under the weather

I woke up this morning feeling horrible. I had the world’s worst headache. Even after going back to sleep, my alarm did not wake me up at 11:00, which is when I had reset it for. I have always believed that if an alarm can’t wake you up, maybe it’s better just to sleep and feel better. I didn’t sleep much longer before one of the girls came in and said that we were having a student meeting where they were distributing the money we would need for traveling fees for our homestay. I was still feeling pretty poorly, but I ended up going to the meeting. We got a lot discussed. It was a very open forum. I do find, however, that the meetings are not always run the way Bryan has explained Quaker meetings to me. Although they are supposed to be Quaker meetings, many of the students have never actually experienced a real community meeting, but we are working on changing that. We agreed at the meeting that we will hold student meetings every other week and community meetings in the weeks that we do not hold student meetings. This allows the students to discuss issues and then bring them in front of the whole community, including faculty. I am excited. I am definitely pushing for an increase in the “community” aspect of the learning community here. In fact, I even volunteered to be “secretary”ish. I will be sending out a newsletter several times a week and taking notes at student meetings in order to send out the notes in newsletter. It is kind of cool to feel like I now have an active role in the community here. I am proud of myself for taking on that responsibility, since at first I was hoping to take this as a more relaxing semester. I am already getting slightly over my head in work, though it isn’t bad. Mostly, I have set myself up to get a little behind, because I am trying to dedicate myself to work as much as possible early on, on order to make sure that I have plenty of time to go on the meditation retreat towards the end of the semester and get my portfolio (FW equivalent of exams) done.

After the community meeting, we had an area study in the problem of Plutonium in Japan. We met with Aileen Smith who is an activist who runs Green Action here in Japan in order to combat the increased use of nuclear power here in Japan. It was a very entertaining and open discussion. I had always been interested in the problems associated with nuclear energy (Thanks Mr. Povlish!), but I had never really sat down and discussed them with someone who had made it their entire life. I was in rapture the entire time, asking questions and getting answers. I still felt a little out of sorts, but I took good notes in an attempt to remember everything we discussed.

After our area study, I e-mailed out the very first EAC newsletter, though I made two mistakes and had to send out three newsletters. I felt very bad about it. Perhaps I am not going to make a good secretary after all. My heart is in the right place, though sometimes my brain is not. Hopefully everyone will forgive me for my mistakes and realize that we all have our off days.

Speaking of off days, I decided tonight not to take my computer with me to my homestay. Even though it will mean being disconnected, I could use a little more of that every once in a while. I think I have found a decent balance…but I tend to waste time at the center trying to e-mail people rather than do research. We are supposed to be getting wireless at one of the dorms sometime soon, so then I can do research at school and e-mail during the night when people are up and going….well, actually, mostly the early morning for me is good for my friends, but night would be good to talk to my mom, because she is always up early.

Tonight I went out to dinner with two of my friends here and we watched Death to Smoochy. A very good movie. Plus, we watched it on my computer since I switched my DVD player over to region two. You only get 5 switches, but I figured I’ll be here for about four months, so converting it made a lot more sense.

Well, it’s late and I have to be up early tomorrow to go to my homestay, so I am going to go do a little reading and go to bed.

Music of the Day: Radiohead- Motion Picture Soundtrack
Food of the Day: Multiple fried foods at the Kuji restaurant
Meditation/ Inspiration/ Thought of the Day: the problem of nuclear energy
What I learned: The difficulty of putting together a newsletter that conveys information but doesn't sound bossy.
Priority: getting well.