Halloween Costume 08

The single biggest improvement to my Halloween lessons this year was my costume. Last year, I had nothing: no inspiration, no motivation, and thus no execution. I ended up wearing nothing special for the classes, something I almost immediately regretted. I don't know if this happens to anyone else, but I come up with the best Halloween costume ideas... in June. I get some of my best ideas at the completely wrong time. Lazy as I am, I don't write it down, and I find myself going nuts come October. Two years ago I created a Beetlejuice costume, the product of about two months of work.

This year, I made sure to jot down that summertime breakthrough. I decided to go as Harry Potter. I highly doubt I'd have tried this costume back home, because a) it's too common and b) I don't bear much likeness to Daniel Radcliffe. Here, however, I wanted something popular, easily recognizable, and requiring some creativity. Harry Potter was what I arrived at.

As I figured it, the costume consists of seven parts: the robes, the hair, the glasses, the shirt, the tie, the wand, and the scar. The robes mostly covered up my pants, so wearing my plain black work trousers was fine. Shoes were irrelevant, as everyone in the school wears a pair of indoor shoes.

Robes: UGA graduation gown--you'd be surprised how well it works, especially in a country where nobody wears cap and gown.

Hair: I let my hair grow out for about two months, and practiced (yes, practiced) getting the disheveled look right.

Glasses: This was probably the hardest part to track down. I wanted perfectly circular frames. I went to every optometrist and eyeglass shop I could find, but nobody was selling that style. I ended up explaining my situation to one of the shopkeepers, and he showed me a drawer full of old frames. I found the right pair, and he didn't even charge me anything.

Shirt: Oxford shirt, with the top and collar buttons unfastened

Tie: Cord mailed me his Gryffindor tie

Wand: Unable to find a holly sapling suitable for felling, I bought a three-foot dowel at a local store for about a dollar, sawed it down to the requisite eleven inches, colored the handle with a brown marker, and sanded the tip for a slight tapering effect.

Scar: I bought a $1 makeup kit, and used a q-tip to apply foundation in the right shape at the right place.

I decided to wear it on the last day at each school before Halloween. I came to school wearing black trousers and an Oxford shirt--essentially what I wear every day--and carrying a nondescript shopping bag, in addition to the usual pumpkins and candy. Just before class, I put on the rest of the costume, and made a casual beeline for the classroom. Everyone instantly recognized me, which was a relief: I'd been dreading the possibility that nobody would get it. They loved everything, especially the wand, and only a few noticed the scar, which produced a gratifying gasp of recognition.

Students ran up to take pictures with me, using cell phones they're not supposed to have at school. More surprising, though, was that several teachers asked to take pictures with me, too. My favorite part of the day, though, was walking around during lunchtime and hearing 17-year-old senior boys yelling "Expecto patronum!" and "Wingardium leviosa!" across the school at me.

Halloween at Toyotama

I taught my current Toyotama second-years as freshmen last year, so they already knew the basics. For them, I brought in candy again, and quickly recapped the basics of Halloween. With a lot of help from Iwase, I decided to tell the students the story of Jack of the Lantern. After finding several web sites (and about as many different stories) on the subject, we chose one version and prepared to illustrate the story. She was absent this week, so I did the drawing on my own, with a stand-in English teacher (Mr. Sunada) helping (tremendously) with translation and elaboration.

The picture shows how the lesson turned out. Starting with a blank board, the story went something like this:

--


1. There once was a man named Jack (drawing a face and distinctive hair), who was very clever (drawing a smirk), but very mean (drawing mean eyebrows).

2. One day, the devil came to Jack (drawing the devil's face, with evil eyes, evil goatee, toothy grin, and horns), and said (drawing a word bubble) 'I want your soul, Jack' (drawing Jack lying down, X's for eyes, a wispy soul-looking thing floating out of his body).

3. Jack said, 'Okay, but I'm thirsty. Would you buy me a drink?' (drawing a frothy mug of "soda" [folks here seem to be completely honest about alcohol] and a 500-yen coin)


4. The devil agreed, and turned into a coin (drawing the devil's face, an arrow ->, and a 500-yen coin with horns and devil's eyes for 0s).

5. Jack took the coin, and put it in his purse. (drawing a purse, gesturing from the coin to the purse, drawing the devil coin in the purse)

6. There was also a cross in the purse (drawing a cross in the purse). The devil is afraid of the cross (drawing scared eyebrows on the devil coin)--he was trapped!

7. The devil said, "Let me out!" "Okay," Jack said, but you must let me keep my soul for ten years."

8. The devil agreed, Jack took out the cross (erasing the cross), and the devil escaped. (erasing the devil coin)


9. Ten years later (drawing wrinkles on Jack's face), the devil came to Jack. "I want your soul, Jack," the devil said. (drawing the same image inside a word bubble)

10. "Okay," Jack said, "but I'm hungry. Can you get me an apple from that tree?" (drawing an apple tree)


11. The devil climbed the tree to get an apple. (drawing the devil on the tree, reaching for an apple)

12. While he was in the tree, Jack put a cross at the bottom. (drawing a cross at the bottom of the tree) The devil was trapped!

