Life Lessons Learned from Tokubetsu Shien

I've learned some good life lessons while teaching. The most valuable lessons have been learned at Tokubetsu Shien, which is a special needs school. Every semester I get to visit Kasukabe Tokushi, and it always makes me appreciate being a teacher and being in Japan. The students are wonderful. They are all developmentally delayed. To qualify for this school, students' IQ must be lower than 50. As you can imagine, the lessons I teach and the content of the curriculum in general are quite simple. Students at this school learn the skills they need to survive in society. Many of the graduates learn skills that will allow them to get a job in various places. So it seems that these schools are extremely valuable.

So what have I learned? The most important thing is how you treat others. The students at this school don't bully each other. They aren't mean or cold-hearted towards anyone either. The students have varying abilities and awareness of their surroundings, but the students always take care of each other and support each other. That's how we should act. It's heart warming, and everyone could learn a lesson in caring from these students. 

Aside from restoring my faith in humanity and reminding me to be more caring towards others, the ability of these students to accomplish tasks like singing, dancing or interacting in English, is amazing. They and their teachers work so hard, so when I get to see the fruits of their labour, I'm genuinely amazed and touched. The students learn and practice because they genuinely want to learn and do their best. They are a great motivation for me to be a better teacher, friend and worker. They are so inspiring.

Last year, I went to watch the soccer team play in a tournament. Their team was lacking players and there were some players with physical disabilities. Despite their challenges, the better players never showed frustration and each of them gave their all, even though they were exhausted. I was so proud of them. These students have so many barriers in life, yet they just accept it and they keep going and doing their best. They try hard everyday and they treat each other and the people around them with genuine love and decency. It's just so ... I don't know... Wonderful. 

When I go back to my regular school and face normal students with normal abilities and chances in life, I'm sometimes dismayed by how they treat each other and how lazy they can be. Mostly it's the ill-treatment of others that gets to me. Don't get me wrong, my students are generally wonderful, and I don't witness much bad treatment of others, but I know it exists. Working with teenagers is great because you see them developing into young adults, but sometimes it's sad to see the ones who shut themselves off from the world or who are so self conscious they don't make eye contact. I feel for those students and I want to encourage and support them, but a lot of the time they refuse to make any connection. 

Being a teenager is pretty tough, and I think these days it is even harder with the added dimension of the internet and social networking. My special needs students mercifully don't have to deal with that element, and I think they're better for it. Their innocence and ability to take care of their peers is so special, I wish I could get my other students to go back to those innocent ways and basic rules for treating others.

Christmas has come once again

It's that time of year. The leaves have changed colour and fallen on the ground, leaving the bare bones of the trees behind. The wind has a crisp cool chill. The nights are nippy and the mornings biting. My bed has become more of a nest. And I could go on. One more: I have the urge to clean! That must mean one thing - Christmas! Of course, the obvious signs of Christmas are present as well: Christmas decorations, commercials and adverts, red cups at Starbucks AND 7/11 (7/11 sells coffee now, and they usually have white cups. However, they totally copied Starbucks and have introduced some holiday-themed red cups with snowflakes.), Christmas cake displays, KFC chicken advertisements, illuminations (AKA Christmas lights), Pizza-la delivery guys dressed as Santas, Christmas music, fresh strawberries are available in stores (Winter is the growing season. It's this way in Korea, too.), etc. Christmas truly is drawing near.

Today I took a day off, let's call it a mental health day, and I got all in the Christmas spirit. I baked Christmas cookies, I decorated, I put up Christmas lights, I watched Christmas movies, and I drank Christmas tea. It was a good spirit-lifting experience.

