Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in Dawnthorn's LiveJournal:

[ << Previous 20 ]

Saturday, January 8th, 2005
12:59 pm	The Cake Store Adventure The second week of December or so, Mario, a Swiss guy who usually sits next to me in class mentioned that he had found a part-time job working at a cake store. I asked him some questions about it and it turns out that the owner was looking for several foreign people (read: white people) to work in the store to sort of create a Christmas feeling over the holidays. Also that time of year is very busy for them so they need the extra help. He said the work would mostly be to work along with a Japanese person selling cakes. I said I was interested so he told the office worker at Yamasa who was setting this up that I could help as well. So they setup an interview for Saturday. So on Saturday, a Swiss woman who also wanted to give it a shot and I went to the cake store to talk to the owner. As I suspected it was less an interview and more a chance to check us out and handle some paperwork. The office worker from Yamasa also met us there. Not too different from the sort of thing you might have in the US. She had us fill out a sheet that said what times we could work and told us we can't eat the cake, we had better be on time, and we should call each day before we're scheduled to work to confirm the schedule. (Actually, I thought I misunderstood this statement, because I thought it was strange to call every day before we were to work, but it turns out that this is what she meant.) One of my teaching jobs had ended so I was pretty much free in the afternoons until school ended at which point I was pretty much free every day. So I filled in the schedule with all the times I was free, but I emphasized to the owner that by Japanese law, someone with my visa couldn't work more than 20 hours a week and I was already working 2 hours somewhere else, so please only schedule me for 18 hours of work or less a week. She seemed a little taken aback by this statement, so at this point the guy from Yamasa interjected that nobody really pays much attention to that law anyway. I was pretty amused by his statement at the time (especially coming from a school official), but I should have been scared. So on Sunday evening I gave the boss a call to confirm my schedule for Monday and on Monday at 4:45 pm showed up at the cake store for my first day of work. The store manager showed me to the break room and then hunted for a uniform for me. The uniform she found consisted of a white cook's shirt, a black apron, and a paper chefs hat. The shirt had some sort of black smudges in various places and the apron was covered with various baking leftovers. She then gave me a little tour of the kitchen. It was filthy. The counters were clean, but the floor and anywhere that wasn't in constant use was covered in dirt and grime. Then they indicated I was to get in the car, and a young woman employee (Goto) drove with me over to a nearby shopping center with a Mc Donald's, a game center (Sega world), a Toys-R-Us, and a large electronics store. The cake store had setup a small display case with a couple of tables under an escalator. There was another employee working there and as soon as we showed up, she took off. Goto then proceeded to explain to me how to run the little shop. Basically, when a customer comes by, you write down their order and then box it up, stick it in a bag, fiddle with the cash register, take the customer's money, and give them change. I was pretty nervous about interacting with the customer's but after watching Goto do it twice, she forced me to handle the next customer and it went ok. That continued until about 7pm which is when the little shop closes. She then walked me through the closing procedure and a little later the boss came to pick us up. I should explain a bit about what the store sells. Pretty much they only sell two things: cake and shu cream. I'm not really sure what shu cream is. It comes from France, but I think the french shu cream is what we call custard. The Japanese shu cream is a kind of a popover filled with custard or whipped cream. They also have pudding and what they call apple pie, but it is really more of an apple danish than pie. Anyway, at the sub store you mostly sell shu cream which costs 105 yen ($1) a pop. Occasionally you sell a slice of cake (strawberry shortcake or chocolate shortcake). So then we returned to the store where I washed dishes until they closed up at about 9 at which point the owner decided to wash the floor. There was this incredibly dirty grate on the floor which they had moved aside to let the water drain and I decided to clean that because I couldn't bear to look at it. The other employees kept telling me not to bother, but I cleaned it anyway. Didn't really help make the store look cleaner, though. Finally, I asked the boss about tomorrows schedule and she told me I was working from 3 until close. When I got to school the next day, Mario was all agitated because he had looked up the laws regarding the student visa on the web and it seemed to say we could only work 12 hours a week. Mario really loves Japan and wants to work here, so he is very concerned with the immigration laws. So the next day he had setup an appointment with some sort of expert in Japanese immigration law. He wanted me to go with him, but of course, I had work. So I got to work at 3, changed into my uniform, and was driven to the