Peanut butter cookies

Who knew they were so easy to make? With rampant peanut allergies in Canada, I would never even think of bringing peanut butter cookies to school/work, much less suggest making them in school!I don't know if it's just Towada or Japan in general, but I have yet to meet a Japanese person with a peanut allergy.

So anyway, I was scheduled to help out today with English club at one of my favourite elementary schools, Sanbongi ES. Since I was at the school on Monday, I had a chance to talk with the teacher in charge, Kawaguchi-sensei about the club activities. She was planning on doing a cooking class and wanted to know easy "Canadian" (/American) snack recipes.

Off the top of my head I could only think of "ants on a log," s'mores, and shakes. Since the club members are all female, Kawaguchi-sensei vetoed the "ants on a log" but went for the s'mores and shakes. I told her I'd let her know if I thought of anything else.

On Tuesday, inspiration struck: peanut butter cookies!! I'd never made them before, but I remembered seeing the recipe on Kraft Peanut Butter jars and thinking how ridiculously easy they sounded.

Well, I looked up the recipe online at Kraft Canada and discovered that it really is super easy:

"Super-Easy Peanut Butter Cookies"

Ingredients:
1 cup peanut butter (~260g)
1/2 cup granulated sugar (100g)
1 egg (you can also use just the egg white, if you prefer)

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 160°C (325°F). Mix all ingredients until well blended.
2. Roll into ~24 balls and place on baking sheets. Flatten with fork.
3. Bake for ~20min. or until lightly browned. Cool 5min. on baking sheet before transferring to wire rack.

At the same time I found a recipe for peanut butter quares:

"3-Step Peanut Butter Squares"

Ingredients:
1 cup peanut butter (~260g)
1/2 cup granulated sugar (100g)
1 egg (you can also use just the egg white, if you prefer)
~56g (2oz.) chopped chocolate


Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 160°C (325°F). Mix all ingredients until well blended.
2. Spread into 20cm (8-inch) square baking pan; sprinkle with chocolate.
3. Bake 20min. Cool completely before cutting into squares to serve.

I sent both recipes to Kawaguchi-sensei and she said we would use the recipe, but I wasn't sure which one she meant. Since, as I said, I've never actually made peanut butter cookies before, I decided to do a test bake on Wednesday night (i.e. the day before we'd be making it at the school).

I made the squares first, but unfortunately I didn't bake it quite long enough/didn't allow it to cool completely before cutting, so it ended up a somewhat crumbly mess. Edible, but only half of the squares actually retained a square-like shape. ^^;;

Thankfully the cookies were pretty much fool-proof. I was a bit worried because I only found 240g jars of peanut butter at the Jusco, so I reduced the amount of sugar a bit as well to compensate (I didn't bother trying to do a fraction of an egg--although I did try out using just the egg white as Bryan suggested), but they turned out fine. Well, I did overcook the last batch slightly because I had stopped paying careful attention by that point, but they weren't burnt or anything.

I brought the cookies to the office today and gave them out to the hard-workers--i.e. the people who were there after 5:30pm, which is when I went in!  The squares were too ugly for me to give away, so I kept them for self-consumption. (And ended up eating all of the messed up/crumbled pieces after dinner tonight. @_@;;)

Anyway, I was glad that I had practiced making the cookies the day before because I was in charge of the cookie group at the English club while Kawaguchi-sensei took care of the shakes and another teacher helped with the s'mores. Usually when I bake I'm very careful about measuring properly and sticking to the recipe, but having experienced the...flexibility...of the recipe, I was totally fine with eyeballing the peanut butter amount (Kawaguchi-sensei had purchased a 340g jar). I did bring my own measuring cup for the sugar, though, so we didn't have to guess with that.

Unfortunately we weren't able to finish the cookies in time for the students to eat them with the shakes and s'mores, but they were done in time for the students to take them home as they were leaving, so it worked out OK. 
So yeah, if you ever get asked to come up with a recipe for (North) American food for elementary kids, I recommend peanut butter cookies! Not only are they tasty, but everyone is always surprised that it's a cookie recipe with only three ingredients, and no flour!

S'mores are also easy and fun. Plus there's a bit more "culture"you can explain: 1) they're usually camping snacks; and 2) the name comes from "some more". If you've never made s'mores at home, again, the recipe is simple:

S'mores

Ingredients:
graham crackers
marshmallows
chocolate (squares or chocolate chips)

Directions:
1. Place graham crackers on a microwaveable plate.
2. Top crackers with marshmallows and microwave on high for ~30s. (Be careful to avoid burning the marshallows!)
3. Remove from microwave and put chocolate on top of the marshmallows. Top with another graham cracker and enjoy while hot!

And here's a basic shake recipe:

Fruit Shakes

Ingredients:
banana(s) and/or strawberries and/or other fruits
milk/yogurt
ice

Directions:
1. Add ingredients to taste and blend in blender. Serve & enjoy!

Haste makes waste

Subtitle: I'm a such an idiot!!

