IT'S AN ENGAGEMENT!

One of my missionary friends got engaged on thanksgiving! It's a real encouragement since it takes a brave woman to commit herself to a land like Japan for years. And it's something I've had to think about recently. More on that in the next entry. God throughly returned her commitment by providing for her a spark and a sizzle when she went away a year and a bit ago to a conference in Thailand where she then met her now fiance, a missionary in China.

Really, she couldn't stop herself from sharing the good news with everyone! We were all jumping around in absolute glee!

And the proposal itself was just classic! He flew in from China for Thanksgiving with the team and got his mate to film the proposal. The plan was to ensure a particularly sentimental bench in a certain park was free set up the camera and wait in the bush. This eventually meant him trying to kick off a japanese couple, presumably in deep heart-to-heart with little Japanese skills for language. Luckily, they figured out what he wanted after he got down on his knees to mock the proposal about to happen. After getting her to pick up 11 clues over eleven floors down her apartment block (she lives on the __ floor?) - fair 'work' for the 11 stones on the ring - and ending up on the bench with an envelope in hand, there is the running joke of "The Two Questions".

"Do you know that I love you?"

"Will you marry me?"

She squeals his name with glee, jumping on the poor man at his knees, completely forgetting the most important 2 things of any engagement; saying "yes" and putting on the ring!

Meanwhile, the mate is waiting patiently behind the bushes, probably much to the chagrin of the Japanese neighbours wondering what a gaijin is doing behing a bush, (in ambush to pounch an unsuspecting old obasan (granny) perhaps??). He's ready. He checks the camera. The camera is focussed on the bench. Yep, the green light "recording" is on. He waits. Then he hears a squeall! He looks at the camera. He can't see nothing. It's all black, there's nothing there! Then the second squeal; this time, its sounds like a "YESSS!". It's on the OTHER side of the building! He got the wrong bench!

And this kids, is your dad and mine's engagement video.... *the black nothingness of a video screen except for a blinking green dot on the right... then two squeals.* That, kids, is how we got engaged....

Audio: Over Me by Crystal Lewis.
Biblio: The Heavenly Man by Brother Yun.
Cerebrio: Waiting for one of the ministers at a church in Kobe to come around. We're offering some of our stuff to one of their congregation members who came out with absolute zero in a divorce suit. The poor gaijin, he's completely cleaned out by his Japanese ex-wife.

T-G-I-F.

When teaching kids phonetic alphabets, kids get very excited being able to break words apart (See: How to Spell) and put them together (See: How to Read). In their excitement to be able to read and spell, they will front any alphabet and it's sound with any word set they can imagine. Since my kids know their alphabets and their sounds pretty well, they can usually make an educated guess what the first letter and strong emphatic letters are. Hence, "T" says "Teh, teh, teh-daaaie". Of course, some of them will put any alphabet down just to try to make a word.

Today being TGIF, we attempted to breakdown the word "F-R-I-D-A-Y". A very important word in my lexicon.

"Ffff-rie-daaie. Feh, feh. Friday starts with?"

"F!!!!" shout my twelve kids in orchestrated symphony. Good.

"What else starts with F? What else starts with the 'Feh, feh' sound?"

"Feh-lower!" Good!

"Feh-issssh!" Excellent!

"Feh-lamingo!" Well done!

"Feh-riends!" Great job!

And then, once in a while, God sends an in-joke....

"Feh-RARRRIII!!!" Perfect!

A reflection of the kind of japanese kids and their families who send them to international schools. But if you thought that was the punchline, wait another minute while Dan-The-Man, the K-2 class clown ponders...

"Feh-Feh--Feh--uag. Feh-uag!" Dan-The-Man proclaims with a dimpled grin so proud of himself. This is Dan, who watches The Simpsons on Fox Cable, who is mostly Japanese but has a mommy who spent most of her time in America. Dan-The-Man of the same Misplaced Phonetic Alphabet fame.

"What was that Dan?"

"Fuag! Fuag! Fuag!"

Oh dear. Could it be that bad at home? I don't remember that particular french word on The Simpsons, then again I don't get to watch The Simpsons here either. Don't tell me mom would use that word infront of the lil' tyke?!?!

"Dan, can you show me what is that?" I am too shocked and embarassed to try to repeat the word to him lest the headmaster walks by and hears me asking "Can you show me 'fug'?"

And Dan points to his locker. "Fuag!" Inside the locker is his bag. BAG.

"Ah! B says, beh, beh, beh-aaaag!" I heave a sigh of relief.

Good try Dan.

