Category Archives: Japan

There’s No Accounting For Taste in Office Pens

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The school where I work has always been very good at providing good pens for the staff to use. The pens they provide are so good there’s now an “I took X” sheet we are expected to fill out every time we take a pen.

My dilemma, of course, is “do I take two pens but only sign for one?” Luckily for my conscience, I don’t use the kinds of pens they provide. (In other words, we’ll never know what I would do.)

The pens cover all the categories from waterproof pigment pens to gel pens to ordinary ball point pens.

The black pens. Uni-Ball Signo UM-100; Uni PIN water proof; Zebra Jim-Knock; Zebra N-5000.

The black pens. Uni-Ball Signo UM-100; Uni PIN water proof pigment pen; Zebra Jim-Knock; Zebra N-5000.

The blue pens: Uni-Ball Signo UM-100; Sakura Pigma Micron 03; Zebra N-5000.

The blue pens: Uni-Ball Signo UM-100; Sakura Pigma Micron 03; Zebra N-5000. The Sakura is very tempting…

Before I went full pentard with fountain pens, the pens I used to mark exams were either a red Signo UM-100 or a UNI PIN water proof (an older version).

The main requirements for a marking pen are: thick line that doesn’t bleed through on to other papers; good ink supply; a tip that doesn’t suddenly go dry; and a tip that doesn’t jam up as you mark harder in harder in increasing frustration. (The UNI PIN were especially bad at the latter test.) The problems were that over time the Signo built up gunk around the tip and needed to be wiped off and the marker-style tip of the UNI eventually wore down or got smashed in frustration.

I eventually moved to a red Pilot Vanishing Point filled with Pilot Red Ink for marking. It was comfortable to hold and had a decent ink supply. Although the ink supply wasn’t as good as a ballpoint or a gel ink pen, stopping to refill ink every now and then forced me to take a break and gave me a chance to find some whisky. (The timing of whisky to exam marking will be dealt with in another post.)

This year I’ll be marking my exams with a TWSBI Mini loaded with purple ink. There’s no particular reason for this other than 1) purple is one of the school’s colors; 2) it’s an excuse to use the pen more and 3) I’m interested in seeing the psychological effects of the purple ink on the students; and 4) I’m always looking for ways to use up my ink supply.

 

 

 

Homemade is Not Always Best Made

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Today was Father’s Day which meant I got to be lazy. Granted, this is not much different from my usual Sunday except that today I didn’t even try to pretend to be busy.

My Father’s Day meal was homemade pizza–lovingly made by She Who Must Be Obeyed and our youngest whilst our oldest pretended to study for exams–which got me thinking about the things I like when they’re homemade and the things I don’t.

I like homemade pizza. It’s a lot of work, especially as we don’t have a proper oven, but the results are usually tasty. SWMBO has developed a system involving pan frying and toasting that produces very good results. I taught her to make crust from scratch and she moved on from there and modified the system a bit. My only complaint about homemade pizza is that there never seems to be enough left over for breakfast. Someday I’ll have to save some and see how it tastes cold.

I don’t like homemade French fries. More specifically, I don’t like making homemade French fries as they require something like 27 different freezing and thawing and drying and frying steps over a span of weeks in order to produce one small order of properly cooked fries. I’d rather buy them frozen and deep fry them than work out the math and chemistry required to make them from scratch at home.

Homemade ice cream is awesome. I vaguely remember being disappointed a couple times that I was getting homemade ice cream instead of Neapolitan but I also remember always liking the homemade ice cream. SWMBO found a decent recipe that involves cream and crushed Oreo cookies, but I’m looking for a proper ice cream maker and a lot of rock salt.

Currently we have a device for making homemade snow cones but I’m not a big fan of the syrup the Japanese use. I’d rather get an ice cream maker.

Homemade hamburgers are problematic. First they depend on how well you form the ground beef patties so that they don’t shrink into a little ball that doesn’t fit the bun. Second, they depend on if you have proper buns are not. I’ve had the little chunk of burger between two slices of white bread before and it was not the greatest experience.

