In a Sporting Spirit

Well, today I played my first rugby game of 2006 for the Wings Osaka Club. We lost about 45-21. Hockeyed, you might say...I socred a try from second centre, but it was a small consolation. The opposition today was strong, young and fit and although we fought hard we were overwhelmed. I was a bit annoyed because I didn't remember the rules I set myself: when tackling plant the feet, and tackle the opponent's inside shoulder. They got past us on numerous occasions because none of us were willing or capable of making efficient textbook tackles. Well, back to the drawing board...in my defence let me say that the supply of ball today was not ideal, with our no.s 10 and 11 hamming it up a number of times. That's always frustrating for an outside centre. Well, しょうがないね。。。ところで、we had a get-together near Kyobashi station after the game which was awesome. We also stopped into a　noodle restaurant (うどん屋) on the way home, and the evening ended with me taking the train back to Kyoto, cycling home in the snow, and, finally, fixing my neighbour's toilet. Yes, it's all about internationalisation here...

Holy God it's the middle of January! The snow has left us but it's still colder than all hell. Sitting in this evening, half-watching a ドラマ (drama) about....firemen! Ceart go leor, like! School's fine for the time being. Well, the Ma was about for the New Year and it was awesome. We visited Hiroshima, Miyajima World Heritage Site, Kyoto and Osaka. She fecked off to Nara herself for the day as well! We are both big tanuki fans - it's a Japanese raccoon dog that's real, but mythical and lives in Japan! Gave a プレセンティシオン today about Irish architecture at my high school, which went down well. It was a buzz telling Japanese kids about crannogs, bee hive cells, the nascent sun coming through the roof box at Newgrange on a winter solstice morning...
my school just recently won the All-Japan High School rugby tournament - fair play! きをつけて、Brian O'Driscoll!