13. "Let me down!" the devil said. "Okay," Jack said. "But you must promise never to take my soul." (drawing Jack's face, a word bubble with the earlier image of a soul leaving dead Jack, but this time with a big X over the picture)

14. The devil agreed. Jack removed the cross (erasing the cross), and the devil escaped. (erasing the devil)


15. Years later, Jack died. (drawing Jack, X's for eyes, lying down)



16. First, his soul tried to go to Heaven drawing a castle in happy-faced clouds, and Jack's face on a tapering ghost body)

17. But at the gate, (drawing a gate) a man (drawing a stern-looking man) told Jack he couldn't get in, because he had been a bad person. (pointing to Jack's mean eyebrows)

18. So Jack tried to go to Hell. (drawing a castle surrounded by flames and frowny-faced storm clouds) The devil met him at the gate (drawing the devil and a gate).

19. "Please let me in!" Jack begged. "I would," the devil said, "but I promised I would never take your soul." (drawing a word bubble from the devil to Jack's X-over-dead-Jack word bubble)


20. Jack had nowhere to go. He couldn't get into heaven, because he had been a bad person, and he couldn't get into hell, because the devil had made a promise. Jack was forced to wander the earth. "It's dark, and I can't see," Jack said. (trying to look around the room with squinty eyes, hand on forehead)

21. The devil laughed and threw a burning hot coal at Jack. (drawing a rock with red, orange, and yellow flames coming off it, at Jack's feet, with motion lines from the devil's direction) "Use this. It will never die."

22. Jack tried to pick it up, but it was too hot. (reaching for the coal, jumping back and wincing)

23. He found a turnip on the ground (drawing a turnip), carved it open with a knife (drawing a knife, carvy-lines, and a hole in the turnip), and used it for a lantern. (drawing a frowny-faced, sad-eyebrowed, ghost-bodied Jack in profile, carrying the carved turnip, lighty marks coming from the coal)

24. He has been wandering that way ever since. People called him "Jack of the Lantern," which was shortened to "Jack o' Lantern." People still carve turnips in Ireland, put candles inside them, and call them "jack-o-lanterns." In America, pumpkins are more common than turnips, so people carve them instead.

--

Sunada helped me tremendously with the translations, fleshing out the story along the way. I'd like to think the pictures were effective, but I'm not so sure. Thanks to his help, though, the lesson went over well. In one of the classes, I made the mistake of giving the devil wings in the first picture. For continuity's sake, he had those same wings when he was in the tree. Tadahiro, one of my more perceptive students, politely asked why the devil didn't just fly away. I basically laughed and told him the devil was too scared to fly away.

Halloween Lessons

Last year, I was largely unprepared for Halloween. Christmas similarly caught me off-guard. It was only after coming back in January that I realized how much more I could have done with those holidays. This summer I spent a fair amount of time planning what would hopefully be a better Halloween lesson.

The first thing was what to teach the students. I spent most of the class time laboriously explaining the history of Halloween, which means that was pretty much all the students walked away with. Drawing from last year's experience and the help of the teachers, I streamlined the explanation so that it was more interesting and took up less time.

I also found more pictures of jack-o-lanterns, and gave the students a handout with an outline of a pumpkin so they could make their own design. I bought several kabocha--Japanese green pumpkins--to demonstrate pumpkin carving. I cut one open in several of my classes, and asked for volunteers to scoop out the seeds. (Curiously, nobody wanted to...) I also brought in candles, and lit one inside the jack-o-lantern with the lights turned off. The effect was amazing: everyone was mesmerized by it.

For my four-student senior writing class, I brought in pumpkins for each of them. Kabocha are small enough to carve with a butterknife, so I didn't have to worry about them injuring themselves with X-Actos. Erika was absent that day. Takashi carved a cute face into his. Koji and Misa, the best boy and girl in the class, are always competing. (It reminds me a lot of how I used to act in middle school with Anna in Crestview.) Koji decided to carve a jack-o-lantern to look like Misa, and set out making an intentionally ugly face. Misa, unfazed, returned the favor: she made a pig out of hers, naming it Koji.

I love these kids.

My English club girls--and practically all my other students--refused to touch the pumpkins. Everyone said they smelled awful, despite their being fresh, and nobody volunteered to come help me scoop out the guts. Nobody, that is, except my Toyotama seniors. Misa dove right into hers, not even trying to keep it off her hands.


Just about the only aspect of last year's lesson to survive intact was the candy. I made sure to teach them all how to say 'Happy Halloween!' and 'Trick or treat!' I taught them the literal meaning of the expression, where it comes from, and the fact that people hardly if ever mean it as a threat now. After each class, I gave candy to the students, but only if they said 'Trick or treat!'

Toyotama Bunkasai '08

Today was Toyotama's culture festival. Since I'm not based at that school, I wasn't required to go, and I therefore wasn't given tomorrow off in exchange. Still, I wanted to see how much more fun it would be when half the students weren't passing out from heat exhaustion. The festival began sometime around 9, but I wanted to call Mom and Dad first, so I didn't get to Toyotama until 10ish.

It's officially gotten cold, at least in the early morning, and the wind is slowly returning. The gym provides a good bit of shelter, but most of the benefit--the sunlight streaming in--was cut off due to the need for stage lighting. I noticed one student in particular was shivering bodily, and seemed downright sickly. Her friends were trying to comfort her, and someone gave her their coat, but she seemed pretty upset.

Most of the festival followed the same pattern as Tsushima High's: there was an opening speech by the principal, followed by performances by the chorus. Toyotama is too small to have an official chorus group, but each homeroom has music class periodically. They all got a chance to sing on stage, though they'd all practiced the same set of songs, so it got kind of old.

