English Camp 2010

Well, we officially had our second and last English Club Camp, and we must say it was much better than last year's camp!! Although we enjoyed last year's camp, we were much more prepared and had a lot of fun games and good food planned this year. It was a lot of work, but it definitely paid off, and we were able to share with the students the importance of "Being True to Yourself" as it was our theme for the weekend, and of course, we talked about the ONE true path, Jesus. The students really seemed to understand the theme and even expressed how much they had learned and enjoyed discussing being true to themselves, during the weekend. We hope it has lasting effects and the students see that following Jesus will help them be true to themselves and bring them the most joy!

Of course, we have some pictures from the good-times (though this is only a limited amount, as there were many great moments and some hillarious videos, but there are too many to share!!)

Here, the students are working on the speech for the annual "To O Gijuku Speech Contest" that will take place on July 9th.


And, here, the students are attempting to play "Jenga" with the mini-cereal boxes that we brought for breakfast (from America of course!).



And.. how do we describe what is going on here... can you guess what it is?! That's right, a car with the seat-belt included even!!!! This was one of the many attempts at winning the group charades challenge. This team definitely won, with the aid of the seat-belt :)



And, lastly, we had to get in a shot of the whole group before leaving!!

The next day we luckily had Monday off from school for Foundation Day, since we were rather exhausted! But we thoroughly enjoyed seeing the students smiling and having fun over the weekend.. . and who knows.. . maybe if we have tons of extra food and prizes before we leave we just may have another English Camp!

She's a biggin'

Although we have been overly busy with tests, English Camp planning, and Angie working on her grad school stuff; we have also had our days of excitement. So sorry for not keeping you up to date with our adventures that you have been so anxiously awaiting to hear, so here we go...




Where to start??? Let's go from the most recent:

On Sat. June 19 was the annual fireworks festival. It was as explosive as ever!! One of the best parts about living in rural Japan is that we get to see our students quite often. So at this event where most of the city turns out we meet a lot of students. Just by chance in the vast crowds we met some of our English club girls, which was of course a joy. Afterwards they were going to have a slumber study party, don't know how much studying they actually accomplished.



Of course we had our fill of karaoke in the last few weeks, 2 doses to be precise!

On June 11 we had the annual school hike around the mountain. Also a great time to chat with the students. Here is a picture of some of our favorite boys acting just like any other good high schooler would--goofy!

A couple weeks ago we went on a preliminary hike for the summer. We took to the lower hills to practice for the real mountains later in the summer that we will conquer. The hills that we climbed that day were just behind the school, but that doesn't mean they aren't wild! Signs told us along the path that "bears frequent these areas" and to be cautious, which we were as we ferociously jingled our "bear bells" to ward them off. And it looks like it was successful since we are actually typing this, and all we saw was a fresh, very fresh, bear track!!!!! AAHHHH!!!

In the first week of June we made the most of our five day weekend, for the sports competition, and went south to the bustling city of Morioka. Well, more bustling than Hirosaki that is to say. We rented bikes and saw the sights. Angie got to cruise the streets on the "Bat-mobile." Her bike was stylishly black with cool Batman stickers! What more could you ask for!! She flew through the streets as Travis could hardly keep up on his "regular" bike.

Morioka is famous for many things but one of the better known things is the 500 Buddha statues that were hand made like a long time ago, and line 3 of the walls top to bottom in an old temple. Each of the buddha statues has a different face or sitting posture and some are rather strange....can't see how this brings someone to enlightenment...

Overall, we really enjoyed Morioka and can't wait to go back and finish the exploration and get some more Starbucks (it's the closest town to Hirosaki with Starbucks, and it's 4 hours away)!!!!

Topping the Charts

Today in school we had many students missing due to the big sports tournaments, which is quite normal of course. Along with those students the coaches also go of course, leaving their classes for the day. The students practice all year for this tournament so it is a big big day! With the coaches gone (quite a few actually) other teachers have to fill in the classes. At our school, and Japan in general most likely, there is nothing like a substitute teacher. The other full time teachers at the school must fill in for the absent teachers. This becomes a big hassle as teachers have to work out the schedule to fill in the classes. Today we learned that the absent teachers do not prepare anything for the "fill-in" teacher to do. They only monitor the students, lest they get out of control.

As Travis was walking by one class he noticed that the students were quite talkative, this is to say they were out of their seats, walking around, and talking to friends as opposed to sitting in their seats talking to their neighbor which is the common activity during class...yes, truth. Upon looking into the class Travis seemed to notice there was not a teacher. As one student casually walked out of the room to her locker Travis asked her, "What's going on [in the class]?" She replied, "Mr. Jin is absent from school today." "So...you have no teacher?" Travis asked quizzically. "No." She replied with a slight blush.

So, yes indeed, this class was left without even a teacher to observe the class. They were left to fend for themselves. Untaught, unbridled........while the teacher who is specifically hired only to fill-in classes is sitting right behind us at this moment?????????????