Osaka, Kyoto, nice weather, some stuff about Fashion

Opening this time’s post… PIZZA!!

 

We ate this in Osaka, in Shinsaibashi, for last weekend’s bachelorette party. This was between 3 people, a giant chicken, onion, pepper, mushroom, sauce pizza. Oh my GOD, it was fantastic.

Oh and the rest of Osaka was good too.

We ate Thai, Mexican, Pizza, danced until 2 am, and then  went to Spa World and soaked it all up.  Is there anything better than relaxing in an onsen? I THINK NOT! Robin and I also forked over the money to have all the dead skin scrubbed off our backs by old ladies. Smooth!

 

Back in Tokushima, I went out to coffee and had this.

It’s an azuki latte!

With some kind of special milk.

At the bottom were boiled azuki beans. Sweet!

By the way, this is day two of being on a diet, and I was already breaking it. HAHA! Some things are just not meant to be.

 

Cell phone charms! I bought the My Neighbor Totoro doll in Osaka. 5 cell phone straps is maybe a bit much, but I like all of them so much… I bought / was given them specifically, so I can’t choose which ones to take off.

Also in Osaka, I found a Totoro pencil board (which you use as a writing surface / to put between pages to stop pencil from transferring) and some finger puppets.

 

Home made pudding by my shamisen teacher. So delicious!

It was HORRIBLY hot that day, so I wore a yukata. Nice and breezy airflow! But… I had to walk to her house, which took ages.

On the way home, I was lured in by the KenTaco truck. 10 takoyaki for 500 yen! Fresh off the grill! I couldn’t believe it, it was so hot and humid, but the guy in the takoyaki truck was just going on over his grill like it was no problem. Tough!

They were real delicious. I went home and gobbled them up!

 

A sunny clear day in Tokushima.

 

A sunny clear day in… KYOTO!

 

Yesterday Cassie and I went to the Ten no ji (temple) market: a big mash of food tents, craft tents, and antique tents on the streets and grounds of Ten no ji. The bus to get there was packed, and so were the grounds.

We were there specifically in search of cheap kimono, which we found in abundance! In some tents they were nicely folded on tables or displayed in racks, but mostly, (in the really good tents) it was just a huge pile on a tarp, with Obaachans (grandmas) kneeling all around, tugging their precious finds away from grasping hands.

We did sharp-elbow battle with the Obaachans, and emerged victorious (and not that much poorer! Each kimono / obi went for about 1000 yen, haha!)

Cassie and her haul.

My haul (and purse. Note the two water bottles. It was hot and horrible and I was sick as a dog… and still am. Cough, hack)

I’m a little shamed by the lack of photos of this day, but really… it was too damn hot. And I felt too damn sick to care.

 

My haul, hanging up to get rid of the funny smell. I got 4 obi and 3 kimono (the extra yellow obi is just hanging up to get the wrinkles to relax)

 

This one is my favorite. Look at that ship! From my position on the tarp, I couldn’t reach it, so I was shouting at Cassie “Get the pink one! No, the other pink. To your left. More left! More left! THAT ONE!!”

It has a few unsavory spots, but I think I can clean them out well. THAT SHIP! It’s such a nice pale pink, too.

 

This was a lucky find at the end. We found kimono that we wanted first at other stalls, then rifled through to find obi that would match. This photo is not so good, in real life it’s much richer. The background is actually a very deep pumpkin color. Also, my skin is not that white.

 

Bought to go with a black komon (small pattern) and another weird purple kimono that I bought. Originally I wasn’t too wild about the kimono because finding an obi was a right pain the butt… the patterns were too small and weird. BUT this one suits, I think. It’s bizarro enough.

When we were picking stuff out, I was trying hard, and these ladies behind me were giving suggestions… and comments. We couldn’t figure out some of the words though. “Oh, that obi is too _____ for that kimono. Ah, but she’s a foreigner, it doesn’t matter”.

I know obi and kimono should match in range of quality (one can’t be fancier than the other, or out of the acceptable range) and complimentary color, and material, and season… but I don’t know all the words for it! So obviously the orange one is SLIGHTLY wrong for the blue kimono, but you know what…. like she said, I’m a foreigner. I wear these because I like them, not because I want to be perfectly Japanese (or Japanese at all… I just want to wear clothes I like!)

 

It’s a funny thing, deciding how to break the rules of a strict fashion.

Obviously, I don’t know all the rules of kimono (and probably never will). So I can’t really say I know the rules ENOUGH to break them. But I’m a foreigner… is breaking small rules acceptable, or ridiculous?

