大変です。

I’ve been writing so much Japanese on account of my Impending Speech of Doom that I’ve taken to spelling “America” as “Amerika” because the k-input is needed to spell America properly in Japanese katakana.

Speaking of the ISoD, I’ve finally finished writing it. I’ve barely started the powerpoint but I have some pictures arranged. I should have had it finished a week ago. Practice is going to be a bitch. I’ll probably just end up reading most of it. If I’m lucky, Batman can help me edit it by the end of tomorrow, but I’m kind of embarrassed to remind him about it. Pray for me.

With every class that passes my students like me a little more, I can tell by the atmosphere in the halls after I've taught another week of class. It’s a nice feeling! Unfortunately, for the first time my class time has been commandeered for the sake of the lesson. Usually I get free reign and I elect to run it alongside the same themes and grammar points as what they’re learning in their regular English class, but this week the teacher in charge of the second year students told me that he wanted me to just do the same lesson. I think maybe they fell behind and that’s why this is happening.

This sucks because it’s not fun for the students and it doesn’t help any of my goals for them. I also don’t want the teachers to get into the habit of using their classroom time with me this way. The lessons just aren’t good. They spend entire class periods just memorizing the text, which doesn’t help the students at all because they don’t think about the meaning enough to actually retain things from the memorization. They learn nothing. It’s boring, so makes them hate English. It makes them feel like class is useless. Even if the most saintly of students fabricate a use for such lessons to make class feel worthwhile, it doesn’t actually help them learn or speak English. In the end such a method is just setting the students up for frustration. Teach them some grammar or something at least! If you’re going to bore them, you should do it in a way that’s remotely productive!

I hope the kids don’t think I had anything to do with this week’s lesson ideas. I tried to spice it up by teaching them some new phrases at the end of class, but they didn’t really understand the application of, “It’s on like Donkey Kong.” lol

I feel pretty good.

For the last few days I had quite a slump, but now that I’m feeling more and more grown up in my work and more productive at home things are getting better. Yesterday kind of got off to a rocky start. I forgot to set my alarm and I woke up 5 minutes before I was supposed to be in class. I ran to school and ended up being about 20 minutes late to class, but the teacher hadn’t even told anyone and in the end I think the only people who noticed were him and Batman (because in a frenzy I asked Batman for advice on what to do now that I was late). Apparently there are no repercussions, because everybody likes me so much lol

The Speech of Impending Doom is coming up yet, but I’m really enjoying making the powerpoint. It’s a lot of work, but the more work I put into it the more pictures I have to talk about. It’s nice to have desk work again for a change. I have a lot to do but I’m a lot less stressed than I’d been all week prior to today.

Let me say, I love Wisconsin. Looking at this powerpoint, I’m proud of my home. I miss it, I can’t wait to visit it again, and I relish all of its bounty – cheese, forests, lakes, vegetables, sitting on the shore in the grass. As cliché as those things seem to be, and as typical as they sound to a Wisconsinite, they’re really nice things to be surrounded by and you don’t realize it until you’re not surrounded by them.

I would KILL for a cheese platter right now (I’d kill two people for it if there was a sausage row included). All the years I passed them by on buffet tables, going for the exotic and gourmet, and now nothing sounds better than colbyjack on a cracker. I actually had to take breaks from my powerpoint this morning because the food was taunting me.

Being in Japan has really helped put Wisconsin and my personal culture into perspective. If you are someone who feels so blended into mainstream culture that you think you are cultureless – you need to go abroad. I always felt like my white, working-class, “Christian,” heterosexual existence gave me a little of a culture wash-out. I always knew that wasn’t really true, and yet I didn’t really believe it until now.

I have three points to make in this vein.
1) I like American culture. I didn’t think I did, but I really do. Underneath the materialism, the selfishness, and the fat, there are good things. And let’s face it, the materialism and fat come from a good place too – a desire to live well, to laugh and eat and enjoy life with the people around us. Overindulgence is troublesome, but I’d rather be a jovial and bountiful culture or an emaciated or bland one any day. Of course, there are a million and one wonderful things underneath these three points that I’d taken for granted up until now. I don’t think I need to itemize the list though, considering it’s what half of my blog is about.

2) Thinking about the grander scheme of American culture and trying to make sweeping generalizations about America in order to satisfy the Japanese folks who ask me questions, I’ve realized that nothing is as straightforward as it seems. We all have our own cultures within our families, and I adore mine. We have a good thing going, partially because of where we’re from and what we do, but mostly because of who we are.

3) Wisconsin culture is natural and wonderful and it really sets us apart. It’s largely the same for most Midwesterners, but I’d be born and raised in the Midwest again given the choice. It’s downright charming and I feel like we have nature but also enough civilization and accomplishments that we don’t have to be ashamed for being country folks. We are the Forward state, even if sometimes forward means forward by canoe or forward into a field of corn shaped like a maze.

While I see a lot of travel, maybe a few more stints abroad and graduate school out-of-state, I view Wisconsin as my base and I think it always will be.

I’m very much looking forward to my summer trip home when I will attend the Farmer’s Market in Madison, eat outside in my backyard, and wear cute strappy summer dresses and big sunglasses – all things I can’t really do here, even in the summer.