How was your bowel movement today?

This question comes to us today from the Nazi kindergarten/daycare I teach at on Tuesdays. There were two posters within approximately six feet of each other asking this very personal question. It was an informative poster, though, as it detailed, in full-color, cartoon glory, the process of an apple being turned into a, ahem, what term should I go with? A poo. Complete with splashing sound as it emerges. At least, that's all I could think of what "jop" was meant to signify. Almost like plop...

Anyway, sorry for potty-mouth humor but come on, it was too funny to keep to myself. In other news, I am coming home in a little over three weeks! Three weeks and three days and an interminable flight ahead of me. I just really dread that flight. Trapped inside a flying piece of metal with a bunch of strangers for fourteen hours is sooooooo not my idea of a good time. I think I'm claustrophobic. I'm trying to overcome it, however, as I have ordered a couple of paperbacks for the ride home. Sigh.

But it will be soooooo worth it! I can't wait to see all of you! The pictures, if they're in the same configureation they are now, are all from my trip to Kyoto when my mom came for my birthday. The top left one is, I believe (because I am too lazy to look it up), Ginkakuji, the Golden Temple. I always get it confused with the Silver Temple, which is Kinkakuji. Unless I have switched them in this post. Which would would make it vice versa. Hmm. The two pictures on the right are from Kiyomizu-dera. It was cloudy every day I was there, so all the pictures aren't great. The picture on the bottom left is of a field of bamboo which I always think is very picturesque.

I will see you all very soon! Yeah!

Yes, Virginia, There Are Japanese Jehovah's Witnesses...

...because I know you all were burning to know that particular piece of trivia. I pretended even greater ignorance of the Japanese language than I actually possess (no mean feat!) and so I was invited to her house for dinner. Gaijin are so cute when they're dumb, let's have them over for dinner!

So, I have been such a bad bloggist I am atoning with these pictures. The top picture is a very special picture. Japanese people adore making "best of" lists, just like the Travel Channel. So, this view of the famous torii at Miyajima (only when the tide is high!) is one of the top three views in all of Japan. Aren't I magnanimous to share this view with you?

The top middle picture is of the castle in Okayama City, the city nearby where I teach. The bottom middle picture is the A-Bomb dome in Hiroshima, and the bottom picture is also from Miyajima, but alas, does not count as one of the three best views in all Japan. There are all these tame (ish) deer at Miyajima, and this is a picture of the deer that ate my maps. It stuck its head into my purse, grabbed my maps and brochures, ripped them out of my purse, and then ate them. I wish I would have gotten a picture of the deer in flagrante delicto (you know, so to speak), but I was busy being in shock and then trying to protect my purse from further deer molestation. After it ate my maps, it totally went after this poor little two-year-old. Vicious! Especially since the two-year-old didn't even have any maps to eat!

So I am all settled in and a little chilly in my new apartment, but that's cuz it's actually chilly outside. My apartment has been blessedly nature free, and there haven't been any ceiling pieces on the floor!

I'm officially coming home for Christmas and I'm very pumped. I leave on the 22nd of December and arrive two hours after I leave. Which is interesting, because I have a feeling that the flight will be longer than two hours. Oh, and actually there are two of them. The wonders of trans-Pacific flight!

I leave early in the morning on the sixth of January. So pencil me in, everybody! Be on the lookout for more pictures and updates!

My Ghetto Abode

So, I'm 97.4% sure that it's actually colder inside my house than it is outside. I mean, surely that breaks some law of thermodynamics or physics or whatever (stop laughing--English major, remember?). Even given the pathetic protection from the elements my house offers, it has other ghetto aspects. For example, last week I travelled for five days around Japan with my mom (who visited for my 30th birthday--that's right, I'm officially a spinster!). When I came back, I found largish pieces of the ceiling on the floor, a couple the size of my ring finger.

I feel SO safe in my house. The good news is that I'm moving in just a few short weeks from my ghetto house with the disintegrating ceiling (that's right, Chicken Little! The sky really is falling!) and appalling number of cracks (I have windows where there should be walls! Just kidding! Mostly.) to a nice, sturdy apartment. The bad news is that I'm MOVING. AGAIN. I am not a fan of the moving, and I've already moved to a foreign country, than to my ghetto house, and now I'm moving again, all in a little over three months. I'm trying not to be bitter. Fortunately, the cold is doing a good job of distracting me.

No, in reality I am pretty excited about moving. There will be less nature inside (not where nature belongs!) my residence, there will be no more vacuuming up the ceiling, and there will be more heat. There will also be less space for my stuff, but I am pretty much willing to sacrifice that at this point.

