I've actually gotten caught up a lot faster than I thought I would. I'll be caught up to what's on my computer by Friday, then Saturday and Sunday I may take more pictures, which I'll get up on Monday and Wednesday. If I only have one day's worth of pictures though, I might actually get a break. I don't know what I'd do with the time.

Thank you to everyone for adding yourselves to the map. We've got a pretty good spread here, if you haven't added yourself yet - please do.

So here are a few more pictures of Higashino's Undokai practice. Like I said earlier, I'm starting to get a sort of deep fatigue at the mere thought of photographing these things, but this weekend is the real deal, and I'm hired as official photographer (and 150m relay runner.) We'll see how both of those go. In the meantime, a few photos.


I when I go home I'm really going to miss the uniforms.

They were practicing the "big jump rope" which is exactly what it sounds like. A big bunch of kids jump over a big jump rope. It doesn't sound interesting, but there's great potential for humor.


The kids get way off the ground, and they can usually go for ten or twenty jumps.


That kid on the far left especially. Woah.

As I started taking more pictures, I noticed what was happening to the kids' hair. Something about Japanese hair bounces perfectly, and if you can catch it just right, it's hilarious.


That girl in the back left is trying to figure out what I'm photographing.


And she just figured it out.


I dunno. There's just something inherently funny about 20-odd Japanese middle schoolers jumping in unison in the middle of dusty field.




Boys face one way, girls face the other.


The rope spinner has a tough job.


But he doesn't let it get him down.

A couple days later I was back for combined elementary and junior high marching practice. This is always a little strange for me, because with the military marches, the flags, the formations, and the shouted commands - it all feels a little military, except for the fact that there are seven year olds marching. When one teacher asked me what I thought of all the marching, I said I thought it all felt very military and he thought about it for a second, and then told me that really the military's marching was much better, especially the Chinese army's high stepping. Then he demonstrated some high stepping for me.


Like Nobu at Nishino elementary, Higashino has a few kids who are severely disabled but participate in every event and class.


Whee! Fun! Sports day! - and this is just the practice.


Thank you for the fun, sports day.

After the practice I had to grade some notebooks. The kids do a page every night, and usually I'm just correcting spelling and handwriting when they copy the day's lesson, like this:



But then I came to a book that had this:


The lesson did deal with yesterday, today, and tomorrow - but how does one grade a translation of Yesterday Once More? In a related point of interest, the principal of the school, a somewhat stuffy older man, has Yesterday Once More as the ring tone on his baby blue cell phone. Whenever he gets a call (and he gets a lot of calls) the phone sings "every sha-la-la-la, every wo-o-wo-o" - which is about the funniest thing in the world.

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