Currently, in Japan...

The Shrine of Four Mountains

2009-02-15T11:53:00.007+09:00

Took a walk up to the shrine near my house this morning. I go up there 4 or 5 times a month these days but today, daffodils and other spring flowers at the base had burst into bloom.

I climbed the half-dozen staircases to the top and stopped to wash my hands and mouth in the basin like I always do. It's a physical and symbolic purification ritual. I felt clean and refreshed.

Then I went up the last set of stairs to the temple. It looks like most large Buddhist/Shinto temple buildings; the roofs are thick and almost black, and the corners turn up slightly.

I threw a 5-yen coin into the box, bowed, clapped twice, rang the bell overhead twice, and bowed again. To me, these are kind of the rules to be followed before praying. I don't care about the particular meaning, but I know the ringing is supposed to wake up the deity in the shrine. The bowing is probably to show respect, which I can respect. And the clapping... among the numerous explanations I've heard, the one I like the best is that the first clap spans the length of the universe and the second is the returning echo. Reminds me how vast space is, within and without.

When I pray, I don't think of it as praying to a deity or god, more like praying to my own self and also to the presence that always seems to be listening. The protector deity of Arao supposedly lives up there in that mountain. When I pray, I direct my thoughts to things in the nature of protecting this city.

My prayer often follows something of this sort: "For what you've been able to do so far, thank you so much. Thank you for looking after the kids who live here, making sure they are taken care of as well as possible. Thanks especially for taking care of the people I know." Then I tend to name off people I am thinking about or some kind of thing that happened that I appreciate.

I definitely try to keep the personal stuff to a minimum. If I'm going to pray for myself, I usually have this kind of prayer: "Give me strength to deal with my emotions maturely, especially in such and such situation" or "thank you for the energy to have accomplished such and such."

My prayer today took about one minute. I think that's average for me, but I think it's a little longer than most people I see praying.

After that, I went to take a look at the view of Mt. Unzen across the bay in Nagasaki. It was covered over with haze, but it was still visible. I took a seat on the bench and was listening to the birds when someone called over to me.

"Julie!" It was one of the priests I had met a few months ago.

"How are you, Julie?!"

"I'm enthusiastic, thanks to you!"

"Is that so?! Are you still living down near the doctor's office?"

"Yes, I am."

"They just opened up a new convenience store around there a couple days ago. You should try the bread. It's very tasty, you know."

"Thank you. I will!"

"You take care of yourself, Julie."

"I will."

He went back to his business filling plastic jugs with water near the stands where they keep all the religious paraphernalia, and I headed off down the steps.

On the way down, tears filled my eyes. Flowers, trees, birds. Simplicity, human connection. I had no other thoughts, really, just that it might be nice to write this down for you to read...

How to Come Home

2009-02-12T18:24:00.005+09:00

Coming home. Jeez, how am I supposed to do that?!

I don't know what I'm connected to in the US, who I'm connected with. I don't have a sense of who I 'am' there. It's absolutely strange to me. Japan seems like my home. I can't imagine the food very well anymore, how people speak, what is important to people in the US. I forget what it's like eating Mexican food all the time or being able to understand my own mail. I've become so used to it here, the goods and the not-so-goods.

I rewatched the DVD of the violin concert Etsuko put on for me last June. Two things struck me while I was watching it: first, how much could change in half a year, and how much one could grow in such a short amount of time. That was only six months ago; how much have I changed since 2004; how much have you??

The nature of living in rural Japan as a foreign person is that the other foreign people around you tend to leave eventually. So in time, I slowly shifted from spending most of my time with other foreigners to sharing friendships with Japanese (first ones who could speak English, and then to ones who could or couldn't). My three best friends here in Japan now are Japanese. Of the group of assistant English teachers I came with 4 1/2 years ago, only two of us are still here (he's from South Africa!). Everyone else went back to their home.

Now, since it's my turn (I booked my ticket today), I would like your help.

Some time ago, a friend gave some great info and including some people to contact and a DVD called "Journeying Home," about how to return to your home country after a long time away. That information has been extremely useful and I am grateful for it, so...

In the same way, please send me your info, advice, thoughts on returning home, even if you've never been through it yourself.

-How to grow healthy new relationships and revive the old ones?

-What to do if I start feeling overwhelmed, underwhelmed, blue?

-What to do with all the friends, stories, (language) and memories which might be hard for people at home to relate to?

-Finally, what would you like your experience with me to be like when we meet again?

By the way, I'd like to give a special thank you for people who have kept up with my blog until now, and especially to Don who got me to start it and Dad, who showed me his most wonderful self in our conversations through it.

Gave my notice

2009-02-06T17:43:00.003+09:00

As of today, it's official. I'm coming home. I will finish my contract at the end of this month, and after that, it's off to the good ol' USA.

In preparation, I've been packing up my things, and next week is a final farewell party from the English teachers. The next few weeks will probably go by really fast.

Feel nervous and excited depending the angle of the sun. The next few months are no doubt going to be challenging as I readjust to live in the West after 4 1/2 years away.

Welcome your thoughts and comments!

2009-01-22T17:56:00.011+09:00

Hey Everybody,

I'm back. I'm looking for some new ideas on how to run a 30-day marathon of promptness. Technically, I started 5 days ago, but I'm in need of some motivating methods from your brains.

In particular,

-how to keep on top of emails (my original goal was to empty my inbox every day, but I'm falling behind already, on Day 5!)

-things to do in the morning that get you up going(besides coffee)

-podcasts or music that motivate and inspire you (mostly things to listen to when I wake up or am driving to Aikido)

-anything else you think would be helpful!

I would also like to start a 30-day marathon of something unrelated to that, such as giving a massage to someone every day for one month, just to see what the results would be. I could use your help with ideas of that sort too. Just post a comment, email or call me.

As for what's been going on these days... well, since October I've been working back at some of my original junior high schools in Arao. I work for the YMCA(we don't actually sing the song together, although I won't say I haven't sung it recently ;-) ) as a contracted teacher, and I work for three schools, as opposed to the 17 I had in my first year.

The work is pretty much the same as it has been. I'm pretty used to teaching by now, and although teaching junior high is a little bit different than high school, I can use most of the same lesson ideas, games and such as I could in Tamana Girls' High School.

Among the teachers I work with, their effectiveness in the classroom ranges from terrible to terrific. The most terrificest teacher in my opinion, Mr. So, captivates even me, so much that I wish I could learn Japanese from him. I've been taking notes on his methods, because I really find them to be motivating, adaptable and well, plain old interesting.

Otherwise, I look forward to changing jobs some time this year, not because I don't like my job, just because I'd be a lot better at something else. Whether that means being a student back at home for a while, or what--as long as I'm not at Starbucks(nothing against Starbucks, I just can't imagine working at a coffee shop when I don't even drink coffee. I only say this because three of my friends worked at Starbucks after they came home from Japan).

I'm staying with Japanese family now, and I have been since I came back to Japan this summer. That's been working out well, with a little bit of an adjustment period behind us. My J family is extremely kind and generous, and I'm deeply grateful to them.

As for the holidays, I took a short trip to Obama Town, Nagasaki, with a few friends over winter break.

(Nagasaki night view)

Can't think of a place I'd rather have spent my new year's. Let's hope this is the start of a beautiful friendship.

and somehow, it's still raining...

2008-09-29T18:40:00.003+09:00

Hey, a couple of hours after writing that post things aren't looking so down.

It's probably okay that I'm not that excited about what I said I would do. I somehow wanted to do some sort of amazing job, but it's occurred to me that it will be okay if I just do fine, as long as I put some sort of decent effort into them.

I don't think the speech thing is such a big deal either. As soon as I think up a topic I can identify more easily with, I'll write it, because the theme that was picked for the speeches seemed really broad to me, and somehow rubbed me the wrong way.

Huh. What seemed so important to write about earlier today doesn't seem so important now. Go figure. (^~^)b

Finally something, if only rain

2008-09-29T11:34:00.009+09:00

I've been waiting and my day still hasn't come. Sometimes it does that and I can't predict when it will arrive. Sometimes I completely skip it. I don't like it when that happens. Sure, that saves discomfort and hassle, but I like when it's on time because it helps me keep track of my moods. When I don't get it(two weeks late) I don't know what to expect. I usually feel cloudy and zapped for energy, like today.

I'm considering telling them that I don't want to participate in the speech presentation this weekend. I don't have a damn topic, and I hate the topic of 'Your Life in Japan.' For freak's sake, that's like saying 'write about the past 4 years of your life.' And I'm tired of talking about all the differences in the cultures. I'm tired of talking about the similarities even. I just want to be left alone, to tell you the truth. I don't want to be constantly reminded that I am a foreigner. I don't know what difference it makes. I just want to live in peace, without being reminded (again) how different I am.

And I'm also having trouble looking forward to the classes I was asked to teach(volunteer for) this and next week. I did it because someone asked me to. I had wanted to volunteer at the orphanage to tell you the stinking truth! I don't want to talk about Colorado again and explain why English is important. I didn't even grow up in Colorado! I don't even care that much about Colorado or even about English!!

I had a nightmare last night. I dreamed that a plague had killed 6 people in Texas, and many people though it was the beginning of the plague that was going to wipe out humankind. I hoped that because Jmom, Jdad, and I lived so far from Texas that we'd be safe. I woke up, washed my face, went to the bathroom and looked at the clock. It was 4am. I swear I will never eat chocolate cake before bed again. Every time I totally have nightmares.

Earlier this year I formed a crush on one of my good friends. I really, really liked him, but as much as I could see, he was totally blind to it. You know what, it was okay with me. I just had to deal with the fact that he wasn't going to reciprocate, and then we could be around each other as much as I liked (^u^). It was so great. He inspired my Japanese study so much, because he himself was on fire about Japanese. And he had a billion friends, and when we all got together those were some of the best times of my life. Well, I did have a friend of mine finally tell him, two weeks before he left. Turns out he wasn't into me, but he liked another of our mutual friends. Whatever. It was still amazing.

To the person who wanted to know: I like you, I've always liked you. But at this point, I don't really have any feelings for anyone. I am trying to deal with what's going on around me--this stuff that I said I'd do that I am not looking forward to, I'm hardly picking up my violin lately even though I have a performance next week, and of course, I am immersed in my Japanese studies. As you can see, even still, I am falling behind. So right now, I don't have anything much to say, except that it's raining here, and it's been raining all day.

Psyched by Results

2008-07-02T11:46:00.000+09:00

I just took an online test for the second level Japanese Proficiency test, the test I'll be taking later this year. It's the same online test I took a few months ago before I started studying. It's not a comprehensive test, but it covers kanji, grammar, and vocab. Anyway, last time when I took it I got something like a 47%. Today, I got a 61%. On this test, 60% is passing. This is the first positive sign that I may actually have a chance. Woo hoo!! Wish me luck!

Light Holes

2008-06-13T14:28:00.002+09:00

Pre-Hollywood Garfield the Cat once said 'I'm not sleeping. I'm checking my eyelids for light holes.'

My blog looks kind of dark and shadowy, don't you think? Or like it lurks in deep sea waters? Sometimes that's how I feel, as if I move through life in shadows, as if not to be noticed too much. It could be my nature, it could be my allergy to sunlight(joke joke), however, on occasion, I do make an appearance at stage center. Sunday was one of those occasions.

My good friend Etsuko, whose name has not been changed for your amusement, goes to great lengths to give me the treatment reserved in the most part, only for beloved family. This makes sense, seeing as I call her my 'Japanese mother' and me her 'American daughter.'

So she got together a group of her most musical friends and asked them to learn a piece of music to perform with me. We consulted and made flyers, she rented a hall, her friend gathered a sound crew, and we put on a concert last Sunday. She called it 'Celebrating the Pure Joy of Music,' and she herself, just a beginning piano player, learned a piece to perform as the finale sing-along.

This concert, she told me, was to honor me and the 4 years I've spent here in this area. I'll tell you, sometimes I have a hard time looking so directly at bright lights, in this case, it's very hard to accept that people truly wanted to do something to honor what I'd done. Actually, and I'm not even being modest, I haven't really done all that much which has been very significant here, I don't think.

So I couldn't really think of the concert in that way. I emphasized it as a bunch of people I know and care about coming together to listen to and enjoy something that I also love, music. It certainly wasn't a professional production, but it was somehow a very singularly joyous occasion in my life. Through the music, I got to give something to all those people that I feel give me so much. We anticipated 50 people to show, 60 tops, but the final count was 77. Not just my friends, of course, but many more friends than we imagined. (Etsuko had made gifts for the first 50 guests--hand-sewn cloth chopstick carrying pouches)

I played in 6 pieces: two classical, two traditional Japanese(with koto!), a sing-a-long, and a Japanese pop cheesy feel-good song that made me feel good and cheesy.
There were 14 pieces total, and everyone made a good effort at their own various levels.

When we finished, I played a technically challenging piece as an encore. When I was done, I was showered with more bouquets of flowers than I could hold. I recommend the experience. I was sure to see that Etsuko got her flower showers too. I told her that she is one of the best examples in my life of how to be a great and kind person.

It strikes me that I was nervous in the morning, but not once the concert started, like not at all. And that I really got into the music. And that I didn't really make mistakes(well... not that I think other people actually noticed...). It was a different kind of thing for me. It's just not that often I get to be in my element, confident, and surrounded by people I know.

I'm surprised that I've gotten these kinds of chances, but I live in a small town on a small island. In their own way, everyone has something to offer here...

Thanks to a most wonderful friend, Etsuko, for making these wonderful memories with and for me.

Happy Day

2008-05-27T11:32:00.000+09:00

It's been a hectic couple of weeks. A friend is in visiting from the U.S., and we went to Kyoto for a day, where I introduced her to some of my friends with whom she is staying now(Mom, thanks for beaming at the correct usage of 'whom'). I also spent a day by myself in Nagano to look at a school for music up there.

Also, I'm preparing for a concert in which I'll play some violin music and also an Aikido demonstration next month. On Sunday, I gave a speech to the International Society of Ariake and played some violin. I'm stretched a little thin, but you know what, I'm not stressed at all. I'm learning how to deal with things as they come, rather than stress over all the things I've got to do. It's a great feeling.

Finding a Calling

2008-05-03T00:36:00.004+09:00

I never meant to let it go this long. I mean, my life is consumed by tasks such as these.

Sincerely, I've tried and failed to post many times, ignoring my computer's state of health. It's time to admit I've let my resistance to getting it fixed go on for too long, way too long. It's like, a "thing" now. Like something that I've actually avoided doing. What a sucky, adversive way to go about dealing with problems.

I realize as time goes by that there really aren't that many chances in life to really take chances, so to speak. Most of the time, I don't know about you, but my life is spent taking care of things in a kind of perpetual motion of errands, obligations, and distractions, usually a kind of 'catch-up' for things I'd meant to do, meant to watch, meant to write, meant to get fixed, etc.

Living in this way, it never feels quite satisfying because once one thing is finished, there's already something else nagging to get done. Will the endless tasks ever get done, will I ever fully embrace my infinite, scattered interests?

I don't think it's possible to do it all or finish it all; I've finally decided that. Plus, I've made too much a mess of the things I've already started by doing them half-heartedly...

Going through daily motions, taking care of things, taking care of obligations, pulling weeds and nurturing buds and watering flowers in the little garden that's grown up around me in life takes all my time. And I'm still not even very good at it! The so-called 'garden' looks so random, as if there isn't any focus.

So what can I do? Whittle down my interests? Stop taking care of things? No, that's not what I think, and you? I think that if there is something, a calling to be heard, a focus to be found or created, and if all these daily life things are being tended to, it will be much easier to recognize.

I pray that I can see it clearly when it's close at hand. That all the time spent getting myself together will have been some use in some way.

I wonder if love is growing me in its garden?? Please, can I bloom?

Elevated to 'Cute' Status

2008-03-08T17:32:00.005+09:00

This just in: I have been upped in status by one of my first-year(10th grade) classes. My promotion began with one student, a trumpet player in band, who, upon my entering the classroom at cleaning time would announce, "Julie's so cute!!" In English terms, this is effectively saying, "Julie is cooler beyond words. How does she do it?!" Gradually, one by one, the other students began to take her lead, and it came to the point where I was walking out of the classroom last week and I heard a chorus of "Cute!!!"s follows by heavy sighs. Honestly, I'm not sure what I did to be granted the honor. But I shall bask now in the glory of cuteness-supreme, and do my best not to show my lack of understanding. Cleaning with the first-graders has now become a perk of the job!

Peaches, Hollywood and a nice hot bath

2008-02-29T23:39:00.004+09:00

Was at the hot spring near my house last night when we ran into Furu-san from Aikido. It's always humorous to see someone outside the context you regularly see them in. We tossed a few jokes back and forth and then he smiled. He's got this great warm smile that makes you feel like a kid, and then a million bucks and then a beer. Well, maybe in my case a plum wine cooler.

Then, Peaches and I went and took our baths. Japanese hot springs are heavenly. I mean, they're nothing like I could've imagined before I moved practically right next to one. For starters, all the ladies are naked along with you, and nobody looks at you. They don't even look at me, and I look different from all of them (because I'm all-western like, you see)! So there's no awkwardness. So you go in, wash off, and then just stroll around until you find a pool you feel like soaking in. Most bath houses have four or five pools, a cold plunge, and a sauna.

Yesterday I went to the outdoor spring first. The stars were out and the steam was rising like a hazy mist from the water. And I just enjoyed being legally, publicly naked--bare-bodied and free. And both Peaches and I smelled like sulphur for the rest of the night.

Peaches and I have been spending a lot of time together since the Hokkaido trip. We started an exercise regime together, and she's started coming to Aikido classes. We also learn calligraphy together. Good thing I like Peaches and she likes me because we see each other way too much now.

I've also been hanging out with Shaggy a lot, whose name is no longer Shaggy, but Hollywood. Oh, and I've been reading Catch-22; can you tell ;-P ??

Hollywood and I get along famously as well. In fact, I'm kind of smitten with his boyish charm. But most people are, I think. He's one of the most easy-going people I know, and everybody seems to be pretty fond of Hollywood. He has a knack for blurting out some totally spectacular observation about the topic of conversation(quite loudly and unselfconsciously, which is charming in itself), simultaneously remembering something like that he left his car door wide open in the middle of the street. Typically we hear something like, "That was contrasted in two different essays I read last week. The tatemae and the honne are absolutely two sides of the same coin. Oh, F!*&in s####%!, I'll be right back! Oh, man!!"

I suppose this is a continuation of the Friends Project, in which I vowed to make a truck-load of friends this year. And what are friends for but to be made, I always say. Except of course that this is the first time I've said it.
Have a good weekend!!

Not-o Natto??!!

2008-02-18T18:24:00.009+09:00

Valentine's Day. A day of showing heartfelt love and appreciation, of giving home-made cookies, and if you are lucky enough, receiving as well...

Messiah, who works for the natto company, for reasons beyond my utter comprehension, unloaded a whole box load of the foul-smelling, indeed, yummy-tasting stuff into my fridge on February the 14th. I couldn't eat this much natto in a whole month, and I even like the stuff!!

from www.bookmice.net/darkchilde/japan/jnatto.html :

Natto is fermented soy beans. The beans are boiled, wrapped in straw and left to ferment for several days. They have vitamins, fiber and protein and thus are a good source of nutrition.

Natto dates back at least 1000 years and eventually became a favorite of people living in Edo, the capital city of Japan at that time.

People sold natto basically door-to-door. Some people added it to miso, others added minced onions and soy sauce and then poured the entire sum over some hot rice. It's cheap and has a rather strong odor.

Natto is sometimes used as a breakfast food, mixed with beaten raw egg and soy sauce, then poured over steaming hot rice. Natto is definitely not a favorite of non-Japanese, though, and even many Japanese do not care for it.

Thrills Up North

2008-02-13T19:49:00.012+09:00

More and more memories keep flooding my head from last week's Hokkaido trip. I was in Sapporo for three nights, and Abashiri, on the north-eastern coast, for two.

