Life Shock

Recently I would say that although I am doing well in life and having a blast travelling every which way and buying things like persimmon trees and cardigans, I am definitely in a period of extreme adjustment.

First off, the obvious, the culture shock. My culture shock has been pretty mild altogether. Even though I've only been here a few months, I had been here before. There haven't really been things about Japan bothering me. There is the difference in social manners which takes some getting used to. I don't think I'll ever get used to people brushing their teeth at their desk. And I myself still don't properly perform all table manners and social graces.

I'm working on it though. Two of the most useful phrases in Japanese are "o tsukaresama (deshita)" and "yoroshiku onegaishimasu". The first literally means "You must be tired" But is usually used as "Thank you for your hard work" Situations where you might hear someone say "otsukaresama deshita" to you:

-You leave work for the day
-You come back from an out-of-office business meeting
-You get off a bus or train or airplane
-You perform any sort of action which may benefit someone else or yourself

And "yoroshiku onegaishimasu" basically comes out to "please treat me kindly" and it follows any request or action which may cause any social disharmony whatsoever. "I am taking a day off, yoroshiku onegaishimasu" or "Would you make a worksheet? yoroshiku onegaishimasu" and the most awesome, "I'm glad to meet you, yoroshiku onegaishimasu"

Honestly, if you learned those two phrases, the basic greetings, and "shitsurei shimasu" (I am rude, used when entering or leaving rooms, homes, etc, and for saying "excuse me" to people) you would probably come across as fluent. Because sometimes it seems like that's all people really need to say!

Back to the topic, after that tangent, I am facing adjustments beyond culture shock. It's like this whole change from college to work, (work shock?) and the switch from living with people to living alone (LONELY SHOCK). Like many of my difficulties adjusting to work have less to do with the Japaneseness, and more to do with the fact that I just got out of college. And many of my lonely moods have more to do with the fact that I live alone than the fact that I live alone in Japan.

Taken as a whole picture though, I really am doing well. I'm proud of myself and I feel like every day I accomplish something for myself or someone else. I would tell myself "otsukaresama" if I was allowed to!

A special treat for you all.

I made a video!



Please enjoy the images of Japan set to cheesy music, followed by a brief clip of karaoke funtimes.

Universal Truths

No matter where you go in the world...



You will always find Richard Feetoff.

Elementary = funfunfun

Today I observed two elementary classes another JET was teaching.

We played lots of fun games, like a game where 1 person was the "Wolf". The other children had to ask "What time is it Mr/Miss Wolf?" and then the wolf would reply with a time of day (any time) like say "3 o'clock!" Then the wolf took three steps, staring down the other children menacingly. This would happen again. The third time the children asked "What time is it Mr Wolf?" the wolf says "It's 12 o'clock!" And the kids all go "Aaaaaa It's lunchtime!" and the kids all run from the wolf and whoever is caught by the wolf is the wolf's "lunch"

Then the "lunch" becomes the next wolf. Rinse and Repeat.

This message brought to you by "Jessica's suggestions for ESL games ripped off from other teachers" available this coming April in bookstores everywhere.

This might suck if my car wasn't so tiny

Gasoline in Japan goes for around 160 yen/liter

To save you the trouble you would likely not take to figure that out in real money and units, that's about $5.80/gallon.

I guestimate my Honda Today gets over 50 mpg, but I haven't really tested it.

Sports Festival

Just about every school in Japan runs a few festivals. The big ones are the Sports Festival and the Culture Festival. The Culture Festival revolves around arts and speeches and things, plays, exhibits, etc.

The Sports Festival...well it revolves around sports all right, but not in the "baseball and volleyball and soccer" way you might imagine. Here`s a rundown of the events that occured in our junior high sports festival here:

