Monday, July 14, 2008

"We know we can’t give up our fishing lives on the ocean."

Happy Birthday to the very best mother in all of existence!!!

お母さん、お誕生日おめでとうございます!!!

I can't wait for you to come visit me so I can show you all around Japan.

Today the first years all piled on a few buses to drive to a public swimming pool in a nearby town. The school has a pool, but hasn't been used in a while and is full of leaves - apparently it's too expensive to keep it filled up. There is a swimming club, though, five cheerful boys - who knows how they spend their afternoon.

After summer vacation, there'll be a sports festival sometime in September. I'm looking forward to this, no little because today they were rehearsing Soran Bushi (ソーラン節). This is a traditional dance that just about every school does a version of - I first saw it in an inspirational television drama where it was the climactic moment where all the various kids came together with a Purpose - a little cheesy but sweet. I'm very excited to see my own little students do it.

There's hundreds of videos of Soran Bushi online - like I said, every school - but here's one:

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Emily, can i sell lots of your DVD's and CD's and books on Amazon---I'm a pro merchant for a month and i can then send you the profit? --wood

Beeniac said...

Ahh, thanks for the B-day greeting.
I really like the dance. What does it signify?
Love you,
Mom