Hokay, so I have my laptop at work and I have about 10 minutes before it’s Cleaning Time. So, Imma try to do a little update for ya’ll.
So…what to write about…
Well, I haven’t been up to much aside from work. Am I a workaholic? Hmm…definitely seems like it at times…but really it’s just that this is one of the busiest times of the year for Japanese schools (or at least for my school).
Anyhoo, I’ve been prepping lessons, discussing them with teachers, teachin’ and playing with the students in the English Club. Compared to other schools, my teaching schedule is really odd and irregular. The only thing that has been staying is my bi-weekly 3nensei writing class. It’s not tough to teach but I have to ready to deal with translation variations and to give other examples or expressions on the spot. It’s not something I’m very good at so I’m always preparing for these lessons.
The 1nensei have all these orientation meetings, camp, physical examinations and summer uniform fittings to go to and so my lessons have been pushed and pushed back. At least I’m doing some teaching. Otherwise I’m just brainstorming and prepping for future lessons (a lesson well learned after my first year. Always have a lesson ready. For random “Can you teach this class now?” moments.
And soon it’ll be my school’s Culture Festival. There are soooo soooo many events going on those 2 days that I’ve never been able to attend all of them (it’s heart-breaking when you have groups of students begging you, and sometimes pulling you, to go check out their class’s program.) And prepping for it will start in about 2 weeks. If things go like they did last year, I’ll be uber busy again. So…I may disappear off the edge of the world for a bit. Haha. :P
(But I’ll give ya’ll a little chisme…I *might*, just *might*, play the piano for my school’s festival. That is, my skillz haven’t gone completely down the drain…)
Outside of the work-realm, I do have a trip coming up. It’s been a long-awaited, long-planned trip with my Oxy Ohana!!! And this time, we’re going overseas~~ We’re going to the land down under. But I still need to pack and prep for this trip…so I highly doubt I’ll be able to write again before the trip. So, I’ll see ya’ll in about a week or so~
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
Hmm - Food For Thought
Ever since high school, I’ve liked to bake something for the holidays and for my friends for their birthdays. And I’ve still continued to do so. But lately, I’ve been told a lot that my cakes/chocolates seem like 売り物. Which means they can see it being sold in a bakery/store. Now add this to the “seeds” one of my friends has “planted” in my brain…and my mind begins to wonder beyond the daydreaming realm and into the possibility realm. I mean, I already enjoy baking stuff. So...why not have my own bakery/cafe???
Ideas Ideas.
But can we pull it off?
(Now, before ya’ll start to freak out and overanalyze “we” there, (*ahem, cheese-monkey, ahem*), I’m saying “we” because there’s someone, who makes fantastic coffee that could be combined very well with my “specialty” carrot cake, that I’ve been talking about this with)
Ideas Ideas.
But can we pull it off?
(Now, before ya’ll start to freak out and overanalyze “we” there, (*ahem, cheese-monkey, ahem*), I’m saying “we” because there’s someone, who makes fantastic coffee that could be combined very well with my “specialty” carrot cake, that I’ve been talking about this with)
New Beginnings
For the new readers:
In Japan, the school starts in April. So a couple of weeks ago, some teachers got shuffled about (it’s very common in Japan) and my new 1st years (what we’d call sophomores) have come back from “camp.” “Camp” at my school means that for 3 days, they go to a large campsite, learn the school rules, learn the school song, get to know each other, build bonds, discuss their goals for the year/high school life and get yelled at a lot. I’ve yet to go to one but from what I’ve gathered, that seems to be what goes on. They do come back more “high-school-student-ish” than “junior-high-school-student-ish.”
Anyway, so some teachers got shuffled about. Luckily, it wasn’t a huge blow as it was last year when half the English Department got transferred! It felt as though 1 teacher from each department was transferred. But I still find it a sad and unsettling time. What bummed me out this year was that my vice-principal, who was very 元気 and used to be an English teacher, got transferred after 1 year!!! Usually teachers don’t get transferred until they’ve at least been at a school for 3 years. However, some teachers end up staying a school for a really long time (Like my recently transferred 書道 teacher who managed to stay at my school for 22 years!!!)
