Shooting My Bow

Last year when I returned from America, I brought with me a [new] take-down recurve bow that fits nicely in my backpack.  I spent too much time setting up foam fishing floats on the beach for target practice - and watching them blow away while aiming - before finding two plywood-size sheets of 4" foam (on the beach, of course) and setting up a shooting range in the forest.  Now I have a super setup, hidden and protected from the elements.

[I'm aiming for that 4" black dot out there.  At this distance I usually get 4/5 of my arrows within 3" of it - not as accurate as I want to be but I'm getting better every day]

Why am I practicing with a bow here?  For goats, but also to be prepared to partake in more bow-hunting back in the U.S. someday.  I have hunted with a compound bow before, but am really intrigued by the more traditional (non-mechanical) recurve.  Of the notable differences between the two, the most obvious is that traditionals don't employ mechanics to make the pull-back and holding of the string easier.  Also, traditional bows [usually] don't employ sights - aiming is done by instinct.  My bow is a 60# bow, which is on the upper end of most recurves.

[For three days in a row this past week I took my dinner to the beach for a little target practice and sunset watching while eating.  It was so nice and reminded me I need to eat more meals away from the internet]

So when I taught Mariko to shoot the bow today it was quite amusing.  A strong man will have trouble with a 60# bow until he masters the motion of the pull-back, so a petite girl doesn't stand a chance.  Mariko could only pull the string back far enough that, upon release, the arrow would lob about 4 meters before bouncing on the ground.  If she had target practiced at me I could have caught the arrow before it reached me.  But it was still really fun - for her to learn and me to teach.

Flour

My friend Emina sent me a message yesterday saying she is going to Fukuoka soon and she wanted to know if I wanted to buy a 25kg bag of flour off her (for 6000 yen, or $64).  I quickly did some math and said yes.  And out of curiosity, anybody out there know how much 50lbs. of bread flour would cost in America?

[It was slightly cheaper in the long run to buy the 25kg bag, but much easier than having to order six 1kg bags every couple weeks and listen to the teachers, who pick up my food most weeks, complain about the weight of my order]

When I picked it up I inquired to Emina how came into a 25kg bag of flour.  She said she ordered it off the internet, to which I said, "why are you selling this to me?"  She said "I ordered it for you!"  Huh?  "Yeah," she continued, "I had to order two bags to get free shipping and didn't have time to ask you, but I knew you'd want one."

Summer is Coming

I can't wait for more of this pretty turquoise blue water:

My MRI

Remember the Tokyo Marathon?  Remember all that pain I had in my right leg that I complained kept me from achieving my goal time and put me in a wheel chair for my Disneyland visit?  Well, it didn't go away.  Last weekend, three weeks after the race and still hobbling around, I took a visit to a Naha sports doctor.  He immediately recommended me for an MRI.

Here is what it looked like:

[this was about midway up my leg, right in the middle of my calf]

To imagine what you are seeing, pretend I am laying on a table and you are looking up at my body from my feet.  So in the picture, my right leg is on your left, and my left leg is on your right.  The black spots are bone, the white are vessels/arteries, the rest is muscle.

Now let's look at the problem area down by my calf, from knee to foot:

 

The doctor described this as inflammation between my muscle and bone.  I'm sure there's a more correct clinical term, but I wasn't worried about it.  He did say that this is what happens just before a stress fracture (in my bone), so I guess it's good I wasn't running an ultra-marathon.  The doctor told me he could start me rehabbing with therapists on Monday, until I reminded him I live on a small island.  Then he said "Ahh.. yeah, hmm.  Okay, I'll prescribe you some cream." (Thanks!)  He said I'll just have to wait this injury out, but eventually it'll get better. 

Leaving My Mark

[If you only saw 50% of this post the first time, here's all of it.]

Every year at Geruma the students get to do a little seascape mural on the sea wall between the school and the ocean. It lasts about ten years until it gets painted over by the ensuing generation. It's pretty fun to track back the paintings of some of the older students to when they were 1st and 2nd graders.

[the 6th grade and junior high paintings]

[elementary]

[me and the fish most associated with me, the Giant Trevally]

Moving On (But Not Quite Yet)

I was watching a young student practice his baseball swing during graduation rehearsal last week and it got me thinking about daydreaming. When I was in grade school I spent any down time at school dreaming about what I'd do in the woods with my friends after school. In high school, as I approached adulthood and independence, my daydreams gained steam into trips I would go on or places I would find myself. In college there was a disconnect between what I wanted to do - spend every September-December in the woods hunting - and what what I was schooling myself to do - work in New York. Just in time, I cured myself of those New York ambitions and proceeded to graduate then go into the woods. It was my first taste of independence and I did exactly what I'd daydreamed about during so many years in a classroom.

Less than a year later I found myself on an adventure that solidified the importance of 'adventure' in my life going forward: Peace Corps. But restlessness set in even there, and during my second year I began dreaming in earnest about subsequent adventures. For three years after Peace Corps I didn't stay in place more than three months at a time (and those three months came 30+ miles from the nearest road!). It wasn't a rule of mine to keep moving, but rather I kept finding interesting things to pursue.

The theme here is that when I get restless or bored with a place, I begin to think about what I would do if I didn't have responsibilities. Invariably that thought process takes me to a new location. When watching that boy practice his baseball swing, undoubtedly wishing he were 100 other places than that gymnasium, it got me thinking about why I haven't yet started daydreaming here. I certainly have plenty of "stuck in a gymnasium" moments. I'm not sure that I came to anything solid enough to write out as a conclusion, except that I've only (!?) been here 2.5 years. I have no doubt that at the end of my fourth (or fifth, should it come to that) year I will be ready to go. Right now I still have some adventures yet to accomplish here but I can see the end of the list. That's not to say I won't rewrite the list, but I also understand the novelty of the place will wear down. And I'm pretty sure I won't ever be satisfied staying in any one place forever.

Foreign Policy