives me a box of donuts as a thank you present! What better way to forget past stupidity by stuffing one's face with fatty sweetness?

The following day, Sunday, after rejecting the local boy's pleading to go play video games with him (I spent a good 2 hours playing DS with him and his buddy on Friday. I'll take whatever Japanese practice I can get!!) I cleaned my apartment and then headed to Mr. Donut again to study. Arriving sans car accidents, most of the shop's staff was the same as yesterday... a bit awkward... No free donuts this time, but one of the employees did say I was "hansamu." :) I'm definitely enjoying my study time there much more than at Starbucks. Over there nobody interrupts me as I study. But come on! There are few things better than interruptions while studying; it's guilt-free procrastination!

Gimpified!

2008-04-03T05:37:00.000-07:00

So how about them lack of posts, eh?

Yeah, I've gotten lazy on posting again, but you can't be too rough on a gimp, right?

Much like last spring, I've gone and gotten my ankle messed up. This time it was with the soccer league that I play every Tuesday. Except that I've been busy every Tuesday for the past month; naturally 45 minutes into the first practice in weeks I land awkwardly on my right foot and have to limp across the field to watch the rest of the practice/game.

It got fat so quickly too! Some of my teammates said they got "ecchi" thoughts when they looked at it. Yep, my jumbo-sized ankle made them think of a boob... The next morning my entire lower leg swelled up, so at least I should be safe from weirdos falling in love with my ankle! :P

Here's a view of what my right leg's become:

Not that pretty, eh?

Luckily I've been going to a hospital for vaccinations, so I simply drove there the next day after work and got some crutches. They didn't check much besides asking if I thought it was broken though. I suppose I would know if it were broken, right? I just can't put any weight on it yet, so the crutches have been a real help.

The last time I went through this, the initial pain was a whole lot worse, but I could still limp along. I've had to hop on my left foot this time before I got the crutches. I suppose that means this one will take longer to heal as well? :P

If I thought I was getting attention before, people surely stare at me now! Especially little kids, since it might be the first time they've seen someone uses crutches. I'm a 2-for-1 perspective enhancer at the moment! Learn about people with disabilities AND about foreign cultures! Open the door for me while you're at it...

I can definitely feel some of the crap disabled people get, however. I can't carry anything anymore, as both my hands are busy using the crutches. Any door that requires me to pull it open is a pain, and I'm even getting blisters from using the crutches for just one day! Not to mention that I can't exactly be subtle when I enter somewhere; at least when I was just a gaijin I could at least be a QUIET one! My condolences go out to the family that lives below me: the mornings and evenings when I'm hopping and lunging around must be pretty annoying. At least you don't have to bother with my DDR playing for a while! :)

One ticket to Cambodia please!

2008-03-06T22:39:00.000-08:00

I'm going to Cambodia this May!!

I'll be going to Cambodia with an NGO giving out laptops and training kids to use them, with the One Laptop Per Child program. I'm actually going with the less fancy sounding "Pepy" program, but I swear it's legit! Apparently they recruit from JET teachers every year since we're not that far away from Cambodia, plus most of us want to travel and have the vacation days to do so :)

I'm in the works with a Japanese hospital to get all sort of immunization shots, buying travel insurance, arranging the travel there, and scrunching my spending to afford it all (Although last month I certainly splurged way too much!) CBS actually had a video about the program and Cambodia. It's pretty good, but the last segment is a bit weird so focus more on the first segment :)

The basic idea is that we're giving cool laptops to kids (they aren't paying for it at all, unlike in the video where the government pays for it). The laptops are pretty durable: water proof, dust proof, they are completely usable outside...you can even power it up with a crank! They're also

I just figured I'd toss it out there if any of you guys feel like tossing me a little love (in a monetary form) ....that'd be cool. No worries though; I'm donating the required $500 already, so anything else I get will just be that much more towards the program!

Oh yeah, and here's the video about the program:http://www.cbsnews.com/sections/i_video/main500251.shtml?id=3564316n

And to anyone that's interested, here's the site outlining my trip schedule and a place to donate if that crosses your mind :)

Schedule: http://pepyride.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=126&Itemid=263

Donate: http://www.firstgiving.com/pepyride

In the "personal message" field that would be where you put "Ryan Bedford" if you want me to get credit for it. ;)

PS: Props to Mike for donating! :D

Let's act like this post was sometime in February for continuity's sake

2008-03-06T21:37:00.001-08:00

So at the moment I'm at my junior high school and staring at the strangeness occurring in my teachers' room. Across from me near the hallway stands the giant gym teacher, towering over a trio of poofy-haired, pretty-boy students. I don't think they actually go to class, but from time to time I catch them roaming around the school. They might be whom my teachers are talking about when they say, "oh, that student doesn't go to class," while I wonder why some seats are always empty.

