what was supposed to be a laid back weekend, somehow turned into a vball/drinkin' weekend.

sat mornin', we had a renshuujiai (practice games) with: funabashi jhs, mita jhs & soga jhs (#2 in chiba prefecture). the girls played like crap and toita sensei made sure that they knew that.

after the games, toita sensei and i headed to koiwa (a city in eastern tokyo) for a nomikai (drinkin' party). they were havin' a renshuujiai the next day, so some of the parents from the visitin' team, fujimiya jhs (in shizuoka prefecture), koiwa 5 jhs coach and parents had this huge party. got to meet yoshida sensei who coaches fujimiya jhs. he lived in england for 2 years and taught vball. he teaches english @ a juku (cram school) but i wouldn't want to take his class. one story is that this one kid forgot to arrange his shoes after takin' them off, so yoshida sensei got mad and threw his desk out of the room and told him to study in the hall. met another funny person, hashimoto sensei, coach of koiwa 5 jhs. he's a funny guy who is off da hook when he is drunk. most of the coaches and dads that played vball were all setters. i was plannin' on goin' home last night, but everyone just crashed where we had the party at. for some reason, everyone got up hella early. i was still drunk. then hashimoto sensei breaks out the tall can six pack. i was like whoah, i'm koo, i'm still drunk, but he insisted that i drink. can't say no to my elders.

we then headed out to the school and i was totally surprised that the mama from last night was cookin' up breakfast for us in the gym's office. then we watched the girls warm up and practice before they started the games. yoshida sensei had me give advice to his team which kinda surprised me. then, durin' some downtime, hashimoto sensei breaks out the beer and a big bottle of nihon shuu!?! omg, it's not even 1100 yet. so we drank while mama-san and some other moms made curry! toita sensei had to bounce but she told me to stay and have fun. before lunch, hashimoto sensei remembers about the challenge and wants to see my stuff. i'm impressed him but he did help me out by correctin' my form on the back set. so after lunch, we just chilled while the girls were playin'. i did get to see part of the oni (demon) side of yoshida sensei. i also got to see the hashimoto sensei be a punk to his team. as much i would want to, i don't think i could be such a #$%@! to the kids. demo, ii benkyou narimashita (but i did learn a lot ) i must thank toita sensei for introducin' me to all these new peeps.

i'll post the pics tomorrow...

it was a great weekend

kaz out...

haru's sister (i forget her name) & me 

yoshida sensei & hashimoto sensei: ko'd! 

hashimoto sensei & me 

hashimoto sensei 

yoshida sensei out like a light! 

me, hashimoto sensei & toita sensei 

ono sensei, haru, sekiguchi san 

hashimoto sensei 

cornbread 

the fixin's 

turkey, ham & da cranberry sauce 

christine & kei 

keisuke & nobu 

cyndi & b 

me & tamawa 

well...my first thanksgivin' away from home went pretty well. met up with b @ ebisu and then headed to the restaurant. got a little lost but we found it eventually.

the restaurant we went to is owned by an australian and a chinese australian guy. kinda weird hearin' a chinese guy with an australian accent. anyhow, met some new folks, mostly lawyers and finance ppl who were really koo. this one lawyer named kei, had no concept of what it's like to be a japanese american. she couldn't really relate to it since she was born and raised in boston. she was either japanese or whit...i mean american. it was funny to see her "cross examining" b with questions on datin' and the pros of ja guys.

had some ok champagne (not a champagne kinda guy) and some australian shiraz (which wasn't that great, surprisingly). the turkey was off da hook. the white meat was so moist and tasty. the stuffin', potatoes and gravy were delicious as well. for dessert, some pecan & pumpkin pie and washed it down with some good coffee.

the ride home was pretty tough, had to stand most of the way with a stomach capacity @ 110%. definitely not a good combination.

this mornin', made some calls to my family and my 2nd family. it was good to chat with them a bit and catch up.

also, found out that ko is finally finished with the academy. cgrats to him! he's been off the face of the world since may.

the xmas tree came out after fightin' with the teachers about not puttin' the xmas tree in the cafeteria until today. someone has to teach these ppl that it just ain't right puttin' it up anytime before turkey day.

aite then, it's time to clean the school then vball practice.

kaz out...

happy thanksgiving

well...it's thanksgiving here (jst) and i had to work.

in japan, they don't celebrate thanksgiving, so, one can easily see all the xmas decorations/music up and runnin' around the end of halloween. bein' an american, it's hard for me to get used to.

in class today, i explained to my students about thanksgiving but...it kinda went in one ear and out the other.