Like I'd almost forgotten how on the first night, after arriving in Sapporo, my traveling buddy, we'll call her Peaches, really wanted to have some nabe for dinner. 'Nabe' in English translates to 'pot,' and in this context it means various Japanese veggies and fishes boiled and served straight from a big pot. I thought it sounded good, so we looked for a place to go. After a while of walking around and getting really hungry, I finally asked two men wearing business suits standing in front of a restaurant if they knew a good place to eat nabe. As if it was their own personal mission, they started searching around, even calling up to one of the restaurants on sign to see if they served it. Finally, one of the guys goes 'doh!' and that he's knows a place just a block down, on the other side of where we were. And just to be sure we made it there, he walked us all the way there.

Those two crabs are going to stick with me for a long time too. In both Sapporo and Abashiri we stayed in youth hostels, which was a first for me. I didn't really know what to expect, so I didn't have much expectation. The hostel in Sapporo wasn't so much to speak of. The hosts gave us our sheets and told us our room numbers. We met some American girls who were JETs in Kyoto there. The beds were lumpy and the heater was turned up so high I sweat through my pjs. But the hostel in Abashiri was completely different. It was more like a B&B. They took us to a snowy hot spring at night, the guests were friendly and chatty(we were the only non-Japanese, btw, except for this kid Tony, who was half-Japanese, half-New Zealander) and they offered home-cooked breakfasts and dinners. The dinners are what I would like to talk about right now.
On the first night, we had crab legs. These were beautiful, meaty, and delicious. They were served with the most delicate-looking scallops I've even seen.

This was served with salmon rice, curry, and several small side items like spinach in a peanut dressing.

The second night, we signed up to have dinner again, and to my utter delight, and slight wooziness, we were served this 'hairy crab':

Mine had so much meat I just kept on eating more and more, and it was absolutely delicious. I petted the crab's shell. It was fuzzy, like a big fuzzy spider. Ick. But yum. It was served with crab rice, and several other side items too. Both of these meals, amazingly enough were about (US) $13. I noticed a little later on when we went to some food stands downtown that each of these crabs on its own, for a whole crab(we ate half crabs) were around $35-$50.

Snow-mobiling has to be one of the most fun things to do on the entire planet. But let me start with what we did on our fifth morning--something myseriously entitled 'Naturing.' If you don't know what that is, you are in the same boat as Peaches and I were that morning when we got to a frozen-looking ocean and got handed wetsuits. Turns out naturing means going out to play around on drifting ice blocks and floating leisurely around out off the coast of the Sea of Okhotsk One of the highlights was that Tony found this little creature with his see-through bucket called a clione . They are shell-less, tiny little floaty things that bear a striking resemblance to, of all things, angels. And they live in, of all places, freezing cold water. Peaches and Tony spent a long time watching the little thing flap its angelic wings, while I lay on my belly, face 2 inches from the freezing depths, looking for more. Didn't find any more though.

Then we went ice fishing. Well, -they- went ice fishing while Peaches and I watched. Then we went over to the look at snow sculptures at a nearby festival site. This is all taking place in Abashiri, remember, not Sapporo. Sapporo had its own huge festival going on too, but hopefully I'll get to that later. At the little site in Abashiri, we saw some snow mobiles and also some snow rafts. Since we'd tried snow rafting already back in Sato Land in Sapporo, we thought we'd like to try snow mobiling. So we bought our tickets and went out to the snow mobiles. There was no line, and the guys signaled that we didn't need helmets, so we just went right up to them. The guy told me to sit down, so I did, leaving room at the front for him to sit. But then he motioned for me to move to the front and for Peaches to scooch in behind me, which surprised us both. He gave me a 20-second tutorial on how to work the thing, and then he left!! So I'm sitting there in the front grinning ear to ear. And poor Peaches grabs me and hangs on for dear life. I comment to her that they have no idea what they just did, pump the gas once and shoot off down the course at full speed. And my heart was pounding from the thrill of that trip until late into the evening.

Yes!! I want to write more about this trip!

We Get What we Deserve

2008-02-06T20:51:00.001+09:00

Shaggy left me a message saying "Did you get yours??" and I had to think because I hadn't gotten anything. But I looked again, and there, buried in the bottom of the plastic orange wanna-be mailbox was the cheap waxy papered postcard I've been waiting for since December 2nd of last year. For those of you who have been anxiously awaiting the results of my Japanese 3rd Level Language Proficiency Test (as I have), they came today.

Here's the breakdown:

Writing/Vocab: 96/100
Listening: 83/100
Reading/Grammar: 176/200

Total Score 355/400
Passing percentage: 60%
My percentage: 89%

WooWeeee! I'm so psyched!!! My goal was a 90%, and I came thiiiiis close! I studied so hard and it took so much effort but I passed and got decent score. Of course, I'm aiming for even higher for next time, but for now, I really couldn't be happier.

For comparison's sake, last year I scored a 94% on the 4th level test.

I leave for Hokkaido tomorrow on a 6-day trip to go to the Snow Festival and do some other cool stuff. Report and photos to come...

A Day in the Life as an Assistant English Teacher

2008-01-29T22:05:00.001+09:00

Uh, lemme see... Last weekend on Saturday night, I went to an Aikido yudansha seminar, which means that only people above a certain ranking are invited to attend. The practice revolved around variations of ikkyo 'first' technique, and Sensei promised to move through variations on many other basic Aikido techniques as we went through the year. The seminars are held every two months.

As for my progress in Aikido since I joined this group last March, well, I've made definite progress in some areas. My back rolls are becoming natural and smoother. I'm very quick getting up, and I've memorized many of the progressions of techniques that we do, including the basic long form with the jo(short staff), and some of the shorter bokken forms. But in many ways, I still feel quite weak, in some of the same areas I had weakness before I joined. I will keep those areas to myself in case we ever meet, because then you would know exactly how to kill me. No, ha ha, I'm just kidding. One area I have trouble in is that I often confuse my right and left. We generally follow the example showed by the teacher, and many times I will stand up to practice the technique with my partner and start with the opposite hand the teacher showed, or from the opposite stance, etc. This happened a lot even when I trained in Colorado. One teacher in particular would patiently repeat, "That's a fine technique, but the one we're doing right now looks like this..." I even pay special attention sometimes and still do something different, often opposite. Physical dislexia, if you will.

Okay, on to another topic. What I do at work these days(did it ever change?): Well, you'd all be proud to know that I plan on continuing my on-time streak(28 days and counting), but after I get to work, what do I do?

I have anywhere from 1-5 classes these days, and so first I plan for those. That is, after the morning meeting where we all stand up, bow to the principal and say "Good Morning" really loudly, have the morning meeting, and then meetings by grade. After that, I usually go get my mug from the kitchen and have some breakfast mix, followed by either some green tea or steaming hot water. THEN, I plan the lessons out for the day. Usually, I've already finished the plan for most of the lessons before the morning, so after that I sit and wait for class to start. If I have class, I consult with the teacher I'll be team-teaching with and grab the stuff we need and head for the classroom.

I teach one class by myself, which also happens to be my favorite class. It's called Advanced World Culture, and I teach all sorts of cool things about other cultures. The students choose a country (besides the US, because I'm from there) and do special research on it to make a poster. Their final posters are due tomorrow. I'm looking forward to it a lot.

That class aside, most of the other classes use this book called Marathon Mouth, which is the textbook I picked for last year. One class uses My Passport 2, a really great text that prepares students for traveling abroad, which I also picked out. It's just my opinion, but most of the students don't seem to know that the textbooks they are using are special because they are non-government issued textbooks. I'm not sure many of them care at all because I don't think the majority take English Conversation class seriously. Which is too bad for me because with the exception of 2 classes, English conversation is all I teach. These days, I find most classes to be humdrum, with 3 students at most actually excited about learning.

So then I return to my desk and choose which activity I'd like to fill my time with. Generally, I start with kanji because I can stay awake better if I do them in the morning. I'm learning several kanji a day, of course, because I've resolved to pass the next level Japanese test at the end of the year and there are a lot of kanji I have to know. To supplement that, as I said in the last post, I started calligraphy lessons 3 weeks ago. Those are going well.

Then I study grammar and vocab. It's still hard, but I really enjoy it. This learning is slow for me. I'm at an intermediate level now, even after all this time. I suppose I would do best to be patient with myself! Then I read surprise, a kanji book. I was reading Eat, Pray, Love, but I finished it last week, and the kanji book was right there.

I also got some stuff for my Nintendo DS, which is a rocking game system. I basically use it as my electronic dictionary becuse it's AWESOME, but I have a 'game' now where you can trace poetry and other Japanese texts. It might seem like I'm getting carried away with all this kanji and writing and stuff, but trust me, I'm only doing what it's gonna take to be able to read it eventually. It's super hard, yo!!

The other 'game' I got is from this manga comic that I found here. I only like one manga, as far as I can tell, and it's this one bout this cook and his friends and all the situations they get into having to make food for people. It might sound silly, but it just resonated with me somehow. Oh, check that. I like two manga. The other one is Doraeman, the cat-like robot from the future. But that's mainly cause I can read it. It's for kids. This other one is for anybody. Back to the game, it's a whole recipe book which actually tells you step by step how to make all the dishes from the comic, tells you how to prepare stuff, etc. etc., and get this, it actually times you to see if you can make it in the suggested time limit. All the pics are photos and there are also drawings from the comic, including what number in the series the recipe is located in. And I don't even cook!!!!

Okay, well, for myself I do.

I haven't really been interested in getting any so-called 'real' games yet. I love the 'reality games.'

So I've been doing those things at work too. Then I check email and write people. Already 4 people are making noises about visiting in the spring. I can hardly wait til the cold is over and it gets warm again. Been keeping my hands warm, btw. No frostbite for me this year. No sir.

Finally, I often have a little nap after lunch. Many of the teacher take little snoozes a their desks, which is possibly unthinkable in most jobs in the US. But since everyone works so hard around here(it's all relative), I think people just assume whoever it is must need the extra sleep. I don't, but if I don't have something else to do I get sleepy.

It's not hard to find a cat-napper on any given day!

Then, before I know it, it's 3:20pm and it's time to clean the school. All this year, I've been cleaning with the 1st class of 10th graders. We move all the chairs to one side of the room, sweep the floors, wipe down the floors, move the chairs to the other side of the room, sweep, wipe, and put the chairs back. No janitors in these schools. Everybody shares the responsibility of keeping the schools clean.

Sometimes, instead of that, I'll clean my fish tank. I recently got 3 more goldfish from the Naked Man festival. I took video of the festival this time so you would actually believe how crazy nuts I tell you it is, but you also know that I don't know how to put videos on here, so gosh, that's just gonna have to wait. The fish came from one of the vending booths at the festival. My friend Brian won them for me, and he named them too: Ago, Higo, and Yugo. Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner. They were not amused.

When I hear the 5o'clock chimes, I know I'm free to go. But I often stay til around six to make sure lessons are ready for the next day.

Sometimes, on the way home, the little old lady who lives next to the school will see me hurrying by and call me over to her large garden. She'll share the days news about a half a dozen failed daikon radishes and show me the moth holes, or tell me about how it is getting old. Today, she had come from the dentist and they had to take out several of her teeth. So she talked to me from behind a gauze mouth-mask, saying 'I was too embarrassed to go around without any teeth while they make my new ones." I returned home with more broccoli than one person can eat without turning green and sprouting a 'fro.

Keep Going

2008-01-16T23:08:00.000+09:00

I typed about half an hour yesterday about the Mt. Fuji trip before my computer crashed and I lost everything even though it was saved. I'm not really interested in this mac anymore, but it's the only computer on which I can write this blog. Since computers aren't my speciality and I don't want to send it away to get it fixed, I'll just keep on plodding and posting when the winds are favorable.

I got elected as the MVP of my Aikido school this year. I received a beautiful certificate and was asked to give a speech last Sunday at the New Year's party. I wrote the speech by myself, and then Etsuko helped me put the thing into formal Japanese. It was so fun, and I was so excited on the way over to the party. It was a pretty fancy affair, and for me, it was the first time I've been formally acknowledged for anything besides my work contract at school. I gave my speech, and we all ate and drank to our heart's delight. Afterwards, 10 of us headed towards a nearby karaoke bar.

Karaoke, although I adore it, is not my particular speciality. I want to sing and sound like everyone else; somehow, they all seem to have perfect pitch and lovely vibratos. And 8 of these 10 of us were men. When my voice comes out, for example, as I sing Eric Clapton's "Tears in Heaven" or Dido's "Thank You," I want to sound, well, like Eric Clapton or Dido, just like the others sound like the original singers of their songs--even their English pronunciation in right on, though not a one of them speaks English. But alas, I just sound pretty regular and like I'm trying a little too hard. Karaoke is a Japanese cultural tradition, since 1963. Before that time, no one here could sing. But now people are forced to do it from the time they put on their first business suit, so they have no choice but to become really spectacular at it. As for me, I think all those guys were looking at me, wanting Dido's voice to come out of my untrained lungs so they could praise me and clap along. But when it was my own, uh..., smurfy voice that surfaced, it was all they could do to... praise me and clap along, really well-intentioned-like. Gosh, this is a nice place.

I know you're wondering about my speech. I would be too, except that I wrote it. I spoke about how quickly the time has passed and how I was honored that I could earn this award having joined the group less than a year ago. I spoke about (and I kid not) the undiluted joy I felt when we all met for the first time off the mat at the 'hanami' cherry-blossom viewing party in March.

I recalled the trip with Katsuki, Kato and Sensei to Yakushima Island last May. I congratulated Sensei and some others on their decision to come to Aikido Camp in the US this July. I welcomed the new students and wished them good luck. I thanked Furu-san for his endless help and patience. I thanked Sensei for his devotion to us, and his dedication to maintaining the heart of O'Sensei's Aikido. Lastly, I told everyone that I was so happy to accept the title of MVP for 2007. Through training, particularly falling down and getting up over and over again, I am taught how to overcome obstacles and find a spirit which perserveres. I told them to throw me a lot, as much they like after this(everyone laughed). Then I thanked the group for allowing me to speak.

Sigh... a real moment in my life.

Afterwards, my friend Shaggy was having his 24th birthday party in the city, so I joined up. I'm starting to fall in love with this particular group of friends. I told you about some of them already, but mix in a couple of us from the West with this group from the East, and there's a certain green with silver sparkles firework that goes off. We're talking fun, fun, fun, until my Daddy took the Daihatsu away. (Thanks to my brother for sending me off last summer with CDs of the Beach Boys. I'm still trying to decide what I think of one of the other ones, 'Bad Plus,' btw. Any opinions, let me know.)

Today, I taught Joe English. His name is 城, so we call him Joe. He's an awesomely enthusiastic student. And this week, he brought me organic Camomile tea, which we drank during the lesson. Last week, he brought me a bottle of sake, which we... uh... And he brought beer the week before. Um, okay, you're starting to understand why Joe is an interesting student. I've known him for almost three years, longer than I've known most of the foreign language teachers around here. He's a crazy and charasmatic 23ish-year old with two girlfriends(uh, what?) and a knack for JENGA. I'll tell him how to say a word in English, like say, "relative," and he'll do a cartwheel and refill my sake cup. He puts the 'Joe' in 'mojoe,' I'm sure(but to be safe, I'll say that I wouldn't personally know).

And I went hiking last Saturday with Ike. We went to collect huge logs of firewood from this shrine deep in the forest so his friend could make Buddhist statues out of them. It was a 'kapa' shrine; this half-turtle, half-friar, demi-god's shrine. His friend made incantations and we poured two huge bottles of sake into the mouth of the resident dragon-guardian statue. I think this statue only gets visitors on special wood-taking ceremony days like that day. We had to pulley some of the larger logs up the hills back to the car because none of other big, burly Ike-like men could lift them. Ike actually isn't burly, but whatever. It was so amusing being a part of the whole thing, and afterwards we relaxed at some natural hot springs.

And I started Japanese calligraphy lessons last week!! Yay, it's going to be great!!!

I dunno. I'm always doing stuff and getting into stuff, but I hadn't been writing about it. I needed a break for a while, I suppose. Things change so fast. I needed to catch up to all the changes, maybe.

2008-01-02T12:31:00.000+09:00

Well, it's the start of a new year, and, having put a good four months between today and my previous post, I can't think of better time to start fresh. Of course, New Year's is already over here, and probably where you are too. But you're probably still dreaming about Mt. Fuji or eggplants or something like that if you are from the good ol' West where it's about 3 am.

Which brings me to today's topic. It is said here in Japan that the three luckiest things you can dream of on New Year's Eve, from lucky to luckiest are 1. an eggplant, 2. a hawk, and 3. Mt. Fuji.

Would it count as lucky if you were actually at Mt. Fuji, but unable to sleep?

That's where I was, basically unsuccessfully trying to catch some z's on an overnight bus to Fuji. I made these (in restrospect, odd) plans to travel with my Aikido teacher to Tokyo and Mt. Fuji for the New Year. Let me say, right off the bat, that my teacher and I did not make ideal traveling companions. He's my teacher, so there's this teacher-student relationship thing, which had me carrying his luggage and opening doors for him and so on, and on top of that a rather large generation gap, which had him trying to buy my meals and looking with fascination at my Nintendo DS(used for translation purposes only, I swear!!). At times, this awkwardness left me futzing with my Rubik's Cube or feeling slightly devastated when my cell phone ran out of batteries. But all in all, it made for a more interesting trip, if anything. I found my smile eating fish liver, or bathing with about 50 other naked ladies within view of Fuji.

Among other things, we went to the Aiki Shrine in Iwama, Honbu Dojo in Tokyo(the headquarters of the largest branch of Aikido in the world), this neat little town called Yanaka just outside of Tokyo (now my official 'I want to live here' town), and of course, to Mt. Fuji to watch the first sunrise of the 2008.

First thing after arriving, we left our stuff off at the hotel and went out to Iwama to find the Aiki Shrine.

to be continued...

Feeling the fear--walking right through

2007-10-08T10:38:00.000+09:00

I started a new project since returning to Japan in late August. I'll call it the 'Friends Project.' As humanitarian as this title sounds, it is actually a selfish project, ha ha. Based on a decision I made in July to expand my network, I've decided to make a boatload of Japanese friends this year*.

Until this point, the number of Japanese friends I have made who are say, from 25-35, has been limited. When I came here over three years ago, I didn't know anyone, not one soul who lived on the whole island of Kyushu. So my contacts were the people I worked with, and the foreign English teachers, a.k.a, the ALTs(Assistant Language Teachers).

Etsuko came to visit the new ALT in Arao(me) two months after I arrived, and she became my first friend here. Yesterday, we had lunch at a little cafe in OOOmuta. She's nearly the same age as my mother, and as dear as a mother to me.

It was also after two months that Hiro and I met, and began a five-month friendship that would become a wonderful two and a half year relationship.

And then, I stopped making Japanese friends.

This basically means that I had lots of acquaintances(and sadly, so many people who wanted to be friends basically so they could practice their English) but actual friends, who I went out with, enjoyed life with, had over my house to watch videos and laugh with--those seemed to be limited to members of the foreign community.

So I've decided to reverse this, step out from within my private shell to embrace a new network of friends who have been just out of my reach: Japanese my own age.

Here's some recent progress:

The first girl, Maki, went to lengths to meet me. Her sister is a student in one of my classes, and she really wanted to get to know me. So she wrote a letter and had her sister hand-deliver it to me, asking me when we could meet. I phoned her and we had dinner, and it was great. She's a really smart, cute, hip girl and you would probably like her too.

Messiah was next. That's his real name. Met him at a drinking/eating place called an izakaya. He walked in wearing these big Paris Hilton-type sunglasses, followed by an intimidating-looking posse, we hit it off, and next thing you know, he's called to tell me how glad he was to have met a new friend! He's so hilarious too--he works for a natto company, you know, those sticky, smelly fermented soy beans we all love, only he hates natto!

Ike(pronouced 'ee-kay'), is all about fighting arts. I met him in the beginning of September when he came to try out an Aikido class. At the end of class, I felt the fear and walked through it to go up and talk to him. He gave me his card and told me to come out with him and the Aikido teacher on Thursday night. I think he was surprised I actually said okay!! He lives really close to me, so he's been coming over to my house and raiding my fridge!! He and Maki were the first Japanese my own age after Hiro to come over to my house. We watched 'Rocky.' It was Maki's second time. Ike said it was probably his twentieth.

