December 2nd:

We had a lecture by Murata-sensei in the morning. I hadn't been sleeping the last two nights because I have been thinking about things for the Christmas chakai and getting the money toban in order (just took it over) so when he walked in and looked at me I knew it was going to be a bad class. I could not translate to save my life, and thankfully Johnny took over as much as possible. My brain reached maximum capacity. The lecture was about hai, but other than that I don't know what was going on.

After that we had a lecture on tea history with Tanihata-sensei. I really enjoy his lectures, even though he goes so so so fast! He is the kind of person that I wish I could sit and pick his brain forever because you know that he knows everything. I love history teachers. It's a thing. Hamana-sensei told us later that Tanihata-sensei's book on kugi-cha was the first of its kind published. That baffles me, and also continues to make me think about what kind of research I should be doing next year. So many thoughts. Yesterday the focus was on the lifetime of Sen Sotan and Kobori Enshu. I find this to be a really fascinating time period. Must study more.

Chaire kazari. Not too bad. I felt like I could exhale during the kazari's since they were all pretty much the same except for how to handle the special items. Once you know how to handle the special items its pretty much the same as regular koicha. Which is good because I really needed to not think this week.

December 3rd:

Hamana-sensei lecture in the morning continuing the New Year's events theme. Waaah. Lots of information. Afterwards was the Principal's meeting with Oiemoto. During his lecture I kept thinking "I am going to serve him tea in less than a week. I must do this well."

At lunch Sylvain and I met with one of the 2nensei who was the hanto at the Gakuensei's Tsukimi chakai in October to ask him tips for how to be a good hanto and ask for typical opening lines. Even when I know what it means it is hard for me to remember that much keigo, so it was helpful to talk to the gakuensei and write down information to practice later.

Class was held in Chado Kaikan that day since all of the other practice spaces were booked. Murata-sensei was teaching us and reminded us that when he was in Gakuen he never entered Chado Kaikan except for entrance and graduation ceremonies. It's an interesting paradox to me that we receive such special treatment, but we are the lowest ranking students in the school. We are in an extremely fortunate position to be able to use these spaces for practice. Chawan-kazari, and we ran out of time before I got to go. Ah well. Murata-sensei was giving me a bad time about being hanto, saying that he wouldn't be able to handle it and implying that he was scared for me. JERK. DAMN MURATA-SENSEI.

December 4th:

Christmas chakai meeting in the morning. My toban for the day was "cho" and I forgot to soak Hamana-sensei's shibori before steaming it and nearly started crying as a result. I am always on the verge of tears these days. Between planning for the Christmas chakai, preparing to be hanto, preparing for classes, I am having a hard time keeping it together. I wish I could sleep at night, I think that would help. I've been having terrible headaches for days. Overall I think we are in decent shape, although there is still a lot of work to be done this weekend. Sweet making is the biggest job, and then packing etc. Dogu are pretty much set.

Nagao. Oh dear lord I cannot tie a knot to save my life. I still have problems with a standard chaire. Now nagao!? NOW!? WHY NOW DEAR GOD WHY?! They couldn't save this until after the Christmas chakai?! *cries* I struggled through it, and I honestly just don't have the mental capacity to go practice right now. After the Christmas chakai when I have my brain back I will practice how to tie knots. Right now I cannot tie knots.

The good news is that we got our raku chawan today! Whee!!! I am so pleased with how mine turned out! I have an ame raku chawan! :) Here is a picture along with the Kyoyaki bowl that I painted earlier this year:



And the bottom (note the cone):



December 5th:

This morning I got up early to let Johnny into the dorm to begin the sweets making process. We had some tea in the new raku bowl and since then I have been ironing and doing online things. I need to get the final dogu list and start practicing, and eat something soon. Let us all pray that I don't lose my mind before Monday. Encouraging messages are welcomed.

November 24th:

Tuesday after a long weekend feels like Monday. Also, since a lot of the weekend was involved in Christmas chakai planning it wasn't completely a break...even if it did have its nice moments :) In the morning we had the first part of our monthly lecture by Hamana-sensei about December/New Years events. There are so many things that happen at Urasenke at New Years time aside from just Hatsugama. I've always wondered about traditional New Years though. I wonder how everything will go.

In the afternoon I did Gozumi for the first time and it went...badly. Hamana-sensei asked me to use my left hand, because he wanted to help me be able to pick up the heavier Ro sumi. Unfortunately, I've only practiced sumi demae with my right hand so far and trying to do it with my left hand made everything feel backwards and just confused me more. I MUST PRACTICE MORE WITH MY RIGHT HAND. I WILL DO THIS. I WILL. Thus begins a frustrating week for me.

November 25th:

Noh in the morning. Teele-sensei brought a mask for us to practice walking with. It's amazing how much the senses are changed once the mask is put on. Because of the change in vision and the closeness of it, it's as if you are in a different world. I can't even imagine how to perform in that kind of environment, let alone costumes, etc. It was a fun experience :)

Kininkyotsu Koicha. It was my first time to ever do kininkyotsugu in any form (usucha/koicha, ro/furo). I didn't do a particularly good job of it continuing my frustration from the day before. After class I rushed over to Matsumoto-sensei's place to give her an invitation to the Christmas chakai, and watched MORE kininkyotsugu! Quelle coincidence! After that I rushed to change and head back to gakuen with no time for dinner, because I had to do rochu (cleaning out the ro for class the next day). AND THEN there was practice for kagetsu which was our lesson the next day. My brain was completely fried at this point, and I could only watch and get really, really confused. I don't know if I will ever understand kagetsu. I have a terrible fear of it now. I got back to my room around 9:15 and wrote a report for Hamana-sensei on our status for the Christmas chakai for the meeting the next day, proceeded to have an anxiety attack, and drugged myself to sleep.

November 26th:

Woke up the next morning migrainey from the consistent lack of sleep and drugs from the night before. Missed class for the first time since coming here. Spend a lot of time in my room crying. Clearly needed a mental break. No kagetsu for me.

November 27th:

Mittwer-sensei lecture in the morning on the different levels of study at Urasenke, which made me think about how long I will need to study before I feel like I resemble proficience in tea. This both terrifies and excites me. Honestly, I think I could be happy doing nothing but hakobi usu/koicha forever...and chabako. I really like chabako.

