MeySen Christmas

Christmas is probably one of the busiest times of year here at MeySen. It starts right about the day after Halloween, much to the demise of those NO CHRISTMAS till after THANKSGIVING people.  We start in teaching our kids Christmas carols on a daily basis.

 The first stop in the Christmas extravaganza is Caroling through the Ichibancho. When I told my kids about it, many of the boys groaned saying, "people talk in Japanese saying what is this funny club singing in English." But I think they secretly liked it. I definitely enjoyed spending the last few minutes of class singing Christmas carols for several weeks. The actual event was great though it was shortened due to heavy rain. The Ichibancho is this mile long shopping district that is covered in most places. We gathered our kids at fixed points to sing songs essentially to their parents who followed us around. There were also the random international looking people that you you could see pause and go: "Japanese kids singing in English?" The kids rocked their carols and sounded great.

just one of the tables of desserts

A week later, I went and checked out the kindergarten Christmas party. This is probably one of the biggest deals in the immersion program. All of the kids from both campuses get together to sing, act and play games. It it is like your average American public school party/Christmas pageant on Muscle Milk. During the 4 hour ordeal, The students process in and sing Christmas carols in a Tree formation on stage then go through games and more songs. I swear every little thing that happened on this day was better than watching babies giggling while holding kittens dressed like Santa Claus; the cutest thing you will ever see.  These kids also had talent. Part of the singing was in Japanese and students got to have solos (yes Im still talking about 4 and 5 year olds). The kids with solos had beautiful voices. On top of the singing there was a Nativity play and traditional Japanese dances. I wish I could show the videos I took on here cuz its just something you've got to see. After everything, there was the biggest smorgasboard of desserts known to man laid out and set up in about 2 seconds. All the parents, brought desserts to pass for everyone. The kids ended the day on N'Sync's "Merry Christmas Happy Holidays." It was just plain great.

Unfortunately I didn't get a ton of pictures dressed as santa.

The next day we had Christmas cheer day which was essentially a bunch of games with our campus and a video to get the kids pumped for their version of the kindergarten party. That weekend, 1st and 2nd grade and HS had their Christmas parties. On top of that I taught a normal Saturday for 3rd grade so I worked from 8AM-8PM straight. The first and second grade party was the kindergarten party on a smaller scale. The kids played games for prizes including a Christmas present pinata filled with candy. Also for the party, yours truly got to be the big man in Red.

Apparently in Japan, Santa does not need to be fat. The Santa suit is actually pretty slimming. From my experience, I give those mall Santas a lot of credit. My job was to help pass out presents and sing carols with the kids. I had kids tugging my beard, hanging on my leg, and a baby crying at me.  Outside of that, it was pretty great to feel like the star (my brothers and sister can attest to my need for attention). Several of the kids kept trying to guess who I really was. Most of them kept guessing that I was one of the other teachers. One kid was convinced then I showed him the other teacher and he goes "Santa?"  One girl was only convinced I wasn't the real Santa after she saw my shirt sleeve under the costume. After carols people were constantly asking for pictures with their kids. I think between helping with pony rides last summer and pictures Saturday, I'm going to be in a ton of random Japanese photo albums.

By Saturday night, I was pretty exhausted with the two four hour Christmas parties. The high school party was actually a walk down memory lane for the kids playing games they did as a kid.It was all kind of a blur because I was pretty tired but it went well.

With less than a week left, the Christmas season is still not over, this Thursday we have the 3rd and 4th grade Christmas parties which is the same as the others but without parents. On top of that, we are having a little Christmas party with other teachers Wednesday and a staff party Thursday.

The only downside to all this Christmas celebration is that it just doesn't quite feel like Christmas over here. No matter how many days in a row I blare Christmas music, something's still missing for Christmas here in Japan. The first real snow of the season Friday was a nice touch. Sunday night we went to check the lights out downtown and the was the first time I actually kind felt like Christmas is coming up.

I'll Be Home for Christmas!

**note this was written before I made it home

This year the world was my oyster for my Christmas break. One of the perks of this job is the ability to travel all over during vacations.  I could choose to go anywhere but North Korea for this holiday break. I really started thinking about Australia, one of my top places I want to go. But as I really started to think heavily about what Christmas time means to me, there's really no place Id rather be than home for Christmas.

