がんばれ！
So, the big thing to happen last week was obviously the sports festival. It did, in fact, rain on Wednesday so I could actually go, yay!
Wednesday itself (ie, the Gunma-JET workshop thing) was alright. As per usual came away with some okay game ideas and got to talk to everyone, which was excellente. ^^
Thursday was pretty amazing though! At my school at least, when they say "Sports Festival" what they really mean is "School-wide Track Meet". Within the years, the classes compete against each other, in sprints, middle-distance runs and some field events. Also, the relays. Ahahaha, the relays. ^^ Everybody has to do at least one thing.
The day started with the parade in. In the very front was the student council with the school flag, followed by all the classes. They were played in by the band, which I was really impressed by. All of the members memorized all the music, even though a bunch of them had only been playing their instruments since May, being 1st years. I was also amused by the amount of Sousa (or other music that I think of as typically American) they played. Each class made it self a banner, so there would be one person in front carrying the flag of that classes color (determined by their number: class one, regardless of year, was red, etc.), followed by two students carrying their banner, followed by all the students in the class marching in line. Pics will be up on facebook eventually. ^^; Then we had the opening ceremony, which involved the principal saying a few words, along with some of the local bigwigs, like the mayor. They introduced all of these people, though I didn't catch where most of them were from. Quite a few of them stayed for at least most of the morning, which was cool. Eventually, the day got started with the 50 meter hurdles, followed by the 100 meter dash, which was obviously the most populous event. The field events consisted of a shot-put style event involving a handball and high jump, which they do in the craziest way evar. Basically, the kids just run at it and jump it normally, instead of going over the bar backwards like we do. It was pretty amazing, because a couple of the boys were jumping 5' like that. o.o The middle distance races were the 800 meter (for the girls) and the 1500 meter (for the boys). They put up some pretty respectable times on that too.
After lunch, though, were the relays. Which were AWESOME. The club relays were great- the first one involved dressing up in the club uniform (like the kendo outfit, or your swim trunks) and then doing a 200 meter relay. The trick being that the "hand-off" had to involve something from the club. The kendo runners collected bamboo swords. The judo club carried a mat, and for the handoff, the old runner had to throw the new runner down onto it. It was pretty hilarious! After that, they had two more serious relays, with batons and everything, one for the girls and one for the boys. Pretty obviously, the track club won. ^^;
Then they had the first set of class relays, which involved the students racing each other, but also their teachers. You can tell that the teachers normally lose, but for some reason the first year teachers were all fired up and went all out. ^^; They won (sort of, since the anchor didn't actually cross the line, obviously). But after that, it returned to normal, with the teachers coming in dead-last. I raced with the third-years, a race which involved a mysterious number of teachers running strange distances, like 25 meters or a 100 meters or 200 meters. *still confused*
After that came another set of year relays, except that these ones were ridiculous and varied by year, and also involved most (if not all) of the class. The first years' race involved a regular section, followed by a three-legged race section, followed by a chain-gang section, which was pretty hilarious. The second-years' race had a regular section, a three-legged section, and a section where they had to grab an envelope of the ground and then race with whatever was written on the paper inside. Like a handball, or the principal, or possibly somebody's mom. XD That happened twice and was EXTRA hilarious. The third years' had two sections, one for girls and one for boys, though both were the same race. Basically, they had one person act as the runner, and everybody else had to be her ground, ie, she was walking on their backs and the other students had to keep running around to the front in order to create more ground for her. They raced to a cone, around the cone, and back, and then had to raise their flag at the end. I think the runner must have been called "Princess", because when the boys did it, their runners all wore skirts and bunny-ears. Mysterious~
Then there was the closing ceremony and the reading of the results over which class won in each year. Oddly enough, they tend to start at number 1 and then work their way downwards. ^^; I think the closest comparison would be some sort of mix of Spirit Week and a track meet. *nods*
The big news of this weekend was that I got internet! YAY!! Someday, I will catch up on things. ^^;
The big news this week is that on Friday, NASA is crashing the LCROSS satellite into the moon in an attempt to discover whether significant amounts of water exist on the moon's south pole: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/LCROSS/main/index.html (having already confirmed the presence of trace amounts of water: http://www.nasa.gov/topics/moonmars/features/moon20090924.html ).