I will be posting some pictures in the next week or so, hopefully some of life here and some of my travels. Stay tuned for more Japan expoits!

Pictures!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Okay, I'm pathetically excited about my pictures. I guess I need to get out more...but I want everyone to know what my new home looks like! So, these are all pictures taken outside of my apartment. You can see how pretty the mountains are around me. There's also a picture of the church which is very close to my apartment.

So, today I heard my favorite band name ever. The group is Japanese, of course, and the name of the group is Doping Pandas. The Japanese are obviously protective of endangered species...another engrish phrase I saw which amused me (if you haven't gone to www.engrish.com you're missing out on a lot of funnies) was on a pair of fishnet stockings. The name of the brand was Virgin Grave. Um.

Now that I have found a place to successfully upload my pictures, prepare yourself for more picture fun!

Laughing It Up in the Land of the Rising Son

Japan makes me laugh pretty much every day. For example, I get to giggle when I see my favorite Soccer Mom station wagon, the expansive Lafesta. Is it infested? Is something festering? Or did someone at Mitsubishi know enough Spanish to be dangerous, but not enough to be accurate?

Japan is also home to inappropriately saucy bed linens. My sheets were the Mates brand, and some genius thought up this marketing gem: 'Mates--I want to mate with you.' Tell me this--in what other country can you be sexually harrassed by your own bed linens?

Oh, Japan. You're so cute.

All is not fun and games, however. I am frustrated with myself because I am being alarmingly materialistic. I looked at keitais this weekend (cell phones) and I am excited about getting a cool phone to an inappropriate degree. In fact, I looked at the catalog that lists all the cool things it (my new keitai) does before I went to bed last night. I'm pretty sure drool entered the picture. I mean, come on, aren't I supposed to be kissing my poster of [insert latest teen heartthrob from bad teen Dynasty knock-off here] right before I flop down onto my futon?

I have to wait until Wednesday to get it, though, and I'm pretty sure they're going to be the longest days of my life. I mean, it's the coolest phone ever, and both my Dad AND my brother will be jealous (Dad, it has Bluetooth; Randy, it has everything your little teenage heart could want). Score!

Alright, I will stop being such an evil, consumerist American. I had a really great, really busy weekend, even though (or because?) I didn't get the dishes done. I met some great single Japanese ladies about my age, and we had a good time together, and I met some Japanese Christians and enjoyed some amazing fellowship and worship with them.

I've been doing some heavy reading as I've had a lot more free time than I had in grad school, and it's been rewarding. I'm finally tackling a Dallas Willard book, The Divine Conspiracy, which I have wanted to read for forever. Simultaneously I've been reading Philip Yancey's Rumors, which is much lighter fare. When things come up in several places, whether books or in my daily Bible reading or discussions with other people, it's usually a sign that God wants me to take notice. Since coming to Japan, I've just been bombarded with references to the duality of the world around us--the natural world and the supernatural world.

In Japan, as my friend Elizabeth has told me numerous times, we are much closer to nature than in the soft, comfy States. For example, bugs wander into my life with much greater frequency than they did in the States (sadly), whether on my long walks to work and the store and wherever else I need to go, or because my roommate and I are too cheap to turn on the air, or hanging up laundry out back because I don't have a dryer. There are obviously negative aspect to this (hello, bugs!) but there are also many benefits to being reminded of the beauty of this earth and the wonder of Creation.

However, there's also the supernatural world. Few people, no matter what their religious affiliation, would deny that there is more beyond the natural world. Think about people--people's personality, their thoughts, the creativity that's expressed in a sobbing violin solo by the violinist, the conductor, the composer--chemistry alone cannot explain the marvelousness of individuals.

Which leads to my belief in a soul. I believe people have souls. That explains the wonderful (and sometimes not-wonderful) variety of individuals, it explains the creepily similar near-death experiences, it explains my feelings and longings and all the complications and messiness that adds up to Heather.

One thing that us Christians (that's gotta be bad grammar right there) believe is that the soul is eternal. There's more to this life than just this life. It's comforting. It's comforting to trust that no matter what crappy thing occurs down here, God's going to make it right in the afterlife. That's pretty much where us Christians stop--Heaven good, Hell bad, gotta make sure I avoid the sulphur and the sunburns.

But there's a lot more to that whole scenario to think about. My good friend Dallas Willard recorded an anecdote about Mickey Mantle. He was dying of complications from heavy drinking, and he said that he 'would have taken better care of himself had he only known how long he was going to live,' (p. 86 sorry, I couldn't find the quotation marks on this Japanese keyboard).

