May 29th-疲れた！(tsukareta!)
I wrote that title about 5
to 10 minutes ago. Why did I write a
title and then not start the journal entry until now? Well, to know that answer you have to know what the title means. Simply, if you said that to someone, you
would be saying something like, “I’m exhausted!” So, if you haven’t caught on, that’s what I am now. There are a lot of reasons for this. Well, I don’t know how long or thorough this
journal entry can get. It’s 8:40pm now
and I want to go to sleep by 9:30pm.
Why? Look at the title! Hahahahaha….sorry…I’m not funny. I get lucky though sometimes! Well, hey, before I get into that stuff, let
me tell you a sad story that I can laugh about now because it turned out ok and
I’m all right now. So…gosh…when was
it? I’d have to say a couple days
ago. I was riding my bike to school per
usual. I was really shocked because the
sun actually came out for a while! It
was really shocking. It’s a good thing
I learned the word “mabushii” (bright, blinding) the other day! Well, anyway, I was in a good mood. I had my toons on, was riding on the
sidewalk in order to reduce my chances of being slaughtered by a car or moped,
and the sunlight was tickling me all over.
I’d say the sun was out for a good 5 minutes or so! I stopped in at the Lawson Station
convenience store as I often do in the morning. It’s…well…convenient because it’s situation directly on the
intersection with the bridge that I cross to get to school every morning. I was in there for about five minutes buying
some tea and a snack. When I got back out the clouds had closed over, but that
didn’t really shock me because in the past week we’ve had about an hour of
sunshine in total. Once I get on the
bridge, I’m about 3-5 minutes from school.
I had just gotten onto the bridge and was about 10% of the way across
when a drop hit my cheek. I slowly
turned my head skyward as I peddled and two more drops hit my face. I glanced over at the other Miyasho student
riding next to me and shook my head. I
quickly checked my condition: MP3 player on and headphones on, cell phone on
and in pocket, rain suit tucked under my bags in the basket, plastic bag for
book bag folded up under rain suit—everything vulnerable. Then it started, relatively slowly at first….the
drops growing in number with each second.
I don’t know if I said anything out loud, but in my head I was screaming
“NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO!” Half way
across the bridge I had already left my peddling companion and was zooming
along at top speed—still about a half mile from school. By the time I got off the bridge the rain was
a torrent. Everything was getting
drenched. I’d thrown my cell phone and
MP3 player inside my school bag to provide some degree of protection but my
main strategy was to just get to school as fast as I could. There was no time to stop and duck for cover
anywhere—there was no telling how long the rain could last. I made it to school a couple of minutes
later. My face and head were dripping
wet and everything else was seriously soggy.
Once I got inside school I stood by the window for a few minutes to try
and air-dry myself a bit. It didn’t really
help. You could easily tell who got
caught in the shower and who didn’t.
Those who looked like drowned rats were the unfortunate ones. At the end of the day I had another
unfortunate incident. I’d gone to the
main post office in the middle of downtown to mail a letter. The post office near school was already
closed at that hour. I parked my bike
out front and grabbed my two bags to bring them inside with me. I thought about throwing my rain gear in on
of the bags just to save a little bit of space but then I was too lazy so I
just forgot about it and went inside. I
was in there for about 10 minutes writing the address on the envelope, making
generous use of packing tape around the envelope that was stuffed way over
capacity, and paying for the postage.
When I got outside I saw, much to my disappointment, that it had started
to pour. My disappointment turned to
horror when I realized that I had left all my rain stuff in the basket and that
now my rain gear was completely soaked and I was left with absolutely
nothing. Left with no other options I
just waited on the steps of the post office for about 5 to 10 minutes until the
rain had subsided a bit and then I went home.
Well, it’s 9pm now so I
should probably keep going and not stall much more. I’m fading fast and I really do want to go to sleep in half an
hour. So, let me explain why I’m so
tired. Well, it’s not just being tired,
it’s fatigue combined with inadequate rest periods. Lately I’ve just been pushing things for myself into high gear
more often. Even Ippei noticed that
today and he asked my about it. Well,
let’s see, what have I been doing.
Every day at practice I do an exhaustive routine of sit-ups and crunches
of all varieties. I even do them if we’re
not supposed to do any sit-ups. Today,
at Tanba-sensei’s request I did what I was doing with everyone else. He wanted me to show them American
sit-ups. So, the seven of us today did
them all together for about half an hour.
It was funny because the wind was really strong and we were on mats
outside. Every time we raised our bags
or legs for some exercise, the wind would blow the mat up. Heheheh...well...it was funny at the time. Yesterday, per Tanba’s request, I made a
video of all the kinds of sit-ups I could think of. I said the title of each exercise before I started, did 10 of
each, and he filmed me. It was kinda
funny in an embarrassing way. Yesterday…was
it yesterday? Yeah, I think so. I got up at 5:30am to go running. Yes, I actually got up at 5:30am instead of
6:30am so I could go for a run. I ran
for 40 minutes and when I got back to the house I did a couple sets of push-ups
and a couple sets of crunches. It was a
good way to wake me up and after about 10 minutes of running I wasn’t cold
anymore. I wanted to do it again this
morning, but I was a lot more tired this morning. Also, at 5:30am this morning it was raining. So, those two things together changed my
mind and I decided it would be better to stay in bed for another hour. I think I made the right decision because I
wasn’t as sleepy today as I was yesterday.
