Springtime in Iwate

I was not expecting this at all. This is what the weather was like yesterday:



There's something very disturbing about being able to see your breath inside your home. Especially when the heater's on.

Hanami in Hirosaki

In addition to high schools, I also teach(volunteer) at my town's language exchange program for locals wanting to learn English. The age range is from 15 (one of my students) to 70 (an elder who loves language) and the attendees are all nice and friendly.

So friendly, in fact, that one of the guys from the last 2 weeks invited me Hanami in Hirosaki with his family this past weekend to peep the cherry blossoms. I was surprised at the invitation but kindly accepted anyway. I'm glad I did!

The family who kindly invited me. Hirosaki Castle in the background. For some reason the pics look photoshopped

Cherry blossoms along the river

A photoshop job of me in front of Hirosaki Castle

A dope dinner full of food I can't remember but would love to have again

Up close and personal with some cherry blossoms

Teaching English with Freestyle Fellowship

I had a lesson this week over the SVO sentence structure. That class is in the middle of learning different ways to construct sentences so I wanted to make it easy to remember this specific type. At some point, Freestyle Fellowship's "Hot Potato" popped into my head and an idea was born: use the words of Aceyalone, Mikah 9, P.E.A.C.E. and Self Jupiter to teach it!

First, I gave some background on Hot Potato and taught them the hook from the song:

Hot potato, pass the potato (x4)

After they got the words down, I taught them tempo and tune by leading the class in chorus and metronomic claps. I couldn't get them dancing but I did get some enthusiastic claps and a few head bobs!

Next came some rounds of Hot Potato. I paired them up and gave each group a "potato" to pass back and forth while singing their newly learned song. And then I snuck in the grammar.

While demonstrating Hot Potato with the JTE, I visually broke down the sentences "I passed the potato", "I passed JTE-Sensei the potato" and "JTE-Sensei passed me the potato" into their SVO components. And before I could ask them to make their own sentences (relative to their groups), some already had! I checked for their understanding (e.g.,"What did you pass?") and found that many could create and understand SVO sentences. After a few more rounds with newly paired groups, most of the class could. Success!

I wonder if Freestyle Fellowship ever envisioned this?

First Day of School Recap

First Day of School:

6am - Woke up simultaneously by the town's bells and my own alarm. Looked outside and saw a beautiful day.

6:05 am - Remembered it was the first day of class. Got excited. Feeling good, feeling great.

7am - Got ready to go. Clean shaven and decked out.

8am - In the ride and driving to school.

8:25am - Parked at school. Feeling kind of anxious. Where'd that knot in my stomach come from?

8:30am - Sitting in a teacher's meeting not knowing a single thing being said. Feeling pretty dumb but it makes me think about how my students may feel when they don't understand me...

9:00am - An assembly is held in my honor. Wait, what? All the students and teachers congregate in the gym and I am formally introduced to the school. I give a speech in English to introduce myself. And the crowd goes wild like Hollyfield has just won the fight. Hey, maybe I shouldn't feel so nervous after all...

10:00am - First class. Most of my lessons this week will be class introductions so I just put on a smile and talk loud and slow. Confidence always pays. They looked half scared, half excited. I told them about myself, my family, my college and my hobbies. Then I taught them how to do the robot. They loved it! I felt half man, half amazing.

11:00am - rest of the day - I had 3 other classes today and please, believe the hype: I had heard that we'd feel like celebrities here but I didn't realize they'd seriously treat me like a superstar. The kids were so excited to see me. They'd run up to me in the halls and wave frantically from afar. I was apparently able to tame one of the loudest and most rambunctious classes just by being there. One girl asked to take a picture with me (I politely declined).

Afterschool - I walked around, talking to as many students as I could. I wanted to come across as friendly and non threatening as possible. I asked them about themselves and their club activities and joined in wherever I could: handball, volleyball (missed all my serves), band (played the snare), computer club (got served in a computer game) and so on. I sat in on a student council meeting and then told them about my high school back in the 90's.

This, I found, was a great approach. Students became even more receptive and liked that I was taking an interest in their hobbies and activities. I let them teach me Japanese to show that it's okay to not know a foreign language and that it's a learning process.

Just like high school in the states, students here are afraid of making mistakes, especially in front of their peers. So I wanted to start encouraging them early on. If I make them comfortable it'll be easier to teach them.

All in all, I gotta say it was a good day.

You'd think everyone here smoked weed..

..by the number of marijuana leafs around. From jackets to air fresheners to car decals, representations of the leaf are ridiculously prominent not only in Tokyo, but also in the smaller, rural towns.

I wouldn't have thought twice about it were it not for the fact that marijuana is highly illegal in Japan. If you get caught with it, you will get in serious trouble. Just ask Paul McCartney.

So with that, I was definitely surprised by how ubiquitous the leaf was. After talking with a few people, I found out why: people associate the image more with Reggae and Dancehall (which is HUGE here) than marijuana itself. That said, I'm sure the more-illicit association isn't completely foreign...

Why don't we have this in the States yet?

Peeps have been talking about this for ages and I've been on the bandwagon for a minute. But after taking a high speed train last weekend I'm now in bopper mode.

Using the Shinkansen, or high speed bullet train, I was able to travel about 350 miles (~distance from SF to LA, NY to Boston) in under 3 hours, all while being able to eat, sleep, drink, use the bathroom, walk around, listen to music (was finally able to peep Sanguine Sunday's Episode 8, Transportation, which fit the task at hand) take pictures, read and have (slightly overpriced) food sold to me.

While a bit pricey, it's still cheaper than an airplane. Plus you don't have to put up with security check (or grumpy security check workers), checking luggage (or losing luggage), restrictions on phone and electronics or not being able to carry liquids on board. And you can also buy just before boarding without having to worry about an inflated price.

There's benefit to society too. According to the very credible, afore-linked Wikipedia article:

The Shinkansen has had a great effect on Japan's business, economy, society, environment and culture. The time savings alone from switching from a conventional to a high-speed network have been estimated at 400 million hours, an economic impact of ¥ 500 billion per year. Shinkansen connectivity has regenerated rural towns such as Kakegawa that would otherwise be too distant from major cities. Travelling Tokyo-Osaka by Shinkansen produces only around 16% of the carbon dioxide of the equivalent journey by car, a savings of 15,000 tons of CO2 a per year.

No seriously, why don't we have this in the states yet? It's not like it's new. They've been around for over 40 years now.

Thankfully Obama is also on the bandwagon.

Dear Exhibit, Please Pimp my Ride

Dear Exhibit, please pimp my ride:


This is the car I'll be driving. It's a Nissan Something-Or-Another on 12 inch dubs.


I rather dig it, actually. It's brand new, small, fuel efficient and will get me from point A to B.


Driving on the left hand side will still take some time getting used to, though.