the past 2 Mondays...

So these are some pictures of the past 2 Mondays (my day off). I'm not going to write too much... because I need to sleep. Tomorrow the wisdom toothfairy is once again calling my name and I'll be making my way bright and early to the local dentist... by bus. Gotta love public transportation.

Monday, 6/19.
Juri, Brooke and I went on some wild adventures...
We started the day off by almost missing the train. Juri got stuck in a train jam and ended up parking his car and running 2 1/2 miles to the train station - we JUST made it. Poor guy... we felt so bad! BUT the day got progressively better. :) And here was the highlight. Juniko (12 lakes - really ponds), boasting some of the most beautiful and rare ponds of Japan.

On the train.


One of the more beautiful ponds...


Aoike. Blue pond. Concise. Perhaps there's wisdom in giving it that name... because how could you even begin to describe it... A fairytale land of tropical fish blue water, emerald leaves and cool-mist air that makes you heady in breathing in. Truly an enchanting place.




Nihon Kanion (Japan Canyon). Juri, Brooke, and me. :)


Exhaustion finally lays claim to our sanity... grins



Monday, 6/26. Arnie, Amy's dad, and I started off the day early. Really early. 5 am early. But were most wonderfully rewarded. We couldn't have asked for a more beautiful day. An expansive blue sky, fresh cooling breeze, the peek season for mountian flowers, and a clear view from the summit, complete with a dotting of puffy white clouds.

And here began our day. 6 am. On the way to Moriyoshiyama (yama = mountain).


This is one of my favorite pictures from the day. It makes me smile and feel all giddy inside. grins I'll have to ask Arnie again what the name of the flower is. I forgot. :)


Fields of mountain flowers... and beyond them the top of Moriyoshiyama.





me on top of the world. :)


The kanji (Chinese characters) say something something... Moriyoshi Mountain (Mori means forest), 1,454 meters.


Me and Arnie (Amy's dad). :) It's nice to have someone to motivate you to get up early enough to appreciate being on top of a mountain at 9:45 in the morning. grins It was beautiful.

Ghana vs. USA right NOW!

GO GHANA!!

edit: Ghana just won! WOOHOO!!

often comfortable and clueless... snuggled safe in soft fuzzy whiteness...

I forget that most people on this planet are not. And that that is to their disadvantage. I will never understand the weight people carry in shouldering the burden of a different color.
I ask myself WHY... not expecting the comforting answer that a worried child receives from his or her all-knowing all-powerful universe-balancing mother (or father). I don't expect to receive an answer at all. I can't erase my color, nor anyone else's. We were painted with a stuff more water resistant than oil paint, more stubborn than the ink of a sharpie... Indeed, the hand of God is stronger than these. What I receive in exchange for my unanswerable WHY is another question. HOW will I wear my color? And maybe, WHAT other colors will I add to my palette. White is awfully boring, just sitting on the palette all by itself...


So... if I had to choose ONE book (from the plethora of books I've read this past year) that has reached its hands deepest into my heart and leaving the deepest impressions, like strong fingers in soft wet clay, this book would be it. The heart of Maya Angelou. And in some ways, the heart of every woman, even if it's just a chamber, a muscle strand, a blood vessel, a cell membrane. She has most definitely left her impression deep in me... most definitely plucked my heart-strings, making me laugh and cry, shout and dance, fume in anger and sit quietly in self-reflection. She more deeply cultivated my love of being a woman and more violently sparked my wonderment of how it would be to be a skin color other than white. She challenged me intellectually, globally, ethically, spiritually... in so many ways that I haven't yet discovered how to untangle and lay out. And she challenged me as a woman.

jumping on the World Cup bandwagon...

and what a fun ride it is! grins

Last night I watched the rerun of the Argentina vs. Serbia/Montenegro game. Holy crap.

6-0.

