My Final Thoughts as a host dad.

Sorry this is a late post - but was relaxing over this past Summer, school has started for the children and things are going back to normal.

The exchange year came to a close.

The year has come to an end for our exchange student, Aya from Okinawa, Japan.

 I wish I could say there were more ups than downs as it has been a fairly odd ride during her stay with our family.

As there are many personalities and traits people have we choose a Japanese student because collectively they have been known to be the most honest, had less animosity if something didn’t go their way, no known cases where stealing from host families occurred and the discipline the children have were bar none, as they were raised to honor, respect their elders.

 We’ve heard some horror stories of students:

-          false claims were made about sexual advances

-          stolen merchandise like jewelry, money, items from the host homes

-          leaving the home without permission

-          skipping school to hang with friends

-          complete communication breakdown from host family to student

 

Also we’ve heard horror stories of families;

-          Hatred and lewd comments from host kids toward the student quits (presumed jealousy)

-          Stealing from the host kids bankrolls

-          True claims about sexual advance, which brings a whole other international consequence thing into the picture.

-          Students forced to be a live in baby-sitter

-          Students basically imprisoned and unable to go anywhere

 

Believe me we weighed the pros and cons and read through the letters from students to try and narrow them down as soon as they became available.

There were several caveats: I choose only one country because it’s part of my heritage and wanted my own children to see and live with a 100% Japanese girl to learn and get culturally enriched with some of the language, enjoy food and learn etiquette from what I thought to be an honorific society, in general.

Unbeknownst to us; there are many countries who have values and etiquette instilled in their children and taught how to behave when abroad.  I guess I can say I was naïve.

Another limitation was that fact that the High School she was to attend had very strict limit to their acceptance of the SLEP score.  I believe this is the Second Language English Proficiency test which was given to each student prior to coming here.  Her score was the highest from the current selection of students from Japan.

It saddens me to think we turned down other student whom could have been a great match for our children and had less conflict of interests. As we viewed through we separated lower SLEP scores from the higher ones.

I learned later that other schools in the state as well as the country didn’t hold exchange students at strict as the school in our district; which is what I agree with.  Its not like this is a real diploma they are getting, it’s a year to exchange ideas and see what American Schools and family are like, not based solely how well they perform on tests and homework.

European countries and some Asian countries had some real good candidates with high SLEP scores – but hind sight is 20/20 and we’ve also learned from some other families it is often best to accept a student that doesn’t come from an affluent family and they will appreciate more what your family does for them than say someone who comes from a family of physicians or high level design engineer.

Aya’s family participation has decline fairly steadily throughout the year, retreating to her space away from the family often. Checking emails, web browsing (mostly in Japanese, thus getting away from culture immersion), texting her friends from school whom seem to be pressuring her more and more to becoming a rebel (breaking curfews etc, skipping class and focusing only on the fun stuff and hanging out).

Aya spent several hundred dollars shipping things back to Japan because she didn’t want to bring extra heavy luggage on the flight to her friends’ home in Tokyo, as her plan was to spend a few days there before returning home to Okinawa.

She had been packing things over four to five days, dragging her feet most of the way. Sadly she threw a lot of things away that she didn’t or couldn’t pack, instead of offering them to my daughters or Good Will. 

As my oldest had her birthday, she hadn’t purchased a card or present for her own (host sister). This I am sure hurt my daughter as she shared her life, room and friends with her.

This also made my wife even more upset and was waiting week to week to see if she would come up with one.

Her last week here she made half a dozen farewell 8 x 11 posters all decorated with magazine and photo clippings to her friends along with farewell parting gifts.

This created higher tension during the last week.  She hardly ever spoke at the dinner table, even though we encouraged her to speak and tell us about her day and plans.  Completely avoided eye contact most of the time. I thought maybe Japanese girls do this to be polite, but it seemed more so that she was just avoiding any interaction if possible – if they don’t see me then I am not really here.

