It’s finally Friday, and we’re looking forward to the weekend. Kuniko (as usual) has to work, but we’re going to head over to her folks’ place for dinner on Saturday night, and then we’ll have Sunday evening to ourselves. She has continued to have some stressful times at work, but this week was an improvement.

As for me I’ve had a pretty slow week. I’m between terms and the biggest thing I had to do this week was pay for next term and buy textbooks. The results are a little slow in coming from my first two courses, but I’m pretty sure I passed.

Tonight after work I’m going to catch a train into Kobe to meet up with Antoine and catch up. Kuniko is also on the town tonight, so we might get a chance to meet up somewhere along the way.

There are quite a few issues in Japan lately I want to write about, so I’ll spend some time this weekend blogging them. More later!

Sunday Kuniko was off at work all day, so I took the opportunity to attend a small seminar in Himeji. It was sponsored by Himeji JALT, JALT standing for Japan Association of Language Teachers. I recently became a member in the national organization, and this was a local chapter event that I could attend for free. It was on learning styles of language learners, and how a teacher could use this information to be more effective in the classroom.

They were nice enough to include the timing for the train to the location, so I left a little early to look for some books in a Himeji bookstore before catching the train. After amusing myself in Himeji for a while I went over to the station with 20 minutes to spare until the train left, and found that there was no train running there for the next hour.

It turned out they wrote the wrong time, and so I had to catch a taxi to make it on time. That was a bad way to start, and the meeting itself didn’t go so well either. Other people didn’t show up until well after the start time, and it ended up being only about 10 people. The speaker had a powerpoint presentation and tended to follow it – reading from some notes that he had brought along. He gave us lots of handouts to digest later, because we just didn’t have the time to discuss them at the time. We did do some activities in class, and this was helpful.

I met a couple of people and chatted with them. Most were foreign professors at colleges in the area, and every one of them complained about the crappy working conditions at their school and lack of job security. It was a common theme, and a little disturbing since that is the direction that I am aiming with my career development path.

As it ended up I shared a train with the speaker, Mr. Louis Butto, an American who has lived in Japan for the last 14 years. He had some interesting stories, and we compared how we each arrived in Japan. He seemed like a nice enough guy – maybe we’ll meet up in the future.

So it was a mixed review for the seminar. Kuniko had a party to attend for one of her international students (from Spain) and so I stopped for a yakitori dinner and then came home and warmed up in the kotatsu. It is definitely getting colder lately.

This week should be pretty standard. I’m getting ready to start my new classes next week, so I’ll get started on some pre-reading this week.

One of the results of the Halloween party was a whole bunch of cupcakes that need to be eaten by the 17th of this month. Nozaki sensei and I split them up and we’re doing our best to knock them out. I’ve got 23 cupcakes left to go. It’s going to be close.

I’m back in the classroom and I’ve been having a good time with my students this week so far. The kids are really comfortable with me now, and in most classes we’ve found the right balance of what I think is acceptable behavior and what they think is acceptable behavior. I let them get away with a lot – it’s the farthest thing from a Japanese style classroom that they’ve ever experienced, and it is easy for them to get carried away with the freedom of it all. I encourage the behavior to a point – we’re still trying to learn English here.

This is the time in their lives when the Japanese school system is trying to get them to conform with everyone else, get them to see other people as part of the group, and as the expression goes, “hammer down any nails that might still be sticking up”. Usually the students come to my class soon after finishing a day at school, and you can see the residual effects of all the rules that are laid on them all day. Seating position is critical, and unless I tell them to move somewhere they will stay in the same place week in and week out. There are right ways to write in Japanese and wrong ways, and any behavior of mine that seems different is cause for concern. Any time spent learning a new language is stressful for the students – lots of potential for embarrassment and mistakes, so any changes in routine can be pretty tough on them. I like to keep them on their toes, however, and try to get them a little more adaptive to changing situations. We’ll see if this pays off at the end of the year.

