Why are we ever mean to others? Really, truly… why?
Can we go Taylor Swift on the situation, and have the cycle end right now?
I see potential in this, but are we brave enough? Is bravery even what it is that we need? Perhaps love is all we need. And not even in the cheesy way, but truly. Beatles it all the way, because all we need is love.
Post-a-day 2017
I don’t know what it is, but something has me unconcerned on the whole. I don’t quite have a place to live after this month. I don’t quite have a well-enough-paying job as of this week. I don’t have any health or dental insurance once I move back to Texas next month. And yet, here I am, trying to get myself worked up, because I am not already concerned about these things.
Why am I unconcerned? I don’t know. There is something in the air though, that tells me that everything is okay, everything will be perfect once I’m back home. So, I am trusting. I am keeping an open mind, and I am listening when things come up.
Let us see where this takes me next month… 🙂
Post-a-day 2017
We grow up always hearing about not playing favorites. “Don’t play favorites,” and, “Treat everyone equally,” everyone always seems to say.
And yet, I struggled through the constant questions of “What’s your favorite _______?” I even made up a favorite color, because I didn’t have one, but people constantly asked what mine was.
What’s more, if we look at it purely on a human perspective, not to play favorites, then does marriage even really work? Exclusivity in relationships would be impossible. How could I treat someone else with the same passion, love, care as I do my partner? And then, how could I treat everyone that way?
How could I have an intimate and loving relationship with my mom, if I am to treat her as I treat all others, despite the fact that I spend most of my childhood with her, and not the rest of the world?
I’m not looking to cancel exclusivity or marriage or anything, here. I’m just wondering at our concepts of ‘treat everyone equally’ and ‘don’t play favorites’. There seems to me to be a sort of inconsistency in the thinking here – something is missing in our mentality, and I want it to come beautifully to light to save the day… something like that, anyway. 😛
Post-a-day 2017
It’s 22:11, and I’ve just sat down on my train home for the night… about an hour after originally planned, and a good distance from where I had intended to board the train. I am covered in sweat (my own, thankfully), and am still breathing a bit heavily. “That was certainly a fun little adventure,” goes through my mind, and I smile. It really was.
About an hour ago, I was on the Yamanote line, heading up to Nippori to catch my train home from there. A group of four Australian life guards boarded the train, and stood in front of me. Something about them caught my attention immediately, and had me turn off my audiobook, though I couldn’t have said what. Eventually, I took out my earphones, too, – it really is a great way to spy on a conversation, wearing earphones with no sound actually being produced by them – and listened a bit more closely to their conversation, because they seemed to be going somewhere quite far, and also seemed a bit unsure of how exactly to get there.
Two of them ended up sitting next to me after my precious neighbors exited the train. The girl who sat down next to me directed at me a strong, “Howdy!” as she sat, thus beginning our conversation.*
We chatted, and it was fun, and their month-long exchange program sounds quite cool. However, not the point. I checked with the fabulous Google Maps to see what time their last train home was. They were going to Onjuku, which is Really far from Tokyo, and the trains headed for it are seldom and end early. Sure enough, they were cutting it amazingly close. Plus, that had totally gone in the wrong direction on the Yamanote line. If they had gone the opposite direction on this loop line, they’d have been to Tokyo station in plenty of time. But then we wouldn’t have met, I guess.
My stop came and went, despite their entreaties that I just leave them to chance. No way, I thought. I’ve been in your place before – I am so not abandoning you to a likely failure to get home for the night. You’ll all be welcome to stay with me if you miss your train.
They were going to have 7 minutes to catch their train, which was not one of the standard lines. I realized quickly that they had little idea as to how to find their specific train (and Tokyo station kind of really sucks with its signage and help on finding the right track for trains – my train isn’t even listen as a line that goes through the station in most places, even though it totally does and it doesn’t change names or anything), so I rushed out with them to help find the line (of which I had never heard).
We scrambled down the steps – I had warned them that it wasn’t a small station, even though it wasn’t the largest – and started searching at the platforms for the train line name (I had given them what name to search: Wakashio.).