Chasen kazari with Hamana-sensei. The temae itself wasn't that difficult, I just could not recover myself. Every day this week I got angry with my temae and just wanted it to end because I did so poorly. Could not stop crying. Mereca was also crying so we were a lot of fun to deal with, two crying girls in the corner. It was a very sad class :(

Once we got home it was decided that we needed to blow off some steam, and me, Finland and Poland proceeded to play very loud music, drink a lot of sake and laugh a lot. It felt good. I needed it...badly.

November 28th:

Slightly hungover, but managed to get out in the morning to run some errands and generally spend all day in various places (Starbucks, etc) reading books. Reading makes me feel better about life. That was pretty much my day.

November 29th:

Pancake origami folding party! More prep for the Christmas chakai, followed by Mecca and I going to Subway for dinner, then to the boys dorm to help Johnny make wreaths, finally back to the girls dorm for second dinner with some of the gakuensei. Drank whiskey. It was fun to hang out with the gakuensei, it doesn't happen often.

November 30th:

Vice-Principal's meeting in the morning (Oku-sama). It was interesting to hear her talk about all of the things that the family does at New Years time. A straight month of New Years events...I can't imagine keeping up with that schedule. Such a busy life! Afterwards we had a history lesson on the Nara period and learned a lot about imperial drama and the rise of the Fujiwara's, which was fun. I always enjoy history.

Finally starting to feel sane again after last week. It helped that the temae was Unohana. Chabako is always fun for me, although it was my first time doing it with haiken. If I buy anything while I am here I hope to get a chabako set. We shall see how I come out after Winter Break. Probably broke.

December 1st:

I can't believe it is December already. Time flies. Less than a month until my birthday! For the first time in a long time I am excited for my holiday birthday, and I plan to spend that day at the last Kitano Tenmangu flea market of the year :) Hamana-sensei finished his lecture on December/New Years today, there is so much to talk about here I could come back a dozen times and not do half of it. I'm trying to figure out which things I will do at New Years time. If anyone has suggestions let me know :) I will probably do Hatsumode at Kitano Tenmangu again...you know, good luck in studies and all that.

Chashaku kazari today. My temae was fine, but I made the absolute worst koicha ever. The end result wasn't too bad, a little think but ok. However! I added about half of the water I needed the first time, and all of the tea stuck to the chasen even after I added extra water the second time. When I took the chasen out at the end there was a HUGE ball of tea at the end, which promptly plopped into the bottom of the chasen when I put it back. It was my worse nightmare. *sigh* Ah well, there is always tomorrow...

I am currently trying to figure out schedules and money things for the Christmas chakai. T - 6 days. I will be a basketcase until this is done. And then I will drink. And then I will go to Thailand.

I ate a lot of food this weekend, which means I spent a lot of money this weekend. I will be fine until we get the scholarship next month, but it is still rough :)

November 21st:

In the afternoon I went with Johnny and Mecca to go buy items for the Christmas chakai, and we stumbled upon a baked cheesecake store. I had pumpkin cheesecake with black tea, which I am pretty sure was rose tea. Oh it was so, so good. Johnny was meeting up with a friend for dinner that night and I tagged along, and we ended up finding a nice Spanish restaurant which was great. Lamb stew, crunchy bread with olive oil, red wine, coffee, how can this possibly be a bad thing? The only bad thing was that I cut it really close to curfiew and ended up having to SPRINT from the store to Oike to get a cab to take me back to the dorm...I arrived at 9:58. I am a lucky Cone. Also, running on a full stomach is rather unpleasant.

November 22nd:

Met with Ben in the morning to go over Midorikai finances (ramen lunch) and then later went back downtown to look at watches and meet up with Hanna-chan for dinner. She knew an Italian place run by a Hawaiian couple that makes awesome lasagna. More crunchy bread with olive oil, more red wine, more coffee = happy cone. I also bought my tickets for THAILAND. Ohh...Thailand. Sweet. Now I just need to find a place to stay.

November 23rd:

I decided to chill today and stayed around the dorm until lunchtime, and Mecca and I were leaving at the same time with the same Starbucks craving. Caramel Eclair Latte. Afterwards she went off for some sightseeing and I walked down to the Gosho to enjoy the momoji and read until the sun went down. It was nice. In the evening they were testing sweets for the chakai so I went down and worked on some expense spreadsheets while they were cooking shiro an.

Some pictures from the Gosho:


Biggest gingko tree I've ever seen...


Momiji


Close Up!

November 12th:

Meeting with Hamana-sensei in the morning about our Christmas chakai planning. Sadly, he didn't check his email before the meeting and didn't see all of the tables and spreadsheets I had sent him. SAD! He got to see them later though, and I think he apprecaited the organizational skillz. That's right. Skillz. During the lecture with Imagawa-sensei later in the morning we discussed the theory that all tea people are OCD. It involved looking up the term OCD in a denshi jishou and then explaining the difference between the actual illness and the coloquial English use of the term. Very funny.

November 13th:

Lecture by Hamana-sensei on the different rooms that make up the Konnichian structure. It was very interesting since we were going to be visiting the following week for Sotanki!

November 14th:

I did nothing. Absolutely nothing. In the evening I managed to drag myself out of my room and head downtown and spend too much money on some books in English. It is important to me that I have something to read! I got a book by Dumas that I haven't read yet...I always love Dumas...

November 15th:

Yuichi, one of the gakuensei, had a tea down at the Kamogawa delta. Mecca and I went down at about 3 and enjoyed him doing WaKei outside. It was really nice, the weather was perfect and there were a lot of people doing various things on the delta. Afterwards we felt energized enough to bike down to Shijo in search of sweets. Unfortunately, that seemed to be everyone's plan and all of the good places had hour long lines. Why do people wait in line that long? So we ended up at Haagen Daas. Not a bad ending, and we did see maiko-san while walking through Gion!

November 16th:

Kaiseki quiz, followed by the principals meeting (the principal of the Gakuen is Iemoto). So we were able to listen to his lecture. I had a bit of a clothes crisis in the morning when I realized (20 minutes before I had to leave) that I should wear iromuji kimono to the Iemoto meeting instead of my normal practice kimono. I managed to put myself together in time, but it was a little hectic to change that quickly...especially on Monday morning :( Kinindate usucha at class today, I think I had done a fairly decent job of it. I felt much better about my performance this week compared to last week.

