What would you say, you *do* here?

So what, exactly, do I do here?

I get up in the morning at around 7. If I was smart the night before, I'd have already showered and packed my lunch, which usually consists of whatever Katie and I cooked the previous night. I pack my laptop in its case, grab my lunch bag from the fridge, and try to be out the door no later than 7:40. If it's not raining, I'll bike to work. It's a 40 minute journey from my front door to the school's front gate. The terrain is flat enough, so the ride isn't too strenuous, which allows to let my mind wander while I'm riding. I ride like everyone else: on the sidewalk and without a helmet, both baskets filled with my personal effects. I take two main roads to get to my school: one is the north-south road, Ama Ho Sen, which runs from South Amagasaki to nearby Takarazuka and beyond. The other in Route 2, the main east-west road that connects Osaka and Kobe.

If I'm lucky, I'll arrive at school at 8:15 - 5 minutes before the office announcements begin. I enter the sliding door leading into the staffroom, offer up my daily rounds of "ohayo gozaimasu!" (good morning!), throw my stuff down on my desk, stamp my hanko in the attendance book, turn on my laptop, take out the yoghurt or whatever I threw in my lunchbag to eat for breakfast, and start my day.

First period begins at 8:40. Periods are 50 minutes long, with 10 minute breaks in between. If I have a class, I'll use that in-between-time to make photocopies of any handouts I've made for the class, or simply to discuss and finalize the lesson plan with my team teacher. I don't teach the classes by myself, you see. Notwithstanding the aneurism I'm sure my students would experience if exposed to English with no intermediary to translate it into safe, comfortable, and wholesome Japanese, foreign teachers are, by law, prohibited from teaching by themselves in a government school. I'm not exactly sure why this is so, and I can't be bothered to find out. Besides, I really wouldn't want to teach alone anyway. As I said, there's really no way for my students and I to communicate with each other, barring the rudimentary skills we both possess in each others' respective languages, which for them mostly consists of "What is your hobby?" or "What do you like Japanese food?" or "America is very crime."

Even taking into account my busiest day, Monday, I teach no more than four out of six class periods a day, and that's just one day a week. Most days I teach two or three. The rest of the time I honestly spend in front of my laptop surfing the internet. Rarely, very rarely, I'll practice writing some kanji, but I can never remember them the next day. I wish I could find the will to be more productive, as there are so many better things I could be doing with my time. To my credit, I've developed a keen interest in political science - religiously following the 2008 Presidential Campaign, reading anything and everything I can about who's a fascist, who is or is not a Muslim, and who's forgotten to wear his or her flag pin this week. To be certain, I am not impressed with the level of political discourse back home.

At work I'm more or less a ghost. If I talk to any other teachers it's almost always the English teachers, and that's only because I have to plan lessons with them. Everyone else leaves me alone. Sometimes, such as when we have an office party after work at some bar or restaurant, I'll get to socialize with teachers with whom I never interact on a daily basis. Most of them are really nice, and even if we can't understand each other perfectly, we still manage to have fairly pleasant conversations. They won't talk to me at work, but I know it's not because they don't want to, it's just that the language barrier is too great, and the conspicuous lack of alcohol (not a problem at office parties) only further inhibits them. My failure to overcome this is my own fault; I don't study Japanese enough or practice it enough, I'm not very outgoing with the other staff or the students, I spend most of the day sitting at my desk instead of visiting student clubs or activities - everything the stereotypical JET is supposed to do to get the most out of their "JET experience".

I have no right to complain because I knew what this job was going to be like before I even set foot in Japan. I had read others' accounts of their time here on this Program. I knew that the number one complaint JETs had was "too much free time." You wouldn't think it would be a problem, would you? Most people would kill for a little more free time during their day. So I don't necessarily find that to be an accurate assessment. I'd prefer the phrase "lack of purpose". That, my friends, is a killer.

Don't get my wrong, it's not all doom and gloom. A lot of my students are joys, and some pop periodically into the staffroom just to say "hello!" Actually, the conversation goes just like this, every time:

Student: Hello. (Louder) Hello.
Me: Oh! Hello. How's it going?
Student: ...
Me: Sorry. How are you?
Student: I'm fine, thank you. And you?
Me: I'm fine.
Student: See you.
Me: See you.

Anyway, I've gone off on a huge tangent here. I'm supposed to be telling you about my typical day.

After school (around 3:15) is cleaning time, when all the students clean different parts of the school. I'm sure you've heard about this wonderful utopia that is Japan where all the good little boys and girls help clean their schools while rainbow gumdrops fall like manna from the heavens. The reality, as is often the case, is quite different. First, students actually complain about having to clean, when "cleaning" in this case amounts to generally no more than pushing a swiffer around for five minutes and then calling it a day. Second, there is precious little cleaning involved. As I said, students gather together to push dust around for five to ten minutes. In the bathrooms, students take out a hose and spray down the urinals, toilets, and floor with water. That's it. No bleach, no soap, no nothing. Of course, the point probably isn't to clean anything, but to instill the students with a sense of ownership and responsibility for the school - the students will be less likely to deface that which they'll only have to clean up later on.

