Karoke Champions

In late April we held "Tottori Idol," a karaoke competition for the JETs in the prefecture. Most people missed the "karaoke" memo though and either sang their own music with live accompaniment or otherwise didn't need the machine. My favorite performance was a single group that did Journey's "Don't Stop Believin'"...on Rock Band. (For those that don't know, Rock Band is Guitar Hero plus--a video game where you have two guitar controllers, a drum set controller, and a mic, and everyone hits buttons in time with the song to "perform").

I got recruited to join a boy band--sorry to disappoint, but there was no Backstreet Boys "I Want it That Way" this time. Instead we did "Poison" by Bell Biv DeVoe, the '90s hip-hop one-hit wonder.

We had choreo.

We won.

Preparing for Succession

I finally got my successor's information week before last. Been e-mailing him information and selling him my car, etc...it's really starting to hit home just how soon I'll be leaving. With less than a month to go, I've started packing up my extra (winter) clothes to send home, and just generally have shifted to more of a "the end is nigh" mindset. I met people this weekend, for instance, who could've been good friends in other circumstances, but in this case we simply part with a "farewell."

I'm particularly dreading saying goodbye to my students--with only a few weeks of class left I've only a couple classes at most with each grade left. This Friday will be my last time teaching at the elementaries, and the following week they'll have a "farewell" ceremony for me, which is probably going to make me cry. For whatever challenges I've had with adjusting to living and working here, one thing remains undeniable; I love these children. Seeing my middle school students now, I remark to myself on how they've grown and matured over the past year, about how the non-working troublemaker has at least tried to pay attention on occasion, or how my 9th graders from last year have moved on to high school--I ran into a few not long ago and had a great old-friends moment with them. This is why I love this job, and why leaving will be bittersweet.

Happy Rafting in Shikoku

 Roaring waves and rafters alike!

Met up with the aforementioned Tokushima-prefecture JETs for a day of whitewater rafting last weekend; this time instead of making the trip to Akashi, which is a decenly long but still doable drive, I took the express trains to cover the 200+ km.

The weather and scenery were absolutely GORGEous; it was cloudy but not rainy, hot but not uncomfortably so. A perfect day to be out on the water (and in the water--the rapids themselves were fine but our guide had us doing all sorts of balancing acts or otherwise that left us capsized or man overboard-ed). Highlights included stopping for lunch at a bluff overlooking much of the gorge the water ran through and a point nearby where we could "surf" a raft in a rapid where the current came back towards the waterfall. We took turns going in small groups with a guide to keep us afloat, but that didn't do much to avoid the inevitable tossed person/people or capsized raft.

We followed the day of rafting with a night of camping right on the water, building a campfire and enjoying the summer night, and saw some nearby sights the following day. A beautiful weekend and a wonderful getaway.

You can find pictures on facebook here and here.

Beach Ultimate in Akashi

A few weekends ago (June 13-14) I road tripped with a fellow Tottori JET to Akashi--about a 4 hour drive--to play some beach ultimate. The group was pretty similar to the people I played with in Awaji in April; lots of JETs from other prefectures, including Tokushima on the smaller island of Shikoku and Fukuoka, which is pretty far west on the island of Kyushu (in contrast, Tottori is on the northern coast of the southern part of Honshu, Japan's main island).

Saturday's play saw us all mixed up on different teams in a Hat Tournament (where you decide teams by drawing names out of a hat--in this case, we drew our team assignments out of a hat when we registered); most of the teams in Japan are colleges, so I got to chat and play with a handful of guys and gals around my age. I helped carry my team to a 5th-place finish out of some dozen teams. We spent Saturday night in a ryokan, a Japanese-style inn where you sleep on tatami floors with futon mattresses; all 10 of us shared a room together, which made it pretty fun, very nostalgic of sharing cabins at summer camp--thankfully there weren't any big snorers.

Rising Tide!

Sunday we played together on our own team, complete with spray-painted jerseys one of the guys had made. We played hard and well, and wound up finishing 8th out of some 26 teams or so; with a better format or seeding, we could've easily been in the finals though, since we only lost to the eventual champions. Altogether it was a great weekend that left me really excited to play more ultimate! I've only got one more tourney here (and can only make part of it), but I'm looking forward to playing some more once I'm back in the US.

新型インフルエンザ

That's "Shingata Influenza," or "New Type Influenza" in English--the latest buzzword sweeping the nation!  And not in a good way.  Just this past weekend Japan's number of cases balooned to over 120; schools in Kobe and Osaka were shut down in Hyogo-ken, which, for those of you who know your Japanese geography, is right next to Tottori.

