Class quote, I say

Tonight at class was great, and for various reasons.

At one point, our usually-rather-serious-and-exhausted teacher is mentioning something she has said to us many a times, and I have to do an audio double-take:

“Did you just quote yourself with blah blah?”

She pauses… looks at me…, “I did.”

She ever so slightly smiles…, “I did.”

And then she, along with us, breaks into chuckles laughter, as she explains how she needn’t always be serious and that she finds it important for her to offer some humor for us from time to time, so we can remember that she is not just a mean old professor, but that she is a human being.

Then we went all into how students regularly think she’s mean and grades ‘too hard’ on assignments (definitely false on both accounts, but we could see how kids could think that).

And, somehow, it was all entirely relevant to what we were aiming to cover in class tonight, and we tied it all in with our research methods topics of the night, everyone participating in the conversation (at last!).

It was a great class meeting tonight. 🙂

Post-a-day 2018

Fortunately, Not Quite Like Poe

It was a dark and stormy night…. I mean, it is a dark and stormy night, and it just so happens to be my first night in a new place…, which just so happens to be an old house that is very talkative in this wind tonight…

I feel so oddly exposed, though I am two floors up, because I am the only one here – no one is below to verify my safety, to verify that these sounds I hear are benign or, at least, fully outside and down the street…

However, life couldn’t have made it more clear that this is exactly the place for me to be right now, whatever the hardships that come with it.

So I’ll aim for rest, and possibly get it on this dark and stormy night.

Post-a-day 2018

Biblical coincidence?

I’ve been reading from the Bible every night, in my effort to read the whole thing (Being raised Catholic, my family fit in well with the stereotype that Catholics really don’t read the Bible, but merely rely on hearing almost all of it through Mass attendance over the three-year plan the Catholic Church follows).

I’ve been in the part where Saul becomes King of the Israelites, and just last night hit the part where the Israelites seem like they’re about to have this big showdown with the Philistines… little did I recall that this upcoming showdown is actually where the story of David and Goliath takes place.

But I still haven’t read that part yet, so how have I come by this tiny enlightenment?

Checking my e-mail this morning, I found a digital audiobook from the library to be just this morning checked out to me (it had been on hold for quite some time, really [possibly months]).

And what book was this?

None other than David and Goliath by Malcolm Gladwell (if you don’t know his books, read them ASAP, or listen to the audiobooks, which are read by the author himself, ASAP)…., in the beginning of which, Malcolm Gladwell discusses the lead-in for the David and Goliath story, which, as I am listening, I suddenly recall, I have just been reading!

And so, with this fabulous Malcolm Gladwell approach to the story, I set myself with delight to the task of continuing on in my reading of the Bible.

I mean, what kind of perfect coincidence is that, anyway???

Bilingual Ballet

I found myself thinking of (and, of course, missing) my ballet class in Japan.

I was the tallest by a lot, and it was mostly older ladies (not old, but definitely older), and everyone was super sweet and happy and even a bit giddy every class.

And the teacher and I had an unwanted but accustomed distance-by-language-barrier, because my technical Japanese was utterly iffy, and her English possibly below that… that is, we had this distance until the night that we delightfully discovered that we both spoke French rather fluently… then we got on quite comfortably, and even more familiarly than I did with any of the others, because we could say so much to each other now.

I had always asked on occasion for the teacher to repeat something she’d said or done (in Japanese, of course), and I continued that…, but now I could and would ask for clarity at times when I still wasn’t certain what the goal or instruction was (if you’ve ever done ballet, you can understand how important it is to understand what muscles are doing what in a movement), and that part would be in French.

All in all, Monday nights at ballet class were always great, and I miss them now, especially with it getting cold outside (that was when I’d first started going to the classes).

Post-a-day 2018

It really isn’t personal

Sometimes a cousin just doesn’t greet you or bid you farewell, and won’t acknowledge your presence, despite your efforts to start conversation on anything at all, over the two days family is all gathered together, and you might as well have not been present, as far as that cousin’s behavior is concerned.

And then you find out that the same was the case for the receiving end of another family member, and likely would have been the case, too, for an absent family member if she had been present, and that this is regular behavior for this particular cousin, to ignore various members of the family (on the somewhat rare occasions she’s ever around, anyway).

And you realize that it’s totally okay if the cousin who ignores lots of family members isn’t really around much and ignores people whenever she is around – she clearly has enough of her own problems to deal with, if she can’t manage to talk to some awesome people (who just so happen to be related to her).

You know?

Kind of a ‘Her loss,’ kind of thing…

Post-a-day 2018

Moving

I’ll pack the bulk of it, and then do the million-gillion trips to the car and house, if you do the packing off all the miscellaneous items…

My brain just can’t handle it… simultaneously packing the last things in a hurry and arranging them in the most efficient positions… it just makes me go nuts whenever I have to do it, and I almost always take longer doing that than I spent on all the rest of the packing combined… packing the miscellaneous is just too stressy on my brain, because the logic of hurry does not win over the logic of pack efficiently.

