Thoughts from Tokyo - The First Week

I’ve been making an effort to write in my journal everyday to preserve my experiences, especially as I did such a terrible job of that on my mission.  Here’s a few extracts from my journal entries over the first week (excuse the super dodgy formatting, technology did not want to cooperate):

6^th May 2012 (Sunday) 

I am in Japan!  My Qantas flight arrived 6:02am this morning.  I caught the 8:00am bus to the Tokyo Dome Hotel.  On the bus I discovered it had wifi!  It cost a small fee, but I signed up online with my credit card details, and emailed mum to tell her I arrived safely and everything was going fine. 

My flights were fine.  I was in one of the middle seats to Tokyo, my neighbours were nice enough.  One was a Japanese man, middle-aged.  I saw him struggling to open the rice pudding container, as I had done before I finally worked it out, so I finally said “すみません”(excuse me) and gestured towards the container, and said “むずかしいですね” (difficult, isn’t it?) as I opened the lid.  He was happy and said thank you which was good.  I’ve made a pretty good effort of speaking Japanese so far, with a few exceptions.

My bus dropped me at Tokyo Dome Hotel, I then had to walk to Koraku Garden Hotel where I was staying.  As soon as I got off the bus, the hotel attendant asked if he could help me.  I explained in Japanese where I wanted to go and he kindly got a tourist map and explained to me in English.  On my way there, one of the traffic wardens also stopped me to ask where I was going.  I didn’t think I looked lost, but I had my suitcase and a map and I’m foreign.  I probably had that “fresh foreigner” look about me too as everything was new!  So he kindly explained to me also in English.  So I found the hotel without trouble, though my bags were quite heavy!   

When I got to the Koraku Garden Hotel at 9:30am, I asked what time I can check in (knowing it was around 2pm), and the staff looked at each other and said now was probably fine.  So I got to check in straight away!  I was so happy!! I felt so gross and was so looking forward to a shower and a nap!  Sleeping in an actual bed! Life doesn’t get better than that.

My hotel room is nice enough, smells of cigarette smoke though.  I guess I will have to get used to that.  So glad Australia’s smoking laws keep getting better, with no smoking inside buildings.  Actually , outside Narita airport there was a little smoking room.  Outside!  Funny.

7th May 2012 (Monday)

Survived the first day of training!  It was mostly administrative and contract stuff and about being an employee of the company.  Oh, and we got drug tested!  It was a saliva test, and required a lot more than I would have thought.  I was the first to obtain clear status, woohoo!  Seems only fair, being the Mormon and all.  But it could simply mean I produced the right amount of saliva...so probably nothing to brag about!

The training group are nice, there's people from USA, Canada, England, the Phillipines, New Zealand, Australia, and my favourite accent - Ireland.  There's a few that know Japanese, most that don't.  Most have teaching experience, which I don't.  Everyone seems pretty friendly though.

8th May 2012 (Tuesday)

Wow, what a full-on day!  And an intense day.  We were told after we walked in that if we didn't have our materials to present our first lesson we were in trouble.  Well, I was in trouble.  Long story short, but I thought we wouldn't need it until later in the week.  Training began with Cedric talking about the "MEXT" principles, how teaching is so much more than imparting knowledge.  We need to inspire the students to want to learn, and we do that by our attitude and by living the subject.   We need to make it come alive for the students.

So after that introduction we had "sudden immersion."  I knew yesterday when I read that on the schedule that it didn't sound nice.  It was the most stressful & scary part of the day.  It meant presenting our lessons - no hints, no tips, just go!  Because I didn't have my stuff I thought I was dead meat.  Doomed.  I started to get that sinking feeling.  The fight or flight mode was switching on.  Well, I decided to fight.  I thought, I can sit here and sulk and fail, or I can decide to do well.  I can be positive, find a solution.  Be Macgyver! (Ok I didn't think of the Macgyver reference until after).  Did I want to fail or succeed?  I came here to succeed, so that's what I was going to do.

