There
goes Summer. It’s about time we got a bit of breeze back in
Hanayama. Still, the hot season keeps holding on with its burny
tendrils, making the odd hot streak during the day and the occasional
tropical storm. Nothing to cancel school, unfortunately, but enough
to be reminiscent of not-Autumn. Summer means Sports Day here in
Kobe, which went off once again without a hitch, though I’ve been
needing to wear my sleeves a bit longer since then on account of the
very obvious redness on my lower arm. My arms look like Pokeballs.
Yep,
there it is. Can’t hold it in any longer. Pokemon XY comes out
tomorrow and I am just THE most excited. Tonight’s gonna be a tough
one to sleep through, but at least there’s an early start on the
cards. The plan is to get into town around 9, grab a coffee at
Tully’s and then hit what I’m sure will be a fairly lengthy queue
at Labi for its opening at 10. Steph’s probably not going to come
along, which is good for her because it means I won’t embarrass
her, plus she gets extra sleep. We’ll no doubt meet up again for an
early lunch in town, ready for an afternoon of Dark Heresy down on
Port Island. Well, most
of the group will likely be doing the things we Dark Heretics do:
blasting aliens and rolling dice. I’ll have to share my time with
that and making a mad dash for the Elite Four.
The
news that certain unseemly countries (yeah, even you, Britain!) have
got themselves copies of the game before its release on the 12th
has urked me much more than I reckon it should. I think a big part of
it is that Pokemon may be a popular, if childish, game across the
world, but is this Generation 6 is a big milestone for
internationalism. It was supposed to be the first simultaneous
worldwide release, discounting things like timezones, but now it
isn’t. Now some little Spoinks have got their hands on it ahead of
the rest of us, before they were supposed to, and are enjoying a game
that they don’t love as much as me not
fair it’s not faaaaaair
This
is primary school all over again.
What
makes it worse is that they’re totally not embarrassed about what
they’ve done. Browsing imgur has become a veritable minefield, as
people (though in truth they are less than human) keep putting up
pictures of ‘Look everyone at how you can ride this Pokemon now!’
or ‘Oh, look how it asks you if you want to renew your Repels’!
If
we wanted to know, you rotten Trubbishes, we’d do the same as you
and debase ourselves and our supposedly beloved franchise by breaking
the rules! But we respect they people who made this game, you see? So
we’ll wait! Impatiently, but we’ll do it! Nobody wants to see
your ill-gotten achievements, but if they did I’d disown them from
the human race! True Pokemon Masters know to be patient.
Phew.
Imagine if I was this fanatical about my religion... Y’know, like I
should be. I’m trying.
Right,
back to Sports Day. The weather was clement; as clement as the inside
of a nuclear reactor. But the odd patch of cloud cover made it
marginally more bearable than the rehearsal day, as did my thick,
greasy layer of sun cream. I still find that hard to believe: a
rehearsal day for Sports Day. In Japan, it’s not a competitive
sporting medley like, I dunno... No, I really don’t know. Like my
Sports Days. Here it’s a performance,
a song and dance, in which the actors occasionally race each other
around the big, chalk track. Obviously the running, jumping etc.
isn’t staged, but it does seem like there’s far too much prep
work, in the scalding sun no less, for what amounts to a bit of
marching and the synchronised waving of flags. We had convoys
of wheelchairs lined up by the hall for the battalions of brave
soldiers struck down by the heat. You can’ t tell me that’s safe
conduct.
But
anyway, it went well in the end. My usual gripe with Sports Day is
that, as an auxiliary staff member, I’m expected to participate but
with an expectation that doesn’t include actual plans with actual
times and activities. I won’t rehash a year-old rant, but it’s
like everybody expects everybody else to be the ones who come up with
my schedule (and last year proved that I am incapable of that) and
then nobody does it. So the time comes to run the staff relay, and
everybody says ‘Go, Peter! Go get in your position!’, to which I
reply ‘I don’t have
a position!’ Then comes the frantic scrabbling as the other
teachers crowbar the routes of two of the teachers apart to allot me
a ridiculous ten metre sprint. Sprint? More like step.