I should say, "I tried to bake Christmas cookies." They didn't really work. Why? I'm pretty sure I know why. Butter. Or rather, margarine. In Japan, every year around Christmas time, there happens to be a butter shortage. At this time it is difficult to find anything but margarine. I have lucked out and been able to get butter. However, the other day I thought I was buying butter, but it wasn't. I used this "butter", which came conveniently wrapped in two sticks, to bake sugar cookies. It didn't work too well. When I was trying to figure out what went wrong, I looked at the package and realized I had bought margarine instead :( There were warning signs. The "butter" was softer and easier to cut than it should have been, it was yellower than it should have been, it smelled more buttery than butter does... But I ignored all the signs and my gut, which pointed out to me that something was wrong. When you try and make sugar cookies with margarine, the shapes distort as they flatten out, making for some very unattractive cookies. In addition to using margarine, I used too much sugar... Oh well. They were still edible in the end, and people ate them up. Lessons learned.

It looks fine at this stage.

Still doing okay!

Eh? What happened? Margarine :(

After the baking mishap, I decided to decorate my apartment. I already have my advent calendar out, which is gorgeous, but I added to the decorations by putting up stickers on the walls, stringing some lights and putting out my Christmas tree (it isn't ready yet). 

I inherited the Christmas lights this year. They look so cheerful! 

My advent calendar!

Close-up for details. Every day there is a new decoration to hang on the tree. So fun!

Amidst the baking and decorating I managed to watch "the Bestest Present" and "The Santa Clause". I watched them while drinking my Christmas tea :) 

Mmmmm! Candy cane lane!

Also spotted in stores, are some special Christmas treats. Some will have to remain secret, but I'll show you a teaser ;)

Pepsi Pink!

Also, this past weekend I attended a bonenkai (忘年会), otherwise known as a "forget the year" party. They are akin to our Christmas or holiday office parties. This bonenkai was with my dance friends. It was a fun evening to just talk and drink and reflect a little on the year (some friends got married, some had babies, some got a girlfriend... Hahaha).

踊りマンの忘年会 Odoriman dance group's bonenkai

So, while it's getting cold, and Christmas is foreign here, I'm finding lots of warmth and a lot of Christmas cheer :) Can't wait to get the real thing though ;p

I have a microwave oven!

Over the summer I acquired a microwave oven from a friend who was moving away from Japan. Up until recently it was too warm to use it for baking. However, I've been a busy bee making baked goods, something I haven't done for awhile, and have never really done in Japan. 

Before getting the microwave oven, I just had a plain old microwave, so if couldn't bake. I think most foreigners living in Japan, the ones that can cook anyway, miss their home kitchens. Having a microwave oven truly increases quality of life. 

So far, I have cooked two delicious things with my oven. The first thing I ventured to make was persimmon gingerbread loaf. Unfortunately, I couldn't find ground cloves, so the taste wasn't perfect. It was pretty good though. 

Persimmon Gingerbread Loaf

Since I don't have a mixer or blender, I mixed everything by hand, I was worried it wouldn't turn out, but all was fine. I chose this recipe because I received a lot of persimmons from a local farmer I know. There were too many to simply eat, so I made something with them. 

This recipe was well-received and I will make it again, especially since I just received another large amount of persimmons. 

My second adventure in baking was actually cheating. I used a muffin mix I found online. The mix is a high fibre, low calorie, wheat free mix. The muffins are a little bland, but they were very easy to make. I'll be making them again, too.

Chocolate Oat Muffins

Because they were bland, I will level up (Japanese English...) with cinnamon and maybe some coconut. 

I'm really happy to be baking again. It's so fun. At first I was worried, because I wasn't sure what I made would be tasty, but my guinea pigs gobbled it up :)

In other news:

At the grocery store near my house, I found these very large pumpkins. They're just being thrown away... What a waste! I would have loved to steal them, but they were too big.

Red cups were in Starbucks shops all over Japan on November 1... This isn't my first and it won't be my last, but the barista drew me a cute picture of a polar bear! It made me smile.

Played futsal with other ALTs. It was a gong show, but fun, nevertheless. In our group, there are many different countries represented, we have such an international group!

On the express trains, they have catalogues full if crazy things to buy. One morning on my way to Onjuku, I found this lovely suit. I need this. So. Bad. It's like a sleeping bag with arms and legs!

After surfing in Onjuku, I found a beautiful butterfly.

This contraption is to keep your feet warm while sitting. I want this too. It was so soft!

The fields in Onjuku have all been harvested. Fall is here and winter is on its way.

