Dieting insect kids play soccer with an injured leg

So, a few things to update on:

Last weekend I fumigated my room while I went to Tokyo. While in Tokyo I met up with a friend I made via the internet about 4-5 years ago (we both are moderators at a popular forum for the videogame series Super Smash Bros., at www.smashboards.com). He's now studying abroad at Temple University, which is located in Tokyo (though all their classes are taught in English, so as opposed to only having 10 gaijin, about 40% of the school population are foreigners). He came with a big group of his friends, so we all ate dinner then went to a club, where he knew one of the rappers, so we were able to get for cheaper.

And, when I had returned, my room was bug free :) I haven't had any more bites on my hand since then, so I'm very relieved. Of course, I did think it was weird that the next day after my return, while eating dinner, I had a big fly land on my hand. Then, no more than 3 minutes later, another fly flew right in front of me. Killed that bugger. I look to my left - a bug on my curtains. Squash. I stand up spin around. On the wall right behind me is the biggest praying mantis (at least I think it was) I've seen. Although he put up a good struggle, in the end, I was victorious.

At this point I'm thinking "What the...I just fumigated the place, and now there are more bugs than ever!?" Well, that night I'm sitting on my little couch, doing my homework, when I catch something moving in my peripheral vision - it's the curtains on my window. I open the curtains and, low and behold, the window is ajar. Doh! >_<>.< style="font-style: italic;">stay that way), I can't imagine they're little angels when I'm not around.

Interesting difference indeed. I know that young kids in Japan (I believe before the age of 5) are given a lot of freedom - they're able to talk back to their parents, hit them, be as loud and obnoxious as they want to be, but when they get older, the hammer's supposed to be dropped on them. Though, even at age ~8-9, they still seemed boisterous, at least compared to American kids.

That being said, it's nice to be able to be around kids and not be in charge of them, so I'm able to enjoy their company, and I always look forward to our next meeting :)

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So, the shokudou (cafeteria) is a great place to meet new, random people. I try to eat there every day for lunch, though now that I've had most of the things offered on the menu, I'll probably be bringing my own lunch. By doing that, I save money, it's healthier, and plus I'll get more stares, since I'll be eating a *gasp* peanut butter and jelly sandwich, an apple, and *no way!* a raw carrot (they think that's the weirdest thing). You order food in the cafeteria by inserting the proper amount of money into a vending machine, picking your meal of choice, then exchanging the ticket it gives you for the dish up at the counter. They have a lot of tasty things, like curry, katsu curry (curry w/ meat), udon, soba, pasta, daily specials, etc.

Anyways, last week sometime a fellow ryuugakusei and I sat down and ate lunch. We decided to make some new friends, so we talked to the trio of girls sitting next to us. They asked me what circles I wanted to join (remember, those are the "just for fun" Japanese clubs) and I replied that I wanted to join the soccer circle. Well, it turned out that one of the girls' boyfriend was on the soccer circle, Los Biancos, so she contacted him for me and got me the practice information. That's what I like to do most here - make new friends and new connections, because you never know what will result from it.

Anyways, last Friday I went to their practice, from 6:30 PM to around 9:00 PM. I was really nervous since I had heard from a different friend that Los Biancos actually wasn't a soccer circle, but the soccer club instead, so I thought my level was going to be well below theirs. As it turns out, Los Biancos isn't really a circle, nor is it the Tsurubun's (Tsuru Bunka Daigaku shortened) soccer club. The two soccer circles that exist (one of whom I might go play with in about an hour) are for both sexes, don't have keepers, and just seem to be purely to go kick a ball around. Sounds alright, but also sounds like the 5 v 5 intramural sports at UCLA. Los Biancos, however, is exactly what I would look for in a soccer circle.

