Marugame Branch's Saturday clean-up!

Yesterday we went to the Marugame LDS Branch's recently purchased plot of land to pull weeds. It's a great location right on Route 11, the main highway in the area and easily accessible. Unfortunately the branch has to have an average weekly attendance at Sacrament Meeting of 80 or 85 to actually build the church building. Today was a pretty average day at church and there were only about 50 people. There are more member in the branch boundries but there are lots of less active members who rarely attend. It's sad when you see how diligent these active members are, some who have been attending church in the same rundown old building for 30 years! But the plot of land is a hopeful sign!!

The missionaries pulling weeds and picking up trash. (There wasn't a whole lot to do, I think the plot was recently cleared, but it was nice to be together with the church members on their own piece of land!)
Callan and Fumiyo (our boss) stopped to have a little chat.

After (a little) work Callan and Elder Itakura kicked the ball around for a bit.

Br. Morimura, Sister Yamaji (the Primary president and Branch president's wife) and me picked up a pile of weeds.

Maybe someday soon there will be a beautiful new Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on this piece of land and the Marugame Branch will be a Ward!! :)

(By the way, Saturday was a holiday so nobody had to work, includng us! Yippee! Usually we only have Monday off)

The Game of Telephone

Each week for my larger adult classes, we try to play some type of word game.  We have played pictionary, bingo, twenty questions, I never, balderdash, and most recently ‘telephone,’ the game where one person whispers a phrase into the ear of the person next to them in a circle, and then the message is sent around the circle in whispers, and finally announced to the room by the last person.  

Last week in my class at the community center which is attended by several elderly people, this game proved problematic.  First, about a third of the 15 people in the group are so hard of hearing that they have virtually lost the ability to whisper, and everyone in the circle had to forcibly avoid hearing by humming, or plugging there ears as the message was transferred to the people ahead of them.  The second problem was the Japanese fear of making a mistake.  Many of the students, if they didn’t hear the message quite right, insisted on listening again and again until they were sure they had heard the phrase correctly (which, of course, ruins the point of the game, which is to see how terribly off the group can get from the original phrase).

Still, despite these obstacles, I managed to get the entire class with a seemingly easy sentence.  After trying a few simple phrases like ‘the sky is blue,’ and ‘my name is Joe,’ which where sent around the circle in the above described manner, I gave them this sentence: “My pants are green,” and asked them not to worry so much about getting it right.  This was not only a simple sentence in my opinion, but it was also fact.  I was wearing a green suit.  However, you must also know that the word ‘pants’ as it is used in every day Japanese (pronounced pan-tsu) does not mean ‘jeans’ or ‘slacks,’ but rather ‘underpants.’  

All my young students giggle when I show them a picture of slacks and say ‘pantsu’, and even the adults tend to forget the English usage of the word, as was the case during this game.  I watched as these women (and one 88 year old man) whispered the sentence around the room, turned red, giggled, widened  there eyes, cast coy looks at one another, and generally squirmed as if they were telling a dirty joke.  The product of the whispering was priceless.  Not only had they misunderstood the word pants, but somewhere along the line the word ‘green’ had been misheard as ‘clean’ and the final sentence, announced to the class by the oldest and deafest member of the circle was: “My panties aren’t clean,” which caused a general uproar and many more blushing faces.  My announcement of the original sentence was met by another guffaw, a little more blushing, and smiles all around.

Easter

Callan is dancing in a shower of bubbles in the living room right now, a prize from his Easter Basket, and we’re all enjoying a quiet Easter evening. We had crepes fro breakfast, listened to Amy’s concert choir concert on BYU radio over the internet, went to church, took naps, had Montgomery Family Autumn Soup for dinner, and have been helping Callan play with some of his new things.

This week has brought us to the mid point in April, to the first real spring weather, and to the end of Melissa’s first trimester. Yes, if you couldn’t have guessed it from all the talk about her being sick, Melissa is pregnant, and due around Halloween, after we are back in Utah. She is feeling better lately than she was, but mornings are still generally miserable. Ironically, today she has felt better than she has felt in weeks, and instead I have a miserable cold/cough/headache/achy body that has just about wiped me out. Thankfully tomorrow is our day off and I will be able to stay in bed most of the day.

We managed to get out the door in time for sacrament meeting at noon. I took a nap from after breakfast until about 11:15 AM, and then I threw some clothes on and we headed off to church. There were good talks about the atonement and the resurrection by one of the missionaries, an older sister in the branch, and then a talk on how to increase Christ-like attributes in our families by a a member of the branch presidency. After church the branch president released Melissa from the primary and called me in her place (not as organist, just as a teacher). So for the next three months, I’ll be teaching the 8 and older crowd at primary which consists of one girl and three boys from two different families.

Callan’s Easter was fun, except that he woke up at three in the morning to get a drink of water and found his Easter Basket in the living room. He wanted to look at it, and it took some persuading to get him to go back to bed. After a glass of water and a few bites of something to eat, he finally agreed to come to bed (but only in mom and dad’s bed).

