vitamin c, setsubun, and all sorts of fun!

Monday February 7, 2011

So, I ended up calling in sick to work last week... Twice! That was a bummer. Luckily for me, I ended up having such a great end to my week that I hardly even remember spending the first four days of it in bed!

First of all, I just have to say how thankful I am for the amazing people that surround me. When I hobbled my way into the kitchen on Tuesday, my landlord tried talking with me but quickly discovered that I couldn't talk at all. When I made it back down the next night, she told me to wait for a moment and ran over to the refrigerator. Then, she pulled out a small plate and handed it to me saying, "Vitamin C, Vitamin C!" I looked at the plate to find two plump strawberries and a generous slice of fresh pineapple. Her kind eyes were shining with that selfless concern unique to mothers and my heart was overcome by her sweet gesture. What an inspiring woman.

When I was back at work on Thursday morning, I was surprised by how many people checked on me throughout the day just to make sure I was OK! Teachers offered to take over my classes, students stopped by in between class periods to ask how I was feeling, and the head of the English department told me that all my classes could be pushed back as much as I needed them to be! I didn't push back my classes, but I was touched by his genuine offer. Even my employer was pleasant with me when I had to call in sick! I couldn't believe it. I was wonderfully overwhelmed with graces and kindnesses.

Then, to make things even better, I got a call on Thursday morning from my dear friend Reina Tereshima. She is the mother of three precious children (Shoma, 13; Mei, 9; Kirumi, 1) and the Tereshimas have become my second-family in Japan. Apparently, Thursday was a holiday called Setsubun and Tereshima san wanted me to celebrate with her family! I probably “should” have graciously declined the invitation and gone home to rest, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I wanted to see her family and I wanted to learn about and celebrate the holiday with them! As always, I had an amazing time with the family and, as always, I learned even more about this culture that I love. Holidays and special traditions are so much fun and most of my favorite experiences in Japan have been with this remarkable family.

Setsubun, the “bean-throwing festival,” is celebrated to symbolize the change from winter to spring. Finally! :-D It’s considered a second New Year’s Eve, in a way, because it’s celebrated to cleanse the evils from the former year and repel future evils for the coming year. To kick off the cleansing process, we faced south-southeast and ate an uncut sushi roll in silence. The long sushi roll is called eho-maki, which literally means “lucky direction roll.” Ha ha ha. I asked her what the significance was of eating in silence and why we faced that particular direction, but she wasn’t totally sure. She explained that the direction is determined by the year’s corresponding zodiac symbol and so it changes every Setsubun, but she wasn’t sure about the eating-in-silence part. As with all traditions, I’ve come to accept that some things have a distinct purpose while others are just done because, well, because that’s just they way they’ve always been done. I’m OK with that.

After we’d eaten our yummy and humongous sushi rolls, we each grabbed a bowl of peanuts and ran to every room in the house. We opened the doors and windows, shouted, “Oni wa soto!” (“Demons out!”), and then threw peanuts outside. Then we turned around, threw peanuts inside the house, and yelled, “Fuku wa uchii!” (“Luck in!”) We repeated this process in each room of the house, gathered up the peanuts that had been thrown inside, and then sat down together to crack open and eat the “good luck” peanuts.

Shoma, me, and Mei with our eho-maki!

After celebrating Setsubun, I spent the night eating a tenderly prepared meal (this was a challenge with my still-upset tummy but, again, of course I couldn’t refuse!), playing games with Kirumi, gabbing away with Tereshima san, looking though photos with Shoma, and helping Mei with her English homework. Have I mentioned yet how much I love this family? I didn’t get home until far past my intended bedtime, but it was worth every lost hour of sleep! I want to take them all home with me!

Beautiful Kirumi finishing up some chocolate cake! She's a girl after my own heart--lovin her sweets! :-)

Even though I didn’t get much sleep I felt SO much better on Friday morning! My voice was back, my cough was almost gone, and my throat felt much, much better. After school, I had a chocolate fondue party with the Language club and we talked and joked with each other until every last drop of chocolate was eaten up. I can’t get over how adorable these girls are that I get to teach and hang out with every day. Language club is fun for me, too, because I get to spend time with junior and senior girls that I otherwise wouldn't get to see very often!

During the get-together, some girls started talking excitedly about anime shows that they love and which characters they’d want to dress up as for fun. I made the hilarious mistake of asking the girls which character they thought I should be, thereby unintentionally launching the conversation of the night. They were so funny—discussing options, turning down characters for this reason or another, researching on their cell phones, and even drawing sketches of potential characters for me to “be.” They chattered incessantly for several minutes and were taking the task so seriously that I could not help but laugh and happily observe the process. After several minutes, I actually left the room, snagged my camera from my desk, and returned to find them still talking about it. I recorded a clip of the conversation and it makes me chuckle every time I see it.

In the end, they were never able to reach a final decision. Ha ha ha. They looked at me very seriously and told me not to worry, that they would have an answer for me soon. They promised me that they would find the character for me as soon as they could, but asked for “more time” to deliver their definite answer. I laughed and assured them that they didn’t need to think of character at all but they insisted so imploringly that I could only reply by telling them how honored I would be to receive their answer whenever they reached it. ha ha ha. Love them!

Making white chocolate and milk chocolate for our fondue party--mmm!

In other news, I made it back to the salon this weekend and tried for hair-experiment round #2! I couldn’t stand the awful bleach anymore and finally decided that the only way to fix all the different shades of blonde, brown, orange, and yellow in my hair would be to just darken everything. It's not quite what I was hoping for but...at least it isn’t orange! I didn’t feel like crying when I saw my reflection and although I think it has a strange greenish hue, it is not even close to being as bad as it was last time. Usually when I darken my hair, it takes a couple of weeks for the color to settle in anyway, so I’m reserving final judgment for now. ha ha. At least the bleach is GONE! I am much, much happier with round #2!

All in all, things are going as well as ever and I’m loving every single second. My health is so much better, work is fabulous, and my hair is...well, an improvement. ;-) I’m really busy right now with the end of the school year upon me, but I have some serious news to share shortly. I’m days away from my work contract being set in stone as to whether or not I stay to teach for another semester. I’ve been thinking about this for months and have, at different times, “decided” opposing options. However, I must deliver a contractually-binding answer very soon and I’d like to talk about that a bit... I haven’t written about it yet because I haven’t wanted to say anything until I knew FOR SURE what my answer would be. Well, I think I’ve reached that answer and what I have to say may surprise you... stay tuned!