The Whole Erk Catalogue Tales of a Geek Abroad

So, now that we've personally announced it to all our immediate family, I feel it's safe to post on my blog: Jen and I got engaged a week ago! With the ring and bended knee and all! I'm sorry to say for all those wanting a juicy story that it was a modest proposal: we both knew it was coming, and I knew Jen would not want to be embarrassed by too public an offering, so I just got on my knee and handed her a pretty bit of jewelry in one of our favourite restaurants, after a really nice day out on the town. It was good times!

I'm a very lucky dude.

I'm teaching at Fujigaoka Elementary right now, the elementary I'm most familiar with and fond of. The other day I taught my second graders to sing Old MacDonald had a Farm. It was pretty popular for the E-I-E-I-O bit; the kids loved the song, but mostly I wound up with "Oh macdahdah hah.. fah, EIEIO!" still, they had fun and got some english vocab and pronunciation practice. As is traditional, there were a very wide variety of animals on the farm: cheetah was exceptionally popular, for some reason. Rabbit was as well. What sound does a rabbit make? I went with "boing-boing".

I learned some odd things. It doesn't appear that Japanese people recognise a cat's purr as a distinct sound. I can't really imagine that, because Japanese people are onomatopoeia-crazy, but nobody in the entire class could describe "the other sound that cats make, when you pet them and they are happy". They just made a really happy sounding meow... even the teacher didn't know.

Jen's got a new hairdo. She decided yesterday to go through with something she's wanted to do for a long time, and shear off her locks to donate to cancer wigmaking. In order to get enough hair (20cm) to donate, we had to take off most of her 'do! She's got much shorter hair than I do now. Here's my perspective of the story... on her blog there ought to be her own take soon.

I was asked to give a brief speech to the school today, about some topic pertaining to my winter break. I gave the speech in alternating slow, careful English and as quick and clear of Japanese as I could manage; the goal was not to challenge the students' English levels, but to give the school a chance to hear what sort of stuff I think about and do when I am not at work. I think it was a pretty big success, and helped to remind some of the teachers that I speak Japanese and it is ok for them to talk to me: a lot of teachers have had brief conversations with me already since I gave the speech.

Here it is, in both English and Japanese for those interested in either!
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Thanks to Jen's contacts, we got to go together to a Forget the Year Party, or Bonenkai (忘年会). We went with Jen's "Tomodachi in Natori" group, the group she learns Japanese with. I've not had a chance to meet a lot of the people there, although it seems about 99% of them know who I am. Actually, it's pretty funny (and a little creepy) how fast gossip about our daily affairs filters through the Natori grapevine. One of the ladies who sat with us asked Jen how her calligraphy classes were going... Jen has only had time to go to two of those classes, and hasn't had a chance to really talk about them to the Tomodachi in Natori group. In a similar vein, another lady (one seat further down) asked how I liked my haircut. Apparently an assistant at the place where I got my haircut is a friend of hers, and told her all about when Jen, Mom and I came in for a haircut and a conversation.