The argument that it tastes the same is just wrong. If it doesn’t look the same it can’t possibly taste the same.

Uni Style Fit Single Color Slim Gel Ink Pen–Small Pen Big Name

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The other day I found a pen that I don’t fully understand. It has a name that’s too long in any language.

In Japan it’s the Style Fit Single Color Holder  (スタイルフィット 単色ホルダー) but in English it’s the Uni Style Fit Single Color Slim Gel Ink Pen. In either language, it seems to be a single ink version of the Uni Style Fit Multi Pen that holds either three ink refills or five.

The version I found has a 0.28 mm tip and orange ink. It is silver with a clear section and an orange nock.

I used the Style Fit for a few batches of morning pages and for my daily 10 Ideas. It writes smoothly, and I found the .28 mm line growing on me. It wasn’t scratchy, even on copy paper, but the pen is too slender for me to hold comfortably. It’s thinner than a wood-case pencil.

The clear section on the Uni Style Fit Holder.

The clear section on the Uni Style Fit Holder.

I also found the orange ink to be too bright for my taste. That said, it would make an excellent way to highlight text whilst taking notes in a meeting or a class. The pen was also thin enough to fit inside the cover of a Midori Traveler’s Notebook, although it would require some modifications to make it stay in place securely.

What I don’t understand is the exact purpose of this pen. (And, yes, I am the kind of guy who ponders a pen’s purpose in life.) The refill can be pulled out and placed in a multi pen, making the pen a kind of active refill storage device. It’s like a way to use your refill if you have six inks but only five places in your multi pen. It’s also a way to write if you are too lazy to actually change out an empty refill.

I’m glad I found it and got a chance to play with it, but I doubt I’ll be buying one for myself. Instead, I’ll be returning this one to the room from whence it came.

A full length shot of the Style Fit on a Field Notes notebook. You see traces of the line off to the right.

A full length shot of the Style Fit on a Field Notes notebook. You see traces of the line off to the right.

Watching But Not Listening

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The company I work for has been pretty good to me but for some reason the people who work in the office won’t listen to a word I say.

For example, for several years we were blessed with being left alone and then one day the staff in charge of us announced they wanted to start doing classroom observations. I emphasized that they were welcome any time (well, not really, but that’s what I said) as long as they didn’t come at the end of June when we were busy finishing projects and making exams and going slightly mad.

Then, last year, things got strange: the observers came unannounced (an ambush observation) and they came on the last Friday in June, only a couple days before exams started. We were in the middle of filming projects with our students and it was the worst possible time to be there as I’d have to be out of the classroom while most of my students stayed behind.

When I saw the observers I said, in the most diplomatic manner possible “What the hell are you guys doing here?” Eventually I invited them to the filming room to watch a couple projects being filmed and peace was made.

When they observed later in the year, they called and warned me and I was much more diplomatic. No. Really.

Then, this year, before school started, one of the observers asked me what the best days to observe were. I held back the response on the tip of my tongue (when hell freezes over) and instead suggested the beginning of June as to come any later would mean they would merely see almost exactly the same class they’d seen before (me filming students as they did a project).

After all this I got a call explaining they’d be coming next week, which is the last full week before exams start. The conversation I had with them went something like this:

Them: We want to observe would the end of June be better or should we wait until next term?
Me:      Late September, early October would be better.
Them: So we’ll see you at the end of June then?

Now the optimist in me (as small and weak and naive as he is) believes that they are REALLY busy and this was ABSOLUTELY the ONLY time they could observe. The pessimist/realist in me thinks this is a compliance test and/or a way to show they are in charge of us and the school where I work.

I’ve tried to explain that these late June visits annoy the Japanese staff as well, but I have better luck getting through to our teenage daughter than I do the company I work for.

Temptation to Laziness or Sticking With What Worked

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I resisted temptation today. Mostly.