I was a little worried about making it to school on time today, so I took the turn just before the bridge on the (country) road leading to my school a little too fast. I hit a patch of ice, tried and failed to control a slide, spun around, hit the railing of the bridge, and possibly spun around again before stopping back on the proper side of the road.

In short, I had a car accident.

Thankfully there weren't any cars too close by at the time, and I had my seat belt on and the airbag didn't deploy so physically I was fine. Mentally I've been kicking myself all morning/afternoon for being such a careless idiot, but overall I'm just really thankful that the only real damage was to my car.

As Tomabechi-sensei and everyone else pointed out, it could've been worse: the river would've been very cold today!

Anyway, the first thing I did was call Kirita to tell them about the accident. They called Mukainakano-sensei for me. The mother of one of my ninensei students happened to be passing by right around the time of the accident, so she helped me place the call to JAF. When Tomabechi-sensei and Takasugi-sensei (the art/P.E./sannensei teacher) arrived, Tomabechi-sensei took over the call to JAF. The two of them stayed with me until Mukainakano-sensei came.

When Mukainakano-sensei came, she called my insurance company for me. Nagasue-sensei (a co-worker at the office) also came and advised us to call the police. The JAF truck came but we had to wait for the police to come and look at the scene before moving the car.

The police came and took measurements and asked questions about what had happened--how fast was I going, about where did I start sliding/spinning, etc. etc. Once they were done, Mukainakano-sensei drove me to the dealership where I got my car (with the JAF truck following behind) and there we learned that we wouldn't be able to get a repair estimate until the following day.

On the advice of Nagasue-sensei, Mukainakano-sensei took me to the Higashi Hospital to get my head/neck checked out. Even though I felt totally fine, he said it was better for me to go to the hospital in case I turned out to have whiplash or something later; if I didn't go first, I might have trouble filing for any medical insurance claims related to the accident later on.

After the hospital, Mukainakano-sensei treated me to lunch before taking me home.

At home, I called my parents and emailed people to tell them what had happened.

So that was my first major driving accident (I don't count backing into parked cars or even getting rear-ended last year).

All in all, I have to just keep reminding myself that it could've been a lot worse. The lessons I've learned from the experience?

1) sleep early, wake up early, and leave early so you can take your time and drive carefully
2) getting the JAF (Japanese equivalent of CAA/AAA) membership was totally worthwhile
3) deciding to get car insurance that covered damage to my own car (instead of just for other people's cars, injuries, property damage, etc.) was absolutely the right choice
4) it's important to stay positive; I feel like a the biggest idiot in the world right now, but at least I've only suffered mental/emotional damage, rather than physical injury!

Oh, and as luck would have it, I had my camera with me because the ninensei had a cooking class scheduled, so I've got pictures of the damage!















(Picture 1: Where I hit the bridge. Picture 2: Car damage.)

Check out the rest (along with my comments) in my Facebook album!

When in doubt, ASK!

I'm usually pretty good about asking for clarification/confirmation when I'm not 100% sure about things, but in the few cases where I just make an assumption, it usually comes back to bite me in the behind. ^^;;

The school visitation schedule we get from our supervisor usually has non-working days (i.e. weekends and national holidays) 'x'-d out and highlighted in a different colour. So, when I saw that March 27th-31st (Friday to Tuesday) was 'x'-d out and highlighted, I thought, "Sweet! The office gave us some bonus holidays!" and made vacation plans accordingly.

I'm going to meet Steph in California (Los Angeles/Anaheim) that weekend for the Sunday Colorado @ Anaheim game!! Considering how difficult it was to find a long weekend when both of us were available AND there was a game we'd be interested in seeing, I was pretty thrilled at how perfectly it all worked out.

But talking to my supervisor recently, I learned that apparently we don't have those days off and are, in fact, expected to go into the office--meaning that if I want those days off, I need to use my vacation days (nenkyu).

ARGH!! I felt like a total idiot when I found out.

Normally it wouldn't be a big deal, except that thanks to trips home this past August and December, not to mention the school trip to Tokyo in November, I've only got five more days of nenkyu left! If I have to use it for the 27th, 30th and 31st, I'll only have two days left. But I also need to go back this summer for WAY camp. And since we don't get our next year's nenkyu until around August 4th or 5th, I'm probably going to run short!

Double ARGH!!

I never thought I'd be able to use up 20 vacation days up so quickly. That makes me really regret even the one day (two half days, actually) I spent doing moving stuff in the spring (particularly since the other ALT who moved a couple of months later didn't have to use nenkyu but was given time off to go apartment hunting).

Andy's told me that our office is pretty nice about nenkyu and isn't likely to mind if we use a little more than we actually have, but I just HATE asking for stuff like that. And even though it's not fair of me--since it's an unrelated issue--running short of nenkyu makes me feel irritated that I can't get daikyu for all the weekends I spend doing Kirita stuff.

Well, it's done, anyway. Our flights and hotel are already booked, so I'll just have to suck it up. I guess in some ways it's better that I made that wrong assumption, since if I'd known I would've planned to leave on the Saturday instead of the Friday to cut down on my nenkyu usage. But that would've made the flight more expensive and overall less worthwhile since I'd be paying all that money for only two-days away, rather than a three-day trip.

