Worudou Kappu

And so the World Cup is upon us once again. I’m glad, for various reasons: (i) it’s free entertainment – there’s at least one match on tv here every night for the next 2 weeks, handy as money’s quite tight right now (we’re running on 2 weeks’ pay this month since we started in the middle of April); (ii) it gives an extra boost of interest to be in another country when it’s on, more so when that country’s got a team in the competition as well; (iii)it gives a chance to see teams play who you wouldn’t normally get to see (North Korea, Paraguay et al.); (iv) there’s an especially English masochistic pleasure to be had from watching the national team’s quadrennial stumble to the second-round/quarterfinal graveyard, all the more when it’s 5am and the sun’s coming up.
Went for a bit of a drive round this part of Iwate on Saturday, great fun: sun shining, countryside forested and mountainous, windows down, radio blasting (well, excreting the latest glutinous saccharine efforts of J-Pop castrati actually, but it’s the thought that counts), wind in my hair etc. Thank God for cars, and that I’ve got one. I reckon life would be rather claustrophobic after a few months here without. Yes, that does probably make me an eco-fiend and I’m no doubt going to eco-hell for it (a job testing car parts with my teeth somewhere in a partly radioactive former Soviet republic, or perhaps collecting used rubbers and syringes from beaches in Phuket. With my teeth) but it is rather fun…
Helped out Dana on Saturday morning at the preschool she works at once a month. 4-, 5- and 6-year-olds, all with the energy levels of Jim Carrey on a diet of Weetabix and crack, all supercute (every ALT wants to steal one). ‘Work’ consisted mostly of playing tag with them in the garden along with a bit of singing (‘London Bridge is Falling Down’ a particular hit) and reading them a story. When told we were going outside to play I thought for a second either they were about to turn incontinent or their heads were going to explode, such was the excitement: nothing in the history of human experience could apparently have prepared anyone for this, the mind-frazzling pleasure of being allowed in the garden on a sunny day. Fair enough, actually. And at least they don’t go on about sex the whole time… Anyway, all jolly good fun; I’ll be helping Dana again next month and probably taking over when she leaves in August. Another ALT left a couple of weeks ago whose replacement is due shortly, soon we won’t be the new boys in town anymore! My head’s going to explode. Bye for now.