'Shroom Candy, Fried Candy

Today was a really, really good day, which I needed. Long weekends are nice, but they make it hard to get back into the swing of things, and I really wasn’t feeling like doing much of anything when I went to bed last night.

When I woke up this morning, I had confirmation of my eligibility to register for classes from Kuri-sensei, and a message from Witt ResLife saying they have received my Polis application and I should be hearing from them shortly. So that was good.

I returned my five books at the library this morning, which means that I’m now free to get other books. I think I’ll start reading Tale of Genji when I finish my Film and Lit paper and get done editing some stuff for David.

In my mailbox I had my new November health insurance card, two Halloween cards, and a notice that I had a package. I was so excited to open the mail the cards and package, but I waited because I had a class.

Speaking class this morning went well. We learned about a kind of chocolate shortbread cookie called Kinoko no Yama. They are in the shape of mushrooms, which are called kinoko (literally, “tree children”) in Japanese. Very cute. I later learned that there are also candies by the same company shaped like tree stumps, and others like baby bamboo shoots. I love the sweets here. Well, sometimes; the more traditional Japanese kinds of sweets with bean pastes and such aren’t really my thing, but Western-style cookies are fabulous.

I went to lunch at the small cafeteria and opened the cards and the package. I got a really funny card with a ghost cow saying, “Moooooo. I mean, boooo!” from my family. Aunt Doris had sent the package, which was filled with Reese’s Cups (!) and included a very thoughtful card. These weren’t the little wimpy bite-sized Reese’s either, but the full-blown, chocolate-to-peanut-butter-ratio-is-perfect kind, and a whole bag of them! They’ve been in my possession for a whole day, and they aren’t gone yet, which goes to show how many there are. Anyway, thanks, Aunt Doris! Best of all, though, Grandma and Grandpa sent me a card. I haven’t been able to talk to them since I left, which makes me sad. Grandma wrote the sweetest letter ever and put it in the card. It’s now posted above my writing desk next to my mirror, and when I look at it I get choked up. But that’s okay; it’ll keep me from being too vain and looking in the mirror too much. ^_^ I will be very glad to come home (45 days left) to see my family.

Tuesday afternoons are long because I have three classes in a row. But in Reading and Writing we played a game where we broke into teams and had to arrange different elements of kanji into as many combinations as possible, which was a lot of fun although my team didn’t win.

Asian Psych went really well. We’ve gotten away from the more fundamental theoretical wishy-washy semi-religious stuff from the earlier parts of the course, which makes me happy because I found it all very confusing and vague. Today we finished learning about Morita Therapy and moved on to Naikan Therapy, both of which are really interesting concepts. Check them out. I’ll be doing my self-cultivation project for that class using some Morita journaling techniques. I’ll probably start that over the next week, so if my blog entries get temporarily shorter, please forgive me, but I’m doing a lot of other reflective writing for a class.

In Film and Literature we learned about the internment camps during World War II. Pretty horrific stuff. I mean, no one was tortured or starved or anything, but the thought that you could just be whisked away from your home and family and job…freaky. And I don’t doubt that we’d do it again, if pressed enough. As usual, it’s good to be a rich Caucasian Christian American woman.

Rather than going home after class, I stayed on campus to finish writing my presentation outline for Speaking class on Thursday. I have to give a five minute speech about Shōtoku Taishi. Yuck. At least we can use notes and a PowerPoint, and Sensei looked over our speeches beforehand. I had udon noodles and a cheeseburger for supper on campus while I started editing David’s writing.

When I finally returned to the Seminar House, I ran into my friend Daniel who invited me to watch Lord of the Rings with him and Joanne, so after my shower I joined them in the lounge with my Reese’s Cups to share and we watched the second half of the extended edition of Fellowship of the Ring. I hadn’t seen any of the extended versions before, but I liked its flow very much. It fills in a lot of the gaps that the more edited films leave out, although I don’t think anyone could ever achieve Tolkien’s original level of detail. It was fun to watch a movie with friends, though. Some of my other friends were having a Fried Stuff Party in the kitchen (Buffalo wings, French fries, Oreos, anything they could get their hands on), and I was able to barter some Reese’s Cups for some blooming onion petals. They said they’d try to deep fry the Reese’s, but I never heard how that turned out.

Anyway, it was a very good day because I was able to keep myself busy. A lot of times, because I finish my homework so early here, I get bored and mopey in the evenings, but tonight I was nicely sociable. I will try to continue to do find evening activities. It beats the heck out of reviewing kanji, reading ahead for classes, and playing FreeCell in my room.

Happy Election Day, by the way. I hope you voted. Apparently they’re going to be broadcasting the election results in the CIE tomorrow morning, so I’m looking forward to being able to keep up with that a little bit.