Tri-school Area

Thus far, an assessment as such:

Wednesday at White Tree High School

This school is, first of all, the farthest from where I live. I’m serious, we’re looking at about 1 hour and fifteen minutes one way and that is on the conservative side of guesstimating. However, having survived the first day getting there and back, I am now confident that I won’t get lost.

So, I walk to Hiroshima station at an ungodly hour of the morning and board a train to some obscure section north of Hiroshima. The train at the last three stops suddenly fills with lots of students, and I figure that if I were to follow them when the train stops that I will probably properly approach White Tree High School. I am, of course, mistaken. I accidentally followed the junior high school students instead of the High School ones. Thankfully there was an ALT with the junior high students who asked me, “Oh, are you a new ALT here to help with the Junior high students?”

“Oops, I must be following the wrong group then. I’m supposed to be going to the High School.”

Then a small communication fiasco ensued as the other ALT used his little Japanese, and I acted like I didn’t know any. I was luckily in time though to catch back up with the high school students. Hmm, I think I caught two of them smoking, but they ducked around a corner and greeted me? They must have been feeling sheepish because they actually engaged me in conversation.

The rest of the day went rather well, I think. The school only has me helping with three classes and all I had to do was self-introduction practice as well as my own personal introduction of myself, family, and hometown. I used a lot of pictures taken from the last week when I was in America.

The part of the day that was the most fun was when I was hanging out in the cool, air conditioned library and incidentally startled a couple of the students when they came in to do their daily amount of cleaning. I only spoke to them in English, and they kind of kept panicking. I do think though that it helped them up their capability with the basics.

That wasn’t the funny part though. Later, one of the students returned because she had homework the school was requiring her to work on after school. One of the teachers came in and oblivious to the presence of the student, engaged me in Japanese. Trying not to be rude, I responded and went along with the conversation. The student’s eyes bugged out and stared at us. I just casually walked past and smiling said… “bareta.” Bareta, basically, means “oops, I was found out.” To make a long story short, with the help of the teacher covering for me, I asked the student to keep it a secret. Of course, we didn’t have that conversation with her, until she quit busting a gut. She was laughing really hard.

Thursday at Great Light -East High School

Okay, so first of all that translation of the school name is just weird, but it should serve as a sufficient barrier for those who are trying to know too much about me without my knowledge.

This is first of all, my base school. I am at this school three days of the week, but my first day was a Thursday in the middle of the school year at the beginning of the second semester. With the help of the Audio visual office in the school, I was supplied with what essentially was a “smart cart.” I’m sorry. There really there isn’t anything major to report except some funny incidences with the students.

Questions/comments that seem to be coming mainstays for asking the new ALT are:
Are you married? Do you have a girlfriend? (Yes, they’ve asked them in that order.) Your eyes blue. Your skin is very, very white. How old are you? Do you speak Japanese? What is your favorite sport? What is your favorite thing? What is your hobby? What is your favorite food (Japanese/American)? When is your Birthday?

In Japanese:
Looks like Mario/luigi. Looks like Tom Cruise. Ikemen. (handsome) Wakai. (young) kekkan sugokunai? (Veins)

Later when I was in the library though, two of the students talked with me for a long time. I was surprised at their boldness. Then my supervisor, I guess, came in to talk with me and spoke (again, yes) only in Japanese. I just responded in English because I didn’t want to have to ask a library full of students to keep it a secret. Instead my supervisor was awesome.

He told the two students that, “of course, he understands Japanese, but he probably speaks it even better than you do.”
“So, then why won’t he speak it for us?”
“He’s trying to teach you English. He’s like that”

Friday at the commercial High School

I arrived early: WAY too early. We’re talking almost two hours early. It turned out okay, but the teachers were very, very surprised. They also warmed up to me faster than the other schools, because I had to actively engage them in Japanese. One of them, Sato-san, I think, even came over to give me advice on getting a cell phone. He insisted over and over that I get a smartphone and use skype to contact friends and family. Actually, I think he partially just wanted to show off that he had one. Man, I’ll admit it. I am really tempted to get one too.

There are tons of students at this school. It looks like I don’t even visit the same classes each week for a long period of time. Many of the guys are very outspoken, even in English. I was very surprised because they were really quiet at the other schools. Since the school is known for its men’s baseball teams, the teachers are little understanding when their male baseball players are tired in class.

After school, I volunteered and helped with the ESS groups speeches. They will be giving speeches in about a month. I was actually, really amazed. Either they are just geniuses at writing or their proofreader is really, really phenomenal. Though the speeches were only one page long, they were well crafted. I’m used to turning people’s papers into a sea of red ink, even my own, but short of stylistic changes like “didn’t shed tears” to “Didn’t shed a single tear,” I couldn’t find anything to change. Their reading ability and pronunciation will come with time, but even their first time readings were pretty good. I wish them luck in trying to memorize the things.

Things that I learned:
I need to buy my own slippers for each school. Ones that fit!
I need to bring lunch to each of the schools. Preferably ones purchased before I arrive there. I especially need to bring one to White tree HS because there isn’t even a conbeni in the school