Wednesday, August 08, 2007
Vacation counts as "Good News," doesn't it?
It's been a week since I arrived in my mansion and met some of my employers. Some things are definitely looking up these days, while other things remain very frustrating.
Let's start with the good news: at this point I have gone to two of the six schools I'll be visiting, and met with most of the staff. So far, everyone has been extremely kind and complimentary, apparently unfazed by my lack of experience. Everyone excitedly praises my mediocre Japanese, happily repeats things that I did not understand and constantly offers me tea to drink and little snacks to eat. One school in particular seems very prepared and enthusiastic about teaching English. We had a big meeting yesterday afternoon where a university professor came by, reviewed their lesson plans and offered structured suggestions. His presentation was the first thing I've encountered here in Japan that I would describe as "training" as opposed to the "demonstration" I saw in Tokyo. Even though he spoke mainly in Japanese, he wrote enough on the board and used enough English to really give me a sense as to what I should be doing with these kids. I hope I can successfully mimic his "lesson plan" structure for my own needs, although I will need some help figuring out all the Japanese terms he used.
There's also the matter of vacation time. It seems that I get an extra seven days of vacation time to take in August and September, although since classes will start next month I have been strongly encouraged to use these days in August. So even though I have just started, my supervisor Pat has been egging me to choose more vacation days. I keep inquiring about meeting more teachers, since I'd rather meet them before the students arrive, but I guess they're either busy doing their own things or they're taking vacation days too. I actually did want some time off to take a little trip with Mako (more on that when it happens) but at Pat's insistence I took off this Friday and nearly all of next week. Even still, there's two more days I have to use!
What's been frustrating me? My lack of progress on the media fronts. I tried to sign up for cable TV this week but I ran into a mysterious impasse. Even though I called, requested an English-speaking employee and apparently negotiated a reasonable package of channels, the call ended with "We'll call you back tomorrow." I had never heard of such a thing, but I agreed, figuring they were going to check my address information or something. Yet tomorrow came and went and no one called back. So I called back today, this time using as much Japanese as possible, to try and figure out what happened. The answer? "We'll call you back tomorrow." Never mind the fact that I already have the physical cable connecting my TV to the wall, there is apparently a multi-day process to decide whether or not to turn on my cable TV channels. I can only hope it's that simple, because if it takes four days to arrange a service appointment I'm just going to have to call someone else. At this point, the lack of Internet at home is actually interfering with my job, not just my personal comfort. Gary has been making phone calls on my behalf as best he can, but even he is receiving bureaucratic brush-offs at this point.
In the meantime, thank goodness for NHK. I may not be able to watch the Yankees, but I can actually tune to their BS-1 scrambled signal, enable the English audio and listen to the game. Plus, the nightly news regularly covers the Japanese players in America which, of course, includes Matsui. Aside from that, I can actually watch the Tigers play live every night, and as of today the huge high school baseball tournament has begun. Lucky me, there's non-stop baseball on TV!
Let's start with the good news: at this point I have gone to two of the six schools I'll be visiting, and met with most of the staff. So far, everyone has been extremely kind and complimentary, apparently unfazed by my lack of experience. Everyone excitedly praises my mediocre Japanese, happily repeats things that I did not understand and constantly offers me tea to drink and little snacks to eat. One school in particular seems very prepared and enthusiastic about teaching English. We had a big meeting yesterday afternoon where a university professor came by, reviewed their lesson plans and offered structured suggestions. His presentation was the first thing I've encountered here in Japan that I would describe as "training" as opposed to the "demonstration" I saw in Tokyo. Even though he spoke mainly in Japanese, he wrote enough on the board and used enough English to really give me a sense as to what I should be doing with these kids. I hope I can successfully mimic his "lesson plan" structure for my own needs, although I will need some help figuring out all the Japanese terms he used.
There's also the matter of vacation time. It seems that I get an extra seven days of vacation time to take in August and September, although since classes will start next month I have been strongly encouraged to use these days in August. So even though I have just started, my supervisor Pat has been egging me to choose more vacation days. I keep inquiring about meeting more teachers, since I'd rather meet them before the students arrive, but I guess they're either busy doing their own things or they're taking vacation days too. I actually did want some time off to take a little trip with Mako (more on that when it happens) but at Pat's insistence I took off this Friday and nearly all of next week. Even still, there's two more days I have to use!
What's been frustrating me? My lack of progress on the media fronts. I tried to sign up for cable TV this week but I ran into a mysterious impasse. Even though I called, requested an English-speaking employee and apparently negotiated a reasonable package of channels, the call ended with "We'll call you back tomorrow." I had never heard of such a thing, but I agreed, figuring they were going to check my address information or something. Yet tomorrow came and went and no one called back. So I called back today, this time using as much Japanese as possible, to try and figure out what happened. The answer? "We'll call you back tomorrow." Never mind the fact that I already have the physical cable connecting my TV to the wall, there is apparently a multi-day process to decide whether or not to turn on my cable TV channels. I can only hope it's that simple, because if it takes four days to arrange a service appointment I'm just going to have to call someone else. At this point, the lack of Internet at home is actually interfering with my job, not just my personal comfort. Gary has been making phone calls on my behalf as best he can, but even he is receiving bureaucratic brush-offs at this point.
In the meantime, thank goodness for NHK. I may not be able to watch the Yankees, but I can actually tune to their BS-1 scrambled signal, enable the English audio and listen to the game. Plus, the nightly news regularly covers the Japanese players in America which, of course, includes Matsui. Aside from that, I can actually watch the Tigers play live every night, and as of today the huge high school baseball tournament has begun. Lucky me, there's non-stop baseball on TV!
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