Once Upon a Tokyo

It's a Wrap

Last Sunday was our last weekend rehearsal (which is basically a dress rehearsal), then Wednesday our *real* dress rehearsal, and Friday and Saturday our performances. SMIS and Seisen students performed a stage adaptation of Hitchcock's The Lady Vanishes. Somewhere in there, technically the Friday afternoon, was a matinee performance for our elementary kids.

You can check out a really tiny clip of the two scene-stealers, Charters and Caldicott, at SMIS's website.

We pretty much filled every seat for our 185-seat theater-in-the-round, but that wasn't a sign of success for me. Neither was the inordinate amount of well-wishing and congratulations. What was a sign of success for me was that the nearly-50-total students involved, cast and crew, banded together throughout the night and didn't want to leave even after the tear-down was complete! They started sharing contact information, taking pictures (with all 50 of 'em!), and laughing and joking even after we kept shooing them away.

Thanks to everyone involved! (And now in about four months I gotta put on a musical. Start those audition tapes rolling!)

Indulge me...

Sometimes I need to watch this video every now and again....

Don't Drink the Water

Hmm. It has been a while since I posted here, hasn't it? While it's not the only excuse, let me show you what I've been working on extracurricular-wise-- I've been directing the Fall Play 2008 for SMIS!

This year's offering: Woody Allen's DON'T DRINK THE WATER. It's all about a family of bumbling American tourists, mistaken for spies, who become trapped in their US Embassy overseas. Their only hope? The even-more-bumbling cast of characters inside! The tagline I created: When diplomacy fails... comedy takes over!

And as with any play, there's a ton of drama OFFstage as well. Basically, I feel that in some ways we start from scratch and put on a full-scale, two-act amateur production in the space of a month and half. Imagine all of THAT-- with all the organization and prep, adminstration, coaching, rehearsing, and delegating it requires... yeah, I think I've been busy.

It's also a lot of fun, of course. All the students are great and great fun to work with. It also helps that the script is pretty funny, and we took pains to update it to today's political climate, too! (As long as I get to keep my job on Monday.)

Some quotes:

"I've worked at seventeen US embassies-- some for as long as three weeks!"

"This is my daughter, Susan. She was a Ceasarian."

"What's wrong with the Kleins?"
"They have illegal dog fighting tournaments in their basement."
"How do you know?"
"I catered one!"

"Serious rioting? What do you have in mind?"
"Stoning, looting, fires."
"Stoning, looting, fires. My life is like the Old Testament. The only think I've been able to avoid so far is locusts."

"Four guests go home that night and what happens? They get food poisoning."
"Ohmigod-- I'll bet they're suing."
"Are they suing? Is that what you asked? No, they're not suing. We're suing them, for low resistence to tainted meat."

Speech Tournament-- Results!

If I've been silent this week, this time I'll blame it on coaching the Speech Team for my school. We've been practicing ever since returning from Winter Break, but this was crunch week, as seven schools from the Kanto Plains gathered at the Amer. School in Japan to compete in eight categories. We've had extra practices, dry runs, all-team meetings, and unsolicited advice from pretty much anyone who cared to listen, all in a week!

Sharing the coaching duties, I was responsible for the categories of Humorous, Dramatic Duo Interpretation, and Original Persuasive. I'm happy to say that every student I coached got an award, either silver or gold (although it remains unclear to what extent the judges give awards much like elementary school science fairs give out those "You are Special!" blue ribbons just for participation.)  Overall, our school received second place out of all schools participating. 

The student winning the gold in Humorous also received the "All-Star" recognition for the category. He did a bit based off of Ricky Gervais: (warning-- some language was changed to make it more appropriate for Speech contest!)

Exam Week

Well, exams just finished up. Of course that means I have Yet Another Stack Of Papers. "Now with Deadlines!" Life just keeps going, don' it?

Mmmm, Donut....

What it also means is that the school year is now officially half-way over. Weird. Didn't I just get here?

So, the next big thing to look forward to is Spring Break. Here, it's basically March 20 - 30th. It's first come first served! Who's up for it?

