Jellyfish Stings and Awkward Conversations

Good Start

2010-04-03T23:39:00.000-07:00

Missed a day already...Ah.

A lot of stuff going on recently. New semester at school, which means new teachers coming into school. Here's everyone moving their desks around to their new positions.

One of the other ALT's in the area Lena's sister Lori is here from Hawaii, she's hilarious. This is us at our favorite izakaya in the world, Marugo.

Had a salsa night at my part time english conversation school last night too. I Did dance, but none of it made it on my camera. Probably better that way.

More soon!

4 Months...

2010-04-01T18:26:00.000-07:00

I have 4 months before I leave Japan. I've set a goal.

Blog once a day, Every day, before I go.

Let's do this.

Almost December

2009-11-23T21:00:00.000-08:00

It's cold. Our school has decreed that we cannot use the heaters at school until the 1st of December. I can't find my gloves. In order to keep my fingers warm, I blog.

Things are a little busier than usual over here nowadays, a lot of things going on at once. I'm keeping up, but I can't wait to have things settle down a little, get my bearings.

That's all for now. Write more soon.

Lazy Summer: Tim's Gone, Bebz Too

2009-08-02T18:42:00.000-07:00

It's hard to get up and get out when it's hot and sticky like it is these days. On Saturday, I made an attempt, here's what happened.

My girlfriend, Lauren, is currently in China, working at various English intensive summer camps. That means, that she is not here, and that is terrible. We talk a lot, but it's not the same.

Bebz.

My friend, Masaki san, called and woke me up in the morning, asking if I wanted to go and surf. I said sure, but knowing what the surf report was saying I wasn't too excited about the session. We went to his house, where this good looking guy was waiting for us.

Here's Masaki san, by the way.

Went into his house and cruised while he changed. I remember him telling me that he and his wife had just found out that she was pregnant. I look on the wall, and noticed these clothes.

Me: You guys work fast huh? Baby clothes already?!
Masaki san: No. Dog wear. (Points down.)

We ended up looking for surf for about 30 minutes, before finally settling on this spot.

The sets.

That evening was the last time I would have to cruise with Tim, who is moving to Osaka to live with his girlfriend this month. Great times, I'll miss you dude.

Bugs and Flowers

2009-07-30T18:50:00.000-07:00

Got a new camera, took some pictures. Don't laugh.

Rainy Season

2009-07-29T17:48:00.000-07:00

Every summer, Japan has a wet, rainy season. It is hitting especially hard this year, and there hasn't been a nice clear day for a good week and a half now. This bad stretch of weather just happens to correspond with the leaving of my girlfriend to China, Lauren. (Sobs)

Here's a little squall coming through in the middle of my Japanese lesson with our exchange student. This happens often.

Back

2009-07-28T19:07:00.000-07:00

I've been slacking incredibly. Part of it has been being really busy this past month, part of it has been my laziness, but either way, I'm back. How many of these have I done? Not sure. Here's hoping this one sticks.

Random pictures and movies from the past month.

Top left: Our school baseball team made it to the top 8 in our prefecture, the first time we've ever gotten this far. The entire school came out in support.
Top right: The beginning of the game. We lost 6-5 on an error in the bottom of the ninth, two outs. One of the most exciting baseball games I've ever seen, for real.
Bottom left: Anything strange about this picture? I've been photoshopped into it!
Bottom right: Mexican food in Japan. It wasn't bad, kinda expensive.

Surf trip with the boys to Shikoku. Was excellent.

Hungarian Candy

2009-06-11T20:56:00.000-07:00

I'm teaching our Hungarian exchange student Japanese this semester, so we meet a couple of times a week. Today, she asked me if I would like to try some Hungarian candy. This was it.

I found this today too, from a little earlier this year. This is on our break time, where we taught each other some of our original languages. This is her saying, 'Ho brah, get all buss'. Enjoy.

Stuff

2009-06-09T18:55:00.000-07:00

Things going good recently. Kinda sleeping a lot. Got a couple of things coming up. Keoki's leaving pretty soon, so trying to go on a couple of surf trips with him, waves allowing. Still feeling the aftereffects of Nick's wedding, on a little bit of a natural high I guess you could say.

Grading papers today, I got a little bit of a surprise.

Life...

2009-06-02T21:03:00.000-07:00

happened. I felt guilty for a second, thinking I should be updating on this, and writing about that, but I didn't, and everything is now over. So, to catch everyone up, highlights from the past couple of weeks:

Yamaguchi surf trip - crazy fun, decent surf first day, crazy stormy and dangerous the next.
Hawaii - what can I say? Where I'm most at home. Definitely not enough time, trying to make a move out there again sometime soon.
Vegas - once in a lifetime.

I feel so much more, fulfilled I guess you could say, knowing everyone is still there, everyone is in good health. Life anew in Japan, and hopefully I can keep in much better touch with everyone. Got one more year left, so let's get nuts.

Foshigadow!

2009-04-17T01:01:00.001-07:00

I love it.

Busy

2009-04-16T20:02:00.000-07:00

Recently, had a lot of stuff to do. Beginning of the new school year, so there is a lot of stuff going on. Meeting the new students, getting the curriculum together, ironing out everything.

Too much stuff has gone on recently that I could post on, so I'll talk about what is coming up. Next week, got the Yamaguchi surf trip with Steve and Keoki, pending swell. The week after that, my predecessor at this job, who everyone I've ever met has said is the coolest guy in the world, is gonna come to visit. The week after THAT, going to Hawaii. And the week after THAAAT, Las Vegas, for my brother's wedding. Gonna be awesome.

I Have To

2009-04-08T23:37:00.000-07:00

In my daydreams, my dunk would be like this. Sneak up on the dudes and hit 'em before they knew what was coming. Go ahead, Sasha, go ahead.

A Quick Rundown

2009-04-06T17:16:00.000-07:00

Been real busy recently.

Seems like I'm gonna be busy until the summer time, with Nick's wedding and the Hawaii trip right before that, and right before that, the exploratory Yamaguchi surf trip with Keoki and Steve. Work is pretty exciting too, we have a Hungarian exchange student that's gonna be with us for an entire year, going to classes and living the Japanese life. She doesn't speak a word of Japanese though. No surf recently. Did have a basketball tournament though, we were humbled in the championship game. Here's some pics and quick captions/stories behind 'em.

Had our area basketball tournament the other day. Because we had won our C-level league at the last tournament, we were moved up to the B-level. First game we were lucky to pull the other weak team, and beat them. Then proceeded to get murdered in the championship. I got a lot of points, but all after the game had already been decided. (We started the game down 19-0!)

The pictures above are from the tournament after party. It was held at the team captain's house, Ryuuji. He has that keychain, and is unsheathing the sword up top.

These are from the other day. I had gotten off work early and wanted to check out the surf, even though I knew it was only going to be knee high. The second picture is me reacting to the light changing and missing the picture of the landscape I was about to take.

Slid up to Kokura this past weekend to get nots with the boys, and Ash. After talking trash about everything from OIA/BIF/ILH rivalries, if smoothies are gay or not, and my impregnable trump strategy, I got really drunk and passed out.This is the only picture I feel comfortable showing.

Mongolian Studs

2009-03-29T18:08:00.000-07:00

The other night, a couple of friends and I hit up a Mongolian restaurant. The story, in pictures.

Where the trouble started.

The first level.

Mongolian, (probably not actually).

Level two. Points of interest: And1 shorts rolled up, ridiculous headonly tan. And, I don't know how Brent got that last shot.

My dad would be pissed...I let him get the wrist angle. Lost.

Bored at Work: Wow

2009-03-25T19:06:00.000-07:00

Stole this from Truehoop today, but man, how nuts is this?! My measurement was 7 inches. Try yours.

Compare hands with Al Jefferson.

Satoshi's Wedding

2009-03-25T17:13:00.000-07:00

This past Saturday, a good friend of mine, 聡 (Satoshi), got married to his long time girlfriend, ゆき (Yuki, don't know her kanji). I know Satoshi from my basketball team, the G Suns. He's the resident big man on the team, and always throws nice outlet passes.

This also happened to be my first real Japanese wedding. I had been to a bunch of 二次会's (nijikai - wedding reception-type party) before, but I had never been close enough to the couple to actually be invited to the real thing. There's a lot of etiquette involved in a Japanese wedding's preparation (RSVP, special envelopes, real polite language), so I was kinda surprised to see the actual ceremony.

(On a side note: I had talked to my boy Nick Riley about this a while ago, but somewhere along the line, we had become Japanese snobs. In the sense that, when we came to Japan, we didn't know one Japanese phrase. To be honest, I am pretty proud of my Japanese, but I really shouldn't be critiquing other foreigners' Japanese, as there are other people who are ridiculously better than I am - Joel, Sean, Tim. But, when I hear someone say they are very good at it, and then proceed to be terrible...it's like nails on a chalkboard. Really.)

The wedding had Western and Japanese elements to it, which was cool. What was interesting though, was the Japanese interpretation of the Western style wedding. In the chapel, there was an American pastor, who was doing the service in Japanese, which was pretty interesting. (See above.) What is lacked though, is the solemnity of a traditional wedding. The entire time cell phones were out, pictures being taken, conversations held. I was a little surprised, but, when in Rome.

After that, we moved on to the reception, which was awesome. Satoshi and Yuki were seated at the very front of a big ball room, with all the guests seated by affiliation. (I was with the ballers.) There were slideshows, speeches, crying, and the team had a little routine set up. Our point guard, Ryuji, got a golden basketball and had all of the team members sign it. (I signed, we gotta protect the lane!). We lined up around the room, and passed it around to all the members until finally, it got to the front where Satoshi was sitting, and the captain of the team handed it to him, saying, 'For your special day, since you lost your balls, heres a golden ball.' It was awesome.

After that, we headed to the afterparty, from where things get a little blurry. A bunch of stuff went down, but these were the only things that I got pictures of. Good times.

Brent's Week of Nonsense (and The Many Faces of Karaoke Clint)

2009-03-24T21:33:00.000-07:00

Brent, hollering. Me, trying to hang on.

Brent, the ALT from the year before, came back to Fukuoka to see the graduations of the school's he was teaching at. He was hanging out at the spot for about a week, and literally everyday we did something. I, at various points during the week, literally felt myself getting fat. There aren't enough pics to document all that went down, but this is the general feel of it.

KARAOKE FACES

It was pretty much a week of drinking, laughing, and not sleeping. Great times.

3 on 3 Tournament

2009-03-24T16:46:00.000-07:00

Morning of the tournament.

