色々の初め -- A lot of firsts

After too long (which seems doubly long to me), I'll finally be writing about my firsts. First impressions and self-introductions, first days, first job, etc, so please forgive the lengthy post.

It's been two months now that I've been living here, in Hokkaido. It's also been nearly two months since I've been going to the schools. Time here seems both extremely slow (mainly because I still have no internet access in my house, apparently the internet company forgot about me, which I was told was unbelievable) and fast, because no matter how slowly each day passes, the calendar days fly off the page. I can hardly believe it's already October!

First meetings

Back to the beginning, on August 3rd. Walking out of the baggage claim with two friends, all of us in our suits and being unreasonably hot in the humidity, we were led to a meeting room on the second floor of the airport. We realized at once that it was filled with our supervisors, all sitting and waiting for us! Without pausing, we walked in, one after the other, handing our nametags and hearing our cities being called. That's when I first saw my supervisor, and greeted him in English before remembering he didn't really speak any. I followed him to the end of the room where two more people got up, one of them obviously the other Assistant Language Teacher (ALT) that I'd been communicating with for the last month via email and knew only by name (I'll refer to her as S from now on). We walked out, and then I remembered I didn't get a chance to say goodbye to my two friends. We were all waltzed out of the airport when we began our journey to our new town.

My supervisor and the other man both insisted I give him my carry-on, so I gave in and walked out carrying only my purse. Once outside, it wasn't as hot and humid as I expected, but it was hot nonetheless, I was still wearing my suit jacket. We drove for a while, and stopped at a rest stop for lunch before driving on through the countryside. Unsurprisingly, the freeway was nice and smooth (I say unsurprisingly because Japan, like many other countries has road tolls, and I won't let myself digress any further as to why the U.S. can't grasp simple concepts should learn from other countries). The first thing we did when we arrived was to go meet the 教育長(kyouikuchou), or the Board of Education's superintendent (the boss of bosses), and have tea with him as the first official meeting and greeting. It was rather intimidating and nerve wracking, mostly because of my level of Japanese and my limited knowledge of work customs. That was to be expected so I think even now they're rather lenient about things. After some paperwork got taken care of, the three of them took me shopping for some necessities. It was probably my first time not carrying my own groceries, and when I asked S about it (she was carrying her own) she said not to worry, it was because she established herself as a man. I laughed, but over time they'll probably see that I can manage just fine (although not sure if it's "impolite" to "break" that custom since I'm not Japanese). After that, my supervisor and S took me out to dinner, where I was reminded that a lot of people in Japan smoke.

The next day, I went to work in my suit again because I was to meet the mayor in the morning. That was also an interesting experience, mostly because I wasn't sure whether it was appropriate to give him the customary present unless I received the 'ok' from the people accompanying me. The meeting itself was fine, the mayor confirmed facts about me and my life and apologized for the "poor" housing condition (it's not that bad, really!) and hoped that I would find this 田舎 (inaka), or countryside, town to my taste, or something like that. Note that because I'm about an hour and a half (by bus) from Sapporo, it's not that countryside at all, just inconvenient not to own a car.

First days at schools

After that, there were a lot of days at the Board of Education (BoE) where I would either sit there reading a book or asked S to switch seats with me so I could use her computer (which has internet, mine doesn't and never will). School started a whole lot earlier than I thought it would. August 17th was my first day, so I was driven to the elementary school (ES) and accompanied into the principal's office where I was to wait, and wait until the opening ceremony where I was to give a short introductory speech! Needless to say I became slightly nervous, a bit more so while walking towards the gym and seeing all the students' curious faces. It went fine, I stumbled in my Japanese translation but they all clapped anyway. And that was that, no classes that day so I just sat in the teacher's office, trying to get to know people better. One teacher tried to make it clear that I shouldn't "hog" the classroom and to be sure to include the homeroom teacher. I made it quite clear I wouldn't and couldn't possibly do such a thing and that I would rely on the homeroom teacher's guidance and help. All for the better! We also talked about my first lesson, basically a self introduction, and then spent a while looking for a map of the world (which ended up quite enormous) to show where I've lived and gone. It was my tour of the school, sort of. Then I got picked up after school and that was my first day on the job, slightly different than what I expected, though I can't really say exactly what I expected.