Anyway! Back to the massive gym teacher and his group of delinquents. One would think that he was reprimanding them for some manner of rule breaking, right? He was actually painting eyebrows on them! Today is the graduation ceremony practice, so I'm assuming they need to look more traditional. At least that's the only conclusion I can draw to why the teachers are drawing eyebrows on a few students before the rehearsal.

So while I'm sipping on my Blendy coffee and thinking how I'll spend the last two hours at work, the Judo coach/gym teacher decides to give some students a make over :) And incidentally, an impetus for me to finally write in my blog!

<--- Blendy coffee: It's not all that great, but it sure beats the crap in the community coffee pot!

Since I haven't written in my blog for quite a while, I will probably just write about one event now, and put the others in separate entries to help reduce clutter.

*************************************************************************

I've almost forgotten about this, but shortly after my birthday at the end of January I had asked one of my gym friends if she wanted to go for lunch. I thought it was implied that it would be the same group of us again (her, the old but cool business woman, plus the cute and super athletic friend of hers). Well, the actual day went nowhere like that. Instead of a quiet lunch amongst three friends that are always in the gym at the same time, it ended up being some weird 'buy a bunch of stuff for Ryan Day' with just me and the older lady.

How did this happen? Well, that morning I had eaten a huge breakfast at my friend's house. The night before was my birthday and a coinciding poker tournament. I decided to drink a bit (it helped off balance the un-fun of being a crappy poker player!) and stayed the night. The next morning I was served a healthy serving of french toast and an omelet. When I met up with my gym buddy at noon, I definitely wasn't hungry for lunch. The cute girl was curiously not mentioned at all, but she didn't mind that I canceled lunch. Instead she takes me in her really nice car (I think a Prius, but nicer looking than the ones I've seen back home.) and drives me a ways off from my little hamlet. I have no idea where she's taking me, but I don't have any other plans, plus I'm hoping the cute girl is at whatever the destination turns out to be.

After about 20 minutes we arrive at a mall and she directs me to a clothing store. She then asks me to pick something that I want. Apparently I'm getting a birthday gift; hooray! I hadn't received anything besides a free dinner the night before, so I gladly choose a warm looking sweater that I have since worn to work on many a cold morning. After paying the cashier, she then guides me into a shoe store and asks me again what I want. At this point I'm confused; one gift is certainly nice, but what's going on here? To be honest, this thought only flickers across my mind, as she starts offering some really nice boots for me to try on. :P I ended up leaving that store with a pair of Timberland boots that were on sale for about $100.

Ok, so this lady just spent a good chunk of money on me, probably since it's my birthday. That wasn't the last of it though! In the end I walked out with a new sweater, boots, head band, and beanie. I had to tell I was done in the end, as she wanted to buy me some CDs, DVD movies, and who knows what else! We also ended up seeing a movie, in which she paid for everything (surprise!). Now I know that she's well off and also single, so she has quite a disposable income. And the last time we hung out with the cute girl, she also paid for everything: dinner, karaoke, and a taxi home. Yet the whole thing felt oddly like a date, even though she's got to be at least 15 years older than me! The entire day felt pretty strange, and some of my friends later on asked if she thought I was dating her or something. Strangely enough, I've only seen her at the gym maybe three times since then (it's May 7th now) and nothing has been mentioned other than when the cute girl commented on my boots and the spendy-one chimed in that they were a present from her.

It was all rather confusing, and far from what I thought would be another outing with the cute girl and her older friend, but it felt nice to be spoiled once like that :)

PS: I haven't asked for another lunch since then, since I have no clue what will happen!

Before I forget!

2008-01-19T19:49:00.000-08:00

Last week I had a pretty good elementary visit at the school across the street from my apartment, Kagami Elementary. Now, I've gotten a little hesitant on these days because I often get sick from all the touchy kids jumping me after class, but this day was much better! Maybe I'm starting to get immune to them. (here's hoping!)

Anyway, the classes were pretty average, but during recess a group of girls asked me if I wanted to see a monster. Well, that's all I understood from the sentence, (bakemono) but it sounded cool and I went and played with some kids in the gym while I waited. Now that I remember, it was raining pretty hard, so that's why everyone was indoors. I wasn't in the mood for 1-ball dodgeball, so I hanged out with the kids kicking some soccer balls around.