And so, onward from here. I promise to love my new friends and to take care of them and nurture our friendship to the best of my ability. In return, all I want is to be able to call them when I want, to be open whenever they call me, to see them once in a while, and to keep progressing to deeper levels in our friendships. It dawned on me that everybody wants something, and that if I pay close enough attention, I might be able to help them fulfill their needs. I started keeping a little book to keep track of these dreams of my friends, so if I ever have the chance to help them reach them, I will. The book is not limited to the dreams my Japanese friends, though!!!

By the way, I know I just wrote a post saying I couldn't write long posts, and this post is a complete contradiction to that earlier one. I pulled some frozen veggies from the freezer, wrapped them in a cotton bag, and have written this entire post with my laptop cooling off while my legs slowly freeze. Anyway, I can't believe it actually worked.

Have I told you about Joe? Jeez, I gotta tell you about him. (It's Joe-->)

*this means people who I've shared contact info with, feel free to call or make plans with as I like, and who I am open to receiving calls from and supporting in times of need. A 'boatload' means 'less than a shipload, but more that a canoe can hold'

2007-10-08T10:22:00.000+09:00

I'm here, I'm here, I'm here!! I have lots of stuff to post, but my computer has been no help! I have to get it fixed before I can do much of anything. I'm told the fan's busted so it's been crashing after a few minutes, every since I came back in late August. Found a mac shop, just have to get it sent off now...

Thank you for your notes asking me when I was going to start writing again. I've sat down so many times and started!!

2007-07-14T22:17:00.001+09:00

This month started with a demo with the Aishinkan group on July 1st. Sakabe Sensei put the whole thing on by himself, so it was a pretty amazing experience to be a part of. The Shoheijuku Aikikai school's demo in Fukuoka was much larger, but I enjoyed participating in this one just as much if not more. I had a lot of freedom in my own personal demo, and there were a lot of different kinds of demos to participate in. Sensei's speech at the end was interesting too. He talked about the fundamentals and some of the more universal aspects of Aikido. I wish I could somehow show you some of the video... big project, "learn to use computer." (By the way, my name was listed in the program (4x!) like this: トーレン　ジュリー. cool, huh?)

Hey, also, there was that awful typhoon that came here Saturday. I had language class in the city that morning before it came. (By the way, I passed the practice Japanese Proficiency Test in class!!) When I got back, the wind was already starting to blow things around, so I shut myself up in the house for the rest of the day. There was almost no rain or storming, so it really wasn't all that bad. But I imagine it must have been terrible up in the Tokyo area when it finally took on its full force.

I'm gonna post this now even though it's not done. Experiencing technical difficulties--computer cut out three times now. first time that's ever happened, cutting out, I mean.

Guess this will have to wait a little longer...

If you throw yourself a rope, who is pulling whom?

2007-06-22T20:20:00.000+09:00

I had really wanted to go to practice tonight in the city, but I feel terrible. To clarify, there's nothing wrong with me physically. I had wanted to go, I'd had enough time to get there, but I just couldn't bring myself to get in the car and go somehow. The same thing happened last Friday, which makes me feel worse. Friday's Aikido class is really the only day we have enough time to break things down and work on forms and other things slowly, as well as goof around and have fun with each other after class. I feel so sad that I am sitting here now and not over there. What a sucky sort of thing to say, that I'd rather be somewhere other than where I am. Can we ever find happiness by saying such things?

And what am I doing instead of being there? Nothing. I've just been sitting on my bed, staring at nothing. I decided to go to sleep at 7pm. If I had left then, I could've done class. But I went to sleep and woke up groggy and tired. It reeks of depression. I find this embarrasing to write about, especially because I feel I could have prevented it. I've been feeling occasionally understimulated and sad since my friend left a week and a half ago and my family left about 3 weeks ago. (The two packages of crackers and juice for dinner certainly didn't help my mood either, but...) Somehow, I didn't move fast or skilfully enough tonight, and I let my feelings of apathy overtake the power of action. If I had caught on to what was happening sooner I'd have forced myself out of the house and I would've probably been fine.

So, the only thing I could think to do that I thought would help was to write all this down here. And somehow, it does seem to be making me feel better. I think I'll do something to take care of myself now, go for a walk or go get some different food. I suppose I just needed a little perspective. Situations such as these, where I need a rope, are becoming rarer. Maybe if I save up all those ropes I'll have one to throw in case someone else needs one. Maybe Regis will call me.

By the way, I have a few days left to finish up '30 days early,' and I want to be sure to do that properly.
I'll begin again on Monday, and finish up June with minutes to spare!!

Money For Nothing

2007-06-19T01:04:00.000+09:00

Interesting development: I went to check out another Aikido teacher. Seeing as I'm so contented under the guidance of Sakabe Sensei, you might wonder why I would wander off to have a lesson under a different teacher.

Well, even within Aikido, just like so much else, there are politics. Since the founder Ueshiba O'Sensei died some 38 years ago, what we know as 'Aikido' today is mainly the Aikido that was spread and developed 'for the masses' by O'Sensei's son. As well, there were other teachers, such as Sunadomari Sensei, who created his own schools of practice, even before Ueshiba O'Sensei's son had made these developments. Sunadomari Sensei is known as a 'prewar' student, one who studied with the founder primarily before World War II. When I saw Sakabe Sensei's class for the first time, it looked different from the Aikido I had seen before, and this explains why.

The politics extend further--Sunadomari Sensei is Sakabe Sensei's teacher, and Sunadomari Sensei is the head of the Honbu(headquarters) dojo in Kumamoto City. It's the largest dojo under this school, the Aiki Manseido Aikido schools. Some time ago, however, Sunadomari Sensei decided to call his style 'Manseido,' or some variation of that which did not include the term Aikido. He told his students that this new art was not to be called 'Aikido' anymore, and that if they wanted to call what they were doing 'Aikido' they would have to go off and form their own group.

So that's what Sakabe Sensei did, ten years ago. He broke off, formed his own group called Aishinkan Aikido, and gathered a following. Then, after a few years had passed, for reasons unknown, Sunadomari Sensei changed the name again to 'Aiki Manseido Aikido,' and began to call the art 'Aikido' again. Sakabe Sensei, I gather, didn't know what to do, so he remained separate, and continued the Aishinkan schools he had started. And here we are today.

But after the demonstration last month in Kumamoto City put on by the Manseido schools, I got a phone call from a man named Honda, a 7th dan teacher at the Honbu dojo telling me that he was starting a class in Tamana. He asked me if I wanted to join, not knowing that I was already training at Aishinkan, so it was a hard call for me. I had to consult my 'inner resources' to reach the conclusion to go and try it out.

When I did go, two weeks ago, I had a fine time; nothing particularly mind-blowing or different from Furu-san's Tuesday night beginner's class. Therefore, I figured my best bet would be to ask Sakabe Sensei if it would be all right to go to Honbu dojo itself so I could learn more about Manseido and, therefore, also Aishinkan. Luckily, and with the help of my good friend translating, I did get that permission.

Here's the money: I got a call from Honda Sensei again tonight. Because his class is full of beginners and there is no one advanced enough to take falls or execute throws, he asked me if I would come back to help him. He wants me to be his uke, his assistant in the demonstrations, and in exchange, he's offered me membership into the Aiki Manseido Aikido schools for free. That's serious money for nothing. Having received the OK from Sakabe Sensei to do as I please, I said yes to Honda Sensei, and begin my 'uke-ship' on Wednesday. It's feels like a break for me--I'm kind of excited already. I'm sure I'll learn a lot too.

BTW, I know I really like talking about the Aikido stuff, but there are a couple of other things I want to share. I wanted Linda to know that I'm thinking of her and sending my love, and thanks to Susan for giving me a square kick in the behind, love to Dad on this day after Father's Day, and thanks again to my friend J who helped me so much when he was here. I'm really glad you could make it finally again, even under the circumstances. (And blu, please start blogging again!)

Very, very sorrying now but, good night. :-)

The End of Act Three

2007-06-16T13:44:00.000+09:00

Highly moved by requests received in the long time since we have met here, I'd like to open a new page on the journey into the face of Japan, currently, and in my life. Thank you for being patient while I was silent, and also for reminding me that whether I'm aware of it or not, this writing has significance in people's lives.

When we did last chat, life was beginning to pick up in speed. My trip to Yakushima, the island of emerald green forests and crystal clear waters, had come to an end and, having discovered a force of mystical proportions drawing me towards Sakabe Sensei, we wondered what would lay in the future. The time for waffling on the decision to stay or go was getting shorter and shorter...

Then, just a couple of weeks after, the impossible happened. My mom actually got onto a plane and came out to Japan to see me. I remember the time when she told me that she would never come, that she didn't really have much interest in seeing Japan, that it would be tough dealing with the flight and the jet lag, and wouldn't I be coming home soon anyway??

It helped that my brother came along. That was really nice and wonderful because I don't know if mom would have come otherwise. And so, we spent a week tromping about on this old island.

I pushed them through a pretty full schedule because people usually respond to high expectations, especially if they know it will be worth it all in the end. We went to the castle in Kumamoto, explored the shopping district, and ate green tea ice cream following a walk through Tamana's Iris Festival down at the canal. In the middle of the week, I drove us in my friend Etsuko's van to Aso, the heart of the firelands which is the heart of the island of Kyushu. We dined the old fashioned way, our table being the grill, our food covered with sweet miso paste.

On the last full day of our adventures, we met Furu-san in the morning, and he drove us out to meet Sensei in the city. The place he took us to meet could be the subject of a whole other post. It was an immensely huge warehouse filled with collectibles in every category, so much that they were literally spilling out of the place. From top to bottom, neatly cramped in were clothes, cards(anime, baseball, soccer, postcards, playing cards, etc.), stuffed animals(big, small, anime, realistic, movie-themed, food themed, etc.), miniatures(dolls, foods, action figures, etc.) records, etc., etc. And et cetera--you get the picture. Entirely ridiculous, as, in my experience, only Japanese have orchestrated to such an extent.

Sakabe Sensei was a little late, so we got time to browse the goods. Left our mouths watering, my brother's especially, as soon as he noticed the old and highly bizarre record collection. I, of course, got caught in the miniatures section. I couldn't stop looking at all the mini Japanese food. There were boxed lunches, king crabs from Hokkaido, the northern island, and chestnuts from our very own Kumamoto. I peeled my eyes off the mini box of monkey bananas and collected my brother from the back shelves as Furu-san called us to go.

Sensei drove us all the way down south to the Amakusa Islands, where he was born. We drove over the five famed 'Bridges of Amakusa.' We stop to look out on the fog, in the direction of Nagasaki and also China at several points along the way. We had seafood for lunch, an Amakusa speciality. I was surprised and pleased at my mother's bravery in trying the local cuisine. (An interesting point to note is that I translated the entire day, with additions by Furu-san every now and then when he could think of the English word for something. It was my first real time translating for two parties, and I was wrecked at the end, although my family says I did a fine job. I gained a new respect for what translators must go through to empty themselves of their own thoughts and be open to the interpretation of others at any given moment.)

The culmination of the trip, in my mind, was to accompany my mother back to her hotel and wish her good night from my heart, and go off to talk with my brother for several hours. If, aside from enlightenment, the next most precious gift to the spirit is relationship, then my spirit was surely bright after that night talking together. My brother, both of my brothers, in fact, are incredibly sensitive human beings, just as we all seem to be when it comes down to it. But to be able to have the slightest glimpse of his vulnerabilities and recollections of (unextinguishable!) dreams, there was no place that I felt I wanted to be than right there with my family near.

There are so many details I'm leaving out. Feel free to call me on any of them, okay bro or mom?

Thank you, you guys, for a great trip together and for enduring a long travel to get to this part of the world. To Mom, you've supported me in my life here and helped me to get through challenging times, and that you could finally end up seeing some of these things for yourself was delightful for me. You're great at bowing too, but you already know that. Jay, I get the feeling you are about to launch any day. Store up on fuel in the meantime, right? Talk to you soon.

And gratitude to those people who asked me(more than once) to keep on blogging. Please enjoy the fourth act. And my love and best to you.

Day 26 -- Rapid Changes

2007-05-11T08:00:00.000+09:00

Yesterday, I made a transliteration of the AikiManseido("Aikido for the Whole World") creed, so I can begin to recite it in class. It's something that was composed by the Sunadomari Sensei, the head of AikiManseido and a student of Ueshiba O'Sensei(Aikido's founder). He was Sakabe Sensei's teacher, too, for a long time until Sakabe Sensei started his own dojos. You can see the original Japanese brushed here. I'm not going to try to translate it here because I couldn't do it justice in English. But I will translate the first sentence, and that is " 'Aiki' means 'the manifestation of love.' "

I go to the 53rd anniversary demonstration of Manseido this Sunday, where I hope to see Sunadomari Sensei for the first time. I'm waiting in anticipation of this event. He's something like 81 or 82 years old. I wonder what kind of demonstration it will be...

It is dawning on me how powerful this martial art's potential is to change a person.

Total minutes early: 210

Day 25 -- Sensei and the Island

2007-05-07T23:16:00.000+09:00

As I said earlier, I got the chance to go to Yakushima Island last week for three days with Sakabe Sensei and two other people. Yakushima Island is south of here, way down near Okinawa.

The whole island is covered with green, and although it was clear the whole time we were there, it was really apparent how much it must rain to become sheeted over with moss and so full of life. What astonished me the most about the place was the island's seeming ability to regenerate itself, even though a lot of logging had taken up til the mid-1960s. It had that kind of magic about it, pine trees which had grown on old stumps, banyan trees reaching down and forming new roots with their branches, and huge, ancient cedars carrying dozens of forms of different plant life in their branches.

There were plenty of small deer who pretty much ignored us, monkeys, who stared at us, and the colorful fish we could see from the glass-bottom boat. I ate a flying fish(cost about $8). That makes me really feel special somehow (. . *)V . I also ate something called 'kame no te,' or turtle's hand. It's actually a kind of shellfish that really looks like a turtle's paw. It tasted like clam.

There were three really spectacular waterfalls. One was 88 meters high, one was just beautiful, and the last one, pictured here fell directly into the ocean. I hear that's pretty rare for a waterfall.

I did get to go hiking in the Princess Mononoke inspired forest, and although it was quite an enchanted forest, the hike was easier than I'd imagined, so it didn't have much of a feeling of being hidden away.
Even still, I could have spent a lot more time in that forest. For a few moments, Sakabe Sensei and I sat looking at the trees in silence, and he and I were both reluctant to get up when it was time to go. We shared a few moments like this. All in all, I have to say that my experience with Sensei for those three days was different than I would have imagined.
Sensei on the mat astounds me. I become alive watching him; alert beyond thought. I have even felt once or twice that he could have been my father in a different time, because of the way that he kindly takes care of me, but is also strict. This is on the mat.

Off the mat, he's friendly enough, but I was surprised by some quirks that started to come out after a few days of close contact. Well, to start, he wore the same clothes the whole time, a dingy sort of suit, but he kept asking me to take his picture, so I got a lot of pictures of him. His camera was apparently 'maybe working,' same with his video camera. I didn't get that exactly. He took pictures with his camera even though the screen didn't turn on.

What else? He made us pay as a group several times, and when it came to sort out money, we each had accumulated receipts. The totals had to be added, divided, and it was messy. At the end, Sensei brought up that he had lost some of the receipts from his group purchases, so we had to give him an amount based on his estimation. I like to keep watch over my finances these days, so I was a little erked by the mystery of the lost receipts.

Otherwise, the language barrier difficulties were to be expected. It was Sensei, two fellows in their young 30s and me. Sensei nor the other two spoke English, except for the random katakanized word from Katsuki-san when he could think of it. I did my best, but it was a bit rough by the end, when my brain had burst onto the floor from Japanese overload.

It was a good experience, and I had a nice chance to reflect and could get to know Sensei much, much better. We had practice Monday night, and I was right. The nicey-nicey stage seems to be over. I broke a real sweat and joined the gang. And I felt lucky to have such a teacher and that we all have each other.

I wish I could devote more time to making this writing better, but I don't seem to be able to find the time. It's 1:30am now. I was late today, I'm really sorry to report, because I overslept after last night's hard training. I'll be up again and early tomorrow though.

No minutes to add this time. Total: 202

Day 24 -- Review, Realign

2007-05-01T08:02:00.000+09:00

We're in the middle of what is known here as Golden Week. It's the time of the year when the Japanese calendar has a built-in vacation, and it's traditionally been a time when my schedule is packed. Here's the review of Golden Week mid-action:

Friday, I didn't post because although it wasn't a holiday, it was a special day for the schools in the area, something like an area-wide inter-high school competition day. I went out to Tamana High School to watch the swim team. Our swim team has one member, but she's a really strong swimmer. She also has an interest in English and will be an exchange student in our sister city Clarinda, Iowa, next year. She took first place for women. Woohoo!

Saturday, Sakabe Sensei invited me to participate in his weekly Aikido marathon, in which he teaches four 1 1/2 hour classes at a community center in Kumamoto City in the same day. My allergies were terrible, really distracting, and I felt like I had a big cloud floating inside my head, but I trained the four classes anyway. There was a fifth class, but I couldn't go because it was farther away and I had made some plans for dinner with someone. Sakabe Sensei had some injury to his knee from class the night before, and he was limping, but he still taught all the classes. I have to say, I was pretty useless in helping him, sadly. He'd asked me, sort of jokingly, to teach the children's class in the afternoon, but I think he was actually serious. Me, I was thinking, "What, is he nuts?! I just started this, I don't understand it. How could I teach it?" So I just participated and felt a little foolish because I was about at the same level as these six and seven year-olds, even though I was wearing a black belt.

The mats were really hard, so I got a couple of bruises on my shoulders from rolling. My falling form had become so sloppy from lack of discipline in the recent years, and I'm really paying for it now. The emphasis in the falling in this school is on back rolling out of most everything. I have to take much more time to retrain my body to do this kind of fall. I'm wondering how I can do it. I'm tired of retraining myself. That's the problem with changing teachers--they each need you to do it their way. The thing is that I really want to do it this school's way as opposed to any other school. I just need a little more energy and time. And I wonder how I'll manage when I come home...

Sunday, I had some time to relax, and had dinner with a friend. Having relaxing time with friends, time to talk and chill out and have meaningful communication is rare, and I treasured that time with her.

Finally, yesterday, I went with a different friend to the renowned Arita Pottery Festival in Saga Prefecture. I've heard it's one of the most popular pottery festivals in the world. You can find any kind of Japanese dish or bowl you could dream of, in any price range from around 50cents (for nice stuff!) to hundreds of thousands of dollars(zillions of yen). There are hundreds of stands out in the streets, and behind them, hundreds of stores are displaying their unique styles. Kilns from all over Japan show up here; porcelin is also here. My third time here in three years, I stuck to my budget like glue and had a very nice time shopping and looking.

You guys, I'm getting off track in these last days of "30 days early." I'm still arriving early, which is good, but I'm getting up later and later. I've been skipping parts of the routine, like fixing my hair nicely, or something like that. I want to start again as if I'm on Day 1. But it's Day 24, and I was 8 minutes early.

Tomorrow, I've got one more shot to wake up refreshed and lively, and be early before I go off to Yakushima for 3 days. Yakushima is the nature-island that evoked the imagery that can be found in the movie Princess Mononoke. I'll go with Sakabe Sensei and two other Aikido fellows.

Total minutes early: 202

Day 23 -- Woman's Day

2007-04-25T13:07:00.000+09:00

Last night, I woke up in the middle of the night, noted the dull pain in my lower abdomen, and marveled at being a woman. My cycles are not predictable, but for several cycles now, I have been able to sense the first physical sensations in my abdomen hours ahead of time. Those first sensations are extremely subtle, and I didn't catch them for years. I find it fascinating when my body collaborates with my hormones, my stress level, and nature's rhythms to alter my state and change me, month after month after month.

