Busy Weekend -- Individuals Judo Tournament

   I woke up around 6:00 with a solid eight hours of sleep behind me. I woke up earlier because I wanted to have a bit more time in the shower to wake up before walking to school. Even though I hadn't made a lunch the night before, I didn't really worry about it since there would be bentos again; I hadn't known that on Saturday.

   As I was preparing to cross the main road to walk up to the school, a car pulled over and signaled that it was going to turn, so I backed up a bit. I don't really want to get hit by a car again, no matter how slowly it's going! It weirded me out a bit when the car stopped right in front of me, though.

   It was Oono!

   I hopped in and he drove me up to the school, where the meet-up went pretty much the same way it had gone before. We all made our way out to the gym for the tournament again. Both Oono and I were feeling a lot more refreshed and awake, so we talked a bit in the car; I knew he liked Gundam, since his cell phone's theme is all about Gundam. He also has a few on his keychain, too.

   I found out that he only likes the original Gundam and he hasn't seen any of the newer stuff, including Gundam Unicorn, which is a sequel to the original Gundam. It turns out that he's into mecha anime, like Evangelion, too. And computers. What an unlikely combination for a guy who teaches gym... I sure learned a lot about stereotyping this weekend.

   We talked a bit about a lot of different stuff on the way out to the gym and it really helped pass the time. Once we got there, everyone gathered up for another pep talk before piling into the gym. The first-year kids were all as bored as fuck; they'd done nothing yesterday but hang out and cheer... so it must have been pretty boring for them, especially as new club members who hadn't really gotten to know anyone yet.

   At least I was friends with the older students and had a reason to cheer!

   Well, all of the first-year kids were being especially sluggish today, just lazing around and playing rock-scissors-paper and a weird finger game, which I'll write about some other time if I remember. They spent most of the day doing that, even during matches, which really pissed me off... I ended up scolding a few of them and whacking them on the head lightly.

   In any case, two of the three boys lost right away, one in a very early and embarrassing fall. The third boy won his first match easily, but lost his second. He didn't seem too bummed about losing; he actually said that since he lost, it meant he could eat a lot more lunch...

   There's a kid after my own stomach!

   The girls had mixed results. Some of them lost the first time, two of them made it on to the second round. The boys had much larger brackets in all of the weight classes since more boys are interested in judo than girls. Two of the girls were pretty heavy (for Japanese girls), so there were only three or four people in their backets, total. So, in short, even if they lost their first matches, they'd still "place."

   Well, they did lose... and it was bitter.

   Basically, out of everyone who went out, injuries and all, only two girls ended up placing "for real" -- one with third and another with first. The girl who placed first was in the 48 kg weight class, which is just slightly over 100 pounds. She actually skipped dinner the night before and breakfast in the morning to be able to make weight and came in at 47.9 kg!

   That was close... but we were all glad she won. She's also one of my favorite kids, too, even though she doesn't particularly like English...