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6df8962
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I don't give a shit about pretty," I informed her. "I'm a superhero. Superheroes don't need pretty."
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Ruth Ozeki |
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11cec23
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this is what temporial stuttering FEELS LIKE like a stut stut STUTTERY RUSHING FORWARD in TIME WITHOUT a MOMENT OR an INSTANT TO DISTINGUISH ONE INSTANCE from THE next GROWING EVER LOUDER AND LOUDER WITHOUT PUNCTUATION until SUDDENLY WITHOUT WARNING IT stops.
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Ruth Ozeki |
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b4c3b38
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When I stand on the edge of a tall place I feel like I'm on the edge of time, peering into forever. The question 'What if...?' rises up in my mind, and it's exciting because I know that in the next instant, in less time than it takes to snap my fingers, I could fly into eternity.
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Ruth Ozeki |
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9ac9d43
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Are you a male or a female or somewhere in between?
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Ruth Ozeki |
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014006d
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Everything seemed to grow blacker as I sat there, except for the fireflies whose tiny pulsing lights drew arcs through the dark summer air. On off . . . on off . . . on off . . . on off. The longer I stared, the dizzier I got, until I felt as if the world was tipping and pitching me forward down the mountainside into the long throat of the night.
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Ruth Ozeki |
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be9918b
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How much can you really trust the promise of a suicidal farther?
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suicide
promise
sad
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Ruth Ozeki |
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901d631
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Se voce comecar a estalar os dedos agora e estala-los 98.463.077 vezes sem parar, o sol ira subir e se por, e o ceu ficara escuro e a noite vai avancar, e todos estarao dormindo enquanto voce continuar estalando os dedos ate que, finalmente, um pouco depois do amanhecer, depois de contar o seu 98.463.077o estalar de dedos, voce vai experimentar a sensacao verdadeiramente intima de estar consciente e saber exatamente como passou cada momento..
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plenitude
tempo
vida
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Ruth Ozeki |
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0ed46d8
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Shiki fu i ku, ku fu i shiki.70
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Ruth Ozeki |
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610abf8
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gate gate, para gate, parasam gate, boji sowa ka . . . These words are actually in some ancient Indian language71 and not even Japanese, but Jiko told me they means something like this: gone gone, gone beyond, gone completely beyond, awakened, hurray . . . I
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Ruth Ozeki |
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f5d4e55
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soaking them in buckets of seawater, to which she'd add a handful of cornmeal and a rusty nail. She'd agitate the water several times a day, and change the water after twelve hours.
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Ruth Ozeki |
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f3fe2b5
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Main Street is dead, which is no news to the families whose families ran family businesses on Main Street. When I returned...I found that all the local businesses from my childhood had been extirpated by Wal-Mart. If there is one single symbol for the demise of regional American culture, it is this superstore prototype, a huge capitalist boot that stomped the moms and pops, like soft, damp worms, to death. Don't get me wrong. I love Wal-Mar..
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homogenization
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Ruth Ozeki |
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c9b0516
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When I wash my feet May all sentient beings Attain the power of supernatural feet With no hindrance to their practice. Of
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Ruth Ozeki |
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353bfe4
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So when we left the apartment, it was this doomed unreal feeling I remember more than anything else, like we were bad actors in terrible costumes in a play that was guaranteed to tank, but we had to go out on stage anyhow. The
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Ruth Ozeki |
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48839bb
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But maybe that was the trick--to accept the responsibility and forgo the control? To love without expectation? A paradox for sure, but such a relief.
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Ruth Ozeki |
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b37995d
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but by spring, she had again yielded to the tug and tide of his mind, allowing its currents to carry her back across the continent and wash them up on the remote shores of his evergreen island..
