We're back

Wow, I has been 3 weeks since our last post! Sorry. We have not been doing much. We go out to dinner with friends, go shopping in Hiroshima, and go to work. Nothing to out of the ordinary. Here is a little recap of this month:
On March 1st both Scott and my schools had their graduation ceremonies. The Japanese school year is from April - March. The ceremony was held during the day so the only people who attended were teachers, students, and mothers (only a few fathers). The ceremony lasted about an hour and a half. The students are led in by their homeroom teachers and sat in the front. They wore their school uniforms as normal. Then each student's name is read aloud and they stand up. Nobody claps or yells during this time. Then there are speeches given by the principal, a graduating student, and a future senior. It is all very serious. However, people clap the whole time the students came into the auditorium and the whole time they leave, it gets a little tiring.
This last weekend, our friend Bernard came and stayed with us. Bernard, Scott, and Jason played a lot of video games. On Saturday I went to Takehara with two of my teachers to see some Japanese doll display. Friday was the Girls' Festival in Japan to celebrate being a girl. There are special dolls put on display that day. The dolls were beautiful and the faces of the dolls change with each new emperor of Japan. Some of the dolls were very old. It was interesting to see. Then we went out for a Japanese lunch. It was a really nice afternoon.
We also recently got tickets to go to Thailand from April 26 - May 5 so we are excited about that. Bernard is coming with us, but the playstation has to stay behind. :) Now we are looking forward to going back to America next week. We will be busy with lots of wedding planning, but it should be fun and we can't wait to see people!