Bat Attack!

So I finally took the N4 level of the Japanese Language Proficiency Test (JLPT) on Sunday after preparing for it about an hour a day for the past two months.  I think there's a good chance that I passed it but the grammar section always gives me difficulty and since you need to get a minimum score for each section, if you do poorly on one section then you might fail the whole exam.

In other news the weather has been absolutely horrible for the past week.  Not only has it been rainy but the humidity hasn't dropped below 75% for quite a while (and is often above 85%), meaning that it's difficult to fall asleep and I lose my appetite.  The humidity tends to increase at night so right when I'm getting up in the morning it's particularly bad.  The shower-room gets very humid too and even though I set the temperature to the lowest "lukewarm" setting, it's still too warm.  If I turn the heating-gas off completely then the water's WAY too cold to stand under since it's getting pumped up from underground.  All I can do is splash the cold water on my hands and feet - I wish there were a "cool" temperature setting!

Yesterday's temperature and humidity from Accuweather.

Speaking of the shower-room, we had an unexpected guest sneak in last week.  As I was getting ready for the day, I heard Anne yell out that there was something small and black flying around the shower-room (she couldn't tell what it was since she didn't have her contacts in yet).  It flew into Anne's room and landed at one of the ceiling's corners and we realized soon enough that it was a small bat.  There are only a few mammals that I really dislike but mice and bats definitely come to mind first.  When Anne tried to convince me to go around on the balcony and open her door from the outside so that the bat could fly out, at first I refused and said that we should go get a neighbor for help.  One of the worst things about bats is that, like most rodents, they can carry all sorts of diseases like rabies.  I guess it's good that we live in Japan since they have apparently eradicated rabies from the island, but still I'm sure the bats around here carry other kinds of crazy diseases.  Anyway, I went around and slowly opened the door and then Anne made some loud noises by the doorway to scare the bat out of the door.  It worked and the bat left but I was too freaked out to take a shower myself since I thought that the bat might try to come in again.  My brother correctly pointed out afterward that if I had faced my fears, I might have become the next batman!  Oh well, it was a missed opportunity I guess.

And more about bats - I've been re-watching the late 90's/early 2000's cartoon Batman Beyond which is a pretty decent show.  But I'm still looking for an ongoing show to replace Young Justice - a cartoon I absolutely loved that was canceled in March.  I really liked the characters in that show - I mean, they were all pretty annoying at first but then they changed over time and ended up being really awesome.  I love when that happens!  Like Zuko in Avatar: The Last Airbender!  ... I won't apologize for liking cartoons!

OK, now for some student stories.  A few weeks ago I was in class with the third year middle school students and Shingo-sensei told them to take out their handouts from the previous class.  Maybe he had given them the handouts at the very end of the previous class or something because a bunch of the students were like 'Handout? What handout?'  So the students looked through their binders and bags and eventually four students came to the front of the room to bow to Shingo-sensei and apologize for losing their worksheets.  He gave them new handouts and told them to be more careful next time.  I mean, usually there are one or two students who lose or forget worksheets but having four out of 22 students is pretty unusual especially considering that three of the students who asked for new worksheets hardly ever have to do so.  So they were translating the reading from English to Japanese on the handout and I was walking around and helping students who needed it.  Suddenly one of the four students who had asked for a second worksheet said that he had found his first worksheet.  He returned the second copy of the handout since he hadn't written on it yet.  Not one minute later, one of the other students called out that she had found her first worksheet as well (the class laughed when they heard the news).  So she returned her second worksheet as well.  After this there was anticipation in the air - would one of the other two students who had forgotten their handouts find theirs as well?  Indeed about a minute later one of the two (who chronically loses and misplaces his worksheets) yelled out that he had found his first copy.  The class thought this was quite funny (it was a few days before their semester exams so they were looking for any excuse to laugh).  Anyway, the student returned his second worksheet, but he had written in some of the answers already which I also thought was funny.

Here are some pictures I took of one of the third year assignments where they had to explain something having to do with Japanese culture (as you might imagine, many students explained what 'sushi' was).

Kendo is very interesting to watch.  I think this student was saying that it's traditionally done barefoot so her feet get cold in the winter.

Another picture of a kendo match.

