As promised, I am back, albeit not as frequently as I always, ALWAYS plan to be.
And, as discussed in previous postings, it is still uncooperatively cold here. Beautiful, but cold.
As for updates, since I last checked in....
A "No" By Any Other Name is Still "No"
The results of my job quest for this year have come back, with, unsurprisingly, no job. The school I interviewed with is going to keep my application open, just in case a miracle happens. But, as with so many schools back at home in California, it is just too early for them to make a commitment to me when they have no clue what their finances/enrollment will look like in the Fall.
Fair enough.
And while I desperately miss teaching my tots, the truth of the matter is that having me work full time would have thrown a giant wrench into our delicate little balancing act. Namely: if I teach full time then I can't be home to home school the teens. And even if I am teaching full time we wouldn't be able to afford international school tuition for two teens, much less one.
I considered cloning myself (one Christina to home school, one Christina to work). But that wouldn't have worked anyway. Since I didn't get the job, there would simply be two of me hanging around the house. And honestly, who needs TWO of me?! I certainly don't....
Cake: The Key to Success
Way back in December Bob and I went to a lovely little Viennese pastry shop up the street called "Mausi". We went into the teeny store, festooned as it was in bright European decor and photos. And we ordered our Christmas Cake from the Japanese owner. After a few seconds of speaking to the owner in Japanese, she started talking to us in fluent English.
Rather blew our socks off.
Well, that little December cake was so scrumptious, so decadent, that we ordered Patrick's birthday cake from the same place.
When I went in the shop a few days ago to pick up the cake, the owner asked me about both kids, and about our home schooling (I couldn't figure out for the life of me how she remembered everything that she remembered.).
And then she said that some of her Japanese clients (remember this folks: fancy pastry shops have 'clients'. Regular bakeries have 'customers'), often asked her about learning English. And since she also remembered I was a teacher, she asked me if she could have my contact information so she could refer me. Turns out she not only makes a mean cake, but also networks people wanting to learn various languages. She said she also hooks up German clients with Japanese folks wanting to learn German. Talk about multi-tasking!
So La la la. Fate closed the Kindergarten door for now, but it kindly re-opened the English Teaching window. The world works in mysterious ways....
Ka-Ka-Ka-Kanji
I am taking it upon myself to try to learn the third Japanese mode of reading and writing: Kanji. Yes, those intricate Chinese-based pictographs that so confuse and botch up our phonetically-wired Western minds.
Today I dutifully wrote and translated the Kanji learned by the typical Japanese first grader.
First Graders learn 80 kanji.
In the next few days I'll tackle Second Grade Kanji. There are only 159 of those.
Third Grade-149
Fourth Grade-199
Fifth Grade-184
Sixth Grade-179
And, if by then I've not been reduced to a quivering puddle of confusion and dismay on the floor, I can tackle the 785 Kanji learned in Junior High School.
Which would fill my brain with a grand total of 1735 extra bits of information that I did not have before. I am sure this is a character-building activity.
By the end of it all, I probably STILL won't be able to read books in Japanese (and nothing irks me more than walking into a bookstore here in Japan and know, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that I'll NEVER EVER BE ABLE TO READ ANY OF THE BOOKS. For a book-lover such as myself, this is a torturous horrible realization.)
I could be embarking on a journey of madness, but that's okay. What is life without challenges? And believe me friends, this is going to be one interesting challenge.
Well, I'm off for now, to defrost some chicken for dinner, to check on teenage online lessons and to feed the cats their favorite canned mush.
Until next time....
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