Sports festival and the Paee-Eeeahsss-Ayyyy-Taaaeeee

In my unprofessional opinion, Tuesday and Wednesday have been thrilling and picture-plentiful enough for me to give the days their own post. Tuesday, you see, was the school Sports Festival, and then today was the PSAT (no pictures of the PSAT for copyright reasons, sorry to let you down.)

TUESDAY

The sports festival...where to start? The beginning, perhaps...school started yesterday like any other--I put on oxford shirt, plaid pleated skirt, cardigan, kneesocks! and crammed Nancy Drew into the increasingly

Sorry to interject. There was just an earthquake.

increasingly crowded train for about an hour. Upon arriving at school, I lost the schoolgirl get-up and changed with my classmates into the school PE uniform (white shirt, white sweatshirt, navy shorts, navy pants on top) and then hurried outside to get in our appropriate lines for the opening ceremony. Upon doing so, we (we meaning the entire middle and high school = rather large indeed--about 1200 girls or so, maybe?) marched out to the opening fanfare (note: marched) and waited for opening speeches, a very solemn flag raising that everyone talked through, and then dispersed into our spots for the school warmup to the song, "Bad Girl." After this, the teams (red, blue, green, yellow, white) went to their assigned spots to wait for the first event (jumprope!) We got to 22, but alas, it was not enough. Following this, there were multiple events, such as 100 and 200 meter dashes...there were also club relays, where different sports teams competed--needless to say, track and field dominated, of course =) I did not run in this because they already were training for this event when I joined the team. After this, the highschool 1st graders (my grade's classes) did an alternative relay, where we carried people, ran with legs tied, and sprinted to the finish to win this relay (which my blue team did not, I will add)...regardless, though, it was really really fun. After more random uneventful events, the entire color teams (middle and highschool) had a race in which the team would line up and have to get a giant ball with the circumference of a fridge or grand piano from Point A to Point B x number of times. The blue team narrowly lost this, due to insufficient, umm, ball passing. Right.

Amid all of these events, my friends in dance club and I designated ourselves as blue team cheerleaders, as we yelled random things to up the team spirit (e.g. "Irashaimase! Banana mango isu tabemasenka! Oishiyo!" [see earlier post for meaning] as well as random English cheers; "Blue team is red hot! Blue team is red hot! Blue team is R-E-D red H-O-T hot once we start we can't be stopped red hot!" and "We got spirit, yes we do! We got spirit, how about you?" =D). Also, we had blue pom-poms, which in and of themselves open up worlds of team spirit possibilities. Also: the whole festival was so cold! After the opening ceremony, we had to take off the the sweatshirts and pants for the events, and even when we were waiting and could wear them, it felt like winter in Texas (although I guess that really isn't saying much--but still). One last weird thing--about 25 helicopters flew over the festival (unrelated, I'm sure). It was really freaky and creepy. Just thought I would throw that out there.

But it was far from over yet! The next thing I did was my 1k. There were two 1k races--for the middle and high school. In the first one, about 10 girls and Sakurai-sensei ran. This was interesting, as the girls all started too fast and were huffing and puffing by about lap 3, while Sakurai-sensei kept at the end--until there was no end to keep at because she went very slowly. At the end of the race, the winner finished, and Sakurai-sensei had to go around the finish line to do her final lap; more like a victory lap because the whole school was cheering for her as she ran at no hurried pace to the end. Then it was my turn to do the high school race. I was at the end of the race starting, and for about 3 laps I was way behind everyone. Even so, it was so great because my class and my team were cheering for me, and even other people on the other teams were, too. It was so great and such a cool feeling to hear that, even being last--but wait! that was only lap 3! After doing my little mosey around 3 times, I picked up the pace on the other two and finished second--my track and field coach, Kai-sensei was first. So, all in all, pretty cool...

We had lunch time about halfway through the day, immediately after my race, and cold as it was, my 1A class ate outside in a giant circle and passed around snacks people had brought for the sports day. I took a bunch of pictures of my classmates...

After lunch, there was what I deemed the half-time show, in which the dancers dressed as cheerleaders (and some as guys--see the picture of 2 of my classmates!) and did a mass dance to various songs, climaxing at the end with Avril Lavigne's "Girlfriend." It was really fun to watch, ex. my friend Kaho was dressed as a guy and was doing this dance. Heh heh. But it was really really good and really well performed, especially since so many people were doing it in super-synchronized form.

I forgot to mention: Kobayashi-sensei came to Sports Day, which surprised me--I didn't know or expect her to come. It was interesting to see her there =)

The middle schoolers did an event where 40 girls per team tied their legs together in a line (see picture) and raced forward...this was interesting, but potentially hazardous, because if one girl falls, half of the team does a faceplant. The middle schoolers practiced a lot before-hand, however, there was one accident (I caught I picture of the beginning of it) where a girl tripped and was knocked unconcious--she was stretchered out, which I am sure was not such a great moment for the onlooking 150 parents or so, all armed with videocameras or cameras.

A little while after this, the dancers did a performance en masse. Not much to say, but I liked it, and I am sure I would have been enthralled with it had I been able to see better. What I did see, though, was really really good.

My grade had to do a hurdles race, where five people at a time (one from each team) did hurdles. Also not overly eventful, although I did win my race.

The teachers had to do a relay towards the end. This was interesting, as we watched as our usually-contained teachers tried (sometimes in vain) to dribble or balance balls, sometimes falling. Representing the blue team were Hiratska-sensei (principal), Kai-sensei (homeroom/math teacher/track and field coach), and Sakurai-sensei (in charge of exchange). It was interesting, but unfortunately I have no pictures of this fascinating event.

At the very end, there was a final relay, in which selected members of each team did a 2400 meter relay. Although the blue team had not dominated the sports day, we have the track-and-field sprinters on the team, and we dominated, earning us the shiny relay trophy. Woot woot....

At the end of Tuesday, I took some random pictures of my a few of my friends. We are kind of goofy.

WEDNESDAY

Now, if you thought Tuesday and the Sports Festival were exciting, wait until you hear what I did today!

I took the PSAT. It was fine, I think I did well, and I am not worried in the least.

And then I slept for 5 and 1/2 hours due to the prior extensive brain activity.

No pictures, my apologies.

(~。~) ZZZzZZzZzzzzzz

PS I had to finish this blog post on Thursday due to picture malfunction. I would like to add the interesting tidbit of the day: today, a very old woman totally cut me when I was about to sit down. She pushed me out of the way with her cane and everything. I was shocked and automatically relinquished my seat--partially because I really couldn't do anything about it, and anyway, it was an old woman--although she brandished her cane like a bayonet. Pretty amusing for me.