boat day recap

so boat day is over! it has been a long but fun day. so at about 9:30 this morning the second year students, were escorted about 20 minutes away from school to the river by myself and three other teachers. once we arrived, students lined up in perfect lines and organized by class. everyone was then assigned to their teams for rowing, 4 people per boat. to my suprise i was calculated into this, so i was placed in a team with 3 other students. the students all cheered and were excited that i was actually was rowing with them. after being assigned to our teams we had to practice. so it was onto the rowing machines we went.





after about 5 minutes of practice, we watched the third year students finish up their final "boat game" (race). then we were loaded into the boats. (i had no idea what i was getting myself into!) we practiced for a few minutes. but my form was ALL wrong, and they were trying to give me instructions in japanese, but the 3 kids in my boat confrenced and figured out a way to explain in english to me what to do. then we rowed around the river for about 30 minutes. (i was horrible, the boat isn't quite made for someone over 5' 7" or so, my knees just kept getting in the way. but the kids in my boat were great, and kept telling me i was doing a good job. yea right! then there was a race between all of the boats. we came in 3rd! not too bad i was just happy that we didn't come in last because then i would have felt incredibly guilty.




thats me in the front!



then it was back to shore! then all of the kids broke out there "bento" boxes (sack lunches), which all looked absolutly amazing, huge meals with lots of differnt food. lucky for me there were bento boxes provided for the teachers so i didn't have to worry about looking pathetic with my lonely sandwich amongst all of the kids.



then we walked back to the school. which provided optimal time to talk to students. and to my suprise most were very receptive and some even came over to ask me questions, with out me promting the convo. so between them having to try and explain how to do things to me in english and the long walk home i saw quite a bit of potential for the students english. and i think that these are going to be the most successful ways of getting them to speak english, because really the text books are boring, and i don't blame them for not wanting to study them!


so boat day overall was a lot of fun, but i did manage to get a nice sunburn (as did a lot of students and teachers).

then after this long day outside we had "nomihodai" work party. which was great, i actually got an opportunity to talk to a few more teachers (or at least attempt in some cases). the party was to celebrate boat day and also welcome me. i had asked if i was going to have to give a speech or anything, and was told no but of course was then called on to give one. i attempted to do it in japanese, but eventually gave up and had my english teacher translate, because i didn't really feel like making a food of myself in front of all of my coworkers and principal by using the wrong word or wrong level of politness.

the party was great, teachers really relaxed, which is a nice change from their typical demenor in the teachers room. we had about 10 different courses of different japanese foods, all delicious. i don't know how the japanese eat so much, i was dying and all of them including the tiny teachers were eating everything! but eventually one of the younger math teachers came over and started talking to me. he wanted to tell me that he had been in guam 2 weeks ago! and had lots of guam things he wanted to talk about. he was also the teacher incharge of boat day today, because he rows with a group here in itako, so he loves all marine related activities. but i found out that he actually speaks a decent amount of english. so between his english and my japanese we can actually have a decent conversation. i never would have known though, because i don't think he has said a thing to me all week. all japanese people that speak any english are afraid to make mistakes and therefore never use it.

but now i am exhauseted and must go to bed, but wanted to document this day before it was lost among the fog of my japan memories.