There is so much to tell

里帰り
We returned for the first time last weekend to 水口, our Japanese hometown. I realized then for the first time that the irritable displacedness I had been experiencing was... homesickness. We went back to meet 西田さん for lunch, and each step through the rice fields and familiar train stops was soothing. Handouzan (反道山）the mountain with which I have had this running rivalry for three years (I am not sure it cares one way or the other, I suspect it is indifferent), listened to me once again assure it that it has not won by virtue of my not having ascended it yet. IT WILL HAPPEN. We also met up with R, and talked for hours... good conversation is hard to find, and it made me realize how completely desperate I was for it.

The next day I ended up going to the Kuch yet again, this time in order to switch bank accounts. Which in the end, I could not do. But while I waited in the bank, there was a tap on my shoulder. "Didn't you used to live next door? The people living in your old apartment had some mail come for you, and they gave it to me. It's in my car. Want me to go get it??" Shock. My former neighbor. (Conversation transliterated for ease of understanding.) She handed me two publications belonging to Security Husband, mostly stuff from the ACM. Fortuitous!! I met a friend from school for dinner... she is ditching the system!! WOOHOO!! ...unfortunately it is because the system is destroying her. Hopefully the months to come will see her free and happy.

Work has been more and more interesting for me. I still feel largely inept about things like classroom discipline, but I am fast acquiring funny stories to share. I cannot fathom how my coworkers maintain such positivity and energy, but it is a trait I am trying to share. Uninhibited enthusiasm and boldness strike me as things I would like to generate like nuclear power. Maybe it comes from the children themselves, who seem to generate energy and heat like nothing I have ever experienced before.

I signed up for the GRE. At last. I am teaching myself how to do math again. SecHus and I are rather concerned about getting applications for grad school together. I have applications I have to get going... particularly those personal statements. I am severely torn... everything I read on my chosen disclipline seems to resonate, and on the other hand, I feel like I have finally begun a job where every one of my talents is utilized.

B (no longer from Nara) is staying with us for a few days, and it has been nice to have someone else around to have good conversation with. She also is a FREAKING AWESOME cook, and just apologized to me for forgetting to make chocolate chip cookies. (!!!!) On Sunday she and I went to a woodblock exhibition of Japan and Thailand at the Kyoto Municipal Museum of Art. I know my time limit on art. Any museum, really. About an hour. Maybe less. But we saw woodblock, lithograph, silkscreen and a number of -graphs I had never even heard of. It was really exciting, as I have had no exposure to that sort of art before. I also saw a few pieces (the award-winning one made me giddy) that really inspired me, and made me think about things like material culture and folklore communicated in art and what makes art folk art and not... questions I may do further reading on at some point... even though I don't consider material culture one of those things I am really interested in. ...Oh yeah, and like looking at most good art does for me... it made me despair of my feeble sketchbooks, and wonder if trying a different medium would make me brilliant. (Suuuure it would.) Though, in a lot of ways, I had to wonder about the communicative element of art... (Obviously this is something I haven't thought about very much. Or I want to think about it... or... something.)

Today and yesterday mark the first real "autumnal" days here. Cool, rainy weather. (Perfect for biking to work in. >_<;) At lunch today, I put on the headphones (hoorah for Security Husband bringing back a portable music player from the States), and ambled about the neighborhood around the school. It still makes me giddy to listen to music while I walk around... like I have my own personal soundtrack playing to the world, and nobody knows it but me. I can't help but smile at people, and stifle dancing in the streets. I still have held off on the "listening to music while biking," as I depend on every sense I possess to stay alive to and from work.