Inagakuen Sports Day

On September 18th, Inagakuen held it’s sports festival at Ageo athletic park. We actually were not sure if we were going to hold it on that day, because we consistently had rainy weather on and off that whole week leading up to Friday. We also weren’t sure if we were going to get hit by a typhoon. All of the ALTs and JTEs kept their on their eye on the weather, but even by Thursday afternoon, we had no official word beforehand whether or not it would be postponed until next week. Finally, we were told that if it was canceled the next day, we would receive phone calls early that morning to let us know to just come to school and hold classes like normal.

Anyway, I woke up at my normal time on Friday morning, and didn’t receive any phone calls, so I assumed that Sports day was still going on, and hopped on the bus to Ageo. Most high schools in Japan just hold their sports day on their own high school campuses, however, because Inagakuen has over 2000 students, we don’t really have the capacity for the students to all sit on bleachers to watch and participate in all of the events, so we always hold it in Ageo at Ageo Sports Park.

The weather was still kind of rainy in the morning, but it cleared up in the afternoon. It was a bit misty during the Opening Ceremony and warm-up exercises, but no one got drenched.

These are ALL of the students on the field for the opening ceremony.

Each flag represents each house at Inagakuen. Red is House 1, and dark blue is House 6.

Now, I don’t remember the full schedule of all of the sports events, or who won each and every round, but I can give a basic run-down of some of my favorite competitions.

Every year, Inagakuen always starts with the jump rope competition. They hold each round for each grade of students. It’s always fun to watch large groups of students try and jump rope together, but I was a little worried that they might slip and fall on the wet track. Luckily, that didn’t happen.

Jump rope competition

One of my favorite sports events to watch is very Japanese. I don’t remember the original Japanese name of this event, but I always call it the Carp Race because at the end of the relay, the students have to climb up a pole, and attach a carp flag to the top.

There are three parts to this relay. The first part, which is actually difficult to explain, so bear with me, the student who is running is passed along two rows of students, whose arms are joined, and they bounce the student down the line. It kind of looks like the runner is a fish bouncing along the line. Second, once that same student reaches the end, they jump onto a wooden board, with four poles. Four other students grab onto these poles, and quickly run and carry the student across the field towards the pole. Third, once the runner reaches the other side, they jump off the board, and start climbing the pole, When they reach the top, the attach the carp flag, and then they’re finished. When they’re done, the next runner starts and repeats the same process. The winning team is the team who can attach all of their carp flags first. Also, the poles aren’t stuck in the ground, they’re constantly being held up by other students. It really is an overall team effort.

Climbing up the pole in the carp race.

The next race I like to watch is the Mukade or centipede race. It’s like a three-legged race, but more extreme. There’s a team of usually eight students, and they are all lined up really close to each other, and all of their ankles on one side are all tied together with the same rope. The students have to hold on to each other, and run as fast as they can together. It’s a lot of fun to watch them run, and it’s kind of fun to watch them fall down too. I know that sounds mean, but it really is funny when it does happen. Sometimes the teams fall down as a unit, or sometimes you see one person trip, and there is a slow chain reaction as people trip after her. Sometimes the teams are able to recover quickly and keep going, but other times, not.

The Mukade race.

Sometime after the mukade race, the rain got a little heavier, and they held off activities for about ten minutes to wait and see if it would get heavier, or go away. Eventually it got lighter again, but the track and field got wetter. Two events were canceled, but I can’t remember which ones. They must have just been different meter-length races or relays, because none of my favorite activities were canceled. If they were, I would remember.

There was also another short break while they waited between events and students were sent out onto the track, with what looked giant rollers, to help dry out the track. I’ve never seen these tools before, but I could tell the students were working really hard, because they went over the same areas of the track many times to make it drier.

Drying out the track.

Most of the events later in the afternoon were different races and relays. I don’t remember all of the details of who won which race, but I do remember seeing some spectacular falls. One student actually fell right before he was about to cross the finish line. He went down, and I could see his face and arm hit the track, but he picked himself back up, and finished sprinting the last few feet. It was too bad, because in the time that he fell and got himself back up, two other students passed him and finished before him.

