It’s 4am and I have been up for an hour. The problem with going to bed far too early, I have discovered, is that you wake up way too early. I am wide awake and ready to start the day.

We had a lovely weekend. Nicole came over on Saturday and we hung out playing cards with the kids and we braved the cold and went to feed the ducks in the park. I love that my kids love the simple things in life. No Play station portables required just yet. Though I know this is inevitable. Only yesterday, my next door neighbour popped round with a Benesse ‘Shimojiro” (cutesy character used to get young kids to engage in learning) ひらがな　かず　マシーン　(Hiragana Kazu machine). A kids button pushy mock pc thing that helps to teach kids how to read hiragana. Alexa went crazy for it. James can already read his hiragana and despite this still got “new toy jealousy”. No amount of “it’s a bit too babyish for you, James” would do the trick to calm him down. Anyway, my neighbour has signed up for the monthly learning resourses from Benesse for her 3 year old daughter and they sent a duplicate parcel. When she contacted them, they told her to never mind and just throw it away!!! Like it’s a couple of used notebooks and stubby pencils. Anyway, we were the lucky winners to whom she decided to bestow this unwanted learning tool. James has managed to learn hiragana without the aid of a beepy button pushy thingy, but they both love this gadget. At Christmas another neighbour friend came round for drinks and brought an unwanted old Benesse arithmetic button pushy gadget for James. I had to remind him of this yesterday and off he went to locate it in the bedroom. Finally happy. Pushing buttons is the way forward in education it seems.

I was trying to teach James the expression “pushing my buttons” this weekend – despite having lots of fabric softner commercial moments, our weekends (and weekdays, hell, let’s just say everyday!) are punctuated with tantrums and communication misdemeanors from all parties. Yes, they have tantrums at the drop of a hat and I lose my temper with my kids really easily! Lately, I hear Alexa say a lot, “Is mummy angry?” Mmm, that would be a “yes”, I guess. I really don’t have it in me to be that kindergarten type teacher person. It really is a special skill. I have seen it demonstrated everyday by the hoikuen staff. I find it amazing that they don’t raise their voices or get irritated by the naughtiness and whinginess that surrounds them all day. It is truly remarkable, but then again, I also know that all kids seem to tow the line at hoikuen and “gaman suru” (kind of hold in all their angst) until they get home and then release it like a pressure cooker exploding its contents onto the ceiling!

Anyway, I may shout at the kids, but I also apologize for my behaviour and try to remind them that I am only angry at their behaviour and not with them. I tried to explain to James that I can tolerate so much and then I blow. Using the buttons on my cardy I tried to tell him that when he squabbles with Alexa over toys or territory, he is pushing this button (points to big pink button on her cardy). When he does it again and again, and again, suddenly I will make this noise – cue loud ferocious roar like a lion. I point to another button and explain, that when he is friendly, helpful and always smiling and laughing, he is pushing this button (points to another button on her cardy) and if you keep doing it again and again and again, I will make this noise – cue happy laughing noise folllowed by a big demonstrative hug.

I know my crankiness is also a product of living in a very small apartment and cabin fever is another major factor in all of this. There is just no escaping the mess and the noise and you get no down time after a day at work. There really are not enough days in the week and hours in the day to get it all done. Like the dream I have of teaching my kids to read in English. This is not going as well as I had hoped, despite having the resourses and two children that love these Oxford Reading Tree books. By the time we get home from hoikuen (anything between 6pm and 7pm), dinner gets thrown together and eaten, the morning chaos gets cleaned up, the dinner mess gets cleaned up, the washing gets brought in and put away and then more washing gets hung outside, suddenly it’s way after 8:30 and the kids should be going to bed and we get in bed with a load of books which we read together before lights out. We all know this, but I’ll say it anyway, 30 minutes of reading at bedtime is just not enough to get things kick started. I went to school at aged 4 and learned to read easily (I have no memories of finding primary school a struggle) but my kids are not schooled in English. When will the penny drop? I know they are both (Alexa seems more willing and more advanced a reader then James) at the “memorisation” stage. Alexa can memorise a story practically after one hearing. She can point out words in a book like “mum”, “dad”, “dog”, “cat”, plus many more, but she can’t really READ them. She can RECOGNISE them and only on that page with the pictures. I know this is step one, but how do you get them to step two where they actually can sound out the letters by themselves and work out what a word says or how to read it? We have done phonics stuff and James gets bored, but he can understand that letters make sounds and he knows the sounds of the letters and the blends, but he can’t apply it to the books he reads with mummy. He wants a passive role and he wants mummy to read them. Yesterday we were playing with some three letter word puzzle picture cards and after five minutes he starts to complain that it makes him sleepy. He puts them away. I don’t want to push them, but I don’t want them to be “lazy” about learning or bored by it either. How do you make it interesting for a five year old? They genuinely love the books and I guess if you were at school in the UK and had these books thrown at you all day long, in a class of kids who were doing the same thing, it would begin to rub off on you, no?

