After two days of trips to Kobe, I finally have all the proper paperwork turned in to the city office. If all goes well, I’ll have a new visa in a month or two. What does that do for me? Like all other JETs on the program, when my contract expires at the end of July, so does my right to live in Japan. Most people go home, so it’s no problem.

For the people that stay, they need to seek employment within a thirty day window, otherwise they risk deportation. For the very few that married a Japanese citizen, you can stick around without having to worry about being deported. That’s what today and yesterday was all about.

Governmental paperwork is no fun in any country, and red-tape-happy Japan is no exception. We had reams of paperwork to fill out last night, and Kuniko was nice enough to do it so it took less time.

All of this needs to be taken care of soon because not only is my contract going to expire, but we’re planning a trip to Europe and we both need our passports in order to pull that off.

Tomorrow it is back to work for me, just as Kuniko hits her exam period at school. That means full days of work for me, and half (or more realistically, three-quarter) days of work for Kuniko. Very nice.

I’m off to bed. Getting all that paperwork done gives me a very nice feeling.

This weekend has been one of those long slow weekends where you do just about nothing. Saturday we hung out at home all day because of heavy rain in the morning. After lunchtime the weather suddenly turned relatively sunny, so we got some laundry going in a rush and got it all out there hanging in the sun.

In the evening we went and saw Da Vinci Code in Okubo, but we were both a little disappointed. Come to think of it I wasn’t too impressed with the book itself – the movie suffered from compressing all that detail into a short time frame. The actors were stuck doing what their characters did in the book, and I thought most of their behavior was goofy and didn’t seem right for the situation. But what am I, a book critic and a movie critic, too?

Sunday we went out and hiked the mountain overlooking the town of Suma, in a giant loop that took just about an hour. The nice part about that hike is that it ends on the beach. We walked around a little bit, and then caught a quick lunch before heading home.

Tomorrow I have the whole day off, and Kuniko is taking a half day off to work on getting my visa and her passport taken care of. It is a little optomistic to think that we can get them both completely taken care of in one day – we’ll see how reality plays out tomorrow.

There was a little excitement at work today when one of the older part time teachers who came in to administer a test collapsed in the classroom. I guess he was up and moving around soon afterwards, but they got him out of here and to a local hospital pretty quick. You should have seen all the teachers running around freaking out – it was like when you accidentally step on an ant hill and suddenly the ants are swarming all over.

I spent the morning at school studying a little bit, and chatting with teachers. I met with Mori sensei to recommend a book for a class she is teaching next year. In a move that kind of sums up the approach to English at my school she showed me the proposed class syllabus and content after I finished recommending a book. I feel like I could have made a little better recommendation if I knew what they were teaching.

While marking some exams, Nozaki sensei asked me which is the correct answer for this question: The boy threw a ( ). Is it “rock” or “stone”? She asked me which one like there was only one right answer. I did my best to explain that either would work in the situation, and Mori sensei, who wrote the test, looked a little perturbed. She tried to explain to me that a rock is bigger than a stone, and I had to kind of put my foot down and say that I’ve thrown more than a few rocks in my life. They should let me review the test before they put it in front of the students. Sometimes it is scary what my students learn from other teachers.

I’ve got a few extra lessons at the end of the term that don’t count towards anything, so I’ve got to think of some fun stuff to do. One thing I want to do is another paper airplane making contest – I did it my first year and had a blast. What else would be good? Anything goes, and we could just play games or watch movies. It might be a good chance to test out some games that might be a little too crazy for my normal classes. Maybe I can teach all the different ways you can say “vomit” in English. Maybe something more practical…

I got out of there around noon and headed home, and walked with Miyake sensei as far as the train station. It was pouring rain on the way back, but I had my trusty umbrella with me and there was no problem. I stopped at IY for some lunch goodies, and then came home and ate and read for most of the afternoon.

Now I’m getting ready for Kuniko to get home. We’re having a simple dinner of rice and super spicy kimchee and miso soup. The weekend is officially on!

Greetings are always interesting at my school. From the start, our students are subjected to their teachers telling them over and over, “Greet the people you meet!” In the hallways they are expected to say good morning or good day in Japanese to other people that they walk by, especially the teachers. I think my school sees it as a way to make the students grow up being courteous and polite. Because the students are being forced to greet, their greetings tend to be forced as well. There is no real meaning behind their greeting, they are just doing it to avoid being punished.

