I Have a Blog?

Yeah, so it's been quit a while since I last wrote anything here. I've been pretty darn busy, so I don't feel too bad...I guess.

Anyway, things are cool. We haven't really had any troubles or misfortunes thankfully. I'm working on getting a scholarship that will pay for my tuition this semester. I spent hours filling in forms for Rie's return visa that she is required to apply for to be able to enter the United States. That became necessary because of a series of unfortunate circumstances which were kind of out of our control, because we were ignorant of them. But, I got everything filled out and all the required "evidence" organized and copied and sent everything of too the embassy yesterday. With any luck all will go smoothly.
Sara just keeps getting bigger and bigger…which I guess is what babies usually do considering they are small and growing. I don't really have any fantastic news or anything like that. She just keeps learning new things all the time and loves to drive her mom crazy. I've got some pictures of her in her class she goes to once a week, and doing some other stuff. There is also a picture of her eating strawberries, which she loves.



 
One thing that I got to do that was out of the old ordinary humdrum, was go to the temple (the LDS temple, not a Buddhist one) in Tokyo. It was my first time in Tokyo and my first time in a temple outside of the U.S. Interesting and enlightening experience, more so than usual. Yes I know that is not a complete sentence, sorry. Members of the ward and I drove there in a rented van starting at about 21:00 on Friday and got there at 5:00ish Saturday. They have places to take showers, change, clean up and things in a building next to the temple, so we all freshened up a bit before we went inside. We finished at about 14:00 and headed home right away. We got back to Kyoto at about 21:00. So it was a weird but fulfilling 24 hours.
Anyway, peace to y'all and check out my new blog that I'm starting up again and hopefully can carry through this time. A link is in the sidebar on the right. Some people may like it, some people may not. Tell me what you think.
See ya!

Uuuuhh, Yeah

Wow, once again it has been a real long time since I last posted anything on my weblog.
I've been pretty busy, what with the end of the semester and all that came along with that. I had of course some final exams, but I also had several reports to write in Japanese. In my classes that are Japanese language classes, I had finals in all except for one, my written expression class in which I had to write a report. I had five reports all together. One I wrote about cultural misunderstand, one about the significance of Noh Theater in modern Japan, one about the Shinto concept of kachofugetsu and satoyama and how they relate to certain Christian beliefs, another about metal casting of Buddhist images, and another about why people read books. This was all in Japanese, so you can imagine I had a busy January. But it was kind of fun too.
On the family front, everything is going well at the moment. We had a more than a few rough times over the past few months with different things, but I think we got it figured out now and are going along comparatively smoothly. Sara is getting bigger and bigger all the time it seems. She's become very good at copying things that other people do. She sees her mom and grandma always telling the dog to be quiet, so every time she sees the dog, she puts her finger to her lips and says "sssshhhh." You can tell she is getting older in the way that she thinks about things and handles certain situations. It's funny, because she loves Japanese food, like rice, fish, nori, and stuff like that. Apparently Rie was the same way when she was little. She also loves French fries from McDonalds as most kids do, though we try not to give that kind of stuff to her too much.
I wish I had something cool to write about, but we don't really do that interesting of stuff. Here are some pictures and a couple of videos of Sara doing cute things, maybe those will be interesting.

Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow

Wow, it has been forever since I last posted anything here, anything about the family anyway. I’ve been so busy with school and things I just haven’t had a chance, but here I am now. The two weeks before Thanksgiving I had a test pretty much every day in my Japanese classes. I also had to prepare a presentation for one of my “Oral Expressions” (can’t think of what to call it, that is a pretty direct translation) classes. Plus I am preparing for a debate in the other one. I also was studying furiously for the Japanese Language Proficiency Test. Like crazy man I went right for the highest ranking. Anyway after Thanksgiving I gave my presentation and took the JLPT. The presentation went well. Not so sure about the JLPT. I can’t say I did poorly, but I can’t say that I passed either. I have to wait until February for the results. But still, I feel a little better now that I don’t have that test looming over me anymore. It’s over and done with whatever the result.


Rie and Sara are both doing well. Sara is still a stinker. She understands extremely well when you talk to her, and she garbles unintelligible answers and stuff back to you, especially when you tell her not to do something. She already knows how talk back. She loves to walk and play hide and seek (even though there aren’t that many places to hide in a Japanese house). We’ve been putting things we don’t want her to touch on the table or somewhere she can’t reach, but the other day she discovered that she can use this little chair that Rie’s mom has a decoration (but Sara likes to sit on it) as a stepping stool to reach higher. She dragged it over to a table and was trying to get the stuff on top of it. I took her down and put the chair on the other side of the room in a corner, but a few minutes later she comes back over carrying the chair, puts it down, and climbs up on it again. I was watching her do the whole thing, but she didn’t care. She just smiled at me and did it anyway. We love her.

I finally signed up for Flickr. So I'll be putting slideshows on here now if all goes well. The first is of pictures of Sara I uploaded. The second is of the evening light up that they have at many of the temples and shrines here in Kyoto. They have it during the momiji season, or when the leaves change color for fall. Enjoy!

