i have made (almost now) through three days of work this week, all of which have been dreadful and long.
monday was the worst as i woke up after having a toss-turn-repeat night of sleep and then looked in the mirror before leaving (this is a small miracle in itself that i actually LOOKED in the mirror) and saw that i had rubbed my left eye into a messy patch of redness that looked somewhat reminicent of a smashed strawberry in my eye. great. i had a headache and couldnt hear out of my right left ear either because i had messed with it too much earlier in a q-tip vs. the itch in my ear war. clearly the q-tip won, but not in a good way. so this was the start to my day and i had an open class to look forward to in about an hour. (an open class is where every teacher and administrator in both schools on the island are invited to come and view your class and observe your teaching and then later ask you about it and give you feedback in a meeting. the meeting i found out about later, two minutes after it started. awesome.) so i put on my best japanese face and went with it thinking to myself while eyes were on my first graders and me "genki, genki, genki". luckily it was first grade and the energy of those kids is infectious, apparently even when you feel like H E double hockey sticks. all went fine and i managed to stay upright through the entire forty-five minutes only pausing a few times at desks to regain my balance and remember what word i needed to say so they could repeat it. needless to say i went right home after work and went to bed praying that everything would clear itself up and i would be better in the morning.
tuesday came with great sunshine and hope. i woke up feeling better, at least for the first fifteen minutes i was awake and then the headache and sneezing commenced. now there are symptoms of allergies and and then there are just fits of sneezing and being plugged up that one cannot even fathom could really occur. i managed to suffer the later for most of tuesday and boy was it a great day! oh, and my eye was still lookin pretty fruity and gnarly and getting gasps and awes from the teachers around me.
and now wednesday is almost through and i feel like i will be able to walk home without exhausting the rest of physical strength left in me for the first time this week. with my only aliments to report today being sneezing and needing to blow my nose every ten minutes at least and my ear that is throbbing with ache reminding me that i am foolish for attempting to scratch an itch in such a place, it has been a pretty good day. im certain that the ear will be fine in due time but i wont soon forget about the pesky itch that brought this on and i had to reload on kleenex at my desk this morning, again.
its times like these that a girl wishes she was not so far from home or comfort. im not really even sick, just a bit miserable with strange little ailments and it is making life seem much more japanese for the time being, i.e. "suck it up and get on with it. dont EVER complain". so dear, lovely readers i am doing the opposite, but out of sight from them and to you all who are more than familiar with hearing complaints from people daily. thanks for listening. im going to get back to sucking it up. dijabu desu. (im alright).
ps just so you know, if you ever visit, blowing your nose around anyone else is NOT okay. they dont do that here. imagine how popular i am in my staffrooms now!
love and hugs
beth
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
a few more differences
it is still happening and i think that it will continue to happen for as long as i am here. the small differences in the ways that we go about life from the states to here is just startling. observing these seemingly small things that are kind of huge for an american in the flow of the 'wa' here is just something that leaves me scratching my head and wondering how and why we do things the way we do them back home and how they can do them differently here without a big fuss.
take for instance the regualrity of students and teachers alike carrying exact-o knifes. you know those razor sharp little knives that we use for crafts and such back home, yes those knifes, well they all have them here. i may be making it sound like they are all arming themselves, and really they are, but for entirely different reason; for EXACT cutting needs. when they do any art project here, big or small, if one person's eyes will see it or one hundred, they make it as precisely and nicely as possible. so naturally they need an exact-o knife so that they can get the job done and not have to make a big deal about 90 degree angles being off and whatnot. it makes sense now that i see it in action everyday. what really struck me about it though was entertaining the thought of any 6th grade student back home with the same tool in their pencil case. well, honestly for the most part that is just scary. i WOULD NOT want to be the teacher in charge with everyone packin razor sharps in their desks. i just wouldnt. what about you? its a small difference here, but really its a big one, it kind of translates over to the disapline the kids have and the expectations that adults have of them.
this is seen again in the simple fact that when it is time for after lunch recess there is NO playground supervision. yes that is right. so your teacher wants to take a smoke break instead of watch you play soccer, what's the big deal? there is no big deal. the kids play and get along and there just isnt another option. kids here know that the wrath of the sum of adult figures in their lives would come down on them if they got into the kind of trouble that american kids seem to find at recess. they dont want that and life is easier when they all just get along, so they do. they make it look so easy. when i watch them play out my window it sometimes just blows my mind to think of all of the times that i had to interject an adult face/voice/words when watching my school kids in america play so they didnt beat the crap out of eachother or leave eachother out of play or a million other troublesome things that they seem to get into. that just does not happen here. wow.