Once the girls were ready, they came and lead me to the school's computer lab. One of them lead me around the room in a path, and then asked me to wait outside for a minute. I was pretty confused to the whole thing... Anyways, I go inside after they got ready, and the whole room's dark and the girls are nowhere to be seen. It finally clicks that they made a sort of haunted house for me, and the path was the way I was supposed to walk through it.

It was actually a bit scary in a Japanese way, as they used flutes, crashing chairs, and slamming doors to make me jump. For a bit I forgot that these were all just little girls and got into the whole thing. Then I remembered, "wait a second, these are 10 years olds doing this," and continued the rest of the path smiling, but pretty impressed.

It was really cool though, recalling to me some of the Japanese horror movies I've seen. It was totally random (we never made haunted houses in school on rainy days!) but it was cool that these kids made and practiced just for me :)

After my last class that day, I usually go back to the junior high for the last hour or two. I noticed, however, that some teachers were getting ready to teach calligraphy and asked if they wouldn't mind if I joined them. It's not like I was going to do actual work back at the jr. high, right?

So for the last class of the day I joined the 6th graders as they practiced writing "hiro ga ru wa," or 広がる輪. It was pretty fun, but my technique is horrible. :P When the kids felt they were done, they each put their name and school on the left side of the paper. Mine was legible at least...but you could definitely see the difference between mine and the rest of the class. :) For fun, I put my name and FIU (in Japanese, woot woot) on one of my attempts. When I came back from cleaning my brush, they had put it on the wall alongside the students' best ones! I wonder if they were being nice, or as a warning on what not to do... :P

Anyways, that was a pretty fun day, especially compared to the ones where I just go straight back to the jr. high school and kill an hour of time on Facebook before work's over. :)

Twice in one month!

2008-01-15T18:45:00.000-08:00

It's either studying Japanese (man, I really need a tutor) or browsing on the internet some more...or blogging! Since I just finished grading some tests, I'm in the somewhat productive mode. (Blogging is more productive than Facebook, right?)

I actually enjoy the few times that I get asked to grade some writing assignments at junior high. I mostly get asked by the 2nd grade English teacher (who is still probably leaving after this school year, I wonder if I'll be used at all afterwards...) to write comments in the students' journal, but today I actually gave letter grades. I probably gave way too many As and Bs, but most of them were pretty good. I did get some pretty funny sentences though, my favorites being: "The fish is full of fish people," and "I will practice strongly, so before long get spunky, perhaps." I know I'm probably saying even funnier things in Japanese, but fish people sounds pretty hard to beat! Hooray for mermen.

*Picture me doing one of those shift to another camera moves that Jon Stewart and Colbert do on their shows*

Next up I've got winter break and Spain. It was only for a short week, but I did get to go somewhere where rice and miso aren't served daily and I can actually get what people are saying around me. :) I also hadn't been back in forever, and I wasn't aching to be in Utah during the winter, so....bienvenido a Barcelona!

My 2 cousins, her fiance, and my little brother.

They like to wear Santa hats for Christmas.

Me and John at New Year's Eve. I <3> Fanta de Limon

My aunt Lourdes' paella; her food was the highlight of the trip :)

So I basically just hanged (hung?) out for the time I was in Barcelona and ate lots of Spanish food. Besides paella Lourdes also made migas and those french fry-like squid strands that are really good. I also went out with my cousin Angel and his friends, but besides the really tasty vodka con limas, I much prefer going out with Carla and her girlfriends :)

The only downside to the trip was that I had to take my plane back on New Years at 10am. That meant getting to the airport at 8am, which meant going straight from New Year's partying. It was probably a mix of the booze, lack of sleep, and my lingering cold that I threw up in the plane :P I woke up mid-flight and rushed to the flight attendant and asked for a barf bag. She looked at me confusedly, wondering if I needed a 'sick bag.' The Finn (Finnish, Finniard?) was taking much too long to respond, but luckily the bathroom was available and I did my business. Seriously, who holds up a person that is obviously going to hurl?

After three flights, two bus rides, a train ride, and two taxis, I finally got home and managed to sleep off whatever I had. It felt like a fever on the first two flights, but after drinking a whole lot of orange juice and sleeping for a good 15 hours, the rest of the trip was bearable.

*Another Stewart/Colbert turn*

So that's it for catching up on things. The only thing of note this week is that Monday was apparently 'Coming of Age Day,' so we didn't have classes. I did see a whole lot of young people the day before in suits and kimonos...I wonder what else they did besides meander around the streets of Yatsushiro in nice clothes?