There was also another student who fell, and literally rolled more than once during one of the relays, but he also picked himself up and just kept going. It was kind of cool to watch, because the moment he started to fall, I could see him starting to tuck his head and arm in, getting ready to roll as he hit the ground. I’m guessing he’s had some experience 😉

The last event was one of the relays, but my last favorite event, is also, definitely, very Japanese. Many of the sports allow both boys and girls to participate, but this one strictly boys, and it’s so strange, but so fun to watch.

Basically, all of the boys who participate in this event take their shirts off. Then, one boy is carried on the top of the shoulders of two other boys. The boy on top wears a cap that corresponds to the color of his house. The boys are all arranged in a circle and wait until the whistle blows to start. When it blows, the boys all run towards each other in this giant mass, and the boys on top try to grab the caps off of other boys heads, while keeping their cap on. If they lose their cap, they are out. The boys who collect the most caps win.

It’s just really amusing to watch a bunch of these skinny, shirtless, Japanese boys running around with their arms waving wildly. They look like crazy chickens scratching at each other. Actually, I learned from a teacher that years ago, the boys used to wear shirts for this event, but eventually it became shirtless, to prevent the boys from pulling on each other’s shirts in order to get at their caps. I definitely don’t see this sport coming over to American High Schools anytime soon.

Crazy shirtless boys, running around grabbing each others caps. Just a normal sports day in Japan.

The day ended with the announcement of the winners of the Sports Festival. First, they announced the homerooms that got the most points, and which grade got the most points over other grades. The most important one though, is which house got the most points. This year, House 2 actually got second place! I was really glad. Once again, my house placed somewhere in the top 3, when we never usually do. It’s really great to see the students in my house do so well in my last year here at Inagakuen.

And the number one top winner was . . . HOUSE 4!

4 House students celebrating their win

Many of us ALTs left quickly after they announced the winners, because;  One, we didn’t need to stay longer, and two, it started to rain again. Even with the not so great weather, it turned out to be a really enjoyable sports day. It was also the first, and only, sports day where I didn’t come home with a surprise sunburn. I’m really glad we were able to have the Sports Festival in the end.

Winter Holiday wrap-up!

AHello again after a loooong absence! I haven’t been busy so much as distracted by some of the cool things I was doing over the past month. Even though we’re already halfway through the month of January, let’s see how well I with a New year’s Resolution of write more often.

Anyway, I am just going to do a quick rundown of some of the activities that happened in school and in my personal life.

First off, the girls in the Junior High School English club continue to be adorable. Around Thanksgiving, I had the girls draw hand turkeys, and they had to write one thing they were thankful for in each “feather” before coloring it in. After that activity, we played Fruit Basket but with a Thanksgiving twist. Normally, the students sit in a circle, and a person in the middle has to say something that they like. If other students like the same thing, they have to stand up and find another chair. The last student standing has to start over again.

Instead of saying “I like . . .” I had the students say “I’m thankful for . . . .” Some students said “I’m thankful for chocolate.” Some of them were thankful for their parents, or their pets, or their favorite pop idol groups like One Direction, or Arashi. When it came time to end the game, the last girl in the middle got all of the others to say together, “I’m thankful for Victoria!” They’re so precious!

Also, just before winter break started I had the girls play a game where they had to draw Santa in teams, but they had to draw different parts of Santa out of order. Basically, everyone started off with Santa’s beard on the chalkboard, and then I pulled out different slips of paper that said Santa’s hat, Santa’s belt, Santa’s boot, etc. There was one group who added a rocket chair for Santa, because they accidentally drew their Santa very short. I had to double check and ask them if they drew flames coming out of the chair, because it also looked like it could’ve been a picture of Santa having explosive diarrhea. Not that I think the Junior High school girls have dirty minds, but I also wouldn’t put it past them to make poop jokes if they think those are funny.

The finished Santa Drawings

 

We also had our winter English camp the weekend before the school closing ceremony. The winter camp is much more laid back than the summer camp. We just held it at Inagakuen, and no one stayed overnight. The second year students still had to do a lot of debate. In fact, I’m pretty sure this winter camp was more debate-heavy for our second year students, than it has been in the past. I did not do any fun workshops with any of the second year students; I just watched them have different rounds of debate.