I got chills and feverish for about an hour today, but I decided not to take a painkiller. I usually take ibuprofen. Today, somehow, I just wanted to feel the cycle as is. Feeling my natural way reminds me of my special gifts and responsibilities. I even had a moment of feeling grateful, where the pain didn't feel like pain, but just like a sensation, like when you touch bath water and for a moment you aren't sure whether it is very hot or very cold.

I love being a woman.

Total minutes early: 194

Day 22 -- Feast Your Eyes(Sirdar inspired)

2007-04-24T22:55:00.000+09:00

One of my favorite parts of being here, as I shared before, is the food. For presentation, freshness, quality, variety and taste, I wonder where one can find such splendor as here in Japan. I don't eat meat, but I do eat seafood, and the possible taste combinations even with a limited diet, are endless. I wanted to share with you a vision of just a few of the meals I've been able to feast on. Have you all ever partaken in this kind of Japanese meal? All of these shots are from onsen(hot springs) houses, specialty restaurants, or izakayas(small restaurants with bars). I can remember where I ate each of these meals.

They go back to this one on the right here. I was having a sayonara party with members of the Arao International Commitee, before I moved to Tamana. I was served the eye because I was the guest of honor. It had a hard core I had to spit out. First and last time, I hope, I have to try eating an eye. It was also at this party where I was served a "mystery sushi." It was tasty, but I was not happy to have eaten it when I learned it was whale.

This fish on the left was from the bonnenkai, the year-end party with the Shoheijuku Aikido folks. Sometimes you can see sashimi raw fish come out and the fish's head is still moving and the tail is still flipping. It's a little strange to see, but of course, guaranteed fresh.

A lot of the celebratory meals for events like parties, ceremonies, etc., are of this style, with many small dishes and several courses. Almost invariably, after eating the first items, usually fresh or raw and reminiscent of the season, out comes tempura, some kind of hearty pudding or soup, and last is white rice, tea, and usually fruit for dessert. One of these meals is from $30-$80. Not bad, considering the experience.

Later, I'll show you some photos of home-cooked meals I've eaten, plus some other made-in-Japan specialties. Japanese home-cooking was new to me when I came here, and I'm still learning about it. I don't know if many of the foods from Japanese home-cooking can be found in my home, Colorado. Maybe you can spot some you are familiar with.

But that's for a later date.

Total minutes early: 185

Day 21 -- Thrills

2007-04-23T23:09:00.000+09:00

Jeez, Sirdar, you should have told me to take pics before I went! Actually, it rained all day, pouring for the most part, so fog covered whatever views might have been seen from the car and the dojo. It was a nice place, inside a community center building, with wood paneling and a spacious mat area, fairly new. I could see some mountains towering over the building through the mist, and I imagine it would be a sight to see on a clear day. I'll take a bunch of pictures next time.

The oldest dojo I've been to, believe it or not, is smack dab in the middle of Kumamoto City. I'll definitely go and take some pictures of that place when I get the chance. It looks like a run-down haunted house sitting alongside of a shrine, with tall buildings surrounding on all sides. Furu-san took me there the day of the hanami cherry blossom party in the city. That reminds me: I do have a picture from the hanami I'd like to share. This is O-san doing "Thriller" under the cherry trees. (Well, it was some Japanese form of "Thriller," but it didn't actually have the same words or the same tune. But in my mind, it was "Thriller.") We actually did go and sing real karaoke with a real banana for a mic after this pic was taken.

Today I was 10 minutes early. I'm still working on the waking up part.

Matthew--genki desu yo. I feel pretty lucky to have been able to come over and learn all the things I'm learning. I think I got lucky in one particular regard by originally being placed way out here in the boonies. I live in a kind of suburb, which is even more forgotten than the countryside, I think. I have a lot of chances to experience the Japanese lifestyle I don't think I could have if I was say, close to Tokyo or Osaka. It can feel isolating at times, but I'm grateful to have the chance to be here. Thanks for the thoughts and for reading.

Total minutes early: 175

Day 20

2007-04-21T21:34:00.000+09:00

Tomorrow morning, I'm going to a place called Aso, which is really pretty deep in the countryside. There's a volcano that is famous there. I went there on my first week in Japan(back in '04!) and bought a piece of bright yellow sulphur at the tourist stand overlooking the lava pool, which by the way, was green.

There are some other countryside-type events that Aso is famous for, the most exciting of which is the annual fire festival. It's a traditional burning of the fields, but they've turned it into a pyrotechnic's heaven. People take turns lighting barrels of hay on fire, swinging them around, and I think, throwing them. There are all sorts of flamed-filled events, the last of which is to light a giant "火"(fire) on the side of one mountain. I heard from a friend the mountain is huge and the symbol looks about a quarter-mile long! I've never been, but if I can, I'd like to go next March. (Click here to read more on this festival and other cool events that happen around here.)

Anyway, I'll be going tomorrow to Aso with Sakabe Sensei a few other members of the dojo. I'm looking forward to training in the quiet peace of nature, and afterwards hanging out with Sakabe Sensei and the others, maybe watching videos of O'Sensei at his house in the city.

I was early on Friday morning. That part is getting much easier. So, before I finish the 30 days, I want to focus mostly on the getting up part because the being early part has gotten much easier. I'm grateful for the comments and support I've been getting. It helps.

Total minutes early: 165

Day 19 -- The Day That Had to Come

2007-04-19T21:56:00.000+09:00

Well, I suppose today had to come. So tired from working hard and getting to bed late for several days now, I woke up when the alarm went off, and then slept an extra 20 minutes. Funny, I was still early(9 minutes) and I didn't regret the decision to sleep in afterwards.

On another topic, I resisted the urge to watch that video with the killer from Virginia on it. What's the point in releasing something like that into the public? I dunno. I didn't watch it, so maybe there was some point. But it seems wrong somehow. Like spreading negativity across the world or something. Obviously, people have a lot of thoughts about this topic. Feel free to comment if you like.

Total minutes early: 157

Day 18 -- Sluggishness!

2007-04-18T23:38:00.000+09:00

Would've thought by now I'd exhausted the list of tiny invaders into my humble Japanese abode. The slugs were brought in accidently by yours truly. A little old lady who lives next to the school saw me walking while she was working in her garden. She yelled "Sensei!!" from far, far away, and I almost didn't hear. Then I stopped, turned and realized she was calling to me. She scuttled over to me and said she'd been saving me some beans. This was our first meeting, but she must have seen me walking by before and guessed I was a teacher at the school. So I took the beans, gave her my cow and now there is a huge beanstalk growing in my kitchen. Then she decided she wanted me to have some lettuce too, so she dug up four heads, put them in bag, and sent me off.

Four heads is a lot of lettuce for one person. I put them in the sink and kept them in water so they wouldn't wilt, and I ate a whole head for lunch. When I came home tonight, there were slugs crawling all over the sink! Sigh... do slugs have a lot of protein?

I got up again this morning to a happy little tune. I got up right away without thinking. Little by little...

Total minutes early: 148

Day 17 -- Got Up But Still Clutzing Around

2007-04-17T23:11:00.001+09:00

Last night, after I blogged, I crashed. Recently, I've been sleepy and tired and haven't had much time that is not occupied by teaching, cooking, studying or doing Aikido. I don't have time to feel lonely or sad, or even happy. I don't know what to make of it. But I do remember what it feels like to be in training again.

It feels like the teacher is taking a spoon, and scooping out the inside of me, taking out all the junk and leaving a shell of myself. Into that, the teacher shovels in overwhelming amounts of information. It's wonderful and exhausting at the same time.

Right now, I'm just trying to catch on to the basic drills in class. There are 10 or 15 basic drills/kata, I estimate, mixed into class time. They use different footwork patterns and movements from various attacks. Some are from seated, some from standing, some from hanmi-handachi(one person sits, the other stands). At this point, I'm mostly concerned with which foot is forward and which is back, and whether I should be turning my hand up or down, for example, yet I know that there is a much more sensitive and subtle exchange going on in these drills. It's hard to know that deeper level is occuring while I am clutzing around.

Class is a lot of this "no thinking time" stuff. Everything is so fast, faster than I've ever done training before. Of course, I'm still learning, so people slow down for me, and the teacher often comes over and we go through the footwork together or some such thing, but I know that if I don't start picking these things up, I won't get this special treatment much longer. So, I'm wondering how to retain, and what I can do on my own, and how I can improve more quickly. This is all kind of exciting for me.

Anyway, I was so tired that I waited til this morning to take my (nightly) shower. So, I was but 5 minutes early. Today, however, I got up right when the alarm went off. I didn't try, like we talked about. Somehow, I just woke up, and got up. It was a very natural feeling. I want to do that tomorrow, too.

Until then, sayonara!

Total minutes early: 142

Day 16 -- No Time to Think

2007-04-16T23:11:00.000+09:00

11 minutes early. And up 15 minutes earlier than last week. I found a bunch of cute tunes on my alarm/keitai(cell phone). So I'm waking up to happy melodies like Rhapsody in Blue, I've Got Rhythm, Clair de Lune, etc. It's niiiice :-)

I'll try putting my alarm further away from the bed, although I don't want to. It's a case of wanting to wake up happy as opposed to alarmed or annoyed. But I will try, because it is reasonable suggestion and it might turn out to be a good thing. We'll see.

Tonight's Aikido practice was "dame datta." "Dame datta" is a great Japanese phrase that means "abominably bad ." It is usually used to refer to one's own hideous abilities, as in "How did you do on your Japanese test?" "Dame datta," or in this case, "I failed utterly." Sometimes it is used to tell small children that have been really naughty. They usually cry because no one likes to be told "dame datta." It also means "It was no good," "It was useless," "My feet were crossed half the time in Aikido class," and so on. A very useful Japanese phrase.

I found that although my body was fine, my brain had burnt out earlier in the day, after 4 classes and two meetings. Furu-san happily chatted away during the hour-long car ride to the Musashi Traditional Arts Center while I sat unable to understand a good part of the conversation but too out-of-it to take the time to clarify what we were talking about. I know there was an urn, that time he got a black eye, and a part-time job involved, but I'm not sure of the correlation.

Class, as usual, was a high-speed blur of Sakabe Sensei executing one righteous technique after another, followed by my poor attempts to imitate all-around. He works with a variety of people when demonstrating-- black belts, white belts, two people, sometimes even four people, and we use wooden knives, swords and staffs every class. I think my favorite part of class right now is when we do what he calls "ukemi renshuu" or falling practice.

He'll call up each person individually and have them attack him again and again and again. Then he'll call up someone different [and sometimes ask them to bring a weapon--for me tonight it was jo(staff)] And he'll keep throwing on and on, until he's thrown everyone and they're beat. But he doesn't get out of breath. He's very wonderful at moving with little effort, and at keeping his breathing under control.

Before I know it, class has flashed by like lightning, and we even dash across the mats with our janitor's brooms, maybe 6 or 7 of us at once, to clean afterwards. It would make me laugh, but I don't have any time to think at all.

When class is over, undoubtedly I'm the last one to put away my gear and change. Beats me how everyone is so efficient but so relaxed. I have a lot to learn. Too bad nothing stuck tonight. There's always tomorrow, I suppose. And that reminds me that training to be very efficient with time is going to help me even more in the mornings...

total minutes early: 137

Day 15 -- Aikido rocked again

2007-04-13T23:15:00.000+09:00

For some reason now, my mind is confused and subtley believes that 7 minutes is 10 minutes.

I tell myself as I walk out the door, "Now self, you aren't going to be 10 minutes early if you leave the house with only 3 minutes to get to school."
See, this is true, but it's too late at that point.

I just know the secret lies in getting up the moment I wake up. How, oh how, can I do that?? I want to, I will myself to, but I have yet to be consistently successful. Well, Monday I get to try again. That's the great part about a self-challenge. I can just keep trying until I get it. I'm not impatient with myself, and I know I won't learn if I'm hard on myself or try to trick myself with rewards and such. How does it go...: 'The slow and steady early bird catches the worm." no. "You can fool yourself some of the time...," wait wait wait. "Time flies when you get up late."

I got it. The moral of the story is: "Time flies when you can fool yourself some of the time, but the slow and steady early bird never confuses 10 minutes with 7." Thank you very much.

Once again, I appreciate the comments. Hope you decide to stick around Matthew, and good luck. As for chocolate, I am learning about that, yes. Life really is turning out to be shorter than I had thought. What I mean to say is that I've lived a good deal of my youth, and I don't feel like I made all that many decisions about how I want to live.

Figuring out what I really want is very hard. It's takes patience to sort through the important vs. the essential, conviction to believe in the dream once having seen it, and dedication to follow through and see it come to life. And those wonderful examples of heroes we were talking about before -- where would I be without those? Probably sleeping away life in despair.

So, there is milk chocolate or bitter chocolate, and not as many people are able to love the bitter as they love the milk. But seeing as they are all chocolate, wouldn't it be amazing if they all seemed, somehow, to taste, well... good?

Total minutes early: 126

Days 13 + 14 -- Heroes and Lovers (and kids)

2007-04-12T21:47:00.000+09:00

I was 7 minutes early yesterday and today. It wasn't easy, but it's getting easier still.

I appreciate the comments from Day 12. I thought a lot about them yesterday. I wonder if I could ever be someone's hero, inspire someone the way my heroes inspire me. I thought about what my heroes have in common with each other. It surprised me to notice that there are no violinists specifically among my heroes. I found it strange because I play the violin.

I also thought about if my life will be complete if I get married and have kids. More and more, I think I just want to be plain old happy, and live an uncomplicated life, whatever that is. But I also want to live life with a deep meaning and especially with a connection to my/the universe's nature. You know what I mean. I don't want to sleep through life and wait for it to be over.

I wish I could say that I've decided I'm getting married and going to have kids or not going to get married and have kids, but something there in that realm has yet to become complete for me.

Namely, I can't decide whether to stay here in Japan for another year or come home. If I stay, I probably won't get married for a while. If I come home, I expect that I will probably get married and more than likely have children much sooner. And if neither of those things will come about, I suppose I will either become a nun or a rich old lady. Score!

But I don't know what to do just now. I need some new goals because the old ones are starting to get, you guessed it -- old -- and not motivate me anymore. I have to decide what I want for the coming time. I already know no one will do that for me. It's nice to have a say for yourself!

That being said, I do have confidence that I will be at least 10 minutes early tomorrow to work. wink wink

Total minutes early: 119

Day 12 -- A New Way

2007-04-10T22:29:00.000+09:00

I did it. 10 minutes early and done in a leisurely manner.

I have the feeling recently that my life is being cleansed. My desk at work is clean. The clutter that used to take up space in my house is gone. I know what's in my closets. There sits on my bed a pile of clean, folded clothes. The dishes are also done. Having arrived home from Aikido about an hour ago, I am also now clean.

A few weeks ago I took care of a bunch of those things I'd been meaning to do for a long time: buying a rod for the curtain across from the door, polishing my boots, making space in the front tatami room, buying a new bag for my weapons, vacuuming the inside of the car, etc. I even cleaned out my email box and replied to all those old ones that had been sitting there for too long.

So I had said before that I am full and empty. Life is full of classes and students and teachers and goldfish and mendelssohn and kanji and suwariwaza shomenuchi ikkyo ura. There are drinking parties and conveyor belt sushi bonanzas and taiko drumming games and iris festivals and castles and okonomiyaki. There is English club, Kado club, Japanese class, Sunday tutoring, Thursday night out, etc., etc., etc.

And yet, the dishes are done.

Full, yet empty.

This is a new way of being for me. It's exciting, full of potential.
I feel something as I gaze at the picture of the man sitting in the middle of his own spider web.

Total: 105 minutes early

Day 11 -- 6 minutes past the punch

2007-04-09T23:02:00.000+09:00

I'm so enthralled with this new Aikido I've been learning. Class whips by and all the meanwhile I find myself absorbed for its entirety.

Tonight I was a little late for class, but it wasn't actually because of me. I've been driving to class with the guy who teaches me on Tuesdays, and he works right up to the minute we have to leave for class. He tells me it's only Mondays, and I ask him if it's only school teachers who work every day of the week in Japan. He assures me that he is not a workaholic, and we get on our way.

This guy himself is pretty cool. He doesn't even know he's cool, which is so fun. Apart from having studied this style of Aikido for 7 years, he does karate twice a week. He's been doing that for four years.

I didn't have my Japanese language class at the YMCA last Saturday, so I went to train with him at the Tamana budokan (martial arts hall). Unfortunately, he'd gotten hit by a punch to the solar plexus in Friday night's karate class, and he couldn't move his neck! Needless to say, it was a light training session, and low and behold by today, Monday, with the help of a chiropractor, he has 'fully' recovered. That reminds me of a post I once wrote about the astonishing medical care I've been witness to here.

All this and I was only 4 minutes early this morning to work. How that's related, I don't know. My dad implies I should be able to make this 'missed time' up, if the same holds true for time as it does for sleep. But I can't make these minutes up. These are my life. I can't get time back. Every time I don't reach my goal, I have to try again to do what I set out to do, no excuses!!!

Let's add: 91 + 4 = 95 minutes early.

And 19 days left to arrive!!

Days 9 and 10 -- Little Obstacles

2007-04-06T13:42:00.000+09:00

I apologize for not getting yesterday's time up yesterday. I was 9 minutes early.

I was 7 minutes early today. Straight after last night's welcome party for the new teachers, I came home and fell asleep. I didn't wake up until morning and when I did, I was still in my clothes! So I hoofed it and took a morning shower instead of evening, and still managed to be early, although not 10 minutes early.

As much as being early has become important to me, I have to say that doing it in a relaxed, leisurely manner is just as important. We'd all rather be stress-free in the morning, take our time, move at our own pace, right?

So creating more time is going to be necessary. I'm moving back my wake-up time by 15 minutes.

Day after day there are small obstacles that always seem to change. But being the same as I go through them is the real challenge.

Total minutes early: 91

(I can do better than that.)

Day 8 -- In time for tea

2007-04-04T17:33:00.000+09:00

10 minutes early but still a little rushed. It's part of the old habit. The rushing comes right at the end, and seems to be a way of compensating for not getting up right away and therefore having to hurry at the end of the routine. I'm going to keep going and get one inch closer tomorrow.

It's spring break at school now, and the cherry blossoms are streaming down like rain. I have all free time all day in school. Most of the teachers take their vacation days during this time, so it's quiet in the staff room, but I like it. I already made the plans for classes, so I get to do whatever I like as long as I stay on school grounds.

So, what did I do today? I spent the morning studying and writing kanji. I took a walk to get my lunch and I spent the entire afternoon, from 1:30 to 5pm, playing the violin. After I came home after work, I went almost straight to Aikido. That's all I did today. I am at once full and empty. There's more I could say about that topic, but that's for another post.

Total minutes early: 75

Day 7 -- Routine

2007-04-03T23:12:00.000+09:00

Well, I only have three minutes to add to the total today.

It was hard to get up, probably because I arrived home from training late last night. The drive is just about one hour, and class ends at 10pm. I was very tired when I came home, but I took my shower and set out my clothes. It just took some extra effort to lift my body out of bed come morningtime.

I trained tonight too, in town. I'm learning so much. It's humbling and I feel really lucky. I also fell asleep in the bathtub, accidently. But I think I can be 10 minutes early tomorrow, regardless of how I feel tonight.

In the meantime, I've put together a night time routine as suggested by a couple of people. It's just as straightforward as the morning routine, but I have to start earlier than I'm used to in order to get everthing done. All this routine leaves no time for any goofing off. Really, there's no time to think if I'm to get it all done.

During the daytime, at least recently, I'm finding the same thing. The things I do involve intention, from arriving at school to say good morning to journaling to preparing to studying to practicing, etc. There is less and less unutilized space. For some reason, this feels like a wonderful way to live life; within certain boundaries, but also with a sense of freedom and ease. The boundaries are self-created, so they are just pretend. It takes self-discpline, therefore, to follow them, because no one else knows them, right?

Total minutes early: 65

Day 6 -- Dreams come true and Angels are real

2007-04-02T23:41:00.000+09:00

I was 10 minutes early to work today. It was not so difficult today because I did as Sirdar suggested and laid my clothes out the night before. I also changed around the order of a couple of things in the routine to make smoother.

