written about a month ago...
it's not exactly new years eve...it's about seven days later. currently watching a movie starring cameron diaz called ' a life less ordinary' or something like that on cable tv. just arrived home from a week of preparing for my sayang's departure to Canada...too tired to cook anything..so I'm in front of my noDell( nickname for my laptop) and I decided to start a blog.. my sayang left for Canada about two hours ago...and waiting the 11 hours it takes for him to get there from Japan is excrutiating. I hate having to wait for the news and praying is all I can do for now.'Please arrive safely' that's all i'm thinking in my head at the moment.
back to the subject of new years... it's the seventh of january...and in japan it's called Jinjitsu (人日, jinjitsu), literally "Human Day".One of the five seasonal festivals (五節句, gosekku). Also known as Nanakusa no sekku (七草の節句, nanakusa no sekku), "the feast of seven herbs", from the custom of eating seven-herb kayu (七草粥, nanakusa-gayu) to ensure good health for the coming year. The nanakusa are seven edible wild herbs of spring. Traditionally, they are : Water dropwort (seri, Oenanthe javanica) Shepherd's purse (nazuna) Cudweed (gogyō, Gnaphalium affine) Chickweed (hakobera, Stellaria media) Nipplewort (hotokenoza, Lapsana apogonoides) Turnip (suzuna) Daikon (suzushiro) There is considerable variation in the precise ingredients, with common local herbs often being substituted. On the morning of January 7, or the night before, people place the nanakusa, rice scoop, and/or wooden pestle on the cutting board and, facing the good-luck direction, chant "Before the birds of the continent (China) fly to Japan, let's get nanakusa" while cutting the herbs into pieces. This chant varies as well. The seventh of the first month has been an important Japanese festival since ancient times. The custom of eating nanakusa-gayu on this day, to bring longevity and health, developed in Japan from a similar ancient Chinese custom, intended to ward off evil. Since there is little green at that time of the year, the young green herbs bring color to the table and eating them suits the spirit of the New Year. The spring-time nanakusa are mirrored by the "seven flowers of autumn", which are bush clover (hagi), miscanthus (obana, Miscanthus sinensis), kudzu, large pink (nadeshiko, Dianthus superbus), yellow flowered valerian (ominaeshi, Patrinia scabiosaefolia), boneset (fujibakama, Eupatorium fortunei), and Chinese bellflower (kikyō). These seven autumn flowers provide visual enjoyment. Their simplicity was very much admired: they are small and dainty yet beautifully colored. They are named as typical autumn flowers in a verse from the Man'yōshū anthology.
now back to life... winter break ends tonight and tomorrow classes start again...and i have the dreaded 熱流体力学演習. a class involving exercises regarding thermodynamics and fluid dynamics. i dread this class ...it being a compulsary class and relying only on the exrecises for grading makes life a little scary...coz if i fail this i won't get into final year. and that won't be good..coz i might not get my scholarship for next year if i have to repeat 3rd year...arghhh...the agony..of the uncertainity i guess that's about it for now.... another person's life story...another person's words to be read
reflecting back on my words... i'm grateful my sayang has arrived and is well in Canada.. currently awaiting his return to Japan in about another 8 days.. it has been a long month for both of us.. each dealing with our own mountains to climb and rivers to cross.. life is colourful is it not..
re-reading has me thinking of how wraped my head was around that class and that teacher.. and now that it is over... well let's just say that the words above was what was going through my head at the time.. and now... it's just in the past..
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