Sports Day Festival Rehearsal
First Off, I was dressed in appropriately. I came to school dressed in casual clothing, and shorts which Japanese people view as very rude. Everyone has a certain style of clothing to wear. So All I did was be a spectator with another English teacher. She was in charge of the video camera, and supervising things from above.
They started with the Warm-up which is a little aerobic work-out. Kinda weird if you ask me, but whatever, I'm living here now. So I just gotta go along with it. The warm-up lasted like 2 minutes. Then they did dances by grade level and then a variety of sports activities. They had like 100m, 400m, dashes with respective relays. They also did things like 3-people 4 legs, UFO where there are four people in a box running a relay. There were a lot of activities and games. They were competing for who gets the inside lane next week during the real festival. A lot of students fell down on the track, since it's all loose gravel.
It really was quite a scene to see. Everyone was cheering and getting really into it. I can tell the basketball team is really good, the teacher next to me, Higaki, kept telling me that people were on the basketball team. Usually all the first and second place people were on the basketball team. The faster running at the academy is actually on the volleyball team though.
The school treated me lunch, which was really nice of them. So I didn't have much to do during the time, I was just watching. I learned a lot of new things today though. I learned that I'm a full-time teacher, not a part-time teacher. That's why I have my own desk and everything. I'm required to go to school on Saturdays, even though I don't have classes, although I'm sure I will try to change that. I have to be at school from around 8:30am to 5pm. I only get certain holidays off. If I don't have class, I just help out with other people and the things they need to get finished.
My roles really haven't been introduced to me yet, but I shouldn't just let them tell me, I should find out for myself. So when school starts up on Tuesday, I'll be more inquisitive about what I'm really supposed to do and what's expected of me. So I know that I'm not letting anyone down and I can easily get adjusted to the school life.
Today is also a National Holiday, and is Ivy's Birthday. I had school on a National Holiday. There was a festival when I got back to Hongodai station. It was pretty interesting. They had some Vietnamese food, but it was too expensive to buy, so I didn't. But it looked good. Instead I used the time since I left early to buy some of the right uniform for sports wear. So now I think next week will be better for me. I'm planning to bring some candies that I bought in Hokkaido to the staff, although I think that I don't have enough for everyone. I'll bring some of the see's candies too, to see, but I know I don't have enough.That might make me run into some problems, but at least I get rid of all the candy and other stuff. It will be good to introduce it to them though. It's a nice gesture I think, but I'm not sure yet. I'll think about it a little more of how I plan to do it.
