Ep 40. Unexpected Itty Bitties

I am a rather curious individual. As such, when my curiosity is peaked I simply must investigate,

The door

no matter what. So, what has peaked my interest this time in the land of the largest city? I will give three hints. 1) They are really small. 2) I can guarantee that at least one person who reads this sentence had one, and it's highly likely that someone does. 3) The most impressive specimen they had was about 8.8 meters (28.87 feet) long. It was an enormous tapeworm taken out of a person. I went to a parasite museum. It was so completely gross and so utterly cool; but I was not alone on my endeavor. I managed to convince a co-worker to come with me to this (free admission) museum. Did she enjoy it as much as myself? Probably not. But I don't care. They had so many specimens placed out, each lovingly labeled (in Japanese), and some placed in handy charts to show what part of the body they came from. On top of that, they have a gift shop. They have t-shirts. I know what my next paycheck is going to.
And now, pictures (yes, some are gross):

Some old notebooks.

Oooh, head lice and crabs

In case you were thinking about lunch...

Aren't they pretty?

That thing was almost 30 feet long. And it was inside of someone.

The museum is in a part of time called Meguro, which I had never been to before. I must say that it feels as a very western part of Tokyo. The styles of the buildings and streets felt more like Portland than any other place I had been to, and my co-worker and I saw many mixed race couples. The sidewalks, which normally are skinny at best and non-existent at work, were broad and colorful with trees planted every few feet. There was even a median with (gasp) plant life. Coupled with all of this greenery were many fine establishments of an exotic nature, such as an English pub and the single most hipster Starbucks that I have ever seen. From the wooden tables populated with young people (all had glasses, and all had a certain, fruity brand of laptop) to the enormous tapestry hanging on the far wall enmeshed with exotic, almost South American patterns, everything about this place screamed of the counter-culture scene of Portland. That Starbucks, coupled with the Carribean tapas bar down the way (complete with all of the staff having dreadlocks) gave the whole area a very bohemian feel. I shall need to see what else I can draw from it.

A nice river view.

Like I said, hipster.

Wide sidewalks and trees

And a leafy median.

After having gone out the day before, I wanted to stay in today. I woke up, and a message from my sister reminded me that a certain, global event was ongoing. So, I turned on my TV, and what did I find? Team USA playing against...I had no idea. I couldn't quite catch the Japanese of their team name. But both teams seemed to be doing well, and I think that the announcer was excited. Anyway, I wasn't really paying attention, because I was talking with friends. And, for a few minutes, I wasn't really paying attention to that, because I had opened up my burnable bin only to find that it was filled with fruit flies and their offspring. Now, as evidenced by the previous day, I am more than happy to go to museums and zoos and stare at ucky itty bitties until my skin crawls. When they get in my home, though, that is another story. Those few minutes were my frantic need to get those bugs out of my house as fast as flippingly possible. It worked, but I had a lot of cleanup to do with them. The rest of the day was fairly uneventful, and as usual I got different cleaning done than I was anticipating. Ah well, there is next weekend.

One last thing, before tales of the week. I went out to a nikuyaki (meat frying) place with my co-workers. Obviously, I didn't partake in the meat part of the event, but I still enjoyed myself a lot. Basically, everyone sits around the table, and they bring out these ginormous grills to use.

Caution: hot

The meat is then brought to the table, and you fry it yourself. According to my co-workers, they had quite a selection; everything from tongue, to cutlets, to offal. Everyone had a lot of fun talking and laughing, and then suddenly my two foreign co-workers and I share a look. A song had come on, but it couldn't be that song. No, no way, and then, to confirm what we all could not believe, in the middle of this nice restaurant, blaring over the speakers, we heard, "I'm too sexy for my," and the three of us just lost it. The music that night was just overall an eclectic variety, from many decades and genres. All that I can say is that it is really nice to work with people who one can enjoy going out to eat with.
Somehow, I just cannot see a place like this taking off in the states. Not only do we cut our meat too thick (the Japanese like their cooked flesh nice and thin) but either someone would burn themselves, or the sheer liability insurance needed for it would be too high, or people wouldn't understand what to do, etc. The point is, that something so simple and local over here would have so many hurdles in the US as to make it almost untenable.