At 7:00 He woke up again and there was no stopping him. By the time I had crawled out of bed, he had already opened and devoured the contents of four of the six plastic eggs and would have finished off the rest if he hadn’t talked him into saving some for later.

As part of his Easter basket Callan got a special toy this year. At the dollar store here they sell fairly durable rip offs of the Brio wooden train sets for ¼ the price of the real thing. We’ve been talking about taking some home with us, and we even bought a few of the trains. This weekend I found a store that had all the pieces in stock, so we bought a whole set, complete with six train cars, two bridges, and a little station with a red roof. He has been playing with it all day. It’s a good toy for when a parent isn’t feeling well.

While Callan and I were napping this afternoon an Easter Package came from Melissa’s parents, which gave her the opportunity to open it up and hide the Easter eggs before Callan woke up. It was very cute watching him find the conspicuously placed eggs out in our front yard. It reminded me of Easter’s at my house when I was a child.

Our Easter Baskets were always hid somewhere in the house by droopy eyed parents who had gotten up extra early to play Easter Bunny. There was always a basket in the oven, usually one in the TV hutch, and sometimes one in the dryer. Because there were five of us kids at home, the baskets were labeled with our names, and it was always a bummer to find someone else’s first.

The contents of our baskets were unique as well. With a brother and sister that were diabetic, sweets at our house were a rarity. In addition to the regular choclate eggs and other candies, our baskets contained a box of Fruit Loops, or Lucky Charms, or Captain Crunch—all cereals that our mother wouldn’t let us have on regular occasions. I also remember our mother often inviting strangers to our house for Easter dinner and other occasions. It has been almost six years since I lived at home full time, but I was always impressed and still am at my mother’s willingness to open our home to people who didn’t have family’s to spend holidays with. I don’t know if it was Easter, but I remember mother inviting an older foreign man who worked at the Burger King near her office to come for dinner.

There is a feast prepared for all of us in the mansion of our Father, one that we, through the grace of Christ, have been invited to attend. The invitation is extended to all, regardless of race, gender, or religion. There is always a seat saved for us at his table, and he is merely waiting for us to decide we’re not too busy to show up. Happy Easter!

The cherry blossoms and callan were baring all at the rest stop on our way to Matsuyama this weekend. We took advantage of some time off to visit the largest city on Shikoku. I visited Matsuyama a few times as a missionary, and coming back with Melissa and Callan was a fine treat. Callan is a super traveler and as you will see in this next set of pictures, we did some super traveling. There are more than thirty tunnels drilled through the mountains between Marugame and Matsuyama and a few of them are more than 2000 meters long (more than a mile). The rest of the highway is mostly built on tall concrete stilts, so either you are barrelling through the heart of the mountains, or skipping over the tops of wide valleys, so that though your traveling through one of the hilliest countries in the world, there is little change in the grade of the road. Callan usually likes the tunnels, but he was asleep most of the ride there so he missed out.

Our first stop in Matsuyama after checking in at the hotel was Ishite-ji shrine. It is number 51 on the 88 temple loop around shikoku and was very busy when we arrived. There were a few hundred people scattered throughout the temple complex, some praying, some burning incense, some buying medalions and charms. This Dragon sculpture marks the entrance to the temple grounds and stands at the edge of a quiet koi pond.

Cranes.

Thousands and thousands of paper cranes are folded by school children all over Japan and donated to different shrines as a prayer of peace.

More paper cranes.

Bamboo grove in Ishiteji temple. Just above this grove was an entrance to a small cave that was lined with dim lights and lead worshippers up through the inside of a hill to a meditating garden.

The 150 meter long cave running under the hillside contained statuary like this, as well as wise Buddhist sayings written on plaques that lined the tunnel walls. There was also a scattering of amateur artwork, and a few small shrines. The light was minimal and it was a little spooky, but not scary. It was actually very peaceful throughout the shrine, and it was a pleasure to be among so many devoted worshippers. The chanting and incense really added to the experience.

A pretty mountain road near ishiteji shrine.

Despite Callan's concerned look, he really enjoyed this cave, which we figure was supposed to be representative of the buddhist path to enlightenment.

There was a soccer ball at the park we found, and Callan spent a good amount of time kicking it around the dirt field. He also took a few swings with his basseball bat. He hit the ball five times in a row, and each time he dropped his bat, circled an imaginary set of bases, and slid into home plate head first. he put on quite a show for the onlooking japanese folks at the park.

After visiting the Ishite-ji temple we ate dinner. With a little help from a friendly convenience store clerk, we located a quite, clean park in the center of the city with a slide, swings, and this merry-go-round cum torture device that I somehow managed to squeeze myself into with Callan. We ate homemade pasta salad, banana's, and apple slices.

