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It's amazing how life can change in one day...by that I mean you wake up one morning and walk to a bus station early in the morning, wait for a bit (of course listening to music) and then all of a sudden one of your best friends who you haven't seen in almost a year is getting off a bus. And then you continue to do all the same things that you've done every week of the past year but it all feels new because that person is with you now.
Weird.
But I like it.
And we're going to Tokyo on Friday. How exciting.
Life is so different around here, starting two weeks ago when Kaila came to begin teaching. It's almost hard to describe what it's like to have people my age around and be able to laugh and just hang out again.
So I've been thinking about what I should do when I come home. If I should work, and if so where; go to university, if I do, what to take; run off and join the circus, and if so, which circus is the most reputable...
Any suggestions?
I need my own personal life counsellor...and a maid. Maybe I could be so lucky as to aquire a 2-for-1: both of those in the same person. Apply here.

Some Random God-Thoughts

I've been thinking lately about a lot of things, but here are some of the things that have run through my mind:

-Christians need to starting learning how to dance with their hearts instead of just teaching each other how to play Dance Dance Revolution. In other words, we need to stop reducing the gospel ( which is essentially a love story) into formulas and facts and start focusing on their current place with God, the reality of who we are in Christ and what he wants to do for us and what we should do in response to his love.

-You can't quantify a religion based on love. What counts more than how much or how long you read or prayed is that you wanted to do it at all, that you fought through everything else the average busy daily life is shouting at you to do and spend time with Jesus. Love can't ever be quantified.

-God teaches people to swim by throwing them in the deep part of the ocean, not studying strokes in the classroom. The most effective way to learn is to fail.

-God is just as concerned with saving people individually as he is the whole world. I tried to categorize him and figure out what exactly he was trying to save, if he's more of a universal savior than a personal savior, but he told me that I was separating him too much, taking him out of one box to put him in another when really I should be taking out my cardboard partitions. God encompasses all and therefore can have more than one purpose; therefore, God is equally concerned with individual people and the whole world being restored to him.

There's a lot of things that I have yet to learn, and there's a lot of things that God has opened my eyes about. It's easy to lose perspective sometimes, but sometimes it's almost easier to gain perspective by removing yourself from the situation; it's like being able to calculate the trigonometry of the distance between Pluto and the sun of you move the third point out far enough. God's been doing that to me.
What I've discovered is that the world is ugly. People go to places like India and are shocked by the blatant display of idols everywhere when really it's the same in the western world; they're just blinded to what they're used to. The West if full of idols like celebrities, things, image and it shouts at you from everywhere relentlessly, and we've just become numb to it. Just because we don't have mini buddahs, shrines and temples, alters to the sun and fertility gods on every corner doesn't mean our culture is not steeped in god-worship, in desecrating the very God who died to try to open our eyes, or actually to enable our eyes to be opened. It's sad how people don't see the great chasm that separates them from God; the sparkle of things on this side distracts us from seeing how deep and endless the pit really is.

another Ten Minutes

Here I am, sitting in my semi-heated apartment, cold but not wanting to leave. In ten minutes I must go out into the wind and snow (which is really quite mild to what it sounds like it's like in Saskatoon these days...we actually got snow that stayed this week) and walk to the church to plan my lessons for today and tomorrow. I hate planning. If I've learned one thing this year is that I'm a horrible planner, and I need a mother with me everywhere to sit me down at the beginning of each month and write out a schedule for myself.
Maybe it's not just that I hate planning, but I hate the fact that I have something to do. This week is my first week off of holidays, and I was just starting to unwind and relax, only to be thrust back into this endless cycle of teaching and learning and frustration.
I am also getting antsy to come back home; it's been almost a year since I've been gone. I'm ready to step back into the life I've called mine since I was a child, instead of constantly being stretched into someone that is so totally foreign to me. I had the first Japanese lesson I've had in almost two months this morning, and my teacher re-checked with me that I was still planning on going home the first week of May. I was like yup! - all happy that it's almost May (despite the fact that it just turned winter here...), and then she threw me off by saying, 'good! Another half year!' and I just about choked. I was just starting to think coming home was close, and then I get blindsided by the thought of being here for another half year. Even though in reality it's only another four months, it was a good reminder to keep my head in Japan while I'm here.
But at least I have things to look forward to in this never-ending coldness of winter in Japan. (It's not that it really gets any colder than freezing, it's just that every room you live in is about that temperature too, so you never completely warm up.) Kaila is coming as a teacher, getting into Japan tomorrow and coming up to Takanosu on Tuesday; it will be nice to have someone my age around again. And by the time I start finding fluency in English again by conversing with Kaila, Heather will be here, for which I am eternally excited (whatever that means...it just sounded good :) )
But alas I have gone three minutes past my ten and I now have to complete the rest of the day in teacher mode, back to teaching real classes because Christmas play practice is behind us. How disappointing.
Another day in a string of days that become weeks and months that I must think about only one at a time.

The Last Installment of Tokyo Pictures

This is the famous Kaminari-mon (gate) that we and a million other people all picked the same time to go see. This little old man just happened to walk in front of my camera as I pressed the 'take picture' button, but I love him for it. The other one is just a regular tourist picture of me and Atsuko.
We went searching in a very quiet place in Tokyo (it being the university town and all the students had gone home for New Years) to take this picture. Unfortunately the coffee shop was closed that day, but one day I wanna go back to see if I get a free drink.


And the last random picture is taken out of the second floor window of McDonalds into a building across the street. We had earlier gone in search for sumo wrestlers because I wanted to meet one and get my picture taken with him since we were in sumo-town, but no luck. We had just given up and stopped for a snack at McDonalds when I looked out the window and saw these huge men lumbering around in the building across the street, stretching and giving each other massages. It was amazing because I actually got to see one, even if it was just in the creepiest way possible (for them) because I was peeping through the window at them. And to make the story better, the song that was playing on the radio just that minute was something like, "I just wanted to meet you..." We had a good laugh.

More Tokyo

The city with an identity crisis... This little guy was part of my New Year's feast

The creepy doll display in the window of the Gucci store...and the crowded-est street I've ever been on, the market area in Ueno. There's just not people like that in Takanosu; I think the entire town of Takanosu could fit on a Tokyo train, and the town (including the mountains and rice fields) could take up the area of one of the airports.
The Fuji Television building, one of the craziest buildings I've ever seen.

Things in Tokyo

We went to the Imperial Palace but could only get this far; there was a man standing there guarding the bridge to get into the grounds.

We went to Tokyo Tower and climbed the 600 stairs to the top (but it still cost the same price as taking the elevator - I think there should've been some sort of price break for using the stairs...) On the way up we watched the sun go down right beside Mt. Fuji; once we were un-seasonally sweaty from the climb, we had an ice cream cone and watched the city lights blink on and form an endless sea of lighted city.... and then we climbed back down because the elevator line was too long. haha.

There's a picture of the ceiling of a crazy building in Ginza that looks like a boat, like Noah's ark or something... a rich, style-sensitive Noah.

And then just a regular picture of the main street in Ginza at night.

Somehow the gingerbread house got left out so I put it in, along with a Lego viking I found in a mall one day and a picture from Christmas dinner.

Christmas Memories

The amazing Christmas cake I had with my Friday morning ladies' class; me and my high school student finishing our gingerbread house; angels, shepherds and wisemen before performing their play. Happy Week-After-Christmas.