Typhoon in the area so no diving this weekend
Just as I start to get back into the swing of diving in Oki, and we have a 3-day weekend, a typhoon comes close to Okinawa and ruins it. This onw was called Shanshan, and was initially projected to give Okinawa a direct hit. Fortunately for us it veered off and passed East of the island about 120 miles away. When it passed us through Saturday afternoon and evening it was still pretty strong: winds of 120 knots and gusts of up to 140 knots. According to a BBC news story the typhoon has killed 9 people on the mainland. Sad news, but not really uncommon when typhoons get to mainland Japan. Okinawa is used to typhoons - the buildings are relatively new (also because of what WWII did here) and pretty strong against the elements. But on the mainland typhoons are much rarer and so people and buildings are not as prepared.
So in the absence of diving, I thought I’d update people a little on what I’ve been up to, and also devote some of my time to talking about my students. I can honestly say that these kids are some of the hardest working people I will ever come across. I know I’m at a high quality school, but the students on the whole are really focused towards their ultimate goal, to graduate from school and get into university. And the kids don’t really have a life outside school - almost every student is involved with clubs which they take part in every weekend. Plus at my school the students have lessons on a Saturday morning (as we’re a high level school). On Friday I excitedly said to my classes “So today you have a long weekend… what will you all be doing?”. A few rather glum faces looked back at me before one student explained, “We have school on Saturday, then tests on Sunday”. So their “long” weekend was effectively one and a half days. A prime example of this work ethic was a couple of months ago, when one of my very good students was telling me about her daily schedule. She gets to school at around 7:15 as the first lesson starts at 7:30. Lessons end at 16:30 but then she has international club for an hour. She has to leave that early because at 18:00 she has evening school/cram school. This ends at around 21:00 so she then gets the bus home, has her dinner, and by about 22:00 she is ready to start her homework. I can’t fault her dedication, but just worry that they might be burnt out by the time they are 25.
However, one thing I have noticed about the students in Japan is that they don’t respect downtime, R&R, chilling out… whatever you want to call it. They seem to think that the longer they work, the more information they’ll absorb and the better they will be when it comes to tests. I’ve experienced this first-hand, when it comes to the end of each term. I’ll see a student before a term-end exam and say to them, “You look a little sleepy. What time did you go to bed?”. Invariably I’ll get the answer “I didn’t sleep last night… had to study”. And then the students end up going into the exam half-dead, or even worse falling asleep in the exam. I’ve tried explaining this to some of my students but they just don’t seem to share my view that you need to relax and that a good night’s sleep can be… well, good! I just think their productivity would be a lot higher if they worked intensely for an hour or 2 before taking breaks.
So as I said, the students work themselves into the ground for one reason - to pass the Centre Test. This is the standard university entrance exam that almost all students will take. It takes place in early January (the school has a countdown up on the noticeboard - it’s about 120 days to go now). For the 3rd year students, their stress level will not drop until they’ve taken this test. After that there’s nothing for them to do except sit back and wait for their results. Some of the students with higher abilities may have been accepted into universities and so don’t have to take this test, but they are definately the exception as opposed to the rule. Most of my students will leave to go to university, but a few will choose not to and will enter the job market at 18. One such student was a girl last year: she wasn’t the most gifted student at English but she tried hard. But she had some problems in school and I think out of school so she missed quite a bit of her last term. She wasn’t intending on going to university - instead she had her dreams set on working for a cosmetics company in Okinawa. She would always tell me this and it was obvious it was what she really wanted. A few of the Japanese teachers hassled her about not going to uni but I thought that she should just follow her dreams and try to be happy. But since she graduated things have not gone too well for her: she has been rejected from all of the jobs she really wanted and I’ve seen her working at Jusco (a Japanese department store), McDonalds and most recently, a karaoke establishment last night. She seemed relatively happy, but I just can’t help feeling sorry for her. She had all these dreams about what she wanted to do, and it seems like they’re just not working out for her. Hopefully the next time I see her she’ll be on the road to success.
So this weekend I’ve seen a few of the new JETs, organised a Scuba Review class for the end of this month, and got some business cards ordered. I’ve designed my own business cards, and while a little more expensive than the standard ones, I’m quite pleased with the end results. You can have a look at my card design below. I’ll be giving these cards to the world and his wife, so hopefully I can get some more business on the evenings and weekends doing dive instruction. And I think that just about ends my roundup for now. No diving until at the earliest the end of this week. Hope you enjoy the update. Take care, and dive safely.
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Very impressive. So are you gonna teach me to dive at some point? That really would be a test on your patience! x
Of course I’ll teach you to dive. I’ll give you a very reasonable price on a course too!!!