Mary Newton

TVs in Dashboards?

Today was the first Thursday with rain since I have been here. On Thursdays I go to the deaf school -- and it takes about half an hour to get there by bike. So, I asked Aaron (my neighbor and fellow ALT from England) to drive me since his school is nearby. He dropped me off kinda close, but I still had about an hour and a half to kill before I was expected at school. I walked around MAX VALUE (a grocery store) and found some cool things. For example, I can buy pre-made pizza crust and pumpkin soup in a milk-like carton if I want to. Woohoo! Exciting! They also have SNOOPY peanut butter and Gundam Wing razors (haha). I bought some walnuts for the next time I make banana nut bread, so at least I bought something.

Today was also my first time to teach anything in the past week. It felt good to be useful! The kids made either a Christmas card or wrote a letter to Santa. Even though there are 4 teachers for maybe 7 kids, sometimes I feel like they understand what I want them to do better than my kids here -- perhaps they are just more excited to learn with me since they only see me once (high school) or twice (junior high school) a month. The students are too cute and are usually very genki!

After school, the teacher (whose name I cannot remember at this moment) was very  nice and took me back to school (so I didn't have to wait for the bus and walk in the rain). He has a nice red Toyota (I think) something that he has had for a while, but it still has a new car smell. He also has this very nice plasma screen in the middle of the dash board and he had a taiko performance DVD playing. Now, how is this safe? Granted, it was really cool, but even if you aren't looking at it, you can still see flashes of light and movement out of the corner of your eye. ...OH JAPAN!

Anyways, this guy is really cool and I told him that we should go get coffee or something because he wants to have English conversation practice. His English is really good (he impressed me with it from the beginning), but he says he wants to get better and the only chance he really gets to practice is when I am there (which is only once a month, if even that sometimes). Sweet!! I'm looking forward to this because I feel like we can really learn a lot from each other =)

Today (tomorrow in the States) is Pearl Harbor Day. I haven't heard anything about this. I wonder if any of it will be in the news tomorrow? I'll have to make sure to watch and pay attention.

Going to my favorite izakaya for dinner with Meg tonight -- hooray!! AND tomorrow is FRIDAY (with teaching!!!)! Woohoo!! (_8(1) (ahh Homer, you're so funny!)

Japanese Calligraphy Is Inspiring

If Japanese is anything, it is naturally beautiful.  So much so that Qorashai has designed a chaise lounge inspired on it.  Looks modern and strangely comfortable.  I could use this to read during law school.

The Keitai Revolution

Right now I am observing one of my fellow teachers walk around the staff room talking on his keitai, or "cell." He's probably in his 30s, yet he has a bright red phone with trinkets hanging off the side of it. He probably has a cool ringtone to go with it too. Some girls have so many things on their phones that they couldn't fit their phone in their pocket even if they wanted to. Sometimes they have to let all that stuff hang out of their purse it's so much! Some of them are simple enough: a little hello kitty or anime character with a little bell that chimes as they move about; but some of them are outrageous: little stuffed animals that are the size of my palm. And chances are, if they have one of those, they have the little ones to accompany it.

Keitais aren't like the ones we have in America. Yes, they are used for the same reason: to make phone calls and to text people, but in Japan, it's so much more than that. Dare I call it a lifestyle? The "keitai seikatsu"?

I have yet to get a keitai...and I might not since I want to save as much money as possible. Plus, it will make me be more prepared before I go anywhere in particular -- a good habit to relearn. Anyways, the plans here (at least the ones that my friends have) are interesting. Several of them have plans that give them anywhere from 30 minutes to one hour of talk time, plus the equivalent of many (or indefinite) text messages for $30-$45 bucks a month. 30 minutes of talk time?? You better be fast with what you want to say. Although, I think if you have the same company as the person you are talking to, you're minutes are free (mobile to mobile). That's where the texts come into play. Except here, texts are really emails -- as you get an email address and can send emails to other phones or traditional emails. On the trains and buses, you will find signs everywhere that advise you that talking on your phone is rude, thus you won't find people talking on their phones. It's nice...I have yet to come across an annoying ringing phones while I'm on public transportation. Instead, they all sit there, hunched over their phone, typing away -- sending messages back and forth with their friends. When I came to Japan in high school, many students were doing this in class; however, I have been told that if students at my school have their phones, they are taken away and their parents have to come pick them up. Pretty strict, yeah...but at least my students won't be playing on their phones while I'm trying to teach (or cheating with each other, for that matter).

Getting a phone is pretty simple here...and you can get everything that is hot on a phone in the States for next to nothing (literally, some phones are only 1 yen = less than a penny). If you go into a large electronic shop, you will find rows and rows of cell phones from one of three companies: DoCoMo (the best for coverage and phone styles, but most expensive), AU (what most of my friends have), and Vodaphone (doesn't get great coverage in my town). The phones here are SO advanced. My friend Kai got a phone for around 80 bucks (with a 2 year plan) and it does just about everything -- the screen moves so that the phone looks just like a digital camera, it takes movies, gets Internet access etc etc. He even has a USB cord for it so that he can upload his pictures onto his computer and put music on his phone. I've seen phones with digital compasses on the front. And, now there are phones that require you to use your fingerprint to use it. The newest and shiniest ones can even act as your ID/credit card/house key/all kinds of crazy stuff. You can read more about DoCoMo phones here.

Yes, keitais are definitely an important part of Japan; and where else will you find grown men with trinkets all over their phones? The technology is more advanced, so it's fun to see what will be out in the States before it gets there. The only thing I'm confused about is the size of the phones. In America, THIN is the "in" thing -- here, it's exactly the opposite -- the phones are quite huge in relation to the Razor I left at home. I guess there would be no place to put all those trinkets if they lost the bulkiness (as I couldn't put my little AfroKen trinket on my Razor phone). Yes, that must be it.