Nihongo FIGHTO

Having neglected my studies for the past year, I decided last week that it is about time I get back on the bandwagon and start properly studying Japanese again.

It is easy to not study here- at school I am either too busy or too bored to look at Japanese and there is no chance I am going to do anything productive after work. Also, with no goal and being quite thoroughly sick of studying non-stop at uni, it all came to a halt fairly swiftly after arriving in Fukushima.

But, BUT, I am giving myself a goal. It comes in the form of the Japanese Language Proficiency Test. Anyone who has lived in Japan or has studied Japanese will already know about it, but, for those normal people who read this blog (Mum), it is a test that can be taken for non-native speakers to show how good your Japanese is.

This winter, I am going to take level 2 (one being the best, five the worst). I should have taken level 2 two years ago when I was still in Yokohama but at the time I didn't really see the point. Now I am having to re-learn everything- kanji, grammar, vocab. Everything. Damn me for being lazy. DAAAAMN.

It is going to be a lot of work but I am forming a study group to keep myself motivated and, well, I don't plan on failing, even if passing doesn't look too likely. It is a rather tricky little test.

On the positive side of things, starting to study again has reminded me of how much I enjoyed doing Japanese in the first place.

Other things I am keeping myself busy with: applying for post grad (I want to study Chinese, why am I still doing Japanese?! Haha, good question), Fujet (though after our trip canyoning it has been a tad quieter for me), hmm, that's it actually.

Sorry about the dull post- it reflects my mood!

English Speech Contest

I won!

By I, I actually mean my student but since I am the native speaker I think I can take credit for at least 75% of the win. Let's ignoring the fact that I was away for half the summer so the only real job I did was pick her. And that most of her competitors sounded like they had stones in their mouths, were robots or had lisps. We rocked and nothing anyone says will change that.

On a slightly (and only very slightly) more impressive note, she is the first student in this school to win the original speech part of the competition ever. I should have a picture of me holding the trophy framed in gold and hung by the principal's office. Only that would do justice to my marvellous teaching skills.

We go to the prefectural competition next week and if we win that then onwards and upwards to the country wide one. She really wants to win, too. Which is strange as I have spent the past year trying to install a feeling of apathy in my student so they don't cry when they lose.

Fingers crossed that we win!

End of Summer

The summer holidays have rushed past.

It feels strange that last summer, just after I had arrived in Fukushima and started work, went so slowly. Maybe it was because it takes a while to settle in or the mostly free days sat at school doing nothing made time almost grind to a halt.

This year I helped all the new JETs at Tokyo Orientation (by help I really mean took them out drinking) so I spent almost all of the first two weeks of summer down in Tokyo instead of coaching the speech contest kids. I also popped to Fuji Rock music festival in that time and followed up Tokyo Orientation with Fukushima Orientation (this one is held for the new JETs coming to our prefecture in Fukushima city). So for the first three weeks of work during the summer I managed to do a whole three days of real work at school. Brilliant!

I feel a bit bad that I haven't been there to coach my speech contest kids, especially with a couple of them who really could do with the help, but then I remind myself that most of the teachers get extra summer vacation days and take most of summer off too. It just so happens that speech contest is one of the biggest responsibilities for Junior High School ALTs during the whole year.

Despite my absence, it looks like one of the schools has a winner among the kids so if she wins I will make sure I take credit for all the hard work I put in this summer. In all fairness, I picked her out months ago and made the teachers choose her. And she has a British accent. So, that's two things I an cling to if she wins.

Other than being down in Tokyo I haven't actually been on holiday this summer. After doing all the orientations I was truly exhausted so don't think I would have had the energy to go anywhere anyway.

Meeting all the new Fukushima JETs was good fun. So many different kinds of people from different places. I can't say that every single one of the new JETs was my kind of person but as a whole they are a good bunch of people and a very welcome addition to the Fukushima group.

Did it!

After a 8 hour hike up Fuji I made it to the top to see this! I didn't fair too badly considering how much of a fatty I am and was the first back down to the bottom of the mountain thanks to my handy climbing boots.

The mountain was unbelievably crowded. It was a three day weekend so it seemed like everyone else in Japan had decided that it was the perfect time to go up Fuji, too. Seriously, we had to queue up half the mountain and shuffle around tour group after tour group.

They say that a wise man climbs Fuji once and a fool climbs it twice. This is, without a doubt, the wisest thing any wise man has ever said.

Although it felt amazing to reach the top and see such a beautiful sunrise it also felt incredible to know that I was never going to have to climb up it again.

富士山

Climbing Mt.Fuji today- wish me luck!

Bit worried about people coming unprepared but I have all the gear I need so should be alright I think!

will let you know how it goes anywho. Will be gutted If I don't make it to the top but not surprised.

What I have been up to

The amount of time that I have at school let's me do a lot of procrastinating. This generally means surfing the internet and finding fun things to look at. I usually achieve this by declaring I am bored to a friend then waiting to see what funny things I am given to look at.

This blog has kept me very entertained and given me ample opportunity to embarrass myself by actually lolling in the staff room

http://www.27bslash6.com/

This site is good too. Very random and at times funny and touching

http://www.postsecret.com/

Free Day

I pulled into the school car park today to find it deserted except for two other cars parked in the visitors spaces. I was puzzled. Unless it was national walk to school day it looked like the school definitely wasn't open and that I had made a mistake (again) and had not looked at my schedule before leaving home.

I parked in my spot in the teachers car park and rang Chris to get him to check my schedule for me. Last time I got my schools mixed up one of the English teachers I worked with ended up going round to my house to check that I hadn't died in a car crash. And when the head teacher of the school that I should have been at managed to get in contact with me I argued that he was wrong and that there was no way I had got mixed up with where I should be- I was in the wrong... of course. But this time, I wasn't mistaken.

I got out of my car and made my way into the building feeling somewhat confused and a tad angry that I had driven all the way there for no reason. The lights in the office that is by the entrance hall were on but nobody was there. I tried the staff room and that was locked. It was quite creepy to be in the school with no-one around. At this point I started to feel less confused and more embarrassed that I had come all the way here- though, it really wasn't my fault this time- but swallowed this feeling and decided to go on a search for the people that were in the school. I wandered down the corridors calling "suuuuuumimasen?", "Ohaaaaaaaaayo?" until I came to the door of the school kitchens. I had found life- indicated by the slippers that had been left outside the door. Luckily, just as I was about to knock, one of the lunch staff opened the door and looked very surprised to see me.

Lunch man: "Oh, good morning"

Me: "Morning. Where is everyone?!"

Lunch man: "The school is closed today so they are all off" (As he says this he is giving me a face which says 'silly gaijin')

Me: "Ahhh, no-one told me this"

(His face changes to one of understanding and then he laughs at me. I join in.)

Lunch man: "Would you like me to call the deputy head for you? Let's go to the office."

Me: "Thank you! Typical me coming to work when school is closed" *Sigh*

He was really nice and saved me from having to call my supervisor to find out the head teachers number (and also have to go into the BOE to work). When I spoke to the head teacher he was extremely apologetic and told me to take the day off and to not bother telling my supervisor since it was his fault that I hadn't been told. As I was leaving , lunch man gave me a sweet because he felt bad for me and told me to have a nice relaxing day off. I don't think I have spoken to him much before but will make more of an effort to go and hang out in the office when he is around from now on.

Now I am back at home and feeling lucky about my free day off. I will use it wisely and do some bits and bobs which I didn't manage to get done over the weekend like buy birthday cards and take photos for my new blog.