Mid-Year Seminar, Japanese Library Rules

I spent the last two days a little south of Niigata City at the Mid-Year Seminar. I really enjoyed seeing people I know who live pretty far away from me, and the party was pretty fun apart from the shortage of fries. Brian came down for the party as well so we had a good time. I felt a bit frustrated by the seminar itself.
    First and foremost there were too many remarks concerning ALT irresponsibility. This was very disconcerting to me because I feel like they implied we act like crazy college students, and I think we deserve a bit more respect than that. If they have a problem with youth coming to Japan, and they choose people who are irresponsible, that is their problem. There are plenty of people from all countries who act responsible at my age (or younger). It's certainly not like the teachers at my school always come in to work refreshed and happy to work.
    Secondly, many of the great ideas for the workshop didn't apply to me. The people presenting all have been in Japan for more than a year, but for many of the new people, we entered in a year where everything changed and the elementary school has a curriculum. For the people who've been here a few years, they are used to being responsible for classes and lesson planning and coming up with games. However, since I just came this year and we started a new book which really incorporates the homeroom teacher, it's not up to me to take over class and deviate from the lesson plan. Since I mostly teach 5th and 6th graders who use a textbook, there are relatively few classes I get to make games and activities for.
    When it comes to my junior high school, I have very little say in anything I do. I don't know what classes I have for the day until I get there and then I go around scrabbling to fill my schedule with something. I rarely know what the class is about until a few minutes before class, and then I end up reading aloud for the students and walking around. The book is incredibly boring and I think it doesn't give the kids enough credit. Whenever I read their writing assignments, they want to use more complex grammar and words, but they don't know how. I think they would be more interested if the book moved at a slightly faster pace OR we were allowed to do fun activities with the book. If I make an activity for class it's usually looked down on and then barely used. For example, I worked really hard on a song activity. I translated the song, got help with the translation, etc. Then I only could use it for two of the 4 classes.
    I understand it's difficult for the teachers to have the time to talk to me ahead of time about ideas, but I really need to have my schedule a week beforehand along with what pages the students will be working on so I can come up with ideas. I'm sure my ideas would have more clout if I were here longer, but I can't stay longer. My school has had a lot of turnover in the past 3 years at least, and it's difficult for the teachers to become close to the ALT and allow them to create activities, but there is a flip-side. ALT's need to feel like their work and talents are appreciated in order to want to stay another year. The only way to solve these problems is through honesty, communication, and time. I'm afraid to bring these things up to my teachers because I don't want to burn any bridges, but in order to make the most of the rest of my time here I really need to step up and just do it. Wish me luck!
    In other, happier, news Brian and I spent last Saturday entertaining my friend's boyfriend while she was in rehearsal for the charity musical. (Maria didn't read my blog update and know I've already written about this day..... so I've cut out some of the repeated stuff). I really had fun hanging out with him, and I'm looking forward to climbing Mt. Fuji with them in July!
    We also started renting a car for two months. (Remember two sentences ago or so when I said she didn't read my blog update?  Yup. Busted!) We got it through my teacher's husband's car dealership and we got a great deal! We have a little honda K-car which is great for the commutes I have and driving isn't as bad as I thought. I was very nervous about driving on the left but that part has been much easier than having to remind myself of the wipers and turn signals being switched. I drove this morning without any hassles. My biggest problem is backing into parking spaces. I had a rear camera on my prius and I still found it difficult. I will just need some more practice, I know.

Well, that's all for this week! I hope you all have fantastic weeks and enjoy the Superbowl, even though my team lost. I'm sure it will be an amusing game. Stay warm! Feel free to email me, I guarantee a response!

-Maria

Maria said that if I thought the blog post would be boring to have repeated, I should write something about what I've done.  I told her I've had some good breakthroughs in mathematics this week and definitely had some great ideas for how to proceed forward.  She said "well, why don't you write about that." Not the response I expected.

Instead of dazzling everyone with the joy of the newest mathematics I'm working on (Resource Allocations to Capacitated Supply-Demand Networks with Uncertainties in Supply and Capacity, it's gonna be really fun and not even anywhere near as bad as it sounds!) I'll just briefly say that having a car has allowed me to go the library. And then I learned that for no reason I could figure out, they don't allow laptop computers in the library.  I didn't get in trouble, I asked if it was okay to use one in the quiet study room and was told (actually, in broken English!) that they couldn't do that.

