Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Strippin Down...

It's official.

I'm strippin down and shovin some dudes.

I turned in my application for the "Naked Man Shoving Festival" on March 3rd.
Though I won't be fully nude I will be most of the way there. Wearing nothing but a loin cloth-esque thing (though, no wedgie like the sumos, my tush will be covered, I think.) and some special shoes. I will likely drink a lot of sake (it's the tradition) and then get hot wax poured on me from a giant giant candle... (this is starting to sound different than it really is...) and then I'll jump into a freezing bath of water through hole cut in some ice where I will proceed to pray in Japanese and then I'll join the massive shoving orgy of men trying to get into the temple.

This tradition goes back about a thousand years and I will surely leave a piece of Michael Malarkey history this year.

Funny thing is, the event costs about 50 bucks to join... what does this money go to? A uniform... for the NAKED man shoving festival... they always get ya with SOMETHING.

-Mike

Monday, February 22, 2010

The 6 Stages of Multiple Choice Grading

There are stages your brain and body go through when grading papers. I have 320 listening tests to grade, luckily it's multiple choice. I've graded all sorts of things from essays, letters to the new ALT (me), to listening tests and debates, but they all have different physical and mental stages you go through while grading... here are the stages for multiple choice...


1) The Burst
You begin with a massive stack of papers. "Wow, that's a lot!" you tell yourself except you aren't really that intimidated by it, you almost see it as a challenge. It will take 5 or 6 to memorize the answer key, maybe more or less depending on how many questions there are. You memorize it in chunks though. The first half is CCCA the second half is BAAA the last two are AB. It's not so hard and your brain grades them in a burst. You can make a big dent in the grading in this part. I did 120 in 40 minutes. There is a kind of sadistic love you have for getting a paper that has many wrong answers. "HAHAHAHAH! SO MANY X'S MUAH HAHAHAHAHAH!" someone gets 20/20 and you think "WELL, WELL, WELL, LOOK AT MS. SMARTY PANTS HERE! SOME of these are true or false and you must have just lucked out on the 50% chance of getting it right... looks like you lucked out in this class..."

2)The Donkey and the Carrot
Stage 2 begins now but won't end until your pile of papers are graded. This stage is you mentally put a stick over your head with whatever "carrot" you can think of hanging from the end. Usually it starts with pretty realistic rewards like, "I have a piece of candy in my backpack."

3) Early Hypnosis
The process starts to become slightly hypnotic. You will grade a few tests and not really remember grading them, however you are aware that you are starting to become hypnotized. You no longer looking at specific answers, rather the shapes on the page. You can recognize if that someone circled three Cs in a row followed by one A. The first half of the page makes a kind of backwards L shape, the seco half makes a kind of F shape, the last two make a diagnal line. You are aware that you're brain is starting to do this though and you will make some mistakes. Though you will catch these mistakes you wonder if you have missed any. When you look at the stack of 180 already-graded papers next to you, you decide that you probably didn't miss any and continue to grade. Sometimes you'll write 16/20 when you meant to write 18/20. So many students get 20/20, 16/20, or 18/20 that when someone gets 10/20 it's confusing and you must break your rhythm and hypnosis in order to fully count how many are right and how many are wrong. "One...two...three...four...five wrong. One... two... three...four...five right. ...that definitely is 10 out of twenty points..." This is the stage where you start to get angry at anyone who doesn't get 20/20 "WHAT? you got number 4 wrong?? REALLY? The MOST APPROPRIATE ANSWER is A... definitely NOT B!" You will quickly reenter your early-hypnotic shape-recognizing stage though. At this stage too, your carrot has started to change shape... a piece of candy in your backpack is no longer worth the next 200 papers, but your lunch is. You can't eat lunch until all papers are finished.

4) Full hypnosis
Now you don't even know you're grading papers. You don't even know you're awake. You aren't sure where you are but you aren't really worried about that. You hands are circling problems and writing the total points but you don't even know how it's happening. You aren't aware you are hypnotized. The Lunch you are using as your "carrot" no longer is valuable. You do, however, have to pee... really bad. This is your new "carrot." No bathroom breaks until you finish all of them... you are getting more desperate.

