The Japanese Club "Saga"
Rather melodramatic title, don't you think? 
And a very late entry to boot, but I'm playing catchup today, since I finished redesigning my LJ layout.
Well, it's a saga of sorts because of what my club had to go through for "a win." My prior entries to this can be found here where you can read about the different doors we did in the past.
This year for Christmas we had more competition. A lot more clubs and classrooms were getting in on the action and were creating their own doors, but I wasn't worried. I had an awesome idea that I thought would be sure to win.
First, each student in my Japanese Club made an origami Christmas wreath. It consisted of 8 origami squares, folded simply and slipped into each other to form a circle/wreath. Then, the kids had about 10 different Christmas origami shapes, including reindeer, stars, snowmen, poinsettias, candy canes, Santas, bells, etc.
Then, I tackled a personal project where I created a large ornament from 30 individual pieces of origami paper. I made it with regular origami paper first, to see how it could be done, and then I used washi paper to make the final copy.
One of my students turned out to be an amazing anime artist, so he took a bunch of the snowmen that the Japanese Club members had folded and drew Naruto and Full Metal Alchemist character faces on them.
Finally, I took some metallic origami paper and cut out origami-based snowflakes.
The results were as follows:
This is what the door looked like when It was completed.
Here is a closeup of the snowflakes and that star ornament that I made. It took me nearly 2 days to complete that star because I kept inserting the folds incorrectly and having to gingerly pull it apart and start over again.
These are the anime snowmen. He was doing Naruto at first, but I specifically requested Roy Mustang because I adore him.
Richard ended up making Edward Elric as well. Here are the closeups of each one
With a door like this how could we lose?
And yet, we still did!
Okay, technically we came in second place (and I still got 2 free movie tickets for myself and free cupcakes treats for my club).
But the door that won first place was the Art Club, and I wish I'd taken a picture of it so you could see just how robbed we were. Their door looked like Christmas had thrown up on it. It was covered with paper, and then they had Christmas lights which blinked on it, as well as gold garland. Then, all around the walls of the door they had Christmas Cards the kids did with famous cartoon characters. Only they didn't draw these characters - they traced their outlines using an overhead light machine and putting the paper on the wall so they could trace the figures and then color them in.
The judges were students, which makes sense why my door came in second place. Because after the winner was announced, almost every teacher came to me and said they were shocked and thought my door was much better.
ROBBED I TELL YA!
And then, to make matters worse, the Art Teacher, who is a jerk to begin with, had the audacity to tell me, "Well, it looks like you had competition this time."
Seriously? He's going to rub it in like that?? Especially when he didn't deserve to win?
So it was officially war!
* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *
The next activity happened on Monday, January 31st. Schools here in NYC end their first semester in January and then start the second semester in February. The Monday before school opens again, teachers are supposed to have a Professional Development Day (read: day of torture with boring seminars). This year, the administration decided to Roundtables at that time.
My school is a project-based school. We try to put more emphasis grade-wise on projects rather than exams. Kids do the work, and then present their work to a panel of judges (usually other teachers) who grade their work based on a rubric provided by the project teacher. If they pass this stage, they can present at Roundtables where parents, other students, and other adults come to the school to see their work.
This year, in addition to Roundtables, we were going to have club booths set up also. Basically, any club could set up an area to promote their club - kinda like the culture festivals they have in Japanese schools. This time, though, the prize was free movie tickets for the entire club!
My students were GUNG-HO to win this! :)
The Saturday before we had a club trip where we went to New Jersey so that we could go to Mitsuwa (that Japanese supermarket that's there) and then, take a van ride back to New York City so we could do karaoke. During the end of our session, we plotted for Monday.
We ended up with a bunch of different things that we were going to do. First, one of my students suggested that we have a manga table, and a bunch of us agreed to bring in a few copies to "whet" the appetite of passersby. Next, I was going to set up a table with 2 laptops - one would be playing Full Metal Alchemist episodes and the other would have the JDrama Boss playing (because these are the two series we are currently watching in Japanese Club). Then, we'd have another computer that would be playing Japanese music in the background - Arashi included, of course! Next, I found out that 2 of our members are elite Pokemon players, so we set up a table for them to stand by and dispense advice on boss battles and such. I enlisted ktmonkeyj 's help by asking her for the Pokemon she'd already drawn and she graciously emailed two zipped files to me.
