Well, I have found a way to arrange for cheap travel while feeling the thrill of gambling all in one site:Hotwire.
I don't consider myself much of a gambler, but after spending almost every waking hour of the last 2 or 3 days online trying to arrange for rental car, hotels and interisland flights in Hawaii next week, it all seems like a crapshoot. At least Hotwire lets you admit it. They offer really low rates on flights, car rentals and hotels, but you don't find out the details (like the name of the hotel) until after you have purchased. Since we are splitting our time in Hawaii into three parts-- Oahu, Maui, Oahu-- I figure we can take a chance with a few days worth of accomodation. We leave in 4 days and so far I have managed to book us the first four nights of lodging, only. Something will come through. Nantoka naru.
The problem with dealing with companies in Hawaii is that they all operate on Hawaiian Time. What this means is that someone living in Japan, like myself, expects anything business oriented to be dealt with lighting fast. If I send an email inquiry to a Japanese company I expect I will hear back from them within 2 or 3 hours maximum. Hawaii doesn't work like that. I lived there for 4 years. I should know better than to expect instant responses.
If it comes down to the wire I'll just book most everything through Hotwire and be done with it.

Conspicuous Absence
I seem to recall having heard that big anti-war rallies were going to take place today in the Japanese major cities, as well as other major cities all around the world, but I haven't noticed any mention of it on the tv news. In fact, the only place I've seen it reported is in the Japanese news online at Asahi.com. And even that was about events that took place in other countries, not about anything in Japan.
If a tree falls...

Even though I love to bitch and moan about the entrance exam marking experience, I have to admit it's kind of fun. The marking itself can even be rather entertaining because of some of the interesting turns of phrases students come up with and the insight into high school kids psyches.
The real fun though is in spending time with the other teachers. For most of the year I only see the other teachers in my own department or those who on the same campus. During the marking period I also get to spend time with the teachers from the main campus departments. That's when I start to realize that this job has allowed me to meet, work and make connections with people from around the world, not just Japan. I think I will miss that in NH. Or maybe it's just something I'm going to have to seek out or create for myself.

Finished up with that exam marking finally today. After that went out with "the boys" in Kyoto, first to Hill of Tara and then to Flamingo. Flamingo might be the coolest bar in Kyoto. Cool layout and decor, good music (don't really have the lingo down, but I'd tag it ambient trance or something close to that). Learned way too much about my colleagues' formative childhood erotic experiences. I wonder what's up with that? Do I really need to be privy to what's going in in their heads? It doesn't bug me or offend me. It's the true human condition so there's no use in denying it. Kind of interesting to hear their truths and see how much it does or doesn't differ from the images I had. Was told that basically I am Elaine (yeah, from Seinfeld), which kind of makes sense to me.
I'm tired and shivering and need to drink a couple of big glasses of water and get to bed. I'll leave you with one of the more foreboding yet potentially accurate essays I read today. They were asked whether they thought students should study modern history.
***** I think so. Japanese students know a few things. Therefore, awful things will happen.

My Bloginality is INFP

It is said We Japanese put on many unique wears such as Kimono and Geta and so on. This is because I think so.

2 more days of essay grading left. May not make it out sane.

Definitely could have done without it, but this evening I got to experience the quintessential urban Japanese experience-- the sardine-packed train. Actually, sardines have it better than I had tonight in the train back from Kyoto. Had a full day of exam marking. What an exercise in futility that is. But after 4 years I understand the criteria now and don't really have to experience too much anguish during it. It's a lot of nonsense-- bud gus is in the air polluted. Some of it is so random in gammar and syntax yet it manages to convey a general sense of what the writer is trying to say, so you can't say it's total gibberish, but to try to grade it is painful.
Yeah, so after a day of THAT, followed by a standing crowded bus ride from one end of Kyoto to the other in rush hour, I get to Kyoto Station, go up, over and down to my platform and there's a whole lot of people standing around waiting. I stood and waited too and the board just kept showing how many minutes late the trains already were. Then they announced the delay was due to a jinshin jiko at Yamashina, the next station down the line. Jinshin jiko literally means individual accident. Could be an actual accident, but it often means someone has committed or tried to commit suicide on the tracks and they have to get the situation cleaned up so the trains can start runnning again. I saw on the news last week that around Osaka they are installing motion sensor lights at certain spots along the rail as a deterrent.
Anyway, I can't help but wonder if this particular jinshin jiko was making a final statement to us all by timing it for 5pm on a Monday night before a national holiday when everyone was just trying to get home. We jumped on the first train that came through and that thing was pack to the gills. It then proceeded to get worse at each successive station. Everyone was all smushed together at odd angles and people push and brace to try to claim some personal space but it's futile. You can feel the press of bodies around you as you draw in a breath. Human beings should not have to spend any part of their day like that. I can't believe people spend a lifetime doing that.

In Japan the seventh anniversary of someone's death is considered a milestone. They call in a priest and have him recite sutras in front of the family altar. It's called a houji. In my family we mourn individually.
I visit Kate's grave almost everytime I go back to NH. Last summer I snapped off the branches of a tree that was growing through the chainlink fence next to her grave and dropped leaves and crud on her stone. Even now, seven years later, I can never quite recall the exact date that she died. I check the stone everytime but it doesn't stick.
I remember that I brought the last picture I had of her to the funeral. It was a picture of her, Mom, Stef and me taken at Mom's house a couple of months before. I'm not sure why I brought it with me, maybe I was planning to put it on top of her casket. But Dad said he didn't even have a recent picture of her so I gave the picture to him instead.