November 17th:

Ben's chaji! I had to make him an omlette for his mizuyamimai which I did first thing in the morning. It is difficult to cook when the only thing I have in my room is a little hotplate that only kind of works. I seem to have pulled it off though. We cleaned in the morning and went back for the tea in the afternoon as usual. His chaji was really, really nice. Ben is from Wisconsin and makes ceramics, so it was really interesting to see what he came up with for his toriawase. His main bowl was by one of the Gakuensei, Kei-kun, whose father also makes ceramics. Also, I was really impressed with the fact that he actually ground the koicha himself. Damn. Interestingly. he used Eisho no Mukashi, whch we normally drink as koicha for class, as the usucha. It was funny because Martina normally hates this koicha and makes faces when we order it, but she said it was much better as an usucha. The jiku was kansai no "kan." Mostly what I will remember from Ben's chaji is the feeling. The feeling was so simple and honest and kind. It was really lovely.

November 18th:

We spent the day at Katsuragama making raku chawan! How cool! It was really a lot of fun. The interseting thing about making raku chawan is that you actually carve them. First you turn out the basic shape, let it partially dry, and then you actually use a scraper and carve out the bowl and make the design and carve the dai (foot). It was a really interesting experience. Having almost no experience with ceramics I needed a lot of help, I carved a hole in the bottom which sensei had to fix :( There was also a point where he tripped and almost dropped it when handing it back to me. There is speculation that my bowl is cursed and will crack in the kiln...but we will see. I chose an amegusuri for the glaze because I am super obsessed with Ohi bowls ever since the visit to Kanazawa six years ago, so we will see how it comes out :)

November 19th:

Sotanki. Oh my god I don't even know where to start. So, Sotanki is one of the three big memorial services of the year at Urasenke pay respects to Sen Sotan, the third generation grand master and founder of the Urasenke line. It was easily the largest event I have ever been to. It encompasses the entire Urasenke complex and there were different seki in each of the buildings. First we met at the center and changed our zori to the shoes that everyone wears around (so there is no confusion over whose shoes are whose when walking around to the different buildings) and then we headed to Chado Kaikan to watch Okusama perform the ryurei seki on the second floor. I got to see Okusama do tea! Cooool. One thing I thought was really interesting about this day was the fact that the dogu that were displayed were different from what was actually used. The "main dogu," the things that were displayed were amazing. I wish I had a photographic memory and could tell you about every single piece. I remember the look of the hanaire, which Hamana-sensei really appreciated, it was made by one of the four deshi of Sen Sotan and the name was Shigure. The chashaku was Unkin and made of kaede (maple wood). I can't even remember so far as the jiku or chawan because I was so overwhelmed with the presence of so many people. The sweet was ginan mochi, with gingko nuts from Sotan's tree. The second floor of chado kaikan is a huge room and there were tables lined up all the way around filled with people. It was staggering. The Sumirekai girls were going tatedashi at this seki, and it reminded me how lucky we were to be guests, since these girls and all of the Gakuensei were working.

Next we were taken into Konnichian through the Kabutomon! Gah! On the rare occasion that we are allowed into Konnichian we do not use this entrance since we are not guests. It was an experience, and I wish we had time to stop for a moment and look at the gate since Hamana-sensei had been explaining it last week, but no such luck. More rushing, and then we sat down in the waiting room for a while and I got to listen to Johnny trying to learn Chinese from the ICI students. Oh my... We were taken into Totsutotsusai, which had been completely opened up, and in walked Iemoto-sama! Hello! Hikae! We always seem to have a problem with this. When do we do it? Everyone always looks around and makes sure it is ok before we move our hands to the hikae position. It seems a little strange to me. First there was a presentation of certificates to several high ranking members, and afterwards there was a presentation of tea. I was sitting directly across the room from Iemoto-sama. It was intimidating and I tried not to look him in the eyes. I wonder if I am allowed to. Haha! I am not sure what happened here, but there was some kind of kagetsu perhaps? I watched and it was interesting, but I didn't really follow what was happening. Sadly, we we were not able to look at the dogu as we were rushed off again.

Where did we go next? I can't remember? I think we went to look at more dogu? Or did we go to gakuen next? There was another seki at gakuen done by the Gyotei sensei. The sweet was joyo manju in the shape of an icho leaf, with Daitokuji natto inside. I really enjoy Daitokuji natto. Once again, all of the main dogu were separated from what was actually used and I find myself unable to remember a single thing. THIS IS SO FRUSTRATING. At the time I remember feeling so overwhelmed with the sight of so many rare objects, and now I can't remember anything. Brain overload.

After gakuen we had udon lunch at Tankosha followed by the last seki at Kenshu Kaikan (our dorm!). The only thing I remember from this seki was someone trying to explain the scroll to me and me completely not understanding, even after I heard it in English. Everything was so fast and there were so many things to see and not enough time to see any of it. The sweet was another joyo manju, korin giku. I am sad that I can't remember anything better. After the last seki we went back to te Center, got our zori and gift and went back to the dorm. Mecca, Talon and I went to get re-entry permits in the afternoon and then I slept. For a long time.

November 20th:

Gyotei sensei lecture in the morning. I woke up and realized that I was cho and didn't have enough time to get dressed and get there on time. I managed to pull it off, which made me realize that I am getting better at this getting dressed thing. Both Ishikawa-sensei and Hamana-sensei gave lectures on the rooms at Konnichian, fresh in our minds from Sotanki. In the afternoon we had kinindate koicha, but I think everyone was so overwhelmed from the events of the week that none of us could concentrate very well on temae. I am afraid we were all a bit loopy by the end...sorry Ro-sensei!

At dinner we had another meeting about the Christmas chakai. Only 2.5 weeks away! There is so much to be done. We planned a schedule and I sent out more emails last night.

November 21st:

This morning I made omlettes (which ended up being scrambled eggs) for Elena and Mecca. It was nice :) We had eggs, real orange juice, and awesome Ethopian coffee and kaki. All while listening to Om Shanti Om, and then classical. Then we made each other tea and had some of the higashi that we received from Sotanki. It was a really lovely morning. For reference, here is "Cone tea" in my room:




And one with the background:



The bowl is the Kyoyaki bowl that I painted last month. The design is susuki and the moon, very autumn. It's not very good, but whatever. I like it anyways. We have had good tea memories together.

