My first day at the technical high school went soooo much better than I expected. Beforehand, I was warned that the kids would sleep, use their cell phones, listen to their mp3 players, swear at teachers, and sit in class with some of their clothes off (when it's hot out). The technical high school has about 400 students there, 11 of which are female. They "major" in computer science, agriculture, or mechanics. The school is very famous for their baseball team, so although the grades are very low, it is still hard to get a spot in the school because kids from other prefectures take the entrance exam. Last year their team was among the top 8 in the country. Baseball in Japan is like American football or Nascar in the States. The baseball players at the high school live in dormitories near the school if they are from other prefectures.
Before going to class, I talked to one of the teachers. At that time I was undecided as to how to handle the classes - super sweet or strict and mean. She told me that the kids misbehave because they don't get enough attention at home and that they take advantage of the female teachers because they are more supportive and kind. I decided that super sweet was the way to go. During my 3 classes, there were a couple kids sleeping, listening to mp3 players, and using their cell phones. In one class, the talkative leader kid kept asking questions. He was really interested in middle names and why they exist. And one kid asked what kind of men I like, to which I replied, "Men who speak English very well." They asked that even after Eddie was introduced in my self introduction!!
I had them play "baseball" for a comprehension quiz on my self-introduction. There were two teams, and when a team was up to bat, they could ask for a 1, 2, 3 base, or homerun question. A 1 base question was a yes/no question. A 2 base question was an easy one word answer. A 3 base question was much harder, and a homerun question was usually "What state am I from?" since all of them forgot. They got outs for wrong answers. By the end of the period, all eyes and ears were on me when it was time for a question! There wasn't any mocking me, which was what I was most worried about, so I was sooooo relieved at the end of the day.
At lunch time, I bought lunch in the cafeteria. Actually, I bought a ticket from a vending machine and took it up to the counter. I had tempura udon which was really tasty. I sat next to a couple kids who actually attempted to speak English with me. Once they left, some kids nearby got me a glass of water to go with my lunch.
Tuesday, September 12, 2006
Monday, September 11, 2006
a weekend in the ER
Did anyone think that I could move to Japan and NOT have an odd medical problem? Please don't read this post if you're eating (ahem, Erin!). So on Friday night, I made myself a really nice dinner of fish, toast, and rice with tomato, onion, seaweed, sesame seeds, soy sauce, and seafood seasoning. Needless to say I was really excited about it. That excitement, along with the fact that I'm an inexperienced fish eater, caused me to forget that fish in Japan still have bones in them.
Well I ended up getting a sharp bone stuck in my esophagus on my first bite. At first I thought I might be choking, and die alone in my Japanese apartment which was embarrassingly messy at the time. But then I realized I could breathe and talk, so I ran over to Jeff's apartment and informed him of the the situation in case he had any ideas for what to do. It was reeeeally painful. From what I could tell the bone was sharp and hooked or perpendicular to my esophagus. It made me salivate more, which caused me to swallow more, and swallowing made it dig farther into my esophagus! We called one of my bosses, who was eating with everyone at the office (so everyone found out) and he said that Japanese people just eat rice when that happens to them. So ate the rest of my dinner, which was delicious, but didn't help. The pain was so bad that I didn't think I could sleep, so I decided that I should probably go to the hospital.
The Naruto hospital said we should go to Tokushima, so my boss's wife picked me and Jeff up and took us to the Tokushima Hospital. By the time we got there, it had been two hours since I had eaten the boney fish and the pain was getting worse. Once we got to the ER and I signed in with my spiffy Japanese National Healthcare card, we waited in the waiting room. Twenty minutes later, a nurse came into the waiting room, took my temperature, and discussed my problem with us in front of everyone else in the waiting room (from what I've read, lack of privacy is common in Japanese doctors offices). Then I went back and saw a doctor, who couldn't see anything by just making me say AAAAAH. So he called a specialist, who arrived 15 minutes later. He told me that the only way for him to know what was going on would be for him to stick a tube/light/camera down my throat via my nose. If he saw something, he would stick a tiny pair of scissors onto the end of the tube and cut it. If he couldn't see anything, he wasn't sure he could do anything to help.
