Well, the end of my summer 'vacation' is fast (like a snail) approaching. I guess in some ways it did go by pretty quickly, but in other ways it moved by with all the speed of the Fujikyu train line (that's pretty slow for those of you who've never had the pleasure of riding those particular rails). Hard to believe that Rigel's wedding is over, but those 10 days of fun were followed up by three solid weeks of Kencho time, during which time I became familiar with the internet in a way I had not before. But anyway, this week I start school. Unless something changes I have three days here at the Kencho and then on Thursday go to the aviation academy and on Friday make an appearance at Yamanashi Gakuen. Will be nice to see the teachers and students again. And next week I have school everyday.

Speaking of the schools, one of mine did quite well in the national high school baseball tournament. Everyone over here refers to the tournament as Koshien, which is the name of the stadium it is played at over in Osaka. The tournament consists of 49 high school teams. Each prefecture in this country, of which there are 47, sends one team; the exceptions being Hokkaido and Tokyo due to the high population of each area. These prefectures send two teams each.
I am not exactly sure how each prefecture decides which team to send but it makes sense to me that there must be some kind of a prefectural tournament with the winner earning the right to represent its prefecture. In Yamanashi the four baseball teams I always hear about just happen to be three of my schools and Amy's. I am sure there are others though.
So somehow one of my schools ended up being the school to represent Yamanashi. I didn't know this as schools are not in session and I can't understand the local news, but one evening last week Amy and I were sitting around watching some of the Olympics. The coverage ended and the local news came on and what should I see but some highlights from Koshien and guys with baseball uniforms that said Tokai running around the bases. 'Hey,' I said to Amy, 'Unless there is another Tokai, that's my school.' Or one of them anyway. So sure enough I recognized a few faces (although this was hard as they are usually sleeping in class) and figured out that this was, in fact, the Tokai in Kofu, Yamanashi, at which your humble narrator expounds English lessons on a fortnightly basis. And what was better was that they had won that game.
Then at the seminar (which I will tell you a little about later) during lunch time, the big screen downstairs was showing a live game featuring Tokai. So I and a few of the Japanese teachers gathered around and watched an inning or two. At the point I began watching Tokai was down 7-2 , it was the 5th inning and I figured they'd loose the thing. But later on I found out that they had come back in the bottom of the 8th and 9th innings to win the thing on a sayonara homerun. I was sorry I had missed it but was happy they'd managed to pull it off.
Then this last Friday I was sitting here in the Kencho (like I do) when one of the guys gets up and turns on the small tv we have in here. I had no idea why he did this as the tv is used only during the lunch hour but it soon became clear. At 10am Tokai took the field at Koshien. So we were all doing our work (except me because I don't have any!) and were keeping one eye on the game. During this time one of the girls asked me if I knew of Tokai to which I told her that I did and that some of those boys on the screen were my students. In Japanese, "Oh, that's wonderful! What are their names?" I had to admit that I didn't know. Hey, you try coming over here and learning 500 students names! I'm lucky I can remember the teachers' names.
But she did inform me that Tokai was into the final eight and if they won this game they'd play on Saturday in the final four and a shot at the championship game.
Anyway, about this time, bottom of the first, one of the boys nails a shot to left-center that clears the wall and scores two. We had the sound down so none of us heard the announcer but I had been watching and said, "Oh, hey, a home run," to which my friend looked up and said, "Ah! Homerun desu!" and the rest of the office went into a small buzz about it. This was looking good. But.....
What happens next will never be forgiven in my book. And I have not had one moment over here in which I was truly pissed off at a Japanese person but this broke that streak.
One of the older ladies in the office got up, went to the tv, and turned it off! I would cuss here but I told mom I'd clean up my language on this journal, so let me just say "Fornication, lady! Are you stupid?!" That is what I felt like saying. But I didn't and neither did anyone else. In fact, no one said a word. They just all went back to their work. I couldn't believe it. Here it was a Friday, with a Yamanashi team in the final eight of the national high school baseball tournament and she goes and clicks the damn tv off. What the hell?! Had I been in America I would have said something. I'm not sure what and I would have tried to make it repectful, but I would have said something. But over here, what can I do?
So that was that and I never got to see another pitch in that game. Tokai did win though, 10-8.
Saturday I was rather busy and couldn't watch the game but Tokai ended up loosing anyway. A team from Hokkaido ended up winning the tournament in yesterday's game. First time a team from the north island has won the thing. But hey, Tokai did quite well to win Yamanashi and then be one of 49 teams in the final four. When I see those boys in two weeks I will have to congratulate them. If I can wake them up, that is.

