this week

Another rather uneventful week from Hatasho JHS. I have been teaching much less this week (and will continue to do so next week) because of rehersals for next months cultural festival and the ni nensei kids' work-study week. All of the second graders (8th graders) spend a week at work instead of school, most at the local grocery stores, hardware stores, library, kindergarten, etc. I have no idea what the actual purpose is for it (my theory is to scare the kids into taking school more seriously as all the jobs they work are fairly menial, which is probably the reason they allow the kids there at all) and no one can really explain it to me, kids are pulled from school from Wednesday to yet theWednesday of next week for work. I was lucky enough to spend the afternoon on Thursday biking around town to visit them in all their glory.

This week i also enjoyed my own preparations for the cultural festival - our first choir rehersal. Thats right, of all the times in my life when i was too shy or nervous or scared to join an actual choir i decide to get over it now and join a Japanese choir. Its been fun learning the music (which was luckily in hiragana and not kanji, so while i couldn't really sight read the music i decifered it at home and will be ready for next weeks rehersal).

And finally the weekend. To celebrate surviving another week of school and boredom and what-have-you i hit up Cannery Row with Candice (right, an elementary school ALT in my town from South Africa) and Shannon (left, the other JHS JET). Nothing beats this place with its drink bar of fresh juices and coffee, a salad bar, amazing pizza, and my favorite, a dessert trolley. So we pigged out and headed to karaoke for some classic girl tunes (luckily with pre-sanitized microphones).