Winding Down

With my decision not to extend my teaching contract another year already a month past, I have recently been considering what my goals should be for my last 5 months in Japan.

I received word that I passed the third level of the JLPT a week or two ago, so that's one thing that I wanted to accomplish out of the way. I won't be around for the next testing time though, and the second level is pretty advanced. Level three's description is "the examinee has mastered grammar to a limited level, knows around 300 kanji and 1,500 words, has the ability to take part in everyday conversation and read and write simple sentences." It doesn't look very impressive now that I'm looking at it, but it did take a bit of work. The second level involves "1,000 kanji and 6,000 words" which is pretty beastly. There's an article here that discusses the possibility of the Japanese government using the JLPT as a factor in the granting of work visas. Not too shabby. Maybe I should turn my attention back to the US and start looking over the GMAT?

Many ALTs on their last stretch travel the country a bit, but I think I have that taken care of at the moment. I've dealt my to-see in japan list a fatal blow.

I'm still reading whenever I have time. At the moment I am reading Norwegian Wood, a novel by Haruki Murakami. I guess its a love story, but its one that I can really get into. I am also reading The Turn of the Screw, a spooky novel first published in 1898. Its age means that it has returned to the public domain, and I can read it for free online. Hurray old stuff! Both books are on the shelf at my Google Book Library, if you are interested. I suppose reading is more of a hobby than a goal, but it has the added benefit of keeping my reading level from getting rusty. Surely that will come in handy professionally.

I just don't want to waste the remainder of my time in Japan. Any suggestions?

My Big Test

I did nothing fun this weekend. I was holed up in my apartment, alternating between studying and pretending to study. I wrote enough of those little Japanese hieroglyphs to wallpaper a room. Sunday was my big test, the JLPT. The Japanese test. I woke up super early as I not only wanted to look over my notes but I needed to catch a train to the city of Kiryu, about 20 minutes away. Then a bus took me to Gunma University, the test site.

Even among that group of foreign test takers, there weren't too many non-Asians present. Our lunch break was pretty amusing. A hoard of non-Japanese descended on a 7-Eleven to partake in their microwaveable meals.

The test covers grammar, kanji, listening, and vocabulary with the classic fill-in-the-oval format. I am optimistic about the results.

9/4/08 Back in the Swing

Well I've been back in Japan for over a week now and I'm doing great. I think that my visit home has really recharged my soul.

I have been spending a bit of time getting to know the new batch of foreign English teachers: Ben from Australia, Zishan from the UK and Joe from somewhere between Springfield and Chicago. They seem like a good group of guys.

Having pretty much rocked Japan like a hurricane last year, my plan is to concentrate more on developing my Japanese language abilities in the coming months. I am going to take the 3rd level of the Japanese Language Proficiency Test in December, which serves as an excellent reason to study consistently (I passed the 4th level last December, hurray me!). "The examinee has mastered grammar to a limited level, knows around 300 kanji and 1,500 words, has the ability to take part in everyday conversation and read and write simple sentences," reads part of the description of the 3rd level test. I better get to work.

I got my laptop back yesterday, which makes me happy. Some serious blogging is coming shortly, with pictures! Bye!

12/5/07 Busy Busy

I have had so much going on lately. It's been super crazy. Last Thursday and Friday I attended an English teacher's conference in Utsunomiya. I really enjoyed it. We had a few speakers at the beginning, as well as several workshops in smaller groups. We all traded ideas about effective ways to teach and interact with the kids.

One of the main ideas expressed in several conversations involved connecting English with the outside world. Quite often what we teach in class is restricted to the contents of the textbook. We were encouraged to try to find ways to connect the English we are teaching to some interesting things that are happening in the outside world. This makes everything seem more relevant and worth learning. The whole conference really motivated me to think about how I am doing my job. Hopefully I can put some of those ideas into practice.

Last Sunday I took a Japanese test at Hakuo University in Oyama. The Japanese Language Proficiency Test is a standardized test that measures one's ability in reading, listening, and grammar. I took the lowest of the four levels, but I was still really surprised about how hard it was. I am not completely sure that I will even pass it. I won't get the results of the test back until February, apparently. An awful long time to run a paper of filled-in ovals through a machine, but whatever. If I pass I get a cool certificate and the supreme admiration of my peers.

Here's a clip from two weeks ago from a bar in nearby Sano. Its one song from a Japanese band that I particularly liked. Not only was the music good, but the lead singer had an awesome energy to him. He did lots of little dances that were super cool... only a couple of them are in this song. He wore a really nice suit, but he would strip a piece or two of it off every song until he was singing in his undies. Then at the end of the last song he mooned everyone. Unpleasant, but in a funny way. Enjoy. (Note: This is just one of the normal songs at the beginning. Moon-free.)





Oh, one last little thing. My favorite text message, maybe ever. So I talked a few posts ago about Nounours, a cool French guy that I met a few weeks ago. We were supposed to play poker last weekend. He replied with a pretty damn good excuse:

cant.got married today.hanging with the family.

Mind you, he is the one that suggested playing poker the week before... We all had a good laugh.