Erin Hughes.com

1st game of the year. (JAPAN) Tokyo Gaijin VS The Crusaders. (WIN) I woke up in the morning and I just didn't feel right. I felt weak and constipated and just generally not in good health for a day of rugby. I did some last minute finishing touches to the fliers and then woke up Eric so he could watch some cartoons while I got our gear ready. After calling and waking the team manager Joffa up we aranged a time to meet and Eric and I were off to print some more fliers. We went back to Gera Gera where Eric refused to sit down and refused to be quite but I got the rest of them printed and we headed out to meet Joffa. After hooking up with Joffa his wife and Dave we got on the road, or the train so to speak and made our way to the meeting point. When we arrived at the station within a few minutes almost the whole team was there. It was awesome there was 15 guys at the station and when we got to the field there were another 5 at least. I started to feel a little better knowing I would not have to play a full game. We warmed up and practiced a bit and to quote Muz I felt a bit more "switched on" then normal. Still far from what I needed to be but playing defense against my own team in line outs and scrums helped me realize what my job was gonna be when I was in. If I got in. Practice finished up and I the starting line up was called out. I was not on it. I was a little bummed out not to be starting, because over the break I put a lot of work in for the team getting myself in shape, I ran about 10 times and I can feel my legs getting stronger. In addition to trying to improve my fitness, I have also been studying the game of rugby. Finally I have been working on the team site allot and been the pain in the ass that has gotten it up to date. I should have been carried around the rugby pitch by two of my team mates instead of having to run and get all sweaty.

So EVERY night I can muster up the strength I read to Eric one of three books. Where the wild things are. One fish. Two fish or my least favorite ABCs with Mickey Mouse. Since we all started living together again Eric's English has improved allot, but after reading these stories to him I constantly wondered how much does he really understand. Last night I found out. 100% I was blown away when I asked him to read the story back to me....... in Japanese and he was able to do it with almost no hesitation at all. When I read some parts from "Where the Wild Things Are". I get pretty into that and tend to be pretty animated about the whole thing. Particularly "And when he came to the place where the wild things are the ROARED their terrible ROARS and GNASHED their terrible TEETH and ROOOLLLLEDD their terrible eyes and SHOWED!!! their terrible CLAAAAAAWWWWWSSSS! Eric's reading was right on! Although I did not know all the words he uses I could tell by the tone and inflection of his voice what parts he was reading. It was truly a great moment in my life.

1st Practice. Well actually it was the 2nd but first for me of the season. I woke up early and but felt keen to get out and play. Like always I underestimated how long it would take to get myself and Eric going. Eventually we got on our way with help from Satomi driving us to the station. A quick 40 minute trip where Eric was particularly well behaved, and we arrived at the station out side the practice area right on time. We walked down to the practice area, and immediately HEAT fear kicked in. I changed into my boots and drank some more water and tried to get ready. I could feel how hot it was and I was fearing just plain old passing out. That would be embarrassing. Man we started out "warming up" if that was really necessary I was already sweating then did some stretching. Then it was time for our fitness exercises, SUICIDES. In the heat that is what it amounted to. 5 cones spread equal distances apart. You started at one line and then ran to 2nd line turned around and ran to the first. When you got to the first you turned and ran out to the 3rd and so on. We did that 6 times each time throwing in some variations like you had to land flat on your stomach, get up and run back to start line. When we hit the first line I flopped down on my stomach even though I was only in contact with the ground for a second I could feel the heat radiating off the hard crisp brown grass. I knew the fun for the day was over. On our last one one we only had to touch the ground with our hand and I felt a surge of energy as I made my way back from the third cone and really started to pour it on. I past a couple of guys, OK maybe one or 2 who had been in front of me all during all previous exercises and felt pretty good. I touched the start line for my final run out to the 4th cone and poured it on a little more. I bent down to touch the last line and that is where things started to go wrong. I came back up dizzy but OK and kept running I past the 3rd and 2nd cone but with less then 10 meters to go my consciousness was fading. I was seeing stars sort of and felt very unsteady. I could tell if I didn't come to almost a complete halt I was gonna hit the dirt. I kept a running stance but was almost motionless as I got my brain back in control of my body.

Mai-chans Onagiri (Rice Ball) Mean while while no one was paying attention to poor Mai-chan. I had left my bag open while we were playing and there was a onagiri (Rice ball w/Salmon) in it that little Mai-chan found. Mai is just barely one year old and for her to see that get open and unwrapped and then eat as much as she did was pretty funny. What was even funnier was the fact that she had it all over her face, feet, legs and hands. Here is a picture of her with Eric also. He really likes her.