That’s why it’s pretty annoying when people constantly try and get you to take them off. It’s even worse when offending removers try my glasses on themselves and then exclaim “Woah! I can’t see at all!!” Of course you can’t, you fucking idiot. I’m blind. What were you expecting?

Anyway, that’s a side-note. As a glasses wearing teacher, my kids always get a kick when I take my glasses off. Usually, the removal of my glasses means it’s time for angry teacher face/frighteningly wide eyed zombie face -

The 'teacher face' is a mixture between this picture...

...and this one.

On the rare occasion when I am not trying to terrify the shit out of my kids, however, they seem to enjoy Katie-sensei-sans-glasses. The universal opinion is that I look better without them (which is a useless compliment, because I tried getting contacts and boy oh boy was it an experience I don’t wish to repeat).

Today, however, I got a pretty strange one. Some of my kids suddenly shouted out “BIOHAZARD!”

…biohazard?

What a compliment!

I looked confused before one of the boys offered up more information.

“えーーーーーーと、ZOMBIE!”

“…zombie??”

Guess I wasn't so far off with this picture

“… you think I look like a ZOMBIE?” I repeated.

“No no no no no!” they replied. “Biohazard movie! Mi-r-ah… Mi-ri-a…. なんだっけ… “

By which point it had clicked that they were actually talking about the Resident Evil movies. The whole series for some reason is called ‘Biohazard’ in Japan. I guess there are too many r’s and l’s in Resident Evil. (That joke fails because the Resident Evil series came out in Japan first, but let’s pretend I’m funny for a second.)

Thus, the boys talking about Resident Evil could only mean that they were trying to tell me that they thought I looked like-

“ミラ・ジョヴォヴィッチ!”

Ahhhh. Milla Jovovich! Granted I don’t know much about her, nor have I ever seen any of her films. But I’ve heard she’s pretty hot, so I’m flattered. Thanks, kids!

So what do you think, gentle reader? Am I secretly Milla Jovovich’s doppleganger?

(I have to say, this definitely beats the time when a whole class thought I was a fat Taylor Swift and refused to call me by anything but Taylor-sensei…)

However, the start of my Awesome Day was not due to the students, but courtesy of the science teacher who sits in front of me in the staffroom. He asked me if I could go to his class during fifth and sixth period with him. I was a little confused but I agreed. He then presented me with one of these -

- and said that I would need it.

My confusion increased but so did my levels of excitement, and with that I started my day. It was a pretty good day, as usual. English classes were great. Lunchtime was great. I ate lunch with 3-1 (as always). After some of the boys challenged me to a hand squeezing competition and one kid almost broke my hand squeezing it so hard. Business as usual. (ow.)

Lunchtime finished and it was onto the mysterious yet exciting fifth and sixth period.

Basically, it turned out that Mr. Science had put together a massive quiz, with one round on all of the subjects in school. For those not in the know, they were Japanese, Maths, Science, English, Social Studies and P.E.

My heart started to sing when I realised that we would be doing a quiz, i.e. something competitive and that I could potentially win at. It quickly stopped when I realised I would be in a team by myself, facing six other teams of reasonably intelligent 14 year olds.

Needless to say, I was abysmal at the Japanese and Social Studies. I sat, lonely as a team of one, struggling to even read some the questions; let alone answer them. Mr. Science came over, glanced at my sheet and helpfully remarked “Well, at least maths is the same all over the world!” Thanks, Mr. Science :/ At the end of the first two rounds, the teams were averaging a score of 9. I was on -1 (I had a point deducted after I desperately tried to copy another team’s answer and they ratted me out. Booo.)

I did OK on the maths section (still, getting beaten by year 9s at maths was not good for my self esteem) and the science section turned out to be ‘name as many animals as you can’ which I came third in (get in!) English was obviously a piece of piss for me – English shiritori. As I saw off competitor after competitor I could feel myself getting closer to victory, despite my horrific start to the quiz in Japanese and Social Studies. My total domination in the English round and  my efforts in the Science round meant that I was now 4th out of the 7 teams. I could taste victory. And so it was down to the last subject.

