Contextual Fury And I

Listening to:
YUI
My Short Stories

The A in ALT stands for assistant, but I’ve been teaching classes by myself since last week. The teacher for the first graders has been out tending to a serious family issue, so I’ve been running all of her classes in her place. I actually don’t mind given the circumstances, but considering that I have no formal training in the field, managing 35 students at a time can be quite a challenge. Ideally, the foreign teacher (me) should be a warm, approachable figure, but the reality is that you can’t always be that when you’ve got a class to keep in line. I already lost it once and yelled at a pair of students who were goofing around in the middle of the lesson, and the dead silence that followed was a step or two beyond uncomfortable. One girl standing at the back of the class had a look on her face as if I had just murdered someone. Now, I’m here to help the students learn English, not scare the shit out of them, but I guess that the two can go hand in hand within context.

One of my friends from one of the outer islands came to stay at my place over the weekend, and he couldn’t stop talking about GTA IV. I hadn’t thought particularly much about gaming over the past few months, but now I’m finding that I really want a next-gen console. I usually find a suitable reason not to take the plunge, namely money, but that isn’t so much of an issue for once. We’ll see. With T6, SFIV, and FFXIII all due out in 2009, I can’t see myself not having a PS3 by next year.

Brock Lesnar, UFC Champ

Believe it.

ビールと枝豆の炊き込みご飯

I'm not ashamed to admit that I take cooking tips from comedians from time to time.



That's the good stuff right there.

My (Favorite) Mistake

Listening to:
Sheryl Crow
The Globe Sessions
"My Favorite Mistake"

I usually take my lunch in the teacher's lounge, but in an effort to get to know my students outside of a classroom setting, I've also started to eat with the kids from time to time. The students down here have lunch in their homeroom classes, so it's a bit different from the states, where cafeterias are the norm. The first time I ate with one of the classes, we had a real chill, mellow conversation about Hawaii, Okinawa, sports, Stevie Wonder, and entrance exams. My intent was to have a comfortable chat about life with some of my students, and I certainly felt that I succeeded. But for one reason or another, I made the mistake of assuming that lunches with different classes would all follow a similar script. To say the very least, I was incorrect. I decided to eat with my favorite class the other day, and what ensued was not lunch, but sheer pandemonium. I never really stopped to consider what it'd be like to literally have 40 teenagers trying to talk to me at the same time, but needless to say, it doesn't make for very favorable lunching conditions. After not eating for a good half an hour, we finished with an impromptu photo shoot and a considerable amount of incomprehensible shouting. I didn't get to chat about life with them, but I did learn that, simply put, my favorite class is utterly incapable of shutting up. But I guess that's probably why they're my favorite class.

R.I.P. Jeff Foster

I stopped playing fantasy ball years ago, but damn:

Amare Stoudemire - 49 points, 17-21 FG, 15-15 FT, 11 boards, 6 dimes, 5 steals, 2 blocks, 1 homicide.



I know it's only been 5 games, but the dude is dropping 25 per on like 70% shooting.

Steve Nash. Like Us. But 10x Better.

His days as the league's best point guard may be behind him, but he's clearly the funniest dude in the game.







It's like, you know, people say, "Hey, you don't wanna swim with sharks," but I'm faster than sharks, so it's not a big deal.

考え事

Listening to:
GO!GO! 7188
竜舌蘭
「考え事」

One interesting thing about the schools down here is that they have chorus competitions in which the classes compete against each other in the hopes of moving on to larger regional meets. For what it’s worth, I spend roughly the same amount of time in every class and should thus be unbiased when watching competitions that pit the kids against one another, but the reality is that I tend to like some students and classes more than others. Whether or not you perceive that to be a dent in my moral character is up to you, but I think it’s a little silly to pretend that teachers are above subjectivity. It’s our duty to give each student the same opportunity and the same degree of attention, but I think it’s unfair to expect instructors to be sub-human to the point that they don’t feel differently towards the students who make the most of those opportunities. To be perfectly honest, I still don’t consider myself a real teacher - at least not by the high Japanese standards - but I nonetheless like to think that I have a lot to offer the kids here. Anyway, one student that I’m particularly fond of was the conductor for her class during the aforementioned chorus competition. She’s one of my favorite students, not because she’s really great at English (she’s not), but because she makes an honest effort with her studies and unfailingly greets me with unbridled zeal when our paths cross. Her homeroom class, which I’m also quite fond of, had high hopes of landing first place and moving on to the regionals. The class unfortunately came up a little short, but she went on to receive an award for most outstanding conductor. She had tears in her eyes she went up to accept her award, but not tears of joy; she was absolutely crushed because her classmates weren’t being recognized with her. It generally takes me a while to get emotionally invested in anything, but it really broke my heart to see her crying when she conceivably had every right to be celebrating. Much like any other junior high, my school has its share of brats and bullying, but I’ve also seen a brand of camaraderie and warmth that I think is unique to the culture here.