I was going to bring supplies to make fresh onigiri which we would sell, and then finally, I would set up an omikuji area for "New Year's Fortunes."
It turned out that I forgot FMA, so we only had Boss running, with Japanese music in the background. Also, I ended making all the onigiri at home - I realized that it would be too messy to try to make them on site. So I made 3 different kinds: Hawaiian (with spam in the middle), tuna (with furikake on the ends so I could distinguish them from the Hawaiian ones) and "vegetarian" onigiri (with simple nori/sesame seed fuikake and nothing inside the rice).
Some of the pictures didn't come out so great because I took them with my phone camera, having left my good camera at home.In the first picture, you can see the manga table at the end and barely see the laptop table with the music and JDrama showing. (if you look very carefully, though, you can see my Arashi Scene poster on the wall
I had the kids tape together 3 boxes and then cover them with black construction paper. I cut out the Japanese kana at home using my craft foam, figuring that the bright colors against the black would stand out nicely. And i was right!
The Pokemon pictures you see on that triboard were all drawn by ktmonkeyj ! Funny thing was, one of the math teachers came by and was staring at it a moment with a big grin on his face. He told me that he could name every single one on the board. I never knew he played Pokemon! (By the way, see the paper towel on the Pokemon table that has nothing on top of it? That's where the onigir was - we sold out in less than a 1/2 hour! Yatta!)
Finally, on the same table, we put the omikuji fortunes. Basically I covered a container at home with washi paper and with amefurift 's help on Saturday, "stole" some wooden coffee stirring sticks from Starbucks - well, I didn't really steal them since I /did/ buy a cup of coffee while there. I wrote numbers on each of the sticks, which corresponded with the fortunes
I pretty much stuck with simple and gave them only the one fortune (without all the other stuff omikuji has, like love life, financial situation, health, etc.). When I'd first envisioned this idea, I wanted to use a tree to tie the bad fortunes onto it, and to that end I borrowed a fake tree from my church - but it was HUGE!! There was no way I could bring it to school. But then, I came up with an AWESOME IDEA!
I had a laundry hanger at home that was wooden. I made banners on the sides of it, and then used it for the tying of bad fortunes. Neat idea, right? I was so proud of this one, to be honest. The kids had a blast. They explained how the omikuji worked, they answered questions about manga and Pokemon... we were a huge hit.
One additional thing, amefurift loaned some of her cosplay outfits to me. So I was able to lend them to my students to wear while they were manning the tables.
Noemi got the schoolgirl uniform, Sugey got the gothic lolita outfit (although she was so tiny, she was nearly swimming in it!) and Janet wore the yukata. I also had a bunch of be-ribboned cat ears and a Mokona hat for the other students.
Because it was close to Feb 3, I was able to buy an oni mask, which Ray used with the other yukata that amefurift loaned to me (yes, NOW you can see Arashi quite clearly).
At one point, I managed to download the Caramel Dance song onto my iPod and played the music through the laptop I had for Japanese music. The kids proceeded to do the Caramel Dance song, much to the surprise of other students who had absolutely NO idea what was going on. It was quite hilarious!
They also stood in the middle of the hallway and sang/danced to Naruto's theme song, GO! They actually sang it in Japanese, which I was very proud of - but they kept repeating the only part they knew, which is one verse and one chorus. We'll have to work on that.
At long last, it was time to announce the winners. Basically, the best club table/area was picked by all the people in the hallway. They were given ballot forms and asked to rank which club they thought showed the best spirit.
You guessed it. WE WON!
VINDICATION!!
Although technically, we never competed with the Art Club on this because they didn't do anything. All they did was set up a table, put a bunch of artwork there, and left it unmanned.