Oh, and on Tuesday I had my somewhat-dreaded elementary school visit where the teachers don't give me any heads up of what I'm teaching. It's the same school where I had to go home midday and go vomit. :P Good times! Well anyway, around 7:55am that morning, I got a call from Mr. 2nd grade English teacher saying that they canceled my visit today! No chance of getting sick, plus I got some extra time to eat breakfast. :)

And it gave me the chance to grade Mr 2's class' papers and read about the fishman. And that's the word! (I've been watching too much Colbert...)

Memoirs from a Japanese Denny's

2008-01-06T02:53:00.000-08:00

So I’m writing this from the Japanese equivalent of a Denny’s: a 24 hour restaurant with so-so food, but you can sit in here for hours! Which is just what I need since I’ve got eight hours to kill. I’m actually in Fukuoka, the northern province on my island. My flight to Barcelona leaves tomorrow morning at 7:30am, but since the bus to Fukuoka leaves too late, I had to leave this afternoon and kill time until I can check in. Anyone that knows me a little bit can probably think what I’d do for hours on end; go online and waste time on computer games!

And that’s what I was planning on doing…except that apparently Fukuokan airports close at 10pm. My experience with airports gave me the impression that they never closed since with so many time zone-dwelling travelers it’s bound to be someone’s prime time. I guess since my flight first goes to another Japanese city (Nagoya), they only operate during Japanese waking-hours. I must therefore be a bum in the Nihon Denny’s, aka “Joyful,” from 10pm-6am. There went my hopes of spending all that time on Facebook, Youtube, and World of Warcraft!

So let’s see, I think the last time I updated this thing it was around Halloween time. I really should write more often so I don’t forget anything, eh? I’ll try to recount the big things that happened anyway, for anyone that’s reading and for me to look back when I’m bored at work. J (Which isn’t as often these past few months compared to August and September!)

For the sake of not rambling for pages and pages, and also for organizing my thoughts, here’s what I’ll be writing about: (By the way, I just saw this dude pull into a handicapped parking spot at a Lawson’s convenience store. There was a normal spot right next to it, come on!! Leaving the car on while you buy a bento or whatever doesn’t make it any more legal…)

What Ryan’s been up to:

E English speech contest

Culture festival

Lots of Karaoke

Suntory beer/beverage factory

Sp Spain ticket=broke in November

Thoughts on elementary school teaching

T The English speech contest actually happened before the last blog entry, but I’ll just talk about it here rather than edit the other one. The contest consists of several students from each grade in junior high school competing with their peers from the rest of the greater city area. They basically recite a dialogue from the school textbook; fun stuff! I was given about a week to help coach my 3^rd grade group of 2 guys and a girl.

It was actually pretty fun since I rarely ever get to teach the 3^rd graders. Even when I do teach that grade, it’s only for the elective speech class, so I barely get to know most of the students. I tried to get them to sound more natural-sounding through tone and pitch, and some basic gestures to go along with questions and such. They picked up on it pretty well, and ended up getting second place! Woot! I actually think they did better than the first place winner, since she basically did a monologue that’s very emotional (it deals with the death of a child from ww2 bomb radiation) but had pretty poor pronunciation. I’m pretty glad with the results; heartstring-pulling speeches like that are hard to beat.

I was also asked to coach the 1^st and 2^nd grade groups, but was only given 2 days. The 1^st grade group was actually formed the weekend before the contest! With such vast preparation I assume both groups were devastated when they didn’t place in the top three, but there’s always next year! I’ll have to be more proactive and not just assume that they won’t procrastinate as badly I do…

PS: And to the more astute readers, (a man can dream that someone’s reading this!) yes, I did indeed get a comment from a teacher that this year’s results were somewhat mediocre. “Last year’s ALT coached the students to first place, yadda yadda yadda.” Maybe Ellison got a whole 3 days to teach these kids to say “Robot” rather than “Loh-but”! Luckily this was the last time since then that I got one of those “we’re gonna give you crappy circumstances but expect you to totally excel” situations.

PPS: And to any Futurama fans, the kids really did sound like Dr. Zoidberg when they said Robot. “Robut, robut! Woo woo woo!”

On On to the Culture Festival! This also happened quite a long time ago, whoops :P The students practiced for hours on their little presentation, be it their band or choir performance (sadly, no orchestra at KJHS), acting skit, or dialogue. It was for the most part pretty entertaining. The band made me miss being in OHS’s orchestra, but they sounded pretty good. They even had one bass player; now if they could only add some violins, violas, and cellos!

The singing was the only downer: all 12 classes had their own song to sing for a competition judged by the teachers (not including me). The actual choir’s singing was enjoyable, but the competition was a bit much. :P

The dialogues, from what I gathered, were the students retelling how they did an apprenticeship. Some were pretty interesting, especially those that helped at pre-school. Others learned the finer points of working at a convenience store or super market. They seriously talked for 10 minutes each about how they learned to greet people!

