I had a really nice day the other day. It started out with the UNESCO English speech contest, in which I was one of the judges. I felt really official... it was funny, since I hardly think myself qualified to be a judge of anything. It's always amazing how much prestige one gets from being a native English speaker here. The speech contest was long, with about 45 contestants ranging from junior high to high school level, and I have to admit it got a little old hearing some of the same speechs done five times. But overall, I was really impressed with the amount of effort all the students had put into it. I wish they all could have gotten a prize. I mean, the kids don't really learn to speak English in the schools here... read and write, maybe, but not really speak. English is taught for the purpose of passing high school or college entrance exams, not as a language that the students would ever be expected to use for communication. So seeing these students get up on stage and give a whole memorized speech in English was just amazing. It takes massive amounts of bravery. I mean, I speak better Japanese than any of them speak English, but I sure don't want to try entering a Japanese speech contest- that would scare the heck out of me! Well anyway, not every kid could win, but I truly admired all of them for their efforts.

So after the speech contest, my supervisor picked up me and my fellow JET co-worker, Peter and we went to dinner at our kacho-san's house. It was a beautiful house, recently built. The dinner was in a Japanese style room, which was murder on my legs, because I am terrible at sitting in seiza for long periods of time. Seiza is the polite way for women to sit on the floor... with their legs folded under them. I can sit that way for about 15 minutes before I start to squirm. I made it through though, shifting positions every five minutes towards the end of the meal.. haha. Anyway, the food was great... all sorts of delicious Japanese fare that I don't usually treat myself to, like sashimi and other seafood. The main dish was something called "roof tile soba," which is apparently soba noodles usually served on a hot roof tile, so the noodles get a bit fried. The soba at this meal was actually served on a hotplate, achieving the same fried effect. It was wonderful... I'd never had it before.

Besides the food, the dinner was enjoyable because I don't get a chance to converse much with our kacho-san, and it was fun to just sit and chat for a while. We talked about all sorts of things, from my hometown, to Japanese ko-gals. (those trendy, platform-shoe-wearing types) It was great!

Afterwards, we went to karaoke. My supervisor is always energetic, so it was terrific to see him belt out his favourites. He has so much character! Kacho-san turned out to be nearly a professional-quality singer... wow... I was impressed! He sang all sorts of enka songs. (enka is traditional Japanese music) Of course, I busted out with my favourite Morning Musume song, Love Machine- I pity Peter, who has probably heard me sing it about a million times... complete with cutesy hand-motions! But this was the first time anyone from the office had heard me sing it, so I just had to. :) I sang some other favourite j-pop songs, and my supervisor and kacho-san were quite amused. I even attempted Utada Hikaru's "First Love," which is a nice ballad with a big range from low to high, that I thought I wouldn't be able to pull off, but it came out quite nicely... all in all, a good evening! I look forward to going karaoke again with people from my office. :)

Other than that, this past week has been fairly uneventful. The weather is beginning to warm up a bit, though, so that makes me happy! I can't wait for spring... the news said Japan would have an early spring. Oh, I hope, I hope!

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