After 2-3 minutes, someone found a sign. I checked it, and it was the right line. We started running toward the extension area of the station, and found a sign declaring the line 400m in that same direction.
I hesitated then, deciding if I needed to go with them. When I remembered that I want to help them out if they miss the train, I started running, too, empty suitcase in hand (It makes sense, I promise.). The suitcase slowed me down a good bit, and I had a late start, so I was well behind them. The staircases just kept going downward, and then there’d be a walkway followed by yet another staircase and walkway. At last, I found the track, saw the sign still showing the 22:01 train, and guessed that they had to be down there already. I rushed down, and looked back and forth. I couldn’t see anyone aside from the train guy standing on the platform.
As I looked around the windows, trying to find them, to make sure they hadn’t made a wrong turn somewhere, and totally lost the track, the train worker checked with me if I needed to be on the train. I told him that it was all right, I was just checking for my friends.
Gosh, I hope they’re on this train, I thought, as the doors began to close. I just wish I could see them to be sure. A man came sprinting off the steps, and the doors slid back open quickly to admit him. No one else was around. They have to be on this train.
My heart felt like a quarter of it was in my stomach as the train pulled away… and then I saw it. Male gaijin hair blowing in the air vent, while a pair of male gaijin arms stretched in exhaustion next to him. That’s they. Those are their shirts, their hair, that guy’s arms. If the two guys made it, the two girls must be with them.
I still lingered a few minutes near the tracks, just to be sure, but I was rather certain: They made their train. After seven stops and an hour twenty, they’d all be safely to their beach town again, able to go to their own beds for the night.
Phew!
And so I at last went up to catch my own train home, chuckling at how, for once, I was not the one having to rush to catch my last train home. Someone lives farther than I do this time. This last time.
I’m not sure if I would have been so tickled by this whole thing had it been any other day. But tonight is my last night in my apartment, my last night in my little Ibaraki town. I couldn’t decide earlier if I were going to stay at my place tonight or my friend’s (down in Tokyo). Helping these guys was an easy decision. So I get to stay one last night in my apartment, and say a good goodbye in the morning.
I can do this.
*Note: The Howdy, it turned out, was a ‘just ’cause’ greeting, and they were genuinely surprised to find that I am actually from Texas, where Howdy is actually a normal thing.
Post-a-day 2017
Today, I was given a bouquet of flowers as part of my goodbye celebration thing at my base school. The roses in the bouquet had/have print glitter all over their tops. I have seen fake roses with their petal tips dipped in glue and then glitter, but I think today was the first time I’ve ever seen real roses that had undergone this procedure. I instantly thought of my best friend, who loves glitter. And then her husband, who doesn’t. As part of their pre-wedding celebrations, I did an interview thing with each of them. One of the questions was asking about something that the other loves, but you really don’t. Her then-fiancé answered with a powerful, “Glitter. It gets everywhere.”
On the bus, heading home shortly after the ceremony thing, as I carried the bouquet in a cardboard box filled with whatever I needed to take home from my desk, I discovered pink glitter on my shirt, pants, and even ukulele, which I was carrying on my arm.
Just now, getting ready to sleep, my attention was caught by a pink sparkle… on my bed. Why must there be glitter on my bed?
Oh, glitter. Oh, glitter. 😛
Post-a-day 2017
Making my way through the nonsense that is the Shibuya Crossing on a holiday afternoon, I am feeling almost desperate to be on a train home. There are just so many people in my way, with no respect for my desire to be not here. Not that I actually expect them to know I want not to be here – I am merely noting their ignorance to the matter. I am almost to the station, when a small but clear opening appears right ahead of me in the shuffling crowd.
I hardly have to think – in fact, I think I know what it is without thinking – to recognize the colorful lettering on the page of that folded-open notebook being held just above people’s heads.
FREE HUGS
I hesitate a moment, verifying that the holder of the sign is respectable/huggable. Despite my being in Japan, I accept that this young Japanese guy is holding the sign, and trust that he knows what it means. Perhaps especially because I am in Japan, actually.
