The Last Samurai (29 page)

After we had thoroughly mastered our characters I asked Sibylla where she met my father. Apparently Sibylla met my father at a party. Everyone at the party wanted to talk to him but he decided to talk to Sibylla and when she decided to leave the party he decided to leave too.

Sibylla picked
DAI TAI (big)/
ō
/(big) and she wanted me to pick
TAI huge/futo(i) (thick) because it would be easy to remember.

I picked

JI (imperial seal). I said if I could have

JI (that) she could have
but she said we could do them tomorrow.

After breakfast I started going through Sugata Sanshiro. I coloured in Sugata Sanshiro wherever it appeared and also the characters for judo and jujitsu in the second half of the book. The ones I picked have not come up yet.

Today I asked Sibylla about my father but she said she did not want to talk about it. I said at least tell me his first name but she said No. I said she could just tell me the letter it starts with but she said No.

TAI huge/futo(i) (thick)

JI (that)

Today Sibylla picked
SUI (water)/mizu (water). This time she wanted me to pick
HY
Ō
(ice)/k
ō
ri (ice)/hi (ice)/k
ō
(ru) (freeze)(!). I said I thought that was boring because it was almost exactly like mizu and Sibylla said that was the whole point. I said if she wanted to pick boring characters she could but I was picking

S
Ō
(algae, seaweed; elegant expression, rhetorical flourish)/mo (algae, duckweed, seaweed)

I said I would learn
if we could also learn

KEN (cocoon)/mayu (cocoon)

HY
Ō
(ice)/k
ō
ri (ice)/hi (ice)/k
ō
(ru) (freeze)