Learning From Nature

By: Kenji Mizumura

This week's article comes from Kenji Mizumra, a local working at a non-profit organization in Niigata. We hope you find it informative and inspiring!

One year has passed since I came to Niigata. Now I can hear the footsteps of spring beyond 3 meters of snow wall. One year ago, after 3 years of working in Tokyo, I decided to escape from rush hour trains. My mentor said “live life on the edge.” So I wanted to move to deep countryside. Now I live in Tochikubo village, Minami Uonuma and work for NPO ECOPLUS where I pursue “learning” and “happiness.”

I studied history and communication at the International Christian University. My main interest was “narrative”; how people build their stories and share with them with others. I also dipped into philosophy and negotiation. After graduation, I had been working as a researcher on foreign energy issues. I climb mountains, play guitar and ride a motorbike.

Tochikubo village is located in Minami Uonuma city. The 10 minute drive from Shiozawa station shows you varying scenery. The village has four beatiful seasons. About 200 people (60 households) make their living in the small village located at and altitude of 600 meters. Surrounded by nature, people farm rice and vegetables and fight against 4 meters of snow in the winter. Young people are going leaving the village and the village is aging. Traditional knowledge is going to disappear in few years.

NPO ECOPLUS offers people chances to learn from nature, to learn about a different culture, and to experience people’s lives. We offer programs such as rice farming, countryside short stays, and outdoor adventure experiences. We focus on the pedagogical affordance of place and community. Just a few decades ago, most of people in Japan lived in harmony with nature in rural areas. As cities developed, people gathered into big cities and it seems that they have lost their connection to the land. Big cities have also lost their uniqueness and now they all look similar. In Tochikubo, there is no convenience store, but they know how to feed themselves, how to live by themselves. I am happy to be part of the community and experiencing the living.

-- Mizumura-san invites Niigata JETs to take park in registered NPO ECOPLUS's programs. Please check out the website for the upcoming vegetable picking tour here.

The Thing About Feelings

By: Jhana Williams
Illustrations: http://www.irasutoya.com/

The thing about feelings is... they change! They change because the sun is hot, because it snowed, because your boyfriend didn't respond to your text, because your girlfriend wants you to go steady, because your colleague wore pink to school, because your Facebook friends didn't like your new photo album, because you could really do with your favorite food from your home country. You see that’s the thing about feelings - they change!!! It follows then, that it is definitely unwise to let our feelings direct our attitude. Yes, I said it. Calm right down, and realize that our mental attitude will always determine how our day will go, and since life is really just a total of the many small experiences we encounter... it means that our mental attitude will certainly determine the direction of our life.

You see; I'm sure that you've been through at least 1 situation that left you feeling angry, scared, inadequate, hurt, etc... and that's OK! J Life is just like that. No one, and I repeat, NO ONE has it perfect. Why then are some able to dance in the storm, or to take limes and make tasty Margaritas? I subscribe to the belief that this is because they have practiced how to control their mental attitudes. I will share 2 techniques that you may utilize; they are the acts of compartmentalizing and forgiving. Read on! J

Let's go! By "compartmentalize", I'm humbly suggesting 2 things. First, that we live in "day-tight compartments" and secondly, that we all take steps to separate our feelings from our reactions. I first learnt about the concept of living in "day-tight compartments" while reading Dale Carnegie’s “How to Stop Worrying and Start Living”. In short, "day-tight compartments" refer to us taking it 1 day at a time. Of course, we all have future plans, and a past that we check in with ever so often (some good, some bad). But, are we taking the time to enjoy the present? Always remember that  "today is the tomorrow that we were worried about yesterday" and that "the present is a present". Furthermore, learning to place things in mental boxes and packing them away until they actually happen, or need to be addressed is an essential skill that we may adopt in an attempt to acquire and maintain a healthy mental attitude. I can’t tell you just how many times I have worried about things that have already happened, will never happen, or that simply have to happen. This, in turn, creates unhealthy feelings. The only way to fix this is to pack them away into safe compartments, and move on with our lives.

Next, let's talk about forgiveness. The big thing about forgiveness is that we may think that we are finding it difficult to forgive others. However, in reality, we often find it even more difficult to forgive our own selves. We easily say things like I’m so stupid, how could I have said that, why did I wear that, I can’t believe he/she thinks that about me... you get the drift. These feelings create emotions that come packaged in various shapes, sizes, looks, and textures. We need to give ourselves a BREAK! We need to understand that no one is perfect, and this "thing" will not matter in the next couple of years (unless you choose to live with the guilt or the horrible feelings, causing it to become toxic within you). Being able to forgive yourself quickly will help you to be in a better place, mentally.

So, as I was saying! The thing about feelings is they make us ill, and they try to control us! The idea presented here is a challenge for us to find strategic methods that we can effectively use to control our feelings, and free ourselves from the ups and downs that life tends to so generously offer to us. The best results will be achieved after some trial and error, and it will take time. The end result, however, is something that we should work ceaselessly to achieve. That is a positive mental attitude.  The advantages of having a positive mental attitude are so much that this article would go on like the song the never ends. Nonetheless, I can tell you that you will love what it does for your hair, your smile, your skin, your heart, and your life.

LOL (Load of Love),

Jhana

What's Not In The Notes

By: Adele-Elise Provost

In November of 2011, I was rehearsing Christmas carols with the chorus club at my base school, and worrying that I wouldn't live to see 30.