wellz, i'm off to tokyo tonite for thanksgivin' turkey dinner.

kaz out...

i love espn motion!

man, the fight durin' the pistons/pacers game was off da heezy!! did ya'll see jermaine oneal knock da f#$%! out of one of the fans!?!? i gotz one word for that...."goddamn!!!"

but, i must agree with most of the experts on this one, the players should've never crossed that line. sure, maybe the fans disrespected you but you gotta look at it this way, a: you won the game & b: you make more money in one game than most of those fans make in a year! why bother?

but the flip side to that coin, i'm gonna have to quote sir charles on this one. "yes were professionals, but we're men first". i'm quite sick of this whole thing, especially watchin' constantly on cnn @ b's.

i speak about this because i have both jo (25 games) and s.jackson (30 games) on my fantasy team with da crew from slandro. not sure what i'm gonna do.

i'll be sure to watch the christmas day games: heat vs. lakers, pistons vs. pacers!

on wed, had dinner with one of my japan families, the hasegawas. it was shinba's 3rd yr bday party and we went to eat chinese food in yachiyo. it seemed like mama ordered too much food cuz she was always, 2 of this, 4 of that, 3 of those, etc. we didn't have room on the table for everything. somehow we finished 95% of it.

as for this past weekend, it chillin'. had my elementary school's bazaar. the food was aite, however the karaage was good. then i went to have some tea with mama and she cooked up some duck soup courtesy of ozaki-san most recent huntin' expedition.

at night, miyamoto-san picked me up and went back to his mansion before headin' out for dinner with these vball coaches. we went to this resturant called hana no mori (forest of flowers). it's a pretty chic place. the thing about the restaurant is that you can order normally or ask the chef to make you something of your choice. had this crab/avocado dish which was off da hook. one of the coaches was an english teacher in funabashi a while back, so i had to ask him if he knew my sister and he did!

next day, we had day 2 of the renshuujiai (practice games) with one school from kanagawa ken and another one from tochigi ken. the games were pretty split down the middle. for lunch, the five of us went to eat some anago don and soba. talkin' to one of the coaches, she was so nice...i mean like she was speakin' to me in keigo (proper/formal japanese) but when we got back onto the court, man, it was total dr. jeykl and mr. hyde. aside from the hair pullin', yellin' and other forms of abuse, toita sensei took the cake today boy. man, i would hate to be on her bad side as a player. the team forgot to move these boxes after lunch and man, she got furious. she actually left the school for like 30 min.! then, poor, poor natsu-chan...she was just not doin' this drill right and toita sensei made sure she wouldn't make that mistake again. i must've stopped countin' after the 30 or 40th ball to da face and point blank range but i know that there were way more. she makes bobby knight look like a saint...

anyhow, after practice, headed out to kinshicho to meet up with megu for dinner. it was good to catch up on things after not kickin' for more than a month. tried this one nyuu sho chu from miyazaki ken, it was derived from the onsen water, not sure why they called it milk.

monday was a chill day. didn't have any classes cuz the teachers handed back all the midterms. left @ 1700 and headed out to b's. for some reason, i decided to take all the express trains but in the end, 5 transfers later, i arrived at the same time if i were to take half the number of trains. oh well, lesson learned. so, got to b's, chilled for a bit, then had some kfc (my first time eatin' kfc in japan) then headed out to shibuya for timo's friends' event @ nutz. it was pretty chill, the first part of the event was a fashion show where the girls would walk down this makeshift catwalk. the thing is, they were wearin' all the same clothes!? for the most part, we were just in chill mode. it's not often that i go to a club to just chill. it's usually to drink or to dance or both. after about 2 hrs, we decided to catch the last train home.

it was finally good to actually sleep in and get some good sleep for once cuz haven't been gettin' really good sleep lately. it's really nice to be able to watch cnn. it's the only thing i watch when i'm at b's. but i must say, the only thing that was on was, iraq -> nba fight -> iraq -> nba fight .... b also recorded 24 (season 1) and temptation island 3. i think if i had cable, i would watch tv 24/7.

headed to 'ppongi to meet up with jt and eugene for our thailand plannin' meetin' @ tgi friday's. eugene broke the whole trip down for jt and i. afterwards, met up with junji for some coffee with b and jt. it was good to see the crew and just catch up.

so this year will be the first year that i'm not in da us for thanksgivin'. however, i'm gonna have a full on turkey meal. tama's friend has been doin' thanksgivin' dinner for many years now and a bunch of us are gonna go.