I continue to be a little frustrated with the teaching materials that I am using for my classes. I inherited them from the previous teacher, and she inherited them from Nozaki sensei. The problem is less with the materials themselves and more with the level of the students. They are across the board at a level too difficult for them, with the exception of perhaps three students out of seventy. I’ve probably complained about it before, but often the grammar point that I am supposed to teach is something like using the progressive form of a verb (He is running, Bryan is walking) in complex structures like “Bryan has been hiking for four hours”. However, my students can usually only say their name, where they live, and how old they are. After that, they have little confidence and are hesitant to attempt a sentence on their own. Each textbook builds on the ones before it, so students starting the class midway through the year are faced with piles of unknown verbs and grammar. It might be because the students are grouped into classes by age rather than by skill or experience.

I have other problems with the materials – the voice acting on the CDs is just adults trying to talk like kids resulting in weird pronunciations and awkward timing – but Kuniko has helped me put things into perspective and to just relax and teach as best I can. I worry that we’re not covering what needs to be covered, but realistically it can’t be covered properly because the kids are using texts well beyond their learning level. The parents are thrilled that their kids are learning from a native speaker, and the kids are having a good time and getting more comfortable with raw English flying around.

A couple of weeks ago one of the big English conversation schools in Japan went bust, and left almost 5000 foreigners in Japan without a job, and in some cases without a home. This has created a big stir in Japan, with very public examinations of what went wrong and what to do with all these suddenly unemployed foreigners.

Actually Nova, ECC and AEON hire quite a few foreigners, paying very little and relying on the exotic teaching environment to draw teachers. Most have little teaching experience (like me when I first arrived on JET) and live in apartments that are sponsored by the school. 90% of the ones that I have met lived paycheck to paycheck, spending most of their money on things in Japan, knowing this is a temporary adventure. I’ve never really wanted to work in a place like that, mainly because it is less about teaching and more about selling lessons. You build a teaching relationship with your students and then you turn the screws on them and try to get them to buy some special lesson package of the month.

So imagine arriving in Japan, getting started at your new job at Nova, and then the company dies. Your landlord wants money that you don’t have, your visa is now without a sponsor and can’t be extended without an employer, and you are stuck in a country where you can’t speak the language and have very little cash to survive. This is apparently a common situation right now for a lot of people.

Some foreign governments have stepped in to help their citizens – Australia and England have offered to subsidize in part flights back home for people out of work. The government of Japan is struggling to move quickly (something it is not really known for) and take advantage of all this suddenly available English language talent out there.

Everywhere you walk you see the bright blue Nova signs. At almost every major train station in Japan there is a Nova nearby, and it only serves to remind you that there are a lot of people out of work right now.

I’m just back from a romp through my old neighborhood in Futami. The purpose of the trip was to get some new contacts – I really like my eye doctor over there. After scoring the lenses I went over to do a little bit of shopping at Ito Yokado, looking for one of the more elusive grocery items in Japan – hamburger buns.

Unfortunately they didn’t have the buns, but they had English muffins (!) and I also got some tomato paste for the sloppy joe mix. There was a classroom of young kids doing a survey in the grocery store, and I was surprised and amused when a group came up to me and asked me to participate. Actually, a boy in the group asked me, and by the looks on the faces of the other members it looked like he was in the minority in thinking it was a good idea.

Still, everyone asked me some questions (in Japanese) like how often do I come to the store, how many things do I usually buy, what am I buying today, etc. They were really stoked by the end of the interview, and they ran off to brag to their teacher that they interviewed a foreigner.

I popped into a restaurant for sushi for lunch, and then headed back to the train station and came home. In Vivre in the bread section I did find some hamburger buns – I couldn’t believe it. In Ito Yokado you can buy tortillas but no buns, and in Vivre it’s buns but no tortillas.

This morning I turned in all of my assignment for school and finished the term. Next term starts November 19th, but in between I’m going to review some of the areas that I found most interesting from last term and also focus a little more on studying Japanese.

