udon is my love

hello everybody

my life in the past week has been exceptionally uninteresting in terms of blogability, other than that ive of course been fasting, so i dont really have much to add, i thought id just point up that ive uploaded a few more photos that hopefully convey a bit more of the flavour of Takamatsu...

my profile picture is of me eating udon, the specialty of this area. udon is incredibly amazingly delicious if u have it here, but whatever you do, dont have it in other parts of japan. i made the mistake of ordering udon when i was in tokyo in 2005 and it was really terrible.

this is a neat fact from a movie i watched, Udon, which is about the udon noodles in this prefecture:
"Though Japan's smallest in terms of land mass, Kagawa Prefecture and its population of approximately one million is served by nearly 900 udon shops. By comparison, there are 515 McDonald's outlets serving a population of 12.5 million in Tokyo. "


on monday, we had the study circle with the fathers from the childrens class. the topic this week was "Backbiting", ie gossiping and saying mean things about other people behind their backs.
the main reason im putting this up here was that i found it really interesting. after reading a few Baha'i quotes and discussing why backbiting is a bad thing (cos it makes you more insecure, look like an extra bad person yourself, foster disunity etc), yuichi asked us "well then, why do we do it?"
ive never really thought about that before- and peoples thoughts were really interesting. two of the main ones were "because its a good conversation starter/icebreaker" and "because its fun". others included "when you really like a close friend but out of embarassment try to cover it up with putdowns" or "when youre worried about someone close to you and so get frustrated and backbite", or "when theres someone you love but theres one thing about them that drives you insane"
i know for me, backbiting is such a difficult thing to stop doing, i mean realising when youre saying mean things about others is hard enough, then being strong enough to stop doing it and finding ways to get out of situations when people around you are doing it...
its definitely a bit easier for me not to at the moment, being away from the peer group and everything.
anyway, ive made it my personal goal to try to stop doing it and to stop thinking mean things about others too. but at the same time, ive reminded myself not to get disheartened if i let it slip a couple of times, but to keep in mind that any amount of improvement is a good thing! think of what could be achieved if each of us thought like that, instead of thinking "the world is a bad place what can i do about it"...
as Mahatma Gandhi said,


"Be the change you wish to see in the world"



heres some other quotes i like, that weve been looking at in the study circles:


"Do not be content with showing friendship in words alone, let your heart burn with loving-kindness for all who may cross your path"


"When a thought of war comes, oppose it by a stronger thought of peace. A thought of hatred must be destroyed by a more powerful thought of love"


"Speak no evil, that thou mayest not hear it spoken unto thee, and magnify not the faults of others that thine own faults may not appear great..."