Tennis

Today was National Foundation Day in Japan. So to celebrate I played tennis with some of my students. The last time I had "played" tennis was about 10-15 years ago, and by "playing" I mean my brother and I went to a tennis court and played home run derby.

So when the housewives in one of my classes invited me to go with them I was hesitant. I knew serving was going to be a challenge, but I figured my youthfulness and athleticism would compensate for my lack of skill. I'm not as youthful or as athletic as I once was... However after a little practice I was "okay". By this point in time I had developed a significant blister underneath one of my calluses on my right hand. It was somewhat painful but I decided to play through it. It was now time for my first real tennis match ever, doubles. Half way through the match my blister popped. I was at a crossroads, should I halt the tennis match to tend to my wound or play on and hope the hemorrhaging subsides? I went with the latter.

At this point I was trying to accomplish a multitude of different tasks simultaneously. These tasks included:
-trying not to get too much blood on the racket.
-"remembering" the rules of tennis.
-keeping the score. (Why the hell is Love, 15, 30, 40, win?, Why the fuck does it go to 40 instead of 45? For that matter, why count by 15, seriously why? 0, 1, 2, 3, 4 would probably work pretty well.)
-trying not to double fault on every serve.
-trying not to get in the way of my semi-pro teammate who was carrying our "team".
-and avoiding embarrassment whenever possible.

It wasn't pretty, but it could have been much worse. I had fun regardless. After the match I walked over to my student and said, "uhh, I'm sorry but I kind of got some blood on your racket, yeah, I'm really sorry about that...". Whenever you bleed on something that doesn't belong to you it always creates an awkward situation.