In other news, we have a new teacher startiing in April. This is good news and Jenny and myself are busy getting things in order so that things will be easy to explain and implement come April. Working as a team of three will be very different and communication is going to be different/difficult due to timetabling. Currenly, Jenny and I teach at the same times and are free at the same times so we can easily co-ordinate who does what and when. Things will be very different with three sharing the workload. I have a 5 day week again – was secretly hoping that I would have a couple of days with back to back lessons leaving a Friday or a Monday lesson free. I do not have a crazy morning on a Monday anymore. This means I can leisurley get the kids to nursery and make up their futons without screaming at the kids to get their coats off and get in that classroom NOW! I still have three early mornings that mean I have to go like the clappers, but at least one of those is not Mondays and I am not tangling myself up in knots with a couple of futon covers. Nice, calm start to the week – Thank you!

Educating Gina

One popular thing this week seems to be to blog about “life altering” moments and experiences. This got me thinking about how I ended up in Japan and what events and decisions lead me down this path.

In April, I will be celebrating my 12th year in Japan. I never thought I would be here this long and if you had told me twenty years ago, you’ll live in Japan, get married to a Japanese bloke and have kids, then I would have probably laughed in your face. Twenty years ago I was about to enter University as a mature student. Seven years earlier, I had just left school (junior high) and got a job in a hairdressers through the YTS scheme. (A Youth Training Programme in the 1980s in the UK) After a few years as a hairdresser, I became bored and knew that I couldn’t do this for another 40 odd years. I made a very quick decision one August, after a month Inter-railing round Europe, that I wanted to go “back to school” to get all those basic qualifications I couldn’t be bothered to get when I had the chance. One week later I was enrolled at college and working nights at an energy-sapping catering empire. (Pizza Hut – students’ best friend!) 90% of the staff were all Uni students. It’s all very “Educating Rita”, but just like Julie Walters in the film, I am an ex-hairdresser who went on to study English at University. If I hadn’t made this decision, I would probably still be perming pensioners’ hair in Stockport.

After graduating Uni, I went straight into a Post-grad course to get my teaching licence. Fast forward to the mid-90s and I am Head of Media at a rough inner-city comp in Newcastle Upon Tyne – the largest comprehensive school outside of London. Stress up to the eyeballs, mountains of paperwork that MUST be done yet once it’s filed never gets looked at! Another summer holiday allowed me to spend far too long naval gazing and pondering my future. Teaching was great, but the admin and the marking was crazy. One friend suggested I find a new job.

So imagining myself living in Prague or perhaps Paris or Barcelona, I looked at The Times ED Supplement to search for my dream job abroad. To my surprise there were no jobs in the destinations I’d imagined, but there were three very big ads for jobs in Japan (NOVA, JET, GEOS). I’d never really thought about travelling to Asia let alone living and working there. Don’t get me wrong, I loved watching Stephanie Beecham’s ordeal, as Blanche, in a Japanese concentration camp in the BBC’s popular TV show “Tenko”, but I had, I am now ashamed to admit, NEVER heard of Hello Kitty! I can even remember watching “Monkey Magic” on Sunday mornings as a kid, but I just wasn’t interested in Japanese culture at all. I couldn’t even use chopsticks never mind tie an obi!