Last but not least, I picked up the game Super Mario Galaxy yesterday and have been really impressed with it. Kuniko and I are suckers for Super Mario and the graphics and gameplay on this one are really good. Now that classes are over, look out!

I just finished up my second day off of the set of four. Yesterday I spent the morning writing a paper, and then went into Akashi to apply for a new gaijin card. Remarkably the whole process took just six minutes, but I’ll have to come back in a few weeks to pick up the new card.

Kuniko came home from work on the late side, and we had a little wine and cheese party. Kuniko had found a chunk of stilton cheese at Vivre and it turned out to be our favorite of the night. We killed a bottle of Ravenswood Zin and made it a fun night.

Today I wrapped up my paper in the morning, and then took a trip into Osaka to get a visa for the trip to Vietnam in December.

Having a whole day to yourself with nobody to meet and no schedule to keep is pretty nice. I can’t remember the last time I could just take my time and explore things at my own pace. Really I haven’t spent a lot of time in Osaka, so to take it slow and walk around a bit was cool. First stop was Honmachi and a walk across part of downtown to find the Vietnamese Consulate.

Usually travelling through Osaka is a mass-transit afair with not much street time, but today it really felt like I was walking through a big city. It helped that the weather was beautiful and around lunchtime everyone was running around looking for lunch, so I could do some people watching.

After a few consultations with my printed out map I stumbled upon the embassy, which was just an office on the tenth floor of a big building. They were flying the Vietnamese flag out front in a big way, though – no way to miss it. I caught an elevator to the 10th floor, and followed the signs to the office.

I was just a little nervous about getting the visa. Vietnam official name is “The Socialist Republic of Vietnam” and it felt a little weird going inside. I guess I’m still indoctrinated from all those movies when I was a kid. Inside there was the standard embassy setup – glassed off counter for the embassy people and lots of bare walls and a drab interior with some desks and chairs for the visitors. I talked with the clerk and without smiling he ordered me to fill out some paperwork. Then he gave me a quick interview and told me to wait 30 minutes for the visa. That was a good sign – I was expecting to have to come back another day. He came back in five minutes, charged me 5000 yen and then gave me the visa, firmly attached to my passport. After I paid he was all smiles, and offered me some free brochures. I grabbed a couple in English and headed out – it was that easy. I shared an elevator ride downstairs with a Vietnamese lady who was really friendly and talked about how she was looking forward to heading home soon.

Since I was in the neighborhood of Shinsaibashi I walked over there and looked through the main thoroughfare of shops. I had been there a couple times before, but I had always arrived by subway and came up from underground without getting my bearings. This time I got an idea of the layout of the area. I stopped in at the Apple store which was full of geeky Americans boasting that they had an iPhone and most Japanese people didn’t.

I caught lunch at a little corner donburi place and took my time scraping out the rice while watching the town move quickly around. Again it was nice to take my time. After Shinsaibashi I went back to Umeda and reserved a Christmas cake (Gaspard and Lisa), browsed through the bookstore, bought a wireless printer server at Yodobashi Camera, and then finally stopped in a coffee shop and drank an espresso and watched the crowds come and go out of the JR Umeda station. After a while I joined them and caught a train back to Okubo.

After a bit of shopping at Vivre I came on home, spent about half an hour hooking up the printer server, and since then I’ve just been cranking rock music and putzing around the house. Kuniko is home late again tonight, but we’re going to have our first nabe of the season tonight. Pretty healthy after the cheese blitz last night…

Tomorrow I’ll go to the eye doctor to buy some contacts, and edit my papers in preparation for turning them in on Friday. Then I should be completely done with my two classes, and my fate will rest in the hands of my instructors.

I’m loving these days off so far. Even though I usually have a lot of time off with only three or four classes in the evening, there is always the feelings in the morning that I have work soon. This week there is no such feeling, and it’s great.

Yesterday we had our school’s Halloween party. It is “the big event” of the school year, and so the kids and parents all look forward to it. Kind of like a ballet recital where the parents go to see if all that money they’ve paid is making their kids better dancers.

