My Luck Holds Out.

Well, it seems as if my sometime Japanese employer has, after limping along for several months under clouds of government suspicion and sanctions, gone belly up. I'm not terribly surprised though, and I guess this means I'll have to give up my vain hope of ever being paid for those final ten days I worked in August and count myself lucky I'm not out more money than that (I am wondering about the other coworkers I left behind in Japan -- are they stranded? Will they have to go home? Can they find another job?)

While it doesn't really affect my any more, except my bankbook, this news has cast a bit of a pall over my reminiscing about Japan, which is going on full steam with the ever-inquisitive Katie eager for stories during our so-far FABULOUS weekend together. But I loved my time there, and I'm not going to let the corpse of my former rabbity employer keep me from loving the wacky country of sumo and sushi and shrines.

I'm not even sure what a 'meme' is -- can anyone enlighten me?

And yet, I'm going to do a 'meme' anyway. This one is, as always, stolen from someone else's blog, and has this alluring title:

Five Lame Things About Me That I Am Secretly Proud Of.

1. I secretly and stealthily (well, not always as stealthily as I'd like, since I get caught on a fairly regular basis) clean other people's houses if I'm staying over for a night or two. Most of the time when I'm a guest people don't like me to clean or wash or tidy, but it gives me a sense of purpose during those idle moments and I like feeling liked I've helped without anyone knowing. I suppose this means I can't make fun of my Dad for being the 'shoe fairy' (he straightens the shoes at the front door when no one's looking) anymore.

2. I positively enjoy dancing or mouthing or singing along to songs in my headphones while out in public. I know that this looks stupid, and I don't generally do more than mouth when there are other people obviously around, but I have been known to slow down traffic as the drivers peer at me whirling maniacally to some deliciously infectious indie-rock.

3. I too, am secretly proud of my guilt-junkie status, which is why I'm only semi-cured, I guess.

4. I can make myself look mighty hideous, given the right combination of bad clothing swap offerings, bad posture, and a few contortions of the face.

5. I can't make pastry worth a damn. For somebody who's very controlling about most parts of her life, it gives me great comfort to know that I am a slap-dash enough cook that the fine control and patience needed for things like pastries or delicate arrangements are beyond me.

Sojourn in the City

I've been doing a lot of travelling in and out of the city lately, and while this lets me get the best of both worlds (downtown 20-something life with clothing swaps, high-rise apartments, dancing, and hilarious conversations at 1am as well as staid suburban life with kitties and a large food budget), it also leaves me feeling a bit rootless. I'm constantly packing and unpacking my bags, constantly forgetting one important item or another -- toothbrush, hairbrush, proper shoes, a jacket... I've also got just enough of the independant city life to chafe at the extreme routine of suburban life. I mean, I would never call myself a wild party girl (my idea of a good Friday night is hot chocolate with Bailey's in it and old episodes of the West Wing), but when the major event of the day is replacing a door handle and the major change of the week is putting the leftover salad in (*gasp*) a different tupperware container than normal, I start to get a bit antsy.

I suppose I'm back to the old balance then -- of being much less of a party person than most of my peers, but much more energetic than my parents. Somewhat at school, but somewhat at work as well. So I'll continue to live with one foot in both worlds, and be thankful that I've found people here who are just as weird as me.

Another kind of Multiculturalism

The school I work at is right next to a centre for deaf and hearing-impaired people, so when I took the bus home tonight (well, technically to Biku's Skybox, but it's my Toronto Home -- which is uber-awesome) I was surrounded for half an hour by people all talking in sign language. And for the first time I saw ASL not as people talking to each other in a derivative sign-system created to replace English, but as a whole other language that's exactly the same as me being surrounded by people chatting in Hindi or Farsi or Cantonese. There was a young Indian girl, an old African Man, a woman looking at a Canadian citizenship form, a guy chuckling loudly as the women made some scandalous remarks -- it was a whole subculture which I had never really understood the true value of for people who are extraordinarily isolated most of their lives. And for half an hour, I had the privilege of being right in the middle of their world.

Clearly Canadian

One of the subtlest, but most pervasive things about coming back to Canada after living in Japan is the way I often see Canadian customs from the perspective of an outsider. Not all the time -- just in flashes where I realize that the feeling of strange wonder I got at seeing Japanese customs is mirrored when people from outside Canada participate in our yearly rituals. Such as Thanksgiving. Every culture has family gatherings around a table filled to the groaning with food -- ours happens to include a turkey and cranberry sauce and root vegetables and pumpkin pie and other delicious things. Mindful of the fact that my Japanese friend Aoi was coming this year, my family and I had a pretty traditional feast, with an extra Canadian twist of wild rice stuffing. It was delicious, and great fun to introduce a 20-year-old world traveller to her first ever turkey.

Today Aoi and I went to the McMichael Gallery for more Canadiana, this time in art form. Again, for someone who never paid much attention in Canadian history class (who did?) I was surprised at how much I knew, picked up from years of simply living in this country. I admired formerly commonplace things such as backyards, swaths of colourful trees, a rich heritage of native people and mounties and painters and explorers (checkered as that past may be) for the luxuries they really were. I do love this country, in all it's half-frozen, rocks-and-trees-and-trees-and-rocks glory.

My soul, in animal form.