He’s young and Japanese, and he looks trustworthy. I throw open my arms, and instantly see his face light up, as he says an adorable “Sahn kyuu!” (How the average Japanese pronunciation goes for ‘Thank you.’) We embrace, and it is solid and long and wonderfully perfect. I return the verbal thanks, with emphasis on thanking him for the hug (as opposed to his thanking my willingness or whatever on my end), give a gloriously contended smile, and go on my merry way the last few yards to the station.
I savor the experience, and especially the loving hug, as I wander goofily through the crowds up to the tracks. Thank you, God. You gave me just what I needed in order to feel I was heading the right way just now. I am in the right place right now, and it is perfect. Thank you.
Post-a-day 2017
A friend is helping me prepare for my goodbye speeches at my schools. I wanted to do them in Japanese, and I wanted them to be good. Yes, I could rumble my way through some Japanese and be mostly understood without much prep. However, I want the speeches to be better than that, seeing as they will be each given during a whole ceremony thing at each school. Not the time I want to be casual with my words. Also, almost no one would understand the English anyway, if I gave the speeches in English.
All of that, however, is merely the precursor to this next bit…
This friend who is helping me, she’s helping me by recording herself giving the speech. Why? Because I want to hear a native speaker give the speech. As we were discussing this, I mentioned that I do better copycatting someone’s speaking when I have never heard a certain word or phrase already spoken. (If I have heard it already, then I usually have already learned the appropriate natural way of saying it, and can produce it on my own, without aural prompting or guidance.)
When I mentioned this to my friend, her reply caught me off guard.
copying is the basic way for learning 👍🏻
What?
And yes, it is so utterly and beautifully true. As babies, we copy our parents and family members in order to learn to talk and walk and eat and do basically everything that we do successfully. The same applies as we learn new behaviors theighout our whole lives, and it definitely includes learning to speak a new(foreign) language properly.
And yet, schools have this huge concept of ‘copying is cheating, and cheating is bad, so copying is bad.’
I once found myself in a meeting with fellow faculty who were arguing/fussing about preventing cheating in the school, while I was wondering what the whole big deal with cheating was on the first place. It’s not that I was (or currently am) approving of cheating – I was (and still am) simply wondering what the reasoning was behind this terror-inducing aversion to cheating. It just kind of felt like a sort of blind belief situation, with no real background to support it validly. It may very well be completely valid – I have just never sat down a brainstormed enough to find out if it is or isn’t. And I was wondering in that meeting if anyone else had done that. (Though I found it highly unlikely, so I didn’t bother asking – it would have just stirred up trouble.)
And here, tonight, my friend says that copying is like the basis for learning. And with only a brief bit of thought, this idea, this concept, seems to make sense, and much more than the ‘no cheating’ one ever has.
After a bit of discussion in this new topic with my friend, I discovered that the word in Japanese for “to learn” comes from the word for “to copy”. I was in momentary disbelief, and then complete unsurprise – of course Japanese has that. I can so see that, it makes such easy sense with the Japanese culture.
It turns out that the old word for “to copy” is 真似ぶ(manebu) (and the current is 真似る(maneru)). The word for “to learn” is 学ぶ(manabu).
Put more visually simple:
学ぶ(manabu/ to learn)
真似ぶ(manebu/ to copy)
真似る(maneru/ to copy) (old word)
(And manebu is the old word for maneru, but the have the same meaning.)
Wow. Just wow.
I certainly plan to ponder this topic much, much more. This concludes my thoughts so far, however.
Post-a-day 2017
My mom is on a sort of artist retreat in Washington right now. She called me up to show me the place where she’s staying for the retreat, and it’s gorgeous. The barn-like house and other beautiful, wooden buildings on the plot of land look fabulous amongst the unfamiliar greenery. I kept looking at it all, trying to place it. It looked somehow familiar and yet totally not. But I’ve never been to anywhere that has foliage like Washington, so it’s no wonder I couldn’t quite figure it out, place it all – it actually is unlike anything I’ve ever seen.
