Sakura, Sakura...

Spring is officially here, and that means that the sakura (cherry blossoms) are in bloom. They really are beautiful, and they are everywhere. The soft pink flowers really make it feel like spring. Awareness and celebration of the seasons is really important here in Japan, and so come this time of year, people will partake in what is known as hanami, which is the act of going out to look at and enjoy sakura. As I think I mentioned earlier, the blossoms don't last very long, making hanami a meditation of mortality and transience.

The appearance of sakura here is a huge event. The blossoms slowly make their way from southern Japan to northern Japan as the weather warms up, and there are special foods to eat, products at the store will acquire seasonal packaging (there are these sakura Kit-Kats...cherry blossom flavored. Kind of a strange flavor, but pretty packaging. Will try to get a picture up...), and decorations all over the place.

So I came to school today and was informed that the teachers decided that today would be hanami. We ordered special hanami bento boxes with seasonal food in them, then all the teachers went outside (it was a nice day) and set up lunch on the kyudo (Japanese archery) deck where our school has numerous sakura trees. We took an extra long lunch break (I think we spent about 2 hours out there) just eating our bento and talking and admiring the flowers and basking in the warm sun. What an amazing ritual.















Close up of those pretty sakura.















Shinko-sensei passing out some sweets for our hanami bento lunch. This is the kyudo deck.















Me, Shinko-sensei, Fukushima-sensei, Naitou-sensei, Hayashida-sensei, and Ogou-sensei, waiting for Kocho-sensei (the principal) to come so we can dig in!

(Just as a side note, I realized that I've gotten really comfortable sitting seiza, on my feet, like in this picture. However, I also realized that my mother spent the first 10 years of my life trying to get me to stop sitting like that because it made me walk pigeon-toed, and finally after lots of training and scolding and some orthotics, I got past it. And now I'm reverting back to old ways, i.e. sitting on my feet, in an attempt to assimilate. Sorry, Mommy!)















Our special hanami bento. It was a lot of food...let's see how much of it I can name. Starting in the upper left hand corner, imo-age (this sticky deep fried potato thing), fish and cucumber salad with vinegar, sakura jelly, some kind of bean vegetable salad, shrimp tempura, tamago-yaki (fried egg), salmon, another kind of vinegar salad, rice with umeboshi (pickled plum), and some maki-sushi (roll sushi). Oishii yo!















Ishikawa-sensei made her own lunch that day, which included a Doraemon fishcake. He's this cartoon character cat who has a magic pouch from which he can pull out anything, which either causes trouble or saves the day. He doesn't have ears because they were eaten by mice when he was young. So now he's scared of mice. Weird.















Suenaga-sensei, Nakamura-sensei, Tanaka-sensei, Tajima-sensei, and Hayashi-sensei enjoying their bento with sakura and the bunker for the kyudo targets in the background.















The requisite hanami group picture. Pardon the orientation of the picture, I still can't figure out how to rotate on Blogger.

Looking forward to seeing lots more sakura when my family comes and we go to Kyoto. Exciting!!

"Cosmopolitan"

Thanks to John Lynch, one of my Classics professors at UCSC, looking at a word prompts me to analyze its etymology so that I can figure out something of its meaning. I was thinking of the word 'cosmopolitan" today, which is comprised of the Greek words κοσμος ("cosmos" = world) and πολιτης ("polites"= citizen, from "polis," city). Together, it literally means, "citizen of the world" but in modern English it means something like " a person who enjoys travelling, can be at home in all different parts of the world, and is knowledgeable in many spheres of interest."

I was thinking today about the life that I'm living. I'm so lucky to have this opportunity to live abroad, travel freely, and experience new things. But then I realized how easy it is, anyone can do it, really. Travelling is easy and there are so many places to see and so little time to see them! The more I travel the more I realize that nothing is really too difficult or out of our reach. Also, the world simultaneously seems too big (too much to see and do) and not big at all (because everything is really quite accessible), if that makes any sense.

Anyway, I was thinking about this also because I realized how many of my friends are living or studying abroad. Thinking about this makes me heart soar, I'm so proud of all of them and it makes me wish I had enough money to go visit all of them, haha.

