hair today gone tonight

The weekend has come and gone, it's almost becoming routine now. Not nearly there, but much closer than it has been for me for the past month. I'll give the update since I've had a few requests. Again, relating my life back to college...I have a lesson plan to create for tomorrow - it's 9:15pm for me but I am more keen on writing my blog than doing "work".

Friday

My second day of Elementary school - attending Sue elementary located approximately 20 minutes drive from me. Saijo - san picked me up earlier than expected as usual. Japanese are just adament on punctuality. Something maybe that I'll gain here - as I need to. I usually think within 5 minutes, you're on time, if it's 10 minutes later - you're late. Of course at any new job I would not do this but if you know me, you know I'm rarely there RIGHT on time. So, I see I have less than ten minutes until he should be arriving so I am trying to throw together all my stuff since I wasn't coming home after work. 2 minutes later, ding dong. Well, Saijo - san is here, hope I remembered everything! I go to school and there is no huge ceremony for me and no English speakers. Thankfully, someone at my base school translated my day for me before getting there.

4th grade
Went smoothly, did my self intro, teacher was okay at translating much of what I was saying. Again, they loved the coins and other pass arounds like pictures of Lockport, Niagara Falls and my family. Did "Heads Shoulders, Knees and Toes" song with them. Went fine.

1st grade
What a short attention span these kiddos have. Adorable, absolutely adorable but just feeling out the situation.

3rd grade
Teacher was absolutely wonderful. He was full of energy and probably one of the best teachers in their school. His students have very high potential to learn. They asked me hundreds of questions and the teacher was able to help translate. Celebrity status = me. I figured out they were asking for me to sign my name on their hands. I did it for like 5 kids and then I was surrounded by kids shoving their little paws into my face. Then, kids from other classes heard what was going on and soon I was like Britney Spears surrounded by screaming kids. I think I have a good, free, motivational prize for those students who perform in class. HA!

2nd grade
Ehhhh, could have been better. They combined the two classes, neither teacher spoke English and the kids have like no English. I was completely unprepared for this. I ate lunch with these kids and their one teacher. She also has three daughters and lives in Monou. It turns out she has English language - she can write perfectly but whether she be too embarrassed or shy - she doesn't speak it! Our conversation consisted of her writing and me speaking.

5th Grade
Okay, I'm in love with this teacher. No kidding, he was fantastic. We actually had a lesson plan! We taught "I like..." "Do you like..." Yes, I do..." "No, I do not"...
We demonstrated and then I asked kids, then kids went around and asked me. Then we divided the class into two sections, the "Yes, I do" and "No, I do not". Then one student volunteers to go to the front of the class and ask the class, "Do you like apples?" After the question, the kids scramble to their half of the room. And the group as a whole answers. Very good!

6th Grade
I am escorted by a boy. I generally ask "Hello....hello...how are you...im fine, thank you, and you?....i'm fine thank you" I also ask this in very...slooowww....ennngliiiissshhhh. So, I ask him "heeellooo....hooowww aaree eyouuuuuu?" He says, "I speak English." and he did!!!!! I was psyched. He grew up on an island near Guam and is bilingual. He will probably be my best friend in that school! 6th grade went well...did my self intro as with every class. Then the students prepared "Hello, my name is.... I like X . I want to be a ... when I grow up" Each student stood up and told me. So, Japanese people have a very hard time with R's and L's because they just don't have that sound in their syllabary. Here's my bad person of the day award. --- A student said he wanted to be a "pilot". With the L and R problem - it came out as "Pirate". I thought he was trying to make a joke - so I started laughing at him. Ooopppppps..I walked to the next kid when I realized what he was trying to say to me. Hopefully, I looked like the idiot and not him. =(
Other than that, school went fine. My last class ends at 3:25ish. Typically, I need to stay at school until 4:15 but since I am relying on Saijo San for rides, he showed up at 3:30. Perfect! Almost...
I was getting dropped at Brian's after work so he could give me a ride to Ishinomaki City for a dinner party I was going to. Brian wouldn't be getting home for another hour. I just hung out at a grocery store and this other store. The dinner party was themed and we could be anything that begins with the letter R. I didn't have a costume because that was one thing I forgot that morning when Saijo San showed up early. I was going to be a "ribbon." But, I forgot my ribbon. I decided I'd be a raccoon and just color and cut and make it fit my face via pipe cleaners. I purchased all that and just walked up to Brian's apt. to wait for him. We hung out for about two hours before we had to leave. When I finished my costume, he said I looked more like a robber than a raccoon. I went with the robber and not the raccoon. He was "red". Basically, he just wore really red pants and shirt. We drove to the Ish and got lost trying to find the free parking spot that is rumored through all JETs that is the best place to park. We made it! Japan has these restaurants for big groups. You pay between $20 - $40 and drink all you can and eat so many dishes. It has a name but I forget what it is called. I had a really good time, it was the first time I've been out with everyone where I felt really comfortable. It was good to see everyone too. There was a guy there named Brock from N. Dakota, he just got here a week ago because someone dropped out last minute. He's a good addition to our group - had a lot to talk about with him. Then, most people stayed out in the Ish - but I had to go home because I am still reliant on rides.

