Mondays

I could see my breath in the air as I walked the garbage to the curb, but the sun was shining and the distant mountains sat with snow-covered majesty in the clear blue sky.

Translation: it was a perfect day for doing laundry. :)

Monday is an official "day off," which means it is both a day of rest and also a day for doing whatever cannot easily be done on school days...errands, shopping, cooking, laundry, some classroom and Bible study preparation, talking with family via skype, going for a run, watching a movie, etc. I love the day for its practicality...I do like to teach, but cutting vegetables for soup, cleaning, or hanging laundry are all concrete things that feel good for the soul.  And running is almost always a healing exercise. :)

Also, Mondays are usually time that Eric and I get to spend together. Maybe it was the living-in-two-countries-while-dating...but I think we just genuinely enjoy each other's company most of the time (at least I enjoy his! :)), and being together makes Monday good.

The main item on today's agenda, however, was not cutting vegetables or hanging out with Eric...it was an errand. (No, no...you have to put the correct emotion into the reading of that word "errand." Wrinkle the nose a bit...really lean towards being dramatic and ominous...that's right.) Anyone who has been paid in one currency and still has living expenses in different currency probably has insight into the errand of the day...let's just say that it involved banking in multiple locations. Problem: sometimes even with a certain level of Japanese, it seems impossible to get concrete answers from workers. How much will this cost? I don't know. Is this method okay? Maybe...no. Can I use this form? Yes...wait, no. The workers were very, very kind to me, and I was thankful for their patience. But that being said, it is a bit different from walking into a place in America and being able to say, "Here's the situation...can I do this?" and receiving an answer. I did try to paint a picture of the situation though...the poor workers now know about my mother, husband, me, my friend, etc...and I wonder if they were thinking all along, "My goodness, these forthright Americans..." :)

Some forms are just more difficult to fill out when you have 4 names, 5 addresses, and 2 languages to choose from. The whole thing--walking, waiting, etc.--took about 4 hours.

When I was first deciding to come to Japan, I actually wasn't planning to stay in Japan at all. I had had several experiences teaching ESL in Minnesota and enjoyed them thoroughly. One of my personal goals in coming to Japan was to live overseas and feel what being a foreigner is like, so that when I came back to the States, I would be able to more fully empathize with the people I thought would be my students. Moments like today bring that goal back to mind. I don't know at all what it's like to have to hand money to someone else and just hope that it gets where I want it to go, hope that the person is trustworthy. But I do know at least a bit of how it feels to stare at a form trying to decipher it...to want more information but be unsure how to ask for it...to try to explain a life situation that is different from the standard example, all the while knowing that governments and society work within standards and structures--and that's the way it must be.

It all makes me smile a bit, actually. I'm glad my husband trusts me to do this. :) I'm glad that we don't have to take life so seriously. I'm glad that our physical needs are so well taken care of (unlike so many other people!) that I can go to the bank, come home and cook, fold up some nice clean clothes, get online, etc.

Mondays usually remind me that I am very blessed. :)

As an after thought...I think I went a bit overboard on today's cooking. With a missing husband, one really doesn't need a huge pot of chili, rice, pancakes, sweet potato chips, and salad...hmm. Well, there's a whole week ahead of me (and a freezer if I need it). Did I mention that we are very blessed? :)