summer camp 2009

so most of the last 2 weeks were spent at english summer camps for the english-intensive high schools, and im kinda glad they’re over!

the thing about camps – or perhaps just the ones that i was at – are that they just go on forever. imagine your day starting at 7.30 in the morning and ending at 9.30pm, with the student’s hour-long bath time around 5pm as your only proper break throughout the day. it doesnt really matter that the things you do arent actually that taxing – in fact, it’s precisely because it’s so untaxing and mind-numbing that it’s difficult to get through it – it’s just that the day drags on!

the first camp i had was in nara, and the students had to interview me and make a poster on me. they are excellent artists, and of course what’s written down there has to be taken with a pinch (or two, or several) of salt:

this is a really good likeness, isnt it?:

on the last day, the students had some time in nara, where they were meant to act as tour guides. but in this case, they didnt, and were more focused on enjoying themselves. in fact, i’ve been to nara more times than any of my students – only 1 out of 10 of them had ever been to nara!

i like the deer in nara

the deer eat paper – pamphlets, magazines, etc – too, so watch out!:

and once they latch on, they dont let go.

we found this one in a ditch beside the main road:

and another that has a very weird left antler which curves forwards and out, rather than straight up – just compare the right and left ones!

the second camp was in kyoto, and we stayed at the Honnoji Kaikan opposite the Kyoto City Hall (or was it the prefectural hall?). In any case, the hotel had amazing food and service! they gave us a kyoto sweet for every night that we stayed over, with a hot water flask and packets of sencha and houjicha. the futons were laid out for us at night too, and the rooms are spacious. and futons comfortable! i think they paid 8000yen for 1 night and 2 meals, which is very reasonable.

especially when your dinners look like that:

how sumptuous! sashimi, tofu, fish, tempura, some seaweed thing, chawamushi, soup and some yam thingy that was exquisitely prepared. this is the tempura – its batter was amazing:

breakfasts were simpler, but still appeared in that form. they always came with some form of egg (omelette or onsen tamago, which is delicious japanese-style soft boiled egg), fish, tofu – that will be heated in its pot using a solid fuel tablet, seaweed, soup, rice, pickles. yum yum.

dinner on the second day was sukiyaki, which was amazing:

the picture is blur cos of the steam, but man it was sooooo good. i love sukiyaki because the broth is tasty, and the egg that you dip the meat and vegetables in enhances the flavour. we had extra stuff to cook too, so i ate way too much. in fact, i ate too much throughout that camp!:

those were huge plates of stuff – to be shared between 4 pple, but in my case, it was shared between 3. and there was also some katsuo salad, with 5 pieces of katsuo. so yummy – that stuif wasnt cheap either!

at least the food at that camp was really good, because that, and hanging out with the guys chatting in their room over drinky drinks (ie alcohol) at night were the two things that made it endurable.

oh, and on the last day, the school hired other private ALTs so that the students could break into even smaller groups to act as tour guides of kyoto, and oh my. those private ALTs reminded me of how i was last year, and made me realise how jaded i’ve been!

last year, i was really excited, extremely happy-sounding, and really made the effort to appear energetic, positive and interested. i tried so hard to engage the students in conversation and was really into learning about the job and all that, whereas this year i was happy to sit and eat my food without talking too much to anyone while listening in on the student’s (japanese) conversation.

it’s interesting too, that few of the other JETs in the city find what we do unchallenging. im not sure if i’ve ever mentioned this here before, but to put things very simply, life as an ALT is, in my opinion, very unchallenging. i have very little actual hours of work, and basically my job is to do as i’m told by the JTE. of course there’s room for input and suggestions, but that doesnt take too much either.

in essence, it’s very easy work and doesnt require much of you. some of the rest find communication difficult as their JTEs do not have that good a command of english and they cant always communicate with the students, but i dont really have that problem. but even then, the fact that we all that sheer amount of free time at work is what really gets to me and is difficult to deal with. i suppose it doesnt help that i feel underutilised, and that im not really developing in any way professionally, nor is my potential being stretched at all..

oh well. ganbarimasu this next year, and in the mean time i’ll develop myself in other ways!