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Monday, November 1, 2010

October 21st - 31st


October 21st
I got to school this morning feeling a little groggy, but soon found myself jumping rope with the entire school outside.  Celebrated Halloween with my first grade class and they loved the candy.  I let them wear a scary looking lucha libre mask and one of the boys chased every single person around the room.  

Some of the older boys were calling each other names.  They called me Santa Clause because of my beard, randomly called one of the smallest boys Michael Jackson, and then nicknamed another kid Beyonce.  ‘Beyonce’ kept coming up to me asking what his name is and after I would say Beyonce, all the kids would howl with laughter. 
I have had one little girl holding my hand nearly all day.  Somehow she finds me during passing periods and during lunch.  We went on the swings together and she’s a little ball of giggles.  Then she got distracted by a butterfly or a blade of grass or something, and I went to play baseball with some of the older kids. 
Had Halloween with other classes and had kids running all around the rooms.  At the end of school, I sat in the teacher’s office and was approached by the vice principal.  He saw that I had a magazine of motorcycles in my bag and talked to me for a good while about bikes.  His dad owns a scooter shop and he and the principal are both looking into buying bikes.  It was nice to talk with someone about motorcycles again.

October 22nd
This morning the office ladies are really putting on their “I’m trying to look like I’m busy by ‘running’ with my legs bent and scraping my shoes on the floor, but I could probably walk faster” moves.  The guys are trudging along like they really don’t care what’s going on. 
More Halloween lessons and crazy kids.  Held hands with the little girl again, but now she likes swinging from my arm.  Near the end of school, my vice principal came and gave me some maps of places to see in Kanoya and Kagoshima.  He explains that he’s originally from Kanoya and still loves the place.  Good thing it’s only a 5 minute drive from here.  The letter he wrote that accompanied the maps was in wonderful English explaining everything and I’m willing to guess it took near an hour to come up with the words he used.  About this same time, two of the office ladies noticed my iPhone and began playing with it.  I showed them the camera and got this awesome pic of the two. 

They’re hilarious and always come into the office with big smiles, but the woman on the right is now determined to get her son one of these phones. 
Had to go to the BOE after school and was presented with a letter explaining a medical visit I have to have on the 4th of November.  Apparently, they are going to hook wires up to my body, take a blood sample, and it also requires me to give two stool samples.  This might be the most thorough physical I’ll ever have to take.  I really wish we had cameras running in that office, because listening to them yell “Stool sample!” across the room after translating online, it’s really priceless.  I was bent over laughing most of the time and they couldn’t hold straight faces when showing me how I had to take samples of my toilet gifts.  Oh boy, I can’t wait for November to hurry and get here!
Went to badminton at night and kicked some more butt.  I didn’t hold much back tonight and they were giving me tons of compliments.  A girl in her twenties played with me and we dominated my supervisor and his partner.  I smacked the birdie right at his face at one point and he recreated the play by imitating the Matrix move.  I think I played 7 games tonight and entirely soaked my shirt with sweat. 

October 23rd
Went on a drive to a flea market today and found out from a convenience store owner that there was a misprint in the newsletter.  It’s not until next month.  There was one motorcycle shop I found that I hadn’t been to, so I decided to make that my destination for the day.  I got there and found the GB they advertised.  The guy started it up, but it sounded a bit rough.  Took some pictures and thanked him for showing it to me. 

Out back, I saw a bin where they threw out all their old motorcycle stuff and found two helmets that might fit.  Tossed them in my car and headed home.  Stopped off at a shrine I saw on the road out there.  It was on a little piece of land that is accessible during low tide, but gets flooded with water when it’s high tide.  

Also stopped to check out some clothing shops along the way.  Picked up a pair of Dickies shorts and a shirt.  Turned out to be a nice day although the flea market was a bust.

October 24th 
Today I woke late and Skyped with Dorian and A-bomb for a while.  They were getting ready for their Halloween party so I joined them.  They put my face on their big screen TV and I got to talk to a lot of old friends from SD and even Ice’d Uriel with the help of Josh.  

This lasted for a while and I really had fun seeing the Law St. house again.  After a while I took off from the party and listened to the rain pour outside.  Fell asleep early and was out cold.

October 25th
Felt really crappy today, but luckily I only have 2 classes.  Bought more candy for the Halloween presentation.  The first class was absolutely INSANE!  Knowing it was one of my last classes for Halloween parties, I let them take extra candy and it turned into a mosh pit.  The kids had their cooking class today and prepared keihan, the soup dish I fell in love with in Amami.  Holy moly, it was better than what I had on the island! 
Keihan on the left

The funny kid who always whispers ‘I love you’ during class, made me a huge bowl of the keihan and was really proud of it.  This was by far the best lunch I have had at a school. 
These are today's chefs

The rest of the day, I watched the kids practice baseball, singing, and dancing for their school festival.  It looks like all my schools are getting amped up for November 5th.  Still feeling crappy after school and going to try and sleep early.