So, a lot of people like me believe that I'm going to live, in some form or other (which hopefully will not have to engage in downhill jogging) forever. Yeah. Forever. It seems crazy, but it seems less crazy than the belief that once you die, you're snuffed out forever. I'm not just going to live for 100 years, or even a 1000 years, or even 10,000 years. I'm going to live forever. This is obviously something that's not easily grasped.

This idea leads to other questions. In light of the whole living forever thing, cool keitais, even if they do have Bluetooth and a 3.2 megapixel camera and play music, are not so big and important. What's a year or two of cell phone bliss compared to eternity? Kind of puts things in perspective.

What am I doing to ensure that my eternity is incredible and enriching? Um. That's not a very fun question.

Interacting with Japanese Christians this weekend reminded me how easy American Christians have it. Oh sure, we're made fun of everywhere, whether the college classroom or in print or on TV. However, many Japanese Christians suffer verbal/emotional abuse from relatives and friends. How much have I really suffered for being a Christian? A little embarrassment seems a lot less deleterious. However, compared to Christians in places like Vietnam and Pakistan, Japanese Christians are really lucky.

Well, enough rambling for one night. I'll leave you a challenge, O Friends of Heather--

Do you believe your soul will live on after death? What are you going to do about it?

Just Call Me a Health Nut!

Yes, that's right. I'm a health nut now. I've recently taken up jogging (today). It was mostly because this was one of those days when I was running late for everything (well, only once). For some reason I decided I was late for my train (I was fifteen minutes early), so I jogged to the train station. This afternoon there was a little napping incident during which my nap lasted an hour and a half longer than it was supposed to and which resulted in me almost being late to class. It was my first nap in Japan and it went so horribly awry! Anyway, I was 11 minutes late leaving for class (I wouldn't have been late to class, but we're supposed to be there way early to meet 'n greet the students), but thanks to the joys of jogging, I was only 4 minutes late! Score! So, I'm a jogging convert.

Of course, the good thing about living on the side of a mountain is that when I'm late for something the trip is always downhill. So, I guess I'm more a convert to the downhill kind of jogging.

The only drawback of jogging downhill is that it increases the chances of being hit by a car than a cautious, steady walk. Sunday I went bowling with some gaijin (foreigners/Westerners) and some Japanese people. Of the three other gaijin at my table, the two who had been in Japan for more than four months had both been hit by a car. In fact, one of my friends (oh, okay, fine, he's not actually my friend, he's really Teresa's friend, but I'm borrowing him for the purpose of my anecdote) said that, and here I'm hoping he's kidding, one of the requirements to renew your visa is that you have to have been hit by a car. Haha! So funny! I'm in trouble.

Anyway, I noticed that downhill jogging did increase my chances of getting hit by a car as I almost died three times in one trip. In fact, I did actually get injured. I got a nasty scrape on my arm where I had to dive into a stone wall to avoid a car. You can't get tetanus from a stone wall, can you?

So, maybe being a health nut is overrated.

Frustrated and Picture-less in Japan...

I am extremely fortunate that I am able to get free internet at home now! And the bad news--it is of incredibly poor quality! Yes, I suppose you do get what you pay for.

I am being horribly ungrateful, so I will stop now. I'm just sad that I couldn't upload the pictures of my photogenic quasi-mountainous town onto my blog. Sniff. I tried four times, because I am both stubborn and retarded, and wasted half an hour (because of the aforementioned reasons). But it's so pretty here!

Well, I suppose I will have to paint pictures with words. After all, I do have a B.A. in English-with-an-emphasis-in-Creative-Writing (THE most useful degree in the whole world). Anyhoos, I live in Kojima, which technically is a part of Kurashiki City, but in reality is a pretty, convenient town of 80,000 with a train station and even, yes, (all hail Western consumerism!) a McDonald's. It's just the slightest bit inaka which in Japanese means rural, with all of the overtones of backward hick-ness (NOT hickey-ness) and none of the undertones of farming and corn. Since Japan is a mountainous country, there are gorgeous, dark green tree-covered mountains all around me. In fact, my village is partway up a mountain. Sort of.

My village is very atmospheric and a little old-world Japan and a little bit seedy and going downhill. But it keeps the rent cheap! And it's fun to explore. Would now be a good time to mention the pictures I took? Not that I'm bitter...

Well, the internet keeps disconnecting so if this actually gets onto my blog it will be a complete miracle! I miss you guys and look forward to sharing more about my experiences!