Basketball

February 4, 2016 by nelfraser 3 Comments

(Tuesday 19th January)

I’ve gone from already counting down the days until I leave Japan to thinking that if every day were like today, I’d probably have decided to stay a third year.  (Edit: Nope, as soon as I go back to the BOE I am immediately grateful for making the decision to leave!!)

Today was the first day back at my favourite school since breaking up for winter holidays. I had such a laugh in all my lessons, mostly because the kids have brilliant senses of humour.  The highlight was probably showing the 2^nd years the video for Learn to Fly by Foo Fighters (probably the funniest they made) and everyone thought it was hilarious.  I think we watched it four times after the students realised that all the different characters were being played by the same band members.

I was really excited to see that they’d left me an invitation to their end of year enkai, because they have only invited me to two before.  I put it aside and tidied up the rest of the school newsletters that had accumulated on top of the laptop, and underneath I found a New Year’s postcard from none other than the ikemen (beautiful male) P.E. teacher who sits behind me.

He wrote: “Are you enjoying school? If it’s ok with you, please come and join a P.E. lesson some time. I think the students will be happy.”

So I found myself, not for the first time, reluctantly agreeing to do sports in order to impress a guy (he’s married though, sigh).  I played basketball with the third graders (15 year olds) and was surprised at how much I enjoyed it, but more so that I didn’t drop the ball or smack anyone in the face.  I felt a surge of pride as I threw the ball across the court to my team mate and sensei shouted naisu pasu! at me from the other side.  I can’t have been that bad because I’ve been asked to join in again next time…