Volume 3: The Misfortune of Endless Mingling
Thus starts Volume 3 of my first week in Japan!
Now I’m a pretty social person, most people who know me (or my family) know this, but there are limits even I have. And 2 days of endless meetings, pretending to be friendly and interested, and general small talk while dealing with jet lag, is my limit! The last thing you want to do when in a foreign country for the first time is having to go to class and learn, but that was what I had to do for my first few days in Japan. We had a 3 day orientation, 2 days of seminars and 1 day of travel to our prefectures.
****Note: Instead of provinces Japan has prefectures. Prefectures include places like Osaka, Kyoto, Kobe, Nagasaki,and Shiga. Of course there are many prefectures and I just named some of them.****
Back to orientation day 1~ the first day started bright and early with a few welcome speeches and introduction to Japan. To be honest I don’t really remember most of the first day because it was a whole lot of sitting while being talked at. The worst part of the day was lunch which was a measly bowl of pasta and soup that was expected to hold us until the welcome reception at night. The welcome reception was nice, because they split us up by prefectures so you were able to meet the people who would be in your area from places around the world (including Trinidad!!). The food was good, and although I experienced some stomach problems, it was a nice and early night. The next day was filled with workshops in which we were divided by school level. So being a senior high school teacher I was not able to be with my friends who taught in elementary or junior high school. Although I had already been teaching for 2 years, I was still able to pick up some activities that might be useful in the classroom. At the end of day 2 was the most important meeting in my mind…..finally we met with the people from our prefecture that would help us travel there. The 3 people who came were super helpful, amazing, and ended up becoming very familiar faces to us now. They work in the Shiga board of education, and they are our contacts if we need help with school or life.
****Another note: by this time I have mentioned ‘Shiga’ quite a bit. This is because I live in Shiga prefecture in a small town called Ritto. So from Tokyo I had to travel to Shiga which is around 2 1/2 hours away by bullet train*******
Anyways, during the meeting we learned that we will be leaving the hotel at 7:00 am sharp to grab a bus that goes to Tokyo train station. From there we would take the bullet train to Kyoto station, and then the local train line a couple stops to Otsu the main city of Shiga. At Otsu we will be meeting with our supervisors in a ceremony in which we will have to introduce ourselves in front of everyone in JAPANESE!! Many of you are thinking…..but Amba, you already know Korean, how hard can Japanese be? Let me tell you that I know basically zero Japanese, and have come here with the faith that my brain will not fail me and I’ll be able to pick up Japanese as quickly as I did Korean. So for me, this ceremony was a major event that I needed to do my best, so that I could impress my school representatives who were coming to the meeting. Therefore, in between pulling my luggage, trying not to get lost from the group, and transferring train lines I was busy memorizing my Japanese introduction.
Forget small talk people…..leave me alone so I can memorize and practice in peace!!