At any rate, this is the trip that Steph and I promised to make together five years ago, so even if it messes up my nenkyu planning, it'll definitely be worth it!

Friends, Burgers, Assumptions & Sneakiness

Apologies in advance, since this is going to be a rather lengthy post covering many different topics. The first one, as you can probably guess from the title, is friends.

When I went to the Kirita Matsuri on Monday, I realized that one of the things I really miss from home is having friends (living in the same city) I know I can call on the spur of the moment to see if they want to hang out. I invited the ALTs in Towada and Shichinohe to come to the Kirita festival with me, but they were all either busy or not interested. (Admittedly, I did a poor job of talking up the event to entice them to come.) Apart from the Kirita teachers I get along well with, I have made some Japanese friends, but I don't feel that I know any of them well enough to call/email them the day before or day of to ask them if they want to do something with me. I guess if Yukiko wasn't in Canada doing her working holiday, I would've been comfortable inviting her, but she is, so of course I couldn't.

Anyway, even though it was a bit lonely going on my own, I still really enjoyed the Kirita Matsuri. I saw a lot of my students there--performing as well as just attending. The Shimokirita students and teachers were especially happy to see me, I felt--which was nice. I thought they (the Shimokirita students) were only doing two performances--a dance by the girls and a unicycle routine--but they actually had four! Along with the two I knew about, they also had a dance by the guys (there weren't enough ES students, so four of my junior high students--alumni of Shimokirita--also performed!) and some sort of "genki" exercise/dance routine. (See pictures from the festival in my Facebook album.)

Apart from the fun stuff, there was also a very weird moment towards the end of my time at the festival. I was standing with the JHS ninensei girls when an older man approached us. At the festival there was this thing where you paid for a small piece of gum (like from old school sports card packs) with a design etched into it. Then you had to try to carve the design out using a push pin/thumb tack. (Harder than it sounds--all of my students broke the design at some point before they finished.) So anyway, this man tried to give us money (1000 yen) to all go and do this thing. Even though my students all refused and backed away, he was really persistent and spent at least 2-5 minutes trying to convince us to take the money.

It was extremely awkward, to say the least. At the time I really wished my Japanese was better. I mean, I was the adult there (and their teacher, to boot) but because I didn't know what to say, I couldn't help them at all! Plus, the guy thought I was a student as well. ^^;; (Actually, the brother of one of my students had already asked earlier, pointing to me: "Ano hito, nan nensei desuka?" - What grade is that person in?) But yeah, my students ultimately managed to convince the guy to give up and go away.

Weirdness aside, I had a good time. I definitely want to go again next year, but hopefully I'll be able to find someone to come with. =P

After I came home, I finished making my burger shop stuff, and I've got to say, I'm pretty proud of the finished products!

To match the ichinensei textbook menu, I made chicken burgers, hamburgers, cheeseburgers, "cola" and orange juice (large or small), and shakes (vanilla or chocolate). The students had a lot of fun with it on Tuesday, so it was worth all the work. ^_^

As chaotic as the hamburger shop activity was, it was definitely one of the highlights of an otherwise very long week. Tuesday I stopped by the office after I finished at Kirita (5pm) to pick up my lesson plans. Both the Friday and Monday plans required revisions, so first I had to figure out what I wanted to do and then I had to get Tomabechi-sensei to help me compose the faxes to the schools. (I had to write them in Japanese, since they were for elementary schools.)

(Apparently I wasn't very clear in my Chitose fax since Andy had to call me this morning to get a clarification, but that's something I'll get into in a little bit.)

And this was all on top of the prep I had to do for my jishu gakushu classes!

On Tuesday I also had dance practice. Then yesterday and today I stayed late at Kirita. Lately some of the sannensei students who have a bit of difficulty with English have been staying after jishu gakushu (they no longer have club activities since they're supposed to be studying for their high school exams) to get help with their English homework. Of course it's not something I have to do, but since I especially love the sannensei, I've been staying to help them (along with Tomabechi-sensei, naturally). As a result, I've been leaving school around 6:30pm.

Yesterday I had the Wednesday eikaiwa, and then today I went to the office to prepare lesson materials for my school visit tomorrow. (More on that later.)

So yeah, I've been super busy with work.

Unfortunately, even with all the prep work I do, there are still times when I screw up. When I saw the Chitose lesson plan, a little warning bell sounded in my head since it had the topic of "school subjects" for the rokunensei (sixth graders). I knew Aaron had done a school subjects lesson for one of the higher grades at Chitose last week, but because Chitose is generally a well-prepared school, I chose to assume they were re-using the lesson for a different grade. But when I talked to Aaron tonight, it sounded like they actually did give me the same lesson for the exact same classes. ^^;;

Luckily I found out tonight so I could plan to go in a little early to sort things out with the teacher and check the materials, but still, it was really something I should have looked into as soon as I got the lesson. I mean, I KNEW Aaron had taught the topic at the school last week. I should have called him to double check the details, rather than making assumptions. (You know the saying: "To assume makes an 'ass' out of 'u' and 'me'.")

