June 22, 2009

I went to India with absolutely no expectations. I'm convinced that's the best way to travel. I'm amazed at the situations I encountered, the amount I grew, and all the people so full of love that became my friends. This has been one of the best experiences in my life.

I haven't written for the past month because I had fallen in love with Sadhana Forest. I highly recommend it to anyone who wants to have a life changing experience. To begin with, Sadhana Forest is a five-year-old project set to rebuild an almost extinct forest - the dry tropical evergreen forest - which is native to Sri Lanka and the south of India. The land in this part of Auroville was severely eroded when the project was started. Looked like the surface of Mars, with a tree here and there. It's so inspirational to see how green the land is already and to know that it's this way because of volunteers (a league that I became a part of and I'm so proud to think that I'm helping to push the project forward). The project isn't self-sustaining yet, because we only recently planted our garden - so we have to buy local produce. Sustainability is a main goal of Sadhana. Now, it takes me forever to go shopping because every item I pick up, I think about whether it promotes sustainability of the earth or not. I'm probably not much fun at parties because I talk about it way too much.

The daily schedule went as such: wake up around 5:30 (a person volunteers to wake everyone up by singing outside of their hut), 1st Work from 6:00 - 8:00, breakfast from 8:00 - 9:00, 2nd Work from 9:00 - 11:00, lunch at noon, dinner at 6:00. It was all really easy going. The other volunteers were fellow travelers from around the world, and all volunteers with special knowledge or talents were invited to have workshops throughout the week (I had a friendship bracelet making workshop). Good conversations were non-stop available. It was easy to make friends. Always easy to get away for a cup of iced coffee and a nutella crepe in Auroville. Weather was hot, but perfectly hot in my opinion. The positivity that was pumped out of this town and this project, I've never experienced before. It's seriously awe-inspiring. It was, if I'm remembering correctly, 150 rupees a day to stay there - which paid for three vegan meals a day. 150 rupees is, like, $3. So, you pay for your food, but housing is paid for by your volunteer work. We slept in huts, on mattresses and under mosquito nets. It was very open and airy and the nights were beautiful. Malaria isn't a problem in this area, so you don't have to worry about that. I learned how to live with germs. Now, I get weirded out by all the anti-bacterial things we have. I feel like they're counter-productive and just force super bacteria to produce. (See what I'm talking about - I get on these rants - you can't take me anywhere).

Now that I've returned, I haven't been experiencing the reverse culture shock I was expecting. Maybe it gets easier with each journey. When you return home from a life changing trip abroad, there's a conflict of identity. Identity is the collaboration of expectations all of your friends and family have of you. You are the roles that you play. When subtracted from your usual home, you have the opportunity to exist beyond expectations and it's an expectantly freeing feeling. You have the inkling that you're frolicking in a cloudy half-way real life, you encounter situations that are more entertaining, more romantic, more frightening, more inspirational than the best of films. I've had to ask myself, "Is this real? Am I in a dream?" and when I reassure myself I'm in reality - I don't know, it's just weird to realize life can be so amazing, so easily. I think this feeling of freedom from the usualities of life, creates a chronic traveler. I think I've developed into a chronic traveler.

I was just talking to an old friend from Portugal about her feelings after returning from a trip to Africa. She was feeling weird about not being able to follow a conversation with her friends because she felt like she vibrated at a different frequency. She's been studying to be a journalist, but now after a one week project helping children in Africa, she feels like her whole life has changed. Her desires and life plan have changed, and to be so easily changed scares her. It's a mix between a quarter-life crisis and reverse culture shock. About this quarter-life crisis plague of my generation - I have so many friends, like myself, that have graduated college and have no idea what they want to do with their lives. 'Married with children' is no longer the go-to lifestyle, but we're not exactly sure what to replace it with. It's a dangerously aged time to not know what to do with your life. I want to have an alternative lifestyle of living away from my credit score and the expectation of a house and kids. I would really enjoy finding a way to continue going around the world, helping out with meaningful projects and filling my elastic mind with new info.

I'm not exactly sure what do with the rest of my life. I'll have to leave that to a 'To be continued...' status. I can say with all certainty that I am the happiest I have ever been. Life continues to unfold itself to me to be absolutely gorgeous and profound. The whole thing blows me away sometimes. Even the crushingly sad times of death and hardship are strikingly profound and beautiful. About a third of my natural life is over with, and I couldn't be more happier with how it's played out. I just hope that I continue to do things that make me proud, and that I don't fall into a rut of possessions that make me forget about the true beauty of life and love.

May 04, 2009

I'd like to begin this with a birthday shout-out to my brother Mike. Happy day-before-your-17th-birthday!!! I'll get you a present when I get home because you'd probably prefer an X-Box, or something, instead of a piece of Indian Tribal Art. Am I right? Speaking of birthdays and art, I found myself at a birthday party last night for a one-year-old I didn't know. He was a bad conversationalist because of his limited three word vocabulary, so that was a little awkward. Also a little awkward was that everyone else there spoke French, which I have like a limited three word vocabulary of now. Manoj Dixit, good friend of the proud parents, took me there. Earlier in the morning Linda had introduced me to said Manoj. "He's like a second son to me," she said. I was itching to see art and he is a very talented artist. He very kindly took me about town to see his artwork - you can check it out online at http://www.paper-boat.com/ - there are some pieces that I would kill to have. His workaholic approach to it all has instilled a new work ethic in my own approach to art and writing. I had starting writing a book awhile back after that inspiring Warhol exhibit in Ecuador (some may remember that old post two years back of me dancing inside a giant soup can). I picked that work back up and I've really been chugging away at it. The book should be finished within this year and it's tentatively titled, "Woke Up This Morning To Find Myself Dead -or- A Ghost's Guide To The Art History Of Rock 'N Roll". I have always been a fan of long-winded titles. I think that's why I listen to artists like Morrissey (preferably with 'The Smiths') because he had songs with titles like, "That Joke Isn't Funny Anymore" and "We Hate It When Our Friends Become Successful". So far I am very proud of the novel and it's full of cool info on art, music and philosophy, so I hope you'll like it too. Keep your expectations in the sky and your ears to the ground.

I'm thinking of making a trip to the cemetery today. I found out that Woodrow Wilson's oldest daughter, Margaret, is buried here in Pondicherry. She found a book of Sri Aurobindo's in a New York library and was hooked on his ideas. Margaret moved to Pondicherry in the 1930s to study under him. She typed up some of his notes and washed his dishes. She wrote of her meditation here, “Sometimes I feel as if the Divine were whispering to my soul, and I, in order to catch the faintest word, am listening as I have never listened before.” She loved it so much here that she refused to leave when she began having the same kidney problems that killed her mother. She died in 1944 and is buried in the Protestant section of the cemetery. It seems wild to me that a presidential daughter is buried in this Indian nook. She wrote, "my soul brought me here where it belongs" which I think would be a fantastic memorial to stamp into her tombstone.

I kept putting off my trip to Auroville for the simple reason of not having a phone to call a taxi. Linda was going to call for me, but I would always remember to remind her far too late in the night. Anyway, problem solved. Mosquito net packed, flashlight charged, I'll be leaving tomorrow morning. There's a slight possibility that I'll be out of communication for the next two weeks, so keep your thoughts positive if you don't hear from me.

April 26, 2009

Vani's Masala Chai

Ingredients:
2 Cups Milk
Good Clean Water
A Whole Cardamom Seed
A Small Thumb of Ginger
1 Heaping Tablespoon Black tea

Boil about two cups of milk with a little less than a cup of water. Reduce heat and add a heaping tablespoon on any loose black tea. Crush the cardamom seed to smithereens and add it to the mixture. Do the same with half-inch thick piece of ginger (no need to remove the skin). Let it sit for a minute and pour through a strainer.

I am addicted to masala chai. Just totally, completely in love with it. While out to lunch the other day, I picked up a dozen cookies for my maid, Vani. She was so delighted by the small gesture that she taught me how to make this tea and then made me breakfast the next morning. I call Vani my maid because I'm not exactly sure how else to explain her. She looks after Kate and David's house when they're not here to make sure everything's in order, and she cooks for them when they are in India. She stops by three times a week to sweep the floors, etc., but I'm usually too shy to really strike up a conversation or ask her for anything. I'm grateful for this new tea knowledge she gave me (must bring her cookies more often). I'm going to make the tea with a little cinnamon and clove mixed in.

Linda and I went to a march and group meditation at the ashram on Friday for the anniversary of Mirra Richards coming to stay in Pondicherry, oh so many years ago. After the march, a band played and it was the most out of tune group in the history of bands. Linda warned me of it, but it still made me laugh. She asked, "How can everyone remain so serious for it?" I'm a sucker for out of tune musicians and bad dancers, though. It's endearing to me and I thought that the off key band was the perfect microcosm of India - all the instruments and fanfare are there, but nothing's played quite right. Linda said that when she came here 33 years ago, it was all villages with just a few cars and televisions. Suddenly, all of this new technology and this new way of living was just plopped down in their culture and they've had to deal with it. According to her, they're just doing the best they can with businesses and driving, etc. They're sort of in culture shock of themselves. Linda drove us back to our place on her little electric moped and we had to suddenly stop because this giant beast was in the road, eating garbage. "Is this some sort of cow?" I really didn't know. She told me it was a buffalo. A buffalo. It surprised me, for some reason. I guess I sort of thought buffaloes were on the edge of extinction, or something. It's also surprising to think that I was three feet away from this massive beast and not afraid in the least that it might eat me, or something. When in India, you just assume that everything's a vegetarian. That all animals are garbagetarians. The animals here - I can't believe I haven't mentioned all the animals here, yet. Animals share the road with the bikes, cars, buses, and walkers. The traffic is anarchy; everybody drives on whatever side of the road is convenient and pedestrians do not have the right away, so it's tough to cross the road sometimes, especially since there are no stop signs around. Animals definitely have the right of way, though. I hear that if you hit a cow, people will practically maul you. Back to the animals (most of which I've encountered on the streets), I've seen cows, buffaloes, goats, chickens, roosters, dogs, cats, big daunting crows with their green sheen and massive beaks, wall geckos that live in my bathroom, many bugs and one monkey that was just relaxing under a tree at the ashram paper factory. My walk anywhere is like a trip to the zoo.

As beautiful as it is in Pondicherry, I'm growing tired of the scenery. I should be going to Sadhana Forest in Auroville next week. Yesterday, I went back to the Savitri Bhavan hall in Auroville to listen to Professor Aravinda Basu share his memories of Sri Aurobindo. He was such a beautiful old man. Funny as old men usually are. As captivating as any old yogi must be. He smiled and nodded at me as he shuffled out the door. I wanted to put him in my pocket and take him home with me.