5) The Break into Black Hole Thinking
When you have 20 left, you suddenly realize that you are nearing the end. The hypnosis breaks and you enter "Black Hole Thinking" mode. If you were to watch someone or something enter a black hole, the light that it emits would appear to be going slower and slower each moment never reaching the center of the black hole. This is essentially what happens to the tests. You can see everything in slow motion. You continue to get through the tests at a rapid pace, however your brain has changed its way of seeing them... each test feels twice as long in actual length and each test feels like it takes twice as long to grade... As for the carrot, you are now intentionally torturing yourself a little bit in order to give your "carrot" more value. Your pee has hidden retreated back into a place that makes it so you aren't a balloon about to burst .... but if you sit in a certain way your back hurts, suddenly it makes you have to pee more AND your legs fall asleep. This is a very valuable position. You want to move, especially since with your legs asleep you can't really tell if you are actually peeing on yourself or not...

6) Finished
Give me my candy, my lunch, my bathroom break, and let the blood back into my lower half... Now what? I still have 7 more hours left of work.... I wish I had gone slower on those tests... I don't even remember grading them...

You check the answer key one last time "CCCA BAAAAB"... did you grade that way the whole time? Yes, of course you did... wait... did you? "Hmmm... I may have made a mistake...Naaaaaaah...wait..." You look at the 2 foot pile of tests on your desk, not a chance in hell you're cracking that pile back open for a second guess.

Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Rocks, Papers, and Scissors

How old were you the last time you played "rock, paper, scissors" to make a decision? What's the largest group you've played it in. I think most people will say something like "10 years old and only with two people."

I think Japanese people will say something different as this country is a well oiled Rock-paper-scissors Machine, or as they call it "Janken" or "Jan-ken-pon." This game is used at schools by kids all the way up to adults to decide any number of things. I've seen students play it in groups of 10 people at a time.

It took me quite some time to figure out how they do it with more than two people, though it isn't so complicated. They basically just keep throwing hands on beat until each person is only displaying two of the three options. Then the losers of those are out. Then the winners battle each other. They can do this at unbelievable speeds. Though, it does mean that if you ask people to choose and order that it qill require at least one game of this.

A few days ago in my class we had group presentations. There were 4 groups with 4 people each. Students would make a presentation about a dream city which they invented and had to persuade myself and the Japanese teacher to move there. Each student had to speak in the presentation.

After the students had completed their sheet of notes for the presentation. They each played rock-paper-scissors to decide what order they'd speak. The winner got to say the least, the loser had to say the most.

When presentations had to start, "Who wants to go first?" I'd say. No one has ever responded to this ever, I don't know why I even ask it. No one even says "I want to go last." The students just stare directly at their desks praying I don't call on them to go. "I'll choose the order if you don't" is my usual tactic. Today I decided to go a different way. "Ok, you must choose the order." This resulted in what might be greatest succession of rock paper scissors ever.

First in their groups the students played rock paper scissors to decide who would play rock paper scissors. Then they played rock paper scissors to decide the order of which group would go first or last.

Just to clarify, this meant that in each group students had to play rock paper scissors until one person was remaining as the "loser" who would represent the team in the next game of rock paper scissors. Then the four students who represented the teams stood up and played each other to choose the order. First three students put down rocks and one student put down paper. That student's team go to go last. Then the three remaining had to play again. They played and one person was out, their team would go third. The last two played to battle for which would go first and which would go second. This seems like a lot of work for deciding the order of a presentation that they would have to give eventually anyway...

Monday, February 8, 2010

Sugoroku

We played a game called "Sugoroku" in class. There is a game board that is a map of the world. There is a travel path drawn across various countries. Students roll a dice and move across this travel path. Where ever they stop there is a number with a corresponding question about that country or city (for instance America has 3 stops: New York, Texas and California.)

The questions range from pretty simple "What do you want to buy in France?" to medium hard "What languages do they speak in Singapore" to more difficult ones like "What is the capital of Indonesia."

