Learning the language; the New Years Resolution.

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

Graduation Day at last!

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

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

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

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

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

Opening the lines of communication.

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

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

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

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

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 The problem was we felt this was normal to be shy and withdrawn - but she said she was being respectful and didn't want to cause any problems.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

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

1) Communication:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Well I neglected to mention how the volcano turned out.

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

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


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


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

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


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

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


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


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

ESL more like English as a common language

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

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

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

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

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

Today's activity: Volcanic

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

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



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

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

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


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


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


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

Research Paper Work Hell

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.

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

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.

High School homework becomes social atrophy

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

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

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


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


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

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

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

A hint of fluency improvement

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.

Building confidence & starting to shine.

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.

Farenheight 101

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.

Handwriting

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.

U.S. History Test Today

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

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...

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...

Eve before Math placement

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.