dropping like flies...

So, it seems I'm not the only one who's been having a little trouble keeping up with everything lately, and this week it all really just came to a head. I think it must be some combo of exhaustion and the extreme winter-ness which has become apparent in recent weeks. But whatever the reason, about half of IUC was sick this week. In my class alone, there were 2 people out every day this week (and not always the same two people); on Thursday, in Connor's morning class, he was the only one there; and yesterday afternoon, poor Aoki-sensei looked like he really would rather have been at home, in bed. So far all is well for me, but I'm seriously feeling like it's only a matter of time--we've all kind of got that "Who's going to be next?" feeling.

Speaking of Friday, tho, we did have a bit of a break in the no afternoon class sense. Instead, we had one of our periodic special lecture things, which this time was a movie showing. The movie is a documentary called "Yokohama Mary," all about this woman known as Yokohama Mary, who was always hanging around in Isezaki Mall (cf post about where I live!). She'd been a prostitute during the postwar period--which should give some idea of her age now--and would be wandering around in Isezaki every day. Add that to the fact that she always wore this very distinctive white makeup and costume-style clothing. So she became this very famous figure and sort of a symbol for Yokohama (sort of reminds me of the Flower Lady in New Haven). Then one day, in 1995, she disappeared, and for a while it was apparently very odd for people not to see her anymore, and there were all these rumors about where she'd gone and stuff.
So, this documentary about her (less about her than about the lives around her) was made a few years ago, and on Friday the director came to the Center to talk to us about it. We screened the movie and then there was time for questions. It was really interesting, and I enjoyed the movie more than I had expected (especially given the extremely thick vocab list we were given in lieu of subtitles).
But of course the best part was that the entire movie was shot in and around the area where I live, which was really neat--and which also tells you something about the area where I live. LoL. Even funnier was the map we were given, that sort of highlighted places featured in the film. So, on the map was Kotobuki-cho, the section of town right next to Isezaki, which is where the largest number of IUC students are living. It's a...well, "unique area" is a nice way to put it, although according to the map, Mary had named it 地獄 "hell." Which of course, all the kids living in Kotobuki-cho found extremely amusing. ^_^