The Whole Erk Catalogue Tales of a Geek Abroad

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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On the first day of 2008, we woke up very tired at Maria's, at around 8 am - we'd had about 5 hours of sleep. After a delicious pancake breakfast that nobody was quite awake enough to appreciate, we went to Ogawara by bus - a beautiful ride in the snow - to visit one of Maria's teachers for brunch.

The Oshogatsu traditional food is mochi, a pounded rice cake that is extremely heavy and chewy. Oshogatsu mochi are made from hard, dried rice cakes that are grilled until brown and puffy and put in something to rehydrate them, ideally a soup or sweet bean paste. Reading about this made it sound less appetising than it really is: the real thing is very delicious! Traditionally, during Oshogatsu, families will have a large mochi brunch and then not eat again until dinner. They don't really have a choice, since the mochi lunch is incredibly heavy and stick-to-your-ribsy.

[snip: I started writing this page but never finished. Resuming here!]

Jen and I have been watching a really nifty debate called "Beyond Belief" on an internet movie site. It's a long series of panel lectures and subsequent discussion about science and religion, and has gone everywhere from astrophysics to quantum mechanics and from neurobiology and psychology to microbiology and ecology. It's a pretty interesting discussion for its science alone, let alone the charged topic.

Winter break is a slow time for blog entries, since they are essentially a one-person job and Jen and I were taking the chance to spend a lot of time together.

For New Year's, we went out to Kawasaki-machi to spend the evening with our friends Maria and Andy. The trip out there was quite the fiasco! The only way to Kawasaki is by bus, and to start with we mistook the bus time for 2:00 - turns out it only runs on that time on normal weekdays, and the 31st is a statutory holiday in Japan. In fact, the 31st of december and 1st of january seem to be the only days of the year when service in Japan grinds to a near-complete halt! To make matters worse for ignorant foreigners, service on the 31st starts out normally but rapidly drops off. Thus, we were stuck in Sendai waiting for a 6 pm bus, with not quite enough time to bother going home and too much time to kill.

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.