Author Archives: DELively

So Productive It’s Scary and Must Be Suppressed

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Today I was productive enough that I almost finished marking one batch of exams. I’ll bet the last little bit takes me all day tomorrow to finish.

Today I had three basic tasks: pass back exams to 3rd year high school students and have them laugh at me about seeing next terms (long story) and then hand in their final marks; collect 2nd year exams; and sit around waiting for final marks to come back for final approval.

This plan left me with a couple choices: bail and go home and never come back leaving one colleague to check my final marks and correct any errors based on my notes; go home and come back around 4:00 and wait for final marks (which typically arrive an hour after deadline); or stay at school, mark exams and wait for final marks.

I chose the latter, which actually surprised me. I started with the worst part of the exams (the long writing on the back) and then marked the rest. By 3:45 p.m. I was 90% done marking when a shocking thing happened: the final results came back early. I quickly texted my colleague who appeared right as I hit send. (And you doubted my wizard powers.)

The final check involves making sure the OCR machine scanned our sheets correctly. If it did, we just write “OK” and run away as fast as we can.

I checked the marks, packed my tests and ran into the cold. Now I’m at home not finishing marking. Unfortunately, the quick arrival of the final marks interrupted my flow and it’s scientifically impossible for me to get it back until tomorrow.

To make matters worse, the devil over my left shoulder is reminding that because I don’t have that much to do there’s no rush. The devil over my right shoulder is going “Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.”

My goal is to finish all that in the morning and be done for the weekend until the next batch of tests arrive on Monday. Before that, I’ll probably find a few other things to do.

There is Some Joy in Dullsville This Day Only

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There is no pleasure in having nothing to do; the fun is having lots to do and not doing it.
—Andrew Jackson

I had nothing to do today after school and, with apologies to the former President of the United States, I had a pretty good time.

Tomorrow exams start which means I’ll be entering a cycle of denial, wishful thinking and distraction that should be a lot of fun.

When it come to having lots to do and not doing it, I am the master. For example, when I was in graduate school, right at the end of the term when exams were coming up, I had essays to mark and papers to write, I would bake cookies.

In my defense, it was an experiment to see if the Nieman-Marcus cookie recipe included in a family cookbook was actually good.  (Note: it is, but I recommend replacing one cup of butter with a cup of sour cream.) Also in my defense, I would pass the cookies around the department at Ole Miss, mostly to keep myself from getting fatter than I already was at the time.

Now the distraction can involve games and writing and reading. Oh, and there’s the binge watching of whatever random TV show I decide to watch. (In the past: Dexter, NCIS, Only Fools and Horses, Red Dwarf, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer.) Occasionally I will read something, too.

To try to prevent the binge watching from happening, I’ve stocked up on back issues of various podcasts and things that can be enjoyed without needing to turn on a computer. Turning on a computer, mind you, in and of itself is not bad, it’s the “well, let me check my email first” and the “well, a couple quick World of Tank matches won’t hurt” and the “Well, it’s too late to do anything now, I’ll just take care of this in the morning.”

That cycle ends with the “Holy Crap is that what day it is? I need to finish!” phase.

Watch What You Watch and Where You Watch It

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I’ve always maintained that if you want to learn everything there is to know about a country you need to view its dirty videos. In Japan, though, what you learn isn’t always that good, especially when you see them filmed while riding the train.

Soon after I moved to Tokyo, I was riding the train back to my apartment in Eastern Tokyo. I was sitting at the front of the second car, which gave me a window into the first car. While I was sitting there minding my own business, I saw a camera flash from the first car.  When I glanced over, I saw a couple men groping a woman right near the window.

I went into “get ready to call the police mode”, and then I saw a second flash and the video camera. Eventually the scene got a little more revealing and involved cellphone antennas and the woman pretending to fight back. A lot of Japanese dirty movies (ahem, so I’ve heard) involve groping and rape and domination. Seeing it on the train was especially disturbing.

Eventually they stopped, which meant they were probably getting ready to get out a station and film the next part.

Another time, many years later, I happened to look down the train car and saw a scene pretty much straight out of Seinfeld: a woman wearing a bra as a top. This itself wasn’t particularly disturbing, it was the fact she was dressed as a school girl. She and her entourage got out the train almost as soon as I noticed so I never saw exactly what was going on, but I’m guessing a camera was involved.

Now, however, such scenes are illegal as a few years ago Japan passed a law banning public displays of, um, simulated affection and public nudity. A model and her photographer got in trouble soon after the law was passed for shooting a photo book on the streets late at night when no one was around. The photo book itself was evidence of the crime.

This is all probably for the best, but I can’t help but think that somewhere in Japan there is a photo of me on the cover of a dirty movie. I’ve probably got a “what the hell is this” look on my face.