There is also the thing of wearing them outside Japan. I really like to wear them. I like how they feel. But you get that look, “You’re trying too hard. You wish you were Japanese. You’re showing off. You’re being an idiot. You’re appropriating a culture that isn’t yours.”

Sometimes the statement my clothes makes is “I like how this looks and feels. I am happy wearing it, so I wear it.”

 

Also in Osaka, I bought two Lolita skirts (clicky the link if you like… it’s not western lolita, just a name appropriated for a type of fashion). They are knee length, poofy, and very colorful. There is no way that lolita fashion will ever be my fashion (it’s too expensive). Nor do I identify myself as “a lolita”. But damn it, I’ve never worn a skirt that felt so good. And I love the look.

So…

I guess, I love fashion, and wearing a mix of things, but I hate having to think about how it would be analyzed or perceived. I hate having to justify a choice in my mind, rather than just choosing and happily walking out the door.

So probably I’ll have to live in a cabin in the wilderness where nobody cares. HA! Or SF, NY (eh..) or similar.

 

Ok, whining over.

 

Look at those colors! Aren’t they great?? ARGH I love them so much! I also bought a maroon obi, that you can barely see in the first photo, to go with this blue kimono.

Definitely didn’t expect to love this kimono so much, but the more I look at it, the more I want to pair it with different colors and decorations!

On objects

Let me illustrate what I’m talking about with an embarassing story from my youth.

 

When I was a wee thing, there was this box of fancy chocolate all tied up with ribbon and decoration from the shop. I thought it was the most beautiful thing. I loved (love) fancy stuff, and this was the tops.

Because my parents are kind and giving, we were allowed to have a chocolate at night, as a treat. I figured that if you slid the ribbon off the box, the fancy ties and decorations would remain intact, and you could slide it back on when you were done. They had tied it in a way so it didn’t twist on the bottom, and I couldn’t figure out how this ribbon wizardry was done.

So this went on for a while.

One night, my younger brother arrived at the chocolate box before me, and untied the ribbon in order to obtain the treats therein. I was furious, blinded by this weird anger that I couldn’t explain. I scolded him, and he was confused and hurt by my cruel words.

When all had arrived on the scene and an explanation was demanded as to why my brother was so upset, my mom said “She got mad at him for untying the ribbon and opening the box to get some chocolate”.

When she said that, I felt there was no way to explain myself. What I was feeling was far too stupid to be put in to words. Even explaining it to myself made me feel ashamed. So instead I said nothing which was probably worse. Then, I seemed cruel for no reason. Often, I think I was cruel for no reason as a child. At least, no reason I could explain.

 

 

The feeling at that time was thus: if you use nice things, you won’t have them anymore. If we untied the ribbon, we wouldn’t have that beautiful fancy box, just like it was.

 

Realizing I had put value on a thing over my brother’s happiness, over being thought of as a kind person, was shameful. I’ve changed that about myself, I think. I hope.

 

But I still …am one of those people who won’t use the fancy guest soaps because dang it, if you use it, you won’t have it anymore.

 

It’s like a hoarding tendency, on a slightly lesser scale than the people who wind up with houses so piled full of stuff they can’t open the doors or walk across the room. I do this. I do this with little things, especially fancy stuff like beauty products, soaps, nice candles, new crayons or paints. It’s nuts. It’s stupid. Things are supposed to be used, aren’t they? I deserve to use nice stuff. There is no reason to have it and not use it.

Save it for later? When is later? Later, I’ll be dead. Admire it now, use it, be done with it.

 

 

So, I think this whole situtation is getting better, because I don’t obsess TOO much, as far as I can tell.

I’m moving out in 3 months and a few weeks. I can’t take it with me.

You know those Burt’s Bees sample kits? I won’t tell you when I got mine, because it’s really embarassing, but I STILL have them and they are STILL unused… well, until today. Why only use a little bit of a sample pack? It’s a SAMPLE PACK. Use the WHOLE dang thing. That’s a mental block I have, and I’m breaking it. Ditto the shower gels, bath salts, fancy jams, the gifts given to me that didn’t get used because they were too cute and nice. I’m breaking into them like a monkey in a museum.

Because you can’t take it with you.

Anything I don’t use in the next few months has got to be thrown out. There is no way I can take this stuff home (it’s too heavy, too much). I’m using it all up. I’m pampering my skin. Feasting on chestnut butter. Making art. It’s all gotta go. (I’m also sorting my closets and making bags of Things Go Away. That’s a whole ‘nother kettle of fish).

 

 

 

 

The Carrot Facial scrub? Looks like dog poo. But it feels nice.

Spring time

It’s spring! ♡

 

Believe me, the worst part about spring is that everything is wonderful, and that makes me really sad about leaving Japan.

