Surreal School Life Seepage

We are currently practicing for a PTA volleyball tournament to be held next weekend. Yesterday, after school of course, a practice was held in the gym -- about ten teachers participated. During one of the sets, the principal walked over to the piano and started to play classical music to accompany us. He played through the entirety of our game, stopping when the game was won (or lost, depending on your point of view).

In my first year, during cleaning time at the junior high school, cleaning time was accompanied by Disney theme music. At this school, it is classical music, although when I first arrived it was English ditties designed to make english interesting and easy to learn, but falling somewhat short of the desired effect.

Staff meetings are in overabundance here, and I am sadly required to attend despite my lack of understanding and enthusiasm. At the beginning of one staff meeting, the principal thought it would be a good idea to relax everyone a little, so he passed around sheet music, whipped out his guitar, and began strumming away while we proceeded to have a "kumbayah my lord" kind of sing-along. Another meeting began with us playing "rock, scissors, paper" with our neighbour, then giving neck and shoulder massages to the winner.

Town cleaning day hasn't happened here yet, but the one time I participated in Yodoe makes me wish it is nothing like that here. It started at 6am on a Sunday for our section of town -- to call it a section of town is probably hyperbole, as it was really only our building. Other neighbourhoods chose to exercise some restraint and put it off until 7am. As I possessed neither a shovel, a spade, rubber boots, nor the proper gloves, it fell to me to stand around and stay awake with the other similiarly insufficiently equipped participants. When we were finished at about 6:30, all the participants were given 100yen with which to go and buy a can of soda or juice from the nearest ever-present vending machine, as the organizer han't been certain as to who would drink what. I did this in order to not pay the 3,500 yen fee for not showing up. I decided to pass on the juice and returned to my down comforter covered bed, quite likely the only person in the building to do so.

My last town had radios installed in every home, from which alarms and announcements would blare at various times of the day -- the first one at 7am and the last at 8pm. In my wisdom, I unplugged it. My current town has nothing on Yodoe, as they prefer to ensure listenership by mounting large speakers at various high points in the town -- no region left unreached by the pervasive sounds. At 6am, 11:30am and 5pm, we are treated to the melodious call of an air raid siren. At 6:30am, 12pm and 6pm, we are treated to chimes, which one morning, in that curious state of half-sleep I was in, I concluded the chimes were actually playing "Ode to Joy." That would not be my chosen theme song for that particular hour of the day. No one I kow understands why this happens. I believe it is so no farmers will ever have need of an alarm clock, but I could be wrong. I do know that it is horrendously loud, as one of the quartet of speakers stands facing my apartment across and empty field.

It seems only fitting that if a town has no problem with air raid sirens and the like (as does most of the country), politicians will be allowed to drive the streets in cars and trucks mounted with obnoxious speakers, announcing nothing so useful as their platforms, but only their names and a request that you please do them the favour of voting for them. This can start as early as 7am and carry on until 8pm. They do not stop announcing when they are waiting at stoplights, seeing it as an excellent oppornity to bombard a captive audience, rather than taking pity on the drivers hearing and sanity. I am surprised that I have never heard announcements about accidents during election season, caused by drivers no longer able to handle the incessant noise who in a mad haphazard fashion run red lights in an attempt to save themselves. Or even of some truck coming up behind an election van and ramming it repeatedly until it sits in the middle of an intersection or train tracks, waiting to be run over by oncoming vehicles. If I am in my home when one of those monstrosities pass, I rush to my drums and thump (play is not an appropriate word) as loudly as I can foregoing all attempts to pretend I have rhythm, whereas if I am in my car, I choose to lean heavily on the horn for the duration of the aural onslaught perpetrated by those political wannabes.