Here's a list, more for me than for anyone else, just because I like to make lists:

U.S.A.
Emerald - New York: Studying at NYU. Was in London studying abroad before that.
Julie, Rosa, Sean, Aldrich - New York: Working for City Year

*Addendum (refer to comments below)
Katie - Fresno: Grade School Teacher Extraordinaire (refer to comments below).

AFRICA
David - Cairo, Egypt: Studying at the Arabic Language Institute

AUSTRALIA
Lindsey - Melbourne, Australia: Looking for work through BUNAC. Was in England only a few months ago doing the same thing.

EUROPE
Robyn - Bologna, Italy: Studying abroad.
Paul - Germany: Studying abroad
Ben - Varna, Bulgaria: Married Anna and moved there, now working in imports and exports.

UNITED KINGDOM
Ehren - York, England: Graduate school in Medieval Studies
Lexie - Scotland: Studied abroad.
Rachel - Scotland: Studying abroad

ASIA
Diane - Jeju, Korea: Teaching English through EPIK.
Chiwide - Guangzhou, China: Teaching English.
Teddy - Seoul, Korea: Studied abroad.

I feel like I'm forgetting a bunch of people. And I have a lot of friends who have travelled or studied abroad in the past. But anyway, the point is, I'm really proud of my friends for being so adventurous and cosmopolitan. My friends are extraordinary. Even for the people who aren't living abroad but who are finishing up school or working, it's amazing to me that we're all grown up and living on our own and travelling and have jobs. When did we all grow up? I wasn't paying attention!!

Now I just need some friends to move to South America and Antarctica I think I have all the continents covered. Any takers?

P.S. Some of these people have cool blogs, which I have links to on the left side over there. --->

Transitory

I think spring is finally here after what seemed like an interminable winter. It's amazing how much blooming flowers and sunshine can change one's mood. For me, SUNSHINE = HAPPINESS. I was experiencing insane mood swings all winter long, ranging from what felt like deep depression to industrious motivation. But now that spring is here and the sun is shining, I feel like I can do anything.

A few days ago I went on my first run since I had mono last October. It was by no means long, but it felt amazing. I ran around my neighborhood and along the river behind my apartment complex and did what I'd been meaning to do since I got here, which was explore and map out and memorize every street and path and sacred little space. A lot of people think this is really strange or maybe just overly meticulous, but when I get to a new place, I feel like there's a map in my mind that is full of black areas that need filling in. Filling in those black areas gives me a sense of security and comfort, and I think one of my favorite things to do is follow a street, get lost, and then find my way again. It's really important to me to know how to get around.

So I went for about a 20 minute run around my neighborhood, and it felt so good to feel my muscles work again. I saw a lot of little things that made me happy while I was running too. There was an old lady sitting on the edge of a rice paddy lot while her fluffy Akita puppy sniffed around the fallow ground, and she smiled at me and said something about nice weather. I saw the first cherry blossom blooms in my neighborhood on a skinny little tree, but the vibrant, voluminous pink blossoms were a definite sign that spring is here, or mostly here. I ran past an impromptu shrine to Buddha decorated with plastic flowers and a offering cup full of uncooked rice. A neighbor put up huge 5 carp kites on a flag pole, colored blue, orange, and red, and gilded with gold scales, each billowing in the wind and representing a member of his family.

This is where the transience I keep talking about comes in. I've finally realized that transience, impermanence, and change are indelible and learning to how to deal with it is an important aspect of living and being human. Time passes so quickly and things change so often. There are two ways to deal with this: become detached so that one doesn't feel the pain of change or experience deeply and emotionally, enjoy things while you can, and honor those things by remembering them or giving them a proper send off. I've decided to strive for the latter.

Anyway, I didn't have my camera while I was running, and it was dusk by the time I finshed, so I decided that I would go for a run again the next day, camera in tow, to take pictures of all those great little things I saw so I could share them all with you. But the next day, I woke up and it was pissing it down and I partly disappointed and partly not surprised. The day after that, the sun was shining again, so I went for a walk thinking I could take those pictures. But the cherry blossoms had fallen during the rain and now green leaves were sprouting from the branches. The shrine to Buddha was wind-lashed and unkempt. My neighbor had taken down the carp banners to protect them from the rain. So I guess you'll just have to imagine.