However, I did get to do some fun workshops with the first year students. Of course, we usually have a Christmas theme around this time. I had the students play a Christmas-themed matching cards game, and then I had students do a fill-in-the-blank listening activity with Christmas Carols! After listening and filling in the missing words on their worksheets, they learned how to sing the Christmas Carol in English! I taught the students how to sing We Wish You a Merry Christmas and Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer. 

Salimah and I also lead all of the first year students in drama-games to help them prepare for their skit contest. We played a game where they had to practice facial expressions for different emotions, and a “sculptor” game where the students were in pairs, and had to “sculpt” their partners into different things, such as Harry Potter, a detective, or dancer.

The end of the English camp culminated into the first year’s skit contest, and the second year’s final debate round. The overall theme for our English camp was Frozen, so for our closing ceremony, we had all of the students sing Let It Go, in English, before dispersing.

Even though I had to work during a weekend in December, I was still able to find time to have fun. One weekend, I went to a Glay concert with Antoine, the French ALT at our school. He had an extra ticket. He has been able to see the band Glay play in Japan a couple of times now because he’s a member of the fan club. This band is very popular, so it is very difficult to get a ticket during the regular tickets sales. They’re one of the bands where the concert tickets sell out within five minutes of going on sale.

The opening marquee before Glay arrived onstage.

I thought the ticket price was slightly steep for me at the time, considering I was saving my money for my winter vacation trip, but I jumped at the chance since Antoine was pretty much offering a guaranteed ticket, and I don’t know if I could find another way to see Glay live in Japan. I’ve also been wanting to see them in concert since I was in high school, so I got to cross an item off my bucket list!

The concert was at Saitama Super Arena, and it lasted for about two hours. The concert was fun, but Glay mostly played songs from their new album, and most of their songs that I’m familiar with were popular around 10 years ago. I was waiting for them to play Survival, Super ball, or The Frustrated, but they never did. I can’t say I was disappointed though. They started out as a visual kei band, and everyone still had colorful and gravity-defying hair.

One day, in the middle of the week, some of the teachers from the English department took us ALTs to a festival in Omiya, near Hikawa-jinja. It was a special festival where they were selling these lucky charms called kumade or bear claws. The actually look more like bamboo rakes, so that you can rake in good luck for the new year.

These types of charms can actually be really huge, and it’s common for people who own restaurants, or own their own businesses to go and buy one. They buy the biggest one they can afford, and then they bring it back, and have it displayed in their restaurant or office in order to bring in good business. Also, if you pay close attention to some of the “business owners” who buy some of the large kumade, you can tell that some of them are members of the yakuza. Of course, anyone can buy a kumade for their own personal good luck as well.

Kumade for sale by Hikawa-jinja in Omiya.

Of course, I felt I had to buy my own kumade so that I too, could rake in good luck. I found a medium-sized one for only about 2,000 yen! I thought it was going to be more expensive, but I think the vendor I bought it from gave me a discount because I’m a foreigner. I got a special kumade decorated for the year of the Ram! I now have it hanging on my wall in my apartment.

My kumade. Raking in good luck for the year of the ram!

The last thing I want to talk about is the Japanese Emperor. The Emperor’s Birthday, December 23rd, is a National Holiday in Japan. On his birthday, the Emperor makes a short speech on the grounds of the Imperial Palace in Tokyo. It is only one of two days throughout the whole year when the inner courtyard of the Imperial Palace is open to the public.

Stephen, a fifth-year Saitama JET, invited me, and a few other Saitama JETs, to go and see the Emperor’s birthday speech. I woke up early in order to ride the train all the way from central Saitama to Tokyo station. All of us who were attending met up at around 9 in the morning, and then we walked over to the Imperial Palace.

It was crowded. There were many people dressed formally, and quite few boy scouts and girl scouts in their uniforms. There were also many people who obviously yakuza, or other staunch conservative nationalists.

We had to go through two rounds of security before we could walk into the inner courtyard of the Imperial Palace. First, they had to check our bags and pockets, and then they separated the men and women so they they could perform quick pat-downs. Also, while on our walk towards the inner walls of the Imperial Palace we were handed free Japanese flags. It’s not usual that you see so many national Japanese flags at once.