The deal was we may only do it for one minute.  Maybe 5.  Maybe 30 seconds.  It all depended on when Cedric stopped us.  All were good, he said.  We worked out what order we were going in, and I got about 4th or 5th.  The first few people made it about 15 seconds.  "This is great!" I thought, no need to stress.  When my turn began I just tried to be bright and bubbly as possibly, using my experience from primary (kids aged 3-11 at church).  I also tried to involve the "students" (ie the other teachers) instead of telling them things straight out, such as my name (I got that from a demo earlier).  I didn't have my pictures of Australia etc, so instead I used the white-board and asked a student to draw Australia.  I lasted about 45 seconds.  I survived!!  What a difference to how things could have gone, if I had given up.  I should probably add I did pray beforehand too ("help!!!").

9^th May 2012 (Wednesday)

Today I discovered udon noodles for lunch.  I learnt they are the big fat noodles!  And you buy them by choosing and buying the correct ticket from the ticket machine, then give the ticket to the counter staff.   Then it will be ready in about 3 minutes!  I had niku (meat) udon.  Not bad.  

After training today I had a headache.  Actually I couldn’t decide if it was a headache or not, but I felt really tired like I needed to sleep.  So I had a “nap” for 45 mins, then tried to read the homework, but I decided it was a headache and I needed pain killers!  I would not be able to study or sleep, or function tomorrow without them.  So I went out into the rain and went to the chemist I found the other day, not too close but not too far.  And the man there helped me, I explained in Japanese I had a headache so he recommended Bufferin.  So I took some back at the hotel and soon I felt great!  And studied!  Now, I must sleep!  Good night! 

10^th May 2012 (Thursday) 

I love Bufferin!!  I’ve had no problems since last night and slept great!  I tried the Japanese breakfast option in the hotel today, I’d only had the western style breakfast so far.  The Japanese breakfast was pretty good.  Plain rice, miso soup, fried egg, and salmon.  Pretty good, but at the start of training I noticed I still had salmon fingers – smelly! Today on my lunch exhibition I discovered a games arcade with the taiko game!  I didn’t have time to play, because I had to eat lunch, but I made a mental note to go back!  Each day I have fun exploring just a little further at lunch.

Tomorrow is the big demonstration – as in, we each have to do our “first lesson” demo.  At least 20 mins.  So far I’ve probably done 6 or 7 mins only in training.  Tonight I ran through it and it seemed to go okay, so it will be interesting.  Hope I manage to hold it together for my first actual class.

11^th May 2012 (Friday)

So I did the presentation and survived.  It wasn’t nearly as nerve-racking as the first day, and even looking back now I find myself thinking “What were you so worried about?”  Having said that, I'm pretty nervous for the real thing!  Pretty sure my first lesson is going to be a disaster!  Haha.  Although Cedric said the main thing we missed was we didn’t seem to be enjoying ourselves, so as long as I resolve to do that I should be okay.

I met with some people from my branch yesterday, Tokyo 2.  Deepa and James are both in Tokyo 2 also, and got their schedules today.  I found out I will be doing Nerima definitely, but the contract still isn’t final, so no schedule yet.  Nerima is a Haken style contract, not a Gyoumu-itaku style like we were told to expect, so I don’t know what I’m doing there either!  It means the JTE (Japanese Teacher of English) and I will plan the lessons together, and possibly present together.  It could also mean they tell me what to present 5 mins before the lesson.  But hey, I’ll just roll with it, right?

Tonight those of us left in Tokyo (minus Carmelita), went out for dinner/drinks and karaoke.  So it was me, Deepa, Tom, Darren, Sascha, Alex, James and Ciara.  We went to a place with meals & all you can drink (I think I managed 5 glasses of orange juice), it had these tiny little rooms divided by curtains.  Smoking is allowed so that was awful (at least those in our group had the courtesy not to smoke – thank you!!).  But finally we went to karaoke and that was fun.  Hopefully nobody could remember my bad singing!  But hey, I had fun. 

If you made it to the end of this blog post, then well done!! My subsequent posts will not be nearly as long, or as detailed, but I thought the first week in Japan was a big one and worth sharing more details.  And not having the internet for the first week means you get it all in one big lump now!

Stay tuned for next time.