Mr. ALT, *this* is your life.

It's been a while again, but this time I'm really gonna protest against being called lazy... I've genuinely been wanting to get into 'cyberspace', 'the blogosphere', 'the cloud'... whatever people are calling wherever this action (typing something that will eventually be made available on the Internet) places me... for a while now. I just haven't had much of anything to write about, and seeing as I'm not one of those people who likes linking news stories or youtube content and adding commentary (Because frankly, I just don't feel comfortable espousing a solution to the subprime mortgage crisis or the Iraq/Afghanistan conflict) it's left me somewhat short of content.

So... I figured I'd give you all (uhhh... all *what*? 5 of you?) a 'day in the life' type summary of what it's like to be me; the life of the quintessential ALT.

6:50AM- Wake up to J-Pop themed phone alarm, stumble blearily from luft-bed trying to avoid ankle sprains or other injury on the stairs. Open the curtains and curse loudly if it is raining again.

7:15AM- Post shower, shave and smacking head on bathroom door consume breakfast; possibly one or a combination of the following: bananas, toast made in the microwave, last nights sushi (retrieved from fridge), yogurt (or yogurt/jelly substance of unknown origin), orange juice, milk, anime-themed cereal.

7:30AM- Leave apartment, consider riding bike if dry otherwise resolutely pop umbrella and trek bravely into monsoonal conditions.

8:00- Arrive at Noko. Smile broadly and yell a combination of 'Ohayo Gazimasu!' and 'Good Morning!' at arriving staff and students to reaffirm 'happy/crazy foreigner' rep. Switch out outside shoes for indoor shoes in staff lobby.

The gates of Noko. The giant clock that greets latecomers with an analog representation of their failure in punctuality is a nice touch.

8:03- Arrive in staff room, continue to say 'Ohayo Gazimasu' constantly to fellow staff while weaving towards desk. Sign up for bento (lunch) on the sign up sheet, dig in wallet for business card when failing to remember how to write your name in katakana (AGAIN).

8:30- Morning staff meeting; stand, bow, sit. Listen to the Vice Principal and various other staff members make announcements and report news, nod attentively and pretend to at least partially understand, clap when appropriate.

8:40- Homeroom. You have no homeroom. Pour a cup of percolator coffee and drink slowly while reexamining the schedule you have memorised. Choose between making flashcards for Japanese study later in the day, reviewing flashcards you already made or reading a few more pages of 'Lonely Planet's guide to Hiking in Japan'.

9:00- First Period. Think about what classes you have tomorrow. Plan, make, and print necessary materials after discussion with the Japanese teacher in question. Alternatively, use the same activity you did yesterday/last week, print the necessary materials and debate with the geography teacher over which Michael Crichton novel is best.

10:00- Second Period. Go to class, nurse somewhat tender hand after high fiving every second student you cross paths with on the way. Greet class, and ask a random person 'how are you?' Appeal to Japanese teacher to explain why the answer 'rain' is not appropriate. Make class repeat key phrases and do a carefully planned activity. Try to keep a straight face when random students (boys and girls) respond with 'I love you!' to questions they don't understand.

11:00- Third Period. Return to the staff room, spend a few minutes studying/practicing Japanese, then make some tea and sit down with the newspaper and get up to date on all the ways the world is going to hell. Silently wonder if you are the only person on the planet who has never actually heard what Sarah Palin's voice sounds like.

12:00- Forth Period. Finish the newspaper cover to cover (even the Sumo news). Return to your desk and practice some more Japanese. When stomach noise becomes audible cave in to temptation and sit down with your bento box. Have fun guessing the identity of the various meat, fruits and vegetables you are eating, and indeed which are which. Briefly feel morally superior to your colleagues due to your use of non-disposable chopsticks, lose the feeling when you realise that you've been given disposables again and they're gonna get tossed anyway.

1:00- Lunchtime. Pour another cup of tea and sit down with staff, attempt to practice your Japanese by joining conversations about which students are most delinquent and whose mother-in-law the most intolerable. Tell the staff about your past and plans for the weekend. Field basic questions about the Western world as a whole.

