This week my school was meant to have a Senior High Sports Day on Tuesday and a Junior High Sports Day on Thursday. What this meant for me was that as long as the weather was fine, I wouldn’t have any classes and could take the day off. However, autumn weather in Japan is notoriously changeable, hence the expression:「秋の空と女心」- “Autumn skies and a woman’s mind”.
So Tuesday morning I wake up to the sound of rain and think “Ah crap, I’ll have to go in…” but strangely, they decide to go ahead with it anyway and I get the day off…
Then, today, I wake up to crystal clear skies, check the TV weather forecast and thinking “They couldn’t possibly cancel now”, go back to bed only to be awoken at 7.50 a.m. by a phone call. “The Sports Day has been cancelled because the ground’s condition is bad,” they tell me and then I’m jumpin’ on my bicycle to be in the classroom by 8.40 (with no breakfast!). That first lesson was one of the longest 50 minutes of my life.
“Do you want to do a song or THE TEXTBOOK?” I asked, faced with an array of sulking faces.
“We wanna do the sports day!” (Japanese kids really do speak in unison)
“Well, I’m sorry about that but we can’t, so let’s make the best of the situation. There’s no point in sulking for an hour is there?” Hahahaha. Yeah, they sulked their way through the whole lesson.
“Look!” said the students “The weather is fine!”
“Yes, I know.”
“Look, they’re having a P.E. lesson out there! What’s with that? Why can’t we have our sports day?”
“I don’t know. You know, it’s not my decision. “
“Can’t you go and ask someone to go ahead with it?”
“No, I can’t.” etc…
I couldn’t get them to do anything so in the end I told them to show me their cheerleading routine and they cheered up a bit… But whoever made that decision is a right plonker.
Anyway, it is officially autumn in my book (The Book of Mikey Lambe) as I have finally tasted the first Aki Aji beer of the season accompanied with delicious grilled Sanma (or Saury in English). Sanma or 秋刀魚 gets it’s kanji name (autumn/knife/fish) from it’s shape and the fact it is usually eaten in the autumn (and because it is in fact a fish). And it’s tops with crispy malt beverages.
Ooh, that’s nice! More info on sanma here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mackerel_pike
Tonight Hyon Ju is cooking Jajanmen - Korean noodles. Yum. Food. Good.
