Welcome to another edition of the Deskwarming Diaries, where an ALT can’t think of anything else but going home to her watercolors. This post features my principal, an update on Hunter, an earthquake, and watercolors. Let’s jump in!
Highlights
As always, first are the highlights:
- Oh, my kids. In elementary, I’m teaching town vocabulary, things like a convenience store, a supermarket, a library, an aquarium, etc. The grammar that goes with this is “We have OO. We don’t have OO.” So, while reviewing, I went vocab word by vocab word, asking the kids what we have and don’t have in our town. They were pretty meh about the whole thing. “What about an amusement park? Do we have an amusement park?” “……………Nooooooo………..” Then we got to school. “Hmm, be careful, this one is difficult. Do we have a school?” “NO!” They immediately shouted, laughing. “Reeaaalllyyyy? We don’t have a school?” “NO! ZOO!” Well, we can agree on that haha.
- Meanwhile, in middle school, I did an activity to practice modal verbs (can, will, must, should, etc.) where I had problems and the kids had to give me advice. For example, I play Fortnite every day. It is a very fun game. But now my parents are mad at me. They say I don’t study. What should I do?? and It is very cold here, and I walk to school. My shoes are not warm enough. What should I do?? Answers to the first question included “You must leave home now,” and “You must stop playing Fortnite,” while answers to the second were “You must wear socks” and “You must be 18. You can buy a car. It is warm in the car.” They were really creative with their answers, and I was impressed!
- Not school related, but we did end up shoveling the snow off our roof after my last post! And, well, by ‘we’ I mean the boys. Our supervisor wouldn’t let me or Jessica on the roof. So the husbands did it. They shoveled for hours and removed quite a bit! Just in time, too. We actually had people pulling over while they were shoveling to tell us they were happy we were doing it. “I pass by here all the time, and I’ve been worried about the state of your roof. Having that much snow is dangerous!”
- Hunter and I have been snowboarding a couple of times since I last wrote. No injuries to report, just general soreness haha. We had one good day of powder, too, which really makes a difference! It’s like riding through a cloud.
“Can we talk for a second?”
Soon after I posted last month, I was chilling at my desk at school when the principal suddenly asked if we could talk. I followed him into his office. As I tried to convince my stomach that I probably wasn’t in trouble, he asked me how I was.
“I’m… good.”
“And how’s Hunter? Is he settling in ok? Is there anything you’re worried about, what with him living here now? Bank account? Insurance?”
I paused for a second. “Nope, we have everything covered I think. His work is helping him with most of that stuff.”
“Ahh, good. Well then, how’s school? Anything concerning you there?”
“Nope, school is good.”
“Good, good. I did want to say that I think we’re very lucky to have you at this school. When I pass by classes, the kids always look engaged and happy when you’re teaching. Thank you for looking after them.”
“No problem!” And then I went back to my desk (I condensed the conversation a little haha).
I walked out of there on cloud nine. Why? Because that, my friends, is the first time in four years that anyone at school has asked me how work was going and if there was anything I was concerned about or needed help with, school-related or not. I genuinely feel like I could go to him with some problem, and he would do his best to help me. In years past, the principal always sets time aside during the year to speak with every teacher to check in. The ALTs are always passed over. It just feels nice to be included, honestly, and it makes me feel less alone. It’s very easy to feel secluded when you’re not fluent in the language of the country you live in.
Moving on… How is Hunter’s job going?
It’s going well, it sounds like! Everyone is super nice, they’ve gone out of their way to help him multiple times, and the kids sound pretty good too. The main thing he doesn’t like is the commute. All things considered, that’s a pretty manageable discomfort!
It’s also been fun to listen to some of his stories. “I feel like all I ever do is cut and glue things. I feel like I’m always crafting something. Why don’t the kids understand my Japanese? It was grammatically correct. It is so… hard… to get them to speak in class.” Yup. I completely understand. Welcome to life as an ALT.
The longest earthquake I’ve ever felt
We had just laid down for bed on Saturday night, the light still on, when suddenly the bed shook. My first thought was “Hunter is just shifting around,” but that was quickly replaced with “Nope, it’s an earthquake.” We laid there for a bit, waiting for it to end, and it didn’t. The bed shook again. The light hanging from the ceiling slowly swayed back and forth. The shoji rattled, their light but consistent thump making me think of how bad the shakes could become.
All in all, it probably lasted around 20-30 seconds, but it felt like much longer! I’m used to earthquakes that last a few seconds. Maybe the bed shakes once, I hear my shoji give their tell-tale rattle, and that’s all. Turns out the epicenter was over 250 kilometers away, off the coast of Fukushima. Scientists classified it as an aftershock of the Great Sendai Earthquake back in 2011 and have warned of more earthquakes to come.
Hunter and I are doing our best to stay safe!
My new favorite thing in the world
I recently purchased a set of watercolors, and I am in love. I haven’t painted much yet, just made some mixing charts, but I feel calmer doing that than I have in a long time. It’s just so satisfying watching the colors go on the paper all bright and vibrant, especially with Nagano’s cold, colorless winter.
I’m also realizing just how free watercolor can be. Whenever I think of painting, it’s always in relation to how I draw manga. First comes the pencil, then going over that in pen, then the shading last. With watercolor, there doesn’t have to be an underlying structure. I watched a video where a woman described how to paint a tree, and it literally took her 30 seconds. “Take your light color and make a sort of blob. Then, take a darker color and add it to your first color while it’s still wet. Last, take your darkest color, add it to the others, then add a couple of touches here and there. Draw a trunk, add a shadow, look! It’s a tree.” Probably sounds weird, but it was amazing. It was like magic. I can’t wait to experiment more!
So much affirmation coming at you – the principal (so nice to finally be noticed!! Woot woot!), the neighbors (as the guys shoveled the snow) and then… poor Hunter. All sad and downcast after the kids don’t understand what he just said in perfectly executed Japanese. Honestly though, that’s pretty funny.
And I really like the “You must be 18 and get a car” – that is solid analysis and problem solving XD