I and softball

-If I was asked when my bright page of my life was, I would surely answer, "It's when I was a junior high school student. Playing softball is my precious memory...-


I played softball when I was a junior high school student. In my school, we had to join any clubs. I joined a softball club because my best friend joined. very simple,eh?(laugh)When I was a freshman, softball club was a prison to me. Our seniors were severe and scary. When a senior carried a box of balls, other senior told us, "Hey! You carry! Why you let a senior carry balls!" After practticing, maintaing the ground is our job. When we had a game on Sunday and the time of gathering was at 7am, freshmans had to gather at 5:30am to clean balls and bats. Oh men, I didn't want to do that anymore...


When 3rd seniors retired in August, there were only 6seniors, so we had a chance to take part in a game. And I did as a shortstop! But I was not good at batting, so I practiced very hard. I swang 50 times, do push-up, back and abdominal muscle 50 times each every day. However, my batting was worse in sports meeting on October and we lost two rounds. After sports meeting, my position changed to a catcher. I was short and thin, so nobody thought I could be. At first, I was scared of a ball. I was always hit balls on my face, arms and knees... I was hate this position at first. I was always full of bruises. The job of catcher is cathing balls, ordering members where they should throw balls, and heaping up on a game. So cather has to be smart and have loud voice so that the outfiled players can hear. I couldn't have loud voice so I was always scolded by coach like that.


coach: Can't hear your voice!!
me:Yes.
coach:Still can't hear!!
me:Yes!
coach:More!!
me:Ye-s!!(with crying)
coach:more!!!
(to be continued...)

The coach was very strict and practicing was hard, I thought I wanted to quit many times. However, because I had nice teammates, I was able to do my best. And I got to be proud of my position. I used to think, "This is my position. I never let anyone do this position." My dream of these days was to be a prefessional softball player.


When my seniors retired, I became a vice-captain. We had a sports meeting on October, we won the championship! I was satisfied with this result. We practiced harder and harder. Thenks to hard practices, my batting was improved and my turn of batting was 4. Plus, I was able to get a MVP prise in prefecture. (Oh I have to tell, not only me, but also dozen of players got.)


Last sports meeting on July, we couldn't be a champion. Some players were hurt and we might be careless because we once became a champion. These were reasons we lost. We were the 3rd place. We all cried, and our softball had finished...


Now I don't play softball. It is sad we don't have a softball circle in Aoyama. But I'll never forget about that time. I still like softball very much.

My Best Friend

I'd like to write about my best friend this time.

Her name is Tomoko. She is a friend of high school. Tomoko is kind of frank, and different from usual girls. She has a unique character. She made me laugh all the time. On the other hand, she is thoughtful. We talked about a lot of kind of things such as our futures, about death, politics, environmental...lots of things. She likes tennis and she was a captain of tennis club. She and I were same class on second and third grades. However, we didn't get along with each
other when we were second grade. Because I studied abroad in New Zealand for about a year and remained in the same grade, I didn't know anybody. I got along with most of girls in class after all though. But there were three girls who I didn't talk to almost at all. Tomoko was one of them. She got along with other two girls. They didn't speak to me, but I had four other great friends and other girls were nice to me, so I didn't care of them.

When I became third grade, we changed a member of classes. Unfortunately, I was same class as her. "Oh man! Same class!? And my seat is next to her? And...my seat is...just in front of teacher..." At first, I didn't know what I should talk to her. I think she was on same situation.

After we got along with each other, we talked about at that time, both of us confessed that we felt awkward with each other. Anyway, as time went by, we increase in talking, we found that our personalities were similar and made great relationships.

As I told you upper, we talked a lot. That time was precious me and made my mind grow up. We were always together,talking, fighting, encouraging each other when we studied for entrance examinations, romping like a child... Anytime I was with her was valuable.

She goes to school in Yamagata, so we can't meet each other very often. But we promise that we will go graduate trip and start over our youth like before when we finish colleges. For this promise, I can do my best whenever I spend tough time. I'm so happy to have such a friend.

Norman Rockwell

You might have seen his pictures (see second picture which is on bottom). He is a American famous painter and illustrator. He is also famous in Japan. I like him very much. My wallet is hisdesign, and my schedule book is his, too. oh, my calender,too. I'd like to tell you about him.


Norman Rockwell was born in New York, 3rd of February, 1894. He graduated from art school. In 1916 through 1963, He painted a cover of "Saturday Evening Post. His style of paints is that he painted American citizen's lives with a light touch. His paints had great expressions of Americans' hearts, so he became famous. On the other hand, his pictures in the later period tell us that he had a social nature strongly. He also drew portraits of Dwight David Eisenhower, (34'sUS Presdent) , John Fitzgerald Kennedy(35's US President), Lyndon Baines Johnson(36's US Presdent) and so on. In any case, he was the greatest painter in the world. He painted over 2000, but most of them had lost by a fire. He died 8th of November,1978.

(Norman Rockwell. Wikipedia. 12/5/2007. http://ja.wikipedia.org/)




The reason why I like him, I had an opportunity to go to an art exhibition when I was a high school student with my friend. There were many other painter's works, but I was nailed by his pictures. His pictures were moving at any moment, and easy to image what people on the picture do. Most of his pictures were a part of daily life. His works were felt warm. I'd like to go to his exhibition again if I can have a chance.


(first picture:Wikipedia, Second picture:I took "Saturday Evening Post" by myself.)

Hiromi by Takuji Ichikawa

One of my hobby is reading books. I like Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle, books by Torey Hayden, Kitchen by Yoshimoto Banana, Ryuuseiwagon by Shigematsu Kiyoshi, etc...Now what book I wanna introduce you here is "Hiromi" written by Ichikawa Takuji. You might not know about this book, but you perhaps get to know if I say "Ima Aini Ikimasu" is also written by him.


When I say with a word, Hiromi is a story of a bond of family. The title of Hiromi is a name of boy and a chief character of this story. He is a elementary school student. He is sickly by nature. His parents notice that Horomi has a wound on the side and he looks very hard on the land, but comfortable in the water. They use internet and find that there are few people having same constitution as Hiromi. They are called "the children of Atom" Their feature is that 1) they have wounds on the sides, 2) they are weak on the land but strong in the water, so 3) they can dive for very long time. When Hiromi's family(Hiromi, Hiromi's parents and actually, he has a yonger sister) knows Hiromi's constitution, they have 2 choices, 1) Hiromi keeps living on his home with hardness, or, 2) he goes to America to live with other "the children of Atom" by sea. They don't wanna separate
family, but decide to leave Hiromi to go to America, so that he can live easily.


When I finished reading this book, I just felt...something
strange. "They can't live on the land!? What a strange!" Of
course, this story is fiction, but I was drawn by this story,
and thought it is a real story.


There are many intractable diseases and suffered people, not like Hiromi's disease, but lots of diseases which treatments are not possible. There are also people who are suffering invisible diseases including mental diseases. We should rethink only not for ourselves, but also these kind of people to live happily. We can't live without healthy body, and we also can't live without healthy hearts. We have to have both. We should know there are many kind of people and some suffer their problems, and other have to wait for their death.


This book is not moved story, or draw tears, but something heart warming. Also, Ichikawa Takuji is a great author. He writes well, and his expression is abundant and soft. You can go to
his imagination world easily.