色は匂へど
Some things that have made me happy in the past few days:
1) Last night I took a walk instead of going to Japanese class. I walked on the wooden sidewalk by the beach and watched the sky turn from dusty blueish-orange to deep navy, and then watched the moon rise over the mountains. And I passed middle-aged Japanese people speedwalking very solemnly, and a young couple walking a tiny dog, and the dog came over to me and jumped up and I held out my hand to it and said “konbanwa!”, and the woman couldn’t stop giggling at this. There are lights that line the path by the water, low, evently-spaced lights. They’re beautiful, and until it gets cold I want to go for a walk every evening that I can.
2) There’s a piece of paper on one of the bulletin boards in the teachers’ room here – I don’t know what it’s about – that’s written in outline format. Except instead of successive points being numbered, or labeled A, B, C, they are labeled イ、ロ、ハ、ニ、ホ、ヘ、ト...an ordering for Japanese characters based on an ancient poem that contains each character exactly once. I love that this ordering has meaning – metaphor, imagery, philosophy. As if our alphabet spelled some beautiful phrase.
3) I love the first-year class here at 二中. Despite having two fewer years of experience, they all raised their hands to answer the teacher’s questions about me, about what I’d said in my self-introduction, while hardly any of the third-year students did. I’m not criticizing the third-year students for being shy – I probably wouldn’t have raised my hand either, at that age. But I had a blast in the first-year class. They crowded around excitedly to see my pictures. My computer froze – the only time it’s done that so far during my introductions – and I impatiently tapped on the mouse pad and stalled awkwardly, and then finally, when it unfroze, it heard all of my impatient clicks, and about ten copies of a picture of the Gummi Bears popped up. The whole class collapsed in giggles.
4) I love communication. I love when my phone suddenly vibrates and it means that someone, maybe half an hour away in Muraoka or maybe halfway across the world somewhere in the northeast of America, has just taken a few minutes out of their life to communicate something to me. Don’t take this as sounding quite as sappy as it does – I don’t mean to be saying anything deep – but I remember sophomore year of college once putting up an away message that said “What is the opposite of lonely?” (at the time, I admit, I probably was trying to be deep...), and perhaps one answer would be the feeling that bubbles through me that instant the phone lights up. I called my grandma the other night – morning for her – and we chatted for half an hour. She said I made her week; I should have pointed out that it was Monday and she shouldn’t make assumptions about what the rest of the week would hold. But in any case, it was lovely. It’s lovely that I can take a few minutes when I’m settling down to bed and call my dad when he’s puttering around before work, and we can chat about everyday things as though I’m not in Japan. And I love that the girl I met at a capella practice last Sunday took a moment to send me a message that evening just to say it was nice meeting me and she’d see me next week.
5) I read an entire novel today. At school. I started it after my first-period class, and I just finished it. It wasn’t a very good novel. There are all these comments splashed over the cover about how witty and intelligent and insightful and hilarious it is, and...well, it just isn’t. Not to me. I never got into the characters, any of them. I was never tempted to laugh. It was trying to be witty in a certain self-absorbed, slightly cynical, urban sort of way. It’s not the book’s fault that I don’t much like that style. But I enjoyed reading it, and I was grateful for the diversion, and as terrible as this may sound, grateful for the reminder that just because a novel has lots of praise written in big letters on the cover doesn’t mean my life will have a huge hole if I never read it, or that I couldn’t write something better if I really put my mind to it. It’s oddly comforting.
6) I’m meeting Alisa for a walk around Kasumi and then okonomiyaki! (If the damn place is open...it was closed Friday night when I tried to go. Friday night!) That makes me happy, and also means that since it’s 4:45 and I am allowed to leave, I should do so.
No lyrics so I have to write more later. ^_^
Okay it’s later. Back to my list.
7) There’s a western-style toilet at 二中. My preference for western-style toilets should not be taken (entirely) as cultural prejudice. My left knee isn’t very strong and getting myself down and back up again to use the damn Japanese ones without making my knee cramp up is very awkward. And I feel like they’re designed for people a few notches smaller than me in any case. So when I saw that one of the stalls in the staff bathroom at 二中 has a western toilet – a western toilet with a soft light blue seat cover, no less – it made me inordinately happy.
8) 福島先生, the 国語 (“national language,” aka Japanese) teacher at 二中. I like her. I like all the teachers at 二中 (and 一中 for that matter), but I’ve had several conversations with her that have made me feel really good. Yesterday I was showing her my work on the short stories Adam and I are reading and she was really really impressed – she must have said 「すごい」(awesome/amazing) about twelve times as she looked through my vocab, heh. But better than that – today as I was leaving school I ran into her, and she asked me about class, and then she was saying that I should eat lunch with the students from time to time; I had asked the vice principal what I should do for lunch and he said eat in the staff room, so I didn’t question it. But she said it would be fine if I came and ate with the students. Then she asked if I had any interest in trying shodo. Finally! I’ve been waiting for someone to ask me that. I keep mentioning wanting to try shodo to people, apparently the wrong people: they tend to act vaguely interested, and say “oh, hmm, shodo, yeah, I don’t know how you’d go about doing that...” and then drop the subject. She said she does tea ceremony and she’d love to show me that too. Admittedly, I’ve never felt a strong pull toward tea ceremony, but I’d certainly give it a shot. And she’s the first person I’ve talked to who sounded inviting and enthusiastic about helping me get involved in more arts and extracurriculars and cultural things. (Not that other people have been un-inviting, it just hasn’t really come up.) She said everyone was really happy that I was so interested in Japanese culture and everyone is eager to help me participate in things. Yay! 本当に楽しみにしてるわね。
Okay it is (past) bedtime now. Goodnight!
