Brass Band Update

Hello everyone,
As you probably know, yes, I have joined the school brass band, as part of the whole compulsory pick-an-activity-and-do-it-every-day-til-6 thing. And whaddaya know, I do it every day until 6! (Well, actually, I don’t go for the last hour on Wednesdays, or at all on Fridays or Saturdays, which is probably a national record for unattendance, but still.)
I mean, look, it’s alright. It’s quite fun, actually. But I’d MUCH rather be at home blogging and Skyping people and playing on my shiny iPod (dad’s line). Ah, well.
Anyway, the main point of this post was to inform you that because this is actually a brass band, the other members, and our teacher, desperately want me to learn a brass instrument. Now, the only reason I joined the silly band was so I could play the sax! Dad even called up the school and asked and stuff from Australia last year and they all said it was fine…Well, you can’t really blame them; they’re doing it half for my sake – I can’t compete in a lot of things on my saxophone. Luckily, though, I can for the big yearly Hiroshima school band comp (our school is so small that we team up with another small high school, who do have saxes, which is handy. And may I mention, last year dad told me they’d came in a big state competition, at which I got really excited. Turns out the top, like, 20 teams get a gold medal, OK teams silver, and the bad ones a bronze, aka “third” place. Dammit), but not in some random important “Ensemble” thingy in February.
So, you may think, what am I going to do? Quit the band? (I wish. Jokes.) Not participate? Well, the answer is NOT that dramatic. I probably should have wrote about this before (maybe I did?), but I actually am learning the trumpet as well. The original plan (when I was in a slight trumpet craze) was that I could play my saxophone some days, and at the same time practice my trumpet a few days as well. That way I could play trumpet in some songs, and sax in the rest. Perfectomonto! Bravissima! Etc.
No. The thing is, this has made them all think I’m gonna play trumpet full-time. So for all the videos and practices and stuff I have to play trumpet, which REALLY PISSES ME OFF because the only reason I joined the stupid band was so I could play my saxophone, and with me I even inspired 3 of my friends to join too and now they don’t want me to play sax?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?! WELL TOO BAD SAXOHPHONE IS MY PRIMARY INSTRUMENT I HATE TRUMPET I AM PLAYING SAX SHUT UP OR I’M QUITTING.
Ok calm, calm, cool it, Ruby. Breeeeeathe. Ah, that’s better. Sorry about that, folks. Just had to let out a bit of bottled up anger, which I have to contain for 10 hours a day at a school where you just sit on your bum all day and do nothing and they see you as a box that needs to be filled with information NOT A REAL PERSON WHO ACTUALLY WANTS TO LEARN REAL STUFF…
Woops. OK, all good! (What I said was true, though. Everyone always goes on about how GREAT the Japanese eduacation system is, and how slack the Australian one is…but actually, it’s not that good at all. It’s very old fashioned, as I casually mentioned before the just see your brain as an empty box they need to fill until it bursts with information. I mean, they only have blackboards, and by February 2011 all we will have learned in IT is how to turn a computer on and off and create a Word document!! (Yes, that latter there has caused me a lot of pain and stress.) I actually think Australian teaching, with its way of letting you decide what you want to learn, and giving you freedom and choices and independence and making learning really interesting, is far better. You can tell the difference here; kids are nowhere near as creative, their work is generally boring and plain, and they don’t…think like we do. Think outside the box, they they encourage you do back home. And everyone says how smart Asian people are (not meaning to sound racist there, but it is what everyone says), how hard they work, but you know, kids go to school at least 2 hours less a day in Australia, and in my opinion we’re just as smart. And about the hard-working, well, how could they not be, with all the stuff they make you do here! Educational expert R. M. Capp says,
“Give the Kids a Bit o’ Freedom, Mate!”

ANYWAY………hopefully the brass band will go well and people will come to realise that I’m a sax lover at heart.
Okay, I really have to go now!

Goodbye for now, my friends.
Ruby xoxoxoxo

Tags: bad, band, brass, bukatsudo, Japan, School, suisougakubu