Anyway, I went over to Nozaki sensei’s place in the afternoon and we worked together with Miki sensei (the teacher that had my job last year) to get everything ready. Then we loaded up the cars and headed over to the Kakogawa Culture center to get set up. This place was really big, and we had a small room for our party. The small rooms were still pretty big, maybe a 120 person capacity.

We pulled off the party pretty well, I think. There were four other foreign teachers there, Brenda and three of her friends. They came dressed up as Pokemon characters and witches, and they made a big impression with my students. I was dressed up as Matsu-ken, a guy that was pretty popular a couple of years ago. To get an idea of what Matsu-ken looks like, check out some pictures from the internet. Everyone got a kick out my costume – Nozaki sensei was smart to pick that instead of something scary.

We played games with the kids, sang some songs, played bingo, and did trick or treating as well. During the event the kids weren’t shy at all talking with me in English, and I think the parents must have noticed. After we wrapped up I had a huge line of kids waiting to get their picture taken with me in our costumes, and the other teachers were a little jealous since they weren’t quite so popular. But they weren’t dressed up as the Liberace of Japan, either.

Nozaki sensei was really happy with the event, and we cleaned everything up in record time. She took the other foreign teachers out to dinner, but I had a date with Kuniko and so I begged off to head home and spend time with her.

Today is Monday and technically, also Friday for me. I have the next four days off because of a scheduling quirk to equalize the amount of classes. I need to write just one more paper for my first term classes, go to the Vietnamese embassy in Osaka, get a new foreigner card, and take care of some other odds and ends during this time. Hopefully I’ll be able to blog a little more, too.

The wildfire watch is on here in Casa de Fredricks (East). The coverage of the event has gotten a lot of play on Japanese TV, but for the nitty gritty details we have to scour the web looking for information. I’ve got family in the area, so we’ve heard now and then from my mom relaying information. One of the fires is close to Jamul, where my aunt and uncle live. They’ve evacuated to a safer place, but we’ve got our fingers crossed for their house (and everyone else’s).

I’ve caught a nasty cold, but luckily my job doesn’t start until the late afternoons, so I can stay home and stay warm. My voice is gone, which makes for some interesting classes with my students. They don’t mind, because I just end up playing games with them, and we only review for half the class. It’s not easy to mimic my pronunciation when it comes out like a dying old man.

Hopefully I’ll be back in shape by the time the weekend hits, because we’ve got plans to meet Antoine and Miwako on Saturday night, and I’ve got the Halloween party for all my students on Sunday. Must get voice back by then!

While working on my papers each morning I’ve been listening to oldies from various years, and today it is 1975. I didn’t realize until my ears popped how clogged up my hearing is – the songs were suddenly very loud.

Friday night turned out pretty much as we expected, driving home late at night with 16,000 yen worth of cheese and wine. We got five bottles of wine, five kinds of cheeses (including a big chunk of President for half off), and lots of little goodies to keep us happy and merry during these increasingly cold days.

Saturday I had the day to myself to run errands, and then Sunday I went over to Futami alone to check out the matsuri, since Kuniko had to work.

The matsuri was hopping – lots of people there enjoying the party. I tracked down some of the gang from Denya. The master had to work because he got a reservation he couldn’t turn down, so he wasn’t there. He was nice enough to call me the night before and offer me his happi, but I didn’t take him up the offer. The last thing I wanted was to get roped into carrying that heavy mikoshi around all day.

The gang and I hung out for a an hour or so before going out to catch some ramen for lunch. Then we went back and hung out a little more. It was fun to people watch and to catch up with the guys that I rarely see anymore.

Finally around 2 o’clock I figured it was time to head out, but as I was trying to leave another Denya regular saw me and pressed me into service hoisting the mikoshi. As usual the crowd really liked watching the foreigner lifting. I did one quarter lap around the temple, and then made my exit, thanking my buddy along the way.

