mission.japan

It’s about 4:30 in the morning on Friday, Japan time. I haven’t slept yet.

Thursday started out rather well. I got up at a reasonable time to take the train to nearby Kurashiki. From Kurashiki station it was a brisk 45-minute walk to the mall where there’s a Sports Authority store. I needed some new bearings for my skates—after several hundred miles and a few rainy skates they were feeling really slow—and I decided to try the only local store I could think of before considering online options.

Fortunately I didn’t make the trip for nothing, and I returned from Kurashiki with a 20-pack of K2 ILQ-9s at a very reasonable price. I cleaned the wheels and frames and switched out the bearings while I watched my 1:00 drama (UPDATE: the series has since changed) to get a bit of language practice in. (It’s cheesy squared but marginally interesting, so I watch it every day if I can. The next crop of primetime dramas looks like it will start in a couple of weeks. Maybe I can find something more interesting there.)

After a packed E-space session (Thursday has the lion’s share of students at this point) I headed home and strapped on my skates for a nighttime excursion. The first in a while, actually. I try to avoid night skates for serious skating in general—although I have a helmet light the visibility isn’t all that great. But tonight I would be almost exclusively in the Sports Park, which is, for the most part, well lit.

The goal for tonight was 15 miles at a 14 mile-per-hour pace, per the milestones I set for myself a couple of weeks ago. I was about halfway through when I ran afoul of a bicycle headed in the opposite direction. He saw me several seconds before we met, but the deer-in-the-headlights effect took over and he decided to turn to his right (which, incidentally, was where I intended to pass him). In these situations I assert my intention to pass on the left side of the road—99% of the time the bicyclist agrees and lets me have my pavement—so I veered to my left. The bicyclist, unfortunately, decided to keep turning to the right until he was perpendicular to my direction of travel and practically right in front of me. By that time my options were a) hit the bike, or b) keep turning left and bail out over the curb.

I chose option b, missing the bike and stepping onto the dimly lit ground next to the road. Naturally I didn’t stay on my wheels for long, and the incident ended with me taking what was probably an ungraceful fall to the dirt. My left leg took the brunt of the fall, so I again have a nasty scrape to take care of (incidentally in the same place as the just-healed injury from the last fall less than two weeks ago on wet pavement—yich). We both apologized to each other and I resumed skating. I lost thirty seconds on that lap, but all of my other times were in the target range. Adrenaline made for a pretty good painkiller, so I could concentrate on reaching my goal (and I did).

Of course what I’ve learned after several falls (both from skating and other activities) is that the injury doesn’t really start hurting until an hour or two after it happens. At that point you get this dull pain that is just strong enough to make you notice it. And that’s what’s kept me up all night. I feel really tired, but I can’t fall asleep. So a couple of hours ago I headed to the church to check e-mail, work on the church web site a bit, and rant about my latest skating mishap.

Rule of the day for happy skater interactions: go straight, and follow the general traffic directions established in your country. I would experience less stress when skating if people would just choose a direction and stick to it. And most people do, actually. It’s just those who panic that cause problems. Please don’t panic. I know we’re heading at each other at a combined speed of 25 miles an hour, but if you hold your line I can avoid you easily.

Anyway, end of rant. I don’t think Friday is going to go all that well, but it’s a light schedule—we’ll see what happens.