kusatsu fawkes

oops, letting myself slip a little with the updating. I feel like I'm doing pretty good for Aaron though, someone who doesn't usually love broadcasting personal information on a very public forum. But my Dad usually takes that into his own hands regardless :)
My weeks are going pretty well, and I'm slowly getting the hang of what being an ALT (Assistant Language Teacher) at my school means. Sometimes this means being totally out of the loop of even the most basic functionings of the school, having trouble explaining simple concepts to kids in my class (or anyone for that matter), and being told "you're cool!" about 1000 times everyday by 13 - 14 year old japanese boys. The last part is maybe a bit annoying after the millionth time, but I figure what other job will let me hear that everyday.
I had my first batch of what i would call solidly unsuccessful classes this week, but maybe I had it coming after last week's super awesome Halloween classes. It started when me and another assistant teacher went to class, and about 5 seconds before we began she let me know the real teacher can't come today so it'll just be us. And then she asked if I knew the plan. I had never been told or asked about today's plan, so I didn't. She then told me, same as yesterday, and with that, class began. I guess it wasn't really that hard running through the same motions as yesterday again, but I was fumbling and the kids were really bored.
Then came time for the class I teach by myself, which actually usually goes pretty well. It went pretty well for the first half this time, but then i started to handout and explain the game that was given to me by the teacher instructing the same class down the hall (its advanced English, split into two sections, one of which I teach). I usually play simple games and the kids catch on fairly quickly, but they seemed totally stumped on this one. Apparently they never learned any of the concepts or vocab involved with this game (where is... under/over/near/by/between/etc). So I had to stop the game and try to explain new vocab and grammar to them. Even though i can say all that stuff in Japanese, I can't really EXPLAIN it and the kids were sort of riled up from starting and stopping a game and maybe a bit because i was their only teacher at the time. So again more of me fumbling and students just doing their own thing. Sigh... But anyway this was all monday and tuesday. Wed through Fri went fine.
BUT before this week, I had a really nice weekend. First was a trip to Kusatsu with six other foreigners (in all, 3 American, 2 Australian, 1 English, 1 Italian), an onsen (hot spring) town further North in the mountains of my home prefecture (Gunma). We stayed at a ryokan (Japanese inn) with cute futons and tatami mats and homemade dinner and breakfast. Very Japanesey. Of course it wasn't the ryokans you see in travel magazines and brochures (this one had more tape-lined pipes, cheezy posters, and average looking food than those ones). But we're on assistant teacher budgets, not international business ones. The town and surrounding hot springs and parks were beautiful. They also felt amazing, and I am starting to love the Japanese onsen, even if the mens section of one of the ones we went to was entirely visible to the many walkers around a main touristy path.
The next day, me and a few of the same (and other) people went to a friends house out in the middle of nowhere (it accordingly took more than twice as long to get there as it should have after getting lost) to celebrate Guy Fawkes day. I was vaguely aware that this holiday existed beforehand, but only vaguely. The English remember the day that a man tried to blow up their king the same way countries have been remembering things for hundreds or thousands of years (in asia's case): by launching colorful explosive chemicals into the sky.
I don't have pictures of the party, but can mooch some from other people. Here are a few from Kusatsu though:

Us wandering around town

Dipping toes in weird green pond
Us in yukkatas wandering town at night. Notice the crazy (and bad smelling) onsen in the center of town. It was brightly lit and pretty impressive. The whole night made me feel like the samurai I've always wanted to be (about 1 foot shorter than the Europeans).
I didn't take these last two pictures (thank you Amber) but here we are, in our foreign glory.

Only other thing on my mind worth noting is the recent election in the States. The Democrats now hold Congress for the first time since 1994, and the kicker that seems to have gotten them in there is the Iraq War. I'm not sure I wholeheartedly trust the current Dems to smoothly tackle that incredibly difficult situation, but I'll tell you what, I don't think it can get any worse than Donald Rumsfeld and a blindly loyal Congress and President. I don't know what's next, just that I feel happier knowing that Bush will have a MUCH harder time launching his fusion Orwellian/Reagan/Ghengis Khan type initiatives. This is good for everyone.
Japan is the only foreign country I've been to where being an American isn't considered negative (except maybe Israel). I'm afraid America needs more friends than Japan and Israel to make it through the 21st century (and those countries need more friends than just America). Bush and his Iraqi war aren't the sole reasons for those feelings obviously, but I feel like they pushed a lot of people who otherwise wouldn't care too much into distinctively hating the U.S.. The news and casualty figures are always staggering, and I can't say I blame anyone for such negative leanings these days. But it wasn't always this way, right?

I don't hate my country, but it does to need to change. I just hope it can.