IrishOboe

Saturday morning was the only precious hours I had to myself this weekend, though as usual I can’t complain about the adventures I had. In the afternoon a friend from Hippo picked me up at the Ryuo library and we went to Hippo together listening to the Hippo tapes in her car. She has two beautiful children of ages around1 year and 3 years. Hippo was fun as usual and this time I ventured to give my self-introduction in Japanese using the style everyone else uses. I needed a lot of help, but I got through it. It should be easier next time.

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Niko’s friend picked me up soon after I got home from school and went to Niko’s new place for her thank-you music party. She had about ten people over and the theme of the night was music and food. I didn’t eat until after I’d played, but I had plenty of time to eat the many different dishes while Niko’s violin teacher played. I played Over the Rainbow with Niko then I played a few random pieces by myself. I don’t have much music here and I don’t have the piano part to anything so I just played some excerpts that would sound halfway decent on their own. Of course it was good to perform again. I keep thinking that I’d be happy in a life without a heavy dose of music, but then I pick up my instruments again and I start to think otherwise. I simply like too many things! (More)

I have to say this was the most unconventional Holy Week of my life given that school started the same week, we had the farewell party on good Friday and the Easter church service on Saturday night. I managed to make it work by using the Jewish way of counting days – with sundown. Still, I can hardly imagine a party on Holy Saturday being quite appropriate . . . But praise God I do not serve a god of legalistic rituals, so such a disturbance need not interfere with my worship.

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On Friday (April 14^th) we had the farewell and welcome enkai for the new year. I went directly after school with Yuko and helped set up. It was at The Bell Classic, which is a fancy wedding hall near Kofu eki that always gave me the creeps because it’s, well, a wedding hall and the concept of imitating church without being a church is bothersome. However, if I just think of it as being like a hotel it’s not so bad. In any case, it was very fancy, and I’m never at home in very fancy surroundings. I’ll have to work on that.

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Wow, I had no idea how far behind I was with updates! I continue to have too many wonderful experiences and not enough time to write about them. Currently I am at home because I took a half day off, even though it’s Saturday. I’m getting tired of working on Saturday, but I think I won’t have to again for a while. Some events deserve more description, so I’ll just try to summarize my life then write about details later before I forget!

At school things have been going quite well. Of course I always see problems with how I teach and what I’m doing, but I am fairly relaxed and have managed to be on top of my work. We started the Show and Tell introduction presentations and I’ve been quite happy. Again, the kids defy the system with the students in the lower classes often producing better work than those in the upper levels. Some of them are a bit more responsible, too . . .

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