Saturday
I volunteered for our Sports Day Festival on Saturday which is also why I went home. I arrived at 8:30am to help out. There wasn't really anything I needed to help with but they asked me to and I don't know why. The teachers were all so busy trying to make things run smoothly that they didn't pay too much attention to me. I was kind of frustrated about the whole situation since I definitely made sure to not spend the night in Ishinomaki so I could help out. Once it started getting going it wasn't bad. I guess I was just there to build public relations. I interacted with the students as much as my limited language abilities let me. A lot of them were coming up next to me and standing next to me then pointed out how short I am. Ohhh, some things never change no matter what country I am in. I learned how to ask " Nan sai desu ka? "How old are you?" and "Non nensei Desu Ka" "What grade are you in?" I practiced that all day. I was able to have broken conversation with some high school students. I also learned "Gonbatte ne" Good luck! and "Gonbatta ne" Good job!". Very similiar. I did one "guest" race. You take a badminton racket and then balance a water filled balloon. You do it as a relay, it was really tough!
I had the impression that sports day would involve a lot of individual races. Everything was more or less silly races that are done as groups. Japan is a country that is all about the good of the whole. It is very rare that people do anything in their individual interest. You can see that with the hospitality I received my first weeks here. It's all community - based. I have a good friend (benj) that is huge on community and studying it. Benj, come to Japan because you will see community in such a larger setting than anything else. Truly, if this country were ever in trouble - it would never have a problem getting their shit together and pulling in as one. I see this country as so close knit as opposed to the USA which is very much divided. Of course, individualism is something that I think is a beautiful aspect of the USA and I would never want to lose it. It's just amazing to see the community here. Most of my day was just observing relay races, races where students are tied together by their foot and they have to jog around the 200m track tied together. There was one race that was like a big pair of shorts...one person is in one "leg" and the other is in the other "leg". Of course these legs are tied together. They had tug of war and then their "clubs" did a race. So, all the guys that practice in Judo club are in their Judo outfit and then the girls in Volleyball have their uniforms on, etc. The Judo guys ran around the track holding the mat they fight on, the girls from volleyball vollied a ball the whole way around, the baseball players carried their bats around, the tennis club carried their tennis things. It was quite funny and all in good fun. I really wished I had brought my camera.

The teachers did a relay where we carried a big math compass to pass and races against some students. I did one run and then had to run back to meet Kazuhiro Sensei to run with him. When he came around, we grabbed hands and held them up in the air like champions. We had planned out that I would get on his back and he'd continue to run the rest of the way with me on his back. During our run, he did the head nod, we let go of eachother and I swung around and jumped up and we did perfectly with the chicken run. You would have thought we practiced it 100 times over and not that it was our first time. The students loved it. It's really funny because he is probably the same weight, and only a bit taller than I am. After we had agreed to hug eachother too. It went well.

Monou town is famous for the Hanabata dance. It is a traditional dance only in this area that is done. The students did this at the end of the festival. I was there, entranced by how beautiful this is performed. There are drummers and flutes that play the background music and the students put on this blue shirt thing that has "happy" written in Kanji (stolen Chinese characters used in Japan). Even how the drummers perform is fascinating. They just put their whole body into it - it's almost a dance that they perform. The students then have two fans in their hands. They move their feet and wave their arms and fans in sync withe music. Absolutely mezmerizing. There is a festival this weekend that is in honor of this dance. Everyone dances it in the street. I wwant to learn the dance. Mitsue has never learned the dance either since she lives about 40 mins away. We are hoping that one of the teachers will show us the dance after school this week. That will be wonderful to spend time with Mitsue. The entire time I was watching this dance, I just said to myself over and over - this is why I am here - so cultural, so great.

