After cursing yesterday by saying how nice the weather was, I'm not going to say anything about today's weather. It poured yesterday, on and off. One of my students asked me to describe weather like this; I said "changable" or "erratic". Now I'm afraid that she'll describe Matsue's "erotic" weather to someone. Another student last week asked me to explain the term "bullshit" that he'd heard in a movie, but he's kind of a smart-aleck, so I think he was having me on.

After describing the shrine to you yesterday, I've been thinking about Japanese religion and Shintoism in particular. It's hard to explain, because unlike any other modern religion, there are no holy texts of Shintoism. It's based on the agrarian beliefs of a people who saw gods in every tree, body of water and mountain. When they die, people can become gods as well. Japan has, therefore, millions of gods whom people can call on for luck or help. As with North America, religion is not as important to the people of Japan as it once was, but on holidays people still go to shrines to pray for the coming year. A lot of people also practice both Shintoism and Buddhism; Buddhism is practiced at solemn times, like for funerals, and Shintoism is followed for weddings and festivals (so Shintoism is more fun!). As I get to know more people, I'll ask more questions about it, because it remains very mysterious to me.

I'm going to Nihonglish at Kaya tonight, so I'll probably meet a lot more people (foreigners and Japanese), and tomorrow is my official welcome party at AEON! We're going to a nice Italian restaurant near the station, and then probably to karaoke at Club 335 (san-san-go). And on Sunday, I'll wrestle with my Internet and see if I can make contact at home. Talk to you all soon!