運動会 (Sports Day)

Sports Day Blog – 9/23/2011 and 9/25/2011

So, I know I mentioned there would be a significant increase in my blog entries lately and I still intend to fulfill on that promise, but have patience. Life has been keeping me very busy and honestly I would rather be experiencing things than stopping to write about them. :-)

View of Mt. Aso

Let's start back to the week of Sept. 19th, I need to give a bit of background update to set the stage for the rollercoaster I have been riding. The weekend was a three day weekend and one of the few I will be granted this work year. To celebrate, my old roommate from college, A, who is now doing JET in Miyazaki, planned to visit with me in Mt. Aso the biggest active volcano in Japan and located roughly halfway between the two of us. Unfortunately, the weather was against us and a typhoon hit the majority of southern and eastern Japan pelting us with strong winds, heavy rains and even some flooding. The worst of it hit Saturday evening and most of Sunday, officially drenching our travel plans, along with shutting down all public transportation.

Trying to avoid being too depressed and glad to be in each other's company after so long, we ventured out for some shopping, onsens, karaoke and dinner with friends when the weather had calmed. In the midst of all this excitement, I also stupidly forgot to cancel our fancy ryokan (traditional Japanese style inn) reservation for Sunday night. As the typhoon still spit down upon us angrily from above on and off, when the ryokan called to remind me of our reservation (at 7PM on Sunday night), I told them I was sorry but it had completely slipped my mind and that because of the obviously inclement weather I would be unable to make it down there. He insisted we come, going so far as to say murri shite kudasai (meaning roughly 'do it even though it is impossible'). After I continued to refuse, he finally requested we wire transfer half the money for the room to him the next day. It kind of made sense to me that they would ask for the money, since I had forgotten to give them advance notice of our cancellation (although the typhoon should have made it obvious) so I did not think to argue.

On Monday, the holiday, although the weather had cleared up, A and I just spent the morning sitting around, relaxing and talking.

Yes, he is walking on their backs.

She left and a few days later I got my MCAT scores. I must have known before I checked because as soon as I woke up I had a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach that couldn't possibly be related to food. My week had already been filled with bad luck – I accidentally wired the money to the ryokan twice and the bank was unable to cancel the transaction so I had to call and ask them to refund it to me (thank goodness for Japanese friends!), not to mention that we had been unable to go to the volcano – so when I saw the results I was not really surprised. Still, despite the studying, I did not score high enough to be competitive this application cycle so I have decided to hang up the towel on applying this year and try again next year. Perhaps this will mean another year in Japan, though likely I will travel home and volunteer at a hospital while moonlighting at a department store. Sigh.

While this may sound a little like giving up (and in a way, it is) try to get a broader sense of the process. I spent about $700 just to take the test (travel fees included) and another $400 just sending out the primary application. It costs about $75 a school to complete the secondary application and the likelihood of me obtaining an interview afterward is slim to none with my scores. Thus, knowing my rejection to be fairly certain I decided to quit before I throw any more money into the process and get a confirmed rejection. As all my Japanese friends have said – “there's always next year!”

Although this may be a bit of an aside, I want to address failure in Japan as a culture phenomenon. If you did not know, to be a licensed teacher in Japan is a very time consuming and difficult process. While there are many teachers who work in the public education system, at schools everywhere, slightly more than half are actually licensed teachers. As far as I can deduce, the reason is, once teachers obtain their license, which they must renew every ten years, they have it basically until they retire. This includes the time they serve as principal, vice principal, education coordinator and in other offices (such as at the board of education office). It appears the prefectural board of education limits the number of licenses available to each subject area, though it may also be regulated on the national level by the monbushou. Either way, until a teacher retires or loses their license for some reason, the spot is unavailable to a new teacher, even if they current holder is not teaching. Thus, there are many open teaching positions and teachers-in-training to fill them, but very few licenses available.

kibasen, my favorite part of sports day

As you can gather, to actually get one of the few license spots for the year, you have to be at the top of your class, and priority is given to people who have tried and continually improved over a period of time. There is a series of tests, lectures and interviews required of each applicant and you chance of failure the first few years is almost assured. The number of spots seems to range anywhere from none-6+ in my region but the number of applicants continually increases every year. So, this relates back to me because when I failed to obtain the score I desired, everyone looked at me and said, with eyes full of understanding “it's OK, we have all been there.”

One of my closest teacher friends is 31 and still has not passed the exam, when I told him how sad I was he just said “I have spent ten more years failing than you. You can either get over it and keep trying, quit, or quit failing.” I figured after that although many of my friends have not had this setback, and although I have never failed anything before – it was just another part of growing up and having goals. If I was ever in a place to teach me that lesson, it is working in a room full of failures who fought and continue to fight against terrible odds with a patience and hope I can only dream of. So, in their honor and for so many other reasons, it is back to the books and another year.

