Going to the World Series

RED SOX did it ...

Aya watched intently as Matsuzaka pitched and then Okajima pitched and the game was saved from a near certain loss by Papelbon save in Game 7!!

Just had to add that into the Blog somehow, as I will update the happenings in a bit.

Just showed Aya that she came to Massachusetts at a good time; Boston Red Sox came back after down 3 to 1 in the series and the New England Patriots are cleaning house in the Football department, not to mention the High School Aya attends has an undefeated Football Team...

Will post more after the celebration and work tomorrow!

Head Lines

The Big Falls Trip

This past weekend Aya went on her first big over night trip to Niagara Falls. From what I understand there were 5 full buses from all over the upper East Coast that went. Many of whom were from Japan.

Aya said she spent a great deal of talking in her native tongue with all of the Japanese and stayed up very late most nights talking about their experiences here and maybe a little about themselves.

Admittedly she said she felt bad for the other exchange students (from Europe and other parts of Asia) who were talking amongst themselves in English most of the time and were left feeling awkward during the trip since the mob of Japanese exchange students were all chatting in Japanese.

We didn’t get a lot of feedback on how else the whole trip went, only that she had a good time and talked with a lot of Japanese.

The weather this year was a lot milder compared to the previous year, when they received several inches of snow in Buffalo. Regardless I helped Aya pack a rain jacket and another layer jacket in case it got too chilly. She told me this year there was no need as the weather was tolerable.

Observations: Familia Alignment

It has been a little over two months now, since our exchange student has entered our home. She has met our family and extended family (to include my parents, my in-laws and our siblings and significant others).

I think she feels pretty comfortable in our home; she helps herself to anything in the fridge and has keys our home in case no one is around when she comes home from school, which is rare.

My wife has noticed that she tends to gravitate towards me when it comes to arranging meetings with friends, help with homework or just talk about how her day went. My wife says she only gets one or two word replies where I get a more verbose response.

My personal feeling is that because I am part Japanese and have a limited knowledge of the language and a better understanding of their culture – I am a person she trusts and can relate to better.

Several things come to mind when that I understand as the norm, but my wife and oldest daughter doesn’t completely grasp.

a) Asking permission to do just about anything (such as use the phone, PC or enter our office area every time).
b) When eating a bowl of hot Ramen, the noodle is slurped in (to cool it before it is ingested).
c) Seldom if any talking during dinner at the table (our family chats away, she remains quiet and reserved).
d) Our student removes her shoes and puts on house slippers when entering our home (as I have done in the past and encouraged my children to do the same – who give me grief about it).

I am still trying to figure out what the complication is: My wife is busy doing her college work as she pursues her B.S. and spends a lot of time shut in a quiet room. Aya also comes home with homework and retreats to a room/desk set aside for her in order to study and complete homework.

Aya seldom makes eye contact with most members of the family in general. She is getting a little more involved with online (e-mails and visiting her MySpace account) than she has in the past – most of which are with her classmates and friends in Japan, some of whom are currently in the States also doing a one year stay.

My older daughter reports that she (Aya) doesn’t sit with the group of seniors on the bus to school and up front near the door so she can be the first one off and doesn’t really seem to want to hang-out with my daughter and her friends. She hasn’t stated why or why not, just seems to always have something better to do. I can only guess it is due the age difference or the fact that they are both girls who board together so sharing the same space can cause some unsettled differences (so I’ve heard amongst females).

Psychology was not a strong point of mine and here I am trying to figure out what goes on in young women’s minds. (I am thinking, yeah right!)

[Though this sounds like a critique, it is merely my observation.]

In her letter she wrote about why she wanted to visit America and become an exchange student was to learn and live American culture and share her culture with Americans.
- Actually what she shared with us some information about Okinawa and gave a gift during the first weeks, but haven’t spoken much about Japan since.
- She has not really asking the family a lot of questions about our culture, more or less living in it or existing in it.

What we expected:
- Talk about her ever day life in Japan and how they did things compared to how we do things.
- Sharing her experiences or cooking different meals
- Teaching us the Japanese and in turn having each of us teaching her our dialect and elocution.
- Our daughters becoming buddies and going a lot of places together, playing games together and giggling like school girls.
- A more open attitude, especially when we asked her to be more open and relaxed in the beginning.


I am not sure if we are the ones that are learning a new culture or are we preventing an exchange from happening.

