Typical Tuesday

I am sitting at my desk this morning, trying to not only look productive but be productive as well. From October my Tuesdays will be busy. I get to teach English courses at a local vocational college, an opportunity I welcome after spending all my days with kids ages 12-14! But until my time there begins, I have only one class on Tuesday, so I’m working to find ways to fill my time constructively. Poor me, too much free time to know what to do with!

Slowly but surely we are being folded into the patterns of daily life at a junior high school. The students are overall very fun to work with. I am glad that I had an opportunity to work at this school previously, as I feel much more settled in myself and what I am expected to do as a teacher because of that experience. Before I came in February of 2011, I thought that Japanese school children would be extremely disciplined, attentative and respectful of their teachers in the classroom. While this did not prove to be UN-true, the reality was very different from my expectation. Students are not the perfect angels I thought them to be- they are after-all in junior high, the dreaded age for caregivers!- and are more of a challenge than I had initially anticipated. The biggest challenge for me is getting the students to participate. Learning a foreign language, for Japanese students particularly I think, is scary and it can be difficult to muster the students’ courage enough to have eager participants. Hopefully I will make progress on this front over the next weeks and months.

This weekend was a nice one- David, the American TA who extended his contract, and his girlfriend Mei took us around parts of Naha on Saturday afternoon. It was a tour of practicality as we were shown useful spots such as the 100 yen store (dollar store!), English bookstore, and other cheap markets and places to shop for everyday items. The highlight was definitely the fish market located in the twisted alleyways of the local market near Kokusai Street, the main drag of town. In this fish market were creepy-crawly crustaceans that had yet to meet their match, appendages and antennae reaching out to entice the unsuspecting shopper with their freshness. I was disgusted in the best way possible. There were also other scrumptious morsels of food, perhaps the most shocking being the face of a pig, deflated and waxy-looking. I get chills thinking about it. I will be making stops back there for more cheap thrills and fresh fish!

We also spent some time in Chatan, a town just north of Naha that is geared towards the US military presence due to its close proximity to one of the many military bases that are found in Okinawa. We ate Japanese-style Tex-Mex with American rap music blaring in the background. Military men were everywhere, some young and with friends, others out with their families. The school where I work is in such a local and residential part of Naha that it is pretty rare to stumble across non-Japanese person or family, so it is always a stark and interesting contrast to step into “mini-military America”. On Sunday, Abbey and I went to an Eisa performance at a park near our school. A combination of percussion and dance, Eisa is a type of traditional Okinawan dance performed at festivals and parades. Some students from the school where I work were participating, and it was truly inspiring to see them dancing and playing their drums with such energy and skill. Maybe I’ll have to give it a try one of these days!

Rumors are flying about a potential move-in date for Abbey and I to finally move into our penthouses! Friday Friday Friday! Fingers are crossed and double-crossed. We’ll see what the week brings.