Melissa keeps teasing me for taking so many pictures of the flowers, but I don't care. The Cherry blossoms in Japan are, in my opinion, one of the wonders of the world, and as the japanese duely note every time I talk at length with any of them about the tree, they make a great metaphor for humanity. They are brilliant, beautiful, and fleeting. The whole country anticipates the 'cherry blossom front' that moves up the country from Okinawa in late March to Hokkaido in Late April and May. Each night on the news there is an official report of the progress of the blossoms, and there are even 'blossom' forecasts for different regions of the country. The Japanese look forward to them like americans look forward to Christmas lights, but with more zeal. When the blossoms do come out, so do the people, along with their bento lunches, their blue picnic tarps, and their beer. At the Park we Stopped at With Callan, there were about two dozen people picnicing under the Cherry blossoms, and their laughter made a pleasant backdrop for our own picnic.

In the hotel room, after Callan's bath, we gave up trying to force callan to get his pajama's on, and let him dress himself. This was the result. The hotel room was small, but clean, smoke free, and inexpensive. The bed left a lot to be desired, but it didn't matter much for me anyway, because I ended up on the floor with Callan half the night because he was tossing and turning so much. Melissa didn't fair much better, and at two in the morning when Callan and I were watching highlights from the PGA master's tournament and eating some sliced apple because he had woken up hungry, we all shrugged, and said, "at least it's not cold."

After waking up and enjoying the free hotel breakfast (which was really just rolls, crossants, and juice) we packed up and drove thirty minutes in awful rain to a small town called Uchiko, which is home to some very traditional japanese dwellings, a kabuki theater, and this large buddha statue. The dark spot on the statues elbow is from the hands of worshippers who rub the statue as part of their prayers.

This huge statue appears to be very new, and the elbow which you can see behind us has a very noticable (to us, not to you looking at the picture) rubbing spot where worshippers rub the statue for blessing and protection.

After visitng the relaxed buddha shrine, we took a walk down the carefully recreated turn of the century street called "Youkaichi." The name means 8th day market, and as you might guess, there used to be a market here on the eighth of every month. The street is more than a mile long and looks almost what it would look like in 1906. Callan is holding a package of cookies that an admiring store keep gave him as we were looking at some fish swiming in a pot outside his door.

The pick up times listed on the side of this old mail drop box said, 'about 7:37,' 'about 11:37', and 'about 5:37' Even Japanese mail boxes avoid being too direct!

Here is an old phone booth. Callan says "Moshi Moshi!"

This incredible patch of tulips were growing on the side of the road, next to a construction site, in a small garden surrounded by collapsing walls and piles of old scrap wood.

Our last stop in Uchiko before returning to Matsuyama was The Uchiko-Za kabuki theater. They only have a few shows a year here, and the rest of the time it is completely open for guests to tour, for a small donation of 300 yen (about $2.50 american).

This is the view from the balcany of the Kabuki theater, which can hold more than six hundred people, who would all have come in traditional kimono and sat on the floor, not in seats. You can see the outline of the circular revolving portion of the stage, as well as two posts, marking the location of trap doors. There are no other Kabuki theaters quite like this in all of Japan. Built, paid for, and filled by the citizens of Uchiko, made wealthy by eleaborate candle making.

We even got to go underneath the stage to see how the old wooden revolving platform and it's many trap doors were operated. There were four poles like this suspended from the under side of the revolving floor that must have been pushed by stage hands. The rocks behind us are the footings for the stage, and the ground we're on is dirt.

Our favorite part of the theater was the Hapi coats that were there for people to try on. This is the Franklin family kabuki rendition of the nutcracker.

This is the main entrance to the famous Dogo Onsen (pronounced "dough go own sen"). It's Matsuyama's main attraction and known all over the country as being the only bath house to be named an important historical site.

The Dogo public spa was the model for the 'spa for the spirits' in the Japanese animated film 'Spirited Away,' which I would recommend to anyone with any political/literary interests. We didn't have time to actually go in the bath house, but we drove by it and did the japanese thing (hop out of the car, take a picture, and hop back in the picture. It was the last stop on our trip besides a rest area somewhere between Matsuyama and Marugame where Melissa forced me to take a thirty minute nap before arriving back at home at about 8 pm tonight. Callan, who fell asleep shortly after devouring some ice cream we purchased at the rest area, stayed asleep after we arrived home, and Melissa went to bed about twenty minutes later. It was a short trip, but a nice break from the routine. If I could go back I would take the time to get the full treatment at the spa, which is only about twenty dollars american and is supposed to be great. Who knows if we'll ever get back there.

Spring Break

We’re off to Ehime prefecture for a short overnight trip to see a castle, an old market, a famous hot springs, and some springtime countryside.  Stay tuned for more!

Spring is here?

You know its spring in Japan when the birds start chirping and the cockroaches start crawling. After a long cold winter its finally starting to warm up. The late evenings are still chilly and the mornings are little cold, but the days are getting longer and the sun is getting warmer. This morning there are finches chasing each other outside our front window, and yesterday I found a cockroach. The cherry blossoms are even starting to bloom, despite snow in some of the mountains still, and were looking forward to packing away the heaters and our sweaters. However, every time Melissa says “I’m so tired of the cold,” she also says, “But don’t remind me of that in July when it’s so hot.”