Now, because I mainly teach the 1st years, I don’t get many opportunities to talk with the newly-transferred-teachers who are teaching the 2nd and 3rd years. But among the newly-transferred-teachers in my grade, one of them speaks Italian! He lived in Italy for 6 years so we can kinda communicate using Italian and Spanish. And I believe another teacher is a graduate from my school. Haha. It’s funny how many of them end up teaching here.
And it looks like I'll be teaching more classes this year! Woohoo~
Not only do I get to teach the 3rd year Writing class again, but I might get another 3rd year class to teach!!! Now, if I can find a way to enter the 2nd year classes...muahahahahahaha!
In Japan, the school starts in April. So a couple of weeks ago, some teachers got shuffled about (it’s very common in Japan) and my new 1st years (what we’d call sophomores) have come back from “camp.” “Camp” at my school means that for 3 days, they go to a large campsite, learn the school rules, learn the school song, get to know each other, build bonds, discuss their goals for the year/high school life and get yelled at a lot. I’ve yet to go to one but from what I’ve gathered, that seems to be what goes on. They do come back more “high-school-student-ish” than “junior-high-school-student-ish.”
Anyway, so some teachers got shuffled about. Luckily, it wasn’t a huge blow as it was last year when half the English Department got transferred! It felt as though 1 teacher from each department was transferred. But I still find it a sad and unsettling time. What bummed me out this year was that my vice-principal, who was very 元気 and used to be an English teacher, got transferred after 1 year!!! Usually teachers don’t get transferred until they’ve at least been at a school for 3 years. However, some teachers end up staying a school for a really long time (Like my recently transferred 書道 teacher who managed to stay at my school for 22 years!!!)
Now, because I mainly teach the 1st years, I don’t get many opportunities to talk with the newly-transferred-teachers who are teaching the 2nd and 3rd years. But among the newly-transferred-teachers in my grade, one of them speaks Italian! He lived in Italy for 6 years so we can kinda communicate using Italian and Spanish. And I believe another teacher is a graduate from my school. Haha. It’s funny how many of them end up teaching here.
And it looks like I'll be teaching more classes this year! Woohoo~
Not only do I get to teach the 3rd year Writing class again, but I might get another 3rd year class to teach!!! Now, if I can find a way to enter the 2nd year classes...muahahahahahaha!
News~
So, the news has changed a bit. A couple weeks ago is was pretty much nothing but HUGE BOLD headlines about the earthquake, tsunami and the of the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant. Now, of course there are still articles about all of them but there seems to be less (And that’s because I’m not much a newspaper reader…or news watcher…).
In terms of the news in Fukuoka, it seems to have calmed down. I hear less talk about it and it feels like things at work have gone into full throttle with the usual hussel and bussle of the beginning of the new school year.
So, everyone back at home/other side of the world. I’m still OK and there’s not reason to worry. ^^v (I’m also not lacking a lot of sleep. So I don’t need an intervention either. ;P)
In terms of the news in Fukuoka, it seems to have calmed down. I hear less talk about it and it feels like things at work have gone into full throttle with the usual hussel and bussle of the beginning of the new school year.
So, everyone back at home/other side of the world. I’m still OK and there’s not reason to worry. ^^v (I’m also not lacking a lot of sleep. So I don’t need an intervention either. ;P)
Thursday, March 24, 2011
Ey, ¿que honda?
Hey readers! (And welcome, new readers!)
So, it’s been a while since I’ve last written. Quite a while really. But it’s not understatement when I say, “I’ve been busy.” If you any of you personally know me, you’d totally understand what I’m talking about. But besides that fact, in light of everything’s that been going on here in Japan (and in response to all the emails and conversations rotating around “Are you back yet?” and “You should come back,” comments, I figured now’s a good time to write again about my daily shenanigans and keep you guys in the low paranoia level.
So, let’s begin.
