Road Race

On Wednesday, I went to the biggest and closest school. There was a road race, ロード　レース, that day. I didn't run in it because my foot really hurt. I think I have a stress fracture or something because my foot just periodically hurts and there doesn't appear to be anything wrong with it externally. Anyway, here are some pictures.



There are the first and second graders, who only ran around the school, basically.



There are the third and fourth graders, who ran a longer distance, along with the fifth and sixth graders, though the younger kids got a head start.



And there are the fifth and sixth graders. One of the girls in this group absolutely wailed on all the other kids and finished probably thirty seconds before the next closest kid, who himself was well ahead of the pack.



I guess the race was kind of a big deal because the kindergarteners even came over to watch. A bunch of them were waving solid colored flags, which was kind of funny to me because I knew the kindergarten probably had such flags for the sole purpose of cheering for competitions in general without supporting anyone in particular.



There were a bunch of volunteers, who were mostly old guys. I think there is a group of old guys here that do all sorts of stuff at schools, but I'm not sure. On Tuesday, a group of old guys came to the school I was at to teach the kids how to make brooms out of these reedy plants. I have pictures of that, too, but I forgot to email them to myself. Anyway, one of the old guys at the road race was videotaping the proceedings and talked to me for a bit, though not on camera. Unfortunately, old dudes are essentially impossible to understand, so I mostly just had to answer that I didn't know when he asked me questions. Ah, well. I don't really have anything else to add about the road race.

Have No Fear

New updates are on the way. I just have a bunch of pictures to mess with and have been busy for the last couple days.

Taiko Festival

On Sunday I went to a taiko, or Japanese drum, festival with James and his family. Jo was there, also. I'll just post some low-quality pics instead of talking forever.



I believe this group, if you can make them out, was preschoolers, who were ridiculously good for probably not being able to tie their own shoes.



Eventually, the people running the event got around to interviewing the little kids for the local tv station. I actually didn't get interviewed, which I'm kind of happy about, but also kind of disappointed about.



I tried to get a picture of a little kid watching the show, but it was too far away, so I don't think you can see him here. At least you get an idea of how big the crowd was.







There were a bunch of groups, three of which I have taken low-resolution pictures of here. Some of them went all out with costumes and masks, with their routines telling some sort of story, though I didn't really know what it was. Some of the groups, at least, were traveling groups from other cities and probably professional.



This guy played an extremely long piece on the marimba, which was a nice change of pace, what with all the drumming. I guess they aren't really strict about keeping things traditional here, which is nice.



This guy, who appeared to be older than dirt, was playing shamisen, a three stringed Japanese guitar that sounds really weird if you have not heard it before. He was going crazy on it, like some kind of ancient Japanese Les Claypool, popping and everything. Nuts.



These two guys played guitar and sang while wearing big goofy hats. They did a couple songs, including one that seemed to be titled "'N'-town Mai," which means "'N'-town Rice." The rice in "N"-town is famous, I guess, for being really good, so this song contained the lyrics "'n'-town mai umai," a play on words because mai sounds like umai, meaning delicious, roughly. Ha ha, a good song.





Those are James's kids eating ramen. It was too dark at that point to get good pictures, sorry. I spent a lot of time playing with them yesterday. That's about it.

Din Din

Hey, how about some more pictures of food?



ピーマンです。That's right, a tiny green pepper, or piiman, which is a loan word, but, weirdly, not an English one, obviously. I think it's actually from Portuguese, but I don't know for sure.



茄子です。Nasu, which we call eggplant. People love them here, which is good because they are not bad at all. Where could this be going?



That's right. It wouldn't be a meal of mine if it didn't involve some kind of pre-made thing. In this case, it's maabounasu mix. For those who'd like to see the Chinese characters, that's 麻婆茄子. Literally, that means "hemp old woman eggplant," but what it really means is Chinese-style eggplant.



