The school trip (four days in Tokyo with the ninensei from Kirita JHS) was awesome and I have a lot to talk about, but I'm still feeling too tired/lazy to write in detail about it, so for now, enjoy the pictures!
2008 Kirita School Trip Day 1: Edo-Tokyo Museum, Unicef House, Yokohama
Day 2: Tokyo Tower, Free Time
Day 3: Tokyo Disneyland!
Day 4 (Part 1): Sensoji Temple, National Museum of Science, Ueno Zoo
Day 4 (Part 2): Ueno Zoo (continued), Trip Home
Omiyage
P.S. - This is the one hundred and first post for this blog!! ^_^
Saturday, November 15, 2008
Friday, November 7, 2008
A dancer I am not...
...but I feel that I at least carried myself credibly at the Towada Culture Festival this past Sunday (November 2nd).
Even though my (Japanese) dance performance lasted only 8 minutes, I spent pretty much the whole day at the Towada Bunka (Culture) Center in preparation. I arrived a little before 10:30am to get my hair done by a mother of one of the elementary students performing. It took 1.5 hrs, 2 elastics, 5 small rubber bands, 1 U-pin, 55 bobby pins and a lot of hairspray/mousse to get my hair done up properly for Japanese dance.
Then I had to get my make-up done (they whitened my face, neck, and arms). After the make-up, I had a short time to eat a bit (they ordered trays of maki rolls, mini croissants, fried chicken, etc. for everyone) before we all had to put on our rental kimonos.
I really learned from this experience how amazing and tireless Japanese mothers (okaasan) are. For the weeks leading up to the festival, the mothers were always at our rehearsals, often working on things (hair ornaments for the kids, flower bunches for their dance, etc.) for the performance.
The Saturday before the performance, the okaasan who was going to do my hair did a practice run that took an hour to do! Then, of course, she tirelessly worked on my hair for an hour and a half on the day of (she couldn't get it to stay the way she hoped/wanted it to, so she ended up changing the style a little from the practice run--hence the extra half an hour). While she was working on my hair, the other mothers were helping the kids get their make-up on and doing their hair. They set up and distributed all the food. They helped all the children get into their kimonos, etc. and made sure they were ready and in their proper places for their curtain calls. And of course they helped with the clean-up. Really, they were amazing and I only wish I could've expressed my admiration to them more fully on the day of!!
But back to my preparations...
There were seven of us wearing the rental kimonos, and it took about 20-30 minutes to put on each kimono, so we had to around 1pm to make our 3:45pm curtain call. Since my sensei (very thoughtfully) wanted me to be able to take pictures/have pictures taken of me in the kimono, Maki (my dance partner and I) were the first ones dressed.
Once I had the kimono on and was finished taking photos, it was just a matter of sitting around and waiting for our curtain call. Maki and I practiced a little, but we got a little hot/flushed, so we figured it was best to just sit and wait patiently.
When the time came for us to go on, I was super nervous. I was so nervous, I actually felt slightly nauseated; I always used to get that feeling before major tests/exams during high school and university, or before doing any sort of public speaking/performance, but it had been a long time since I’d last felt so nervous. Still, when the music started and we made our entrance, I slapped on a smile and tried to stay focused.
Luckily it was really dark in the theatre and the spotlights were really bright, so even if I’d wanted to look for familiar faces in the audience, I probably wouldn’t have been able to spot any. It wasn’t my best performance (I think that happened at our final rehearsal on the Wednesday before), but at least I didn’t make any major mistakes. ^_^
After the performance everyone (there were some 40-odd dancers for about 7 or 8 different pieces) took pictures before changing and cleaning up. Thankfully it didn’t take quite as long to get out of the kimono as it did to put it on, but still, getting everything put away/cleaned up took a fair bit of time.
Before I left, I was given the flowers my supervisor had thoughtfully sent for my performance. Given that she had been in Canada for almost a week before my performance, this was no small consideration on her part! Unfortunately I wasn't able to take a picture of myself in the kimono with the flowers, but I still had all the make-up on and my hair up when I got home, so I took a self-shot of just my face/head and the flowers to send to her in my thank you email.
