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.

Yuki Matsuri

17 JETs from Fukushima and one from Miyagi all went, by Ferry, up to Sapporo. The boat took 13 hours but we managed to entertain ourselves with karaoke and drinking games (which unfortunately ended up in illness for one of our compadres… which we managed to pass off as sea sickness after one of the cabin crew found the sick-covered futon which myself and another JET had cunningly “hidden” in the middle of the corridor).

When we arrived in Sapporo we had the afternoon to walk around our area before heading off to the beer factory. Gemma, Jen, JD and I checked out the ice sculptures after scoffing down a healthy and very Japanese McDonalds. The ice sculptures were cool (bit of a pun for you there) and were incredibly detailed in their carving. One even had fish frozen in it and another which was advertising a brand of noodles, had ramen slapped on top of it.

The beer factory was the standard fair of all you can eat/drink meat and beer. Personally, I thought the meat wasn`t the best quality so didn`t eat very much. I like to be able to chew my food without pulling out fatty gristle every ten seconds.

After that, our group joined up with some other Fuku JETs, who were in Sapporo, for some drinks. With the exception of only a few we all crashed a small beer bar which had beer from all over the world- the English selection was a bit lacking with only Hob Goblin on offer. Two guys got a beer for 5,000 yen- that is about 30 pounds to you and me.

The next day was our only full day in Sapporo so we got up early ready for a full day of sightseeing. First thing we did was check out the snow sculptures. They were truly awesome and my disappointment in the lack of size of the ice sculptures was made up for by the huuuuumongous snow sculptures. They were the size of buildings; photos really can't capture how impressive they were. We spent the morning walking around checking them out- saw some of my favourite Ghibli characters and also got to hold a gigantic plastic fish. Successful day I do believe.

After some tasty miso ramen lunch (Hokkaido is famous for its ramen) we headed to the out-skirts of the city to go up Mt. Moiwa and see a great view of Sapporo. It was stunning and, again, photos on my rubbish camera really don't capture how awesome it was. From one side we could see all of Sapporo and from the other we could see beautiful mountain ranges. Being responsible, mature adults we felt the need to partake in a small snow fight too, which even involved Brent attacking some nearby American children. But the highlight of the mountain was a group of Malaysian tourists that we happened to ride the ropeway with. The leader of the Malaysian gang wanted to connect with us fellow foreigners (that, or take the piss) so serenaded us with “I can't get no satisfaction". Problem was, he only knew 'I can't get no…' and ended up singing the same line again and again. Then, Mark decided to teach him the rest so jumped into the middle of the Malaysian group with the crazy gang leader and had a quick sing and a dance with him. I say gang leader because he definitely looked like he could be part of the Malaysian Mafia.

Mark dancing with the man only spurred him on to then give us a quick belly dance, get our photos with him and then hand out his business cards… which had pictures of naked ladies on them.

In the evening we went to Otaru to check out some snow carvings which were on the bank of a canal lit up with tea lights. I didn't have my camera on me so you will just have to trust me that it was very pretty and very romantic (if only Chris had come!).

On our last day we only had the morning to do anything so we got up early to find the snowman army which would become part of our plan to conquer the world. Unfortunately this quest ended in failure as no one had bothered to build the army this year. Poop.

It is cold

January flew by! Luckily, it wasn`t too cold with only a week or so of really bad weather.

Since hitting February it has gotten freezing- was -8C this morning and living in an apartment that has no insulation means it is cold inside too.

I usually heat my house with an old style Kerosene heater which, despite smelling funny, warms the house up quite quickly. This is especially great in the morning. I wake up, hit the on button, put my clothes in front of it to warm up before I get dressed and then do some bits and bobs around the house. By the time I have finished it is nice and toasty so I can get changed comfortably.

This morning, however, the kerosene had run out. I turned the aircon heating on but it made barely and difference and desperately tried to warm my clothes by putting them under my kotatsu (a low table with a heating element on the bottom). It was horrendous and meant that I took forever to get ready as I just didn`t want to take of my snug dressing gown. There was even ice on the INSIDE of my windows and my toothpaste had started to freeze (damn me for mocking the other JETs that this had already happened to). From now on I am making sure I have fuel for the heater.