Springtime brings not only a change in the weather, but in my school life as well. March is the end of the school year and the fiscal year in Japan, so right now my students are on haruyasumi (spring vacation). The way the public school system works in Japan is that teachers get assignments from the Board of Education and can be moved at will, whether they like it or not. Some teachers get moved around often, some stay at a school for up to 7 years, it's all in the cards. The teachers who will leave find out a week before they have to pack up and go. It's a very matter-of-fact process that I'm not sure if I like. Shiomura-sensei explained to me that this is done so that the good teachers get spread around and can be shared by all the students. She said that it's a fair system, but that doesn't necessarily mean that they like it either. But in Japan, it is rare for people to fight against the system, so even if they don't like it, they just accept their duty and keep their feelings inside.

I was devastated to find out who was leaving. Nakamura-sensei, my ichinensei English teacher, came up to me last week and knelt by my desk with a very serious look on his face. He told me that he found out he was leaving, but not to another school. There's this thing here in Japan called chouki shakai taiken kenshu, which translates out something like "long term social work experience." Teachers who have been teaching for 10 years or more and have held no other jobs are required at some point in their career to experience another profession. This essentially means that Nakamura-sensei will work for one year in a randomly chosen profession other than teaching. He's been assigned to work as a shopkeeper/cashier at the Jusco grocery store a couple of towns over. Though the concept is interesting, the situation infuriates me. Nakamura-sensei is hands down the best English teacher I've worked with so far, and I feel like his talent and training are going to waste for a year. He's done a fabulous job with this year's ichinensei by teaching them how to build English sentences instead of just memorize them, and because of that, their conversation and writing skills are phenomenal. I was really looking forward to working with him again to continue to hone their English, and we had already made so many plans for lesson ideas and motivators. He's really upset by this new assignment as well, but he says there's nothing he can do, it's an order. So for one year, Nakamura-sensei will be ringing up and bagging groceries.

This doesn't bode well for English here at Ogawa Chugakko. On top of that, Fukushima-sensei is pregnant and will be leaving in July to have her baby. Shiomura-sensei and I had a serious discussion about how this year is going to go, with only the two of us as holdovers from last year, and with two subsitute teachers taking over the other positions. I'm really going to have to step it up, but I'm up to the challenge. It was really motivating to hear from Shiomura-sensei that they "need" me and that she's glad I'm staying a second year to keep some continuity. It definitely validated my decision to stay.

So in April, we'll begin a new school year with new teachers and some new challenges. Everything about life is transitory, everything changes. And even though I don't like change and I hate saying goodbye to people and things, I've learned that I have to just go with it and be flexible. I think that's probably something I've gotten really good at while being here in Japan, being flexible. With all the things I've encountered this year, from feeling lost when I don't understand Japanese, to being in the hospital sick with mono, and just generally feeling out of control of things, the best thing to do is to shrug your shoulders and let things happen and just play along. Before I left the States my dad advised me one day while I was seriously stressing out, "take things one at a time," and I think that's probably the most useful advice I've gotten for living in Japan (and life in general, really) besides "always wear clean socks without holes in them, because you'll be taking your shoes off really often."

Despite all these changes I think I've finally started to feel absolutely comfortable and content in my environment. I have figured out exactly what my role at work is, my personal life is stable, and I have definite goals for the rest of my time in Japan. Of course, since everything changes, I'm sure I'll be depressed and complaining in a few weeks, but for now I'm happy and trying to savour it.

Most exciting thing come up is that MY FAMILY IS COMING TO VISIT!!! My mom, dad, and Geng will be in Japan from next Thursday and I'm stoked. They'll spend a few days here in Kumamoto with me, then we'll take the bullet train to Kyoto, then finish up in Tokyo. Pictures and stories to come, of course!

All good in the hood

Just wanted to let everyone know that I'm okay. I have been getting a lot of concerned emails regarding my safety because of the news that there was a powerful earthquake in Japan. I will admit that I first found out about the earthquake from all of you in the States, because I don't really watch TV or listen to the radio here!

