This is what happens when a blog gets neglected; instead of short and nice posts--easy to write, easy to read--the account of even major things that happened over a week turns into a lengthy and heavy narration, but at least I can take this off my shoulders.
It was expected that the week would be busy, and was it indeed. On Monday, after Jeanette finished her practice, I went to see her with my music book. "Perfect timing," she said, "I started wondering if we were going to play today." We played two or three times, without major mistakes and the piece sounded beautiful--it was ready for the Thanksgiving service. We decided to play again on Wednesday, just once.
Wednesday, at 9:30 I was supposed to meet with a group of exchange students from Japanese university Ritsumeikan. They started arriving around twenty to ten. It was a beautiful sunny morning and I met them at the entrance on the office side of the building. After a mandatory group picture, I invited them inside. Our conversation lasted for almost two hours. They were already familiar with the story--most of them had read July's article in Los Angeles Times--but nevertheless they were interested to hear it from me. I told them briefly about my family's life in Russia, Japan and Canada. Then there were questions and the students were asking mostly why I chose to study Japanese language, what I did in Japan and what my memories of the time my family and I lived in Japan were. At the end of the meeting, they asked me what I thought of Japanese manga (comics) and anime. It turned out that as a group project they were thinking of turning the story into a manga or anime. I can't wait to see what they will come up with.
Shortly after the students had left, I was visited by K.T. and R.C., my former Japanese colleagues from UBC. I've worked with them for many years--both are wonderful teachers and amazing people. We had a lovely chat over Japanese lunch and decided that we should meet again some weekend so that the whole family could be together. Actually, on that day Dmitri came to the church around 2 p.m., and Irina joined us after work. Dmitri had a rushed dinner and left for his classes. Irina didn't have much time either--she was supposed to attend a membership committee meeting in the co-op, so after 6:30 it was just me, so I spent the remainder of the evening in the office.
Next day, I had a meeting with Jack B., Professor Emeritus, University of Regina, and his daughter. He wrote me a letter in June and we talked on the phone several times; also, we had been in touch by email. He was visiting Vancouver on a family business and wanted to stop by to see me. To my surprise, the professor greeted me in Russian--he studied it in 1940s. We spoke at least one hour and a half and it was just an unforgettable conversation. We decided to keep contact after his return back to Regina.
Almost immediately after the professor and his daughter had left, came my old friend Boris whom I've known for eleven years. He moved from Burnaby to Mission five or six year ago, so we met on very rare occasions, but that day he had some appointments not very far from the church.We were nearly at the end of our meeting, when my family's friend Olga showed up--she needed help to make changes on her website. The day continued to escalate--Dmitri came home and called me to give details of some situation that had happened in the morning. Finally, Thursday ended on a high note, literally--we had a choir practice before the performance on the Thanksgiving Sunday.
Friday morning had a little bit of déjà vu--a meeting with another group of Ristumeikan students. Whether because it was Friday or for some other reason, they were much livelier and more engaged in the conversation than the other students two days earlier. When the meeting was over, one of the girls asked if she could attend the choir practice and was very happy to learn that she could and it would cost her nothing to participate. It looked like she really meant it to come next Thursday.
After dinner, I spent over an hour with Jordan who was filming the church at night. Among other things, he took shots of the lit votive candles in the dark--it looked really beautiful. I hope we'll be able to use this video or part of it on First Lutheran's website.
It's been a long week, it's been a long day--time to say "o-yasumi nasai."
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