I'm sorry Japan, but....WHAT?  What on earth?  So, my plan on doing work in the library won't work out as well as I thought, certainly I can do a lot of brainstorming and even fine tuning of the mathematics (that's what I did before I asked about using my computer), but it's sure hard to prepare a paper for journal submission without my computer.... well, that's enough complaining.  I guess I'll have to find some sort of friendly coffeehouse type of place.... which I've never seen in Murakami.  That's all for now, we'll have another update eventually.

-Brian

Oshiroyama in the Winter, A Rental Solution

Things are pretty routine here since the last update.  We've been doing the same old things, work and study, without much in the way of breaks.


The weather continues to completely suck here.  I swear that it rains, snows or sleets a little bit every single day. The snow doesn't always stay on the ground, but there's enough of it to go around.  Nearly all of it melted by this last Thursday and I thought "great! Maybe I'll get to go running!" (The cold doesn't bother me, just having to run on unshoveled sidewalks through 6 inches of snow).  Of course, Friday we get about 4-6 inches of heavy wet snow dropped on the ground.

Oddly enough though, the snow definitely hasn't stopped this weekend from being eventful (eventful for us, maybe not for everyone).  We hiked up to the top of Oshiroyama today with Meghan's boyfriend Yuya.  He had to hang with us while she was rehearsing for the musical and the three of us had a good time.  You can see the views from the top in the pictures we have here.  I decided sometime in the last few weeks I want to get pictures on the top of Oshiroyama for all seasons, so that's two down now!

After going to Oshiroyama we went to what is probably the best western food restaurant in Murakami, Rover's Cafe, and all had the Mexican Plate, a weekend special of probably some of the best Mexican food we've ever had.

After hanging out for a bit, we went to the Subaru dealership run by the husband of one of the teachers Maria works with and we were able to rent a car for a really good deal for two months (hopefully the weather will be good enough by then that we won't want or need a car).  I'm looking forward to this because it means if I drive Maria to school and pick her up, I'll have the means to go to the library during the day without walking half an hour through snow and rain!  Working in the library suits me much better than working at home, I'm not cut out for it.  Apparently I like having my work area separate from my home area after getting spoiled with an office (okay, cubicle, whatever) last year at NC State.

In slightly more exciting news, after a month of pushing, I finally got Maria to watch Blues Brothers with me.  She said it was "fine" and that she enjoyed it.  I'm not sure that I can allow such a lukewarm endorsement of a classic comedy, but for the time being I'll let it pass.  I think that's about all for the updates for now, next week we should have more after a party in Niigata and Maria's two day mid-year seminar! Also, I'm interested to see what will happen at a Festival on the 31st in one of her elementary schools that we're going to.  Should be at least interesting!

PS: After first publishing this post, I thought of something interesting (to ME). Holy Ghost Tent Revival is a band from North Carolina that I've been listening a lot to since I bought their albums after Christmas. It's something like.... bluegrass-folk-blues-rock.... or whatever.  And powered by horns.  So awesome. If their live show is half as fun as their albums, I can't wait to get back to North Carolina and catch a show with them.  Internet review suggests that the live show is, in fact, MORE fun.... so... I'm pretty excited!  It's definitely something to do when we get back.

10 Biggest Differences between my life in Japan and America

(By Maria)

These aren't necessarily funny, just meant to be informative

10. Students are allowed in the teachers' room.

9. Teacher's main work spaces are in one shared room with individual desks. In Junior High Schools the teachers don't have a classroom, they move from room to room, but they do have their own room in elementary schools.

8. Carpooling is not considered a viable alternative to everyone driving separately. It's considered rude to ask for rides, and people think biking to and from work is very difficult, if not impossible.

7. Fish is in EVERYTHING. Sometimes it's in salad, sometimes it's mixed in with vegetables. It's the base broth in almost all soups. In actuality, it's VERY difficult to be a vegetarian in Japan unless you make everything yourself.

6. All students are required to be in a school club in middle school. They only have one club, and they practice almost every day (including Saturdays and Sundays)

5. If a person feels sick, it's expected that they wear a mask, even if the masks have not been proven to be very effective against the spread of diseases. Everyone also comes to school when they are sick., even if they have H1N1.

