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It ain't easy being green
Okay, look, it's St. Patrick's day, so to celebrate, I went to a baseball game and wore my green Hichori Morimoto #1 t-shirt and my green towel and green wristbands, and... and everyone's like "WTF is wrong with you Deanna-san, we know you're his biggest fan and all but Hichori is injured and won't be playing today, didn't you hear?" and I'm like "I heard, but today is a holiday where we usually wear green in the US, so I am wearing green! It's called St. Patrick's Day!" "Who is this Patrick-san?" "Nevermind."
But, as for the day, let me back up a second.
I had an interview in the afternoon. It went smashingly well, and just like the last few, the company might not actually have jobs to offer me. Sigh. If only I could find out WHICH teacher dispatching company is doing the underbidding and screwing over all the other ones, I would either interview with them... or more likely, punch them. Sigh.
I had more time than expected, so I came home and changed out of my suit and all, and went to the Tokyo Dome for the Fighters-Buffaloes game in the evening. I got there a bit later than expected and so I didn't have time to hunt down the Fighters Fan Club table or the goods table. Oops. I basically arrived around 5:20 for a 6pm game... Hiromi had emailed like "we're here! where are you?" at like 4:30, heh. So when I arrived I emailed her, like "I'm here! Where are YOU?" and she said "Oops, we'll be back in a minute" and found me and it turned out our group had saved an entire section of seats in the front row! Yay.
So yeah, it ended up being Ojisan, Hiromi, me, Mariko, Mariko's daughter, Waka-chan, Waka-chan's friend whose name I never caught, and another friend of Hiromi's who I have met before and is also a Hichori fan but I forgot her name, oops! We were also joined for a while by Sasaki-san, who is an older guy and longtime friend of Ojisan... and was like, on the board of directors of the Nippon Ham company for years. Big group. Oh yeah, the college kids were there, across the aisle from us, also front row.
It also turned out my friend Sakamoto was there. About 3 minutes into the game, after -- no joke -- our starting pitcher Sakakibara threw ONE pitch to Greg LaRocca, who lined it back to the mound, hitting Sakakibara in the leg and resulting in him being carried off the field by trainers... anyway, I get email from Sakamoto like "are you at the dome?" and I'm like "Yeah, sucks to be Sakakibara" and he's like "where are you? I'm behind the ouendan" and I'm like "dude, I'm in the front row, wearing my Hichori shirt!" So he came by and waved, but we really didn't have any open seats in our row (plus, except for Ojisan we don't appear to accept men into our cheering group, teehee).
The game was... exciting, kind of. The Fighters were ahead for quite a while, and then Toyoshima-kun, who's 19 years old now, pitched one good inning and one "OMFG SCARY" inning where he gave up a home run to EVERY foreigner he faced. No, really -- Greg LaRocca, Alex Cabrera, Tuffy Rhodes, and Jose Fernandez, ALL hit home runs off Toyoshima in the 6th inning, for a total of 5 runs scored :( It was pretty scary and put Orix ahead 5-3... then the Fighters got up 7-5 in their half of the 6th... then the Buffaloes caught up again in their half of the 7th! It was 7-7 going into the 9th inning and then Shintaro Ejiri took the mound. I <3 Ejiri, he's one of the only guys who's still on the team from when I first started following them and he was also super-nice to me when I was stalking Fighters players last fall. Unfortunately... he got 2 outs fairly quickly and then no joke, the Buffaloes ripped him to shreds, scoring SIX RUNS OFF HIM IN THE TOP OF THE 9TH. Keiji Ohbiki hit a grand slam and then Takeshi Hidaka followed it with another homerun... the Buffaloes hit a grand total of 7 homers off the Fighters, whereas the Fighters only reciprocrated with 2 of their own. This does not bode well for the season.
