Tues. Sept. 2 – Domo arigatou, Mr. Roboto

Lining up in front of kyoto-sensei’s desk, the speech contest girls said their ritualistic good-byes which were capped off with the greeting “Ittekimasu.” (ie.
I am leaving right now, but I’ll be back). It was merely 7:30 a.m. when we all had to meet in the teacher’s room for this deal.

The girls, my JTE and I then went outside, where kocho-sensei said something meaningful in Japanese; then the girls bowed to him. A big nine-seater taxi van then picked us up. Before we piled into the cab, the students dropped their school bags, and bowed while saying some Japanese greeting. I can’t remember if it was “Dozo yoroshiku onegaishimasu” or something to that effect. I’ve seriously got to learn how to bow, ha ha.

The actual speech contest ran the entire day. Looking back, I wish I hadn’t opted for a seat near the front row. I definitely had to stifle my giggles when some kid performed his speech in this hilarious robotic voice. His speech was about some robot, so the intonation and everything fit the story… but it was just too funny, I had a very hard time keeping myself composed.