Oh well, I also called Andy (to see if the teacher had realized the mistake when I asked them to make game cards) and he gave me some ideas as to what I could do if it turns out that I'm right and they accidentally gave me a repeat lesson plan.

Worse comes to worse, I can always use the game as a review and then just use the lesson I'm doing with the gonensei (fifth graders) with the rokunensei. I spent enough time preparing the materials, so I might as well get as much use out of them as possible.

As I mentioned earlier, I went into the office after school today to prepare the lesson materials for the gonensei (topic: seasons). Even though the computer at the office is super slow and it takes a long time to send big files to print, I think from now on I'm going to try to do more of my lesson prepping there instead of at home.

For one thing, it will save me money on printer ink, among other supplies. It's also a lot faster to make cards when I have the use of a paper cutter rather than having to use scissors! Besides, I think it's good for the people at the office to see how much of my personal time I spend on lesson planning. I mean, the teachers at Kirita know how hard I work because they see me preparing for and teaching classes (jishu gakushu) during the day and after my regular hours. But I don't really have office days during the second term, so people at the office only see me for the fifteen or so minutes I spend at the office, once a week, picking up lesson plans and doing paperwork, etc.

Though I'm not doing all this extra work for praise but for the sake of the students (and out of professional pride), I've got to admit there are times when I really wish I received more acknowledgment of my efforts from the office. I guess it's times like now, when I'm tired and stressed, that I feel that no one really knows or appreciates all the time and energy I spend on lesson planning. And I guess it's human nature to want acknowledgment for our efforts.

So yeah, going to the office to do my prep work is my sneaky way of ensuring that the office is aware of the work I'm doing for my school visits.

Anyway, like I said, I need to go a little earlier to my school tomorrow to make sure everything's ok for the lesson, so it's time for me to go to bed!

Heading into Summer

It's been a busy couple of weeks--weekends especially.

Of course, the ironic thing about blogging for me is that the more I have to write about, the less likely I am to actually write! I definitely admire the people who take the time to update their blogs even when things get busy. For me, the very things that make blogging worthwhile are the things that consume my energy so that at the end of the day, I don't feel like blogging. ^^;;

Anyway, I guess I'll start with last weekend.

Friday (July 11th) was a busy day. I was supposed to have an office day, but Towada Junior High School had a parent day (parents come into the school to observe one period of actual classes), so they asked if I could go to the school.

After teaching four classes of ichinensei (only the fifth period class was the observation class), I went to Kirita to watch/help with the sannensei's cooking class. They made okonomiyaki and cupcakes, which turned out pretty well in spite of the lack of time (usually cooking classes are two periods, but this was only one period.)

Then it was off to the farewell party with the Shidoka (Towada City Education Department, Guidance Section) staff. Allie and I were doing the MC'ing in Japanese, so we met up early to divide up the parts and to practice. The bus was super late (more than half an hour, I think!) picking us, but we made it to the location (in Oirase Town) eventually.

Things went pretty well, and after the party it was off to a snack for the nijikai. This was definitely the most "out there" snack bar I've been to in Towada (although it was still pretty tame compared to the image I had of snacks before coming to Japan). Often when you do karaoke, they give you a score afterwards. At this particular place, at the end of the song they flashed a picture of a scantily clad girl on the screen. Then it was covered with a mosaic, and as the score was tallied, the pieces of the mosaic disappeared until the final score and the naked girl were revealed. (Obviously, the higher the score, the more of the girl you got to see.) It was very disconcerting at first, but then I learned to just look at the right of the screen for the score. They also had a wide assortment of hats/headgear which they got us to wear--bunny/cat ears, leis, etc.

(See Andy Farewell Party pictures here.)

Saturday I had to get up early to receive a delivery from CDJapan. (Even though I told myself I wasn't going to spend anymore money on new DVDs, I couldn't resist picking up the Avalon Memorial Box as a clearance special. ^^;; ) Then I cleaned the apartment and went grocery shopping in preparation for the dinner party on Sunday. I also made the soy sauce pork and eggs.

At night, it was shabu shabu at the restaurant in Oirase Roman Park (next to the brewery) for John's final Payday Friday (except it wasn't yet payday, and it wasn't a Friday either!). We hit Pilsen's after that, and most people went to karaoke at Festa afterwards; I went home after Pilsen's, though.

Sunday was an entire day spent cooking. I'm super slow at cutting vegetables, so it took me something like 2-3 hours just to get all the prep work done for my dishes. Of course, part of that was I wanted to make it special, so I cut the carrots into flowers and butterflies. (The flowers turned out well, but the butterflies looked demented.)



In the end though, I finished everything -- chicken rice, beef and broccoli, stir-fried veggies, yakisoba, and soy sauce pork & eggs -- in good time. Even though I actually screwed up the beef and broccoli (I forgot the oyster sauce when I was making the sauce, so after I finished plating it, I had to scoop the beef back up and cook it again with the oyster sauce!), it was the most popular dish. The chicken rice also went over very well, and the yakisoba was pretty good too. The stir-fried veggies were pretty mediocre, though, since I overcooked them while trying to get the broccoli cooked to a nice firmness. The soy sauce eggs and pork were OK, but since the pork chunks were small and they had sunk to the bottom of the pot, I think most people only ate the eggs. The taste was decent, but the colour wasn't dark enough--Japanese dark sauce simply doesn't compare to Chinese dark soy sauce.



