Butterflies

I have to get on an airplane tomorrow. Actually, I'll be getting on three within a 24 hour time period. I am not happy about this. I get really, really, REALLY nervous to fly. It's been a
constant stream of thought today and I've got butterflies in my tummy.

I'll be in Colorado for ten days for my friend's wedding. I'll put some pictures here when I get back--and after a total of six flights.

The Lovely Island of Kamigoto

T-diddy and I took the fast boat out of Kamigoto on Friday night to visit Vicky and Melissa. It was nice to see the island again and see the girls. It stayed cloudy, but it didn't rain, so we were able to get some sightseeing done. Here are some pictures of the weekend:

T-diddy and I on the way to a waterfall.

Tai Chi in front of the waterfall: Melissa, Vicky and ME!

On our way to the lighthouse, Tom and I found the world's oldest vending machine.

We found this very serious looking statue near a shrine at a spot overlooking Aokata, the town where Melissa and Vicky live. His enlightenment dot makes it look like he's got one serious unibrow.

Melissa and Vicky took us to an amazing izakaya for dinner. We ordered up some of that island-fresh sashimi. It was grub!
After dinner, we went to Maiko's restaurant for some drinks. Maiko is super fun and made us laugh all night long. It was hard to get a picture of her not making a face. Her specialty is a nose/mouth toothpick concoction.

The Maiko special. We all tried it. She's the only one who can really pull it off. For some reason, Maiko started calling me Ben half way through the night. We're not quite sure why. I'd met Maiko before, and she called me Dawn at the beginning of the night, but something got switched and before long we were all trying not to laugh every time she said it. We should have corrected her, but we didn't.

The last time I was out on Kamigoto, I took some "before" and "after" shots of people and posted them on my blog. Vicky remembered that I did that and we decided to take another set. The first face is, of course, the normal shot and the second is the strange one.

Maiko

Vicky

Melissa

Tom

On Sunday we met up with Carrie as well and did some more sightseeing before taking the boat back to Nagasaki. We saw another waterfall, saw an old banyan tree at a shrine, stopped in on some churches and hit the cake shop. All in all, it was a super Sunday.

It was nice being out on the islands. I'm taking Tom out to Ojika in July. I've written my friends and they are all looking forward to our visit. They are already planning a BBQ. I simply can not wait.

Boundaries

Last night a few English teachers got together for dinner and drinks. The main purpose of the party was to say "ostukaresamadeshita" to a student teacher who had put in three weeks of study at our school. She actually graduated from Nishi four years ago and came back, as often times students do, to hone her real-life teaching experience at the same place she was educated.

Ms. Yamanaka and I accompanied two male English teachers to a nijikai (second party) and stumbled into some very interesting conversation. This conversation, and her being there drinking with teachers who once were her authority figures, got me thinking about different boundaries. In my opinion, in Japan, the line between teacher and student is clearly cut the day the student graduates. I'm not sure how it can been so black and white, but it is.

Mr. Takagi spilled the beans last night about his frequent trips to Tokyo. He told us all he has a fiance there and goes there to spend time with her. Fine. When I asked him how they met, he was honest and told us that she was his former student. Boundaries.

What's even more strange is that earlier yesterday, Mr. Takagi asked me to check a test that he'd written. One of the paragraphs was about a student and her homeroom teacher being on "inappropriate terms"--his words. I had made some kind of joke after looking at it that he should be careful not to put any ideas in the heads of his students. Little did I know he was writing from personal experience. He seemed to be very tickled about my comment last night while we were boozing. Twisted.

The other thing that got me thinking about boundaries lately was my request to bathe with students at one of the English camps last week.

Now, I'm not a prude when it comes to public bathing. I've gotten used to it and enjoy the large, hot tubs of water. I've gotten used to women looking at me with my tattoos and my strangely shaped body. I've even gotten used to people scrubbing my back without warning. (OK. That just happened once and I am not used to it. My friend's mom was sitting next to me and just went about her Japanese motherly duties as a back scrubber.) However, when it comes to bathing with students I have to take note of a big, fat, red, screaming boundary.

At the camp, the girls went way over the allotted time to bathe and we had to wait for them to finish. It was 11:30 and they were still washing up. We were told before the last crew of kids filed in that they didn't mind and we could bathe with them. We said we'd wait. Time dragged on and we went int to hurry them along. Again, they said, "Come on in! We don't mind." It was hard for us to say, "But, we do!" Coming from a country where a teacher would be immediately jailed for being naked and bathing with students, it's hard to cross that boundary in a country where it's perfectly fine.

I did actually have to wash up with kids from the hiking club after we got back from the trip to Yakushima. I had been camping for three nights and hiking in sweaty, sweaty conditions. I was able to overcome my cultural hang up that time, but it was still weird and not an experience I want to participate in again.

tonda owaraigusa! What a laugh!

Ah, good times! Good times!

I helped T-diddy clean up his apartment on Saturday. He had an *undisclosed* amount of dirty laundry. While organizing it, we found a few pens, some old receipts, a 5,000 yen note (about 50 bucks!), and this Halloween costume. I made him model it for me. He put it on and said something like, "It's kind of small, but I'm a ghost." I giggle when I look at this picture.

*He was not happy about me about putting it in terms of number of loads.

