In a parallel universe, I update my blog every day. Part I. November 15, 2009
Posted by Earthdragonette in Apologies, Dance Troupe, Just Bizarre, Student Moments, Taking Initiative.Tags: culture festival, d.j. ozma, d.j. ozma jr., dance practice, Dance Troupe, elementary students, fall term, fievel, ice cream, Japan, Japanese, michael jackson, my little monkey, Rocko, thriller
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Unfortunately, that universe is so close to me, and yet so far away. Following Brian Greene / Elegant Universe – esque jargon, that universe and my universe are slices of cosmic bread on the cutting board of reality. Unfortunately, those slices are completely oblivious to each other, except in a vague way that occasionally inspires the bittersweet and humbling taste of guilt.
It’s sort of what I feel whenever I forget to answer e-mail (also one of my well-known vices…)
Ahem.
So, welcome back! How are you today?
Things have been quite busy, as usual. Let’s skip the chitchat and get down to business. I have 26 memories that need to be announced and elaborated on. To break it up a bit, and keep things from getting too long winded (too late…), I’ve got ten listed here, another ten listed in Part II, and the last six (AS WELL AS AN ABSOLUTELY FASCINATING ANNOUNCEMENT) in Part III.
Apologies as usual for the “Lists and Lists Galore” method of blogging that I seem to be embracing. ^_^;;
Here we go!
#1: October 21st: Dance Practice Hilarity
This was a dance practice that we held before a pretty substantial festival that we went to the following weekend. We all already knew the dance that we were going to do (D.J. Ozma’s Macchibo), and so we spent two hours sitting around, talking, and occasionally practicing the dance. At one point, we decided to work on our timing, and so we did the dance while standing in a circle. This was hard for me, though, because seeing everyone else dancing mirror-image fashion really confused me. I pointed this out, and one of the troupe members turned around and did the dance with his back to me, thus prompting a flurry of comments about his backside and me complaining just so that he’d turn around and give me a chance to look at it.
-__-;;;
There are times when I wish I didn’t understand Japanese. Although the whole thing was, admittedly, pretty hilarious.
#2: Fievel VS My Little Monkey Saga: Part I
As I pointed out in an earlier post, Fievel is becoming bolder, and I began to wonder at one point he and My Little Monkey would run into conflict with each other. I was right to expect some overlap, but surprised that Fievel is turning out to be the winner in the Epic Battle for Julie’s Love and Attention. The thing about My Little Monkey is that, while he is a persistent little monkey, he is also easily distracted, and if I don’t respond to his demands/requests/questions/comments/concerns RIGHT WHEN HE HAS THEM, then there is a chance (however slim) that he will lose interest in me and go off somewhere else.
Fievel, however, is constant, and never, EVER loses interest. Every possible break that exists in the school’s schedule, he darts to my side, English sticker card in hand. And he doesn’t leave. Come rain or hail or sleet or snow, the child simply refuses to go.
(Sorry about that.)
Seriously, though, he is, at present, the victor in the Fievel VS Monkey battle, if only because he just never gets up and eagerly seizes on any spare moments of attention that My Little Monkey’s absence allows. Also, he gets bonus points for being infinitely lighter than the Monkey, so I’m more willing to entertain his requests to be carried around.
You know, there are some days where I wonder if I mightn’t be a jungle gym.
#3: Disturbing Yet Heartfelt Movies are Disturbing Yet Heartfelt
I’ve been hanging out a lot with Rocko lately, and so he took the opportunity a few weeks ago to show me some of his favorite movies. One of them, It’s All Gone Pete Tong, was one of those movies that I started out kind of disliking, but then fell in love with. It’s, more or less, about a drugged out D.J. that loses his hearing and eventually finds a path to a redemption of sorts. It was extremely interesting, but one of those films that stayed with me for a while. Rocko felt the need to show me Children of Men the day after we watched It’s All Gone Pete Tong, and so by the time I went home that weekend, I was kind of in a state where I questioned my existence and the value of reality.