 

“I wish I hadn’t said no!”, I cried today. “Do over! Do over!”

 

 

Today, I went up to Naruto to watch my school’s baseball team play. The sun was shining, the birds were tweeting, there was baseball, I had a friend. All was well with the world. Also, I was skiving off of work because it was spring break and I can do stuff like that.

 

Spring makes me forget that the whole year isn’t like this, and it highlights only the good things.♥

 

Ah well.

 

I am sad about leaving already.

 

 

Yesterday I went to Takarazuka to see バラの国の王子, The Prince in the Land of Roses. AKA, Beauty & The Beast.

 

It was ok. Actually, no, I didn’t like it.

 

They hit all the plot points (father, sisters, beast, evil queen, magic mirror, roses, father ill, magic ring, Belle saves the Beast THE END). But it was only a half show, 90 minutes long. None of the characters were particularly engaging or interesting.

When the Beast told Belle he loved her but she was all “I don’t know my own heart, and I have to go home to my sick dad”, and he gives her the magic ring anyway, the entire theater went “BOO HOO HOO!” en masse. So that was good.

But I just couldn’t get into it.

 

So that was a little disappointing.

 

I’ll go back again before I go home though.

BECAUSE I LOVE TAKARAZUKA.

 

 

Hoom, anyway, on my way back to the station I walked along the Flower Road, which is this gorgeous path between the station and the Takarazuka Theater.

Six actresses were set up with donation boxes for the earthquake. The ladies could queue up behind a velvet rope and approach one at a time, then everyone would bow, and people were taking zillions of photos, very exciting indeed.

On the flower road.

There were tons of older people setting up shop and painting the view. This guy was pretty good, but I was rushing for a train, so it’s only a snapshot.

Back in Tokushima, I rode the train out into the west.

For my first proper meal of the day.

 

The Thin Lazy Line

Lately a lot of my actions come into question: Do I REALLY want to be doing what I’m doing?

 

Not in the grand, “is this my true destiny” sort of way.

Just…

Do I really want to do my exercise DVD? I should. That is the point, to do it every day for 30 days. I want the result the promise, I understand that to get result A I have to insert effort B. Ok, I can grasp that.

And for 20 minutes a day, it’s really nothing. More time than it takes to do the dishes, less time than it takes to clean my room or cook a proper meal.

Which, by the way, I’m ordering out tonight. Because I decided that I really DIDN’T want to leave the apartment.

I also DON’T want to spend the money, and I understand that Pizza Hut is bad for me, and I could eat the same thing for less. Nearly 1/6 the price, too. But I would have to go to the grocery store. And cook it all. And I just. Don’t. Want. To.

 

There is also this NaNoWriMo project I joined. You write a novel, 50,000 words, in one month. November, to be specific.

It is now NOvember 5, and I have written 2000 words on my second attempt at a story and on the way home from school today I decided it was stupid and I hated it. Which is better than yesterday morning when I got all depressed about not writing and decided to give up the project entirely, but worse than this morning, when I decided that No, it would be better to stick it out.

You see, in this case, I don’t need the result. It is not some great desire of mine. In fact, when you break it like that, I don’t NEED the result of this workout DVD either. I’m fine without it, but I happen to WANT it more.

But this writing, I only WANT to need it. I don’t actually need it. And I’m not a writer, I’m really not. Not a fiction writer, at least. Maybe it’s just a mental block, but I’ve been sitting down and just…. not being able to write. Thinking every word is crap, and how am I going to get to 50,000 words, and it’s ridiculous, and I don’t want to be a writer so why am I doing this at all?

The thing is, where is the line between punishing yourself by forcing yourself to do something you think you need or you want to need, and forcing yourself to do something that you don’t want but DO need, or both want AND need?

How can you tell, when you are miserable doing something positive (exercising your body, your brain, doing good deeds, doing moral rightness, etc) when to stop? How far is it good FOR YOU to keep at something? How do you know if the ends justify the effor? Even if they do justify the effort, is it still OK to say “enough”? (Of course it is… but it’s equally OK, most of the time, to say “Keep going, push through, you can do it”)

 

I was thinking about this alllll day, man. That’s a long time.

Then I got home, and read my email, and there was a pep talk from Mercedes Lackey in the inbox, for participants of NaNoWriMo.

I skimmed it, and went to talk myself into my exercise. Which I did, then showered, then back to the email.

Mercedes Lackey is a fantasy writer, it is definitely not high literature, but it is entertaining, and I enjoy some of her stuff (some of it is boring to me, and the collaborations she does with other writers lack something, but she is insanely prolific so there is still a lot left over).
She said that if you are going nuts because it’s so intimidating, it’s time to face the fact and try… writing fanfiction.