2:00-Fifth Period. Teach again, assemble materials and go to class, 'help' the Japanese teacher by translating their readily understood Japanese instructions (open your books, stand up etc) into English that the students don't understand. Practice pronunciation and try to make students say 'clothes' instead of 'clothezez'. Have an activity, explain it, have the Japanese teacher explain it, model it and then heap praise on the 25% of students that perform it successfully, more praise on the 60% that try and fail and attempt to look disappointed at the 15% that use the worksheet as a fan as they talk to their friends.

3:00- Sixth Period. Go to locker room and change into PE gear. Go to gymnasium and join in whatever class happens to be in session. Watch kids giggle as you routinely fail to get the ball in the basket or whatever. Use your height to unfair advantage as much as possible and celebrate victory in a completely overblown fashion.

3:50- Cleaning time. Go out and supervise kids while they clean the school. Practice your Japanese by mocking them incessantly for failing to actually do any cleaning. Have basic conversations and teach kids ridiculous handshakes. Fend off girls attempting to solicit your phone number and/or organise coffee dates.

4:10- Seventh (extra) Period. Return to staff room and fill out daily work report. Clean up your desk and think about what you need to do when you get home. Make lists as necessary.

4:30- Say goodbye to colleagues and leave. Walk out yelling goodbye and waving to students as you do so. When clear of the school gates strategically loosen tie and tune into mp3 player.

5:10- Arrive back at apartment. Change into civilian clothes, fire up computer and munch a few cookies to revive flagging blood sugar levels. Sign into facebook, g-mail and blogspot and hammer out wordage as appropriate. Try to ignore the implications of cyber-dependence and thank god again that you don't have a World of Warcraft account to worry about.

6:00- Domestic time- washing, cleaning, ironing, tidying. Turn up the music and attempt to find satisfaction in sanitising your domestic realm. Fail again.

7:00- Shopping. Wander over to AEON, head straight to the sushi section and grab whatever's left now that it's late enough for it to all be half price. Do the same with the milk and whatever desert will hit its use by date in 2 days. Feel awesome about rorting 'the system'. Briefly feel morally superior about using eco-bags, but then lose the feeling when you see that every cookie in the bag is individually wrapped. If you encounter students pretend it is the most exciting thing that happened to you in months. Dodge hugs from schoolgirls by high-fiving when they approach with open arms.

7:30- Return to apartment. Make an enlightened choice between watching TV, DVDs or something on the Internet or perhaps even reading or playing a computer game. Eat and drink as you partake in such activity, try your hand at multitasking by managing more than one recreational activity at a time. Text-messaging, eating, watching TV and saving the planet from space aliens simultaneously will surely be a marketable skill someday.

More of the Shinkansen girl, here in her Autumn getup. I'm still waiting for a Pachinko machine to be made out of this ad series.

10:30- Get into bed and possibly read something deep and mentally nourishing... or whatever you can get your hands on that happens to be in English. It may end up being a bilingual pamphlet about trafficking in human sex-slaves.

And that's about it! Wash, rinse and repeat! Maybe next time I'll write something about the 'average' weekend. Right now though I'm off schedule; and those DVDs don't watch themselves ya know...

Ciao for niao!

Noko is Loco.

I've officially survived a whole week as a high school teacher. Everybody may now cheer.

You know what? It wasn't even hard. In fact I'd go as far as to say it was really, really easy. I walked in expecting to have, well, classes; it turns out that as I'm at the 'sports-centered' Nogata high school and the annual sports festival is approaching, practically all the class time has given way to athletic and performance practice sessions; this means the (quite large) quotient of P.E. teachers are relatively busy, but the 'geeks': those of us who teach things like history, maths, Japanese, English and the like are essentially working in a practical vat of free time.

So this week I've made a few speeches, taken a tour of the school, chatted a lot with the staff, studied some Japanese, eaten some lunches, drunk some coffee and generally tried to act like any conscientious educator would in my situation.

Nogata high school, more often known as 'Noko'. The main building was obviously designed by a person with a fondness for concrete, rectangles and communism.

The staff have all been really nice, friendly and helpful; and they all do their best to meet my broken Japanese with English responses. I've got some big shoes to fill; my predecessor Taea (a charming young Hawaiian woman) came to visit the school for a few days before she said goodbye; she helped me out a lot with advice, and everyone will miss her muchly I'm sure- still, just another reason to swing by and visit Hawaii right?