As I’m writing this, I can’t remember when was the last time I posted. I don’t recall if I wrote before/during/after winter break…but right after winter break I’ve been pretty crazy busy. Mainly due to 2 projects that work that just sucked any free time I had. One more than the other (like, I even lost some sleep…ugh…)
Project A: Video Lesson
When I went home for Christmas, I made sure to take pictures of pretty much everything I did in LA and took video when it was possible. (Taking pictures wasn’t too difficult since some friends already call me “paparazzi”. It was the taking video bit that I’d usually forget about…). After I came back to Japan (and spent New Year’s with a friend and with my host mom), I started to work on a video for my students. I’m not a computer geek and computers tend to hate me so it took some time to learn the tricks of iMovie and get the music to start and fade out where I wanted them. Then I made questions for the students to answer, did the lesson 10 times (new readers: I teach all of the first years, equivalent of sophomores, and there’s 10 classes of 40 students), graded their handouts and recorded their scores. Right after this I started planning and preparing for the English Speech Contest.
Project B: English Speech Contest
So, in my school, all of the first years must write their own speech and then we hold preliminary rounds in each class to choose the student who will continue in the Speech Contest. Usually there are about 2 students per class that continue with the contest but occasionally we pass more. Anyway, the time consuming part was getting them to start to write their essays. Most of them didn’t seem too thrilled about it so getting excited for it was a bit of a challenge. Learning from last year’s craziness, I did more lessons with them on how to write. I knew it wouldn’t be easy but I didn’t expect it to be heavily overwhelming for some students. So I made sure to explain everything. But, for their rough draft, once I finished correcting their grammar, I wrote questions all along the sides to help them expand their speeches (and to make it more coherent). THAT took way more time than I had anticipated.
And then, in came a busy cloud. 3rd year’s English Essays!!! This year was the first time I taught at least one senior class on a weekly basis. But usually my part is done by winter break (since they’re mainly preparing to take their college entrance examinations). However, many of the teachers were asking me to help with the English Essay portion of their entrance exams! So, on top of grading/correcting/commenting/asking my 1st years’ Rough Drafts, I was lesson planning/prepping/correcting/guiding/advising the 3rd years! So, I felt like there weren’t enough hours in a day.
This went on for about 2 weeks.
Once I finally finished working with all the rough drafts (did you do the math?), I did 10 lessons explaining more on writing a speech, giving small grammar lessons (based on common mistakes I corrected), answering questions and talking one-on-one with the students who were either slacking off or having a really hard time, I thought I had some free time. But no. As soon as I had finished that second round of classes to start them on their 2nd drafts, their deadlines started coming in. So again, I was correcting all of their speeches. But this time around, as much as I wanted to, I didn’t ask them questions to help them with their speeches because the semester was almost going to end. I needed the last week of the semester to hold the preliminary rounds.
And the last day of the rounds was my busiest day!!! 1st and 2nd period I had preliminary rounds, 3rd period was a co-worker’s Open Class (so I checked it out), 4th was another preliminary round, then I had lunch (oh yea, I had skipped breakfast so I was soooo hungry), 5th was the last preliminary round, 6th was spent tallying up the points, going over my notes to choose the best speaker and writing the list of the students who will continue in the contest and finally, in the 7th period, I announced who would continue.
Phase 1 of the English Speech Contest ended. Oh man…I slept so much that weekend. And it felt sooooo nice.
Now, I’m busy with other things but at least now I shouldn’t be working too late…
Phase 2 will start when the new school year starts. So…maybe mid-April?
Bleh…I only wrote about 2 things and one of them took so much space…
Anyway, clearly, things are fine in my area. Maybe my next one will be more on what’s been going on but first I wanted to let ya’ll know why my replies to your emails have been delayed (or very short-answered…)
So, it’s been a while since I’ve last written. Quite a while really. But it’s not understatement when I say, “I’ve been busy.” If you any of you personally know me, you’d totally understand what I’m talking about. But besides that fact, in light of everything’s that been going on here in Japan (and in response to all the emails and conversations rotating around “Are you back yet?” and “You should come back,” comments, I figured now’s a good time to write again about my daily shenanigans and keep you guys in the low paranoia level.
So, let’s begin.
