Another 9 degree Centigrade morning.
Some leaves are red. Orange. Yellow.
Many dried and fell. Winds blow.
Anytime soon, the trees will be naked.

Last day of November. End of the Fall.
Goodbye my favorite time of the year.

To remember the beauty of Fall,
here is my snaps taken by my humble belated Nikon CP5700.

Chozeji Lake,Nikko.
Fall 2003

As one of those millions mother who has ambition for the kids, I send Raisa to piano lesson since about a year ago, when she was just turned five by then. Lucky me, Raisa has a big interest (and I hope talent too) in music. Piano is her own choice.

Every week, on Saturday afternoon, I have to bring her to the Shimamura music school. That is not at all difficult as the music school is just 15 minutes drive away from home and the best is, the location is in a shopping mall so I can wander around while waiting. She will sit together with the teacher for 30 minutes do the piano.
The challenge is, even the lesson is only for 30 minutes, the teacher will give homework, that need hours to completed at home. It will be a set of writing/reading musical notation and some songs to practice. That will be a piece of cake for those adult who plays music. But for me, the music illiterate, this is a big challenge. As I have to help Raisa with the homework every week, this thing can be stressful. My thought was that the teaching is the teacher job. I am a paying customer, I want Raisa to out able to play the piano. But it is not the case.

So here I am, week by week my rotten head have to work hard to learn and teach those bars, quaver, crotchet, minim, semibreve, sharp, natural, flat, tie and other blablabla. To make the matter worse, all in the terminology of Japanese like heonkigo, shibuombu, tai, fudonibuombu, blablabla. Sometime when things just too much at the office and home, I ask Raisa if she really want to learn this piano stuff, desperately searching any hint that she doesn’t like it and I can take it as an excuse to quit. But the answer is always, "Yes Mommy, I really love it. I can’t wait to go on stage next year. Why you keep on asking me that? ".
So honey, ishouni gambarimashou! (Let’s work hard together!).

Like for all of us, back to real life after holiday can be so painful.

Despite having a great person as my backup during the holiday, my mailbox still left me with 300+ mail need my self to handle. Different teams from different continents set up meeting schedules resulted for the straight five days in the week after the come back, I was hooked up in the teleconferences every single night from 10PM till 1:30AM (blame to the "day-light-saving"for that an hour stretch). I just feel that all the counterpart just look/talk at me with the tone of "hey you must be so recharged after the long holiday, here some more work for you, bet you will handle it best with your fresh energy".

At home. The energy and mood to handle the chores which long has gone since the day we decided to spend the holiday at our home country, splurged with the help of all sort of helpers, still hasn’t back. Hungry, but no mood to cook. Dishes, but this hand just doesn’t want to turn the tab. This finger even don’t have that spirit for soft touch of the washing machine panels, the laundry piled… Vacuum cleaner and the gang are calling me loudly to touch them, but I am deaf.

Raisa, for the continues four night after came back, cried in the evening. "Hu….hu…I miss my family….I miss my friend…I miss Indonesia…." poor her. We tried to convinced her :Come one, the holiday is over. If you be a good and sweet girl, study hard, next year we will have another holiday. Everyone have responsibility. You enjoy when holiday, but you need to work hard at everyday life too.
It doesn’t work. She cried to sleep.
It sadden me actually looking at the reality the sweet happy holiday turn to situation like hurting and sad (sound like a funeral?). But she is only six.

Ken? Suddenly his independence gone. No more potty in the toilet, diapers will do. No more eat by himself, feed me please. Pick me, pick me, pick me all the time. My fat leg is just to lazy to walk. Let me enjoy the beauty of being a spoiled two years old. Well, we expect this temporary result of Indonesian holiday, where lines of lines of family will happily pick/feed/spoiled the cute Ken at any time. But, oh…

And now the thing I hate the most. Citibank, Amex, OMC suddenly are so friendly by sending me many envelopes with something printed bold at the bottom of the paper : DUE DATE. No matter how I carefully spent, stayed in the budget, calculated and translated the rupiah to yen (or perhaps this is the root cause) before spend. Looking at the bills are still not a happy moment.

Busy, dirty, sad, tired, broke after holiday.
But, IF suddenly hubby said: let’s go now for holiday, I am ready to pack.
I am just a human being.

Back in Japan again.

No hundreds of motorcycles buzzing around on the street.
No street vendor selling all type of things.
No beggars, hawkers, street boys on the crossing.
No tears-maker view on the sidewalk.
No tight security check in every entrance of the building.
No smelly public WC.
No too much infotainment news in TV. Nor the bloody view.
No thousands gossip lines-up.

Back to clean.
Everything shiny.
Everything in order.
Cool temperature, perfect weather.
Boring.

I miss Indonesia, the moment I step on the Departure gate of Terminal 2C.

This time nobody ask me to bribe them.
This time thousands of smile thrown to me.
This time every face were so friendly and helpful.

This time I really in love with my country.