Weekend recap

Last Friday, my 5th grade class did the sweetest thing. I guess they had been practicing for 2 weeks a small surprise for me. Every month the elementary school English classes learn a new song. This month, the 5th graders are singing Edelweiss. So one of my classes learned how to play the song on their Recorders (tiny plastic flutes) so they could serenade me. It was so cute and sweet!! I really enjoy teaching the Elementary school kids because they can be really funny and endearing. Still not sure how much I love the Middle Schoolers.

Friday night I went to my first Castle party in Marugame. It was alot of fun, but I can't quite understand how it is not illegal. See, basically in Japan you can drink anywhere. Including on the grounds of an old castle, in the mountains, thousands of feet above the city. Highly dangerous...I mean, there aren't really fences around the cliffs...God, I feel old in saying that...But it is kind of strange that this country looks the other way, when a group of drunken gaijin gather on the land of a historical monument at 2 am, and risk falling of mountain-sides in the interest of entertainment.

Saturday, I made a fabulous discovery with a group of my friends in Takamatsu...if you go to Ritsurin Gardens, and buy the sticks of bread for the Koi (about 80 cents each) and feed the whole stick to the koi...the fish literally jump out of the water to fight for the food...it is really quite an amazing spectacle. And can keep you entertained for almost 45 minutes if you place bets on the fish that will get it. I think lonely planet may have overlooked this phenomenon, but i you are ever in Japan, I highly recommend trying it!!

Sunday, Sports fest and 1st Enkai (teacher's party).....So the sports fest was amazingly Long...I think the Japanese have the market on beating a dead horse. I mean come on y'all learn when to say "when". So the sports fest consisted of about 8 hours of corny relay races. Each one, more overdone and longer than the last. I found that most of the events were amusing...if not completely ridiculous, but maybe 20 people per team was a bit much. So each event went on for 20 minutes...where 5 minutes would have been a better time limit for the mass audiences' attention spans....Oh well..maybe next year.

My contribution to this years sports fest was to run in a 400m relay race. This was the only serious event all day...and I was chosen to run for my team, not because they have knowledge that I am fit, or fast, or even good at running...no they chose me purely because I have the appearance that I might be able to run.....well, needless to say the last time I ran track I was in Middle School...so once again, I have managed to bring shame to my community...we lost the race...I don't normally like to blame myself for these things...but yeah, I pretty much blew chunks all over the race...metaphorically of course....and in my head, all i can think is...I wonder how ridiculous I looked running...because I felt like a stumbling drunk, moving in slow motion...how exactly does that appear to the naked eyes of the city board of education (my bosses??)

After the festival was over (8hours later...my god it was long) the teachers got together for a dinner party. Considering one of my friends had shown me a brief video from his first Enkai, and his teachers were dancing around in their boxers...I was a little disappointed in how tame my party was. We had a 7 course gourmet meal, drank some beer, and were home by 9. No nudity whatsoever!!

I had Monday off of school, but did nothing more than run errands and watch silly movies...Tomorrow I'm back to school!! Grrr....This week, I can look forward to English Speech Competition. I've had to train 4 kids to memorize an English speech (don't even get me started on the speech content...because it would make you piss yourself with how inane it all is) then worked on their ennunciation. All of which has brought me to an even greater level of boredom...so basically, I let the kids slack off a bit, and attempted to bribe the judge today...Unfortunatly, since he feels a bit slighted by the lack of invitation to my last dinner party, my kids are being faced with a no win situation...so I guess I must accept that once again, i will have managed to bring yet another moment of shame to my fabulous community. Who knows maybe by thursday (the day of the contest) the judge will have forgotten my oversight and my kids will kick ass....I'll keep you posted.