Elementary Experience

My Singaporean friend Ting-Ting is the English teacher for the elementary schools in town. Yesterday one of her schools was having their sports day and she called to see if I wanted to go. Having nothing else to do I went along, and had a surprisingly good time. Among the events I witnessed were children running around in a circle in an attempt to de-hat each other as well as students barely three feet tall trying to pass a ball three feet in diameter over their heads in pairs.

By the time the event was over I had:

• learned a traditional Japanese dance in about 30 seconds and performed it with about 500 other 1st-6th graders.

• impressed the students by carrying three chairs at once up a flight of stairs.

• gave up the last of my self-consciousness as a group of 10-year-old boys mobbed me, climbed me like a jungle gym, and became fascinated with my belly fat.

Unfortunately no pictures were taken, so you will just have to imagine how silly I looked doing the dances and having students pretend they were being thrown several feet back due to the surface tension of my tummy blubber.