I think I'm becoming one of the guys...

Today was Undo kai renshuu, all day. Undo kai is Sports Day and renshuu is practice. And renshuu we did! Since I don't have a home-room, I don't have a bunch of kids to keep track of during the practice. This means I get to sit under a tent and chop it up with the P.E. coach and some of the other guy teachers that don't have home-rooms either.

That is where the fun begins...

Think typical guy talk, like you may have seen in Eighties Lowbrow Comedies, then convert it into a language that you barely understand, and you have my entire day. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed it, but it was funny then shocking then funny then shocking all day. It was like riding a roller-coaster, in the dark, for 7 hours: you are having fun but you can't see what's coming next and you think you might not like where it's going but then there's a little bunny and you feel safe again but the bunny hops away and a sleeping wolverine appears and you know he could wake up any moment and he hasn't been sleeping too well these days because he is going to lose his job to some punk kid that just graduated from college, so the wolverine will be really pissed when he wakes up to find that you aren't going to pay his mortgage. It was kind of like that, but in Japanese. It was called the Super Happy Nighttime Fun Death Ride!

The last time I as in Japan, I was introduced to an awesome cartoon, from MTV of all places, called "Usavich". It is about two rabbits in a Russian prison and their eventual escape and fugitive adventures. It is super funny and doesn't have any dialogue, which makes it easy to understand no matter where you live! I was pleased to find out it has become something a little bit big over here so a lot of my students have Usavich merchandise. They even use one of the characters as a prop for the Undo kai!

Kirenenko

Here are all the grades' props

The lady holding the green one is the lady on the green one. Trippy!

The boards are used as sleds. There are two ropes on the sled for pulling it and one rope on each slid acts as a handle for the rider. Here is a clip of all the action:

They also did a game where they run really fast with a log around a cone and then a teacher, then try to trip their classmates, then knock them out. What? You couldn't possibly visualize that? Here, let me help:

While we were trying to put some flags up across the sporting arena, I felt like taking a picture of the hard work that was being displayed. Then a couple of hams showed up and I was obliged to take their picture. When a camera comes out over here, people actually want to have their picture taken... weird...

Ham it up!

When all was done and said, I snapped a photo of the Field of Dreams from the teacher's room window:

The tarps are for the parents to sit on.

I am running in a relay tomorrow, on the teacher's team. We are running against the 1 Years. During my part of the relay my opponent is a girl. I hope I can beat her! The festivus starts at 8 but I get to be there at 7:30.

"Yay" for early mornings on Saturdays! On the plus side, there is going to be a giant party after the Undo kai that only the adults are invited to... :)