been a year since my grandma passed on. last night, we went to the one year memorial service. honestly, haven't been to that church (aloha kyokai), not once, in the past year. you'd think someone nostalgic and missing a dear grandmother would attend church in her memory, but to be quite honest, it's like the only reason i ever went was to honor her... anyways, it was a nice service. i recall my off-tangent reflections during it, probably reflections i'd always had, and secretly laughed at, but failed to put words to until now... when we pray in tenrikyo, we face each respective altar, clap four times, bow in prayer and reflection for an unspecified period of time, and then clap four times again. and we usually take our cues from the head minister, who is directly in front of the altar, sort of serving as our representative before god... so, here's the somewhat awkward thing... the first four claps are alright, everyone kinda claps in unison... but then, as the head minister bows, and so does everyone, well, it becomes a matter of guesswork or intuition or something figuring out when the head minister will complete his prayer/reflection, stand up, and clap once again... and if your prayers are done way before the head minister, does that mean that you were somehow lacking in sincerity or something? didn't have enough to say? so what happens after that is this: sometimes people will rise up, their eyes peeking at the head minister, to see if he is up already or still in the midst of his prayers... sometimes, people ready to synchronize hold their hands in front on them in preparation to clap, like they are trying to catch a firefly or something... but what usually happens is this: the head minister silently rises up, while a lot of the congregation are still bowed down, and he jumps the gun, he starts clapping. and then, the rest of the congregation bolt up, and try to join in, their tardy claps sounding like hesitant fireworks or something... i always thought there was something funny about this, something relating to how silent prayer and communion with god is definitely not a publicly schedulable event...

last night, as we drove to chili's (my bro and min wanted to have a little celebration for me, for finishing my thesis presentation), we saw the moon, which was shaped like a crescent... i don't know when we starting thinking this way, but everytime we see a moon like that, we think that it is my grandma smiling down at us... so it was nice to see her happy like that.

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i am very tired at the moment. have to get up and make some kind of effort to practice for taiko, which happens in a couple of hours... i love taiko. it's a welcome diversion and exercise for me...

well, i'd better leave off for now. thanks for watching.