Her last two nights were odd, as Aya’s never planned ahead or if she did she pretended to be unaware of it and have one of her friends call her and say “Oh, can I go hang out with so-n-so or go to the Mall” or “can I attend a graduation party for so-n-so”. 

So the 2^nd to the last night she stayed the entire day going from party to party. We thought she was done and had enough.

The last night she got up early and packed her remaining items. Then she asked my wife if she can go hangout with friends again, this time my wife told her no she could not and had to stay home.  My other daughters were in school still but had a half day.  My oldest came home and read a note written from her friend saying that Aya came with us to the mall several towns over and would be brought home by 9 p.m.

This obviously ticked my wife and myself off pretty bad, as my wife was planning on cooking a stir-fry meal for Aya and review the year and have the girls spend some Q-Time together on her last night here.

We made appropriate calls to the agency to notify them of the incident and is basically the final straw amongst previous interventions.

As we saw this, it was a Plan B option they knew nothing could be done about it being the last day and all.  Passive defiance or passive aggression is what I think it was.

The next morning she brought out letters from her mom (written in Japanese) that were sent over the past couple months and only brought out now!!? 

She also brought out a photo album, sparsely populated with pictures she took of the family and event through the year, but looked as if it was hastily put together and I believe was a request of all of the student to a similar gift for their host families along with whatever else they felt like doing.  (That was all we got)

Personal letters to each of us were written expressing her gratitude for her stay with us, saying basically all the same things.

It was a long quiet ride to the airport, as my kids had their last day of school and wife had to work.

Eventually I spoke to her at the airport expressing my discontent with the whole situation.

We met a representative at the airport who had their own student from Thailand who was taking the same flight.

Aya started talking more once they were present – presumably to make the impression like nothing was wrong.

I received a parting hug and she whispered that she was sorry for the other night.  She showed some emotion (wet eyes) as she and he went through security and passed through the gate.

Still I get this odd feeling that there is an empty space in my life or a missing family member in my home as I walk through it.  I didn’t think I’d get that kind of feeling as living with her was difficult at times – having to try to keep a smile on all the time and keep emotions in check during the whole stay.

This concludes my experience with our first real exchange student.

We didn’t test the water we just dove in.  There were 2 month options for the Summer and the whole year exchange, I’d recommend the short term to get a feel for it before anyone makes a decision.

Parting note: Cleaning up items she left behind for trash, we found some Christmas gifts, Birthday gifts and some Origami my daughter made for her to take as a keep sake - all set aside for trash pick up. Talk about the last nail in the coffin - my youngest was hurt after seeing that.

- She also didn't send a birthday card on my youngest's birthday nor the little eraser's (Cute erasers in the shape of Japanese food items) she promised to send her upon her return.

Graduation Day at last!

Well the big day arrived on Sunday. Aya had completed her year in an American High School as a Senior.

For her it was a sad day because she now doesn't get to see the friends she had made in school. Her circle of friends isn't as large as some of the other exchange students in the organization. Most of it is attributed to how receptive she was to making new friends - most of who approached her, instead of her reaching out to them.

As I've stated before - we encouraged her to meet some of my daughters friends, but somehow there was no real connection and she shied away from hanging with them. I don't believe she gave it much of a try to be honest, she had already in her mind who she wanted to befriend.

The graduating class was 300 strong - although it went fairly quickly, started filming - but ran out of battery time.

She attended a graduation party for one of her friends and plan on hitting up a few more parties before she prepares for her departure.

Bright lights, big city...indeed!

Well we finally did it. We booked a trip to NYC and even decided to spend one night there.

It was little hectic as we drove down to New Haven, CT to catch a train (Metro-North) into the city during a week-day. I purchased the tickets ahead of time and recommend it in case it gets busy. I purchased off-peak tickets to save a bit with the whole family.

My goal was to get to see the Grand Central Station – as it’s been depicted in many movies: The Day After Tomorrow and most recently I AM LEGEND or at least the Times Square part was.

You can’t go to the city without at least taking in a Broadway play if you hadn’t seen one. We truly wanted to see WICKED but unfortunately it’s usually a sell out and I wasn’t able to obtain tickets for the booked day.

