So long, Partner

Thanks to trying to make a sick little boy feel better, I finally got to see Toy Story 3. I can see why reviews were raving about it and why some critics said that kids will love it, parents will find the ending a bit bitter sweet.

As a teacher I get to see my kids grow over the three years they are in my school and always feel rather mixed emotions come March when they assemble for the last time in the gym and then for the last time as a class outside the school to say thank you before scattering off to different high schools around the prefecture. Off to their own adventures without us. It is, as I said, very bitter sweet (Though I do admit there are some kids I am more than happy to see the backsides of).

Now of course with my own sons, young as they are, I'm aware of the ticking of the clock. When I was a child I couldn't grow up fast enough. Getting to age 18 took forever (and a day). Now however it seems as if three years has passed by so quickly. A blink of an eye before my eldest was a small infant first struggling with how to control his arms to someone who no longer needs his father's helping hand to climb on the playground. My youngest, in 4 months, has quickly changed from a rather blank slate to a baby with his own personality and  ideas of what he wants.

So watching the end of TS3... well, it brought back that bitter sweet feeling, the joys of watching them grow and fly, and the sorrow of watching them fly away.

Still, good movie though.

I liver by the river and the season I want you to go your my school is...

We're heading into the last bit of the school year and so my panicking 3rd years are getting ready for their high school entrance exams. 4 of my student are biting the bullet and going for a English program at a local high school. The exam is a killer because the course work is all in English, no Japanese allowed. Even worse, the kids have to sit an interview with both one of the Japanese teachers of English and the school's AET (Native speaker teacher in other words). So for the last few days I've been busy reading their speeches and statements. Now these kids have had three years of English with us. Two of them I worked with for over a month getting them ready for speech contest where they delivered a 5 minute speech in English and yet...

And yet...

And yet we get gems like someone writing how she wants to go to a university where every class except English is taught in English. Or another girl telling us that she wants to go to the school to get a more cosmopolitan outlook (Her speech was perfect, but when asked how to actually pronounce that word it came out rather interesting). Or another who's paper seemed to be saying she was going to teach the English department at that high school English instead of the other way around.

Sometimes you just want to cry... Kind of like our 4th student who burst into tears today during practice for reasons I never got straight before being dismissed.

Life as a teacher folks. Sometimes its great, sometimes though...

English classes mostly in Japanese | The Japan Times Online

English classes mostly in Japanese | The Japan Times Online
Anyone who was ever wondering why, after at least 6 years of English, the Japanese still have problems responding to such difficult English like "How are you?", here's your answer.

Avast, belay, when I appear, By fear they're overtook...

Lately I've been addicted to a game called Star Pirates. It's a really basic (As in mostly text with static graphics) MMO game. Pretty much it's a shoot 'em up set in the far future where the Earth has gone boom and everyone is a. Living in space mining or pirating, and b. immortal due to the actions of little robot critters (Meaning when you go boom, it takes a few minutes to rebuild you, but there is no other penalty than that).

You start off in a rinkydink little sloop and by hook and crook through savaging and fighting various critters/ other pirates you can work your way up into much bigger ships with better weapons, shields, engines...

And get splattered by someone bigger. ~_^

Still, the game is far more satisfying to me than Mafia Wars was. While you can get hit while offline, there's no property to damage and it doesn't feel like a pyramid scheme. Even better, the game is meant to be played in very short bursts, meaning it is the perfect time waster between classes when I have some time to kill or when I need a short break in correcting papers before my eyes glaze over.

It also proves as a good distraction before I kill someone on NS.

Players can assemble into fleets (Currently I'm in Legostars, which is based off of the webcomic that got me into Star Pirates in the first place). I kinda wish that I could ask around NS to see how many players there are over there. I think a NationStates fleet would be kind of cool (The FT players in II would enjoy it). I think the Boss might get annoyed with me though if I tried. :)

Care for a fling?

My eldest son has invented a new game, nekkid highland dancing in the bathtub. This is what I get for playing bagpipe music (designed to wake me up in the morning in the shower) while taking a bath with him. He, of course, likes the whole idea of crazy music bouncing off the bathroom tiles and hopping on one leg while in the bath.

The current argument comes from how he now wants his mother to play the CD to dance again, but my wife cannot stand bagpipes.

The joys of a Kindle

So for Christmas I asked for money for a Kindle. The main reasons was one of cost, English books in Japan are just damned expensive. My choices are either spending the money to go into Tokyo where I could easily spend around $200 for, oh, 5 books or so. Or ordering from Amazon (Either.com or Japan) which might be slightly cheaper, but usually meant I would have to wait for a few weeks before my books show up (Amazon Japan carries a LOT in stock, but there's also a lot that has to be sent in from the US, which can take about 2 weeks or so). The other reason is space. When I came to Japan, I sent over about 20 books, the bulk of my collection is either boxed up in the US waiting for my return, or was given away to my university's used book shop.

That was six years ago and I'm currently somewhere around 150 to 200 titles. I'm just physically running out of room. The concept of carrying some 20,000 titles or so around with me in something the size of a PADD appealed to me, especially as it meant that I wouldn't have to argue with my wife about that any more.

So when I got the Kindle I spent an hour or so in the Kindle Classics section downloading about 20 books I've wanted to read. I've even bought a book just to see how it worked. But... there's still something missing. The feel of the paper, the smell of the book, the rustle of the pages. Maybe I just need to get used to it, or maybe I just am a confirmed bibliophile. Still though, a few trawls through the free stack at the Kindle store, the idea of the whole of Project Gutenberg available to me at any time, and being able to go on a trip with plenty to read and not have to leave half my clothes and I might become a believer.

But I think a party of me will still feel something is wrong, something missing, curling up under the kotatsu with a mug of coca, and the snow coming down on a cold Nagano day with my Kindle instead of an actual paper book.

Starting off

No particular reason to go. Don't have anything profound to say (Gotta be dead to be profound I am told), not even too sure if anyone would bother reading, but why not. I might even get around to expanding this some day. Or not.