It is exam making time at the school where I work and this creates an odd dilemma for those of us responsible for making exams. Do we stick with what worked merely recycle what we used last year (aka get lazy) or do we try to make a new test (aka rearrange deck chairs on the Titanic.)?

To be more specific, I don’t want to use too much of last year’s exam because students who took it are still roaming about the school with copies of last year’s exam. On occasion we find loose copies floating around the classrooms. However, because much of the material we’re teaching is the same as the year before it’s hard to come up with something new other than change last year’s “True” answer to “False” and reword a couple questions.

In my case I usually end up with a hybrid. I stick with what worked a few years ago and then reword a few questions. I also, on occasion, come up with new questions and change up the listening questions.

There’s then an commenting/editing session where colleagues teaching the same grade get a chance to read through the exam and hack out the bits they don’t like. Typical comments are “We didn’t teach that this year did we?” “I didn’t teach that. Were we supposed to teach that?” “Who taught you how to spell?” and “How drunk were you when you wrote this test?”

This is also the time when we offer to make the test easier or more difficult based on how annoying our students are being. On occasion, after a particularly bad class, I’ve been known to tell test a test writer that she can’t possibly make the test too difficult. I usually add the phrase “If one of us can pass it, it’s too easy.” Granted, I usually fall for the traps in the listening and fail that part anyway which complicates my instructions but I generally pass the rest. (Note: I wish I was joking.)

For a brief moment there’s a twinge of concern that we might be making life difficult for those students who try really hard in our attempts to punish the bad students.

But that moment ends fairly quickly and the test gets harder.

Beware the Ides of June

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June has come and its arrival was marked by one of those days.

For one of those days in June, though, it wasn’t as bad as it could have been.

First the weather was stuck somewhere between “humid” and “liquid”. Luckily it was reasonably cool and I wasn’t as sweaty as I could have been by the time I got to the station and to work. This meant my forearms only stuck to my papers and notebooks for about 20 minutes after I started working.

Second, for reasons I don’t fully understand, the school where I work has decided to lock the air conditioners at 26 Celsius (or just under 79 Fahrenheit). This wouldn’t be so bad except the ACs don’t run enough to dehumidify properly, the students get sleepy and I, well, I just stop caring because my forearms are sticking to my papers and notebooks.

Third, perhaps because of the changing weather and air pressure and the current pressure to produce exams, I find myself experiencing what can only be described as “blind” or “game concentration” where my focus on what I’m doing keeps me from focusing on what I should be doing.

In today’s case that meant working on my exams instead of going to class. I looked up from my project to see that it was 11:55 and my brain process went something like “Wow, look at the time. Luckily I have time to work before I have to be at class at at 11:45. Cool. Wait. Crap!”

I got to class and was surprised to see my better bad class sitting in their chairs and ready to go. I was also surprised that most of them worked the rest of the period. Hell, I was being irresponsible, I couldn’t exactly ask them to be responsible. (Note: Officially I was taking an important phone call so that may have made me appear more responsible than I was.)

During lunch, for some reason, every surface I touched was messy and I had to wash my hands three times.

Later I spent several minutes cursing auto-format before realizing I was working on the wrong section and had to hit Ctrl + Z about 30 times and start over.

Despite all that, I managed to finish my exams and get some other work done. However, the way things went today, the exams probably didn’t save correctly or the computer will crash. Or, I actually did mess them up.

June has come, which means optimism is dead.

Electronic Digital Dilemmas and Electrical Blood Sports

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Today’s post is a split post about gadgets and stuff.

Smartphones:
One of the current issues we are dealing with at the school where I work is about how smartphones should be used in the class. In the junior high, students are not allowed to have their cellphones turned on. If a student gets caught with a live cellphone, we are supposed to confiscate the phone and turn it over the homeroom teacher who metes out the proper punishment.

In high school it’s more complicated. Students are allowed to have phone and the dilemma becomes how to use them in class. Right now the most common use is as replacements for both paper and electronic dictionaries. Some teachers allow their use (me, with some controls) others don’t like them at ll.