Sunday night Kuniko and I put a dent in the cheese (and the wine) and ended up going to bed early. Kuniko has had no time off at all, so a relaxing evening was just what the doctor ordered. I managed to catch a cold, so I’m going to be limping through my classes this week. It’s my first cold in a while… I guess the weather is officially changing.

I’m getting ready to head out to teach my Friday classes, and it’s a rainy day outside. Kuniko and I are going to go spend way too much money at the Carrefour in Amagasaki tonight after work. Recently our tortilla source dried up in Kobe, so we’ve got to head out farther to score tortillas. We’ll probably pick up a bunch of cheese, wine, beer and other foreign goodies.

Today I wrapped up one of my classes, and I’ll be working hard through next week to wrap up the other one. Then I’ll have about a week before the next pair of classes starts. It felt really good to knock out that first class today, though.

This weekend should be quiet – Kuniko has to work both days, so that’s a bummer. We’ll head over to her parents’ place on Saturday for dinner and catch up with them. We missed out on the harvesting of the rice this year because of a scheduling conflict with the rice processor. They had to harvest in the daytime during the week, and we were both stuck at work.

That’s about it. I’m predicting more posts this weekend…

Sometimes it is easy to forget that while my students are working on studying English with me, they are also still studying Japanese. I can easily fall into this mental trap where they see me as an expert of English, so they must be an expert in Japanese – and sometimes this is just not the case.

The other day I was talking with my students about my favorite things to order in a yakitori, so I was naming the items in Japanese. One of my favorites is “negimi”, which is chicken and onions alternating on a stick that is barbecued. The students corrected me and insisted that it was “negima”, which sounds the same, just a little bit different.

Of course I’ve been ordering in a yakitori for a few years now and I insisted that it was really negimi, and they know I’m a foreigner so I must be wrong and it is “negima”. So I go home that night and ask Kuniko, and she says that it is both. So we were both right, and I’ll share that bit of information with them next week.

On the scary news front, a seven year old girl in Befu (a couple of train stops from Futami, where I used to live) was stabbed to death in front of her house last night. It made national headlines and had everyone shaking their heads. I had a little scare because the girl had the same first name as one of my students, but that neighborhood is a little out of range from my classroom.

Today I expect that a lot of mothers will be escorting their kids around, and I won’t be surprised if we have a few mothers today bringing their kids right to the door of my classroom.

The first restaurant I ever visited in Kobe was Graciani, a French restaurant housed in an historic western house built in the hills of the Kitano district. It was impressive from the outside, and inside the service was great and the food was excellent.

About a year ago it went out business, and Kuniko and I were pretty bummed out because it was one of our favorites. We set about finding a new favorite restaurant in Kobe and although the search was a blast we never really found anything quite like it.

Surprisingly, Kuniko happened across an advertisement for Graciani recently. Apparently they opened under new owners, and so Sunday we went to go check it out. During the day we caught a concert near Harborland, and once that wrapped up we did a little bit of shopping and then headed to dinner.

They had upgraded the building and built some nice outdoor seating, and inside was much nicer with a bar in the old reception area and new floors and tables. Unforunately our favorite waiter was no longer there, but the service was very good and our server was pretty friendly. We had a bottle of wine with dinner and really enjoyed ourselves. The menu was great – a seven course meal with lots of variety. I can’t remember everything we ate, but the standouts were the beef, the seafood bisque, and some excellent snapper served over risotto. They served a cheese plate just before dessert (yes!), a little palate-refresher of grape sorbet and mint jelly, and then wheeled a big heavy cart covered with desserts. The guy was funny – he said we could have as many and/or as much of the desserts as we wanted – I guess it was a quiet night for business. We put in a request for several things to try, and they brought mine out with a plate that had “Happy Birthday Bryan” written in chocolate around the edges. Nice touch, Kuniko.

On our way out the chef came out to wish me a happy birthday and we complemented him on the great meal. He showed us around a little bit and let us see the wine cellar – it had a big window facing the street so people could peek in and see the wines aging. We had a good dinner, and went home with (very) full stomachs.

