singing my heart out

As many of you know, and many don't know, I have joined the Niigata charity musical group. The organization is a non-profit that raises money to build schools and teacher housing in Papua New Guinea. The group raises money by performing a musical all over the prefecture. We rehearse threw out October, November and December and preform threw Januray, Febuary, March and early April. Over our spring break in April, a group goes down to PNG and builds the the school or teacher housing.

Every year a group rewrites a normal story, typically a Disney story and makes it more "Japanese" sounding. This year, our play is based off of "Snow White and the 7 Dwarfs." The story was rewritten as "Snow White and the 7 Samurai. In the story Snow White is a male. The character's name is Yuki (Japanese for snow and a popular name here!) The story reason the queen is jealous is because Yuki has the most beautiful hair in all the land. (As hair is a big ordeal here...many of my male students spend atleast twice as much time on their hair as me!) Also, in Japan, hair salons are on every corner (it's like casinos in South Dakota!). So the story is that the queen sends her stylist out to the forest to cut off Yuki's hair but she cannot do it. She sends him to live with the 7 style samurai. The queen sends her bad fashion ninjas to get Yuki and so on. I am one of the bad fashion ninjas. It is a great role-battling, sneaking and bad fashion!

There are many many wonderful (or not so wonderfully) sung songs in the muscial. Our director just uploaded 3 to youtube and know that everyone will enjoy our horrible singing and dancing. I am in all three of these songs. Please check them out and have a laugh:

This is one of the last songs of the musical. It is when the ninjas and the samurai face off but before the big battle fight scene we must dual in song!

Please ignore that I cannot sing my line. I know the song but I didn't acutally learn the verses until that day so I didn't know the tune at all. I have been practicing my line and actually hoping to pass it off to someone else! :)

http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=1_3783PmYWA

This is the opener. We learned the dance that day so please don't judge!

http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=CWrIBqy_fiA

We have begun to get this dance down. The Queen is the one at center stage and we are dancing as faithful ninjas. This song comes right after the queen tells her stylist to buzz all of Yuki's hair off.

http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=z7v4AgKcWgY (

jump rope time....

There are many events that go on in the Japanese schools and I was able to experience one such event last Friday at school. This event is mass jump roping. The goal is to be able to just together as many times as possible as a class. There are about 35 kids in each class so it took some major work on the twirlers part and team work. It was set up as a competition. Each class got 3 minutes to get as many jumps as possible. From that, they set up a bracket where the classes competed against each other for the championship. The goal of this interesting event is to build community in the classroom and develop students' cooperation skills.
I would say they did pretty well!
Class 3-1 won by getting 28 jumps!


Below are all the first grade classes warming up:





Here is class 3-1 in one of their champion jumps...They got up to 23 in this video.
Listen and learn to count in Japanese!
(watch the twirler in the very back corner...tough job!)

kids say the darndest things...

My second grade students have been working on "if" sentences and they wrote me a fax. They had many funny and strange. I enjoyed reading them and you will too...

(You can click on the picture to make it bigger and actually see them clearly!)

This one says:

"Christmas is coming soon. I am having a party. If you are free, please attend."

Aren't my kids sweet?!?!


This one says:

I found an interesting TV program last night. The title is "Full House"

I LOVED that show...about 10 years ago...but now it is very popular here!!



This one says:

"I played with my friends yesterday. I saw an interesting movie. Please talk to me if you can see. If you can see, please talk me."

Thank God I am not blind...


This one says:

"I played tennis yesterday. What did you do this weekend? Please tell us if you can speak Japanese. If you can speak, please tell us!"

I just liked this one because it says, "tell us if you can speak Japanese" it made me laugh.



Here, in another 2nd grade class the students were practicing IF sentences.

Question 2 asks, "What would you do if you were the prime minister of Japan?"

Student's answer: "I would have money!"



Usually teachers ignore me but sometimes I get warm welcomes. This was on the desk where I was to sit for lunch one day. On the board it also said, "Welcome Ms. Colin teacher!" I smiled at the effort to figure out my name. :)

the first "snow" of the season!