We took a family vote and the next best choice we saw was Phantom of the Opera.

As tourists we choose the All Classic New York Sightseeing choice by double-decker bus (open top). We could not have chose a better week in New York weather wise it was 70-75 both days and the evening was also perfect.

Lots of walking around Times Square day and night (especially was awesome) all lit up.

Places we actually stopped were: Battery Park, Liberty Island (we were too late and the crowd was incredible to reach Ellis Island), Ground Zero (under heavy construction), Strawberry Fields in Central Park, The Dakota Building and of course our Hotel the Beacon.

The bus ride took a large chunk of our time because it was a long loop and its supposed to be hop on and hop off, well the problem is the buses that come around every 30 minutes are also pretty full so good luck hopping on.

Aya was excited and tired all wrapped in one – I’ve never been to Tokyo but I can only imagine its similar or maybe more jam packed with people.

Key Points and opinions:

• 
  Train ride to NYC was about 1.2 hours
  


• Grand Central was pretty open in the center and had some nice ceiling paintings, believe it to be Astrological.
  
• 
  Bus ride is only nice on the 2nd deck and if there is room.


• Taxi rides were crazy and a disadvantage with 5 people as they can only take 4 (so double fare) two cabs.


• Lots of walking is tiring (no wonder New Yorkers are fairly thin)
  


• Time Square is awesome looking at night

• NYC Planet Hollywood restaurant isn’t all that (food and service poor)


• NYC Hard Rock Café food and service was really good, we enjoyed the singer/band item contributions displayed (have been to quite a few HR and this is one of the better ones)


• To see the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Isle I would recommend going first thing, as we somehow with the slow buses didn’t make it in time, even though we pre-purchased our tickets. So we only got to see the Statue and even then you have to buy another ticket for the museum to get to go into the base (only) as now there are restrictions to entering the statue. Also the security check point prior to the ferry was annoying.
  




• Ground Zero was just a big hole with lots of construction, not sure what I expected but thought there would be more to it like a shrine. There is a tribute place but they were charging 10 bucks a head (that’s not fair)
  
• Strawberry Fields – was nice but smaller than I imagined


• The Dakota Building was nice: My wife is a big Beatles Fan and basically mourned at the site of where John was shot. Ironically we spoke of wanting to meet Yoko as we had heard she still lives there. Lo and behold she comes walking up the side walk and passed us! We didn’t realize it until it was too late – hat and dark sun-glasses. My wife was shocked and felt blessed to come close to someone that close to John Lennon.


• We missed our opportunity to go in the Ladies Shopping district along 5th Ave and Macy’s multi-floor store. (maybe lucky for me)


• The M&M Store was nice (the girls loved it)
  

• The Virgin Music store was 3 floors of cool music items and books.
  
• The Phantom of the Opera was amazing (I was surprised as I figured it to be an old outdated play and boring). Little hard to understand the Opera songs, though in English.
  
• Empire State Building: Long lines, security check points and long wait. (Will never try it again until I want to kill 2-3 hours) our problem was we tried to squeeze it in before the train home and was stuck with the clock ticking. Another series of unfortunate events was we opted to take the last 6 stories up to the deck because the elevator line was going to be delayed. [needless to say we are out of shape – we were completely out of breath] – it gave you an appreciation of what the NYC Firefighters had to do while entering the Trade Towers stairs for rescue.
  
• McDonald’s (world’s largest eat-in) was awesome in lighted marquee but reminded me of a Night Club because they played videos projected on every wall.
  
  All-in-all it was a fun experience up to the very end, when we were offered a Limo ride to the train station which seemed to be normal. They too want to make money anyway they can and was better than grabbing two taxis to split up 5 people.
  
  When all was said and done, we arrived home somewhere around 3 a.m. Woot!
  
  

Mom's old stomping ground

Here's link to a town in Japan where I visited and intend on visiting again within in the next 5 to 8 years.

http://www.city.miyakonojo.miyazaki.jp/shisei/kokusaikouryu/english/sightseeing_english.jsp

I know its a random post, but wanted to get it out there.

