Right Side of the Dirt

"My momma always told me, any day you wake up on the right side of the dirt is a good day."

 ─the lady who rang up my winter boots at (ironically) Flip Flop Shops yesterday

BOOKS! (Kokoro)

Funny story about this used copy of mine. Not long after I bought it, I set it on my windowsill thinking I'd get to it right away. But instead I let it sit there for months and it blanched in the sun. (That's alright though; the original mustard yellow of the cover was a little ugly anyway, if you ask me.) Then, when I finally picked it up to read it, within days I mistakenly put the book in a bag along with a leaking water bottle. Only minor water damage, but still. So basically, before even getting into this novel it had already taught me two valuable lessons in how NOT to keep old, used books in pristine condition.

Kokoro by Natsume Sōseki 

The unnamed narrator of 2/3 of this novel is a university student who one day crosses paths with a mysterious man at a beach. He calls this man "Sensei". An almost teacher-student like friendship develops between the two in which the younger man follows the older one around, often picking his brain about his experiences and philosophies on life and love. Sensei is an obviously sad, cynical, and contemplative recluse who is careful not to reveal too much about himself, but later in the novel he finally reveals his past.

In his late teens, Sensei was cheated out of his inheritance by his uncle and developed a severe distrust and suspicion of people. He had given up on the world and nearly all humanity in it. He eased up a bit after renting a room in the home of a widow and falling in love with the widow's daughter. But then he invited a childhood friend of his, "K",  to move into the house with them, and this friend fell in love with the daughter too. Out of jealously Sensei went behind K's back and asked for the young woman's hand in marriage before K could, and his friend killed himself not long after hearing the news.

At present, wracked with guilt and disgusted with the realization that he, as a human being, is not void of the same selfishness and impure tendencies that he condemned in other human beings like is uncle, Sensei has slipped into a depression from which he is unable to free himself. Not only is he despondent as a result of being wronged, but he feels he must also punish himself to atone for having wronged his friend. But the guilt and loneliness become too great, and forcing himself to live an empty life as if he were dead is no longer enough. He writes the narrator what might be the longest suicide letter ever in which he explains his past and the reasons for his behavior, and he takes his own life shortly after writing. 

This novel is rich in themes and symbolism, but something that I picked up on in particular was the theme of people following in others' footsteps toward their own undoing. K, Sensei's friend, is a stoic person who becomes increasingly manic and despondent after being disowned by his family. He kills himself due to immense loneliness and disappointment that his lofty ideals (freedom from the fleshy parts of being human through numbness and spiritual devotion) don't match with reality (falling in love but not being able to act on it, being betrayed by a friend). Sensei 's personality comes to mirror that of K's, and he follows K's example by committing suicide in a similar state of mind. Additionally, the narrator initially has simplistic and optimistic views about life much like Sensei did when he was his age. However, little by little he begins to exhibit that same distance from his family and surety of the world's emptiness that eventually consumed Sensei. One could say that the narrator, Sensei, and K are manifestations of different points on the same successive path to despair and death. Only, the narrator has a chance to find his own way out, as K and Sensei's stories could be seen as cautionary tales for him. This difference could also be indicative of another theme: the transition from the Meiji Era to modern times (in the story, the passing of Emperor Meiji can be interpreted as another impetus to Sensei's suicide). The narrator is not a product of the same generation or era as the two other men, and thus is not bound by the same traditional conventions of guilt, honor, loyalty, and redemption through death.

Obviously this isn't a happy read, but as my first Natsume novel I found it beautifully unsettling. Though often disturbing in its darkly pessimistic musings, if you're interested in reading some challenging arguments about love, friendship, or the weight of loneliness and self-hate, Kokoro has a lot to offer.

Favorite quotes:

"A man capable of love, or I should say rather a man who was by nature incapable of not loving; but a man who could not wholeheartedly accept the love of another─such a one was Sensei" (12).

"He seemed to be under the impression that once one had become accustomed to hardship, one would quickly cease to notice it. The mere repetition of the same stimulus was to him a virtue. He believed, I think, that there would come a time when he would become insensitive to hardship. That it might eventually destroy him never entered his head" (177).

High Coming Down.

It's creeping up on me, and I guess it was bound to happen. I'm starting to feel like my old self again─lost, unfocused, afraid, discontented, unmotivated, discouraged, and distracting myself with stupid stuff. I felt it coming on yesterday... but I refuse to submit! New Year's fervor can only last so long, and then you've got to find other reasons to look up and keep pushing. So that's what I'm going to do, keep pushing! I mean, I've been working hard and doing pretty well so far, so why not? My high seems to be coming down but that doesn't mean I have to go down with it.