A lot has been happening in other parts of my life, by the way. Besides going to three parties during the weekend, I had been asked to take a second-degree black belt test at the Shoheijuku Aikikai dojo here in Kumamoto and the tests were on Sunday. I had originally set my mind towards taking the test, but as the time approached I didn't yet have the confidence I would need.

I decided that I couldn't take a test if I couldn't prepare well enough, so I asked the teachers and some of the other students if they would meet with me on different days to help me prepare. The only person that agreed to do it was of course, Awesome Guy, but with just that little extra training, it wasn't enough for me to become ready. I learn a lot at the dojo, but training is slow and my body is out of shape.

Looking for other ways to train, I found a poster in the local budokan(martial arts hall) for an Aikido class that had just started in my town. Turned out the Aikido on the poster is from another branch of called Aishikan, under a larger school named Manseido. Even though the school(style) was different, I went anyway for the extra training opportunity -- so it would seem. Today I handed in my membership form and I became an official member of Aishinkan.

I have no doubt that this dojo is where I want to be. The teacher is unbelievable skilled. Each class he runs class like clockwork, and the students are all amazingly skilled also. Class moves so quickly I can hardly keep up. The ukemi(falls) are clean, mostly back rolls, but the students seem to be very flexible to many ways of falling.

I just wish I could tell you everything I've seen. My dream of meeting this sort of experience is coming true. I couldn't care less about second-degree at this point. I talked a bit with the Shoheijuku Kumamoto teacher and let him know I wasn't going to take the test. He totally didn't understand, but maybe that's because he doesn't know me very well at all. I don't care about rank. I care about learning.

So my schedule changed to training Mondays and Tuesdays with these folks, Wednesday and Saturday with the old dojo. I can add and subtract days as I like after I figure out what is best to do. I've spent many, many hours with the Shoheijuku people, and have certainly made some close friends there, so I will continue practicing there until I make up my mind what is the best way to move forward.

You know, I also want to tell you about what's been going on with my relationship with my boyfriend. The things we have come to realize together give me joy and great sorrow. If we could imagine that angels were real, I'm sure one would resemble my boyfriend. Maybe you can understand what I mean somehow. I don't mean he's cute and so nice, I mean that he is kind, decent, mature and wise, with patience and a wide-opened mind.

We were watching the cherry blossoms fall from the trees yesterday in Jagatani Park. The moments of life are fleeting like the fall of the blossoms. Maybe you can understand.

Anyway, I'm ready to wake up tomorrow and create some joy. Are you with me?

Well, I didn't get any minutes from anyone since the weekend, so we don't have to think about that just now. As for me, I'm up to 62 minutes early!

Day 5 -- Getting fired up

2007-03-31T00:36:00.000+09:00

Ugh. I ate a scallop in my sashimi tonight. I'm assuming that why I have a shooting pain in my stomach. So I'll keep it on the short side. 11 minutes early. Still hard to get up as soon as the alarm goes off. Still working on it.
Grateful for the support I've been receiving early in the game.

Total minutes early: 52

Got another 20 minutes from a friend today. Grand total: 91 minutes of created morning time

Day 4 -- Gaging

2007-03-29T21:42:00.001+09:00

Somehow did not get up as soon as my alarm went off -- got up 4 minutes after. Those four minutes; got to whittle them down.

The thing that takes the longest in the morning routine by far seems to be picking out what to wear. It reminds me of deciding what to have for dinner.
We have the staples: rice, noodles, etc., then whatever certain vegetables have been given to us(me) that week, spices and whatever other fun stuff, and from there, we're supposed to put together something that tastes like good food and hopefully looks appetizing. Likewise we've got the pants and the skirt, the foundation of outfit, the shirts in all colors just like the vegetables, and then the jewelry, hair doodads, scarves, etc. that are the spice of dressing. We put it all together and we then take this spicy dressing and look in the mirror and hope it looks appetizing. How is one to fit this complex and delicate procedure into less than 10 minutes?

Regardless, today I was nine minutes early, bringing the total to 41 early minutes thus far.

I'm happy to report 20 early minutes I received from a friend today, bringing the combined total to 61 minutes. We're over an hour early. I hope you brought a book!

Day 3 -- Back on Track

2007-03-28T23:35:00.000+09:00

Forgot to set my alarm last night to wake up this morning, but somehow still arrived at work 13 minutes early!

You know, once I'm up, it's pretty straight forward from there, but the actual getting up is hard. I've been told that one of the factors could be that I have low blood pressure. They say it can be harder for people with low blood pressure to get up in the morning. I'm not sure that's it though, because other people in my family have timeliness issues and I don't think they all have low blood pressure.

Just in case though, if anybody understands why it's supposed to be more difficult, go ahead and let me know. Nix that--just tell me what can be done about it. I'm now getting more and more frequent exercise than I was just a bit ago. That will either help or make me tired from exhaustion. Ha! How to win the Getting Up in the Morning Game? I feel like I'm playing chess against the computer; it's always 10 steps ahead of me...

I read that it's best to just get up the moment the alarm goes off rather than lying in bed groggily. This article argued that thinking at all makes getting up difficult. I'll try that tomorrow. Just get up when it goes off. (I also noticed it helps if I do things like wash the dishes and pick up a little the night before. That way, I'm not distracted the next day when I'm getting ready.)

How's your progress? Did you find a morning routine that works for you? We should add up our collective minutes and find a sponsor or something. I'm up to what, 32 minutes early? Cool, now if only time were money...

Day 2 -- False Start

2007-03-27T22:55:00.000+09:00

I had a harder time getting up this morning, and thus arrived only six minutes early. Four minutes past the mark...

Although it may be difficult to get out of bed on some days more than others(for example, if I worked out heavily the night before, if it's raining that morning, I didn't sleep well, etc.), really, it shouldn't matter how I feel. I want to be able to get to there early regardless of a feeling or emotion. It will take some self-disciplining at first, and then autopilot ought to kick in after too long, I'm betting.

If this works, just think of all the things that can be achieved by training oneself in this way--being able to stick to an intention regardless of fickle emotion. No more impulse buying. No more wavering decision-making. No more crying over spilled milk or broken legs(gimme a minute to link this to a blog from my Arao #1 Middle School judo days and you'll get that one). And it all starts with a 30-day challenge.

I'm surprised I already slipped a little and it's only day 2.

Focus, Daniel-san.

Day 1 -- Go!!

2007-03-26T22:55:00.000+09:00

Yes!! Success!

Not only did I get up easily, my notes kept me focused so that I didn't have to think, even when I was sleepy. I was out the door on time and arrived 13 minutes early, and received a nice reciprical "Good morning!" from the staff. I felt relaxed and even managed to get all nicely put together, with time to do my hair, etc.

A big part of this challenge is about moving into the space where I don't have to think about what I'm doing in the morning. If I can get the routine down--without thinking about it--I think I'll be set. 30 days is what I expect this might take, so, on with the challenge!

I hope you were also able to put out your best effort today to get to work early. Was anyone surprised to see you or come up to greet you like they did me? It's a nice feeling, isn't it?

See you tomorrow, early birds!

2007-03-25T23:24:00.000+09:00

Okay, so I'm all set for tomorrow. I put a couple notes around the house to remind me what I'm supposed to be doing, and the alarm is ready to tell me when to scoot out the door. I'm really looking forward to this. It seems like life comes into focus by taking on a challenge, especially one I feel passionate about.

And thanks to at least three people by supporting me with their own 30-days early self-challenge. Good luck to you, and don't give up, even if you miss a day or two. I'll do the same!

And just a side note to two special people who are dealing with their own personal challenges right now. Keep on truckin' and you'll(we'll) get through this and come out stronger for it. My best to you both.

Get set...

Thirty Days Early

2007-03-21T22:15:00.000+09:00

Man, what I wouldn't give to be early to work every day. Sometimes, I'm a few minutes early, most of the time I'm just barely on time, and more often then not, I'm a few minutes late. Like 2 or 3 minutes. On the rare occasion, I'll be 10 or 15 minutes late.

I hate being late to work. I don't like the feeling of rushing beforehand, and I don't like the feeling of arriving after I'm supposed to. I don't like cutting into the meeting in the morning or waiting out in the hallway until it is done. I don't think being late helps people to trust me, and I don't think it's very healthy to be rushing all the time.

So, why would I continue doing this if all these reasons tell me l shouldn't? Well, I haven't, until this point, looked very deeply into changing this habit. Don't get me wrong, I've tried different methods to be on time, but none of them have worked for longer than about two or three weeks, when I eventually drift back to being late every so often.

Among the things I've tried: setting my clocks fast, planning to the minute when I have to leave to get there on time, laying my clothes out and making breakfast the night before, showering in the morning, showering at night, among other things. Last year, from March til July, I actually kept a journal to record my timeliness to work. Somehow, it didn't help me so much to be writing down "4/24 -- late".

I'm tired of it all! I want to put an end to it.

Therefore, starting Monday, March 26th, I will be 10 minutes early for work. I will go into the building, relaxedly, and enthusiatically say "Good morning!" to my coworkers, make myself a cup of green tea, and sit down at my desk.

I will start on Monday, and I will continue in that way every day of next week. I will also do this the following week. I will continue the same pattern 'ten-minutes early, good morning!, tea, sit down' for thirty straight work days.

If I play my cards right after thirty days, I will be free, and the world will have one less latecomer to deal with!

If you often find yourself late for work or some other daily event, please join me on Monday and start your own "quest for timeliness." Do it publically or privately -- we can challenge ourselves to grow together.

I'll log my progress here. I'll also tell you what changes I make to my morning routine.
I'll start off by setting an alarm to go off at the time I am to leave the house to be 10 minutes early to work. Other than that, I haven't decided to change any other routine yet. I'll start Monday so that I really have time to get ready and focused beforehand.

On your marks...

What I Got

2007-03-03T14:49:00.000+09:00

If you practice a lot, your skill level goes up really fast. That's what they say, right? Well, yeah. Practicing all the time is hard work; it takes time, energy and focus. But it layers on itself day after day, and it gets easier and easier.

The Mendelssohn is getting sooo enjoyable. I used to think it was impossible--I started it almost 15 years ago!! But I wasted so much time playing the thing over and over again, and then moved on, thinking I'd somehow learned the piece.

You know what made the difference this time? Well, firstly, I decided to memorize it. The first movement, that is. It's 7 pages--not easy for me. I never knew what people went through to memorize. Now I know. I finally get that it's just a matter of practice, reenforcing what I learned the day before. I've got about 5 of the pages down. I could memorize the whole concerto now. It'd just take a few more weeks.

Second thing is, I decided to try playing it in tune. Not close to in tune, but in tune. This is consistently impossible right now. So I just train my fingers. Thanks to the advice of the teacher A. E., who gave me couple lessons in Boulder when I was there in the summer, and to L, who bestowed to me the lessons in the first place, I slowly came to see that playing in tune is a huge part of the practice. And most of my life, I haven't bothered with it. I didn't know I _could_ play in tune.

Now I know that I can--that's because I already know how to play in tune in my mind, but my fingers and my brain really want to play faster than my mind can handle. It's like when you are making a speech in front of people, and you want to say everything you feel all at once. The mind knows it, but it takes time for the brain to verbalize, and for the mouth to vocalize it beautifully.

Thirdly, and lastly, I'm preparing this music for a purpose, that being to make a tape and send it in as an audition. That gives me a lot of focus and motivation. I'm doing nothing more than any musician would do. I'm happy to say that I feel like I'm truly giving it my best.

Let me say that no one has heard these pieces from me yet. I practice in the practice rooms at school, and not once has the door been rapped upon in two months since I started preparing. So it will be really exciting to 'unveil' what I've been working on for the tape. I really hope I can give a sample here too.

It would be so great if my Aikido practice could some day be like this too... I miss CO where people can practice any day... well, one thing at a time. I think it's more important to build the habit of practicing. It doesn't matter what I'm practicing, as long as it's the same thing consistently.

The world is so much bigger than I can take in. It's full of lots of people working really hard. It's inspiring. It gets hard to know what to do with yourself, whether music is good enough. But it seems to be what I've got at the moment...

The Hard Post to Post

2007-02-23T19:17:00.001+09:00

I want to tell you that I just had my two-year anniversary last weekend. Boy, it was a little bit of a tough time! I won't go into details, but we find ourselves unsure of the future as before. This is difficult for me. There have been so many times that I have wanted to really go for it, and pursue this life with him. For me though, I can barely hold on sometimes, being away, not connected to people day after day. It makes me sad just to think about it. I know it's February, and February can be a hard month sometimes because of the weather, so I'm trying to keep that in mind too.

So you are thinking, "What's the problem? Isn't everything great together?" I come up with the answer that yes, everything is great. We are working hard not to rely too much on each other, not to see each other more than a couple times in a week, to accept that we don't share the same view on most anything, and we are patient through the misunderstandings and the cultural differences.

He said the other day that he is a simple person, and doesn't desire to think too deeply about many things. I thought I wanted to be a simple person who doesn't desire to think too deeply about many things too. But there are things that linger in my life that don't let me go. Why do these things begin to turn my hairs gray?

And so if I stay, he will not, in all likelihood be joining me in Nagano. And if I come home, he will not be joining me. Of that, I am pretty sure. He worries about me and will help me as long as I am here, around Kumamoto. Jeez, I don't want him to worry about me. That's like someone staying around because they are scared something bad will happen if they leave. That means that he doesn't stay because he wants to, but because of me, my inability to take care of myself. I don't like that.

But boy, we do love each other. You build up a habit of caring for and about a person day after day, and this habit of caring is such a wonderful thing. I wish I could feel this kind of caring for all the people I know. But it takes a lot of time and effort and upkeep that I don't know how to care for everyone I meet in this way. It sure would be a nicer world over here in this neighborhood if I could figure that one out.

I suppose I'm afraid I'll forget how to take care of someone because really, I learned a lot about that from him. Being around him, hanging out with his family, who are so respectful of each other, eating meals together, he is naturally kind and relaxed. Especially those things that are really hard for me: being punctual, not taking certain things too seriously, and keeping from getting too dark from time to time, he helps me with, without even knowing. He does not have these issues, so they tend to disappear for me when I'm around him.

What do I possibly do for him? Teach him English? Cook him food sometimes which doesn't taste half as good as what his family's food tastes like? Provide stress relief? I don't know about that. Recently he's been saying I bring stress to him. It's true. Sometimes, I just feel unsettled, and I tend to bring it up, and it causes stress whenever I do that. So then I don't know what to so with the unsettled feelings.

I'll give you an example of this. The most recent time was around the anniversary. As you may know, Valentines Day here is a day where women give stuff to men. And our anniversary is just after that. Well, I thought that the anniversary was more meaningful than Valentine's Day, and so I told him that I wanted to make the anniversary more special, and would he be okay if Valentine's Day was just a small thing? He said okay. What he actually interpreted that to mean was that I was going to do something for the anniversary instead of Valentine's Day, and that he shouldn't plan anything. It all played out and I did this thing, made a big plan for the anniversary, a small but nice plan for Valentine's Day, and when it was all finished, I had this sinking feeling. I sat down on the bed and turned dark inside. He notices this. He doesn't miss it, and he always stops what he is doing to care for me.

Why I turned dark is because I had this feeling that he hadn't done anything, put any thought into our anniversary. At first, I thought maybe he was hiding some plan, but as time went on, it dawned on me that he hadn't planned anything. It hadn't been something he'd even thought to do something for. This, I couldn't understand. So, I got really sad while he was in the bathroom, and I sunk onto the bed. I wondered how this day could not be worth making a special plan for. I wondered if he thought our anniversary wasn't a special day.

I couldn't talk for a little. That's usually how it goes. Thoughts really fly through my mind, most of them critical and negative, and so I can't speak. I know those thoughts are just destructive and reactive. So I have to wait and eventually I spoke. He thought that I had said that I wanted to do the planning for the anniversary, that I was going to do something for him in lieu of Valentine's. All he had wanted to do was to watch our anniversary movie, ~~ , together. That's all. How simple of him.

So, he made me feel really guilty for thinking that I should get something because I did something. Originally, that wasn't how I had thought about the situation at all. I was really happy to be able to do something really nice for the two of us. But at the end there, I suppose I did hope that he had something planned, for me, for us, whatever. And so I am guilty of that. But I was simply shocked that he really thought I wanted to plan the anniversary alone, all by myself. I mean, that doesn't make much sense, does it? I just wanted to surprise him with something nice, but I guess he felt left out and like he was uninvolved because of that.(?)

Well, so that was an example of an unsettled feeling. When I write it down like this, though, it seems kind of logical, and hopefully not self-righteous. See, the thing is, I care about him, almost more than I care about myself, if you can believe that. And so when we say things to each other that damage us, I get sooo sad. I start crying just saying something mean sometimes. Some of these habits I have are ingrained so deeply...

There's more, but I think this is enough for now. Somehow, I'm glad to have sat here and written this out. Somehow, I still feel unresolved. Well, that's okay. That's plenty for now. The longest post I've ever written.

Dedication

2007-02-20T17:07:00.000+09:00

For the past two and a half years I've been writing about my thoughts and experiences here on the southern, sometimes backwards, sometimes forwards, but always upsidedown place they call Kyushu, Japan. It's a noteworthy place, but unfortunately, I don't know much about writing. And as far as expressing its excitement, I don't know the first thing about putting that into a programming language. Therefore, I'm grateful that people stop by and read and leave comments, especially my family. The feedback, interest, and support fuel my tank.

There's one person, though, who goes an extra mile here, and that's Blu. Really, your support has been unending. I show up, and you're here, with an open ear and an open mind. Your devotion moves me, and I wouldn't be surprised if others find it moving too.

It's funny, a lot of people have asked _me_ who you are, how I knew you. Imagine that.

With respect, I'd like to dedicate these first 232 entries to you, Blu. (Raising a glass) Here's to kindness, Kyushu, and Blu...!

Mmm, 94% Chocolate

2007-02-07T14:14:00.000+09:00

I just got the results of the 4th Level Japanese Proficiency Exam that I took back in December. They are:

listening: 88/100
reading/grammar 189/200
writing/vocabulary 100/100

total: 377/400 points
percentage: 94% correct

I'm so happy! I started with 60% on my first practice test. I worked hard and really studied, and the results show my best effort. I'd scored pretty consisently around 90% in weeks before the test, so a 94% is wild beyond my wildest dreams*!! (*Except in the dream where I score 98%, but my pencil was also made of chocolate, so they probably scored it wrong that time. You were there too, but...)

3rd level, you don't scare me!! I'm gonna chew you up and spit you out and then take you and pass you!!!
HA HA AH HAHAH!!!!!

The Value of Peanuts

2007-02-04T23:32:00.000+09:00

It was my second time competing at the All-Valley Arao Bite-Your-Head-Off-If-You-Catch-My-Beans Competition. In local terms it's called the "bean-throwing festival," but by now I know better. Hundred of people show up at Narita Temple to celebrate the end of the longest day winter with bags in hand. It's a day of casting out the demons in our lives, and starting fresh. And Narita Temple's got a great way to cast the old away.

After some preliminary prayers, dancing, and festivities, (all of which are worth coming to watch on their own, by the way) the announcer informs us, the crowd, that we look like we have beans-on-the-brain. What can I say, it's probably true. We look forward to these little white packages, containing infinite possibilities, tumbling from the rooftop into our grasp for an instant before they fall to the ground and are picked up by a small child or bent-over old woman. We are dreaming about a new TV or a year's supply of rice, perhaps, contained within.

Amazingly enough, it was Hiro's first time doing this, but he turned out to catch like an old pro. So as the town leaders stood on the roof of the temple, tossing packages though the air, the announcer yelling at us to scream with glee even louder, he managed to catch 20 or so packages, a rice ball, a brown sugar candy bar, and about 4 packs of mixed snacks. I was happy because in my little bag I caught a big anpan, which is a stuffed roll.

If I could give the world a gift, I would invite everyone to the bean-throwing festival. It's so easy to lose yourself in the fun of the dancing, the smell of the incense, and the catapulted treasures coming right at you.

