2012年10月25日木曜日

Let the Games Begin!


Well, last week the first year International class competed in the ball games sports day at TGH  and were... less than awesome! Let's just say one of the important new English phrases I taught them which was used often that day was "straight sets".

We started out stretching to Radjio Taiso- a traditional, supererogatory stretching exercise that originated probably around the same time as radio itself. Our girls held their own in the stretching area and its unfortunate that prizes aren't awarded for it because I suspect we would have walked away with a bronze.
So, on to dodgeball, where we fought to a draw with our first opponents but lost out in the overtime clinching rock-paper-scissors battle (maybe they should practice that in their next PE class). We were relegated to the sidelines while our victorious opponents proceeded to beat up on other teams and claim glory.


Volleyball has changed this year from normal volleyballs to "soft" volleyballs as you can see from the opening picture; not that it helped us much. We went down in the first round before time ran out- I noticed that our strategy was basically "hope the ball they serve to us lands out of play" since this is how we accumulated the bulk of our points.

Finally, Basketball- my least favorite of the ball sports. Lots of clawing, scratching, screaming, biting, pulling of hair and crying- then my co-homeroom teacher Miyuki told me too chill out because the game hadn't even started yet. When it did, we lost. Then we played another game and we also lost that too... oh wait a second- we won! Yes, in our second (sympathy) round match we were getting knocked around and stomped over through the first three quarters. With about 3 minutes to go we were down 10-2 and then a miracle happened! Our best player Karen (she of the universal thumbs-up gesture in the picture) sprained her ankle! As she hobbled around the court I guess she must have inspired her teammates and maybe thrown our opponents off their game plan, because our Inter-One girls started dishing her the ball and she started finding the net. "Swish" 4, "Swish" 8, "Swish" 10 and then with about a dozen seconds to play "SWISH" 12! Storybook ending as our last game ends in our only victory.