Same goes for y'all. We're almost one week down, and still have 51 more to make magic happen this year. It's possible! Let's believe that something good, no, better than good, can happen.

ドラマ (Dorama) Time! 6

As promised, though quite overdue, here's a review of the Japanese dramas I watched between when I returned from Paris and now (end of summer to beginning of winter). This is part one of two, and these shows are in the order in which I finished them:

LIFE (ライフ) - Fuji TV/2007

After falling out with her best friend and experiencing said friend's suicide attempt after failing to get into her dream school, Ayumu hopes that entering high school will be a new start. Being the new kid, at first she is welcomed by the group of popular girls in her class, but one poor decision and quite a few unfair misunderstandings earn lead her to be the odd woman out, ostracized by her classmates and bullied by the popular girls who used to be her friends. Her two main enemies are the evil, popular, and rich boyfriend-girlfriend pair Manami and Katsumi, both of which are sadistic control freaks who are hiding some pretty sordid secret lives.

This drama is based on the manga of the same name, and it's like the movie Mean Girls on acid. It's not as raunchy but the mind games are definitely more severe, and the she-said-he-said-she-said is more complicated. My friend recommended this drama to me about 3 years ago because I told her I liked dark anime/drama that has a social message, but I wasn't prepared for what 'LIFE' gave me. Placement exam/ranking system pressure, teen suicide, bullying and harassment, gang violence, rape/sexual assault, teen mental illness, sadism, self-harm, blackmailing, child abuse, inappropriate teacher-student relationships, cover-ups and corruption, revenge, even attempted murder. It's all in there. And you just get sucked into all the drama and sick stuff that's going on; I watched the whole show in just 2 or 3 days! And all the while you're wondering, why doesn't anyone speak up or fight back? Lesson learned: hurt people do in fact, hurt other people. I would totally recommend this drama, but don't expect any typical teenage fluff, 'cause this is definitely not it.


昼顔 (Hirugao) - Fuji TV/2014

Hirugao or "beauty of the day", is a word that refers to married women (particularly housewives) who have affairs during the afternoon when their husbands are at work and/or their kids at school. Such women include our leads, neighbors Sawa and Rikako. Sawa is a docile young woman who's excruciatingly bored with her life as a housewife. Rikako is a seasoned vet at lying and cheating and has fooled herself into thinking that doing so makes her a happier woman and a better wife and mother. The two meet by chance, and before long Rikako goads Sawa into taking up the same pasttime with her new crush, a high school biology teacher named Yuichiro. While you're kind of happy that sweet little taken-for-granted Sawa has finally found love and is becoming more of her own person, you know that this can't end well. Secret affairs, even if based on friendship and true love, are still secret affairs. And at some point no matter what dirt people are doing, they always get caught. Eventually both Sawa and Rikako's liaisons lead to dangerous consequences; when they are found out they must decide what kind of women they want to be and how they will move forward. This drama is practically perfect, in my opinion. It broaches a taboo subject, it's sexy but avoids glorifying bad behavior or making it "cool", and it asks some pretty challenging questions about femininity and what love makes people do.


 深夜食堂２ (Shinya Shokudō 2) - TBS/MBS/2011

I forgot to mention something when summing up season 1 previously. In addition to being open all night and serving as a haven for misfits and lonely people, there's another important particularity about this restaurant. It has a very limited menu, but customers hardly order from it because Master actually makes just about whatever dish that they request anyhow. Thus the title of each episode is the name of a particular dish, and the dish varies with each episode . That being said, this season has the same exact format as the last season, but with new stories and more culinary dishes. However, this season differs slightly in that rather than focusing on people who are obviously outcasts or connected to the so-called underworld of Japanese society, this season focuses more on people who seem normal. They seem like regular everyday people, until the episode reveals something hidden hat you wouldn't expect. Perhaps that's why I wasn't wowed so much by this season, since the feature characters were a little bland. BUT! I highly recommend episode 6 ("Cream Stew"), which is my favorite of the season. Not only was it the episode that was used as part of my coursework in Japan last year, but the dish in this episode (cream stew) is also the dish that Master is seen making in the title of every single episode (of both seasons 1 and 2), which kind of makes it a staple of the series.

Honorable Mention: Dousousei: Hito wa, Sando, Koi wo Suru - TBS/2014

I enjoy watching this drama because rather than a typical group of pretty young people with the world presumably at their finger tips, here we have a group of 40-somethings who've lived life a little and still have their own drama and complicated love lives. In other words, in addition to the "Where are they now?" intrigue that high school reunion dramas have, Dousousei also shows us that *gasp* people are still plenty lively and interesting even after they've passed their 20s! This drama is an Honorable Mention because I haven't been able to finish it yet; the series ended in Japan months ago, but there are no English subs to be found online beyond episode 3. I'll write a proper review whenever the rest of the series is subbed.