The kids are all really cool too- some are shy and stammer when they try to speak to me, others are so enthusiastic that they just grab and start speaking Japanese, again I feel like a rock-star; there's nothing like having a gaggle of cheerleaders begging you to dance with them to boost a guys self-esteem. One first year student made my day when she found out that I knew who Haruhi Suzumiya is and then proceeded to organise her friends to perform the dance from the shows title.

Inside a classroom (class 2-3 to be exact). I hardly ever get to be in one of these so it's quite special. Also, the kids haven't dissolved, they've just changed into sportswear and left behind a giant cache of hello-kitty accessories.

So really so far my job involves wandering the halls of a high school and making small talk with students and staff, occasionally observing and occasionally participating in sports, VERY occasionally preparing some materials and ASSISTING in teaching an English class and generally bringing my Shaunitude to the institute as a whole. Far be it from me to complain about Japanese tax dollars subsidising what often feels to me like life in a slightly surreal sports club.

Most wacky/fun things about the job so far:

a) I am the shoe king!: I own and use no less than 4 pairs of shoes while on the job; 'outside' shoes, 'inside' shoes, 'gym' shoes and 'track' shoes (and that's not counting school provided bathroom slippers). I am now proficient in changing footwear in under 8 seconds.

b) Student servitude: there is no janitor, students clean the school in the 15 minute 'cleaning' block at the end of the day while teachers 'supervise'; they even come into the staff room and empty our wastepaper baskets and sweep the floor... never has being slovenly been easier!

c) Coordination central: 'Sports day' over here isn't just about running, jumping and spraying your hair a funny colour: it's about high-grade crowd synchronisation. Everything from student marches to cheerleading to massed displays using coloured boards is controlled with loud communal yelling, taiko drums and megaphones. Sometimes it feels suspiciously like the Nuremberg rally (then the cheer squad plays a Spice Girls song and the illusion is shattered).

Anyway; as always, I'm having fun, being silly and am not dead. Mission accomplished I say.

Stay busy people of the world,

Shaun.

A Week of Gold.

Golden week! Golden week! We love Golden week!

It’s the first day of Golden week vacation today, and as you can likely tell; I’m fairly excited because I don’t have to go into work ever again… or at least for a whole week.

My first week of being a ‘real’ teacher has just flown by…’busy’ would be an understatement; there’s always something to do at the office and the schedule can get fairly hectic at times. Lesson planning has become a five minute matter rather than a half hour project but teaching back to back lessons for five or six hours is pretty draining. The students are always fun though, and it’s great being able to actually feel like you’re helping someone with something they care about. The best part is probably answering questions (‘which is a worse insult, pig or dog?’) and being able to teach stuff that’s tangential to the curriculum (yesterday I explained about fraternities, sonorities and ‘keggers’ to a student who's planning a stay in an American university).

The biggest challenge is probably the kids classes; while adults are well-behaved, with kids it's often quite difficult to make them do the activities as planned. I have a newfound respect for early childhood educators everywhere. So far the teaching points have been making it across, but I still never quite feel in control in the classroom, it’s more like I’m a lion-tamer than a teacher or something. I’m hoping it’s just a matter or practice, otherwise I’m heading to aneurysm-land.

Last night me, Saori and Hiroki celebrated by going out to an isakaia for some food and drinks; lotsa fun! Chihiro's running off to a hot spring for a week (a plan which I am exceedingly jealous of) and everyone else has plans to visit their families (Golden week seems to be kind of a Thanksgiving equivalent over here) so I'm gonna take the opportunity to explore a bit.

I'm not really alone though; I got a knock on the door last week from Gela and Hannah, two foreign teachers who also work in the neighbourhood, although I answered the door in my boxers (I had some misguided idea about an 'early night' or somesuch) they still agreed to take me out and show me the sights ('sights' in this case means 'bars'). We went down to the local watering hole called 'Playmates’ and began a fairly epic night out that ended sometime around 3.30 in the morning and spanned another 3 bars and a karaoke parlour. Both of them are a great source of advice about teaching and life in Japan and it was nice to take a bit of a tour of the town. Hannah lives right above me in my building too, so it’s good to know there’s a friendly face nearby, and her English accent is very charming.