I am currently tearing through the "Golden Compass" series, about magical objects and parallel worlds and precocious children and animal souls and the repression of the Church. It's all very intriguing, but I'm waiting to see how the last book ends before I reserve judgement on whether the writer is brilliant, or just twisting church and biblical lore to make a good story. Well, actually, I already know the answer to both those questions is yes, but whether or not I agree with his theology is a matter of debate. Will these books be another West Wing, using religious symbols to enrich the meaning? Or will they be another Matrix, plundering the symbols for emotional blackmail while hollowing them out of all their meaning?
I'll know in a day or two, judging by how fast I'm reading...

In the meantime, there's a movie coming out, which looks very pretty, although I share missmachismo's worry that it will be terrible. In the meantime, I've found out what my daemon is -- the name "Leonidas" led me to believe he would be somewhat... bigger. But I am content with the description of myself as "modest, spontaneous, humble, flexible, and assertive". Although come to think of it, I'm not that spontaneous... Oh well. I like Leonidas anyways.

English is Weird

I was channel-hopping last night when I noticed the name of an actress as "Moon Bloodgood". This sounded weird to me, and while I thought I'd shrug it off, I kept wondering about why the name sounded so strange.

A short foray into the wonderful world of internet searches and I skimmed all the basic details of this young woman's life -- danced as a Laker girl at 17, can sing, various tv bit parts, part of a new series on NBC... and finally I got to the information I wanted. Her mixed ancestry led to a "Moon" as a Korean first name and "Bloodgood" as a Dutch surname. So much for my exotic ideas about Druidic ancestry or Wiccan parentage.

But this still wasn't satisfactory -- I now knew why she had that name, but it still seemed strange to me. Until I wrote it down again and realized what had been bothering me. This name has three 'double o's in it, and not one of them sounds the same as the other. Moon. Blood. Good.

English is weird.

Catching Up

Wow, has it really been nearly two weeks since I posted last? Sorry, all! I shall attempt to write shorter, prompter posts in the future. In the meantime, here's a quick rundown on what's been keeping me busy:

Kingston: A flying visit in which I only really saw three people -- Catherine (friend from QCF), Wendy (homie) and Aoi (student/friend from Japan). It was a weekend of colliding worlds, showing Aoi -- the only person currently in Canada with whom I could trade stories about my old Kumamoto stomping grounds -- around the city called home for four years, taking Wendy (who was my refuge during frustrating times at QCF) to church, and realizing that Queen's hasn't stayed static in the time I've been away. It's changed just as much as I have -- the bistro's got new owners, the arena where I wrote my exams and graduated to the mellifluous tones of the late William Hutt is now just a pile of rubble. I know it's just a vestige of childish egotism, but I guess I expected everything to stay static, just the way I remembered it, when I was gone. But the people kept me anchored -- Wendy and Catherine were just as lovely and fascinating as I remembered them, and it was a joy to spend far-too-short hours chatting with them. Just like it was a joy to be able to speak Japanese to Aoi again.

From Hobbit Hole to Skybox: I finished helping Biku move, which was a good bookend since I both helped her move into that apartment two years ago and helped her begin to move out of it a month ago. Again, things change, but people don't. It was sad to finally leave the old basement apartment with so many memories, but there's a wonderful ease and comfort about the new and improved apartment over the Don Valley that just wasn't there in the old one.

Courses: are continuing. I can do correspondance courses, but have realized I prefer courses on campus by a very wide margin. Listening to the live-taped lectures and hearing people ask questions makes me itch to stick my own hand in the air and get my two cents in. For that reason, I can't wait to get onto Regent and start talking to people there. In the meantime, I've never been this quiet in class...

Supply Teaching: has been slow, which has me a bit worried about money, but it's starting to pick up soon. My boss is mightily impressed with me simply because I know the school, I know the routines, I can come in on short notice, and I don't freak out when she has to give me an extra class to take care of. In the meantime, I'm getting to watch "An Inconvenient Truth" in Geography Class, see Nova videos on explosions, teach Grade 8 French kids some Japanese as a reward for working well, and answer hilarious assumptions about how I'm related to my father ("Are you his sister? His wife? His cousin?")

Art of Various persuasions: I missed Nuit Blanche (the second annual all-night contemporary art thing held in Toronto), which makes me sad because while I don't like staying up all night I do love art installations. But I got to see a surprisingly good amateur theatre production (featuring my aunt as a slightly ditzy 19th C. society mother) instead, along with a nice meal on Bloor St. West and some time spent with my sister-in-law, who is fascinating.

Speaking of Sister-in-Laws..: She is currently somewhere in Africa, making her way to the hill country of Ethiopia to work with street kids for 10 weeks. I want to go so badly -- I've been thinking about my time in India lately, and realizing how much it meant to me. Meghan really was right to advise me to wait six months before considering another volunteer project, since it's only now that I can really start to unpack all that happened in those amazing, overwhelming 12 days. I admire Meghan greatly, and I wish her luck and good health in her adventures. I'll never be able to fully understand what she's experiencing over there, but she's a good writer, so hopefully I'll get some inkling of it when gets back.

And Now... we're pretty much up to the present, which involves me, still in my pyjamas at near 11am, thinking that I should do some reading or coursework while trying to resist the lure of old West Wing episodes. It's not terribly glamourous, but it makes me happy.

If I haven't updated again in a week or so, do yell at me.