Erin Hughes.com

Japanese Tests I took a Japanese test last Sunday. For me it was pretty humiliating. The test I took is the EASIEST of all Japanese tests you can take. I have some problems that make learning a new language ..... difficult. But that is no excuse I studied a average of 2 to 3 hours a day in the final month before the test, and usually 3 or 4 hours a week before the test date was a real issue. Regardless I got to the test with plenty of time and settled into my seat. I immediately realized I did not have a pencil. WTF am I that dumb. YES. So I looked around and finally borrowed one from the over prepared 16 y.o. American girl sitting behind me. Embarrassing. I heard the instructors say no chewing gum but didn't really care. I noticed they were staring at me during the first portion of the test but was too busy concentrating to care. Finally towards the end of the second test one came up and said "chew gume no" I replied in Japanese hai or yes I have some in here. Not amused I was issued a yellow card. Then I went back to my test. When the second test had almost finished the HEAD instructor came over and asked if I had gum and I opened my mouth to show it to her. She told me I got a yellow card. I said I know thank you. She stared at me blankly like I was supposed to grovel for my life. As she starred at me and held the yellow card I gently grabbed her wrist and turned her palm up towards me and then asked if she would like me to spit it out? Her expression changed drastically as she attempted to pull her had free. I let go and went back to my test. [1]

For about a week I nursed my ankle and missed Karate cause it had swollen up so much after the game that I basically could not get my shoe on. After about one week and after a quite few nights of icing it I decided to see a Doctor. He looked at my ankle and took some x-rays, Yep it was broken but it was only little stress crack right on the ankle bone. When I saw the crack I was a little embarrassed cause well ... it is a little sissy crack. Seriously maybe less than 1 cm and just a hair thick. The doctor reassured me that I was not a sissy cause it looks like I have significant cartilage damage to my ankle and I would need physical therapy to get it right if I was in a hurry to get back on the field, which I defiantly was. He also asked how I broke it before? What? The doctor pointed to a large fussed crack a bit up from the one I just made. "I don't know.." I replied I remember hurting myself on a pretty regular basis in the Marines and after I remember taking a spill or 17 on my Mt. Bike but I really don't remember breaking my ankle. The doc said it looked like it happened about 10 years ago.... I still have no idea. What ever he has me on the road to recovery with some physical therapy and pain killers.

I have a friend from my computer group, TLUG　(TOKYO　LINUX　USERS　GROUP)　named Mauro and he plays rugby. One day while we were having lunch together with a couple of friends and he invited me to play rugby with his team Tokyo Gaijin Rugby Football Club. I had never played rugby before but was really excited to get asked to play. Mauro and I agreed to meet up the next weekend and he offered to let me stay at his house the night before so I would make it to the game on time with out hassle. I thought great! Night before I had some troubles at work with a server, so it took quite a bit longer than I wanted to make it to his place. When I finally arrived I found that Mauro had a excellent place and his wife had cooked a real south American style dinner with Mexican, and Argentinean dishes. I met Joffa too, he is the team coach and leader. He was learning from Mauro how to administer the teams web site. He looked to me exactly what I thought a leader of a rugby team should look like. He was a little ornery looking but had a friendly domineer and laughed allot while Mauro walked him through the steps of administering the site. Eventually every one left and Mauro and I watched some rugby on TV so I could get feel for the game . It didn't quite work out all the nuances but I had the general idea. No forward passing, kicking forward is OK, what is a scrum, and what is a ruck. I thought I was reasonably prepared for my first time out and hit the rack.

I use to hate going to Eric's Happieoki's (childres festival)　at his school they were long and boring and it was always punctuated by the fact that Eric would cry. He is the biggest kid of all by far and I just cant stand to see him cry SOOOOOO MUCH! But times have changed a little. Yes we still have to sit through 10 minutes of crying a day no matter how happy he is, but the crying has gone from crying over every little thing to crying over stuff he wants candy, ice cream, etc. and that is allot more controllable. This year though at happieoki I had a blast cause Eric was ERIC! He was his usual happy self and had allot of fun doing his performances. The first thing up was the opening song where all the kids get up and sing. Eric pointed to Satomi and I and the yelled to his friend Yuma-kun "Your mom is there sitting next to mine." The two of them hid their heads in while every one looked. Next was a soccer song I wasn't really sure what they were singing about but they were dressed in Japanese National team soccer uniforms. They sang and danced and laughed. Eric mistakes it for a stadium rock concert. They rolled out some fake soccer balls and they were supposed to kick them into the goal.... Eric decided to kick them into the crowd! I was laughing so hard by that point that I forgot to take a picture of the scene. A teacher or another parent caught the ball and threw it back on the stage and he kicked it right back out there. It was too funny! Then there was the peemon (GREEN PEPPER) song again the lyrics were a loss to me but Eric and his other friends sang loud enough that people in Tokyo heard them. They had to get on and off the stage a couple of times and one time when they got back on another kid said Eric only pemons go out now. To which he replied "Eric is a PEEMON!" There were a couple of more things that were pretty funny but right now they escape me. Regardless I was happy to experience a Happy No Cry!