It's no secret that Americans are infamous for being uneducated about the world and it's countries but I was comforted to find that my students, who are high school first years (same as US high school sophomores) knew a lot less than what I think American high school seniors know.

I don't say this to offend and make fun. America is a country full of many different kinds of people and there are plenty of immigrants. Even as far as restaurants go, we have a bit of everything.

Japan is so homogenous that they aren't exposed to the same things we are. Over all, Japanese students are clearly better at academics than American students which may or may not mean much, depending on what you are really looking for.

I played this game for two class days with 320 students and some of the results were pretty surprising...

"Name two cities in Italy." First, nearly all the students said "Rome" and then had to think. Then a lightbulb would flick on over their head and they'd say "Paris!" After consulting a map they'd find that Paris was in France and they player would have to move one space back...

"Name a food from India." Maybe I am biased because I like Indian food, but every student said "Curry." Which is expected, Curry is very popular here (though Japanese curry barely resembles Indian curry.) So I'd ask the students "Can you name another food? Something other than curry?" Most of the time students didn't know anything. Some students would say "Naan" which kind of counts, but I feel like that's like saying "tortilla" is Mexican food... it's a part of it, but it's not really a food you eat on its own.

Only one student knew the capital of Indonesia. This isn't too surprising. I don't think many people know this one, though I had falsely assumed that Japanese people would know more about Asia than Americans since they're a part of it.

Most students couldn't name two places in China. The most common first answer was "Peking" and when I suggested "Hong Kong" most of them said "That isn't a part of China, that's a country."

I was slightly baffled by some of these responses.

The longer I spend here the more interesting I find the school systems. Especially since I work at 3 schools that are on completely different levels.

One has golden angel students that will do any lesson plan I cook up, whether it's fun or not.

One is more average, large classes, fun students, but if the lesson plan isn't good they get rowdy. It's a bit of a struggle to get them to use English, but it's not impossible. You just have to approach it the right way. (This is the school that played Sugoroku)The students range from being quite friendly and talkative to introverted and silent to the "I hate the ALT...or at least I pretend to" attitude. I enjoy this school because if I were a high school student in Minami Uonuma Japan, I'd certainly be here.

The last school is the lowest level as far as English goes. The students have little to no interest in English and are at a very basic level. The amount of effort put into actually participating in the lessons changes from class to class but it ranges from excitedly calling out random answers in broken English to sitting with their backs turned to me playing games on their cellphones. The fun classes are REALLY fun and the bad classes are pretty bad but I do enjoy it there.

Aaaaaaanyway, I better get back to my desk. Today I have 8 hours and 30 minutes of no class. It's high school entrance exam day #1 in Niigata which means the students aren't even in the building, just the middle school students who want to go here. I've read a lot of "Kafka On The Shore" by Haruki Murakami today. It's very long and I'm only about a quarter of the way through it, but am enjoying it so far... and I think another 70 or 80 pages await me before the day is over... so I will retire to my desk.

Wednesday, February 3, 2010

Repeat After Me...

After my classes yesterday, one of the 2nd year teachers came to me asking about onomatopoeia for animal sounds. This is always an interesting exercise. He had a list of animals and understood which animals said what but he wasn't sure of the context of the sound. What did it "neigh" sound like when I said it? So I gladly went through the list and did some animated versions of the classics like, "Bow-wow" "Quack" "Moo" and so on. He asked if I could go to his 2nd year classes to do the same thing I'd just done.

So this morning I joined this teacher's class. I went toward the end of the period and the students weren't expecting me. I walked in and immediately everyone went "oooooooooo!" in unison. As if I'd just performed a jump over the Grand Canyon on a unicycle while blind folded with my hands tied behind my back... "Mike, what animal makes the sound 'ribbit ribbit' the teacher asked." "A frog." Immediately the students gasped and erupted into applause. Why? They had just gone over some of the animal sounds and didn't actually believe frogs said "ribbit ribbit." So we went over some basic sounds... like "Bam" "Crunch" "Pow" "Kaboom." They would all say "oooooh!" or giggle after each one.