My situation is, of course, completely different. I try to get the students to greet me in English, and I have got about 80% of them doing it now. Because I have a big smile on my face when I say hello, they tend to smile back, and it feels like they mean it when they say “Good morning!” Some students are still a little wary, and will just say good morning in Japanese without expression and move on – they are the shy ones and over time eventually they’ll get comfortable.

As you might expect, the teachers at my school want to set a good example, so they greet everyone they meet, including other teachers. A very polite “Ohayo gozaimasu” serves as the standard morning greeting. Even though everyone says good morning, I would guess that maybe only 20% of my teachers put any emotion into it or even realize they are doing it. In my school it has become kind of a rote phrase that must be said, rather than a way to show that you care about the people around you.

When I first arrived at my school I was surprised that some teachers didn’t greet me at all, and still there are some that find something else to look at when we walk by each other. I admit, maybe I am a lot to handle first thing in the morning. Over time I’ve won over more and more people, and I use that as a measure of my progress in the staffroom.

It is small steps like this that I hope will gradually build up momentum. I want these people to remember how I greeted them and how they felt afterwards. If that can change a few people, I’ll consider my stay at this school a complete success.

It rained pretty hard last night off and on, and today I walked to work in the slightest drizzle, but it wasn’t quite enough to need an umbrella. We got a late start to our morning, but I still showed up at work at 7:15, well before most of the other teachers.

I had a tricky maneuver to pull off at school today – getting off early four days in a row without using my precious remaining time off. Over the last two years I have gone home early during exams, because I work extra hours the rest of the time. It works out pretty well for me and for the school. I get time off for free, and the school gets lots of extra hours from me during the rest of the year.

The tricky part here was to talk to the new vice-principal, who was fresh from another school and another ALT. He knows nothing about the arrangement, so I had to make it seem like I’m just confirming that I get my deserved time off, rather than I am trying to pull a fast one and sneak out while everyone else has to take time off to leave.

I enlisted the help of my new go-between, Yamamoto sensei. He has taken over for Mr. Hayashi who can’t do the ALT watching job anymore because of his summer trips to Australia for the school. Yamamoto sensei is completely relaxed, and he’s got the right approach to the whole thing. He knows that I am a responsible adult who has shown over the last two years that I’m not trying to take advantage of the system, I just want a fair shake.

I told him about the agreement from the last two years, and together we went to the vice principal. Yamamoto sensei explained it in Japanese and then, just when there was a pause as the vice principal was taking it all in, he said in Japanese “I think this system is a good idea and I recommend we should let him continue.”

It was beautiful because now the vice principal had the choice of acquiescing or saying that he disagreed with Yamamoto sensei, and one thing that Japanese people try to avoid is disagreements – especially verbal ones. The vice principal just nodded his head and said “no problem”, and that was it. I’m going to get four half-days off in a row, just like last year. It will help a lot in getting some important things done, things that can only be done during the weekdays.

So I wish that I could stick around and work with Yamamoto sensei more, but of course I cannot. I can only hope that the next ALT that shows up is a responsible adult who won’t take advantage of the system, or my school.

At noon I was out the door and on my way to Himeji. I was heading there to get my driver’s license translated by the Japanese equivalent of AAA. Despite having a map it was pretty hard to find the place, and I was walking around a little lost for a while until I found a landmark.

The translation itself was simple enough, and I set off with all the paperwork I need to make an attempt at a license in Akashi next time I feel game. On the way home I picked up some souvenirs and then took the train back home. I got back at a reasonable hour, so I had time to straighten up a little bit and to work on loading some more vocabulary into my handheld computer.

Kuniko suggested going out, so we went over to the local sushi bar – it has been a long time since I was there last and Kuniko has never been. Unfortunately it was closed, so we instead went back to IY and had spaghetti and risotto at the Italian restaurant up on the third floor.

Now we’re back home with full bellies and just hanging around tonight. Tomorrow I’ve got just a half day at work, and that’s a nice schedule to have on a Friday.

It felt like Friday today because it was the last day of school before exams. I had just a couple of classes, and all the students were looking past my lesson to the midterm tests. I managed to catch their attention and keep them focused on the task at hand, though.

Today for some reason I spent a lot of time speaking with students. I had lunch in the remodeled cafeteria, and two third year boys came over and ate lunch with me. We chatted for the lunch period almost entirely in English. I could tell the boys were stoked just to be having the conversation, and they were looking pretty good for all the girls in cafeteria.

