Sleet day today. If I didn’t read “Harry Potter” wouldn’t know the word “sleet”.
Anyway, it was very cold day and I was going to die without heater. I cleaned my house today; I thought it would be good, but my nose is running due to dust and it didn’t seem get well.

Here is one thing I don’t understand. I tend to get cold during winter, actually the possibility is ten times more than you. But I am not talking about how tender my body is. I want to know why I am hungry I got a cold.

I was extremely hungry today, because of cold. I ate tons of food, knowing that I would run marathon and have been on a diet. When I opened 3rd bag of sweet, a thought flicked in my mind that scale would always be honest as long as the battery alive. So I refused to stand on the scale tonight.

I am reading Harry Potter 6th, the latest one, now with knowing almost everything: Dumbledore gets killed by Snape, Harry starts dating with Ginny—how come not Herminie?, and something like that stuff. For all pre-information, the book is really good. One thing I like this book is just because it’s really easy to read, but another thing, this book is so thick. I was rather disappointed when I first saw the book arrived, it was thinner than 5th one. This time, it only got 650 pages; which isn’t even enough for a pillow. I once used the 5th book as a pillow, I just felt like it, and it did work well. My head is now solid enough not to be transformed by using a hard pillow, unlike young kids.

Anyway I got the new pillow and am not satisfied with the function ,but am satisfied with the story so far.

I had a home Christmas party at the British guy’s—who invited me to his party last month— house today. Well considering most Japanese don’t know how to have home party, today’s one also started with awkward. But it doesn’t matter before that I had problem before the party.

The party was for members of a class named “Creative writing and something”. I wasn’t a member of it, yet once observed the class so they now think I’m the member of them. Anyway, I got lost on the way to his house, as I expected. I have a bad direction; it seems I never get it over. The place I went today was I’d been two weeks ago. With my friends’ help I could make it last time, however this time, it was only me that was in the car. I had been super careful about the crossroad I was supposed to take a right. But I couldn’t do it so. I didn’t even miss it, because I, somehow, suddenly started thinking I passed the crossroad where was about 500m farther from where I turned around, and headed back. Who knows where I went astray. What I saw on the wrong road were factories which obviously had nothing to do with Christmas party. “Hey Santa, are you making ‘Shrink Wrap’ for kids?”

I had no choice; I asked a girl who was walking on the sidewalk, and was in a guy’s dress. When I talked to her I was sorry I did, not just because she looked crazy in men’s clothing. She didn’t have teeth. Oh sure she had some, but as far as I concerned she had only two in front; one for the bottom and the other one for the top. More pitiful ting is those teeth were located in different positions, so they never bite together. I wondered if they still had reason to hang on.

“Excuse me. Will ya please tell me how to get to Naruto Athletic park?” asked I. that the place which was near the guy’s house.

“Here is not Naruto.” She responded before I could blink.

“Yeah, that’s the only thing I know, then you know where?” I asked again, descending my hope on the ground.

“Must be far,” Responding was even quicker than before.

“Oh Okay, that’s right. Thanks a lot. I will find.” I drove off.

Lucky, I found his house. I wasn’t late for the party. It was alright with me that we Japanese were bad entertainers at party. While I ate Sushi and listened to members’ speech, wondered how many times did the girl in guy’s clothing brush her teeth.

Well, it’s been a while; I have not written a post for days. I wanted but I didn’t; not because my fingers were numb all the time. Actually I got a heater in my room.

The reason I didn’t write for days is because I didn’t know how to describe about the bowling party it was taken place in last Saturday. Many things happened, but I couldn’t seem to sum them up well. So I was lingering. But today I will write about it with broken English. So excuse my English now.

About 2 weeks ago, I went to a party held by a British guy and met a woman inviting me to join TIA (Tokushima International Association). She told me on 16th they would have bowling party with international people. She guaranteed that would be fun. So I went to it. It would start 2pm but I went 12:30 for preparing for the party with some Japanese.

Oh I should say this first that the bowling party sucked.

