Spring Yasumi!

Today at school was the closing ceremony for the school year. The school year here goes from April to March as I've mentioned before so when everybody returns in April, the students will have moved up a grade and a new batch of students will be coming in.

The next two weeks are officially "Spring Vacation." This doesn't mean that everybody gets to stay home for two weeks and enjoy a free vacation. Many students will likely be coming to school everyday for sports practices and other club activities. Some others will probably come up for extra tutoring and studying if their grades were not up to par this past year. But there won't be any classes or any official things going on. That is until March 30, a random Tuesday, where despite the fact that it's "Spring Vacation," all students and teachers have to be here for the teacher farewell ceremony. In Japan, many teachers get tranferred from school to school at the end of the year and they have very little say in when they go or where they go. The joys of being a government employee. So on March 30 everybody comes up and they have a big ceremony where the leaving teachers give speeches and then everybody who is staying packs up their things and moves to their new desk for the next year. It's quite a sight.

Anyway, we teachers have very little duties during this break so many people take time off. You have to take your paid leave days, you don't just get to go free. So next week, Kelly and I are both taking the whole week off and going to Kyoto for a few days. Kyoto is one of the most historic cities in Japan, and we have yet to make our way down there, so this week is when we're going to go check it out. We're looking forward to getting out for a while and spending a relaxing time sightseeing, taking pictures, and as always, eating some good food. I'll tell you all about it when we get back.

Well, I hope everyone has had good spring breaks and what not back home. The weather here has been going back and forth between warm and sunny, cold and rainy, warm and rainy, cold and sunny. Today is cold and sunny. I think tomorrow is supposed to be warm and rainy. I'm ready for spring to get here for good. We're maybe about a week away from cherry blossom time. I can't wait!