In case you were wondering, here is the current weather in Kyoto (taken at the Kyoto Prize Teicha):



Pretty soon I will be going out to run errands for the Christmas chakai. Wish me luck! Three day weekend this week. I need to finalize plans for Thailand and start looking for a watch this weekend too. So much to do! Ahhh!!!!

November 9th (Monday):

The day started out with a quiz that I did poorly on, which I started right after I got last week's quiz back which I also did poorly on.  I had a little cry in the bathroom and started dwelling on being a failure and tried to stop thinking about it for the afternoon.  Class in the morning was history, which I always enjoy.  It's a pretty basic history class so I'm not learning anything new, but it's nice to have a little refresher and it's kind of like story time for me.  Koicha in the afternoon with Murata-sensei.  I continued thinking I was a failure and did REALLY BADLY during my lesson.  Murata-sensei always makes me nervous because everything I do is wrong.   Awesome.

November 10th (Tuesday):

We did a teicha for the Kyoto Prize award ceremony.  I got to wear a new obi so I was excited (no pictures yet).  There was a misonodana setup, and my sempai got to do the temae.  However, the place was such a madhouse that I'm not sure anyone actually saw any of the temae.  Anyways, the scroll was by Daisosho and said "Wa."  The hanaire was from Damascus and I can't remember what flowers were in it (tsubaki kana...).  The main bowl was the same raku chawan from the Kokusai chakai (sennen no midori by Kichizaemon) and the chashaku was carved by Gengensai (13th generation).  The natsume was Iemoto konomi "chitose" and the mizusashi was in the shape of a well bucket with a handle.  I believe it was blue and white porcelin with a black lacquer lid.  The tea was from Ryuoen, but I can't remember the name at the moment.  The sweet was called "tatsuta" and it was in the shape of a red and gold maple leaf.  Honestly, about all I can remember from the entire afternoon is piles and piles of those damn sweets.  I was on hakobi duty, but it was a complete madhouse.  There were about 400 guests and there was no order to it, everyone just came as they pleased and we served anyone who looked like they hadnt had tea yet.  We had about 10 trays of sweets prepared in the mizuya which needed to be constantly refilled, so I found myself in back refilling each tray and placing kuromoji and arranging most of the time.  The rest of the time I was bringing out tea and sweets and bringing back empty bowls with the rest of the Midorikai and Sumirekai kids.  I actually enjoyed the madness a little bit.  Every time I stepped out of the mizuya it was a little bit of chaos and I had to take a breath and figure out where the hell I was going and what I was going to do.  The ultimate organizational challenge.  The good part about being that busy is that it was over pretty quickly, so that was nice.

November 11th (Wednesday):

Zazen in the morning.  Its really nice to have the opportunity to practice Zazen every month, especially in this stressful environment.  I like not thinking and I don't do it enough.  

I was praying that Hamana-sensei wasn't going to teach my class this afternoon, but no such luck.  I did poorly in my temae again.  I really feel like I have hit a wall.  It's been two months and I feel like I have taken a giant step backwards.  Even simple things that I know that I have known for years are completely lost on me now and I am being corrected on every single little point.  I feel like an idiot.  I DO NOT WANT TO BE A FAILURE.  GLENN-SENSEI WILL KILL ME IF I DO NOT SUCCEED.  

Tomorrow we have a meeting with Hamana-sensei about the Christmas chakai.  Being the super OCD person that I am, I have created several tables and summaries and sent them in advance.  I have earned the nickname "tiger shark" among my classmates because I am a complete organizational control freak.  Is anyone surprised?  

 I've been avoiding writing this post because of the number of topics I have to cover.  If I wrote everything I wanted to this would turn into a book.  A really poorly written book.  

October 26th:  
Morning lesson as usual (kininkyotsugu koicha!) which I didn't get to do but I did get to do gozumi for the first time.  Sumi demae during furo season is not so terrible.  Ro on the other hand...I will discuss later.  In the afternoon we went to the sweet shop Oimatsu in Kamishichiken, one of the hanamachi which is located right next to Kitano Tenmangu (my favorite shrine!).  It's funny because I have walked down this street in Kamishichiken dozens of times and never realized that I was walking past Oimatsu, where we get a lot of sweets for class each day.  

Sweet making class was pretty awesome.  We made kinton (made from a type of potato, passed through a sieve and pressed into a shape) and chakin shibori (shiro an, the shape is made by wrapping a chakin around it and twisting, hence the name).  I had fun with the colors for the chakin shibori sweets and you can see a couple of the results below:



One for America, one for Pride



It's a little early for Christmas, but that's ok.  I am always thinking about Christmas.  

Since the sweets don't last very long we pretty much spent the next day eating as many as we could and giving away even more.  Tasty tasty sweets.  I'm not going to lie, this is part of the reason why I do tea.  They feed me these things on a daily basis.  It's lovely.  

October 27th:

Class as usual.  We did Unohana chabako for class today, and there was some arguing among classmates over who would have their lesson in what order.  Again, this makes no sense to me.  Everyone should be prepared for class every day, why should it even be a topic for discussion?  Anyways, I really like chabako.  I would really like to become well-versed in chabako temae before I leave here.  It's so ridiculously, unnecessarily complicated!  How can I not want to organize all of these little pieces???

October 28th:

Class as usual, we began to learn the seasonal information for the month of November today.  Shimozuki (month of frost).  It's true too, since the temparature dropped about 10 degrees in the space of a few days this week.  Madness.  Most importantly, the beginning of November means Robiraki!  The opening of the Ro!  For lesson today we did regular koicha, and it will be our last time to do furo koicha until the spring!  Oh my!  

October 29th: 

Lesson in the morning, which was regular hakobi usucha.  Our last furo temae!  It was actually a little sad, but I was excited about using the ro again.  Ro time!  In the afternoon we had cleaning of the entire gakuen in preparation for the opening of the ro.  Fortunately, we were able to end the day early and I got a little rest.  