For those of you with church-business-related tax write-offs , this  same break is the same week for a conference hosted by Jesus Lifehouse. At the conference will be Brian Houston of Hillsong, Australia, and Hillsong' s band, to boot! Interested?

I wanted to keep this week open in case people wanted to come to visit, but if not-- I'll be heading out to vacation on my own. But no pressure, right? (Riiiiight...)

Sick Days You Still Show Up For

Okay, so I'm feeling a bit better-- I've turned the corner at least. And yet I still show up for work! (What's the sense of using a sick day for a day you're ACTUALLY sick.) Heh. I kid, I kid.

But what it DOES mean is less lecturing from me. (And believe me, that's funny when you consider how much I already avoid straight lecture in my classes.) It means a movie on Monday, and on our double-block periods-- MAFIA!

Yes, I've brought the game of Mafia to the land of the Rising Sun. (So... should I call it "Yakuza?") What's great about Mafia in the classroom is that the more vocal and ADD students get eliminated pretty quickly, and it forces the quiet students to engage with the class more. (And even then, tho, I had to coax the dialogue for quite a few rounds.)

It's Thanksgiving today, and the school hosts a big dinner for everyone. I'll tell ya all about it later.

End of the Quarter

Whew.

Today marks the end of the first quarter. That means it's been 10 weeks of actual school, 3 months of being in Japan. In some ways, it feels like it hasn't been that long at all, and in other ways it feels that it's been too long for the "little" I've done since I've been here.

I already have regrets-- like I didn't climb Mt. Fuji right away, and it's long past the time when you can (the cold and the snow make it too dangerous). I can't for the life of me see when I COULD have fit it in-- but that doesn't make it any less regrettable! Nor does the fact that I haven't really seen anything of Tokyo past, well, Tokyo itself. If you picture the greater metropolitan area as a clock, I've never (or as good as never) passed through the positions of 11:00 through 5:00. That's only 5 out of the 12 hours! (Although I like to say that I've definately explored my suburb and the more jam-packed towns of Shibuya, Omote-Sando, Tameike-Sanno, Harajuku, and Shinjuku in particular.)

But because it's the end of the quarter, we get a couple of days off. Are we supposed to be grading papers and calculating grades. Shrug. I don't know-- I'm going to Disneyland!!

Aw, yeah.

Festival of Nations

Hmmm… no one has responded to my question about the holidays? Wow. Feel the love. :)

Anyway, another story from last weekend:

St. Mary's has a sister school (the all-girls school) called Seisen. I wondered where all the guys' sisters ended up! Their big event in the fall is the "Fesitval of Nations," a carnival-type festival with game booths, a raffle, a swap meet, and lots and lots of food stalls! The game booths were for little kids, the raffle had INTENSE prizes like tropical vacations and Apple computer products, the swap meet was well-picked over as early as 10am, but the food stalls… ah, the food stalls!

I believe that parents and friends of all ethnicities were able to set up booths to sell their native cuisine. Nations were represented from Australia to Zimbabwe. The largest booth was the Japanese booth, but the most popular one by far was the New Zealand booth selling barbecued lamb steaks.

I had managed to bump into some friends near the Belgium booth, and one of them convinced me to buy what they were selling-- of course, what they were selling was all imported beer! I bought a bottle, and yes, it was quite tasty. I remember thinking, however, how weird it was that they were selling beer at a school function. Was it just a Catholic thing or an international thing? Maybe both? I also remember thinking how weird it would be if I bumped into students while imbibing.

Sure enough, what do I hear but "Hey, Mister Wall!" I "hey" back, and the wierdness of seeing students outside of class is compounded by the fact that I'm drinking a bottle of beer. It's not really such a big deal, and no one (except maybe me) even really thought twice about it. Again, is that a Catholic thing or an international thing? In any case, it's something I'm sure not used to!

Have you seen the video?

Since I will be working at St. Mary's International School, I thought I'd take their 50th Anniversary DVD and mix it up a little.