This student decided to describe a kotatsu.  I thought it was funny how he said that many Japanese people sleep under one because I've been told time and time again that it's dangerous to do so.

Another kotatsu description with some interesting word choices.

I think this student was talking about Children's Day, but I don't know how the warrior Date Masamune got involved...

This reminds me, when correcting papers in Japan, a circle means it's good and a check mark means it's incorrect.  I'm sure I confused many students when I first corrected their papers since it's pretty much the opposite in America.

Anyway, I had my last day at one of my elementary schools on Monday since this coming Monday is a holiday.  It was really sad to say goodbye to all of my fifth and sixth grade students even though I told them that they would probably see me again before I left since I don't leave town until August 1st.  Still, I was sad to go.  I had to give several speeches over the course of the day, including one in front of the whole school which would have been stressful except that it was about one hundred and sixty degrees in the room (and humid!) so I can't really remember how I did since I was concentrating on not fainting.

I decided to make the elementary students bookmarks with stickers and their names on them, that way they'll have to remember how to write their names in English!  The students really liked them (even more than I had expected), which made me happy.

I had told the elementary students previously that I was leaving and I had assumed all of the middle school students knew as well but when I mentioned it to one of my favorite students she said that she was surprised to hear it.

Me:  But I'll see you next week at least.
Student:  Next week I will be happy but then it will end.
Then she gave me a big hug.

We both had some tears in our eyes after that.

... Finally, here's a picture of a "Sugar Butter Sand Tree" treat, sounds appetizing, right?

I can understand the Sugar, Butter, and Sand (short for sandwich), but why the Tree?

Sunblock and a Sun Halo

Wow, June has been going by so quickly!  I've been studying for the level N4 JLPT exam which will occur on July 7th, I solidified plans for traveling around Japan in August (this time with my brother and sister!), I filled out a ridiculously long packet of information to leave for my successor, and I've been trying to organize all the stuff I've accumulated over the last year and a half to decide what I want to bring back home.  Actually, now that I'm writing this I realize that haven't officially written this in my blog yet - but I decided not stay in Japan for another year (even though I could have).

Why am I leaving?  Well, I'll admit I was a bit homesick after coming back from the US which I think affected my decision... if I had been asked a month after that my answer may have been different... but in the end I suppose that I really should be "getting on with my life" in the US.  Not to say that there's nothing left for me to do or learn in Japan (quite the opposite!) and I hope to visit Japan in the future when I can (or maybe even live here again for a while but probably not permanently).  But if I look back at what I've done in Japan, I think I've actually accomplished a lot.  I successfully lived in a foreign country for over a year, I taught English to different age groups and confirmed that teaching is a profession that would work for me, and I improved my Japanese language ability (not as much as I would have liked, but that's my fault for not putting in more effort).  Basically, I think I did pretty well.  And even though I'll be really sad to leave my students, teachers, and neighbors (I'm getting teary just thinking of it) I'm sure that they will have fun communicating with and learning from the new JET too.  In the end I hope they have fond memories of me and that some of what I taught them will help them at some point in the future... my that sounds vague (but I still hope it's true) : )

So, my contract will end on July 31st and a new ALT (I don't know who yet) will arrive on August 1st.  My brother will come visit at the end of July and then the first week of August we will travel up to Hokkaido (northern island) and around Tohoku (northeast area) a bit.  After that we'll go down to Tokyo and meet my sister at Narita airport (she's studying abroad in Chile at the moment which is why she'll be arriving later).  All three of us will then spend a couple of weeks sightseeing in the southern and eastern parts of Honshu (the main island).  It's going to be AMAZING!

I still don't know exactly what I'm going to do when I get back to the US but I've heard that the job market is slightly better than it was when I left so I'm sure I'll find something eventually...  In the meantime I'll continue my blog.  I'll probably even continue to save up pictures and stories so that I can still write a bit about Japan even while living in the US.  Once that's done I might turn this into a travel blog - in other words, incentive for me to travel more!

Anyway, now onto sun-related stories!

