Dōmo Arigatō (Mr. Roboto)

So last night I had my first Japanese class. I have wanted to take Japanese for a while - I almost did in my first year of undergrad but took German instead - and finally enrolled in a beginners course at Algonquin College. Of course, all the way down on the bus, I had the aforementioned Styx song stuck in my head.

My Japanese teacher is soooo hyper. She's maybe in her mid-30s, from Kyoto originally (sigh) and just way more hyper than anyone should probably be. However, it was great. She drilled us and drilled us first on phonetic Japanese and then with simple phrases. I am already starting to dread the moment when she will spin around in my direction and fire off an entirely-too-rapid "Gambatte kudasai" or "Anata wa gakusei desu" in my direction, at which point I start scrambling through the handouts she has given us and my scrawled notes on them in order to find the appropriate response ("Hai, gambarimasu" or "Iie, watashi wa gakusei dewa arimasen" respectively).*

General introductions and counting to ten (ichi, ni, san, yon, go, roku, hachi, nana, qyū, jū). We learned a bit of Japanese culture. For instance, there are four types of bowing, depending on how formal an occasion. Men keep their hands at their sides when bowing, but women should have theirs clasped in front of them. In the last half-hour, we watched some videoclips from Japan: a commercial for some creamy refreshing drink with Brad Pitt ("Dare desu ka?" / "Brad Pitt desu"); a clip from a wedding with a 10-metre tall cake; a shogun talking to his court (meant to demonstrate the word "Sā" which means "I don't know" - a good thing to know! - and always done with a tilt of the head); the Empress getting her hair done (2 hours) and getting dressed in her wedding kimono (over 20 minutes to put it on); and a bunch of sumo wrestlers eating al fresco in Vancouver ("Kanpai!" or "Cheers!").

Anyhow, it was fun and oh so different from any class I have taken in years. It's been almost two years since I was last a student (I love going to class! how can I get back???), and learning a language is way different than databases or administrative law. Challenging, and fun.


* For the linguistically-challenged in the group, this would be "Please do your best" - "Yes, I'll do my best" and "Are you a student?" - "No, I am not a student." Also note that where a word ends in a "u", at least so far, the "u" is not pronounced, and there is no "r" sound in Japanese (hence Japan's reputation as the land of "flied lice"), so all "r"s are actually pronounced as a cross between "l" and "d" (or for the Westerners among us, who have trouble doing the proper sound, an "l" sound is fine).

See, Mom??? All those wasted mornings...

When I was little, my mother would often tell my brothers and I that we couldn't do fun things outside or with our friends or whatever unless we made our beds first. Well, she may have doomed us to a childhood of respiratory problems. National Geographic this month has a short news piece about a recent study that suggests that microscopic dust mites are less likely to survive in unmade beds since the exposure to air dehydrates them. In a nicely-made bed, warmth and moisture that get trapped in the smoothed sheets may help dust mites thrive.

Yet another justification for my post-parental-home slovenly nature. Now if only I could find a way out of doing the dishes forever and ever :)

The Booklist

I just added National Geographic magazine to my list of "Currently Reading", since it occurred to me that I sometimes spend an awful lot of time reading it instead of books. My parents gave me a subscription two years ago for Christmas - they had cancelled their subscription earlier that year on the alleged basis that "no one ever reads it" - my little brother and I then proceeded to list off 5 or 6 articles that had recently appeared in the magazine and then subsequently discussed at the dinner-table - hence the gift subscription - and I quite enjoy it. I enjoy the variety of articles, though it can be fairly American-centered at times. I don't always get around to the entire magazine each month (though I try!) and I often read past issues that I never finished the first time around, but I figured I find it interesting so you will too!

This month's cover story was on Homo Florensis, nicknamed Hobbit, who lived about 18,000 years ago. The amazing thing is that Homo Florensis, found on Flores Island, a small island a few "hops" east of Bali in Indonesia, should not have been able to make it there at all (lack of sufficiently advanced watercraft, etc.). Another quite enjoyable article was about so-called "killer whales", or orca, on the Pacific West Coast. There are three different kinds of orca - residents, who stay near coastlines and eat only fish; transients, who venture further out to sea and eat only marine mammals (apparently in the 1970s, when orcas were commonly caught and put in captivity, one pod went refused the fish it was offered even after one of its members died of starvation; only later did scientists discover that there is a distinct type of killer whale which never eats fish), and are likely the ones who gave orcas their "killer whale" label; and finally, a third type whose name escapes me at the moment (and I'm too lazy to go look in the magazine which is in the next room) which stays mostly out at deep sea, coming only occasionally to the coastlines (it eats fish and some marine mammals). Anyway, I like it.

