"About"

Yesterday I chaperoned another basketball tournament. It is always an adventure. We met at the local train station at 7:30am with the goal of returning by 6pm. This trip required one train line change and a ten minute walk to the venue. When we got on the first train I asked how many kids we had with us. No one knew. We had both the boys' team and girls' team. (The coach was travelling seperately with the equipment.) One of the moms said there were 9 boys and we were picking up 4 more at a station en route. Great. How many girls? I was told to ask the team captain. She said 15.

I usually position myself at the end of the group so I can pick up stragglers. This way, I only have to worry about keeping up as opposed to where we are going. (I am a strong believer in playing to my strengths!) We changed trains and I thought I should count to make sure we had everyone. I got the 9 boys but came up with 16 girls! When I mentioned this to one of the other chaperones, she said that the captain was very "about". (When someone is "about" it means that they are not a stickler for details. If the answer is "in the ballpark" then that's fine.) The coach is also very "about" as was demonstrated at the closing ceremony when I asked if some of the girls had already gone home. He was surprised that I noticed! He said that 2 had left with their parents. He told me that I was the only one who asked about numbers!! I now realize that I really have no clue as to what chaperones are supposed to be doing.

Right before we left to return home, one of the other coaches (an American) told me that it would probably be okay if I got "about" everyone home.

Tonjiru and Basketball

Today Kie's basketball team hosted three other teams for a day of short tournaments and hearty soup. The moms directly related to the elementary school that hosts Kie's team were in charge of the soup.

We met at the school at 8am to begin preparing. We borrowed a large pot (feeds 400!!) and a propane fueled burner from a local neighborhood association. The vegetable shop delivered the veggies at 8:30 and we started chopping.

We chopped up daikon (Japanese radish), carrots, onions, gobo (a long root), tofu, konyaku (devil's tongue), Japanese green onions, shimeji mushrooms, potatoes, and thinly sliced pork.


(Takeshi helped out for about two hours until he had to go to his baseball tournament which they unfortunately lost. He returned to watch the games around 3pm.) Once it was all chopped we dumped it into the boiling water, sat down, drank coffee and talked while we waited.

After about an hour we added the miso. Before we added the miso we realized that we needed more, so I was elected to go to the vegetable shop and get some. (I had my bike.) I stopped by the house to get some serving trays, dropped them off at the school and picked up the miso at the shop. We depleted their miso and were still short.




The shop owner's wife told me to wait and she went in and gave me the rest of her own miso from their kitchen. (Probably the reason it tasted so good was that we ended up putting it really good miso!!)
When it was done, we called the vegetable shop to come and take us and the soup to the school. Three of the ladies rode in back and I followed on bike.



We ended up serving soup for the next two hours and it stayed warm in the pot. It was really good, if I do say so!!!







Kei came and played on the Junior/Senior High team. The coach likes to use the older kids to give the top teams some good competition. Kei was the only Junior Higher. (#7 in the photo.)






Kie played well and we got to see her make some baskets as well as a free throw. She is blocking a player in this photo.


All in all a great day. Good basketball, good friends, good food, a good time and the family together for most of the day. We are very thankful.

Kie's School Play

On Saturday morning, Kie's elementary school had the trianual school drama festival. (The school drama festival rotates every three years with the music and art festivals.) Each grade presents a 20 to 30 minute production which usually include a few musical numbers as well. Kie's grade did a story about a witch who gives up her powers to become human and fight against the evil witches. In the end, love and audience participation triumph over evil. It was quite moving.

Kie was one of the witches and performed her line and songs well. I was amazed at the level of performances of all the grades. I remember doing plays in elementary school, but nothing like this.

Kie is currently practicing for the all-district music competition. This competition is held each year for 5th graders. All fifth graders district wide compete. Each school performs two numbers--one instrumental and one vocal. Kie is playing the accordion in the instrumental number.

Kei's Speech Contest

Kei did a great job at the speech contest. His grandparents came to watch as well. They have been to and judged many speech contests, but this was their first Junior High Speech contest. They thought that Kei had the best speech. Of course I agreed! Everyone worked very hard on their presentations. There were recitations, skits and a play in addition to the speeches. The play won the competition. I think it was a good experience for Kei and he seems to enjoy being up front. (Dad's genes I think!!) This is the first time I have seen him do something like this in English so it was especially fun for me.
English education here is quite interesting. There is only one level for each grade. Basically the students have to memorize lots of words and grammar and they are tested on all the material in the text book and in class. It is quite easy for Kei, as you would imagine. But sometimes he gets things wrong because, "we haven't learned that yet" or he would never say what the book wants the kids to learn. How would you do on this question:

There are two junior high students trying to talk to each other at a noisy party. Fill in the blanks.
John: What time is it?
Tom: ______________? I can't hear you.
John: What time is it?

