また小さいポストだよ ：（

今日
Today we went to a junior high school and taught some kids English for about an hour. Then we talked with a Japanese professor about the education system in Japan and I totally busted out Savage Inequalities from freshman year. そのあとで、教育学生に沢山会いました。本当にまた会いたいよ！これを読んだらコーメントを書いてくださ～い！

中学校
As part of our Japanese Culture class we're looking at the education system. It was created by the Allies as part of the "peace agreement" and mirrored that of the West, but it's taken a few Japanese turns, for both the worse and the better. And right now, tons of problems are starting to rise in the form of kids being unruly and violent.

But the school we went to seemed very normal. It's affiliated with Chiba University so maybe it's an exceptional case but as we walked in we saw kids in their groups cleaning the school grounds, planting flowers in the little garden around the building, and all saying こんにちは as we walked by. When we entered, they had slippers already laid out for their guests (you take off your shoes everywhere with clean floors in Japan). Up we went, a few floors, to our destination, an "English activity class." Here, they haven't put English into the mainstream of the curriculum yet so saying that "kids are taught English" doesn't necessarily mean they take a proper "class."

Anyway, we were briefed in an adjacent empty room by the teacher and his aid, two men in their 30s, and then entered the room with all the kids. The grade system is different here so they were called "2nd graders" but I think their age was around that of US 8th graders. We played two games, one was kind of like hot potato where you passed it around but had to name an item of a category (fruits, sports, personality traits) and the other was called "Ringo" in which you had to count to 30 in English but say "ringo" instead of multiples of 3 or numbers with 3 in them.

MLK
After those two we were handed MLK's "I Have a Dream" speech and the teacher asked if one of us could demonstrate it. I hesitated, volunteered, and then did my best to impersonate a semi-angry charismatic black guy fighting for civil rights. People liked it! Then we had to try to teach them how to read it, and I did pretty poorly at that. The whole experience was so cool, and made me want to have kids, and also made me want to be a teacher, but the teacher thing went away in about 20 minutes.

Afterparty
After the visit we came back to the campus and compared Japan's education system with that of the US. I remember reading Savage Inequalities as the "freshman book" or whatever and asked how public schools were funded in Japan and if it caused any inequality. It was a pretty short little lecture but she demonstrated a few funny little child teaching tactics.

Education students

Then we went upstairs to somewhat of a party that the 教育学生 (education majors) had prepared for us, wherein we all introduced ourselves and then talked. I chatted in all Japanese for an hour with 3 or 4 people and it was pretty exhilarating. I gave some of them my blog address and told them they should come by our classroom, so I really hope that they do!

ダイムラー・クライスラインタービュ　Daimler Interview
Yesterday I went to Yoyogi Station to meet a German girl, now working for Daimler, whom my host mother met a few years ago.

DoCoMo building from the station
Around where we ate - we had gyuudon at Yoshinoya. It was pretty good for the price.
Cool car

We went to a very sweet Italy/Asia mix cafe, one I'm sure no foreigners like myself would know about, and talked about my interview stuff. As soon as I organize the information I'll post more about it, but I learned some cool things from her.

"American wit" is absolutely useless and pretty dangerous to use with Japanese people.
When Japanese people ask you personally probing questions, which they often do, your only good defense is to ask the same question back after answering.

We also talked a lot about Japanese negotiation and a ton about the whole stay at work really late phenomenon. She also gave me a lot of personal advice about working in Japan, language, and other important things.

新宿　Shinjuku
Afterward she showed us to Shinjuku, which was less than a 10 minute walk from the cafe. I suppose it's like the Manhattan of Japan, with TONS of stores, office buildings, and apartments. Oh and people too! I'll just post a flurry of pictures to try and give you an idea. My camera is having trouble detecting/balancing light I think, so pictures I take in the bright or dark have started to turn out horribly. I borrowed most of these from a friend.

We arrived at the Southern Terrace first, a place with a bunch of malls and bridges over the station, as well as an awesome view of the DoCoMo building.
Southern Terrace
Southern Terrace from further
More to the right
Clock on the top of NTT building

Then we took a left out to the middle of the busy area.
Malls on top of the station
More of those
Walkin down the street
Three story ad
Megane su-pa-
A square type place
Another view of that
Some stores
Some more stores
A pretty... sign!
More cool... signs!
We went down here

After the initial loss of breath we walked further in to a huge square with tons of people and huge signs. We went into Don Kiho-te-, a store with 5 floors of everything, looked around a little bit, and then went to Kabuki-chou, an apparently promiscuous place that's I can't quite understand.

That big square
A little to the right
The biggest sign we saw
Inside don quixote
In front of Kabukichou
Inside Kabukichou
Its sign

The last two days were incredible and really have had a profound effect on my desire to come back, for a pretty long time even. Tonight may be no different, as I'll be meeting Josh in Tokyo station and heading out to interview a girl who works for Nomura Securities, the biggest securities exchange company in the land.