It's that time of the year again! Tiffany's high school put on their school festival, but this year, for the first time EVER in the school's history, they asked Tiffany to present!

Let me give some quick background about this one. Every year, the students convert their classrooms (remember it's the teachers that change rooms, not the students) into some project and theme that they want to cover. They are given about $150 for supplies, but the rest comes from their own creativity. A lof of giant cardboard boxes and newspapers are used to supplement the low budget, but these kids come up with amazing displays, from shadow puppets to "time travel" to a monopoly style game. One class even brought in a bunch of little real goldfish for a game!

So it is this atmosphere that the kids clamor about and essentially, the school shuts down for it. Classes are long for the students who are just itching to work on their room to make it better than everyone else's. Usually the classrooms and some of the extracurricular activities are the ones the make the rooms, but this year, one of Tiffany's teachers approached and asked if she would like to use half of a room to showcase Arizona, her own art, and some of the students' art.

Tiffany jumped at the chance and proceeded to work very hard on her display. But how does one showcase Arizona (the last state that Tiffany lived in)? What to leave in and what to take out? And in what space? With half a classroom, Tiffany had a lot of space to deal with, but not enough to do everything she wanted.

I stood back and helped where I was needed (the guy stuff, lifting heavy objects, hanging things up high, etc.) but mostly just watched Tiffany transform this half classroom into an artpiece. It was cool! She made a Pink Jeep Tours car (a BRIGHT pink Jeep Cherokee that's apparently really famous in Arizona and Las Vegas), several cactii, a cardboard model of the Cathedral Rocks in Sedona, a nature trail, Lake Powell, Havasu Falls, and a casino where I taught her how to deal (and win) at blackjack!

The day itself, we spent mostly in her room, playing blackjack with all the students and teachers who entered. Tiffany also had a game of dice to play, but it was the cards that were the most fun. It was also a lot of fun for me to watch Tiffany talk to her students and to deal. Keep in mind, my readers, that usually, I only get to see my students and occassionally get to see other junior high students. And Tiffany teaches at a high school, so it was a treat for me to see how these kids grow up. In fact, one of Tiffany's students used to be one of my students!

Unfortunately, I cannot put too many pictures from the festival up simply because of Japanese policy. The students are "innocents" and therefore, their face cannot be shown on such a public medium as this site. Sorry!

Because apparently I have a lot of free time on my hands (I don't know WHY they think this, or if), my schools decided that it would be a good time to add more elementary schools to my schedule. So now in addition to teaching my own class to junior high, I now get to teach elementary students English. And at the elementary level, I am the ONLY person who speaks the language. Even the teachers are afraid of me! But the kids are great, albeit very tiring. I played basketball and dodgeball with them during the recess and for the first time in my life, I actually played these games/sports well! And I was the first chosen for the teams! Ah, it's great to relive my elementary days they way I wanted, popular and able, rather than what the reality was. It's like those old 80's milk commercials...

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Tuesday was Tiffany's birthday, folks, so all my loyal readers can take a pause for a moment and wish her a happy birthday! :) You could send her a card from the links page or just send her a quick email to her address, here. Unfortunately, she was feeling under the weather so we couldn't quite celebrate the way we planned (barbeque party). Also, I have just proven what a lousy boyfriend I am. I barely did anything for her for her birthday this year. Longtime readers will remember the MANY surprises that she had lined up for me(here), but I just didn't make the time to really plan everything out and go overboard like I wanted to. But she forgave me and we're happilly still together. :) But I did manage to get her birthday present, and I didn't flounder too much. I wanted to get her an MP3 player for her birthday so she wouldn't have to listen to CD's (and she's got about 17 GB of music from iTunes), so I went shopping with her to see which one she wanted. She reluctantly chose the 30GB iPod (her first priority was storage capacity), and rather than have me pay for the whole thing, she insisted on chipping in some. And within one weekend, it contains most of her music (maybe even all. We're working on transferring all the CDs she's brought over to MP3 format) so she can listen to it all wherever, whenever, and without the weight of cd's. And as of this writing, she really loves her iPod. :)

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So unbeknownst to almost everyone, I have been studying day and night for my kendo black belt test. The test consists of a few parts, which I was able to gradually understand because of the whole language barrier.

1. Kirikaishi, the warm-up routine.
2. Jikeigo, the sparring.
3. If that is all ok or if you score high on those two parts, you proceed on.
4. The written test, in Japanese and kanji.
5. The katas, or forms. These are like patterns

The first thing to remember is that in kendo, everything is done with a partner, chosen randomly at the time of the test. So, you warm up with a partner, then you beat him (or her. There ARE women in kendo) to a bloody pulp with your sword. Then you have a break at which point the judges decide if you're good enough to take the written test and then the form (kata) test.

The second thing to remember is that I am in Japan, doing a Japanese sport. Therefore, the expectation of English users should be incredibly low. And it was. The judges didn't speak a word of English and they were fairly humorless to boot. And yes, I was the only foreigner there. A few judges looked at me very worried and asked if I spoke Japanese, to which I responded, "a little". They smiled vacantly back.

For the previous month and a half, I practised every day. I wrote the answers for the test in Japanese everyday at least three times. At least three times a day, I practiced my katas. When the morning of the test came, I was prepared for them completely. I knew the Japanese backwards and forwards, and I could do the katas quickly and accurately.

And then it all came crashing down. I don't know what I did (because I wouldn't have understood even if they had told me) but somehow, I wasn't right. Maybe it was because I had too much hesitation because I didn't understand what they were saying. Maybe it was because I tripped at the last second and let my knee touch the floor. Or maybe it was because I didn't bow in the correct Japanese fashion. Whatever it was, I was not selected to take the written test or the katas, which I had relentlessly practiced. I was eliminated.

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