The best part of the Culture Festival (Bunka-sai) was the acting. Each grade had their own theme: 1^st graders did some sort of history retelling, 2^nd graders had some kinds of jokes that I couldn’t understand, and the 3^rd graders included Dragon Ball Z choreographed fights! It was great to see these kids fully dressed as the characters I loved back in 6^th grade duke it out :D I imagine it was somehow tied to an overall message, but I couldn’t understand any of it. Good times though!

Harvest dance: the guys dug the earth and the women collected

Freeze vs. Gohan! (Vegeta's in the background)

Freeza, Vegeta, Gohan, Picollo, Goku, and behind him, Krillin.

(There's also a poster of the Dragon)

Karaoke

Hoo boy, karaoke! I’ve been karaoking again with the other JETs, but much more fun were the times I went with Japanese friends! Going with my fellow ALTs is fun, but we always take a lot of people, so I usually only get to pick a few songs before our 2 hours are up. Not to mention that alcohol + cute Japanese girls + random shouting construed as singing = fun!

I’ve gone once with 2 girls I constantly see at the gym in Yatsushiro. One is about my age and is almost always at the gym every time I go. The other is in her 30s or 40s I think, and is some kind of big shot business woman. She ended up paying for all three of our dinners and karaoke fees! And also the taxi back to my place since I naturally couldn’t drive back home with all the plum and apricot wine I had in me J I actually haven’t seen her since then, I should get her some nice Spanish omiyage (souvenir) to say thanks…

The other time I went with Japanese folk was actually pretty random. Me and a buddy from JET that works on the opposite side of the prefecture, Jarod, decided to go hang out at a bar in Kumamoto. Escape our little villages for the night and get some good ol’ big city experience! We met two girls at a bar that apparently Jarod had thrown up on during an October party. Small world eh? The girls actually thought it was funny, and we ended up going to another bar with them. By then it was too late to catch the train back home (why must the trains end before midnight anyway? ) so we decided to stay up until the morning trains started up. We went to a karaoke place and sang for a few hours and the place also included unlimited arcade and soft drinks for another 2 hours. This was all for about $10, what a deal!

A few weeks ago I went to the Suntory beverage company’s factory near Kumamoto city. I went with the same two girls that went with me to the dragon boat race, as well as the visiting boyfriend of one of the girls. It was pretty cool to see how fast they make and bottle/can all that beer, coffee, and soda! The best part was the drinking room at the very end where we got to try all their brands. All for free as well! If they only had some plum wine (ume-shu) I would have been in heaven :)

You might have noticed that it doesn’t sound like I’ve really left my area the past few months; that’s because I haven’t! :P My Christmas ticket to Barcelona ended up costing a whole lot more than I was hoping…a whopping 14man. No, not a dozen dudes, more like $1200. I only get back about 24man every month, and when you consider that I also had to make a car payment, I was cutting it pretty close! My teachers even gave me some leftover food near the end of the month when things were getting especially tight J It happened to be some delicious food as well, score! (Haru same I think it was called. Spring rain in English, but I could be totally making the name up!) Luckily December eventually showed up, and with it I was able to again eat past my stomach’s content, buy some much-needed winter clothes, and basically be a happily spending consumer J

The last thing I’ve got to talk about (hooray for outlines, I probably would have forgotten to write half of this stuff otherwise!) is my experience so far with teaching at elementary school. The way it works is that I’m given a few days before my school visit a basic theme that I’m supposed to teach. Past themes include: animals, classroom objects, sports, weather, etc. With this I then make some slides, maybe laminate them if I’m feeling especially productive, and then make a game or two that will hopefully reinforce the day’s vocab.

Since I have four elementary schools, I’m on a rotation system where I visit each class in the town about once a month. In one way it’s nice since I get to improve and fine-tune my lessons from the first time I teach sports to the final fourth time. However, with my procrastination habits, I also haven’t really pushed myself. Due to me visiting so many schools, I can get away with doing the same game for a month or more since I’m the only one who will have seen it before. So I’ve been getting in the nasty habit of just waking up a little earlier the day of elementary school visits and just brushing off my old flashcards.

I did incorporate some English and Spanish Christmas songs into my last visit of the year though! That’ll be one of my resolutions for next year; stop being so damn lazy when it comes to elementary school visits and try to be a little more diverse in my lesson planning!

