Mon-Wed were not at all interesting. I went to Japanese class in the morning, but had pretty bad laryngitis. On Monday I could barely croak. On Tuesday I was at a whisper. On Wednesday I could kind of talk, and was even able to practice in front of the class the poem I was doing for the school-wide poetry reading contest 朗読大会. By Thursday, I was even able to talk somewhat normally, and so Thursday I did a bunch of stuff for Ritsumeikan. Joy.

Friday was the school poetry reading contest 朗読大会 which was divided into a) people reading famous Japanese poems; b) people reading poems they wrote in Japanese. I (joy oh joy) was in the former category. Thankfully I have friends (and cousins) in the creative arts so I knew better than to just stand there and read off a paper. So I memorized the poem and added movement and more-than-minimal-vocal inflection. A surprising amount of people took the time to memorize, but only two others (both in the write-your-own poem category) went for broke like I did.

In retrospect, that effort is probably why we (me, and an American boy whose poem was entitled ナンパ (skirt-chasing) but was performed super awesomely--different voices for different characters) won the grand prize 最優秀賞 in our respective categories. Now here's when I finally realized how seriously our school takes its poetry reading contest: grand prize was a takoyaki making set, including mixes, a recipe book, and the actual takoyaki fryer and utensils. AND everyone had food afterward (pizza and sushi and donuts and sandwiches).

Oh, and our school principal is a Japanese woman who wears a kimono but dyes her bangs neon green.