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| Observations.Going home for the first time in a year was awesome and amazing and I was extremely busy seeing way too many people in two weeks! I think the most surprising one of all was seeing Winnie at the airport, her heading to HK and me back to Nihon, but on the same connecting flight to Detroit first. Since it seems like a once-every-3-years kind of thing for us, I suppose we'll see each other at an airport in 3 three years. =)
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I never missed NY as much as I did when I first came here last year, and after maybe a week of eating ramen, udon, and soba, I wanted pizza. Except pizza here is not fit for consumption until you get rid of the corn and the mayonnaise, and on occasion, the mini hot dogs and burgers. Being home for those two weeks, I realized just how much I missed good pizza and good, real Chinese food. And without question, home-cooking. Random, maybe, but food from home is comfort food no matter where you are. I also realized just how FAT Americans are. I've lived there my whole life (except for study abroad and the past year here), but I guess I didn't notice because I saw it every day. Granted, the portion sizes given do not help matter (what's with the 12-inch plates?!), but people really need to exercise some will-power (as well as actually exercising)!
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I went to a diner while I was back, and I ordered a salad and fries thinking they would be small portions (why else list them as appetizers?) and what I got was a GIANT PILE of vegetables (which was fine by me since Japanese people don't eat them unless fried or pickled) and a HUGE 12-inch basket of fries! I think I laughed because I wasn't sure if the diner/waiter was serious I should be eating ALL of that in one sitting. I ended up taking the fries home and they put it in TWO containers. (I almost forgot I could do take-out/to-go!) That should tell you just how much food Americans *might* consume in a meal.
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I went to eat in an Italian restaurant in Little Italy with a group of friends and everyone's portions looked gi-nourmous. And we ordered appetizers to share, which was probably not a good idea considering no one finished them and we had to eat a main dish afterwards. I ended up taking HALF my dinner to go because, one, I could (Seriously, take-out isn't done in Japan!), and two, I couldn't believe how much food there was. And I eat A LOT! >_<
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I saw the petty McCain ad against Obama, and I have nothing to say about it... except that Paris Hilton is the ONLY one who looks smart out of the whole thing, which is sad, really. I liked the touch about painting the White House pink. Classic. This is regardless of whether or not she actually came back with the retort mocking the old, white-haired guy. The delivery was what counted.
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I just saw this hilarious commercial where Jackie Chan gets trapped in a box with only his Visa card and ends up being shipped to the Olympic stage where Yao Ming is standing as the winner on the stand. Then Jackie Chan uses the Visa card to slice open the box he's trapped in and is mad-rushed by photographers and fans because the chance of Yao and Chan appearing together seemed so unlikely.
The tagline for the commercial - Don't go anywhere without your Visa and Ganbarre Nihon! (Good luck Japan!)
This, in a commercial featuring Chinese people. Oh, Japan.
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For once in my life, being in an area where the Olympics is playing (Asia) doesn't help me at all. I'm one hour ahead of the scheduled 8 PM start so I'll be watching at 9 PM. I'm also going to miss the live airings of the big swim finals because they're at 8 AM, meaning I'll be at work at 9 AM, not glued to my television or watching the live feed from the internet. =(
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| Ijime.Ijime, or bullying, is rampant in schools in Japan. Even if it weren't really, at the schools I work at, it is.
I notice it between the 1st and 2nd years sometimes, but it's mostly because of the few boys who think they are all that and more. They've been forming their own little gang and were the ones involved in the fights a few weeks ago. I actually see much less of it with the 2nd years but I think that has to do with the JTE I teach with, who, being the baseball coach, no one messes with.
The 3rd years at my school are different. Different in the sense that I've known them the longest time now (also taught the most in general) and they are different from when they were 2nd years. As 2nd years, some of the baseball boys actually tried to do well and were always genki for games and other activities I threw at them. Many of the baseball boys were in the same class so in order to one-up each other in class and on the field, they would actually volunteer to answer questions in class. At the time, there wasn't any bullying by them to other kids. They were the baseball boys - the jocks, the demi-gods to be revered because they were playing the all-American Japanese sport of baseball. All they had to do was sit back and be cool.
Ever since April, with the arrival of new students and the new school year, the baseball boys have changed. All the students were re-arranged into different classes. There was one kid in particular (NG) who was always an ass but since the change, he's turning 1 of the other baseball boys (IE) into asses as well. And I mean full-on jerks. They disrespect pretty much everyone now. IE, who was nice and very Japanese (as in respectful), is now trying to intimidate the others in the class because NG is in his class. This is how they're one-upping the other. And to top it off, I found out today they were both on the bench on the team until about a month ago. For them, it's supposedly rather embarrassing to be on the baseball team and not play, so I was surprised they exhibit any "power" in class over other students at all.