In Japan most people get suntanned pretty easily.  But some people (mostly women/girls) prefer to have paler skin since that's currently considered to be more "beautiful".  Back in the US most people seem to prefer the whole tan skin/blonde hair look (like my beautiful college-age cousins).  Of course, there are people who use tanning booths and spray-tans as well.  For someone like me, who gets burned instead of tanned, I imagine a spray-on tan would make me look rather like an orange.  Anyway, in Japan it's generally the opposite with women sometimes going to great lengths to avoid getting tanned.  At my school there's a teacher who always has a hat and a parasol and wears arm-warmer looking sleeves that reflect UV rays when she goes outside.

Sunglasses are considered a "fashion accessory" in Japan.  Though I was relieved to find that they still claim to block UV rays when I purchased a couple recently.  Most people in Japan have dark brown eyes (though if you ask them the students say they have "black eyes" which makes me laugh).  Since the iris is such a dark color, not a lot of harmful radiation from the sun can make it to the inner eye and cause damage.  But even though sunglasses aren't strictly necessary... they're still cool, right?  So people in Japan still wear them, sometimes even when it's not bright out (or even at night).  When my students see me outside with my sunglasses on they say that I "look like a spy," haha.  Actually, just before I went to Japan I read an interesting BBC article about how thousands of years ago people in Europe actually adapted to have larger eyes so that they could see better on darker days.

Anyway, a few days ago I was riding the school bus with some elementary students and a boy from my neighborhood looked at me and asked me straight-out why I didn't have a suntan.  So I explained that instead of turning brown my skin turns red and painful when exposed to the sun (I didn't mention the peeling though).  All the students were very surprised to hear this.  When asking his question the neighborhood boy used the word「日焼け」(hiyake) which can mean either "suntan"or "sunburn".  Basically that language difference tells you how rare sunburns are in Japan.

A couple of weeks ago when I was teaching at Hashi Junior High School there were a few other sun-related events on the same day.  During first period I was at one of the third year classes and they were working on a review worksheet at the end of class.  I was walking around the room and helping students who were having a hard time.  Shingo-sensei suddenly walked to the front of the room and started sniffing around as if there were a scent in the air.  He walked down the middle row of students and stopped right in front of me.

Shingo:  Erin-sensei, are you wearing perfume?
me:  No...  I don't think so.
Shingo:  Maybe a lotion?
me:  Ah, I'm wearing sunblock today, maybe it's that?
Shingo:  "sunblock"?
me:  Yes, so that I don't get sunburned.
Shingo:  Ah, I see.

Apparently some of the students, who had been unable to identify the smell of the sunblock, asked Shingo-sensei what it was so he went to investigate.  After that he explained to the students (in Japanese) that many people from Europe have skin that is "weak against the sun" and so have to wear sunblock.  Most of the middle school students had never heard of a "sunburn" either so I explained that concept to them as well.  I suppose in the past when they saw me wearing hats outside or whatnot they assumed that I was just trying to prevent a suntan, haha.  Anyway, at the middle school the students wear school uniforms and have a pretty strict dress/appearance code (so no jewelry/perfume either) and the teachers tend to avoid too much makeup/jewelry as well (partly so that those things won't distract the students).  After class I asked Shingo-sensei if I should find a "less smelly" sunblock to wear if it was so noticeable to the students, and he said that would probably be a good idea.

Still, I love how we get so much daylight at this time of the year!  But the sun rises so early here in Minamisanriku!  I bought thick curtains so that I can sleep until my alarm goes off.  Here are the sunrise and sunset times for today:

Since there's no daylight savings, recently the sun has been rising around 4 AM (according to Accuweather)

OK, one last sun story, this one with pictures!  On the same day as the sunblock-smelling incident I walked into the teachers' room and saw everyone looking out the window in awe.  Thinking that there might be a rainbow I quickly grabbed my cell phone and headed over.  Instead I saw a full sun halo that was thick enough to distinguish the colors of the rainbow.

Half of the sun halo, taken with my cell phone

See how it looks like an upside-down rainbow?

