00:04
英語聞き流し10分間名作リスニング。英語テキストと mp3ダウンロード、その他の物語はホームページよりご利用いただけます。
88thpp.com
I thought a farming family was regarded as poorand unsophisticated in this school, and tried tohide the fact that I came from one as much as Icould.
Every time I submitted the paper on which theparents' occupation should be stated, I put mythumb right on the word farming so that otherstudents didn't see it.
There was a famous long-standing chain of high-endchestnut snack stores in the city which chain namewas the same as my last name, and one day, astudent casually said to me,
Your family owns the chain doesn't it? While thechain and I happen to share the same name, weactually had no relation. But she sounded so sureas if everyone believed so.
It was three years since I had entered the schooland my concealing operation might have worked. Itwas possible that no one besides my close friendsknew I came from a farming family.
I felt confident I looked cool and sophisticatedenough for them to think I came from that wealthyfamily.
Hoping their misunderstanding would last, I didn'tdeny strongly and gave her an ambiguous reply.
When I told my mother about it at home, she wasvery pleased and instructed me to keep thembelieving that way.
I was walking toward the bus stop with my closefriend after school one afternoon. When I crackedher up with my jokes and moves as usual, she saidlaughing, you look like a peasant.
And the next moment, she gasped and added, I'msorry. I wouldn't have cared if she had keptlaughing, but her serious apology offended me.
She remembered I was a farmer's daughter andthought her comment was inappropriate. I realizedreference to a farming business required anapology, which meant she looked down on it.
By the time I was a senior, I had grown weary ofbeing a class clown just to be popular. I hadtried everything to be cool but become doubtful ifit was right to act someone else who wasn't realme.
For seniors, the teacher asked attendance to atable manners class at a gorgeous restaurant oneby one.
Since some students were busy preparing for theentrance examination of universities and colleges,they were allowed to opt out of the class.
I was one of them and when my classmate behind meheard me answer not coming, she started giggling.
Then she said to me, even though your family is afarmer, you'd better learn table manners.
The girl next to her was also giggling and said,that's what we shouldn't tell her.
03:00
It was a wake up call. All those years everybodyhad known my family was a farmer and laughed at meinside while I pretended to be cool.
What I had been doing so hard for years wasnothing. Since that day, I stopped acting a classclown and returned to my true quiet self.
A couple of days later, in a class journal thatall students would read, I wrote, I'm a farmer'sdaughter.
Yet, I have been to a high class restaurant, and Ido know table manners.
There is a lake a few miles away from my newapartment, and I decided to go there for the firsttime.
The local bus to the lake was surprisingly old-fashioned and worn out.
It jolted along a mountain road, ascending higherand higher.
The lake lay at the foot of the mountain,surrounded by the fresh green woods.
Although I had expected it to be a popularrecreation place for locals, it was quite lonelyand quiet with only a couple of small spots to eatand shop.
One of them was an Italian restaurant, and I hadan expensive lunch there as a sole customer.
The directory showed that there was a walk aroundthe lake and I tried it.
It got steeper and rougher as I walked on, as if Iwas climbing a mountain.
The walk looked exactly like the one in myrecurring nightmare in which I walked along anever-steepening path and ended up tumbling downthe slope every time.
I crawled along the walk on all fours so as not totumble down.
Fighting off a fear of heights, I finally got to asuspension bridge over the lake, and the view ofthe lake from there was breathtaking.
On my way home, I mistook the road for the busstop, and walked all the way home.
It took 90 minutes and I was dead on my feet.
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After the incident of table manners, I had closedthe business of being a class clown at school.
I had stopped making others laugh and hadn'taccommodated their requests for jokes anymore.
It yielded an immediate effect.
I used to be the center of a circle of studentsbut they were dispersed from me at an amazingspeed.
It was in my senior year and the class was dividedaccording to the course the students had taken.
06:04
In the group of my close friends, I was the onlyone who took the science and mathematics coursewhile the others took the humanities, which led meseparated from them in the homeroom class.
Coupled with this situation, I became a lonerwithin a month.
It wasn't so hard for me, though.
After all, it was just I got back to my old daysin kindergarten when I hardly spoke to anyone.
But a difficulty arose when the school held anassembly.
To gather at the hall, the teacher made us to forminto a line in pairs at the hallway.
The students made a pair with each friend andwaited chattering and yapping merrily.
I had no one to make a pair and was standing alonesilently at the tail of the line.
A mere one month ago, they would scramble for meto make a pair.
I realized how easy it was to become unpopular andhow much time and energy I had wasted so foolishlyfor superficial friendship, thinking back to mylongtime effort to become popular at school.
Although I was willing to be unpopular again, Icouldn't help feeling empty.
I tasted bitter loneliness when I saw a girlwalking toward me from the head of the line.
She stopped in front of me and said,
Would you like to go with me if you're alone?
She was the smartest girl at school who wassomewhat shunned by other students because she wastoo earnest.
I had known she was a big fan of my favorite bandand I had once bought a sticker sheet of the bandfor her before.
She had been so grateful for that and brought meall her albums of the band to let me make copies.
Besides those occasions, we had barely talked eachother.
And now, she broke my loneliness completely.
While we were walking to the hall side by side,she gleefully said she couldn't believe I wasstanding alone without a friend so that she made apair with me.
As for me, I couldn't believe the smartest girlsounded as if she looked up to me.
Since then, we became best friends.
She had everything I didn't have.
She came from a rich family.
Her parents were both doctors and especially herfather was a renowned doctor in the medicalsociety.
She was smart, nice, sincere and courteous toeveryone, even to a bus driver.
Compared to her graceful attitude, I looked stupidwith a typical rebellious teenage behavior.
I understood being cool means a person like her.
Still, she always kept admiring me, even respectedme for some reason.
We shared passion for our favorite band and forstudy as she was applying to a medical school andI was to the most famed university in the city.
As I was influenced by her attitude, I noticed shecured my wickedness.
She totally accepted my true self and was evenmaking me a better person.
I wanted to be like her, but soon I would betaught the hard way that I could never be.
09:00
A month has passed since I moved in my newapartment.
Although I've been vigorously unpacking, cardboardboxes have still occupied more than half theliving room.
My handmade soundproof wall has been completedonly on one side of the walls in my bedroom-slash-studio that borders on the next door.
The positions of my furniture and instruments havebeen roughly decided for my studio.
My old apartment was built on a light steelframework and had very thin walls.
I was disturbed by all kinds of noise, rain, wind,cars, kids, neighbors, crows, helicopters, youname it.
As my new apartment is built with reinforcedconcrete, it was supposed to be a lot quieter.
It actually was, but wasn't as much as I hadexpected.
Unknown clanging noise coming from some pipe wokeme up for several times, or I heard footsteps formthe room above or below.
I had probably overestimated reinforced concrete.
I know I should be content with much quietersurroundings here, but thinking about having gonethrough that hard and long process of the move,
I want the kind of silence that I had imagined asa reward.
I've been telling myself that it may get betterwhen the whole soundproofing is done.
Also, I shouldn't forget that there's no suchthing as 100% satisfaction in this world afterall.
Audiobooks by Hitomi Woods
First audiobook, Japanese Dream by Hitomi Woods onsale at online stores or apps.
Second audiobook, My Social Distancing in NakedSpa in Japan by Hitomi Woods on sale at onlinestores or apps.
Apple Books, Audible, Google Play, Nook Audiobooks, 43 available distributors in total.
英語聞き流し10分間、名作リスニング、英語テキストとMP3ダウンロード、その他の物語はホームページよりご利用いただけます。
88thpp.com
