burningbright

Ball-sports day; played on the sensei volleyball team against the winning class of the student tournament. We lost. I’m sure I cost us a few points, having a) forgotten my contacts and b) no idea where the ‘out’ and other important lines were on a court full of incomprehensible scribblings.

Being yelled at and not understanding a word they were saying put me right back in high school gym class, because being yelled at during sports is the same in any language. I know it’s just a game, but then how can it tear you up inside with doubt like that? Shoulda, like, learned the rules first or something.

Well, it was fun hanging out with the kids, and I wasn’t going to be remembered at this school for my athletic prowess anyway. I’m actually quite happy, just because the teachers asked me to join a team this year, that meant a lot. And it’s a gorgeous day out, how sad can I be?

March 20th, 2006
Categories: school, deep thoughts . Author: ximena . Comments: No Comments

Ahh, it’s a beautiful day in the inaka. My worst class of the year is officially over, how can I not be happy?

One bit of sad news: the names of 4 or 5 leaving teachers were revealed, among them one of my favorites, a Japanese teacher of English and team-teacher who was always quiet, but not afraid to speak English and respected by the students.

When we first met I thought Keiko-sensei was very sweet and shy to a fault. My second year we started teaching together and my [ever-ready and unquenchable] opinion dropped from shy, to hesitant-bordering-on-stupid.

Our teaching styles never quite meshed, but I learned to back off a little and let her personality set the tone of class, and we got through it.

Even though our team-teaching wasn’t brilliant, as a result of teaching Keiko and I spent a little more time together outside of class. I learned that if I listened more and spoke less, she always had something to say. Maybe reserved and deferential, but not shy.

Keiko-sensei seems older than her young-thirties, and not so much sweet as graceful, and a lady. She practices ikebana (Japanese flower arrangement), which suits her well somehow. In fact, being gracious and reserved (and pretty too) as she is without even trying, she is probably the personification of the ideal Japanese woman on somebody’s list, but she doesn’t seem in a hurry to get married.

Eventually she replaced Chatty Supervisor as my goto woman in the staffroom, always willing to help me and a vault-like keeper of confidences. I’ll miss her come April when she leaves for her new school. Which will be the alternative high school I visited, as it turns out. I hope she likes it there.

March 17th, 2006
Categories: school, happenings . Author: ximena . Comments: No Comments

15:30
The air is thick. Everyone is waiting today, laughing and chatting like nothing is happening, but I can feel anticipation.

Today the principal went to the central BOE, and soon he will arrive back at school knowing which teachers will go and which will stay.

It’s the same every year, the whole prefecture of teachers plays musical schools, so that no teacher is ever at a school longer than 4 or 5 years. But sometimes they get to stay 6 or 7 years, and one teacher was at this school for 15 years, I heard, a record.

The record was broken when he left last year, like the chosen ones will next week.

Whose time is up? We’ll know within the hour…

March 16th, 2006
Categories: school, happenings . Author: ximena . Comments: 1 Comment

Another day at the desk, making sure the computer doesn’t get lonely.

Did my taxes, read my book, ate a salad lunch in preparation for a swimsuit vacation, haven’t cracked my Japanese yet.

Looked at my giant pack list, which got me sort of excited, but not past the swimsuit hurdle. Ugh, why do I have to deal with this? Why can’t I just be a guy and wear trunks and have no one care anyway.

I think I’m about to go down a dangerous road of petulant stewing, so, I won’t. Going to go look longingly at the rice fields from the ivory tower of the balcony.

March 16th, 2006
Categories: happenings . Author: ximena . Comments: No Comments

Came to school this bright lovely morning to find a parking lot full of bright baby junior high students, all ready for their entrance exams. Some of you will be mine, little kiddies, come to me!

Creepiness aside, I had a good eyebrow raising moment this morning when the vice principal made a special announcement during the morning meeting, regarding a potential student. Apparently one of the examinees has brown hair.