I met with Mori sensei to talk about the end of the term, and what exactly we’ll be doing. She’s giving me a lot more control over what happens. It may be because she got a taste of letting me do it and she realized how much easier it is on her. That’s fine by me…

I made philly cheesesteaks for dinner tonight, and they were messy but delicious. Kuniko is back and we’re doing a little brain training before we hit the sack tonight. Tomorrow is the start of exams at my school, so no classes for me. I’m going to head into Himeji after work and try to get my driver’s license translated, and maybe soon I’ll try to get a Japanese driver’s license. It’s a very complicated procedure – it takes most Americans several attempts to get it.

Teaching for me is completely different from what I expected. Over time I have learned a lot from teaching. I’ve learned about how my students learn, and how to teach them more effectively. I’ve learned how to keep my cool in front of an expectant crowd of faces, and how to keep the class flowing even when the students can understand one word out of every five that I say. Here’s a short list of some of the things I’ve learned.

It’s going better than you think.
While you are teaching your mind is running over what you are saying, making sure that it is appropriate for the students’ skill level, and maybe you are also thinking ahead to the next activity, thinking about how much time is left and if everything will fit nicely, and possibly even thinking about a way to get those two boys near the back of the class to quiet down a little. Your students, however, cannot see all this mental activity, and even though maybe it seems like a very stressful time, to them it is just a smooth, organized presentation. What may seem like inordinately long pauses to you are merely short welcome breaks to the students.

Once you realize that you are doing just fine, you can take a moment to joke with the students and other teachers, you can pause and smile and breathe. Maybe you can savor the moment of all the students hanging on your every word. Most of all, you can start to relax and enjoy teaching.

Make friends
Students tend to listen more when they know you. If there is a connection there, no matter how thin, they will give more effort in class. I spend a lot of time walking around school and greeting students, smiling and saying hello. This always pays off in the classroom – they don’t want to disappoint me, and usually this wins out over any temptation to goof off. On top of that, some students will work to help other students understand and “get it”, as a favor to me. Compare this with the lecture style favored by most Japanese teachers and you’ll see very few relationships inside the classroom.

Your energy is their energy is your energy
The students in my classes feed off the energy I bring to the classroom. If I am not active and sharp and smiling and engaged with the class, they usually aren’t either. But, this works both ways. If the class is excited about something, or is generally full of energy, that can help me get excited about the class, too. I love the feeling of being there when the class first arrives, and they walk by and say “hello” and find a seat. There is some kind of feeling that builds, because soon the spotlight will be on me. The energy of a lesson is something I never really noticed being on the student side, but it feels like something I can control and use now.

I came into this job with almost no teaching experience, so almost everything I’ve learned is learned the hard way. I want to learn more, and I hope that I’ll be able to continue teaching in the future after my contract with Takasago Minami expires. I also want to explore some more training, to try to do what I am doing better. How can I better evaluate my teaching? How can I evaluate my students? What are some realistic goals for a one year English course?

Over the next year or two I’ll be moving towards a more permanent teaching position, but the details are still fuzzy. I do know that I want to keep teaching, and I want to be able to do it better.

Early on today at school Yamamoto sensei came to me and asked me about arrangements for returning to my country.

The JET program provides an airline ticket to Japan, and another ticket back at the end of your contract. It is a really nice deal, because it takes a lot of the burden off the participant, and allows them to get a decent start in Japan when they arrive without having to worry about being in debt for the cost of their flight.

I remember when I first arrived I was worried about the logistics of getting home – the flight would be back to Los Angeles, and I’d need to have somebody either pick me up there or fly up to San Francisco. I worried about what I would do after JET and where I would live, where I would find good Japanese food again, how I would keep up with my Japanese language.

If you’ve been reading this journal for a while you know that all these issues are pretty much resolved now. I haven’t thought about those feelings for a long time, but when they asked me about my return ticket this morning it really took me back.

If you are staying in Japan, you aren’t entitled to the ticket, and I’m not really interested in a one way ticket to Los Angeles anyway. I explained the situation, and everyone was happy and relieved that I wasn’t going to make a big deal out of not getting the ticket. I’ve heard stories of other JETs who get the cash for the ticket and then keep the money and stick around, so I’m sure they are always wary of some weird situation.

