12/10

Friday is high school day.

1st period --- reading test.
Reading test is always easy for me.
I just have to sit there and listen to the kids. One by one they read to me a random paragraph in the textbook.
I don’t understand the point of this test, it doesn’t show their English ability at all.
They get to use their own textbook during the test, so most of them just put katakana spellings on the text to help them read without understanding the text.
A text sample like this:
“Most people here only eat with their hands. I’ve never used my hands to eat curry.”
They would read it like this:
“Mosto peeporu heeya only eato wiz theyya hanzu. I’ve neba usedo my hanzu to eato kali.”
And sometimes for lower level kids, they would read it like this:
“Mosto…… eto….. eto….. wakaranai…… heeya only eato with …. eto…. wakaranai…, I’ve neba used my wakaranai… to eato kali.”


2nd period --- jeopardy game…
except the projector wasn’t working. So… the PowerPoint slides that I prepared was a waste. I can’t use what I had prepared, so I had to come up with a new activity in class…
Grammar point was “What’s this?” “It’s…..”
I just wrote some random Chinese words on the board for them to guess.

3rd period --- went well :]

4th period --- the kids wouldn’t shout up again.

+

I went back to the office after having the lunch at school.
AND…I have nothing to do for the rest of the day.
Even if there’s nothing to do, people here like to pretend that they are busy.
I am so bad at pretending to be busy.

People here work really slowly because they don’t have enough jobs to do, yet they want to look busy. Such as take 4 hours to coloring 3 worksheets… or take 2 hours to cut out 30 name cards. Instead of using cutters, people like to use scissors, the slow way.
For the same job, I could finish it in 3 minutes and then they would say to me, “wow!!! You are so fast” and then I would have no jobs, AND THEN they would think “she is so lazy, she is not doing anything.”
“Efficiency” just doesn’t exist here.

12/9

Elementary day today.
It was an easy day today. Only 2 lessons.
Taught the 3rd graders directions; left and right.

First, we taught them bunny hop dance.
Left, left, right, right, left, right, jump jump jump.
The kids were just crazy. They wouldn’t stop talking and moving around.
It took us a long time to teach them the simple steps. And most kids, they can’t even differentiate left and right.
Finally, they learnt the steps, so we wanted to dance with the music on, but the CD player was broken… We gave up with the CD player… and danced with no music.

After the warm up, we played the coin game and the twister game.
Kids got really excited about the twister game.
At the end we only got to play 2 rounds of twister game, and then ended the lesson early because kids were out of control.

We had the same lesson again in the 3rd period. The kids in the 3rd period were much better behaved.

+

Today’s school lunch menu was:
Mushroom pasta
Bread with fruit and cream filling
Corn soup
Milk

It is always better if we got served our lunch from the staff room, because we would always get a bigger portion.
But at Suyoshi, our lunch is always served in class by the students.
Even though I love the menu today, I only got served with a tiny portion and weren’t able to ask for a 2nd serve.

11/24

Fuck!
I hate Japanese people.(not to generalize) The ones in Nagaoka, and especially the ones in our office.
And the kids I taught today.
Shut up and go to hell!

I have so much hate to express that I could just strangle someone and kick them and chop them to pieces.

And one more thing I hate. I hate talking to my parents on phone!

11/11

Can you believe it...
One of my 2nd grader cried when she was playing bingo... all because she couldn't get any bingo.......
God... Japanese kids are so weak....
They cry all the time when they play games... weakest kids in the world!

And yes... we have to let every single kid in the class get at least one bingo everytime we play bingo games, or else they cry. That's really stupid.
I say... just let them cry and face the reality that they won't be able to win games all the time.

And what's more stupid...
I was looking at the 4th graders' card collections.
I joined one group and was looking at their collections, and then I said "Oh~~~" as to pretend I am impressed with their card collections.
After I said "Oh~~~" the kids got really excited, and they were like "She spoke Japanese!!! WOW she can speak Japanese!!!" (I don't usually speak Japanese in class)
They all thought "Oh~~~" is Japanese and only Japanese people say it...

Not to offend Japanese people... but I don't think Japan has a bright future.

10/27

Had 5 halloween lessons today.
Kids got to go around the school and trick-or-treat for candy.

This is the flow:
Student---Hello
Me--- Hello
Student--- Trick or treat
Me--- Here you are (hand out candy)
Student--- Thank you
Me--- Happy Halloween
Student--- Happy Halloween

I had to repeat the exact conversation for 181 times.
So sick of Halloween...

10/25

Went out on a date with Chris tonight.
Went to one of our favorite restaurants for the 4th time.
Apparently we are famous among the restaurant staffs because we are foreign.
SO! Today, besides the unlimited drinks, the chef made us special dishes.
They used AAAAA beef for our main dish!!!!!

Not to show off, but AAAAA beef!!! that's like 5 As.
It really melts in the mouth.
Best beef ever in my life.

O... and besides the AAAAA beef, we also got served with a small piece of Iberico pork.
Iberico pork is the pork from south of Spain that are feed with only figs.

Exit Through the Gift Shop

Banksy so cool!!!!!
+
Hilarious film :D

10/20

5th graders were trying to give me quiz about fish kanji in class.
First they try to give me hints.

Students:
What's this?
Hint 1, big eyes
Hint 2, outside red

Sabrina:
uh...more hints please

Students:
Hint 3, kanji is 鯛

Sabrina:
...okay, I know the reading in Chinese, but I don't know how to read it in Japanese

Homeroom teacher:
wow! that's interesting. How do you read it?

