tako_koen (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} tako_koen) wrote,@ 2004-03-19 18:10:00 |
|
Priceless...
My 1st-year students had Sports Day today. Each of the four homeroom classes competed against each other, the boys playing soccer and the girls playing dodgeball.
Though I stepped out once to make an appearance at the soccer fields, I had a hard time tearing myself away from the dodgeball. Just imagine, tiny, cute-as-a-button, quiet, shy, Japanese 13-year-old girls, hurling a volleyball as hard as they can at each other, often inflicting pain and punishment in the process.
The great thing was, they would be vicious one minute, and immediately be cute and innocent the next. Like, one little girl smashed another who was standing literally right next to her in the back with the ball, and then immediately covered her mouth and cried, "Gomei!" (I'm sorry!). They looked as if they really felt bad about beaning each other with the ball, but that didn't stop them from doing it to the best of their ability. So cute.
And I was shocked to see how hard some of the girls could hurl the ball. They look so small and sweet, but some of them had rocket arms, and whenever they hit someone it was a loud "thud" follwed by a high-pitched yelp. Then the thrower would usually cry out an apology. By the end of the day there was a whole line of girls sitting on the wall with ice on their fingers, faces or legs, and some girls had huge red marks on the legs and faces from being hit with the ball. Carnage, but cute carnage.
It came down to the last dodgeball match to see which class would win, and when it was over, the girls on the losing team just started bawling their eyes out, while the winners were screaming and yelling and basically going crazy as if they had just won the Olympics or something. So great.
Michael
My 1st-year students had Sports Day today. Each of the four homeroom classes competed against each other, the boys playing soccer and the girls playing dodgeball.
Though I stepped out once to make an appearance at the soccer fields, I had a hard time tearing myself away from the dodgeball. Just imagine, tiny, cute-as-a-button, quiet, shy, Japanese 13-year-old girls, hurling a volleyball as hard as they can at each other, often inflicting pain and punishment in the process.
The great thing was, they would be vicious one minute, and immediately be cute and innocent the next. Like, one little girl smashed another who was standing literally right next to her in the back with the ball, and then immediately covered her mouth and cried, "Gomei!" (I'm sorry!). They looked as if they really felt bad about beaning each other with the ball, but that didn't stop them from doing it to the best of their ability. So cute.
And I was shocked to see how hard some of the girls could hurl the ball. They look so small and sweet, but some of them had rocket arms, and whenever they hit someone it was a loud "thud" follwed by a high-pitched yelp. Then the thrower would usually cry out an apology. By the end of the day there was a whole line of girls sitting on the wall with ice on their fingers, faces or legs, and some girls had huge red marks on the legs and faces from being hit with the ball. Carnage, but cute carnage.
It came down to the last dodgeball match to see which class would win, and when it was over, the girls on the losing team just started bawling their eyes out, while the winners were screaming and yelling and basically going crazy as if they had just won the Olympics or something. So great.
Michael
