一中
[8/27]
Today I went to 一中(which my IME annoyingly refuses to acknowledge as a possibility when I type “icchuu”...). They said they were having a meeting at 9:00 and asked if I’d go. Asked if I’d make a short speech. Well what was I gonna say, no? The meeting got pushed to 9:30. There are four English teachers, two women and two guys (one of whom is the one who came to karaoke with us and sang hide songs, and the other of whom seems really friendly and speaks excellent English). I asked one of them about using the computer at school. Apparently the situation is that I can use my own computer all I want, but there’s no way to connect it to the internet. If I want the internet I have to use a communal computer, which of course I can’t stay on for very long. Oh well...
At the meeting I was introduced and made a very short speech in Japanese. (I think it went something like “Hello, my name is Rebecca. I am from New Jersey, in America. In college I studied math and linguistics, and also Japanese. But that was a few years ago so I’ve forgotten a lot, so please be patient with me when talking Japanese. I want to study Japanese more from now on. I am really looking forward to teaching here. Douzo yoroshiku onegaishimasu.” A moving speech, ne?) Then they told me I could go downstairs and skip the rest of the meeting. So I went downstairs. But I had nothing to do. Being an idiot, I had left my math book at home. So I pulled out my computer hoping to work on a story, but couldn’t get into anything. I ended up writing a “self-introduction,” not for use in the classroom or anything, but a real, thorough self-introduction, in other words, random anecdotes from my life and things that have been important to me. Just because I thought it’d be interesting.
The highlight of the day occurred during this time: students were walking back and forth in the hall, occasionally noticing me and smiling or giggling or just staring. But once, two girls stopped at the door, giggling and whispering to each other and looking at my nervously. I gestured them to come in, and they both giggled more and said “shitsureishimasu!” and burst into the room and over to my desk, and stood there awkwardly. So I said hajimemashite and asked them their names (which of course I promptly forgot) and told them my name was Rebecca. This amount of conversation convinced them I was fluent in Japanese, which seemed to put them at ease a bit. I laughed and said I wasn’t fluent yet but I would keep studying. They asked if I was starting to teach next week when school starts, and I said yes, and they giggled and said “tanoshimi!” (looking forward to it) and “yoroshiku!” and I echoed both of those, and they left.
Hee.
Meanwhile, the teachers got back eventually, and the vice principal told me to get here at 7:50 on Monday and that I would be making a speech in front of the students, in Japanese. It took a lot of asking on my part to get any further details, like, um, what I should say. Longer than my speech today, he said. Okay, so what sort of things should I say? I asked. Oh, name, where you’re from, what you studied in college...”isshoni ganbarimashou!” (let’s work hard together!), that sort of thing. Uhh, isn’t that what I said today? I suppose if I add “isshoni ganbarimashou!” at the end it would technically be longer...Oh well, I’ll ask Jarryd about it. Then he told me I could leave. I’d been expecting to have to stay there doing nothing until 4:30. So that was nice.
With my unexpected free time I decided to go on a bit of a quest. I found Kasumi High School. My verdict is that the school in that anime probably really is based on it. They’re far from identical, of course, but Kasumi High School is clearly the same basic aesthetic of building as the one in the show, and in the same position relative to the beach and the mountains. This is probably wrong, but on one of the mountains right behind the school as you’re looking from the beach there’s a big telephone tower thing in the same position as one that’s pretty prominent in views of the school from the beach in the show. Chances are that’s a coincidence, even if it was based on the Kasumi school...but that was what struck me most. I couldn’t find anything that might be the shrine or the station though, in the neighborhood of the high school anyway. I’ll have to ask people who know the area where I should be looking. Still, it was a fun quest: I got to know the layout of the area by the water a little better, and I discovered some beautiful views. ^_^
After that I came home and crashed, and I’m hoping to go to sleep, like...now. Tomorrow is 二中(which the IME does accept!), so we’ll see how that goes.
Random reflection: a song just came on on shuffle that I remember listening to when I was in the grip of an odd but somewhat intense crush a while ago, and at that time I felt all this meaning in the song relating to that situation...but right now, not only have those emotions faded, but it’s a case where I don’t even understand in retrospect how it was real at the time. So that makes listening to this song rather...odd. Like it had all this emotional significance that I can’t even recapture as a memory; it’s just evaporated.
Meanwhile, I need some lyrics, so for lack of anything better coming to mind, here’s my favorite line from the current shuffle song (not the same one as above). It’s my favorite line in the song because of the unexpectedness of the simile; no matter how many times I’ve listened to the song, I still find myself expecting the word “rain”...
A heart’s no good when it’s been broken;
Words of love aren’t often spoken.
My tears fall like jewels from a crown...