P.E.

I had to admit, when I had seen it written on the board I was a little curious as to how it would be incorporated into the quiz.

I had of course forgotten about the hammer, which was produced. Along with a bucket.

…ah.

This was a sign that we were to play what I like to call ‘Extreme Janken’.

As you can see, it’s just like regular ‘Rock, Paper, Scissors’ only the winner gets to twat the loser with a hammer while the loser desperately grabs the bucket for protection. (or in the above video’s case, a dustpan.)

I’ve played this game with other ALTs a few times, and it’s quite an intense game. It’s very hard to play well, as you have to establish three things -

1. Whether or not you have won
2. What item to grab
3. Whether to hit or to block

- all in the space of about a second. It’s very scary.

As Mr. Science asked for the P.E representative of each team to come to the front, it got even scarier as I realised all six of the P.E representatives were boys, most of which were at least four inches taller than me and on top of that they were all quite sporty boys. I feared for my head.

The roster was drawn up. Mr. Science asked me if I would like to face Taku or Kouji in the opening round. I glanced over at Kouji. He grinned at me and flexed his muscles. I decided to go with Taku.

Taku and I came up to the table and faced each other. Taku is one of my favourite kids. He’s really friendly, he’s always smiling and likes to muck about in class and make everyone else laugh. He’s a really sweet kid and I enjoy teaching him a lot. As we squared up to each other, however, I noticed that Taku wasn’t smiling. He wasn’t even looking at me. His gaze was fixed firmly on the hammer. He had fire in his eyes and victory in his heart.

I started to panic.

Mr. Science began the battle.

“叩いて、かぶって、ジャンケンポン！！”

I threw out paper.

Taku threw out scissors.

Before I knew what was happening, I had fled to the other side of the classroom screaming and covering my head with my hands. Taku was still stood at the table, hammer in hand.

“終了！” Mr. Science called out. I slumped back to my chair, miserable in defeat. Taku had regained his goofy smile as he rejoined his group, ecstatic at the fact that he had almost twatted their English teacher on the head with a toy hammer.

The battles continued and soon it was down to the last two; the Janken champion from last term and Kouji, my would-be opponent.

“But before the final battle,” Mr. Science announced, “let’s have the play-offs to see how the losers rank! Katie-sensei and Yuuki, you’re up first!”

I realised I would be playing this dreadful game again and I began to panic. But then I realised my opponent was Yuuki.

Let me tell you something about Yuuki. He’s a little shit. So many times in class I have dreamed about smacking him on the head with a textbook, Japanese-teacher style. Now, I had the chance to legitimately smash his head in with a toy hammer.

I got a little excited.

We squared off. Yuuki is one of the shortest kids in the second grade so I felt certain I would win. Mr. Science began.

“叩いて、かぶって、ジャンケンポン！！”

Our battle was a long battle, partially because I kept going for the hammer regardless of whether I won or lost, partially because Yuuki kept doing the same with the bucket. I was so desperate to win that I couldn’t concentrate. Mr. Science had to tell me on more than one occasion to calm down.

Over two minutes had passed (compared to pretty much every other game which was done in less than 10 seconds, this was an epic battle). But… after what felt like an eternity, I finally managed to lay a smack on Yuuki’s head. The class erupted into cheers. It had become officially the greatest sporting achievement of my life.

The moral of the story is this. Prospective JETs, take note. I spent one glorious afternoon smacking students on the head with a toy hammer to the cheers and applause of their classmates. And I got paid for it.

If that’s not grassroots internationalisation, I don’t know what is.

When I first came here in 2009 I figured I’d stay here for a year until I figured out what I wanted to do with my life. Well, obviously that didn’t turn out as planned.

