9/19/2019

The reason this is always slow to update is because I'm always exhausted when I get home. The only time I really am awake enough to do this is during school when there's nothing for me to be working on. And so here I am again.

On 9/3 there was the Honjo-Yuri English Speech and Recitation contest. It was an all day event, but the highlight of it was definitely the kid from my school winning first place at the speech. I was very proud of both her and the recitation kid from my school, because they both did their best out there. Because the speech kid won, that meant that she was going to the prefectural level competition. Which turned out to be next week. 

The rest of the week was very chill as I began to start getting into a little bit of a rhythm, trying new things occasionally and feeling out how to actually teach and what my responsibilities are here. That Thursday, the 5th, was my first time teaching at a small English class in the community center, where older people try learning English by reading simple newspaper articles and talking about them. It's good practice for them and a good thing for me to do after school. 

That Saturday, I went to a small bar and karaoke place near the Nikaho station with one of the other ALTs. This is when I discovered that I was on the front page of the Nikaho city magazine for this month. I was recognized when I went there as people pulled out the magazine and pointed at me, which was humbling yet still odd in a way. How do you react to that?

The next Monday, the 9th, I had my first D&D session with other ALTs, using 5E as the system. It has been fun so far, and I'm looking forward to where it goes. I'm a player this time, and not DMing, which does decrease the workload quite a bit. 

The next day, Tuesday, was my first time going to the Hirasawa Elementary school, which was interesting too. It runs completely differently than the other elementary school I go to. It was a little weird doing introductions a month after I had arrived.

Wednesday began the first of the after school English classes I am teaching to a group of 8th graders who are going to be going to Oklahoma on exchange. I'm teaching them basic survival phrases and how to communicate with their host families and friends that they will meet while in the US. It's me and another ALT almost every Wednesday for an hour.

Thursday was the Prefectural English Speech and Recitation Competition. This was another all day event, and was an hour drive away from the middle school. This whole week involed me staying after school coaching the speech kid, and focusing on how she presented and putting emotion into her speech. She worked really hard, and ended up getting first place in the prefectural competition as well! This means that she goes straight to Nationals, in Tokyo. I hope I'm able to go to, but my guess is that they're not gonna pay for an ALT to go to Tokyo, considering they already have to pay for the English teacher to go already.

Friday I was the DD for the ALT trip to Socket, a karaoke bar that has all-you-can-drink. 

And so after all of that busy week, I spent Saturday relaxing. Sunday was a festival in Yurihonjo, so I went there to see some of the floats that were around. Monday was a holiday, and so I went with a friend to my first hot spring, which I can't say I'm a huge fan of, and then went to play D&D for 6 hours.

That Tuesday, the 17th, was a Scheduled Lesson, where my English Teacher and I had to team teach to a class while being evaluated by a group of other teachers. It was pretty stressful, and they had a lot of things to say about our class. It was a very formal affair, although because it was all in Japanese I don't really know what kind of impact it has on my job. Obviously I want to do well, but they had a lot of things they wanted us to improve on. It makes me nervous for when I have to do this again next month.

Yesterday after school I watched the auditions for performances that are going to take place during the school festival. There were a lot of dances and some singing too, and all of it made me very impressed on how much time the kids had spent remembering and practicing everything. Japanese middle-schoolers really do have a lot of things to do.

And today isn't anything really special. I've got the community English class, like I do every Thursday, so that's really all I've got.

Writing all of this out makes me realize that I've been busy, so I can hopefully keep putting these posts out. I'm going out to Sendai this Saturday to meet up with people from college, so it'll be yet another adventure. Until next time.

9/02/2019

So I'm at work as I write this, because whenever I get home at this point I seem to forget about doing things. It's very true when the people at orientation said that you need to keep yourself out of the house.

However now that I'm writing I'll start where I left off before. The next day of the intensive Japanese course was more of the same, just me and the two other people talking about random things, being handed some worksheets to do, et cetera. After the class however, there was a beer festival that everyone was set on going to. Now I dont like beer, but I was still fine with going with everyone because it seemed like a good time nonetheless. The beer was crazy expensive, it being like 300 yen for a small plastic cup worth of beer. I was glad I didnt pay for any of the beer, and after a couple of hours of us standing in the festival and witnessing a 40 year old dude get absolutely trashed, we decided to get some food nearby. The group was set on pizza, however it is very hard to get tables for 9 in Japan. The first place we went to was too crowded, and the other was closing. So we did what any gaijin would do, which is go to a conbini and buy dinner there. One of the JETs had an apartment five minutes from the dorm, so we went to his place to eat it. After finishing food and splitting a bottle of wine between us, I took the last bus to my hotel where I passed out.

