Spring Concert

On Friday, Nishimachi had a Spring concert. This involved 6th grade, 9th grade and MS chorus and ES chorus. I was in lighting crew, though I also preformed in our songs.

The 6th grade performance consisted of drum compositions, two xylophone songs and finally one song the whole grade sang together. I was in 3 of the drum groups (I was 'hired' to keep the beat by two), the 6-1 xylophone song called "Everybody Loves Saturday Night", and the final, whole grade song, called "Siyahamba". I think the one I had the most fun preforming was "Everybody Loves Saturday Night" because I had a fun part to play. I played the base xylophone and we got a solo at the end. For the other songs, I don't like singing, and two of the drum songs were just keeping the beat so it was not very interesting. However, I think the best part was the 6-2 xylophone song (Hey Hey Jam) because it was very complex but they did it well (even though I was not in it).

The 9th grade performance was the 9th graders split in 3 groups that did modern pieces on the xylophone. My favourite of that one was the group that did StarWars main theme. One, they had an epic intro of two kids from their group fighting with (toy) lightsabers. It was choreographed really well. Second, the music was easily recognised because for the other groups, it didn't sound completely like the song they were doing.

Click here for video of "A Sky Full of Stars"

I also had a drum piece with one of the chorus songs ("A Sky Full of Stars"), along with two of my friends. We had practiced a lot, coming to chorus the last 15 minutes of every lesson. I think we did really good. I played on a bass drum, Yujin did a glockenspiel, and Man-chan did the djembe (it is an african kind of drum). The drums were doing the beat and the glockenspiel did the melody along with the piano. We also had an interlude solo where it was just us plus the piano.

Lighting crew was probably the funnest part. My job was mostly to spot the MC's. I think I am getting better. Also, I had to do a lot of running upstairs and downstairs. The transitions between lighting crew and performing were really weird because Kaz, William and I didn't have seats downstairs, so we couldn't exactly just go in on the song before the 6th grade section are il;l and sit down. So we had to wait until the solo was done and then go in just when everyone stood up. I had to do this twice, once for 6th grade and once for chorus. Despite the running, lighting crew was very fun.

All in all, the spring concert was a big success. I had so much fun. I am sad for my first spring concert to be my last.

Field trip

On Friday, the 6th grade went on a field trip. We were going because of JSS (Japanese Social Studies). In JSS we are learning about traditional crafts. We visited two places, a Meiji (candy) factory and a traditional crafts museum. We went because we were learning how traditional crafts are all handmade, so we were comparing Meiji (which uses cool machines) to the museum (where everything was handmade). I will mostly be talking about Meiji, because in my opinion, it was cooler.

First, when we got to the Meiji factory, the people made us sanitise our hands about 3 times. I felt this was an overkill. Next, we watched a movie about Meiji's items, how they are made, the history of Meiji, etc. I think it was cool how they made everything. The one thing that surprised me most was the kinoko no yama (mushroom mountain) candy. Basically, they have the chocolate in the mould and they use a fan to blow the cracker sticks into the chocolate. 

Next, we got to take a tour of the factory. Before we went anywhere, we tried pure cocoa. It tasted really bitter, no wonder the chocolate has so much sugar in it. Next, we got to see the assembly lines for the big bar chocolates. We couldn't see all of it, just the apart where the liquid chocolate got poured into the mould. We also got to watch the making of カール (karl) which is a corn puff snack. The process of making karl is 1st, they grind corn into dust. 2nd, they put the dust through a super heater to bake it. The dust comes out as a solid curling form... only to be chopped off by a rotating blade. This all happens really fast. Slo-mo can get you a better idea (sorry, I don't have a video). 3rd, the karls go through a machine that sucks all the moisture out, leaving only 2%. 4th, a whole mass of karl go through a flavouring machine. The flavouring depends on which day this is on. Then it is bagged and ready to go. Unless... Some kids on a school trip happen to be allowed to press a button that gets them a free, fresh karl. Which we did. And it was yummy. The Meiji place also gave us free gummy snacks, plastic bags with the karl guy on it, and notebooks. 

The Meiji factory was really fun. I think it was very interesting learning how they make all the delicious snacks. Compared to other field trips, it was more interesting I think. 

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Cinderella

For Drama, the whole middle school has to be in a musical, this year's being Cinderella. The play was this Monday. The "not main" cast, (everyone without a role) has to be in four songs and a waltz scene. I was supposed to be one of these people but I was lighting crew so I didn't have to do it.  I think it was kind of a waste for us because we have been practicing in Drama class for so long and we don't have to do it. So, on the last day, I made a plan to get Kaz, William and I out of the scenes. So, together, we managed to get out of the whole show.

The songs we would have had to do was the opening song, A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes, Bibbidi Bobbed Boo, and the ending song. We also would have participated in the ball scene which I didn't want to do. All the boys had to wear either suits or tuxes and the girls had to wear dresses.

For this play, my job on the lighting crew was basically spotlighting the narrators and other people. It was kind of easy because there was a lot of sitting and also because we didn't get to use the gels (the stuff that makes the light coloured). But, the play was good, although some people went off script. It didn't really cause a big problem, we just missed our cue. Even though is was hard to follow, it was good.

Also, I think the lighting crew did a great job. A cool thing about lighting crew is that you get to wear headsets. Also, it was a 6th grade only team. The usual 9th grader was playing Gus. Gus is the fat mouse. The 8th grader, I don't know why he didn't come.

The best thing about the play was probably the props. The prop people made a whole (well, half) carriage out of a stool, meter sticks, paper and gold paint, and a scooter. This flimsy looking thing was actually well made, because two ninth grade boys managed to pull Cinderella with two pieces of string. (Well, they didn't have brakes, but...)

I was a little concerned about how it would go because the first dress rehearsal, (which went badly because not everyone knew what to do and because it was a day before the real thing) was really hard for lighting crew because we had to work on preparing the gels even though we ended up not using them.But then we also had to be in our scenes. Our next dress rehearsal was not much better because we had to be up on the second floor of the gym to take notes, but we also had to be in the play. So, that meant a lot of running up and down the stairs-in suits! But, thanks to our scheming, we managed to not have to be multi tasking the whole show.

I think the audience really liked the show (no standing ovation but still). I think the actual performance was way better then all the dress rehearsals. Cinderella was very fun. I am so happy I was lighting crew, because a) I didn't have to dance and b) because it is a very unique experience. I also liked that it was only 6th grade.