In terms of classes this week, there are some good stories:
1) I taught one of my 3rd/4th grade classes a simple clapping game. Boy was that a mistake. They enjoyed it so much that they were doing it with me, their classmates, their desks, etc as I was trying to teach. Lesson learned, think about how to turn these things into a more connected activity before I teach it to them.

2) My 5th/6th graders got an interesting set of vocab this week. The sentences were about being passed something, in this case tools that could be found in anyone's garage. Things like a saw, axe, hammer, or even a shovel. Apparently we were learning how to become serial killers this week. On another note, because hammer was a word this week, I spent a good deal of time telling students to, "touch your hammer." And then praising them for it. I think that I giggled every time.

3) Junior High classes. I love this age group (particularly the oldest ones, who are roughly the same age as freshmen in high school), love love love working with that age group. I can connect with them, I can make things fun and productive. It's just a great group. And I have a story from all three of my classes.
In one (kids who lived abroad and then came back, so they have really high English) we made a sport. This is such a cool sport. So, there are five teams of twenty people each. For a uniform, everyone has to wear a samurai outfit, and everyone has to be constantly holding hands. The object of the game is to get the ball (American football shape, two meters in length) into the goal of one of the four opposing teams. But there is a catch: all the players of a given team must be constantly holding hands. As such, the players cannot use their hands and must instead use their feet or heads. It sounds like a lot of fun,
In another (8th grade age) we are talking about our dreams. The students did a great job coming up with ideas to use. One wrote, "to fly in the sky." So we were doing an activity to get/ give advice from other students, and the one tells another the dream, "I want to fly in the sky." The response was surprisingly clever, but not quite what I wanted them to say, "then you need to die." I kind of had to step in. That particular student is really great about being really creative (when I was modeling the activity, that particular student told me that I should want to be God) but there's only so far that we can go. So I didn't shut the student down too much (considering the culture, this was a truly amazing idea), but just told the student to try and say something nicer.
In another one (Freshman in High school level), we played a game that I had used in improv. How this game works is that the first person writes a sentence (sentence1). The second person draws a picture of sentence1 (picture1). That person then folds the paper to hide sentence1, and hands the paper to the third person. The third person then must try to guess sentence1 from picture1. Lather, rinse, repeat. They really liked this game. It let them be creative, and laugh at where these things can go. Meanwhile, I like it because I can correct their writing and gives them something concrete to draw on. The best one of mine started with, "Japan wins the world cup," -> "Human meets space man" -> "The man fights a giant robot." I will definitely be doing this again.
 Before I go, I have two more pictures to share:

An overall gorgeous sunset by the train station.

The most beautiful lily-pad that I could find.

Well, this has been another adventure in the austentatious (complete with pictures [in color]). If you liked it, tell your friends; if you hated it, tell your enemies; and if you didn't care either way, then tell everyone. Good night.