This weekend I also had a reunion dinner with some teachers I taught with on Ojika. We haven't all gotten together since spring of 2006! Three of them are still teaching on Ojika. One is in Tokyo working at a medical supply company. One is at a new school near Sasebo. And I, of course, am in Nagasaki. We were at Tai no Ie from 6:30 until 12:30 and made it through five bottles of wine! At one point, Ms. Yoshihara touched her cheeks and said that they hurt. She said she hadn't laughed that hard in over a year. I will never forget the amazing luck I had by being put on that island.

During a very random moment of my weekend, I ran into another ALT on the street. While we were talking, an old man walked by. He seemed to be very interested in us, so I said hello. He stopped to chat. I made some comment about a amulet he was wearing and he explained to me that it gave him power. He told us that he was 88 years old and still practices kendo. He said that he'd just been in the paper recently for winning a kendo award. He took the green stone off and put it around my neck. He put me though a small variety of strength tests while I was wearing it and while I wasn't. In the end, I gave him back his stone and he reached in his bag and pulled out a small, orange pouch. He told me he wanted to give me a present from Mexico! He produced this necklace and had me put it on. I accepted it after an appropriate amount of resistance and he bid us a good day. I just kept thinking, "Only in Japan!" Unfortunately, the clasp broke by the time I got back to Nagasaki.

English Camp

Last week I participated in two English camps. One was with freshmen from my school and one was with older students from Minami high school.

Here's Jeremy, who is actually a basketball coach at my school, presenting his group's team name for Nishi's camp. They were called "Peace, Love and Happiness".

Other group names were: Team Zezt, Hot Gym, Fantastic 7, Pene Rangers, Positive Peanuts, and The Kooky Crocodile.

Here, Tracey sits in with a student during a mock news broadcast.

All in all, there were eight foreign teachers at the camp for around 40 students. The kids had many opportunities to speak with a natural English speaker. As one of the main goals of the camp, I hope the kids gained some confidence when it comes to conversing in a second language.

Four members of the Fantastic 7 make a presentation on Japanese food.

The kids, with help from their English teachers, had to do a newscast, present an aspect of Japanese culture, create a team name and chant, and introduced their ALT to the rest of the group through a variety of activities. However, the best part of the camp probably happened during conversations at meals.

Minami's camp was different for two reasons. 1. I wasn't in charge of it. And 2. Older, more confident (more fluent) students attended the camp. It was a long 24 hours, but a great experience. The Minami kids were motivated and had the ability to hold long, intelligent conversations in English.

At the Minami camp, which my friend Steve helped organize, we started with a scavenger hunt. The kids had a great time, and so did we. They ran all over the camp grounds and got American candy as a reward.

Some of the students are planning a school trip to New Zealand soon, so they worked on presentations that they'll preform while there. These presentations included things like Japanese food, origami, traditional new year's food and the Tanabata celebration.

The other students prepared for an held debates. The topics included: Part time jobs for HS students, English education in elementary school and baby hatches. These are all controversial topics in Japan. Most HS students are not allowed to have jobs while in school. English education is currently not required, but encouraged. And, the first hospital in Japan has recently opened a baby hatch in which parents can "deposit" unwanted children.

At the end of the camp, we were headed back to our cars when we happened upon the biggest earthworm I have ever seen in my life. I was a bit shocked to see something like it without being in a nuclear melt-down zone.

And that was camp.

Woo Hoo!

My camera's back and in tip-top shape. Here are pictures of my weekend to thrill you.

Dinner at my place on Saturday night. Yoshino and crew came over.

Wallabies at the BioPark. There were lots of hands-on displays there. It was more like a petting zoo. It was rather disturbing to see the Vietnamese hogs out on the prowl with their tusks jutting this way and that.

I Miss My Camera

I didn't realize how much I liked to take pictures until my camera went on the fritz. I miss putting snapshots here. This problem should be fixed soon. I took my camera in for repairs. The shop called and told me that whatever the problem was (I couldn't understand what the lady said!), it would cost about $90 to fix. It should be done soon and I should be back to my old tricks again within the next few weeks.

Not much else is going on.

I'm reading In Cold Blood by Truman Capote at the moment. I've just made it through the introduction, the layered setting and the cast of characters, and the discovery of the murder. Now the mystery will begin to unfold. It's a "who done it?". It kind of reminds me of the Choen brothers' film, Blood Simple.

My black belt arrived and Yoshida sensei told me there would be a "ceremony" after school at practice. Now that it's getting hotter, practicing judo has become even more uncomfortable.

I'm going shopping this afternoon with Sato sensei to pick up supplies for our English camp next week. We need candy for prizes and bribery.

The principal and vice principals are out on business today, so the staff room is laid back. The kooky math teacher who sits next to me taught me a Japanese saying. I've forgotten it already, but the translation was something like: When the devil's away, we can wash our souls. I told him that we have a saying meaning the same thing in English: When the cat's away, the mice will play.

T-diddy's been out of town, acting as a tour guide for his mom and brother. I miss him when he's not around. He'll be back tomorrow, though.

Some of my crazy friends are coming over for dinner tomorrow night. That means I have to clean, shop and cook. I guess my Saturday is planned out. I haven't decided on what to make. I want to make something that's easy and cheap and will feed 5-6 people.

See? Wouldn't a photo be a lot better than all this rambling? I think so. My little camera will be back soon....

Steen! Steen! Steen!