Audio: The Beautiful Letdown by Switchfoot.
Biblio: The Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman.
Cerebrio: Anor Thanksgiving luncheon tomorrow at The Canadian Academy by KIBC. A tryptophan coma just before leading Women's Biblestudy isn't a great idea though...

GETTING THE EYE TREATMENT

I wasn't so lucky to watch Shrek 2 to the finish and missed the end bits cause the DVD recording was really poor, but this was definitely not lost on me.

You see, I have a sister who does exactly the same thing with her eyes. It's the whole more black than white thing. When the "eye-treatment" is used, I can't help but get wound up that she has resorted to the lowest form of negotiation. I mean, she's even admitted to negotiating with her boyfriend(s) using nothing but the eye-treatment. So, when I'm cornered by her, I resort to giving her the "eye-treatment" too to drive home my point that it won't work on me. She's the only person I'll do it to cause she knows I'm can't be seriously negotiating on that point.

Then, don't tell me God doesn't have a wierd sense of humour, because he sent this:



This is our school's own Amy-In-Boots

Now, don't tell me you wouldn't be the least affected when she looks up to tell you in a tiny voice when she knows she's done something bad and dissaproving. Tsk. Tsk.

Audio: More Than Fine by Switchfoot.
Biblio: The Heavenly Man by Brother Yun.
Cerebrio: I'm about to launch into a pensive thinking mood on people growing apart or staying together according to how much they choose to do things together or not. Objectively and rationally ... let's not get my emotions caught in between. I can. Tap. Tap. Tap.

AUTUMNAL TREATS

Standing in the middle of a forest,
Basking in the glorious autumn.
Watching the leaves as they change,
From green, from green to orange, yellow and brown,
I'm falling down, I'm falling down.

Audio: Faith and Courage by Sinead O'Connor.
Biblio: The Heavenly Man by Brother Yun.
Cerebrio: It's the Japanese Labour Day today. Yipee! Holidaaay! But I have a tonne of things that I have to "settle business" with.

TALKING HEAD PIECE

Thanksgiving service was pretty good. Jeff was at 70% being spent and jetlagged from the Four-Square conference but the message was succinct and to the point; I have a lot to be thankful for. Now that we've finished the book of 1 Samuel, we're going to take a week's break from biblestudy and spend the time in ACTS prayer.

After thanksgiving dinner, Keely and the rest of the gaijin girls hung around and started shaking their hips to the beat of swing and the cha-cha-cha. Really, being "gaijin" can get away with a lot! At least that helped get the turkey and stuffing down and make space for the sweets. And, ALL the cheesecake we made dissapeared! Soshite, it was time to hit Amerika-mura for some shopping!



The day was great fun with Keely around.

I got new Bowler shoes!

And I bought a new technicoloured hat for winter.

I think this one's a keeper. It's gonna be my signature talking(-head) piece.

Audio: A Beautiful Letdown by Switchfoot.
Biblio: A Heavenly Man by Brother Yun.
Cerebrio: ... ...

Envy, is the name of the green-eyed monster.

There is a really powerful ministry going on at school in the class a grade above me. Two families (mother and kids) are being won over by Christ in the classroom and are going to church at KIBC! (Kobe International Baptist Church and my school is one and the same building). I am very envious of the impact in that classroom and frustrated at the lack thereof in mine. Y'see, the teachers in that class are clearly evangelistic. Biblestories, worship songs, teaching syllabus designed around biblical principles. My class, on the other hand, is headed by M, the uninterested non-Christian. So, my plans to witness and bring God into the classroom are hindered. God, stay the envy. Transform it into a useful drive for your ministry...

It was M's birthday yesterday and K's on Tuesday (I think), so all of us are going out to buy them birthday dinners. "Birthday" is just an excuse to be going out and having dinner together. (See: Having a Life in Japan). It is, a good opportunity for M to catch a glimpse of the allure of giving up the right to your life for a bigger entity to take care of. God, make me a good witness. Give me words of life to speak of the hope I have in you.

I have a bunch of photos I keep meaning to put up but I haven't got to sorting through my iPhoto libaries and cropping them to size. I apologise for the all-text in the meantime.

Keely is coming tomorrow evening. I'm really excited. She gets to celebrate Thanksgiving with us!

It's getting properly chilly now. It's four now, but it feels like six already. I went an invested in a heater. It looks remarkably like a table swivel fan but without blades. Instead its got hotwire behind the center and the heat bounces off the metal backing and radiates heat everywhere. I don't need it yet. Not at all. I am attempting to acclimatize myself to the cold. (See: Exobitant electricity tax simply for living in the posh district of Ashiya). But I don't want to wait till my nose is an icicle and have to brave the antartic to get a heater.

Audio: Crying Like A Church On Monday by New Radicals.
Biblio: -/-
Cerebrio: ...

