They’ve been counting down to this weekend for ages now, and each time I asked any of the Ichi Nen Sei or Ni Nen Sei football club kids how many days during the last few weeks, they’d reply eagerly and quickly.
Shinjinsen, the Rookies Tournament, where dreams are shattered and heroes, made whilst the older kids buckle down to more tests. Nanachu’s plucky little band of smurfs netted 14 times and picked up three yellow cards in the four games on the way to the final today and it was brilliant to behold. They all played their socks off, and were clearly playing the best, most fluid football, a really confident passing game. They looked like real footballers. In between games they pulled each others’ shorts down and fucked about.
I was on the sideline with the cheering unit, the younger club members who didn’t cut the mustard sharp enough to make the squad. The first games yesterday, they were a shambles, but hilarious. I have never experienced such apathetic cheering and today looked like it wouldn’t be much different, as a dozen or so smurfs ambling round the pitch and into position with no particular hurry after the game had already kicked off. But it got better and the volleyball girls and the tennis girls came along and cheered too.
And they got to the final and faced Fuzuoka Chu and lost 0-1. I was sure we were going to win the whole thing but the team was out-muscled by bigger kids and never hit their stride with their game.
Sunday 30 September 2007
Wednesday 26 September 2007
Recently
Well then. I was going to post this…
Big Ones
The best and worst thing about taking out your mountain bike on a ride is that you go places nobody else seems to. The good of that is all too clear to you I’m sure, but the bad…oh, the bad.
Spiders, in a word. They’re the bad.
Today I took a ride near Yamanobe. The route there is a long road section, followed by a steady climb that doesn’t ever get too sharp. On the way, I met an old guy who was piling up harvested rice on sticks he’d lined up alongside the road. I slipped in a bit of local dialect which brought a smile from his face and bought me a pair of photos.
I had packed sun-cream. In accordance with my new bid to be more prepared for physical arduousness, I had thought ahead. Never again will I climb a mountain (Fuji) with scant provisions (a spare jumper, and a can of beer with which to celebrate at the top). ‘My it’s hot and sunny today’, I had thought, ‘Better take sun-cream’. It started raining soon after I met the farmer.
So I was hurrying on the down, scrambling as best I could along the trail as the rain turned to torrential rain and even my hopes of keeping my camera dry grew sodden and started to runnel off me. More or less at that point, I hit the first one, bam, a little tiny tightness across my arms and a silent snap. It wasn’t long before I encountered another web…and another, and another and another. Undisturbed, these webs had gotten big, and the spiders- well, I didn’t see those first few ones, I just crashed through the webs.
It was when I took one to the face that I leaped off my bike and danced about swirling my arms and yelling blue murder to nobody and nothing but the trees and the rain. The horror got worse. The web was dangling complete with some kind of debris, or prey, godknows maybe even the spider itself, from my spectacles. It seemed logical at the time to throw them off my face but how I cursed that logic as I hunted for them in the undergrowth for 10 minutes afterwards, all the while with the sensation of something crawling over my legs where really there were just dozens of sticky green seeds stuck to me.
It wasn’t enough to proceed slowly as I still copped a few webs I didn’t see coming. So, man-whimpering all the way (there’s no really getting away from it- a whimper is a whimper no matter what you prefix it with), I walked my bike down, thrashing a stick in front of me like it was Arthur’s sword itself. When the stick broke and I didn’t have another to hand, I picked up my bike and thrashed that at the air and the webs. ‘Take that spider!’
I think we’ll call that Spiders 1 Guy 0.
…that was Saturday.
Today, a chain of events, and all my plans to post unwound and balled up anew.
Somewhere down there is a post about my new Japanese teacher, Aoyagi Sensei. I said she seemed nothing like my two previous teachers and I pined a bit. Last week was Lesson One and it was a small disaster. I walked away feeling de-motivated. Surely that’s not good! Today was going to be the next lesson.
I went jogging before, in the dark, around the path that circumnavigates the park perimeter, marked by a ridge all-a-crinkle with tree roots. I fell over one and just had enough sense to watch my glasses zip off my face before all was black and fuzzy where before at least there was a sharp blackness. Reminiscent of Saturday, I spent 10 minutes or so scrambling in the dirt on all fours, patting the earth. Not again.
