A Day in the Life

Aside from teaching English, part of my job as an Assistant Language Teacher (ALT) is to represent my country and to share its culture. I spend a lot of time in and out of the classroom preparing and implementing lessons that aim to enhance the students’ English abilities and enthusiasms, while also encouraging them to consider different ways of life in countries such as Canada. The students only make up part of my audience however, as teachers are often eager to practice English and learn about Canada. Hence, a significant amount of my work happens outside of the classroom where I speak with students and teachers about where I come from. These conversations will vary from topics about the proper use of the word “same” (have you ever noticed that, despite being an adjective, it is near impossible to use the word ‘same’ without the article “the” preceding it? Try explaining that as a professional native speaker of the English language); the prevalence of Japanese food in Vancouver, why people in Quebec speak French; what a Maritime accent sounds like; controversies in Alberta oil extraction methods; how long it takes to drive from Vancouver to Seattle, Alaska, Calgary, and Toronto; education in Canada; barbecues; and North American pizza (how I miss it). The other side of this is that I am also expected to learn about Japanese culture to take with me when I leave – hence this blog.

Today, one of the main teachers that I work with was away supervising a school tournament, so I wasn’t expected to teach some classes that I usually teach at Keisei koko. I ended up picking up another class in the afternoon, but my morning was pretty much free. Another teacher picked up on this, had heard that I play a little guitar, and invited me to his office for some cultural exchange.

His English is not as good as most of the English teachers that I am more accustomed to speaking with, but it was a bit refreshing to have to strain my Japanese abilities in order to communicate. The man is a Physical Education teacher, but he has also been playing guitar for 20 years. He also plays ukulele and paints in his spare time. In fact, he is in the midst of recreating a portion of Botticelli’s Birth of Venus for the school’s cultural festival.

We ended up spending the first two periods of the day swapping his guitar back and forth between us – me playing my standard, and growing ever-sloppier, “Blackbird,” “Babe I’m Gonna Leave You,” and a bit of “Fade to Black,” him performing some great acoustic renditions of “Yesterday,” “A Day in the Life,” “Let it Be,” and some Japanese tunes. Like many Japanese people, he’s a big fan of the Beatles (in fact, when I was buying some soccer boots the other day, I asked the salesman how he learned English so well – his response: he likes listening to the Beatles). He also played a few songs on his Ukulele while I played accompanying chords on the guitar. One song we played was about a flower – although I’m not sure what kind.

When we parted, he gave me a copy of “Yesterday” to practice at home and I left him a small Canadian pin as a thank-you. The photo above is of the sheet music he gave me. I realize that in the spirit of the song, maybe I should have written this post tomorrow – but we all must make compromises. The other is a photo I uploaded from my phone (for the first time). I think that I took this photo while he was playing “A Day in the Life.”

Yamaha, Iwaki

I should probably be writing about my apartment and showing you people images of where I live and such, but it is 2am and I’m dead tired and I bought a guitar today. How could I not write about my new guitar instead? Also, my apartment is still a mess. I’ve got the kitchen organized and sorted out my closet, but in my living/dining area, I’ve amassed an incredible amount of documents, books, pamphlets, receipts, bags, notes, and who knows what else. Tomorrow I’ll be able to get this cleaned up.

I think that I’ve been spending quite a bit of money in the week that I’ve been here. I’ve bought a bunch of kitchen stuff for my apartment, a new hard drive to back up my photos, a cable to hook my laptop up to my TV. The social events can be a bit costly as well, but I think it’s important for me to build a network of people in Iwaki – although I didn’t seem to have to worry about money last night (it being my birthday and all)… more on this another time.

I went to a new part of town today in search of a cable for my computer. Just a quick note here: I managed to get directions to the electronics store and ask the name of it all in Japanese. Whilst in this area, I saw the name of a second-hand store that another JET was talking about the other day. The place is called “Hard Off” – not sure what the translation is supposed to be here, but the place sells everything from dishes, clothes, furniture, electronics, and even musical instruments. The electronic section is pretty amazing as the shelves are lined with old speakers, dvd players, old Nintendo game systems (game cubes were stacked a half dozen high and took up a whole shelf – each costing only $10). It was in this section that I found this old Yamaha nylon string guitar. It was missing a string, some of the wood is scuffed up quite a bit, and the strings were all out of tune. After tuning it best I could – the tuning knobs are pretty stiff and it’s a bit hard tuning a guitar that is missing the 4th string, it really came together. I figured out that “Blackbird” can be played almost in its entirety without the 4th string. Anyway, the guitar actually sounds pretty good and it was only 4000 yen – which is about $40 US. It definitely needs new strings but it reminds me a lot of my Fender at home.

Getting it home was a bit interesting on my bike. I managed to secure it pretty good between my back and my backpack for the ride home. Needless to say, when I got home, I was occupied up until dinner time and managed to show up quite late for some evening plans at the Iwaki Festival going on downtown. I still managed to catch the end of the Odori, which is the main feature of the night… more on this another time.

These are photos of my new guitar in its new digs beside the window.