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Ruth Ozeki |
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3adeb45
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She told me it's called the Maka Hanya Haramita Shingyo,69 which means something like the Great Most Excellent Wisdom Heart Sutra. The only part I remember goes like this: Shiki fu i ku, ku fu i shiki.70 It's pretty abstract. Old Jiko tried to explain it to me, and I don't know if I understood it correctly or not, but I think it means that nothing in the world is solid or real, because nothing is permanent, and all things--including trees a..
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Ruth Ozeki |
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e889e7c
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schools while their dads are on company assignments, and then have to catch up with their Japanese grade level when their dads get transferred back. Only my dad wasn't on a company assignment, and he wasn't getting transferred
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Ruth Ozeki |
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a51a7a9
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Jinsei no Itami,
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Ruth Ozeki |
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d2680aa
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Together we'll make magic... Who had conjured whom? She seemed to remember Oliver suggesting this once before, but she hadn't really appreciated the importance of his question. Was she the dream? Was Nao the one writing her into being? Agency is a tricky business, Muriel had said. Ruth had always felt substantial enough, but maybe she wasn't. Maybe she was as absent as her name indicated, a homeless and ghostly composite of words that the g..
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philosophy
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Ruth Ozeki |
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437b0b2
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Priiatno mi beshe da s'm po-polezna ot edin bastun.
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Ruth Ozeki |
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2c73c0d
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It's okay to have impossible goals, because if you follow your unreachable star no matter how hopeless or far, your heart will be peaceful when you're dead, even though you might be scorned and covered with scars like I am while you're still alive.
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Ruth Ozeki |
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e8a29da
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memories are time beings,
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Ruth Ozeki |
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5f31241
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she approached her memoir with a renewed sense of resolve. A rapprochement was what was needed. An unfinished book, left unattended, turns feral, and she would need all her focus, will, and ruthless determination to tame it again. She kicked the cat off her chair,
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Ruth Ozeki |
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2a61eac
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This diary will tell the real life story of my great-grandmother Yasutani Jiko. She was a nun and a novelist and New Woman7 of the Taisho era.8 She was also an anarchist and a feminist who had plenty of lovers, both males and females, but she was never kinky or nasty. And even though I may end up mentioning some of her love affairs, everything I write will be historically true and empowering to women, and not a lot of foolish geisha crap. S..
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Ruth Ozeki |
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d47055e
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2:58:36 And maybe here's a bit of insight: My face is and isn't me. It's a nice face. It has lots of people in it. My parents, my grandparents, and their grandparents, all the way back through time and countless generations to my earliest ancestors--all those iterations are here in my face, along with all the people who've ever looked at me. And the light and shadows are here, too, the joys, anxieties, griefs, vanities, and laughter. The su..
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Ruth Ozeki |
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10c1a64
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The eternal now," he said. "She wanted to catch it, remember? To pin it down. That was the point." "Of writing?" "Or suicide."
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Ruth Ozeki |
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9d644f7
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There used to be a middle way, too, when her attention was focused but vast, and time felt like a limpid pool, ringed by sunlit ferns. An underground spring fed the pool from deep below, creating a gentle current of words that bubbled up, while on the surface, breezes shimmered and played.
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Ruth Ozeki |
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aa9d721
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Maketa," I said, throwing myself down in the sand. "I lost. The ocean won." She smiled. "Was it a good feeling?" "Mm," I said. "That's good," she said. "Have another rice ball?"
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ocean
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Ruth Ozeki |
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b887db1
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Mozhe bi t'rsish prekaleno us'rdno...
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Ruth Ozeki |
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21e0bac
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Mozhekh dori da go popitam dali samo depresiranite khora se interesuvat ot filosofiia i dali cheteneto na filosofski knigi pomaga.
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Ruth Ozeki |
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1627e9e
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Ne znam dali niakoga si udrial baraban, no ako ne si, na vsiaka tsena triabva da opitash, zashchoto p'rvo, mnogo e priiatno da udriash s vse sila, i vtoro, zvuk't e neveroiaten.
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Ruth Ozeki |
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814239f
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It also felt like home, and she wasn't sure she liked it.
