On another note...

On another note, I've been following another blog -- one that probably not enough people are reading, about an English teacher's experience in the heart of Bangkok, where probably not enough people understand the conflict and bloodshed that is happening right now.


Please check it out and give her your support: http://princessinaka.blogspot.com/

(untitled)

One year ago from today, I was finishing an agreed upon working period as a school photographer, and with no teaching job lined up, I agreed to work another month shooting retakes. The job was lots of fun, but it required that I wake up at 5am and that I also carry around heavy camera equipment. The pay wasn’t great either. I had finished a teaching degree a couple of months before, and with few actual teaching prospects in site, I was seriously considering teaching abroad. The deadline to apply for the JET Programme was still 2 months away, but if was going to put in a serious application, I had to show some commitment to my interest in going to Japan.

Today, I rode my bike for an hour – mostly uphill, to get to a special needs school that I will visit a total of 5 times this school year. The school is 3 years old, and a lot of money has been put into it to cater to the needs of its students. It also looks amazing.

First days at a new school are always exciting. Everybody is very polite and eager to meet me – especially the students. I think the teachers build a lot of hype around new ALT’s. I entered the first class to the loudest cheering and applause that 9 special needs students could possibly make (to clarify, the potential volume of these students is much higher than that of the students at my other high schools). The rest of the day was filled with more smiles all around than is typical for any school/work day. One student in particular, who stands about 3 and a half feet tall, measured himself up to me in order to draw attention to our height difference (I stand just over 6 feet). After making this quite obvious, he thought that when speaking to me, it would be quite funny to shout at the top of his lungs as if I was so far away that it would be hard for me to hear him. It was hilarious.

Today was a good day, gooder than most days – possibly the goodest day.

Being at a new school today makes me think about the first days when I arrived in Japan – and my first days at Iwaki Koko, when I knew maybe a word of Japanese. No particular comparison comes to mind at the moment. I think I just have an overall sense of nostalgia.

I have just about finished one sixth of my contract already.

Tomorrow I leave for Nagano to play in a soccer tournament for the weekend. I probably won’t get to post until Sunday night. In the meantime, if you’re new to this blog, or are feeling nostalgic yourself, you can check out some of my more favourable posts – as decided by me. Let me know what you think.

Iwaki Music

The Art of the Compliment

Cooking for One

The Dutchman

Fukushima-Maru

Shine: River Rave

Some like it Hot

Old Man on the Back Porch

Sounds from Japan (via the Internet)

Most of the content on this blog so far has been very visually oriented. With the multifaceted nature of the Internet these days, it is possible to explore other forms of media. That’s right, these days, I can actually communicate sound to you people from afar – although I must admit that I will only be linking sound clips and not actually generating them myself.

In the time that I’ve been in Japan, I’ve discovered that there is not only a difference in the way everything looks, but also in the way that everything sounds. For one, Japanese people do not talk as much in public as North Americans do. More specifically, they don’t generally shout either – unless they are hawking some sort of wares or broadcasting political messages. Another note on Japanese speech patterns: they all speak Japanese. Although public places are usually visually full of hustle and bustle, I find public places to be less auditorally (spellchecker didn’t like that one) intrusive. I could be a bit ill-informed in this regard as the city I am living in now is much smaller than my hometown Vancouver.

I should also clarify, that although the people in the streets are comparatively quieter, the noise inside electronic stores is significantly louder. Inside Kojima for example – one of Iwaki’s central electronic hubs, one cannot walk down an aisle without being barraged by multiple sound inputs. TV shows, Advertisements, music – it all blares at the same time. It is very Blade Runner-esque, or the Fifth Element if you’re into that sort of thing (I personally love the movie).

The real reason that I am writing this post however doesn’t have much to with the people of Japan; this is about cicadas [sɪˈkeɪdə]. Before coming to Japan, I had never heard, let alone heard-of this insect. When I first heard it, I thought that I was walking beside a construction site… inside a park, or that somebody was using an angle grinder – over, and over, and over again. You can hear a clip of this sound here: Cicada sounds.

It is pretty amazing the amount of sound that these insects can generate. Apparently the sound does not come from any sort of friction – as is the case with crickets. Instead, the sound comes from the ‘clicking’ of a rib-like membrane within the exoskeleton. This sound is then amplified within the cavernous insides of the creature – moreso in the males than the females. Females tend to have less of a cavern and are more meatier, which is why they have preference when eaten in certain parts of the world.

As one of the loudest of all insect-produced sounds, these insects can produce volumes of up to 120 dB at close range. Apparently they only make these sounds during the summer – and mostly during the heat of the day. I have some refuge from this noise at my apartment, although I’m not sure if this is because I’m not home during the day, or if it's because there are few trees around me. My school however, is surrounded by ravines and their constant buzzing is all that I can hear from my office.

When asked about this sound, a Japanese person will not know what you are talking about. “What noise?” they will respond. At which point, you will try to find every which way to emulate this sound: “RWAAH…RWAAH…RWAAH…” or “BZEEE… BZEEE…BZZEEE…” or “MNUGH.. MNUGH.. MNUGH…” Although, now I am starting to think that they do in fact know the sound that I’m asking about and that they would rather enjoy watching the silly Canadian make an ass of himself. Either way, they’ll just look at you with an inquisitive face while the cicadas laugh in my face. In case you missed the link above: Cicada sounds.

Sorry, but I haven’t managed to actually see one of these insects in order to take a photo of one. Instead, I have borrowed from a few sites. Check them out here:
http://kobekevin.blogspot.com/
http://www.canyouseethesunset.com/tag/blog/

I also got my info from wikipedia – I know, bad scholar. Although I’d rather have the experts on the internet do this research than the nut-jobs at Websters.