Because, you know, that’s what you do sometimes.
#4: A Significant Way That The Universe Wins: Baskin Robins Is In Japan
And not only that, but I was able to get Halloween flavors. Although, to be honest, I like their regular chocolate flavors better.
That’s pretty much it. I just like ice cream.
#5: Serious Bonding With the Dance Troupe
October 25th, the troupe all piled into a couple of cars and we drove down to Owase to celebrate the seventh annual Kumano Kodo festival. It wasn’t all that large, but there were a really large number of dance troupes there, so I was able to see a lot of different dancing styles throughout the day. There were some that were obviously influenced by Chinese dance styles, and then one group did a pretty respectable version of Michael Jackson’s Thriller (I was particularly fond of that one).
The day was really, really cold and rainy, though, and so when we weren’t dancing (we had a three-hour break at one point), we all huddled inside one of the buildings, ate festival food, talked, and occasionally napped. It was really relaxed and reminded me a lot of the trips that I went on when I was in band in high school. I also spent some time with D.J. Ozma Jr. – we played cards and, at one point, played catch with a ball that was in the shape of Doraemon’s head.
#6: Culture Festival Preparations Are Fun
The culture festival for my middle school was on Halloween, and so the week up to it we were all busy trying to clean and decorate the school, finish art projects, put the final touches on musical performances, and occasionally sleep. Every year that I’ve been in Japan, I’ve done a performance with the music club, but since the club doesn’t really exist anymore, I haven’t been doing anything this year. This left me with a little (a very little) free time, and so I was able to spend my afternoons wandering around and helping various student committees.
My favorite afternoon was the one that I spent with the student government. Every year, the school puts together a huge mural of 105 individual sheets of paper that, together, make a large and elaborate design (the art teacher likes me, and so I always get to do a piece of the mural, too). Anyway, the student government is responsible for assembling this to some extent, and I decided to help them out. It took us a couple of hours to tape everything together and get it ready to transport to the gym, but we had a really great time together. They’re all intelligent, somewhat quiet second year boys, but they were super lively when we worked together. We spent a lot of time joking around in English and Japanese. (They really surprised me with how much English they wanted to use around me).
It was an unexpected and lovely afternoon.
#7: No, Really, I Enjoy This
I must, because the week before the middle school culture festival, I averaged about 3.5 hours of sleep per night. This was due to trying to get my part of the mural finished, to practicing a dance that I performed for the students, to staying on top of my work, and also to doing some extra special Halloween-related preparations for my elementary schools.
God, I love coffee. And my students.
#8: Darkness falls across the land…
So, every year, I show my first year JHS students Michael Jackson’s Thriller. It’s short, sweet, and relatively easy to understand even if the students don’t have a Japanese translation in front of them (which I did provide them with this year, but still).
This year, though, my first year students have a very special, very intense love for the King of Pop. I think that knowing about him before his death made that unfortunate event more meaningful. It seems to me that they hold him as some kind of symbol of the English world and the link that they have to it. He’s their favorite artist to watch, and every time they see the projector set up for class, they hope that they’re going to see another one of his songs.
Anyway, given this interest, I decided that this year, I wanted to make the Thriller lesson a little more extensive and interesting. So, after we watched the music video, I gave them a copy of the spoken section (the part where Vincent Price scares everybody … ever). You know the part:
Darkness falls across the land
The midnight hour is close at hand
Creatures crawl in search of blood
To terrorize y’alls neighborhood…
I told the students that they had to memorize four lines of it and recite it to me for a speaking check. The bonus for them was that for every extra line that they memorized, they would receive two extra credit points. At first, the students were skeptical – although I made the worksheet in such a way that they could read the English words, they didn’t understand a lot of them, and I think that the idea of a recital really made them nervous.
But, they pulled through, and quite well! The activity turned out to be surprisingly popular – especially because they got to chant about blood, death, and zombies (which are all subjects that teenagers enjoy to some degree). (One student did manage to memorize the whole thing…)
I was vastly entertained whenever I heard them practicing in the hallways during cleaning time. It was particularly funny because as soon as one student would start, others would join in. I’m only half-joking when I say that at one point I began to have serious concerns about my students inadvertently raising the dead.