おやすみ 続きは 夢の中で。。。
1) Last night I took a walk instead of going to Japanese class. I walked on the wooden sidewalk by the beach and watched the sky turn from dusty blueish-orange to deep navy, and then watched the moon rise over the mountains. And I passed middle-aged Japanese people speedwalking very solemnly, and a young couple walking a tiny dog, and the dog came over to me and jumped up and I held out my hand to it and said “konbanwa!”, and the woman couldn’t stop giggling at this. There are lights that line the path by the water, low, evently-spaced lights. They’re beautiful, and until it gets cold I want to go for a walk every evening that I can.
2) There’s a piece of paper on one of the bulletin boards in the teachers’ room here – I don’t know what it’s about – that’s written in outline format. Except instead of successive points being numbered, or labeled A, B, C, they are labeled イ、ロ、ハ、ニ、ホ、ヘ、ト...an ordering for Japanese characters based on an ancient poem that contains each character exactly once. I love that this ordering has meaning – metaphor, imagery, philosophy. As if our alphabet spelled some beautiful phrase.
3) I love the first-year class here at 二中. Despite having two fewer years of experience, they all raised their hands to answer the teacher’s questions about me, about what I’d said in my self-introduction, while hardly any of the third-year students did. I’m not criticizing the third-year students for being shy – I probably wouldn’t have raised my hand either, at that age. But I had a blast in the first-year class. They crowded around excitedly to see my pictures. My computer froze – the only time it’s done that so far during my introductions – and I impatiently tapped on the mouse pad and stalled awkwardly, and then finally, when it unfroze, it heard all of my impatient clicks, and about ten copies of a picture of the Gummi Bears popped up. The whole class collapsed in giggles.
4) I love communication. I love when my phone suddenly vibrates and it means that someone, maybe half an hour away in Muraoka or maybe halfway across the world somewhere in the northeast of America, has just taken a few minutes out of their life to communicate something to me. Don’t take this as sounding quite as sappy as it does – I don’t mean to be saying anything deep – but I remember sophomore year of college once putting up an away message that said “What is the opposite of lonely?” (at the time, I admit, I probably was trying to be deep...), and perhaps one answer would be the feeling that bubbles through me that instant the phone lights up. I called my grandma the other night – morning for her – and we chatted for half an hour. She said I made her week; I should have pointed out that it was Monday and she shouldn’t make assumptions about what the rest of the week would hold. But in any case, it was lovely. It’s lovely that I can take a few minutes when I’m settling down to bed and call my dad when he’s puttering around before work, and we can chat about everyday things as though I’m not in Japan. And I love that the girl I met at a capella practice last Sunday took a moment to send me a message that evening just to say it was nice meeting me and she’d see me next week.
5) I read an entire novel today. At school. I started it after my first-period class, and I just finished it. It wasn’t a very good novel. There are all these comments splashed over the cover about how witty and intelligent and insightful and hilarious it is, and...well, it just isn’t. Not to me. I never got into the characters, any of them. I was never tempted to laugh. It was trying to be witty in a certain self-absorbed, slightly cynical, urban sort of way. It’s not the book’s fault that I don’t much like that style. But I enjoyed reading it, and I was grateful for the diversion, and as terrible as this may sound, grateful for the reminder that just because a novel has lots of praise written in big letters on the cover doesn’t mean my life will have a huge hole if I never read it, or that I couldn’t write something better if I really put my mind to it. It’s oddly comforting.
6) I’m meeting Alisa for a walk around Kasumi and then okonomiyaki! (If the damn place is open...it was closed Friday night when I tried to go. Friday night!) That makes me happy, and also means that since it’s 4:45 and I am allowed to leave, I should do so.
No lyrics so I have to write more later. ^_^
Okay it’s later. Back to my list.
7) There’s a western-style toilet at 二中. My preference for western-style toilets should not be taken (entirely) as cultural prejudice. My left knee isn’t very strong and getting myself down and back up again to use the damn Japanese ones without making my knee cramp up is very awkward. And I feel like they’re designed for people a few notches smaller than me in any case. So when I saw that one of the stalls in the staff bathroom at 二中 has a western toilet – a western toilet with a soft light blue seat cover, no less – it made me inordinately happy.
8) 福島先生, the 国語 (“national language,” aka Japanese) teacher at 二中. I like her. I like all the teachers at 二中 (and 一中 for that matter), but I’ve had several conversations with her that have made me feel really good. Yesterday I was showing her my work on the short stories Adam and I are reading and she was really really impressed – she must have said 「すごい」(awesome/amazing) about twelve times as she looked through my vocab, heh. But better than that – today as I was leaving school I ran into her, and she asked me about class, and then she was saying that I should eat lunch with the students from time to time; I had asked the vice principal what I should do for lunch and he said eat in the staff room, so I didn’t question it. But she said it would be fine if I came and ate with the students. Then she asked if I had any interest in trying shodo. Finally! I’ve been waiting for someone to ask me that. I keep mentioning wanting to try shodo to people, apparently the wrong people: they tend to act vaguely interested, and say “oh, hmm, shodo, yeah, I don’t know how you’d go about doing that...” and then drop the subject. She said she does tea ceremony and she’d love to show me that too. Admittedly, I’ve never felt a strong pull toward tea ceremony, but I’d certainly give it a shot. And she’s the first person I’ve talked to who sounded inviting and enthusiastic about helping me get involved in more arts and extracurriculars and cultural things. (Not that other people have been un-inviting, it just hasn’t really come up.) She said everyone was really happy that I was so interested in Japanese culture and everyone is eager to help me participate in things. Yay! 本当に楽しみにしてるわね。
Okay it is (past) bedtime now. Goodnight!
posted by Ashila at 11:09 AM
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