hey all,
We had a pretty relaxing weekend. We made some chili, and watched some "classics" on Japanese TV, including a really psychedelic one called The Girl on a Motorcycle, which stars one of Mick Jagger's flings.
Today we went rock climbing at Rocklands again. Michi did really well on the walls, climbing a bunch of simple routes with better and better form before moving on to some more challenging ones. I climbed a few simple ones, before trying my hand at some pretty difficult ones (for me at least: 5.10b/c's), and stayed at that level for most of the day.
I've had Lovely Day by Bill Withers stuck in my head since watching the movie 127 Hours again the other weekend.
It's such an amazing song, and the scene where it's used is just heart-wrenching. Something like the effect of the brainwashing that the protagonist of of A Clockwork Orange undergoes where he begins to associate torture, rape, and violence with his favorite piece of music, Beethoven's 9th Symphony.
Tomorrow, I return to work. Classes don't begin until the following week, but as I've probably said too many times: there has to be more planning and more order in what we teach, so that's what we'll be doing; planning and ordering.
There was a semi-large earthquake today around 4AM local Japan time, probably a 5 on the Richter scale. I was a little worried about my things back at my place, but when I got back today they were fine and nothing was broken or knocked over. I'm a little worried about the building that we're moving to, though. We'll be on the 8th floor, and it is not the newest building. It was probably built around 1979 or so. Younger than Michi but older than me. For the Japanese, this makes the building quite old, though.
Cheers,
