Hello, I'm the new ALT.

Hello everyone, my name is Catherine and I am the new ALT. First, I want to say thank-you to Michelle for all here help and advice when I was moving to Japan. Secondly, I want to thank all the students and staff at Gotemba Minami High School for being so welcoming and making my move to Gotemba very easy.

Now let me introduce myself, I am Catherine Quinn and I come from a small village in Ireland called Rasharkin in County Antrim. I studied in Manchester, England and I had been living there for the past six years. I studied Textile Design for Fashion and before I came to Japan I was working as a designer in Manchester. There are five members in my family and I have two younger brothers. This is a picture of us all at my leaving party in Ireland.

There is one other member in our family, our dog Teagan. He is a Chocolate Brown Labrador.

I am very excited to be living in Japan and Gotemba is such a beautiful place to live, I feel very lucky to be here. I love to travel and learn about new cultures and this is the main reason that I wanted to live in Japan. I am also interested in Japanese fashion and traditional dress; one of my main aims for my time here is to learn how to make a Kimono! I am also trying to learn Japanese and I'm attending classes in Mishima.

In my free time I like to go walking and I love to sew, I usually make some of my own clothes. I am interested in Photography and usually take pictures when I go walking. This is the River Bann which is near my house, my mum and I usually go for walks here together.


I will now keep a weekly blog on what is happening at the school and in my live in Japan. I hope to discuss the differences and similarities between life in Ireland and life in Japan. If you have any questions for me please message me, I am very excited to meet you all so please talk to me whenever you like.

My Last Blog - The End

So this is the end. I've decided after 2 years that it is my time to leave Gotemba Minami High School, so this will be my last blog. I guess I'll start by giving a recap of the past few weeks.

English club had a going away party. We now have three boys in English club after some soccer players joined. Also, we recently got an exchange student from America. She came too. It was really fun, and I'm really going to miss these students.

Next, my homeroom had a leaving ceremony for me. All of the students gave me leaving speeches. After two years, I have became so close with these students. I met them every morning, and helped them with homeroom activities. I'm going to miss these students the most. I wish them all the best in life, and hope they all succeed. They gave me a note card that everyone had signed and flowers.

31 Homeroom

The next thing that happened was the leaving party. I was really surprised how many teachers came to the party. I was really happy so many did though. It doesn't feel real that I will never attend another work party. I hope I will be able to meet everyone again someday though.

The final thing that happened was I had to say goodbye to Uppi. I really don't want to leave him, but at present, I don't have a choice. Hopefully, I'll find a job in Tokyo, and I can come back to get him.

Unfortunately, due to traffic, I ended up missing giving my farewell speech, so I decided to write it here.

私ねん２年前に初めて日本に来ました。

Two years ago I came to Japan for the first time.

日本語は全然分かりませんでしたし。

I didn't know any Japanese.

私の日本も文化をほとんど知りませんでした。

I knew little about Japanese culture.

でも、御殿場南高校は家族のように迎えてくれました。

But, Gotemba Minami High School welcomed me like a family.

そして、生徒の皆さんは私の子供のようになりました。

The students became like my children.

私は一年生が成長して三年生になるのをみとどけました。

The teachers became like my brothers and sisters.

私たちは一緒にいい時間も辛い時間も経験しました。

I’ve watched the 1st year students grow and mature into 3rd year students.

たとえば、文化祭や体育祭、そしてあのとうほくちほうたいへいようおきじしんです。

We experienced both good and bad times together, for example, the culture festival, sports day, and the Touhoku earthquake.

これらのできごとをとおして、強くなり、お互い学びあうようになりました。

Through these events, we grew stronger and began to lean on each other.

私は生徒に教えたばかりでなく生徒のみなさんは私に教えてくれました。

Not only have I taught students, but also the students have taught me.

今、私は以前より強くなりました。

Now I am a stronger person.