After the closing ceremony, it was like ants over a piece of bread disassembling the sports grounds and getting stuff put around. Again, this country is just amazing with how well they work in groups. Of course, there was nothing assigned for me to do, so I just started helping out the students since I don't think the teachers were going to ask me to do anything. I even asked two of them what I could do and they said nothing. I wasn't going to just stand there! I just look stupid.

I have a favorite student because he's a little Japanese punk and I love him. The other day my sub -supervisor, Akki dropped me off at Monou JHS. This kid saw Akki dropping me off and he goes ohhhhhhh Sara Sensei's BOYYYFRRIEEEENNNDDD. I said noooo and he just sat there giggling sayying OHHH BOYYYFRIIEEND and pointing and laughing at my in front of his friends. He probably thinks it's going to make me mad, but in reality it just made me laugh really hard and made my day better. I saw him at Sports Day Festival, he was saying something to me in Japanese, and his friends were laughing. I took off after him and he just booked and I chased him. I think he was in shock - a teacher was chasing him. One of the other teachers made him apologize to me, haha! Afterwards, I had a small conversation with him the best that I could and he told the teacher's he's happy I am talking to him. Cute. He's one of the few Japanese people that have joked with me and I love it. I need humor in my life.

After Sports Festival clean up, I worked with the two girls with their speech contest and they video recorded me reading the speech so that the students can practice on their own. I got permission to leave school on the day of the speech to go with the girls. I'm so happy. I really hope they do well. I had to go sit through a teachers meeting which I can never understand anyways. I just listen and try to recognize words.

Saturday night was my welcome party from my school. About 10 teachers came. It was another party that was a set price for all you can eat and drink. The women teachers were so amazing in making sure there were enough vegetarian items for me. Domo Arigato Goizamasu. It reminds me of elementary school. Honestly, the men sat on one side of the table and the women sat on the other side and there was very limited interaction between them. I was the only woman drinking - all the others didn't. The men, were all getting plastered. Ahh, sometimes this whole gender thing gets to me. I got pretty drunk in the process. I ate so much food. I think I crossed a boundary with Saito - san the math teacher. I love him generally he is so nice to me. He made a joke about Yosco being a "grandma" because she is so old. He was teaching me "Japanese" aka telling me to call her a grandma - not know what I was saying. I never expected this. I love Yosco and felt bad after one of the women teachers told me what I was saying. We plotted against Saito and I told him he was a fossil. I said it wrong and Kocho Sensei told me to get my Japanese right. It didn't go over well. Oops. You live and learn. I felt bad because the tables were so far apart I couldnt' really talk to everyone and it was my welcome party. I tried joking around with Kocho Sensei to get things loose, but man there is not much joking around in this culture. Everything is always so serious!!!!!! I am not a serious person and it's hard sometimes!

Yosco drove me home and I slept on my couch (futon) last night. I crawled back into bed around 6:30am this morning. I woke up from a phone call from Brian since I invited him and Meg over for dinner tonight. My plan was to practice driving my car today. I couldn't get the parking brake down. It was jammed. Plan failed. I rode my bike to Ujie -- my local, overpriced grocery joint. I needed to get the ingredients for what I was planning on for dinner. I wanted to make an asparagus salad and a tomatoe curry. I spent about two hours in the store. These recipes called for things that I have never heard of and then the typical things I know - the people in the store didn't know what I was talking about. I substituted a lot of the ingredients. I came back from the store and cleaned my house cause I hadn't done that in a long while and it was getting messy with papers and what not. I made the asparagus salad since it needed to be chilled.

Meghann got here first at 4:30 so we came back and I gave her the grand tour of my home. Brian came about an hour later and I really started cooking then. I think it turned out really good. Except for the asparagus wasn't steamed enough. Oops. And my rice I didn't add enough water, so there were some chunky rice in there too. Haha. And then I got a hair cut from Meghann. Check it out! It's mega short!!!! She did an awesome job, I love it. It's just what I need because Japan is sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo humid. No, Meghann has never gone to beauty school or anything but she did a great job!
Meg left shortly after and then Brian stayed and we discussed what we were going to do for our volunteer English Conversation Class on Tuesday evening. It was really great to have both of them over. They are starting to really feel like friendships and I'm feeling much more comfortable around them. Oh yea, Meg unjammed my parking brake, so I'll practice tomorrow after Elementary school. Wish me luck! I need to go make up a lesson plan for tomorrow in case nothing was planned for me!

Hope everyone had a wonderful weekend!