The temperature was in the 50s, with humidity in the 80s, as it was early morning. I found myself asking my mom how far she is from Forks. I had to spell the name for her, as well as tell her that it’s a city in Washington. She had no idea that I was semi needing out. But that’s okay, because it turns out that she’s something like four and half hours away by ferry and car. So there’s no chance she’d be able to pop by for a quick look and a photo for me. (Aka I’m not missing out on a total nerd opportunity.)
So, that was fun, discovering that I’m a bit more of a nerd than I had expected. 😛 Gotta love nerds, though, right? I know I do. 🙂
Post-a-day 2017
Tonight, as I showered, I found myself thinking of Tess of the d’Ubervilles, a character from Thomas Hardy’s book of the same name. I, therefore, began also to think about the book itself, and the events connected to my reading of the book. I easily discovered that I wanted to share with the world a good section of the e-mail I sent to a former high school teacher of mine shortly after my conclusion of the novel. Be forewarned: Spoilers are included (regarding the novel).
Said e-mail section:
—————————————–
Hi, Ms. B[…]!
Hannah […] here (photos attached), […] class of 2009. I was in your Junior English class of 2007-2008, and likely gave you a hard time in the various class discussions (I always have been one to challenge ideas, even if I believe them already myself, just to find a new perspective). I believe it was around the end of the school year that you gave me a copy of Tess of the d’Ubervilles. I’m not sure what I mentioned specifically that had you give the book to me, but I do believe I had asked for some sort of recommendation.
It took me forever, and I’m not sure why exactly, but I finally got around to reading the book last year (I think it got stored away when I went to college, and I just never saw it until I cleared out a lot of books in my move last March.). As I was going through it, I was captivated. There was some magic-like force drawing me to the book. Most nights, I had to force myself to stop reading and just go to sleep, Hannah! As I reached particularly exciting or nerve-wracking parts, I shared with my flatmate about the book. We eventually were both excited to see what came next – each night, after I explained what I’d read the night before, we would sit in the hallway before bed, discussing our thoughts, predictions, and hopes for the story, and then I’d go and actually read right before bed.
At the end of the book, I came storming out of my bedroom one night to my waiting flatmate (she’d already heard me fussing). I told her how the book ended, and she was flabbergasted. “Are you for real?” was the phrase of the night for the two of us. Thus the reason I am e-mailing you.
I’m hoping you can shed some light on the book for me/us. Why on Earth did we have to go through all the ridiculous and terrible ordeals with Tess, always with a lining of upbeat-ness and hope, only to find her doomed in more ways than one at the end. I mean, come on, who destroys herself so pathetically, while always acting the victim, and then deciding ‘This is what must be done,’ and going insane when an alternative arrives, landing herself in prison with a death sentence? It all just seems so outrageous. (You can sense my outrage, I imagine [Though, I wouldn’t call it outrage so much as dislike and disappointment.].)
Anyway, I can only imagine that there was something more to the book – a societal background, a cultural issue being addressed, a historical event receiving his commentary… that sort of thing.
So, do you mind shedding some light on the situation??
I realize this is a rather big question, but I figured you’d be the perfect person to ask!
[…]
—–—————————-
The e-mail continued on, discussing another book that I had recently re-read from her class, and asking her thoughts on that novel as well. However, my thoughts were on Tess tonight, so I’ll leave it with the Tess section for now.
What I love about this e-mail is the fact that it exists, as well as the fact that it turned into an actual exchange between the two of us. My high school was one where teachers were not only high quality regarding their subject areas, but impactful and accessible enough that I easily considered e-mailing one of them (and one with whom I wasn’t even all that close) when I had such an inquiry, despite the fact that this was years and years after my time studying at the school. I just love that. Love it, I do!
Post-a-day 2017
Okay, I hiked another mountain yesterday!