今、私は親離れをすることものように、この学校をさらなければなりません。

Now like a grown child who leaves her parents, I must too leave this school.

苦しいけどここをはなれたくはないけれど、今私は前にすすまなければなりません。

Although it is painful, and I don’t want to leave, it is my time to move on in life.

２年間御殿場南高校の思い出ぜんぶ大切に思っています。みなさんも総出あったらいいなと思います。

I have cherished all my moments at gotemba minami high school, and I hope you will as well.

ここでの時間は早くすぎていきます。

Your time here will pass quickly。

だから、みなさんも自分の道をすすんでいってください　

And you too will eventually move on in life.

ここでの時間を賢く使うべきです。

You should spend your time here wisely.

そして、　みなさんが自分の道に向かって努力したとき、夢はかないます。

And when your time comes to move on, do your best and achieve your dreams in life.

２年間ありがとうございました。

Thank you for 2 years.

My Plans

Right now, my plan is to live in Tokyo for a month or two at most and look for a job in marketing. If I'm unable to find one, then I'm going to go back to America to look for a job probably in New York City. I guess this is goodbye. The next ALT, Catherine, is going to continue the blog. This will be the 3rd ALT to write this blog, and I hope it keeps going for a long time.

Goodbye! Michelle

Taiwan - Golden Week

For Golden Week, I went to Taiwan with my friend from Kambara. I've just been too lazy to upload the pictures from the trip. Taiwan seemed like a good place to go because it's so close to Japan, and it's cheap. We flew into Taipei. One of the first things we did was go on the Maokong Gondola. This gondola goes from the zoo to Maokong. We got off at the middle station, Zhinan Temple. It was pretty cool, but now I've seen so many temples that it's starting to get old. This one was a bit different from a lot I've seen though, so it was interesting.

We also went to Taipei 101. It used to be the tallest building in the world until a building in Dubai beat it.

After this, we decided to do a day trip to Hualien and Taroko National Park. There is a huge gorge there. It was definitely the best part of our trip. We rented a taxi for the day for really cheap. The driver basically took where ever we wanted to go.

This is a picture of the gorge and a suspension bridge.

At the end of the park was this small town. It was really cool because there was like this temple on the mountain there. There was also like this tower type thing that you could climb up and see an amazing view. You were above the clouds at the top of the temple.

After this, we made our way down to Kaohsiung. It's located in southwestern Taiwan. We walked around a lot here. We went to the port. Also, we did a day trip to Kenting National Park. We swam on the beach there.

This is a night market in Kaohsiung.

This is on Cijin Island. It's a short ferry ride from mainland Kaohsiung. It's really cool there, and there's a lighthouse and fort. Also, you can get good seafood there for really cheap.

Zoorasia

This last weekend, I went with Mishima Kita's ALT and a Japanese friend to Zoorasia in Yokohama.

Mishima Kita's ALT and I really, really love C.C. Lemon. It was like heaven to see nine of them in a massive soda machine.

I really wanted to see Meerkats, but unfortunately, there weren't any at the zoo. It's my favorite animal. We decided that our favorite animals at the zoo were the otters. They were so cute!!! They were sleeping together and kept hitting each other while sleeping.

We saw some penguins, but they smelled really rank. We don't like birds, so we left that area quickly.

This was a really funny monkey. He looks like Pinocchio. His nose is so long.

This is an Okapi. I thought it was like a horse-zebra mix, but it's actually not. It's its own animal. Apparently, it's related to the giraffe. These are really popular in Japan, but I don't know why. They aren't very popular at all in America.

This was some insane flower we saw when we were walking.

Sports Day

The Sunday of the school festival weekend, we had Sports Day. I took a bunch of videos of the events, but for some reason, they aren't uploading. I guess I'll only post the pictures then. The Sports Day started with this weird Japanese stretching song. It reminds me of the military. I guess because it's so uniform.

During the day, I sat by the score board. The Judo team was in charge of monitoring the score. Below are some pictures of the Judo team.

