Halloween has not yet arrived but the parties have already started. I have been to three Halloween events so far this month and there are still two more to go. All of my lessons are focusing on Halloween. Last Friday, we had a conference and then an after conference party. The next night we went out to Sonic for a costume party. Me and a few other girls were angels in black dresses. That will not be my Halloween costume for the actual Halloween but it will take me a while to get my costume together. I am hoping to be an octopus but I don’t know if I have the time to make it. I had to get the heater out this week which was crying shame. It means that the goodness of summer is definitely passed. We pulled all the basil out of the garden and have tried to make some pesto out of it. It needs a bit of work but it will be worth it if we can make it work out. I think we broke the blender already though so operations will have to be moved to Gisela’s house. A piece of good news is that Kosa got a job working at a kindergarten. It looks like they will sponsor a visa and the whole nine yards. It is up in Ueda so unfortunately I won’t be seeing much of him. Ueda is about an hour and a bit north of here. I hope he likes the job though. It sounds like it will be perfect for him. He came down on the weekend though which was a nice.
Friday of this week was Music Day at Seba which was great. The grade five class sang Oh Happy Day which was quite good. Seba is my favourite school and it was really nice of them to involve me in the concert considering I only go to that school about 1 day a week. I sang with the staff choir and played the tambourine for another song. It was pretty fun. The little kids were really cute. They sang some great stuff but what was the most impressive was usually the playing. It is amazing to see a seriously regimented music program being implemented at the elementary school level. When you expect a lot of out children they can really produce an amazing product. They do everything from memory and the music is often quite complicated. I hope I can get the DVD of the concert because I would love to show it to people back home. This is what happens when you take music seriously as a subject. It feels like I am in another time in some ways. Like back in the day when it was important to be educated in the arts to be considered a well rounded person. I think that may have been about a century ago now. People here are also a lot less shy to just start singing a song to other people. Most people seem to be able to basically hold a tune. I think Japanese people are sometimes surprised at how little musical training foreigners have. Especially when it comes to things like karaoke. Or when you are at someone’s house and they have a piano. A friend told me the other day that he was at a piano recital and at the end they just came into the audience and asked him to play something for them or just sing something. They had prior knowledge of any musical ability but they just thought it would be nice for him to share something. He hadn’t played the piano for a while and wasn’t really keen on singing to them. I think he was a bit shocked by it all. Then they asked him to sing the American national anthem. He is American so it isn’t that big of a shock but still, that isn’t such an easy song and he didn’t know the words. I have become quite desensitized to being asked to sing for a group of people. I don’t have a stunning voice by any means but I will belt out a song if they ask me.
After the concert, we kind of filled time for the rest of the day. Then that evening we had a work party to celebrate the concert. This was the first social event I have been to with this school and it was quite fun. The teachers are all a lot younger and many of them speak English. The food was good and it was quite close to my house. I got to hang out with a few of the homeroom teachers who I have suspected were really cool. On Saturday, I helped build the haunted house in town and then went down to Agematsu for an evening of Indian food provided by Rishi, the guy who now lives in that town. It was quite delicious. We drove back up to Shiojiri late that night and then I got up the next day and got some kittens. I got two and I have named them Jack and Vic. I will post pictures of these two as soon as possible. I took them to Lake Suwa and hung out in the park with them for a while. It felt like a beautiful summer day even though we are well into fall. After that I brought them home and got them settled in the house and then went out to a pumpkin carving thing that Luke was putting on with the city hall people. It was cool but I only stayed for a few minutes. I wanted to go home and be with the kittens. They are about two months old and I love them to pieces already. It has long been my dream to go out and get some kittens and this weekend I accomplished that dream! Then a bunch of people came over for supper and we had pumpkin soup and tea biscuits. I can’t get enough pumpkin these days. Or red wine. We drank a bottle for each kitten. We made the soup with soy milk which was a lot easier on my stomach than regular milk.
So let’s see, any other recent developments in my life… Not a whole lot to report. I have been doing a lot of thinking these days about what I should be doing with my life and where I should direct myself. I feel like I don’t know enough Japanese to come home yet although I don’t really know what I am going to do with the Japanese when I get back. I have started to kick around some ideas but I haven’t really put anything together in my mind yet. I am thinking I would like to have some kind of private school catering to foreign residents in Canada who wish to be educated in the style of their home country. This might sound a bit odd but I bet there is a market for it. I am looking into the logistics of it anyways. I think I should probably see some other countries before I try to carry out that plan though. Anyways, I have been just been kicking around a few ideas for the future. Other than that, I have nothing major to report. I haven't heard from a bunch of you in a while so send some comments my way! I would love to hear what you are all up to. Today's pictures are all from the Halloween party. I have some pumpkin carving pics too but the computer isn't being real friendly too them right now. Anyways, I hope to post some obscenely cute kitten pictures as soon as possible. Time for bed now.