Tomorrow is April First and we will be inside the last four months of our trip. We still have a million places we want to see, and things we want to do, and I’m just starting to feel the slightest sense of urgency about trying to get everything done here that I wanted to while we’re here. When we get back in late July, early August, I’ll be taking the GRE, then going back to school for my last two semesters at BYU, starting work at the PR department at The McKay School of education at BYU and as a writing tutor in the honors department, and applying to twelve different graduate schools. Not to mention getting reacquainted with family, and finding something handy to do at the house (my handyman muscle is so out of shape! I’m dying to cut some wood, or use a caulk gun, or throw a hammer).

The next adventure begins in four months. I think I’ll worry about the current adventure first.

Dad tried to make chocolate pudding but he put the dry ingredients in the pot first and the cocoa powder burned on the bottome of the pan, giving the pudding a distinct burnt taste. Callan didn't seem to mind too much.

I took the camera with me to MIA this week on one of the first spring days here with the hopes of catching the Callan at play with some of the kids. 'Train' is really popular among the little ones, and we don't mind it either because it keeps a handful of kids busy with just one jumprope.

Our Boss' son made this fences back in the summer so we could corral the kids out in the PARKING LOT!!!! where we let them play every day (Notice that the kids are all currently on the wrong side of the fence, and one of the fences is tipped over in the background. We were actually on our way inside).

This little girl's name means

These twins live a few minutes down the street from us and only come to the kindergarten when regular schools have a break. They are four years old, and are along with Callan, the most well behaved kids in the group.

Nishioka tagged up just right, but the American umpire still called him out for leaving early, making this run worthless. Picture (AP) copied from World Baseball Classic website.

World Baseball Classic: a very rough draft of my first attempt at a Sports OpEd piece

I don’t know if anyone has been paying attention to the World baseball classic this past week, but here in Japan it has been all over the news, mostly because Japan won the contest, and secondarily because this country is in love with baseball.

Melissa and Callan and I have been routing for the Japan team since they played America early last week. In case you haven’t heard, Japan should have won the game, but because of a terrible call by an American umpire, Japan’s eighth inning go ahead score was over turned and America ended up winning in the 9th inning with a base hit up the middle by Alexander Rodriguez.

I can’t decide what embarrassed me more, the poor call by the American umpire, or the way that the American players made fools of themselves. Not only are they overly muscled steroid pumping freaks who think playing in the major leagues makes them divine, but they incessantly chew gum, scratch themselves, and strut on and off the field like fighting cocks. I watched the Americans bat, and every time a strike was called after a pitch, the American batter would pull skeptical face as if to say the umpire was full of it and “how dare he call a strike on me. Doesn’t he know who I am? Doesn’t he know I make more in two minutes than he makes in a year?”

If I were a member of the America team I would have felt sick after the game against Japan, knowing that I didn’t deserve the win. One player actually called it a lucky break, I think he said, ‘the call went our way,” as if there was real question as to whether the third base runner had really tag up early or not. Well the replays don’t lie, and the runner didn’t leave early and America went home with a stolen victory.

Still it is of little consequence because America lost to Mexico, which sent Japan to the semifinals against Korea, where the Japan team played flawlessly. The victory over Korea brought them to the finals against Cuba, and there Japan showed the world that the Major leagues do not hold a corner on Baseball greatness.

However, it is still difficult to get the image of the American team out of my head. Is that how the rest of the world sees us, as gum chewing playground bullies whose money and preeminence has made us fat, lazy, and feeling entitled?

The Japanese players walk onto the field emanating an aura of reverence for the field, for the ball park, for the fans. Whether they are at heart the sportsman they appear to be may be difficult to decide, but at least the give the appearance of having a sense of humility and reverence for the sport. Where the Americans seemed like the power glutted blubbering gods of Mt. Olympus, the Japanese players seemed more like the humble prophet of the desert. They may not eat locust and honey, but they very well may be ushering in a new dispensation of athletes whose cleats the Americans won’t be worthy to lace up.

Crepes are Dad and Callan's favorite.

A conversation between Callan and Dad today while running errands in town:

Callan: (pointing at a ‘Homerun’ pachinko gambling parlor with a large baseball on its sign)     “Dadda, I wanna go in there. They have a baseball.”

Dad: “Son, that’s not a place to play baseball, that’s a gambling hall where people go to waste     their money.”

Callan: “I want to go there!”

Dad: “Why?”

Callan: “I wanna go there to waste my money!”

Finding a use for our toilet remote

I can’t believe this story has slipped my memory for so long, but it has been more than a month since Grandma and Grandpa Franklin visited and I just remembered how grandpa helped me find a good use for our toilet’s remote control.

First a side note…

You all remember the remote control for the toilet that I described back in August or September when we first got here (if you don’t, feel free to check out the archives).  You may also remember that since Callan has been practicing using the big toilet we have had to remove the remote from its holder attached to the wall next to the toilet so that curious Callan doesn’t push any unfortunate buttons while he is getting used to doing his business on a real toilet (removing the remote was, unfortunately, something we thought of after Callan had already pushed one of the buttons during a trial toilet session and sprayed warm bidet water up his back and all over the bathroom.  Thankfully the experience was not scaring and he is still interested in using the real toilet, although it could have been disastrous and could have set us up for a lifetime of changing diapers).  So the remote has been sitting on our dresser for two or three months now, out of reach of Callan, collecting dust.  

