Okinawa Blue to New England Green

Learning the language; the New Years Resolution.

2009-01-23T20:43:00.006-05:00

Most people say they are going to quite smoking or go on a diet. I want to pledge that I will make an extra effort to learn Japanese. I've already committed myself to signing up with several teaching sites.

http://www.japanesepod101.com/
http://www.iknow.co.jp/
http://www.thejapanesepage.com/

And I've made friends with a couple of people who have learned the language or at least in their 4Th year in studying it; so they can correct me and encourage my learning.

I had thought, maybe one day I could become a JET teacher in Japan - but those dreams are getting dashed as it seems I am getting older and they most likely would like people who are more educated and younger with more energy.

My mom has plans to take one more family trip back to Japan within the next 5 years - so I want to prepare and learn more than I had back when I visited back in 1988. I also want to rekindle some friends I made there back then, just would have to find out where they moved to and their new addresses and contact information.

Currently I am refreshing my Katakana and Hiragana and will progress later on with Kanji (the pictographic characters that is seen in Chinese).

きょうはちよとさむいですよ。

じゃね

No last minute package.

2009-01-08T03:30:00.003-05:00

Akemashite Omedetou Gozaimasu! (Happy New Year 2009)

Well wanted to send a quick post stating that we have not heard from Aya since after her return in Japan, all but one phone call and an email stating that she made it and was trying to adjust back to life in Okinawa after her return.

She had promised my youngest daughter some gifts from Japan - I only figured she was going to send them around Christmas time as she did enjoy Christmas in America. My youngest specificaly asked for Japanese Erasers (made to look like images of Japanese foods and dishes).

Well needless to say, the package never arrived.

I don't know why, but I still felt dismayed - but it was to be expected I guess.

Hope any of you, who has plans for hosting a student. May you get one who can appreciate the time spent with and for them.

Regards,

Brian

My Final Thoughts as a host dad.

2008-09-02T16:14:00.008-04:00

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!

2008-06-02T11:31:00.014-04:00

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!

2008-05-12T15:59:00.018-04:00

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

2008-03-21T15:47:00.004-04:00

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.

2008-03-21T14:49:00.005-04:00

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..."

2008-03-21T14:32:00.006-04:00

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.

2008-03-18T11:13:00.012-04:00

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!

2008-03-06T16:10:00.017-05:00

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!

2008-03-04T15:42:00.006-05:00

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

2008-02-18T14:14:00.004-05:00

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

2008-02-18T11:41:00.008-05:00

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))

2008-02-11T21:37:00.000-05:00

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

2008-02-10T14:48:00.000-05:00

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

2008-02-10T13:40:00.000-05:00

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

2008-02-05T08:55:00.000-05:00

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.

2008-01-13T16:15:00.000-05:00

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?

2008-01-13T15:33:00.000-05:00

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

2008-01-01T15:11:00.000-05:00

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.

Let it snow!!

2007-12-16T17:24:00.000-05:00

This is Aya's first real bout with snow - the snow she's seen a few weeks back was just a dusting - a mere 1/2 inch or so.

This time we've received nearly 2 back-to-back storms, she came out after the first one to offer assistance in shoveling the driveway, but quickly thought better of it since it was 26F.

We did encourage her to stay just enough to be able to slide down the unplowed street by our home. She had fun briefly until the cold seeped into her bones.

She had not yet purchased gloves and boots, though we strongly suggested that she should. She stated that the other students don't wear them; typical New England teens who are used to wearing just a hooded-sweatshirt (hoodie), no gloves and just sneakers in conditions like this. But Aya who is from a very warm climate can't mimic the locals for very long.

Later that evening we went glove and boot shopping - we are waiting to see if they get put to use.

Bouncing into basketball season

2007-12-02T11:38:00.001-05:00

My own children have been playing basketball for the past 3 years and signed up again this season. We choose to include Aya this time and signed her up, because she wanted to try something on a sports team. She didn’t like the options offered: Swimming, Soccer, softball and field hockey. We encouraged her to try basketball – so she reluctantly signed up.

She missed her first practice due to being sick (she stayed home from school that day also) and missed her second practice because she was on her California trip. The coach basically said she can’t be on the team due to the fact she has not showed up (money well spent) – there is a game 12/2/07 which I think she will officially tell the coach she wants to quit.

MMPOGs are eating into my day-to-day life

2007-12-02T11:37:00.002-05:00

I am learning the hard way that on-line gaming can steal precious life hours away, especially if play time is nearing addiction. I will seek to lessen my time and do it in moderation, as I realize the year has gone by so much more quickly missing out on some days outdoors with family.

It’s sort of a life bandit, takes away from time you could be spending elsewhere with family, friends or doing something knowledgeable.

http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/world-of-warcraft.htm

I am curious as to how many other families have lost a soul to this world or one like it?

Research Paper Work Hell

2007-12-02T11:37:00.001-05:00

Aya is being dragged down with even larger assignments in U.S. History class. She has to write note cards, research paper and work cited on a topic from a fairly large list from the teacher.

All of this is quite confusing to Aya, since it has to be in a certain format: MLA and can not be any form of plagiarism. Fortunately for me or I didn’t have to do these types of papers in High School or college, since both of the schools were technical. She asked me for assistance, I looked at it bewildered since I haven’t turned on that part of my brain in years.

I may so some internet research on how to write a research paper which include Work Cited sheet, Question and Thesis.

Aya doesn’t show a lot of interest in doing her homework when she gets home lately, not sure if it’s a combination of being homesick or just not really caring too much for the academics. As it seems she is treating this more of a one year vacation from Japan to get to see America.

She seems to be shying away from American culture and resorting to going to Japanese websites and reading Japanese magazines. Mostly like it’s because this is where her comfort zone is.

Speeding Ticket hearing…

2007-12-02T11:36:00.004-05:00

Had my court date for a speeding ticket I received back on Labor Day Weekend – was able to get a reduction but couldn’t get it waived. Well saving $100.00 was worth the trip instead of just paying the full $200.00. I don’t usually drive too fast and get upset when I see other flying by me on the high-way and nothing seemingly happens to them.

Oddly enough the State Troopers seem to exceed speed limit for not apparent reason without Lights or Sirens quite often. I presume there is no recourse for them; who is going to give another cop a ticket for speeding?

Below Freezing!

2007-12-02T11:36:00.003-05:00

Aya had seen the snow a few weeks back which only accumulated about 1 inch, since then it’s just been odd weather (some days in the upper 50’s and sometimes rain).

This past weekend, the temperature has dipped down to 25 deg F and had some wind. Though it did not snow, it was down right bone-chilling.

Aya couldn’t believe it; she has a winter coat she purchased in September from L.L. Bean. Not sure why she removed the attached hood nor does she zip up the front all the while telling me how cold it is.

This won’t prepare her for the harsh January and February weather we get here in New England from time to time. If she’s lucky it will remain semi-mild. (Though viewing the weather reports – the mid-west had been struck with a snow storm and we are supposed to get something tonight).

Pass the gravy!

2007-12-02T11:36:00.001-05:00

The Holiday's are coming faster as each year passes or so it seems. Wal-Mart has had Christmas music playing since November 1st. As much as I like the Holiday season, it’s getting out of hand with all the decor being put up in Early November.

My wife had purchased an outdoor blow-up Tom the Turkey display for outside; she thought that we ought to decorate more for each Holiday. He looked more like a mascot at some football game than a lawn ornament.

Aya experienced her first Thanksgiving in the U.S. She appeared to enjoy the food, though she still is quiet and doesn't really comment on what she eats here unless asked.

Our dinner was down in Connecticut with my wife's family. Everything was good and I got stuffed as usual.

Aya had left the day after Thanksgiving to head out on her booked California trip: Hollywood, Las Vegas and stuff in between.
She spent a week out there with her group and tour company / chaperones.

We had a 2nd Thanksgiving celebration on Saturday with my family, again in Connecticut. There was a ton of home cooked goodies and we stuffed ourselves again.

As with most of the Blog’s I’ve been reading; I am not the only delinquent poster – its just sometimes life seems to get busier than the time allowed.

Volleyball playoffs

2007-12-02T11:29:00.000-05:00

In late November I took the girls, especially Aya to watch an American Volleyball tournament where some of the best teams in Mass were competing. She enjoyed it a lot – I’ve never watched one so it was interesting (though long).

I didn’t realize it was best of 7 due to ending the best of 5 with a tie, or something like that. It was loud and each school had their cheering fan section all done up in their school colors like war paint.

We watched Division 3 with North Reading versus Frontier

The North Reading team was beaten twice before in previous years by the Frontier’s and this year they were out for blood. We had no idea of either team, since we’ve never attended these events. In the beginning we just chose a team with the same school colors as our kids.

Shopping woes

We’ve taken Aya to over a half dozen stores to purchase items she was looking for such as light colored jeans, gloves and hats for the Winter. Each time she never really can decide an item or it doesn’t look right for one reason or another.

Frankly, we will have to boil it down to this since we are growing a little tired of playing taxi service. A) She can order online from whatever store she desires B) Purchase items from the stores available in our area. Due to time constraints, sports, work and school we can’t just go on a whim any longer.

Lost in translation?

2007-11-04T17:18:00.000-05:00

This is a little clip I stumbled across, as you can see English is not as common in Japan as one might think, compared to other countries. This clip reminds you of it and makes light of the Japanese ability to speak English.

There are many web-sites that capitalize on this such as http://www.engrish.com/. I sort of wish I had sattelite TV and able to get some foreign channels outside of the Spanish ones.

California here they come!

