Thursday, January 31, 2008

Ping Pong: Lion vs. Lamb

Corey and Clinton battle it out to settle, once and for all, the validity of the proverb that claims "if March comes in like a lion, it will go out like a lamb."

Daily Photo

Corridor #1

This is one of the hallways at my school, specifically, the corridor along which all the ni-nensei (second year) homerooms are located. There are eight homerooms per grade, and approximately 40 students in each class. On this particular day, the rooms were set up for entrance exam interviews. Unlike the U.S., in Japan, students are not bound to a high school by location-based zoning. Technically, you could live anywhere in the prefecture and, so long as you pass the exam, enter the school. I have some students who have to take a one and a half hour train/bus commute to school everyday.

Notice the chairs against the wall--these are for solitary students nervously awaiting their interviews.
Sting Pong

The video explains itself:

Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Tomorrow my school is having entrance examinations, so the classrooms will be flooded with anxious junior high kids who would probably give up eating rice to get into one of Sendai's best high schools. The crazy thing is, during these exams the school goes into total, red-alert lockdown mode. No one can leave or enter the building after a certain time. All the teachers have special bento lunches brought in so they don't have to run out to the combini. And oh how mum is the word. The tests are kept so secretive that my supervisor only talks to me about them in whispers.

Secretness is a bit funny here. Last year Juli and I were both selected to be on a panel of judges that would interview potential Japanese teachers of English. We were both explicitly told that we could tell no one that we were selected--including one another. Of course we both spilled the beans the moment we got home and had a good laugh over it. I would say, though, that holding your cards close to your chest is about as Japanese as wabi sabi pottery and train fetishes--that is, very. I think that's part of what gives the Japanese people and culture an exotic quality in the west. They smile and bow and speak extremely politely, but you're never quite sure what they're thinking. And though it's sometimes massively frustrating, in work and social situations, quite often it saves them from the distinctly American syndrome of spouting off whatever unimportant opinions/emotions/nonsense that flash-bang into their brains. For that I am occasionally grateful.

On a different note, the principal of my school is retiring this year, so I've decided to make him a picture book (no, not a coloring book) composed of photographs I've taken of the school and students over the past two years. The teachers are having an overnight enkai for him at some onsen/ryokan resort, and I've been invited, but I think it might be a bit awkward for me to go. And massively expensive, which will sort of help when I have to explain why I'm not attending. I'll be sad to see him go, as he is an exceptionally kind and I'd-go-so-far-as-to-say classy man who speaks in elegant English and occasionally invites me to his office to simply chat. He even enjoys reading Keats, Byron, and Yeats. What a guy!

Tuesday, January 29, 2008

We dedicate ourselves anew...

...to this blog. I know my promises aren't worth much nowadays, given the fits-and-starts nature of this little endeavor, but I'd really like to update this thing much more often. So here we go. Perhaps a recap is in order.

1.) Christmas--Juli and I went home to the rambling hills of Maryland for the holidays. All told we spent a little over three weeks basking in the modern marvels of central heating and double-paned windows, luxuries that Japan has stubbornly refused to embrace. Going from an apartment that regularly hovers around 43 degrees to a house with an actual "room" temperature was like entering a parallel world where comfort is regarded as a basically good thing. It was great to sit around with the family watching movies without having to wear layers or turn on a kerosene heater. And oh did we watch movies. My dad got a 42" plasma TV which came with a free Blu-Ray player and 10 free Blu-Ray discs. I was a bit ambivalent about the whole HD format war, but I've been thoroughly swayed. The video quality is astounding--even when upscaling regular DVDs. I also managed to go see Juno, No Country for Old Men, and There Will Be Blood at the theater.

Not all our time was spent lounging around, however. Corey found some terrifying paper mache lion and lamb masks at my parent's church, so we made a short film and I took loads of pictures. Here's an excerpt and a photo:

Lion

Of course, we also spent lots of time with my grandparents and our friends. It was so good to see everyone again--it's always strange to see how much things have changed or stayed the same over the course of a year. Oddly enough, we met Clinton's wife Jenni for the first time--they're a perfect match. Clinton made me a fabulously creepy clock from a wooden box, cut up doll parts and doll house furniture. And he gave me some Michael Jackson trading cards from the mid-80's. What a sweetheart.

It was a bit difficult to leave, emotionally, of course, but also physically because we had three suitcases and our new internal frame backpack stuffed to the brim with clothes and supplies to tide us over during our third year in Japan. I brought back four pairs of shoes and several pairs of pants--goods that would be literally impossible to find in my size in Sendai.

2.) Winter Camp--The day after we returned to Sendai we headed up near Akiu for Izumi SHS's annual English winter camp. Juli and I were selected to be camp counselors and give a few fun, haphazard lessons. We had a great time, got to meet a lot of enthusiastic students (not necessarily the norm for Japan), and spend time with some ALTs that we don't normally get to see. My group of students called themselves "Jackko" and performed a skit titled "Love or Horror," an improbable mash-up of Titanic and The Ring, complete with creepy ghost Sadako turning into an iceberg to sink the ship. Oh Japan.

3.) Mid-Year Conference--We were a bit stressed out about mid-year over Christmas break as Juli and I were both chosen to give presentations, mine on "Effective Use of the Textbook in Academic SHS" and hers on job-hunting post-JET. Everything went fairly smoothly though, despite a few glitches. After the conference on Friday we went out with some other ALTs to celebrate Eric's birthday with bowling and a trip to a really excellent organic dinner buffet. Andy and Maria stayed at our place that weekend and we somehow managed to watch almost the entire third season of The Office, make amazing homemade vegetarian burritos (including tortillas from scratch), and meet up with a real estate agent to check out some potential new apartments. And I took some spontaneous portraits of everyone:
Jules
Android
Maria, Looking Down

Well, I think that about catches us up. Like I said, no promises, but I'm really going to try to keep everyone up-to-date on our whereabouts and happenings this year.