Reflections at the End of the First Semester of Teaching

It is two o’clock on a Tuesday afternoon and I am sitting at Starbucks with a massive iced coffee working on my blog and that can only mean one of a couple things, but for today, it means… summer vacation time! Whoot! It is also the end of July which means in a little less than two weeks’ time I will have been in Japan for nine months. Nine months! I cannot believe it. It still feels like I arrived yesterday.

Nine months is a reflection in and of itself, but I shall hold off for that crazy post until my official one year anniversary in Japan. Today however, I would like to talk about my first official three months of teaching. I feel funny talking about that now, since just two months have passed since my first post introducing you to Kyushu Gakuin, but it has been the end of my first semester and I survived, so that means reflection on HOW exactly I survived. Often a bit of a mystery.

First of all, just like I wrote two months ago, I love Kyushu Gakuin. The people here, from students, to fellow teachers, to administrators, are absolutely amazing. I love the feeling of being in a family like KyuGaku. It has its downsides of course (what family doesn’t?), but I do love it so very much.

One of the funniest and frustrating bits is that I am treated so well that it often makes me want to scream and laugh simultaneously. Me: “Can I help grade tests?” “Do you need me to make a worksheet?” “Shall I talk to so-and-so about that?” Other teachers (more often than not): “No, no it’s fine. I can do that.” “Only if you have time. Do not exert yourself.” “Oh, no, just rest. Here’s some ice cream. It’s hot.” The last is one of the teachers I work with and he is wonderful. He gives me lots of ice cream.

Honestly, the reason behind the above is that I truly have a load of classes. Seventeen classes in one week is no joke. Also, since I am only in each class once a week, while my partner teacher has that same class four times a week, I am often more of an ALT, or an Assistant Language Teacher, than an actual co-teacher. It’s just practical that they make the lesson plans and do the grading, because otherwise it would be chaos. It is far easier for them to fit me into their plans than to have me plan.

So my days are often, run-run-run, then sit and twiddle my thumbs for fifty minutes, then run-run-run some more. During my off hours I try to stay busy with the following:

·         Reading the newspaper; they get the Japan Times in English just for us foreign teachers! I’m a lucky girl.

·         Practicing Japanese; this is fun because I am surrounded by Japanese teachers who enjoy helping me, though sometimes what I learn from them conflicts with what I learn in class.

·         Blogging and journaling

·         Writing chapel speeches

·         Googling how to be a better ALT

Of course I NEVER use school hours to go on Facebook… or Pinterest…

The system can get me down if I let it, and I struggled with my first three and a half months. I have devoted my summer to discovering how I can make the best of this situation. The tricky thing is, if even one teacher changes the system and asks me to do more planning and grading, I’ll be in over my head. Also tricky, is that most of my plans for rectifying the situation so far involve things that would have to be after school. Doing more at church for example, or setting up language exchange partners. This doesn’t help my off class hours. I hate the feeling of sitting there while everyone else is frantically working, but so far I haven’t been able to do much about that.

The upside of all of this lies with the students. It is sad that they only have a native speaker in their English classes once a week, but, as a missionary, it works out well, as far as my interactions with students. They see me more as a random person who comes in to play games in English once a week than an actual teacher. I am still something of a novelty to them, and my popularity outside of class is high, or so it would seem. This is rather entertaining. I’m in their classroom for fifty minutes and they are sleeping or talking to friends. I step into the hall and suddenly it’s all “CAROLINE-SENSEI!! Let’s talk English!” To which outwardly I reply, “Hello! How are you?” and on the inside I’m thinking, “You just had me for fifty minutes speaking English to you and you SLEPT through it!” But I suppose having the foreigner tell you that yes, she does like One Direction, and yes it is true that she likes Korean dramas just like you, and no, she doesn’t have a boyfriend, is far more entertaining than conjunctions and prepositional phrases.

Speaking of the students, I run into them everywhere. It makes me very cautious about what I do in public. They always see me before I see them and it is even worse now that it is break because they are out of uniform. I wave and greet them when they are looking, or if they greet me first, but sometimes they are embarrassed to be greeted by a teacher so then I leave them alone. They have seen me out running on numerous occasions and like to announce that to the rest of the class the next time I am there. Apparently, seeing your English teacher out for a run is headline news. I sometimes feel like I need my own newspaper; “Caroline-sensei seen buying bananas!” “Caroline-sensei drinking coffee!” “Caroline-sensei running!” They are totally sweet about it though, and I’m impressed by what seems a good deal like courage, for them to come tell me they saw me as such and such place, because of course they say it in English. This is usually the girls, the boys (with the exception of my first years) couldn’t care less.