2007-11-04T13:08:00.000-05:00

Aya had booked a flight and trip with a company that deal specifically with exchange student organizations “Explore America Tours”, I didn’t even know there was such a niche in the whole entrepreneurship world.

http://www.explore-america.com/

She is very excited since she will be able to visit California, her ideal state she had hoped be a part of during this exchange program stay. Sorry to say – but how it works is there are a whole lot of exchange students trying to find a placement in the United States (where they go isn’t a choice for each student, they get placed where there is a spot available, which would include a school district that is willing to accept them).

She has been updating me on other student within her organization and from her country that are having issues with their respective host families. Sometimes they get put in to families, not able to deal with hosting a family, though they signed up to be one. Sometimes the host parents and siblings have dislikes about personal interactions are and are not willing to make sacrifices. In other cases, a temporary family is found just to place a child into a home; in order to buy time to find a permanent family that will receive the student for 1 full school year. (I digress)

Aya told me she has a cousin who lives in Los Angles and wants to be able to meet up with him during the trip. I am thinking it will be difficult, since this is a tour group and where they go is dictated by the organization and not by the individual.

Her trip excerpt will be similar to this:

--------------------------------------------------

“There is so much to see in our time in Los Angeles and our tour will take us to some of the most famous sights. We will visit Beverly Hills, Rodeo Drive, Santa Monica and Venice Beach, Hollywood Boulevard and Melrose Avenue (the best place in Los Angeles for fun fashions). And tonight, after dinner, we see a live theater production.

We will spend our last day LA day riding the thrilling rides and exploring the attractions offered by Disneyland.

We will visit the South Rim of the Grand Canyon National Park and watch an IMAX show that teaches us about the Park's history - and we will have a chance to see both the Sunrise and Sunset over the Grand Canyon. We will grab our cameras and hike some of the trails around the Canyon's South Rim to photograph the Colorado River, which rages through the Canyon's floor.
We will venture into Las Vegas for an exciting tour of America's favorite playground.

Downtown Las Vegas with the Fremont Street Experience is always a student favorite.
We will drive and walk the "Strip" and explore many of the thrilling sites and attractions Vegas has to offer, from its glamorous casinos to its huge shopping facilities and roof top roller coasters.
Our days in Vegas will end with dinner and a Vegas Show.
· 1 night is spent sleeping on the bus from Los Angeles to the Grand Canyon.

---------------------------------------------

I am thinking that last note can’t be too much fun, falling asleep on a coach has got to be uncomfortable to say the least.

I suppose I can say I am a little jealous, as I lived here all my life and have not had time to go L.A. or even the earlier Niagara Falls in up state New York - sad how jobs and life styles dictate where we go and what we do. I think more of us should take the time and stop and smell the roses before the only roses we smell are the ones laid on our coffins. Life is too short to live to work, see Aya get to do all these things along with her fellow students from abroad has brought to me another light.

Having said this I want to organize the time and make time with my own family to go on trips we've dreamed about but somehow couldn't save enough or get the time off to go to. We only live once and one of us could be gone tomorrow and never get to live for today, I wonder how many people say this and never have the opportunity to fulfill their dreams.

This is Halloween

2007-11-04T12:42:00.000-05:00

Aya expressed that she was interested in the American traditions such as Halloween and Christmas.

I thought it was only fair to introduce her to what teenagers enjoy during the spooky season.

We took a trip with my daughter’s arts & craft club to Salem, Massachusetts. The town was having a festival specifically to celebrate Halloween and the fact that Salem is deemed the town in America to have its first Witch Trials back circa late 1700’s.

It was a little over 2 hours to get there and once there we did a lot of walking. She entered one of the Nation’s first candy shops there and viewed the “House of the 7 Gables” from the parking lot. Heard it was an interesting tour (though we did not have time to do the tour).

Some of the bizarre things we viewed that days while walking around town was this family dressed in blood-spattered clothing (much like the people in the Texas Chainsaw Massacre movie) walking around pushing a baby carriage fully of severed body parts (disturbing to say the least) – it’s the side of the Halloween that could be left to the imagination. I supposed one could call it a roving art exhibit of the macabre.

We also isolated a date to visit a Haunted House walk-through (not a real one). I was doing a search on the web for something fun, similar to what I was used to as a kid and found this place in Douglas, Ma.

The Haunted Mansion Douglas

Of course, the night I choose was dark and stormy, literally. Fortunately for October, the weather wasn’t freezing. The rain was relentless – I can’t remember the last time I was more drenched – though I had partial cover from an umbrella and wore what I thought was a water-proof jacket. The cue for entry of this event was winding outside by a garage. The entry fee of course was the best part – all we had to do is purchase canned goods (vegetables and the like). At first I thought, how good could a thing like this that doesn’t charge real admission – I later was surprised all the work these people put into, I left impressed.

I brought all my daughters (Aya and my own). I hadn’t completely made up my mind about bringing my youngest 10 to this place, but since no one else was home to watch her, I thought she would be able to handle it; and she did.

Though Halloween has passed, I did pick up pumpkins to carve one night this week – it’s not just the day, but the events she will remember and bring home with her.

She had made a few friends at school, one of whom is that girl from Thailand who invited Aya to go Trick-or-Treating. Even though we expressed our dismay, since she is approaching 18 years old and that American kids aren't usually given candy at that age if they go door-to-door. She went to a neighboring town where there are more homes in close proximity (more candy) and accepts older teens (probably in lieu of getting their cars toilet papered, eagerly give out candy instead).

Life at school...sometimes b-o-r-i-n-g

2007-11-04T12:18:00.000-05:00

We’ve (my wife and I) have gone to a couple of Parent/Teacher conferences. My wife usually goes to my daughter’s teacher and I split up and go to our exchange student’s teachers.

I am happy to say things are going well. The teachers seem to have an understanding on how Aya comprehends and grades accordingly. As I would imagine, it isn’t in their best interest that a poor grade is given if a student is trying and does over 5-6 hours of homework every night (compared to an average American student who does 2-3hrs). There are 2 other exchange students at the High School both from different organizations, one from Brazil and the other from Thailand.

I had learned that both of them had many more years of English than Aya (who had only 3 years of it). I know I say only 3 years, but if you were to take Spanish or French and get placed into an All Spanish or French school – I would expect more than half of us would flounder under the pressure of mental translation and understanding and to perform the written homework in a non-native language. It boggles the mind to think that someone can do it on only 3 years of English.

Aya doesn’t feel she is getting better in her language skills; both auditory and spoken language. On the contrary I sense that she is improving very well, hence the whole idea of immersion.

I recently learned the girl from Thailand had been taught English since the 3rd Grade. I am not sure about the boy from Brazil, though I heard he was a good soccer (football) player but wanted to try something different and chose to take American football and joined the team – not sure how successful he is, however he had made the sport cover page of the local paper.

We told Aya, she could suffer a letter grade in order to enjoy life in the America a little more - since most of her time home from school was put into doing essays for History class.

Blog Slacking

2007-11-04T11:30:00.000-05:00

Red Sox
World Series
Celebration!

Sorry for the slacking in the Blog updates. I think I’ve been relishing in the Red Sox victory and overcome with Fall activities and the depressing nature during the transition from Summer to Fall.

At best I can summarize the events that unfolded since I’ve last posted.
I will try to break it up into individual posts – all intentions are good, only the end result will prove that there was success or not.

Initially I was typing my Blog on your basic notepad.exe though it was simple, it provided no way to format and spell correctly – as I cut and pasted into the Blog I noticed all my paragraphs were shifted and single lines automatically changed to double-spaced – Argggh!

Going to the World Series

2007-10-22T00:12:00.000-04:00

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

2007-10-09T15:44:00.000-04:00

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

2007-10-09T15:43:00.000-04:00

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!

2007-10-02T09:19:00.000-04:00

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

2007-10-02T09:09:00.000-04:00

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

2007-10-02T09:01:00.000-04:00

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.

Restaurants, Markets and Bookstores

2007-09-23T09:07:00.000-04:00

This weekend we took another trip towards the outskirts of Boston. Our target destination was to go to a Japanese bookstore and to follow-up with a Japanese restaurant.

I did a little homework before our departure; I found several links to a Sasuga Bookstore, in Cambridge Mass. But to my dismay the store is no longer a store and strictly an online ordering base now.

When I was younger I used to enjoy going to these smaller specialized bookstores when you could actually smell the new print and glue and thumb through the pages and magazines. Even more so today the magazines come wrapped in plastic (preventing browsing) and/or are available through orders online or subscriptions.

Over the Summer we took a trip to San Francisco and visited Japan-Town there. We found a nice bookstore there that had just the atmosphere I've come to expect.

Aside from that it did not deter me from visiting Cambridge and Natick. Our first stop was a a Japanese Buffet (that's right, not a Chinese Buffet which is all too common around New England).

I was suspicious right off the bat, because every "so-called" Japanese Cuisine and restaurant that I've been to with the exception of only a handful has been run by Chinese, Vietnamese, Korean and other. Not that I have any issue with any of those - just that when you want to buy American Beef from Nebraska (Omaha Steaks) for instance you don't go to an Spanish Grocery store and get imported beef from Europe.

It's sad to see there are so many copy-cat restaurants with pseudo Japanese names to trick average Americans into thinking they are getting authentic Japanese food from authentic Japanese chefs. There are many times when you can tell they've used substitute ingredients or foods (due to cost cutting) which is represented in the tast. Other times it's not prepared the way it is traditionally and again the taste isn't there or odd.

I am digressing - we stopped at MINADO (Japanese Buffet), the one night we passed by the front of the restaurant Aya looked in and said, "Oh, they look like Japanese Business men in there dining and are being served by Japanese waitresses."

