Finals and Kids

Hello, all! I know I haven't posted since February began, and March is already on its way, so let me catch you up a bit.

First, and most importantly, finals are over!  Winter interim may have only been a month long semester, but all of us were so ready for it to me over with. I got all my tests back and I did pretty well, especially seeing as my final was giving by my hardest teacher, so now I can put it all behind me and focus on my main task right now: my internship.

The last three weeks have been crazy with finals coming on and three birthdays in a row to celebrate and everybody just wanting the semester to end so we could have a break, but nothing compares to the craziness of interning at an Elementary School, let alone an Elementary School in a foreign country.

The day after finals was our first day of the internship, and it was nuts. First of all there are ten of us exchange students doing the internship, which is a godsend. At least we have each other to fall back on, even though they split us all into different classrooms. Secondly, thank God for patience, because if I didn't have any I probably wouldn't have gone back the second day. And third, I'm extremely thankful that the other NGU girl I was paired with, Jennifer, is fluent in English and Japanese and helps me out as much as she does. I love you, Jennifer!

But like I was saying, the first day was just crazy. We got to the school a bit late, but half of us didn't even know we needed to be there early just for the first day. That wasn't too big of a deal. There's a little meeting room they let us use to sit and relax and put our things down before the morning debriefing, and we have to take our chairs from there to the teachers' office for the meeting and then return them afterwards. We have to be at school at 8:15 every morning, and for college students that had just finished finals - it was cruel. So we introduced ourselves to the staff and were then split up into our respective classrooms. Jennifer and I are in class 5-1, meaning the 5th grade (there are multiple classes because of the amount of students, for example my roommate Juyoun is in class 5-2). We met our teacher for the first time, whose name I cannot remember for the life of me, and then introduced ourselves to the class. There are probably about thirty students, a pretty even mix of boys and girls, and they were excited and very shy to have us in their class. That first day is a bit of a blur, now that we've finished four days and had the weekend to recover, but I remember being excited, quite nervous, and also a bit annoyed. Not at the kids, but for the fact that no one told us what to do! We had no schedule, no instructions, no specific tasks but to help out during English class which is only once a week. So basically we sat in the classroom with students, talked to them whenever they talked to us or whenever we could muster up a conversations, and that was about it. That's definitely the worst part. I mean sure, there are some kids that grate on my nerves a little bit, but otherwise I really like our class and it's really fun when they teach me things or when I understand what they're doing in their lessons (seeing as they're entirely in Japanese), but the lack of instruction is wearing on all of us a bit.

It was a bit better by the end of the week, though, which I was happy for. Our teacher had me do a 20 minute presentation about where I am from and some information about me, and I think after that the kids started to warm up to me a little more. The presentation was a lot of fun, actually, and if I could do something like that everyday then our instruction problem would be over.

For as much as I have said that Japan is so different and so similar at the same time to America, Elementary School is way, way different. The kids aren't corrected on social behavior, so during breaks they run around screaming and play fighting and pulling each other across the floor, but they are actually held accountable for their actions such as passing out homework, cleaning duties, handing in papers, and actually managing the classroom and activities. The biggest thing I've noticed as well, seeing as it's winter here - they have no central heating. Each classroom has a gas burning space heater in the front of the room, but not only do they usually leave it off but they open the windows during the 10 - 15 minutes free times between classes. It made all of us miserable on the first day, but ever since then we've been slowly getting used to it. I thought it was crazy at first, but now I'm starting to realize the benefits. Tones of fresh air, and the rooms have huge windows to let in the sun and so you can see the sky and the playground. The classroom doors are also double sliding doors, and those are open during free periods too along with the windows in the hallway. The classrooms are brighter and much airier than what I remember from grade school. Also, everyday after lunch the students clean their classroom, the bathroom on their floor, the hallway, the stairs, and even sweep the courtyard between buildings. I think that surprised me most of all, actually caring about your school and your classroom like that. Sure, they're required to do it, but they don't complain and they bustle about making sure everything gets done.

I have five more days left of this internship, starting tomorrow, and think I'll need some time after it's over to really gather my thoughts about the experience. I always had an appreciation for teachers in one way or another, but wow.

Well, please wish me luck through my last week before spring break, and maybe a bit of patience too. you can never have too much of that. I'll try and post again at the end of this week summing up my experience, and then it's time to get ready for Dustin to come!

Talk to you later, and if you're curious about the school or anything else don't hesitate to ask!
~Abby

Let it Snow!

It snowed! It finally snowed in Nagoya! I know, I know, all of the Iowans out there are glaring, but it snows maybe once a year here in Nagoya and we got four glorious inches of the white stuff! Just enough to have a little too much fun, if that's possible. The best thing - it snowed on Wednesday! We dont' have classes on Wednesdays!

View of the soccer field from my balcony.

 The pond looked especially tranquil...so we decided to make a snowman to liven it up.  

Angry snowman is angry!

Juyoun is so cute! (This is my roommate!)

Gretchen and Jessica...being awesome.

Jessica and Yuri trying to stay out of the snowball fight!

Finally! A snow Totoro!

A cool mural wall in Shirotori Park behind campus.

Nothing is better than snow kanji! This is my last name: hasshu

My first name: abi.

After all of our wonderful winter frolicking, we had the snowball fight to end all snowball fights between the outsiders and the insiders. It was epic.


