Cultural Festival Day One

Today was a fun day I think. I woke up extra early though and I don't know why. I still get up at 6:30am to get ready for work. I end up taking the 7:59am train from Hongodai to Yokohama. It's so nice to go to work on Saturdays. The trains aren't crowded at all. I mean I had a seat from Hongodai to Yokohama and from Yokohama to Toritsu-Daigaku. That's extremely rare for me. I had the opportunity to read more into Angels and Demons. It's really starting to get really good. I'm like on Chapter 20, which really isn't that far into the book, but it's a lot for me.
When I got to school, they had closed the regular entrance because they only wanted people to enter from a certain door. But one of the other teachers escorted me to a backdoor that let me in. I didn't do much for the rest of the day, but sit inside the English Conversation Club to help sell "Candy-Lanes."

I had the opportunity to walk around to the different classes with all the different displays. They were all great and you can tell they have spent a lot of time doing them. I mean the girls making the candy lanes put it together in 4 days, and that's 256 leis that they made. When I helped them on Tuesday they only had finished 13. So I'm impressed how they did it. The room wasn't that impressive compared to the other rooms, but I'm not going to complain. We kinda have a bad location too.

I think the most interesting room was the 10th grade, Yuri. They had four games that you could play. The first room was "tug the tablecloth," which basically is pulling a tablecloth with some dishes on them without pulling everything off. I was actually able to do it. It's not as hard as I thought. I thought it was impossible till I did it. Since the dishes were cardboard. Many other people did it too. The second room was shooting balloons with a disc-gun. The aim was off so I did poorly in here. The third room was a big Jenga made out of cardboard. I was able to pull the bottom off, for big points. The last game was dropping the coin into the cup. I got 3 out of 5 in a cup, which wasn't good enough to get big points. I got candy though.

10th Grade Fuji tricked me out of my money, but I ended up with a good prize so it wasn't bad. Those girls are bad. hmmm, what am I going to do with them...

All the rooms were greatly decorated, and the art room was impressive too. Their art is really great. I saw a student perform a traditional green tea ceremony. Usually I've only seen masters perform the ceremony, so I was suprised to see a student do it. I think that the Marching band is really really good. They nail all their moves and are PERFECTLY in sync. It's really amazing to see how everything is choreographed. It's really a great performance.

After the festival, I stayed around the teacher's office way longer than I needed to be. But I think it paid off. I started talking to more teachers and giving them candy that was on my desk. I don't know why that everytime I leave the room and come back there are things on my desk and I have no idea where they come from. So since there was candy on my desk, I just gave it away, even though I didn't know who they belonged to. But I assumed they were for teachers so I gave it to them. I think they were given by a parent.

I was teaching the teacher next to me some American History, it was a little difficult with the translation, but I'm sure that it must have worked out and she understood. Well maybe.
The President of the school also showed me an old picture of when the school started. It had his grandfather, who was the first principal, his grandmother - the second principal, his Father the third principal, and his mother the fourth principal. The principal of the school now is the fifth principal. He shared a little history of where the name and everything came from too. The area that the school is located is in Meguro-Ku, in Yakumo. It's based on a shrine in the Shimane prefecture about a God. It's the match-maker God and the words Yakumo came from the old song related to when the Gods got married.

In one of the pictures there was a person whose name is Koizumi Yakumo too. Well actually his son. Koizumi Yakumo is extremely famous that you'd actually find his name in the dictionary because he's a famous author. His son taught English at Yakumo and it's kinda fate how that came to be. He also gave me a copy of the picture to share with Mr. Kto, EK's dad and to explain the story to him. That's kind of an honor to be honest with you. So that's pretty cool.Then me and two other teachers went out for dinner at a Kyushuu Ramen place. It was pretty good. One of the teachers wanted to practice his English, actually both teachers wanted to. Which was good and I was glad to be invited. I also was invited to go meet some other Native English Speaker in Roppongi, but I didn't feel like going actually. The invitation was very vague and I didn't learn of any details so I called and left a message on CP's answering machine. I didn't get home till around 10pm which is really late by my standards. I usually go to sleep around then, but I'm still up typing this. I think I will read some more Dan Brown before I go to bed. It's starting to get really good.

Book of the Moment - Dan Brown - Angels and Demons