shinobu
i have this little piece of calligraphy standing on my desk, given to me more than ten years ago by a schoolteacher in japan. it is just one word – 忍, or the verb, shinobu. the word means the same as what it does in chinese – to endure.
my life is not quite so awful that i have to bear this mandate in mind from day to day, hour to hour. it is just a beautiful kanji to me, full of strength and spirit. if you didn’t know, 忍者, or ninja, quite literally means “one who endures.”
but i wasn’t going to go into a full dissertation on the origin of japanese words. i just remembered the word as i sat here, edgy and restless, thinking about the scholarship results. so desperate was i for news (any news), i started reading through long, endless forums on the scholarship. it turns out that some of the applicants in previous years were given the final ok only in february – less than two months before they were due to depart! february! how can i bear it? oh how can i bear it??
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