NG decided to be especially rude and asinine today and started hitting another kid on the head in class. I told him to stop and when he didn't I confiscated his baseball hat to get his attention. He got extremely angry and I was starting to wonder what I'd gotten myself into. (No physical fighting. Promise. Lots of yelling though. And he almost tried to ram the JTE to get to me. He didn't. Ram, I mean.) I don't think it was wrong of me to take something of his when he wouldn't listen, especially since it had to do with bullying happening right in front of me. I may have been wrong when assessing the situation, and he could've been joking around, but I'd seen him do it before and it ticks me off that the JTE can't do anything about it because she, herself, is scared of the kid. (He's still not quite as scary as ADHD kid though.)
If I was wrong about that first situation, I wasn't wrong when I later gave a pencil as a prize to one of the students. This kid (KH) is quite shy, decent at English, wants to talk to me in English, but can't bring himself to do it because I'm ethnically Chinese and he (being prejudiced by his parents, I'm guessing) does not like anything/anyone having to do with China/Chinese people. Partly because he's shy to begin with and partly because he's alright at English (or good at anything academically), the minute I gave him the pencil, NK asks in a rough manner for it, and KH actually gets up and hands it to him! Then he slinks back to his chair and I was left wondering why he gave up so easily when there were two teachers in the room who are witnessing this happening.
I'm starting to feel that the only reason I will learn Japanese is to tell the victimized kids to stop caving in to their tormentors and to tell the bullies that it's stupid to try to be better than someone that way. There is a point where it really just looks stupid from the objective point of view. It accomplishes nothing, at least nothing good.
I don't think I was ever bullied by fellow students but I was by this god-awful man who called himself a teacher when I was in the 4th and 5th grade. I couldn't do anything about it then because I was only 10 years old but I swear I would've screamed if it would've brought real attention to it. I absolutely hate all forms of bullying and I don't stand for it if I see it and can do something about it. Something in me makes me have a need to stop the act, even if it's physically so, and mind you, I hate getting into scrapes of any kind.
After my last ESS for the term today, the kid who speaks English (IO) took me around to the classrooms because the students are already practicing for Sports Day in September. (And they'll be practicing all summer if I'm not mistaken.) IO is a good kid but because he's not in a sports team/club, he wasn't born in this prefecture, and because he lived in the U.S. for a year, he's got a little bit of a target on him. Add to that, he's good at English, and that target circle becomes almost complete. If he were seriously socially awkward, I'd be scared for him.
Walking from classroom to classroom with him, I realized it may not have been such a good thing. While it was great to see the students actually excel at something they like and for them to see me in a regard outside of the classroom and not in the staffroom, I was walking around with a 15-year old who is already made fun of for knowing English. (Since when was knowing English bad and what the hell are JETs and eikawa teachers doing here if it's scorned?!)
We got to his class and his classmates were trying to decide what to do with the song and dance at the festival. Then two of the boys, 1 of them a baseball boy and the other a basketball kid (who's like 6"2') started doing a fake manzai (Japanese comedy) routine. They were basically acting like the stereotype of a gay man. Then they told IO to pretend to be throwing a baseball, miss the target, and then act as gay as he possibly could. I couldn't quite understand all of what was going on but I gathered that much. And the worst part was when 3 more people egged him on to do it, 2 of them being girls.
Before anything more happened, I couldn't help myself and actually said to him (in front of the others) that if they were telling him to do something he didn't want to do, he didn't have to do it. I said it about 3 times too because he looked like he was going to cave in and make a fool of himself. This clearly wasn't friends sharing a laugh, more like a group of others laughing at someone else. Then IO said "Okay" to me and made up an excuse to not do it.
I left about 10 minutes after that and I'm pretty sure he went back to the classroom to talk more about random Sports Day stuff. I'm also pretty sure those kids tried to convince him again. I can only hope that he actually took in what I said and applies it.
I hate bullying.
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| Am I being used?The junior high students have tests coming up next week and this week in English class, my 3rd-year JTE decided she was having a speaking test for the students. I am all for speaking tests when it comes to language, especially if there's no memorizing, but she's not testing them on conversation or constructing sentences on their own. It's only a reading test, and it's a short-as-heck one to boot.
She asked me to evaluate the kids' speaking abilities and grade them on an A/B/C scale, which I was happy to do because I didn't want to think about doing any more worksheets. Listening to others speak? Easy. Done. Whatever, you know?