…Now back to Grandma and Grandpa Franklin

On the Friday they arrived we were all getting ready to head out for the day and Grandpa Franklin said he had to use the bathroom.  As he walked toward the bathroom I joked with him about not hitting any of the wrong buttons while he was in there. Then out of nowhere, the image of the remote sitting on our dresser popped into my mind, and an evil, sinister idea began to form.  I couldn’t resist.  I retrieved the remote from dresser and tip-toed toward the bathroom.  I tried to aim the remote through the crack in the door, but it wouldn’t work.  In order to make the signal reach, I would have to crack the door ever so slightly, which of course I knew would get dad’s attention, but I also knew he would be otherwise disposed, and he would not be able to stand up to shut the door.  So that’s what I did.  I cracked the door just wide enough to shoot the remotes beam into the small bathroom and, just like that, the bidet came on.  

Now, to the reader who thinks me cruel, you must know two things.  First, this is the same father who on more than one occasion encouraged me to play ‘apple foot’ as a toddler which involved me chomping on the footwear of various members of the family, the same father who was known to burst in on his tiny children during their bath armed with a camera and some cheesy line about showing pictures to our future girlfriends, and the same father who at least once, with the help of my younger brother Tom, placed a pile of shaving cream on my hand while I was sleeping and then tickled my nose with a feather, only to stand over me and laugh as I wiped shaving cream all over my groggy face.  He certainly was not unworthy of such a prank.  The second thing you should know is that I only turned the bidet on long enough for Dad’s eyes to bug out, and then I turned it right off.  Who says those remotes aren’t handy?  

the deadline dash

I finally got to sleep last night about 3 o’clock after finishing an essay for two contests with deadlines set for today, March 15th.    Believe it or not, the long night was less a result of procrastination, and more the result of genuinely having too much to do.  I was waking up every morning early and making steady progress on the project and then last weekend stuff just started piling up.  Between taking care of Callan and Melissa and trying to get to work there hasn’t been a lot of time for writing.  However, with the deadlines approaching, I had little choice but to call upon my ‘all-nighter’ skills from high school, and I sure needed them.  

I got home from work last night at 8:10 pm and after feeding myself and Callan, cleaning the house, and putting both Melissa and Callan to bed, I sat down at the computer.  I started typing at 10:35pm, and as usual things started out slow.  Writing is decidedly not like riding a bike.  It’s more like lifting weights.  If you’re out of practice, it’s really difficult to perform at your peak, and even when you’re keeping a regular routine, there’s still a lot of sweat and stink involved.  

By eleven o’clock, I’d completed several thorough reads and had a fairly good idea of where I wanted things to go, and by one thirty I was working on the concluding paragraph.  The writing session took me to an article in the Pittsburg post gazette, to the Creative Writing department website at University of Arizona, to an online anthology of Oscar Wilde’s work, and of course to the Wikipedia article about Michael De Montaigne.  

At 2:30 am I called Grandma Franklin in Las Vegas to notify her that I was once again sending her a last minute draft for editing.  Then I addressed two envelopes, one to the Bellingham Review and one to the Florida Review, both of which have fairly lucrative (and not coincidentally fairly prestigious) writing contests, and finally went to bed.

At 7:15 Callan woke up and made a b-line for the refrigerator, which meant I was up too and right behind him (for good reason too, the last time I laid in bed while he got up to get something out of the fridge, I ended up mopping an entire carton of milk up off the floor).   We had eggs for breakfast and then we both got dressed, said goodbye to Mom, and headed out the door for the bilingual kindergarten.  

The problem was that today I failed to remember that I was supposed to be in Takamatsu (one hour away) by 9:30AM to teach at a kindergarten and by the time I remembered it was 9:15 and we were just about to start the first lesson at MIA.  I called the school and moved the time back forty five minutes, Called Deron to see if he would mind taking Callan back home for me, and got back into my car and went to Takamatsu.  

I arrived at the kindergarten at 10:15, taught two half-hour lessons and then got back in my car and sped back to Marugame for my 12:15 class, stopping at McDonald’s on the way home for a couple of cheeseburgers.  

After Seiko’s lesson I came home and had just under an hour to read Grandma Franklin’s corrections and suggestions, finalize the essay, write a cover letter, and stuff the envelopes before leaving for my 2:30pm class back at MIA.  I was five minutes late, but managed to get everything finished at the house, sort of.  I forgot to bring my American check book and so I couldn’t write checks for the entrance fees for each contest.  I had to teach until 4:35 and only had twenty five minutes after the lesson to mail the letters before the post office closed.  There was no way to get home in time to make the postmark deadline.  Instead, I asked Deron’s wife to write two checks for me, which she did, and I mailed the two envelopes at 4:48 pm today.