sub-store by another employee. When we got to the sub-store, the woman working there left immediately and the guy who drove me there said "Good Luck" and then left me alone at the sub store. Now, I had been told I would be working along with a Japanese person at the sub store, but apparently no one had told the boss this. So here I was alone at the store. The first couple of customers were kind of tricky because I didn't know how much the various things cost and couldn't see the prices from behind the counter. I had to keep asking the customers the prices. After about 10 or so customers, I had pretty much adjusted. At 6:45 I went through the closing routine and then went back to the main store to wash dishes until closing there. The thing is that I really wasn't useful at the main store. The boss has tons of employees there all the time and I'm more in the way than a help, so when I asked the boss about the schedule the next day, and she said I was working from 5 until closing, I asked if I could leave at 7 because my class was having a going-away party for the students who were leaving. She said that was fine. Later that evening as we had finished "cleaning" the store and were getting ready to go, she scolded me in front of all the other employees saying that it was wrong to ask to change the schedule the day before. I was surprised because when I asked at first, she seemed ok with the whole thing and anyway, I don't really do anything back at the main store because she has too many people there anyway and what she really wants me for is to work at the sub-store where I draw people's attention. Anyway, the next day I only worked two hours and Thursday I had my other job. When I called her to find out about Friday, I was working from 3 to closing again (about 6 hours). At this point I was starting to get a little worried. When I had filled out the schedule, I had pretty much filled in every hour I was free, and now she was having me work exactly how much I had filled in on the schedule. If I worked 6 hours on Friday, that would bring me to almost 18 hours already. Also, Mario had talked with the immigration expert and it turns out that the law is that I can only work a maximum of 4 hours each day (up to 28 hours a week). I wasn't so concerned about the 4 hour limit because there was no way the government was going to find out that I had worked 6 hours on Monday because I'm sure the boss reports weekly totals, not the totals for each day. I was concerned about the 28 hour limit because it would be easy for the government to figure out I had worked more than 4 hours on a given day if I worked 30 hours in a week. Not to mention, I didn't want to work 30 hours a week. This salary for this job is $7 an hour and I'm doing it for the experience, not for the money, so I don't need to work that much. At the rate I was going, if I worked a lot on Saturday, it would put me over the 18 hour limit I had told her, and even put me close to the 28 hour limit. Anyway, I worked the 6 hours on Friday and then asked her about Saturday. She had me scheduled from 8:30am until closing. 13 hours! Of course, this was exactly the same as what I had filled in on the schedule, but I figured Japan had similar laws to the U.S. where if you work more than 8 hours, your salary goes to 1.5 times, and more than 10 hours it doubles. Not the case for this job. Anyway, I figured I'd work the 13 hours and then talk to her about the 18 hour limit and ask her not to report the 13 hours to the government. So when I was done working for that day, I talked to her about it and emphasized that I didn't want to work any longer than 8 hours on any given day. She said I could have tomorrow off and not to worry about the government. That didn't really reassure me, but the next week, while she did have me working every day, she generally let me go home after I got back to the main store. That continued until Friday which was the first day of winter vacation. Of course, at this point, I had filled in on the schedule that I could work anytime because I didn't have school. So Friday she had me scheduled from 1 until closing (about 8 hours). Saturday (Christmas) she had me scheduled from 8:30 closing until closing (about 13 hours). I had had enough. I resolved to tell her I was going to quit on Sunday. She didn't have me scheduled for work on Sunday, but I went there in the evening to tell her I was done. I got into the shop and asked Goto where the boss was. Goto said that she had collapsed and was resting. I was not overly surprised she had collapsed. She was one of those managers who had to do everything herself, but doesn't plan well, so she was always making extra work for for herself. For example, the sub-shop was always running out of shu cream, so I would call her on the cell phone and tell her we ran out of shu cream again. She would come buy an hour later with only an hour's supply of shu cream even though it was only 4pm. The thing about the sub-store is that once the shu cream runs out, the customers stop coming. Why in the world she didn't bring enough shu cream to last the day in the morning I have no idea. The shu cream was in the refrigerator and we pretty much sell the same amount every day. Not a hard problem to figure out. As a result, she had to drive to the sub-store 5 to 6 times a day (30 minutes a trip) for no good reason. There were similar problems with other aspects of the shop. Christmas Eve and Christmas day are big days