the small can become the big in a lot of ways and though i get used to seeing it i dont know if i will ever be able to fully wrap my mind around how it works. i like it though. its good to be in japan.
today was a special day though, i did join my fifth and sixth grade students after lunch for a friendly little game of soccer in the warm sun. their homeroom teachers played as well and we used not one game ball but two. good times i say. as for all of the other kids running about outside, what were they up to you say?...who cares!
sendin love and sunshine from my island to yours
beth
take for instance the regualrity of students and teachers alike carrying exact-o knifes. you know those razor sharp little knives that we use for crafts and such back home, yes those knifes, well they all have them here. i may be making it sound like they are all arming themselves, and really they are, but for entirely different reason; for EXACT cutting needs. when they do any art project here, big or small, if one person's eyes will see it or one hundred, they make it as precisely and nicely as possible. so naturally they need an exact-o knife so that they can get the job done and not have to make a big deal about 90 degree angles being off and whatnot. it makes sense now that i see it in action everyday. what really struck me about it though was entertaining the thought of any 6th grade student back home with the same tool in their pencil case. well, honestly for the most part that is just scary. i WOULD NOT want to be the teacher in charge with everyone packin razor sharps in their desks. i just wouldnt. what about you? its a small difference here, but really its a big one, it kind of translates over to the disapline the kids have and the expectations that adults have of them.
this is seen again in the simple fact that when it is time for after lunch recess there is NO playground supervision. yes that is right. so your teacher wants to take a smoke break instead of watch you play soccer, what's the big deal? there is no big deal. the kids play and get along and there just isnt another option. kids here know that the wrath of the sum of adult figures in their lives would come down on them if they got into the kind of trouble that american kids seem to find at recess. they dont want that and life is easier when they all just get along, so they do. they make it look so easy. when i watch them play out my window it sometimes just blows my mind to think of all of the times that i had to interject an adult face/voice/words when watching my school kids in america play so they didnt beat the crap out of eachother or leave eachother out of play or a million other troublesome things that they seem to get into. that just does not happen here. wow.
the small can become the big in a lot of ways and though i get used to seeing it i dont know if i will ever be able to fully wrap my mind around how it works. i like it though. its good to be in japan.
today was a special day though, i did join my fifth and sixth grade students after lunch for a friendly little game of soccer in the warm sun. their homeroom teachers played as well and we used not one game ball but two. good times i say. as for all of the other kids running about outside, what were they up to you say?...who cares!
sendin love and sunshine from my island to yours
beth
Monday, January 25, 2010
many thanks go out to a little goddess i know who hails from pennsylvainia, but sends all of her love to me via portland, or. she sent me stumptown coffee for christmas and i got to enjoy it on my back porch. that is what i call a real friend. there is little or no "real" coffee to speak of here. they're really into tea. who knew!?Friday, January 22, 2010
the molehill is a mountain
most of you out there who have been reading about my wanderings thus far are familiar with tanaka-san by now. the sweet little office lady who thinks i am a super-model, clever american girl. yes, she always has me smiling and keeps me guessing as to what she might say or do in one day's time. today we shared a nice little laugh (at my expense...what's new!?) and i thought that i would pass it on.
