Skiing with the masters

Our group for skiing. A good bunch of people.
This month I again went with my colleague and good friend Mishina to the famed Shiga Kogen ski resort in Nagano, site of the 1998 Olympics skiing events. As you will no doubt remember, last time I went skiing on this trip I brought along with me my usual large contingent of female admirers, who brought me endless embarassment. Luckily for all, I was unencumbered and untethered this time around, free to bask in the glory of manhood to my heart's content. [Ed's note: Khaleelah, Hong, or Kay, if you are reading this, I was lying about the whole 'endless embarassment' thing. It only lasted a few weeks.]

The classic Mishina. An exceptional human being.























Those who know me, work with me, or have ever met me for coffee know that timeliness is not what I do best. Mishina knows this well, so he took the liberty of posting a sticky-note on my apartment door reminding me that I would get a "wake-up" call at 2:50 A.M. and that I should pack my things the night before. He made a point of saying that "We cannot be late." I appreciated the reminder. I went right inside and packed all my stuff, and then, in the spirit of careful preparation and vigilance with which I conduct all my affairs, I stayed up surfing the internet until about 12:30, thus giving me a healthy 3 hours of sleep for my long day of skiing. That's how the pros do it.

After we rendezvoused at school with the dozens of other teacher-skier types, we set off on the expressway into Nagano a little after 4 a.m. After staying awake long enough to make a pleasantry or two to my car-mates, I promptly went to sleep for the next 3 hours, waking only to pee, drool, and eat breakfast (in that order).

I quite like this coffee shop shaped like a coffee pot.

Eventually we were up at the top of the mountain, freezing our arses off. One of the teachers with us was a gym-teacher from the school, Aoyama-sensei. He is one of those guys who exudes fitness and ability from every pore. I felt inadequate just looking in his direction. He's way friendly and generous, though. Anyway, we got to the top of a steep and treacherous descent, and going first in the line, he absolutely screamed down the mountain. He got to the bottom in what seemed like 3 seconds, his legs absorbing the pounding shocks like they were nothing, his balance and poise flawless. I was speechless. This was the one to watch.

And over the course of the weekend I did learn by example. The other few skiers of our small contingent, including Mishina, were all extremely skillful skiers, which put me in the relatively unfamiliar position of being the slowest of the bunch. I was in awe of all of their abilities, but it was fantastic for me to ski with them, since I went down more challenging routes more quickly than I would have done on my own. We took black diamonds like they were nothing. They devoured moguls and spat them back out. I sort of chewed on the moguls. These guys were really, really impressive. To my own credit, I managed to do pretty much everything they did, although slightly slower. The constant pressure and excellent models helped me to improve a lot over the weekend. Later, over drinks at the apre-ski party that night, I drew compliments from Aoyama-sensei and the other most talented skier of the bunch. It felt great.

As a side note, at the full-course dinner that came included with the hotel, I managed to eat and enjoy every single one of the items except for one. This is no small feat, considering the relative strangeness of a lot of fancy Japanese food. The stuff is great, though, once you get a taste for it. I even managed to eat an entire fish, bones and all. And what's more, I enjoyed it. I even reached over and took my neighbor's fish which she didn't want. I was quite proud of this milestone in my culinary development.

Later that night, a few of us men-folk headed out to the furo, or bath, which has a huge window directly to the outside. We all stripped down to our birthday suits and then, after washing, poked our toes into the tub. It was hot enough to cook ramen in. After adjusting the water such that our skin might stand a fighting chance of staying attached to our bodies for at least ten minutes, one of us opened up the huge window with snow drifts outside, allowing into the room a furious gust of snowy, blowing wind. I wish I could describe what it's like to be sitting in a scalding hot bathtub at eleven pm in a ski resort in Japan, completely naked, being bombarded with an icy, snowy wind coming in through a massive window. It feels great. Next we got the idea to reach out the window and start throwing pieces of snow at each other. It was f-ing cold. Then we had the even brighter idea to actually climb out the window and stand in the snow for a minute. That was even colder. Then we piled a bunch of snow on top of Suzuguchi-sensei's head and let it melt for a while. It's good to be 10 again.

Check out this insane icicle near our room. The guys were pointing out the window and motioning for me to look. I didn't see anything, until I noticed this 15-foot beast right in front of me. What a monster: I couldn't even fit all of it into the camera's range of view.























The last day of skiing was a pure blizzard. Going down, I was almost stopped by the wind. I could see only a few feet in front of me, the snow was incredibly deep, and my face felt like it was being stung by about 10,000 tiny, icy needles. I was about ready to call it quits by the end of the second run. Luckily I perservered and the day got much better and I managed to improve my speed. I think I'm truly in love with skiing. I would do it every day if I could. One of the highlights had to be a near vertical run covered with insanely deep snow. It was all I could do to zig-zag my precarious way down at the speed of molasses. Aoyama-sensei, of course, sailed straight down in a way that I had only previously seen in ski videos. I however ended up in a snow drift near the bottom where the snow came up past my waist. An interesting sensation, to be half-buried in snow. Since my skis were buried, I decided the best approach was to keep moving forward, making little kicking motions with my legs and hurling my weight forward. To my surprise, slowly I began to make progress against the huge volume of snow in which I was suspended. After a good bit of effort, I managed to pop out the side of a snow wall while collapsing it behind me. It looked wayyyy cool.