Guess he was scared of the competition.
And a very late entry to boot, but I'm playing catchup today, since I finished redesigning my LJ layout.
Well, it's a saga of sorts because of what my club had to go through for "a win." My prior entries to this can be found here where you can read about the different doors we did in the past.
This year for Christmas we had more competition. A lot more clubs and classrooms were getting in on the action and were creating their own doors, but I wasn't worried. I had an awesome idea that I thought would be sure to win.
First, each student in my Japanese Club made an origami Christmas wreath. It consisted of 8 origami squares, folded simply and slipped into each other to form a circle/wreath. Then, the kids had about 10 different Christmas origami shapes, including reindeer, stars, snowmen, poinsettias, candy canes, Santas, bells, etc.
Then, I tackled a personal project where I created a large ornament from 30 individual pieces of origami paper. I made it with regular origami paper first, to see how it could be done, and then I used washi paper to make the final copy.
One of my students turned out to be an amazing anime artist, so he took a bunch of the snowmen that the Japanese Club members had folded and drew Naruto and Full Metal Alchemist character faces on them.
Finally, I took some metallic origami paper and cut out origami-based snowflakes.
The results were as follows:
This is what the door looked like when It was completed.
Here is a closeup of the snowflakes and that star ornament that I made. It took me nearly 2 days to complete that star because I kept inserting the folds incorrectly and having to gingerly pull it apart and start over again.
These are the anime snowmen. He was doing Naruto at first, but I specifically requested Roy Mustang because I adore him.
Richard ended up making Edward Elric as well. Here are the closeups of each one
With a door like this how could we lose?
And yet, we still did!
Okay, technically we came in second place (and I still got 2 free movie tickets for myself and free cupcakes treats for my club).
But the door that won first place was the Art Club, and I wish I'd taken a picture of it so you could see just how robbed we were. Their door looked like Christmas had thrown up on it. It was covered with paper, and then they had Christmas lights which blinked on it, as well as gold garland. Then, all around the walls of the door they had Christmas Cards the kids did with famous cartoon characters. Only they didn't draw these characters - they traced their outlines using an overhead light machine and putting the paper on the wall so they could trace the figures and then color them in.
The judges were students, which makes sense why my door came in second place. Because after the winner was announced, almost every teacher came to me and said they were shocked and thought my door was much better.
ROBBED I TELL YA!
And then, to make matters worse, the Art Teacher, who is a jerk to begin with, had the audacity to tell me, "Well, it looks like you had competition this time."
Seriously? He's going to rub it in like that?? Especially when he didn't deserve to win?
So it was officially war!
* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *
The next activity happened on Monday, January 31st. Schools here in NYC end their first semester in January and then start the second semester in February. The Monday before school opens again, teachers are supposed to have a Professional Development Day (read: day of torture with boring seminars). This year, the administration decided to Roundtables at that time.
My school is a project-based school. We try to put more emphasis grade-wise on projects rather than exams. Kids do the work, and then present their work to a panel of judges (usually other teachers) who grade their work based on a rubric provided by the project teacher. If they pass this stage, they can present at Roundtables where parents, other students, and other adults come to the school to see their work.
This year, in addition to Roundtables, we were going to have club booths set up also. Basically, any club could set up an area to promote their club - kinda like the culture festivals they have in Japanese schools. This time, though, the prize was free movie tickets for the entire club!
My students were GUNG-HO to win this! :)
The Saturday before we had a club trip where we went to New Jersey so that we could go to Mitsuwa (that Japanese supermarket that's there) and then, take a van ride back to New York City so we could do karaoke. During the end of our session, we plotted for Monday.
We ended up with a bunch of different things that we were going to do. First, one of my students suggested that we have a manga table, and a bunch of us agreed to bring in a few copies to "whet" the appetite of passersby. Next, I was going to set up a table with 2 laptops - one would be playing Full Metal Alchemist episodes and the other would have the JDrama Boss playing (because these are the two series we are currently watching in Japanese Club). Then, we'd have another computer that would be playing Japanese music in the background - Arashi included, of course! Next, I found out that 2 of our members are elite Pokemon players, so we set up a table for them to stand by and dispense advice on boss battles and such. I enlisted ktmonkeyj 's help by asking her for the Pokemon she'd already drawn and she graciously emailed two zipped files to me.