I was already freaked out about the whole situation and being in a hospital altogether, but I was in a lot of pain so I thought I'd try out the tube thing. Jeff was translating everything for me, by the way. He's studying for a Japanese proficiency test, so he was learning a lot of vocab throughout the evening. The doctor hadn't mentioned exactly how it was going to go down, so I was quite freaked out when he started blasting my nostrels with some chemicals and then sucking them back out. The tube with a light went through my nose easily, but I could feel the heat of the light as it went down. I'm not really sure what happened then, but I know I was making one heck of a squinting-what-the-heck-is-going-on-face. The tube came out and I started to feel faint, but threw up instead. The bone was still there. I found out later that the doctor didn't see anything during the whole process. He kept saying kowaii, which I found out later means scary. But at the time I thought he was saying kawaii, which means cute. I was so confused why he was telling me I was cute while I was crying and throwing up.
They gave me two options - I could either come back in the morning when the best ear, nose, and throat doctor would be there and go through the same thing with him, or just take pain medicine/antibiotics while I wait for my body to get rid of it on it's own. So I took option B. I got the medicine and the entire visit for 10,000 yen, which is a little less than $100, but that was before the health insurance kicked in! I get to go back sometime this week to get money back (probably about $70) for what insurance covered. They couldn't get it to go through at the time because the computers were down and a real emergency case had just come in.
The medicine helped me fall asleep, and I stayed in on Saturday to rest. I was sad that I had to miss the kids' cultural festivals. The pain slowly moved down on Saturday and the pain reminded me of strep throat minus the congestion and sinus pressure. By dinner time on Saturday the bone had dropped into my stomach and the long scratch down my throat was healing.
Another highlight of the weekend was the discovery of two food items - I found fried pockets of cream corn that are absolutely delicious. They were in the frozen foods dept at the grocery store. I also found a conffectionery shop that sells cream puffs! They are medium size, but otherwise made exactly like those in Wisconsin! They are called shyoo creamu in Japanese, which sounds like shoe cream to me in English... not as appealing. Anyways, they were only 147 yen (~$1.20), so I might give them as gifts in the future.
Today is my first day at the technical high school. I'm teaching three classes. I have no idea what to expect. There are only 11 female students in the entire school. One of the female students who happened to have a ridiculous amount of eyeliner on, told me this morning in the teachers office that I was cute and commented to the teacher that my head was so small!
....jya, never a dull moment
p.s. Dad - those are not hotdog buns. They are like a tiny loaf of bread. Once they were sweetened with little chunkes of apple! I think the bread is tasty.
Well I ended up getting a sharp bone stuck in my esophagus on my first bite. At first I thought I might be choking, and die alone in my Japanese apartment which was embarrassingly messy at the time. But then I realized I could breathe and talk, so I ran over to Jeff's apartment and informed him of the the situation in case he had any ideas for what to do. It was reeeeally painful. From what I could tell the bone was sharp and hooked or perpendicular to my esophagus. It made me salivate more, which caused me to swallow more, and swallowing made it dig farther into my esophagus! We called one of my bosses, who was eating with everyone at the office (so everyone found out) and he said that Japanese people just eat rice when that happens to them. So ate the rest of my dinner, which was delicious, but didn't help. The pain was so bad that I didn't think I could sleep, so I decided that I should probably go to the hospital.
The Naruto hospital said we should go to Tokushima, so my boss's wife picked me and Jeff up and took us to the Tokushima Hospital. By the time we got there, it had been two hours since I had eaten the boney fish and the pain was getting worse. Once we got to the ER and I signed in with my spiffy Japanese National Healthcare card, we waited in the waiting room. Twenty minutes later, a nurse came into the waiting room, took my temperature, and discussed my problem with us in front of everyone else in the waiting room (from what I've read, lack of privacy is common in Japanese doctors offices). Then I went back and saw a doctor, who couldn't see anything by just making me say AAAAAH. So he called a specialist, who arrived 15 minutes later. He told me that the only way for him to know what was going on would be for him to stick a tube/light/camera down my throat via my nose. If he saw something, he would stick a tiny pair of scissors onto the end of the tube and cut it. If he couldn't see anything, he wasn't sure he could do anything to help.
I was already freaked out about the whole situation and being in a hospital altogether, but I was in a lot of pain so I thought I'd try out the tube thing. Jeff was translating everything for me, by the way. He's studying for a Japanese proficiency test, so he was learning a lot of vocab throughout the evening. The doctor hadn't mentioned exactly how it was going to go down, so I was quite freaked out when he started blasting my nostrels with some chemicals and then sucking them back out. The tube with a light went through my nose easily, but I could feel the heat of the light as it went down. I'm not really sure what happened then, but I know I was making one heck of a squinting-what-the-heck-is-going-on-face. The tube came out and I started to feel faint, but threw up instead. The bone was still there. I found out later that the doctor didn't see anything during the whole process. He kept saying kowaii, which I found out later means scary. But at the time I thought he was saying kawaii, which means cute. I was so confused why he was telling me I was cute while I was crying and throwing up.
