To the brink of tears

I learned some interesting Japanese in the past week or so:

腰 (こし）lower back
痛み (いたみ）pain
傷み (いたみ）damage, injury (same pronunciation as above)
鎮痛剤 (ちんつうざい)　painkiller
アスピリン aspirin
背骨 (せぼね）vertebrae
曲げる (まげる）to bend

and a phrase from CLAIR Japanese course week 22 day 2, which I used for the first time today and got a reaction out of Kaneda-san that was very satisfying to me:

涙が出るほど to the brink of tears.

Yes. I have learned much. And practical stuff too.

Last week, all the students had gone through a sports test. They went through stations and were tested/timed on 50ms, 2kg medicine ball throw, shuttle run, sit-ups, etc. It was like a NFL combine for junior high kids. Anyway, I was manning the flexibility station testing how far they can reach beyond their toes. I demonstrated the stretch for my last group...

I felt a distinct pop/buck/crack/snap in my right lower back. I could almost hear it and I certainly felt it. It wasn't bad immediately afterwards, and I left school early that day (Wed) and made an emergency chiropractor appointment "just in case," since my back was really feeling so much better up to that point I was actually considering returning to basketball practice that night.

The chiropractor said that there was a new inflammation in my left hip joint in addition to the 3rd vertebrae (starting from bottom) inflammation which was causing the initial back stiffness. He said that this wasn't necessarily a step back on my road to recovery...it's just that, well, I'm simultaneously travelling on two roads now.

It has gotten worse. Yesterday I dropped to the floor in pain while I was cooking. During my commute this morning, I felt sharp pinches whenever I stepped on the breaks. I went to the bathroom this morning and barely got out. Breathing deeply and bending gingerly, while wiping my ass, felt like an ashtanga yoga pose.

And now my parents are in town. They should be sitting pretty in my apartment right this moment. I'm genuinely undecided whether I should suck it up so that they won't worry about me, or should I comfort myself in their sympathy...

Reflections

What a way to spend Saturday morning! Watching the Mia/Det game 1 while blabbering about the NBA playoffs:

* I'm watching Shaq for the 1st time in these playoffs. Shaq is looking great! Jump hooks, drop steps, up and unders, he even dusted off the surprise baseline spin from the good'ol days. I've always said this to casual NBA fans: yes Shaq's ha-uu-geness makes him a good NBA player, but Shaq's quick feet and soft hands are what makes him great (and separates him from the rest of the 300 club: Oliver Miller, Stanley Roberts, Tractor Trayler, post-rehab Shawn Kemp).

* I am still in mourning for the Clippers. But first I would have to peel the pieces of their carcasses off the Suns' train tracks. They were flat out destroyed in game 7.

I don't understand why Doug Collins insisted on sucking Dunleavy's jock all throughout the series. Dunleavy's coaching mistakes, once again, lost game 7 for the Clippers. He went away from trapping Nash on the screen and rolls in the 3rd quarter and gave Nash the breathing room to pick apart Clipper's defenses. He also left Kamen on Marion, which only worked in previous games because Marion wasn't hitting wide open shots--Marion was hot in game 7, and the Clippers look like a lumbering team with Kamen. Let's not forget this man's last second substitution of Daniel Ewing in game 5 gave Bell the tying 3-pointer. Dunleavy may be the best coach in practices and in negotiating with the front office, but I wouldn't put him on the floor duing crunch time.

I just hope that in the off season they find a way to keep Cassell for a season or 2, and then make him the coach after that--the same formula seemed to have worked out for the Mavericks.

* Speaking of Mavericks, I like this team. The Mavs have always had talent, but after their game 7 win over the Spurs, this team now has big heart too. They beat the Spurs after blowing a 20 point lead in the 3rd and after down 3 in the final possessions in the 4th. I like Dirk much better when he takes it to the rack and sneers in disdain after and-1's. Make the Aryan race proud, Dirk.

(written before watching Mavs-Suns game 1)

Step out of the car, sir...I mean sensei

On my way to school this morning, I was pulled over for running a red light. I took an illegal left-hand turn (the short-side turn—Japan drivers on the opposite side) on red, and was stopped at the next red signal.