Luckily, though, that does not seem to have happened.
#9: I Turned My Kids into Animals
Halloween really is a great time of year for English lessons. As you saw earlier, it gives me an opportunity to be slightly wackier and more creative than usual.
This year, I switched my curriculum around so that my first and second year elementary students would be studying animals during the month of October. This was the perfect backdrop to, well, dressing up like a witch, turning on some Disney Parade music (which all of my students identified before the first measure had finished), and “casting a spell” that turned them into a variety of animals. It was something that my music teacher did when I was in first and second grade, and I thought that my students would like it, too.
I turned out to be right, although I’m still fending off questions as to why I drive to school when I claim to be able to fly on a broom. Children are such curious little beings, aren’t they? They also don’t forget anything.
#10: I Also Wore a Gypsy Costume
This was part of my strategy for the activity described in #9. With a few modifications, it easily doubled as a witch’s costume. I was really nervous about wearing it to school, though, because it looked pretty ridiculous to me and I thought that my schools might object to it on the grounds of it looking unprofessional.
Imagine my shock, however, upon discovering that all of my co-workers loved this dress. I guess they thought it was really cute, and they told me that it was the kind of outfit I should feel free to wear every day. I walked around for two days feeling like a small, vulnerable puppy dog that everybody wanted to take home with them. It was surreal, and just goes to show how this country can still surprise me – even after almost three and a half years.
Monkey Up! October 18, 2009
Posted by Earthdragonette in Apologies, Dance Troupe, Julie Gets Philosophical, Just Bizarre, sports festival, Student Moments.Tags: dance practice, Dance Troupe, elementary students, fall term, festivals, field trips, fievel, hannah montana, Japan, Japanese, late posts, old middle school, Rocko, sports festival, The Savant, typhoon
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The blog! It’s alive!
IT’S ALIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIVE!
So, hello and welcome again after 12 days of Silence. Since I last posted, we’ve enjoyed the following:
~ A swine flu outbreak in my middle school that shut us down for an entire week
~ A typhoon
~ A field trip to The Ghetto Version of Epcot (Still fun, though!)
~ Not one, but two nearly three hour dance practices
~ My first and second festivals dancing with the troupe
~ Intense Apartment Cleaning
It’s kind of funny, because I have the beginnings of ten posts in my drafts folder. I really was trying to get caught up, but Life is a Finicky Creature and I just couldn’t pull things together before it became demanding and I was forced to abandon my efforts to take it for a walk.
For the moment, however, I’ve managed to distract Life for a while, and it’s off in the corner gnawing on its chew toy. It’s going to want play again in around an hour, but until then my friends, it’s just you and me.
I’ve been trying to figure out the best way to go about getting us all caught up. I hesitate to go into long, drawn out Paragraphs About My Life, because I really want to keep the blog from becoming bogged down by my every day activities (which really are very ordinary). So, what I think we’ll do, is stay true to form. This blog is about Collecting Memories, as it were, and we seem to be lacking twelve of them.
So, I hereby present to you twelve memories from the past twelve days!
(In no specific or meaningful order. I’m just writing them as I recall them.)
1) Monkey Up!
The title of today’s post, and most definitely deserving of some Context.
You may perhaps recall the character that I’ve named My Little Monkey. He’s loud, he’s persistent, and he’s convinced that I am a jungle gym.
Well, recently (I think he started this around October 7th), his new thing is to use English to tell me what he wants. Specifically, if he wants a piggyback ride then he says to me, “Julie! Monkey up!” He then attaches himself to my back for, oh, I don’t know – 20 minutes or so? During that time, his favorite thing to do is rest his head on my shoulder and mock the other children who come to talk to me in English. On one hand, it’s kind of rude and ever so slightly obnoxious, but on the other hand, it’s pretty funny and he ends up learning a lot of new English as a result. Anyway, as soon as we’ve had enough of Learning, he taps me on the shoulder and says, “Julie! Monkey down!” and then goes about his business. This has been entertaining me for the last twelve days.
