This week has been absurdly busy for me, mostly due to the fact that a Professor from MIT (Dr. Suzanne Flynn) is visiting Tokyo to give a set of talks about her research in the feild of language and language learning which, as it turns out, happens to perfectly support what Hippo Family Club is already doing. I think the people here at Hippo are looking at this as a huge break and hopefully will help the public realize the ease of naturally aquiring a language vs. studying. And more importantly, the importance of learning other languages and supporting a multilingual enviroment. The United States boast diversity but really, most Americans are only exposed to English when we have the opportunity to nurture a multilingual enviroment. Anyway, I have been busy getting ready for her to arrive and yesterday I went to Narita to help welcome her to Japan. Besides that, we are having a big workshop tomorrow and I am on of the MC's and I am a native english speaker so I have been doing a lot of english checking and translating this week. On top of that, I have been to 3 different hippo clubs this week. I have come home around 10pm every night (sometimes later) It has been an exhausting schedule but I am really enjoying it.
I'm busy, but I enjoy getting to meet with people, talk with them and feel like I am apart of something. Part of the reason why i am busy is now I have made a lot of friends and we are realizing i don't have a lot of time left before I leave so I want to make sure i get to spend time with everyone.
anyway, that's all i can write for now
but i'm doing well
Sunday, May 24, 2009
Monday, May 11, 2009
Some words
It's May which means I am in the the last 3 months of this year long experience. It has been a long time since I've strolled through boston with a Tealuxe cup of matte in my hand or pushed off in that wonderful red cannoe in North Waterboro. But I know that as soon as I come back from Japan I'll be reminicing about the inari zushi from 7-11 and being able to get to anywhere I want just using the trains. But really what I miss the most from the states are the people and I know it'll be what I miss the most from here.
We recently had a long vacation called Golden Week at the begining of May. My host family and I took the opportunity to go to Gunma-ken (where my host dad's parents' house is) and Nikko. It was my first experience traveling with the twins but we actually had a fantastic time. I actually think I prefer sight seeing with kids, or atleast Fu and Nori. We jumped up and down all the stairs around the temples and ran around the more open areas and sang songs while we walked or skipped. They held my hands the whole time and I really felt like we spent some good quality play time together.
When we sat down for dinner on that first night at the hotel, Fu chan started saying "I want to sleep in Jess's room! I wanna sleep in Jess's room!" since I had a room to myself that had two beds. " I wanna sleep in Jess's room because I love Jess! I wanna be with Jess!" You can't get any more welcoming than that. But dispite her demands, her mom had the final say and insisted that she sleep with everyone else. What was really suprising to me though was that when we went to the hotel, it was the first time in Nori and Fu's lives that they have slept on beds! ever since they came home from the hospital, they have sleped with their parents on a futon. I guess my host parents were a bit worried about how well they'd handle the beds but they ended up being okay. (but Nori is a squirmer and almost wiggled his way off the bed a couple times since he usually just tumbles around the room in his sleep)
We spent a couple nights at the grandparent's house in Gunma and of course ate lots of food and got lots of sleep. overall it was a fun and relaxing Golden Week vacation.
Last night I was cleaning up my room since I have little storage in my new room, it has a tendancy to get messy really quickly (nothing new really). As I dumped out all my clothes onto my bed for refolding and organizing, the twins came running in demanding an explination. After letting them know I wanted to clean up my room, Fu-chan's little eyes lit up "ishyoni yaru?!" "wanna do it together?" at first i was hesitant since it's hard for me to explain where I want certain things but we started with my clothes. Fu-chan has already been helping her mom fold the laundry so this was perfect for her to do. She set to work folding but meanwhile Nori-kun had different ideas about what "cleaning" meant and set about further messying my room. So i handed him a deck of Doraemon cards to keep him busy. Nori got a little bored with the cards so he decided that he'd help out by setting up a fan and a radio, which actually was really helpful. Fu and I were an efficiant folding team and got the task done in pretty good time. While we were folding clothes, Nori-kun kept himself busy having dialouge about a game he invented for himself with the cards. I don't really know what he was talking about but I did hear him say a few times "powaaaa aaappu! (power up)" followed by some really intense sound effects. When we had finished folding clothes, we tidied up my desk so that we could have a spot to play Babanuki (Old Maid). Card games are still a bit too difficult for them to grasp (openly saying "I have the Maid!" when the cards are dealt, and having issues puting only pairs down, instead of three of a kinds) but we mannage just fine. Just as we finished our second round it was time to eat. As we left my room, Fu Chan grabbed up my hand and said " I wanna sit next to you, Jess because you are so nice!" and we made our way to the dinner table hand in hand.
We recently had a long vacation called Golden Week at the begining of May. My host family and I took the opportunity to go to Gunma-ken (where my host dad's parents' house is) and Nikko. It was my first experience traveling with the twins but we actually had a fantastic time. I actually think I prefer sight seeing with kids, or atleast Fu and Nori. We jumped up and down all the stairs around the temples and ran around the more open areas and sang songs while we walked or skipped. They held my hands the whole time and I really felt like we spent some good quality play time together.
When we sat down for dinner on that first night at the hotel, Fu chan started saying "I want to sleep in Jess's room! I wanna sleep in Jess's room!" since I had a room to myself that had two beds. " I wanna sleep in Jess's room because I love Jess! I wanna be with Jess!" You can't get any more welcoming than that. But dispite her demands, her mom had the final say and insisted that she sleep with everyone else. What was really suprising to me though was that when we went to the hotel, it was the first time in Nori and Fu's lives that they have slept on beds! ever since they came home from the hospital, they have sleped with their parents on a futon. I guess my host parents were a bit worried about how well they'd handle the beds but they ended up being okay. (but Nori is a squirmer and almost wiggled his way off the bed a couple times since he usually just tumbles around the room in his sleep)
We spent a couple nights at the grandparent's house in Gunma and of course ate lots of food and got lots of sleep. overall it was a fun and relaxing Golden Week vacation.
Last night I was cleaning up my room since I have little storage in my new room, it has a tendancy to get messy really quickly (nothing new really). As I dumped out all my clothes onto my bed for refolding and organizing, the twins came running in demanding an explination. After letting them know I wanted to clean up my room, Fu-chan's little eyes lit up "ishyoni yaru?!" "wanna do it together?" at first i was hesitant since it's hard for me to explain where I want certain things but we started with my clothes. Fu-chan has already been helping her mom fold the laundry so this was perfect for her to do. She set to work folding but meanwhile Nori-kun had different ideas about what "cleaning" meant and set about further messying my room. So i handed him a deck of Doraemon cards to keep him busy. Nori got a little bored with the cards so he decided that he'd help out by setting up a fan and a radio, which actually was really helpful. Fu and I were an efficiant folding team and got the task done in pretty good time. While we were folding clothes, Nori-kun kept himself busy having dialouge about a game he invented for himself with the cards. I don't really know what he was talking about but I did hear him say a few times "powaaaa aaappu! (power up)" followed by some really intense sound effects. When we had finished folding clothes, we tidied up my desk so that we could have a spot to play Babanuki (Old Maid). Card games are still a bit too difficult for them to grasp (openly saying "I have the Maid!" when the cards are dealt, and having issues puting only pairs down, instead of three of a kinds) but we mannage just fine. Just as we finished our second round it was time to eat. As we left my room, Fu Chan grabbed up my hand and said " I wanna sit next to you, Jess because you are so nice!" and we made our way to the dinner table hand in hand.
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