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9/10
Today at the taikai I watched them play basketball all morning. Everyone is steadily getting better as the bad teams are being weeded out. It makes me really want to go play basketball again, so maybe it's good that one of the teachers keeps badgering me to come to women’s basketball practice. Though, of course, it could be a little awkward, since everyone is so much smaller than me and it's my coworkers and students (a difficult group to be aggressive with). Anyway, the 2nd year president of the International Club is a basketball beast, and you'd never guess for as small and bookish as he is.
I missed the end of the volleyball tournament regretfully and I didn't manage to get a picture of "Darn" and "Shit," two boys who nicknamed themselves inappropriately on the back of their class team jerseys. Voltex was also one of them, though I don't know what that even means lol I've been watching basketball all morning because we're close to the finals. Though it’s getting more impressive, the kids have the same problem U.S. kids do, where the girls are too weak and the boys are too aggressive and on account of both extremes they can't make baskets or get through a screen! Like I said, it really makes me want to play. Still, I might enjoy helping with the basketball team after school once in a while!
Apparently after work I'm meeting Mochi and The Actress at the train station so I can go to English lessons with them. Apparently the Mormon missionary who runs them wants to meet me, and then I get to skitter on my way (Or maybe I'll watch and judge the teachers, not only on teaching ability but also on religious affiliation! I'm such a bastard). People keep telling me "______ wants to meet you!" and I’m beginning to wonder whether all these foreigners actually do want to meet each other because they’re feeling a foreign connection or whether the Japanese just all want us to meet each other so they TELL US we want to meet each other.
*Time passes and the night is over*
Well, I went. The walk was very awkward, and The Actress was putting up a huge show about having her period. She was weaving all over the sidewalk like she’d pass out at any moment and every 3 minutes for an hour she’d complain about how tired she was. Then she’d snuggle into my arm and say, “Oh, Stefu, please help me! I think I’m dying.” I’m sure she felt pretty shitty, but I was also pretty sure it was mostly just a show to get some attention from Mochi. Girl, whatever you’ve gotta do, you’ve gotta do – but I don’t want to see it.
I’m sorry; in the vein of airing grievances, I’m going to lay it all out there and admit that the overly proselytizing religions bother me. When they prayed at the opening and closing and talked about their door to door evangelism and I got a little sour faced. Still, I was a good girl and said nothing.
It was cute enough for one session, but very boring and I wouldn’t want to go again. I was kind of hoping to see some teaching methods, but the teachers were missionaries first, English teachers second only because they spoke English. The guy in charge is actually an American-Japanese. His mother is from Nebraska but he was raised in Japan. It was kind of cool to see that, since every bilingually raised person I’d met before has identified strongly as an American first. It was interesting perspective, and I made him a little self conscious because his pronunciation wasn’t 100% native-like. He kept making comments and stuff about it and asking me if it was right, which was strange, because to me he looked and sounded like an American except for maybe 1 word every 5-10 minutes. It was very confusing to see!
I got really tired halfway through and by the end when we were milling around in the typical way-too-long Japanese goodbye, everyone kept asking that I come again. It’s not because I helped or because they enjoyed my company though, it’s because they need 10 people for the church to continue the lessons and they only have 8 people. Eventually I was so fed up that when the Actress asked, I just turned to her and said, “I already know English, thank you.” She insisted that I could learn Japanese, but truth be told I understood the Japanese they’d used and could definitely invest my time in a better way. I only learned one word, and that’s only because I hadn’ t looked it up in the dictionary yet.
By the time we were standing outside, it was 9:00 and I’d spent almost 3 hours in the process of doing this even though I had told Mochi I could only spare about 45 minutes. A wave of sleepiness and aversion to Japanese hit me so hard that I could barely focus on what anyone was saying. Part of me just couldn’t, and part of me just refused. This makes me a little nervous. I guess I’m burning out! I definitely need to get more sleep. If this wasn’t bad enough though, Mochi started handing out schedules, which after 10 minutes of looking at it and not being able to read the kanji, someone finally told me it was our schedule for meeting for my English conversation group. I might be mistaken, but I think there were already lesson topics written. I was kind of pissed. Since when do you invite a teacher to do your bidding and not let the teacher call the shots? I wasn’t consulted on any of this stuff except for a few frustrating emails about what time would be good to meet. By then I was livid and sick of it all and there were definitely better things I could have been doing, what with Open High School lessons on Saturday and preparing to visit The Canadian for the weekend. There was a lot I needed to do, in fact.
What’s done is done, I don’t regret going, but I certainly won’t go again no matter how much they balk.
