Wow! This a packed month with incredible moments and some sobering ones as well. Even though my schedule in April has been relatively filled due to the upcoming prom, I think that this past March (especially with the weeks of February that led up to it) as one of the busiest times of my life.

-I began the month as I ended the last one, coaching during the State DDF Tournament. While there were some issues due to last minute student absences, we did fairly well--especially our public forum debaters.
-I attended another great concert put on by our music department.
-I ended the third quarter in a bit of a hurry as we were also preparing for our spring break trip to Japan.
-Wow! Japan! Just wow! The travel there and back was not comfortable, but we deeply enjoyed every day ​that we were there.
-On the first day, we arrived in Tokyo and took an evening trip through the city to one of its shrines and temples.
-On the second day, we traveled to the top of one of Tokyo's skyscrapers to get a (rather cloudy) view of the city before going to the shrine for the Meiji Emperor, Harajuku, and Shibuya. Frankly, this day was a bit over-stimulating for me (and some of my fellow travelers) due to the number of people, flashy ads, and just abundance of shopping and dining activities.
-On the third day, we started with a trip to Tsukihi Market before heading to Kamakura (which held the giant Buddha statue that was many people's favorite site--especially since we could go inside it) and had our first taste of yakiniku wagyu. We also had our first sighting of the early-blooming variety of sakura (cherry blossoms). We ended the day with dinner at our hotel, dressed in traditional robes and sandals.
-On the fourth day, we spent most of the time at the Hakone National Park where we actually had a good view of Fuji-san. We also visited Odawara-jo and took our first shinkansen (bullet train) ride. The big surprise was running into my sister Katie at our hotel!
-On the fifth day, we visited Nijo Palace with Katie and her mother-in-law, Linda, joining us. We then went to the Golden Pavilion where we said our first good-byes to Katie and then Arashiyama Bamboo Forest where we said our final good-byes. We spent much of the evening exploring a shopping area in Kyoto.
-On the sixth day, we went to the 10,000 Tori gates at the Fushimi Inari-taisha Shrine--for a trip with so many great sites, I think that this is the one that I will remember the longest as I went to the top and arrived late to the bus (and to the applause of my travelers). I enjoyed my lunch of tonkatsu before our guided tour of Nara--particularly the Todaji Temple and the park with the bowing deer. We spent the evening in Osaka where I had the best ramen but the strangest service.
-On the seventh day, we traveled by shinkansen to Hiroshima for the most sobering day of the trip. Thankfully, it was followed by an amazing time at Miyajima Island (probably my second-favorite spot in this high ranking trip). I enjoyed the Istukushima Shrine and its famous Tori gate, but I loved the Daisho-in Temple--even if I was led into a pitch-black experience. That dinner was our chance to try Hiroshima style okonomiyaki.
-On the eighth day, we took the longer bus ride back to Osaka so that we could stop at Himeji-jo (which I now want the LEGO set for). We then had our final (and best) dinner of the trip at an all-you-can eat yakiniku restaurant. The wagyu there was the absolute best!
-On the ninth day, we headed home during the longest day of our lives (lasting 41 hours)! We had the opportunity to compare the shopping districts in Japan to Seattle's famous Pike Place Market--which was definitely lacking in multiple ways but had its own charm too.
-Back home, I finished Echoes of Wisdom and discovered that my website had been "devouring" some of my older video game reviews.
-I still miss the toilets from Japan (although, I don't miss the size of the bathrooms).
-One of our SoHi students died in an avalanche the weekend after our return.
-Peter successfully put a tub into our upstairs bathroom (turning it into a truly full bathroom).
-I dealt with another leak from our older copper pipes.
-Katrina, Connor, and I took a quick (and successful) trip to Anchorage on a beautiful day.
-Which brings us to today, where I spoke with EF Tours about setting up my 2027 trip to Berlin, Prague, Krakow, and Budapest. 

April is going to have a busy first half, but it feels like things are slowing down a bit in our day-to-day lives.