The girl I'd seen shivering turned out to be one of the piano accompanists for the chorus. She did fine on the first song, but made a lot of mistakes on the second one. For the third one, she blanked out for most of it, resulting in a chorus unexpectedly singing a cappella. Of course, everything was fine for the audience, but I completely understand how mortified she felt. It'd been anxiety, not the cold, that had her looking so sickly earlier.

Next, a group of students gave speeches. I did much better than last year, but I still couldn't understand enough to summarize any of them. After that, a couple of students performed duets on the trumpet or the guitar, with the music teacher accompanying on the piano.

I didn't have as much time to see the homerooms give their presentations, because the classroom exhibitions were much more interesting than Tsushima High's. The second-years did a hand massage room and a magic show, while the first-years made a haunted house. They did a really good job of it, too: using a whole lot of cardboard and tape, they managed to make the classrooms--half the total wall space of which are windows--pitch black. They piled desks and chairs to make walls and a path, with several students strategically placed to freak out the visitors. I ended up walking through with two elementary schoolers, which I think helped me a lot more than it helped them: I could hear my name being whispered throughout the haunted house, and I'm sure they would've been extra nasty to me had I not had five-year-olds shielding me.

For lunch, the cooking class had prepared a whole lot of curry and rice. (The red things are pickles.)For about two bucks a head, you got a bowl of it and some tea. The cooking teacher refused to let me pay for mine, and I ate with Misa (one of my third-year writing students) and another third-year girl.

After lunch, the stage was turned over to some of the third-years, who have a band. Using guitars, a bass, and a drumset loaned by the music teacher, and amps they borrowed from older brothers and friends, they put on a real show. The audience--all forty of the students who weren't busy manning their respective classroom exhibitions--absolutely loved it, almost as much as the performers in the band did.

School Randomness

Since I got back and showed my students pictures from home, we've finally gotten back into the normal class routine. This is the second term of the year, and for me, it's the busiest. The first term had lots of placement tests, summer vacation in August, and my trip home. Third term last year started off with my visit home for Christmas, and then my classes got cancelled for things like graduation.

That leaves second term as the biggest solid chunk of classes for me. It also includes my favorite holidays of the year--Halloween and Christmas--which makes it even more exciting. More on that next week, though.

I've been teaching all my first-year students a shopping unit. After getting a feel for the level of the students' vocabulary, discussing it with the teachers, and reading my notes on last year's attempt, I decided to stick with the same basic situation: clothes shopping. I prepared a full dialogue between a salesperson and a customer looking for a certain kind of clothing, asking for a certain size and color. The salesperson finds one, the customer asks how much it costs, and based on the amount, the customer might buy it. While I've never had a dialogue like that with a department store clerk, all the questions are useful in and of themselves--a customer can ask simply for "this" in a different size or color, or might just ask how much this costs.

Most importantly to me, though, is that shopping gives the students a practical situation, and the vocabulary (types of clothing, colors, sizes) is almost entirely a review for them. That allows the most emphasis to be placed on the actual dialogue.

The lesson worked just fine: everyone understood the vocabulary with ease, and the dialogue therefore didn't take long to explain. Just like last year, some of the more mischievous boys decided to pronounce "change" as though it were Japanese, which makes it sound like "chahn-geh." They probably wouldn't have been nearly as amused by it if I hadn't cracked up at hearing it. This of course encouraged them, and the next victim was "orange."

The follow-up to this lesson was the same situation, using clothing that comes in pairs: shorts, pants, jeans, shoes, etc. Just like last year, I discovered that all the students have learned that "pants" means "underwear," so asking them to translate "I'm looking for a pair of pants" predictably resulted in lots of giggles. (I later found out that, in fact, this is due to the influence of British English on Japan.) The change in grammar--switching all the corresponding pronouns to plural--gave even the best students some trouble. It seems that they don't learn how to make these distinctions on the fly, which reflects the system's dependence on rote memorization. More on that some other time, though.

The second-year students at Toyotama, having already learned all my basic lessons last year, continue to challenge me. Luckily, my favorite teacher is in the class with me, so we do pretty well. So far this term, we've been teaching them about cooking. Starting with ingredients--I brought in a bag of flour, a saltshaker, an onion, broccoli, etc.--then covering cookware--I brought in a bowl, spoon, and fork, but failed to haul in an oven--we ended by teaching them about recipes. We went over a sample together, then broke them into small groups, and told them to prepare their own recipe.

We spent the next two classes helping them individually. We had them prepare a presentation, with each student graded individually. The presentations were pretty good, with recipes ranging from chocolate chip cookies to omuraisu to ramen to okonomiyaki.

The third-year writing class is coming along nicely. After familiarizing ourselves with their writing abilities during first term, this term we gave them a different kind of assignment. Last term we gave the class the same writing topic, one assignment at a time. This time, we gave them each a list of topics, and told them to write four essays by December. Sample topics included "a typical day for me," "my favorite holiday," and "my favorite videogame." We also told them they're free to make up their own topic, if they come to us first.

They started slowly at first, but seem to be doing fine with it now. Koji has jumped headlong into an essay describing Monster Hunter 2. Erika is doing the same thing, but about a farm simulation/roleplaying game called Harvest Moon. Misa is writing about a typical day for her. Takashi has been absent a lot lately, so he's still fishing around for ideas.

