NICK: Turning Japanese, I think I'm turning
Trip Start
Jan 25, 2006
1
18
106
Trip End
Ongoing
Okazaki,
Japan
Thursday, March 2, 2006
Not entirely - I still haven't practiced Japanese at all. Acutally, these past 2 weeks have flown by since I got back to Okazaki. I've spent nearly everyday working on my TEFL certification (which, after some research, I'm finding is not terribly important). I'm now sick of verbs, past participle, etc.
I'm sick of studying. bleh, feels like I'm in college again. There have been multiple days where I have not strayed from this house.
I've also been having fun helping teach Michiyo's classes - her kids are great. I think I've found the Thursday classes to be the best, they seem to be the most enthusiastic classes
01 What I did at Michiyo's church
. I'll post some pics later.
Another thing that I did was to help out Michiyo's church with their setup of some sort of get together. it was fun - I put out the sushi, edamame, and helped serve the food. There was a lot of decorations. I thought it was going to be something simple, like a meal or something, but we ended up making origami Hina dolls on a really pretty little matte board.
See pictures.
Other than that, nothing much new going on here - just studying and studying to finish this TEFL certification. I'm finding out that I don't really need it, just that it's more for the teacher's confidence level on how to go about teaching a lesson. Also, there's some review on some of the grammar that I always forget, so it's helpful. It is a little odd that they recommend going to some of the ESL websites to find information on how to teach a lesson - you'd think that they'd post that info themselves. dunno, seems kinda lazy.
"We're gonna teach you how to do this, pay us some money
02 Church group
. Ok, now go look for the same info from the web."Whatever.
I went bowling with Michiyo and her son at Sun Bowl. It's very japanese. there's vending machines for the shoes, Disney images EVERYWHERE, and yes, there are even Hello Kitty bowling balls. The bowling ball sizes were in pounds, rather than kilos, so I guess that makes sense since it's an English/Scottish (whatever) game. I was surprised to see how well Yuuki (that's apparently the spelling) bowls. He does that whole curving thing and everything. I don't know how true it is, but he says he goes about 3 times a year, which is amazing if that's all he bowls. He got over 150 on his first game. I don't think I've ever gotten over 150.
Another thing that made me smile was that Michiyo's sister-in-law, Michiyo (must be a common name), had a book on how to bowl. This is what the most literate society in the world does: They don't know something, they buy a book.
Dunno, to me it sounds more efficient then the way that I'm familiar with: I'll figger it out
03 Bowling with Michiyo and Yuuki
.This book was pretty cool, had all sorts of techniques and tips that you could use to improve your game. The thought of buying a book never even crossed my mind.
How literate are the Japanese? Supposedly, the Japanese are so literate, they've studied 4 different character sets by the time they reach middle school. That's the Latin characters, Hiragana (basic japanese), Katakana (another basic japanese), and Kanji (translated Chinese characters).
I go to bookstores here and am surprised that they're more crowded than Starbucks back home. it's a happening place - tons of ppl just standing around, reading.
I think I've also figured out why Japan doesn't seem to be taking the forefront on computer geekiness. You know how hard it is to type a letter in Japanese fonts?!? The characters are different, i.e, the letter "N", when you press n, shows the Japanese character "mi" which sounds nothing like "n". The other characters are all different. To type anything that makes sense, you have to type these keys, then hit space to bring a little pull-down menu, then scroll down to find the Kanji representation of the word that you want to use (different kanji = different meaning, however, same sounding word)
What a pain
04 the bowling alley
. As a computer geek, I sure wouldn't want to waste my time learning how to do that. it was a pain learning to touch-type. Not only that, you need to be able to read english. Another hurdle.
Most older ppl here don't even touch their computers, they don't have the time to sit and learn how to do that. It's a shame, since I think the pimple-faced teenager sitting alone in the dark hacking away at some geeky thing (gaming, website, illegal activity, etc) is what makes the world go around.
Well, the computer world, at least.
I love my computer too much to turn THAT japanese.