Then we moved onto the animal sounds. First a Japanese student would have to tell me the animal sound in Japanese then I'd say it in English. After the first one, a pig sound, I said "Oink oink oink." The students giggled. Then the teacher said "Please, repeat after Mike." It became silent. "OINK OINK OINK!" I said in a gunty pig voice. "oink. oink. oink." the students whispered in shy monotone whispers. "OINK! OINK! OINK!" I said again prompting them to throw a little grease on their version. They started to warm up. We went through dog, cat, crow, rooster (cock-a-doodle-doo will always get laughs...), sheep, horse, cow... it was good times.

Then on the back of their sheet was a Calvin and Hobbes cartoon where Calvin hocks a loogy. The sounds were written out like this...

"NNNGKGKK" for snorting some snot into his through.
"HOCCCHHH" for coughing it up into his mouth then
"PATOOOEY" when he spits it sound.

It was hard to do this without making an actual loogy in my mouth but I did it.

The snorting was hilarious and of course, a the students repeated after me...
If you want to see something funny, I highly recommend getting a class full of straight cut Japanese high school students academically repeating the sound of someone hocking a loogy without smiles on their faces... it's hilarious.

So what are the sounds for Japanese animals?

Cow -Moo moo (Pronounced Moe-moe)
Horse - Hihiin (Pronounced Hee-heeeen)
Pig - Buu buu (Pronounced Boo boo)
Mouse - Chuu chuu
Cat - Nyaa nyaa
Rooster -Koke kokko
Frog - Gero Gero or Kero kero
Dog - Wan wan
Crow - Kaa kaa
Sheep - mee mee (Pronounced Meh-meh)

Japanese sounds get even more interesting because Japanese have expressions for sounds for that don't actually make sounds really...

They have onomatopoeias that are often used as verbs for feelings like happiness, sadness, different kinds of smiling...
The feeling if something soft, hard, clothing that's too big. There hundreds if not thousands of these sounds...

Buka buka (booka booka) is the sound if clothing that's a bit too big. Like if you wore shoes that are too big or pants that don't fit.
Fua fua (foo-ah foo-ah) is the sound for something that's really soft and fluffy like a really soft pillow or fluffy angel food cake or something
Niko niko (neeko neeko) is a happy smile
Niya niya (Neeya neeya) is the term for a grin, a kind of evil-ish smirk I think.
Peko peko is the term for when you're hungy

there are so many of these, I hear new ones all the time and I think they're a really interesting way to express feelings or textures or whatever it is you're trying to convey...

Great Insight To How Confusing It Is To Drive Here...



The thing that always gets me when I drive somewhere in Japan is that I get lost at least once. Even with a printed map and list of directions from Google Maps I get lost one time. Why? Because there are rarely street signs... as you'll see why in the video. There's an intersection near my apartment and the intersection has a name, but the streets down. Luckily I'm near highways and those are closer to America's where they have numbers so most directions I get start out find. "Get on Route 17 and drive north..." watch and enjoy this fun little video...

-Mike

Monday, February 1, 2010

Say Whaaaaaaaaaaaat?

Some People just don't ever really feel comfortable around me...

I'm still convinced I have a "monster" quality here. There are about 5 teachers at my base school that still refuse to ackownledge my existence. Some just ignore me, for instance when I come in and deliver my vibrant "OHAYOU GOZAIMASU!" good morning-call. Heads throughout the entire room turn and respond with "OHAIYOU GOZAIMASU MAIKERU!" (Good Morning Michael.) There are always 3 or 4 heads that don't move and it's not like they're too busy to. They perk up when a Japanese person comes in. Also, the other teachers are always busy working on something and stop for a good morning. These are the same teachers that when I say "Konnichiwa" to in the halls they continue on as if no one said anything.

It doesn't really bother me anymore, at first I always thought "what's that dudes problem?" No one is really outright rude though, just a bit cold.


Then came the Enkai, the teachers party, this past friday. First let me explain one short happening about the start of the enkai...