October 30th:

Tenryuji Kenchashiki Sanretsu.  We took the baby train (baby train!) to Arashiyama to spend the morning at Tenryuji for the Kencha performed by Iemoto-sama.  The weather was absolutely beautiful; cool, crisp fall air and the leaves are just starting to turn slightly, so the atmosphere at Arashiyama was gorgeous.  On the ride over I probably spent too much time playing tourguide and telling my classmates about the temples along each stop of the train, but I can't help it.  I rode that train every day for a year!  I love that area!  Anyways, we arrived a bit late (having received our scholarship from Iemoto-sama first thing in the morning) so we didn't have time to go to any seki prior to the kencha.  We sat in the very back of the hall for the kencha, and I couldn't help but notice that the tourists kept taking pictures as they walked by.  It makes sense, it's unusual to see that many people in kimono for such a formal event...but it still bothered me a bit.  The one photographer that did not bother me was one of the Tenryuji priests who had the biggest camera of anyone there (including the official photographer).  The two of them were almost falling over each other to get the best angles for shots of Iemoto-sama presenting tea and it made me want to laugh.  Ironically, I wish I had been able to take a picture of that!  

After the Kencha we were able to go to the Nodate seki, which was chabako.  Iemoto-sama and his wife joined us in this seki so we all tried to be on our best behavior...but I realized as we stood up at the end that I forgot to take my fan out of my obi!  Gah!  The chabako set itself was very interesting, with a colorful carved design that I have never seen before.  The furidashi was a type of chocolate that looked like small pebbles, and the omogashi was a roasted chestnut.  Also, I think the kekka was in the shape of a ginko leaf.  Unfortunately, there was so much to remember this day that everything is a bit of a blur.  

After Nodate we went to another seki and laughed because there were bugs on the fusuma that disappeared when the door was opened.  I wonder if they got squished or if they were alright?  Sensei joked that the paintings on the fusuma were extremely realistic.  Oh my...I have a hard time remembering this seki, except that I didn't like the combination of the tana (tamenuri?) and mizusashi (shonzui) and natsume (can't remember).  For me, it seemed that there were too many competing colors...but that's probably just my preference.  

In the Honseki we were served koicha.  Wonderfully delicious koicha.  Once again, I was seated in a location where I couldn't see the temae very well (sad) but was able to haiken very briefly afterwards.  The most striking part about this temae was the very small chashaku (what was the name?  something about wind?) and the very hugely large chaire.  I've never seen such a large chaire before!  The scroll in that room was done by Ennosai and was a very simple message about drinking tea, but I can't remember the exact wording.  

After so much amazing tea, we had an amazing teicha as well (temple food!  no fish, no meat!).  See a group shot and a picture of the food below:  




Tourists kept taking our picture.  It was kind of annoying.  I didn't like pictures before I came here, now I am turning positively spiteful every time I see a camera.  

As if this wasn't enough for one day...we were whisked off immediately after the teicha to head to the other side of the city to help host the Finland-Kansai Association Chakai!  Mereca was lucky enough to do two of the three temae...you know....being the Fin and all.  It was her first time doing temae for guests and she did awesome!  Everyone was really excited for her, and I liked the energy of the afternoon.  I was working mizuya and not greeting people for a change.  The mizuya makes me nervous because there are so many people in such a closed space.  I don't do well in closed spaces.  I was a little jealous that one of the chawan being used was an Ohi bowl.  I still have this love affair with Ohi bowls, ever since that visit to Kanazawa so many years ago.  One day...  Another one of the bowls used was the Kyoyaki bowl that Mereca painted.  It is adorable and I got to drink from it before the chakai!  Even the sweets had a design of the Finnish flag, it was really cute.  Daisosho-sama stopped by to greet us towards the end, and was wonderful and kind as always!  How lucky to be able to talk to the family so many times in one day!    

Afterwards we were whisked off again to go to the Finland-Kansai Association dinner, and Mereca got to be tray bearer while they handed out awards.  We were all pretty much exhausted by that point, and dinner was a standing dinner.  However, there was red wine.  And a plate of MEAT.  Some things never change, and you can imagine that I ran for both of them, ate and drank to my hearts content, listened to the lovely violin piano duet, and then just about passed out on the couches outside from exhaustion (and a bit of wine).  Keep in mind I am still wearing kimono at this point.  The wine got to me a little bit, and when Arita-san told Hamana-sensei we could leave, but then made a comment about maybe it would be better to wait because everyone was having fun my response was "Who's having fun!?"  Followed by a "I mean...umm...this has been really lovely, and it was a lovely dinner and we really appreciate everything you've done and ummm..."  Oh lord.  Why do I open my mouth at all? Honestly I think they were secretly amused...despite how INCREDIBLY RUDE that comment came out.  I had a moment, what can I say? 

So yeah, that was last Friday.

October 31st:

What?  Another event?  Of course another event!!!  Today was the "Moon Viewing Chakai" that the 2nd year students put on that was not actually a moon viewing because it had been rescheduled from the day of the fake typhoon.  Today I learned that the Midorikai students are always the loudest in the machiai (whatever, Hamana-sensei is not at all quiet during these conversations).  I have no problem with this.  During the tea itself there were several indirect references to the moon, but nothing over the top.  Hamana-sensei liked it a lot.  There were susuki outside of the window.  The mizusahi was the weirdest thing I have ever seen.  It was shaped like a mushroom!  Mushroom!  And then the chawan was like red raku but it was giant, and it got me thinking of Alice in Wonderland.  The chawan that were brought out to each of the guests were mainly made by the students, and they were all different.  I was extremely impressed by the hanto and his ability to remember who made each chawan and why and the story behind them.  Since we each got two bowls of tea we got to see two different bowls, so it was fun.  The first one I had had a design that was almost African, it was strange.  The second looked more like a standard black raku.  There was a simple teicha at the end and I practiced eating with my right hand.  Always everything with my right hand.  It's driving me a bit crazy.  

That night was the Halloween party!  I was John Dillinger from Public Enemies and I got a little toy gun from the store that shot plastic bb's at people.  You can imagine that I had too much fun with that.  Mereca was my Billie, Johnny wore my kimono and was one of the most creepy cross-dressers that I have ever seen...but nothing can compare to the horror of Ben's scarecrow.  He literally scared me.  Frightened.  We drank and danced around and had a good time and had to go home by 10 for curfiew :(  Damn curfiew.  However, when we got back we heard voices upstairs so we went to Trick or Treat some of the Gakuen girls and ended up chatting with them for about an hour.  This marks the first time that I have had a conversation with any of the girls that I go to school with.  Despite seeing them every day and living in the same building.  *sigh*

November 1st:

Sleep.  Lots and lots and lots of sleep.  And ramen.  

