On Saturday, January 28th
I could only catch up on sleep a little before I had to be up and biking to Kose Sports
Park to watch my students
in a kyudo competition. Kyudo is
Japanese archery, and it’s so much more than hitting a target. I happened to hear of the competition from
one of Yuko’s students who had to read his composition to me (she likes to do
that with her writing classes so they have someone to communicate with, and
it’s fun). (More)
To the horror of my JTE’s I left
the plans for the PTA presentation to the last minute. I managed to finish and give a pretty good
lecture. I was lucky that Shimizu sensei was willing
to translate what I said on the spot. It
was a lot of fun because I had the audience doing so much. There were about thirty people (mostly
parents and teachers) and I started right away with an Irish dance warm
up. This really loosed them up and set
the tone for the evening. I talked about
what I studied at school and played oboe for them and taught them “What’s up”
and “okay” in ASL (American Sign Language).
I talked a bit about cultural differences between America and Japan then I played my whistle and
talk with the basic step to the reel. I
used a new way of teaching and it worked quite well. I was very please at how many people got
it. Everyone sure had fun, too! Looking at the pictures my dance posture is
not so hot, but hey, I’m learning life isn’t about perfection, but communication. They didn’t hear the greatest oboist or see
the greatest dancer, but they sure enjoyed it!
I ended exactly after an hour, but
sharing PBJ took a while and they had a number of questions. It was a really fun evening. Perhaps the best was seeing the Kyoto sensei
(vice-principal) foot-loose and fancy free dancing to Irish music! Only a foreigner could get away with
something like that . . . ;)
I ran again in
preparation for running with the boy’s tennis club, but what started as a
push-yourself-a-little 40 minute run turned into a two hour adventure simply
because you can’t get there from here. I
crossed the bridge that I take to school but turned north instead of south with
the plan of crossing the next bridge back and down. Well, the bridge turned out to be a highway
with no pedestrian access so I had to go further to the next bridge (What? Turn
back? Never!) and as I tried to make my
way down the river bank the path stopped.
I could go on factory property or climb the cliff or turn back. I almost did the first two, but chickened out
and redoubled and went way out of the way before I could find a road back south. I couldn’t run the whole way and was very
grateful to be back when I finally got home.
It didn’t leave me with much time before church, though. It’s cases like these that make you
appreciate the treadmill. Though on
second thought, if I had a treadmill I wouldn’t have gone for a run in the
first place . . . (More)
As part of my desire to get more
involved with the students, and partly from a curiosity of how the brass band
system actually works here I planned to go to the brass band concert on Sunday
(Jan 22). I planned to ride my bike
there since it was not to far from Shirane and it was a nice day. I went about a quarter mile before my breaks made
a horrible scraping noise. I noticed
that the back breaks were worn through to the metal so metal was scraping
metal. I thought I could go on without
using those breaks, but a little while further the metal scraped through, the
tire bulged out and there was no longer the possibility of the back wheel
moving an inch. I carried my bike home
(mountain bikes are heavy!) and tried to get a ride to the concert with no
luck. Truth be told, the breaks have
scraped the tire ever since I got the bike so it’s been scraping for at least
six months. For a while I could hit the
breaks with my foot to keep it from scraping but at some point that stopped
working and I never got around to taking it in.
Actually, that’s not true. I
tried a few times but the bike guy wasn’t around so I gave up and went
home. Well, at least I should be happy
that it didn’t happen on my way to work. (More)
My, how time flies when you’re having fun. I’ve had the most interesting two weeks and have been too interested in my books to use the evenings in any other way. Hence the apartment is a mess and I haven’t written in two weeks! To make the massive catch-up easier to read I’ve divided the update into categories rather than dates and put them in as their own posts. I’m too tired and don’t have enough time to use discretion in writing, so feel free to graze over excruciating details!
