World Cup Fevaa!

So I've been faithfully following the World Cup. I hope England wins! In fact, I've been following it enough that I was able to have an intelligent-sounding conversation with a football nut today on my keitai. And this is coming from someone who knows very little about football. Tonight there are two matches. I'm exciting!

Today is kind of a sad day. My friend Tokusan's (Tokumaru Sensei) father passed away on Tuesday. He had cancer though, quite extensively. I know that in the end he couldn't do much, though. Wednesday we went to the greeting, and the family was sad. Yet, at the same time, they looked quite at peace too. Especially Tokusan's mother.

The funeral was today. I only met Tokusan's father once, 3 years ago, but it appears that he touched a lot of lives. They had to set up more chairs in the funeral home for people to sit. There was a nice video with different photos showing his life. Then the priests gave the funeral chants. Tokusan's oldest daughter (she's 8) read a really nice letter she wrote, talking about when they walked to yochien (kindergarten) together, and then Tokusan spoke. I saw today how similar Tokusan is to his father, as Tokusan talked about how his father loved people, and in his final days a lot of people came to visit him and he was very happy.

Scuba dooba do!

Photo Left: Me posing in the water.
Photo Right: Can you spot the fish? (Hint, look for the patch of orange. That's its eye). This is a stonefish. Stonefish are dangerous. Stonefish are so dangerous, they make dangerous things look... not dangerous. Stonefish (there are other fish like this one, called scorpionfish) blend into their environment quite well, as you can see. They lay on the bottom. But they have strong poison in their fins. It's a serious problem even if you get passively nicked by one. In fact, you can die. Antivenom is available, but it's hard to come by. This is why you don't touch the bottom of the sea. They live on rocks too. If you do touch the bottom of the sea, you look very carefully and you sweep your hand over a spot you want to touch before you touch. Stonefish don't attack. Stonefish let you do the work of getting stung by touching them.

So my latest passion is scuba diving. I've loved snorkeling, so decided finally to throw in my cards and go for the ultimate. I got my Open Water C-Card in the Philippines in May, and I just studied Advanced Open Water in Okinawa.

Advanced Open Water is a lot more fun. It's basically a course of "choose your own adventure", where you get to try different things underwater. I did Deep Dive (to 25 meters), Peak Performance Buoyancy, Underwater Navigation, Search and Recovery, and Night Dive.

Search and Recovery was a lot of fun, actually. You use a compass, and you learn how to methodically search an area for a missing object. I had to find a weight belt that my instructor hid underwater. Peak Performance Buoyancy was also quite useful, as it's a study to learn how to best weight yourself and streamline to get good buoyancy underwater. Deep diving's okay--it was no different than diving more shallow. Navigation is also useful. And the Night Dive might have been better had there been more to look at.

So I love diving. I love looking at beautiful things under the sea, and it's great fun to swim along and have fish take interest in you. On my last dive this Monday, I had a green moon wrasse (think of a colorful fish that looks like a parrot, with its bright colors) that took great interest in following me around. Probably because of my bright suit!

But I'm back to work. I'm taking 2 online summer courses, and I'm hella busy with those. I think I'll read probably 2-300 pages a week. Which isn't much if you're full-time undergraduate. But if you're graduate, that's only 2 courses. But I love librarianship and want to be a good librarian. Or at least try to, anyway.

Ruminating...

So here I am! This was taken by my Iaido sensei at my Iaido Shodan (1st Master Level) exam. Actually, he gave me the photograph along with some others, but this one is ridiculously good. So I took a picture of my picture and now I'm showing it off to everyone and their sister's cousin. Good for me :0)

Anyhoo, it's been a while! I've been plenty busy with various activities. I went to the Philippines over Golden Week, and finally decided to pursue a dream I've had for 2 years--Scuba Diving. I got my Open Water certification, and now I'm hooked. Yeah, I have expensive taste. Potential life partners, beware...

But I'm so exciting about Scuba Diving that I want to practizice my skills more. So I'm going to Okinawa next week. And I'm diving. I'll study for my Advanced Open Water c-card. Advanced isn't truly advanced, it just means that I'll do more Open Water diving under the supervision of an instructor. Plus I get to try different kinds of dives. For instance, I'll do a night dive, and a deep dive (to 30 meters, as a beginner I can only go to 18 meters at this point). I'll also study underwater navigation, and I want to study wreck diving (survey, not penetration as that requires special study), peak buoyancy performance, and fish identification.

I'm all kinds of motivated, to use the Marine Corp phrase. I purchased 2 cheap field guides at the new Kinokuniya in Oita City (I don't think they wanted people to go to the new Tokiwa, beings as they hid it in the Middle of Nowhere, and didn't put in a clear turn from Route 10). One is for tropical fish in Japan, the other is for general living things in the ocean. So I spent God Knows How Long looking up the Engrish names for all the tropical fish (there were about 250) that I didn't know already, then I'm trying to learn more about them online. I haven't delved too much into the other book, as there are about 600 things there. Honestly, I'm more interested in fish, but I think I'll do a "look it up as I see it" with the other book. You wonder, can she read the Japango? The answer is, yes, I can. I don't know all the readings for the kanji, but I get quite a bit out of the general meaning. It's a good way to study. Much better than workbooks.

So I'm doing that. And because I'm not foolish enough, I signed up for 2 summer courses. They're cheap. I'm doing 2 courses now for less than what it costs to do a semester course online. So right now I'm getting a head start, downloading all the readings I can, getting them organized, and plan to start on them. I notice we have to read and write commentaries. So I can do that and get those done ahead of time. Gah. Don't worry. I'm an ALT. I have oodles of spare time.