I had already been pulled over twice in Japan. Once near the local mall for failing to stop at a stop sign, and another time in Okayama for driving on a one-way street (it had two lanes and a sign saying that it was one-way during certain hours of the day). Both times, I was asked to sit in the backseat of the police car, and both times I was let go. Surely these were but minor infractions compared to DUI or speeding 50km/h over. But I thought the time in Okayama was especially incriminating, as I had just woke up from a night of running around naked and drunk, and I was probably stinking of alcohol and definitely still inebriated when I sat in the backseat of the patrol car. Still, they let me go.

So, this time, when I saw that a patrol car had pulled up behind me with flashing red lights, and a policeman was walking around my car to the driver's side, I was not expecting to be let off easy the third time around. What can I say? Japan has trained me to drink from a half-empty cup.

"赤信号を無視？" Did you just ignore that red light?
"あの、すみません、急いでから..." Well, I’m sorry but I was in a hurry...

This cop was wearing glasses, his face was somewhat disfigured with a scar (knife?) running from his right nostril to his upper lip. I was hoping to plead guilty and get a quick fine to settle the matters so that I could get to work on time (to save myself from further embarrassment). Then the light turned green, and the cop with the scar told me to pull over to the side of the road after the signal. So, the patrol car pulled up next to mine, the scarred cop asked me to step out of my car and opened the door to the back seat of the patrol car. Here we go again...

The driver was a younger cop. Unlike the scarred cop, who was wearing the usual dark police uniform, the younger cop was wearing just a white dress shirt and an armband. Maybe he's just a rookie then, I thought.

The rookie cop pointed at the navi screen and showed me where I ran the red light. He lectured for a good while, of which I understood maybe 20%. The scarred cop was inspecting my driver's license and foreigner's ID, and told the rookie cop that I I was not Japanese. The rookie then lectured me in simpler Japanese, which was even longer, but I still couldn't fully understand what he was saying beyond "The patrol car was here, we saw you turning left here, the light was green from our perspective so we know the light was red when you turned...and that's illegal..." I also couldn't understand exactly what he expected me to say—-I mean, I knew the light was red, I saw it, I ran it, and that was it. I had already apologized a shit-ton, I couldn't think of any convincing excuses (especially after I had already admitted that I was in a hurry), nor should I or could I say “Just gimme the bloody ticket already." So I started mumbling something about having come to the same intersection the night before and seen a flashing red. The rookie cop was getting more and more frustrated, but we were still getting nowhere. The scarred cop showed my driver's license and my foreigner's ID card to the rookie and tried to say something, but the rookie was so distracted in making his point understood he just tossed the card on the dash. Finally the rookie asked me,

"どこへ行きますか？" Where are you going?
"中山...じゃなくて、大山町. 中山中学校へ." Nakayama...no, Daisen-cho. To Nakayama Jr. High. (because Nakayama town had merged with Daisen town and technically no longer exists)

"へ！　先生？" What? Sensei?

I may have misheard many things this morning, but the one thing that I am beyond certain was that he preceeded the "teacher" with an exclamation. The scarred cop then confirmed:

"そう、英語の教師なんだ." Yeah, an English instructor. Aand then he showed the rookie my driver's license and foreigner's ID card that has my employment info. And then the rookie turned away from looking at my IDs to ask me:
"お仕事は英語の教師...先生ですか?" Your *profession is English instructor...sensei, is it?

Again, I may have misheard many things this morning, but the second thing that I am beyond certain was that the noun "profession" was spoken in the Japanese honorific/polite form--which you would use to address superiors. I shouldn't make too much of this as it was probably just standard politeness.

I confirmed his question. There was a moment of silence, which I broke:

"すみませんが、いま...どうしましょうか？" Sorry but, now...what should I do?
"そうですね...どうしよう？" Right...what should we do?

The rookie cop talked half to himself, and half to the scarred cop. And the scarred cop gave the word.
"任せ？" Let him go?

And minutes later the scarred cop opened the door and I got out. I called the school to let them know that I would be 10-15 minutes late, but the traffic turned out to be so light I actually made it to school just on time, with 0 tickets.

Maybe I should consider staying in Japan and take full advantage of my diplomatic immunity?

Wanna get away?

