In the middle of this hot summer heat and getting sick, car accidents, working and everything plus trying to find a place to move into before school starts again. These all are for another day and email though, but I want to talk about lighter subjects.

1. My Garden - lettuce well I am still holding out hope for 2 of them, but I don't know. It is soo hot for them and I don't know how big the leaves will get. I have had fair success with peas, and probably would've had more luck if I used some liquid seaweed or some kind of organic feed. I think they are almost finishied and the peas have been kind of small to about the average size of a pea. I am freezing them in a bag, but probably won't have enough to make a cold pea soup :(.
Cherry tomatoes are growing well and I am getting some big ones after some pruning and good care. The other tomato plants by the time they get big enough for flowers it might be September unless I try to feed them with something.
I feel like I am getting better each year though, so hopefully next year wherever we are we will have enough to actually supply meals!

2. The Wind-up Bird Chronicle not to far into it yet, but it is providing some relaxation in the kind of surreal like world that the book creates, but at the same time is based in reality. I don't believe any of the philosophies or way of thinking, but it is kind of a nice distraction from everything. It is so bizaire that it places you in a surreal place. I don't know really how else to explain it. Basically, it is about a man who is married and their cat disappears and the wife asks him to look for the cat and then before you know it his wife also disappears and all the strange occurences that happen as a result of all this.

Books

I finished The Calligrapher's Daughter last Monday and once I got into it, it was a fast read! It was a beautiful story of a Korean woman like I have talked about before that was born pretty much at the start of the Japanese occupation of Korea. Her father was a very stict and traditionalist and was opposed to a lot of what was happening in his country. The Japanese did a lot of horrible things while they occupied the country, but at the same time brought a turn to more modern thinking and ways, which is very ironic.

Anyway, this woman ends up finding love and the day after she is married is denied to go to America with her husband who is studying to be a minister. She ends up living with her in-laws in a very poor and harsh conditions away from her family, who were of the upper class which was very hard for her. But in Korean culture once a woman gets married she is supposed to take care of the husband's parents.

Finally, she gets back to her family and they lose everything because the Japanese took it over and even spent 90 days in jail in horrible conditions and hearing people being tortured. They accused her of being married to an American spy and all that went along with that. They moved to Seoul and in 1945 after Japan lost the war her husband comes back working for the US army after being seperated for 11 years.

It was a beautiful story of love and gives a slight glimpse of what maybe Korea was like during this time period and the feelings that people held about their counry. And the incredible sadness that many people felt at the loss of themselves during this time when everyone was forced to be Japanese, but still held on to their traditions and language.

Next. . . I think I am going to re-read The Wind-up Bird Chronicle again by Haruki Murakami. I actually read this book in 2007 when I was in Japan and then after it read another one by this author called, Kafka on the Shore. They told me that Kafka on the Shore is very popular and famous in Japan, but I personally like The Wind-up Bird Chronicle better. I'll probably re-read both of them. They are very surreal reads kind of this feeling of jumping from one reality to another but at the same time this big overall story is taking place. But it does it in a quiet almost errie way at times almost like how I felt in Japan at times, like a dream world that you wonder if it is really real or not? Interesting. . . and I think shows how unique Japanese society and thought patters are as a collective whole.

If you are looking for a good summer read, this might be it!!


(Once again - these books are fiction - I am just kind of talking about general feelings and thoughts not actual events or people.)