Today is a Good Day to Die!

Actually, can we take dying as an open action item? Move it up to next Tuesday? Maybe we just write it off the plans entirely.

So work was today. I stayed up all night for some reason so that I'd be ready to leave at 6:30 am. Turns out the departure was pushed back to 7:30 but for some reason I wasn't informed, and I totally could've gotten some sleep. Ah well.

The ride there was... kinda long, to say the least. Probably about 45 minutes to an hour in a car, so it's further than Saiki. The place was umm....Segashi Seki? Sagashi Saiki? I can't recall the name because I'm awful like that, but it was a nice little city from what we saw, and their 7-11 had delicious chicken.

We got there and wandered around the beach for a bit confused as to what to do. Met Shingo's dad who was the man in charge of the event (he's some public official and it was part of his reelection campaign) and he gave us wheat stalk(?) hats to wear and nametags. We ran into some kids that asked us in practiced English how we were doing today, and Keith mumbled a response that they seemed incapable of understanding (especially considering they looked at each other and asked what he said in Japanese) and I repeated that we were doing fine thank you, and they giggled and ran back off to the beach. Kids :|

There were huge spiders everywhere. Feel a need to point that out. A large hunting spider on top of the door to the changing room, spiders hanging from all the rafters of the beach structures, everywhere. Was kind of offsetting.

The events began soon enough. The two Americans were given assistants because we're pretty dumb (honestly, we are) and my girl basically took charge of taking attendance and smiling politely at me. I got to take care of all the dirty work, like trying to get some kid with severe ADD to stop yelling during the announcements, accepting various "gifts" from kids (a seashell, a ball of wet sand, a rock, and seaweed), and standing crotch deep in freezing cold water to be the tag point for the relay races. Oh boy.

After the games was a period of free swim, and there were jellyfish in the water. Seriously. A tentacle floated over near the shore, and there were a bunch swimming a bit away from where we were. Not cool. But, none of them actually came to us, and it was a nice time hanging out with the people I came with and all the kids.

Then food! We assisted in making curried rice from scratch using traditional methods (traditional curry. Yeah, okay Japan). Somehow the ADD kid was allowed to volunteer with working the fire, and my lovely assistant motioned that I should also go work the fire. So I pouted and walked over there, and spent a good thirty to forty minutes trying to talk the kid down from fanning the fire so strongly that ash and smoke flew everywhere (like my eyes and throat) and embers flew all over the ground. Eventually Sappho came over and helped trying to calm the kid down, but he just kept commenting how she was a girl and he didn't have to listen to her. So in what I assumed was a commanding Japanese voice I looked at him and went "YAMERO." essentially a direct command saying "You must stop." The kid seemed kinda shocked and did as he was told and quit misbehaving... in spurts... when my back wasn't turned. Really though it was better than he had been before, so it worked out.

I lost a round of janken (rock paper scissors) and as a result had to play a group round of the game with all the kids for prizes. SAISHO WA GUU! JANKENPON! And then the kids win prizes based on the fact that I pretty much chose rock every time. There was also some parent that tried to get in on the janken action, and I have no idea what that was all about.

That was pretty much the end of that. There was a semaphore performance and final closing things, and then we got changed and helped clean up a little. We got to keep the hats as gifts and were invited back for a barbecue later in the month, so that'll be good. The kids kept excitedly hanging around us a bit as well. The kids were awesome. I wish I had o- wait, no, dangerous thought path. Let's not go down that road...

The ride back was alright, but I was trying to keep up conversation with Keith while on the verge of passing out. Sappho did pass out. I had to stay awake for the group meeting in Beppu to work on our presentation though, so I managed to hold out for a bit.

I was in my room on the computer, and figured that lying back for a minute wouldn't be too all of a sudden Keith was knocking on my door and asking me why I wasn't ready yet and man how could you fall asleep? My bad. So I said I'd shower quick and meet them all at the station.

We got one cancellation and the other guy was 45 minutes late, so I was really the least of the problems anyways. We did what we could do with the project, and then went back to Lee's place to play some vidya games. I lost at Street Fighter so hard, but I only lost three rounds in Soul Caliber 4, in all the two hours we were playing it. Go me.

And I just realized I still haven't had much sleep. I got little sleep the day before because I needed to wake up early to get my homework done, and then I got no sleep last night, and a 45 minute nap today.

Gonna go do that now. ZzZzzz.