Fa Ra Ra Ra Ra Ra Ra Ra

In my attempt to catch up on blogging, I will blog about Thursday for now....

So on Thursday there weren't any classes, as it was the schoolwide singing competition. The students had been practicing forever, so they were all really genki in the morning to finally sing and (theoretically) win. The staff was excited, too, and were also really surprised to see me, as there was a rumor that I was on a shucchou (business trip) that day. Um, hello, I could have totally not gone to school and been okay! Sad! So they were all surprised and excited to see me? Yes, I was confused, too ;) So, yes, it was a very good way to start the day!

The 3nensei teachers got to judge the 1nensei classes singing, and since I am unofficially a 3nensei teacher, I judged. It was hard! I didn't want to give classes bad marks, so I wasn't harsh or anything, but it was still difficult.

Hmm, perhaps there are people reading this who have (gasp!) not been to a Japanese singing competition, so I will explain how it works. At my school there are 5 classes of each grade (about 200 students in each grade). At first the entire grade gets up and sings a song (this is in the gym, on the stage). Then each class gets their turn to sing the song they sang. Might I add that EVERY SONG IS THE SAME. Seriously. But not in a bad way. Before the song, a student gives a speech, and all of these are the same, too, hehe. "We practiced every day and it was very difficult. At first the boys wouldn't sing, but over time we all bonded and became a closer class because of it. There were difficult times, but it was worth it! We persevered and we hope you enjoy the song!" Anyway, then they sing. Also, every class has a student who conducts, and a student that plays the piano part. It's pretty amazing that there are enough musically-talented people in the school to not make that difficult to do! (I'm not sure if that sentence makes sense. Dammit, I can't speak English anymore)

Anyway, the whole competition was a ton of fun. By the end of the morning part (which went over), I was a bit tired of so much singing, but the lunch break helped. My lunch break was interesting, as I was informed I would be singing the staff song with all of the other teachers. Um, OKAY?! So I had to sightread the Japanese during lunch and also learn the tune. After a whopping five minutes of practice, it was time to go back to the competition and sing! It was a bit overwhelming, but was REALLY fun! All of the students started laughing when they saw I was going to participate, but a bunch of them were yelling "ganbatte," so that was cool. It went fairly well, surprisingly! Ah, the crazy things that happen in this country.

After the competition all of the teachers were really genki, and since school ended early, we were all in the staffroom at the same time, which is rare. Might I add that lately the staff has been a lot nicer and friendlier? It's very exciting! While I don't have any in-depth conversations with them or anything, it's nice to just be able to talk to random senseis for a bit. I dunno why they're being nicer all of a suddent, but I'm not complaining!

So yeah, while a 6-hour singing competition was a bit scary-sounding beforehand, it turned out to be one of the best school days I've had so far. Yay Yabuchuu!