So... Japan! My new position is a 5th grade homeroom teacher at Canadian International School Tokyo. The position came about rather suddenly. I saw it posted through Search Associates - a very good association for overseas teachers and schools - and e-mailed to find out if my American credentials would work at a Canadian school. The reply I got was along the lines of Yes, that's fine. When can we Skype? Apparently they had someone else for the job but he quit rather at the last minute and that's where I stepped in. I've known all along that I'd make a great place filler. I have international experience, four years of teaching under my belt, no master's degrees that make me more expensive to hire, and come with no dependents! A great deal, all in all, if I do say so myself. The job offer came on August 7th and I boarded my plane on the 20th - just 13 days later! A very quick change in situation, but I'm flexible and having been overseas before made it less intimidating than it might have been otherwise.
I quickly booked a flight and ended up going with Air Canada, which meant a four hour layover in Toronto (which turns out the be a really nice airport.) Air Canada was... meh. "Adequate" is a word that springs to mind. I do think I'm going to go ahead and blame them for my luggage getting soaked in the rain. Not just a little damp on the outside, but really wet on the inside too. Enough to ruin a couple books. Really, the only redeeming factor was that they had Muppet's Treasure Island as one of their in-flight movies.
For the duration of the 12 hour flight from Toronto to Tokyo I was in the middle seat of the right hand row. (At least it wasn't the middle of the middle aisle!) My seatmate on the left was a Canadian-American university student who's just finishing up her last year of study at Temple University's Tokyo campus. She had nothing but positive things to say about her adopted city and I got a lot of useful advice and encouraging tidbits from her. On my right was a middle-aged man who's a smartphone engineer who gets to travel wherever he wants for work as long as he has an internet connection. (Lucky man!) For being stuck in the middle of a row, it wasn't too bad and I had some good conversations with both seatmates, followed of course by long periods of silence, boredom, and zoning out.
By the time I arrived, I hadn't properly slept in about 23 hours. I was feeling brain dead and a bit feverish / intoxicated from lack of proper sleep. My Temple University friend helped me find my way through customs and we parted ways. At the school's instruction, I was to take a bus from Narita airport to my hotel. After purchasing my ticket, I had about 30-40 minutes to wait, so I decided to exchange money. With new yen bills and coins in hand, I stepped out of the queue to put my money away and quickly realized I no longer had my wallet. Cue panic. I searched all throughout my backpack in case I had dropped but after a frantic minute or two I realized it was gone. And I had just exchanged money, leaving the only conclusion to be I had left it on the wrong side of the exchange counter. I edged back in line and showed my face. The reaction from the money exchange people was the one I wanted: Oh hey, there's that girl. Say, So-And-So sitting behind me, that girl came back. Well, guess what? They no longer had the wallet! It was not more than two minutes since I left, had gone all of about ten paces away and back, and in that time they passed it over to the information counter. Thanking them in an embarrassed way, I went over to the information counter and inquired about my poor, lost wallet. They let me take the wallet after thoroughly checking that everything was there and said I could take it only because I fetched it so soon. They were in fact preparing to file an international report for it, in which case I would have still gotten it back but a lot later and after a lot of hassle. Needless to say, I still very pretty silly over the whole thing.
I had read stories like this about Japan before I left, of people losing items and having them returned in-tact with a bow attached to boot. It seems to be the case. My feeling overall is that Tokyo is very safe. There isn't a feeling like you shouldn't be out at night. People walk around at night all the time, and frequently you see kids - little kids, elementary-aged - walking around on their own, commuting to school or going elsewhere. For a city this size, you'd almost expect more crime, but hey - I'm not complaining.
Back to my first night in Tokyo, even though I felt exhausted to the bone upon arriving, I also felt energized in a way too. It was a feeling that began when I got on my first flight from Minneapolis to Toronto. You know, the beginning of a new adventure. Wearing my sneakers, sweatpants, and scarf, passport around my neck, flinging myself across several time zones just for the sake of trying expat life in a new place. (By the way, I'm now 14 hours ahead of Central Time.) That was a good feeling, as was the feeling of relief when I finally got to my hotel room, but mostly, my first thought was sleep...now...
The next day I had a chance to explore the hotel's beautiful traditional Japanese garden, as well as experience the sweltering humidity and cacophonous drone of cicadas, before meeting with the school's business manager who had helped me arrange all the details of getting over to Japan. I felt a little out of place in the hotel lobby. Finely dressed wedding-party members walked back and forth as I sat with my mound of luggage, typing away at a Bethel University assignment (which is still in full swing and has not kindly paused for my life transitions.) Eventually another white lady (Girl? Woman? I never know what to say) came and sat by me, although we didn't talk. When the business manager, Mr. Takaguchi, approached us and inquired if we were there for CIS, we both responded. The other white lady, it turns out, was Shayne, another new teacher to CIS who just so happens to be my 5th grade teaching partner and now good friend.
