But this time, instead of mild and rainy, it's HOT and rainy! Weird ...
On Sunday night Guy invited us interns to a "party" at a "live house" called Tin Pan Alley in the Shianbashi district of Nagasaki. I guess it's supposed to be the drinking/partying district. But this was just a musical performance. There were families with kids there. But also drinking (the parents that is.) Guy bought Mai and I two drinks each. Drinking with your boss: an Asian tradition! (I always hear stories about my teaching-abroad friends drinking with their bosses and of-age students.) I had a gin and tonic and a melon ball.
The singers all knew Guy so we got to talk to them and kind of mingle. We're gearing up for a performance at Guy's new restaurant that he's opening in Sasebo called Rock 'n' Roll Brats (pronounced "broughts" like bratwurst, not like Bratz dolls.) It's a hot-dog restaurant with a rock theme. Carley and I might duet. Hopefully it doesn't have to be actual rock though, 'cause I surely can't belt that way :P
As long as it stays rainy this week, I'm just going to try and get some stuff done at home rather than go out exploring like I did so much last week. I should really read the books I brought, especially my choral conducting book. I brought it for a reason. I don't want to get too far out of practice, I don't want to lose my vision/inspiration, and I want to gear up for next school year when I MAY have my own group. Also, I need to get ready and figure out everything for once I come back: housing, moving in/out, re-starting all 4 of my jobs again, getting new students, maintaining and increasing my presence in the community. URSH. It's a lot to think about, and I'd rather not while I'm in this blessed suspension zone. My biggest stress here is figuring out whether to travel or not travel from "home," the place that's already a vacation.
TODAY'S CULTURE TIDBIT
Club Foot and Gum Tooth. Okay, so it's not really club foot: they can walk well, but one of their feet slightly points inward, leaving them with just a sliightly awkward gait and a little bit of a misalignment. According to Mai and other sources, this is how it works: Japanese society is pretty ethnically isolated and homogeneous. The vast majority of Japanese, especially those from a generation or two ago, only bred with other Japanese. So the gene pool wasn't varied, so if one parent was a carrier for a "mutation," the other would be likely to have it as well, doubling the child's chances at having the ill-fated trait. Thus, children with quasi-club-foot are born. And gum tooth, where one of your canine teeth sticks out the side of your gum rather than the bottom. An upstairs tooth. I'm sure there's more traits, and every homogeneous society/family has these "multiplyable" traits, but those are just two examples that are noticed here. It's like incest, but on a much bigger and less dangerous scale. Thoughts?
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