Would you like a tidbit with your bagel and lox?

This, too, was a random disorganized spontaneous week, but next week! I promise will be thrilling. But this week, I believe, was still full of subtle enchantment. (Three cheers for subtle enchantment!)

What stands out this week!

My Japanese teacher is starting to crack down the whip on me...my Japanese proficiency test is December 2nd, and I know too much kanji (Chinese characters) and not enough grammar. Heavens. Another dilemma is that I am starting to let my kanji get a wee tad rusty. I got flashcards, though, so I am working on transcribing all 115 and counting that I know onto them.

This week, I had my first math test. It was dreadful. I am not too worried, though, due to my suberb ability to transcend levels and see life's big picture, and also because I know that if I really feel like I am suffering due to my incomplete knowledge of math, there is an English speaking math teacher who can help me. My friends, though, have been really great about helping me understand, and since I am not inherently bad at math, I think I will be okay. Concerned reader, cease your worrying.

My friend had a random maid costume left over from Masai (see posts below for definition), so obviously I just had to wear it during lunch. This was really fun, partially from the sheer amusement of tromping around in nefarious costume, and partially because I wasn't sure my teachers would take it well, thus I was playing a game of "Sneak Around the School During Lunch While Avoiding the Eyeshot of Any/All Teachers." On that unfortunate occasion that I did meet a teacher, I shot them my best Merry Maid smile and hoped they wouldn't take it too seriously. So far I haven't been called in for any random acts of mayhem.

My host mother corrected me yesterday because I was accidentally really disregarding Japanese custom because I didn't eat everything on my plate. While I naively finished a meal without finishing something on my plate, I unintentionally was giving out the impression that I was distant and cold, which I definitely didn't mean at all. However, in Japan, mothers tell their children not to even leave one grain of rice to a) honor the person who made it, and b) honor the gods who gave it to be eaten. Oops--I'm really glad she told me!

Today was Natsu's grandmother's birthday, so my host mother bought a plain sponge cake, and we made whipped cream and cut strawberries and she handed the task of decorating it to me. It started okay, almost ended badly because I was taking too long and the cream was melting, but ultimately, I think it ended up okay. Check it out.

A sport (rather, The Sport) I am becoming continually more enthralled with is sumo, mainly because it is so traditional, yet seems so unlikely. Consider this: two men, each carrying 200-300 extra pounds and an XXXL traditional jockstrap (called mawashi, quite a visual treat) enter the ring, spend about 5 minutes grunting, glaring at each other, lifting their legs up high and bringing them down in a loud stomp, throwing salt into the ring to ward off evil spirits, and slapping their fat. When they do finally get down into the pre-wrestling squatting positions, often they start the salt-throwing-fat-slapping ritual again. Once they finally do wrestle, it generally lasts all of 5 seconds (no joke), during which they try to push the other out of the ring and grab the other's mawashi--since they lose if it comes completely off--and they next pair start it over again. My favorite part of sumo is the referee, called a gyoji, who wears special traditional dress, carries a war fan, and does this great whooping cry before, during and after the match. The ring is raised, so if a sumo wrestler loses his balance, he could easily go flying into the crowd, squashing innocent bystanders. What's not to love? I do, in all honesty, though, find it really interesting.

Today (it's very early in the morning) I go to Kyoto, so I will be very out of touch this week. I'm really looking forward to it! I'm taking a bullet train, staying in a traditional Japanese inn, taking a bath with my classmates (oh, great), going to a lot of temples...and it should be beautiful! I promise many many pictures. I have so much omiyage to buy, though...omiyage, or souveneirs, are a big custom here--bigger than in America, because in getting omiyage, you represent to the receiver that even though you left and had a blast without him/her, you didn't forget and were still thinking about the person. Very important. I have quite a list of people, so I will work on covering that there!

It's way past my bedtime, so good night!

audrey