After taking the photo, I had just enough time to get all the make-up off and to change to go to the Hanasuzukai (the dance group's name) enkai. I didn't have enough time to take out my hair (they'd put so much stuff into it, I would've needed to wash my hair as well as taking out all the pins, etc.), but that was OK.
I walked to the enkai since it was pretty close and it was an unusually warm night. I was expecting the enkai to last about two hours (the usual length), but it ended up going for five! They even had a nijikai (and I later heard about a sanjikai), but I skipped out on that and went home.
It was fun and there was quite a lot to eat. My conversational Japanese is still pretty horrendous, but there were a couple of people who had pretty good English, so that made things easier.
All in all, it was a good experience. Even though I was rather ambivalent at first, I'm glad now that I started taking the lessons. Next I just have to take the initiative to ask about joining taiko (which I've been wanting to do since last year's Aki Matsuri)!
(For more photos, see my Culture Festival Dance Performance Facebook album! I've also added an album with pictures from the 2008 Kirita Halloween Party.)
Even though my (Japanese) dance performance lasted only 8 minutes, I spent pretty much the whole day at the Towada Bunka (Culture) Center in preparation. I arrived a little before 10:30am to get my hair done by a mother of one of the elementary students performing. It took 1.5 hrs, 2 elastics, 5 small rubber bands, 1 U-pin, 55 bobby pins and a lot of hairspray/mousse to get my hair done up properly for Japanese dance.
Then I had to get my make-up done (they whitened my face, neck, and arms). After the make-up, I had a short time to eat a bit (they ordered trays of maki rolls, mini croissants, fried chicken, etc. for everyone) before we all had to put on our rental kimonos.I really learned from this experience how amazing and tireless Japanese mothers (okaasan) are. For the weeks leading up to the festival, the mothers were always at our rehearsals, often working on things (hair ornaments for the kids, flower bunches for their dance, etc.) for the performance.
The Saturday before the performance, the okaasan who was going to do my hair did a practice run that took an hour to do! Then, of course, she tirelessly worked on my hair for an hour and a half on the day of (she couldn't get it to stay the way she hoped/wanted it to, so she ended up changing the style a little from the practice run--hence the extra half an hour). While she was working on my hair, the other mothers were helping the kids get their make-up on and doing their hair. They set up and distributed all the food. They helped all the children get into their kimonos, etc. and made sure they were ready and in their proper places for their curtain calls. And of course they helped with the clean-up. Really, they were amazing and I only wish I could've expressed my admiration to them more fully on the day of!!
But back to my preparations...
There were seven of us wearing the rental kimonos, and it took about 20-30 minutes to put on each kimono, so we had to around 1pm to make our 3:45pm curtain call. Since my sensei (very thoughtfully) wanted me to be able to take pictures/have pictures taken of me in the kimono, Maki (my dance partner and I) were the first ones dressed.Once I had the kimono on and was finished taking photos, it was just a matter of sitting around and waiting for our curtain call. Maki and I practiced a little, but we got a little hot/flushed, so we figured it was best to just sit and wait patiently.
When the time came for us to go on, I was super nervous. I was so nervous, I actually felt slightly nauseated; I always used to get that feeling before major tests/exams during high school and university, or before doing any sort of public speaking/performance, but it had been a long time since I’d last felt so nervous. Still, when the music started and we made our entrance, I slapped on a smile and tried to stay focused.
Luckily it was really dark in the theatre and the spotlights were really bright, so even if I’d wanted to look for familiar faces in the audience, I probably wouldn’t have been able to spot any. It wasn’t my best performance (I think that happened at our final rehearsal on the Wednesday before), but at least I didn’t make any major mistakes. ^_^
After the performance everyone (there were some 40-odd dancers for about 7 or 8 different pieces) took pictures before changing and cleaning up. Thankfully it didn’t take quite as long to get out of the kimono as it did to put it on, but still, getting everything put away/cleaned up took a fair bit of time.
Before I left, I was given the flowers my supervisor had thoughtfully sent for my performance. Given that she had been in Canada for almost a week before my performance, this was no small consideration on her part! Unfortunately I wasn't able to take a picture of myself in the kimono with the flowers, but I still had all the make-up on and my hair up when I got home, so I took a self-shot of just my face/head and the flowers to send to her in my thank you email.After taking the photo, I had just enough time to get all the make-up off and to change to go to the Hanasuzukai (the dance group's name) enkai. I didn't have enough time to take out my hair (they'd put so much stuff into it, I would've needed to wash my hair as well as taking out all the pins, etc.), but that was OK.
