Sunday, March 28, 2010

Holy Week

Today, Palm Sunday, marks the start of Holy Week!

This is the week leading up to the ultimate sacrifice, the ultimate vigil, and the ultimate feast of the Church year.
It is always intense.

Some of the good advice I've heard for these last days of Lent (these first seven are from a sermon on EWTN last week):

1. Fix your eyes on Jesus Christ.
2. Praise the Lord at all times, especially at Mass.
3. Repent with a humble and contrite heart, and take part in the Sacrament of Reconciliation.
4. Wield the sword of the spirit--the Word of God, Scripture. Read it daily. Lectio Divina.
5. Attack the evil one through prayer and especially fasting, according to the guidelines of the Church.
6. Surround yourself with Christian community to avoid becoming isolated in spiritual warfare. Partake frequently of the sacraments, and use sacramentals.
7. Rejoice in the Lord always! Again I say, rejoice!

-Keep your focus. There is a lot of good to be done and a lot of grace to be gained this week if we only pay attention, and refuse to be distracted by temptations to selfishness, gloominess, sloth, etc.

English Camp

Over the last three days (Thursday-Saturday) I went up to the northern end of the prefecture to help out at an English camp for middle- and high school students. Since all the staff had been asked to come up with an English language activity, there was plenty to do every day. In addition, we all enjoyed various cultural experiences, such as making chikuwa, a kind of tube-shaped fish patty roasted over an open fire, and going to a Buddhist ceremony at a local temple. By far my favorite was takekomi-gohan: camp staff had hiked up the mountain and chopped down some bamboo trees, then they taught us how to cut and split the bamboo to make a natural rice-cooker! After rinsing the inside of our bamboo cookers, we added washed rice and water, and then this too was cooked over a sort of barbecue. All the preparation kept us up till the sky was dark and the air was quite frigid, but I often find that the meals you appreciate most are the ones for which you've worked the hardest.

One activity the kids had to do was to create and perform "commercial" skits. I loved my group. They seemed so shy and uninterested in the activity at first, but once we had put something together and practiced, their smiles started slipping out all over the place. We decided to make our commercial about a hip hop dance school, and the best part was that they all learned a routine and performed it together. Even though a local TV station was filming, nobody tripped anyone else or had a meltdown. I was so proud of those kids!

I didn't bring my camera to camp. I know some people have to film, for work/reporting purposes, but I always feel like a camera ruins the moment, or at least makes the kids feel more shy and awkward than they already do.

I think it would be nice to run a camp like this here in inaka-cho, too, eventually. I was impressed with the number of staff that were gathered together, though, and I'm not sure I could pull those numbers off in the immediate future.

Friday, March 19, 2010

Another egg, and a surprise



This egg was about two weeks in the making, since I kept putting it down and getting busy with other things for days at a time. There's a butterfly on the other side, too, but it didn't turn out very well. According to the symbology guide I was sent with the egg decorating kit, butterflies stand for Christ's resurrection. Intuitive!

It's been so cold, rainy, and all around dreary lately that I haven't been opening any windows. And as a matter of fact, most of my windows are frosted glass, anyway. However, today the sun was out and it seemed a little bit warm, so I opened a window a crack to check. It's a lovely day! Now all the windows are open. But imagine my surprise when I opened this window:



Well hello!

It really feels like spring today.

pierogi, hoska, and babka


I made this loaf of hoska and the "babka" cake for an event I ran on Monday. We used pins and wax to decorate blown (empty) eggs for Easter, a tradition from Eastern Europe and Russia, but also, as I learned in the past few weeks, done in places like Germany and Italy. Last year, there were only 8 or so participants for this "Kraslice" party, but this year we got 12! Little by little, the tradition will catch on, methinks.



Thanks for the recipe, Grandma!

I made sauerkraut-mushroom and onion-garlic-potato pierogi this time.

Saturday, March 6, 2010





I only made one new pysanka this week! :(

However, I think it's fairly decent. :)

Hopefully I get some more done by next weekend...