As far as I'm concerned, Koji, Erika, and Misa are demonstrating beautifully the benefits of creative writing in a foreign language. Erika is learning words for young farm animals and terms about farming. Koji is learning things like "after you kill a black dragon, you bring the gems to a blacksmith so he can improve your armor." Misa is using phrases like "my alarm goes off at 6, but I always sleep until 6:45." Not enough time has passed yet for me to tell if they'll retain this, but it certainly seems to be working better than making them all memorize dialogues about restaurants.

Mountains, Parks, and Creepy Crawlies

On Saturday, Joe, Rose, and I climbed Ariake, a mountain pretty much right behind their apartment. The weather was trying to decide between late summer and early autumn, and split the difference: it was mild at the bottom of the mountain, but pretty chilly by the time we got to the top. The summit isn't so much a craggy overlook as it is a meadow, and we had plenty of room to spread out for lunch. Thanks to Ariake's easy access, there were lots of Korean tourists on the mountain. Several of them talked to us in English, with vocabulary and accents rivaling our English teachers'. One guy gave us a drink box that turned out to be alcohol. A lady near him offered us a persimmon, which are in season now. We saw a couple of others start moving toward us at this point, so we politely declined, deciding to head off the awkwardness.

That night, a few of us got together at Gavin's apartment. Joey drove down from Hitakatsu and grilled hamburgers, and we all ended up playing Taboo until midnight.

Sunday, we went to a restaurant called G Cafe. Joey's been there several times, and recommended it to me, but I'd never gotten around to going. Joe, Rose, and I gave it a try, and absolutely loved it. They have what I consider to be the best pizzas on Tsushima, owing to their outdoor brick oven. They also make crepes, which pretty much wins them the title of best restaurant on Tsushima.

After that, Joe was feeling adventurous, so we all went to Ayumodoshi, the huge park set up by a river. The bugs, though fewer in number than July, are still around. We saw a drowned mukade, lots of spiders, and a huge praying mantis.

Oh, and Monday morning at school, a tiny gecko got into the staffroom. One of the science teachers was trying to catch it, and nobody else wanted to get near it. I'm almost positive geckos are among the least dangerous creatures in the world (to us, anyway), and if they aren't, I'm willing to learn otherwise the hard way. We teamed up and got the little dude. The science teacher, Ikezaki, seemed very happy to let me carry the thing outside.

I find it hard to believe how skittish folks here seem to be about bugs. I caused a stir when I had pictures of fuzzy caterpillars as my desktop wallpaper. Not just among my students, either--my teachers made jokes about how creepy the things were. Seriously? Caterpillars? They... they make butterflies and moths. Nobody here denies how pretty butterflies are, yet the sight of butterfly babies turns their stomach.

All things considered, though, I guess it's better to err on the side of caution when you share the countryside with fourteen-inch centipedes.

Tsushima High Bunkasai '08

We had our culture festival today. The first- and second-year students all prepare presentations for the festival. (Almost all the third-years are kept too busy either finding a job or preparing for the college entrance exams.) Every homeroom and school club does something. The festival began in the gym, with opening remarks from the principal.

After he finished, the chorus came out and performed. There aren't any guys in the group this year, which makes for a very different sound, but the girls are good. After them, the first group--the Korean program--set up for their presentations. A girl representing the third-year class gave a speech in Korean reminiscing about last year's school trip to Korea. The first-year Korean students made a video parodying Korean dramas. I've never watched any, so most of the parody was lost on me, but everybody was cracking up at the cheesy dialogue, makeup, and hairstyles.

After that, the homeroom classes' presentations began. All the teachers received evaluation sheets with spaces for each homeroom. It wasn't something to stress the students out; I imagine they do it to give the students an incentive to apply themselves. Most of the homerooms performed a choreographed dance number on stage, set to various Japanese music. Occasionally, the homeroom teacher would make a cameo appearance, to raucous applause from the students in the audience.

The commercial-track students--the academically lowest-ranking program, for students who plan to head straight into work after graduating--hosted a market during lunchtime. They sold local restaurants' goodies, with a slight upcharge that I assume went toward the program. There were things like onigiri, okonomiyaki, and, oddly enough, crepes. I've just finished teaching the third-years a shopping lesson, so I was more than a little overjoyed when a few greeted me with "May I help you?"

The tea ceremony club was also active during lunchtime. The girls in the club, all wearing yukata, performed the tea ceremony for anyone interested. I know next to nothing about the details of the ceremony--only that it's very intricate. I recognized almost all the girls, and made a concerted effort not to break their concentration by waving goofily at them.

With the homerooms performing on stage, their classrooms were unused. Most of the clubs took advantage of this, and set up some kind of exhibition in the classrooms. The art program displayed their sketches, paintings, and sculptures, and the ikebana club had their works out for viewing. The science club had some nifty things set up, like a soda-bottle tornado and a homemade kaleidoscope.

The English Club made posters of translations of songs in English and Japanese. We spent a couple of weeks working on this. The second-year girls did pretty well on their own, which gave me the time I needed to help the first-years. Yuki wanted to translate the school song into English, which proved very difficult: just getting the lyrical Japanese simplified into colloquial Japanese took one of the grammar teachers a long time. Nozomi and Aya did the theme song to Ponyo, the newest movie from the animation studio that made Mononoke Hime and Totoro.