2) Why yes, there was a typhoon
I live in the mountains, so I don’t tend to get all that worried whenever a typhoon heads toward my village. I grew up in Florida, and so I have a Fondness for storms. Whenever one approaches (preferably with Lots of Thunder and Lightening) I buckle down and enjoy the tangible feeling of Mother Nature’s Snark. On this particular occasion, my town was worried because it looked like we were going to be hit directly. So, I got to leave work early on Wednesday. I stocked up on some non-perishables and liquids, put up my storm windows, and snuggled with a blanket in front of the computer. At some point, Rocko called me, and we celebrated the storm via Skype. Isn’t technology wonderful??
3) And swine flu as well
So, this started on October 6th. I walked into school and over the course of the morning we discovered that five of the second years were at home with The Flu of Satan. By the end of the day, the entire second year class had been sent home, and then by the end of Wednesday, the first and third year classes were gone as well. All three classes resumed their normal schedule last Tuesday (Monday was a holiday), but we still have some kids out. I am convinced that I’m going to get this disease, since it’s at the elementary schools as well and thus I’m exposed to it every single day of the week. In addition, most of these children getting sick are the ones who enjoy climbing on my back.
Oh, well. It’s nice to go into the holiday season contemplating illness.
4) Field trips are fun
After postponing the fall field trip on account of Rampant Absences and Typhoon, we finally had our chance to go out and about last Wednesday. I went with the first years to Little World, a small theme park outside of Nagoya that really does aspire to be some kind of Epcot Center. It’s essentially a 2.5km circular road with small areas scattered around it that are dedicated to various countries. Some areas are more elaborate than others, but generally each area has a building, store, and/or restaurant associated with a given nation. Last Wednesday marked my third trip to Little World, and my game plan was simple: walk into the park, dash to Germany, find a bench, and read Anna Karenina while waving to my students as they wandered by.
Unfortunately, I didn’t plan on Hannah Montana and Co. They kidnapped me as soon as we got into the park and through a series of tricky and devious acts, convinced me to walk around with them the entire day. So much for Russian literature.
Still, I got to eat a taco, some pizza, and some gelato, and that was exciting. I also picked up not-easily-obtainable foreign food, and I enjoyed that, too. At one point, Hannah Montana stole my iPod and spent about half an hour examining the R&B list. I think I might be on the road to getting her away from Sugary Pop Music. We can only hope.
5) The Savant likes to break things
We haven’t mentioned him in a while, but he is still among us – causing trouble and asserting that He “MUST MAKE PEOPLE HAPPY.” Recently, his cleaning group has moved to a set of bathrooms on the first floor of the school, and they are as unproductive as (if not moreso than) they were when they were supposed to be cleaning outside. I try to stay away from them at least 2/3 of the time, though, because as soon as I show up it looks like I’m to blame for them not actually cleaning what they’ve been assigned to clean.
The first day that I went to hang out clean with them, The Savant got it into his head that he needed to use a wooden broom to show me how great his batting form is. What he didn’t count on was the broom being kind of weak – it snapped into two pieces the moment he swung it through the air. We spent about ten minutes arguing as to whether or not he should fess up to the Vice Principal:
Me: No, I will not tell him for you.
The Savant: BUT I’M PERFECT. YOU MUST.
Me: You broke the broom
The Savant: NO.
Me: Uh, yes?
The Savant: NO
Me: Uh, yes?
The Savant: Maybe, Julie, YOU broke the broom!
Me: Oh, don’t even think about going there.
And so forth and so on. Eventually, he was persuaded to To the Right Thing, and he was only mildly chastised for his mischief. I thought the whole thing was hilarious.