April 22, 2009

Happy Earth Day! I think the proper response is, "Everyday is Earth Day!" I'll be volunteering at Sadhana Forest in Auroville beginning next week and will probably be there for two weeks. Less if I hate it, more if I love it. It's going to be hot and I'll be sleeping in a hut, but I hope to learn some things about agriculture, alternative energy, veganism, or just about a group of weird, smelly strangers and how we interact. We'll see.

The temperature is in the 90's, with lows in the 80's. The nights are never cool, so I need to sleep with my tornado-like ceiling fan on, otherwise I wake up drenched in sweat. The temperature today at noon is 95 degrees. The heat hasn't been bothering me yet; I actually quite like it. Just need to remember to drink lots of water, walk in the shade, and spend midday indoors. If I'm out and about, I usually slip into a restaurant for coffee and an eclair, or something, and check my email. I've been here for about two weeks now and am just getting connected with the time zone. I used to wake up at 3:00 am every morning and just lie in bed thinking about all the love in my life until 5:30 (per my friend Jo's suggestion that I start each day with positive thoughts). It's still dark out, but the birds first begin to sing between 5:30 and 6:00. So, I would get up and stretch until 6:00 and start my day. Now I am naturally waking up around 6:00.

My days are remarkably easy. I spend most of them reading; some days I choose to not leave my house and I just read. My neighbors are very friendly and the neighborhood is beautiful. There are piles of garbage on the sides of the road, which in my opinion is better than litter everywhere. With the amount of trees and flowers everywhere, the wind smells like jasmine. There are no big industries here polluting the air. Everybody seems positive, which may not be true and may just be my mental reflection of the vibrant colors of the houses and the women's saris. Even the slummy tin and plywood houses are painted in beautiful colors. The walks I take go past very different views. I walk through poor areas with naked children playing and old men pissing in the gutter, and then a few minutes later am in the prim French area of beautiful houses. Then there's the seaside with the crashing waves throwing positive vibes into the air. The restaurants are all fairly clean and similar to what one would see in the States. Most people understand and speak some English, but I've picked up a few words in Tamil (hello, no, okay, enough, thanks). Women and children often come up to me in the street begging for money, usually while miming the action of eating. I have found that if I give to one, there is a tidal wave of others that come running up with their hands out for money. And if I don't give them anything, they will continue to beg, "Madame, madame..." and will follow me and even wait outside of stores while I shop. The beggars can be pretty severe. So, I have found that it is impossible for me to give to them all and I must walk past them all with no acknowledgment of their presence. Sometimes I pay them to sit for a picture. That seems to work out for both of us. I just need to pull out money and hand it over quickly, before a circus of begging begins.

Linda invites me to cool Ashram related things. The night before last, there was a French pianist that belongs to a related Ashram in Kerala, playing here. I don't know his name, or the exact pieces he played, but it was all Bach with a surprise at the end. The Bach was fantastic. I was barefoot on the same wood floor that his piano sat, so I pushed the soles of my feet on the floor and picked up the vibrations, with my excellent view of him, as he played. I think it's best to incorporate as many senses as possible when enjoying art. His theme for the night was "A Pilgrimage" and you could see how much work he put into the program as he explained the meaning of each selection. It was all really well done. At the end, he showed us how he's trying to translate traditional Indian music to the piano. The entire room - myself included - sang along with him to lyrics he created all about Sri Krishna. It was a really cool experience to be a part of - this Hindi chanting to classical piano - very cool. His talk got me to realize that the Ashram was full of pilgrims. Linda, whose husband left for two months in France, told me that her best friend is also leaving for her yearly six month return to France. It seems people, no matter how long they've been here, are constantly in transition or are a part of someone else's.

April 20, 2009

Happy Monday everyone, and happy birthday, big bro, Steve! This weekend Linda and I went to Auroville to listen to a speaker. Sraddhalu spoke on part of a poem called "Savitri" (Book 2, Canto 15). Linda said, "Oh, this guy," she was expecting Professor Aravinda Basu, one of the original ashramites that knew Sri Aurobindo (she had her dates wrong and he is speaking next week) "his mother was in the Ashram for 90 years." The guy, Indian decent, long hair, long beard, wonderful smile, read aloud the poem by Sri Aurobindo and after every line, he would stop and explain the meanings behind the words. A good deal of what he said was interesting, but try as I may, I found my mind wandering around to other things - the woman recording the event that looked remarkably like my head martial art instructor's wife, the man that walked in that looked like another teacher & friend of mine from behind (and I dared not look at his face, knowing it would break the illusion, until he spoke and I had to look), how if the guru cut his hair and shaved his beard he would not look like a guru and that's probably why he kept them on - for image's sake and being "in international demand" as the introducer had said (not to mention - what kind of purpose would all that hair serve in the heat of India?). Also, I'm left with a snapshot of the man, his face in complete horror, as he tipped the microphone onto himself while trying to itch his nose. At all other times, he played it mellow and cool, but for that one speck of a moment he showed how nervous he was to be speaking in front of these people. Then there was the woman with the heavy French accent that smiled an unnaturally large smile the whole time - did she smile like that at home when nobody was watching? It seemed so put on for the occasion. The children, oh the children, that were playing war, or something that required screaming and drumming, right outside and everyone tried to ignore it (because how can peaceful people get upset with children playing?) but it drowned out the mellow speaker and everyone was noticeably annoyed. Still with all the distraction, still, still, I picked up a few things said.

Sraddhalu held up two flowers in front of him - a big one directly in front of a small one - saying he could not know of the existence of the small until he understood the big one - became the big flower - then he would be able to see beyond his new self to the small flower beyond. There are so many things in our universe that we can not see because they are obscured by the things we can. Our overmind must find a way to vibrate to the same identity of the things around us to become aware of the hidden universe.

He said that there are three parts to us now - our physical self, our vital force and our mental force. I'm not sure where he went with that, but it got me thinking about how when a person dies, it is so confusing to us. Their body is there, the mind is questionable (what is mind anyway...), what is gone is the vital force. It's that pushing of energy that we relate to and need. We go through life with so much emphasis on the physical - face creams and outfits - as if it were the most important part of us, but once our vital force leaves, our bodies are discardable. So, I think that the main focus of meditation-centered religions is to find a way to strengthen our vital force. Likewise, I'd say western religions focus on the physical with all the rituals (think "body and blood of Christ") and the sense that after death you have to go somewhere - a heaven, a hell - since we're so attached to the idea of our selves needing to occupy a space. Then atheists, and the like, put their emphasis on the mental, only relating to the vital and physical in a scientific, fact-based sense.

The speaker also asked why we find things beautiful. Why is this flower, this painting, beautiful? It is because the flower is radiating from its vital force, some kind of meaning that we appreciate. It is the meaning hidden in the flower and the painting that we find beautiful. I suppose the more you try to understand in life, the more beauty you see in the world. Just looking at a ceramic piece or a painting, on top of the practical meaning, there is a connection to the colors that we, for some reason, find meaningful. I might be more attracted to a red and black piece, while you a blue and gold one, because we each relate to the saturation and vibrations differently. I don't know... beauty in meaning. It's something to think about especially when it comes to the people we find attractive.

I've needed a break from reading texts and biographies, so I've read two novels, also. "Drop City" by T.C. Boyle and "The Reader" by Berhard Schlink. I won't get into them now except to suggest that you read "The Reader" and not read "Drop City". Let me know if you've read either of them; I'd like to hear your opinions. I've started reading, "The Shipping News" by E.Annie Proulx, so let me know if you've read that one, too. I'm off for now! I think I'm going to create a walking tour for myself of all the streets with funny names: Captain Marius Xavier Street, Mulla Street, and L'ancien Hospital Street. You never know what you'll find around these corners.

April 15th, 2009

For the first few days I felt a bit overwhelmed, but I sort of wrapped the Bay of Bengal and the streets of Pondicherry around my shoulders and said, "Okay, you're going to be my home for awhile. Take care of me." Last night, between 9 & 10 pm, I went to the Ashram with Linda. Sri Aurobindo and Mirra Richards, known as "the Mother", are buried there and everybody goes around their graves - covered with gorgeous flowers and underneath enormous twisting tree branches - and everyone is silent. Everyone is meditating or praying or thinking, and the positive energy is amazing. I went once during the day and once during the night and I prefer the daytime - there are more people and therefore more positive energy. The nighttime felt almost mournful to me.

Vinod, one of my neighbors, had taken me to the Ashram the first time and to the dispensary where I picked up pills to prevent malaria (for about a penny). We then went to a Ganesh Temple where an elephant named Lakshmi took my offering of a few rupees into his trunk and then tapped me on the top of the head as a thank you blessing. That was really cool. He was totally chilled and peaceful. We walked around inside the temple and a priest put some ash in my outstretched hands. The ash is from some herbs or whatever burned as an offering, and you dip your finger in the ash and place a dot on your forehead between the eyes - your third eye. It was a holiday for Ganesh and the temple was crowded. Vinod and I went for coffee and back to his place where he, his maid, her son and I participated in our own little ceremony with Vinod's beautiful Ganesh statue. While we were gone the maid had undressed it from the fabric wrapped around it and washed it. During our ceremony, Vinod redressed it and placed out fruit as an offering. We did some chanting and flower tossing and then had lunch. Now, when it comes to these gods, it should be known that people are not worshiping the gods, but rather respecting what they stand for. For example, I'm staring at a statue that I think is Shiva, which , I'm pretty sure represents destruction. Around her, Kate & David have hung a beautiful necklace. It's not here because they think there is a big breasted, crown wearing god in the clouds, but as a way to acknowledge and respect the idea that things come to an end, that living things die, that difficulties are inevitable and are not necessarily bad and not necessarily good. We get it, we accept it and we can respect it. There's only one Hindu temple in Wisconsin and I went to it once for a class field trip. Our guide gave such a wonderful explanation of everything. In terms of the pantheon of gods that westerners usually look at with disdain, there is really an infinite number of gods, one god and no gods at the same time. I think this is an awesomely beautiful idea. There are an infinite number of gods in that every little thing alive and not alive - including us, this piece of fruit, this table, that dog, our ideas - they are all special and worthwhile and individually divine. Nothing is taken for granted. That is what that massive Hindu pantheon of gods is all about. It's just a way to show that every little thing is deserving of respect, even the seemingly negative things like destruction. Each god represents a different aspect of what is known in our world. Then there is only one god, in the aspect that everything is connected. There is some major thread of natural laws in our world that we all abide by. We all manifested from the same table of elements and my physical body can understand the physical ground it walks on because we share this ancient connection. I can look at the stars and understand them because the heavy metals in my body could only come from the center of an old blown up star (or so my astronomy teacher told me). So in that sense of connection and respect, there is only one god and every thing and every one is part of it. And going from that, since everything is equally divine, there is also no god. If every thing is sacred, the idea of 'god' is unnecessary and nearly meaningless. That's how I understand that tenant of Hinduism. Then those Vedic texts, written 3000 years ago and are still read, describe the interaction between gods - how do the different aspects in our life connect to one another and what are we to make of it? They give us insights of humanity looking in on itself and trying to understand what our role is in the bizarre adventure that is life. It's awesome to know that 3000 years ago people were already thinking about existential questions - why are we here, where do we go from here?

