Today I went for an all-day hike at Mount Kuju. The mountain is about a mile above sea-level at it's highest point. I live at sea level, so maybe you can image how high we had to go up to reach the top. It was 5 hours start to finish, and driving to Oita Prefecture took about 5 1/2 hours total. Although I'm not sure it's name, there was also volcano fuming sulphuric smoke off to one side as we climbed.
I couldn't find an easy-to-use map, but if you go here and click on the map tool, it'll show the island where I live, Kyushu. From there, you should be able to see three small red triangles to the northeast on the island. Click the middle red triangle to see the name 'Kuju' pop up. That's where I hiked today.
I would write a bit more, but I'm tired, so I'm going to bed early. Saturday was so full, and so was today. Tomorrow starts a four-day week, so I'm hoping to pull through it all in good health! Plus, Halloween is coming soon, so I gotta store up some spooky energy to scare all the little kids when I give out candy.
Moohoohaahaaaaa! Okay, not bad. Then again, I'm sure it'll be a lot scarier after some zzz.
Good night all, hope your weekend is going well!
Sunday, October 29, 2006
Saturday, October 21, 2006
October Dreams
Fall is here, but barely in Kumamoto. It has felt like mid-summer the whole week, almost blazingly hot, until yesterday. Yesterday, it started to feel cooler and a bit chilly at night. I'm glad October is here. Besides the beautiful change of leaves, October brings with it, for me, many happy memories of the past, and of my culture.
Halloween is one of my favorite holidays, as many people know. Once a year for four years now, I've enjoyed pulling out my copy of October Dreams and reading a few stories from the spooky anthology . It has some of my favorite authors from when I was younger telling stories and recounting their Halloweens past. It brings me back...
Halloween is not traditionally celebrated by Japanese here in Japan, but there are still lots of "trick-or-treat" displays, and little green and orange pumpkins can be found in shopping malls, as well as plenty of darling Halloween crafts and treats to buy, which can be hard to resist... ahem. Large pumpkins are more rare to come by, and expensive too.
As for me, my blood tingles with anticipation of Halloween every year, regardless of costumes or pumpkins. The season, the history of the holiday, the colors, the fun, and of course, the treats(!), make me feel glad we have a holiday such as this one. Happy Halloween to all!!
I plan to dress up and go to a costume party, like I did last year. Last year, I was Crouching Tiger and my friend was Hidden Dragon. I'm not into the new sexy-style costumes(thanks, Linda) that have be getting popular over in the US recently. I think they take away the fun in a lot of ways, so I'm going to stick to traditional and maybe be an only semi-cute, but formidable Batwoman. (Batgirl, now back and more grown up than ever.) I'm not sure yet. I usually wait til a couple days before to decide.
I had my third Jodo class today, and so far I'm just loving it so much. It's not all that exciting, just repeating strikes and short forms over and over again, but there are so many precise details to follow, and I feel like I'm eating it up so far, albeit my brain is all mixed up and full with stuff I was taught. Aikido class afterwards was, as usual, good. I finally started keeping notes on my practice -- a technical notebook, for stuff I want to remember. No reflections or anything; I only do that here. ;-)
Also, I took a practice Japanese test today for the one in December. I took two parts out of the three parts of the test, and when we added my score, I was only one point from passing, without any points from the third part! I was psyched, because that means I'll definitely pass. Now, I'm going to challenge myself, and see if I can't raise my own score a lot higher than I did today. By no means have I mastered the material yet, but I'm working hard to at least work off of a strong foundation.
School has been just fine recently. I've been coaching students for a few different speech contests for a couple of months, and I was surprised and pleased that two of the students I had coached came in first and second at their competitions. We've been working hard almost every day so that they can give it their best for the national competition in Tokyo in January.
