Monkey Fun

Wednesday, July 09, 2003 :::

Found my local internet cafe - yaay! So can now start writing meaningful things rather than leaving this to stagnate on the web.

I'll be writing up what's happened to me, working backwards from today, as an update to myself more that anything. Also in the hope that it will be cathartic or some such nonsense - you never know.

Anyway, we begin with today, Wednesday the 9th of July, with my second visit to Chuutan School for Handicapped children. Which was, as things go, both fine and unbearable. Fine in that I coped with it quite well when I was there, except for the last hour, and unbearable in that the instant I switched my upper cognitive functions back on I essentially entered a huge muddle of emotions, very few of them good. Don't get me wrong, it has very little to do with the children (who are, one and all, sweet natured and cheerful) or even with their conditions. It has more to do with the lost potential. They are so cheerful and sweet-natured that I can't help wondering about how they would act, what they would grow up to be, if they weren't handicapped. And it's upsetting. I don't think I'm cut out for this sort of thing?E

I had to teach an eighteen year old lad with muscular dystrophy today, and it just made my fingers ache and my neck freeze into position. Fortunately my smile stayed with me all the way through, and I managed not to once show my complete horror. This is a boy whose mind is entirely perfect. He's clever and probably articulate (my Japanese is not really good enough to tell), he wants to go to University, he has ambitions. And he's trapped inside his own body, unable to move anything more than his fingers and his head. It is, in my opinion, the ultimate and most horrendous prison, and the worst thing is that he's completely aware of it.

And after that I had to go eat lunch with the younger versions, who can't even talk, let alone run around and play. They communicate via screams, cries and movements of the head and eyes. There(s nothing wrong with their minds either. It's just their bodies that have them trapped. But they're so irrepressibly cheerful that it's impossible not to smile at them, which is great. At the same time it makes the whole experience worse than anything I can possibly describe. Their carers have my complete admiration; I couldn't look after them day in and day out. I'd go mad.

Today was my first day at Chuutan, and I can't say it was a terrible experience. The kids were all mobile, even if a few were simply not "here" during the lesson. Most of them could talk, most of them could walk, most of them could understand. Some of them couldn't. But the lesson - if such it could be called - went well, some of the kids had a high old time, and kept on giggling during the lesson, while others stared blankly at walls and things. Lunch time was an experience - I left one boy with my name written on a piece of paper - some sort of autograph I believe. And one of the lads I ate with was inclined to hitting things, which was not so great.

But all in all nothing too traumatic happened. Except that it was obvious to me, throughout the whole morning, that all of these kids were well below their own mental age level, some with additional problems, and I couldn't really cope with that idea. So I turned off, became a smiling marionette and played at being cheerful while inside I was dying slowly each time a bright and happy face looked up at me with the correct answer and I wondered how far he would have gone if he or she didn't have whatever condition he or she has. And tomorrow it's going to get worse. Tomorrow I'm teaching a boy with muscular dystrophy. A perfect mind trapped in an unresponsive body. At least these children are, for the most part, pretty unaware of the fact that they are "different" from other children their age. I sincerely doubt that will be the case tomorrow.

International Ayabe actually felt like a chore today, especially so since my friend S (who usually is there with me) managed to lock her keys in her car for about one and a half hours, and thus could only be there for the last half an hour. Fortunately we both have the entire summer holiday away from this so this was the last meeting until September. Which is great because it frees up my Tuesdays, and gives me something less to worry about.

S is considerably less stressed today, despite the key incident - documents and stuff are moving along a bit and her bf's picture now has the improvements done and dusted. She's still not sure if she wants to show it to him, but he did ask for it, and I told her he wouldn't be disappointed. She's so good at drawing, how could he be? I'm not sure that she's convinced, but at least I tried.

Today was the second day of oral exams at Oe, and though they did well, they were not so good as the classes on Friday. Much less expression and intonation, virtually no body language?Eactually I'd say their main teacher has not been giving them any help or hints as to where they could improve before the test. Which wouldn't surprise me - he doesn't seem to have much involvement with the students except on a superficial level, unlike the lady who teaches the other lot. It's a pity, because several of them have it in them to be really good with a bit of encouragement, but there's not much I can do since he really does control the class entirely.