As I’m writing this, I can’t remember when was the last time I posted. I don’t recall if I wrote before/during/after winter break…but right after winter break I’ve been pretty crazy busy. Mainly due to 2 projects that work that just sucked any free time I had. One more than the other (like, I even lost some sleep…ugh…)
Project A: Video Lesson
When I went home for Christmas, I made sure to take pictures of pretty much everything I did in LA and took video when it was possible. (Taking pictures wasn’t too difficult since some friends already call me “paparazzi”. It was the taking video bit that I’d usually forget about…). After I came back to Japan (and spent New Year’s with a friend and with my host mom), I started to work on a video for my students. I’m not a computer geek and computers tend to hate me so it took some time to learn the tricks of iMovie and get the music to start and fade out where I wanted them. Then I made questions for the students to answer, did the lesson 10 times (new readers: I teach all of the first years, equivalent of sophomores, and there’s 10 classes of 40 students), graded their handouts and recorded their scores. Right after this I started planning and preparing for the English Speech Contest.
Project B: English Speech Contest
So, in my school, all of the first years must write their own speech and then we hold preliminary rounds in each class to choose the student who will continue in the Speech Contest. Usually there are about 2 students per class that continue with the contest but occasionally we pass more. Anyway, the time consuming part was getting them to start to write their essays. Most of them didn’t seem too thrilled about it so getting excited for it was a bit of a challenge. Learning from last year’s craziness, I did more lessons with them on how to write. I knew it wouldn’t be easy but I didn’t expect it to be heavily overwhelming for some students. So I made sure to explain everything. But, for their rough draft, once I finished correcting their grammar, I wrote questions all along the sides to help them expand their speeches (and to make it more coherent). THAT took way more time than I had anticipated.
And then, in came a busy cloud. 3rd year’s English Essays!!! This year was the first time I taught at least one senior class on a weekly basis. But usually my part is done by winter break (since they’re mainly preparing to take their college entrance examinations). However, many of the teachers were asking me to help with the English Essay portion of their entrance exams! So, on top of grading/correcting/commenting/asking my 1st years’ Rough Drafts, I was lesson planning/prepping/correcting/guiding/advising the 3rd years! So, I felt like there weren’t enough hours in a day.
This went on for about 2 weeks.
Once I finally finished working with all the rough drafts (did you do the math?), I did 10 lessons explaining more on writing a speech, giving small grammar lessons (based on common mistakes I corrected), answering questions and talking one-on-one with the students who were either slacking off or having a really hard time, I thought I had some free time. But no. As soon as I had finished that second round of classes to start them on their 2nd drafts, their deadlines started coming in. So again, I was correcting all of their speeches. But this time around, as much as I wanted to, I didn’t ask them questions to help them with their speeches because the semester was almost going to end. I needed the last week of the semester to hold the preliminary rounds.
And the last day of the rounds was my busiest day!!! 1st and 2nd period I had preliminary rounds, 3rd period was a co-worker’s Open Class (so I checked it out), 4th was another preliminary round, then I had lunch (oh yea, I had skipped breakfast so I was soooo hungry), 5th was the last preliminary round, 6th was spent tallying up the points, going over my notes to choose the best speaker and writing the list of the students who will continue in the contest and finally, in the 7th period, I announced who would continue.
Phase 1 of the English Speech Contest ended. Oh man…I slept so much that weekend. And it felt sooooo nice.
Now, I’m busy with other things but at least now I shouldn’t be working too late…
Phase 2 will start when the new school year starts. So…maybe mid-April?
Bleh…I only wrote about 2 things and one of them took so much space…
Anyway, clearly, things are fine in my area. Maybe my next one will be more on what’s been going on but first I wanted to let ya’ll know why my replies to your emails have been delayed (or very short-answered…)
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Stuff that’s been going on
Hey hey~
Ok, so yea, I suck at keeping this updated. >.<;
So I’m gonna separate this into “Past Craziness” and “Current Shenanigans.”
Past Craziness:
Surprises Galore!