November 2nd:  

Robiraki at school in the morning, koicha.  We thanked the second year students in the machiai for their chakai on Saturday.  I can't remember anything about this temae.  Oh dear...I think my brain stopped.  

November 3rd:

Bunka no hi!  For my day off I actually went wtih Matsumoto-sensei's class on their fall trip!  It's been so many years since this fall trip...it's interesting that the things I wrote then are not the things that I remember now.  Huh.  I wonder if that will happen here too.  Probably.  Anyways, today we all boarded a bus and headed out to Shigaraki.  First stop, making chawan!  What!?!  Awesome!  It was fun, although I was completely terrified by the constant looming tanuki that surrounded me all day.  


Is it not terrifying?!

Chawan making was fun, even more difficult than I thought it was going to be, and apparently I wasn't terrible at it?  The guy that was helping us was really surprised that it was my first time making a bowl.  I will post a picture once it is done!  For lunch we went to a barbeque place outside (by the way, it was the coldest day of the year) and and the most amazing lunch ever.  They were well known for their shiitake, so the first thing we had to do was go and pick our own mushrooms to grill.  WHAT?!  They were amazing.  Then they handed each person a big plate of meat to go with it.  How can this possibly get any better?  By sensei pouring me beer and three different kinds of sake.  It was a good lunch, I was pretty happy by the end.  Afterwards we climbed back on the bus and headed out to a park area to see a ceramics exhibit and do a nodate tea seki outside.  It was a bit chilly, but fun.  I was quite tired by the time I got home, and really happy to walk in the door and see everyone gathered around the table on the first floor eating chili to celebrate Martina's birthday.  I had gotten her a little Owl in Shigaraki as a present, since we had previously decided that she is owlish :)  Ben was jealous that I went to make a tea bowl and demanded and explaination as to why I didn't take him with me!  It was a really great day.  I got some tea cups for sencha and a little sake cup at a store on the way home too, lots of shigaraki ware!  

November 4th:  

Was not my best day.  Started out with a really painful quiz on the full names of the 16 Iemoto in order, the names of all konarai temae, and the full names of the Senke Jishoku.  That's a lot of memorization.  I didn't do full names.  Bad Cone.  

Then we get to lessons and I did Ro Shozumi for the first time.  Ro sumi is much larger than furo, and I had a really difficult time trying to grasp some of the pieces with my right hand.  I got so frustrated while trying to pick up the sumi that I actually started crying in the middle of class.  How humiliating.  I felt so badly for Hirota-sensei who had to deal with it, and I tried to apologize several times afterwards.  It's interesting how something so minor can trigger me like this.  I did manage to do a pretty good hakobi usucha at the end, especially since we only had about 5 minutes left of class when I started.  

November 5th:  

Class as usual, tana usucha.  Hamana-sensei was scaring me in lessons today and I took more time with my temae than I usually do...and probably made twice as many mistakes.  I get so nervous around the teachers!  DAMNIT!  IT MAKES IT HARD TO FOCUS!  I NEED TO FOCUS!!!

I practiced late with Elena and Martina for Shoza keiko for Friday

November 6th:  

Glorious Friday.  All kaiseki practice all day.  Shoza keiko in the afternoon consisted of a practice on how to serve and receive a kaiseki meal.  It is extremely involved and I was glad that I had practiced the night before.  I was really happy that it was Friday.  Unfortunately, I had to go talk to the Gakuen Chief again about whether or not we had to do cleaning on Friday, since we normally don't during furo season.  He asked us to do it so I brought the bad news to my classmates at dinner.  Sadness, rochu and tatami cleaning on Friday evening.  Imagawa-sensei came up and kicked us out at 6:36 and let us know that we have to finish by 6:30 on Friday.  Lovely.  

November 7th:

OH MY GOD I FINALLY GOT A HAIRCUT THANK THE SWEET LORD I WAS SO SHAGGY AND AFRAID I WAS GETTING A MULLET!!!!  Talon took me along to a barber that he found.  He seemed to do a good job of it, my hairstyle is pretty much a boys cut at this point anyways.  The only awkward moment was at the end when he asked if I wanted my neck shaved, I said sure, assuming that they were just going to buzz and clean up the back.  I was wrong.  He had his assistant take the straight razor and actually lather and shave my neck.  That was a new experience.  Then he asked if I wanted my face done too.  I don't think he was joking, and I honestly have no idea at this point if he really thought I was a man.  Dear readers, can you please confirm that although I have short hair I AM STILL IDENTIFYABLE AS FEMALE?!  Thanks.  ike I said though, he did a pretty good job so I will probably go back and just let them keep thinking I'm a dude.  It's easier that way.  

Afterwards I grabbed Mereca and my scholarship nagajuuban and headed to Hinodeya to ask if it could be adjusted since it was way too wide in the back.  Why do people assume that if you are taller you are wider as well?  Also, shouldn't this be avoided for a kimono and nagajuuban that I was freaking measured for?!  The woman was not kind.  She told me that kimono were not made for slender people and I needed to wear more towels and thats why it seemed so wide.  Bullshit.  I do wear towels to get rid of curves, but I am not about to wrap myself in 20 pounds of towels every day because you can't take measurements properly!  I said "well if there is nothing you could do I suppose I should just leave then..." and started to fold up my things and go and then she tried to help me.  I have no idea what shape it will come back to me in, but hopefully I will be able to wear it someday.  

Anya was supposed to meet us there, since she had the same problem, but she was late as always :)  I dropped off my kimono back at the dorm while she argued with the lady at Hinodeya and then afterwards the four of us went out for AMAZING OKONOMIYAKI LUNCH!  



Jealous yet?  You should be, we had three of those.  And beers.  

Good lord I think I finally caught up.  Tomorrow is kimono lesson and kimono sale at Izumiya and hopefully more planning for winter break.  I am strongly considering a tour package to Thailand and a trip to Tokyo.  

October 22nd (Thursday):  

We had a short morning jitsugi today, and once again I was unable to do my keiko again because we ran out of time.  It is extremely frustrating to me that I keep missing my lessons because of time issues, and it doesnt seem to matter if I try to explain to my classmates that we all need to work on time management...the slow ones still go slow.  I have only been able to make tea four times in the last two weeks.  This is ridiculous people.  RIDICULOUS.  I also received a demand from a classmate to run an errand for her because she can't speak Japanese.  I have no problem helping people out from time to time, but the constant demands (not requests) are getting to me.  I receive them on a daily basis.  It baffles me that people who make a conscious decision to live in Japan for a year expect me to translate their life for them and then get angry with me when I question them about it.  Ahh, frustrations.  

