Sports Day

Yesterday was Shonan High's "Supootsu Taikai" (Sports Festival). Quite why they put it on a sunday I do not know. But anyway I was forced to attend, and had to start work at 9am on God's Day of Rest. Not only that, but I'd stayed up watching quite possibly the worst FA Cup Final ever the night before.

Despite my understandable grumpiness when setting out from home at 8.35am, it turned out to be a really fun day. In the morning we had the endless volleyball "playoffs", during which I circulated between various groups of students causing panic and mayhem wherever I went (or mild divertion, depending on who you ask). I decided to support Kawasaki sensei's home room class, so I helped with a rousing speech of "Come on Lads! Get stuck in!" when we were down after the first set. Unfortunately my speech didn't have the desired effect, and we crashed and burned in the second.

After lunch we had the volleyball "finals", where I was roped into the "ichinensei no sensei chiimu", or first year teachers' team. We beat the 4th placed 1st year team, and I scored a point, hurrah! After that I watched the other playoffs, during which I acquired a follower, one of those male students who thinks its hilarious to point at all his male friends and announce "he likes boys" before bursting into laughter. Once the volleyball ended our principal gave a rousing speech on the virtues of sport and fairplay, before we were all given a box of juice...how nice!

The day ended at 4, but me and 3 other teachers hung around to get some good baseball practice in. I bought my first bat on saturday, a beauty that will hit me some home runs and defend me against mentally unhinged neighbours in equal measure. My pitching definately needs some work though...