Today at the taikai I watched them play basketball all morning. Everyone is steadily getting better as the bad teams are being weeded out. It makes me really want to go play basketball again, so maybe it's good that one of the teachers keeps badgering me to come to women’s basketball practice. Though, of course, it could be a little awkward, since everyone is so much smaller than me and it's my coworkers and students (a difficult group to be aggressive with). Anyway, the 2nd year president of the International Club is a basketball beast, and you'd never guess for as small and bookish as he is.
I missed the end of the volleyball tournament regretfully and I didn't manage to get a picture of "Darn" and "Shit," two boys who nicknamed themselves inappropriately on the back of their class team jerseys. Voltex was also one of them, though I don't know what that even means lol I've been watching basketball all morning because we're close to the finals. Though it’s getting more impressive, the kids have the same problem U.S. kids do, where the girls are too weak and the boys are too aggressive and on account of both extremes they can't make baskets or get through a screen! Like I said, it really makes me want to play. Still, I might enjoy helping with the basketball team after school once in a while!
Apparently after work I'm meeting Mochi and The Actress at the train station so I can go to English lessons with them. Apparently the Mormon missionary who runs them wants to meet me, and then I get to skitter on my way (Or maybe I'll watch and judge the teachers, not only on teaching ability but also on religious affiliation! I'm such a bastard). People keep telling me "______ wants to meet you!" and I’m beginning to wonder whether all these foreigners actually do want to meet each other because they’re feeling a foreign connection or whether the Japanese just all want us to meet each other so they TELL US we want to meet each other.
*Time passes and the night is over*
Well, I went. The walk was very awkward, and The Actress was putting up a huge show about having her period. She was weaving all over the sidewalk like she’d pass out at any moment and every 3 minutes for an hour she’d complain about how tired she was. Then she’d snuggle into my arm and say, “Oh, Stefu, please help me! I think I’m dying.” I’m sure she felt pretty shitty, but I was also pretty sure it was mostly just a show to get some attention from Mochi. Girl, whatever you’ve gotta do, you’ve gotta do – but I don’t want to see it.
I’m sorry; in the vein of airing grievances, I’m going to lay it all out there and admit that the overly proselytizing religions bother me. When they prayed at the opening and closing and talked about their door to door evangelism and I got a little sour faced. Still, I was a good girl and said nothing.
It was cute enough for one session, but very boring and I wouldn’t want to go again. I was kind of hoping to see some teaching methods, but the teachers were missionaries first, English teachers second only because they spoke English. The guy in charge is actually an American-Japanese. His mother is from Nebraska but he was raised in Japan. It was kind of cool to see that, since every bilingually raised person I’d met before has identified strongly as an American first. It was interesting perspective, and I made him a little self conscious because his pronunciation wasn’t 100% native-like. He kept making comments and stuff about it and asking me if it was right, which was strange, because to me he looked and sounded like an American except for maybe 1 word every 5-10 minutes. It was very confusing to see!
I got really tired halfway through and by the end when we were milling around in the typical way-too-long Japanese goodbye, everyone kept asking that I come again. It’s not because I helped or because they enjoyed my company though, it’s because they need 10 people for the church to continue the lessons and they only have 8 people. Eventually I was so fed up that when the Actress asked, I just turned to her and said, “I already know English, thank you.” She insisted that I could learn Japanese, but truth be told I understood the Japanese they’d used and could definitely invest my time in a better way. I only learned one word, and that’s only because I hadn’ t looked it up in the dictionary yet.
By the time we were standing outside, it was 9:00 and I’d spent almost 3 hours in the process of doing this even though I had told Mochi I could only spare about 45 minutes. A wave of sleepiness and aversion to Japanese hit me so hard that I could barely focus on what anyone was saying. Part of me just couldn’t, and part of me just refused. This makes me a little nervous. I guess I’m burning out! I definitely need to get more sleep. If this wasn’t bad enough though, Mochi started handing out schedules, which after 10 minutes of looking at it and not being able to read the kanji, someone finally told me it was our schedule for meeting for my English conversation group. I might be mistaken, but I think there were already lesson topics written. I was kind of pissed. Since when do you invite a teacher to do your bidding and not let the teacher call the shots? I wasn’t consulted on any of this stuff except for a few frustrating emails about what time would be good to meet. By then I was livid and sick of it all and there were definitely better things I could have been doing, what with Open High School lessons on Saturday and preparing to visit The Canadian for the weekend. There was a lot I needed to do, in fact.
What’s done is done, I don’t regret going, but I certainly won’t go again no matter how much they balk.