Observation

Monday was the fateful day that I left Yotskaido, the general Tokyo area, and civilization. Just kidding about that last part... mostly. I took the Yotskaido train to Chiba (where the head office was). Even though the train station was familiar, Hannah and I stood there like idiots for about 10 minutes trying to figure out what platform our connecting trains were on. A woman on the next platform wanted to help me, but she would have ended up sending me on the wrong train if I had actually gotten on the one she suggested. When in doubt go by departure time. By my own devices I boarded the rapid train to Tokyo station. A young business woman slept against me for the entire half an hour. At Tokyo station the real fun began. The station is huge and you have to go through turnstiles (and risk losing your ticket, at least in my paranoid traveler mind) to get to other platforms that may or may not be yours. I asked a bunch of people and with a little frenzied jog I made it the right platform where my next train was already waiting for me. It was the SUPER Express with airplane style seats and a woman who came around with a cart to sell snacks and beer. I ate the mystery lunch I had brought: What I had thought was a donut type thing and turned out to be filled with curry, a roll with a fried mashed potato patty topped with seasoned mayonnaise, and what I thought was water since it came in a blue and white carton that said Acqua on it (actually a fruit-flavored yogurt drink). The Japanese, to my dismay, put mayonnaise on almost anything. I took that super express to Takasaki, which is the major city that my little village lies outside. There I transfered to another train line with more confusion and a lot of gesturing. This new train though, was a zebra train. The scenery in the area is very pretty. There are lots of mountains in the distance. The Japanese Alps start in this prefecture (county/ state). There are rice paddies everywhere. The houses are more spread out. At least from the views on the train, everywhere where there aren't houses or rice paddies, there are groves of trees and bamboo. I think it will be a good area for photographing.

The entire commute from Yotsukaido to Tomioka took about three hours. I was met at the train station, if you can call it that, by Mrs. Imai. She is the owner of my school along with her husband. She is very nice. Her English is pretty decent. We made awkward conversation as walked to the school. She showed me around the school a little bit before leaving me to the internet. The school is small, but nice and clean. There are about four classrooms. The teachers desks are out in the open, but obstructed from view by huge cabinets full of books and games. The first person I met besides the Imai's was another teacher named Tanner. He has a horrible Minnesota accent. He also struck me as kind of an odd guy. He has a Japanese fiancee who he met in Minnesota. He talked to me about house loans. Then Jason came. Jason is the teacher I am replacing, but he was only substituting for a month. The teacher who was teaching my classes for the past year was named Bethany. She left at the beginning of June, though. They got this guy, Jason, to fill in until I got there. Jason is a big Australian guy with a big voice. He is a nice guy and was very helpful in showing me around. He isn't a very good teacher though. This week I am meant to sit in on all of his classes and observe. They will become my students and my classes next week and for the rest of the year. i am supposed to note how he structures the class, how the students behave, who the strong students are, what areas they need improvement in, etc.
Jason has never taught before, and it kind of shows. He obviously had no interest in keeping up the standards that the old teacher had made for the classes. The young kids where borderline out of control. The older kids speak japanese in class all of the time instead of English. He plays games that take up more than half of the class. The games are supposed to be fairly education, but he just lets them play without saying or repeating the words in English. Basically he kind of lets the kids walk over him. Its decidedly his perogative though. He said he didn't want to invest time in disciplining the kids because he was only going to be their teacher for a month and he wanted to make it easier on himself. Having lessons takes more planning. He seems to feel guilty that the kids get sent to the school by their parents and so they should learn less and play more. Thats all well and good for him, but it is going to make it that much harder on me. Its going to take that much more discipline, and meanness (which I am not so good at in the first place) to get things back on track. I'l have to be the mean teacher who cuts the games short for some actual learning, or forces them to answer. Oh well.
The first class was a group of three little kids. I think they were 6 and 7. Two of them are brother and sister. The little boy who is younger is very smart and has a huge little laugh. The next class was a group of three, soon to be four, 11 year old boys. They played Junior scrabble, but they have learned to spell phonetically. Japanese phonics and English phonics are very very different. They came up with some pretty interesting things. After an hour break there was a group of adults that all work at the same company. The business pays for their lessons, but they work so much that its lucky if half the students show up for a class. They are Usually all late too. They can have basic conversations, but they are very reluctant to give more than the absolute bare minimum to communicate an idea. Their responses are never more than a sentence. The last class of the day seems like a handful. They are 4 junior high school girls, maybe about 12. They giggle the whole class and talk to each other in Japanese. They are very curious though. They all gasped and giggled when I said I was from America. The last girl teacher was from Canada- way less exciting than America. They invited me to play Uno with them during class. They giggled and said I was beautiful and had a beautiful name etc etc etc　giggle giggle giggle. I am Also staying with a girl Bethany in her apartment. She was b\not there last night as she went to visit her boyfriend. I slept on a little futon on the floor and had my first Japanese apartment to myself