Japan in a Picture 2

When we show a representation of the sun in America, it is yellow and happy. In Japan, the sun is bright red... It's a cultural thing, I know... but it is interesting how one culture depicts an object as yellow, while another depicts the same object as red...

Here is the red sun setting.


---Me.

Ponderings...

So... it's July 31 here... but it's still July 30th in Houston... Am I 34 years old yet? Or am I still 33? If I go and have Birthday doughnuts, would that be considered premature?

I feel like this is a Steven Wright monologue...

---Me.

Japan in a Picture 1

From the Matsuri (See post below):

Essence of Japan:

Children dressed in traditional Yukata (light Kimono), clamoring to get GameBoy SP's and CCG Card game cards.

---Me.

Matsuri

Matsuri means "Festival".

Every town has a summer festival of some sort or another, it seems, and MyTown is no exception. The Summer festival is where the town goes all-out to do very traditional Japanese things. There are traditional foods, traditional songs, and traditional clothes (Called "Yukata", which are like very light Kimono). It's very cool.

Last week, Maia and I went on over to MyTown's Natsu Matsuri.

We dressed for the occasion:
You may notice my shoes, called "Geta". They are traditional and designed solely to break ankles... or allow walking in flooded rice fields... one or the other...

The Festival itself took place in the center of my town. They closed off all major roads into my town for the festival itself which made travel through the area very interesting... however, it allowed for us to wander the streets, along with 10,000 other people that came from miles around...

The streets were lined with vendors of every kind,

and the food was very... um... interesting. Actually, there were all kinds of things to eat... but the squid on a stick I stayed away from...

There were traditional Japanese interperative dance troupes, stationed in floats, which performed all kinds of interesting dances...

And of course, no festival is complete without a Taiko drum group:

This was the heart of Japan. As I walked in the streets (I ran into many of my students, who gave me the "Woah, he really has a life outside of school?" look, were still nonetheless happy to see me wandering the streets of MyTown in Yukata), I realized that this really was Japanese culture. Something you really can only get a taste of in America. Even at the best of times, you can only see a fraction of what I saw only about 10 meters from my apartment.

---Me.

Not really sure...

I'm sorry about the not posting thing... I was kinda getting the impression that folks weren't reading my blog...

It's interesting, this blog is, in and of itself, a very tiny microcosm of the publishing process. I write things to be read (Although, to be honest, I also write these things to be remembered). I write for the entertainment of the readers (Which is true, and why I try not to ramble on aimlessly).

But I have no idea what that readership is...

It's not that I need readers, certainly. I set up this blog so that I wouldn't have to tell the same story over and over and over (Ultimately embellishing it until it is completely unrecognizable as the original situation) :)

But I've noticed that my perception of how many people read my blog is less than 10... but Gia seems to think there are far more than that...

I feel rather shocked at this thought...

Anyway, the long and the short of this is; I haven't been posting because I rather thought no one was reading the blog anymore... However, LaVonne just emailed me and made the comment that she had noticed I hadn't posted in quite a while... so I still have at least one reader (And, I presume, many others), so I am being rather derilict in my duties! :D

So, back to the stories! And apologies for the slow-down! :D

---Me...

Happy MoonDay!

37 years ago today Apollo 11 touched down on the surface of the Sea of Tranqulity.

(Note: My Blog is set to Japan time. It's still the 20th in America)

So, I'm wishing a Happy MoonDay to all of my family!

This also marks the first day of my summer vacation! :)

I have been absent, I've been really rather busy. But! Now I'm on vacation, so I can fill you in on my exploits.

Anyway, First MoonDay! Happy MoonDay one and all!

---Me.

Life is full of disappointments...

But nothing rates worse than judging your own girls in a competition, and having to -fairly- judge them low because they just aren’t doing as well as the other children…

And then, when we had a 1 in 4 chance of sending someone -anyone- of our 8 person team on, we didn’t so much as send a single representative.

In fact, we scored so badly that we didn’t even get a runner up… which was closer to a 1 in 3 chance…

That really sucks.

Boy, I really feel like I let my team down... I know it's not my fault, and you can tell me that all day long, but it won't change the way I feel.

There were kids there who were talking to us (The English teachers) in English, and carrying on complete conversations! Something that none of my girls could actually do. They were asking questions about where we were from, what school we went to, how long we had been in Japan (One asked about my cats… and wanted to know what color they were, how old, etc). My poor girls didn’t stand a chance.

They were simply outclassed in every way.

The look of disappointment on their faces, though, was enough to make me want to pack it up and go home… It’s awful to lose a competition, it’s worse when, at the awards ceremony, when the 8 winners and 2 runner ups are standing at the front of the room, getting their awards, you look around and realize there are empty seats in every school except ours. And you can see that my team saw that too…

This is compounded by the fact that I’ve never judged before, and I got the rules on what we are judging, about 15 minutes before I had to judge… The rules would have been terribly useful to have two months ago when I started coaching…

Well, trying not to dwell on the present, I’ve already begun to talk smack with the other two ALTs (Who are from Halifax, Nova Scotia and Taos, New Mexico) about taking them down next year (one of them is my neighbor here in my apartments, and the other is in my Japanese class, so I actually see them often, and we get together regularly). And now that I have some idea what the competition is looking for I can start working now to get a team together that will take on the other schools…

Well, life is full of disappointments, next year, though, it’d be nice to put at least one kid to the next level of competition.

---Me.

Interaction is Key

So, I'm really swamped these days because next Wednesday is this area's Interactive Forum.

What is Interactive Forum, you ask?

I'm glad you did! The Interactive Forum is where Junior High children from all over gather to speak English at each other... If they are lucky, they'll even understand it...

But I think mostly they'll just be speaking at each other...

Unless they run into my girls!

Mwohahahahahaaa!

Well, okay, so I'm getting a little ahead of myself. The forum is a great idea, students are pitted against each other and they have to hold a conversation in English. Not tell speaches, but hold a real conversation.

I have a team of 7.5 girls (There is a theoretical 8th girl... but she hasn't really shown up but once) four of them are second years and 3.5 of them are third years.

Ms First Year was involved heavily in the beginning, telling me that certain things were too difficult for the second years and the like.

I took great pleasure in placing all of the girls together after Ms. First Year left. Now my second years have been training with my third years and at the third years' level.

My third years are... well, third years. Which means they are more profecient than my second years... but they are so TEENAGER-y... and they aren't as much into the practice... So (Again), my second years are taking up the slack.

I hope I'll do great this year. But honestly, I have never done one of these before (I'm a judge, too! I love this job... I owe Troy so much for improv... I have never tap-danced so much in my life) And so I have no idea how well we will do.

But next year, my girls are SO going to kick major butt (Because this years' second years will be third years :D)

Anyway, that's why you aren't hearing much from me. I'm staying after school a lot working with the girls.

I promise, after next Sunday, it'll be blogsness as usual around here! :D

---Me...

Still here!

...still have stories...

Just short on the time thing, I'll be here tonight after I get home from school! :D

---Me.