On the other hand, I had a great time. Hiromi is so nice to me! It's amazing how she seriously just doesn't seem to have any issues being friends with a gaijin, unlike so many others here. And hanging out with friends and learning new cheer songs is always great! UNFORTUNATELY, halfway through the 8th inning Mariko says, "Hey, we were just on TV, my friend told me," and I'm like "Eh?" and she said "Yeah, she said she saw me standing next to a foreigner reading her lyrics sheet for Itoi's song..." and I'm thinking "I'VE BEEN HOLDING UP SIGNS ALL GAME AND CHEERING MY GUTS OUT THE ENTIRE GAME AND THE TIME THEY PUT ME ON TV IS LOOKING LIKE AN IDIOT FOREIGNER WHO CAN'T READ JAPANESE?" but whatever.
My friends literally all vanished immediately after the game ended... I found Akki (one of the college boys, he also lives in Akabane) and asked if he was heading home, but he said "It was a tough game, we're gonna go drinking first, sorry". It's actually a good thing, since my bike was in Motohasunuma anyway. However, instead, on the way out of the stadium I saw Sakamoto walking with some people a bit ahead of me, so I sped up and got his attention the only way I could think of at the time: I punched him in the back. It worked pretty well. It turned out there's a new BB and Cubby (the bear mascots of the team) photobook, so he wanted to get it signed by the mascots, so we went to the gate by home plate with his friends and played Harrass The Mascots for a while :) He kept going back and forth between both mascots getting them to write various nasty things about each other in the book... I got my photo with Cubby seen above... and people were just in general playing around with the mascots, which was funny. At one point a couple wanted to get their baby in a picture with the mascots and instead the mascots took the baby and pretended that they were going to run off and eat him. And then a crazy girl actually got BB to put on her Orix Buffaloes jersey and take a photo with her, so some other dude gave Cubby a Kiyohara jersey to wear... that also resulted in some pretty funny shots.
So by the time I left, I was laughing so hard I forgot the Fighters totally blew the game. I guess that's the point.
Now umm... umm... oh god, it's 1:30am and I seriously was going to try to be in Kamagaya by like 11am tomorrow so I can try to chat up some of the foreign Fighters players :( I have no clue whether that'll work at all, but Hiromi and Ojisan promised they'd save me a seat in the front row above the Fighters dugout so I guess I kind of HAVE to go. Whee.
I might have another phone interview tomorrow evening, though, so that's good. The vibe I'm getting from people is just, do your best, something WILL work out eventually. I hope they're right.
But, as for the day, let me back up a second.
I had an interview in the afternoon. It went smashingly well, and just like the last few, the company might not actually have jobs to offer me. Sigh. If only I could find out WHICH teacher dispatching company is doing the underbidding and screwing over all the other ones, I would either interview with them... or more likely, punch them. Sigh.
I had more time than expected, so I came home and changed out of my suit and all, and went to the Tokyo Dome for the Fighters-Buffaloes game in the evening. I got there a bit later than expected and so I didn't have time to hunt down the Fighters Fan Club table or the goods table. Oops. I basically arrived around 5:20 for a 6pm game... Hiromi had emailed like "we're here! where are you?" at like 4:30, heh. So when I arrived I emailed her, like "I'm here! Where are YOU?" and she said "Oops, we'll be back in a minute" and found me and it turned out our group had saved an entire section of seats in the front row! Yay.
So yeah, it ended up being Ojisan, Hiromi, me, Mariko, Mariko's daughter, Waka-chan, Waka-chan's friend whose name I never caught, and another friend of Hiromi's who I have met before and is also a Hichori fan but I forgot her name, oops! We were also joined for a while by Sasaki-san, who is an older guy and longtime friend of Ojisan... and was like, on the board of directors of the Nippon Ham company for years. Big group. Oh yeah, the college kids were there, across the aisle from us, also front row.
It also turned out my friend Sakamoto was there. About 3 minutes into the game, after -- no joke -- our starting pitcher Sakakibara threw ONE pitch to Greg LaRocca, who lined it back to the mound, hitting Sakakibara in the leg and resulting in him being carried off the field by trainers... anyway, I get email from Sakamoto like "are you at the dome?" and I'm like "Yeah, sucks to be Sakakibara" and he's like "where are you? I'm behind the ouendan" and I'm like "dude, I'm in the front row, wearing my Hichori shirt!" So he came by and waved, but we really didn't have any open seats in our row (plus, except for Ojisan we don't appear to accept men into our cheering group, teehee).
