Hindsight

I am sitting at the Necca internet cafe, a joint I found while stumbling around Akiba yesterday (for the n-th time). It’s posh.

Can I still use that word?

Apparently there is a Counter Strike tournament here at 1. No biggie, as I am meeting Kim in a few hours. The Playstation Spring Festival 2003 is being held around Tokyo in Aqua City in Odaiba. I don’t mind checking that place out again at all, just because I love it so much. If I lived in Tokyo, I would go there every other weekend just to relax by the waters.

My trip is wrapping up. I’ve tried to at least write down what I did each day. Going back to the hotel (New Koyo) tired leaves me little desire to write, but I will sometimes wake up the next day and write down a list at the very least. For example: Went to Ginza, found Sony Building by accident, ate dinner with Akiko, had a great chat over such and beer. Little memory ‘bookmarks’ if you will.

I’ve seen most of the major urban districts but didn’t take the chance to visit the quieter, older portions of Tokyo like Ebisu or Asakusa. They will have to wait for another trip out here – I really have to come back.

Let’s see, what else. Soul Calibur II was released on all platforms (Gamecube, Playstation 2, XBox) along with a few other niche games that only SD-style-robot-action gamers would know about. It’s madness in Tokyo on the Yamanote sen (Yamanote Line, the loop the circles around major stops around Tokyo), but I would love to live here. Then again, I’m not thinking about work so I’m on vacation.

It’s been all so inspiring being here. Going at it alone has also been introspective.

I am at Odaiba, logged in front of a widescreen VAIO at a Sony Style store.

There is a lot to write about and Tokyo has been, thus far, quite the experience. Kitakyushu is very boring, this I really know now.

I spent an obscene amount of money in the last two days at Akihabara and a Sofmap store in Yurakucho. Today I just did sightseeing. Since I don’t want to spend a large amount of time on this PC, I do want to say that I have been writing things analog… on a notebook back at my hotel room.

I took so many pictures and am still taking tons and tons.

I can’t condense all I’ve seen, done or felt in the last three days. But I am pretty happy. Yesterday there was rain and today there wasn’t a cloud in the sky.. It was warm and damn beautiful. Am really happy to be here.

Two classes came and went and I spent lunch with 2-2 again showing them some pictures of my trip to Thailand two Augusts ago.

There were only five classes today for students, as the sixth was cleared for a staff meeting. Usually I would have been excused to leave since I wouldn’t understand anything, but I remained quiet and foolishly got myself stuck in the meeting, trying to write nonsense onto a piece of paper or skymailing other fellow ALTs in the area (who were also in the same situation). Luckily there was a ten minute break in which the kyoto sensei immediately came up to me and said “sayonara”. He also said something with sabishii (alone/lonely) in it so he knew I was just fighting my existence for that hour.

While standing at the bus stop I saw a man wearing a dark blue jacket with the the patch “New York Police Department” on it. Interesting observation of the day. In addition, the bus I took home had a driver who would let the engine go out at almost every stoplight. Of course, no one reacts and I myself have already been with drivers like him before. Maybe he’s the same bus driver who does the route, I don’t quite remember.

Morning was sunny, then cloudy, then as noontime progressed there were almost no clouds in the sky. And the sun gave me warmth. This trend had better continue.

My last session with Maeda was quite fun. They knew well past what I was going with (numbers and colors that most of them knew), but the games were all that mattered. They even wanted to do one of them a second time – I would call out a certain color, so those who had that color ran across the gym, trying to avoid us in the center who were trying to tag them. I was ready with more than enough activities.

Once I started snapping photos the kids went wild. They wanted to see every picture taken, check out the little videos it could take, etcetera. I was slow to leave after we had lunch (an eclectic selection featuring chopped liver, some soup and bread with strawberry jam on the side). I could have spent the entire day just sitting there talking to the kids.

I got my co-teaching schedule for the next two weeks at Hanao. I have two more classes with each kumi. So two lessons per grade and that’s it. The term is ending.

Today was a mesh of emotions. Only because I was jumping from place to place.

I arrived back at Hanao. It was strange hearing the school’s certain morning chime, speaking more Japanese to the school staff (for which they seemed impressed) and seeing the occasional student being “bikkuri” (surprised) at my presence. I had no classes because from 10 – 1 I was at Maeda shogakkou.

I had a taxi driver take me because I wanted to get there early, even though I could have walked it. I walked into a preschool by accident and then walked across the street (note to self: read map and signs better), still early. The kyoto-sensei was quite cheerful, even the kocho sensei was a smiling sort. So this is what elementary school is like. It looks the same on the outside as junior high, but with a playground and monkey bars of course.

Last night I mentioned sweating about making a plan. All that I had put in worked perfectly in the hour or so that I was there. Ishii sensei basically went over what I suggested – very basic greetings (that they all apparently knew) songs and things that I figured I could use. When class started, their energy became my energy. I did things that any junior high school student would freak out at and they just loved it. I was animated. I was unlike myself in a 3 nensei class. And they all had a great time. It was surreal. It was one of the best days of school I have ever had here.

Question time. Students asked in Japanese of course, and I answered in mixes of Japanese and English. I know I am supposed to be an English teacher here, but they are so young and they just want to know more. So why not just communicate first instead of forcing the unkown? They just want to understand. So be it.

“Why are you working as a teacher? Why did you come here?”
“What is different from Japan and America?”

These aren’t even junior high kids – they seem to afraid to ask that by the time chugakkou starts.

I had lunch with them and looked around. The hallways were dimmer, the classrooms had dark psuedo-wooden floors. Everything was starker, but these 5 nensei elementary school children had the enthusiasm and curiosity of junior high 1 nensei, just without fear of making mistakes. As one of my teachers at Hanao said when I came back, “they are so pure aren’t they?”. I guess that’s a decent translation, more or less.

I am back at Maeda on Friday for my last hurrah. Colors, numbers and games in the gym.

So that was the great part. Returning to Hanao I worked on a 2 nensei plan for tomorrow and I still have to finish it. It was back to my routine. I just wanted to work at elementary school from then on.