A Christmas Message for the people at home

Dear Mom and Dad, family and friends,

I am about to depart for Taiwan in a couple of days and am very excited about it! So far, this trip away from home hasn’t been all I expected it to be… sometimes it was much better, and other times it was slightly disappointing. But overall, I am very happy about my time here.

As many of you may already know, I decided not to recontract. The decision weighted on my mind for a bit, but as the November cold settled in, it dawned upon me how I missed you too much to be an expatriate for another year. I watch the Christmas lights twinkle in my Japanese countryside and think of you all. I miss you more than my words can ever truly express, and I wish you, from the bottom of my heart, a very merry Christmas and lots of joy in the New Year.

Yours truly shall be returning to her country of blue and white sometime in late August… Y’all better be ready for me.

Sincerely,
Inaka Princess V

***

Chere Mom, Cher Pops, chers famille et amis,

Je m’envole pour Taiwan dans quelques jours a peine et j’ai bien hate! Jusqu’a present, mon voyage ici se passe bien, meme si parfois tout n’est pas toujours tout a fait a la hauteur de mes attentes. Mais en regle generale, je suis tres heureuse de ma situation.

Comme plusieurs d’entre vous le savez déjà, j’ai decidé de ne pas renouveller mon contrat avec JET. J’ai sérieusement consideré avant de prendre une décision, mais alors qu Novembre arrivait avec le froid aussi, j’ai constaté que vous me manquiez tous beaucoup trop pour que je reste loin de vous une autre année. Je regarde les lumieres de Noel dans ma champagne perdue et je pense a vous. Vous me manquez énormémentt, et je vous souhaite a tous, du plus profond de mon coeur, un tres joyeux Noel et beaucoup de bonheur pour la nouvelle Année.

Je vous reviens au mois d’aout… et vous etes mieux de vouloir m’accompagner chez Cora et Nickels dans les jours suivants mon retour!

Sincerement,
Val –xxx-

Are you smarter than a 5th grader?

I had elementary school yesterday and as usual, it was less awful than what I had anticipated. I don’t know why I am always paranoid about my elementary schools… It’s like I’m reading the crap all the other JETs have to endure and I interiorize their fears or whatnot that my day is gonna be a new form of torture. Though the predominance of the Fruits Basket game (and all its derivatives – animal basket, color basket, numbers basket) is still ever so painful, the truth is that for the most part, my day is quite bearable. Even sometimes… fun!

I believe I have Inaka King Luc to thank for that. As I step out of my house every elementary school day, feeling my stomach churn in unwanted anticipation, I close my eyes, take a deep breath and hear his voice in my head. “JUST LET GO!!!!!” And then I open my eyes and feel much better.

I get to school as early as they request, read whichever book someone generously lent me until it’s time for me to get to class. Then I go, practice the good morning greeting, and teach whichever boring topic they’ve asked me to teach for the lesson, turning to the homeroom teacher when my kids’ drooping eyelids and yawns tell me we’ve practiced enough and they’re bored with this crap. Usually, that’s the teacher’s cue to make me endure the Fruity torture of watching the kids run around, switching chairs with glee while I call out whatever three words are used in the game for that day.

However, sometimes the thought of over 25 minutes of Fruits Basket is unbearable even to the teacher. And so, yesterday, as my kids had recited animal names for the past 15 minutes, got them all down, plus pronunciation practice, I turned to the teacher. She looked at the clock, her expression clearly telling me to go on as it was “Too early for game yet”. I shrugged. And turned to the board. And before anyone could stop me, I wrote down: “My favorite animal is ________________.” And started teaching THAT, to the great distress of the teacher. And what a surprise, the kids ALL said it, nearly perfectly, with barely any prompting. I think I nearly gave her a heart attack when I substituted the word "animal" for "color" though.

Seriously, we wonder why these kids don’t know English… well if the homeroom teachers didn’t force us to drip-feed English to them, maybe they’d stand a better chance at learning it! But, heh, in a way, I can understand why the teachers do that… after all, you wouldn’t want a 5th grader to be better at something than you, now would you?

Countdowns

Bon ben… ça a l’air que j’ai hérité d’une plante verte… moi qui est pas capable de s’occuper de rien de vivant, j’ai bien hâte de voir combien de temps elle va tougher.


