Juxtaposed in Japan

Saturday, April 25th

Stuffed raccoons make surprisingly nice pillows

I am tired. So very, very tired. I haven't actually woken up (and stayed up) at 7am since I was in Korea, nearly 4 months ago. But the high school I work at was having a medical checkup for all the staff this week and wanted me to get checked out. At first, it was an off-hand suggestion. "Hey, if you want to do it here, you can.", which later turned into "Hey.. uh.. yeah, you really should do the checkup." It's helpful to remember that there IS a right answer to offers and suggestions in Japan. I intended to go anyway (can't turn down a free medical checkup!), but.. yeah.

So, this meant I had to come into work an hour early on Wednesday with a plastic vial of my own urine (which I had to obtain from a paper cup and then suction up into said plastic vial.. not an experience I enjoyed). Arrive, and hey! The nurse is busy and asks me to come back the next day. That's good and fine.. except that I now am stuck with a plastic vial of my urine in my briefcase for the next 5 hours. I know, "Throw it away". But there are no trash cans in restrooms here, and the next choice is in the teacher's office. Not something I really want to just kinda toss in the trash. So.. yeah, had to stick that one out. Show up early on Thursday, she collects my papers, and sends me on my way, asking me to come at 8:30am on Friday for an xray.

The problem is that I don't do 8:30am. Sure, I used to work from 7:30, but I was done at 4, or 6 at the latest. On Fridays, I work until 9pm. That's a LONG day. I also hate going back and forth just to wait, so after my xray and eye test, I went to the office I'd be in all day. I arrived at 9:15am, and I left there earlier tonight at 9:30pm. In an office with only 2 rooms, that's a long time. Since I have a key, I let myself in, locked the door behind me. Free until 1pm, that's quite awhile with not much to do and no internet access, so I pulled all the curtains shut, grabbed a raccoon stuffed animal as a pillow, and slept for an hour and a half in the office.

Anyone who thinks an English teacher's life is glamorous should read that line over 3-5 more times. Fun? Sure. Great for stories? Definitely. Glamorous? Not by any definition of the word I'm aware of (and I'm an English teacher..!).

After that? I studied for about 2 hours before heading out to teach some kindergarten kids. Came back, taught some more, and finally got home a few hours ago. Long day. Loooooooong day.

Got a semi-busy weekend ahead of me, then 3 days of work next week before my 7 day vacation starts. Will probably head out for some short day trips, and I'll try to take some pictures.

I'm gonna go to bed now (finally), but I'm sure I'll write more as more excitement comes into my life. I can't avoid it, no matter how much I try.

Later!
Jason on 04.25.09 @ 01:15 AM JST [link] [comment]

Wednesday, April 22nd

Random screams in the night

I was up at about 1am last night, studying Japanese before I went to bed. While reading through some passages, I heard some loud noises outside that sounded like kids playing. It's 1am, but I thought nothing of it. This is Japan.. I've seen children grocery shopping at midnight in Korea. I kept studying, but I kept hearing it, and the more I listened, the more it sounded like screaming. Someone screaming bloody murder, in fact. Even more to the point, it was a woman screaming "help me" (in Japanese).

So.. lessee. It's 1am, dark out, and there's a woman screaming "help me" down the street. This has all the makings of something bad, so I threw my glass door open and went running down the street in jogging shorts and a sweatshirt (no shoes.. didn't have time). Halfway there, I realized a cell phone would be a good idea, but.. eh, time's limited.

By the time I get there, I see a police car, a police officer standing around, and a woman being shoved into the back seat of the car. My guess is that she was drunk and being arrested and screaming. Thank god.. at least no one was being attacked or hurt. I really didn't want to have a fight a rapist off at 1am in the street with no shoes on.

Was it smart of me to go running out there? Maybe not. You never know what you'll encounter. Was it the right thing to do? That, I wholeheartedly have to say 'yes'. Even if it was the worst-case scenario.. I went out there to do something. If I woke up the next morning and heard a woman was raped or killed down the street.. that'd be hard to live with.

So anyway..! That's my exciting evening last night, while studying Japanese. I came to work early this morning for a health checkup at the high school only to be told "Could you come back tomorrow? Tomorrow would be better." Blah.. so now I'm here at the high school an hour early with nothing to do. And I get to wake up early tomorrow, too. Yay.

Other than that.. life's going all right. No real complaints. Have a new Japanese coworker joining and another leaving, so hopefully everything will go all right with that. Going to have lunch this weekend with the one who's leaving, so I need to find a nice restaurant and all that jazz.

BUT, to keep you entertained, I made a short video of my morning commute to the office yesterday morning, along with a tour of the office I never work at. But, technically, it's where my company is based, so.. yeah.

Enjoy the video, and have a good week! I'm gonna hope the week gets less exciting as it goes on..

My Tuesday Morning Commute
School on 04.22.09 @ 10:35 AM JST [link] [1 comment]

Tuesday, April 14th

'You have a big nose..'

Current Sounds: Transformers: Season 3 episodes

I started teaching at the high school again. Though it adds 9 more working hours into my week plus makes my day start about 5-6 hours earlier everyday, it's still fun and I enjoy teaching there. The teachers are nice and the students are (generally) fun to work with. They also say the darndest things.

On Monday, I was approached by two third year students (in class B.. I never teach that class, so I don't know them). They start talking to me in bits of English, so I ask the same typical questions that I know everyone knows the answer to. Name, how they're doing, where they live. After that, one girl looks at me and then at her classmate.

"Jason, your nose..."
"My... nose? What about it?"
"It's.. big."
Now what, exactly, are you supposed to reply to that? I opted for:
"It's because I'm always lying. Like Pinocchio."

