Dartboard

This morning I wasn’t sure what to do because Hatakeyama-sensei is in Nagasaki for that English conference. But at 9 a.m. I was invited to play volleyball with the school club team. I was so excited and then!... the coach, Tsushi-sensei, said we could play soccer today! But I had to coach them, come up with drills and activities. I started with a triangle passing drill and we probably did it for 20 minutes in total, but that includes the amount of time it took me to explain what we were doing.

There is no soccer team at the school so the kids aren’t very experienced with a soccer ball, therefore the drill was only somewhat successful. I decided to do a scrimmage to see what level they were at and that was a disaster. It was basically bunch ball! However, I was very impressed that they guys weren’t dominating; the girls got in there too! So, for the last time I changed the scrimmage so they could use their hands and throw the ball instead of passing with their feet. Of course everyone spread out and had positions and they worked much better as a team. I’m not sure why we can keep order and organization during a hand-passing scrimmage, but when we start using our feet to pass it goes mayhem. Maybe I’ll get another opportunity to coach soccer again so I should be prepared with some easier drills.

Then we played volleyball for an hour or so. I had no idea what I was doing, so the girls’ team captain took it upon herself to teach me how to spike. I was doing okay at first, but it must have been beginner’s luck. I’m at least a foot taller than most of these girls so you’d think I wouldn’t have a problem getting the ball over the net, but my timing was totally off. I’d jump when the ball was still going up and so be on the ground already when I should have been in the air. Then I'd jump too late and miss the ball completly. The girls were really patient with me and I got loud cheers thoughout the whole gym whenever I made a semi-good spike. That was encouraging.

In the afternoon Tomonaga-sensei and I went to city hall for my alien registration card. It's great to be a registered alien. Now I don't have to carry my passport around with me anymore. Then we went to the library to meet the librarian and I even got to check out two books. They are the first two books in the Barefoot Gen series (4 in all, but only these first two are printed in English). They are "mange," Japanese cartoons, but much more than that if you talk to any mange fans. It is a story about a family living in Hiroshima just before and after the atomic bomb was dropped. Gen, the main character, is a young boy who is experiencing life in Japan during the war and then the effects of the A-bomb in his town. The first book is about his life up until right after the bomb is dropped and the second book is about Hiroshima in the days/weeks (?) following. I'm very excited to start reading them.

And then, making it a completely successful day, Tomonaga took me to the post office to mail letters and buy stamps. Then we went to Narao Port and bought some postcards of Narao and the island! Getting this much accomplished in one day was very good for me.

By the time we got back to the office the wind had picked up so much that the car doors were whipping open or slamming shut, depending on which way we were facing. The ocean had large swells and white caps as far out as you could see. A typhoon was coming and the office was a buzz. Everyone kept giving me warnings. Tsushi-sensei, the coach, told me to buy some sake and drink it all so that I would be able to sleep. Tomonaga-sensei told me, “Do not go outside during a typhoon!” and kyoto-sensei (the vice-principal) told me to bring everything in off my patio and bring my bike inside. I was starting to get nervous to experience this typhoon—that was suppose to move directly over Gotos Islands—all alone. The other teachers just kept saying, “Sugoi!” “Cool!” We got to leave work a few minutes early and I locked myself inside my apartment just like they told me.

Me at Takai Beach. The waves don't looks so bad, but usually they are much calmer than this.

I tried watching the Olympics for a while and took pictures and videos of the rain outside my patio. The one time I did open my patio door the wind gust into my living room and blew (just a little) water into my apartment. I ended up falling asleep on the coach for about two hours because there really wasn’t anything else to do.

When I did finally get up and go to bed, the typhoon had really picked up. The windows and doors in my apartment were rattling constantly, but I was able to fall asleep by thinking pleasant thoughts. But again, in the middle of the night—I think it was around 2 a.m.—I woke up and just could not fall back asleep. The doors and curtains inside my apartment were blowing around and I was so afraid the wind would break the windows or sliding glass doors. I just kind of froze for a long time—imagine me with the sheets pulled up to my eyeballs, staring wide-eyed at the ceiling and waiting for the wind to break my windows and all hell to break loose. I was thinking about the few things on my patio that I didn’t bring in, despite my co-workers warnings; I thought about my bike on the stair landing downstairs and wondered if I would have to pay for the damages after the typhoon flung it into my neighbors cars, damaging everything. “Should I have brought it further up the staircase?” “Should I go do that now?” Like I was going to go anywhere unless I was forced!! I planned out every scenario and decided exactly what I would do: Run directly to my neighbors with my futon and blanket and beg through sign language to be let in!!

Well, that never happened so after an hour I decided to get out my iPod and headphones and listen to my “Peaceful” playlist, thinking happy thoughts. It worked like a charm and after a few Enya songs and the Nutcracker’s Dance of the Reed Flutes I was sleeping like a baby. I only woke up once when the iPod needed to be turned on again. So that was my first experience with a typhoon. I suppose in reality it wasn’t that bad, but I wish I had someone there to experience it with me. Maybe we’ll get lucky and this will be the only typhoon this season ... It’s possible even if unlikely!

Love and happy thoughts,
Sierra