Year 2 Back to the Beginning

About 3 weeks ago, I started teaching my 2nd group of students in Japan. Its been an interesting challenge being a 2nd year teacher.  The kids are great but there are definitely those times that I go "how do you not know this? Oh Ya I haven't taught you that yet." I sometimes feel like I'm teaching kids how to breathe. I have to reteach every thing that I took for granted a few weeks ago because, I had those kids trained. It definitely shows how much I actually taught my students over the last year. Outside of feeling like a record player on repeat, I've got a fun group this year. I have 8 boys and 5 girls. They all have their own personalities.

Last year at this time, I was just coming back from America after the earthquake so I missed out on a lot of the start of the year things. I had a great teacher that was teaching my class for a month before I took over so a lot of the basics were taken care of by the time I got them. This year, I've gotten to mold the students from scratch my way. I've had some great times with these kids already.

The big rolly slide

The sledding hill

This past Saturday, we went to Manyo Park for a field trip. Manyo Park is essentially a big Jungle Gym/training ground for Most Extreme Elimination Challenge. Basically, there are tons of obstacles that circle this mountain. The first thing we got to try was probably the worlds longest rolly slide, reminded me of my days at Mullally Park on the orange slide except 10 times longer.  If you sit on slide your butt will go numb by the end of the ride. The kids actually stand on it and squat. Its pretty crazy.

There is also the first non-snow sledding hill I've seen. The kids loved it. You can get going down it pretty fast. If you fall off though, it burns.

...STAFF BBQ

Today, we had our annual MeySen international staff bbq. They set up the grills right on our soccer field. There was soo much good food that you probably take for granted in America. We had burgers, hotdogs, spinach dip, pasta salad and a lot more. It was awesome. After eating, we all played kickball. Every year we put the two schools against each other (Maruyama and Takamori). This essentially when we get to feel like kids again. I feel like every work environment should have an annual kickball game. It just brings out this pure joy that a lot of workplaces can be missing. It was a lot of fun, Maruyama (my school) dominated yet again 22-6.

All in all, it was a great day to just be outside and relax with my fellow foreigners (and Japanese too). Our school now has about 40ish foreign staff and it keeps growing. They are definitely a reason why I stayed another year. Its great to have that group of people that are going through the same struggles here trying to find a place in the Japanese world.

My First Year as a Teacher...in Japan

During my first year in college, I was assigned the book My First Year as a Teacher for my entry level teaching class. In the book, there were several different teachers sharing their stories, from teaching at risk students, to being live in teachers at boarding schools. I remember wondering what my first year as a teacher would be like. 6 years and several thousand miles later I never expected this...

Its hard to believe that a year as a 3rd grade Immersion English teacher has passed already. Its amazing to  look back at everything and see how differently this year could have been. Its hard to believe that last April I was home after the huge earthquake and contemplating not coming back at all. The biggest thing pushing me to come back was this feeling that I had 14 third graders that expected me to be their teacher.

This group of kids would grow to almost feel like my own kids here. I spend 6 days a week with them and have probably explored more of Japan with my students than I have without them. We've been to youth hostels, hiked mountains, water parks, museums, caroling, and more on top of trying to teach them English. I feel like I could write a novel about the personalities of each of my kids; What they like dislike, struggles etc.

I have so many great memories with each of the students that its next to impossible to break it down to each of them. I could  tell my students favorite memory of me (at least to tell to me!) though, which I'm slightly embarrassed to share. The 3rd grade students created this booklet "Day at MeySen" which they got a chance to write about their teacher and I had to stop half of them from writing this story. Here's the abridged embarrassment:

Everyday we have playtime with the kids for about 25 minutes. No matter what I dress in, I always try to run around with the kids and play with them. That day, I believe we were all playing soccer. My clothes were a little dressy for soccer but I thought nothing of it... Well I came back inside and we go to the corner where the kids are sitting on the floor and I'm on a stool about to dive into English. Then, I notice the kids laughing and pointing. My students are usually pretty controlled so I was wondering what the deal was. One student blurts out "uh, Mr. Greg your pants are ripped" I had ripped my pants right down the middle. All the kids were cracking up. As I tried to cross my legs for the rest of the corner time, the only thing I could do was laugh with them and try to explain how its inappropriate to laugh at other people when something goes wrong (ya I shouldn't have laughed either haha). For the rest of the year, it was kind of a rolling joke with the class about me splitting my pants at the end of the day.

As some of you may know, Japanese school year starts in April and ends in March. That leaves very little time between one grade and the next. I basically started getting rid of things for last year as I'm preparing for the new students. Next Tuesday, its going to be crazy to start up a class with look at 13 less familiar faces in front of me and restart the whole process of what I'm expecting. I don't know how you veteran teachers do this every year. Though looking back on my memories of this past year, I can start to see why.

PS please check out another teachers blog here: She is working to help students in  her home country of Ghana.
http://kasemoart.blogspot.jp/

Spring break pictures

The legendary Merlion

The southern most point of Continental Asia

The view from my room

Patronas Towers lighting back up after Earth Hour

Spring Break Malaysia and Singapore:

At MeySen, most of the teachers in the immersion program love to travel anywhere they can when they get  more than a couple days off. At the end of our school year (March) we got a week off to do whatever we wanted. Aaron (4th grade teacher from Michigan) and I decided to go to Spain since summer but unfortunately that didnt work out. So we had this week and had to figure out where to go. We basically threw a dart at a board on Asia. Honestly, Malaysia came up because I had a layover there last summer and wanted to check it out more. We looked more into it and decided to spend the week there and found cheap flights and figured why not Singapore too?

So we basically packed two vacations into about 7 days. By the numbers: we took 8 different planes to 7 different airports and flew 5 out the the 7 days. Heres how it all went down...