Regular teaching is still difficult, but I'm starting to see that if I went through the textbook(it's the one I chose, remember, so I can't complain; I love the book, actually! Here's the lesson we're on now...) for another year, it might start being easier and maybe the Japanese teachers I teach alongside with and I could enjoy our classes more. I've been doing a lot of work in school getting lesson plans made and in order for the end of second term. I wish I could express how much I want to be a part of classes that motivate and inspire the students, but as long as my grasp of Japanese is so minimal, I have to side-step actually teaching sometimes, because, due to my inexperience with Japanese, I can't explain anything much complicated to them. Some of them have started to get more interested, though, and makes me think there's hope for us. Maybe by the end of this school year(March) I'll have my act fully together. That's my goal, anyway.
Lastly, I want to say that I've been going through a lot of changes in my personal life recently. I think my cousin getting married had something to do with it, but that was just a small(but significant!) part of the big 'puzzle.' Things are getting clearer, and I'm embracing the changes okay, I believe.
I can't believe I wrote so much!! It's been a long time.
Best to you all out there.
Halloween is one of my favorite holidays, as many people know. Once a year for four years now, I've enjoyed pulling out my copy of October Dreams and reading a few stories from the spooky anthology . It has some of my favorite authors from when I was younger telling stories and recounting their Halloweens past. It brings me back...
Halloween is not traditionally celebrated by Japanese here in Japan, but there are still lots of "trick-or-treat" displays, and little green and orange pumpkins can be found in shopping malls, as well as plenty of darling Halloween crafts and treats to buy, which can be hard to resist... ahem. Large pumpkins are more rare to come by, and expensive too.
As for me, my blood tingles with anticipation of Halloween every year, regardless of costumes or pumpkins. The season, the history of the holiday, the colors, the fun, and of course, the treats(!), make me feel glad we have a holiday such as this one. Happy Halloween to all!!
I plan to dress up and go to a costume party, like I did last year. Last year, I was Crouching Tiger and my friend was Hidden Dragon. I'm not into the new sexy-style costumes(thanks, Linda) that have be getting popular over in the US recently. I think they take away the fun in a lot of ways, so I'm going to stick to traditional and maybe be an only semi-cute, but formidable Batwoman. (Batgirl, now back and more grown up than ever.) I'm not sure yet. I usually wait til a couple days before to decide.
I had my third Jodo class today, and so far I'm just loving it so much. It's not all that exciting, just repeating strikes and short forms over and over again, but there are so many precise details to follow, and I feel like I'm eating it up so far, albeit my brain is all mixed up and full with stuff I was taught. Aikido class afterwards was, as usual, good. I finally started keeping notes on my practice -- a technical notebook, for stuff I want to remember. No reflections or anything; I only do that here. ;-)
Also, I took a practice Japanese test today for the one in December. I took two parts out of the three parts of the test, and when we added my score, I was only one point from passing, without any points from the third part! I was psyched, because that means I'll definitely pass. Now, I'm going to challenge myself, and see if I can't raise my own score a lot higher than I did today. By no means have I mastered the material yet, but I'm working hard to at least work off of a strong foundation.
School has been just fine recently. I've been coaching students for a few different speech contests for a couple of months, and I was surprised and pleased that two of the students I had coached came in first and second at their competitions. We've been working hard almost every day so that they can give it their best for the national competition in Tokyo in January.
Regular teaching is still difficult, but I'm starting to see that if I went through the textbook(it's the one I chose, remember, so I can't complain; I love the book, actually! Here's the lesson we're on now...) for another year, it might start being easier and maybe the Japanese teachers I teach alongside with and I could enjoy our classes more. I've been doing a lot of work in school getting lesson plans made and in order for the end of second term. I wish I could express how much I want to be a part of classes that motivate and inspire the students, but as long as my grasp of Japanese is so minimal, I have to side-step actually teaching sometimes, because, due to my inexperience with Japanese, I can't explain anything much complicated to them. Some of them have started to get more interested, though, and makes me think there's hope for us. Maybe by the end of this school year(March) I'll have my act fully together. That's my goal, anyway.