 

I can hear you all spitting on the floor in disgust. Shut it and listen for a minute.

Fanfiction is easy. The characters, the world, everything is all set up for you. You just have to stick your hand in and say “but what if ______ happened instead?”

 

I’m not going to do that, I just can’t. It’s too much.
But I gotta do something.
I want to stick this out.
I want to want to do this stupid NaNoWriMo.

And I WILL do it… if I can get my brain to take it easy.

Recapture

Tonight I went out with the two visiting French teachers, for a sort of farewell dinner. The teachers and students leave tomorrow at 6:30 a.m.

 

Two very interesting things were discussed over dinner.

At first was the philosophy teacher, who talked about her favorite moment in Japan. 6 years ago, she asked to go on this trip (which happens every other year) and this year was her first time to visit Japan. She had an image built up in her mind of Asian philosophy, harmony, peacefulness, and how Japan would be when she finally got there.

 

What she found was that Japan was exactly the way she imagined, if not better. She saw people not learning a philosophy, but living it. She was really moved by the the “wa” of Japan, which really just more than an old name for Japan, or a word meaning “harmony” or “peace”. It really is the way the culture operates.

It’s hard to explain, easy to imagine, and unbelievable to see in reality.

 

 

The other thing they talked about was the youthfuless of Japanese culture abroad. France has a long history of being really “into” Japan — they were the first country, apparently, to be importing Japanese comics and cartoons. But even for people who must have grown up with cartoons on TV 25 years ago it is still a youth culture that the parents don’t understand.

The kids this year (apart from 2 years ago) are much more into Japanese pop culture.

(it’s too bad they were out of town on a field trip yesterday, because I went to a concert that ROCKED MY FACE OFF, and it would have rocked theirs off too. More about that later)

 

The teachers were saying “yeah, we have these kids who are super into Japanese culture, and we don’t know why. It’s so popular, and they are all saying “I am going to live in Japan when I grow up,” “I want to go to Japan”, “I love Japan” without every having been there. We don’t know why it’s so appealing, but it is.”

 

Oh, hello, my youth.

That is exactly the same stuff I was going on about when I was in middle/high school. I read manga and watched anime and got really into (WAY too into) Japanese rock and pop music, and I was convinced that I wanted to live in Japan because I really loved Japan, and to this day, I CANNOT tell you WHY I thought that way.

And after a long time where being into Japan was a pretty nerdy, fringe-y thing, I got tired. You always had this feeling that the majority of people thought you were an idiot, and you were wasting your time on some pipe dream and if you actually made it to Japan, you would just gorge yourself on Pocky sticks, skim the surface of the culture, and waste your life frittering around.

That got old. Fast. No, I didn’t think I was going to become Japanese or that life would be like a cartoon, and yes, I had a lot of stupid ideas about how great Japan was with absolutely no justification at all (still totally clueless about this. Must be some marketing genius on Japan’s part). But being just “that girl who likes weird cartoons” is not who I am, so that happy feeling was soon suppressed, and finally, over.

Even when I applied for this job, I had lost that magical feeling and moved on to other stuff. Well, not really. I don’t really know why I applied. Nothing was really lighting my fire at the time, I felt like a lot of my interests had fizzled out, or weren’t my true interests. Nothing really spoke to me, but the JET Programme did, enough for me to apply.  Maybe because I had wanted to in the past. Because everything I heard about it sounded good. Because some part of me still really wanted to go to Japan. I came here without that magic feeling, my nervous anticipation was for different reasons. And I’ve lived here for 2 years without that feeling. I still love, you know, the idea of futons, but I’ve definitely sorted that I usually find futons hideously uncomfortable.

But listening to the teachers talk about their students feeling what I had felt, I sort of felt magic again. It feels like sitting in an ordinary world and holding a piece of a strange world in your hand. Like having a small mirror that can see only into corners of some different world. Where maybe people can fly or be robots or something. I was reminded of being a high school student and thinking about the world outside the US, and one part of the world that had grabbed my attention for whatever reason.

And listening to the philosophy teacher talk about her feeling for Japan, and understanding her feeling, made me feel grown up and magical at the same time.

Lately I’ve been feeling a little bit too normal. Not jaded, exactly, but uninspired. This is still a strange world, but perhaps I’ve stopped seeing it.

I’d like to see it again.