Pondicherry is a popular religious destination for Hindus that believe in Sri Aurobindo's teaching. An ashram is a spiritual community built around a guru, and the Sri Aurobindo Ashram is here. Trying to take advantage of the location I'm in, I've been reading his works. I don't know - do you want to hear about it? Probably not, but I'll write a little of what I've understood so far. Sri Aurobindo's take on Hinduism is that we've evolved from mammals that evolved reptiles and fish. If evolution is to make sense, it is illogical to think that it ends with the human. Humans are an evolution from other animals in that we have the intellectual capacity to inquire on existence and manipulate it to some degree. If evolution is to continue forward, he says, it should be that we become less animal and the divine spark that is our consciousness will be increased somehow. His idea of integral yoga, as far as I understand, is trying to become this evolution by putting ultimate mindfulness into keeping our bodies physically strong, our hearts knowing their connection to nature, and our minds continually learning and progressing knowledge.

Sri Aurobindo is an important figure in India's independence. He was a top of his class, well-educated man that believed India should be independent of British rule. Gandhi's ideas of boycotting British goods, etc. I think, timeline-wise came from Sri Aurobindo. The exception between the two was that Aurobindo believed violence, such as assassinations, were appropriate for the cause, and Gandhi believed in non-violence. From his leading of the Nationalist party, he was one of Britain's most wanted in India, so he fled to the French colony of Pondicherry where the British had no jurisdiction. It was here that he gave up his politiacl action and turned towards spiritual growth. He developed a following here and with the help of a French woman known as the Mother (think Mother Theresa) they started the Ashram here. They both lived out their days in Pondicherry and are buried in the Ashram.

The Mother and I share similar travel histories. Although she is from France and I the U.S., we've both lived in the Kyoto region of Japan and now Pondicherry, India. Also, in reading her biography (I have a ton of reading time now), we share similar ideas on things and craftiness - that gives me an affinity with her, although there are many things like her early dabbling in the occult that I find no connection to whatsoever. So - that's a bit about the ashram and the religion that is so central to this city.

This morning I had breakfast with Linda. We had dosas (rice flour and lentil crepes) and masala chai (tea). It was very very good. We've decided to get a taxi to Auroville for this Saturday. There should be a speaker there that knew Sri Aurobindo, although he's in poor health and may not get to speak. We will go to Auroville either way so I can get an introduction into that town. Linda says that I've acclimated quickly to the culture here and I must have had a bit of India already inside of me. I thought it took me a while to become comfortable, so that comment made me very happy.

I'm off for dinner now - wish me luck!

April 14, 2009

I found myself on a flight to India wondering why. Everybody here, and everyone back home asks, "Why India?" Frankly, I'm not totally sure. I sort of go where doors open these days. I spent the winter house-sitting and dog-sitting for Kate & David, a very nice couple that also own a place in India. Since I haven't really settled down anywhere I'm at that time when I can up and leave on new, big adventures every so often, and I really believe in taking advantage of that. Kate and David offered their place and their friends here and there was no way I could pass it up. Going back to the flight - the whole trip here - it was terrible. My car broke down halfway to O'Hare. My dad came to my rescue and I made it to the airport exactly two hours before my flight. The woman at the Air India ticket counter wrote me out a carbon copy ticket and said that my flight to Mumbai was now to Dehli, and from Dehli I would fly to Chennai. Okay. So the first flight from Chicago to Frankfurt, Germany was great. I sat next to a little Indian girl, whose parents were busy with two other kids, so I helped her unwrap meals and work the little TV and we chatted it up about Dora the Explorer. There was recessed mood lighting that changed colors during the flight. The food was relatively good. And then we got to Germany, where the man at the ticket counter told me the first lady was wrong and I was, indeed going to Mumbai. It was pretty confusing since half of the flight was lined up to go to Dehli and the lady seemed pretty adamant that I go to Dehli - I don't know - but he printed me out the final two tickets I required and that was all the reassurance I needed. The flight out of Germany was a little worse. It seemed the quality of the Air India flight always directly corresponded to the quality of the country. The food was bad and I felt motion sick and I tried to curl up in my little seat to sleep. I even stole the empty seat between me and another passenger - nothing helped to make me feel better. Feeling sick always makes me want to be at home in bed and being on a flight out to the furthest place I could be from home was disheartening at this point. When I got to Mumbai, I noticed my flight was pushed up like 17 hours, which was half good (it meant I didn't have to sleep in the airport) and half bad (it meant if there was a taxi scheduled to pick me up, I'd have to wait all day for it, and it'd be 2 am when I arrived). The Mumbai airport - oh my gosh - what a horse and pony show. The gate on our tickets ended up not being the gate we actually had to be at. Our flight was allegedly "boarding" for a few hours on the t.v. screens scattered about, but the people at the gate told us to "just wait, wait" with no explanation. Eventually our flight info just disappeared from the screens, never to return. The doors to the gate were left open and the place was swarming with mosquitoes. Finally, it must have been 2:00 or 3:00, they yelled for the Chennai people to get on the bus. Yeah, a bus. The gate was for a bus that brought us out to an old plane. The flight took two hours and I don't even want to talk about how lame it was. Once I got to Chennai, I couldn't find an ATM, and I couldn't find a bus terminal. So a pushy auto-rickshaw driver said he'd drive me to the bus. I said fine. Then he dropped me off at a street corner and said he'd stop the correct bus for $20, since all the bus destinations were written in unreadable Tamil. I find it's best in tense situations like this to pretend to be humored by it, so I laughed and told him that I should charge him $20 for the insult. Then he lowered it down to $10 and gave the argument that it wasn't much for me but would be a big help to him. I actually think that's a great short-term argument, but I didn't feel like being taken advantage of and I told him that. Nonetheless, I told him to stop the bus. He did and the driver let me know it was indeed headed to Pondicherry. I didn't have the energy at this point to ho-hum over morality, etc., so I just gave the auto-rickshaw driver the equivalent of $8, or so. The bus ride took 3 hours and I hopped off when I knew I was finally in the correct town and asked another auto-rickshaw driver to bring me to Kate & David's. He had to stop and ask directions. Then finally FINALLY I found my place and slept all day. It was really exhausting.

I had jet-lag for almost the first full week here. It took me a few days to really get the courage to leave the house on my own. I was totally overwhelmed by this place. My neighbor took me out to the grocery store and showed me around the streets (more on the crazy traffic later). Another neighbor just took me on a tour of the Ashram and a Temple to Ganesh (with an elephant that tapped me on the top of the head) today. I'll plan on stopping at the internet cafe again tomorrow to tell of how incredibly beautiful this place is... the Bay of Bengal, the serenity at the Ashram (and what it's all about), the slum houses and the beautiful French buildings. This town is littered with incredible vibrant colors.

April 5th, 2009

All my bags are packed and I'm ready to go... to India this time! I'll be leaving Tuesday, April 7th and arriving Thursday, April 9th. I'm planning on spending some time in Pondicherry, some time in Auroville, and a little bit of time traveling around the area. I'll be back in the States June 17th.

I found my old blog from Japan and I posted it here, without its pictures (unfortunately), and on top of the Ecuador blog - so sorry for the chronological confusion.

Semester Abroad in Japan (2005)