But this year, my vice principal had everything in hand. There was a
piece of paper that lumped me together with the other non-PE
non-medical teachers as seitou shidou,
which means looking after the kids while they wait. We had fun, I
must admit. I showed off my kanji skills, and dutifully ignored their
questions of a sexual nature. They’re getting to that age, some of
them. Also, nobody died, which was a real comfort. Last year we had a
nasty leg breakage, but this year the kids suffered narely a scratch.
A real success, I’d say.
I’d
been finishing off Wheel of Time around the time of Sports Day, which
gave my brain something to do every second it was awake and sometimes
when not. I swear, that last book got right into my head. Probably
had something to do with the five or so hours I spent not out
jogging, finishing the entire last half of Memory of Light. Some ace
deaths, and I’m of the opinion that a good death rounds off a great
character. And the best two deaths were for characters I wasn’t
even very keen on by the end. Got cheated out of an excellent death
for my favourite character, though, who was somehow still kicking by
the end of everything. But yeah, it really got me imagining. It was
all I could do to hold back the ‘Tai’shar Manetheren’ as I
began my hundred meter sprint in the staff relay. I also spent my
more free time around the day rewording quotes from the series to
match my job. ‘The ALT is of all-nen-sei and none.’ I was quite
proud of that one.
Anyway,
now we’ve got the Cultural Festival on the horizon, which I can
appreciate all the rehearsal time for. Especially when all the kids
have to do is stand still in the hall and sing. Much better than
hours of marching outside. There’s been an interesting decision by
some of the kids to form an impromptu Drama Club, and to manage their
own performance for the actual stage show of Bunkasai. I’ll be
looking forward to that. Last year’s Hashire Melos was simply
bizarre, and the hodgepodge of the year before even stranger. I hear
it’s the same all across Kobe: that’s what you get when a bunch
of junior high school kids make up a play. Also looking forward to
hearing the brass band play the Pirates theme and
the title theme to Attack on Titan. Doesn’t matter that Titan is
too slow-going for my tastes, and I hate Johnny Depp. So that’s end
of the month, and the elementary ones are the beginning of the next.
Steph’s been invited to my smaller elementary this year, which is
sweet of them. I’ve been every year now, so I expect they’ve come
to expect my presence. Would be nice to show off Steph to the kids,
as well!
What
else is there to say? Oh, my washing machine broke. It’s a real
testament to my Japanese skills, I think, that they’ve come so far
that I can actually do something like this. It’s funny, my study
time has been extremely limited since coming here, and usually I only
get the books out around Summer time. But conversationally I’ve
grown a lot, and my confidence in speaking is through the roof. Maybe
a lot of what I say isn’t good Japanese, but folk respond as though
it is, which means I must be getting something
right. Anyway, the washer needs a new
circuit in its little circuit board, which is setting me back 15,000
yen. Quite a lot, but it’s better than buying a whole new one. The
washer may be old, but chances are I’ll only be in the apartment
for another few months, after which I’ll be married and can move to
Steph’s much nicer place, with her much nicer washing machine.
Well, nicer at any rate. So all I need is my current one to hold out
until I leave, and then it’s someone else’s problem. Someone who
doesn’t read the back issues of their predecessor’s blog, I
should hope.
Steph’s
currently showing me the old Star Trek films, following a
conversation about the newer of the two J.J. Abrams ones. The first
one was questionably laughable at best, but I actually did enjoy
Wrath of Khan quite considerably. Which is good, because I hear they
dip from there, with the occasional peak. Nothing a bit of beer won’t
liven up, I’m sure.
Right,
I’m done. Time to get on Minecraft and try to get those shaders
working, then it’s off to bed. Not to sleep, though. I think sleep
might be a long time coming, what with tomorrow on the horizon and
all.
Thanks
for reading. I’ll see you suckas at the League.