Ok, here we go. These two guys, Kenya and Masao, are on the team I play with every Wednesday, the really good team. They invited me to play in this open 3 on 3 tournament, where anyone can come out. I had been pretty tired cuz of Brent's prolonged stay in Fukuoka (more on that later), but had a decent tournament. We lost in the first round of the playoffs after going undefeated in pool play. Sucked. Here's some pics.

Here, after the tournament, I taught the guys these terms: Splash/Money/Milk (referring to jumpshots), and 'Get off me!'/'Get up!' (used when owning).

Got a lot to get up, so that's it for this. (This ramen was excellent by the way).

Whoa...

2009-03-22T21:57:00.000-07:00

Last time I had an extended absence, it was because I was lazy. This time, however, it was because I was ridiculously busy. Got a lot of stuff to blog about, so gonna put together some fat posts soon. Just not right now. We've got spring break right now, so I'll have a lot of time to put stuff up, but right now, I'm off to basketball practice. I'll be back soon.

Fighting Through...

2009-03-05T17:50:00.000-08:00

No one knows I didn't shave this morning.

Weekend Update

2009-03-03T23:07:00.000-08:00

This is what was on my desk after the long 3 day weekend. 中田先生 is nuts.

Hiroto and Yuki's Wedding Afterparty

Just an awesome couple to hang out with, really complement each other. Both are really good looking too. Small kine jealous...nah nah nah.

Things started off ok, small kine blurry.

Me lookin' at me.

What I ended up taking pictures of. I think she's taking a shot. Or cake.

Graduation

(Pics to come.)

This was the first group of kids that I had ever seen all the way to graduation. Usually, our graduations are pretty good, but this year's one was unbelievably good. Probably a quarter of the kids were crying their eyes out. I was hugging like crazy. Almost popped a tear out when the basketball team captain came by. He was already buss before he got to me, but when he saw me, he wailed, 'クリントン, ヤッだ！'. I had a heave in the chest, watery eyes (think of when Mufasa died), but was able to hold it together. Good day.

Graduation Nomikai

That cake in the picture was crazy delicious. Had a really good nomikai, and then went on the after party, then the after after party. Two of the senseis that had their kids graduate I had known since I first came to Japan, so we had a good time drinking and talking.

Monday (代休 - Day off)

Sleep. And clean.

All in all, two nights, a combined 3 hours of sleep. Still recovering now.

And just for fun -

He's doing well.

A Taste of the Japanese Sushi Restaurant Experience

2009-03-02T23:24:00.000-08:00

I'd write more on this, but I don't really have time. Just check out the people's reactions.

Weekend Wrap-Up

2009-02-23T16:01:00.000-08:00

I had a pretty excellent weekend. Basically surfed all weekend. On Saturday, went to Karatsu with 中村先生, who I am finding out, is one of the baddest dudes on the Kyushuu surf scene. He always longboards, (if you look at the picture above, you can see him practicing his steps), but he's well known for his short board prowess. We surfed for like 7 hours, then went home, had Keoki come out, and got some drinks.

This is what your hand looks like after you run into a bushcovered wall with your bike after drinking plenty beers.

Went surf again on Monday with 山口, (I had Daikyuu), was alright. Didn't spend so much money, which was good, considering the amount of fun I had.

Let's get this week started.

Look Closely

2009-02-18T20:55:00.000-08:00

I know I quote his books too much, but I really enjoyed them and he has another point that I want to show. From Malcolm Gladwell's book 'The Tipping Point', there's a chapter that I recall from time to time, (which also happens to be online, here...read it, it's good), about a man who could tell things about people from just their faces. I try to do this, but don't know what to do with the results I get. (Add this to the list of strange abilities I want to have - juggle, backflip, sign language, and lip reading are the ones I've got on there now.) Either way, there are a couple of instances in which I wish I had that man's gift.

First, at an interview, Lance Armstrong gets at a reporter. There's backstory to this, but Lance just goes at the dude. It was a stupid comment, to be sure, but, I wish I could have that ability to know for sure, for absolutely sure, that Lance never doped.

And of course, this one. Watch his face.

This one, too.

What about this guy? Is he lying? Watch his face, and gestures. He seems like he's telling the truth to me.

I do this a lot, with just people I know or meet, just watch their face as they talk. Try it sometime, see what you can figure out.

Living...and Laziness

2009-02-17T16:08:00.000-08:00

has prevented me from updating as much as I want to. I'm trying to keep on top of everything, so blog time hasn't really been available. Either way, I'm back.

Since I've built my surf rack, I've gone surf twice. Both times have been excellent. I don't know if it's the time it takes to get out there (35 minutes), or the preparation it takes (wetsuit, booties, hot water bottle, change of clothes, bungee cords, snack, water, backpack), but I'm literally sprinting to the water once I get there. So, yesterday, after school, I got a little hour and change session in before the sun went down. It was awesome - not one person in the water, nice short right hand wedges, head high sets. Very fun. Here's some pics of the changing after (in 45 degree weather).

So yeah, let's get back into it.

Keiichi's Fight Pics

2009-02-04T15:40:00.001-08:00

(Courtesty of Stephen Loh)

How sick is this? First round TKO...look at the last picture. He's not even sweating!

Universal Compatability!

2009-02-04T05:38:00.000-08:00

Jack Black, killing.

I can listen to this dude talk nonsense all day. He's done some dumb stuff, but him just hanging out, talking, I can listen to that all day.

That got me thinking about guys that hurt me like that. Here's a short list.

Bill Murray

(Can't describe it...He's just the funniest dude to me.)

Sinbad

(Me and my brother watched this whole special on comedy central when it first came out...and were crying. Literally, crying.)

Dave Chappelle

(He's survived the 'every one knows him so I can't think he's cool' test. With ease. Two favorite scenes...1:02 - 1:07 It's greeen, and 1:36 - 1:40 That is drink.)

Da Braddahs

(I'm surprised at the lack of videos there are of these guys.)

My dad.

(No videos.)

Bruce Bruce

(He just owns.)

That's it. For now.

Older Brothers

2009-02-02T23:18:00.000-08:00

Nick always knew to be cool to my friends, just in case.

(For some reason, I can't put the actual video on here. Damn it.)

(UPDATE: Got it.)

My New Year's Resolution Is...

2009-01-27T16:22:00.000-08:00

I wished him good luck.

Ballin' Out...Of...Control

2009-01-25T17:27:00.000-08:00

So, the boys are always asking me what the games are like up here. After I told them some of my stat lines from the games I had played, (of which I won't go into too much detail), they were desperate to see what the comp was like. I play for two different teams up here, so this video is from the younger, better team (with which I DID NOT put up those stats I had spoken of earlier). I finally got around to bringing a good camera to practice. I usually don't stand out too much with these guys, there are a bunch of dudes that need their touches, so I usually just run the break, play D, board, and shoot when a good shot comes around. And, to be honest, they can ball. I'll let the video speak for itself. (Videos are kinda long, but I only did that cuz the boys wouldn't like to watch just 25 seconds of it).

Here's me, first game of the night. I do have to preface this by saying I had just made and ate some excellent meat sauce pasta and garlic bread, ask Lena, it was excellent. When I got to practice though, I felt heavy and every shot felt off. I'll stop crying and just let the video go.

Pull the okie doke steal! Me and 山口 run a pick and roll that ends with me missing a point blank layup. I then terribly airball a wide open J. As I shot it, I said, "Eww".

Missed layup eventually turns into a サベ J. He's the master of pumpfakes. Luckily, we had たかや on our team, the dude who hits the three at the end, cuz me and 山口 were off as hell.

Here's a video of the dude with the mean J, 新野さん. That's his favorite shot, the walkrightuponyouandpop J. The next guy, けんや, the guy who hits the three at the end, is real fast and strong, and he can shoot from outside. He's a tough cover.

So, yeah, this is what the games are like up here. A lot of running, and a lot of quick shots. Defense is pretty intense. Probably like the same level as the UH Gym 2 good court, but without the size.

Alright, I'm ready. Bring the 'you suck' comments on.

The Only Way To Turn 25

2009-01-25T16:29:00.000-08:00

This weekend was pretty awesome. Here's how it broke down.

Friday Night - Stayed in, but also built my surf rack for my bike. Was so excited when I had finished it that I jumped outside in my pajamas and rode around. I'll get pics up of that later.

Saturday Morning (Birthday) - Surf Karatsu with 山口, 徳永, and 渡辺. It was really good, head high and slow to break with not a lot of people out, and it didn't seem cold at all. The worst part of snow surf though, is changing out of the wetsuit into the cold. You've got about 5 minutes of unbearable cold to deal with. I lost all feeling in my hand for a good 10 minutes it seemed like. Here's some pics and videos.

Dying from the cold.

It was my birthday, so they took me to the famous "からつバーが” (Karatsu Burger). It was aite, a little too expensive. Kinda like a bigger White Castle burger.

Here's us right after we got into the car and turned on the heater (translated):
Ah, that was fun! (It's cold.) I didn't think we would have as good as conditions as we did. ~ Oh yups, look, my eyes are all swollen again! (Why is that?) Why is that huh? ~ (Ahhh, it's cold.)

Here's us, outside of a Seven Eleven after we bought some hot drinks.
(Translated): Me: What's this? (gesturing to snow)
山口: What's this? (makin' me look dumb)...
Me: OK, final word.
山口: Final word? You the best!
渡辺: That was fun!

Saturday Night - Was out in the city running errands, went to my favorite bar to hang out, Bingo Love. Had dinner and couple drinks there, met a couple of cool people, then called Lena up to jam. (Stealin' pics from Facebook for this). Had a great time. Here's some pics.

Wasn't sticking, but it was nice.

Cute little girl that made a snowman.

Made sure to have a couple of these. (Shout out to Drew and Derek on this).

With the ladies at Morris Pub.

Me explaining how good I am at Foosball.

And not backing it up. (I did beat this guy though).

Jammin' with Lauren, who may or not have wanted to jam.

Sunday Morning/Afternoon/Night - Ordered pizza. Ate pizza. Slept.

Excellent.

How Lucky Am I?

2009-01-22T22:23:00.000-08:00

So, tomorrow is my birthday. I've told a couple of people, but not a lot of people know. One of the few people I did tell, was my co-worker 中田先生, (of donut fame). She, in turn, told the students. When I got into class today, here's what was written on the board...(tearing up).

Other than that, nothing much going on. On a mission to save some money, so tonight, a Friday night mind you, I'm gonna build my bike surf rack that I've been putting off. Finally got some time to do it, so I'll take some pics and maybe some videos. I also have videos of me playing ball from the other night, but it takes 7 hours to load the videos, so I'll get that up sometime in the next month or so. Tomorrow, nothing big planned, gonna go surf in the morning. Wind is pretty crazy, so that may not happen.