12/21/05

Early Sunday morning my two best friends in Japan, Angie and Sarah, left for their winter trip to Thailand. That was very sad, but immediately afterwards I got ready for the day and went to my Kempo club's last tournament of the season. It was a lot of fun. There were little kids walking around and competing in their bogu and it was so cute! If I ever have children, I'm pretty sure they're going to walk around my house in Kempo gear. It's so adorable, I can't get over it. The president of my club usually doesn't talk to me because he's so high my superior and he doesn't know English. Likewise, I don't usually talk to him because I don't really know Japanese and I'm so low his kohai, he really intimidates me. But at the tournament he introduced me to his children. The kids were shocked, "American?!?" I was a novelty item for a few minutes. The children practiced their English with me. It was awesome. I was really happy that the president introduced me to his family. The acknowledgement meant a lot to me. After 'my boys' had finished their competing, I went outside and helped sell food with the Kempo managers. It was super cold. That morning I had seen my first tiny flurry's of snow on the bus ride to the train station. Even though it was cold, I had a good time. I always find it funny to be an American selling Japanese food to the Japanese. They always look at me like, "What the hell?!?" before they order. Even when they order, they do it so sceptically as if they're on a hidden camera show. After the tournament completely ended (and the theme of it was "Kenpo Wars" and they played Star Wars music before and after... very funny, Mr. Ploetz would have loved it) Captain drove me home and told me he would bring me to the Harley Davidson shop in Osaka the next day so I could get my big brother a gift. I'm like, "you can just draw me a map" but he insisted. The next day I walked to the shop with Captain and Motokisan. If you'll remember Motokisan was the black belt who started off the semester with stomping his foot in front of me and declaring "I don't speak English." Then in the middle of the semester scolding me in Japanese for not speaking Japanese in Japan. After the middle episode I struggled to always speak Japanese to him even if my grammer was wrong. He really seemed to appreciate my attempts and in our last walk together on Monday he spoke in almost all English. It was a long walk, too. I was really impressed and proud of him. He told me that English is so difficult that he usually didn't even try to speak it, knowing he would get a lot of it wrong. I often feel the same way about Japanese. It was a really nice bonding moment between the two of us. And I told them again that they didn't need to walk me all the way there, and they told me that this would be a good memory. It was. That night the Kempo manager, and my best Japanese friend, Mary (Mairi) cooked dinner for me. By my request, she made sukiyaki. It was so good! And this is a meal where you dip your grilled food into raw egg. I love it. She gave me some gifts from the club and they were so sweet that I started crying. I'm happy Captain wasn't there. I hate when people see me cry. After I returned to my dorm that night I decided not to sleep. I finished packing and cleaning my room and stayed up all night with my friend Zach. Even though we both knew we wouldn't see eachother for at least another half-a-year, we didn't make it overly sad. He's got that ability to him. I think I was even laughing a little when I left him at 5:30 in the morning. At 6am, me and a group of three int'l students left the dorm. Our Russian classmate, Olga, was there to send us off. She was crying her eyes out, which in turn made me cry my eyes out. I hugged her and she kissed me on the cheek and told me she loves me, and I said the same back to her. I realized I really did love her; I love almost everyone there. Just like being in a belt test, we were all put into a unique situation together where we all spent all of our time together and depended on eachother to survive. It was bonding. So, anyway, we put all of our luggage into the taxi's and jetted off to the bus station in Hirakata-city. Then we loaded a bus for a two hour long trip to the airport. The bus was packed. There were even people sitting in the make-shift fold-out chairs in the aisles. Not a lot of fun. We got to the airport around 8am and waited around for a while. Our dorm-mate from South Africa joined up a few hours later. We said goodbye to her first and of course cried a little. Then we said goodbye to our friend Ellory from Minnesota around noon. Then it was just my two good friends from Vermont (Dillon and Jason) and myself waiting for the same flight for Chicago. They slept like bums on the airport chairs and I knitted. What a sorry looking group! We checked in our luggage and my bigger of two bags was about 7lbs too heavy. The woman at the counter told me to repack it so it was 7 pounds lighter, as if that were possible. So, I managed to take enough things out of it and put them in my other already bulging bags. Everything worked out, as it always does. Around 5pm, Mary and Yukina from my Kempo club came to the airport to send me off. They gave me some more great gifts, bought me a coffee from Starbucks, took some photos in the pilicula machine and finally walked me and my friends to our gate. They cried and I promised we'd be friends forever, I'd write them frequently, send them photos, wave to them from the plane and house them if and when they visited the States. Dillon, Jason and I boarded the plane just in time because Dillon and his bags were randomly searched at the last check-point. My seat just happened to be right in front of theirs on the plane. That was cool. I sat next to a man named Eric who was in the Air Force and returning home for the holidays. Very nice guy. I slept a little off and on in the plane. I watched "Cinderella Man" and "Must love dogs" and just the ending of "Polar Express". One of the radio stations played a bunch of songs from Bob Dylan's Starbucks CD. That was nice. The flight was about 12 hours long. When we got in the line for customs in Chicago, Dillon and Jason only had 20 minutes before their connecting flight boarded. The line moved super slow. It was torture. I felt terrible for them. Then they had to recheck their baggage, and Dillon's checked-in boken (is that how it's spelled?) ended up being in a different place because of its odd size. We said a quick goodbye in the customs line. They were trying to make me cry again so they said, "So this is goodbye. We'll probably never see eachother again." But you'll be happy to hear that I didn't cry. We became such good friends that I have no doubt that I'll visit them in Vermont or have them visit me here. Do doubt. Then as I exited my gates, I pulled out my dearly missed mobile phone and called my parents. They were close-by and they found me and we hugged. Then my little brothers walked up to me and if you know me you'll probably know how much I love my brothers, it was so good to see them, but I swallowed back my tears and hugged them and we journey-ed off to the car. My youngest brother's hair is so long now! I think it's longer than mine! I'm going to try to convince him to get dreadlocks. Give me time, it'll happen. And then I arrived home. I saw my older brother and he hugged me and I started crying. But I pretended I wasn't and he pretended I wasn't and I continued checking my e-mail at that time and he continued doing whatever else until I composed myself (this is the way the two of us work) and then we talked a little while watching the end of the Bucks' game. Amanda called me and welcomed me home. I was so tired, I'm not sure exactly what I said, so sorry Amanda if I rambled or cried or anything. And so here I am. I made a bowl of oatmeal and was able to read the package it was in. Life is good.

12/11/05 @ 02:13:23 am

Oh.... it's been so long. I've been quite busy with schoolwork and just going out and having fun that I haven't had time to catch up on my blog. I'll do my best to recapture what's happened recently. I visited an elementary school. It was really fun hanging out with the kids. We made oragami cranes and calligraphy, and we ate lunch with the kids. Worst food ever. We ate nato which is a spoiled bean, I think. It's so gross. It smells terrible, tastes rotten, and has the consistency of snot. Even after you've finished eating it, it's still stuck to your lips so every time you open your mouth to talk, a disgusting spiderweb of nato is there to remind you of the lunch horrors you've just encountered. This happened a month ago and it still makes me queasy.
Three weeks ago, a friend from high school came to visit me here. It was kinda wierd because we're not that good of friends. I think he knew that this would be his only opportunity to see Japan, so he took advantage of it. He came during a stressful time of the academic year, though. Finals were starting the week after he left, so I really needed to get a start on all the papers I needed to do. I tried to make the most out of his visit, though, and I think I did pretty good. He saw some amazing sites, but I don't know how much he appreciated them because he knows absolutely nothing about Japan. Maybe this will spark an interest to study more about the place. Regardless of all the difficulty, we still had fun when we went out together. He's always been a good friend to me and I appreciate all of his efforts.
Last week I pulled three all-nighters writing reports and studying for my Japanese tests. I haven't gotten my grades back yet so I don't know how I did. I don't expect to get a really good grade in my Japanese classes because those classes were so amazingly difficult. I've never studied so much for a class and done so poorly at it. A lot of people from my dorm have the same feeling, so I'm not alone in this. I moved into my friends, Angie and Sarah's, room. They're both from Milwaukee, so we have that Wisconsin bond. They are both staying for another semester, so we're having a tough time with me leaving soon. Oh, and this dorm has such a sad atmosphere now. People have already started leaving for their homes. Saying goodbye is so hard, especially when you know you will never see that person again. I'm trying to not talk about my leaving yet. Everytime I think about it, I start crying. I'm not sad about leaving Japan, I'm just sad about not seeing these people again. I just read an old Japanese poem that has been helping me. I can't remember it exactly, but to paraphrase, it said, "Why do I cry because you leave me? There was a time when we never knew eachother." It makes me think of the, "It's better to have loved and lost, than to never have loved at all." I had never believed that until now, actually, so I see that I must have changed. Being within myself, I can't see how I've changed, so it'll be interesting to see how I'm different when matched up against the expectations or perceptions people have of me when I return. I feel like in my mind there is an old wooden desk with stacks of papers on it; things I've read, movies I've seen, talks I've had with people, all these things that I have experienced but haven't labeled or filed away. So now I really need to start filing these thoughts away and deciding what I really feel about things. People will ask me about my thoughts about something and although I can refer to them to a good book or movie about the hypothetical idea, I would have to stop and think for a little while about how I really feel because I often don't find the necessity to have an opinion as long as I understand every side of the argument that I can. I've always had trouble saying that I definitly believe in one idea because I would have to find a reason why I don't believe in all the counter-arguements to that idea, and I can usually find reason in most counter-arguements so I'll just pick a floating ground incorportating everything. I don't know. Maybe it's time for me to find a solid stance on how I feel about things.

11/06/05 @ 10:46:17 am

I haven't written in a while because I've been busy with field trips and studying. I'm exhausted. So here's some things that happened in the past few weeks:

I went on a field trip with my architecture class to Kyoto JR Station and then the same zen monastery I went to the week before.

That night my friend Sunida and I went to a fire festival in the mountains of Kyoto. It was amazing. Families from the town walked up and down the streets carrying huge torches and continually chanted two words the entire night. There was one family that played a cool beat on the drum the entire night, also.

Last weekend I went to Hiroshima on a school trip to hear a speech given by a woman who was there the day it was bombed. She was 15 and only 600 meters away from the blast on her way to work. The story was horrific. I'll retell it when I get home. That was it for the school trip, then we were free to do whatever we wanted. Hiroshima is pretty far away from where I live so we took the Shinkansen (bullet train) there and back. That was my first time on a Shinkansen. It was really expensive; $95 one way. The inside of the train reminded me of an airplane, though. There were even stewardesses that walked up and down the aisles with food trays. Enough about the Shinkansen. The A-bomb dome is one of the only buildings left standing after the blast and they decided to keep it up as a memorial. There are pictures below of a model of the city before and after the bomb. I felt like I was in a movie when I walked past the dome. It felt too beautiful to be real. There are a few statues in Hiroshima, and they are all covered with paper cranes as you can see in the photo below.

After Hiroshima, my friends and I went to Miyajima to see the famous torii in the water. It was dark when we finally arrived, but very beautiful. Just like Nara, there were lots of deer here. The whole day was one of my favorites while in Japan. And since I've been in Japan, my English sentences just keep getting more elementary. And I have a terrible time spelling now, too.

Some of you might know that I have a huge crush on Thom Yorke, the lead singer of Radiohead. Big, big crush for many, many years. Anyway... this guy on the bus reminded me of a Japanese Thom Yorke. Enjoy.

10/16/05 @ 12:38:31 pm

So, I had midterms last week and didn't get much sleep. Luckily I didn't have Nippon Kempo Wednesday or Thursday so I had time to study. I had four different sections to my Japanese midterms. I got my grade back from my Spoken Japanese oral exam and written exam, and I had gotten an 85%. I'm okay with that. I don't feel like I did very well on my reading/writing exams, especially the reading section. I had to read a dialouge that I hadn't been practicing and I forgot kanji and stumbled my way through it. How nervewracking. I had a lot of fun at Nippon Kempo on Friday. I learned some blocking techniques and practiced them while sparring. After club I went to Mary's (actually spelled Mairi)apartment with one of the other club managers named Ayakasan, and Captain. Mary made us a Japanese dish called Oden, which was very good but full of very strange looking animals. I ate something that looked like a white, 6-inch spongy tube with tenticles on it - and it was delicious! Captain left to go to his part-time job and us girls stayed up all night and talked. Mary said that I am becoming such a good friend to the club that everybody will cry when I leave. "Except Igakisan. He won't understand. He'll just say 'why is everyone crying?' He can be a bit cold." I thought the whole elaborate explanation she gave me of who would and wouldn't cry and why, was so endearing. It made me feel really loved, though. I think I finally fell asleep around 3am, then got woken up around 5am by someone tapping on my pillow. "Ohio gozaimasu...ohio...ohio gozaimasu." It was Captain. So I stayed up listening to him talk to everyone until I had to go at 6:30am to meet my class at the train station for a field trip. We vistited zen rock gardens. They were incredible. Much more beautiful than the temples we've been seeing. There are four elements a garden has to have to be a zen garden: water, rock, plantlife, and man-made architecture. Water is usually represented through sand, and the man-made architecture is usually where you sit to get the view the designer had intended the viewer to see. After the zen gardens, two other students, myself, and my teacher stuck around in Kyoto and ate at a rotating sushi place. I heart sushi. Next we went to the Kyoto Art Museum. There was a fantastic special exhibit ending that day that we got to see. There are three scenes of Japan that were often painted and the museum was exhibiting different paintings of these three scenes. Truely beautiful pieces. There were large painted divider screens, with intricate drawings of a whole town of people on them. Each person had a different emotion to them and different clothes. You could see each little piece of food in each little bowl on the screen. It was better than television. It had rained the whole day, and I was exhasted from walking in my flip-flops with almost no sleep. So we headed home and I finally got a good night's rest. The phone woke me up this morning. It was my mom. It's always really nice to hear from her. I got to talk to her and my little brothers. I can't wait to see the new kitten that moved in with our family. The pictures my family sent me of it are adorable, and aparently it's really spunky. Tomorrow I only have two classes. Then, on Tuesday, I have my last midterm in Japanese Buddhism. I've got to do a lot of reading for that test, but it should be easy.

