Softball

Yesterday, the teachers played the girls softball team in an impromptu game. I got to choose my position so I chose third as I used to play third base the summer that I was 7. I made a couple good defensive plays out there, but did manage to let one squeak by. It didn't matter though cause we showed those girls just how softball is played. The bats were hot, the defense was tight, and after 5 innings the game was called with the teachers up 5-0. Good times.

High Alert

Last week the 3rd year students went on their trip to Okinawa. On the second day of their trip a number of kids started to complain of stomach cramps and the like. Incidentally, I also started to feel terrible around then, and was sidelined for the weekend. A couple of them threw up during the trip, and diarrhea was running wild. After they came back they had 2 days off school, but during that time a bunch of their younger brothers and sisters ended up getting sick as well, the culmination of which was 2 kids throwing up yesterday within an hour of each other.

One of the kids actually ended up throwing up during English class. It was pretty weird for me cause one of the other students just pointed it out, and here was the kid with some vomit on his desk and the floor, but cupping the majority of it in his hands. I went and got a bucket for him to put it in while the other teacher went to get cleaning supplies. All the while the kid just sat there like a trooper, cupping this vomit. By the way, it was also one of the rankest smelling vomits I've ever had this displeasure of smelling.

Today, we found out that the cause of the illnesses is Norovirus. So now the whole school is on high alert trying to stop the spread of this before too many kids get sick and they have to close the school down for a couple days. Despite the fact that it is an incredibly easy to transmit illness from what I've read this morning, I'm not too worried about getting it again so quickly since I've already had my share of it. What I've been wondering more about is just where we got it all since I didn't have any contact with the 3rd year students last week, I can only assume that the mutual source of our illnesses was on of the places in the area I visited during last week's Golden Week holidays, namely the local onsen, or the soba shop.

In any case, as much as I'd love a couple of free days off, I hope the spread does die down as I wouldn't wish to put anymore of my students through what I went through last weekend.

I am still alive. Busy, but alive. The new school year has started and this year's new first year students are really a great group. Much better as a whole then last year's new students.

Things have been progressing for me as well about future grad school prospects. I have a meeting with a professor who has tentatively agreed to supervise me bearing a few things falling into place. So Monday's meeting will be a matter of working out all the details, and hopefully, I'll be able to come out knowing much more concretely whether Kyoto University is gonna happen or not.

I hit another mile stone yesterday. My lovely 50cc scooter roller over to 10000km. Since the odometer is only 4 digits plus the decimal, I got to see it roll back to 0000.0. Of course, I documented the occasion. Moments like that are ones that every man dreams of.

バイクの修理屋さん

One of the great things about riding a 50cc is the little amount of maintenance it requires. Fill up the oil every 1000km or so, keep an eye on the battery, and that's about it. Everyone in a while you do need to go get it checked out though, and that happened to me yesterday. I'm incredibly lucky to have a small motorcycle shop minutes from my house, and even more lucky that the owner is incredible.

Last week I started to notice that my bike was having trouble starting up. The same thing had happened about half a year ago and the problem was a worn out spark plug. Rather than wait and see if it would get as worse as it did last time, I rode over to the shop and told the man what was going on. Right there he gave my bike a full inspection, replacing the spark plug (which was on it's last legs as I had thought), tweaking the carburetor and brakes, and checking all my filters and fluids. 15 minutes after I had pulled in I was back out and riding like new. Total cost to me, 2000 yen. Now that is some good service.

Surprisingly

Japan is widely considered to be one of the most technologically advanced countries in the world, and to a certain extent this is most definitely true. What might surprise you however, is how completely technologically inept a large number of people are with things like bank machines, self-service machines of any kind for that matter, and most shockingly, computers(!).

At my school, some teachers can barely even create a word document. Of course there are those who know how to work their way around the computer, but it's really only a handful. We recently had a worm virus infect a number of computers, mine included. I managed to clean mine up by myself in about 30 minutes, but there are still other teachers who are having troubles nearly a week later. An IT guy has been visiting my school for the past few days, and it looks like today he managed to finally get it all sorted out.

So while, it's true that Japan has some of the most technologically advanced items and facilities in the world, the average person's ability to comprehend/use this technology on the whole, seems to be rather lacking.

水泳大会

Yesterday, my city held it's first ever (annual) open swimming contest. The focus was on students from elementary to high school, but there was a general division that was open to any competitor. The general division was limited to the 50m events which was a bit disappointing, but since for the sake of time, each competitor was limited to two events, it probably was for the best. Not that it really mattered though.

When I arrived at the pool for warm ups I was given a program with all the events and competitors. I checked my two races to see what kind of competition I was up against. Lovely! Me and one other guy. My chances of winning now stood at a solid 50%. Then my competitor came into the change room, all 5 foot 6 and 72 years of him. Make that 100%.

But it wasn't about winning for either of us. Both he and I just wanted to get out there and see how we held up. First up was the 50 breaststroke. I forgot what stroke I was doing when I first jumped in and flutter kicked a couple times. At the turn I noticed the old guy wasn't that far behind and I picked up the pace for the last 25. Either I flew, he slowed down, or a bit of both, cause I finished 10 seconds in front of him. Still my time, 38.9 or so, was nothing spectacular, especially when I heard that one of the elementary school students I teach does a 40 second 50. She also happens to be in the Japan Junior Olympic program though, but that's another story.

The 50 free went pretty much the same way. I finished in 31.6 seconds. I was really hoping to just barely crack 30, but it wasn't meant to be. This time was also around the best time posted by the top elementary school student.

Considering I went in with no practice, having not swam competitively in 10 years, I think it went pretty well. I got a couple of nifty certificates too, and had the lovely support of some of my fellow English teachers who came to cheer me on. Also as I was leaving I heard one of the parents in the crowd remark "This was on heck of a competition huh? Even a foreigner and an old man came out to compete!"