We learned that maybe some Japanese (visitors and business people) frequent the place, the servers and chefs weren't Japanese to the best of our knowledge. On the lighter side, the buffet was quite extensive and included a menagerie of Sushi. A newspaper had a write-up about the buffet (review).

We went and the cost on a Saturday was $17 per adult and oddly $8.00 for my youngest (Child) based on the child's height. Aya was very pleased with the spread, especially when it came to Sushi. I told her it was all-you-eat but she did not pack it on as I would have expected, since I thought $17.00 was more than reasonable.

From there we went to Cambridge to shop at a small Japanese market. Again these are hard to come by here in New England, since more of the Asian markets are Chinese. This was situated on Massachusetts Avenue #1815 and was called: Kotobukiya

This was the part of the trip make Aya feel at home, she could buy what she has been craving from Japan (at a much higher cost) as she filled a plastic bag worth of stuff it was around $50.00. I think she didn't care, it made her feel good and no so isolated.

I can relate for when I was in Japan for 2 months I noticed by the end of my 1st month I begged my uncle to take me to McDonald's (oh the memories).

I also did a little research from the General of Japan in Boston - Consulate, which has tidbits of information about things going on in Japan and local happenings related to Japan. For instance, I've never even heard of the "John Manjiro Festival" in Fair Haven, MA near New Bedford, but I am plan on attending it, if possible - if not for Aya, for myself.

As it turns out that she will not be able to attend this little festival because she has a trip planned with her Exchange Organization to go to Niagara Fall, N.Y. I am certain the festival will pale incomparison to the Falls, but I wanted to put it out there for whoever wants to check it out.

A hint of fluency improvement

2007-09-18T10:24:00.000-04:00

During the week, we've been discussing with Aya her about her trips with the organization that would include missing some time with the school. We understand that the whole idea of this exchange is about learning about American culture and experience the "wow" famous places in the United States.

On the down side, her grades and class participation will be the caveat of her whole stay here. I am certain that if she does poor in school there will be some kind of meeting as to whether she can continue or not.

From what I can tell she's doing okay in Math, her Humanities (parenting) and Physical Education. American History is difficult to her - as it seems that the content when presented in class doesn't strictly follow the text book and includes handouts. Many of the homework, quizzes and test include essay questions (as I mentioned before) this is the hardest for her to understand. Essays seem to draw from your mind and abstract thinking based off of what you've read or learned. Back home in Japan, children seem to learn by wrote-memory and content taught is the same as content on tests.

While conversing with her, I can tell she is beginning to pick up normal speed conversation and responds to and asks questions more liberally. I am impressed though, since I would have thought it would take a little longer before she felt comfortable and confident in doing so.

Weeks seem to pass more quickly as Fall approaches.

2007-09-16T17:10:00.000-04:00

The week came and went fairly fast, each day Aya was burdened with homework. I had to assist her on several occasions as she didn't get the full meaning of what some of the questions being asked in the History essay questions and with some of the Math word problems.

Friday soon approached, on this night the High School had a dance. In the past my oldest said these dances were boring and that the local church dances were more entertaining. I quickly pointed out to her that the church dances seemed to be more unregulated in such areas as age requirements being upheld and event the capacity of the church basement in question (in case of fire), it seemed the church was more concerned with profit than the number of attendees.

I convinced her to bring Aya to the High School dance to at least show her what they are like in the United States. To my daughter's surprise the dance was actually fun and entertaining compared to the Junior High Dances which she said no one attends. It turns out that some of her friends who made it into the church dance (over age), since it is supposed to be restricted to 5th thru 8th grade, were kicked out.

Aya said she had fun regardless, though it was held outside and the weather was typical September weather mid-50's - which she says is very cold to her.

On Saturday we spent the day down on Connecticut's shoreline in Waterford and New London - walked along the beach and got our feet wet. The water temperature at first was even icy to me, but it took about 10 minutes for it to feel tolerable.

We combed the beach for collectibles and while walking along the wave breaker (rocks) we showed her our New England 3 leafed friend "Poison Ivy", which was jutting out from some of the shrubs around the beach area already turning a mottled red.

Later we went over to Harkness Park, which was an Estate at one time of someone very wealthy, since then turned into a public park which over-looked the ocean (Long Island Sound).

In the home of the Estate and around its garden was a nice wedding, so she got to see an American Style wedding from afar. We spend a great deal on the vast lawn and found a kite which someone had lost with string intact and spent time trying to keep it aloft.

We went for some Hot Dogs at a joint called Fred's Shanty Restaurant, was better than Krusty Krab of Spongebob Squarepants. Food wasn't bad - fried clams were good. The girls went for the foot long hot dogs.

Later that evening we took a trip to the Mohegan Indian Casino. Aya had been studying about how the Native Americans were treated during the U.S. Westward expansion (take over in general), where she learned how some tribes fell into poverty, where others had rose from the ashes so to speak and developed one of the World's most successful Casino on and off the reservation. Apparently they aren't doing too bad for themselves, judging by the ever expanding buildings and hotels they are building. Even the big name entertainers are taking note and can't ignore places in little ol' Connecticut.

Foxwood's Resort Casino, another casino in South Eastern Connecticut was the first, but it seems the Mohegan's have taken that recipe and added more flavor to it and they both seem to cater to a different crowd. No matter how you slice it, someone is making money.

It was a long day to say the least, judging by the sleeping children in the car on the way home - but rest assured they weren't bored. Which is basically a typical statement from my own daughter and many teenagers. I stop to ponder how teenagers can get bored, when they have 10x more things to play with than I used to as a kid and 20x more things to do than my parents. We didn't have all this technology and could not even see 200 channels on cable or satellite. Not to mention I-pods, MP3's, Gameboys, PSP, X-Box, PC's, Huge Malls, Large Movie Theaters, NetFlix - the list grows and grows.

I would like just for once to send my daughter to Siberia and have her experience life in that climate and isolation - then she can say she's bored.

Building confidence & starting to shine.

2007-09-10T21:24:00.000-04:00

The past several days seemed to take shape. Things seemed to lighten up, though Aya had a lot of homework and studying to do to play catch up since she was ill.

This past weekend she got to spend some time with her other exchange students (friends). It was a sleep over on Saturday and a picnic on Sunday.

It was rumored they stayed up all night on Saturday night watching movies and talking till 4 a.m. Needless to say they were beat by the start of the day on Sunday.

There were some additional students that had arrived late: A boy from Finland and a girl from Germany. It would appear this organization gets a large pool from Europe and from that pool Germany seemed to have the strongest output of students.

Saturday night for the rest of the family since it was down to 3 of us, after the oldest (natural) daughter planned a sleep over. The youngest wanted to play Monopoly - so we did, though I am a rather sore loser. I was able to purchase Park Place and Boardwalk only to succumb to the Hotel Chains along Illinois Ave and Marvin Gardens - I mortgaged everything and gave up my small stash of cash (dirt poor and in debtor's prison).

My wife got to attend the picnic - as I had to miss it due to work.

We spent most of Sunday night assisting Aya with her studying and projects which were due on Monday. Due to her activities over the weekend and her illness, it gave little time to perform all her assignments.

I don't think I learned as much as I did about the U.S. Constitution than I did on Sunday night, which includes all my years in school grade through college. (Sad isn't it?)

Aya expressed to me today that she strongly wants to join a club; after school so she can participate and make more friends. She really wants to join a Volleyball team - but at this high school I didn't see much for that. In Massachusetts Basketball, Baseball, Soccer and Football are the biggest attractions, however I did learn tonight not only is Massachusetts is where the Basketball Hall of Fame is but where it was invented (at the Y.M.C.A.) - but also Volleyball was also invented here back in 1895. I would never have guessed that as Aya was also surprised since they are her favorite sports.

It seems Aya is coming out of her shell, slowly - sort of waking up out of a deep slumber must have been like to Rip Van Winkle.

Metal Gear Solid: Code name Snake?

2007-09-06T09:37:00.000-04:00

I know this isn't related to anything Okinawa or New England, but thought how amazing technology and robots are these days. I can't keep wondering if we are heading towards the day Terminator becomes a reality.

Tis the season to be wary!

2007-09-06T09:27:00.000-04:00

I know in New England we get some hurricanes from time to time, but nothing can compare to the frequent hits of typhoons in Japan and other parts of Asia. I may be comparing apples and oranges, but I would rather tough out a hurricane than a typhoon (since in our area, most hurricanes are weak in nature - Florida and the Gulf region may be a different story).

Farenheight 101

2007-09-05T21:26:00.000-04:00

The kids went off the school on Monday, it was back to the usual grind after a long Labor Day Weekend.

Aya seemed to be more quiet than usual and then we noticed she was coming down with something. This is an awkward situation because now you have someone who is ill in your home that has never dealt with being away from the comforts of her home.

She complained of a headache and more of body aches, she brought along some of her own medicine from Japan (sort of little packets of power) which looked like it was from the Old School days when medicines weren't in these pills we take today but in some weighed formula on a gram scale.

She had some strips that she read her own temperature and said 38C which doesn't register since we still think in Fahrenheit and chose to use our Ear Thermometer 101 F. As my old high school teacher used to say, "You look like something the cat dragged in." - she sort of fit that description. I told her she would be wise to sit this one out and not force yourself to school, she agreed.

My fear is she will fall behind in her school work, where basically each day for her would be like 2 days for normal kids since there is some translation to consider and the time to digest what was learned lost.

She's been in bed all day except for lunch - if this continues we will have to take her to seek medical attention, oddly there are no doctors who will take the organizations insurance, only the hospital which means we would have to visit the E.R. in order to be seen and evaluated. (Not something to look forward to, most E.R. were and still are a pain since you have to sit for hours sometimes just to get Triage from the nurse.