JET offers a maximum five year contract. At the moment, I am on year 3. I’ll be here until July 2012 at the very least. After that; to re-contract or not to re-contract? That’s the question…

There is something of a social stigma about living in Japan for a long time. You see some of the older 40+ year old foreigners spending all their free time in gaijin bars, hanging out with other ex-JETs, moaning about how today’s JETs have it easy, all whilst their poor Japanese wife is at home and their child is running around the red light district. There are whispers that you can get ‘sucked’ into living in Oita forever. No one wants to be that JET who’s still here 20 years after their contract ended; it has this air of faint embarrassment. Even being a 5th year JET is almost socially unacceptable; a 20th year JET is inexcusable.

Friends back home are the same. “When are you coming back? You can’t surely think of staying there for five years?”

Five years is a long time.

But.

I love Oita! Why on earth would I want to leave?

Why I Love Oita

The Job!

I think this will garner a lot of “WHAT?!”‘s in my fellow JETs, but whatever! I love this job! I hear a lot of other JETs constantly complain about how meaningless and unfulfilling our jobs are; how we are paid to sit in a staffroom and dick about on the internet all day. I guess for some JETs that’s sadly true.

It’s commonly thought that we are under-utilised. To an extent I can agree. I have memories from my first couple of months as an ALT just sitting at my desk, reading books, texting other ALTs telling them how bored I was. Instead of packing things to help me with classes, I packed my bag full of things that would keep me occupied for the 7 hour working day.

Then I decided to step up my game and force the teachers into using me, and now I have no free time to do anything. You might say “But Katie, if you get paid the same no matter how much effort you put into your job, why bother? If there are no repercussions, if you are not liable for your students’ English ability (or lack thereof) then why even bother? Why not just sit around and Facebook all day?”

This is why -

 I love my students!! :)

Other “I love my job” moments include (but are not limited to)

• when students cheer when I walk into their class
•  when the one kid who has never said a single word to anyone finally plucks up the courage to say ‘hello’ to me when I pass him in the corridor
•  when I play Twister with the special ed kids
•  when students come up to me in the corridor and try out the new English slang I taught them
•  when I do the Yoshimura high touch (… hard to explain, not nearly as sketch as it sounds)
•  when a student goes ‘Ah! I finally get it!’ after I explain a grammar point to them
•  when one of my special ed junior high kids comes up to me and tells me the names of Pokemon that she’s learned in English

Everything Outside the Job!

Again, this will probably get a lot of ‘Ehhhhh??’ reactions. It’s true; when most people find out that they are being sent to Oita, I think most people most people are disappointed that it’s not Tokyo. Out of all the Oita JETs I’ve met, only one of them specifically requested to be sent here. For some people, Oita’s the smallest, crappiest excuse for a city that they’ve ever lived in.

As for me? I love Oita city.

• I love the sakura in spring and the red leaves in autumn.
• I love the little old car park attendant who greets me every morning.
• I love my bike ride along the river to school every day.
• I love that I have restaurants and bars that know me by name.
• I love that you can eat fried chicken anywhere, anytime. (my waistline doesn’t love this quite as much though.)
• I love the traditional festivals. I love taking part in them even more.
• I love studying with my Japanese friends after work has finished.
• I love that I can go on an adventure every weekend. If I want, I can spend my free time climbing up a mountain full of monkeys, swimming at the beach, playing in waterfalls, walking around old castle ruins, riding past rice fields; there is so much beautiful nature here. And if I don’t feel like checking out the nature there are plenty of things you can do in the city. People say that there’s nothing to do in Oita. What they really mean is ‘there aren’t many nightclubs in Oita’. There’s plenty to do here.
• I love that I can have new experiences every week.
• I love that we are close to other amazing places like Fukuoka and Miyazaki!

I’m going to be pretentious now and use a quote from The Office, because I really like it -

“If you look at life like rolling a dice, then my situation now, as it stands – yeah, it may only be a 3. If I jack that in now, go for something bigger and better, yeah. I could easily roll a 6 – no problem, I could roll a 6…. I could also roll a 1. OK? So, I think sometimes… Just leave the dice alone.”

If we use that example, I would say I’m rolling 5 right now. I could jack that in and go for the 6, but why bother? I’m very, very happy with my 5.

To sum up, I am going to stay in Japan until my situation becomes less than 4. When I feel like I am done here, when I feel like I am ready to go back home; then I will roll the dice again.

