Livin' in the Inaka

So naturally, the day the last of the JETs in my region take off for their holiday vacations we get our first big snowfall in the Tonami Region, and I alone was lucky enough to still be here and experience it :\ (i think)... On the last official day of work (yesterday) we had a "mini typhoon" that hit our area for about 14 hours, but by 4:00pm the heavy rain turned into snow which continued into the night and the next morning. snow buries fun cargo, first 3 hrs of snowfall In our region at least, the preferred method of snow removal is by melting it with water... so each house in my neighborhood has a special type of hose with little holes lining it. The hose runs from a well and is placed on the alley/street you want cleared, and then the water slowly melts the snow. My supervisor explained how to use ours a few weeks ago so I decided to try it out the night it started snowing. The next day at 7:30am I got a knock on the door from some guy from Iox Arosa saying I was using i

This year I spent my Christmas shopping on the crowded urban streets of downtown Kobe and Osaka, museum hopping on a sunny island beach, and exploring a historical town of feudal Japan. Other than the commerical aspect of Xmas there were few reminders that somewhere else people were opening presents, eating turkey dinners and visiting with family. I can't say I didn't miss that aspect of the holidays a little bit, but during my busy travels I was too occupied to think about much else. After killing 5 hours in Kanazawa waiting for my bus I spent the whole Sat night travelling to Osaka where I caught the first morning train to Kobe. As usual I had trouble sleeping on the bus so when I finally met up with yuki at Sannomiya (after an hour detour into the inaka due to not listening to the train conductor) I was about ready to pass out. Fortunately I was able to sleep in the car on the way to our first destination. When I woke up I looked out the window to see we were in a city again

Dec 24th-Dec 26th: KOBE (visiting yuki for xmas) Dec 27th-Dec 29th: Return to Toyama for work :\ Dec 30th-Jan 2nd: TOKYO/CHIBA (visiting host family for New Years) Jan 3rd-Jan 7th: HONG KONG (visiting Kim) Jan 7th: putz around tokyo for 9 hrs before my bus leaves for Toyama Jan 8th: back I've never been more in need of a vacation. Seems like every time there's a big American holiday my workload triples. On average I teach 24 classes a week- but normally I only have to plan lessons for the 8 elementary classes on Tues and Weds. This month my JTEs asked if I could plan all the lessons for the 1st, 2nd and 3rd years at the junior high too. The lesson planning itself isn't that bad, but the actual teaching all day without any breaks is really draining (especially at the elementary schools. There's just not enough 'genki' in me to keep up with 5 classes of 40 kids a day). I was also asked to host a few Xmas parties- one for all the students of a local tutor and

I'm going to sum my week up in list form, partially because I'm lazy but also because I enjoy making lists. the good bought bus ticket to Tokyo for New Years afternoon coffee and sweets with the office ladies successfully incorporated squidgy into lesson plan finally retrieved bike from train station after 2 weeks delicious Indian lamb curry xmas party at danielles late night movies got my christmas cards all sent out finalized plans to visit yuki the not so good student loan grace periods ended lost nice jacket poisoned ourselves with vegies from our garden spending too much money bad DJs and smokey lounges getting out of bed when its 34 degrees ouside covers haven't been taking a whole lot of pictures this month, apologies. It's not that things aren't happening... just that nothing recently has been especially new or different enough to bother carrying my camera around. Be patient though- I guarantee there'll be a flood of new photos up once I get back from m

It finally snowed last night. There's a lovely white glow through the kitchen windows now. I would be happy except I can clearly see my breath here as I type and eat my breakfast. I'll be visitng my host family for New Years and then I'm off to Hong Kong in January. Xmas plans sorta fell through so looks like it might be Christmas in Toyama. off ta change the snow tires on the car ~~

It's hard to believe it's December already. Adding the four months I spent in Tokyo last year and my time with JET I've been in Japan for just over 8 months, and yet in that time I feel like my Japanese has actually deteriated since graduating last May. Gee, maybe I should actually study... :P This week was the Mid-year Seminar for Toyama JETs. Got two "business trip" days off from work to make the 1 hr drive to Toyama City and attend a bunch of workshops. It was as expected. Somehow I ended up getting placed in the "Culture Shock" workshop- not even sure if I know what that is. I did however get to learn a bit of Portugese in one of language workshops (Oi, bon dea!) They're predicting the first snowfall of the year this Sunday. Everyone at work has been giving me a hard time 'bout not changing the wheels on the car to snow tires yet. The Fukushikaikan came through for us once again with a free set so it's just a matter of takin' the Fun