Shino did her own work on a Japanese love song, and Azumi did the same thing with something similar. Akane, the head of the club and one of the smartest students in school, came to me for help with a love song she was trying to translate. We went line by line, and unlike with the first-years, I was able to explain things to Akane in English, rather than just give her the answer. Using more English also let me convey subtle differences between words: whereas I had to settle for telling Nozomi and Aya what the "right" translation was, with Akane I could present her with three or four phrasings, explain the distinctions, and let her choose what she thought fit the best.

Yuka chose "Girlfriend," by Avril Lavigne. By the time I got to the classroom one day, she was already halfway through writing the lyrics on posterboard. She was also using the uncensored version. As tempted as I was to let the second-verse f-word fly, knowing that 95% of the onlookers would notice, I just couldn't let it go. (I also remembered that the principal was an English teacher last year.) I explained as best I could about profanity, eventually getting some help from an English teacher, and she blurred out a couple of letters. (I've gone ahead and further blurred out the words in my photos.)

Anyway, the girls had their posters on display in one of the hallways. I quickly checked out all the exhibits, then hurried back to the gym. There were so many groups presenting so many different things that there wasn't enough time to have designated breaks; there were at least three events going on simultaneously. I made it back to the gym in time to see the 1-3 homeroom performing the theme to Ponyo, complete with costumes.

The last few performances were the best. There's a popular song performed by two guys, which the school chorus performed last year. I still haven't caught the title or the name of the group, but it reminds me of Extreme and More Than Words. Anyway, the 2-2 students recorded a re-enactment of the music video, using props and settings around the school. They did it so well, in fact, that they put their video and the original side-by-side and let them run simultaneously. The reaction was awesome: the whole gym roared with laughter and applause, especially at the close-ups on the students.

Before the next group was announced, the curtain closed. The announcer declared the next group to be X-Japan, the famous heavy metal group. The curtain opened, revealing five students on stage. None of them were holding instruments. Instead, they were holding cleaning tools from around the school: a broom, a mop, a deck brush, etc. Those were their instruments. A song kicked up, and they lip-synched and air-guitared, -bassed, and -drummed the whole way through. It was awesome.

The final group had some problems with their CD skipping, so two boys from that homeroom took the stage and stalled for about ten minutes. They performed a stand-up routine that I think was in the style of a famous comedy duo; at any rate, everybody got a kick out of it. They got the CD working, and that homeroom danced to "Girlfriend."

The brass band gave the final performance of the day. They played a couple of songs I didn't recognize, and then closed with "Can't Take My Eyes Off of You." I'm amazed at just how much American music these kids are exposed to.

The vice principal came out to give a closing speech, and we all scattered and helped clean up. On the way home, I saw some students playing catch in a park near the school. As I got closer, I noticed one of the students was playing the guitar. They saw me, and started talking to me--in English. They turned out to be 3-1s, meaning the highest-level seniors, and they remembered me from a cameo appearance I made back in July. The guitarist even remembered I had majored in anthropology. I noticed that one of the boys playing catch was winding up and pitching, and that the other boy had a catcher's mitt. Sure enough, they had been on the baseball club, before the demands of senior year took them away from club activities.

School-wide Checkups

This morning, my supervisor, unusually cranky, asked me to go see the nurse in the school infirmary at 1:00. She told me it was for a checkup. This caught me a little off-guard--I haven't been to the doctor for anything sickness-related since middle school--even after she told me that everyone was doing it.

Sure enough, that afternoon I found myself at the end of a line of faculty trailing out of the infirmary. They were getting a pretty comprehensive checkup: height and weight measuremed, blood drawn, vision and hearing tested, and blood pressure checked. All I did was the hearing test (I passed! hooray!) but there were also questions about things like diet ("do you eat within thirty minutes of going to bed?" "do you eat breakfast?" etc.), activity ("how many minutes of exercise do you get per day?"), smoking ("do you smoke?"), and sleep ("how many hours of sleep do you get per night?"). I'd be interested to know what the other teachers said (and, more generally, what the responses look like for teachers nationwide), because I know for a fact that at least 80% of the male teachers at my school smoke, and every teacher I've talk ed to averages 5-6 hours of sleep per night and gets little to no exercise. When they do go out, they drink until at least 3 in the morning, and most of the time get right back up for work by 7 that same morning.

The more I pay attention to the lifestyle of my coworkers, the more surprised I am that nobody's died on the job yet.

After thinking about it, I figured out why they handle checkups this way: all non-emergency procedures take place during normal M-F 9-5 business hours. That's exactly when government workers (like teachers) are at work. Sending the teachers to the hospital on a workday would disrupt the flow of school, so they instead bring the hospital to the teachers.

I learned the downside to the whole operation, though: the teachers weren't supposed to eat anything or drink any diuretics until after the blood test. That meant no food, and should have meant nothing but water to drink. However, I'm discovering more and more that Japanese would sooner die than go without tea; all the teachers had drunk at least one cup that morning. The lack of food certainly explained my supervisor's sour mood, though.

Oh, and I still don't know my blood type, which provokes something between amazement and horror when I mention it to the folks here.

Driving, episode III: Revenge of the Sith

Though it didn't really bother me, I expected to be the only person walking the course. I was one of about ten. I spent a solid hour pacing the pavement, tracing out exactly how to take turns and drilling as best as I could on checking my mirrors and blind spots all the time. I couldn't help but be a little distracted by this freaking awesome caterpillar I found, though. I'm pretty sure it's a Deilephila elpenor. Check out the antenna on his butt. Check it out on YouTube, too.