(probably when I leave, it will seem loud and clear)

Weekend in Okayama & Hiroshima

Our next adventure took us to Okayama, the birthplace of Momotaro the Peach Boy. Born of a peach to an elderly couple, Momotaro had magical rice balls (kibidango) and magical animal friends (a dog, a pheasant, and… a monkey? I forget) and he fought demons and had adventures. James was here to collect pin badges, and I was here to collect stamps and annoy James.

You get around Okayama via a set of tram lines, which go “ding-ding” and clatter and rattle along and have that great olde-timey trolley feeling (apparently a trolley in Britain is a little cart you use for shopping, so James kept saying “tram” so I had to say “tram” so we could be talking about the same thing. But you know, a “pram” is a little cart you use for small children, so Tram for big people, Pram for small people. But “P” doesn’t sound like a “bigger” letter than “T”, I think… pronouncing them both, the “P” actually sounds more powerful. I think “pram” is short for “perambulator”, a “walking about with your baby machine”… what is “tram” short for?)

Anyway…

Okayama also has a lovely castle a short tram-ride from the main station. My first castle in Japan! Well, my first castle with more than one storey (Tokushima castle is a museum, and only has one storey so it doesn’t count). Inside Okayama castle, it was also a museum, which was a little boring, but you could go all the way to the top and see the lovely view of the famous giant garden and surrounding moat.

From on high we also spotted these swan boats. More on that later…

After stepping from the nice air-conditioned castle into the roasting heat and entered the garden. It was massive. Absolutely gigantic. And the extensive grass you weren’t supposed to walk on was immaculately trimmed. It must have taken a small army to do the upkeep.

We wandered for ages. They had little wooded walks, giant lily pad grotto, lovely lily flower pond, and a sort of out-cropping rocky hill like the fake romantic wild areas that British people used to make on their properties in the 1700s (1800s? What do you call those things anyway? Not hermitages, but something else…). There were lovely places to buy a shaved ice and relax on a shady bench, and lots of small old-fashioned buildings. It was the kind of place where the aristocracy strolled (and currently, wedding photos are taken).

The best part was behind the rocky hill: a foot-bathing stream!

Under an open roof ran a stream, with wooden platforms on either side. Leaving our shoes out on the pavement, we splashed in the shade.

Let’s return to those swan boats.

After getting all nice and relaxed, we went and rented a swan boat. The old man at the boat shack told us not to go in a certain part of the river because the current was strong. Then he drew a chalk map, which was two slightly curved lines which had no relation to the actual river whatsoever. Trusting to fate, we hopped in a boat. James took the wheel and I took the swan butt.

Paddling a swan boat is about a zillion times more work than those stupid swans make it seem like. I recall seeing a video once where they had a camera under the water and you could see a duck’s feet trucking along as fast as could be while above the water, the duck is just sitting there looking serene.

And yes, the current was strong. We paddled and paddled and James steered us around quite perfectly. Oh, and our swan had a little bowtie.

Here is an amusing post box.

We rode the tram out to our hotel, which was quite nice for a business hotel. James will attest that I forced him into some guide-book restaurant. This is true, however, it came after me thumbing through everything in the local eatery guide and him shooting down everything that came up (How can you say no to a Magic Bar? HOW? HOW??) and me getting very hungry and time getting late and both of us getting a bit grouchy. I was forcing us to eat at all.

I’m just kidding. We STARTED the trip being rather grouchy, or at least I did, and I don’t think that made James very happy either but it never (quite) came to shouting.

Anyway, we ate in this Italian (?) fusion-y type place (fused with what, it was hard to tell). I had a pizza and a Kir (because I read about it in my book about French people), and it was a nice restaurant and not far from the hotel and nice walk and exhausted sleep The End.

The End of Okayama, that is…

The next day, we took the shinkansen (my first shinkansen ride!) to Hiroshima. It wasn’t the fastest version, but it was very speedy. We rode the Kodama, and it took an hour.

In Hiroshima, we rode their tram lines (more numerous and modern) to old baseball stadium and the Peace Park. I didn’t take any photos. Adrianne and I pretty much Peace-Parked ourselves out last year. I was still touched – it’s very difficult not to be touched by the Dome – so I just admired with my eyes and my memory.

To be perfectly honest, this is the part of the trip where I complained the most. It was very hot, and my bag was at that awful just-heavy-enough to make you hate carrying it, just-heavy-enough that the extra weight makes you very unhappy, but NOT-heavy-enough that you have any excuse to complain excessively about it. Like I did.

Like I did until James took my bag by force. Possibly to be a gentleman. More likely to make me shut up.

I let him have it up to Hiroshima castle (across the road, a block, another road, and a medium-sized park) and then happily checked it with the castle attendant. Hiroshima castle was also lovely, also a museum, and also air-conditioned. And a good portion of the signs had English versions, so it was interesting as well.

