かぐや姫の物語

This is going to be a short post, but I wanted to put something up since I probably won't update again until after Christmas. I have a 忘年会　(bonenkai, end of the year party) Friday night and I'm heading out early Saturday morning for Tokyo. I don't know how much time I'll have to update while in Tokyo and my family is getting flying in the day I get back to Kitakyushu. So I'll probably be MIA for the next few weeks, but hopefully I'll have lots of amazing pictures and stories when I get back!

As for this past weekend, I saw my first Japanese movie in the theaters! No subtitles or anything. The movie I saw was かぐや姫のもの物語 ( Kaguya Hime No Monogatari) or The Tale of Princess Kaguya. It is the newest Studio Ghibli film and tells the story of a princess from the moon born out of bamboo on Earth. It's a very odd story, but it's very famous in Japan. I was able to understand the first half of the movie, but the second half of the movie takes place in a high society temple and everyone speaks in Keigo. Keigo literally means "respectful language" and is a hyper polite form of Japanese that I don't really understand. The grammar changes and many verbs change or are extended. I had already read the story in my Japanese Literature class at Hofstra, so thankfully I was still able to follow the story because of the animation and previous knowledge. The movie was beautifully illustrated and I'm hoping to see more Japanese movies in the future (hopefully with less Keigo)!

Christmas Cards

I'm sorry I didn't update last week, I haven't been up to anything all that exciting. I'm saving as much money as I can for my Christmas trip to Tokyo! It's going to be a week long trip (Dec. 21st - Dec. 27th) with my friend Patrick. We're taking the 新幹線 (shinkansen, bullet train) to 品川駅 (Shinagawa station), where we will be staying in a hotel only minutes from the train station! Shinagawa is a southern ward in Tokyo and the train station there connects to five different train lines around Tokyo. It also has four special platforms for other trains like the bullet train. The trip up from Kokura will take about five hours, but I'm very excited! I'm also taking another short trip closer to New Years with my family, but the destination is a surprise for my parents, so I'll write about that later.

My last few weeks have been pretty low key in preparation for these trips. I went out with one of the Japanese teachers from Futajima and we had a great time at karaoke, but I haven't been out much other than that. I've been playing a lot of Pokemon and just hanging out with friends. On Saturday a bunch of people are coming over for a game day, which I'm really looking forward to.

Since nothing too exciting is happening outside of school, I figured I'd write a little bit about a project I'm doing with my students. I started the project last week and have been going around to all the English classes in my school making Christmas cards with the students. First they write a rough draft on scrap paper. I go around and correct their drafts as they work and once they finish and I've looked over everything, I give them a green card to write their message on and decorate. I've been really blown away by some of the results, the students are coming up with great messages and some of the artwork on the cards is phenomenal. All the English teachers at my school are excited about the project as well and are showing off the cards to other teachers in the staff room. I went to the post office today and mailed the 400 cards to St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, where the cards will be given to the patients at the hospital. My students were really excited that their cards are headed to America to real American children, it really motivated them. Sometimes learning English seems like a waste to them, especially the students who have never been out of their town, so having a real context for using English was something they really enjoyed.

One last very exciting note! I went to my monthly Kitakyushu ALT meeting today and we found out whether or not we are getting re-contracted today. I got re-contracted! I along with Patrick, Kris, and Emily signed our papers today and are officially working here again next year! More people we re-contracted, but I didn't notice whether or not anyone else signed the papers yet. I'm so excited to be able to work here again next year!