some thoughts from the last two weeks...

-Sun burn blisters hurt. Fever menthol strips help heal the burn quickly but also leave funny rectangular marks on your legs. yes moms, I went to the hospital!)

-Some of my students are entering a calligraphy contest. This is an art that the English language has mostly lost but one that is still rather popular here (and a required elementary school subject. Can you picture 10-20 kids with brushes and charcoal ink that stains hands, clothing and desks permanently?? They are responsible more of the time). They each have chosen a favorite thing, phrase or kanji to write. It is heart warming to read what they choose. Each one suits the child so well and the brush written kanji is so beautiful…here is the list:
1) 音楽　Music
2) 家族　Family
3) 友達　 Friend
4) 一球入魂 The first two kanji mean 1 ball(round thing). The last two mean to put all of your heart and soul into something. The phrase is popular with baseball pitchers since it implies putting all your might into one focused throw.
5) 野球　Baseball
6) 少年大使　Boys, be ambitious

-We had an interesting conversation in one of my 6th grade classes lunch period. The question was- what do you want to come back as in your next life? Out of 14 students, 11 chose to come back as themselves, with 3 of them specifying ‘just as I am now”. The other answers were a famous Japanese pitcher, a black hole and a Tasmanian devil. The homeroom teacher and I both chose animals (a bird and dolphin respectively). It was pleasing to hear the students indicate their happiness/confidence by answering that they preferred to simply come back as themselves. I had to wonder, since only the other teacher and myself chose something non-human (excluding the ‘devil’ child and the blackhole kid who was merely looking for laughs), if this was an indicator of adults holding a more cynical, ‘I wish I could have/would have’ outlook on life. Since we have been ourselves for a longer period of time, we might like to experience something else?? Good lunch time thinking…

-Starting to think about the fall garden…what to plant and where…the roughest part is just getting started. Once you start planting and digging, it is great to get dirty but the heat is so bad now (still a regular sunny 35C/95F everyday!) it is hard to be motivated. Our garden has really become a weed jungle (although amazingly there is still a huge harvest) and I managed to kill almost all the beautiful potted flowers on our porch. Without a twice daily watering they die in the blasting sun, and since school has started even just one watering is tough to find energy for. This fall I want to plant a second round of beans, broccoli, beets, daikon (J radish, if only because when you pull it up it has random shapes), onions, and spinach. I also want to get the porch plants replanted since it is looking sadly sparse. Maybe next weekend, since this one will be spent at Sports Day all day, both days, complete with drinking parties at night! I skipped basketball practice this afternoon to save my energy…

-We are no closer to any kind of decision about next year…there has been no new news on the job front and I think we are just ignoring the discussion until we have all the details…sorry…that is all I know…

-I finally broke a barrier at flower lessons. The women usually greet me and I converse with my teacher and the woman who introduced me into the group but the others just keep me at a distance. I am used to this and I enjoy lessons so much it didn’t really bother me. Over the last 6 months there has been a bit more conversation but in general they are comments about me, not to me. But last week, what finally broke the ice, was BEANS! They found out I don’t eat meat and they were fascinated by what I ate. So I gave my beans = love and health and happiness talk and they were enthralled. When it was time to leave, all two of the women could talk about was how next week they could come back and talk about beans/vegetarianism more!! WOOHOO!!! Nothing like a little meat of the field healthy living to break in a friendship! ;)