Well, well, a day at the Kencho. Haven't been here in a while. Today I don't mind it. In fact, tomorrow I probably won't mind it. But by the end of this month I will probably feel otherwise.
I don't know how many of you are aware but March is the last month of school over here, except that really, February is. In April I will have new students and, in at least one case, a new teacher (I might have a few for all I know). I say that February is the last month of school and what I mean by that is that it is the last month of normal school. March holds very little actual teaching time for me. They tend to have graduation ceremonies, test days, sports days, and I don't know what else. It is all very confusing but after the many days of teaching, and game playing, and preparations for speech contests that made up January and February, March will be a nice change. At least for me. Amy doesn't seem to happy about having to sit at her desk day after day, but I don't mind it. This week I have two days here at the Kencho, next week, two more, the week after that only one, then four out of five, and then five out of five as far as I know now.
But with all that said, my parents will be here on the 26th and I am thinking that I will take at least half of those last two weeks' Kencho days off. In the time I've been here I've only taken two days of my allotted 20 days off. So I think I can afford it. And I know it is probably more acceptable if I take Kencho days off rather than school days.
Ok, sorry to bore you with all that.

Monday I attended a practice graduation ceremony at Minobusan (Buddhist school) and yesterday I attended the real thing at Yuda (girls school). Both were interesting but when you can't understand what is being said it tends to get a boring just sitting there surrounded by people and trying to act awake. But I am glad I went to both; if nothing else, it decreased my Kencho days by two for the month.
Minobusan is a small school, as I might have mentioned before, and they have 19 graduates this year. All of these kids were in my second class there and of the two classes I do/did there, they were the better one. Whereas the first class still doesn't much talk or even smile at me, except for one or two of 'em, the second class and I would joke around as best we could and have a good time. So I will miss them.
The practice itself was in a large room with a stage at one end and many rows of seats. It didn't look like anything out of the ordinary for a standard graduation ceremony. The graduates had their seats up front and behind them were two sections of seats, one for those not yet graduating and the other for the parents that would be there the following day. I got there at my normal time but the practice was already going on so I just sat down and watched. Each graduate had his or her name called and then climbed the stairs to the stage. At this point they had to wait for the person in front of them to finish up and then they bowed, walked to the middle of the stage and, with their back to the audience, bowed to the principle, accepted the paper, bowed again, and then walked off to the other side of the stage. The whole way along there were little things they had to do: bow at the right angle, grab and hold the paper a certain way, step back in the same manner, and all that. It was informal at this point, but I could tell that the real thing the next day would be very formal.
Although it was not exactly the most exciting thing to attend, it wasn't without its lighter moments. One kid kept screwing up the paper acceptance/back stepping/bowing part, and after the third try the principle started laughing, along with everyone else, and went around the podium to show him how to do it. Another time there was some spirited discussion about how they should approach the stage from their seats. Without these little comic moments it would have been extremely boring but there was just enough to keep me watching (that and the fact that it would have been extremely rude for me not just get up and leave).
At the end the non-graduates all had to stand up and sing two songs accompanied by some lady on a piano. I know one of the songs was the school song but I have no idea what the other was, perhaps some Buddhist song. They had both printed on poster boards, for lack of a better way to describe it, and much to my surprise I was able to follow along. Of course, this was only because about half of each song was printed (painted actually) in hiragana. So reading wise it went something like this: kanji kanji no kanji to wa kanji kanji kanji mi no bu kanji kanji sai o na ra kanji kanji o. So I was able to follow the sounds pretty well because each kanji symbol is really just like any old hiragana symbol in that they only have one sound (this was usually true from what I could tell anyway). But, of course, translating it is altogether something different, so I have no idea what was said. Probably the same old school song type stuff: from Mt. Fuji to Fujikawa (that's a river), hills of green or white with snow, we love our home of Yamanashi, as long as that volcano doesn't blow.
So anyway, the singing was good and I was soon out of there.
Yuda's graduation ceremony was the real thing on the day I attended (yesterday as I write this). And there really isn't too much to tell because it was just a formal graduation: five or six speeches of about 10 minutes each, the audience sitting, standing, and sitting again, the names of the graduates (about 110 of them) read out loud with each one answering "Hai!" and then standing, one girl from each group (don't know what constituted a group though) going up and officially accepting the diploma for her classmates, the singing of the school song and the Japanese national anthem, lots and lots of bowing, the occasional coughing attack from across the gym, and, eventually, as one girl read her speech facing the principle and with her back to us, lots and lots of crying.
The crying was strange because here was a formal affair with absolutely no emotion showed at all throughout the entire event, no hoopin' it up, no cheering, no raising fists or slapping high-fives, but then this girl started to read her speech and was going along just fine until somewhere in the middle of it her voiced had that obvious I'm-fighting-back-the-tears quality about it that we've all heard and probably all have done ourselves at some point in our lives. So I don't know if it was chain-crying or if it was the actual words that got her fellow classmates, but at this point many of the other girls let go and I could hear them sniffling and see them wiping their faces. Like I say, this really wasn't all that surprising considering it is a big moment for these girls, but before this display of emotion there was nothing. So it came as a bit of a shock.
Anyway, the only other thing to mention here is the fact that these people bow a lot! The girls were already seated when I got there, but as the people in charge came in they bowed to each other and to the rest of the faculty. Then the girls all bowed to the entire group that went on stage. Then each girl that went on stage bowed to those seated on the right, they bowed back, then to the people on the left, they also bowed back, then to the person behind the podium at which point the entire student body also bowed, he or she bowed back. Then as the girl left the stage she again bowed in all three directions and received return bows, then she descended the stairs and bowed to some group off to the right of the stage, they bowed back, then she turned 180 degrees and bowed to the group of teachers sitting off to the left, they bowed back, and finally, after all the lower back stretching that constituted her trip into becoming a high school graduate, she returned to her seat. And this wasn't all of it. The entire audience, me included although I only nodded my head, was expected to bow to each person who made a speech, and each person who made a speech bowed to not only everyone in the entire joint but also to the flag. By the time it was all over, I'd witnessed more bows in an hour and a half than I've seen since last July when I got here. There might be a lot of stupid and false stereotypes about the Japanese but the bowing thing seems to be one accurate one. Maybe they feel that way about our handshaking, I don't know.

Ok, I think that's enough for today. I need to do some research into getting myself to St. Kit's in order to perform my bestman duties. I still can't believe Rigel waited till I was on the other side of planet to say, "Oh, by the way, I'm getting married and I'd like you to come."
To which I thought, "Damn!" but instead answered in my naivete, "Sure, where's the wedding?" thinking that he'd tell me someplace in California.
Now, I realize it's not all about me, but c'mon, St. Kitts really is on the other side of the planet, I counted the timezones! So far, with the little research I've done, I'm looking at about a 32 hour trip. That's 64 hours round trip. And that's not including my getting from Kofu to Narita. So all in all, I'm looking at just about 3 days solid travel time.
I always thought those songs about climbing the highest mountain, swimming across the sea, and taking the longest flight were about what you'd do for the love of a young woman, not for your brother.
All I can say is that the island of St. Kitts better have beer, and good beer!