Actually, to be clear, Doug and John had a concert. They both play acoustic guitar, astoundingly well, and decided to pool their collective talent and sing their heart out for us. They performed at No Name Bar, a club for many a wearied traveler. They started the set Gloria Gaynor's "I Will Survive", and proceeded to sing Ben Harper and many other popular artists. But I think the crowning moment was when John took the lead and sang "Scrubs" by TLC, combining it with "Milkshake". There's nothing better than seeing a long-haired bearded gentleman singing:

I don't want no scrubs
A scrub is a kinda guy that gets no love from me
Hanging from the passenger side of his best friend's ride
Tryin' to holla at me

But then a third friend, Aroop, came all from the Shizuoka city to regale us with his voice, so he did the encore set and John joined in. All in all, it was a fun night down at the bar, and it was fun to see EVERYBODY again. It was a big reunion of foreigners. But it was fun, guys. Play it again, Doug and John!

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The 3rd years (9th graders) are off taking their annual school trip to Kyoto. I wish I could have gone with them, but alas. I could not. But, while the 3rd years are away, the kids will play! Instead, the 2nd years (8th graders) cancelled classes and played games. The girls played dodgeball, Japanese edition, and the boys played Kickball. Meanwhile, the 1st years (7th graders) were being very quiet on the top floor. When I went up there, they were all huddled over their desks completely quiet. They may be taking a test on this beautiful day.

What is the difference between Japanese and American Dodgeball? I'm glad you asked. In Japan, there is only one ball (but sometimes two balls) to dodge. If/when you get hit, you are sent to the other side, SO YOU CAN THROW BALLS AT YOUR OPPONENT'S BACK! That's right. There is no out as in "You can't play anymore, or at least until somebody on your team catches the ball." In the Japanese version, to keep everything fair and balanced and equal to all, the kid is sent to the other side of the court. If that kid catches a ball, he/she can throw it and get other people "out." So the strategy must be different in this game, as are the conditions for winning. The kids try to explain it to me in Japanese, but I have no idea what they're saying.

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I am sorry to you, my faithful readers, for my lack of updates. In addition to being wildly busy (which is NOT an excuse), my computer has had yet another problem. It seems that somehow I've managed to fry my video card adapter chip. My graphics card. I don't know. Maybe I kept it at too high a resolution. Whatever the reason, I was stuck with viewing my precious website, my lesson plans, and all my writings, in brilliant four color depth. Not four BIT color, which has 24 colors in it, but four. That's all. And the resolution was stuck so low that even a person with very bad vision could make it out easily.

Well, on the manufacturer's website, they had only one place in Japan that can do international repairs and it is is Tokyo. Great. The last time I had a problem with my computer, I just went back to the states and got it fixed. But here, I had no other option. I called them.

They were remarkably friendly and even spoke fluent English! I spoke in technical terms and they understood and communicated back. It was actually funny because I asked if they spoke English, they said "yes" and I continued to speak in Japanese (unless my vocabulary couldn't handle it). When I told them where I lived, they offered a pick-up service at my doorstep! Wow!

About a week later, I received the computer back with a brand new motherboard, again right at my doorstep. Add one more point to Japanese Customer Service.

Japanese Customer Service, 4,342,792. American Customer Service, 1 (They speak the language I need).

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The annual choir camp happened again this spring. We were taken to a hall in the remotest part of Japan, (or at least, Hamamatsu) up in the mountains, with forest all around us, and no reception on my cell phone. The wilderness, carefully modified to allow for a choir to sing and hone their music. This year was even more in the wilderness than last years, here. It was cool though, especially since this was the end of the cherry blossoms, so I could see one tree still with bare minimum of flowers on it. I wish there was more I could tell about it, but most people wouldn't care. We sang, we practised, I got no sleep that night, My voice was absolutely thrashed afterwards, the usual.

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After the last attempt to view the cherry blossoms, Tiffany and I decided to brave it again later, when it was a beautiful day without a drop of rain. We left her place in Kosai and went to a nearby temple where they had rows of cherry blossom trees. There we sat at a park bench and had a nice romantic picnic watching the wind blow through the trees. It was really nice and relaxing to sit there with Tiffany just watching. If I was a poet, I would know exactly how to phrase the feelings.