Rejoice!
... Rejoice?! In the middle of Lent? When everything feels like it's falling apart?
Yes! Now is the time to rejoice in those things worthy of our joy! We cannot live only mired in misery--that path leads to the Dark Side. This does not mean rejoicing in evils that persist or being happy about events that should be met with sadness or anger (or even outrage). Rather, we need to come up for air from time to time and rejoice for the blessings that we do have in our lives. 

The blind man in today's reading still had a great deal of difficulties ahead of him. He had been a beggar his entire life. The sudden use of his eyes must have been overwhelming. Meanwhile, he likely had few skills that he could use to make a living for himself. On top of that, he kept being harassed by the temple officials who called him and even his parents in to testify time and again, demanding answers that he had already provided to the best of his ability. However, his focus was on the miracle that he had received, and he immediately put his energies towards being worthy of that miracle.

People are at their best when they find joy in the world and work to bring a similar joy to others. 

Katrina is pregnant and is due in mid September. This opening might throw some people for a loop, but I didn't want to bury the lede, and part of the reason for today's quick trip up to Anchorage and back was to get her some maternity clothes. Connor also wanted appropriate clothing for his first prom (which is in just two weeks). Meanwhile, it was time for us to do another Costco run anyway. 

In both directions, the scenery was breathtakingly beautiful. The mountains had been recently coated in snow and stood out in stark relief against the sky. The roads were clear of snow and ice, but they have clearly taken a beating with the freezing, melting, and refreezing cycle that our weather has taken this winter. The good driving conditions and clear viewing distance made this drive one of the most pleasant ones that I've had in a while. It helped that both the drive there and the return were during the day.

 Target was the only store that we went to that had a maternity section. We even went to the 5th Avenue Mall--where JC Penny provided Connor with a nice dress shirt, suitable jacket, and an incredible tie (incredible in the sense that Connor and I both strongly like it). I stopped myself from reflexively taking pictures while we were eating at the mall's food court (which had a depressingly high number of closed shops), but it was a near thing. Something about eating at the top of that mall made me feel like we were still tourists. 

Costco ended up being a costly two-cart experience. There's no doubt that having a larger family in the house means that we are going through more food and necessities. I playfully gasped at the bill when I saw it--to the amusement of the people working there, but it was what I was expecting. We loaded up enough that Tifa (my Kia Sportage) was stuffed to the edges, and enjoyed a wonderful ride home well before the sun could set.

The fasces was a bundle of sticks with an axe in its center. This was meant to represent the power of a republic working together, and was a symbol of authority in the Roman Republic. It was held by men who held particular posts when they carried out sentencing or extreme actions that went beyond the scope of Roman law--sort of like the gavel held by American judges.

Famously, it was the fasces that was handed to Cincinnatus when the early Roman Republic was under threat, making him a dictator--a single voice capable of taking direct action without the Senate's approval during a time of crisis (or two years, whichever ended first). Cincinnatus, who had been a former consul (leader of the senate), accepted this ultimate power while in retirement and willingly gave it up when the crisis was averted. His story was a favorite of George Washington, who referred to Cincinnatus at the end of his second term as President when explaining why he would not run for a third term (setting a long-standing Presidential precedent). 

When Benito Mussolini decided that Italy had become too weak under its constitutional monarchy, he used the symbol of the fasces as the basis for his political ambitions. His black shirts terrorized anyone who did not agree with their policies to the point that, when he led them on a march to the capitol, the king agreed to give him access to the reins of government. This political movement became known as fascism due to its use of the fasces as its symbol.

Under Mussolini's fascism, anyone who disagreed with him (he had given himself the name Il Duce--The Leader), was branded as a conspirator against the Italian government. He first discredited and then removed any news organization that disagreed with policies or even said anything other than glowing praise for him. He gave elements of his police forces powers to deal with acts in secret, bypassing judges and courts. He placed massive pictures of himself (especially his face) across Italy, even over the Italian flag. 