Ep 39. Utter Insanity

So, last week was a counseling week, which means just one thing: (dun, duh duh dah duh ddaaaahhhh!) special lessons. I actually got to teach a few this time, and they actually went really well. So, my sonnet lesson and my dinosaur lesson were flops (because nothing is apparently more terrifying than a gigantic biped quoting Shakespeare at you...no wonder most actors are so short), but my Swing, Science, and [insert insanely popular animated movie name here] lessons went really well. For the first one, it was just two of us, so the student got a lot of experience. Thankfully, she was a follow--I'm horrendous at following--so it all went well. The science lesson I did twice. The first time was fantastic, but I'm not too sure how much of it they understood. The second time was decidedly less messy, and I got a few oohs and ahhs. And then the [movie] lesson was with two absolutely adorable pre-schoolers. We sang, we danced, we colored...uh, it was amazing. I might have gotten a little carried away (particularly when I was dancing in the hall while a co-worker was teaching the lesson later on) but it was so much fun.
In terms of the science lesson, it was all about using water to find some magic and mystery in this world. The first experiment was simple: I drew an arrow on the board and, with the magic of a glass of water, I made it appear to change direction (this one got the second group especially excited). Just a simple refraction exercise. The second experiment is one that many people have done a gazillion times: you start with a glass filled to the brim with water. You then add a marble (or a bead), and then another, and another...until the glass overflows. But wait, before it overflows, the water rises above the edge of the glass like a ginormous bubble. How does this work? Surface tension. Water is a really hydrophilic substance (duh). In simple terms, that means that the water molecules really like to hug each other really hard. Dihydrogen-monoxide is just fantastic that way.
The third experiment also has a surprisingly simple setup: fill a pot with water, and then grab two oranges. Peel one. Then ask your friends the following question: which one will float? Will the peeled one float, or the unpeeled one? Most people will point to the peeled orange (that's what both of my classes did) on the belief that because it weighs less it will float. When you put the oranges in the water, the peeled one sinks like a rock. Why? Because the white part of the peel traps in air (so, you must be very careful to peel off as much of the white stuff as possible) making it buoyant beyond all belief. Everyone oohs and ahhs that they were wrong, and then we move on. By the by, I discovered that frozen oranges of all kind float.
The fourth experiment was what we had all been waiting for: making slime. I have done this before, and it can get messy as all get out if one is not careful. The instructions are careful: to a glass of water, add food coloring, cornstarch (or liquid starch detergent), and a solution of water and borax. I eyeballed everything, so no mixes turned out the same way. In the perfect world, it's a more solid version of ooblek. In a less perfect world, it's either extremely watery or sticky like snot. Anyway, it was a huge success on all accounts and a lot of fun.
This weekend was also a ton of fun. Not only has it been dry for a few days--allowing me to check on the development of spider webs (they prefer a particular kind if bush in shady areas near trees, but will take other locations if need be)--but things are getting a bit social again. So, Sunday started out with going to the Japanese lesson per usual. Honestly, I have no idea what any of the volunteers think of me. I know so few words that I don't understand everything, and when I do understand I have a bad tendency to respond in JaSpanese, but when I can utter a purely Japanese sentence, it tends to be grammatically...impressive for my level. I'm understanding the difference between 'wa' and 'ga' and getting some of the other particles as well (the Japanese 'de' is very close to the Spanish 'de' y 'en', so that's an easy change). I honestly just need to practice more...and learn more vocab...and study more. My Japanese really isn't so great, and I still don't understand too much, but I have enough of a base that I should be able to really build on it.
After the lesson, my co-workers [sic] and I went out to lunch. It was fun, we had a great chat. It's so hard to get to know someone when you only work with them, but when you see what they are like outside of that environment it is amazing just what you can pick up. Overall, I would rate the lunch as spectacular. After lunch we went to a bookstore, where I had a minor freakout because of their very large English section. So, many books by so many authors that I really love. Gah, I don't have space for any more books over here. :(
Regrettably, I had to depart early to rush back home because I had dinner plans last night. I got to join a student and her husband for a meal out, and it was spectacularly fun. To be honest, it was definitely one of the highlights of the past few months, and I will cherish it forever.
Today was my cleaning/ shopping/ I am alone in the universe day. I did run into a student outside of my apartment and had a nice little chat with him. When I was a student, I hated running into my teachers outside of class (I have since gotten much better about meeting OES people outside of school), but now that I am a teacher I actually kind of enjoy it. It's nice to see them when there's no real expectation to how we should interact. It's amazing how different people on when they wear different masks. Ah, if only we lived within a world where we didn't need them, but such is our fate within this world.
It's rather odd. I have been over here for nine months now, and all of those things that once seemed so strange to me are just sort of...background now. It's still different than what I grew up with, and it still registers as different from what I have lived since my childhood, but it's all getting sort of...normal now. I know that there will always be things that surprise me, but that's true everywhere. I mean, there are always surprising things to see and learn...and so many things to wonder about. I mean, humans like to go around acting the most important--we study history, for goodness sake--and yet none of it really matters. Flowers grow and open without a care of what we are doing, the heart of a bird or pigeon or rat could care less if we get promoted or not, the moon still revolves around the earth, etc. All of these big things that can seem scary or catastrophic--and many really can be catastrophic to humanity--are tiny on a global scale and completely inconsequential on a universal scale. And yet, even though this idea of our complete and total inconsequential existence is fairly self evident, we still find ways to raise ourselves up, to better ourselves, to make ourselves important. That's amazing, and yet people don't even seem to ever...think about that. Isn't it just wonderful that humans can wonder? It truly is a spectacular faculty that we have, and only a fool would think that all the possible wonderings to wonder have been wondered.
Anyway, this has been another adventure in the austentatious. If you liked it, tell your friends; if you hated it, tell your enemies; and if you didn't care either way, then tell everyone. And now, peace out!