[ding] I am still at work and not free to move about the country (yes, even in the backwaters of the Far East, I can still reference Southwest).

This afternoon, the entire school will be watching a troupe of actress/ors putting on a play. Since it is guaranteed to be educational and boring even if I understood the whole thing in Japanese, I thought I would print out a few pages of the e-book I'm currently reading, so I set the first 75 pages of the PDF to print before lunch.

When I came back from lunch, the printer wasn't humming, and my kocho-sensei was fingering through the still-warm stack. He was probably wondering why a stack of 53 sheets resembling pages from an English book (he was an English teacher afterall) came out of the printer instead of his document. Worse, his document wasn't coming out because my 54th page had caused a paperjam.

Oops.

(update: a few minutes later) I opened up the printer and pulled out the jammed paper. Printer still not working. To cover up my ass, I cued up a couple pages of a listening test and a lesson plan I had written last year. Now I can pretend that a fraction of the print job--2/77--was meant for work.

(update: a few minutes later) The secretary opened up the printer and pulled out another sheet of jammed paper. Printer still not working. She assured me: "ドンマイ (DON-MAI, which I suspect is Japanese for "Don't mind")."

(update: a few minutes later) The secretary announced to the entire staff room: "The printer is now off-limits. But don't worry: the technician from Epson customer support is coming."

(update: 2 hours later, after the play has finished) As expected, the play was boring: man catches bird, man frees bird, bird grateful to man, bird turns into woman to be with man, man and bird-woman marry, happiness, bird-woman makes silk from her feathers to support man, man not work, more happiness, man gets greedy and wants to sell more silk for more money, more silk = dead bird-woman, bird-woman leaves man, man sad, lesson learned. Clap clap. I went back to the staff room.

And found printer parts all over the floor. The technician was still working on the printer I wrecked.

(afterthoughts) 17:02, the technician just left and the printer is no longer in pieces, so I assumed that it is now fixed. I very briefly chatted with him about the printer. Apparently the jam was caused by the printer overheating on a super humid day, and the ink got sticky. So it's not entirely my fault! It's the weather's fault! It's Japan's fault!

(in case if you're wondering, the book is Freakonomics, which had an excellent first 5 pages)

Woe is my back

A frame-by-frame capture of Jeff getting out of his chair and walking to the coffee maker.

My back hurts.

This happened last Wednesday during basketball. There wasn't a specific moment or movement that caused it and I'm not sure exactly what happened. One minute I was feeling bouncy--I actually made a fast-break backboard-slapping layup in a game--the next I couldn't bend it 90 degrees forward.

It's still stiff a week after. I couldn't wash my face at the sink without supporting myself, and putting socks on feels as strenuous as dead-lifting. Getting up from my chair, straightening my back and walking somewhere feels like 4 million years of evolution, and dude, I feel just as old.

I suspect that this is a mild case of back spasm. Hopefully this will not affect my availability for Taj ultimate or Clippers' series.

I'm Tim Thomas Pt.2

I can think of more than a few reasons they might have given me on why I wasn't invited back to the team, if they hadn't already dealt with this the Japanese way (let's just ignore him and sweep this whole Jeff thing under the rug and pretend he never existed):

1) You're not the dead-eye shooter we're looking for.
Can't argue with that. Bacchus already has a couple of dependable shooters from 17-18 ft, what they really could use is a 3-point shooter to spread the floor and wait in the corners for kick-outs. I have been working hard on my 3-point shot, and in shootarounds I can make them at a good 30-40 clip (GO CLIPS!) in rhythm, with feet set and no defenders--but at game speed my shooting is erratic at best.

2) We need a lock-down defender.
In a way, last season's team Bacchus kind of reminds me of the Stanford basketball team: they both have a history of being burned by athletic swingman. A lock-down defender in the mold of Raja Bell or Quinton Ross could really make a difference for this team(if you call flopping, shirt-tugging, undercutting, and constant bitching defense, I guess you can throw Bowen in that sentence too). Well, Pippen I ain't, but in defense of my Defense: a)I rarely get beaten "cleanly" off the dribble even by the fastest guards, b)I almost always successfully force my man to go in one direction, c)no shots are ever taken without my hand somewhere in the vicinity, and d)if my guy isn't a threat to score, I am always in the right spot for help defense or rebounds. It's not a coincidence most defensive possession that involves me have lots of loose balls. I know it isn't pretty, but if Bacchus need defense, there's no excuse to leave me off the team.