Anyway, it was a successful dinner, although I cooked WAY too much (I had an entire pot of rice and plate of yakisoba leftover!) and had to force people to take leftovers home. The cake and cards for Andy and Kelly & Ron were well received too.



This weekend was also busy, although I had more time for relaxation/doing nothing. Friday, though, was non-stop. We had a kind of closing ceremony at Kirita for the end of the first term, plus a farewell ceremony for Higashi-sensei (she was working as the Japanese teacher while another teacher was on maternity leave, but that teacher is coming back in August). Actually, Higashi-sensei's leaving made the entire week busy, since I spent my nights from Tuesday-Thursday making her farewell present (a Rirrakuma doll). (Thanks to the start of English speech contest preparation, I was also leaving Kirita later during the week.)

(Higashi-sensei is probably my second favourite teacher--after my JTE, Tomabechi-sensei--at Kirita. She ALWAYS helps me when I have Japanese/kanji questions, plus she's just fun and interesting to talk with. I'm really going to miss her!)

After that most of the teachers went bowling with the teachers from Kamikirita (the nearest elementary school). I was terrible, as usual. Also, the Alley had a beer frame challenge: if every player in the lane got a strike/spare in a single frame, each player would get a six pack of beer. I was the last person to bowl in our lane, and at one point in the first game, everyone before me got a spare/strike! Up to that point I had been getting a lot of gutter balls, or maybe 3-5 pins in one go, so I was really freaked out. To make the pressure even worse, Kyoto-sensei (vice principal) came over to our lane to watch when he saw we had the potential to get the beer. My first ball (throw? I don't know bowling terminology!) actually knocked down 8 pins! I was SO relieved. It wasn't a strike, but at least it was decent. Unfortunately, though, that left the two pins on the right for me to knock down. Needless to say, I missed, but at least I performed credibly under the pressure. My final score in that game was 58.

The next game went much better. Although I was pretty performing the same for the bulk of the game, in the last three or four frames, I decided to try switching to a 10 ball (I'd been using a 9). This resulted in me getting my first spare!! Then in the final frame, I actually got another spare plus got another 7-8 pins in the extra bowl! My final score for the second game was 84!!

I never thought I'd say this, but I think I need to get everyone to go bowling with me when I go back home so they can teach me some tricks!! (I'm sure I'm going to be bowling with the school again, so I'd like to manage a somewhat decent performance next time round!)

After bowling, I rushed home to change before meeting everyone at the Bunka (culture) Centre to catch the bus to the brewery. We had a good dinner at the Oirase Brewery for our end of first term/farewell Higashi-sensei enkai. Then it was back to central Towada for a nijikai at a snack.

Following the nijikai, Higashi-sensei, Tomabechi-sensei and I went to Coco's for tea and snacks (I had a mango parfait!). Even though we had all been pretty tired by the end of the nijikai, we still stuck around for about an hour, hour and a half talking. At the end of the night I drove them home.

(See Kirita enkai &etc. photos here.)

Saturday, I forced myself to get up at a decent hour (9 or 10 am, rather than 1 or 2pm) to give myself time to do laundry and cleaning and to take my car into the Eneos gas station for a shaken (bi-annual mandatory car maintenance tax) estimate. After that I headed out to Misawa to watch John and Sam perform The Emperor's New Clothes in Misawa. Kelly and Ron also went and we stuck around to help clean up (there wasn't much to do, since it was a super simple set) and eat the free food provided for the cast and their "family." Then Joe and Will met us at Paddy's for some drinks. I think the guys probably went out for more drinking afterwards, but I went home.

(See Emperor's New Clothes photos here - part 1 - and here - part 2.)

Sunday I had to wake up early again for yet another CDJapan delivery. Again, I couldn't resist ordering Koisuru Madori and Daremo Shiranai / Nobody Knows from their clearance sale. I spent the rest of the afternoon lounging around watching movies/dramas. I watched the Avalon movie (interesting, but very similar to .Hack//Sign) and most of the Yukan Club TV Series.

Then Allie picked me up and we met Juliet and Ron & Kelly at the old Kitazono ES house to go to Lake Towada for fireworks. ^_^ It was really busy, but it was fun! There was lots of festival food stalls (I feel a little guilty, though, since I never waited in line but just got everyone else to buy me food when they went. ^^;; ) and the fireworks were really well done. The display lasted about an hour and there were a lot of big, spectacular ones. By chance we also ended up sitting next to Kanae-san, Sakagami-san's daughter. ^_^ When we got back to (central) Towada, we decided to go to Coco's for dessert/snacks. I had another mango parfait, and a slice of Kelly's pizza.

(See Lake Towada Fireworks Festival pictures here.)