Shrieking and Wailing and Claiming of Seats

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Only once in my life have I made a person eternally grateful by merely moving rather than by leaving. The other person involved wasn’t quite as happy, but everyone nearby was.

A few years back I used to teach a night class in a nearby town and although it wasn’t that far away, the timing prevented me from going home before I went to the class. Instead, I would roam around and window shop and/or drink coffee.

One afternoon, after a particularly bad day in school I was feeling cranky and, as luck would have it, I managed to get a seat on the train. In fact, I not only got a seat, I got the coveted “Seat At The End Of The Bench” which would allow me to lean on something other than the person next to me if I fell asleep.

However, as I sat down, a shaggy haired woman who looked to be maybe in her early 20s caught my eye and, although I know this is ugly, you could see the crazy. She declared–several times–that my seat was hers, even though there were other seats available.

Now, although I consider myself reasonably chivalrous and will give up my seat if there are no others available, I’m not the kind of person who believes you should get the seat you want simply because you want it, especially if others are available and especially if I’m in a bad mood. At that moment, therefore, Crazy met Cranky and I gestured to an open seat.

She started shouting “It mine!” “It’s mine! It’s mine!” (in Japanese of course) and then let out a bloodcurdling shriek (similar to this but hers got louder) and started beating the sides of her head with her fists.

Cranky hit 11 as sympathy hit 0 and I told her to f@#k off and was getting ready to tune her out and read a book but at that moment I noticed the conductor was staring at me and even I could smell his fear. Sympathy went back to 3.  I nodded and stood up. Crazy sat down and you’ve never seen a person as happy as that conductor was in that moment. Everyone nearby seemed relieved, too.

Crazy then took offense to me standing near her and to everyone staring at her. I said something less than polite, in English, about how if she didn’t want attention she shouldn’t act like a crazy bitch over a seat on the train. (Cranky had reached 11.1 at that point.)

I moved to a different part of the car and at the next stop the conductors were switched and the one I’d made grateul gave me a series of grateful bows.

I eventually got a seat. Crazy got off the train somewhere, but I’d stopped paying attention by then.

 

Our Time Cometh Thrice

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Final exams start this week which means we’ve been recording and editing and psyching ourselves up for the slog. Part of what keeps us going is what one colleague calls “our time”.

Basically, three times each year. even in the junior high school, students have to take our classes seriously. The rest of the time, especially in lower level junior high classes, students will talk and cheat and “forget” their book and basically make a lot of noise.

In their defense, junior high students can’t fail except on paper, and are always promoted to the next grade. Only at the end of junior high, when they want to go to the high school, do their grades matter. Think about your worst behavior in junior high and the behavior of the worst person you knew in junior high and the worst grades you ever got and the most boring teacher and imagine how you would have behaved knowing you couldn’t fail and could always play sports.

However, often at the end of each term, some students begin to realize they need to study because a test is coming. At this point, we have certain amount of control over them and we confer about how difficult to make the test. This is our time. We also decide how much to help the students prepare.

For the most part we help the students out quite a bit. We give them a review day and in junior high we even tell them what the long writing question will be and give them the opportunity to practice. (Essentially that means we give them up to 25% of their possible points for free.)

However, the compulsion to make noise and ignore the teacher often overwhelms the students. I’ve been in the middle of writing test information on the board only to turn around and see students wrestling or doing homework from a different class. I’ve been explaining what to study and had every student in the class talking in Japanese. My response is usually to erase the test information and wish them good luck on the test.

I’ve done this in high school as well.

I also let them know I don’t care if they actually study or not as it’s not my test, it’s theirs. I almost never get angry during review time (unless students are fighting) and just let them waste their time.

As I tell them, if thy get a zero on the test, it makes the math easier for me.

Note: the lowest score ever actually was a zero by a student who didn’t even write his name on the test. My lowest high school score was eight.

Slogging Into Oblivion and the Unreadable Mess

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Despite my best efforts, I managed to eke out 50,399 words to “win” National Novel Writing Month. I’m not sure it was a good idea.

Part of the problem, as I’ve mentioned before, is that NaNoWriMo requires a level of seat-of-the-pants writing that, after a point, becomes useless. Now, part of this was my fault, as I chose to continue writing a work in progress. which meant I was doing pure free-writing on something that had been planned.

You can see a clear demarcation in the book between “gave thought to this” and “Run, Forrest, Run!”

I suspect that if I had just sat down and started writing from scratch, the process would have been easier, albeit a lot less coherent. (Not that it’s very coherent now.)

