Koibana, Soccer Practice, Cleaning up Sendai

Wow. Just had the obligatory had-a-pretty-long-post-written-up-and-then-it-got-deleted blogging experience. Kind of hating life right now. I'll try to get the basic gist of what it was.

Thursday, June 25, was nice because we had 午前授業 (only morning classes). My boy Onomasa listening attentively in math class:

The reason for the lack of classes in the afternoon was made clear after lunch. They were bringing in an author to speak to the whole school. He was supposed to tell us how he became an author, and his talk was entitled, "Until I Can Reach the Sky". I could barely contain my excitement.

There's no auditorium at my school (or any Japanese high school?), so we all carried our chairs from the classroom to the gym and set them up in rows according to class (2-9 represent). It was, as they say in Japanese, hot as a demon, and I know that at least 2 people collapsed due to the heat. I settled in for what promised to be a rousing two hours. The principal introduced him, and the author stepped up the mic and prised us by saying:

"Guys, honestly, I broke up with my girlfriend of 3 years yesterday."

Surprise and sympathy from everyone.

"I think I would feel better if I just talked about it. Hey, maybe I'll be able to look back at it and laugh! Anyway, we were sitting in the parking lot of a 7-11 at 4 AM yesterday..."

Stunned silence followed by the exchange of looks of disbelief as he went on to tell 1000-plus high schoolers a story that culminated in his girlfriend exclaiming, "I thought you promised you would grow up!" and storming out of the car. I couldn't fathom what convinced him that what he as doing was a good idea. Eventually, he went on to talk about how he became an author, at which time I began playing shiritori with Moe and Rinako. Here's the big man himself:

I did manage to learn a new word from it all, however: koibana, which is a shortened form of the word koibanashi, or talking about one's love life.

After school, I went to my first actual soccer practice. I was pretty dismayed to see that the dirt/sand playing surface, already tough enough to adjust to, was covered in puddles. This led to a lot of the ball suddenly stopping and very muddy group of guys. All the same, it was a great time. I'm by no means one of the best. In fact, I'd put myself in the around the 20th percentile. But, playing with guys who are mostly better than me can't hurt, right? We ran a bit, stretched, did a couple of drills, practiced set plays, and then broke up into three teams and scrimmaged for a good bit. Not too different from America...except that it lasts about 3.5 hours! I exchanged phone email addresses with a couple of the guys and headed home around 7:40. I'll go more into detail about soccer when I do a post on my daily routine.

The next day, we again had classes only in the morning. But first, here's the view from the room where we have history class:

As I've mentioned, Japanese schools don't have janitors. The students clean up the school. However, my school decided that wasn't enough! That afternoon, the whole school headed out to clean up the entire neighborhood around the school.

I was given weed-pulling duty, and it wasn't bad at all because I got to work with the English teacher from Montreal the whole time. He told me all about how he got to Japan (JET Program) and some of the troubles with Japanese bureaucracy he's had in is 13 years in the country. It was a nice conversation. All the students looked on in awe because we were speaking in English.

Went to soccer again. Had to do some killer muscle training that made Coach Bob's boot camps seem like elementary school gym.

Came home to a delicious meal!

Fridays are also nice because my host dad comes back home. He works in another prefecture during the week, so it's nice to have him around. He often brings goodies from the city he works in, as pictured below.