Week 24: I did a lot of stuff!

I'm tired today, but rather than the lethargy I've been suffering from lately, this has more of an exhausted feel to it.

So! This week!

My Monday teacher was freaking out a bit, because news that I'm an awesome teacher (paraphrasing here) made it up to the B.O.E. in my city.  So, the vice president of the board wants to come in and see what makes me so incredible.  The next Monday. (so, tomorrow now)

I'm like..."THANKS. SO. MUCH.  YUP. This is the way to reward good work!  STRESS!"

What's worse, is we're near the end of the year, so we're reviewing!  I mean, if I could have suggested a good day it would be next week, but this week is not one of the better ones!

::sigh::

At least they warned me.

Later was made better.  Once a month they hold a "club day" when the kids get together in their clubs for 6th period and do stuff.  This is how I found the science class that made lollipops that one time, and then last time I helped in the handi-craft class.  Well, this time I decided to help the cooking section!

Ready to cook!

 We made fondue!

It was pretty weak fondue, but fun.

It was fun, one group of girls let me join them!  :)  Then we ate it, and they sat around kinda chatting with each other. I THINK they were talking about Valentines day and how one girl was going to make brownies and another was making a cake. (I could easily be wrong)

 Oh, and Wednesday school, one of the classes I teach did 1,000 cranes!  Not in my lesson, but I got to see it anyhow.

SO MANY

Everyone was either sick or trying not to be sick this week, so I ended up teaching to a sea of masked faces.  I couldn't wear a mask because they have to see my lips when I talk.  Also, it's still weird to me.

I mentioned this on Facebook, but one class I didn't teach because they were ALL ABSENT.  Called in sick.  I looked blankly at the teacher who told me and was like "...that...doesn't happen in the U.S.  Just...doesn't."   She was surprised.

Later, I asked another teacher, and she said that if a certain amount of students (for that school, it was 10) call in sick (specifically with the flu) in a single class, they'll call the homes and make ALL the kids stay home.  I guess they figure the rest of them are probably carriers by then. :) (probably right)

Thursday was a national holiday.  It was Japan's Birthday! :D  They didn't have Barbecues, pie eating contests, and I couldn't find fireworks, BUT I found a sand throwing festival!

I know, the festivals I find.  Really.

And it was a LOVELY day to fling sand!  My friend and I actually shed two layers!

I love me some countryside

And the plum blossoms were out!

And when we got there, they had just started the drumming!

I loved her because she was just so HAPPY about it.

Drumming sure builds good arm muscles!

Then they announced that the other part of the festival would start!

Some people were very prepared for it.

Poncho, goggles, mask, you're good!

We were not.  We had no cover. At all.  Oh well.

So then, they started the pantomime of planting rice.  (to bless the harvest)

And then they pantomimed the rain falling.  In the form of shoveling sand over the heads of the entire audience.

And of course, the onlookers want good rain for the rice too! So they help out! By throwing sand BACK.

I'm helping!

At which point, of course, it is just a full fledged sand fight.  The kids LOVE it.  My friend and I had fun just scooping up handfuls and scattering them over the crowd.  Or throwing them at random kids... (totally did)

This would go on 3-5 minutes, at which point a drum would sound, people would stop throwing, the shovelers would go back to the temple and switch places with another group of shovelers.  They'd be led out 3-5 minutes later.

I called them teddy-bear suits

And it would start again! :D

Some people were REALLY prepared

Though I think it spoils the fun a little.

My friend and I are sure we saw many cameras capturing pictures of us. Especially when we leaned over and ruffled the sand out of our hair. :)

After that, we went to the Osaka Aquarium, which I've already told you about, so you won't hear much this time.  The only difference is, we went in the evening this time, so after we had been there for a while, they simulated evening by turning off the lights for most of the animals.  It was interesting seeing their night activities as well. :)

Also, we got to see the lights on outside as well!

OOOOOHHH

I'm gonna ride the wheel when it's warmer out.

what's THIS?!

IT"S A RED BUTTON.  It turned on the snow in the snow globe. :)

Going back to school Friday was SO HARD.

