life here

Thursday, June 29, 2006

Don't have much time-have to get ready for work. This is Hiroki's new summer do. He doesn't seem to mind it too much (even though he said he didn't want a haircut-he wanted to be able to put his hair back cause he likes people who put their hair back)

Saturday, June 24, 2006

sleeping

Well, another week of sleeping problems-just getting to sleep on little Mr. H's part. At least that's one good thing-there have been times of problems getting to sleep and staying asleep. And that's when I think he's trying to kill me...
So I got the no cry sleep solution for toddlers and preschoolers earlier this week (I love amazon!) I like alot of what I've read so far (not much yet) but I'm still having a problem with the whole timing thing. The author says that he should be getting 11 hours of sleep a night. He is so not, which apparently goes a long way in explaining his temper tantrums and other similar behaviours. But according to the author, I should be getting him ready for bed an hour before the 11 hours of sleep. So I wake him up at 6:30, that means that I have to have him sleeping at 7:30. That means that I have to start putting him to bed at 6:30. Hmmmm. Not home yet/just getting home @ 6:30. There's also the bedtime snack before bed-so by my calculations-he gets home at about 5:00ish, eats dinner, takes a bath, eats a bedtime snack, I come home, put him to bed... it's too busy, I think. But I'm goingwh to read the book and see what else I can do.
Last week was busy, and a bit disturbing. One of the other ALTs was telling us horror stories of the grade 8 students at his school. They are doing things like hitting/fighting with each other and teachers! and it seems like there's nothin the school can do about it, which they have figured out. I'm pretty sure that if stuff like this happened in Canada, the police would be called. And then at my school, one of the grade 7 students went missing for a day and her teachere was concerned because there was a high chance that she was with her 18 yr old boyfriend(!). The next time I saw her at school, she had bruises all over her arms. where her father had punched her (mom is out of the picture). Now I know that the police would be called in Canada for child abuse. I also think that child services here wouldn't do much about beating-they have a good history of giving kids back to the people who beat them. Sad.
More murders in the news lately-kids killing their parents. More reason not watch tv (not that I watch that much)
Should go 4 now. xxoo

Tuesday, June 13, 2006

whoa, shock

I know, 2 posts within days of each other. I'd like to be able to start doing this on a regular basis but not sure if I can. Hiroki is at daycare now and I'll be leaving soon to go and get him. This is my schedule for the week-yesterday I went to the big city of Shizuoka (takes about an hour and half by local train) and picked up my PR, or permanent resident visa. I'm happy, I'm sad....Of course I ended up waiting for quite a while but ended up getting it done all on my own (they don't speak English, Chinese, Portugese, Spanish, or Korean) so was happy about that. Also was happy to come back to school at 2:00pm, missing all of my classes and with only 3 hours left of the work day. hee hee.
Today I went to a kindergarten and taught about 60 5 year olds. It was cool. I mostly enjoyed it. I pretty much get the star treatment when I go to kindergarten. I play with the kids, teach them a few things, then the supervisors say,"Come and rest, you must be so tired!" Then I play again, and eat lunch with the kids. After that, we go outside to play. The kids all try to grab me and pull me around (the part I don't like) and after that, the supervisor has me sit and relax and gives me treats to eat and take home. I finish early, so today I feeling pretty satisfied-finished cooking my part for dinner, (MIL cooked some nimono, stuff boiled in fish stock, soy sauce and sugar-today's stuff is yummy stuff like shiitake and fried tofu and some bamboo shoots), done the washing up, and ready to go teach at 5:30.
Tomorrow some more visitors to watch a class. Thursday, elementary school. I think Friday might be a regular day for a change.
Gotta run to get HRH. Love to everyone.

Sunday, June 11, 2006

umm, ha ha, (shamefaced)