The tail end of a matsuri was still going on at the shrine at the end of the road in Okubo, so we changed clothes and walked over to check it out. It really was the end of the night, though, and everyone looked tired and ready to call it a day. We walked back to our place ahead of one of the mikoshi, and called it a day ourselves. It was a really good day, and Kuniko really came through with a great birthday dinner.

My students in my first Friday class are a pretty uptight bunch. I’ve always had trouble getting Sakura to participate – she’s a little crazy to begin with and not paying attention for the last two years is catching up with her now. There are some great students in the class, though. I’ve got them behaving much better now, but watching them tiptoe around each other’s feelings is really interesting.

We usually play a game of bingo at the end of the class, and I rotate around the table letting each person pick a bingo card. If the card matches with most of the students, everyone says “Thank you” (in English). If it doesn’t match they complain bitterly to the student and call them a fool (in Japanese). This is a ritual that has been going on in this class since before I came along, and it’s a little disturbing to watch. One of my best students won’t pull a card because she doesn’t want people yelling at her. It really isn’t all the students that do the bitching, just a core of three girls that are the power holders in the class.

These core three – Moe, Yuka and Sakura watch carefully to make sure that everything is being distributed equally, and that everyone gets a turn. That’s fine with me, but sometimes if I decide to cut an exercise short for whatever reason, they get all up in arms. I find myself trying to find ways to illustrate how life can be unfair, just to give them a little preview. Soon enough they’ll find out for themselves, I guess.

Kuniko and I had a nice Friday night eating takoyaki and some sushi that we picked up at Vivre on the way home. We watched an amusing karaoke show and drank beers and cocktails and tried to relax. Kuniko had a rough week at work, but she’ll have a lot of time off this weekend because the tennis club isn’t meeting. Apparently some of the club members were caught shopping in a convenience store, and that’s a big no-no, even after school. From what I understand the students have to go straight home, and then once they get back they are officially not the school’s responsibility.

Tonight is movie night – Kuniko got me Casino Royale on DVD for my birthday, and so we’re going to settle in and watch it with some curry and rice for dinner. Tomorrow we’ll go catch a concert in Kobe (one of Kuniko’s student concerts) and then have dinner afterwards. Looking forward to trying out one of our old favorites under new ownership, Graciani.

Slowly, little by little, gradually, incrementally, I’m beginning to think about starting on my final papers for the end of the term. I’m doing a little bit at a time to avoid the big rush during the last couple of papers, but I’m completely realistic in expecting that there will be a rush this time as well.

Today is my birthday, and we’re going to celebrate my birthday in my last class tonight. Half the students are gone, and anytime more than half the students are missing I usually try to do something else more fun to avoid reteaching a lesson next week. Today we’ll have some cake and play pin the nose on the face (couldn’t find a big donkey). Should be reasonably entertaining.

I made some weird funky soup for lunch, but I don’t think it’ll fly for dinner. Tonight we aren’t doing anything special for dinner – we’ll save that for this weekend.

That’s all for now – gotta run and get ready for school!

Not much going on in Japan-land. Kuniko and I have been working through a series of long weekends and enjoying more time to relax together. Kuniko’s school has been doing a couple of events lately, and exams are coming up, so it is the calm before the storm for her.

School has been going smoothly for me. We are going to have a Halloween party sponsored by Nozaki sensei at the end of the month, and it sounds like it will be a big one. Luckily I won’t be the only one there leading 100+ kids – I think Brenda (my successor at Takanan) will be coming and bringing some friends to help out.

I’ve been gradually making reservations and plans for Vietnam at the end of the year. There are some great deals on hotels, and we’re hoping to use the money we save on hotels for most of the trip for a couple of nights at a nicer hotel at the end of the trip. I’m not sure which one we’ll choose – there are a lot of really nice hotels in Hanoi. Staying at the Hanoi Hilton has some appeal strictly for the name, but there are probably better hotels out there.

More later…