I have had a couple of evangelism moments in school, but not many. They language barrier tends to hinder that a bit. I had a very interesting talk with a few of my girls a couple of weeks ago. They asked about a ring that I wear every day that has the alpha and omega symbols with the fish in the middle. They wanted to know what it meant. I certainly don’t have the language to explain concept in Japanese and they don’t have the language to understand it fully in English. I told them that the alpha symbol meant the strongest and the best and the omega symbol meant the weakest. So far so good, that they understood, but I wanted them to understand what it really meant. So I told them that God loves the best and the strongest and he also loves the weakest. They understood that too, and then they asked what about me. I think what they were actually asking was if I was a strong or a weak Christian, so I told them I was both and then they got confused. The conversation started to get out of control so I stopped trying to explain and stopped trying to answer questions that I didn’t fully understand, and said that the point of the ring was really quite simple. My ring reminded me that God loves everyone. Everyone? They asked. Everyone, I said. They “oohhed” and I was rather proud of myself, thinking I had done a good job, until they then pointed to my self-pedicure and said they liked that too and I had to laugh. They are young women, who saw shiny jewelry that they liked and, in response, I spoke to them with too much English and confused them instead of the requisite, “Thank you! I like your bag. It is so cute!” But maybe, just maybe, they understood what I was trying to say, and maybe, just maybe, I made an impression.

I am always impressed with how intelligent some of my students are and how hard they try at English. I coached my first students for a regional English recitation contest. My first year students (there were three of them) scored first, second, and third in their category! I was so happy! They worked so hard on those recitations. My second year student had to do a modernized version of the balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet. It was a very difficult piece for her, and we practiced for an hour every night after school. I thought, as coaches do, that she was the best of the second years, though she didn’t score. I was so proud of all of them! I can’t wait for the fall contest; they have to write their own speeches!

For their final, my second year students had to give a speech in English about their plans for summer vacation. They got extra points for being creative and adding their own sentences (we gave them an outline and basically they just had to fill in the blanks and then memorize it). Some of them were brilliant and I think they enjoyed writing the speeches, though they were very unhappy about having to actually give the speeches in front of the class. I loved listening to them. All of the karate girls were brilliant and had some really funny and really thoughtful speeches. I think they worked on them together at practice. Then there was one boy, a rugby player, and he walked up with total confidence and delivered his speech fully memorized (only a handful of students were able to go completely by memory). He was going to America and he was going to eat hamburgers and go to my house. Was it generic? Yes. Did he also do an awesome job? Yes! I gave Snickers to all the students who got 100% in hopes that it would prompt some better scores next time… yes, I am not above bribing my students. Anyway, when I called his name he was absolutely shocked and so was the rest of the class. I was really happy to give him that Snickers.

Anyway, that’s life so far at KyuGaku! I am loving it, even with the weird schedule. I am now looking at another four weeks of no school, for a total of six weeks of summer vacation. Laura and I are headed back to Tokyo to see friends for a few days and then off to the mountains of central Honshu. As excited as I am to be out for the summer, I am also eager to see what fall at KyuGaku brings. Till next time!

Below are a few pictures of recent happenings... 

A stray cat had kittens and they live under the bike shed! Here they are under my sweet ride. They don't want to me to go to the gym. So cute!

Fourth of July in Japan! Thanks for the shirts Mom! We were a hit at the yaki-niku place, the closest thing to BBQ here in Japan. No Fourth of July is complete without grilled meat!

Apparently in Japan you can buy fireworks whenever and, almost, wherever. No Fourth is complete without sparklers!

My 25th birthday! I went with friends to a steak place. It was awesome! And they gave me more sparklers on my cake!

At the restaurant. Notice the chopsticks... only time I have ever eaten steak with chopsticks. It was flat out delicious.

Purikura photo booths. The addiction is complete. Crazy photoshop that makes your eyes huge, and eyelinered, and makes your skin way paler than it already is! Don't you love the random English?

Can't have a birthday in Japan without karaoke!

In Which Your’s Truly Defeats the Biggest Cockroach She Has Ever Seen and Then Writes a Chapel Speech

Caution: Only proceed if you can handle bugs. You have been warned.