As I was hiking, I realized why I never really had mountain climbing on my list of to-do things in life – I’m really not a mountain-climbing person. I’m from Houston, Texas, where, in case you didn’t know, everything is flat. Literally, we have overpasses (for vehicles) on the highways and ditches along roads. That as much variation to the land gradient as we get. There’s even a phrase for it: In Houston, an uphill climb is only a figure of speech. I found that in the HIWI: Houston – It’s Worth It coffee-table book several years ago. I always remembered it, because it was so beautifully and comically true. Keep this fact in mind as you read onward here.
Our school had their fancy baseball game, where the entire school goes and cheers (mostly the same cheers as the other school) for the team. We won the game, and it ended around noon. The best part, though, was that we didn’t have to go back to school afterward. Even the teachers were free to go home after the game. So, I decided ahead of time that I would go hike the nearby mountain after the game. Of course, I didn’t know that we officially had the day off after the game, but I planned to take my last few vacation hours if necessary. Fortunately, that was not necessary. So, yay!
As I told kids what I was off to do, they were amazed, concerned, excited, surprised, etc. REALLY, Hannah-Sensei?! Yes, really. After a sandwich snack from a konbini (convenient store), I got some help from a few students and found the right bus to get me to the mountain. It was about 45 minutes to the middle of nowhere without shade, where I had to wait 25 minutes to take the second bus up to the base of the mountain. There’s a shrine, and it’s really pretty and nice, and it took me forever to find the path to hike up the mountain. Eventually, I found a sign by the cable car entry, stating that the hiking trail began in that direction. Turns out, the trail begins right next to the cable car entrance.
The trail was Miyukigahara Course (御幸ヶ原コース), and the mountain was Mount Tsukuba (筑波山). The estimated trail time is 90 minutes upward. With loads of pausing for photos, feeling lost, and sheee-it declarations, I made it in 77 minutes. I was truly shocked at how quickly I had done it.
The trail began with some confusion, as it branched off toward the cable cars twice, but going straight got me in the right direction. The terrain was spidery tree roots and rocks everywhere, and beautiful, green trees all round. I was delighted.
Eventually, the gradient increased, and the easy trail became not-so-easy. Then there were stairs. I dislike stairs in Japan. They drive my knees nuts, because they are in no way aligned to the size of my stride.
After what felt like far too much effort on a long series of stairs going what felt like straight upward (I couldn’t even take a good photo of them, without tilting the camera way upward or downward, they were so steep.), I finally reached a pause point in the trail. At first, I thought the first sign I was seeing after almost half an hour might be informative. Instead, it told me to take my trash home… so Japan…
Now, even though I am from Houston, and going upward is the thing at which I am kind of the worst, I still enjoyed the trek. For one thing, it was cool seeing all the different cairn-like rock piles. Some were really complex,
while others were incredibly simple.
Suffice to say, I enjoyed them all. …as I was practically gasping for air the entire time, of course.
Around halfway, I came across the cable cars. I heard the cables moving, and so thought the car was approaching. After at least a five-minute wait, the car finally appeared (both did, actually), and I got a little photo of it, and hurried on my way.
As I have discovered to be the case with roads here in Japan, so was this trail: What appears to be a dead end is, in fact, not a dead end. I actually struggled very briefly to find the path at this point, as it was hidden behind the trees, and the area opened up so nicely to the right.
The first half of the trail is rightly difficult. It’ll turn around anyone unprepared for the trek within the first twenty minutes, for sure. I kind of hated how difficult it was (again, remember the Houston factor), and had a sort of running commentary of ‘Uugghh,’ going on in my head, but it was alright. After the halfway point, things got mostly easier.
Until, of course, I reached a totally sketchy point in the trail, where the guard ropes and steps and all seem to be falling to bits amid the rocks and trees, like giants scrambled through a couple decades ago, and no one has made it back through the area since. But, I picked my way through the rubble-like terrain, and found myself wondering suddenly, as the trail was leading distinctly downward, if I hadn’t crossed onto another path, and were actually heading down to the base of the mountain again.
