I was at Sensei's house one time, and his son, and some of his son's friends, were studying in the kitchen. Sensei asked my then-roommate and I if we would come downstairs so that the kids could try their English on us; we agreed. We went downstairs and answered their questions in our best slow, clear English-teacher voices. I don't remember most ( Read more... )

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untitled, by E. Ethelbert Miller ( Read more... )

I <3 my keitai.

A two-hundred-year-old plum tree in a samurai's garden.


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The weather really does effect my mood; after a couple days of unrelenting hard grey skies and cold rain I was very purely miserable last night. I tried to think of things to relieve the gloom, to no avail-- I did not want to do anything. Fortunately I had a lesson with Sensei, which was good because it gave me something to focus on. Today, though ( Read more... )

The cherry blossoms, now past their peak, are falling, drifting the ground with floes of white-pink. I visited Ninna-ji and walked the base of the Path of Philosophy to see them last weekend, taking pictures as I went. They were beautiful, forthy and festive on the branches, like bursting, fagile nebula when they eclipsed the sun. But even as I ( Read more... )

"More than the glory of flowers and fall leaves that season by season capture everyone's heart, it is the night sky in winter, with snow aglitter beneath a brilliant moon, that in the absence of all color speaks to me strangely and carries my thoughts beyond this world; there is no higher wonder or delight."

"Frozen into ice, water caught among ( Read more... )