Well I have arrived home from today's sports festival. I can tell you that today had these things involved:
Sun
Sun Burn
Running
Jumping
Laughing
Crying
Friends
Family
Eating
oh and sun BURN!! :D
and the most important thing that was present today was:
the love and heart of the students from Matsubara High School
Today was just very nice. Remember on the previous post I said that there really wasn't any real sports in sports festival? Well, there really wasn't many real sports. That didn't matter though, the games that the students played were very fun.
There were four teams, blue, red, yellow and green. Each group had the same amount of students and they were all mixed up with different grade levels. Each team had a mascot and a theme. The students worked so hard to create these mascots. They created everything for the sports festival, it's just amazing.
There were about 10 different events, a lunch break, class dances and final relay races. Some of the events involved
*giant jump ropes
*throwing bean bags into a basket
*two people tied at the legs relay race
*club relays
*large scale tug of war
*scavenger hunt
*obstacle course race
I ran in the Club relay race with the international club. It was really fun, and we won the race! :) Our shirts looked pretty cool too!
The end of the sports day all the students sat down in rows with their team. The leaders of the teams sat at the front of the rows. The leaders of the teams were all seniors. That meant that it was their last sports festival at Matsubara High School. ..
The winners were announced for various categories like
*best dance routine
*best mascot
*best poster
etc...
The students (leaders) that won were quite shaken up (crying) when they won. At first I thought it was a bit of an over reaction by the students. I will talk about this later...
The final award was for the most points. The winner was the Green team, second place was Blue, followed by Yellow and Red. The Green team was so happy, they all spread tears of joy and also sadness (for the seniors) because it was the final sports day for them in high school. All of the hard work, staying at school everyday until 8pm working on the sports festival paid off. They all worked so hard!
At the end, all the senior students lined up in a large row. While the younger students all sat down looking at them. This was a traditional way to end the sports festival. I thought it was pretty standard until the end. Each senior student yelled out messages to people. It's very difficult to explain here. Each student would step up and yell a message to someone. For example thanking a teacher for the 3 years, or saying I love you to his or her best friend. They relayed words of advice to the younger students and there was not a word being spoken. Complete silence, everybody was listening. I didn't understand everything exactly but just seeing the faces of each speaker was enough. They showed so much love, joy, pain, happiness, longing and heart. I remember I was watching one the members of the basketball club yelling a message to his friends. (they weren't using mics just their own voices) He said something like, "I'm going to miss my friends, but they will always be in my heart when I leave this school". After he said this he started to cry so hard. Just watching him, I felt so bad. If you could have only seen how much they really meant every word!!! It's so fucking hard to explain right here on this blog. All the senior students were so Happy to finish and do well in the the sports festival, but the heartbreak of realizing "this is it". It was just too much for them to bear, so they just had to cry. I found myself shedding a tear or two as well.
Today was a rush of emotions. I learned a lot about Japanese culture today. I might not be able to explain it very well, but I know deep inside me I have been changed somehow. Days like these make me realize why I came to this country. Some of my friends here in Japan say that they hate where they teach. They say that they have bad students and that they don't care about anything. DAMN, I must be so lucky. Because the students at my school are amazing. They have a lot of heart, and sometimes...that's all you really need.
peace
vince
p.s. i'm going to make a video slideshow with all the pictures ok. so be patient... in the mean time enjoy a few photos that i took.
p.s.s. oh and i took a few photos of ridiculous outfits and sportswear, so they will be in the slideshow ok :) don't worry hahaha :)
*****just to let you know that they students at matsubara high school have colors to differentiate grade. for example the seniors wear red, 2nd years are blue, and the 1st years are green. So that is why students have different colors of pants.*****
Sun
Sun Burn
Running
Jumping
Laughing
Crying
Friends
Family
Eating
oh and sun BURN!! :D
and the most important thing that was present today was:
the love and heart of the students from Matsubara High School
Today was just very nice. Remember on the previous post I said that there really wasn't any real sports in sports festival? Well, there really wasn't many real sports. That didn't matter though, the games that the students played were very fun.