I was in the grip of a cancer scare that ended up being completely benign, but my memories of the time have the acuity of panic to them. Standing around the grand piano with the wind outside and faded prints of dead composers looking down at me, I remember thinking to myself, If I only have a few short months or years ahead of me, isn't there something else I’d rather be doing with my life?

The answer, much to my surprise, was no.

Teaching English has never been a life goal, and for me joining the JET Programme was more about exchange than education. Of course, there’s a lot to be said for the flicker of understanding in students’ eyes, for watching conversational competency grow and blossom over months and years. But what I realized during that stormy afternoon is that teaching isn't’t just about helping kids get better at English. Teaching might be the most potent, most meaningful way to engage in internationalization. From the tumultuous center of my secret crisis I looked out on the smiling, laughing, open faces of my students, and I realized that we were making a connection, here around the piano, that would change every one of our lives. In small, important ways, all of us were being enriched by the joy of this experience.

Looking back, all my brightest memories of teaching in Japan turn out to be made up of moments like these, moments where, although a teacher, I was not actively teaching: singing with the chorus club, baking cookies with students in the Home Ec room, cheering them on during Sports Day, chatting in the halls. Teaching may have been my job, but it wasn't my mandate. I was here to be me, and to let students take a look through my window on the world.

The Japanese word sensei translates roughly as ‘born before’, and I think that this touches an important point: Teachers, by virtue of their more extensive life experience, have the responsibility of acting as role models for those who haven’t had quite as much time on the planet yet. For the majority of my Japanese colleagues, this responsibility seems to amount to inculcating appropriate values and behavior in their students – important work, certainly, since respect of oneself, others, and the planet are crucial aspects of a functional society – but I think there’s more to the job of the ALT than moral rectitude. We are, at our best, exemplars of adventurousness and optimism, ambassadors not only of our respective countries but of the very idea of internationalization. It can be frighteningly easy, no matter where you live, to forget that there is a ‘rest of the world’ out there, as real and tangible and complex as the place you call home. We come to Japan to remind students of this – and even more importantly, to share with them the exhilarating secret that the ‘rest of the world’ can be within arms’ reach if you so choose.

Life-and-death moments – whether real or perceived – have a way of drawing everything into focus, branding moments in time indelibly into your synapses. As I joined my voice to those of the students on Silent Night, I felt a human connection that overcame age, nationality, and the rest. This, I believe, is how internationalization happens. And giving children the chance to experience it is why teaching in Japan has ended up meaning so much to me. I still don’t expect or intend to spend the rest of my life as a teacher. But now, the JET Programme’s twin purposes – English language education and grassroots internationalization – seem much more like one aim than two.

The famous cellist Pablo Casals once said, “The most important thing in music is what is not in the notes”. Deep in my heart, I feel that the same applies here. Teaching, like music, is a wonderful thing, which connects people by creating experiences that bring our shared humanity to the fore. And just like music is infinitely more than a series of notes, I believe that the most important thing in teaching is what is not in the curriculum.

May Your Next Chapter Make You Happier

By: Jhana Williams

I am sure that you can list many amazing things that have made your JET experience a lovely journey. Though it's always difficult to face changes in our lives, I am confident that the path you choose from here on will guarantee you the time of your life! The question that many may ask is "what really allows us to have the time of our lives?" Clearly, I am not at liberty to answer this question for everyone, but I can make a wild guess. I gather that we feel quite accomplished as humans when we believe that we are honoring our purpose. Whether this sees you studying, traveling, moving on to another job, spending precious time with family, understanding yourself more, or simply taking some time to just relax until a few things unfold; I pray that you will be deeply fulfilled.

The key is that YOU own this next chapter! Take a bold step and write YOUR story on every page. Elizabeth Gilbert in her book Eat Pray Love wrote the following:

"Happiness is the consequence of personal effort. You fight for it, strive for it, insist upon it, and sometimes even travel around the world looking for it. You have to participate relentlessly in the manifestations of your own blessings. And once you have achieved a state of happiness, you must never become lax about maintaining it. You must make a mighty effort to keep swimming upward into that happiness forever, to stay afloat on top of it."

I too subscribe to this thought that we are responsible for our happiness on this journey called life. I think we have the duty of organizing our thoughts. Once we are cognizant of this fact and go about acting accordingly, there are no limits to the joy that we can feel inside, and share with others. It is obvious then that your next chapter will be as beautiful as you desire.

I know that your desires may seem big right now, and that your dreams may be very overwhelming at this time. That's a good thing! That kind of thought fuels us to take the less traveled path, to keep focused, and to inspire many. I trust then that you may understand that the only limits that really do exist are the ones that you have created or have allowed others to create for you. The world is ours… think about it. Many of the things that we find as common in today's world were non-existent 300 years ago. They were manifested from a mere thought, an idea! So think big, go hard, be overwhelmed, and create something beautiful!

Finally, I trust that you will find true peace of mind in your next chapter. Always remembering that true happiness abides where there is contentment. I trust that your thoughts will be so radically positive, that your words and actions will reflect your thought life. I trust that you will experience that wellness that can only be achieved when there is mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual balance. I trust that you will guard your hearts and your minds against everything that seeks to shift your balance, and I believe that you will bless and inspire many as they read your next chapter.

Only the very best my dears,

Jhana xo