Kinro Kansha no Hi

Happy December, Nick!

Today is a special day: last week may have been Thanksgiving in America

¹ And since Matthew asked, I'll just note that Japan does have its own Thanksgiving on November 23rd ("Labor Thanksgiving Day," which appears to be a clever conflagration of Thanksgiving and Labor Day into one nationalistic "give thanks that for your government sponsored labor" day).

¹, but December 1st signals the return of the kerosene heaters in the classrooms.

This may seem oddly specific but Japanese high school life is often dictated by such scheduled, seasonal directives: heck, on October 1st everyone was required to break out their Fall Blazers, even though it was still 24°C through Halloween.


Well, as you could probably guess, it's no longer 24. It's been averaging around 15 or so

² That's 59¥F°.

², and I swear that whatever it is outside, for some reason--perhaps because all schools everywhere are soulless voids--the halls are bound to be 5¥F°s colder.

So it's quickly turning winter despite that it still feels, mentally, a little too early to be layering knowing that it will only get colder in January. But I've been taking advantage of the winter sales, buying up inexpensive thermal sets and wool socks at Uniqlo, while rounding out my Christmas/omiyage shopping

³ I feel that there's an expectation that all of the gifts I buy be "Japanes-y." Grape Mentos and Seasonal Kit-Kats for everybody!

³.

Anyway, last week was my birthday, too. Not much fanfare, but I did get a bit of alone time to explore more of Abiko (我孫子市) and watch some movies. Actually, ever since I came back from Hakone, I've had a hankering to watch me some Princess Mononoke. Unfortunately, I didn't bring any of my Ghibli DVDs with me, so I took advantage of locale and circumstance to fill out my Ghibli backlog. I was recommended to watch "The Cat Returns" ( 猫の恩返し), which was pretty good despite Ghibli's tendency for lackadaisical plot-pointing, inclusion of minute "hyper-realistic" detail, and frustratingly abrupt, unsatisfyingly-simplistic conclusions

⁴ Which is why I feel that Mononoke, which is a much tighter, more fluid piece, is a superior work.

⁴.

For no apparent reason, other than not really wanting to get out of the house, I ended up randomly deciding to watch 耳をすませば, or "Whisper of the Heart." I was shocked: characters from “The Cat's Return” pop up here and there with varying significance throughout "Whisper of the Heart" in the most cavalier of fashion. Was that the Baron I just saw? And an off the cuff reference to the cat named Moon? I believe it was! It appeared to be a Christopher Nolan style stroke of genius of the most J.J. Abrams order. Until I realized that “The Cat's Return” was released seven years after “The Whisper of the Heart” as a "spin-off."

Anyway, after I get around to watching a few more of those hard-to-get-in-America movies under my belt I'll start compiling a tiered ranking (the likes of my Pixar tree). But, until then, enjoy my Christmas Wish List (in no particular order):

• Chipotle (guacamole!)
• Pizza Machine (bacon bits pizza, buffalo wings)
• The Habit (BBQ bacon cheese burger, onion rings)
• Gengis Khan (everything in a bowl)
• Shinsengumi Yakitori (pork belly)
• G-Bowl (Portuguese sausage, eggs, rice, short stack
  ⁵ The "Kevin Special."
  ⁵)
• Guliano's (crumbled meatball with cheese, Chinese chicken salad, Maui luau BBQ chips)

All this to note that the last couple weeks have been pretty chill. While the 三年生s were prepping for their university entrance exams (a test, a Japanese interview, then an English review), the 二年生 students were off on their school trips

⁶ 2A had left and returned from Torrance while the 2B-S were well on their way to Okinawa.

⁶ and, thusly, we were all on an abbreviated schedule for a whole week, not including the "Sports Tournament Day."

Things get back to normal this week and next. At least until Thursday, which is the start of finals for the second trimester… and Friday, which is 忘年会 ("bounenkain," literally meaning "Forget the Year Meeting"). Ken says after the winter block both our 三年生 writing protocol and our OC1 Elective session is completed (a final which we proctored yesterday), leaving us with just the 2A conversation classes twice a week for the spring trimester.

Actually, yesterday, the 1A instructor (Iwata-sensei) asked if I would start doing morning homeroom announcements with him, so I can probably count on adding the 1AΔ2A transition to my spring schedule. Which is fine: the 1A kids are nice enough. Combine that with this year's 2As revitalized interest in English

⁷ Traveling abroad and being capable of only limited communication has that affect on people

⁷ and the next few months seem to be stacking up well. I'll just have to remember to take up a hobby or two: I'll try to remember to bring my uke with me on my return flight, maybe make a move to learn something Japanese-y… like 漢字.