I might be leading a Tu B'Shevat seder. Tu B'Shevat is our New Year for the Trees. The name is actually a stylized way of saying the date of it. The 15th of Shevat, which on the regular calendar starts the night of January 30th and goes until sundown the next day. I didn't realize it was so soon. It's a rather minor, but beautiful holiday. Most people go for walks, hike, plant trees, and generally outside stuff.
A rather new custom is having a seder for it. Seder is basically a ritual meal. It lit. means order, so things go in a certain 'order'. Most people think of Passover when they hear 'seder'. This seder has Kabbalistic roots, which might be out there for some. (It's Jewish mysticism.) I think it makes it even more interesting and philosophical. Each season is represented by a different colored wine. Going from white to red. (If I remember correctly.) People like me who can't have alcohol have white and regular grape juice. We mix them a certain amount for the in between seasons. Each season has a different set of fruit and nuts to eat. We eat a lot of fruit and nuts for it...I think we're supposed to eat at least one fruit or nut we haven't had yet.
My mom led Tu B'Shevat seders for a few years. People loved it. For many people, even though most were Jewish, hadn't heard of this seder. It inspired others to do it with the local congregations, too. I haven't actually been to one in several years. I still have Mom's haggadah (books to follow along with) printouts, and her notes on what type of fruit and nuts to get. The guests we'll have, I think, are colleagues of Dad's. They don't know much about Judaism, so this would be an interesting introduction. They might be interested in the Passover one, too. That's not until the end of March. The Tu B'Shevat seder should be interesting. I'm not sure why I feel excited about it. I do like the seder itself, so maybe that's part of it. Maybe it's also the chance to educate people in a way.
I also decided to start learning German through Duolingo. I haven't really studied my Japanese in a long time, and I think I was tired of it. I love learning languages, and I think I like it most when I switch to different ones at some point.
I started learning Hebrew when I was 7. Didn't do much conversational until a few years later. If there are vowels, I can read it fluently. Might only understand about half of it. It's different without the vowels...
When I was in high school and trying to decide on a language, I was somewhat leaning towards German. Some of my ancestors spoke it. Some also spoke Yiddish, which is a mix of mostly German, Hebrew, and a little of Russian. It's written out in Hebrew. So, it felt like I'd be connecting to my ancestors in some way. However, I'm not sure why, I decided to take French instead. I loved it, but I also felt a little pull to learning German someday. I did well with French, and took every class available for it. I think my teacher was sick of seeing me.
In college, I took Russian. I took it with a somewhat similar mindset as I would have with German. Again, I had other ancestors that spoke Russian, and some of those spoke Yiddish. I liked it a lot, and was doing well. I became very sick, and unfortunately had to drop it. It felt familiar in some way.
I was kind of thinking about starting Korean, but thought why not try what I wanted to first back in high school? I'm surprised at how much I already know. For the most part, it's rather easy so far. I'm finding the somewhat challenging parts are the verb endings, and occasionally getting a little confused by the masculine and feminine nouns. They don't really go over that sort of stuff on Duolingo. It seems they just expect you to memorize the correct way for certain sentences. I might want to look at online sites for that stuff. I'm still doing well on Duolingo with it. I'm even pronouncing it correctly according to them. They quiz you on pronunciation by having you repeat what was said into the mic. I haven't been wrong yet with that. You can do that on the quizzes/practice sessions, as well as just having a conversation with their bots. I haven't chatted with them yet. I also have a German keyboard on my phone now. Maybe in the future I'll go back to Russian.
I've decided to stop with restricting my calories starting tonight. I've felt increasingly nauseated for the last week, and I think it had something to do with it. I might go back to the unbalanced, as far as calories go, meals. I guess my system likes to have fewer calories for breakfast and snacks, and more for dinner. I don't think my system liked having everything so exact, too. So for now, I'm not going to care. I will try to get more protein, at least. I can think of the other nutrition stuff.
I'm almost done with watching the 2nd season of Boku no Hero Academia (My Hero Academia). I've been pleasantly surprised by this series. The creator said that they were heavily inspired by American comics, and you can tell. Especially with the number 1 hero, All Might. Almost everyone in their world has a quirk or special ability. There are quirk users who are mutants, too. Asui is one of them, being part frog. She can basically do anything a frog can, and she's one of the best characters. The main character, Midoriya or Deku, was born without a quirk. He later inherits one. He finally managed to figure out how to control it. It's even cooler now. I like that he actually thinks things through, and is one of the smartest in his class. So many shounen series have the main character not thinking first before acting, or being completely clueless. This one's different. The main villain is interesting, too. He has hands all over him, including one on his face. He has a quirk that can decay things when he touches them. More villains are slowly being introduced. There's going to be another season starting in April. I'd be surprised if they didn't have another one, considering I'm up to the final episode and it still feels like they're setting up the story.
Started Miira no Kaikata (How to Keep a Mummy) today. I didn't know what this one would be like. It was really good. Full of comedy, and the mummy is super cute. I don't feel like things are 'super cute' often. It's like a tiny wrapped up blob with tiny limbs and big white eyes. It often cries rivers of tears, and is painfully shy. Doesn't seem very mummy-like. Besides the wrapping around its body. Sora's father likes sending him weird otherworldly things from his travels. The mummy was one of them. He found it in Egypt, shipped it to his son in a coffin, and gave him a very thick manual of a letter. The mummy broke out of its coffin, and Sora was expecting it to be deadly. Instead he realized that the mummy was pitifully weak, yet really cute. He called it Mii-kun. Mii-kun was mimicking Sora's dog for a while. It learned how to bark, and tried to eat dog food. It really wants to impress Sora and is terrified it'll be sent back. From the intro/outro it seems other people get little 'monsters'.
Started the last season of Gintama. It's bittersweet. This is my fave anime, and possibly show in general. Hopefully, they'll make it long. I think the manga is still going, even though the creator said it was ending soon. So, there's at least a little more time. The first episode was amazing! It actually gave me chills down my spine. Should be interesting to see where the story goes. They also had so many characters appear! Some we haven't seen since the very first few episodes. Still no shinsengumi yet. They should make an appearance soon.
Kino no Tabi (Kino's Travels): The Beautiful World has been good. I don't remember much of the original movie that I saw years ago, but it seems to have a slightly different atmosphere. I do remember that Hermes, a motorcycle, would talk to Kino and no one else could hear him. It made people think Kino had a mental illness or something wasn't quite 'right' with her. In this version people can clearly hear him, and have even kept up conversations with him. Quite a different aspect. People (viewers and even characters) still get confused about her gender. She doesn't 'act' or dress like a girl. She's an extremely good sniper, too. The animation seems better. The stories of the places she goes to are still really twisted. There's always something more to them. Often the countries she goes to turn out to be really violent or have odd views on killing others. The last one I watched was a bit different. The country was once corrupt and rude to travelers. Then, they realized a volcano was going to erupt and wipe out their beloved country, so they changed their attitude. They tried to be the kindest country they could be. Kino liked it there. The next day after she left, the country was destroyed. There was also one where you lose all memories of your time there, but they make sure you have a great stay. That one seemed to make her really frustrated. Especially when Hermes said he was allowed to remember everything, but couldn't tell her.
I've managed to keep up with writing the next sequel to Alliance. I'm surprised at how fast that one's coming along. The cookbook has been interesting so far. Today I wrote out all 6 of the really old Tyson Cornish game hen recipes. There was very small type and it was fading. They sounded really good. I'm tempted to make some of them. One was garlic based, another one was Asian-styled with mandarin oranges, another one was champagne based, etc. Even just the sauces sounded good.
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