Check the comments for the answer. (This was Takeshi's suggestion...)

My Vehicle 2

On Friday before going to Kei's speech contest, I rode my bike to the home center to pick up a few things. It is about 15 minutes from our house downhill, uphill and then fairly level. I parked my bike in the bike parking and went in to warm up (it is getting cold now) and shop. I picked up a digital tape for the video camera I borrowed from a friend and a double curtain rail for our living room. (It has been over eight months since we moved back in so it's probably safe to put up curtains!)
The curtain rails can be adjusted to lengths ranging from seven to fourteen feet. I managed to stay on the bike and not hit anyone. Although one man did duck and I had to brake quickly not to run into a pole! I got safely to the very front of our gate when I suddenly lost balance and dumped the bike. I managed to move fast enough to save the curtain rail and remain standing. I was also able to entertain a group of delivery men. I narrowly missed entertaining a large group of construction workers. Their loss, I'm sure...

Junior High Finals

This Thursday, Friday and Monday are Kei's 2nd trimester finals. On Thursday and Friday, testing is all morning and they are out by lunch. On Monday, testing is again all morning, but regular classes begin again after lunch. Thursday's tests were Math, Social Studies, and Music. Friday is English, Art, and Science. Monday is Japanese, Health/PE, and Industrial Art.
Two weeks before the tests all club/sports activities at the school are stopped so the kids can study. Personally, I wish they would keep some sports practices since Kei is just bouncing off the walls with all this extra physical energy. Last night, we gave him a dry mop to clean the living and dining room floors since he was so hyper. I went upstairs to spend time with my daughter for about 30 minutes. When I came back down, the first floor was sparkling. He had moved the furniture, hand washed and dried all the flooring, replaced the furniture and throw rugs and straightened up the couches. So, now I am thinking that maybe we should take him out of sports altogether....

Kei is also entered in the district wide Jr. High English speech contest. They take the top three English speakers from each grade from the nine district Junior Highs. Whoever wins goes on to the all Tokyo contest. He is working very hard to memorize this 5-minute speech. The speech is scheduled for Friday afternoon. He will go directly to the contest after morning finals. I have to remember to pack him a lunch....

This picure shows Kei's attempts to turn his school uniform (see above) into a tuxedo. I think the origami hankerchief adds quite a good touch.

My Vehicle

This is the trusty steed that gets me to the grocery store every other day or so. It gets me to the laundrymat when it is raining or snowing. (We don't have a dryer. Well, we do have a dryer--it is called "the sun"!) It gets me to basketball practices and it gets Takeshi to baseball practices. It meets the kids at the station and Kie can still fit in the basket-seat in the back. So, I can actually go pick her up after local practices and from the train station. It takes me to friends' houses and to the local bath.

The picture is of yesterday's trip to the store for groceries. I went to Fuji Garden, which is a local supermarket and bought milk, meat, yogurt and bread. The milk, yogurt, and meat (sort of glowing!!) are on the back of the bike. Bread and rice crackers are in the front basket. Next I went to the local fruit/vegetable stand, parked my bike out front with everything on it, and bought eggs, mandarin oranges, bananas, and romaine lettuce.

Today walking on the way home from the station, I stopped at Seiyu (department-grocery store) and bought some octopus and okonomiyaki sauce. I also picked up a cabbage and some tofu at the veggie shop. I missed my bike!

The Secret to buying a Turkey

Bring your tape measure!!!


The turkey must be less than 34cm (13 1/2 inches) to fit in our oven!!

Turkeys are somewhat hard to find here, but Costco often has them from November until they sell out (which sometimes is the following summer!). We now have our turkey for Christmas.


On Thanksgiving we will have "tonjiru" which is a pork-based soup with lots of veggies. We will be helping to serve 100. Did I mention it is basketball all day with my daughter's team and that we are hosting a few other teams at our elementary school?

Questions

Sometimes I open up the last few minutes of class to questions.