Elle est jolie par contre. C’est un cadeau de Nakata-sensei. Drôle de madame, Nakata-sensei… Elle travaille à l’école primaire où je vais 2 fois par mois. Elle est ben fine, des fois un peu trop, faudrait que je compte combien de fois par 5 minutes elle peut me dire « Arigato gozaimashita » quand elle me demande quelque chose, ouf, j’ai pas fini… Pis là, ben elle m’a donné une plante verte. Soit pour Noël, soit parce que c’est ma dernière visite de l’année à Koto…

Weird. De savoir que c’est ma dernière visite de l’année à Koto. On est déjà en Décembre, il reste 35 fins de semaines avant la fin de mon contrat avec JET. Je compte les weekends parce que ce sont les jours le fun. Je me suis dit que ça passerait plus vite et plus agréablement si je me concentrais sur ce qui est le fun et effectivement, ça améliore de beaucoup les choses. Je compte tout en terme de countdowns. 1 journée avant le party de Ed. 15 jours avant mon congé des Fêtes. 18 jours avant mon voyage à Taiwan. Entre 14 et 16 semaines avant que mes parents viennent me voir. Et 35 fins de semaines avant d’être libérée de mon contrat de JET.

Indicatif que je m’ennuie de Montréal? Peut-être. Sauf qu’en même temps, ça a l’avantage de me rappeler que mon temps ici est limité et que j’ai le devoir d’en profiter au maximum. Je fais de mon mieux, mais ya des soirs que c’est difficile de pas juste rester à vedger devant mon compu…. C’est facile vedger devant son compu! ….mais quand on fait déjà ça à la journée longue, ça devient long des fois. Anyways, j’ai encore 2 saisons de Dexter à me taper si je deviens désespérée. Mais bon… j’aimerais ça avoir de la compagnie plus que d’écouter des DVDs sur mon laptop. Sauf que je trouve ça un peu ardu, toujours essayer de me trouver de la compagnie… j’aimerais ça que du monde m’appelle parfois, pas que ce soit à moi de toujours faire les premiers pas avec le monde du coin. Je sais ben que c’est moi la nouvelle, donc que c’est un peu ma job, mais pourquoi ya jamais personne pour faire « Ok, je m’emmerde à soir… qu’est-ce que je ferais ben…? Ah ouais, yavait une nouvelle au party, je pourrais la caller et voir ce qu’elle fait? », han? Anyways…

Pis là j’ai une rage de fajitas. Oh well, 35 weekends avant que j’en remange! Clo, t’es mieux d’avoir des histoires à me conter pis du temps de libre au mois d’août!

To counter the emoness of the previous post...

Heh, we’re in December. I’ve survived thus far, happy to say!

Seriously though, I often think back on my arrival here in September and it already feels like a distant memory. I feel like I’ve been here a loooooong time, much longer than it has been, but really, I’m not tired of it quite yet. I’m enjoying life here, the bouts in between the mind-numbing boredom of the staffroom. But apart from the fact that my job sucks, really, life isn’t bad at all. I’m having all kinds of fun with the people from around here, road trippin’ and talking, hanging out… Still, sometimes, especially with X-mas coming on, nostalgia hits.

A partial list of stuff I miss from home:

Bookstores
My folks
Real pizza
Central heating
Eggs, bacon and little roasted potatoes for breakfast
REAL COFFEE
The buddies
Downtown Montreal

But there is stuff to counter balance.

A partial list of stuff that kicks ass here:

The Stix
The people
The pay
The scenery (don’t laugh, I still hold my breath when I see the mountains in the right light)
The parties
The stuff I do outside of school
The fact that, fuck man, I’m in JAPAN!!!!

Oh, and Taiwan will probably make that list too ;)

Decided, for now.

I won’t do two years.

Though I’ve had a blast these last two weekends, the monotony of school life is just hitting me hard. I won’t be able to make it that far, I won’t be able to tough out another winter (that hasn’t even started yet). Classes are a bore, mom’s right, it’s important to do what you want in life, the sucky thing is, I don’t know what I want to do in life, though this morning, I had a flash of pure clarity as I watched my kids mull over their English textbooks that I missed being a student. I miss learning things, I miss HAVING to do something (or having something to do?). I miss those intense discussions, those classes out of which I’d drag classmates out for coffee so that we could continue the class debate, I miss feeling intellectually challenged. This job is a bore, a joke, where they pay me almost 3000$ a month to sit on my ass and be a tape-recorder. I wish I could set out on my own to some intellectual pursuit, unfortunately, I’ve never been known as proactive… Probably why I want to go back to school because, hey! Throwing buckets of hard-earned cash into the pockets of the education moguls makes it so much easier for me to feel obligated to accomplish something (if only that could work for gym subscriptions too…)

I like Japan. I truly do. I’ve met some fantastic people here from all sides of the world. But I’ve just spent a weekend with my old life, and it made me realize how much I miss it, how good it will feel to go back to it. I think I’ve made up my mind, at least that’s what it feels like at the moment.