for a cake store in Japan. Japan has created the Christmas tradition of having a Christmas cake for Christmas. A Christmas cake in Japan is basically a sponge cake with whipped cream frosting and strawberries. I was in the store both Christmas Even and Christmas day and in the morning before work the boss gave a little speach. Apparently, compared to last year, they had about half as many orders for cakes, so she wanted everyone to put in an extra special effort over the next two days. If not, then she still hadn't paid them for the last two weeks of work, so if they don't do a good job, she'll lower their salary for those last two weeks. Anyway, from what I could understand from overheard conversations throughout the next two days, the store had tons of complaints because orders kept getting mixed up and some of the cakes arrived damaged. Mostly because the whole process of fulfilling those orders was amazingly disorganized. She had collapsed, so I hadn't really the heart to tell her I wanted to quit. I was just going to leave when she called on the store's phone. She wanted to talk to me about the schedule. So I said again that I didn't want to work more than 8 hours on any given day and that next Saturday would be my last day. The next day I worked, I talked to her about my concerns about the immigration office and she explained that what she was going to do was adjust my reported salary. If I worked 32 hours at 700yen an hour, that's 22,400yen. So she would divide that by 18 hours, and report that as my salary (1,244yen/hour) and report that I had only worked 18 hours. That definitely made me less feel less concerned about the whole visa issue. The last week of work she pretty much scheduled me less than 6 hours each day until the last day Saturday which was another 13 hour work day. I was sort of expecting that because Saturday was New Years Day which is a huge holiday in Japan and it is hard to get Japanese people who will work on that day. So ended my short career as a cake store employee. It was definitely a cool experience because I got to interact with tons of Japanese people as either customers or co-workers. Dealing with the boss was a massive pain in the butt, though. Mario told me that on his last day he had worked 5 hours, and since he wants to obey the law to the letter, he took his time card and told her that he didn't want the money. She apparently started screaming and went into some sort of fit. (Not the first time, according to some of the other employees). It also turns out that most ofthe employees there have worked there less than a month because people soon quit after having to deal with the boss. Oh, also the Swiss woman who went to the interview with me on the first day, never showed up for work. I had talked to her about the job before her first day and when I told her that I was working the sub-shop by myself, I think she decided her Japanese wasn't good enough. The boss asked me many times what happened to her, but I really didn't have any idea. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Tuesday, December 7th, 2004
4:28 pm	Teaching English Well, so much for updating the journal frequently. The main thing that's been eating my time is my part time job. A little over a month ago a friend of mine from when I was at Yamasa last time said he'd give me his English jobs when he left in January. Well, he wanted to take the Japanese Language proficency test (it was last Sunday), and he didn't feel he was studying enough, so he decided to turn one of his teaching jobs (the most time consuming one) over to me early. That job is actually just two one-hour classes once a week teaching elementary school kids (1st and 2nd graders) English. One class is 9 kids and the other is four. That wouldn't have been too bad, but a couple of days before I was going to start that job, another Yamasa student (a woman from Hong Kong who I had seen, but didn't know at all), asked if I could temporarily fill in for her for 6 weeks because she suddenly had to return to Hong Kong. I figured this was a good way to get lots of experience without much commitment, so I said I would. She actually teaches about 12 hours a week, but I already had the other job on Thursdays so she found someone else to do that day. The rest was 2 hours on Wednesday, 4 hours on Friday, and 2 hours on Saturday. Almost all of it to 1st and 2nd graders. Unlike the other job, though, I wouldn't be teaching by myself, I would be teaching with a Japanese woman who speaks English. So a little over four weeks ago on Wednesday, I biked over to the train station as part of the one-hour commute to my first class at a juku in Nishio. Juku is japanese word often translated as "cram school". Basically it is any sort of private school that happens after normal school hours. Nearly all Japanese kids attend a juku of some sort or another starting from Elementary school and continuing through high school. There are a variety of subjects including Japanese, English, math, musical instruments, and abacus. Abacus is apparently popular because it helps you do calculations quickly in your head. Nearly all the kids take that one. Only Elementary school kids take English conversation. Being able to speak English isn't important for entrance exams, so as the kid gets older other subjects take priority. So nearly all my students are 1st and 2nd graders. On the way to the juku I have to change trains at Shinanjo. Unfortunately I borded a