Well it has been a good couple weeks since I gave you all an update. I guess I should start off with the new school.

I just started working at a new school, as of Monday, and it has been going well. The teachers are nice and I get to do most of my teaching in the new computer room, with a projector, internet, video, whatever I can mange to use (here right now). It is pretty sweet, plus all the students have their own computers to use as well, and I guess I can monitor them and do some high tech stuff, but we haven’t learned about all that yet.

I have only done my self-intro so far, but was able to show them pictures off flickr and videos off youtube, as well as make an online quiz about myself to make sure they were listening. The new school is a technical high school, so the kids here are studying to become mechanics, engineers, electricians, etc.. This is great because I might be able to check out some of the computer classes, or auto classes and learn so really useful stuff; but on the other hand the students aren’t to pumped about learning English-this makes for some noisy classes sometimes.

I am hoping to take advantage of the computers, and bring in new and different techniques to engage the kids. Maybe I can actually get them interested in learning English. That has always been the goal, but now I can really do some interesting things with them, so it might be a little easier to make it all happen.

Kai and Aya are doing well. Kai man is getting huge, with feet about the size of a 3 year old. Aya and I think he is definitely going to be 6 foot, who knows, maybe he will be even taller! I am back at my Japanese class, studying on Tuesdays and Thursdays. It is nice to be back in the classroom studying again after the spring break. I can feel the brain muscles working, which is always a good sign.

Kai has really taking a liking to buses, cars, and trucks. Every time we are out and he sees a bus, he says “Ba-ba.” It is his new favorite word, and is super cute to hear. When we are home he plays with his toy cars 24/7 and love reading his books about cars and trucks. He has acquired a few other new words as well: “Ma-ma” for mommy, “shiuuss” for juice, and “tin-tin” for chin chin (Japaneses for you guessed it, penis). I think he is going to start speaking Japanese at first, but since we are moving back in August for good, that is probably a good thing.

I am not sure if I mentioned that before, but the plan now is to move back to the states in August, and hopefully be working at a private school teaching Japanese or ESL. I have applied to a bunch of schools, but no leads yet. I will keep you guys posted on that. Also I will throw up some of the pictures and videos we have from the Cherry Blossom season here in Japan, which has just ended. It was beautiful to see again, and it only lasts for about 2 weeks out of the year. We know it won’t be our last one, but it might not be for 5-10 years before we can get back for another hanami.

I forgot to mention the little fact that Kai has started speaking, well not entirely, but he has said his first word. Is it Inglés or Japonés? I’ll let you decide.

The big first word is, “bye-bye.” Yes sir, and you might hastily believe that this is only an English word as well. Actually it is pretty common for Japanese people (mostly girls) to say this, instead of the Japanese equivalent, “jaa-ne.” I guess this would be the reason why he picked it up so easily.

Being a young Einstein, Kai not only says “bye-bye” but also throws in the wave to show he knows what is up. Take for example the other night when Aya put him down in his crib, he looked at her with his best baby face, waved sionara, and said “byyye.” Clearly he has grasped this as his first word, and I think part of him did it, not to upset both Mom and Dad.

The reasoning probably went something like this:

“If I use only Japanese, dad might not like it; and if I use only English, mommy might stop the breast milk! I’m definitely using a bilingual word here.”

P.S. Changed it up a little for the holiday season.  Really should have done it with the last post, but better late than never.  Merry Christmas,  Happy Hanukkah, Killer Kwanzaa, and all the rest of them holidays!

P.P.S. Can someone mail me eggnog, it keeps right?  Apparently they don’t do eggnog here.

While I prepare the video of Kai crawling, I will tell you what I have been up to for the past 6 months: studying. That is right, all I do when I am at school, is study Kanji and Japanese grammar, which is a pain in the butt. Try talking backwards for a day, and you will feel me. As I have said before, Japanese is a very difficult language to learn, that is to say if you take the stand-point that you can learn by listening to everyone around you. This is good in theory, but never leads to fluency. The fact that the entire alphabet of sounds is completely foreign does not facilitate the understanding of everyday conversations.

This is where the Kanji come in. They on the other hand have been a godsend to me, and learning them has greatly improved my ability to understand the Japanese language. I think it has something to do with how I remember things, seeing as how I like to think of pictures rather than sounds/names/words/etc. when recalling information. I have been grinding through this book called Remembering the Kanji (RTK): Part I, and so far I have about 460 of the characters meanings and writings memorized. I can read proably 25% of them, but that is not the aim of the book and is reserved in entirety to the second volume of RTK. (The painful part about Kanji is the amount of information you have to digest in a single character. First you must learn how to write it, in the correct stroke order. Then you must learn its translation(s). After that you must study its readings, with a big ‘S.’ Each Kanji has an average of 3 readings, so you can see how the process can become time consuming.)

Anywhoooo I did some number crunching today and found out that if I want to learn all of the 2042 Kanji in the book by Dec 13th (the day before my winter vacation starts), I need to memorize about 66 characters every week or 13 Kanji a day. So that is the plan for me these days, with my current schedule I hope it can be done. All I can say is “Gambaru!” (I will try to fight hard and do my best). Don’t you love how an entire idea can be expressed in a single word in Japanese. I know I do.

Up next: Kai caught on Camera Crawling.

Kai has taken three huge steps recently, as he begins the second half of his first year.

To get things moving on track, he finally cut his first tooth this week. When he gives a big smile, you can see the top of his bottom front teeth popping out. This is great and all, but everyone knows how much it can hurt to have a tooth come up out of your gums: hence the constant crying and irregular sleep schedule. Ma-dukes advice was to keep the teething toys cold in the fridge, that way he can get some pain relief while he chews away at them. Thanks for the tip Mom. Now if there only was a cure for the massive energy level which keeps his body in full swing all day, we might be able to bypass all the broken things in our very near future.

This brings me to the second item on the list: Kai is about ready to get mobile, and there is no turning back. As of late, there has been a lot of rocking back and forth on all fours. He is trying to crack the crawling code, but still hasn’t quite got it yet. Usually he will get up on his hands and knees and shake around. Other times I have seen him hop off his back legs and move forward while in the crawl position. He just can’t figure out that he needs to move his arms along with his feet. Wow, and let me tell you, those feet are ready for marathon competitions. He will try to crawl so hard sometimes that he pushes his butt way up into the air, and buries his face in the ground. It is only a matter of days probably, and you all will be seeing some video of this guy on the move.

Finally, BIG NEWS, Kai has said his first word (well kinda, pretty sure he doesn’t understands it, but it has been said nonetheless). “Dada,” that magical word has somehow been spoken by Kai; actually it’s more like “dadadadadadadadadadadad” for a couple of minutes. This may sound like mindless child blabbing to you, but for Kai this is the first formation of a phonetic sound. Before this it has been screams, laughs and sobs, nothing that sounds like a word, or even a letter. He finally is starting to repeat some of the sounds he has constantly been hearing. If it’s English, Japanese, or Mandarin, that is up for the judges to decide. I am leaning towards Japanese, that way when he starts talking, he can teach me to speak as well. I could use the free lessons.