On another note, my boy Keiichi, (of Miyazaki fame), after suffering a pretty serious injury is getting ready to fight on January 29th, after a long rehabilitation, (even though they spelt his name wrong...):

(courtesy of Stephen Loh)

I am comfortable in my assertion that he will do well in his fight.

Alright, more later.

Bored On Wednesday Night

2009-01-21T16:12:00.000-08:00

Nobu, jammin'.

Really?

2009-01-19T22:06:00.000-08:00

I was talking to my friend the other night over dinner, and she was like, "You look like someone...who am I thinking of?" She then said ジョンレンオ (sounded like John Lennon). It took me a while to figure out what she meant. Finally, I had time to look it up. This is who she meant...

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000606/

I'm not sad, but then again, I'm not happy either.

Why Didn't My Dad Do This?

2009-01-14T17:33:00.000-08:00

Browsing Letsrun.com like I do every day, (it's a habit from college), you don't really see things that make you laugh out loud. This actually did.

Snow Surf

2009-01-12T21:34:00.000-08:00

This weekend was pretty crazy. You can't see it from this picture, but it was craaaazy cold on Saturday, and it was snowing. Me and my friend, 中村先生 hit up Karatsu, about an hour's drive away, and this sick little spot for a couple of hours. It was my first 'for real' cold water surf, cuz the other ones had been a little unseasonably warm. There was nothing like that going on this time. We checked out a couple of spots (video below is of アトマ, which is short for 'automatic' cuz it's a machine break), before finally stopping here, 北浜 (Kitahama, North Beach).

It was crazy cold, and to be honest, the first ten minutes or so were pretty intense. The first duck dive, it literally hurt your skin to go into the water. Eventually though, adrenaline took over, and after watching 中村先生 get long ride after long ride, it wasn't about being cold anymore; it was about catching some of these waves. For maybe an hour and half, we had clean chest to head high lefts and rights all to ourselves. Probably an hour in, I noticed the snow. I can't even describe what that was like...it didn't seem cold, but there was snow everywhere. Every time I looked at 中村先生, his mouth was open, trying to catch snow. Something you can't really forget. Here's the video of us, after.

I Got It

2009-01-07T22:33:00.000-08:00

You know when there's a fast break, and the big guy on your team ends up with the ball and starts running it, you're like, come on dude, you're just gonna mess it up. Pau Gasol says get off my n---s.

How It Is That We Do

2009-01-07T21:54:00.000-08:00

Funny conversation with my brother's girlfriend on skype...

Christmas (kinda) in Germany: Family, Bratwursts, and Bad Jokes

2009-01-06T17:21:00.000-08:00

Arrival

Germany. I had always wanted to come back, to see what it was like as an adult. I had lived there twice before, when my parents were stationed there, when I was 2 and 10. I remembered the people being super nice, the landscape really beautiful, and the food insanely delicious. All three things were confirmed on this trip.

After all the crazy travel nonsense, I finally got settled in. My mom had really made an effort to mix in with the German community since being there, despite the language difference. Because the majority of Americans tend to stay to themselves and are generally indifferent to the population, and also because she's incredibly outgoing, the Germans fell in love with my mom and the family. So, when I finally got to my mom's house, there was a whole party there waiting for me.

Christmas Day was awesome, giving all my presents. Here's my stepdad, Josh, with his Japanese shoes I got him. The family across the way had just gotten Rock Band 2. We were addicted to it. Some pics.

Snowboarding and Cruising

From there, we headed down to Garmisch, a ridiculously beautiful town, for snowboarding and just cruising. Here is where Isabella really got into a groove. She's an only child, so sometimes she just says stuff, without really having a meaning to it. She is also only 5 years old, but she was crackin' me up. Here's one of the exchanges we had at our table in the hotel restaurant:

(Talking about Japanese and English words, what means what)

Isabella: You wanna know what pig is in English?

Me: What?

Isabella: Pig. (3 seconds pass) That's a joke.

(I laugh, she keeps it up, same joke, over and over again. 3 minutes later.)

Isabella: So, what is pig in English?

Me: Overkill.

Isabella: Mom, what's overkill?

Garmisch was a beautiful place though. We hooked up with another family that my parents knew, and walked around the city, checkin' a bunch of stuff out. Here's us walking around and doing stuff. (Isabella needed to be carried everywhere. Note my distaste in the last pic.)

And here's us tearing it up on the mountain. (And me thugging)

Stuttgart

My mom had some errands to run back at home after snowboarding, so she let the rest of us check out downtown Stuttgart, and we got some drinks afterward.

New Year's Eve

Once again, my mom had a billion people over for New Year's Eve. (I feel bad too, cuz they're are only a couple of pictures of her on here...She was taking all the pictures.) Here's some of the craziness that went down.

For some reason, there was a zip line outside of my parent's house. Every time they get drunk and ambitious, they run out and jump on it. We got drunk and ambitious. (From left: Mom, German friend Marian, German friend's daughter Melissa, Me before, and Me, after)

Here's some pics of us after taking schnapps shots. Isabella didn't take one, trust me. (Isabella, funny dude - forgot his name, Stephanie, 俺)

Food/Beer

What better way to end this. Brats,

Even after all the travel nonsense, things still turned out awesome.

Stupid Stuff

2009-01-05T22:01:00.000-08:00

Here's two little dumb stories that have happened to me in the last couple of days.

Hard cross in front of Grandma

I've been reading SLAM DUNK, and really getting into it. In the book, there is a part where 赤木 (Akagi) and his couterpart 魚住 (Uozumi) are going over how they really stressed fundamentals before they became really good players. Footwork, passing, dribbling, they drilled everything into the ground. This struck me particularly because I'm the type that normally either skips fundamentals entirely, or skims it briefly. This usually leads to me looking like I am good at something until someone who actually is good at it puts me in my place. I've been wanting to have my fundamentals down in everything, that's been my goal for a while, so have that in mind as I continue the story.

I had just gotten home from Germany and was coming home for lunch on my first day at school. My house is pretty close, but there are a lot of small little streets you have to take to get there. There's usually no one out, so with that in mind, I decided I wanted to channel my inner 赤木 and rock some dribble drills and look at my footwork. I start dribbling a ball that's not there, and

went ahead with it. Hesitations, cross-stop-crosses, fastbreak moves...I was doing it all, and doing it real deliberately too, to see where I could find the faults in my footwork and correct them. I was real sure to notice everything I was doing, but, one thing I didn't notice was the old Grandma at the end of the street watching the retarded dancing white boy advance up the street towards her. Our eyes met. I stopped mid-double cross, looked straight ahead, and walked right past her. I'll stop juking in public from now on after the look I received from her.

Wig as Weapon

After coming back to Japan, I had a lot of money to exchange, dollars and euros. So, I went to the bank to change it. They sat me at a booth and took a while to get all the papers together, and during that time another person was seated across from me and was told to wait as well. I looked up and was a little surprised by what I saw: a middle aged Japanese man with what looked like Alopecia wearing an amazingly ill-fitted wig. I reasoned it was Alopecia because the man had no eyebrows, no sideburns, and no hair flow going into the wig. It was just propped atop his head. It was something that your eyes were just magnetized to, whether you wanted them to be or not. That wasn't the weird part though. His customer service guy came back earlier than mine, and I wanted to watch to see how he would react to the wig. As he was sitting down, he didn't really look in the man's direction, and the man began to talk about his situation. The bank guy blinked, and was naturally going to look at what it was that had landed on his customers head, for maybe a milisecond, but in that milisecond, the wig man had caught him on the way up. Almost like getting caught looking at a girl's tits, it was like that, that kind of feeling. He had caught the guy red-handed, and was now going to punish him for it. He had the customer service guy right where he wanted him; he then proceeded to speak in an authoritative tone. It looked almost planned. Was this a way of establshing control? How long had he been doing this? The whole thing had me intrigued. From then on, I decided to be careful around men with ill-fitted wigs - they might be that way on purpose.

Traveling

2009-01-04T16:22:00.000-08:00

The other day, I had finally gotten back online to check some stuff after my Germany trip (more on that later), when I saw my boy Joel had had some trouble getting home this Christmas. Reading his stuff, I fully sympathized with his situation. This holiday season has been by far the most stressful traveling season I've ever dealt with. Here's the, at times embarrassing, details.

Leave Fukuoka for Tokyo on the 22nd to catch my flight on the morning of the 23rd. Catch a flight in the afternoon and arrive at Narita Airport Hotel at around 830 PM. They ask me for my passport. I spend a solid two seconds looking for it before that funny feeling that I had on the plane and train to Tokyo that I had forgotten something was terrifyingly realized. Immediately remember that the passport is on the table in Fukuoka. I go about finding out how to get a new one, get the number to the American Embassy, they say no can do. Best you can do is go back to Fukuoka, pick it up, and come back.
Change flight to Amsterdam, have to cancel the connecting flight to Germany, and go to sleep knowing that I have to go to Fukuoka in the morning.
Get on shuttle to airport, buy ticket to Fukuoka, go, get on the train to my house, get my passport, get back on train, buy another ticket to Tokyo, renew my hotel for one more night. Left at 8 in the morning, arrived back at hotel at 930 PM. Sleep.
Get up early to make absolutely sure that I catch my Christmas Eve flight to Amsterdam. Catch it. 11 hours, no sleep.
Get to Amsterdam, still not relieved though, gotta get that train ticket to Nuremburg. Get it, have one transfer. After I transfer, I'll be able to get all the way to Germany and the party that's waiting for me at my mom's house. My train is at 6:45 PM and I have a 15 minute cushion between trains.
First train delayed 15 minutes. As I'm pulling up, the train I was supposed to be on starts to pull out.
Run up to station master, explain the situation, she says only one way to Germany as that was the last train. Gives me piece of paper and tells me my train leaves in two minutes from Gate 8. I run, and make it.
Original train would have gotten me to Nuremburg at 1035 PM. New improved train schedule gets me to Frankfurt, 3 hours away from Nuremurg, at 133 AM. I have 5 transfers. No thoughts of sleep. At one of the transfers, a Dutch station officer sees the book I was reading, The World Is Flat by Thomas Friedman. He asks for my ticket in Dutch, I say I don't understand and he asks again, in hurried English. I give it to him, and as I'm walking away, he says, "Ann you know my fren, I tell you sumsing...the world is not flat." I smile and walk away.
Make all my transfers, and arrange with my stepfather to have me picked up from Frankfurt. Drive three hours to their house. He and his friend have already driven three down, and are driving three back up.

