Additions

So I added a new link, it goes to the pictures i have taken in the middle of fall.
oh the pretty colors ^_^
the ting of amber painting the mountain sides

now the trees are starting to get naked but it was pretty to see the leaves dance to the ground as they die.

Car

So I finally got my car last week and i've been able to drive it since last Wednesday even thou i haven't technically paid for it yet...i'm going to to do that today.

Isn't it nice of them to let me drive a car that i haven't put a cent to yet ^^

It's not as hard as it may seem to drive on the wrong side of the road. I think it was easy for me since i've been a passenger in Rebecca's car for 2 months now.

What I found a little hard was adjusting to the fact that i was sitting on the wrong side and that things in the car are on the opposite side. I'm so used to have certain things that i can do with my left hand, like turning on the turn signals, if i do that now, it turns on the windshieldwipers.
The other thing is that i'm used to having the drive shift handle on the right and i keep reaching for it while i'm in car, but the stupid thing is on my left. And i can't control the radio as easy since that's also on my left.

Other than that, the car is normal.

oh yeah, the kinda car i got is a Daihatsu-MOVE, which is a small cube, yellow plate car. Just like i wanted ^_^
Yellow plate means it has a smaller engine than normal cars so everything about is economical.
and the color of the car is silver. and even thou it is a small car, the inside feels almost like a van, a really, really small van. so Edmund will have to problem fitting in it with all the baggage n stuff.

STRANGER ALERT!

So today they told me that we were only going to have 10 minutes for class for the 3rd years for a Stranger Drill.

stranger drill? Stranger drill?

I thought i heard Takamitsu wrong but he explained to me that they were going to have some one to be a stranger to sneak into the school and pretend to attack them.

?!?!?!?

It is like a practice drill for earthquake and such, except if a stranger comes onto school grounds and tries to kill us. so we were doing an escape route and everything.

The so called stranger was a worker from the Board of Education and he came here with a cop. we were to conduct classes like normal but 10 min into class a "stranger" is to lurk into the school. We were playing an English game when we heard noise down the hall of the "stranger" checking other class rooms. so they quickly locked the doors and windows. then some of the 1st year students came running from the balcony trying to get into class, after we let them in the "stranger" came banging on the door trying to get in. he had sunglasses, a mask and a "knife"

After he left Takamitsu opened the door (dumb) to make sure he was gone so we can try to escape and he called the 'cops'. In the mean time, the stranger came back but they tried to stop him from coming in to give the students a chance to escape thru the balcony which leads to other class room, while some of the other kids went thru the other door (i was trying to get some of the kids to escape thru the other door instead of all rushing to go thru one) There was a little struggle of the stranger trying to get to the kids.

By that point all the kids escaped from the room and were making there way out of the building. At that point some of the male teachers had these long pole that's used to keep strangers from harming others, so in other words to pin him down and keep him at a distance.

After all this was done I asked if this type of thing was common now. Takamitsu said he didn't know (in other words, he didn't understand my question).

I asked Shigeko, my supervisor, and she said that it has in thin time in age and that it was regulated to have "Stranger Drills" in school about 2 years ago.

Well this is the first time i heard of it and i kinda had fun watching it all go down ^^
I wish i could have recorded it.

Culture Festival

So this weekend we had the Culture Festival aka School Festival, it's basically like open house back in the States except the kids put on a show as well.

Usually the school have a competition between each of the classes and clubs. But since there are a few clubs and only 3 classes, they didn't. Each class did a performance, the 1st year formed a band; the 2nd year made a skit involving their class, their homeroom teacher and a camping trip; and the 3rd year did a skit about their Australian trip.

They still had a competition, a singing competition which the teachers had to evaluate and judge which class sang better, harmony, etc. and which was the best conductor and pianist. That was fun to do ^^

The students who were in clubs and wanted to put on a performance did...that was three out of eight. The music club, which is the school band that's made up of 4 saxophonist; the English club made up of 3 students and put on a music video we made of 'Girlfriend'; and a guitar club which was 3 students playing the acoustic guitar and a pianist. They were all good and i didn't even know there was a guitar club.

