1 year

My little Aussie girlfriend and I have been living in our little Japanese apartment now for one year, almost to the day. I have to admit, this has been kind of a first time for me. I've never lived with a girl before, except my sister and mother. At least living with my sister prepped me for dealing with the fact that girls can be really messy and gross, too. Good thing Amber is so small though, so she can't make that much of a mess.
I suppose the ideal start to such an arrangement would be to talk things through and make all the proper arrangements. However, we chose a different path. Last year around this time, Amber quit her job with JET, who also provided the apartment (graciously covering none of the expenses). They promptly kicked her out of the apartment, and she just as promptly moved into mine. Compared to mine, her apartment was bigger and somewhat more ideally located. But in this past year we've turned my little dasai (ugly) apartment into a cozy home. At least when it's not too messy. Which is maybe 10% of the time.

So thank you Amber for helping me survive in this funny little place.

Aren't we cute? I shaved my beard into a moustache just for her. Look how much she likes it!

A few weeks ago we had a brief holiday, referred to as "Golden Week" in Japan; it's a series of public holidays at the end of April and beginning of May. In general it's actually a terrible time to travel around Japan. TV stations love reporting on the many many many mile traffic jams going out of the cities and the 100%+ surcharges hotels put on reservations in this time period. But Japanese people pay it, because it's one of the few times of year they can actually get away from work.
Makes me feel a little bit like an old person, but this year Amber and I, with a few friends, signed up with a group based in Tokyo that sponsors outdoorsy trips for foreigners in the area. But long story short, we went camping! We went camping in a small island called "Nijima" (means "new island") for 3 days and 2 nights. I had a lot of fun biking, hiking, and lounging around. The island is famous for surfing, but I didn't get any closer to that then just watching.
In a happy coincidence, during the overnight boat ride to the island, we were seated next to a couple from America, one of whom happened to make a long commute a few times a week to work at Aeon Mall, the giant mall that is about 20 meters away from my apartment. Anyway they also turned out to be really nice and we're still friends now. yay! I think Amber really likes that the girl, who is from Louisiana, says "y'all." I told Amber it's probably not put-on, and that many people legitimately say "y'all." She got a big kick out of that.
Here are some pictures:

This last one I took while I was riding my bike. I took a bunch actually, but most turned out blurry for some reason. I probably shouldn't have done this because just the day before Amber gave her camera to someone to take a picture of us, and the person promptly dropped, and broke, the camera. We just got it fixed (replaced actually), and it cost almost as much as a new camera. Amber took it pretty well though I thought.

Well that's enough fun stuff for now.

The only "interesting" work thing I've done recently is interview students to go on a school trip to Australia this summer. I interviewed 20 kids, 8 of whom will be able to go on the trip. I had to this last year as well, and both times I found it quite difficult. Difficult in the sense that by the time it's pared down to 20 students, they're all good kids and eager students. But I'm supposed to judge them from the interview, not from how much I like them in class (I've been teaching them in class for almost 2 years now).
I went to a small staff meeting afterwards to discuss who they all think should go. They kids also had an interview with the principal, and took a written test. At the meeting they told me they would assign the most weight to the English interview, since speaking one on one with a foreigner most resembles the situation they will face in Australia. That said probably only half the students I really like based on the interview AND my knowledge of them from class (I've been teaching them for longer than some of the teachers making the decisions!). They really wanted to know why I wouldn't recommend this one girl, who scored perfectly on the test and did very well (used the right polite words) with the principal. I said she stared at me in a scary way and though her English was quite good, she sounded like an awkward robot. They told me that's how Japanese people are told to behave in interviews. Sit perfectly still, hands on lap, and never cease eye contact with the interviewer. Well anyway I find it unnerving and I bet a cute little Aussie family would too. But she got a perfect score on the written test... so guess she's going.
And a boy who is really great in class, not a perfect A student, but happy and thoughtful and cheerful and all that, was not chosen. They quickly dismissed my recommendation of him, because he did mediocre on the written test, and "failed" the interview with the principal, because he wasn't wearing a belt. When the teacher announced that he wasn't wearing a belt, everyone else nodded their heads and went "mmm sou desu ne" (ahh i see). So the 14 year old kid forgot to wear a belt. It pained me a bit to hear him so swiftly crossed off the list, since he's maybe my favorite student at the moment. Too bad he forgot his belt...

But when they're older, they can just do what I do. They can find a cute little Aussie, and follow her back to the land of a 1000 suns (or at least the equivalent harmful radiation).

Before that though, I've got some Americaning to do. I'm happy to say I'll be home in just 2 months, and I can impose myself on lots of my friends and family, just like I did last summer. I hope you're as excited as me (but that's not possible)...