Many businesses flock to support of him, hoping to gain favor. He created a system where those who gave him the most financial and political support would get the most lucrative deals while those who did not would be vilified and their assets taken. He demanded that people only speak about the greatness of Italy in the hope of reestablishing a Roman Empire with control of the Mediterranean. Any faults or failings were ignored or blamed on undesirable groups (particularly socialists). 

Mussolini would prove to not be as capable of a leader as Hitler or Stalin, with the King of Italy finally able to remove him from power as the Allies made their advance through Italy and anti-fascist sentiment started to become powerful enough that the public lost its fear (or awe) of him.  Mussolini would be rescued by Hitler's SS, and he would be set up as a puppet of the Nazi's to legitimize their control of northern Italy for the next couple of years. However, as the Allies made their successful liberation of France, Mussolini tried to go into hiding, but was easily caught (his face was plastered everywhere after all) and brutally killed with his corpse (and the corpses of those with him) publicly desecrated.

To be clear: the fascists used lies and intimidation to gain power, openly vilified any opposition (claiming that they were uncovering corruption) while actually filling their government with corruption, denied people their rights, dominated their media with disinformation, blamed socialist for their own mistakes, made obedience to their leader the highest priority, required public acts of nationalistic pride, and claimed to do all of this legally. Also, they led their nation to utter humiliation and defeat.

Yesterday, a Tufts University, Fulbright scholarship winning doctoral student from Türkiye named Rumeysa Ozturk was pulled off the street into an unmarked vehicle by six masked ICE agents with no insignias that identified them as such. They only showed their badges after they had physically restrained her. She was targeted because she co-authored an opinion piece article in the university's student paper which stated that Palestinians deserved to be treated with the same dignity and humanity as all other people and that accused Israeli policies of using starvation and slaughter against civilians in its own sort of genocide against Palestinians. She had not been part, let alone orchestrated, any type of violent protest or action.

Her friends immediately tried to find out what was happening, and they had enough connections to get information to a federal judge. This is despite her being moved from one location to another by ICE in an effort to slow down legal action. The federal agents claim that she was already being taken to an immigration facility in Louisiana by the time that the judge ruled that she was not to be removed from the state of Massachusetts. 

She was not taken to a legal detention facility, charged with a crime, or allowed to speak with a lawyer before she was forcefully transferred to another state. Her student visa has been revoked by the U.S. government who now says that since she does not have a visa, she does not have legal rights. She has since had a chance to speak to her lawyer, but does not have access to her medication let alone her personal belongings. Rather than apologize or begin to make amends for this violation of the First Amendment, Secretary of State Mark Rubio bragged about hers only being one of over three hundred such acts that he has authorized in the past two months. 

I want to be clear: this is what true fascism does. These are the acts of that totalitarian dictatorships take in their first months of gaining power. The freedom of speech is part of our First Amendment specifically to stop these sorts of actions from happening just because someone says a political opinion that the government does not like. 

Even before we were done with our trip in Japan, I had people ask me what my next trip was going to be. There were several possibilities that I had in mind, but our tour director pointed me away from one that I had been heavily considering towards another one that now seems to be my heavy favorite. I still have my concerns about traveling (and some increasing concerns with our global alliances being actively attacked), but I still have multiple places that I would like to see. For a variety of reasons, I only plan the trips for spring break, and I only hold them on the odd-numbered years. Thus the next will be in early March 2027.

There are three trips that I am not considering for 2027, but would like to do at some point in the future. The first is portions of China that includes Beijing (with the Great Wall and Forbidden City), Jiang (with the Terra Cotta Soldiers), and Shanghai. The second focuses on the capitals of Norway, Finland, and Sweden. The third is in Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam. At present, I'm not really interested in trips to the Middle East, Africa, the Americas (they are often covered on the even years), or Southern Asia.

The three trips that I'm considering are all in Europe. The one that has been recommended to me goes to Berlin, Krakow, Prague, and Budapest. It includes Auschwitz and other sites from WWII as well as castles, museums, and cathedrals. The second one is a shortened version of the trip that I had been thinking about that focuses on WWII sites in England and France (including Normandy) with more standard tourist stops in London, Paris, and Versailles. The third is a tour of various sites in Ireland and Scotland. 