We opened up our packages one by one, looking for the number written on the paper that would send us off to claim the prize with the same number. But alas, all we found were(once again not beans) peanuts. Funny that I say it that way, because I wasn't disppointed at all. I ate my peanuts on the way home in the car, and boy did they taste like joy...

Mr. Kupprion

2007-01-31T23:33:00.001+09:00

Mother nature seems to be having hot flashes. Last night it rained and afterwards it was so pleasant and warm outside. This morning, I was told it was -5 degrees celsius(whatever _that_ means!), and tonight it's freeeezing! I came home just now from Aikido, and I didn't want to get out of my car where the heater was nice and warm, so I drove around for 15 minutes after arriving home. Finally, I decided to brave the 15 minutes of cold it takes for my heater to warm my bedroom. Even after it's warm in here though, cold air leaks in through the windows and the floor.

Though I'm complaining, truthfully, it's nice to feel like it's winter again. On the walk to work, the daffodils are blooming in a nearby yard. Yesterday, the art teacher pointed out to me that the plum tree has a few flowers in bloom already, a month ahead of schedule. I'm willing to bet that an early spring will mean a hot, hot summer, and that might be harder than a cold winter. The reason I say that is because things(clothes, food, Aikido dogis) grow mold so fast when it's hot, and the bugs come out. At least in the cold things are clean and I can leave the compost in the sink for more than 5 minutes without three different kinds of ants finding it.

Okay, no more complaining. Da, da da daaa: I joined a gym again, at last. Membership starts tomorrow, and I'm looking forward to going as I prepare to take my 2nd degree black belt test in early April. (As an added perk, my membership gets me 200yen off at the bathhouse near my house. It's not a fancy bathhouse as far as they go, but they have a nice little outdoor bath, and a sauna. These are communal baths, you know. Like we all soak naked together(women and men are separate), just like Romans did, I guess. At first, I was a little shy doing it, but now I enjoy taking communal baths very much. Doing something routine with other people around makes me take that much more care to see that I've really done a good job washing before I get in the baths. Anyway, I'm going to start off easy, and work it up from there.

I can finally say that I'm enjoying teaching quite a lot these days. It became much different after the department started using the new textbook, and now they're letting me use two other textbooks I picked out for the other classes. Maybe they'd just been waiting for someone like me to show up and get the ball rolling on the textbook thing--I dunno! Besides that, some of the students and I have grow closer, and they brighten my world every day. That being said, I've accomplished a mission; I set out here to Japan to see if I wanted to become a teacher, and now I think I would like to become a teacher. Not necessarily an English teacher on Kyushu Island though... let's wait and see what the future could possibly have in store...!

I hope I've distracted you thoroughly for a few minutes. And now that you've been distracted, you have all the energy you need to go back to your work becoming like your favorite teacher.

Week in Review

2007-01-27T00:22:00.000+09:00

Glad to see you!
Who, me? Yes, I am still alive and breathing.

Here's what I've been doing recently:

-Last Sunday went to an Aikido seminar with Suganuma Sensei in Fukuoka City. Had zenzai(sweet red beans and sticky rice balls) with the Aikido gang to break in the start of a new year practicing. Drank too much sake. Had too much fun...

-Monday treated myself to dinner at Momo's. Korean chijimi pancakes and "ethnic-style" tofu salad. Studied kanji. Bathed at the public bathhouse.

-Tuesday teaching my private students at night. After, grocery shopping at "Marumiya" market.

-Wednesday made nabe(lots of boiled Japanese vegetables and fish other things in a pot) for lunch and dinner. Extra hour after Aikido class practicing with Awesome Guy. He's starting to acquire a small following!

-Thursday did some violining after long hiatus. At night sushi and sashimi out with the other foreign teachers in the area. I had flounder and horse mackerel and something called konoshira. It was fantastaliscious. After, laundry.

-Tonight Erica made dinner at her house and we watched Broken Flowers with Bill Murray, who joined us for pasta at the last minute.

-Work tomorrow in Kumamoto. Going to watch students I coached compete in a recitation contest. Back to Tamana to listen to the music students from the school give recitals.

-Work Sunday as a test monitor for the school. Sunday night teaching private lessons.

I hope you did some great things this week. Good night! I want to write some more soon!!

Sharing Dreams

2007-01-16T20:06:00.000+09:00

It occurred to me that when Martin Luther King Jr. made his famous speech, that his driving motivation, his consuming obsession, and his absolute faith, came from something as simple as having a dream.

If I could be moderately as enthusiastic in creating, designing, and pursuing my dreams, no matter how big or small, if I'd succeed or fail, I'm sure I could achieve miracles. Dr. King's courage to stand in the face of ferocious fears and wicked horrors, and speak his from his soul, giving hundreds of thousands of people strength and hope, is the kind of miracle I'm talking about. He moved the nation with only his voice.

With that in mind, I'll continue working more and more towards carrying what large and small struggles I can "on the high plane of dignity and discipline." I am one of many who could find such inspiration from his example.

Dr. King's dream shows the power of vision. If only we could all dream as fully. I'm doing my best. I'm working now to remember, discover, and create my own dreams. They are not glorious, righteous, or visionary as his dreams were, but I can hope that they will one day be as pressing and pertinent to me and my little part of the world as his were to his country and his people.

To be able to be inspired by such a wonderful and brave soul is certainly anybody's honor. And that we have such a soul etched in the books as part of America's history makes me feel proud of my heritage as an American. I want to try to find my dreams and make them become realized, just as he did, and is still doing through his work's reverberations.

Finally, I want to thank the friend who sent me the speech today, because although, as he pointed out, it was given before we were even born, it's as moving and important now as it ever was, don't you think?

A trip down aisle 1

2007-01-14T11:20:00.000+09:00

Ah, the Japanese grocery store. Here, we can see Japanese mushrooms(enoki, eringi, bunashimeji) and okra, tofu, and different kinds of soy sauce. How many kinds of soy sauce can you see? How many kinds does your market carry? Did you notice the prices: the mushrooms and okra are 100yen(just under $1), the tofu is 38yen(about 35cents), and the soy sauce varies from about 198yen-1550yen(about $2-$15)!

Planting Resolutions

2007-01-12T00:07:00.000+09:00

So it takes me a few days to get back into the swing of things after a long trip. I don't apologize for not writing while I was on vacation, but I do apologize for having written sooner in the six days since I've been back here. I'm sor-ry.

The trip itself was wonderful. I achieved my goals of getting some quality time with most of the family and closest friend in PA, and also some r&r. In CO, I was able to go to the Aikido seminar put on in Boulder, and do some training on top of that, all of which were excellent experiences for me. I got to have that shiny-happy feeling a lot this time around, due to being able to catch up with many of the people I'd been missing since the summer. I also got two solid days to reflect on my future goals, something which I'd been really looking forward to.

What's come of that is, I've made some resolutions for the year. First resolution: to learn 500 kanji this year. Second: I resolve to decide if I'll stay in Japan longer _before_ my contract is up in late March. Third: I resolve to create a goal about my current relationship. I think it's along the lines of--for as long as I choose to be in relationship with my boyfriend, I will be the best girlfriend I can possibly imagine to be. That resolution needs more clarification, though.

The battery's about to run out on my computer, as I'm sitting in my bed where the heater can keep me warm, so I'd better go ahead and publish.

Let me say just one more thing. It was an extreme joy to spend time with my brother in CO. Every day my love for him grows. Is it possible for love to grow?

Warped greetings

2006-12-23T03:02:00.000+09:00

Currently, in PA of the US of A, in the upstairs bedroom of my mother's house, all is well. The body's readjusting and I feel tired and out-of-it. Hard to imagine where I was yesterday, and how the world here and the world there can exist at the same time. The price that is paid to travel around the world is the feeling of having been warped, and bits and pieces have been left behind, which only catch up to the rest gradually.

When I came home, I felt elated to see the road signs all in clear English letters. That had me feeling very happy. My mom and I went to a conveniece store, and once again, I remembered how different they are here from the ones I'm used to. No one greets you when you come in, and they don't have bento lunch-boxed meals, but hey, there's a great deli, so it almost balances out.

Nice to be back. Merry greetings!

A drink and a snack

2006-12-18T06:42:00.004+09:00

Quite the weekend. Saturday began with a bit of shopping in Kumamoto's downtown walking mall. There are two main shopping streets, Shimotori and Kamitori, and from plastic food to fancy kimonos to discount Arita pottery to shops full of nothing but green tea, I never have much problem entertaining myself. Yesterday's shopping trip took me to Tsuruya, the two-building department store connected by a floating walkway. Tsuruya's famous around here; it's a really up-scale sort of store. There's Gucci, Louis Vuitton, and other such names I fill my closets with. Ha, ha, jk, I'm not turning Japanese that much!

Anyway, a highlight was a real live 'elevator girl'-- two -- actually. The elevator girls push the buttons for you and call out nice things, such as, 'Thank you for waiting. Third floor,' and, 'We're moving now, please hold on.' I was told by Hiro that they were very useful in the time when elevators were new in Japan, and few people actually knew how to use them. These particular elevator girls had fuchsia dresses, and dark purple hats with black bows on the front. They wore gloves. They were changing shifts when I got on, so when we got to the bottom floor, the one steps out, and like clockwork the other steps in, they both bow and apologize for the wait(of which there was none at all), and off we went. And a pleasant trip was had by all.

That was just the beginning of the weekend. Aikido was a smashing good time as usual, and practice was followed by the bonnenkai, or year-end drinking party. Last year, there were three or four other foreigners present, but this year I was the only one. Not that it mattered, really. With the aikido group, I rarely feel like an outsider.

Anyway, we had なべ, which says 'nabe,' or 'pot,' a kind of soup you make at the table yourself by adding ingredients to a large pot on a little burner. Most everyone drank beer, followed by shochu, the local firewater made from potatoes, mixed with hot water. Mostly men drink that drink here, and there were 14 men and two women(including me) at the party, an uncommon imbalance. Turned out this year our teacher, Honda Sensei, turned 70. So we celebrated the year end and his birthday.

After much drinking and festivities, half the group headed out, and the rest of us went out for a 'nijikai,' a second party. One of the older guys, who was the same age as my dad(you're still young, Dad!), chose a snack bar. I had heard a lot, I mean a whole lot about snack bars, but I had never been inside one. When I first came to Japan, I pictured a snack bar to be a place where I man could find a prostitute. But slowly, over time, my perspective has changed. I realized that the snack bar institution sort of took over for the geisha institutions when they dissappeared after the war. If a man wants to find a prostitute in Japan, I understand there are places where he can do that. But snacks, in general, I think are places men go to have conversations with women who will entertain them and flirt with them, and flatter them. Partly because I wanted to spend more time with the group, and partly because I was curious, I went along, and was welcomed.

When we went in, there was a couple at the bar on the right, the lady singing karaoke, and three snack girls at the counter. Right away, two of the girls sat us at the sofa which stretched around the left wall covered in dark red velvet and poured us drinks. There were 'snacks' on the table, fruit, cookies, candy, etc. I momentarily wondered if these were the snacks that the name 'snack' referred to. The girls served us whisky, then, they sat down next to us. It was very weird. The snack 'momma,' or owner, probably in her 60s, with her green hair tightly curled, also joined us, and danced around when we sang karaoke.

People here rarely sing karaoke in groups like we do in the US. They just aren't embarrased at all to belt out anything, no matter how skilled or unskilled they are, all by themselves. We each took turns. Hirata-san had a go at some song with the words 'Bounce with me' repeated over and over again Ochi-Sensei did a forced interpretation of Yesterday, and of course my heart nearly melted when Awesome Guy sang 'I Can't Help Falling in Love With You'(Elvis?) in deep bass tones. I sang 'Hello, Goodbye' by the Beatles and 'Sunday Morning' by Maroon 5, in English, and my favorite Japanese karaoke song, Jupiter, by someone someone in Japanese. My singing is not that of an angel, and yet, I got thunderous applause, thank you very much.

The girls(women, really, just normal-looking women in their 40s, maybe) made small talk, even with me. I looked around, and a girl had come out from the counter, sitting thigh to thigh with one of the guys, laughing. It all seemed very silly, but we were all having fun, and there didn't seem to be much sexual about the whole thing. Yet, I do think it gives me a deeper understanding into the Japanese, male, and human minds.

I have mixed feelings, but on the whole, I don't think there's much more to the snack bar thing than meets the eye. It headed towrds 3:00am, my friends waved the 3000yen(about $30) fee for me, but it wasn't over yet.

After the nijikai, Tanigawa-san and Awesome Guy and I went out for a sanjikai, a third party. They had yakitori, and I ate a tofu salad, and we talked about aikido, samurai, etiquette, O'Sensei, and the universe til about 5:00. I remember having the thought that there was nowhere in life I'd rather be then right there at that table.

Finally, I arrived in the hotel Hiro had booked(he had gone to a wedding ceremony that same night, so we got a hotel in the city so we both wouldn't have to worry about time), not even staggeringly drunk, and fell asleep dreaming of a white Christmas.

The real Sunday morning began, but I was somehow still dreaming...

RE: A cut and a flick

2006-12-14T23:41:00.000+09:00

For crying out loud!! I wrote another nice blog and when I finished, what did I do? It was breezy, so I closed the window. Okay, I lied. It wasn't breezy, I just closed the window by accident and the writing disappeared into oblivion. I feel frustrated when that happens, which goes to show that it's really good to be lighthearted and not take things too, too seriously.

...

and the tide shifts. I'd now just finished retyping most of it when I discovered the one I thought I'd lost sitting in my drafts. I suppose I'd saved it after all...

ha, ha, it was just a test for me

and now for the original-- A cut and a flick:

A cut and a flick

2006-12-14T23:06:00.000+09:00

So what do you get when you go to a hairdresser in Japan? Well, the answer in this case is that you get a haircut and some Miyazaki anime movies. Usually I like to go to that place where they massage your head and two people blowdry your hair at one time, but this time I went to a budget place. There, a nice guy named Hayashi, who had taken two years of English lessons at NOVA English School, made pleasant chatter as I blushed at having an attractive man cut my hair. The last time a nice-looking guy cut my hair I was about 10, and it was my dad.

Hayashi-san likes pachinko, and his other hobby is watching movies. We talked about the Miyazaki anime movies. He's a big fan of Miyazaki(Princess Mononoke, Howl's Moving Castle, etc.), and I think I mentioned before that I've been going through one by one watching all the movies Miyazaki ever made, so he pulled a set off the wall and lent them to me to watch.

It was nice to relax while getting a haircut. Making small talk during a haircut can be so stressful if I can't find anything in common with the hairdresser.

Anyway, most of the bulk of my hair was razored off tonight. The longest part is still there, though. It hasn't been cut since I came here, and it's nearly down to my belly button now when it hangs down my back.

Wintery Wishes

2006-12-09T23:18:00.000+09:00

The newsy news is: I'm going home for the holidays! Thanks to Mom, I'll be spending the darkest part of winter in the warmth and cheer of friends and family. I'll leave on the 21st for two weeks in the good ol' US of A. I wish you all receive your winter wishes and give just as deeply as you wish.

In other news, it was like a springy spring day today, and I went shopping, yippeee!! Had okonomiyaki for dinny din, and now it's cold again. It's hard to write when I'm feeling cold, so I guess that's why I haven't been doing so much recently. But it's a poor excuse, so I shall forge ahead!!

Stylin'

2006-12-06T23:57:00.000+09:00

I'm going to keep this short and sweet. My last two posts went to the place where posts go when computers crash. I was fond of those posts, so this post is just a Johnny-come-lately.

Aikido tonight was great. I should say, I've come off of hiatus from Aikido, now that my big Japanese language test is over. Being back after a few weeks off seems, in retrospect after tonight, to have been good for me. I feel refreshed, refocused, and at this point in time, energetic. Exercise is unlike other fuels in that using the energy within oneself to exercise, it actually gives one more capacity for energy. Could you imagine if every time we used gas in our car, it would refill itself until it overflowed? Well, anyway, it's good to have returned.

There's other news, but I don't want to make this post too long because then it'll go ahead and crash. I think it was just cause I was trying to put a video up on here.

I apologize for living in the stone age of computers where blogs don't have flashing lights, music, cool changing colored backgrounds, free giveaways in 3-D. See, when I'm no longer in Japan, I'll figure all this stuff out, and wished I'd learned it back then... uh... now. Until that time, it's SimpleSimonStyleTM.

Duty

2006-12-02T17:05:00.000+09:00

The other day I was walking to the post office and I saw a student standing next to her friend's car at the gas station. I recognized her from one of my 12th grade classes, and smiled. She spotted me, and from the distance I could see her eyes widen, and, rather than greet me, which is a student's duty in or outside of school, or ignore me, which she might have gotten away with, she did something totally different, that almost shocked me.

Now my duty, as a teacher, was to report her behavior to her homeroom teacher, which I did. She knew it was unexcusable. In my own mind, however, she'd basically shot herself in the foot by not saying hello.

This brings me to the same few days ago, when I quit doing 'greeting.' In Japan, it is customary to greet your coworkers in the morning all at once, exclaiming 'Good morning!!' as you step in the door. Customarily, everyone shouts back 'Good morning!!' and we go about our merry ways. The same goes when leaving. I shout something like 'See you! Keep up the good work!!' and everyone shouts, 'Good work, bye!!' in response. But I noticed that the response from coworkers differs depending on who comes in or goes out the door. Everyone responds to the principle. The lady who comes and sells juice and biscuits rarely gets a response.

As for me, I've greeted in many ways, loudly, cheerfully, in a focused way, in a general way, and yet scarcely does my greeting generate a healthy response. The whole thing has never felt natural to me, and sometimes it shoots a hole in my self-esteem.

Well, enough with that. It's a very wonderful custom and all, but in my country, we don't have such a custom, and I am not bound to do it. I'll greet when I feel like greeting.

But the student at the gas station was bound to the school's policy to say hello to a teacher. Her skirt was pulled up short(trying to _find_ herself, I suppose), and I'd bet she was scared, so what did she do, she turned, ran away, and hid behind her friend's car! She ran and hid as if I didn't see her standing right there in front of me!! (I once saw a girl from my school get balled out at in the train station by one of the teachers in front of everyone because she was wearing earrings). I didn't really care about her skirt, but when she ran and hid I was offended, because it was rude.

You tell me, for someone like me, where does doing one's 'duty' apply? When I _feel like_ doing it?

Bloom

2006-11-28T19:16:00.000+09:00

Okay, so I'm proud of myself. I discovered two dreams.

The first, is to live in a place surrounded by lots of nature -- forests, beaches, whatever nature will do, but lots of it.

The second dream is to wake up with the sun shining on my face in the morning, every possible morning.

Both of these dreams are of things I used to have, but no longer have. How does one go about finding dreams of things one never knew existed?

...how do I know my own life dream?

The Power of Short Skirts?

2006-11-26T23:36:00.001+09:00

Short skirts. Blonde hair. Stilettos. False eyelashes. These are the images that come to mind when I recall the past few days. Yes, that's right. I went shopping.

In Fukuoka especially, there are made-up young women with tiny shorts and skirts and big hair everywhere. I suppose they are trying to look sexy or cute or pretty. I mean, they certainly go all out with some goal in mind. It seems like one can only be cute and pretty to a certain extent, until there is no cuter or prettier one can get--these girls are at the edge of that--like characatures of 'cute' and 'pretty.'

Is that the ultimate of being feminine, being irresistably cute and pretty? It's hard for me to see it as anything other than trying to attract guys. Can it stand on its own as a sort of 'path to one's self?' Do clothes and make-up and hair make us feminine, and help us find ourselves? Can they??

Just a couple thoughts as I nod off...

Night awl

The Departure

2006-11-20T21:56:00.000+09:00

Sunday night, I ran off to school to pick up some materials before giving some lessons I do on the side. I ran into Si Sensei on my way into the building. He apologized to me profusely, got in his car, and drove off into the darkness. I scuttled inside somewhat perplexed. A couple of teachers were sitting around in the staff room, not uncommon for a Sunday night. I grabbed my worksheets and headed out.

The other day a friend sent me an article about some scientists who are trying to send a photon back in time(Thanks, J). The scientists are working with an idea that photons can become entangled and effect each other through time. Well, you can read it for yourself, but it got me to thinking about that 'chance' meeting with Si Sensei.