Well I am here. Not much time to use the computer lately. His royal highness is trying to kill me, I think. He's having sleeping problems and because of his not sleeping he is super cranky not to mention me! Then there's the whole sleep deprivation thing going on for me, too. He has been going to sleep really late at night, or going to sleep early-ish (meaning before 10:00) but waking up 2 or 3 times a night because of bad dreams? or something. Given that I finally fall asleep after 10, and wake up 2 or 3 times at night, get up at 5:00, I was a little out of it this week. So I did some research on the net (thankfully I have mostly free afternoons at work)about kids sleeping. I found a book on Amazon that I'm thinking about ordering about how to get kids to sleep with out crying and one more by the same author about how to get kids to do what you want them to without nagging or yelling etc. I'm interested in what she has to say. I'm not really into hitting for discipline and I would really like to know some other ways to 'manage' the little guy.(Although tonight I have to admit to giving him a little slap on his butt because the little bugger bit me while I was trying to get him into the bath-grrr!) When I read some of her advice, though, I liked what she had to say, but I don't know how possible it all is. Like she says that the optimal time to put kids to bed is between 6:00 and 7:30. I think that Hiroki is tired then, he is always lying down and playing around that time. (and extremely grumpy)Then it's like he wakes up and he's a happy boy again, but impossible to put to sleep. So I think that that probably is a good time frame for him BUT I don't even get hom from work until 6:30 on Mon & Tues, after 8:00 on Weds and home at 5:30 on Thurs and Fri but I go out to teach on Fri night until after 9:00. So I don't know about that. Especially since we have to eat and take a bath before he can go to bed. But I'm thinking of trying to move up his bedtime little by little. All I know is he is going to bed too late now!!
What else is going on here...I've been busy at school because of elementary school visits and kindergarten visits, which I like a lot, and people coming to watch classes which I don"t like but whatever.
And I'm reading a book (or skimming I guess) a book about food, named SuperFoods. There's a lot of food we need to eat every day in order to be healthy, holy crap! I eat school lunches when I'm at school because they are supposed to be nutritionally balanced, but some days I think they aren't really done well. I think there are some days when they need more vegetables. The worst part is that they all have to be high calorie because they are made for kids and they are all active and need to eat a lot. Then there's the milk , which I mostly don't drink, it's 3.6% fat. Most people in Japan drink this type of milk. My friend always says it's like drinking cream. The worst school lunch is agepan , which means fried bread. Yuck. Basically the bread is like doughnuts, only harder. We usually get 2 of these, along with something that doesn't suit it, (like stew or soup or stir fry) and always fruit cocktail with sweet grape jello and sweetened yogurt. The whole lunch makes me unhappy- my mouth usually hurts at the end of it. It would be a great snack, though.
Besides that, not much else. The news is full of people murdering children, some their own. One of the articles I read lately was about a couple in their 20s who left their 2 month old son in the car while they went to play pachinko , which I guess is equivalent to bingo in Canada. Assholes. They left him there for 5 hours and when one of them finally got off their ass to check on him, they found him dead from the heat. Poor little guy.
Anyway, it is getting late and I should probably sleep when I can!
xoxo to you all

Friday, May 19, 2006

Testing to see if this works this time...We went out for sushi, obviously it was fresh fish!!

Sunday, May 14, 2006

well hello there

Well, I still alive...just been very busy (and tired) lately. In honour of Mother's Day, HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY to all of the mothers reading this, mine in particular.
I have decided today that I'm going to try and say only positive stuff as I'm worried that I always end up ranting here. Hmmm, what can I talk about...?
I'm feeling more comfortable at work now. I'm still not completely comfortable at the new school, but I am feeling much better now. I can tell because when I went to the elementary for the second time, I was wishing that I was going to my regular school where I didn't feel so nervous.
I am really enjoying teaching with one of the teachers I work with. There's 4 of them; one is burned out, I think and doesn't have much energy for classes. He still calls me by the last ALT's name sometimes, it doesn't really bug me but the students notice and they all think it's funny. Another teacher is pretty stressed out, I think. She has taken a lot of time off lately and she's not doing too well. She's the one I worked with before and I thought she just didn't like working with females, but we were talking and she said that she just doesn't want to commuicate with anyone. Oooh, not good for a teacher. Another teacher is a lot of fun to teach with, he's young and energetic and talks to the kids as much as possible in English. The other teacher is very young, as in this is her first year teaching. She keeps asking ME what to do and what do I think.
So we sing English songs at the beginning of every English class. Unfortunately, it means that alot of songs that I wouldn't choose end up getting stuck in my head. This month's songs are Hello Goodbye, by the Beatles for grade 7 and the handicapped class; YMCA by the Village People for the grade 8s, and the grade 9s are singing Karma Chameleonby, yes, the Culture Club. The Beatles I can handle. YMCA is, um, challenging. I can't believe the words to it-something along the lines of telling a "young man" to go to the Y cause he can have lots of fun hanging out with the guys. Uh, yeah. I don't think the students know the background of the band. :P
THe Culture Club is another song that doesn't make sense to me- as in what could it possibly mean-loving would be easy if your colours were like my dream- red, gold, and green Huh?
Anyway, I was quite pleased with myself this weekend. I got my Feb issue of Canadian Living in the mail not too long ago, and of course it had chocolate recipes in it for Valentine's Day. I looked at a Brownie recipe and thought I would make it, bought chocolate for it. When time came to make it, I really looked at the recipe and thought, Shit! I can't make this! There was 1 cup of butter in it and 2 cups of sugar in it!! So I looked around and found a different recipe that might be a low fat type of recipe for Brownies, it has no butter (oil instead) and less sugar (plus I cut back on the sugar anyway, I pretty much always do) and they are GOOD! They remind me of the President's Choice Bite Brownie that I discovered in Canada in my last year there. Yay! I was really enjoying them. (addicted)this so long next time.
Well, I should probably go to bed. I'll try not to leave this so long next time!

