Bugs, Mudbaths, and Fanfiction

Golden Week 2009

The weather has been lovely lately, warm and sunny in the day, cool in the mornings and evenings, and no rain in the longest time. The downside is that the spring weather has also brought out hoards of insects. There were four pesky flies buzzing around my house all weekend (although two drowned in my coffee cup when I was away at school), as well as the usual ants, cockroaches, and giant spiders. There are also giant black butterflies the size of my palm that dive-bomb me while I'm riding my bike, but those stay outside.

In other news, the beginning of May gave us the glorious holiday known as Golden Week, three consecutive national holidays, a five-day weekend for me. This is important because it's the longest free holiday we have and the last one until July. Most ALTs use this time to travel. Vickie went to China. But what did I do? I sat around my apartment writing fanfiction.

But in my defense I did spend one day traveling/ socializing. On Saturday, May 2nd I went to Kirishima with Rachelle, Jinnouchi-sensei, Yuana, and Shimizu-sensei. It was a nice little road trip. In the car, Rachelle, Yuana, and I played with some "What if..." cards Rachelle had printed off the Internet. (If you were an animal, what would you be? If you had to eat your friends to survive, would you?) We stopped along the way at an ashi-yu or foot bath and dangled our legs in warm water. The foot bath gave us the perfect view of our volcano, Sakurajima, and it was such a clear, fine day. Afterwards, we visited Kirishima Shrine and ate lunch.

The main event on our little road trip was sakura sakura onsen, a hot springs public bath complex of some local fame. Jinnouchi-sensei had been wanting to take me since I first met her, but I was... shy. (Let me remind you, you go into Japanese onsens NAKED.) However, a year and a half later my shyness was going down. I think you just have to live in Japan a while to understand. You just sort of get used to the idea; it's not such a big deal.

Anyway, what made sakura sakura onsen was its "mud baths." Now, I don't know about you, but those words evoke the image in my mind of sitting in a giant warm mud puddle. Actually, it was nothing like that. In the area outside (yes, it was outside; no, no one could see us, the area was well blocked off) there were containers of a special sulfuric mud harvested from Sakurajima. Apparently, it was good for the skin. So you slathered this mud on and then sat in a specially marked-off bath that you were allowed to murk up. Jinnouchi-sensei was in a playful mood, because she kept pouring mud down my back and let me tell you, that mud was COLD! I got her back though.

This mud bath was supposed to be good for the skin and I suppose it did make my skin softer for about a day. However, I don't recommend it. Sulfer has a very distinctive smell and not the good kind. What's worse, it lingers. I don't think it was overpowering enough for other people to notice, but I noticed. The smell stuck for a full three days. What's worse, it clung to the clothes I wore. I couldn't get it off my jeans despite washing them twice.

So, maybe that's some excuse for staying in the house for the rest of my weekend--I was smelly. For the next 4 days I didn't go further than the grocery store. I was so busy writing and rewriting the latest chapter of my fanfiction. And actually I didn't finish until two days after Golden Week ended. So much effort spent on one little 18 page chapter.

And yet it as worth it, because I got a review from Ninnik Nishukan. This is my favorite, FAVORITE fanfiction author, one who does such sweet romance stories, I rank her (I think it's a her?) right below Jane Austen on my list of favorite romance writers. (Granted my list isn't long.) So, she's a brilliant writer and she complimented my story. Not just, "Nice story," but "I didn't think there were still people around who actually wrote GOOD Ranma 1/2," and "I might even have to try to remember the password to my old Ranma 1/2 blog so I can recommend your stories at some point." I was practically dancing around with glee. I mean, I don't care if it is fanfiction, when an author you respect and admire compliments your writing, wouldn't you be happy too?