I and some other Japanese arranged the place for the bowling party. We finished around 1pm. We had 1 more hour left for start. We didn’t have anything to do. We waited without a word. Eventually, Japanese participators started showing up. I was just standing near by the reception counter where an elderly woman who spoke really broken English. I only saw Japanese so thought no “international people” would come. But, all of a sudden Asian looked old guy spoke to me in English. I thought he was Japanese American or something at first. He was not, absolutely not. 3 seconds later, I found his English was also broken as shattered glass or run over cat. But we kept on talking in broken English. I asked him if he was Chinese or Korean or something.

“Oh, I am Japanese,” he said.
“Really, I thought you were American,” I told a fib. I was already bored with the bowling party.
“You know, many people is coming today. But bowling is boring, you know,” he said.
“Yeah I know many people are coming.” Said I. Oh let me one thing get straight. We pronounce “bowling” and “boring” in same way. So he was making a joke which no native English speaker understands; a pity joke. I didn’t get annoyed by his kid, because I do that way sometime, but by his mouth odor. He had bad breath which nearly was able to kill me in a sec. During the conversation, I was something of a boxer. I was jus concentrating to dodge the smell; couldn’t afford to understand him.

“You know, I can’t throw ball straight. It’s the problem.” He said.
“So is your breath,” I thought, but I didn’t say out loud. I wondered if I could throw a bowling ball. Finally he found another victim to kill. I said goodbye to him, and it was really good to tell you the truth.

It was around 2pm, and there were lots of foreigners. After the head of TIA’s speech, we separated into teams. My team mates were, one Japanese who was at the reception table, two Bangladeshis with two kids, and I. That was trouble too. I talked to those Bangladeshis in Japanese first, because many foreigners in Japan studied Japanese. It would be insulting them if they were able to speak Japanese. But those Bangladeshis couldn’t speak Japanese. They said they could speak English, but they didn’t technically.

Anyway, it started, but one Bangladeshi disappeared. I and the other Japanese searched him, but couldn’t find him. I went to the bathroom, he wasn’t there, however I found his kid in women’s bathroom. I nervously called his name and unfortunately he answered. I was outside of the women’s bathroom, I told him it was for women when he came out. He smiled as if to say I don’t care. When I and he came back to the lane, other teams already one third done, so we’ve got to be in hurry. But their kids kept disappearing and two Bangladeshis also kept disappearing to search kids. All right it still didn’t get on my nerves yet. What really knocked me out is whenever I and the other Japanese tried to lift our team’s spirits, those Bangladeshis never cared about it and kept talking to other Bangladeshis at next lane. Our entertaining misfired.

I myself really didn’t care to get good score in bowling all the time. But this time was different. I was serious not to lose to them. I and the other Japanese started concentrating into bowling, and that’s the only thing we could do. I looked around to see what was going on at other lanes. Most of teams looked having fun. Even some people were exchanging their E-mail addresses. I looked at our team. It was the last thing it would happen in our team.

I and the Japanese managed to finish 3 bitter games. At the half way through the game, I really wanted to get out the place and jump into my car and go to a movie all by my self. Anyway, it finished alright. For some reason, all of them scattered like spiders; they rushed out. I was also about to leave. Then the mouth smell guy talked to me all of a sudden.

“How was the score?” he asked.
“Not too bad, but it doesn’t matter.” I said he didn’t seem to understand what I meant. I realized only while talked with him I felt “international” that day. We parted in brief. I couldn’t stand the smell, anyhow. When I sat in my car, took a deep breathe and declared my self that I wouldn’t take part in like this boring bowling party anymore.

One Japanese woman and one Bangladeshi looking guy asked me if I was Japanese.

My fingers are almost numb from the cold of my room. I was reading Harry Potter 6 and realized it.

I will stop here, because I cannot write well…..

If you really want to be healthy, you should job at least every other day. 4 years ago when I was working for a flower auction company I had been running at least 70km per week. It made me stay in shape. I never worried about gaining weight, so ate lots of carbohydrate everyday. I meant bread.

