japan was indescribable, but i will make an effort:
going to japan is like traveling to the future and the past at the same time.
yes, i think that works.
seeing katie was a morale boost--knowing where she lives and what her day-to-day life is like helps me feel much more connected to her. i can scarcely believe that she's been in japan for an entire year. speaking of years, i am twenty-one old. what a splendidly awkward sentence. i have been waiting for a long time to turn twenty-one, mainly because of a poem i read when i first started college. (no use to talk to me, though, housman. i'm giving my heart away.)
katie has a cat named dora. austin and i apparently left dora-chan on the apartment balcony for too long, as dora decided to jump down onto a lower balcony, one to which we had no access. after the lovely japanese security guard mimed to us that he could not open the apartment for us to get the cat, we filled austin's travel bag with cat food, fish, and beef, lowering it down with the extension cord attached to katie's vacuum cleaner. let the record show that dora, who had gotten inside of the meatless bag countless times before, refused to even feign interest in a giant bag of meat. what sort of horrific cat doesn't respond to meat. austin and i agreed that he and i would have both gotten into the bag by then, had we been dora, or even ourselves. so, frustrated, we dropped potted plants down until one finally crushed her tiny, spiteful body. (just kidding. they were eventually able to unlock the apartment for us.) anyway, the point of the story is that, no matter what else happens to me in my life, i spent my twenty-first birthday in my sister's apartment filling my boyfriend's bag with meat and sliding it back and forth across a foreign service officer's balcony.
with regards to austin, wow. i have never felt this way before. even though i met him over two years ago, i've really only known him for six months. how strange that somebody i've known for half a year has become so important in my life. sometimes i look at him and think about all of the things i don't yet know about his life, and i'm amazed that i can be so devoted to another human being. i can't believe i fell in love during my last semester of college.
and now for something completely different.
my world literature class (the lowest level literature class offered at harding; required for graduation; i forgot to take it until this semester) discussed the koran today. based on our 23-page reading assignment, some students were outraged.
"how can they believe some of what jesus says, but not all of it?"
"the koran says not to be friends with nonbelievers--it's like they won't even give christians a chance to talk to them to convert them."
"how can they expect women to be so subservient to men?"
"how can they believe one human being's [muhammed's] revelations about god, but reject others'?"
we should ask ourselves these questions about christianity. yes, believing in 70 perma-virgins to ravish in the afterlife is astonishing. however, our own idea of heaven is similarly unbelievable.
under scrutiny, our religion is just as inexplicable as islam. i believe that the only remedy here is a personal relationship with god. i don't often talk in that class, because i'm usually writing, but i shared that with them today.
also, this quote was part of our koran reading. i thought it was beautiful.
There was a time when mankind were but one community. Then they disagreed among themselves: and but for a Word from your Lord, long since decreed, your differences would have been firmly resolved.
And they ask: "Why has no sign been sent down to him by his Lord?"
Say: "God alone has knowledge of what is hidden. Wait if you will: I too am waiting."
(um, my bad for that not being in arabic, the only true language of the koran.)
from here on out, i will make a conscientious effort to update this blog. i didn't really care before, so this is probably going to mean more posts. hooray! also, the pictures from japan are too many to post all at once. i will try to put a few here and there when i can.
i love you all.