It all started with Julie and I wanting to throw Lupita a surprise birthday party. It then rolled over to “Let’s surprise Julie too!” which then ended up being 2 surprises for her (because our gift to her was a getaway trip to an onsen but we wanted to go when it was still cold and therefore was a really really early birthday present. And then we still threw her a surprise dinner party. Ha-cha!). Then it just became a crazy “Let’s surprise her too” tunnel and so Erika had her little surprise dinner, Mayu had a surprise dinner outing and home dinner party and we even threw a little surprise farewell dinner for Julie. And now I’d like to take a small break from surprises (it gets a little hard to remember who knows what and what’s a secret from who sometimes…well this last time it was because there were 3 surprises and I was starting to forget who knew what!! Ah…)
筑紫祭
So at my school’s Cultural Festival, I did my usual judging of the speech contest. Which also means helping the students prep for it. But this year, I also got to work with my ESS kids and their English play. In ways, I was their scriptwriter, director and understudy. Hahaha. But it really seemed like we were just goofing off and having fun. :D
And then, the Home Ec teacher asked if I’d be interested in baking with the Home Ec club. They usually bake tons of cookies, put them into cute little bags and sell them during 筑紫祭. She knows I love to bake so of course I decided to help! So all of these things, being done around the same time meant that I needed a double, or an assistant. Being that I have neither, I was staying at work really late. I mean, it was dark out when I’d leave. And sometimes the last group of teachers would be walking about the school to lock it up. This was the second time I’ve seen my school in the dark. But this time I had my camera so I took some night shots. Sadly, it doesn’t do much justice. It had just a little bit of creepiness to it. But maybe it’s just because I’m a horror fan and it looked like a setting for a horror film. :P
Current Shenanigans:
I had a college buddy come visit me for a week! She was actually in Japan for 2 weeks but she was visiting another college buddy up in Hiroshima first.
It was an awesome time with her. It was to catch up and to show her about my city. And we got to go shopping! (It’s been a while…) Then together we went to visit another college buddy further south of me. That made it even more fun. But, the typhoon was not so much fun. Luckily it didn’t hit my area but we did get a lot of rain and strong winds (which together means you’ll get wet. With or without an umbrella. Yea!… -_-“). But because we stayed indoors, it rather felt like a vacation and it was nice to A: catch up on sleep and B: just chill.
Then right after this was the uber crazy Soumen Dinner Party/Mayu’s Surprise Birthday Party/Julie’s Surprise Farewell Party. And since I had spent the previous days away from home, I was up early that Saturday morning to clean, straighten out my place, run errands, finish the surprises (cake and photo albums) and generally getting ready. Despite waking up early, we party hard-y-ed till almost dawn. We could have kept going but half of the members were getting really tired. (boo~)
About one week later, it was Julie’s last night and her cousin decided to throw her a farewell BBQ (mmm. Yummy meat). And we all decided to wear yukatas just because. Hehe.
Sadly though, I was unable to spend the night or see her off at the airport because I had made plans to take a day tour with my office ladies like 2 months in advance. But the day trip was fun!! Hot, but fun. We went about Kumamoto and picked our own melons, got grapes and watermelon, went to a winery, saw a historic place, went to a famous river (which was really cool. Like cold cool). And had yummy food.
The next day, I went to a teacher’s house to have dinner. Her husband is also a teacher but at a different school but his ALT lives at my jutaku so we went together. Unfortunately, the moment we decided to head over to their place, it was pouring rain! (Evil rain! I know you’re out to get me!) Luckily though, there was a taxi outside so I snatched it before it left. Mahaha!
We had tacos for dinner (which were quite yummy. I want more~) and did some nice chatting. Got a little lost on the way back (it’s crazy how much the streets change in the dark…) but we got back alright (and there was no rain! Haha!).
Oh, the only other update would be that I fear my tendonitis if coming back. Noooooooooooooooooo.
I think I have only 1 more chance for this super-strong shot and after that…if my tendonitis comes back…I’ll have to get surgery… o_O;;
Ok, so yea, I suck at keeping this updated. >.<;
So I’m gonna separate this into “Past Craziness” and “Current Shenanigans.”
Past Craziness:
Surprises Galore!