Late in the morning some of my students showed up in my classroom and waited patiently for almost 20 minutes for me to show up. Unfortunately for them, they were in the wrong place. Because the hallways are silent during the class they couldn’t move them back to where they were supposed to be, so their teacher had to track them down and teach them in my classroom. I went up there and said hello, and we chatted for about five minutes, and then I came back. For some reason this year has been full of little mistakes by either the teachers or the students, and we’re always having problems getting the right people in the right place. The last two years was pretty much trouble free – I don’t know what the difference is this year.

I’m home now and I’ve got a salad waiting for when Kuniko gets home. We’re trying to eat less, especially after the monster ham and avocado sandwiches last night. The salad is quite modest, really. Really!

As usual Monday was my easy day, and I got lots of flashcards finished off that I put off over the weekend. Kuniko cooked up a special lunch for me, and it was a pleasure to eat that midway through my day.

Tonight I made avocado, ham and cheese sandwiches on toasted French rolls for dinner, and now we’re headed to bed. I’m tired out from studying all day. I need some deep sleep…

This afternoon we spent time with a rental agent driving around the area looking for a new place to live. We looked at six or seven places, and one thing I can say about the experience was that everything was really big. You think Japan and you think tiny places, but all the ones we saw were very large, with plenty of room for all our stuff and maybe more. Location is important in any country, but it is especially important in Japan were the closest train station determines the price of the place. As you might expect, the farther we were from a train station the bigger and nicer places tended to become. If you didn’t mind a short bus ride or a long walk you could get a big place for a pretty good price.

Since Kuniko and I both will rely on trains to get around, we’re looking for something close to a station. There were two places in Okubo that were close to the station, and close to a big shopping center that we often visit, but neither of them grabbed us. One was facing the railroad tracks, and I think that could get a little noisy. I think we decided to keep looking, since we do have almost a month left to look around.

In the evening Kuniko took off for the second party, so I hung out at home and did a little bit of studying. I made a call to Hasegawa sensei, the former director of the Hyogo Board of Education. He’s got a really cushy research job now that involves working with the principals of all the public high schools in Hyogo. I was making the call to get back in touch and tell him that I’m in the market for a job in Japan. It was a classic moment, though, when I finally got around to the meat of the conversation and he suddenly started saying, “Hello? Hello? I think my connection is dropping…” That’s probably what I would say if some foreigner was asking me for a big favor. We got a good connection going soon after, and we talked for quite a while. He’s a really nice guy with a good sense of humor. Hopefully we can meet up and have drinks sometime soon.

Around 7:30 I went over to the local ramen restaurant to grab a quick bite to eat, and I was surprised to find the place packed. I ordered up a bowl of noodles and a beer, and it took almost twenty minutes to arrive. I was pleased to see that they were doing well.

Kuniko got home around 10:45, and so we did a quick shopping trip at IY before they closed and then headed home. It is going to be a pretty easy week for me at school, and I’m looking forward to it.

Saturday night Kuniko and I went over to visit Kuniko’s folks. We wanted to deliver some flowers in advance of Mother’s Day on Sunday. We’re going to be a little busy on Sunday, so we wanted to say hello. They were a little surprised that we were there – Kuniko had left a message but they didn’t get it.

We had some coffee and gave them flowers and chatted for a while. Kuniko and I were both tired, so we headed back home early.

This morning we slept in, and I think we might have slept right through the community clean up hour. Usually it is on Saturday, but because of the rain they must have postponed it until today. Oops.

In the morning I got a phone call from a guy that wants to hire me to work at his brand new conversation school that is opening in Kobe. I applied for the job a while back, but the more I find out about it, the more I get nervous. The guy was nice to talk to, though, and I felt a little better about the situation after talking with him. If they hire me I will be the most experienced teacher there – that’s a scary thought. The guy mentioned that one of the reasons he is moving back to Japan (he’s a Japanese American) is that a fortune teller in Takasago told him that it was the right thing to do. Red flag!

We’re going to head into Akashi to look at a few places to live soon, and then in the evening Kuniko is going to a second party for a friend’s wedding. I’ll be flying solo tonight and I’m seriously considering a big bowl of ramen for dinner….

I’m catching up after a few busy days. Thursday went pretty smoothly, but Friday I went out after work with Antoine, and we both ended up drinking a little too much. We hopped from place to place – we played pool, had hamburgers at Star Child (I had a chili cheese burger. Wow!), the Lock Up, and finally ended at the Belgian Beer place which is a new thing for us – usually we begin there.

I think we had just ordered up a sho-chu and a whiskey, and soon after that Kuniko called and she came over. She was just the wakeup call we needed, and we wrapped things up and headed home. It was late, and we caught the second to last train of the day, so we pulled in at home after one in the morning.

