Stephanie

Some clouds, 7C (2C)

Ahh... I'm officially, by my schedule, ahead of schedule with the packing and whatnot--but I'll just say that I've finally [!?! wtvr, it was me who did no packing for three whole days and wasn't even home for another two over the recent winter holiday..!#%!] barely caught up since that's more what it feels like. Seeing as how I have three nights left to finish everything off, I still might be staying up late Saturday night to be certain everything is sorted away properly.

I'm still debating just how to handle the packing of the modem and accoutrements. I'll probably put them in the big takkyubin suitcase even though I won't be using it until after my second move.... because god knows I'll just *have* to use the Internet half an hour before I leave and my cellphone browser somehow won't be enough...

Anyway.

I'm going to bed, soon, before I think about that (the time constraints and lists of work still to finish) too much.

I've been meditating a lot on prayer, lately. I don't think I wrote it down, anywhere, but "prayer" is a topic I intend to study during the month [and, god willing, not more!] that I probably won't be online after moving... Today I learned at least one very important thing about prayer--well, something I already knew, but an application point. Basically, I'm not going to ask or entrain god to help me anymore : instead I'll just be thankful for it. Oh, but, really... the metaphysical properties of the High Holidays are a cakewalk compared to all the depth and sophistication of prayer... I could (and probably will) study it for a lifetime...

P.S. I'm totally kicking the ass of this "being decent in spite of myself" challenge. And lately lots of students are telling me they think I'm a great teacher. I'm really trying not to get a big head over it, but it does give me a little more confidence that maybe beyond my adaptability, I have qualities and skills that will help me flourish in my new situation. I also hope my work becomes a little more fun, too, though. Y'know... I'll be in high school again. That's so crazy... given my fixation on "normal high school life" it's also pretty fascinating.

Mostly cloudy, 4C (-4C)

I resigned from my job, today. Crazy. My last working day here will be the 8th. I'm moving on the 9th. I have to reserve the removal service tomorrow... I hope I don't have to change it to the 10th. I'll start my new job on the 11th. I'll be living in the company building as they have an apartment for about one month, while I collect enough money to move into my own place on February 12th/13th.

I have to try to make a phone call statesside, then go to bed.

Some clouds, 11C (11C)

For the next few moments it is October 43rd or Kislev 5th.

I really only have two points I'd like to share tonight (I'm denying the other three or four right now, so they won't feature).

1. This is the state of "academic research"?
So, I've recently joined a real-live professional association and that means I get their real-live professional journals. One paper is called "Learning to be a Teacher : blahblahblah". Now, I've known since that what-his-face nobel laureat in economics wrote that book about how being poor sucks and is oppressive that academic writing is about stating the painfully obvious in even more painful detail and often with fancy words which are [ideally] bigger than the point they're used to make (extra points for un-obvious obfuscation!). I give you this excerpt :

Conclusion
This longitudinal study examined how two teacher trainees [d00ds A and B] developed their classroom interactional practices in terms of assessments [typically feedback] and directives [instructions] and constructed their identities as teachers over a period of 19 months.

Emerging from the microanalysis of the data, observable changes were manifested by the two elementary school English teacher trainees in deployment of assessments during classroom activities. Initially, Shota [d00d A] aligned with the assessments given by the ALT [Assistant Language Teacher, the foreigner] and JHTs [Japanese Homeroom Teachers, the authoritays] by joining in with applause and producing embodied assessments in the form of head nods, but without participating in any verbalization of the assessments. Makoto [d00d B] also echoed assessments deployed by the ALT and JHTs through his alignment with the applause they initiated, and also echoed their verbal assessments but only in the same form. By Time 2, a year later, Shota verbalized assessments when interacting individually with students, when translating the JHTs productions from Japanese to English, and when taking charge of whole-class activities. Makoto manifested change through deployment of a greater variety of assessments, and occasionally bt deploying some assessments sequentially earlier than the ALT or JHT. Finally, over the period of 19 months covering the data collection analyzed here, both Shota and Makoto deployed assessments in a greater variety of sequential environments, many self-initiated or sequentially prior to the other teachers, while their follow-up assessments were always upgrades.

As the trainees' interactional practices evolved, there was a change in their social orientations as teachers. Initailly, the trainees articipated peripherally and orientated mainly to themselves as assistants. However, as they were socialized into classroom culture and changed their interactional practices, they frequently displayed characteristics that are conventionally associated with teachers....