Want to try something different? Some Japanese bars have this stuff, which we affectionately call 'Snake Juice'.

And this is me, Hannah and Gela indulging in aforementioned snake-infused liquor. Why are we smiling? Even I don't know.

I’ve still got to get some plans together for the holiday, lest I fall into a deathly abyss of sitting in my flat watching MTV and eating dry pasta for a week and a half straight. I’m still slightly crippled in the organization department by my lack of internet or cellular phone access, but I’m gonna try and catch up with Cristi and Lauren anyway… after all, how hard can it be? I’m GTS (Great Teacher Shaun) after all!

Golden week means celebrations, and no town celebrates like Sasebo! Because Sasebo celebrates with a giant inflatable hamster.

Ummm ok, I’m gonna go, I need to fold up my futon and vaccum. Grand plans indeed.

(GT) Shaun.

Practice makes perfect...

Training, training, training; I’m pretty much into the rhythm of things now, the city streets are becoming familiar and I’m into the swing of how things work, getting intermittently stared at by strangers is still a little disconcerting, but even that is starting to feel like just a ‘part of life’, it’s not menacing after all, just curiosity. Being an ethnic minority is still kinda novel and fun, I can see how it could get on your nerves after a while though.

Practice lessons are running smoothly now to the extent that I was comfy today ‘mixing it up’ by teaching the students how to say “he’s a bit of a prat” in my class on ‘describing people’. The students are really fun to work with, they’re enthusiastic and just soak up whatever you give them to learn. It’s great to just chat with them in the lobby and hear them open up about their lives. The classes are really diverse too; two days ago I had a club DJ and yesterday a civil servant.

Mostly life for us is still divided between training, food shopping and sleeping, but on Thursday we managed to get out and hit a bar with Kelly (the teacher who Lauren is replacing) she had a lot of great advice about the job, the company and the country so that was excellent. I continue to be amazed / appalled by the price of alcohol, I asked for a scotch on the rocks and the barman poured a third of the bottle into my glass and charged me 500 yen (about $5) schooners of beer cost 100 yen, how this country maintains any order on weekends is a serious mystery.

This one's for my dad, it's a Fukuoka telegraph pole; it looks messy to me, but maybe it's a work of engineering genius... it doesn't look very earthquake-safe though, right?

Other wackiness includes:

- Being ‘forced’ into having my photo taken with a child and someone dressed as sonic the hedgehog. Why the childs mother wanted me in the photo is beyond me.

- Having to explain what a ‘caravel’ was to a businessman in-between classes, it turns out he reads history textbooks in English as a hobby. Hmmm… strange, but at least it's a hobby that doesn’t involve schoolgirls I suppose.

- Meeting Yorn, the drunk Swedish student who wanted to know ‘where the cool parties where’… I didn’t know, but by the looks of him he’d already been to a few ‘cool parties’ that night.

- Going down a side street and seeing a group of Japanese kids dressed in full-on ‘streetwear’ (like puff-jackets, backwards baseball caps and insanely baggy jeans) having what I can only assume was a ‘rap battle’ while their friends breakdanced in the street.

Today was a half day so I got to wander, I window shopped for a while then went down to the Fukuoka museum of Asian Art in the afternoon… it was about 80% Indian works, with the rest from Thailand (I guess the other nations of Asia will have to wait for representation) but very interesting. Bollywood posters are great!

Tomorrow we all have the day off, so we’re going to meet in the morning and try to plan another excursion. So much to do… no time to sleep.

Much Fukulove,

Shaun.

New job, new country, new shoes, new blog.

Hi everybody! Welcome to Kanji For Beginners; the new and upgraded home for my autobiographical exploits. (Livejournal is soooo 2001 don'tcha think?).

The main reason I created this site is to provide my friends and family with salient information on my upcoming adventure/quest/job teaching English in Japan. I accepted a position with the AEON corporation today, and after I finish the mountain of paperwork that work-related travel involves I'm due to jet off to Sasebo on April 5th to begin my illustrious career as 'Shaun-sensei' (or possibly 'koala-sensei' if 'Shaun' proves to be too hard on the local memory/palate). Of course if you wandered in randomly from some corner of the net then welcome too! Read, laugh comment... 'cause what's the fun of being severely out of your depth if there's no-one to share it with?