6) and 7) It’s a good thing I like dancing
Because it seems to be the main thing I’ve been doing recently. We had our practice canceled on the night of October 7th because of the typhoon, but we rescheduled it for the following Sunday so that we could get our routine down before Monday’s festival. The festival was in a town (city? kind of a city? a very small city?) about an hour to the south of us, and although not very large, it was definitely very cute. I had my debut there, and overall I think that things went well. I’m definitely a Curious Item, being a Foreigner and thus a Celebrity, but it seems to be a good thing for the group, so I’m glad I can help.
So we’ll dedicate one memory to Sunday’s and Wednesday’s practices, because both really are a blur in my mind. They both lasted almost three hours and I thought I was going to die by the time that I got home. Still, because last Wednesday’s practice took place after my official welcome, I noticed that the mood was significantly warmer towards me (not that it was ever cold). I actually feel as though I’m a part of the team now, and I really enjoy that.
The second memory we’ll dedicate to the two festivals, as they were both part of My Dancing Debut. Last Monday’s was my General Debut and then today’s festival was my Town Debut. Last Monday’s was fun, but today’s was significantly more personal. My students were super excited to see me dancing, and I had a lot of them come up afterwards and drag me around the festival to see their favorite foods or to meet their parents.
Also present, to my delight and entertainment, were a large number of The Really Horrible Third Year Class from three years ago. They were also amused to see me and tried to say horrible, mocking things about my dancing. What they didn’t count on was that I can actually understand their Japanese now, and I snarked back at them in not one, but two languages. I think we both enjoyed that, and it entertains me that they still have an interest in crossing swords with me. I told them point blank that they were horrible children (except for the girls), and I think that won me points. We spent a great deal of time together.
8) Rocko indulges my whimsical notions
Two Fridays ago (so, right after the typhoon), Rocko invited me to his neck of the woods for homemade curry and so that we could investigate this international bar that he’d discovered. I’m torn about this experience, because there are two memories that I really like from it. The first was just the conversation that we had – Rocko is a very interesting person to talk to. He’s really good about listening to other people’s opinions as well as clearly explaining his own perspective.
The second memory (which is more in line with the way that I’ve titled this section), happened the following day. The weather was absolutely gorgeous and I had a fanatical desire to find a swing set. Although we had to walk twenty minutes, Rocko managed to produce one for me and I got to be five years old again. ^___^
9) A new character! Introducing: Fievel
If you’re familiar with the movie An American Tale, then you will also be familiar with Fievel, the main character. He’s a shy, mischievous mouse and through the course of the movie he becomes brave and self sufficient. This is a lot like one of my students at my Thursday elementary school, and one of my New Favorite People on This Earth.
This student is currently a third grader, but I really only noticed him last April, when his class started the “Talk to Julie and Get Stickers and Eventually Prizes” program. He is one of the smallest, sweetest looking children I’ve ever met, and last April he was also Painfully Shy. I could tell that he wanted to talk to me, but it was very difficult, and he always spoke in a very soft, hesitant voice.
Still, despite the shyness, over the last six months, he has been without question the most consistent elementary school student in my Sticker Program. Every week, without fail, he writes me a very short (but cute) letter, and he always, ALWAYS comes to talk to me during breaks.
I think it was about two months ago that we saw a huge change in our interactions. He suddenly became a lot more outgoing, and after I spent some time with him and his family at the Sports Festival in September, he became almost as much of a companion as My Little Monkey. It is not unusual to see me walking around that school with both of them firmly planted in My Personal Circle of Space. He is actually more polite and English-inclined than the Monkey, and he takes conversations a lot more seriously. Recently, Fievel’s brother has started to hang around me a lot, too, and it’s funny to watch them to compete for stickers during recess.
10) Fall is the time to read Anna Karenina
Well, fall or summer…
I first read Anna Karenina the summer before my senior year at St. John’s. This was done while also reading War and Peace, so you could definitely say that the summer of 2005 was the Summer of Tolstoi. Of the two, I infinitely prefer Anna Karenina, and I’m now reading it for the fourth time. The second time was in the fall of 2007, the third was the fall of 2008, and seeing as now is currently fall of 2009, you can kind of see where this is becoming a tradition.