Friday, April 28, 2006

what can I say

Well it's ben a while since I've posted (again). The new school has me worn out. I'm teaching way more at this school than I was at the last one.
I have been to my 2 new elementary schools, too. I have introduced myself so many times it's ridiculous. I should change that-introducing myself is not what gets to me, it's the innane questions that follow it. Not just from the students. Usually the worst offenders are the teachers. They just want to know everything about me because I'm a foreigner, not because they are interested in me. And one lovely teacher decided to put me in a seat in front of everyone while we ate lunch so that all of the students could ask me questions. Here are some of the questions I got last week (from elementary students) How much do you weigh? Yah, like I'd ever answer that, shithead. Do you wear contacts? Me -??? What's your husband's name? Here's where I started to get pissy. First, do the students need to know my husband's name? No. Do they know any of the other teachers' spouses' names? I seriously doubt it. So why does their teacher think that it's okay to have them ask whatever they want?! She didn't ask me if it was okay to ask questions-she just told me. And I'm all for answering questions about my country and culture and the differences, but everyone feels like it's a freee for all to find out everything there is to know about me.
Questions from my junior high school students (who have to ask in English):
How old are you and I politely explain that in Canada that is a rude question and students most definately do NOT ask their teachers that.
What sports do you like? OMG, so many students asked me that question!
Do you have a boyfriend? i smiled innocently and said, "No." (Why do I have a Japanese surname kids???) Then the best one, baby?

Then last week, one of the teachers at the junior high school said, "Oh, can you eat rice?" Uh, WTF? Do you think that Japan is the only country in the world that eats rice. What kind of drugs are you on?!! And then today she asks me," So which of your parents is Japanese, your mother or father?" To which I replied, "Hunh?" to see if she had actually said that. Yup, she did. I explained that I got the name from my husband and she expressed surprise that I as married (even though I had told her that before!)
So what I want to know is, if she thinks I'm half Japanese, why does she ask me stupid things like DO YOU EAT RICE?!
Ok I seem to be ranting again and that was totally not my intention (this time). Seeing as I have to be up for work in less than five hours I had better get myself off to bed. Good night!

Saturday, April 15, 2006

Negative feelings so far

I'm talking about the new school I'm at. Last week we had an assembly for something-I'm not exactly sure, but I think it was to introduce the new grade 7 students to life in Junior high (they no longer have the same teacher every day, they are learning new subjects like English etc). Before the assembly started all of the grade 8 and 9 students were in the gym, waiting for the grade 7s to come in. All of the kids were sitting on the floor, which is usual (gym floor is clean, only gym shoes worn in the gym) All of the kids HAVE to sit in a special way -(taikuzuwari taiku-gym zuwari/suwari-sitting) -legs together, feet on the floor, knees bent. While they were waiting, all of their kids had their heads down. I've never seen this before, so I ask the English teacher why. "Oh," he says, "they are meditating." I'm thinking, ummm, okaaay? Maybe he's joking? But I looked it up in the dictionary and sure enough, they were meditating! WTF is a 13 year old kid going to meditate about. I appreciate that with over 500 students in the same place, there has to be a way to keep them quiet, but I felt like this was a little too much. Some of the teachers were walking around, checking that the kids had their heads down, even if they were just sitting there quietly. Anyway.
Then there's this female teacher who is famous for hating foreigners. Not sure why she hates us, we're not Japanese or something like that. I had to use the uh, facilities and she was already in there. She looks at me and doesn't say anything. (Usual with her.) Then she walks out and turns off the light, stupid cow. I was furious but I decided to just leave it be as I'm so not a stupid game-playing type of person. I just hope that she doesn't pass her attitude on to the kids. I'm Japanese, this is Japan, I don't need English, you should speak Japanese. I have heard this attitude from students and even teachers!
Oh well, on a more positive note there are a couple of teachers that try and speak English to me (other than the English teachers). This is a first.
It's also waaay busier than my last school-lots more classes for me to go to (haven't decided if that's good or bad yet!)
Have a good weekend, I'm going to visit my friend in Tokyo. Looking forward to it, too.

Sunday, April 09, 2006

spring vacation recap in pix

Well, I don't have much to say for now as I'm still sussing out the new school. Can't really say what it's going to be like yet, haven't taught any classes or been around the kids much yet so who knows. So instead of words here are pix of some of the things I did for spring vacation.