Usually, if you see a lot Japanese flags, or national symbols concentrated in one area, or someone is wearing a lot of nationalist symbols on their clothes, it’s assumed that they are yakuza. That’s the reason why you don’t see so many normal Japanese people act super patriotic for their country, like you would see a normal American do on the Fourth of July, or other American holidays.

Imperial Guard

Just before going through the gate into the inner courtyard, many people were trying to catch quick snaps of the Imperial guards, but many of the police kept trying to keep the crowd moving inside, so that everyone could get in.

Even though we ended up near the back of the crowd we could still get a good view of the Emperor. He made his speech from a window-ed balcony, and at least six other members of the Imperial Family were also present. Mostly it was just the Emperor, his wife, the Crown Prince, and the Crown Princesses.

We also stood by a group of very nationalistic attendees. You’re not supposed to bring large banners to the speech, so as not to block everyone’s view. They make a point to make sure everyone who comes can see the Emperor. However, these people somehow got in with their banners, but they stood in the very, back. Everyone in our group decided to refer to them as banzai cheerleaders. They really love Japan, and they really love their Emperor.

These Banzai Cheerleaders were right behind us, but didn’t cause any trouble.

Just before the Emperor arrived, the constant reminders of the loudspeakers went silent, and the Banzai Cheerleaders behind us started to sing the Japanese national anthem.

When the Emperor appeared, everyone waved their flags in excitement! The Emperor gave a short speech that only lasted about 3 minutes, before he bowed to everyone, and then the he and the royal family went back inside the Palace.

I couldn’t get any pictures of the Royal Family, but this is how close we were.

I didn’t understand much of the speech, but some of the other ALTs who were able to understand more, told me that he mentioned that he thinks Japan must unite and me strong together. Apparently, the Emperor also mentioned that everyone should take care of themselves during the shorter days of winter. He also mentioned that his thoughts were especially with the elderly who live in rural areas, stuck with heavy snow. He said he is the same age as those who are stuck in their houses and need help, and that he wouldn’t know what he would do if he were stuck in their situation.

After his speech, we all hopped on the train over to Shinagawa, and had a big early lunch at TGI Friday’s. There’s nothing like celebrating the birthday of a Japanese monarch by eating American food! I ended up eating too much food, since I was ordering food I normally cannot get in Japan, but I was technically on vacation already, so it was okay.

Overall, I had a very lovely December, even if it was progressively getting colder outside, and inside the school too!

Next time, I will be writing about my big winter vacation trip to  . . . . THAILAND!

Stay-tuned! I should have that post up before next week!

End of Term

 Things are slowly winding down at Inagakuen, with spurts of busy days.

These past two weeks, all of the students were taking their final exams, so there were no classes to teach, except a few junior high classes. Inagakuen also had it’s entrance examination this past week, and tomorrow, all of the teachers (but not the ALTs) are coming in tomorrow to finish marking the exams and deciding who does, and who does not enter Inagakuen this year.

For many of our final English 2 classes, we did a Valentine’s day lesson, using a Valentine’s video that us ALTs made last year. You can tell it’s old, because Michelle is in it. She plays the waitress. 

In our home-made Valentine movie, Aaron and I play a couple going on a horrible first date, and then Kesha plays Cupid, who puts a spell on me so that I can fall in love with Aaron.

Last year, we showed the entire video on silent, and asked the students to write their own dialogue. That was a bit difficult for them to do last year. For this year instead, we show them most of the movie, but then we stop it right before Kesha/Cupid casts her spell, and then the students have to write their own endings.

For our final English 1 classes, we actually managed to get the students to do research and to make posters about different countries, and give a short 1-minute presentation about those countries. The students were grouped into teams of four, and assigned different countries. Each student in the group had to do a presentation on either the “Fact File,” food, sports, and sightseeing spots in those countries. At the end of all of the presentations, the students voted on their favorite country. The group who won the most votes had their posters displayed by the Foreign Language lab, for everyone to come and see.

It was actually more successful than I thought it would be, because Japanese students do not really do many presentations, because of how the Japanese education system is set up. In America, it’s common to start speaking in front of the class, from Show and Tell in kindergarten, then moving on to book reports, and presenting science experiments, and for some people, doing Senior Project Presentations. In Japan, the students just sit at their desks and take notes while the teachers lecture, and then they take tests.

What they meant to say was, soccer is the most loved sport by children in Ghana.