In the afternoon we had a kaiseki lesson, which was AMAZING.  Basically, we got to watch someone cook amazing food, and then eat it.  How could this not be incredible?  The class was taught by Yamamoto-sensei of the chakaisekidashiya Sanyukyo.  He focused on teaching the two most basic and possibly most important parts of kaiseki (and and Japanese?) cooking:  rice, and dashi.  Both require few ingredients and a minimum of steps (dashi is water, konbu, katsuo and maybe some shoyu/shio to taste) but the subtlety of flavor that he was able to bring out by knowing the correct balance of flavors and how to draw them out was impressive.  I suppose that makes sense though, he is a master of the art!  


Sensei's talking about katsuo.  


Class is enthralled.


So I have learned how to make dashi!  I will try it sometime and hope that it turns out half as well as what I had on Thursday.  

After we had our lesson we all sat down to a full kaiseki meal:


Of course rice (ichimonji shape, which I attempted myself)


Mukozuke (sashimi course):  tai (sea bream)


Shiru (miso soup):  kaki (persimmon), shiromiso jitate (white miso), wasabi (actually mustard)

I confess that I stopped taking pictures after this because I was so enthralled with the food in front of me, but if you can picture about 7 more courses that all look and taste that good, then you get the idea.  I had absolutely no intention of going to the shokudo after that, but I did get dessert at Starbucks in the evening and finally buy a coffee press so I could make real coffee in my room.  Realcoffee is a requirement for my continued existence.  

October 23rd (Friday):  
Each Midorikai student gets to do a chaji while they are here, and today was the first one given by one of our sempai.  Johnny was lucky enough to be the first and I was lucky (?) enough to be his last guest.  I woke up that morning with a nasty cold and felt like I was going to fall over at any second.  It was great.  However, this did not stop me from making a cup of delicious coffee a la coffee press (thanks Starbucks!) and heading out in samuei to clean in the morning with the rest of my classmates.  The chakai itself was very nice, and you could really see Johnny's style through his toriawase.  

The machiai held a painting made by his tea sensei in America, as well as a collection of some objects he has found while in Japan (interesting stones, driftwood, etc.).  The air was crisp and it is really starting to feel like autumn, although the afternoons are generally quite warm, Friday was overcast so it was very pleasant all day.  I wish I could remember the scroll, I know we've seen it in class and I remember asking Ro-sensei about it once...it had to do with the moonlight reflecting on water.  The omogashi sweets that were served tasted like pumpkin pie :)  I love pumpkin pie!  I had a hard time remembering anything because I was so nervous about being the last guest.  The last guest is responsible for closing doors (which I always forgot), piling up enzo (which I didn't do properly), taking dogu back to the main guest once it has been haikened (which I messed up nearly every time because I CANNOT WALK!!!!).  I was a nervous wreck through the entire tea seki.  I can't remember the names of either of the teas except that they were both from koyama-en.  The first bowl was washibari (like...paper mache?).  In the dark of the tea room from a distance it looked like a raku bowl, but when you held it you realized it was made of paper.  Iiiiinteresting :)  The second was a bowl made by Ben, since he was not there to be part of the chaji he was there with us in spirit.  The chashaku was carved by Daisosho and the name was "Ichi-e."  The natsume had a bundled cordwood (?) maki-e design.  The chaire for koicha was tanba katatsuki, and the shifuku was Soshoji (?) kachomon ungen nishiki.  

October 24th (today):  Since returning from the chaji I went back to my room, laid down in bed and haven't gotten up since.  I feel kind of terrible.  Tomorrow I am supposed to meet Matsumoto-sensei, have a kimono lesson and celebrate Mereca's birthday.  Unfortunately, I think I am going to have to cancel one or more of those plans if I am going to survive next week.  Monday night is another Noh performance!  

Many events, no weekend, too tired to write...you get the idea.

October 16th:  Class in the morning, cleaning for the International Chakai in the afternoon.  

October 17th (Saturday):  We had the International Chakai which was hosted by Daisosho-sama and Iemoto-sama at Chado Kaikan.  It was a really interesting event because it was mainly aimed at non-Japanese living in Kyoto who did not have any background in tea.  The purpose was to share tea with other international students/professionals living in the area and raise interest.  We worked this chakai together with the other two international Urasenke groups, ICI and Ichiukai so we all got to meet each other for the first time.  There were two different seki, and the Midorikai students mainly did tatedashi and hakobi, although in ours two of my sempai were able to do temae as well.  I was in the Ryurei seki and I thought that I was just going to be helping with tatedashi and hakobi, but when I got there Hamana-sensei asked if I would be the liason as well.  This basically means that I was leading the guests back and forth from the machiai to the tearoom and back out at the end.  Also, since one of my sempai ended up doing temai, I ended up being the one to determine timing to start tatedashi and help with that...so you can imagine that at the end of 5 seki I was pretty exhausted.  Between the two rooms we served over 300 guess, by far the biggest chakai I have ever helped out with.  

The pictures of both seki including captions can be found in picasa here.  They are worth looking at.  Preview:



After the chakai I was completely exhausted, but I did manage to go home for dinner (finally!).  Naoki was there with his family, and they surprised me by having an AKPer!  Otoosan and Okaasan had told me before that they weren't going to have a student this year because they would be so busy with Mikie's new baby, and Sota (Naoki's son) is still so young.  When I asked Otoosan what happened he said "Oh, we just picked her up yesterday!"  Apparently there one of the children of the girls previous family had gotten sick so they weren't able to continue providing a homestay.  I told her she lucked out because she actually just got the best family ever.  She seemed pretty pleased, and her Japanese is way better than mine was when I started AKP...not that that is saying much ;)  



Anyways, they fed me well and Sota only cried when he first saw me but was pretty happy after that.  It was a lovely evening :)  

October 18th:  Kodokai!  Incense ceremony!  It was fun and even more difficult than I remembered.  There was a tea seki and two separate incense seki, and the iemoto of the school was in the first one with us.  There are so many iemoto in Kyoto...the weather was fantastic.  It was cool and bright and sunny.  We got to spend a lot of time walking around the temple and the garden before the tea seki and enjoyed all of the fresh air.  Its one of my favorite things about Kyoto.  Even when you are in the city there are so many little corners where you can feel completely isolated and feel like you are outside in a natural setting...its so nice.  Also, I realize this trend where people take many pictures of my but I never get copies of them.  I haven't taken as many pictures myself here because everyone around me is constantly taking pictures...I should work on trying to get my hands on more of them so I can post them here.  