Lest we eye him/her disapprovingly for his/her apparent disregard for the un-dyed hair rule, he said, let it be known that said student evidently has an American father, and the hair has been confirmed natural. Heavens me, luckily now the entire staffroom knows his family background and that’s all been cleared up…

Well, given the harshness of judgements directed at perceived deviation from the rules, I guess they’re only being kind in giving him a fair chance. Sarcasm aside, I’m of course totally curious to meet this kid. Half American, huh? How’s his/her English? Would they take my class? That would be cool, but intimidating. Can’t wait.

The latest I Hate-o Katakanaengrish update; “My boom.” Means, ‘latest fad that I’m into.’ From ‘boom in popularity’ I suspect. About ruined my day when I heard it this morning; “Recently yoga is my biggest my boom[u].” ARRRGGH!!!!! It just sounds, so, STUPID.

And finally, the latest in personal news; apparently the study abroad program I went on in college no longer hires a resident assistant, so I won’t be getting that job in the fall. Found out this morning, bit of a disappointment but also feels like a question resolved, now what to do instead? WWOOF? Or something that, you know, pays?

March 7th, 2006
Categories: school, happenings . Author: ximena . Comments: 4 Comments

Spent last weekend in Tokyo. I hadn’t been back since the insane days of job orientation I vaguely recall from when I first arrived in Japan. From out here in the middle of nowhere inaka, north of Osaka on the Sea of Japan, it’s a 10-hour overnight bus ride.

Ever more the master of sleeping in transportation, I fell asleep at 8 pm when the bus departed, and woke up in the parking lot of my destination around 6 am, both ways.

I stayed with my friend R-chan, originally from Tokyo but married to a man from this most rural of areas, at her parents’ house. In Chidori, for those in the know, which is still Tokyo proper, I believe, but more like a suburb (or another Canadian province) as far as travel times go.

Because–as statistics indicate but I never fully appreciated until becoming acquainted with the hairball of a subway/train system–Tokyo is f$%@ing enormous. And really full of people.

My friend’s parents kindly offered to drive us around the first day, so we checked out the Tokyo Tower, the Imperial Palace Garden and Asakusa Temple–three major tourist spots, but I have to say the garden was quite beautiful, especially as an island of green in the middle of metal-and-glass downtown. I was hoping for a glimpse of the Japanese royal family, but no luck. I guess the Imperial Household Agency was keeping them in their cages that day.*

At my request we also stopped at Yasukuni Shrine, the infamous war memorial honoring Japanese war dead, including recognized war criminals. Prime Minister Koizumi visited this shrine on New Year’s Day in a symbolic gesture (Japan doesn’t care what the neighbors think? What Japan does is nobody else’s business? Japan doesn’t owe anybody anything? Still mad about losing the war? Extreme right wing plans to rebuild the empire? theories abound) that threw yet another wrench in the workings between Japan and its angry neighbors, China and Korea.

There was a strong nationalistic theme to the shrine, complete with flags, a loudspeaker reciting wrongs done to Japan during the war, and a museum which houses artifacts such as letters from kamikaze pilots (according to a friend who visited the shrine, who can read Japanese). Needless to say, none of this was translated for the benefit of gaijin visitors. As we left R-chan remarked that seeing the shrine in person only confirmed her distaste for the conservative LDP party.

In the afternoon we had our hair done, and set off for Roppongi to check a couple of swanky nightclubs, the kind they write about in those scene magazines; the Absolut Ice Bar, locations in Stockholm, New York and Tokyo, reservation only, 3500 yennies cover, ice walls, bar, tables. Drinks served in glasses made of ice, hot bartenders in fuzzy hats, next; a samba party in honor of Carnaval with the peacock-like Samba dancers, after which we hit up a diner for food and coffee to wait for the first train.

After 24 hours awake I got 3.5 hours of sleep, then got up again Sunday morning in time for my friend’s in-house flower-arranging lesson (our beds were in the living room). Afterwards we braved the seething masses (and pouring rain) to marvel [watch me marvel at] the “sku-ram-buru” crossing in Shibuya, the one with 5 different crosswalks leading in odd directions, a sea of bobbing heads (or in this case, umbrellas).

On the walk from Shibuya to Harajuku I marveled at the shopping I badly, badly wanted, but held my self back from, alas. At the brand spanking new Omotesando indoor shopping promenade (you just can’t call it a mall) I marveled again at the 2.5 million yen (that’s $US 25 grand, for those who think in greenbacks) watches at the Roger Dubuis boutique.