This was the first time that I felt very appreciative of the fact that I don`t live in the parts of Japan that have really cold winters. An hours drive over the mountain that I live by and you get to at least a meter of snow and minus temperatures all winter long. I even heard a story about someones entire toilet bowl freezing over.

Sapporo Snow Festival

Too long to wait!

Even though it is a Monday morning I am very excited. I have a nice busy schedule this week so don`t have much time to sit around being bored. But that isn`t why I am really excited. This Sunday I will be heading up to Sapporo to see the Yuki Matsuri (Snow Festival) and as a result having almost the whole of next week off from work. Again, having time off isn`t actually why I am looking forward to it (although it definitely helps!)- it is that I am finally going to see the Yuki Matsuri.

Ever since I first came to Japan as a lowly volunteer I have wanted to see it. I remember scanning my rough guide for places to travel at the end of my six month stint and being sorely disappointed that I didn`t finish my placement until three days after the snow festival had finished, making it impossible to make it up there.

The next time I came to Japan I actually made it to Sapporo. But, that was in uni summer holidays so I was a good six months out of season. Then, when I was here for a year in Yokohama I wasn`t rolling in money, and chose to go on holiday to Okinawa to visit my friend Alice with all my Yokohama friends instead. This turned out to be a great decision as it was possibly the most fun I have ever had on a holiday. But it also meant no Sapporo and not knowing at the time that I would be back in Japan now, had written it off for another holiday to Japan sometime.

Five years later and I am finally completing my Japan travels- I think I have been to almost everywhere that I would possibly want to go to now. Although there are many more great places to see in Japan, there is nowhere that I feel like my `Japan journey` is incomplete if I haven`t visited them. I would love to go Island hopping down in Okinawa but I don`t think I am ever going to have time to do that.

On the weekend...

Didn`t get up to much this weekend. Had a movie night on Friday with Jen and Gemma- spread the High School Musical love. It was Jen`s birthday party on Saturday night and we went to the Asahi beer factory for all you can drink beer and yakiniku (meat bbq type thing). It was fun to catch up with all the other JETs. I ended up getting very drunk after a rather large sambuca and have little memory from about 9.30. Needless to say, Sunday was spent hungover..

Five month blog

Following the fact that I actually managed to write an entry and put it online yesterday I will try to do it again today!

Yesterday I talked about what the year ahead hol

ds and what I want to achieve, but now I will give a brief outline of what I have been up to since August... I can't do justice to five months of being out here but I will try to round it up as best as possible.

So, after the not-so-brilliant home stay, speech contest

s came about. The kids I taught didn't do particularly well (I think it was rigged) but Natsu, a third year girl who I spent a lot of time with, actually did really well and would have gone through to the next round had it not been for the horrible foreigner on the panel of judges who gave her a low score. I think he didn't like the fact she had an English twang to her voice... what a racist!

When it hit September school started and I did all my intro lessons which took a couple of weeks, then started to do normal lessons and helped out the Japanese English Teachers. I found lessons to be particularly fun at my rural(er) school as the kids are really great. They are so friendly and really get into any English games so it is always a pleasure to teach them.

However, I swiftly found out that being an ALT really doesn't require a great deal of work- at the smaller rural school I have only been doing about 7 hours of actual lessons a

week which gives me a good three days to fill up. I found this extra time quite hard to adjust to. I'm not the kind of person that likes a lot of spare time; I find that I am less productive and just plain bored if I don't have anything I have to do compared to when I am busy which makes me plan time well and get everything done.

With so much time on my hands it really is bad of me to not have blogged even once!.

I do try to be a bit productive at work by studying Japanese, reading and making English boards. These have random facts about England and lots of pictures on them- I made the most awesome Christmas one, will try and get a photo of it.

At the end of September Chris came out to Japan with a working holiday visa. He has been staying with me since then along with a brief stint in Tokyo. He has been looking for jobs but it isn't easy in a recession, especially if you don't want to teach English (a wise move if my job is anything to go by!). I don't mind since it means he gets to stay with me longer and not move down to Tokyo.

I can't remember what I got up to throughout October and November. I think there were lots of parties and I was just generally settling in to life in Fukushima. The Autumn weather was really nice so I took advantage of it by hiking my local mountain and going for nice walks in the prefecture.