"Does the US have big cities or just countryside?"
Me: "Does Japan have big cities or just countryside?"
"Okay, but some countries have only countryside, like India."
Me: "India has big cities!!!
"Why is American food so BIG?" "Why do Americans eat so much?"
Me: "Good question. I have no idea."
"Why are some Americans blond?"
Me: "Well..."
"Why do you have blue eyes?"
Me: "Well.... ask me something I can answer!!!
"You said we could ask you anything."
Me: "That I did. But I really only want you to ask me questions I can answer!"


All time favorite questions thus far:

How old are Americans when they learn English?
Why do you have a face that looks like a foreigner?
Do you really speak English? Are you really fluent?
Can you understand American movies without reading the subtitles?

Why can't you write kanji (Chinese characters), you can do math, can't you?

Same but Different

Taught English to two Third grade classes on Wednesday. The first class just couldn't get the dialog.

Hi! Hello!
What's your name? I'm Beth, and you?
I'm Sam.

So we practiced rather pathetically for a bit and moved on to the alphabet. It was a review that required listening, memory skills and logic more than it did English. They got it. It was amazing. The class came alive and the teacher was even taking notes. It doesn't get much better than this.

On to the next Third grade class... They got the dialog. One of the kids even asked if she and her friend could do it in front of the class using their own names. Sure... So most of the 30 kids came up front and did it. Wow. On to the alphabet game. Could they do it? No, only 2 kids had any clue. So, I broke it down and made it less aural and more visual and they still struggled.

Same age group, same number of kids, same lesson, same methods....very different results....

Making Mochi

After a morning joint basketball practice with another Tokyo mini-basketball team, they treated us to a mochi party.

Traditional mochi making is an art. This is a wood burning stove that was built 30 years ago specifically to steam mochi rice.. I don't know how many bamboo baskets of mochi rice they steamed.

Then people took turns pounding the rice while the hostess turned the steaming hot mochi. She did a great job of not getting hit with the mallet!

Once pounded it went to the flavor table and was portioned out in small pieces into bowls of grated radish (daikon oroshi), kinako powder, sesame, soy sauce, sweet bean paste, and a new one for me--green onion and dried bonito flakes.
We all ate way too much!

Does this look like your image of Tokyo???

Paying Attention

I am beginning to think that I should, as a general rule, pay more attention to my surroundings.

I think it is fine to get lost coming or going from point A to point B four or five times, but by the sixth time you get lost you should at least be heading to point C. It is probably all the more important to know where you are going if you are leading other people there.

In my defense, I should point out that, yes I have been to this location many times, but always in the back of the parade. In front is someone's mother on a bicycle with a small child in a basket in the front of the bike and a larger child in the seat on the back. Then there are seven or eight kids ages 8 to 11 on bicycles and I am bringing up the rear on a bicycle with four of the kids' large sports bags piled on.

The mom in fronts' job is to lead. My job is to yell as loud as I can, "Stay to the right!" "Car!" "Stop!" "GO!" It is also my job to stop and pick up children, bags, and whatever else falls off the bikes en route. We do this for 20 to 30 minutes. Then we watch the kids practice basketball for 2 to 3 hours and then we reverse the parade and go back home. By this time it is dark. It is truly quite the adrenaline rush.

Two weeks ago, we were again schedulded to be at this venue. This time, I was the "veteran" chaperone and it was my privilege to lead the parade. A "rookie" mom brought up the rear. I am pleased to say that we arrived safely. I led confidently, like the little steam engine, saying to myself, "I think this is the way. I think this is the way."

Time to go home. I offer the leader's job to the rookie mom. She declines. So we start on the route home. At a stop light the mom in back says, "I am so glad you are leading. None of this looks familiar to me." Well, it doesn't look familiar to me either, but I was hoping that was because it was so dark.

My basic theory about being lost is that if I keep going, eventually, I will run into some kind of sign that will tell me where I am. This theory has worked well for me, although sometimes the signs tell me that I am very very far from home.

Knowing that I could not successfully retrace my steps, I continued on towards a large street. Had I turned right on that street, I would have recognized the next street and got home rather quickly. Almost a short cut. But I turned left and ended up at a different basketball venue and I actually remembered how to get home from there. (Okay, all the kids and the rookie mom knew how to get home from there...)

So what brought this up? After school today I took 3 kids and 2 large sports bags to venue A all by myself and we did not get lost! I took 5 kids and 3 large sports bags home from venue A in the dark and we did not get lost. And I only spent the first 5 minutes chanting, "I think this is the way. I think this is the way...."