4. Everyone changes their shoes when they enter a building. It's not important for shoes to match the outfit, they should just be comfortable.

3. Track suits are considered more formal than jeans (I know, this one still confuses me).

2. I don't have an oven. I have a gas stove with only 2 burners and a fish broiler.

1. There is NO insulation, NO central heat, and it's completely normal to see your breath in the school hallways. (And in our apartment during the day while I'm working - so awesome).

My 10 Favorite things about living in Japan

10.  I can get to every school except one in a pretty easy bike ride (I have to take a taxi/car to one school, its very far). I can also walk all the way to the ocean from my house. I can walk 30 minutes to the train station and go almost anywhere in Japan! Yay fantastic public transportation. I don't know why people don't just rent cars only for the winter.

9.　Littering is almost non-existent, although it's worse in the country. This isn't because they have a ton of trash cans everywhere, because it's practically impossible to find a trash can. For some reason, people just seem to not litter.

8.　Murakami is really beautiful. We have mountains, oceans, castle ruins, pretty much all you need. We can hike, ski, and swim in the ocean all in one place.

7.　I love having a wet bathroom! This means that you have a whole room to take a shower in, not just a bathtub.

6.　There is a fantastic restaurant that serves Mexican food every weekend. Most of the time they have chicken enchiladas. I don't usually like spicy foods or chicken enchiladas, but I love their food.

5. We have an amazing Nepalese Curry restaurant close to our house which AMAZING garlic naan. We go every week. It's kind of our comfort food, I guess.

4. I don't like Japanese food much. This is good and bad, but especially great for me losing weight!

3. Recycling is not a should, but pretty much a must. Neighbors will go through your trash and separate it for you if you don't, then leave it on your doorstep. There are specific days for taking out specific types of garbage. It's a pain at first, but really beneficial for the environment. This hasn't happened to us, just to be clear. Only the garbage guys refusing to take stuff that apparently was put out on the wrong day.

2. ALL toilet seats (on a western toilet) are heated. I don't like this for the summer, but it really takes that shock of cold away in the winter. You can change the temperatures to suit your needs.

1. Drinking tea all day is normal. The tea is almost never sweetened. You can get bottled tea in vending machines everywhere. Japan really supports and endorses my tea addiction!

Holidays

Well, it's been proven. Brian and I are very poor bloggers indeed. So my first new year's resolution is to write at least once a week on all of our "adventures" in Japan, or whatever else we want. The major problem with writing about our daily lives is that we lead a pretty boring life. I know you're thinking "You live in Japan, that's not boring!" It's true that we live in an exciting place, but really we are such stingy homebodies so there aren't very many adventures to talk about.

Brian and I just got back from a two week journey back to Minnesota. We had a great time, and enjoyed seeing our family and friends, and most of all, Evi. Now we are both very tired of traveling since each way took about a day and a half of travel. Our itinerary went as follows:

December 22: Get off of work early, finish packing, leave for the train station at 8:30pm. Train departed at 9:19pm and we were on our way. We got into Niigata around 10:10 and waited for our night bus which left at 11:20pm.

December 23: We arrived at Shinagawa station (Tokyo) around 5:50am (a bit early) and took the train to our friend's house where we hung out for a few hours. We then went to Ikea before leaving for the airport. We enjoyed our trip to Ikea so much that we left a bit late for the airport. I didn't even think we were late because of a silly mathematical error I made earlier, so we arrived at the airport at 4:00pm for our 5:10 flight. OOPS! The line was really long and when I realized what I did I started freaking out. Brian tried to calm me, but I believed we were going to miss the flight and it would be all my fault. Thankfully the ticket counter people called the Houston flight passengers to the front of the line, we went through security, and made it onto the plane with a few minutes to spare.

The flight was pretty nice overall. The dinner was edible, the entertainment had over 330 movies to chose from, many TV shows, music, and games, and I was able to sleep for about half the flight. We arrived in Houston around 3:30pm central time and got through immigration and customs easily. We got on the tiny plane to Minneapolis and finally landed at 6:45 pm. My mom picked us up from the airport and we immediately went to Olive Garden to eat with my brother and grandparents, then mom drove us down to Mankato (a 1.5 hour drive). We finished our very long travel day around 11pm.

