Hi!  It turns out that I am not capable of updating this site on a regular basis.  Instead, I've decided to tell my story through pictures.  Score!  And since I'm so far behind, I'll probably do a few monthly recaps until I'm all caught up.  Until then, here's an installment about my work here in Japan.  Enjoy!

Work #1 - Oasa Senior High School.  With 1,200 students and over 70 staff members, it is the largest high school in Hokkaido.  Its a good school too, ranking somewhere in the top 20.  Each grade (1st yr, 2nd yr, and 3rd) has 10 classes each with 40 students per class (3x10x40 = 1,200 students). 

A little bit about Japanese schools: there is one main teacher's office so all of the teachers occupy the same office ; each class has their own permanent classroom and the teachers must change rooms for each class they teach (opposite of American classes) ; the teachers have a separate everything ... like entrance to the school, shoebox area, and bathrooms ; at the end of the day, the kids are responsible for cleaning the school so every class / students has a certain task that they're responsible for ; everything is always orderly and neat and organized or classified in some way (for example, the color of your shoe tells what year you're in, every student has a "student number" kind of id, etc.) ; when students gather in the gym for a ceremony or assembly, they do so by lining up by year and class so from l-r it goes class 1-10, 1-9, 1-8... 3-3, 3-2, 3-1.



oasa senior high school on a sunny and beautiful day. isn't it pretty!

awards. courtyard. hallway. teacher's board in office. students at a ceremony in the gym.
student's gym bags. student's shoe boxes. my desk. empty classroom.

close up - a view from the classroom.

Work #2 - Doken, short for Hokkaido Education Research Institute.  At Doken, I don't have much to do on a day-to-day basis except for correcting English or doing misc. tasks.  My biggest responsibility is helping out at all the English seminars they conduct at the Institute, and at center around Hokkaido.  Its fun for me because I get to travel and meet other ALTs.  I work in an office full of married, 40+ men (only 1 woman in my office) with lots of work/teaching experience.  Its an interesting situation, but pretty great because everyone is so sweet and nice.

doken.

the computer i usually work at. view from 3rd floor. pretty macs.

close up -lake shaped like hokkaido! didn't even notice till my supervisor told me.

I usually go to Doken on Mondays and Fridays and teach at Oasa Tuesday through Thursday.

 Okay, thats all! More to come soon, I promise...

Week 13 - week of October 27.  Some things I just can't get enough of.  Watching good movies again - Bend it Like Beckham was just as cute and funny the second time around!  Shopping in Sapporo - I don't think I'll ever get tired of it.  Going out in Sapporo - ditto.  Long weekends & sightseeing - d'uh.

This weekend was another long weekend and it started out on Friday with Dinner at Cam Cam's and a snowboard afterparty at Booty.  Earlier in the night, they had some video screening for a new snowboarder video.  Apparently, there were some pretty famous boarders there but we didn't know who any of them were... d'oh.

happy to be here!

always laughing! 

all smiles (the girls at least).

kawaii!

The next day, we headed out to Noboribetsu, a town famous for its onsens (Japanese hot springs).  That night, we enjoyed a real and traditional onsen experience at one of the big hotels in the town (read: no going into the boy's onsen!).  This is how a typical trip to the onsen goes: go to the section for your sex, strip down in the locker room area, bring nothing into the onsen area except for what they call an onsen towel (basically the size of a medium sized dish towel, used only to cover your most important parts), bath completely (shampoo, soap, etc. all done while sitting on a small stool) before going into the onsen, relax in the onsen, bathing again afterwards is optional.  This place was really nice and had a lot of different baths, like ones that supposedly helped you if you had certain ailments.  There were also some outdoor ones which are my favorite.

On Monday, we visited Hell Valley.  Wow.  This is a description of the place: "It is a volcanic crator with a diameter of 450 meters.  Boiling water squirting out of thousands of holes sound like the heartbeat of the earth.  The orange-brown rocks remind you of the history of dynamic volcanic eruptions.  It is the greatest tourist attraction in Noboribetsu."  This is one of the places in Hokkaido where pictures alone just don't do it justice.  The intensity and size of the place is incredible.

volcanic crators.

a random shrine.

a long path.

We hiked for about 30 minutes in order to see this lake that people told us to go visit.  The lake's temperature is always at 130 degrees.  It was so amazing - the boiling water swirls around in constant circles and looks like its rising.  Its really intense but hard to describe in words.

the boiling lake.

Week 12 - week of October 20.  Another conference at Doken for English teachers in Hokkaido.  This week was a ton of fun!  The work was supereasy (mainly because there wasn't really any!) and the teachers were supercool.  I got to see Will again (he was at the ES teacher's conference back in September) and we hung out a lot which was fun. 