It's 1:30 on a school day and I'm sick in bed. I just got back from the hospital after leaving school 2nd period. I suppose it was inevitable with all the students getting sick (I still think it's because it's so darn cold in the classrooms). While teaching the 3rd years this morning I had to sit down during class while correcting their essays 'cause I felt dizzy. I left the class and went back to my desk. My 1st yr JTE suggested I take a half-day of one of my vacation days, so i signed the papers and took off. They made me go to the Fukushikaikan where Mizuuchi-san, my supervisor, took me to a nearby hospital. Even though it was nothing serious my school insisted I go. After a short check-up they sent me home with a billion types of medicines, none of which I know the purpose of... Yesterday was a holiday here in Japan- Labor Thanksgiving Day- which supposedly has no affiliation with the American Thanksgiving, even though it coincidentally falls upon the same day.

It's ridiculously cold in Toyama, and there's no escape. Neither our house or the schools are heated. I bought my ticket to Hong Kong last Friday. It's going to be sweet...can't wait to flee south for the winter- right now in HK its in the upper 70s :) Too bad I'm only visiting Kim for 3 days :( While teaching the 3rd years the other day I was starring out the window and noticed the mountains surrounding the valley are all snow-capped now... just a matter of time. The snowfall is so heavy in this region that they're building bamboo enclosures around all the shrubberies and trees here to keep them from getting crushed under the weight of all the snow (!) crazy. I wear my coat and scarf to class now. I feel sorry for all the students who have to wear their skimpy uniforms, especially the girls in their skirts. The sun came out briefly yesterday for our day trip to Kanazawa. I've befriended a woman who works in the office at my junior high- she helped me buy th

Kyoto This past Friday was a national holiday (Culture Day, aka 'bunka no hi') For the 3 -day weekend I travelled with a few other JETs for a trip down south. There I joined the massive crowds of tourists who flock to Kyoto to see the brilliant fall colors this time of year(kouyou in Japanese). Unfortunately its still pretty warm down in the Kansai region so most of the leaves hadn't turned yet. On the plus side the weather couldn't have been better. Like everyone says, Kyoto is indeed a beautiful city worth visiting. However I thought a lot of its cultural and historical beauty has been sadly overshadowed by Japan's affinity for tourisim. All the temples and shrines are flooded with people taking pictures and venders selling tasteless souveniers. The temples and shrines themselves are pretty remarkable (unlike many of Japan's "historical" points of interest which have been so badly damaged by war, fire, and weather that little if anything remains of

I'm Halloweened-out... didn't think it possible. In the past 2 weeks I've: -planned and executed 17 Halloween lessons (on my own!) -organized and hosted 2 school Halloween parties -attended one JET Halloween party and -entertained 26 trick-or-treaters. I never did nearly that much celebrating in the States. The AJET annual Halloween Party was held at a club called Bananas in Uozu. The party was specifically for JETs living in Toyama Prefecture but there were a few Japanese people also present (friends of friends?) As usual I procrastinated up until the last minute to find a costume. I was teetering between a few ideas but ended up going as Gogo Yubari from Kill Bill. I was sorta against it at first since it'd been done by my sister already, but that's how it worked out. It turned out pretty well even without the other characters- people were able to recogonize it from the weapon alone (the most expensive part of the costume was the chain). Some other costume

Not much new to report, instead here are a few of my upcoming plans... Halloween Party - Seeing as this is the best American holiday ever, I figure I should make it the focus of my lessons for the next few weeks :D Not entirely of course, but I've been slipping in Halloween activities and vocabulary in between my normal lessons -for example, learning parts of the body and face by constructing differnet types of monsters :P Next week I'm going all out. On my scheduled day at Seibu we're going to have a party for the whole school in place of classes with games, costumes, and candy -- this is a big deal. Kids in Japan are not allowed to eat candy in school, EVER. But since Seibu is so small and my teachers are pretty chill there, they said they would make a cultural exception b(^-^) Yesterday I had all my 1st and 2nd graders make masks out of paper plates to bring to the party. Chubu is gunna be a bit harder to plan, since candy is a no-go and there are 402 more students ther