There are 5 classes and 30-40 students to grade. The students pair up for a dialogue for the test. They read the given material from the book and I just have to listen. Sounds easy. Seems easy enough. Except these kids don't want to read louder than any audible decibel. And I know these kids can be loud because I've been going around to
their club activities after school and, oh man, can they yell and scream
during kendo and judo.
Nor do the other kids want to shut up while their classmates are reading.
I really don't care if you want to sit there after you're done reading and do whatever, but to continually be a loudmouthed jerk when I already can't hear the other kids is rude. To me, to them.
Then again, it's not like their grades count for anything since they will all graduate anyway. It might infringe on what high school they get in to but they don't seem to care. I know English is obviously not the only subject and that their full average may be higher than what I expect, but it's still rather shocking to see that someone can fail at least 3 of their 6-8 subjects and still pass and graduate and get into high school. Even the ones who I just pass over and give them zeros because I don't want to spend 15 minutes getting the kid to stand and read, I know they'll graduate with that line of 10 zeros in the teacher's book. So grades, really, don't matter.
And that's another thing. While I was happy to "evaluate" the students for this test, I'm getting a little bit annoyed at the faces the JTE makes when I give them a higher grade than she thinks they should get. I'll point to the grade I think it is on a piece of paper (say an A), and then she'll have this confused look, and then I'll point to the lower one (say a B), and she'll act like she saw it wrong the first time and write down the lower grade.
Some (Most/more than 90%) of these kids don't participate in class but if they speak loudly enough while reading, don't speak katakana English, don't mess up the pronunciation and intonation otherwise, and don't need help from others on how to say a word, I think it's worthy of an A considering that's what the test is on. I also don't think kids should be downgraded from a higher grade to a lower grade because they are being complete assholes in class (which the JTE tried to do today). Although, if they do it continually, I would be tempted too. Definitely. My guess is that that particular kid's grade will be changed later if it hasn't already been changed.
I've gone through 3 classes so far and have 2 more tomorrow doing the same thing. My job is supposed to be help the JTE, but hell if I'm being used the wrong way, if I can even say there's a right or a wrong way. All I know is it's annoying me either way. Why bother asking me about something if you're going to disagree with it? Clearly, you have an idea already. It's not like asking for a 2nd or 3rd opinion. At least then, I know where I stand even if you don't.
I feel like I'm being used. The wrong way. It's not like telling these students that I'm grading them will matter anyway. They've now taken to playing with condoms in class, as I saw today. At least all I've seen so far is them drawing faces on them and nothing else.
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| list of unbelievable stuff at work/school-3 weeks ago - There were 5 fights in one week, 2 of which were between the same student and teacher. That student and teacher are now talking again, but I think it's because of the "keep your friends close and your enemies closer" mentality.
-Last Thursday - There was a HUGE fight in the school entrance btwn the idiot "punk" 1 nenseis right after impromptu assembly with principal saying "Don't kill each other." Ten minutes later, a fight breaks out.
-Yesterday - A female teacher was punched in the face after she said no to the ADHD kid snapping her bra strap.
-Yesterday - A second fight in four days broke out.
-Today - Someone set a smoke bomb off in the staff room.
-Everyday - The new 1 nenseis smoke behind the school gym everyday (except when it rains or if they're fighting). Apparently they started smoking when they were 12 in elementary school.
-Strange isolated incident two weeks ago - One of the idiot 1 nenseis tried to throw a bike over the school fence.
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| shinjirarehen!!!Last Tuesday, I said that I wrote silly messages on the white board that one of my JTE uses for being in charge of the teachers for the grade. Basically, all I wrote was "hello" and "goodbye" in every language I could think of because I was bored, thinking maybe the guy had a sense of humor. Then I wrote an apology for using the board in case he had that stick so far up he wouldn't like a little bit of silly. I didn't come to school on Wednesday, Thursday, or Friday because I went to elementary schools (where I got giant insect bites on my ankle that are still swollen), so I didn't see his reaction or get a "timely" comment or whatever else. I came back today and now he refuses to talk to me. He straight-up lied to me about the greetings earlier and when someone asked about the messages on the board, he completely ignored her. I can't believe he's actually *mad!!!* that I used his board! An erasable white board! What the hell!  I don't have classes with him this week but I'll still have to talk to him this week about next week's lessons. Maybe I'll do that tomorrow or Wednesday when it'll have been a WEEK since I wrote on his precious white board. I still, very much, can not believe he is mad at something like that. Grey's Anatomy: "Seriously?!" | | |
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