I've found that I quite like teaching. It feels good to help people understand, and you can see the kids getting better all the time. However, it really bugs me when a student doesn't even want to try. I feel so frustrated, because I'll often walk them through a sentence or exercise step by step if they need that much help. But if they won't even repeat one word, then what can you do? I find it particularly frustrating in Japan, because there is no way for kids to catch up when they fall behind. All the kids will pass English I and go onto English II, even if they got a 0 in English I. This means the kids who don't try now can never really have a chance to try later on, even if they should change their minds.

Last Saturday I went to my elementary school's school festival. Horikawa (my junior high school) doesn't have a school festival, but most other schools do. Often they include crafts, food, singing, and presentations. Some of the technical high schools have things like fighting sumo robots, from what I hear. My elementary school is quite small (90 students), so they didn't have anything that fancy. First 5 of the 7 classes made presentations simultaneously. I visited the special class, which only has two students for about 20 minutes. They two girls were really embarrassed, because there were three teachers there watching. I was sad that the girls' parents didn't come. Almost every other student in the school had a parent who came to watch. After awhile I went to the other classes, grades 1, 3, 4, and 5. I caused quite a commotion in some of the classes, because the students didn't know I was coming. I tried to sneak in, so as to not interrupt their presentations, but I was always spotted. The presentations often included a song, a story, and a quiz. The first year students went around interviewing the parents (and me).

The second part of the festival was held in the gym. They have a stage in the gym, too. The 2nd graders put on a presentation for everyone about going around the neighborhood and interviewing local workers. They interviewed someone from the train station, a shoe store, and the castle. I couldn't understand everything they said. The 6th graders put on a play for us, called Melos. It seemed to be Greek or Roman, but I didn't know the story. All I know is that it involved crucifying two of the students (they were cut down later), so that was interesting. For a finale, all the students sang some songs together. They were pretty good, actually. It was a lot of fun, and makes me wonder why Horikawa doesn't do it, too. The only thing we have at my junior high school is a choral competition, which is this Friday. However, the whole school doesn't come to the competition. It's done one grade at a time, and the other students have class.

I found out today there is a new student in one of my classes. He is a first year student, and he started coming in September. He is Chinese, and he doesn't speak any Japanese. I imagine he'll have to learn quickly. He got pulled from English class today to go study Japanese, and I noticed that he is using the same book I use. However, he's way behind me. I hope he does well, because it has to be difficult for him. I don't think any of the teachers speak any Chinese, so that can't be easy. He doesn't speak English, either.

Back to the grind again! I'm pretty busy this week with planning a couple big lessons, and teaching them. There's just one thing that really bothers me. It's vegetables at lunch.

Almost every day, we are given cabbage as our lunch vegetable. What's their problem? They have some sort of cabbage obsession. And if it's not cabbage (5%) of the time, it's baby cucumbers. Or often it's cabbage and baby cucumbers. Surely they could give us a different vegetable every once in awhile!

Anyway, yesterday was my brother Keith's birthday. Happy Birthday Keith! I gave him his present when the family came to visit in July, so I don't need to send anything home now. I have been researching about sending things home, since I don't think I can fit it all on the plane on the way home. Apparently I can ship 30kg via surface mail for about 110 dollars. Not too bad... Of course, it will take months to get there, so I'll just ship my winter things back in the spring. For twice the price, I can have it arrive in two weeks. I don't know if it is worth it to have my sweaters waiting for me, though.

This Friday is Halloween, and a bar in Uozu, a city near Toyama, is having its annual Halloween Party. They've invited us JETs to come, too. In fact, we're part of their advertising (real, live foreigners), but we don't get a discount. Someone suggested we should have a patent on the use of the "gaijin" label. The party should be fun, but it is one of those really annoying things where we have to pay for all-you-can-drink. I find it really annoying, since I don't drink, and rarely consume enough juice and soft drinks to make it worth the money. This one costs 4,000 yen (about 35 dollars or so).

