Half-Marathon

Well I learned about the half-marathon back in September. It was on February 3rd. I thought it would be cool to do another one (did one on Thanksgiving 2006 with my dad and sister). No big deal. Except a few months later and I haven't kept up with my running. Then I'm on vacation in Thailand and Cambodia. I often use vacations to jump-start my running regime back home. But this one didn't really lend itself to running a lot. So it was my New Year's resolution (one of many) to start running again and do the half-marathon no matter what. At the mid-year seminar several people said they were going to do and that they probably were going to just register the day of. Great. I'm a procrastinator so that suited me. I managed to get serious about running again for the past two weeks. Saturday night I check the marathon website to see when late registrations would begin. Except they don't have any. Had to register by Saturday at 5. I text a few friends who seem convinced that you can still race. I go to Marugame for the marathon. No dice. I'm pretty pissed at myself. I had 5 months to figure it out and register. And I blew it. And that was after telling several people I was racing. Including a class of 34 students. Great. But I was determined. So I went back home. Relaxed a bit since the morning was sort of rough to begin with. I woke up at got a migraine which put me out of commission for an hour or so and I left later than I wanted and had to race for a train. I didn't pack up everything I wanted and then the whole not being able to register really sucked too. So after I calmed back down a bit. I loaded up. I was going to run my own half-marathon. I picked this town in Mitoyo that's way back in the mountains with no train station. I said I'd just run to that for about an hour and 15 minutes and then run back. That would be about a half-marathon. You should have seen me. I had my provisions stuffed inside my underarmor. I managed to also stuff in my iPod and my digital camera. It was a great run. The best I've felt in a long time. I let myself stop and take pictures occasionally. Never more that 2 minutes and maybe a total of 10 times the whole run. I think a couple times I stopped for closer to 5 minutes. I was technically in the town by the hour fifteen mark, but I wasn't to a place where I had been before and I wanted to keep running. So I jogged around the town some before heading back. I ended up being gone from 12:15 until 3:45. So probably a bit farther than 20k. But it was good. Here are some of the pictures I took while out. You'll see that cherry blossom season is soon upon us. Apparently there will be official cherry season watchers who will announce when it's officially time to go cherry blossom viewing.

PS. Sorry about the single paragraph. I sometimes forget to indent when I should and I'm too lazy to go back and find the right spot.

One of the first pictures of the run. Some dumped mikan (oranges). Guess after all the freezes they weren't good anymore. Typical Japanese farmer's truck in the background.


Abandoned van. Orange grove in the background.


Mountain views. The ridge to the right is entirely bamboo forest. Cool huh?


And here's a sideview of the bamboo forest.


These are some of the first cherry blossoms.


A mini-snowman. Notice only made of two balls of snow. That's the Japanese way apparently. And his eyes are mikan. Probably because they are everywhere this time of year. And about a dollar will buy 3 or 4 kilos.

Singing with the Kyoto-Sensei

So, I meant for this week to be one where I got my apartment in order and got myself organized once again. But then I got sick and let that be my excuse to not do anything really all week on that end at least. Because I actually stayed busy otherwise.

I started off well by writing up a weekly schedule. You may recall that things were pretty slack at work in terms of ... well work. So I was studying Japanese every day for 2 or 3 hours in between classes and elementary visits. Well recently as you may have noted (although perhaps not as I've not posted, that in itself being a sign), I've actually been asked to do more work at school. This has given me little or no time for Japanese study at school and has made me more tired after school so that I go home and crash. Which actually isn't too different from before. I might have done some cleaning or gone out to do something with friends, but as far as doing something productive, I didn't really do. But now that I have to work at work, I am not studying Japanese and not taking care of my apartment or shortening my to do list, which includes various tasks from mailing Christmas gifts to organizing all the important papers that have amassed in a pile in my bedroom (futonroom?). Well, at the beginning of the week, I got my week scheduled out. Not so much a specific, do-this-then schedule, but more of a you have this free time here and this open time at work here, and these are some of the things that you should be doing then, so choose and do. I was starting to feel very rushed at school, but with the schedule done up I think I will be able to manage my time better and perhaps get back to studying some Japanese. There's a teacher who I have asked in the past for some help with my studies and who has recently come up to me multiple times saying she was free and could help me with any Japanese questions I had. Unfortunately, I've been working last minute on lesson plans each time. (Why can I not be concise?) All that to say, I made a schedule and didn't stick to it because I got sick. I hope after this weekend I start feeling better and can commit to it more firmly.

So, this was a perfect week to get sick. I didn't really have much to do. I didn't have a race to prepare for tomorrow, I didn't have to practice singing songs for a cultural festival, I certainly didn't have 3 demonstration lessons to prepare for and which were definitely not observed by board of education members including the superintendent, and I sure didn't have my long commute (25 minute bike ride to an elementary) either. Sure glad that all that didn't happen.

So obviously that all happened.