Last Tuesday I was just sitting quietly in my apartment working on my computer when, suddenly, the biggest cockroach I have EVER seen FLEW OVER MY HEAD and landed on the wall IN FRONT OF MY FACE. It was easily the length of my index finger and IT WAS FLYING!!!!! I did what any red blooded woman (or many men for that matter) would do under the circumstances. I screamed (there were many obscenities in several languages and several made up) and ran out of my apartment. I pounded on Morgan’s door across the hall. No answer. I fled downstairs and pounded on Laura’s. And rang the door bell. And pounded some more. Finally she answered, and then she didn't even believe me! She thought I was overreacting and that cockroaches don’t fly so I must have just seen one of these big dragonfly things we have around here… until she walked into my apartment. She saw it fly, screamed and ran to join me in the hallway where our battle strategy went something like this:

“OH *%$#F@$^*%#@#^*&%$##%^&*^$#@@$^*!!!!!!!!!!!!”

“I KNOW RIGHT?!?!?!?!?!”

I decided that Morgan was probably more BA than I was and I knew she was home cause her umbrella was there and it had been raining all day and at that point I didn't care what she was doing WE NEEDED HER! Like Uncle Sam needs you, only it was Caroline, and not a country but an apartment, and not a war with Germany, but a cockroach… you get the picture. I was just about to pound on her door some more when she opened it having heard all of the cursing and screaming going on outside. She had had her headphones in when I pounded the first time around.

By this time we had the door to my apartment propped open and the roach was in the entryway. It was between me and my roach spray so Laura ran down to get her’s while Morgan grabbed an… umbrella? I wound up ALONE against the stupid thing and it consisted of me doing sneak attacks, wherein I would run in spray the sucker, and run away. IT WOULD NOT DIE!!!

Laura and Morgan refused to enter the premises and just stood out in the hallway, holding open umbrellas in case it decided to fly at them and yelling encouragement at me.

“You’re a brave woman Caroline!” and “JUST STEP ON IT ALREADY!”

I grabbed my cheap, knockoff, purple, men’s croc off the floor and went in. I corned it in my toilet room and blasted it continually with the roach spray until finally it fell to the floor where it lay twitching madly, while I ran back out coughing up a lung from all the roach poison I had just inhaled. I then ran back in and stepped on it repeatedly because, as above mentioned, it refused to die. Once it stopped twitching, I couldn’t even pick it up with toilet paper it was so big. I got a broom and dustpan and flushed it down the toilet. Silence descended on the scene.

For about two seconds. Afterwards I was laughing pretty darn hard, but also terrified that there were more. Morgan’s response to my fear? “Don’t worry, God wouldn’t be that mean.”

Which prompted the question: “Why did God make cockroaches?”

Which prompted the following chapel speech natch!

Really, God?!

“And God said, ‘Let the earth bring forth living creatures of every kind: cattle and creeping things and wild animals of the earth of every kind.’ And it was so. God made the wild animals of the earth of every kind and everything that creeps upon the ground of every kind. And God saw that it was good.”  - Genesis 1:24-25

          Last week I had a flying cockroach in my apartment. It was easily the biggest cockroach I have ever seen. I did what I believe most people would do under the circumstances. I screamed and ran out of my apartment. I live in a building with two other missionaries. I pounded on both their doors and they came to help me kill it. As soon as they saw it, they ran out of my apartment, and proceeded to simply cheer me on while holding open umbrellas should the roach fly towards them. It took half a can of roach spray, a broom, and stepping on it multiple times before it died. I was afraid that there would be more and my friend replied, “Don’t worry. God wouldn't be that mean.” This prompted the question, “Why did God make cockroaches?”

Genesis tells us that God is the creator of all things, and there are things far worse, and just as seemingly pointless, in the world than cockroaches. Why are there massive tornados  Why are there earthquakes, tsunamis, and hurricanes? Why are there diseases that kill and not enough medicine to cure? We don’t have the answers, of course. All we have is faith. Faith, by definition, is believing in something with no proof. We must have faith that all bad things have a purpose in life. Perhaps it is to bring people together. Or perhaps it is to remind us of the awesome power of God. Whatever the reason, we must have faith that it is according to plan. As for the cockroach, who knows? Maybe someday, someone will discover it holds the cure for some horrific disease. Until then, I thank God for the laugh I had with my friends, and pray that He keeps all other roaches away from my apartment.

Heavenly Father,

You are the creator of all things and we thank you for it. You have created a world for us, and while it has things we fear, it is also a splendid world full of beauty and life. Thank you. Amen.

In Which Your’s Truly Encounters God as a Black Cat in a Shinto Shrine and Receives a Blessing in the Guise of a Misadventure

Alright, here is a story I have been meaning to tell, that took place during the Period of No Blogging. Without further ado, I want to take you back to the start of May…

In Japan there are many festivals in May that all fall in the first week or so. This is called Golden Week and it is often celebrated with days off work and lots of traveling. Laura and I decided to take a mini-trip up to Mount Aso, the local volcano round these parts. We took the train early Friday morning and were rather pleased with ourselves for our first trip that we had planned in Japan. And by planning, I mean threw together two nights before. But anyway, the train ride up to Aso is beautiful, and the day was beautiful, and we were both looking forward to a relaxing two days away from the city.