Si Sensei quit his job. He wasn't in school last week, and he's left in the middle of the second term, so the other teachers, including me, are scrambling to cover his classes and take on his other responsibilities. But I want to get back to that encounter, how different his perspective must have been from mine.

In fact, I didn't really need to go there to the school, but when I did get there, Si Sensei almost seemed to be _waiting_ for me. He looked so fragile, almost ghost-like. He apologized with no explanation five or six times, and departed.

The next morning, people were asking _me_ questions about Si Sensei's departure. Apparently, it was quite sudden, and somehow, being there last night, I seemed to know more than anyone.

What was it that made Sensei think I knew what was going on? What drew me to school at that particular time? Do we get entangled in each other, and what does time have to do with it?

I'll miss Si Sensei. He put a lot of burden on me in these past months, but it was not hard to see he wanted to be free of burden himself. There was a particular goodness about him that made me want him to get his dream.

Enjoy yourself out there, Sensei, today, tomorrow, and yesterday.

Down with Physics

2006-11-15T18:13:00.000+09:00

Learning a little about physics has given me some insight into my Aikido practice from time to time. By learning from principles that are in nature, I also learn ways nature works in me. That can then be applied to the practice, i.e. practicing harmony with nature. But all that is about to change.

The principles and laws of physics, from observing the biggest down to the smallest things we can conceive of, serve to help us clarify what exactly we are dealing with in this universe. 'What makes it all go?' is another question, but starting with gravity, to planetary motion, to curved space, to Einstein, to quantum physics, to physics that was so beyond me in 11th grade, it finally comes to this. In a few years, plugs will probably be a thing of the past.

Remember when phone receivers needed wires to connect them to the phone? Wasn't it nice to twirl the phone cord around your finger while you talked? Remember when we didn't have internet? Those shiny encyclopedias were like gold!! Remember when stamps cost 22 cents? Well, I do. It was the best.

I mean really, is physics all that great? Do submarines really matter? Is gravity oh-so-necessary?? I mean, things floating all around would be so cool, wouldn't it? I say it's time to take a stand against physics! Things were better before the apple fell on Newton's head! People could rest at night knowing the planets were being pushed around by little angels, and that the earth was the center of the universe.

Therefore, I say, let's fight for plugs!!! Sure we trip over them sometimes, they get all mixed up and we plug the rice cooker in when we mean to plug the kotatsu in and wonder why our feet are still cold, but plugs deserve a chance!! Who's with me???

I'm still on hiatus, but the brain seems to be in overdrive. Need more exercise.

Japanese and Howl

2006-11-11T23:51:00.001+09:00

Enjoyed 'Howl's Moving Castle' tonight. What a lovely movie, I was thinking as I watched. Surprised how much of the Japanese I could understand, and of course, how much sounds utterly mysterious still. Language class has really pushed me to try to understand more and more.

What I'm enjoying now about learning Japanese is the structure and conformity of the language. It's beautifully simple because there are few exceptions to grammatical rules, as of yet. Of course, the rules are numerous, but I like studying them because they are tangible and I can use them right away.

Watching a nice movie in Japanese with pretty music and a lively and complex plot added to my energy to want to understand what's going on in Japan in its own Japanese terms.

I've never been Japan-obsessed or into manga or whatever clever Japanese gadgit, but I do like learning Japanese, and trying to speak it. That being said, I've a long, long way to go to really be skilled at it. Keeping on plugging...

I was given good advice here to take it easy and spend a little less time doing everything possibly doable. I decided to take that advice to heart. I'm on hiatus. I blew a fuse today and will spend some time not doing my regular activities for now, Japanese class aside. In the meantime, my mind is going to work on what it needs, and my body is going to work on what it needs. I think, when they have decided, they will let me know.

Otherwise, all is well tonight. The rain of a couple days ago has let up for the moment, and the air feels crisp and clear. I head off to bed with the last melody of the Moving Castle hanging in that air. Like Howl, may we all find our own heart after having caught a demon/air spirit thingy and making it your fire-slave and having a significant other who is under a spell that makes her have gray hair.

Or, as the Japanese might say, 'おしあわせに(O-shiawase ni)': May you have happiness.

Night all.

Rittou: Winter Has Arrived

2006-11-08T00:00:00.000+09:00

Today, the first day of winter, 'rittou' in Japanese, lived up to its name. As I type this, I have my heater on for the first time this season, and my shoji rice paper doors shut to keep out the cold air.

My home is somewhat like a house of cards, in that the walls are thin, like cards. :-l The floors in all the main rooms are made of tatami, tightly woven straw mats. Under the straw mats are boards of wood. There's no insulation in the floor, walls or ceiling. Every room in the house has a window or a set of glass sliding doors(there are 3 sets of sliding doors). Air seems to leak in through all of the sliding doors and windows, and even the floors and walls are cold in the winter. Perhaps, for me, one of the most difficult parts of life here is no escape from extreme temperatures, outside of the little heater/air-con in the bed room.

The cold can and has been a real issue for me in the winter. (And of course, the heat is tremendous in summer. One example of this that I give of the ferocity of the heat is that the rosin in my violin case actually melted or morphed, or whatever that could be called, in my case last summer it was so hot inside my house.) This year, however, I'm interested to go through another winter, see if I can get through it, you might say, even inviting in the cold.

Living with an awareness of the seasons, the challenges each season can bring to daily life is really interesting. It offers a natural way of operating: if dishes are not cleaned up after eating, bugs will appear quickly. If clothes are not hung to dry, or taken to be dried quickly, they will grow mildew. If the curtains touch the mats in summer, the mats will get tiny bugs. These things can all happen in such a short amount of time, often less than one day, that I find I have to keep things in order just to prevent any possible opportunity for nature to create chaos in my house. As with taking precautions not to get burglarized by not create the opportunity for someone to become a thief, I find that I can't be careless about how I leave things, for scarcely a moment. I image having kids is probably the same...

Living in this way gives me a natural role to play. I am useful to myself; I feel satisfied when I can understand one more little bit of how things seem to work in the natural world. So, although I feel uncomfortable sometimes, I can learn a necessary, practical and useful way to live. At least until I'm no longer here...

That's all for tonight. Happy Rittou, to those who embrace this marvelously frigid and frostbitten season(it's all relative, right?)!!

Drawn to the Stand by the Halloween Trees

2006-11-04T16:23:00.000+09:00

Today, as I was coming home from the city, I stopped by a large fruit and market stand I'd seen many times before. I'd always wondered what kind of place it was, but I didn't have the time to stop on the way up, and it was always closed on the way back. But today, I had a bit of extra time, so I stopped.

Out front, there were hundreds of mandarin oranges bagged up, and the bags were grouped according to the farm they were raised on. They were priced differently by how sweet and juicy they tasted. I tried the sample slices, and bought a bag of about 15 plum-sized mandarins('mikan' in Japanese) for 200yen, the juicy and sweet, yet mid-priced ones.

The reason I stopped, really, was because I kept seeing all these persimmon trees full of fruit by the roadside(I think of them as 'Halloween trees' because they look like little pumpkins growing on dead trees), and remembered that I haven't eaten any persimmons yet this season.

I quickly found them at the stand. They were priced from 200yen for four all the way up to 650yen for two. I paid 350yen for two, also mid-priced. I don't need fancy-schmancy persimmons just to satisfy a little craving. We'll leave those for the Iron Chefs, right?

Next, I went inside and it was amazing in there. There was this whole variety of Japanese fruits and veggies, so fresh, super cheap, plus lots of homemade pickled foods, which never seem to taste quite right when they come from the supermarket, so many kinds of locally grown green tea and other products like honey and barley, and at least half a dozen veggies that I still don't know how to use(working on it), and small and large local citrus fruits. I was shy about taking pictures, but I want to try next time I go. Maybe one of you detectives out there can tell me what veggies you see.

That nice trip aside, last night's big Halloween party at Ben's house, which actually _is_ across from a grove of mandarin orange trees and perhaps a Halloween tree or two, was fun. I went as a Chinese Pumpkin, wearing a Chinese-style dress with pumpkins all over it, and Hiro went as Darth Vader: helmet, cape, light saber, breathing apparatus and all. I taught him 'Luke, I am your father,' and he told me it went over very well with the foreign people he met through the night.

There were tons of people, 50 or 60, I think, in this house out in the countryside, out in the middle of nowhere. There were about half foreign people, half Japanese. Very mixed and friendly bunch.

It was all fun and games... until a friend of mine overdrank his tank and passed out badly. He was taken to the hospital and released at three this morning when we took him back to my house to sleep, way after the fun and games were over. He's seemingly fine now, but it wasn't so fun when all that was going on.

I wasn't feeling so hot for that and other reasons today, so after my Japanese lesson, I drove home instead of staying for Aikido and Jodo. It was not so bad, after all, because I came back early and the market stand was still open...

From Thursday to Death

2006-11-02T23:36:00.000+09:00

Okay, so maybe it's time to pay more attention to blogging. I don't have any poetic ideas tonight, so I'll just write what comes up this time.

It's Thursday night, I'm sitting on my bed, and I'm wearing red pajamas. There are four blankets on my bed, although it's not that cold tonight. I cleaned the air filters on the heater just in case it starts to get cool.

I heard that it's been snowing and really cold in Colorado recently. Our weather has been the complete opposite. I was sweating during class today, and I got a sunburn the other day while hiking. My nose is peeling.

About my skin: last winter, when I was in Tokyo, I got a makeover in one of the biggest department stores in the world. I don't like getting made over -- I always think I look like a clown afterwards, and this was no exception. But there was one difference this time. Looking in the mirror, I noticed wrinkles around my eyes for the first time ever. It was strange to see that.

I only started using skin care products two years ago, when Hiro introduced them to me. If I use those products, my skin seems to look and feel nice and soft, and if I don't, well, it's now got these itty-bitty wrinkles.

Someone noticed the wrinkles this summer -- only one person has ever commented -- but I didn't feel bad about that. I ams what I ams, and these wrinkles are just curious things.

I also noticed some gray hairs on my head which seemed to have multiplied during last year. I got my hair lightened once this summer, but before that, there were maybe 15 or 20 gray hairs. Whether it came from the stress I experienced in my first year as an English teacher here, or whether it was just a natural occurance, who knows. They don't bother me much either.

Although I'm young on the scale of things, I suppose I am getting older, not just getting older, but aging in the slightest of ways already. The Oprah magazine was on aging this month. I suppose that got me thinking about aging a bit. I see my parents growing, aging, and changing, and I learn about life by talking with them about these things sometimes. It wasn't as obvious to me before I went away. I wonder if they can see me grow, change, and begin my aging too...

As autumn makes its way into winter, I reflect upon the inevitable(succinctly stated by The Flaming Lips: Do you realize/that everyone you know/someday/will die?). The more curious I become about death, the more curious I become about living. Even the low parts of living are somehow still worth being alive.

Is that true?

I'll be back soon, see you...

All-day excursion

2006-10-29T21:38:00.000+09:00

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!

Encounter at Rockport

2006-10-21T23:40:00.000+09:00

October Dreams

2006-10-21T20:47:00.000+09:00

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.

Japanese and Jodo

2006-10-17T00:46:00.000+09:00

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.

Sports Festival Weekend

2006-09-30T22:08:00.000+09:00

The Sports Day is a national holiday set aside for improving the health of the body. The official holiday is next Monday, but each school has its own Sports Day festival. If you haven't been to one of these, it can be hard to imagine what it's like, so I'll try to paint a picture.

The students have been practicing dance moves, marching formations, and general fitness exercises for weeks now to prepare for the festival.

Yesterday(Friday) and today, we, the teachers and students and I, spent the day doing a sort of dress rehearsal. I'm on the 'props and preparation' team, and that means my team is running around setting up obstacle courses, games, and cleaning up after events. It is a fun job.

The students have been split into three teams, red, white, and blue. They complete against each other for points in games throughout the day. There are relay races, combined with three-legged races, in which one of the 'three-legs' is picked spontaneously, for example, my name could get picked, and I'd suddenly have to join the race. There is an event where red, white and blue balls are scattered in the center of the track, and the teams have to scurry and get them and try to throw them into different high baskets for points. There's team jump-roping, and team pole-running(yes, um, I'll have to post a picture of that). Between events, there are kiddie races, PTA member competitions, and dances. I'll be wearing a yukata(summer kimono) for one. The whole thing is a huge production, and it can be pretty amazing to witness and be a part of at times.

Tomorrow's the real thing, when the parents, brothers, sisters, PTA members, and community members come to watch. So the teachers have been working overtime--Friday night and tonight. After the festival, we'll have a teacher's drinking party, and we all get off Monday, hopefully for a job well done.

I had a lot of free time this week at school because practice often replaced class time. It's nice to have a low-stress time at the beginning of the second term. I think it's been good for everyone to break from the strict schedule for a while.

My prediction is the red team will take the title this year. Challengers??

Koizumi Steps Down

2006-09-26T13:21:00.000+09:00

Big news in Japan.

wash the blankets

2006-09-24T10:53:00.000+09:00

Two nights ago it started getting cold here, so I climbed on top of my bed, and pulled out the storage container with the winter blankets. And man, am I allergic to them. In fact, I can't even sleep because my nose gets stuffy and I keep sneezing. So I figure it's time to wash the blankets.

I wasn't here for the typhoon that hit Kyushu last Sunday, because the plane back from Kansai/Osaka to Fukuoka(Kyushu) was cancelled. It left a day later, so I had a day layover, you might say. I was freaked out for a couple minutes, because I thought I was going to have to not only sleep on an airport bench(as the service woman suggested) but also spend the next day until the evening in the airport. This was after 15 hours of restless sleep on planes from Philly to Chicago to Japan...
I can't imagine how it would be to be a Katrina victim, and be completely displaced. Just having to deal with finding a place to stay for one night was hard for me. But there was one person I sort of knew...

Yoshimi, who sometimes comments here, called her mother for me, and I scurried onto a bus and met her in the city of Wakayama, 1/2 hour south of Osaka. She took me to her home and fed me, and let me stay in Yoshimi's old room. She really came to my rescue in short notice, and she was very graceful about it. Here's a picture of her house and garden in Wakayama:

But when I did get back home, I found things scattered all over my yard, and potted tree tipped over, and the washing machine door opened and the tiny machine filled with dirt and leaves. Luckily, this was the only damage done to my place. The school wasn't as lucky as I was. This is the wall of the gym:

Finally, the annual Tawara Festival was yesterday. That's the one where teams pull oversized-hay barrels in a race against time to pop balloons. The prize for the fastest team is a year's supply of rice and about $5000. I watched a half hour, and I snapped this photo of a taiko group:

Then, I went to the marathon set of rehearsals. It was 5 1/2 hours total practice time. I found out it was because the conductor was only going to be in town for this time, so we didn't have any other practice times he could make it before the November concert. All the music is going fine--the Mozart is a flurry of 16th notes: it's challenging to keep up. And btw, it's not the 4th Symphony, it's the Symphony in E-flat major, KV543, but I don't know what # symphony. If someone is looking for 350 bonus points, they are up for grabs with the answer to that question.

Enjoy your weekend!!

1 big black, 1 big white, 3 big gold, 2 tiny pipsqueaks

2006-09-22T22:44:00.000+09:00

Hi. Back. Thanks for the well-wishes for the trip, everyone. It was really fun to see the whole family dressed so nicely. My cousin's wedding was quite beautiful, and her husband is such a kind man. He's always put me at ease whenever I'm around him. And the best thing is that they seem to be happy to know and be with each other.

Two days now--tired. Today, I feel like I sat all day. The students are practicing for the sports festival next week and so I only have one or two classes to teach every day. So I've been reading a lot. This is great for me. But when I feel so tired, I think I'd rather get some exercise somehow.

Tonight was an orchestra rehearsal of our pieces for the concert following the October 8th one. October 8th we're playing 3 pieces written by a Kumamoto man, about Kumamoto's famous places. It doesn't use the pentatonic scale or anything. It sounds like Rodeo or something.

Tonight's rehearsal was Mozart's 4th Symphony, the Overture to the Magic Flute(score!!!), and Beethoven's 5th. Tonight, the first rehearsal on these pieces, we played everything at full speed. It kicked my butt hard, as first rehearsals tend to do.
I've never played the Mozarts, but I've played the Beethoven a few times. And the bowings are different every time. I stink at bowings--that is one of my weaknesses as on orchestral player. So I decided to pay very, very close attention to all the bowings this time around, and make them as important as the notes themselves, so as to be in sync, even in rehearsals. We'll see how that goes.

The orchestra I used to play in in the US used to play a lot of Strauss, and Mahler, and I dunno, uh, Debussy, or such. But this orchestra seems to do basic works and crowd pleasers. Kind of like how in Aikido here we do so much kihonwaza, basic technique. Maybe as a volunteer orchestra, they believe we are only up to the basics(which is certainly not true, in my opinion) or, more likely, classical music is not all that well-known down here in East-Jabip, Kyushu.

We have another rehearsal tomorrow. Strings from 2:30-5, and full orchestra from 6:30-9:00. The concert is more than a month away, so I don't know why we have 5 hours of practice tomorrow. I'll be missing Aikido(now two weeks in a row) and because of the hour commute, will sort of give up the Saturday for the rehearsal. Such is life... but I like playing, and the violin's sounding really nice now that I finally got those new strings on it.

Well, this post could go on and on, because I'm worn-out and just saying whatever comes into my head.

Did I tell ya? I finally got those goldfish for my desk in the office. There are 7 fish, and they often make me happy I came to work. My dream house always has fish in it.

Good night.

And she's off...

2006-09-13T10:40:00.000+09:00

again to the U.S. for the pleasure of my dear cousin's wedding. See ya in a few days, cats.

Superior Man's Club Okay With Me

2006-09-07T21:45:00.000+09:00

I learned some interesting things from talking with Hiro tonight about the Imperial Family line. As it turns out, the family line was never meant to be a maternal line at all. In fact, if you go back to each time when there was a woman empress, regardless of whether she had children or not, the line was cut after she died. Officials, or some such people, would follow the family line back until they could find a living male heir, be it second-cousin or what have you, and that male would succeed the throne. Hiro reminded me that the 'original god' of Japan was a woman(, perhaps the 'goddess of creation?' I really don't know); yet the imperial line was only ever meant for males. An analogy that made sense to me would be that the line is like a lion's club for men, or a 'Way of the Superior Man's club,' if you will. It wasn't intended for women in the first place, and that, I can understand. And now that I understand, it's okay with me.

In that light, I see no problem with holding to the desire to keep the 'club' alive, and hoping that the princess would have a male child. I now believe there is a lot of misunderstanding about the situation, and I'm glad that it was cleared up for me, so that I could find peace with a very sensitive topic.

When I asked Hiro where we could find something similar which showed an appreciation of the women's historical lines, he reminded me again that women in history have mostly been thought of as inferior to men in some way, so those lines have probably not been thought to be important to keep. Only recently, have people been opening to the possibility that women are not inferior, but maybe just different.

So, he suggested I start a maternal line--I don't know if I'm the one to do it, but I do think there's no reason why a woman/women shouldn't start. Have they already started? Is there a maternal family line, with records kept from long ago, which is still alive today? I wonder, and I do remember hearing about lines of priestesses, but a strictly maternal blood line?? Hmm...

All in all, I'm glad women have opportunities to be appreciated for what they are more and more these days. And through all of it, I can say I'm glad I was born female. And as I learn to love being a woman more and more, I hope I am also becoming a part of what's to be appreciated about them.

Currently's news...

2006-09-06T19:00:00.000+09:00

The heat finally broke this week, and the mosquitos are happy to see me outside again. I'm not as happy to see them, so I smell like poison from all the spray I have on...

I had a last-minute visit from the principal and vice-principal of the school today. There had been some problems with my living situation, which had been taken care of by the previous principal, and the current principal wanted to check out the place to get his own feeling for things.