Eventually, a sign eased my concerns… somewhat. Then the trail kept going downward. I went Back to the sign, checking which direction the paths supposedly led, comparing it to a photo I’d taken of a similar sign farther down the mountain. I even called a friend to check that the path did this – I So did not want to be doing double hiking here, and I was concerned about my timing (I had no idea how long it had been, as I was embarrassed to check, find I had been going super slowly, and risk losing all morale [or most of it, anyway].).
I then reached a bit that didn’t even look like a trail, but rather a big pile of boulders.
However, after climbing over the boulder pile, I came upon what I called the “Man Woman River”, which is really a pathetically-sized stream trickling down the side of the mountain.
At the river, however, there was an actual sign indicating that I was, indeed, still on my trail, and had only 600m to go. A time and a half around a track. I knew instantly that it wouldn’t be so easy as that, though.
After what felt like about 500m, I came to the stairs. Honestly, if you ever do this, take the advice relating to fears of heights when up high somewhere, where you are told not to look down. For these stairs, don’t look up. They just keep going and going, and they curve and then keep going some more. And they’re tiny little steps, too, where you have to figure out if it feels better to take two or three at a time, and neither is quite right, so you try doing just one at a time, and it ends up even worse than the two or three.
I knew these steps were like the home stretch, but I was wary.
Sure enough, I rounded the final corner of trees after these cutesy, painful, annoying steps, and actually cursed aloud. This is actually the exact view of where I was spit out from the previous segment of the trail. Right in the middle of the rocks, with even more, higher up stairs over to the side.
This, I practically cried inside, has Got to be the final stretch… Please.
And, indeed, it was. At long last, I was at the end of the trail, and up on top of the mountain, on the little hump between the two peaks.
Tsukuba Mountain has two peaks on it, Nantai-San and Nyotai-San. Mt. Nantai is the one whose name in kanji equates to ‘Man Mountain’, and Mt. Nyotai is the ‘Lady Mountain’ in its kanji. I didn’t have much time before the last cable car down, so I picked the Lady Peak over the Man Peak. It was a quick and easy 600m up (as opposed to the miserable last 600m of the trail I’d just taken), and the view was quite nice. I enjoyed the space there, all on my own.
On the entire adventure up the mountain, I think I didn’t even pass ten people total. It was marvelous. Though not quiet – bugs are loud.
As I rode the cable car down the mountain at 5pm (the last car of the day), I began checking routes home. Get this: The next bus out of that area to get me home was Tuesday morning at 9:06am. Are you kidding me? Nope. Not at all.
So, I did some freaking out, even asked a local guy about how to get home, and he even passed concern to himself about whether there was still a bus running. He told me, however, that buses ran, and just to follow the road until I reached the bus stop. Suffice to say, there were no more buses running. Fortunately, I was already mentally prepared by the time I reached the bus stop.
I had been looking around on my Google Maps app (which I love!), and found a bus leaving from a ways away that could get me to somewhere useful. I then began my half-sprint descent to a nearby town’s bus station, slightly concerned about whether I would make it home that night. After half an hour of running on a road in the middle of the forest, which is clearly not meant for pedestrians, I climbed aboard my desired bus with two minutes to spare. I was too exhausted even really to appreciate my fortune in catching the bus. I promptly sloughed onto the back seat, out of the sun, and relaxed for the upcoming long ride, as soon as I informed my friends that I had made it on the bus, and didn’t need anyone to come way out of the way to get me.
And, just to make the day better for my health, I went directly to ballet class when I got back to my town. It was my last chance to go, and I hadn’t even known it – I’d just wanted to go to class, because I love the class. Apparently there’s no class next week. Even more good fortune. I had a blast in the class, and it was a really good way to send myself off from the group I’d come to love.
Hmm… this didn’t turn out at all as I had hoped. Perhaps, I’ll revisit it some time, when I actually feel like writing, as opposed to going home to sleep… or do anything but sit in this warm room at work, with a chair and desk that are too small for me… We’ll see.
Post-a-day 2017
hannah ananas 