小学校 and so forth.

Somehow another week has already passed. How did that happen?! Dear god, I've already been here for three weeks and I only have fifteen weeks overall. That means my trip is 1/5 of the way done, which is sort of depressing. Let's not think about that, shall we?

So the weekend:
Friday, I had my first pop culture class and it was pretty decent. I signed up to do a presentation next week on the schoolgirl fetish in Japan, which I fully intend to dress up for. Since the trains cut off so early here, we gathered to go out right after classes ended at 5. We went to do some karaoke in Makuhari with about 12 people and two rooms. Some highlights were a poorly-constructed but soulfully-sung Disney medley, the Spice Girls, and me falling off a bench while doing interpretive ballet. It was a tremendously good time.

Saturday was the Taiko drum festival in Narita.. Griffin an I rode the slightly more expensive but way cooler train to get there. It felt like we were in an airplane, but with more leg room. IES had a big lunch planned at a famous Unagi restaurant (for those of you less cultured, Unagi is eel.) Our first course was a clear-brothed soup with little spongy white kidneys floating around it. Mmmmm, urine filters. Really though, it was all quite good, and after lunch we had some free time to wander around. A group of us walked around the temple area for a while and stumbled upon a stream with a gorgeous waterfall. Naturally, I took off my shoes immediately and began to wade down the river, forgetting that every time I wade through a river I end up falling in. We wouldn't want to break tradition, now would we? So I slipped on a rock and fell in walking upstream.. the right side of my body was soaked, and my foot somehow got cut open in the process. Immediately after, we watched a temple ritual, and I felt bad setting my bloody foot in a holy place. The ritual was great though; the monks did a lot of beautiful but incomprehensible (to me) singing, and they blessed participants' bags and other coveted items by the fire pit at the end. I then bought ice cream and promptly dropped it on the ground; luck was not on my side that Saturday. At 5pm, the taiko performances began. The square was completely packed and I could hardly see at all, but even just the sound of the performances was so worth standing for two hours in the chilly weather. The taiko drummers must be insanely strong; the force with which they attack each drumbeat is out of control. It blew my mind to think about playing any instrument that well, much less in complete sync with fifteen other drummers and with simultaneous choreography. The drummers moved as one, and sometimes they did high kicks over their drums (and other duch dance moves) while still playing. A few performances added a wooden flute and/or a xylophone type instrument, and the combination of each intricate part was stunning.

Sunday we went to another park for more hanami, but most of the sakura were done blooming. The park was still nice, though, and we played frisbee and talked at length with some highly intoxicated Japanese youths until we trained home for the night.

Monday and Tuesday I had Japanese class but didn't do much else.

This morning, I had to go to my first day of field placement at the shougakkou (elementary school) in Myoden. Last night I was apprehensive, envying all of my friends who have Wednesdays off and wishing that I could sleep in or travel instead of working. I woke up ridiculously early (5:30, what!?) because I did NOT, under ANY circumstance, want to be late. As it turns out, I was so right to be overly cautious, since I took the wrong train away from my destination at first, and ended up being only ten minutes early. In Japan, ten minutes early is on time, so I couldn't have afforded to be any later. One of my supervisors met me immediately and took me up to her class, which was fifth grade I believe. I had to give my jikoshoukai (introduction speech) to them, and then we played "fruit basket" using English fruit vocabulary, and the Japanese version of duck duck goose, which involves a handkerchief. It was really fun and I was starting to get quite comfortable with the kids when the period ended and I was whisked away to another class. This class was one year older but they were still quite receptive and interested in hearing me out/talking to me/swarming me. I went to recess with them, and we played dodgeball. We went back upstairs and I rejoined my fifth grade class. I there discovered that all 10-year-olds in Japan are far more capable of ink calligraphy than I am. It was mildly embarassing because the sensei pretty much just laughed at me, but told me it was good for my first time. Liar.
I ate lunch with a group of the senseis, which I think will be the only time I do.. usually I will be eating with the kids. It was a group lunch, so everyone had the same thing and everyone helped to set it up. No one brought their own lunch from home, and it was much more communal than any lunch I've ever seen in the states. Over lunch the other senseis and nurses asked me various questions, and they pretty much told me I was jouzu (skilled) at everything I said. They were just being polite, but it was still nice. At this point, one of the senseis pulled me aside to inform me that I was going to be recorded on the television and broadcasted to the school.. right now. I stammered out my jikoshoukai once again on a life broadcast, and then resumed my lunch. Naturally all the other senseis at lunch had watched the tv in the teacher's lounge, so they all clapped when I came back in. I was so hazukashii (embarassed).
I'm not sure how exactly this works, but I seemed to have another recess right after lunch with the same kids. This time we played a Japanese version of tag that seemed to have no rules at all except for to choose a random person, yell out the colour of their shirt, and charge them in a group until you've tagged them. Then find a new target.
We went back upstairs, and I was surprised to find that the next part of the day involved instensive cleaning of the classrooms.. by the students. I had heard before that there were no janitors in Japan, but that workers and students are expected to keep their areas clean. What I didn't realize is that the students move all the desks back and sweep and mop the floor daily. While we were cleaning there was an instrumental song looping in the background, and I wondered if, in the future, the kids would have strong impulses to clean if they heard the song again.
The rest of the day I hopped from classroom to classroom answering questions. Depending on the teacher, some of the students were made to ask in English, and it was very clear that they had only learned one question-asking format in their English studies. This was it: "What you like, [insert subject]?" It was fairly adorable, and I got asked "what I like" in terms of sports, fruits, Japanese words, sweets, colours, movie stars, anime, music, you name it. I also got asked if I had a boyfriend several times, followed by an offer by one young man. One girl asked what my "type" of man was, and then asked if her sensei was, in fact, my type. The students continued to try and set us up for the duration of the period.
As I was leaving the school for the day, I ran into some of the younger kids who I didn't work wiht at all today but who obviously saw me botching my Japanese like an idiot on the television. They got really excited and grabbed my hands and chattered away to me, and I smiled and nodded and didn't understand much of anything. But at the end of the day, I realized that I had an absurdly good time with the kids and that language barriers are easily breached by smiling apologetically and miming a lot. I am really glad I signed up for the field placement, and I'm excited to go back again next week.

Also, I was given even more of a reason to regret my lack of foresight on the bringing-shoes-to-Japan front today. The school requires an indoor and and outdoor pair of shoes, and I don't really have shoes to spare for that. And another point of interest, a LOT of the young kids here wear clothes with English on them, and a lot of that English doesn't make sense. I'm not at all complaining, though; it's a cool trend for them, and it's funny for me. But one girl had a shirt that said "Rochester, NY" on it. Shoutout to Rochester!

The homework that I should be doing is starting to weigh on me. Ja mata atode!