So, that's how it was. From that first 50poundweightinthestomach feeling, to finally, finally getting there. The time and money spent was...sickening, but it also felt good, in a way. It really made you think on your toes, think with a purpose. It sucked from a financial standpoint, but it was a challenge to say the least. I was happy though, because in the morning, I woke up to this.

Introducing, my little sister, Isabella Marie Lenzini. I have never said, "Hey, I don't play that" more to one person in my life. More on the actual trip later. On with the travel theme.

Spend a mean week and half in Germany and get on my plane in Stuttgart to Amsterdam, then make my plane from Amsterdam to Narita. So far, so good.
From Narita, catch train to Tokyo for my Shinkansen to Fukuoka. Train from Narita to Tokyo station takes an hour and a half. Luckily I had set up my train for later in the day. Happy with my foresight in that decision.
Get to Station, put ticket into machine, doesn't work. Doesn't seem to be working for anyone, I go to the manual line, the man takes my ticket and stamps it. I get on the train.
Putting my luggage on the rack, a man comes up and says that I am in his seat. I take out my ticket, and show him that Car 6, 14 C is actually my seat. He looks at the ticket and says, in that incredibly irritating Japanese tone that anyone who has lived here long enough can hear from a mile away, "三日？三日？！今日は四日ですよ。フォウア。" (The third? The third?! Today is the 4th dude.)
Stop and immediately realize that while my flight to Europe would have gotten me there on the same day, East to West travel gains you time, that West to East travel has you lose time. I was a whole day late with my Shinkansen ticket. I thought I arrived on the 3rd, but had actually arrived on the 4th.
Immediately take stock of my situation: I have a ticket for a train that left yesterday, but the man at the gate had already stamped it. I've at least got that stamp, which says that I am supposed to be on the train. Usually, after every stop on the Shinkansen, people walk up and down the aisles and check the tickets. Once they check you though, you're good. I ran through my options: 1.) find an open seat in the car, wait for the man to come through, hope he doesn't notice the wrong seat and date, and be good from there. Knowing Japanese thoroughness, this would not fly. 2.) Find a seat in the unreserved car, wait for the man, and explain my situation. This would have been ok, but also had the added danger of having to pay for my entire trip again. After all the money spent on wasted trips, I was not in the mood to spend another dime on wasted travel. 3.) Elude that man every time he comes down. This was especially difficult to do, as the dudes that walk up and down are especially curious. I also had a huge suitcase. There was also the added danger of the dude that was sitting in my seat and staring at me as I was hashing out my situation; he could blow the whole thing up at anytime. I decided to jump into the inbetweencars car, and thought it out.
I choose option 3. Forget paying money, and forget feeling bad about lying. I had had too much bad luck. My train leaves from Tokyo to Hakata, a 5 hour and 13 minute trip. First, I put my bag on the luggage rack on Car 6, when irritating (but correct) dude was not looking. Then, when the train man made his way down the aisles the first time, I was still in the inbetween car, on my phone, arguing in English. (My phone was dead.) He looked at me, stopped, and then walked past. First run, all good. I had like 12 more stops to go. There was no way I was getting out of it. I figure that the next time, he'll ask me for sure, on the phone or not.
Next stop. He comes down again, I take my phone out and pretend I'm listening. He walks right past. How long would my luck last? I was standing in the inbetween car of a reserved car the whole time, they would have to notice eventually. You're not supposed to stand there if you don't have a ticket. Knowing this, I made sure that the next stop would have me in the bathroom.
Goes right past, while I'm in the bathroom. Had some funny looks from other workers, but ignored and walked on. Only at stop 3, and I'm thinking there's no way I'm doing this the whole way.
I do it the whole way. Bathroom, phone, whatever I could, I was the (I think) only passenger on that train who did not have his ticket checked. Each stop brought new danger. I stayed in that little inbetween car the entire trip, huddled up into the corner, reading books and pretending to be on the phone. There was one time, when I, alone, was approached by two train dudes. I saw them in the mirror, asking each other whether they should talk to me. They decided against it, and moved on. Crisis averted.
Last stop. Get my bag when no one was looking and I was sure that the man had already come down for the tickets. Wait at the inbetween door. Even though I had made it all the way to Hakata, I still wasn't safe. I needed to show my ticket one last time. Knowing the ticket wouldn't go through the machines, I needed to time my exit perfectly with a man taking tickets. Get off the train and head for the ticket machines. Again, fortuitously, some people having trouble with tickets, go to the manual man. He begins taking tickets. I walk to him, hand him the ticket with confidence, he looks down at it. I walk past, ready to run if need. Get to the escalator, mix with the crowd, and exhale. I'd done it.

Ball in Japan: The G Suns, not the おじさんs

2008-12-18T16:56:00.000-08:00

When I first came to Japan, I really didn't ball for maybe 6 months, other than once or twice every two weeks with the kids. I was bigger than them, so I couldn't really hit the post as hard as I wanted to. Couple that with my unnoticed but almost unbelievable loss of shape, (undoubtedly due to the abundance of two things that I had never had enough of: money, and beer), and I was in trouble. There is no such thing as pickup ball in Japan. Let me repeat...there is No Such Thing. This was especially troubling for me, only ever having played pickup ball my whole life. I talked to the coach at my school, and he introduced me to a club team in my area. That club team turned out to be the G Suns, or Glowing Suns. Here are the founders:

(In the beginning, I'm like, 'This is the G Suns', but I say it wrong and it sounds like Ojisans, which means old men. My teammate is like, that's not what it is. I then ask how long have they been running the team, and they said over ten years.)

When I first started going to the G Suns' practices, I spoke Japanese, but in an effort not to sound dumb, I rarely spoke. It was pretty cool though, because for a while our main form of communication was ball. I've found that's how you make your friends. You can tell a lot about someone from the way they ball.

These guys are more relaxed than the other team I play with, the Hailars. All of them are really nice guys, although they are a little rough on me at times. They refuse to try and speak English. "お前のために日本語喋ってるやん、いい勉強になるやろう？" (For your ass we are speakin' Japanese, you better study!).

Overall, practice is the shit. Everyone watches every game, so if you pull something nice off, you get hooked up. At the same time though, if you do something dumb, you get the catcalls. It's a nice little atmosphere.

(Here's a dude I had trouble guarding when I got here, the dude who hits that J in the beginning of the clip. This dude's J is, can't even describe it. Cash, Milk, Money, Splash, Bottoms - all that. You can hear it too, it's just common sense that he's gonna score, no one cheers or anything. If he's open, it's a layup, from wherever. And he is real good at getting his shot off, from whatever position. I take pride in my ability to block J's, so I've spent a lot of time guarding him, and he's definitely helped my game. He's also the captain of that other team I go to.)

So, yups.

The Further Away You Are...

2008-12-16T17:47:00.000-08:00

...the easier it is to see the other side.

I've just finished doing my Christmas classes this semester, and it's been really interesting to see how much, or rather how little, the kids here know about Christmas. Obviously, in the western world, Christmas is huge. I won't even try to describe it. As a kid, along with everyone else, I would get ridiculously excited about Christmas, get the Christmas spirit, everything. That whole month of December would just be awesome. I think a big part of why that is is because Everyone is involved, Everyone thinks the same thing.

Everyone in the western world, that is.

It's been really interesting to see that there are things that get people riled up in the same way, but just have nothing to do with things that we care about. Conversely, the things that get us riled up have no effect on other people. No one in Japan, (can't say no one, some people do), really cares that Jesus Christ was born in December, it didn't affect them. No one in America really cares about the various Gods that the Japanese festivals are dedicated to. It has no effect on them. It's such a cool experience to see things from both sides. To look at Christmas from the Japanese perspective, as a whole. It seems so easy to write off as something that isn't important, fat white guy giving presents, Jesus birthday, how are those two things connected? Doesn't make sense. Oppositely, looking at Japanese holidays, big floats, chants, doesn't make sense. The thing that does make sense is that Everyone is involved, Everyone believes in the same thing. And that has been the most interesting thing to me. If you and Everyone believe in the same thing, it lights something in you. Community, faith, something...can't really explain it.

The depressing part is the level to which this feeling is taken to. When you try to explain Christmas to someone who hasn't experienced it or understands how it came about, it doesn't get through. When someone tries to explain どんたく to someone who hasn't experienced or understands how it came about, it doesn't get through.

I'm always tinkering with that phrase in my head, 'Those who stand for nothing, fall for anything'. That has been my problem. Belief is such a powerful force. People really into their own causes, own religions, I've always looked at them two different ways, at the same time: pity, that everything they believe is focused through one prism, one way of thinking, that a filter is placed on the very root of every idea they have; and envy, because they have the bravery to do so.

That's the big question I've been messing around with recently: What do you stand for? What is the thing you pour yourself into, that you can stand up and proclaim? I'm comfortable with the fact that I can see both sides, but not comfortable with the fact that I can't feel either.

Merry Happy Christmas.

Ball in Japan: The Golden Stars of Itoshima

2008-12-12T19:32:00.000-08:00

It's the end of the semester, so we have some half days before the real winter vacation. This is great for me, because I can hook up with the kids and play ball at work. Excellent situation. Anyways, I'm always talking about how good my kids are, so I wanted to give a first hand account of what a practice is like at our school.

When it came time to say how he was doing, he replied with, 'I'm fine, thank you'. Classic.

Almost every team in Japan has team managers. They do all the stuff that the team takes for granted. Taking stats from the games, making tea to drink after the games, cleaning the bird shit off the court. These guys are awesome.

Here's some of the drills the kids do. We have a lot of kids on our team, so it's pretty impressive that every one can stay in tune and not stray away from the team.

One of our girls got injured pretty seriously and won't be able to play for a couple of months. That doesn't stop her from coming to practice and getting her shots up though.

The architect of it all, the coach. His English has gotten really good, to the point where I can just speak to him regularly and he'll understand. He is also the one who introduced me to the teams I play for now. I owe a lot to him.

Here's the end of practice huddle.

It's like this every time I go. Talk about lucky.

Sorry for the Absence

2008-12-11T19:36:00.000-08:00

My fault. I've been half busy and half lazy, so I'll take half the blame. A lot of stuff has happened, don't know really where to start, but here we go.

Got sick.
Finished all of my classes for the year.
Got better.
...

That's about it. Haven't surfed at all, and haven't really played ball as much as I have been wanting to. Really trying to get all my stuff together for the trip to Germany, and tying up loose ends. Kinda hazy right now, Christmas spirit mixed with Christmas preparation leads to Christmas pressure/haze. So, I'll leave this at this. Here's some video from the other day.