Live it up to the fullest. Then it’ll be time to go back to my beloved Montreal, my city, my people, my life… And as I think about this, I hear the Respectables playing in my head…

J’pourrai toujours ben revenir,
Faut pas partir dans cet esprit la,
Si ya des choses qui m’plaisent ici,
Elles s’ront plus belles vues de la bas…

They were right. Every little piece of my old life looks so shiny and bright, seen from so far away… It’s like looking at the stars.

4:00 PM

For the first time today, my facebook chat counter indicates "0 Friends online". Funny how that always coincides with the end of the JETs workday ^^

Merry Monday

I had a good day today. That’s a good start to the week.

Mondays often feel like crap, at least when I wake up as I realize that the weekend is over and that I have to go back to my mind numbing job as a professional speaker of Engrish. Meaning that I have to go freeze my ass at the JHS while busily surfing facebook and being bored outta my mind until someone comes to chat me up. There really isn’t much else to do, unless I’m on tape recorder duty. Granted, I could study Japanese, which would be a much better use of my time, but I am a lazy ass and re-reading someone’s blog entries in my 2nd language remains more appealing than trying to cram hiragana and katakana into my brain. Yet, today I would be spared the usual mind-numbingness of the job (at least in part) as I was due to direct my very own lesson with the ni-nen sei. Being Canadian – and French – emotions in English had been cool to learn back in my high school days. And no matter that my JTE kept saying that Japanese people could not be “overwhelmed” as they never displayed such emotions, I think the kids got the picture and enjoyed seeing me make an ass out of myself as I laughed hysterically (hysterical), jumped two feet in the air screaming “KUMO!!!!” (frightened) and made moon eyes at the little badass in class (lovestruck).

That was the first lesson of the day. It did a world of good to wake me up (and keep me warm) and I think it did get the kids genki for the day, despite it being 15 wet degrees inside the school.

Yu-chan’s lesson went well as he was in a good mood today, and he completed my body parts worksheet (with one of his favorite cartoon characters as the “body”) in record time.

And then, the surprise of the day. I had been asked (Friday evening, 10 minutes before leaving school, as per habit) to design a worksheet for today, which would be used in the san-nen sei’s lesson. Usually, this allows me 3 minutes in front of the class, actually talking as I explain the worksheet. But not today. Nope. Today, I was to stand at the front of the class for about 15 minutes, explaining what an INVITATION was, demonstrated it with the JTE, and then writing out the key sentences on the board for asking someone to do something, accepting or declining the invitation. And for once, there were more than 2 examples for EACH sentence!!! I was giddy!!! I mean, for once, I got to teach, and it was a pattern sentence that can actually be useful , and it was to students who were listening, enraptured by my every word!! Ok, maybe that’s pushing it, but they were listening and taking notes at least, which is a huge improvement over my apathetic high school kids that I wanted to strangle every damn class back in Quebec. The lesson ended with a textbook reading, but I didn’t even mind, and I was pretty happy again as the JTE joked with the students about the fact that no self-respecting JHS student would ever suggest Ghandi as a flick to watch with friends on the weekend. Seriously. What 13 year old wants to watch a 3 hour + movie about the British’s reign in India and how Ghandi ended it?

And lastly, school lunch had actual MEAT today (yakitori, I think, chicken brochettes), was all around delicious and still WARM, despite the all-around cold! Good day! ^^

For Ed

So now you can’t complain that I never post in English.

Thanks for a kickass show last night. I really enjoyed myself.

Music… what else is there in life? Well ok, there’s a lot of other stuff in life, but nothing quite like music. And there is definitely nothing like live music.

I’m sad that you are leaving so soon, when I feel like I just got here. I wish I could’ve seen you play more often. You might’ve even been able to expand my musical horizons further than my beloved emo-pop-punk-alternative scene.

Led Zep is missing from my iTunes I notice (I think I can hear you saying something along the lines of “Sacrilege!” or “Blasphemy!” as you read this) but I am on the way to rectifying that situation. Any suggestions on what a Led Zep newbie should get?

Thanks again.

Darth Val

PS: and in order to continue your French education, should you ever come to Montréal.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9U72QVCgh_Q

Little funny story

I was leaving my elementary school yesterday, feeling dead and disgruntled because – let’s face it – playing Fruits Basket 4 times in a row for over 20 minutes EACH TIME will do that to anyone. So as I was taking off, I saw some of my Junior High students playing in the field with the elementary kids. They ran over to me to say hi and we started a bit of chit chat just as the principal from the Junior High school pulled into the parking lot.

He came over to us, talked with the students in Japanese as I tried to catch a couple of words. From what I understood there was something going on at the cultural center near my house and the two girls participated in something and they were good. He then turned to me, spoke his two words of English, “Good afternoon”, to me and then tried to engage me in conversation. Meaning he looked as though he was about to say something, stopped, looked for his words, stopped again.