The next day was much less exciting, as we had the last day of class, followed by being immediately driven back to Nikaho. I spent the night in my apartment, in where I was then picked up the next morning to go straight back to Akita City for the Akita prefecture orientation. There we spent most of the time in informative yet long presentations that told us about life in Akita. Conbini became the food of choice once again, and I ran around the orientation as usual. However, I did find some people who played Magic the Gathering. After a sushi dinner provided by a charity organization, I went up and played Magic with them, as the person had brought enough decks to share. He told me where to get good cards and where he went for pre-release, which was fantastic information.
The second day was alright, as there were more panels and then it just kinda ended. I was driven back to Nikaho where I finally was able to get my car, which gave me a very large amount of freedom. The next day was my first day going to the school itself.

August 21st, 22nd, and 23rd were me sitting at a desk trying to find ways to pass the time until 3. Most of it was spent organizing the desk that was given to me, sorting all kinds of colored paper and past handouts that were still in the desk.

Saturday a friend and I went down to Akita City just to explore the city a little bit. We went to a Kanto mueseum, an old building that had some cool metalwork crafts, and an old house that used to be a streetside store. However the most interesting thing that happened was that there was a group of old ladies giving tea out in the street. There was a cruise that had landed in Akita that day and, knowing that, they decided to set up a free drink stand for people that came. In addition, they pointed my friend and I to a place that was giving free green tea made traditionally, known as sadou. The lady we met there was very friendly, and seemed to have taken up sadou around 20 years ago. From what I gathered, her husband was the CEO of a sake company that started in that very house, and because of that she has a lot of freedom in what she can do to spend her time. She invited us back for Hinamatsuri, the doll festival. Apparently she decorates her house for the occasion. Those kinds of encounters that are made on a whim are probably what Im going to remember most about this experience.

That Sunday was the Yuri Block Welcome Party. Yuri block contains all of Nikaho and the larger city north of us, YuriHonjo. It was a barbecue, and I managed to make my own burgers for it which turned out ok. Making substitutions was pretty fun if I say so myself, and the meat for all of it wasnt as expensive as I was anticipating. When we arrived at the park, there wasnt any running water, which was a bummer for someone who wanted to do slip&slide. However halfway into the barbecue, it started raining. Which worked out great for slip&slide. It eventually did clear up enough for us to go around and try the small zipline that the park had, which was neat too. The food however was the highlight of the event for me. Which shouldnt be that surprising.

The next day, the 26th of August, was the first day of school. I had to introduce myself to the whole school, and the idea was to not let the kids know that I knew Japanese. The English teachers wanted the kids to talk to me only in Japanese. However during my self intro the principal just told everyone I went to college for Japanese. So the cat kinda leaped out of the bag right there. I gave my whole intro speech in English regardless, and everyone clapped and such. The day went on.

The next day was my first time appearing in a lesson. I had made a self-introduction powerpoint that I was to show to every class as I went through the week. I talked about DC, about how large my college was, and about how much I like cooking and my favorite kinds of foods, with of course the famous American Meal picture in there as well. It got easier as I kept giving it, and it helped me get used to what kinds of English the kids knew already. I dont envy these kids trying to learn English as a second language. And so the week went on, with me getting up at 6:30 and falling asleep at 8 or 10.

The next weekend was the Omagari Fireworks festival, which was a trek to get there even initially. The fireworks started at 5:45, so I left my house at 8:30 to pick up a friend, and then get to Akita City by 10:30. We wanted the 11:45 train, so we stopped by an environmental festival that was being held at the station. The train got us to Omagari by 12:45, so we had 5 hours to kill. Most of that time was spent finding a spot to sit down. The reason being that there were 750,000 people there. We didnt buy tickets to the official grounds, but we set up on a very nice spot across the river. We had gone to the supermarket before to get food for this specific purpose. It however, rained while we were waiting. And I didnt have an umbrella. Or anything water repellant, for that matter. I had to use the mat that my friend got as a shield to block the rain, which worked for the most part. One side of me still ended up completely soaked. But the fireworks made up for it in spades. My friend and I were smart in realizing that getting here was easy, but having 750,000 people all leave at once was going to be a nightmare. We managed to go for the 9:00 train, which meant we had to leave before the fireworks show had completely ended. However as we waited for the train to leave, we could see the rest of the fireworks out the train window. I ended up getting back at 11:00 without much of a hassle at all.

And here I am on Monday, sitting at my desk about to go to lunch, using my free period today to type this up. The biggest thing for me to do at this point is to find something to do once I get home. It will hopefully end up being cooking, because I can at least force myself to cook interesting things with the knowledge that I have to eat after work. But thats something for me to think about. Until next time.