Today I woke up determined to put on my best face and my best suit (my only suit) and go to my older daughter's elementary school graduation ceremony. I tried my best to be positive. I am currently reading Dale Carnegie's _How to Stop Worrying and Start Living_ and it inspired me to do my best today. After all, this day was not about me. It was about my daughter (and to a certain extent, her mother). So why should I do anything to spoil her day?

It pretty much worked. But I have to tell you, the school and whoever put together the ceremony did just about everything they could to make me break my vow.

If anyone had gone to the ceremony not knowing what it was and not understanding Japanese, they would have thought they were attending a funeral. I cannot recall anyone smiling the whole time we were there. The principal might have, but we were seated so far away that it was hard to tell. There were no triumphant fists in the air, no "woohoos," nothing to indicate that anyone was happy to have made this accomplishment. The speeches, whose contents were somewhat uplifting, were presented in a way that literally (and I do mean literally, not figuratively) brought me to tears. Twice. Those were tears of boredom, not emotion.

I know the kids were happy. Before the ceremony they were children, laughing and having fun. But put in that ceremony, something changed. Some of the guys wore the school uniform they will don everyday in junior high. Most did not. None of the girls did so, at least none that I could recognize right off. Interestingly, though, most of the girls had on a blazer and a skirt that looked remarkably similar to some high school uniforms. I guess they want to hurry up and just skip past junior high. Rebecca wore a dark suit and she looked more like she was ready to go off into the world. I took a picture of her with Shuko and Rebecca only has another centimeter or so before she catches up with her mother. I will post some photos when I get the film developed.

I tried so hard to be positive. I really did. I tried to smile. I even tried to laugh. Shuko shut me down. Of course, she was probably afraid that I would ruin something and she wanted me to be just as somber and dead as everyone else. I tried so hard that going into this ceremony, I was rethinking my going to the entrance ceremony for her junior high school next month. But that will not happen now. I just cannot see going to another one of those ceremonies so close.

Another one of the books I have read this year is titled _The Wonderful World of Sazae-san, Vol. 2_ by Machiko Hasegawa. To tell the truth, it is somewhat debatable as to whether or not I should even include this book on my list of books I have read this year, as it is a comic book. Sazae-san is actually a Japanese comic strip started decades ago. I do not even know if the creator is still alive. (I do not think she is.) This compilation is an English language translation of some of the strips that have run in the past, around the end of World War II.

I decided to include it for two reasons. First, more than being a simple compilation like that of Charlie Brown or Calvin and Hobbes, this comic strip gives some insight into how post-WWII Japan did things. It is also humorous. Every so often an American GI makes an appearance. I suppose that is to be expected in that the occupation of Japan lasted for years after the war ended. But the strip is mainly about the daily life of Sazae-san and her family. It really brings to life Japanese culture.

The second reason is much more prosaic. I can use it to boost up my total number of books read this year without much effort. After all, it is just a comic book, and it took me only a short time (less than a day) to get through it.

I read Volume 1 sometime last year, so I cannot include it this year. There are twelve volumes in all. At least that is all there is at the local library, so that is all I will read. A few years back I tried reading through this series, but I did not get much out of it. I have lived in Japan for over twelve years straight, now, so hopefully I have come to understand (if not appreciate) some of the Japanese culture, which will help me get through the rest of the series without half of everything going over my head.

I was made painfully aware of my age when a package arrived at my house today. Grandpa Bill, in a continual attempt to clean up the Lewis homestead, sent me some "books." One of the books was my senior yearbook.

I graduated from high school in 1986 at the tender young age of 17. That means that most seniors who will graduate in a few months were not even born when I graduated almost 19 years ago. That, in and of itself, is enough to send me into a state of depression. After all, what have I accomplished in those 19 years? Not much.

Shuko always tells me to not compare myself with others, but I wonder if those who are successful are ever admonished to do the same. I flipped through the yearbook and found many people who I had forgotten. Some of them were friends. Most of them I barely knew. There is only one person in my graduating class that I have kept in touch with at all, and I have not kept in touch with him very much. If he were ever to move away from Savannah, I would probably lose touch with my high school completely.

Not that I was ever enamored with high school. There were very few people at my high school that I ever associated with outside of high school. As for learning goes, I never was a wiz in high school. I suppose I did OK my freshman year, but things went quickly downhill as a sophomore. There was one semester (I think the second semester of my sophomore year, but I may be mistaken) that I even got below a 2.0 GPA. I do not really blame anyone except myself for that. I made some horrible decisions at that time in my life, but there were certainly a lot of people who influenced those decisions.

Not to mention how nerdy I looked. I cannot recall ever having a date in high school, except for my senior prom. Gosh, what a disaster that was. I went to the prom with a girl I barely knew, the friend of a girl I kind of liked at the time. We did not dance at all. My grandmother has a copy of a picture we took at the prom. I have asked her to remove it, but everyone knows how grandmothers are.

