Winter Update

Hello to everyone still keeping up with us!

I'll start by apologizing about how long it's been since we've written a post here.  I keep trying to update everyone on the recent events but I keep getting sidetracked or losing my motivation.  So here we go!

It's winter in Japan.  We got our first snow well before Christmas, and it's been raining and snowing on and off since then.  The snow here is very wet, perfect for making snowballs or snowmen or snowanything, really.  Instead of plowing the narrow, uneven streets of Kanazawa, we have sprinklers that turn on when the white stuff starts to accumulate, which wash it (along with any hope you had of walking to work and staying dry) down the drain.

Our kerosene heater and the ample amount of cold weather clothes we received for Christmas has kept us warm, despite the lack of insulation in our house.  We'll heat one room at a time in true Japanese fashion.  Over winter break, we'd wake up and choose the "safe room" for the day - did we want the tatami room, with its window and comfortable couch, or the living room with the TV?  Or, to save on electricity and kerosene, did we want to go camp out at a coffee shop for a while?

Christmas in Kanazawa was fun but also difficult.  The sights and sounds and company and foods of Christmas were sorely missed here.  Jorden and I took a full two weeks off of work, which came at a great time since we were both ready for a long break.  We had a spectacular haul of presents, so you can all return from the edge of your seats.  Among the highlights were a robotic hand, some generous Amazon gift cards, a metric ton of American candy, an Ansel Adams calendar, and some cats.  We spent the day playing with our new goodies, then went downtown for a cup of coffee and some Japanese studying.

Our first New Year's celebration in Japan fizzled, I'm afraid to say.  We were intimidated by the wind, cold, and rain on the evening of the 31st, so we stayed inside and instead watched the season finale of 24 season 6.  We toasted the New Year and then went to bed.  We figure we'll have many more New Year's Eves to come.

We returned to teaching on the second week in January.  The first week was a rush of administering and grading tests.  My students took a test the day they came back from break.  My teachers say this encourages them to do homework and study over break, while I tend to think it just ruins their vacation.  After tests, it was back to the normal routine.

Now, in late January, we've had our first visitor from America!  First Place Prize goes to Shaelynn, a friend of mine (Daniel's) from high school and a fellow adventurer.  She arrived on Saturday and she'll be staying until this coming Monday.  It has been a lot of fun seeing all the touristy stuff here in Kanazawa.  We did a bit of tourism in August when we were new here, but we've stuck to the "locals" activities since then.  Now, it's great to have an excuse to see all the museums, restored houses, and other cultural exhibitions that we'd usually forgo in lieu of school activities or hanging out with other JET friends.

Finally, we've saved the best for last.  With January coming to an end, the deadline for re-applying to the JET Program has arrived.  Jorden and I have given it much thought and agreed that another year with the program is indeed in our future.  We've signed the forms and we're locked in for another year's contract with our friends here in Japan.  We have also begun preparations for our "Summer Tour."  We're looking into plane tickets for a visit from late-July to mid-August.  If you want to have a Daniel and Jorden sighting, your best bet would be to hang out around Reno and Seattle during that time.

Well I hope this catches everyone up on the latest news from Japan!


Thanks for reading,

-The Adventurers

明けましておめでとうございます! (Happy New Year!)

     Hello all! Hope the new year is off to a swell start and all your resolutions are still holding strong. Daniel and I are back at work now, and I must say, feels good.
     I had an evaluation today with my two vice principles; every JET has a mid-year "interview" wherein their employers can check in, see how they like the job, and...well, I guess decide whether they want to keep them around for another year. Fingers crossed!
     Anyway, the point of this blog post: I realized I haven't talked in much detail about my day-to-day job, so I thought I'd give y'all some bullet point facts. Everybody loves bullet points.

General Schedule
-Classes start at 8:20 and end at 3:50 every day.
-There are seven periods in a day, each 45 minutes long
-Students have home rooms where they stay the majority of the day (excepting PE, art, and other electives), while teachers move from room to room, bringing lecture materials with them
-I teach, on average, 16 classes a week
-10 of those are Oral Communication (OC) classes with first year students (15-16 year olds)
-5 are Writing classes with third year students (17-18 year olds)
-1 is Science English with second year students (16-17 year olds)

OC Classes
-For the OC classes, my fellow JET, David, and I are pretty much solely responsible for planning and executing the lessons.
-There are 40 students in each class (I mean exactly 40--makes group work a dream), but they are divided in half for OC class. David teaches 20 in one room and I teach the other 20 in a different room.
-There are exactly 10 boys and 10 girls in all of my OC classes
-The week before a lesson is taught, David and I pool our resources--namely, the lesson plan the former JET used last year, the text book, and our handy, helpful JTEs (Japanese teachers of English)--and cook up a lesson plan.
-We will then give that lesson 10 times, so that all 400 first-year students have had it.
-A JTE always accompanies me, but usually I spearhead the class. The JTE can help with translation, if needed, or they can do little role-plays with me to help give the students demonstrations about a particular point.

Composition Classes
-The third year students have one big priority, and that's to do well on the college entrance exam in January.
-The exam this year takes place January 19-20--soon!
-To help them prepare for this exam, we teach them grammar, grammar, grammar. There's not much conversation happening in these classes; it's all composition. They need to know the nitty-gritty of how to use a semi-colon or when to use "everyday" versus "every day." A lot of the stuff we end up covering exceeds the level of material I taught students while working in the writing lab at CCU--and those were university-level, native speakers. I mean, these kids are really smart.

Science English Classes
-The Science English course exists because every year, the second year students must put together a major science project and present it not only in Japanese, but also in English. As you can imagine, these poor kids don't know how to say "Pythagorean Theorem" or "photosynthesis" in English, and that's what JETs are for...except I pity the kid who has to take math lessons from me.

ESS Club
-English club meets every day after school (little go-getters, they are) and I go 2-3 days a week. They're always practicing for something; when I first came, it was the speech contest, then it was the drama festival, then the debate tournament, now the recitation contest.

Other
-We have a 45-minute lunch break every day, and recently I've really loved eating downstairs in the cafeteria with the kids. I always end up meeting someone knew, learning something ridiculous/awesome about Japan, AND the curry is super good.
-I have a bulletin board outside the teacher's office, where I post little word puzzles, fun facts, and new vocabulary for the kids. The top reads, "Bored with English? Check out this board with English." I had to share it here because I know the joke will go to waste if I don't...
-There's also a small mailbox attached to the board, where students can drop me a note. I have some "regulars" with whom I write back and forth. They are always the highlight of my day!

And there you have it: a day in the life of a JET! Thanks for reading, and blessings on your 2013!