Be The Jam

It`s been crazy busy since I started working due to a shortage or teachers in my region, Higashi-Tokyo (Higashi means East). Today is my third day off since I started...

The first week left me with acute dysania, It appears I just cant settle for narcolepsy like everyone else in this city. On the train today at around 3pm everybody had their eyes closed. Sleepiness aside I now have a far clearer conception of what`s required of me as a teacher. The answer, somewhat distressingly, is quite a lot. Compared to the other new teachers my workload is substantial. This will be reflected in my wages but It`s still a bit of a bastard. I teach an average of 6 hours a day with lessons varying between half an hour to an hour. Mondays are particularly brutal as i have to teach children for 3 and a half hours without a break, and they`re no angels I can assure you. As I`m not completely familiar with the syllabi and course materials I teach, planning planning takes up to an hour and a half everyday. Tuesday isn`t much better as i have to teach a hyperactive 7 year old followed by two separate classes of 3 year olds. I badly need to learn the Japanese for `stop feeding your vicious tykes so much sugar` The accuracy and velocity with which Aozura (a three year old boy) can throw metal trucks at my head is alarming. I have a small dent in my head which brought me close to tears at the time. That said, I`m popular with the very small ones who generally wont let go of my legs when mum arrives to pick them up. The 5-9`s are the problem; the boys are really aggressive and discipline (of any kind) is not my strong suit. I keep telling myself they`ll calm down as the weeks roll by though whether they do remains to be seen. On the whole teaching is going well and the feedback i`ve been receiving has been almost entirely positive.

Most of the other teachers i`ve met are pretty sound though there are a fair few cretinous male teachers around. Nod nod wink winkers who make no effort to teach or learn the language. There`s one philodox who really pisses me off but thankfully I only work in the same school once a week. The school managers are all Japanese ladies who are very easy to get on with.

I went out for Karaoke and sushi with another teacher and a couple of the school managers the other day after taking all the kids to the aquarium. Twas a total, total piss-up. I`d been a little nervous about singing and had vowed, like Alexis, to sing only songs I didn`t like. This went out of the window immediately as Graham and I shouted our way through `Bridge over troubled water` before destroying a number of other classics. The ladies were in fairness pretty good. Practise. Part of me had thought `I watch the X-factor, how hard can it be?` That whimsy soon dissipated as it became blazingly apparent I had no talent for singing, even the booze couldn`t convince me otherwise.

Prior to the Karaoke we`d been eating in a traditional Japanese restaurant. As my brother and Belinda had mentioned they were going to Ascot I thought it would be a topical treat to eat horse when Miwa suggested it. I pitied not the horse; if it had been faster maybe it would have been enjoying the sun at Ascot instead of being served up sushi style I reasoned. Some of you may think that harsh though maybe not as harsh as eating the whale that followed. I must declare my innocence on that one though- I just got stuck in without asking and found out afterwards...If you live in the sea there`s a very real possibility you`ll get served up here.

On a different note the pushing and shoving on the train is quite ridiculous/ I had some 70 year old woman trying to push me off the train; it hadn’t even stopped! The old women are the worst. Telling them to calm down iisn’t an option. People push and shove on the train yet when I drag someone out of a taxi I nearly get arrested- what gives?

Unfortunately I can’t show you any photos for a month as I won`t be able to afford a camera until then. I`ll be walking up mount Fuji when i get my holiday in a couple of weeks so I`ll try to borrow Alexis` camera for that.