When I read through the novel the first time, it was done as part of a study group with a tutor at St. John’s. I remember that he once made the remark that if people would read Anna Karenina when they encountered relationship problems, then they probably wouldn’t need to go to a counselor. To a large extent I agree with him about this – Anna Karenina is fantastic for portraying a wide range of characters in extremely common and accessible situations. There are themes of love, lust, betrayal, adultery, reconciliation, forgiveness, mercy, revenge, and wrath. I am as dazzled by the novel’s structure as I am by the characters, and I inevitably find something new to appreciate each time that I go through it.
I could go on about this for quite some time, but we’ll go ahead and leave it at that for now. Just know that my daily ritual has now shifted to accomodate this monster of a book, and that it makes me very, very happy.
11) Fall is also the time to Make Things
Specifically, I’m talking about food, although I’ve been knitting (poorly…) again as well. Recently made dishes include:
~ tofu/spinach/mushroom casserole
~ whole wheat focaccia bread
~ chicken soup from scratch
~ adzuki/pumpkin stew
~ sweet potatoes in a variety of dishes including curry, casserole, and root stew
~ apple pie – dear God, apple pie
12) No More Sports Days! (Along with subsequent thoughts and reflections.)
Ah, yes. So, something that has not been happening over the last twelve days has been Sports Festivals! We are in fact done with them for the year. As I have said before, I am also probably done with them For Good.
It’s unfortunate that I never was able to get around to writing the big Sports Festival-centered post. I’d wanted to take the opportunity to explain more about them, and to muse a bit about the role that this festival has played in my life in Japan.
I’ve been to fourteen … maybe fifteen … of these festivals since I arrived here in 2006. Each year has been a different sort of trial by fire. The first year I was simply trying to wrap my mind around the concept of a sports festival, and I was trying to find a way to participate and make it an event that was relevant to my life. The second year I was able to appreciate individual student achievement, and I was less shy about entering PTA events since I understood how the majority of the events were run. The big challenge last year was trying to learn how to sprint so that I wouldn’t embarrass myself in a relay race that I ran at my other middle school (the one that closed down). I also started a tradition last year where I brought handmade rice balls in for the faculty and staff on the mornings before the festival started.
This year’s overall theme seemed to be: Let’s Embarrass Julie As Much As Humanly Possible And Them Some. From the bizarre relay race that I ran with my sixth years at the middle school festival, to a really unfortunate partnered relay race that I had to run at the Thursday elementary school’s festival (I was injured in this race because of what I had to do), to the absolutely disastrous centipede race that I ran at the Friday elementary school’s festival (my group fell twice), I did not manage to display myself as quite the athlete that I feel I have the potential to be. -_-;;
Still, if I’ve learned anything over the last three years, it’s that the people in my community appreciate valiant efforts as much as (if not more than) successful efforts, and I know that it meant a lot to them that I wanted to participate. So, in the end, everyone won – including me. I think what’s also nice about this situation is that it is another indication of how I have become accepted in this community. I don’t feel as though they were laughing at me during these events. The truth is that all of the participants looked ridiculous, and so it was a celebration of, well, our collective absurdity. I did it for my students, because I knew that they wanted to see me perform on the field in the same way that they’d been performing. It was us coming together to celebrate each other as a community.
Don’t get me wrong, I still hate that centipede race. With a passion.
But, it’s part of the Sports Festival experience, and I can recognize that. Sometimes, you do things just because it really is the right thing to do. This year more than any other, I believe I’ve learned that lesson. This is a good thing, and it’s a fitting way to end this chapter of my life in Japan.
289 days to go.
Dancing Queen September 16, 2009
Posted by Earthdragonette in Dance Troupe, Student Moments.Tags: dance practice, dance trupe, fall term, hubris, Japan, The Savant
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Ah, Wednesdays ~ my opportunity to venture into the super funky and relaxed side of my town.
Time is of the essence at the moment, so we’re going to do this in a quick an obscure form of blogging known as bolt style.