The first Enkai I went to I was on time/early and most of the teachers didn't show up until 20 minutes after the start time. So one of the next ones I went to I was like "Ok, not so strict..." It started at 6 and I started walking to get there around 5:50 and it takes about 10 minutes to walk there. At 5:55 I get a phone call saying "Where ARE you?" from one of the teachers I was like "I'm close... I'll be there soon." "Ok. we are WAITING for you, Michael." I ran. I got to the restaurant and inside the door at 5:58, no big deal and everyone gave me these painfully cold stares saying "I WANTED TO DRINK MY BEER BUT I HAD TO WAIT FOR YOU!!!!!!!!" The vice principle was really not happy. I was less than 5 minutes late to morning announcements once and he chewed me out pretty good.

Now, the vice principle makes fun of me for "always being late." If I have to take a work related trip he always says "Make sure you are on time because hahaha you ahahaha are always hahaha late hahahaha.... *serious staaaaaaaaaaaaaare*" All because I was less than 5 seconds late once and because I was one minute early to an enaki... ugh...

Anyway, back to this enkai. I got to the place at 5:48 this time. It started at 6. At 6... no one was there. I thought, maybe it starts at 7... or 6:30 so I texted my supervisor but got no response. At 6:20 the first people showed up. "Mike! Mike! Mike! How long have you been here for?" "Since about 5:50." "oooh you should NEVER show up on time to an enkai! We're Japanese, we're ALWAYS late to parties." This was the biggest fib I've ever heard in my life. If there's one word to describe Japanese culture it's punctual. Every train is ontime every party starts and ends at the right times. Speeches never go on longer than planned. People get chewed out for being 5 seconds late. There's no possible way for me to believe that Japanese are "ALWAYS late to parties." I don't think the punctual thing is bad, don't get me wrong, it's fantastic most of the time, the trains are amazing. The only time it's not good is when you're racing a clock to be ontime since you don't get much sympathy.

So I sit down with the two guys. The table we're at is really long with little cusions on the ground next to it. As people filed in no one sat next to me, in fact, only one person was sitting on the same side of the table as me, there were about 15 seats on that side of the table too...

Finally the nurse and a 3rd year English teacher showed up and the English teacher, who I often work with said "How come no one is sitting on this side?" Then they went to sit down and the nurse said to the English teacher, "Why don't you sit next to him, I don't speak any English." Now, this often happens with strangers and it's no problem but the nurse knows for sure that I speak Japanese. I've spoken it to her a number of times at school and she completely ignores it. Once she wanted me to fill out a health slip and I had already filled the whole thing out in Japanese and she got an English teacher to come and explain it to me "Address" "Name" "Birthdate" and so on I kept explaining in Japanese that I'd already filled it out and understood the whole thing...the English teacher was really confused too since I'd already finished filling it out. I'm by no means fluent but I can definitely get by very comfortably in everyday conversation. So, back to the enaki, a handful of teachers turned and said "But Mike's really good at Japanese, we only speak Japanese to him at the enkais." And she turned to the teacher and said "Yes, I just don't feel comfortable sitting next to him... He won't understand my Japanese and I probably won't understand his Japanese." People looked pretty surprised since she said this right in front of me. If it had been the early nineties, this moment would have been fresh for a "Say Whaaaaaaaaaaat?" rising to a falsetto during the "Whaaaaaaaaaat" part. The English teacher sat down two seats away from me so that the nurse had no choice but to sit next to me. She turned her back and didn't face me the entire time. Eventually she got up and left and sat at the other end of the table. It felt similar to a situation where if someone tried to prevent me from understanding something by spelling it out, except that I'm 23. If my mom was telling my dad, "Tomorrow we're going to the D-E-N-T-I-S-T." I'd be like "First, I'm not AFRAID of the dentist, even though I threw up there once. AND I know how to spell dentist, are you crazy?"

I was offended but at the same time, now I know that I don't really have to be particularly kind to her anymore. Not outright mean, her behavior doesn't call for attention from me, but I don't feel any desire to be warm and friendly to her. Like, right now she's awkwardly pacing around behind me waiting for me to finish writing this. She likes to go on Yahoo Auctions and look at random things during work and right now. I used to get off the computer when she did this and say "Please, please, I'm finished."... but... I think I'll just keep writing...and surfing the internet. Maybe I'll sign onto Yahoo Auctions and look at random things to buy.