Ep 38. Bubbly Boosh

With a pounding of absolute fury, and a fury experienced only on travels and trips to the tropics, the rains have come. It is now the rainy season here in Japan, and that means that every day we are set to experience the ultimate in hard rains. Most people over here are apathetic to the change at best, with others keen on showing their displeasure. For my part, it's rather fun having such hard rain, and I have really enjoyed going on walks at night that end with me being completely soaked. It gets the greatest looks ever from people on the street.
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Quick note: As I am writing this I am experimenting with a bread recipe. Rather than using regular milk I am using soy milk, because the soy breads that I have had over here are absolutely delicious. However, the milk is causing the bread to expand terribly in my bread maker. As such, there might be a picture later on of exploded bread in a bread maker...either that, or my apartment fire will make the nightly news.
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Anyway, where was I? Oh, right, the rain. Well, thankfully the rain is keeping most people off of the streets, so I can explore with a little me time again. However, that also means that everywhere inside--such as the trains, or shopping malls--that are normally empty have suddenly turned into the place to be. So long getting a seat, hello standing awkwardly and looking sexy. Goodby short food lines, hello queue's of death. Ah well, se la vid. To be honest, I don't know quite what is more unpleasant: the number of people inside when it's raining, or the sudden rise in humidity when the sun suddenly shines through. So, it's a bit different than what I'm used to, but it's rather fun.