All a rush I hurried home to fetch a torch, thinking I should cancel the lesson as I wouldn’t have time now. And then I remembered Rule Three or Four, I can’t remember I didn’t pay attention, that a lesson cannot be cancelled less than 12 hours prior. That’s when I snapped and thought, ‘Bollocks to this, I’m calling time on lessons with Aoyagi Sensei’. And instantly I felt a burden lifted.
I went back with a torch. At the approach to the part of the ridge where I had fallen is a copse of stumpy trees that I picked my way through. As luck would have it, I picked a pair of trees that something else already had, and there was that tightness across my face and the same silent snap and again I was cursing the sky, the trees, nothing in particular but spiders.
Maybe Spiders 2 Guy 0 then.
Big Ones
The best and worst thing about taking out your mountain bike on a ride is that you go places nobody else seems to. The good of that is all too clear to you I’m sure, but the bad…oh, the bad.
Spiders, in a word. They’re the bad.
Today I took a ride near Yamanobe. The route there is a long road section, followed by a steady climb that doesn’t ever get too sharp. On the way, I met an old guy who was piling up harvested rice on sticks he’d lined up alongside the road. I slipped in a bit of local dialect which brought a smile from his face and bought me a pair of photos.
I had packed sun-cream. In accordance with my new bid to be more prepared for physical arduousness, I had thought ahead. Never again will I climb a mountain (Fuji) with scant provisions (a spare jumper, and a can of beer with which to celebrate at the top). ‘My it’s hot and sunny today’, I had thought, ‘Better take sun-cream’. It started raining soon after I met the farmer.
So I was hurrying on the down, scrambling as best I could along the trail as the rain turned to torrential rain and even my hopes of keeping my camera dry grew sodden and started to runnel off me. More or less at that point, I hit the first one, bam, a little tiny tightness across my arms and a silent snap. It wasn’t long before I encountered another web…and another, and another and another. Undisturbed, these webs had gotten big, and the spiders- well, I didn’t see those first few ones, I just crashed through the webs.
It was when I took one to the face that I leaped off my bike and danced about swirling my arms and yelling blue murder to nobody and nothing but the trees and the rain. The horror got worse. The web was dangling complete with some kind of debris, or prey, godknows maybe even the spider itself, from my spectacles. It seemed logical at the time to throw them off my face but how I cursed that logic as I hunted for them in the undergrowth for 10 minutes afterwards, all the while with the sensation of something crawling over my legs where really there were just dozens of sticky green seeds stuck to me.
It wasn’t enough to proceed slowly as I still copped a few webs I didn’t see coming. So, man-whimpering all the way (there’s no really getting away from it- a whimper is a whimper no matter what you prefix it with), I walked my bike down, thrashing a stick in front of me like it was Arthur’s sword itself. When the stick broke and I didn’t have another to hand, I picked up my bike and thrashed that at the air and the webs. ‘Take that spider!’
I think we’ll call that Spiders 1 Guy 0.
…that was Saturday.
Today, a chain of events, and all my plans to post unwound and balled up anew.
Somewhere down there is a post about my new Japanese teacher, Aoyagi Sensei. I said she seemed nothing like my two previous teachers and I pined a bit. Last week was Lesson One and it was a small disaster. I walked away feeling de-motivated. Surely that’s not good! Today was going to be the next lesson.
I went jogging before, in the dark, around the path that circumnavigates the park perimeter, marked by a ridge all-a-crinkle with tree roots. I fell over one and just had enough sense to watch my glasses zip off my face before all was black and fuzzy where before at least there was a sharp blackness. Reminiscent of Saturday, I spent 10 minutes or so scrambling in the dirt on all fours, patting the earth. Not again.
All a rush I hurried home to fetch a torch, thinking I should cancel the lesson as I wouldn’t have time now. And then I remembered Rule Three or Four, I can’t remember I didn’t pay attention, that a lesson cannot be cancelled less than 12 hours prior. That’s when I snapped and thought, ‘Bollocks to this, I’m calling time on lessons with Aoyagi Sensei’. And instantly I felt a burden lifted.
I went back with a torch. At the approach to the part of the ridge where I had fallen is a copse of stumpy trees that I picked my way through. As luck would have it, I picked a pair of trees that something else already had, and there was that tightness across my face and the same silent snap and again I was cursing the sky, the trees, nothing in particular but spiders.
