IrishOboe

Monday (Oct. 3rd) was a so-so day with classes and I was busy doing exam grading. It was a great day considering how much happened in the weekend. After school I had double booked myself, but it worked out okay in the end. I went to two-thirds of ICC (English club) and we had a great time playing party games like “Bang.” I was sad to leave them but I’d promised the brass band (what we simply call band) that I’d come. As far as I could gather, a director comes in once a month and other than that they are on their own. They practice three hours each day six days a week, too! Anyway, however their regular schedule is, when I was there it was 11 first year students and not an adult in sight. The third-year students are done for the year (or so I gathered) and the second-year students are on their school trip. It was great to have time with my students in a setting where they are comfortable and the group is small! I played a little, they played a very little, we talked and joked and had a good time. In that setting they responding to my acting and miming and being a goof, so that was very much fun, too. Sometimes I still wish I were in junior high or elementary school. They are just too serious and cool in the high school classroom! I’m just grateful to have some at-ease time with my students, though. I taught them some English and they taught me some Japanese (which later turned out to be a bit of a rude saying, but no harm was done). I stayed until 7ish and I promised I’d come again next week. It’s too tempting to have a group of music students with lots of time and no director . . . Besides, what better what to learn some Japanese?

I got home quite late and didn’t have time to do much of anything. I’ve learned to not think of it as overtime but as taking advantage of the unique opportunities that I have here while I’m in Japan. Unfortunately, it’s making it even more difficult to keep up with my domestic responsibilities and my role as a friend!

Tuesday (Oct 4^th) I took a long time finishing up grades. I’m new to the whole teaching and grading and my test was very poorly written so it was hard to grade and hard to learn anything about the student’s ability from it. So, I had to grade easy and it was hard to decided how and then I had to enter it all in to an Excel spreadsheet and I don’t know if you’ve ever had trouble getting Excel to do what you want, but it’s even more difficult when everything is in Japanese. I was so proud of myself for figuring out how to do a copy and value paste (not an exact paste) that I shouted out loud. I still don’t know quite how I managed to figure it out. It’s not like I knew Excel that well on an English operating system. How do I even have a clue? First, many things are in katakana (coppee, paisto), and second, the little shortcut cues are there (like copy (C)) so I can guess a little from that, like (V), hmm, what might that stand for . . . It’s not much of a clue, but it’s been getting me around.

Anyway, in Inoue sensei’s class we watched Back to the Future as a treat for the kids' being done with their exam (which was a much better test than the one for the first years). I hadn’t seen it since I saw it with Heather ages ago and I was very sick. I think we were both still homeschooled, so what was that, 14 years ago? I was so sick, in fact, that when we put in the sequel I just went to bed, so I’ve never seen it. Once again it was funny to watch an English movie and be the only native speaker. They had fun watching me laugh when they didn’t find it funny . . .

My other class that day was by myself since Sasaki sensei is on the school strip with the second year students. I had more discipline problems than usual but not too bad given the circumstances. It wasn’t the greatest lesson, though. I’m still learning . . .

I stayed after a few hours working on grades.

Wednesday (Oct 5^th) I didn’t teach any classes because the Australians were here during my class times. We greeted them and showed them around and made fans out of paper that we marbled and wrote in Japanese calligraphy on. Then we went to music class and I played oboe (Faure’s "Sicilienne" from Pelleas et Melisande) with the music teacher (I still can’t remember her name . . .) and I played a tune on my whistle. They really enjoyed it, and I enjoyed performing again. Then students played Sakura on koto and shamisen. The kids from Australia got a chance to play the instruments then we all gathered for a reception. The students were assigned seats so that there were a few Japanese kids and a few Australian kids at each table. I went from table to table trying to facilitate conversation. When I was there some progress was made, but soon after I’d leave there’d be not much going on between the two groups. Argh! I wish I had time to teach them conversational skills! Everyone still had fun, though, and the whole thing went off quite well. My favorite part was when one Australian kid came running off of the bus as they were going to leave because he’d forgotten his shoes. I think I’ve mentioned that in buildings you leave your shoes at the door and put on slippers. The site of this kid running off the bus in the school slippers was just too precious. It was a good lesson in culture for the Japanese kids, too. Anyway, that day I didn’t stay after school and for once I was home before 5pm so I noticed that the bells no longer ring at 6pm, but at 5pm. I guess that’s because that’s when it starts getting dark now. The census lady picked up my census and I spent the evening studying Japanese because I didn’t want to do any work . . .

