Russian Tea Cakes

Russian Tea Cakes
Originally uploaded by mr_caffeine74.

Russian Tea Cakes
I made these myself. Just had to have some Christmas Cookies. Luckily, I was able to have a snowman cookie and a Christmas tree cookie with red sparkles on it at a friend's house. So Christmas has come and gone and I have only a few Christmas Cookies left. "Russian Tea Cakes", or as my recipe book calls them, "Sandies". These cookies were really simple to make. I mean, even I was able to make them turn out right! I wanted to make several different types of cookies for Christmas but I just didn't have the time. Actually, if truth be told, I really just wanted to EAT several different types of cookies. Ah well, next year, with better planning, I should be able to make many more cookies. Since you can refrigerate the dough, I should be able to prepare several different types in the month before Christmas and just keep them in cold storage until I am ready to bake them. That should work out all right.

Living here in Japan has made me begin to take more care and have more interest in my own culture and traditions. I miss things from back home. I realize that if I want to enjoy the traditions of my homeland, I will have to actively engage myself in them.

Kaki wo kajiru - Noelle eats a persimon

Autumn is the season for many fruits of the land, and of the the favorites of the Japanese, and Noelle, is the persimon or "kaki" in Japanese. They are hard to hold on to for her, being kind of slippery when peeled, but she loves to bite into them. Right now she really likes to feed herself as much as she can. She is not very good at it yet, getting food all over her face, in her hair, all over us, her high-chair and the floor. We always set her high chair over a bunch of old newspapers to catch the shower of food, bowls and other utensils that come down.

Snow in Ashibetsu

This just came in this morning from a former student. It's snowing in Ashibetsu! I think it is time for me to change the tires on our car to studless tires. In contrast to the weather in Ashibetsu, it is a gorgeous sunny day with blue skies here in Makubetsu. The weather brings me to another topic: tires. I had only just heard of "studless tires" right before coming to Tokachi. My father in law was using them on his car. Then when I came here, I learned that EVERYBODY uses special winter "studless" tires and special tires for summer. It was a new thing for me. The summer tires that most people put on their cars were like sports tires or racing slicks. Now way you could use those for winter. In Wyoming I had always used all-season tires and never changed tires during the year. If I weren't married with a child, I think I would try to use only all-season tires again rather than buy another set of expensive studless tires.

Choosing a Pumpkin

IMG_5637
Originally uploaded by mr_caffeine74.

I like this picture. Here I am looking at all the pumpkins trying to choose just the right pumpkin to bring home to display at my dad's house. I choose a nice round one that wasn't too small and wasn't too big. I didn't have time to make it into a jack-o'-lantern but still it was nice to have it. Halloween is on October 31st. I carve one or more pumpkins into jack-o'-lanterns every year for Halloween. I put a candle in them and light them up at night for the people in the neighborhood or passersby. Did you do anything for Halloween?

Happy Halloween!

I didn't get to do anything for Halloween this year and I am a little bit bummed. However, the kids at Nukanai Elementary did make a jack-o'-lantern out of an expensive pumpkin that I gave them. We all got together the day before and made pumpkin pie and paper-craft turkeys for Thanksgiving. Here's a picture of their jack-o'-lantern on the left. Up until this year, and a few years at university, I have dressed up as a monster of some sort or another every year for Halloween. I never get very elaborate with my costume. The last couple of years I have been a vampire. I have tried to make myself look like Count Dracula the vampire.

Welcome to Wyoming!

We made it to Wyoming at last!
After changing planes several times and staying the night in Billings Montana, we finally made it to my home sate Wyoming!

Where are you going?

Where are you going?

To meet my friend!

Tomorrow, Saturday September 17th at the Satsunai Centennial Hall, I'll be having Story Time again. This time I have two books to read. One of the books is really special and I'm really excited to be reading it with the volunteer group Babaar. The book is written by Eric Carle and Japan's Iwamura Kazuo. It starts in English on one side of the book going left to right and in Japanese on the other side going right to left and the two stories meet in the middle. Illustrations are done for the English side by Carle and for the Japanese side by Iwamura. When the two sides meet in the middle the illustrations get all mixed together and it is just a lovely effect. I hope you'll come to listen to this simple yet truly wonderful story book.

While we usually read the books in both Japanese and English, the other book will be read only in English. I am planning on reading more books only in English. Don't worry, you'll surely be able to understand it. I hope this will help further English education in Makubetsu if just a little bit.

Story Time

This is a very cute poster made for my Story Time by the wonderful folks at the library. But, it lacks something. What does it need? Ah, yes, it needs accompanying text for when the graphic can't be loaded! Yes! So, here it is:

Story Time

A time for children and adults alike to get together and enjoy children's story books in English. The books will be read in English by Clinton Lane and in Japanese by volunteers.

Makubetsu-cho Main Library

Story Time wil be held at the main library in Makubetsu on the following dates:

• August 20
• October 15
• December 17
• February 18.

Reading will begin at 2pm.

Centennial Hall in Satsunai

Story Time will be held at the Satsunai Hyakunen Kinen Hall on the following dates:

• September 17
• November 19
• January 21
• March 18

Reading will begin at 2pm.