....

This paper was 23 pages long and included a list of 48 references. Under"Data" the authors explain that they went through 30 hours of film (although they only actually went through and analyzed 120 minutes for each of the two teachers, but there was 30 hours of film taken to be at their disposal...) of veeeeery beginner-level classes (in one, the target, apparently, is counting to seven--I will, however, concede that this was a 4th-grade class (9- and 10-year-olds) and being a Yokohama public school probably nobody goes to eikaiwa).

Under "Method", we have one of my favorite moments in the whole piece :

Initially, the data in this study were transcribed, then a number of general observations were framed about the interaction through analysis of both the transcribed and recorded data, following which an interactional phenomenon of interest was identified through reanalysis of the data.

(my italics)

Interpretation : they were looking for something to practice their conversation analysis application on that could possibly get both authors another publication.

Under "Analysis", we learn that "Emerging from the analytical practice of unmotivated looking, analysis revealed developments of the trainees' classroom interactional practices over time in two areas: (a) provision of assessments to students, and (b) initiative in giving directives."

"Looking"? Really? And "unmotivated"-ly, at that...

I suspect it may be unprofessional or at lease discourteous to write out my full reaction, but, basically, if I understand this research properly, they're saying two d00ds who were training to be teachers were stand-offish and not really fulfilling their roles at first but with experience came to behave more as they are supposed to by gaining some sense of the environment and therefore confidence to act in it. >_o Um... o_< This is news? Ppl get used to things through exposure and becoming acclimated increases their effectiveness is new information? And acting in a certain role often generates the same responses as those in the role?

Although, for stating the obvious, they [the doctorate-holding authors] do do a really good job of backing it up with actual transcriptions of specific instances of obvious and gloriously extrapolating profound obviousness. Which is at once graceful and horrific.

From now on, I will read mainly conclusions. And certainly conclusions first.

This whole endeavor I'm attempting may be challenging on levels I had previously failed to predict.... To those already experienced in any field which involves the reading of "academic research", please accept this as a humble apology for my n3wbness. The stuff I read for my BA thesis wasn't so... clearcut. I'll try to get over it quickly.

2. More on literacy!
I totally bought a book tonight on Amazon for kindle pc and started reading it. This could well be the beginning of something very beautiful, folks...!

POURING, 20C (17C)

So I went to see 十三人の刺客 (The 13 Assassins), today, which is just an insane movie. While I was at the theatre I saw the flier for Russel Crowe's new Ridley Scott gig, Robin Hood. Can anyone explain to me how this will be any different from Gladiator? Other than the fact that Crowe is nearly a decade older, now, and therefore less agile? Anyway, back to Jyuusan-nin no Shikaku. Crazy movie. Since nobody reading this is likely to see it, I'll spoiler it by noticing out loud and publicly that the only d00ds to survive are the ones with girls they want to screw**. Thank you Japanese men-find-women-to-make-your-babies propaganda machine.

I just had a really hard time remembering that word, "propaganda". And I've been reading a ton of English recently (high English, too, not pulp English!), so that's really uncalled-for.

Before the movie, I thought I'd try what looks like it's supposed to be a German-style restaurant. But it wasn't. Like, it totally looks like a Stadthaus or Hoffenhaus or Staffenhaus or whatever (I can't remember much of my German at all, lately), but the food is definitely very Japanese and they were playing some crazy '50s and '60s Cuban music. The aesthetic discord was too much and I left before finishing my meal.

Also before the movie I went to a coffee bean shop with an extremely and puzzlingly limited array of foreign foodstuffs for sale in addition to roasted beans. For example, they have three kinds of German rye crackers and ten kinds of hard cheese but no soft cheeses and none that could go with the crackers, except perhaps some bleu cheese from Denmark, of all places. Also, they have two kinds of pita bread, but no hummus or even chickpeas in any form anywhere. Crazy. I bought nutella and celestial seasonings sleepytime tea.

I also got Read Real Japanese in what will probably turn out to be a[nother] misguided attempt to become literate. Misguided in that it won't result in literacy. It's been three years that I've been in this country, beating my thick skull against this language with varying intensity (let's not count that time at uni...). I can't help have the feeling that if I were going to achieve literacy, I'd have done it by now. That fills me with dread and disappointment. So I keep trying. Mostly. Because any idiot can see clearly that this is a literate society--maybe even hyperliterate by my native standards. I can't help but feel that I'm missing out on something awesome ; and I'm not about that sort of thing.