Here's a link to the article I read about the quake: "Earthquakes Rock Pacific Nations"

And pictures from BBC: In Pictures

The earthquake was on the central island of Honshu. I am living on the southern island of Kyushu. On Friday, I actually did feel a small earthquake while I was cooking dinner. It almost sounded like someone was knocking loudly on my neighbor's door, but then I realized that my chairs were shaking. It lasted about 1 second, so I thought nothing of it because it happens maybe once a month. I guess that little one was probably a precursor to the big one on Sunday.

Anyway, I'm perfectly fine, and thank you so much to everyone for their emails of concern. But of course let's keep all the people affeccted by the earthquake in our thoughts and prayers.

Japanese BBQ

Usually on Mondays I go to the Shiino's house for dinner, but this past Monday, Naho invited me instead to join her and her coworkers from the Ogawa City Office for a barbecue. I didn't want to impose since it was only going to be her and her coworkers, but she insisted I come. So I did. Some interesting things I learned about some Japanese people that day:

Good: Japanese people are very loyal. If they make plans to do something, it will happen rain or shine. All day it had been ugly and drizzly and overcast, but that evening there was no question whether the BBQ was still going to happen. Basically we sat in the drizzle/intermittent rain eating BBQ, shivering, and saying "samui yo!" (It's cold!). I think this has to do with the Japanese concept of ganbaru, which means "to perservere." Which means even further, "be strong and stick it out, even if it sucks and you hate it. No complaining." This is evident in lots of aspects of Japanese culture I noticed, not just braving the rain to have a barbecue, but also sitting seiza (on your feet) at school assemblies completely still and straight even though the feeling in your legs went away a long time ago, cleaning the school toilet because it's your cleaning assignment for the month, or sticking with the baseball team even though you hate it. Japanese people don't quit, and it's awesome, just wish I had the fortitude to be the same way. I was cold and totally wanted to go home, but the food was great and the company was fun, until they got trashed. Which brings me to the other thing I learned...

Bad: Some Japanese people can be absolutely obnoxious when they're drunk. I mean, well, people all over the world can potentially be obnoxious when they're drunk. If people can be categorized into what kind of "drunk" they are, such as sleepy, affectionate, belligerent, there is a particular kind of drunk unique to Japan known as the "I-think-I-can-speak-really-good-English drunk." A few of Naho's coworkers, once they were sloshed on the beer and shochu that is requisite for a barbecue (unless you're driving, like I was that night. Then you drink cold oolong tea), took the opportunity to practice their English with me more freely. Throughout the entire barbecue, I went around and talked to everyone at least for a little while, using a hybrid of Japanese and English, depending on each person's ability, and my own ability to say what I was thinking. Most Japanese people actually understand a lot of English, since they study it from elementary school onward. Most are just very shy about speaking. Anyway, this was fun until the people who were drunk decided to begin obnoxious drunk conversations with me and though I admired their efforts to speak English, the combination of being drunk and not being a fluent speaker made their utterances practically incomprehensible. I insisted they could say what they were thinking in Japanese because my comprehension is decent, but they insisted on saying it in English. It was fun at first, but as the night wore on, my patience wore thin. Especially since I wasn't expecting the barbecue to last more than an hour or two, and we were out there from 6 - 11 PM. On a Monday.

Anyway, on the whole it was a fun time. Apologies for the rant. It's just rare that I feel like my head is going to explode, so when it happens I have to vent. Or maybe it just sucks when everyone is drunk and you're not, haha. For the most part I enjoyed practicing Japanese and meeting new friends, though, don't get me wrong! The situation just reinforced something I noticed about Japanese culture. There is a distinction between one's public face and one's private face. In public, one should be mild-mannered, apologetic, passive, and stoic. But once one is behind closed doors or away from a professional situation, it's no holds bard. I can't even count the times I've seen typically focused coworkers go nuts at karaoke or at a school party, getting completely trashed, dancing around, or getting touchy-feely. And this is all just fine as long as they're back to normal when we return to work and we pretend like nothing happened. I feel like maybe there is so much pressure to conform and be obedient and act properly in public that they let go so much in private because it's their only outlet. Perhaps. I'm merely a foreigner and not a sociologist or anthropologist...but nonetheless seeing the contrast in demeanor is fascinating.

