Randomness Roundup

There is so much to do. so much going on, that I think I may be losing it.

But it has been a pleasant way to go.

I really do want to write about Hokkaido.. I haven't even looked at the photos I did manage to offload from my camera. It really was amazing. I really do have things to share, about Japan, and my adventures.

But right now, my mind is kind of in this loop. Let me tell you what that's like:

I keep listening to the Zed soundtrack, like kind of obsessively. I like driving just so I can listen to it. I drove to work today (partly because I didn't want to rush for the bus). I've just now remembered that I can leave the CD in the car and still listen to the music in my house because I have the CD on my hard drive. Score! I keep listening to it because there's something in it that is driving forward the ideas for that novel I haven't actually started-- and taking notes for it doesn't count because that file got corrupted and whoosh-- there they went, just the other day!

I have been totally entranced by the vocal talents of that CD's lead male singer, whose beautiful voice (srsly, find one of his Zed songs, or get me to send you something) intimidated me as it inspired, until I pulled out the CD booklet and looked him up. Surely, I thought, he must be a foreign starlet of some kind, maybe a minor opera star from like, Italy, or something.

Um, no, he's totally from Huntsville, Alabama, and can be found at his website. Whatever, he's still making me want to write my novel.

WHICH is so poorly timed, because really, I have a lot to do. I'm trying to put the Hyogo Times out again, on time again, and this month has been pretty short! And I have to plan my summer strategy.. like, am I going to go to the US, and exactly when will I hope to do that? I have to plan that by the 4th of March, and fill out the forms for Tokyo Orientation (so I can go volunteer there rather than sit around in the nice hot dusty inaka). I also have to fill out the response forms for the Shorinji Kempo meeting happening in Okayama, also by the 4th. And I mean, it's not a huge thing, but forms in all Japanese just get pushed off to the side because, jeez, who wants to deal with all that right this moment?

Oh and speaking of the 4th, heh, that is my Shorinji Kempo testing date. A while back, I set my status as something like "In my day, we had to walk to school in the snow, uphill both ways, with a hot potato in my pocket to keep my hands warm, and then I ate if for lunch, AND I LIKED IT!" This was based on many things, one of which was that I was in fact carrying something to work to keep my hands warm, then consuming it after arrival (it was a cup of milk tea). The other was a sense of badassery brought on by reading about someone else's martial arts test which lasted three hours.

Three hours! Well. In MY day, karate tests lasted six, and they were outside, with the ants! And the deer poo! Under the hot Georgia sun!

But. They were also conducted in my first language and I trained for, like, ever before I even considered it. My teachers wouldn't let me test unless I was a sure-fire pass (barring, I don't know, passing out or whatever). Because you don't test to pass. You test to experience that six-hour-outdoor-extravaganza!

Anyway, until today I have been a little majorly stressed about that little thing, and it's rough when something you do for fun or to blow off steam becomes another of your stressors! But tonight for some reason, it was going okay. I figure, there's a good chance that something will happen at the test for which I am not at all prepared, and I will just have to go with the flow. Because no matter how shikkarily I try to prepare, there's always something, around here, always something. (I tried to get "lemon" in kanji on my gi, but it was too difficult for the embroidery machines..! So it'll be in katakana)

And of course, graduation coming up. I might be writing letters.. to all those damn cats. Because I don't see how I can just write congratulatory cards to the ones I like. That would be, like, unfair. Unfair as the way some of them talk to me, and some of them try in class, and some of them study.. and some don't.

I'm also beginning a prefectural events/news round up. Not prefectural. NATIONAL. By prefecture. Which means signing up for every info letter available (which I have not yet done) and combing them for interesting tidbits to post on a central location. Yeah. I broke my New Year's resolution for this.

And then, finals are happening, which means more elementary school than ever, the planning for which is my biggest official time consumer.. which is okay when at the middle school I have no classes. But I do, for some reason, despite finals coming, I have a lot of classes. There has not been a day with less than four classes in over a week.. it's been averaging around five (I hear from others that their periods of classlessness have already begun)!

And what the hell, the laundry still wants doing, and the dishes want washing? Don't I have someone to do this stuff for me? Menial tasks like clearing up or driving to the store, or vacuuming?!

Spring break is coming! Do you have your tickets? I think I'll just take the train south until I run out of money. Just kidding.. I'm going south to see my high school friend Manderines in her brand newly acquired home and job in Kyushu. Might stop along the way in Kita-Kyushu.. the.. birthplace.. of.. Yoshukai.

Send Derg!