Long Weekend

2008-12-07T17:07:00.000-08:00

Broke it down like this:

Friday: JET Nabe thing - was pretty fun, didn't really eat too much, but Lena got some really good video that I gotta get from her and put up...Straight MCing.
Saturday: Brand New Heavies at Billboard Live with friends, explored Daimyo a little, made some new friends.
Sunday: Didn't go surf in the morning (still angry at self), 忘年会 with EN friends and Lena.

Three straight nights of drinking have taken their toll on the throat.

Other than that, just looking forward to getting to Germany for the Christmas break. Haven't been there since I left when I was...11? 12? Gotta lot of stuff planned, can't wait to see those guys. Apparently, my Mom has been hyping me up to all of her friends over there, I'm gonna be the main attraction for a while. Hope I live up to the hype.

Here's some stuff I saw over the weekend, thought it was pretty funny.

"You are now my homeboy." The face at the end of the video is just great.

I used this one cuz it has the KG quote. Awesome.

Bored at Work: Awwww...

2008-12-02T17:08:00.000-08:00

I'm sure a lot of you saw this on the Yahoo front page the other day, but I gotta put it up here. I was, unexpectedly, affected by it. Started thinking about other videos that hit me like that, here are some of them.

Video speaks for itself.

I was bumbling around on Youtube and found this video...That is the best birthday wake up dance I've ever seen.

The flex at 1:39, I still do that when I get fouled and score on putbacks in the lane.

This one is just awesome. You can see the buffaloes kinda hesitate, but then one of them is just like, no way, this is not happening. Classic.

I watched it again as I was putting it on the blog, and STILL got goosebumps when he said it.

"It's one thing to talk about it, but it's another thing to go out there and do it." This guy is on another level.

I'll end it with that one.

Flow-etry

2008-12-01T16:05:00.000-08:00

I love this talk. It takes about twenty minutes, but if you got time, it'll make you think about what makes you 'flow'.

End of the Year Party: You so nassty

2008-11-30T18:51:00.000-08:00

Our school's end of the year party, (忘年会 - translated as the 'forget the year party'), was this past weekend, a little earlier than usual. Here is the basic set up of an end of the year party at my school:

Greetings, everyone real quiet and relaxed
Vice Principal and Principal give speeches, congratulating everyone on their hard work over the year
KANPAI!
Usually someone that's not really good at speaking in front of people begins to speak in front of everyone about the game that is to be played tonight and is roundly ignored by the people now hurriedly drinking their beers
Bingo (I won a box of Qtips this year)
Uncomfortably loud senseis become even more uncomfortably obnoxious, alcohol flows
When it becomes time to wrap it up, everyone stands up and...
BANZAI!

After the party ends, a lot of people go out to their own drinking places. I always get invited to hang out with the guys who live in my area. Can you imagine how hard it would be to not understand Japanese and be in this conversation?

I try to take notes at these after parties too, because you get the really good stuff here rather than in everyday life. Here's what I learned from my last one.

教授 (kyouju) - Professor
差しでお願いします (sashi de onegaishimasu) - Go head to head, face to face against someone
鬼の居ぬ間の選択 (oni no inuma no sentaku) - Finally being able to say something when the master of the house has left the room/house

I don't know how this came up, but as we were drinking and exchanged our knowledge of profanities, this is what happened. (Watch for language!)

Ride to the Station

2008-11-30T18:00:00.001-08:00

This past week, we had our annual ALT midyear seminar. It was cool to see people you don't really get to see, and how they interact with their supervisors and stuff. That morning, I, for no reason other than my own curiosity, decided to film the bike ride from my house to the station. Here it is, with dialogue.

Top of the World Syndrome: A Small Example

2008-11-27T21:38:00.000-08:00

I have this theory, and I've had it for a while: Top of the World Syndrome. It's basic principles are, once you have become content with your life, all the parts that make it up, and you are 'on top of the world', something happens which knocks you back into reality. In my life at least, there have been a number of times this has happened. The first time was a little jarring, but I've come to expect it, as it has happened so consistently. Today, I had another small episode with the syndrome.

I rode my bike to school today, in an excellent mood, and was greeted by the baseball team lined up outside the gate, saying 'おはよございます' to everyone that came through. Me, being in the excellent mood that I was in, and with the speed I had achieved from jamming to school (not from a downhill either, on a flat, that's how excellent my mood was), swooped in and gave 'em a 'HOOOOOOooooo Good Morning!!'. They answered back just as heartily. It was a good start.

I put my bike in the bike area and began to walk toward the entrance when I heard two kids call out a big hearty 'Good Mooowwwnnniinnnguu'! I turn around, and two of my boys from the baseball team who were cleaning up the bike area are smiling and waving. I'm feeling good now, so I look at them and, in a loud voice, go, 'WAAAAaaaazzzzaaaaapppp!?!? Goood Morning!!!', shakas all over the place, tongue out, just jamming. Now, in movies and stuff, you usually hear people say 'oof', but I always thought that if I were in a situation where I would need to say 'oof', I wouldn't. It doesn't seem natural. I found it today, that it is, indeed, natural.

Still shakaing and tongue out and looking at my boys, I continued my walk to the front entrance. I can't imagine their horror/excitement, because two steps in front of me was a parked car, right in my path, that isn't usually there. Without warning, I hit my knee on the bumper at a faster than normal speed because I was walking at a trotlike pace, turn just in time to get my elbows up in front of me to stop my face from knocking against the glass, and, still not sure what is happening, let out a 'OOOuuuFFFaaahhh' against this cars' back windshield, head slightly whiplashed. Still disoriented, I look at the car and immediately to the kids I had just said wassup to...and fuckin buuuuusted out laughing. Luckily, it was only the two boys, and not the entire team that saw it, but they t0o busted out laughing.

Top of the World Syndrome...gotta watch out.

Bored at Work: Natsu Matsuri (夏祭り)

2008-11-27T15:48:00.000-08:00

This summer, I was lucky enough to be invited to participate in our city's annual summer festival, or 夏祭り. It was the first time a foreigner had taken part in it, so it was a pretty cool atmosphere. Me smarting from the small piece of cloth wrenched between my butt, and everyone else wondering why the foreigner was making a funny face the whole time.

This is us, easing out of the cultural center parking lot. It wasn't so heavy at this time, but we hadn't started running yet. Once we got to the main street, the guys in front started chanting, something that sounded like this: yuuushhhhshooooiieeee yuuuusshhhhshooooiiiieeeee. I got into it to, and we started jamming.

It was a pretty heavy float, and the dude standing on it was jumping around and having a good time. I had a funky weight distribution situation, because I was tall but at the front, so I had to stoop a little and run with a slight bend in my back. All in all though, it was awesome. Just thought I'd share.

Life in a Different Country

2008-11-23T19:45:00.000-08:00

I got this from FreeDarko, some French television program following Nicholas Batum through his pre-draft workouts. I can't tell you how many times this happened to me when I got to Japan. It's long, so watch from about the 3:02 mark.

Windburn

2008-11-23T19:27:00.000-08:00

The first cold water session ended up not being too bad. It was really windy, and kinda all over the place, but it was fun. Wasn't too cold either. I had just gotten my new wetsuit in, and let Keoki use it. As you can see, Keoki didn't exactly fit real nicely.

山口 was jamming as well, using his new 6'6 shortboard he had bought. Here's his pose to show how excited he was. (He actually stole this from a Japanese comedy duo, はんにゃ, I'll throw the video down underneath).

(Quick explanation: It's cleaning time at school. Neither of them want to clean so they decide to play a game, loser does it all by himself. Dude on the right suggests a game, and it goes from there. You should get it from there.)

After surf, jamming. It was pretty fun, but the next day, I had a weird feeling on my face. Keoki told me later on that it was windburn, something I had never had before. Freaky.

The Goal

2008-11-20T17:28:00.000-08:00

I remember right around when I first started surfing, going all the time with Bryce to Barbers, I met this dude, well didn't actually meet him, I observed him. Me and Bryce used to always see this dude, on like a 9'6 or something like that, just ripping, like he was on a shortboard, busting floaters and cutbacks and whatever. We were just in awe of this dude, so we went up to him and asked him how he was doing it. He showed us how he was using just super small fins, only two of them, so he could get wherever he wanted to on the wave. Real nice dude too, super local but super friendly. Anyways, we start seeing this guy out all the time. Then one day, there was a big south swell, and a lot of people came out to Barbers. On that day, I observed the dude I was talking about earlier, who happened to be that longboard ripper's friend. I saw him and the longboard dude talking when I paddled out, and gave him the shaka. I then proceeded to watch the smoothest surfer I had ever seen. His friend was so mean. He surfed exactly like I wanted to surf. Nothing real fancy, just all about riding. From then on, I've tried to surf like that dude. He surfed a lot like this, Nat Young from Morning of the Earth.

The reason I bring it up is because 山口 and 徳永 are always like, why don't you do maneuvers? While there is one very good reason - I usually just can't - I always tell them I just want to ride, which doesn't really translate into Japanese.

So, today, me and Keoki are gonna head out. It's the first real cold water surf experience for both of us, so we'll see how it goes. The air is like 45 degrees, but the water is closer to 65. I'll try and take pictures if I can. With that.

Snow...

2008-11-18T17:09:00.000-08:00

for 5 minutes at least. It was sleet really, but was still surprising.

2008-11-16T15:55:00.000-08:00

Recharge

A pretty relaxed weekend. Went out with my sensei, Lena and Lauren on Friday, recovered on Saturday, and had a nice surf session with the newly recovered 山口 yesterday. The biggest thing I did this weekend though, was clean. I remember one of the guys on my basketball team, an elementary school PE teacher, telling me what he tells his kids when their stuff is dirty at school - 'If your area is dirty, then your soul (心) is dirty.' While that may be intended for elementary school students, it does apply to me as well. When you are a dirty dude like me, cleaning is hard to do, much less for nothing in particular. (I clean when girls come over...usually). But after having cleaned up this weekend, I feel a lot better, motivated.

So, from Friday, I had a pretty humbling episode. I spend a lot of time with Lena and 中田先生, but never at the same time. So, when we got together on Friday, the Clint bashing got a little out of control.

Bored at Work: In Public?

2008-11-13T22:42:00.000-08:00

I have never eaten a booger. The idea is just beyond sick and I can't even imagine doing it. These guys, though, apparently, have no problem with it. I love how they try to hide it too.