I got up this morning early with Kuniko since she had to go in and teach a couple of classes. I had a bit of a hangover, but nothing too bad. I hope Antoine is feeling OK, too. We’ll have to wait a long time before we do that again.

Every two weeks on Wednesday, I have a really busy schedule. Today was hectic, and it reminded me what other teacher’s normal schedules are like. The good news is that I did all the preparations earlier, so things went really smoothly.

I met with Mori sensei today, and gave her my draft for our next lesson. We’ve had differences in the past on how a lesson should run – I won’t get into it here. She looked it over, asked a few questions, and we decided to try it as is. Let’s hope it works!

In my three years in Japan I’ve noticed one thing that would make you cringe if you knew it… Japanese men usually don’t wash their hands after going to the bathroom. I know, I know, there are exceptions, but I have noticed that most guys at my school or people in public bathrooms rarely wash their hands when they finish up their business. It’s enough to make you want to never shake another hand at a party. Luckily bowing is more common here – I’ll stick to that. Seriously – is it a strange cultural phenomenon? I told Kuniko and she wasn’t so surprised. What’s the deal?

We had a really boring meeting in the afternoon, mainly talking about a new performance review system that sounds a lot like what I dealt with back in the U.S. It’s a new idea here in the Japanese public school system. Traditionally here you just get older and your pay goes up. It explains why so many teachers sit around playing solitaire and sleep through meetings. I’ll tell you this – those same teachers were paying very close attention to our meeting today. There is some concern, but underneath it I think that everyone believes that basically it will end up being the same system, with a new coat of paint on top. Since I’m outta here in a few months, I didn’t really concern myself too much with it.

It’s taco night here at the Fredricks’ household – as soon as Kuniko gets home we’ll spin the tortillas and get the party started. I’m seriously craving Mexican food…

Kuniko was lucky enough to have today off from work, but she got up early, heated up my bath, made me breakfast and lunch, and gave me a kiss out the door as I left at 6:30. Wow.

I did more lesson planning at work, and had a good time chatting with students both in class and outside of class. I am always amazed at how hard the students will try to speak English when they aren’t in the classroom. Somebody ought to take that idea and run with it.

During the morning I followed up on a suggestion to track down Hasegawa sensei, the former director of the board of education in Hyogo prefecture. My principal thought he may have some job leads, so I spent a lot of time on the phone and finally figured out where he was. I love trying to speak on the phone in Japanese, especially figuring out all the polite things to say. I wish I could just call people all day to practice more.

I will confess to hitting the hockey websites now and then during the day to keep track of two NHL playoff games – Buffalo vs. Ottawa and San Jose vs. Edmonton. Of course I don’t get hockey on TV here, so I need to follow them on the websites. I was very pleased when both Buffalo and San Jose won their game today.

As part of the full service that Kuniko performed today, she picked me up in front of the school when I got off work, so I really had it easy. We came home and had salmon for dinner, and sat around relaxing. Kuniko had even done the laundry, washed the bathtub, and did the dishes.

My head and shoulders were still hurting, so I went over to Ito Yokado to get another massage. This time I had them work on my shoulders and neck, and it was the best money I’ve spent. It was a little disturbing to hear all the cracking and popping going on inside my sore muscles, but the lady did a great job, and I came out of there feeling like a million yen. I could get used to heading over there now and then for a rubdown. Maybe I’ll get addicted to going there like the old men here who get addicted to hostess bars. Then again, maybe not.

I’m off to bed soon. It’s a seriously busy day at school tomorrow, so I better get some rest.

I’m back in the swing of things at work – vacation is over and today I was spending most of my time planning lessons for this week and next. The history teacher was happy to see me again, and told me that he spent the whole holiday watching movies at home, so that means he’ll have loads of questions. One of the questions today was “Does making out mean having sex?” Yikes.

I had only one class in the afternoon, and it went fairly well. The students were very active and were dying to volunteer to speak English. I kind of missed my students while I was on vacation, so I was glad to be back in front of them teaching.

The weather is getting warmer and warmer, and today I went to school wearing just a long sleeve shirt and slacks – no jacket required.

Tonight Kuniko has a school welcome party to attend, so I was home alone this evening. I had some ham and a caesar salad, and sat around watching TV and doing some last minute flashcards. I limited myself to one hour on the Nintendo… but I’d love to play more. It is seriously addictive.