Hall of fame!

Also, this past week we had our annual Junior High English camp, which is more of a day long speech seminar. All of the third year junior high students are divided into groups of eight, so we had to invite six other ALTs to come in to help. A few of them were ALTs who had also come last year, like Brent and Kelly.

This year, our theme was “Welcome to the Zoo,” each ALT was a different animal. Aaron was giraffe, Salimah was flamingo, Brent was sheep, Kelly was Panda, and I was fox. Sadly, my fox costume didn’t make a comeback, since the dress code was semi-formal. 

Anyway, our day started off with a warm-up activity. In my Fox team, we started the day by playing taboo, using cards that I had made myself. The students were getting into it, because no matter how many rounds we played, the two teams were always tied. 

At the end of the morning, I tried having the students write their own dialogue for blank Peanuts comics. I had the students divided into three groups, but only one of them actually finished before the first period of the day was over. The idea was to have the students write in their own dialogue, and then act out their finished comic strips. I think maybe it was a little too high level for them. I don’t think I’ll repeat that activity at Junior High English camp again next year.

The rest of the day was helping the students practicing their speeches. Their speeches were about “My Dream/Hope” “My Hobby” or “My Future.” Each group had their own group competitions, where every student had to make their speech, and then the ALT would choose the best speaker from their group to make their speeches in the final round in front of everyone.

I chose a girl named Yurika, to represent our group. Her speech was basically about how she wants to grow up to be a person who is aware of other people’s feelings, which is a very Japanese topic. She won fifth place overall in the speech contest! The first place winner was a girl named Rio. She talked about her home-stay trip to Australia this past summer, and how she learned that English is not just a subject to study in school, but is an important communication tool.

All of the students and ALTs were cheering at the end of the closing ceremony. You could tell everyone had a great time. I can’t wait to see all of my third year students as high schoolers next year!

Next week is the Graduation ceremony, but the school closing ceremony for everyone else isn’t until March 24th. Let’s hope the rest of the school year goes out with a bang! 

 

Junior High English Camp!

Today was the Inagakuen Junior High English camp! It was Disney-themed. We invited other ALTs from other schools to come in and help facilitate workshops and speech practice sessions. There were ten groups of eight students, and we needed one ALT for each group.

Each group of students was assigned a Disney character, and during the Opening ceremony, as the ALTs introduced themselves, they also introduced which Disney characters they were, and then went to their groups. I was Stitch of course. I wore a blue shirt, and as I announced my character, I put my Stitch ears on. Michelle was Minnie Mouse, and also wore Minnie Mouse ears, and even cute little white gloves. We were the only two who dressed up as our characters.

Most of the camp was dedicated to speech practice, and a big speech competition at the end of the day, but at the start, we got to run our own fun workshops. Mine was a story scramble. It ended up being a little difficult for the students, but they seemed to enjoy it a little.

First, I read stories to my students, then, I would give each student a different card with different sentences from the story. They had to read their cards, and then try to stand in line in the correct order to tell the story again. The two stories I used were from Aesop’s Fables. The Fox and the Cat, and The Tortoise and The Hare, although I changed the title of the latter to “The Turtle and The Rabbit” since that is easier for them to pronounce.

Even though the activity was a little difficult, we finished a little earlier than expected, so I had the students play a matching card game that used Springtime and St. Patrick’s day vocabulary. I assumed none of the students knew what a leprechaun was, so I had to explain it, though one student immediately made the money symbol when he first saw the picture of the leprechaun, so I know they kind of understood.

During the break times, the students had Disney-themed autograph books for the ALTs to sign.

Disney English Camp Autograph book. Michelle drew the cover.

We got the idea from the autograph books that people use at Disneyland to collect character signatures. Instead of just collecting signatures, there were three clues to find different ALTs on each page. The three clues on my page were:

1. I am blonde and have green eyes

2. My favorite color is pink

3. I enjoy knitting.

So the students would have to approach all of the ALTs and ask questions like: Do you like pink? Do you like baseball? Do you play saxophone?

It was a great way to get the students to talk to all the ALTs, since they only really spend time with the one ALT who is running their group.

The final speech competition was fun to watch. I think the speeches were overall better this year than they were last year. A girl in my group, Natsuki, won third place overall. Her speech was about her school trip to Australia last year, and her experience with her Australian Host Family.