train that didn't stop at Shinanjo, so at the next station I had to call the and tell the teacher I'd be late. I had planned on arriving early so I could talk with the teacher before class, so I was still early for the lesson, but didn't have much time to talk before class. My first lesson was a private lesson with just one boy. His English is actually pretty good, so all I do in his classes is just chat with him. I ask him a bunch of questions about school or whatever. I do that one by myself. The second lesson is also a private lesson, but with a girl who can't really speak English at all. Also, she's not really interested in learning it. She has a phonics workbook that the juku uses. For each letter, it has a picture with various items it it. I say each item and if it starts with the letter for that chapter, the student is supposed to circle it. Then they have to write the letter a bunch of times. The next page they tear out, fold up, and staple into a book that tells a little story making heavy use of the current letter. We play a cd that comes with the book while the kid reads along out loud. Then I read the story once and then the kid reads it by herself. After that we usually play some kind of game which may or may not use any English. The other teacher does most of the work. I just say a couple of words in English every so once in awhile. When I got home that evening, she had sent me a mail saying that it would probably be better if I didn't teach the Sunday class. It is mostly pre-school kids and she felt they need a more motherly feeling so she was going to have the other person do that class. She said I was a little too adult-like. Actually, that was kind of a relief. The next day was the job that I took over from my friend Heyward. I was much more worried about this job because I have to do it by myself. I had gone with Heyward the previous two weeks, so I had a pretty good idea of what to do. The first class went ok. The part of the book for that week was "I'm hungry. I want some ...". The book comes with a bunch of big flashcards for each section. This section's cards were all food items like pizza, chicken, rice, etc... So we went over the cards and then played a game where the kids make a circle and I spread the cards out on the floor in the middle of them. Then I say one of the words and the first kid to touch that card gets that card. Then the kid with the most card wins. Then we did their workbook where all they do is write a letter a bunch of times. After that we played Jenga which Heyward had given me. The kids are used to playing around a lot in this class, so they are pretty wild. They tend to like games with lots of running around. I've yet to figure out a way to get them to do dialogs. They remember words ok, but not dialogs. I've been reviewing the "I'm hungry. I want some ..." phrase every week since that first week. Last week I took an apple to classs because I had to introduce "Buy an apple. Wash it. Cut it. Eat it.". So I had a real apple and mimicked buying it and washing it, but then I really cut it and ate a piece. They all wanted a piece, so I figured I'd test to see how well they remembered "I'm hungry. I want some ...". So I told them (in Japanese) that if they asked me for some apple in proper English, I would give them a piece. So they lined up and each one tried to ask. Keep in mind that in explaining the rules, I said the phrase "I'm hungry. I want some apple." three times before we started. None of them could do it. They kept getting stuck at the word "want". I slowly went through it with each one and eventually they all got a piece of apple. I was pretty lenient, though, especially with the youngest kid who Heyward says has a tendency to cry in class. After thinking about it after the class, I think part of the problem is that I tend to say "want" with a soft t which is probably hard for Japanese people to hear. On the other hand, kids are supposed to be good at picking that sort of thing up. The second class is only four kids. Three boys and a girl. On the days they want to play, class isn't so bad, but other days I have a hard time getting them to do anything. Last week was particularly bad. I'm going to have to come up with some more interesting games or some of them might quit. One kid already quit the other class. I'm not sure why, but I suspect it is because I'm not as interesting as Heyward was. The first class on Friday is another big class of about 10 kids. 5 boys and 5 girls. Two of the kids are the teacher's children. This class is also pretty rowdy, but the teacher is pretty good at handling them. We usually spend the first 10 to 20 minutes doing a little question and answer session where they ask me questions like "What is your favorite color?" and I ask them the same questions back. After that we do their workbook which is the same as the on the girl I have on Wednesdays uses. After that class is a class with two older girls. I'm guessing 4th or 5th grade, about 12 years old. This class pretty much goes about the same as the previous class, but they are a little better at asking questions. They are obsessed with a game where they draw lines on the board to determine who will say the closing words for the class "class is over", who will erase the white board, and who will put they chairs away. Sort of like einie-meinie-minie-mo. They always include me, but even if I'm assigned something, one of the girls always ends up doing it. The next class