10/09/05 @ 02:26:44 pm

On Friday I went to a Takoyaki party at my school. Takoyaki is Osaka's famous food. It's like a bread ball with octopus and spring onion in it. It's okay.

Today, Sunday, I went to a watch my Nippon Kempo guys compete in a tournament. They didn't place, but it was still fun to watch. I always get really nervous at tournaments, and even though I wasn't participating I was almost sick to my stomach from nerves. I feel like I really became part of the group today. I tried my hardest to speak Japanese whenever I could, and the girls (the club managers) tried to speak as much English as they could. One of them, Mary, is fluent in English, so she always ends up being an interpretor.

I asked her what the guys thought of me, because I can see them get frustrated when we can't communicate, but she said that we all try the best we can to speak both languages and since I show up to every class and smile a lot, it shows good character and they like me for that. That made me really happy. Everybody was super, super nice today. One of the black belts, Motokisan, ranted at me in Japanese this morning though. Mary interpreted it to me as, "You are in Japan, you must speak Japanese!" But later, he watched me try to teach him how to use my camera, but in Japanese, and even though I got a lot of words wrong, he seemed satisfied at the attempt. It makes me want to study harder. Memorizing Japanese names is difficult for me. It's like learning new vocabulary. So, today, I got down everyone's name in the club. It's tough: 'Oga, Motoki, Igaki, Kame, Yuki, Ayaka...' Tottemo muzokashi (very difficutl)! So I had a great weekend. I have tomorrow off of school, and midterms this week. I think I'm going to go to bed tonight instead of studying (which I haven't done at all this weekend) and commit all of tomorrow to studying. Good luck, huh.

On the left is Motokisan getting his hands wrapped. This is my favorite part of putting on the bogu. It's too bad you can't see the cool wrap job after the gloves are put on. To his right is Igakisan.

So this is what I wear to spar during every class. I have grown to like the gear.

Instead of shaking hands and bowing, like we do, in Nippon Kempo the competitors squat down like this and touch the ground with their right glove, then get up quick and fight.

Here is Kamechan. What a cutie, huh? In the next photo, Kohisan is to Kame's right. Kame is a white belt and Kohi is the only brown belt in the club. Kame lost his first fight and later I was asking him how he was. He said, "I feel regret." I wish I could have hugged him, but I don't think public affection is accepted by the Japanese.

Here's Igakisan on the train ride home. He's very tall and I have a very hard time fighting him. I think he's a Ni Dan black belt, so maybe his years of experience have something to do with it. Both him and Kamechan made sure I got home safely. I think I'm starting to become attached to these guys.

Yesterday I could sit in seiza without it being unbearably painful. The day before, I went up to the Nippon Kempo club room ( a "closet" as I like to call it) and the guys there said we were starting practice later, so I could relax there. So I got out my Japanese homework and Captain helped me with it for a hour or so. That was so sweet! And he was laughing at some of the things they make us write in Japanese like, "Mr. Tanaka is a bad person because he lies and doesn't keep promises." That was seriously a sentence. I wonder what kind of sentences they get in elementary English. Everytime I would get a sentence or word correct, Captain would say "Exactly!" The way he said it put a huge grin on my face everytime. He is so good at English and he was speaking fluently. And when he got stuck on a word or an idea he would look it up in his dictionary. I really appreciated the effort. And he talked earnestly to me about how he feels about China (he doesn't like China because of what they did to Japan in the last war - he stopped because it was too difficult for him to explain in English), foriegn teachers (they are rude), Hirakata (boring), etc. I told him he doesn't like a lot of things, and that's okay as long as he likes me. He said he did, and later on we were walking through the hallway to our dojo and he whispers to me, "I hate those jackets..." as we walk past a group of girls in matching red jackets. I asked him why and he said, "I just do ... but I like you." And earlier, I had made a joke and he turned to his friend and I think he said I was great, in Japanese. He's so kind. I was expecting him to be mean to me because I'm a gaijin. I think I may have gotten closer to becoming his friend. He even patted me on the shoulder when I left. That's a big deal. Japanese people don't touch eachother unless they're really close. When I squeeze my way out of the Kempo "closet" to change, I'll put my hand on some of the guys backs and say "gomenazai" and I see them jump from my touch or they'll have a shocked look on their face, and I remember: do not touch Japanese people. My Japanese friend was confused about a girl because she hugged him and held his hand one night. He said that only girlfriends and boyfriends hold hands. He was really upset that she wasn't returning his e-mails right away and she was talking to other people. I told him that holding hands or hugging is just what foreign girls do with anybody and it doesn't mean anything. And it was true, she didn't like him. He was flabbergasted. An important lesson was learned by all.

10/03/05 @ 04:11:08 am

Okay, I'm trying to think back to what I did since I last wrote. I sparred the Judo Captain in my Kempo class last Wednesday. He was huuuuge! Well, he seemed huge when I was fighting him, but he was probably about the height of Troy with a little less muscle mass than Austin. I felt like I was in a movie because I kept punching him as hard as I could and he just stood there, without blocking, without flinching, just standing there and looking down on me. He got in some punches on me but he didn't go overboard, and he swept me a few times. I was thinking there was nothing I could do to this guy. At one point he had both of his forearms up in front of his face and he was standing at a bit of an angle, so I took a small hop forward and to his side, and I hook punched around his arms and into his face mask as hard as I could. His head bounched back and I thought that maybe I had punched too hard. We spar for the last hour or hour and a half of every class. So after all the sparring was done, we were taking off our gear and relaxing, and I saw my Captain and the Judo Captain talking in Japanese and mimicking punches and sparring, then they laughed and looked at me. I'm thinking, "Oh no, what have I done?" Then my captain said, "That was a nice hook punch" and the other captain was nodding. I was so happy! On Friday, Captain's teacher led class. The Kempo club is small and most of the members are black belts, so I really don't know the different ranks between them, but Captain came up to me and pointed at the guy and said, "He is my coach". So I think I'm supposed to call him Coach. Anyway, I got a lot of attention and great Kempo advice from him. So now I know a lot of things I need to work on while I'm here to modify my Karate/Tae Kwon Do habits into Osaka Nippon Kempo technique. One day, before class, I had brought my friend Jason with to the club room. It's really more like a closet with a playstation and Kempo gear. Jason and I were stuck in the back of the room when all the guys were in there, and they started changing. These guys will undress all the way down to their boxers in front of me when they change in and out of their gi's. This time I asked, "Should I leave while you change?" and they couldn't understand my English, so I got all giggly and Jason said, "It's not important. Daijobu desu (it's okay)." I looked at Jason and said, "Best club ever" and finished watching them dress. Instead of working out this day, they played volleyball and kickball with other clubs to "improve relationships" as Captain told me. I really dislike kickball so I told them that I would go home and see them tomorrow. I still wonder what they think of me.

Saturday I went on a class field trip to Todaiji temple in Nara.

This is the place with the giant buddha, or "Daibutsu". It was pretty amazing.

This is a photo of my teacher standing next to one of the original lotus petals that the Daibutsu sits on, so if you can imagine that as a scale for the how big the Daibutsu is, it's pretty huge. Every year, priests don white clothes and climb all over the Daibutsu to clean buckets of dust off of it; I've seen a picture of that and that really shows how big the Buddha is. There were a lot of large statues there, though, and I was most impressed with the guardian figures in the first gate.

They were huge and evil looking. They are there to keep the evil spirits out. Almost all temples have these figures and they range in size and sometimes in style, but one will always have its mouth open, the other has its mouth closed. The "ah" sound one would make with its open mouth and the "mn" sound the one with the closed mouth would make create the Japanese idea equivilent of "alpha" and "omega" - the beginning and end, so essentially eternity (the Japanese phoentic system begins with 'a' and ends with 'n'). I have a 5 page paper due in my archetecture class about a structure on the temple grounds, and I think I'm going to do it on this main gate, because it has a lot of interesting qualities. The paper is due in 8 days, so I have to get a start on it soon. I have actually decided to skip the Seidokaikan Karate Circle today and work on homework. I have never actually made it to one of their meetings and I feel bad about it. Last week there was an event going on at school with some of the street dance teams here dancing, so I decided to miss Karate for that. There is a lot of juggling between clubs and homework and having fun with friends that I have to do. But I have realized that I can't do everything all the time, so I don't get upset for choosing one thing - like seeing a cultural event, over another - practicing a martial art. Time here is precious.

After the Todaiji field trip ended on Saturday, I went to the Nara Historical Musuem. There were a few nice pieces of sculpture there, but for the most part it was boring. My favorite part was the special exhibit of reproductions of Tang Dynasty Chinese stuff. I can't remember how they classified "stuff" but it ranged from Chinese instruments to ceramic-wear and engraved epitaphs. Whenever I hear the Chinese language or I see Chinese "stuff", I feel like a piece of me is at home, for some reason. Sometime in the future I need to spend some time in China and see how I like it. After the museum, I still had some daylight left, so I walked around Nara Park. Oh, I can't believe I forgot to talk about the deer so far! In Nara there are thousands (so I've heard) of tame dear. They're everywhere. They walk around the temple grounds, they cross the streets with the people - they're everywhere! It's amazing. They are supposed to be famous for bowing when you feed them, but from what I've seen, they just nod their heads when you gesture them to before you feed them special deer food that is sold everywhere. The deer like to hang around places where they know people can buy the food. I hear that if you don't have any food left, they can get angry. They can also eat anything. My teacher said that he saw a deer eat a girl's notebook including the metal spiral binding.

Then, after the park, I was heading home and I walked past a park with people lighting candles. The candles were in in frosted white cups so they gave a nice, safe glow. There were a lot of these candles, mostly around the trees and lining a pathway. From what I gathered, this was to commemorate a fire that happened in this area during an earthquake. This was my third trip to Nara, and I really love it.