Surfing

Recently I have been surfing a lot. Usually, in a good month, I get out 2 times, but in the last 7 weeks, I've been out a whopping 5 times!

Mostly I leave my surf board at the surf shop in Onjuku. However, because I wanted to go surfing with a friend elsewhere, I brought my board home. I was so nervous to take it on the train. I had visions of broken fins and lots of dents. Luckily it was fine.

One thing that bothered me was that people kept getting too close to my board. It seemed that they were trying to tempt me. The whole time in the train when people were too close I was stressed out. I was worried they would kick my board, or hit my fins, or fall on it. Luckily (for the crowders) nothing happened and no board protecting tactics had to be employed. 

The next time I went surfing, I had to bring my board back. I got quite a few stares from people stumbling out of bars and host clubs at 6 am in the morning while carrying my board. Taking my board on the train was fine, it was just sad because I couldn't sleep. So I was quite tired as I missed out on my naps on the train. But it was nothing a little red bull or monster couldn't fix.

While I dreaded bringing my board on the train, it turned out to be fine, however, the trains were not so crowded. I have a feeling in a crowded station or car, it would be awful. As it was, with the scarcity of people, I almost hit people with my board. I needed a signal to let people know they should clear the way because I was coming through. Hehehe. If my board were any longer, there would be lots of problems. At 7'2" it is the perfect size for train travel. 

My baby's first train ride. 

The beach. This is Katagai beach. It is north of where I usually surf. This day was before a typhoon, so the waves were HUGE. They were more than huge, the sets were all over the place and the frequency of the waves was high. We didn't surf here. 

This is Hebara. The beach next to Onjuku. It was also pretty much unsurfable with a long board. Paddling out was big trouble. The surfers that went out took a long time to paddle out and then they just hung out not catching waves because they were big, and because they probably didn't want to have to paddle out again.

This is Onjuku, Hama beach. We decided to surf here and it was fun but still very difficult. We couldn't paddle out far and there was a very strong current pushing is towards the middle beach (chuo beach). So that left us playing in the soup, as the Japanese call it. To westerners, soup is known as white water, where the waves have broken, and it's smaller and safer than further out. Unfortunately, or fortunately, there was a lifeguarding competition on chuo beach, so I had to keep exiting the water and walking back to where I first got in. At one point, some lifeguards that were competing in a kayak event lost their kayak. I had just finished surfing a wave and resurfacing, found that the kayak was upon me and lifeguards were running toward me. I was lucky because if there had been a strong wave slightly sooner it would have slammed the kayak right into me and my board. At least there were lots of potential rescuers.

This weekend I won't surf, but I probably will next weekend. I'm loving all the time in the water :)

Oct 4-5, Eastern Japan ALT Soccer Tournament

At the beginning of October, the Saitama JETs participated in a soccer tournament in Nagano. This is the same tournament as last year. We had two teams: a boys team, and a girls team. This year was a little different because I was in charge of organizing our teams this year. Those who know me, probably know that I'm not an organizer, or even organized, but due to my passion for the game and senior status (and for lack of any volunteers), I was asked to do it. Organizing is much different than simply paying your money and going, but in the end everything worked out, so I'm relieved. 

On Friday Oct. 3, most of the team headed up to Nagano on the Shinkansen. It's really fun to travel together on the Shinkansen. Everyone buys snacks and drinks and it's a relaxing time. The funny thing is, as a group if foreigners, we are either very annoying or very scary, as Japanese people move away (if they can) when we sit by them. It's called the foreign bubble. It even happens to foreigners travelling alone on the trains. For example, if I sit down on the train and there is a spot next to me open, usually no one will sit there, even if the entire train is crowded and people are standing. It's very strange and a little unnerving at times. Anyway, on the Friday night, the train to Nagano was quite full, so we stood at the end of the car together, so no Japanese felt compelled to move. However, I'm sure they were scared off going to the bathroom, because that's where we were standing. 

