Pasuri, Seiji, Rozumari, an Taimu

On Friday my last-ever lesson with Room 5 of grade 7 came to a fine, if a bit sad, conclusion. This year's Room 5 was pretty much just the way Room 5s have been every year for the past five years: smart & spunky. I've often wondered if there's something about that particular classroom that tends to make them that way. At any rate, they've always been fun to work with, and it's always regrettable to say goodbye.

Fourth period was next, and I had it off. That gave me extra time to have my lunch and catch up on a few things, so I dropped off my classroom supplies in the junior high staffroom and made my way through the maze of Ye Olde Academy to the English Department office. When I arrived in the central building known as the Library Hall, however, I noticed a wonderful, musical sound filling the air from the direction of the main lobby. Then I remembered. The 10th grade music elective classes were always held during the third and fourth periods every Friday. This being the last Friday of the year, it was time for their final exam, a concert in the lobby.

I headed in that direction at once and joined the pathetically small audience. Unfortunately, I had already missed half of the show, but there was still plenty to see. There were a couple of solos, a (disastrous) ensemble, and then the full chorus (half the music elective students) gathered for its performance.



The 10th grade music elective chorus has a habit of sounding really bad, but this year I was pleasantly surprised. Perhaps I shouldn't have been; for the most part, these are students that sang the "Hallelujah Chorus" at their junior high graduation ceremony last year. (I even helped train them for that myself.) They pulled it off pretty well. The first song they sang was "Scarborough Fair", first in Japanese and then in English. The English pronunciation was laughable to say the least, but the singing was beautiful. Their second number, a Japanese tune I didn't know, was an off-key disaster, but they closed the set with another Japanese song that sounded great. To top it off, during the last chorus some of the boys came up to the vocal music director, Ms. M, put their arms around her, and sang swinging back and forth. It was hilarious, but it had a very serious intent. Ms. M is leaving after this month.



After that, the other half of the music elective students formed a recorder ensemble. Under Mr. Ogawa's baton, they played a couple of movements from Vivaldi's "Spring" and did a very good job. Many of them were members of our orchestra, but even then this year's 10th graders have more than the usual level of musical talent on average. It was an enjoyable show.

The concert wound up going overtime, meaning lunch wound up being a few minutes late instead of early, but oh well. The kids did a good job. Now...I wonder what next year's bunch is going to sound like.....

***

The construction on my house is progressing. We already have lots more space than we used to, but we can't use it yet. It all still looks like a slapped-together storage shed and has yet to be fleshed out. Worse than that is the fact that, since they're going to connect the new section with the old living room and refloor the whole lot as one, we had to move all our furniture out of the living room. Now we're eating our meals sitting on folding chairs in an empty room...as if we'd just moved in. This will probably continue for a few more days. After we get the living room back we'll lose either the toilet or the kitchen followed by the other. It's a headache, but I'm looking forward to its completion...even though the new roof leaked today! (But it's good we found that out before the roof gets finished.)