*My Chosen Memory: Dance Practice
Came home after work and taught myself the rest of the dance I started to learn last week because I wanted to show the troupe that I Am Serious. Respect goes out to anybody who has ever learned a dance from watching a music video because that whole “because you’re watching it all the moves are backwards” thing is nobody’s friend.
*What Generally Happened:
*Got to the practice and saw that the troupe leaders had brought one of their sons with them. He’s one of my elementary students and I am Extremely Fond of him. Not only is his English quite good, but he’s just cute. VERY, VERY CUTE. He’s incredibly intelligent and has no shame and so is more than willing to follow through on whatever current mischief-oriented whim strikes him. At the same time, he’s also very conscientious. This means that there was a point during the evening where he thoroughly investigated and asked me about the contents of my backpack only to then put everything back just as he’d found it.
*After last week’s practice, I was under the mistaken impression that these practices wouldn’t give me much of a workout. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA. They were just being nice to the newcomer. You could have mopped the floor with me by the time that we finally stopped.
*The troupe has been even more welcoming, if that’s possible. My “debut performance,” as they’re calling it, is set for the 12th of October and I’ll be getting fitted for my costume next week. They seem genuinely happy to have me, and that’s good, because I am genuinely happy to be there.
*Specific Reason That I Enjoyed This So Much:
Not only did I appreciate feeling like a real member of the troupe (being able to participate in both of the dances they practiced helped a lot with that), but I really had a good time hanging out with my student. It took him about half an hour to warm up to me and to forget all of the “Oh, wait, you’re my teacher but we’re not in school right now” awkwardness. After that, he pretty much gave me the new role as “partner in crime and friend,” and so we spent a great deal of time entertaining each other. He also quickly discovered that talking to me in English was a great way to show off impress his parents, and so that was fun. He even helped me out with some dance moves.
Also, because he is a force that won’t be silenced or contained:
Today’s Moment With the Savant:
Today during class, The Savant was chatty as usual. At one point, like we do, we started talking about he believes he is the Incarnation of Perfection. I was telling him, again, how this was impossible because Perfect Beings don’t know they’re Perfect – it’s that humility that makes them perfect.
His response: “NO. I AM PERFECT BECAUSE I AM PERFECT. I LIKE APPLES.”
A little while later, he started to tell me what a good cook he was and how he cooked for the other students in his class. It only took the work of a moment to confirm that nobody had ever eaten anything he’d made, and so I pointed out to him that liars are not perfect. He began to argue that lying is what makes people happy and his whole reason for existing is so that he can make people happy.
“I am perfect! I make people happy. Perfect is making people happy.”
So, we argued about this for a while, and then class ended. As I was walking to lunch a little while later, I saw The Savant come down the hallway literally dragging another student behind him. The student started to fight back, they rough housed, and eventually The Savant overpowered him, playfully shoved him against the wall and said to me (while shoving the student against the wall): “JULIE! I MUST MAKE PEOPLE HAPPY.”
And to think that I could have gone to graduate school to study Hobbes and his beliefs about men being competitive beings.
Oh, wait.
(This is not unusual to see in a Japanese school. The rules about play fighting aren’t that strict. The victim other student was laughing the entire time.)
“My triumph and my pride
They will be history”
…And I said what I meant… September 13, 2009
Posted by Earthdragonette in Dance Troupe.Tags: dance practice, Dance Troupe, DJ Ozma, fall term
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The Post Intended for Wednesday
I’ve mentioned this before, I but I enjoy dancing. I’ve never been shy about looking silly, and it was with great enthusiasm that I began my dancing career at family weddings, taking center stage during The Hokey Pokey or The Chicken Dance. Even now, one of the greatest joys that I have is dancing in front of my students, mostly because they find it to be scandalous and it makes them laugh. Therefore, it really was with a significant amount of anticipation and excitement that I hooked up with my town’s dance troupe over the summer.
