Genki

The first snow near me has fallen. So the ride to school is really beautiful. Only problem is, my eyes are watering so badly from the wind that I can't see the mountains. It is too difficult for me to look directly ahead to admire the view. Too bad.

Speaking of the weather, I am now suffering from the cold. I can see my breath, day and night. My fingers make condensation marks on the keys as I type. I have a hard time sleeping because my FEET are cold. The rest of my body is alright, not warm, but alright. But my feet sting because they are so cold and this makes it hard to fall asleep and to stay asleep. I have been wearing two pairs of socks to bed and long underwear plus flannel pjs. But this hasn't been enough. LAst night I even turned on the heater to warm my feet before atempting to go to bed, but it didn't help very much. I still had a terrible night's sleep, and when I got up in the morning, my feet were stinging and red. The shower was torture because the water felt like knives on my feet. It took an hour at school in the warmth before my feet returned to their normal color.

I also have trouble with my fingers. I can't find a decent pair of mittens. My fingers are very red and puffy after a ride to school. My koto lesson wasn't very successful because I couldn't move my fingers very well. It's going to be a long winter.

But I am still genki (happy, energetic) because I am still high from my weekend of English conversation. Plus I am getting to know my kid's name, which they really love. I have beeen making conversations with some of the students, and I have found that one key to my success has been knowing what's on TV. I always ask them what they are going to watch or have watched. I also became an instant star thanks to my dad having sent "Men in Black." The movie hasn't been released in Japan yet, though there have been ads for it since I moved to Japan. So it is super cool that I already have the video. Thanks Dad! Another thing that is keeping me genki is that Monday I will start to trade Print Club with my students (the stickers with my picture that I am always sending on my letters).

Another thing to be genki about is my kyoto-sensei (v princ). He called me Tues night from a store to let me know that he had found a rice cooker for 5,000 yen (I had asked about one ~one month ago). The price was right so he bought it. The next day at school he brought it out for me to look at. Then he spent an hour translating the instructions into English (this was not at my request). This was really great because his English isn't very good at all. It's so great that he would take the time and energy to do this for me out of the kindness of his heart. How anyone could not like this man is beyond me. (He also gave me some more food to take home- mochi, my favorite).

Now I would like to address oddities of Japan. First of all, toilet eticate. I have been told that Japanese don't like to hear the sound of people relieving themselves. I can understand that, because I am selfconscious about people hearing me go to the toilet, but I think this phobia can be taken to extremes. This became evident to me yesterday when one my my teachers was in the bathroom with me. From the moment she walked into the stall to the moment she left, the toilet was being flushed. She seriously must have flushed it 10 times. What a waste of water and energy! I suspect this was not because she was peeing so much that she was afraid the toilet was going to overflow.

Another oddity that I encounterd last night must not be a common thing anywhere in the world. I was biking to my koto lesson, and what should I find, but a truck that ws awfully slow, directly in front of me. This isn't odd, but the fact that there was a woodburning furnace/oven thing in the back of the truck struck me as odd. Not just because it was there, but because it had a small chimney and smoke was rising from it. That explained why I had thought I smelled a bonfire. I had, and it was in the furnace on the truck. Why the truck had a furnace and it was being used is beyond me. I can't imagine that it was powering the truck, though that would explain why it was so slow. Any ideas?

I think I 'll close with that. Let you ponder this for a while.

Valerie