According to the yearbook, the top news story of the year was the Challenger space shuttle disaster. Don Johnson became a household name in Miami Vice. I never watched Miami Vice at the time, but I watched a few episodes recently. It was so 80s. All the girls have big hair in that show. Not to mention a lot of big hair in my yearbook.

I do not recognize half of the names of people who signed my yearbook. Half of those I do, I wish I could forget. I cannot imagine going to a high school reunion. I heard of one once, I think it was the ten year mark, but I am not sure. There are only a few people that I would enjoy seeing again, and I doubt any of them would go to a reunion.

So here I am, more than twice as old as I was when I graduated from high school and I cannot think of much that I have accomplished to make the world a better place. I suppose I should look at things more positively. At least I do not believe I have made the world a worse place. But who knows? Maybe I have. One of the books I got while I was in Tokyo is How to Stop Worrying and Start Living, by Dale Carnegie. I think that will be the next book I read.

This picture was taken when I was 16,
during the summer before my senior year.
Check out those glasses. It was the 80s,
but those glasses were from the 50s. Yuck!



I was on the newspaper staff my senior year.
A lot of good it did my writing career.



One of the few things I did that was fun was
acting in plays. I was part of a local theater
for a while, but the owner decided to join the
Catholic priesthood and I spent my senior year
with the school drama club. This was the cast
from A Midsummer's Night Dream. There I am
right in the middle, though it is hard to make
out any details. By this time I had gotten
rid of the glasses, opting for contact lenses.

Yesterday I saw something that sent chills down my spine. It was a site horrific enough to make grown men quake in their boots. Boys would run away as fast as they could to avoid the pain involved. No one with any sense of decency would wish this fate on their worst enemies.

I am speaking, of course, of my suit.

Shuko pulled my suit out of storage (wherever that may be) because we are entering the dreaded season of endings and beginnings. April 1 marks the start of the fiscal year and school year, and Japanese young and old, individually and in groups, mark the festivities with all kinds of ceremonies. Most prominent are the graduation ceremonies in March and entrance ceremonies (both into school and into employment) in April. And proper attire is required. Some people go beyond a suit and don their formal wear for the occasion, kimono being the formal wear here in Japan. Though it is more likely that the ladies in the group will put on a kimono to celebrate (or commiserate), I have seen more than one gentleman put himself through such torture.

I do not own a kimono, and in most situations a suit is considered sufficient. I wore a kimono at my wedding reception almost 14 years ago. I probably will not wear another one until my children get married, and I may not even wear one then. But I do own a suit. At my wife's and my mother-in-law's insistence. Certainly not my own.

I would not be surprised to find out that the last time I wore a suit was to one of those ceremonies held last year. I recall going to one graduation at a kindergarten I taught English at and an entrance ceremony for my youngest, who was starting elementary school. I cannot recall whether or not I went to my youngest's kindergarten graduation. But I am dreading this year. If I were to attend all the various ceremonies that I have been invited to or to which I am somewhat expected to go, I would have to put that suit on at least three times. There is a graduation at the same kindergarten as last year, my oldest's graduation from elementary school and then her subsequent entrance ceremony into junior high school.

Shuko, anticipating such, pulled out my suit to take to the cleaners. But I got a bit of a respite today. I received a formal invitation to attend the kindergarten graduation today. I opened it up to find out which day I was doomed for, and found out that it was set for March 26 at 10:00 (please show up by 9:40). A quick look at the calendar and we can tell that the 26th is a Saturday. Guess what Saturday is. One of my busiest days of work. In any event, 10:00 until 1:30 is quite busy. I have a valid excuse for skipping out this year. YEAH! So that is one out of the way.

I have already written a little concerning the entrance ceremony for junior high school. There is a chance that I may not have to go there because of worries that I would disrupt the show. I am such a wimp that I doubt I would actually do anything. I am much more talk than action. But inside I would be seething and there would be so much stress pent up inside that I would become a serious candidate for a heart attack or some other stress related disease. Shuko has recognized that and so I may not have to go. We shall see.

But I do not believe I will be able to get out of the graduation ceremony. I question the need for a graduation ceremony at elementary school. I never had one, and I do not believe they are very common in the US. Here in Japan, everyone is forced to go to school (home schooling is almost non-existent) and even those few that do not attend, are allowed to graduate with their age group. This is the same for junior high school. It does not matter what kind of "grades" you get, "you graduate." So I fail to see anything to celebrate. You are simply getting the same thing everyone else is getting. But it is now a standard here in Japan, and I do not think I can get out of it. I asked Rebecca if she minded if I wore shorts and a T-shirt, perhaps one advertising my English classroom. I was turned down with a resounding "dame," (two syllables, "da" with the "a" sounding like the "a" in "father" and "me" with the "e" sounding like the "e" in "pen") meaning "There are absolutely no conditions in which you will be allowed to do that." That is a loose translation, but I hope I have conveyed the nuance.

So on the morning of March 18 I will put on that most dreaded attire, my suit, and walk to the elementary school to watch my oldest go through a Japanese rite of passage (yet another one of many).

And to add insult to injury, I bet they will make me wear a tie, too.

