Sho mo nai!

Tick tick tick tick tick...

HOLY CRAP! Do I seriously have less than a month until life as I know it comes to an end? Our last church service with everyone here is going to be July 16th, that's just a little over two weeks away!
Next weekend we're going sea kayaking,
the following weekend is the Tokushima JET Sayonara Party,
the weekend after that is the last church service with everyone here,
and then four days after that Phil gets here and all hell breaks loose! (read: we travel around Japan)
And then when we get back there's only four days left before I've got to be out of my apartment!
So basically I only have three weekends left where my life holds any semblance to what it has, and then it's all change, change, change. The leaves say, "Change, change, change."
"Winter spring and summer fall/ the seasons never cared at all/ that I'm still changing"

Meanwhile, this past weekend has been good.
On friday night I went down to wish Melissa a happy quarter of a century, and then at the party just hung out with close friends (uncharacteristic of me? perhaps), and at the end got to watch the Ukraine game on the big projector screen. Sweet! I rushed home from half-time to see if I could make it back in time to catch the end of the game, but to my sorrow found that I don't get the channel! So I had to watch the Spain game instead and wait with bated breath for the highlights. And the results were good! But as of writing this I have yet to see or hear the results from their ensuing game... [more trepidation].

On Saturday we had school. PTA day. There is just no way to love school on a Saturday, I'm sorry. Nobody's really happy to be there, despite getting Monday off in return. But it goes okay, and in the last period we all got to try our hands at making soba noodles. Mine turned out pretty good I think. The people who saw my noodles were impressed at how thin an professionally I had cut them. It's all that training with box knives and poster board, I tell you! Keep me off the airplanes, I'm dangerous!
Ahem. Anyhow, when I got home all that school on a Saturday had tired me out so much that I needed to take a nap. And slept for a very long time, making myself late for the Awa Odori practice that night. Oops. Ah well, I'm good enough that I don't need the practice, right? Heh, but the endurance needs to be earned. Ouch, my arms and shoulders.

Somewhere in there I also managed to make my apartment nice and clean, so that when Colin and Jenny, Brian and Christine, Julie, and Eiko came up to Kamikatsu for our Bible study/ Kamikatsu day, I was not ashamed to have them see my cave. Erm, apartment. But we did see caves, too! After a lunch at the necessary Ikkyu-chaya we all hopped into Colin and Jenny's van and went uphill to check out the local caves.

But the local caves are connected with and managed by a Buddhist temple. Which was kinda odd in two ways. In one way it was kinda good, because all of us being Christians could all just opt out of all the prayer and Buddhist stuff and just crawl and scrabble through the caves. In another way, it was odd to be doing what had effectively become a little Buddhist pilgrimage on Bible study night. But it made for good discussion afterwards.

If you recall, these were the same caves that really creeped my sister and I out about a year ago. They weren't so bad the second time, but consensus was that the guide was too slow and we could have made it through ourselves much faster just trying to figure it out on our own. As it was she could only give directions to the front three people, and the ones at the end pretty much just figured it out for themselves anyways. But it was nice to know that, "Facing left here is the easier way through, and you can turn around after 10 more feet." So it's still better to go with the guide for peace of mind. Not that they let you go without.

After that was Bible study, which was on the book of James, but talking about stuff in James led to discussion about the experience in the afternoon, and we ended up focusing on 1 Corinthians 8 and 10 a bunch.

And then we went to dinner at the onsen, and finished up with a dip in the onsen before everyone went home. For a change, I had a very short drive home and everyone else had a long drive home. Home was VERY quiet when I got back.

Yesterday (Monday, technically today, because at the time of writing this I have yet to sleep), I spent most of the day laying out Colin's book, Common Plants and Animals of Tokushima. I did give myself the leisure of sleeping in until nine, though. Book book book in the morning, another lunch at Ikkyu teahouse, book book book in the afternoon, a dinner of honey garlic beef, potato croquettes, and frozen mixed veggies, and more book book book until the first draft of the layout was complete at about seven thirty. Then I rewarded myself with a long phone call.
And then in the middle of my obligatory Japanese homework, I ended up doing just a little bit more on the book, and then this, and oh look it's way past my bedtime. I'll just save this puppy, get a photo of the layout a bit, drop it all on the flash memory and have it ready to blog in the morning. Lets hope I don't oversleep now. Over and outie.

posted by Fletcher @ 8:30 a.m.