Rollercoasters

Well. Where to start. Up and down, up and down, always on a rollercoaster...and I'm not sure how much of the fault is mine, or whether it's not about fault but the natural progression of things...God's plan...all these things come to mind. Thoughts come and go and some make it onto this blog. I guess we just have to take things as they come.

So bear with me as I wander with words through the last few days in this post.

Saturday, I woke up and my host family was gone (as planned), expected to be away from the house until 5 p.m. They said I could come to my little sister's school festival later if I wanted, but they would all be occupied with food stands and performances so I would have to "play" with my host mother's friend. For various reasons I declined, and they seemed to be suggesting earlier in the week that I 'needn't be bothered with going' so I didn't feel bad. I didn't end up going to a Danjiri festival (dunno the actual translation or anything, I think it was just something for Shinto) in Osaka because I couldn't/didn't find anyone to go with, but I was soon happy to have the day to myself. Caught up on some reading for school and devotional-type-stuff (although I'm fairly disappointed in my inability to retain any of it and yet somehow still apathetic about digging deeper in the Word), explored the mini shopping district (it's really not a district, you'll see), went to a nearby cafe in the second floor of a grocery store (that allows smoking...), vacuumed my room, took a few pictures, etc. It was a pretty good day, nice weather and all.

Sunday, Kansai Gaidai was hosting an Open Campus Day for local high school students, a big part of which was the "Let's Talk with International Students!" event. I signed up for it a few weeks ago, committing to nothing more than casual conversations (in English) with high school students about Alaska, America, anything they wanted to know. 

Or so I thought. 

It ended up being really fun, of course, but it was more structured than I expected--KG student volunteers ushering high schoolers in and out of chairs in front of each international student every 10 minutes or so--and a few of the students who stopped by spoke basically no English (and some just nodded a bunch and I have no idea if they actually understood anything I said in English). It went a little over the allotted time, but most of us didn't have anything else to do besides homework, so that was okay. Afterwards I went for ramen (real ramen with meat and veggies in it, in a HUGE bowl) and gyoza (basically the same as pot stickers) and kashisu ice cream (sherbet, we discovered after ordering it) which apparently translates to "black currant"... Anyway, aside from the heavy rain fall on the walk to the restaurant and my serious fatigued-ness when I got home, it was a good day. Oh but then my host mom suggested she and my sister and I watch a "3D" remake of the American remake of the original "Ring" movie which was pretty terrible but also creepy enough to make me listen to happy music and read a book and leave the lights on for a while before I went to bed. I just really hate horror movies. I should have said something.

Anyway.

That night I also wrote in my journal about doubts (again). It wasn't an exhaustive list, but it covered a lot in like 2 little pages (in a 4x6" notebook, maybe?), and the next morning (today), what do I read but "God's Will" as the title for my daily devotional; here are some excerpts:

• We're often looking for God's will--especially when we're in a difficult situation. We wonder, What will happen to me here? Should I stay or does God want me somewhere else?
• But you say, "Suppose I take the first step. What will happen next?" That's God's business. Your task and mine is to obey this day and leave the future to him.
• "God knows each winding way I take, / And every sorrow, pain, and ache; / His children He will not forsake-- / He knows and loves his own."   --Bosch(?)

That last one was like a direct response to my prayer last night for God to "Never leave us nor forsake us." It was my way of saying, 'you promised, whether I'm good or bad'. (I wonder sometimes if I behave a little childishly, but I always think of Jesus' request for us to be like children before God...) As happy as I was to hear this, as convicted, I rushed through it in an effort to get to the train station to go on our class field trip to Fushimi Inari shrine in Kyoto (I think Kyoto?). However, there was a typhoon last night/this morning, and there was a bunch of flooding so a lot of trains weren't running, and none were on time. I got less than half way there (and on three different trains, instead of the expected one) before I ended up having to turn back. But I thought hey, probably no one else could get there on time either (or there at all), and maybe this means I'm supposed to stay in today.

Naturally, my friend texted me a copy of an email he received from Kansai Gaidai as I was on my way home, saying 'don't go outside even if the weather looks nice. it's dangerous. kthxbai'. Basically. So I got a lot of homework done today, even went for my first run in Japan (and of course managed to go the wrong way when the path my host mom and I planned was pretty much completely straight), but I can't help but feel like I should have interacted with people more today...my host family members all seemed to be engaged in some solitary activity today, and I still feel like something had to change in our current mode of communication...but I don't know what to do about it/don't want to try and figure it out. Because one would think that honesty is the best policy and asking what a word means any time you don't understand would be a good idea, but it just hasn't worked out. 'Follow God's plan, follow God's plan' runs through my head--well WHAT IS IT? WHY IS IT SO HARD. *Sigh*. I just don't know. This is my life and I have to get used to it. But WHEN am I going to get to Osaka? WHEN am I actually going to get together with all my fellow Gusties? WHY does it seem like everyone is making friends faster and better than I am? WHY do my professors give me so much to read but say 'well, I don't reeeeally expect you to do the readings, but you should.' I mean, wtf. Seriously.

But, I'm ranting. It's 7:40 now, probably getting close to dinner. NOT waking up at 5 am to go "run" (he said walk last time, jog today, and mom said run...what?) tomorrow since I've got a ton of time during the day, but I do have more stuff to get done tonight. Trying to free up time later in the week so I can JUMP at any opportunity to go somewhere with someone that I would want to go with...like Japanese people...

So that's all, for now. Maybe one of these days I'll actually have some relevant pics to put up.

Mata ne.