Happy Halloween (Friday, October 31, 2008)

Happy Halloween!!  Halloween doesn’t really exist here beyond the cute little pumpkin and witch decorations in 100-yen shops and candy stores.  In fact, I’ve come to learn that most people think that a Jack-O-Lantern is Halloween…???  (show them a picture of a carved pumpkin and they say ‘Halloween’ or ask them what Halloween is and they say ‘pumpkin!!!’ or ‘kabocha!!!’ which means pumpkin)  I guess that’s understandable since it’s not a nation-wide understood holiday, which really becomes more intriguing and fantastic to and insider living on the outside.  I mean wow, everyone in the US just knows to buy candy and be at home to give it out on Halloween!!  I mean, WOW, that’s marvelous, right!?!?  Sorry, I jut had a moment. 

Anyways, to make Halloween feel a little more like Halloween to me, I decided to plan out all Halloween lessons…(wow, that’s a lot of Halloweens in one sentence, which makes 4 – happy Halloween!! – 5, haha).  Luckily I was at an elementary school that gives me complete control over the lesson plans and what I teach the children…muhahahaha!!  Thank goodness for the Halloween pictures of a ghost, mummy, scarecrow, etc that Hiki-sensei gave me.  With those, we learned the words, colored, and made pop-out ‘Happy Halloween’ cards.  With the older kids, we played had Halloween Olympics.  The games consisted of mega-karuta (racing up to the board and slamming the card I called out), charades (haha, how do you act out a haunted house??), pictionary, and super janken (or super paper-scissors-rock: teams start out at opposite ends of a line of Halloween cards, say the names of the cards until they reach the same one where they have to paper-scissors-rock.  The winner gets to move on, and the looser must go to the end of their line, and the next person from their team begins from the beginning until they meet with opponent.  Points are awarded when a member from a team reaches the other end.)  They went totally crazy, which made me totally smiley.  

That night, I was planning on taking it easy so that I would feel better for the Halloween party in Niigata tomorrow night (oh yeah, I’ve been miserably sick all week long).  I kind of sort or made plans to go karaoke-ing with some teachers from my middle school, but with no one’s phone numbers, and not really sure if they had mine, I was questionable about how the night turned out.   But then bam, I got a phone call, and I went karaoke-ing with two other teachers and it was fantastic fun!!  Well actually it was fantastic fun with them because they have phenomenal voices and got really into the songs they chose to sing – one teacher even did a crazy dance with a fan!!  Me, on the other hand, on top of not being able to sing in the first place, had a scratchy voice, a plugged up nose, and stuffed up ears – that’s all I’m going to say.  Haha…all you can do is laugh, right?