Weekend in Brief

Well, this weekend hasn't really gone as planned, but I'll give you a short update on how it has been so far.

Because of the rain and wind on Friday, Fuuta wasn't able to drive into the city to meet me. That was disappointing, but I still got to go to the informal enkai with the Board of Education girls. Elizabeth, Janis, Kathy and I ate dinner at a Vietnamese restaurant. It had awesome all-you-can-drink tropical cocktails. Dinner was great, and we got to chat about a variety of things. Afterward, Kathy and Janis took the last tram home. Elizabeth and I decided to stay out a little later, so we went to the Irish pub for another drink. I really enjoy talking to Elizabeth, so I was glad I got to spend a little more time with her.

On Saturday I didn't do a whole lot. I moped around the house until evening when I decided to go to the mall. With the coming of fall, I've started hunting for a pair of boots, and a week or two ago I had seen some boots that I really liked but was somewhat afraid to try on. So I went back to try them. As I had suspected, even the large pair were too small for my feet. I could get my foot in, but my weight would be too far back on the heel to walk normally. The heels were taller than I like anyways, but I probably would've overlooked that if they had fit better. While I was wandering around one of my favorite shops, I found some very cute tall boots with a low heel. They had them in several colors, and the large size fit perfectly. I ended up buying a pair in wine red. They're really beautiful, although I've realized they don't go well with much of what I own. Still, I'm quite happy with them.

Today I got up early to go to school, uncertain of whether the Sports Festival had been canceled or not. It had rained heavily Saturday night and was raining when I left for school on Sunday morning, so I figured the ground would be too muddy. Rather than canceling the festival outright, the school opted to hold two periods of class and wait to see if the weather improved. The weather did improve, so we started the Sports Festival about two hours later than originally planned. The sports field was kind of soggy, so they saved the foot races for later in the day when things would have had time to dry out a bit. I had hoped they'd skip the races entirely, since I don't find them all that entertaining, but they did go back to them later.

Sports Day this year was a lot the same as last year in that I didn't have any particular role. It was kind of funny; my supervisor from the BOE showed up to watch the beginning of the Sports Festival, and she seemed disappointed to learn that I hadn't been assigned to any of the teams (red, white or blue). She also noticed that I was standing around rather aimlessly, since at this point the teachers were pretty much leaving me to my own devices. After she had talked to me, I saw her talking with one of my English teachers, who soon after came and found me somewhere to sit. I spent the rest of the day sitting with the guests and visitors, which was a good enough deal since I was under a tent and had a chair to sit on. Of course, it didn't do much to alleviate my general feeling of uselessness, but there's not a lot to be done about that.

Sports Festival was considerably less interesting to me this year. Since the games and races were all the same, there wasn't a whole lot of novelty. I still enjoyed the cheerleading, and took some satisfaction in the white team taking first place for that event since I had gotten to watch them practice a few times. I also know more of the students this year (well, their faces if not their names) which made things slightly more interesting. I got to cheer for the two special ed students, who are among my favorite students at that school. But most of the day I was pretty bored. Since the events were done out of order, I had no idea how far we were into the program or when we would finish, which added to my frustration. It was particularly maddening when we approached 5 pm and I knew I was missing my bus because the Principal, student body leader and a random teacher all had to give speeches.

At the end of the day, the red team took first place, blue took second, and white took third in terms of points. From what I understood, the red team also won a cup for something or other. The white team won a cup for the cheerleading event. I thought it was well deserved, as their cheers were excellent (even without understanding all the words). The blue team, though they were in second place, was horribly disappointed and a number of the girls cried bitterly. One girl I noticed in particular as she was sobbing all through the closing speeches. I felt somewhat irritated at what I perceived as her immaturity, but I guess the issue is just that I can't see the Sports Festival from a student's perspective. As an ALT, it's more of a nuisance than anything else. The school rearranges the schedule for a few weeks in advance, shortening or skipping classes so that the students can practice for Sports Day. I can see having something like a Field Day, where the students get to enjoy games and physical activities outside, but not when you're sacrificing actual class time just to practice for it. But to the students it was obviously a very important event. I could see on their faces that they were really enjoying the games and races, and it must've been pretty significant if "losing" would reduce the girls to tears. And in some ways it got the delinquents more involved in school; the troublemakers who rarely even attend English class were some of the most involved in the cheerleading event.

Anyhow, I suppose it's pretty obvious by this point that I didn't enjoy the Sports Festival all that much. I wish I'd been assigned to go to the one at my small school instead, because I feel like there's actually a place for me at that school. But I'm not so regretful as to stay in town next weekend to attend their Sports Festival of my own initiative.

The rest of the weekend: Tomorrow is a national holiday, and I have Tuesday off as compensatory leave for going to school today (Sunday). I'm thinking of going to see a horror movie called Rabbit Horror tomorrow. It looks to be pretty strange. Other than that, I'm not sure what else I'll do. There are typhoons coming, and the weather might be bad on Tuesday. If it is, I'll probably just hole up in my apartment for the day.