Mama's report on Nene and anko

Mom emailed this evening. The subject read, "おはよう！" OK, she sounds excited about something. What's the occasion? I opened the email and found this photo of Nene, my cat, sitting on top of the small Japanese heater, looking down, pensively.

Mom said,

「大雪です。でも天気よく溶けてくれそうです。今朝ねねはなんとあんこを食べて感激しています。食パンにバターとあんこをつけて食べようとしていると２階〜降りて来たので、差しだしたらけっこう大きいのをなめて食べたよ。その後はしばらく口を動かし余韻を楽しんでいるかのようでした。」
("Heavy snow here, but the weather is nice so it will likely to melt soon. This morning, Nene ate anko (sweet red bean jam) and I am thrilled. She came downstairs when I was fixin' to eat the toast with butter and anko, so I let her try it. She licked the big chunk of anko, then she kept moving her mouth, as if she were enjoying the afterglow of the anko taste")

It made me laugh.

Mom always reports to me whenever Nene does something new, like she feels responsible for it or something. When I think of it, that's pretty much the only time I hear from mom. So, if there is no news about Nene, no news from mom either. The last time I heard from her was about Nene too, when Nene got a running nose. I just have to smile when I receive emails like that. Mom always wonders why Nene doesn't eat fish, because she'd always assumed that all the cats love fish. One time Nene ate ham and cheese and that shocked mom, but everything became crystal clear since then and now she is convinced that Nene is indeed an American cat, and that's why she doesn't eat fish. I bet some American cats love fish too, but I don't tell that to mom. She seems pretty convinced with the theory established on her own.

Anyway, it's getting late here. I gotta get up early to teach the Japanese culture class.
Until next time...

Eddie is here!!

He arrived, safe and sound.
Ever so lovely.
My days are looking brighter now.
I didn't have a calendar until now, so feels like the year 2013 has begun, finally.
Well, wait a second, it actually arrived Saturday, Chinese (Lunar) New Year's Day.
Super.
Like I'd planned it.
Can't be more proper than that.

I'd been buying Audrey Hepburn's calendar every year since 2003 or so.
Chain is broken now, but change is good.
Most of the time.

Happy New Year, everyone.
May your wish come true.

(yup, two calendars. one for me, one for the upcoming birthday gift for my friend who is also a Eddie fanatic. :) shhh! it's secret. she doesn't know it's coming!)

Ochazuke on rainy Sunday

Rainy Sunday. I didn't go out, but not because of the rain. I love the rain and always have. I have a perfect pair of moss green rain boots and a cute polkadot umbrella, but that's not the only reason why I love the rain. I love the rain for many other reasons. I like the sound of rain hitting my umbrella while marching in the puddle with my rain boots and feeling epic. I like watching the rain outside the big window from my bed and pondering random things. And of course I like listening to the rain when I'm dosing off at night.

I woke up around noon. I wasn't planning on sleeping in today, but I stayed up until 4am, watching mike and other speakers at the HTML5 conference in Japan live on UStream, so I guess I was pretty tired. I only had some cold rice from last night in the rice cooker, so I decided to make some ochazuke. Inside the shelf, I luckily discovered some homemade pickled ume that mom had sent me before, so I sprinkled the ume flake over my ochazuke and poured genmai green tea on top. That was such a brilliant idea. The pickled ume certainly added a nice flavor to it. I enjoyed ochazuke and felt the kind of serenity, which is usually what I gain from eating Japanese food.

There are so many tasks to be cleared away from my To Do list, and the list seems to accumulate every hour or so. My first priority for the weekend was finishing Chapter 4 of my thesis. Yesterday, I was at the computer lab on campus and worked on it for 6 hours. I wrote about 10 pages and complied some data. I haven't finished the chapter, but I feel like I've accomplished for the weekend, so I didn't feel like writing my thesis today. I managed to finish grading students' essays though, which was the second priority. My students in Modern Japanese Civilization are all motivated individuals who tend to get involved in the topics. So their journals end up being novels, which is great, only if I didn't have to grade them... I'm glad I've got it done though and marked it off from the list.

Other items to be completed by early this week are...(I do this so that it becomes visual and public and I can't cheat or get away from it!):

• finish Chapter 4
• write a recommendation letter for my former student
• finish e-filing taxes (I'm so close to finishing! I just need to enter my freaking bank info)
• update the course schedule and post on Blackboard
• submit my paper to Purdue Literary Award
• buy gifts and cards to people I love & ship them
• go to Walmart (yikes!) and get a coaxial cable (so that I can watch this year's Academy Award—to see Eddie Redmayne, specifically)

Well, something like that...hopefully by my next blog entry, the list is shorter. 

Until next time.

My book!

My first book will be published in April! ...ahem, well, not exactly...but I wish!! But, I'm not entirely lying. My name (appearing as "Ishikura Naoko") will be on one of the stories as a translator in the book called Fishing Stories. It's the very first time to have my name on any printed books in history, and I'm really excited!

Fishing Stories is written by Henry Hughes who is a professor of English at Western Oregon University and is also a renowned poet and writer.

This book is comprised of stories about fish and fishing all over the world. Last summer, I had a privilege to work with Henry on translating Ueda Akinari's Muo-no-rigyo 夢応の鯉魚 (translated as The Dream Carp) in Ugetsu Monogatari (雨月物語, Tales of Moonlight and Rain, 1769).

It took a good two weeks or so working on translation, submitting several drafts, emailing back and forth with Henry and discussing and examining the translation, word to word. I had translated some work instructions and manuals when I worked at a Toyota group factory, but I'd never translated literary work before. So, I struggled a bit between accuracy and creativity. The more I read the original Muo-no-rigyo, the more I was able to capture poetry of it, and from time to time I experienced some sort of translator's ego to add "personal color" to the work, just because I think it would sound more beautiful or what not. But, in the end, I learned that I should always be true to the original, because it is not my work, after all.

Anyway, it was such an extraordinary experience that I'd never imagined I would be part of, and I would definitely like to work on translating more literary work in the future, maybe after I finally receive my master's degree in May! Until then...I'd better be back to my thesis, like right now :)

—Fishing Stories will be published from Random House, Inc. on April, 16th, 2013, and can be pre-ordered here.

冬の日の朝

                                                             夜明け前の空って

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　なんでこんなにうつくしい

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　眠気まなこをこすったり

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　あくびをしたりしてるうちに

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　このほんのり色づいた空は

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　みるみるうちに
　
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　おひさまに乗っ取られて

　　　　　　　　　　　　まるで存在すらしなかったかのように

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　消えてなくなってしまう

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　どこか寂しげに

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　どこかいたずらに
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　過ぎて行く瞬間（とき）

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　わたしの大好きな時間
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　

Good night

                                         You said I should have gone to bed already, but

                                                   I just wanted to say, "Good night."

                                                   I just wanted to say, "Good night."

Dream

                                                I had a dream about you this morning

                                     I was outside, watching the snow falling from the sky

                                                  Wishing you were here with me

                                        Watching the first snow of the year together

                                       You weren’t there with me, but there was a cat

                                                          Walking with a limp

                                              She had her leg injured somehow

                                                               In sympathy

                                                           I looked at her face

                                              She had the face of French bulldog!

                                                     I thought of you once again

                                            Thinking that you would love this cat

                                        And that we would be laughing our butt off

                                                                 Together

                                                               In the snow