Thanksgiving and a Sudden Fall Festival

Today, as you all know, is Thanksgiving Day. Being in Japan, Thanksgiving was just a Thursday for me. Luckily, I was at an elementary school. I was able to indoctrinate some first graders into the best part of Thanksgiving traditions. We made hand turkeys. We also talked about what we were thankful for. 

Some folks have commented on my only understanding 2 percent of wherever I am comment. While it remains one of the funnier things I have said, it is quite accurate. I realized earlier this week how many times a day I am surprised. Sometimes the surprises are good (like the one today), and sometimes the surprises are bad (like 1/4 school lunches). Not speaking the language or understanding the world around me, I get surprised a lot. I suppose that surprise volleyball games and choir festivals give the spice to living in Japan. Today I went to work to find an invitation on my desk written in Japanese and in crayon. I was able to deduce that it was for a Fall Festival being hosted by the second graders in the school gym...

 Included on the announcement was an advertisement for delicious pork soup (in Japanese). The soup was surprisingly good. Tofu, pork, potatoes, daikon and carrots. They handed me the bowl, but I still had no real idea what this thing was.

 I ate my soup happily because I saw everyone else eating as well. 

 Some parents came to help.

 This game was like memory. I played (and won) for the prize of origami. 

 He is getting ready to officiate the game.

 This was one of the coolest games. It was darts without darts. They had a felt bullseye on the wall, which you threw these little seeds at. I was hesitant that it would work, but these things flew straight and stuck to the target. I got a bullseye, which earned me a laminated card with fall leaves. 

 It was indicated to me that I could not participate in this game, which was a tunnel crawl. 

 I can't imagine why...

 These are the 2nd graders officiating the game.

 A very stereotypical Japanese pose. 

 You may thing that the person in between the two kids is another second grader. False. It is an old lady. She is extraordinarily tiny. 

 I didn't really understand this game. They just had me pick a stick out of a box. The stick I chose was covered in green tape. They seemed excited by that, so I got a prize. This prize was a collection of leaves on a piece of paper with a face drawn on it. 

They had bowling at this game. I didn't do as well as I would have liked to. This little boy in the red asks me every week to pick him up by my bicep.

 They are setting up the bottles for my performance in bowling. Spoiler alert: I did win a medal. 

 Fishing game. The fish had paperclips and you went "fishing" with a rolled up newspaper, string and a magnet. In the end, you could keep what you caught.

 Oh snap! There is my super awesome medal I won for my bowling skills...although it could have been an award for being the tallest person in the room. 

While you are eating your thanksgiving turkey and leftovers, consider that this was my thanksgiving meal for the day. Onion, seaweed and tofu soup, rice and sukiyaki with an egg roll. Not bad as far as school lunch goes, but definitely pales in comparison to a thanksgiving spread. 

As for Thanksgiving as a holiday, this one is very different than any other thanksgiving I have celebrated. This is potentially the only Thankgiving I will spend away from family and home. Being in Japan has shown me quite a lot that I am thankful for. I am thankful for kind people that I meet everyday, who are patient with my lack of language ability. I am thankful for the kids I teach, they are extraordinarily cute. I am thankful for my family and friends that make me want to go back to America. I am very thankful for America, and the great opportunity it was to have grown up there. 

Among all of the Occupy Wall Street things going on with the "I am the 99%," it seems like we perhaps lost sight of the fact that living in America at this time makes us all the 1%. We are blessed immensely in so many ways. I am thankful for the English language, and that I understand it. 

I have complained in the past about the Japanese garbage system, but I am thankful for it today. I went to pay my bills at the 7-11, so I got my bills and my money and set out. I was cleaning out my car of "burnable garbage" and I went into the store. After I went to the bathroom and was picking out a frosty beverage, I noticed that I couldn't find my bills or my 200ish dollars with which to pay them. I thought I left them in the car so I went out to check. When they weren't there, I retraced my steps and realized that I had accidentally put them in the trash bin. I questioned my resolve and determined that I would dumpster dive for 200 dollars. I did notice as I steeled myself for the plunge that at least 10 of my junior high students were watching me. I opened the cover and prepared to get up to my elbows. Here is why I am thankful...there was no garbage juice, banana peels or other nasty stuff because the trash is meticulously sorted. Also, the trash was recently emptied, so I didn't have to make a fool of myself. An odd thing to be thankful for at the end of an odd Thanksgiving. 

Happy Thanksgiving, enjoy your turkey coma!