Open School

Today will be the first day that I’ve actually participated in an open school event. It happens to be on a Sunday too, when I have a long weekend, they put this right in the middle. But I guess it’s a good thing otherwise I wouldn’t have done anything today anyways.

I really didn’t have much of a role because I was partnered with the person who was leading the whole thing and she was doing all the work. I didn’t complain about that since I just had to stand there and look pretty. I did end up having to do a lot of the cleaning and picking up the tables and chairs and moving it from room to room. That’s the labor part that everyone has to do though.

We got bento boxes for lunch and we had pastries for a little snack in between the activities. I think the students really enjoyed the games that were prepared for them, even though English is a bit difficult for them at that stage. I mean they were elementary school students that might be coming to our school next year or in the coming years.

After all this was finished, I joined Nozakichi and the tennis girls for a little tennis. We played very hard and it was very hot. We couldn’t use the courts at school and had to go to a different location off campus. We went to an area in Tamagawa that’s off of the Meguro Street. It’s not very far from school, but it is. The courts were clay and I’m not used to playing on that type of surface, so I had to get used to playing that type since it would only be beneficial for me to learn how to play on different types of courts. I was having mad troubles with my serves today. Today wasn’t a good day for me serving. I had so many double faults that it’s not even funny. I won one match today but I lost one too because of all my faulting. We could have won too, but I made too many mistakes. I would like to blame the sun and the weather and the fact that I just suck at serving, but I can’t and it’s all my fault. I’ve got to get into shape again and I’ve got to get into the groove of things and play more tennis if I want to get better at it.

After we came back to school there were some former students from last year that graduated in March and they came back to see Nozakichi. He had their tennis rackets with him and I didn’t know why really. They had wanted to go hang out with the coaches and it was just Nozakichi and me. We went to Saizeriya with everyone. There were six former students and just two teachers. The students are much older than I thought that they would be. So I’m wondering at what age students enter school and leave school. One of the students that came spoke very good English and I didn’t know that about her. I recognize her face, but I don’t remember her ever talking in class. So I think that was bad on my part that I just never found out her talent for speaking. I think that it’s because we don’t really push our student to speak and they just listen most of the time.

Eriko Umabe (Uma), Arisa (Aribu), Yumi Ando (Anko), Mayumi (Mayu), Yuka, Ami Tamura (Ami Chan), Masashi Nozaki (Nozakichi),