Anyways, on to the incense.  The first game was relatively simple.  First we smelled an incense called tsuki (moon).  Then three un-named containers were passed and we needed to guess if it was "tsuki" or "kyaku" (other).  Each combination of three had its own poetic name which we wrote down at the end with brush and ink on a slip of paper, and then the answers were tallied on a scroll that was written by one of the hosts.  The winner of the game is awarded the scroll, which is written in lovely calligraphy.  In this case, the Iemoto wrote the scroll himself so it was quite an item...I guessed them backwards :(  Hahaha!  One of my classmates, Martina, got them correct but since she was not the first guest to get it right she didn't get a scroll.  Sad!

In the second game we listened (remember, in Japanese you "hear" the scent...kiku...you dont smell it) to four different scents tsuru (crane), matsu (pine), yama (mountain), take (bamboo).  After that we had nine containers that each contained one of these scents and we had to guess each one.  We were sitting at the very end of maybe 30 people, so it was very difficult to get each of the scents...especially by the time they got to us.  I managed to get three right on this one and felt better about myself.  The overall winner in our group got 7 and the average was probably around 3.  After the games we ate fantastic food.  See below:




October 19th-21st:  Classes as usual.  It was extremely difficult to wake up and go to class on Monday morning.  I honestly didnt think I was going to make it.  It doesn't help that I have had evening toban (cleaning tatami, etc) every night this week.  Today we had a Noh lesson, which was nice.  This morning was also a meeting with Oku-sama.  She was very pleasant, but I think the kohai (myself included) were very nervous so the conversation was a little stiff.  Tomorrow we have a kaiseki class and Friday is Johnny's chaji!  Whee!  After the chaji I plan to shut myself in my room and not come out until Monday.  I need a break.  

Things are starting to get to the point where it seems like everyone is settling into life here, for better or worse. It's kind of the stage where the honeymoon period is over people start to realize that we really are stuck together for the next year. I've been pretty irritable the last couple of days, without any really good reason for it. For me its the same inability to deal with people for any extended period of time, so after class yesterday I ended up skipping dinner (made pasta in my room) and sat and read books all night, took a bath and went to bed early. It helped. I woke up at about 6 (an hour earlier than I needed to), fought with my kimono less than usual, and had time to eat breakfast and drink some tea before classes. I have been completely unfocused all week, which is partially due to my fear of an upcoming shozumi lesson (placing charcoal) and partially because my mind has been otherwise occupied. The fear behind shozumi is that I have never done any charcoal before, and I have to do everything with my right hand. As far as tea goes this is nothing new, everything is always done with the right hand, but charcoal is heavy and needs to be placed exactly on things that are already burning. Burning things + right hand + first time = nervous Cone.

Yesterday and today we had morning lectures on tana (stand) and jiku (scroll) respectively. In both cases I find it interesting that it links back to the use of items that came from China, the tana was derived from the daisu and jiku are still jiku, but the types of scrolls that are displayed and how they are displayed changes over time. One interesting thing that Hamana-sensei mentioned today was the original kazari (display) that as used in "Daimyo-cha," tea practiced by Daimyo back in the Muromachi/Edo period. It would be very interesting to research how tea was practiced by the daimyo and what crossover exists between this and the wabi-cha that we all know and love...if any. Hmm...ideas for grad school.

This weekend we have the international chakai all day Saturday and I am going with a few classmates to a kodokai (like a chakai, but with ko! Incense ceremony.) on Sunday. Do you know what this means? It means I will be in kimono for 13 straight days. Ouch. That's going to hurt. Wish me luck.

Monday was a holiday, and I continued with my kimono lesson from Sunday.  Glenn-sensei was there and he dressed me, so that he will know how to help dress the ladyfolk back in Boston.  That evening I was still not feeling well anxiety wise so I ended up taking some meds and watching TV on my computer until I passed out.  

This morning I was determined to put on the damn kimono (including obi) by myself.  I did it.  It took me several tries and involved me crying hysterically, hitting various inanimate objects and nearly being late...but I fucking did it.  No more asking for help every morning.   We received our quizzes back from last week and Hamana-sensei wrote "I know that you know the answers to these..." as a comment to my not perfect results.  To be fair, he's completely right and there isn't a good reason for me to be getting questions wrong other than I get confused thinking about the placement of dogu described as an object on paper.  Ah well, what are you gonna do?

Murata-sensei did our morning lecture today, continuing the previous discussion in Chado Kaikan.  This time he discussed various points in the tea room including how and where to hang the jiku, what kind of board to use under the hanaire and fusuma things.  I was on translation duty again, but due to my poor mood I did a rather bad job of it.  I relied on Johnny unless he really didn't know what was being said.   One more time kids, not a translator.  *sigh*

Our lesson this afternoon was shozumi (placing the charcoal after kaiseki) and koicha, and it was the first time for both.  One of my classmates refuses to go first every time we have a new temae, despite having more experience than everyone else.  Some people in my class had never even seen koicha before, so it made sense for someone with background to do it first so everyone could watch.  She refused.  Just like last week.  And the week before.  Lets remember that we are IN SCHOOL.  TO LEARN.  NOT TO KNOW EVERYTHING PERFECTLY THE FIRST TIME.  As a result, me and France end up going first for every new temae because she won't.  I think this is really dumb.

It was cool doing koicha again though, I don't have nearly enough practice with it.  I need to learn how to make good koicha with a nice consistency.  I don't want to be one of those hosts whose guests are sitting there with the bowl in the air for 5 minutes trying to get at the tea.  Ew.  Right?  Who wants that?  

I'm still working on the kimono situation.  I'm up to 4 awase and 2 hitoe with 3 obi.  I spilled tea on my kimono today and had to rush over to my sensei's place so she could teach me how to clean it properly.  So many things to learn....