Time will tell. We have scheduled some time with the local representatives to act as mediator, as we still have 7 more months to go and soon a cold winter to keep us in doors more often.

Final Matsuri!

Today we awoke bright and early to get to the Big-E (Eastern States Exhibition). This is a fair we've gone to almost every year it took place since I can remember. The parking can be crazy and this being the last day of the fair, we would find ourselves with all the late-comers.

It was a perfect day out, the temperature did not go above 80 deg. F and the sky was a Windows XP Desktop background blue with white puffy clouds (since I am typing on my laptop, I can see my desktop which closely resembled the day).

Our first target was hitting the States buildings (they have a state building for each state in New England) and inside there are vendors for a variety of businesses in that state (some food, clothing and jewelery). We love to visit the Maine State Building which has as long as I can remember those Main Baked Potato's with everything on for toppings, ohhhh so tasty!

We would come back for dinner at the Rhode Island State building to grab New England Clam chowder in a bread bowl and a couple of bags of Clam Cakes (my mouth is salivating again).

There are these large building with more vendors inside for items of your home and anything else that doesn't fit a category. Needless to say our feet and legs were sore after spending 10 hours walking around.

Near the end of the day we went to the Midway section (amusement rides and games), we never play the games since the chances of winning is slim-2-none. My own daughters went on elevated rotating swings and then the Flying Bob's which is like the old Music Express (rotating cars to music - forward and reverse at some fast speed). We asked Aya several times if she wanted to ride, but she turned each down (we were surprised). Alas came the Ferris Wheel, which Aya agreed to ride. She later explained that she visited Hawaii and rode a ride called the Zipper (cars climb and tumble in Ferris Wheel sort-of-way but vertically and narrow). After that it was "Once Bitten, Twice Shy".

The day ended with a parade complete with marching bands, floats with a hint of Mardi Gras (it's not just Tuesday I feel fat) and horse drawn carts like the Budweiser horses. They threw out beads from the floats (we all ended up getting something).

On the long ride home, all but the driver had fell asleep.

High School homework becomes social atrophy

Aya had been able to get in contact with the girl from Thailand and she did it all on her own, which surprised me. Perhaps it was out of sheer frustration of not being able to get a close-knit friendship started as quickly as she had hoped.

I feel she needs to open up more so on the bus and in school.

Finding her a volleyball team in this section of New England is next to impossible, since our high school has had it in the past but since been cancelled maybe because Soccer, basketball, baseball and football seem to dominate the sports around here.


I did some searching and the closest league would be at the Hudson High School which meets like 3 times a week and travels. It is just not feasible due to the 1 hour travel time to get there for a 2 hour practice.


She has made a few friends and they would like to take her to the mall to hang-out and stuff, but we told her we need to meet these students first before she goes anywhere with them in car. Rules apply as if she were my own daughter. She is not going to be allowed to get into a vehicle and carted off to some mall to hang-out without first getting to acquaint ourselves with them first. (Call me a prude, it just makes safe sense).

The homework put out in History class is pretty intense. Aya asked her friends (other exchange students from Japan) around the country and they all expressed similar concerns. Most of the tests and homework are essays (which is like a nightmare for an exchange student with only a few years of English under their belts).

I am convinced even the local kids despise History with tons of essays measure a students knowledge.

Hesitation to make contacts

Aya has been wanting to get in contact with a girl at school, who is from Thailand - another exchange student. Aya feels that the girl has an advantage, because she had gone to school in the U.K. for perhaps a part of a school year to take an intensive English course prior to coming to the United States.

I was able to get in contact with her Host mother and obtained a phone number in order for Aya to arrange a meeting time and place. I gave her an opportunity to use our phone to call and ask for her, but she back out on me and asked if I could call instead.

As it turns out the family was not home and we didn't leave a message. I really would like Aya to call and have her converse, but I feel she still isn't confident in her conversational English, especially over the phone. She seems to be just fine with chatting the car on trips and at the dinner table. Most of the time she sits quietly during long car trips looking out the window and not uttering a peep. (If I could only get my own children to do the same without pacifying them with MP3 players and Nintendo DS games).

Aya also has been making friends in school, some of whom want to bring her shopping or go to a local mall.

She used the term "Hang-out", which may still mean what we used it for back when I was a teen. Though, it seemed hanging out on the corner or somewhere was considered loitering or could signal to the local authorities that we could be trouble-makers. I suppose it all depends who it is used in context.