Hi...

We found five kittens, found homes for four of them and kept one. His name is Ebi, which means shrimp in Japanese, because his coloring resembles that of a cooked shrimp. He's really cute, but has some bad habits which seem to be hereditary, because all his brothers and sisters do it, too. Or maybe its just a kitten thing to pretend your caretaker is a tree, and climb on them. Or climb on the table, the drapes, and other places where you tell him repeatedly not to climb. Or sleep on your caretaker's face...Ebi isn't as bad as his brother Angel, who actually sleeps ON my friend's face, he chooses to sleep next to my face, and in between Shinpei and I on one of our pillows. He is actually a really adorable kitten, and he has made our lives so much more peaceful just by being around.

On another note, Turkey Day came and went. So fast. And I didn't have any turkey. Grrr.
Hopefully there will be one at a Christmas Dinner... I did get my pumpkin pie fix, however, thanks to Costco!! Thanksgiving Day is an interesting holiday to teach in Japan. It was fun to make turkeys with the elementary school kids and teach them words of thanks in their lives. I think that we all forget how much we have, and it is important every day to reiterate some little place in your life that you are thankful for. Thanksgiving is just a reminder to do that.

Too bad the day that was chosen by my country to praise life, was the day that the Massachusetts Puritans chose to massacre 700 men, women and children in what was also referred to as the Piquot "War". (This is just one example of the lies that the country tells to protect the Church. Children are never taught, for example, what all of the Missions in California were really for, either.) I learned about it while searching for information on Thanksgiving. I knew the holiday was probably not as happy as it seemed, from what I had learned in college about the number of natives who died due to Small Pox and other European illnesses when the pilgrims came, but I had no idea that the actual naming of the holiday had this dark of a history.

Well, if we were to dwell on all of the horrible things that have happened in the past, we would never be able to move on. It is important to know what happened, so that one can understand the present, and one can possibly prevent future similar occurrences. It is also crucial to a positive and healthy progression to forgive what happened 200 years ago, or 20, or 2, if the aggravation is no longer occurring, to move on for one's own health.
Today's lesson; to forgive and forget so that we can move on. Much harder when it is my own skin, but nonetheless important...

Last night we watched the Golden Compass. Shinpei commented on how fractured the plot was. We discussed why there might have not been a sequel, when one was promised. And then he commented on the anti-Christian angle of the film. I looked it up online at that point, and lo and behold, the story is based on a series of books called "His Dark Materials" by Phillip Pullman. According to Wiki, He won several medals for the series and is considered one of the best authors of the past 50 years, but the series has a very anti-religious sentiment. How it got into Hollywood is beyond me. The film went through a lot of change, because I guess people didn't read the script before they OK'd it... So that explains the choppy plot; a bunch of it is missing. And after it was made, with plans for a sequel, it got canned due to the anti-Christian aspects of the series, almost imperceptible in the film. Secular people complained that the religious aspects had not been addressed, and the religous people complained that the film was based on something that they didn't approve of. So the sequels won't happen. The books are available on Amazon, however, and I am going to order them asap. I want to know what all the hubbub is about, and hear what Mr. Pullman's religious viewpoint is. Is he a devil worshipper? Is he flagrantly insulting to the Church and the Heavenly Father? Why? Novels are better than movies anyway...