The seminar last week was good. Amy and I had a room of eleven Japanese teachers and four other foreign teachers (two Canadians, one Brit, and one other Californian). It was good group and I'm pretty sure that everyone enjoyed themselves.
Amy did most of the work and I have to say that she did a good job. She is definitely a teacher by nature. She did pretty much all the prep work and led the group activities. We talked about ideas for the next day in the evenings and between activities and put our heads together to come up with plans but she did most of the concrete stuff. I think she likes it. She may say to me, on occasion, "Ok, you can lead the next thing," but then she just tends to take over. I didn't mind. I'd rather be the room jester anyway. I was much better at that.
The high point of the seminar for me came on day three. The day before we foreigners had had to give country presentations which consisted of the six of us talking about our countries and aspects of living in them, working in them, etc. But on this day, the Japanese teachers had to give their country presentations. Of course, they were all doing Japan, so Matt (the head JET, if you will) had told us to give them ideas about what we would like to learn more about with regards to Japan. During this small brainstorm I blurted out that I wanted to learn more about sumo and sake. One of the guys immediately picked up on the sumo and said he'd do the presentation to which I said, "Eggs-cellent."
So the next day he got up there first and told us about sumo and some of the finer details involved in the sport. I already know a lot so he just sort of filled in a few areas for me, but it was great to hear about sumo from his point of view.
Then, and I kid you not, he said, "Now we will do a demontration of sumo." Yes, that's right, he and a few of the others did a demonstration. First, three of the ladies got out small cushions and then kneeled down on them around the imaginary dohyo (the ring). Then, the two 'fighters' got out there and threw make believe salt and did some stretching while our presentor took out a fan and began to literally sing the pre-bout announcements. At this I couldn't help but laugh and nearly cry with joy. Here were six Japanese English teachers putting on a demonstration of a sumo bout. It was great.
So he sang the praises to the east and west and then moved over to take the roll of referee. The referee at a basho is responsible for announcing the fighters' names, where they are from, and which stable they are a member of and he does this is a half-singing, half-chanting sort of way. So our friend did this and after a few more salt throws and stretches, the fight got underway. It was a good fight with two Japanese men in shirts and ties giving all they had, each trying to force the other down or off the dohyo. In the end the smaller of the two forced his opponent to the ground and the three ladies sent their cushions flying.
But it wasn't over yet. During his talk our presentor had mentioned the envelopes that the bigger fights' winners always receive. These are donations to the fight, not the wrestlers as the winner takes all, which come from rich individuals or supporters, or from certain corporations (if I understood all this correctly) and can contain a few thousand dollars in yen at a time. So they mimed like the winner was getting this donation and he did the three motions with his hand over the envelopes and that was that.
It was one of the most memorable moments in my Japanese experience.
The other talks featured a lady talking about Okinawa, a small group telling us about some Japanese fables and even reading one of them to us, one guy talking about the faces we see on the money over here, and another guy telling us a little about sake.
The guy that did the sake thing used to work with Amy at Ichikawa but got moved in April to Kofu First High School. He is a very nice guy and liked to joke around with me. Apparently I have a reputation in Amy's office as having a taste for Japanese alcohol. Her supervisor met me once and a few weeks later Amy showed up at my place with a bottle of sake from him to me. So during his talk this guy told us that he doesn't drink too much and that if we wanted to know more about the subject to ask two of the other male teachers in the room and he pointed to them. Then he mentioned shochu and said that he didn't know too much about it either but that if the room wanted to learn more about it "you should ask Marcus" to which the entire room broke out in laughter, as did I. Anyway, it was a nice little talk and he even gave me the small bottle of sake he'd brought from his hometown.
So the seminar eventually ended and we sadly said goodbye to our new friends. They thanked Amy and me a few times, telling us what a great time they'd had and we thanked them for the same. If that was my job, I'd have no question about staying a third year.

Ok, that's all for today.