I did though! Be proud of me!  Not much happened. I got to do some fun games with the kids (that is ALSO LEARNING) so that was nice.

Saturday, I cleaned my room.  I had to move all my stuff and sweep under it to try and get RID of all the SAND from THURSDAY.  It was EVERYWHERE. I'm still finding it in pockets and corners!

Sand.  Glitter of the natural world.

After that, it was another friend's birthday!  We WERE going to go hiking, but I saw the forecast called for annoying amounts of rain, so I found something to do in Osaka!

RAKUGO!  It's ok, I didn't know what it was either.

SO!

Rakugo is Japanese storytelling.  It's a specific style of storytelling, SO specific, that if you show the kids a picture of someone doing this storytelling, they can tell you that it's Rakugo.  (Amazingly enough, I found a group that does this in ENGLISH.)

First, you wear traditional clothes.

THEN you kneel on a little pillow in front of the audience.

Then you tell the story.

He's 85. He's been doing this in English for 10 years.

The amazing thing is, they're all dialogue based!  You describe the scene a LITTLE, and any describing after that has to be part of the dialogue!  Chances are good you're telling the story about more than one person, so you have to do the voices and facial expressions.  Because you're kneeling, there's a lot of mime too.  And they're all FUNNY stories!  (one of the requirements)

IT WAS GREAT

The first guy did a story about a really fast rickshaw driver, and he mimed the running so he was bouncing up and down on his knees! (looked exhausting)

this guy did a story about two noblemen daring each other to eat blow fish.

and THIS lady did one about two older ladies going to a host club with older gentlemen! :D

The EXPRESSIONS they pulled!  The mime was incredible! 

And all from seemingly proper looking older Japanese folk! (though since it IS tradition, it counts as proper.) :D

There was even a foreigner trained in Rakugo!

he made his outfit. says it costs way less than buying.

Apparently he tours in his home country of Canada doing this too.  And he told a story about a guy pretending to be a tiger at the zoo. :)  My favorite part was the mime of him shimmying into the tiger skin costume.

So ONE guy does what he calls a "workshop" story.  He tells about the rules, the facial expressions.  He tells a short story in Japanese.  Then repeats it in English. Then he repeats it in Italian!  We were all very impressed.  He asked who speaks Japanese. Who speaks English.  Who speaks another language.  I raised my hand without thinking.

"Oh, what do you speak?"

"Spanish"

"Great! come up here and translate the story for me!"

....

....

0_0



WHAT?!  nononononono! nooooooo

I was so nervous!

I mean, SURE, I love attention, but EEK!  All my Spanish FLEW out of my head!

He fed it to me one line at a time, and it was a story about a flower shop.

We got to the line "He must be kidding me." and I paused and said "I don't remember the word for that."

He leaned over, and in a stage whisper said "none of them speak Spanish!  You can make it up!"

So that's the rule I went by for the rest of the story.  And once I calmed down a little, I did better.

he showed me how to pose too.

The worst part was, I couldn't remember the word for "cactus".  I was TRYING to remember the word "Nopalo" which is what I learned in California, but turns out it's the name of prickly pear.  What I SAID was "pulpo" and I thought "nope, that was definitely octopus".

You know how you say cactus in Spanish?!  CACTUS.  or cacto.  ::sigh:: I just kinda ran with it and was like "nope that's right. totally right, you doubting my Spanish?"

Even now I can look back and go "Nope, that was totally off. Ah well."

They're putting it up on their website. :P

After that, we wandered around Osaka's Umeda station a little.  There's a lot to see, it's apparently the 4th biggest station in the world.  We even stopped to have icecream!

parfait. very popular around here.

They are having a special on a parfait we both wanna try.  Literally both.

maybe with a 3rd friend.

Sucker costs $30.  :)

And we wandered around outside and it rained and rained and rained and rained, and when I finally made it back to my place, I changed into my Stitch onsie and got WARM. :)

WHAT A WEEK.

Maybe that's why I'm tired. :D