Author Archives: DELively

Cake Around Midnight

If it hadn’t been for the cake, I’d probably be asleep by now.

Yesterday was Hina Matsuri, the doll festival which celebrates/honors the girls in the family, and although we at the traditional sushi, which looks a lot like fried rice with a raw fish topping, we never managed to finish the cake. Everybody was so busy that even I got involved in baking the cake. (Granted, my part involved only waiting, removing and flipping the cake, and several burns.)

Today, though, we got to eat the cake, but as fate would have it, the cake wasn’t ready until after 10:00. (Long story.)

I ate a piece and that, on top of the coffee I’ve been consuming as I mark final exams, has me wide awake around 2:00 a.m. Unfortunately, because I’ve been marking exams, I don’t have much to report.

I’ll make this one a short one then. Maybe tomorrow I’ll have a few adventures to report.

Or maybe not.

 

Fun Up Stairs and Surprises Down

I didn’t get way up stairs today, so I don’t know if there was a third pen show, but the two I visited were pretty good, mostly thanks to a surprise.

Today I visited the 8th Annual World Fountain Pen Exhibition at Maruzen Books down in Tokyo. Because it was a Friday, I wasn’t expecting much. As always, the things I most wanted to see were all huddled into a tiny space next to the exit at one end of the ground floor.

I was especially pleased to see Euro-Box on hand as it was fun to look over the large selection of vintage pens. A Nakaya staffer was there tuning and fixing pens as were staff from Ohashido and Eboya.

Eizo Fujii from Euro-Box (left) watches over four displays full of vintage pens. The pen maker from Ohashido consults with a client at the back, near the exit.

The pen master from Ohashido works on a client’s pen.

The pen mistress from Nakaya (I forgot her name and she usually keeps it secret anyway by hiding her name tag) checks the smoothness of a nib at the Nakaya tables. (Note: She doesn’t like pictures, so I’m only running this because you can’t see her face clearly.)

I drooled over a couple pens but managed to walk away with my finances intact. Mostly.

Some of the Ohasahido pens. That orange and black pen second from the left is calling me. My wallet is sending a different message. (I also like the three to the right.)

Although it wasn’t that busy, there was still a lot of energy on the ground floor. However, because there wasn’t much to see other than temptation and temporary joy followed by fits of remorse, I headed downstairs into the mausoleum where it was dark and silent.

However, as soon as I arrived in the mausoleum, I saw a large collection of store exclusive inks. I quickly bought one of each. This was a big surprise as 1) I expected any ink they had to have sold out the first day and 2) they were older versions in the old style bottles. I quickly bought one of each, gambling I’d be able to sell them.

Because of that find, I was in a much better mood in the mausoleum. I looked around at a few of the displays and talked to the LAMY rep about the cap on my LAMY 2000. (He says it’s fine; I says it’s barely fine.) I saw the anniversary edition LAMY 2000 black amber, which is neither black nor amber, but is cooler looking than I expected it be.

I also found my scribblings from last  year in a sample notebook in the darkest corner of the mausoleum. Something about that struck me as funny and I left in a good mood.

I was in such a good mood that I completely forgot to check out what events were happening on the third floor.

I still think it would be cool if they squeezed a nibmeister in next to the Nakaya or Ohashido tables. It would also be nice if they allowed pictures in the mausoleum.

But I left in a good mood, so none of that bothered me much this year.

 

 

One Brief Moment

Every now and then I see that a student has learned something, even though he doesn’t realize it.

As a rule, I don’t use any Japanese in class, even with low level students. Any use of Japanese by me creates a temporary ruckus that distracts from whatever point I was attempting to make. This happens as students laugh, mock, act shocked that I used Japanese. My students do all that despite the fact that they constantly say “Japanese please”. Even if they don’t do all the laughing, mocking and acting shocked, if I use Japanese they will learn to ignore any English coming out of my mouth until I stop spouting nonsense and start speaking Japanese.

