Is Betty Ford in the house? Please?...

OK, I always liked Sue Ellen off Dallas, but really I don't think this is the time or the place to be emulating her behaviour (and I'm not talking about wearing shoulder pads and too much make-up either). If someone would care to book me a spell in the sanitorium I really wouldn't object too much. As long as I didn't have to share a room with another alkie and the telly was in English. What fun's a hangover when you can't even watch Richard and Judy? Anyway, more about this later. It's been an emotional 10 days what with speech contest, festival, lack of sleep and being asked if the reason teachers didn't invite me to lessons was because the kids didn't like me. How bloody rude. Fortunately my supervisor put them straight...

So speech contest finally happened. Wednesday, November 3rd. It was a day we'd been dreading - the video of last year's event either a) sends you to sleep or b) incites violence. But fortunately we'd all made sure our students had interesting/ funny texts to recite. And it was hilarious. Thirteen girls from my junior high entered, and I had been heavily involved from the point of finding their texts to coaching their pronunciation. They worked really, really hard to get the gestures right and to memorize their speeches, which may be part of the reason why I turned into stage school mother from hell. Myself and 5 other assistant English teachers (and the fascist guy) were judging and about 15 minutes into the thing I was gushing about how well my girls were doing and telling the other judges to give them excellent marks. Well, I didn't need to 'cause they were really good. One pair came second and another third in the recitation section and another of them won the speech section. I was very pleased and very disappointed that I couldn't congratulate them in Japanese. The closest I could manage was happy new year. Oh well...

After the contest, us judges went to karaoke with the guy from the rotary club and the fascist- the two we had previously been to dinner with. This part was looking to be really awful as it was election day in the US and we really didn't want to be talking to the fascist about this fact. But instead we just drank a lot (despite the fact that it was only 3pm) and sang the most ridiculous songs we could. Or was that just me? I found 'Jenny From The Block' in the karaoke book and did an alarming on key rendition of it. The others were scared...

Thursday night saw the last rehearsal for our dance practise. Let me fill you in on the info I had to date for the dance:
1) it was to start at 7pm and we would dance in 5 places around town
2) we were doing the dance as part of the Katsuyama festival which finished a few weeks ago
That was all. All other questions weren't answered, and as usual I had to make do with the info people deemed suitable to give me. Eugene was coming for a visit from Tokyo and the 7pm start fitted in nicely. Except it wasn't a 7pm start. As the rehearsal started, one of the guys was walking round with a schedule. The day started at 8. 8AM!!! Argh! There was nothing I could do, so I warned Eugene and we carried on as usual. It was also a different festival- it was the Katsuyama Momiji Festival (which is what they call the red leaves on Japanese Maple trees in autumn). So I quickly told Christine there was a festival on Sunday...

On Friday I got a phone call at school. Can I go to another rehearsal, a special one. Ok, I'll be there. 6pm at the Ponti Hall (the name they occasionally use for the town hall). So I went. And was one of only 6 people who attended from our team. I began to fume as I was ready to drop from tiredness, but I couldn't say anything because the people there were really nice. And they had copies of the programme to give me. It had a schedule of things happening on the stage and a list of the performers. "Oh," I thought, "I recognise some of those names. That's the hospital and that's one of my schools. What are they doing?" I asked. "They're dancing," came the reply. "What dance are they doing?" "A different version of what we're doing". "What about the rest?" "Them too, it's a... a... contest." Excuse me? Not only do I start at 8am but we're competing against teams from around the district? Is there anything else you've neglected to tell me?

Saturday was a busy day. We went to Niimi city with Abby and looked at Momiji. We went to a spot called 'Ikura' (Japanese for 'how much?') and it was real purdy. A cliff face with loads of trees and a river in front. And a cave system that you could walk through. And we did. It went on for ages and ages, the floors were slippy, the path was narrow and the roof was low in many places, and you consistently had to watch your head. But being Japan, they'd managed to install a speaker system throughout where some Japanese woman blathered on in a high pitched voice that made your experience just that little bit less pleasant.