In my case I set a time limit. Students can use the phone for two minutes. I’m trying to prevent them from using translators. Not only is this lazy, but the English is often bad.

For example, after a couple trips through a translator “I don’t like eating too much pasta but I can’t stop eating pizza.” becomes “I do not like it too much to eat pasta, but I can not stop eating pizza.” “I like to watch tv after school but I don’t like to watch it on Sunday because I have to do my English homework.” becomes “I like to watch TV after school, so I have to do my English homework, I do not like to see it on Sunday.”

In such cases I usually mark the sentence with a question mark and the explanation that it’s not really English.

(Note: It’s also understood that if I catch them playing a game or texting I will own their phone for a few days.)

Small and Light:
For the teachers the battle is over CD players and it’s quite a cutthroat battle.

The school has a small allotment of CD working CD players and an even smaller allotment of light and easy to carry ones. This leads to shameless hoarding. Teachers will walk in to school, set down their bags and grab the smallest CD player available, even if they won’t need it for a couple hours. This is done by both men and women. In fact, I’ve seen large, athletic men practically race each other to the shelf to grab the smallest available CD player.

Illicit deals are made where Teacher A agrees to pass the small CD player to Teacher B. Teacher C hides a small one under her desk. Teacher D takes a large CD player and then complains for a while about how heavy it is.

This has prompted a lot of teachers to acquire their own small CD players. Personally, I’m hoping most of them do because that will leave the school CD players for me. Also, I tend to grab the heaviest one anyway because I consider it the gentlemanly thing to do.

I then get my worst student to carry it back to the office.

Suffer Now or Suffer Later

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Well, I freaked out at first and probably pissed off the doctor, but then things got better.

I was still kind of disappointed though.

As I wrote yesterday, today was my annual health check and I started it by making a big mistake: I looked up the possible side effects of an upper endoscopy on the internet. I therefore went into the health check worrying that I’d made a terrible mistake and was going to have bleeding and a sore throat and would passout on the way home after traveling in the wrong direction. (Something like that.)

I was surprised to see how modern the clinic was and how calm every one seemed compared to last year’s “MOVE, MAGGOT, MOVE!” attitude. The comedy, though, started when I changed into my hospital clothes. Everything  was too short. I had highwater trousers and a hapi style jacket that looked like a short sleeve version and only reached my waist. The best thing was they had airplane style slippers that actually fit my feet (I almost brought them home but they started to tear).

Every thing went surprisingly well after that. (It’s the difference between a private clinic and a public hospital). After the basic checks, though, I went for the endoscopy.

This had several steps. First I had to drink something and the nurse left me alone for a few minutes whilst whatever it was started to take effect. Then she injected some kind of anesthetic gel onto the back of my throat and I had to lean back and hold it there for a few minutes. That was hard and I sat up a few times to keep from choking. (Probably a mistake.)

When the doctor came in the nurse sprayed the back of my throat with something and the doctor started the procedure. I noticed that the nurse was behind me and wondered if she was there to hold my head. The doctor inserted the camera and, after a bit, I panicked, started to choke and pulled the tube out.

Two things happened at that point: First, I was shocked at how much tube came out. Second, the doctor started lecturing me about how many of these he’d done and that he’d trained in Germany and I how I needed to stop wasting his time (the latter was implied). I relaxed and they tried again and it all went well. But it was weird feeling the camera moving around.

All must have gone well because I was then sent to the final consultation with a different doctor. She pulled on my lower eye lids. Pressed under my ears and checked my thyroid then threw me out. The entire consultation lasted less than a minute.

I then went home and took a nice nap until I was able to eat and drink again.

This is much better than drinking barium and getting the amusement park ride x-ray treatment. That isn’t so painful at first, but you can’t go home and take a nap because you get to enjoy four hours of Constant Intermittent Explosive D (a technical term).

This does lead to a philosophical issue of whether it’s better to suffer now for a good time later or experience a good time now and suffer later.

I’d prefer to suffer now and will request the endoscopy in the future.

