IQ

IQ

Hidemi WoodsLeave a comment
Photo by Monstera on Pexels.com

Where I grew up wasn’t a good neighborhood. To my mother, seeing her child go to a public junior high school was out of the question. To get in a privileged private junior high, she made me go to a supplementary private school after the classes of elementary school. But even to get in the supplementary school, there was an entrance examination because it was for selective kids.

　As the public elementary school I attended was low at the educational level, my score of the exam was bad although I was the smartest at school. But the exam included an IQ test, which I had never taken before. In a three-way interview between the examiner, my mother and me after the exam, the examiner told us that he had never seen this high IQ. I was supposed to fail the exam due to the low marks, but they let me pass as an exception considering my high IQ.

　Since then, I’ve relied on my IQ for my life. My IQ is the only source of my confidence in my pathetic life but it’s the reason of my suffering as well. I’ve been unable to accept each and every failure of mine because I don’t understand why my high IQ couldn’t avoid it. Why do I fail in so many things? Why am I unsuccessful? Will I end my life without making use of my IQ?

　My partner compares me to a Formula One car. Although it runs faster than any other cars on a circuit, it’s completely useless on a regular street. I’m looking for a circuit for me but unfortunately, roads in the real world are all rugged with various obstacles…

Episode From An Old Tree in Kyoto /Hodemi Woods

Audiobook 1 : Japanese Dream by Hidemi Woods On Sale at online stores or apps. 
Audiobook 2 : My Social Distancing and Naked Spa in Japan by Hidemi Woods On Sale at online stores or apps. 
Apple Books, Audible, Google Play, Nook Audiobooks,  43 available distributors in total. 

Podcast: my first ever appearance

Hidemi WoodsLeave a comment
Episode from My School Days in Kyoto: A Japanese Girl Found Her Own Way  by Hidemi Woods 
 
Audiobook 1 : Japanese Dream by Hidemi Woods On Sale at online stores or apps. 
Audiobook 2 : My Social Distancing and Naked Spa in Japan by Hidemi Woods On Sale at online stores or apps. 
Apple Books, Audible, Google Play, Nook Audiobooks,  43 available distributors in total. 
 
 
As the school play of the drama club approached, I had prepared for my first role vigorously. Once I remembered all the lines, acting itself actually felt much easier than the backstage work I had done for three years.
The difficult part was timing for some action. In one scene, I threw a bowl at the heroine but she had to show her back to me when it happened. I sat with my back to her and couldn’t see her positions. We made the sound of her knees tapping the stage floor a signal that she had turned her back to me. Because the sound was so subtle, I was afraid of missing it.
Near the end of the play, an evil stepmother, who was played by me, killed a heroine with a poker. It was a custom of the club that the club members would visit a shrine together to pray for safety before the play if it had a murder scene. We did that after school, with me standing right in front of the altar because I was the murderer. Now, I had everything ready for my first play, and the day had come.
Since it was a Japanese period play, I had borrowed kimono from my grandmother as my costume. My role was an old woman and I drew lines on my face and sprinkled talcum powder over my hair. While I was waiting for the play to start in the wings, I got tensed up and my hands began to tremble. There’s an old trick in Japanese show business, that tracing a Chinese character that means ‘human’ on a palm with a finger three times and pretending to swallow it removes tension when you’re nervous. I threw myself on the trick but it didn’t work at all. Suddenly I lost self-confidence and told one of the juniors that I was so nervous. Although she would also appear in the play as a bit part, she was surprisingly calm. She suggested the trick placidly and said that she couldn’t help me because she had never been nervous in her entire life. As I doubted if she was a human being, the play started.
Following a heroine’s monologue, the curtain was raised and I was standing in the center of the stage. The unexpected happened: before I uttered a word, the hall got engulfed in an explosion of laughter. The audience burst out laughing at the scene in which a stumpy girl was standing with old makeup. Although the play was a serious drama, my first ever appearance was laughed away…