Yesterday (Sunday), I slept in and my mom called my room. It is always really nice to talk to her. The past few days I have been having a slight sense of homesickness. It's because at home I feel in control of everything and the schoolwork is easier. Here I have tests every few days and not knowing the language well enough, I don't have as much control over situations as I would like. I can't read the signs posted everywhere. I'm illiterate to a great degree and it's strange to have the feeling of not knowing what's going on. My days are also really busy, which I've always rather enjoyed. I take a multivitamin every morning then I go to school and I don't get back home from the clubs until 7:30 or 8pm. Then I have dinner. A lot of times people are already cooking for me (my dorm is full of incredible people). So dinner ends around 10pm and then I'll check my e-mail and the messageboard, and then I start on my homework around midnight everynight. I don't get a lot of sleep. My roommate and I are perfect for eachother. We get along really well and we usually go to bed around the same time every morning. Even when we go to bed, we'll stay up and talk and sometimes she'll even sing me to sleep.

09/25/05 @ 12:51:16 pm

On Thursday I went to Karaoke for the first time. That was alright. Afterwords I saw candy bars at a convenience store that I thought were funny because they're called "Crunky".

I ventured to Nara on Saturday and came across a big pond full of turtles. People were throwing bread into the water, so there's no doubt that the turtles have trained themselves to swarm to the people on the edges of the pond. There are also hundreds of tame deer that roam around the parks of Nara. I was thisclose to a deer. That was cool. I went to Kohfukuji Temple right before the sun set. The buildings were glowing from the ground lights shining on them. It was beautiful. There were hardly any people there and I went into one of the temples with the Buddhist statues and carvings and I was just allowed to sit there inside the temple in the dim light of dusk. The bronze and wood statues were also lit by ground lights and the smell of incense was still in the air. I was very relaxed, and I had gone there alone, so I had all the time I could want to just sit there and enjoy the moment. Here are some photos from the day:

Then today I went to a flea market in Kyoto with a few friends. This flea market is held the 25th of every month. There were booths that stretched all around a temple (which I'll talk about some other time- it has a really cool history). It was alright. It was cool to see some of the antiques people were selling (like swords), but I didn't like how crowded it was and I really needed to get out of there after a few hours.

09/20/05 @ 01:35:56 pm

Sorry I haven't written for a while, but I've been so busy with my studies and going out that I haven't had the energy to write. So hmmm... what's happened in the last week? White pants, dancing with salary men, joining at least three clubs, super-chunky peanut butter, seeing kempo guys in their boxers, and being here for officially one month. Not all in that order. Oh, and Talk Like a Pirate day fell in there, too. Arrrrrrgh! I'll start with the super-chunky peanut butter as it's clearly the most exciting topic of those mentioned. My friend Ellery found a Costco in a nearby town that sold American food, and he got an amazingly large tub of Skippy super-chunky peanut butter. He let me scoop out a big finger-full of it. He said he's never seen me so happy. Peanut butter is a hot commodity here, not to mention the super-chunky variety, which just happens to be my favorite. Seriously, more exciting things have happened, so I'll move on.

Like I said I've joined at least three clubs. It's really two clubs, a circle, and I'm looking into when the Salsa club meets. I've joined the Seidokaikan Karate circle, which I'll only go to on Monday afternoons. These people are really friendly, and they've been e-mailing me up a storm about when the circle meets and how they're excited to see me. I've only met these people once and I didn't even work out with them. I was just walking past the club building when I saw them working out through the window. So I stopped in their room and watched. Afterwards, I took advantage of the heavy bag in the room and worked on some kicks and punches. Someone in the group asked me if I taught Karate back home because my kicks looked really good. The Japanese have a habit of making up compliments that aren't really true like, "Your Japanese is really good" when you've only said konnichiwa. And how could I not join the circle after that? I talked to the people about their circle, and the structure reminds me much of our club. There's no fee to join and they are very welcoming.

I have joined the Japanese Sign Language Club and have been going to it for the past two Wednesdays. It is so otherworldly to be in a room where the teacher is only signing to us and we're only signing back. The silence is absolutely beautiful. The Japanese Sign Language really gives me an insight into what the Japanese feel about things because most of the signs originated as gestures. Example after example, I see what a subordinate role women play here. In kanji, the character for "noisy" is three of the woman radical, the sign for "cheap/inexpensive" is a woman under a roof; in Japanese Sign Language, the sign for woman is also the sign for sex; and we'll see the different roles women and men play in the most recent club I've joined in just a bit.

I joined the Nippon Kempo Club. I 'heart' Nippon Kempo. There are only 8 other members and they are all guys. Their English is minimal, as is my Japanese. The club has a few managers that are all women, and they do all the laundry, they dress us in our bogu, and they bring us water and even place the straws in our mouths when we're in a rest from sparring because we're wearing small boxing gloves and masks and can't grab the bottles ourselves. If you google 'nippon kempo' you can see a few pictures of the gear and what the art is all about. I've noticed there are shoes out there for this art, but my club doesn't wear any protection on their feet or shins. It hurts to kick the chest protecters! It looks pretty intimidating, and I feel like a samurai once I'm dressed in all of the gear. The club meets Tuesday through Friday 5pm-7pm, but they seem pretty lenient about starting late or leaving early. They seem easy-going about everything in the club, in fact. They will work on things then talk for a while and kick a heavy bag, or something, then work on some drills, then go through the lengthy process of putting on our sparring gear, then spar, then get undressed from our bogu (bogi?) and walk around for a bit or do push-ups and sit-ups, then have our formal ending - which is really cool. Here's how is was today: in the back row was a brown belt, next to him a white belt, next to him was myself, then the managers next to me. In front of the brown belt was a black belt. In front of the black belt was a higher ranking black belt, who we call "Captain". We sat down in the seiza position and meditated for a while. Then we bowed. Then Captian turned around to face the class, still in his seiza pose and spoke. I have no idea what he said. Then we bowed, and the other black belt turned around and spoke, then we gave a final bow, stood up, and that was class. I got to wear white gi pants for the first time. White gi pants with the reinforced knees! I've always wanted to wear a pair of these training. The guys in the club were really nice to me, which I wasn't expecting because I'm a gaijin girl. I had that Sesame Street song 'One of these things just doesn't belong here' in my head when I was looking at all of us in the mirror. At the beginning of class, it was just myself and the two black belts. They taught me the fighting stance and I guess our equivalent of the back fist, reverse punch, rear leg push kick. I was kicking the lower-ranking black belt in his chest protector, and he kept correcting me. I think I had gotten it, and he called over the higher ranking black belt to put on his chest protector and let me kick him. After I did that, they looked at eachother, nodded, smiled, and said "very good". We can't understand eachother, so I have to rely on their body language and I become really happy when they looked satisfied with what I do. One of the black belts seemed sceptical of me at first, but the more he trained me, the more he would smile and say "very good". When I was walking to our club room to pick up an extra dogu for myself, the manager who could speak fairly good English said to me, "He said to me that your stance is beautiful." That made me happy. After a few rounds of sparring (2 minute rounds, rotating out one turn after two turns), Captain pointed at me and said to the other black belt "strong". I couldn't believe that. Then Captain said to me, at the end of class, "Very good. You have a sense. Very soon." I don't know what that meant, but by his tone I think it was a good thing. Later on, I walked into the Nippon Kempo Club/storage room and all the guys were in there undressing down to their boxers. They didn't stop when I entered either. Best club ever.

I went dancing on Saturday with some of my friends. Here's a picture of all of us, save for my roommate, who's taking the picture:

That was a lot of fun. We got to the club between 11:00 and midnight and since the trains stop running 11:00pm and don't start up until 5am, we had to stay out all night. So I danced until 7am. Mr. LaRosa would be so proud.

09/11/05 @ 01:55:33 am

Here are some pictures from my trip to the Horyuji temple in Nara,yesterday:
These characters say "Horyuji" (ji means temple).

This sculpture is a guardian on the central entrance to the place. There were two of these sculptures and they're there to ward off evil spirits.

Here is a latern still outside of the temple.

Here are the three main buildings once you walk past the central entrance. The one on the right is the 5-story pagoda which housed an unbaked clay man-made grotto with a different scene in each direction, the building on the left is the main hall. It housed a few different sculptures of boddhisattvas and Buddha. In the back of the photo is the central entrance. In the opposite direction of this photo is a long building. Inside this was a very large Buddha sculpture (I think it was gilt bronze) and some great guardian dieties agian (they looked like St. Michael because they had a sword in one hand and were standing on a demon.

Here is a close up of the tile edge of one of the roofs:

There were some great hollowed out or dead trees still up. Here's one next to a lantern:

I like that photo. I wasn't allowed to take photos of anything inside the buildings, but in one part there was a building full of artwork (mostly sculptures of Kannon). Then at the end we went to an extra building that is now a nunnery, but was originally built by Prince Shotuka for his mother. There was a wonderful sculpture of Buddha carved from Campher wood. Because of the type of wood it was very dark and looked like it was slathered in oil. We were allowed to sit on the tatami mats in front of it and meditate. It was all very beautiful, but seriously I wasn't very moved by any of the sculptures. I was impressed by the large shiney Buddha, but it didn't invoke any special feeling of peace or awe. I was just thinking "wow, that's a big Buddha." I went in wanting and expecting to feel something deep, but I left with this feeling of disappointment in religions for spending so much money in creating idols and extravegant buildings. Still, I'm really happy I went to this site because it is both regliously and politically important.
This was a class field trip, and it was a three hour ride (two trains and a bus) to Nara. So, instead of going back home, a few friends and I wanted to take advantage of being there by staying and doing a little shopping before it got too late. I got some great stuff there. I found a few gifts for people and I had to buy myself these amazing spoons. Spoons must not sound amazing but they were. They were wood with black twine (or string or something) wrapped around the handle. Here's a bad picture of one:

the picture doesn't do it justice. Later, at the train station there was a street band playing under a bridge

there were also a group of girls choreographing their own street dance (which must be big here. I think our school had a street dance team. They do a lot of breakdancing) and some skateboarders riding around.
Friday night my mom called my room. It was the first time I talked to my family on the phone since the second day I arrived here. That was a nice surprise. Now I've got to study Japanese and sketch a picture of an object I saw at Horyuji (that's my homework for the class), and I really need to check out the news, because I have no idea what's going on in the world. I tried watching CNN this morning, but it was all in Japanese. I've only found out recently about how bad the devistation from Hurricane Katrina is. I took me days to find out that there even was a Hurricane. My younger brother e-mailed me and said that a Hurricane hit New Orleans and the city was flooded, and the people there were doing pretty bad. I didn't think anything about it. Then on the UWW homepage, it said that we were taking in qualified students affected by Katrina, and I'm thinking "who's Katrina?" Then I read the link to that headline, then went to the BBC news homepage & read about it. It's weird to not be constantly bombarded by newscoverage of an event, like I was in The States whenever something big happened. I really have to start checking world news everyday.