October 26th
I forgot what I did.

October 27th
My first school I had one class and ended up talking with Takagi, our tea lady.  We walked around the school and she tried explaining what different classes were used for.  She and her friend kept laughing at how much I look like Tom Cruise.  Then she couldn’t believe that I had never played Pachinko.  It sounds like she’s quite the Pachinko player.  She then showed me a little pond with carp, but two of them had bent tails and swam upside down.  I was almost positive that they are supposed to die if they go upside down, but these guys were kicking all day.  I don’t quite know what to think. 
I went to spearfish after school but the waves were huge.  So, I tried to fishing by line instead but was almost swallowed by the sea.  I quickly left the rocks and headed for home. 

October 28th
Only 3 classes today.  Walked around and watched kids making backdrops for their upcoming play, practicing songs, and rehearsing scenes outside.  Handed over my phone to the volleyball girls and they went picture crazy. 

They were soon lined up waiting to take individual shots with me.  




One of the boys challenged me to a handstand pushup contest and I swiftly put him to shame.  

Showed him how to do clap pushups and all the boys got into it. 

Finally, to top off the day, one of the boys 'accidentally' pulled the fire alarm.  He was quickly ratted out by his buddy and got yelled at in the office.  The vice principal went off on him and smacked him in the head multiple times.  Damn, I'll be sure to keep away from those fire alarms.


October 29th
Had a couple more Halloweens today and got the kids crazy on candy again.  The rest of the day the kids were practicing for their school festival.  Actually not much to report on.  The kids are extremely occupied with this festival and I haven’t got much to do but walk around and see if I can help. 
Went out with Kyle, Mary Margaret, Becca, Topher, Cassie, and Justin tonight.  We were soon swarmed by a group of Japanese people who were having their own get-together in the room next to ours.  They were very funny we stayed out until about 3am.  Happened upon a shochu banner and Kyle and I walked back to his place and passed out. 

October 30th
Woke up at 10am and wasn’t feeling quite myself.  Got home and fell back to sleep on my bed.  Woke back up in time to pack, eat, and load into Kyle’s car for the Dragon Boat Festival.  We met up with about 20 other ALTs and got settled into our campground.  We had an awesome cabin that overlooked the ocean and some BBQ pits outside.  We dressed in Halloween costumes, someone brought a huge stereo, and the party was great. 

Danced, went swimming in the ocean, and ate some great food.  Midway through the night, Chelsea drove some of us to the local convenient store and we asked a Japanese guy to take a picture of us in our costumes.  After taking the picture, he asked us a lot of interesting sex-based questions and we just laughed it all off in a nervous sort of way.  He then asked us to wait for a bit and headed outside.  Upon returning, he handed me a plastic bag filled with fried chicken and then immediately turned around and left the store without saying another word.  
Asking, "What is wrong with Americans?"  Me saying, "Have you looked at what I'm wearing?"

Seriously, these are those insane moments where I have no clue what is going through these people’s heads.  But, it makes a great story and I can only hope this sort of thing happens again.
At our campground, we were joined by some Japanese guys and I got into a conversation with one about spearfishing, since he had a spearfishing shirt on.  He immediately removed it and gave it to me as a present.  Can you believe it?   My purpose for this trip was to get a bag of fried chicken and a shirt from a Japanese guy and it all happened in one night!  Oh Japan why?

Two of the Japanese guys attacking the human ice cream cone

Get down John!  Go 'head, get down!

October 31st
We cleaned up and headed to the festival.  Kyle, Becca, and I dressed up in costume again and got plenty of stares from the people.  One lady who had set up a booth, invited us all over for homemade mochi (wrapped in leaves), and pound cake.  We ate the mochi, leaves and all, with her laughing at us after realizing what we had done.  She was really nice and so full of happiness, I just loved her from the beginning. 
I think we had at least 5 different people come up and ask to take pictures with us.  During our races, there were TV cameras and photographers on us quite a bit.  We made friends with some little kids and began trying to scare them.  Allen notoriously fell asleep sitting up and the girls were poking him and screaming their little heads off.  

I then noticed a high school girl who was staring at my costume so I lunged at her and yelled.  She screamed, ran away, and her friends stood there laughing at her.
Our boat unfortunately came in 3rd place after our first race, which meant we had another race to paddle in the afternoon.  We waited and waited, but finally it came.  We came in dead last, having barely made it to the starting position, but everyone still cheered for us.

It was a great time, seeing all the other JETs again and seeing a new part of Japan.  Kyle and Becca definitely helped make this a great trip, as our car rides are always interesting.
Thanks for keeping me sane guys!

1 comment:

  1. OMG i love it all. that little girl laughing at that guy sleeping on the bench! fried chicken man, you doin handstand pushups! love the ladies in the office too. so funny.

    ReplyDelete