Tokamachi Opening Ceremony

In Tokamachi today instead of Tsunan. Reason being that Tokamachi has it's opening ceremony today, and Tsunan has its ceremony tomorrow. Not wanting to miss either, I asked to switch teh days.

I'm always interested in the ceremonies at the schools. On major factor is that it's one of the rare times the whole school gets together in the same room. It helps me feel like part of my school just being there, even if I can't understand what's being said. Another attraction is that there's something typically Japanese about the whole affair and it interests me.

Today I was treated to two ceremonies, each different. The first was your average school ceremony, this one was the opening ceremony of the new year. You can tell it's an average ceremony because the hall is not decorated and the students sit on the floor. And the teachers don't dress up. The opening ceremony was very similar to the closing ceremony; there's bowing, the Kocho sensei gives a speech, there's more bowing and then the band plays the school anthem, complete with the three students on stage doing hand movements.

The second ceremony of the day was the Welcome Ceremony, which welcomes the new students to the school and is a more formal ceremony on par with the graduation ceremony. The hall was decorated with red and white curtains. The stage sported a japanese flag and school flag. The school bonsai was on display. And the teachers were dressed up. To me, this last detail was a cheeky little move; an hour ago the teachers were in their scruff, now they're all suited and booted and I'm stood there in my jumper thinking "if only I could get my suit jacket and tie out the car". But it was too late so I had to grin and bear it. In front of the teachers. And the new students. And the new students' parents. It wasn't the end of the world, but a little forewarning would have been nice.

So, the ceremony itself. The school anthem was played, but over the PA rather than with a live band. When it had finished, the Kocho-sensei said a few words and left the stage. Then a rollcall was taken like in teh graduation ceremony; the homeroom teacher of each class would read out the names in the class, and the students would stand up and shout "Hai!" one by one until teh whole class was read. Then the Kocho-sensei gave a long speech, bracketted by lots of bowing. After that a student went on stage and gave a speech. More bowing. Then teh homeroom teachers stood infront of the students and were introduced by teh MC. More bowing. Then music was played of teh PA and the homeroom teachers led their classes back to the homerooms, each student taking their chair back with them. And that was it.

After I came back to the staff room and carried on preparing for teh first lessons. I went to see Homie-sensei and Miyazaki-sensei in preperation for lessons on Friday. Both lessons are about introductions and for the third-year class I'm drawing on teh stuff I created for my intro lessons in September, which makes it a lot easier since I don't have to create anything new. For Miyazaki-sensei's lesson, we're creating an new activity. This will be the first lesson I have with teh students, but also the students are still getting to know each other. So we've prepared a big introduction activity so students can get to know other students and not just me. It's a simple activity that should be easy to prepare and could take all lesson to complete. Perfect since I don;t have much time to prepare anything anyways.

Also noticed today that winter is probably over. Yes, we have massive snowpacks all over, but I left my snow coat at home and wore my jacket to work. In the office, we had the stove off and the window open and I didn't feel cold. Also, I felt stupid wearing my walking boots when I went to buy dinner; everyone else has given up wearing snowboots. Spring is here I think.