So, there's the impressive meal. I'm pretty sure you are supposed to eat it with rice, but I'm running kind of low on that right now, so I'm saving it for things that really need it. Also, it was supposed to be enough food for 3-4 people, but I think that means little people who aren't hungry. That's it for now. Later.

New Blog Link

I added a link to another blog in the link section. It's called A Cup of Something Warm. Apparently, it features all the latest news on coffee, tea, cocoa, non-gazpacho soups, hot toddies, and, much, MUCH MORE!

More School Stuff

It's been a few days since I've updated, and I've got some new pics, so I think I'll let them do most of the talking. On Wednesday, I went to the second smallest school here and the big activity of the day was digging up jagaimo, or potatoes. They aren't like normal potatoes, but I guess we don't really have a word for them. They are sort of purple colored and long. The dictionary just says potato, though.



Potatoes, we are coming for you!



As with everything here, potato digging must start with a bizarrely military-like assembly of students who must be engineered somewhere for cuteness.



Let's do our best!



Not every student can be asked to concentrate on speeches at such an exciting time.



Enough of speeches, it's digging time.



I believe these baskets were designed for the sole purpose of carrying ジャガ芋.



A fine haul of potatoes.

Also of note that day was that I had to gun my car through the mountains to get to the bank while the kids were at recess and cleaning time (with the vice-principal's permission) so I could pay a bill because I am supposed to be at work 8:30-4:15 every day and of course the bank is conveniently open 9:00-3:00 on weekdays. Also, it is the only place to pay most bills. Seriously, what? How do people without housewives get things done here?

On Thursday, I went to the school farthest away and had a pretty decent day. The kids there love baseball, so I played baseball with them during one of their recess times. I played soccer with some of them later, too. The teachers always find this amusing, which is good, because playing sports in the blazing heat while they are working in the cool office excuses me from having to plan lessons or even get my own drinks. They always laugh and say, "otsukaresama," basically, "thanks for working so hard." And the kids practically drag me out of the office for the purposes of playing. But, I'd rather be amazing kids with my ability to kick balls across the field than working inside, so it is kind of nice.

I also had to go to the kindergarten across from that school at the end of the day to work out a scheduling problem (which was just me writing a 1 instead of a 2), but for some reason the kindergarteners were still there at almost 4:30, despite the elementary school kids having already gone home. I was having a conversation with one of the teachers there who likes practicing English so she can go to America at some point when the kids pulled me out of the office so I could play with them. We ended up playing "What Time is it, Mister Wolf?" Eventually, I did have to go, though.

On Friday, I went to a smallish school and only had three classes because they were combined. In each class we played a game where I put a plastic fruit or vegetable in a black box adorned with a question mark and gave hints as to what it was so that the kids could guess the names in English. It went really well, and the teachers thought it was awesome that I used a clue about Momotaro, the legendary peach boy of Japanese myth. While playing this game, I really wondered how people get by without Japanese language ability. This game is basically impossible to do unless you speak Japanese because all the kids understand is color names. People must manage somehow, I guess. I played catch with some kids after school, too, and one of the ladies at the office showed me a picture of her dog because I'd mentioned that I like dogs. Awesomeness all day.

Daigakuin

So, I'm trying to come up with places to apply for grad school. Ideas, anyone? U of I sucks because they didn't give me anything but insufficient loans last time, but that's just about the only place that is out specifically. I am basically just looking for a few things:

Doctoral program, preferably either direct or something like a one-year master's-into-doctoral thing.

Actual mathematics, not applied math, statistics (which makes me almost ill), or some kind of engineering thing.

Financial aid such as assistantships, fellowships, or just stipends. Something that will allow me to pretty much do just this, even if it's a typical grad student amount of money, i.e., one step above hobo.

This one's not a deal breaker or anything, but preferably not some craphole of a place.

That's about it. Ideas are appreciated. There are just too many places to figure it out, and I can't just apply everywhere because I will run out of money paying application fees.