Thursday (Oct 6^th) I stayed two hours after school to finish lesson plans for tomorrow (TV coming), today’s lessons went okay, but I had a lot more fun visiting Naito sensei’s 3-5 class. They are the top third year students, so they were able to understand a fair amount of what I said. They just asked me questions (with a lot of encouragement) and I got some good ones. I think I liked it so much because they laughed at my jokes . . . I spent nearly the whole fifth period with them. It was fun!

At home I had dinner, studied some Kanji, and wrote updates. That took the 2 hours that I had between work and bed . . .

Friday (Oct 7^th) my classes at school were changed around because TV news wanted to take a few classes. As far as I could gather they wanted to introduce Shirane High School, but for some reason they were only going to film two English classes, one of which was mine. I thought I heard that the principal chose it, but he’s never seen me teach so I’m not sure about that. In any case, for whatever strange reason they decided to tape the most inexperienced teacher to represent their school. No stress, I was happy that it is my best class and that I’d have a chance to try out the new lesson with the class I usually have after them but this time I had it before because of the change of schedule. That gave us time to fix up the lesson and have a dry run before the cameras rolled. The class went pretty well and the kids were excited to have the cameras there, too. I am starting to get the hang of this teaching thing, but I am still constantly trying things and discarding or changing them.

I had to stay an hour late so that I could finish up the lesson plans for Tuesday since Monday is National Health and Sports Day. I had planned to go to dinner with Fred this evening then go with him and other JETs on a road trip for the three day weekend but I decided I'd better stay home for a number of reasons. The first is that I am a bit sick and I want to kick it as quickly as I can. The second is that I have a lot to catch up with that’s not getting done because I’m busy with school during the week and busy having fun on the weekends. It’s been great, but I really need some down time and my body was telling me as much with its threats to get very sick. So, after school Friday I totally relaxed and put no pressures on myself. I had a nice dinner, drank a lot of juice and studied Japanese.

Saturday, Oct 8^th I slept in and I am still managing to keep this cold to a minimum and I cleaned up my kitchen and bathroom, studied Japanese, and worked on catching up with blog updates. It was a fairly productive day, which is always happy. I went to the produce stand and the lady tried very hard to have conversation with me. I think she was telling me to do something with the daikon (Japanese radish) I was buying but I’m not sure what (I ended up shredding some with a potato peeler and putting it in raman, and it was delicious!). I was able to catch more since I’ve been studying, but there is still so much that I don’t know and so much that I forget when I’m in a situation. She was nice enough to keep trying, though, and I was able to say a few semi-intelligent things. I’m glad to know that she won’t give up on me, though, like many foreigners do on Japanese folks who are trying to speak English. I am amazed by the amount of truncated English people speak. It drives me bonkers: “I here two year.” What? Even I can’t understand that! Maybe I confuse people, but I still insist on using correct English. I feel like I’m insulting them if I don’t (especially since some of their English is very good!). Anyway, I bought tofu for the first time and a big huge chunk of it was 47 yen! That’s about 40 cents. I’d avoided it up until now because it comes in large amounts and I’ve never cooked it and there are different types and I have no idea how to tell the difference. It happened that this time I got the silky kind (not firm, and I think Jon and family usually get the extra firm). I was going to try to make tofu steak again (this time using the hints I got from Naito sensei), but she had said the silky kind was hard to work with. Oh well, everything is one big experiment. I used chicken nugget breading mix (oops, I didn’t know it was that when I bought it) and udon noodle flour (same oops) as the breading. Haha! It tasted delicious, though. Maybe I’ve hit on something. Anyway, I nearly forgot about church, but I managed to catch the train and had another wonderful time. There is something about being surrounded by nonbelievers that makes church so special here. I was really able to worship whereas in the past some of the music and less-than inspiring lyrics would have prevented me. I don’t know if my understanding of some of the contemporary music has changed so that I can appreciate what they are trying to say, or if I’ve just learned to alter them enough to be able to worship in truth, I don’t know. I suppose it doesn’t really matter. It was wonderful to see everyone again and I met a few more folks. We went out to Jolly Pasta for dinner and though there wasn’t as much talk about the sermon this time, it was still a delight. I got a ride to Kofu station and decided to stop by Rudy’s since he’d given me a call during church and we hadn’t spoken in a while. I could only stay an hour or so at his place before my last train, but I’m glad we had a chance to catch up. He’s having some trouble at work and it made me realize how lucky I am that I’m at a school where they let me do whatever I want and learn from my mistakes and they like what I do!