And that's about it for the snow day, after that we were all freezing so we went inside and warmed up before braving the cold again. The snow actually caused a lot of delays here, however, as Nagoya has basically no budget to deal with snow because it rarely falls, and even more rarely sticks. Buses, cars, and bicycles had a really hard time and everything ran behind schedule, and because of this the subways were busier than ever and extremely crowded. The extra amount of passengers was also causing them to run behind, so while it wasn't a problem for us as we live on campus, so of our teachers arrived one or two hours late because of the congestion. Everything turned out fine though, and I'm guessing we won't have to deal with any more snow.


Well, that's all for now! As always, if you have any questions feel free to ask!


-Abby

Trip to Seto Campus

Hello again! I realized I haven't uploaded any pictures in awhile, and this must be rectified! I don't remember if I mentioned it before or not, but we had a field trip on January 12th to Seto campus. If you're wondering what Seto campus is, allow me to explain. The campus where I go to school is called Shirotori campus, which is located in Shorotori Park (hence the

name). This campus was actually just completed in 2007, so it's extremely new. The original campus, however, is about an hour and a half to two hour drive from Shirotori campus and is actually located in the midst of mountains! I'm not sure which mountains, but I am bound and determined to find out because Seto campus is huge, quiet, and very beautiful.

The field trip itinerary was to take us to Seto, do a bit of traditional ceramics that the region is famous for, eat lunch, tour the campus, and then go to a near by hot spring and then back home in time for dinner. It was so much fun! Cold, but fun. The ceramic workshop was its own

separate building with no central heating, only two tiny space heaters, so most of us couldn't feel our hands much while we worked. When we arrived there were pre-made plates and cups to choose from and paint/glaze to your heart's desire. It was surprisingly fun, since we all got to talk while we painted and listen to awesome Queen music playing in the background - the ceramics teacher was really awesome. This is the plate that I painted - I didn't think it turned out to bad. They had us write our names on the back too, so I'm

assuming that they're going to fire them and get them back to us at some point (or maybe we'll get to visit again).

There were a lot of really interesting sculptures all around the studio, so I took quite a few pictures.

It was all really interesting and really made me want to actually work with clay (I'm not very good, but I have fun). Luckily, the ceramics instructor let anyone who wanted to try out the pottery wheel.

Gretchen was first and made a cup for drinking green tea from, and after that I snuck in and made a plate. It was a cool experience, and I hope I get to do it again. You have to pay close attention to the clay, its consistency, and how quickly or slowly you move your hands to shape it.

Too fast and it could flop, too slow and you'll never get anywhere. I think they both turned out surprisingly well, and I kind of hope we get those too...

I also finally got a picture of all seven remaining American students, minus myself and Danny,

who is in the picture to the right - he was too busy making an awesome pine needle design on his mug. (By the way, if you're adding up the numbers and getting eight people, that's because the guy with the black hair and sunglasses is from Canada and doesn't count!) The people in this picture are: Jessica in the red coat, Trisha in pink, Dylan in the gray with his back to the camera, Gretchen in black, Nate in the khaki/olive coat, and then Danny in the picture to the right. They were all huddled around the heater - it was cold, and the clay was even more cold!

After we were done painting and throwing, we made our way to the cafeteria where we were apparently supposed to find a list that had everyone partnered with a Japanese person to eat lunch with and talk about Seto campus. This was all but impossible, and we couldn't read their names (kanji) and they couldn't read ours, so it took forever and by that time I was sooo hungry I was about to gnaw on my fingers. I ended up asking Gretchen is I could share her partner, and then ended up talking to her most of the time (sorry Gretchen!). She was really sweet and small than I am, which made me extremely impressed when she told me she's a black belt in karate. It was awesome (and gave me a spark of hope that I may be able to do the same...*plot*), but sadly when I asked her if she had a Facebook she'd never even heard of it, so I probably won't see her again.

We were led to the chapel after that, which had a very simple design, but little touches like the stained glass window inside made it beautiful - along with the enormous pipe organ. The organist on campus played about a half an hour long concert for us, and she blew me away. Starting off with A Night on Bald Mountain didn't hurt either. I have a video of this, but I took it on my iPod and, smart me, turned the camera on its side after I started recording so the whole rest of the video is sideways. Fail. I'm going to try and just extract the sound and put it up, but if not my video might have to do.

Once her performance was finished, one of the other music professors had us sing along with - I kid you not - a banjo-

ukelele. It was the most awesome instrument ever! (It belongs to the professor on the right with the hat and the bow tie, the other professor was just trying it out).

After that they took us to one of the professors offices. He happened to be an anthropologist, and therefore we got to play with skulls! Gretchen and I agreed the the professors at Seto campus definitely have a lot of character (I kind of wish I could go to classes for a week there, just to see what it's like).

Unfortunately, after that, we had to depart. We really didn't get a campus tour, which made me a bit sad. Maybe a bunch of us can get there by bus one day and tour the campus ourselves (and find those awesome professors again).

Luckily though, as we were leaving, I noticed something wonderful. The NGU mascot. I think

the picture speaks for itself, but it's officially my favorite mascot ever.

The onsen that we went to was absolutely wonderful and very relaxing, and it was all the better that Gretchen and I had had our first day of karate club just the day before and were ridiculously sore. Everywhere.

And that is the story of the field trip to Seto campus. I had fun, I want my pottery, and I definitely want to go back!

Well, I have one more post to to before I'm caught up to current events over here, so I'll talk to you again soon!

-Abby

P.S. If you ever find any typos in any of my posts, please feel free to tell me. Sounds kind of weird, but my typing in English seems to be degrading the more Japanese I learn, so please help me out!