Finally I peeped the crazy dressed people on Takeshita street in Harajuku, and, marveling accomplished, we turned towards home.

The next day I was on my own, so I braved the crowds and the spaghetti-like trains to visit the Ghibli Museum, coveted by fans worldwide and in order to be the envy of my peers. It was cool, but maybe a little overrated.

Nice displays on the making of animation, of course all in Japanese and therefore complete gibberish to the functionally illiterate, but it all had a nice technicolor-by-way-of-Lord of the Rings feel to it, very Ghibli. And nice God Soldier on the rooftop garden.

After Ghibli, feet dragging, feeling eaten alive by Tokyo and the ravaging hordes, I braved the trains one last time and found my way home in time for dinner. R-chan’s parents very kindly dropped me at the bus station, where we said goodbye and I deposited myself in my seat, where I passed out immediately.

In summary: Japan: still pissing me off, reading back over this post. Tokyo: clean, orderly, fast-paced and a slow grate on the nerves, but cannot fail to impress. The people I met, this time mostly R-chan’s family: unfailingly kind and generous (her mother makes my awesome people list, first for complementing my outfit, and then for asking me to get something off a high shelf because I’m tall. I love a country where I’m considered tall!)

So, pissing me off, exhaustingly fast and impressively huge, and unfailingly kind…why do these three manage to go together?
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March 2nd, 2006
Categories: travel, japan . Author: ximena . Comments: 4 Comments

Sat through the freezingness that is graduation today. The strange formality was just like last year, the kiritsu! rei! chakuseki! (stand! bow! sit!), the fact that students give their speeches at the podium facing the stage instead of the audience, the fact that we all willingly sat in just-above-zero temperatures for an hour and a half with nary a peep of complaint.

I didn’t understand much more than last year, but somehow it didn’t seem so alien this time around. I guess I’ve gotten used to it.

Took pictures afterwards with former students, some happy, some crying. I was sad to think of next year, when my current second-years, some of whom I’ll have taught during all three grades, graduate and I won’t be here. If I’m still in Japan I’ll try to make it to graduation.

That said, I’m not too sad that I’ll be gone. Five more months and I’m moving on to something new. Enough of bowing and nice-nice, enough of “uh-oh, a foreigner, does it speak the language?” Enough of crippled katakana English.*

Enough of watching my two best and brightest students of English (and Korean; both girls taking both languages) jump off the graduation diving board and into the subservient conformist hell that is the Japanese working world. In my humble opinion of course.

One will take the tests for a lowest-level government paper-pushing job (’I just hope I can pass the entrance exams or I don’t know what other job I can get,’ she told me after graduation today). She speaks flawless Japanese and Chinese, in addition to English and Korean.

The other has indentured herself to a supermarket to become a clerk. As a new employee in training they will only allow her to take 1 week of the 3 week trip to Korea she won for taking first place in the speech contest (oh well! shikataganai, nee! she tells me regretfully).

They could go anywhere in the world with their skills, if they had more than the marry-or-office lady checkbox to choose from, and if the school career counselors around here would only be a little more imaginitive, a little less discouraging, a little less sit up straight and tow the line.

Yep, I’m outta here.
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*Most recently, “standplay.” From “outstanding play,” as in grandstanding in order to attract attention to oneself. As in, ‘less standplay, more teamwork.’ AUGGHHHH!!! Who comes up with this shit?

March 1st, 2006
Categories: ornery, school . Author: ximena . Comments: No Comments

I failed to mention one thing that seriously did bother me about the film, and that was the absolutely shitty treatment of all women involved. The women, Ennis and Jack’s wives, helped pay of the price of their husbands’ officially denied relationship, as unsuspecting straight women married to undercover gay men.

As this NYT editorial points out, an ongoing, current-day Christian effort to de-gay gay men still involves marrying them off to non-gay women. If healthy and happy sex can be considered essential to a happy marriage, then this seems like a pretty short road to misery. Not that reminding the Christian Right will do any good, since it has not particularly been noted for its compassion towards women in the first place, but I can’t believe my thoughts didn’t come round to this conclusion earlier.