It was also all right because I ended up getting to run today
anyway. Today at practice we weren’t
going to do any running. Ippei and
Satoshi were doing two 15 minute sets of エルゴ(erugo)
[the rowing machine]. I had already
done 15 minutes on the erugo (which I wasn’t even asked to do but did
anyway) at about 85% power and I was really tired from that. I ended up going about 3.6 km. My 500m average was just over 2 minutes and
apparently that’s fast. Well, anyway,
the first year guys were supposed to be throwing the medicine balls
around. They were doing some of that,
but mostly talking. Even if they hadn’t
been talking and just doing what they were supposed to be doing, they still
wouldn’t have been getting much of a workout.
Throwing those things around really isn’t too tough at all and I think
it’s kind of a waste of time. So I
asked Ippei if I could go for a run and he said it was ok. He through I was just going to run to the
bridge and back. I went with
Hamasuna-kun(浜砂君) and we
ended up doing the 5k run which takes you to the bridge, over the bridge, back
the way you came on the opposite side of the river, across another bridge, and
then about a 1/5 of the way gets you back to school. We’ve only done that run once before and that’s when we were told
to do it. Ippei was really surprised
when we did it of our choosing. When we
got back Ippei and Satoshi were in the weight room. I didn’t really lift because I’ve lifted for the past two days
and my arms need a rest and my legs were too tired to do anything. I ended up just doing a couple sets of
push-ups. It was cool though because I
found those little wooden blocks that you use to rest your hands on. What this allows you to do is dip your chest
lower without touching the ground so you can get a better stretch and fuller
range of motion in there. Recently I’ve
also added weights to my push-ups and sit-ups.
I’ll have someone put a 10kg (22 lbs) weight on my upper back and then
do push-ups, or I’ll slide my feet under a bench, hold the weight to my chest
and do sit-ups. Another thing I’m doing
differently now is I’m doing every exercise I do “to failure.” Basically what this means is that you do an
exercise until you absolutely cannot do it anymore while maintaining proper
form. There’s no counting to 10
repetitions or anything like that; you just do it until you can’t. So, by now you’re probably asking: Why are
you doing all of this, Mike? And why
are you suddenly putting such an effort into it? Well, that’s the same question that Ippei asked me this
afternoon. My answer is
multifaceted. I think the main issue is
that I have wanted to have a healthy strong body as long as I’ve been aware
enough of myself to notice that my body isn’t as healthy or strong as it could
be. There have been times when I’ve
made progress and gotten things a little bit better, but I’ve never been able
to accomplish complete success. And I’ve
always regressed back something that I didn’t want to be. I’m already a smart guy, I know that, but I
want my other half, my physical half, to be just as strong. If I don’t have that, I’ll never be complete
or strong as it could be. I’m already a
smart guy, I know that, but I want my other half, my physical half, to be just
as strong. If I don’t have that, I’ll
never be complete. At first when I
started with the club I thought that I would get totally strong just by virtue
of doing what everyone else was doing.
Well, it hasn’t happened. Yeah,
I’m certainly doing better than I was two months ago, but I realized that if I
really want to make progress and changes, I have to take some control and do a
lot of things on my own. I think the
reason that I’m doing all this stuff now is because I can really put myself
into it. I don’t have a lot of other
responsibilities and it’s easy for me to concentrate on things and try and make
goals. I’ve still got another two
months to work on this. After that I’m
going home and then I’m going to college and I’m starting the rest of my
life. Very little would please me more
than being able to start the new part of my life with a strong body—and making
physical fitness a part of my daily life instead of it just being a spurt of
effort and dying out. Also, if I could
go back to New Jersey and look and feel really great, that’d be so cool. I’ve never been happy with the way I look,
so if I could get that, I’d be giving myself a gift that I’ve never been able
to experience or appreciate before. Ok,
enough preaching for now. You get the
idea. I was going to talk about one
more thing, but it’s not really a pressing issue so I can save it for next
time. It’s about 弓道 (kyuudou)[Japanese
traditional archery]. It’s ok if I save
it because nothing has really happened yet, I’m just thinking about joining
that club. That wouldn’t mean quitting
the boat club. I like the boat club a
lot. I’d just go to some practices with
the archery club and see some of their tournaments—that kind of thing. When I go, I’ll let you know about it. Ok, I’m going to brush my teeth and play
sleep now. そうしなかったら絶対困ってくる！ In other
words, if I don’t do that, I’m definitely going to get in big trouble. Good night.
-Maikeru