Basketball with the Students

Hello again everyone!

After my first full week of teaching classes at my base school, Higashi Middle School, all of the students now know me. I took this as my cue to start participating in after school activities with the kids. What this means is that I wandered my way over to the gym after classes ended on Friday.

There, I found a few of the boys casually shooting hoops. They saw me and excitedly greeted me, so I headed over and picked up a ball. Those of you who've known me for a while know that I'm pretty terrible at basketball. After an uncountable number of failed dribbles, rim shots, and even more air balls, those few boys understood how bad I was.

Apparently, those few boys were just the early birds, as the gym began to fill up with more people. More and more students came in to play basketball, and the girls group showed up also. The gym was split in half as the volleyball club came in also. After a while, the gym was filled with more than 40 kids.

At this point, I already had enough warm up time to get reacquainted with basketball, as I had not played in months to maybe years. I managed to get a few lucky shots and mostly avoided missing the rim altogether. I was still shooting with the boys, when one of the math teachers walked in. I made a few impressive but lucky shots, and she walked away saying "sugoi!" (which means "amazing!" for those who don't speak Japanese) before I started missing all my shots again. Note to self: prove to her that I'm actually not good at basketball.

After I was bored shooting with the boys (who don't bother speaking English and weren't impressed), I headed over to the girls' side to see what was going on. A group of 4-5 girls was loitering around the 3 point line, so I joined them and started chatting a little bit. One of the girls took a rather wild 3-point shot, but it when in. I shouted, "sugoi!"

One of the other girls told me it was my turn, and I warned them that I suck at basketball. They said to just try anyways, so I took a shot from the same spot. It went it, and they made a ruckus. I told them it was just luck, so they told me to shoot again. So, I shrugged and did. It went it again. They made an even bigger ruckus. I turned to them and insisted that it really just was a coincidence. They were skeptical, and told me to take another shot. I assured them it would miss this time and took the shot. It went in again. At this point, the previous two ruckuses (rucki?) turned the attention of the entire basketball half of the gym to me, so the crowd went up in a frenzy. Trying to convince them of my lack of ability wouldn't have done me a single favor at this point, so I just collapsed onto the ground with my face in my hands. As I crawled back up speechlessly, they told me to take one more shot. Exasperated, I did, and it finally missed. Unfortunately, it only missed by a hair, so the girls yelled "oshii!!" (which means "so close!!"). I told them, "I'm done here. I'm going home," and left the gym.

Now, I have an entire army of basketball girls, who knows how many volleyball kids, and one teacher who think I'm amazing at basketball, but I'm just too humble to admit it. God help me...