What it is is a guys-only circle where they're all better than the average player, but still only play for fun. They're not as intense as the club, but they have around 25 members, and most people turn out at the practice, so they play full 11 v 11 games. Also, apparently each semester they tend to have ryuugakusei join, so they're used to us foreigners :) I brought all my keeper gear and asked if I could get some keeper practice in. I was really worried about being rusty, but I was able to pick up my old skills pretty readily. They're also really supportive - they always say "Tsuank you!" to each other and they'll say "Nice-u keepa!" every now and then (okay, for those I didn't write in romaji [way to write Japanese in the roman alphabet], just by how it sounds, so anyone who knows Japanese, I do know how to actually write that in Japanese ^_<). They do stretches and drills for the first hour and a half, then in the final 30 minutes they scrimmage. I personally wish they'd scrimmage longer, but scrimmaging doesn't seem to be as important to the Japanese as it does in America. Even on the basketball circle, we'd do a lot of drills, then scrimmage for the last third or so of practice. Whereas, in America, we do the minimal amount of stretching and drills we can to allow more time for scrimmaging, since that's the most fun. Beggars can't be choosers, though, and I'm really happy with the group of guys. One of the other ryuugakusei, Toby, also joined with me (he's a striker), so that just makes it even more fun. Practices are Mon/Wed/Fri, each day from 6:30 to 9:00....though, that's AM on Mon/Wed and PM on Fri 0_0

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I didn't make it this Wednesday since I had somehow managed to extremely cramp my right leg. One Monday morning I woke up and suddenly my right leg was under such intense pain that it brought tears to my eyes. That lasted for about 3 minutes, and after that, whenever I took a step it hurt, especially when walking down stairs. Merely touching the muscle also caused a lot of pain. I took a lot of pain killers, massaged it, and let it soak in warm water, and it's been getting better each day since then; it should feel good enough tomorrow to play. I really want to try to go to every practice, since I love playing full 11 v 11 soccer games, and since I came to UCLA I haven't done that; unfortunately, there isn't enough soccer interest in my fraternity to warrant a steady 11-man team to enter in the 11 v 11 intramural soccer. So, I'm really, really excited to be playing!

I haven't forgot about my friends on the basketball circle or my host dad's basketball team. I'm planning on playing with the circle every Monday and with my host dad every Wednesday, and I'm still lifting every Tuesday and Thursday, doing a chest/shoulders work out Tues and a back/biceps workout Thursday, with all the soccer and basketball counting as my legs.

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While I'm on it, a bit about my physique and eating habits. I don't think I've gained nor lost weight. I've lost muscle mass everywhere, but I'm able to keep the major muscles (with the exception to my legs) from atrophying too bad thanks to what small gym the city has. Despite not thinking I've lost weight (at least, I'm pretty sure my belly is a bit flabbier than before ^_<), one of the guys I played basketball with a lot over the summer and just yesterday met up with said that my face looks like it's gotten thinner...why, I don't know, maybe I had a really good shave that morning :-/ I've also, for the most part, abandoned my goal to finally obtain a six-pack. I had originally figured since they didn't have any gym (or so I thought) I'd just focus on losing fat. Well, since they do have a gym, I'm able to retain most of my muscle mass, and thus, the time that would be spent doing more curls and sit-ups is spent doing benches and military presses. However, my friend Whitney has a new ab routine that he says has been giving him results, and since I'd like to come back to the states with a more tone stomach (or one at least as tone as I had before I came here), I'll probably pick that up soon. It's just hard since there are so many things I want to do with my spare time here - play more sports with the Japanese, play Zelda, study Japanese, fix my computer, watch anime...lots to choose from. As for food, I've severely slowed down my "I must try one of every Japanese sweet" mentality (mainly since I've already tried most of the delicious-looking ones, heh). So, I'm now eating a lot healthier, with my daily diet consisting of eggs (I still am terrible at making them over-easy >_<) and a whole grain English muffin, lunch is a PB&J with an apple, banana, and / or carrot, and dinner is usually some meat dish, either a chicken breast or some kind of meat and veggie stew I concocted the night before, served along with rice. I always have Pepsi Zero (Diet Pepsi) or some "Active Diet Sports Drink", which tastes like flavored water (really good though), and soy milk to mix in with my protein shake after I work out. To snack on I buy various Japanese healthy-looking snacks, so I'm still trying to experiment with that - there are these little spicy cashews and crispy things that are really delicious. Every now and then I'll make a run to the conbini (convenient store) to get a bar of chocolate or something, but not too often :P

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So, that's about it for my big, long, pictureless update. Next one will be more interesting, I promise :) Just thought I'd throw one out there for the parents ^_<