i walked into the office to order lunch. (i have mentioned about how sweet it is to get little bento lunches delievered everyday to the office made by local chef's including all of the best local fish and produce and costing a mere 600 yen, right? well if i havent then i should start telling you all about them in another post.) she asked as usual first about my outfit. (where is it from, what am i wearing underneath, how much did it cost...) i relayed that it was from america and that i was wearing a camisole of sorts underneath and that i bought it on sale (of course). she nodded and smiled at all the above and oohed and ahhhed at it coming all the way from san francisco! oh la la! we then moved onto what i would be having for lunch. a big question some days when i just cant decide between chahan, saba ben, omu rice, or a nice udon seto. i decided on omu rice ( a sweet little modern japanese dish) and turned to head out the door. but in traditional japanese style i didnt get out without a question about the tempurature for the day. samui? (it is cold. am i cold? its cold isnt it?) they ask this incesently and repeat this word as if it will somehow make the weather change if they say it enough times with enough distain. so far i dont think that it is working, but that is not stopping them. they do the same thing in the summer when it is hot (atsui! atsui! atsui!...). anyhow she asked and i told her (for the millionth time or so it seems) that i indeed am not cold and that the winter here in naru is simply lovely, in fact it is the warmest winter i have ever experienced in my whole life. i did add today though that my hands were cold and that my nose was a bit cold as well. (nothing new if you know me or my mom. we share a wonderful little circulatory system that does not quite make it to the tips of our noses, toes or fingers, hence making them cold all the time.) well, i should have known better. she whipped out the dictonary to try and figure out what circulation means and the like and i continued to try and let her know that i was not uncomfortable or suffering in any way by the 'cold' (weather here is in the fifties and sunny this week). we finally arrived at the right translation and after she grasped what my situation was she ran with it. my nose became a mountain in her joke (because my nose is indeed quite a bit bigger and longer than the average japanese nose) and the tip of it was freezing because that is what happens when mountains are so big, they get snow on the tops of them! my nose was the mountain with the snow and it was all making sense to her now. i endured her sharing this joke with the rest of the office staff and a few of my fellow teachers as they came in to order lunch as well. i will admit that it made me laugh, but for entirely different reasons. you just never know what is going to happen next.
on to bigger things. jr high class this afternoon and tackling questions and vocabulary for year end wrap up lessons. oh joy!
love from my mountain to yours
i walked into the office to order lunch. (i have mentioned about how sweet it is to get little bento lunches delievered everyday to the office made by local chef's including all of the best local fish and produce and costing a mere 600 yen, right? well if i havent then i should start telling you all about them in another post.) she asked as usual first about my outfit. (where is it from, what am i wearing underneath, how much did it cost...) i relayed that it was from america and that i was wearing a camisole of sorts underneath and that i bought it on sale (of course). she nodded and smiled at all the above and oohed and ahhhed at it coming all the way from san francisco! oh la la! we then moved onto what i would be having for lunch. a big question some days when i just cant decide between chahan, saba ben, omu rice, or a nice udon seto. i decided on omu rice ( a sweet little modern japanese dish) and turned to head out the door. but in traditional japanese style i didnt get out without a question about the tempurature for the day. samui? (it is cold. am i cold? its cold isnt it?) they ask this incesently and repeat this word as if it will somehow make the weather change if they say it enough times with enough distain. so far i dont think that it is working, but that is not stopping them. they do the same thing in the summer when it is hot (atsui! atsui! atsui!...). anyhow she asked and i told her (for the millionth time or so it seems) that i indeed am not cold and that the winter here in naru is simply lovely, in fact it is the warmest winter i have ever experienced in my whole life. i did add today though that my hands were cold and that my nose was a bit cold as well. (nothing new if you know me or my mom. we share a wonderful little circulatory system that does not quite make it to the tips of our noses, toes or fingers, hence making them cold all the time.) well, i should have known better. she whipped out the dictonary to try and figure out what circulation means and the like and i continued to try and let her know that i was not uncomfortable or suffering in any way by the 'cold' (weather here is in the fifties and sunny this week). we finally arrived at the right translation and after she grasped what my situation was she ran with it. my nose became a mountain in her joke (because my nose is indeed quite a bit bigger and longer than the average japanese nose) and the tip of it was freezing because that is what happens when mountains are so big, they get snow on the tops of them! my nose was the mountain with the snow and it was all making sense to her now. i endured her sharing this joke with the rest of the office staff and a few of my fellow teachers as they came in to order lunch as well. i will admit that it made me laugh, but for entirely different reasons. you just never know what is going to happen next.
on to bigger things. jr high class this afternoon and tackling questions and vocabulary for year end wrap up lessons. oh joy!
love from my mountain to yours
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
just breathing
it feels like spring here, actually i have to keep convincing myself that it feels more like spring than summer, because naturally spring will be our next season, right? the sun in the evening is almost perfectly reminicent of lazy nebraska summer nights when it is just after supper time and the sun is finally giving up and falling down. this is the time when nothing is better than a nice porch beer and a view of the mighty fall. it really feels like that time of year here to me already here, but the only difference is that i get to watch the sun over the real sea and not the sea of corn. i dig it. the perfect spot for this view is just about five minutes via bike down the road from me and i can sit there and watch the sun play on the water until all the rainbow colors are gone and only blue and purple remain. im so lucky and this amazing sight helps me to remember that everyday.
speaking of seasons, there is this fantastic blog page that i found way back during thanksgiving time (is it really that long ago?) and i meant to share it with you all then, but of course got sidetracked (thats the nice way i will relate to you all how my brain normally functions) and forgot. this guy is super talented and clever with his artistry. any of you fellow tree huggers, oregonians or just art enthusiasts will really dig this page i think. tell me if im wrong...
niemann.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/17/bio-diversity/
i'll leaf you with that.
