April 22 2009 Best 10

Sometimes the best work in Powering up your Tens is had just by reviewing the best parts of your day. There are probably 10 reasons for doing so, but for me it helps me feel gratitude, it helps me reflect and review the day, and it is a nice closing bookend of one unit of living.

As I have written before, the real work comes towards the end, but the Power of Tens is in the work at the end. What little successes did I enjoy today? What little things were good? A lot of littles make a big big.

Today's List of Ten came easily:



(in chronological order)
1. Morning call from Kota’s mom. Could he start coming back to I CAN? Seems his grandmother is stressing him out again these days, and everyone agrees he needs to get out of the house! Great to have Kota back with us!
2. New Zealand buddy Simon stops by I CAN with his McLunch for a visit. He helps us set up our youtube inspired “Mentos in Pepsi” experiement. Result? not as impressive as online.
3. Playing “the Game of Life” (literally, you know, the board game) with these guys. Funny how the “winner” is decided by how much money you have at the end.
4. Neighborhood 5th graders stop by I CAN after school to play. This reminds me that I have a(n unimplemented) plan to open up for after school visitors! We played a charades-inspired guessing game using red, yellow, green and blue Play-doh.
5. After kids go home, I run to the cable TV station to try to borrow a projector for our homestay slideshow, and also try to get some local, cable news coverage. I got 2 yeses.
6. Then I got on the phone to try to confirm attendees for the homestay success party itself, and to round up more photos for the slide show I will try to put on DVD for them by Sunday. Still, the sixth (newly 7th) graders are not quite on the ball with deadlines.
7. As almost an afterthought I called our chairman and asked him to attend. He was delighted with stories of the trip and will attend.
8. I took the rest of the night off to attend what I thought would be a koto (Japanese harp) concert. In fact it was one of the strangest meetings I have ever attended. While I used to get myself into these situations a lot when I first arrived in Japan, it had been a while. I walked into the 300 year old restaurant, expecting a room full of classical music fans. Instead, 15 chairs around a table, mostly filled with company presidents, cultural leaders, and other town “elites.” Each place was set with a meeting agenda, other official looking documents.
Turns out that the meeting I was asked by a Rotary acquaintance to attend was in order to commission a “support group” (fan club?) for a local, distinguished koto artist. Unfortunately, the man who invited me hadn’t done his homework. There was a near revolt when it became known that the woman for whom the group was being commisioned hadn’t asked for support, and that furthermore, she was not in attendance, though she said she might stop by later that night.
I received a lesson in Japanese politics, as each member politely declined being an officer, and then had their name written in anyway when the room’s ranking leader cajoled them into (forced) volunteer service. I resigned myself to eating and drinking as much as my $80 addendance fee would allow.
Strange.
9. Best part of the surreal meeting was introducing myself to a doctor Kawamuro, a woman director of two hospitals which specialize in mental health. We talked a bit about school -outs and society -outs, and she and I seemed to be on the same page regarding how best to support such members/patients/citizens. Will drop her a thank you tomorrow.
10. Got back home in time for reading in bed with Emiko, Yuto and Eli. Did my son just say “I love you, Dad.” before nodding off?