So; envy, for a relationship I can never know. Anger, at the selfishness of men.

And, alas, bitterness at the unforgivable stupidity of the women who buy into it, of which group I cannot claim never to be a member.

Speaking of films where women’s voices are not heard, I note Gertrude Bell, desert scholar and advisor to T.E. Lawrence when he was Lawrence of Arabia, and a member of the British Women’s Anti-Suffrage League (yeah, you heard me). From wikipedia Gertrude Bell;

Her reason for being against giving women the vote was her view that while women felt that the kitchen and the bedroom were their domain and that they were not worthy of being included in political debate, they were unfit to take part in deciding how the nation should be ruled.

Apparently possessing no small amount of bitterness herself, she wanted women to prove themselves interested in freedom before granting it to them.

I’m not quite to the point of revoking the voting rights of people who don’t know what they’ve got, but…or wait, am I?

February 11th, 2006
Categories: feminist, deep thoughts . Author: ximena . Comments: 6 Comments

I guess I’ll put in my 2 cents on Brokeback Mountain, since it’s like a blogworld membership affirmation or something.

It was a beautiful film, the kind that leaves a feeling with you after you watch it, a taste you can’t shake for a bit.

It was a beautiful film visually as well, the breathtaking scenery of Wyoming (and Canada, according to the credits), filled with blue and green and white. Against all that cool, Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger were hot.

Whether or not it is true, as some guy said–and this blogger quoted and dissertated upon, later to be read by me over at greengabbro–that “unless the bottom had been the whore of Babylon for the last decade or had been fisted by the bear all afternoon there is no way that he gets grabbed and a second later they’re ecstatically assfucking;” whether or not this puts into question the cold hard realism of the story, I thought it was good.

It was so good to be able, not as a heterosexual person but as a woman, to identify with a man in a very realistically portrayed relationship; the one relationship I can never be part of. That’s what resonated in me the most, I think, what left the taste in my mouth–envy.

February 10th, 2006
Categories: deep thoughts . Author: ximena . Comments: No Comments

Tuesday morning a couple of other Assistant Language Teachers in my area came to watch me teach, supposedly to get ideas about teaching for their own schools. Our lesson was supposed to be a normal one, nothing special, ignoring the visitors as much as possible (previous shadowing experiences have included the visitors as subsitute teachers for a day).

I was nervous about it; it was one 2-hour class, what if my Japanese Teacher of English was completely useless, or nervous, or what if the kids were brats or wouldn’t speak? I needn’t have worried, it went very well.

I have to admit, I set things up a little. First, I requested that the shadowing be held on a Tuesday when I teach with my potentially best JTE, and with the class that I have bonded with most. I also wrote a lesson plan, something I don’t usually do (bad, bad slacker ALT) but I figured would help my co-teacher relax a bit.

Whatever the reason, the day was blessed and the lesson went off without a hitch, and, more importantly to me–since this was not so much about showing off perfection as showing a regular (albeit hopefully good) lesson–I got great feedback.

Seriously, they said such nice things about me I rode the high for the rest of the day. Besides the hot air and warm fuzzies, which I cherished, the shadowers also gave me some ideas and pointers about my teaching style and things I can improve, which I very much appreciated.

The lack of feedback is one thing about this job that has been very difficult for me. Good lesson or bad lesson, good plan or no plan, I never hear back about how I’m doing. I’ve pretty much taught myself everything I know, based on student response, because even when a lesson goes badly off track or I’m standing there floundering, most co-teachers will only ever regard me with silent appraisal? amusement? confusion? thinking about lunch? like I’m an alien that dropped from the sky.

They will NOT, under any circumstances, offer even constructive criticism, and it’s something I desperately needed. So, to have someone pay attention and evaluate with an ear toward my improvement filled a void, and that it went so well just made my week.

To top it off, when I returned to my desk from seeing the visitors off, there was, like a vision in a dream, a bag full of ingredients for Mexican eats* sitting there, next to a little lunch bag with three pieces of homemade cake**. No really. We’re not even talking about how things could have been more perfect. Did I mention it was a great day?

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February 8th, 2006
Categories: school . Author: ximena . Comments: No Comments