Sabrina:
In Chinese we say "diao".

Homeroom teacher:
Cool!!! Ok everyone, let's try to say it in Korean too!
"diao"

What the fuck...

Hokkaido --- Sapporo Day 2

The last day was a bit of a rush.

We checked out of the hotel.
My cousin wanted to ride on one of those cute local trains. So we got on one of those for the sake of ridding it there and back.


After the train ride, we rushed to the clock tower.
On the way, I saw this black corn that I really want to try... but we were rushing rushing rushing...

And after that, we rushed to the Sapporo Beer Museum.


When we have done all the rushing I still got more than 2 hours of free time and no money to spend...

Hokkaido --- Otaru

Today, we planned to stay all day at this really touristy river bank --- 小樽運河
On the streets, it is full of glass shops, sweet shops, and music box shops.

First, we decided to take the tour bus and stop at the famous glass shop --- 北一硝子


The glass shop was huge!!!!! It also has 3 other branch shops selling different styles of glasses on the street.
It also has its own cafe. Inside the cafe it was decorated by their hand-made glass lamps and vases.

Eventhough 北一硝子 has the biggest shop in Otaru, I kind of like the glasses at 大正硝子 better.

At another glass shop (selling mostly glass made accessories), the owner has 2 really big dogs walking in the shop freely. They are the 乖-est dogs I have ever seen! They don't bark, they don't touch or eat any glasses on the shelves, and they are not affraid of strangers!


As for the sweet shops, there are tons of them too.
The most famous 六花亭, 北菓樓, and LeTAO cheese cakes
We sampled all the sweets, but we couldn't get enough of the cheese cake. So, we walked into the LeTAO cafe and ordered all 3 kinds of cheese cakes!


Like the chocolate factory, many shops seem to have clear glasses with their workers making things infront of everyone.
My cousin and I decided to play this game: standing infront of the glass window, staring at the worker. When the worker looks up, we will wave at them.

And of course... the Hokkaido soft cream.
I got the delux mix flavor: chocolate/milk/melon/kiwi/pineapple/strawberry

Finally pictures of the pretty view.



And then... there was this mysterious old man.
He offered to take a picture of me and my cousin. I thought he's just another tourist; while, my cousin thought he probably wants money from us.
We let him take a picture of us anyway, and he didn't ask for anything from us. Afterwards, we walked around the river, when we came back to the same spot again, he was still there offering to take pictures for other tourists. It turned out that he was just a very nice old man, so I asked to take a picture with him. He seemed flattered, he said no one ever asked him to be in the picture. I must have made his day.

Hokkaido --- Sapporo Day 1

Very modern hotel & the red piano at the lobby:D





After check into the hotel, our first stop was Shiroi Koibito Park (chocolate factory).
Inside the park, there was a western style garden.


Entrance to the chocolate museum/factory.
You can smell chocolate everywhere!
I kind of feel sorry for the workers there... They were constently being observed by tourist... they couldn't even slack off for 1 second.


After we bought our souvenir at the shop close to the exist of the museum, there was a huge crowd of highschool students rushing in. They were so crazy... they just grab anything they see. Their basket was full of cookies and chocolates... even the boys.

On the way back, I saw this really cute bottle in the vending machine >.<

Junior High Reading Test

Common opening of a 2nd grade junior high English reading test.

CASE 1
Me: Hello
Student: Hello
Me: How are you?
Student: My name is Satoshi
Me: Satoshi, how are you ?
Student: Satoshi
Me: okay... please read page 23

CASE 2
Me: Morning:]
Student: I am fine, thank you, and you?

Takahito's visit

It took Takahito 10 hours on the train to get from Kyoto to Nagaoka.
I felt so bad that there's nowhere interesting in Nagaoka to show him around.
At the end we decided to go to 高田.
It's about 1 hr 15mins from Nagaoka. However, there wasn't much to see...seemed like it was just another Nagaoka >.<
*sigh* why did JET put me in Nagaoka...





Old fashioned 軟糖店
It's hard to believe that is a shop that sells only 1 kind of 軟糖/麥芽糖 and sell it as a high quality sweet.

Lunch money

Went to an elementary school with Kamiya last week.
Usually we pay our lunch fee every 2 months. But at Kazura elementary we had to pay for our lunch fee every time we visit that school.
Lunch fee is different at each school. at Kazura it's 262yen for every lunch.
Last week I didn't have exact change. I had 261yen in change.
Kamiya said it's ok, she will lend me the missing 1 yen.
But she said, "please give it (1 yen) back to me later"
After she said that, I just gave her my 500 yen so that I don't OWE her that 1 yen.

I mean... how much is 1 yen... 1 cent in Canadian???
Not that I am not going to return it to her...but she still feels the need to make sure she get her 1 yen back.

Sometimes I really think that Japanese people are so stingy when it comes to money matters.

Summer trip with Tony & Tina - 能登環島

輪島朝市
This area is know for its lacquer ware and seafood.





梯田

鹽田



軍艦島


Thanks to my uncle, we had a great summer vacation

Summer trip with Tony & Tina -能登 加賀屋

At the end of our trip, we stayed at 加賀屋 for 2 days.
It was the top hotel at 能登.
The 6 of us stayed in one room. We got to have our own room manager, who served us from day to night. Here is the picture of us and the room manager.

This is the view from our room.


At dinner time the manager took us to a different private room for dinner.
The room has its own small garden outside.