The game was... exciting, kind of. The Fighters were ahead for quite a while, and then Toyoshima-kun, who's 19 years old now, pitched one good inning and one "OMFG SCARY" inning where he gave up a home run to EVERY foreigner he faced. No, really -- Greg LaRocca, Alex Cabrera, Tuffy Rhodes, and Jose Fernandez, ALL hit home runs off Toyoshima in the 6th inning, for a total of 5 runs scored :( It was pretty scary and put Orix ahead 5-3... then the Fighters got up 7-5 in their half of the 6th... then the Buffaloes caught up again in their half of the 7th! It was 7-7 going into the 9th inning and then Shintaro Ejiri took the mound. I <3 Ejiri, he's one of the only guys who's still on the team from when I first started following them and he was also super-nice to me when I was stalking Fighters players last fall. Unfortunately... he got 2 outs fairly quickly and then no joke, the Buffaloes ripped him to shreds, scoring SIX RUNS OFF HIM IN THE TOP OF THE 9TH. Keiji Ohbiki hit a grand slam and then Takeshi Hidaka followed it with another homerun... the Buffaloes hit a grand total of 7 homers off the Fighters, whereas the Fighters only reciprocrated with 2 of their own. This does not bode well for the season.
On the other hand, I had a great time. Hiromi is so nice to me! It's amazing how she seriously just doesn't seem to have any issues being friends with a gaijin, unlike so many others here. And hanging out with friends and learning new cheer songs is always great! UNFORTUNATELY, halfway through the 8th inning Mariko says, "Hey, we were just on TV, my friend told me," and I'm like "Eh?" and she said "Yeah, she said she saw me standing next to a foreigner reading her lyrics sheet for Itoi's song..." and I'm thinking "I'VE BEEN HOLDING UP SIGNS ALL GAME AND CHEERING MY GUTS OUT THE ENTIRE GAME AND THE TIME THEY PUT ME ON TV IS LOOKING LIKE AN IDIOT FOREIGNER WHO CAN'T READ JAPANESE?" but whatever.
My friends literally all vanished immediately after the game ended... I found Akki (one of the college boys, he also lives in Akabane) and asked if he was heading home, but he said "It was a tough game, we're gonna go drinking first, sorry". It's actually a good thing, since my bike was in Motohasunuma anyway. However, instead, on the way out of the stadium I saw Sakamoto walking with some people a bit ahead of me, so I sped up and got his attention the only way I could think of at the time: I punched him in the back. It worked pretty well. It turned out there's a new BB and Cubby (the bear mascots of the team) photobook, so he wanted to get it signed by the mascots, so we went to the gate by home plate with his friends and played Harrass The Mascots for a while :) He kept going back and forth between both mascots getting them to write various nasty things about each other in the book... I got my photo with Cubby seen above... and people were just in general playing around with the mascots, which was funny. At one point a couple wanted to get their baby in a picture with the mascots and instead the mascots took the baby and pretended that they were going to run off and eat him. And then a crazy girl actually got BB to put on her Orix Buffaloes jersey and take a photo with her, so some other dude gave Cubby a Kiyohara jersey to wear... that also resulted in some pretty funny shots.
So by the time I left, I was laughing so hard I forgot the Fighters totally blew the game. I guess that's the point.
Now umm... umm... oh god, it's 1:30am and I seriously was going to try to be in Kamagaya by like 11am tomorrow so I can try to chat up some of the foreign Fighters players :( I have no clue whether that'll work at all, but Hiromi and Ojisan promised they'd save me a seat in the front row above the Fighters dugout so I guess I kind of HAVE to go. Whee.
I might have another phone interview tomorrow evening, though, so that's good. The vibe I'm getting from people is just, do your best, something WILL work out eventually. I hope they're right.
no subject
Good luck on those interviews!