A Second Chance at Thanksgiving

It turns out that I did get Thanksgiving after all. It figures... why not go to Japan to celebrate American Thanksgiving? I got invited to go to Akita City with all the other LBWM English teachers and we had a feast together, complete with a turkey imported from Minnesota for the occasion. I honestly had no craving for that kind of food, and it didn't excite me so much to see the stuffing and mashed potatos and everything sitting on the table waiting to be eaten; I think if given a choice now, I would choose Japanese food over Western food. But after saying grace and taking my first bite, I remembered why this meal has become tradition, and why it turns ordinary people into gluttons (though I did not eat too much, I just got comfortably full). I had forgotten what turkey tasted like, how wonderful stuffing is, and how creamy mashed potatoes and pumpkin pie are.
It was a cozy day with fun people.
A cozy day where I spent most of my time trying to take over the world; I think I spent about five or six hours playing Risk. I just didn't expect to stay in the game so long, as I've only played about twice in my life and I was playing with a bunch of men. But much to my surprise, by the time we stopped I had control over three continents and was winning the game. Who knew. I bet I did so good because I started out with 'Alberta' (which geographically was BC, Alberta and Saskatchewan); really I was just defending my hometown.
I am very thankful to have the life that I'm living right now, and thankful for all the blessings that have been pouring down on me. And just one of those blessings was celebrating Thanksgiving with a bunch of friends and amazing food in a warm place when I originally though I never would be able to.
I guess when you give things up and decide to be content living without them, sometimes they get given back in a way you never thought of.

So This is Goodbye

Today I became shockingly aware of how uncertain life really is. This afternoon while doing my CLBI homework, waiting for another class to start, the pastor of the church I was at came in; he told me that one of my students had died on Sunday. I didn't know what to say; she wasn't even 40 yet. She went to sleep Saturday night and just like that, this world had seen the last of her.
It's weird to think that just a week ago she was sitting in my class, struggling with my other students to understand why English is the way it is, and now she's just a pile of ashes in a clay jar, waiting to be put in a grave.
It made me wonder if I had done all that I could for her, or given her all that she needed to take. I wonder if I had smiled at her enough and brought her enough of God's joy. I wonder if there was more that I could've done for her and if I had been as loving towards her as I could've been. I had no idea that last Tuesday would be the last time I would smile at her and ask her how her day was.
But now she's having the best unending day of her life as, thankfully, she knows God. That at last leaves peace as an aftertaste, instead of the raw bitterness of death.
But it makes you wonder. You never really know when the last time you're going to see somebody on this earth is going to be. You don't know if, when you leave your house you'll ever come back, when you say goodbye you'll ever say hello again, or in this case, when you go to sleep if you'll wake up in the morning.
Did you leave a good impression with every last person you talked to? Did you act in God's love to everyone you made eye contact with? Did you sacrificially give the time to someone you knew needed it, right when they needed it?
I can only pray that I do this to each of my students, no matter how frustrating it is to try to communicate with them, and each of the people I see when I'm out going places every day. What kind of impression am I leaving? Do I let them hear heaven every time I laugh, leave behind a fingerprint of God every time I smile, and give them a heartful of peace and joy every time I talk to them?
Peoples' eternity weighs on the way we, as Christians, treat those around us. We are God's billboards...but what kind of message are we leaving?
So this is goodbye to a student, and a fellow sister in Christ, who knew God's love and pursued knowing Him despite everything she was faced with. May the memory of her in people's minds be another billboard shouting God's grace.

My Garbage and a Beast

I've decided that cleaning is just not my forte. I find it impossible to keep my apartment clean. Don't get me wrong, I do clean it (I'm not that unhygenic), but it never gets completely clean, It's a mystery to me; it's like there's a beast living in my apartment...and it's not me. No matter how well I clean the floors I always see more dirtyness, glistening in the sunlight that's shining in through the window, not even five minutes after I've finished. And more often than not it's hair. Not only am I living with a beast, but it's a hairy beast, an invisible hairy beast that must be almost bald by now. I think I've collected enough hair now to donate to cancer and make a wig.
But that's another problem. I've always wondered if hair goes in the 'burnable' garbege or the 'unburnable' garbege. Japan likes to make garbege collecting more difficult than the average country, I think, and you have to think hard before you dispose of your unwanted rubbish: seperate the plastics, but bottles go in a seperate bin (as long as you take off the labels), and if it doesn't have the 'pura' mark, put it in the regular trash; the regular trash can take most paperish items, but put styrofoam in a completely different container, only after washing it thoroughly. There's a three month calender they distribute so you can coordinate your schedule with the garbege pick-up days; some days it's burnable, some days it's non-burnable, sometimes newpapers and magazines, sometimes cans and bottles, tins another. It's quite complicated for me. I just want to throw my garbege out when it's full and stinky... but if it's not that kind of garbege day it gets to hang out in my apartment and make it stink for another few days.
So back to the hair...it can burn, but it's not such a pleasant smell when it does, so do I put it in the unburnable? You can't really make anything out of it, like a wheelchair, a handrail, or a plastic bucket, so I guess that demotes it back to the unburnable...
I think the beast should just move out. Along with my new neighbor that just moved in (I didn't used to have anybody on either side), and the guy downstairs and to the left that likes to chant/sing every morning. You can hear everybody do everything in this apartment, including the grocery bags rustling when they come home from Itoku and every time they clear their throat. I feel sorry for the other people in the apartment because of my noise though: the guitar playing and singing (sometimes at 10:30pm because I'm not home the other hours of the day), the miscelaneous thumps from the things I drop, the music I play and the phone calls at awkward times of the day. But I guess they'll survive...and I'll survive too, my never-ending adventure in this crazy country of small little things.
And when I come home and eventually have my own house I'm getting a maid.

