The Ponderous Return of The Uj (as in "usual")

Well, I must apologize for leaving you so long with that bad taste in your mouth of me being a little bit of an asshole. The truth is, I only felt bad about it for a short while, because things just got too busy to carry on with all that!

That weekend that was supposed to be International Picnic but was typhoon instead (9/3-4) preceded our seven days of working-not-working, or Sports Day Week.

Since I had been complaining about needing a vacation, I tried to look at the daylong stand-around-outside fest as a forced vacation. It worked for a while anyway. The first few days after the typhoon was finished were almost cool, and they were clear and pleasantly bright. I stood under the blue sky, looked up through the cherry trees, and wandered amongst the students, all gathered for practice. Really, it was blissful.

And although I don't necessarily like to spend all day at my desk, I don't necessarily like to spend no time here either. I have a lot of stuff I do (I might have menioned before), things that require a bit of attention, if not daily, then at least every few days to keep them moving smoothly through the internet and my brain. Hyogo Times and JETinfogather are two big ones, but my kanji review list begins to get out of hand after too long, and there's always that TEFL course I just signed up for...

And it slowly becomes maddening to spend so much time each day doing actually nothing when you know there's stuff to be done. But by the time you get home, you're pretty worn out from all that standing around in the sun, so all you really want is a shower and a nap and maybe some dinner.

So it's the best of weeks, and it's the worst of weeks, and it's also longer than most weeks, since you spend Monday to Saturay in practice and prep, and then the Sports Festival itself is Sunday.

All of our favorite events were back, the dancing, the family races, the relays, the mukade (centipede) race (I don't know whose idea this race was, but it's hilariously full of wipeouts)... the log-pull, the hat chicken fights without a pool (also called kibasen, or "mock cavalry battle")

Sports Day itself was pretty hot, with a little douse of rain in the morning to wet down the field and make the relay race a bit tougher. I got my new camera replaced for free (the rice-bin one never did recover, but the store exchanged them for me, no questions asked.. must have been under some kind of warranty since I did only buy the thing a few weeks before it got typhoon'd) so I was holding down the shutter to take a lot of rapid action shots.

Got to see a few of the graduated students, including a couple favorites..

The PTA enkai that followed was not far from the school. At first I sighed and thought, oh, I guess I have to go, but then I remembered that I love meeting kids' parents and seeing where they came from in that respect, so I was even happier that I had the good fortune of being seated next to, across from, and diagonal to parents of a couple of my favorite students. It only makes sense, of course, that the PTA parents have the mroe involved, harder-trying kids. Best of all was that the guy to my right was my speech boy's dad.

A teacher at Higashi asked me who our speech kids were, and when I said this kid, he was like "Aw crap."

All in all, it was perhaps the most successful sports day yet. I cannot find the memory card with the photos from that day, so I'll put them up eventually.

 Following our Monday-Tuesday fake weekend (blissful, that), we had a three-day work week, which for me was chock full of the usual. Classes, commitments, planning. It went off without any more hitches than usual, anyway. Since my 17th - 19th hopes for pilgriming had been rained out, we had to devise a new plan...

That entry coming soon.

Mecchakucha

Well, it’s been a busy couple of weeks. I blame a total lack of weekends due to an inability to say “no” to stuff. This is going to feedback-reverse itself into a three-day-weekend, immediately followed by a two-day work week and a four-day weekend thereafter.

This change will have little effect on my blogging habits, though; posts will still be infrequent but muse-led.

What could I have been doing that would explain this? Well, let me go in order I suppose. Allow me to whisk you back about two weeks.

Two weeks ago, it was hot as balls. September had just begun, and preparations for preparations for the Sports Festival had also begun. I myself was still in do-what-you-want-at-your-desk land, which amounts to a lot of kanji studying, internet surfing (such as personal vacation-trip planning, or browsing as it were), and valiant attempts to not fall asleep. My focus had just shifted to the September 5th picnic, which was about to rule my weekend.

That Saturday, charged with the task of purchasing hot dogs, buns, cookies, and drinks (we added chips) for 100, JET Upstairs and I made the long drive to Costco in Amagasaki with her little sister and in her car “The Post Office.”

The cart. Carts.

The car.

