Japanese Whiskers

This week has been really busy, the weekend in particular. Saturday and Sunday have seen the coming and going of the yearly AIU Festival with participation from the local community as well. People have been preparing for months, with the last few weeks having been more and more busy. In the final week, a lot of people got way too little sleep, myself included. I slept about 5 hours on average I think, if not less. I'm really really tired, and still I've staid up late today. At least I can sleep in as long as I want tomorrow. It's gonna be really nice just lying in bed, waking up, and then turning around knowing that for once I don't have to get up.

As for the festival, me and the other Swedes, plus a few Japanese students were street vendors, selling "Swedish Pancakes" (basically crepes with jam and ice cream). We had a profit margin of about 50%, which is high to say the least. Not that the actual profit was that high - ¥42,000 - but it still feels good to have both pulled it off without any problems except the pleasant problem of selling out. On Saturday it rained, and not many people came, but we still sold rather well. Today (Sunday) though, the scy was a beautiful blue and the sun was scorching (for being in October), so we had customers pretty much constantly. We struggled to keep up with demand, but it was futile. At one time, we'd make a batch of pancakes and sell them in a few minutes. I think we sold more than twice as many today as yesterday. Quite a success.

The theme of the festival was "AI♥U", but somehow Halloween had snuck in as well. Kind of a strange mix if you ask me, but it seemed to work. I didn't have much time to check out the festival, since I was basically making pancakes all day long both days. Today for instance, I was actually frying pancakes constantly from 9 am until 2:40 pm. But still, I did manage to see a couple of things. My friends' choir for instance, and another guy I know who did his "ひとりでだってできるもん" dance act, which was really cool. Yesterday we had a small show with the Shorinji Kempo club, with about 7 people in the audiance...

It was a pretty awesome weekend, and now I'm really tired. Tired in a good way that is. The kind of tired you only get after exhausting yourself doing more or less physical work, and knowing you did well. The kind where you can sit down in a nice comfy sofa, lean back and sip at a coffee with a big satisfied smile on your lips.

And for today's kotowaza (proverb), of course I shall have to pick one about love.

恋と咳とは隠されぬ
koi to seki to wa kakusarenu
Love and a cough cannot be hidden
("love conquers all")

I know I said I would write more often, but alas I find myself too busy to even get enough sleep (something that is quite important to me.) Today though I started reading Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged, a rather monumental book, and rightfully famous it seems. I'm not so sure I agree with Ms Rand's view of the world, but the book is interesting, has great suspense, and quite witty language. It's required reading the entrepreneurship class I'm taking, but that is not to say it is a book a would not have wanted to read had it been otherwise. It merely means choosing to read it at this time was done for me, of which I am actually thankful. All too often have I been in the mood for reading but given up after trying to decide which of all the great works of literature still unread that I should read. I can make decisions for others rather well when I try, but for myself I am sometimes struggling.

In other news, the AIU Festival kicks off on Saturday, it's a two day happening at which students will do all sorts of things to promote AIU, activate the local community and just generally have a good time. As for me, I'm the head chef of a food stand serving "Swedish pancakes", which are basically crepes with jam and ice cream. Our initial plan was to make Swedish meatballs, but prefectural health regulations made that impossible. We then thought of doing Swedish hash, which was likewise rejected (have you ever heard of barbecue being allowed but not frying meat in a frying pan?), so we just gave up and settled for something not particularly Swedish, but still something a lot of Swedes eat on a regular basis.

背に腹は代えられぬ
se ni hara wa kaerarenu
The back cannot take the place of the belly
("Self-preservation is the first law of nature")