I was awaken this morning by cars slushing and sloshing threw the streets. I found my car covered in snow and since I was not ready, used a spare piece of cardboard in my car to shovel it off my car. It was not a pretty sight.
The snow here can be described in one word: wet. It doesn't snow as much as it just hails and sleets and then collects into a snow looking slosh. It's not the most pleasant. But it would be good sticky snow for a snowman or snowball fight!

Here is my car covered in snow: (not covered...this was taken after a day of rain/sleet/hail at school!)

actual address

For personal (intelligent) reasons. I don't want this on facebook anymore but still want people to have access to my address. (Emily-that means you). If you ever feel like sending me anything...a nice bag of peanut butter M&Ms would hit the spot! ;)

New address: (I love mail!)

Niigata-ken
Niigata-shi, Kita-ku
Hakushin-cho 1-9-16
Cottage Okura II 205
950-3325
Japan

Please ignore my first post with my address (Emily) as I was moved to a different apt.

Ninja camp part 5

After a fun day at ninja camp it was time to go our Japanese style inn. It was called the Pension Love Apple. These are the owners. They had dinner waiting for us when we got there. We had hot baths and comfortable beds. They kept us company all night. We had a great time talking with them about everything from Japanese relationships to skiing. It was a lovely night!


They were wonderful company!

Nagano is well known for it's soba (buckwheat noodles) and we ate delicious soba while there. The owner (who drove out to find us and guide us back to the inn) brought us here before we got to the inn. He explained this is a soba field! It was very cool until we saw the signs that said to watch out for bears!

The camp was so much fun! Here Naomi and I are trying to walk across the obstical course:


We had fun following the kids:


Building on my great sense of balance...we walked across the tightrope!


The rings were fun too!


Naomi and I also practice taiko drumming skills. It was at the end of the opstical course.


Jon and I were using up our tickets and mastering our skills!


Jon and I killed the target and earned these ninja star cell phone charms. (I also want to point out that I used only 8 stars to hit the target 3 times while Jon used 20!)


The best part of the whole day was the guy that beat up Jon in the parking lot! He was showing us some ninja tricks and Jon got to be the victim! Naomi and I laughed a lot!


And after a hard day of ninja training we felt we earned some ice cream! And when you go to Nagano, of course it will be made out of soba! It was delicious!

Ninja camp part 4-our favorite part

Ninja houses were so much fun! Our favorite room had the floor tipped at a 45* angle. It spent much time trying to run up it and then sliding down it. I had a huge advantage because I didn't have socks on so I could get to the top much easier than Jon or Naomi, but it was still hard!


The crazy part is I am standing up straight!


Jon is standing up straight too! The drum was just hanging from the ceiling...straight down! We liked this ninja room because it was full of toys to try and play with while trying to balance!

Like this really cool contraption! When you set the ball on the top track it would actually go UP the ramp! It was awesome! We, like the six year old kids that were in the room with us, thought it was a cool science experiment! (Taking this one back to my classroom!)


Ok...hopefully the view works but here I am trying to climb the floor. I had more trouble going down than up because I didn't have socks on. However, it was not easy to walk down that floor! The video of Jon and Naomi is much more fun because they have socks on but I don't know if any of them will work! There is a crashing sound at the end of my video...that is a woman falling down the stairs. Just an FYI-she was ok.

Me walking up the floor:

Jon and Naomi walking up the floor:

Ninja camp part 3

Before we could go into the shrine we had to purify ourselves. You have to use your left hand to pick up the ladle with your left hand and pour over your right hand. Then switch hands, pour over your left hand. Then pour some water into your left hand, put into your mouth and spit it out. Now you are ready to enter the shrine.


It was a long hike to the top but there were many beautiful views and small shrines along the way.


We hiked a lot of stairs for that view!


And just after we made it to the top...more!


After all those stairs...we had a beautiful shrine and a beautiful view!

Ninja camp part 2

After a great day at ninja camp we hiked to a beautiful shrine. Here is the entrance. There were many smaller shrines along the way. The path was tree lined with super tall trees. It was beautiful!

See...REALLY tall trees!


