Christmas AGAIN!

I had Christmas again yesterday, when I got a stocking in the mail from my mother. Woo! It was the most fantastic present I could have ever hoped to recieve. It had candy canes and hershey kisses and a bunch of really great jewlery and all sorts of neat stuff. I brought the candy canes to kendo today and gave them to all my friends. That was nice.

I had a good practice today. My shodan test is coming up really soon. On March 4th, if all goes according to plan. It will include that drat written test. I mentioned to Sakai Sensei that I don't know Japanese, but he just said (in English) "Don't mind," and that's the last I heard of it. Lately, I've been feeling really great about kendo. Really excited. I've been learning a lot these past few weeks. This week the ichi nen ses are gone on a ski trip, so it's just us 11th graders. Today there were five kids and Sensei, but it was pretty great despite the lack of people. After explaining something, my Sensei actually looked at me and asked me if I understood. That was nice. I think because there were less people, he felt like he could take time to explain things to me. Can you believe I've been sucked in? I was so determined to remain true to "my" art and not let kendo take over. But actually, it seems like it's all one and the same.

Anyways, the real reason I'm writing this is because I was given the kendo diary again today. Last time I felt okay just writing whatever on account of being the dumb foreigner, but this time I know enough Japanese to write something. So I ought to stop procrastinating and write. Only what? Doshio! If I ever get it written, I'll post it in English for you.

Okay, I'm off.