Friday, August 28, 2009

Batter up!


Wow the weeks feel like they fly buy and before you know it another weekend of fun and games is here! The week started off with all the new ALT's in Oita prefecture meeting in Oita city for a 2 day orientation, lets just say it is one of those things you have to do and you are a little bit happier when it is done. I'm very happy i don't live in the city, we are close enough to go if we need/want to but far enough away to live a totally different lifestyle!
Wednesday onwards was back at school and exam time for my
students; still no classes. School here in Japan is about as different as you could get compared with NZ, i'll do a blog on this later in the month when i have more pics and info. My highlight of the working week was having several students staring at my eyes and being told 'you have beautiful eyes'! I laughed, then batted my eye lids and they all ran of giggling and screaming.
All my teachers and co workers are great but 1 guy in particular is a legend. He's the larger than life, noisier, older man who knows how to have a good time and bring a bit of spice into the teachers office. He can only say 3 English words and with my 10 or so Japanese words conversations are like a game of charades .But with a trusty translator things are made a lot easier! He is a big softball fan and loves demonstrating how fast he can pitch. After i told him i'd hit a home run off him the fun began and he invited me to a teachers softball tournament at another school in Beppu.
My knowledge of softball is not good but combined with what i know about baseball and from the first game i watched a few weeks ago i thought i knew enough to say 'Yes'! So this morning we arrived to a freshly racked pitch (grass?...no way), and a newly painted diamond. After a brief warm up i was deemed good enough to play 2nd base and hit 4th. The only thing i cared about was ensuring i didn't make a fool of myself. When their pitcher stepped up and fired in the fastest practise pitch i've ever seen (aka Brett lee) i nearly pooed my pants.

Cut a long game short i ended up hitting 3 base runs (a good thing) and nearly making 2 home runs if it wasn't for the tallest man in Japan way out in the field. They all cheered, high fived and felt compelled to celebrate my success by using english (eg. good running gu, good hitting gu). Meg's was there to capture the fun and officially took on the roll of solo cheer leader.
Playing on a dirt pitch leaves behind its own special memories, dust in places i've never known about. Fun and games i tell you.

1 comments:

fergies said...

all over tan takes on a whole new meaning.
Dawn