Unidentified Milky Substance

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 22

My thoughts and prayers are with Hogan and his family today.

Crawling out of bed that extra 15 to 30 minutes early is always astronomically more difficult than it should be. I stumbled my way though breakfast. My milk tasted funny this morning – sweeter than it should and not quite as creamy. The packaging is all in kanji and I didn't notice in last night's mac and cheese, but I'm wondering if it's not actually cow milk. Which then begs the question.... What IS it?

I ended up running late-ish out the door, not having found my iPod. It must be somewhere around the house, but Nishi days involve a 10 minute walk to the station, a 15 minute train ride, then a half hour walk to school. That's a lot of audio-book that I'm missing out on today. I'll look when I get home.

Let me tell you about trains. Japan's train system is actually very good and accommodating for an English speaker. Many of the kanji for cities are written in Romaji. When entering the station, one needs only check the giant map on the wall above the ticket machines. Your current location is always big and colorful. You then follow the tracks to whatever station you want to go to and buy a ticket for the price listed next to it. The ticket machines accept up to a 10,000 yen bill (or about $120.) You slide the bill in, and it comes up as credit and the ticket prices for everything you can afford then light up. You press the button for the one you want, and it comes out along with your change. Then you head over toward the platforms. Before going downstairs to the platforms, there is a gate. You slide your ticket in, walk through, and pick up your ticket as you exit the turnstile. Your ticket is then punched. When you exit on the other end, you again slide your ticket through and the machine eats it. If you haven't paid enough, little flappers close blocking your way. Most commuters have a swipe card pre-loaded with money.

The commuter train is definitely what people think about when they think of Japanese trains. They're packed, which makes me wonder how bad it must be in Tokyo. Honestly, you push your way in and hope the door doesn't close on your bags. I spent the ride with nothing to hold on to and doing my best to balance through the turns and not fall into the people around me too much. You can easily recognize how easy it is for predators to grope young girls on the trains. There's no where to go and, besides, you're already smashed against each other anyway.

It was a hot, uneventful walk to Nishi. I exited the train with many other commuters, including some students, although not Nishi ones. Many men here seem to like dress shoes with a long, pointed toe. With their short stature, they rather look duck-footed or like puppies – all feet and not yet grown into their bodies. There are chalk marks along several of the sidewalks. I think they're planning to put in ridged strips to guide the blind. Blindness is the only disability that Japanese society marginally tolerates or accommodates. Nothing is wheelchair accessible, for example. I made the teacher's meeting just fine, then it was off to photocopying frantically before lessons. I made sure my example of the homework got copied onto the other side. Many teachers (both here and at Koko) photocopy the page twice on one large sheet, then cut it in half to get a regular-zed paper. I'm still trying to figure out why. It's not like it'll save you much time – cutting probably takes longer than printing those extra copies.

The main photocopier here is unnecessarily difficult and requires you to clear the memory between each sheet you copy. Also, Japan is more difficult than America by having standardized paper sizes (like Ireland and probably the rest of the world.) In America, we have 8 ½ x 11 inches as our standard size. Everything is printed on this size. The closest we get in Japan is A4. B5 is slightly smaller than A4. BOTH sizes are used frequently in Japanese schools and it's my job to remember which schools use which size what Nishi, for example, uses B5, so the sheets I'd had printed out on A4 needed to be shrunk before being photocopied. I was politely reminded that Nishi uses B5. Koko and Kogyo seem to trend toward A4.

I must remember that I have access to a CD player AND the projector at Nishi on a regular basis. The CD player just sits on my desk (and, get this... it has a cassette player, too! How quaint!) I need to start working music into lessons.

Girls at school who shorten their skirts in summer have a problem when winter comes. Many just roll up their skirts at their hips, but some actually hem them shorter. In winter, it becomes very cold to be so exposed, so they wear gym shorts underneath their skirts, which hang baggily (like an NBA player's) down to their knees under their short pleated skirt. It looks fairly ridiculous. The boys seem to be adopting their new winter uniforms as there are many more boys running around school with ties and blazers.

Today, I taught with the main female English teacher here, for whom I don't yet have a nickname. She was much better than her counterpart last week, but I still think Nishi's probably my least favorite school. It's just harder and less rewarding. The students don't want to be there, have no interest in learning and feel no pressure to pretend. Basic courtesy, like facing the board and not talking are unheard of. Discipline was better today, though, and there was a bit more Japanese, so students had a better idea what was going on. Some classes were downright enthusiastic. Some new America-in-Words words include: “white people,” “black people,” “big people,” and “gospel.” Quite impressive.

All of my Japanese classrooms use chalk boards. Now, I know I had them in Elementary school and maybe middle school, but after that some were chalk and some were white boards. My university uses white boards. I'm apparently not good at writing on chalk boards – I break chalk frequently. Like multiple times a class. And I get chalk all over me, somehow. My black pants will appear tie-dyed by the end of class. And my hands – oh, I hate having dirty, chalk-y hands.

I taught three classes in a row, so by the end, I was ready to collapse. I've done three back to back classes before, but Nishi is more draining than either Koko or Kogyo. I practically crawled back to my desk, downed two glasses of water, and started in on my sandwich, even kicking off my slippers under my desk. I typed a few paragraphs of this one-handed while eating my sandwich. You may be impressed now.