At about 12:50, the proctors came out and started up the cars. I had looked the cars over already: they were Toyota Comforts, and looked like retired taxis. They were definitely bigger than my little Kei. (I'd say close to double the size.) The proctors came in, had people move to different parts of the room depending on which test they were taking (the full-on test for Japanese, and the slightly toned-down version for us foreigners), and explained the course to everyone.

Thankfully, I didn't have to go first. I was, however, asked to ride in the backseat with the first person. There was also an additional proctor in the backseat with me. I honestly can't recall anything about the girl who took the test, except that she got a good-natured mini-lecture from the proctor about rolling the window down at train tracks. After we made our circuit, he asked the backseat proctor and I to step out of the car so he could discuss the results with the girl.

She stepped out, and he called my name. After I got in the car, he explained that I'd have a practice lap to familiarize myself with the car. After making that brief circuit, the test would begin. Remembering one of the things echoed by every source I'd found online--adjust the seat, adjust the mirrors, put your seatbelt on, start the car, put down the emergency brake, put the car in gear, in that order--I began. I was so preoccupied with getting used to the handling of the much larger car that I forgot to roll my window down at the train tracks; however, since it was the practice lap, the proctor gave another good-natured mini-lecture.

Returning to the start point, the proctor had me put the car in park, pull up the parking brake, and shut the car off. His voice then changed a little bit, turning a bit more official, and he told me the test had begun. He instructed me to get ready and turn out. I adjusted the seat, adjusted my mirrors, put my seatbelt on, started the car, put down the parking brake, and put the car in gear, in that order, and pulled out.

I handled the initial straightaway with no problem, getting up to the designated 50 km/hr quickly--the lady had been clear that they're looking for deliberate and not gentle acceleration--and pumped my brakes before the bend in the road. I checked my mirrors diligently, even when nothing was coming up. I made my first left turn with no problem. I started the crank, bumped the curb at one point, but calmly reversed and corrected it. I made my turns correctly, got through the S with absolutely no problem, and continued on.

The course includes an intersection of two four-lane roads with crosswalks and a functioning stoplight. It wasn't until after the test that I realized that doesn't exist anywhere on Tsushima. At any rate, I had to make a right turn (into the leftmost lane, remember) a short distance away from that stoplight, and make a right turn at the intersection. The light turned yellow as I got to it, and I had to come to an abrupt stop. I crossed the stop line a little, so I calmly turned on my hazards, put the car in reverse, and turned to look back as I fixed it. As far as recoveries go, there was no problem.

After putting the car back into drive, I suddenly remembered I was supposed to be making a right turn. I was still in the left lane. I had been so preoccupied with making a show of checking for imaginary cross traffic and for bicyclists that I completely forgot to change lanes. So I had to turn on my hazards again, put the car in reverse, and look over my shoulder as I corrected the mistake. The proctor was completely silent at this point; not an ominous silence, but rather a let's-wait-and-see silence.

I made the turn, unable to help being a little flustered. One of the last parts of my route was a stop sign--the only one on the course--with a stop line. I made the full stop--I doubt I'll ever forget Mom's crusade against rolling stops--and was about to make the turn as instructed, when the proctor snapped "Stop!" My blunders a moment before had upset me more than I thought: he didn't really snap so much as break my train of thought, which at that point consisted of lots of expletives about my carelessness. Anyway, he checked and confirmed that I was very close to over the line; I couldn't muster the concentration to understand what he actually said in Japanese, and had to go by his tone alone.

Resigning myself to the inevitable, I brought the car around to the start point. He politely asked the backseat passengers to step out, and just as politely explained to me that I had failed. His explanation was in full-speed Japanese, and I couldn't bring myself to ask him if he spoke English, or to write down what he was saying, or even just to slow down. I had apparently made the stop well, and he told me that I'd started out just fine. I'd slacked off on checking my mirrors at the end, and there was a long chunk of indecipherable Japanese that I can only assume was about the stoplight fiasco. I thanked him, got my registration form back, and trudged back to the DMV.

The lady was politely consoling, and told me to hang in there, study, and do my best next time. I took a taxi to the airport and caught the next flight home.

I haven't been that mad in about three years. I was mad at the DMV for being so nitpicky, at my school for making me take vacation days to fail a test, at Nagasaki prefecture for having only one DMV to accommodate all its disparate islands, at the DMV for not having an islands-only version of the license for those of us who only drive on 40km/hr country roads, and at the Japanese government for refusing to honor American IDPs after the first year.

Most of all, though, I was mad at myself. I can only imagine how furious I would have been if I'd done my absolute best, had been completely sure I demonstrated competence and alertness on the road, and had still failed. As it was, though, I could hardly blame the proctor for failing me. This test is to demonstrate our ability to handle everything from side streets in Tsushima to rush hour traffic in Tokyo; how could he in good conscience license me to drive in his country when, based on what he'd seen, I couldn't even handle a stoplight? He didn't know I only planned to drive in Tsushima. Realizing that didn't make me any less mad, of course.

Tail decidedly between my legs, I made my way back home. I sorely regretted having told everyone where I was going that weekend: everybody greeted me that week with a cheery "How'd it go?"

