April 19th-False Start
So, it’s the weekend finally. In some ways my first full week of school seemed long, and in other ways it seemed short. Well, I’ll get into that later when I started rambling and thinking onto the keyboard. Oh, yeah, in case you haven’t heard that before (“thinking onto the keyboard”)…I think only Allison has read that from me before, it means the same thing as “thinking out loud” but of course it’s not “out loud” because I’m not saying anything, I’m just typing. So…in essence, I’m thinking onto the keyboard…because I’m typing…get it. I knew you would! Anyway, today, I got up at 7:15am to get ready to go to my first weekend practice with the boat team. We met at Miyazaki station at 8:30am to drive to some location that was apparently better for boat practice than the river right next to our school. My gave me a ride because I had no idea how to get to the station, and I really didn’t like the idea of being tired and sweaty before the practice even started. I think that’s a reason why I’m not particularly fond of riding my bike places. It’s not that it’s so hard (especially because when I’m on my way TO something, chances are I’m going down the hill instead of up it). It’s just that it is tiring and I feel disgusting by the time I get anywhere, so it’s like I haven’t even DONE anything yet and I already feel like I want to rest and take a shower. I miss my car…Hehehehehehehehe….Anyway, we rode in Mr. Tamba’s (Tamba sensei…boat coach) blue van for about 40 minutes to what wasn’t really a river but more like a long rectangular reservoir that led out to sea (which was about a 1 minute walk from where we were). On the way there, I rode up front next to Mr. Tamba. It was good and bad because that I felt obligated to talk to him because I was sitting right up there and he’s a teacher and a coach, you know? It was good because I should be practicing talking to people (that’s what I’m here for!!!), and I would get practice listening too. The problem was that, it’s not easy to make conversation, so when I didn’t know what to say or how to say it right, I was just kind of quiet, and I was worried that my silence would make him uncomfortable. Also, his Japanese isn’t exactly the easiest to understand. It’s interesting how it’s easier to understand some people than it is to understand others. I’d say that my general observation is that when it comes to teachers, younger teachers speak more clearly and they don’t slur their words or mumble as much as older people do. Like there was this one teacher who taught us health class on Friday and he sounded, and acted, like he was drunk and it really was hopeless. Yeah, there’s something that’s the same in Japan as it is in America! The gym teachers, and middle-aged, or older, ugly people (think of Millburn’s previous gym staff), who probably flunked out of Middle School or were really athletic in high school and they stuck with the only thing they could ever do well, but now they’re old and out of shape and all they can do is yell at people who they would have been better than if they were in their prime once again. The men have pot-bellies, for the most part, and the women look very masculine….sound familiar? We’ve had a couple of gym classes, but we haven’t been doing any games yet. It’s just like fitness testing like we have in America that incorporates many of the same tests. ANYWAY…There were some low storage-type buildings right next to the water, and when Mr. Tamba opened the doors, dozens of sculling boats of all sizes, from 1 person to 4 person boats, were revealed. In another compartment was a little training room with a few rowing machines, some benches, and some desks. I guess the school must rent the space. We got out some boats and I was paired with Ippei. Before we could launch our noble yellow craft, we had to adjust the oarlocks so they were the right height and we did some stretching. We were on our way to putting the boat in the water (another boat was already in), when Mr. Tamba decided that the conditions weren’t good for boating and that it might not be safe. It was kinda of windy and the water was choppy, but I wanted to get in the boat!!!! I don’t know…it just seems a tad silly to me that I’ve been on this team for almost a week and I still haven’t done what it is that they do. Well…I suppose they train too, which I’ve been doing of course, but come on! I was certainly disappointed. I figured we’d go home after that, but instead of leaving, we just put the boats away and went for a run in the park that was right near where we were. After running, we did 10 minutes of different kinds of sit-ups. There was a really cool jungle-gym type structure in the part too. What it really was was a tall metal pole (about 25 feet high I’d say), and around it was a weave of thick red rope that made a triangular-pyramid shaped tower. Of course I had to climb to the top, which I did, and from there I could clearly see the ocean only about 100 ft. away. As I was looking, the guys at the bottom of the tower decided to start jumping up and down on the ropes…it was a good thing I was holding on at the time because the tower shook violently. After we got down, Ippei, some other kid, and myself walked over to see the ocean. It was very nice. The other guy ran down on the sand and stuck his toe in the water and said it was very cold. On the way back, I gave Ippei a piggyback ride because he didn’t have any shoes on and the path was covered with large pointy rocks. When we got back to the others, the girls had brought a soccer ball and we played soccer for a while. It was sunny by that point and the stiff breeze was warm. Every few minutes, an F-18 would fly over low overhead (only about 1000 ft. I would guess). They were really loud