Golden Week

This is a little late, but I figured I could summarize what I was doing last week. May 3-5 were holidays in Japan, known as Golden Week. It's not a full week, cause work started again on the 6th, but most JETs take off Thursday and Friday to get a nice long vacation. Since all my money is going towards bike lessons and getting a new car, I didn't go anywhere, but that doesn't mean I didn't do anything.

Will, my friend from UF who is studying in Tokyo for a year, came to visit me for three nights. Because Okinawa is awesome, lots of Japanese tourists come to Okinawa during that time. The beaches get filled up with tents and the roads get crowded, so for us 'locals', we have to just ride the wave until everyone leaves. Will, thankfully, didn't really want to do anything. He was content just hanging out in the north away from all the crowds. When I went to pick him up in Naha, we stopped at Shuri Castle and Okinawa World (yes, Okinawa World), but the rest of the trip was in the north.

On Sunday, we went over to my friend Rick's place and bar-b-qued sausages and lounged around (drank) for most of the day. 

On Monday, we took the 58 up to Cape Hedo, came down again along the east side of Okinawa to avoid the traffic in Nago, went to Motobu to see the aquarium, then past through Nakajin to avoid the Nago traffic again. When we got back to my place, it was almost dark, but we had driven completely around the perimeter that is the Yanbaru. That night, a few more friends came over and to play Street Fighter 2. 

On Tuesday, I took Will to the airport and then met up with my Japanese teacher and her niece to go see the Ryukyu Kings playoff game. She is a 'Gold Member', which is something pretty cool I guess, cause it got us awesome seats on the ground floor and we were let into the building about 30 minutes before everyone else (it was really hot that day). As I was walking into the building, I passed one of my principals who was sitting on the sidewalk (I later found out for 2 hours) in the 'General Section' line. The opponent was Rizing Fukuoka, so I was cheering extra hard for us to win. 

And win they did, so now they are off to Tokyo for a Final 4 equivalent. The niece also gets into all the after parties where the basketball players and, more importantly, the dancers sometimes show up.

On Wednesday, I went canoeing around Shioya Bay with one of my student's family. I put on sun screen, but my shorts road up, and I had a bad sun burn on my knees for a couple of days.

All in all, nothing too exciting, but that's the point of a holiday, I guess.

But if you want to know what is exciting (and a bit scary), check this out:

http://www.maryjanes-rockbar.com/band

Field Trip

I went on a field trip last Friday to a local park with the kindergartners. It was the day before Golden Week, and all the elementary schools went on a trip, too. The lady who runs the kindergarten (who loves me) asked where Kijoka was going for their trip. Kijoka is my Friday school and I said they hadn't mentioned anything to me. She asked where they went last year and I said I don't know cause I didn't go anywhere. This led to the realization that I most likely spent the day at my desk while everyone else had been out. So she made a few calls and arranged for me to come along with them instead.

I spent the day chaperoning (playing) with the kids, eating lunch, and taking pictures. Enjoy!

Pictures!

I've loaded up some pictures from my whale watching trip, graduation, and the race. Clicking on any of the pictures will take you to my Flickr page.

I've just discovered that a free Flickr account limits you to 200 pictures. Does anyone know of another photo site that will display an unlimited amount and still free?

Shioya Marathon

Japan has borrowed lots of English words, some (most?) of which are given a slight change of meaning. One of these words is 'marathon', which just means race. So when I say I ran the Shioya marathon to someone here in Japan, they might say, "Which one? The 5k?".

I was signed up for the 9.5k. The race use to be a full 10k, but due to some road construction a long time ago, the roads were changed and thus the course shortened to 9.5k. The point isn't so much running 10k, but more that the course circles Shioya Bay. I woke up early, ate some fruit and was very pumped. I started running as a kind of mental therapy, but now I run because it just makes me feel awesome. Shioya is just up the road from me, so most of my students would be there and I was really looking forward to them cheering me one while feeling awesome. That's a double dose of awesomeness.

At the Nago Marathon, I started off strong, but had a horrible finish. I'm still a beginner, and my weak point right now is I cramp up. My mind and muscles keep pushing me, but I end up having to walk due to side cramps. My goal for Shioya was to take the first half easy and end strong. However, I had one thing working against me: the previous night's drinking.

I was convinced to have a beer (a tall one) after my English class the night before, and one led to three (three tall ones). The next morning, I felt fine. But once the race started, I probably ran not 5 minutes before I got a side cramp. This was bad because it doesn't hit me for at least 40 minutes usually and once it hits, it doesn't seem to go away. So I started to face a possibility that I would walk 10k. What also sucked was that I was still in the middle of town and a lot of people I knew were watching me. So I got to enjoy the feeling of walking past my students not even 5 minutes into the race.