About this time of the year all the schools are having their annual school festival. Yesterday I attended Seibu Elementary's (the one in the mountains). The first part of the festival was musical performances by all the students in the gym. The whole school (all 27 of them) started with a song and a odd but cool vocal rhythm piece. Then each grade did their own song- 1st/2nd sang "Old McDonald Had a Farm" in Japanese, and the other grades performed Studio Ghibili songs on the recorder and piano. Pieces included the ending theme from "Spirited Away" and the main theme from "Princess Mononoke." For some reason I had to sit at the VIP table with a bunch of old guys in business suits. I would've rathered sat on the floor with the families and teachers but they had prepared special spots for us with boxed omiyage and programs : The 5th and 6th gd boys from the sports club performed a few stunts before we were let loose to explore the fair. The 2nd floor

This post has already been deleted by blogger twice now, and I'm feeling pretty discouraged... so I apologize if it seems rushed or incomplete. there's too many things going on to get into detail so I've decided to just focus on the big events. I've been pretty good about keeping my flickr gallery updated though, so check that for the current stuff. Recently I've been pretty stressed out about work. My first few weeks I had a lot of extra lessons to plan at my JHS on top of my weekly elementary school classes, and other English-related activities to plan as well. If that wasn't enough, my base school was chosen to host the annual English Teacher's Demonstration this year- and lucky me, my JTE and I got to be this year's star attraction. -skip this part if you're familiar with the JET program- Let me explain the role of the JTE and ALT, since it seems a lot of the readers of this blog aren't clear on what that is- Every junior high school and high

As usual it's been an eventful past few weeks. I attended meetings, planned lessons, went out with friends, gorged on delicious foreign foods, and planted a vegetable garden. All the sudden the first month of school is almost over and my jacket-free days are numbered. Last night I got a small taste of what to look forward to this winter. I added an extra blanket to my bed and I was still shivering under my covers! I'm already missing the 'mushi atsui' days of Japanese summers. Teaching is starting to come more naturally now that I have a feel for what the students already know and what's effective. I still don't consider myself much of an authority figure- the JTE (japanese teacher of english) usually takes care of that part of the job. I'm still "Diana Sensei" but I'm less scary and foreign when I can talk to them like they would their peers. Last Monday was national "Repect for the Aged Day" so we got a three-day weekend. Ivy and I

To commemorate the 1964 Olympics Japan made October 10th a national holiday called "Taiiku no Hi" or Sports and Health Day. It's purpose is to "familiarize [people] with sports and nurture physical and mental health." Although I'd say "sports" is a poor translation, since I wouldn't call any of the activities done sports... Some examples: tug-a-war, 5-legged race, 15-person jump rope- family picnic type events. All schools and some businesses dedicate an entire day usually on the weekend competing against each other's teams in a series of organized events. Most junior high schools hold their Sports Day in early September and spend most of August prepping for it. My junior high celebrated sports day last Saturday. They began with open ceremonies, in which the three teams marched in with their respective flags to the school band playing "YMCA." After some speeches and morning stretches the students lined up under their teams banner

lunch time with the kids Today I spent the afternoon at Chubu Elementary introducing myself to all 420 students grades 1-6. Everywhere I went I was flooded with small children shouting incomprehensible Japanese questions at me and trying to touch me. During cleaning time I started teaching a few kids "Hello, nice to meet you" along with the handshake. Within minutes I was surrounded by dozens of kids all trying to shake my hand at once. Two teachers had to come out and herd them back towards their cleaning duties. After introducing myself 13 times I got to sit in on an actual 1st grade class where the students were suppose to make one thing they saw during summer vacation out of play-doh. The kids spent most the class period trying to talk to me or just starring instead of actually making anything. I started telling them what they were making in English- four kids made a "kabutomushi" which is a super popular insect among Japanese children, but in English it transl