Even though it was late when I got home, I decided to finish off the Yukan Club series. I was pretty dumb, though, since I thought there was only an episode or two left. There were actually about four episodes left, so I ended up staying up until about 4am! When I turned off the lights to go to bed, it was already starting to get light outside!

So today (a holiday!) I slept in until 11am-12pm and spent the afternoon downloading manga scanlations and organizing and uploading photos to Facebook: EofA Trivia Night.

JET Jackpot

I think (or hope) I've said it before, but I do believe I hit the JET jackpot with my placement.

When I first found out that I was: a) going to Towada, and b) teaching elementary/junior high, I was a little...worried, to say the least.

It didn't help when my dad did a little research and tried to reassure me with: "It's got an agricultural university, so it must be a pretty big city." (Actually, it's an animal husbandry university, but close enough.) If anything, that had me more convinced that I was going to the inaka (rural countryside)! But since a lot of the questions during my interview were about how I'd cope if I was sent to rural Japan, even though I wasn't thrilled, I figured I could deal with it.

What had me more worried, though, was that I was going to be teaching junior high and elementary school students. I believe I had specifically written (well, checked off) in my application that I did NOT want to teach at the elementary level. I mean, I don't like (little) kids, and I'm a certified high school English teacher, so I was convinced that I would be best utilized at the high school level.

As it's turned out, however, I now believe that I have the placement that is able to make me the happiest, most satisfied ALT I could possibly be.

Towada has really benefited from having one ALT who has stayed for five years. Andy has done an incredible amount of work to systematically improve English teaching in Towada: he has helped to put in place a quota system for school visits; to make it the standard for teachers to send lesson plans one week in advance; to start an elementary school English newsletter; to make soft copies of flash cards and other resource materials for easy sharing; and many other things!

Not only that, but he's been a rock of support for incoming ALTs. When Allie and I arrived, he met us at the airport, took us grocery shopping, helped us arrange for our internet connections and generally made it as easy as possible for us to settle in. And even now, whenever we have any problems or need help, he's there--moving furniture, explaining how to prevent insect infestations, demonstrating the weed whacker, etc. etc.

Another great thing about Towada is that it's conveniently situated next to Shichinohe, where there were (and still are) great second-year JETs who introduced themselves right away and have been great friends. They too were and have been very helpful in answering questions and assisting us whenever we need them.

We've also been extremely lucky in our office co-workers. Both our first and current supervisors have excellent English and have put a lot of thought and energy into making life and work in a foreign country go as smoothly as possible. Our other co-workers are also great about trying to talk to us (in English or simple Japanese) and have been very friendly and welcoming.

Personally, I also feel lucky to have come with Allie and Juliet. ^_^ We get along well, and they're both more social/outgoing than I am, which is great because if I wasn't going out and doing things with them every once in a while, I'd probably be a hermit.

Towada City itself is a great place to live. It's small enough to be friendly but large enough to provide some degree of anonymity. Plus it's got great scenery: Oirase Gorge, Lake Towada and Mount Hakoda (not to mention the ever-so picturesque rice fields). The city centre is also conveniently laid out in a grid pattern (owing to it's rice field origins) . There are lots of good restaurants and a decent-sized mall, and there are larger cities (Hachinohe, Aomori) within a reasonable driving distance.

As for the job, I love it. My base school only has 39 students in total and not a single one is a "bad." The previous kocho-sensei (just transferred to a different school this past April) really loved studying English, so we used to have English eikaiwa (conversation classes) with the teachers. As a result, all of the teachers can and do try to use at least a little English with me. Our new kocho-sensei doesn't have the same interest/facility in English, but he's also very nice and very relaxed. He's told me that if I'm late or sick it's OK if I just call the school directly (rather than calling my supervisor/the Board of Education first).

I've also had very good relationships with both of the Japanese teachers of English (JTEs) with whom I've worked. My current JTE and I get along particularly well. She's helped me to find a new apartment, to buy a washer/dryer (along with a fridge/TV), to inquire about various services by phone, and to do many other things. (I'm constantly asking her, and the kokugo--Japanese--teacher, about how to say things in Japanese or the meaning of various words/kanji.)

As a result of my good relationship with my JTE and the school in general (not to mention with my office), I've gotten permission to go on the school trip to Tokyo with the ninensei!! I have to use my vacation days and pay for the trip myself, of course, but I'm nonetheless thrilled to be able to go with them! It will be my first time going to Tokyo Disneyworld, Tokyo Tower, and the Canadian Embassy (hopefully the Embassy'll be at least somewhat interesting, since I think we're only going there because of me)! I really want to get to know the students better on this trip, and I hope too, that we will somehow be able to show them the practicality of learning English on the trip.

Really, if I could, the only thing I would change about my job is that I would be at Kirita full time rather than just 3 days a week. Even so, it's good for me to visit other schools (yes, even elementary schools) once in a while, particularly since those visiting days are usually the only days I have a chance to do any necessary in-person banking (banks close at 3pm!!!) .