So I tried to avoid it but had to ride my bike home in the POURING rain. It wasn't so bad because I didn't have to go in anywhere and I rather like the night and the rain, though it does mean that I will have to dry my hair twice in one day which I find simply excessive.

Anyway, as soon as I didn't have to think about traffic, all I could think about was escape. In fact, I'm thinking about it, now. I want to run away. Far and fast. And I know that my earlier escape should have happened much sooner, if only it could have... meh... so I keep wondering in the background of all this, maybe I shouldn't try so hard to stick anything out...

I don't want to go to work tomorrow. Someone I know today was complaining about being bitter about work so he feels like he needs to take drastic action to keep from becoming mundane, such as becoming a couchsurfing mooch (which he calls "homeless", but I know from multiple experiences that "homelessness" is another beast entirely!). Oy.

So, yeah, this aversion to going to work is interfering with my plans to live every ounce and fiber of my life so it's all used up and gone (granted half in spite of life itself, but let's not squabble over petty details...). And, honestly, I don't get it. I took another skills/personality metric this weekend and, as usual, it says I should be a teacher. This is basically the ideal profession for me according to my strengths and character, and it seems to be one fate that I cannot escape, so I don't get what's so horribly wrong. The job isn't that bad, the kids aren't that bad. It's mystifying, really, why do I want so badly to run away? Where would I go, anyway? I feel like there's nowhere in the world I could go to hide from anything or discover anything, anyway...

I know that fulfillment in life is about using your talent(s) to help others/improve the world and propel your own growth. Theoretically, this is what's happening. But I don't feel fulfilled at all. Then again, I also don't know what my talents are and I'm pretty sure I don't have any. Anybody could do what I do, and most could do it better. Of this I have no doubt.

I watched a lot of TEDtalks this weekend, and saw a Tony Robbins talk. And started crying. Who the hell cries over Tony Robbins talks!? Emotionally unstable mofos such as myself, apparently. I don't get it. So I try to inquire of myself, 'if this isn't what's right or what you want, what would you rather?' And self has no answer at all. Which is frustrating because my reasoning goes : if you don't have any better ideas then stop the whining and contribute, already!

Anyway, perhaps I'll owe an apology for the abrupt ending, here, but I won't give it.

**Though to texturize it a bit more, I think it could be very interesting to understand one of them to actually be a ghost. Also, the survivors' commonality could be parsed as both being somewhat outlier to the "samurai" dogma through which the whole revenge plot takes place--participants rather than members. ...

I am presently in a bit of turmoil...

Come November, there will be an opening at Sannomiya school. Do I try for it? Could it possibly be construed as contributing to the furtherance of my primary goal (achieving an advanced degree)??

Rent would be more than it is, now, the apartment closer to synagogue, my pay the same, the schedule busier, virtually no kids...

I'm not even halfway through the move I'm in the middle of, I can't really waste the mental energy on trying to decide whether or not to push for another one just this moment ; although it's only 4 months down the line so I'd better figure out my position on the matter, at the very least, fast...


Post from mobile portal m.livejournal.com

So I just got my contract, thank God, it's the fourth tier, which was the minimum I needed.

My Internet might not work when I get home, though, because of contracts between my company and the housing company changing.

Speaking of addresses, I still don't have my new one, but maybe that will change at some point, today...

Post from mobile portal m.livejournal.com

Partly cloudy, 21C (25C)
T-24 days

I have so much I want to write about but nary the time/energy-complex to organize it... Bah...

I hate packing. I haven't even started and I hate it all over again. Last time, packing went really, really well. Surprisingly well. I'm convinced it was because I was moving here, to the place I chose, to a place I wanted to be. I can't quite bring myself to feel that way about Moriyama.

Though, hopefully, rents will be cheap enough that losing my housing subsidy (don't get too excited, it only covers about half the difference in rent from my place in Ehime) in August shouldn't decrease my spendable income. But then again, I still have NOT A CLUE how much that might be...