is a 10 year old boy who probably has some sort of learning disability so can't be in the large class. Some days he does pretty well, but one day all he did was dance the whole time. Of course, that was the day the teacher decided to leave me alone with him and his mother and go shopping. After the third class, I go to the teacher's house and she makes us dinner. She's not much of a cook, but it's not bad. Of course, she's got me trying to fix her computer, but we only have 45 minutes once a week and there's a trillion things wrong with the sucker, so I'm not making much progress. Besides that though, she is one of those self-improvement book nuts. Don't get me wrong, she's a nice person, but maybe a little too nice in a little bit of a scary way. She and the woman from Hong Kong who I'm filling in for have a plan to try and make a giant English conversation organization. She want it to work sort of like Tupperware where you create this army of housewives who teach English conversation classes in order to protmote her social agenda. Here's a snippet from the mission statement which she asked me to translate into English: "Since I became an adult, I've felt that adults force adult ideas on children, and before you know it crush children's potential. Most adults do it without even noticing. We need to provide training for adults so they don't do that. Of course, there will be parents who think creatively and positively. Their communities will be the strongest. Children will also learn those ideas from those parents. This will create children who have dreams and purpose and act towards them. If that happens, we won't be limited by the current English teaching framework, and anyone can join. At that point, a system where people can easily learn of the community by word of mouth will be necessary. From that stage, we can begin a network business. Network businesses are still not generally accepted in Japan, but we must create a computerized monetary system and deal with human nature. If we do that, we will have the ability to pull in self-motivated people. We will praise self-motivated adults and children, and then our group of excited and lively people will be created. If we choose a good monetary system, then there will be lots of monetarily wealthy and psychologically wealthy people. Then from that wealth, we can aid poor children." There are still a couple of rough bits in there where I've translated literally from Japanese because I'm not sure exactly what she means, but you probably get the idea. After dinner, we return to the classroom where we have a class with three older women and a high school girl. That class is pretty easy. Usually one of the women has some question she wants to ask me, so we teach them how to ask that question and then how to answer it in English. Last week, for example, one of them wanted to know how to phone and tell someone that you can't come to class (or work or whatever). This last class is over at 9 and then it takes me about an hour to get home by train. In other news, today, I've finally got a roommate. He's from Australia and teaches Japanese to High School students there. It seems like he's only going to be here for a couple of weeks to refresh his Japanese. (Comment on this)
Sunday, October 17th, 2004
11:38 pm	Breakfast: banana Lunch: nothing Dinner: fried chicken in green onion sauce (鶏肉のから揚げねぎソース), rice, miso soup (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Saturday, October 16th, 2004
11:29 pm	Breakfast: toast, banana Lunch: lunch set at a Japanese restaurant (chawanmushi, picked vegetables, some kind of grilled fish, sashimi (squid, tuna, and some other fish), rice, tempura (vegetable, shrimp), miso soup) Dinner: various dishes at a Chinese restaurant More on this day, later. Various things happened, but not that interesting. As I was going to sleep watching TV, the news show had a special report on a recent problem developing among elementary school children. I'm not sure how to translate the term they were using, maybe "ordered eating" (ばかり食べ方). Anyway, the problem is that they are eating each part of their lunch separately before moving on to the next part. So if they have rice, stew, and carrots, they eat all the rice, then all the stew, and then all the carrots. They showed one 6 year old who was eating makisushi. First she took the seaweed off and then ate that, then she ate the rice away from the tuna, and then ate the tuna. When asked why he was an "ordered eater", one 8 year old said that it tastes better when the flavors don't mix. They had an expert on who showed the proper order to eat food, though I've forgotten what it was. Something like: main dish, miso soup, rice, then repeat. According to the newscater, the real horror was that the parents didn't care because the kids were properly finishing their entire meal. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Friday, October 15th, 2004
11:27 pm	Breakfast: Japanese rolled omelette (だし巻き卵) Lunch: melon bread Dinner: white sesame ramen (at a restaurant) (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Thursday, October 14th, 2004
11:25 pm	Breakfast: Japanese rolled omelette (だし巻き卵) Lunch: steamed rice dish (五目焼き込みご飯) Dinner: oyakodon (親子丼) (chicken, rice, eggs) (Comment on this)
Wednesday, October 13th, 2004
11:19 pm	Breakfast: Japanese rolled omelette (だし巻き卵) Lunch: steamed rice dish (五目焼き込みご飯) Dinner: 2 ice cream bars (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, October 12th, 2004