The first prize winner was a boy named Masaki, and his speech was excellent. The title of his speech was “Mission-is-Possible.” At the beginning of his presentation, he had a slideshow with pictures of him as a small child in different airports and riding on different airplanes, and all other airplane related photography, with the Mission Impossible theme-song playing in the background.

Masaki talked about how he wanted to be a pilot since he was a small child, but his eyesight got worse, so now he cannot be a pilot. Yet, he won’t give up, because now he wants to research and help build new planes. He even talked about the new Boeing 787 planes and the new carbon fiber material they are made from. At the end of his speech, he concluded that his “Mission-is-Possible,” and the very last words to his speech were, “This message will self-destruct in 5 seconds” and used an explosion effect on the last slide of his powerpoint presentation. It was so cool. I can’t wait to teach this kid in high school. I really hope he joins English club.

This year’s Junior High English camp was a lot of fun, and I think it was even better than last year. These students are amazing to work with.

Junior High

So this past week has mostly been testing, so all of us ALT’s didn’t really have any classes to teach, but on Wednesday, the Junior High PTA put on an event where the students were pounding rice into mochi, and we were invited to come down and try it ourselves. The students had a fun time watching us try to pound the mochi with them. We also got to try taking the sticky mochi, and rolling into balls, and covering it with soy sauce, or sugar. We got to keep and eat the mochi balls that we made.

On Thursday, we all had to help with the Junior High English camp. It was just with the third year students, and they were divided into groups of 8, so we had to invite other ALT’s from other schools to come and help out.

The Junior high camp isn’t exactly like the English camps we have with the high school. We each had a forty minute warm-up period, and then most of the day was having the students practice giving their speeches for the speech contest at the end of the day.

For my warm-up period, I had the students play a brief game of Simon Says, and then we played Mad Libs. Mad Libs was a bit harder for them then I expected. They didn’t understand what the words adjective, noun, and, adverb meant. If the Japanese translations for those were next to the blanks, it would have been easier for them. Yet I was able to explain what type of words were supposed to go into which blanks by giving them examples. They had a lot of fun telling their stories about going to the crazy park, and when they went home and punched my mother. I think Mad Libs is definitely do-able again for the junior high age group.

The Junior high students each had two rounds of practicing their speeches. The first round, the ALT’s would listen to all of their students, and give tips on how to make it better. Most of my students were pretty good, but they were nervous. What I noticed with most of my students (well, most Japanese students in general) is that they have a hard time pronouncing the difference between S and TH. 

We had top 10 speech finalists from each group, to give their speeches one more time in front of everyone. My student was a girl who made a speech about how she loved baton twirling, and used to enter competitions. She talked about how she doesn’t do baton twirling anymore, but that she hopes her skills will help her to join the Cheerleading team at Inagakuen. She didn’t win any of the top three prizes, but she did get high marks regardless.

One of the top three students talked about how she dreamed of being an explorer, and was creative with her speech. Instead of just talking about what she’d like to do, she had a narrative of an adventure she imagined, and used pictures that she drew in a powerpoint presentation describing going into a cave. She won second place.

The third place winner was a boy who talked about how he wanted to either be a police officer or be on the Japanese Coast Guard, because they all bring Peace, and Justice, and help people. His pronunciation was off on a lot of words, but he was so confident, and loud and genki, that we all gave him high marks. After the contest, Mr. Aoki, the head of English for the Junior High students, told us that when the boy first came to Inagakuen Junior High, he did not know any English, and did not know how to write the English alphabet. All of his hard work and studying these past three years have paid off then!

The girl who won first place talked about how she loved cooking. She gave a story about how she tried to learn to cook with her mother, but she wasn’t very good. Finally she baked a delicious cake without any mistakes, and showed the pictures of food she had made. At then end, she concluded that she wanted to own her own bakery.

About all of the third year Junior High students are going to High school here at Inagakuen next year, and they’re all going to be in my house, House 2! I think it’s cool that I’ll have a pre-established rapport with some of my English 1 students for next year. I’m excited! Apparently four of the students are going to high school somewhere else by their own choice, as Mr. Aoki put it. Event hough the students are at Junior High here at Inagakuen, they had to take and pass the entrance examination just like everyone else.