But I did recently learn that some of the famous Kyoto universities (such as Ritsumeikaikan and Doushiki--bah, I can't remember if that's correct right now) moved their main campuses to Shiga-at-least-and-possibly-Moriyama. So in addition to the Catholic women's college, there may be other places that I may be able to try to get a part-time job at...

Also, recent investigations yielded the fact that my future school, let's call it MYD2 for short (which may or may not be further abbreviated to MY2 or just M2), has a student roster of 59 monthlies--indicating the tuition payment interval, the alternative being yearly (for the moment). Now, starting from this month all codomo (kids') contracts are supposed to switch to monthly, but there are still many on the yearly scheme so all this number tells me is that there are *at least* 59 screaming, shitting brats at that school. Whether they are all mine, I have no idea or evidence. I also don't know if there's a Japanese teacher also there.

But! I have decided that I shall become a master of teaching English to screaming, shitting brats--come hell or high water--and MYD2/MY2/M2 (which shall retain it's designation as Dai-2 here even after being subsumed by the regular [adults'] school to indicate that it's [and therefor my] student body is exclusively composed of children) shall be my experimental population. I will then later use these m4d ski11z to train my own army of multi-lingual and highly-educated adopted-child-revolutionaries who will change the world for the better and also substantiate the second generation of my longed-for huge extended family of ... "professional" people ... raised at my orphanage-boardingschool-castle-complex! BwaHaHaHaHa!!!!

Although first I need to pack. And mostly the reason I really don't feel like packing right now is this stupid ladder which I've been using as a partial shelf-system and this stupid table whose only good place is jammed right in front of aforementioned stupid ladder and has collected stuff underneath it and about it's legs and needs to be moved in order for me to ascend to the loft where my packing boxes from last time are stored. (I'll need to get more of those, too, but apparently I can ask at the grocery...) If I can overcome that, then I can at least pack my books and have that out of the way to organise the other packing. Please, god, please, let my next apartment not be so hateful as this one...

I think that's all I have the wherewithal to type about just now. Except I wanted to add that a recent favorite snack is comprised of cut pineapple, cow-milk-yogurt (it comes in 450cl tubs!) and frosted flakes. It is yummy and refreshing and just sweet enough. I recommend it to all of you for your gustative pleasure.

ETAs : I know children aren't *only* screaming, shitting brats but calling them that here from time to time helps throw that fact into contrast with occasional perceptions and cetera...

Cleared the path to the loft and readied some boxes. Since I'm trying to be optimistic and encouraging with myself, we'll count that as "packing" for the sake of my organizational calendar tonight.

Partly sunny, 32C (39C)

So, I'm thinking about putting off Arima until next weekend--to spread out my spending a bit.

In the meantime, I thought it might be worthwhile to explain my position on children.

There are many problems with children, the main one being that they lack complete brains and are therefore inscrutable. You never know what a child will find amusing and they are so completely incapable of reason that everything must be amusing to them. This may be fine for playing or when you have all day to lavish attention on the child and bask in the wonders of it's development but is not when you're supposed to be accomplishing something like teaching a set curriculum on a set schedule at a set time of day every week. Not to mention the constant fight against the environment the child is in for the other 10,030 minutes of the week. 50 minutes is not enough to achieve what is desired but it's also way too long to not achieve anything.

I say all that before getting to the very important task of defining what a child is. For me, a child is generally less than eight years old for girls and less than ten for boys. This can be further divided into infants, young children and old children but we won't worry about that.

I don't remember a whole lot of my own childhood. Well, scratch that, I do remember quite a lot, but it's mostly episodic. Also, I was a strange child. I hardly ever slept and was very independent. I was intelligent and could play well enough by myself as well as with others. My games were usually elaborate--mimicking archaeological digs, cooking five-course breakfasts for my platoon of stuffed animals, or carrying out mapping expeditions in the woods by the river of my grandparents' cabin--and involved adult objects or concepts. I could add here that I never had invisible friends [and have always thought this somehow alienates me from most other people...], although I was taught to consider the "feelings" and experiences or points-of-view of even inanimate things...

