Who Needs Torino?

A weekend of fun in the snow! I have just come back from an awesome three-day weekend, the sort of weekend that makes me wonder if I shouldn't do a fourth year out here (chill, Family, it won't happen).

On Saturday, I was picked up by shiny, happy Teralynn in her kocho-sensei car, and headed for the slopes of Kainayama for a spot of boarding. We had a grand old time, chatting away, comparing snow stories, shooting down the tiny gelendes, and marvelling at how warm it was. At about 4pm, we called it a day, and prepared to embark on the long drive to Higashiiya, where we were spending the night before the frolicks of Sunday. Saturday night was a good time: about 11 people eventually turned up at Nate's, and we chatted until the wee small hours, making ourselves a team flag, and generally chilling out proper.

Team flag? That's right, Sunday was the Yukigassen, which you may recall I wrote about a couple of weeks back. The All-Shikoku Snowball Fight Tournament was a total ball. We did much better than we thought we would, and were knocked out only after a desperate tie-break. We went down in a blaze of glory. If I write about all the details of the tourny, it'll be boring, so I'll just say that I haven't had that much good clean fun for a long time. We were a team, we did our best, we didn't quite conquer, but we had a damn good try. After the tourny, we ate, onsenned, drove down to Mikamo, ate some more. Then Nate came back to mine, we had a beer, watched a Buffy, then became unconscious as the fatigue of the day caught up with us. Nate especially: he was our team captain, and it had been a very physical and mental day for him. I think 'happily frazzled' is how I'd describe his demenour at 11pm on Sunday.

We both had the day off on Monday, and had decided to use it to go boarding. Being so drained, it was late morning before we finally got on the road. The snow was pretty rubbish, and the weather left a lot to be desired as well. Nevertheless, we had a lot of fun hanging out. We called it a day about 3pm, heading back to mine to sleep some more, before Nate headed to Ikeda to meet a friend for dinner, and I got down to some laundry and lesson planning.

The weekend relaxed me so much, and I had such a lot of fun. I wish this was life, but it isn't. My one low point was when some people were talking about what they'd do about "next year's tournament", and I had one of those horrible little lurches in my stomach because I know I won't be here.

AJET mad season is upon us. I have an inbox full of correspondence, and a forum full of new posts to digest. I love all this craziness. It feels like I'm doing something, and I'm part of something. Life's pretty damn good.