Garlic Toast to die for!! Eggplant Spaghetti and House White Wine
Baked Alaska!!!
Gone in 60 seconds.
Friday, June 7, 2013
Tuesday, June 4, 2013
The highlights
Sent flowers to my mom and sister over the internet for the first time since I couldn't be with them on Mother's Day.
Crazy loud thunderstorm. Jumped about a mile, nearly had a heart attack and then was able to enjoy the absolute awesomeness of it.
Moved into my new office. Loving my own space, it's almost as big as my apartment....ok I kid, but it is bigger than my kitchen.
Put a run in my only pair of tights and now have to rely on the sister to send me new ones because the Japanese aren't built like this German/Norwegian Anglo-Saxon.
English Plaza finally opened. Lots of space to hang out and students are beginning to make it a regular hang out spot. Go team!
Went to a baseball game at Tokyo Dome. Giants vs. Lions. Damn Giants beat us by 1 point in the bottom of the 10th!
Midterm conferences with students went well. Some of them are actually getting their buts in gear to pass their classes.
Took 172 students to Oregon for 4 days, yes 4 days, for a "study tour." Basically, it was them running around Salem with a few short hours of guided activity, meal times and then keeping all of the adults up all night acting like teenagers. Cat herder was my title for those 5 days.
Back in Japan until Christmas. Miss my friends and family but I look forward to all my adventures between now and then!
Crazy loud thunderstorm. Jumped about a mile, nearly had a heart attack and then was able to enjoy the absolute awesomeness of it.
Moved into my new office. Loving my own space, it's almost as big as my apartment....ok I kid, but it is bigger than my kitchen.
Put a run in my only pair of tights and now have to rely on the sister to send me new ones because the Japanese aren't built like this German/Norwegian Anglo-Saxon.
English Plaza finally opened. Lots of space to hang out and students are beginning to make it a regular hang out spot. Go team!
Went to a baseball game at Tokyo Dome. Giants vs. Lions. Damn Giants beat us by 1 point in the bottom of the 10th!
Midterm conferences with students went well. Some of them are actually getting their buts in gear to pass their classes.
Took 172 students to Oregon for 4 days, yes 4 days, for a "study tour." Basically, it was them running around Salem with a few short hours of guided activity, meal times and then keeping all of the adults up all night acting like teenagers. Cat herder was my title for those 5 days.
Back in Japan until Christmas. Miss my friends and family but I look forward to all my adventures between now and then!
Fresh off the boat.
Word to the wise...when you, as a 34 year old adult, begin to cry after stubbing your toe, you are tired and should go home. This is exactly what I did yesterday. Jet lag is not my friend.
Monday, May 6, 2013
The Solo Adventurer Part 1
When embarking on a solo adventure there are of course ups and downs to this type of endeavor. The ups may seem less obvious than the downs, but I would submit they definitely outweigh the downs. It's all a matter of perspective!
One of the best things about traveling alone is your timeline. You only have to follow the schedule of one person! I set out to go to Kamakura and Enoshima which are both about an hour and half from where I am in Kawagoe or an hour south of Tokyo. My goal was to leave at 9ish to arrive there by 11. I had 6 places to visit in Kamakura and then at 4 places to visit in Enoshima. I won't go into the list because, suffice it to say, only 1 thing on my entire list happened that day, BUT because I was no one elses' timeline there was no stress.
How did none of it happen you ask....well everything began all well. I took the train from Kasumigaseki to Ikebukuro (in Tokyo) and then found the train to go to Kamakura. Well.... I got on the wrong train. It was going north instead of south and I didn't realize until I'd been on the train for an hour. Again, luckily I was by myself so the only person to be mad or irritated or laugh was me, and since I didn't care, I chuckled to myself got off at the next stop and transferred trains.
I made it to Kamakura at about 330 pm, quite a while after I wanted to be there. Since there was only one MUST SEE place I wanted to go to in Kamakura that day I headed straight for the bus stop to head up to Daibutsu or "giant Buddha". One of the largest in Japan, I originally thought one of the largest in the world...Ha! Google "world's largest Buddhas" you'll be shocked! Anyway, this is the one thing I really wanted to see so I went to the bus stop...where I proceeded to wait for 45 minutes, all the while listening to this couple prattle on the entire time! Good thing it was just me...no one to judge me for the continuous eye rolling I was doing to the sky. The bus finally arrived and about 65 people crammed onto a bus built for 30 and then we went to stop and go for less than 2 kilometers for an hour! You might be asking why I didn't just walk, and I would have, but I didn't know where it was and my phone was dying so I wasn't able to just google map it. Again, luckily I was by myself I could just doze in and out and ignore the woman next to me who was sitting with her back to me, with her backpack on and, said back pack, practically sitting in my lap or shoving up against my left arm repeatedly.
