(Me with some of the cast of "Who Moved My Cheese?")
The Hakuoh Festival this year was from 11/1 to 11/3. I don't know of anyone else (a exchange student anyway) that was as busy as I was during the festival, but it was fun, but exhausting.
My preparations began pretty early for the festival. I recently fully joined ESS, but the other members were already going through the final rehearsals of the play. I originally had nothing to do with the play until one day when I was in the classroom ESS sometimes uses for meetings during lunch, Glenn rushed in and told me that Keita (one of the members that is doing the play) was in the hospital with a sore throat and didn't know if he would get better in time for the play. I would probably be the only person that probably could learn all the lines be the time they would have the play (he asked me on Monday and the first performance was to be on saturday of the following week). He later received a call from Iyo saying that he would be able to do the play, so I wouldn't have to replace him. However, I decided to learn his part anyway just in case something happened to him. I decided to attend most of the ESS practices of the play. Considering that I just entered ESS and the play is the main thing they do during the year, they appreciated any help they could get. I shot several practices for them as the practiced with the real stage the day before the play. I only could attend the Saturday performance though. At the last minute, Glenn decided to cast me and another 4 year that also had arrived the previous day before as extras in one scene, though. I was surprised.
(The entire cast including Glenn from Who Moved My Cheese?)
My other involvement was with a club I seem I have "abandoned", Kyudo. I haven't been to a practice once since I had the training camp in September. I don't know if I am actually busy or just saying I do not want to practice, but I really have let myself down in that department. I should go more often when I do get breaks, but of course because I am behind everyone else I will have to work at my own pace. It seems though in the later part of the semester all there really is to do in the club is go to events and have tests or competitions, which because of my level of ability I couldn't bother myself with going, but I should have went anyway.
(Rin taking a shot at the Kyuudo booth. He's kakkoii "cool" in this picture)
Enough is with the past however, I decided to help my original club I entered when I first came to Hakuoh after running into Mitsue and then the group the day before Friday (a holiday to prepare for the festival). Of course, like with most events Kyudo does it's usually at the break of dawn. Basically the kyudo booth had targets and normal people that came to the booth had a chance to use a real kyudo bow to aim at the targets and win prizes. Of course the shooting style for the customers is vastly different than kyudo (and they are not fully pulling the string either). I actually got to use the bow here too, with a bow and arrow. The tension of course was the lowest setting possible for the bow, but yet in the end it was still kind of hard to do.
(A shot from above the kyuudo booth, taking from the room where the play was taking place)
The last club I was involved with was SAP or Study Abroad Programs at Hakuoh. Tomo told me that they wanted Keleih and my help because we are both exchange students from the US and that they were trying to have a Halloween themed party so, we already have had experience with the holiday. The day before the prepping day I carved a pumpkin for the first time. It was strange to never do it before in the states, but to do it here in Japan were pumpkins of a normal "American" size cost $10 or more. I couldn't think of really any costume, so I bought a mask of the great daibutsu and decided to scare the crap out of people using this mask.
(Look at the tools I was using to carve this thing. Kitchen knives. The black is from the calligraphy pen I accidentally used to make my lines, it made a mess everywhere)
(Gary with the finished carved pumpkin!)
(Hahaha, some people and I at the SAP booth. Yes, I was wearing that hideous mask with my kyuudo uniform)
(I really like this picture of Eiko and Yukari; it is also the only one I have of both, as both normally hate having their pictures taken. But, it was a festival~!)
We made a few parades during the course of a few days, and I have to say it was pretty successful for the group. On the last day, there was a fireworks display from the main baseball field and it was pretty amazing. I felt way too busy during the entire time and I should have also helped the Exchange student's booth, but I decided not to. Mostly because I wouldn't have had as much fun if I was only there and instead of doing other things with other people. Plus, with the American exchange students here at only two, and the other student having no connection with anything with the festival, it's kind of hard to enjoy things when majority of the exchange students would be speaking in their native language.
(The sign that was used by the International Students booth)
(Everyone that was helping cooking at the International Students booth)
2 comments:
So Keleih is still totally not talking to anyone, huh? And yet she didn't come back to the States? I really thought she would have, if she was so unhappy there.
How are things going? You hardly ever update and sometimes I get curious of what's happening. Yonogi hasn't talked to me at all since I came back besides an e-mail or two. Have classes continued to suck? Did you guys get to change what you were doing? How is Keleih faring, or has she dropped out entirely? I don't think she's updated her blog since August.
I hardly ever update because I really don't have time to update. I will try to make the best effort to finish writing for the rest of the blogs I have to catch up on, plus the newer ones I have to write so I stay on top of things this winter break.
Don't let my final paragraph suggest Keleih isn't talking to anyone. She's just as busy as I am (albeit I am involved much more at school because of the free time I have to stay at school). She's got the previous situations under control, but since she got a boyfriend (she met him in Tokyo, and he's British) she spends most of her time with him on the weekends so I hardly see her outside of class and such unless we go do something together. Yoshiko has been nearly the same, busy with work and on weekends spending time with Marco. I spend times doing things with my Japanese friends or Rin and the new Taiwanese.
Lately, the classes aren't as bad anyway. Keleih is getting private lessons in Tokyo to supplement the ones Hakuoh is doing. We've both made a conscious effort (with several of my Japanese friends and the other exchange students as well) to basically make the program better for the people coming in after us. We realized that if we just used the "final evaluations" we fill out when we return to the school, they probably wouldn't get read by the people that need to read them to set in motion improvements. We made a special effort (Keleih and I) to get in motion improvements so that instead of us being used for English, we should have the same chance to use the students (in a tutor-like program) to improve our Japanese. Honestly, language lounge died this semester, and it's because many English teachers dropped what Miller was doing for the program. It needs to be revamped or removed, if it can't be improved.
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