Merry Christmas...School is over

Sadly, I forgot to take a photo of Ayano with the hand-painted Christmas card she made on Wednesday. It was a fabulous design (and mostly my own work - I think her mother was grateful, the child has a strange attraction to dark and clashing colours), with a green tree outline blotted in with poster paint, pink and silver tinsel draped around it and metallic pink stars cluttering the few spaces left. I do hope it has made amends for the brown and orange clown she had to pin up in her house not too long ago. Ayano had a fabulous lesson playing with the tea set and attacking each other with finger puppets (no English was necessary during this game, but we are supposed to encourage `free play`). She is remarkably aggressive for such a small, sweet-looking child. When attempting to teach her introductions, I got out the hand puppets, but she missed the point and used the dragon to slay my bumble bee.

It`s generally been a fun week. Having made a bit of an effort to fun up Takashi-san`s lesson, I used the Beatles gapfill I had prepared for his gerund lesson (if anyone knows what they are, please tell me) on Masayo. After checking her answers, we sang along for a couple of choruses and then did the same with Jingle Bells. My course tutors would be proud of me. Between lessons I tried to learn some katakana, but it`s still not going in. I also couldn`t remember the word for lunchbreak, so wrote this out in katakana repeatedly to no avail. Should someone find my scrap paper, I will seem like a food-obsessed mentalist. Not so far from the truth...

Thursday I was feeling very sorry for myself. Wednesday night I celebrated the return of my appetite with an all-too-hastily prepared feast, including an under-cooked gyoza (Chinese dumpling) which disagreed with me - although quite politely. In my weakened state, and having spoken to Charlie and Mum the night before, I suddenly felt an attack of homesickness. It is weird how my little brother`s constant quest for girls would be the thing to bring it on, though the festivities do not help. I can picture Mum`s over-filled living room and taste the bread sauce as we all peer over each other to try to watch a special Eastenders episode (is that still rubbish? Does anyone watch it now?)! Danny got married on Thursday (congratulations!) and I really wished I could have been there to see everyone. Hearing someone`s voice on the telephone is not always enough. Fortunately, tonight I am off to see Rachel, which makes it all so much easier. It is difficult to adjust to having had so many very good friends to having no one that I am close to here. If she wasn`t in the same country, I would be finding it all much more difficult.
I`ve had a small blow at work too - it may get bigger, but we will see. Martyn, who I teach with on Mondays at the ghost town of Shin-Shiraoka, is leaving Shane. It seems to be under a cloud and is all very sudden and mysterious. I really like him. He used to lecture on graphic design at Central St. Martin`s and is an intelligent, sensible and interesting person. Some teachers can be such utter losers, that it is a worry who will replace him. I like the Sex Offenders successor well enough, but Martyn was an actual friend. I do hope I don`t end up with some wonky Charisma Man or an arrogant monster who sneers at the newbies (some of the mid-term teachers don`t feel they `need` to mix with new teachers, although probably accepted the hospitality of those who went before them well enough - I think it is partly this attitude that has led Martyn to feel Shane is not for him).

I quickly got over my woes when my first class started (it is very difficult to be miserable in this job, although if I am lucky with my schedule and my students). My afternoon class sat down and told me we wouldn`t be doing any work, then opened their bags and pulled out an array of cakes and Christmas cards. I had been feeling a little queasy still, but soldiered on at the sight of chocolate buns. One of the students, Yukiko-san, keeps a diary which I mark and to thank me for my efforts she gave me a handsewn Christmas tree! It is my first and only Christmas decoration and is proudly sat on top of my TV (the only way any presents can fit under it). It`s quite an awful thing really, but very sweet and something I can see myself stumbling across in years to come and prompting all manner of memories. However, my memory of Yukiko-san may be marred slightly by her persistant homophobia. A couple of weeks ago she made a small and random comment regarding Elton John`s (pending?) marriage, which I had to ignore as another student was saying something far more pertinent to the lesson. Again she brought this up as a response to my news that Danny was about to get married, which seemed fairly rude in Japanese terms, and quite a bizarre tangent. We then got into a small, confused tussle over whether he was marrying George Michael or being married by George Michael, before Yukiko-san gathered the English together to tell me that George is actually marrying Kenny, his long-term partner and that this is bad and wrong and awful. Apparently, George was `cool` when he was in Wham and sang `Last Christmas`, but `now` he is gay, he is not. She also brought this up in her diary, so I questioned whether it was wrong if he was happy and pointed out that his being gay is hardly news in England. I also asked whether many celebrities in Japan are gay as there are a few back home, which may unnerve her a little. They are all a little Daily Mailian, but I hope to have upgraded them to Mirror readers by the end of my time here.