I'm reaching new heights of boredom at work. I have no classes this week, due to the mid-term tests which are Thursday and Friday. This means I've become bored. I am mostly focusing on next week's lesson, and on my elementary lessons for the next two weeks.

I've decided to do something special for Halloween for my elementary school. I'm going to have a little treasure hunt around the school. I'll even give them candy at the end. However, they can't read, so I need to make lots of tapes to play for them.

I also take three stuffed animals to elementary school every week. They have names, and the students know them and like them. So I have decided to dress them up in Halloween costumes and have a little puppet show with them to explain trick-or-treating. I think it'll be cool.

I had a big demonstration class yesterday. About half the junior high English teachers and ALTs came to my school to watch one of two demonstration classes. I helped with the 3rd year student class. There was also a 1st year class. The teachers could choose which class to go watch, but most ALTs watched my class, since it was team teaching. The other class was team teaching, but with two Japanese teachers.

For our lesson, we tried to get the students to speak to foreigners in English, and to practice using things like, "I don't understand," "Could you speak more slowly, please?" and "What does _______ mean? The students did pretty well, but I think they did better in practice. But with over 50 teachers packed into our tiny classroom, standing around them watching, I'm sure they were nervous. I was just hoping our students would learn that they can communicate in English, despite not having a strong mastery of it. I think they did accomplish that goal, and were able to communicate, despite the cultural differences.

After the team teaching class, we had a meeting where all the teachers gather and then we have to talk about what we liked and didn't like about the lesson, etc. My Japanese teacher was really scared, though. She told me I had to answer all the ALT's questions since she didn't speak English well. She said she would answer the Japanese teachers' questions. However, this was kind of a trick since Japanese people generally think it is rude to talk about things in front of lots of people. Basically it meant I would answer nearly all the questions. But I didn't really mind fielding the questions, so I agreed.

My teacher and I each had to make a short speech about how the class went. My teacher pre-wrote some of her speech in English, but switched to Japanese after it was over. I find it really annoying that she spoke in Japanese since there were non-Japanese speakers present, and her English is plenty good enough. In fact, she seemed totally embarassed to speak in English. This is particularly ironic, since the lesson we just had was about how it was okay to communicate in English when you aren't good (however, she's actually one of my most fluent teachers). I felt like I was sitting next to one of my students who refuses to speak.

One Japanese teacher finally asked her a question and she answered in a timid little voice that I doubt many people heard. Despite the fact that the Japanese teacher asked the question in English, Ms. Shouman answered in Japanese! It was really embarassing. Then one of the ALTs asked me a question about something Ms. Shouman had decided to do at the last minute without consulting me (why did we record the students' conversations?). I passed the question on to her, but she didn't seem to understand it. It was a really easy question, and she should've been able to understand it. I had to repeat it and simplify it so she would get it. I didn't want to put pressure on her like that, but I had no idea of the answer. She finally gave an answer to the ALT, but in Japanese! I had to ask another ALT who speaks Japanese what her answer was. Ms. Shouman looked absolutely terrified throughout the whole process. I couldn't tell if she was going to pee in her pants, cry, or what. She looked like an awful mess. I found this a little strange since she was fine during the actual class.

Afterwards my supervisor at the city hall spoke. She was kind of funny though, because she basically said something really blunt and un-Japanese about how the lesson was a failure since students weren't using the grammar point enough, despite the successful communications that were going on. It was a humorous that she said that, though. Somehow it didn't seem malevolent so much as a "better luck next time" sort of thing.

The meeting lasted about 50 minutes, until 4pm. Then the ALTs got to go home, but the Japanese teachers had to stay longer. Anyway, I'm just glad it's over so I have one less thing to worry about right now.