There were four teams, blue, red, yellow and green. Each group had the same amount of students and they were all mixed up with different grade levels. Each team had a mascot and a theme. The students worked so hard to create these mascots. They created everything for the sports festival, it's just amazing.
There were about 10 different events, a lunch break, class dances and final relay races. Some of the events involved
*giant jump ropes
*throwing bean bags into a basket
*two people tied at the legs relay race
*club relays
*large scale tug of war
*scavenger hunt
*obstacle course race
I ran in the Club relay race with the international club. It was really fun, and we won the race! :) Our shirts looked pretty cool too!
The end of the sports day all the students sat down in rows with their team. The leaders of the teams sat at the front of the rows. The leaders of the teams were all seniors. That meant that it was their last sports festival at Matsubara High School. ..
The winners were announced for various categories like
*best dance routine
*best mascot
*best poster
etc...
The students (leaders) that won were quite shaken up (crying) when they won. At first I thought it was a bit of an over reaction by the students. I will talk about this later...
The final award was for the most points. The winner was the Green team, second place was Blue, followed by Yellow and Red. The Green team was so happy, they all spread tears of joy and also sadness (for the seniors) because it was the final sports day for them in high school. All of the hard work, staying at school everyday until 8pm working on the sports festival paid off. They all worked so hard!
At the end, all the senior students lined up in a large row. While the younger students all sat down looking at them. This was a traditional way to end the sports festival. I thought it was pretty standard until the end. Each senior student yelled out messages to people. It's very difficult to explain here. Each student would step up and yell a message to someone. For example thanking a teacher for the 3 years, or saying I love you to his or her best friend. They relayed words of advice to the younger students and there was not a word being spoken. Complete silence, everybody was listening. I didn't understand everything exactly but just seeing the faces of each speaker was enough. They showed so much love, joy, pain, happiness, longing and heart. I remember I was watching one the members of the basketball club yelling a message to his friends. (they weren't using mics just their own voices) He said something like, "I'm going to miss my friends, but they will always be in my heart when I leave this school". After he said this he started to cry so hard. Just watching him, I felt so bad. If you could have only seen how much they really meant every word!!! It's so fucking hard to explain right here on this blog. All the senior students were so Happy to finish and do well in the the sports festival, but the heartbreak of realizing "this is it". It was just too much for them to bear, so they just had to cry. I found myself shedding a tear or two as well.
Today was a rush of emotions. I learned a lot about Japanese culture today. I might not be able to explain it very well, but I know deep inside me I have been changed somehow. Days like these make me realize why I came to this country. Some of my friends here in Japan say that they hate where they teach. They say that they have bad students and that they don't care about anything. DAMN, I must be so lucky. Because the students at my school are amazing. They have a lot of heart, and sometimes...that's all you really need.
peace
vince
p.s. i'm going to make a video slideshow with all the pictures ok. so be patient... in the mean time enjoy a few photos that i took.
p.s.s. oh and i took a few photos of ridiculous outfits and sportswear, so they will be in the slideshow ok :) don't worry hahaha :)
*****just to let you know that they students at matsubara high school have colors to differentiate grade. for example the seniors wear red, 2nd years are blue, and the 1st years are green. So that is why students have different colors of pants.*****
bean bag throwing game
two people three legs race
obstacle course race
good times
relay run
kickin' it in the sun
pre race festivities (well not really festivities)
(go vince go!) a dictionary was our baton! haha
the posters that the students created (the final score was what you see there)
Green are the champions
Green celebrates
Students Speech at the end (everybody is listening, some are crying)
Blood, Sweat, Tears (hey this really is sports)
this video is of the opening ceremony
the next video is of the ending when they are in line giving the messages
if you want to see more videos click on "MENU" inside the video player and my other videos will appear on the right side. there are more sports festival videos, so please watch them
I always loved the bean bag race the best and then a donut eating contest. the donut would hang from a string and you'd have to run up to the string on a stick with hands behind and eat that donut. lots of fun. sorry you got a sunburn, but what an experience, huh?!
ReplyDeleteWow, that "sports festival" seemed so cool! I think it's nice that the seniors got a chance to give a few words of advice. It's definitely different compared to school over here, but i think that is the best part! Those posters were amazing!!! Talk to you soon!!
ReplyDelete