the next events:

11.25: thanksgivin' dinner in ebisu
11.28: english speech contest?
12.04: ikko no bonenkai in kowagama
12.05: yas' baby shower in yokohama

- links -

apple releases bluetooth update

got this link from tri. i guess it's pretty popular now with the election being over and all

based on the subservient chicken, here's the beer version

got problems with spyware? check this thread for some good recs.

this page is best viewed with firefox 1.0

if you can't see 2 columns, you're probably still usin' IE. why?

messin' around with a new layout. give me some time to get it up to speed...

update

k, i added a new type of comments.
+ there isn't a character limit
- every entry is listed as bein' from 'Anonymous'

from a stressful week to a refreshin' weekend.

the weekend got a good start durin' vball practice on friday. after warmups, i had a quick little meetin' with the girls and reinforced the goals of the next drill: ookii koe dashite (loud voice), callin' every ball and most importantly; the ball should not touch the floor. i kinda got mad at them a few days earlier cuz when the other school came to practice with us(they only have 12 girls) in our 'house', why the #%@&! are they louder than us? (we have 18 girls). so when we did the drill, i saw a completely different team out there. they hussled for every ball while the girls who were waitin' were cheerin' them on. they seemed to have reignited that fire in them that has been dormant for so long. i was also surprised to see toita sensei show up for practice. we did some game situation drills with rena, rie, yukako and me against them. it was probably the most productive practive we've had in the past 2 weeks.

had a nice meal @ ikko. headed home early cuz i was tired, tried to stay up for kinpachi sensei, but for some reason, it wasn't on, so i went to bed. get a call like @ 0130 from chacha mama tellin' me to come by. i was like, uh...i'm kinda sleepin' right now but she insisted. she doesn't insist that often, so when she does, it's kind of an obligation to come, so i did. hung out with mi-chan and yoshi, then headed over to serenade. before i knew it, it was 0430!?!

tried to sleep in but couldn't cuz of my internal alarm clock. did tons of laundry and packed up for the weekend in tokyo.

met up with tama @ 'pongi for her ikebana exhibit. i was pretty amazed at some of the arrangements. and after tama taught me the fundamentals of ikebana, i have more of an appreciation for it now. we then hopped on a bus and went to shibuya. from there, i headed to b's to drop off my stuff and hang out with him and rick. b left early cuz he had a weddin' to go to. rick and i then headed to shibuya for dinner with shuko's crew @ gonpachi. gonpachi was the restaurant that was used in kill bill, HOWEVER, we didn't go to that one :( we went to the other one. the restaurant was really nice inside and we got a nice little private room overlookin' tokyo. rick's team consisted of: jt (sf), scott (hawaii), jeremy (KENTUCKY), jun (ny) and me (sl). shuko's team: yoko (ny), emi (jersey), haley (pen/ny), jenny (la), aki (too many places). so it was a kind of a east coast/west coast with a cat from da midwest which made the conversation quite interestin'. didn't really eat that much food, but i know that rick, shuko, me and a few others killed 3 bottles of kome sho chu. some peeps had to leave early (not sure how jt was goin' to run a half-marathon the next day) and things started to wrap up from there. for the nijikai, headed upstairs to this really chic bar. we sat at this godfather-esque table and of course rick took the head. b met up with us there and we only had like one drink before headin' to go eat some ramen. things are a bit blurry from here on out and i remember jumpin' in a cab with rick, jenny & b. came back to b's and it was lights out.

the next day, b and i had lunch with these 2 girls who grew up in da states. yumi (hawaii, 8 yrs) & kanami (torrance, 15 yrs) were pretty interestin'. they aren't your typical j girls. they were constantly givin' each other shiet which was kinda funny to see. for lunch, we went to eat hawaiian food @ this restaurant that maki works at. took a while to get there cuz somebody kinda forgot where it was...but we eventually made it. the food was good and then we headed back to shibuya for some coffee and met up with one of kanami's friend. he was a fullback for his school's football team. don't get to meet too many football players in nihon. we went to this one little cafe that yumi picked out. it wasn't crowded and it was very cozy.

came back to b's and chilled. watched the art of war and ordered some pizza. came home @ around 2330 and went to bed.

i must say, it was a ja overload this past weekend. it totally felt that i wasn't in japan. in the wise words of my big bro, "it's so refreshin' not havin' to think in japanese and to be able to just relax and be yourself"


anyhow, since i got 4th period off today, i went to lunch early and was able to shoot around durin' lunch break. i also got to work out a bit near the end of the day after all the kids went home (this week is midterms, so there's no club sports this whole week) i kno i've been laggin' on my free throw shootin', but i was able to catch up. so here are the current results:

free throw %

today: 17-20
tot: 55-70
ft%: .786

.: here are the pics from saturday :.

emi, haley, aki, jenny & shuko 

me, haley & emi 

jenny, rick, aki & shuko 

sorry for the 1 week delay in update. been pretty busy here.

