owari!

The musical is finished with our last performance on Saturday and I happen to think it was the best. In total we made around 140 000 dollars for Papa New Guinea and the earthquake relief fund. It was a great time but I am glad it is over. The school year is coming to a close as well and many teachers will be leaving. For some ridiculous reason it is a huge secret if they leave and the rest of the staff is not made officially aware until the last day of school. I am leaving next week so I have been asking who is moving so I can give them goodbye letters. I invariably get the response " it's a big secret". It is absolutely retarded but anyhow was able to wheedle the names out anyhow. There are few I will miss but I on the whole I thinking out with the old in with the new hopefully young teachers! Most of my mind is on Thailand now though. I am going to Thailand next week and am twitchy thinking about it. It will be a bunch of firsts... 1st third world country...1st tropical climate..1st warm beautiful ocean...1st malaria (i hope not) I was going to say first time on an elephant but I remembered my circus days (not as a performer). Anyhow 6 day countdown!

graduation time again

I have to say this graduation was much more sabishi (sad) than last year. The group of kids this year were a great bunch and I will miss them alot next year! They made me cry more than once today and I have a slight headache to remind me. The ceremony was as boring as ever and it was a fight between succumbing to the chills or falling asleep. They sang a song at the end and there was a riot of tear. I think I would have been fine if they had not cried but I am a sucker that way. I often hear people say if they see someone throw up it causes them to throw up, I am the same with crying. If I see someone I care about or sympathize with cry I will often join them. A few student had been begging me to bake apple pie with them but there was never the right time, so I made pie and gave them all a piece( Japanese apple pie is quite tasteless). Koki, one of my favourites, proclaimed that he would keep my pie forever!

Be warned there is liberal use of the peace sign!

musical randomness

The musical is not all hard work there has been much partying and shenanigans that have accompanied our weekend practices and performances! Here are some...

Of course there is karaoke

and funny faces

and cold places
snowy times
and bad rhymes

crazy richie

and crazy spotlights

tweedle dumplings

and men in tights (with crazy little men on their shoulder)

an indian monkey with a southern accent

a contortionist and a clown hidden within

and sometimes perhaps a sense of chagrin!

more tokamachi

Here are some beautiful pics Melissa took of the stage and a candle display. Tokamachi is famous for kimono so there were a group of women all decked out and paraded in the finery!

winter paradise in tokamachi

We had the musical this weekend in the city that had been hit the worst in the earthquake. It was a free show because we are such caring and generous people. Apparently free means not worth attending and not very many people showed up plus it was absolutely freezing in the gym so it didn't end up being the best show on our tour across Niigata. After however we went to the Tokamachi snow festival which is noted as being the best or biggest or something est of Japan. Tokamachi is a small city in the mountains that receives the most snowfall on earth and so a snow festival is a clever way to make snow into money!!! They had tons of beautiful snow sculptures around the city and the festival routes were lighted by snow candle pillars. The stage was a massive castle that was made entirely out of snow (hopefully I can steal a picture of it from someone) and it pretty much snowed the whole time we were there. On the drive to Tokamachi Fiona and I stopped to see how high the snowbanks truly were and took some photo opportunities. These are not large piles made by snow plows but the actual height of the snow everywhere.
Unfortunately cleaning off the car in the morning was a bit of a pain. I was thanking god (and Fujita) for my four wheel drive since I was able to plow through while the others had to dig away every speck of snow.

My car has pretty straight sides and didn't allow much snow to gather. Jimmy was not so fortunate. That is a car under the pile and it had only been there since the night before.

we are famous!!!

The musical has been in the state/provincial paper three times now and I have had numerous people I know calling and messaging to say they have seen me in one of my various aliases! It is actually quite a feat considering last year the musical was pretty obscure and brought in so little money. Here is one article, for a taste of Japanese newspapers, and a moving moment from the musical!!

musical madness once again!

Perhaps against my better judgment I am part of the musical again this year. It is a great way to meet the new ALTs and get out of my town. Our play is cleverly named Alice in Japan (rather than Alice in Wonderland) and once against better judgment I am acting in it. The writing this year is quite clever and the acting on most parts is very good. I hope no one is offended if I say the set leaves much to be desired but there was little to work with. The amount of money we are bringing in this year is amazing! The first performance brought in more money than we did the whole of last year and our last show in Murakami was sold out! I think we are sitting close to the equivalent of $80 000 and we still have five shows left. I wish I had the money to go to Papua New Guinea with the rest of the group because I am sure it will be incredibly rewarding to give that money to the people. Anyhow some pictures of the show...

to stay or not to stay that is the question!

I am grappling with the decision to stay in Japan another year. I had thought my mind made up on staying even though most of my friends are leaving. I had attending a JET conference and now I am left with a sick feeling in my stomach whenever I think about the question. I am not going to go into the details of the pros and cons but I am afraid of the reverse culture shock if i leave. Apparently when leaving Japan (since the culture is so different from that of English speaking countries) many people go into an extreme reverse culture shock and basically begin hating their own cultures and countries. I was always really bad after I returned home at the end of summer camp and that was onlya week. I realize I have to return some time and I don't want to teach English for the rest of my life. This decision is anything but fun :(

finally finally snow

We finally had a few decent snowfalls in Mikawa though they continually melt. I am still disappointed since I was told to expect two metres of snow and the ski resort is in a constant flux of opening and closing since they don't manufacture any snow. The snowflakes here are so thick and beautiful though, that when they fall it is like a dream. I went for a walk during the last snowfall and took some pictures with my sad cell phone camera. Camera has still not recovered from the beer.
The big puddle of water is due to the street clearing system which consists of a strip of dribbling sprinklers that spread water along the street. Since it is winter I had worn winter boots and not rubber boots and my feet were slightly drowned by the time I got back.
My lovely car the morning after. To prepare for the snow everyone here puts up their windshield wipers at night, thus it is easier to clear off the snow!

no pictures

While home my camera took and impromptu beer bath and as such is not working now. I cleverly took out the data card thinking I could retrieve the pictures through another means but I have, true to form, lost the data card (I am sure it is in a safe place). Lovely, Melissa remembered that we had taken out a three year warranty on our cameras so I will attempt to dry my camera out in a bowl of rice and take it in to be repaired. Hopefully I can find my data card once my bags are completely unpacked. Pictures of New Years, ice fishing and more hopefully to come...