I don’t really know what was going on here…but the monkey definitely didn’t want to be there…Lol.
https://youtu.be/xW7tWq18n8k
https://youtu.be/LKNqe5MOq2o
So, for this post, I decided to combine three into one because alone they would be rather short.
Anyway, about a week ago and a half ago, I went to a student festival at one or the closer universities. Now, this must be a popular thing in the region because just about every university in the area was having a student festival. I can’t go to all of them, so I opted for the closest one. Lol. I met my classmate, Sara, at Yotsuya Station in Yotsuya that morning. Matt was supposed to come with us but he doesn’t communicate well all the time so we went without him. So, from the train station, we made our way over to Sophia University. It wasn’t a long walk from the station, which was convenient. The school was pretty big, but not huge. Now, here is the part that confused me the most. Most people see Americans as being pushy and forward and ruthless, and I guess to that extent they feel uncomfortable and intimidated. But I literally didn’t step 2 feet inside the gate and I got bum-rushed by students trying to lure me to their vendors and trying to sell me things. They were following me with signs and trying to get me to come in their direction. I was so uncomfortable.
Other than that, it was fun. There were dance performances and comedy shows and lots of fun things. There were students cosplaying or just dressed up as characters like Pikachu and Winnie the Pooh (I have no idea why). After about 2 hours of being there, Sara and I had our fill and headed to school. It was fun but boy can those kids be persistent. And not the good kind of persistent either.
Fast-forwarding to yesterday, 11/10, I went with my host family to Miki-chan’s school musical. The first thing I want to say is that I am amazed by the kind of freedom the students are given. Of course it was well organized, but the students literally run everything. From the curtains and the lights to the A/V equipment and the performance itself. They did an amazing job and I hope this post and the video the accompanies it inspires teachers and other authority figures to give students a bigger role in school. I mean, talk about saving money and teaching responsibility at the same time, they don’t hire so many janitors in the schools because each day after class, it is the students’ responsibilities to clean the classroom together before they go home. There are a few practices here that I think definitely need to be put into place in America. Anyway, back on track, the musicals were adorable. I saw the 2nd and 4th grade musical first before I saw Miki’s. They were all great. They were well performed and although I couldn’t understand most of the words, I could understand the plays. I have much more videos of the play than I’m posting abd the reason I’m not posting them is because of: 1.) Length and 2.)… Length… So, I posted the last minute of the play to give everyone an idea of what it looked like. There are not many pictures in this journal, just so you know. However, the videos are nice.
So, ends this post. I will let you know also that I went to a BBQ in the park today with my host family. However, I didn’t take any pictures and nothing extraordinary happend so it’s really not worth its own post.
Now, I will begin on what I hope to be the final post of the week… See you on the next page…