We left pretty early, trying to make it not an all day affair, but of course, when Costco is two hours away, it just is an all-day affair. It’s unfortunately a total-car affair and is now recommended to be undertaken by no more (and no less) than two individuals, lest there be no place for the third to sit on the way home again. This is assuming you buy stuff for yourself as well as whatever mission you happen to be on that day.

Little sister pushed the pillows down so we could see her seat situation. Awesome.

And don’t get me wrong. Part of the joy of getting to be one of the Costco-goers is that you get to have your own go at the goods for sale. I bought myself space bags, bagels, muffins, cereal, soap, and of course, lunch. Costco lunch is effin’ awesome in any country.

Water balloon toss! We are so USA.

Limbo!

So that was one weekend day down. The next was the picnic itself, also not supposed to be an all-day affair, but we did have to fill a lot of water balloons. The picnic was a pretty fun time, despite it being (still) hot as balls and having way less than 100 people show up. The hot dogs were fantastic, and our ploy to clear out Costco’s bakery of all hot dog buns was a good one. The picnic plus cleanup was day two. Monday? Back to work.

Only it’s sports practice every day from there, so it’s a no-desk-sittin’ solid week of slatherin’ sunscreen, wearin’ hats, and sweating a lot in the gym and on the field (side note: to me, a field suggests that it is grassy. This is more like a “ground” that we are working with.). I got co-opted into the folk dance (which for some reason is the Oklahoma Mixer?!) but I didn’t really mind, because it was easy, and it was fun to see the reactions of the third-year boys who got stuck dancing with me.

We watch from the third floor of the elementary school while the JHS does Soran.

Turns out this is a pretty good vantage.

I spent Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at the middle school, and Tuesday and Thursday at the elementary school, but it was basically the same effect. Still wanting to browse for travel stuff, or maybe even book something, or make an actual plan. Fallin’ behind on kanji (I use a timed flashcard-box system, so if I leave it be for a week, I have like 300 kanji to review due). To boot, I was going to have real live CLASS on the following Tuesday when I went back to small elementary (their sports day circa springtime, 2010).

I spent my evenings in the usual way. Which means Wednesday night Japanese (but Osaki-san makes dinner on those nights, so really they are not stressful), Thursday night ikebana and adult English class, and I had added in this trying-Shorinji-Kempo thing, which was Tuesday nights.

I also had to do laundry about every other day, and buy myself some more cool sports wear to last through this hot-as-balls (still) week of all outside all the time.

A word on sports day practice. I like to complain about it, and I did sometimes stand there and wonder, as long as I’m not doing anything remotely useful or important, maybe I could go somewhere else?? But I also really enjoyed it this year. This year, I kinda know the kids, and it made a whole world of difference in how much I care about what is going on around me. I watched the races avidly and even found myself tearing up from time to time. Which is ridiculous, but also pretty awesome of me.

My more favorite kids hung around the main tent (the student leader group had their chairs there, actually) and talked to me sometimes, and I cheered them on and learned to appreciate that it’s totally Sports Festival, not just field day, and it’s kind of a community event, and that’s why they practice. They’re hosting an event in addition to having some game competitions along the way. So it’s kind of like graduation to me, in that it’s not really for the kids entirely. But it is kinda for them, too, and they did have fun (when they weren’t standing there wondering, as long as I’m not doing anything remotely important, maybe I could go sit in the shade??). I loved seeing their faces. I also loved on actual sports day, seeing them run the show. The entire shebang is driven by the student leaders, more or less, and that group is a good bunch.

Some sports day photos:

Some of my favorite kids, pre-festival.

Carrying the school flag! I love their faces. These are some of my favorite kids, again.

Getting ready for the relay.



This is from the giant jumprope competition. I love the look on the kid in the middle. He pretty much looks like that all the time.

Kibasen, or "chicken hat fights without a pool" commence.

Kumi mans the drums for kibasen.

Our announcers have opposite reactions to the camera but neither is rendered recognizable. (This is another couple of favorite kids)

This was something I hadn't seen: forcible crowd-surfing. That kid is flying because the lines are throwing him forward.

Soran dance is about to begin.

Here, they've finished the dance. Check out both the pyramid of boys and how low the girls are into their do-kai-shos. They did that every time. Also, the girl in front. Yeah, another favorite. Check out her face: that's her attitude on most things.

After lunch: the march of the clubs is about to commence. These are some of the banner bearers; each object is because we recently won some sporting event or other. Next time that event occurs, they add a ribbon with our school's name and the year, and pass it on to the new winner.

