A Haiku or two...courtesy of Satan's cookbook

As many of you may or may not know, I am a bit of a cooking enthusiast. While I won't be appearing on Iron Chef any time soon, I'd like to think that I get by pretty well with my cuisines. It is natural, then, that one of the first sections I planned revolved around cooking. In particular, one lesson involved students translating Japanese recipes into English. This served two instrumental purposes. First, the students got some very good practice using cooking verbs and common nouns like oil, salt, sugar, pot...They were busy with dictionaries and simple English recipes that I had given them as models. Second, I got a free English translation of a Japanese cookbook! One oversight on my part, however, was not checking with my JTE (Japanese Teacher of English who team teaches all my classes with me) the recipes that they chose. Some students chose incredibly difficult and involved recipes, with actions I didn't even know were done in a kitchen. (What the hell is flambee?)

Some students, to my surprise and delight, did quite well. (I am giving them grades based on how tasty I thought the dish was) Others, however, turned in finished products that much more resembled esoteric poems than recipes. Here are three of my favorite poems.

I serve soup in the container which I cooled
and save the light blue that I made slicing

...

The potato barks and makes it light
Ginko limits and exposes itself to water
The onion barks and slices it thin
to fiber in the right angle direction

Melt butter in a pan and fry it
not to burn till I soften
I drain land
As well as I fly lightly

...

While is warm, write four in the mixer; re mud whole;
it is similar, and become it
With the small strainer of eyes, go carefully


Honestly, I have changed nothing but the spacing. They really used semi colons (there are no semicolons in Japanese) and "till" and "small strainer of eyes." Honestly, I think you could throw that last one in with a few Poe poems and no one would be the wiser.

True Dreams of Iwate San

I tried initially to write this post like a story; a first person epic, more precisely. Unfortunately, someone named Samuel has already done me the honor of putting my tale to words. I'm not one to retell a perfectly good telling, so, if you would like the story version, please see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_and_Goliath.

So many fun, tiring, scary, amazing, beautiful, hungry things happened over this weekend that covering them all, and especially in order, would simply be impossible. Instead I will regale you with pictures and words, out of order. You may attempt to reconstruct the sequence for yourself if you'd like, but why bother? I don't even remember any more. In any case, I don't think it matters. A small preface though, just to set the mood.

In one corner you have the formidable 岩手山, but you may call him Iwate San. 26 million years old, his name means "Mr. Stone Hands." (Not to be confused with a Mr. Eric Sullivan, who has too often gone by that name whenever he drops one of my perfect spirals in the endzone.) He is now a 7,000 foot volcano. In the other corner you have me, a twenty two year old, mildy athletic, altogether unprepared, wide eyed kid looking for a good weekend on a mountain. Armed with two rice balls, a bowl of instant ramen, tennis shoes, shorts, and a whole lot of enthusiasm, I tackled the beast. It was a fight to the death. Unfortunately I have already spoiled the ending, as I am writing this blog and not Mr. Stone Hands.

Chapter 1 - Up the Mountain

'It's good to own land...'

This is Amanda Mulligan. She is Irish. She told me that in England, Polish jokes are actually Irish jokes. She is also very afraid of bears. She said so on the bus to the mountain. I told her that if bears attack, what you need to do is go up to the biggest one and hit it in the face. But I can't remember if that's for bears or prison. At any rate, all 40 of us ALT's came to a consensus on the bus concerning bears. Here is what we came up with: 'fight brown bears, play dead with black bears, give up with polar bears because you are dead, and guard your pockets if you see a bear with a picnic basket because you can bet Boo Boo is nearby gunnin for your wallet.'

Amanda is doing the classic Captain Morgan pose.

Mine is better.

A note: As I was on my hands and knees grappling with the mountain face, sweating profusely, gaining one inch for every two that I lost, that little child who is behind me in the picture sauntered right on by. As I looked up at him he waved at me. Then a dog skipped by. I'd like to think that Mr. Stone Hands made it easy for them because they are Japanese. And also because if he didn't, I really need to hit the weight room.

Look Dad! A Mets fan! I found him here on this mountain living in seclusion. After Backman and Hernandez were retired in the bottom of the 10th of the '86 World Series, he said he was so fed up with the Mets that he didn't even wait to see the last out. He said he couldn't stand the thought of his Red Sox friends holding this over him for the rest of his life. So he turned his back on the Mets, on baseball, on America, on his old life, and on civilization in general, taking the next plane to Japan and living here on Iwate San for the past 20 years. 'But I showed them,' he said proudly. 'So how did Carter make out?' he finally asked me. Soon after, he got a little violent, and we were forced to continue without him.

Chapter 2 - The summit

This is the lodge of summit number 1, where we spend the night.

This is where we slept. All in all, there were about 40 ALT's and 60 to 70 Japanese folk sharing this cabin with us. We had fresh, delicious mountain water as well as one small stove to boil water with. The quarters were tight, and we were all right up against one another for the night. That was fine though, because it got really, really cold. I had four blankets and a jacket and I was shivering by morning time. Lights out was at 8 pm so that we could wake up at 4 am the next morning to hike another hour up to the viewing summit.

'What do you mean we have to wake up at 4?' said Ryan

'What do you mean its 4 am and we have to hike for another hour?!' said Korey.

'It's awful dark for a sunrise,' said Jen.

Almost there...




