I do love taking photos with reflections. I think these reflect that:
I suppose I must also like taking pictures of water.
The prompt word, “reflection,” for today’s post is brought to you by Janet! Thanks, Janet! If you haven’t already visited her, click here. And say hi while you’re there!
As the last door I went through that wasn’t mine was my son’s school door, it got me to thinking about my own school. I refer to it as mine loosely, for two reasons. One is I haven’t taken a course in almost a year–I’ve either been too busy making money to afford one, or too broke to afford one. There has to be a solution there somewhere … Save the money? Yeah. But I keep spending it on stupid things like hydro and gas.
The other reason I hesitate to call it my school is I’ll probably never walk through the front door of it. According to Google maps, it’s about 4,600km (2,858 miles) away, which is apparently a 42-hour drive. That’s one hell of a commute every day … or every four days if I don’t sleep. It really looks like a lovely place though. https://www.sfu.ca/ Lovely enough that I’ll try to visit one day.
Weird that we now have the technology and means to go anywhere in the world, but we rarely do. I imagine if I cut off my Internet and saved the money instead to fly around the world, I’d get out a lot more. But then, how would I know where to go without the Internet to show me the great places I could visit? Sure, I could go to restaurants and use their Internet, but that would result in spending my money again. Especially if I have to drag the kids along so they could get their Internet fixes. Yeah, bad idea.
I rarely spend money on myself, but when I do, I usually spend it on things that are intangible. I’d rather go to my favourite restaurant than buy clothes–which may have something to do with the fact that I eat too much to fit into the clothes I wish I could wear. Or is that the other way around? Whatever. And yes, I know that food is tangible, but it’s not the feeling of it I like. It’s the taste. And the experience of eating off someone else’s plates… someone who will wash them.
I’d rather go on trips than buy myself something expensive, like a new computer or cabinets for my kitchen. Again, I enjoy the experience and the memories a trip gives me. As well as the opportunity to get out of the house and away from all the responsibilities I have. And my ugly 1950s kitchen cabinets… But it’s not just that. The cabinets work still, and I can’t justify spending money to get rid of something useful just because it’s old and olive green and shiny. I’m talking about my kitchen counter now, but really, the whole kitchen needs redoing.
My money also goes on my education, which isn’t tangible. But it’s an investment, right? If I spend enough money taking courses so that I can MAKE money, it’s all worthwhile in the end. Especially if I can spend my money on some delicious tangible sushi. In Japan. Away from my kitchen.
Getting lost in Japan, as you know if you’ve been reading this blog for a while, is one of my favourite things to do. Knowing this even before I went there last December, I learned what I thought was a helpful phrase:
Koko desu ka? (ko-ko dess ka)
Where am I? Or, directly translated, means “where is here?” Since it is assumed when speaking in Japanese that you’re speaking about yourself, the “I” is not necessary. Makes sense so far, right? HA! I have had more strange looks asking this question than I got that time I told someone “I have woman” in French.* Ask a Japanese person “Koko desu ka?” and you will invariably be blessed with a facial expression that says, “Is this a trick question?” Perhaps it’s because people there don’t walk around carrying maps, though I seriously doubt it considering how difficult it is to find anything. Actually, the Japanese love maps. Probably because they can’t find anything.
Conclusion: Carry a GPS.
*In French, if you’re hungry, you say “J’ai faim” which directly translated means “I have hunger.” If you pronounce the word “faim” as “femme,” which means “woman,” people will look in your backpack.
Nano Poblano is fun! Check out some more posts at Rarasaur’s blog!
Hello. My name is Linda and I am a Pepper. I have been addicted to blogging for some time now – I do it often when I shouldn’t and I participate in challenges that could easily kill me since I’m unable to back down once I start. This is my confession.
On the demand urging of Sirius Bizinus over at Amusing Nonsense, I’ve decided to participate in the blog hop fondly called NanoPoblano once again. Which wouldn’t be so bad except I’m going to Japan from the 19th to the 30th of this month, so I’ll have to pre-schedule those posts. The good news is, I’ve figured out how to work this to my advantage, and you’re all going to suffer enjoy it with me. 😀 How are we going to do this? We’re all going to learn Japanese together!
