July 15, 2002
I had a really great evening today, despite the fact that I was two hours late getting home (although I called Okaasan early in the evening to alert her to this fact, so it was all okay). The reason that I was so delayed was two fold: First, there was the fact that in addition to my normal slate of things to take care of, I had four days worth of handwritten journal entries to transcribe and upload. For those of you who are not fully aware as two why I've stopped using my laptop, here's how things stand.
-For most means and purposes my laptop has been rendered persona non gratis. The screen back lighting is completely dead, for reasons I don't know. That is the thing that illuminates the screen, which is why I could use it in the dark as easily as everywhere else, before it broke at least.
- I get around this problem by plugging a regular computer monitor into my laptop (in essence it's like I'm using my laptop like a regular desktop computer). This only works when I'm at the center, since my host family doesn't have a computer I can hijack. So this means that I now have only a few precious hours every day to read and respond to my email, my journal, and whatever other tasks I need my computer to complete. So right now, all the writing projects that I was working on on my computer are on hold. Ditto for the music videos I was working on. This really irks me because I was just starting to get some really good work done on the Gospels. As well, I no longer have the leisure of writing and proofing my journal before I go to bed, and have it all ready to upload when I get to the center in the morning. Oh well, I suppose this means I finally get back to work on 'Future Perfect' and "Hatred of Redemption," my two other Eva fics that I gave a strong start to in notebook form, but never copied to computer.
Okay, so that was my summary of my computer situation. Now, as to why I'm feeling so good right now. Despite my late arrival home, I was still able to catch the tail end of dinner (Okaasan kept a plate warm for me in the microwave) which was absolutely delicious. It was a huge rice omelet with green onions and lots of gravy and it was oishiiiiiiii! Afterwards Otousan engaged me in light conversation and after having watched me devour my way through a good portion of the table, said that after I returned to the U.S I should keep eating Japanese food because it would make my heart strong. Then the conversation kind of drifted to what kind of girls I liked, and I went with the simple (and honest) answer of 'smart ones.' He found this amusing and told me that when I got married, Japan was the best place to go on a honeymoon, and that I also had to stop by and introduce her to the family.
I then launched into my explanation of why I'd been so late: I'd spent an hour and half after class getting a koto lesson. The teacher from our lesson Tuesday had been impressed by our enthusiasm and offered to give us an hour lesson every Monday for the rest of the session. Nine of us showed up (which worked out pretty well since there were three kotos). Sometimes I really regret being so blasé about giving up the violin way back in the fourth grade, because I absolutely adore string instruments. I think when I return to Japan, I'll have to look into getting regular koto lessons, because I really enjoyed playing an instrument again. I had a great time during today's lesson, and at least at the beginner level, playing the koto was fairly easy (there are thirteen strings, and the musical narration has the number of the string instead of an abstract note, so the music was very easy to read). It gets a lot more complicated when you play with more than one finger (you wear a pick on your thumb, first and second fingers - we just used our thumbs) and start altering the tones by applying pressure to the strings. After stating how much I enjoyed the lesson, and how much I was looking forward to next week's, Otousan commented that I must have a Japanese heart, which just made me feel like 'yeah, things are going great here.'
That typhoon I've been mentioning for the past couple days is about to arrive. The miserable weather that I've been harping about has been the result of its leading edge brushing past. The main mass is going to be hitting early in the A.M. tommorrow, and right now Okassan is going about locking down the house (i.e. pulling the storm shutters down over every window). If the weather is nasty, I can get a ride to Yasu Eki, but I'm going to be very cross if I can't get a cab or something to the Center.