- note -

since i'm goin' to thailand in december, do ya'll have any recommendations of places that i have to go/see?

since takane jhs's gym is under construction til the end of next month, we've been lettin' them come to our gym for practice. it was kinda weird at first cuz they're our rivals but in the end, i think it's a good thing cuz it should motivate our team to work harder. plus i also get great advice from oshino sensei and enomoto san.

on friday, we had our school chorus festival @ futawa kominkan. it went rather well. it was a lot different than my school last year probably because of the venue as well as number of students/classes (9 classes compared to 15). what made things worse was that it was frickin' hot inside the hall. i was really impressed with the chorus club's performance. they did the same song as one of my classes last year did. cgrats to 3-2 for defendin' their title!

as for the weekend, it was pretty hectic. saturday was my school's bazaar. but in the mornin', we had observation classes for the parents. the 8th grade class was ok, not too many parents came but the 7th grade class was fun cuz we got to play a game at the end which the students really liked. we had about an hour or so to chill until the bazaar started. when the time came, i was behind the grill, makin' yakisoba. sure, i've made yakisoba before when we go eat okonomiyaki and stuff, but that's for like 3-4 ppl. when you have to make yakisoba as a serving size for about 15 ppl, it's tougher than you think. halfway thru, my arms felt as tho they were gonna fall off. i think that if the grill was a little lower, it would've have been a lot easier. my first time, i had the principal, vice principal and like 3 other teachers tryin' to tell me what to do. i was about to say, damn, just chill!! they were gettin' annoyin'. anyhow...i teamed up utsumi sensei and we rotated and churned out like 15 or so batches. it was good that i saw chacha mama, her hubby and shimba (their grandson). nakamura sensei and chi mama came too. after walkin' around the bazaar, i decided to eat some curry rice, 4 yakitori. then it was oden. next was some more yakitori, then some cake. and finally tonjiru. all the while, buyin' candy, cookies and soup from my students walkin' around. i would only buy it from them if they could give me my change in english (we just studied this in class). i also bought some cotton candy and choco bananas for the students that i'm closest with. all in all, i think that's the most food i've eaten in a long, long, long time. my stomach was probably @ around 120%. after cleanin' up everything, had a nice conversation with sekiguchi sensei on the veranda. i think we understand each other much better and our team teachin' should reflect that.

@ around 1730, met up with miyamoto san, toita sensei and utsumi sensei @ kita nara and headed to this restaurant. wasn't even that hungry, but put down the drinks. after showin' them the new 1000yen bill, toita sensei breaks out this pinsatsu 100 yen bill. they stopped producin' them a good while ago. she ended up givin' it to me! ;b then i brought out my tried and tru 2 bill swap trick but miyamoto was on my right, so he kinda saw what i did but toita sensei was still in awe. after 3 times, she still couldn't figure it out. then miyamoto shows us one of his tricks with a cigarette. pretty dope. when utsumi sensei shows us his tricks...well...they weren't really tricks...i think the best way to describe them...hmmm...well...STUPID!!! but since we were all drinkin' and havin' a good time, it was all good. the trick that i learned from asada san, worked perfectly. i used to miyamoto san as my partner and he got the clue perfectly. however, when i used utsumi sensei, he kinda ruined the trick. i should've known not to use him. well...after walkin' toita sensei home, i headed to serenade, since i haven't been there in a while. master was takin' a break and drinkin' it up. so maybe about 1 or 1.5 hrs later, he was passed out on the couch! it was good times.

on sunday, tama came by and we had a picnic. then went lookin' thru my hood (which was the first time i ventured that far south from my apt) for susuki for her ikebana class. then we just chilled , watched johnny english and then went to eat some kaiten sushi.

on monday, went into the city and had lunch @ kaoru's restaurant. grubbed on some miso butter ramen and some of kaoru's special pizza. a pretty weird combo, huh? kaoru also made this dessert that was also quite tasty. the reason i came was to hang out cuz i haven't seen her for a long time...probably since summer time. i also missed her bday party, so i had to give her her gift. she showed me the pics of her wakeboardin' trip to saipan with aki. her pops and i were talkin' bout digicams and stuff and somehow horse racin' came into the conversation. he was tellin' me how he places bet with his cell phone.