See, this one could kinda go either way, could've just been a slip.

This though...I knew a dude when I was in elementary, he would peel off his scabs and eat them. Was Kevin Durant like that too? His classmates must be like, 'Oh, that nasty kid from school is doing well now. Feel bad for his teammates though.'

In the middle of the game, god damn...

Totally unacceptable. No mistake here.

Did someone say something to him? What do you do when your congressman eats his boogers? You HAVE to change your vote, don't you?

At that.

Ball in Japan: We Talkin' Bout Practice!

2008-11-12T05:42:00.000-08:00

Practice. These are the guys I practice with every Wednesday night, the Hailars. They are pretty good, but my video of the game is pretty choppy. These are also the guys I talked about here. There wasn't too much of that nonsense tonight, but there was some questionable calls. I guess I'm just getting used to it.

This is the coach's wife. I asked her to do an interview but she wasn't having it.

You thought I was lying about the free throws. And Kenji knocks down a J afterwards.

The boys, after practice.

Rasheed Is a Toaster

2008-11-11T20:01:00.000-08:00

I got these from Slate Magazine via Truehoop. Frickin' funny.

First, Gilbert:

Now, Sheed:

I don't know how to resize the pictures correctly, if you click on them, there is more to them.

Pocky Day

2008-11-10T17:17:00.000-08:00

Today is November the 11th, 11/11. My co-worker, 中田先生, was amazed that I didn't know today was 'poekey' day. I asked her to say it again, and she said it the exact same way - 'poekey'. I wasn't sure, but I thought maybe she was talking about poke, but to go so far as naming a day after it, I wasn't sure. I showed her the page and she laughed and told me that it wasn't poke, but Pocky, just with a Japanese accent. They look like 1's, and today there are a lot of 1's, so...we started talking about Hawaiian food. She started taking notes. Here's her page after we finished talking.

Hilarious.

Local Boy

2008-11-09T18:29:00.000-08:00

Here's a pretty cool article from the advertiser about where Barack used to live in Hawaii. It's pretty cool to think the area that I think I know pretty well, he probably (definitely) knows better. The President!? What a crazy time to be an American.

Weekend Surf: Golden Balls, Good Waves

2008-11-09T15:29:00.000-08:00

So, all last week, 山口 was telling me that there was supposed to be waves on the weekend, so I made sure I had nothing to do so I could surf for as long as possible. Seriously, when you want waves and there aren't any, you have to take advantage of when there are waves. So, schedule cleared, me and 山口 hit it on Saturday morning. After a long session of not very good waves, we went home. 山口 and 徳永 were gonna hit it again for an afternoon session, but I passed. I wanted to save my energy for the next day. It was a good thing I did, too, because...

Someone had an accident. The waves were pretty decent size, overhead and breaking in pretty shallow water. Apparently, 山口, on his 7'4, was trying to catch an inside set, and got thrown. The board went out first, hit the ground, and stood straight up. 山口 came right after, and got hit right in the 金玉. He was hurt by it, but he thought he had just knocked himself, and he had a wetsuit on, so there didn't seem to be a problem. He surfed for another hour, until the pain overwhelmed him and he went in. That's when he found that...his 金玉 had been...split. He's fine now, but...DAMN, just thinking about it give me the shivers.

The next day, minus 山口 and plus Keoki and 徳永, we went out and got a bunch of decent waves. Was a nice day, a little windy, but fun. Keoki caught me pigdogging a couple of times, which was embarrassing, but other than that, it was an excellent time.

That's it for now.

Nagoya: Part 2

2008-11-05T15:53:00.000-08:00

The Nagoya crew.

Man, this was a crazy time. The pictures pretty much tell the whole story. Let's get into it.

Here's our raft, startin' out.

Check out this sequence:

These are scary man. A lot more powerful than you think.

At the end of the run, there was a nice cliff that you could jump off. We took the opportunity to do so.

AIt looks like a dive now, but it was a front flip.

Michelle with a more traditional approach.

Roy, spread out backflip.

Nick, with the sick form.

And that was it. We got some beers and hit an onsen once we got back. Awesome time. There were definitely some characters up in Nagoya to be sure, but it was a good listening to some of the stories. Here's a good example of one (don't kill me, Michelle), at a restaurant:

"Oh, did you order a cake? One time, me and my friends? We went to the store? And we bought a big cheesecake! And then? We ate it!"

Who I Want To Be When I Grow Up

2008-11-03T19:59:00.000-08:00

(1:42) "Got me smilin', I don't smile; Got me changin' my expression, I don't express."

Big Karatsu Sunday

2008-11-03T15:50:00.001-08:00

Morning

After the big Halloween night, I took a day off to recover from my wounds, because that following Sunday, me and a couple of friends, (山口, 徳永, and introducing 中村先生 - Nakamura Sensei), were headed off to Karatsu to look at some reefbreaks that 中村先生 had recommended. 中村先生 is the prototypical local Japanese surfer. Karatsu is about an hour away from our city, so on the ride down he told me a lot about what he had done as a surfer. Kyushuu is not a place that is surfed heavily...wait, let me rephrase that. It IS surfed heavily, but only at the same spots. Because of that, there are some really pristine spots that no one goes to, but you have to really work to find them. 中村先生 put in the work, driving by himself up and down the coast looking (and waiting) for waves to come through, how different swells affect different spots, all that kind of stuff. Here's a spot he showed us where you had to jump off a cliff to get to it.

There wasn't any waves, but the trip wasn't a total loss. He showed us some pretty ridiculous places, where you could just tell it would go off if waves came through. Here's another place, タテガミ (Tategami), which is the most famous break in Karatsu.

There was nothing to be had in Karatsu, so we went back to Maebaru. Me and 山口 weren't finished and decided to get in a quick session, hoping some waves would come up. They didn't.

Go home, shower, sleep and then...

Evening

Me and Lena headed back to Karatsu to check out the 唐津くんち, so I'll just let the pictures and video tell the story.

Me, lost.

Dude riding looks tired.

Japanese Wario.

It was kinda scary.

Yeeeeaaaahhh.

Lena catching me in a dumb moment.

Halloween: Hairnet Afros, Maids, and Olympic Gold Medalists

2008-11-01T07:35:00.000-07:00

I was happy to get out of those pants.

Halloween, I have come to find, is not incredibly popular in Japan. Which is why, walking around the city dressed as a Studio 54 dancer, I attracted a lot of attention. Me and Lena got out of Maebaru to hook up with some friends and cruised around for a bit, all the while being ogled by the population at large. It was a fun night. Here's some of the crew:

Maids: Kira, Nancy, Megan, Lena, and Lauren
Pimp Ass Baller: Me

From right: Aya (puppy...those gloves were handmade), Mari (don't know), Alex (evil priest), Me (smooth muhfugga), and Lena (vampire/ho...she couldn't decide)

We got a couple of drinks at a bar, some more in a park, then ran to the club. It wasn't as packed as I was hoping it was gonna be, but there were some pretty interesting characters there (dancing monkey - dude was knocking into everyone, wannabe professional surfer - he said he was from a place that I have heard from my friends out here has no waves, and he tells me it has consistent triple overhead days...shieeet, super nervous japanese girl - wanted to show me a picture on her phone, but I couldn't see it because of the jitters...English is scary) . I had some pictures, but my phone is broken right now, so I can't get em up. But, the most interesting character I had yet to meet. Some dude came up to our table to try and hit on one of the maids, failed, and so I struck up a conversation. He said he was from Ethiopia, so I asked him if he ran. He said no, but his friend does. I didn't really think anything of it, until he told me his name...Samuel Wanjiru, yes, THAT Samuel Wanjiru. His friend had said he was here, but had left. Just to have been in the same club as the dude would have been enough for me, but when his friend asked if I wanted to meet him, I was beyond shocked. We go looking for his other friend, a short Kenyan guy, I didn't get his name, but he took us straight to Samuel, who had returned. He was talking to two pretty cute Japanese girls, so I felt pretty messed up just being introduced to him so suddenly, but he immediately made time to talk with me. It was crazy, me being from America, him from Kenya, talking in Japanese. He, by the way, is ridiculously nice, and his Japanese is fluent. I told him I was rooting for him in Beijing, when he ran one of the gutsiest races any one had ever seen, and that it was an honor to meet him. I thought that would be it, and I went to shake his hand and leave him alone, when he started ruffling through his pockets. Before I knew it, he said to me, "また遊ぼうよ" (Let's hang out again), and had his phone out to give me his number. I was...can't really even describe it. After I got his number, I suddenly realized that I needed photographic evidence of this, because no one would ever believe me. So, I got my friend Megan to take these shots.

I wasn't sure if the picture had been taken yet.

I totally forgot I was wearing the afro, and I look like a retard now with that lollipop in my mouth, but still, an awesome picture.

Still can't really believe it. I told him he should come surfing with me sometime, and he said he would love to try...and I really believe that he would. So, if that ever comes to fruition, add me to the incredibly short list of people who have had a surf session with an Olympic Gold Medalist. We'll see what happens...

Bored at Work: Photo Booth Fun

2008-10-29T20:53:00.001-07:00

1. Turn around for a second, and this is what happens.
2. ひげそった方がいい.
3. The New Imholtes.
4. SHOCKED!
5. One of my basketball boys, ready to jam.
6. Crooked smile.
7. Nobu, chillin'.

Is John Tesh for real?

2008-10-27T23:53:00.000-07:00

It really seems like he is. It almost doesn't seem real, but I guess there are actually people like this. Check out the dueling violin/guitar solo at the 2:40 mark.

I'm on a Japanese Radio...Part 2 + Morning Session Gone Awry

2008-10-27T23:09:00.000-07:00

It looks nice, but...

It was as big as a thimble. It would tease like it might break, then wait all the the way til the rocks, where you see the white water. We waited maybe 10 minutes for a set to roll through, and it never did. It's always good to get up early, even for a shitty cold surf, but we couldn't even pull that.

Ok, so, here's the audio for my radio appearance. Basically, the guy goes around and checks out the cafeterias of school. Here's the parts with me in it, and the situations:

(1:00) Introductions
(2:00 - 2:42) He asks my name, I tell him. He asks how old I am, I tell him. He asks if I know what イケメン is, I say yes.
(3:08 - 3:31) He asks what I like on the menu, I say katsu curry.
(6:32 - 7:00) We thank everyone for coming, do a cheer.
(9:00 - 9:42) They talk about how cool I am.

That was basically it. Pretty cool how professional it came out.