The long commute: Usually I don't mind it as that is one of the schools where I get to do what I want and I've been having fun with them. But it came on Friday in the afternoon, so at the very end of a long week. And just before lunch, I realized that I didn't have the typed up lesson plan with me at school. It was on my computer at home. So I had to race home to get it and come back before lunch. That worked out well enough and I didn't really have to race. (But I did have to race on Thursday when I realized that I had left my self-introduction posters at home right before my other elementary lesson which is only about 5 minutes at a leisurely pace away. So I was actually on time when I gave myself 10 minutes to get there. But that's when I realized I had to go home and get the posters. It takes 6 minutes at a leisurely pace to get home.... so a little math and... yes, if I were to go at a leisurely pace it would take me 17 minutes to get there making me about 7 minutes late for the lesson. So I raced. By the time I got to my bike and started heading out I had 9 minutes. Somehow, I made it to the school in exactly nine minutes. I know because I kept checking my watch and I arrived when the bell for class was ringing. Geez even my asides are too long.) Anyway, when I got there and started my lesson I realized that I had forgotten some pictures which were essential to a good chunk of the plan. I tried to make something up but that sucked, so I just decided to move on and stretch out the rest of the lesson and that worked. But this class totally wasn't into it like the other one was. So, I rode the 20 minutes back (it's quicker because it's more downhill). And I went home and just crashed in front of the TV. I watched some figure skating that happened to be on and I stayed up to watch the Japan vs. American volleyball game. I've been really into the World Championship that's been going on. I'll miss the game tonight though.

Demo lessons: Each teacher was to be observed for one period by a special prefectural person and evaluated on their lesson. During that lesson, about 8 or 9 local board members would come in for about 5 minutes to observe as well. Since there are 3 English teachers, guess who had not just one observed lesson but 3? Oh yes, that's right the Assistant English Teacher, ME! I wasn't too stressed about it because it's not so much me they are looking at, but the main teacher. But still the stress from the other teachers got to me a little bit. They kept coming to me to check the lesson plan and make sure we were clear. Which was great actually and I think all the plans went well. A couple of times I was thrown a curveball during the lesson, something we hadn't discussed, but it all worked out. And some good came of the evaluation. One of the teachers had been resistant to trying some of the interactive question and answer style that I did back home. I kept trying to explain it to her, saying it was like a discussion. We would read and then discuss by me asking questions that they answer. Well I finally just did it in class without her knowing what I was doing. After the lesson, she came up to me on her own and said that she really liked that and I said "That's what I mean by doing discussion!" And so we did that again for the demo lesson and lo and behold the evaluator commended her for actually using the language with the students in an interactive way. So, I think we will start doing that more. But I really have to commend her. I went up to the other two teachers to ask about their feedback. The first said, " Ok, good." and turned back to her desk. The second said it went well and talked about how much he liked the video she did and everything was great. The third one wasn't embarrassed to talk about the negative stuff as well as the positive. That can be really hard to do, admitting something like that to a peer (or even more so to an inferior, as ALTs are usually seen by Japanese teachers). She said how he thought her handwriting was too sloppy and she sometimes speaks too fast. I think she does fine. It's not my style but she does about the same as the other teachers. My two complaints are that she uses too much Japanese and doesn't escape the confines of the text. But then again, that's like the other teachers. Although they do tend to use English a bit more.

Singing: Today, this morning, I sang with three teachers and a Kyoto-Sensei (vice-principal) at a local cultural festival. We sang Edelweiss and 3 Japanese songs. I only can sing 2 of the Japanese songs as I only started learning them this week. I have no idea what they mean, but I've managed to learn them well enough to read the hiragana as I sing along. I have a picture that I will post of us singing.

Picturepost

It's been fun, but not as much fun as it would be if I wasn't sick.

(sorry gotta run, we are to sing again this afternoon, and we are leaving now. to be continued)

Well the rest of the singing went well enough. We were well fed also. And we went back to the school and that was that.

The race: Afterwards, I went home and started packing. The plan was for a bunch of people to go to Jeremy's in Nio and hang out for the evening and get up in the morning for Nio's First Annual Mikan Good Health Marathon (every run in Japan is called a marathon マラソン). Well that bunch of people dwindled to 3; Jeremy, a friend of his from out of town, and me. So, we met up with a bunch of people in Kanonji for darts, beer, and food. We had a pretty good time. The 3 of us at Jeremy's ended up staying up until about 2, which was silly since we had to be up at 8 15 for race check-in. Luckily, the race was literally next door to his apartment. We all opted for the 8k race. Our omiyage for the race was a big bag of mikan. Nio apparently has really good mikan. Mikan are mandarin oranges. But for some reason, I think of really big oranges when I hear mandarin oranges. These are very small but OISHII!! (delicious) No one collapsed. Everyone finished the race. So it was a success. Jeremy finished first and then me and then Sandra and then Leann. Afterwards we hung out at Jeremy's eating hummus and pasta and watching movies and chatting. Before leaving Nio we all went to the local coffee shop, Café de flots, which was amazingly cool, surprisingly so since it is in this out of the way small town with no train stop.