11:24pm セミナーハウス
天気：雨天
Well, although the weather has been crappy, at least it’s warming up. The sakura are almost done, the blossoms are being exchanged for fresh, green foliage; it’s come to an end so fast. Now, a plethora of other flowers have started to make their appearance; the university especially is exploding with colour from a number of azalea varieties… In Speaking this morning, Saigo Sensei showed us a really funny website about the correct and incorrect ways of looking after babies; it was great. Then, we listened to a song by Hilcrhyme called 春夏秋冬 (Shunkashuutoo – lit. “Spring Summer Autumn Winter”). Soon after it started playing, I recognised it, having heard it many times in shops; it’s a nice song though very fast Japanese. After all the fun, we covered just one grammar point, now in the final chapter of doumo; last vocab quiz tomorrow. After that, I went to lunch with Kim, Nathan, Jo, and Sarah in the 3rd cafeteria, and we sat upstairs; I’d never been up there before and it was actually quite nice. Eventually we all got back to the CIE for our next classes; it was still raining heavily. Getting to the lounge, I spotted Rachel and Katie; they were sitting with four Japanese girls. This was the perfect opportunity for me to ask my questions about the Great Barrier Reef; two of the girls had even been to Australia. We talked together until class, and many good ideas were generated.
In religion, we talked some more about karma, merit, the two main types of Buddhism (Mahayana, and Hinayana Buddhism), and a concept called Upaya; sounds like a tasty fruit to me. Upaya (or Hoben, in Japanese) is actually a method or means, which might not make sense at the time, but helps to “push” people closer to Nirvana. Bodhisattvas (which are all around us according to Mahayana Buddhism) are the usual performers of Upaya. Bodhisattvas are beings who have gotten to Nirvana, but have decided to stick around to help out others. They are of a lower rank of Buddha, but still possess special abilities, like changing their form, and are basically here to help humans; the most prominent bodhisattvas in Japan are Kannon and Jizo. It really is quite fascinating how religions justify how everything works. Anyway, after that, I went down to the lounge with Julie, and spent the next couple of hours trying to do my Reading and Writing homework; they were questions that I would have trouble answering in English, let alone Japanese. Eventually, it came time to get ready for koto club, so I went to the student affairs office to get the key, then had a quick snack, before waiting for the others to arrive in the club room.
And I had to wait about 15 minutes until someone showed up; Maarika. We took the cleaning stuff down to the room, and waited for the others. Unfortunately, the others never showed up, so I decided we should just do the vacuuming, and that would be good enough. Then we got three koto set up (two for us, and one for the sensei), and then practiced together for a while. Sensei soon arrived, and we had a half an hour session with her; I am so glad she gave us breaks otherwise my feet would have died. We got through the first couple of pages of Miyabi (her playing the second koto, and us the first), which was very fulfilling; we have one last performance in two weeks, so we’re well on our way. At about 6:30, Mori Sempai arrived, and she got a one on one lesson for the next 30 minutes. Then they had a very long and deep conversation together about the struggle of life. It was interesting to listen to though, and I could pick up a few things; sensei speaks very fast. After she left, Midori sensei arrived, and we spent the last of the time talking, the three helping me with ideas for my Great Barrier Reef speech; we ended up getting onto politics, which is always fun. After packing up, we made our way home, and I went straight up for some dinner; yay for leftovers. I stayed in the kitchen for a little while, and then finally wrenched myself away to spend the rest of the night writing up my findings from my interviews today; glad it’s done…
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