文化の日

OK, so I was pretty annoyed at livedoor for the way IE displayed the page, but this site seems to do wonderfully, so here we go again...

Anyway, today was a holiday for me-- Bunka no Hi, or Culture Day. It's kind of nice to have a holiday in the middle of the week. Only three classes tomorrow, and then the weekend. Monday after first period at my base school, I have to go to another elementary and teach three classes of 5th graders. That should be fun-- The elementary school kids always make me feel like a celebrity. They have so much energy, plus they haven't yet developed the reluctance about speaking English like the middle schoolers have... Then on Tuesday, my base school is having it's Culture Day festival at Hamamatsu Hall. Each homeroom class has a song they have been practicing to perform on that day, as a kind of contest. For the record, neither of my schools has a choir, only this kind of singing contest involving everyone once a year. So the singing performances will take up most of the day. Perhaps there are some other things planned.. I'm not sure.

Also, this Sunday afternoon I'm going to see one of my co-workers perform in the Hamamatsu Mandolin Orchestra. I'm not really sure what to expect. I assume it will be classical music, but I don't really know. Mandolin orchestras are composed of mandolins, mandolas, mando-cellos, and mando-basses. They were popular in the US in the very early part of the 20th century, but apparently they are still fairly common in Japan. Some of the high schools here even have mandolin clubs...

In other news, I bought a round-trip plane ticket to Bangkok for Dec. 22-Jan. 1. It's a shame I'll have to be waiting at the airport for my return flight during any New Year's Eve festivities, but I couldn't find any other flight for the given time frame. My friend Doug teaches English in Bangkok, so hopefully he can show me around a bit this time. There are also several other JETs going to Thailand, but nobody seems to have their plans exactly hammered out yet, so I don't know if I'll see any of them there...