There it is. Please note that we are above the clouds. 5:42 in the morning never felt so good. The orange disk slowly rose above the horizon and suddenly exploded into yellow. The clouds were thick and low so we could not see any sign of the city below us. I felt like I was in a little bubble, alone with the sun.

Chapter 3 - Out of the frying pan and into the fire; descent

We went down a different path than we went up, on the opposite side of the mountain. The next few pictures are of the trail, whose name is 鬼が城, pronounced 'onigajyo,' or The Demon's Castle.

This side of the mountain was thus named because of its rough, forbidding appearance. The brutal crags, slippery slopes, thick sulfer smelling woods, and devastating winds deter all but the most hardy travellers. It has been challenged throughout the years only by the grittiest samurai, the most legendary heros, the craziest ninjas and...

kind old ladies.

Obligatory cheesy 'we did it' photo. We were genuinely happy, though. The five of us got separated and for two and a half hours had no idea whether or not we were going the right way. It was almost another five points for The Demon's Castle, but we did it.

Then everybody got naked and went to an onsen. No photos.

If you make a profound statement and no one is around to understand it, is it worth it?

After a layoff of a few weeks with my English Club, we got together again today after school. This time, the "real" teacher who heads the English Club was there too. He is the "real" teacher because he has access to the club's money and decides in general, what the club should do. He is also the "real" teacher because he hardly ever shows up and hardly ever tells us what to do. He is extremely nice and has invited me to climb Mount Fuji with him in November. As a side note, Mount Fuji has lost much of its clout amongst the other mountains. In fact, there are ramen shops all along the trail, and the smog and urbanization of Tokyo and the suburbanization of the surrouding areas has diminished its once fantastic views. I have this picture of me struggling with my pick-ax at 10,000 feet, face bloodied, body battered, clawing and scraping for every inch to the plateau. And when I finally get there, Ronald McDonald is waiting for me with a Happy Meal, as are the 10 children who climbed it faster than me.

Any way, back to the English club. Today, this teacher, Shunichii Sensei, told me that he would like the English Club to "challenge the TOEFL." TOEFL is the Test Of English as a Foreign Language. It is also no walk in the park. People who pass have a pretty good working knowledge of English, and they are expected to be able to comprehend slightly scholarly or technical articles. Basically, it is way harder than anything we teach at high school. I was immediately worried. In the span of three months, I have to try and get six girls who say things like, "What kind sports are you the play?" to be able to understand and answer questions about a paragraph on Sophacles.

After reading a couple books and looking at sample tests online, I decided that vocabulary is the component that we need to focus on the most. Many of the test questions revolve around understanding the meaning of words in context in a paragraph, and many of the other questions just ask for definitions straight away. Those kinds of factual questions mightily overpower analysis or reasoning questions. And that makes sense. This test just wants to see if a non-native speaker can understand what is being said. What they do with the facts is irrelevant.

I explained to them today our plan to attack vocabulary, which is 15 words per week, grouped according to similar words. For example, today we did "act." Then we did "action," "reaction," "react," "active," and another few I can't remember now. But, they all had "act" somewhere in them. In one of my first real teaching breakthroughs, I got them to understand that one can dissect English words just like one can dissect kanji. One can gain a general meaning of a word, or capture some insight, by knowing just one of the kanji of a string. For example,

自転車

The last character, by itself, means vehicle. And the first one means self. So, you can understand that the word has something to do with self vehicle. In fact it is a bicycle. A self powered vehicle. They understood my analogy, and I was ecstatic. So, 15 words a week turned into about 4 roots per week. I wasn't done there, though. I was feeling the teaching spirit, so I kept riding the metaphorical train.

"Memorizing words is not enough though! You must learn how to use them, and how to understand them. You must make them your own. That's why we need to read news articles and have discussions and write our own compositions. You need to become familiar with the English language. That's what it will take to pass the TOEFL. What do you mean you don't understand what I'm saying? [silence] Ok ok ok. Look at it like this. You have this pen. [Derek picks up pen] This pen is one word. No, wait. Ok, I got it. Let's say you have one hundred pens! [Derek spreads his arms wide] BUT! You don't know how to write. What good are your pens then, I ask? The pens are useless! [Derek throws pen down and small Japanese girls flinch] You can have red pens, and blue pens, and green pens, and purple pens, and orange pens...But if you don't know how to write, it doesn't matter how many colors you have! So, the pens are words. You can memorize all the words you want, but if you don't know how to use them to get your point across, they are useless. You must learn how to use your words just like you must learn how to use a pen for it to be any good. BUT! Its a two way street. In order to paint a great picture, you must have many colors. Understand?"

An odd silence followed, with puzzled faces around the room. Then, a look of realization spread across Rika's face. She got very excited and said to her fellow English club members, in Japanese, "He wants us to use different colors for our words. That way we'll remember them better!"

I learned, today, that one victory is enough for one day. Don't go for broke out of the gate or else you'll have nothing left to finish with. At least the flashcards will be colorful.

Here are some pictures that have nothing to do with what I wrote about. Enjoy.

Hanamaki Festival from a couple of weeks ago

A shrine thanking the Gods for a good harvest. I carried one for 3 hours. They are certainly heavy.

A mixture of co workers, ALTs, and people I met at a bar.

Mom, please do not worry. These beers were purchased solely for artistic exploration. (A few of these make any picture look good.) Dad, and fellow frat bros (E beth included), please do not worry. No beers were harmed in the making of this picture.
Jon, if you can zoom in, please notice what it says on the mug. "For a relaxing time..."