Oh, and two of the other second-year ALTs on the island, while technically in the same boat as me, haven't even considered taking the test. Their schools don't keep up with them well enough to have noticed. To avoid any possible trouble with a po-po, they've both taken a sharpie to the front of their IDP (where "valid one year from _____" is prominently displayed, with the date filled in by the person at AAA who issues it), changing the 7 to an 8 in 2007.

Driving, episode II: Attack of the Clones

We occasionally have to work Saturdays or Sundays. In exchange, we get a Monday or a Friday off. I scheduled the test for one such Monday, hoping to get my license without having to pay one of my vacation days. I flew to Nagasaki the Friday before and enjoyed a weekend of relaxing in the city. That part was a lot of fun: I met up with Mutia, and we explored a brand new shopping mall, as well as the Ferris wheel on top.

The morning of the sixth, I got to the DMV at 8:45 and checked in with no problem. A nice lady gave me the paperwork to fill out, consisting of the basic information as well as a detailed description of the driving test I took to get my U.S. license. After a few minutes of thinking, and surprised at how well I could recall it, I filled the page with description.

The lady took the paperwork, collected my IDP, U.S. license, official translation, Japanese alien registration card, and two passport-sized photos, and disappeared for a few minutes. She returned the documents a few minutes later, and had me take a seat and wait for my name.

I figured out that the crowd of Japanese people were all there for their written exam. Luckily I didn't have to worry about that; I've heard it's pretty difficult. After they filed off to the exam room, the lady took me to a small room and gave me my written test: ten illustrated English true-or-false questions. "I hear an ambulance coming. It's behind me, but I'm in a hurry, so it's okay if I don't pull over." That's just about the caliber of the test. I passed, and the lady had me wait some more.

Next was my vision test. I peeked through a ViewMaster and saw a bunch of circles, each with a certain part missing--up, down, left, or right. The beginning was a little shaky, only because I didn't quite understand her directions (which were in Japanese): if the circle is missing its bottom, do I report that as 'up' (because the circle is pointing that way--the inside of it looked like an arrow) or 'down' (because that's the part that's missing)? We got it straightened out, and I did fine.

Afterwards, she sat down with me and told me about the road test. She gave me a map of the course, with the path I'd be taking outlined. She explained every part of the course: slow down here, go this fast here, look at your mirrors in this order all the time, etc. Several things were new to me. For the sake of readers who aren't accustomed to driving on the left-hand side of the road (it's really not that big a deal after a few days of experiencing it), I'll describe some of the situations in terms of American road conditions.

Some of the things that were new to me:

-When stopping, pump your brakes no fewer than three times. This indicates to people behind you that you're stopping.

-When approaching railroad tracks, regardless of signs, stop. Roll down your window, and listen for approaching trains.

-When driving normally, occupy the left side of the lane. Do not straddle the center of your lane. Only move to the right side of the lane when turning right or changing lanes. [In America, this would be "Keep right except to pass or turn," only "right" means "on the right side of your lane," not just "the rightmost lane."]

-Before making a left turn, always check your blind spot for bicyclists alongside you. [In America, this would be for right turns.]

-When making a right turn onto a road with more than one lane, turn into the leftmost lane. [For American driving, switch "left" with "right:" if you're making a left turn onto a four-lane road (Glenstone, Airport Blvd, Big A, Atlanta Hwy, etc.), turn all the way into the rightmost lane.]

She explained that there was only one stretch of the course where the proctor would want me to reach 50 km/hr; everywhere else, there was no minimum speed requirement. She reminded me to brake before entering a bend--never to brake during the curve. (I remember talking to Chase about that while driving through the Smoky Mountains in 2004, so that's never been a problem for me.)

She also explained the two most challenging parts of the test to me: the S and the crank. The S is a tight S curve. By tight, I mean the road is about seven feet wide. The crank is a group of right-angle turns (four in all, if you count the turn into it and the turn out of it), on road that's about seven feet wide. For both the S and the crank, nudging the curb, while causing you to lose points, isn't cause for automatic failure. Driving up and over the curb instead of backing up and trying again, however, is.

Somewhere in the middle of all this, two things happened: I got nervous, and I started to appreciate just how much this lady was helping me. I'd done a ton of Googling the Japanese driving test for the past few nights, and I'd heard about most of this, but to have it on official authority made it so much better.

She made sure I didn't have any more questions, and told me the test would begin at 1. It was just then 11, so she told me to go get some lunch and relax. Other people were taking the road test until noon, at which point the course would be open for walking. I found a nearby kaitenzushi place, munched idly, and came back to study the course.

Driving, episode I: The Phantom Menace

First-year JETs are allowed to drive in Japan as long as they have both their normal US license and an international driver's permit. It costs about $10 and ten minutes to get one from the nearest AAA office. They're only valid for a year, at which point Japanese law requires us to obtain a full Japanese license.

For folks from the UK and Ireland, all this means is you go to the nearest DMV, fill out some paperwork, maybe take a vision test, and $20 and half an hour later, you've got your license. For Canadians and Americans (not sure about Aussies, Kiwis, and South Africans), though, we have to take an actual road test.

The test is conducted on a closed course built by the DMV. The DMV provides the vehicle. The test lasts about as long as the road test back home. Unlike the test back home, however, the Japanese road test is legendarily hard to pass. Even apart from the test itself, getting through the process is nothing short of a headache.

