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.