This morning it was exceedingly hard to wake up. Kuniko and I get up pretty early, and usually somebody goes out there and makes lunch for the both of us. Sometimes it’s one of us, and other times it is both of us. This time, it definitely wasn’t me. I wasn’t even aware that Kuniko had gotten up, made lunch and taken a bath when she woke me up.

I don’t know why I was tired, but I headed off to work and found a pretty relaxing sanctuary there. The student teachers were buzzing around, and the I had just a little bit of studying to do to fill my quota of vocabulary. I spent almost two hours poring over travel guides for France and Italy, because everyone knows half the fun of a trip is planning it out.

I did take the time to call the guy I interviewed with on Saturday and officially told him that I am going to keep looking. He was very nice about it, and told me to keep in touch – maybe someday down the line. So, now, full steam ahead to “Another Job Land”.

My classes today went really smoothly, and before I knew it I was out the door and heading home. I picked up some ingredients for an attempt at gumbo, and sliced it all up and put it in the rice cooker. We’ll see how it turns out in about an hour.

My mom called with some bad news – my grandmother passed away today. They had just moved her up to a care facility in Sonoma, and my mother was there with her when she died, so I was at least glad to hear that. I’ll write more about that a little later.

Monday morning I went into work and had a fax waiting for me on my desk. It was the contract from the job that I interviewed for on Saturday. The contract was a little weird, and I was expecting that because the guy had said that it was a homemade contract based upon other English conversation schools.

One of the clauses that was interesting was that you got ten days of paid vacations a year, but then you are required to take specific times off during the year – New Year’s, Golden Week, etc. Coincidentally, those holidays add up to exactly ten days. In other words, you can’t take time off on your own. If you do take time off, they deduct 3000 yen an hour from your paycheck. Ouch! Also there were a couple of other clauses that sounded weird, and some things didn’t match up with what we talked about during the interview, so I think the contract really pushed me into deciding not to take the job. I thought about it during the day and eventually when I talked with Kuniko after school she supported my decision. Tuesday I’ll give him a call and tell him the bad news.

One really nice thing that happened today was that my only class of the day, an afternoon class, was rescheduled to the morning, so once I finished that I had the rest of the day to relax and study. I had lots of vocabulary to work since I slacked off over the weekend, so that kept me busy during the day.

At school we have the student teachers for a couple of weeks, and they all introduced themselves today. They seem like a pretty good group. The history teacher was already putting the moves on some of the girls in the group, and it probably won’t be long before they are hiding in classrooms to avoid him. No student English teachers this year, so that is too bad. We need some fresh new faces teaching English.

I got home early because of my schedule change, so I put together the ingredients for a salad and had it ready for Kuniko when she arrived home. I received guidebooks for France and Italy in the mail from Amazon, and so I’ll be hard at work figuring those out over the next month or so. It’s going to be an exciting trip.

Saturday morning and Kuniko and I both headed into Kobe. I was in Kobe to interview for a job, and Kuniko wanted to do a little shopping while I was interviewing. We split up in north Kobe and I headed on to Shin-Kobe station to catch the subway under Mt. Rokko to the other side.

On the other side of Mt. Rokko lies Tanigami, a fairly small town that grew quickly with the new tunnel to Kobe. It was a ten minute ride through the tunnel, and then I got out in a fairly large station, complete with a supermarket and McDonald’s. It looked like a big commuting station – people catch a bus to the station, and then catch the subway into Kobe.

I had a little time so I walked around and checked the place out, and then soon after Toshihide Iguchi came walking up and said hello.

This guy is pretty interesting. He moved to America when he was 18 years old, and has been living there ever since. Now he is planning to move back to Japan, and start up an English conversation school. He has no experience, though, just a lot of money and a desire to succeed.

He has already hired one teacher, a woman who will move from Chicago to start a new life in Japan. He’s looking for one more teacher, and he’s trying to decide between me and one other guy living in Japan.

There are lots of things to worry about if I take this job. First, it’s a new school, so there are no students right now. Mr. Iguchi has never run a business in Japan, and hasn’t been here in so long that he really doesn’t have any idea of what to expect marketing-wise. The more I talked to him, the more I saw that he would be depending on me to advise him on a lot of things. The bad news is that I don’t know much about English conversation schools, and hardly anything about how to run a profitable one.

Mr. Iguchi told me that as the business grows he sees me taking over more of a management role, and he hopes to open several branches, so he might want me to run a branch for him.

The hours didn’t sound great either – and they may end up being the reason I don’t take the job. I would work from noon or 1 in the afternoon until 9 or 10 at night. That means that I would see Kuniko for only about an hour each evening. Also, I would have to work weekends, so I wouldn’t get to do much with her together.

I also found out that Mr. Iguchi once worked for a Japanese bank in America, and was directly responsible for that bank losing 1.1 billion dollars. He covered up the fact, and ended up serving time in jail. The bank was kicked out of America, and Mr. Iguchi wrote a book about the whole experience. This was a long time ago, but it does weigh on your mind that your future boss lost more money than you will ever make in your life.

For his part, he seemed pretty excited about working with me, and I sense that the job is mine if I want it. He’s faxing me a contract to take a look at on Monday, and I promised him that I would let him know yes or no by the end of the week. Lots to think about!

After the interview Kuniko and I met up in Sannomiya, and together we killed some time walking around town. We had a drink at Starbucks, and then headed over to the movie theater to see “Daisy” – a Korean movie with Japanese subtitles. I’m happy to report that I understood about 90% of the subtitles. It was a pretty good movie, with a typical Korean “over-the-top” plot. I won’t give any away, but it was anything but subtle.