3) You cannot play point guard full-time.
Pass.

4) You cannot create shots off the dribble.
I disagree strongly. I struggle to finish my drives at the rim. This is true, as my quickness and strength is not what it had been in the past and my confidence is affected by a sleuth of nagging injuries. I sometimes force the issue and cause turnovers. These are partly my fault, and I have worked hard on my handle and patience.

But when both of your bigs are constantly clogging both high posts, there isn't a whole lot of space to penetrate. And while I can't always finish my drives for scores, I haven't had problems getting into the lane (if only I had a mid-range pull-up jumper...). Although drive-and-kick is probably the strongest aspect of my game, it has no place on this team. Despite having one Jr. high basketball coach and one high school coach, apparently no one on the team knows what a pick-and-roll is. If I get a penny for everytime I slip off a screen, get into the lane, and bounce a pass off of my screening teammate's face, I would be able to buy 2 big macs by now.

5) You are too small, and we already have a ton of guards who we like
Can't argue with that either. At 172cm, my natural position on this team is SG. Bacchus last season had 15 players on their roster, all but maybe 5 of them are under 180cm and have to play in the backcourt. While I am, and I say this in a complete straight face, more athletic and more skilled than most of these middle-aged guards, I just don't think the team is ready to take playing time away from guys whom they've played with for years. Basketball-wise, it makes no sense, but politics rarely does.

6) You are not committed.
That's bullshit. There are 15 players on the roster, but maybe only 7 show up for practices consistently. So, I practice with the same 5 guys and familarize myself with their game for weeks, and then you leave me on the bench during league games in favor of someone whose face I haven't seen in a month? You tell me how that builds chemistry.

7) You're gaijin (foreigner), but you look Japanese.
Like Japanese major league baseball teams, perhaps there's a two-gaijin per team limit? Wouldn't you want to get a "real" gaijin rather than another Asian? And you know what? I must be going crazy when I am blaming things on reverse discrimination.

8) You have bad attitude.
As you can probably tell by now, I feel that I have been given the cold shoulder not for the right basketball reasons, but for personal ones. On the court, I have little patience and short temper, because I feel the need to make my limited playing time count. I too often yell in frustration (but I never direct my frustration at anyone in particular). I've never gotten a technical, but I might have behaved inappropriately to referees because I prefer shaking over bowing my head when a call is blown. However, my emotion goes both ways, negative and positive, and I am proud of the fact that everyone I've ever played with value my competitiveness and intensity. But my ex-teammates know even less about high fives than they do about pick-and-rolls.

9) You are no fun to be around.
Off the court, they probably think I'm sour and surly, which is partly due to me feeling slighted and indignant, and partly because I can't carry on a full conversation in Japanese. So I mostly stay to myself. This soon becomes a downward spiral of despair: the more I get frustrated, the worse my attitude becomes, the less the team plays me, and I get frustrated even more.

Yeah. Hate to admit it, but I'd hate to play on the same team with myself too.

I'm Tim Thomas Pt.1

I went to basketball practice last night for the 1st time in 3 weeks, only to find out that, what do you know, the new season starts today--and I'm not on the team roster.

Last year, the season started in winter, so I figured that before I leave Japan there won't be any games in which I won't be getting any PT. Well team Bacchus joined a new league that starts in the spring. They never asked me to join before last night(partially my fault because I missed practices, but still), and they didn't invite me to join when I was right there last night. They didn't even bother to talk to me, and to add insult to injury, both Adam and Eddie, two guys whom I invited onto the team, are on the roster. In fact, Komura-san was telling Eddie to bring money before tomorrows game, with me standing right there waiting to catch a ride with Eddie.

Having Adam and Eddie on the team will definitely help them. Eddie will dominate the paint and clean up the board because he is more athletic, bigger and stronger than probably anyone he'll face in the league (since he's my height and got King Kong arms, think of him as an Elton Brand type). Adam is tall and long, willing passer skilled off the dribble and active on both ends of the floor (because he's white, think of him as a Gonobili with defense minus the outside stroke). Put these 2 next to a bunch of guards who can't shoot, a couple of SF/PF tweeners who make jumpers but won't bang inside, plus one Bonsi/Marbury type ballhog, and you have a pretty good team.

