Bad Luck!
Or, "Two Bike Wheels and a Harddrive" (sung to the tune of "Two Turntables and a Microphone").
Talk about an interesting start to the week....
My First Day at Harinan
Yesterday was my first full (real) day at the new school. As you know, I barely made it on time for the morning meeting last week when I didn't realize my bike was out-of-service (until I went downstairs to use it!) and had to run to school. It got there just in time to do my formal introduction (to the full staff, in Japanese, within minutes of walking in , sweat dripping down my face), BUT I got through it. And the day went fine. I just didn't want to repeat the same mistakes that happened that morning.
Given that situation, then, it was pretty ironic that almost the same exact thing happened the next week (flat tire on my other bike!), yesterday morning. Luckily, I had left a lot earlier this time, wanting to ensure there was no way I'd be late (and good thing I did).
I still haven't gotten my regular bike fixed (partially out of stubborness. I just replaced the back wheel and now that the front wheel is popped, I am having trouble finding the will to pay the equivelent of the price of a new bike to replace both wheels on a bike I paid a bit for less than two years ago), but I'll have to sit down and try to do it myself soon now that I have two broken bikes and a locked one with no key :-(
The Harddrive
I was still able to make it to school sort of early, so I figured I would just deal with the bike tire problem later and focus on the day first. I had four classes, essentially all in a row, but my first period was free for planning, so I decided to go over my Powerpoint again just to review and make sure I felt prepared.
So I go over to one of the empty computers, plug in my external harddrive... and nothing happens. I have never had issues with the harddrive before, it works on both Macs and PCs and even if I can't actually see the drive appear on the desktop, I know it's responding because the blue light comes on. But this time... nothing.
I check a few other computers and then pull some coworkers in who help me find another cord to connect it with, but the harddrive is not turning on.
At this point, I am aware that the harddrive is having a problem and am trying to ignore the fact that ALL of the information from my old computer, including all of my music (25G) and ALL OF MY PICTURES FROM THE LAST SEVERAL YEARS (only about, oh, 6,000 shots from Japan, travel, relationships with people I don't live by anymore, love & miss...) were on that drive, and focus on the fact that I now have nothing planned for a day full of classes with these new people.
I called up a teacher at my regular school who didn't have class, had her turn on & sign onto my personal laptop, created a Gmail account for her that we could both access and talked her through emailing the Powerpoint to me from the folder on my computer. For some reason (other than file size restrictions), however, the Ppt wouldn't send. We tried to use Gmail Documents instead (I uploaded an even larger Ppt file I had in my Hotmail inbox to another Gmail account to make sure it worked), but after 30 minutes, the teacher still couldn't get it to send. The email wasn't in the "sent" or "drafts" box when I had the teacher sign out of the new account and I tried to sign in, either. Thankfully, I was so focused on getting this thing to work and went into work-warrior mode insteading of panicking, using the drive to come up with something new do to with 200 kids (ok, over four classes) in the last 10 minutes before I had to leave the staffroom for class. There wasn't really anything the other foreigner could do to help me, either, but I was really grateful for his calm demeaner. I think I could have lost it (at least over the pictures) had it been different.
So, anyways, I spent the last 10 minutes going through my available resources. I found a small US map in one of the desks and decided to turn a warm-up worksheet I had brought with me into an hour-long game. I know my current students would have found this activity completely boring, but because I was new and my new students were still curious about me, I was able to effectively turn this hour into a narcisist's dream: talking about myself for 50 minutes (four times over).
The game (cleverly titled "Snowball Fight in September" by a friend who loaned me the idea) went like this. I had each kid write their name and two questions for me on this questionaire. Then we all crinkled the papers into little snowballs and threw them at each other for a few seconds. Then each kid would pick up a new peice of paper, introduce the person who's questions they were asking and have me answer their questions. The person who wrote that sheet would go next.
Wow. Anyways, it went well but I am glad it's over. I can handle powerpoints with pictures and talking about America, but I really hope nobody has to listen to me basically talk about myself for that long again. I definitely got the typical "do you have a boyfriend?", favorite food and age questions a few times over, but I also decided to take a different approach with these kids than I would with my normal school. A lot of it has to do with the fact that they have visual access to areas of my private life that my other kids don't because the school is so close to my house: they see my at the train station, even when I'm coming back from a night out, they'll see where I shop, when i shop, when I run & - maybe worst of all - whomever I shop/walk/hangout with. So avoiding the details would just be denial... but I still think there is a professional line there... so I left some of it a mystery ;)
The New School
After that day, it was nice to have a fun Engish Club meeting with shaved ice & music. I went running at night and felt better, too, and the good news is that my friend Goran, humble in his own right but truly a genius, can probably (dear God, hopefully) fix the harddrive.
There are some big differences between my new high school and the one I have been working at (and still do 4 days a week), mostly pertaining to more relaxed rules and the student culture, but I was suprised to discover that even some aspects of the staff culture, especially the morning meeting, were different.
