i heart hokkaido

over the last couple of days, have stayed up till 3am, talking to a friend who was staying with me,
(We had so much to say.)
was almost killed/blinded by the mother of all espresso pots which decided to explode,
juggled swarms of small people, research seminars and work.
So,
today i felt rather scratchy. Extreme lack of sleep and overload of everything.
However , at the University,
one of my students came very early.
She has a mother dying of cancer, and is nursing her as she passes away. She sleeps by her side.This week she expects her mother to leave this earth, I imagine she is waiting for her eldest son to arrive from overseas.
I have made allowance for her life as carer, and am expecting no work from her. For over an hour, she sat with me talking it out.
So overwhelming.
She has dropped all her other classes.
During this conversation, it emerged that not only was my class the only one she was still doing, but that I was the only person she had spoken to outside of the hospital. In fact, she hadnt left it for a week until today. She asked her sister to mind her mum.
Astonished, I told her she could have stayed there, and she said,"oh NO, I havent missed one single class, and its the only thing I really love, just for me, right now."

Possessed with some amazing spirit, she then cranked out the most extraordinary canvas of her and her mother, in about 3 hours. Truly amazing.

How honoured I felt.

Later,one of my Japanese architecture students brought me CDs of pictures. Snow, ice and Japan.
We both LOVE snow. She exhorts me to go to Japan every week, not that I need any convincing.
She says I would love Sapporo.



This world is filled with some wonderful people.
I am fortunate, it seems, in knowing quite a few of them.