Day 2

It rained all night and into the morning (including my 40 minute ride to school) so we didn't have evacuation practice outside. I taught a class of first years (7th grade) and a class of second years (8th grade) this morning. The second years were terrified of embarrassment and participated very very minimally. The first years were active, but you could see the uncomfortable-ness of puberty setting in. Middle school is so awkward! But anyways, English class is taught in Japanese, and this totally confuses me since every foreign language class I've ever been in was never in English. The kids liked my pictures though. They were confused by the concept of fried cheese. When conprehension questions were asked after my self introduction, they knew the answers regarding Eddie better than the rest. All the teachers and principals have been very nice to me so far.

I ate the school lunch again today. It was an average school lunch where the meat is sketchy but the soup and rice is okay. I ate with the first year class, but it was pretty uneventful. They eat in their own classroom. The kids get the food from the lunch person, bring it to the classroom, dish it out for all the students and then clean up afterwards. They work together very well.

This afternoon I will coach a third year student who will be competing in an English speech contest in a couple weeks. She wrote the speech in Japanese, the English teacher who isn't fluent translated it, and I corrected it.

Have a good weekend everyone!


p.s. Happy 3 year Eddie! I love you!

First day of school!

I'm writing from Naruto Junior High School on that island that I posted a picture of yesterday. This morning I biked here and I was lucky that it was fairly cool and not raining. I got here about 20 minutes before the morning teacher's meeting, so I had enough time to get myself situated. The teacher's room is a big open air conditioned room (the only one in school) with all of the teacher's desks grouped together in pods. In Japan, the students stay in the same classroom and the teachers move from room to room between classes, so their desks are all in one room. I have my own desk at each school. This morning I made a speech in Japanese and English to all of the teachers. It was short, but I also passed out a newsletter about myself in English and Japanese. Jeff was kind enough to proofread it.

Today I am helping teach two "first-year" classes. The first year in junior high school is the same thing as 7th grade in the US. I have several laminated pictures and maps made so that I can show the kids my family, where Wisconsin is in the US (no one knows when I tell them that's where I grew up), and where I went to school. I'm so excited!

Since this is the first day of school, the entire school weeds the school property during the afternoon. I was told to bring outside clothes for this event so I'm assuming I will be participating. Bring on the ragweed allergy!!! On a normal day the kids clean the entire school at the end of the day though. I don't have to do that but I may be assigned to a part of the building to oversee during the cleaning.

Tomorrow I go to Seto Junior High School and go through nearly the same thing. I teach two classes and instead of weeding, participate in evacuation training. Tokyo experienced a massive earthquake on September 1st over 80 years ago and ever since then, they evacuate on September 1st. I'm not sure if they do this all over or if it's just that school. Should be interesting. I was told to bring a hat because we'll be outside for at least 2 hours.

Erin, I'm glad you feel like you're here. My job here is to internationalize the kids, so my existance is about 80% of my job. But I consider this blog part of my job too because I get to internationalize you guys at the same time. Japan is left out of the US curriculum (minus WW2), at least it was in Germantown. So I feel like everything will be just as amazing to you guys as it is to me, who started learning about Japan from scratch at Wellesley. You should still visit me though Erin!!! There's so much that you just have to experience yourself.

Grandpa J, those trucks are made by many companies but they are all identical. Honda, Suzuki, Mitsubishi, etc. No non-Japanese makers though.

Everything seems tiny to me

Here is a snipet of pictures of things that seem small to me:

This is Jeff's car next to an American size car.

The minivans are actually mini.


Here is a neighborhood street. It looks like an alley, but it's a street that people live on.

Gas is 144yen/L, which is $4.64/gall so I'm sure that's why the cars are smaller. The engines are smaller. And small cars are easier to maneuver on tiny streets.

These are average size soda/coffee cans.

This is a tiny bag of popcorn. It's the same size as the single serving size in the states, but it's the only size that's available. This is pretty typical of all groceries. The sizes are smaller, but you pay the same amount you would in the states.

This is a shopping cart at all stores - grocery store, menards type stores, drug store, etc.

The cans maybe smaller, but they are available EVERYWHERE in vending machines. Snacks are only available in freeway roadstop vending machines, if that. Soda, coffee, water, ion supply drinks, beer, and cigarette vending machines are everywhere.

This is rare, but a couple blocks from my house is an egg vending machine!!!!


School starts tomorrow, so I won't be coming into the Board of Education office everyday with my computer. I'll also be busier than I have been, so I won't be posting quite as much until I get internet access in my apartment (which was ordered three weeks ago!!!!!).

Here's the Board of Education office which is layed out like all Japanese offices - desks pushed together in a wide-open room - no cubicles and no privacy.

Tomorrow I teach at Naruto Junior High school with is about 1km behind those white buildings on that island.

This is the ferry that I will take my bike on to get there because it's too dangerous to bike on the car bridges.


Dear Gypsy Sanchez (see previous comments), Yes I definitely had a "What About Bob?" moment while I was sailing. I didn't get tied to the front sail though!

I think I answered all other questions in the last couple posts. If not, ask me again - email or comment.