I was ecstatic for Argentina! I love Latin America! I love that they love soccer! And I love that I love soccer a whole lot more because I spent so much time playing it while in Central America. :)

But SM... I can't imagine how they must have felt losing perhaps a bit of their dignity along with the game. My heart panged in empathizing with a crushed spirit... And I thought of playing soccer in Honduras, and a cultural lesson I learned about winning. Hondurans, at least, play to win, but not to crush. Our mosaic soccer team, made up of college students of all shapes, sizes, and abilities, crushed the Honduran high school team. Honestly it was the few HC soccer boys that ruled the field and scored the goals. And to them, you played for every ounce you were worth, scoring as many goals as you could. The game quickly turned from fun competition and a good time to not-quite-world-cup-seriousness. And subsequently left a very disheartened and confused high school Honduran team. Cultural lesson ensued: you don't play to kill. You play to win, and then you demonstrate compassion for the losing team by not scoring anymore.
The World Cup is different in many ways from the experience I had in Honduras. And the points count in the end. But I couldn't help but feel the same strings of compassion being pulled.

And now I need to go teach my Japanese kids. :) Way for a cultural jump. grins

Birthday fun... Tanjoubi Omedetou!!

Birthday fun... Tanjoubi Omedetou!!
Originally uploaded by auro-borea-rs.

Birthday fun with the girls! Emi, the girl in the middle on the right, is the birthday girl. In celebration we filled the night with dinner, purikura (crazy sticker pictures), bowling, conbini hopping (conbinis are convenient stores) involving the buying and eating of snacks, and finishing off at this restaurant where we ate so much we couldn't eat anymore. seriously. Brooke and I couldn't remember the last time we were that full. Not the good full feeling, either. haha The kind of full feeling that makes you wish you'd stopped eating several hours ago. But what's birthday without good food. ;)

Meet our new boyfriends. grins Compliments of a couple bags of chips we picked up on one of our conbini stops. haha

I don't know what you do while you bowl, but we like to talk. ;) And eat icecream. And goof around as much as possible. Bowling is just the medium. grins

Our bowling shoes. Smirking adds to the overall affect. hehe (me and Emi)

And our reaction to the shoes. ;)

hurray for birthdays!

"blue mosque"

So... this is a beautiful picture. I got it from the BBC link. Istanbul, Turkey.

commonality of the absence or insufficiency of words...

or maybe... :) Words are never enough. And that's ok.

"I don't talk about my feelings a lot. Instead I lie in my bed and think onto Him. I meditate because sometimes my words don't come out just right. But He can find me. He can find what's inside of me just by listening to my thoughts." ~ 24 yr old prostitute in White Pine County, Nevada

"In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God's will." ~ the Apostle Paul, Romans 8:26-27

my day today

today was good, but i was tired. i went to church at one of the churches i teach english at. araya. the people there are wonderful. i love them!!! after the worship service part we always each lunch together, which we did today too. one of the ladies that comes is my mom's age and has a 21 yr old daughter who's been severely depressed. one of the other lady's with very limited english expressed it as "she is sick in her heart"... a very accurate, sombering description. it makes me remember that with all the problems i run to, or all the trouble i get myself into, it's really not as bad as i think it is or as bad as it could be. i'm healthy and energetic and i love life and i find joy in life and i don't struggle with wanting to live or living out each day. i've never walked in her daughter's shoes once, not a day. so while i have my own various and sundry problems... it's good to put them in perspective. anyway, i met her daughter today because she brought her to church. she was very slow and out of it because she'd just gotten out of the hospital a little while ago, couple days or so. she reminded me of the kind of porcelain that is so thin and fragile and delicate that if you hold it up to the light, you can see the light shine through it. i was afraid she was going to shatter in my hands. but i asked her if she was coming back on june 18 (i teach at 2 different churches, so i got to each one every other week), and she said she would come. i'm glad. and after church i went to a band concert of 2 of my little 3rd grade girls. they were adorable, of course. and hearing concert/jazz band play reminded me a ton of highschool and playing in the concert/jazz/marching band. grins ah! the memories! nazukashi! (ask amy for translation) hehehehe i miss making music! there's a part of my heart that won't escape the barriers i erect around it except by bursting out through my fingertips in the music i make. i stopped at the park for some peace and green and trees and water and flowers and nature on my way to my apt, and now i'm back, thoroughly exhausted, it's almost 7 and i could have gone to bed an hour ago. except now i'm going to download and print off study materials for the GRE because i'm going to take it in the fall when i get back to NY. ugh. i hate standardized tests with the fiery passion of 10,000 flaming arrows spewing across a pitchblack sky. grins
and that was my day. :)

The Arensen House

(compliments of Noel's camera. thanks Noel!)