I walked to the enkai since it was pretty close and it was an unusually warm night. I was expecting the enkai to last about two hours (the usual length), but it ended up going for five! They even had a nijikai (and I later heard about a sanjikai), but I skipped out on that and went home.
It was fun and there was quite a lot to eat. My conversational Japanese is still pretty horrendous, but there were a couple of people who had pretty good English, so that made things easier.
All in all, it was a good experience. Even though I was rather ambivalent at first, I'm glad now that I started taking the lessons. Next I just have to take the initiative to ask about joining taiko (which I've been wanting to do since last year's Aki Matsuri)!
(For more photos, see my Culture Festival Dance Performance Facebook album! I've also added an album with pictures from the 2008 Kirita Halloween Party.)
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Question of the Day
So the sannensei are currently studying the relative pronouns "who," "which" and "that." The example sentence that T-sensei wrote on the blackboard was: "This is the best book I've ever read." She then asked for a volunteer to read the sentence and to translate it.
No one volunteered, but one student raised her hand to ask a question (in Japanese): "Is "I've" a contraction for "I love" or "I have?"
As soon as she asked the question, she realized how absurd it was, but it was too late: the entire class burst into laughter. =P
On the topic of amusing questions students ask, I was at Towada JHS on Monday and it was my first time teaching the ninensei there, so we had the requisite self-intro "speech" followed by a Q&A time. Of course one of the students came up with "What do you think about him (points to a student named Miura)?" (he asked in Japanese and I translated for him). My answer: "He's probably a nice guy." The funny part was that when I was eating lunch with them, the teacher (not a JTE) asked students (by student number) to stand up and ask me a question. I got a lot of the usual--"Do you like Japanese food? What colour do you like?" etc.--but one of the last guys to go asked: "Do you love Miura?" The students found my answer of "Sorry, I don't know him well enough" extremely amusing; I suspect they only listened to the "Sorry, I don't" part. =P
No one volunteered, but one student raised her hand to ask a question (in Japanese): "Is "I've" a contraction for "I love" or "I have?"
As soon as she asked the question, she realized how absurd it was, but it was too late: the entire class burst into laughter. =P
On the topic of amusing questions students ask, I was at Towada JHS on Monday and it was my first time teaching the ninensei there, so we had the requisite self-intro "speech" followed by a Q&A time. Of course one of the students came up with "What do you think about him (points to a student named Miura)?" (he asked in Japanese and I translated for him). My answer: "He's probably a nice guy." The funny part was that when I was eating lunch with them, the teacher (not a JTE) asked students (by student number) to stand up and ask me a question. I got a lot of the usual--"Do you like Japanese food? What colour do you like?" etc.--but one of the last guys to go asked: "Do you love Miura?" The students found my answer of "Sorry, I don't know him well enough" extremely amusing; I suspect they only listened to the "Sorry, I don't" part. =P
Sunday, October 26, 2008
Honoured guest
As much as I love being considered "part of the family" at Kirita, sometimes it's nice to get "honoured guest" treatment. This Monday I happened to be teaching at Ofukanai (it's been about a year since my last visit!). I thought it was strange that they would want an ALT after the big JHS bunka sai (culture festival) weekend, but it turned out that they hadn't actually had their culture day yet.
Anyway, one of the activities for the ninensei to practice "if" clauses was to write the ALT (me) a fax to tell me about some news and to solicit a response of some sort (e.g. "Kumi broke her arm. If you are free, please come to the hospital with me."). It was good timing for such an activity since most students were able to tell me about the school festival and invite me to come. Even though they didn't actually give me the faxes (they handed them in to their teacher, of course), since I was duly informed about it, I decided I'd try to go if I could.
I found out from the JTE that the school festival would start at 9am. Unfortunately, I made the mistake of thinking the schedule would be similar to Kirita's (starting at 9am, but nothing really happening until the food things opened at 10am and performances, etc. going on in the afternoon), so I planned to go around 10am. Due to a very slow start to the morning, however, I ended up arriving around 10:45am.
