It's Monday, October 28, 1991 here in Ohtawara-shi, Tochigi-ken, Japan. I've just spent the entire weekend sick with a fever, and here I am miraculously cure just in time for the Monday workweek! Figures.
On the plus side, I'll be team-teaching at Kaneda Minami Chu Gakko (Kaneda South Junior High School). I'm an AET (assistant English teacher) on the JET (Japan Exchange & Teaching) Programme - been here for 15 months and have enjoyed my time immensely, despite of the women problems. Christ! Please don't let it be me! There must be one woman who gets me!
Anyhow.. it's a strange day only that it's only the boys who come up and talk to me today. I love this school because the boys and girls treat me with respect and love the fact that there's a cool (my opinion!) gaijin (foreigner) about. But today... it's all about the boys.
They come up in large swaths to chat - talking as though it has only been six hours since our last chat, as opposed to the more correct six months. This is one of seven junior high schools in the city that I visit. This is a small school, so I visit it less frequently than others.
All they want to talk to me about, however, is sex. Why do they all want to talk about sex? Why not, I suppose... they are all 12-15 years-old. But why with me?
Heh. Maybe these kids really like and trust me? Awesome. They realize I'm not a teacher - despite what JET tells me. They want to be my friend. How cools is that?
Still... if these boys knew what I have and done and with whom, it would shock them. Still... they do ask lots of personal questions - but since they ask in English, I answer them honestly. If they had asked in Japanese, I might have feigned ignorance - but come one!! They took the time to look up and translate questions into English. That took a lot of time and effort. I reward effort.
Two members of the organizer's of the prefecture's English speech contest drop by to give me some information about tomorrow's contest. That was nice of them. They assure me I would really judge this year - unlike last year when we ere given judging sheets, but our marks and comments didn't matter one iota. I guess they heard my complaints last year.
During a lull in my team-teaching, I do some writing of short stories on the school's lone computer, but somehow manage to screw-up the entire system when I convert the keyboard from Japanese to English. We were all able to get it back to normal eventually.
I help out some of the students here who will be participating in teh speech contest tomorrow. They aren't bad, but I think they need to show more emotion via hand gestures and facial expressions, so I show them how that is done. I bet that is so un-Japanese!
I go home, grab a bite and then head out to teach at my adult night school class I do independent of JET. It's pretty routine, but it is evident that my beginner students are learning something.
leaving class, I rent a video and watch it and crash at midnight. The speech contest is tomorrow. I hope I didn't screw things up with the western-style gestures for Japanese kids making English speeches... bad enough to have to give a speech, but to also have to learn foreign gestures... yeesh.
Somewhere enjoying the life,
Andrew Joseph
Today's blog title is sung by Poison.
On the plus side, I'll be team-teaching at Kaneda Minami Chu Gakko (Kaneda South Junior High School). I'm an AET (assistant English teacher) on the JET (Japan Exchange & Teaching) Programme - been here for 15 months and have enjoyed my time immensely, despite of the women problems. Christ! Please don't let it be me! There must be one woman who gets me!
Anyhow.. it's a strange day only that it's only the boys who come up and talk to me today. I love this school because the boys and girls treat me with respect and love the fact that there's a cool (my opinion!) gaijin (foreigner) about. But today... it's all about the boys.
They come up in large swaths to chat - talking as though it has only been six hours since our last chat, as opposed to the more correct six months. This is one of seven junior high schools in the city that I visit. This is a small school, so I visit it less frequently than others.
All they want to talk to me about, however, is sex. Why do they all want to talk about sex? Why not, I suppose... they are all 12-15 years-old. But why with me?
Heh. Maybe these kids really like and trust me? Awesome. They realize I'm not a teacher - despite what JET tells me. They want to be my friend. How cools is that?
Still... if these boys knew what I have and done and with whom, it would shock them. Still... they do ask lots of personal questions - but since they ask in English, I answer them honestly. If they had asked in Japanese, I might have feigned ignorance - but come one!! They took the time to look up and translate questions into English. That took a lot of time and effort. I reward effort.
Two members of the organizer's of the prefecture's English speech contest drop by to give me some information about tomorrow's contest. That was nice of them. They assure me I would really judge this year - unlike last year when we ere given judging sheets, but our marks and comments didn't matter one iota. I guess they heard my complaints last year.
During a lull in my team-teaching, I do some writing of short stories on the school's lone computer, but somehow manage to screw-up the entire system when I convert the keyboard from Japanese to English. We were all able to get it back to normal eventually.
I help out some of the students here who will be participating in teh speech contest tomorrow. They aren't bad, but I think they need to show more emotion via hand gestures and facial expressions, so I show them how that is done. I bet that is so un-Japanese!
I go home, grab a bite and then head out to teach at my adult night school class I do independent of JET. It's pretty routine, but it is evident that my beginner students are learning something.
leaving class, I rent a video and watch it and crash at midnight. The speech contest is tomorrow. I hope I didn't screw things up with the western-style gestures for Japanese kids making English speeches... bad enough to have to give a speech, but to also have to learn foreign gestures... yeesh.
Somewhere enjoying the life,
Andrew Joseph
Today's blog title is sung by Poison.
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