Yes! (with a Door's quote)

Yes! I just practiced koto for about two hours straight! It was awesome! I went in having a basic idea of most of the song and now can play almost the whole thing pretty decently sounding and it's starting to sink into my muscle and normal memory. I am really happy and thankful that I was able to have such a good session today. I felt like playing more and more but figured I was at a good place to stop.

I even started getting my very first koto blister! I have never used my ring finger before to pluck out those softer notes as much as I do for this song, and it actually hurts a bit. Haha, I lightly dread those parts when I see them coming, but they are so beautiful the sound overcomes the pain. Actually, my guitar blisters started coming back too when I started playing my classical and the steel string left in the house by someone before me (?) music in which I moved my left hand around more, and before I started focusing on this koto piece. I feel like I have gotten into a musical mode, or a version of me that is more in touch with a certain part of my creativity. I like it. A lot.

Also, I started listening to Black Moon yesterday. Awesome.

Also, I'm excited by Obama being president in a way I can't remember ever being about something political. Maybe there is something more personal here. (What happens with the flip-side of the personal being political happens and the political is personal?...?) Watching his acceptance speech really moved me to excitement and optimism in a way that felt completely new to me. Ever since 6th grade, when I first started to become aware of politics, it's always been something to be cynical about, to get involved in to fight against a larger, evil power. Well, I'm sure things are still like that in a way, and it's good to always be aware, but watching Obama's acceptance speech, I felt something like pure optimisim, excitement and hope for what we, people who want to help, could do in the near and far future. I'm still really happy about things. After I finished watching his speech, I thought, hey, if I can live this way in my relationship to politics, I could live this way in my everyday life. How would that work? Just thinking about the positives in life, acknowleding the amazing things that are happening all around me and to me every moment I live. An idea I've been toying with in my mind for a while, but it really came to a new level of fomentation that night. I'm happy and thankful that Obama being the next president has, if anything, done that for me, and possibly changed for the better, in some subtle or basic way, how people think.

There are so many things going on that I have meant to tell you about but just never make the time to. Since at least a month ago up to now, I've just not uploaded or written about all the things I really want to tell you about, but I'll tell you now, they include: subverting through creative lesson planning the hegemonic notion in Japan that all English-speaking foreigners are white (that was fun, worked more on a subconscious level, but hey so does hegemony), the adventure of me having two kotos in my house now, and the terribleness of having a mukade crawl down the front of my shirt while I study Japanese. I can't wait to tell you in person when we meet again.

Oh yeah, I also talked to one of the English teachers at the middle school today. He saw me studying kanji and we started talking about Japanese and English proficiency tests. I've been getting a little antsy about taking the test the first week of December, even though I originally signed up just to motivate myself into a cool study schedule and see how I do. I don't know why. I'm behind the schedule (and re-schedule) I made for myself, but am still pretty sure I'll finish all my books and have time to review. I guess I just really want to do well? I don't know. In any case, I talked to my English teacher today and he said he had never taken an English or Japanese test before, which was pretty surprising to me because a) I thought as a professional English teacher he would have had to take the national English exam and place high and b) he's really knowledgeable about the roots and history of the English language and able to speak it far better than most Japanese people I have known. He said, "If you take the practice tests, you can pretty much gage where you're at on your own." That really hit me, especially because I had never even had any interest in taking this test before I got the idea in my head after I arrive here. It was a kind of comination between, "I'm here in Japan, now's probably the best time to take it, and I've got a pretty good amount of experience now, so it'd be cool to see where I am" and "Well, I passed the second level practice test, what's the point of taking the real thing and getting something I know I can do already, I'll just go for the top and if I don't get it oh well!" Actually, I don't regret signing up for it, though. I've learned SO MUCH so far. The day after the elections, I bought five copies of the largest Japanese newspapers, to have some history to look at in the years to come (oh my gosh I'm a history dork okay, but my whole family thinks that kind of stuff is cool!), and today, while I looked over one of the front pages, two of the kanji made up a word I had just learned how to read the week before, and two others made up a word I had just learned two days ago! ...I had to go back in the book and look up how to read the last one again but still! it was cool. So yeah, you get the drift. After the test, I suppose I'll still look at the books ever once and a while, and if I don't pass the test and take it again next summer I s'pose I'll be studying in a schedule again, too. That's one of the main reasons I bought them, to have a massive storage of pretty much the highest level Japanese they test for and that I can look at any time in the future. I just love the idea of having all this knowledge at my fingertips to look at.

Languages. I've been holding onto a better semblence of English this time, I'm assuming because I'm teaching it and speaking it almost every day compared to two and a half years ago when I was completely immersed in the language and culture 24 hours a day, in class, at home,...everywhere. I've also been able to keep my Spanish accent and understanding at a pretty good level, better than last time I was here, that's for sure. Besides the Daily Show, La Opinion's online articles provided me with up to date info on the election, a look into how a newspaper of its type covers the sort of phenomenon that has been taking place, and, most importantly, some good sharpening (or at least anti-dulling) of my Spanish. I'm excited to take on that language and realize more and more how much easier it should be than Japanese. Chinese, Korean, and French also keep floating through my mind. Assuming it takes two years of regular studying and a half-year of studying in the language's country to develop some kind of proficiency to communicate...hmmm....

That plus all the other things I want to do: music, law, medicine, history, all while keeping a good excercise routine...is this what being young is about - wanting to do everything all right now? Haha, I feel kind of like I did at the end of high school when I knew I was going to work for Human Rights Watch after I majored in political science in college. Or when I thought I could become fluent in Spanish and Japanese by the time I graduated. Now I question what "fluent" even means let alone its importance. Or maybe like when I first went to Japan, all the things that were going through my mind that I couldn't wait to find out about and experience. It's kind of like those times...but different. This time...I really want to do everything, haha. And every thing takes a huge amount of time and devotion to do the way I want to do it. I wonder if as I start to do the one of which I'm most sure, or sure I can start the best, the others will fall by the wayside and I'll realize something about my true calling, or something like that. But...I don't want to let all the other things go. Oh. Well, I suppose I'll just take things one step at a time. Take it easy baby. Take it as it comes. Don't move too fast, if you want your love to last.

Oh you've been moving much too
fast.