Tis a good day

And it started yesterday evening when I COOKED MY OWN FOOD!

Oooh what now.

I finally decided that enough was enough. I was going to make a meal dangit! One that didn’t involve popping something frozen in the microwave oven and waiting five minutes. So I went to the supermarket and bought things that I have vauge memories of Mom using to make meals that didn’t come out of boxes. (There is a sad lack of box foods such as Craft Mac and Cheese in Japan.) This included items such as a red and yellow pepper, something that I think was garlic, something that I think was an onion, something that I think was small Japanese celery, and carrots. Then I bought some raw slices of thin beef, the sort that they use for yakiniku (like grilled meat), but can also be used in stir fry.

And then I returned home, convinced to make a stirfry esq meal, minus the rice, as I haven’t figured out how to use my rice cooker yet (don’t judge me!) and because I really need to really clean it.

But it wasn’t until I got home that I promptly realized I have no counter space.

Literally. I have no counter space. Here’s pictures of my downstairs to prove it:











((told you the bathroom and the toliet room are in awkward places. And that bathroom is cleaner now, though I think the tub is a lost cause))

I need to buy a little folding table for the kitchen or something, because I got nothing. As it was I have a little cutting board, that I had to put atop the microwave as the only available flat surface in the kitchen.

For the next hour or two, I chopped too many vegetables, and questioned (aloud incase the spiders wanted to listen in) whether or not the vegetables I bought where the vegetables I thoguth they were, how the hell I was supposed to chop them, and why garlic has to have that many layers of natural plastic surrounding it before one gets to the edible portion.

In the end, I dumped a bowl full of sliced up partial-mystery vegetables into my frying pan, added my beef, and slathered on soysauce for good measure. While it didn’t look like much, it actually tasted pretty good and I am quite proud of that feat.

I call my creation “It’s A Mystery To “Me”at”.

…Get it?

….It’s a mystery to me….It’s a mystery to MEAT……

<.< well I found it hilariously witty.

And I even had enough left over to bring in for lunch today, something that impressed all the teachers as I normally order lunch rather than bring my own in.

Anyway the next day as I got to school, I was greeted by a lot more students than I ususal am. Students who were practicing their clubs in the gym and saw me through the window called out to me and waved, students who were in the field doing their sports clubs called out to me and waved, students wandering the halls have been waving at me….And not just the girls either (though they are by far the majority) but even the boys! And not even just at school, when I’m wondering about the town or the island, and I often hear “Robin! Robin-sensei!” and find a kid or three waving frantically from a sidewalk or from the window of a car as it zooms past.

So one of my JTEs (Japanese Teacher of English), is the coach for the tennis club. I’m not sure if its just my school, or if its like this in all Japanese schools, bu all the teachers here have to be a coach to one of the clubs.

Even if they’ve never done that activity before in their life. My JTE is no exception. Apparently she’s a new teacher at this school (though she’s taught for a long time), and when she came here, she replaced the teacher that used to be the tennis coach. As all the rest of the clubs already had coaches, she had to be the tennis coach, despite the fact that she’s never played tennis before in her life.

Which perhaps explains why the girls in the tennis club didn’t seem fazed when I came to watch them, and told them I’ve never played tennis before. As it was, I only had plans to watch the tennis club practice. I hope to watch each of the clubs at least once to get to know the kids better during a time that’s fun for them, rather than just in a class room setting. But it wasn’t long before one of the second year students came up to me with a racket, and an offer to teach me how to use it.

How could I refuse? Despite that I was in my nice work clothes. I really need to just start bringing a pair of sports clothes to school and keeping it here, so that when I have time to visit a club, I can just change.

Anyway.

Now I don’t know if its from the hours of playing Wii sports, or if it was just from my natural insitict to keep any balls flying at me at whatever speed as far from my person as possible (Thanks to my father and brother for honing that instinct from all the afternoons of tort-I mean baseball and catch back in the day ;) ), but I was whacking those balls! The kids were quite impressed with my skillz, and kept asking if I was sure this was my first time!

…Granted I couldn’t *aim* my ball for beans, but I was hitting them! And hitting them well!

Oh and I should say, that the tennis club is only for girls, and that the baseball club is only for boys. Added to that, in Japan apparently there’s such a thing called “soft tennis”. Soft tennis is sorta like softball, in that its basically the same thing, only with a differnet ball and slightly different game rules. The balls they were using were not tennis balls, but soft rubber balls. I’d never hear of soft tennis before, but its popular in Japan apparently, and most of the schools have a soft tennis club, if not both a soft tennis and a regular tennis club. At my school there’s just a soft tennis club.

Anyway, I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, High Fives are god’s gift to the ALT. They had me stand in line with them, while my JTE gently lobbed the balls, the next girl in line would go up, hit two of them, and then get to the back of the line. They’d (we’d) do this for back hand and front handed swings.

First was backhand though, and they showed me how to hold the rachet. Anyway, so I don’t know about anyone else, but when I played sports back in highschool, when we’d do these line up practice thigns, when a person would go to get back in line, the rest of the team would stick out their hands to high five them or whatever as a general “good job” or “don’t worry about it” group togetherness mentality. The sports clubs I’ve seen though, the kids don’t really do this.

But *I* do. And as I’ve said before, giving high fives, especially in different silly fasions, can bring smiles to the kids faces and lets them loosen up a little and have fun with the gaijin sensei.

And these tennis club girls took to high fiving like an obaachan to ninjutsu. It didn’t take long for them to *really* get into it, shouting “YAY” with each high five given or received, high fiving eachother, doing their own versions of high fiving, and rushing up to me to get high fives rather than the other way around. High fives turned what had been shy little junior high students to rambunctious fun loving kids. If I missed a ball or didn’t hit it very well, they’d say “No problem no problem” or “Don’t mind!” in english, before giving me an enthusiastic high five.

*sniffle* I was so proud.

There was one moment of intense confusion on my part, when, after doing the back hand swings for a while, the kids rushed up to me and said what sounded to ME like “Whore! Whore!” Until I realized they were trying to say “Forward” as in forward swing practice was next, and thus set aside my instant urge to monitor their television and reading materials, and/or throttle my predecessor for teaching them such a word.

Though it is definitely an odd experience to have a bunch of little junior high school girls in tennis outfits beaming up at you and calling “whore!” in their sweet little gumdrop voices.

These kids also got comfortable enough with me to call out to me and chat a bit, calling “Robin!” or “Robin-sensei!” or even getting creative and calling “Robbingu!” as in “robbing”.

Don’t ask me how they know the word “robbing”, though I wouldn’t be surprised if it was a vocabulary word in their text book or something. This is a textbook in which one of the English lessons is entitled (no joke) “Landmines and Children.”

…wtf mate.

ANYWAY lol the principal of my school also kept coming out to help coach the tennis club. My JTE told me that he used to play a long time ago (he’s a little old and pudgy now, but a nice guy!), and he often goes out to help out with the more coach aspects of life, since my JTE is just leaning the game herself. He’s actually really pretty good too. When he came out though the girls were a little more embarrassed about doing showing loud high fives though, so I taught them how to do a “air high five” which was shortened to “Air!”

You know the ones that you use to high five someone whose too far away to actually clap your hand with theirs, so you both just do the motion? They seemed to like that a lot too.

All in all it was a lot of fun. And I think word has been getting around that I’m going to the clubs, because the teacher who does the Kendo club invited me to come and watch that club sometime later too! She too is a club teacher whose never done the actual sport before lol so it should be interesting to say the least!

Lastly, I will HOPEFULLY be getting internet at my home today (cross your fingers for me!) And when I do, I’d best be seeing you people on skype!