Poking around on the net like I normally do at night, I found this little article. A hard sell, but an oddity in of itself.

REIKI 霊気

My path to the world of healing and spirituality started and progressed along with raising my three sons. In 1989, my first son, one year old then, started running a high fever. I gave him a medicine for fever and three days later his temperature was still running high. I did not know what to do. Then I remembered a book on an old Japanese hand healing method I had read and it described a healing technique, receiving universal energy thru your left hand and sending it
out through your right hand. Not really expecting it to work, I decided to give it a try and put my right hand on my son. To my surprise, it worked! It brought down his temperature in no time. Since then, I continued to experience this
magic, “I put my hands on and the problem goes away”. Every time any of my sons got sick, I helped them heal by putting my hand on them. Still it was not something I was properly taught and I had no idea on how and why it works….
Makes an interesting bed time story.

Labor Day Weekend

2007-09-03T23:06:00.000-04:00

The family pretty much booked the whole weekend with things to do.

Saturday we did a surprise trip to Boston (Mainly cause Aya was asking when and the weather would be getting colder in a few months):

Sunday my oldest daughter went to the Spencer Fair with one of her friends, I think Aya was all Fair'd out (for now).

Today they did some shopping at one of the local Malls. I say local to us is like 40 minutes away, to Aya its like an eternity though she doesn't express her feelings much. (She disclosed that to my mother one day)

Off to Woodstock

2007-08-31T07:02:00.000-04:00

Every time I hear that name I immediately think of the 60's and Joplin. The the second image that comes to mind is Snoopy's pal (the bird).

My wife had plans to meet one of her friends near the gate entrance to the fair sometime around 10 a.m. The weather for the most part should cooperate, though there is a chance of showers.

Aya told me that her memorization of all 50 states and their capitals must have worked for she said she had gotten a 100 on the quiz. (She said it so matter-of-factly, I think she was confident that she would get a good grade). Regardless, I showed her I was proud of her.

Sheep sheering, pumpkin weighing and sand castle building, oh my!!

There was a lot of walking around, we stopped for drinks every 2 hours it seemed because it was a bright day and it didn't take long to get parched. We ate at one of the many food venues. I usually hit the caramelized nut stand and go for the roasted Almonds or Pecans. Then we got Fried Dough and I got a caramel apple.

The "Bird of Prey" show was neat although it was limited due to the fact that there was a nature hawk interfering with the show display and the Falconer felt that the show birds would be lunch.

We skipped the rides because we were on a tight budget and the fact that these rides were only put up for 3 days, who knows the safety record.

There was a Karate exposition and an Old time fiddle and banjo band all of whom were over 60 years old.

Homesick

2007-08-30T23:43:00.000-04:00

We were told during pre-orientation and in the Host Family guide book this time would come. It is one of the phases a young student goes through, during their stay aboard. If it were only a few weeks, it may not have a chance to kick in, but a stay like a school year will definitely have an effect.

I think I realized she was feeling a little blue during the past 2 weeks or so, but haven't actually spoken to Aya about her feelings of homesickness due to the fear of just asking about would bring it about.

She told me that a classmate from her High School in Okinawa who is now with a Host Family is extremely homesick, which started the minute he left from Okinawa to Narita (Tokyo).

She told me she had cried on the flight over to the United States, but seems to have recovered well which is why I didn't notice. I think today she might have phoned him (using her calling card) and by just talking to him and emailing him caused her to realize that she too missed Japan (its food, its lifestyle and its TV programming).

You can see it in her eyes (holding back moisture) - she longs for eating Mochi and enjoys watching old shows on YouTube. She even has text books that are written in Japanese that her mom sent over that has English on opposite page to aid her in studying U.S. History and others which are just Manga and other magazines (comfort items).

This in conjunction of her staying in contact with her Japanese friends (exchange students in the U.S. and friends from back home) causes more emotional confusion.

Per the guide book, we are supposed to limit her contact with her home and email; it will only cause her to withdraw more so instead of being more outgoing.

I asked Aya if there was anything bothering her. She said she felt a little animosity from my oldest whom she shares a room with during her stay. It seems my oldest daughter is trying to keep ties with her friends, yet keep a connection with Aya. Allies friends seem to be winning. This only exacerbates Aya's feeling of isolation.

I spoke with Aya and told her that there is 3 years age difference and as a Freshman, Allie is going through a lot of changes (new school, old/new friends) and sometimes it can be overwhelming when she has to choose how to keep everyone happy, including her parents. The whole maturing process.

Somehow Aya feels like Allie is upset with her. I know it doesn't help when Allie's friend asks to go places without having to have a tag along - this includes our youngest daughter as well. We did explain to Allie that she would have to understand you can't just turn on or off your NEW sister because you want to go hang-out with your friends. This is part of the experience and part of the learning curve both sides have to adjust to.

We (my wife and I) questioned Allie alone about how she felt and if she was upset with Aya for anything. She told us there was no issue that she knew of. Allie had tried to invite Aya to go to the movies or mentioned that her friend wanted to go to the Spencer fair and that she was welcome. Each time Aya declined. I can only think that maybe Aya is getting the feeling from one of Allie's friends not to be included. /sigh girls...

It may be a long road to cheer Aya up and make Allie understand that we have a NEW person in the home living with us; we can't make her feel like she's not part of the family (for they have no where else to turn or go).

In the past week or so, my wife and I have noticed Aya retreating to an quiet area I set up in the downstairs entertainment room to study with desk and good lighting - a place to just get away. Some people can study just fine with music on a bed or on the floor (like Allie), where as Aya seems to be accustomed to studying at a desk in a library like environment.

Handwriting

2007-08-30T14:36:00.000-04:00

I know I have tentative plans this weekend to maybe go to Boston. I know Aya's been longing to go and quite frankly I haven't been since early Summer and would like to visit a day.

I had not mentioned this to the family yet, but I am sure most would be willing to go. Aside from all the fairs Aya may attend and Boston a possibility, I would like to have her spend at least 2 hours practicing reading cursive and writing cursive. I found this website that talked handwriting being a dying practice amongst all the technology we have today. Honestly I haven't written in so long I nearly forgot how to properly do a Capital "Q".

My feeling on the ability to learn quick, is that as an adult she can absorb much more and quicker (say 3 days) as opposed to a 3RD grader who in maybe a 3 weeks period will learn to write the whole alphabet.

The Shisa

2007-08-30T11:44:00.000-04:00

A few days after Aya's arrival, she presented us with several gifts. One in particular was a set of statues of a lion looking creatures. She told us it was unique to Okinawa and their culture - I asked my mother (who is from Kyushu) if she knew what it was, but she did not.
Curiousity got the best of me so I did a little research which I found comes with the story of linked here "The Shisa"

Matsuri 祭 - Festival (Fair)

2007-08-30T11:13:00.000-04:00

Tomorrow we plan on getting up and headed towards our next fair on the list, as I've stated earlier we usually start out small and work our way towards the biggest - there can be some argument as to which is bigger between Woodstock and Spencer, but there can be no argument that the Big - E is simply that.

Wales, MA (Old Home Day Fair)
Brooklyn, CT (Fair)
Woodstock, CT (Fair) <-------------(Friday)

Spencer, MA (Fair)
Big - E (Eastern States Exhibition) - Springfield, MA

U.S. History Test Today

2007-08-30T07:42:00.001-04:00

Aya brought to my attention that she had to prepare for her History Quiz today, it was on the States their capitol cities.

I snickered at the ease of it or so I thought. I had helped her study by use of some flash cards which had more information on each state and the geography each etc. However, I quickly realized I don't even know all the capital cities of all the 50 States, though I bet any 5Th Grader would since it most likely would be fresh in their minds.

She did fairly well, though she had not budgeted her time to studying these as intensely as she could have (she had 2 days for wrote memorization). I think in her mind, she was done with school in Japan and this was more of a visit/site-seeing than an earnest attempt to work hard in a U.S. High School.

I am sure her attitude will change, but for now she is looking forward to going to Boston, New York and other attractive cities if possible. During the studying of the states, she mentioned to me that she had hoped for a stay in some of the mid-western states (Nevada, Wyoming, South Dakota and Nebraska).

Aya told me at 13, she had visited Hawaii for a 3 week "Home stay" in Honolulu and hope to get a chance to visit there again soon. She had stayed with another Japanese student who was 18 at the time. (I can only imagine it was like a real nice vacation: Beach, Surf, Clubs, and Sightseeing).

She also has some math homework to do and something as simple as "the square root of 10" stumped me without the use of a calculator as I forgot the most efficient way of doing this. She is required a Scientific Calculator, which I couldn't not remember where I stashed it from college days; so she had gone out to purchase a cheap on at Wal-mart "Casio". I can remember these things used to cost more than $40.00, it is now $19.99 and have more to offer including solar power.

I stumbled across something I never knew Google to be able to do, in the search I just typed
"Square root of 10" and it displayed like a calculator. Other information such as dealing with squares, was helpful for finding the Square of 10 the without the a calculator . Amazing what kids have access to these days. Even something like "convert 10 miles to feet" produces answers.

School Daze

2007-08-28T05:19:00.001-04:00

I called home to the family from work, because I couldn't wait until I arrived home to hear how the 1st day of school went. As this Blog is more about the exchange student and not my own kids; I will refrain from putting their experiences here.

Aya told me she thought that the first day was pretty good and in another sentence she said it was fun.

I was later told by my oldest that Aya was hunger after coming home from school, for she missed her lunch because she had a great deal of difficulty with the locker combinations. Apparently she's never seen a dial (numeric combination) before that we were all accustomed to - if so she's never used one.