PS: I’ve started to get sick after every elementary visit. The kids are so touchy-feely, and when you get a whole classroom of kids glomping on you, you’re bound to get 3-4 of them who are pretty sick. The last week of classes this year I had a visit on Tuesday and another one on Thursday. On Tuesday I came out feeling just a bit under the weather; I had taught the older 3^rd and 4^th graders who are more prone to shake hands give me back rubs rather than jump on my legs, arms, and back like I’m some kind of giant stuffed animal.

On Thursday, however, I had the smaller school where I visit every class. I had a feeling I was going to come out of this a bit sick… I probably should have a bit more careful though! For the first and second graders I did a game where the person who is “it” got to wear the Santa hat that I had been wearing. I imagine that was probably the first step to getting deadly sick :P The game also eventually had all the kids sitting in the center counting to 10, with many of them piled up on top of me. Strike two? By the end of fourth period I was still doing ok and headed to lunch. The kids serve themselves lunch with facemasks and hair nets, but no gloves! Midway through my lunch I started feeling pretty sick, but I’m not one to leave a full plate so I ate what I was given. I did give my slice of “Christmas cake” to a happy student though!

By now I was definitely not feeling good, and decided to sleep in the teachers’ room rather than go out and place like I normally do during recess. When it was time for 5^th period, both the principal and vice principal (I actually played with them in a badminton tournament a few weeks before!) asked me if I was doing alright, apparently I was pretty pale and generally sick looking. I actually felt like throwing up, but luckily I made it back home before doing that! I’m not sure puking in front of students would do any good in terms of inspiring future English learners ;) So I ended up taking the last few hours of work that day and the whole following day off to pass out in my bed with four layers of clothing. I would have turned on my kerosene heater, but I had accidently bought diesel instead a few days back and so my fuel tanks were at a teacher’s house who would use the gas for her car. I have no idea what I would have done with $20 worth of diesel had I not found someone who could use the fuel! I don’t think I could just pour it down the drain… The strange part was that I was still cold with 4 layers and a full blanket on top of me. Stupid sickness!

I’m still not at 100% and staying up all night to catch my flight at 7:30 probably won’t help, but at least I killed a few hours writing this! Let’s hope I don’t wait till another extremely long layover to write my next installment, eh? Maybe I’ll have gone somewhere exciting by the next time I write too!

"It's been a, long Octoberrrrrr."

2007-10-30T22:43:00.000-07:00

Happy Halloween everyone! I'm probably the only one in a costume in Kagami, but I was already getting stares so it's not much different as I walk around looking like a vampire. :D I've procrastinated quite a bit in writing, so there's quite a bit of ground to cover in this post. The first thing to discuss would be...

Amakusa Waterwheel! This was a Kumamoto JET ALT-organized event that happened early in the month in the western island of Amakusa.

I went along with the other Yatsushiro JETs, but we left at 2pm so by the time we got there it was already dark. So much for swimming! I had planned to just stay a few hours and then go back with some of the early-leavers so I could see Kagami Elementary's sport festival, but since it took so long to get there I felt that I should enjoy the event anyway. Amakusa is actually really pretty; I enjoyed the ride there almost as much as the drinking and shenanigans! Well, the ferry we took from Yatsushiro was actually all industrial, but eventually it looked more like this:

So what did I do next weekend...oh that's right, karaoke! I'm not a big fan of it back in the States, since the bars I've been to have just one karaoke station in the sight of all the bar drinkers. Plus the beer was a bit expensive. Both of these qualms were crushed when I entered one of the 50 karaokes in Yatsushiro (Just an estimation, but there are quite a few of 'em. Just not as much as there are pachinko parlors. And oooh, are there pachinko parlors!) So in Japanese Karaoke one gets a private room for your group of friends, such as this one here:So for one with minimal singing skills, the less people hearing your rendition of 'Bohemian Rhapsody,' the better! You can also get unlimited alcohol for a decent price, but it's charged on everybody. Since we had some people not drinking, we just smuggled in some beers from the local conbini. (convinience store) I enjoyed this all a bit too much, and needless to say, I'll be smuggling less beer next time!

So what have I been spending my money on besides travelling, paying off debts, and weekend outings you ask? (Nobody's really asked yet, but I needs me a transition!) Well, I bought a used Honda Civic! It's a '92, 4-door, and has about 60,000 miles on it. I'm paying it in three installments of 65,000 yen, which in total will be about $1,700. The thing's got quite a bit of scratches, and a big gash on the left side, but it's been dependable so far, and any scratches I make on it won't be noticable since it's already scruffed up. 見て見て　:

But what's with the tractor back there? And why's my car on a slant? (This time, people might actually be asking themselves these questions!)