I got home at five, had dinner with Melissa and Callan, and then taught two more classes from 6:30p to 8:10p.  Fatigue had set in by my last lesson and I was having more trouble than usual staying awake during the lesson (that’s a problem when you are the one who is supposed to be teaching).  My student even said, in English, ‘Joe is sleepy.’

Callan and I made a snack run to the grocery store at 8:45 and he went to bed shortly after we got home.  Melissa and I watched a little Japanese television (as if there were some other kind to watch here), and read a few verses from the Book of Mormon, and now she is off to bed.  I just finished a bowl of ‘choco pie’ rice cereal (like coca crispies) and the covers are calling my name.  

I took this picture of Callan one evening while he was sick a few weeks ago. He doesn't get sick very often, but when he does he sleeps a ton.

Callan will never get tired of riding ferries.

Miyajima was really worth seeing. And it's a good thing we went when we did, because it rained all day the next day when we went to the Mazda museum.

The couple in the distance was taking pictures when a deer wandered up and stole a book mark in a plastic case out of their camera bag. The man was able to wrestle the bookmark away from the deer, but not before it got a good chewing.

It is impressive surounded by water, but with the tide out and people next to it, you can see how big the great tori at Miyajima really is.

Eight hours earlier, the japan inland sea was washing up gently against the wall to our right, but by the afternoon tide was out. You can see the stilts of itsukushima shrine in the background.

The ground was very muddy, so Callan got carried out around the big tori (shinto gate).

A really old drift log on Miyajima

A really old tree in Miyajima island.

Callan doing gymnastics on the train bars

Sunday Weekly Update

It was the Joe show at Church this Sunday, and I am really glad it is not that way every week.  Melissa stayed home sick so I taught our primary class.  It was also our week for sharing time, so I did that too.  Then in sacrament meeting, in addition to translating the meeting, I sang in the choir and gave a talk on the blessings of Sabbath day observance.  Two of the single sisters in the branch sat with Callan during all of sacrament meeting which he liked very much, and he even made a get well card for Melissa during nursery.

After Church Callan and I went to Deron and Lori’s house to help them decipher their Japanese internet set up instructions, and made it home by three.   Callan fell asleep in the car so I carried him into his room and he slept until 4:45.  Then I woke him back up and we went back into town to pick up or friend Chugh, the ship inspector from India, who was coming with us to our Boss’ house for dinner.  About twenty people were there and we had Japanese curry and fried chicken, fruit salad, Indian curry, and a lot of dessert (all the Americans, including myself, brought desserts.  We had apple cobbler, ice cream, and two types of brownies).

Callan ate a bowl of curry, some orange slices, four strawberries, some ice cream, fruit salad, and half a cup of melon soda.  The other half ended up in my lap about mid way through dinner.  We excused ourselves at about seven and went back home to keep sick-o mom company.  She really is not doing very well.  

More than the physical ickiness she is experiencing (which is marked I assure you), the psychological impact of not being able to do anything except sit on a couch and hold a throw up bowl has been the most difficult. Tonight after putting Callan to bed, I called Brother Morimura who lives across the street and asked him to come over and help me give Melissa a priesthood blessing.  Tomorrow, if she is not feeling any better we are going to go to the Doctor’s office for some suggestions.  

I learned a new Grandpa Franklinism while they were here, and it inspired this comic, written on a hotel notepad by Joey while we were in Hiroshima. Thanks to Grandpa Franklin, every time we drive past a coke vending machine, Callan says with glee, "There, buy special drink for Grandpa." Special drinks, for a very special grandpa. We love him.

Afte Kotohira we drove an hour down the highway to the Kanonji coast where this giant coin has been preserved for centuries ( It was dug out by pesants who wanted to remind the aristocracy not to waste taxes). it was freezing cold, but it looks like a great place to swim in the summer.

At the base of Kotohira, there is a famous udon shop where you can stand at this window and watch the noodles being made fresh right in front of you. You can even take a box home for about 10 dollars american.

After the dough is rolled out it is cut using this special noodle chopper that ratchets along a pole, creating a uniformly sliced noodle all along the way.

While Grandma Franklin and Melissa were using the bathroom, Joey and Callan wandered off to take a closer look at this cool horse statue. We took a bunch of pictures and got so distracted that we didn't notice Melissa and grandma Franklin come out of the bathroom. They didn't notice us either and assumed we were down the path with Grandpa Franklin.

We stopped and had a snack at the top of Konpirasan, the 700 step mountain top temple.

It's been a month since Grandma and Grandpa Franklin visited, and we're really glad it isn't as cold as it was when we took this picture.

To apply or not to apply, that is the question

March is here, were at the five month mark, and the weather is teasing us with brief glimpses of spring. Though the mornings are still cold and the evenings are still frigid, the sun shines during the day and competes with the winter breeze that comes in off the coast. The other day I ventured to wear a short sleeved shirt to work (okay, so everything else was still went and hanging in the sun room), and all my students were very surprised. Japanese people rarely wear short sleeves in June, let alone March.

