English Festival

I got enough rest from yesterday and got an early start to go to school. I felt really good today and was excited to see all the festivities. When I arrived at school. It was really nicely decorated. There was a Christmas Tree in the center of the field and I noticed a room, "The Santa Center" where all the gifts were stored. It was nice since I named the room... hehe. The halls were nicely decorated with paintings from the students and the lights were hung from the ceiling.

We used all 4 floors and the gymnasium so it was a huge ordeal especially with the setup and decorations of all the rooms. I will add photos on my website later so you will be able to see. I was in charge of one of the game rooms. It was a classroom sized game board the people would have to roll a dice and walk around the room answering questions. It was pretty fun and the questions weren't too hard. Since it was targeted at elementary school kids.

Aside from that I was running back on forth to and from the gym because I was watching all the English plays that I was helping with. That's pretty much all the plays. Too bad the game room was on the 3rd floor, so that was a lot of running around.

The plays were wonderful. They all did a great job, and I'm really proud of them. There were only little mistakes that the students were doing, but I think it was because of habit and they just hadn't gotten out of it. But overall, it was great. They all did a good job. I really enjoyed the Blue Bird production from the 8th graders Kiku class. They always have the greatest amount of energy. The 7th graders did a great job too, and it was cool watching the slideshow of Peter Pan being presented behind them. As if you were watching the movie right then. I felt sorry for most of the audience because they didn't understand. It was all in English... hahahahahaha. Good for me, and shows that they all need to study and improve their English. Well, I'm under the assumption they don't understand, but I think for the most part they do. Parents are actually pretty good with English, which is something I'm quite surprised about. Many parents would come up to me and ask me something in Japanese, and I would say, I'm the English teacher and they would ask me in English... Kinda puts me on the spot, even though I don't have any idea about what's going on. So I just showed them my schedule, and they got the idea.

Pretty convenient to carry around papers like that. There were many rooms with different displays that were interesting. There were two classrooms that were decorated with "American" stuff and one of Canadian stuff. Then there were some food rooms. They served Frankfurters and soups. Their clam chowder needs a little more umph, but nevertheless, it was still good.

At the end of the day, there was a huge gift exchange with all the students on the field. It was kind of creative how they did the exchange and did the song. It was pretty good ending for the event, but I could see the stress level of all the teachers amount. It wasn't over yet because then there was the large amount of clean-up left. Then next week is testing and more school events. These things never end.

After a little bit of clean up, there was a staff Christmas party on the 4th floor and out on the patio area too. It was nice, I was sitting next to two English teachers, the really nice ones too. So conversation was easier, and I was with fun teachers so it was enjoyable. The food was a high class Domino's Pizza with some minestrone soup, and konyaku. There was also some spagetti and a birthday cake. There was also other food too. I had enough to not be hungry, yet still not full. Then it was onto clean up. I mean these parties seem to end really fast, and there isn't enough time to eat. I mean there is a lot of food, but not enough time to eat it all. Kinda frustrating at times.

After that was the clean-up of the staff dinner and some of the decorations. This was around 8:30pm and when I went back into office after doing some cleaning. I found Takagi sensei sitting at my chair selling christmas cards. She had a stack of about 100 or so and was selling them to the staff. I bought 12 for 600 yen, and others had to buy as well. Kinda sucked since everyone was sitting and I was the only one standing. Everyone was telling me I should go sit at the front table where Takagi's sensei seat is, but that would definately not be a good idea.

After getting conned out of my money and my seat, she finally sold them all and I was allowed to get my stuff. Then I was trying to sell it to the teacher who sits next to me, but she wouldn't budge. I was resorting to exchange some 2004 christmas cards for her cake, but I think she was happy with the cake.

I didn't leave till around 9-9:30pm. I left with Mr. Katoda. He's a good person and we were having a good conversation going to the train station and on the train. I learned that he was an English teacher at a Juku when he was younger and that he used to teach Economics and world history. He only teaches Japanese history now. The teacher that sits next to me, Ms. Katsuyama teaches world history. I heard she graduated from a really high university in Tokyo, but her English ability is rather low for such a high institution. I didn't get home till very late so I couldn't grab anything to eat. Kinda hungry at this point.