Hiroko’s Diary

About a week ago, when my daughter was eating breakfast, she suddenly said to me "I don’t want to go to kindergarten". I was a little bit surprised to hear that because I’d thought that she’d loved to go to kindergarten. Then I asked her the reason. She answered to me "Because I want to be with you all day long." Since that day, she continued to say "I don’t want to kindergarten." I was very perplexed and kept thinking what the best way for her was. I called the kindergarten and talked with the teacher in charge. According to her, my daughter seemed to be fine with her friends and have no trouble there. I noticed that she had big stress at home so I decided not to persuade her to go there unreasonably.

My daughter started to take ballet lessons when she was 3 years old. Though last summer she said she wanted to quit the lessons.I thought that if I made her continue what she didn’t want to do, it wouldn’t be good for her. So she quited ballet lessons. But somehow, she said she wanted to do ballet again 3 months ago. Since then she goes to take ballet lessons on Wendnesday. This time, she seems to love ballet and practices some steps at home, too. Girls in leotards are very cute. I want her to continue as much as possible.

Yesterday, my husband and I visited "Chion-In" temple in Kyoto. My mother came to my house to take care of my children.

It was the first time for us to have a date since I got birth the first child about 6 years ago. We took a train from JR Suita station to Kyoto station using a local line. It took us about 40 minutes. We talked a lot in the train, which is very difficult to do in daily life since my husband works late at night.

"Chion-In" is the head temple of all the "Jodo-syuu" temples in Japan, so there were so many people visiting there. At the temple we prayed and were explained various things about how the temple was built from the historical viewpoint and about the meaning of beautiful Buddhist paintings in the main gate called "Sanmon" in Japanese.

As yesterday was a mother’s day, I bought a flower basket and a cake for my mother at Isetan department store in Kyoto station. I was glad to see my mother seemed to like them. Without her, I had never experienced that beautiful day. I really appreciated her.

Yesterday my son and I went to a rhythmic lesson and the teacher there said to all students that she decided to close the rhythmic class at the end of this month.My son just started to attend the class from last March. He had a good time in each class, playing various musical instruments, singing songs, drawing and so on. He started to be able to do little by little what he hadn’t be able to. So, it was very dissapointing to us.

Today I went to a small park near my house with my son. This is the place I love and we play at often. When we arrived there, some 25 children and a few teachers at a nursery school were playing.

I’ve seen two of those teachers at the nursery school where I used to visit and play when my daughter was a baby. Whenever I see nursery teachers, I think they are very kind. They seem to be very happy playing with kids. For me, nursery or kindergarten teachers and nurse are two of the best professions for women and I really respect those people.

My sister in law is a nurse and used to be a nursery teacher. She has three children and lives with my husband’s parents. She is a good cook, too. She gets up at 5:30 in the morning and prepares the breakfast for her family. She changed her job after she got birth the third baby. While she had been rearing three children, she went to a nurses’ school. I asked her why she changed the job. She answerd that as a nursery teacher she had been very satisfied because she loved children but she thoutht that it would be needed as a nurse in the near future because of the longevity society and the low birth rate of today. I like her very much and I learn a lot from her.

It’s difficult to talk about religion. What I mean ‘difficult’ here is that people don’t talk about religion in everyday life especially in Japan, therfore it’s difficult to talk about it with my friends or even family members. I think quite a few Japanese people don’t have any religion that they really believe in.

I was one of them. But as I wrote the prior article in my blog, since I experienced the very valuable worship in "Jodosyuu" and learned about the profound religious thinking, I now started to study about Buddhism more thoroughly.

As I study English at church once a week, I learn about Christianity and I’m interested in learning about it. As a matter of fact, I have been interested in Christianity since I studied English literature at University. I knew that I couldn’t study English literature without knowing about Christianity. But unfortunately, that religion was above my head at that time and had been so until recently.

Fortunately, I’ve got a chance to study about the two religions. There are so many things that I don’t know. It means that there are so many things that I can study from now on. I’m very happy about that.

From May 3rd to 7th, My husband and I participated in a Buddhist worship seminar. My family believes in "Jodosyuu", one of the Buddhism denominations.To tell the truth, before I participated in this worship seminar, I wasn’t sure whether I was a Buddhist or not. But after having studied various things about Buddhism this time, I’m confident that I’m a Buddist. It was a hard work but at the same time or more than that, my heart had been filled with peace. It really was a good experience to me.