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Broadcasting to an audience of three (and a goldfish)...
Comment, ramblings and musings... life through the eyes of a Japanologist...
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Friday, November 15, 2002 |
 On Wednesday, three of the people in my English class in the Naval Base had suggested- half-jokingly- going to Mejiro for a drink this evening at 8 o'clock. I didn't think they'd meant it, but nevertheless I though I'd better go just in case, and anyway I'd sent an email to Takedomi-kun to say I'd be there, if he wanted a drink when he got out of the Candidate School. However, Disk Doctor's slow progress meant that it was after 8.30 when I got to Mejiro... to find the three lieutenants waiting for me, one of them already quite merry, to judge by the beetrootness of his face!
Anyway, we drunk together until about midnight. It was fun to talk to them outside class, and I think they enjoyed it too; they were certainly much more open than they had been in class, and I got the impression that quite a few of the questions they asked, and some of the subjects we touched on, were things they'd have liked to have talked about in class but didn't feel able to. They told me a lot about themselves and their jobs, the time they'd spent abroad, and so on, too, which was very interesting. All in all, a very pleasant evening; I'm looking forward to drinking with the whole class on December 2nd.
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We left all the ingredients in Washibe Kominkan, where the event was to be held, and I went back to the office to run through everything one last time- I still had a nagging suspicion that there was something I'd not done. I couldn't think of anything, though, so I went home, and, almost on the spur of the moment, decided to defragment my iBook. It had been using the hard disk more than normal lately, and when I ran Norton Utilities, it said that the disk was extremely fragmented, so I set Disk Doctor to work. In the end, it took just over two hours, but the Mac does seem to be running more smoothly now. It's also good to know that there aren't any problems with the disk drive- I don't know what I'd do if I lost everything on my iBook!
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From the elementary school, went straight to Konan to buy the ingredients for the Indian Day. I'd already ordered the meat from the shop near the office, and the rest of the ingredients were fairly straightforward, so the biggest problem was actually choosing which yoghurt to buy! British yoghurt is fairly runny, but yoghurt here- especially plain yoghurt- tends to be more solid; you can tip it out of the pot, and it'll keep its shape. Anyway, after surreptitiously squeezing most of the makes of yoghurt, we found one which felt slightly less firm than the others, so we went with that one. I'm sure we looked very suspicious, though!
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After lunch, went to Etajima Elementary School, to play rounders with the third and fourth years. Well, it was an almost identical set of lessons to the previous ones with these years. We played the same game (although some of the children were definitely better this time), the same children were great, the same children were completely clueless, and the same children didn't move an inch when they were supposed to be fielding, even if the ball passed just inches by them. And, just as last time, the third years were difficult (why do I get the impression that so many of that class are just disinterested?), and the fourth years were great fun (apart from the group of girls who made no attempt to join in the game).
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Perhaps the Indian event is relatively simple in terms of planning and organisation. Perhaps I'm forgetting to do something very important. Or perhaps it's just that I'm very well organised... For some reason, I'm not really that busy at all today, which, given that it's the day before an event, is strange to say the least. There really doesn't seem to be that much to do. I've got to go and get the ingredients for the cooking, but I'm going to do that this afternoon, when Wendy's free- it's much easier if one person gets the ingredients while the other person crosses them off the list.
Not that I'm complaining about having got all of the preparations out of the way, of course- but I am a little worried that I'll get to the event tomorrow and realise that I haven't actually done the most imperative thing I needed to do...
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Hitonose is the area of Ogaki Town closest to Etajima- so it's not as the two children are coming from miles away, but nevertheless, it's good that word of the International Club's events is spreading. One of the boys has been to all the events so far, but perhaps I should formally send leaflets to all the schools in Ogaki, and see if there are more people wanting to come.
On a separate note, the name 'Hitonose' is quite interesting. It's written with three kanji, for 'jump', 'cross', and 'strait', so the name means something along the lines of 'a strait narrow enough to jump across'. Well, the area where Hitonose is now used to be a narrow strip of sea dividing the islands of Etajima and Nomijima, and this is reflected in the name.
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We're really on a roll this time! I've just got a phone call to tell me that there'll be two people coming to the Indian Day from Hitonose Elementary School, which isn't even in Etajima! That takes us very nicely up to 20 people- and to think, just yesterday I was confidently predicting just five or six people at the most...
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I wonder how the psychologists would explain this one? I realised last night, that I know for a fact that I am more inclined to blog when my house is tidy. Why?
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Great. I wish it would either get cold, or stay warm for a while. This cycle of 'almost balmy' to 'positively Arctic' on a day-to-day basis, though, is just irritating. Having had to get out my foot-thick quilt two nights ago, I found last night that I didn't need the quilt at all. So do I put it away, or do I keep it out?
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© Copyright 2003 Nathan Duckworth.
Updated: 8/1/03; 8:55:02 pm.
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