Today I went to 一中(which my IME annoyingly refuses to acknowledge as a possibility when I type “icchuu”...). They said they were having a meeting at 9:00 and asked if I’d go. Asked if I’d make a short speech. Well what was I gonna say, no? The meeting got pushed to 9:30. There are four English teachers, two women and two guys (one of whom is the one who came to karaoke with us and sang hide songs, and the other of whom seems really friendly and speaks excellent English). I asked one of them about using the computer at school. Apparently the situation is that I can use my own computer all I want, but there’s no way to connect it to the internet. If I want the internet I have to use a communal computer, which of course I can’t stay on for very long. Oh well...
At the meeting I was introduced and made a very short speech in Japanese. (I think it went something like “Hello, my name is Rebecca. I am from New Jersey, in America. In college I studied math and linguistics, and also Japanese. But that was a few years ago so I’ve forgotten a lot, so please be patient with me when talking Japanese. I want to study Japanese more from now on. I am really looking forward to teaching here. Douzo yoroshiku onegaishimasu.” A moving speech, ne?) Then they told me I could go downstairs and skip the rest of the meeting. So I went downstairs. But I had nothing to do. Being an idiot, I had left my math book at home. So I pulled out my computer hoping to work on a story, but couldn’t get into anything. I ended up writing a “self-introduction,” not for use in the classroom or anything, but a real, thorough self-introduction, in other words, random anecdotes from my life and things that have been important to me. Just because I thought it’d be interesting.
The highlight of the day occurred during this time: students were walking back and forth in the hall, occasionally noticing me and smiling or giggling or just staring. But once, two girls stopped at the door, giggling and whispering to each other and looking at my nervously. I gestured them to come in, and they both giggled more and said “shitsureishimasu!” and burst into the room and over to my desk, and stood there awkwardly. So I said hajimemashite and asked them their names (which of course I promptly forgot) and told them my name was Rebecca. This amount of conversation convinced them I was fluent in Japanese, which seemed to put them at ease a bit. I laughed and said I wasn’t fluent yet but I would keep studying. They asked if I was starting to teach next week when school starts, and I said yes, and they giggled and said “tanoshimi!” (looking forward to it) and “yoroshiku!” and I echoed both of those, and they left.
Hee.
Meanwhile, the teachers got back eventually, and the vice principal told me to get here at 7:50 on Monday and that I would be making a speech in front of the students, in Japanese. It took a lot of asking on my part to get any further details, like, um, what I should say. Longer than my speech today, he said. Okay, so what sort of things should I say? I asked. Oh, name, where you’re from, what you studied in college...”isshoni ganbarimashou!” (let’s work hard together!), that sort of thing. Uhh, isn’t that what I said today? I suppose if I add “isshoni ganbarimashou!” at the end it would technically be longer...Oh well, I’ll ask Jarryd about it. Then he told me I could leave. I’d been expecting to have to stay there doing nothing until 4:30. So that was nice.
With my unexpected free time I decided to go on a bit of a quest. I found Kasumi High School. My verdict is that the school in that anime probably really is based on it. They’re far from identical, of course, but Kasumi High School is clearly the same basic aesthetic of building as the one in the show, and in the same position relative to the beach and the mountains. This is probably wrong, but on one of the mountains right behind the school as you’re looking from the beach there’s a big telephone tower thing in the same position as one that’s pretty prominent in views of the school from the beach in the show. Chances are that’s a coincidence, even if it was based on the Kasumi school...but that was what struck me most. I couldn’t find anything that might be the shrine or the station though, in the neighborhood of the high school anyway. I’ll have to ask people who know the area where I should be looking. Still, it was a fun quest: I got to know the layout of the area by the water a little better, and I discovered some beautiful views. ^_^
After that I came home and crashed, and I’m hoping to go to sleep, like...now. Tomorrow is 二中(which the IME does accept!), so we’ll see how that goes.
Random reflection: a song just came on on shuffle that I remember listening to when I was in the grip of an odd but somewhat intense crush a while ago, and at that time I felt all this meaning in the song relating to that situation...but right now, not only have those emotions faded, but it’s a case where I don’t even understand in retrospect how it was real at the time. So that makes listening to this song rather...odd. Like it had all this emotional significance that I can’t even recapture as a memory; it’s just evaporated.
Meanwhile, I need some lyrics, so for lack of anything better coming to mind, here’s my favorite line from the current shuffle song (not the same one as above). It’s my favorite line in the song because of the unexpectedness of the simile; no matter how many times I’ve listened to the song, I still find myself expecting the word “rain”...
Words of love aren’t often spoken.
My tears fall like jewels from a crown...
posted by Ashila at 3:11 AM
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