Opening the lines of communication.

This past week we had the exchange organization representative visit and discuss how Aya and our family was getting along.

A few weeks prior Aya had gone over the reps home in order to get a feel how Aya behaves and they also had a Japanese volunteer from the organization meet with her address any questions she had and concerns.

We basically sat down all together to discuss some of the quirky things we've noticed and to have her ask or mention anything that makes her uncomfortable so we possible can fix things on our end.

The rep spoke with us as family without Aya first to get our take and then with Aya alone to piece together what we said then we got together and discussed it as group.

Some of our questions were answered and you wonder why these questions weren't asked early on. The problem was we felt this was normal to be shy and withdrawn - but she said she was being respectful and didn't want to cause any problems. Aya told us if we see something odd - just come out and ask her what is wrong and she will try to explain.

There were a few key points that came up well all will work on:

1) Communication:

a) If we have a concern don't discuss it behind closed doors with your spouse before knowing the whole deal, instead discuss it as a group.

b) When you see if the student is depressed or not including themselves with the family - include them. Everyone regardless from what country has their own personality and Aya is a reserved person by nature.

2) Breakfast items not eaten shouldn't be left about half eaten: Half a bagel, half a pop-tart

3) Calling and planning ahead: If the student wants to stay after school text at lunch time stating the intentions in case the family has other plans.

The one thing that seemed to bum her the most are her grades, which she is trying hard but struggling in some subject to maintain a C+ as most her grades when in Japan were A's - so it came a quite a blow to her self-esteem.

We explained that 3 years of English isn't going to provide you with enough to obtain A's in an American High School in every subject. She did express that she wants us to correct her English more often - but we are somewhat jaded because my mother speaks English with a Japanese accent so we don't even bat an eye when something is pronounced wrong - we know what is meant and carry on.

As a family we told her we will correct her English on the fly to help her - she feels like her English has gotten worse not better. We will see how it goes.

"I don't know, where ima gonna go when..."

Well I neglected to mention how the volcano turned out.

This project thought I have to admit wasn't 100% crafted by her and I, but the whole making of it was fun.

The kit similar to the one pictured below had a mold and stand. Then we had to mix this cement like compound, if I recall it was plaster of paris. We had to allow it to dry for more than 24 hours after we poured it. Then she painted it and my wife creatively added coconut as grass around the base, dyed green.


We did several dry runs as we were debating whether to use vinegar, club soda and baking soda or diet soda and Menthos.


The kit did come with small tablets of baking soda colored with red dye - but in our independent tests did not fizz much.

She brought the set to school and she did a run for the students and teachers before that night, when the parents were to observe. Well she came that afternoon a little upset because somehow the inner container had a hole and when she poured in the club soda in and added the tablets it leaked all out the bottom weakening the structure of the plaster and nearly destroyed other kids projects on the table.


So I arrived a little that night in preparation to remedy this disaster.

I inserted some tin foil into the mouth after forming a make-shift funnel that would collect the soda and she could add the baking soda at will. This worked out okay if fizzed and spilled over into a shallow dish pan we brought.


I am sure it was no where near the explosion I was hoping to achieve like on the Brady Bunch episode, but it was a big hit with the kids and the teachers.


To make a child happy saving the day is a small parentla victory.

Family gathering went well.

The family cook-in went well. All who originally planned on attending came and we included our neighbors as well for an impromptu sit down for a "Taste of Japan", minus the Sushi.

I sort of knew, but had forgotten how long it takes to prepare and cook a Japanese meal. There are so many steps and things you have to remember and the multitude of dirty dishes, bowls and cutting surfaces it can create.

My mom decided to make a selection of the ton of stuff we had available. I also went shopping that morning and picked up $130.00 more of items we didn't have on hand from the local supermarket.

On the menu that day: Gyoza, gohan, okonomiyaki, niku-jaga and tons of tempura.