So, as I was inspired by my friends who’ve done marathon recently, started running since today. I only ran 15 minutes, though, it made me feel I was getting younger and healthier. Many people my age drive car when going somewhere and being less healthy. I also don’t feel like biking somewhere near, except for serious bike riding. I took a car then. I sometime ask my friend for bike riding, but no one seemed to join me, how sad it is. One of my friend’s belly is started outing from beer; I kept saying to him to cut that out and start excise. But he can’t leave from his car, a small Japanese car.

I will run for the president. No. I will run Marathon next year, March I guess. I have to be good shape. Who wants to join me?

The Great Gatsby is book I want to read now. There are two books I decided not to read translated version, one is The Catcher in The Rye and the other one is The Great Gatsby. I found The Catcher in The Rye at my junior high school’s library. The copy was translated one and when I opened the book, from deep down inside, the inner voice of mine—somebody calls it imaginary friend, and some other calls auditory hallucination. I take the latter one—said that I shouldn’t read it in Japanese. I followed the idea. Instead, I picked up, I guess, Anne of Green Gables if you want to know the truth. And when I started reading real The Catcher in The Rye, even with only 4 pages, I thought the little Takashi was absolutely right. After that, I’d read translated one, which was done by Haruki Murakami, a famous novelist, yet the one was not exactly as The Catcher in The Rye is. I don’t know how to explain. Anyway it isn’t, that’s for sizzle.

Why I rested The Great Gatsby is because that book was sort of mentioned in The Catcher in The Rye. Thinking I should read that book too, bought a copy of it in Davis. However I didn’t open even one page for long time, at least 2 years. This week I found the book was in my shelf without complaining. I opened and started reading a bit. I couldn’t notice this book is great with 10 pages, but felt I should read. I have 2 weeks more to get Harry Potter 6th from the U.S. through Amazon.co.jp. I hope to finish in 10 days. If I get into it pretty much, it won’t take that days.

My mother called me up on the phone and told that my niece’s day care center said she had high temperature. So, we got to pick her up and take to a clinic.

My niece seems getting affected easy. She was cold last week and some weeks ago. I myself tend to be cold, but she does more. We picked her up and headed for the clinic she always goes to. My mother was holding her in the car and I was driving. It’s banned actually to hold a baby kid without a Child Seat. I have to keep my voice low here, for not to be arrested. Anyway, when the clinic was unbelievably buys when we got there. The parking was full of cars. Not even one spot for us. I managed to park on a sidewalk, that’s also violation of law, and went to into the white building—why any hospital or clinic has to be white? As I expected the waiting room was full, mothers and kids. Some kid behaved well, but some not. One kid kept trying to touch fake reindeer, which made of wood chips, calling out “it is deer”. In my mind I was saying “it’s not deer, dear.” I had nothing to do, but make a joke and entertain myself. After the kid and his mother disappeared into a consulting room, I said to my mother “that’s reindeer, not just deer”
“What? I thought it was a seal”
Okay, it could be anything. The niece was fine; she just got tonsillitis. Now she is fine as a dog.

Today my father and I went to a place which next to a museum to exhibit three poinsettias for a competition. If we win it, will have a big praise; I guess that’s all. My father have been exhibiting for years and got some praises. However in these years he didn’t produce good poinsettia, so he didn’t get a good praise either.

According to him, and of course I can tell, this year’s poinsettia we have is pretty good. Even thought the sales wasn’t too good due to the warm winter—no one want to buy winter flower in warm temperature—he was content with the products. He picked out a few plants, candidates, for the competition He also has been keeping it well. The funny thing which happened was—that wasn’t funny actually on the spot—he didn’t know had to bring three of them. First we brought carefully one pot of poinsettia to the place. The clerks made face when they saw us displaying only one pot on a table.

“Excuse me. I’m afraid you should have had three for the competition.” A female clerk said.

“What?” said my father, “did we have to?”