Evi noticed me right away and wagged her tail. We weren't able to get pictures of her reaction because we didn't get the camera out fast enough since she was already waiting at the door. We went in to see her and she was so happy, she wiggled her little butt and cried with delight. We didn't even have to bribe her to sleep in our room that night. She also started a new thing of sitting on our laps and showing her mean face to Kuma when he tried to get affection from us. It was pretty cute, although very bad manners and we had to kick her off of our laps for it a couple of times.

December 24: We woke up at a decent US time and I started preparing the Christmas Day turkey. I made the butter and we went to the grocery store to buy a few last minute items and to Lowes to buy a tub so we could brine the turkey. We spent most of the day being lazy and enjoying spending time with Brian's family and Evi. Brian helped me make the turkey brine in the afternoon by freshly grinding 1/3 cup of pepper. (Brian edit - it took absolutely forever). We left the turkey to soak in the brine and had Christmas eve dinner with Brian's family and the Dauk's. Our original plans of spending Christmas eve at the Wilson's was unfortunately cancelled due to the overexcited meteorologists at the Weather Channel, but we had a good time anyway. After everyone left I took the turkey out of the brine and applied the butter under the skin and let it sit through the night. I know you probably don't care about all the turkey preparation steps, but I thought I'd enlighten you for fun.

December 25: Christmas Day! My mom and grandparents came to Mankato at 12:30 and we opened presents. Then we ate Christmas dinner (with the very prep intensive Turkey), and it was delicious. I was so happy we were able to include part of my family in the celebrations. It made it really feel like Christmas! Brian and I did some of the dishes (I hate anything to do with dishes so this is quite an accomplishment), worked out, and went to bed to prepare for a fun filled fantastic day of shopping!  I still can't believe Nomi had fun despite and maybe even partly because of the dogs.  Maybe she and Deb need some dogs of their own.

December 26: Brian and I left for My grandparents house at 6:45am. We went to the Mall of America where I spent about 2 hours in Express trying on many, many clothes. I had ordered a couple things in advance from Express.com so I'd have some pants that fit me, but once we got to express and grabbed a bunch of clothes in a size 6, I realized that many of them were too big and Mom had to go out and grab size 4s! The size craziness definitely contributed to the length of the Express shopping trip, but after a while, and a nice mixture of 4s and 6s, we went to buy the clothes with a bunch of transactions and coupons. Thankfully now I have a nice wardrobe I'm excited about wearing that also fits! After the shopping at the Mall, we drove to the downtown Macy's and had dinner with my mom and grandma. I had a fantastic day, but I think Brian was a bit annoyed by a whole day of shopping.  The only truly annoying bit (besides being left outside Express) was at the end of the day when she and her Mom spent about 20 minutes trying to do multiple purchases with different coupons at Macy's to get the best bargain.  I figure if it it's that much of an inconvenience to spend money at their store, I don't have to spend that much and too bad for them for making it so difficult.

December 27: Brian and I got up early to drive to LaCrosse, WI to have lunch with My dad and Holly. It took about 3 hours and we went to a cute little restaurant called Maggie's (named after the owner's lovable yellow lab).  I didn't know it was named after a yellow lab when I chose it.  I'm glad I did though.  Maria and I discussed having a restaurant called "George's" in honor of my parent's yellow lab, George.  I'm afraid George would just want to serve garbage though. It was really nice to see them and enjoy a nice burger! After lunch we drove back to Mankato, excited about the prospect of not having to travel anywhere far the next day. (We also went to Scheels for exercise clothes and bands).

December 28: We went to Perkins for lunch with Brian's mom and then  went to the mall in Mankato for our hair appointments with Barb's hair stylist. I got my hair died brown and cut to above my shoulders. Brian got his hair cut very short so it won't be too long by the spring. Afterwards we went to the Wilson's for dessert and games. Evi was able to come and I think she had a great time with the Wilson's new dog and Amy and Fred's dog, although she was quite tired. She looked very cute, however, since she was able to wear the sweater Lisa and Tim got her for Christmas. Sweater was NOT my idea.  In fact, the sweater was forbidden by me, but when it comes to my wife and sister, they'll do exactly what I don't want.  We had a fun time playing Apples to Apples and eating many delicious types of desserts!