Getting ready for the folk dance. The boys make their team marker bands into neckties. The girls made theirs into bows for their hair. One was also pushed upon me (blue).

Every year, mukade (centipede) relay is a hazard and a thriller. Here, the first groups charge toward the leg-tying area. This is the last sport event of the day.

The blue-team teachers (classes 3-2, 1-2, and 2-2, left to right) prepare to cheer on their mukade teams and perhaps help keep them in rhythm.

Typically, third-years do best in mukade, being the most experienced. But on this sports day, 3-2 is running in dead last (note the other kids just kinda sitting by the finish line). Our cap-gun weildin' class president awaits their imminent finish.

But 3-2 is taking longer than anticipated and is actually slowing as they approach the finish line.

Then we see them do this.

Aaaand.. finish! They all leaped/fell across together.

It was Wednesday, in the wake of a typhoon that swung way north and pretty much didn’t cause much more than a light rainshower, that the summer’s persistent heat broke. I mean, from about 9:30 on it was hot as balls again until evening, but I knew something was different because I began waking up chilly (I understand our perceptions of this word may vary.. mine means only that I woke up with the fan on and immediately turned it off) in the morning, and have from Wednesday on.

So fall is on the way, and that’s my favorite (though it’s the most melancholic of them) season. Sports Day finished with an enkai, one of those work drinking parties at which I (as usual) consumed much more beer than is my wont because they just kept refilling the tiny glass. And it’s such a tiny glass. There’s a new teacher, come to replace the guy who quit at the start of the year in spring. The new guy is my age and is pretty good at English, too, so he talked to me through about the second half of the dinner party. He was about as beer-i-fied as me, and that was kinda fun.

I’ve spent the rest of my afternoons in lots of ways where I did a lot of work but feel like nothing is actually done, finished, complete.

Today, it’s cool for real. The kids are complaining that it’s hot, and I guess if you run around in the sunshine, it is, but if you cling to the shade like a redhead who forgot her sunscreen, it’s perhaps the most perfect bright-clear early autumn day you could ask for.

Highlights include the attractive special education teacher inviting me to sit under the giant cherry tree with him and have a conversation like a real human being. I guess otherness doesn’t scare him, anyway. He told me his specific student is in “his own world.” I watched the kid playing in the sand and dirt making happy noises and pondered the term “disabled.”

On the 9th, I decided firmly that it was a good day to be alive. On the 16th it kind of seemed like that was true with or without my consent.

My VP has made a dangerous discovery, being that I like to work.

So now, I'm always working.

It's field-day-week (and a half) again, and this time I am less baffled and more involved than before. I am also better prepared. I'm hatted, fully sunscreened, and double-fisting on the water bottles every day we are outside. Because of rain, we were inside today. I am perhaps even sweatier for it.

All this stuff is a lot more fun when you know the kids and can kind of enjoy their antics. My favorites among the girl students keep making me join their dance practices and I suspect I'll be expected to participate in that stuff in actual sports day too.

When I wasn't folk-dancing (the Oklahoma Mixer, no less) and sweating a disgusting amount, I was sitting in the upper level of the gym, sorting paintings for display, putting them in plastic sleeves, labeling them, and sweating a disgusting amount. Or I was outside raking grass clippings and sweating a disgusting amount. I wear real American-made deodorant and I am embarrassed at the way I smell right now sitting in the staff office.

But this post is already longer than I thought it would be, because mostly all I came to say is, I had like a whole month to be at my desk. And now I have no time, and I need to make a lesson plan for elementary school (little elementary.. the big one is doing the same stuff we are, namely running around outside all the time and sweating a disgusting amount), and I'm silly for not having done that sooner. Alas. I keep feeling like I have no time to take care of my own stuff. As little of that as there is. I'm tryin' to plan trips here, and classes. My apartment languishes in a seemingly endless state of disarray. I've got Japanese class and maybe karate and ikebana and eikaiwa. And my taxes, and sending money home (since it's like 84 yen on the dollar right now.. I just sent a couple thousand bucks), and trying to find better sports day practice clothing (this shit ain't cutting it), and preparing to be a guest on an hour long podcast to be recorded this week, and no weekend to speak of... Haha. Well.

