Latest entry on the list of stupid things i've done: sign myself up for a japanese speech contest. ok, it's not really stupid, because the experience will help in my japanese learning, plus it will hopefully give the kids a positive example - you know, facing your fears, trying new things and all that. but no denying that it's giving myself extra work and stress - not necessarily a bad thing, since i've been bored to tears after only 3 days of deskwarming! let's see...in 3 days, i: wrote a (short) speech; practised it at least 10 times; went to kaypoh on my secondary school kids who are having extra classes; emailed another IP firm; wrote my friend's in-laws a letter...lots of writing, isn't it!?

about the email. this is the third IP firm i've written to, and the guy in charge of the chemistry group shares his name with a very famous actor. so far, his is the only email to make me laugh, and i think that bumps this company up, impression-wise. based on that, i would most want to work for this guy, followed by the other big IP firm, and finally the smallest IP firm. we'll see if that changes with further correspondence.

wanted to blog about something else, but i'm sleepy. next time, i guess.

-random thought of the day: Made my own laksa!-

My long break ends today, and it's back to work tomorrow. good thing is that it's summer break, so i can sort of ease back into the regular routine without the energy drain of going to the various schools. unfortunately, it also means that there are 5 weeks of deskwarming. good news is that i'm only working the full 5 days for 3 of those weeks thanks to summer leave. still, i'm going to need to find things to do, outside of whatever the board of education has planned for me.

realized that i didn't blog about some small things that happened during the trip, like how i managed to find proper chinese black vinegar in tokyo; making a stop at the noodle place that my friends and i found during our grad trip; my friend kindly bringing curry paste over for me. doesn't seem like a big deal, i guess. but it's fine as long as i remember them.

during summer break, there are a few cooking experiments that i want to try. planning to give sourdough bread another try. i've started another batch of starter, which is activating faster than the previous time. it's either because of the weather, or there's still some trace of yeast in the old container. probably not the second thing though, since i washed it out with soap. an internet source says that starter will be ready to bake with after 14 days minimum, so i'm looking at starting any baking 2 fridays from now at the earliest. this time, the main area of improvement is to build more gluten strength in the dough. my previous attempts all fell flat in the oven - literally! the second big thing on my list is to make something pandan-related, like chiffon cake or pancakes. i'll probably do pandan-coconut tapioca kueh for some other departments in the town hall.

got my second assignment for making science videos. this time, it's for A-levels. i realize that as the level of difficulty/complexity increases, it becomes harder to find fun or cute graphics to match the content. but well, i'll try. the topic is chemical bonding, which is fairly easy for me to explain. the main snag here is drawing the atomic orbitals, or even the lewis structures of some compounds. not that i don't know how, but that my hand drawings hardly look professional. i'll figure it out. best case i pass it off to the in-house graphics team, worst case i draw them myself by hand.

i'm still thinking about whether i'm making the right decision by choosing to stay until march/april 2024. one of the JETs i met up with said that she has plans to leave next july, which means that she won't be recontracting when asked this december. i'm tempted to do the same, but i don't want to leave japan in the summer. leaving in winter/spring-ish would be easier, both due to the weather and it being earlier in the year. i suppose i COULD leave in march/april 2023, but that seems a bit too soon. this leaving date not only affects when i move on, it also affects my future JET duration if i decide to come back again. see, before COVID, all JET participants were given a maximum of 5 years on JET, ever. some people do all 5 years at one shot, some people do a few years at first and come back for round 2 (in a different placement), and most people just come for a few years and never use up the remaining time. i don't know if i need this particular 1.5-year safety net. if i had my way, i'd stay in my next job for the remainder of my career. well...at least it's there just in case.

last thing today. i've been reading original fiction on the internet, and the sci-fi/fantasy category has recently caught my eye. the common point for most of the stories is that the main character is born with some amazing power or ability. i don't quite like it because i don't think people are born "special". i prefer origin stories like spiderman or batman, where an ordinary person becomes a superhero based on things that happen to him/her. having said that, i admit that i do occasionally wish that someone would come into my life and whisk me away for something greater. it's not likely to happen, but hey - a guy can dream, right?

