Loose Change 2nd Edition Recut

This film is an extraordinarily powerful 9/11 documentary. It is long at just over 90mins but I urge everyone to take the time to watch it. ひさしぶりおめでとうございます!

Watching the Vortis Win

I guess it was the weekend before last, and a bunch of us decided that after playing soccer once we should make the trek to Naruto, north of Tokushima City, to watch the Tokushima Vortis lose. We were in for a bit of a surprise because not only were they victorious, but they were selling Kirin Ichiban which some would argue is one of Japan's most infinitely excellent beverages.

Rory, Mark, Dave and I made the immediate and unspoken decision to get wasted. After all, it was 2pm and it had been a hard morning, particularly for Rory and I since we had to catch a 45 minute bus given that Rory's car battery is still dead. In the end, it was actually a very enjoyable game to watch. Tokushima beat the visitors 3-1. Probably the most entertaining aspect was the Tokushima fanclub spectators, who went crazy for the whole 90minutes, waving flags, chanting, playing music. It was sweet!

This week after a school assembly, one of the Nambu teachers I have never spoken to and who I had thought had no English came up to me and said in Janglish that he'd seen me at the game. He then made the drinky-drinky motion and laughed. Could be time to cut back...

Dave, Mark, Me, Anne, Rory, unimpressed spectators pose for Jill

Mark, Jill, Rory, & I squeeze into the back of Dave's car

My favourite kanji

魂　(たましい/Tamashii)
Soul

Thanks to Brook, I have a Kendo scarf with this beautiful 14-stroke kaniji hanging above my kotastsu. When I look at it, it reminds me of watching the calligrapher at the Nara Daibutsuden. It actually made me shiver to watch him write!

Where to polish first?

If anyone can tell me what the hell happened at the marketing department meeting for this particular wash-cloth, I'm all ears!

Podcasts, I love you!

Without you, I wouldn't be able to hear Jay and the Doctor's Spacegoat episodes, nor would I be privy to Robbie Buck's best guests or be able to bear witness to Denton's mad skills as an interviewer. For Seattle radio station KEXP's song of the day - a brilliant way to introduce new music to the wider community; and for Podictionary, without which I wouldn't know the etymology of the words "bullshit", "pants", and "gnome".

Good times, despite the fact that my iPod gave up and breathed its last some months ago now. Can't wait for Christmas to buy myself a new one. I deserve a present!

Be a sport!

Today I embraced my Australian-ness and took my first sick day. Symptoms? Desperation at my current Japanese proficiency and a bout of exhaustion from having possibly burned the candle at both ends a bit recently. I felt bad telling my supervisors at the BOE and Nambu that I had a sore throat, but I felt really good going back to sleep for 4 hours!

Anyway, I very much enjoyed my little bubble here after purchasing some study breads from the ママの店 bakery, and settled in for some online study. Angela from Hobart is taking level 3, and she sent me a series of really good kanji recognition and grammar sites. The time I spent on that makes me feel better about not going through a textbook whilst yawning at school.

So, tomorrow is round two with the 5th and 6th graders at Oomatsu elementary. Still haven't figured out exactly what I'm doing with them yet, but now that I'm a seasoned elementary school teacher I'm sure to find a hilarious bunny to pull out of my hat.

Last night I went to basketball training with Tracy's team for the first time in a few weeks. Almost passed out on the tatami before Matsuda san rocked up to collect me, but felt a lot better after running around on the court. There's this ninja-like freak who comes to training every so often, and apart from making Tracy swoon, he always makes training more enjoyable for me when he's there. The guy has this ability to turn something mediocre that I do into something utterly sweet. He's good to watch play, but I can't tell exactly why he goes... He's easily the best player by far (in fact to the point of it not even being remotely challenging for him to play), but rarely does he speak to anyone other than his one mate who he comes with. It's an interesting comment about the interaction between Japanese men and women because there are a bunch of cool, friendly Japanese women who play in the team and he never tries to talk to any of them. I go to be social and to fulfill my secret desire to be the next Kobe, but for goodness sake - it's a Japanese girl's basketball team! Have a chat with the Japanese girls! I've chatted about this with my friends a bit recently. Sure, it's an outsider's comment, but it it's not an uncommon thing to see a Japanese couple having dinner together in absolute silence - a scenario that I shudder to imagine myself in. I mentioned this to Nicole when we were having ramen in Osaka, and looking around us, we found that of the 10 or so people nearby, we were the only ones talking. Call me shallow, but I want to have a deeper connection with someone than their ability to buy me a Prada bag. Although I will take a Louis Vitton overcoat if anyone's offering. Damn it's getting cold!

