誕生日おめでとう！Happy Birthday!
Hurray! Something interesting and wonderful to discuss! Not that my normal day isn't wonderful and interesting it just may not be interesting for you guys. But just in case you were wondering what it is I do every day I'll give you a little run down and use the birthday topic as a tantalizing finisher.
Ashley's typical day:
Mondays and Fridays I work at Tagawa high school which is a little ways out of Matsumoto city in a city called Murai. This high school is a pretty new high school being only 25 years old and while the kids are excitable and eager to learn it's not exactly a top-notch super important spend millions of dollars to go here school. Nevertheless I like it because the kids make it easy to have fun in class and not be so stuffy and worried about rules and lesson flubs. On those days I generally have to wake up at 6:45 because I have to leave the house before 7:30 if I want to get the right train. So at 8:00 I'm off and rolling on a train headed three stations down to Murai station. No one seems particularly interested in heading that way so it's usually not hard to just find a seat and nod off until the stop. One things I can never be sure whether or not I like is the attention I'll receive on the train. Most people are friendly but they're friendly/curious to look at you not friendly/idle chatter kind of people so it's a little surreal just sitting on the train knowing that there's a discussion across the way about American hair or American eyes (has anyone noticed that I have particularly big eyes? hmmmm). After I get off the station I have to walk down this narrow "main street" and head across a bridge before getting to my school which is gently nestled between several rice fields.
I work with two teachers there: Shimodaira-sensei and Nakamura-sensei. So far I haven't done anything here but introduce myself for about 15 minutes and then leave so I don't have a clear idea of what it's like to teach with them. I teach first years only so most of my English has to be really simple. Also, imagine my surprise to learn that there are foreign exchange students! There's this Australian boy in one of my classes that I was a little startled to see but, like most high school kids, he's as shy as the rest of them about asking me questions so I didn't get much of an impression of him either >>;. I'll be going there tomorrow for my first lesson so here's to hoping I do a pretty okay job and my cold doesn't get any worse!
Tuesday-Thursday I work at Arigasaki High School which is the school that technically hired me anyway. I work with Fujisawa-sensei and Higuchi-sensei (first year teachers) and Hayashi-sensei (a third year teacher). I'd have to say that out of all of my classes though the third years are the most exciting to work with. I think it's because in order to get into third level English you have to sign up for it. In Japanese junior and senior high schools English is mandatory until their senior year in senior high school. If they want they can choose a science track which has less English and more science (like if they want to get into a medical school or something) but they still have to take an English class of some sort. So anyway, long story short, they actually LOVE speaking English so even if they don't know what to say they're not shy about making mistakes.
Interesting story about third years.. we were doing a group project so me and the teacher were talking while they were brainstorming and we got on the topic of the most interesting Japanese food I'd ever eaten. I'm not sure if any of you are aware, but it's considered auspicious for Japanese food to come as natured intended IE with the heads, tails, whiskers (of shrimp =P), eyes, etc. that they were born with. Now, I'm not against this in any sort of religious way but doesn't it seem a little wrong to you that your food is staring at you while you're eating it? Anyway, Hayashi-sensei thought it was hilarious and couldn't stop laughing.
Anyway. The good thing about this school is that while they're not exactly ....
Okay, so Arigasaki students are more polite and a little quiet but they're very eager to learn.
At both schools I end up pretty much twiddling my thumbs all day. I can't lie to you. They're paying me a ridiculous salary but I don't necessarily have a lot to do during the day because unlike a regular teacher I don't have to go to all the classes. With the third years at Arigasaki I'll be going every day but the first year curriculum is a lot of learning grammar rules and not necessarily learning all that much about oral speaking. The last few days at Arigasaki I've been helping out getting papers graded but the lesson-planning part has mostly been on the part of the teachers. When I asked about it they explained that in January and February we'll be able to do more interesting things but pretty much the entire nation has to go by the same basic lessons to make certain progress reports in December.
AND NOW FOR THE MOST INTERESTING PART
Breaded and Fried Ostrich 駝鳥一口カツ
Raw Horse Sashimi (like sushi) 馬刺し
Fried Chicken Kabobs 焼き鳥
Karubi Steak Kabobs カルビ焼き
Smoked Fish 魚
Warm Sake 暖かい酒
The day started out pretty normally - we both had school that day so it was a bummer to be away. But once we got home and relaxed a little bit we decided that eating out was that thing to do. After wandering aimlessly Bob managed to take charge and we settled for a restaurant with a giant cat in front of it:
This restaurant had such a cool atmosphere. It seemed kind of like a salaryman paradise though since there were a bunch of guys in there but the food was pretty cheap and soooooooooooo delicious. If you have a chance to try horse meat, do it. It's so delicious that I can't wait to try it again sometime! I liked Ostrich (which tasted kind of like turkey and chicken combined) and Bob liked the Crocodile which I wasn't in to just for the texture which was kind of like eating very hard chicken.
Bob said his crepe wasn't good - and I'll believe him because the cream I thought was a little tasteless and had a bad aftertaste to boot but the most amazing thing about this place wasn't the bad crepes it was the TINY FORKS,
Here our adventures took us to a Big Echo - a karaoke place where we busted out some hits for only 10 bucks for an hour for the both of us. Sweet. And then we stumbled home.
Ha. The night seems a little anticlimactic after dinner but that's only because I'm tired and I want to stop typing. <3
No comments:
Post a Comment