My kid at speech contest

Back to topic, the sum of these back luck spurts and bad news threatened to ruin my birthday and when sports day rolled around on the 23rd, I may have been the only person in Yamaga not looking forward to it. But the day dawned bright and when the event began I was surrounded by oddly energetic teachers, ecstatic students and a surprising number of parents and elementary students who had become acquainted with me in one way or another. With all this positive energy I couldn’t help but be optimistic. I had asked some of the teachers the day before at rehearsal if they could give me something to do during the big day since every teacher and student had a specific job except me. Luckily... or unluckily, one of the students would be unable to attend the event and they were scheduled to shoot the pistol at the start of two events so all the teachers decided I could do it. Yay!

With an opportunity to actually participate in sports day this year (if you recall last year I debuted in various events because the students had asked me to play side by side with them), when I had previously been afraid I would be benched for the whole day, along with the aforementioned atmosphere of optimism, the day was looking bright.

Sports day slogan

My first event was shooting the gun at the start of the tug of war events, which this year were separated by grade level. Because no one knew I would be beginning the event, when I held up the gun and said “Are you ready?” most of them were momentarily stunned by the English until they broke out into a big group “yes!” Shouting “GO!” and firing the pistol all went without a hitch to begin and end the event three times (once for each grade) and I enjoyed the shock some of the later students still had when they realized I was blowing the gun for all of them.

Because I have been neglecting personal time and keeping too busy, this blog is being written late, and with the passing of time I have forgotten the order of some of the sports day events. I will sum them up though, as best I can and if you want more details, refer to last year’s post.

Getting ready to shoot the pistol

A parent/student scavenger hunt followed tug-o-war and required the teams to run through an obstacle course ending with drawing a card with a final activity and a teacher’s name written on it. When the teacher was chosen it was their job to run out and help the team complete their activity. During rehearsal they told me I would be included as well but on the day of, when every other teacher had been called except for me, I was starting to get nervous. It was not until the very last team after I had watched all the other teachers play silly games, that my name was called. Big grin on my face, I ran up and linked in for what would be my first 5-legged race.

Most of the other events were the same as the previous year except that I blew the gun for jump rope instead of jumping with the kids like last year. Otherwise most was the same. Well, except for the 2nd grade 80m dash. About a minute before the event began, my favorite teacher, Mr. M, looks at me and says the other gym teacher (a girl of 22, like me!) will be running with the kids. I immediately jumped up and said “I want to run!” Thus, I lined up with my group of girls and when it was our turn to assemble on the line for our race I was a mix of excited and nervous. The announcer called out the names of each runner and although my entry in the race was a surprise, the announcer still had time to include me in the roster. When they said “Nichole sensei” a massive cheer erupted from the students that swelled over into the spectators. I had never been very good at sports in my youth and was often the last one picked for any team, not to mention never having had people cheer for me, so when I heard the people cheering and clapping for me for the first time in my life I almost cried. Well, I probably would have if I had not been in the last lane because as soon as the cheering faded out, we were bolting to the sound of the gun. I pushed the kids pretty hard and they kept pace with me but by the end I checked my left and seeing them a little behind me, slowed to let them win. I think I still took second but as long as I was not the first to cross the finish line I was happy. It was so exhilarating – in so many more ways than I can express in this mere blog entry.

Folk dancing with the students

The rest of sports day passed in a happy blur and at the drinking party that night, everyone was in excellent spirits. The PTA president made the kanpai (cheers) speech and talked about how me and the other gym teacher running (she ran with the boys and blew them out of the water) were the most surprising and exciting events of the day and how this year’s sports day had been the best in the schools short 3 year history. He had no idea. :-)

Later that night, another PTA member taught me the phrase isseki wo tojiru which translates roughly as “to cast the first ripple in the pond.” She said our running has reminded everyone that sports day is really a “festival” more than a spectator sports and that beginning next year, everyone was going to try and make some events that the community can participate in. After the party, Mr. M and I went out for our typical after party in Kitsuki and discussed various things – mainly how we were likely siblings in a past life. I guess the happiness just kind of spilled over.

Playing catch in a teacher/PTA event

Saturday the 24th was my birthday and so I let myself sleep in until 10 then did a 14K run (yes I am still marathon training) to start the day. After a few hours of cleaning and laundry, I allowed myself to indulge that night with a few local friends and B (who I had not seen for a good while). The next morning dawned bright and beautiful – altogether too much so for my hangover and I shrugged myself out of the apartment and into work for my Sunday, elementary school sports day.

This was the extreme version of the community involvement I hope to see from Yamaga middle school next year. The neighborhood was divided into three teams based on geography and they had their own separate scoreboard! Literally half of the day was devoted to community events, including putt-putt golf and a three-sided tug of war. It was pretty cool and I probably should have participated more because they asked me to join numerous events but I was just not feeling up to it – it was a struggle just to keep myself in the vertical plane most of the day.

All these sports days led to a very long two weeks since I had two six-day work weeks in a row and the 29th was speech contest with my student so I was pulling overtime most days to help her prepare. I might still be trying to catch up on sleep and it has been a month! Well, hopefully that updates you a bit and be ready for a spew of entries!

More pictures and hopefully a video to come! Love!