So this Saturday we had the second annual English speech contest for the third graders at school. It was a success again, and I think that we have managed to create a yearly tradition at the school. The third graders this year are a lot better than the third graders last year I think. Because last year's were the first class in the new school, they had no upperclassmen to keep them in line, and they were treated as some sort of special pioneer class. Having been spoiled for three years during junior high, they were completely unprepared to go to high school and taken completely by surprise by the rigors of every day life. They hate all their new teachers, who actually expect them to listen in class and do homework and stuff like that.

As for this year's speeches, they were pretty good. The winner talked for a really long time about going on a homestay in Hawaii, and how hard it was to teach Japanese pronunciation to foreigners. Second place went to the president of the student council, for her speech about what it's like to be president of the student council. Third place was a girl who had to do housework for a week when her mom went away. All of the speeches were good, but I think that those three won because of their stage presence and ability to speak in front of people. There were a few kids whose English was even better than the winners', but they couldn't stand in front of everyone without starting to blink wildly or exhibit some other serious twitches.