Finally I arrive and every single moment of the trip was worth it. What a site.
First stop was to get some food, I was starving, so I did the only logical thing you do in a tourist town. I bought what I saw everyone carrying around with them. A big ass rice cracker. It was 250 Yen, but well worth it. Yummy!
As I was walking down the street, peeking into various storefronts I saw a sign for a shrine. It was about 5 and everything would start shutting down around 6, but it was enough time to look around. The shrine I found was called Hasedera Temple, it was beautiful! What a find. As I was planning this trip I kept getting confused looking at the map because of all the swastikas all over the place, before I remembered that before Hitler took the symbol and nearly irreparably harmed it's meaning. The swastikas I kept seeing meant there was a Buddhist temple or shrine there! It didn't click until I was at Hasedera Temple and saw this:
One of the best things about traveling alone is your timeline. You only have to follow the schedule of one person! I set out to go to Kamakura and Enoshima which are both about an hour and half from where I am in Kawagoe or an hour south of Tokyo. My goal was to leave at 9ish to arrive there by 11. I had 6 places to visit in Kamakura and then at 4 places to visit in Enoshima. I won't go into the list because, suffice it to say, only 1 thing on my entire list happened that day, BUT because I was no one elses' timeline there was no stress.
How did none of it happen you ask....well everything began all well. I took the train from Kasumigaseki to Ikebukuro (in Tokyo) and then found the train to go to Kamakura. Well.... I got on the wrong train. It was going north instead of south and I didn't realize until I'd been on the train for an hour. Again, luckily I was by myself so the only person to be mad or irritated or laugh was me, and since I didn't care, I chuckled to myself got off at the next stop and transferred trains.
I made it to Kamakura at about 330 pm, quite a while after I wanted to be there. Since there was only one MUST SEE place I wanted to go to in Kamakura that day I headed straight for the bus stop to head up to Daibutsu or "giant Buddha". One of the largest in Japan, I originally thought one of the largest in the world...Ha! Google "world's largest Buddhas" you'll be shocked! Anyway, this is the one thing I really wanted to see so I went to the bus stop...where I proceeded to wait for 45 minutes, all the while listening to this couple prattle on the entire time! Good thing it was just me...no one to judge me for the continuous eye rolling I was doing to the sky. The bus finally arrived and about 65 people crammed onto a bus built for 30 and then we went to stop and go for less than 2 kilometers for an hour! You might be asking why I didn't just walk, and I would have, but I didn't know where it was and my phone was dying so I wasn't able to just google map it. Again, luckily I was by myself I could just doze in and out and ignore the woman next to me who was sitting with her back to me, with her backpack on and, said back pack, practically sitting in my lap or shoving up against my left arm repeatedly.
Finally I arrive and every single moment of the trip was worth it. What a site.
After spending about 10 or 15 minutes walking around (and charging my phone for 5 minutes in the bathroom) and taking pictures I headed down the hill. Now that I knew exactly how far away it was from the station I felt perfectly comfortable walking back to the station and stopping anywhere that struck my fancy on the way.
First stop was to get some food, I was starving, so I did the only logical thing you do in a tourist town. I bought what I saw everyone carrying around with them. A big ass rice cracker. It was 250 Yen, but well worth it. Yummy!
As I was walking down the street, peeking into various storefronts I saw a sign for a shrine. It was about 5 and everything would start shutting down around 6, but it was enough time to look around. The shrine I found was called Hasedera Temple, it was beautiful! What a find. As I was planning this trip I kept getting confused looking at the map because of all the swastikas all over the place, before I remembered that before Hitler took the symbol and nearly irreparably harmed it's meaning. The swastikas I kept seeing meant there was a Buddhist temple or shrine there! It didn't click until I was at Hasedera Temple and saw this:
After I left Hasedera all of the temples and shrines were closing. I walked into a couple of shops (again benefit of being by myself) and then found myself at the beach! I didn't realize I was that close! What a find :)
I got to stop and chat with a young couple, maybe the same age as my students. They needed someone to take a picture of them. That was probably one of the greatest highlights of the day. I miss talking to random strangers (yes I do that) and making small talk. This gave me the opportunity to actually speak with someone!
By this time the sun was setting and I was starving and exhausted. I was going to have to forgo my trip to Enoshima and do it another day. There was a Turkish restaurant I saw when I got off the bus, so I went there. I've always wanted to try Turkish coffee and I was determined to also try lamb again, even though I've hated it every time I've eaten before. End results Lamb - 0, Turkish coffee - .5 But the owners were really nice the hummus was AMAZING and the beer was good. So with a full stomach I made the 2+ hour trek home. Mostly without incident and before midnight.
