Survived the big event!

So this Sunday was the big event, Open House. I had actually been planning this event pretty far in advance. (over a month, this is huge for me!) As I'm not a big fan of the normal layout for Open House, I decided to spice things up, Amber-style.

There was actually two open houses, one for kids (started at 1:00) and one for adults (started at 3). The kids one we made projects of things we studied about in class to show to the parents. And then we performed songs from class. The returnee's also did a dramatic reading of the book "You are Special" by Max Lucado. Yang Sensei gave a message about the book too.

But the big event was the Adult Open House. Usually the adults give speeches. But I'm not a fan of speeches, so I changed it this year. We loosely based the theme on a popular TV game show that airs at the end of every year. Since it sounds very similar to my name translated in Japanese, I decided to make an English version of the game. "Kohaku."

Each of my classes had to think of a short English game, make the rules, and do all the preparations for the game. This way every class participated even if they couldn't come. There were 9 games in all, but we only had time for 7. All the participants (my adult students, plus two families of returnees, plus 4 Trash Box Jam staff members) were divided into two teams, Blue team and Silver team. At the end of every game, the members of Trash Box Jam (who were serving as judges for the event) would vote to see which team got the point for the game. It was a great result that ended in a tie. I was happy. The games were followed by Trash Box Jam playing for them, and then a small party. I think it went off really well.

So now, I'm rather happy to be finished with the planning and stress. And I'm satisfied with the results. It was a good event. And there was also another message in Japanese after the band played so the band members (and around 10 or so fans,) plus students got to hear a Christian message. This was the third time I was able to include the band in my events. So far it seems to be getting positive responses, and it's what I'm passionate about. I really love having a job where I am free to work with my passions. God is good. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it. :-D

Here's a slide show from the adult event. (Thanks to Yoshiko for taking all the pictures for me, except the band ones at the end.)