Signs of the Times

I've had a busy month. I had my friend come and visit me for ten days. It's the last time I'll see this person for possibly 6 years, depending on how long I'm in Japan. It's an odd thing, considering how frequently I've moved and left people behind in my life, that it's only at the point of "home-leaving" that I'm given reason to hesitate.

In other exciting news, I went camping on the river I spent my early teens on. I hadn't been in about 15 years. I made an interesting discovery: I can't swim anymore. It was alarming that I had to struggle to swim across the river even once when, as a kid, I'd spend an entire day without feeling winded. Over the last year and a half, being at the temple all day, I've really neglected to get enough exercise. So, I'm taking up jogging and a little bit of weight lifting this summer.

I'm also trying to study Japanese a few hours a day to get ready for next winter. I was given some college class packets and I'm happy to report that I think I could easily handle a Japanese 101 class without effort. So that's something. I'd like to find a study partner for the summer as well. Usually, it's not hard for me to have Japanese speakers around, but as my teacher and his family are away for the next few months, I'll have to search someone out.

I'll try to write something more about Buddhism here in a few weeks. I've recently read my previously mentioned friend's college thesis and it's stimulated a few thoughts about Buddhist training and it's relationship with conditioning/de-conditioning. I'm still waiting to see if some fully formed and coherent essay comes from it though.

That's all for now.