11:16 pm	Breakfast: scrambled eggs, banana Lunch: mackerel in miso sauce (鯖の味噌煮), rice, sauteed peppers (ピーマンのきんぴら), pickled daikon (つぼ漬) Dinner: steamed rice dish (五目焼き込みご飯) (chicken, rice, burdock, konnyaku, carrots), miso soup (Comment on this)
Monday, October 11th, 2004
11:01 pm	Breakfast: scrambled eggs, banana Lunch: nothing Dinner: mackerel in miso sauce (鯖の味噌煮), rice, sauteed peppers (ピーマンのきんぴら) Turns out there is no school today. When Japan hosted the Olympic games some time ago, they decided that October 10th would be Physical Education day, and now it is a national holiday. Since the 10th was a Sunday, most people get Monday off. This was cool because it gave me some extra time to study and also some time to gather some more cooking equipment so I can make something out of the cookbook. It turned out ok, and I will take the leftovers for lunch tomorrow. (Comment on this)
Sunday, October 10th, 2004
11:00 pm	Breakfast: scrmbled eggs, banana Lunch: nothing Dinner: fried rice, shumai (at a Chinese restaurant), cashew chicken Today I met with the woman I used to go hiking with. She brought along another woman who I knew from the Okazaki International Association where I used to go for free Japanese lessons on Saturdays. The one I used to go hiking with is very short (less than 5', I think) with a sort of largish, round head, very small mouth. She lives with her parents and is an OL (office lady) at a large insurance company. The other is a little taller than the first. She changed her hair, so I didn't quite recognize her at first. She is married and if I remember correctly has two kids. Both in elementary school, I think. Anyway, They kept saying how surprised they were at how well I could speak Japanese now. They expected me to forget tons while I was in the U.S.. I don't put too much stock in what they say though, you get that compliment a lot in Japan if you can say just a few words. We went to a Chinese restaurant in the mall for dinner. In the middle of dinner I realized it was my birthday and mentioned it, so they insisted on buying me a gift. I sugested a cook book of basic Japanese recipies, so they got me one. Then they wanted to go to Starbucks. At Starbucks we ran into another woman who also taught Japanese lessons at the Okazaki International Association. She was talking with a Romanian guy who works at the Okazaki research center. Pretty thin woman with kinda a flat, white face. Her English is pretty good having lived a year in San Francisco studying Japanese teaching. She had majored in English in college and found some sort of English related job after that, but didn't like it. She really wanted to go to the U.S. (or at least out of Japan), so she found a course at SFSU where they teach you how to teach Japanese. Now I think she has a job teaching Japanese somewhere in Okazaki, but I didn't catch all of that conversation. The wierd thing about that woman was that at some point in the conversation she mentioned that she wanted to ride a horse and was looking for a place to ride a horse for cheap. She has been feeling uneasy about her future and not sure what she wants to do, and she has no friends, so she thinks that since horses seem so peaceful, if she rides one, she will become peaceful as well. She had actually found a place where she can ride a horse. It is at some sort of place called Okazaki Farm. I think it is a sort of learning farm where kids can go to learn about farming. Anyway, she has a car, but she kept talking about how far it was (less than an hour away). My guess is that she wanted the Romanian guy to go with her. She kept saying she didn't want to go by herself. The Romanian guy is married though, and is wife is here with him, so he wasn't biting. Anyway, it turns out that the research center where the guy works is having an open house. As soon as he mentioned that the two women I was haning out with got really excited and wanted to go, so we all agreed to meet at 10:20 on Saturday to go to the open house. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Saturday, October 9th, 2004
9:32 pm	Breakfast: scrambled eggs, melon bread, banana Lunch: chicken curry, rice Dinner: Nothing Today I was supposed to meet the woman I used to go hiking with, but we were hit by a typhoon. Now, I saw something when I was in the U.S. that claimed that hurricanes and typhoons are the same thing, but if such a storm occurs in the Atlantic Ocean it is called a hurricane, and one in the Pacific is called a typhoon. I'm not sure how it compares to the hurricanes that hit the U.S. this year, but it wasn't a big deal in Okazaki. Just tons and tons of rain. The winds weren't that bad. Okazaki is fairly inland so that probably helps. I think the winds were stronger in other places. So I just stayed in my room and fooled around until it stopped raining in the early evening and then went for a short walk. (Comment on this)
Friday, October 8th, 2004
9:31 pm	Breakfast: toast, banana Lunch: maki sushi, melon bread Dinner: croissant, doughnut Had to go to city hall to register as a resident alien. The school took a group of about 15 of us in a bus. The school had already filled out all of the forms, but we had to sign the forms in front of one of the city hall bureaucrats. Also signed up for health insurance. You need to register as a resident alien if you are in the country for more than 90 days. Also, if you want a bank account, cell-phone, or any kind of job, you need the card they issue. (Comment on this)
