Happy Halloween!
It doesn’t feel like Halloween to me today! I guess that’s normal when living abroad, for once-celebrated holidays to blend with every other day of the year. I actually forgot it was Halloween until a Japanese guy at church (who lived in the States for a while) approached me and cheered, “Happy Halloween!” It isn’t as if I’ve completely gone without celebrating though. I did have a Halloween party last week with Language club and I made little holiday treat bags for my coworkers and Language club members! Still, this has been anything but a typical holiday season for me.
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| With two girls from Language Club! We did all sorts of Halloween activities, including trick-or-treating, playing games, and telling scary stories! |
What's more surprising to me than the fact that it’s Halloween is that it’s seriously the last day of October. November starts tomorrow?! But...but...I’m not ready for winter! I have a little heater called a “stove” that I plug into the wall and fill with kerosene for warmth. It doesn’t turn off automatically though so I have to unplug it while I'm asleep or at work. I'm not used to this way of staying warm! I also have to turn on a water heater and wait several minutes anytime I want warm water... This afternoon I even refilled my kerosene tank with more oil from a huge plastic jug that I refill at the local convenient store! Ha ha is this real life? Oh yes, yes it is. And I LOVE it! I unpacked my winter gear and I’m definitely prepared for winter, I’m just not ready for it. I swear the discrepancy there makes sense in my mind somehow...
Anyway, work has been busier than ever and at least I have my adorable students to distract me from the cold (there is no heating in the schools, either). Work has been so busy because the senior girls have entrance exams coming up that they must pass in order to get into college and I’ve been helping them study. In these entrance exams, they will have to read, analyze, and write essays in English, as well as participate in an interview conducted entirely in English. It’s a pretty intense process and they are all super nervous. I come in early, stay late, and have literally been booked through my lunch periods, prep periods, and sometimes in between classes because I have been meeting with the senior girls and helping them prepare. I conduct mock interviews, edit mock essays, correct pronunciation and grammar, and most importantly, build confidence. These girls are amazing, really. I am so impressed by their creativity, their intelligence, and their dedication.
This has also been really fun for me because I’m getting to know more students and I’m getting to know them on a much more personal level than is possible in a typical classroom setting. I typically teach all “first-grade” students (the first of the three high-school grades—those I call “senior girls” are actually referred to as “third-grade students” here) and this lets me get to know the older girls, too!
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| With some of my third-grade girls before temperatures plummeted...! |
I feel like a mom bragging about her kids, but I want to offer you a glimpse of what I am working with every day. With their permission, I would like to share some insights into the world—through the inspired eyes of my Miyagi First girls. I have corrected these answers and essays and walked through the changes with those that wrote them, but I want to share with you their words before I edited them...not to highlight the trivial mistakes, but to emphasize their remarkable strengths—I want you to read the integrity of their words and know that they were written without any influence or modifications from me. I hope these words will touch your heart the way they touch mine.
How important is your nationality to your sense of identity?
From the eyes and heart of Chihana, Age 17
When I am in Japan, I don’t feel importance of my nationality in my sense of identity. But once I go out of Japan, my nationality means a lot to myself because I would be asked my opinions as a opinion of Japanese in general. And sometimes I appreciate my nationality when I come to have unique point of view of my own, which is fostered in my experience in Japan. This is when I strongly feel importance of my nationality in my sense of identity.
Do you think that the rising rate of divorce is a problem?
From the eyes and heart of Chinami, Age 17
I think the rising rate of divorce is not much a problem, because I would prefer someone to get divorced than to suffer from conflict and problems such as domestic violence. However, a couple with their kids should be more careful about divorce, because I think single-parented family are more likely to face financial problems and the biggest reason is that children may blame themselves by their parents get divorced or feel to be abandoned when they are left by their parent.
How do you think countries could work together to end war?
From the eyes and heart of Haruka, Age 16
One idea is that the countries all over the world don’t have any force. If all countries didn’t have any weapons and army, it would be hard to cause war. The other is that all countries have kindness. They should think not only their benefit, but also the world profit and peace people have to be kind and not to be selfish in order to live happy lives. We can apply this to relation among the countries.
I enjoy all the students I have been working with, but Haruna came to me for help months ago and I work with her the most often, so I take special joy in watching her progress in her writing. She always has a creative approach to everything she does and I love her wit, admire her dedication, and appreciate my time with her immensely. She wrote an opinion essay on prepared food sold at convenience stores and whether such options were beneficial or harmful for society.
From the eyes and heart of Haruna, Age 17
Nowadays, there are a lot of convenience stores, and we prepared food has become easier to buy in Japan. I believe this change has improved the way people live. It helps the people who can’t cook by themselves, enable us to buy breakfast, lunch, and supper at once when we are very busy, allows us to eat hot food out.
First, prepared food helps the people who can’t make them own food by themselves such as old people, children, and injured people. There are many old people in Japan. And many old people live by themselves. It is hard for them to cook every day. When they couldn’t buy prepared food, they should have cooked by themselves every day, but now they can buy dishes at convenience stores whenever they want to eat food. Also it is useful for injured people to buy prepared food easily. If we break arm bones, we can’t cut, boiled, fry something to eat, so we needed to be helped by someone to live. But now we can eat by ourselves when we break arm bones because we can buy prepared food near by our houses. It is very useful for us.
Second, the change enables workers to have dishes when they are busy. When there were no store which sells prepared food, workers had to make lunch box or go to restaurants to have lunch no matter how they are busy. However, nowadays they can buy prepared food at supermarkets, convenience stores or stations and so on. The change allows them to have more time to work or rest.
Last, the change allows us to have hot food outside. Lunch box, which we make in the morning, always can’t keep hot. So we eat old lunch if there is no microwave. However, stores which sell prepared foods change our food lives.
They have microwaves to warm foods, so we can warm prepared food which we buy at the store. And they also sell some hot food such as oden, fried chicken, French fry or steamed bun. If we are cold in winter, we can be warm for eating hot food.
In conclusion, the change has improved the way people live. It enables the people who can’t make dishes to have food without cooking, permit us to buy food at once no matter how we are busy, allows us to have hot food out.
What more can I say?! I love my life!
Wait. I can’t leave my first-grade girls out of this...In a recent lesson with my students, we talked about “hobbies” and at one point in the lesson, everyone answered several questions about their hobbies and then we them presented to the class. The answers were fantastic. Most students took the assignment very seriously and wrote about musical instruments they have been practicing since childhood, sports they’ve played competitively, and skills they have developed for years. Somehow, I always seem to enjoy the goofy answers most though. I like it when my students play in English, does that make sense? An outgoing, hip-hop dancer named Sena wrote that her hobby was watching guys and Madoka, the darling that slipped me a note while I was sick a few weeks ago, anwered the following way:
What are you hobbies?
My hobby is sleeping.
How long have you been doing it?
I have been doing it since I was born.
Tell me something about it.
Well, you go to sleep and enter dream world.
Why do you like it?
I feel good when I sleep, but my teachers wake me up.
Do you think other people should do it, and why?
Yes, everybody should sleep! But not in class because it makes teachers mad and then they wake you up.
Have I mentioned recently that I love my life? :-D
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| My beautiful first-graders! Sena is on the right (the "guy-watcher" ha ha) and is, by the way, a lefty...just like me! YES! |
