Week in Review

So I know it's been a while since I've posted, and I apologize. I also apologize for once again having no pictures. I know I said that I was going to go check out Nishinoshima this past weekend, but I just never got around to it. It rained Saturday, Sunday was Ama Jr. High's school festival, and Monday I took my car in for its biannual inspection.

The school festival was pretty interesting. The school was divided into three groups, each with an assigned number of teachers. The students have been working since their summer vacation on self-written one act plays. I couldn't understand any of them, but they seemed interesting enough. My team's play incorporated a student, peter pan, cinderella, a not-so-evil witch, and a pig-man of some sort. I've no idea why, but it's not important. What is important is that my team won, and I'm confident that it was due in large part to my tremendous contribution of hard work and time spent casually observing from a distance and not actually getting involved. The point is we won the trophy. After the plays we were treated to presentations on Ama culture and ecology that several students would be presenting at a conference in Tokyo, as well as speeches from our two Japanese Language Speech contestants, and our one English Language Speech contestant.

I can actually say, in honesty this time, that she is very good, and has come a long way since I came in to coach her. She learns quickly, and has memorized her story in iambic pentameter with appropriate emphases, facial expressions, and hand gestures. The contest is in Matsue on the 27th, and she is the first of 50 entrants to speak before the panel of 5 judges. If she wins, she gets to go to a language camp in Ireland for a couple weeks (I doubt that I get to tag along though :( ).

After the plays and speeches and presentations, it was time for the folk dance. Why it's labeled a folk dance, I've no idea, because it had little to do with traditional Japanese culture (at least that I could see). It did however involve polka music and a circular group dance reminiscent of good old fashioned square dancing. I participated in this as well, but, because we were running early, they decided to stretch the 15 minute dance out to 45 minutes. By the end, everyone was panting heavily and sweating rivers. Because I didn't have indoor shoes, I wore slippers and ended up with rather large and painful blisters on my feet. Fun times though.

Since I spent all day at school Sunday, I had Monday off. I decided to use the time to get my car inspection and health insurance renewed, because I was under the impression it wouldn't take long nor cost much. That was on Monday morning. Tomorrow afternoon, 4 1/2 days and 100,000 yen (about a grand in USD) later, I'll be getting my car back. Nothing was wrong with it to my knowledge, that's just how they go about "inspecting" cars in this country. Did I mention the thing is rusting, the seats are falling apart, the a/c leaks in the car, there is no sounds system of any kind, and it's over 10 years old?

Ah well, tomorrow marks the beginning of Silver Week, a 5 day weekend of national holidays in Japan. Originally, I had planned to go to Nagasaki with some other JETs. However, the people with whom I really wanted to go decided that Nagasaki is too far away, and decided Osaka would be a better bet. So, despite having lived a half hour outside of Osaka for 3 1/2 months the last time I was here and being sick to death of the city, I will be leaving Saturday morning for Osaka. Not because I want to go, but because I want to spend time with fellow gaijin (that's foreigner in Japanese). It should be fun though, there are still some sights I haven't seen, and some others that I'd like to see again. Admittedly though, Nagasaki is at least 10x more interesting.