A sun halo looks like a hoop of light completely circling the sun.  It happens when high, thin clouds containing ice crystals pass in front of the sun and scatter the light.  Since I didn't have a light-filtering lens I wasn't able to take a picture of the whole thing (even though there was one).  Here's a full one from NASA.  I got the terminology wrong at first since I was calling it a "sundog" which is a spot of light to the right or left of the sun that can look like a piece of a rainbow.  Sundogs are much more rare but the term stuck in my mind after I saw this picture at APOD (NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day) and I assumed that:

rainbow near the sun  = sundog

Which is not true!  Really:

rainbow/light circling the sun = sun halo
spot of light or rainbow to the right or left of the sun = sundog

Unfortunately it's the start of the rainy season 梅雨 (tsuyu) or 雨期 (uki) in my area so there won't be as much sunlight over the next several weeks.  Ugh, it's so humid out already, I feel like I'm living in a rainforest.

One last topic for today.  I mentioned to my dad that Blogger lets me see where my readers are located around the world (probably based on their IP addresses).  For example, over the past month:

And if I look at my all-time views:

The top two countries make sense but I'm not really sure why people in Russia or Germany would be interested in my blog... I can only speculate.

Special Guest Post - My Dad's Visit 2013

So, my dad came to visit last week and it was really great to see him.  I brought him to one of my elementary schools to meet the kids, we climbed a local mountain (Mt. Tatsugane), we went to Sendai, and even went to  Matsushima...  Well, basically we stayed in Miyagi prefecture and were blessed with fantastic weather which made the sightseeing all the better!

My dad (whom I will call "James") promised to write a guest-post about our experiences which I have pasted below with a few minor changes (changing names to pseudonyms).  I suppose that I will call myself "Erin" for now.  And so, without further ado, here is his post (with a few stray comments from me in green):


So I arrived in Tokyo during Monday afternoon rush hour (that would be called “poor planning”) and took the Shinkansen to Kurikoma-kogen.  I had purchased a 3-day rail pass (to be used over any 10 day period) so the train costs were very reasonable.  The trains were clean, punctual, and very fast (approaching 200 mph)!  Erin met me at the station and we drove about an hour to her apartment in Minamisanriku.  

On Tuesday, Erin took me to her school.  Unbeknownst to me, Erin had prepared a "James Worksheet", in which her students (three classes of 5th and 6th graders) were to guess my favorite color, sports, foods, etc.  After the initial awkwardness, the exercises went really well.   (I noted that correct guesses were rewarded with a “James” sticker, apparently to further mock me.)   Some of the guessing was pretty funny.  For example, after learning that my favorite country was Panama, one student promptly placed it directly in Europe.  Glad to see that American students are not alone in their geographic fog.

Part of the worksheet that the students were given.

It was very entertaining to see Erin interact with her students.  She appeared completely at ease with them and the language.  And they really seemed to appreciate her enthusiasm, which was contagious.  At one point, she described “American football” by acting out how to throw and catch a football.  Later, one of the teachers acted out “Frisbee” by tossing a disk across the room to me.
During the guessing exercises, an incorrect student guess would get a casual and teasing “Nope!” from Erin.  

Lunch was interesting, or maybe lunchtime in a Japanese school is a little different than what I recall.  Students eat right in their classrooms.  The students line up, cafeteria-style, and get served by other students, wearing aprons and masks.   Afterwards, they clean up their own plates, then literally wipe off the desks and sweep the classroom floor.  

In the following days, we visited some cultural sites, and some beautiful seaside towns.  The photo below is from Matsushima, which reminded me a lot of Gloucester, MA.  Matsushima is a fishing village, which was not heavily damaged in the earthquake/tsunami.  The offshore islands (in the background) are beautiful tourist destinations in the nice weather.

Erin at Matsushima.

The most memorable part of my visit however, was seeing the transformation which has happened over the past year.  When I visited Minamisanriku in March 2012 (one year after the earthquake/tsunami), the entire town center remained covered with huge piles of debris, separated by material (metals like cars and washing machines, wooden structures, concrete rubble, car tires, etc.).  This year though, there has been an obvious rebirth.  There are cranes everywhere, rebuilding structures and dredging harbors.  The picture below shows this happening in the background.  

Cranes working by Shizugawa Harbor.

In my last night in Minamisanriku, one of Erin’s principals had us and some other colleagues over for dinner.  In a touching remark at the end of the evening, he noted how inspirational it has been to have Erin (and Anne) help in fixing their “broken” town. 