Wednesday itself (ie, the Gunma-JET workshop thing) was alright. As per usual came away with some okay game ideas and got to talk to everyone, which was excellente. ^^
Thursday was pretty amazing though! At my school at least, when they say "Sports Festival" what they really mean is "School-wide Track Meet". Within the years, the classes compete against each other, in sprints, middle-distance runs and some field events. Also, the relays. Ahahaha, the relays. ^^ Everybody has to do at least one thing.
The day started with the parade in. In the very front was the student council with the school flag, followed by all the classes. They were played in by the band, which I was really impressed by. All of the members memorized all the music, even though a bunch of them had only been playing their instruments since May, being 1st years. I was also amused by the amount of Sousa (or other music that I think of as typically American) they played. Each class made it self a banner, so there would be one person in front carrying the flag of that classes color (determined by their number: class one, regardless of year, was red, etc.), followed by two students carrying their banner, followed by all the students in the class marching in line. Pics will be up on facebook eventually. ^^; Then we had the opening ceremony, which involved the principal saying a few words, along with some of the local bigwigs, like the mayor. They introduced all of these people, though I didn't catch where most of them were from. Quite a few of them stayed for at least most of the morning, which was cool. Eventually, the day got started with the 50 meter hurdles, followed by the 100 meter dash, which was obviously the most populous event. The field events consisted of a shot-put style event involving a handball and high jump, which they do in the craziest way evar. Basically, the kids just run at it and jump it normally, instead of going over the bar backwards like we do. It was pretty amazing, because a couple of the boys were jumping 5' like that. o.o The middle distance races were the 800 meter (for the girls) and the 1500 meter (for the boys). They put up some pretty respectable times on that too.
After lunch, though, were the relays. Which were AWESOME. The club relays were great- the first one involved dressing up in the club uniform (like the kendo outfit, or your swim trunks) and then doing a 200 meter relay. The trick being that the "hand-off" had to involve something from the club. The kendo runners collected bamboo swords. The judo club carried a mat, and for the handoff, the old runner had to throw the new runner down onto it. It was pretty hilarious! After that, they had two more serious relays, with batons and everything, one for the girls and one for the boys. Pretty obviously, the track club won. ^^;
Then they had the first set of class relays, which involved the students racing each other, but also their teachers. You can tell that the teachers normally lose, but for some reason the first year teachers were all fired up and went all out. ^^; They won (sort of, since the anchor didn't actually cross the line, obviously). But after that, it returned to normal, with the teachers coming in dead-last. I raced with the third-years, a race which involved a mysterious number of teachers running strange distances, like 25 meters or a 100 meters or 200 meters. *still confused*
After that came another set of year relays, except that these ones were ridiculous and varied by year, and also involved most (if not all) of the class. The first years' race involved a regular section, followed by a three-legged race section, followed by a chain-gang section, which was pretty hilarious. The second-years' race had a regular section, a three-legged section, and a section where they had to grab an envelope of the ground and then race with whatever was written on the paper inside. Like a handball, or the principal, or possibly somebody's mom. XD That happened twice and was EXTRA hilarious. The third years' had two sections, one for girls and one for boys, though both were the same race. Basically, they had one person act as the runner, and everybody else had to be her ground, ie, she was walking on their backs and the other students had to keep running around to the front in order to create more ground for her. They raced to a cone, around the cone, and back, and then had to raise their flag at the end. I think the runner must have been called "Princess", because when the boys did it, their runners all wore skirts and bunny-ears. Mysterious~
Then there was the closing ceremony and the reading of the results over which class won in each year. Oddly enough, they tend to start at number 1 and then work their way downwards. ^^; I think the closest comparison would be some sort of mix of Spirit Week and a track meet. *nods*
The big news of this weekend was that I got internet! YAY!! Someday, I will catch up on things. ^^;
The big news this week is that on Friday, NASA is crashing the LCROSS satellite into the moon in an attempt to discover whether significant amounts of water exist on the moon's south pole: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/LCROSS/main/index.html (having already confirmed the presence of trace amounts of water: http://www.nasa.gov/topics/moonmars/features/moon20090924.html ).