A few pictures from the barbecue:















This is a picture of the barbecue. I think the Japanese style of barbecuing is brilliant. There is a large concrete table with a hole in the middle to pile with charcoal, and then you put a screen on top to grill on. Everyone sits around the table and throws on the meat and vegetables they want to cook, and you cook and talk and drink beer in a communal setting. After the food is finished cooking, you can dip it in the teriyaki sauce provided for you in a separate bowl. Very different from American barbecuing, where a designated uncle will stand at the grill alone and everyone else waits around for the food to cook. And the meat is marinated in the sauce prior to cooking. I think Japanese barbecuing makes for a good party setting.
















Me, Naho, and one of her coworkers whose name escapes me now...I think I was told to call her Miki-chan. Me with my oolong cha (tea), Naho with the teriyaki sauce, and Miki enjoying the food and beer.















The whole Ogawa City Office crew, ranging in age from 21 to 40.

I think when I get my own place (which might take awhile if I'm aspiring to be a high school Latin teacher or a letterpress printer...) I want to install a Japanese barbecue setup in my backyard. Party at Jo's house....in 20 years.

You say it's your birthday....

It's my birthday too, yeah! On Saturday, March 17th, I turned 23. It was really strange having a birthday in Japan. It didn't really feel like it was my birthday because usually around this time of year the stores are inundated with green things and clovers and such, and it's a bit of an exciting indicator that my birthday is coming up. No such thing here. So I was feeling a little down and apathetic about my birthday when usually I get really excited. However, I still had a great time, despite missing friends, family, and mint chocolate chip ice cream cake from Baskin Robbins!

Birthday festivities began on Friday at the end of work. I was about to leave at 4:30 like usual and Fukushima-sensei suddenly says, "Do you have any plans tonight?" and I'm a little hesitant, thinking she's going to invite me out when I just wanted to lay in and do nothing, so I say, "No...not really..." and she basically begs me to stay at work until 5 PM, but she can't tell me why because it's secret. At this point, I get it, they're probably going to do something. I have to get home to receive a package from the post office, but I didn't want to ruin whatever they had planned. So I wait, and at 5, she and Shiomura-sensei come running in with a cake! It was cute; the teachers sang happy birthday (happy ba-su-day, haha) to me and then we ate cake. It was a really nice gesture and made me feel a little more like it was my birthday.















Me, Shiomura-sensei (sannensei English teacher), and Fukushima-sensei (ninensei English teacher) with the tasty birthday cake.

On Saturday, there was a fire festival in Aso, the mountain/caldera near Kumamoto. Most of the ALTs in the area were planning on going, so I decided to go as well. We all carpooled there and met up at the festival, but unfortunately we got there a little too early and nothing was happening yet. So my carload and I decided to do a little sightseeing in the Aso area, which is relatively rural. First, we went to Aso Shrine, where on Thursday night there had been the Hifuri Shinji, a ritual where people can go and spin burning bales of straw tied to rope over their heads. I know it sounds really dangerous and it was, and something like that would never fly in America without millions of lawsuits, but amazingly no one here got hurt. I think everyone realized that they had to be really careful. I tried it as well and it was really fun, as I stood there I thought, "Whoa, I'm spinning fire around my head!" Basically you spin it until the rope burns through and the bale goes flying, but there's tons of firemen around to kick it away from the crowd or stamp it out. I didn't get a picture of myself but here's some pictures of the event from Thursday:















Aso Shrine















The Hifuri Shinji. Looks sort of like some medieval riot, doesn't it?















The nice Japanese firemen who ensure we didn't kill ourselves.

My friend Anthony who came with us got some great pictures using a tripod and the night setting on his camera, so when I get those I'll update again.

Anyway, back to Saturday. We revisted this shrine in the daytime and just looked around a bit. Then, we decided to check out Koga Falls, a 100m tall waterfall that often freezes over in the winter. It wasn't frozen when we got there, but we had a fun time hiking and ran into our Dutch friend Edwin, a happy surprise because we hadn't seen him in forever. This guy is amazing, he can speak something like 7 languages and play 10 instruments. Those Europeans!















