Relay Champion

So, it's been a while. Things have been pretty busy, even if I haven't exactly been teaching often. I teach between zero and three classes a day, but it's usually either one or two. I've still managed to stay busy, though. Every day, for two hours, all the teachers and students would get together and rehearse a dance that we were to perform at Undokai, the sports festival. In addition, we practiced for some relay races and other fun things.

Undokai was on Saturday. The whole town came out to watch and participate in the festivities. At the school, tents were set up on both sides of an oval-shaped running track. The school and town staff (including the mayor of Kamijima) sat on one side, while the rest of the townsfolk sat under the other tents. After each event (usually some kind of competition), the participants received some kind of prize, like a bag of chips or a curry rice mix.

Our dance was the 14th event of the day. Before we got to show off our moves, we got to participate in some of the other events. In one, called the centipede (mukade) there were two three-foot two-by-fours placed side by side with three leather straps on each to hold feet. Three people would stand on them together and try to walk in unison. Two teams raced against each other, each team having six groups of three people (in relay fashion). Occasionally, someone would try to go too fast and all three people would topple over into the dirt. It was pretty amusing. I took it nice and slow and didn't fall. My team won the mukade race.

In another, Stef and I had to run to a designated spot with a rugby ball between our chests. Once we got there, I put the ball on a catapult and launched it into the air. Stef had to scurry, but she got to the ball and caught it in a basket. Our team (which was, again, like a relay with five or six couples to each team) won. It didn't really matter, since we all got the same prize anyway. But it was fun to compete.

When my turn to dance finally came up, I put on a shiny red robe and a thin, red bandana and ran out to the middle of the field with noise-makers tucked into the back of my shorts (underneath the robe). We clicked the noise-makers and twirled around the field to a non-traditional version of a traditional song. Our performance went pretty smoothly, and I didn't embarrass anybody.

Even though I was tired and sweaty from the dance, I had to participate in the next event: the relay race (normal, everyday running). When my turn came, my team was in the lead. I ran as fast as I could, extending our team's lead. In the end, our team eked out a victory in the relay. I was presented with the top prize, a case of beer. I laughed it off and gave it up right away.

In another relay, the mayor and the principal matched up on the last leg. The principal, running in his normal work clothes, had a short lead as he approached the last turn. The mayor, trying to push ahead right at the end, lost his footing and tumbled to the ground right before the finish line. Poor guy--I felt pretty bad for him. He was a good sport, though. Undokai was fun; I'm glad that I was forced to go.

A week earlier, I had my first band performance at the festival for Respect for the Aged Day. As we hurried to set our equipment up after the previous act, I noticed that my microphone wasn't working. I tried to get the attention of the band, but nobody paid attention. Twenty seconds into the song, when everybody realized that my mic didn't work, all the event staff started freaking out. They scrambled to get me a working mic, which slightly distracted me (as we were still performing). When they got me a working mic, it was much too loud, so I couldn't sing with the right dynamics. Nobody seemed to notice, but I'm extremely critical of my performance. I shook my head afterwards, and the band members encouraged me to look forward to our next performance, which is in less than two weeks.

Now that Undokai's over, I should have more time to study Japanese (and update my blog) at work. Unfortunately, I have to stay after school if I want to exercise. If I can get them to figure out how to lower the basketball hoops in the gym, I'll have something to do even when it gets cold.

I took some video recently of some common people and places in the town. I'll post that, along with some video of our dance rehearsal, as soon as I have time.

One thing that really stinks is our inability to watch English programming on TV. We don't even turn the thing on that much. While that may seem like a good thing, we'd love to be able to watch the Office and Stef's TLC shows (John & Kate Plus 8, Little People, Big World). My work blocks the port used for bittorrent. So, any people that want to send care packages that also understand bittorrent could hook us up with a DVD full of stuff that we could watch on the computer. Divx and xvid files are wonderful.

Be sure to constantly check Stef's blog at http://jessenstef.spaces.live.com for more information about our time in Japan.