Thursday, October 7th, 2004
9:31 pm	Breakfast: nattou, rice, banana Lunch: sushi (at a restaurant) Dinner: chicken curry Played poker with some other students and a teacher in the evening. The Australian who is the International Director at Yamasa runs a little bar right by the school. Hayward and a bunch of his friends have been playing poker there for some time now. I broke even. (Comment on this)
Wednesday, October 6th, 2004
9:30 pm	Breakfast: nattou, rice, banana Lunch: Nothing Dinner: Ramen, pot stickers (at a Chinese restaurant) The class looks pretty good. I'm in C class (A is the highest, K is the lowest). I definitely like the two main teachers. One I had for a pronunciation elective the last time I was here. Its the biggest class I've had at Yamasa: 14 people. Someone told me that they lowered the teachers' salaries last year and a bunch quit. It breaks down like this: 5 Americans, 1 Korean, 1 Swiss, 2 Taiwanese, 2 Singaporese, 1 Brazilian, and two haven't arrived yet. We are starting out near the end of a book I haven't studied yet, but I'm not too worried about it. A lot of the grammar repeats with slight variations and I probably have gone over it at other times. I met up with Hayward in the evening and we went to a Chinese restaurant and caught up. This will be his last semester after being at Yamasa for nearly a year and a half and in Japan for 2 years teaching English before that. He's planning on going back to the US after this, but has no plans. (Comment on this)
Tuesday, October 5th, 2004
9:30 pm	10/5/2004 Breakfast: nattou (fermented soy beans), rice, toast Lunch: nothing Dinner: grilled mackerel, rice, pickled vegetables, miso Today was orientation. Mostly boring as I've been through all that before. Orientation was in English given by the head of the International Office at the school. He's an Australian. In order to explain why we had to try and be quiet all the time when in the dorm or apartments he had some stories. According to Declan, most of the people in this area of Okazaki are pretty old and go to bed early. The apartments I'm living in now were bought by Yamasa a while back and they have had tons of complaints from the neighbors about the noise. Yamasa has some more land near these apartments and they wanted to build a dorm there. When Yamasa filed the paperwork for the plan, the nearby residents filed two injuctions: one to prevent Yamasa from building the dorm, and another to tear down Yamasa's existing apartments. Yamasa fought the later, but gave up on the former and found another location for the dorm. The new location for the dorm is separated from any housing by a large parking, a sports club, and a high school. All of which are not in use at night so there is no one to be bothered by the noise from the dorm. There were still tons of complaints once the students moved in, so Yamasa built a convenience store next to the dorm. Convenience stores are open 24 hours a day and have lots of cars and attract lots of noisy Japanese teenagers. So the constant noise level from the convenience store somewhat masks the noise from the dorm. The complaints finally decreased, but there are still some, so Yamasa recently built a laundromat next to the convenience store to attract more cars and generate more noise. They haven't had a complaint since May. (Comment on this)
Monday, October 4th, 2004
5:35 pm	Breakfast: toast, bannana Lunch: maki sushi (egg, picked vegetables) Dinner: maguro tataki (ground raw tuna), rice, pickled daikon, miso soup Woke up at 6am. Had some breakfast, watched some TV, and then went to school to take the placement exam. Since I had already been to the school before they stuck me in a room with three other advanced students: one from New Jersey, one from Australia, and one from Taiwan. Then we took the test. I was the only one who didn't finish, but this was not surprising as they had all passed the Japanese Proficiency Test at Level 2, which I'm not quite up to yet. The Proficiency test really focuses on grammar which I didn't study at all this last year as I knew that would be the focus again once I got back to school. We also had to write a short essay about things we wanted to do while we were in Japan. After that, I had a short interview with some teachers to test my oral ability. Thanks to Yuka, I'm quite a bit better at speaking and listening then last time. Not as afraid as I used to be to talk to random Japanese people because most of the time I understand what they say to me. Still, though, at the Tonkatsu restaurant and a couple of things that the bus driver driver said to me on the way back to the airport I didn't understand at first. Anyway, the interview went ok, but I could tell that I kept screwing up the grammar. I had mentioned that I had been reading the Murakami book over this past year, so they asked me to summarize what I had read. I had a hard time with the grammar during that part. After that we had a short ceremony where everyone had to stand up when their name was called. Then they introduced the teachers. Two of the teachers I had before are no longer at the school. One of them was my favorite teacher. The other I heard was in Germany from a student who studied with me a year ago. I'll have to find out what happened to the other one. After that I went the department store again to get a knife, a cutting board, and a few other things. As I was leaving the department store