This week I have been a little bored at work. I don't have anything to do, and most of the students aren't there. Some of the clubs meet during the day to practice, and the band always seems to be spread out all over the school blasting a cacophony of sound at me. It can be a little annoying actually, since they don't play the same things at the same time.

My teachers found out on Tuesday whether they will change schools or not. One of the English teachers, Mr. Arisawa, is moving to a new school. He's the only English teacher that is moving. I have mixed feelings about him moving. In some ways, he is a consistently good teacher, and his English is quite good. However, recently both Jo and I have noticed that he has been more distant about team teaching and kind of lowered his expectations of what the students can handle. I'd do a lesson fine with Ms. Shouman, and then Mr. Arisawa would say the same thing would be too hard for the students, despite the fact the other classes had no problems with it. Of course, I don't know what the new teacher will be like at all.

After Tuesday, most of the teachers stopped coming into school. They use their vacation time, but normally they don't actually take a trip anywhere. Instead they just don't come to school.

I got permission this week to work on meeting sponsors for the Charity Show. We want to cover our costs for the charity show with sponsors and other fundraising, so that the whole of the ticket sales can go to the charities. On Monday I went with Takemaru-san to three business, and raised about 600 dollars from them. Then I called YKK (the zipper company based in Toyama), and they offered 500 dollars for the show. They have offered that much every year for the last 12 shows (all but the first), so I was not surprised that they said yes. However, they wanted some extra forms sent to them, so I worked on making those forms during the end part of the week.

I also gave out sponsor packets to a couple of restaurants I go to a lot, and to many friends to have them pass them out to places they go to. Our goal is to raise about 2,500 from corporate sponsorships (we're half way there now). In addition, I tried something we haven't tried in a long time. I applied to the Toyama International Center for money to sponsor the event. They gave about a thousand dollars to the show for the first several times we did it. Then the money stopped for some reason. We wanted this money again, so we reapplied. They said it is likely we will get it this year. I hope so. It also led to more forms I had to fill out in Japanese with the help of an English teacher, of course. If we get this money, that will help a lot towards covering all of our costs (about 4,000 dollars). We will also get some money to help with costs from a bake sale during the show, and a flea market before the show (that comes out to about 700 dollars total).

Hopefully this next week I can miss more school to go meet some businesses. My Japanese teacher is being very helpful and contacting some businesses she knows, as well. It's important in Japan to have a contact at the business you are asking, unless they have given in previous years. We also tried contacting the electric company, who used to give 500 dollars to the show for many years, but they gave us some phony excuse about not having any money. Takemaru-san said he didn't believe them.