“Stink!!” the clerk called out. It was okay with us to go back to the farm to get two more. The bad thing was for lunch we went for Korean-style buffet, and my father ate handful of garlic. He smelled like beyond description. And the clerk called out in spite of herself, so the atmosphere of the room got frozen for a moment.

We left the place without a word.

I was exhausted yesterday from the trip to Hyogo prefecture where my old work place is. As a farmer, I went to check the flower auction company, if they were doing okay or not. We grow poinsettia, but didn’t ship there, because this year the price of poinsettia was not good. We have to pay for transportation cost when we ship somewhere far. So this year we sold many of our plants in my prefecture instead of different prefectures.

It was fun to watch the company from the view point of a customer or producer. I thought they, workers, were working too hard. That means I was too, some years ago. But they seemed fruitless; I don’t know why I felt. Maybe, I felt sad for their future. I wouldn’t have felt if I didn’t leave the job. The busyness makes their feeling numbness. At the best they can be is a superior who is able to deal with any kind of thing. That’s all. Maybe it’s good. Maybe not. And it’s to me not. Just like that. As long as you like your occupation, it’s good. No one can judge by own judgment.

For no good reason, I started thinking about what I was doing last year around same time. I was working for that Tea café, Koots green tea. I am pretty sure I was thinking about quitting it on account of bad circumstance of the company and I felt that type of café wouldn’t come to light. I guess early December, last year, had an interview for bicycle messenger. I love biking and I thought it would be a better idea than keep being a café stuff with no fun. And I got the job. They said I was supposed to start the job till January 15, or I wouldn’t get the job. But according to the company law of that café, I couldn’t leave till the last day of January. I asked to the messenger company to extend the date, however they were strict with the law. So I couldn’t get the job. You can see in my old journal what happened to me kept working at the café till April.


Anyway, today I cleaned the path between houses. There were lots of dead plants or unnecessary ones rooting for more than 5 years. It was same outlook I saw before left for the states. It took me a whole day to finish. When I’ve done halfway, thought I should take a picture of it so that I could see the difference after years. I threw most of plants. Tomorrow I have to do is sweep spilt soil. But I’ve got tons of places to clean up. I suppose I need this whole winter to clean this farm up. But the result will be really satisfactory to me. The working efficiency should be better for sizzle as well.

a party

Yesterday, I went to a party in Tokushima. A British guy invited me and friends to that. It was supposed to be a potluck, we bought some stuff—chips, flutes, however what did across the British guy’s mind, he bought tons of food himself and asked us to pay for it. It was only 500 yen, yet our food was not needed, looked like. The party itself was okay. I expected there were lots of English speakers and my friends might not have fun, but Japanese there were lots.

I didn’t realize till about 10 minutes past that I haven’t been like this Japanese-consisted party. I had no idea how to behave in that party at first, in Japanese. When I was in the U.S., I just ate foods and talked to random people at party. Not ate random people and talked to foods. But at a Japanese party—even if it was planned by a party raised British nice guy. I observed people first; I knew it was also the first time for them to meet. They started with introducing themselves—yeah they should—and then started talking about their jobs. Jobs!! Why did they have to talk about their jobs by turn? There must be better idea.

So, it was my turn, talking with “Japanese” random people. A guy sitting in front of me said he was working for a pharmaceutical company—flashy. To my glad he didn’t dig the job farther. He probably thought I wouldn’t understand; or the clothing I was wearing wouldn’t. People always judge people with their clothing. Then it was my turn, explaining about my job. I frowned as much as I could and moved my face close to his an ear and said in this grave voice

“I grow marijuana.”

Then I waited a second how he reacted and all. I kept my face frowned with “a bit regret taste”. What he said was “oh…oh, okay” he didn’t say good of course. I told him it was a fib. But he was still frozen like a mantis.

It was a fun party, I should say. We’ve stayed only an hour. We didn’t want to hang around longer. If we did, I even had to grow cocaine in my fantasy field.