We tried to explain to her that the numbers given were X-Y-Z and that for X you have to turn the dial Clockwise (which for some reason, there was no translation to) and for Y Counter-Clockwise and again Clockwise for Z.

She expressed great distress over this and said she was still uncertain on how to go about it. In between classes she needed to put things in her new locker, but there was no one around to help her on the floor where her locker resides - they were all in class at that time.

Gym class doesn't issue a uniform which seemed odd to her as I assume they get one back in Japan since ever time I've seen students they wore a uniform to school for normal class, that having an issued gym suit would be natural.

She though parenting class was fun and that the Math class was a little strict; translation the teach seemed to be a prude.

Another problem for Aya was that a lot of the work assigned or some items of discussion was written in cursive (handwritting) on the black or white board. Apparently Aya has not been taught in school what they characters are supposed to look like when linked. This will be yet another task which she will have to quickly master in order to continue, as I don't see that the teacher will print on the board to accomodate her.

The calm before the storm...

2007-08-27T21:35:00.000-04:00

Tonight is the night before the start of school. I noticed Aya hasn't said much this evening, I believe she is mentally trying to prepare for school tomorrow.

I don't know why, but I have sympathetic nervous feeling about the whole ordeal, not unlike the first time you put your kid on a bike without training wheels and let them leave your grasp. It must be the fatherly instinct in me or just the compassion for another humans plight into the unknown.

I honestly think I could get sick to my stomach just wondering how the day will progress tomorrow. My oldest, Allie will be attending the High School for the first time as well, but as a Freshman - oddly I have not fear that she will do just fine. Part of the reason I have the most confidence in her there, is the fact that she knows a lot of the students there since they were part of the Junior High last year.

All I can ask is that God be at her side and always have communication go both ways with clear understanding. We want to debunk the "Tower of Babble" and hope things will go smooth. (Fingers crossed)

They both should go to bed early tonight for I will have to wake them bright and early at 05:00 a.m. - this ought to be interesting.

Wish us luck...

A Bed Time Story

2007-08-27T10:26:00.000-04:00

To help Aya with her language we choose a more subtle approach. We started Saturday night with her reading a bed time story to my youngest daughter who will be 10yrs at this months end.

At first we though Dr. Seuss would be fun, but there were a lot of unusual made up names that rhyme with sounds and other oddities that confused Aya. So now we resorted to the Clifford series.

Although the words are simple, we are just trying to get her to read aloud to our daughter and correct any odd intonations and pronunciations.

It kind of cute listening to her read - she was having the hardest time with Emily Elizabeth and any other "L" or "R" sounds. We tried not to chuckle, but it was nearly impossible not to; we assured her that we weren't laughing at her just tenacious attempt to reproduce our sounds and dialect. She learned from someone with an English accent - so it was a little harder to hear our New England accent versus what she was used to.

I wouldn't say we have a Bostonian accent, since our family grew up in Southern Connecticut (which to me doesn't have any geographic accent that I can tell). I can tell even places like Hartford or Bristol Connecticut has a different dialect than say Norwich, Connecticut.

It was a fair day after all...

2007-08-25T22:36:00.000-04:00

My youngest celebrated her birthday at her grandparents house. It was a rather "muggy" day, as Aya picked up on the unusual word. Now she knows it is similar to humid.

I spent a good 10 minutes before I really got into the pool after grilling the burgers for lunch. Both my daughters were trying their best to pre-soak me before I entered the pool. They had giant squirt guns and some foam guns that were basically giant syringes filled with water. It came down to a soaking from the garden hose with cold tap water (I reigned king).

Aya wanted to come and join us but felt a little reserved - so she sat this one out. The remainder of the family jumped in the pool as well just to cool off.

After during the drying process our youngest hastily opened up her presents - there was much rejoicing. She got mostly cash, to which she will spend on what she likes instead of getting something she didn't really like. It seems this is what our family does most of the time, not that we can't be thoughtful about gift giving - but sometimes you can't always pick what a person likes and this saves the return process.

The sun was getting low in the sky, so we headed down from southern CT and drove to Rhode Island to check out the beach, for this would be Aya's first time on the Atlantic Ocean.

Standing on the sand watching gulls fly above and the surf pound the shore. We got sandy, sticky with salt and wet all at the same time - but it was worth every second. For people who grew up near the ocean it was nice break from the land-lock feeling of being in the center of New England.

I found it strange when Aya told me that they do not have Sea-Gulls at her ocean in Okinawa. I joked with her and asked if they had become a food item or were shot by fishermen - she assured me that neither my guesses were facts.

After the short ocean visit, which was more of a tease because we had to start heading back to Massachusetts, we headed for a fair in Brooklyn, Connecticut.

We as family typically start out at the smallest fairs and work out way up to the largest. This year the list includes:
Wales, MA (Old Home Day Fair)
Brooklyn, CT (Fair) <-------------------------(today)
Woodstock, CT (Fair)
Spencer, MA (Fair)
Big - E (Eastern States Exhibition) - Springfield, Ma

This was Aya's first agriculture fair. There were barns filled with chickens, rabbits and cows. There were tractor pulls and oxen team pulls. Not to mention all the vendor stands and food stands. They had country music jamming at the larger venue (not sure who was playing). Prices are going up though it was now $10.00 per head just to get in and $5.00 to park. Things never seem to stay cheap for long.

Party Time

2007-08-25T09:10:00.000-04:00

Yesterday we took the Kayaks out on the lake again which she enjoyed, though she does more sightseeing than paddling, as my arms can attest to that - it was a good work out none-the-less.

As the end of Summer draws near, you can start to see some of the leaves start to change. She seemed excited to learn that the leaves here in New England turn various colors (Red, Yellow, Orange etc) but did not really know of Evergreen trees which remain green throughout the year.

Today we prepare to go down to Connecticut and have a pool party for my youngest. Its just with family, but it is her birthday.

Typically we just burger and dog it up then jump in the pool and have water fights. Just a lazy day for the most part - but this will be something Aya would enjoy.

Although she lives in Okinawa and by the beach, she tells me she doesn't go swimming much, to add to this, she doesn't really own what we call a bathing suit. She told me that the kids her age just wear T-Shirts and shorts to go swimming in public and that she only wore a bathing suit in her school only. She said she feels strange out in public with a bathing suit on and most likely won't wear one here.

Leaving early to get a head start; my wife wants to pick up some groceries on the way down and of course hit up Dunkin Donuts (cause America runs on Dunkin).

Shorter days and time is short.

2007-08-24T09:24:00.000-04:00

The mornings are cooler and we can start to see the turning or some of the Maple tree leaves. It is sort of depressing if you enjoy Summer and realize that you've either worked through most of it or that it just seemed to go by so quickly.

Aya is officially out of her first bankroll after using most of it on clothing and foods that she likes. She is expecting to get more wired money, but neither of us realized that it would take 4 days to get money deposited from a foreign bank into a U.S. Bank.

Aya as of late, has been allowed to use the Internet a little more freely. She writes to some of her friends and checks some of the Yahoo-News in Japan. I understand we are supposed limit her access to friends and family of her native country because it may rob from the immersion effect and/or possibly worsen any homesickness she may have.

She sat and played Monopoly with my daughters; we could see that they seemed to be more open during play time. Aya won the game and my daughters seek revenge. Apparently Monopoly is an internationally known game - Parker Brother's get around.

The Elements

2007-08-23T07:34:00.001-04:00

We've covered more ground as far as getting Aya into the elements of New England nature. We live in a fairly low populated area with woods, lakes, streams and bugs!

This past Saturday there was the exchange organization meeting, which was essentially a getting to know the other families who host in the area (of this specific organization) and meet their exchange students.

It was interesting to see the children from other countries, most of whom were from Europe. There were boys from France, Germany and Thailand and girls from Switzerland and Germany. It was also interesting to note that the stereotypical fair skinned, blond hair and blue eyes were actually present that day, as I realize there are all hair types and eyes colors in Europe, I just thought it was ironic.

I spent most of my time talking with the other host families. I was also elected to grill all the burgers, sausages and hot dogs for the meal (can anyone say "Too Pink")?

The meeting house was on a lake and the students were offered an opportunities to go for a ride on a Jet Ski, Motor boat ride and to go tubing.
All the student went on one of the something, most of which was just the boat ride. The weather was a bit breezy and although being August the chill off the water was bit unusual, some of the student bundled in "hoodies" (sweat shirts).

Aya seem to feel the cold the most, we told her just wait until Winter. We did learn a new word in Japanese those: Tori-Hada meaning "Goose-bumps".

A few days later we went shopping, which seems to be Aya's most favorite thing to do. She used her debit card, which he had never had in Japan - I am guessing it was due to the fact she's always carried cash or wasn't old enough to apply for a Credit Card/Debit card. It was her first day using it.
She thought it was the most convenient thing; swipe, type and buy.

I told her its a double-edged sword since sometimes people get into trouble because its so easy, they don't realize they are overspending and people become deep in debt.

We took her to our favorite ice cream store: Cold-Stone Creamery. They make the most flavorful, textured hard/soft ice cream there and free waffle cones (to die for). She enjoyed it, but said it was too sweet. I think the Japanese tongue isn't used to all the sugar American put into their diet, because there were several other times where she said something was too sweet.

She enjoys the clothing line Roxy and seems to buy only items from that line, unless there are no other options. I've never really paid attention to fashion, so I am not sure if this is just a popular brand in Japan or it just hasn't taken off big on the East Coast of the U.S. I am beginning to think she owns stock in the company.

