Yeah, so basically for Golden Week I met up with JETs from Toronto and we had a blast. I’m having what they call 五月病 (Go Gatsu Byou). This basically means after a string of holidays in May, we get mad depressed because we have to face reality…
Oh well…anyway I solved it by going to Fukuoka and I’ll update on that REAL QUICK!
At my school we just had a baseball match with a rival school and it was a jam packed day full of goodies.
The first part of the day was a sports/class battle kind of day at my school. The students were separated in each of their homeroom classes and had to bond with one another and compete with one another in various games. There was a jumping rope game where the students tried to jump as many times without gettign caught by the rope. The teachers also had the rope jumping contest, but we really sucked badly. I blame the people at the back personally. I always jumped perfectly if I say so myself!
Next we moved onto the actual baseball game, which was incredibly fun. Baseball seems tons different in Japan where each team has its own cheering section. We actually took turns cheering on each other. It was really weird from comparing American style baseball becausethe crowds in North America are tons more rowdier and mean. In the game there was no trash talking or anything. There were brass bands and some cool cheers. It was a great day and exciting game (even though we lost).
Even afterwards was pretty good. Some of my first years students and other students came to talk to me, it was pretty cool and I felt super loved. It was cool to see my first year students attempt to speak english to me for 40 minutes when they had no clue what to say.
This is old news, but I figured I’d post it up anyway to get it out of the way.
About 3 weeks ago, a festival popped into town and I attended. It was pretty cool because usually my town is pretty boring. However, once the festival rolled into town my citybecame a rustling and bustling place! I never seen so many young people assemble before (and I also haven’t seen so many of my students outside of school before).
Personally, I thought the best part was the parade. It was cool with tons of floats and awesome things. Some of my choice favourite stuff was the most adorable little marching band and the random guy in a monkey suit doing a dance. My friends were also part of the parade dressed up as Japanese women and Japanese warriors. Neat stuff. Needless to say I was pretty jealous…
Anyway, look at this button. I’m going to reiterate the description I was given about this button, so I kid you not:
Well, there’s a big giant festival coming to Miyazaki this year, and students must wear this button. This button is for students to be safe because if they wear the button on their left hand side, it will tell people to STAY BACK. So, this is called the STAY BACK button.
Yeah, I’ll let you think about this one…..
The new students arrived and man they are really small people. I thought my students from last year looked young, but the ones this year look like elementary school students. It’s ridiculous!
Also, as another reminder of how hardcore Japan is about their ceremonies, I posted a video of the welcome ceremony for the students. They have a band to play for them when they both enter and leave the room. Oh man, I remember in high school the only thing we got was the fear of initiation.
Well, I’ll let you all know how the kids turn out.
And so it’s the end if the year, and that means end of the year teacher parties!About 18 teachers are transfering schools and so we had a goodbye party for them. It was really nice and all and I had a good time, but then some bat @#$% crazy Japanese teacher started yelling his mind out cheering.
I’m not sure whether to laugh or be respectful because the feelings are so torn when the situation went like this:
Lester: Oh this is pretty nice *drink drink drink* I really like the foo—
Japanese man: ARRAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGHGH!
Lester: Uh…..
Other than that the party was pretty cool. The leaving teachers sat at the head table (lol) and everyone preceding to go up and talk to them while pouring them drinks. I was slightly nervous, but I gathered my courage and went up there to talk to them and pour drinks. It turned out to be really cool all the teachers were really nice. Many of them actually told me that they wanted to talk to me more, but they were too shy.That is what you call typical Japanese behaviour, where it takes alcohol to finally open up to you. No joke.
Speaking of opening up, here’s a sample conversation with one of my teachers:
Japanese Teacher: When you drink…do you cry?
Lester: Wait, what? No.
Japanese Teacher: I ALWAYS CRY! AND SNOT COMES OUT OF MY NOSE \(^o^)/
Lester: O_O
In conclusion, Japanese teacher parties are pretty fun and it brings the staff closer together…and it only costs FIFTY BUCKS per person to make it happen.
How about putting the two together? Your mind would blow up from the awesomeness.
Well, prepare to be blowed….
…UP FROM YOUR MIND! Check out BananaLoft.com!
This guy is so blowed out of his mind, he even realizes how grammatically incorrect this joke is
It’s a cool site about asian culture in North America (Specifically Canada. So, Americans, get used to the extra “U”). It’s a new site up and running with new content being added on a regular basis. If you like what you see from the video, you should check it out!
HOW ABOUT PUTTING THOSE TWO TOGETHER? Your mind would blow up from the awesomeness.
Well, prepare to be blowed….
…UP FROM YOUR MIND! Check out BananaLoft.com!
This guy is so blowed out of his mind, he even realizes how grammatically incorrect this joke is
It’s a cool site about asian culture in North America (Specifically Canada. So, Americans, get used to the extra “U”). It’s a new site up and running with new content being added on a regular basis. If you like what you see from the video, you should check it out!
This is Lester, when no one tells him that there's something important for work
Do you know why there’s a picture of a Hobo right now? Well, it’s because apparently the whole school forgot to tell me that today was the GOODBYE ceremony for all the teachers transferring to other schools and/or retiring.
So, I walked in looking like the above picture while everyone is dressed looking like freaking James Bond.
Thanks a lot.
Hey Lester! Check out how much cooler we look than you~
Anyway, luckily I managed to rush home and change into something a lot more appropriate. You think that’s the end of my story, but no, that’s not all. The ceremony was long as hell (like all ceremonies). All the teachers who were leaving (16 of them) had to sit up on a stage and give their speech.
You think speeches are bad? Try not sitting through speeches that you don’t even understand (well I guess for a few, its about the same *ZING!*). Also, many of the graduating students came back and changed their look. I’m not quite sure for the better. In case you don’t know, in most Japanese High Schools they cannot dye their hair or wear makeup until they graduate. So, when all the students came back it was like “WHO THE HELL ARE YOU?!” because I couldn’t recognize them.
Anyway the ceremony ended with a nice line and throwing teachers up into the air…like literally throwing several men well over the age of 60 UP INTO THE AIR and catching them.
It was like this, but instead of balloons, it was obedient Japanese High School Students
Overall, it was a pretty nice experience and everything is pretty sad with all the teachers leaving, but on the plus side I got a lot of goodbye candies hehehehehehe.
I think it’s only logical that Japanese children are evil. Why? Well, because no way ALL Japanese children can be cute right? I mean, there’s gotta be some ugly swans swimming in there.
Well, no we’re wrong. Contrary to popular belief, ugly Japanese babies DO NOT exist.
Don’t believe me? Watch the menacing video of the kid singing twinkle twinkle little star and watch the bonus video of a little kid trying to fight me as a power ranger or something.
Specifically watch from 0:14 – 0:18 of the twinkle little star video, where the little girl takes a deep breath and SIGHS. This is obviously planned because NOBODY DOES THAT! It’s just…too…cute…there’s not way it’s real. It’s GOT to be the work of some mastermind.
Dear Japan, I know your game. I know what you’re trying to do. And you know what? It’s working.
These kids are EVIL. Pure adorable EVIL!
Please excuse me while my heart of ice melts and I go look up Youtube videos of the eukele kid.
This was a while ago. Actually, they wanted me to choose a better name for it.
Teacher: So, Lester, how about “Class Match” or “Inter-Class Sports Round-Robin Competition”
Lester: Uh….stick with Class Match.
Now, I realize I should’ve just said “Sports Day”. Oh well.
You can check out some pics after the jump.
