Morning Conbini Raid

My Breakfast.
Mt. Rainer (The Mountain of Seattle) Double Espresso Drink (purchased at a Shinjuku Lawson)

When I purchased these fine breakfast items, I got a chance to practice my extremely basic Japanese on the cashiers. Both the old-ish guy who rang up my purchase and the young guy next to him were pretty impressed that I could spit out, "hot out there, isn't it?" and understand them asking if chopsticks were okay. Maybe setting beginner standards in Komatsu will be a good thing--I won't offend anyone or embarass myself for asking them to repeat something, but when it all comes back, it will be that much more a point of goodwill.

So, yesterday. It was full of speeches. I found all of them useful and 90% of them either hilarious or adorable. The speeches from Japanese English Teachers and a Japanese school pricipal made me way less intimidated.

Now it's off to team teaching workshops and...more speeches.

The Gaijin Are Coming

Every time I visit Seattle, I fall in love with it a little. Maybe it's how fresh the air is, or maybe it's the mountains and the Sound. Needless to say, sharing that with my partner before we said our very temporary goodbyes was magical. Also, dinner at Lynne's Bistro with my dad was pretty cool and very delicious.



As for the Seattle Orientation, I learned a lot about things they probably won't have time to address here in Tokyo--Japanese NGOs and Ranald McDonald, the first American to teach English in Japan. (It's actually a kind of awesome story and totally worth a wiki search.) The best part, though, was definitely meeting fellow JETs at the Consulate Reception.

Those of us who travelled to Seattle--apparently the only ones who had packed in advance--stayed at a cute hotel...with one working elevator. This caused luggage panic, stress, and twenty minute delays on the morning of the flight. Still, we managed to get to the airport early, not that it matters at SeaTac. The whole process of getting us all checked in was very well coordinated; the security line, however, was a bloody mess and probably the main reason I couldn't sleep on the plane.

So, three romcoms, two meals, and a very depressing episode of Mad Men later, we landed in Tokyo. In the JET section of the plane, there arose a great titter of excitement, followed by groans as we tried to unload our over-stuffed carry on bags. And then everything ever was in Japanese, and I even managed to carry out all of my conversations with airport personnel in Japanese, except when I explained that I had less than a month's worth of a prescription. That was a little too important to mess up.

Then we put our giant baggage carts on the escalator (I feared for my life) and rolled out to the buses. And invaded a five start hotel. I would say we ransacked the Keio's little conbini, but very few of us seem to have been able to find it. Mmm, Zarusoba. I would have taken pictures of it, but I was too hungry.

Tomorrow the orientations begin!

Best laid plans

In regard to my one suitcase goal: Ha. Hahahahaha.

My goal was to follow the advice of OneBag and other light travelers and, well, just have one suitcase. Pretty soon, I realized that is advice was geared for traveling, not moving.

One suggestion, however, was extremely helpful: limiting the use of wheeled bags. The frame and wheels on a good rolling bag add to the weight of the bag, and thus detract from the weight you can shove into the bag. In my giant, shapeless, and pocketless black duffel, I fit all of the clothes--all of them--and toilettries plues a few books. And it weighed about 25 lbs. I had to move some of the clothes into the wheeled bag for cusioning omiyage and such. The small wheeled bag, which has no books and nothing individually heavier than 5 lbs, weighs 45 lbs.

Of course, I'm switching stuff around because of a traditional discrepancy between my home scale and the airport scale. But if I had two huge duffels? I'd probably fill them up without approaching the weight limit.

The last minute luggage quest begins...now.

One Week

One week from now, I will be almost in Seattle. Then a disorienting amount of orientations will happen on both sides of the Pacific, and I'll settle in to Komatsu.

Fate has decided to send me reminders in the form of several tourists from Ishikawa. We ran into each other in a Made in Oregon store, as we were all looking for omiyage. I managed to help them find very Oregon things, but for some reason couldn't spit out 小松に英語を教えて行きます (I'm going to Komatsu to teach English).

Ack.

Victory!

I've managed to solve my thorniest omiyage quandary. I needed to find something uniquely Pacific Northwest to place out in the teacher's room, something edible and nicely packaged. My first thought was HAZELNUTS, but those come in very non-omiyage containers. Then, yesterday, my parents asked me what I would be bringing and I responded, "I don't know...maybe Aplets and Cotlets?"



