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