Today, in a class that was competing to be my worst class, a student tried to get me translate a phrase. I’ve mentioned many times that I’m not a dictionary but that they are welcome to bring one to class.

A student was trying to get the phrase “get to school” but wasn’t sure about the “get to” part. He was ignoring the student next to him who just kept repeating “get, get, get, get” which only annoyed the student and made him say “get, get, get, get” louder.

The student with the question asked me in Japanese, but then stood up and demonstrated, in English and with gestures, what he was trying to say. I said “get to school.” and he finished his writing.

He didn’t realize that this is exactly what I’m trying to get them to do: talk around words they don’t know and, whenever possible, use gestures.

I felt smugly satisfied, which is not something I usually do with that class.

Watching Them Give Up

The assignment was to write a conversation in which Speaker A is appealing to Speaker B to change something and explaining why the change needs to be made.

What I got was more random than that.

At the end of the year students tend to give up. They figure that, no matter what they do, they’ve already passed, or they figure that, no matter what they do, they’ve already failed.

Either way, they focus their energy into other courses and the course I teach is of much less importance. As a result, end of year exams can be quite the debacle.

First you have students who ignored the rule to save all their worksheets (the end of year final is comprehensive) and therefore can’t study; and Second, you have the students who figure that if even if they fail my class they can still move on.

This comes to me as exam essays that don’t match the assignment. I’ve got conversations about new inventions, conversations about new gadgets, conversations about school and conversations about nothing.

These students get a low score, but they do make me more sympathetic to the students who actually follow the assignment.

 

The End of the Month As We Knew It

My schedule at the start of the third month works out in twos: two days left; two classes each day; two sets of exams to mark; two sets of exams yet to get; two threads of sanity remaining.

However, I’m also looking ahead to the end of March when I enter a period of house arrest where I’m supposed to be working on things that help me at the school where I work by researching and creating things that help the company I work for. This will involve researching more about the town where I live and running around taking pictures of things and then writing about them. (Spoiler: At least part of the research will be on pen shows in the Tokyo area…)

Somewhere in all that I also have to do actual work to prepare for next year. (Note for the uninitiated: Japan’s school year runs from April to March with a three week break between the school years.) I’m going to experiment with a different note taking system that lets me see at a glance what I’ve done and which classes I’ve done it to. My current system, which I’ll write about later, involves lots of pieces of paper and folders and it’s easy to lose track of who has done what.

In addition to the analogue part of the system, I also need to upgrade the digital/electronic part of the system. Although I tend to use a tablet in class to record marks on the fly, the system I have doesn’t let me use a version of Ms Office or a version of Google Docs. Instead I’ve been using a clunky program that, well, clunks along and has failed to save enough material correctly that I’m wary about using it. I’ll either upgrade the tablet or the software.

All this assumed the final two threads of sanity hold. If they don’t then things will get crazy.

 

On the Nothing New

A short one today because it’s the time of year when pretty much every day is the same. The only thing that changes is the level of whining involved with what is going on.

This is especially true when you realize that nearly every student did badly on the long writing section of the exam you wrote. When they weren’t off topic or using random topics, they only covered half the topic. This is especially disheartening when you thought you were giving them an easy topic. (More on that in a future post. You have been warned.)

The only interesting things involved ink and pens and they weren’t that interesting. I sent out some ink (and a pen) and got a pen in the mail. The pen I got was not mine, though, and I now have to ready it for shipment. I’m pleased it arrived though, as this was my first adventures with Yahoo Auctions here in Japan.

I now have an actual rating, which means this may not be last adventure with Yahoo Auctions.

Not sure if that’s good or bad.

 

Step By Slow Slow Step

Somewhere between enjoying Goldfinger and mocking You Only Live Twice, which proves all you need to have to pass as Japanese is fake eyelids, badly trimmed hair and stooped shoulders and if you have all that no one notices you are too tall or speak Japanese with a Scottish accent, I managed to get some work done.