OK, now back to "Erin" - I'll post a few more pictures of the trip:

Beautiful Matsushima with its many sandstone(?) islands!  It reminded me a bit of the "Twelve Apostles" - rocks along the Great Ocean Road near Melbourne, Australia.  Though in Matsushima there were hardly any waves.

A view from Mt. Tatsugane in Minamisanriku.

See my father, James, on his way up the trail on Mt. Tatsugane.

Some つつじ (azalea) in a local park.

Hopefully I'll post more next week, though I'm also studying for the upcoming JLPT N4 exam, so we'll see...

Golden Week Vacation

Last week was "Golden Week" - a week in Japan where you often get around 3 days of vacation depending on how the holidays fall (unfortunately they're not all in a row).  But many people take the remaining days of the week off and travel since the weather is pleasant and not too hot yet.  This year's schedule was kind of weird- we had a three day weekend followed by a three day work week and then a four day weekend.  I decided to save some money and stay home for this Golden Week but it was nice to have some days off.  This year I managed to take some pictures of the sakura (cherry blossoms) around town.  The sakura only bloom for a short time (around 7-8 days) so it can be hard to take pictures of them.

A view of the bay from a hill.  You can see some blossoming trees (not sakura) on the left.

Some sakura blooming around a shrine.

A close-up of some sakura in my neighborhood.

I think that the sakura tree on the slope is incredible since it survived the tsunami and continues to bloom beautifully.  In the foreground is a field that used to be a rice paddy, but now it's too salty for growing rice.

One of the holidays celebrated in early May is 子どもの日 (kodomo no hi) or Children's Day.  In the weeks before Children's Day families hang some 鯉のぼり(koi nobori - carp-shaped streamers) outside of their homes (though you can also see them hanging in other places too).  The colors of the carp represent the members of the family.  The big, black carp represents the father, the medium, red one is the mother and the small ones are the children.  The color of a child's carp-streamer varies depending on the gender of the child and the area of Japan, though blue is the most common color for the oldest male child.

Some carp-streamers near a local market.  Can you find the father, mother, and child?

That reminds me, I wanted to mention gender-associated colors in Japan.  Just like the carp-streamers, black is for guys and red is for girls.  This is especially true for restroom color-coding; I once went to a restaurant and there were no signs or symbols on the bathroom doors, one was simply painted black and the other red... so be careful when traveling in Japan!  This color system is true for children as well, that's why elementary school girls often have red backpacks and boys have black ones.  Though at my elementary schools I have seen girls with pink and light blue backpacks as well - I guess since pink is related to red it still works out, and it seems that blue is more of a "children's color" since there are a few boys with dark blue backpacks as well.

Anyway, during one of my days off I took a walk down to the local shopping area to buy some vegetables.  It was a sunny day so I had on my sunglasses, and since it was a holiday I was wearing jeans and a sweatshirt.  Along the way I saw three of my elementary students (all 6th grade girls) walking towards me as they were coming back from the shopping area.  They saw me approaching and started whispering among themselves, as if they were psyching themselves up for something.  When I was in hailing range they all said, "Hello!" together.  I greeted them back and by that time we were next to each other.  One of the girls looked surprised and said,「ちょっと、先生?」 "Wait... sensei?" (sensei means teacher so any teacher can be called 'sensei').  They had apparently not recognized me in my informal attire and mistook me for a random foreigner visiting the town, and yet they had still greeted me in English!!!  I've gotta say, I was proud of them for doing that.

Now for a few more pictures:

Some more metal-sheet art near one of my schools.  There is some Japanese writing on the upper one a bit to the right of center.  I believe it says,「ここで生きてきた幸せ。ここで生きていく喜び」"We were happy to live here.  We live here with delight."  (It's read right to left and top to bottom in the traditional Japanese style).

A neighborhood cat sitting in my apartment parking lot.

Notice how the cat is sitting right where a tire usually rests.  He doesn't care as long as he's in the sun.

And now for a special picture.  Way back I mentioned that some traffic lights in Japan appear blue instead of green...

Here is a legendary blue traffic light!  This particular traffic light is nocturnal and lives in the mountains between Minamisanriku and Tome.

Well, that's all for now - I'll be busy in the coming weeks but I'll try to write again in good time.

