Little Earthquakes

I've had a few pictures on my phone that I've been meaning to post so I figured I'd get them all up now.

Have I mentioned the giant fruit? Like, size-of-a-small-child's-head giant fruit? It seems to be the fresh produce of choice here. It's difficult for you to fully appreciate the scope of these gargantuan growths from my crappy cell phone pictures, but I'll try anyhow.



I have quite small hands and a fair size laptop.

This little baby is a sweet potato thing that was brought to a private lesson I teach by one of the students.


It was insanely purple, but tasted like potato and was a little bit... bacon-y? It had kind of a smokey-ness to it anyhow. It confused me a little at first because apparently it's called satsuma, which in England is a small orange/tangerine (called mikan in Japan). Delicious, but disconcerting due to my brain screaming at me that it should taste totally different every time I put a spoon of it in my mouth.

Next up, nothing says Christmas like フライドチキン (fried chicken)!


Actually, some one told me that people tend to eat fried chicken at Christmas here. New Year is the traditional family time, but Christmas was just sort of imported by companies here. KFC make a big deal of it I think? It's become a time to eat order cake and eat chicken with friends/significant others. There's Christmas music in stores and a little section of decorations and things, but I don't think many people really celebrate it though. I don't get time of work for it (well, I do because I booked it off for Thailand, but technically).

A huge part of Japanese work culture is turning up. There are many days here that I don't have class, but I would have to take part of my carefully hoarded vacation time should I want to go home. Appearances are everything.

There are various degrees of looking busy that you can choose to practice (or not, as the case may be) when you have nothing to do. Whether I choose to largely depends on my mood and my observations of other teachers. Usually, if I want to do any obvious slacking (such as watch a TV show, or listen to music), I'll go up to the LL room out of the way. If I'm just surfing the web I've become more inclined to stay in the staff room as the temperature drops (and God, how it's dropped). I don't know if the fact that the vast majority of sites I use are in English (and therefore indecipherable to the majority of the staff) has saved me or not, after all, it doesn't take much to recognise an instant messenger conversation or a live journal page. When the other ALT is here (meaning we are in the LL room all day) we go out for very good (long) lunches.

Some teachers don't care. I've seem many just lean back in their chair and sleep. Emphatically not in a subtle way. During the summer it was laughable, there were no students but unless we used vacation time we couldn't leave.

Don't get me wrong; I do my work, prepare for my lessons, even (God help us all) mark my exercise books when circumstances force it. I just happen to be in an ALT position that has a fair amount of downtime, this is not true of all positions. I'm just lucky enough to have a school that doesn't micro-analyse everything that I do (definitely not true of all positions!). I've been trying to decide if it's just the turning up, or if I really do have to look busy all the time (or just some of the time? for the oh so important appearances sake?).

I've been knitting at my desk for the past hour. So far the only person to mention it was the person sitting next to me who managed a mangled 'presento?' when I took it out. I wonder how long I can last?

I would if I would be able to successfully bullshit an excuse to keep doing it should anyone try?

Edit: Still nothing. I'm giving it half an hour and then pulling out my iPod to see what they do...

I have been meaning to clean out my junk/spare room and figure out something to do with it for a while. It just seemed like such a waste of space in a small apartment you know?

It was a daunting prospect; my predecessor had used it for storing suitcases/boxes and drying laundry, just as I have been since I got here. I got restless Friday night and decided to actually do something about it instead of just picturing it.

Before:


This is actually the picture my pred sent me before I got here, but trust me when I say that their isn't much difference between that and what I started with. I just swapped his junk for mine.

So I cleared everything out. Wow there was a lot of crap stuffed in that small space. Then I took the sofa out of my TV room and put it in there, I never use it anyway (I'm always in the chair at my computer table) and it was too heavy for the tatami flooring so it was leaving marks, along with the bookshelf out of my bedroom.

After:



I also set up my kotatsu in my (now empty) TV room! A kotatsu is a type of low table with a heater attached to the underside, and a blanket to keep the heat in. In cold weather you sit in it (and try not to fall asleep!). This is extremely useful as Japanese apartments seem to be make of paper and wood, which means there is no insulation.

The Kotatsu:



Given that it's soooooo cold right now, it has become my new favourite piece of furniture. I bought a couple of floor chairs and just tuck myself in :)

In other freezing my arse off news: I need to buy more winter clothes. Desperately.

I've just been informed that it is the job of my schools ALT, and his/her supervisor, to do one of the presentations at the re-contracting meeting in January. Why was I under the oh so naive impression that these things were voluntary?

Also, considering I've only technically taught an hours worth of lessons at this point, what on earth do they expect me to talk about for an hour long presentation? It's nuts.

My supervisor told me with a bow and an 'onegai shimasu'. If he thinks for one moment I am planning this thing on my own he has another thought coming.

In other (more boring, but less heart attack inducing) news, I gave back the lists of students who hadn't handed in their compositions this week. After making the teachers tell them they had to give me their books by Friday, I've had an amusing trickle of embarrassed students coming up to me and bowing apologies. Some of the more unfortunately ones have been harassed and prodded into apologising in English by the teachers standing behind them.

Why on earth do they make the boys change outside for basketball practice? I keep turning around the blind corner when I walk to the konbini and not knowing where to look.

I took a deep breath and listened to the old bray of my heart: I am, I am, I am.

The can of chemicals I injected into various parts of my tatami have worked a miracle.

I am breathing my arse off right now.

I'm going to be vacuuming every day for now, which is a bit of a hassle but worth it. It's sooo much better at my place though. I knew it was bad but you don't really appreciate how bad until things are better.

Japanese lesson tonight and I have managed to lose the book with all my carefully organised notes in it. This is what I get for cleaning my apartment, I have no idea where anything is now.