Tunes for the Changing of the Seasons

Having slight trouble with uploading photos, but it's getting late...tomorrow, when I'll really need to be studying. Ohhhh good!

1. Regina Spektor - Summer in the City
2. Jamie Cullum - Get Your Way
3. Sufjan Stevens - John Wayne Gacy, Jr.
4. Tim Seely - Funeral Music
5. ELLEGARDEN - 高架線
6. Drop Army - 黒髪
7. Lyrics Born - I Changed My Mind
8. RJD2 - Since '76
9. Jedi Mind Tricks - On the Eve of War
10. Maktub - You Can't Hide

Procrastination as a Tool for Progress

Well hear me out...

I have the JLPT this coming Sunday in Takamatsu and having completley frittered the weekend away with cleaning, rearranging, pointless shopping/chewing the fat and so forth, it's now time to not revise kanji and post something up in this bitch.

A quick recap of what I've done since last posting some several months ago...

Achieved:
Completion of a a 170km two day cycling trip across the islands connecting Ehime-ken with Hiroshima-ken which (up until I saw Kyoto) was the best thing I have seen/done in Japan thus far; taught in front of close to if not in excess of 3,000 Japanese kids; coming through culture shock relatively un-jaded; decided to go to and subsequently booked my Christmas holiday to Fernie and Seattle; dodging a bullet in not buying my predecessor's car when he went back to Brisbane - poor Ashley, the thing exploded 1 week after she took it off Dave's hands...; the status of karaoke super-star (in my pants); cheering the Tokushima vortis to a seldom earned victory; becoming a member of a Japanese girls basketball team; self-perfection in every way.*

Been to:
Kyoto, Osaka, Nara, Matsuyama, Onomichi, Imabari, Naruto, all of my schools,

Realised:
That all is not as it appears initially here...It turns out that the school I was griping about so vociferously would easily be my favourite school now; nomi-hodai (all you can drink) is not "the best idea I've ever had" on a worknight just because it's 5.30pm; that girlsarepretty.com is the funniest site in the world; I should never again grow a beard/mustache/goatee; but the soul patch is here to stay; also, the word for "ferris wheel" (kanransha) is sweet; as is "poor" (bimbo); a day without laughter is a day wasted; and ultimately, that I will never make a career updating my blog...

Consumed:
So many beers I have forgotten how to speak English (I feel like I'm in first year uni!), but yet I still can't speak Japanese; More Australian beef than I would have at home - totemo yasui yo; many a nikku man [pronounced marn](don't come to Japan without getting on the man wagon); Japanese culture in hordes; et cetera.

I guess it must have been in looking at the photo accounts of some of my mates here that got me thinking it was time to get into action with my photos. Thus, some random photos to fill the void I've created so far.



* Alex Garland once wrote that he didn't like to take photos when on holiday because it meant that his memories ended up being clustered around those particular images rather than of his experience as a whole, or of course, of those great times you have when not a camera is in sight...I guess I've been applying that to writing on this damn page. Good thing I should be studying right now...

Mr Black Mountain

My lessons at Nambu Junior High generally depend on the teacher whom I’m “assisting.” I have one really awesome JTE (Japanese Teacher of English) who is pretty young and has a real rapport with her kids, making them laugh and generally assing around where it’s appropriate which is unassailably cool. Her classes are always planned well and so run really smoothly. Basically I wish all my JTEs were like her. At elementary it’s not quite the same cause I’m it. Going into my first day I basically had a bunch of flashcards, a general plan, a little spiel in Japanese about myself typed out and a whole lot of nerves concealed beneath my enormous wide-eyed grin that I never knew I was so good at until I got here. Instead of assisting the teacher with pronunciation, games, activities, etc., I had to fill 50 minutes with good learnin’ all by myself. Surprisingly, I found that not only do I actually like kids (I know I’m gunna look back at that statement and laugh…), but that I really enjoy doing the teaching thing so far. It could be the untiring enthusiasm with which the elementary kids approach the mere fact that someone different is standing at the front of the class, or it could be that I really like the sound of my voice when I have the undivided attention of 40 students four times a day. Either way, I was pleased with what I’d managed to muster, but moreso with how successfully I’d been able to communicate with the teacher in my broken Janglish when they were absolutely giddy with excitement to have me there.