On Sunday the 19th, we took a Kayak ride out on the lake. We have 2, one of which is a tandem boat and the other is a single. It was a day of firsts because my oldest daughter took the single Kayak for the 1st time and this was Aya's 1st time in a Kayak. I had a feeling we would have to attend the store pictured below first.

All seemed to go well, taught her some basics in paddling and steering, though she didn't paddle for long as I was doing all the work in the back seat. I felt like I was a Gondola pilot showing off Veince in Itlay.

Our neighbors preparing to board their Bayliner and asked if the girls wanted a ride, to which they excitedly departed the Kayaks and went on his boat. (They even had an opportunity to pilot it for a short time, which was thrilling to her.)

Reservation not required

2007-08-17T06:35:00.000-04:00

Regrettably it's been several days since my last post. It seems like time is flying by, though I want this month to chug along a bit more.

Aya had her Math Placement test on Tuesday the 14Th, the experience was odd according to my wife. She was brought to the school in the morning and there were about 15 students awaiting to take the test in the lobby or cafeteria. My wife asked Aya to go sit with the other students waiting, but she froze - didn't want to go in to sit with the other students. My wife had to ask Aya 3 times before she moved, ever so hesitantly.

Finally the Math teacher came down to greet the students and told them they had to proceed up to the 3rd floor; all but Aya started walking towards the stairs. My wife told her she had to go with the students and that she couldn't go with her or support her during the test. I don't know why she thinks there will be someone with her during her testing or schooling, though we've explained that to her already. I am guessing she's got 2nd thoughts about all this, but wants to suceed.

That evening I spoke with Aya, asking her about the test. She said it was little difficult because there were some word problems, but the answer sheet were (fill in the circle) multiple choice which made it easier. The questions (equations) were fairly easy she said (as I knew this since her math back in Japan seemed to be like 1st or 2nd year of college here).

Aya seems a little more relaxed now, however a little more reserved when it comes to certain situations. She does the dishes every night and shares that responsibility with one of our daughters, switching between rinsing or washing.

We sat down one night and created a chore list and either assigned or asked for volunteers from the children (ours and the exchange student). Granted we don't have a lot, my own kids make it seem like it's the end of the world and I am driving them to the bone. Sadly I had double their chores when I was their age as I am sure my parents had triple mine; we seem to be breeding children who expect more and do less with each generation.

Aya says she's lives in the country side, but somehow I don't envision that being an island and near cities and tourists year round. Who am I to argue, I've never been, but can view on a map (I've tried Google Earth, but it doesn't show a lot of detail in other countries as well as North America).

The other night I started to practice her English again, but I think she didn't really review the words nor looked up the definitions as we talked about. Not sure if she's becoming lazy, bored, forgetful or has this feeling that she may miraculously do well and doesn't need to review anything.

She seems to retreat to her room often; sometimes reading some Japanese subject books (little guide books from her High School or write in her daily journal), sometimes napping through parts of the day.

During some of our discussions, I get the feeling she goes places all the time with her friends back home and must have envisioned her stay in America to be the same (New York & Boston) or any other major city in the United States. Many things to do in those cities, where as in the small town of United States, we've got corn, woods and the activities she's used to are missing. Shopping, mall walking, arcades, beaches, hanging out where there are a lot of people, movie theaters and bus/train stations.

I don't feel my sole purpose here is to keep her entertained, but I try to keep her comfortable.

I've tried to explain to her this isn't really a site-seeing trip or vacation, this is a one-year sink or swim in an American High School taking American studies: U.S. History, Literature etc. all in English, taught by English teachers. She assured me she understood, but still acts nervous when we discuss it.

Eve before Math placement

2007-08-13T22:50:00.000-04:00

The past couple of days have been leisurely for the family, where as I started work on Sunday so I wouldn't say it was exactly fun for me (12hr Days).

Last night I noticed Aya preparing for her Math Placement on Tuesday. I gave her several old text books I found that my wife had in her General Studies courses for Algebra I/II which Aya said she had done a while ago in grade school - and would have to brush up.

She also has this booklet, sort of a guide book in Japanese for Math that she used in the High School back in Okinawa. I couldn't read it, only could see the equations and some of the examples (which is what she said our text books look to her when she is trying to study).

The English is more complex for math books than what a normal text book would have and for her to understand a "Word Problem", will be a problem unto itself.

Currently she said she's doing Calculus but didn't seem to versed in Trigonometry and Statistics and Probability. Quite honestly its been many moons since I've laid eyes on problems like those and I would be drawing a big fat zero on my test, if I were to take it.

After I came home tonight I was trying to prepare her for English understanding.
For example:
I choose a text book on management skills and read excerpts (basically one or two sentences at at time) to have her listen then write (print) them on a notebook, then later check her auditory skills and to digest and reproduce to the best of her ability. I had also had her underline the bigger words or words in general that she didn't understand. This way she will be forced to look up the definition and maybe have a chance to review it later.

Oddly enough, she didn't learn cursive and prints everything - including her name. As I found out when we went to get her bank account the other day. They said sign here and sign here...
There was an odd silence as she printed her name in both places. Fortunately, then second bank accepted her application and allowed her to sign in her native Kanji.

I am not sure if this is a tried and true method, but I want to give her a fighting chance during her stay with us and if she wants to be able to hang with the homies at the school and keep up with teacher/student interaction.

I will have to wait until tomorrow night to find out how she faired on the test and what and if the teacher(s) had any input as to her ability to follow / understand directions well.

Yard Sale, Tag Sale, Garage Sale its all the same.

2007-08-11T08:28:00.000-04:00

Today the town is holding a "Town Wide Yard Sale" as well as Massachusetts is going tax free this weekend as an incentive to buy more.

In the past years, we've set up a lot of unwanted items and they still became unwanted items which we ended up donating to The Salvation Army.

Allie has to tend to a neighbor's yard sale and my wife will be tending a small table at our home, I think Aya and my youngest will drive around checking out the other's around town. I fully don't expect her to look much or buy much. I've gotten the impression she likes new things and budgeting hasn't hit home yet. I presume her spending money comes from her family for now until she works full time.

Small town in New England...try to cope with it.

2007-08-10T14:45:00.000-04:00

It's raining today and overcast, the temperature dropped to around 58F. Had to take my wife to the outpatient for pain management (back, Sciatica, hip and referred leg pain). She's been pretty much immobile for the past 4 weeks now (hoping a solution can be reached). Treating the symptom versus the root cause will not help the issue.

The kids played some Nintendo Game Cube down stairs - a game that used to play as a kid (RAMPAGE). My daughter's tend to gravitate toward watching the T.V. a lot, where as Aya doesn't watch much T.V., as she explained she doesn't watch much at home.

She seems anxious to do stuff - typical bored teenager, more exaggerated here in this small town and the fact that 58F is cold to her she is confined to the home. I asked her what she does at home in Okinawa. She says she does a lot of shopping at local malls and shops. She said she loves to just hang out on the beach or in the malls with friends.

She comes from a larger populous and is used to lots of things to do in a larger city, but here in this quiet little Podunk town in Massachusetts there isn't all of that and for teenagers even locally - they become bored.

Local teenagers here do any of the items on the list if they can't drive themselves:
- Walk around town
- Read
- Bike and skateboard
- Hang-out at the skateboard park (other side of town)
- Hang out at the basketball park (other side of town)
- Boat and swim (lake near by)
- Fishing
- Surf the web and IM, text message, MySpace and YouTube
- Play PC games: World of Warcraft or WoW, Counter-Strike, Battlefield and more.
- Console game: xbox 360, Nintendo Wii, Sony PlayStation III
- Play in a garage band or attend a jam
- Hang out (anywhere around town, looking menacing)
- Board games and playing cards usually at the bottom of the list

All of which seems boring to them. We get the same old line from our kids: "We're bored", "I'm hyper and don't know why, I just want to do something - go somewhere."

I guess you can say, welcome to the World of Teenagers or WoT. Which is a cruel game of life and pretending you didn't hear what your parents asked of you. ["WoT" = "What?"]

To be continued...

As my main PC is still dead - missing its power supply I haven't been playing any online games. I think I am going through some sort of withdrawl, like a smoker with cigarettes or something.

On the bright side, I actually did more around the home than I had in the past year, as far as unpacking boxes we had in a storage room from when we moved that last 2 times, made office space for Aya, tightened up a wiggly Foosball table, put together shelving - free time can be dangerous. (Need more level 70's !!)

Positive message in a kids song for Naruto!