I'm interested in all of them. I have a meeting with my EF Tours' representative on Monday, and I'm still not entirely certain of which one that I want to choose. I've had different people express their interest in different trips, but the choice will ultimately come down to my preference. 

Peter has been making a heroic effort at transforming our upstairs 3/4 bathroom into a full bathroom. The person who had originally built the bathroom had used an elevated platform to make it easier to get the drain pipes flowing in the correct direction--and even then ended up taking some shortcuts. The current remodel removes that platform, which required Peter to change his plans multiple times to make certain that the drains had the correct tilt (gradient?) for proper flow while also connecting them to an air vent to prevent gurgling (a suggestion that was made by a friend of ours whom Peter solicited for advice). 

I have been tremendously impressed by the progress and results that he has been achieving. The toilet and sink are now in their new positions. He has built a wall between the tub and toilet as well as installed the tub and its larger wrap. This has also required him to move some of the electrical pathways--and led to his discovery of several "dead" lines that were still hidden in the walls. There's still a number of things to do, but it's already so much better than it had been. I am eager to see the final results.

In the process, they discovered that another one of the copper pipes on our cold water line started leaking. It was a slow leak, but it was clearly a growing problem. As I have been slowly switching our out copper pipes for PEX, I took on that task this weekend. Perhaps it was due to my previous experiences with this particular problem, but I was able to fix the issue with only one trip to the hardware store and with absolutely no cursing. The only issue is that the process seems to have put a small kink in my right shoulder. My project was not nearly as complex as Peter's, but I still derived a sense of satisfaction from completing it.

One of the worst things for teachers to hear is that one of our students has died, even if the student was not well known to them. The ripples that roll through our school and community have effects that are only predictable in their unpredictability. Students whom one think might have no connection to the one who died can suddenly be debilitated while others who were closer are the ones who most want to move on.

On Saturday, one of our students died in an avalanche--an occurrence that has even made some of the national newscasts. We received word yesterday that the victim was a student from our school, and our crisis team went into action. Today, we had multiple people on hand to help check on students and staff.

I didn't know this particular student. I did not have him in any of my classes, and only recognize him as a face from the hallway. However, I do have a large number of students who were close friends with him, including some who had spent time with him just before the tragic event. This made for an emotionally difficult day, as I hate seeing my students in distress--particularly in distress that I cannot help remedy other than being there to help provide emotional support and a compassion.

The Samaritan woman at the well was five times a widow and was currently living with a man to whom she was not married. She is often portrayed as an outcast in her society. In his homily today, our pastor pointed out that it was not the norm for people to be at the well at noon as she was. However, Jesus does not condemn her for her situation; it's entirely possible that He pitied her, but instead, He entrusts her with His teaching about the Living Water. 

He does not tell her that she needs to mend her ways before she can receive this water. In all likelihood, she was living with the man that she was as a means of survival. Women at that time (for most of history, for that matter) had little in the way of property rights. They were entirely dependent upon the men in their families to take care of them. While there is a chance that one or more of her five previous husbands had left her some level of inheritance, it is unlikely--and even if they had, it would have been easy for their own family members to strip her of anything of value. 

One can see why the Living Water would have such an appeal to her. It means independence. Jesus was offering her the happiness and freedom that had continually alluded her--and He did so without any cost. The experience clearly brought Him joy, as He refused any of the food that His disciples had brought to Him. He was content with bringing His message to this woman--and through her, to this town.