First of all, everyone stands up when it's time to start the morning meeting. My desk is not in a specific "gakunen" (grade-specific area), so there is no follow-up, smaller meeting after the larger meeting. I also usually listen to both meetings and am sort of expected to at my other school (some of the announcements pertain to me... even if most don't... and it's good Japanese practice), but now I have a foreign coworker sitting next to me, so we can just do our own thing or pretty much talk once the standing up is over. The involvement is different.
As far as the student culture is concerned, I have heard multiple times (from several sources both at my school and elsewhere), that my regular high school has a reputation for being the "most strict in the prefecture" (even with other highly-regarded schools like Akashi Josai High School). Twenty years ago, our students all had the same haircut, so maybe I could see that being the case then, but I didn't necessarily believe that the same was true of our school environment and rules today. Then I went to Harima Minami for the first time last week.
The visit jolted my perception of schools and students in Japan. They're the same people, but the kids at Harima Minami seem much more free, almost like American students. They just seem so much less restricted to show their personality, even on such basic levels as getting to do almost anything they want with their hair (at Takasago Minami, girls have to make sure no hair is touching their back during assemblies -extra hairbands are on hand in case!) and being able to adjust their clothing a bit, like rolling up their skirts so they go above the knee. It's the sort of thing I get glimpses of when I hang out with students outside of class (in club, in the hall or when I run into them outside of school)... more personality. There are also a number of students in my classes that have lived abroad (in Engish-speaking countries!) for a year and even two years. I met a girl yesterday who lived in Wisconsin, for heaven's sake!
I don't know the new school well yet, but I like the students and am curious to learn more. If these are just surface observations, i can only imagine what is yet to come.
Tuesday AGAIN and the Tiger's Game
This post is long so I'll keep it short, but I don't know how much more of this bad luck I can take... or what I did to deserve it. I was 30 minutes late to my first class today when my train was over 40 minutes late (I got a note from the station, but I was hoping to be early).
Tonight is a Hanshin Tiger's baseball game at Koshien Stadium (vs. the Swallows) with a bunch of friends, though, and I am really looking forward to it. Our friend Sagar got a bunch of tickets and it's someone's birthday, so I am going to meet my friend Ann and head out straight from work. These games are really as much about hanging out with friends and being in the crowd as watching the game (have my Tiger-shaped hat and little, plastic bats ready!)... let's hope they can bring me some luck with the win :-p
Talk about an interesting start to the week....
My First Day at Harinan
Yesterday was my first full (real) day at the new school. As you know, I barely made it on time for the morning meeting last week when I didn't realize my bike was out-of-service (until I went downstairs to use it!) and had to run to school. It got there just in time to do my formal introduction (to the full staff, in Japanese, within minutes of walking in , sweat dripping down my face), BUT I got through it. And the day went fine. I just didn't want to repeat the same mistakes that happened that morning.
Given that situation, then, it was pretty ironic that almost the same exact thing happened the next week (flat tire on my other bike!), yesterday morning. Luckily, I had left a lot earlier this time, wanting to ensure there was no way I'd be late (and good thing I did).
I still haven't gotten my regular bike fixed (partially out of stubborness. I just replaced the back wheel and now that the front wheel is popped, I am having trouble finding the will to pay the equivelent of the price of a new bike to replace both wheels on a bike I paid a bit for less than two years ago), but I'll have to sit down and try to do it myself soon now that I have two broken bikes and a locked one with no key :-(
The Harddrive
I was still able to make it to school sort of early, so I figured I would just deal with the bike tire problem later and focus on the day first. I had four classes, essentially all in a row, but my first period was free for planning, so I decided to go over my Powerpoint again just to review and make sure I felt prepared.
So I go over to one of the empty computers, plug in my external harddrive... and nothing happens. I have never had issues with the harddrive before, it works on both Macs and PCs and even if I can't actually see the drive appear on the desktop, I know it's responding because the blue light comes on. But this time... nothing.
I check a few other computers and then pull some coworkers in who help me find another cord to connect it with, but the harddrive is not turning on.
At this point, I am aware that the harddrive is having a problem and am trying to ignore the fact that ALL of the information from my old computer, including all of my music (25G) and ALL OF MY PICTURES FROM THE LAST SEVERAL YEARS (only about, oh, 6,000 shots from Japan, travel, relationships with people I don't live by anymore, love & miss...) were on that drive, and focus on the fact that I now have nothing planned for a day full of classes with these new people.
