Sugiyama Jogakuen University's Elementary June 24, 2010 18:16
Every morning we visit a school. And every morning I think, "That was magic, we'll never be able to top this."
And every time I'm wrong.
We visited Sugiyama Jogakuen Elementary yesterday morning, and, well, how am I going to explain this? You know what, for right now, I won't. I'm in Kyoto for a couple of days so I'll see if I can't work on something that will maybe get it across. For now, I'll just leave you with a picture or two that won't do justice to what happened. The temporary story is this -
We arrived at Sugiyama, which is an all-girl school. Before we went to their assembly hall we visited with the Head Master, who was charming beyond belief. Two of the students arrived to escort Dean and I to the hall. I hopped up and started out the door, but suddenly got a vibe that I should bring my little Flip video camera. So I turned around and picked it up.
That decision was probably the best one I'll make this year.
More on that later. For now, here is a picture of Dean leaving the assembly hall after our question and answer session. He is being swarmed by the younger group of 354 girls somewhere from 1st to 6th grade. Dean is carrying flowers that they gave him and is actually trying to not fall over. I'm about eight feet behind him in a similar situation. The next to last picture is the entire hall giving a super high energy shout-out to a row of TV video cameras that lined up on the stage after we left it.
The very last picture is a detail I had to pluck out of that picture for you. I think it does a better job of explaining the community at that school better than I could.
What a place. That morning I was the luckiest guy on Earth.
