newsy

black hole

I�d like to issue an apology to all of those who have written me in the last year and 2 months.

Since coming to Japan, I�ve turned into some sort of correspondence black hole.

I�m sorry.

And if you�d like to read more about black holes, click on the link.

sports festival

This fall�s most anticipated event sucked big-time.

After the fun I had at last spring�s school volleyball tournament, and August�s culture festival, I was really looking forward to my school�s sports festival. Relays, tug of war, you-name-it they had it. Nearly 20 events in all.

And with 20 events and the teachers� participation in the volleyball tournament [we formed a team and captured 2nd place�we lost to the senior boy�s team], you�d think that we�d have some sort of allotment made for teacher participation in the Autumn sports festival.

Nooooo. Not one teacher showed the slightest interest in taking part. And because all the other teachers were being wet blankets, I had no team and was forced to be merely a spectator.

I don�t think I�ve ever been more of a �spoiled sport� as I was that day.

Despite all logical thought, I was unable to will myself into a better mood. So the whole time I sat and sulked about having to sit in the damn sun, while envying the youths bounding by and resenting that the office was locked and that I was unable to be in any way productive.

7 hours utterly wasted.

soft volley

I�ve started playing a new sport! It�s called �soft volley� and like ultimate frisbee, it�s much more fun than you would initially think.

My neighborhood has a couple teams. Every Thursday and Saturday night, folks from all walks of life meet in the gymnasium of the nearby elementary school and proceed to have a great time.

The court is small and only four members play at a time [2 men and 2 women]. The ball is not your typical volleyball, but rather the rubber type of ball that we can all recall from the asphalt glory of our elementary school days. Well, those of you who actually got to go to recess may remember that type of ball. Those of you who were like me and had to stay inside an finish their spelling homework everyday may not remember.

new pet

I had a pet snail for a day.

I collected it while walking home from school after a heavy rain.

The snail was in the middle of the asphalt path and clearly going nowhere. It was a fully-aquatic model, so I suspect that a kid climbed down into the concrete lined channel that runs nearby and plucked the snail from his peaceful life.

I couldn�t easily return the snail to it�s supposed home, so I brought it to mine.

I don�t think he liked the clean water I gave him, so the next morning when I went for a short hike, Snail accompanied me. We parted ways at the little mountain pond near the trail that I know has a healthy mud-snail population.

close call

Almost peed on my pant leg today.

Don�t get me wrong, I�ve got no qualms with the Japanese squat toilet�but I do have qualms with wide-leg pants used in combination with squatters.

momma said

A week or so ago, my mother sent me an email with the word �pasties� in it. And yes, she was talking about actual pasties. Not pasties as in the meat-filled pastry that our family�s Finish foreign exchange student taught Mom about in good ol� high school days and that she is usually referring to when she utters the p-word, but rather pasties as in the glorified stickers used to cover up tits.

Not long before the email, I received a letter in the mail from Mom [she sends me a weekly update on their life back at the farm]. In the letter she actually used the word �nekkid.�

What�s going on?

lost a friend

I have a cherry-red book bag.

It goes nearly everywhere with me. As a result of Japan�s humid weather and my recreational activities, it gets rather dirty.

Recently I decided that my bag needed a bath.

Everything came out sparkly�but the very next day, my book bag and I had an incident and I just had to wash it again.

Everything came out covered in bits of paper�because I had unknowingly left my English-Japanese / Japanese-English dictionary inside the bag.

You have no idea of the devastation that I felt.

Unwillingly, I bought the only other Eng-Jap / Jap-Eng dictionary I could find. It�s not half the dictionary it�s predecessor was�and is.

That�s right, I still have it. The spin-cycle rendered the book unusable, but it also rendered it attractive.

I now have a varnished, spin-dried dictionary to use as either 1] a conversation piece atop my television or 2] a paper weight or 3] a doorstop or 4] �