We started with the Gyoza making - my mom had two kinds of Gyoza skins one made in Japan and the other package had more but made in China. We involved at least 4 people in actual folding of the skin around mom's secret ingredients. The only ones my mom was able to buy that were Japanese skins which were actually for a dish called Shumai and were square, but they worked the same.

The unfortunate problem was the Chinese skins were thicker and after making about a dozen or so were found them to have mold in the under lying layers in over 12 more skins and some on the sides. Talk about an embarrassing moment. Quality and freshness seems to be in question when getting this type of food from China, in my opinion.

We cut up shrimp, peas, beans, carrots, onions and broccoli and made tempura. I couldn't find the box mix I had bought, so mom whipped up her own - it tasted better from scratch. I think we all agreed on that.

Plate after plate was being passed around of the different tempura and Gyoza then we still had niku-jagaimo to eat which is what Aya choose as her dish to make. It basically is meat and potatoes, but in a beef stew sort of way without the soupy part of the stew. I thought it tasted good - reminded me a bit of the way I eat curry rice.

Rice was put out on the table, but for some reason it wasn't making its way to the plates as people seemed more interested in eating the tempura and gyoza. (The rice was eaten next day as a left-over meal for me).

Oh, I forgot mom made home made french fries - but they were gone in minutes. Surprisingly simple and more tasty than McDonald's or Burger King. We used Russet Potatoes and were deep fried in Canola oil.

I noticed that the shrimp went fast both mediums and jumbo.

We all enjoyed the meal and at the end we post-celebrated Aya's birthday (as my family couldn't attend the real date).

Cook Fest 2008!

Getting excited for a family gathering sponsored by me. Although I can attribute it to viewing some of the Blogs I read that show foods.

My mother plans on coming over and preparing some Japanese dishes - I requested 'Gyoza', cooked her way. The recipe she whips up is something she learned when in Japan and she slightly modified it by adding a little more (quality) meat.

There are several different ways to make these and recently I've learned they serve them in some US establishments and call them Pot-Stickers.

The recipe seen is pretty much typical, though mom's is better.

We are going to take this opportunity to have Aya cook some food items she brought with her and some that her mom sends in some of the packages she sends about one every two months.

It's funny, as these packages are sort of what her mom must think as emergency relief packages. They contain teenage magazines, books, comfort foods and snacks to remind her of home and to lessen what kind of homesickness she may have.

I am sure there will be more samplings and have invited my sister who rarely has the time to visit us and the girls.

One of our neighbors recently allowed me to utilize his snow blower since basically to be cheap I shoveled through most of the storms we've had. So in turn I invited him and his wife over on the scheduled Saturday.

My favorite soup is Miso Soup:

Happy Birthday Aya!

Yes, officially Aya has now turned 18 years old yesterday.

She's come home to tell us she has had cake in school where they threw her a surprise birthday party and again at her friends house where her friend from Thailand was celebrating her own birthday (ironically).

Aya last night revealed the fact that she was utterly sick of eating cake as she has had cake the past 3 days for one occasion or another.

As she made that statement my wife brought up a cake with 18 lit candles to the table after dinner, she looked at me with the "OMG" look.

Her mom had sent her a package from Japan with all kinds of snacks and goodies, plus a gift. I told Aya that she could only open up the present from her mom on her actual birthday, sticking with our American tradition. (She was tempted though)

She opened up her gift from her mom, "Jewelery" to include earrings. I believe I mentioned in an earlier post that Aya requested to get her ears pierced but in the state of Massachussetts, no place we went to would allow it without her real parent(s) present. The only way she get her's done is if she was 18 years of age, but this was last Summer when she tried hard to get it done before the start of school.

Well the waiting game was over and we will be taking her to one of the many malls to get hers done properly - she's excited about the excursion.

Her mom did send her a doing-it-yourself home-kit, though I know she tried on her own - but not sure it came out well enough as I didn't see her wearing any after the first month of trying it. My guess is that it wasn't centered and looked akward.