Callan is becoming a real baseball player right before our eyes. Last week we took him to the park and he batted while Dad pitched and Mom played catcher. Then Callan pitched for each of us and then batted again. He jumps on grounders, chases after loose balls, and can even throw a pitch in the general vicinity of the bat so mom and I can hit.

At the park today with Mom, Callan was trying very hard to tell some other kids that he wanted to play baseball with them. When words did not work, he carried his bat and ball over to them and handed them a bat. The two girls, who where a few years older than Callan, gladly played a few pitches with him, and Callan told Dad all about it when he got home from work.

Melissa made whole wheat veggie pizza tonight with tomato sauce, broccoli, red peppers and mozzarella cheese. It was great.

Mom and Dad Franklin brought a book about graduate school for Joey when they came and he is currently a hundred pages into it, and is learning more than he ever thought he would about graduate degrees.

I think the most difficult aspect of the entire graduate school world is that you no longer have the luxury of dabbling. As an undergrad I dabbled in history, in communications, in economics, in public relations, in creative writing. Going to graduate school means deciding what I want to focus my studies on. It means dedicating the five years, if not the rest of my life, to this one field. It means I am doing a lot of soul searching. Do I really want to be a writer? Do I want to teach college? Do I want to be an editor (anyone who reads this blog may wonder if that is even a possibility given the gross spelling/grammatical errors)?

More than that, I think the reality that sub-par work just won’t cut it is what scares me the most. Entering an MFA or PhD program in creative writing means that I am attempting to claim a position as an equal among the writers of the world. Maybe not the canonized Thoreaus and Whites, and Dillard’s, but at least the published, the paid, the respected. It means I will be jumping in the ocean without a life jacket, treading water purified and defiled alike by the blood and sweat of genius writers whose crumpled notes at the bottom of their waste bins, spat upon, and toppled by banana peels and cigarette butts, are infinitely more profound, more interesting, (not to mention better spelled) than anything I have written that might be chosen by some drunk editor with a vendetta against the profitability of his own publication. It means that writing isn’t just something I do in the dark of night when the family is asleep, or in a fit of passionate rage after a disagreement with my wife. It means I have an office, dedicated to reading good literature, the best literature, a computer with an ergonomically split keyboard, a book shelf full of anthologies, due dates, an advisor, and the haunting mantra of all academics: Publish or parish!

I am researching graduate schools, reviewing program descriptions, learning the difference between the MA, the MA with creative thesis option, the terminal MFA, the Ph.D. in English, The PhD in English with creative emphasis, and the PhD in Creative Writing. I am discovering that almost every MFA program is “among the oldest in the country,” and also that while some programs focus on “the quality of there faculty rather than the quantity,” other programs tout the benefit of having more than 70 ‘well-published’ faculty.

The programs with slick, easily navigatable web sites are always more inviting. The ones that look like high school web design projects are almost too painful to search through. If I were to choose my school based solely on the website, I would only apply to the University of Iowa. Although that might be a waste of time since they accept about 10 people a year to there program and all of them have already published books. I thought that going to school was where unpublished, or little published folks went to learn what the published folks already know.

Part of the whole selection process for choosing which schools to apply for has been to read the work of potential faculty at the schools I am considering. I haven’t decided if this is counter productive. I recently read an excerpt from “Sick of Nature” by David Gessner, an environmental activist, essayist, instructor from the Wilmington campus of the University of North Carolina. His nature prose, which is at times akin to Bill Bryson or David Sedaris guide is anything but traditional nature writing, and it’s fluid suddenness is knee-shaking. Here’s a quote from his book that I read on his website. (warning: “sh” word coming up in this paragraph)

I am sick of nature. Sick of trees, sick of birds, sick of the ocean. It's been almost four years now, four years of sitting quietly in my study and sipping tea and contemplating the migratory patterns of the semipalmated plover. Four years of writing essays praised as "quiet" by quiet magazines. Four years of having neighborhood children ask their fathers why the man down the street comes to the post office dressed in his pajamas ("Doesn't he work, Daddy?") or having those same fathers wonder why, when the man actually does dress, he dons the eccentric costume of an English bird watcher, complete with binoculars. Four years of being constrained by the gentle straightjacket of genre; that is, four years of writing about the world without being able to say the word "shit." (While talking a lot of scat.) And let's not forget four years of being the official "nature guy" among my circle of friends. Of going on walks and having them pick up every leaf and newt and turd and asking "what's this?" and, when I (defenseless unless armed with my field guides and even then a bumbler) admit I don't know, having to shrug and watch the sinking disappointment in their eyes.

“I can’t write like this,” I tell myself after reading the clip. This is like fine china, and I’m a cheap origami cup folded out of old newspaper. No, not even that good. The folded newspaper would have published writing on it. Gessner’s ability to combine bits and pieces of detail about his work, about his interactions with his community, about his own insecurity, without ever riffing too heavily on what he’s trying to get at is writing that I dream about. It’s the kind of writing that makes you say, Hey I could do that, even though you know you never could. I have no idea what a semipalmated plover is, but it sounds as dull as he wants us to think it might be. I doubt the alliteration is an accident either. The revelation of his own inadequacy, which would reveal me for a fraud, makes the reader love Gessner for his honesty.