So those positives and negatives...well as long as I'm not with someone who gets irritated about getting lost, I guess the trip would have been better with someone; however, that will not discourage me from taking another solo trip. Stay tuned for Solo Adventurer Part 2.
Tuesday, April 23, 2013
10 observations and life saving tips.
#1 Right, Left, Right. If you don't want to end up like an opossum, do it.
#2 The yellow line on the platform is not a suggestion. Stay behind it or you will be yelled at by invisible
people.
#3 Teenagers texting and walking (and biking) is not unique to the United States. The Japanese teens have
risen it to an art, get out of the way because they won't.
#4 Walking on the left side is a myth. You will have to dodge people no matter which side you try to stay on.
#5 You might believe there is an invasion of body snatchers here (think The Host). Girls wear the strangest
contact lenses.
#6 Never assume that a store will take credit cards. Always check.
#7 Once you finish paying for your groceries be prepared to grab your basket and quickly move to the island
and pack them up. The lovely cashiers will not wait for you to get out of the way before moving the next
person along.
#8 The giggles when you speak Japanese to Japanese teenagers never goes away. No matter how many
times you use it with them. Don't take it personally.
#9 There is a epidemic of sleepiness here. Students are either "fine" or "sleepy."
#10 If you don't like rice, fish and fruit you're screwed.
#2 The yellow line on the platform is not a suggestion. Stay behind it or you will be yelled at by invisible
people.
#3 Teenagers texting and walking (and biking) is not unique to the United States. The Japanese teens have
risen it to an art, get out of the way because they won't.
#4 Walking on the left side is a myth. You will have to dodge people no matter which side you try to stay on.
#5 You might believe there is an invasion of body snatchers here (think The Host). Girls wear the strangest
contact lenses.
#6 Never assume that a store will take credit cards. Always check.
#7 Once you finish paying for your groceries be prepared to grab your basket and quickly move to the island
and pack them up. The lovely cashiers will not wait for you to get out of the way before moving the next
person along.
#8 The giggles when you speak Japanese to Japanese teenagers never goes away. No matter how many
times you use it with them. Don't take it personally.
#9 There is a epidemic of sleepiness here. Students are either "fine" or "sleepy."
#10 If you don't like rice, fish and fruit you're screwed.
Saturday, April 20, 2013
The day-to-day events.
As most of you know I currently work at Tokyo International University in Saitama Japan. This is a very small private university which focuses on 5 areas of education; School of Language Communication (SLC), School of International Relations, School of Economics, School of Business and Commerce, and the School of Human and Social Sciences. Within the School of Language Communications there is a new program called the Global Teaching Institute which is where I and 9 others were hired to work within. As a teacher in the SLC I am teaching freshman students in their first year of college. There are 16 sections that these students are placed into based on their proficiency of the TOEFL (or Test of English as a Foreign Language) score. Students pay about 670,000 Yen a year for tuition. If you don't know what the current exchange rate is, that's about 67,000 a year. Just for tuition. This is a commuter campus, which means there are NO dorms. Students either live at home with their parents and travel anywhere from 30 minutes to 3 hours, one way, by train, bike or walking EVERY day, or they have to pay extra for an apartment nearby. Yes, I live in the same complex as some TIU students. Suffice it to say, these students' parents are paying a premium for them to come to the school....a school for many, was not their first choice. Be that as it may, they are now in my class and I'm having a blast making them crack up every day.
I am teaching the Section 1 and 2 students. These are the students who have the lowest test scores and generally also the lowest speaking and listening skills. People ask me "So how do you teach students who can't speak English when you can't speak Japanese?!" The answer is, it's not easy, but with patience and a sense of humor it is an adventure! These students reading and writing skills are better than their speaking and listening, so if all else fails, I write it down and they look up the words they don't understand in their dictionary. Since we are trying to get away from the translation method of teaching Japanese speakers to speak English that can be a bit of a conundrum. I want them to try and figure out how to say what they want to say, but you can only spend so much of a class period waiting for an answer to formulate.
Those who don't know, the reason we are trying to get away from the translation method is because translating Japanese to English is one of the MOST difficult languages to translate correctly. The Japanese language is so vastly different from English that there is almost never a direct translation and many English words to not translate into English. What you end up having to do is sum up what you want to say in Japanese into something that is accurate in English. So it's almost like teaching an adult to speak. Not a new language, to just speak. Period.
Back to school... My schedule is as follows...Monday.Wednesday and Friday I teach Section 2 and 12 Listening. Tuesdays and Thursdays I teach Section 1 Reading. Those are the only classes I teach more than once in a week. I also teach Speaking to Section 2 and 12 and Writing to sections 1 and 11.
