Monthly Archives: August 2009

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soon and very soon

I’ll be going to Canada!
I can hardly believe that in less than a week, I’ll be “stateside!” again!
And today I finished many things that I needed to do before Monday. I finished my Japanese homework for Friday, I finished my lesson plans for Tim, the guy who’s substituting for me when I’m again, and I also finished my regular lesson plans for September, as the deadline for those plans is while I’m away, I needed to do them before)!
I feel good.
But now I kind of don’t know what to do with myself. My students didn’t show up for their class, and so I’ve had a lot of time to kill today. I wish I could have gone swimming.
But I studied a lot of Japanese today, so it’s okay. I want to study more, but I’m so tired!!!

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Cleaning Out the Closet

I am cleaning my apartment today, and I found this little prose I had written (unknown date):

***
The darkness stirs like a think heavy fog surrounding me. There is nothing but silence. I am all alone. I lean against the cold, stone wall. My feet are numb — it takes all of my energy to just stay warm.
Suddenly, a sound. Someone is walking towards me. I can faintly hear the clinking of keys on a chain. Is that a voice? Again, I can hear footsteps. Coming closer this time.
I get up, gently awaken my muscles from inaction and slowly make my way around the cell. I place my hands on the wall, more for balance than anything else and feel my way around the room. It’s a tiny room, dirt floors packed hard as stone, and three walls I could touch if I lay down and stretch out. As I feel my blind way around, I can hear voices murmuring. I get to the bars — thick, immovable bars — and I can see a light at the far end of the hall. I can barely squish the face through to see two shadows at the end of the hall. One walks away into the darkness and the other moves toward another cell. I can barely see the shrunken prisoner limping out. I imagine the joy that would be on his (her?) face.

***
And that’s as far as I got!

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Oops.

Today in my Jr. High class, I was helping the boys (two) have a conversation about their homes, and one of the questions on the worksheet was, “Where do you live?” One of the boys lives in a town called Shin-machi (meaning, new neighbourhood, literally), so the other boy had to write down his answer. But he wrote down “Sinmachi” (because of Japanese romaji, they often don’t write the H because on the computer they don’t need to type the H, so I guess they think they don’t need to write it. Oh, romaji can be irritating sometimes!).

I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to live in Sin-machi!

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Epiphany

From Genesis 1/church

All humans have a desire to create things (refer to the countless advancements in technology and science to the every day things like art, or love, or what have you!) just like God. He is the ultimate Creator, and we are made in His image.

Hmm, now when I say it, it doesn’t sound as exciting as when I first thought it. Sorry.

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Festivals

I hate festival days when I can’t go to the festival. Last night and tonight there is/was a festival (火の国祭り） and the streets are so crowded and the buses and trains run at different times, or it’s just way too crowded. I don’t like it. Hopefully one day I can attend the festival though! It looks like a lot of fun!

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Bus

This morning, I took the bus to work. I only had a sen yen bill on me (about 10 dollars) and I had to make change for the bus (there is a change machine on the bus). So at the stop before my stop, I went to make change at the front of the bus (it was full of other people!)

But the machine wouldn’t take my bill, so I asked the driver for help. He said he didn’t have another sen yen bill, so kept trying to put it through the machine. It wouldn’t work, so my other option was to buy a sen yen bus card, but suddenly the bus driver remembered (or saw?) that he had other sen yen bills.

So the entire bus was sitting and waiting for my change for at least a minute (which felt like a loooong time!) before it finally got sorted out.

The phrase, “sticks out like a sore thumb” comes to mind. @_@

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Sunday

Today, I was invited to go to a bbq with an ex-coworker (her mom needed her to work in her… store…?) in her hometown, Yatsushiro (actually, Izumi), with some of her family.

Of course I’d like to go!

I brought my bathing suit, but I didn’t feel like changing, so I just went swimming in my clothes. Oh gosh, the water was sooo cold, but it was so beautiful! The current was really strong, and I almost got swept away a couple times, but I finally got to dive! It has been about two years since I’ve been able to dive into fresh water like that! Wow, so wonderful.

And the food was delicious! Beef, veggies, and a mochi-cheese-potato thing that was heavenly!

So wonderful.

And now I want to go to buy ice cream and have some cake that I made! yum!