After Hiroshima castle, we rode the tram down to Miyajima port. MISTAKE. Should have taken the train, it would have been at least 4 times faster. Miyajima had our hostel, where we dropped our gear, and a ferry port, where we boarded for Miyajima (Ok, the ISLAND is called Miyajima, and I’m sure the mainland place has an equally nice name, but really… Miyajima port, and Miyajima (island)).

Anyway, we went to Miyajima by ferry, and admired the Tori gate in the water and the lovely back market road. At one of the only non-fish establishments, we got nikuman (steamed pork bun) :

and ate them as best we could… being that there were hungry deer about. I don’t know why deer would want to eat meat, but they sure as heck tried to eat mine.

Like I wrote last time I went to Miyajima, the deer make me horribly sad and I want to give them all lots of food and hugs but that wouldn’t solve the problem.

We bathed our feet in another stream and tried to finish our pork buns unmolested. Ha! Ha! Yeah right!

You can’t see it because I am busy being silly instead of taking proper story-telling photos, but there is a deer lurking around on the other side of the stream.

More Miyajima, at sun set…

That night, we rode the train and tram (and walked a lot, because our directions were not so good) to a movie theater to see Inception. Did you like Inception? I did. I like the bit where gravity goes all wonky in the hotel. Fantastic image.

The next day…

We went back to Miyajima! To climb the mountain. What is it with mountains in Japan? Oh well…

In the sweltering heat, we took a bus then cable car then another cable car up to a nice summit. Then we walked DOWN a few hundred meters, then up a few MORE hundred meters to a higher summit. (the proper summit). It was very nice. Lots of giant rocks and a beautiful view.

Many people climbing; monks, children, old people, girls in wildly inappropriate shoes. There were rumors of monkeys, but no monkeys appeared to steal our stuff.

No snakes either.

Noted.

We took the speediest shinkansen back to Okayama (only 30-odd minutes!!), then a local train to a lovely smaller town with a preserved “old” part of town (1800s?). We could only enjoy it for 15 minutes or so before trucking back to the train station to catch our train to catch our bus to Tokushima. But a glimpse was pleasant enough.

Moving on Up

I took three days holiday this week, to help James clean house (and to have my own mini-break… in Tokushima helping James clean house). It’s amazing to realize the amount of stuff one accumulates in 3 years. I’m looking at my own stuff right now, in a half-hour break I have before dinner. Will I keep most of it?

The pack-rat in me says that of course I will want to hold on to and treasure each little thing. A fan in my bookshelf, for example, was given to me by an old lady in my dance group. She’s very kind and friendly and talks with me all the time. It’s a nice fan. I have a memory attached to it. But is that enough to warrant a space in my bag home? Well… I don’t know. It’s a decision to be made in time. Usefulness, sentimental value, and packing space. Luckily I have another year to consider it all.

The other thing that happens when folks move away (besides all the pondering and cleaning and saying goodbye… which I guess is three things, making this number four) is that they give away lots of stuff. Or sell it. I got two plastic drawer units today from Rex, which have greatly improved the tidiness of my bathroom. One lives in there, and the second is in my bedroom, currently waiting more things (I think non-seasonal clothes and my growing collection of kimono/yukata paraphernalia will live in there). I’ve also picked up a giant bed-covering mosquito net, a PS2 and a few games, a DVD player (and copy of “Gentlemen Prefer Blonds”) and most importantly, bits and bobs that my English club can sell at their bazaar (cute notebooks from Scotland, Canadian stickers, and so on). Oh, and another external harddrive (James and Ada have been very kind to me)

I finished up my farewell gift to James this afternoon. Frantically working in his room while he cleaned in the other room, then finally I bundled it all home this morning and finished it up, tied a ribbon round it, and popped it in the EXTREMELY swank Doctor Who carry-bag that I made (Trust me. It’s EXTREMELY swank. I am very good with fabric crayons). So that’s all taken care of.

Tonight is Rex’s farewell dinner at an Izakaya, and tomorrow is Patrick’s (and by association, James, since they are leaving the same day) at the same Izakaya. Oh man. I’ll need Thursday to recover, dinner-wise… luckily, my shamisen teacher canceled my lesson. Hooray.

This past weekend we had a Yukata Kai, or meet-up. Everyone wore their official yukata, except for myself and one other lady, and a bunch of old ladies who just wore regular clothes. I was confused about one, because my teacher says I’m going to borrow her official kimono for the concert next February, but if she has an official kimono why doesn’t she have an official yukata? And why isn’t she wearing her official kimono and taking part? It made me extremely nervous, because I got the profound sensation that this older woman really doesn’t like me. And I’m borrowing her clothes. Urk.