The next day was my first day at the middle/junior high school (JHS), and there I was shown my desk beforehand and told to leave my stuff, and I happily followed the head-teacher until we got to the gym and I realized I did have to give another introductory speech. Slightly more intimidating as all the students are older, and my speech was very brief and untranslated (I thought the English teacher was going to translate, but she didn't). After that a kid came on stage and read a welcoming speech which made me smile inside and out, it was cute. :) I was to go to my first class that day, 3rd years! So I prepared a short speech about me, my family and my hobbies. I was amazed they barely understood anything, but I have a better grasp of their level now (I should, it's been almost two months). Still though, I'm rather surprised at the education system, especially when it comes to English (perhaps a topic for another post).

My first contact with students was... fine, they were either really curious, or really too shy to ask questions during the first day (this mostly only applies to JHS students). I smiled a lot in class and in the hall because I always thought I was shy, too, but I've been doing alright. The more I act less shy, the less shy I become! As expected, standing in front of a class is-- nerve-wracking to an extent, but at the same time I've somewhat gotten used to it, I'm just still awkward at it though I try to just be myself and show them I'm fun! That is, of course, rather hard to do when all I do in one class is pronounce words and help them with their vocabulary test, nonetheless--! I've decided that no matter what teachers (and I mean one in particular, one I shall refer to as S-sensei) throw at me, I'll be able to respond and respond well! (This is an unintended reference to a certain friend's post that "what makes a person who they are in the end is their reaction to circumstance.")

At the JHS - because I'm only there two days a week and there is barely any time outside of class to get to know students - I made an English box so they could write me notes, comments and/or letters. I got a good number just after the first day, and since then, I feel like the number of notes has only been increasing! I get a bit of everything in there, questions (to which I write answers and post on the board above the box, see pictures - where I blotched out my name), notes (random hellos and things about students) and even drawings. I think they enjoy that, at least I know I do, and since they don't have to write in English, I think they might not be as intimidated to communicate with me, and from there, well I hope it only gets better. :)

Overall, I still feel like a novelty, a sort of celebrity. Kids call my name and wave to me, even (if not especially) outside of school, some kids started high five-ing me in the halls and I even got tickled today! At the JHS I get loud "hello!"s from students who aren't always serious or comfortable in class, and I love that. Of course, I can't always tell if they're poking fun at me because I didn't understand what they said in Japanese; like one time when I was biking home and I think a student asked me if I was going home (to America) on my bike, but I said yes too quickly. Oh well! I could totally bike home over the Pacific, no big deal. Some students are definitely more open and happy to talk with me (about anything) and some just kind of ignore me (mostly in class), but as long as there are some who will smile, giggle and say something to me, I'll be happy.

School festival

I also experienced my first school festival at the JHS (because of course the ES one was a day when I'm not there), and it's kind of amazing. First off, all classes had to sing a song, I believe for the opening ceremony or thereafter. Every class made some kind of art/sculpture project, and last but certainly not least, every class made a "painting" with magazine shreds. I don't think the pictures give them justice, but those works of arts probably took forever as the process was to find and rip magazine pages into tiny little squares, then sort those squares by colors before gluing them (with toothpicks) on the wooden board where they had drawn the overall picture. Amazing! Of course, the entire class didn't participate in that and was probably split into two or three groups, one for the art project(s), and one group was dancing.

First, the sculptures:

Then the "paintings" (I'm really not sure what the correct term is...):

Welcome parties

Over the first month and a half, I had three welcome parties, one with the ES, one with the JHS, and one with the BoE (where I had my own banner). For those of you unfamiliar with the Japanese culture, it's where you really get to bond and open up to your (often drunk) coworkers. Because these were my welcome parties, I had to say a speech. When you're sitting next to the mayor and at the same table as principals, vice-principals and other 偉い人 (erai hito), or important people, you really think about what to say. But apart from my simplistic speech, what the mayor and the superintendent said was very heartwarming and very heartfelt. One of the memorable things they said was: even though the winter is very cold, the people's warmth makes up for it, and I really, truly, do believe that. People are too so nice to me and spoil me! How am I supposed to repay their kindness?

With this, I conclude my second post. I'm sorry it took so long to update, but I finally got internet (after a decade two months!) and (most of) the pictures I wanted. Stay tuned for more! :)