So Monday I start the teaching. Gonna be interesting. I am ready though. I am ready to start doing something. Sitting at the Kencho all day hasn’t been as bad as I thought it would be on that first day, but I am ready to get rolling with my classes.
Next week will essentially be “self-introduction week.” Some of you would laugh to know what I have lined up for that. And I mean at me, not with me (although I am laughing at myself too). Which begs the question….if you are laughing at yourself and others are laughing at you too, are they laughing with you or at you? Food for thought.
Anyway, I got this whole basic introduction thing to do. I’ve figured out that I’ll have about 18 classes, thus 18 self-intros to do. I am going to be damn sick of myself in a week’s time. “My name is Marcus. I am from California. I like baseball and jazz.” Ok, it’s not quite that basic but pretty darn close. Blah Blah! Hopefully I don’t bore the kids to death cause I know I’d be bored by all that. But then again, I am the exciting gaijin (Japanese for foreigner). So maybe they’ll be riveted by the fact that I like baseball and jazz. Guess I’ll find out.
After I talk for what I hope will be at least 20 minutes (gotta kill some time). After that, I have made a little bingo game for everyone to play, based on what I will have just told them. I plan to put them into groups (so as to not intimidate them too much with my first visit) and then pick questions out of a hat (my San Francisco Giants hat that will also serve as an interesting, I hope, prop). The answers to the questions will be written on a bingo graph that I have already made up and they will have to mark the answers based on memory. Hopefully I explained that well enough for you to understand. Anyway, that will hopefully take at least 10 to 15 minutes and will serve to loosen up the class, and then I’ll just open it up to questions. Classes normally run about 50 minutes. So I figure with all that, we will fill up the time. I am also planning on taking pictures of some of you (namely my parents, my brother and his girlfriend, and Amy, oh and my cat too), some American money, and, if I can find anything around the apartment that I think they might find interesting, a thing or two more. All this is mere time filler to me but maybe will serve to liven up the bunch and keep their eyes pointed in my general direction.
So there you have it……or that’s the plan anyway. Reality might be entirely different.
Ono-san took me to four of the schools today, just to show me where they were, I guess. Very nice though. Went by Yuda High (the all girls school). Didn’t see any of the girls but I met a few of the teachers, although none I will be working with. Was shown the teacher’s room, talked with one person (the guy showing me around) and we were out of there. It was an unexpected visit and one that wouldn’t have happened if, as we were pulling out of the parking lot, I hadn’t asked Ono, “So next Wednesday, when I get here, where do I go?” If you’ve ever wandered onto a school grounds and looked around, you’ll know why I asked.
Then we went to Sundai Junior High. It is one of my every other Tuesday schools. Mr. Yamashita (pronounced Ya-ma-sh-ta, I think and hope) is the only teacher I will be working with here. He was the reason for Ono taking me out in the first place as he, on the day all the teachers came to meet me at the Kencho three weeks ago, had asked if I knew how to get to his school. I told him that Alaina (my predecessor) had left instructions and that I’d probably bike out there some day just to make sure I could get there. So then he asks me when I was planning on coming. I told him I didn’t know and I tried to make it clear that I was just going to bike out there and then bike back. I had no intentions on staying or meeting anyone. I kinda wanted to do this at my own pace as I had no idea how long it would take to get there and thus, didn’t want to make any kind of appointment. Plus, I’d have to do it on a weekend when I wasn’t at the Kencho. Well, he didn’t seem to get the hint and asked if I could come out on the 29th of September (today). So, of course, I said “yes” and he said he’d call me to make arraignments. I had forgotten all about this (cause I never heard a thing more about it) when this morning Ono says to me that Yamashita would like us to come out today. So ok, what am I gonna say?
Mr. Yamashita is great guy, though, and I think working with him will be quite fun. After the tour and the short chat we had today, I wish I was going there every week. He speaks very good English and seems to be enthusiastic about having me there. In fact, today he asked if I could stay a little longer next Tuesday to help him review some speeches the kids wrote, and then he told me that there will be a school festival on Sept 21st (a Sunday) and asked me if I might be able to attend and help judge the students’ speeches. It’s only 2 hours that Sunday and I don’t get live football anymore so I told him yes. What the hell? I think it will actually be rather fun. I just hope the students who don’t win don’t hold it against me.
Yamashita also asked me not to bring a lunch next week as he and I would be going out if that was ok. Yes, again. So all in all, it was a great visit, although I still have no idea how long it takes to bike there!
Then, this afternoon, Ono and I made the trek out to the Japanese Aviation Academy and then to Shizen Gakuen High School. The JAA is only 2 stops west on the Chuo line and then short walk (10 minutes ?). I go there on Thursdays. No one was expecting us and we didn’t really stop. So I just saw it. Looks nice though.
Shizen Gakuen is my other Tuesday school and is a Chirstian boarding school. I will try to remember not to bring my religious philosophies into my classrooms as I don’t think they’d go over real well but if it comes up, I am going to be honest. Anyway, this school is the one that will require quite a bit of travel. Three stops west on the Chuo line, then a fifty minute bus ride, and then a 15 minute ride in a small bus/van. I have to make the change from the one bus to the other in a town that looks like it has no more that 100 people living in it. Quite beautiful up there though. It’s up in the mountains with small villages along the way, a small river flowing down, and many many trees. But this will also, I imagine, serve as the most dangerous part of my Japanese experience—Ono told me that in winter, the road gets icy, of course, then he told me that it is well maintained, but that might have just been a cover.
So we finally get to the school, look at it, and then start the drive back down the hill. It didn’t look as if anyone was there, but then again, this is a school that has, I believe, a student body of about 40. My second class has only 3 people in it. Gonna have to approach that class in an entirely different manner than I do my other classes at the other schools which seem to be averaging about 40 students per.
So there you have it. That was my day today. I actually feel much better about next week. Why? I’m not sure. But at least I know where I’m going. Besides my Monday school, I have now at least laid eyes upon each of them.
One more quick note. On the way to that last school, we passed two buildings that looked rather out of place. One was up on a small hill and had a small replica of the Statue of Liberty on it. The other had some rather castle-like features on it. Frankly they both looked like they belonged in Las Vegas without all the neon. I had read and heard about such structures and had a pretty good idea of what they were. But I decided to ask Ono anyway just to see if he would first, answer me truthfully, and second, confirm my suspicions. And sure enough he did both. Both he said were “hotels for….(searched for the word here)….lahvahs” (aka. lovers) Ah yes, the famous love hotels. We both had a good laugh and I thought to myself, “hmmmmm, perhaps a future story for the journal………….?” Rated less than X, of course. My mom is reading this too, you know.