Sorry my camera is still broken so just phone pics. The above picture is very Okinawa to me, traditional Okinawan dance to honour the ancestors with the sea in the background, and a coral stone wall to boot. Sigh.....
Today the Shimi ceremony took place. I think that is what it is called. It was a ceremony to honour Shoen (king sho-en). I am sure you know he was an important Ryukyu (Okinawan) king who founded the longest running ryukyu dynasty and he came from Izena! Apparently, according to one of the other teachers, Izena has to do this Shimi to honour Shoen before they can do the same ceremony on Okinawa honto (the main island). I expect perhaps all the old Okinawan kings have to be honoured each year. It will appear in the Okinawa times, the local newspaper and last year it was televised as well. I didn't really appreciate it last year but I got to sit with all the old and important people in their black suit on the raised platform in from of the tomb.....wearing red trackies and a blue T-shirt - woops. I just copied everyone else, blowing, praying etc. In the picture of last years ceremony in the paper you can see my blonde hair poking up behind the black suited, black haired masses. This year I lurked in the background. Unlike last year there were also a few performances of traditional music and dance, I have posted a couple of pics for you viewing pleasure.

It was love at first sight!
I finally ate at the pizza place in Motobu, lovely view to eat pizza by!

Well I haven’t blogged in a while but my camera is broken! How can I post without pictures! Pictures from my phone will have to suffice. I don’t think (hope) my camera is badly broken, I think it is just the door to the battery sd card compartment. First when it wouldn’t turn on I just need to open and close it a few times but now it won’t go on at all. Pretty sure the warrantee is over but I will take it to a shop here. See if they can work some magic.

I spent a long weekend on the mainland. Didn’t accomplish much but I enjoyed it which is the main thing right? I and Kelly did do our theory test for the PADI open water scuba license we are going to get. Pretty excited about that, no diving next weekend but we will do our diving over the following two weekends and then be licensed open water divers! Sweet! Don’t expect any wonderful underwater pictures as there is no way I can afford a underwater camera housing right now, assuming my camera gets fixed. I am trying to save for after Japan, plus paying for the course I am studying plus a trip to the states, not really rolling in the dough at the moment.

I pretty much have to spend all my free time studying these days, I am still enjoying it but only just, perhaps it is more that I am used to it. It will feel odd not to get home and immediately settle down with my books and plan out my evenings study.

I and Kelly played some good April Fools jokes on Sunday, I got Andy well and good. We are still awaiting the results of one joke.

My school is awash with new teachers. I am a little sad that the old teachers whom I had grown fond of are gone, I doubt I will get to know these teachers very well before I leave. Perhaps that kind of thinking leads to a self-forfilling prophesy?

When not studying I am thinking about the future, what am I going to do! And what is this thing we call ‘the future’? Why do we fear it so much, why do we spend all our time preparing for it? Will it actually ever come? And when not preparing for it we are trying to delay and postpone it, is that really possible? Depends on your definition of future of course; ah... the inaccuracy of human language. One can certainly delay future events and that is mostly what we try and do.

Rational thoughts aside from my perspective my future is hurtling towards me at an alarming pace. There is bound to be a collision with the little life I have build up here, I suppose it will happen on the 24^th of July. To be honest I am rather excited by it, plans are slowly developing.

The initial plan is travel and fun! Not so scary! I and Kelly will see Europe and then toddle over to Scotland. Hopefully Kelly will like the wee lochs and glens of my home.

Then after Christmas is done, I missed the last two at home so looking forward to this year (wow, its only april I am looking forward to Christmas already….scary), it is time to volunteer! Time to do my little bit and make the world a better place. And perhaps do some nice things to write on my CV (resume for Americans). I have been trawling the web looking for the perfect place to volunteer for quite some time now. I thought I had found it in Guatemala. They offered a variety of projects including environmental ones (for me) and were low cost, however after reading the foreign office travel guide to Guatemala I was shaking in the boots! It seems like if you go there you will be robbed, raped and murdered within minutes. Public transport was particularly dangerous, fair enough, but private cars were stopped at gunpoint too! Mmmm not so good. I know that the foreign office always writes fairly scary descriptions of any poorish country but it seemed rather scarier than most. What tipped it was the list of crimes committed against foreigners in Guatemala in the last 11 months (supplied by the US embassy there) and the various reports of armed muggings on all the tourist sites I went to. So sorry Guatemala! Ecuador was a little better but not by much. After some looking I ‘discovered’ Bolivia! It seems relatively safe and is the poorest country in south America, who more deserving of my altruism! So it seems likely that is where we shall go! Next steps plan what I will do there and fundraise! The fun never ends!

After that…….actually I do at least know what I want to do! It has taken me a long time with many wrong turns and ventures up dead ends but I now have a pretty good idea of what I want to do. Do you want to know? Possible, it is rather hard to tell from where I am sitting. Ah well, I wish to study environmental science (masters) and pursue a career in that field. Most likely with an environmental consultancy firm but perhaps with government or a firm large enough not to need outside consultants for it environmental planning etc. And before you ask NO! I did not get this idea after watching ‘an inconvenient truth’. It has been bubbling away for a while. The next question is where and by what means of funding. I had long thought (since I spend a year on exchange at UCSD) about studying in the states and it is still an option albeit an expensive one. There are many sources of financial aid for grad students in America but as an international student I will face a higher bar to get them. It is still on the cards, however I probably shouldn’t completely overlook British universities either, we do have some pretty good ones (including the number 2 and 3 in the world). Oxford have a number of interesting environmental masters programs however I shan’t hold my breath about getting in there! Sigh…it would be nice though. For the moment I can dream!

Here’s to dreaming!