Very Impressed

WE HAVE INTERNET!!

Oh my...how sad is it that we felt THAT disconnected...it wasn't just 10 years ago I didn't even know about the internet.

Anyway, it's been a relief.

A water update: the 6th person came to fix our shower, couldn't do it...and apprently we have one more person coming to try something new. I gotta hand it to them, they sure aren't giving up even though Shawn and I are.

Last weekend was really fun, we got together with a bunch of JETs in Oita city. First we went to a birthday party with a bunch of 2nd and 3rd year people. It was great getting to know them - then some of us headed to a bar called Cool Bananas that was having a stoplight party. The idea is you dress up in the colors of a stoplight depending on your relationship status - wear red if you're taken, green if you're single, and yellow if your uh...undecided? I don't know, I guess yellow is open to interpretation. Of course, not many people go that wear red, but Shawn and I were there showing our colors! It ended up being really really fun and we didn't get home that night until about 4:30am. There are some really fun people that live around here, and so we really enjoyed hanging with them. Sorry, no pictures...forgot the camera that night!

Also, last weekend we went to Noh Theatre, which is traditional Japanese theatre dating all the way back to the 1100s. Our employer - Oita Prefecture - paid for us to go, so we took advantage of that. It's a good thing we did because I would never pay money to see it. It was, as everyone around us had warned, very boring and difficult to follow. The costumes were very elaborate and traditional, but there was hardly any movement and it was in old Japanese, so even Japanese people can't really understand it. The highlights included a three-man band including two drums and a flute, and a man that could do this amazing guteral howl. We left during intermission, four hours seemed too long to stay. Boring, but very interesting and I'm glad I saw it.

All the students at school have been preparing for the annual school festival - a three day talent show/band-choral-acting-club performances/homeroom decorating/good food/games/sports day extravaganza that is AMAZING. If you ever have a chance to see this in a Japanese school - DO IT. The energy, events and all around atmosphere is really great. The students have been preparing during some evenings for the past two weeks since school started, and it really shows. The homeroom decorations blow me away, and I already wrote explaining the sports day. Today was the first day, and I'm really looking forward to the next few days.

I really can't do this event justice. I am constantly impressed with how creative Japanese students are. Everything they created for the festivities rivals those projects American students only do in higher level art classes. These are some homeroom decorations - all completely done outside of class time, with the exception of a few hours on Tuesday to set up.

Check out this piece of art...looks just 'ok' doesn't it...



What if I told you all of it was made from individually colored toothpicks and q-tips pushed into foam? Honestly, what high school students would pay that much time and attention to a class project to be displauyed for two days? AMAZING.



All the homerooms made a large sign outside of their room, which were also displayed all last week to advertise for their rooms.

Class 1-2 made 'balloon land' and this is their room:



Notice balloons hanging from the ceiling, the rabbit made of balloons and all the cute little animals behind the fence. How adorable is this?



In this other first year class we have life size dummies:





Again, in these classrooms their attention to detail is amazing. They recreated two movie posters - The Shawshank Redemption and Titanic.





But they created Titanic by gluing tiny squares of colored paper onto a larger poster...and the Shawshank Redemption was done by coloring in tiny squares with marker!





In the same theme, this large poster of a what looks to be a pixelated picture of a soccer team was done in the same manner - square by square it was filled in with marker.



Here are some other very artistic and awesome looking signs (these are the size of a door):

















If only they would put that much energy into English.... :)

As part of the talent show this morning one class performed a 'cheer.' Throw out any preconceptions you have about cheerleading in the US and try to imagine the 40 kids in this class (boys and girls) up on stage doing a fantastic dance with lots of great coreography. Their routine lasted for 20 minutes and had various parts to it. The entire time I couldn't help but think what cold day in July you could get 20 high school American boys to get on stage and shake their money maker and ENJOY it. It was soooo great. There was no "I'm too cool attitude" and everyone really enjoyed themselves. I wish I had a video camera...

Another highlight was another classroom that first performed a skit and then did a tap dance. They put the very bottom of pop cans on the bottom of their heels and toes to make their regular shoes 'tap shoes.' Then they did this really rhythmic and entrancing beat with coregraphy and props...it was so cool!

The day wrapped up with people touring classrooms, and watching two separate stages with musical groups performing and other things like arm wrestling matches.




Also, the ESS (English Speaking Society) had a room that we decorated, with much less pizazz where we played bingo and read trashy english magazines like In Touch, Cosmo, and Seventeen.



They loved them! Also, I wanted to give them a taste of some American food, so yesterday I invited some members of the ESS club to my house and we made rice crispy treats.










It was really fun, and everyone loved them - although they were made with corn flakes because ironically there is no puffed rice here in the land of rice-for-breakfast-lunch-and-dinner.

I'll leave you with a few more images from today and wrap up this post. I hope you enjoyed all the pictures! I'm sure I'll have many more after tomorrow and Friday - it's the real sports day, not just the practice one!