winter school day

Though winter is pretty much over. I wrote this a while ago for my own reference but maybe you will find it interesting.

I wake up to my kerosene heater turning on and quickly run into my freezing cold kitchen to toast some bread and use the washroom with my blessedly heated toilet seat. While there I turn the heater on in my shower room. Then I typically eat breakfast while lying in bed since the room isn’t warm enough and there really isn’t anywhere else to sit anyhow. I try to muddle through the news and anxiously anticipate the weather hoping for a massive snowfall. Once my room is warm enough I dash to the shower room and warm the floor before stepping on it. I gingerly shower trying not to touch the walls in the process. After my room is warm enough to live in and I pile my layers of clothing on, usually long underwear, pants and about three layers of shirts. On my way out the door I must remember what type of garbage day it is and grab the appropriate garbage, newspaper, milk carton, cardboard, glass, cans, plastic bottles, Styrofoam trays, battery etc.

I usually stop at the small combini (convenience store) and buy a hot coffee in a plastic bottle and a hard boiled egg then to school. Get to school and say good morning to the random kids wandering around. I may get a good morning back or simply a giggle, English is funny didn’t you know. Then enter the school and change into my indoor shoes putting the outdoor ones in a small locker. I walk up to the teacher’s room and call out “ohaiyo gozaimus” (good morning) when I open the door. I sit at my desk which is grouped in a quad with the 9th grade teachers and wait for the janitor to bring me my green tea while I charge up my ridiculously slow internet. At exactly 8:05 my vice-principal, principle, and head teacher come out of the principal’s office and the bell rings. The vice-principal waits for everyone to stand up and then bows and says ohaiyo gozaimusu to which we all bow and say it back thus opening the morning meeting. I usually don’t pay attention to the meeting, because it is in polite Japanese and my grasp of that level is sparse, unless I hear my name. It is often about inconsequential things anyhow like Hisashi had a stick in school or Miki was reading a comic book yesterday! Then once the meeting is finished the teachers all head off to their homerooms and if it is Wednesday or Thursday everyone in the school must spend the next 15 minutes reading a book.

Typically at junior high school I only have a max of 3 classes a day so the other 3 are spent surfing the internet, reading a book, studying Japanese or preparing for a class or activity. When I have a class the Japanese English teacher and I walk to class darting through the freezing hallways to the classroom where I plunk myself in front of the heater. The classes always start the same – the head students says “stand up” all the kids stand up then “good morning Ms.~ and Ms. Jenelle” then we say “good morning. How are you?” they say “Fine thank you and you?” The Japanese teachers always say fine but I try to change it up, and now we’re off. I am the tape recorder but I also make activities and often just wander around the class and help with mistakes or just get the kids speaking English. The class ends with the same stand up then thank you Ms. ~ and Ms. Jenelle!

Eventually lunch rolls around and we count how many teachers are eating in the teacher’s room then set out the lunch trays. There are three of us who usually serve lunch and of course the head honchos wouldn’t dare to lend a hand. Anyhow I typically serve the salad and whatever meat like thing we have that day. Aoki sensei serves the rice because he knows how much each person likes and Nakamura sensei serves the soup and sets out the milk cartons. I then warm my soup and whatever meat thing up in the microwave because they have been sitting in the freezing cold hallway for nearly half an hour though everyone always looks at me strange for doing so. The kids all have the same type of system in their classrooms and everyone starts eating promptly at 12:25 when the lunch radio show begins (I have an English radio show on Thursdays). Everyone puts their hands together and says itadakimasu (thank you for this food) and then digs in. There is a bit of talk during lunch but not much and the kids are not allowed to wander around. At 12:40 the radio show ends, everyone puts their hands together again and they say gochisosamadeshita (it was good food?) and then they clean up.
After lunch they have 25 minutes to brush their teeth and hang out until 1:05 when everyone cleans the school. Each person is assigned a room and must do a certain job and then report to the head of that room or area. I help clean the teacher’s room though for some reason I despise it even though it’s not hard work. During this time all the windows in the school are opened to let out the kerosene fumes and let in the freezing cold air. Typically I try to stay as far from them as possible. Then back to classes.

Once school is finished all the school teams/clubs – baseball, volleyball, table tennis, and band have a two hour practice. Sometimes I join one of the sports teams but not in the winter because the gym is freezing and all the baseball team does is run around the hallways like military trainees yelling out “ichi sore ni sore san sore shi sore ichi, ni, san, shi, ichinisanshi, ninisanshi” “ 1 it’s 2 it’s 3 it’s 4 it’s, 1 2 3 4, 1234,2234”. All the teachers are in the teacher’s room unless they are coaches so we will chat a bit or get ready for an event. The teachers are technically off at 4:50 but they usually don’t leave until 6 some staying as late as 10. I leave at 5:05 and must say “osakini shitsureshimas” (sorry for leaving early) or “otsukara sama deshita” (good work) and then put my outdoor shoes on in the entrance and bound away to my freedom. Though it is to a dark freedom because the sun goes down at 4:00 in the winter.

wrapping up the musical

We had our last two shows on Sado island and in Niigata city. For both we had a great turnout and we reached our fundraising goal and then some and made $13000. Members of the cast and crew are now packing for their two week trip to Papua New Guinea. I feel slightly lost now that my weekends are completely open. We have been meeting every second weekend since the beginning of October and there are quite a few people who I will not see very often now. Oh well more time for spring snowboarding! The day we took the ferry to Sado the waves were pretty choppy and we had a ton of fun on the careening deck.

