Back to school

First day

So my ~3 week summer vacation is now over. Really i wouldn't have minded a week or two more, but i guess it's nice to be back.

The first day of school after vacation was on August the 20th and our schedule was something like this.

After the mornings SHR the whole school gathered in the gym hall to listen to our School Principals speech.

We had a bit of free time when we got back to our classrooms. Then we would in groups (according to our seat number) to and line up at the front of our classroom and the teachers would check if:

-We were wearing our uniform correctly (no pulling knee-socks down, folding skirt up...etc.etc.)

-Our hair color was natural and not bleached/colored

-We were wearing make-up (which is not allowed)

-Our nails were cut short (if not we'd be handed a nail-cutter and would have to cut them immediately)

Not long before summer vacation began, we got new seats, but today we had to change back to our old once (again according to our number)

3th period was a Japanese test

4th period English

Then we had our lunch break 

I had prepared the purikura pics, so we could devide them between us, the day before.

No one seemed to want to do it, so i thought i'd give it a try cutting them out

5th period was a math test

6th period we had LHR, but had to use the time to fill out a survey which was part of the tests program.

And around that time it started to rain heavily, it was dark and windy too and really scary because then we could hear like thunderstorms and see lightnings flashing at the window, and student were gathering by the window to see the dreadful weather.

It's the first time this has happened since i came here, there has been heavy rain, but this kind of storm was really unexpected and i think at some point the lights in the classroom even went out for a while.

Since High school students are considered to be children

When school was out we were not allowed to leave school unless we confirmed that our parents had come to pick us up (which my host mother was so kind as to do), but this kinda sucks for a lot of the student who take public transportation or if their parent can't come to pick them up sue to work or even not having a car.

I do believe that some of the student just went ahead and said their parents would be coming and then went off home by themselves. 

But really, i didn't think it'd be such a big deal, well, i guess it's nice that they take good care of the students though.

Japanese Music Class

Japanese Music Class

So when i started attending school here, there is a subject called 芸演 (geien?) on our timetable. And here you can either chose to take Art Class (美術 bijutsu?) or Music Class (音楽 ongaku).

Well, i chose Music class (hence the post name :D LOL), because i somehow chose Art back in Denmark and it was way too unnecessarily free-time consuming and frustrating, basically a pain...

Sorry to my art class back home!

But i guess it's because i ain't really aiming to be a hardcore artist (as of yet) and as an extra subject it just took too much of my time and effort with the workload.

But then again what if art class here is different n fun?! Z(O_O")

But yeah

Well so starting in Music class, we're actually a really small class, around 12 student or so (i guess the others are taking Art then). And it's a part of B-course which i am taking, so it's a mix of students from class 2-1(my class) and 2-2.

I was lent the textbooks by the teacher when the classes started.

The first lessons

The first many lessons were basically singing/chorus lessons. So there teacher would tell us about how to probably breath and stuff like that and explain the different symbols used for music/lyric sheets.

The first song we practiced was "With You Smile" 

I thought it was a really nice song, i especially really liked the piano which is really nice n bright and soothing. This song made me Smile when i first heard it, made be think of my happy memories as a child.

I really looked forward to go to music class to practice this song, because it was really nice listening to with all the light and girly voices :D

The next song

So when we were getting the hang of this song we started on a new song too called "Best Friend" (i don't know why this title too is english even though the songs Japanese)

This too was a really nice n sweet song.

It kind of gave me the same feeling as the other song. My host mother told me that she really likes this song :D

Recorder Practice Begins!

Actually when the teacher was talking about that we'd begin using recorders after we finish the singing, i mistakenly thought that she meant we'd do some recording (like in a studio?).

But i found out that it was really about the flute that she was talking about.

So we were told that we either had to buy one of those or lend one (from some of the 3rd years who didn't need them anymore) if we didn't already own one.

I was lend one, but i'm kinda considering buying one so that i can bring it back home. Or at least if i can actually get the hang of playing it.

So even though some of the other student already had some experience playing the recorder, the teacher taught us everything from the basic, but we get to practice at our own pace when we get time for that.

 

We started out with a piece called 旅立ちの日に (Tabidachi no hi ni)

But we just played a recorder arrangement for it, and our teachers played the piano along with us.

It's supposed to be a song all of the student know from middle school, we'll i don't, obviously since i didn't attend middle school in Japan :P But i guess it is kind of fitting as a graduation song or the like :D 

Bach! (n.n)

Next awesome piece is "Etude 3, メヌエット (menuetto)" by Johann Sebastian Bach? I really like quite a few of his pieces :D 

I couldn't actually find a video for this piece, don't know if it's because of the names hard to search, or because it's a beginners song and really too easy for people to want to listen to.

But with this piece we actually had to do individual tests. We were told that we could just tell the teacher when we'd like to take it, then she would listen to us playing it and give us a score (or maybe she's just writing some comment in her book, i dunno?), well, we had until before the beginning of summer vacation, so we had quite a few months and the students who had finished and had taken the test could begin on the new piece.

I actually waited to around the last lesson or so before the start of vacation, i think i was the last person to take it, *so embarrassing (=.=")*.

There were some tricky parts which i kept succeeding and them failing and i would just keep on practicing over and over only to get it right and wrong and right...

I think i was one of the only one to bring home my recorder and textbooks after every lesson in case i'd get time to practice at home, while all the others would just leave theirs  in the music room. 

I guess i was trying to hard. And then ended up getting mediocre result at during the test... (=.=)

Well i started on the new piece a bit before the summer vacation.

it's actually a piece i really liked around the time when i took piano lessons around 4th grade, so it was kind of nostalgic~.

next up " グラウンドによるグリーンスリーヴス(ground ni yoru greensleeves?) or just Greensleeves"?

Half done!

So that was kinda it for the first half of Japanese Music Class!

I might still update with some pictures n stuff, so check back if you're interested.

Did you like some of the Japanese songs? Let me know :D