In other news, I'm really chuffed with both myself and S - we both got our Iaido Shoudan belts today! First black belt! Yaay! We had thought that we weren't being graded on the 28th and 29th, but obviously we were, and there was probably some paperwork to be done before we could get our certificates. So now I have a shiny new certificate saying I've got my Shoudan, written in kanji of course. And it certainly makes up for the headache I'vee had all day.

Of course I'm stressing out about the whole thing tomorrow - I'm really hoping the main teachers have everything planned out well, because I don't have a clue how to teach handicapped kids and I doubt I can learn in three days. Really need to get some decent sleep, but of course I won't. At least I found my hanko today, so I'm no longer worrying about that. I just have to sort out my Japanese drivers licence now, and that's it. I do pity S - she's really been quite stressed about the whole visa business. I can't believe you can't do it by post. Absolutely ridiculous. But on top of that she's biting her nails over showing her bf his portrait that she's drawn for him, and she has to sort out her Japanese licence, her brother's birthday present and various other things. I think she has too much on her plate. But she always does, in my opinion - she really does need to learn how to say "No."

Well, I spent far too much money today. Not that I regret it, but the substantial pile of manga illustrations I now have possession of hardly seem to be a suitable sort of thing to have bought. Although I could plead innocence and point to the two new dictionaries claiming them as my primary purchase. Which isn't entirely true - they are outnumbered by a considerable amount by the manga, but they were more expensive... sort of. But I'm very happy with my stash, and am not giving it up! Especially not the Dragonball books - all the way from 1 to 16, excluding 13, which wasn't there. So now I have from the beginning of the whole original saga through to the beginning of the Saiyan Saga, complete with some very nummy pictures - Yamucha, Vejiita and Radditsu are my favourites. I'lll have to scan them in and show them off to some people.

The only problem is that they are all in Japanese and therefore will take a bit of study to understand. Most of the kanji have furigana next to them though, and I have my handy kanji dictionary for the rest - although it is only a beginners one... As to the rest of my stash... I have random artists illustrations, including one yaoi one - which S almost caught sight of. Lucky escape there - being the good Catholic girl she is, I don't think she would have approved of it. She's already voiced her opinion that yaoi manga are weird, and people who buy them are even weirder. I kept my opinions to myself - she's a great friend, but we've only known each other for less than a year and I don't want to create tension in our tiny community. I'lll find more like-minded people later on in my life, when I'm more settled and have a large enough stack of manga to act as a comfort blanket...

On a related note, she's stressing about her visa - her passport expired this year, so she got a new one, but the Japanese end of things will not transfer her perfectly valid visa from her old passport to her new one. Nor will it transfer her re-entry permit. So she has one passport that's out of date and one that is no help as to staying in this country. Of course there are procedures that you can go through to ameliorate this, but they take ages and have to be done in person. Nothing, it seems, can be done by post - not even the filling in of forms. Which is ridiculous, especially since they want her there, in person, for a whole day each time, even if it's just the whole form-filling in nonsense. Absolutely insane. And here I came over with the stereotype of Japanese efficiency fixed firmly in my head.

In related news, I believe I've lost my hanko (signature stamp thingy that one uses in place of writing one's own signature). Which is a bit of a bugger to be honest, but not the end of the world. Of course I'm anxious out about Chutan School visit already, so this is just one more, tiny niggling thing that isn't really helping the situation. I'm going to to console myself with manga now.

Today was my quiet day in - doing lots of coding for my site. I'm hoping to upload some of it tomorrow while I'm in Kyoto. The international centre does Internet, and there are a few Internet cafes as well. I know there's one in my hometown somewhere, so I'lll have a go at finding that and see how far I get. Surely it can't be that hard... I hope!

Well, today was the first day of the first oral exam I've held in Oe Senior High, and it went really well, if I do say so myself. The students had all obviously practiced hard, had their body language down pat, put intonation in, and had virtually perfect pronunciation. It's scary to hear yourself speaking out of someone else's mouth however...

::: posted by Saru at 2:35 am