It just doesn’t in my head. 😛

Suffice it to say that I am utterly drained, but still surviving due to the help offered by two glorious friends tonight from about nine to eleven… they were a Godsend, no doubt, and I would have suffered intensely in the head and body without them.

Still more to do to finish everything up, but those are just baby touches compared to what we accomplished tonight.

I thank you all, who blessed me today 🙂

Post-a-day 2018

Towels and Conversations

In my first year of college, whenever I’d have an evening shower, I usually would end up down the hall afterward.  The social and clearly labeled “extrovert” end of the hall was always booming when the girls were in, and I always would go down to check in when I heard the chatter.  (I had been assigned the introvert end of the hallway, and, somewhat ironically, I was the only one in the hallway who knew everyone else.  I just like to get to know the people around me, and so college was no exception to that.)  This meant that, come evening time on weekdays, I would spend some portion of the time down the hall, socializing, so to speak.

And, as mentioned, this included the time immediately following my evening showers.  And so, I would be hanging out down the hall, hair wrapped in one towel and body in another, both holding tightly, as though sewn into place.  Totally normal for me.

One night, one of the most outgoing girls asked me about how on Earth I can be so comfortable in just a towel… Wasn’t I worried it would fall off?… Or that I was naked underneath???  No, not at all, I told her.  And I explained why I wasn’t.  First, we were all girls, so I saw no issue anyway (though I had no intention of anyone seeing anything under the towel).  Secondly, I grew up with older sisters who had seemed to spend a third of their time at home (when in college) walking around in a towel or two, and so it was very normal for me.  And, from a very young age, I had learned their tricks of how to make the towel stay in place, and, naturally, I had mastered it by college.  So, it never seemed dangerous for me to be hanging out down the hall  – this was after the curfew when boys had already been kicked out, mind you – in a towel.  It was like hanging out in almost any other clothing.

She had trouble believing that the towel was stuck, and so I even did a little shaking around to show how it wouldn’t fall off.  Nevertheless, she still was terrified of ever doing such a thing herself, and I was amazed that this towel tying trick wasn’t common knowledge or part of common use.  I think I even showed them right then and there how I tied the towel (without opening it, of course).  These were the girls who talked about just about everything with one another, quite openly, and yet they were somehow terrified at the thought of showing their bodies to one another.  I still have a certain shyness about my body, but, in certain contexts, it’s very so what to me.  Like in onsen, the Japanese hot baths, it is absolutely no big deal to show my body and to see other women’s bodies.  And in theatre, for costume changes, it happens sometimes… oh, well… it’s no issue.  It just happens.

To this day – last time was Friday evening – I still walk around in my towel and chat comfortably with people after I shower.  My high school ‘big sister’ was known for always saying, in response to a compliment about her clothing, “I’m naked under this.”  The initial shock always wore away when, after a few moments of consideration, the listener realized that we all were naked underneath whatever outfit we were wearing – that’s kind of how it works when you put something on in the first place.  For me, there is little difference between clothing and a towel.  Plenty of people regularly don’t wear underwear, and men don’t wear bras, so we’re just as naked under a towel as we are under most clothing.  (It’s just what in our minds that messes with us and makes us uncomfortable.)  That’s why, even when I’d shower in college, and a guy would be in the hallway when I was heading back to my room in just a towel, I was unconcerned.  I’d even talk with them, if I knew them.  It seems that, if they were concerned about talking with me, they could always excuse themselves and leave.  That’s what my friends and I would do if we had an issue with a guy in only a towel.  (But that really isn’t much of an issue to me, mostly too due to my upbringing with older siblings.)

(I somehow feel harsh or demanding with all of that…, but I didn’t mean to be; not in the least.  People can always do as they prefer – I’m just sharing why I am so comfortable in such a silly situation, and why I see it a totally normal, despite its being totally awkward for plenty of people.  I mean, my ukulele teacher is someone I met when we both were bathing in an onsen, naked, of course.) 😛

Post-a-day 2018

Musicals

“Prince Siddhartha: The Musical”

Go see it – it’s wonderful.

It kind of felt like someone did what the makers of “Urinetown” did, how they took famous bits of other shows and included them in “Urinetown” (e.g. the “Evita” portrait in the mob, or the waving of the flag from “Les Misérables”), but just taking songs from famous musicals…. not that they stole anything – just that they were inspired strongly by those famous songs, especially in terms of the orchestra’s role and notes.

Nonetheless, it was a nice musical, and I kind of want the soundtrack now, so I can sing all the songs. 🙂

Post-a-day 2018

Moving

I am moving again, and I have even less of an official deadline this time as I did last time… and that’s making it difficult to pack up and actually move.

I’m also ever so slightly terrified at living all alone (mostly because of the neighborhood, and the fact that, on the odd occasion, something goes wrong in it, but also a bit because I like the feeling of someone being in the house with me, and knowing that we can help to take care of one another).

But I deep cleaned the carpet today, and so can move in furniture Monday (Ah! So soon!), and even some more boxes tomorrow (to the wooden floors part).

I guess I am scared…, and I’m doing it anyway, because this is my next step forward on this path I’m pursuing… and I’m delighted about that.

Post-a-day 2018