Afterwards, we walked up the hillside adjacent to the park and walked alongside the ridge, viewing Kosai from a high vantage point we had never seen before. It is amazing what a little exploration and adventure will get you! It was so cool to spend the afternoon just simply with each other in the stillness of the forest and temples. And the cherry blossoms were cool to view too! :)

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Welcome Back Students! Welcome to Junior High, 1st Years! Today, the students came back to school after their two week break, doing whatever it is that Japanese students do when they're not in school (play video games, study (WHAT?!), practice their club activity, and watch a LOT of television. On this day, they have the opening ceremony in the morning for the 2nd years (8th graders, although now 3rd years) who then go off to their homerooms and get assigned new ones. Wait. Let me explain that one a bit more.

In the Japanese school system, the students are divided into homerooms which are arguably the most important part of a students life. Everything centers around their homeroom. In fact, the teachers are the ones that change rooms, going into the student's homerooms, teaching, and leaving. The students stay in the same place unless they go to a specific class, like Science lab. Those bunsen burners might be a bit dangerous to carry around, as well as having fuel lines running to EVERY room. Other classes that the students go to are Music, Cooking, and Shop. At one of my schools, English Conversation (my class) gets its own classroom, but at the other, I go to their homeroom. Every homeroom has a teacher responsible, who acts more like a parent than just a teacher. These teachers are so busy with their homerooms, it's a wonder any of them would STILL want children. For example, if a student breaks the law, the police call their teacher first, then the parents.

So, at opening ceremony, the homerooms change for the next year. This way, the students can meet more kids in their classroom and mingle more, I guess. Anyway, after the opening ceremony, the students go back to their homeroom and listen to their homeroom teacher from last year. I don't know quite what they're talking about, but I guess it has something to do with working hard and taking care of each other. Anyway, at a designated time, all the students are given a sheet of paper with their new homeroom assignments and their new homeroom teachers. This would seem fairly innocent and no big deal. But then imagine this:

167 students, divided into 5 homerooms, spill out into the hallways WITH THEIR DESKS, scraping and pushing their desks into their new classroom where the homeroom teacher is awaiting them. Imagine a few students are so upset at this change and not being put together in the same homeroom as their friends that some of them actually start bawling and pleading with the teachers to change their placement. Imagine other students so happy to change homerooms that they start fighting with their new homeroom-mates as soon as they get into the room. It is definitely a fun, albeit totally chaotic, time!

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Because the choir is run similar to a small family (albeit a dysfunctional, deranged, but fun one), when of its members gets married, the rest of the choir is at the wedding performing.

And so, that is what happened to me. It was really fun and cool and I'm glad that we could make the bride's day so much. She was already really happy, but then I saw her singing along to us as we were wishing her a good future and a long life. We sangs songs from our last concert. It was also a glimpse into the Japanese wedding reception (which looked strikingly similar to an American one).

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I finally went to get my eyes checked. It's been a long time since I last went for a visit (7 years), and my contacts had run out. I had been using the same prescription for that long, but the prescription finally ran out (after the second year) and I decided to use this opportunity to get my eyes checked in Japan. What better place? What better time?

How stupid am I? Don't do anything medical in a foreign country when you don't speak the language! Unless it's an emergency that is. The battery of tests that they put me through, both of my patience and my eyes. There was no personal doctor visiting with me the whole time. Instead I was in a waiting room with a bunch of other Japanese watching a baseball game. When my number was called, I stood up and looked lost. The friendly manager pointed me to the first room.

This was a big open room divided into three major sections, another set of chairs to wait at, a line of machines designed to test the eye (and lenses) and another line of machines with the Japanese equivalent of "Which is clearer, this or this?"

