Friday, July 13, 2007

Down Memory Lane III: Marathon Madness



This is me being featured in the Nagasaki papers shortly after arriving on the island(think it's about 2 weeks if I remember correctly). Roughly it said that 'the newly arrived ALT at Narao Junior High School, Ms. Teresa Yoong from Singapore, participated in the run after receiving a call from the organiser, Mr. Asagami only a day before the event. When interviewed about how she felt about the run, a panting Ms. Yoong commented that this was her first time running a 5 kilometers course surrounded by such vast nature and though exhausted it was also very fun'.

What the reporter failed to include though was the fact that Ms. Yoong was under the impression that the marathon was a town event attended by her students at school and hence felt an obligation to be a good sport. At least that was what she understood from Mr. Asagami the town dentist and marathon enthusiast who said that 'this is a town event and EVERYONE runs together!' And so Ms. Yoong turned up at the event only to realise that while there were indeed students from schools participating in the run, it wasn't compulsory for her to turn up and the best part was she had to pay ¥3000 sign up fees to torture herself with a mainly 5 kilometer uphill course!

Looking back now it was a really amusing case of miscommunication but it was certainly not funny when I was trudging up the hill wondering if I could make it to the finishing line in one piece. I was never quite the runner and the much dreaded 2.4km run back in those days had always been my chink in the armour and this was 2 times the distance and on such short notice! The 'unfortunate' incident did had the impact of making the new ALT an instant celebrity in town not to mention being the perfect ice breakers for several weeks to come.

1 Comments:

At 9:40 AM, Blogger chitter-chatter said...

this is hilarious! poor teresa! i would have died if i even had to run 1km!!!

you're amazing! 5km!

*sharon takes her hat off teresa*

 

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