Amongst her gifts we focused on getting her car key chains, car bling stuff because her mom told her when she returns home - she's got a car waiting for her to drive. We of course could not top this gift (mom's always seem to have the trump card).

She told us that she had tried to blow out all the candles when given the cake at school and she failed there, so I told her her wishes she makes before blowing out the candles won't come true if you don't do it in one breath.

She huffed - and - puffed and they were out.

Photo Recap

Apparently I am a little behind in the photo posting department but here are a few.

Images of Halloween, Homecoming, Thanksgiving and Christmas.

The exchange

(To see more click the picture above)

ESL more like English as a common language

At school Aya has been doing mediocre, she is passing her class - though I feel sometimes the teachers are going easy on her as not to fail her completely.

There are two other ex-change students at the school, both of whom seem to be adapting very well. The one girl from Thailand "Gahm", wants to be a doctor one day has gotten all A's on everything she does. Her spoken English is very well.

Aya told me she asked Gahm (which is her nickname, as her real name is very difficult to pronounce) how she does it. Gahm stated that she is taught Thai-English at an early age there (reads/writes), plus she has stayed abroad in the U.K.

In general I beleive the Japanese are behind in their English and the world has passed them - making it even harder to effectively communicate. Though Aya's willingness to learn English waning.

I think the country is beginning to feel the pinch and wants to increase their education - but I think too little, too late. Here is blog link with new on that: Japan's push for more education

Sub Artic ((Burrrrr))

Northeast
Snow, sleet and freezing rain will assault the northeastern
U.S. tomorrow. Accumulating snow, locally heavy, will coat Pennsylvania and New
York state, then push into western New England late in the day. Snow may begin
falling in NYC late in the afternoon or early evening. Snow and sleet should
arrive in Philadelphia during the afternoon, then change to rain during the
evening. Farther south, freezing rain and sleet seem likely to threaten
northeast West Virginia, northwest Virginia and western Maryland. Rain showers
can be expected over the remainder of Virginia and the Delmarva Peninsula. High
temperatures are predicted to range from the teens in northern New York and far
northern New England to the 50s in eastern Virginia.

You know it's going to be a rough week when:

1) Your car doors are stuck shut and they are unlocked.

2) 45 mph gusts nearly topple you on your walk into work.

3) You get put on the schedule to work overtime during anticipated snow
storms.

4) Your first week day drive home from work results in a 1 hour traffic delay due to a Semi-Truck fire in the middle of a 3 lane highway, blocking all
exits.

5) And your wife calls tell you, you need to stop by Wal-Mart and pick up thermometer covers to check a daughters temp because she's coming down with a
fever - only to find Wal-Mart has none in stock.

6) Car heater stops throwing heat while stuck in traffic

7) Come home to colder home, because you felt it wasn't necessary this year to spend a little time winterizing it because Summer was so nice and you were lazy. (Heat bill through the roof).

- Raising the white flag here.

Today's activity: Volcanic

My youngest has a project due at the end of this week and its content reminds me of an old Brady Bunch episode when they built a demo-Volcano.

She of course will need to enlist my help in building her a working volcano. (Baking soda comes to mind)



Oddly enough by in 1988, when visiting Japan my Uncle took me around Kyushu we stopped and climbed part of the base of Mount Sakurajima (pictured left) near Kagoshima and another time we traveled quite far near Nagasaki to Mount Uzen and climbed it, at the top we couldn't really see the surrounding cities or town because of a errie fog that was either the weather or the steam emitted from the mountaint top.

There was this small pond at the top of the mountain that was bubbling and smelt of sulfer gas. My sister and I built some type of circular rock formation that we'd seen left near the top. We weren't sure what it was all about, but thought it was ritualistic to whoever comes up here makes one out of the small volcanic rocks.

Later we learned in 1991, there were fourty-odd people who died in an erruption from this mountain including volcanologists Katia and Maurice Krafft (pictured below) and Harry Glicken.(go figure), they died from a pyrocastic cloud consuming them I presume.