They gave me two options - I could either come back in the morning when the best ear, nose, and throat doctor would be there and go through the same thing with him, or just take pain medicine/antibiotics while I wait for my body to get rid of it on it's own. So I took option B. I got the medicine and the entire visit for 10,000 yen, which is a little less than $100, but that was before the health insurance kicked in! I get to go back sometime this week to get money back (probably about $70) for what insurance covered. They couldn't get it to go through at the time because the computers were down and a real emergency case had just come in.
The medicine helped me fall asleep, and I stayed in on Saturday to rest. I was sad that I had to miss the kids' cultural festivals. The pain slowly moved down on Saturday and the pain reminded me of strep throat minus the congestion and sinus pressure. By dinner time on Saturday the bone had dropped into my stomach and the long scratch down my throat was healing.
Another highlight of the weekend was the discovery of two food items - I found fried pockets of cream corn that are absolutely delicious. They were in the frozen foods dept at the grocery store. I also found a conffectionery shop that sells cream puffs! They are medium size, but otherwise made exactly like those in Wisconsin! They are called shyoo creamu in Japanese, which sounds like shoe cream to me in English... not as appealing. Anyways, they were only 147 yen (~$1.20), so I might give them as gifts in the future.
Today is my first day at the technical high school. I'm teaching three classes. I have no idea what to expect. There are only 11 female students in the entire school. One of the female students who happened to have a ridiculous amount of eyeliner on, told me this morning in the teachers office that I was cute and commented to the teacher that my head was so small!
....jya, never a dull moment
p.s. Dad - those are not hotdog buns. They are like a tiny loaf of bread. Once they were sweetened with little chunkes of apple! I think the bread is tasty.
Friday, September 08, 2006
School Lunch
I don't have much time to write today, but I uploaded a couple pictures of school lunch so that you can get a feel for what I eat everyday. This school has an sd card reader, so I can post pictures! More often than not, everything tastes good. There's some squid in this one, and that packet is full of jam:
I didn't care for this salad, but the rest was good. Keep in mind that milk is whole milk:
This is what I had today. All of it was delicious. That thing on the right is kind of like a slice of cold omelet:
There's no such thing as cold lunch at these schools, even for teachers. A set of students from each class goes to the kitchen and picks up all the food and trays, and brings it all back to the room. They set it all up in the front of the classroom and two students serve everyone. They wait until everyone has food and then they begin eating. The teachers eat with their homeroom class or in the teachers office room. They do the same thing as the students. Everyone eats the same thing. After lunch all the teachers brush their teeth. I got myself a brush and tube of toothpaste for every school so that I can participate in teeth brushing time. What's weird is that most of them have bad teeth by American standards. I'm guessing that the smoking and constant tea and coffee drinking has more of an effect than the constant brushing.
Tomorrow all three of my junior high schools have cultural festivals which is mostly a recital from what I can tell. They all spent every afternoon this week preparing for it. There will be band performances, singing, dancing, speeches, etc. At lunch time at one of the schools each class will set up a store selling food. So I'm going to attempt to go to parts of all three. Then I'm going to relax on Sunday!
I didn't care for this salad, but the rest was good. Keep in mind that milk is whole milk:
This is what I had today. All of it was delicious. That thing on the right is kind of like a slice of cold omelet:
There's no such thing as cold lunch at these schools, even for teachers. A set of students from each class goes to the kitchen and picks up all the food and trays, and brings it all back to the room. They set it all up in the front of the classroom and two students serve everyone. They wait until everyone has food and then they begin eating. The teachers eat with their homeroom class or in the teachers office room. They do the same thing as the students. Everyone eats the same thing. After lunch all the teachers brush their teeth. I got myself a brush and tube of toothpaste for every school so that I can participate in teeth brushing time. What's weird is that most of them have bad teeth by American standards. I'm guessing that the smoking and constant tea and coffee drinking has more of an effect than the constant brushing.
Tomorrow all three of my junior high schools have cultural festivals which is mostly a recital from what I can tell. They all spent every afternoon this week preparing for it. There will be band performances, singing, dancing, speeches, etc. At lunch time at one of the schools each class will set up a store selling food. So I'm going to attempt to go to parts of all three. Then I'm going to relax on Sunday!
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