I'll write more about Sports Day later, when I feel like I have time to reflect on it more. Just suffice for now to say I am enjoying it, more or less.

Reflections on Field Day: Request for Photos

Hello dear readers.

I am trying to figure out what to do with my bulletin boards this month, since I reckon each thing I put up there has a shelf life of about one month. I was thinking of doing a board about Field Day in the US and how it’s different from Sports Day in Japan. But I would want photos from field day stuff in America, and I really have no idea how to get that.

I could probably get some random things from the interwebs, though. So, this is a request to any reader who happens to have memories of field day back in school. Give me some events and stuff we did so I can put something together. Please leave any memories in comments, and if you happen to have photos (wow!) please send them to my email.

Sports Day

After my very first morning of teaching classes (the high-powered 5th and 6th graders of Kanbe), I was fairly tired, and looking forward to an afternoon of slow-paced reading of educational theory in my little desk chair, where I’d spent so many long and tedious hours doing that very thing (among others, most of which were work related, I swear).
Unfortunately for me, we had surprise Sports Day practice. I was probably the only one that was surprised; it was probably written on the front board for a week, and the students probably know by rote how these things go. But for me, surprise practice.
They told me this after I’d carefully consumed my entire lunch, whole milk and all, and wanted above all things a nap.
So it began. That first day was a struggle to stay awake as I hid beneath the single tent from the rays of the afternoon sun.

  They were practicing the march in class formation, although I didn’t know it then. This is exactly as hot and dusty as it looks.

Every afternoon from this day (9/3) forward was occupied by Sports Day practice. And then, from about the 7th on, these were all-day affairs. I quickly learned to equip myself with a hat and sunscreen and even “sportswear” to enable my own personal standing around in the dusty hot sunshine and thus increase my badass points in the eyes of all the rest of the staff and students. If I didn’t suffer with them, what kind of part-of-the-school-family could I ever hope to be?
So I did, and as practice day followed practice day, I began to bear witness to a bunch of games and traditions that blew my mind. It turned out my struggle to stay awake the first day was not going to be unique, but a recurrent after-lunch problem, even when I was standing up. So I got moving and tried to follow along with what they were doing. I learned a little bit of the folk dance. And when they started playing “mass games” (?) I became an avid photographer of what I hope some returning RAs will bring to GHP.
The girls all did a game which I came to call “tug of war without a rope.” It’s actually kind of a strategy game. It starts with these wooden posts (red and blue ends for red and blue teams) all lined up on the ground. At the starting gun, the girls run to tug-of-war style get them back to their side of the field. But they aren’t assigned any particular post, so they just go for whatever they want. And can switch at any time. So, once they’ve wrested one across the line (or lost), they can run back and help their teammates with whatever is still in contention.

Lined up

And.. go!

Fight!  

Win!

I stared, amazed, at their field day games. The boys have their own game after this one. I called it “Human Pyramid Hat Chicken Fights Without a Pool.”
They form up into these mini and mobile pyramids, the top kid wearing a red or white hat. The first part of the game, they go free-for-all and just try to tear the hats off their foes. Then there is a series of organized matches. I think you win if your opponent either loses his hat, falls off the pyramid, or is pushed out of the ring. It a way I guess it’s like sumo. The free-for-all struck me, in general, as being pretty awesome hilarious.

Red team lined up…

 White team lined up…

They circle…

And clash! Like titans!

Victory! (This is my number-one cool guy, by the by)

  A match is started, refs and all.

 We have a winner!

On the same day I first saw this practice, they did on the field the dance I’d only seen practiced in the gym:

At most schools, apparently, the girls do the folk dance while the boys do some kind of pyramid. But at my school it’s traditional for them to all do the dance together. Minami gender equality win?

On the 10th, the morning was a lot cooler, thank goodness, thank goodness, amen.

During the mid-morning break, the boys wet the field. I assumed it was to keep down the dust, but they said it was hot. I guess it is hot, if you’re running around and doing the crazy games they were playing.
Speaking of which… I got to see more sweet spectacle Friday, which was kind of a dress rehearsal. More tents appeared, and kids started wearing their team colors. But they did a run-through of all the games.
There was… MASS JUMP ROPE!

Red team

Blue team

Neighborhood relay races!