So far I’ve had two half days at Omatsu Elementary school. Each day, four different classes, four different teachers. They have ranged somewhat, from one guy who seemed unimpressed (or perhaps jealous….I swore I caught a flash in his eye…) with me to really happy (both to have me there, but also to be able to take a major back seat) and to that giddy enthusiasm I mentioned. In the second period of my second day I met possibly the greatest teacher of all time! Think back to school and try to remember the coolest teacher you ever had? This guy was his/her Japanese equivalent. I can’t really put my finger on it exactly, except that he was really enthused/genki and got super excited with the kids at every activity or introduction of new material. Naturally, the kids loved him for it. I had written “what colour do you like?” on the board after quickly revising 10 or so different colours. The level of English is pretty basic so it was largely about recognition and basic sentence structure. By way of demonstration, I turned to him and asked “Sensei, what colour do you like?” He got this really thoughtful look on his face and then said “I like….BLACK” suddenly becoming really animated “because my name means BLACK MOUNTAIN - Yeah!!” and the kids went fucking crazy. It was sweet. If I decide I want to become a teacher when it’s time to leave Japan, and if nothing else, I’m going to take a distinct idea of exactly what sort of teacher I want to become, and it’s that guy. A friend of mine here suggested to me that we’re not here to be qualified teachers (otherwise we most likely would be), but moreso for our personalities and to get the kids excited about English and to have fun with it. For that, I salute my man Black Mountain for backing her up.

Tunes to Assimilate to

Ryan Adams - Political Scientist
The Unicorns - Tuff Ghost
The Panics - Only a Thought
Sweatshop Union - Better Days
Handsome Boy Modeling School (feat Cat Power) - I've Been Thinking
Sigur Ros - Gong

Does Joshua speak Japanese?

So far most of my time working has been spent at my Junior High School, but my position at the BOE is essentially as an elementary school specialist. Since English is standardized in classrooms and at an early age the emphasis is on grammar as opposed to cognition or any kind of conversational awareness, the level of English amongst English teachers is generally in direct proportion to the English that they’re teaching. Basically, those ALTs I know teaching in high school can have in depth conversations with their supervisors, whilst at junior high schools, most teachers will be able to converse basically, but at elementary school, it is apparently rare that an English teacher has any English whatsoever. This was illustrated quite hilariously to me early on when I visited one of my elementary schools to glad handle the principal and so forth. As background, my predecessor Lance not only has a masters in elementary school education, but happens to be rather fluent in Japanese. Big shoes to fill... Anyway, I walk into one of my elementary schools in the first week I was here and I’m sitting on a couch whilst my supervisor talks in rapid Japanese to 2 teachers at the school. I wasn’t getting a huge amount of what was being said, except for when I recognized them mentioning that Lance taught his classes in Japanese and asked if I spoke Japanese. My teacher paused and basically said… “No.” The two teachers looked at me and sighed audibly whilst literally dropping their shoulders in dejection. Nice. In fact, great to be here! Jerks. Looking back it was pretty awesome. The gaijin won't know what we're thinking...
So anyway, what I was getting at in my roundabout kinda way, is that as an ALT at junior high and high school level, you are actually as your position suggests: the Assistant Language Teacher, whereas in elementary school, you can forget the A. You’re it.

I can’t help but think that some of things I mentioned in my interview back in February were actually taken quite seriously by the panel of interviewers and that I am now serving my penance for this! Like when I mentioned that the JET programme was simply the best opportunity for me to gain experience in a classroom without formal qualifications whilst experiencing the rich cultural…you get the idea. Starting next week I will be touring the six elementary schools in my charge, and if the first two visits are anything to go by, it’s going to be busy days ahead. All I’m asking is that my inability to plan ahead and do things well in advance to avoid stress and confusion goes away. Soon!

Sadamitsu, Tsurugi & J-Punk

Okay, retrospective posts covering my arrival to the present are on their way (if I ever get the motivation to recall my first 6weeks here in detail of course). In the meantime, I’ve decided to keep up to date starting now. (Hadg, would love some help on putting photos into posts to make the wait somewhat more worthwhile…)