-random thought of the day: Not looking forward to work.-

Coming back from a trip always puts me in an introspective mood. i think it's partly due to digesting the new experiences and sights. they remind me that there's a bigger world out there...even in the same country! given the length of this trip, plus the number of things i did, i'll do a 15-sentence maximum for each point instead of the usual 10.

tokyo: met up with the tokyo JETs, and ate some good southeast asian (indonesian) food. first time in 2 years! also had a brainwave and went to the final fantasy 14 cafe. picked up some merchandise, and overall enjoyed myself. also enjoyed hanging out with some of the JETs individually, and learned some new interesting things, like how difficult it is to register a marriage of two foreigners in japan. it was nice hearing about everyone's plans for the future, and it reminded me that i should do more to prepare. interestingly, i got a reply from another australian IP firm while i was in tokyo. this one left the door slightly ajar, but getting in still isn't going to be easy, i think. i know i've said this before, but if i had to live in japan, tokyo wouldn't be my first choice. although its population density is about 75% of singapore's, it still feels crowded. my preferences would look something like: medium-sized city > big town > small town > big city > village > island. it was also good to know that i'm not alone in my frustration of trying to teach english to japanese kids. most of them see it as something they have to do and get it over with, so there won't be significant change unless that mindset changes first.

akita: my friend's wife's family (technically they're his family too now) hosted me for a couple of nights, and he brought me around for sightseeing. akita and kochi are both prefectures of japan, but the customs are different. i think that's something we miss out on in singapore; culture is separated by race instead of location. the most impressive thing to me was the 竿燈 (kantou), translated literally to pole lanterns. so there are like...40 or so lanterns hung in formation on a really long pole, and the participants not only carry them, but balance them on their palms, foreheads, shoulders, and hips. it's seriously amazing, especially when you consider that each set weighs about 50kg. the museum we visited said that the kantou that primary school kids carry weigh from 20-30kg, and secondary school/high school kids carry 30-40kg ones. i don't think i could do that right now! the bonus is that people who do this consequently end up pretty fit, so i quite enjoyed watching the performers in addition to the lanterns. all other things being equal (and if i could choose), i think i would choose akita over kochi for my JET placement. not that kochi is bad, just that akita looks and feels closer to what i think is ideal for me - but that might be the tourist POV speaking. having said that, things are not equal. i've heard a rumour that akita city JETs aren't allowed to drive because of some insurance thing, and i don't know how the level of english is over there either. maybe if i come on JET a second time...failing that, i can always visit!

money: i have definitely blown my budget for this trip. as if the flight fiasco wasn't bad enough, i forgot to book my akita hotel until after i got there. normally it wouldn't be an issue, but there was a marathon or some other running event while i was there, and i think it was because of that that there were basically no rooms available anywhere. as a consequence, i had to pay double the price for a hotel room...and to make things worse, the only available room was a smoking room with spotty wifi. all in all, not a very good experience. but i did learn that parking is dirt cheap even in akita city, and it's free in the suburbs. so i figure if i'm stuck in a similar situation again, what i'll do is rent a car, park it somewhere, and sleep in it. also makes getting to the airport easier on my last day. well...at least things ended up ok, and it'll be a funny story i can tell next time!

reflections: breaks are necessary. i'm feeling refreshed and in a much better mood vs. before the trip. it's also reminded me that i'm still nowhere near my ideal self. whenever i travel alone, i sometimes think, 'maybe i should pick up a guy and bring him back to my hotel...'. of course, i never follow through on it - both because i don't know where to look, and because of the low self-confidence. but yes, i can do more. as of now, i have another 20 or so kg to lose, and unlike the initial weight, i'm probably going to need to add exercise into the mix to see comparable results. since it's summer, daytime lasts longer, so i'm thinking of adding a morning workout (static exercise or cycling) into the routine. that, and sleeping earlier. i need to be ready for the future by the time JET ends.

future events: i have the rest of this week off, and return to work next week just in time for the beginning of summer break in schools. that means a month of deskwarming. contemplating taking more leave over the summer, but we'll see how bored i get. 2 big things i have to do in the next 1 or 2 months are (1) sign up for JLPT; and (2) apply for passport renewal. maybe committing to taking the exam will drive me harder to study for it. oh, there's the speech contest thing too. hopefully it'll fall through (no, i didn't make a mistake with this expression), but i'll only know for sure once i'm back at work next week.

