Sports festival

Sometime in the next week or two, my schools will have 'Sports festival'. It's a little different at each school, but basically they divide into several different teams and have competitions. My main school, Tonoda Middle School, has two teams. Every day since I've been there they have practiced some kind of performance. It's not exactly a chant and it's not exactly cheerleading, but chanting and pom-poms are involved. Think opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics, but significantly scaled down.

At Tonoda Middle School when the students practice their routine the teachers weed the 'field'. I used 'field' only because I don't know how else to describe it. It's more described as a fine gravel courtyard, or hard dirt arena. The students play soccer, baseball, volleyball and other things on these fields which has to be hard because a fall at any speed would surely cause bleeding. Every afternoon I go out with the other teachers to tear out any signs of life that manage to grow in the desolate landscape that is Tonoda's field. And I thought I would be done gardening when I left MInnesota...

I haven't taken any new pictures to put up, but here's something similar to what I've had for lunch (at least sometimes):

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/09/dining/09bento.html