AFTER A LONG TIME, AGAIN.

Now, I never thought I could find anyone who would cry over a movie like Baz Luhrman's Moulin Rouge. Until I watched it again after a very long time. The occupational hazard of being a Film student, or even an English Literature student, is that you have to learn to read the text in an objective manner. Sometimes that means forgoing losing oneself in it. No doubt when you're watchin a post-modern text a gazillion times to be made more awares of all the -isms weaved into the plot.

But after a long time again, I've caught myself lost in this movie.

And, I cried.

Audio: Moulin Rouge OST.
Biblio: Foreign Bodies by Hwee Hwee Tan.
Cerebrio: The greatest thing, you'll ever learn is just to love and to be loved back in return. It says so in the bible.

TERRIBLE MATERIAL FOR A WITNESS

I've just spent one hour tossing and turning in bed, being convicted about just how selfish and self-centred I have am. I feel really irritated with myself for how poorly I do. I can't believe I horded the computer the whole evening and then proceeded to kick Laura off it after less than 10 minutes to check her email. And the worse thing about it, I managed to twist my head around it such that I justified my actions. I knew better the minute I got my way. But its not just this. It's that I realise, in almost every facet, I have been selfish about what I can get out of things.

Take my learning Japanese. I've been on a roll. Alright, God's given me the Holy Spirit to give me the gift of learning this language. I'm not great at languages compared to anyone else, but anyone who knows me well enough know that learning a foreign language is a miracle in itself. I've taken the opportunity to ask every Japanese whom I am in contact with and who will give me the time of day to help me with my japanese. "How do you say (insert appropriate phrase) in Japanese?" "What do the lyrics of this worship song mean?" "Can you help me? I have some (more like 20) words I didn't understand from the message/song/conversation (delete as neccessary)." Man, they must tire of me. Oh no! The Chilibuddy is approaching with her notebook! I have to explain Japanese to her. AGAIN. And she's crap at it, man. She should just give up and speak english. We can understand her fine in English anyway.

But this is the point. I've been wondering if and why people haven't seemed so excited about my trying to learn and speak to them in Japanese and just go straight to speaking to me in English. And I was thinking, "C'mon people, whats wrong with you? I'm trying to speak Japanese so I can minister to you." And my going up to them at work or at church is just another excuse to be practicing my japanese. At the end of the day, I am after all, as bad as the Japanese who drive all of us English-speaking foreigners a bit mad by saying, "Can I practice my English with you?"

It's true folks, surprise surprise! Every breathing thought that I have, is all about how and what I have to gain out of a situation, how it advantages me or not and why I should do it. Only second to that when I catch myself do I consciously choose to think, "okay, how can I be an encouragment...", "how can I be helpful...", "how can I be a comfort...", etc. Life in ministry should not be about 50-50 fairness. We're called to be giving, loving witnesses that reflect what Jesus would do for us. What would I do for others? What am I saying about myself? That I make for a terrible witness in Japan. Oh God, what you must have to do to make me useful for your field here...

Audio: My typing...
Biblio: Foreign Bodies by Hwee Hwee Tan.
Cerebrio: God, please change my heart. Make me less selfish and more selfless and loving. Help me love more.

ON THE MANY THINGS ON MY MIND

On CurlySu's uncertainty about coming over.
Well, at least now it is in no uncertain terms. I'm off to KIX to send Laura back home for the holidays on the 11th of December, and just by the way, pick my sister up that very morning for three weeks with me. Oh I won't ask for much this Christmas, I won't even wish for snow. I'm just gonna keep on waiting, underneath the mistletoe. I won't make a list and send it to the North Pole for Saint Nick. I won't even stay awake to hear those magic reindeer click...

On the dynamics of my working relationship with my non-christian co-teacher.
Who put up a teru-teru-bozu "doll" (See: Idol) outside the classroom to ward away bad weather for the zoo field trip, in a Christian school no less. How about some sensitivity to the school curriculum policy or at least the people who make up the school? Who is so industriously non-christian she dreads doing the standard-every-american-school-nativity-play or even the Angelic choir. How dare she take away the joy and the very reason for the christmas festivities? Who wants to assert she is a non-christian so badly, she probably fears what I might start to teach the kids if I got some rein in leading the teaching material and class responsibility. Pray for me about this. If those are her reasons for being anxious to fight it means there is an spiritual battle being fought in the classroom...

On my being ill and poorly for a whole month.
Me. Sick. For a month. Ridiculous. Cannae go out and play. All rest and no play makes the Chilibuddy a restless soul.