Sunday, October 9^th, I slept a long time and still kept my sickness at bay. I spent the whole day rededicating my life to Christ. I’ve been so easily influenced by the pressures around me that I’ve lost sight of the goal. I enjoy work and the company of people here so it has been easy to say yes to whatever is asked of me. I throw myself into my work when I’m there and put in the overtime when it’s needed. I usually say yes to anyone who wants to go out at night or on the weekend, and I always have a good time, but it’s taking all of my time. I don’t know why I thought I’d have more time once I was out of school . . .

I prayed, and meditated, and reviewed everything in The Purpose Driven Life that I’d read so far. My church in Rochester is going through it and since I happened to have a copy in my apartment (just happened to?) I’m reading with them. I definitely have some problems with the book and the way it’s written, but there are some very good points in there and it’s serving as a very good way to refocus myself.

While contemplating a particularly troublesome point I tried to go for a run/walk (which is usually good for thinking time). I haven’t run in three weeks since the doctor told me not to run for two weeks and it’s been a month since I hurt my knee on Fuji but I went about 8min before I was in pain again. I had a nice walk around the “park” (a strip of land next to a highway, but at least there are trees!) and accomplished my thinking but couldn’t run at all on the way back. This pains me (no pun intended) because I had so much joy running and exploring and improving when I first got here (and this summer). It is so frustrating to not be able to do it at all and to have no improvement either! I didn’t let it bother me – I have other important things to do, but I would appreciate your continued prayers. That evening I discovered that I’d had the foresight to put the New York City Ballet Workout DVD in with my computer DVDs so I was able to do that and get a workout without hurting my knee. I brought everything over in two suitcases and I still have so much stuff it gets lost in my apartment . . .

As a trivial example of “Seek ye first the kingdom of God and all these things shall be added unto you,” even though I gave the day to God when I came back from my walk I took a shower and ended up cleaning the very disgusting drain that hadn’t been cleaned in years. Hm, maybe this is an accomplishment that doesn’t work to share in a blog, but part of my trouble with not having time for important things is that I want to keep a clean house (not that it shows right now). Getting a yucky job done spontaneously was a little blessing from God in otherwise restful Sabbath day.

I’ll leave you with one of the many thoughts I had during the day. I was looking over St. Patrick’s breastplate and pondered the “purity of virgin souls” line. I always thought it was odd that he invokes all these great powers and then mentions the souls of women who are pure. What’s the big deal? Well, maybe it is a very big deal and very powerful but I saw another way to look at it. It doesn’t say “purity of virgins’ souls” so maybe he means souls that are themselves virgins. In other words, souls that have not sold themselves out to the world and have stayed devoted to God. What do you think? Or is this another “duh” moment for Janet since she first saw those words when she was 9 years old and didn’t understand what any of it was about? I can picture gathering around Linda’s piano when we first sang it. Can you (Mom, Dad, Heather)?