["this is your card, right?"]
[the 3/4-year-olds in the first row, then 5-year-olds, then 6-year-olds with the birthday students wearing crowns]Friday, January 30, 2009
A Magic Show!
Two days ago the 幼稚園 (kindergarten) teachers at Zamami asked me to do a magic show today for the celebration of January birthdays. So.. uh, how do I do magic? Google, of course.
["this is your card, right?"]
My first trick was to pour some water into a mug, cover it with the magic handkerchief, then turn the mug over and have two ice cubes fall out. Second and third were card tricks, one with a stacked deck and the other with a sleight of hand that made me really nervous (but I pulled it off). Fourth I rolled up a one and two-dollar bill that were overlapping and when I unrolled them, they'd switched places. And lastly, I coordinated with one of the teachers to guess which of the seven objects on the table the student had chosen while I was out of the room. It all worked perfectly and now I want to do a little more magic trick investigation for further shows.
[the 3/4-year-olds in the first row, then 5-year-olds, then 6-year-olds with the birthday students wearing crowns]
["this is your card, right?"][the 3/4-year-olds in the first row, then 5-year-olds, then 6-year-olds with the birthday students wearing crowns]
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Gym Lights
Do you ever wonder how burned out lights in gymnasiums are replaced? (Of course you do...) I always thought it was with lifts, but I found out otherwise yesterday.
The fixtures have motors that lower the lights to the floor with small-diameter cables. It's so ingenious! What happens when the motors don't work?
[the bulbs are $75/apiece]
The fixtures have motors that lower the lights to the floor with small-diameter cables. It's so ingenious! What happens when the motors don't work?
[the bulbs are $75/apiece]
Sunday, January 25, 2009
What I Already Knew
I took two weeks off from running and then did 5k, 5k, 11k, and 5k Tues-Fri this past week. My knee (and now left ankle) has still been bothering me a bit. So I got the go-ahead from the Zamami clinic doctor to go to Naha for further examination.
The Naha sports clinic was open Saturday morning and I had to plan well as that was my only window. I got bad directions from 3 of 5 people and it took me 40 minutes to go the mere one block distance from my friend's apartment. I had an x-ray at 10:30am and things seemed on track, until I went in to see the doctor. He was reported to not speak English, but to understand it written. But I guess I got the wrong doctor because neither did he understand the page I'd typed about my problem nor did he understand anything I said. I fumed internally as I realized the appointment was a waste of my time. All I got out of it was that he said my joints were mechanically sound, I should stretch, and I should stop running. His further advice was to see an English-speaking doctor up north.
I got ahold of my Japanese friend, who I'd planned to spend the afternoon with, and she agreed to go with me to the other clinic. I got x-rays again because the morning clinic wouldn't give them to me. This doctor also talked a lot, but Eri was able to tell me what he said. Which wasn't very helpful. He said my joints were sound and I needed to stretch more.
So after a trip to Naha I'm pretty much in the same position I was before, except now some people with Harvard medical degrees told me to stretch more.
Eri claimed her rain check this morning and we went to the Okinawa Peace Memorial Park, then out to lunch at an awesome Thai restaurant with a great view.
[There are tons of granite panels in an amphitheater formation, all with names of people who died in Okinawa during the war. There were a lot of names...]
[me and curry]
[Eri told me not to put a picture of her on the blog, but I thought this was a nice one]
The Naha sports clinic was open Saturday morning and I had to plan well as that was my only window. I got bad directions from 3 of 5 people and it took me 40 minutes to go the mere one block distance from my friend's apartment. I had an x-ray at 10:30am and things seemed on track, until I went in to see the doctor. He was reported to not speak English, but to understand it written. But I guess I got the wrong doctor because neither did he understand the page I'd typed about my problem nor did he understand anything I said. I fumed internally as I realized the appointment was a waste of my time. All I got out of it was that he said my joints were mechanically sound, I should stretch, and I should stop running. His further advice was to see an English-speaking doctor up north.
I got ahold of my Japanese friend, who I'd planned to spend the afternoon with, and she agreed to go with me to the other clinic. I got x-rays again because the morning clinic wouldn't give them to me. This doctor also talked a lot, but Eri was able to tell me what he said. Which wasn't very helpful. He said my joints were sound and I needed to stretch more.
So after a trip to Naha I'm pretty much in the same position I was before, except now some people with Harvard medical degrees told me to stretch more.
Eri claimed her rain check this morning and we went to the Okinawa Peace Memorial Park, then out to lunch at an awesome Thai restaurant with a great view.
[There are tons of granite panels in an amphitheater formation, all with names of people who died in Okinawa during the war. There were a lot of names...]
[me and curry]
[Eri told me not to put a picture of her on the blog, but I thought this was a nice one]Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Monday, January 19, 2009
Kerama Islands Basketball Tournament
After heavy recruitment for this year’s basketball tournament I decided to play with Geruma because they asked me first and, in my mind, had the best chance of knocking off Zamami 青年会 (young men’s association), who wins everything.
