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10 Mar 08
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Goodbye Due to various complications in my life, I have decided that it would probably be best for me to stop blogging.I want to thank all of the really kind and wonderful people who have taken the time to read and comment. I've developed quite an affection for... |
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09 Mar 08
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Timing Lately, I've noticed that my strongest impulse to make blog posts seems to come within 15 or fewer minutes of a lesson starting with one of my students. In fact, as I write this, I have a lesson 10 minutes away. This seems like a pretty absurd thing to... |
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08 Mar 08
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Rumble Recently, I've been doing a lot of essay correction work for one of my students. This is relatively unusual as most lessons are spent actually speaking with one another rather than my staring down at a paper scribbling corrections in silence. During these... |
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07 Mar 08
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The Dead Helping the Living My friend Joseph over at "Tame Goes Wild" has been studying Japanese at university for the past several years. It's a staggering amount of work becoming fluent in Japanese and I really respect how hard he both tries to accomplish his goals and become a... |
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05 Mar 08
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The Temporary Shuffle When I first started working full-time at my former company (a Japanese office job that involved textbook making as well as teaching via correspondence), I was informed through indirect channels that the president had a policy with the foreign employees... |
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03 Mar 08
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Better Late Than Never (RSS) The Google Reader RSS interfaceAs late as 1974, my paternal grandfather still had a black and white television. He told me that he thought color was bad for your eyes and he didn’t think anyone needed a color T.V. I remember thinking that he was stuck ... |
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02 Mar 08
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Vegetarianism and Eggplants That looks like a lot more cheese than it really was.When you live in a rural area, seasonal food means food that is in season in your area or in areas not too far from you. Living in a metropolitan area, where you have far greater access to food from all... |
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01 Mar 08
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(Quite) A Few Words for the Haymakers For several years, I was part of an on-line (Usenet) community for a particular on-line multiplayer game. I started off as an outsider in an established community of players and gradually became better known. I went from being a little fish in a little... |
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01 Mar 08
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Make the World a Better Place (and you a better person) Before any of my readers are mislead into thinking this is going to be a list of well-worn "dos" and "don'ts", let me say that that's not the way my mind works. I don't think people need hear more about giving money to the poor, meals to the elderly, or... |
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28 Feb 08
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The Dating Game You can get your own octopus dumpling cell phone strap from Strap-ya (image pinched from their web site here).Despite the fact that only 2 of my current crop of 11 students are married, very few of them date. Some of them are a bit mature for dating, but... |
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28 Feb 08
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Time to File 2008 It's time for U.S. residents residing in Japan to file their income tax forms. If you've filed before, you should have already been mailed a packet with forms. If you haven't gotten those forms, you can find them on-line or contact the U.S. Embassy.... |
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27 Feb 08
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So, I'm the Noisy Neighbor? On a daily basis, I hear my upstairs neighbors going about the business of their daily life. I hear them dropping things, slamming doors, and seemingly tapping on the floor for no particular reason. On a few occasions, I've heard what sounds like someone... |
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26 Feb 08
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Cross-Cultural Attention Needs My previous post was a caveat for the answer I'm about to give to this question that I was asked in the comments section of a former post:"NINPO said...Hello Shari,I enjoyed reading your blog. I am a Japanese male living in Japan who had some experiences... |
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26 Feb 08
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Anecdotal Lives Sometimes I get very interesting questions from my commenters (and luckily I almost always get excellent comments as well). The questions which get me thinking rather deeply about something sometimes spawn their own post are among my favorites, but they... |
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24 Feb 08
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Lights Out My apartment is pretty small, dark and airless so I have to leave the lights on in nearly every room to keep them lit sufficiently to work in them. It's not that there are no windows, but rather that the surrounding buildings block out a lot of the light... |
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23 Feb 08
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Chocolate Sushi Despite the fact that Valentine's Day was quite awhile back, my husband received the fun assortment of chocolates above from a student yesterday. He also got a box of truffles from the same student, and while they were lovely and sophisticated, they... |
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23 Feb 08
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Student Roster - February 2008 About a year or so ago, I wrote out my student roster for the sake of my own future recollection, knowing it was of little interest to anyone but me. However, this is my blog and I'll bore if I want to. ;-) I am posting this on a weekend day when most... |