The first day we just hung out mostly. We found our lodgings first, a charming little youth hostel (my first stay in a youth hostel!) that was old, but impeccably clean and run by a lovely couple. We meandered around checking out the town and had lunch at Sakura Café. We had seen the café on a hand drawn map that we got at the station (it was a very nice hand drawn map), and decided to check it out. We weren’t the only ones either. By the time we got there, the line to get in was quite long. But it had a gorgeous garden, with a gorgeous, view and we were starving and figured, “How long can it be?” We waited FOREVER. On the upside, like I said it was a beautiful garden and the view was excellent, and the day superb. So it wasn’t too difficult. Plus, I was feeling lazy. After we left Laura and I agreed that, while the food was not worth the wait or the price, it was still tasty and with everything else it was worth returning to.

In the garden outside of the Sakura Cafe

The view

Sakura Cafe

That afternoon we took the bus over to Aso Jinja, a very famous and large Shinto Shrine here in Japan. We had fun looking around and I got another fortune (only 100 yen and I find them very entertaining, which I don’t think is very PC, but what can you do). We explored the side shopping street by the shrine and discovered the waters of Aso. They are said to have various properties to enhance things like beauty or intelligence. We also discovered the dangers of ordering unknown street food in the land of no trash cans. I really don’t like that white, chewy, sticky stuff that was covered in soy sauce. I don’t remember what it was called, but I know what it looks like and will avoid it in the future. Unfortunately, as above mentioned Japan is the land of no public trash cans so I was walking around holding the stupid thing until I convinced Laura to just eat it for me. Katie and her husband Kazu joined us for the afternoon and evening and we had a very nice time exploring the town of Aso.

Entrance to Aso Jinja

Aso Jinja - the original was said to have been built in 281, the current version was built between 1830 and 1843

One of the oldest shrine gates in Japan

One of the Golden Week holidays is Children's day and these carp flags are decorations for the holiday.

Aso water! Supposedly drinking from this spring will make me a literary genius...

Guess we'll just have to wait and see!

Day two though, is where the adventure really began. We started out fairly early and caught a bus headed towards Aso Mountain. We weren’t going to the volcano itself, but to hike up a neighboring mountain. Or really big hill, cause the Rockies it was not. Poor Laura. Hiking was something I was really looking forward too and we were told it was an easy hike so she agreed to go even though hiking isn’t really her thing. I promised her we would go to an onsen afterwards though.

Need I mention that it was not a stroll in the park? See the pictures below for details. However the view from the top was truly spectacular and we spent quite a bit of time up there, walking along the edge of the crater and seeing the sights.

Looking all cute and excited.... Yay hiking!

Our hike

Me: "Challenge!" Laura: "People think this is fun?!"

Just to give you an idea, we were at the road to begin.

Watch out! It got a little randomly treacherous there...

Made it! 1321 meters or roughly... only one mile? But a darn near vertical mile!



Our view of Mount Aso from the top of Kishimadake

The view was truly amazing

It was pretty funny to compare ourselves to the other climbers. First, there was the obvious, that we were the only non-Japanese there. This really just meant we were greeted either with stares or, more often, a lot of warmth and “Gambate!” or “Fighting!” basically. Also, the other climbers…. Yeah, they were way ready for this hike. Like geared out ready. Laura and I were in running shoes, jeans, and jackets and really wishing we had worn warmer clothes. They had hiking sticks and climbing sticks and packs and food… we had a tiny little backpack with dried peaches and rice cakes cause we were trying to be healthy so we nixed the potato chips.

I enjoyed the hike and I think Laura did too. It was quite a climb though. But like I said the view was spectacular so really, what more can you ask for? Honestly, I thought going down the 837 stairs was harder than going up them, cause it was really steep and I kept feeling like I was going to fall on my face. Thankfully, I didn’t. We took a video which I have also posted below, but the wind was very strong so Laura subbed it. Thanks Laura!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y95P3vqyqBI&feature=youtu.be

So we had a good adventure and headed back into Aso town. There were some shrines and temples that I wanted to check out, in particular one called the Odoriyama Jinja, or Dancing Mountain Shrine that was reported to be very pretty and located in a pretty wood. So we set out with our trusty hand-drawn map for our guide. It went about as well as you might expect.