The flipside (I don't really consider it a negative) of having a base school is that I have longer hours than Andy or Allie (but not as long as Juliet's), since my regular hours there are from 9am-5pm (but I often go earlier and/or stay later). I also do a lot of marking (pretty much everyday that I'm there) and lesson planning (particularly for the extra English classes I do on my own), but I don't really think of it as a hardship, since it makes me feel more like a regular teacher at the school. Then too, I think a lot of my good relationship with the other teachers comes from the fact that they see me putting in the extra time and effort.

So yeah, basically I feel like I've won the JET jackpot in terms of getting a placement that totally fits me. But I'd like to point out, that it's also a matter of perspective.

As much as I've been raving about how great being in Towada is, I could easily dwell on all the "negative" aspects of the placement:

- because Andy and other ALTs have built up the English program so much in Towada, there are very high teaching expectations placed on us, i.e. we need to maintain the standards already set

- again, because of the high level of the Towada English program, Towada ALTs are a heck of a lot busier than ALTs in many other cities (in the second term, I only had two scheduled office days--the rest of the time I had to go to the office after a school visit and/or after hours)

- Towada is incredibly inconvenient (not to mention expensive!) in terms of travel--there's no JR station, and it's far from both the international airport in Tokyo and Sapporo

- since it's a very spread out, rural city, it's hard to survive (although my predecessor did manage it) without a car--expensive considering the cost of gas nowadays, plus the Japanese system of road and car maintenance taxes

I'm sure if I thought a little longer/harder, I'd come up with more, but again, the point is, I choose to focus on all the great things about living in Towada.

The one thing I've really learned since coming to Japan is that in the classroom or in any given situation, the only thing I can fully control is my own attitude and (re)actions. And really, those are the only things I need to control to determine whether things will work out positively or negatively.

Mental Fortitude

I attended the Chuutairen (sports meet for junior high schools around this area--Towada, Misawa, Rokunohe, Tohoku Machi, etc.) for the past three days, and the amount of mental (not to mention emotional and physical) fortitude necessary for such competitions was really impressed on my mind.

Today was the finals. Out of about fifteen (a little more, I think) students who competed in table tennis, only four made it to today: three sannensei girls and one ninensei boy.

All three of the girls lost their first matches, but our ninensei won his first match. He started his second match off impressively, winning the first two sets. He started to have a little difficulty in the third, but it was still very close when things started to go downhill. He started missing some serves and shots and then, I suspect, he realized that his father was up in the stands cheering for him (at least, that's when I noticed his father!).

I'm not overly familiar with table tennis, so suffice to say that he lost the third set 11-8. After that it seemed like he lost his confidence/composure. (It probably didn't help that his father went down after he lost that third set to talk to him during the break between sets.) He then proceeded to lose the fourth and fifth set (and, consequently, the match) by successively larger margins.

Shortly after the loss, he had to play another match to determine whether he would be ranked among the top eight, but his opponent was very strong, and (again, this is my suspicion) he was probably still bummed out from the earlier loss and he lost in three straight sets. It was really heartbreaking (especially since he's one of my favourite students). When he came back, he covered his face with his towel and was (manfully) crying.

I read a lot of sports manga and have watched various sports matches (hockey, softball, etc.) but this is the first time I really felt like I "understood" (in the empathetic sense) just how much athletes put into sports and how much it takes to win and how tough it is to lose.

Anyway, on a more cheerful note, even though I'm pretty exhausted (Sat. got up before 5am, was with the students from 7am-3pm; Sun. got up around 5:15am, was with the students from 7am-4:30pm; Mon. got up around 5:30am, was with the students from 8:30am-1pm, then drove to the office and was there from 2pm-4:15pm), I wouldn't give up the experience for anything. It was great to see everyone earnestly cheering their fellow students on ("Nice shot!" "Don't mind!" "Ganbare!" "Fight!") and I felt that my coming to cheer was also appreciated.

Thankfully my office is very nice, and even though I couldn't get daikyu (substitute holiday for when people work on weekends--all the Kirita teachers and students have Tues. and Wed. off from school, but I'm still working!) for my participation, I got a call from my supervisor tonight saying that I could sleep in and just come in the afternoon. ^_^

Small Kindnesses

Monday was back to work at the office. I rode my bike to city hall and took the bus to work. It was a very slow day at the office, and it was pretty warm/humid in the office. Even the rain didn’t help much to cool things down!

Ally and I really had no idea when were supposed to leave so it was a good thing that Mi-san was there to look after us (neither AB nor T-sensei were in that day) and to take the bus back with us. On the way to the bus stop we walked through the Oirase Brewery area. There were a number of food places plus a market. Mi-san also bought us ice cream sundaes (strawberry).

Since it was raining, Mi-san showed me a stop closer to my house where I could get off (and I left the bike at City Hall). When I was nearly at my house, one of my neighbours stopped me and asked me if I had cooked dinner yet/if I liked potatoes—or something along those lines! I really had no clue what she actually said (again I was so flustered to be speaking to someone in Japanese one-on-one that I wasn’t able to process what was being said), but the gist of it was that she was going to drop by with some potatoes for me later on.