I called up a teacher at my regular school who didn't have class, had her turn on & sign onto my personal laptop, created a Gmail account for her that we could both access and talked her through emailing the Powerpoint to me from the folder on my computer. For some reason (other than file size restrictions), however, the Ppt wouldn't send. We tried to use Gmail Documents instead (I uploaded an even larger Ppt file I had in my Hotmail inbox to another Gmail account to make sure it worked), but after 30 minutes, the teacher still couldn't get it to send. The email wasn't in the "sent" or "drafts" box when I had the teacher sign out of the new account and I tried to sign in, either. Thankfully, I was so focused on getting this thing to work and went into work-warrior mode insteading of panicking, using the drive to come up with something new do to with 200 kids (ok, over four classes) in the last 10 minutes before I had to leave the staffroom for class. There wasn't really anything the other foreigner could do to help me, either, but I was really grateful for his calm demeaner. I think I could have lost it (at least over the pictures) had it been different.
So, anyways, I spent the last 10 minutes going through my available resources. I found a small US map in one of the desks and decided to turn a warm-up worksheet I had brought with me into an hour-long game. I know my current students would have found this activity completely boring, but because I was new and my new students were still curious about me, I was able to effectively turn this hour into a narcisist's dream: talking about myself for 50 minutes (four times over).
The game (cleverly titled "Snowball Fight in September" by a friend who loaned me the idea) went like this. I had each kid write their name and two questions for me on this questionaire. Then we all crinkled the papers into little snowballs and threw them at each other for a few seconds. Then each kid would pick up a new peice of paper, introduce the person who's questions they were asking and have me answer their questions. The person who wrote that sheet would go next.
Wow. Anyways, it went well but I am glad it's over. I can handle powerpoints with pictures and talking about America, but I really hope nobody has to listen to me basically talk about myself for that long again. I definitely got the typical "do you have a boyfriend?", favorite food and age questions a few times over, but I also decided to take a different approach with these kids than I would with my normal school. A lot of it has to do with the fact that they have visual access to areas of my private life that my other kids don't because the school is so close to my house: they see my at the train station, even when I'm coming back from a night out, they'll see where I shop, when i shop, when I run & - maybe worst of all - whomever I shop/walk/hangout with. So avoiding the details would just be denial... but I still think there is a professional line there... so I left some of it a mystery ;)
The New School
After that day, it was nice to have a fun Engish Club meeting with shaved ice & music. I went running at night and felt better, too, and the good news is that my friend Goran, humble in his own right but truly a genius, can probably (dear God, hopefully) fix the harddrive.
There are some big differences between my new high school and the one I have been working at (and still do 4 days a week), mostly pertaining to more relaxed rules and the student culture, but I was suprised to discover that even some aspects of the staff culture, especially the morning meeting, were different.
First of all, everyone stands up when it's time to start the morning meeting. My desk is not in a specific "gakunen" (grade-specific area), so there is no follow-up, smaller meeting after the larger meeting. I also usually listen to both meetings and am sort of expected to at my other school (some of the announcements pertain to me... even if most don't... and it's good Japanese practice), but now I have a foreign coworker sitting next to me, so we can just do our own thing or pretty much talk once the standing up is over. The involvement is different.
As far as the student culture is concerned, I have heard multiple times (from several sources both at my school and elsewhere), that my regular high school has a reputation for being the "most strict in the prefecture" (even with other highly-regarded schools like Akashi Josai High School). Twenty years ago, our students all had the same haircut, so maybe I could see that being the case then, but I didn't necessarily believe that the same was true of our school environment and rules today. Then I went to Harima Minami for the first time last week.
The visit jolted my perception of schools and students in Japan. They're the same people, but the kids at Harima Minami seem much more free, almost like American students. They just seem so much less restricted to show their personality, even on such basic levels as getting to do almost anything they want with their hair (at Takasago Minami, girls have to make sure no hair is touching their back during assemblies -extra hairbands are on hand in case!) and being able to adjust their clothing a bit, like rolling up their skirts so they go above the knee. It's the sort of thing I get glimpses of when I hang out with students outside of class (in club, in the hall or when I run into them outside of school)... more personality. There are also a number of students in my classes that have lived abroad (in Engish-speaking countries!) for a year and even two years. I met a girl yesterday who lived in Wisconsin, for heaven's sake!
I don't know the new school well yet, but I like the students and am curious to learn more. If these are just surface observations, i can only imagine what is yet to come.
Tuesday AGAIN and the Tiger's Game
This post is long so I'll keep it short, but I don't know how much more of this bad luck I can take... or what I did to deserve it. I was 30 minutes late to my first class today when my train was over 40 minutes late (I got a note from the station, but I was hoping to be early).
Tonight is a Hanshin Tiger's baseball game at Koshien Stadium (vs. the Swallows) with a bunch of friends, though, and I am really looking forward to it. Our friend Sagar got a bunch of tickets and it's someone's birthday, so I am going to meet my friend Ann and head out straight from work. These games are really as much about hanging out with friends and being in the crowd as watching the game (have my Tiger-shaped hat and little, plastic bats ready!)... let's hope they can bring me some luck with the win :-p
posted by Brenda Ann Elizabeth McKinney @ 4:06 PM
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