So where did Jeff fit in? Nowhere.

So how did Jeff respond? During practice, while I didn't lay the smack down, I had success getting into the lane for floaters or kick-outs, made a few threes, and had a back spasm.

Tottori Talks

(to be published in Tottori Talks, an annual journal of writings, etc. by departing JETs)

"All things end badly, or else they wouldn't end."
-Doug Coughlin the bartender.

Where does one even begin to sum up the most alienating and most loving, most incomprehensible and most insightful, most boring and under-utilized but somehow the most affirming and well-paid 2 years of one's life? I don’t know, I ran out of superlatives months ago.

And for whom should I write this article? Am I writing this for Ms. Honda, who never hesitated to assume the role of legal guardian for this gaijin? Am I writing this for Mr. Nishiyama, whom I trust to teach an English class like Marty trusts Doc to send him Back to the Future? Am I writing this for Mitsushima-sensei, who has always been the same genuine person, whether it be in the classroom, in the staffroom, or in enkai’s? I probably don’t need to write this for my fellow ALTs, who know well that our positions in school mean more as an institution rather than a resource. I am afraid to write this for future JETs, because they don’t have to know that they’ll be coming to a Japan that desperately wants them, but doesn’t seem to need them. I won’t be writing this for y’all, all my friends who had been (thump chest) right here for the past 2 years, because if I haven’t let you know how much you mean to me then I have failed as your friend. I ought to be writing this for everyone and everything Japanese I’ve come across: I regret not having tried harder to discover every last drop of your goodness, but I will forgive most of your idiosyncrasies—except for that sucking-air-through-teeth sound.

Perhaps I should write this for all my students, the main cause of all this bittersweet ranting. Never in my 26 years has any group of people make my life feel so simultaneously empty and (occasionally) fulfilling to the point of bursting. Amidst all the deafening silence, your rare unprompted eigo-rashii utterances, spoken tentatively but earnestly, can make a man…I don’t know what to say. You made it plain and clear that Jeff-sensei is crazy to think that he could inspire you to love English; but when you came back after graduation and used your every last bit of eigo to ask me to teach you how to make a crossover dribble because you were joining your high school basketball team…just when I thought I was out, you pull me back in.

That’s why I gotta get out of Japan, this time for good. That’s why you’ll find no gratuitous thank-you-speeches here. I think, in the end, I gotta write this for me. It’s the only way I can make sense of these 730 days and 460 words. I…
(word limit reached)

The blackout Lakes

(2 days after the Lakers lost game 7, 1 day after I watched them losing it)

120-91. That wasn't basketball, it was a massacre.

- To be honest, there is nothing you can do if a team is going to shoot 60% and 50% on 3 pointers. The Lakers never could match up with Barbosa or Diaw. And when Lakers couldn't counter mismatches and slow the Suns down with presence inside the paint, there's just no hope to contain the Suns' fast break points.

- But maybe Phil should have tried something other than switching on Nash/whoever pick-and-rolls after getting killed by it time after time? Shouldn't they try trapping Nash on the sideline pick-and-rolls, or having Kobe fighting over the screens? Even though it is true that Nash pick-and-rolled his way all season to an MVP, it was very un-Zenmaster-like to make no adjustments after halftime, especially after Nash was visibly slowed by his ankle injury late in the first half.

- And where was Smush? If Smush Parker cannot get in the lane being marked by Steve Nash, who couldn't guard a wheelchair basketball player even when he has two healthy ankles, he should change his name to Smush the Duche. And WHY DIDNT PHIL SEE THIS OBVIOUS MISMATCH, run sets for Parker, and make a hobbled Nash chase him?

- I'm not going to harp on Kwame and his inability to catch passes and make 2-foot jumphooks with Diaw or Thomas on his back. After missing his 3rd jumphook in the 1st quarter, he just slumped, bent his head, and did everything short of quitting and waving a white flag--no surprise Tim Thomas drained a short jumper from the baseline on the ensuing posession. Kwame just doesn't have it. He never had it and maybe he never will.