There's something about Nishi that just makes me not want to work. Koko can't get me to leave at night, but I never have this problem at Nishi. I don't quite know what it is. Perhaps it's the early morning, combined with the commute, perhaps it's the more tiring students, or the fact that no teachers except the ones I work with come to talk about me and then it's only about work. That's probably why I'm sitting here typing my blog (in Word, of course, because my laptop doesn't have internet access here and, even if it did, anything blog-related is blocked by the over-zealous filters.)

I have seen eagles (or hawks or some sort of soaring predatory bird) glide bast my window, which was nice. Really, I just want to put my head down and sleep like the guy next to me. Or the guy across from us. But, I must be professional and, while such actions seem accepted in Japan, they certainly wouldn't fly in America. I don't feel I can do it and get away with it. I'll drink my tea. Luckily I can sleep in tomorrow, because tomorrow is Autumnal Equinox day and a national holiday. So, between this and Respect for the Aged day on Monday, I actualy won't be at Kogyo at all this week! Which is good because it gives me more time to learn my relative directions in Japanese, as I kind of promised them I'd learn them if they learned the English ones. It'll help with kimono lessons, at least.

I have just one more class today. Last week, this was the worst class. The is the other side of it, so it may have just been a bad combination or a disproportionate number of difficult students in last week's class. At least I'm hoping so. This will be my last “Self-Introduction” lesson and I'll be on to more intersting and helpful things. I'm both sad that it's ending (all the work is done and I can just cruise through it, and glad, as, after 24 times (my current count) I am SICK and tired of this lesson.

The class was better than last week's but still the most difficult class. Unfortunately, some of the smartest students were the ones talking amongst themselves and pipping in only when called on to answer a question. We got through everything okay, but didn't get to the quiz, which is fine.

During the America-in-Words game, a student wrote “Apple” as in “Apple Computers.” They also love abbreviations and I had to say that an American would not know that DL is “Disneyland.” I said we'd probably think “Delaware,” but now, I think most might come up with “down low,” as in “keep it on the down low.”

The winning team had “Magade” as one of their words, and I “aww”ed (to their delight) when they told me it was me. I didn't bother to correct the spelling. Another team was struggling to come up with words. I noticed a Mickey Mouse on a student's clothing, which would have been the perfect thing for me to point to to give inspiration. Except this Mickey Mouse was on the student's bra, which was under her blouse. Girls here have no fear of showing their bras or wearing brightly colored bras under thin white blouses. In fact, as we walked in to class today, some girls were changing. (Another was crouched in the corner straightening her bangs, but that throws me off far less.) While we were there, another girl stripped off her shirt, revealing her leopard print push-up bra and took a remarkably long time putting her blouse back on.

Stripping in school is NORMAL here, which I find surprising. At Kogyo, the boys are stripping their shirts and pants as soon as lesson ends. I've been told it's because they must change for gym and they'll get yelled at if they're late, but in America we would NEVER strip in front of our opposite-gendered teacher or classmates. Perhaps a male student stripping in front of a female teacher would be less heavily frowned upon, but America would never tolerate it because of the risk of sexual harassment/sexual assault. Also, because Americans are shy about that sort of thing. In America, students in locker rooms in my high school all showered in their bathing suits, and changed while holding towels around themselves or even in bathroom stalls to maintain privacy. Here, they change with the windows open and the windows and doors to the students passing in the hallway open. I have seen more teenage boys in boxers in the past month than I did through all of my youth, and I lived with a teenage boy! (Yes, Francis, I am talking about you...”

Now I am here, and waiting another hour until school ends and we have time to run over next week's lesson. I should start thinking about the lesson after that (three weeks from now) but I want advice on what the students would be most likely to be quiet through.

I printed off Japanese lessons that Olivia sends me so I can study then during free minutes, then went and lesson planned with sensei. We were interrupted by curious girls who wanted to ask me questions and exclaim over how cute I am. They were asking my opinions of various American celebrities and I was horribly out of my league. They asked about Paris Hilton and it wasn't until I got home and got on Facebook that I saw that she had been denied entry to Japan and was heading back to the USA, which would explain the questions there.

Once we were done, I scrambled to leave. I ended up missing the train back by minutes and waited around for another fifteen for the next train. Sat happily on the way back as I was dead on my feet. My iPod did eventually turn up – in the most unlikely of places although I can now remember putting it there. I'm now hoping that my camera turns up. It has all of my pictures from Osaka on it. And, having had a camera stolen once, I'm now very paranoid about such things. I last remember it Monday night, as I had it at Kimono lessons. So, unless it's somewhere in this apartment I haven't yet checked, it was (1) left at kimono lessons (2) left at school the next day having been in my bag, perhaps, when I brought it to work or (3) fallen out/stolen sometime between today and Monday night.

Dinner was brown rice with sauteed carrots and tofu. It was quite tasty and I ate more than I should have. I don't think I cooked the rice quite right as the texture is off, but it was still delicious. Also, speaking of food, I pulled out my milk and started attempting to look up the kanji. I don't know what type of milk I have, but the kanji for “cow” is NOT on there. I looked up the company and my guess, although I can't find any way to identify the kanji, is that what I accidentally bought is re-mixed powdered milk. Why the have this, I don't know. But if anyone else wants to take a crack at the kanji, I'll get it to you.