Maybe Spiders 2 Guy 0 then.
Wednesday 12 September 2007
No Ishikawa Sensei
Tonight was my first lesson with Aoyagi Sensei. I say lesson- what actually transpired was a crisp ironing-out of details and setting of rules. Aoyagi Sensei means business. I pressed the buzzer of the Yaponica Nihongo Academy, a two storey building that still somehow conspires to look like a tall portacabin, and heard a loud ‘Dozo!’ but no-one came to the door. Poor Aoyagi Sensei showed me a picture of the metal rod that now occupies her hip, and she spent the twenty minutes hobbling about between the table and the photocopier with a walking stick and without much haste.
There was an application form. There was an application fee too, but that’s been deferred until I make up my mind. Not much in the way of where froms, who bys, what nows. All that was taken care of by the form. Well, most of it. And when the end came I wasn’t really sure it was the end- thinking I’d come for a taster lesson. When what I got was a break-down of the rules and a pile of homework. Just like school.
Things used to be different. My mate Max has been yapping on about how great Ishikawa Sensei is for months so when my first teacher got sick and couldn’t tutor me anymore, I got in touch and had a couple of lessons with her. And it was great. It was in her house, in a room next to the kitchen filled with African art-work (she travels). Near the end of the lesson her husband would move from the living room through to the kitchen and start producing wonderful smells as dinner was prepared.
They were both young, hip, fun.
But now Ishikawa Sensei has moved to Singapore.
My first teacher, Suzuki Sensei, I stuck with for a long time. She was just like me- she was teaching her own language and, apparently, had no schooling in doing so. She made it up as she went along, did it on the fly, took me through the textbook and chatted lots. That’s why I liked her.
There was an application form. There was an application fee too, but that’s been deferred until I make up my mind. Not much in the way of where froms, who bys, what nows. All that was taken care of by the form. Well, most of it. And when the end came I wasn’t really sure it was the end- thinking I’d come for a taster lesson. When what I got was a break-down of the rules and a pile of homework. Just like school.
Things used to be different. My mate Max has been yapping on about how great Ishikawa Sensei is for months so when my first teacher got sick and couldn’t tutor me anymore, I got in touch and had a couple of lessons with her. And it was great. It was in her house, in a room next to the kitchen filled with African art-work (she travels). Near the end of the lesson her husband would move from the living room through to the kitchen and start producing wonderful smells as dinner was prepared.
They were both young, hip, fun.
But now Ishikawa Sensei has moved to Singapore.
My first teacher, Suzuki Sensei, I stuck with for a long time. She was just like me- she was teaching her own language and, apparently, had no schooling in doing so. She made it up as she went along, did it on the fly, took me through the textbook and chatted lots. That’s why I liked her.
Wednesday 5 September 2007
Babelling
`Only the fragrance taste hermitage club charge volunteer sends (at Bcc) This time of today when it reaches the point where sign of the fall is felt, everyone how you probably will pass? At movie festival Executive Office on last week end, スケジュールチ ラシ which thoroughly contains all program of movie festival completed. While also everyone is close, you think as the thing which is made the hand. Well, it meaning that time of the fragrance taste hermitage club hitting setting is decided, we inform. < Day and time > September 25th (fire) 19:00? At the Satomi reform dentistry clinic of Yamagata city fragrance being clear town (with ビューティフルコミッション and combination it becomes the hitting adjusting.) * 023-632-9553 we ask the inquiry of the hitting adjusting to Satomi. In addition, it becomes in the future to scramble ビューティフルコミッション and communication`
Curse you and curse you again Babel Fish online translation service!
Curse you and curse you again Babel Fish online translation service!
Tuesday 4 September 2007
Oh, the injustice of it all!
Another year, another speech contest, another gross violation of justice, of good ears, sound judgement, fair play. We were robbed.
Bless her, Megumi’s got a lot of fight in her. She being Nanachu’s contestant whom I have coached through her speech, ‘What a waste!’ for the last week and a half or so, a job her English teacher Kikuchi Sensei had done over the preceeding summer holidays. We three took a cab, we three ate packed lunches and one pair of hands spent the build-up wringing out nerves on a skirt.
The contest took place, Megumi didn’t get placed in the top 4 of 14, and again I found myself cursing the judges, with nothing much to say by way of commiseration in English, let alone in Japanese.