;)
speaking of seasons, there is this fantastic blog page that i found way back during thanksgiving time (is it really that long ago?) and i meant to share it with you all then, but of course got sidetracked (thats the nice way i will relate to you all how my brain normally functions) and forgot. this guy is super talented and clever with his artistry. any of you fellow tree huggers, oregonians or just art enthusiasts will really dig this page i think. tell me if im wrong...
niemann.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/17/bio-diversity/
i'll leaf you with that.
;)
Monday, January 18, 2010
a quick dose of sunshine for those of you in need. these are the pansies that are blooming outside the front door of my elementary school. flowers all year long, who knew how nice it was!?global citizenship
i like to think of myself as an optimistic person. i think most of you out there reading who know me well would agree, or at least i'd like to think so ;) it is not in my nature to want to find negativity in things but for some reason the recent earthquake in haiti has me shaking my head at the world around me. i do realize that haiti has little or nothing to do with anything japanese but this is after all my blog and it is on my mind so im going to write about it. if you dont want to read about it, dont. this is your warning if you dont want to hear about something that could be controversial stop reading now. in a lot of ways i feel like i shouldnt even be writing about this at all, but that is why i suppose i am. just airing the ideas in my head.
now i do not claim to be anything of an expert on the subject of haiti or world relations or even the proper responses to natural disasters, but i know that all of these things are on my mind and many other peoples minds now. a fairly natural response at this stage is to feel empathy for those who have lost loved ones and their homes and what few belongings they had in haiti, it is also natural i think to feel sadness at thinking of being in that same situation and our humankindness is set in motion. this is great, it may motivate us to give to charitable work that is happening there. this is great too, i think giving is part of us being world citizens and this is a wonderful thing. the people of haiti are very, very bad off at this point. this is a fact. but what is also a fact is that days, weeks, months and many, many years before this disaster struck their homes they were very, very bad off as well. haitian culture has a long history of slavery that it still practices. people live on little or nothing, have little or nothing and adjust to lives where suffering is the only thing that they can depend on being constant in their lives. these people for the most part are living lives that you and i shudder to even think about and shield our eyes from viewing when their truths are spewed on our tv screens. the suffering that those people are feeling there is hardly new to them.
how is it then that we should all be so worried about them now? where were we with our pocketbooks and warm hearts for the last who-even-knows how many years? why does it take something really horrific happening for us to focus our attention on those in need in this world? it feels so strange to me that it takes disasters for us to come together as a world community. what is holding us back from responding to each other like this on a regular basis? what is holding us back from keeping up on the quality of life being lived by our brothers and sisters who live in every corner of the world on a regular basis? i can guarantee that there are thousands of other people in the world who are experiencing agony as those in haiti are now, but they dont have news crews there to show the rest of us what is going on. dont they count? why arent we rushing to their aid too?
many of you know sam, my dear friend who is working now as a peace corps volunteer in the dominican republic. i have her to thank for a lot of the information that i do have on how the people of hispanola are living. its bad news, that is why she is there. she sent an email out (which was a sort of miracle that she could even get a connection that worked) a few days after the disaster letting all of us who love her know that she was okay. she also told us about the state of things post-disaster are looking like. there is no censor on the island television there that prevents the camera crews from filming the dead bodies everywhere and then broadcasting them to the public. they get to see what is really going on there, they dont get a sheltered version because it is too gorey. i cant even imagine.
i know im ranting a bit here but as i said before, it is just something that i feel that the whole world is paying attention to right now and the fact is, i dont have anyone to discuss it with. actually i have yet to talk to anyone on the island who even knows what happened, so maybe it is the world minus my island in japan. i applaud anyone who has taken action to help those in need now in haiti, but i challenge anyone who reads this to think about what you can do as a global citizen to help those living in misery on a regular basis. it should not take a catastrophe to bring us together. shouldnt we feel this compassion daily and reach out whenever we can, not just when it is in our faces? part of finding a solution is simply becoming aware and educating ourselves about the state of the world around us. this means getting uncomfortable and daring to dig into unsightly lives of those who live oceans away and stepping outside of our comfy little cocoons. i cannot claim to be aware of all of the suffering that is going on in the world. i do know that i want to push myself to be more aware of it all the time and to remember how lucky i am and to do what i can with my good fortune in life to help or bring awareness to those in need regularly. caring for a moment is nice but it will never be enough to fix the lives of people like those in haiti. it will take the world's populations making a habit of compassion and caring.