With Dousousei out of the running, and all the other dramas being their own special kind of splendid, it's hard for me to choose a favorite this time around... but I'd go with 'LIFE' on this one. 'Shinya Shokudō 2' was solid but a bit tame, and I actually have no complaints about 'Hirugao', but 'LIFE' was just so wickedly beyond anything that I'd imagined when I first sat down to watch it. It's an adrenaline rush that wins out over the others. Although, again, I highly recommend all three!

"Lookin' like Your Goldfish Died"

This morning I attended my so-called "home church" for the first time in months. I'd been going to church, just not this one, for reasons that won't be discussed here. Ma and I arrived shortly before the  handshaking/hugging portion (you know in recent years, instead of simply instructing you to greet your neighbor, they now specifically encourage you to walk around and hug or shake hands with people). I stood up but didn't walk around; mostly just glancing around at the various familiar and unfamiliar countenances around me, obliging when someone would approach with a greeting. Then they called the congregation to the altar for prayer but I held my position on the pew like I always do. Some not-quite-elderly man wearing sunglasses (he and his sunglasses have been at the church during all the past 13 years that I've been going; can't remember if he's a deacon or not though) was about to pass by me but then he stopped. He bent over to shake my hand, then stared at me for a second and said,

"What's wrong?"
"I'm sorry?"
"What's wrong with you?"
"Nothing."
"You sittin' there lookin' like your goldfish died. I was about to give you 75 cents so you could go buy yourself a new one and not look like that no more."
(busting out laughing) "Haha, no..."
"I'm just messin' with you. Happy New Year. "
"Happy New Year to you too."

I've always been very careful about my composure when sitting by myself, or when I'm around a group of people and don't have the courage to insert myself amongst them and engage with them. When not scanning the crowd just to see what there is to see and look preoccupied, my eyes are focused straight ahead while I  try to look self-assured and contemplative rather than awkward and lonely. And from time to time I'm told my straight face makes me look sad or concerned or angry. But mourning a dead goldfish? Ha! Definitely a new one. That was probably the most random yet oddly comforting welcome that I ever could've expected.

Thoughtful Gift

 

My stepmom surprised me and sent me a Starbucks gift card for Christmas, knowing that I'm neither a coffee nor a Starbucks person. Why? 

She figured that if I was given a gift card I would have a reason to go (true), and she wanted me to go somewhere and take breaks since I never relax when I'm at school (also true).

Isn't that so thoughtful?

Gratitude is All You've Got (Twothousand15)

2015 is going to be the biggest year of my life. I'm graduating from college, hopefully finding my first job, starting my life as a real adult, and hopefully transforming my body. I don't want to put undue pressure on myself by using the word "resolution", but this year I'm aiming for four things. This is my vision for the year, you could say:

-To intentionally practice gratitude everyday. I have a couple ideas on how I'll do this, but I'll share them later.

-To be nice to myself. Not be so hard. Stop trying to keep score and hold things against myself or other people. Because no one who matters is keeping count. Life is not about comparisons and it certainly is not a competition.

-To not be ashamed of what I don't yet know or what it seems that I can't yet do. Making mistakes is progress and a step toward all that's good! And disappointment's not the end of the world! It's okay to not have all the answers, to have feelings, to come up short. You can't be prepared for absolutely everything that comes your way; you can't life-proof yourself. It's okay to be afraid, but whatever it is, just do it anyway.

-To not be so apprehensive of people and how they might treat me or respond to me. Interact with them enthusiastically and on purpose. Love them, share with them. Reach out and be the initiator sometimes, not ways the loner or the flake. Be willing to believe the notion that people are good, and that there might actually be people out there who like you a lot. Conversely, everyone doesn't have to like you for you to shine your light and treat them with warmth.

The title of this post is my theme for this year: "Gratitude is All You've Got." Additionally, below is the verse that I'm choosing to etch into my heart this year:

"Ask the Lord for rain in the springtime; it is the Lord who sends the thunderstorms. He gives showers of rain to all people, and plants of the field to all people" -Zechariah 10: 1 (NIV)

This verse means two things to me. 1) Though I might try, I cannot make it in this world relying solely on myself, which means I have to ASK for what I need and want. I have to communicate. The answer may not always be "yes", but I'll never know if I don't say anything. 2) There is room at the table for everyone, including me. Somewhere out there, there is a place in this world for me. All the good seats in life have not already been taken.

Here's to wishing you all a phenomenal year, and not waiting for life to happen out of fear and doubt.  2-0-1-5.  Wow. We're living in that far-away Future that so many people before us only dreamed about. So let's do our best together!  Be Happy and God Bless.

Love,

Deela