This past Friday, a whole sea of Junior High students and their parents came from all over Saitama to look at the entrance examination results. They had the students names and their status on this huge board in the front outside foyer of the school for everyone to see. It was so cute to see the little students jump in excitement when they found out they got in. A lot of students came with their friends, and many of them would jump and hug each other when they found out that they both got in together.

According to Mr. Yamashita, not as many students applied to go to Inagakuen this year as they have in past years, so the standards were lowered a little. Apparently only one in six students would pass the entrance exam 10 years ago, now he says it’s about three in four.

I didn’t really see any students react or cry if they did not get in. There was one student who I’m pretty sure did not get into Inagakuen, and her mother seemed more upset then she was. The girl looked up at the sign, and just seemed to nod silently. her mother was carrying a baby, and handed the baby off to the grandmother so she could take out her handkerchief and dab her eyes.

I’ll be seeing most of these students in English classes come April, and this Tuesday is the graduation ceremony for the third year high school students.

Nabe Party, Setsubun, and E.T.

I never thought I would like teaching Junior High as much as I do here at Inagakuen. Five of the classes I teach a week with junior-high-schoolers. This week, the first and second year junior high students were given a blank comic strip based off of the ET movie, and they had to come up with their own ET stories. Some of the kids came up with adorable versions of ET. At least three kids made their own voices for ET and Elliot. One kid said that ET came to Hokkaido so that he could see the forest. Another student said ET was a spy for an alien invasion, but because Elliot became his best friend, he told the other aliens to stop.

One kid had ET pointing at the sky and telling Elliot, “That star is mother, but now she is dead. Oh NO!” In another story, ET was a girl and fell in love with Elliot. Yet another student turned the story around, and made Elliot the alien visiting ET on Mars.

The third year junior high students were supposed to discuss their plans about the future, and what they want to do in high school, since they will be starting High school this April. Almost all of them said that they were looking forward to high school. I asked one boy what he wanted to study, and he said, “I don’t want to study.” I asked him, “Well, what do you want to do in High school?” He replied, “Play guitar.”

I later asked the same boy what he wanted to do in University, and what he wanted to be when he grew up, and he said, “No Plan,” but that he wanted to be a “Smart man, nice man, cool man. Yeah!”

A girl told me that she wanted to study music and work on developing the sounds, and music for Nintendo video games, which I actually think is kind of cool. The Junior High students are just precious, and say the darnest things sometimes.

Yesterday was Setsubun, which marks the end of winter and beginning of Spring here in Japan, although I’ve been told that February is the coldest month here. Aaron had bought a Setsubun set which they were selling at all the local grocery stores and conbini’s. He and Kesha put on Oni masks, and we chased and threw beans at them. We didn’t take the beans out of the plastic packaging when we threw them though. The oni mask, and bean throwing ceremony is symbolic for chasing out bad-luck, and bringing in good luck for spring. When you throw the beans at the Oni, you’re supposed to shout “Out demon, come in good luck.” I remember that the first part is Oni wa soto, but I can’t remember what the second part is.

Also, you’re supposed to eat your age in the dried beans. The dried beans are actually roasted edamame, and it’s kind of like eating small peanuts. At Japanese class last night, I brought some of the beans to my desk, and I practiced counting them out to 23 with my volunteer teacher.

After Japanese class, Ito-sensei invited all of us ALT’s from Inagakuen to a restaurant where she treated us to udon nabe. Nabe is a kind of Japanese soup with squash, tofu, green onion, and sometimes tempura thrown in. Ito-sensei called in and ordered the nabe before we arrived at the restaurant, because according to her, nabe takes a long time to cook. The nabe came out in these iron pots, ona stand with flames underneath. To eat nabe, you spoon some of the soup out into a smaller bowl, and then eat it from there, but no one had told me until after Ito-sensei told us douzo and I just dove into the pot. The nabe was delicious. I’d like to learn how to cook it.

After dinner, Ito-sensei also gave us some Omiyage. She had ordered the long sushi rolls from the restaurant that were made for setsubun. We were supposed to take the sushi rolls home, but the rolls we got were for good luck for spring. She told us that we were supposed to eat the whole thing. I saved mine for later today, since I was so full from the nabe.