This Dude in Japan
(04/23/2004; 03:20am) - Settling in.
Well sorry for not blogging recently, but I haven't really done anything that extrodinary. I guess I will just write a bit about daily life. Mmmmm let me see. I work about 30 hours a week. I'm only scheduled for 29.5, but with kids classes you got to prepare, so if you don't get to school early your going to be in trouble. I teach kids ages 2 to 13. In the class with the 2 year olds the moms sit in and participate. At least my moms do. Some teachers say their moms just sit their and look blank. I'm pretty lucky with the kids classes cause I mostly have girls and they always behave better than the boys. I really only have like 2 or 3 students out of all my classes that want to be bad....all boys. I also teach Free Time Lessons which is basically a guided conversation lesson that lasts 40 minutes. A lot of listen and repeat, very easy but pretty boring. I always try to make jokes and get the people to laugh, for their sake as well as my own. One nice thing literally 80 percent of Free Time Lesson students are hot women, I'm not kidding. I'm not allowed to get their numbers (some teachers do, I'm to new to play with fire), but its still nice having pretty students. I have Fridays and Sundays off. I dont have to be at work until 3:50 on Sat, so I can party of Fri. I dont start work before 2:30 on any day. I had two sub days on my schedule, but now I just have one. Sub days are when the main office sends you to random schools and you stay on call for 2 1\2 hours in case someone gets sick and you have to fill their shift. You just sit in the lobby and have conversations with students. After about 2 1/2 hours you give the other teachers breaks, by taking the Free Time Lessons they were supposed to teach. Sub shifts are easy, but I don't like them because of the potential of long commute. So far I have been very lucky, and my sub shifts have been closer to my house than my regular shifts.
(04/09/2004; 03:28am) -
Let me see.... I just finished training yesterday...Thursday for me...Weds for North America. Sat I have wrap up, but no more demos on teaching kids or acting like a kid. The adult training was dry and procedural, but the kids training was fun and silly. Lots of singing dancing jumping up and down, and just being a spaze. I did a good job on all my demos especially the kids ones so I think I'm going to get assinged a lot of kids classes. Hope that is for the best.
My Japanese language skills are not what they should be after studying it for two years..but hey I forgot a lot. I have been reviewing since graduation, and I have retained enough to have pretty good conversations with people that speak no English. I have a couple of different converstions that I use, and as I learn new words I branch out. The Japanese cats that I talk to are instantly impressed after I say one complete sentence, I:m like no, my Japanese is wack. All the teachers in my training group are pretty impressed. One of the guys is always trying to flirt with girls, but the only sentence he really knows is -You are pretty-, its working alright for him. I try to teach a useful phrase everynow and then. As soon as I can start practicing with a conversation buddy my skills will become formidable.
Last night I went back to the Sam n Dave club that I had such a blast at last Sat. Thurs night wasn:t as crowded, but it was still fun. The bartender -black dude from last time- hooked me up with mad strong drinks, and he even gave my friends some free drinks. Brotherly love in Japan. All the teachers I came with got wasted. They all had to leave early -around 3am- and they missed out on the Thursday night performances. First this girl sang some Japanese RB, her mike was too soft so I couldn:t tell how good she was. Then their were some Japanese rappers. Could not understand a word they were saying. After that these two girls did a hip hop dance. They were a 6/7 on a scale of 1 to 10. Then these two girls did some freaky reggae dancing. They were ok, you could tell they watched a lot of videos to get moves. After that one lil shortgirl did a reggae dance, she wasnt that good but she was wild, bouncing and rolling all across the floor, I thought she was going to hurt herself. Then some breakdancers performed, they were just aight, I probably could have done all their moves, and I'm no breakdancer. I gave all the dancers props after they performed. I asked the DJ if I could freestyle, but he was like this is a showcase maybe another time. He did hand me a mike and let yell random hype shit with him behind the DJ booth.
Everything is pretty chill, when I get my gaijin card I can get a phone, then I'll take some pictures. I'll keep you posted, forgive me if the post don't come everyday, but I don't have a computer yet, and I have to pay everytime for internet use. The cafes are nice though, you get a little private booth, and free non alcoholic drinks....word. Anyway lateeer.
(03/28/2004; 08:18pm) - Eureka!/I see black people.
Well I went to this bar -Pig and Whistle- to meet my fellow teachers. The bar was pretty cool. I saw about 10 black people there, which is ten more than I have seen at one time in any other place. My co workers never showed up though. Lames. Anyway I started talking to this Jamaican dude ( Mohan) and I asked about dance clubs. He said he knew a couple so I bounced from the bar with him. He took me to this place -Sam and Dave- (I would later find out that they have 4 or 5 other locations in Osaka, and this one was one of the smallest) we were about to go in but these two Japanese birds (birds is Elliott slang for pretty girl) stopped us under the pretense that they knew my Jamaican companion. He told me later he never met them before. They told us the club hadnt really got good yet so we just talked and exchanged email address.... I don:t have a phone yet. Mohan took me to this free Jamaican club called Zion, but it was empty too. It did have potential. I went back to Sam and Dave paid the cover and went in. Eureka! I had found my joint. The DJ was playing Project Pat and everybody was gettin down. The nice thing about clubs here a coupla free drinks are included in the cover. I got two free drinks with the 2500 yen cover. One of the bartenders was a brotha and he made my drinks real strong....word. Anyway these cats were gettin down. The club didn:t close until six in the morning. I reperesented on the dance floor. You know doing my thug thizzle. The DJ:s made it easy they were awesome. This Japanese cat really knew his hip hop and how to mix it. The nice thing about my training schedule is I don:t have to be at the office earlier than noon sometimes as late as three. So in theory I could party every night, but I:m not. Anyway that was Sat night...pretty productive I must say.
Later
(03/27/2004; 02:28am) - Specialist in Humanties/Internatinal Service
This is my first blog. I gave it the Specialist title because that what my Visa says my official job is. Pretty fancy way of saying English Teacher huh. Its going to be rough and simlple because its rushed, and I'm IMing with two people also. (shout outs to Dan Merril and Bobert) I've really been checking out my hood so far,and its a daunting task becaue I live pretty close to the center of Osaka. So far I've mostly been shopping for necessities, but I'm going out tonight with some co workers to party. See how that goes, some guys are already talking about scoring. I'm just gonna go with the flow and see what happens. People are pretty nice, especaily if you try to speak Japanese. Last night I could have got into a Japanese only club, after I spoke Japanese to the bouncer, but it was too expensive and not my type of club. It was a hostess bar....I'm not paying girls to talk to me...get real!
I had my first day of training today, and it was easy, but it seems like I'm going to have a lot of homework for the next two weeks. Everyone seems pretty nice. There's only two other Americans, everyone else is Canadian or Australian. This is in a group of 23 people. And only two other people speak any Japanese. Lots of couples though. Five to be exact. I didn't think this was the type of job that you would apply for with your boyfriend/girlfriend or husband/wife, but hey. Well I can't really think of anything else too interesting....sorry not trying to hold out on you guys. My next entry will be a lot doper aight.