As far as my book reading goes, I am almost finished Asleep by Banana Yoshimoto. (OK, I admit it: I just like saying her name.) And I will start posting on pixxiefish in the stacks soon*. And - argh! I was about to put a link to my index page for my new website (just an index), but Geocities (whom I hate anyhow) is telling me it doesn't exist. So, ah, I need to figure that out. Besides, it won't be more than an index page until I re-remember how to do CSS - I have 423 photos to post and, as I do profess to be somewhat of a semi-geek, I believe that will be the simplest way for me to post them all. Any other suggestions, please let me know! And as soon as I figure out a way to make work fade to the background (it's been a busy two weeks), I will reclaim my rightful place as Somewhat Of A Part-Time Computer Nerd.


* Rebecca, so glad you like the name.

Betcha' can't play just once!

Enter at your own risk : DINKYBALL!!!!!

Warning : Not recommended for students or working folk or anyone who basically needs to get something done during the day.

There are more fun things here, but I haven't had the chance to check most of it out yet myself, so I make no warranties or representations as to its quality and/or general fun levels...

Also, I swear this game is not the reason why I haven't posted in two weeks. I swear.

Snapshot of Japan

Random picture of Japan from my trip : This is the Zen garden at Ginkaku-ji, the Temple of the Silver Pavillion (in the background - not actually finished in silver). This garden represents the Pacific Ocean, Japan and Mount Fuji. (Photo taken July 4, 2004.)

Cabane à sucre : special report

The cabane à sucre this weekend was great. I’ve never had the chance to do this before, despite my otherwise solid Canadian upbringing in the eastern half of this country (Nova Scotia, Québec, Ontario) – even Randal had been to some such parties as a kid, as apparently every year during Festival des voyageurs in Winnipeg, a sugar shack would be set up.

So, yes it is possible to overdose on maple syrup. But I was good and stopped short of a fifth tire. Here’s how it works (the non-scientific explanation) :

Once you have collected a lot of sap from maple trees (by tapping them with a little pipe, of sorts, and placing a bucket to catch the sap), you have to heat it up for many many hours. Guy, my dad’s cousin’s husband, told us that the sap must thicken 40 times before it is ready to eat. He was heating it up in a large pot on an outdoor wood stove. You have to keep about two inches of sap in the pot at all times. When the syrup is just about right, he’d transfer it to a pot on the hot-plate in the cabane, where Louise (my dad’s cousin) would then stir it a bit longer, then take spoonfuls of syrup and drizzle it in small amounts into a bowl full of snow. From then, you roll up the syrup quickly (a second or two after it hits the snow) onto a popsicle stick, then cool the rolled-up syrup a few second more on a cookie-sheet covered in snow. Don’t wait too long or it will get too hard! It’s sticky, sweet, and utterly dee-lish.

In Little House in the Big Woods, Laura Ingalls, at the age of 3, goes to visit her grandma on the other side of the Big Woods in Wisconsin, and they eat maple syrup cooled on the snow (minus the popsicle sticks). That was how I felt today, except we didn’t have a big fiddle dance afterwards. :)

And, oh, did the dog ever have a good time!!! Well, not at first. He was sick in the car on the way down, losing his breakfast all over his towel and Randal’s jacket. Once there, he was a little flustered at first by all the people and Poupée, Louise and Guy’s big black standard poodle. But it was finally not too cold for him to play outside (mon pauvre petit chien frileux), and we took him off his leash once everyone assured us he would not run away. Oh my! He had a grand time cavorting and snuffling through the snow, launching himself into massive drifts, running around, sliding on the icy driveway, and playing “who-will-be-the-last-to-scent-this-snowdrift” with Poupée. (We never did figure out which one won that game in the end.) Rémy, Louise and Guy’s son, took us down into the snow-covered woods down to a (frozen and snowed-over) creek and the dog came joyfully bounding down. Only once he began sinking down too deep in the snow did Randal carry him. I fell in the snow up to almost my waist many times, and once through the ice over the creek (the water is apparently quite low as I didn’t even get my boots wet - but it made a fun crunch noise as I fell through).

Saturday night, how well did we sleep!?!? Rion passed out on the couch around 8:30 - unheard of for him! I followed suit snuggled alongside around 10:30, and we didn’t wake up until after 4:00 a.m. the next morning.

World Water Day

And today was World Water Day ... Who knew?