Heiwa no Hi

Today is Saturday and it's such a beautiful day. It's almost 12:30 and I'm still in my pajamas and I have nothing to do all day, except for rest. It's wonderful. I can't remember the last time that I had absolutely nothing to do or nowhere to go for a whole day. I think I was definitely starting to get burnt out mentally, emotionally and spiritually, but I'm learning the importance of rest, even if it's just 10 minutes in your day where you sit with God and get recharged to keep going for another five, seven or ten hours.
It's apple season in Japan; I've never had such such delicious apples in my life; they're just so big and red (or yellow) and juicy. Yesterday I went apple picking near Hirosaki (about 2 hours north in Aomori Prefecture) with some friends. The actual picking took only about half an hour, but we managed to stretch it into a 12 hour day together, including the drive. After we got our sack full of apples we went into the 'Apple Park' restraunt and had apple curry rice for lunch. I'm not going to lie, I was a little bit skeptical about it at first, but it was amazing. Then for 50 yen we could get fresh-squeezed apple juice by sticking one of those huge delicious apples into the stainless steel juicer and pumping it by foot. My apple was especially huge so I got one and a half cups of apple juice, all frothy and foamy on the top.
After an afternoon of shopping we went to a shrine where there was a concert at which they played ancient and rare Japanese musical instruments. I cannot even describe the sound they made because I have never heard anything like it before. Some instruments played 4 notes at once and some played one, but they were never on what we would call a 'real' note that you would find on a piano; they always seemed to be in between. What they called harmony I would've called a wrong note. There also wasn't a strong beat that I could find, the music just kind of floated. It was a little eerie, but I'm glad I got to experience it. It was almost a relief to my ears to go back to the car and listen to 'normal' music.
After that we went to Yoshinoya restaurant and I had American beef for the first time in almost nine months. The cow boarders have been opening and it's a big thing here in Japan to have American beef now. I never thought that I would forget what beef tasted like, but apparently I did (I mostly eat pork).
And now I must continue my day of rest at the side of the mighty God who fights for me in everything that I can and can't see.

Health Insurance Japanese Style

Today I checked out the Japanese medical system. My right ear has been weird lately and I've been kind of wondering about it. Then on the weekend there was stuff gooping out of it and the inside was all swoollen, so I decided to go get it checked out. Today was the day.
We ended up going about half an hour before the clinic opened after the lunch break because we missed the part of the sign that said "thirty" after the 2. I was wondering why we were the only people there. They finally opened and took me in. I was the first patient to be beckoned into the back room. The deep dark back room. No just kidding. It wasn't that bad. But I walked in and there were about 5 or 6 doctor type employees all just standing there, watching me. Then they led me to the big chair in pretty much the middle of this wide open room with all these masked and garbed people standing around. I felt like a bit of a specimen.
There was also a huge big screen TV in there, a couple of feet away from my big chair. I wonder what it is for. Maybe the ear doctor sits in that chair on his lunchbreak and watches TV while he eats his obento (boxed lunch).
It was really neat because after sticking ordinary tools in my ear and poking around, they stuck a camera in. So I got to see the inside of my ear today. (My ears are a little bit hairier than I had imagined...) I even got to keep a picture of the grossness they found inside of it.
So I have some sort of something trauma inside and some sort of something medicine I have to apply twice a day (which only costed about $2.00 - yay health insurance).
Somehow I seem to find the doctorish places in every city I live in, but the clinics here in Japan are no different...except the hospitals here have flower arrangement vending machines (which I think would be a real hit in Canada) and there are no Sports Illustrated and People magazines to read over and over.
I'm finally making good use of my Japanese Health Insurance.