having bought nothing, I realized that this was probably what people mean when they say I'm indecisive. I never really think of myself as indecisive because I have to make decisions all the time, sometimes quickly. This time, though, I kept having running debates in my head as to whether the cutting board was big enough, or what kind of knife I really wanted, or maybe they have this stuff at they hyaku-en store where it would be cheaper, but then maybe it would be too cheap. Then I went back to the school office to see if I could get my internet connection hooked up. They asked me if I was in room 106 and I kept saying no I was in room 104. At this point I realized that at the last minute they had changed my room assignment and that's why my internet was working. Also, it seems I probably won't have a roommate this quarter unless someone switches housing. Then I went to the grocery store, bought some stuff for dinner, ate it, watched some TV, went to sleep. (Comment on this)
Saturday, October 2nd, 2004
5:33 pm	Breakfast: toast, banana Lunch: rice, miso soup Dinner: Tonkatsu restaurant: tonkatsu, miso soup, daikon pickles, rice, cabbage, melon ice cream Woke up around 5am. My room has a TV so I just watched TV until a little before 9 when I assumed the Yamasa office would be open. I had promised Toh sensei that I would show the French woman where the school was, and I told her I would do that at 11, but I was bored so I went over there at 9. They copied my passport and I asked them about the Internet connection. They said I had to pay the fee before they could hook me up, but I couldn't pay the fee until Monday. After that I went to the grocery store and bought some basic food items. Went back to the apartment and watch TV until 11 and checked to see if Sophie (the French womand) was around. She was, so we went to the school and she had them copy her passport. I had to go to the mall, and she wanted to find a plug converter for something or other. So we went to the appliances store and got the converter. Then we went to the mall. She wanted to get some groceries and while she was doing that I bought a vacuum thermos (magic bottle in Japanese) for tea. Next we went to a hyaku-en store (99 cent store). I suspect she is on quite a budget because she really liked that store. We both bought a few things and then we went back to the apartment. Probably won't be seeing much more of Sophie. I think she's more shy than me and she'll be in the beginning Japanese classes so I won't see her much at school. She's really into manga and showed me one of her drawings on the ride from the airport. It was pretty good. Lots of students here are into manga and draw a bit. After watching a little more TV, I went to a department store to buy some bedding material. Yamasa will rent or sell bedding to you, but I told them I didn't want any because they overcharge. So I bought a mattress, futon, and pillow. About $120 total. They have regular beds, but those are expensive. The mattress I bought is about an inch thick, but actually pretty comfortable. The futon is what we would call a comforter. They split futons into two categories here "upper" and "lower". The "lower futon" is what we usually think of as a futon, but quite a bit thinner. Maybe only an inch thick. Normally you sleep on top of that and use the "upper futon" as a comforter. Since they aren't that heavy or think, you can easily roll them up and put them out of the way so you can have more space in your room. Instead of a "lower futon", I bought a "3-fold mattress" which is a foam mattress that folds up. Anyway, this stuff is light enought that I could easily carry it back on the 10 minute walk back to the aparment. Later that evening I went to a Tonkatsu restaurant for dinner by myself. It was ok. (Comment on this)
Friday, October 1st, 2004
5:32 pm	Breakfast: La Note (Cote Est) Lunch: Airplane food. Dinner: Airplane food. Pam's biscotti. Arrived in Nagoya with no problems, ziped through customs and saw Toh sensei who is the principal of Yamasa. I'm pretty sure he is from China orignally, and he's been the prinicpal of Yamasa for some time now. I arrived about 8:30pm, but we had to spend quite some time at the airport waiting for some other students. Two Italian guys, a French woman, and a womand from Hong Kong showed up, and we waited until 11, but the Taiwanese person we were waiting for didn't show. Went to sleep when I finally got to my room after determining that the Internet connection wasn't on. (Comment on this)
Friday, July 4th, 2003
3:09 pm	Like bacon? My friend Dan has started a blog on bacon that you can read at daysofbacon. (Comment on this)
3:04 pm	Back I'm back in California now. I had decided that I would end my studying this last semester and I had found a job teaching English in Japan when an old friend from RealNetworks invited me to work at his new company. I had only just received an email from the English teaching company saying they would like to hire me, so I just refused the invitation and came back to California. I had an interview at the new place early this week and I start work on Monday. The company is coming up with some new ways to deal with computer security, but I can't really say more than that. Unfortunately it is in Palo Alto, so I'll probably have to move there for awhile. I'm not really planning on working there for more than a year unless I really like it. After that I'll probably go back to Japan. (Comment on this)