In the evening Eugene arrived, and me, he, Johanna and Abby spent the best part of an hour trying to find space in a restaurant in Katsuyama. They were all full. Every last one turned us away. I began to feel like the Virgin Mary at Christmas and started looking for barns containing dining tables, when Johanna remembered the place up the hill where they hate us. We say hate us, but we went there once, and when we went in the woman seemed happy. After 10 mins of struggling to order (we were speaking Japanese) her face dropped and it all seemed too much trouble. But hooray! Eugene speaks Japanese. So we went there and it was successful. Lots of food and drink later, we ended up in Karaoke where we had a boys v. girls contest. We won, or perhaps we beat them into submission by singing horrors such as 'I will always love you' and 'All by myself'. And we drank more. And more. And didn't get to bed till 2am. Oops.

So it's 7am on Sunday, I am due to spend a day looking like a gay fisherman and dancing round town and I have a hangover. A hangover that forces me to forgo breakfast. Not a good sign. But it's soon alright, because at 8:30 after we're all changed into costume, they bring out the sake. And everyone is drinking. My stomach feels a bit better, so yeah, I'll drink too. Lord. I've never done hair of the dog before. It worked but had the side effect of making me drunk again before 10am. My supervisor asked me if I was nervous about dancing in front of everyone. I replied no. He seemed surprised, so I told him, "well, it's not like I know these people, is it?" The day was great. I have never seen so many people in the town, it was buzzing. Everywhere I went I had schoolkids coming up and saying hello (proving that I am popular...)
The only glitch was on our final performance on the main stage. There was a compere for the event and she was talking to people from each team, I assumed probably the choreographer and the captain. I assumed wrong. We finish dancing and she starts walking across the stage, I'm thinking "she's not going to talk to me. She's not going to talk to me. She's not... Shit. She is." And a microphone is thrust in my face. Well, bugger me if she didn't speak faster than a 6year old on Christmas morning. In Japanese. I answered her first question. I answered her second question. And then she just started babbling. And she held the microphone to my mouth. I looked at the crowd (my whole town) and looked at her, and said in Japanese, "I'm sorry, I don't understand". She tried again and I just looked at her. She asked my team mates (3 of whom spoke English) for assistance. They didn't move. She asked one final thing which I answered and then, thank God, we left the stage.

We didn't win. We didn't even get placed, but it was a really fun day.

Eugene left on Tuesday morning- we'd spent Sunday and Monday evenings watching DVDs. On Wednesday I met Johanna and we dinner in Kuse, and then on Thursday (yesterday) I went to a party at a restaurant for our dance team. I was (once again) very tired and had classes at elementary school today, so I didn't plan on staying long. I remember thinking "this'll be my last drink" at about 7 o'clock. Oops. After 2 gin and tonics and 2 pints of Chu-hai (Japanese alco-pops) I moved down the table and started necking sake with some people. 3 of us drank over a litre of sake. Lord, it does taste good, but the effects are bad. Everyone started asking me how old they were, and most I couldn't tell, so I erred on the side of caution and made people happy. Except for when I told someone they looked 30 and they were actually 24. Oh well. He thought it was funny though, so I was alright. I don't really remember much after that. I passed out in the restaurant and when I woke up I decided to be all international and extend the hand of friendship to a Japanese squat toilet. Or should I say to extend the contents of my stomach. I was not a well boy. My supervisor and the 30-year-old-looking-24-year-old took me home in a cab (thank the lord, because when we got there I couldn't even get the key in the door) and once inside I decided I should extend the hand of friendship to my own loo. I have no idea what time any of this happened and also no idea of how I got to bed. I do know I woke up at six in a very not right way, and at 7:25 I had to phone my supervisor to say I couldn't go to school. I'm so very grateful that a Japanese friend in England (Kasumi) taught me the word for vomiting. It has come in very handy...

So today's been written off as my liver did it's best to recover and I caught up on missing sleep from the last three months. Tomorrow I have school culture festival and then we have a staff party afterwards. I feel my attendance may be on the brief side. Unless Sue Ellen takes possession of my soul once more. Why couldn't I have liked a more decent, stable character like Ray Crebbs or Bobby Ewing?