Finally he looked at the students and asked them for help in case I didn’t understand what he’d say to me. They nodded and waited for him to speak. So he looks back at me, is about to say something, stops, looking lost, tries again, gestures to the students, obviously trying to tell me that they did something at the Kominkan this weekend…

So one of the girls just waits, and looks at him, and as he turns to look at her, still at loss, she says, very clearly and slowly: “They.”

I laughed the entire way home.

The makings of History

Out of La Presse, www.cyberpresse.ca
"Thanks!"

Une page de l'Histoire

Je ne pensais pas que ca m’affecterais comme ca, d’autant plus que je suis a l’autre bout du monde en ce moment, mais peut-etre mon petit pelerinage a Obama-shi m’a-t-il rapproche de l’election Americaine plus que je ne le pensais… Jamais je n’aurais pense passer la journee a reloader le site de Cyberpresse.ca a suivre les presidentielles, alors que je n’ai meme pas vote a mes propres federales…

Sauf que dans le vent de folie qui traverse le monde en ce moment, il y a quelque chose qui nous pousse a ne pas etre indifferent du resultat de cette election.

Les gens sont de plus en plus blases face a la politique. De plus en plus d’entre nous realisons a quel point il est difficile de faire bouger les choses, a quel point, au fond, on ne sait rien de ce qui se passe deriere ce que les medias veulent bien nous dire.

Sauf qu’il fut un temps ou les choses bougeaient. Il fut un temps ou il etait possible de creer des changements. Ghandi a paralyse l’Inde pour en faire sortir les envahisseurs. Castro a crisse les USA en dehors de Cuba a grand coups de pied dans le cul. Le Quebec a mis l’Eglise Catholique a la porte de ses ecoles pour y previlegier le savoir et a ainsi declenche une revolution culturelle sans violence. Martin Luther King a apporte de l’espoir a ceux qui etaient injustement opprimes, simplement a cause de la couleur de leur peau.

Le changement fut possible.

Obama me redonne l’envie d’y croire.

Victory

J'AI RÉUSSI À ARRANGER MOI-MÊME, OUI MONSIEUR, MA CONNECTION INTERNET!!!!!!!!! SKYPEZ-MOI!!!!!!!

YÉ M'AIME!!!!!!!

Little badass

Badness…

I think one of my cutsies 1st year students has a crush on me. It’s really bad, because he’s the little bad boy of the school. So when he sees me, he’s all nice, gives me a big big smile and then runs off to his friends to act all badass. I don’t really mind that part, “Hell yeah, look at me the ALT gives me attention and thinks I have a cool belt!” No, what I do mind is when he starts acting up with his teacher in order to get my attention or to show me that he’s tough.

I don’t really know how to react to that. I mean, in part I would believe it’s the teacher’s job to put him in his place and tell him to pay attention or stop acting up, but at the same time, I am afraid the teachers believe I am encouraging him. Which I am NOT. Not the bad behavior at least. I mean, ok, I do have a soft spot for the rebel ones, but I never reward bad behavior. When we’re in class and I see him not doing the work with one of my teachers, I step closer, kinda stare at what he’s doing until he notices me. Usually he gives me this small smile, picks up the textbook and starts reading like the others. Ok, once I’ve been gone a while he just goes right back to what he was doing, but the point is, he usually tries to stay in my good graces.

But today in the gym, he just disregarded his teacher completely, preferring to wave at me from his spot on stage, in the choir. That was slightly awkward…

And at the same time, I can’t tell him to “stop acting up.” A) I don’t have enough Japanese for that. B) …he doesn’t have enough English to understand it.

Hm…. What to do? Suggestions??

And in other news… my first official Enkai (office party) will be held on November 14th, somewhere in Toyooka city. Will keep you posted on how that goes!

Not bad for the start of the week

I had a surprisingly good morning yesterday. Monday morning, didn’t really feel like going to work, ‘specially since the teachers had told me (Friday afternoon 2 hours before I was due to leave) that I would be teaching the first class and could you please prepare something. Yay. Feel the joy.

Anyways, managed to pull something half-decent out of my last 2 hours, left it on my desk and enjoyed my weekend.

Back to work, I was slightly dreading the first class as I always have a sinking feeling when I am about to teach that I am going to mess up in unimaginable ways and kids will think my lessons are boring and can’t we just do bloody grammar already. I really should give myself more credit than that.

After the usual blank stares when I am at the front of the class and not the teacher (and they realize therefore this will NOT be translated in Japanese) class slowly settled into a routine that worked. We were doing “Emotions”. So I would say the word and then exaggeratedly perform the emotion in front of my students. As I said, after the blank stares stopped, I think they enjoyed it! I often got laughs here and there and they enjoyed trying to guess the emotion I was portraying during the review.