The first test was easy. Wait and sit in one of those chairs. When they finally called me, they sat me down facing a machine. She said something like "Please, place your chin on the strap and look directly into the eyepiece." The image was just a road alongside grass. Rather peaceful. Tranquil. I can handle this. The road became blurry, then clear, then blurry, then clear. Then it stopped and the lady said it was finished. Cool! I sat back in the chair and waited for her to be done testing my glasses lens, determining what strength they were and how my eyes were reacting to them.

After that, she called me back to sit at the next machine. Thinking it was going to be the same, I eagerly sat in the chair waiting for the next tranquil picture. But the screen was blank. And then this little puff of air burst out into my eye. WHAT THE...?! Ouch! I recoiled in terror to what she did. She politely smiled and said to please put my chin back on the strap. I didn't like this anymore. I wanted to go home. I wanted to pretend this was over. She puffed air in my eye again. WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS TO ME?! She said something like we need to do this 3 times to each eye. 3 times?! At this point, I'm crying like a school girl afraid of what the ubiquitous they are going to do to me from here on. But I took their puffs of air and recoiled after each one.

After that, they sat me in another and put these goofy looking glasses on me. Then they placed different lenses in it and had me say which is better. Also, they had look at C's pointing in different directions. I had to say which direction the opening was pointing. I tried doing it in Japanese, but got tripped up on left and right, so I ended up pointing before they thought I was stone blind.

Then they herded me to another waiting area where I was to see a doctor about contact lenses. We stared dumbly at each other for a few minutes before she put me through a whole battery of tests too that measured my eye, how much it dialates, whether the eyes are covered in slime, everything. And this OTHER guy said something that I didn't understand, than shoved contacts into my eyes! He didn't let me put them in myself. I gotta say that it is a wierd experience to let somebody else put a contact lens onto your eyeball.

Then I met with the doctor again, and she asked me in Japanese how it felt with the contacts. I tried answering in Japanese, but I reached my limit, both in Japanese ability and my patience. I was exhausted. So I stumbled out in Japanese, "Well, in English, I..." And she cut me off saying, "English is ok." in English! And it occured to right then and there that if I was white like many of my friends here, the doctor would have gone straight to English to speak with me. But the fact that I'm a foreigner among foreigners, she didn't know where to start nor what language to try with me.

So I told her in English how it was with contacts, and she scheduled a follow-up appointment later on. Then the guy took out my contacts (Why, oh why, couldn't he let me do it?) and sent me on my way. But at least, I have new contacts!

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This year, Tiffany and I were invited to a sakura (cherry blossoms) viewing party by my choir. For those that aren't aware, the sakura blossoms are a momentous event in Japan. It signifies the end of winter and the beginning of spring. If you are into flowers and cherry blossoms, then this is the even you want to be in Japan to see.

Tiffany and I were, needless to say, very excited and looking forward to this party. She kept saying "Let the weather be whatever for a week, as long as it's beautiful on Sunday. Just let it be beautiful on Sunday.

It wasn't. It rained hard, but we forged ahead anyway to Hamamatsu Castle amidst the torrential downpour. When we arrived, the castle was beautiful in the mist, framed by the cherry blossoms. But there was no party. They sent me an email saying it was cancelled, but I never got it until Monday. Oh well. We had a nice romantic time sharing the cherry blossoms under an umbrella.

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In Japan, the school year starts in April and goes year round to March. So the Japanese students get about two weeks break before they have to start school again but one grade up. Also for some reason, Japansese schools change their teachers around in what I call the Great Shuffle. Nobody knows who is going where until the end of the term.

At one of my schools, I've lost five friends and colleagues to other schools or retirement. My principle, who has always been very friendly and helpful to me, is retiring. The 1st grade math teachers are leaving. The 3rd grade science and Japanese teachers too.

As is the custom in Japan, we had a very important (arguably the most important) enkai to attend, the goodbye enkai. Enkais, if you remember, are drinking parties where people can get sloshed but no career damage will ever be done. I've gone to many choir enkais in the past, but few school related ones.

It's amazing to me how many Japanese want to try speaking English with me. I speak Japanese to them, and they speak English, so together, our conversation consists of what our favorite colors and animals are.

There were many congratulations, thanks, and reminiscing about the previous year. They will all be missed.

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