As it turned out, I missed English speech recitations (well, I'd already heard them anyway!), sharing from the sannensei about the homestay in Canada (from when they were ninensei), and a music presentation by the sannensei. ^^;; Luckily I was in time to catch a good portion of the koma odori (horse dance).
At any rate, I got a very warm welcome when I entered the school. They gave me free food tickets (tempura udon and umeboshi onigiri) and when I went into the gym for the performance, they asked me to sit up front next to kocho-sensei! After the performance, kocho-sensei thanked me for coming and told me (all in impecable English) to please enjoy the festival.
I got quite a number of cheerful "hello's" from students and teachers. While I was looking at the stuff in the ichinensei classroom, I got...I guess you could say "accosted" by several (Horanai) elementary school students whom I'd taught a few times recently. They pretty much took (dragged =P) me around the rest of the day.
One girl, Miki, gave me one of her takoyaki. I shared my udon with the boy, Sho (?) since he didn't have any food tickets on him. Miki's father bought all of us frankfurters (on sticks!).
Apart from having more fun seeing the festival with people, it worked out well that I ended up hanging out with the Horanai students since they really enjoyed playing with my camera. As a result, I ended up actually getting photos of myself at the festival!
Originally I was planning on just dropping by for an hour or so, but I saw on the program that there'd be a choral competition in the afternoon (starting at 2pm) so I ended up staying until the end of the festival. All in all, I had a good time. If the festival turns out to be a different day from Kirita's again next year (assuming I'm still here), I think I'll try to visit again (making sure to come right from the start, though)!
For more pictures of the festival, see my Facebook album.
I've also updated/added some other photo albums:
Updated: Random Food (1 photo)
Updated: Japanese Kit Kat (1 photo)
New: Just Desserts
Anyway, one of the activities for the ninensei to practice "if" clauses was to write the ALT (me) a fax to tell me about some news and to solicit a response of some sort (e.g. "Kumi broke her arm. If you are free, please come to the hospital with me."). It was good timing for such an activity since most students were able to tell me about the school festival and invite me to come. Even though they didn't actually give me the faxes (they handed them in to their teacher, of course), since I was duly informed about it, I decided I'd try to go if I could.
I found out from the JTE that the school festival would start at 9am. Unfortunately, I made the mistake of thinking the schedule would be similar to Kirita's (starting at 9am, but nothing really happening until the food things opened at 10am and performances, etc. going on in the afternoon), so I planned to go around 10am. Due to a very slow start to the morning, however, I ended up arriving around 10:45am.
As it turned out, I missed English speech recitations (well, I'd already heard them anyway!), sharing from the sannensei about the homestay in Canada (from when they were ninensei), and a music presentation by the sannensei. ^^;; Luckily I was in time to catch a good portion of the koma odori (horse dance).At any rate, I got a very warm welcome when I entered the school. They gave me free food tickets (tempura udon and umeboshi onigiri) and when I went into the gym for the performance, they asked me to sit up front next to kocho-sensei! After the performance, kocho-sensei thanked me for coming and told me (all in impecable English) to please enjoy the festival.
I got quite a number of cheerful "hello's" from students and teachers. While I was looking at the stuff in the ichinensei classroom, I got...I guess you could say "accosted" by several (Horanai) elementary school students whom I'd taught a few times recently. They pretty much took (dragged =P) me around the rest of the day.
One girl, Miki, gave me one of her takoyaki. I shared my udon with the boy, Sho (?) since he didn't have any food tickets on him. Miki's father bought all of us frankfurters (on sticks!).Apart from having more fun seeing the festival with people, it worked out well that I ended up hanging out with the Horanai students since they really enjoyed playing with my camera. As a result, I ended up actually getting photos of myself at the festival!
Originally I was planning on just dropping by for an hour or so, but I saw on the program that there'd be a choral competition in the afternoon (starting at 2pm) so I ended up staying until the end of the festival. All in all, I had a good time. If the festival turns out to be a different day from Kirita's again next year (assuming I'm still here), I think I'll try to visit again (making sure to come right from the start, though)!
For more pictures of the festival, see my Facebook album.
I've also updated/added some other photo albums:
Updated: Random Food (1 photo)
Updated: Japanese Kit Kat (1 photo)
New: Just Desserts
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