Anyway, not really expecting anything to come of it, I sent off applications to all three companies and interviews were set up. I only went to one (NOVA) as I got offered a job and if I hadn’t come to Japan through this route, I would never have got off my arse to sort out the particulars that were required to come and live here. NOVA did everything and before I knew it, I was on a plane to Narita and then had my hand held all the way to my new apartment in Fujisawa. I had a three year visa which meant I could stay longer than the year I had originally anticipated, I could change jobs at the end of my contract with NOVA having found somewhere else to live. Each year, I would tell myself, “one more year, there’s still so much to see and do”. The truth is, teaching here is great. I love teaching and in Japan I can do just that. Admin for me, as a foreigner, is minimal. I can keep ahead of the game because I don’t have piles of A-level Literature and Media essays to mark and assess. My job is enjoyable because it is manageable. I’m busy, but not depressingly so. Teaching in the UK is anything but manageable and it is, in all fairness, depressing.

Though, I do have fond memories, too. I particularly remember the six 16 year old girls who surprised me by waiting at the airport to wave me off shouting “Sayonnara Pet!” I am still in touch with them to this day. Aawww!

Tantrum at the Train Museum

We had a family day out to the Higashi Mukojima Train Museum today. Normally, this kind of day out is for the boys only. Quite often (all the time in fact) we split up on Saturdays and the boys do something exciting and us girls do the shopping or mop the floors.

I was very impressed with the museum and I can see why Tadashi has had a hard time on previous visits dragging James away from the attractions. Lots of trains to explore and even more trains to pretend to drive. Railway heaven for trainspotters and little boys and girls. Alexa was transfixed by some old style telephones that you could dial up and chat on. All those trains and locomotives and she wants to chat on the phone! Overall, I think I’d rate this museum way above the famous one in Saitama (or wherever it is). I remember a very long day out for James’ 4th birthday to this one and whilst they had fun, most attractions were of the running up and down through railway carriages. Less people at this local one, too and only four stops away from our apartment.

The day was not without drama, however, and inbetween leaving and being informed which trains and train paraphenalia they want for their birthdays, Alexa had the mother of all tantrums over a strawberry milk that I refused to buy for her. Big, bad, mean mummy! (for the record, she had already just drank one and was demanding a second!) The screaming accompanied us ALL THE WAY HOME. The stares from people on the train were embarrassingly unbearable as I had chosen to ignore her screaming because I’d already realised that trying to console Alexa was not going to have any affect. Quite the opposite in fact – she would yell even louder and at one point removed her shoes and socks and threw them up the train carriage. She was just too over-tired. Plain and simple. I didn’t expect her to continue this tirade for quite the length she did. Normally she would get so tired she’d resign herself to defeat and slump back in the buggy, but not today. She was still wimpering and sobbing, well more snorting like a pig actually, as she climbed into bed when we got home. She had a good old sleep and is now her perky pretty self again.

In other news, my husband is apparently on a diet. He told me a few weeks ago that he didn’t need me to make any dinners for him as he wants to lose weight. His idea of dieting consists of eating anything you like as long as it’s not in the evening. (I should point out that he gets home way after we have all gone to bed and then proceeds to eat his dinner before going to bed himself. so perhaps it’s not the meals I make but the time he chooses to eat them?) He tells me he is also getting off the bus one stop early so he adds an extra five minutes to his walk home. After one week of this gruelling schedule, he gets out the scales and is horrified/disappointed/shocked/aghast to learn that he has lost absolutely no weight! The other week James came home from the park with daddy and tells me they went to Mos Burger for lunch. Now I am no expert at dieting and have yet to start my own fresh start to 2012, but I do know that dieting involves a lot more sacrifies than this. He is only willing to sacrifice my home cooked meals – is he implying that it is my cooking that had made him gain weight? This could be true as I have also gained weight, but I do not eat on the strike of midnight, nor do I frequent burger bars or eat potato chips for breakfast (this I witnessed yesterday as he took the morning off and was on the sofa watching TV with a big bag of crisps). My inquiries into how his diet was going were met with “Urusai!” (shut up!) I would support him in these endeavours, but it doesn’t look as if he is taking it seriously at all. He hasn’t used his “fatbuster” training belt yet either despite having had loads of opportunities to strap it on as he sits in front of his computer.

Anyway, I am loving the fact that I have less cooking to do. Hurrah!

Hello 2012

Christmas has been and gone and the New Year has finally arrived. I know many people are glad to see the back of 2011 and welcome the New Year safe in the knowledge it can not be any worse than the last one. For us here in Tokyo, we really have nothing to complain about. Though that was quite a big earthquake we had about an hour ago. Enough already. Give Japan a break why don’t you, Mother Nature?!

