8/10/2007

It has been over a month since I lasted posted and much has happened since then. First my computer crashed roughly a month ago. I think it was actually the day after the last post. It is interesting to me that my computer crashed right after I posted about how much time I was wasting using it. God knows what’s going on. It was a nice break from technology. My friend fixed my computer a couple of days ago and now I am plugged back into the world but with a little more willpower.

I am school today. Summer break started July, 20^th for the students. Teachers in Japan do not have an official summer break. They must use sick days or special paid vacation days.

What I did on my Summer Vacation.

By:　 ウエイド　ミラ

I took off two weeks ago and went to Taipei, Taiwan and Bali, Indonesia with some of my friends. We had a great time. My second time on an airplane was just as fun as the first. Here is a rundown of our activities in Bali in action verb form: we went rafting, swimming, beaching (I made that word up), elephant riding, monkey watching (like bird watching except with marsupials and danger), sight seeing (volcanoes, beaches, temples, a zoo) and every night we ate at the same little joint on the beach. I learned many things on this trip. I will share two of the most important things that I learned. The cocoa bean (where chocolate comes from) looks very, very disgusting and tastes strange. How they ever get such a delicious treat from a bean that looks like monkey brains is a mystery to me. The second thing (and probably the most pivotal lesson that I learned) is that the sun in Bali is angry. It laughs at pale, freckled weaklings (such as myself) and showers scorn and hate in the form of hot hotness and shiny arrows (maybe the arrows were my imagination). Why was the sun so angry? It might have been because I spat in the proverbial face of the sun and shunned the use of sun armor (some people call it sunscreen). I am a proud owner of very intelligent skin. It used an ancient technique to elude detection from my enemy (the sun). My skin (pay attention, this is the really impressive part), began to camouflage itself with the red lettering on the towel I was laying on. I thought, “WOW, I am a regular gecko!!” The sun searched and howled in fury but I had completely escaped detection. To the sun I looked like a red blob on a white towel. I was giddy with a false sense of victory. I spent a few minutes congratulating myself and my clever skin on a well deserved victory. Right about now you are wondering just how you can train your skin to execute such a handy maneuver. Please let me finish before you run off in haste looking for skin training books in your local library (they don’t have them, at least not here in Mito, Japan, I looked). Apparently my skin isn’t quite as clever as I first assumed. It was so tired from the battle that it couldn’t return to its original state. In fact my camo-technique that was so useful in escaping from the sun only served to announce my presence much more quickly than I would have liked. The only place where I could blend in was the produce section between the zucchini and the leeks. That’s right I was readily accepted by some rather friendly tomatoes. I carried a few around on my shoulders the rest of the week so I wouldn’t feel out of place. Let me tell you that I learned a valuable lesson from the whole sun battle debacle. My skin is cowardly. What looked like a brilliant victory soon turned into a painful defeat and then complete and utter DESERTION. As we speak it is jumping ship and wallowing in it’s shame. As any intelligent person would, I reflected on the entire situation and I figured out what I did wrong. If I would have used a plain white towel (no red lettering) then my skin would not have had to change at all. It would have already blended in with the towel and the sun would have never detected me at all. So, even though I lost the battle, I was able not to overestimate or underestimate my enemy but in fact to estimate my enemy. I must congratulate myself on gathering the counter intelligence to defeat my opponent next time we meet.

Editor’s note: The author clearly proves his IQ is much more than a lima bean (no brain cells) but clearly less than a goldfish (1 brain cell). He did in fact use sunscreen after 30 minutes, but clearly, it was too late and he received a sunburn which later blistered and is peeling. He later remarked that the sunburn reminded him of his childhood and a visit to the Clovis, NM zoo. (It’s funny to me that I am the author AND the editor, so I can talk bad about myself behind my back).

One last story. I was walking down the street in Bali and a guy started talking to me. He wanted to sell me something just like the 208 people who had talked to me before him. He put on his best Australian accent and asked me if I was from Australia. I told him in Japanese that I came from Japan. He was confused. He continued on in English and I continued on in Japanese. We had a great conversation only I understood everything he said and he understood nothing I said.

On the way back to Japan we stopped in Taipei for two nights. We spent one day exploring the city. We went to the tallest tower in the world and looked around at the city. I really enjoyed Taipei, mostly because they had 2 subways (the kind you ride on and the kind you eat at). I enjoyed both. I didn’t realize how much I missed sandwiches.

Bali reminded me of how privileged I am. Many people spend their lives just trying to survive. I don’t know why God has blessed me beyond my needs. It makes me realize my responsibility to use the blessings that I have to help others. It is always interesting to me to see how other people around the world live. I have seen so many things that were beyond my imagination before I left America. I only hope that I can use those things to understand the people around the world and to understand myself as well. I will be starting EBC (English Bible Class) soon. I don’t know all the details but we will be using the Bible to study English with people. I am both excited and nervous about this opportunity and I am praying that God will use the program to his benefit.