11:36pm セミナーハウス
天気：曇り
Well, it started off being a nice sunny day, but after noon the weather turned, and it was again cloudy and rainy; I’m kinda getting sick of it. Anyway, I slept in till about 9:30, before deciding it would be better to get up and be productive. I had breakfast, showered, and then studied, and did some of my reading for Religion. Although it was sunny, the walk to uni was still chilly, so the warmth of the CIE building was comforting. We had another speech in Speaking, and then ended up just revising for the rest of the lesson; test tomorrow! I made a quick dash to the convenience store, and snacked on some bread before going to Religion; met Katie and Rachael on the way back. We talked about the “this worldly” benefits as a central part of Shinto practice. People use お守り (Omamori – protection charms) and 絵馬 (ema - prayer boards), for things ranging from the mundane to the absurd. Commercialism has definitely crept into it, with Hello Kitty Omamori, and KFC ema! No joke, one year (the year of the rooster), a shrine came out with ema depicting Colonel Sanders holding a rooster with the three kanji characters next to him sounding out Kentucky ~ 健多喜 – Ken-ta-ki – lit. “Health and lots of happiness”; you have to give the priest who came up with it credit though.
There is even a shrine that uses panties as ema, and if you didn’t bring your own, you can buy them at the shrine; so crazy. This is linked with fertility and women’s health, especially concerning gynaecological issues. Another ema depicted 水子 (mizuko – aborted foetuses) being protected by one of the Bodhisattvas (can’t remember his name). These ema were actually addressed to the aborted foetuses, and where a way for people to apologise. And yet another ema at the Thomas Edison shrine (yes, Thomas Edison is a “god” in Shinto belief ~ he was deified for helping to set up electricity in Tokyo) that is primarily used for people to wish for success in exams, actually has the expression “genius is 1%, 99% perspiration written on it in Japanese; so cool. I’m actually thinking, as my assignment, to go around and photograph, and try to translate, a whole bunch of ema to see just what people wish/hope for; it would be pretty interesting I think. All the arrangements were finalised for the Fushimi Inari trip on Sunday, and hopefully I can drag Simon along. I asked him after class, and he said he would be interesting in coming, and possibly going to the flea markets afterwards; totally doable.
This was as Simon, Tomo and I were walking toward the bike shop on the main street that goes past the university, hoping to find Simon a new bike. Unfortunately, the bike shop was closed (on holiday), so that wasn’t happening. Put off, but still eager to buy a bike today, Simon decided to try for the shop in Makino. So he left, with Tomo in tow, while I decided to go do some grocery shopping; I was in need of a few things. I went to Fresco first since it was closer, and then went to Kirindo; yay for cheap stuff. Then I made my way back home, back through the uni; I thought it would be quicker that way. I made it home just as it started to pour with rain, and went straight to the kitchen to have some lunch; the golf was on TV, in Arizona! After lunch, I went back to my room and talked with my parents until it was time to go out again; Japanese-French exchange. When I got there (room 3401 of the CIE building), I was surprised at just how popular it was. Jacinthe, as teacher, went through a few really basic things, and then let us loose. French speakers partnered up with non-French speakers; it turned out that there were slightly more of the later. I ended up speaking with three French people (Hugo included) in the hour we had, I couldn’t help but to feel completely inadequate; starting a new language basically from scratch is damn hard. I mean, I did do French in primary school for three years, but that was a long time ago!
Anyway, it was a pretty fun experience, and I did pick up a few things; it’s just trying to retain it that’s the problem. I don’t know if I’m going to pursue this any further, especially since I am trying to focus on Japanese right now; but it’s something. Hugo seemed to appreciate it, and was very eager to teach; he was very patient with me too. That was finished by 7:30, so I made my way back home, in the cold of the night. When I got back, I spotted Simon in the computer room, and he told me the good news; a new bike that is apparently very sexy? We shall see… anyway, that means I can go get his old one register in my name now; we’ll be doing that on Saturday. After chatting with him, I went up to make dinner (yakisoba), and then sat around a talked for a while. At one point we reminisced about Fantasia, and Ash, Rachael, and I voiced “A Night on Bald Mountain”; that was a lot of fun. Not wanting to leave, but study beckoning, I went back down and got stuck into it; Hugo too. We were interrupted (but not in a bad way) firstly by Simon, who came in to show off his new plaid shirt, and then Marine (I think that’s her name), who came to steal some movies off Hugo’s external hard drive; he must have almost 50 on there. And then all the time suddenly disappeared, and it was time to get ready for bed. Fingers crossed I do okay tomorrow…
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