Gives you a creepy feeling to say you were there and to know people died up there and it could have very well been you.


Going to do a little web research as in how to make a safe volcanic that she can demonstrate for her science class students.


I think I will try using this link and a few others:
http://www.ehow.com/how_7938_make-volcano.html

Demolition New York

The family was bored this Saturday, so I decided to take the children to the movies.

The flick that we were aiming to see had only 2 showings a 12:30 and 18:55, which meant I would have to pick up my youngest from Basketball practice and shoot straight there. To add to this Murphy's Law showed no mercy, for it was snowing quite heavily enough to cover the roads.
Needless to say we showed up all but 5 minutes behind, which usually means we only missed the 15 minutes of previews. My youngest daughter is in love with the movie "National Treasure", not sure why but may she has a crush on Nicolas Cage.

Of course my goal was to surprise her and take her to "National Treasure: Book of Secrets", Aya didn't care either way she just wanted to get out and do something since she's always bored. Apparently for a movie that has been out for a few weeks now and movied from the largets screen to the smaller ones - it was Sold Out! (Panic set in)

The line behind us for a snowy Saturday night had grown long; we has to make a quick decision - wait for the 20:30 showing of "Untraceable" or catch the other movie that stuck in my head as want-to-check-it-out movie was "Cloverfield" and we coughed up the 38 bucks to see it plus the over-priced snack foods.

[Choice #1: See a movie about a killer on the internet]

[Choice #2: See a movie about a killer in NYC]

Simply put, with a 10 year old in tote, I chose one with the least likelyhood to occur.

My personal take on this - was the movie was filmed entirely on a hand-held digital recorder and it was WAY to shakey for my taste.

SPECIAL EFFECTS: 7 / 10
ACTING: 8/10
PLOT: 5/10
VISUAL ENJOYMENT: 2.5/10 (Due to the extreme herky-jerkiness)

We entered the theater and had to take nearly the front row seats, becaue it was nearly full to my surprise, this exagerated the big screen shaking.

Kids reviews:

- Youngest thought it was pretty good, but shakey.

- Aya: Gave her a headache, hard to watch

- Oldest daughter: She had to keep her eyes closed most of the movie to prevent severe nausea from due to the wild camera movements.

- Me: As I play video games, I was able to watch it from start to finish - it still made me dizzy.

Super Blunder Sunday

As Aya’s American High School Football team has a unbeaten record, she has heard a lot about sports after the Sox Victory in October and now her attention was turned toward the New England Patriots.

To be honest, I am a 49’ers fan – but my alternate group is the N.E. Patriots. Aya told me a lot of boys where Patriot’s shirts and hats this time of year.

So we hunkered down with all the goodies my wife prepares: Cheese dips, chicken fingers, chips, some kind of pesto cheese thingy that was also good and watched the game.

As the game seemed to stagnate after the score was 7 and 3, then all hell broke loose when it seems the Patriot’s offense couldn’t do what they have been doing all year and the Giants Defense were doing what they do best.

Of course there were some questionable calls in the Giants favor, but overall the Giants played well.

We were hyping up Aya’s stating that see you are lucky to be in a state where the baseball team and the football team have been elites. (I obviously inserted my foot in mouth on the later).

Thoughts about our current status with our student.

Time seems to going by rather quickly after the Holiday rush has passed and we look to be getting back into the same ol' grind. Me back to work and the kids and my wife back to school.

Recently Aya had to hand in a research paper for History class. One which she feels is over burdened with work, especially for someone who is new to the country and is still grasping our language.

I have to admit she isn't putting as much effort into learning English as I had hoped. Viewing her desk area, I still see the worksheets I gave her to practice her cursive (penmanship) which she had not touched.

We both are getting the impression she didn't come to America to exchange culture, but merely was an escape to see America and do as many fun things she can at other peoples expense.

I try not to put a negative spin, but sometimes things get rough with exchange students. I think mostly some of these kids come from well-to-do families and though they've studied hard to at least get this far, they simply expect to live like a guest still in our homes.