I think the first event was the homeroom jump rope competition. I have a really good video of this, but unfortunately, it's not uploading. One of the next events was this thing where there were wooden poles. The students would run to the poles and try to pull them back to their side.

Here is Ms. Oishi talking with a student.

This was the 3-legged race.

This was a relay race.

The red team lost the relay, but they are cheering on their team member by surrounding him.

This was a really strange relay. They had to dive under this net, and stick their faces in some powder substance.

This was the club team relay. Here is a member of the table tennis club. Most of the teams ran in their sports uniforms, and used things like tennis rackets as their batons.

Also, the red and blue team had a dance competition, but unfortunately, I only took videos.

School Festival

Recently, we had our school festival. The Thursday before the school festival, we prepared for it. I helped the English Club with their exhibition. They decided to do an exhibition of four American States. This year was a little different than last year's festival. The sports teams didn't sell food outside this year. The school decided that it wanted to focus more on exhibitions this year. The festival lasted for two days: Friday and Saturday. It was open to the public on Saturday.

Here are some students at the opening ceremony.

During the day, there was a room designated for bands. I thought this one was especially good. They sung a song by RADWIMPS which is my favorite Japanese band, so I really enjoyed it.

Every year, my favorite exhibition is always the Biology Club's. They always have lots of animals like axolotls and frogs. Last year, they had a snake. I really like axolotls because I actually have a pet one. He's really cute, and his name is Uppi. This year, they had this thing where you could catch goldfish and keep them. Apparently, it's really popular at summer festivals in Japan. You are given this paper net type thing, and you have to try to catch as many goldfish as you can with it. However, you have to be careful because the paper breaks really easily. You should only move it side to side. I caught about 5 including 2 big ones. However, I decided not to keep them because I didn't want to have to take care of them.

This year, the third year students were in charge of the food stands. There were such things as hot dogs, shaved ice, and donuts this year. They also all made a themed display to go with the food. My homeroom chose traditional Japanese and sold anko donuts.

Students walked around with signs trying to get people to buy their food. The student below was advertising her homeroom's donuts.

The second year students made exhibitions. The one below had lots of hands-on acvitities. The student below is playing with some weird substance. If you grab a handful really hard, then it would make a ball. When you opened your hands, it would become loose again and turn into liquid.

The first year students were in charge of the stairwells. They decorated them, so that you could see a design as you walked up them. The designs were all of different countries.

Also, there was a cross dressing contest. Here are two of the boys that participated in it. Recently, I was looking at high school pictures of when we had a cross dressing contest. I think Japanese boys make a lot prettier girls than American boys. It was difficult to tell that some of the Japanese boys were even really boys. In America, the contest is more just funny, but in Japan, I think they like it when the boys actually look cute. This year was also different because they had girls cross dress as well.

Below are some of the students who were walking around during the school festival. I guess that pretty much sums up most of the festival.

Shizuoka Wedding Magazine

Recently, a friend of a friend was looking for a foreign person to model for her new wedding dress store in Numazu. My friend recommended me, and I agreed to do it. I think it was a really good experience, and it was really fun. My pictures are on her sign board and website. Also, two of the pictures have been put in the June edition of "Shizuoka Wedding." It's free, and you can pick it up at places like the convenience store, supermarket, or restaurants like Jonathons. This is the cover of the edition I am in.

This is one of the pictures in the magazine. It's a wedding kimono. The picture was taken during cherry blossom season in Fujinomiya. The shrine there is really, really beautiful. I didn't realize wearing a wedding kimono is so painful. When they were putting it on me, my face and hands started to feel really cold, and I began to get dizzy. I almost fainted, but they loosened it. After that, I was fine.

The second picture is in a traditional western wedding dress. I don't really like this picture that much. I think I look kind of scary in it...haha. Often at Japanese weddings, the bride often wears a wedding kimono and also a western wedding dress.