Wednesday, February 04, 2004

Another day of inspiring students

Whew, another day of work. It's 9:10 pm and I just got out of my film class. We saw the Ballad of Narayama, a moving, albeit disturbing film. It deals with the Japanese tradition of kuchiberashi--mouth reduction. In premodern times, people of poor rural villages carried their elderly parents to the mountain to die at a prescribed age in order to ensure the survival of the group, particularly during the harsh winters.

But I'll talk about it more at a later date. But I did want to share with you the sense of satisfaction I enjoy whe I realize that I affect others in a positive way. I like to think I influence my students here at school, but I recently learned that my reach goes beyond DC/Virginia. This is what a new subscriber, Omega01, wrote on his own blog:

The quest for new xangas has indeed been going well. Onigiriman's is at the top of the list though. It is...hmm...Inspiring... The recent stuff he posted makes me question the amount of work I put into school, and into learning the stuff I want to learn. Maybe I should be making strait A's (I can, no problem...it's just...hmm... "discipline," as someone I spoke to once put it) Maybe I should be putting more working into studying on the side. I should be learning Japanese with a more furious pace, I should be building web sites and doing graphic artwork. I should be fixing my computer...I know I can fix it, everyone knows I can fix it. I need to stop being such a lazy bum and get some crap done. You only get to have this life once...make it count.

Well, as you might imagine, this truly gives me a sense of satisfaction. Thanks Omega81. You made my week!

So what was the last Japanese movie you saw? And how'd you like it?

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