It turns out this was inspired. The website has (lightweight!) 48-piece assortments of fruit and nut candies made from Northwest fruits. I settled on a cherry package because both Oregon and Washington (the two places I grew up) are famous for their cherries...and also because they will be in season in Japan when I get there, so it will be perfect. Added plus: fancy container. There's one worry, gone.

The place where these are made, Liberty Orchards, is part of a great childhood memory for me as well. When I was little, I used to swim competitively and go to swim meets all across Washington state. There was one in Wenatchee in the summertime and my family decided to make a vacation of it. I don't remember the meet, but I do remember swimming in Lake Chelan on a cloudless day. We went to the orchards in the area too, where all those tasty Washington apples come from, and got a full tour. The orchards were gorgeous, and we had tours of the Tree Top and Liberty facilities--complete with apple tastings. The Aplet and Cotlet candies were the highlight, though. The closest thing to them is Turkish Delight, I suppose, but they taste more like fruit than candy. So delicious.

So, yes. Kickass omiyage accomplished.

Goals and Musings

I set some goals for myself about a week ago--here's how I'm doing.

1. Brushing up on Japanese. I've started reviewing vocabulary and kanji on smart.fm. I'm also doing dictation, which is a legit challenge at this point and probably exactly what I need. Also, I've been flipping through books, refreshing my memory on verb patterns.

2. Lesson plans. It turns out my predecessor is leaving me with some to get me started. However, I'm not slacking off. I've found some sites that have games, and while I don't know what exactly we'll be studying when I arrive, I'll at least have a repertoire.

3. Packing. Right now, I am entirely unpacked from college and about half packed for JET. I packed things for JET before unpacking and felt like I had extra clothes even then. Now, figuring out what to do with stuff is my very own Sisyphean challenge.

Lately, I've been meditating on what a language class should be and why it's important. My own experiences with language classes have been uniformly amazing thanks to great teachers. (It should be noted that my current state of 日本語をあまり話せない is no one's fault but my own for not practicing.) In retrospect, even quizzes and tests were fun and felt more like puzzles than exams. I've never felt like learning a foreign language was an all or nothing deal or even all about me; rather, the classes were about understanding what other people had to say and finding a way to express myself, even through the haze of new vocabulary and sentence structures.

It's idealistic, but I want my time with students to be an environment like this. I want to make students feel comfortable and feel like themselves when they read, write, listen to, or speak English. I want it to be fun, and I want to make it so they can see themselves grow. No, I'm not the teacher--merely an assistant--and yes, my job will be mostly review, games, and random supplementary lessons. However, it's the games and the random happenings in the context of learning a foreign language that made it so fun and that held my interest.

This job isn't simply about me or my personal/career advancement, and I love that.

More Preparations

I never use the phrase "I have things to do," or even the last three words of it.

It's not a product of any grammatical grudge. I actually dislike it when people make a big fuss over grammatical errors or inadequate typography--it's like seeing the ugly, over-privileged, grasping, vindictive side of people who are genuinely intelligent. There was a poem I read years ago where "I have things to do" was a solo line, used as part of a reason one person was abandoning...a kid, friend, lover, pet? I don't even know the specifics, but since then, that phrase has carried too much of an emotional weight to use.

This is a problem, however, when I need to do things, and especially when I need to make a list in that regard.

Right now, I have three goals in the 21 days before I leave.

1. Brush up on my Japanese. I'd like to get beyond the Durrr Gaijin Durrrr phase as quickly as possible.

2. Learn some teaching games, as I just found out that in my particular situation, I play a very active role in teaching. I'm super-stoked, but equally nervous.

3. Pack everything (clothing, some yarn, electronics, books, omiyage, toiletries, random stuff for decorating) into a single suitcase. Also, prepare one box for the family to ship sometime in the fall that includes winter clothing.

More music would also be awesome, but le budget does not think a big iTunes card is a good idea right now.

Driving around my hometown has been odd lately as I realize that I'm going to be, you know, leaving the country. It's gone from a someday thing to being more on the immdiate horizon. While it's really exciting, I'm still afraid that I'm going to fail in some way, make some big mistake right off the bat. I want to teach, and I want to be something important to the students I'll be with. There's a possibility of mutual inspiration, and I really, really don't want to screw that all up.