Bunkasai - School Festival

I was literally blown away by bunkasai (school festival). This was my first bunkasai in Japan so I didn't really know what to expect. Months of planning and weeks of preparation late into the night went into making this year's "Revolution" bunkasai a complete success. Classrooms were transformed into themed cafes, game and quiz rooms from Disney to Pokemon and everything in between. Every club was represented with performances and displays. Even the English club performed our own version of Pinnochio, called "Pinoccho", live for the entire school. It was a big comedic hit, I think! ;)

Bunkasai was two days. Friday, June 6th was just for GONAN students and faculty to enjoy. I spent most of my time in the gym watching the talent shows, which is obvious because of my love for music. We have so many talented singers, musicians and dancers here! At the end of the first day we all gathered together to watch more performances, like English Club, Brass Band Club and all the 1st Year Homerooms perform their song. Something I was most impressed with was how every student showed their support for every act. They cheered, applauded and encouraged them. I love the unity and genuine support that Japanese high school students have for each other.

Saturday, June 7th was open to the public. There weren't many talent acts that day as everyone enjoyed walking around the school and visiting the different attractions each classroom had. Also, my friend Jill who is the ALT at Gotemba High School came to visit! I didn't take as many pictures as I wanted because I was primarily filming, but I hope you enjoy these few! I'm already counting down the days until the next bunkasai!

                                              

hOppy easter!

Sunday, April 19th was Easter in America, so we had some Easter fun in English Club to celebrate the Holiday!

First, we played an egg relay game in the classroom. Since we were indoors, I told the students to be careful not to drop the eggs because if they did, there would be a big mess and they would have to it clean up! What I didn't tell them was that I had already hard-boiled all of the eggs so if (when) they did fall, it would be ok. The students, however, thought the eggs were raw! They were SO careful not to drop any of them!

The game went pretty well for the first 10 minutes until all of a sudden, a group of girls screamed and jumped back about 5 feet as an egg dropped to the ground off someone's spoon. They paused and there was silence for several seconds while they processed that their dropped egg hadn't splatter. We all laughed. They were so surprised!

After that, we all colored Easter Eggs! When all the eggs were colored, it look as if the Easter Bunny had visited, for sure! This was also the first time the new first year students joined us for Club. I think everyone had a good time in English Club for Easter!

GMBB!

On Sunday, March 23rd, the Gotemba Minami Brass Band Club held their annual concert. Which to me, was more like a HUGE production than just a "concert". It was amazing! It was not what I expected at all!

In America, when you go to an orchestra concert, the audience expects to sit still for about 2 hours, listening to classical music by students who are superglued to the floor with their instruments. It's very boring for everyone involved... both players and family/friends. Take it from me... I played the bass in an orchestra show once in high school. Notice I said, "once". 0_o

So, you can imagine my surprise when the GMBB Concert had a light show, Disney Princesses and Princes coming to life (in full costume), dancing Baseball Club members, comedy routines, a GMBBBoys Club, dancing, JPop Best and glow sticks. Not to mention the video montage to introduce all the members and the posters and pictures out in the lobby which made it all seem like one big family gathering.

I was also surprised to see so many students and teachers coming out to show support for their friends and fellow classmates. All the major clubs were there and I saw so many students. Even graduated students, and students from other schools. On a Sunday. The middle of a Sunday. This would never happen in America. I know... I've done countless years of School Choir productions. It's only ever the parents and grandparents that attend.

Japan never ceases to impress and amaze me. The more I'm here, the more I realize the rest of the world has a lot to learn from its example.

The Gotemba Minami Brass Band Concert was a great day. I can't wait for next year!

I don't have as many pictures as I would have liked. I found myself just enjoying the moment rather than focusing on taking pictures of everything. But, I hope you enjoy the pictures I do have :)

Why, yes, that would be a disco ball up there ;)

This is one of the posters from the lobby. It's the First Year's poster!

Even the curtain was amazing! haha :)

GMBBBoys Club!

You aren't seeing things. That's Aladdin with his lamp and the Genie!

The Great Postcard Exchange

We wanted to do a pen pal activity but with 205 students all writing a post card at once, the proper avenue was hard to come by. However, I managed to find "The Great Postcard Exchange" from doing a bit of online research. The Great Postcard Exchange was originally created by a librarian in Wisconsin in the USA in order to get library kids across the country writing postcards to each other discussing books and other reading related topics. I emailed the program director and long story short, Gotemba Minami Kookoo began writing postcards to kids in the US!

We got our first one back the day before our last class! It was sent to Keisuke in HR13! Everyone was pretty excited!

Funny faces ;)

Winter at GONAN

It has been one long and COLD winter here in Gotemba! On Valentine's weekend, we got 85cm of snow! That's 3 feet for all you metric system people. Over a month later there were still small piles of snow around town. It's been warm (Gotemba-warm) the passed two days so I think MAYBE all the snow is gone by now.

A friend and I visited the school the day after the snowfall.

So much snow, but Mt. Fuji sure looks beautiful!

 You can't even tell there is a tennis court and a handball field under all this snow!

Clearly, you can see how happy I am to be shorter than a pile of snow... 0_o

Christmas in 1D-land!

Santa's Elves visited 1D! No, not One Direction "1D", our classroom, 1D! The Elves decorated for Christmas! I guess you could say it was a Christmas 1-D-land! (Good joke, right?) ;)

The above picture is my somewhat successful attempt to shape some of the Christmas cards the students made into a Christmas Tree. It sort of works, right?! 

Anyway, we had a few Christmas lessons, and then right before Christmas, we watched "A Charlie Brown Christmas" so they could be both entertained (Snoopy is very popular here) and get some "true meaning of Christmas" insight from Linus. The girls loved this movie. I also showed some of Jim Carrey's, "The Grinch" to the students... the boys loved this one.