At this point, I no longer view her as a guest but as person who lives her and has responsibilities just like I would expect from our own children. The host family isn't supposed to be a shuttle service or just a place to crash; at least in my eyes.

I have heard some stories of children from other countries who are really wild and crazy and put a bad taste in the families who host as I am sure students who stay can tell some wild stories of how bad the host families were to them.

You have to take the good with the bad. I am trying to find the silver lining and keep the family in a happy co-existence.

Negative Key Points I've noticed so far:

• The expectation that every day should be an entertaining day for her: e.g. Go to the mall and hang out, shopping, go to a party, go hang out with friends (some of whom have boyfriends of 21) all to prevent boredom, which she says often.
• Homework isn't going always going to be easy and if you have questions ask the teacher for help. The teacher's have expressed to me if she has any questions what-so-ever please have her e-mail them as the teachers regularly check their mail at night. This is almost never done.
• Time management and poor planning is constant.

a) School work isn't started until just after dinner and the children get home by 2:30 pm, thus she stays up until mid-night to complete the assignments.

b) She lately has been wanting to go over friends houses, which isn't a bad thing but she never knows how she is going to get there, the time frame of stay and who is going to pick her up. - it seems to be spontaneous.

• Fails to make a whole-hearted attempt to get to know my oldest friends, even when they come over and/or invite her to the mall or movies. She seems to relate more to my youngest daughter than our oldest who is a High School Freshman rather than a 5th grader.
• Keeps to herself though we've invited her to play board games and watch a movie with us, instead she'd rather text page her friends from school or watch a DVD movie on the portable player.
• My oldest daughter was expecting someone she could hang out with and enjoy things together, to share their life experiences and culture exchange - but none of that is occurring which is sad.
• Spends more time on Japanese web sites and Myspace than she ought to - though she does ask for permission to use the PC when my oldest is on her own (shared PC).
• Forgot her mothers birthday - no phone call or card and failed to send a New Year's Card which is celebrated more over in Japan.

Positive Key Points:

• She enjoys Boston, and looks forward to every trip there. Especially because she knows there are a few Japanese shops there and mini-mall with back alley eateries like one would find in the outskirts of Osaka or Tokyo, or at least if you use your imagination you can see yourself there.
• She plays with our youngest often, whether its tickle fights, scare fights, Nintendo and general sibling taunting and teasing up to the point when they annoy each other because they don't know went to stop.
• Does most of her chores regularly except feeding the fish - I suppose if you come from a country that spends a lot of time eating them, rather than thinking of them as pets. (I am expecting dead fish before the Summer)
• Is quiet most of the time and asks permission to enter our PC/Office room every time we are in there and stands patiently at the door until we acknowledge her for her to ask.
• Never talks during car rides: Long or short (this is in a positive section because its nice to not hear fighting from that side of the car).

One of the Japanese religions and the Jewish Faith point of origin the same?

After poking through some of the Blogs I gander at when things are slow at work, I came across one about the Jewish Faith and the Shinto Religion.

At first the title of it looked like something you'd see at the Super Market tabloid section.

It would quite odd to learn that some of the Japanese people in Japan are actually one of 12 Tribes from Israel who had to roam the desert.

See and read for yourself, thanks to Japan Probe and other sources.



Zionfestival
Uploaded by oniazuma

Part 2

Here are some Links read through regarding this comparison:

http://oniazuma.wordpress.com/2007/11/14/are-japanese-jewish-looking-at-the-mysterious-connections-between-japan-and-judaism/

http://www5.ocn.ne.jp/~magi9/isracame.htm


I plan on discussing some of these findings with Aya, though I know she is from a different religion and may not be know about Judaism, Christianity and Shinto.

Snow bound and after the Holiday Blues

I know these video clips don't have anything to do with the whole exchange student event, but they were both moving - which typically I show little to no expression when I see a good flick that causes people to have their eyes wet, but these two clips somehow seemed to carve their niche into my heart and wanted to share with those who can stand watching them.