The Kings' Speeches (and a Few Queens).

I attended the 61thst (oops, typo on the program) Junior High School English Speech Contest in Soma today. Over the last month, I'd spent several hours with 13 students from my JHSs coaching them and listening to their speeches. Admittedly, my esteemed colleague Dan also contributed to their training.

Of the 19 Recitation participants, I had high hopes for one gal whose "Kiki's Delivery Service" was very well delivered and in my completely unbiased opinion should have walked away with the top prize. She didn't even place in the top 6! (Boy, was her mom ever pissed!)
On the other hand, two of my lads read the incredibly lame script of "Roy Brown, Boy Detective" and walked away with 1st & 3rd!! The winner was a Dark Horse who blew away his competition though I expected him to land third, not first. Kudos!
2nd place was taken by one of the other schools yet I must say her speech was pretty good.
Two more gals orated  "Tom has to work on Saturday" & "Christmas Presents" and placed 4th & 6th. I am doubly proud of 4th place because she proudly proclaims that she has been studying English for eight years. Her first teacher was ME when she attended the Day Care Centre at which I taught 8 years ago! She still remembers the songs we used for the Christmas Pageant!
We had 2 out of 7 participants in the Original Speeches category and I'm sad to say that they came 6th & 7th. They weren't brilliant by any standard but I truly feel that they should have ranked much higher.
The boys who took 1st & 2nd were (no hyperbole intended) TERRIBLE. Their intonation was all over the place, their pronunciation incomprehensible and the content was merely average. There was a definite bias towards male winners for of the only 7 boys participating, 4 of those walked away with top prizes.

Ah well, it was still a fun day. I can remain proud of all the kids, even those from other schools (except the aforementioned winning lads) and the Dark Horse lad will be moving on to represent Soma in the Fukushima Prefectural contest next month! Hey, maybe I'll be able to scam a free trip out of it!

The Impossible Dream.

Back in the day (that day being the early 80s) when I was auditioning, I used "The Impossible Dream" as my musical number and Cromwell's inquiry from "A Man For All Seasons"* as my dramatic piece. The problem was that I never had the nads to audition and ended up with an unrequited theatrical career. I did some bit roles for the Bramalea Little Theatre in the 90s (a crappy melodrama where I played a KKK guy and I was Antonio in "Much Ado About Nothing".



Regardless, I still have a soft part in my heart for "The Impossible Dream." Too bad, I can't find it at any local Karaoke joints, I'd love to take another crack at it. That being said, here is ドン・キホーテ (Don Quixote) as an anime. I hope you enjoy it.



*CROMWELL But, Gentlemen of the jury, there are many kinds of silence. Consider first the silence of a man when he is dead. Let us say we go into the room where he is lying; and let us say it is in the dead of night-there's nothing like darkness for sharpening the ear; and we listen. What do we hear? Silence. What does it betoken, this silence? Nothing. This is silence, pure and simple. But consider another case. Suppose I were to draw a dagger from my sleeve and make to kill the prisoner with it, and suppose their lordships there, instead of crying out for me to stop or crying out for help to stop me, maintained their silence. That would betoken! It would betoken a willingness that 1 should do it, and under the law they would be guilty with me. So silence can, according to circumstances, speak. Consider, now, the circumstances of the prisoner's silence. The oath was put to good and faithful subjects up and down the country and they had declared His Grace's title to be just and good. And when it came to the prisoner he refused. He calls this silence. Yet is there a man in this court, is there a man in this country, who does not know Sir Thomas More's opinion of the King's title? Of course not! But how can that be? Because this silence betokened-nay, this silence was not silence at all but most eloquent denial.

Come to think of it, I should take another crack at this speech someday as well.

Ontario Jones and the Temple of Zoom!

A while back, a fellow Torontonian, Derek, asked me if I'd substitute for him and give a speech about Canada to a group of Anglophiles in Matsushima. I said sure and soon after meeting the organizer, I regretted it. She's a little intense to say the least and I wasn't sure what I'd gotten myself into. (I bumped into Derek at the Jazz Fest and it was the first time I'd met his family outside of a phone-photo.)






But today was the day, so leaving everything to the last minute, yesterday I photocopied a lesson I gave to my students 2 years ago and whipped off a quick "Why I'm Proud of Canada" diatribe.










The crowd was lovely, and my speech went off without a hitch. I wowed them with my wit, educated them with my entreaty, charmed them by crooning-Oh Canada and belted out a few ballads.









They took me out to lunch at the uber-posh Century Hotel.


















I had the colourful variety plate, and though it looks purty, isn't much to speak of. The Seafood Curry looked much yummier.











Then I was given a tour of the Zuiganji Temple & Art Museum.

The ever-friendly Goodwill Guide was Yoshio Ohura (022-354-3678), call him if you ever want an informative educational tour of the place. As with most temples, photos are verbotten, but I snapped lots around the place. Here's a sampling...
























Not looking forward to another speech, but I will be returning to Matsushima someday.