Oh, and also, when I was changing out of my yukata, I tugged too hard while untying a string, and my hand punched through a panel on my teacher’s sliding paper door. Awkward. If it was old and patchy I wouldn’t have felt as super-embarrassed, but the whole side was one giant sheet, so I was the first one to break it. I apologized like crazy, but she said not to worry, she punches through the door when she’s cleaning all the time. But that room is her room, the closet is full of her instruments and tapes and things, and it’s where I have my lessons. I felt really bad, but I suppose… sitting and playing next to those doors every week… being a big awkward person… it had to happen eventually.

She sent me home with a milk carton of yogurt, after explaining how to clean and cut a milk pack and then make your own yogurt by mixing yogurt and milk, and letting it sit out, so that the bacteria can cultivate (then you put it in the fridge, and start another carton). I think this is very interesting and neat, but to be perfectly honest, I don’t imagine myself continuing it. I’d probably poison myself, for one. For two, I don’t eat that much yogurt. But still, it’s interesting. It reminded me of in Little House on the Prairie (actually, this happened in By The Shores of Silver Lake), when they made sourdough bread, but they would keep a bit of sourdough in a jar and just add more and more water and flour and the original sourdough would make the rest of it sour, so you always had that bacteria just waiting for you in a jar. Or a milk pack.

Food is science!!

And now I’m about to go enjoy the science of Izakaya.

Bonding

This morning was really really horrible. I will talk about nice things later, like USJ, or how I’m going rafting next weekend, but right now I need to talk about how horrible my morning went.

This morning, I had the worst cramps in the universe. I woke up feeling like robots were trying to laser their way out of my abdomen. It was beyond awful, but I didn’t think about it enough to bother to take any painkillers before I went to school.

In first period, I realized I was going to have trouble. I was having trouble walking around the classroom, trouble standing up, and trouble concentrating on what I was doing because I was in so much pain. I thought, just make it through this lesson, then sit down and relax, and you’ll be able to make it through third period.

I tried. I really did. And it didn’t work. All through second period, I was either hunched over my desk, or pacing around in agony, thinking while I was doing one that if only I did the other, things would get better. My awesome JTE told me I was looking really pale, and asked me if I was alright. I just sort of gave a strangled “yeah” and went to hang out in the ladie’s toilet in case I threw up.

By the time third period rolled around, I knew there was no way I was going to make it to or through class without fainting or something equally awful. I couldn’t just soldier through, and I was so frustrated and ashamed and hurting that I could barely tell my JTE I couldn’t do it. As is always the case when I have to own up to my own helplessness, I couldn’t get the words out as it was a choice between crying and talking, or not crying and saying nothing.

This JTE, who I don’t know that well because I only met her in March, steered me down to the nurses office and parked me in a bed and made me stay and rest for 2 hours. I completely abandoned her class with no warning (and I’m going on a work trip tomorrow, leaving her to deal with our weekly advanced English class on her own — a not-great but unavoidable move on my part) and I felt horrible about that, as well as horrible about feeling sick. Later, she came down and made me eat a cookie and take medicine, and stay put until lunch time.

Creeping back to the staffroom for lunch, I felt much, much better… and felt incredibly guilty for feeling better so quickly. If I had taken care of things earlier, I wouldn’t have missed the class and made my JTE take care of me. If I had stayed sick, I would have justified the missing of class and the taking care of. But no, I was back, feeling alright, but pretending not to. I pretended, so that she wouldn’t think I had been pretending or exaggerating earlier (although, seriously, I’m pretty sure I looked as awful as I felt). Isn’t that weird? I need my head examined, probably.

At any rate, this JTE has mothered me now. She took care of me, and worried about my health, and now there is that bond between us. She’s seen me low, and helped me along. You don’t ask for these situations, you can choose who is there when you need help. Every good or bad situation I have with this JTE from now on, I will remember her kindness and see her in that light.

I thought about this some more at my shamisen lesson. My teacher told me something — I’m not sure of the nuances, but the gist is, I’m a good student and am improving quickly, so that means she is a good teacher. Or has become a good teacher to match the student. Or that if I was bad, it would make her teaching look bad. Or if I was bad, she wouldn’t have to rise above being a bad teacher. The exact words were unclear, but what was clear is that there exists between us a symbiotic relationship as teacher and student. We improve because of eachother. When I’m there, she practices and plays the secondo parts, and sings. She makes me play alone in those times, and that forces me up.

I love the piece we’re playing right now. In two parts, with vocals, it sounds really amazing. We play fast, and fierce.