Well, it's a funny story now that it's done and over with :) You see, the following weekend after karaoke I went with two of my Yatsushiro coworking buddies to see the Nejime Dragon Boat race. It's a bit far to the south, so I offered my larger white-plate car, since my buddy drove us with her yellow-plate car to Amakusa.

The place where we stayed was in the mountains with some pretty narrow roads. Getting out of the driveway, I backed into one of the many irrigation ditches that are seen throughout rural Japan. Since it was my front left wheel, and my Civic's a front wheel drive, I was totally screwed! The guys who I was parked in front of needed to go to their race, but with my immobile Honda nobody was going anywhere.

Oh, we tried several methods of getting some traction under my left wheel so I could back out. We even vainly tried pushing the car uphill (lol). A friendly neighbor drove by and tried to pull me out with a thin rope and backing out with his tiny Kei truck. (The truck's model was a Hijet, which was a bit funny at the time. "Hi JET! You've fallen in a gaijin trap! What will ya do now?) Some frayed cables and nerves later, the friendly neighbor conceded that his mini-truck couldn't help and he went on his way.

After nothing worked and we ran out of ideas, we basically just stood around and I felt like crap since these guys had come to this town for the race. We heard a tractor nearby, however, and one of the dudes ran to where he heard it and later came back with a gruff looking, but helpful, Japanese on a tractor. That thing made short work of pulling my Civic out of the ditch, the guys sped off to the race (they were late and could only spectate), and luckily my car drove afterwards without any problems. We were worried at first, since while I was stuck my right wheel wouldn't move. I've learned my lesson though; screw driving on mountains! Tractors ftw! (for the win)

"She thinks my tractor's sexy..."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYiWgsmxOTo

Me and my two companions made it to see some of the races as well. They were fun to watch, but they wanted to hit the beach and the onsen that day as well, so we didn't stay for the whole event. The beach was nice (it was no Miami though!), and the onsen was awesome. :D Unlike most hot springs where they're all nude and separated by sex, this one was co-ed and had you wearing a yukatta. Here are some photos:

The following weeks were a bit more laid back. I'm still an active member of the Yatsushiro gym called Arest, where I go usually 4-5 times a week. I've started practicing with the Kagami Jr. High soccer team, so my legs are pretty sore. I'm also wishing I were better at soccer, but I'm doing a better show of it than the one time I tried playing 'soft tennis' with my school's team. Give me real tennis any day!

This brings me to the last part of October and Halloween; many things were good, some things were extremely annoying, and others were just plain fun. Starting with the good: three weeks before Halloween, my 1st grade English teacher showed me a 28 kilogram pumpkin and asked if I would carve it into a jack'o'lantern. Pumpkins are a bit rare here and this thing was huge! I naturally agreed to help, and recommended carving it a bit soon to the 31st, since Kyushu is really humid and the pumpkin wouldn't last too long after getting carved.

(Cellphone picture of the pumpkin coming soon!)

The same teacher also gave me a vampire costume that she bought at Toys 'R Us and said that I would get to teach all four of the 1st grades something about Halloween. It's looking to be a pretty good Halloween! Yet the teacher was pretty eager for me to carve the pumpkin soon, and against my good judgment I agreed to carve it sometime about on the 15th. I know I should've waited longer, but hearing her ask me each day if I was going to carve it today was getting a bit grating :P I'll be more patient next year if I get one, as I'll explain in a minute...

So I'm given until lunch to carve this mammoth pumpkin into a jack'o'lantern. It's been years since I've carved one, and back when I did they were much smaller! I finish up in about 90 minutes, however, and it looks pretty cool, if a bit simple.

Now apparently the natural reaction to a carved mammoth pumpkin is to hide it in the closet "to let it dry." Yes, I'm sure this 70% humidity is really going to suck this thing dry! (Most of this section is going to be sarcastic, sorry!) They also told me that the pumpkin would be safer locked up, as they feared that students would smash Mr. Mammoth to smaller mammoth bits if given the opportunity. A good two weeks pass like this, with me asking if we can display the pumpkin, and them giving me similar answers such as "the teachers dont like the smell."

Oh well, at least I can show the Super-sized Jack'o'lantern when I do my Halloween lessons, ne? Well, that's what I figured when I asked the teacher to bring in the pumpkin in next day. (The teachers had disposed all formality and just dumped the pumpkin at the English teacher's house, probably hidden in a closet of some sort). Even on the 30th I'm reassured that Gigantor will be back at school and ready for Halloween.

It appears, however, that despite the time-honored Halloween ritual of drying a pumpkin in a closet, that the jack'o'lantern had gone rotten and was now contributing to rural society in somebody's compost heap. I imagine this was told to me right before my first Halloween lesson to give me that extra mean-looking vampire face.