The childrens` classes were brilliant (except for Ryoya who is an over-sized, but intellectually stunted private student who snorts and bores his way through his 30 minute lesson). We played games, did colouring in, made Christmas cards, the lot. I took in Christmas tree shaped marshmallows for them, which won me a Brownie badge, I reckon. Japanese children are so strange. In each class, when I filled the bowl, they looked scared and confused and I had to repeatedly tell them it was OK to eat them, which provoked embarrassed and excited giggles. Then, I had to tell them they were allowed another and they were stunned. In one class, I had said they should have one - meaning the first time, then when I offered another, they argued and said they`d all had one. Only one student, the mischievous Kazumasu, attempted to dip into the bowl when I wasn`t looking. I was so impressed with his initiative, I couldn`t bring myself to scold him.

With the older class, I stole the chopstick and kidney bean game idea from my Japanese class and had them shift risotto rice grains from a dish to a cup. As There was an odd number in one team, I stood in (thinking I would be rubbish and they wouldn`t trounce the other team so viciously). How excited were they that teacher was going to play?! I didn`t do too badly and forgot to graciously lose to the child - although as he`s a native chopstick user I felt I was the one with the handicap. I was very proud of my 71 grains and the other team were too busy laughing at the loser who couldn`t beat the English woman to feel devastated at their defeat.

Last night there was a bit of a Shane do in the George (yawn - my New Year`s resolution is to go there less) . It was good to see a lot of the teachers out and I may have picked up a private student. A salaryman I got chatting to offered to be my sponsor and told me not to worry about paying for drinks or having to do anything in return, so I didn`t. George thinks he`s gay and I think I agree. He is quite old and unmarried, which isn`t unheard of, but is quite uncommon. Then a more dashing and slightly younger man came to join him. I introduced myself and was told he was a flower arranger. He was quite bashful and corrected Takayuki-san and said he was a dental technician, but arranges flowers as a hobby. I got to see a photo of an arrangement on his phone, they were spectular. He has completely mastered his `hobby`. Later, when my sponsor`s generosity had got the better of me, I got them dancing (Japanese men can`t dance, so it`s always worth a laugh) and they confirmed mine and George`s suspicions by knowing lyrics to `Last Christmas` I didn`t even know existed. What would Yukiko-san think?

It doesn`t feel massively Christmasy yet, although earlier today, I packed my case to go to Rachel`s and filling it with lots of presents I am only going to have to bring back with me does have a festive pointlessness to it. I also pulled a cracker with Karen and wore a paper hat for all of two seconds - that I was hung over and in my pyjamas while I did it gave it a certain authenticity. Perhaps it`s not being coerced into `Hum Bug` and being subsequently ridiculed by my family for humming that makes it feel so alien...

I have had some questions from Tom, so thought I would share the answers with everyone in case you were thinking the same.

1) What is an 'izakaya'?
It is a fantastic restaurant that Japanese food, but in a tapas style - you just get millions of little dishes of things and order a few bits, then fancy more, so order more, then maybe get even more. People generally go to them at the weekends to drink. In some you can just drink, but generally you have to order some food. You can make food the main part of the trip if you like, that`s more of a week-night! It`s a very popular social outing - you eat some food and order a mass of drink, then head to karaoke. Not that I often do this - I go to the gaijin bar, as I can bully men into buying my drinks.

2) Why do some names finish with an extra '-san'?
You should do this after all Japanese names, but I often forget with my students as I have to speak to them like they are English. It is both Mr and Mrs all at once and also can be used on first names. It`s a sign of respect, but you say it everyone. Chan- is for kids.

3) What does DoS stand for?
Director of Studies. Sorry, teaching acronyms have been a bad habit since I joined the TTA...

4) Does Shane stand for anything in particular or> was the company just set up by an Australian?
A British man named Shane set up the company and loved his name so much he gave it to the company too. The fool.

By the way, if anyone else thinks, like Tom, that I have mastered Japanese very quickly. You are wrong. The Japanese I use in my blog is the same as the Japanese I use in Japan: mispronounced, out of context and in the midst of a jet of English.