Also, she gives me lots of vegetables. And tonight when we had tea, we each ate a sour plum (ume) with a sickly sweet syrup/jam around it. They call it “amezuppai”: Ame is “sweet”, and Suppai is “sour”. It really was ovewhelming with sweet and sour and jammy plummy mash, and the only thing that calmed my mouth back down was to drink the bitter green tea we always have here.

Japan mixes the sentiments and tastes with a definite flair.

Sweet weekend

And again I go AWOL. Good grief. I’d like to say I’ll get back on track with posting, but I don’t think I was ever on a particular track, to be perfectly honest.

This weekend was beautiful. Blue skies, sunshine, all the greens of the mountains perfectly highlighted. I started to enjoy it all at the happy-bird hour of 7 am on Saturday, when I got up to join in a friend’s track practice.

Track practice was difficult. Running and I have never been the best of friends — I always wind up unable to breathe properly. But I went, and I tried, and I did OK. Mainly I think it all happened the way it did because I am stubborn as all get-out. My pride said that there was no way that I could walk, or do less than I could, or quit. So I ran everything Pat told me to do without walking, I did the sit-ups and push-ups. I did the planks without dropping my knees to the grass (Plank is when you prop up on your elbows and toes, like a push up, but hold it for a minute. That one almost got me. Every time I sneeze now it hurts me deep in the stomach. But I kept my knees off the grass)

So I spent the weekend in a dull ache, riding my bike in the breeze, walking along the river in the park, looking at the festival, counting the clouds that weren’t there. I cooked sloppy joes and did the laundry. The shrouds came off my building and hopefully the scaffolding will come down this week. I’ll celebrate by flinging all my bedclothes out in the air where they belong.

I’m teaching the textbook now. Blergh. I like my teachers, but the textbook lessons just kind of drag me down. I suppose it’s because it’s the beginning of the year, and I haven’t gotten into the characters of the classes, and I miss the classes that I came to love last year.

On the suggestion of a 1st-year student last year (a very thoughtful, intelligent mind) I read “Fermat’s Last Theorem” by Simon Singh. It’s about how Andrew Wiles solved Fermat’s last theorem, and also about how the theorem came to be all the way back from Greece, and the various approaches that were attempted and how even failure contributes to mathematical advancement. I haven’t read a book that captured my imagination and gave me an impression like that in a while.
This was the quote my student wrote to me, that struck him.

I just stared at it in disbelief for twenty minutes. Then during the day I walked around the department, and I’d keep coming back to my desk looking to see if it was still there. it was still there. I couldn’t contain myself, I was so excited. It was the most important moment of my working life. Nothing I ever do again will mean as much”.
-Andrew Wiles

How amazing is that? And also, a little sad. It was his childhood ambition to solve the problem, and 30 years later he was able to do it. He realized a dream and also saw the most meaningful thing to him come to fruition. And then it is over (though of course puzzles carry on).

I like puzzles. So I enjoyed this story.

Lately I’ve been getting water in bottles from the spring that comes down from the Bizan. There is a sort of hut down the street, next to the temples. It’s nice water. Not particularly good or bad, just nice clean water. I have yet to develop superpowers or extra limbs.

But like with all things, wait and see.

Days

Brr, it’s cold. I hung my laundry in the cold.

We have a three-day weekend. It’s nice. I don’t leave the apartment much because of cold, and studying, but that bothers me, because I want to go out and do stuff. Urrgh.

In the past week or so, I’ve had a few times when my days turned out to be dependent on other people… ie, waiting for someone to ring, or show up, so that my day could proceed.

It’s annoying.
I’m doing things I like, of course, but the waiting around…

It’s like waking up late, but not so late that you won’t be late… but it leaves you at home with 5 minutes extra. You don’t have the full time to do anything proper, but you have 5 spare minutes to do… NOTHING!!! You woke up with just enough time to do NOTHING! (stolen from Dane Cook, that line).

But that’s how I feel!

If I wasn’t so relaxed, I would be much more bent out of shape about this. Of course, I can feel this affecting how I look at the day. I feel like I can’t accomplish as much because of waiting for something (7 hours in the future!!) so my studying drive suffers. Things don’t get done. Then I feel REALLY cranky at the end of the day for wasting my day.

If I was sick, or stressed, this would be worse. I’m trying to be zen, because I’m in a general good mood at the moment. BUT STILL.

Uh. Uhhh.

I have a heap of vocabulary to study. And then grammar. And I think that’s it. I think I’m OK. I feel pretty dang good about my studying. Despite failing another practice test. I can study up. I can do this.

/gripe