UPDATE: OBON FESTIVAL

So there I was, minding my own business, hanging out with Yoda-san and my new teacher friend Kishimoto-sensei, drinking my solitary beer of the evening, when the principal from Kamikatetsu saunters up and we proceed to have a conversation which goes something like this:

Principal: "Tell me a song from Ohio!"
Me: "We don't have songs from Ohio."
Principal: "Then tell me a song from America!"
Me: "I mean, I can sing you The Beatles or something. I don't know many songs off the top of my head."
Principal: "OK LETS DO THAT! YOU'RE UP NEXT ON STAGE!"
Adam's Brain: "...what?"
Adam's Mouth: "Sure, why not!"
Adam's Brain: "WHAT!?"

So I sang my lovely rendition of Smokey Robinson's Tracks of My Tears (Thank you Trads) in front of maybe 100-200 people, including most of the kids from Kamikatetsu Elementary. I then proceeded to give a short speech about my impressions about Kikai, and about my life on the island.

None of the above (song excepted) even entered the territorial waters of English.

Then, although my reputation as a loon had been quite established, I went on to join in the big circle of people dancing. Dancing in Japan is vaguely like line dancing, in that everyone is doing the same thing. It's easy enough to pick up, as long as you can use your eyes, and then get your body to follow along. 2 months of Japanese festival dance practice to the rescue!

I think back, to a younger me, to times when I had a choice between taking a chance and perhaps making a fool of myself, and playing it safe and ducking out, and wonder what ever could have compelled me to take the second choice even once in my as of yet fairly short time on this planet.