It all started with Julie and I wanting to throw Lupita a surprise birthday party. It then rolled over to “Let’s surprise Julie too!” which then ended up being 2 surprises for her (because our gift to her was a getaway trip to an onsen but we wanted to go when it was still cold and therefore was a really really early birthday present. And then we still threw her a surprise dinner party. Ha-cha!). Then it just became a crazy “Let’s surprise her too” tunnel and so Erika had her little surprise dinner, Mayu had a surprise dinner outing and home dinner party and we even threw a little surprise farewell dinner for Julie. And now I’d like to take a small break from surprises (it gets a little hard to remember who knows what and what’s a secret from who sometimes…well this last time it was because there were 3 surprises and I was starting to forget who knew what!! Ah…)
筑紫祭
So at my school’s Cultural Festival, I did my usual judging of the speech contest. Which also means helping the students prep for it. But this year, I also got to work with my ESS kids and their English play. In ways, I was their scriptwriter, director and understudy. Hahaha. But it really seemed like we were just goofing off and having fun. :D
And then, the Home Ec teacher asked if I’d be interested in baking with the Home Ec club. They usually bake tons of cookies, put them into cute little bags and sell them during 筑紫祭. She knows I love to bake so of course I decided to help! So all of these things, being done around the same time meant that I needed a double, or an assistant. Being that I have neither, I was staying at work really late. I mean, it was dark out when I’d leave. And sometimes the last group of teachers would be walking about the school to lock it up. This was the second time I’ve seen my school in the dark. But this time I had my camera so I took some night shots. Sadly, it doesn’t do much justice. It had just a little bit of creepiness to it. But maybe it’s just because I’m a horror fan and it looked like a setting for a horror film. :P
Current Shenanigans:
I had a college buddy come visit me for a week! She was actually in Japan for 2 weeks but she was visiting another college buddy up in Hiroshima first.
It was an awesome time with her. It was to catch up and to show her about my city. And we got to go shopping! (It’s been a while…) Then together we went to visit another college buddy further south of me. That made it even more fun. But, the typhoon was not so much fun. Luckily it didn’t hit my area but we did get a lot of rain and strong winds (which together means you’ll get wet. With or without an umbrella. Yea!… -_-“). But because we stayed indoors, it rather felt like a vacation and it was nice to A: catch up on sleep and B: just chill.
Then right after this was the uber crazy Soumen Dinner Party/Mayu’s Surprise Birthday Party/Julie’s Surprise Farewell Party. And since I had spent the previous days away from home, I was up early that Saturday morning to clean, straighten out my place, run errands, finish the surprises (cake and photo albums) and generally getting ready. Despite waking up early, we party hard-y-ed till almost dawn. We could have kept going but half of the members were getting really tired. (boo~)
About one week later, it was Julie’s last night and her cousin decided to throw her a farewell BBQ (mmm. Yummy meat). And we all decided to wear yukatas just because. Hehe.
Sadly though, I was unable to spend the night or see her off at the airport because I had made plans to take a day tour with my office ladies like 2 months in advance. But the day trip was fun!! Hot, but fun. We went about Kumamoto and picked our own melons, got grapes and watermelon, went to a winery, saw a historic place, went to a famous river (which was really cool. Like cold cool). And had yummy food.
The next day, I went to a teacher’s house to have dinner. Her husband is also a teacher but at a different school but his ALT lives at my jutaku so we went together. Unfortunately, the moment we decided to head over to their place, it was pouring rain! (Evil rain! I know you’re out to get me!) Luckily though, there was a taxi outside so I snatched it before it left. Mahaha!
We had tacos for dinner (which were quite yummy. I want more~) and did some nice chatting. Got a little lost on the way back (it’s crazy how much the streets change in the dark…) but we got back alright (and there was no rain! Haha!).
Oh, the only other update would be that I fear my tendonitis if coming back. Noooooooooooooooooo.
I think I have only 1 more chance for this super-strong shot and after that…if my tendonitis comes back…I’ll have to get surgery… o_O;;
Thursday, August 5, 2010
久留米花火大会２０１０
So last night was the 久留米花火大会 (Kurume Fireworks Festival). And being the biggest fireworks festival in Fukuoka, many many MANY people go watch. So, most of us ALTs make plans with our blocks to go and watch it together (also since the ALTs that just arrived wouldn’t have known about it or wouldn’t have known how to get there…unless they knew Japanese and then I they’d be ok.)
But yes, speaking of new ALTs, I met just about all the new ALTs in my area. This year, some high schools went back to JET (so they decided to not continue with the private companies) and so these ALTs have no predecessors. So I imagine they have many questions. But sadly, maybe not the kind I can answer (every school is different which makes every situation different…the best help here would be from a predecessor…*le sigh…).
Anyhoo, back to the main event. The festival!!!