In terms of what I have been doing, we have a new teacher at work. That means that someone I have been working with for the past 9(ish?) months has left. In this case, it was one of my American co-workers. Her successor is another woman, but this time from the UK. Now there are two English accents at my school. So, last Sunday I took her to the Japanese tutoring I occasionally go to. To be honest, I am perfectly happy on my weekends to do absolutely nothing--mostly, that is, because I can get a little tired of dealing with people during the week. While it will definitely allow me to live here, my Japanese definitely needs some work. Mostly, I need to get better at not answering Japanese questions in Spanish. Anyway, after the tutoring, we met up with my now ex-coworker for one final, "see you later." Finding Something that I can actually eat can be tricky, even in Tokyo, but we managed to find a fun place called Grandma's George's. There were actually two things on the menu that I could eat! I had options! We all had a very nice (if overly warm) lunch together. My ex-coworker was meeting with an old friend of hers, a friend from Osaka. May Americans tend to think of Japan as a small country, where everyone has been everywhere. And yet, this friend of hers had only been to Tokyo twice before, and all three times were within this year. This was not some recent college graduate who was just starting on her own. Instead, this was someone who had lived a little and seen a little of life (she was only slightly older than me, but still...). But she had only visited Tokyo--the biggest city on earth--three times. Mind blown, I reassessed my base assumptions and moved on with my life.
We parted, as it should be on a bittersweet note. However, I know that it we are meant to be friends, that we will see each other again. The next day, I met up with a few friends in order to see a movie. But first, since I was with someone who understood a bit more Japanese than me, I decided to get some sunscreen. My biggest problem, though, is that every sunscreen over here has an SPF of 50. In the US, there are tons of SPFs, all the way from the lowest, "wouldn't it be better to go without" to the highest, "why would you use that?" SPF 50 is a common place where sunscreens start to enter the latter scale. Usually, I use SPF 30 which, from what I have read, seems to be a good number that offers a good chemical balance while still providing decent protection from the sun. It took some hunting, but I found what I was looking for.
The movie (the new super hero one) was great. It does strike me as odd the way that foreign movies are released over here. For example, this superhero movie came out within a couple of weeks of its US debut, but the new 300 movie isn't coming out for a few more weeks. This isn't how it works in most countries around here, and yet in Japan the schedule to release these things seems almost random...ah well.
One final note about last weekend: I went out to the poppy fields. They were gorgeous, but were far outshone by the setting sun. The day that I went was one of the high pollution days, where not even the closest mountains are visible. But because of this, the sun was actually tolerable to look at. It really is majestic, our great sol, and closer to the horizon it was magnified while turning blood red. What was more impressive, though, was that as it went down, it revealed the hills in front of it. It was breathtakingly beautiful and horrendously sad at the same time. I am so glad that I got it.
For the most part, my week went well. I helped the new teacher where I could (still had some hiccups, but that's to be expected). Mostly, though, this week really reminded me why I want to work with high school aged students later on. Don't get me wrong, I always enjoy those classes, but this week those two ages really stood out. My first on (freshman age, so last year of Junior High over here) was a class on our houses.
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Bread came out fine. Woot!
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So, we started talking about our houses (simple, fast) and then we got into a dream house. This is supposed to be a warmup. Something simple, fast. Somehow, we made a house together. It was all of their ideas, though I helped them with some of the English. It ended up being five stories (the fourth floor was extra wide and the the second floor was a maze). It had an elevator to the top floor which had a vending machine, and a diving board on the roof. The diving board was used to dive into the swimming pool (which had a shark, named after one of the students). Next to the pool was a garden (with a killer plant, named after another student). And, to make it all better, there was a pet bear (named after a third student, just because). Later on, we all made our individual dream houses, and they showed a surprising amount of creativity. I was very impressed.
My other class (about aged grade eight) was just--and always is--fun. But today we had to write a postcard to our friend Nick, so I asked them to think of what they wanted. One boy called me over to help him with English. He drew a picture. After a few expansions to the picture, I discovered that I was right, and he did indeed want to know the word, "steal." The next word that he needed was, "police." He also wanted me to teach him decapitation. I did not want to teach him decapitation, so I had him figure out an alternative. He decided on, "kill." The final message: Dear Nick, I will steal your treasure at 8:00AM. Do not call the police. If you call the police, I will kill you. I could barely keep myself from laughing. Also, one of the kids found a piece of a foam sticker on the floor. I looked it over, and then (I thought) badly pretended to put it in my mouth. And they bought it. So, I naturally did what any mature adult would do, and kept going with it. I convinced them that I ate it, before I showed it to them again. The look on their faces (and their laughter at the joke) was incredible. I love those kids, and I love that age group.
On Saturday, I had two near heart attacks (in addition to the amazingness above). The first was a prospie, aged five (almost six) who cried for 13 minutes of the 15 minute lesson. The kid would give me high fives, would touch the cards, and would make letters with her arms, but just would not speak. By the end, though, she was smiling and laughing. Crisis averted. Then, at the end, in front of the parents, my manager asked the students if they understood me. They said, "wakanai" [no comprendo {I don't understand}]. AAAAAHHHHHH! What am I doing wrong? It turns out that they didn't understand what I was saying in the lobby, but that they understood me in class. Crisis averted.
This weekend, aside from the tutoring, I haven't done much with people. I did take a trip to Konosu stadium, though, because I haven't been down that way in ages. What I found was fascinating. There is a certain section of the shrubs along the walking path that is covered in spider webs. And it's not just one kind of spider either. There are many different kinds in close proximity on one side of the path. So, the question becomes, "why?" I have a few hypotheses. Maybe the proximity to the stadium draws in a large number of bugs. However, I do not see such webs among other people magnets, so that seems a bit unlikely. It might have something to do with the shade, or the proximity to flowering plants, but an inability to find similar webs in similar situations on my walk back made that unlikely. In terms of why they were on one side, the answer seems to be that the spiders favored the slanted side, rather than the flat one. That makes sense, considering that a more vertical web would capture more bugs. I also noticed that there were come vertical webs in over hanging trees, and that those webs tended to have bigger spiders (I didn't look too long, those things still give me the willies). This--to me, at least--implies that these are preferred spots, so only the largest specimens may hold them. However, that does not change the fact that I did not notice the arachnids in other locations. My current hypothesis is that this particular area is rather protected from the recent rains we have had. Given a dryer environment, more webs will flourish elsewhere. As such, I will need to test my hypothesis later, when the weather has been dry for a few days.
Well, I have just sampled the Apple Cinnamon bread, and it is delicious. With that, it is time for dinner. This has been another adventure in the austentacious. If you liked it, tell your friends; if you hated it, tell your enemies; and if you didn't care either way, then tell everyone. Bon apetite.