Once we arrived at Ueda station, we were picked up by the hotel shuttle and whisked away to the Hotel Yamabiko. Upon arrival, we went to our rooms, and as usual, we were given the same rooms as previous times. The girls' room is huge, so everyone usually congregates there. After settling in everyone went to have a soak in the Onsen. Onsen are separated by sex, so the girls have their own and the boys theirs. Where the girls have a nice, peaceful, relaxing soak, the boys do something quite different. The stories the boys told about their bonding experience in the Onsen were hilarious, almost enough to entertain the idea of being a fly on the wall. Almost.

After the Onsen, everyone came back to the girls room to talk, chill out, and in the case of the boys, discuss strategy for the games the next day.

The strategy for the boys team. He he. 

Chilling in the girls room.

The next day, we had a full schedule if games. Each team would play 4 games. Unfortunately the girls tournament only had 3 teams, so we played each team twice. The boys had 9 teams, so they had a more interesting albeit challenging tournament. 

The pitch at Sania Sports Park in Sugadaira, Nagano.

The girls had a good day, we won 2, tied 1, and lost 1. The boys had a good day, because they won a game! It was the last game of the day that the boys won 2-0. I also played in the game, because by that time, the boys were getting pretty tired with no subs. 

Playing with the boys. 

Day 1 girls team. 

After a full day of playing games, it was time to go back to the hotel, wash up, dip in the Onsen, eat and then party!

 Having drinks and snacks in the girls room. Private Saiborgs party.

Don't know what's going on here. Something funny.

Everyone had to be up early the next day as the games were starting earlier than usual due to the incoming typhoon. The weather was awful. It was windy and pouring rain. The girls only had one game, the championship game. Unfortunately, we lost, but the refs were ridiculous and we just gave up. People were tired, cold, wet and a little mad about the reffing. So in the end, we lost the game 1-0. We came 2nd place, again. However, we were okay because we got a trophy and chuhis (fruit cocktail drinks). 

They made me drink from the trophy on the bus.

The boys had to play two more games so I played with them as they were tired, wet and cold, just like the girls. We lost both games, but oh well. 

2014 Saitama Saiborgs

We made it back home before the full force of the typhoon. Once again, we took the Shinkansen. This time we were able to sit, resulting in dirty looks by other passengers (they eventually moved - the foreign bubble strikes again). It was a lot of fun, mostly I was relieved because everything went smoothly :)

Yatsugatake （八ヶ岳）Mountain Climbing Trip (August 13-15)

During Obon, my school's mountain climbing club was scheduled to go on a trip to Yatsugatake (8 peaks) in between Nagano and Yamanashi prefectures. It's a range of mountains that used to be volcanoes. Now, all the volcanoes in the range are extinct except for Mount Kitayoko (北横山). According to local legend, Yatsugatake used to be the highest mountain in Japan, higher even than Mt. Fuji. The goddess of Mt. Fuji was jealous of Yatsugatake, so she broke the mountain into pieces, forming the 8 peaks of Yatsugatake that are all lower than Mt. Fuji.

I was very excited to go on this trip, because this time we would be camping rather than staying in yamagoya, or huts. Camping seems more genuine. In preparation I had to buy a tent, a sleeping bag, a mat, and some other equipment necessary for camping. Somehow, I managed to stuff everything in my 33 L backpack. It was very full and very heavy...

Early in the morning of August 13, I left my apartment and headed to Shinjuku, to meet everyone on the platform. We took the "Super Azusa" train that travels between Matsumoto City in Nagano and Shinjuku. The train we took wasn't the bullet train, but it was a high speed train. It took about two hours to get to our destination. We left on the first day of Obon, a VERY busy travelling day, so we had to get to the platform to line up for the train super early. We all got on and got seats. I basically slept the whole way, and I missed the beautiful scenery. After arriving at Chino (茅野) station, we caught a bus that would take us to the trail start. Little did we know, we took the wrong bus! Oops! Luckily once we realized we were able to catch another bus that went to the trail head.

Once we got off the bus it was time to start walking. We walked for about 3 hours to get to our campsite for the night. On the way there were ponds and creeks. It was all very scenic (naturally!). Recently, Nagano prefecture has been getting lots of rain, so the trails were quite wet and filled with puddles or little streams. Luckily the weather was perfect, sunny and cloudy.