2007-08-09T16:53:00.000-04:00

ALIVE: by Raiko

Raiko - Alive (Ending naruto)
Uploaded by onikari

dare datte shippai wa suru nda
hazukashii koto janai
kono kizu o muda ni shinai de
waratte arukereba ii

Everyone makes mistakes at times

It's not something embarrassing

Don't waste these scars

Keep on going laughing, and it'll all be good

(RAP)
sou shizuka na kuuki suikomi
hiroki sora ni kao age tobikomi
toki ni ame ga futtara hito yasumi
jaa yukusaki wa kaze fuku mama ni
takusan no matotteru koukai
kono kizu o muda ni shicha shounai
ude ni kunshou kizami ikoukai shougai
sou kokkara ga Show Time

(RAP)

That's right, breathe in a silent breath

Look to the vast sky, jump in

Take a break once in a while when it rains

Let the wind take the destination

All the regrets you carry

Can't let these scars go to waste

Carve an emblem into your arm, lets go as long as we love

That's right, from here on is the Show Time

ah iroasete kono PORA naka de ikiteru kako no jibun toka
itsumo TSURU nde hi no nai you ni
ibasho mitsukete hiataru you ni
konna kanji de hibi kattou ippo fumidasu beki ganbou
makkou shoubu jibun ni muke issou koko de kono uta hibikasou

Ah Like the past that lives in this fading polaroid picture

Just like the days we hung out

We searched for a place so we can sit in the sun

We fought every day like this

The one step you gotta take for your desire

A real fight for yourself Let's sing this song forever in this place

dare datte shippai wa suru nda
hazukashii koto janai
kono kizu o muda ni shinai de
waratte arukereba ii

Everyone makes mistakes at times

It's not something embarrassing

Don't waste these scars

Keep on going laughing, and it'll all be good

(RAP)
kyou hajimari o tsugeru asayake yume to genjitsu no hazama de
What's Say kono koe kareru sono hi made
korogari tsudzukeru Another Day
shuppotsu shinkou kamase in o shindou kaitaku michi ippon yeah
yagate toori ni hanasake soshite mirai ni mugete habatake
genjitsu omoku nokkaru ga mezase chouten Like a No Culture
saru ga saru ni shikanarenai Oh
jibun wa jibun ni shikanarenai Yo
asu o ki ni shite shita muku mae ni
kyou no jibun no ki no muku mama ni
saisei kyou wa chou kaisei nanimo nayami nankanaize

(RAP)

Morning dawn tells you the beginning Between the borders of dream and reality What's Say until the day my voice dies away

keep on truckin' Another Day

All aboard ready to go Develop a single road yeah

Soon flowers bloom along the way And will spread its wing toward the future Reality burdens real heavy but go for the top Like a No Culture

A monkey can only be a monkey Oh

One can only be himself Yo

Before you worry about tomorrow with your head down

Be what you wanna be today

Rebirth, today's a fine day I've got nothing to worry for

omoku no shikakaru genjitsu ga
ima no boku o semetateteru
kantan ni wa ikanai na
sonna koto kurai chouchi shiteru yo

Reality leans heavy on me

And it's torturing me

Nothing comes easy

I know that well enough

dare datte shippai wa suru nda
hazukashii koto janai
kono kizu o muda ni shinai de
waratte arukereba ii
takusan no koukai o matotte
aji no aru hito ni naru sa
kanashimi mo kaze ni kaete
tsuyoku susunde ikereba ii

Everyone makes mistakes at times

It's not something embarrassing

Don't waste these scars

Keep on going laughing, and it'll all be good

With all the regrets I've gone through

I'll be a person with taste

Even turn sadness into a wind

Keep on going strong, and it'll all be good

(RAP)
sou shizuka na kuuki suikomi
hiroki sora ni kao age tobikomi
toki ni ame ga futtara hito yasumi
jaa yukusaki wa kaze fuku mama ni
takusan no matotteru koukai
sono kizu o muda ni shicha shounai
ude ni kunshou kizami ikoukai shougai
sou kokkara ga Show Time

(RAP)

That's right, breathe in a silent breath

Look to the vast sky, jump in

Take a break once in a while when it rains

Let the wind take the destination

All the regrets you carry

Can't let these scars go to waste

Carve an emblem into your arm, lets go as long as we love

That's right, from here on is the Show Time

Day of R & R

2007-08-09T09:12:00.000-04:00

I awoke fairly early this morning, mostly due to our dog begging to be let out.

Grabbed quick bowl of cereal and started my coffee in the Keurig, which IMO is the best invention in a long time for non-morning people.

I used to grab a coffee at Dunkin' Donuts or make a full or half pot, wasting the rest of the coffee. (I think I am saving money)

Browsing the web through some email, blogs and Japanese links - I saw this YouTube video that I thought was hysterical. As I notice I will soon come to the realization that getting older is a permanent situation, but hair is only temporary.

It's 9:25 a.m. now and the eldest girls are still fast asleep. I figure I will let them rest since they only have a few more weeks until they have to wake at the crack of dawn.

Sort of a lazy day around the house, Aya and youngest shot a few hoops then came indoors for a little Foosball action; it was 2 on 2. I teamed up with my youngest and Allie and Aya teamed up. It was entertaining, its a wonder why won't don't play it until friends come over. I do miss a real pool table or even a good Air Hockey table.

There is a tentative plan to go out on the kayak's since the weather is good today and will rain Friday and Saturday, but the girls left for some errands.

I did accomplish something today; I set up a study area for Aya as she requested and as I stated in an earlier Blog, I had planned on doing. (Something positive came of it - hurray!) She has a very large desk to use cleaned off with a matching bookshelf and its in a quiet area of the home away from all the activity. It's hard to tell, but I think she's happy about it.

I could be a cultural thing, but after dinner last night (one that my wife made), she didn't say whether she like it or didn't like it. I know guests and friends usually say I like this (even deep down inside it could be something they didn't really care for, but to be polite people say these kind of things). It feels a little odd there is no real expression (a deep in thought look), little eye contact is made often unless directly spoken to. Only when asked did she say she thought it was good.

I think it will take some time for all of us to adjust, as the guide book stated - we will notice and expect different reactions and events than what actually comes to surface. I am sure she expected something totally different as well in every day family living.

I had some MP3's of some Japanese music from a Anime show I watch and enjoy, though I am a grown up called Naruto. I know we have the syndicated version in America - but I prefer the subtitled Japanese version, it has more feeling to it.

In one of the several car rides we took this week, I played a song I like the most from a set of 10 different theme songs. I was surprised she never heard of the song and when she asked what it was from I told her Naruto. She laughed and said she doesn't watch that show, boys do mostly. (Oddly she admitted to watching Dragon-Ball Z and Pokemon) - which I thought to be boys cartoons as well.

Above are the Lyrics with English translation (not by me) and a video clip. Surprisingly a lot of the songs have a positive message regardless how coarse it may sound.

The Day

2007-08-08T08:10:00.000-04:00

Rise and shine; actually it's raining out and kind of dreary.

Woke Aya up promptly at 07:30 in order to be ready by 08:30.
My other daughters I decided would be best to drag them out of bed, for comfort and reassurance. We know she will be nervous.

One thing I recall from being in Japan is the house slippers - Aya is wearing them now while she is preparing her bowl of cereal. She bought all the girls them as well which was wonderful.

I notice that most Japanese guys or girls walk in those slippers or Zori's with a shuff-shuff sort of walk as the heels sort of never leave the ground. At my work there were two guys from Japan that helped us install and repair machines; and they too walk with the same shuff-shuff. Its sort of funny, but as a kid my dad used to yell at me for doing such a thing.

Pick up your feet! You are acting lazy and I will not have that in my house!

He'd say as I instantly ceased from such activity.

---------------------------------------------------------------
And off we went to the High School with my two daughters or should I say three.
There was some obvious visible anxieties, since we fully expected to meet the Principal first thing.

To our relief we met the Guidance Counselor that put together Aya's schedule yesterday.
We did notice another exchange student there from Thailand and Alli noticed another student there yesterday at her orientation who is from Brazil. (I have a feeling that both students may speak more fluent English, which may compound some anxieties).

We spent a good portion of the 2 hours in the cafeteria on some hard plastic seats. As I recollected one of my college professors state that the brain will absorb only what the butt can endure. (I think that statement has more meaning with age.)

Most of the orientation was about schedules and classes, location and how to read your schedule and how many credits is expected by the end of the school year. Afterwards we took a tour around the high school 3 of the 4 floors worth, seeing all the different sections. I knew the High school was large, but it felt even larger once within its walls. Compared to my High School which was more of a Voc-Tech High School it was gi-normous.

After orientation we set her up with a Bank Account at another banks, it seems the 2nd Bank is more flexible when it comes to foreigners and the ease of working with exchange students etc.

We were even able to obtain a Visa Check card (debit card) from them, where as the other bank we tried she was only limited to just an ATM card.

We stopped by McDonald's for lunch, we believe it was her first time in the U.S. , but as well all know McDonald's has already spanned the globe. Fillet-o-fish was her sandwich of choice; she had mentioned that she is missing Japanese food now. Which might explain why last night when given a choice of what to eat, she choose the Ramen package in the cabinet.

I understand that she wants to have Sushi or other Japanese foods, more as a comfort food while in a strange place, but as it had been explained to us from the Exchange Program, that we need to treat her as one of our own and not as a guest - thus not cater to all her desires.

I am finding this one of the hardest things to do. How do you not treat someone who is staying with you not as a guest? I think it will take time, though I don't want it to take too long before we figure how to do this or else it will become expected.

She is asking for a quiet place to study with desk, as my oldest daughter's room is a little cramped and has only a computer desk and is in close proximity to the kitchen / great room which is where most of the family's activities take place, hence it may be too noisy.

Alli has found that studying in her room was no problem, though as an American teenager she can study on the floor sitting Indian style or half on the bed and half off. It never affected how well she has done in school (an honor student).

But I suppose I can't expect Aya to just mimic that way of studying and doing her homework. I presume at home she has a quiet place to get away from it all and study.

In the next coming days, I think I will clean up and organize our Entertainment area in basement where there is a desk I got from work - and make it into a study area, just that it will be rather cold in the Winter time down there (heat is limited to a propane heater).

Just when you think you have too much in life to do, God plays a joke and add just one more item to your task list.

As a treat, I brought the girls to one of the larger Malls in the area. Aya says she loves to shop, it wasn't much later that day when I didn't see her leave the stores with items that she meant she loves to check out stuff at the mall, but only buy what is necessary. Window shopping comes to mind.

To fill you in girls these days like stores like:
- Claire's
- Pac Sun
- Hot Topic
- Spencer's
- FYE

There may be more, but they weren't interested in what I thought girls were interested in like. Aeropostele, Abercrombie and Fitch, DKNY, Banana Republic etc. They told me those stores are for older women. (I was stunned a bit and realized I was considered OLD, but I am and will always be a kid at heart.)
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Checking email's tonight I received some encouragement and morale support from Eric and family. - Thanks guys :)

The day before "The Day"

2007-08-08T00:35:00.000-04:00

After waking, commuting, working, commuting and eating, I discussed the days events with the family.