And this is the kind of guy I’m supposed to approach and say, “Hey, by the way, I’d like to apply to your program next year, your stuff is really good, and well, do you think you could put in a good word for me next year when the committee gets together over pizza to laugh at a stack of convoluted personal statements, inflated grades, and hopeless wanna-be writing samples?” The sane part of me says, ‘There’s no way you can do this, no way you can scoff at the establishment by presuming you might be able to stand in even the shadow of the same light that these writers stand in.

Some of the websites I have come across have been less than hopeful. The University of Arizona’s creative writing website has a section entitled “Some thoughts on the program.” It is written by the C.E. Poverman, an accomplished fiction writer and Professor at the University.
The ‘thoughts,’ begin like this: “I would like to offer some thoughts on what the U of A Creative Writing Program and its degree can and cannot do for you.” He then proceeds to list several very academic, very practical, expectations about the benefits of an MFA degree, and then the harsh realities of life with an MFA. The few lucky ones get a job if they’ve published two books, while the rest “turn to secondary interests to support themselves; technical writing for places such as IBM; publicity; and so on. Some, after several years of going along in this way, return sobered to academia and seek more marketable degrees: a PhD in rhetoric and composition; a PhD in literature, and so on. They still want to write, but the exigencies of surviving in what is called a market economy have driven them to make themselves marketable. Some find that it is just wiser to retrain themselves. They go into law, psychology, or whatever else interests--and supports--them.

I imagine being in high school again, and listening to one of those ‘let’s just be friends conversations. The young girl whose overly friendly attitude has convinced another unsuspecting geek that he might have chance with her, now has to sit down and explain reality to her hopeless admirer. But instead of a girl, there is an MFA program and the academic world attached to it. And instead of the geek, there is the aspiring graduate student-writer, who must understand the reality of the program he is considering. I am perfectly aware of the likely-hood of success that lies at the end of this path, and scares me to death. The two biggest reasons to be scared are asleep right now in the next room. I’m not an idealistic, pencil chewing writer with Walden pond fantasies about solitude. I’m a Husband, a Dad, a scout leader, and I want to find a future that allows me to do what I do best to make a living for my family.

My sister said I should be an orthodontist, my dad suggested the military. I mentioned once to Douglas Thayer, a fiction writer and professor at Brigham Young University (who holds an MFA from University of Iowa and has been teaching for 45 years) that I was considering a PhD in English literature and creative writing and he said “What? Do you know how much literature professors make? 45,000 a year! Does your wife know about this?”

Why is everyone trying to scare me, and all the other students out there interested in writing, away from graduate studies in creative writing? Well, it’s because the reality is that most students don’t make it into a tenure track position. In his book “Getting what you came for,” (I forget the Authors name) says that about 20 percent of accepted graduate students in the humanities land decent teaching positions. That leaves the other 80 percent to get computer jobs or go into retail management. Mr. Poverman is right to ask people to consider twice what they hope to get out of an MFA. He is right to scare me, and everyone else who will apply. Creative writing isn’t cut out for everyone, it’s not cut out for most people. In fact it’s not cut out. Dentistry is cut out, even law is cut out. Creative writing is more allusive, so is the academic world. I think the chase is more exciting, more dangerous, more unpredictable.

If I am supposed to figure out what I do best, and learn to do it better, and then find a way to make a living doing it, then shouldn’t I be willing to bet on graduate school’s ability to help me establish a career as a writer, as an editor, as a critical thinker, as a communicator. If only twenty percent of accepted grad students land teaching positions, than my goals is to simply be in that twenty percent. And if I’m not, then I put my talents to use elsewhere, in publishing, in journalism, in editing, in public relations, in scribbling notes on bathroom walls.

So I say thanks to Mr. Poverman for his reality check, for his words of discouragement, and his slightly patronizing tone. He has successfully scared me, and spurred me on. He has brought me to my knees, and kicked me in the rear. It is not enough to think about writing, or to even dabble in it. I must live it. Not in the recluse, typewriter monkey fashion that Mr. Poverman seems so worried about, not because I don’t ‘care about reality,’ not because ‘all I want to do is write,’ not because ‘I can’t be bothered thinking beyond that one necessity,’ not because writings claim is ‘too singular, noble, and imperative to be sullied by other considerations,’ but because it is what I do BEST. It’s the sharpest, most easily drawn arrow in my quiver, and it makes little sense to not seek ways to use it. It would be foolish to go into graduate school planning on not making it. But it would also be foolish to not have a plan B. It would be foolish to go into a career path I will hate, for the sake of money or stability, and it would also be foolish to disregard the exigencies of money and stability for some lofty dream of publishing the next great book. Thank heaven for Mr. Poverman for helping me keep my feet on the ground, and thank heaven for faith, that reminds me there are clouds in which to occasionally place my head.