Sunday, October 5, 2008

The Roller Coaster of Life

Well, more bad, more good.
A group of us when to an Autumn Festival in Arimatsu, about half an hour away by train. Many of us wore yukata, a type of cotton kimono worn in the summer. This town, Arimatsu, is famous for its tie-dyeing technique called shiraboshi, and was actually founded for the express purpose of dyeing clothes in this manner. It's a very cute little town, and I might have to go back to explore some more on my own.
I kept glimpsing myself in windows of stores and the like, and everytime I thought, "Richard Chamberlain?" For the unenlightened, he was the actor who play Blackthorne in James Clavell's Shogun miniseries produced by PBS many years ago. Those who have seen it will hopefully have the same thought I did, and those that haven't: watch it. We also got to make our own tie-dye head-towels, so I have that as a little souvienier.
I got to talk to Jamie Hoff today, which helped to make my day even better. She's in Indonesia for another half a year, and only two hours behind me here, so I hope to talk to her even more. Terry McCord dropped me a line today to, telling me that being rejected by the Peace Corps isn't the end of the world, and that he got the same rejection letter 33 years ago.
Who knows what I'll do now? Definitely try again, yes, but...oh well. I'll worry about it later.
Bad news time: No mountains this weekend? The guy I was going to go with cancelled on me because of a shortage of cash. These things happen, but I will climb those mountains even if I have to sleep under a tarp wrapped in blankets. I will let nothing stop me.
Love to all,

4 comments:

Ainsley said...

aww i'm sorry about the mountains. good luck getting to them soon.

Brain said...

I have no doubt that you will make it up those mountains even without the tarp. Sucks about the Peace Corps but you'll make it if you stick with it I'm sure.

Sweeper of Dreams said...

Shortage of cash is possibly my biggest problem with doing things- I really want to go climb Mt. Snowdon next weekend, but I have a feeling that even with Britrail it'll be uber expensive. Yikes. Even though I didn't know the two folks you were talking about, sounds as if you have a good support base, just like you deserve. :) Have a wonderful day!

Anonymous said...

Hey, Jonathan. Sorry about the Peace Corps and the mountains. Don't give up on either of them! You'll get there!