But until then, that dice is staying firmly in my pocket! ;)

(… plus I just reserved an 64GB iPhone 4S with a minimum 2 year contract, so I’m here for a while at least… haha!)

First stop was the Nagasaki Peace Park. Nagasaki was the second site to be nuclear bombed during the Second World War.

I have already been to Hiroshima and seen the Peace Park/Atomic Bomb Museum there, so I was pretty sure that I knew what to expect with Nagasaki. I was totally wrong. Nagasaki had a completely different atmosphere.

Out of the two atomic bomb attacks, people seem to remember Hiroshima a lot more than Nagasaki. I don’t know whether this was because Hiroshima was first to be attacked, whether the death toll was higher (estimated 160,000 people in Hiroshima vs an estimated 80,000 in Nagasaki) or that Hiroshima is not in backwater Kyushu (haha). Regardless, the Hiroshima Peace Park was heaving. There were so many people there, ranging from Japanese school kids to tourists from all over the world to rude old Japanese men demanding to know why English was the only foreign language taught in Japanese schools. Everywhere you looked there were people, people and more people.

One particular memory I have from the Hiroshima Peace Park is a group of Americans stood in a circle, one of them playing the same chord on a guitar over and over again, singing about peace in attempted Japanese. It was at that point that I felt that I could really distance myself from the true meaning of the park; it became less real and hard hitting and more like… I don’t know. It just didn’t feel like the bombings had happened because everything there was just so over the top and noisy. Even whilst walking around the museum, seeing the horrific exhibits and reading the tragic stories, I wasn’t particularly moved in any sense. It just didn’t feel real.

Nagasaki Peace Park was quiet.

There were barely any people there, and there were especially no guitar wielding Americans.

In some ways, that made it worse.

As I read the inscriptions on the statues, it was hard not to get depressed.

Anyway. I won’t get into it too much or it’ll get depressing here, too. If you are interested in reading more then the Nagasaki website has some good information.

Anyway! After that we headed off to the Glover residence, a park/housing area built for Thomas Glover. In short, Glover was a Scottish guy who lived in Nagasaki and helped immensely in modernising Japan.

On the way we also saw the most famous slope in Japan (haha!)

At Glover Park you got to try on traditional British clothes! As a British person this was obviously a rare chance for me (ahaha) but whatever; I love dressing up!!

As we walked past a group of elderly Japanese ladies, Satoshi and I were joking about and I said “Look! A real British person!” The Japanese ladies turned to look and went “Wow it’s true!!!!” ;)

Of course this is good for the kids, but there is nothing worse than teaching classes when it’s 35 degrees, you’re hot, sticky and smelly and you can hear kids splashing around outside. A while back I decided to change this by being sneaky and bringing my bathers to school in the hope that I would get asked to swim with the kids during my free periods. And hurrah! It worked >:D

As I sat down with the other fourth graders by the poolside, a lot of them were surprised. The most common reaction was “Ehhh?? Katie-sensei, can you swim??” -__-;

One student in particular, Hiroki, then boldly asked me “How far can you swim?” I told him that I didn’t really know, to which he replied “Well, I can swim 25 metres!!” (the length of a regular sized pool, for those not in the know) “And I can swim it really, really fast. I bet I can even swim it faster than you, Katie-sensei!”

As a 9 year old, that’s obviously a huge call to be able to make so I applauded him politely, all whilst secretly shaking my fist at him in my mind.

The teacher announced that today’s task would be to swim the 25 metres in one go, which was met with a load of ‘ehhhhh????’s. The teacher jostled me to the front of one of the lines and told the students that anyone who felt they could keep up could swim along with me. Hiroki shot to the front of the line like a greyhound and declared that we were to race.

I should mention that just before our race had started, all the students had done a warm-up by swimming a width. I had not participated in the warm up as I was helping the teachers keep control of the kids who were waiting to get into the pool, and Hiroki had mistook my lack of participation as a lack of confidence in my swimming, which was obviously a huge mistake on his behalf. As I have mentioned on here somewhere in the depths of the archives, I pretty much grew up swimming, and am still pretty confident in my ability. As long-time readers of this blog will know, I have very little bragging rights when it comes to any kind of sport in comparison with most Japanese kids. So my competitive mode had been truly activated and my desire to destroy a 9 year old boy at swimming had begun.