The lessons themselves went fine and were actually pretty fun once I got over the demise of el Gigante. It just seemed like such a colossal waste of money, time, and energy when all that happened was that the teachers saw me carve a pumpkin and learned that they dislike said cut-up vegetable's smell. I'll buy a freakin' scratch 'n sniff next year if it's all the same to them :P

So, to anyone who just read all that rambling and ranting, I apologize :) I often hear through other ALTs that this job can sometimes be pretty meaningless, but I didn't think that included doing work that in turn became pointless. I can definitely kill dead time through the internet and Japanese studying, but some of the excuses I got for not displaying the pumpkin to the students made me both want to slap my forehead in exhasperation and also run over and lob the pumpkin off the 4th story window. At least that end would've been satisfying.

Until next time! I'm off to wipe this white face paint off and get ready for spin class. Happy Halloween!

This one's kinda long...

2007-09-27T23:01:00.000-07:00

By next week I will have been in Japan for two months. It really doesn't feel like it's been that long! This could be because each couple of weeks have been so different from each other that I've been constantly adjusting and adapting and not had much time to settle in. From the orientation and workshops in Tokyo, my home-stay family and first days in Kagami, 'working' at the Board of Education, 'working' at my school while the students prepare for sports day and start of term tests, to hosting my long-time friend while I had barely unpacked, and to now finally getting to actually get into some classes and teach these kids English. You'd think I would have actually started teaching by now!

So this past week I was given the chance to finally introduce myself and prepare (well, I had a little say at least) some lessons. By this, I mostly just go along with what the English teacher is going to teach, and only step in when the English being taught is wrong :) Which isn't all that often, but as the only native speaker in my school I feel that the English being taught should be native sounding! Now if I could only lose my horrible accent when I pronounce the students' names... I've come to expect that the class will laugh out loud when I attempt to address them by name; they say their names so freaking fast! It'd be like me saying Ryan so quickly that all you hear "Rnnn." I suppose having 12 syllables in a name would necessitate a slightly faster speech than the slow canter that I use sometimes, and especially when I'm mashing up the Japanese language. I'll get it down eventually though!

While my work at school is only beginning to get a semblance of regularity, back at home I've already settled into a routine. I wake up around 7 or 7:15am, get some breakfast, shower, and bike into work around 8:20. Once I leave school at 4:15 I generally relax for an hour or two and then grudgingly ride my bike for 35-45 minutes into the nearby city of Yatsushiro to work out at my gym. The place is tiny and totally overpriced, but it gets me out of the house, speaking entirely in Japanese, and meeting quite a few people. It doesn't hurt that most of the young women that go are good looking. :D I've been limping around for the past week as I'm totally out of shape, but one of my goals is to get back the six-pack I had in high school. This means I'm working out longer than I did in Utah and at FIU, but I think it's time well spent.

Other than exercise, I've been mostly reading and lounging on the computer. Being on the computer is certainly nothing new to me, but I haven't read this much for several years now. In the span of about a week I've read Dan Brown's first book, "Digital Fortress "(bleh, more on that later), the first book in a series called "The Farseer," and am working my way into "Catch 22." After reading Brown's book, I've come to realize that all his stories are basically the same, and many of the stuff he says is barely fact or even worse, complete crap. I think reading four of his books is more than enough to read one stupid story! It's certainly time to move on; Dan Brown, you can certainly write some page turners, but once I stop to think what I'm reading, it doesn't seem like YOU put much thought into what you were writing. I think I'll start alternating books between fun/fantasy/etc and books I should have read while in school yet somehow missed. A side benefit from all this reading is that it totally kills the dead time I often have at work when there is nothing for me to do. :) The enormous, empty bookcase I have at home will hopefuly be full in no time!

One last thing I'd like to mention before I lose myself to weekend fun: to my FIU buddy, Glenn, I offer my prayers and thoughts as you deal with the death of a sibling. :( I learned about her death indirectly through Facebook, and thought it was by a car crash or something similar. I never imagined I'd know someone who actually was murdered... while I can't do anything to help, if you ever do read this I'd like for ya to know that you, Melanie, and your family are in my prayers and that I wore black today, even though nobody here probably realizes why I'm not wearing the traditional 'salary man' outfit of black pants and white shirt. :P I don't know what the heck I would ever do if something like that happened to one of my brothers...but yeah...

So that's it for now. By next week I should have my Honda Civic and will finally be able to explore my area without my bike or taking the train; huzzah! I'll also look into how to post pictures here, since I imagine not everyone can check my Facebook to see the Japan pictures I post there.

Cheers!