well well well well well well well well well. it's been a while since i've last updated, i guess. that's mainly because very little of note has been going on in my life...work's still...work (today's the graduation ceremony at the junior high...but i won't be attending due to my obligations at the kindergarten) and my leisure time has varied from semi-exciting to much less so. for example, i spent yesterday working on a japanese correspondence course that i had fallen behind on. but i'll try to start from about where i left off last time.
a couple of weekends ago, i slacked on over to d's place for a weekend of snowboarding, gluttony, and clint eastwood. on the way down to sendai, i happened to sit next to a somewhat creepy guy and his wife. naturally, he struck up a conversation with me, and, though i understood virtually none of what he said, i did understand that his wife kept saying "dear, stop being a nuisance." he did draw a few kanji on the back of my rather dilapidated japanese-english/english-japanese dictionary before i got off the train at sendai. at first i thought the kanji might be offensive, so i kept the dictionary hidden for the rest of the weekend, but, after discreetly asking ito-sensei the meaning of the kanji, it turned out to be a very useful phrase expressed a concept that had been kicking around the back of the brain for a while. that phrase is "ichi-go ichi-e".
"ichi-go ichi-e", as was explained to me, is a saying from the japanese art of the tea ceremony meaning roughly that, since there are many people with whom we only have contact once in our lives, we must make the most of each random encounter with a stranger, and leave him/her not a stranger but a friend. so to the man who left me with a beautiful example of japanese caligraphy on the last page of my dictionary, many thanks.
all throughout the past few years, i've found myself wishing occasionally that i could go back to my high school days and somehow squeeze more from those four years. or that i hadn't wasted a year at georgia tech because of my change of majors. but about a year or so ago, i ran into a fellow techie at the kroger on howell mill road, and he said something rather profound to effect of "getting older makes us wiser. that's the gift of the years, and that's why we can't desire to return to the past." the whole concept of "ichi-go ichi-e" sort of strikes the same chord for me, since i've met so many of my friends via seemingly arbitrary avenues that probably wouldn't have been opened if i done things any differently. for example, if i had graduated a year earlier, i probably wouldn't be here in sanbongi, with a good work situation and a super nice supervisor. and i wouldn't have gotten to know my fifth year roommate, ben, and his group of friends, which would really have been a loss. so i less the lesson is, learn from your mistakes, but realize the futility of being consumed by regret.
back to the weekend at d's. i met d and his gf at a mall friday night to look for snowboarding equipment. i ended up with a "tocque," better known as a stocking cap, while both d and ghaz bought a snowboard and boots. i would have, but there were no boots my size. i guess the thing that people say about guys with big feet is that they have a difficult time finding footwear in asian countries. :-/ we picked up _the good, the bad, and the ugly_ on the way back to d's spacious pad, and then settled in for a night of video games.
the next day we headed out to eboshi, one of the main ski places in miyagi. by divine providence, the rental place had boots my size, so i was able to participate with d and ghaz in a day of falling down ski slopes at high velocities. saren and clare also came out, which was really cool. bottom line: the day did not suck nearly as bad as my previous experience on the slopes (chronicled in gory detail as part of my entry dealing the sapporo trip). in fact, getting to hang with saren made it quite fun. that night was more video games. because of the boarding, i conked out pretty early, but it was a good day. for dinner, we went to the local gourmet restaurant in zao, and discussed movies and the dangers of technology at length.
the next day, d made a brunch of roast chicken sandwiches which was, quite simply, amazing. he's got some serious culinary talent, and he's a very gracious host. i can see that if he ever comes to atlanta or wherever i end up living when i return to my native country, i'm gonna have to pull out all the stops. d and i watched the video we rented, and it was very good. a classic western with a decent plot that didn't seem to be written/made on a shoestring budget. the rest of the day was a blur, but overall it was a really fun weekend. more later.
been listening to: opeth, starflyer 59, katatonia, rem, and slowdive