And then we teachers also performed, we sang in a choir. It was a nice Japanese love song written and popular like in the late '70s. They made red bow ties out of paper for all of us to wear, which was cute and funny ^_^
A few of the students were shocked that we were going to sing (i think it's partly cuz the gaijin was singing in Japanese as well)

The students also had all the work they have done so far in the school year ex: from wood shop, home ec, and their art work from the fall art competition.

The whole day went well and i had fun... even thou i couldn't understand the play or the speeches that were made.

Update

There has been an update on my Photobucket with more pics and short films of me, Gabby, and Thien while visiting Tokyo ^^

I will add more of whats happening in Kanna soon

Enjoy

THEY'RE EVERYWHERE

Ok so one thing that since I've been here in Japan is that there are owls EVERYWHERE. And I don't mean the actual bird, i haven't seen any of those. What i mean is that they're all over place in shops! From the 100yen shops to the Tokyo National Museum store. Practically every shop that you go into you are more likely to find something in the shape of an owl.

So instead of just wondering why the hell they are everywhere i decided to ask Takamitsu. His response "wakarinai"...meaning 'i don't know'

Well i finally got an answer when we took a Shugakko staff trip to Izu. Again i noticed that they were everywhere from key chains to cute purses. This time I asked the nurse from the school since she was standing next to me. She said "in Japan owls bring goodness." So i finally had an answer to why they're all over the place like the Welcoming Cat of Japan. When i told Takamitsu he was, "ah yes, of course, that's the reason, they bring people good luck (kinda)."

So now i know why they are everywhere.


By the way, i ended up buying a hanging bell charm thing with several owls that i found while in Izu. Couldn't help myself, they're cute ^_^

Sports Festival

So this Sunday was the Sports Festival for Kanna-machi, Monday is the offical holiday. YAY! My first sports day ^_^. I've been seeing the elementary kids getting all the preperation ready since it was going to be held at their school. I've seen both the elementary and junior high kids practice like crazy for the competetion they werwe going to participate in.

When last week finally rolled around I was handed schedule for the day, what event was going to happen when, which students were helping out with the races and what they were going to do, and what races the teacher were going to participate in. As I was looking things over the last list caught my eye since the only word I could understand in it was Allie written in Katakana...WHAT!! ^0^ I look over to see what I was doing and my name was under the... i don't know since most of the stuff they gave me is in Kanji!

So I asked Takamitsu, the English teacher that I work with, what i was suppose to be doing for the sports day. He was "oh, your going to be doing the pan rellay." and left it at that...he's not good at explaining things. Well i thought yay, i get to do the pan relay...i kinda wanted to do that.

I was able to get more information out of the teacher i sit next to at the elelmentary school since she used to be an English teacher. I was going to do a three legged race with some student's parent and she pointed it out on the schedule.

The actual day was long with it starting at 830 and finishing at 4 pm. I was also going to attened an enkai(a drinking party) 530 for the new teacher and it was kinda for me as well. So it was a nice and sunny day which later turned to a hot day, it was about 80 degrees that day. Anywho the schools have three teams each, red, blue, and yellow.

This is how the day passed:
30 min- opening ceremony
10 min -a weird stretching routine that the whole town knows how to do, seriously (i got that filmed and will be posted in my photobucket)

it was then...elementary race, elderly people playing a "throw the birdie into a basket thing", elementary dance, elementary race, kindergardent dance and then race, elementary race involving rolling a big paper machi looking ball with the team matching the ball color.

Elderly people playing croket, kindergardenters game thing:split into two teams, one wearing a red hat, the other with a white hat, siting on ther parents shoulder trying to get their classmastes hats off (this was really cute espcially with the song they were playing along with it)^_^

It was then the jr high relay race with the winning team already predicted since no matter what during practice always ending with the same results. A weird group game, consisting of some students, adults and some elderly people. It continued like this for the whole day.

Then my event came up, didn't know who i was paired up with. they explained what was going to happen but it was all in Japanese but Takamitsu didn't explain any of it to me -_-
well, i got the idea of what was happening when we actually started. well we got second ^^ woo-hoo!

All in all it was a nice day and it counted as if we went to work...i didn't know that so i got up tuesday thinking i had to go to school but no one was at the bus stop. since sunday was a day of work we got tuesday off... no one told me this -_-

oh well it was another day off.