after lunch, met up with b in ginza. we went to check out wako (this super high end designer store in the heart of ginza) to see if fuyumi (mika's sister) was workin'. we totally felt outta place goin' in there. that's how high end it is. after that, we went to the apple store and i spent some time with the 40gb ipod. i had the money in my pocket too, but didn't pull the trigger. i had to think bout what i want and what i need. i want an ipod but i need an electronic dictionary. so b told me that i just came to the apple store for a tease. we then headed to a coffee shop to just chill for a few hours. then we tried to check back @ wako but no fuyumi. came home and went to ikko for a light meal.

back to my elementary school. the card game i did for them was ok, but i think the review game turned out a lot better. next week is parent's observation class, so i had to prepare a lot for that. since they had to do an electrical test, the power was out from 1600. so the principal told everyone to go home, so i headed to my jhs and went to vball practice.

so i come to school yesterday and a teacher tells me that he has to go to his student's house cuz she got into a fight with her friend. i found out later that she wouldn't open the door for the teacher and when she finally did, he found her wrists bloody. and also, one of my students last year kinda got assaulted by an old man. so it's been a pretty stressful time these past 2 days @ school.


.: news :.

- firefox 1.0 has been released

- fox to offer cell phone version of '24' tv show

and 1

b's friend matt who works as kazuhisa ishii's assistant, came back to japan and hooked us up with tix to and 1 in odaiba.

went to meet up with b and this girl wendy who is in japan visitin'. she kinda looked familiar but i couldn't put my finger on it. come to find out that she went to sac state and was a sac kings royal court dancer! we had a lot of mutual acquaintences but i don't think we ever formally met.

when we got to the arena, they had outdoor courts and there were just tons and tons of peeps everywhere. called up lisa to see where she was at and she came by to say hi. didn't notice her @ first cuz she was head-to-toe in streetball gear. shorts must've been down to her ankles and shirt to her knees. matt, matt's g/f, jimmy & caroline came by and we got in line. we had some ok seats at first, but then moved closer afterwards.

the program started @ 1700, but it was mainly "hip-hop" and reggae performances. i think i should rather say "rap", "jrap" or "hip-pop" instead. i now know why i don't even bother to listen to japanese rap cuz first of all, they have no concept of a mic, cuz they can't even enunciate their words. secondly, they just look funny tryin' to imitate the american style and lastly, they just suck!!!

the first act was: by some group who didn't have it together. i don't care if your the younger brother of the most famous rapper in japan. u still gotsa have skills. ya know what i'm sayin'??

the second act was this reggae duo which reminded me of yu and his friends. i kinda thought yu and his friends were way better. for one set, this reggae dancer came out for a solo performance. that's when all the and 1 guys got their cameras out. this girl did this thing, man, i never seen it done before. then, as wendy put it, the japanese shaggy came out with his harem of girls. wendy, bein' a professional dancer, was just in awe watchin' this performance while me and b kept on sayin' daaayaaammmm!!!! i kinda felt bad for the parents who brought their kids to watch bball but instead had to be subjected to this smut. then this duo came out to rap but...yeah...if they would just not scream into the mic, it would be a lot better. plus they went a little overboard on the sound fx. by this time, it's been almost an hour and everyone wanted to get the game on. i came for and 1, not a frickin' concert!?!

so finally the game got on, they introduced all the japanese guys and then the and 1 team. man, the japanese think the professor is a god!!! this was my first time seein' and 1 live. durin' warmups, the and 1 team ripped the net from all the dunkin'.

i think one of the most shockin' things i saw was this girl holdin' up a sign that said, "i love you AO, f@#k me!!!" the game was koo, one of the japanese guys did pretty well. he even stole the ball from ao. there were some crazy alley-oops but i must say that i don't know how the pharmacist does it, cuz he's kinda big, but he's frickin' quick and gots mad handles. spyder's vert is so high, he'd hurt his knee on the rim if he wante too.

afterwards, we went to eat @ kua aina (my first time). it wasn't bad but it's not even close to the one in waimea. we walked around a bit and then i headed home.

here are some pics from and1 & some more pics from halloween. enjoy!

kaz out...

b & wendy @ kua aina 

me, b, matt, jimmy, caroline & matt's g/f (thx for da tix!) 

me, lisa (in her baller gear) & wendy 

wendy & i @ fuji tv 

zzzz....out like a light! 

b ko'd!!! 

i don't remember this pic...