Aya (the exchange student), was brought to the High School for her Guidance Councilor meeting and course selection for Senior year, then our oldest daughter (Allie) went to the High School for her Freshman orientation about 2 hours later.

Aya choose her course selection with some assistance - as she choose:
Algebra I, Spanish I / II, Food (Cooking and health), US History, American Literature, Parenting (Life skills)

We discussed it later that evening and my wife and I thought that aside from all the reading that will be required in American Lit and US History, Spanish would be cumbersome. It didn't make sense to us, that she was trying to learn our language attend our school yet take on another foreign language taught by a foreign teacher (at least foreign to her).

That would be like someone shooting a target with a crossbow held by the guy across the street learning for the first time, but being instructed by a different person on a cell phone giving the instructions in broken English.

Awash all that senselessness, I am focused now on tomorrow. We have to bring Aya to the school and meet up with 2 other foreign exchange students and meet the Principal (whom I have gotten the impression has a low tolerance towards foreign exchange students and their abilities to keep the pace, since the school really can't afford to provide any additional support) for the new kid orientation.

She is very nervous and when she gets like that it is even harder for her to communicate, the words don't roll off the tongue and sentences are cut mid-stream. I wanted to give her fair warning that the principal may interview her just to see what his teachers may be in for.

Going to say a little prayer and hope that the other 2 students are just as fluent or less to defuse the focus of attention.

The saga will continue.

Work is a four letter word!

2007-08-06T22:45:00.000-04:00

Up early and on the road - work day. (I'd rather beat on a drum all day)

Some relieving news at work today: A safety violation that occurred a few weeks back will not result in someone being terminated. Just the fear or threatening discussion of whom to single out for this non-conforming and unsafe act is nerve racking.

Basically the company wanted to make an example and utilize this firing to show what lengths the company is willing to go in order to maintain a strict safety policy.

I guess the second grey - good news is that the pandemic phobia of the company closing its doors within the next year has been pushed off for maybe 2-3 years; if not further based on new ideas and products that will use older technology.

Glad to be home again regardless.

I discussed with my oldest daughter about what activities were performed today, because I feel like I am going to miss something. It felt oddly like when a parent has to return to work and their baby takes its first step as witnessed by the new Baby sitter.

You want to see the language barrier start to break down, the communication throughout the day improve and the student leave her shell and feel more free to explore.

TODAY'S ACTIVITIES:
- Visit another American Student's home
- Walks with American teenagers
- Playing Volleyball
- Reviewing Mathematics, due to an upcoming Math Placement test
- More English reading and TV viewing
- Doing the dishes (sharing responsibility with my oldest)

I noticed our youngest daughter is starting to increase her attitude and reluctance to perform normal chores or requests: Like being told she's seen enough TV, set the table, feed the pets and brush your teeth.

I suspect the fact that the attention is now drawn away from her and to the new exchange student in the house, thus acting out a little more for attention.

Spent the later part of the evening reading other peoples Blogs. (OPB)

- Signing out: Good Night All

Come bearing gifts.

2007-08-05T23:23:00.000-04:00

I worked today and returned home to find the family waiting for me.
Not really to see me, but so I could finish my re-warmed meal and clear the table, in order for Aya to present us with gifts she brought as a "Thank You" for hosting me.

We were quite pleased and surprised with the variety.
(We really weren't expecting anything - seemed to break the ice a little more)

- Men / Woman's Yukata's

- T-Shirts
- Okinawan cookies (CHINSUKOU)

- A poster of Hiragana (alphabet as it were) but with a twist
It had this normal everyday words, plus the Okinawan word for the same thing.
- Origami
- O-Hashi's (many types)
- Maps and site-seeing pamphlets
- Other items

The children were quite tired, as my eldest daughter spent the past 2 days at a campground with her friends (which means being up all night girl-talk) and today they rode bikes around the neighborhood.

Anticipation is growing for the Orientation this Wednesday at the High School. I gave our student, Aya some math books to look over (older books from our High School/College years) just to refresh since next week she has to take a Math Placement test.

It seems reading the Math instructions and word problems will be challenging. It seems they are familiar with the Math and may even be taking some at higher levels - but its hard to say.

Personally I think it would be best, if we could or the school could get examples of homework and lessons from her High School and we could bridge the gap and compare what she will be getting here.

Reality Check

2007-08-04T08:03:00.000-04:00

Today I feel the sense of urgency of trying to get our student's communication skills up to speed. She will be attending school at the end of the month and has to be self-proficient in order to maintain her position at the school.

From all of the information we've received she has had one of the highest scores as far as Japanese children her age goes for the English Proficiency testing, however it is known that compared to European and South American countries - Asia seems to be a little behind in the verbal and written language.

Not to take anything away - I couldn't imagine getting immersed in a Japanese school and only speak and read Japanese and be able to pass any class or even get my point across except maybe to ask where the bathroom is.

This weekend and the coming weeks we will try to get her to read aloud and converse more openly in English. I speak a little Japanese and sometimes have thrown in the mix words here and there - I don't want to have it as a crutch for her, but to maybe ease her mind a little before a full fledged dunk.

I've Googled through the web to try and find an English teaching site that she could use a few hours a day - I haven't found one that seems user friendly or intuitive. One of which was all in Spanish (which even I can't read, to get to download the software).

At this point I am open for suggestions of anyone who teaches English to Japanese students.

Dawn of a new day.

2007-08-03T06:38:00.000-04:00

This morning I awoke by 06:20 a.m. after forcing myself to stay up until 03:30 without any sign of the Luggage Delivery van. It felt like Christmas, getting up and sliding across the kitchen floor in socks to get a peek outside to see if the "luggage" was delivered. Sure enough it was, sitting there in the cool August morning.

Promptly I brought it in and rolled it into the bedroom where both children were asleep, one of whom was more sound asleep than the other. (Jet lag has a firm grip)

We traveled to the local shopping Mall after she awoke just to give Aya an overview of what was out there, we also stopped and stocked up on about $120.00 of groceries - encouraging her for some input. For the most part, she seemed to be fine with whatever was purchased. Of the items she chose herself: Miso Soup, Cocoa Puffs and Apple Juice

She got to wittiness our youngest daughter get her ears pierced at Claire's. Then went looking at other stores after I pointed out where my oldest daughter likes to shop: Hot Topic and

In the evening she offered to help with post dinner clean-up and did the dishes with our youngest daughter.

The longest flight..the longest claim.

2007-08-03T00:31:00.000-04:00

And so it begins, our exchange student arrived today in Hartford, CT.

We've been anxiously awaiting her arrival and counting down the days. Even keeping tabs on the weather in Okinawa and the main land of Japan to ensure there would be no anticipated trouble. Just a week earlier there was a Typhoon that made landfall in Okinawa and we were tracking yet another that hit Kyushu and the Main Land just after she had departed from Tokyo to the U.S.

The drive to the parking lot was interesting, we approached the hanging height signs that stated 6'8" high and thought, no problem this little SUV has done this before. Jokingly I said, "Kids hold your breath while we go under the Height Warning Signs". Just then we heard a - BANG, and my wife pulled over, just then realizing we recently purchased and attached a Kayak carrier which fortunately did not break upon impact. (I climbed out and promptly started to remove them and fortunately my wife kept the wrench handy). I must say that was a moment that was slightly embarrassing.

We greeted her as she came through the arrivals doors candidly as to not startle her, for the long flight can make anyone a little groggy. Though there was a Chicago get-together and a over-night stay with other exchange students, she still only got 1 hours rest due to the excitement and anxieties. Adrenaline and anticipation sometimes trumps pure exhaustion.

She arrived with another exchange student from Thailand and we greeted him as well as we were waiting with his host family just outside the security check point. The weather was an oppressive 92F (Humid). She seemed to fair the weather well since she said Okinawa is usually this warm as well. (At this point I have not gotten how humid it is there in comparison).

There was movie and photo opportunities, small conversation and off to the Baggage Claim or lack there of. As we arrived at the luggage carousel with Large and Small baggage just starting to make their way around, we waited patiently....and waited and waited.

Then a small man approached, who looked like a shuttle bus drive by the way he was dressed, telling us there is no more luggage from he Flight that just arrived. We were directed to file a baggage delay claim at the claim department.

Surprisingly she handled it well as did the boy from Thailand who was missing 1 of the 2. This was rather unusual for me, since I've flown United Airlines over a dozen times coast to coast for job related reasons and never experience a loss.

In my mind, I could only picture the sinking feeling of your soul possessions from home lost somewhere between Chicago and Connecticut, being this is your first time in the Continental United States.

We slowly made our way towards home - stopping for Dinner at The Olive Garden. At the time it seemed like a good idea, for we were all hungry. The food was pretty good, but the atmosphere was off-key, there was a table next to us with small children who were allowed to scream and blurt out random noises unchecked and a parent who did seem to know the meaning of being firm. Needless to say, we ate and quickly departed.

Arrived at our home, her new home - proceeded to contact the Baggage Claim at United. We had called back there over 5 times to confirm first if the bag was ever found and then to solidify a delivery time. We were told somewhere between 08:00 p.m. and 02:00 a.m. - which I see as a very large window.

I stayed up and waited, all the while assured by Customer Service that the Luggage will be delivered in that time frame.

As I type this line, the time is currently 02:34 a.m.

(someone is bluffing).

They have our Phone number and Cell number yet we did not receive one call yet. The thickness of my patience is that of melted butter.