Today at exactly 3:30, during my afternoon break, I talked to my employers (a brother and sister) at the main school I work at and told them I would like to quit teaching at the end of this year or as soon as they find a teacher to replace me. They think that they’ll probably be able to find a new teacher(s) for most of my classes by the end of this year, and that I can quit completely by mid-January at the latest. Soon, I’ll be going back to being a full-time student … at home <grin/grimace>. I got all the papers necessary for application to Whitefield College and will go to the post office first thing tomorrow morning to send it off by registered mail. I’m not sure exactly where I’ll go after Whitefield but I have a couple things in mind.

For the last few weeks, I’ve been toiling through a few hundred pages of Japanese grammar books and drills to prepare for the Japanese Language Proficiency Test. I applied for Level 1, the highest level. At first, I expected to pass without much trouble, but the more I study for it, the more difficult it seems. There are only 2 more days till the test. I hope I will be able to pass. I haven’t even taken the test yet and I’m already going nuts about when I’m going to get the results. I won’t get them till mid-February. My whole life, I’ve never had to wait for test results. That’s the good/bad thing about home schooling. Most of the time, I graded my own tests. On the few occasions my parents graded something, they would always do it right away, so I’ve never waited longer than an hour to get any results. <gnashing teeth and pulling hair>

At the beginning of this year, I decided to work as hard as I could to save money. I wanted to work to exhaustion so I could to give my mind and heart a rest. That’s exactly what I did and this has been the happiest year of my life so far. Now it’s time for me to get serious, stick my nose back into books, and see how far I can go … if at all. I hope God has some use for me and that He will let me know what it is soon.

I just signed up for the 8th Annual Credenda/Agenda History Conference. Now all I have to do is 1) get airplane tickets, 2) figure out how in the world I’m going to get there from here, and 3) where I’m going to stay while I’m there.

I can ride a bicycle pretty well, but I can’t drive. Is anyone else flying in that I can hitch a ride with? If so, I’d split car rental costs….

So who else is going, besides Tim, Tim, and Rick-’n-Rachel?

We few, we happy few, we band of sisters;
For she today that conspires against Wayne with me
Shall be my sister….

Thank you, Valerie, thank you!! She sent me that note together with this for helping her hack Wayne Whitmer’s blog (and no, that’s not why he quit blogging, LOL, is it, Wayne?). I was his admin, and I gave her admin status, too.

Any more of you need help with your blogs?

This is a message from my brother Ben, in case some of you don’t remember.

Thank you all for your concern about my broken wrist beginning with Emeth who bandaged my cuts and Berek who washes my dishes. Originally, I had been told by the doctor that my wrist would take 6 months to heal, that I would wear a cast for 3 months, and that I might need surgery if there were complications. Thankfully, however, the condition wasn’t as bad as that, as the bone is broken but still aligned, and now it seems I will only be wearing my cast for six weeks in all without need of surgery. I’m looking forward to my first shower in *censored* weeks.

For one of the classes today, the kids came 3 hours early so we could watch The Alamo. We had already read the book in class, so they knew the story. It was rather hard for them to understand the ungrammatical English of the Tennesseans and the “Texicans” in the movie, but they understood it well enough to be able to write pretty good summaries of the movie afterwards.

I’ve never had much respect for John Wayne as a man or as an actor, but seeing this movie has raised him a bit in my estimation. Because all of the other movie studios only wanted to make a low-budget cheapo film of the Alamo, John Wayne worked on his own for over 10 years to prepare to make the movie, even to the point of spending all his own personal money, and mortaging everything he owned. Granted, it has the typical Hollywood “flaws,” omitting any mention of Christianity, etc. (not to mention John Wayne’s wooden acting), but it is still a better movie than almost anything made today.

There isn’t much of a tradition in Japan of fighting for freedom. There is an idea of fighting to protect one’s own honour, or the honour of one’s lord, yes, but it is a petty, perverted sense of honour, and not the same as the freedom so many Americans have fought and died for. Although all the kids who watched the movie today have been brought up in Christian homes and are getting a Biblical education, all of their parents were saved as adults, so they are inevitably influenced by Japanese culture. Before we watched the movie, some of them thought that what the men at the Alamo did was stupid and wrong. So we talked a bit about men in the OT who had fought for the freedom of their people (e.g. Ehud, one of their heroes) and I had to explain that although the wars in the world are usually evil, that there is such a thing as a just war, and that fighting for freedom can be a righteous thing to do. Then one of them remembered “that thing by John Calvin” and how “it is OK” to fight against a king if you have a lesser magistrate on your side.

