Hi Everyone,
I know you've all been holding your breath since our last post, so sorry if anyone has died of asphyxiation in these long 3 weeks. We still have no internet in our apartment, but hope to get that taken care of ASAP. We can check email at some of our schools, but it's not a place where we can blog from.
SO....We are living in a small, but fairly comfortable apartment in Asou, Namegata City. Asou used to be a tiny town, but 4 years ago it joined with a bunch of other nearby towns and became Namegata City. Think of it as a kind of neighborhood. All of Namegata City is extremely rural. We are practically surrounded by rice paddies and vegetable fields. We are constantly driving past old Japanese farmers, standing in the middle of their rice paddies working, or driving tractors down the highway very very very slowly....It's like this all over our prefecture, apparently. So no internet cafes, only one library (30 min away from our apt), and a few different shopping "plazas" we can get to within 20 or 30 min.
We loaded up at a few different 100 yen stores, where we found housewares, clothes drying racks (no dryers here!), and other miscellaneous goods. It took me at least a week to find some kind of lotion that was meant for my face (the first time I bought something that advertised a "beautiful skin experience" it turned out to be soap). Yes, aisles full of products labelled in Japanese characters is always an adventure.
School is pretty good. My first week was exhausting, what with meeting all the teachers, principals, etc, and going through a lot of the cultural niceties that I don't quite understand yet. Lots of green tea, lots. Now that I know how to drive to each school, and know the teachers I'm working with, it's much easier. I am provided with one lesson plan each week that I teach to all of my classes, with minor differences depending on the teacher. So on Mondays I am just getting a feel for that week's lesson, but by Friday I could do it in my sleep. Sometimes a class is doing a test or something, so the school throws a younger grade at me, assuming I have a lesson I can do with them. At first I was a bit overwhelmed - but grateful for all my preschool/daycamp experience. At least I know kids' songs and games I can pull out of my back pocket to do with younger kids.
I don't think anyone wants to read a 5 page blog post, although I could write 50 at this point. So I'll save some for next time. If you have Q's, please post them and I'll try to answer them in my next post.
Hope life is busy and happy for all of you - without internet we're fairly isolated. We don't even know what's going on in global news, so if something huge happens, don't expect that we'll know immediately.j
Take care, and practice your hashi (chopsticks) skills so you can keep up with us when we come back!
-Tessa Sensei / Miss Tessa (all my students call me one or both of these titles)
Friday, April 24, 2009
Japan, like woah.
Sorry for the lack of updates! We dont yet have net access at home, and we can't update our bog from the schools. More exciting info to (hopefully) come soon!!!
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
Training is done!!!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibaraki_Prefecture
Here's the link to the general area we will be living in, the Ibaraki prefecture. Our apartment will be in the town of Tamatsukuri, which is roughly 13,000 people. We haven't seen it yet, but Chris will be doing his interview with his Board of Education in Inashiki tomorrow, and he'll see some of the landscape on his drive down. Wish him luck!
I don't start till the 13th, so I don't know yet when I'll have my interview. These interviews are more for the BoE to get to know our personality and make sure we look presentable and capable. Today we practiced some Japanese, and worked on creating a short, formal introduction to the BoE or principal (and a more fun one for the first day of school when we introduce ourselves at an assembly). I'm feeling pretty good about pronunciation, but of course I need to really memorize my intro because I'll be doing at least 4 or 5 at each school I start at - that's 5 *8, so roughly 40 intros!!!
So for the next few days, we'll be hanging around our hotel in Mito, getting our hankos (signature stamps with a special character that we like or find special meaning in), and maybe doing a few local train trips to check out the region.
Hopefully the next time I post I'll have pictures to post of our area - it's a neat city!
Over and out.
Here's the link to the general area we will be living in, the Ibaraki prefecture. Our apartment will be in the town of Tamatsukuri, which is roughly 13,000 people. We haven't seen it yet, but Chris will be doing his interview with his Board of Education in Inashiki tomorrow, and he'll see some of the landscape on his drive down. Wish him luck!
I don't start till the 13th, so I don't know yet when I'll have my interview. These interviews are more for the BoE to get to know our personality and make sure we look presentable and capable. Today we practiced some Japanese, and worked on creating a short, formal introduction to the BoE or principal (and a more fun one for the first day of school when we introduce ourselves at an assembly). I'm feeling pretty good about pronunciation, but of course I need to really memorize my intro because I'll be doing at least 4 or 5 at each school I start at - that's 5 *8, so roughly 40 intros!!!
So for the next few days, we'll be hanging around our hotel in Mito, getting our hankos (signature stamps with a special character that we like or find special meaning in), and maybe doing a few local train trips to check out the region.
Hopefully the next time I post I'll have pictures to post of our area - it's a neat city!
Over and out.
Done with Training Day Two
Today was less intensive so that was nice. Now I have more time to post, so I'm going to try and give as much of that info as possible.
We have been in Japan for 4 days now I think. I haven't quite had a huge culture shock yet, but things are still a bit strange. Here in Mito, there is a lot less printed English around, but it is there in some places there is, like on the cars. There are all the makes of Japanese cars that you would find in the States, like Toyota, Honda, Suzuki, Mazda, etc; but not the Models. The Models are all written in English on the backs of the cars, but they are weird ones I've never heard of, like the Toyota Noah or the Honda Wish.
There are vending machines EVERYWHERE. Not snack machines, but beverage machines that dispense everything from soda to juice to water to hot coffee in cans and even beer. In one city block there usually is at least one machine on each side of the street, at least from what I have seen in Mito and Narita.
If you have ever seen pictures or videos of Japanese people wearing white surgical masks, I can tell you, they really do wear them here. If you have a cold or flu or any type of illness like that you are expected to wear one, and I have seen people wearing them everywhere I have gone.
The Japanese do not sign their name. On anything. They have a small stamp called a "hanko" that is about the diameter of a dime in the characters of their name. Tessa and I each need to get one to secure a "gaijin card" (basically a green card) and need that to get a Japanese bank account. Our name will have to be in Katekana (one of the scripts the Japanese use).
Oh, and tomorrow I have a meeting with the Board of Education in the area I am teaching in...hopefully that goes well.
We have been in Japan for 4 days now I think. I haven't quite had a huge culture shock yet, but things are still a bit strange. Here in Mito, there is a lot less printed English around, but it is there in some places there is, like on the cars. There are all the makes of Japanese cars that you would find in the States, like Toyota, Honda, Suzuki, Mazda, etc; but not the Models. The Models are all written in English on the backs of the cars, but they are weird ones I've never heard of, like the Toyota Noah or the Honda Wish.
There are vending machines EVERYWHERE. Not snack machines, but beverage machines that dispense everything from soda to juice to water to hot coffee in cans and even beer. In one city block there usually is at least one machine on each side of the street, at least from what I have seen in Mito and Narita.
If you have ever seen pictures or videos of Japanese people wearing white surgical masks, I can tell you, they really do wear them here. If you have a cold or flu or any type of illness like that you are expected to wear one, and I have seen people wearing them everywhere I have gone.
The Japanese do not sign their name. On anything. They have a small stamp called a "hanko" that is about the diameter of a dime in the characters of their name. Tessa and I each need to get one to secure a "gaijin card" (basically a green card) and need that to get a Japanese bank account. Our name will have to be in Katekana (one of the scripts the Japanese use).
Oh, and tomorrow I have a meeting with the Board of Education in the area I am teaching in...hopefully that goes well.
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