Maria-sama ga Miteru:Volume15 Postscript
Postscript[edit]
Friendships are light, or friendships are heavy, which one is it?
Hello, it’s Konno!
Lately I've been seeing a lot of fan mail saying, “the next one will finally be about the school festival won’t it”. Before, I had the feeling of “is it almost time for the school festival?”, but the addition of the “finally” adverb adds a sense of urgency to it. It feels like my butt is on fire. I’ve never had this happen before, so I’m not sure how much I should rush. Feeling like my butt is on fire reminds me of the tanuki from the “Kachi Kachi mountain” tale…… though in that case it was his back that caught on fire (…… I digress).
Well, as much as “Maria-sama ga miteru”’s butt may be on fire (presumably), there are still many fall events to go through.
This time it’s the sports festival.
For me the memories of the sports festival are quite different than the memories of the cultural festival. Which is reasonable considering that for the twelve years from elementary school to high school my performance in physical education was on average slightly worse than in other subjects. As a child I loved playing indoors.
I say “on average” because there were times when I would receive such good grades that I couldn't believe my eyes.
That was in dance class. Not the social dance, the creative one. It was really nice. During middle school several people would be asked to come to the front and dance as “good examples” in dance class, and our teacher would choose me as one of them. If I continued striving to be a dancer, I surely would have already blossomed as one…… is definitely not the case. Because I don’t have the physical strength. Three minutes is my limit (there aren’t many plays where you’re allowed to dance for just three minutes).
My short distance running was also surprisingly fast. When I was in elementary school, it was common for me to be number one in footraces, and I was usually selected as a relay runner.
After that is swimming. I can swim quite well, but the sad thing is that I can't really dive properly. Once when I was in middle school, I stayed behind to take diving lessons, but when I finally got home I collapsed with a headache and nausea, and ever since then I've become even more afraid of diving. However, as an adult you don’t really have the opportunity to jump into the pool anyway, so it’s totally OK. And I like being underwater. Not scuba diving, swimming at the bottom of the pool. However, it is difficult to do it because it becomes a nuisance to others.
On the other hand, the things that I absolutely hate are ball games in general and marathons.
In the case of ball games, whether it's volleyball or basketball, the first thing you do is jam your finger and get bruises. And it’s the worst when you can’t make the jump when the ball comes even though you’re defending from a good spot. I can't catch it, I can't hit it, I can't throw it. That's no good, right? Ah, that's right. It’s unavoidable that, additionally, I hated dodge-ball too.
As mentioned before, in marathons there is no rest and so I do not have the endurance for them. The endurance running competitions in elementary school were really tough. Seriously, every year I thought how good it would be if we were allowed breaks. However, recently I started to think that it might be a good idea to try running for a while. However, I probably wouldn't do it just because I started thinking about it.
That’s why I had difficulties with the holiday itself and so I never was very excited about the sports festival and team-building exercises. However, even though my memories have faded, I still have many photos. Well, compared to the cultural festival, I can imagine there are more opportunities for both schools and families to press the shutter.
By the way.
Thank you to everyone who answered the question I posed in my last postscript. Receiving so much feedback makes me happy.
It’s Hanadera Academy, but it has a school festival, why’s that?
—–—–—– that was the question. This game may be a little unfamiliar to young children and so as I read the answers, I thought, “Maybe it was a little difficult”. The lack of example answers may be the reason (or rather, I couldn't think of any, so I left it up to you), but I've seen a lot of people say that they probably didn't really know how to answer.
But there is also one that shines among them.
Even a rose (bouton) can be called a peony
amazing! It’s an answer unique to a “Maria-sama ga miteru” reader! This is from a man in his thirties, and although he is not a regular letter sender, he wrote for the first time because there was a question and he though he would try answering it.
Not just this person, this time we had many such “first-timers” and it was fun. If anything, it might be a lot of men’s preferred reading. I guess they are usually shy.
Perhaps there is a treasure buried in the letters that have not yet arrived at my hands. It doesn't mean that I will accept them indefinitely, but if you have a good answer, please write it in the corner of your letter (as always I will be happy).
Even if you can’t think of an answer, if you have something you want to tell me, please write to me.
Oh, in that case I would like you to write your name and address somewhere visible on the envelope. Then there is less chance of your letter getting lost. There might still be letters that haven’t arrived to me (or the Cobalt editorial department) yet.
I wrote about it in an afterword before, but there are times when I receive a letter that had arrived safely to my doorstep, but even though it says “Please reply”, the name and address are nowhere to be found. Even if it says “this is my second letter,” or “I wrote this in my last letter,” don’t we both feel sad if I end up tilting my head and asking, “who?”
I’ve been writing this afterword for quite some time now and have filled all the postscript pages, so I’ll leave it at that.
This time the main part of the story is light.
Konno Oyuki
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