Not to be a douchebag or make light of what's already happened, but I'm kind of hoping we get one or two cases here and some school closures, especially given how relatively non-lethal the virus is proving.  It's kind of like hoping for a snow day, only minus the fun of getting to go hang out with your friends in the snow.

Japan has been seemingly very paranoid about the virus though; I've heard reports of some other JETs having to wear masks at work (along with everyone else) and of travel plans being grounded, and I fear the craze will persist.  Hopefully there won't be any issues when the time comes for me to head back home in July!

Hot Disc Action

I finally found some consistent ultimate.  The last weekend of April, I played at a tournament in Awaji (fully 4 hours' drive from me) with a bunch of internationals, mostly JETs,  from the area; weather was terrible, especially on the first day, but we stayed at a nearby teammate's house and bbq'd on Saturday night, complete with bona fide hamburger meat imported from the states, which by itself was enough to make my weekend.

Coming up: Beach ultimate in June, and in July there's a big tournament in Tajima--I actually played in it back in '05 with some Tokyo folk, and I'm really looking forward to going back and seeing how the tourney (and by extension, ultimate in Japan) has grown.

Slow Times at Junior High

The new year started in April, and with the new year came a re-organization of curriculum.  Unfortunately, this has left me without classes much more frequently than I'd like.

In part this stems from new-year activities, orientation and the like leading to canceled classes, but part of it is also just an outright reduction in my classes taught at one of my schools--I went from teaching all three grades every week to only being guaranteed to teach the 9th graders.  It's especially distressing for me because this school is my favorite one, where I get along with the students really well; fortunately, I still get to eat with the students and hang out (watch and occasionally chat) during club activities after school, so all is not lost, but I'm hoping that as the year progresses I'll again have fuller days.  Right now many classes are still early enough in their textbooks that the "speaking" lessons haven't cropped up yet, which is another reason my teaching volume is down--some classes I have scheduled wind up not needing me.

.'がんばっています。

Things are Heating Up...

After a fairly rainy/cold welcome upon my return to Japan from China, Things have warmed considerably.  Students are back to wearing their lighter summer uniforms after a long chilly (but not cold) winter.

I like to think of right now as the calm before the storm--the weather is bearable now; soon, when the summer hits full-bore, humidity and all, it won't be.

Swine Influenza Fever

I returned from China the first Tuesday in May, had Wednesday off, and went to work as usual on Thursday.  During the day, my supervisor (at the board of education) called a few times: once, to confirm whenI had gotten back; again, later, to tell me that for the sake of my elementary schools, I should take tomorrow off and not teach (my thought: you DO realize you're telling me not to go to school...while I'm at school, right? I assured him I was fine); and finally, he called to tell me that, well, since I said I was healthy, I could go to work after all.

Ridiculous.  The next day at the elementaries I got a round of questioning to the effect of:
"So you went to China, huh?" (yes, it was fun)
"Did you hear about the swine flu?" (some warnings on the flight over, and a lot on the way back, yep)
"...did they test or check you at all when you got back to Japan?" (yes yes, I had to fill out a form and... [at this point I exaggerated the trouble of the process so it sounded a little more rigorous])
[to the staff, visibly relieved:] "He was checked!"

Sigh.  The trouble with today's widespread information network is that it's very easy to get people into a panic.  At least my middle schools have some sense; no panic there.  Though I did mess with one of my students at lunch (this is the same one who thought I was Howie of BSB fame; when she asked about the flu ("pork influenza;" good vocabulary!) I feigned a few coughs and got a rise out of her before I assured her I was joking.

This is to say nothing of how much things have escalated in the 3-week interim; more on that in another post.

A Golden Week in China

Another JET and I went to China over Golden Week (a series of days off in close proximity to each other in Japan--it doesn't QUITE reach a week, but we covered the gap with a couple vacation days).  We entered and departed through Hong Kong (where you can get a visa for mainland China with about a day's turnaround), with stops in Guangzhou, Xi'an, and Beijing on the itinerary as well.  Notable stops included the Terra Cotta Warriors in Xi'an (and the ensuing haggling for small miniatures and souvenirs--at one point, without us even trying, a hawker bid himself down from 180 quai to 30 quai [~$30 to ~$10] as we walked by, merely browsing), and the obligatory trip to the Great Wall of China.

My friend Crank (check out his blog recapping our visit!) lives in Beijing currently, so getting to visit him was also a big highlight--I haven't seen him in a couple years, and given that I haven't seen any Dartmouth folk for a while it was really refreshing to spend a couple days with one of my favorites.

If you want more details, a vaguely slide-show-esque recounting can be found in picture form online.

My favorite, from the great wall (click for full size):