I need to brush up on my shintoism because I don't actually know what this is called. I would call this the entrance but I could be wrong. Either way, it is the gate to path that leads up to the temples. It is also guarded by creatures. It is beautiful. See the trees lining the path threw the entrance.


Trees even big enough for us to sit in!


Here is the shine at the top of the path. It was beautiful!

Ninja camp part 1

Over our 3 day weekend, Naomi, Jon and I headed down to Nagano for ninja training. It was really just a childrens' camp but we had a blast. Here is our adventure:

We drove down there on Saturday (which was about 5 hours) and so we started with the first camp. We sat in the car all morning and we are totally ready to go:

On the camp grounds was a ninja wall. It would have helped to have been about 2 feet shorter to do this but we made it around the wall!



I was way too tall for this...the ropes were not easy and the little pieces of wood spun around so it was tough!


There was also many balance activities too. Naomi and I are prepping to battle on the tightrope!

We also threw ninja stars here. We got warmed up here and we perfected our ninja star skills!

Japanisms

There are lots of Engrish-isms around in Japan that make giggle all the time. Sometimes because there are not certain sounds in the Japanese language for English sounds they get a little mixed up. The following is a picture of an electrical company's van. Thought you would enjoy them too:

It is very popular to wear clothing with English on it. However, they aren't always right or appropriate English! I went shopping last week at a used clothing store and found this hat on the shelf and I thought it was wonderful!

Only 1000 Yen!!! I think it would go perfect with my 1st grade students' t-shirts that have the playboy bunny and pot leaves on them!

Expanding my food horizon everyday

One thing I love about my friend Ben is his honesty. When we talked last week he made the comment: "I cannot believe you said you were liking the food there." "Why?" I asked. He responded with, "Well, you are just such a picky eater!" It isn't a lie. I will admit that I am a picky eater. However, as Japanese culture would have it, it is considered rude to leave food on your plate. Therefore, I am just learning to eat whatever is put in front of me. Often just putting on a face that I do like it, but sometimes not. As a result...I am learning that there are a lot of foods that I actually do like!
I have had more fun in the past months trying new foods...many I like (like Mr. Donuts!) and many I hope to not eat again (such as crab brains!). Here are some of the foods I did try:

The picture above is of deep fried whale meat. It was so tender and delicious!

But if we were going to eat deep fried whale, of course we had to have the raw whale too! Above is raw whale meat. Yes, I know I swore off raw red meat after the horse but I couldn't not try it!

See...I just cannot resist!

We went out for Mexican and decided to try dessert! This is what is, aparently, a Mexican dessert. It is tortillas filled with a little fruit jam, little sugar and lots of cream cheese. Then grilled. Whip cream on the side and you've got a "Mexican Pizza!" It was a little strange but oddly good! However, I don't think I will ever need to eat it again!

Mr. Donuts is a famous donuts place here in Japan. Above is a picture of their most famous donut-pan de choco. It is fluffy and amazing. I will say that it is not as good as a Krispy Kreme but I would be happy to go back!

i heart elementary school

My favorite place in the world is elementary school! I do not have very elementary school days but they are the ones that I live for! Elementary school is so much fun and I love the students. The students are loud and crazy but super eager to learn English. Unlike my Junior High School students, they actually want me around. We have lots of fun playing tag during recess and they love "English time." Below are some pictures from my favorite school-Kuzutsuka Higashi.


Here I am introducing myself to one of the 2nd grade classes. They were given three choices and had to figure out which one is true about me. It was a great game that got the kids moving around and I had fun teasing them!

This is all the great things I shared about me. Some of them aren't true but it is just easier to have specific hobbies and favorites. You can see my favorite animal is an elephant, food is spagehetti and I am a pro snowboarder. Family-notice the awesome and huge pictures of you!

Here I am teaching the same class about fruit after introducing myself. Notice the Minnesota flag that I am using for a pointer. We spent lots of time sticking our tongues out and practicing making the "L" sound.


I also give lessons to the teachers once every time I go to the school. Here I was teaching pronunciation and games that the teachers can play with their students when practicing English.



Just because we are grown ups doesn't mean we don't love to play games too! Here we are play Karuta. It is a race game that students and teachers alike love!