(Note: the most unbelievable thing in You Only Live Twice is the notion that someone could build a giant underground fortress on a tiny populated Japanese island without everyone on the island knowing about it. Well that and the tiny spacesuit fitting the tall Bond, James Bond.)

(Note Two: I currently possess two of the three requirement to pass as Japanese.)

But I digress, which pretty much explains today.

Part of the problem of keeping movies and other noise on in the background as you mark is that you’re always walking a balance between “just interesting enough” and “much too interesting”. For example, I realized I hadn’t seen Thunderball and ended paying too much attention to that film, at least until they wasted time with endless underwater shaky-cam fights that I fast-forwarded through.

As for Goldfinger, well, Honor Blackman and, well, yeah, that’s pretty much it. That’s the distraction. (Do you expect me to mark? No, Mr. Lively, I expect you to DROOL.)

I have a similar problem (distraction, not drooling) if I have music on in the background or have reached the point where I need headphones to drown out any family distraction. The music has to be entertaining but can’t be too catchy or too nostalgic. Random radio channels on iTunes usually work best but they can’t be too shrieky or too bland.

Eventually, all the background noise goes away and I just push through. Eventually.

 

 

Marking Not Marking

I spent a good portion of the day marking exams, which is another way of saying I’m currently in the middle of a James Bond marathon. My goal is to watch the entire series from Doctor No to Daniel Craig.

I’ve already watched Doctor No and From Russia With Love and will watch Goldfinger and Thunderball tomorrow. On occasion, I have marked some exams and will, on occasion, mark some tomorrow, too.

Part of the problem is that I’m not only still teaching other classes but i’ve also got a long time to mark the exams. Because of this, the work expands, or slows, to fill the time.

However, after this long, stretched out time, I’ll have four day to finish the next batch of exams.

I’ll probably rewatch the Alien movies then.

 

Other People’s Hands

Any problems with today’s test were not my fault, but I did have to put in an appearance.

Today was the final exam for third year junior high school students (9th grade) at the school where I work and my only responsibility was be on hand in case of problems.

However, after yesterday’s incident, I did have to pace up and down past the rooms a few times during the listening section to “prove my concern” and “show responsibility”.

Luckily for the people in charge, things went off with almost no problems.

We did have a couple oddly phrased questions that allowed students to get away with a few tricks on the long writing and allowed them to answer without writing an entire sentence.

Then I had to wait a few hours to teach a class. This had me fairly irritable and although all I had to do was briefly explain the final exam, I stopped explaining things when the class got noisy and instead passed out the practice sheet for their long writing. (Yes, we give them a chance to practice 20%+ of the final.)

Usually I don’t mind if they don’t do any work, but one student “didn’t work” in the noisiest way possible and I moved him to a different chair.

I’ll have that class again next week and that student will, I guess, have another chance to not work.

May You Live in Interesting Tests

One of the things that drives you insane is doing the same thing over and over and getting the same results. At least that’s true when listening tests are involved.

Today was the high school second year exams at the school where I work and, as always, since that day, I approached it with a certain amount of trepidation. That was made worse when the guy who’d worried me before showed up.

As happened before, he pointed me toward the console as if it were my job to run it and, as before, I said “No way in hell.” However, because he was early, I expected he would perform a level check.

He didn’t and when the listening started it was obviously too low. He adjusted the volume a bit, but the levels were still too low. Finally, the last listening was low enough that he was forced to take extreme measures. At that point, one of my colleagues and the head of the English Department came rushing in with reports of complaints in a couple rooms.

I explained how there’d been no level check and was asked why none of the other teachers had, as they were supposed to, been in the hall making sure the listening was loud enough. I said that in 17 years at the school no one had told me we were supposed to do that.

I also pointed out that the technician had not done a volume check and while my colleague showed me how to intervene to adjust the volume, the department head told me that teachers weren’t actually supposed to touch the system, that was for the technicians.

They told me to stay put whilst they rushed around putting out fires. In the end we replayed the first two parts of the listening test and everything seemed okay.

And I’m sure it will be, until it’s time for the next listening test.