The term end speaking tests being held this week with 3rd year take the form of an Olympic interview. After they have finished, each class has a medal ceremony where small prizes, as well as gold, silver and bronze medals, are given to the students who performed particularly well.

And , oh, when these girls start to speak English....what a sight to behold!

A statue of Saint Joseph has been placed on the second floor of the school, which is a nice start to March (the very month of Saint Joseph).

The 5th years taking P.E. this morning are enjoying rhythmical gymnastics. Using their ribbons, they are practising a series of very precise dextrous movements as they enjoy some excercise using their entire bodies.

There were two special guests to the school's biology classroom today: clione. These rare little creatures can be found in the ice floes along the coastal waters of the Okhotsk Sea in Eastern Hokkaido. Lovely wee things, aren't they?

The Hina Doll display is now set up on the first floor. Students can enjoy looking at the different figures until the evening of March the 2nd. No matter how hard you look, this display will be nowhere to be found on or after the 3rd of March, so please don't worry! (not clearing away the display before March the 3rd can have an adverse effect on a girl's chances of finding someone to marry!)

Yesterday, the mothers involved in the 2nd year PTA were at the school help make clothes bags for the new 1st year students. These hand-made bags are sold sat the 1st year orientation in March every year, but this is a behind-the-scenes look at exactly how they are made.

Thank you for your hard work!

The Snow Festival is in full swing in Sapporo. Although completely unrelated, there are also ice and snow candles to be found at the west gate of Fuji, too. Members of the art club, braving sub-zero temperatures, designed and constructed these lovely little exhibits.

The junior school ball day is scheduled this Friday and, as you can see, this week's trials are well under way.

As February is living up to its reputation as Sapporo’s coldest month, umbrellas are in bloom in the 1st year classrooms. Erm...pardon?! With no rain in February, and even less in a classroom, why would anyone in their right mind open an umbrella there? A closer look shows that the students are actually twirling the umbrellas. Some of the umbrellas are even linked together and twirled. So, have you figured out what they were doing yet? Stargazing: the inside dome of the umbrella is the night sky, and the twirling was to reconstruct the rotation of the Earth.

The temperature in Sapporo is falling as far down as minus 12℃ these days, but the students are still coming to school nonetheless, undeterred! Here are a few pictures from the school this morning.

Yuki Yamanaka from class 3-1 was presented with the “Environmental Plaza Award” for her poster which she made for her entry to the “2009 Sapporo Environment Poster Competition”, held by Sapporo City’s Environmental Plaza.

The focus of the competition was to heighten the awareness of the residents of Sapporo towards environmental protection, and to encourage them to put this into action. Based on the theme of “An eco-action to help our planet”, poster submissions were accepted from primary and junior secondary schools throughout the city.

Congratulations, Yuki!

One thing that can be said about some of the 2nd year experiments conducted over the winter break is that they are rather unique. One of the titles was “Different water temperature using a blender?!” This experiment was used to prove that even with the exact same amount of water over the exact same time period, mixing the water with a blender resulted in a different water temperature than when vigorously shaking it. The sheer originality of the methods by which the student went about proving and presenting what she had discovered, as well as the time and effort obviously spent on this task, left her teacher lost in admiration.

The second of the two experiments was titled “Supercooling”. The author of this report took high school subject matter, showed a thorough understanding of it, and then laid out her findings with many photographs making it easy to understand for the reader. On top of this, in addition to conveying the data and what this meant, the student also succeeded in showing the reader just how excited she was at what she was doing!

Two young teenagers have proven themselves as true scientists.

February the 1st is Graduation day at Fuji. After the farewell party, the senior students stayed behind for a practice run to make sure things go smoothly on the day. Dry eyes today, but what about Monday?

With the junior school ball day, which has been postponed since last year, finally on the horizon, the 2nd year students used their long homeroom to spend some time playing some sport with their friends. The girls seemed to enjoy running about while thinking about what game they might like to give a try when the day eventually comes.

A quick peek into a certain fifth year class, and it was obvious that something was happening. In fact, the students in this class had chosen one of their classmates to secretly pray for over the past few weeks, and today was the day where everyone's own "guardian angel" would be unmasked!

This event was actually done four years ago, when the girls were first year students, but they asked their homeroom teacher if they could do it again this year. Judging by the expressions and the exclamations which signalled a deeper level of friendship thanks to this exercise, it looks pretty certain that they will be doing it next year, too.

No matter where you go in the school this afternoon, you can see students cleaning the school from top to bottom. This is a gesture of thanks for 2009, and means that the students will be coming to a sparkingly clean school come 2010. Nice job!

Today was "Happy Lunch" day. This is a day where the students have a lunch which is a little more frugal than usual, and enjoy it a little bit more than usual. The thinking behind this venture is that the students eat only rice and donate the money normally spent on chicken, fish, fruit, or vegetables on the cause their year is working on. It's only once a year, and it's a good chance for them to think outside the "bento box".

Winter has well and truly arrived in Sapporo and "Christmas" can be seen all over the school.

Students are usually busy around advent and this year is no exception. These posters were made by third years and are asking people to help with donations for Bangladesh. Over the next three days, each year will collect donations for their specific cause to help those less fortunate than themselves.

With the coming of winter, the corridors tend to become a little darker during the day. This year, however, it might be a good idea to bring your sunglasses! Third year students have been busy creating "portraits", which they drew starting with the outline of the face. The fruits of their imagination are on display and helping to make the school look slightly less dark.