Ball in Japan: Random Funny Basketball Pics, and Championship Afterparties

2008-10-26T17:50:00.000-07:00

It feels good to win. My team, the G Suns, got our first C-class championship for the past...I think 5 years yesterday. We had a pretty good couple of games (excluding my shooting foul on the dude taking a 3 with a minute left and us up 5), and we've got a bunch of pics to prove it. (I told the guy who takes the pics I wanted ALL of them...and he came through, in spades).

I would make fun of myself if I wasn't me.

Don't act...this one is actually pretty smooth.

No look. This is my captain and point guard, 竜二, (Ryuuji).

大輔 (Daisuke) pullin' his best Kyle Korver impression.

Yeeeheeee!

This was a smooth pass.

I got it.

信吾 (Shingo) gettin' rocked.

No and 1 here.

Over the head...if you don't believe, look at the eyes.

There are a lot more pics, if you go on facebook I have a bunch of them up. But yeah, it was a good time. So, move on to later that night, at the afterparty.

The 'chip. Why it's next to the Minnie Mouse ears I don't know.

Rockin' Kimchee Nabe and watchin' the game.

Well, some of us were at least.

Glorious victorious.

Actually, there was cause for celebration this night. 信吾 and his girlfriend (the guy in the black jacket sitting under me and the girl on his right), announced they were getting married and their baby is due in February! He doesn't look too happy about it right here, but it was definitely a good time.

Until next time.

The Donut Incident

2008-10-23T21:48:00.000-07:00

A snapshot of the interoffice goings-on I deal with everyday.

Today, my JTE (Japanese Teacher of English - basically the person I work with everyday), 中田先生 (Nakata Sensei) was acting a little funny. During second period, out of nowhere, she's like, 'Do you want a donut? I'm going to buy a donut. You wanna come?'. I was a little surprised by the suddenness of the question, but said yeah, I want a donut, but I don't want to go all the way to the store to get one. Get me a donut with cream in it...

First, let me explain. There were three things I was concered about when thinking about the donut I was (or wasn't) about to get:

The donut store is pretty far from school, it would probably take 15 minutes by bike to get there.
The bikes are right in front of the school's front office, meaning if you were to try and leave campus, everyone in that office would be looking straight at you.
If she were able to obtain the donuts, what would be her explanation for holding a big donut box as she walked through the hallways at 930 in the morning?

Come back from class, and this is sitting on my desk.

Those are staples at the top.

Apparently, 中田先生 was able to get out and return undetected, and before she had left, had prepared paper and stapler to solve the 'walkingthroughthehallwaywithadonutbox' problem. Smiling, I opened the package...

Do you wanna be good, or Good?

2008-10-22T22:28:00.000-07:00

Last night, I had practice with my area team. I'm on two area club teams, and for a while, because I had gotten fat, I only ran with one of them, the G Suns. These are the older, more relaxed, everyone gets a shot guys. I like playing with them obviously, but they lack the competitive edge that I like to play with sometimes. Little by little, I've been returning to my pre-getfat skills, and with that return, I have started to play more and more with my other team, the Hailars. (Don't ask me what it means, the captain doesn't even know). These guys can ball. They play hard, and are pretty competitive and are on the cusp of making the all-Japan national amateur tournament every year. They are also unbelievably faggy with their calls. If they ever miss a shot, it was a foul. The games usually shake down like this:

Two teams, Hailar members against others (I'm usually on the others team)
Game starts
People feel each other out, get loose
Time running out, still a close game
Things get physical
'いてっ', or 'itte', which means 'Ouch, that was a foul' in Japan.
Free Throws (!?!?) ensue

Don't get me wrong, when a foul happens, I call it, if it is really easy to see. I am a little like this guy, though, in that I like to let it go (without groaning), for the sake of the flow of the game. For these guys, that has nothing to do with it, it's all about using every single possible avenue to win the game. These guys call travels on the other team with the utmost authority, three second calls happen 5 times a game, and if a guy catches a ball with the possibility of being saved, they start walking down court cuz they know it's out already.

Last night, I couldn't stand it. I didn't call anything for myself, but fouled the shit out of them every time I had to take a foul. If they are going to call a foul, it may as well be a foul. Which leads me to the question: Would you rather be good: win games at all costs, make every call, irritate your opponents into losing; or be Good: play your game, for better or worse, give and take calls as they come, try to beat the guys who are good by being Good, even with all the calls that come against you?

I, most definitely, without question, would rather be Good.

I'm on a Japanese Radio...

2008-10-21T16:46:00.000-07:00

* if no one gets the title, check this

The other day at our morning meeting, the principal told us that a local radio station was coming by to survey our students and maybe some teachers at lunch. I didn't think too much about it, but it did seem like fun, so I made a point to eat early so I could check them out lunch. It turns out that they had wanted to talk specifically to me, and while I was away eating, everyone on campus was looking for me. Crazy stuff. So, heres the link. Once I get audio I will put that up too.

http://www.kbc.co.jp/radio/blog/vero2/2008/10/post-381.html

Here's what it says:

On the right, a guy who loves to eat, 34 year old Yasunori san
On the left, from Oahu, Hawaii, 24 year old Clinton sensei

Him and Honey (host in back) are the same age, but even as I look at this photo...I can't see it.

Clinton sensei was reeeaaallly into a book (which seriously you all should read, it kills), and
because he was concentrating so hard on it, he was late to our meeting.

Pretty cool stuff. When (if) I get the Nagoya pictures I will put them up real quick. That's it for now.

My Boy

2008-10-15T23:10:00.000-07:00

He's been all in my business recently, but it doesn't bother me. Waking up to a wet nose in my face has become commonplace, and I've learned not to read anything when he's in the room, because he will immediately place himself in between my line of vision and whatever it was that I was reading. I also, unfortunately, learned another lesson: after checking his litter box for the third straight day and finding no pee, I began to wonder if there was something wrong with him. As I was beginning to make plans to take him to the vet, a flash. The room with all of his stuff also happens to be the laundry room. Cats usually dig for something when they have to pee right? After careful inspection...I came to find out that he was using my laundry pile. Now, I know though.

This is So Smooth

2008-10-15T17:43:00.000-07:00

This makes me happy. The Hinrich one is just ridiculous.

Nagoya: Part 1

2008-10-13T20:57:00.000-07:00

I'm back from Nagoya, and what a trip it was. Right now, the only aftereffects I have are the itchy legs from the stealth mosquitoes by the river, and the residual frog in the throat that comes from drinking more alcohol than water throughout a day and sleeping (thanks Nick). I'm still waiting for some of the pics, so I'll divide this into part 1 and part 2.

Arrival

Nick Riley, flossin'.

Nagoya for the most part was a much nicer city than I had been led to believe. My friend, 山口さん, told me that most girls in Nagoya were 'ぶさいく', and this had been seconded by another friend, who told me the women there were very...'stylish'. That turned out to not be the case, Nagoya just gets a bad rap in the Japanese community it seems.

My camera sucks.

We met up with some other JETs in the area and had some beers. They were mostly newbies on the program, so it was a decent time. Drank a couple of beers, and then Roy, the guy in red, wanted to go for a skate.

The red blur is Roy.

We had some more beers, and got on the train back home, where this dude was leaning all over the door. I wanted to get video, but couldn't. We were getting up early for the next day to go white water rafting(!), so, I'll throw that part on as Part 2. Stay tuned.

Dude was tired.

I'm OUT!

2008-10-09T23:04:00.000-07:00

Here's what I'm listening to as I get ready to bust out of here...not exactly getupandgo music, but it is definitely smooth.

Jose Gonzalez - Hand On Your Heart

Nothin' Much

2008-10-08T21:52:00.000-07:00

Me and Lena went exploring in Maebaru yesterday and I took this.

I'm heading off to Nagoya for the long weekend to hook up with Mr. Nicholas Riley and his lady, Michelle. All day my teachers have been telling me to eat the delicacy there, 味噌煮込みうどん, which apparently, from a friend of mine, is known as 'Japanese Soul Food'. Kinda skeptical, but I'm willing to try it. I'm sure Nick is getting ready to throw down, so I'm drinking lots of water to try and prepare the body for the massive amount of alcohol that is going to be consumed. (Not sure if it's a valid strategy or not...and I've been thirsty recently anyways).

This week has been a pretty good one. My kids have tests tomorrow and half of next week, which means I'm pretty much free until next Thursday. It's hard to study Japanese only for Japanese, so I've been reading two Japanese books, well one book, and one manga. It's pretty cool.

This manga is hilarious. You can tell the author actually played ball before. AND(!), how is this...

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar makes an appearance!

And, for a challenge, I'm reading this...Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone!

Here's what a page looks like...luckily, if I don't know a kanji, the hiragana is on the side so I can look it up.

I've learned some pretty cool words too, through this book. For example:

嗜める (tashinameru) - to reprove, to chide
急降下 (kyuukouka) - nosedive
魔法 (mahou) - magic, sorcery

So, I'll try and get some pictures up from Nagoya after the weekend. One more day!

The Broken Window Theory, Reversed

2008-10-06T18:31:00.000-07:00

(This post may take some of your time.)

A couple of years ago, I read Malcolm Gladwell's book, 'The Tipping Point', and was really struck by one idea, because it made so much sense to me, The Broken Window Theory. Basically, the idea is that if no else gives a shit, then why should I? One small disorder invites more and more disorder. If no one else thinks its important enough to fix that window, to give value to where I live and who I am, then why should I think anything of myself? It's a real easy concept to grasp, but a real powerful one too, I think.

The reason I bring it up, is because, after living a while in Japan, I have noticed that if there is a 'broken window' here, it is more often than not 'fixed'. Quickly. That part of Japanese culture really touched me when I came here, how much thought people put into things. Every day, for most of my students, there is a bento waiting on the table for them before they go to school. There's a man at my train station whose job is to keep everything clean...full time janitor. If someone says they're coming to pick you up at 730, they will pull around that corner at 730. It's just a part of the culture. But, again, there is a flip side to it. To a point, this type of attention to detail is good. But, when you have to call two weeks in advance to see if your friend wants to hang out, it gets to be a little much. It is unheard of to call someone on a Saturday night and ask them to go for a drink. Never happens. People spend inordinate amounts of time cleaning streets, bathrooms, parks. Committes are formed, neighborhood watches organized. What this inevitably leads to is a type of mass OCD, everyone incredibly (read: irritatingly) involved in every aspect of every one else's life. Everyone cares though, so it can't be a bad thing right?

Well, for me, sometimes, it is. Living by myself for most of the past six years, I've become decently (read: barely) self-reliant. And I think that this, at times, suffocating attention to detail is what drives so many Japanese to want to leave. Of course, they think, things are good at home, everything's in order, but damn, give me some space.