December 29 and 30: Lazy Days!

December 31: Brian had a doctor's appointment early. Switching insurances and countries at the same time is not recommended, especially when you can't speak the language to refill prescriptions. When he got home we went to the grocery store to get things for the new years party at the Sonneks.  I made homemade mac and cheese, two pans of brownies, and I baked 3 types of ready to bake cookies. We went to the party with all of our food and had a fun time seeing Brian's friends, playing games, chatting and eating. We left around 2am since I'm a party pooper and wanted to sleep in a bed.

January 1: Mom left the twin cities and came through Mankato for lunch at Dinos in North Mankato. It's a very tasty gourmet pizza place. It was nice seeing her and we also enjoyed our 3rd meal of pizza of the trip. I tried scrapbooking for the rest of the day, but my heart wasn't too into it this trip.

January 2: Nothing too exciting happened, I tried scrapbooking and a bit of packing for our return trip.

January 3: Finished packing and laundry. We had a hard time saying good-bye to Evi again, and we hope she'll forgive us for deserting her again. She got very worried by the suitcases and wouldn't leave Brian. It's so hard to leave her, but at the same time, we won't be away from her much longer, so that fact makes leaving her a bit more bearable. Barb drove us up to my grandparent's house by 3. My grandparents took Brian and me to a sports bar where we ate a delicious hamburger and drank dark beer. Last time for months.  It was delicious.  Surly Bender, apparently a somewhat local Minneapolis beer -- I had never had it before.  When we returned to my grandparent's house we had to repack our suitcases for weight and went to bed by 10pm.

January 4: We woke up at 2:15am to get ready to go to the airport. We left for the airport at three and when we arrived at 3:30 there was already a long line at the ticket counter, but the counter didn't open until 4. It was a very good thing we got there so early though because when it did open, the line moved so slowly I thought our flight might have to be delayed. We got into Houston with 2 hours before our Tokyo flight and ate scholtzky's. I accidentally forgot to say no mustard and didn't enjoy it as much as I would have without it, but it was still nice to have a delicious sandwich. We went to our terminal and realized that our flight had been delayed by an hour and a half due to servicing needs.. When we went to the counter to have them verify our passports, they apologized for the delay and gave us each $8.00 to spend on food, 10% off our next flight booked at continental.com, and a free alcoholic beverage on the plane. I thought that was pretty great considering it was a pretty minor delay (in my mind anyway) and I haven't gotten anything like that before. I was very impressed by them. The flight was alright, although the lunch left a lot to be desired. I didn't get any sleep really and watched far too many movies. I watched "The Cove," "The Devil Wears Prada," an episode of "The Tudors" and "Say Yes to the Dress," "Good Will Hunting," and "Harry Potter 6." I learned that Diamonds are Forever tends to be a good Bond film overall, but Never Say Never Again is abysmal.  Also, Arsenic and Old Lace Remains Funny and rewatchable, probably in great part because of Cary Grant.

January 5: We arrived in Tokyo at 4:45 and they immediately had a great system set up for helping the passengers with tight connections due to the delay. We went through immigration and customs easily and got on the train for Tokyo. Overall we had a pretty easy time on the subway even though it was rush hour until it came time to get off, and there were so many people, and we had so much baggage I thought we might not make it. Thankfully a couple other people in our way got off too and we spent the next 3 hours at the Starbucks at Shinagawa waiting for our night bus which left at 10:50.

January 6: We finally got to Niigata at about 6:00am, but had to wait until 6:47 for our train to Murakami. We finished our traveling by 8:00am and took a taxi home. Our apartment was 43 degrees when we got in and we immediately unpacked and went shopping for groceries and our new electronic dictionary which was a Christmas gift. We were lazy and ate lunch at the ramen restaurant in the mall here, then went home did a bit of organizing and took a "nap" at 2:00pm. We re-awoke at 7:45, watched NCIS with Meghan and went to bed again by 10:00.

January 7: Back to work today! I kept waking up starting at 2:00am, and decided by 5:30 I would just get up and do Lower body workout and ab jam for my morning exercise, watched the Daily Show, and got ready. Now I'm back at work getting ready for my first class of the new year. I have a meeting after school and I'm looking forward to getting back into my schedule.