The backside of our hotel.

We flew out to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia after a delay we got there about 3AM Monday morning with just enough time to go to sleep and head to the airport again at noon. From there we flew out to a small island called Langkawi. We got to our hotel which was right on the beach around 3 o'clock and basically wandered the beach all day. The hotel looked nice from the outside but it was pretty average on the inside we had to get a million things fixed as soon as we got to our room. At like 5, it started to pour so we headed in. Then went back out at night to this place called Babylon which plays reggae music. It was pretty chill lots of foreigners. It was pretty much the only place to go if you are under 50 and not a local. 

Right as the storm was setting in

The bridge between the mountains

Langkawi was beautiful but pretty quiet compared to other beach destinations. There were quite a few resorts and pretty much everyone spoke English which was a real plus. Also the shops didnt have that annoying "hey sexy man you want to come buy shirt for good price?" that you get in Thailand and most other destinations in Asia. The only real touristy thing we did there was go on this cable car up a mountain. It was pretty cool and had some great views. At the top of the mountain we got to cross this walking bridge that was apparently one of the highest floating pedestrian bridges. We got to the middle of it and it started pouring, which is pretty freaky. We ended up taking the cable car back down the mountain in a fog so we couldn't see much.

The next day we flew out to Kuala Lumpur then flew to Singapore. Honestly, we never planned on going to Singapore we just realized it was like $50 to fly there from Malaysia so we figured what the heck? The airport there is huge. Singapore is basically a city that is a country. They only have 1 airport and lots of ports for boats. Its super easy to get around there. We could take the MRT train pretty much anywhere for real cheap. There actually arent many cars there either. A guy told us that you have to pay several thousand dollars to get on a waiting list just to own a car there.

When we got to our hostel in ChinaTown, the area reminded me of a clean Bangkok. Everything just looks newer. The hostel was nothing to write home about but served its purpose. We set up shop then just wandered the streets. In Singapore, the national language is English but its the strangest sounding English I've ever heard. When people are talking to each other it sounds like they are talking Chinese but if you eavesdrop you can actually pick up the English.

Singapore is also super expensive. They use the Singapore dollar which is comparable to ours. We went to Sentosa which is a huge resort area and really easy to navigate. There there are all kinds of theme attractions, museums, Hard Rock Cafe, and Universal Studios. If I had more time I'd love to visit some of those.

The southernmost point in Asia. Pretty beautiful

We got this half day pass to check out 4 different attractions around the area. We chose to ride a segway, ride a cable car through town, and two different 3D movie/games. They were all pretty cool. The stuff I really wanted to do though was crazy expensive. They had this indoor sky diving room that was $200, swimming with sharks or dolphins for $100, one of those surfing machine things for $40. There was also a zipline that wasnt open. Singapore also has the southern most point on continental Asia which we checked out.

The next day, we flew back to Kuala Lumpur. It was at this point, I think all the traveling started to catch up with us. We didnt really ever get time to settle into a location. Kuala Lumpur is much like any other big city you might see. The big plus we had was that we got a super cheap deal to stay at the Traders Shangri La. The place was one of the nicest hotels I've stayed in. It was one of those places you could just spend most of your day hanging around the hotel. It was also right across the park from the Petronas Towers. If you google Kuala Lumpur, you'll probably see that picture right away. Sadly, you have to get up at 5AM to line up just to go up the tower. That wasn't gonna happen. We did make it to the mall inside it which was pretty nice. We actually spent most of our KL time just between malls. I think if it didnt hit the tail end of our trip we would have branched out and saw some of the other cool things.

The crappy thing was that we had to check out at 12PM but had to fly out at 2AM. We spent Saturday at this huge mall that smelled like someone who doesn't remember to wipe after using the bathroom. There was a cool amusement park at the top of it though. We also got to see the Hunger Games which was cool.  We then left for the Airport and I realized our flight was out at 2AM and not 11 so we turned around and decided to walk for 2 hours to find TGIFriday's that was like a block away. It was great adventure though haha.

I was dead tired when we got to the airport. As we said goodbye to the cab driver, I realized I left my phone in the car. As I started to freak out, I used Aarons phone to call the hotel. They tracked down the cab and he brought it back. Nothing like a nearly horrible situation to wake ya up. I can't say enough about the care that the Shangri La takes to help you. They were great. I see why people pay big money to stay there.

We got to the line and of course because I'm traveling, we find out we have a 2 hour delay back to China(our connection). So we don't fly out till 4AM. This also means that we miss our connecting flight in China. Welcome to my life. I literally have never flown to Japan without a single flight issue. The ironic thing was that the only flight that was on time the whole trip was the one going to Japan that I missed!

We got to China, which is one place you don't want to be without having a clue about your flight. The airlines attempted to take care of us. Sadly, we had to go through customs and at every stop a new person wondering what the heck we were doing in the airport without a visa or a flight. Luckily after the few headaches, we got a flight an hour later. All in all we spent 21 hours traveling to get back home in Sendai. I was exhausted.

THE FOOD


All anybody every told me about either country was you gotta eat the food. Honestly everything I tasted was delicious. Most things had a lot of Spice. Both Malaysia and Singapore seemed like a mix of Indian food and Chinese. The funny thing is that we actually ate more normal American staples than local food. Thats the big difference between traveling from Japan and traveling from America. Since we dont have a lot of the normal American places in Japan we were more excited to find those than the other places. We ate at Burger King, Wendy's, TGIFridays, Hard Rock, and missed out on Quiznos.  All places I haven't seen in months.

The strangest part of any vacation is going back to Japan like its my home. I never get used to that. I kept feeling like I'd be flying back to Michigan...home.

Anyway, I'm already looking into my next trip for August. Europe anyone?