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22 Feb 08
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Charisma Men Image pinched from the Charisma Man home page where one can order a comic book of the strips. Click this version to see a more readable size, or, visit the web site.Back when I first started working in Japan, there was a young Canadian man working at Nova... |
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21 Feb 08
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A Peck of Pickled Plums When I was a child, I was sleeping over at my grandmother's house and had been relegated to the sofa for lack of any other space to sleep in. My grandfather, who was bedridden, was set up in an adjacent room. As I slept, I had a dream in which a vicious... |
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20 Feb 08
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Such Nice, Polite People This afternoon, I was biking to a local grocery store and riding quite slowly down the street. There was an old (Japanese) man, probably in his 60's, walking down the side along the left. To give him a buffer, I pulled further to the right and slowed down... |
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19 Feb 08
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Reflections A home-style design on the 1959 book.Teaching students privately is a dual-edged sword. On the one hand, you tend to get a better quality of student who is diligent, more personable, and more goal-oriented. Teaching such students is several cuts above the... |
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16 Feb 08
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In the Dark Back in my former company's former office, we had a tiny little kitchen that barely two people could squeeze into for food-related tasks. It was often the case that foreign staff, who had a set schedule for conducting lessons by phone, would find... |
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14 Feb 08
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Valentine's Baking Flourless dark chocolate mini cake.Today was Valentine's Day in Japan since we get there first. (We're a day ahead of the U.S.) Last year, I talked about how Valentine's Day is different in Japan and so did every other blogger who has ever talked about... |
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14 Feb 08
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Showing Off Some of you may have noticed that I rarely type Japanese characters in my blog posts. Some of you may assume that I can't enter Japanese text and that's why I don't include it. That assumption would be incorrect. I have copious amounts of experience... |
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13 Feb 08
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Cops A police car drives past Koenji station and the flash highlights a curiously neon sign on its side.(I'd been meaning for quite some time to write something about the police in Japan but never quite got around to it. However, after reading an entry in... |
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11 Feb 08
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Wedding "Gifts" Yesterday one of my students attended a lesson with me after attending a funeral. She had a largish shopping bag with her which contained the gift she was given at the funeral (towels) and I took the occasion to quiz her on various aspects of money gifts... |
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09 Feb 08
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Few Are the Choices We Make - part 2 Part 1 is here.The way in which our lives are shaped by environment is something which happens not only on an individual level, but on a cultural level as well. People place the choices one culture makes on a pedestal and deride the proclivities of... |
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08 Feb 08
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Few Are the Choices We Make - part 1 I remember the day the nail went in the coffin of my Christian beliefs. I was sitting in a history class with one of the most boring teachers in our high school and there was excited talk amongst the students about that date being the day that the world... |
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06 Feb 08
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Pumpkin Bread Look at all that carotene.Back when I was working in an office, I used to make goodies for the entire office around Christmas time. Two particular items were a huge hit. One was my peanut butter cookies and the other was this recipe for pumpkin bread. The... |
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06 Feb 08
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Competition While sitting on my bike at a pedestrian crosswalk, waiting for the little man to go from red man standing patiently at attention to change to the happy green man in mid-stride, I had an experience I have had many times in the past. A pedestrian came up... |
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05 Feb 08
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Jumbo Mini "We provide a firstclass taste brought directly from the earth" claims my pastry. It makes me wonder if one of the ingredients might be, oh, dirt.The characters "ミニ" mean "mini" in English. If you look at the picture of an apple custard ring pa... |
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04 Feb 08
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Making Dreams Come True About a month ago, I got a new student who is looking to increase her skill base in order to make a career change from a pharmaceutical industry office job to a job in journalism. This is her dream job and she's currently got her toe in the water... |
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03 Feb 08
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Products of Rampant Individualism Lifted from the site which sells them. Candy for those who hate the Valentines Day.Lately, I've been seeing various ads and articles leading up to the commercialism storm that is Valentine's Day. Some of the articles I see are aimed not at people who are... |
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01 Feb 08
