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blog 2005.07.26

it's been a hectic 2 weeks so the updates have been lackin'.

da vball update:

my last year girls' team lost their first, then won their next 3 out of 4 games! they made it to the last game on the 2nd day.

this year girls' team beat the #1 team from the last tournament and then continued on to the finals. unfortunately they lost to last year's top team. then we had to play the team we beat last time. however, they killed us. so it was their last game.

bball udpate:

since i had to teach a seminar in da afternoon, i could only go to the morning games. da boyz team came back from a huge deficit and then lost their concentration in the final 3 min to lose.

da girls gave me a heart attack. they played a pretty good team that i saw play before. this team had this one girl who would jab, cross, backup and hit 2-handed set shot from downtown with ease! we had the lead for most of the game then we lost it after the other team hit like 4 3's in a row. we eventually came back and retook the lead but the other team came back. we regained the lead by 2 with a basket with 15sec left. but that one girl had the ball i knew she was gonna do her move again. however as she was bringin' the ball up, we trapped her and one of the girls stole the ball from her and went to down for the uncontested layup.

when i was goin' home, i saw about 4 girls kinda starin' at me as i changed my shoes. when i turned the other way, one of the girls came all the way around and yelled "kebin!!!". when i figured out who they were i was so surprised! it was my 6th graders from my last year's elementary school. got to chat with them a bit before they had their game.

on my way home on bike, as i was passin' the local high school, this one high school kid kinda stares my way but i think nothin' of it. as i pass him, i hear, "kebin!?!?". i stopped and turned around. i totally recognized his face even tho the tennis racket gave it away. it was one of my 8th graders i taught at my very first junior high school. he was probably one of students that i was closest with. we've gone out to eat and he has even come over to play video games and stuff. it was good to catch up with him and he finally got a ketai. so it'll be easier to get a hold of each other. he's on the tennis team and is really enjoyin' high school life. i couldn't be more happy.

rick treated to lawry's last tuesday for my hard work as his vp of operations for his fantasy bball league. he made a wager with craig on whoever finishes higher, gets treated to lawry's from da loser. it came down to the final week but we lost by like 50 pts. i was pretty impressed on how big the place was. rick and i got the lawry's cut while craig went for the diamond jim dandy cut. that thing was huge! when the cute waitress was makin' the famous spinnin' salad, a crouton shot out and onto my lap. didn't really react to it, just picked it up and ate it. it was good to hear craig's story of when, why, how he came to japan.

helped out my boss with this 2 day seminar, teachin' elementary school teachers on how to make teachin' english more enjoyable. since the mayor of our city made a campaign promise to make all elementary school students be able to speak english. i was surprised at some of the levels of these teachers. some of them have better pronunciation than some of the japanese english teachers that i've taught with. after the last day, i saw 2 teachers from my old elementary school.

went to this international kids festival at the main community center in my city. was surprised of how many kids showed up. they were from all over the world. i was impressed at the level of these 2 junior high chinese sisters. their japanese was great. looks like i need to put more time in studyin'....

after that, headed to the festival that was on one of the main streets in da city. i couldn't believe how much street they blocked off for it. i got my fair share of yakitori and yakisoba. it was kinda weird to see these young kids doin' their hip hop dancin' but when the reggae dancer girls came out and started to get freaky, i was like, ummm...ya'll shouldn't be doin' this with all these young children intently watchin' ya.

saw another one of my students from my first school. she was comin' back from school (it was a saturday) and we got to catch up a bit. she told me that my first school has turned pretty bad now. there was a kid who even started a fire!?! she's finally enjoyin' high school now cuz before she was really not adaptin' quite well. but i'm glad that she's doin' well now. she still needs more work in english, as it is her worst subject.

later that day, i finally picked up my new digicam. i ended up gettin' the panasonic lumix fx8. i got it for a pretty good deal. then headed out to b's. while we chilled at this coffee shop, the earthquake hit. it was a pretty big one and lasted a long time, with about 2 aftershocks. went back to b's, and did the indy vs. atl matchup cuz those are the 2 teams comin' next month to play @ tokyo dome. ricky came by and we all watched sin city. afterwards we went to the bomb @$$ yakitori place by b's. ricky was a little skeptical when we said that junji said it's the best yakitori place he's been to in tokyo. but ricky was pretty impressed and gave it its props. yet another one turned to the dark side...

when i came home, i was pretty beat and then looked to see what time it was. however, the clock above my curtains wasn't there. i was like....wait a minute....what?.....oh yah. so when i found my clock, the time was stopped @ 4:35 (cuz the battery popped out) and that was the exact time of the earthquake.

the next morning as i was makin' breakfast, when i went to wash some dishes up, i noticed all this broken glass and ceramic in the sink. i also noticed the stack of stuff on my table had fallen off. this earthquake was probably the strongest since i've been in japan.

headed out to enoshima with: hide, kaoru, aki & ikko for aki's bday. went hikin' up to the top of enoshima and had a grubbin' lunch which consisted of: sazae, shirasu and hamaguri. went to eat some ice cream in chigasaki. it was straight up coldstone style. since i'm not a big fan of coldstone, i just got some honey lemon sherbet. on da way home, took days but since hide drove his new nissan el grand, the ride was quite comfortable. dope ass navi and the seats could be moved into all different kinds of formations. came back to asakusa and ate some monjayaki at hide's mom's friend's restaurant. we got a lot of free stuff like 和牛. hide's parents even came by and kicked it with us.

hide taught me a new word, 代休, which i took the next day cuz i worked on saturday morning. got caught up on my espn season and then headed downtown for dinner with my boss and an alt who taught here like 15 years ago. she brought like 12 other teachers from ny and they toured china and japan. got to meet some interestin' teachers.

typhoon no.7 is upon us now. i really hate june-sept in japan. first it's the rainy season, then it's super muggy, then typhoon season mixed in with mad humidity. back home, i could take the dry heat but this humidity crap is probably one of the main reasons i couldn't live here for good. you just can't get used to it.

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