I’ll keep it simple for our first day. The word of the day is, “Konnichiwa” (kon-ee-chee-wa). It means hello. It’s a word used when meeting someone for the first time during the day (but not in the evening, that’s a different word). If pronounced properly and with enough authenticity as to make the listener think you actually know the language, it is followed by light and extremely fast conversation that will both confuse you and make you wish you’d mispronounced it.
Conclusion – hello in any other language is preferable.
Tomorrow we will start into commonly used phrases. Bring a notepad and a pencil. Sharpen the latter if you wish to take notes. (Disclaimer: Sharpening the former may lead to paper cuts.)
This post has been part of Nano Poblano. Should you wish to participate, there’s still time! Go here to sign up: https://rarasaur.wordpress.com/nanopoblano-2015/#comment-53592 You can also type “Nanopoblano” into the search tabs in your reader to read more entries.
Google is at it again, reading my gmail. You might remember the first time, when Google noticed I had written the word “attached” in the body of my email but I hadn’t attached anything. This time it waited until the right time to pounce.
I received a notification yesterday to let me know the good people (computers?) at their organization had added the flight information for my upcoming trip to Tokyo to my Google calendar. So I won’t forget I’m going, I suppose.
So I have decided: If I receive an email suggesting that I drink less before I go to bed so I won’t have to get up to go to the bathroom at 1:37 am, 3:03 am, and 4:26 am again the next night, I’m going offline permanently.
I had my toast on my plate on the kitchen table along with the tub of margarine (open) and jam (open-can’t remember what kind but it has three fruits in it), and since I was talking to my friend John about something completely unrelated to getting my toast ready, I put the jam on before the margarine.
Wow, that was not as exciting a story as I thought it would be.
I had a dream the other morning that I was at the concert I’m going to in Tokyo in November and I was stuck at the back of the hall and there were no lights on the stage (which was tucked into the corner of the room) so I missed the entire show. I think that qualifies as a nightmare, don’t you?
So I’m going to Kingston today and staying over night to get a break. The Kingston Writer’s Fest is on this weekend and I’m hoping to get tickets to an event tomorrow – if I do, I’ll try to write about the experience next week. I’m also hoping to get together for coffee this afternoon with our gracious badge-maker and host of the blog, “My Leaky Boat.” It’s gonna be fun!
Now I’m off to wash all my sheets and blankets – the cat peed on my bed sometime yesterday. Luckily it’s a nice day out, so it should all dry on the line.
I’m truly amazed at what I’ve learned as a response to the pain in my right shoulder. What I’ve accomplished leads me to believe that perhaps pain is responsible for the entire evolution of man.
Okay, maybe not… but just maybe.
For all of the fifty-one years I’ve been on this earth I’ve been right-handed. Apart from holding a fork, and even then only when I have a knife in my right, I’ve never done much with it. Oh, and touch-typing of course. But even then, I can’t manage to hit the space bar with my left thumb without seriously thinking about it. Doing so slows me down considerably, so I’ll stop trying.
But now! now I’m able to do almost everything except write with it. And why? Why do I use my left hand now without even thinking about it? Because for most things, using my right is excruciating. Eating, drinking from a cup, brushing my hair, reaching for things, even wiping my butt; I’ve suddenly become ambidextrous. Pain has taught me how to do all these things at more than half a century old!
So I got to thinking about the evolution of man and how pain might have helped us get to where we are. Think about technology for instance. Imagine how many blisters we’d have and how wrinkled our skin would be if we actually had to walk and then swim to another continent! Not to mention being eaten by fish with numerous rows of teeth! And what about grocery stores. How much hunger would we have to endure if we had to wait for, say, a potato to grow. Or a cow. With the invention of aisles upon aisles of ready-grown food we don’t have to worry about that!
So I conclude that pain must be the greatest motivator in the world. Can you think of one better? I think not!