but it was cool to watch them. Satoshi told me that they were from a Japanese airbase but that they came from America. Next we played a game that I didn’t really understand. The closest thing I could compare it to was dodge ball because there were two sides and when you had the ball, you threw it at someone on the other team. But…what confused me was was that when a person on the other side was hit with the ball and didn’t catch it, there were no consequences, and when they did catch it…there were also…no consequences. Maybe having a semi-hostile game with no consequences for defeat is the Japanese way of being non-confrontational. After a playing for a while, I think everyone was pretty tired and hungry. We left the park and got back to Miyazaki station at about 1pm. I had been planning on hanging out with some friends after I had lunch. Last night after practice, I ended up talking to some people in my class just sitting outside after their practice for about 2 hours. It seemed to me at the time that we had all decided to hang out this afternoon. But when I e-mailed them all, they had had excuses or other things they had to do or obligations of one flavor or another. It was frustrating because I’d intentionally been trying to make plans so I wouldn’t just have to spend my whole weekend hanging out in the house not really doing anything. I understood their e-mails (everyone communicates almost entirely by e-mail through their cell phones. Actual calls are seldom made) and they understood my responses. But I think what was most frustrating to me was that I lacked the vocabulary and grammar knowledge to make them feel guilty for ditching me. I think the best I got out was, “Yesterday you said that we could all hang out today!” and when someone asked me what’s going on I said something like, “I’m not doing anything because everyone is busy!” I guess they felt bad because they were apologizing a lot. Maybe there’s some sort of cultural thing that I’m missing. Like…in America…if you make plans with someone, or if you tell them that you’re free and that you want to hang out with them…then you’re expected to do it. It’s not really open for further interpretation later unless you tell the person that some unexpected important thing came up. Another thing that’s kind of weird is like…you’ll be talking to someone trying to see when they’re free…trying to make plans or get a sense of their schedule. And they’ll be very positive and say things like, “Oh yeah, I definitely want to hang out with you. It’d be so fun! Get in touch with me soon so we can make plans!” And then you get in touch with them and they tell you that they actually have school club meetings every single day and that on weekends they have tournaments or something like that and that they never have free days. That’s just peculiar to me…like…how could they not know that…or if they did know that…why did they make me think that hanging out was a possibility? I don’t know…maybe things will get better after a little while or when I get a better sense of when people are free and what’s ok and what’s not ok.
Ok, I’m
going to stop whining now and get back to the topic again. In the end, I didn’t mind ALL that much
because I was really tired and I napped on and off throughout the afternoon
until it was time for dinner. I lay on
my bed with the window open and the sunlight shining through the shades. It was very nice. I would nap and then be awakened by e-mails from people every
once in a while as I had my cell phone under my pillow and the pillow would
vibrate when the phone’s mail melody went off.
It was nice. Tomorrow I have to
go to school for and hour and a half or so tomorrow. It’s some parent-teacher thing.
The parents are coming to school and are sitting in on the classes? I’m not really sure how it’s supposed to
work. The one class we have tomorrow is
OCC though, so that’s cool. OCC is
definitely my favorite class. OCC
stands for “Oral Communications C.” Don’t
ask me what “C” stands for hehehe.
Maybe it’s like in that episode of The Simpsons when Homer had that big
barbeque and on the invitation it said “BYOBBBQ” and it stood for “Bring Your
Own BBQ” but there was an extra B hahah.
It was pretty funny. Maybe I got
the joke wrong…if you really want to know, ask Kato because I’m sure he has the
episode on tape but you don’t have to watch it because he could probably recite
the episode line-for-line verbatim from memory until it got to that part. Anyhoo, tomorrow after school, we don’t have
any practice! So that’s cool. I made plans with Chie to go to Kodomo no
Kuni (my understanding is that it’s an amusement park of some kind) and go
to Aoshima (supposedly a very picturesque beach area). NOW…these plans have been in the works…since….gosh…last
Monday or Tuesday I believe. And they’ve
been confirmed and reconfirmed countless times. So, if I get bailed out on again, I’m gonna be very ticked
off. I don’t imagine that will happen
though, so I won’t worry about it too much.
The thing I’m mainly worried about is that it might rain tomorrow. We’ve discussed the scenario of rain, but we
haven’t come up with too much. I’ve
just been saying that if it rains, we can figure it out then. Oh God!!! I so wish I knew how to say, “We’ll
cross that bridge when we get to it.”
That would be so excruciatingly useful here! I think the closest I’ve come is “Mattemiyou” 待って見よう (Let’s wait
and see). I think that gets across a
similar message. Anyway, I hope
tomorrow will be fun because I’ve been looking forward to it for a while. I’ll let you know. I should probably think about going to sleep or putting these
journal entries and PICTURES FROM MY SCHOOL on the Website because I haven’t
done an update in about a week I think.
I’ll talk to you later.
-Maikeru