See you soon!
Aaron

what's goin' on

The title of this page is dedicated both to Marvin Gaye and to what is, in fact, going on.
My last post was fairly useless in that regards I suppose, eh.
So here goes.
I work at a school in Japan. The Japanese school year ends in the end of March, and begins again in early April. There's about 2 and half weeks of no classes, but because I have no vacation days left, I couldn't really go anywhere or do anything. But I am more or less still required to be at school for at least most of my normal working hours. Last year at this time I went to Thailand for a week and a half. I can now confidently say that a week and a half in Thailand is better than a week and a half sitting through boring meetings that I don't really understand but can still feel the frustration of teachers being assigned annoying tasks.
But the changing of the year is a big deal here, even more so than in America I'd venture. Because every year in Japan, many teachers switch schools. This constant shifting is the Education Ministry's attempt to keep schools with new ideas and new faces and prevent stagnation. Maybe it does do that, but it also forces schools to do things almost the exact same way all across the country (or at least intra-prefecture) and prevent any meaningful form of organization and consistency within a school. I have now been at my school longer than about half of the other teachers, and most of the ones that have been there longer than me only beat me by about half a year. BUT I did go through this last year, and no big deal. Except for two things.
1. No more "International Class," which drove me crazy for a whole year as I was thrusted into a class as a head teacher/organizer for a course with no grades or even plan. If the kids were vaguely interested it would have been ok, but it was mandatory for them, and it turned out that keeping control of groups of 37 14 year olds was not easy.
2. I'd been teaching with a woman named Mika for over a year and a half, and she has turned into my best Japanese friend here. Not to mention by far my best if not only friend at school. She helped me out so much (socially) at work, that I always though, "what would I do without Mika?" Well, I am now living out that very scenario, as she has been transfered to a different school, along with about half the previous staff. I still see her, but like any good Japanese person she's quite busy... I miss her already.

But it's May already (sorry for the slow updates) and things are fine. I now teach an "elective" class, which boils down to the same sort of thing as the previous "international class" (don't be fooled by the term 'elective,' it's mandatory). This time my co-teacher is a happy and active 26 year old who's been teaching a few years now (my last co-teacher had never even had a full-time job before).

I'm sure this is of no interest to anyone, so let's get on to the real meaning of May for my friends and family (in regards to me). I have about 3 months of my contract left, and then will be departing for the golden shores of New York. I will then quickly shuffle around the Northeast to make it time for my high school buddy Hume's wedding in Thousand Islands Park on August 2. I'm going to get a new suit and buy a cool japanesey present for them in preparation. This will be my first non Jewish-gentile wedding, since gentile Hume is marrying gentile Ali. Oh those goy.
I do regret to say that another close friend of mine is getting married but I can not attend the service. Though I wish to see those two gentiles happily wed as well, there's just no way I can fly home a month before my contract finishes. I could just quit, but then I would throw away my free ticket home, and my last 2 precious paychecks. Only my best is with them.

While I'm not getting married just yet, I did take a big step in my life. Credit card? no. House? no. career decision? no. Cook for a group of people? yes!
Passover was about a month ago, and I decided this year I would subject some friends to the delicacy that is Jewish cuisine. Big thanks to my Mom who sent me a small Passover package, making this possible.

Look at the happy family together for a nice seder. I'll admit, it wasn't a very traditional one. I made kosher l'pesach knishes, chicken soup with chicken-matzah dumplings, tzimmes, and charoset, which is more symbolic than an actual dish. There's also a plate of matzah. The less traditional parts are the bowl of bread and the cous-cous, though Sephardic Jews might very well eat that on Passover (I didn't bring the bread or cous-cous). Amazingly, on this table is a bottle of kosher for passover wine. That's right, I found Jewish wine in Japan! And not in Tokyo, but at a big supermarket in the middle of Gunma, an hour further into the country than my place, which is kind of country. Actually my friend Cynthia found it, she's 2 pictures above. The asian-y looking one, not the whitey round eyes. Thank you Cynthia!

The last few pictures are from a next day picnic. Aren't we cool? The answer is yes. Also cool is the "spirit of america" marshmallow snack sent by my man Andy from the good ol US of A. Actually, it was pretty gross and very obvious from a dollar or snack outlet store. By I still could taste the spirit of America. Thank you Andy.

So... anything else to report?

yep!

But I won't bore everyone for too long. But here's a look at the sequel: sending kids to Australia and island camping trip!

Hooray!
I'll finish with some pictures of graduation at my jr high and a video of my elementary.

And I thought Japanese kids were supposed to be short. Dammit.

Elementary School:At least these ones are little!

Japanese kids sing this "sayonara" song at every graduation and farewell type ceremony as far as I can tell. I like this video cuz you get a good view of the special needs students who can't act like robots as well as most Japanese 12 year olds.