Problems with teaching ESL
- No quality control
- No positive feedback
- Long working hours
- Inability to effectively study Japanese
- Mostly apathetic students
- Useless bastards who come to Japan
- Ineffective teaching methods
I’m sure you’re all familiar with the traditional Japanese pastime of offing yourself. The history of suicide in Japan is long and glorious, but before these new-fangled trains to throw yourself in front of came along, people used to cut their guts out with knives. Pleasant, I’m sure. In any case, I knew of two words for this procedure: harakiri and seppuku. Why two different words? Which one is correct? MY BRAIN IS GOING TO EXPLODE!
After some cursory research (read: none), I discovered this tidbit.
The kanji are the exact same, but the order/pronunciation is different. Both literally mean “cutting your stomach.” That doesn’t help me figure out which is more correct, but it’s a pretty morbid way to start your day.
In a random stint of surfing the web, I happend to run across a site called FragDolls. After a hearty laugh, I attempted to discover the exact purpose for such a site. Notice, if you will, the coy illustrations throughout the site, coupled alongside copious pictures of the girls themselves. The entire page seems like a giant advertisement… but for what?
I then noticed that the group is sponsored by UbiSoft, a software publishing company. Coincidentally, many of these girls like to play games published by UbiSoft! I never would have guessed.
Really, this topic in and of itself doesn’t make for a very interesting entry. I’m just rather bitter about the entire presentation of that site, so I figured I’d rag on it a bit.
I managed to suffer through my classes today, and my reward is an extra day off. The current plan is to play a ridiculous amount of FFX and Metal Gear 3. Perhaps I’ll throw in some manga reading as well. I probably told you guys about One Piece, and how brilliant it is. The chapter I just finished reading was way cool. However, I’m only on the 5th book right now, and I think there are like 36 currently published. I gotta kick it into gear if I want to finish before I leave Japan.
I made a resolution today, after I was accosted by some people who wanted me to get a massage or something. Normally, I just ignore people who are advertising seemingly shady things or handing out pamphlets. However, I realized that I’m missing a good chance to really annoy people with my poor Japanese. In the future, if any Japanese person feels bold enough to address me in hopes of getting me to spend money somewhere, I’ll make them wish they were never born. Or at least make them wish they never tried talking to me.
So although I do complain about globalism, I still like the idea that Squaresoft has of re-releasing their popular games with “International” tacked on at the end of the title. “International” in this case means the games’ dialogue is in English (with subtitles of course), and there are a few added goodies which make the game worth playing again. This means that an “international” title is much more playable for me: since the voice acting is in English, I can follow along with the story a bit better. Of course, the rest of the game uses Japanese text, so I get some educational value out of it. I felt like a winner because I read through the blitzball instructions in Japanese. However, today, when I was trying to turn the Aeon animations off, I noticed an option to turn the entire game into English.
You have no idea the temptation that provides.
After reading a foreign language for any significant period of time, your brain starts to hurt. When I see English again, I sometimes feel a palpable sense of relief. So, I want to play the game in English, but I must hold out! I will learn more Japanese! It’s a totally useless skill, but we don’t talk about that!
My new words today:
(These next ones I didn’t learn today, but they’re from my MGS3 vocab)
Can you feel the worthlessness?