The "Jump! Duck!” relay… in this one, the kids ran across the field, made this big bamboo pole move like a clock hand around a cone, then a second cone, then everyone in line had to first jump over it as two runners brought it through the line underneath, and then everyone had to duck under it as they ran it back to the front of the line for the next to run. Does that explanation make any sense at all??

    

 
Next, they trooped out for what I thought was going to be a three-legged race…
…but it turned out that their legs being tied together was just to make it more difficult for them to run and “become the bridge” for the one kid walking across everyone’s back. Yes really.

Then there was the “Catapult Bucket Relay”

And then my personal favorite, the “Mukade Relay.” That’s it’s real name, and it means centipede. Ten kids all get their legs tied together like so:
  Then, they race. Relay style. The concept is simple, but I’m sad I didn’t have my camera battery charged on the first day they started practicing it. By Friday, they had the timing down so that there were a hell of a lot fewer ten-kid-pileups. So you’ll have to use your imagination when I tell you it was absolutely hilarious whenever they occurred. My very favorite time was when the person in the back somehow fell down (usually, being last was very lucky.. the front guy always got buried beneath the rest of the kids) and got dragged for a very short span, before the drag pulled the feet of everyone else out from under them and they all fell forward.
There is a reason these kids are wearing their long pants for just this event.

Sports Day was Sunday. I didn’t go on Saturday (I had work Tuesday at elementary… there is some kind of rule that I have to have two days off each week, and so they gave me Saturday in addition to Monday), but it rained all. day. long. on Saturday anyway. Which turned out to be a very good thing, because Sunday came and was a lot cooler and less dusty than any of the practice days I’d seen so far.

There was also a crapload of new tents! And festive decorations!

The events went off mostly as I’d seen them through the morning. I had been periodically included in the practice of the second set of dances, which is why there are never pictures of the “Oklahoma Mixer,” or that other dance. Descriptively named by Lee as “the skippy dance,” and “the clappy dance.” I wasn’t terribly surprised when they put me in them for the real Sports Day.

Announcement and music center.

The band teacher had asked me to do the introduction of the marching segment, playing their medley of Pirates of the Caribbean music. During practice, I announced it regularly, but I had an idea after speaking into the mic, and asked the band teacher if I could do it in a “"pirate voice.” I demonstrated this voice and she said, “Yes please.” in Japanese. I couldn’t tell if she was serious. I polled some other teachers who all thought it would be really cool if I did that.
So, I did. Yarr. And laughed because on Sports Day, there were a bunch of parents and stuff gathered, and I wonder what they thought. “Where the HELL is that new JET from?!”
I was terrified that they would put me into one of the races, maybe just to even up numbers or something, and that I would be beaten soundly by twelve-year-old girls, but they thankfully did not torment me in this way.
They had other, more creative plans.

  Our hero stands in line wondering what the hell is going on.

I even asked a student walking by what exactly I was supposed to do, because I got roped into this with no idea. The only reason there are photos is because I actually still had my camera in hand and passed it off for safekeeping to one of the other teachers.

Oh, it’s a ring-rolling-relay. Awesome. Our hero prepares.

  That is our hero now, being LAST while this Japanese cameraman watches her struggle.

And, actually, there were more surprise games that involved what I can only assume were parents, neighbors, and PTA members, along with staff (even the ring relay involved the principal of one of my elementary schools..?).
The “Cone-Face Soccer Ramune-Chug Relay” was for adults only, and required those involved to dribble a soccer ball down the field while looking through a cone, chug a ramune (I think it was ramune. It was some kind of drink that has a little ball inside.. to open the drink, you pop the ball into the bottle; then the little ball keeps trying to settle back in and block the opening, if you happen to have it upturned and chugging. Maybe it was a child spill-proofing?), and soccer it back to the next person in line.

The guy in the red shirt with the blue banner is one of my JTEs, whose name sounds to me like “Awesome” and of whom I am a little scared. Everything he does is epic.

 
Then, the “Jump! Duck!” relay turned out to be something that the kids’ parents did with them, as well as the catapult bucket relay. There was a tug-of war for just the adults. My main JTE’s class actually won the centipede relay, too! I took some video footage of a few events, but I think this is enough for now.
We even had the field cleared in record time. I only missed my bus by five minutes, which means I only had fifty-five minutes to wait for the next one. Nah, Sports Day was pretty fun. And someone even drove me home after only thirty-five.

 Tents, chairs, tape, field markers, food vendors… GONE.