I'm Still Here

I know some of you may have been wondering where I've been lately. And I'm guessing some of you may not have noticed that I was gone. And I'm sure still more are wondering who is Cookie anyway?

Would you believe I'm just being mysterious?

I didn't think so.

Today was my final exam in my Japanese class. I still have a presentation next week (that I haven't started preparing for) but soon I'll have more free time. I should have been studying yesterday, but my 6 year old had other plans. He vomited in his bed and slept in it all night. I walked into his room yesterday morning to a bed full of chunks. How can you vomit and not continue sleeping??? There was also a pile of bloody tissues next to his bed. He told me that the vomit was boogers. He had a bloody nose and thought that had caused the vomit. Poor kid. I had already taken him to the pediatrician last week and we already had a follow-up appointment scheduled for this morning. So he stayed home sick yesterday and the pediatrician gave him the OK to go back to school today. Tomorrow we have an appointment with the allergist. A 3 hour appointment.

The other thing that has been taking up my time is that I joined a gym. I've become a workout junkie. Or rather a workout junkie wannabe. My biggest complaint about the gym is that there is a McDonald's across the parking lot from the gym. So after burning 200 calories on the treadmill, I can reward myself with a thousand calorie milkshake. A vicious cycle.

Exam

In 2 hours, I will be taking an exam. An exam in my Japanese class that I am not prepared for.

I have been studying. I studied last week. I studied this weekend. I studied last night. I studied this morning. Still, I feel unprepared. I feel old. Studying didn't used to be so much work! Or maybe I blocked out that part of college.

I usually volunteer in my son's kindergarten classroom on Tuesday mornings. I cancelled this morning so that I could blog study some more.

Anyone want to let me copy off of their paper?

Nelson Who?

As many of my faithful readers know, I'm taking a Japanese class at the local community college. Yesterday my sensei taught how to make a negative sentence. For example, "I am not a teacher."

Sense decided to play a game where she taped a card with the name of a famous person on the back of each student. Then us, students, were supposed to go around and ask questions. The questions were limited to:

Am I woman?

Am I man?

Am I singer?

Am I an athlete?

Am I a politician?

Am I a movie star?

Sensei had posted lists of famous people in each category. So once you figured out the right gender and category you could go to the list and start guessing names. I thought it was a neat idea. Turns out that underneath this blogging mom, there is an inner golf star trying to get out. I was Tiger Woods. You can see the resemblance, no?

At the end of the game, one person still hadn't figured out who the person taped to her back was. She was at list of singers. But her person wasn't a singer. It was Nelson Mandela. Can you believe someone in the class told her Nelson Mandela was a singer?! I turned to the student sitting next to me and said that, "Can you believe someone thought Nelson..." Before I could finish he said, "Wait, wasn't Nelson Mandela an athlete?"



When I got home and started to tell this story to my husband his reaction was, "Who is Nelson Mandela?"

Really?

Always Something To Learn

Thanks for your encouragement in taking the Japanese class. I do have my reasons for wanting to learn Japanese. I guess I assumed that everyone knows that my husband is Japanese. I do already know some Japanese. But I'm not sure that the Japanese I know will help me in this class. I know things like Japanese cartoon characters, and phrases like, "I need to go potty" and "Where are the diapers?" These aren't in the textbook. I checked.

I don't really need to know that much Japanese. Yes, I do travel to Japan. But when I go to Japan, I bring my own personal translator with me, my husband. Granted being able to survive in Japan and being to communicate are different. I would also like my children to continue speaking Japanese because we spent a lot of money sending them to Japanese preschool and the older one already forgets most of it it's an important part of their heritage and I don't like wasting money .

I do know how to say a few other things in Japanese. And I can understand more than I can say. But it doesn't always work as planned. This past spring my family and I went to Okinawa. We stayed at a beautiful hotel with a private beach. We decided to try the jet skis. We had to go two at a time. My 5 year old and I went first with the jet ski instructor. Then my husband and my 7 year old with the same jet ski instructor. My 5 year old and I waited on the beach while they took their 20 minute ride. Not more than 2 minutes had passed when my 5 year old turned to me and said, "I need to go potty." We were on the beach. There was no bathroom. The nearest building was where we paid for the jet skis and there was no bathroom there, but we could ask where the bathroom is. At this point I considered sending him into the ocean to go potty. But I quickly changed my mind. My 5 year has been going to Japanese school for 2 years. This is a resort where most employees speak English. Surely we could find a bathroom without the help of my usual translator.

My 5 year old and I walked up to the jet ski rental counter and I told my son to ask where the bathroom was. He wouldn't do it! He made me do it. So I asked. And the guy understood me! It would have been perfect if only I could have understood his answer. He pointed up a hill and toward a building. I went to the building. And then found a map with the bathroom located on the second floor. I later found out that the man at the jet ski counter said, "follow that path up the hill to the building and take the elevator to the second floor."

That reminds of another woman I met once who considered herself fluent in Japanese and was proven wrong by a little girl. This woman was a businesswoman. She worked in Japan and handled many contracts and meetings without any trouble. One day she was with some friends at the store. She was asked to watch one of her friend's little girl who was only about 3 years old. The little girl said something to the businesswoman. But the businesswoman did not understand the little girl. The businesswoman tried a few times to get the girl to speak more slowly and tried asking questions to figure out what the girl needed but in the end she ran out of time. The little girl had wet her pants. The little girl was saying that she needed to go "potty." She was using the child's word for "potty" as opposed to a more adult word like bathroom. So the woman did not understand. "Potty" is not in most textbooks and not used in most business meetings or contracts.

Just when you think you know it all a little girl can teach you something.

The New Girl At School

I enrolled in a class at the local community college. I'm taking Japanese now. Today was the first day.

When I enrolled in this class I had to send over transcripts to make sure I met the prerequisites for the class. I felt really old digging up those artifacts. But somehow I managed to get accepted into the college and I found my way through the new computer system and enrolled in the class.

This morning I started to get a little nervous. I don't know my way around campus. Where do I park? Will I be able to find the classroom? What if the other kids don't like me? What if the school nurse from my kids' school tries call me during class (As if that would ever happen!)? Typical first day concerns. Nothing really to worry about. Then as I'm walking out the door to leave for my class I realize that maybe I have a real concern. I realize that I don't have a notebook or a pen. Ok, maybe I do have something to worry about.

I don't think I'm ready for this.