The person who lives in the city with the broken windows realizes that if he doesn't care about himself, no one will. He steels his will and becomes self-motivated, but also a little too hardened. The person who lives in the immaculate city realizes he doesn't need to worry, things are taken care of, he can relax in the knowledge that other people are there to help. In doing so, he unknowingly forfeits the chance to be able to do it by yourself, to become a self-reliant individual.

That's where I'm at now. How much attention to pay, how much to let slide. How much to pick up one person, and how much to let another person do his own thing.

Here is a video of Bill Strickland speaking at a TED conference a couple of years ago that indirectly relates to what I was talking about earlier. My favorite quote from it is this:

I think that welfare mothers, at risk kids, and ex-steel workers deserve a fountain in their life...It sets an attitude and an expectation about how you feel about people before you ever give them a speech.

Don't Stop Believing

2008-10-04T23:30:00.000-07:00

This is just awesome.

They like it Fresh to DEF!

2008-10-02T19:16:00.001-07:00

This has happened more than a couple of times, but it still creeps me out a little. Seeing something's murder played out in front of you, albeit delicious murder, is always a little crazy.

At a dinner for Japan-Hawaii Relations a couple of months back.

Eating out with my sensei and his son after we hit the onsen.

Introducing Lena, the girl who lives on the first floor. We went out to a spot pretty close to our house and saw this.

気持ち悪い。

He Actually is for real.

2008-10-01T07:32:00.000-07:00

After I showed mad people the 'cross' video, and after watching it a hundred times and laughing to myself, I decided to look a little deeper. I found a couple more videos, which are pretty good, but don't have the same shock value as the first. Still hilarious though.

'Triple combo. Be tricky, be explosive with it. Old school cross.'

He also has a pretty professional looking site. I'll be honest, this dude can probably ball. He played D1 at Austin Peay, so he can't suck. But...God DAMN, what a character. On the site it says he has trained NBA players. So, the next time we see the 'stepoutcrossboom' in a game, we know who to thank.

"Going for Broke"

2008-10-01T06:25:00.000-07:00

The other day I decided to do a cultural lesson and get away from English a little bit. English is fun and all, but our job is supposed to be a little more dynamic than just explaining the difference between 'light' and 'right'. (Or 'correct' and 'collect'...I did both of those today). So, I decided to do a Hawaii lesson, on Japanese Americans living in Hawaii. Throw in some pidgin stuff, kids get a laugh out of it, and we're good. So, I got caught up doing some research. One thing led to another, look up notable figures, and I come across this line:

One all-Nisei unit, the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, went on to become the most decorated unit of its size in U.S. history, having received more than 18,000 individual decorations, including 52 Distinguished Service Crosses and one Congressional Medal of Honor.

Tell me that's not impressive. So, I start looking stuff up. Of course, I knew about Senator Inouye...everyone does. And I had heard about a badass all-Japanese battalion before. But I think the more important stuff though, is deeper. These guys...man, these guys were insane. What's even more insane is that more people don't know about them. I went through some of the names on the list, and how they received their Medal of Honors...I was getting goosebumps. Considering the environment in which they were in, (they weren't even allowed to join the military until 1943 because of anti-Japanese sentiment), it's just amazing how much these guys accomplished. (You can watch the whole thing, but the first part is the one about the 442nd).

"You fought not only the enemy, but you fought prejudice, and you've won."

So, that's what I was doing all day. I'm not sure if I'll use it in class, the war is still a touchy subject. But it was good to get lost in history for a little bit, thought I'd share it. And, I lied. That's not what I did all day...

StepSealCrossPushAndGo

2008-09-28T22:59:00.000-07:00

I would love to ball with this guy. I'm not sure if this guy is for real or not, but he does have a lot of videos up. If you are lazy, just watch from about the 1:10 mark. Unbelievable.

Fat Weekend

2008-09-28T16:25:00.000-07:00

I had a pretty good couple of days off this weekend. Cruised with some really cool Japanese friends on Friday night, catch last train and get home around 130, sleep, get up at 430 and go surf. It was me, Keoki, and 山口さん, and while the waves had good size, you would get pulled like crazy, like 1 kilometer down the beach crazy. We got sick of the paddling and went to another, mellower spot, where Keoki proceeded to own. I don't have pictures of it, only this, of the lunch we had after it.

That night, I hung out with my friend Eriko, and her visiting friend, 吉田君 who was entering into the area surf contest the next day. So, we went. Was a pretty mean setup, but the waves weren't really cooperating, or I should say the wind wasn't. 吉田君 got shafted in the first round, so we didn't get a chance to see him do his thing. (One of my students actually made it to the semifinals, but he couldn't get loose in his heat, and I couldn't get a picture with him cuz he was pissed off). Here's some pics from the contest.

The break. Windy and blown out, but everyone tried their hardest.

吉田君. He didn't want his picture taken, he said, because it would be too embarrassing.

At a nice cafe after, Cadillac Ranch, where there are a couple of dogs that hang out with you while you eat. This guy took a nap under our table.

Going for a walk.

Also, this weekend was Nick's Birthday. He apparently had a pretty sick weekend as well, hitting the game winner in the championship game of the annual Stubbs Tournament. I'm happy for him, but probably would've been angry at him for not passing the ball in the clutch to someone who knows what to do with it...haha nah nah nah. I found this video, reminds me a lot of what it was like growing up with Nick. Happy Birthday.

Bored at Work: Slip-ups

2008-09-24T20:11:00.000-07:00

I've finished my classes for the day, and the planning for next week, so, again, I explored Youtube when I should have been studying Japanese. 暇人だよね. In class, I couldn't get a couple of words out, and said something I probably didn't mean. For example, today, I had a student whose name was 野崎(Nozaki), but I misread her handwriting, and in front of the class, said 覗き(Nozoki), which, unfortunately means 'peeping tom'. I thought it was hilarious, but the girls in the class didn't really. Here's some other unintentional comedy stuff I found on Youtube.

I like the reaction.

Again, check out Lavin.

Classic.

Surf, for me, recently...

2008-09-24T17:43:00.000-07:00

has been a lot like this.

It is good to get back into the water though. One main difference between Hawaii and Japan, is that I can be as kooky as I want on a wave, and not be called a 'honky' after. Yesterday, me, 山口さん、徳永さん、and this kid from Genyo High School had Keya pretty much all to ourselves for an hour or so. 30 minutes of that hour happened to be after dark, but waves are waves. This weekend it is supposed to come up again, so I will try and take pictures if it does. We'll see.

Bored at Work: Random Pictures

2008-09-23T20:06:00.001-07:00

Testing out the panorama option on my phone camera.

A dude, just knocked out on the train.

Showin' off my hops to Keiichi.

In what way?

Introducing 信長Imholte. Or, Nobu.

Jellyfish Stings

2008-09-23T19:35:00.000-07:00

These muhfuggas have been owning me recently. Last month, there was a nice swell right after お盆, and I was out there for all of it. Unfortunately, no one told me that the week after お盆 was a time for the spirits to return from the ocean, as poisonous jellyfish. These happened like a week after each other. I hadn't been stung that badly before, but man, these things straight ITTTCCH. Like all day, all night, wakeupandcantgobacktosleep itch.

WU-TANG! WU-TANG!

Nastiness at work.

Ball in Japan: 県民大会 and Drunken Huddles

2008-09-21T20:36:00.000-07:00

県民大会

Every year in Japan, individual prefectures hold tournaments to see who the best team in the prefecture is. This year, I was lucky enough to be selected for my area's team. I've only recently been able to run like I used to, so the timing of the this tournament was excellent. I had a pretty good game, but we lost, in overtime. The first three quarters for me were good, but I choked hard in the 4th. One charging call, missed layup, and two missed free throws. That is six points. We lost by six. It's not all my fault though. I cannot tell you how many times I said this sentence, in Japanese:

Guard the three! Guard the THREE! Don't just let him shoooot! (スリーチェック!)

I know all the pics are of me. I wanted all of the pics, but apparently our photographer guy misheard me and just sent me the ones with me in them. Whatever. I also got a nice parting gift...in the 4th quarter, going for a rebound, I caught a nice elbow in the eye. After two days, it looks like this.

打ち上げ

The best part of tournament days, though, is the afterparty. Everyone got together and we just got lit. Here's the pics. Most are pretty blurry, so bear with me.

The guy in the yellow shirt is the team captain, りゅうじ. He's talking to かじわら about rebounding, I think.

Random shots.

I like this one. That's 岡崎さん with one of the girl's team members. She was crying, I think, because some of the younger girls on the team wouldn't listen to her when she was giving directions. They lost too. I thought it was awesome that she could cry about it at the bar after. These are real ballers right here.

My favorite shots are these, though...

25 people, standing outside of a bar, in a team huddle. My kind of people.

Miyazaki: チキン南蛮, Early Morning Sessions, and X

2008-09-21T16:57:00.000-07:00

Last week, we had a three day weekend, and a typhoon was coming. That can only mean one thing...surf. My boy Keiichi was visiting from LA, and Keoki, Ashley, and Steve were all ready to kill shit. Here is the crew:

We jumped into a car on Saturday morning, and jammed our way to Miyazaki. I had been once before, to Hyuuga, with my boys 山口さん and 徳永さん, but the board I used on that trip, as I came to realize on this trip, sucked, and it was ridiculously crowded. So, none of us knew what type of waves to expect.

Me doing my Jeff Lim impression.

We get to Miyazaki City, and before our check-in at the hotel, we decided to get a session in at 木崎浜. There was a surf contest that weekend, which one of my students happened to be entered in, so it was pretty crowded. I was using a board I had never used before, so I was a little nervous, but it turned out to be alright. It didn't look too good from shore, but it was one of those situations where it looks a lot better once you get out there.

Went out, drank, slept, and came back out for a morning session...

It was good, but, again, crowded. Keoki had done some research and thought we should try and follow the coast south to see if we could find some different types of spots.

Steve, looking from the road, found this nice little right, that honestly didn't look like much. As we got closer though, it looked nicer and nicer. Aaaaand...there was nobody out.

Steve, getting barreled, and me, on the next wave, me getting shut down.

I could have stayed there all night. It was the most fun I have had surfing since leaving Hawaii, definitely. The boys, surfed to exhaustion.

Surf til dark, jump in the car, and meet some of my boys from Fukuoka who also made the trip down. Get drunk, eat killer food, run back to the hotel for more nonsense. It's hard to explain the last photo, but it pretty much sums up the trip. X GONNA GIVE IT TO YA!

The End.