-Opening Ceremony in which all students and teachers must stand for ungodly amounts of time doing basically nothing and listening to nonsense Japanese. (ok, so only nonsense to me)
-Rajio Taisou, calisthenics performed en masse to catchy piano music. I participated with the rest of the students and teachers in looking like a total dork.
-100 meter race
-"Mountains and Valleys" a game where students must balance a ping-pong ball on a fan and walk over to a pylon, circle the pylon twice, and return.
-"Olympics" a strange collection of events that do not resemble the olympics at all, i.e. spinning with you head on a baseball bat, and then participating in a 4 legged race (3-legged race with an extra person)
-Tug-of-war
-"Friend park" a unique er...game where two person teams compete. First one person drags the other on a dolly to station A. At station A they both put on helmets and mount a bicycle (one person sits on the cargo seat and balances two large but lightweight boxes), then they travel to station B while balancing the boxes. At station B one person gets in a wheelbarrow and the other pushes her to the finish line. Yes.
-Relay race, one for each grade level (all students) and then one with all the grade levels (some students chosen from within the class)
-長谷川Japan vs 太田Japan, girls from each 3rd year class compete for who can grab the most tires and bring them back across the line.
-Tama-ire (Balls-in) the 1st years throw balls into baskets lofted in the sky. Whoever gets the most in wins.
-"Boy Fight" Two teams of boys each have a pole. Half the boys hold up the pole, the other half go try to knock the other team`s pole down. Winner is first to make the other team`s pole hit the ground.
-Mukade Race (centipede race) groups of 5 students have their legs connected together and must hobble around the track. This was done relay style. The last place team was um...4 minutes behind everyone else. Quite sad.
-"Folk" dance in which all the students dance halfheartedly to some weirdo dance the 3rd years created to a catchy Japanese pop song. Well the 3rd years were at least pretty excited..
-Closing Ceremony, which is the same as the opening ceremony except after it`s over I have to help clean everything up and take down tents.

Note about the relay race: the teachers had to join in with the 1st year students. We ended up getting 3rd place. I was the first teacher to run and I was in 3rd place after the baton pass. But I felt ok about this because a lot of people were slower than I, and at the end of the day all the teachers kept saying "Jessie-sensei hayai! hayai!" (fast! fast!) but man...I`m not fast. Those little 12 year olds are fast. I will try to do better next year...gotta get in shape.

Note about the Japanese school system: Elementary is 1st to 6th grade, Junior High is 7th to 9th grade, and Senior High is 10th to 12th grade. I`m having a lot of trouble explaining and getting the people I work with to understand the fact that they have 7th, 8th, and 9th graders at their school in English instead of 1st grade, 2nd grade, and 3rd grade(which of course makes them sound like 7 year olds). So I have more or less compromised and I`m trying to make them say "1st year, 2nd year, 3rd year" Do you think this is for the best?

I`m not always sure what to write about, so if you ever have any questions about my life in Japan or anything about Japan, let me know.

School lunch SCANDAL

This day just got exciting.

Today on the school lunch menu, it said we would be eating "Momo zeri" (jello with peaches in it) with lunch. BUT INSTEAD it was...a frozen mikan! It feels like the world is crumbling around me! What if tomorrow they feed me a live cicada! I cannot trust the school lunch menu ever again. As they say, fool me once...and such and such. The elevator of trust has bottomed out at ground floor, and my heart aches at the betrayal I`ve experienced.

In all seriousness now, why would you freeze a perfectly good orange? Much tastier at room temperature or lightly chilled, in my opinion.

Freakish mutant insects.

Ahhhh Japan. Beautiful mountains, gorgeous coastline, rich verdant valleys, and giant man eating bugs of doom.

If you thought Mothra was just something someone made up, let me tell you. Mothra is real. He`s real and he flew in my face this morning. Well, if I`m exagerating, it`s only slightly. Mothra wasn`t the size of a small mountain, only twice the size of my fist, but I think we can all agree that that qualifies as freakishly big on the moth size scale.

I have trouble convincing my Japanese colleagues and friends ("But everything in America is bigger!" is the frequent refrain) but the truth is that the insects of Japan are in a class all their own. Beetles the size of your fist. Moths the size of your face. Dragonflies with a wingspan larger than 6 inches. Hornets that make the American ones look like babies.

This isn`t to imply I`m running around like a little girl crying over them, and in fact I find the insects here fascinating most of the time. I just wanted to let you know that Mothra was probably inspired directly by the gigantic moths that actually live here, and same with that one Japanese cartoon "Blue Gender" I saw where giant bugs take over earth and kill all the humans.

Lastly, I`m currently in a protracted war with no end in sight with the spiders that live on my balcony. Every time I destroy their webs of evil, they return stronger than before, bewebbing my garden and balcony the second I turn my back. I may have to surrender to them eventually.