-random thought of the day: Eating chicken embryo was weird.-

While i don't have solid proof, i am confident that i must have broken some sort of record in my rush to get ready for work this morning. usually, i wake up a little before my 7:25am alarm, check my phone and do whatever until about 7:50am (7:40 on fridays because earlier start), then get ready and take a leisurely cycle to the town hall. today, i woke up at like, 5:30am or something. stayed awake for about an hour, then went back to sleep...and woke up again at 8:15am. i showered, brushed my teeth, got dressed, and drove to work in 13 minutes! i know this because the time on my timecard when i punched in read 8:28am, which i think is mega impressive. even more so because those 13 minutes included a 1-2 minute wait at the traffic light. good to know that i'm capable of such a feat when pressed, but i really don't want to do it all that often. bad for the heart.

i suppose that it was a way to end my last day of work this term with a bang. the kids had exams, so all i did was kaypoh around the classrooms. while walking around, i noticed some kids trying their best to answer every question, others skipping the complicated sections and going for easy marks, and a few who simply gave up and left the majority of the answer sheet blank. i was just thinking that it really does take all sorts to make up the world. but then, i shouldn't be too judgmental either. speaking from experience, some things are better appreciated from a distance. like i find it so much easier to understand mathematical concepts now, and can even think of multiple methods for demonstrating a concept. it's only possible because maths isn't an essential part of my career, and there is no pressure/expectation on me to know complicated maths stuff.

related thought: japan is known to be a country where test results matter. perhaps it's not as bad as korea or china (at the lower secondary level, anyway), but i'd have thought that there would be significant pressure on kids to score well in tests and exams. and to see kids who don't give a damn whether they pass or fail is...refreshing. don't get me wrong - it's not good. my question is, how did they not get conditioned to think that bad results = failure? i guess academics aren't that emphasized, considering that primary industry (agriculture, fishing) is still the main economic activity here. this isn't a slight on the town, by the way...just the truth.

so, i'm on leave for the next 18 days. figure i should do some planning, especially since there's that big trip scheduled. i'll probably refine/update it over the next few days, but this is what i'm thinking now.

today: recovery, planning.

thursday: souvenir shopping, draw money, laundry

friday: souvenir shopping (2), maybe cooking

saturday: housework, packing, clean out the car

sunday: housework (2), final cleaning and prep

monday: morning flight to tokyo, dump baggage, sightseeing, ramen dinner?

tuesday: full-day sightseeing

wedensday: full-day sightseeing

thursday: early checkout, flight to akita, link up with my friend

friday and saturday: sightseeing together with friend's family

sunday: solo exploration of akita city, maybe onsen

monday: solo exploration (2)

tuesday: flight back to kochi, maybe stay a night in kochi city

wednesday to sunday: recover and prepare for work the next week

the oddest thing just happened - my aircon's sensor isn't picking up the remote again. it worked fine just yesterday, too! today was especially hot and humid - i was sweating just from sitting down. come to think about it, i discovered this problem on a particularly hot/humid day last year too. so, here's my hypothesis. there is actually nothing wrong with the sensor or the remote. the problem is caused by heat and/or humidity. for example, condensation on the inner components prevent the laser from reaching the sensor. or the heat caused a wire to expand, and short something out...i don't know. it's all conjecture until i open it up and take a look at what's going on. but it's beyond my expertise. i guess for now, i'll stick to the button on its body. thank goodness that's still working, and it gives me added incentive to wake up early (to turn it off).

got hit by a bout of FOMO yesterday and today. several IP firms announced promotions, something to do with their financial years starting in june, i think. someone else from the accursed IP firm got promoted. i didn't really work closely with them, although i remember them being nice-ish but not super helpful. oh well. it's ancient history. i do realize that that with all these promotions, the organizational structure is becoming quite top-heavy. again, it's none of my business. just an observation. or maybe there are new underling staff that haven't been listed on their website yet. i'm quite impressed to see that my friend is still there. i hope she's close to qualifying.

going to end the post her i guess, it's becoming a bit long. will have maybe one or two more updates before the trip, and maybe some during? i'm still deciding whether or not to take my laptop.