I ended up with repeated passages, lots of under-description, lots of over-description and the entire last third of the whatever-you-call-that mess is random quotes, random scenes and bits of dialogue. I included back story that was unlikely to make it into the final draft. I also included notes about scenes I needed and things I needed to remember. “Protagonist (not his real name) would try to figure out X’s location the week before her death.” This seems like basic stuff, but it took me 30 days and 50,000 words words to realize it.

November is also, even for us in Japan, is not a good month to attempt something like this. I’ve got school functions for the girls, karate tests, final school projects to mark and have to make two final exams. In the USA you’ve got Thanksgiving and Black Friday. It’s almost as if the creators of NaNoWriMo wanted you to prove you are a writer by forcing you to write in the worst conditions possible. (Next year’s NaNoWriMo: NaNoWriMo on icy spikes). It’s all got the feeling of a double-dog dare followed by “You wanna be cool, dontcha? Well, dontcha?”

I did find that I had better luck writing sections by hand then entering them into the main file later in the day. (Of course, my handwriting was an issue but only a small one.)

If I do it again next year I’ll do one of two things. 1) I’ll start 100% from scratch and see what happens. Twice now I’ve tried to complete works in progress and had mixed results. (Last year I stopped after three days and 3500 or so words). 2) I’ll do the 30 days in October and post the results in November.

Oh, I also won’t have a daily blog to worry about (maybe just a twice or three times a week blog).

 

The Slow Drip Drip Drip of Loss and Annoyance

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The school where I’ve worked for 14 years is slowly but surely trying to remind me I’m not part of the group. It’s doing it through sanctions on technology.

When I first arrived at the school, every teacher was given a school laptop for their desk and a network password. The laptop I had was old and practically made of stone and wood but it let me print, store files on the server and use the internet.

For one year, when the school made an attempt to modernize beyond the Optical Character Recognition system it uses for final marks, we could even enter final marks from our desks via a school intranet. (Well, most people could, but the laptop I had was too old to use the software and I had to go downstairs to the computer room.) To make matters worse, the program was shockingly unintuitive and the company went out of business meaning there was no longer any tech support. The school, therefore, switched back to OCRs.

Then, one year we showed up and the laptops were gone. Full-time teachers had shiny new laptops but we were informed that part-time teachers would no longer have them. (Remember, I’m technically part-time and work AT the school not FOR the school.) Instead, three computers were installed in the office for the dozen or so part-time teachers to share.

Luckily, I was able to bring my own computer and use the network and printers. All was still good (and in English).

Then we got the new school and full-time teachers had shinier newer laptops and the dozen or so part-timers had access to eight laptops we were expected to share. I decided to use my own computer (to free up a school one for someone else.) Unfortunately, we quickly discovered that our personal PCs had been blocked from the main server. We could print and use the internet, but we couldn’t access files. One teacher couldn’t access the network at all. We blamed Linux, until another teacher proved he could connect with a Linux system.

Then last week, our personal PCs were blocked once and for all forever from the network. We can’t even print.

I was told that this is because the IT people are convinced that a rash of viruses is the result of personal PCs on the network. I have my doubts about this (I think it’s memory sticks and people with less computer savvy) and it all smacks of “Pay attention to ME! I’m IMPORTANT!” bureaucratic rock pissing by the IT people.

That said, the sanctions will be lifted once I prove my computer can have safe sex with the school network.

Until then, I’m living back in the age before even punch cards. (Luckily I have lots of fountain pens.) My other plan is to grab a school laptop and hold it hostage until sanctions are lifted.

edited 11/30/14 to fix typographical errors.

This Friday is Not Black

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To this day I find it very strange that I only miss about half of the things that go on during a a US Thanksgiving. Well, maybe two-thirds.

Although Japan has Labor Thanksgiving Day on November 23rd, it’s mostly just a day off and not that big of a deal. For the US Thanksgiving, I’m working and keeping track of players in my NFL fantasy league.

I do miss spending time with family as we stuff ourselves blind. I definitely miss pecan pie, although She Who Must Be Obeyed can make a terrific one (once we take out a personal loan to buy all the ingredients). She can also make some terrific pumpkin tarts (pies are too difficult as Japan has not discovered pre-made pie crusts) so she makes smaller versions.

For a meal we usually load up on chicken, cheese, bread and wine (or beer) and She Who Must Be Obeyed makes mashed potatoes. It is possible to get turkey if we order it in early October, but we don’t have an oven big enough to roast it and the neighbors would freak out if I started a fire and tried to deep-fry it. (Actually, She Who Must Be Obeyed would probably freak out some, too, now that I think about it.)

I also miss falling asleep watching football–aka “spending time with the guys”. I also remember going to see movies in the evening once a few of us got tired of all the “family time”. (I miss spending time with the family only to a certain point.)

I definitely miss the turkey sandwiches made from leftovers.