Which brings me to December. I did some awesome Christmas lessons for the kids at my schools and was also really excited about going home to surprise everyone. Going back to England was really great, the surprise was a super success (see the pic!) and it was even a white Christmas. It was also the first Christmas where I had seen all my family for a few years so even better.

Exciting white Christmas at home!

I came back to Japan just before New Year and ended up sleeping through the New Year because I was so jet lagged. Chris and I had a nice New Year's Day arou

nd Tokyo though and headed back up to Fukushima where it was freezing.

This month I have been catching up with everyone since the winter holidays- almost everyone went home or away for about three weeks- and have, of course, been teaching. I have also started snowboarding this month- only been two times but it is mega fun. Again, I will save that for a proper post when I have pictures to put up too.

It has already been six months and it has flown by. It hasn't all been brilliant but it has been mostly good with some excellent bits thrown in.

Above pic is Yoyogi park on New Years Day

Ok, so today I promised myself that I would write a new blog entry and actually post it when I get back from school. Will I actually put this online? Only time will tell!

First of all I would like to say a big happy new year to everyone- HAPPY NEW YEAR! I hope 2010 is a great one for everybody. I am hoping mine will be pretty decent too... I have handed in my recontracting papers for the JET programme which means I will be working in Japan (same place, same job) for another year. Though I do have the option to pull out if I really want to, if I don't carry on with JET for another year then I wont be able to save for post grad and I don't want to face the idea of having more loans on top of the massive student debt that I already have.

I am not going to lie, the job can be a bore sometimes but it has picked up a bit recently and I don't have quite so much time sat at my desk wasting my life on the internet. Also I start teaching elementary kids in April which I reckon will be very fun, especially as my mental age is on a similar level.

On top of that, Fukushima is a pretty decent place. I wouldn't say it is amazing, but, I am having fun, have met some awesome people and certainly haven't got all I can out of where I live and my experience on the JET programme.

Next year I would like to help out with running FuJet. FuJet runs events in Fukushima prefecture for all the JET's here- it is very similar to societies in uni, particularly Shef's very own Japan society. Some of the stuff they have done is organise welcome parties for new jets, a trip to the snow festival in Sapporo, and canyoning in Gunma prefecture. If I was to help, I would basically be the person that books all the trips, takes money from people and gets everyone from A to B. It is a lot of work and quite stressful since people often tend to be unreliable and not pay on time, pull out of events and act as if they need someone to look after them despite being adults. However, since I am well travelled in Japan, speak the language and have organised many parties in Shef for Jap Soc then I reckon I will be alright at it. Though, being suitable to do it doesn't mean I will actually get to do it- you have to be voted in by all the other Jets and I have a feeling it will be some kind of popularity contest (a la head boy/girl system or Jap soc voting) over anything else which I really really don't like the idea of. But then again, if no one else wants to do it then I don't have to go through any kind of emotional turmoil that everyone hates me! Eep!

So FuJet is one of my goals for this year- try for it even though I might fail. One of my regrets last year was not trying for the speech contest in Japanese because I didn't have enough belief in my Japanese ability... and also not trying for CIR, the position on JET which would actually make use of my language skills. This year I have learnt from my mistakes and will go for it.

I have some other vague goals for this year too-

1. Join the gym and get fit so I look good at Kirsty's wedding and can get down a hill on a snowboard without my thighs burning in pain. I am joining the gym tonight so this one is getting into motion
2. Try for JLPT 2 in the summer. The JLPT is the Japanese Language Proficiency Test and although I am fairly confident that I am already level 2 (many of my peers passed it in our last year of uni but I couldn't be bothered to take it) I want to try and get that qualification.
3. Study for JLPT 1. This is the top level of the test and if I pass 2 I want to at least try and do this. I don't reckon I will ever ever be able to pass it but I want to try at the very very least. The taking of the test will likely fall into 2011 though
4. Get better at snowboarding. I have just found my love for snowboarding- will post more about that next time.
5. Remember to blog. Not going to lie, this probably wont happen
6. Save for Post-grad whilst trying to pay off my massive student loan. Seriously, the gov site tells me that if I pay the rate at my current salary by the time I reach 65 they will wipe the left over £9,000. How nice, considering I would have already paid £30,000. What a total rip off!

I guess we will see how all of those pan out... If I actually write this blog in the future!