After the movie we walked into Kitano and went to Star Child’s burgers. It was Kuniko’s first time there, and she had a big avocado cheeseburger. I had a fried egg burger. It was really good, and we walked out of there stuffed. We came on back and crashed out pretty early. Tomorrow we’re going to spend some time cleaning house and getting organized for the next week.

I had a very busy morning schedule today – three out of four classes. Once I knocked those out, however, things got really quiet. I had the afternoon free, so I walked around a visited each of the sports clubs that were practicing. I watched the kendo club, the ping pong club, the badminton club, and the basketball clubs (boys and girls).

At each club I sat and watched for about 10-15 minutes. Sometimes students would come over and talk to me, sometimes nobody had the nerve. Everyone would stop and wave or smile at me, though.

When I went over to watch the basketball teams the girls all said hello and came over. Some of the team members are pretty active in my classes, so they were happy to get a chance to talk with me outside of the classroom.

Okamoto sensei, the girls’s basketball coach, was sitting there, so I sat with her and we talked about the clubs, what I’m going to do next, and her family. The nice thing about watching the club with her around was that I didn’t feel like some kind of pervert watching 16-year old high school girls running around on the court.

After school I met up with the English teachers and we went to a local Takasago restaurant to have a welcome/farewell party for the teachers that came and left this year. The place was a really nice restaurant/pub that I had never been to before. Takasago is not known for upscale restaurants, but this place was really nice.

Dinner was pretty good – I had the meat dish which turned out to be a short, thick hot dog wrapped in a tender piece of beef. The rest of the course was quite good – seafood spaghetti, French onion soup, a salmon and potato salad, and even some pastrami with mozzarella cheese cubes.

The party was a little stiff – there were a couple of speeches, which is part of the experience of a Japanese party. Usually these kinds of parties work in stages, with the next one seeing the party becoming louder and the final stage is outright anarchy, with people walking around pouring drinks and lots of hysterical laughter. Most work parties that I have been to in America have jumped right to the final stage, but it takes a little work to get there here in Japan. If the mix of people is just right, things become fun quickly.

Unfortunately there were a lot of new people and people that haven’t met yet, so it took a while, and by that time it was time to go. I had a good time, though, and since the entire conversation was in Japanese, it was good practice for me.

Another thing that struck me while I was sitting there, surrounded by twelve English teachers, was that only three of them had decent English skills – at least decent enough to teach the language. Isn’t there something fundamentally wrong with that? Today Mori sensei tried to get me to repeat her example sentence “I step your toe” to the students – why is someone like that held up as an example to students? I guess it all adds up to job security for me, but it was still a little disturbing.

I came home relatively early, and Kuniko and I played lots of Nintendo DS before eventually hitting the sack. Tomorrow I have an informal interview for an English conversation school job in Kobe. We’ll see how it goes!

At school today I had just two classes, so it was no sweat. The morning class was a little traumatic at one point. I was doing interviews in English for the students to get ready for the English standardized test that everyone likes to take here in Japan.

One girl was totally bombing the exam. She didn’t even understand when I said “How are you?” to start the conversation. I switched to Japanese to explain what we were doing, but when we did the interview in English, she was completely clueless. At the end she actually started crying a little bit because she wasn’t doing well. I sent her back when she was done, but she got a real reality check on her English level. Next time I’ll find an easier interview test for her to take. But it did mark a milestone in my teaching career – I made a student cry for the first time.

The afternoon class was a live listening test with Tsutsumi sensei. The students did really well – I think I maybe underestimated their English level. Next time it will be much more difficult.

After school I came home to find Kuniko asleep in bed – she is enjoying having some afternoons off because her school is doing exams right now. In the evening we watched some TV and had a really good beef and potato stir fry that Kuniko made for dinner. After dinner I retired to the computer to watch the season finale of Lost, and then we both hit the sack. The weekend is fast approaching…

Today was my first day back after so much time off to take care of my visa. Everyone acted like I had been gone for weeks, but I think that it was a way to emphasize that they were there working while I was out enjoying myself. That’s OK, I don’t mind.

My first class was during first period, and it was a real challenge to rouse the students and get them active. They responded eventually, but it was tough. They are just coming off four days of exams, so they weren’t really into things.

The middle of the day was mostly free, so I prepared for some upcoming lessons, did a tiny bit of studying, and ran to the post office to mail some things.

My afternoon class went much better than the morning one. The students in this class have a lot more interest in what is happening, and the girl students especially were focused on every word I said. After the class ended, one student came up to me and asked me if I spoke Japanese. I lied and said no, so she worked it out in her brain for a second, and then told me that she really thought I would like what she wrote in her journal. Yamamoto sensei asked her if she meant that she thought she did a good job, and she said no – she just thought that I would like it.

Later when I was marking the homework, I read the journal in question. She did a pretty good job with her English, not great, but the ending was cute. She said that she had missed her friends during the long holidays, but what she missed most was Mr. Bryan. She said that she really enjoys my class.

At the end of the day I had an ESS meeting, and only four students attended. Two first year students came, which is pretty rare, so I spent most of my time talking with them. They were game for conversation, and we talked about all kinds of things. One of them was getting really into it, maybe a little too much, but in the end much English was spoken and we had worked some plans out for the upcoming culture festival.

I met up with Kuniko in Ito Yokado on my way home, and together we shopped for dinner and then came back here. I told her about the girls at school and she just laughed. Anything that gets them speaking English is probably a good thing, and I guess that it the best way to look at it.

We had cold chinese noodles with ham, egg and cucumber in a vinegar sauce tonight – Kuniko cooked up a great meal. Now we’re off to bed. The week is already half over! It’ll be the weekend before we know it…

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…