Halloween and upcoming events

Create Your Own!


I have been so excited for Halloween, even though they don't even celebrate it here. Last Friday the JETs had a halloween party, so we were on a mission to find a costume in Japan (not an easy task). Kristine and I decided to dress up together. We decided to wear a costume that would be meaningful to our little Ise group of people. A while back, Taylor put the song gold digger by Kanye West as his ring tone. It quickly became our little anthem. We play it all the time and always go crazy for it. So, Kristine and I decided to be gold diggers for Halloween. We bought hard hats and spray painted them gold. We also bought goggles, a belt, mini shovels, and a pail and painted them all gold as well. We bought the ugliest gold jewelry and makeup that we could find and wrote gold diggers on our black tank tops. It was the first time I have dressed up in years! The party was great because EVERYONE was in costume.

As I was shopping for my hard hat, I came across an actual pumpkin in Japan. They are especially hard to find because Japanese pumpkins are green, so this one was probably shipped in. I bought it and was so excited to carve it. So, on Saturday I invited two of my Japanese friends over to carve their first pumpkin. They thought the inside was totally disgusting, but we had a great time cleaning it out. Etsko and I designed the face, but we made Shun actually carve it. As you know daddy, I'm not good with knives! That's Shun in the picture above. I was so excited to put the jack-o-lantern in my window. I lit it Saturday and Sunday night. On Monday when I woke up, the pumpkin was filled with water and had completely molded and fallen apart. It was the strangest thing. We had cleaned it out so well. They tell you that food stays good much less in Japan than in America, but this was ridiculus. So, I was a little disappointed that I didn't get to light it on Halloween night, but oh well.

A couple of weeks ago when I was teaching my junior high students about Halloween, I told them that if they would find me on Halloween and say "trick or treat," I would give them some candy. I saw a few write it down, but I figured most would forget if I didn't remind them. I bought enough candy for the whole school, just in case though. As I was riding my bike to school that day, I was barely 20 feet from my apartment when I heard children shouting "trick or treat." I told them they had to wait until recess or after school. All day I was hounded by students and when the time finally came, it was like a madhouse of students shouting "trick or treat!" It was alot of fun, but really crazy. Next time I will have to work out some other system. That was too much work!

The past couple of weeks I have really been enjoying my Taiko drum class. I'm still learning the basics, but it is so much fun. I can't wait until I can actually play and entire routine, which will be a while! My school is having culture festival this weekend. It's a mandatory event that is all day Saturday and Sunday. One of the main highlights of the event is every class singing a different song. The classes practice every single day after school and they are all really good. When I was in the office the other day, I heard a familiar tune. A class was singing the song that goes "country road, take me home, to the the place where I belong, West Virginia..." I'm not actually sure what the title is. They were singing it all in Japanese except for "country road." When the teacher saw me standing outside the door, she came over and I told her I instantly recognized the song. When she told the students this, they told her they wanted me to sing the song in English! So,next week I have to sing the song in front of a class of 7th graders!! I don't even know the words, but they assume I can sing it. Singing childrens songs in front of people is one thing, but an actual song....I'm going to humiliate myself, haha.

At culture festival, all of the teachers have to teach some sort of experience class like creating a wreath, bread making, learning korean, etc. One of the teachers I work closely with approached me about teaching hers because she said she had nothing to teach. She said she would translate for me and wanted me to teach a hip hop dance class because she knew I had been taking a class. Well, I hadn't been to class in weeks, but I couldn't say no. So, on Saturday I will be teaching 31 students to dance! This should be interesting. The kids got to choose from all the different classes and I expected it to be mostly girls. Somehow, I got almost all boys, and not just any boys. I got the wildest boys in the school, the ones that get in trouble all the time. So, next week I should have some ridiculous stories to tell.

I was also asked (by students and teachers) to participate in this traditional dance performance they are doing at festival. I thought it would be a very slow, low key dance like I saw the women doing at the various festivals I have attended. I couldn't have been more wrong. The dance involves shouting, stompping, and this one move that I will take a picture of. It kills my legs and I am so sore from practicing all week. I hope I don't screw it up because I still don't know the whole thing. I'll try to get someone to take a video with my camera, but I'm not sure if anyone will be able to. I'm really looking forward to this weekend and will of course tell you all about it next time!