Yasumimashou

Beautiful, beautiful! Tonight, I'm chillin, it's 12 and though I'm tired, I'm savoring not setting my alarm for 5:15am.

And while decked out in shorts and a tshirt, I am not currently sweating on every square inch of my body, and I've only take ONE shower today (I really came close to taking the second one, but ran out of time).

So tomorrow I'm going to 休みます... or, take a break from school. The particular teacher that I have on Fridays (well, Thursdays and Fridays), I don't feel like I learn much from and usually feel frustrated in that class. So, I decided to call off school for tomorrow and extend my "days paid". Does that make sense? So, I'll study at home and practice here and have my paid days count toward the ones where I feel like I'm getting somewhere (however, I don't want to miss 2 days of school).

Also, just to let you know, I took the test over the kanji, and passed it. 103 kanji, but many had multiple ways to read them. I made a few minor mistakes, but it was just ones that were dumb mistakes, you know? Anyway, now I'm on to level 3 kanji and this book is a lot thicker. I don't think passing this one was too impressive... in the grand scheme of things, it's like 5% of what I need to accomplish.

Still, that 5% requires about 150 hours of study and getting up to the top level requires about 900 hours of study (I guess, in addition).... I'm not quite sure how that works, but it's a lot, let's just put it that way. Anyway, I want to work hard to get further... the more I talk to my Japanese friends, and the more I can't talk to them inspires me to work harder.

So most mornings on my way to school, I come out of the ticket gates where I swipe my card to get through, and then to get to the doors to leave the station which are about maybe a 100 feet in front of me, I have to cut across people traffic going back and forth. It's a bit of a rush, wondering if I can do it without stopping. Almost always, I can. Mark once told me the key is to watch the gaps and not the people. It works, and as I have people coming at me from both sides at different paces and I need to cross through them, I wonder what it looks like from above and if you could paint everyone's path a different color and somehow animate it all, what it be like. Amazing, I'm sure.

I have this same thought every morning.

The mornings before I make that people-plaid adventure, I try to get some rest on the train and in the station. Yesterday morning, as I was telling some of the guys here, I leaned into the corner of the train, where the seats end (since they were all taken) and the foot or so before the sliding doors of the train begin, and I stuck my shoulder in there, leaned my head against the wall, and yup- I fell asleep with my bag hanging down across my body, umbrella hanging down from that, arms crossed my chest and headphones in my ears.

And I'm pretty sure EVERY Japanese person in that train was impressed.

Ok, maybe not, but I was pretty happy with this new found ability that was birthed out of sleep depravation. Normally I can catch about 15 or 20 minutes of sleep also on the station bench in an out-of-the-way spot with my bags on my lap. Haha, I sound so pathetic. Anyway, when I am awake, usually I'm studying or reading, and I like to watch the various trains that come through-- not the trains, but the sudden rush of people that come through-- some of them at full on sprints, I imagine, to connect with their next train.

Before I forget, I've been meaning to mention that a couple of weeks ago, Sally asked for prayer from Aaron, Mark and I while we praying before going to hand out flyers and do street outreach. She is gluten-intolerant (which means she can't eat anything with wheat), and one of the symptoms that I guess goes with it is that there is numbness in the "extremities"... hands and feet, etc. Her feet had been numb for a few days. So we laid hands on her, and I really believed she was going to be healed. And, you know, her feeling came back and she hasn't had any problems since then.

Praise Jesus! We wanna see more of those stories with Japanese people as well, and with some of our own Japanese core members, who are struggling with some pain and other things happening.

Tonight I had life-group with Saki, and it went really well. I had been praying for it and that God would lead us as I wanted to talk about some specific things, but in a natural way that it could come up. It did, and I was really excited as even I was speaking I knew that God was directing me in what to say and I was happy that I wasn't the person who came to the conclusions, you know. Anyway, I still can't get over watching when that look of sudden understanding comes across in her face that "Oh, I get it!" You know, that moment when it comes alive, and it's so exciting to be a part of that. I'm excited to see what God is doing in her life.

In casual conversation tonight, I was mentioning to her that as I've been studying Japanese and just observing and eavesdropping on people and knowing some of the cultural differences in communication, I was thinking about English. In your native language, there are so many things you take for granted. When you communicate with someone in your language, you know what they really mean by the particular choice of words or tense of the verb, etc. By phrases and slang and everything, you get the feel for the flow of the language and you can read much more into what's going on and what's being said that's not being said. Certain choices of words make something more or less funny. There's just so much you take for granted.

Anyway, now I'm talking with my mom, so I'll finish this sometime else... but I'll catch ya'll later!