hair band days (day 49)
on the atlantic towards Santo Domingo!
I desperately want to cut my hair but missed out on Europe. Next is… the Dominican Republic? Hmmmmm.
Today it's hot as hell after a spurt of southern Europe cool and my shoulders ache. I wonder if re-starting yoga had this unintended effect?
One of our guest educators now is Kokontei Kikuchiyo, a female rakugo comedian, and either the first or second in Japan. I went to part of her lecture about the rules/hierarchy/structure of the rakugo world in Japan and heard her deliver a piece. I was never interested in rakugo until Tiger and Dragon and even then it wasn't that great but sometime last year I went to the performance of a professional rakugo comedian near my office and heard him do it in Japanese and English. Professionals are professionals for a reason!
Kikuchiyo was amazing. Rakugo is basically telling a funny story by yourself, but one person plays multiple characters (all the characters), and makes sound effects with tools and the pacing is incredibly quick. The delivery of the story is everything and it takes so much technique for people to believe that the storyteller is a jealous wife, a secretive husband, a nosy neighbor, a local fisherman, all of these things in one sitting and in less than 10 minutes.
I was so impressed with her tone, her style, her expressions, everything. Rakugo is such an intriguing world.
Since we don't have class for a few days, I also peeked in on some of my students' English classes today and it was jarring. I only interact with them in Japanese so it was strange to watch them fumbling so hard to discuss relatively simple concepts in English. I suppose this is not so strange a thing, but I was caught off guard.
I stayed up late making myself available and drinking and talking to people last night. This is the right track. So many young people are working all the time on the sports day, though, which leaves me only to pick from the leftovers. Connections are all about staying up late for realz.
And what do we talk about? I'm finding that my easiest in is talking about mistakes, boys, things I'm looking for. I wonder why talking about relationships is this much fun.
I desperately want to cut my hair but missed out on Europe. Next is… the Dominican Republic? Hmmmmm.
Today it's hot as hell after a spurt of southern Europe cool and my shoulders ache. I wonder if re-starting yoga had this unintended effect?
One of our guest educators now is Kokontei Kikuchiyo, a female rakugo comedian, and either the first or second in Japan. I went to part of her lecture about the rules/hierarchy/structure of the rakugo world in Japan and heard her deliver a piece. I was never interested in rakugo until Tiger and Dragon and even then it wasn't that great but sometime last year I went to the performance of a professional rakugo comedian near my office and heard him do it in Japanese and English. Professionals are professionals for a reason!
Kikuchiyo was amazing. Rakugo is basically telling a funny story by yourself, but one person plays multiple characters (all the characters), and makes sound effects with tools and the pacing is incredibly quick. The delivery of the story is everything and it takes so much technique for people to believe that the storyteller is a jealous wife, a secretive husband, a nosy neighbor, a local fisherman, all of these things in one sitting and in less than 10 minutes.
I was so impressed with her tone, her style, her expressions, everything. Rakugo is such an intriguing world.
Since we don't have class for a few days, I also peeked in on some of my students' English classes today and it was jarring. I only interact with them in Japanese so it was strange to watch them fumbling so hard to discuss relatively simple concepts in English. I suppose this is not so strange a thing, but I was caught off guard.
I stayed up late making myself available and drinking and talking to people last night. This is the right track. So many young people are working all the time on the sports day, though, which leaves me only to pick from the leftovers. Connections are all about staying up late for realz.
And what do we talk about? I'm finding that my easiest in is talking about mistakes, boys, things I'm looking for. I wonder why talking about relationships is this much fun.