Of all the reasons I went to Japan when I did–because seriously, who goes on vacation just before Christmas when they’re a single parent with kids–this is probably the last thing my readers here can relate to. Yet, it’s an interesting story. An incredible story. So I’d like to share it with you, and perhaps you’ll enjoy it anyway. Perhaps it will inspire you to dream, and dream big.
Ever since I visited Japan nine years ago, I’ve wanted to go back. It’s a wonderful country, with kind, lovely, helpful people. But I wanted to go back in the spring, to see the cherry blossoms. Yet I went in December. Why?
It started out with a friend, Susie, who I met here at WordPress. (I’ll attach a link to her awesome Etsy store at the end of this post. Her jewelery is amazing.) She got tickets to a concert I would have given my right arm to see. But not only did she buy more than she needed, she won them. In a lottery. The band’s fan club does that sort of thing. To give you an idea of how incredible this is, the band in question plays to sold-out shows at Nippon Budokan, which has a seating capacity of 20,000. They played there yesterday. But the venue my friend got the tickets to? 2400 standing on the floor. And my ticket was number 252… almost within the first ten percent of the people to be let in. More about that later.
So the next thing was, whether or not to accept the ticket. Could I find someone to look after my kids? Their dad was busy with work – it’s his busiest time of year. No help there. Except I have a best friend who agreed to look after them. Yes. I could go. The flight was reasonably priced and, when I looked for places to stay I found some excellent deals for far less, in fact, than anywhere I could hope to stay on vacation in my own country. I was going to Japan to see my favourite band. It was now or never. Did I mention it was the final concert of the tour I really wanted to see?
Fast forward to the day before the concert. I was going to meet Susie the day of, but I decided to pop by the venue one day in advance when she planned to pick up our tickets. Good thing I did – she was detained on the day of the concert and I would have waited to see her and not made it to the front of the line where, as it turned out, I met a gal from Portugal who spoke English, who told me I needed 500 yen in cash to get in the door, even with my ticket. Can you imagine? Had I not known, I might have spent thousands of dollars to go to a concert and not gotten in for the sake of $5. So, with my 500 yen at the ready, I had to figure out when my number was being called. It was all in Japanese… except my new Portuguese friend introduced me to a lady who spoke both English and Japanese fluently… who just happened to hold ticket number 251… the one before mine. I followed her in. I’m shaking, writing this.
So I got in, as up front as I wanted to be, somewhere in the middle where I could see the lead singer – the one I’d come all that way to see.
Here’s my picture, taken by the lead guitarist.
Seriously, how often do you get your picture taken from the stage?
As I watched this awesome concert that I’d been so blessed with being able to attend, that so many stars had fallen into place for me to be in that spot, at that moment in time, I remember thinking to myself how important it was to fully be in that moment. The music, the crowd, the incredible … moment!
I walked back to my hotel that night feeling truly truly blessed.
It was a bittersweet walk. Alone, I felt a little lost. My real reason for being so far away from home was over and I still had a couple of days left to go. I almost felt as though I had nothing left to look forward to. But.
When I got back to the hotel that night I went online to find out the concert had been taped, which is why I’m writing this today. It was played back to me, live on a streaming website, this morning. I had the chance to relive that wonderful moment! How often does that happen?
Here’s a tiny little excerpt of the concert. I know you can’t possibly understand most of what’s being sung, nor may you know who these people are on stage. But I was there. During this song, the lead singer, Atsushi Sakurai, made eye contact with me. This alone means the world to me. He is my muse – the one who has lead me through my novel and kept me going. He is my inspiration, pure and simple.
(Click on the word “Post.” One of those hands in the air is mine.)
You may not understand, but perhaps it will inspire you to hope that one day all your stars may align as mine did two and a half short weeks ago in Tokyo, Japan.
Susie’s jewelery! https://www.etsy.com/ca/shop/birdicatt (I didn’t realize her shop was closed up until she gets back – please be sure to visit her after January 9th!)
It’s never too late to participate in Just Jot it January! Click the following link to find out how, and see all the other participants’ links in the comment section. It’s fun! https://lindaghill.com/2019/01/14/jusjojan-2019-daily-prompt-jan-14th/
lindaghill.com 