Yesterday was my sister’s 44th birthday – she doesn’t read here so won’t mind me giving her age away. She’s had a horrible year – the last half of it anyhow. She was diagnosed with breast cancer in the summer and is currently undergoing the horrors of chemo and when this finishes she will have radiotherapy and then a double mastectomy. 2012 is going to be the year she recovers, gets healthy again and moves on. I can just feel it. I KNOW this is going to happen.

Perhaps the saddest news I’ve received all year came right at the end when I learnt that my friend’s 9 month old daughter suddenly passed away right before Christmas. How does anyone get over the death of a child? Does anybody know of any support groups in the Tokyo area? I really am at a loss for words and would like to support my friend through this heartbreaking experince if I can. My friend and her family are constantly in my thoughts…but I know the day will come when she feels up to seeing people again and I would like to be there for her.

In more uplifting news, the kids were pleased with the gifts that Santa brought them. Though it has to be said I was (and still am) a little gutted that hardly a day goes by without the kids saying “For my birthday I want a Fourze belt.” If there was one present that my two kids both wanted, it was this year’s (last year’s!) “must have toy” – The Kamen Rider Fourze Belt. Some kind of supersonic gadget that makes an awful lot of noise in my opinion. They both make a bee line for the display belts at our local Ito Yokado whenever they get the chance. Instead of belts, they got Fourze jigsaw puzzles, which hadn’t sold out like most of the other Kamen Rider merchandise. They seem to like these puzzles, but can’t stop themselves from admiring the aforementioned belt when the puzzle is completed before announcing “For my birthday…” Sigh! The scooters they received have been a big hit and they even scootered all the way to hoikuen on Boxing Day (26th for non Brits). This was a once in lifetime opportunity and we won’t be doing that again in a hurry – not that they did it in a hurry on the 26th mind.

Santa brought me a new Iphone – just in time as the old one was on the blink quite literally and would flicker on and off in a very temperamental fashion and on several occasions would take photos of the screensaver without me having to push a single button. A Ghost in the Machine perhaps? A new bath robe also arrived with the postman on Christmas Day. A present from my husband. A much needed present too. He seems chuffed with his “Mega-flab-buster Training Belt” – at least somebody got the belt they wanted, eh?

Recently, Alexa has decided that she is only going to wear Gokaiger t-shirts. This is tricky as she only has three of these garments. To over-compensate perhaps, during the Christmas break she has taken to wearing a Goseiger (not to be confused with Gokaiger!) dressing-up costume EVERY BLOODY DAY! She refuses to wear a coat over the top – not even her Gokaiger zip up parker – and this I know must make her feel the cold. It could be worse I guess, she could be insisting on wearing princess paraphenalia all the time. Once this bug takes a hold I’ve heard it can take a long time before they recover. I’m guessing she’ll soon get over it. I seem to remember when we were in the UK in March last year her “thing” was Toy Story and this outbreak only lasted until the end of the summer when she must have got bitten by the Gokaiger/Goseiger/KamenRider bug. The things they pick up at nursery, eh?

Tadashi has been away on business in Hyogo Ken for 5 days and returns tomorrow before returning to his usual office in Odaiba the next day no doubt. James was a bit miffed that he didn’t get to do his usual Saturday boys’ day out this weekend. Me and the kids did the Shrine visit with some neighbours and their kids today. A short bus journey to Monzen Naka Cho and it wasn’t too crowded like the times I’ve attempted to go to Kameido Shrine on New Years where everybody is lining up for miles down the main road for hours on end. Once we had thrown our coins, prayed for health and happiness (I bet the kids prayed for Kamen Rider belts!) and after eating Choco bananas (urrgh!), my two went running off to play in a swing park next to the Shrine. Both knackered now and are watching Goseiger and I suspect Alexa will crash very early today given that she hasn’t had a nap for days.

I suppose I should finish with some New Year Resolutions…
1. To blog more frequently – perhaps impossible as this post itself has taken several hours in interrupted bursts to finish. Hence the fragmented ramblings. Ganbarimasu!
2. To be a better mummy – by being consistent and adopting scream free parenting to avoid shouting like a lunatic every morning. Ganbarimasu!
3. To lose the 5kg I seem to have acquired since returning to work – by eating less. Difficult but not impossible. May affect number 2 above as will be miserable grumpy bitch. Ganbarimasu!

Here’s hoping the Year of the Dragon is a good one. Happy New Year!