Sunflowers on a Cloudy Day

Yesterday was a good day.  I didn't go to work at all.  That's not why it was a good day - it was just something that happened.  I didn't feel guilty about not going to work.  That was a bonus.

Here is how my day went.  I woke up at 6:15 am and went on a morning hike at Ivy Creek with my friend.  It rained during our hike.   We spent the entire hike wondering if we were lost, trusting that we weren't lost and getting lost anyway.  We also spent our time trying to keep from getting covered in spider webs that spanned the hiking path every few feet.  After letting my friend take the bulk of the spider webs for the first part of the hike, I jumped in to take over for the second part of the hike.  I was pretty ineffective at avoiding spider webs.  At one point, I ran smack into one and was so shocked that I shrieked and threw my hands in the air and accidentally lost my hat in the process.  I am not a squeamish girl so we laughed hysterically over my reaction while I retrieved my hat.  We ended up running through the last part of the hike in order to try to get my friend to class in time.  A man saw us, in our soggy state, with our sweatshirts flailing about our shoulders and our arms and hands covered in spider webby-ness as we stumbled over roots and laughed, "Trying to avoid the rain?"  I laughed back.  The rain was the least of our concerns.

After the hike, I got ready for the day, finished up planning for my English class and went to my eye appointment.  The doctor remembered me and remembered my field of study - either that, or he wrote it on my file.  No one can have that great of memory, can they?  The diagnosis is that my eyes are healthy.  I was so happy and pleased with my healthy eyes that I couldn't stop smiling all the way home.

English class - we discussed whether we would want fame, riches, pleasure or love.  I chose love.  Most of my students chose pleasure.  We also discussed whether we would choose to be divinely beautiful, dazzlingly clever or angelically good.  I said that I wanted to be divinely beautiful.  Most of my students wanted to be dazzlingly clever.  The women wanted to know what type of woman the men wanted.  One said divinely beautiful.  One said angelically good.  One said dazzlingly clever.  The men wanted to know what type of man the women wanted.  They all agreed on angelically good after ruling that dazzlingly clever men might be be too clever.

After English class, I met with some of my Japanese friends who told me about the ins and out of Japanese culture.  No hugging!  they warned.  Don't wave your chopsticks.  And Japanese people love Ghiradelli chocolate they insisted.  But apparently even Japanese people get confused on the train schedules and so they got nervous for me and helped draw me maps and wrote out sentences for me to show people in the station to get me to my destination.  I have some great friends.

After running by my department, I walked home.  Barefoot.  I spotted a newspaper machine and decided to buy a newspaper to read about the recent dismissal of UVa's president.  It's all very secretive and scandalous and interesting.  I can't remember the last time I spent money on a newspaper.  I remembered how much I miss reading a physical newspaper though.  I read that thing from front to cover, read my horoscope - change of geographical location in my future and possible romance - and did the crossword.  It was a satisfying 75 cent  purchase.

My roommate and I attended the showing of Anne of Avonlea - the first part.  As I worked on my knitted, my friends and I kept up a running hilarious commentary about the movie.  The three men in the room who had never seen the movie soon caught on to our playful banter and laughed along with us.  One of them wanted to insist against common sense and watch the second half right then.  He really wanted to know what was going to happen and didn't think he could wait even a day.

Another friend showed up at the end to chat for a few minutes.  I got volunteered to play a musical number for a conference on Saturday.  It's fine.  I will be presenting at the Conference anyway.  That friend and I went out for a cup of hot chocolate and we sat and talked about dating/marriage, change and a little bit about Japan.

I think I will keep this day in my memory for a long time.  Sorry - no pictures.  It was a rather ordinary day after all.  And yet, somehow something quite surpassing extraordinary.

New song that I love:  Sunflowers on a Cloudy Day by William Wei