After about an hour (maybe?) we reached a pond. It was really neat because the shore was littered with lava rock. However, you could tell by looking at how worn down the rocks had become that the mountain's past as a volcano was a very long time ago.

There were dragonflies everywhere! After resting at the pond for a bit, we continued on our way to our eventual destination, Twin Ponds (双子池). 

This is one pond.

And this is the other pond! 

There was a mountain hut between the two ponds. Interestingly enough, there was no camping allowed in the hut area or near the second pond. I suppose the reason is so that the water stayed clean. The second pond's water was so clean that you could drink the water straight. And that's what we did. We filled up our water bottles in the second pond and hiked back to the first pond where we could set up camp.

We camped on the beach of the first pond. We had two tents plus my one man tent. In this picture, the students are cooking breakfast. They made pancakes.

This is the pond at around 5:30 in the morning. We woke up at 4:30 am, ate breakfast and packed up so we could be on the trails by 6:30 am.

During the night, it rained a bit and it was windy, but my little tent held up. I stayed dry and warm :) The second day started off sprinkling and being cloudy, but overall the weather seemed like it would be okay. Boy was that wrong. By the time we began our first ascent to a peak, it was misty, damp, and cold, with intermittent periods of rain. 

The sign post reads, Kitayokodake 2480 m.

We reached the first peak at about 9:30 am. The elevation of Kitayokodake is 2480 m, and on the exposed peak it was cold, wet and windy! The students were already tuckered out at this point. We had just climbed about 400 m in elevation. From here we descended about to a mountain hut, where it began to pour with rain. The rest of the day the weather was cloudy, misty, with periods of heavy rain. The trails turned into rivers and by the end of the day it was really quite slippery and dangerous. At all the observation points, you couldn't see anything, just mist. So the fun of reaching a peak was lost because there were no beautiful views. Everyone was soaked and freezing cold, not to mention tired. About 1 hour before our arrival at our camp for the night, our group split into two. The head teacher and 3 of the students were able to keep up a good pace. My group could not. I was kept at the back of the group with another teacher, and with us were two very slow students. They were dragging their feet so badly... A 30 minute trek turned into an hour or longer... It was very frustrating, but what can you do? When we finally reached the mountain hut and campsite, the other half of the group was waiting and eating ice cream they purchased from the hut. One of the slow girls was feeling ill, so at first we planned to stay in the hut with her. In the end, however, the man who was running the hut convinced us all to camp. It was still pouring with rain and I was afraid to set up my tent because I had no ground sheet. So I bunked in one of the group tents instead of risking a wet and cold night. 

Once the tents were set up, I was able to change out of my wet clothes and I finally warmed up. Then it was time for dinner. The two slow students had fallen asleep, so the remaining three students cooked up spaghetti for everyone. We talked about whether we would be able to continue the next day, as the two sleeping students were having a very hard time. Also, the weather was supposed to be worse the next day. After dinner, the two slow girls woke up and one of them declared she could not go on the next day. So the trip was cut short by two days. I was pretty disappointed, but oh well. I think all the students were very pleased, because they were all very tired and sore. 

The students packing up in the morning.

The sky from our campsite. I was trying to capture some rare glimpses of blue sky. Our campsite was at Shirouma Ike (White Horse Pond; 白馬池）

Our bags all packed and ready to go. Mine`s the purple and grey one.

At night, it finally stopped raining. We went to bed pretty early, about 7:30 or 8 pm. During the night the wind picked up. It howled like crazy! The gusts were so strong I could feel the tent lifting beneath me. I had a very uncomfortable sleep, but it didn`t matter because we were leaving the next morning. Instead of continuing on, we had a short walk (about 50 minutes) to the bus stop. And so ended the trip. I plan to go back and see the peaks I didn`t get to see. 

In the morning it was cold; I wore pants, two shirts, a fleece and my rain jacket and I was still cold. When I returned to Kasukabe... It was SOOOOO hot! My poor body had a bit of a temperature shock!