i have attached a link here of something im sure many of you have heard or read before. it is lesson that i taught to my senior high students this past week and will continue to talk with them about. it was extremely moving to share some of these figures with them and watch as they realized how lucky they were to be a part of the richest and most well off demographic in the world.
today i will meditate on the thought of global citizenship and what it means for me and all of us. i will do this knowing that i am not alone and that many of you reading already share this meditation with me.
namaste friends
now i do not claim to be anything of an expert on the subject of haiti or world relations or even the proper responses to natural disasters, but i know that all of these things are on my mind and many other peoples minds now. a fairly natural response at this stage is to feel empathy for those who have lost loved ones and their homes and what few belongings they had in haiti, it is also natural i think to feel sadness at thinking of being in that same situation and our humankindness is set in motion. this is great, it may motivate us to give to charitable work that is happening there. this is great too, i think giving is part of us being world citizens and this is a wonderful thing. the people of haiti are very, very bad off at this point. this is a fact. but what is also a fact is that days, weeks, months and many, many years before this disaster struck their homes they were very, very bad off as well. haitian culture has a long history of slavery that it still practices. people live on little or nothing, have little or nothing and adjust to lives where suffering is the only thing that they can depend on being constant in their lives. these people for the most part are living lives that you and i shudder to even think about and shield our eyes from viewing when their truths are spewed on our tv screens. the suffering that those people are feeling there is hardly new to them.
how is it then that we should all be so worried about them now? where were we with our pocketbooks and warm hearts for the last who-even-knows how many years? why does it take something really horrific happening for us to focus our attention on those in need in this world? it feels so strange to me that it takes disasters for us to come together as a world community. what is holding us back from responding to each other like this on a regular basis? what is holding us back from keeping up on the quality of life being lived by our brothers and sisters who live in every corner of the world on a regular basis? i can guarantee that there are thousands of other people in the world who are experiencing agony as those in haiti are now, but they dont have news crews there to show the rest of us what is going on. dont they count? why arent we rushing to their aid too?
many of you know sam, my dear friend who is working now as a peace corps volunteer in the dominican republic. i have her to thank for a lot of the information that i do have on how the people of hispanola are living. its bad news, that is why she is there. she sent an email out (which was a sort of miracle that she could even get a connection that worked) a few days after the disaster letting all of us who love her know that she was okay. she also told us about the state of things post-disaster are looking like. there is no censor on the island television there that prevents the camera crews from filming the dead bodies everywhere and then broadcasting them to the public. they get to see what is really going on there, they dont get a sheltered version because it is too gorey. i cant even imagine.
i know im ranting a bit here but as i said before, it is just something that i feel that the whole world is paying attention to right now and the fact is, i dont have anyone to discuss it with. actually i have yet to talk to anyone on the island who even knows what happened, so maybe it is the world minus my island in japan. i applaud anyone who has taken action to help those in need now in haiti, but i challenge anyone who reads this to think about what you can do as a global citizen to help those living in misery on a regular basis. it should not take a catastrophe to bring us together. shouldnt we feel this compassion daily and reach out whenever we can, not just when it is in our faces? part of finding a solution is simply becoming aware and educating ourselves about the state of the world around us. this means getting uncomfortable and daring to dig into unsightly lives of those who live oceans away and stepping outside of our comfy little cocoons. i cannot claim to be aware of all of the suffering that is going on in the world. i do know that i want to push myself to be more aware of it all the time and to remember how lucky i am and to do what i can with my good fortune in life to help or bring awareness to those in need regularly. caring for a moment is nice but it will never be enough to fix the lives of people like those in haiti. it will take the world's populations making a habit of compassion and caring.
i have attached a link here of something im sure many of you have heard or read before. it is lesson that i taught to my senior high students this past week and will continue to talk with them about. it was extremely moving to share some of these figures with them and watch as they realized how lucky they were to be a part of the richest and most well off demographic in the world.
today i will meditate on the thought of global citizenship and what it means for me and all of us. i will do this knowing that i am not alone and that many of you reading already share this meditation with me.
namaste friends
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