Here in Japan, a lot of companies find housing and provide partial rent for employees. Following that scheme, my school found my place, paid the deposits, and I moved into the place they chose last year, when I started my job at the new school. So, technically, the school owns me. Well, my house. Well, part of it. So that means a lot of teachers know where I live, and the administration is free to come over whenever they want. Fortunately, they haven't seen much reason to come by, but it sure is odd to have the school principal(sort of my boss) come into my house, 'just to take a look around.' But I think it was just because he wanted to see the grounds, and had concern for the safety of the place, the condition, etc. We had a nice, stifled time talking about the weather, the street outside my house, etc. I really try hard to speak as much as I can at these times, but mostly I have nothing to talk about. He was really courteous though about the whole thing.

So I came home from school today, and planned to go to Aikido. But for the first time in a long time, I don't want to go. I want to be there, but I don't feel like driving the hour to get there. I think it's because I feel a little weak right now...

I haven't been eating much for the past couple of days. I read an article on the hordes of preservatives and additives in convenience store food over here(lemme see if I can post that article--it's at school now). It was something which I wasn't aware of, and it made me very sad, and so I decided to avoid conveniece store prepared foods(bento boxes, packaged breads, and salads, etc.) as much as possible.

Unfortunately, on days like yesterday and today, when there isn't much time to cook between work and practice, I have been going without much food, which, I think, might be poor alternative. I like cooking, and I've learned some interesting ways to cook Japanese foods, but of course, it takes time and effort.

I suppose by planning in advance, it's doable to cook for Tuesdays and Wednesdays and avoid the 'conbini'(i.e., 'Seben Ereben', a.k.a. '7-11', 'everyone', 'FamilyMart', 'Yamazaki Shop', etc. ;-) ). Hmm, that means shopping on a schedule, too. Hmm, that may just be possible.

Anyway, it's pretty late to go to practice now. That's a shame; never like to miss it. But oh, well. Maybe I'll head over to the conbini for a nice fried-shrimp bento... wait a second. Instead of that, I'm going to the market, and going buy me some shrimp, and make me a nice fresh shrimp-fried meal right here. That's the ticket...
later, all!

Chance lost for Empress

2006-09-06T17:47:00.000+09:00

Well, most every one interested in Japan has probably heard the news by now. Yay! Congratulations, Princess and family!

(Well, that solves that, I guess. Whew, lucky no one had to change any rules over it--having an empress would have been terrible for so many people, for sure!! And to think, the pressure to have a male heir only caused the princess to have a nervous breakdown once! At least she could get pregnant again, right?

What's the big deal about all this anyway?

Really, there have been empresses in Japan before(eight of them, actually). I think a lot of people believe either males or females are innately good leaders. And I personally don't think the strengths of men are more powerful than the strengths women possess. I'm talking innate strengths, the stuff nature gives us. I wonder why having an empress would have been such a horror.

To tell you the truth, and my own gender aside, I hoped she would have a girl. Just to have something change around here, and to make people look at their own biases, which seem to be based in fear. I see this as a chance lost for many Japanese to go through some quite interesting and challenging introspection. And of course, for Princess Mako, a.k.a. the one who got pushed aside, as a chance lost to change the hearts of those people.)

That said, (yet, regardless of how I personally feel,) may the prince and Emperor-to-be, live long, and be healthy and happy. Bansai!!!

Croc Hunter Leaves, Doing What He Loved

2006-09-04T20:28:00.000+09:00

Steve Irwin was killed by a string ray today.
This man was a hero to so many people, including me. I loved his approach to animals, to living life so freely and fearlessly, and his courage to show the whole world what he loved. I'm sure he wouldn't regret the way in which he died. It will probably be very, very hard on his family and the people who knew him, because people who didn't even know him, like me, were so touched by his life and work. A sad day, for animal lovers, and for the world.

Chance to be thrown

2006-09-03T21:37:00.000+09:00

I had what some might call a lucky break today. Since I came back to Japan a week and a half ago, I've been back to Aikido practice 3 times. The first class back, I was asked to be an uke(the one who receives a technique) at an upcoming Aikido demonstration. I wanted to help out, and had nothing to lose, so I agreed.

During the second class, the person who would be throwing me decided on what techniques he would execute.

The third time, yesterday, we practiced it. And today was the demonstration. A lot of people I know are used to doing this sort of thing without practicing beforehand, but in the dojo here, demonstrations are highly choreographed, and doing one with little prep time is a little chancey. My partner even commented that 'he had the heart of a flea'(nomi no shin) as we were starting.

But we did great! Not only that, I couldn't believe how many people were complementing us afterwards. I felt a little embarrassed by all the praise I was getting. But the highlight of that was when my teacher in Japan, Honda Sensei, told me that the shihan(master instructor) who was watching, Suganuma Sensei, told him that my ukemi(falls, lit. 'receiving') were very well done. I almost didn't believe him, but when I got a chance to talk with Suganuma Sensei at the drinking party afterwards, he told it to me directly. I was so surprised!! I didn't even expect him to acknowledge me, really!

I didn't even notice my ukemi being different from before. I just remember thinking that I'm going to wait for my partner to throw me, and not throw myself. The only other thing I was thinking was that I wanted to regain my own balance each time between being thrown and attacking again.

They are going to give me a copy of the video that someone took, and if I can, I'll post it here. That is, unless they were just humoring me. But somehow, I suspect master instructors try not to humor their students. Well, regardless, I was very excited that people responded to some subtle changes I was attempting to make in my practice. Even if no one had said anything, I was so happy to have been there.

I got up at 5 this morning to make the train to the bus to the dojo. But I feel energized anyway!!

On a slightly different note, everyone at the dojo seems to be pushing for me to take my nidan(second degree black belt) test. Like everyone says I should do it, and that I'm nearly ready, and that it's time to 'level up.' The teachers in the dojo have been hinting about it for 4 or five months. But I've had an internal dilemma about it, so I find I can't give an energetic, 'all right, let's do it.' I feel some sort of loyalty to my teacher back at home(Ikeda Sensei). Also, he hasn't seen me practicing for past two years, so I don't know if he would think I should go ahead and do it. I wouldn't be able to take the test among my friends in Colorado, and, this is debatable, but, I think the test here is much easier to pass than the one I would take at home. Meaning, I think the test at home is more rigorous, and the chance of getting asked to test is much more unlikely. However, I have been training here for two years now, Honda Sensei is absolutely my teacher too. I want to ask Ikeda Sensei what he thinks.

Any Aikidoka or non-Aikido people have thoughts about this?

from a letter 1

2006-08-31T00:14:00.000+09:00

In my little outing to school, I'd braced for the worst, but never anticipated the best would happen. I went in thinking that almost no one would notice my reentry into the building, and that I would visit my goldfish, who would have missed me dearly while another teacher was taking care of them, and then I would do some work and go home. Here how it really happened:
I went in, said my Konnichiwa!, and was instantly greeted by two teachers with broad smiles. It was all 'Oh, so how was America? Your face looks tanned! Did you get to see your family?' and so on. Then, I was introduced to two new teachers, who had arrived since my absence. The teacher whose desk is next to mine came in, happily showed me pictures of her summer fun and her cute dog, and then gave me one cucumber of three she had brought, and I quote, for 'cutting practice.'

Whew! What a relief!
I'll start a normal work day from 9-5(if I want--actually, I'm still technically on vacation til the 4th, so there's some flexibility still) tomorrow.

from a letter 2

2006-08-31T00:11:00.000+09:00

I wish I had a little more energy so I could write a full letter. But it got late and I've gotten very tired. Tonight was an orchestra practice, the first one I went to since I came back. It also went better than I expected. More on that.
The not great news is that I found eensy-weensy bugs in my tatamis after work today. So I have to do major vacuuming and airing every day. I might have to do some bomb or something, which I detest for many reason. Waa!!
Also, school today started with a 2-hour meeting in which I sat, basically clueless. So I just listened and wrote down all the Japanese words I could understand but didn't know the meaning of. I'll look them up later. Helps me even though the meetings go on and on. I actually got excused early; I think it went on for another hour...

Higher Ground

2006-08-28T10:41:00.000+09:00

Well, it's time to go back. To school, that is. There's a small part of me that is looking forward to it. I shall focus on that part as I enter the teacher's room and shout out, "Konnichiwa" for all to hear.
There is another part of me that is still dazed that I'm back. It's not jet-lag either. More like having left so much behind that I'm trying to remember what it was that I was doing here before I left. I guess, in these times, I just gotta keep on going.

First Saturday Airing

2006-08-26T10:17:00.000+09:00

It's still morning and I'm already sweating. My apartment definitely has a funny smell. I think it's mildew in the tatami mats, of which there are maybe twenty or so. When I came in two days ago, my landlady was 'airing' the place out. If she hadn't been doing that all month, I think there'd be green mildew all over the mats by now. I've got the windows open as we speak for some airing, before the weather climbs over into 'toasty hot.'

The heat is a real burden for me, even after a lot of training in it before I left. I wonder if what I learned about it so far is to just bear it, and let it bother me minimally. Coming back, though, it's obvious that it's much hotter than Philly or CO. I'm going to shut myself in my room right now, turn on the air-con, and not go out unless I have to. 'Have to' meaning, for example, if someone knocks on the door... hang on...

Ha, ha. :-) Japanese Jehovah's Witnesses at my very own doorstep. Helps to not know Japanese at times like these, chuckle, chuckle.

These first couple days back have clarified some things for me already. Of which kind of climate I prefer: much drier and cooler than here. Of what I haven't been able to do: make many Japanese friends(my 3 closest non-Japanese friends, who all happened to be in Japan on the JET program, all returned to the U.S. this summer). Of something I missed about being in Japan: it's so quiet I can sometimes hear my 'inner voice' again already. And of a hard lesson: it takes a lot of work to make a life in a foreign country. That I have a small network of Aikido and orchestra and other friends here has taken my full effort for two years. I don't envy people who can't return to their own countries. It's much easier to know I have the safety net that is 'home'...

One more year, please.

2006-08-24T01:58:00.000+09:00

I'm back to spend year 28 in Japan.

One day back in. I'm jet-lagging as we speak. The only plan today was to train at the dojo, but I fell asleep from about 3pm until 9pm, so I slept right through class. Which explains why I'm awake now at 2:30am.

It's hot and humid, 35 degrees celsius today(bonus: what is that in Fahrenheit?). And the mosquitos are still here, even though I'd asked them to be gone by the time I got back. My garden is overgrown with weeds, and it poured and thunderstormed loudly this afternoon.

Breakfast at Hiro's was rice, miso soup, and okra and goya sliced up with bonito flakes and soy sauce on top. Mmm...
I was treated to lunch by Etsuko, at a traditional restaurant that specialized in *unagi*(cue fingers pointing at head and grimaces by friends). Japanese food sure pleases my palette. I'm a convert. I could eat only Japanese food for the rest of my life. I'd even give up pizza and peanut butter. I didn't eat dinner, because I slept right through dinner time, and when I woke up, I wasn't hungry.

I'm going to lie down now, and maybe I'll sleep too.
Good to be back, more to come.

P.S. It's so quiet here.

Almost Back

2006-08-20T09:25:00.000+09:00

It has been next to impossible for me to keep up writing during my trip home. There have been few moments of breathing time, and every time there are, thoughts flood my mind like a waterfall.

And so it follows that I have run out of time to write at this very moment.

When I'm back in Japan on Tuesday, I anticipate it will be back to lots of blogging.

See you soon...

Uh, me?

2006-08-03T02:18:00.000+09:00

I sure feel a lot of things shifting, inside and out, inside-out, and upside-down and round and round. In fact, so much is spinning in my mind and world that I don't have much time to reflect lately. Here's my best attempt:

Aikido camp has left me exhausted, but in a good way. In my attempts to be continually pleasant and present, I have a pretty clear memory of the entire week. I took notes after classes as much as possible, on key points I picked up or wanted to look at for further study. I was surprised that many of the things I have been thinking about/working on in Japan were relevant in some way in the training I did here. That is, bonding with my partner and producing a 'zero-sum' outcome(or being 'undetectable,' as someone else put it) from the start of the encounter. I did a lot of thinking about the movement of celestial bodies, galaxies, satellites, and also natural laws and nature on our planet. A lot of the movement I've witnessed and felt in Aikido training can be seen equivalently in the larger macro or smaller micro worlds around. I want to study this particular aspect much more.

On the mat and off the mat, the living connections I could share with other people made me wish I could stay at camp forever. (I want to mention a very great dinner I had smack in the middle of things there with my cousin, while I'm thinking of it.) I ended up spending a lot of my time there with one friend in particular. I neither fought this tendency to give a disproportionate amount of time to one person, nor embraced it to the extent of missing chances to relate to other people. But I was consistently put at ease while in my friend's presence, and felt awakened and happy under my friend's influence. I'll point out that my friend is a man, which must have got everyone wondering about why we could be seen together so frequently when everyone knows I have a boyfriend. I have given this thought. My boyfriend is important to me, and the promise that I have with him was not violated in any of the interactions I had this week. That's all I'll say about that.

Just a couple more things. I got some major overhaul done on my violin, which turned out to be a good little chunk to spend on a musical instrument(at least on my budget ;) ). The neck was removed, reangled, and repositioned into the body, and some length was added to it. That was the major thing. The bridge was also switched out, and the chinrest adjusted. Finally, I got to try four different kinds of strings on it, and found that one speaks much more perfectly for the instrument than the others. I have to seek out these uber strings, and swear by them when I become world famous. (Just kidding--I will never be world famous for my violin playing. And that's an understatement.) And by gosh, it does sound like a whole new instrument when I run the bow across it. I would never have guessed it was the same instrument I took to the shop last week.

Finally, I'd like to say that being back in Boulder is actually my dream come true. Last night, despite my violin's recent exit from surgery and my own rustiness, a group of more-senior-than-I musicians urged me to join them for an evening of playing Haydn, Beethoven, and Mendelssohn quintets.
My home base, at my Colorado mother's place, is a very nice neutral zone from which to begin endeavors here. (By the way, and I hope she won't get mad at me, but she and her husband just celebrated their 33rd year together and I am in awe of their commitment, and the loveliness it carries. [And I'm wishing you the best out there, and thanks.])
Anyway, I got a chance to visit the old stomping ground, a.k.a., the bookstore I used to work for, and I was showered with love, well-wishes, and smiles; so I bought $50 worth of books.
Sheesh, am I bordering the edge of annoyingness when I say that I even enjoyed seeing my dentist and getting a good cleaning? I think so. I'll stop now.

Underlying everything is my knowing that I'll be back in Japan in less than 3 weeks, probably struggling to create lesson plans which I don't know how to teach effectively, more struggle with communication, isolation and almost no friends to talk with and relate to, and it will all have been too good to be true.

Good food, adventure around every corner, and a loving boyfriend. I suppose on either end, everything will be just fine.

(If the above had an arrogant air about it, I want to say that I didn't mean it in that way really at all. A lot of things are happening in me, to me, and around me, so it's logical that the me's start to add up.)

Best to you all out there.

2006-07-28T23:39:00.000+09:00

Pardon the long absence--these days I haven't been Currently in Japan, I've been at Aikido camp in the good old Rocky Mountains, which I call home some of the days. Aikido camp is all I had anticipated for months and much more; it is filling me with the stuff I will reflect upon during this coming year.

I seem to have changed a whole lot as far as my Aikido technique, ukemi(the one who receives the techniques), and outlook. I've been consisently amazed that beginners, intermediate level, and advanced level people all seem to have something useful to teach me. And I've been surprised every time someone approachs me to train after class. Mostly they rank high above me or have much more experience than me, and I am grateful for everything I have been learning from them.

On a personal level, reuniting with friends has been overwhelming and has been melting my heart. There is a lot more that I could write about this, but I won't, because when one is in the middle of it all, it's not always the best time to reflect.

2006-07-12T23:58:00.000+09:00

It's been over 100 degrees every day for about 3 or 4 days now... and exceedingly humid for about three weeks. I'm so hot I can barely post blogs. But I managed to get to Aikido tonight. Still learning a lot every time, always challenging. It was so hot that my arms were glistening during practice. I was surprised because I don't remember that happening before. Awesome Guy was showing me stuff again, and I'm getting more and more prepared for summer camp in Colorado. Maybe recently I've just started to feel like an actual shodan. I know I look goofy a lot when I'm trying new things, but learning is now more important than how I look.

Yakuza Encounter

2006-07-10T16:12:00.000+09:00

I just got a report today that yakuza(organized gang) has recently been gathering in this area. I hadn't a clue yakuza members lived around here, but now I understand it is well known around town. I saw them last night.

My friend Kara will be leaving Japan in a few days, after three years living and teaching here. So, we decided to meet for dinner at Cafe Miami, near the Tamana train station. She took the main road there, but I took some back roads, since it was near my house. When we arrived, I told her that there was a group of 25 or so men in blue uniforms holding red light wands standing in the road. They moved when I pulled my car through, and I saw on my right, a desk with two shaven-head men in uniforms staring intensely at me through my car window. I felt alarmed and vulnerable for a moment, and then I saw two women dressed in black turn into the alley from the busier street near the restaurant.
I couldn't get a sense for what was going on: I thought it must have been a funeral.

We forgot about it and ate our pasta.

Today's report went like this: A friend of Tamana Girls' School has reported this afternoon that Yakuza gang members have been seen in the area behind the train station. Teachers are asked to stay clear of that area, and tell their students to stay clear. The police have a watch on the building where members have gathered, but as of yet, there is no further news.

I have nothing to do with yakuza, except we live in the same world, under the same universal laws. Their world affects mine and vice versa, to a lesser degree, I'm sure. But are they 'bad,' and the police 'good?' And couldn't one easily become the other, as easily a friend can become an enemy? I feel strange when the connections/interactions between people is broken and people get labeled off-limits or scary. On the other hand, maybe it's always good to stay away from negative influences. Or, as a superhero we could go straight into them without being affected. (Didn't I mention I have a t-shirt that says, "I wish I was supernaturally strong, so I could put right all that is wrong." But it's difficult to wear that shirt outside of Japan because it sounds so presumptuous. The idea is nice though.) The other answer is to get rid of the concepts of right and wrong all together. Which is more difficult?

Suganuma Sensei in Tenjin Dojo, Fukuoka

2006-07-06T00:16:00.000+09:00

Went to Suganuma Shihan's dojo finally on Monday night. I'd been wanting to go for almost two years now, but the chance came when a guy from his dojo up in Fukuoka moved down here to ours in Kumamoto. Having a connection to someone from Suganuma Sensei's dojo made it much easier to just show up and train.
And boy, was it enjoyable. Sensei's stretches were refreshingly authentic. I was right in front of him, and I could hear him breathing through nearly every stretch. His stretches were full of extension. I really enjoyed being there right with him for that.
Training was morotedori kokyunage, ushiro katatedori kotegaeshi and shihonage, and so on--I heard someone once say that Suganuma Sensei trains mostly basic techniques, which sounds about right. We did morotedori ikkyo, which was good for me because I'm working on the pin. I'm trying to line up my hand with uke's and press my the base of my index finger knuckle into uke's to hold the pin without a lot of muscle.
Near the end, Sensei called out 'jiuwaza--dozo,' and I looked at my partner, and he says in English, 'Anything you want, come on!!' So we worked on koshinage, where I'm working to look at my leading hand all the way through the throw. My partner wanted me to crank his wrist really hard in nikyo, which I couldn't do so well, so he showed me how to hook my pinky around his wrist.
The people I got to work with seemed to reflect what I could see about Sensei--relatively loose and flexible, precise, and most noticeably, aware. I read that Sensei began to practice Zen seriously many years ago, which would explain the sense I got that he notices everything.
Sensei worked with me for kokyuho. He said I was holding my breath, and he was right. When I breathed it was much easier. I could feel the same thing in his wrists that I feel when I grab Honda Sensei's: it feels tight, but not strong. Ikeda Sensei's wrists felt the same, as far as I can remember. It's what I've been trying to emulate in tenkan practice. (BTW, it does help to extend my fingers.)
Afterwards, Bread, Bread's wife, my boyfriend(who came to watch!) and I had tea with Sensei. I was really happy, and wanted to talk with him for a long time, but unfortunately, a long time is something we didn't have. It took about 2 hours to get to the dojo, and it took 2 hours to get back. I was so glad to go that... I want to go again!!!