After all this intense skiing, we headed into one of the lodges for a hot lunch and a cool bottle of the local Shiga Kogen microbrewery beer. It was gooood.

Some more icicles outside my window. Being from San Diego, I find it incredibly romantic to be up in a cozy room in the Alps with a winter scene like this right outside my window.

Our cars after only about a day. That's a bit of snow.

The area beneath the hotel where the outdoor bath is. Gosh I love snow!


And that was my trip to Nagano with the teachers, my third trip to Nagano this year. I love that place.

Good Evening

The sun reflects off the gym at the end of another school day at Nakatsu High School, December 2007.

Deconstructing Nakatsu High School

The folks at Nakatsu High are planning to build two new buildings over the next couple years, so they brought in a demolition crew in December to destroy the first of the the 50-year old school buildings. We had already completely emptied out the school building and moved to a temporary one in August, but it wasn't until December that they finally brought in the big machines and got to work. I was taken aback by how rapid it was. They spent what seemed like weeks building scaffolding around it and carefully removing panes of glass, etc, then one day I looked out the window of my own classroom in the adjoining building and saw poking out above the tarp what appeared to be a gigantic dinosaur eating the school. That's all I can really describe it as. The machines had these huge jaw-like attachments fitted to them, and they were insanely powerful. I watched as they would position them around a thick concrete pillar, and once they put the pressure on, the concrete would just explode under the pressure. It was really impressive. To watch it, I sat on the top of an adjoining building with some senior students and watched as these crazy machines ate the school bit by bit. It was hard to imagine that under all that rubble was where my first desk was, and where I had had so many experiences. They seem a little more fleeting, now that the building is gone. Now there is only a big dirt field. But as they say, the only constant is change.

The Cradle of Bewilderment, I mean Civilization

A few weeks ago, I was having a conversation with one of the history teachers of the school, and he knew that I had studied history at university. He asked what my areas of interest were, and I responded that I liked the Middle East and India in particular. So he asked if I could give a 1-hour lecture to his history class, which was composed of students in the school's English track. For some mysterious reason, I agreed. He's a pretty darn erudite guy, so I was very, very nervous about not coming off like an uninformed dolt. Not sure if that was accomplished.

It was only later that I realized that it's hard enough teaching anything to anybody in a language they barely understand, let alone something as complicated as Middle Eastern history. And my English classes usually have lots of activities to break up the monotony of me talking. But this was just gonna be straight, unadulterated 50 minutes of me. Personally, I couldn't stand the thought of listening to my own voice for such an uninterrupted period. I'm sure you can understand. So, you would have thought that, given this challenge, I would simplify for the sake of clarity. Oh, quite the opposite. I decided that I was going to cover Middle Eastern history right, and in my warped mind that meant everything from about 8,000 BC until yesterday. In 50 minutes. Therein lay the rub.

I was crazy busy that week, but I spent hours over many nights agonizing over how to give a 1-hour lecture on this subject and what and how to teach them. I even considered dropping the subject in favor of Central and South American history, in which case I was gonna tell them where many of the foods we know and love today really came from (ie, chili peppers, chocolate, potatoes, sweet potatoes, corn, tobacco, vanilla, cranberries, blackberries, pumpkins, turkeys, and, of course, the avocado. Really, where would the world be without guacamole?

I really didn't spend enough prep time, though, because when the hour came I was pretty much resigned to relying on my year and a half's worth of "winging it" experience. That and a massive chalk timeline I hastily drew behind me, as well as some pitifully undersized maps. It started off well enough, with a nice visual aid in the form of a map of the Middle East passed out to each student with some prominent countries' names missing. I had them identify Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey, which they did with reasonable success. However, once the visual aids stopped and the discussion of Catal Huyuk and early Sumerian civilization began, they were lost. As for me, I started a quiet panic in which I would write things on the board, think of stuff to say about them, stare off into space for a minute, lost in thought, wipe sweat off my brow, point to the handout, erase what I had written. And of course there was the inevitable and pointless appeal to the audience: "Okay so far?" Once we passed into the Common Era I entered my knowledge comfort zone a little more, so winging it became less painful for all, but still, man, teaching is hard! I think I only managed to pique their interest when I mentioned all the amazing things the Arabs were doing while Europeans were busy flinging their dung at each other. That is truly fascinating stuff, I must admit.

It doesn't get much better than being up at the front of 40 students, literally sweating balls, frantically trying to simplify your explanation of how the Arabs started the first university to offer degrees and how this was a really great thing. The kids did a decent job of faking a bit of comprehension and/or interest, though, I'll give them that.

After the lesson, I asked the best student from the class, a girl who embraces English with a passionate love and who studies diligently everyday and talks to me as much as she possibly can. "Were you able to understand it?" I asked her, expectantly. With a huge gleaming smile on her face, she replied enthusiastically, "No, but it was still great!"

There you go, folks. I love this country.


Part of my magnificent handout:























The visual aid that worked:

Beautiful Winter

The top picture is the scene that greeted me the morning after I returned from the majestic snow-filled vistas of Nagano, and the other two are the snowstorm that greeted me the morning after that. It was actually my first time to see heavy snow in Nakatsugawa.

Snowy Morning