- I am, however, going to harp on Kobe and his passive play in the 2nd half. Whatever you hear about both Kobe and Phil saying that that was the gameplan, that Kobe needed to get his teammates involved, anyone who has followed Kobe's career knows different. In 2004, after the media criticized his shot selection, Bryant took one-shot in the 1st half in a game against Sacramento, and then stopped talking to reporters for like 2 weeks. Kobe is stubborn and grudge-holding, and unfortunately for us that is part of what makes him great. Unlike the water splashing media, I don't blame game 6 on Kobe. His teammates weren't making shots, Kobe scored an efficient 50 and didn't take wild unmakeable shots (by Kobe standards), and his team still would've won the game if not for a lucky bounce off of a Nash miss that became Tim Thomas' tying 3. But I'm positive, positive that Kobe's refusal to take-over/acquiescence to the (failed) team concept is probably based on something like "Okay, y'all are saying that I lost game 6 by scoring 50 and not getting my inept teammates involved--we'll see how badly we lose this one if I don't score 50." His teammates were literally begging for Kobe's help by missing all their shots, and still Kobe kept passing out of weak traps (do you think Kobe is really afraid of Barbosa/Thomas traps after screen-rolls?) to deer-in-headlight impersonators. If my supremely talented teammate did that to me as I was missing the side of the barn, that gives me the disdainful message of "Here, see if you can fuck up this one up" and not "We win or lose as a team." Kobe's got beef against the world, and we should've all seen this coming considering that he was named after a cut of steak (BTW, it's pronounced KO-BEH and someone should start a campaign to change the pronounciation of his name to just that). If Kobe really wanted to "get his teammates involved", then why wasn't he driving-and-dishing or posting up to draw double teams? I saw him swinging the ball harmlessly outside the 3-point line so many times, it looked to me that Kobe just Quitted. It also didn't help that he didn't shake any of the Suns' hands after the defeat. What a jackass.

- Nash, on the other hand, got plenty of help from his teammates, and gave them plenty of love. There were so many camera shots of some floppy haired dude hugging panting and sweaty men, the program should have been R rated. Nash trusts his teammates, he makes them believe that they can be better, that they can rise to what Nash expects from them. Doug Collins kept reiterating that Nash did not blame the ref or anyone after his two late-game turnovers in game 4, he simply stated that he needs to be better than that. Who wouldn't want to follow and play their hearts out for a guy like that? Comparing Nash to Kobe is like comparing Tom Hanks in Saving Private Ryan to Clint Eastwood in Dirty Harry. I was mistaken: there should have been no debate between Nash or Kobe for the MVP.

- I'm not bitter. The Lakers at their best just didn't have it against the Suns at their best. The Lakers knew it, the Suns knew it, everyone knew it coming into the series. Kobe and the Lakers, with all their shortcomings, not only made us believe the impossible but they actually made us feel shocked when the impossible did not happen--what more can you ask out of your team?

- And in the end, we all knew that it would take 2 LA teams to take down Phoenix anyway. Clippers in 6.

side note re the title: At the beginning of 3rd quarter, when Suns' lead expanded to 20 from 15, Simona started getting the hiccups. She stood up straight against the wall and held a deep breath according to my grandma's home remedy, and I stood up too. A combination of seeing my team down by 20 and standing up too fast made me faint and black out for a second. My memory went from looking at Simona's face to staring at the floor and wondering how many drinks I've had (zero).

Back

久しぶりです。Just got back from my 4 days 3 nights mini-road trip. I should write a bit about the rafting, canyoning, sightseeing, and Arthur Scargles--after I finish watching the Clippers' and Lakers' games 5's (in that order).

I downloaded the games before checking my emails, rss, and ESPN. As far as I'm concerned it's no different than watching it fresh off the 2 day and 16 time zone tape-delay.

Here we go Clip/Lakers here we go (clap clap).

(updated 13:17) Clippers won! Chest bumps and fist pumps to my imaginary Clipper nation. I drink to another week of Billy Crystal sightings.

(updated 15:34) Lakers lost. I will now get up and away from the computer, and brush my teeth. And I missed Kobe's version of Jordan's fist pump in game 4 too. Damn.