As I have written before, I have given up newspapers this year. I was planning on keeping up with the news on-line, surfing through all the various websites and becoming more informed on everything than ever before. Things did not quite work out that way. Especially since Enterprise was cancelled (I know, I know, I just cannot get away from that subject), my mailbox has been inundated with literally thousands of e-mails. It has been only a month since the announcement and I bet I've received over 7500 e-mails in that time period. That includes e-mails that have nothing to do with Enterprise, but a lot of them (probably more than half) are. I watch CNN for about 15 to 20 minutes in the morning and some of the e-mail I receive has to do with news or current events, but that is about all the news I receive. I am decidedly less informed than I was three months ago.

But you know what? I do not care. I am much more relaxed than I was at that time. I have been able to do a lot more of what I want to do. And I do not feel any pressure. Before, I would steam and stew over what some talking head or politician had to say. Now I do not know what they have to say. And does my being informed help anything really? No. Nothing I ever wrote or said or did ever made a difference. I have my principles that I stand by. That is what has become important to me. I suppose when elections come around I will have to do some studying up on the candidates to see which ones most closely represent my views, but for the most part, they would be Libertarian candidates.

But I am getting off track. I did not mean to write anything political today. That is another thing that I have given up (for the most part) that I have not particularly missed. But I had another purpose for giving up newspapers. I wanted to spend more time reading books. So far this year I have read ten. The first one I read this year was Digital Fortress, by Dan Brown.

I went to Tokyo just after the New Year. There is a book store for used books in Tokyo that I went to trying to find a copy of The Da Vinci Code. It is so popular I thought I would give it a try. Unfortunately, it is so popular that there were not any used copies available. But I was able to find two of his previous books. Digital Fortress won out as the first book of the year.

It was certainly a decent book, though not particularly well written in my opinion. Though I enjoy having chapter breaks to help move the pace along (as well as to give me a good place to put my bookmark), Brown takes the concept to new heights with a total of 128 chapters, a prologue and an epilogue. That is an average of under three pages per chapter. Not a few chapters are less than a page. What this means is that even though there are 430 pages, a lot of those have less than a full printing.

Another thing I noticed is that my writing style (such as it is) is similar to Brown's in this book. On one front I find this disturbing because as I was reading I realized that I did not particularly like it. On the other hand, I found it thrilling because if this particular style sells, maybe I have a chance of selling my book after all. Some day. Hopefully.

Final analysis: I will not mind reading another book by Don Brown (and in fact, I am currently reading Deception Point by him), but this book does not propel him to the top of my list of favorite writers.

I am probably the last person on the planet to watch season one of 24, but I was able to finish watching it the other day. I am impressed, to say the least.

I have never seen a TV show put together quite in the way 24 was put together. When the program was half way through its run, I did not know what else there was to tell, but the writers were able to put together an intriguing story from start to finish.

And what a finish it was! We all found out who the real culprit at CTU was. I will say that I had my suspicions of that person at the beginning, but later discounted my suspicions. Of course, in hour 23, we found out the truth.

I am amazed that such a show was put together. I was further amazed to find out that there was a second season. But when I found out there was a season three (I found out when I received the complete season three on DVD as a Christmas present) I could not believe it. My sources tell me that they are currently on the fourth season. Kiefer Sutherland must be one of the most tired actors in the business, as much as he goes through. I just hope that Elisha Cuthbert remains in her role as Kim. I don't know many who can be counted as cute as she is.

I spent yesterday writing about Star Trek and completely forgot to mention what yesterday was here in Japan. March 3 is Hina Matsuri, sometimes referred to in English as Girl's Day. I am not sure of the origin of the day except to say that Japanese have a thing for odd numbers. January 1, March 3, May 5 and July 7 all have something going for them.

We did not do much to "celebrate" Girl's Day even though we have two of them. Some people spend a lot of money on hina ningyo or hina dolls which represent a couple (something tells me it's the imperial family, but I could be way off on that) and their entourage. The dolls are set up on what looks like steps. There are different dolls at each level representing different things. Do not ask me what. I seem to recall hearing when I first came to Japan that these dolls were on display until March 3 when they were to be taken down. Otherwise the girls would not get married in a timely fashion. Again, do not quote me on that. I heard this information from another foreigner and who knows who that foreigner heard that from. Ultimately, I am sure it came from a Japanese, but lots can get lost in translation and transmission. Suffice it to say that I am looking forward with great anticipation to my children getting married and leaving the house (and sending us stipends in our old age) and so I do not want to take any chance with leaving any dolls in the way.

About the only thing we did to celebrate was have a cake. I told my children, "Hurry up and get married." Another reason we do not have the dolls is the cost. Like everything else in Japan, they are really expensive. Shuko has, in the past, used her creative talent to make hina dolls out of items such as paper cups or spindles from toilet paper. Our girls are big enough now to not be impressed with such so she has not done that in a while.

This marks my first blog post to my home page that will include a photograph. In fact, there are two photographs. Hope you like them.