Peace!



 

What Now Foo?!

This doesn't really have anything to do with anything at all, but I was doing research for a debate in one of my classes and found this site. The debate is about whether or not they should make English education compulsory in elementary schools in Japan. I'm on the supporting side and thought I could use American schools' teaching of Spanish as an example of the affectiveness of teaching elementary students foreign languages. Anyway, this site is from The American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages and has tons of research that suppports the teaching of languages to children.

Hurray!

http://www.actfl.org/i4a/pages/index.cfm?pageid=4524#academic_achievement

Where Are You Going My Little One, Little One

Well, the time has come.

Yes, Sara is all about walking these days. She's spent the last couple of weeks really going at it. She finally decided to let go of things and walk around all on her own. It's funny, because she is so careful about it. She takes one step at a time and if she loses her balance a little it she'll stop until she get it back. It's like if she falls it would be the end of the world. When she walks of her own choice, she never falls, but if we try and make her walk she get upset and sometimes falls on her behind. There's been a few face plants and other incedents that come along with active babies, but everything is going well.

We got some pictures:

I think she looks older than one year in this picture

Not too happy about having to stand when she doesn't want too

Here's Sara and I going for a walk.

The next pictures from when we went to play in the park.

The Wheels on the Bus Go Round and Round...

Well I wasn’t able to take any pictures at the Noh stage. It was pretty cool though. I’ve seen a Noh stage through pictures and video in some of the classes I took at ASU, but it is different when you get to see a real one. I think the stage belongs to my professor’s family since it is the Kawamura Noh Stage and his name is Kawamura. He said it was built in the same year that he was born, back in the 1960’s. He explained all sorts of things to us, like the construction of the stage, the positions of the different performers, where they rehearse, how they make props, and all kinds of other stuff. Him and a younger guy who comes with him to class (I think he’s an apprentice or something) performed a part of a play about Yoshitsune, a important figure in Japanese history. It’s interesting, because they don’t use hardly any props at all and the one’s they do use are very simple. So, when Yoshitsune is supposed to be fighting, the fan that the performer is holding becomes a shield, sword, or anything else. The professor explained the movements and stuff to us before he actually performed it, which helped a lot as it can be hard to tell what’s going on if you know nothing about Noh.


Anyway, so that was cool, but Rie and I got some good pictures of Sachi.

Ignore the stupid expression on my face…. Sara rode a bike for the first time a couple of weeks ago. That time it was just with me, but as you can see, when we are riding she can’t see me. She was a little scared I think and held tightly to my hand. The next time we went, Rie came with us and rode in front so that Sara could see her. We kept laughing and smiling for her so she would feel like it was a fun thing and she soon decided she liked it. The picture was taken when I took Sara around for a ride just to get out of the house. Here’s another:

She really didn’t like the helmet at first either, but she got used to it too and doesn’t complain when we stick it on anymore.

I’m sure no one wants to see this, but this came out of Sara ear. That’s some nasty wax.

Here’s the desk and chair that Rie’s parents bought for me, a little cluttered. In the container on the right I keep my little electronic stuff. I bought that when I got here. I bought the lamp too, but everything else was Rie’s stuff that her parents hadn’t got rid of yet. As you can see, Sara has a bunch of toys that her Obaachan(grandma) bought for her under my desk and the printer.

He’s the poor baby’s first mosquito bites. She got two at the same time. They weren’t the last though; all three of us got a bunch when we first came. The mosquitoes like fresh blood, I guess.

Peace!

Classes Are Underway

Well, I made it through the first week of classes. It was long, but interesting. I really am enjoying the two classes I have every morning. They are my actual Japanese language classes. After that I have different culture and literature classes.

Two of the classes that I am taking are actual elective courses that any student at the university can take. In other words, there are Japanese students in there as well. Needless to say, that means the Japanese spoken in that class is at full speed, without any brakes to make sure everyone understands what's being said. I do fine, but it takes some concentration to listen to a lecture for 90 minutes when you got new words flying around like crazy with all kinds of characters being written on the board and whatnot. It's interesting though.

I'll explain my classes in another post, I'm too tired right now. Plus, tomorrow I get to go see something cool for one of my classes. If I get to take pictures I'll be sure to post them.

On a family note, Sara finally decided she was going to give standing a taking a few steps (without holding on to anything, which she has been doing for a while) a try. She stands up without using anything to help her, balances for a minute, waiting for you to clap your hands and tell her she did a good job. She claps her hands too and then sits back down. Today she also took four or five steps from Daddy to Mommy all by herself. Mommy and Daddy are doing well too.

Also, Rie's Mom's friend referred me for a job at the supermarket where she works. I was introduced to the GM and filled out an aplication and stuff. If all goes well I might have a job by the end of the month. I'd work in the deli (a Japanese deli is a little different) cleaning and helping with some cooking on occasion. It's a start!

Remember: Joy to the world, all the boys and girls. Joy to the fishes in the deep blue sea. Joy to you and me!
Peace!

P.S. Check out my new weblog. It'll get bigger as a get a chance to post.