Busy busy bu...oh sorry I got distracted by all of my work.

Yeah so the last two weeks have been the busiest of my time in Japan. I've had plenty of extremely busy days or two days but these weeks have been the kind where I get to work and don't have time to sit still, much less check my e-mail at work. Which is saying something since I have an iPhone and can check e-mail while I'm going to the bathroom. Not that I ever do that...

I'm not sure what's made me so busy. I think it's the combination of finishing up classes for the semester, writing tests, recording listening tests, tutoring students for speaking tests, planning for orientation, planning for English camp, grading tests, and checking essays. When everything piles up on you suddenly you're like, "Whoa, what happened?" But the funny thing is, I don't mind it. I think I found myself with the ability to do as little work as possible so much in the last few years that actually having a lot of work to do has been a nice relief. I like not having to think of work to do. When I have to find work for myself is when I stop working. But I've worked overtime almost every day for the past two weeks and it's great. Not to mention the fact that people have taken notice, which never hurts. Not saying I prefer to work overtime. But...you know.

We had an area schools softball tournament on the 4th of July. It was a teachers' tournament. I played left field and batted cleanup for my school. I probably should've batted leadoff since I went 5 for 8 with 5 singles over our two games and our leadoff hitter hit like 5 homeruns. Oh well. We won our first game 12-0 and I was 3 for 5 in that game. Then we lost our second game 12-9. I was 2 for 3 in that one. I made a pretty costly error in left in the second game. The bases were loaded with one out. Our pitcher had already walked in two runs and the batter hit a sharp ground ball single to left. It should've been a simple one run single but I went after it to pick it up quickly from the side to keep an extra runner from scoring. I didn't use good fundamentals and the ball went straight under my glove and rolled forever. Everyone scored (it reminded me of little league because there were no fences) and like 8 runs ended up scoring in the inning. We scored a lot and made it close but we couldn't catch up. It was interesting playing with people who speak a different language. They use English terms for a lot of stuff in softball/baseball. This includes thing like, "Nice pitching", "Nice batting" "Nice play righto" "Nice play Thado" (that's third.) But at one point there was a run down between second and third. Now being the knowledgable baseball guy I am, I knew that more running, less needless throwing is always better in a rundown. So our shortstop gets the ball and doesn't see that one runner is standing on third and another runner is running to third. So I start shouting There! There! There! Second Second!" And he's like, "Huh?" Then he sees him and we start the rundown. So the other guy is still standing on third and the shortstop is about to throw to third and I'm thinking that's an error and run waiting to happen so I yell, "No! Run! Run! Run!" But this guy doesn't speak English so I should've been yelling "Hashitte! Hashitte! Hashitte!" Fortunately people spend a minimum of 6 years learning English in Japan and this guy is relatively young so he knows "run" and runs him down and tags him out to end the inning. It was fun though. It took all Saturday afternoon but playing softball was not a bad way to spend the 4th by any means.

After the softball tournament I went and met up with Kelly and many people at our friend's house for some 4th of July festivities. We did some grilling and listened to lots of music and had a good time. Americans were outnumbered by non-Americans (including English, Scottish, Irish, Kiwi [that's New Zealand], and Japanese) but no matter. America's birthday was celebrated and respected by all. There was a lot less America complaining than there would have been if George W. Bush had still be president that's for sure. Everybody loves Mr. Obama. And a nice, loud rendition of the Star Spangled Banner was sung as well. Nice. And loud. In tune? No.

I'm looking forward to Kerry getting here soon. He gets here in 10 days as a matter of fact. So far on the schedule for his 6 days here are baseball, karaoke, Tokyo, and food. Pretty standard. I wanted to go to a Yomiuri Giants game (the Yankees of Japan) while he was here. Unfortunately they're playing the Hanshin Tigers which would be awesome expcept for the fact that the Tigers are the Red Sox of Japan and therefore the game is very very sold out. So we're probably going to see the Yokohama Baystars instead who can probably be considered to be the Pittsburgh Pirates of Japan. Oh well. They're playing the Chunichi Dragons who we saw play the Giants in April and who Tom Selleck played for in Mr. Baseball. So it should be fun if not necessarily crowded.

Hope everybody's doing well and had a good 4th. We're looking forward to rainy season ending, which is awful. Hopefully only about another week. At which point it will just be hot. And no, Houston people, don't talk about how we should be happy to get rain because it's just been hot with not enough rain there. You don't want me to wish this your way. Trust me. You like being able to breath, don't you?

Finally, here are a couple of pics from our karaoke night with the Haseltines:

Claire wasn't feeling karaoke at first (as you can tell by the microphone laying on the table) but she found her groove eventually.


Jeff and Gwynn sang a few duets I had never heard in karaoke before. Including songs by Bread and Elvis. But they were great!
Not pictured is Jeff and my duet of "America" by Simon and Garfunkel. My harmonies were questionable.

Here is a picture of me and Kelly after the Yoshiwara Gion Festival. It was our first festival wearing jimbei and yukata. Bunny ears courtesy of Jeff. :)


Peace!