I got into the pool and assumed the starting position, waiting for a whistle… only no whistle came, just Hiroki yelling ‘GO!’ as he kicked off the side.

…what?

I desperately kicked away from the side myself and began furiously swimming. It had been a pretty long time since I’d been in a proper pool and my initial reaction was glee as I glided through the water… only to see a small watery bubble cloud a little ahead of me. My kids destroy me in most athletic things, but there was no way I was going to let a scrawny little 9 year old Japanese boy beat me at swimming. So I went 全力 mode and swam as fast as I could. The thing I always forget about swimming, however, is that it’s actually pretty tiring. I was barely halfway down the length and I began to get a little out of breath.

Goddamn it! When I was in primary school I randomly set myself a challenge to swim 100 lengths in a friend’s pool one time and I did it without even getting remotely tired. Now, 10+ years later I can’t even manage one?!

I pushed on and on; the cloud of bubbles ahead didn’t get any closer, but the end of the pool did. Eventually I touched the wall and came up for air, disappointed and slightly humiliated. I looked to my side for Hiroki… only to find no one was there. I was completely alone at the end of the pool. The cloud of bubbles had been from my own hand pushing through the water (my eyesight sucks) and in fact Hiroki and the other kids were back at the other end of the pool, having barely swam 10 metres.

…oops.

Feeling a little sheepish, I hauled myself out of the pool to cries of ‘KATIE-SENSEI SUGOOIIIII!!! HAYAI!!!!’ Eventually Hiroki made it to the end of the pool (admittedly a lot faster than his fourth grader counterparts) and refused to talk to me for the rest of the two hours we had left swimming.

Moral of the story – being a beast at swimming earns you great respect from fourth graders, but crushing their dreams of beating you will bring you nothing but sulky kids.

Use your swimming skills wisely.

…we ended up in some dangerously narrow-roaded area in between Oita and Beppu. After a while the roads got too narrow for my liking and so we decided that Adventure 1 had to come to an end, for our personal safety.

After driving around some more, we found ourselves en route to Yufugawa Ravine. The fact that it was clearly signposted slightly detracts some of the adventure away from it, but the route there was very scenic. It was a nice find; particularly as we stumbled upon it by chance.

The cool water was so nice, especially on a hot day like yesterday was. Sadly after about two minutes of me being in the water, some fish started nibbling on my leg and I fled the ravine screaming, somewhat detracting from the quiet beauty of the area. Oops.

Hopefully, we are going to make these random adventures a regular occurrence. Next week we have shaky plans to explore a waterfall and an abandoned theme park which should be AMAZING fun!

———–

Today was Speech Contest day! Over the summer holidays us ALTs have been going to our schools and helping our junior high school kids with their speeches over and over and over. And some of these kids put so much effort into their speeches, it’s incredible. Some of my students would come to school and we’d practice for up to four hours at a time. I don’t know if you can imagine practicing a four minute speech for four hours at a time; I can’t really imagine doing anything academic for four hours at a time. It was probably very tough for the students. I admit, at times it was tough for me too (“Stop stop stop!! For the last time, it’s jumped, not ja-n-pu-du!!!!”)

So yeah, a lot of kids put a lot of effort into their speeches. And being the competitive idiot that I am, I pushed them even harder than before. Last year I only managed to get one student get sixth place in one category; by no means laughable, but as this year I was assisting students from three different schools (Tsurusaki my former school, my brand new school and the school that didn’t change) I was determined for my kids to do better.

And… well…

Two of my kids got first place in their categories!

I think I was potentially more excited than they were. The results got announced and I squeaked and jumped around. Seriously speaking though, I’m so happy that their hard work and effort paid off. And even those who didn’t place did so well, I am genuinely so so proud of them.

Good job guys!!