Part of the problem, I believe, was that Laura and I were having a rather deep discussion about…. Actually I don’t remember what it was about. Idle school gossip I think. Occasionally the conversation would cease and we would mention to each other that we really should figure out where we are.

Me: I think we’re lost.
Laura: *looking around* Yeah…
Me: So anyways, you were saying?
Laura: So then I said….

You get the picture. We were rather distracted. Anyway, the conversation started petering out after we had been walking for quite a while and we started trying to figure out where in the heck we were. Which led us to walking around with my nose in the map and Laura’s nose glued to her phone, and we were so focused on figuring out where we were on the map that we missed where we were on the road and when I looked up I realized we had been walking towards the massive torii gate for quite some time. Actually it wasn’t as huge as some, but it was big enough that we should have seen it three blocks ago. We laughed about it and headed in.

Odoriyama Jinja torii

Odoriyama Jinja

The woods surrounding the shrine; isn't it beautiful?

I have no idea to what kami this particular shrine is dedicated to. It is rather small and old, but so picturesque. I don’t know what it is about Shinto shrines here, but I always feel like I am on holy ground. I think that this particular shrine will always and forever hold a special spot in my heart. I was moving along the path through the woods and I couldn’t yet see into the shrine as we were coming at it from the side. I usually wash my hands and mouth at the appropriate place before approaching the shrine out of respect, but like I said this particular shrine was fairly old and the tap was rusty and looked like it hadn’t been turned on in some time so I continued on to the shrine itself. Laura was some ways behind me, I don’t remember why, and so I was alone when I turned to look fully into the shrine. The front doors were open and sitting there, in the opening, staring right at me, was a black cat. The following will probably seem like crazy talk to most of you, but I swear to you, that to me, it was as real as the burning bush was to Moses. I knew instantly I was on holy ground.

I froze. The cat stared into my eyes and it was God speaking to me loudly and clearly in a way that I have here-to-fore only associated with cats. “Excuse me? You are wondering WHY you are HERE? I shall tell you why you are here. You are here because I told you to come here. You are here because I need you to be here and I don’t owe you an explanation as to why. It’s called faith for a reason. All of this is mine. This country that you call Japan was created by ME. Its people were created by ME. This culture, this language, this ancient shrine are all part of MY creation. Me, the Great I Am. You are here to work with your brothers and sisters, and learn something while you’re at it. You'll need it later. I have plans for you.”

Then the cat turned, twitched its tail, and marched right past the curtain into the inner part of the shrine, the most sacred part of the shrine, where no one is supposed to go. Except, you know, God.

I had really been struggling with why I was here. I had felt like I wasn’t doing anything “missionary like”; that I couldn’t possibly make a change. I wasn’t feeling part of things in church and at school I wasn’t connecting to students because I had so many. The language barrier often seems insurmountable. I had been strongly wondering what I was doing here, and why I was called. How can one be a missionary without language? But, as God reminds me, often in the most unexpected of ways language is nothing in the face of God. He called me here and all I am really asked to do is keep showing up and keep trying.

It has been almost two months since that day at the shrine. Not much has changed except for the most important piece: how I look at things. I no longer agonize about how I can best serve here. I am not frantically trying to be involved in as much as possible in hopes that I can be a good missionary to as many people as possible. When it seems the most like I can’t make a change, I just remember that day at Odoriyama Jinja; the day that God spoke to me in the form of a small black cat.

The rest of the trip to Aso was fairly uneventful after that. We caught the train back to Kumamoto, and were going to stop at an onsen (or hot spring bath) that Laura had found online along the way. We got off at the appropriate train stop and walked through the now empty station and headed for the large map of the area that was outside the station. We couldn’t find the onsen on the map. As we were standing there, the station master, who had clearly just been leaving to go home, approached us and when we explained what we were looking for, he informed us that the onsen no longer existed! And the next train wouldn’t arrive for forty minutes. We headed back to the station to wait. I was disappointed about the onsen, and so was Laura, so we were both feeling a bit dejected.

The scene of the misadventure...

 

It was impossible to stay that way for long. The view from where we were sitting was so peaceful, so full of beauty. It was so quiet, something that I have come to regard as a rare and precious commodity here in Japan. And so our misadventure at the end of our adventure became a gift. It was the perfect ending to our weekend.

.

Until ten minutes later when our train conductor attempted save the rest of us from the biggest bee I have ever seen… But that’s another story for another time. I hope you have enjoyed your adventures with Laura and Caroline and please join us and Morgan next time for a retelling of The Great Battle for Caroline’s Apartment. Until then dear readers!

Headed home to Kumamoto!