Last Friday I sent money home using a new, more secure way, and I found out today it was successful. It costs 400 yen in Japan, and $12 to process it in America. It is cheaper than my old method of sending it via mail, plus it is safer, since it goes directly into my bank account. It seems great, but I haven't seen much on websites about life in Japan. Maybe I'll write something up about it and submit it to a website. Anyway, dad, it means you don't have to run to the post office for me anymore. Thanks though!

All the teachers have disappeared. I think all the first year teachers went to a concert with the students. I found out they're not coming back for lunch, so I get to eat with some of the older students. They are often better at talking, so it's a little more fun.

I've entered speech contest time. For some reason, every single English speech contest is scheduled for the same time. Last Thursday was a really big speech contest. Two of my girls entered it. It was during school, so I left at 11, and went with them to a building next to the art museum. There were about 5 other ALTs there with their students, and many Japanese English teachers. There were 32 students who made speeches. Each one had a limit of 5 minutes to talk. It went on until 4 or so. It was very long. I started drifting off during some of the speeches. My girls did well, but not well enough to win. The top three winners earn a place in the national English speech contest in Tokyo.

I also went to a speech contest with Victoria on Sunday morning. I went to this same contest last year, too. It is sponsored by the Toyama University of International Studies. The guy who yelled at me about English club when I first came to my school was the chief judge at the contest and is an English professor at the University. In the junior high school division, they only accept 5 students (22 applied this year), so it was great that one of mine got in. She did well, and tied for second place. I think she could've gotten first if she had practiced with me, but she is really busy right now.

Also, there is an English skit competition this Saturday that two of my girls are in. I am getting a little overwhelmed by speech contests!

I did other things around Toyama this weekend, besides speech contests. On Friday, Victoria organized a dinner at a Chinese restaurant, with karaoke afterwards. I organized a dinner for the new JETs at this restaurant back in August, and I typed up an English translation of the menu for the new JETs. When I left, I gave the restaurant a copy. Well, it turns out that they made a whole nice looking English menu based on the translation I did. It was almost word for word what I had written. It really made my day that they put it to such good use. Karaoke was a lot of fun, but several people who were going to come chickened out instead.

Saturday Victoria and I got up early and went to Oyama town, where a friend of ours lives. Erin rounded up some JETs for an Oyama international event (they always do cool stuff). Last year they had soba-making, but this year they had a glass blowing workshop. A woman in the town has a large workshop where she makes the stuff. She showed us how to do it, then helped us to realize our designs. It was really cool, but it took a long time for all 13 of us to make what we wanted. I was number 11, so I had a really long wait. I ended up making a cool looking blue flower vase. I was really happy with the way it came out. We didn't get home until 5ish, though, so it was a tiring day.

Here are pictures from our Hiroshima and Fukuoka trip:

1) Victoria with the Hiroshima Peace Bell
2) Victoria with the kids who helped us make paper cranes
3) A man prays in front of the cenotaph
4) Miyajima ferry ride with the torii in the background
5) Victoria overwhelmed by deer
6) The deer eating Victoria's map
7) These girls saw Victoria's map get eaten, and used their map as bait
8) Me with a baby deer
9) Floating torii
10) Victoria with the floating torii
11) Miyajima Itsukushima Shrine
12) Miyajima town street
13) The view from the top of the mountain on Miyajima Island
14) Humorous monkey sign 1
15) Humorous monkey sign 2
16) Humorous monkey sign 3
17) Victoria poses with the world's largest rice scoop (apparently they were invented in Miyajima)
18) Fukuoka City Street
19) Victoria at the Fukuoka Harbor
20) Fukuoka Harbor scene
21) Plane watching at the harbor tower
22) It was Asian month in Fukuoka (isn't every month Asian month in Japan?)
23) Yatai stands in Fukuoka (portable ramen trucks that come out at night by the river)
24) Friends we made at a bar in Fukuoka
25) Ohori Park lake in Fukuoka (we rowed around the lake)
26) A Japanese garden in Ohori Park
27) Victoria in the Japanese garden
28) For the Brits out there: the shopping area called "Ming"