Well that title is deceptive, because the Sports Festival was postponed due to rain, so there won't be anything about it today. The rain date is supposed to be tomorrow but we are just starting to get hit by some sort of taifun so it seems likely to be postponed indefinitely. I was just starting to look forward to it too. I practiced running some with the other teachers on the teacher team on Friday and I am still halfway decent at it. I can outrun the other teachers, except the gym teacher who is exceptionally fit. I have lost about 10 pounds since I have been to Japan and I am slightly more muscular than before, but I would still say use of the word "fit" would constitute a mischaracterization. However, at least I am not going to run a 40 second 200 meters and embarrass myself. Unlike Negishi-sensei. On the other hand, I started coaching the girls basketball team the other day, because my English Speech Contest coaching duties are finished, and my lack of endurance was definitely cause for some embarassment there. Those kids are pretty good basketball players, and they all appear able to keep running indefinitely. Obviously it shouldn't be that much of a challenge for me to scrimmage with a bunch of 15-year-old girls, but no matter who you are playing, you still have to run up and down the court all the time, and being a foot taller than everyone else, I tend to get a few more passes than everyone else. I cannot sink a shot with that tiny little ball the girls use though. So maybe they will start passing to me less.

So what else is going on? I had an all-day elementary school visit today. This was making me very nervous for about the last week because I don't really have the qualities best suited to dealing with children of that age. But it was a lot of fun. I certainly couldn't do it two days in a row though. Damn, elementary school kids are little nightmares! I can finally understand why my mom is completely insane. I bet that American kids are much worse too. All I really had to do was play "head, shoulders, knees, and toes" with the kids, and other similar games, and show some pictures of my former life in America. The get most excited when they see that I had a swimming pool in my backyard. All the English they know is just "Hello! How are you? I'm fine thank you. And you?" but they are pretty funny. So that went fine and proves once again that being nervous is stupid.

This weekend I rented a movie called "Apt Pupil," directed by Bryan Singer of Usual Suspects fame. It was a good movie, before I saw it I thought it was about some kid who becomes racist through contact with an old Nazi war criminal, but he is actually fascinated by the power and strength of will the Nazis used to control so many people. It is a bit of a suspenseful movie, but even though it was written by Stephen King, it has a decent ending. So I guess you should see it if you are interested in this sort of thing. It was good. Okay, time for bed.