Me with Edwin the Dutchman and our buddy Zane, hiking towards the waterfall.

We got to the top of the trail where the waterfall was, and unfortunately it wasn't very impressive, though it was still nice to see. It also wasn't impressive enough to take a picture of it, sorry. More impressive were these adorable little snowmen that some clever soul had made at the top of the trail on a post. They're about the height of a finger:















After our group finished hiking it was almost time for the part of the festival we came for to start. Saturday's event was called Dai Himojiyaki, and the kanji for fire, "Dai" was supposed to be burned into the mountainside. It was cool to see, but hard to take a picture of:















There's two kanji burning, one on the mountain on the right side, and one on the left side on a smaller hill.

Then, there was a fireworks display, but it was freezing cold, so we all left to go celebrate St. Patrick's Day at the newly opened Sligo Inn Pub in Ozu, the next town over. I didn't drink because I was driving, but I had a fun time catching up with people I hadn't seen in a long time and I FINALLY got to see some green and clovers!















Yes!! Now it feels like St. Patrick's Day!















Hanging out at Sligo. Clockwise from top left: Hannah, Taz, Natalee, Me, little baby whose name I can't remember, Millie, and Sofia. Millie and Sofia's mom is a friend of ours, and their dad is Japanese. They're spunky and adorable and they speak both English and Japanese fluently. The baby I'm holding is only 2 and can speak Japanese, English, and Spanish, because dad is Japanese and mom is American but has Spanish heritage. Amazing kids!















Since it's St. Patrick's Day, here's a picture of me with a real Irishman, my friend Glenn. He says that he think that St. Patty's Day is more fun outside of Ireland, because in Ireland people just get super trashed and it's ridiculous.

Afterwards, we drove back to Kumamoto City so that I could drink on my birthday, since it's easy to get home from Kumamoto. So I was finally able to indulge! The bar that all the ALTs usually frequent, Jeff's World Bar, was crazy packed, so my friend Zane and I met up with his friends Isabel and Sarah at the bar they were at, which was considerably less packed and way cooler. This place, Bar Daze, had an entire wall lined with shelves full of CDs, and there was a house DJ who takes requests and will play anything within reason. So we requested The Beatles' "Birthday" of course, where this post takes its name from. Some other good songs of the night were The Knack's "My Sharona" and Take That's "Back For Good." (Keep in mind that, being in Japan, I don't get to hear much English music except for boy band pop on repeat at stores at the mall or uncensored dirty gangster rap, also at the stores at the mall, because no one understands what is being said anyway. I gotta say it's quite a shock to be shopping for detergent or toilet paper only to hear a song about pimps and hoes blaring from the speakers, haha.) Anyway, it was enjoyable fun with enjoyable company, and I had my one drink of the night, a glass of kir. Overall it was a decently fun birthday, with my favorite parts probably being the hike to the waterfall and relaxing at Bar Daze with good company. I think maybe next year I'll do something special, like take a small trip or see something new (thanks for the suggestion, Tim!). Wow...I'm 23!















The DJ and CD collection at Bar Daze.















Isabel and Sarah, two new friends made that evening through Zane. Isabel's from England and is so far the only other Classics major I've met who's on the JET Programme. Sarah's from North Carolina.















Ahh, finally! Happy St. Patrick's Day from Japan!

Graduation 2007

Today, my junior high school sannensei (3rd year students, who are about 15 or 16 years old and equal to about freshmen in high school) graduated. It was a very regimented and solemn affair that ended with many tearful "thank you"s and "goodbye"s from the graduates.

I had been watching the kids practice for a couple of weeks, and I have to say it is amazing how well disciplined they are. I vaguely remember my own 8th grade graduation and think about how different it was. Ceremonies here in Japan are taken very seriously, and this is reflected in how well-choreographed the walking, movements, and bowing are. All the students bowed deeply and in perfect unison and stood and sat with crisp motions. It was almost like watching the military.

All the teachers had to sit in order at a table near the graduates, so I would have loved to videotape the ceremony, but I couldn't. Pictures weren't allowed during the ceremony either, though I was able to sneak a couple, since I was sitting next to a potted plant which obscured my camera from view.