 I can't imagine not waking up to the living room full of presents, the ensuing wrapping paper fight, "A Christmas Story" playing in the background without ever actually watching it all day,  my mom slipping and falling on the wrapping paper while carrying a tray of cinnamon rolls through the living room.

On top of that, I thought, when will I get many chances to fly across the world to surprise my parents for Christmas. Luckily the stars aligned. MeySen usually still runs on Christmas but it fell on on a Sunday with the emperors birthday on the Friday so I got the chance to fly out the 23rd. On top of that, I got a free roundtrip flight to use as I wanted as long as I signed for a second year. Since September, I've been setting it all in the works to make it home for Christmas and pull off the biggest surprise for my parents.

I had to let my sister in so someone could pick me up from the airport so she's the only one in my family so that knew the entire time. I've also been telling friends as I've been able too. I told my mom that I would be traveling in Japan for the break. Which technically is true, I have to travel to Tokyo to fly home. I've given a lot of vague answers that were not technically lies if she ever had a transcript of the conversation haha. She was under the impression that I would be coming home in March but I only said it was a possibility which is true but not likely.

My plan was to fly home the 23rd and stay at my friend's house then have my sister pick me up from Grand Rapids and meet my mom at church for the Christmas mass. From there, I would have my sister send her on a hunt to come find me.

UPDATE: Everything worked out perfectly as I'd planned. My biggest fear was that she would have known somehow before I came home. Here is the video of the surprise. MERRY CHRISTMAS!

There truly is no place like home for the holidays.

Its official, I've been Outsourced for a Second Year

As I signed the contract today, I started thinking about what I could post. I could go into detail about all the thought and worrying that went into my decision to stay but that just wouldn't be true. To be completely honest, I really didn't give it much thought. Now some people could say wow this is a huge decision and everything but to me it was simple. Actually, I  had to answer two simple questions that everyone should about there job:

Do I enjoy what I do and the people I'm surrounded with?

Do I make enough money that I don't have to worry about money?

Of course, there are more questions you could ask here but for me it really was that simple. Of course, it will be hard to be away from home for another year and I will still miss my family and friends but I am lucky to have found a job that I truly enjoy going to work everyday for.

To be honest, I never really gave much thought into my original choice to come here either. I just came because I happened to go to a teacher fair that just happened to be on a day I could take off from my long term position where I happened to meet a very friendly recruiter who happened to give me a flyer. (still following?) Then in June, I just decided to fill out the application just for the heck of it. Boom got the job and went for it. Didn't really know what I was doing at all. I just went for it because it sounded like a fun thing to do. Most of my friends thought I was crazy.

Looking back I haven't been disappointed. I probably went through one of the craziest experiences most people will never have in their lives with the 9.0 Earthquake, Tsunami, and Nuclear meltdown within my first two months here. Coming home then was the only time I can say that I had any doubts on being here. When I came back, I actually was thinking well Im just going to finish out my contract and come back home ASAP. To my amazement, things went back to normal within a month of getting here. Huge earthquakes slowly dissipated and the crazy experience became a memory.

On a daily basis, I get so caught up in the routine of life that its really hard to believe that I've been here this long already. I can see myself slowly losing track of time. I just assume everything stops in America while I'm gone and will pick up where I left off when I get back. Obviously, that won't happen but I'm cool with it.

A few highlights of my highlights of I can't believe I'm getting paid to teach here in Japan:

• Friends Day, I was paid to walk around with a pony giving Japanese toddlers rides.

• I went camping and river hiking with high school students and got to climb a waterfall and jump off a cliff.
• I got to set up and light off some of the best fireworks I've ever seen for 1st and 2nd grade camp. 
• For Halloween, I got to dress up like spiderman and play games with my students 

• Last weekend, I went caroling down the Ichibancho (A mile of road just for shopping) with my 3rd grade students. We sang Christmas songs to people that probably didn't even understand the words we were singing. 

I still get a lot of those random moments that just crack me up. Like today, I was teaching basketball to the 3rd graders. One of the boys insisted on not going on offense because he wanted to guard the other basket like in soccer.

I've also met a lot of great friends and have done a lot of crazy and fun things with them. 

All in all, I honestly can't complain. I feel truly blessed to stumble upon this job and can't imagine how my life would have been without this experience. I can only hope that next year is even more amazing!

PS HAPPY HOLIDAYS!