Of course, dying for freedom can be easier than the everyday drudgery of living and working after the battle. But I think they got that point, too. As we discussed the movie afterwards, a number of them said exactly what I had hoped they would learn from the movie: that there isn’t any country on earth now worth fighting and dying for, but if those men could sacrifice themselves to die for the Republic of Texas, all the more we should live and work as hard as we can for the building of God’s kingdom till “at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”

I thank you, one and all, for your helpful and encouraging comments about the removal of wisdom teeth. Just reading them made me feel sick. I don’t have a single day off till after Christmas, so the earliest I can go to the dentist is mid-January. That’s soon enough, isn’t it? But then, I can’t take 1 or 2 weeks off from work until at least February, so I suppose it’ll have to wait till then. But then, if I’m going to the history conference, I should probably not go all drugged up on painkillers, so I guess the teeth will have to come out in March.

We had our annual concert at our house on November 23rd. To prepare for the concert, my parents, my brothers, and I stayed up all night moving things so there would be room for 80 or so people to cram into our tiny little apartment. Our bathroom and my parents’ bedroom were filled with stuff to the ceiling, and what wouldn’t fit was moved outside. The concert went really well, and it was wonderful to see all the kids, big and little, playing their various musical instruments. I was the MC. Every year, I find it interesting how it can be so obvious when people are playing because they love the music or because they love to show off.

Anyway, I hurt my back on Friday night, and by Saturday night, it was horrible. The pain throbbed with every heartbeat. Every move I made, every breath I took, I felt like the upper left side of my back was being stabbed, over and over again. Kudo-san, one of my best friends, and Papa’s secretary, put some shippu on for me. I don’t know how to say shippu in English. I don’t even know if you have it in America. It’s like a cold compress, something you put on sprains and suchlike injuries. On Sunday morning, I was fighting tears during most of the service, but not from the sermon (I barely heard a word Papa said). I was just trying to sit through the two hours without actually crying. Kudo-san changed my shippu again and Papa took me home right afterwards. I collapsed in bed and slept pretty much all day and all night on Sunday. I felt a bit better today, well enough to teach most of my classes today. I had to cancel one class … and of course, my ballet lesson. It’s still a bit painful to walk, but it’s healing faster than I expected.

I have fangs growing behind my molars. Or that’s what it feels like right now, anyway. I guess it must be my wisdom teeth cutting through my gums. They’re squashing all my other teeth closer together, so my mouth hurts a little more every day. I was hoping I would be one of the few people in the world who didn’t have wisdom teeth. <sigh>

Ben and Gen have already had their wisdom teeth removed. Both of them looked like they were in a lot of pain. I don’t know if I could take that. <scream>

Via Kristen. Hey, you know what? This quiz is good. This book was always my favourite. (The Voyage of the Dawntreader was a close second.)

The fifth book written, you’re the third book chronologically and take place during The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. You tell the story of the humans Shasta and Aravis and the talking horses Bree and Hwin, all trying to escape from unhappy lives in Calormen to go to Narnia.

Find out which Chronicles of Narnia book you are.

There is something strangely soothing about a full moon. I never, ever get tired of looking at it. (Yes, yes, I know. The moon isn’t really full till night of the 20th this month.)

Mama and Papa don’t do any moon-gazing. Mama says I get it from her mother. When I was a newborn baby, Apo (”grandma”) used to take me outside all the time to show me the moon … not that I remember, but I guess something stuck. Apo’s first name, Yueh-Tuan, means “First Full Moon.” Guess which night of the year she was born.

Seems like he took the news quietly enough. My boss’s sister told me today that the guy told her he will be leaving in two weeks for a 4-month business trip. Thank God. He says he’ll be coming back for lessons, but she thinks he probably won’t. I’m glad it seems like it’s going to finish cleanly and simply.

The scariest stalker story I’ve heard from someone personally is just awful. For months, every night, the moment my friend got home and opened her door, the phone would ring. Sometimes he just breathed heavily, sometimes he said things. This was way before the days of cell phones so we know he was watching her from somewhere near her house, but we never figured out where. Sometimes, she would hear footsteps behind her when she walked alone at night so she always carried pepper spray with her. Thankfully she never had to use it. She never found out who he was. She moved to a different place and that took care of the problem.