A week in review

This past week has been hectic!!

On Sunday, Casey and I went to Koyasan, a small mountain village in Wakayama-ken. Koyasan is a religious retreat founded in 816 by a Buddhist grand master. To get there you have to take a cable car up the mountain! When we got there it was -1C and snowing! There is a famous cemetery there surrounding the Okunoin Temple. The temple is deep in the woods with more than half a million tombs. It was absolutely beautiful and so serene. Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures because taking pictures in a cemetery is very dame (bad). We saw some interesting tombs there. A lot of major corporations have tombs for their to employees come to pray if they don't have a family tomb. Another interesting one had a gigantic rocket ship. Casey and I could not figure out why there was a rocket ship on this tomb! The kanji was too complicated and we couldn't ask any Japanese people to translate for us because they were avoiding us (we were the only non-Japanese people there and I think they could tell we wanted to ask someone about it!). Another funny one was for an extermination company. Because they're Buddhist, they had a tomb representing all the termites they had killed. How very Japanese! Apparently, after a family member dies, you are supposed to bring a lock of hair or some of their ashes to this temple so that when Buddha comes again, he will know how to find them in the afterlife and give them enlightenment. Very very interesting. We also visited the Daimon, or Big Gate, which is a very big gate. It marks the entrance to Koyasan from the valley on the west side.

(A side note to AXiDs, the Buddhist grand master that founded Koyasan entered "eternal meditation" in 835. He is believed just to be meditating until Buddha comes again. This eerily reminded me of "chapter eternal." Are they just waiting for the second coming of Cora?? Yipes!)

Monday was a national holiday, "Coming of Age Day", where young men and women who are 20 years old (and legal to drink or smoke, btw) dress in their finest kimonos and visit their local shrine/temple to celebrate becoming an "adult." Some friends and I met in downtown Kobe so we could watch all the pretty young women walking around the city -- because after visiting a shrine, what else is there to do but shop?

Tuesday was just another day at school. One of my teachers (the annoying one that asks me all kinds of strange questions) kept hounding me about creating a lesson plan for the conference we were going to attend later in the week. Almost every 30 minutes he would ask, "Have you finished the report (meaning a lesson plan) yet?" I gave it to him after lunch and he quickly pulled out his electronic dictionary and asked me questions about the words and abbreviations I used, like "comp. questions" for "comprehension questions." Good grief.

Wednesday, my alarm failed me and I woke up at 7:30, an hour and a half late! Yikes! At that point, there was no way I would make my bus that goes up the mountain (at 7:55AM) and the next bus wasn't until 9:30. So, I called the school to tell them I was going to miss my first period class (oops). When I did get to school, the teachers all told me it was no problem and that Kabuto-sensei was able to hold class without me. Kabuto-sensei is fantastic -- if it had been any other teacher, they would have canceled class and would have had to make it up later.

Thursday and Friday were spent at a conference for ALTs and JTEs. All the ALTs and one JTE from each school in the prefecture attended. Usually this means 1 ALT and 1 JTE from each school. Because I'm lucky and teach at 2 scholos, I had 2 JTEs with me -- 1 from each school. My JTEs that were chosen to attend: the annoying one that asks me strange questions, and the one that never speaks to me. Fantastic choice!

I was hoping that the conference would be helpful and give me ideas on how to make my classes more engaging or make my students more motivated. Unfortunately, this was not the case. Everyone was supposed to create a lesson plan to share in small groups. Of the lesson plans in my group, none were very helpful for my situation (being at low level schools). Oh, and I forgot to mention, both of my JTEs tried to take credit for my lesson plan!! How rude!!

On Friday were were "taught" how to use debates in our classes to teach English. This is a good idea, but it won't work in my classes. The kids won't speak unless they have exactly what they're supposed to say written down. And they would NEVER stand up in front of the class and express an opinion that hadn't been OKed by at least 3 of their friends. All in all, the conference was a waste of time. And I still have to make up the classes that I missed on Thursday and Friday.

Thursday night was a lot of fun, though. Because EVERYONE was in Kobe for this conference, I got to see a lot of friends that live farther north in the prefecture. A very large dinner was organized at the Sky Buffet restaurant. It's on the 24th floor of the tallest building on Kobe harbor and has a fantastic view. Plus, it's all you can eat buffet and an open bar! Weeee!! After dinner, Joy and I went to Casey's apartment and had an impromptu girl's night/sleepover. We got in our jammies, gossiped, and watched LOST until the early morning. So much fun!

Also last week, or maybe it was the week before, I had to officially tell my school if I was going to re-contract or not. After I told my supervisor that I wasn't planning on coming back, I think he was either sad or mad or both because he didn't speak to me for an entire day (which is very strange). When he did talk to me, the first thing he said was, "When you go back to Seattle, what will you do? Where will you work?" which is the polite Japanese way of saying, "I'm upset that you're leaving." I didn't want to hurt his feelings, but I had no intentions of staying more than a year and I already know that this is not going to be my career. But it still made me feel so bad! :(

Well, that's all for this week! The next week should be a little more normal -- and I'm going to an inoshishi (wild boar) race next weekend! Stay tuned 'til next week!!

Japanese phrase of the day:
Shashin o torimasu ii desu ka? Is it OK to take a picture?