I should probably mention at this point that my schools changed. The thing that I have been dreading happening since I got here two years ago; as of September I will no longer be going to Tsurusaki JHS or the elementary schools surrounding it.

At the time I was pretty furious with my bosses for making the sudden switch. There were many tears, especially when I went to visit the elementary schools one last time. It made it easier that all of the teachers (particularly at B Elementary school) seemed just as indignant about the change as I was, if not more. Even the vice principal told me that she was planning on ringing up my boss and giving her a piece of her mind, which was very sweet of her :)

Even more sweet was the reaction of my students. Granted that I did not get a chance to properly say goodbye to most of them, as by the time I found out I was changing schools term had already finished. As I was leaving B Elementary school the other day, four sixth grader boys were sat by the school entrance playing Yu-Gi-Oh! cards (how 2000). They greeted me as I walked past them and this conversation followed -

Kids: Hello Katie-sensei!
Me: Hello! How are you?
Kids: I’m HOT!!
Me: By the way, today is my last day at B Elementary so be nice to the new ALT, OK?
Kids: Eh?? No way!! You’re lying right?
Me: No, it’s true. As of September I’ll be going to a new set of elementary schools and I won’t come here anymore.
Shohei: What elementary school are you going to?
Me: C elementary…
Shohei: I’ll ring them up right away!
*Shohei makes a telephone gesture*
Shohei: Hello? C elementary? This is Shohei from B elementary. いつもお世はなっています。(*I can’t really translate that) I’m coming to BEAT YOU UP for taking away Katie-sensei! Ok. Ok. Bye.
Me: …. :)

Plus, I got a massive goodbye card from some of the junior high school girls, and I got an adorable goodbye photo album full of messages from the fifth and sixth graders from an elementary school. Both were amazing and I will treasure them forever!

(sorry for the sparkle effect – I forgot to turn it off)

The upside to a school switch is that I get to teach in a new area! The area is significantly further away than Tsurusaki was, which is annoying, but I get to meet new teachers and students and make lots of new memories. That’s how I’m going to look at it, anyway. And the teachers at New School seem very very nice and friendly and have already given me a ton of work to do, so I am very happy there so far.

It’s just hard to say goodbye to my old schools. Thankfully, the Tsurusaki Odori was a good way of doing it.

I can only describe the room where we got ready as an assembly line. PTA members, mothers and old ladies had lined up tables as stations. Station 1 was the cleaning station. Station 2 was hair. Station 3 was neck make-up (oh yes.) 4 was face powder. 5 was make-up and 6 was a special mascara station. Once you were done with that you were shepherded off to the yukata station. Station 2′s staff had a cracking conversation whilst doing my hair -

Lady A: …is this real blonde hair?
Lady B: This is my first time touching real blonde hair!
Lady A: Wow! It’s smooth, like regular hair!

Finally, after four hours of getting ready we trudged out onto the park where we would be dancing. After having our commemorative group picture we sat down on little stools in our starting positions all around the field and watched a shooting display to signal the beginning of the dance. The music kicked in, everyone stood up and… we were off!

The dance in itself is not too complicated, but the focus is on being graceful in your movements. As someone who is clinically ungraceful, I received a lot of aggro from the obaachans during practice. As a result I tried my hardest to make my arm movements gentle, my foot shuffles delicate and so on. After that I got into the swing of it and the movements came naturally.

They say a picture speaks 1,000 words… so a video must speak 31856238756237485734 words. So have a video!

Goodbye, Tsurusaki! Shii yuu!

Thus, ALT48 was born. Thankfully we have people in our group who are talented enough to write music arrangements and can direct practice sessions.

Some of you back-home friends have been asking to see videos, so I have procured some for your viewing pleasure. Or, perhaps after taking a peek at them, not so much pleasure. I must stress that we are a casual singing group. We meet up on average once a week and just dick around in practice. We are not a serious group, which may come across in our performances (lol) but we have fun. That’s all that matters, right?

Lean on Me (our first performance!)

Afternoon Delight

Lulu’s Shout (with my solo ‘sadly’ cut out)