I'm such a bad blogger....

okay.. more than one person has brought to my attention the fact that I haven't posted in two weeks, but I can explain. You see, the thing about living in Japan is, when it rains, my entire life changes (I wear a really cool rain suit, or walk slowly with an umbrella, or beg for rides from my teachers.. but I NEVER bust out my camera and start taking pictures of the scenery) and it rained almost every day last week. So even though school finally started and I had exciting things to write about, I wanted to wait until I had pictures.. in the end, this post is going to be a long one...

I work at two different junior high schools in my (relative) area, but just happened to start at the significantly closer school...making it easier to adjust my schedule and ride to work in the rain. On September 1st, school started again in Kiryu and every school had an opening ceremony. At my school, the ceremony lasted less than an hour and I have no idea what the students did for the rest of the day (but I'm under the impression that they had a brief meeting and were sent home). The teachers had meetings all day on a rotating basis, so I hung around the office and mingled with some of my co-workers. Minami Junior High School is on the small side, even for Kiryu, weighing in with barely more than 150 students over 3 grade levels. Because the school is so small, there are only about a dozen teachers for me to meet and adjusting is pretty easy. On September 2nd, there is city wide testing in five subjects (a welcome back from summer vacation gift?) for about 5 hours, so I didn't see much of the kids on Friday either.

FINALLY, on Monday, I got into the classrooms and started introducing myself. As many JETs do, I play a betting game with my students to help make my self-intro more exciting and interactive. The kids are great and my two JTEs (Japanese Teachers of English) are awesome. To make the week at Minami even more interesting, the school is gearing up for their annual Sports Festival... which is kind of like Field Day, only much more intense. The school is divided up into three teams who will run a 50 X 200meter relay (everyone on each team has to run), shorter relays, have a baseball throwing contest, play tug of war, do some crazy jump rope thing, and my personal favorite--a "cheer dance." Cheer dance practice has undoubtedly been one of my absolute favorite school experiences so far. The third grade students met several times over the the summer break (girls and boys) to choreograph a dance to a full-length pop song. Its amazing, not only because the dances are so entertaining, or because the first and second grade students somehow manage to learn the whole complicated thing in a few weeks time, but because the boys are so into it! and they're good! I told some of the teachers that I didn't expect that you could pay American teenage boys to jump around like a pep squad in front of the whole school and their parents. Some people have suggested that the karaoke-for fun culture in Japan may make this type of public performance seem more natural. Whatever it is, I'm fascinated. And as a young person, I've been recruited into every practice that I've stumbled upon... needless to say, I know about a third of each dance, but don't know any of them entirely... Minami's Sport's Day is September 27th and I'm EXCITED.

I rotate schools every two weeks though, so on Monday I started all over again at Hirosawa Junior High. Whereas Minami is less then 7 minutes from my door to the teacher's room, Hirosawa takes me a solid 15-20 minutes (through town, over a river, under a highway, past some crossing guards and into the school complex). Also different from Minami, whose schools are spread out along nearly a kilometer of road, Hirosawa is all neatly tucked into one area... so I see even more little elementary school and kindergarten kids on my way to Hirosawa than I do in my own neighborhood (there are also two or three times as many little kids in Hirosawa...which may add to the effect). Hirosawa-chu (chu = junior high) has around 240 students, most of whom have been extremely outgoing. On Tuesday, we had a Sports Day practice where I took some pictures (and got an awesome farmers' tan). At the Minami-chu rehearsals, the students practiced their dance, were lined up by their teachers and practiced running the 200 meter dash for their relay. The Hirosawa-chu practice was an entirely different production altogether, where I saw not only dances and lined-up students, but also got a peek at some of the sports day events... its so fun! One of the things they do is a jump rope contest where teams of 20 students compete to see which group can consecutively jump the most times without someone getting tangled, and they're really good at it! I've got a picture below, but if anyone's interested in a short video clip, let me know and I'll email it to you... its amazing.

I think thats all I'll say for now... but I'll comment through the pictures. (I'm secretly shocked if you've read all of this, its a ridiculously long post... thanks!)

this is a view of Hirosawa-chu from the "fields" in back (by field, they mean 'large open space with a light dusting of gravel to keep the mud under control, to be used for all sports, from track to soccer to baseball')... both of my schools have this H-shaped layout, and would look almost exactly the same from above

these are 200+ pairs of sneakers used exclusively on the gym floor... neatly arranged rows of stuff are everywhere in Japanese schools, where students have at least 3 pair of shoes at all times (outdoor, gym and indoor) and somehow keep track of where everything goes

this is the small bike rack at my school, I was too lazy to walk around to the other side of the H where at least 100+ bikes are parked everyday... more neat rows...
these are my students dividing into their teams on the field... a few minutes after this shot they were perfectly arranged in (can you see where this is going?) ...well organized rows.
just another shot of the school grounds and some students practicing their cheer dance

a few students walking around during all of the mid-practice commotion (the 'peace sign' or "V," is basically the only acceptable thing to do when having your picture taken in Japan... it takes precedent over smiling, looking at the camera, having your eyes open... anything, and EVERYONE does it)
a small pack of second year girls... we had just finished a sophisticated conversation about Usher, Britney Spears' pregnancy and having crushes on Johnny Depp (being a teenager is the same no matter where you live)
this is one of the 20 person jump roping teams mid-leap.. I'm telling you, its the coolest thing ever, and these kids are darn serious about it!

Other odds and ends about my first few weeks in Japanese junior high schools...
- the students have a "cleaning period" everyday where they empty the trash, clean chalkboards, wash floors, bathrooms and windows (can you imagine doing that in America?!)
- there's no cafeteria and everyone eats school lunch (which isn't always amazing) in their classrooms, at their desks... the students take turns going to fetch the day's food from a room where it gets dropped off by the city and serve their classmates, then clean everything up and bring the empty containers back to the drop-off room
- the students have one room, where most of their teachers come to them for class.. so for first graders there are classes 1-1 and 1-2, for second graders 2-1 and 2-2, etc. Some of the special subjects have their own rooms (science, home economics, art and music) but all of the academic classes are taught in the same room... kind of a reversal of many American schools where students go to Mr. So-and-So's room for history and Mrs. What's-Her-Name for math. So if I'm teaching class 1-1, I go to them, they don't come to an English lesson room, it definitely gives them a sort-of homefield advantage.
- students also have numbers.. so their identification goes something like year, class, number, last name.... there are lots of reasons that this system may have come into place, but one of them may be the fact that each school has at least 2 students walking around with the EXACT same name (same kanji and everything)
- I have a 13 year old student who is AT LEAST 6'3"
- many Japanese girls love Marie from "the Aristocats" but don't know that she is one of the most obnoxious Disney characters ever... they just think there's nothing cuter than a fluffy white cat wearing a pink bow...
- one of my classes is doing their cheer dance to "the Barbie Song" ...I've decided to keep my mouth shut.
- one of my cute little 13 year old students has a pencil bag that has the word "pornography" written prominently across it... I'm pretty sure no one has any idea what the bag says.
- in Japanese, there is no distinction between feet and legs, and explaining that there are different words in English has been quite a challenge so far