...but for the sky there are no fences facing

A couple of weeks ago I went to Sendai again for Will's birthday. We decided to take the shinkansen to Sendai instead of the bus because the shinkansen gets there in about 8 minutes compared to the bus taking an hour. It is a little more expensive, however, and we had never done this before so it was quite an adventure. After we bought our shinkansen tickets, we realized that the train didn't leave until an hour later, so we would have gotten to Sendai just as soon had we taken the bus. Then, we went up to the waiting area for the train to arrive and sat inside the air conditioned waiting room until the shinkansen showed up. When it pulled up we started walking to the far end where the unreserved seats were, but before we could reach the door, the train left and we missed it. It turns out that Furukawa is not a major stop on this train and it waits for no one, so we were stuck waiting another hour for the next train to come through. Needless to say, we would have been much better off to have taken the bus, but from our mistakes we now know that we can get to Sendai in about 8 minutes if we plan it just right. I did karaoke for the first time; Will and I sang Lady Gaga's Alejandro, and then we listened to Nicole sing lots of Japanese boyband songs while Tyler slept on the couch. And then, of course, we sang Don't Stop Believin' before we were through.

These photos are from the sports assembly that we had at school to cheer on the sports teams that made it to the prefectural tournaments. It's kind of a Japanese version of a pep rally, I guess, except the boys dance with fans and shout some phrase of encouragement to all the different teams. The teams to make it to the next level of the sports tournament were girls basketball, girls and boys table tennis, the judo team, and one kid from kendo.

I've started coaching one of the third year students after school for a recitation contest that she is practicing for. She is reciting, in English, a story about a football player and his brother Joey. I'm not really sure how it's supposed to help her understanding of English, but I guess it helps her pronunciation of English words and letters. Anyway, the girl i'm coaching is in the picture standing in front of the microphone and her name is Nodoka.

This past weekend I stayed at home and suffered the pangs of summer with no air condition. After waking up I layed in front of the fan for some time before forcing myself to get up and try to move around. Surprisingly, it was hotter outside my room than it was inside and even hotter outside the Ryokan. After working out and sweating all over the place I decided to go for a walk to the convenience store for lunch, hoping that I could embrace the hot weather and get used to it. It was nice out, but I got sunburned a little on the walk there and back (it's only about a mile). Today is my last day of school before Summer vacation and I am going to Tokyo on August 8th, where it is much hotter and more humid than it is here.

Working on a Saturday

Today I am at school on a Saturday and it is extremely hot in the school with a humidity of over 80% outside. The parents observed classes today, and then we had a Taiko drum performance from some talented percussionists. I really enjoyed it; especially the part where a student fell asleep, dropped his papers, and then came one hair from falling out of his seat.

Coming up soon is the Tanabata Festival here in Japan, which is the "Evening of the 7th" (of August). It is the celebration of when the stars Vega and Altair meet in the sky. Japanese people go and gather bamboo limbs, make paper decorations with wishes on them and hang them from the bamboo. We did all of this in one of my classes and I wished for health and happiness. The next day I woke up with a scratchy throat, a watery eye, and I am not happy about the 80% humidity. But the tradition seems fun, nonetheless. However, I will be sad to miss the 4th of July celebration in America.

In the third year classes today, we began my global pen pal activity and the students seemed excited about writing to people from America. It seemed like the most popular choices for pen pals were Dustin and some of the young girls like Macie and Sara Young (especially for the boys). They got some writing done today on their emails, but have until the end of the first semester to finish them.

I also learned something interesting about Japan today. Japan has the lowest level of drug abuse in the developed world as well as some of the strictest drug laws. This is quite a change coming from America and working at DSS, in a county where everyone and their grandmother was smoking marijuana, popping pills, and walking around with a meth needle stuck in them while their children were outside in the road dodging vehicles (sigh of relief).