Almost immediately on arriving to Japan, there were some things that I preferred from America. Almost immediately on leaving Japan, there were something that I knew that I would miss from Japan. This will in no way be a comprehensive list nor are the items in any particular order other than I plan on switching back and forth.
1+. The service on Japan Airlines was superior to that of Delta. The seats were slightly wider with movable headrests, headphones were already provided, the leg room was slightly longer, the seats reclined in a way that was less intrusive to the people behind, and the meals were of a better quality (if different from what I was used to). They also had an onboard lighting and window shading system that simulated sunset, night, and sunrise to help adapt people to the new time zones.
 1-. The language barrier was significant. While I was surprised by the amount of English written and spoken throughout the trip, things could become difficult at unexpected times. Even something as simple as asking for an additional pillow at the hotel desk took the help of either our guide or Google Translate (which was immensely helpful--especially in translating written messages). 
2+. The toilets were amazing! First of all, heated toilet seats are now one of my all-time favorite inventions. I also really prefer the in-toilet warm-water bidet system that they had to our toilet paper-only system (even if I still think Kirkland toilet paper is the absolute best).  
2-. The hotel rooms were quite small--including the bathrooms. It was difficult to move around even when we didn't have all of our luggage.
3+. The hotel breakfasts are significantly better than most breakfasts available at American hotels. Again, some of the food takes some getting used to, but the overall number of options far surpasses what is usually available.
3-. The beds and pillows were rock hard. This might just be a hotel issue, but it was consistent across all five hotels where we stayed. The pillows felt like they had hard clay beads inside them and the mattresses were just stiff.
4+. The convenience of vending machines and konbini (convenience stores) in Japan cannot be overstated. I got a glass of freshly squeezed (as in, squeezed right in front of me) orange juice for about $2 (300 yen). You could get hot coffee or food dishes (although, I never tried them) as well as a wide assortment of drinks nearly everywhere with drinks usually being less than $1 (140 yen). These machines and stores were ubiquitous in the places that we went.
4-. Trash cans were few and far-between. We were often carrying our trash (often from the vending machines or street venders) for hours with everyone making a mad-dash to any trash can that we would find (although, we usually had to wait until we returned to the bus or our hotel rooms).
5+. Everywhere we went was remarkably clean and felt safe. Considering the vast sea of people who lived in some of the areas that we visited, the place was immaculate. This could be for the sake of tourist areas (I'm thinking about the way Salt Lake City has its immaculate central area, but is an utter mess just a couple of blocks away from it), but it seemed to be the case throughout. This point was really brought home to us when we visited Pike Place Market. Multiple students (and parents) remarked about the irony of how much less safe they felt in a well-known tourist site in America.

I'm sure that there's more (a couple of items just popped to mind), but I think that this is already a long enough of a read. I'm quite glad to be home, but I certainly enjoyed my time in Japan. Neither place is perfect, but I wouldn't mind bringing some of their ideas here.

I just discovered that there is an upper limit to the amount of text that I can put on a page on my website. Sadly, I only discovered this after a large amount of information that I thought that I had been storing irrevocably disappeared. I hadn't noticed before because I was adding the most recent information at the top of the page without checking to see if anything was getting cut off WAY down at the bottom. I don't know how much is missing, but it seems that I have most of what I have written for the past decade. As the page in question deals with video game reviews, I doubt that the loss matters to anyone aside from myself.

Meanwhile, I pushed my own limits this week. I had foolishly (arrogantly) believed that I would be able to power through my recovery from the jet lag of my Japan trip simply through the power of my own will. Initially, I had even thought about returning to school on Wednesday, thinking that I could get enough sleep on the plane to make up for the fact that I would only have about an hour of sleep before having to go into work. Thankfully, wiser heads prevailed and convinced me to take the third day off. 

That said, I almost wish that I had taken off the entire week as Janelle had. It would have only put me further behind. However, I was not operating at at my peak ability today. I felt like I was spending a good deal of my energy just trying to stay awake--let alone coherent. At least I made it to the weekend. 

Once again, we've past that point where the sun is "up" in the Northern Hemisphere more than it is "down." Like many people, I find encouragement in the increasing amount of light. As much as I love winter, it's nice to move away from the grip of darkness.

Ironically, I started playing the newly released Assassin's Creed: Shadows, having just finished The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom (which I highly recommend). I suppose that it's a way to extend my trip to Japan. Still, it is funny that I'm playing a character who likes to hide in darkness just as we are breaking into new light.