My clothes all had bells sewn onto them so that my mother could tell where I was and could guess at what I was doing. All of my clothes had many bells sewn onto them. Even my shoes and shoelaces (my mother could hear if I was lagging behind because I was tying my shoe or because I was getting into trouble). I carried a McGuyver-like collection of items in a baggie in my pocket to help amuse myself when I couldn't run amok (that is, on errands or trips to the bank or grocery store or whatnot) ; it had things like strings, magnets, paperclips, marbles, springs, erasers, a little notepad and a kit of miniature colored pencils. It was part of my training to identify these situations and find a quiet place on my own to not make a nuisance of myself ; the former was encouraged and praised (but not rewarded because it all fell under "expected behavior") and the latter was simply not acceptable because it wasn't in my character. Things were largely different for my little sister--but that is because she is a different person with a vastly different personality and needed a different kind of framework while at a similar age. This is all to express the idea that I was monitored but not doted upon ; I was purposefully trained, long and hard, from my earliest memories. Which is to prepare a contrast with most of the children I interact with in this job...

At the same time I was involved with all sorts of lessons--ballet, tap-dance, karate and such. I could ride a horse, house-train a dog, nurse sick birds and organize playmates. I cooked for people, did crafts and some art. I did things like fishing, camping, and hiking actively--that is to say, I participated in planning and preparation as well as execution, I wasn't just dragged along to where the adults were going. I was asked my opinion and my opinion had some small degree of influence (small when I was still a child, greater after I wasn't ; it was all part of my training in responsibility and in choice in action). This was an inviolable expectation and it never occurred to me not to do as I did, anyway.

When I was seven years old my ears were pierced--which in my family indicates the end of childhood, or the beginning of the end of childhood. Due to various circumstances I was basically an adult by the time I was ten and was expected to make decisions and conduct myself as one in every conceivable way except openly in law (note the use of the qualifier "openly") ; at this point there were no more shields but by virtue of my being young for the world there were plenty of shackles. I think this explains why my cut-off for children I can deal with and children that are more challenging than I want to deal with is where it is. I consider myself to have been a child before seven, something else between seven and ten and an adolescent for a long time after that... I realize this developmental trajectory is not entirely average, but it's the trajectory I know from my life as opposed to a few textbooks.

Throughout this time, it was not enough to be passively taught and it was far from acceptable behavior to not listen and not pay attention.** This is not usual, it seems, for children which makes it extremely difficult if not impossible for me to identify with them--something I have to do to teach effectively. I don't understand the "games" they like or what drives them from one thing to the next. I've tried to study rules for children's games and they're all so nonsensical and meaningless that I can never remember them. I don't understand how one thing can keep a child in it's thrall for ages but something actually amusing on several levels fails to even distract them.

I attribute my confusion in these matters to their lack of sufficiently complete brains. Of course, children aren't completely brainless, but enough is missing that many things are more difficult for them than they need to be when presented the way they are in these classes in order to keep the schedule, to give the parents something tangible to see us doing, etc. And parents almost universally fail to understand this. They have totally unreasonable expectations and totally unrealistic views of how to accomplish them. They don't understand that children's hours of activity vary throughout development, nor that some hours are better suited to some behaviors than others--a child's development, in this sense, is utterly incompatible with modern adult, commercial society. Parents are in the forest--or bricks in the wall, if you prefer. The parents, more often than not, don't really get what's going on with their children or how things are happening and I can't communicate with them effectively/properly, not to mention I have no outstanding qualifications so even if I could the parents would have no cause to heed me. Which brings me to the next point : my company [and most, if not all, like it] suffers major retardation on this matter. They fill the parents with unrealistic visions of their bilingual children and set a schedule and a pace as if this is the way that sort of thing reliably works when what brain the children do have simply doesn't work that way.

Not that I'm an expert on how they do work.... But I do know that children are like rubbery goo with sponge-like elements. They're in constant and elastic transition--considering the proportion of their lives spent in this period versus out of it, the transition is also rather violent. They retain the craziest things and forget the most important--with no rhyme or reason. As the child ages and becomes somewhat more enculturated some issues lose some of their high-relief and the child develops tools to then overcome them as it reaches the ages that I can handle with a level of discomfort that doesn't totally frustrate and exhaust me : over eight for girls and over ten for boys, generally speaking. In other words, at about that age we both become capable of reaching [for] the other, and it becomes worthwhile to do so. Below that age, they don't understand to reach and I am incapable of bridging the distance. As a human being, I don't like children who don't know to reach for me when I can't reach them on my own ; as a teacher, I am not properly trained to overcome this challenge.