On the impending approach of December.
Which means January comes hot on its tail unexpectedly after a month of yuletide revelry and family visitations. In January, my visa will expire. Should I stay on or should I go? As far as I can see, I plan to stay here a bit longer. How long? Till summer, and see the end of the (American) school year then spend a few months in China paying my due for third-world development work? Or take up the headmaster's headsup and take my current kids up one grade and be their head teacher (!) from September 2005 onwards? And what will that mean? Make teaching a long term plan? a career? Me? A teacher? Can anyone look at me and go, "but, of course! What else?"

Audio:You Are The Sunshine Of My Life by Frank Sinatra.
Biblio: Foreign Bodies by Hwee Hwee Tan.
Cerebrio: Giving serious consideration on pursueing a certification for Theology from Moore College Correspondence. Reckon it will come in useful when I venture out to do third-world missions. Meanwhile, daytripping north to Kyoto to see the bamboo zen forest and the blazing red japanese maples tomorrow. Early night! Oyasumi!

ON BEING SHORT

Something's been bothering me. Its taken me this long to realize that I've been bothered. I've got a few ideas what with, but I still don't know what. I've been pretty short with everyone around me and when I'm not, I'm doing it in my head. I have a nagging sense of discontent as my shadow.

If its not Mom on the phone, its Su on Skype, my co-teacher, my flatmate, my regular checkout register at the supermarket or just everything about Japan in general. I don't think anyone should take it personally. I would say I'm sorry, but I don't even know how to begin an explanation. You can't really say "sorry" without saying why you messed up in the first the place. At least I cannae. IMO, apologizing without an explanation, to say nothing of it being valid or not, suggests a conclusion to the problem that will never occur again. I don't want to be short with anyone, but I do get there sometimes and sometimes faster than others. On the whole, I don't want to be curt and terse and all that, but I don't know if whatever it is that has been bothering me will soon pass and then it won't be the thorn at my side.

So, in order not to be the thorn in another's side, I take to keeping mum and skulking. The more often my mouth is open, the higher the probability of my saying something dumb and stupid that I will truly regret later. When I'm deep in thought without a conclusion, I am silent, on the matter and on the whole. Some call this the silent treatment. I hear that too is considered offensive. Basically nothing I do when I'm bothered is "safe".

And, of course, the equation is hyperbolic. Something bothers me. I get short. Then, I get more bothered that I'm acting up on everyone. Wateffer. Y'know.

And, if my flatmate is reading this, and I know she does, and I don't get to say this before she actually reads it, I'm sorry my mind's been locked up in a box juggling a few things so thanks a million for putting up with it. I'm sorry I haven't been truely showing how much I do appreciate that you are my family in Japan. And I love that God's given me this family in Japan.

If I only remembered everything in the order God intended, I would be the more grateful and loving about it all. I guess that was somesort of catalyst. Something distracted me from the order of things and threw it all into disarray. Oh, the Devil is a tricksy little hobbit. Okay, now I'm gonna come back on full attack on him. But first, I'm going to count the dates and then blame everything on PMT.

Audio: All I Want For Christmas Is You by Mariah Carey.
Biblio: Foreign Bodies by Hwee Hwee Tan. Again.
Cerebrio: Everything is winding me up in my side. And, I have not been a loving person.

THE 1800s ALL OVER AGAIN

I've been seen regularly with my head over a bowl of steam these few days. I'm not trying to open my pores in vain. It's the 1800's all over again; before the time of asthma ventollin puffers, before the time of penicillin, a time where catching a cold meant catching your death and when a cough could mean consumption.

I've been practicing The Dissapearing Chilibuddy Act! This is just an ordinary towel, just like one you might find in your shower. Now you see The Chilibuddy, look at my face, look how I dip my head behind it and tadah! now you don't see The Chilibuddy! I'm bent over and inhaling a steaming cocktail of camphor, menthol and eucalyptus oil.

Well, I'm feeling slightly better for it. A visit to the doctors could set me back up to AUD$100 for a consultation and a standard prescription of antibiotics. No matter that I won't understand what the doc says or know what potent cocktail of drugs he's whipped up for me. And, it's thoroughly my fault because I haven't been arsed enough to reapply for medical insurance.

For my endeavours while resting at home, I have discovered a good debut solo, A Girl Called Eddy which has been on repeat dispite being on my high turnover playlist,

Once we were people,
Who used to dream about the future.
Once we were people,
With stars in our eyes.
Where did it all go?

And When did we stop taking pictures?
And when did you lose all your fight?
And when did you sigh, give up and resign?
I'll never give up on you.

Audio: Somebody Hurt You by A Girl Called Eddy.
Biblio: Girl With A Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier.
Cerebrio: It's another public holiday tomorrow! 4 day work week! YATAH!