Otherwise, today was a strangely normal day. Everything largely went as I would expect, but the normalcy of it only seemed to emphasize how different my last week and a half have been. It doesn't help that I'm still jet-lagged. There are more thoughts that I want to share about my time in Japan, but I don't fully trust myself to give them full justice just yet.

For now, I've simply enjoyed the increased sunlight. 

We had an eleven hour layover in Seattle that was extended by an additional twenty minutes due to a flight delay. It could have been worse, an EF group from Colony of about the same size as ours who had gone to Ireland to play in Dublin's St. Patrick's Day Parade were dealing with a canceled flight and were struggling to get on ours. I believe that they all made it due to a few of our travelers taking other means to get home and a few a few other travelers who were willing to take the offered $1,200 to get on a later flight.

Thus, we arrived in Alaska after midnight. I had not slept long, let alone well, on any of the flights, but a stop by Starbucks in the airport helped keep me up for the drive home. As there were other delays getting to our vehicle (Alaska Park was busy!), we didn't end up leaving Anchorage until after 1 AM. Thankfully, the roads were in good condition with only a little bit of drizzle and snow from Girdwood to the first part of the pass, so we managed to get home by about 3:30 AM. That meant that I fell asleep by about 4 AM. I'm certainly glad that I took the day off to recover as I awoke around noon and have still been feeling groggy through the day.

It feels good to be home and around that which is familiar, but I have felt different ever since I got on that flight from Tokyo to Seattle--like I'm missing something that cannot be shipped back to me. I deeply enjoyed this trip and am not quite ready to return to "normal" life. I wonder if part of the issue is the amount of preparation that I put into this trip, not just in planning for it, but in working on developing my language skills and reading up on the history (all time well spent). Now that the trip is over, I don't know when I might use that knowledge again. 

Well, although I don't see when at the moment, there's always a chance that I will return. Meanwhile, Ubisoft just released Assassin's Creed: Shadows which is set in feudal Japan and The Ghost of Tsushima has a sequel coming out later this year. These will have to do as substitutes for the time being. 

Today is the longest day of my life. We had a slow start as we didn’t need to leave our hotel until 11:00 AM. This allowed us to have a leisurely breakfast with still plenty of time to pack, get to the airport, go through a lengthy process to check our bags, and get to our flight. We didn’t leave from Osaka until nearly 3 PM. 

We the Tokyo-Narita airport at about 4 PM and didn’t need to board until about 6 PM. That also allowed us the time to deal a few minor hiccups in our flight check-ins as well as get through security and immigration (emigration?). Thankfully, we didn’t have any larger problems on this trip. 

Our flight over the Pacific was calm; although, I found it difficult to sleep. I ended up watching Coco (which I’ve wanted to see for a while) and Tag (which I’ve think that I might have seen before). At some point around 10 PM, it temporarily became March 17th again because we crossed the International Dateline. Once we landed in Seattle, the time jumped forward eight hours. 

As we had an eleven hour layover in Seattle, EF booked us a charter bus for four hours. We used the opportunity to explore Pike Place Market and get our second lunch there (our first was in the Osaka airport—before getting our first dinner and second breakfast on the plane). I wasn’t thrilled with this arrangement, but it provided a clear comparison between this American market and the ones that we saw in Japan. While we appreciated having accessible trash cans and the means to dry our hands after using the restrooms, Pike Place Market suffered in every other comparison—to the point that multiple students complained that they already missed Japan. 

Another area where we missed Japan was in its efficiency at its airport. In contrast, America’s immigration and security was tedious, confusing, and inefficient. For that matter, the shops and restaurants were better at both Osaka and Tokyo-Narita in comparison to Seattle—which I prefer over the other U.S. airports I’ve seen (although, Kansas City’s had a major upgrade recently). 

I’m posting this now as we are still at the Seattle airport. We won’t arrive in Alaska until just before midnight, and another several hours until we get home. It has been a long, long day.