Lastly, I want to say that I've been going through a lot of changes in my personal life recently. I think my cousin getting married had something to do with it, but that was just a small(but significant!) part of the big 'puzzle.' Things are getting clearer, and I'm embracing the changes okay, I believe.
I can't believe I wrote so much!! It's been a long time.
Best to you all out there.
Tuesday, October 17, 2006
Japanese and Jodo
I'm still here. It's been a quiet couple of weeks here at home. Lots of alone time.
Not to say that exciting things haven't been going on. There was the Kumamoto 'Songs of Fire Country' concert I took part in with the orchestra, part of a prefecture-wide celebration last Saturday(I took a video of the celebrations in the street, we'll see if I can't get that up here). That was fun. The music was written by a local man who also conducted.
I started Japanese lessons finally, at the Kumamoto YMCA. I'll be taking the 4th level Japanese Proficiency exam in December, and the classes are super. The 4th level is the basic level test, so I think I'll be able to pass. I considered taking the 3rd level, but I think whether or not I could pass is borderline at this point. With only two months to study, I thought I'd play it safe and go for the 4th. I have to say though, for what might be the first time in my life, I'm so exciting and interested in studying.
I also started Jodo lessons a couple of weeks ago. Jodo(properly written 'Joudou') is "The Way of the Staff." I'd been thinking about trying it for a long time, and when I saw the time of the Japanese lesson and the Jodo training coincided, I took the opportunity to start both. A lot of the same people who train in Aikido train in Jodo here, and lucky me, Awesome Guy is one of the teachers. If he teaches me for a majority of the practice time, I think I can up my skill level really fast.
Awesome Guy is such a gentle and strict teacher at the same time, and he's a little goofy too, his English is so funny. He knows all these technical terms for movements, but his grammar can be totally off, so I sometimes have to translate it again in my head, or else I laugh, for example: 'You holding jo straight ahead posture very bad. Turning can't see side gooooood.'
The class takes a lot of concentration and 'focus power.' There are 12 kata/forms to be learned, paired with bokken/wooden sword. Honda Sensei, the head Aikido teacher, also happens to be the head of this school of Jodo on Kyushu Island. It's a great opportunity, and although I waited a long time to start, I'm glad I've finally begun.
Not to say that exciting things haven't been going on. There was the Kumamoto 'Songs of Fire Country' concert I took part in with the orchestra, part of a prefecture-wide celebration last Saturday(I took a video of the celebrations in the street, we'll see if I can't get that up here). That was fun. The music was written by a local man who also conducted.
I started Japanese lessons finally, at the Kumamoto YMCA. I'll be taking the 4th level Japanese Proficiency exam in December, and the classes are super. The 4th level is the basic level test, so I think I'll be able to pass. I considered taking the 3rd level, but I think whether or not I could pass is borderline at this point. With only two months to study, I thought I'd play it safe and go for the 4th. I have to say though, for what might be the first time in my life, I'm so exciting and interested in studying.
I also started Jodo lessons a couple of weeks ago. Jodo(properly written 'Joudou') is "The Way of the Staff." I'd been thinking about trying it for a long time, and when I saw the time of the Japanese lesson and the Jodo training coincided, I took the opportunity to start both. A lot of the same people who train in Aikido train in Jodo here, and lucky me, Awesome Guy is one of the teachers. If he teaches me for a majority of the practice time, I think I can up my skill level really fast.
Awesome Guy is such a gentle and strict teacher at the same time, and he's a little goofy too, his English is so funny. He knows all these technical terms for movements, but his grammar can be totally off, so I sometimes have to translate it again in my head, or else I laugh, for example: 'You holding jo straight ahead posture very bad. Turning can't see side gooooood.'
The class takes a lot of concentration and 'focus power.' There are 12 kata/forms to be learned, paired with bokken/wooden sword. Honda Sensei, the head Aikido teacher, also happens to be the head of this school of Jodo on Kyushu Island. It's a great opportunity, and although I waited a long time to start, I'm glad I've finally begun.
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