: Right after
lunch today I am leaving for Toyama to see Scott,
: which means I
: dont have to go to church this weekend. *yay*
Hmm. A real bummer, I'm sure. Heh heh.
I am
: starting to miss my
: host famioly, though. I really feel at home with them, and I
: am getting
: tired of bouncing from family to family just because other
: people want to
: host me.This week wasnt bad, becuase I had my own room,
: Mrs Kondo has the
: english TV and lives VERY close to church, but I will be
: spending the night
: with a lady who doesnt speak english and I will sleep in her
: sitting room.
: I appreciate her hospitality, but I also feel like some sort
: of trophy that
: everyone is passing around, and I am getting a little fed up.
I know how you feel. My bell choir travels like that. We go to Chicago, and rather than
staying in one place, we move every single night. It's horribly annoying after only 1
week; I can't imagine doing it for six. (Then again, you don't have to move 5 octaves of
bells and 6 of handchimes, and all those dumb tables every night, either.)We never really
get to know anyone, and we've sure stayed in some interesting places! Once I stayed with
an elderly woman way up north, who obviously needed the company badly. She was a shut-in
in a ONE ROOM COTTAGE and she had intended to give me her bed, and she would sleep on the
floor. Of course, I slept on the floor. Another host family was younger, but they were
sportsmen. They lived on a beautiful ranch in the middle of nowhere, overlooking a lake.
It was like staying at a resort, until dinner time; when they served a dinner of turtle
soup, squirrel (I kid you not), bear steaks, and wild duck. There were no fruits, breads,
or vegetables to be seen. The heads of these animals were sitting on the table, and we had
to be careful to remove the buckshot from our bear steaks. Eeek. (But we were starving, so
we ate.)
Which is another problem with moving from host to host. One host doesn't realize that you
just ate lunch at 4 PM, and plans a huge dinner for you at 5:30 (before they ever meet
you), which you can't possibly eat, so you're starving by 9. Then the next day you eat
breakfast at 5 AM for some reason, and go to your next host who has already eaten lunch by
the time you arrive, so you have to wait for an 8 PM dinner. Obviously I have experienced
the woes of this many times. My choir now always travels with a lot of food, and plans our
itineraries so that a bare minimum of meals are planned with hosts. We've learned our
lesson.
: It is hard for me to even look at Reverend Kamanoi, becuase
: he NEVER listens
: to me!!!!
It doesn't sound like they make it terribly easy for you to do your job. I think, however,
that asking you things to which they already know the answer might be a cultural thing,
not just an attribute of the good reverend. (I'm guessing based on a lot of Japanese
students I knew at MSU.) Maybe it's impolite for them to tell you something the way it is, but
it's polite to ask and then only accept a certain reply. I have had several lab partners
who were like that. "Would you write up our titration results this weekend?" If
I said, 'No, I won't have time', the answer would be "Thank you, you will write the
report, and I will prepare the notes for the rest of the experiment." It used to
really piss me off.
These were also all males, and I thought perhaps they were being sexist. I never cared
enough to ask, though. Maybe I'm just being racist and assuming it's a cultural
difference, when in fact it's just that you and I have been priveleged to meet many
Japanese individuals with a similar habit. It's hard to say.
: Thank you for letting me vent. Some things about this trip
: are really cool,
: but it would be much better if they respected my
: professionalism and my need
: for a home base where I can retreat and feel comfortable.
If there's one thing that annoys me in life it's a basic lack of respect for what a person
is trying to accomplish. I wonder if they are used to having someone in that position who
just wants to be on vacation? It's almost as if they don't understand that you came there
to do the JOB, and that's what you're trying to do!
: IO have decided that I
: probably wont be taking any more six-week vacations without
: Jim. I really
: miss him. I have had the freedom to learn here that my
: marriage is really
: what I want, not just a thing I did to do, and that I have no basis of
: comparison for. (confusing, but I think you get it).
I'm amazed you were up for going in the first place. I think leaving Forest to go to a
foreign country would be rather like lopping off my left leg before running a marathon. I
guess you and Jim have been together longer, and are past that 'clinging' sort of thing
(Forest and I haven't gotten past *always* wanting to be together yet), but 6 weeks is a
LONG time. Still, I think it's cool that your time away crystalized your thinking on your
own motivations and such. It sounds as though it has strengthened your marriage!
When you left for Japan, I started to think 'Wow, it would be neat to go to Japan for 6
weeks,' but immediately said, 'Nah, I'd rather stay home.' I guess part of vacation for me
isn't just where I go, but who I'm with. :-)
: Did you know that Buddha has one thousand hands and eleven
: faces? I like
: that imagery. *smile*
That is pretty cool. Buddhism is neat because it's so creative in coming out of it's Hindi
roots. I'd love to take another class in both.
Thanks for writing me so often! I look forward to hearing from you soon!
Love,
Wendy
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Karen is so cool. I love having her as a pen pal.
There isn't much else going on, I'm afraid. Forest is standing in for one of the actors in my rehearsal tonight, which I think will be a lot of fun. I don't know exactly what's up with him, though. He is a little on the grumpy side today, and didn't leave work until almost 11 PM last night, because he was talking to his dad. I started to get a slight bit offended and take it personally earlier today, but I reminded myself that if I have patience the bad mood (or whatever it is I'm perceiving) will go away. And I'm sure it will. If something's really bothering him, he'll talk to me about it.
He's been chronically feeling down about his position in life, lately. He would like to be much farther along toward his goals, working days instead of nights and weekends, and certainly not in the same job he's had since he was 13. It's not that he cares what anyone else thinks; he is his own harshest critic, and just doesn't feel like he's gotten anywhere. I can't blame him for having those feelings (I've felt that way before, too), but I haven't been able to help put them into perspective, either. I have faith in him that he's going places, and I don't see anything wrong with where he is right now; but that's not relevant. Anyhow, I quietly suspect that this is still bringing him down a bit today. Maybe once he gets started at MSU in the spring he'll give himself a little bit of a break on this. It tears me up that he's so hard on himself.
I'm not sure what we're up to tonight after rehearsal. Maybe a movie, maybe a walk in the park. Last night Forest dashed in the door after 11 PM and impishly chased me out to the car, driving like mad to show me the moon-set. He said it was a spectacularly huge, orange crescent, and he really wanted me to see it. We were too late, but it's the thought that counts. We may go out and try to see it tonight.
Last night while we watched Lethal Weapon 2 I put together Kirstin's scrapbook. I think it will make a neat birthday gift. I put all sorts of cool camp photos in there, and all the letters she had saved that people had sent to her while she was gone. I also included photos from Laura's birthday, and our trip to Chicago. Mostly, though, I wanted to give her something to remind her of her first year at camp, because it was such a positive learning, growing experience for her.
