The Daily Bread

Hey, been a while. How's things? Wife and kids doing alright? Good, good...

Good god. Let there never be a day when I actually say those things in earnest.

It's interesting that when I sit down to write these blog entries, I often find it difficult to actually think of things to write about. This is interesting because it's not as if I have nothing to write about. Quite literally, every single day is packed. I don't have one weekend to myself this month and I haven't had a weekend to myself since coming to Japan two months ago. Already, next month's weekends are getting taken up.

Yeah, that last one's gonna be a bit of a problem. You see, I've been planning for a while to take part in NaNoWriMo. For those of you too lazy to click though the link, NaNoWriMo is National Novel Writing Month. Frankly, the name is a bit of a misnomer; it's actually quite international.

At any rate, the goal is to write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days (that's November 1st to November 30th). Whip out your calculator, please. Yes, you are quite correct, those numbers mean that any bright-eyed NaNoWriMo Writer must churn out a paltry 1,667 words a day. Me being the busy bee that I am, I'm aiming for 2000 words a day. That should give me a buffer of 5 days to slack off-- I mean, 5 days in case of emergency.

Alternatively, I could just write an extra 10,000 words. But let's be serious here.

This word count means that time is of the essence. It's not easy to write 2000 words a day. And it's even more difficult to write 2000 good words a day. That takes time, which the prospective writer does not exactly have a lot of. When, further, weekends and weeknights are being snatched from the writer's grasp by hungry socialites, life suddenly becomes very difficult.

I don't really know where I'm going with this. Perhaps I just wish to illustrate the insanity involved in this task. Perhaps I'm indulging in a bit of that self-loathing that I keep hearing people like to sometimes do. Well! Enough of that. I will conquer this task and I will become the next Earnest Hemingway and Luke, I am your father.

Sorry, got a bit carried away there.

Recently, the temperature has dropped significantly. I'm talking 20 degrees, plus the sudden absence of humidity, and just within the last two weeks. Suddenly I'm wearing sweaters, long pants, and jackets to work. It feels like just yesterday I was sweating through both my undershirt and work shirt without even moving. As I am a staunch opponent of cold weather, this is frightening to me. But the bright side of this is momiji (the autumn change of the leaves' color).

This weekend is a long weekend due to that most sacrosanct of Japanese holidays: Health and Sports Day. As a result, I'm heading to Kyoto with a fellow ALT from my town. Kyoto, the cultural center of Japan, is particularly known for its momiji. Around here, the world is still largely a verdant green. But there are signs of change. The rice fields have turned into a thousand pools of sunny yellow. Scattered across the bike paths are dead, fallen leaves. Things are changing. My hope is that in Kyoto, momiji has begun.

I'll let you know later how it goes. 'Till then, take care. And don't forget to feed the children. They need their daily bread, you know.

~Jeffles