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Ruth Ozeki |
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8fb1d88
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We're by-products of the mid-twentieth century", Oliver said. "Who isn't?" --
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past
identity
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Ruth Ozeki |
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0757d45
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Patience was part of his nature, and he accepted his lot as a short-lived mammal, scurrying in and out amid the roots of the giants.
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mortality
life
temporality
impermanence
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Ruth Ozeki |
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2c560b5
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Death is certain. Life is always changing, like a puff of wind in the air, or a wave in the sea, or even a thought in the mind.
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life
uncertainty
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Ruth Ozeki |
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3a54e7a
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memories are time beings, too, like cherry blossoms or ginkgo leaves; for a while they are beautiful, and then they fade and die.
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Ruth Ozeki |
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367071d
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Maybe this is a good time to describe how old Jiko looks, because actually I was totally shocked that first day in the bath. You have to remember that she is a hundred and four years old, and if you've never hung out with an extremely old person before, well, I'm telling you, it's intense. What I mean is that even though they still have arms and legs and tits and crotches like other human beings, extremely old people look more like aliens o..
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Ruth Ozeki |
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a2dc666
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Glubinnye pobuzhdeniia Vselennoi pozvolili moei zhizni dlit'sia, za chto ia gluboko i smirenno blagodarna.
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Ruth Ozeki |
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53bcdef
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Dziko Iasutani, monakhinia dzen, skazala mne kak-to vo sne, chto nel'zia poniat', chto znachit zhit' na etoi zemle, poka ne poimesh', chto takoe vremennoe sushchestvo, a poniat', chto takoe vremennoe sushchestvo, mozhno, esli poniat', chto takoe moment. Vo sne ia sprosila ee: Potom ia reshila proverit', i okazalos', chto imenno eto chislo nazyvaet uchitel' Dogen v svoem glavnom trude -- <> (<
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life
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Ruth Ozeki |
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44b8786
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39]
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life
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Ruth Ozeki |
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a564b72
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Imenno v etoi glave on khvalit molodykh monakhov za uporstvo na puti k probuzhdeniiu i ob'iasniaet granuliarnuiu prirodu vremeni: 6 400 099 980 momentov sostavliaiut odin den'. Tsel' ego rassuzhdenii -- pokazat', chto kazhdyi iz etikh momentov daet vozmozhnost' dlia voleiz'iavleniia. Dazhe shchelchok pal'tsami, govorit on, predostavliaet nam shest'desiat shest' vozmozhnostei dlia probuzhdeniia i vybora deistvii, kotorye sozdadut nam blagopr..
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life
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Ruth Ozeki |
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d08e462
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I am more grateful now than ever for the way you raised us, teaching us the value of kindness, of education, of independent thinking and liberal ideals, in the face of the fascism that is sweeping our country.
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Ruth Ozeki |
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cf57ab3
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In your diary, you quoted old Jiko saying something about not-knowing, how not-knowing is the most intimate way, or did I just dream that? Anyway, I've been thinking about this a lot, and I think maybe it's true, even though I don't really like uncertainty. I'd much rather 'know', but then again, not-knowing keeps all the possibilities open. It keeps all the worlds alive.
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life
not-knowing
possibilities
uncertainty
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Ruth Ozeki |
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86d0617
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V svoem dnevnike ty tsitiruesh' vyskazyvanie Dziko -- chto-to naschet neznaniia, vrode neznanie sblizhaet liudei sil'nee, chem chto by to ni bylo eshche, ili mne eto prosto prisnilos'? V obshchem, ia mnogo ob etom dumala, i mne kazhetsia, tak ono i est', khotia, v printsipe, ia ne liubitel' neopredelennosti. Ia by predpochla znat', no opiat' zhe, neznanie ostavliaet vse vozmozhnosti otkrytymi. Ostavliaet v zhivykh vse miry.
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Ruth Ozeki |