10:08pm セミナーハウス
天気：晴れ
I’ve just been practicing my presentation a bit more. Yes, I haven’t presented yet. Why, because all the other presenters today went overtime… I got to uni at 11:30 this morning, which gave me some time to eat lunch. I had katsudon from the cafeteria, which I hadn’t eaten in ages so I really enjoyed it; one of the last times I’ll be able to. After talking with Rachel and Julie for a bit, I got to class and after a bit of stuffing around, the presentations for underway. Well, the first guy talked about Japan’s fishing industry, and didn’t really address any problems; which was kind of the whole purpose. He ended up taking almost 15 minutes and remember, these are only supposed to be five minute presentations. So I was like okay, the others aren’t going to take that long; wrong. The other two ended up taking at least 10 minutes if not more, leaving me with no time to present. Saigo Sensei apologised and said I would be first up tomorrow; well, at least I won’t miss out again this way. When I told him my presentation was probably going to be long too, he advised me to shorten it, and I have done just that; culled the crap out of it. It’s still about 7 minutes, but that’s better than 10; it also means that I have less to remember, which is great.
After that, I sat around in class, waiting for religion to start. Today’s class was really interesting. We focused on 水子供養 (mizuko kuyo) or, memorial services for unborn babies; yes, they do this in Japan. Jizou is very much associated with this, being the main deity that cares for aborted or miscarried foetuses, and there are practices such as buying a Jizou statue at a temple and dressing it in hand-made clothes; as a representation of the unborn baby. The same can be said of Kannon (being a Mary-like figure in Japan), but to a much lesser extent. You can also address ema (vocative tablets) to the mizuko, expressing your apology. And if you think this kind of thing is odd, it gets better. Not only is Japan really big on memorial services for pets (they have many pet cemeteries), but such practices to show appreciation extend to dolls, rosaries, brushes, needles, and even termites!!! No joke, the professor showed us a memorial plaque which had written on it, “Termites, Rest in Peace”, in Japanese on it. Now, if you were an exterminator, this would be the right thing to do right?! It could be seen as pacifying the angry termite spirits, or showing gratitude towards them for providing business; sounds a bit weird, I know. I found the whole thing fascinating, although there is a limit to what is and isn’t a potential candidate for commemorating in such a fashion; it can’t be anything.
The trend seems to be that it has to be something that is important in a person’s life, such as calligraphy brushes, or sewing needles, which that person has potentially used for their welfare; they have transferred part of their soul into it. There are also services for trees, which I was happy to hear about but again, it can’t be just any old tree. We then talked more about abortion and the great debate in America (and certainly in other countries), pitting pro-choice against pro-life; it’s always interesting to hear people’s views, especially when they have come for a variety of different background. At the end of class, we got out 1000円 rebate for the Tenri field trip, and I joked it would be going straight to groceries. It’s actually not that funny, because that’s exactly where it did go; I went to Kirindo and Fresco straight after class. Getting back, I was soon off to the post office, sending my first box home. I opted to send it by boat, and it turned out to be surprisingly cheap; easily half as much as air travel. This made me very happy, and very relieved, so I purchased another box (only cost 200円) and got that packed up with the rest of my books and two jumpers; it’s quite heavy, but I think it’ll work out fine. I have another box to send too, but I’m thinking it’s going to cost less than 100 dollars all up, which is great; in total I’m sending about 15kgs of stuff home. I’ll get those sent off tomorrow, and then it’s done; I should see them again in a month or two.
I was very glad to get that all sorted, now I just have to worry about getting all the other stuff on the plane; I’m going to have to buy another bag… I spent the rest of the afternoon working on my reading and writing homework and writing kanji, and then went up for dinner at about 7. Earlier on, I had decided that I would just make scrambled eggs for dinner, but a better though came to mind; I would make French toast. Since I had never made it before, I asked Katie how, and found it surprisingly simple. I ended up making two slices of that, and then scrambled eggs with the rest of my eggs; it turned out to be a wonderful meal. I’m definitely making French toast more often now; so good!!! Tonight, Ash happily announced that see was an aunt; her older sister had her baby yesterday. I always find it strange when young people are aunts or uncles (I knew some in high school), but I guess that happens when there’s a huge age gap between you and your older siblings; 10 years, in Ash’s case. I stayed in the kitchen until about 8:30, and then practiced my presentation for a bit, and also got started on my field report; I got as far as the title page… Anyway, I’m going to have an early night tonight, and not just for my sake, but for Hugo’s also. He got back from Tokyo this morning, after being on the bus all night, so he’s very tired. Goodnight…
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