I've been studying Buddhism in three of my classes this week. In two of them we studied the same passage from the Lotus Sutra. The story recapped & updated: A man and thousands of his children live in a really worn down house. One day when the man was walking home, he noticed that the roof of his house was on fire and all of his children were inside. The exit out of the house was very narrow, so he couldn't have possibly carried his children out, and the children would not come out on their own because they were having too much fun playing video games. So the father calls in, "Hey, there's a Super Chuck-E-Cheeses down the street, come outside right now and we'll go." So, all the children run outside, of course, and go down the street. They see that there's no Chuck-E-Cheeses and get a bit miffed. "There's nothing here, this sucks," they say, but then they turn around and see that their house is in flames and they think, "no... this nothingness is our paradise." The meaning of this parable is that the Buddha has teachings that are not essentially true (called apaya), but it's okay because he teaches his students what they need to hear to reach the goal they need. And it's in this message that Buddhists can say that all religious teaching are right, because the leaders of each religion have taught their followers what they needed to hear to reach an enlightenment. Oh, and of course - the children in the house represent all of us humans living in the world, too absorbed in our activities to notice how run down our world is becoming, and how we should trust in our religious leaders (in this case Buddha)to lead us to enlightenment. Enlightenment isn't paradise, it's nothingness, which is a hard concept to desire, but this helps to understand how Buddhists could want nothingness over rebirth to rebirth of suffering.
I also watched "Lost in Translation", yesterday. I thought it was a great movie! In one of the first scenes there's an elevator bell and a recorded voice that says something in Japanese. I hear this all the time and it is so annoying. I loved how it showed that in Japan, you are attacked by culture. This culture, however, is so confusing. It's a whirlwind of tradition and foriegn influence and misunderstanding. It all mixes up and is hard to take in and reinterpret. On one level it's senseless and complicated, but on another it shows the attention given to things to make them beautiful and when you strip away the illegible packaging, we are all kind people, needing and desiring the same things. And back to the movie- it showed a desire to communicate to people, but an inability to do so. Even when we speak the same language, it's hard to understand one another ("lip your stockings?"), but with effort we may meet one precious person who really 'gets' you & you 'get' them. Ahh, what a beautiful movie; I really enjoyed it.
So I took the elevator to the fourth floor for my first class, and I leaned against the wall and pushed every floor button doing it. It was an accident, and the elevator was packed full with people. The doors opened and closed (with that annoying Japanese recording) with nobody getting in or out on each floor until I reach my 4th floor destination. Everybody in the elevator was dead silent the whole elongated trip. How embarrassing.

09/07/05 @ 11:22:28 pm

I joined a Japanese Sign Language (JSL) club last night. The teacher is a little bit like Chris Farley, and by the end of the class his shirt was absolutely drenched in sweat. It was really fun. I didn't expect it to, but JSL is helping to give me an inside look at Japanese culture. For example,the sign for woman is also a sign for sex, which is a little degrading, but the sign for brother is the middle finger, which made feel better. I'll probably never get to use it, but the language is really interesting, and the teacher is absolutely awesome. I attended the first meeting last night, not really expecting anything, but now I'm hooked. This is the third language I'm learing here. 1.Japanese 2.Maltese 3.Japanese Sign Language. I was also working on my hip toss last night with someone from my dorm (Dillon- that ITF black belt that I wrote about in the 'We're famous in Japan' messageboard post)and I think I'm understanding what I've been doing wrong (besides not having confidence in myself). We were practicing this while I was cooking my dinner, and I felt pretty good about it by the time my meal was done. The JSL class ends at 7pm, and it's dark here as I walk through campus and back home. There's an extremely odd looking courtyard that I thought looked perfect to train (in TKD) on, and since the campus is mostly deserted by that time, I think I'll use it as a good training time (Wednesday at 7pm is Wed 5am in Whitewater, so you can train with me at that time if you want to).

09/07/05 @ 11:32:38 am

Transmissions shall resume to their normal state until otherwise notified by the KKCC (Krystina Kohler Communications Center) - Zak

Hopefully the blog is fixed and all is working.

09/07/05 @ 08:32:56 am

Hey I'm back again. A few of the photos from the previous post were from my adventure in the shopping district of Osaka. It was huge! Last Saturday I went to Kyoto. I saw a temple (but I can't remember its name), and a shrine dedicated to the animal of the year: the boar. The boar shrine was very beautiful. These are blocks of wood or pieces of paper with wishes or prayers written on them and tied to a fence.

Then I went to a woodblock print shop ran by an old man. He didn't speak any English, but we got by with my minimal Japanese skills. He showed me how he made the woodblock prints and he seemed so excited about it. I bought a bunch of prints there.

I also went to a store of Japanese antiques. It was more like a museum where I could touch the objects. The women there were very nice. They brought my friends and I tea and sweets to eat as a kind gesture for looking around and they let me take photos of the objects ("shashin o totte mo ii desu ka?"- "may I take a photograph?").



Then I went to Kansai Gaidai's Art Club's exhibit in Kyoto. Impressive stuff, and the girls there were very sweet & brought me tea and snacks to have while looking around at their objects d'art. This is my friend Tomohiro next to his painting.

We ate sushi (mmmmmm) and to finish off the night, my friends and I walked around Gion Street at night. It felt otherworldly because some streets were dimly lit and were lined with weeping willow trees. My Japanese friend, Yasuhiro, pointed at the trees with their branches swaying in the wind and said "like a ghost". He was right, it had an eerie effect. This was one of my favorite days here.

Today we had our opening ceremony and it was really nice. One teacher spoke for a long time about monuments. Whenever people start something new, they build a monument to either remember something from the past or to inspire what they want of themselves in the future. When people look at monuments, they connect this magical awe to the object, but the object isn't really magical, of course, it's that energy people project from themselves. Monuments are important to remind us of this power we all have for a cause, but we have to remember that that power lies within ourselves. I'm not doing his speech justice, but bear with me and maybe I'll work on writing about it better when I'm more awake and ambitious. He said a teacher had given him the monument talk, and then gave him a clear marble as a present. He said that that marble is a monument to whatever the teacher aspired for and admired in life, and that he should remember that awe by being around this "marble monument" and harness it in his own life. Oh, I really wish I would have taken notes during his speech. It was fantastic. At the end I was crying (he said a lot of other stuff, too). And he gave us all marbles. So now I have this pretty translucent green marble in my wallet. All the speeches were really moving to me today. And at the end there was a huge, free meal for the students. It was so good! I have no idea what half the things I ate were, but they were really good. The event was semi-formal, so I have some really nice pictures of myself and friends from this school. My friend, Bob, who's wearing an eye patch right now, wore black wingtip shoes, black pants, a black button up shirt and a white tie. And his black eyepatch. It was sooo badass looking. If I ever make a movie, it's going to have a character that wears that outfit the entire time. Later on today, Bob, Thomas (the other UWW student) and I went to see that guy from the tea shop that said he'd show us something about Judo today. The Japanese guy had an electronic Japanese-English dictionary today, so communication was easier. He said that his dojo is closed today, and is only open on Wednesdays and Saturdays. We're going to go to his shop next Wednesday evening and he will drive us all to his Judo dojo & talk to his instructors for us and give us a tour. If we want to join, it's like $40 a class, or $60 a week, but we can just watch this Wednesday. That may be too rich for my blood, but it's still worth checking out, just to see how a real Japanese dojo looks. I'm sure I'll end up just joining a club here on campus once school starts. Of course I'll keep you up to date on that. Tomorrow, a few girls from my dorm and I are planning on taking a train to Osaka and maybe doing some shopping. We'll see. I'm excited to see Osaka. I asked my Japanese friend to tour me around Kyoto next Saturday so that I can see the shrines and temples. I can't wait to see Kyoto, either. I took my first bus ride into the busy city part of Hirakata City. The street are really busy and the buildings are big. There were a lot of fast-food places and larger (and more expensive) Japanese restaurants there, then what I'm used to in my neighborhood in Hirakata. As I've written before, all the places to eat around here are cheap & very delicious mom & pop places. I really like that about this place. I have a picture of myself & the people I went with in front of the McDonalds ("Ma-cu-no-do-na-ro-de" in Japanese). The sign just looked really cool to me. The Japanese woman who took the picture for me was like "you really want it in front of this McDonalds?" I felt like such a tourist! Then I had a donut at "Mr. Donut".

08/25/05 @ 10:17:46 am

So I just got back from this great sushi place. I can't remember the name of it. I couldn't read the kanji on the sign and I asked my friend twice, but forgot. There's a conveyor belt that runs from the kitchen out to the dining part. Around the conveyor belt you can either sit on one side that's like a bar, or the other which are tables. I sat at a table with a few other international students and a native Japanese student that I just met today. Now, there are tiny plates with sushi on them that are placed on this conveyor belt and when you see a dish you like, you just grab it and put it on your table. Each dish is 100yen (or about $1), and you grab as many as you want. You can order special dishes (like udon, soba, or desserts) through an intercom system at your table, and the kitchen staff will send it out on the conveyor belt on top of a holder with your table number on it. It's really cool. At the end the waitress adds up the plates on the table and she gives you the bill. I had salmon, a crab roll, eel, some bean roll that my Chinese-Australian friend told me was super healthy, and some green tea ice cream. There was even a spout right at the table for hot water, to make your own cup of green tea. It was really cool and inexpensive. Every meal I've had here has been about $5 and has been really filling. It was about a half-hour walk to this place and we passed my first Shinto shrine. We walked around the place on our way back and since it was dark out, it was eerily cool. The shrine building wasn't open, so I may have to go back there during the day. I took pictures and video taped the conveyor belt sushi place, so I'll have to get that to everybody once I figure out how to download pictures onto this computer.