Additionally I go and sit in the English Lounge Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday for an hour and a half each day to help students practice speaking English, I have Office Hours Monday, Tuesday and Friday from 5-6 we have a staff meeting every Friday at 3 and occasionally I got to the Freshman Seminar group on Fridays with the students I will be chaperoning in May. Once the real English Plaza opens at the end of May I will also be throwing in some hours to tutor students and help to design a schedule for other faculty members to tutor students and run a study hall that my Plaza partner are putting together. At some point in the next year I'll need to start doing research for the paper that I'm required to have published before the end of my contract AND finally in May I start my graduate level courses to maintain my teaching license in Oregon. Try and draw that schedule....I dare you. It took my several frustrating days and many many hours before I finally was able to put it together to make sense. I still don't know that I have enough hours in the day to do all of it, but we'll see how it goes.
So that's me for now. It's April and I've been here almost 3 weeks now and I'm sure I'll discover very quickly what I'm able to handle.
I am teaching the Section 1 and 2 students. These are the students who have the lowest test scores and generally also the lowest speaking and listening skills. People ask me "So how do you teach students who can't speak English when you can't speak Japanese?!" The answer is, it's not easy, but with patience and a sense of humor it is an adventure! These students reading and writing skills are better than their speaking and listening, so if all else fails, I write it down and they look up the words they don't understand in their dictionary. Since we are trying to get away from the translation method of teaching Japanese speakers to speak English that can be a bit of a conundrum. I want them to try and figure out how to say what they want to say, but you can only spend so much of a class period waiting for an answer to formulate.
Those who don't know, the reason we are trying to get away from the translation method is because translating Japanese to English is one of the MOST difficult languages to translate correctly. The Japanese language is so vastly different from English that there is almost never a direct translation and many English words to not translate into English. What you end up having to do is sum up what you want to say in Japanese into something that is accurate in English. So it's almost like teaching an adult to speak. Not a new language, to just speak. Period.
Back to school... My schedule is as follows...Monday.Wednesday and Friday I teach Section 2 and 12 Listening. Tuesdays and Thursdays I teach Section 1 Reading. Those are the only classes I teach more than once in a week. I also teach Speaking to Section 2 and 12 and Writing to sections 1 and 11.
Additionally I go and sit in the English Lounge Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday for an hour and a half each day to help students practice speaking English, I have Office Hours Monday, Tuesday and Friday from 5-6 we have a staff meeting every Friday at 3 and occasionally I got to the Freshman Seminar group on Fridays with the students I will be chaperoning in May. Once the real English Plaza opens at the end of May I will also be throwing in some hours to tutor students and help to design a schedule for other faculty members to tutor students and run a study hall that my Plaza partner are putting together. At some point in the next year I'll need to start doing research for the paper that I'm required to have published before the end of my contract AND finally in May I start my graduate level courses to maintain my teaching license in Oregon. Try and draw that schedule....I dare you. It took my several frustrating days and many many hours before I finally was able to put it together to make sense. I still don't know that I have enough hours in the day to do all of it, but we'll see how it goes.
So that's me for now. It's April and I've been here almost 3 weeks now and I'm sure I'll discover very quickly what I'm able to handle.
Wednesday, April 17, 2013
Survival of the quickest.
I believe that Darwin wasn't really talking about birds...it was an analogy and he was in fact thinking light years ahead of his time when he came up with this idea of "survival of the fittest." He was thinking to a time when 25 million people would live in an area so small, they would be living on top of each other, literally.
Picture this, a paved 2 way road, 12 feet across that has no sidewalks and needs to allow cars, bikes and pedestrians to move from place to place. Now, where I'm from the order of right-of-way is pedestrians, bikes and then cars. Sort of makes sense....but here in one of the most populous countries in the world. Watch out, because if you expect to be given right-of-way as a walker, you just became filler for that pothole you just tried to avoid. Cars do not stop for people and bikes expect you to get out of the way. In a land where they drive on the other side of the street, they also expect you to duck and run if you see a car coming.
Survival of the fittest just became a reality for me in this urban jungle. Lions and tigers and bears oh my? Forget it. I'm worried about teeny tiny cars that my nephew could probably push around his yard in a real life game of Cars.
Picture this, a paved 2 way road, 12 feet across that has no sidewalks and needs to allow cars, bikes and pedestrians to move from place to place. Now, where I'm from the order of right-of-way is pedestrians, bikes and then cars. Sort of makes sense....but here in one of the most populous countries in the world. Watch out, because if you expect to be given right-of-way as a walker, you just became filler for that pothole you just tried to avoid. Cars do not stop for people and bikes expect you to get out of the way. In a land where they drive on the other side of the street, they also expect you to duck and run if you see a car coming.
Survival of the fittest just became a reality for me in this urban jungle. Lions and tigers and bears oh my? Forget it. I'm worried about teeny tiny cars that my nephew could probably push around his yard in a real life game of Cars.
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