-random thought of the day: Busy few days ahead!-

One good thing and one not-so-good thing happened over the past 2 days, so overall, it was quite balanced! the good thing is that my superiors at the board of education noticed that i'd been clocking off late sometimes, and offered to give me unrecorded off-in-lieu to make up for it. it was between that or bonus salary, and while i would appreciate extra money, the amount is not worth it. better i take an hour off, rather than about 2500 yen. i guess it makes me feel...recognized, that i'm putting in extra time for the kids. of course, the reason could also be the board of education not wanting to get tangled up in legal complications, but i'll choose to think the best of them.

the not-so-good thing that happened was related to the other english teacher, and it was my fault. we teach together in the only primary school i go to. for this primary school, there are only a very small number of kids who have interest and ability in english. what that means is that we're usually greeted with silence when we ask a question, and the kids generally don't understand what we say in english. that was the case yesterday. so, to move things along, i mimed the things she said as she said them. she kind of muttered, "let them think about it for a while". obviously it was directed at me, because the kids don't understand, and the japanese teacher was further away. even if he was nearby, she said it fast enough that i think he wouldn't have caught it.

i don't quite like this habit of hers, because it feels very snide and underhanded. but maybe it's her way of expressing herself. looking past the delivery of the message and to the message itself, i realize that when i was giving tuition in singapore, i wouldn't have hesitated to hold up the class until a brave soul volunteered or i picked someone. i tried that approach in japan at first, but it would eat into the class time, which is already stretched pretty thin. for english at least, the teachers have a lot to cover, and planning is down to the minute. that, and the fact that the kids don't usually volunteer answers, means that i've kind of switched to just going through the motions to fit everything into the allocated 50 minutes. it's not good, and i suppose i'll have to find a way to increase class participation.

actually, this is one other reason why i don't feel i'm making a difference. one of the things i tell the kids extremely often is "don't be afraid to speak up". yet for the vast majority of times when i ask for questions in class, there is a dead silence. it wouldn't be so bad if the kids actually understood everything, but whenever we start the activity, there'll be whispers of "what's this word?", "what do we do now?" - things that i could have answered earlier! credit where it's due, my sec 1 class does ask questions, and i think that's one reason why they're my favourite class.

for the primary school, i think the japanese way of teaching english is to blame. they seem to have the sequence wrong - placing more emphasis on set phrases and expressions as opposed to spelling and pronunciation, or meanings of individual words in a sentence. that's like making the kids run before they can stand! i have kids who can repeat sentences like "what sport do you want to watch?", but not assign meanings to the individual words. so if i changed key parts of the sentence (eg. "watch" to "play"; or "sport" to "movie"), they'd have no idea what i'm asking. it's mindless repetition, which doesn't qualify as learning. it'll probably remain this way for as long as i can imagine, because for some reason, the japanese insist on using their own people to teach a foreign language. it wouldn't be so bad if the teachers were good, but good japanese english teachers are few and far between.

of course, there are other reasons, like the students' fear of looking dumb in front of others, not having sufficient exposure to english, the horrible corruption of english that is katakana, but i don't want to talk in depth about those things. it's actually made me think about shortening my JET term. i will at least stay until august 2023 to complete my current contract. but beyond that, i don't know. the plan was to stay until march/april 2024, to see the kids through a complete school year. but now, leaving in december 2023 or january 2024 is becoming increasingly tempting. if i go for a master's in australia, that makes the difference between starting in sem 1 or sem 2. with regards to that decision...no new developments. i think it might help if i made a list of things i want to do in my remaining time in japan. it should give me a better perspective on time.

-random thought of the day: Last 3 days of work next week before my long holiday!-