Tuesday, February 2-Thursday, February 4, 2010-

The past three days have flown by so quickly. I don’t understand how I used to have time to update this blog every night. I barely have time to fill out a short entry tonight. In the past three days I have done three things that I would say pretty well encompass a good exchange. School trip, dinner and bowling with friends, and a cultural holiday with my host family. When it comes right down to it these are what fills an exchange students days, adding in Rotary events like Disney Sea, of courses: School, Friends, Family, & Rotary.

The national custom of 節分 “Setsubun” is the day before Spring (yes, believe it or not today was the first official day of Spring here in Japan). We roasted soy beans, threw them out the window and around the house, ate sushi rolls and drank green tea facing the Southwest, and shouted “Demons Out! Fortune In!” It’s supposed to make sure that all the evils leave the house. This is Ma throwing beans out onto the veranda and around the living room. The part about eating a whole roll of sushi facing the SW is a tradition to bring good health for the coming year. A not so quick (in fact I begin to rant) but hopefully interesting note: in olden days Japan I would actually have been born in Autumn (my birthday is July 19^th). You see according to the old calendar, Spring actually began in January. Each season was only three months, so Spring was January-March, Summer was April-June, Fall being July-September, and Winter rounding out October-December. Nowadays Japan follows the same calendar as most of the rest of the world.

However, when I first heard this I had a strange moment of overwhelming meaninglessness. Okay, follow my train of thought here: I have placed so much faith and confidence in the current calendars, governments, languages, and other general knowledge. Well obviously the past Japanese nation placed a great deal of faith in their system as well but now it has been completely wiped out. Who is to say that our “knowledge” isn’t simply going to be replaced somewhere down the line? It left me pondering who will be looking back on our era and laughing at what we so confidently assumed as the truth? I had that fleeting moment of weight and pressure, but it was immediately followed by a burning desire. It left me wanting to study and improve something, to leave a mark. I started thinking of the names of people that will be remembered years from now for the things that they have left behind. Names as random as J.K.Rowling, Presidents Obama and Bush, Beyoncé, Ichiro, Angela Merkel, David Beckham, Dan Brown, and even Julia Roberts all floated through my mind. I am left now wanting to join such ranks. I have been asking myself ever since what it takes to be someone who will remembered. I haven’t come up with one solid answer, but of course it will include motivation, talent, luck, and perseverance. If anyone has suggestions on how I can change the world I gladly welcome them ;)

The way I figure it, someone’s got to reinvent the calendar, why shouldn’t it be me?

Tea, Sushi Rolls, and the Southwest (apparently this year's lucky direction)

The cliffs after Monday's snow

My school took a trip to visit two universities in Utsunomiya (the capital city of Tochigi Prefecture). Is it just me or do all charter buses use the same upholstery??

I went out to eat Ramen and go bowling with a couple of the guys from the Kobayashi's store. They've been inviting me out to do stuff with them more and more lately which has been lots of fun. Don't worry, the little kid in the middle is the guy on the left's son, not one of the workers at the shop!