I've been looking into distance learning with a university at home. I'm really struggling with picking up the language here and it just doesn't seem to be getting any better. With time slipping by I feel like I'm wasting a lot of time. The volunteer lessons I go to here just aren't working for me, I need something more methodical, more structured.
The good news: The University of Sheffield has the perfect course for me.
The bad news: It costs 300,000 yen (with the exchange rate today that's about £1425).
Siiigh. The advantages are huge, I am getting really sick of not being able to communicate with anyone, and if the head of my English department asks me one more time 'why don't you learn Japanese', or try to 'test' my (non-existent) Japanese skills one more time (like it's the work of an afternoon) I'm going to punch her right in the face.
Still, I was hoping to save some money while I was here and that would be a major finance drain. Pros and cons, pros and cons. I've emailed to ask for some information from the people in Hiroshima, so we'll see what happens.
I saw a trailer for this movie when I went to the cinema in Bangkok and it looks awesome. As soon as it comes out on dvd it will be mine, oh yes, it will be mine. I just hope the dvd has English subtitles. Until then I'm going to keep my ear to the interwebs and see if any groups out there are going to fansub it.
The presentation went fine, surprisingly well actually. People really participated so it kept things going nicely, which was a big relief.
I just did a load of laundry and forgot to check the pockets of my trousers. After a little post-wash cycle drum archeology, I found the pieces of a watch I bought in Bangkok. Don't worry, it was just a cheap thing I picked up in one of the markets to offset the frustration of not having my phone so I could check the clock, and there was a 50-50 chance the rash on my wrist wasn't from the heat, but from the buckle on the leather cuff making my nickel allergy flare up, so it's not a huge loss.
It was a bit sad picking out the pieces though. The washer wins another round, it is yet to be seen who will win the war.
The pound to yen exchange rate is at a year low! I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it stays that way until next Monday when I get paid...
I have to give a workshop on how to encourage the kidlets to speak and listen in class (that is, to develop their own sentences and express themselves outside of the set vocab/dialogue) at our midyear conference on Friday. I wish I had an excuse to get out of it, but I don't think they're going to believe 'I was dead at the time!' when I come in to work on Monday. Bah. Mostly, first years don't have to do it because they're first years, and as such have not had the experience necessary to generate enough info for a workshop. This is a very good thought and I only wish I wasn't the exception to the rule. Apparently my predecessor didn't get rota'd in for it for quite a while and so I'm being punished for that by having to do it my first year out. Given that I'm one of the more under-utilised ALTs I've taught a total of two lesson plans since I got here.
I have a feeling that it's going to bomb. Big Time.
I really don't want to do it.
In other news I've just handed in my recontracting form to my supervisor, so assuming they want to keep me I guess I'm here for another year.
Bangkok is a city of contradictions. The ultra-modern lines of the mega malls rise above the cities, attached by the sky train the people are enclosed away from the dirty, broken streets below, protected from the noise and pollution of the never ending expressways. It's easy to play Eloi in these monuments to modern architecture. The levels are all encompassing, rising from the aquarium of the basement floor through the dedicated levels of food courts, designer goods, electronics, household, books, cars (cars! inside the mall!), beauty, all topped with a multiplex cinema.
We descended from these castles in the sky to the Morlocks below. Their territory is hot and dusty and so loud. People line the streets hawking their wares, chopping great baskets of fruit, shouting for you to come to see, to buy, very cheap, very good. The con men line the streets in taxis and tuk-tuks, stopping us every few feet to see if we want a ride, but we know their game and keep making our way over the cracked pave stones, keeping an eye and a hand to our bags as we go. It's not as nice as the clean, air-conditioned shopping centres, but the street markets are more real and more interesting than their new counterparts, and stumbling upon the tiny patches of startling beauty the city still holds is all the more breathtaking for it's unpolished surroundings.
You get the feeling that things age quickly, but there are still beauty marks on the face of Bangkok. The Grand Palace is a great jeweled eye, drawing people in from afar. Between the relentless march of stores lining the roads are littered brilliant yellow shrines, laid with garlands of fresh golden flowers, at odds with the corrugated grey and brown surroundings. People teem from every pore, an uncontainable mass. This is not a city for a leisurely walk, there is nowhere for you to stand dumb in your amazement, and with the haze of pollution hanging low one does not go to 'breath the air' of this place in any sense.
Good bye Bangkok. For better or worse I shall not forget you.
Am writing this from Fukoka airport and am on a timer, so I will have to be brief. It`s been a very long have to be brief. It`s been a very long day and be brief. It`s been a very long day and I keep accidentally switching this keyboard to Japanese characters when I press caps lock.
My flight left Bangkok at 1am, a godforsaken hour at the best of times. I landed here at 8am local time and am now waiting for a connection to Nagoya at 1230. From Nagoya Ihave to get a ferry, then a taxi from the ferry to get a ferry, then a taxi from the ferry to the train, then a train home. I have ferry to the train, then a train home. I have a feeling I won`T be a train home. I have a feeling I won`t be in the best of moods by then.
Time is running out. I have pictures but they will have to wait until I`m home and not sleep deprived.
