ぼくはだいすきうただひかるのおんがく！　せごい！

China Diary: Day Twenty Seven
Monday, September 21st, 2009

I never did it before, and I do not know exactly why I started, but since moving to Anqing I’ve been listening to the same song(s) over and over again. My college roommate Alex had this habit, back in school, and for which my friend Dave and I criticized him for.

Doing so has allowed me to get more familiar with the tune and hear lyrics I have never before heard. So far I have had two such songs:

# “New York” by U2 for the first 2.5 weeks.
# “One Step Closer Away” by Tea Party, since last week.

Since hearing “Come Back to Me” by Utada Haruki Sunday  it has been playing in a loop in my mind, but it has not quite pushed out “One Step Closer Away” yet, mainly because I am too cheap to buy the new song off iTunes.

“Come Back to Me” by Hikaru Utada.

I was discussing this trend of mine with Stuart on our way to lunch, in response to his comment that “I’ve been listening to the same mix for a few weeks now, which is rare for me.” Upon hearing about my method, he revealed “You know what I’ve heard that’s a sign of? … depression.”

–

Following classes yesterday I was invited by this fit, taller young guy and a tall, chubby, middle-aged, glasses wearing teacher to play basketball. I have played with the young guy a couple of times now. He’s probably the best player on the AFLS playground who relentlessly attacks the rim, but gets himself into trouble sometimes by being too creative. The other guy had mentioned he wanted to play basketball together before, but I did not think much of his potential game, given his build.

I played on a team with them against some kids, and immediately it was a revelation, playing with two guys who understood how to move without the ball and to pass to players moving without the ball. It reminded me of playing with guys and teams who understood similar concepts in ice hockey.

Playing the kids, the younger guy true to form was dazzling everybody by getting to the hole at will, but making life hard on himself by attempting a reverse off-handed layup when a simple layup would do type-stuff. The glasses fellow did not do much on defense or offense, but rarely made a mistake or missed a shot.

Eventually once Stuart came down we got to a 2-on-2 game. Dazzling player scored first, with a ridiculous fake ball behind the back layup. Few missed shots from either side followed, before the glasses dude made a fadeaway jumper with the good player’s hand in his face. After giving me some perfect passes and me missing bunny shots, I scored on a drive to the basket, putting us up 2-1 and 1 point away from victory.

We lost the ball, then using a minimum of effort defensively for the first time all day he stripped the ball clean from the fit guy – the first person to do so all day – and soon afterwards made the game winning shot.

The text above was mostly written on the morning of September 22nd, 2009 about September 21st, 2009.