So one of our assignments was to record some short dialogs for an Elemetary School English "textbook."  Background: English is mandatory in junior high and high school in Japan.  Just last year, elementary schools started teaching English in their classrooms a few times a week.  They don't have an official textbook yet, but some people in Hokkaido worked on one in collaboration with the techniques and theories from Dr. Bilash (the lady who coordinated the conferences I helped out with back in September).  Anyway, so you know how foreign language books always come with CDs?  Well, our job was to record the dialogs from the new book.  Its pretty funny to think that little kids all over Hokkaido could be listening to our voices and imitating the way we talk . Haha!  There were only 3 of us but some of the dialogs called for more people, so we had to get creative and stretch our voice-range capabilities.  Maybe I'll link the webpage here once its up and runninng.

future books-on-tape employees! pictures taken on my cell when we got bored.

On Wednesday night we all went out to dinner - nomihodai but not tabehodai.  Nomihodai means all you can drink, usually within a certain time limit like 1 or 2 hours.  Tabehodai means all you can eat, same rules.  These are everywhere in Japan and are usually what we order when we have any kind of party.  I had a really fun night cause the teachers were so cool.  This one woman said she played drums at the club where I saw the Suicide Machines.  This other dude was so frickin' hilarious.  He kept going on about how he learned English from Star Trek and would say random things like "Beam me up Scotty" in that oh-so-Star-Trek way.  And by the end of the night, the teacher who organized the event was so drunk.  We were asking him how many kids he had and he kept saying "Well, uhh, about..."  That night I laughed so much...

Sorry, no pictures from this week!  So I'll leave you with these lovely Benetton boxes from the convenient store. 

Can't tell what these are?  Okay, here's a close-up...

Thats right... condoms.  Only in Japan do the boxes look so beautiful, and by Benetton no less.  Gotta love it! 

Week 11 - week of October 13.  The week was work as usual.  The more time I spend at my school, the more I like it.  I'm really lucky because I'm a base ALT (I only teach at one school), but even luckier because I love my school.  Anyway, Katy's best friend from home was visiting so we went out Friday night to our usual hangout, Pooh-san's. 

so here's a normal picture.  ok, more normal anyway. the main cast of characters on this lovely night: me, katy, and kitri.

pooh-san can actually drink the whole beer like that!  its pretty damn funny / a bit scary.
in case you can't see it clearly, he has his entire mouth over the beer mug.

fun!

Week 10 - week of October 6th.  On Tuesday, I had my first real / official work day at Doken (Hokkaido Education Research Institute), the place where I work when I'm not at the high school.  It was really nice cause they put some welcome signs at my desks (yes, I have more than one) and a cute little sign in my locker.  There really isn't anything more welcoming than a welcome sign!  And in true Japanese style, they kept serving me coffee all day long.  At night, they had a welcome enkai for me at an izakaya near work.  I think the funniest part of the night is when my supervisor told me he watched Sex and the City on DVD.  But, he kept saying "Sex and the Pistols" because he was mixing it up with the old school band, the Sex Pistols.  Although, imagining any middle-aged and married business man watching Sex and the City cracks me up in itself.

On Sunday, I visited the Hokkaido University's Botanical Gardens in Sapporo, which is supposed to be a really beautiful place.  Unfortunately, I got there a few weeks too late cause most of the flowers and plants were already looking a bit... under the weather. 

flowers never go out of style

neither do the leaves changing colors

The highlight of the week was definitely Sunday night.  I read somewhere that the Suicide Machines were playing in Sapporo that night.  They're a punk / ska band from the states.  I saw them freshman year in Philly and I knew that they were fun live so I thought I'd go check them out.  Normally, I'd go with my partner-in-crime, Katy, but her best friend from the States was visiting so I ventured out there alone.

First off, the venue was awesome.  It was a really small place, which I love, cause you can get really close to the band and the setting just feels a lot more intimate.  The whole place has a whole DIY atmosphere and the guys & girls from the bands chill in the audience in between sets.  The opening bands were a lot of fun.  My favorite was this pop-punk band from Korea.  After their set, I started talking to the drummer of Suicide Machines, not knowing he was the drummer.  D'oh!  He was real cool about it though, and I ended up meeting all the guys in the band.  I talked this one dude, Dan (guitar / vocals), for a while.  It was actually really funny cause earlier in the night, I had seen him on my way to the show (not knowing who he was) and thought he was lost or something cause he had a map.  In a city full of Japanese people, you tend to gravitate towards other gaijin (foreigners), so I was gonna ask him if he needed directions.  But when I turned around, he was gone.  Well, it turns out he was just looking for a place to eat before the show.  When we were talking, he told me he recognized me from the street, which is actually kind of amazing / funny since I blend in so well. 

Anyway, their set was really fun and I got to jump around a lot (and I would say relieve some stress, but who am I kidding, my life is pretty stress free).  The dude had kept saying how he would see me after the show, but I met up with Dave instead and hung out in Sapporo for the rest of the night.

suicide machines & gumx (the korean band) in sapporo (backstage pic from their website)

Katy and I are now determined to chill with Rancid when they come to Sapporo in February.  That would definitely negate all my bitter feelings about bands only visiting Honshu (the main island) when they tour in Japan.  AHEM Yellowcard!