Happy Culture Day!

Well, today is another random Japanese holiday which means that soon I'll be taking off for another weekend trip instead of actually doing any resting. I woke up early so I thought I'd do a quick blog to sum things up.

Halloween; Blue spandex power ranger outfit + Japanese children= lots of fun but lots of kanchos. We did volunteer trick or treating with a bunch of the children in the downtownish area of Fujiyoshida. Then I went to a Halloween party in another town. Blue spandex suit + Halloween party + panda bear head= embarrassing photos.

Mid-year conference: Two days where we get paid to listen to other JETs and other miscellaneous speakers. Many of our Japanese teachers of English came. This was an excellent chance to exhibit our unprofessional behavior in front of our co-workers! Even though most of us acted like jackasses for these professional meetings, they still put us up in an extremely nice hotel and give us a huge Japanese dinner for FREE. I have no idea why they've put up with the JET program for 20 years.

Speech contest: The past month or so I've been working with two of my students after school for the annual speech contest. Basically the students just have to memorize a (extremely horribly written) story in English and then recite it in front of a panel of judges (one of whom may or may not read this blog...). The point is to get the kids to say "river" instead of "liver' and so on. I didn't actually realize how big of a deal this was until I arrived at the competition yesterday and had a student almost blackout from nerves. I forgot that anything that involves school pride is automatically a matter of utmost importance.

Both of my students did very well and pulled through the nerves. My 2nd year student pulled through the nerves and delivered the best recitation he had ever done and as a result was given 2nd place! For some reason they only gave trophies to the first place and "other" second place student; however, my little dude has the second highest score and is going to the prefectural competition on Tuesday! I'm so proud of the little dude. Now we have just one day to get him to add some emotion to his voice. I think he has a shot to win the whole thing!

Enkais: I've had several enkais in the past few weeks. I have no idea why my school has so many. Last night was a nabe enkai. Before that was a german buffet enkai. Before that was a farewell enkai, next week is an enkai with the elementary school teachers. I'm sure I'll be surprised with a few more enkais soon as well. I guess my co-workings just like to party/get drunk an harass foreigners.

Well, that's all I can think of for now. I hope this kept some of you die hard readers happy for awhile.