Even though I'm not technically a part-time teacher, I'm allowed to leave at 4:15 (the regular teachers can leave at 5 though many stay far later than that - this is Japan after all). Again, if it's not raining, I make the return journey towards home. Depending on what Katie and I've decided to eat for dinner, I'll pick up a few ingredients at the MaxValue near our house. Katie doesn't get home from work until 7:30, so I have a few hours to kill. I'll watch TV or movies I've downloaded, read, do dishes, snack, etc. until Katie walks in the door. If I'm the one making dinner for the night, I'll typically start prepping the ingredients around 6:30 or so, so that it's all ready to go on the fire when Katie walks through the front door.

We eat dinner anywhere from 8 to 9, then have dessert (usually pudding we picked up on sale at MaxValue) in front of the TV and, during this time of the year, under the kotatsu. After dinner we clean up, make our lunch boxes for the next day, and go upstairs where we read until we fall alseep, which is generally around midnight.

Now the weekends are totally different: I don't work on Saturdays, but Katie does, so I do laundry and clean up around the house a little bit. Saturdays are also when I call my parents. I'm almost always able to talk to Mom; Dad's a little harder to get a hold of. Mostly I spend the day milling around the house until Katie gets home at the usual time. On weekend nights we've taken to going out for dinner instead of cooking, and with the selection of restaurants available on our street alone, we're never out of delicious options.

Sundays are our exploring days. It's on Sundays when we hop on a train and go somewhere of cultural significance. Recently, we've been on somewhat of a Kyoto kick, even though it's twice as far as the closest big city - Osaka. As a result, we've become pretty familiar with the ancient capital, so if anyone has a hankerin' to come visit Kyoto, Katie and I are practically certified tour guides.

Well, that's about it. Lather, rinse, repeat. If my tone seems dismissive or even depressed, don't be fooled. It's just that I've come to realize that daily life in Japan, even though I'm thousands upon thousands of miles away from home, is almost identical to daily life back home. We have our routines which we follow with nary a second thought. Most people seem pretty content with this situation as it stands, but Katie and I are the restless sort. Any downtime we have is spent plotting and planning our next great adventure, patiently enduring our routines until the day comes to go somewhere new, to experience something else.

-Bob

Outrageously overdue

Ok, so I kind of let the blog get away from me for a month and a half, but to tell you the truth, not much has happened in that time. Some things of note:

My trip to Southeast Asia was great and I'd do it again in a heartbeat. I highly recommend Malaysia as a tourist destination because 1.) everyone speaks English, and 2.) even though you're almost guaranteed to get the runs, the food is awesome. The best parts were the cheap food and tropical weather. Also, I enjoyed meeting fellow travelers from all over the world. In fact, that was probably the most interesting part out of the whole trip. Based on my encounters, I feel nothing but love for Canadians, the British, Australians, Austrians, Germans, New Zealanders, the French, Koreans, Chinese, Bulgarians, Bengalis, Malays, Indians, Swedes, and of course, my fellow Americans (one of whom was in the process of bicycling across Asia). I learned that I should be eternally grateful that English is the most popular second language in the world, because were it not for that, I wouldn't be able to talk to a great majority of these fine people.

Katie and I met up in Tokyo and saw quite a bit of the city. We were especially impressed by the good eats in Roppongi (including a relatively inexpensive Thai place which boasted a commanding 13th-story view of the city) and by the plastic food in Kappabashi, between Asakusa and Ueno. If you ever asked yourself, "Where can I find quality refrigerator magnets that look like pieces of sushi?" then this is the place for you. Of course, Tokyo being as large as it is defies even the most determined tourist to see everything in a mere three or four days, so Katie and I will definitely be going back for more.

On the home front, the third years are done with classes, which means I have even more free time to screw around on the computer at work. I also read, and sometimes, if I'm especially motivated, I open my Japanese textbook. On a positive note, however, I've pretty much learned what works and what doesn't in my classes, and my students' eyes don't seem quite as glazed over as they used to. I learned that they love intonation practice. The Japanese language being fairly flat in terms of intonation (think how a robot sounds when it talks), my students cannot seem to shake themselves of this habit when speaking English. To correct this, I overemphasize the sentences I read to them to a cartoonish degree. Example: "HOW do I GET to the STORE?" taking extra care to force my voice through its full range. I then have the students repeat over and over again, refusing to stop until they've all made complete fools of themselves. Only then can the real learning begin.

In other news, our friend Adam, who now lives in Korea, visited us this past week. Unfortunately, Katie and I had to work, so he was forced to explore the local sights largely by himself. He seemed like he had a pretty good time, all in all, but I got the sense he was pretty disturbed by how cold it actually was in our house. He brought us delicious homemade kimchi (pickled vegetables, usually cabbage, in chili sauce), which we appreciated greatly.

For whatever reason, Katie and I keep getting sick. I got some kind of cold when I got back from Singapore, Katie got a horrible 24 hour stomach bug, which I got about two weeks later, and now we both have colds again. Ugh. It seems everyone's sick right now, though. Everywhere you look, the Japanese are sporting those surgical face masks all over the place. I can't imagine that they actually do anything for you other than signaling to other people, "Hey! I'm sick! Stay away!" But when you're riding trains and buses all over creation, and the little old grandpas and little old ladies haven't quite mastered the art of covering their damn mouths when they cough, it's pretty easy to contract all manner of nasties. I can only hope that this will improve as we move into spring and, hopefully, warmer weather.

Because of our frequent illness, Katie and I haven't been out gallivanting around Japan as we were wont to do, so you won't find too many new pictures or descriptions of all the new places we've been. We'll try to get on that as soon as we stop coughing...

-Bob