I don’t miss the endless loop of Christmas songs, especially as the Christmas shopping season apparently begins in early July now. I don’t miss all the Black Friday nonsense. Keep in mind, Black Friday hadn’t yet become a contact sport when I was in the USA, it was just crowded and cranky. Keep in mind, though, I typically never bought Christmas presents until the last minute, so I only experienced Black Friday a few times.

Japan’s Black Friday doesn’t happen until after New Year’s Day. It’s quite frightening when it happens. (But that’s a future post.)

Listening Past the Giggles and Glitches

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As technology advances, I find myself losing patience with things that not too long ago worked really well but now have problems. This is especially true when it involves work.

One of the things we do at the school where I work is record our own parts for the listening portion of the final exams. This is a process that’s changed since I’ve been at the school.

It used to involve headphones, a four channel mixer and cassette tapes. That system required long recording sessions in which every word had to be perfect. If we made one mistake we’d have to do the entire section over. I remember more than once reaching the very last question and then mumbling or stumbling or forgetting how to read English and having to start the entire process over.

One of our number had a habit of improvising off script leaving the rest of us to wonder where the hell we were and what the hell we were supposed to say next.

If anyone got the giggles the entire process ground to a halt.

Note: if you’ve never had the giggles, you’ve never experienced the joy of trying cure them by reciting sad images like “dead puppies; cats squished by cars; starving children eating dirt” and instead causing the entire room start laughing and be unable to stop. That’s great.

I guess you had to be there.

Nerves frayed and we quickly learned to make listening sections shorter.

That gave way to a nice recording studio in the sound and light booth of the school auditorium. We had good mics and proper equipment and if we made a mistake, we just redid the bad part and spliced the new part in later.

The new studio, however, didn’t solve the problem of the giggles. One teacher usually had to leave the room when another teacher made a “BEEEEEP” sound or the recording session couldn’t be finished. One time a teacher had funny names in the listening and we laughed so hard he ended up changing the names.

The other problem was that right around December exams, students start practicing for the Christmas show in the auditorium and we end up having to come back another day.

The new school, however, was supposed to solve this with a brand new, sound proof recording studio. Unfortunately, it’s the old computers and, for some reason, the old computer doesn’t like the new room and has decided to add a buzz to all our recordings. (Old computers can be really temperamental that way.)

There’s a way to fix it, but it adds a step that shouldn’t be necessary. I actually found myself getting annoyed about that. Then it brought hope that a new computer will appear some day with a quieter fan.

There’s also no cure for the giggles, though. Technology can’t solve those. Even dead puppies don’t help.

Fifty Miles Afoot Afloat Like It Or Not

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Back a few hundred years ago (give or take) when I was in the Boy Scouts in Colorado, a few us brave young men set out on an epic quest to hike 50 miles over Rabbit Ears Pass, do a day of service and bask in eternal glory. Two days later we were begging to go home but no one would let us.

I vaguely remember we had prepared and distributed various foodstuffs. (I remember peanut butter in a tube and fake potatoes for some reason.) After we assembled at the starting point, the hike began with a gear check that involved scout leaders convincing us that things like portable games and large books wouldn’t be as useful on the trail as something like water.

They also tried to convince a few hikers that jeans and a long sleeve shirt would be more useful in the woods than shorts and a t-shirt.

We started the actual hike with lots of energy and maintained it through a marsh area that is apparently the birth place of all mosquitoes. (Luckily, country mosquitoes aren’t as fast as city mosquitoes and it was possible to kill four or five in one slap.) We also maintained it through the revelation that the maps being used by the leaders apparently predated the actual formation of the mountain which, as you might imagine, kind of complicated the path.

I don’t remember where we camped the first night, but by the time we reached a US Forest Service campsite on day two (or maybe day three, I don’t remember), we were all pretty much like “Well, we’ve proven our point. That’s enough manliness for us. Time to go home.”

Unfortunately, our scout leaders played a dirty trick on us by having our parents waiting for us at the campsite. Our parents’ only job was to tell us they weren’t going to take us home. Even my own mother was like “Suck it up you little pussy. Stop whining and act like a man. The only way you’re getting home is through the forest. I don’t care if your feet fall off while you’re doing it.”

For the record, my mother never actually said that, but it was STRONGLY IMPLIED.

In order to earn the 50-Miler Award, we were also required to do 10 hours of service. That meant the next day we helped park rangers clean and maintain the camp. This turned out to be a lot harder than we expected. By the end of that day we were all pretty much ready to get back on the trail and wait for our feet to fall off.

The rest of the hike was mostly uneventful, except for having to change paths because the main road was blocked by an endless series of fallen trees. We finished with a burst of energy and a sense of accomplishment. We also got a patch (and a lingering distrust of adults and park rangers).