And after a bit of coaxing, I had my class clown take my place and perform an emotion. Now Japanese students are really shy usually, but after a moment’s hesitation, he took the plunge and just had fun trying to make the others guess how he was feeling. I think this lesson went really well and I was really happy that my students enjoyed it. It made me realize that I miss teaching a bit more than I actually thought.

This job can be cool when I’m not doing an impression of a tape-recorder. Doing an impression of me laughing hysterically and having a bunch of 14 year olds laughing their butts off is a lot more fun.

Shitty Day?

Last Monday was the incarnation of Murphy's Law at its best. I was supposed to go get my car. That did not happen. It truly seemed as though the Universe was opposed to the idea, as an assortment of unlucky coincidences befell me for no other apparent reason than to PISS ME RIGHT OFF. In response, I did this.

Culture Shock

En toute franchise, il y a un truc a date, au Japon que je ne comprends pas. Je ne catche pas du tout du tout. Comment un des pays les plus technologiquement avance au monde… peut-il avoir des toilettes basees sur le meme format qu’un trou dans la terre???



Le pire: ils en ont des toilettes a “l’Europeene”! OSTI!!!! POURQUOI ILS EN METTENT PAS PARTOUT PIS QU’ILS SE DEBARASSENT PAS DE CETTE ANTIQUITE QUI EST ATTROCEMENT SOUFFRANTE EN PLUS DE N’ETRE PAS PRATIQUE POUR 2 CENNES?????


Question sans reponse helas...

Weekends like this make it all worthwhile

You know, when I came to Japan, I figured I’d have to give up a lot of things… mainly in the entertainment and food departments. I think I had underestimated the resourcefulness of some Tajima Gaijins…

Last Friday night turned into game night at Rebecca’s, a lovely gathering of Gaijins and locals all partaking in the bonding of souls through kicking each others’ ass on a TV screen. I discovered that I prefer my Tetris the old fashioned way, without all those “attacks” you can use to fuck up your opponents’ pile and therefore cover up your lack of talent at fitting the little colorful bits together. Yeah, I ended up losing… sue me.

And also, do not expect that the Wii Mario Kart is good practice for your teen to test his driving skills… unless you want your car ending up in every ditch on the side of the roads. I’ll take my good old fashioned N64 joystick any day… Still, Wii proved entertaining enough and cheering others on made me think that maybe all those game ads on TV actually had a bit of truth to them (I personally always thought they were an elaborate scam to lure the nerdy gamers into thinking a new multiplayer game would actually get them friends who’d want to come and play instead of simply spending hours beating every level on the single player mode).

But oh, the icing on the cake definitely was Jarryd’s PS3, and the two little plastic guitars that I practically jumped on as we were setting up the games. Hey, someone had to make sure it was working, no? Guitar Hero 3. Lovely, lovely revered and adored game, how I missed you (‘specially when I thought I wouldn’t see you again for another year)! So yeah, game night was a blast, not only because I got to play GH3 again, but also for the bits of socializing with cool people. Also, this little social experiment allowed me to discover that my name is entirely unpronounceable for Japanese speakers. So was its shortening to Val. Yet strangely, adding –chan to the end of it solved the problem as clear ringings of perfectly pronounced Val-chan started echoing throughout the room. Hm, will keep in mind for future outings.

On the food side of things, I was fed sushi (which, can you believe, I hadn’t even had a chance to try since I arrived!) and a broth of …something… that was absolutely delicious. Yet, it was nothing to what was coming on Saturday.

I spent the next day in Kasumi, having slept over at Rebecca’s and as night rolled around we drove down to Stix for Italian night. We were planning a short stay and a quick getaway, but those plans changed to something much more better. (Anybody get that reference, you get a cookie^^) Adam had Italian friends visiting Japan for a while, and they had nicely agreed to come to Stix and give a cooking class where we could sample some of their delicious cuisine. And oh. My. God. I have never had a particular fondness for Italian food, liked it well enough, but oh goodness! Everything was just so wonderfully tasty, in blends and flavors I had never really experienced before and just plain WOW. Spaghetti bolognaise, mashed potatoes and salami (best thing eva!), that little spicy sauce and the rice…mmmmmmm! I still had a pang of longing for my old club sandwich when I saw Allie digging into hers but, that was all forgotten as the dessert was set on the table. Something made with cream. And special powder from Italy. And caramel. And even though you’re completely full, you cannot help but take another helping.

I left the Stix rolling to Rebecca’s car and as I got home, I fell into bed and slept like a rock ‘till the next morning.