We crushed Zamami’s old men’s team in the first game, then miraculously beat Zamami 青年会 in the second game by six points, and beat Aka 青年会 in the third game by just three points. I scored 30 points in the first game and in the last singlehandedly opened the game with an 11-2 run for my team in the first three minutes.
[Geruma's women's team en route to their championship. Ayano, the English teacher, is preparing to throw up a long air ball]
Since we’d reached the top of the bracket I thought we’d just won the championship, but it turned out we had only earned our place in the game against the winner of the loser’s bracket. This was a dumb system, as we’d already beaten everybody.
We had to play Zamami 青年会 again and before it started, I’d mostly written the game off. Zamami 青年会, while lacking the height of our team, has much greater depth and thus no useless players on the floor (all other teams offer this disadvantage). Plus they practice together for weeks and have plays.
But our team gelled well and opened the game up 16-2 and never looked back. Zamami got desperate and began fouling to send us to the free-throw line every time. One guy also crushed me on a layup and got a technical foul for it (I was later told if that hit had happened to a Japanese guy there surely would've been a fight.. so thankfully I am peaceful). I missed both the free throws because I was in a daze. They also began heavy full-court press, but since I’ve been practicing on Zamami the last two weeks, I prepared the Geruma team for this and we scored more points by having a press-breaking strategy. We were nearly flawless in winning by about 14 points.
[Geruma swept both the men's and women's championships. The woman to my left and I are holding our MVP trophies. A pretty amazing feat for an island of just 69 people!]
An interesting strategy that developed out of having three tall rebounders was to give the ball to our useless guy, who would throw up (and badly miss) a three-pointer. We would rebound and then make the easy short basket.
During the last game there was a play where I had to dive into the crowd to save the ball. I landed on a lady and sprained her wrist. Afterwards I was really apologetic, but she was still pretty angry so I just stayed away. Today I brought her a loaf of cinnamon bread as reconciliation. I told the English teacher, Ayano, that it was for the woman I hurt during the fall. She said, “Which woman, the one with the sprained wrist or the one with the hurt nose?” So I had to cut the loaf in half.
We crushed Zamami’s old men’s team in the first game, then miraculously beat Zamami 青年会 in the second game by six points, and beat Aka 青年会 in the third game by just three points. I scored 30 points in the first game and in the last singlehandedly opened the game with an 11-2 run for my team in the first three minutes.
[Geruma's women's team en route to their championship. Ayano, the English teacher, is preparing to throw up a long air ball]Since we’d reached the top of the bracket I thought we’d just won the championship, but it turned out we had only earned our place in the game against the winner of the loser’s bracket. This was a dumb system, as we’d already beaten everybody.
We had to play Zamami 青年会 again and before it started, I’d mostly written the game off. Zamami 青年会, while lacking the height of our team, has much greater depth and thus no useless players on the floor (all other teams offer this disadvantage). Plus they practice together for weeks and have plays.
But our team gelled well and opened the game up 16-2 and never looked back. Zamami got desperate and began fouling to send us to the free-throw line every time. One guy also crushed me on a layup and got a technical foul for it (I was later told if that hit had happened to a Japanese guy there surely would've been a fight.. so thankfully I am peaceful). I missed both the free throws because I was in a daze. They also began heavy full-court press, but since I’ve been practicing on Zamami the last two weeks, I prepared the Geruma team for this and we scored more points by having a press-breaking strategy. We were nearly flawless in winning by about 14 points.
[Geruma swept both the men's and women's championships. The woman to my left and I are holding our MVP trophies. A pretty amazing feat for an island of just 69 people!]During the last game there was a play where I had to dive into the crowd to save the ball. I landed on a lady and sprained her wrist. Afterwards I was really apologetic, but she was still pretty angry so I just stayed away. Today I brought her a loaf of cinnamon bread as reconciliation. I told the English teacher, Ayano, that it was for the woman I hurt during the fall. She said, “Which woman, the one with the sprained wrist or the one with the hurt nose?” So I had to cut the loaf in half.
Friday, January 16, 2009
Lessons in Baking
Baking has become a centerpiece of my English teaching. It comes highly requested and this week is the fifth lesson (pizza is scheduled next week and cinnamon bread the following week). I'm not very good at actually incorporating English learning, but I'm good at the baking part. This week we tried a twist (that is a brilliant pun, by the way) on my cinnamon bread recipe with all three grades of Aka junior high. It was a good idea, until we got to the third class (8th graders) and their only job was to watch the finished product rise and then put it in the oven. Oh well, they still got to eat.
[Spreading the cinnamon sugar is a great opportunity for micromanagement, especially when your mother is overseeing. We had five different parents come to watch]
[Ready for the oven]
[Spreading the cinnamon sugar is a great opportunity for micromanagement, especially when your mother is overseeing. We had five different parents come to watch]
[Ready for the oven]
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