Since receiving the invitation to join the dance practices, I have tried, on three separate occasions, to attend. Each time I met with failure. I would arrive at the correct location (one of my elementary school gyms) at the correct time (7:30 on Wednesdays) only to find the gym completely abandoned. After waiting until 7:45 or so, I’d always go back home, feeling confused as to what was going on. Of course, the logical thing to have done would have been to call the troupe leader, but sometimes I Am a Chicken when it comes to speaking on the phone in Japanese, and so I kept putting it off.
Today, however, I made up my mind that I was going to sort out the confusion because, dangit, I want to dance! So after coming home from work, I got up my nerve to call the leader. I had a lot to prepare for my Thursday elementary lessons, and so my intention was to call, confirm when practices were held, and inform the troupe that I would be attending next week.
The call went something along these lines:
Me: Hello? This is Julie, the town’s ALT. Is DJ Ozma* there?
DJO: Hey, Julie! It’s great to hear from you!
Me: I’m sorry, I know you must be busy…
DJO: No, no! It’s fine!
Me: So, about these practices…?
DJO: Yes! We have practice tonight – 7:30 at the elementary school gym.
Me: Okay, that sounds great! I’ll —
DJO: Of course you can come tonight! See you soon! BYYYYYEEEEE!
~Click~
Me: Okay…
So …I guess I’m going tonight?
Thusly, Wednesday became the Longest Day Ever.
*DJ Ozma is a fairly famous singer/dancer in Japan, and henceforth shall be our code name for the dance troupe’s leader.
So, assured that practice WOULD in fact be happening, I drove to the elementary school and got to the gym around 7:20. In my experience, the Japanese are notorious for Being Early (which explains my earlier confusion), and so I thought this would give me a few extra minutes to warm up before the rest of the troupe arrived, and I could even sort out some details with DJ Ozma. Well, I was mostly correct in my way of thinking. I DID have extra minutes to warm up, and I DID get to sort out details with DJO. I was just mistaken as to how much time I would have for these things. DJO didn’t arrive for practice until 7:50, and the rest of the troupe had finally finished wandering into the gym around, oh, I’d say 8:30? I believe that we finally started dancing at 8:45.
Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you: my new dance troupe!!!
This all actually makes sense. I would venture that people who are interested in dancing to hip-hop are also people who march dance to the beat of their own drummer in life as well. As such, even though the members of this group were all parents of my students, and even though this is a small, fairly conservative and traditional town, among the things I saw this evening were: tattoos, ear piercings, colored hair, and fancy tire rims.
It was almost a slice of home!
Okay, so, commentary about alternative lifestyles aside, how was the practice?
Quite fun, actually. I was able to keep up with most of the conversation, and I found everyone to be friendly. They were informal and relaxed, insisting that I call everyone by their nicknames (some of which I have since forgotten but I’m sure they’ll remind me). I got the impression that they were happy to have me, and once they got a sense of how much Japanese I know, they were very curious and welcoming.
I saw them practice one of their new dances that they’re working on, and then they started to take me step-by-step through one of their regular routines. It’s a very different style of dancing than I’m familiar with, and I’m going to have to rein in some of the things that I learned back in high school (most of them having to do with hip movement). Still, I think that there’s promise for me, and they all seem eager for me not only to join in practices, but also to go with them to festivals around the prefecture. This is both exciting and kind of unsettling – it’s a whole new hobby and a whole new level of activity that I haven’t done before, and so it’s pushing me out of my old comfort sphere.
But, that’s what this fourth year is about. The next 10 months is about diving deeper into the sea of Japanese culture and emerging with rare, never before seen treasures.
If you’re curious, this is the song/dance that we were working on. It’s not my favorite DJ Ozma song, but it’s not bad, either.
(And, yes, when the troupe performs this dance at festivals, they do dress up in those shorts and t-shirts.)
(Although they do keep their clothes ON, and I don’t think that baby bibs are ever worn.)
(Or speedos with giant crabs on them.)
(DJ Ozma is the one playing drums.)
(I like him. ^-^)
“Seven days and nights a week
Spinning like a wheel”
Where I Intended to Be 