I walked the first 4k of the race, trying to run a bit here and there, but getting stopped by my cramp. Then when I reached the '6k to go' sign, I stopped at the break table, drank some water, and tried running again. I felt the cramp disappear and remember thinking I had less than 30 minutes if I wanted to finish the race under an hour. I took off and started passing all the old people who had passed me in the beginning. By the '2k to go' sign, I was in a full run, and the last kilometer I practically sprinted.

My time: 1 hr 4 min.

This was a 9.5k race, though. I ran the Nago 10k in 1 hr 2 min, so I did not improve, but I was really proud of my finish. Especially when I was going at a full run and all my kids were like "Yeaa!!! Cliff-sensei!!!!" (Later, when I told them my time, they changed their attitude to "Pfft. Slow.")

Again, I was left with the feeling of, 'how fast can I actually run 10k if I don't cramp?' I will have to wait for the fall when racing season starts up again to find out.

New English

The new school year started last week, with the big change being that 5th and 6th grade now have mandatory English class. That means the kids have textbooks and workbooks and a curriculum that I am suppose to follow. Actually, I think Japan is going to make it mandatory in a few years, and select areas (that include Ogimi) are acting as trial schools for the textbooks and curriculum right now. Before this, I believe it was up to each school board to decide whether or not they want to send an English teacher to an elementary school or not.

Ogimi already had me teaching 5th and 6th graders every week, so it's not much of a change. Most of the stuff in the new textbooks is stuff the kids already know, so I am pretty much keeping my own curriculum this year with only a few changes. Another difference this year is that the Japanese homeroom teacher is suppose to act as the teacher with me, the ALT, acting as an assistant. Again, the teachers have pretty much told me I can do what I want, but since the kids now have a workbook to complete with activities, the homeroom teacher will be useful in explaining the directions.

I don't mind the new textbook material that much. Most of the English in it is standard, with a few odd phrases here and there that I'm not going to teach ('Do you have an orange cap?').

What is going to be a challenge at first, I think, is getting the kids to do the activities in their new workbooks. They're not bad, they're just too easy and they take up my class time when I can be teaching other stuff. Also, I can't assign it as homework as you need a CD to do the activities. But I guess that's why we're a test school, to tell them what doesn't work.

Also this year, I'm starting an English Club at Ogimi Elementary. It'll be offered to grades 4 and up and they will have homework (Anki reps). So it's only for the kids who want to study English more. At the end of the school year, they'll take Eiken Level 5, which is the English test for Japanese people. If the club goes well at this school, I'll give it a try at the other schools next year. I would say each school has about 2-3 kids who would be into doing the club, and that's all I need.

Putting My Degree To Use

Today, one of the assistant teachers showed me a DVD he had made for the graduated 6th graders. The movie was just a slide show of photos, with music and special effects transitions.

I gave it a glance, said it was nice...and then he said he spent 6 hours on it. (At a Japanese pace, mind you. It would have taken a lesser man 12.)

"You did what?!"

The following is for media nerds only:

He had asked me before what I used for movie editing, and I said Final Cut. Editing video and audio files within Final Cut is cake, but when it comes to adding a picture, you have to stretch out the file to the amount of time you want it to be on the screen, and then add the transition effect and music afterwords by hand.

Yes you can make a slide show with Final Cut, but why would you want to? He did, and it took him 6 hours to add over a hundred photos.

I said, "Yuji, software is suppose to make things easier. If it's taking a long time, you're doing it wrong."

I then showed him how to make the same slide show movie using iPhoto.

Total time, including rendering: 5 minutes.

Poor guy.

The Bike

Haven't really updated in awhile because, nothing much has been going on. Actually, that's a lie.

There have been lots of school events such as graduations and teacher good-bye parties. Also, tomorrow is the Ogimi Quartet's (name pending) first gig. The group consists of me on piano, a guy on soprano sax, another on guitar, and an older man playing some Chinese-stringed-thing (no, that's not the instrument's name).

But that is not the purpose of this blog post.

This morning, I attended an orientation for...motorcycle lessons.

Any kind of driving school is ridiculously expensive here in Japan. To drive a car, I've been told, costs around $2000-$3000 for the school.

For bike school, it's $900. Since I know nothing at all on how to ride a bike, and given the dangers involved, I want to know everything I can. I think it'll be well worth it.

I have my first two lessons (hours) this Sunday afternoon. The total course is around 18 hours, I believe. Can't wait.