This past weekend I went to visit my mate Brook in Sadamitsu, about an hour west of Tokushima city up in the mountains. I’m absolutely floored by the public transport system here, maybe as a result of living in a city with the shittest ratio of competent train drivers/technicians to proposed running services in the free world for 25 years. Trains arrive and leave here to the exact second. The same goes for buses too, which amazes me more since there’s always the traffic variable. My junior high school is about 30mins out of the city and the bus stop is basically just a sign on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere. Still, every day, that shit rounds the corner at 4.52pm. Like clockwork. Unbelievable! But anyway, Sadamitsu is a town of a few thousand people surrounded by mountains with this crazy river running through its middle. Brook is probably the only westerner in 20kms so he was pretty stoked to have a visitor who spoke some English. We went out to an okinomiyake restaurant he started going to frequently after the owner’s son (Hide) came downstairs and pulled the Stratocaster off the wall and started jamming out some 80s power ballads. The kid can rock. They got on immediately since Brook was a music teacher back in Byron Bay who played with a touring 12 piece band called Kurtis (shameless plug – check them out!). While we were there Hide’s band arrived to practice for their gig in Tokushima city the next night. Not too many restaurants have I been to where the owner feeds you free shochu and beers for 5hours and you end up singing along to 60s and 70s songs at the top of your lungs. Tonnes of food, maybe 6beers and about 8 glasses of shochu, good tunes, 2400yen ($26). Good times!

Japanese hospitality is something I recommend every westerner experience at some point in their lives. What I love about my job here in Tokushima so far is that being a teacher affords you the opportunity to be brought into the community in a way that would not be possible as a tourist – people are really happy to host you/extend their friendship etc. because you are contributing to the education of the Japanese people (apparently). As a tourist, you’re unlikely to be invited to a Japanese home, asked to participate in a kendo club, presented with a real Samurai sword (like Brook was, the jerk), be shown how to play traditional Japanese instruments, dance the Awa Odori in full yukatta through stadium seating in the middle of the biggest dance festival in Japan, etc. etc. There’s few days where I don’t feel privileged and really grateful that I was accepted to the programme. Wiping the tears from my eyes, let’s move on.

Next day we set out to climb Tsurugi-san which is the tallest mountain in the prefecture. The drive up was pretty amazing. There are houses practically hanging off the side of these steep gorges, huts built overhanging 20metre drops to whitewater rapids and, of course, sections of the road itself missing since they’d collapsed into the river. Experiencing that was pretty special after spending a lot of time in the city and having only seen beach scenery as opposed to mountainous river-scapes. Brook drives through that sort of scenery every day and if he feels stressed, can turn off the main road and find a waterfall to swim under. We got to the car-park just in time for the impending typhoon to hit us full on and so never actually made it to the summit. Still, changing of the leaves is coming up and it will be twice as beautiful there, so we made a pact to come back soon. On the way back down we passed one of Tokushima’s few ski fields – a clear section of slope possibly 200metres long and not particularly steep with a busted-ass single chair that I assume was purchased from Russia for about $2. Looks like Hokkaido might be the place to go riding…

That night Brook and I made our way back to Tokushima city where we were met by Geneva and the 3 of us headed out to watch Hide’s band play at some club in Komatsushima – apparently the red light district of Tokushima, but also home to some of the best bars, clubs and restaurants in the city I know so far. Maybe because I’ve been hanging out only in the red light district. Sorry mum! We finally found the club we were looking for above another club and below a bowling alley or something. It was tiny, but had the most amazingly good acoustics I have heard since seeing A Perfect Circle at the Brisbane convention centre. I must admit it’s hard to convey the feeling I had watching these guys play. I suppose it was just really surprising to take a look at myself watching this amazing Japanese punk band surrounded by a room full of Japanese punks and emo kids in a small city in semi-urban Japan. It didn’t quite feel real. What I found weird was that between each song, the crowd didn’t really applaud (except for the 3 gaijin whistling and shrieking at the back), and instead of launching into the next song, the band stood back and had a chat with the crowd. It was interesting to suggest that to be a successful band in Japan it helps to have a stand-up comedian as a bass player, but every song was followed by a series of jokes and banter between the bass dude and the crowd. Either he was genuinely hilarious or he was just repeating over and over – “those 3 clowns can’t understand what I’m saying….!!” Remembering the dumb grins I’m sure we were wearing, I’m hoping for the former.

Yesterday was respect for the aged day so in true respectful fashion I slept in, had a long lunch and a few beers and tried not to injure any old people intentionally. The Japanese have a funny concept of national holidays, because everything was open. Except of course banks (including ATMs which close after a certain hour – why would you close them you fools, they’re AUTOMATED, you can just keep them on!?) and the post office, 2 places where you are more likely to see aged people than anywhere else. There’s tonnes of awesome jokes like that in this country. I love it!

Maintenance Work

Yo, I'm finally putting together a massive post. So far it's about 2 pages, and I'm not yet done. Pretty exhausting work. Once I'm up to speed, I can post the angry and embittered jaunts I want to just like Timbo. Hadg and Cam, hope you're well (since you're the only 2 that know about this joke of a blog...)

This week's song: The Strokes - Heart in a Cage