February Update

February has been an interesting month. Let's go through the major events:

-I gave myself a mini concussion by head-desking. [Not too long of a story on this one, actually. A student said something hilarious, I bent over laughing without realizing the desk was quite as close as it was.] That had me with a slight headache for about three days, and tired for five days.

-I had my interviews for re-contracting with JET, and heard that I got my second year. YES!

-Tea Ceremony is going beautifully.

-I had a week long cold that knocked the snot out of me. Literally. About 3 lungfuls of it. After just getting over the mini concussion thing, I was rather tired of being sick and tired, but what can you do~

-I have started "cooking lessons" with Okamura-san, which is basically I offered to help her chop vegetables one night when I was over for dinner, and since we have hand made gyoza (awesome stuff!), and made this chinese vegetable called "taasan", which looked like a cross between spinach and cabbage. Think a thick, dark-leafed cabbage with all the leaves shooting out to stand freely rather than wrapped around themselves. It is really helpful to see different tips for cooking various Japanese vegetables I don't see often in the States, and it's really nice to just be cooking with someone. Not to mention helping my cooking vocabulary, and talking about food is always awesome.

-I BOUGHT A KIMONO, OMG!!!! *dies* I. Am so broke.
BUT IT IS GORGEOUS. I'll upload pictures in a bit.

-I am going to be carrying tea at a large tea ceremony meet at a temple. I'm super excited!

So, basically, I feel like I have broken into the community here, and am being invited to all sorts of traditional events. I have seen ginei, (吟詠) or recitation of ancient poetry which sounds a lot like this, in person, and one of my friends sang one of the songs. (Actually, as I listen to this song, this is a lot more varied and musically involved than the ones I heard in person.) I am going to be playing koto on March 18th, and probably again in May when one of my friends will be accompanying the songs with traditional dance. I will be taking kimono-wearing lessons to learn how to wear the kimono I just got. It's very good for my Japanese, and it's also good to be making friends and learning about Japanese culture and joke around and eat good food.

Life's pretty awesome. Love you guys.

Mary out