That said, I’m disappointed I didn’t get to watch the video of my stomach. I could kind of see it out of the corner of my eye, but I  hope they send me a copy. I know it’s odd, but I’m interested in looking at me from inside as well.

Maybe next year.

Only Bad Choices for Health

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I’m currently on a forced intermittent fast. This is because tomorrow I’ve got a health check and the check will involve a tube and a camera.

This will happen because, as the company I work for likes to point out to the people who hire them, “Dwayne is over 35” and because I’m on Japan’s national health care scheme, I’m entitled/required to take a physical every year.

One of the oddities is that it used to alternate between full physical and mere x-ray from year to year. However, the last couple years it’s been a more comprehensive check involving blood, x-rays, eye checks and peeing in cups.

Every now and then, though, I’m asked to do a stomach cancer test. There is, however, no good way to do this. Choice One is taking a gas tablet, drinking barium and getting placed on the medical equivalent of carnival ride and then getting spun, angled and rotated whilst being irradiated. That is followed by a long belch and a mad dash home before the barium solution decides to evacuate. That is followed by hours on the toilet waiting for the barium solution to finish exiting.

A few weeks after the earthquake and tsunami in 2011 I was told that I’d have to get a health check that included drinking barium solution. My response involved a shockingly profane version of “I would prefer not to”, because I didn’t want to get stuck in a train station during a rolling blackout and end up spending hours in a station toilet. Also, there was no guarantee I could get a taxi because of the restrictions on gasoline.

Tomorrow, though, I’ve opted for the upper endoscopy. I’ll get drugged and have a camera shoved down my throat. Because of that, I won’t be able to eat until sometime tomorrow afternoon and then I probably won’t want to eat as I’ll probably have a sore throat and nausea. (Remember, this is for my health.)

In the end I’ll decide which is a better test, although I suspect they’ll both leave me feeling like crap. One literally, and one figuratively, of course.

All The Bad Suzukis

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The odds against people named Suzuki are not good, at least in the classes I teach. In my experience, at least at the school where I work, the odds of a Suzuki being bad are pretty high.

Now, I’ll grant you that this may be a math problem. Suzuki is the second most common name in Japan therefore the odds of encountering a Suzuki are high and given the normal distribution of good and bad then, well, um, no, that doesn’t explain the past at all.

About a decade ago I taught a class that had four lads named Suzuki in it. They were all bad. (Given the normal distribution of good and bad then at least one should have been good.) What was funny about them was they were all bad in different ways. Suzuki A (not his real name) was lazy and had to be coaxed into doing work. Suzuki B was noisy and had to be stapled to his chair (metaphorically, of course; the school wouldn’t buy me a stapler that large); Suzuki C was distracted by games and work from other classes and, if he had a book, it wasn’t from my class; and Suzuki D was all of the above forms of bad plus a few more.

While I was teaching the Four Bad Suzukis of the Apocalypse, we had an open class where other teachers could observe our classes. A young teacher observed my class.

Unfortunately on that particular day, Suzuki D’s usual partner was absent and he felt this meant he had the day off. He leaned back in his chair, crossed his arms and fell asleep. I woke him up and told him to get a partner. He pointed to the empty chair, mumbled something and went back to sleep.

I woke him up again and he pointed to the empty chair again and once again mumbled something and went back to sleep again.

I woke him a third time and pointed to another lad who had no partner and Suzuki D mumbled something and went back to sleep.

I woke him up fourth time. This time he threw his arms out and shouted “nani?!” (Which usually means “what” but given his tone, was Japanese for “now what the fuck do you want/will you fuck off”) I told him to get out and he left without much more coaxing than that.

The young teacher was both horrified and impressed and, because Suzuki D was well known there were no repercussions. I don’t know what happened to him. I vaguely remember him not passing the year, but that might be my imagination.

Now, when I have students named Suzuki I ask them “are you a good Suzuki or a bad Suzuki”? They usually say good. I’m not sure I believe them. You are Suzuki until proven innocent.