I had been planning to head back out to the ¥100 store and to pick up my bike, but I waited for my neighbour. She came to my door about 15-20 min. later with a bag of potatoes and tomatoes! It was really very nice of her!

Then as I was leaving (for the store and my bike), a guy from Towada Gas pulled up randomly. Again, I had a hard time figuring out exactly what he was saying, but I figured out that he wanted to come in to replace something and not to collect money or anything. So I went back in and he checked out the outlet where my fridge was plugged in. I already had a new plug (or whatever) for the fridge, though, so it turned out he didn’t need to do anything.

Finally I was able to go out to the ¥100 store and to retrieve my bike!

Later that night, my mom called (from work). I also talked to my coworkers from the bank since apparently my mom was calling from Distribution—my old department. It was nice to hear how things were going at Scotia.

Shichinohe JETs

AH and I took the bus to the office on Friday. (T-sensei had showed us the stop in front of the City Hall on Thursday). M-san, one of our office ladies, met us on the bus, so we didn’t have to worry about what to do or where to get off. The bus system is actually pretty interesting. When you get on, you take a ticket from a dispenser at the front and it will have a number on it. At the front of the bus, there is a number board that lists all the numbers and shows the updated fares as it goes along its route. For example, our stop was #3, so when we reached the office, it said 490 under number 3, meaning that was how many yen we had to pay. If we had gotten on one stop earlier, though, we would have had to pay 510 yen.

When we got in, T-sensei said we could leave around lunch time to go back to the City Hall to pick up money for our “business trip” to Aomori City (for our prefectural orientation). We would also have Monday and Tuesday off to get things in our homes organized! She also offered to pick us up on Monday and to take us to experience obon (paying respects to ancestors) with her family. Then she had to go for a seminar, so AH and I were left just kind of kicking around the office.

After eating our bentos for lunch (a bento box is available for order each day for 400 yen), we headed back to City Hall. Thankfully the lady who had helped us with our alien registration cards was expecting us, so getting our travel expense money was quite simple.

I took a leisurely walk home, taking pictures of the Kanchogai-Dori (Horse Street) and a bit of the shrine in front of my house before my batteries died. Then I just hung around the house, randomly organized things and/or just lounging around.

City Hall (Shiyakushou) pictures:

Pictures of Kanchogai Dori:

For dinner I was planning on just making onigiri or something simple, and had the rice all made when the doorbell rang. There on my doorstep were a bunch of JETs from Shichinohe—K and R, CH, CD, and T—plus my fellow Towada newbies.

They gave me all their contacts and information about upcoming JET events, and invited me out for dinner and possibly other fun things to follow. I felt kind of gross (after hanging around in the sticky humidity of the house, with just one fan to keep me cool) but after checking to make sure my rice cooker was turned off, off I went with them!

We went to Tijuana Pizza where I had a tasty pork and (Aomori!) apple pizza and enjoyed some good conversations about anime, life in Japan &etc. Then we went to a Lawson’s to buy ice cream and to decide where we would go next.

 

After loitering quite a while in the parking lot of the Lawson’s, they decided to go bowling. Since I wasn’t wearing any socks (and I don’t even like bowling when I’m in Mississauga) I opted to go home early with CD and CH.

Oh, and R and K were super nice and offered to take us (AH and I) shopping at the Aeon Supercentre if we still needed to buy things.

Back at home, I made my first onigiri! ^_^

Enkai

For our first day at the office, T-sensei picked us up and drove us to the City Hall to get our alien registration cards and hanko. Then it was to the office. It was pretty much empty, though, as everyone was away at a seminar. Around lunch time AB took us off to eat lunch (ramen!) and then we picked up J and went to try to get us signed on for internet and cell phones (keitei).

AH and I were able to get internet, but they told us they couldn’t sign us up for phones without our alien cards. Then it was a quick stop at the Aeon Supercentre—a mall with a large grocery store, other shops and a big 100 yen shop (like a dollar store) called Daiso (one opened a couple of years ago in Vancouver).

After that, it was our enkai (welcome party). It was at a really nice Italian restaurant—supposedly the chef actually trained abroad. Before we actually began eating/drinking, however, Kacho (boss) gave a speech before the kanpai (cheers).

Then AH and I had to give speeches, but we weren’t really prepared, so we just said ours together: basically just “pleased to meet you and please look after us.”

Then the food and alcohol started coming in vast quantities. After the salad (not pictured) we had these breadsticks wrapped in prosciutto and crustinis with various toppings (avocado, chicken liver pate, etc.) Oh, and it was cool because the chef would actually come out and explain what each dish was as it was served.

Next was an orange salmon carpaccio which was followed by a faintly orange flavoured ravioli. Then it was some little sausages and our final “entrée” was spaghetti (again, not pictured). We had blueberry ice cream for dessert, plus AH and I got special “Welcome to Towada” dessert plates.

In between courses, we also had a question period where our co-workers asked us (in English, or with AB translating into each) questions like: “what’s your favourite movie?” and “how is Towada/Japan different from what you expected it to be like?”

After the dinner, they presented us each with flower bouquets, which was really sweet. We took a group picture to end the night.