Haibara Ai's Blurty

Human again.
My gosh, I don't know what it is about today--maybe it's the good weather and the official coming of spring, maybe it's the fact that I only have two more days left before school is out and that I managed to accomplish a few of my goals for gift-giving to my sixth- and ninth-grade grads. Whatever it is, I feel really invigorated and ready to write again, ready to share my mundane and selfish thoughts once more. I don't know how long this feeling will last, but I'll try to ride along with it as long as I can.

Had my ninth grade graduation at both schools two Sundays ago (around March 9). This time last year, I had only one junior high school and a lot more time on my hands, so I was able to write out a little message to each of my sixteen graduating students in addition to the inexpensive gifts I had for each of them. This year, the graduating kids weren't so lucky. ^_^ While I did give everyone an individual set of personalized pencils (ordered through Oriental Trading and sent over by my lovely mother), I didn't have the inclination to write messages to the 3-nensei this year. The kids at Toyohama got their copy of the yearbook we'd been working on since mid-October as well as the pencils. But the Yutaka kids only got the pencils. Oh, well.

I always have these grand ideas about what I want to accomplish (but don't start working on accomplishing this goal early enough), and eventually the goal is modified into a much-less magical conclusion. But the kids (or whomever I'm working towards the goal for) usually don't even know what I'm planning, so they don't know that I actually wanted to have a grander gesture for them. For example, I wanted to write messages to the individual sixth grade graduates at Toyoshima Elementary school this year, but I only ended up getting them their little graduation gifts. I got the messages out to my Yutaka sixth graders this morning (had one of my students who lives above me deliver them to his classmates), but it took all of my free time at work and four hours of bus and ferry goodness to crank out the finished projects. This is what happens when you don't really write in Japanese except for special occasions. It usually takes me longer than others to write personal messages in English, so I guess Japanese should be no different.

Back to the yearbook (were we every really at the yearbook?). It had a profile (birthday, likes, club activities, dream for the future) of each student with a picture, as well as a goodbye message and advice to the seventh and eighth graders, student collages, and a list of class and teacher superlatives. There was supposed to be a page that had a tally of what was popular for the kids during their time at school (sports players, musicians, TV shows, etc.) but that paper got lost somewhere along the way, and I didn't feel like looking for the filled-out copies or asking Mr. Uekiyo about it. I wonder did anyone but me even notice?

Anyway, though it took a really long time and (gasp) I even worked on it outside of work hours, I really enjoyed putting the book together and designing the cover and splash/title pages. It made me remember what I liked about document design and my dusty old major. I also realized that I try to use my computer to make worksheets several times a week, and even though the first time isn't always perfect, I try to go back and fix/explain better some parts of the sheet after I've run it through with a class. Even though the worksheets aren't beautiful or aesthetically noteworthy, I usually enjoy creating them. There's this one Assistant Language Teacher site called JHS Englipedia that I found out about late last year. ALTs from all walks of life and companies submit ideas for certain lessons, for both elemetnary school and junior high school. I usually don't like how the provided worksheet is set up, so I end up re-designing the sheet in a more Janitha-likeable format. Even though those worksheet ideas aren't from my own mind, they look much better to me, and thus become presentable. I don't turn up my nose at using them in class. ^_^;; Looks like I'm a document design snob.

I haven't had to go to Englipedia for activity ideas for a few weeks, and I'm glad for that. That doesn't mean that I haven't had crap to do, though. ;__; Where was I going with this document design thing? Oh, right. I went to my host mom's last weekend, and we had one of our sporadic conversations about "Janitha's future". I told her about a yearn-a-half-old memory I had from the time the family (all of us, even the now elusive Kazuma) went to a Italian restaurant called La Cima and had an expensive fine-dining experience. The Japanese menu for the restaurant was beautifully designed and tasteful, but the English version of the menu looked like a fourth-of-an-assed (that is, less-than-half-assed) attempt to quickly put something on paper and laminate it. I'm pretty sure the descriptions of the dishes were mostly accurate, but the lack of trying (or whatever you want to call words slapped on a plain piece of white paper) I'll forever remember as insulting. People (yes, even foreign people) are paying good money for their meal--which might or might not be deliciously filling, and they deserve a nice looking menu from which to make their meal choices even if they can't read Japanese. I really wanted to re-design their English language menu for them. La Cima had an impact on me, that's for sure. But going from business to business and checking it they need an English translation of a menu or a quick tutorial on how to ask what kind of noodles a non-Japanese-speaking customer wants for his or her okonomiyaki won't really be a steady job. I'm sure a job like that could grow into something, but I might not be the one who takes the step. I want to help out where I can, though.

My host mom also asked if I planned on staying in Japan indefinitely. Though I get requests from some teachers at school to "stay forever", I don't feel the pull to stay in nearly the exact same lane for very much longer. I love making people happy, especially my students, but I don't think I'm cut out to be a main teacher. I do okay at elementary school where I may or may not have input from my teachers on what kind of activity they'd like to do in class next, but I can't see myself being the main source of junior high school students' English language skills. And work life aside, despite how much I love my island life right now, I honestly can't see myself living in Yutaka-machi for the rest of my life. Around October or November of last year, I started looking for alternative places to work in case I ended my association with the JET Program after two years. I foolishly gave in to my mother's encouragement and got in contact with this random cousin of mine working for another English tutoring company in Okinawa. He immediately started talking as if I would always be in Japan (because, according to him, "Okinawa is the place to BE."), and I literally felt panicked at the thought. At the time, I'd been thinking about leaving the JET program and Kure BOE and working somewhere else for at least a year. I soon realized that if I'm only going to stay in the teaching English profession one more year, I might as well stick to a place that has less hassle and that I'm familiar with. So here I am, on board until July 2009. I'm already in retirement/saying goodbye to my island mode, though. I've had strange thoughts like, "I need to say goodbye to the sunset. I may never see the sky this clear and beautiful again." I'll try to appreciate the nature I'm surrounded by for a little longer. But not the blood-sucking mosquitoes that ravage our bodies each summer.

All right, I'm just gonna press send. I've sat on this entry for four hours or so.

P.S. Totally got back into One Piece a few months ago (more than I had been with the sporadic K-F releases) and read ahead in the manga to Thriller Bark. Now, I'm piecing together subs from other places to unravel the mystery of Water 7 and Sogeking and such. I've spoiled myself by watching 100 episodes later than where K-F was at the time, but I'm ready to watch other subs now as I wait for quality One Piece Water 7 episodes from K-F. Earlier this week, I was originally only interested in hearing Sogeking's theme song in the actual episode, but I'd figured what the heck? I'll go ahead and watch the fifty episodes I skipped to get to the feudal Japan special. I'm slowly getting the story. Can't wait for Kaizoku-Fansubs' next episode to come out, though.

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Current Mood: content, yet a bit exhausted.
Current Music: We Are! - Kitadani Hiroshi