And lastly, Sunday was a lovely day. Sun was shining, it was freakishly hot for an October day, but beautiful nonetheless. I biked to Kinosaki after lunch and met up with Ben, great guy, another JET from the area. We headed up the mountain in the village using the rope way and cabin cars and had a spectacular view of the village, the river and the surrounding mountains. Though I did get sweaty palms going up, the trek down was much more pleasant as we followed the windy stairs in the actual mountain and made various stops along the way. (For pics, check my facebook ;)) Finally down, we ran into Adam and his friend s again as they were coming back from the onsen. And seeing how relaxed everybody looked, I know now that I really need to go try it out.



We ended up splitting up, Ben and I grabbed dinner at this tiny ramen place (funny how neither of us actually ordered ramens) and talking for a good long while about Heroes. We left, looking for stuff to do but the town had apparently shut itself down. As we wandered around looking (hopelessly) for a coffee shop, we noticed the “Shot bar” was now the only open thing in town. Oh well, not coffee, but I won’t complain. As we got back to the station, we still had a while to wait for Ben’s train, so we sat down and abused the onsen’s free foot bath.

I biked home in the dark, blessedly remembered to buy milk and soy sauce, and crashed into bed. And then got up, searching through my bookcase and looking through Matthieu Simard’s Echecs Amoureux et Autres Niaiseries. And stumbled upon the quote I felt summed up the day the best.

“Baiser et parler, la vie peut etre belle, je vous jure.”

Remove one word in there for it to be accurate, but you get the idea.

J'm'ennuie de mon clavier canadien!!!!

Le reveil fut pas mal difficile ce matin. J’ai veille plus tard que d’habitude… après avoir fait du bicycle jusqu’a Kinosaki pour voir combien de temps ca prendrait, je me suis ‘tetee’ a souper chez mes voisins, les Shimas. Mettons que ca a torche les ramens pas a peu pres. Ensuite, je me suis dit que pour relaxer avant les dodos j’ecouterais UN episode de Heroes… qui a fini par se multiplier par 3. Maudit. J’ai pas de self control.

Faque ce matin quand je me suis reveille, j’ai tetee un peu plus longtemps que d’habitude dans mon lit, ca me tentais pas de me lever et d’aller jouer les tapes-cassettes pour mes profs. C’est pas vargeux comme job. J’ai foutument hate a mon premier cheque de paye, juste pour voir combien je gagne a me pogner le cul sur facebook pendant des heures.

C’est weird a dire et a penser, mais une partie de moi s’ennuie d’enseigner. De faire des choses. De me sentir productive et de voir les kids faire de mes activites et aimer ca… Parce que je suis a peu pres sure que mes activites torchent pas mal la grammaire merdique que l’on fait a CHAQUE cours. Rappellez-vous votre anglais au secondaire chers amis. Maintenant imaginez que chacun de vos cours, on vous fait repeter des mots toute la classe ensemble, des mots sans contexte, bien sur. Ensuite on vous presente une phrase ou un texte. Et mot par mot, on traduit les phrases, tout en expliquant la grammaire dans chacune. Alors serieux… nos cours du secondaire, yetaient pas si pire que ca!

Et maintenant, mettez-vous a ma place, alors que je me tappe de la grammaire japonaise 3 fois par jour pendant 45 minutes. Et que je gosse dans le fond de la classe. Priez que je toffee l’annee!

PS: Excusez le pas d'accents, je les trouve pas sur mon clavier japonais :S

My first Japanese weekend (mixed with a bit of Gaijin fun^^)

Hello all!

Well, it’s a good thing I did not follow through with my original intentions of starting this blog only AFTER getting the net at home… as I still do not know when the heck this will be happening! The good news (so far) is that I KNOW I will be getting my Gaijin Card this coming Friday! Woohoo!

So, life in Japan, the reason behind this blog (in theory, at least). I have for the firs t time truly embraced a Japanese experience. But first, a little recap of a bit of Gaijin fun.

Rebecca picked me up on Friday night so we could go and hang at her place while watching movies and munching on junk food. We did just that, thoroughly enjoyed it and went to bed at about midnight after laughing our asses off to the Abridged Yugi-oh episodes found on this lovely website: yugiohabridged.com

The next morning, as Rebecca is a bit of a late riser, I shamelessly stole her computer and signed into Skype for a long, overdue conversation with the folks, as well as glimpses of my house and the puppy and kitty. We chatted for a little over an hour, covering the basic topics of life in Japan, the Federal elections, the US elections and random other tidbits that come up in conversations, by which time Rebecca got up and made breakfast. I was happy to discover there is Japanese butter tasting like Canadian butter! And now I have to find it in the grocery store… joy.