Adopt-a-Highway

It was a real shocker to me when I came to Japan and saw all of the trash strewn on the sides of the highways. The cities are kept pristine but not the areas in between. I think Japan really needs to get an Adopt-a-Highway program started.

Rain, rain, go away

Rain, rain, go away,
come again some other day!

This is a chant that I know from my childhood. We say this when it is raining and we want the rain to stop so we can go outside and play. Well, who's to say that you can't play in the rain? Anyway, with the Typhoon recently it has been raining just too much here in Hokkaido. My zuchinnis are starting to get soft and so am I! I just wish we would have sun for summer break! This is not like summer at all! Yuck! But then again, nothing here is like I expect it to be. We all have our expectations based on our experiences or desires. My experiences growing up in Wyoming has lead me to expect a 3 month summer vacation with NO SCHOOL ACTIVITIES. Yes, that's NO school activities and 3 months of fun in the sun. It is summer break now here in Japan but I still see kids wearing their school jerseries or school uniforms doing club activities or going to school. I aslo saw their teachers hand out homework to be done during the summer break! That just doesn't seem like a summer break to me. I mean "break" means to "stop doing". So a summer break from school means to stop going to school. Yes, I realize that there are no normal classes so it is a break. I wonder what the students would do with three months of no school and no school activities? I guess the closest thing we had to a summer break similiar to the summer break here was the winter vacation. It was just about a month long but I can remember having homework and still going to limited wrestling practices.

Word of the Day: Odd man out

odd man out n.1 《硬貨を投げたりして》 グループの中から一人を選ぶ方法[ゲーム]; そうして選ばれた[はずされた]人, 残り鬼.2 孤立者, のけもの, つむじまがり, 変わり者.

In action:

Everyone was invited to the BBQ but me and when I asked Jim about it he encouraged me to come along. But you know, when I got there, I really just felt like the odd man out.

Story Time in Makubetsu

Last Saturday I had my first English Story Time in Makubetsu and the Makbuetsu Library's kids reading room. We had 60 people show up and some suspicious people who looked like reporters taking pictures. They never approached me so I can't say for sure they were'nt just trying to get a picture of me and not the program but...

Two volunteers and I read two story books to 35 children and then we all did the Hokey Pokey afterwards. The children were aged 5months to about 10. Most of them were in the 4-8 years old age range I think. We read "The Three Billy Goats Gruff" and "Jack and the Monster." I don't think "Jack .." was such a great choice. If you have any suggestions on good English story books or would like to get involved let me know.

We will hold Story Time every 3rd Saturday alternating between the Makubetsu Library and the Satsunai Centennial Hall. Next month we will be reading two Australia story books that I picked up when I was there. They are very cute.

The library is willing to buy or borrow books that I want to do for the Story Time. Bought books of course will be for the library's collection. Both books that we read on Saturday were borrowed from the library in both Japanese and English. I will have to translate one or both of the Australian books for next month's "Story Time."

Learning English Requires Action

"Learning English requires action. You may know all the learning tips, but if you don't start doing things, you will achieve nothing. The fact is, if you want to learn to speak English well, you must change your life. Here are some examples of things you will have to do:

* read a book in English for an hour every day, analyzing the grammar in sentences and looking up words in an English dictionary
* listen to an audiobook or other recording in English, stopping it frequently, trying to understand what is being said, and trying to imitate the speaker's pronunciation
* spend your afternoon practicing the pronunciation of the English "r" sound
* carefully write an e-mail message in English, using a dictionary or a Web search every 20 seconds to make sure every word is correct, and taking 5 minutes to write one sentence
* think about an English sentence you've read, wondering if it could say "a" instead of "the" in the sentence, and trying to find similar sentences on the Web to find out the answer
* walk down the street and build simple English sentences in your head (talking to yourself in English about the things you see around you)

What kind of person would do all these crazy things? Only one kind. The kind of person who enjoys doing them. If you want to learn to speak English well, you're going to have to become that person. You cannot hate doing these things. Have you ever heard of a person who became successful by doing something he hated? "
From Antimoon.com

Getting to know you

Going abroad or putting yourself in a similarily challenging and different situation is one of the best ways to get to know yourself. Many people desire to go abroad to learn more about the "other" world and more about the "other" people. Most people who actually do make it into a very foreign world find the most challenging and rewarding thing is getting to know themselves.

Speaking through water

When you don’t understand your surroundings it is sometimes easy to ignore them. Imagine that you are sitting at the bottom of a pool. You can see distorted bodies of people swimming above you. Sometimes people dive down to your level and you can see them more clearly. This is kind of the way I would describe being in a foreign country where you don’t speak the language. People may be speaking around you or even speaking to you but it takes a lot of effort to understand what they are saying, like they are speaking through water.

Say it loud!

Advice from a famous English teacher, William Strunk Jr.:

If you don't know how to pronounce a word, say it loud! If you don't know how to pronounce a word, say it loud!

The point being that the only thing worse than being wrong, is being wrong and timid. So I say to all you who worry about your pronunciation, say it loud! It doesn't matter if it is wrong as long as you are making the positive effort to communicate. It matters even less if it is wrong if the person you are talking to can't hear what you are saying.