Heart vs. Mind

I intended for this to be posted last week but my schedule was thrown off after I heard about the Boston Marathon bombings.  My brother and several of my cousins live in Boston (all fine thankfully) and on Friday one of the suspects was captured not too far away from where my brother works.  Scary stuff.  So anyway I was kind of stuck in a moment last week but I'll try to get another post done for next week to make up for the delay.

So... a new school year has started (I'll get into that at a later time).  Today I want to talk about something that I found rather interesting that was brought up in one of my third year middle school classes.  The class had finished reading a brief summary of the movie E.T. (which one of the book's characters claims is "the most moving movie"... well it's the comparative/superlative chapter so I guess they needed some kind of example...).  Anyway, the book makes a point to mention that E.T. says "I'll be right here," (while pointing at Elliot's head) in the scene where he's leaving Earth; they even have a hand-drawn picture of it.  After the class had finished reading, Shingo-sensei asked me where my 'mind' was located; I pointed to my head.  Next he asked the class (in Japanese) where they thought their 'mind' was; the students pointed to their hearts.

I had noticed in the past (while watching subtitled anime) that sometimes a character would use the word 心 (kokoro) which I had learned as 'heart' but the subtitle would say 'mind'.  With this in mind (haha), I realized that some of the Japanese characters I've learned actually make more sense:

意  feeling, thought: combines kanji for sound (top) and mind (bottom)
忘れる (wasureru) to forget: combines kanji for death and mind
思う (omou) to think: combines the kanji for rice paddy and mind... well I don't know how the rice paddy fits in but it's important that they're using the kanji for heart/mind instead of say 'head'.

So, later that day in the teacher's room I was getting more details from Shingo-sensei and telling him how in America we say that thoughts come from the brain and feelings come from the heart.  He said that in Japan thoughts and feelings come from the heart.

me: So, what's the brain used for?
Shingo-sensei: Memories.
me: Ah, that's the same then.

It was kind of weird though, when I first saw the description in the textbook about E.T. pointing to Elliot's head I thought that there must've been some mistake.  I hadn't seen the movie in many years but I thought that in an emotional parting a person (or alien) would be more likely to point to the heart (the source of the feelings); like the song 'You'll be in my Heart.'  I thought that the textbook might even have purposefully modified their summary just so they would be able to have a footnote about how some people consider the mind to be in the brain (the textbook tends to stretch the truth every now and then- I mean, in the same chapter they called E.T. a "cute, little alien").  But of course when I found a screenshot online, E.T. really was pointing to Elliot's head. Hmmm, I guess I need to watch the movie again. 

Speaking of pointing at people- in Japan it's totally fine to do so (well it's not rude anyway).  Also, consider this situation: a coworker calls out in your general direction, "Hey, can you help me with this?" and you say, "Who, me?" while pointing to yourself.  OK stop and consider - where would you be pointing?  In America you'd probably point to your chest when referring to yourself.  In Japan you point to your face.

OK, one more story- a few months ago I showed some of my students my middle school yearbook that I brought from Massachusetts.  As I passed it around the class and told the students where my picture was I heard some of them say things like, "Wow, everyone looks the same!" or "I can't tell them apart!" - which I found amusing.  As I was comparing my yearbook to the Hashi Junior High School yearbook later on I noticed that in my yearbook nearly all the students were smiling (and at the time had certainly been encouraged to smile by the photographer) but in the Japanese yearbook there were no teeth showing and most students (and teachers) looked serious.  I've read that in Japan sometimes smiling and laughter are looked down on (especially by older generations) because it makes a person seem somewhat frivolous and maybe even like a slacker.  Thus in something like a yearbook where you are representing your school and possibly how you feel about your own education you're encouraged to be serious.  Of course if some Japanese teenagers are taking pictures with their friends then everyone will smile.  And as a final fun fact: the Japanese word for 'smile' and the one for 'laugh' is actually the same word 笑い (warai).

And now for an amusing photo:

Notice that the company's slogan appears to be: "YOUR CHEEK MIGHT DROP."  This is probably based on the expression 'your jaw will drop' though I can't fathom why they changed 'jaw' to 'cheek' and why it now seems like a possibility rather than a certainty.  Also notice- the company has been around for a full two years!  (Why do they even mention it at this point?)

Hopefully there will be more next week!