I was going to bring supplies to make fresh onigiri which we would sell, and then finally, I would set up an omikuji area for "New Year's Fortunes."
It turned out that I forgot FMA, so we only had Boss running, with Japanese music in the background. Also, I ended making all the onigiri at home - I realized that it would be too messy to try to make them on site. So I made 3 different kinds: Hawaiian (with spam in the middle), tuna (with furikake on the ends so I could distinguish them from the Hawaiian ones) and "vegetarian" onigiri (with simple nori/sesame seed fuikake and nothing inside the rice).
Some of the pictures didn't come out so great because I took them with my phone camera, having left my good camera at home.In the first picture, you can see the manga table at the end and barely see the laptop table with the music and JDrama showing. (if you look very carefully, though, you can see my Arashi Scene poster on the wall
I had the kids tape together 3 boxes and then cover them with black construction paper. I cut out the Japanese kana at home using my craft foam, figuring that the bright colors against the black would stand out nicely. And i was right!
The Pokemon pictures you see on that triboard were all drawn by ktmonkeyj ! Funny thing was, one of the math teachers came by and was staring at it a moment with a big grin on his face. He told me that he could name every single one on the board. I never knew he played Pokemon! (By the way, see the paper towel on the Pokemon table that has nothing on top of it? That's where the onigir was - we sold out in less than a 1/2 hour! Yatta!)
Finally, on the same table, we put the omikuji fortunes. Basically I covered a container at home with washi paper and with amefurift 's help on Saturday, "stole" some wooden coffee stirring sticks from Starbucks - well, I didn't really steal them since I /did/ buy a cup of coffee while there. I wrote numbers on each of the sticks, which corresponded with the fortunes
I pretty much stuck with simple and gave them only the one fortune (without all the other stuff omikuji has, like love life, financial situation, health, etc.). When I'd first envisioned this idea, I wanted to use a tree to tie the bad fortunes onto it, and to that end I borrowed a fake tree from my church - but it was HUGE!! There was no way I could bring it to school. But then, I came up with an AWESOME IDEA!
I had a laundry hanger at home that was wooden. I made banners on the sides of it, and then used it for the tying of bad fortunes. Neat idea, right? I was so proud of this one, to be honest. The kids had a blast. They explained how the omikuji worked, they answered questions about manga and Pokemon... we were a huge hit.
One additional thing, amefurift loaned some of her cosplay outfits to me. So I was able to lend them to my students to wear while they were manning the tables.
Noemi got the schoolgirl uniform, Sugey got the gothic lolita outfit (although she was so tiny, she was nearly swimming in it!) and Janet wore the yukata. I also had a bunch of be-ribboned cat ears and a Mokona hat for the other students.
Because it was close to Feb 3, I was able to buy an oni mask, which Ray used with the other yukata that amefurift loaned to me (yes, NOW you can see Arashi quite clearly).
At one point, I managed to download the Caramel Dance song onto my iPod and played the music through the laptop I had for Japanese music. The kids proceeded to do the Caramel Dance song, much to the surprise of other students who had absolutely NO idea what was going on. It was quite hilarious!
They also stood in the middle of the hallway and sang/danced to Naruto's theme song, GO! They actually sang it in Japanese, which I was very proud of - but they kept repeating the only part they knew, which is one verse and one chorus. We'll have to work on that.
At long last, it was time to announce the winners. Basically, the best club table/area was picked by all the people in the hallway. They were given ballot forms and asked to rank which club they thought showed the best spirit.
You guessed it. WE WON!
VINDICATION!!
Although technically, we never competed with the Art Club on this because they didn't do anything. All they did was set up a table, put a bunch of artwork there, and left it unmanned.
Guess he was scared of the competition.