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.