Goodbye Asago Chugakko

Last night my teachers had a farewell enkai for me, and it was really good. They took me to an all you can eat barbeque place, so for the first time ever I didn’t need to have “betsu menu” (separate food). They gave me a new jimbei, and some other Japanese souvenirs. On the way home one of the teachers I was with, who was pretty drunk, said “I want to buy you ice cream!”, so we went to the convenience store and got some ice cream.

Today was Closing Ceremonies for this term, which means the last day before summer vacation. Since I will not be back next term I gave a short speech that was translated by Kakio sensei. After that two girls came on stage and read a speech to me, and then gave me flowers. Then all the students made a path for me to walk through, and I left the gym. It was a pretty dramatic way for me to end my time here. I’m glad that I still have a few extra curricular classes for the exchange group, because if I had to just finish up completely today it might be too much. It will be really strange when I’m not coming to this school anymore. Although the year has seemed to fly by, it still feels like I have been here for a really long time.

“Lasto Day”

Everyday Nakamura sensei passes out a schedule for the following two days, and if I am at my desk he says something like “Doryuu sensei, tomorrow’s…” Today he handed the schedules out, and then pointed to one and the following conversation took place:

Nakamura: “This day…your lasto day. So…[points to a bunch of Kanji] sayonnara ceremony”
Me: “Ok, thanks”
Nakamura: “You will…”
Me: “Make a speech?”
Nakamura: “Ah! Hai! Hai!”
Me: “Ok, how long should it be?”
Nakamura: “Etooo… [points to Nohmi sensei's desk, and then back at me]“
Me: “I should talk to Nohmi?”
Nakamura: “Hai”

I know it doesn’t sound like much, but I really appreciate the effort Nakamura sensei puts into speaking English. Considering he is a math teacher, and not particularly young, I’m impressed with how much he can say and even more so by how much he can understand.

Anyway, I guess I have to make a speech. I just hope it can be English only this time.

Taj Ultimate

This weekend was the Taj Ultimate Frisbee tournament, which some of the other JETs from my city, some Japanese girls, and I played in. Despite my assumptions that a tournament hosted by a bunch of JETs from Tajima (there is another team from around here that includes basically everyone but the people on my team) would be a pretty low key thing, there were 300 players, some coming from as far away as Tokyo.

Our team, “The Wad”, consisted of Mark, Kenji, Meaghan, Mario (Kenji’s friend from the states), Mario’s girlfriend Wendy and her two friends Yui and Haruka, two guys we picked up from Shikoku, and myself. Before this weekend, the two guys from Shikoku were the only ones to have ever actually played ultimate frisbee, and the Japanese girls had never actually thrown or caught a frisbee before.

The Wad

Our first game was against Tajima Gyu (the other local JET team), and they beat us. Then we played a Japanese university team, and they really beat us. Then we started winning games, because we learned how to play. In the end we played Tajima Gyu again, and beat them quite decisively. We ended up placing 9th in the entire tournament, which is way better than last place like I expected.

Goodbye Okuganaya

Today was my last day at Okuganaya Elementary, so the school had a goodbye party for me. We played some games, they gave me some presents they made, and then we said a lot of speeches. It was a really good way to end my time there I think, but it was still very hard to leave at the end of the day. Even though I was only this school for one day a week, I still got to know the kids pretty well, especially because there were less than 40 in the entire school. I was really impressed at how well all the kids work and play together. I guess because the school is so small they have no other choice, but I never saw anyone getting picked on, or even left out of any games. The teachers here were also great, which I think played a huge part in the way the students have turned out. They have certainly set the bar pretty high for the schools I will be in when I get back to Canada.

Okuganaya Elementary

The students drew me some pictures to remember them by, but there are too many to show on this page. I have made a separate page with all the pictures, plus my attempt at translations (they are all in Japanese).

See The Pictures

Mega Macs

Last night a bunch of other ALTs and I went to McDonalds, because Mark and Kenji thought it was necessary for everyone to try the Mega Mac (basically two big macs in one). To make sure the evening was memorable, Kenji downloaded “I’m in love with a McDonald’s girl” by Weird Al Yankovic, which he played on Veronica’s portable iPod speakers as he and Mark danced into the restaurant. Mark brought his camera, and while we were all ordering our “Mega Mac setto”, he filmed Kenji explaining to some Japanese girls that it was Mega Mac day, which meant they also had to buy Mega Mac sets. The burger itself wasn’t actually as gross as I expected. It was, however, much messier and more difficult to eat than a regular big mac.

Mega Mac