We were introduced to another new teacher and office staff, and after briefly going over this and that in the lobby, headed out in two vans to our new residence, the so-called Monthly Mansion. The "monthly" bit is correct, because you do pay by the month, but the "mansion" bit is definitely a stretch. My room is about the size of a dorm room, but includes a teeny-tiny bathroom, a burner, sink, and mini-fridge. It also came with one spoon, fork, bowl, plate, kettle, and rice cooker. It's basically a box of a room with a very narrow closet space that leads to the door. And I'm lucky to even have the closet space; Shayne apparently does not. It doesn't help that the corridors have all the appeal and appearance of a jail. Heavily locked doors that require a key card for access stretch down the non-descript corridor, there are no decent windows, and no less than eight (I counted) security cameras mounted to the ceiling on my floor alone. On the plus side, there is laundry, so there's that, right?
So I think we might take "mansion" with a grain of salt. "High-security-glorified-dorm-room" is more accurate. Then again, I've only ever heard Mr. Takaguchi call it a Monthly Mansion. According to the sign outside, it's just a Monthly Resi-Stay, which makes more sense as a name. Needless to say, the search for a new neighborhood is underway. Actually, I quite like the neighborhood I'm in right now. It has a nice feel. There are plenty of good restaurants (including great sushi, curry, and ramen places!), as many 7 Elevens and Family Marts as your heart could desire, and even a grocery story and a Seiyu, which turns out to be a subsidiary of Wal-Mart. (I traveled 6,000 miles from home only to be closer to a Wal-Mart owned store than ever before.) It also has a nice combination of energy and calm that make me think it might be nice to continue living here. On the other hand, Tokyo is absolutely huge and there are lots of great neighborhoods worth exploring. Wherever I end up moving to, I'm sure it will be good.
So far, I've mostly be commuting from home to work and back again, but Shayne and I have managed to visit Shinagawa, Roppongi, Tokyo Tower, and Shibuya as well. Shibuya was crazy by the way. I recommend doing a Google Image search to get an idea. I could spend a thousand words trying to explain the atmosphere, or... you could just look it up. If I were to use any words to describe it, they would be: chaotic, loud, busy, bright, crowded, etc. Also - honest to God - Shayne and I saw a sign for a club called Club Gas Panic. I kid you not. There's no connotation of those particular words together that is good in any sense.
What about school? I think that could be an entirely new blog post right there, but I'll try to sketch out some details anyway. Canadian International School Tokyo (which, rather smartly goes by the acronym CIS and not CIST) is in the neighborhood of Shinagawa. We go to work everyday on the Yamanote line, which is not properly the metro but the above-ground JR line.
Standing jam-packed with a minimum of four or five strangers pushing into you on the train lost all of its appeal in about, oh, two or three days. At first it seemed like something out of an color-photo "A Children's Introduction to Japan" book, but then it wasn't so fun anymore. It's damn crowded, is what it is! Believe it or not, getting on the train at 7:30 is much better than at 8:30. We left later in the morning during orientation week than we have been for the regular working day, and it was much worse and more crowded later on in the morning. People seem to have very late working schedules. It gets very busy at 8 or 9 in the morning and again at 8 or 9 at night. Leaving at 5 PM, as we usually do, is quieter and more peaceful than leaving in the evening or night. You might even get the chance to grab a seat after a handful of stops! You never get a seat right away. You generally have to wait a while to grab your opportunity. Even when the train is "quiet" it's not really quiet. It's always full. It's either just full, or insanely over-full.
According to Shayne, who taught in Korea last year, in Seoul there is a cultural standard that prizes staying late at the office as a mark of dedication, even if you're just sleeping at your desk or essentially wasting time by working as slow as molasses in January. It would appear the same is true here in Tokyo. People get off of work so late and then often head out for drinks with co-workers rather than heading home.
I got off-track though. What about school? So far so good. I really like the school, my co-workers, and kids so far. I'm very spoiled with a small class. I mean, really small. As in eleven kids. Shayne also has eleven. (!!!) We heard through the grapevine that the most troublesome trouble-makers seem to have left between last year and this and so we've got delightfully small classes of delightful children. I'm going to be spoiled this year. And with only eleven, I can get to know them all very well, and any problems that do pop up should hopefully be very manageable. Honestly, if I ever start complaining about my kids, someone ought to put me in my place.
In my class I have seven boys and four girls. Four are Japanese, four are Korean, one is Chinese, one is Malaysian, and one is South African. Shayne's class is quite similar, although she has one student from Saudi, one from Myanmar, and three kids who are Canadian-Japanese. Overall, we are both really enjoying our classes.
The school is an IB school but only teaches the PYP (Primary Years Programme.) I chose some international-flag-themed PYP displays off of Teachers Pay Teachers for the classroom walls. My wonderful nerdy kids have taken up naming as many flags as they can during breaks and lunch (which we eat together in the classroom) and quizzing each other on which flag appears on which poster. Already, I couldn't be more proud of them!
We've had one week of school so far and each day was easier and went more smoothly than the last. Shayne and I have been doing a lot of co-planning and co-teaching, and it makes sense. It's been working out well so we'll likely keep that up. Language arts and science are integrated into the PYP transdisciplinary units, but we teach math and spelling separately. Like a typical Western school, our preps are during specialist time: music/art, Japanese, P.E., Writer's Workshop, and library. The day operates on an alternating A Day / B Day schedule, but it's not worth the time or effort to go into more detail. I'll just say that the first week went well and I think I'm falling nicely into the routine of things. The only thing that's very different from what I expected is that I eat lunch with my kids everyday and supervise them during recess twice a week. Perhaps that's not so weird at a small school, but it's a bit of a turnaround from Mounds View last year.
