Judo Tournament Pictures

   I have three random pictures of the preparation/hanging out phase of the judo tournament that I took from my cell phone. No faces or anything, just crowds of people in judogi. Is anyone interested in seeing them?

Name Differences

   It's a little thing, but sometimes the little things are the ones that make me realize I'm really in a different place. People's names are really different up here!

   Back at Azuma, there were a lot of names that took a while to get used to, but then I realized that I saw them around a lot in anime, manga, the news, and film. So they weren't that alien or odd. On the other hand, up here in the mountains, there are a lot of names I've never ever imagined, much less seen somewhere.

   Not just family names, but personal names!

   Read on!

One More Thing: New Placement

   I made a promise to myself to speak less Japanese with the English teachers since I'm one of the few chances they have to speak with a native English speaker and it will (hopefully) help their English improve. I also sometimes feel like speaking Japanese makes some people feel like I don't trust their English... and that's not really the kind of feeling I want to be nurturing in English teachers.

   Well, I've been able to keep that promise pretty well.

New Placement Differences

   Something that's constantly lingering at the back of my mind, even after a month here, is the nagging feeling that I'm not really getting any work done up here. At Azuma, I felt more like I was teaching, despite frustrations. I was proofing tests before they went out, checking tests when they came back, helping teach the textbook and deal with grammar questions...

   Now, though, it seems like I've taken a step back. Although I'm more accepted at Fujimi as a person, I'm not really being used much as a teacher, albeit an assistant. This comes with the job, though; ALTs generally can only do what the school wants them to do, however satisfying or unsatisfying it is.

   Read on!

The Finger Game

   Japanese kids have a bunch of variants on rock-scissors-paper that they play, but they also have the finger game. The finger game is usually fast-paced and generally only ends when someone makes a dumb mistake because they were trying to hurry. You see, it involves very basic math: addition and subtraction.

   The setup is pretty simple; two people play and decide who goes first. Then both players stick out their index fingers. The game itself is also pretty simple -- you reach out and touch the opponent's hand with your hand and they add the number of fingers you have stuck out.

   So if you have one finger stuck out and tap a hand that has two, that person sticks out one more finger for a total of three. If you have three fingers stuck out and tap a hand that has three, that person goes down to one finger, because six minus five (the maximum number of fingers normal people have) is one. If you have two fingers stuck out and tap a hand that has three, that makes a total of five, and that hand is "out." You win the game by getting both of a player's hands "out."

   Additionally, since you have two hands, you can swap fingers between them. So if you have four fingers out on one hand and your other hand is out, then you can tap them and give them both two fingers, or give one three and the other one. The thing to consider is how many fingers your opponent has out on each hand -- if they have three fingers out on one, then going two and two isn't the best idea since they'll immediately knock one of your hands out, even though you can knock that three hand out.

   It sounds confusing when described like this, but it's really pretty simple.

   Does this game exist in America?

Busy Weekend -- Individuals Judo Tournament

   I woke up around 6:00 with a solid eight hours of sleep behind me. I woke up earlier because I wanted to have a bit more time in the shower to wake up before walking to school. Even though I hadn't made a lunch the night before, I didn't really worry about it since there would be bentos again; I hadn't known that on Saturday.

   As I was preparing to cross the main road to walk up to the school, a car pulled over and signaled that it was going to turn, so I backed up a bit. I don't really want to get hit by a car again, no matter how slowly it's going! It weirded me out a bit when the car stopped right in front of me, though.

   It was Oono!

   Read on!

Busy Weekend -- Team Judo Tournament

   I woke up, bleary-eyed, at almost exactly 6:30 in the morning. My body is remarkable in that it'll let me sleep pretty much exactly the amount of time I want to sleep... and for once, I actually slept deeply. The down side was that since I'd had around four hours of sleep, all my body wanted to go was sink back into that deep sleep.

   Oh, well.

   I hopped out of bed and stumbled to the shower. My apartment's still a mess; I have three piles of old clothes sitting on the floor, bits and pieces from some shelving that I wasn't able to put back together (because other bits and pieces were missing), random do-dads that I haven't found a place for, and some messenger bags sitting by the wall. Somehow, though, I made it to the shower without killing myself.

   Read on!

Busy Weekend -- PTA Party

   This past weekend was a pretty busy one for me, with the festivities starting, quite literally, on Friday. Friday night featured a party run by the PTA to greet the new teachers and PTA members and also to send off the leaving teachers and PTA members. It started from six, so I stayed at school, went to the literature/culture club (which is really the story-writing and manga-drawing club), then got a ride to the party.

   My original plan, you see, was to ride my bike down the mountain to the party since it was a 20-minute trip at worst, and all of that downhill. I mean, how bad could it have been?

   Read on!

In The Gutter

   One of the most commonplace features of Japan that I take for granted is the road gutter. Sure, there are chopsticks, weird square cars, and power lines everywhere, but the ubiquitous gutter is something I've gotten so used to that I sometimes forget that it doesn't exist in America.

   Whereas roads in America have grass, dirt, or gravel along the shoulders, Japanese roads tend to have a gutter along one side, if not both sides. I don't know if this difference is due to different road building techniques or simply an adaptation to the monstrous rainy season in Japan, but whatever the case, gutters are everywhere.

   Read on!