But there was something else that really stung me to the quick.
I’m going back now, to during the contest, to the recitation part, in which younger students took part and when Megumi sat with Kikuchi Sensei and I. Before that, even, in the morning when we had our last practice at school before we three took that cab. And then way way later, after the taxi driver- who happens to be the old secretary’s husband and a very happy granddad to boot- had taken us back to school.
She didn’t talk to me during the recitation part, she looked down during the morning practice and she didn’t make any kind of eye contact at goodbyes, instead conversing exclusively with Kikuchi Sensei.
I can’t help feeling that at some point, she lost faith in me, comprehensively. But then, it is really my place to trample on her disappointment with my own throwaway complaints?
Bless her, Megumi’s got a lot of fight in her. She being Nanachu’s contestant whom I have coached through her speech, ‘What a waste!’ for the last week and a half or so, a job her English teacher Kikuchi Sensei had done over the preceeding summer holidays. We three took a cab, we three ate packed lunches and one pair of hands spent the build-up wringing out nerves on a skirt.
The contest took place, Megumi didn’t get placed in the top 4 of 14, and again I found myself cursing the judges, with nothing much to say by way of commiseration in English, let alone in Japanese.
But there was something else that really stung me to the quick.
I’m going back now, to during the contest, to the recitation part, in which younger students took part and when Megumi sat with Kikuchi Sensei and I. Before that, even, in the morning when we had our last practice at school before we three took that cab. And then way way later, after the taxi driver- who happens to be the old secretary’s husband and a very happy granddad to boot- had taken us back to school.
She didn’t talk to me during the recitation part, she looked down during the morning practice and she didn’t make any kind of eye contact at goodbyes, instead conversing exclusively with Kikuchi Sensei.
I can’t help feeling that at some point, she lost faith in me, comprehensively. But then, it is really my place to trample on her disappointment with my own throwaway complaints?
Scottish mimicry
It would make more sense if I started to mimic his gravelly Scottish bark before he said, ‘Ahm gonnae bite yer fookin noze off pal’ but I’m really not sure I did. It’s all a bit muddled and muddied in my head- I was drunk, he was drunk, this happened a couple of weeks ago now- but I’m pretty sure the timeline was:
I was getting drunk,
(He was probably getting drunk too, somewhere else in the very same bar [the Underbelly bar at the top of Victoria Street or the middle of the Cowgate, depending on which way you take on the place]),
He and I came to occupy adjacent spaces,
He said ‘Ahm gonnae bite yer fookin noze off pal’,
I started to mimic, parrot, if you will, his Scottish accent.
That’s better, now I’ve got it set down somewhere.
It’s a funny thing living in a different country and then returning home. Cars move quicker on the M25 then they do anywhere in Japan. And it’s a fucking big road too. Suddenly you get a real kick out of daily interaction with strangers, even if it’s just something like asking in a pub where the lav is. You want to hug people a lot more.
And also you start noticing all the habits you’ve picked up that don’t quite sit so well at home. Nobody bows to say thank you in Britain! And it seems mimicking accents and everything you hear is another skill I’ve picked up along the way, like a like a beer trophy on a big night out.
Not that it didn’t work out alright. He didn’t bite my nose off. He kissed me on the side of the head instead.
I was getting drunk,
(He was probably getting drunk too, somewhere else in the very same bar [the Underbelly bar at the top of Victoria Street or the middle of the Cowgate, depending on which way you take on the place]),
He and I came to occupy adjacent spaces,
He said ‘Ahm gonnae bite yer fookin noze off pal’,
I started to mimic, parrot, if you will, his Scottish accent.
That’s better, now I’ve got it set down somewhere.
It’s a funny thing living in a different country and then returning home. Cars move quicker on the M25 then they do anywhere in Japan. And it’s a fucking big road too. Suddenly you get a real kick out of daily interaction with strangers, even if it’s just something like asking in a pub where the lav is. You want to hug people a lot more.
And also you start noticing all the habits you’ve picked up that don’t quite sit so well at home. Nobody bows to say thank you in Britain! And it seems mimicking accents and everything you hear is another skill I’ve picked up along the way, like a like a beer trophy on a big night out.
Not that it didn’t work out alright. He didn’t bite my nose off. He kissed me on the side of the head instead.
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