On top of all this, you must go to your prefectural DMV to take the test. There aren't any branch offices. This is a mild inconvenience for most JETs, who are a reasonable-length train ride from the DMV. For those of us living on an island, though, the inconvenience is decidedly more than mild.

The DMV is only open during standard business hours--M-F, 9-5--which, as with everything else in Japan, means going there requires taking time off work. (Some schools grant their ALT special leave; all the JETs I know and I have to cut into our allowance of twenty vacation days.) For those of us having to travel from an island, it further requires leaving the day before and making overnight arrangements. ($200 for round-trip airfare + $50/night at a hotel) The test can only be taken once a day. That means that, for folks flying in, it's wiser to take the next day off (in case you fail the first time) rather than fly home and have to do the whole thing over again. (However, vacation days must be scheduled in advance, which means you risk wasting a vacation day if you pass on the first day.) Even if you pass, the proceedings can stretch until the mid- to late afternoon, which in the case of Tsushima can cause us to miss the last flight out.

My school approached me back in June, having noticed that my IDP was set to expire at the end of July. They very kindly explained to me all the steps in the process. My supervisor warned me that the test is difficult, and, moreover, is a royal pain for people coming from Tsushima. She told me about a local driving center in my town, where, for about $50 an hour, I could practice on a course based on the real one at the DMV. Doing so would require I take vacation time, so I politely declined.

Rob, one of the departing ALTs, suggested in June that, if at all possible, I wait until September to take the test. He explained that everything he had heard made him think the proctors are more strict during July and August, because that's when all the second-year ALTs' IDPs expire, and the DMV is thus inundated with foreign examinees. He's the only person I know who passed on his first try, so I took his advice and didn't make plans for the test until after my visit home.

I did, however, start on the paperwork. The DMV requires an official translation of your driving license from your home country, and that translation can only be obtained from JAF, which serves the same function in Japan as AAA does back home. The nearest JAF office to Tsushima is downtown Nagasaki, which means mailing all the materials to them to get it translated.

Before I could get that far, however, my supervisor was awesome enough to call JAF and make sure there were no problems with my license. It turns out there was a big one: my Georgia license lists my "Exam Date," not the "Issue Date." I, like any sensible person, know that means the same thing. This being part of a bureaucratic process, though, sense is one of the first things tossed out the window.

Fine, I thought; I'll just call the folks in Georgia and get them to fax that line of information to the school. (Or to my parents, if Georgia had a problem with faxing international.) A kindly if stubborn lady at the Georgia DDS (because Georgia doesn't like calling it the DMV) told me that there's only one option for official documentation of driver information: a paper copy of the driving record. They come in three- and five-year versions, take seven to ten business days to process, and would you please kindly include a money order for $7 with the paperwork.

It was the end of July before I made this phone call, so I quickly did the math: two weeks to process the request (that's seven to ten business days, and the DDS is closed on Mondays), one week each way to get it mailed from and to Japan, international postage, and the processing fee for a money order in the amount of ... US$7. I estimated it costing about $20 and anywhere from four to six weeks to get the thing taken care of. That in mind, I decided to get it taken care of while I visited home.

All of that just so I could get my license translated into Japanese. The DMV requires some comparatively light paperwork in addition to the translation. I finally got this all put together by mid-September. My supervisor helped me make the arrangements with the DMV. My adventure was only beginning...

"My father likes beer and tobacco."

For two days every couple of months, I go to one of the local elementary schools and bask in the cuteness of Japanese kids. It's like a vacation for me: I don't plan any of the lessons, all the kids are willing to learn English, I have free time to study Japanese, and I get to run around and play with the kids during recess.

I'm always amazed at the difficulty of the English lessons. This school--Northern Izuhara Elementary--has an excellent English program, and it really shows. I routinely help teach first- and second-graders essentially the same lessons I try to teach my high schoolers. The single bigget difference, in my opinion, is the elementary students' complete lack of fear about English. Whereas the high schoolers shy away from speaking up and standing out in the crowd, the younger kids have no such misgivings.

Today, I was with the fourth graders. They had been learning the "I like ~"/"S/He likes ~" pattern. They had prepared a presentation about their families, bringing in a photo and describing each person's hobbies. Each presentation consisted of "This is my (mother/father/sister/brother). S/He likes ~." Most of the mothers liked chocolate, music, or (reportedly) cooking. Some of the fathers liked baseball, TV, or golf. Most of the students' description of their father, however, went like this: "This is my father. He likes beer." This was rivaled in popularity only by "He likes tobacco."

Nobody in class reacted with anything remotely resembling shock or derisive laughter. Most of the kids didn't react at all; the teacher laughed it off. I could tell that he wasn't trying to downplay it or anything--it just isn't a big deal to people here. They accept their parents' vices. I'm sure awful things like alcoholism and child/spousal abuse exist here, but the overwhelming majority of fathers simply play as hard as they work. And everybody's fine with that.

I haven't heard a single Japanese person claim to oppose smoking or alcohol. Of course, the legal age limit is strictly enforced, both directly (by the police) and indirectly (by the community). Occasionally, one of my high school students gets caught smoking, and it causes a stir in the staffroom as the student's homeroom teacher has to give him (or her) a stern talking-to, and inform the parents, and probably have a conference.

The message seems to be that, as long as you're a hard-working adult, there's no problem with drinking and smoking. I'm not advocating either, but I think people back home could learn a lot from Japan's example, at least when it comes to tolerance of the drinking habits of others.