Unlimited of Cement

Well, ikebana is even more fun than I could have guessed. The idea is to take the plants (combination of leaves [ranging in size from tiny to gigantic], grass, flowers, and/or tree branches, depending on what you're doing), find the best side of them, and display all to their best advantage. This fits right along with the way my brain works. I have always been good at seeing what tweaks a picture needs to make it better, but never had the patience to train my hands to draw well. The funny thing is that ikebana actually reminds me of how much fun I had bagging groceries as a cashier when someone asked for double paper as full as I could make them.

There was an ikebana convention (small convention) at the international center last weekend, but I messed up and went to the wrong place. I didn't realize this until the next day, because the place I went to had another flower thing that I mistook for what I was actually looking for. I was slightly confused by the presence of bonsai (Paul, I am unbelievably sorry I forgot my camera. I really, really, really, really, [823 reallies cut for space and reasonability], really wanted to take pictures for you. *hangs her head in shame*), but there were a number of flowers in pots arranged for show, so it didn't occur to me that I had gone to the wrong place. I still got to see some interesting flower arrangements (one looked really cool from all sides), and a guy was showing off his tree and talking some about raising it. I couldn't really understand what he was saying, but the tree was about 15 years old in all its 10-inch glory.

Something that the teachers for both sadoubu and ikebana club have indicated is that they intend to gift me with some of the necessary tools for practicing their arts, since they assume I will have trouble obtaining them in the states (a pretty good assumption; I have seen some of the tea ceremony stuff on eBay, but not everything and often with insane shipping charges because they'll only ship FedEx Air Mail to Alaska or some crap like that). This, while awesome, was not something I expected, and I get a weird feeling up my spine when I wonder how much they're spending on this.

In drama club... well, whoever was supposed to reserve the small hall for us to use didn't do a very good job. Given the plan last I knew it, we have two chances to use it before we perform. Two. And two only. It's ugly. But I found out that we DO, in fact, have a searing light, which makes it possible to effectively spotlight someone center stage. The reason no one mentioned it until I was like, "OK, I need to go to the hall and see what all we have to work with or we can't get anything else done with lights," was that since the running lights are broken, they have been using it to light the actors' faces from the front -- it's that or have the actors only use the back half of the stage, which makes sense, but I'm pretty sure that with some tricky handling on the operator's part that the light can serve both functions.

My Laws of Harmony class is friggin' awesome in every way, shape, and form. The stuff is hard, but the more I do it, the more automatic it becomes and the better I get at spotting the usual mistakes I make. Huzzah!

Realizations of the Period

1) There's not enough Engrish in my blog.
2) Some of the best alcohol in the world comes out of Japan. What do the Japanese drink? Beer.
2b) I don't know what makes me sadder -- the fact that they chose such a horrible alcohol, or the fact that that's a metaphor for their entire society.
3) I have seen three beards since coming to Japan. One is on an Australian. One was on a guy playing a criminal in a play, and I am guessing he grew it for the play. The third is on the [awesome] owner and bartender of a small bar named ひげ [Hige], which is Japanese for beard.