Anyways, as Rebecca already had plans for the day, she left me at her house as I abused her internet to *attempt* making a lesson for Monday (today). Attempts were half-hearted at best, as the 3 Internet windows I navigated simultaneously were of facebook, youtube and fanfiction.net. By 5 o’clock, I had pulled something half-decent outta my ass and was enjoying kicking back after the LOOONG 20 minutes it took me to make 2 worksheets for the Monday classes., I was busily surfing youtube, watching the Tales of Mere Existence as Rebecca came back and we watched some more Yugi before heading to the Stix, which is rapidly becoming my favorite place in Japan.

We managed to find the place easily, thanks to Rebecca’s memory, and I was happy to see Adam and Tim again as well as a couple of new faces (or faces I had forgotten). Cover was 1000\, including a drink. I took out another 1200\ for a club sandwich that was, oh, soooo worth it! As the evening progressed, the place filled up to OVER maximum capacity, and in case you don’t know, the Stix is a tiny place (chiisai!). We then had the pleasure of hearing 2 of the local Gaijins, Katie and Ed, perform a couple of songs for us. People mingled and I conversed with some interesting JETS from the area, namely Jeff, Dan and Clay. It was quite a fun night and I’m really looking forward to the next get together! I also bravely offered Ed my phone number and e-mail (after he had blown my mind with his guitar, harmonica and singing – yes, I’m still a total sucker for musicians) and told him to keep me updated on future gigs and/or concerts.

Rebecca and I left, after 20 minutes spent trying to leave but always ending up in conversations with people as we were saying goodbye, and I was very proud that I managed to remember the shortcut Missy had taken that led us directly onto road 3, the road leading to my little hole in the world, without us needing to backtrack through Toyooka. Saved us a bit of driving, methinks!

And now, after that recap of Gaijin hanging, here is my first real Japanese experience. Sunday morning, I woke up to a grey sky and the afterparty feeling (that little bit of disappointment at knowing you’re not spending the day with a bunch of cool people). Still, I had told Kanata-sensei (teacher at the elementary school near the beach) that I would go to their sports festival. And it still beat doing nothing, especially since I had already depleted all of my distractions by watching ALL of Heroes Season 1. So, I kicked my ass out of bed and did some laundry while getting ready for the day. I also discovered 3 ant colonies expanding in my house, to my great distress. I vacuumed them off the walls, but to no avail, the fiends were unstoppable! I took comfort in the fact that they weren’t cockroaches, and made a mental note to buy those little ant houses next time I was in town.

I set out on my bike, debating whether or not to bring an umbrella and decided against it for sheer laziness. As I was on my way, I noticed the village was much more active than on usual Sunday mornings. Approaching the school, I saw a row of cars parked all along the street, as well as numerous bikes. I parked my own near the fence of the school yard (oh, funny fact: in Japan, nobody locks their bikes. They just leave them there, on the street, on their front porches, unlocked.) and made my way into the yard. The opening ceremony was underway, and I was glad that this time, I had no allocution nor did I have to stand ramrod straight in a line for 30 minutes. So, I started walking around, saw a few of my students from Minato JHS, some of the elementary school kids too.

I also noticed, with a certain unease, that I was the only, and I mean the ONLY, Gaijin there. No other JETs, no random foreigners living in Japan, just little French Canadian me. Soon enough though, I ran into Osaki-sensei (Kosai elementary teacher) who dragged me to her tent and introduced me to my other teacher colleagues. Everyone was very nice to me and I put on my best ‘I have no freaking clue what they’re spewing at me in Japanese but I’ll smile anyways’ smile as I tried to answer their questions about my age, where I was from and my favorite foods. They then gave me sake, some kind of dried up octopus strips, and one of the teachers gave me a card he had drawn and kept repeating to me that he was an artist and look look, there is my art over there, and look at Minato JHS because there is my art over there, and at Koto school also. Anyways, yeah. Really into his art. (Enough that another teacher who was talking to me looked at me and said: “Yes, he is Artist.” Complete with a roll of the eyes. Come to think of it, this was the first time I saw a Japanese person using sarcasm.)

This continued for about an hour, half-Japanese-EngRish conversations as we watched the teams on the field compete with each other in competitions and games North American people have probably never heard of. As lunch was being served, one of my students, Kozue (who I mistakenly called Yumiko -_-) invited me to eat with her and her family.

She took me to her tent, introduced me to her family and I realized after a while that she knew a lot of English. And I mean A LOT. Much more than the teachers I had been talking to before. As her mom laid out the food (which was absolutely DELICIOUS, plus, looked EXACTLY like food in Japanese cartoons – anime – I thought it was cute!!) Kozue explained that she had been to a middle school in Seattle for a few weeks and that she had lived with an American family there. And I was like, YOZA!!! She’s become that much better just by staying 2 weeks in the States?? Plus, she’s really not shy, unlike all the other JHS students I have met so far.