At about thirteen for girls and fifteen for boys, I can begin holding them responsible for themselves, for their behavior (though they can't fully be held responsible for their choices until they're eighteen or twenty), and I can begin teaching them how to nurse their own motivation for learning. (This is very late by my own life's timeline for being held independently responsible for such things, but I consider myself to be a relatively flexible person and this is one of the reasons why.) After about twenty for girls and twenty-two for boys (around the same time that their brains become completely whole and totally functioning organs, ironically enough), I can usually no longer teach them about motivation or even very much about discipline. In fact, I can't teach them much of anything, strictly speaking, I can only help them learn and the value of my help is nearly totally dependent on what they make of it. At about this time they are completely adult in every physical and psychological respect, the only question is how much they accept that--and how much they express that acceptance through their actions and attitudes.

Obviously there are exceptions, there are varying personalities and varying levels of awareness, but if I had to generalize this is how I'd do it.

**I should note that "good behavior" was on a scale adjusted to my needs. For example, when I was a young child, if I was told to sit that meant that some portion of my body had to remain in contact with some part of the chair I had been told to sit in--however that obligation was met was perfectly within reason. At night I had to sleep, which meant that I did not leave my bed from the time that I was put there until the sun came up (I could go to the bathroom, of course) because of course I didn't sleep the whole night but other people in the house did (as an aside, maybe this is the only time in my life that I have ever awaited the sunrise...). When I was an older child, the part of the chair was narrowed to the seat and arms. When I was no longer a child, it was narrowed again to just the seat and it had to be the back and lower part of my body that was in contact with it. When I was what I call an adolescent I was no longer told to sit as I could make that decision for myself and was fully expected to.

Rainy, 18C (21C)

About my new assignment... and why July will suck inordinately (is July the new November??) :

So I have to close my current school, meanwhile trying to convince as many of my students as possible to go to Sannomiya school, meanwhile I know the native instructors at Sannomiya are a bunch of half-assed twats and probably won't stick out the year. That ought to be enough, and I think it is.

But add to this that in Moriyama there are currently two branches : Moriyama and Moriyama-dai2. Well, Moriyama-dai2 currently has no native instructor--that school wants a native instructor yesterday, I'll arrive after closing my branch (dates still not determined, as far as anyone local is aware)--and is supposed to combine with Moriyama (the original branch). I can't be sure, but I think they expect me to move that school--which, if I'm right, will be a godawful pain in the ass, mostly because I don't know that school and so will have to move everything and then sort it and what I bring with me in the new-old building, which I also have absolutely no idea about and won't until I arrive. It's possible I could actually enter the school if I took my pilot trip to Moriyama on Monday rather than Sunday, but I really need to do something about that sooner than later and Monday I want to take a bath at Arima.

In completely other news, I'm getting seishun18 for my trip to Kanazawa, which is a certificate of sorts good for seats for five days on non-express trains. Kanazawa will only require two of those days' seats. Maybe I'll go to Asahi Zoo in Hokkaido with two of the others.... Then all that's left is a one-day trip ; I was already considering Matsue in Shimane-ken or, in the opposite direction, somewhere in Nagano-ken--from Shiga-ken, Matsue would be longer and Nagano would be shorter... I'll have to think on it a bit more.

Seriously, though, today was the first day I was allowed to begin informing my students about the first half of this mess. I only had two classes today but when I got home I just wanted to collapse and sleep for the rest of the evening ; I felt so drained I didn't even go to synagogue, and I'm not even going to be able to so easily very soon... I have seven classes tomorrow [today!]. I hope it is less taxing...

Rainy, 24C (26C) -- humidity is 88%

This week at work is going to suck a lot. But the upswing is that possibly managing other ppls' stress will distract me somewhat from my own... Just as long as I'm not so distracted I don't get done what I need to get done.

Also, I hate packing. I won't put it off to the last minute, but I don't think I'll start this week. Unless I catch wind that the school is closing next week....

I just got my third book at the bank... maybe I should just try going to another country, already. But which one? And if I do that my "plans" for grad school will have to be reworked. Reworked... as they are, now, they're delayed by a year--I need to find some stability that will last another three years. I need a raise, but before then, I need a job.

I watched Detroit Metal City last night. Hilarious. It will be incredibly helpful, this week, to have those memories floating around. :-]