John Stupart.com

May
27
2008

Sports Day and Sickness

In true arse-about-face fashion, let me start with the sickness! I had, and still have to a lesser degree, contracted a god-awful cold from someone. I assume one of the little plaguebeasts that clamber over me every time I go to an elementary school, but it could just as likely be someone from the Junior High, the petrol attendant or the deliveryman bringing me my book (Michael Yon’s new effort. Worth a read!) Long story short is I have run out of my Panados and have realised yet again how painfully short on sympathy I have it here!

No matter, I have been sicker before and I should not be so curmudgeonly. Nay! For this week was Sports Day week. *cue trumpets*. Essentially it’s the JHS’s equivalent of an interhouse athletics day, except with 70-odd students in total, and a folk dance added in for good measure.

It was all in all a good way to spend a Sunday. The students had been practicing relay baton-switching all week, as well as refining their roles in this weird-ass event involving a model train, a crate attached to a harnass, foot-pole things designed to make 4 people run together at the same time, a model plane and about two dozen wooden poles. What happens is each team has 4 people run 100m with the foot pole/ski-like things, whereafter one dude (henceforth known as the pilot) climbs onto the crate, pulled another 100m by 2 other students. Then the pilot hops into the model train, which is dragged over the 2 dozen wooden poles (which are picked up and ‘relaid’ in front of the train again), transferring after 100m to the plane, which is carried in the air to the finish line. This is repeated four times, meaning the plane, train, crates and ski things all get moved 400m. I cannot make this stuff up even if I was huffing paint thinners…

… I think it has something to do with mimicking the transport history of Sarufutsu, but that’s just a wild guess. Other highlights of the day included a ‘folk dance’ where students danced in a giant circle to the tune of ‘do your ears hang low’ and one other Japanese song. Scary stuff.

Work-wise nothing much is noteworthy. Working in a school while coughing and sniffing is NOT recommended. All I can suggest to alleviate the fatigue is Red Bull. Lots of Red Bull.

Here are the pics of the week. Osaki ni!