So I missed a week in there. But I think you'll excuse me when you read about what I've been doing for the past two weeks.
Ok so I wrote the last blog before lots of things happened. The week following that blog was pretty normal, except for our Thursday holiday. Even after all this time, the fact that Japan has several National Holidays that fall all by themselves in the middle of the week is still just a little weird to me.
But that's Japan, at any time I'm only about 80% certain whats going on.
But after that, things proceeded as usual on Friday. But Saturday was a working day for me, as it was OMGHuge中's Culture Day. So instead of sleeping in I woke up at the usual time and went into work. So for those of you who don't know, Culture Festivals in Junior High School revolve primary around the singing competition between the classes. And because this school is SO big (15 homerooms total), this goes on for a REALLY long time. Each homeroom sings two songs, a required song for their grade and a free song. So that's 30 songs total at this school, and a lot of them are repeats. Its kinda boring, not gonna lie. But 3-4 really cutely dedicated their performance to their homeroom teacher who is about to be 60 and retire next year, and they ended up winning the day. In the afternoon they do things like club demonstrations and showing off projects they have been doing. And during that part my four girls who have been practicing for the speech contest had a dry run of their speeches. So I was pretty involved in that. Also the Rhythmic Gymnastics club presentation is always really good.
And straight after the Culture Day I went home and hopped in my car, and drove down to Masuda. That's all the way on the other end of Shimane, and Shimane is Looooong. It's about a 3 hour drive, if you are me and you speed a lot. I was going down their because my friend Jessica and I were going to drive to Hiroshima the next day for a Tackey & Tsubasa concert (yey!). But now that I think about it, I'm not really sure why I drove instead of taking the train.
But I made it there, and we had a good evening in Masuda, having yummy dinner and watching tv/DVDs. And the drive to Hiroshima was uneventful until we got to Hiroshima and kept missing our turns. But eventually after much adjusting the GPS on my phone and turning around we did make it. And had a lovely day shopping and poking around Hiroshima before the concert. And the concert was pretty awesome too. But I already wrote about that elsewhere, needless to say I made Jessica a fan too! The next day we spent looking and looking for mexican food but couldn't find it! OR couldn't find one that was open for lunch. But we did end up finding this cute little cafe where they served yummy sandwiches, pizzas, and burgers. And had cute English speaking waiters. I will have to go back there someday!
After we went home and I turned around and drove BACK to my place is where my weeks of crazy really began (really why did I not take the train?). See I'd taken that Monday off cause of the Culture Festival, and I just decided to go ahead and use my compensatory leave. And Tuesday was Rowdy中's Culture Festival (which was honestly quite vanilla this year). And then on Wednesday I went with Oshare先生 to a speech contest in another city to cheer on my girl. That actually was a lot more trouble than it should've been for me to go, and reaffirmed that my motto in Japan should be 'Just do it, and then if you have to apologize for it later'. Because getting permission can be a PAIN in this country.
My girl couldn't win, it was really too bad. But she worked really hard and I thought she did a really good job. And I had a really fun ride down to the contest with my teacher. It was interesting to get to talk to him like that outside the confines of the office. I think I learned a lot of things about him.
And then Thursday and Friday was the Mid-Year Conference for ALTs in Shimane. Which Oshare先生 also attended. That's always a fun event because all of the JET ALTs get together, and its fun to see everyone, and I feel like that conference is probably the most useful event of the year as far as work is concerned. After that Jessica stayed the weekend with me, in addition to a bunch of us having yummy dinner on Thursday night.
That Saturday was ALSO a working day for me, because it was the second speech contest. This one was in town, and I had three girls participating. It was a big contest, and went on all afternoon. Only one of my girls won a prize, but I was so proud of all of them. They really went for it! Jessica came with to that, and then together with Heather we all had dinner and saw a movie at Youme Town. We saw the Three Musketeers. It was fun, but I had to suspend my disbelief HARD the whole movie. And on Sunday we just relaxed until she could get the train home.
It was a busy week, but the BIG event at my school was still to come...
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