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It Does Some Bodies Good Low fat milk (left) is cheaper than high fat milk but can resembled powdered milk taste-wise. The milk on the right is "ESL" or "extended shelf life" milk and is supposed to last a long time. Most high fat milk has its fat content prominently displayed on... |
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31 Jan 08
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Cultural Contributions - part 2 (Part 1 is here)A good indication of how mainstream some elements of Japanese culture are in the U.S. is reflected in sales like the one pictured above.In terms of what I see as Japan's long-lasting impact on other cultures up to this, I tend to see much... |
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29 Jan 08
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Cultural Contributions - part 1 In the comments section of one of my other posts, Michael asked me what I felt was Japan's cultural direction and/or contribution to the rest of the world and whether or not I believed that Japan was headed in one direction or another or just wandering... |
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28 Jan 08
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Blogcritics article #19 My most recent article on Blogcritics is available here for anyone who is interested. This one is about something I've touched on before about the way in which body language in Japan often emphasizes the differences between Japanese and foreign people,... |
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26 Jan 08
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Dominant and Recessive My family by blood consists of 4 people, my mother, father, and older sister. All of them have black or dark brown hair and brown eyes, but me. I am the lone redhead with blue eyes in the family. That means there were plenty of jokes about my real father... |
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24 Jan 08
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Kernel Thunders The picture that launched many entertaining descriptions.Back when I was working in a Japanese office and correcting student (correspondence-based) homework as part of my daily duties, there was a lesson in which students were presented with a drawing of... |
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23 Jan 08
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Coping With the Cold At this time of year, every kind-hearted Japanese person who I speak with (which is pretty much every one that I actually speak with), tells me to be careful now that it's colder outside so I don't catch cold. While I always appreciate the concern, I have... |
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23 Jan 08
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Room Without a View One of the few trees outside our apartment on one of the few days that it snows. It's snowing today in Tokyo. I know what you're thinking... 'snow, big deal.' Actually, I agree. Having grown up in the northeast, where it wasn't uncommon for us to... |
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21 Jan 08
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Holding Hands Quite some time ago, my husband did a language exchange with a Japanese woman in her mid 20s. This is a "classic" arrangement that most Japanese people dream of where both parties speak English for a designated time and then they both speak Japanese for... |
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20 Jan 08
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Not So Much Cake, But Very Much Cheese Image lifted from the seller's site here. In a former post, I wrote about the quest for cheesecake in Tokyo and how there are many varieties. At that time, I lamented that most cheesecake wasn't very tangy or strongly cream cheese-flavored. One of my... |
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19 Jan 08
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Mistakes We Make One of my students attends a U.S. college on a military base. The people she meets in her classes are mostly from poor areas of the southern part of the United States or urban centers. The class is made up of (by an overwhelming majority) African American... |
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17 Jan 08
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Run, Forrest(san), Run! Yesterday evening while I was doing some late evening shopping at a local 99 yen shop, I saw a fellow do something which I've always felt was an "only in Japan" experience. First, it's important to set the scene. The shop is essentially a shoebox. It's... |
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16 Jan 08
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Headed North A sign from the Communist party expressing the notion that the consumption tax (sales tax) should not be increased.Last year, I kept reading news about how prices would be going up in Japan "next year", and just 16 days into the new year, they are indeed... |
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15 Jan 08
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Milestones Two young women chat in the station in their kimono on adulthood day.Each culture has its ages where milestones are reached. In the U.S., the major milestones are generally considered to be at 16, 18, and 21. These ages are important because they are... |
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14 Jan 08
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Shin Koenji Charity Mochi Event Men gamely pound rice into mochi inside a wooden barrel. Pounding rice into mochi takes an immense amount of strength, stamina and patience. At least it probably kept those fellows warm!Mochi is most often associated with New Year's holidays though... |
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13 Jan 08
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Cultural Limits One of my students works creating subtitles for whatever television shows and movies come her way. Sometimes she works with bad B-movies (or worse) which go straight to DVD and are of extremely dubious quality. At others, she works with American... |
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11 Jan 08
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Mystery Food Click on this picture to get a good close look at this bit of sustenance.One of my students is married to a doctor and he often receives gifts from his patients. Sometimes, she passes these gifts on to me because her husband tends to receive far more than... |
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