08/24/05 @ 11:53:07 pm

I keep venturing out with other international students to find places to eat. The places we find are about the size of a small bedroom and are run by old people who only speak Japanese. The food is always amazing, but I rarely know what I'm really eating. My dad said that when he was stationed in Okinawa while in the Marines, he had a chicken leg that was waaay to big to be from a chicken. I think of that every time I eat something. The food is one of the most exciting parts of being here.
I just registered for classes. The Japanese-Chinese Brush painting class I wanted was full, but I got:
"VISUAL CULTURE OF BUDDHISM IN JAPAN": This course explores the splendor of Japanese Buddhist architecture, sculpture, and painting, as well as artifacts in more ephemeral and popular media such as textiles, paper, and other ritual paraphernalia. We will study the chronological evolution of Buddhist visual culture as it relates to the religious beliefs, political events, and aesthetic tastes of a given era. Visits to renowned Kansai temples and gardens will situate the works in their original material and social contexts."
"JAPANESE CULTURE AS EXPRESSED IN ARCHITECTURE" I won't go through the description because it's pretty long, but it includes 2 field trips to study important temples, gardens, and tea houses in Nara and Kyoto. Some of the topics are: Architecture of strategy: Himeji Castle; Deification of failure: Michizane and the Kitano Tenmangu Shrine; Shinto Symbol of the Nation: Ise Shrine; Buddhist Symbol fo the Nation: Todai-ji and the Daibatsu; Zen related taste in temples and gardens: Ryonan-ji, Ginkaku-ji; Tea houses, Zen and Rikyu. Too much info, I know, but I'm sure somebody out there is interested. This class sounds difficult. There are a lot of readings and a 12 page final paper, and two 5-page field trip study papers. It just sounds so interesting and think of how much smarter I'll be when I finish it.
"JAPANESE BUDDHISM" I know some people will be interested in this one, so I'll write out the entire description and topics. "This course presents an overview of Japanese Buddhist ideas about salvation and religious practice. We will discuss the important people and doctrines connected with the major denominations of Japanese Buddhism. Shingon, Nichiren, Pure Land, and Zen. In addition, we will study interesting thinkers from what are now minor schools of Buddhism. Issues and trends in Buddhism today will also be explored, partly through films and literature. As we shall see, contemporary Japanese Buddhism is criticized as nothing but a funeral business, while vibrant new Buddhist organizations like Soka Gakkai challenge the role and dominance of priests and temples. In addition to reading works by influential figures in the history of Japanese Buddhism (i.e., what Buddhists themselves write), we will also read articles by leading scholars in order to understand the academic treatment of Buddhism. Along the way, we will reflect on our own presuppositions and projections about what Buddhism is or should be. Is Buddhism a tolerant, humanistitc philosophy of self-awareness and kindness? Or is it a religion of magic and ritual?" The course topics are: Buddhist fundamentals: karma, reincarnation, nirvana; Shingon Buddhism and Kukai; Pure Land Buddhism and Honen and Shinran; Nichiren and the Lotus Sutra; Zen and Dogen; Buddhist deitites: Amida, Kannon, Jizo; Buddhism and discrimination; Soka Gakkai; Buddhism and war; Buddhism, ancestors, and graves; Film: Kukai; Film: Fancy Dance; Film: Enlightenment Guaranteed; Novel: He's Leaving Home.
Then a spoken Japanese course and a reading & writing Japanese course. All together they are 17 credits.
Now I have to go to a General Briefing (talks about immigration, tips on student life, etc.) and an orientation for women.

08/23/05 @ 07:41:17 am

Wow. Where do I begin? Well, Wyoming this is not; I'm in Japan. Or maybe I should say 'holy fucking shit, I'm in Japan'! That's more like it. I left Chicago noon on Sunday and because of the time zone changes and the 13.5 hour flight & 2 hour bus ride, I arrived at my dorm around 6:30pm Monday. There are three floors to my dorm. The first floor has a computer room, which I'm in right now, a lounge room, a dining room (the only place we're allowed to eat), a pretty big kitchen and a laundry room. The second floor houses the guys and the third floor, the girls. Everything in this place seems clean (it was just built) and spacious, but I think that's just because of the simplicity of everything. We have to take our shoes off right when we walk in and I want to get some slippers to wear around the building. The showers are really nice and the toilets in the bathrooms are really hi-tech.



The toilet seats are heated and they have an armrest with buttons on it. There is a button to make a flushing sound while you go to the bathroom to cover up any unusual noises you may make, there is a button for spraying your butt with warm water, and another button for some high pressure water stream for your bottom and then a button that says "strong deodorizer". I think you can adjust water pressure & temperature also. I feel like this is an island of bored inventors. It was raining when I visited my campus today, and there is a machine that you can slide your umbrella into, then pull it out the side & it's covered in a plastic bag so you don't get anything wet inside the building. I'm amazed by all the things they think of.
I just ventured out to eat some real Japanese food today. Thomas (the other student from UWW) and I walked around Hirakata City to find a place that serves tempura. We found this little place that is run out of a house. An old woman who did not speak a lick of English served us. She made the most incredible miso soup and shrimp tempura I have ever had. I'm surprised that I could communicate so well! I said "May I also have the tempura" and "this entire meal is delicious" without any help from my friend or my little dictionary. I was still thirsty when we left there, so we continued walking until I saw a shop that served drinks. Now, the man inside couldn't speak any English, either. I just wanted some tea, and there was confusion if I wanted hot or cold tea. I asked for cold, since it was hot outside & I had the choice, but he didn't have any cold tea, so we decided on hot, but then he also gave me & Thomas this dish of I don't know what. It tasted like a barbecue seafood omelette to me. I wasn't hungry at all after eating dinner right before this, but I didn't want to appear rude, so I ate it the best I could. Then the guy gave us little cups of I don't know what. It tasted like the broth of miso soup and it was very good. The three of us tried our hardest to communicate with each other and I had to pull out my dictionary many times. I think he said he is a 2nd dan black belt in Karate, but he doesn't teach it because you have to be a 4th dan, and he is a good skier, and he does kendo, kempo, judo and is an excellent fisher. I think this is what he said. Oh, and he likes motocross and showed us his scars from it. I tried to ask him where there is a dojo around here that I could train and if it would be okay because I'm a woman. He said woman don't do Karate at his dojo (he made gestures that I interpreted as woman's hands are more frail than men's), but some woman do kempo and many woman do judo. He closed down the store and continued to talk to us. It was difficult for all of us to get through what we wanted to say, but we all tried really hard. I feel like I'm learning Japanese much easier through these survival situations rather than in the classroom. When I was trying to ask where I could find a dojo he was saying these words "shokai shimas" within a phrase, so I looked them up and they mean "introduce". So I'm like "introduce?" and tried asking if he would introduce me to a judo school. He asked when, I told him "Friday" and he told Thomas & myself to meet him at his shop this Friday at 6:30pm & what I understood is that he would show me judo places, or let me watch his class, or he would teach me judo. I don't totally know what's going on, but I'm canceling the tour of Kyoto that I set up for that day to see what this is all about. And on top of that kindness, he told us that our meal & drinks were free. How kind. In fact, I have not met a single unkind person this entire trip including the airport & plane. The guy sitting next to me in the plane, even though he's from Hong Kong & has never been to Japan before and couldn't speak any Japanese, helped me wheel around my carry-on luggage, made sure I got through customs, found my checked luggage, and then left me when I was safely with other students going to Kansai Gaidai. I was really sad when he left me because we had just spent the last 14 hours together. He said that because he is a guy he feels it is a responsibility of his to take care of me because I'm a woman (even though I'm 2 years older than he and know some Japanese). I like the feeling of being taken care of and I think we could all learn from this example (ahem, guys).
It's interesting meeting students from all over the world. Everybody here is super friendly. Like right when I sat down to write this, there was this hotty to my right that introduced himself. He's from Italy and he told me he would teach me some Italian this semester. Earlier when I sat down to check my e-mail, there was this guy from Spain that introduced himself. I met a girl from South Africa, another from Thailand, and a whole bunch of people from across USA (and of course, Japanese people). My roommate hasn't arrived yet, but I saw a group of new people arrive not too long ago and she may be in there. Our rooms are just temporary for this week because we have all the home stay students staying here until next week. So I won't officially know my room number until then, but I'm assuming it'll be the room I'm staying in now. I'll post it on the messageboard when I find out so that anybody who wants to call me or send me a package of cool stuff can do it. I'm really happy here right now. It's difficult to communicate, but it's allowing me to learn Japanese fast. I'm amazed at how much language and culture I've learned in the past two days. It sucks to not be able to read the label on food and drinks, but it's a really cool, adventurous environment with a lot of beauty fit into a very crowded scene. Like today, I walked past a shop and a man walked outside of it and started pruning the shrubbery with a pair of tiny scissors. This culture is very interesting. I'm not sure I 'get it' yet, but even through all the trouble I'm sure I'll encounter in the next 4 months, I'm happy I get to experience it.

08/21/05 @ 02:17:35 am

I have a few friends in a band (the Matthew Haeffel Band) and I went to see one of their gigs last night. I already had a bit of a sore throat from this head cold I've had for the past week, and I was shouting over the music. When I came home last night I had no voice whatsoever. I had completely lost it. My voice has come back a little bit, but my throat hurts whenever I say anything. By request of my mother I went to the hospital to get it checked up in case I had strep or bronchitis or any number of throat conditions I don't know how to spell. I'm fine. My doctor just happened to be a frequent traveler to Asia, though. We talked for a little while about Japan. That was nice. It sucks that I lost my voice right before traveling alone, where I have no one to speak for me, but it'll make for only funnier stories.
So, on top of losing my voice, I got my first speeding ticket today. It was in East Troy. Apparently I was driving 50 in a 35. I think it was where the speed limit changed from 45 to 35, but that's still no excuse. The officer that pulled me over has also been in Japan. He lived there while in the military. He warned me that I might be corrupted by the underground Japanese life of clubs, sex and drugs. This is seriously what he said. Then he tried to relate his brother visiting Japan with his brother being gay. He talked about his brother getting married to his partner in Hawaii because Hawaii allows gay marraige. I think he really had a problem with his gay brother and he just wanted to talk about it. Even after listening to his psyco-talk, he wouldn't drop the ticket or even cut the fine in half. Because I was on my way to visiting our long-lost green belt, AJ, I think this should be considered a club expense. Just an idea.

8/19/05

Last night was my last night of club. A tornado took my attention off of things and I was taught a new form. Katie got a new haircut and looks super-hot. All in all, a good night. I feel really sad about leaving this club. I know it's only for 4 months, but going to our dojo to train with you people is like going home to eat dinner with my family. It has a certain level of intimacy that makes me feel comfortable and appreciated, and it doesn't end in the dojo as I've been welcomed into the homes of almost all the black belts and their hospitality has been unparralled by even the kindest of my best friends. I'm really lucky to have found this club. I had no idea when I joined that I would be knitted into this really weird, strong family, but I'm really happy it happened. Oh, and learning how to fight is a major plus. It helps to think that I'm only going to Wyoming instead of Japan. So next time you hear from me, I'll probably be in "Wyoming".