So, yesterday, I kinda raced back home to take a quick cold shower and change into my yukata (summer kimono). I decided to wear the one my host mom bought me 3 years ago (yes, I have 2) and then decided to go for a challenge and do the obi myself. The obi that came with this yukata is pre-set so that I don’t have to worry about making the bow. But, I wanted to try a new obi I had bought maybe a year ago. So, standing in front of the mirror for maybe 13 minutes trying to figure it out do I notice I did the same mistake I did the year before: I folded the sides of the yukata “left over right” instead of “right over left.” Left over right is intended for deceased people…so I was something of a zombie last year… -_-“ But I noticed this time! But sadly it also meant I had to un-do it all and start over. Ugh. But I managed to finish in time to then help my friend dress into her yukata. And she had the pre-set obi so hers was easier to put on.
Then after some waiting for the rest of the block members to gather, we ventured off to the train station where we squished ourselves into an already packed train to get to Kurume. Personally, I think last year was more crowded… hmm…
*Fast Forward*
So we get to the tarps that our friends who live near Kurume set out and sat down. After a little while, the festival began. In Japan, the fireworks run for more than 15 minutes.
They run for an hour.
No really. The festival began at 7:40pm and ran until 9:10pm. So I got to play around with the settings of my camera and managed to get some good ones (woot~).
But of course, since it’s one of the biggest festivals, going back means lots and lots of traffic…both in terms of cars and people. Some of my buddies decided to head back before the festival ended to try to beat the crowd. But some of us lingered to the very end. So we took our time getting up, throwing away our trash, folding the tarps and taking pictures. (And there was even an announcement that because the station was heavily crowded, everyone should take their time walking back to the station. hehe).
So we did. We even stopped by the little stands in the shrine area to check out the kids trying to scoop up goldfish with a paper paddle. But still, we had to wait in a really long time for…maybe half an hour? (possibly more) And then we got squished into a train (not that squished but yes, quite crowded) and returned home.
And now some pictures for you!
But yes, speaking of new ALTs, I met just about all the new ALTs in my area. This year, some high schools went back to JET (so they decided to not continue with the private companies) and so these ALTs have no predecessors. So I imagine they have many questions. But sadly, maybe not the kind I can answer (every school is different which makes every situation different…the best help here would be from a predecessor…*le sigh…).
Anyhoo, back to the main event. The festival!!!
So, yesterday, I kinda raced back home to take a quick cold shower and change into my yukata (summer kimono). I decided to wear the one my host mom bought me 3 years ago (yes, I have 2) and then decided to go for a challenge and do the obi myself. The obi that came with this yukata is pre-set so that I don’t have to worry about making the bow. But, I wanted to try a new obi I had bought maybe a year ago. So, standing in front of the mirror for maybe 13 minutes trying to figure it out do I notice I did the same mistake I did the year before: I folded the sides of the yukata “left over right” instead of “right over left.” Left over right is intended for deceased people…so I was something of a zombie last year… -_-“ But I noticed this time! But sadly it also meant I had to un-do it all and start over. Ugh. But I managed to finish in time to then help my friend dress into her yukata. And she had the pre-set obi so hers was easier to put on.
Then after some waiting for the rest of the block members to gather, we ventured off to the train station where we squished ourselves into an already packed train to get to Kurume. Personally, I think last year was more crowded… hmm…
*Fast Forward*
So we get to the tarps that our friends who live near Kurume set out and sat down. After a little while, the festival began. In Japan, the fireworks run for more than 15 minutes.
They run for an hour.
No really. The festival began at 7:40pm and ran until 9:10pm. So I got to play around with the settings of my camera and managed to get some good ones (woot~).
But of course, since it’s one of the biggest festivals, going back means lots and lots of traffic…both in terms of cars and people. Some of my buddies decided to head back before the festival ended to try to beat the crowd. But some of us lingered to the very end. So we took our time getting up, throwing away our trash, folding the tarps and taking pictures. (And there was even an announcement that because the station was heavily crowded, everyone should take their time walking back to the station. hehe).
So we did. We even stopped by the little stands in the shrine area to check out the kids trying to scoop up goldfish with a paper paddle. But still, we had to wait in a really long time for…maybe half an hour? (possibly more) And then we got squished into a train (not that squished but yes, quite crowded) and returned home.
And now some pictures for you!
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