We made many attempts to take jumping shots but with the deck crashing up and down and happy trigger fingers we took many more photos of the take off!

almost...

success!

Unfortunately on the downswing of one of our jumps the boat hit a wave and the deck rose and we all ended up on our knees. My battle wound!

Naomi and I decided to take a late night walk after consuming a few chu-hai and wandered the rice paddies.

This last Friday was Naomi's birthday and we went to an amazingly delicious sushi restaurant. I caused the sushi chef a bit of trouble due to my dislike of strange textures - octopus, squid, and mushy like sea-creatures sea slugs etc.

They made a sushi style roll cake for Naomi and even put sparklers on it. It was delish and incredibly filling!

Next day was the last performance in Niigata city where we received our "royal blue" musical t-shirts. It was a great performance and a fitting way to go out!

After we had a St. Patty's Party and Troy shaved his head for charity. What you can't see is the rat tail in the back!

The day after we went to sakenojin where you can drink unlimited sake for 15 dollars. I was pretty exhausted at this point but many others continued filling their cups.

Naomi and I with rice bread man!

graduation

Once again the students marched up like robots to receive their certificates, which they had to roll just so, in the joyless celebration of graduation. This year I decided to ask the teachers why things are as they are... "Why are these white tables here if we never use them?" " Why is there always a bonzai on the stage?" "Why does the principal where a suit jacket with tails?" " Why does the vice-principal always open and close the assembly and the head teacher always act as master of ceremonies?" and many more whys and the only answer I received to all these questions was "because it is always like this". Once again pulled out my hair during the speeches of the head of the BOE, and the town major who both don't know these kids from Hiroki on the street but felt they needed to wax on forever in the cold. Thankfully we had time to have a bit of fun before the kids left the school. Though for some reason one of the rules of the school is that kids must not take pictures in the entrance way so they were not allowed to touch a camera!

Some of favourite boys! Genki on the right wrote in his journal " Ms. Jenelle I can't live without you. I love you!" hahaha

Mother and daughter look nothing alike!

Yuki (right) has been my favourite since I came to Japan and we continued to make each other cry that day. She has since emailed me everyday!

Matsuisensei looked beautiful in a Kimono and Hakuma which apparently took an hour to put on.

Thankfully we had a goodbye party the week before where the student teams sang songs or acted out skits for the graduates. Here the volleyball team is dancing as their paper flowers fall off their heads.

The teachers also sang a song which caused a riot of tears, once the boys were crying I was a goner. There is something about men crying that causes the like reaction in me? This class was the youngest in junior high school when I came and it was difficult to see them go. I am not looking forward to the now 6th graders becoming junior high school students. I guess we'll see.

nagano nozawa onsen tokamachi snow festival and joetsu kokusai

Spent a busy weekend down south in Tokamachi and Nagano. Naomi and I went to Tokamachi late Friday night so we could take advantage of a full day of boarding on Saturday. Marshall recommended we cross the border into Nagano and so we went to Nozawa Onsen. The powder was ridiculous! On one run we decided to off trail it but the powder was so deep that once you fell you couldn't get up. I unfortunately had the luck to fall right underneath the lift from where I was serenaded with claps and laughs in my struggles to gain hard ground. Needless to say we didn't try that again but the powder elsewhere was wonderful. It is more fun to try new jumps and tricks when the falling doesn't hurt!.

My new baby which I dealt down about $250.00!


After this picture he did hit a tree! Oh irony!

sick powder!!!

The trees looked really beautiful with their snow blanket.

Quite the views!!!

My pants aren't very waterproof so my butt tends to get cold. I have remedied this by putting hokkairo (heated sticky things) on my butt. They look pretty ridiculous once I take my board pants off though.

That night we went to the snow festival to discover it ended a half an hour before we got there. The food stalls were still up so we were able to get something in our bellies and check out some of the snow sculptures.

We were craving meat though so we headed out to a Korean BBQ restaurant and ate some delish meat and soso bibimba.

The next day saw us snowboarding as well at Marshall's home resort. The snow wasn't that great but we were happy to find a small half pipe and enjoyed the time there.

Later on Ruu and Futoshi invited Naomi and I over for supper. It was oishikatta! We had nabe, yummy salad and delicious cake we picked up!.