how can you have a picnic without any sun?

Well, we managed it somehow.

Our school held a picnic on the 28th, and the sun never came out once. The forecast had called for a 60% chance of rain, but it didn't start until 4pm, at which point the picnic was coming to an end anyway. The clouds disappointed me a little, but everyone else seemed a little relieved by the weather.

They all thought I was kind of crazy to suggest a summer picnic anyway. Every day for the past three weeks, everyone has come in complaining about the heat. This has amused me a great deal. Because while it is somewhat hot and humid, it's nothing compared to a Florida summer. As I told some of my higher-level students, "Sure, it's hot. But it ain't *that* hot." As for the humidity, eh. There's not much wind unless it's raining, so everything's all hazy and a bit muggy. Until this week, the rainy season hasn't been all that impressive: it would rain maybe three days out of seven. Even this week, it's been more cloudy than rainy. The way people talked about it, I'd expected rain five days out of seven. But most people I've asked say this is normal. Well, everything's relative, isn't it?

For another thing, the sun isn't as strong here, but maybe that's just me too. Japanese women seem terrified of getting even a little sun - I've never seen so many cardigans and long-sleeved shirts worn in the summer (maybe *that's* why they're so hot!), and they wear these funky long and fingerless gloves and carry parasols. Also, lots of them wear not just pantyhose but leggings, which is downright crazy if you ask me.

But, I digress. Back to the picnic.

I wanted a picnic. 1: because I'd had little chance to hang out with most of my students, and I wanted to have a get-together to do that. 2: because I must find new ways of entertaining myself. 3: Izumiさん (our manager) is moving back to Sapporo. She refused to allow this to be a sayonara party, but I wanted something to let everyone chat with her once more before she left.

We had about 30 students show up, most of them mine. Several of our students live near a park near Shin-Moriya station, about a 15-minute bike ride to the school, and they suggested that we have the picnic there. We had everyone bring their own lunches, and Izumiさん and I brought some picnicky items like bubbles and frisbees and a couple of balls to toss around. One of my students brought a badminton set, and another student brought a larger ball so we could play soccer and dodgeball.

It really was a perfect set-up. We ate lunch first and then broke out the picnic toys. We had about ten kids there, and they had a blast with the bubbles and playing soccer with some of the adults. Some of my students had never played frisbee before, so I conducted a quick mini-lesson on the art of the frisbee. The previous English teacher also stopped by, which made a lot of the students happy because they don't often get a chance to see him even though he lives in Moriya. One of my extremely shy and quiet pre-teen girls kicked butt at dodgeball. And there were dogs - three dachshunds brought by a student who lives nearby. The adults fawned over the dogs more than the kids did.

The best thing for me was the park itself. In addition to a playground and tennis courts, it has a nice big lawn for groups such as our own. Also, it is grassy and not sandy (as it would be in Florida) and there were no ants in sight and it was all nice and soft. So the first thing I did upon arriving was take off my sandals and run around barefoot. The way my students reacted, you'd think they'd never seen a barefoot person before. I couldn't convince anybody else (except one of my kids students) to go barefoot with me, but they all thought it was "adorable." Some of them are still calling me the Barefoot Sensei. Even better was when I had to roll up the cuffs of my jeans because they were getting all dirty and I kept tripping on them. That sent Izumiさん into a fit of giggles. Of course I had to wash my feet when we got back to the school, but it was totally worth it. What's the point of summer if you can't go barefoot?

We got about three hours in before it started to rain. I had known it was going to rain eventually - I could smell it in the air - so this came as no surprise. Everybody (except me, apparently) was starting to wind down and needing a rest anyway, so it worked out. And nobody went away disappointed - everybody gave positive feedback and said they hoped we'd have another get-together in the future. I get the feeling an August picnic would not go over well, so I'm settling for September. This satisfied them.

Afterwards, Izumiさん, Mio先生, and I went out to karaoke to memorialize our last weekend as co-workers. That went beyond entertaining - both of them are good singers and they even sang English songs! (Usually, Benni先生 is the only one who does this with me.) We finished with a trio version of "Bridge Over Troubled Water."

[item of interest: Simon & Garfunkel are as popular as Queen and the Beatles here in Japan. S & G will are appearing in concert in Tokyo this weekend, and one of my students is actually skipping class to go to it. Some of my other students were disappointed that they couldn't go, either because of the cost of the tickets or the fact that they sold out almost immediately.]

And so, that was our Moriya summer picnic. I am now anxiously awaiting the main summer season, which will bring festivals and fireworks and other wonderful summery things. I'm especially hoping that I can make it up to Isesaki or Maebashi to hang out with my friends up there. Either way, summer is shaping up to be pretty awesome this year!