Deskwarming Diaries #16

Welcome to another edition of the Deskwarming Diaries, where an ALT suddenly remembers she hasn’t updated her blog in wayyyyyy too long. Today’s edition includes small fish, school stories, good news, snow, and New Years festivities. Let’s jump in!

Today’s lunch

Today’s lunch consisted of wakasagi and gobo (burdock root), a simple salad with sour plum in it, and miso soup with all kinds of ingredients added in.

Wakasagi, or pond smelt, is a small fish which is eaten whole. You can actually fish for them from bottomless fishing boats in winter, and I’ve always wanted to try this at Lake Nojiri. Maybe I’ll get a chance this year! Anyway, today’s wakasagi was some fried goodness. I was super skeptical of it when I first got here — now it’s one of my favorite lunches.

Here are the highlights!

• The week of Christmas was just Christmas lesson after Christmas lesson after Christmas lesson. During our first lesson, we told the kids that Americans don’t eat cake or chicken on Christmas (like they do in Japan). It’s an exaggeration but still. One of the kids immediately yelled 「もったいない！！！」 (“What a waste!”) and the rest of them spent the next five minutes saying how sorry they are for us and how sad we must be that we don’t eat chicken or cake on Christmas haha.
• My co-ALT, Jessica, decided to tell our teacher buddies about ‘cow-tipping’ the other day. This, of course, led to many questions we weren’t quite sure how to answer. “Why do you tip cows? Can you even tip a cow? Who does that? When would you ever use that in a conversation? Have you ever tipped a cow?” It was honestly hilarious! We spent a lot of time trying to explain that we think it’s just a myth. Everyone knows what it is… but no one has actually done it. At least in our experiences.
• While making stories with a middle school student (an exercise to stretch those English muscles), I was a little warry when both of their stories were about death and giant, people-eating monsters. I was going to ask if they were ok, when suddenly, I remembered…
  “Ah… The last season of Attack on Titan is on TV right now, isn’t it?
  “Yes.” :3
  “Are you watching it?”
  “Yes!” :3
  “Is it good?”
  “YES!!” 😀
• I’m still laughing about this next story. We were teaching alphabet in an elementary class, and the students were cutting out the alphabet cards in the back of their textbooks. Class was going to end in about ten minutes, so I told them, “If you need any help, let us know! We are super fast with scissors.”
  “Sensei..” called a student near the front.
  “Yes?” I said, turning towards them.
  And this little kid… held up an ‘n’ and an ‘o’ and with the most deadpan expression on their face said, “Sensei… No.” I LOST it in the middle of class. The kid was so happy that they made me laugh that they immediately turned around and did the same thing to a friend, who just rolled their eyes and kept cutting haha.
• I let some of my elementary kids choose an English name to use for English class. I gave them a list of names to choose from if they needed inspiration, but they could also use any English word they knew. For example, ‘dog’ or ‘cat’ or ‘hamburger.’ Most of the kids chose regular names. However, I also got a ‘Back,’ a ‘Kocho’ (the word for ‘principal’ in Japanese), and a ‘Ham.’ These kids crack me up!

Good news!!

Now for the good news: it’s been a long eight months, but Hunter is finally back in Japan! He arrived in Tokyo at the beginning of December, I drove there to pick him up, then drove back to Nagano, where we spent two weeks in quarantine at home. It feels absolutely amazing to be reunited. And now that he is on a proper visa, he won’t have to leave every three months! Strange to say, but this’ll actually be the longest we’ve ever stayed in one place together before. Just in time for winter, too!

Speaking of winter…

Oh ma lawd you guys, there is so much snow this year. I feel like last year lulled me into a false sense of security ’cause MAN do I feel unprepared! We’ve got about 2 feet on the ground right now (3, 3 1/2 in some places) and it doesn’t show signs of stopping (ba dum pshhh). Looking forward to hitting those slopes and maybe buying some snowshoes to take pictures in some harder-to-access places!

This snow isn’t just fun and games though. I actually got stopped yesterday by my neighbor who told me I need to clear my roof of snow, ASAP. I’ve never had to do it in the 3 1/2 years I’ve been here, but it did get close my first year. Who knows, maybe I’ll right another post in the future about my experiences shoveling snow off my roof!

New Year, New Festivities

Like last year, I did hatsumode at a temple in Nakano. This year, I was told there would be festivities at a local temple only a few minutes walk from my house. When we showed up 10 minutes before midnight, there were people already congregating around a snow bar; super impressive. We counted down the New Year, rang the bell, drank some hot wine and lemonade, waved to students, and wrote our New Year’s wishes on small paper lanterns. Everyone was in good spirits and even though it was freeeezing cold, we drew warmth from the smiles of the people around us.

This past weekend, Hunter and I were also able to take part in mochitsuki (mochi pounding) at that same temple. I’ve done mochitsuki a couple times at school, but this was my first time doing it as part of New Year’s festivities. Hunter also wanted to try it out 😀

Heeeee was a natural. All those years of chopping wood meant he had great form and rhythm when pounding the mochi. Everyone there was shocked it was his first time!

After we pounded the mochi, I attempted to help divide it into smaller pieces. Honestly much harder than it looks. All the grandmas threw shade as they rolled pieces in red bean paste or soybean flour (my favorite) — “Wow, some of these pieces have… interesting shapes…” Yeah, I know you’re referring to my misshapen lumps. I eventually switched to the easier job of covering them in toppings and left the dividing to more practiced hands.

Wrapping up

I have honestly written and re-written this blog post so many times over the past month. I’ve gotten so out of the habit of writing that it was hard to find motivation to buckle down and finish it! Now that this post is out, though, I’m looking forward to getting back into it.

今年もよろしくお願いします！

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Until next time!