First, the students received their certificates of graduation. Afterwards, there were about 6 speeches of congratulation from various people including the principal, someone from the Board of Education, etc. Then, in what I think was probably the most touching part of the ceremony, the ichinensei (1st grade) and ninensei (2nd grade) students sang, in beautiful harmony, a farewell song to the sannensei, their sempai (person/people who are older than you or have a higher rank than you). In response, the sannensei sang a song back to them, their kohai (person/people who are younger than you or have a lower rank than you). The best part of this was probably the moving visual of having the sannensei and the ichinensei/ninensei face each other while they sang.

At the end of the ceremony, they filed out by class (there are 4 classes of 36 each), lined up one last time, bowed to their parents, and said "Arigato Gozaimashita," which means something like "thank you for everything up until now."

(Okay, okay, I'll admit that even though it was serious and intense, the ceremony was really mind-numbingly boring at times, especially during the 6 speeches, probably because I didn't understand everything that was being said, or because it was repetitive. A tiny part of me missed graduation antics, rowdy uncles with airhorns, and general happy chaos, but this was sort of more impressive and awesome, full of images that stay in one's mind.)

I'm really going to miss the sannensei kids. Though the class as a whole was often listless and unmotivated, I loved talking to the kids individually. Their English ability is amazing when they're not worried about making mistakes in front of their peers. There were some great personalities in that class too, really spunky and hilarious kids. Now they're off to various public and private high schools, and hopefully they'll visit every once in a while. I'll admit the sadness of their leaving was very overwhelming for me, and it makes me wonder how "real" teachers deal with kids graduating every year. I'm hoping it gets easier with each passing graduation, and I guess I have to remember that graduating is a happy occasion, a moving forward from previous accomplishment. This, among other things I've experienced so far in Japan, really highlights the reality of life that is transience. People come into your life for a little while, bring you joy and happiness, and then maybe you stay in touch or maybe you don't. It's really important to remember that happiness, but it's also important to realize that we should appreciate people/places/things as much as we can because it's uncertain if you'll ever cross paths with them again.

Some pictures from Monday, the day before graduation. The kids are enjoying their last kyushoku (school lunch). They got to eat all kinds of special food they ususally don't get to eat, like hot dogs, cake, and fried chicken:

























































Pictures from Tuesday's sotsugyo-shiki (graduation) and after:















All the sannensei teachers, dressed up for graduation. Teramoto-sensei is in a special kimono usually worn during graduation. Apparently she was the only one of all of them who owned one, so she wore it, but she was really embarassed to be the only one.















The ninsensei stayed late after school the day before to decorate the sannensei classrooms. Most Japanese kids seem really good at drawing, decorating, and making pretty things out of paper, I noticed. This is Yushin, one of the sannensei delinquents, taking a solo photo for me because his friends got too shy to stand with him.















Me with some of my favorite sannensei girls, hanging out before the ceremony.















A picture I snuck during the ceremony. Here, the students are receving congratulations from the members of the city council, sitting across from us at another table. FYI, my homestay mom is the only woman member of the city council. She's a lady to be reckoned with, she's awesome.















The ichinensei and ninensei sitting down as the sannensei prepare to sing their song. The kid standing up higher was conducting them. Look at those straight lines!















Processing out of the gym. The banners are good luck messages and inspirational quotes from the student council, who rigged it as a surprise. As they filed out, the student council unfurled the banners, while the brass band played a special rendition of a Japanese pop song that is really popular right now. It was cute!

The only thing that was probably more amazing than the, uh..."ceremoniousness" of the ceremony was probably how quickly the whole operation got taken down. Basically, the ichinensei and ninensei each picked up the chair they were sitting in, put it away, rolled the mats, put away the decorations and broke down the tables in about 20 minutes. I've decided that if I do indeed become a teacher when I get back to the States I'm going to attempt to make my students become just as diligent. If only I knew about this when I was in Student Government in high school and needed to break down events like rallies and dances! I would have grabbed a mic, barked for everyone to grab something and put it away, and we would have been done in minutes. Now I understand what Mr. Lee meant when he told me that the my job was to delegate, aka, make everyone else do the work while you stand there and give directions!