Anyways, I ended up spending the rest of the (now rainy) afternoon under her tent with her and her family and we chit chatted while watching the games. As the festival ended at 3 o’clock, we went our separate ways; she returned home and I went back to the Kosai teachers’ tent to help them put everything away. Was the least I could do after they had given me coffee, sake, munchies and beer. I think they were happy with my initiative. But hey, it’s not like it took a lot of my time. Plus, it’s typically Japanese: after a party, everyone does their part to help clean up and set things back the way they were. And when everybody does it, it’s really efficient.

So yeah, it was quite an experience to do an activity WITHOUT any people from my own culture or language. Though it was a bit unsettling at first, I’m glad I went and stayed the whole day and participated and interacted.

And this morning, I brought a deck of cards with the Quebec emblem on them to Kozue for her and her family. I hope they use it!

Well, well now… wasn’t that a long ass recap! Ja ne people! I’m heading home with the box of goodies I just received from Mom and Dad today! Bring on Heroes season 2!!!!

Settling in

Hey wassup my people!

This is V here, still live from Japan, and yes, still mooching off Internet connection in the staff room which, by the way, is starting to earn me the wrath of some fellow teachers. So I have to watch my ass when chatting on facebook. So please excuse me if we’re talking and I suddenly do not answer anymore. Situation is coming closer to being resolved though as I am getting the Gaijin Card next Friday (yes, YES!!) and will therefore be able to apply for Internet access and all the other basic necessities a 23 y.o. Canadian gal might need to survive in her Japanese countryside.

So, apart from stealing net time at school, what have I been up to?

Well, my adaptation phase seems to be coming to a slow close as I am now getting settled into a little routine of work, food and play. The upside of this routine being of course the “play” part. I have found a new partner in crime in my little inaka region, goes by the name of Rebecca, from the US of A and is just as geeky as little old me. We also have a shared fondness for eating out, just hanging and talking for hours about random stuff. Also, all those of you who have been privy to my storytelling skills (meaning how I add in truckloads of useless details), be advised that she’s exactly like me in that department. But hey, it’s not like I mind ;)

So the two of us met at Tajima Sports Fest (Tajima Sports gathering, more like) and we’ve been hanging out pretty much every week ever since. She’s been really helpful quelling my bouts of cabin fever and keeping me from starving or surviving solely on a ramens diet.

Plans for the weekend involve hanging at the Styx (the Styx being Heaven really, a small Gaijin-owned restaurant where you can eat a mean club sandwich) this Saturday night and catching a concert by local Gaijins. So yeah, the Styx is Gaijin Central in Toyooka so far. And Sunday morning apparently will be spent at Koko’s Sports Fest, the elementary school near my house, with the afternoon booked for an onsen excursion in Kinosaki.

And I now regrettably have to get my ass on track and work on the lesson plan my teacher has so nicely decided to dump on me NOW, needs to be done for Monday. Y’know, some work would actually be FINE, if they didn’t wait until the very last minute to drop it on me. When that’s the case, it just blatantly pisses me off. But hey, guess that’s Japan for ya!

Keep in touch peeps, I miss y’all like motherfuckin’ crazy!

The Inaka Princess,
V

1st post

Well hello there peeps! This is Val, live from Japan, brought to you by mooching off the connection at Minato Junior High School!

Can't talk for long, this is just a brief announcement to tell you that the blog will be starting (SHOULD BE STARTING) officially sometime in October, as I will finally have an internet connection at home. I have to wait for my Gaijin (Stranger) Card to arrive, which will take approximately 4 weeks. Which, also, sucks.

In the meantime, I can tell you that I have a sweet ass house. Downside, it's in the middle of fucking nowhere.

Oh and yeah, little fun fact: y'all know how I loooove dancing. So, before the big goodbye I thought: "Lets go to Syndrome one last time to have a drink and dance the night away!!" What's wrong with this picture? Well, imagine that one of the best nights of my summer had to end up with me crushed under the weight of a 300+ pounds guy who slipped on the dancefloor and smacked right into... me. Therefore crushing my kneecap and causing a lovely swelling that's STILL not gone. Oh and did I mention he ran away right after the fact? So yeah, fun. (Feel the sarcasm.)

But anyways, what's done is done, I'm here now and I'm doing ok, recuperating slowly but the knee's getting better, plus I've met a bunch of really cool peeps at this JET get together last Friday, so really, things are alright. But I still hope they'll improve when I get my Alien card (that's really how they call it in Japan), a cellphone (ketai), a car and a blessed Internet access.

In the meantime peeps, you can still facebook me, e-mail me or write for real. I miss y'all lots! Hope to hear from y'all soon!

Ja ne!
Val in Japan