As hinted at above, very little happened this week. It's Golden Week, which means I worked three days last week, then jumped into a seven day vacation. I go back to work for two days the day after tomorrow, then it's weekend time and normal schedule stuff. It was definitely a well-needed break, but I didn't do much. My Kyoto trip was strategically planned precisely so I didn't have to feel obligated to take a trip during this vacation; primarily because all the other people taking trips right now would have made it awful for me (in case you somehow don't know, I despise large crowds of people. They drive me crazy). I've mainly been taking care of a shit ton of errands, practicing a lot of Japanese, catching up on correspondences, and trying to find some time to actually relax. Also, I'm pretty sure I'm officially signed up for the JLPT in July. Thanks, Naoko!
On to random shit:
1.) Got to see Tor's baby for the first time a couple days ago. The little thing is adorable and incredibly quiet for a 2 month old. I'm telling you, Japanese babies are genetically coded to be more well-mannered than American kids. It's amazing.
2.)
Naoko and I visited a bookstore, where I saw this. It's actually part of a series on history that is apparently illustrated by the same artist that does work on Dynasty/Samurai/Orochi Warriors. HOW CAN YOU PEOPLE NOT LOVE HISTORY?! Seriously, this is amazing and all history books deserve this treatment.
3.) When I was doing my finances yesterday, I found a note I wrote on a receipt from lunch. Apparently, I saw a Japanese dude wearing a sweater that said "Scramento (sic) Golden State". Engrish. Love. You know the drill.
4.) I asked one of my students what the most dangerous thing he's ever done is last week. This is the same guy that does gender reassignment surgeries and always talks about getting drunk. Of course, since he's crazy and a badass, his answer wasn't something as stupid as "skydiving" (which he's done) or "bungee jumping". No, that is way too normal for him. His answer was picking up some call girls in some country whose name I don't remember but am pretty sure was in Southeast Asia and almost getting stabbed. No, shut up, let me finish. So he and his buddy went "girl hunting", and found these two hotties. They went back to the girls' apartment, where they discovered that they were call girls. Apparently this apartment was in a really bad neighborhood, and they decided to "escape" (I don't know if this means they were trying to leave without paying or if they were actually being attacked. He's one of my lower level students). The call girls were locked out of the room for some reason, but they had called for help when they realized my student and his friend were going to escape. Their solution was to jump out of the second story window into a courtyard full of what I imagine as crazy hobos wielding knives. I italicized that for your benefit. I can only hope that the EXREME nature of the text manages to absorb some of that awesome before it hits your vision orbs and makes them explode. His friend got cut on the leg by one of the members that the girls called, but they got away safely. I want to go on vacation with this guy.
5.) More bitching about my head teacher. Three separate events rolled into one here, but I'll try to keep it all short. That notebook Naoko made me? I decided to bring it in to show to my students. Almost all of them have been asking about my trip, so I thought they'd like to see the pictures. My head teacher saw it and asked what it was, so I told her. She then proceeded to tell me that it would be inappropriate to show to my students because "most people in Japan don't show pictures of their girlfriends" and my students might think I was "being too open-minded". That sounded like a load of crap to me so I showed it to my students anyways while apologizing beforehand if there were too many pictures of me with Naoko. Most of them cut me off before I could finish the apology asking to see the notebook, and all of them were completely thrilled to look at it. We're giving students feedback as new classes start this month, and I'm doing some counseling to advise them on some self study material if they want to buy it. Since motivation is a big factor in self study and they are the ones choosing to study English, I've been putting a big emphasis on asking them what they want to work on the most and combining that with my own advice. Because they're people, and their opinions matter. When my head teacher found out, she told me "don't worry about students' requests, they don't matter." Pretty much a direct quote there. On the same topic, I'm getting really frustrated with the treatment of my feedback in general. Namely the fact that it means nothing. My advice on the level of new students is always ignored, I am almost never involved in interviews, and now my head teacher is taking to doing self study counseling with my students (typically RIGHT AFTER I just finished counselling them). From what I hear, this occurred with the foreign teachers in the past as well, so I doubt it's just that I suck in this areas. If you don't want me to do that stuff, fine. Whatever. But don't make me waste my fucking time and energy if you're just going to ignore the results. So, from these three things I can conclude that my head teacher doesn't know anything about what her students will like or won't like, doesn't care what they will like or won't like, and doesn't trust the teachers working under her to do their job. Why the hell does she even want to be a head teacher? Ugh. Sorry, venting is therapeutic.
That's all folks. Don't even have a cat picture this week. Naoko is gonna be here in like 10 minutes and I still have some studying to do. Peace.