My life confuses even me. But anyway, it's fun. I enjoy working there. I'm just really, really tired this week. Staying up until 2-3am every day probably isn't helping. Can't be sure, though.

To briefly touch on a previous topic, I had my a brief encounter with racism a week or so ago. Basically, in short, the neighborhood I live in has certain rules that no one bothered to tell me. But, they have rules.. I understand and respect that. One is that you must not put your trash out early (which means: you can't put it out the night before, and should be from sun-up to the pick up time). I put mine out at 3am, so I thought it was okay. My coworker, however, put it out at 10pm or so. The old man in the association got mad and waited by the trash to see who was doing it and when he saw her, he asked her not to do it. What'd she do? Oh, she yelled at him and said that it was unreasonable to ask her to abide by the same rules that everyone else follows because she can't wake up early. Wow.. gee, thanks.

Of course, he went to my company to complain. I received a page-long memo from my company telling me his issues, which were:

1: He observed two foreigners putting the trash out early, which is against the rules. (Uh.. my coworker. Maybe me if you count 3am.. but that old guy's gotta be pretty dedicated to have seen me do it)
2: Some disposable items were thrown away without bags, and though he didn't see who did it, he believes it must be foreigners, because Japanese people know better. note that the items here a child's potty-training toilet (none of us foreigners have kids) and a microwave (our company buys the microwave). So.. that's an insane assumption.
3: Someone left trash out that wasn't picked up for over 1 month, nearly two (the same woman who yelled at the guy). She had been given money to dispose of it properly, but didn't do it.

So.. yeah. Now, point 2 rubs me the wrong way because it's a horrible (and wrong) assertion. Point 3 gets better because the memo says "Please take the trash in and dispose of it properly quickly. Leaving it out is like having a sign that says 'Here lies a lazy and careless foreigner'." That is, frankly, a flat-out racist remark. If I said "Here lives some arrogant, empty-minded Japanese", how well would people respond to that?

I'm not really that upset about it. It's just kinda weird.. never been in a position like that in my life. Arrogance and stupidity flows freely through this world (on the part of the neighborhood association head AND my coworker who is making us all look bad). On the positive side: it's the minority, no matter what the media or cynics of the world would have us believe.

Other than all that? Life's pretty good. Tired, but everything's all right. Had two students ask me today why I'm single (kinda wish people would stop asking), but.. it's a legitimate question, nothing harsh about it.

Gonna reply to some e-mails, read a bit, then go to bed. Got more high school tomorrow.

See ya!
Jason on 04.14.09 @ 10:25 PM JST [link] [comment]

Monday, April 13th

Cherry Blossom Season

So, it's the sakura season, when the cherry blossom trees bloom everywhere, people go out on a hanami with their friends and family to sit in a park under the trees for a picnic: talking, eating, and drinking. "So, how was it??", you ask. Umm.. well.. when I went on one 3 and a half years ago, it was an interesting experience and I met some Japanese fisherman that we ate freshly caught fish with. This year? I hate to say it, but I'm not exactly a fan of picnics or staring at trees, so I didn't really do anything special. But I did look around the parks, university campus, and street in front of my house (which is lined for half a mile with sakura trees). So, I performed my civic duty of appreciating trees.

So, so, so, so, so... I need a new word. 'Thus', maybe..

Anyway, other than that, everything's been going all right, I'd say. I was still sick for another week and a half (and that stupid cough refused to let up), but it's pretty much subsided now and not only can I actually talk, but I don't need to pop throat lozenges every 3 minutes (a shame, too. I started to like the taste!). Finished my US taxes from my university job's income, filed for the Japanese stimulus package (money from both countries? Awesome!), finished my application for a Japanese proficiency test in July... hmm. Oh, and I need a Japanese driver's license within the next month or two. Due to some date issues on the license, I might need to go in and argue with some people, but we'll see how it goes. Any time I get a card with my name or picture on it, though, I'm happy. It's just somehow awesome to have credentials in another country.

Sometime in the next month, I'll also be signing my new contract (for another year) with my company. I've made up my mind that I'll spend a maximum of 3 years teaching English, so I've still got about 26 months before I need to do anything big or important with my life. Kinda keeps the stress low, though my goal now is to save as much money as humanly possible for whatever I'll do in 2 years. I also signed a year-long contract with the high school I teach at for my company (basically, I'm an employee of my company, and the high school pays my company for me to work there. Due to some legal quirks, though, I have to technically be an employee of the high school, hence the contract). It's nice, though, because it means that I can put it on my resume that I officially worked as an English teacher at the premier English high school in the prefecture.

April is the beginning of the school year in Japan, which means I've had a bunch of new classes thrown on my plate and my students move around. Doesn't mean much other than that, but it is interesting to see my students grow up and get older. A-chan is now in junior high school. Y-kun passed the exams and got into high school. S-kun, against his expectations, got into his first choice university. In few other jobs are you in the unique position of watching people grow first hand. Of course I also teach adults, but they make up 8 out of 34 weekly classes. Anyway, it's just really interesting.

Tomorrow I start at the high school again, so I need to start waking up early. After spending the last month not working until 5 pm, it's going to take some getting used to. But I really enjoy teaching at the school, so it's fine. I actually had to go out and buy some more dress shirts and ties today, as well as some indoor office slipper for the classrooms. Bah.. And then ironing. IRONING. Definitely not my favorite activity.

There was actually a lot more that I wanted to mention and talk about (like my exciting brush with racism..! Being a white, Christian, male American has left me generally out of the 'discriminated against' category for much of my life), but it's late and this is getting long as it is. Maybe tomorrow or so. For now, I'm gonna read, go to bed, and head off to work.

Oh.. and Happy Easter!
Jason on 04.13.09 @ 01:28 AM JST [link] [comment]


April 2009
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