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Published: April 30th 2010
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Sakura at Night
our cherry blossom tree lined road Stupid Japanese Things This Month... Japanese teachers of English I asked one of my teachers how she's finding the new first years. I phrased it "So how are you finding the new students?" - pretty straight forward I thought, especially as I'm pretty sure she's used that same sentence structure before. She replied by telling me about the entrance exams. I KNOW HOW THEY GET INTO THE BLOODY SCHOOL WOMAN!!!! Do you really think that I would ask such a question? Obviously you do take me for an idiot. I might give her a snack and then ask "how are you finding the snack?" just to see if she tells me that I gave it to her.
I had a lesson this morning with that same teacher, and she said "maybe we don't need the textbook", to which I replied "okay". She then said "do we need it?". I said "no". You're supposed to be an English teacher - you should know that if you want to ask a question, ask a bloody question and don't just make a statement!
An oven, an oven, my crappy combo-piece-of-crap for a decent oven... I baked my very first carrot cake,
because I found a recipe that had loads of good reviews online, and the cream cheese frosting sounded really nice. I managed to get most of the ingredients bar ground cloves, and even had a tin to bake it in. What I didn't realise was just how rubbish my combination microwave/oven/toaster is. The oven works with a heating element at the back as per normal electric ovens, but there is a plate that spins like in a microwave. So I can take the plate away and put a baking tray on it instead, but it still turns so that everything gets baked equally from the heating element. This stupid "oven" is so frickin' small that I can just about fit my tray in, but it won't turn! Not that I thought it would be a problem, because I could just turn it around halfway through. What hadn't occurred to me was that the bloody cake would get burnt because it rose a wee bit and got too close to the heating element. So when I turned it around halfway through, it was all black at the back and smoky from the burning. I carried on as planned though, and eventually
Muffin Head
look at the size of the choc chip muffin!! the entire cake was burnt on top. I figured I could just cut the burnt bit off. I was actually pretty pleased with the "oven" until this point - now I just want to cry. What's the point of the stupid thing if I can't even bake cakes?!?!! Think I'll scratch the roast chicken idea I had...
Too much trying to please people is a bad thing - just admit you can't do something For the last few months, whenever I've called up a Japanese company, I've started the conversation off with either "Do you speak English?" or "I'm sorry, but please forgive my poor Japanese that is to follow" in Japanese. Both were fine until a couple of weeks ago when I asked the ferry company woman if she speaks any English. I figured she might because foreigners take the ferry too. Instead of saying "No, I'm sorry I don't", to which I could have replied "Okay then, in that case please excuse my poor Japanese that is to follow", she said "Please wait a moment" (in Japanese) and tried to find someone who did speak English. Which is fair enough, but if you're going to do that,
Yakiniku Seoul
you can't tell from the look on alex's face, but it was really yummy! at least get someone who actually speaks f***in' English!!!!! All I got was some bloke who obviously hadn't spoken English since high school and didn't really understand my question. I told him that I'd booked ferry tickets online and wanted to know if I had to pay for them on the day or before. The reply I got was "Let me see. How many people will be travelling? Okay. It will cost 18,000 yen for a car and 3 people". I knew that already. I gave up and accepted that I just wasted 100 yen and 5 minutes of my life that I'll never get back or ever really understand.
Discipline I was talking to the vice principal at one of my schools about discipline and how it's different in Japan to England. According to her, if they send a kid out of the classroom for being disruptive, the parent(s) might complain about their child missing out on their education. What about the other 20 students who are missing out on their education because some little s*** decides to play up?
They can't give out detentions because the kids have after school activities - take kyudo (Japanese archery)
Yakiniku Seoul
no really, it was very nice! for example. They practise every weekday after school for 3 hours, and then every Saturday AND Sunday for 2 hours each day. That's just insane. Compare that to my English club - once a week for 1 hour, if that!
Apparently the discipline goes on behind closed doors, so I've never seen it. Either it's not working or they don't bother at my school.
My New School So I started a new school since my last one closed down. I have the only desk in the office that's about 100 years old. It doesn't even have a plastic cover to put schedules and other important docs under - it's pure 2-tonne glass that I can't even budge let alone lift up to remove the decades-old timetable and trump card(?!) that I have to look at all day.
I don't even have a PC to keep me occupied when I'm not in class. There's one behind me, but that's for anyone to use, so I don't particularly want to use it. And it's about as slow as my previous schools', so it'd take me half an hour just to log on and another half hour to open Word. Word.
My very first lesson was with a class of 6 who barely said 2 words since I walked into the room. Now I'm used to quiet students, but this was ridiculous! In my second class, one girl had her head in her hands and cried throughout the entire lesson. I can't see that happening in my day at school - they'd at least be told to go outside. So the morning wasn't doing much for my mood, and I started counting down the days til the end of the semester. But then I had a really yummy chicken/sweetcorn/avocado/mayo sarnie, and I perked up a bit. My afternoon class then put me in an even better mood, because they were really fun and actually enjoyed the lesson, which made me enjoy the lesson, and I went home a happy bunny 😊
To counteract all this bitching, I'll put up photos of some good things from this month.
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