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We had to shovel snow off the roof again in the winter of 2012. Of all the photos I took during this two-day task, this one is my favorite. I caught Shinobu flinging some snow… but where do you think she was flinging it? Right! At me! Turns out this was one photo too many! :-)
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If something bad happened and you could only save a handful of your photo collection, which ones would choose? That’s the question guiding this series of blog posts I’m dubbing “Favorite Family Photos”. It’s a chance to look back at the past 10 years and revisit special moments in our family’s history. These are our best and most precious memories.
Introducing the Talandis Sports Channel (TSC)
We’re a sporting family, plain and simple. I’ve been wanting to be share highlights more quickly, especially of Luke’s swim races, so I’m happy to announce a new Talandis family video series: the Talandis Sports Channel (TSC). With this series, I hope to provide the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat in a timely manner.
In this first episode, Luke participates in the 13th annual “Chibiko Taikai”, a big annual swim meet in Toyama open to elementary and junior high school kids. Luke swam in four races: the backstroke leg of the 200m IM relay, the 50m free, 50m back, and 100m breast stroke. It was his first meet since last summer’s big one in Tokyo. He’s been training hard these past weeks, so check out ups and downs of how he did.
Papa’s driver’s license renewal
I’m at the Driver’s Education Center in Toyama, getting my license renewed. I’ve just gone through the processing process, took a simple eye test, had my photo taken (darn, I should have shaved this morning!), and am now waiting in a lecture hall for a 30 minute driver safety presentation to start. While we wait they are showing us a video promoting the benefits of wearing seat belts and using child seats. I’m watching crash-test dummies fly through wind shields after crashing while going only 40kph. Here’s a small child dummy, wearing no seat belt in the back, flying through, getting its head smashed. Now the scene changes to live actors: it’s a family of three, on a Sunday drive. Oh no! They get side-swiped at the intersection, and the car flips over! Are they okay? The music swells… Suddenly, the young child, in the back, starts to cry: “mama… mama…” Mama and Papa are still alive… All is okay. Papa says with great relief, “thanks to the child seat our baby is okay!” Violins swell…
Wow.
That could be my child!!! Okay, okay! From now on my kids will always wear seat belts in the back! Sheesh.
Highly effective video!
Live-blogging Luke’s swim meet
We’re at the Toyama Shimin Pool for the annual All-Toyama Youth Swim Meet. Luke is participating in four events today: the backstroke leg of the 200m Medley Relay, the 50m free, 50m back, and 100m breast stroke. I’m the team videographer, so I’ll be busy filming all of the kids on Luke’s team, Yatsuo YBG. Mama is the coach, as usual. Between races I’ll post updates, then later on I hope to upload the video of Luke’s races and some photos. Luke has been training hard of late, and we’re all excited to see what he can do today.
First race: 200m Individual Medley Relay
Luke swam the opening backstroke leg. Good news: Luke set a personal best time of 39.28! <Insert fireworks sound effects here> Bad news: Coach Mama wanted him to swim under 39, so he was “too slow!” <insert deep sigh special effects here> Luke said the wall at the start was very slippery, and he had a hard time starting well. His team also finished last with a time of 2:30-ish. Oh well! Luke, in his defense, is only in the 4th grade and was swimming against 6th graders. Anyway, never mind! It’s all about how you do personally in this sport… just try to keep improving, and accept that you’ll never be fast enough! :-)
Update: 10:45am
Luke has a long break until his next race, which won’t start for about another 45 minutes. He’s been hanging out at the Team YBG area, chatting with teammates and playing with Chiaki’s iPod Touch. Boo boo! He was told “no games” today, but he still managed to find one. Oh well. Coach Mama put a stop to that. We’ve found that he loses concentration and does more poorly when distracted by too much gaming. Another point: he just ate a banana, but it wasn’t easy to get him to do that. His appetite is small anyway, but on race days it’s even smaller. “I’m nervous, papa” he just told me. That’s probably a reason why he eats so little. Anyway, he managed to eat the whole thing by going slowly. Hopefully this will give him energy.
Update: 12:23pm
2nd race- 50m freestyle
Luke just finished his 2nd race, the 50m freestyle. Good news! He set a personal best time of 32:25. He won his heat, and his time was 3rd best overall amongst 4th grade boys in this stroke. He was only 0:41 off the top time, so he’s right up there! Great. Even more amazing, Coach Mama was very positive his effort, saying that his 1st leg was especially strong. Of course he needs to improve his turn, but overall a great job! Now he has a break for lunch and we’re going to strongly encourage him to eat something, food that will sit well in his stomach. Next race: the 50m back stroke…
Update: 1:01pm
Oh no! Luke lost his lunch… Again! This happened at the big Tokyo meet last summer. This time we were very careful not to load him up on food. But still he barfed! <sigh> What’s going on? He had one banana, one saltine cracker, a piece of kiwi, and some sports drink. How could that cause him to throw up? He’s okay now. Coach Mama is taking care of him. But we are really flummoxed as to why his is throwing up. Could it be nerves? Hm…
Update: 2:04pm
3rd Race: 50m Back Stroke
After throwing up during lunch, Luke was not at full-strength for this race. His time was 39:35, slightly slower than his first race this morning. Kudos to Luke for toughing this one out. I’m sure he did NOT feel at his best. One more race to go! Hang in there, Luke!
Update: 3:11pm
<Yawn> There is a long gap between races for Luke. All of his team mates have swum their races; only Luke is left! We’re all alone here. It’s kind of boring! Luke is antsy, bored. He seems genki, however, which is good. This is often how it goes with these meets. They start really early and last all day. Even though you only swim a fraction of what you do in practice, it’s really tiring because of the long waiting times. Anyway, about another half an hour to go…
Update 3:47pm
Race 4: 100m Breast Stroke
Wow! Luke set a PB in this distance with a time of 1:32:44. It was a grueling race, for sure! He was panting hard after he came out of the water. But his did his best. Coach Mama wanted a better time (as usual), but she was pleased. So over all, not a bad day! These meets are long slogs that always have good points and things to work on.
Gotta clean up now… I’ll post photos, video, and some final commentary later on.
Happy Setsubun!
Today (February 3rd) is Setsubun in Japan, the day of the national bean-throwing festival. On this day around the country, people throw roasted soy beans out the window or around the house to expel “demons” of sickness and misfortune. While doing so they yell “Oni wa soto, fuku wa uchi!” (demons out, good fortune in) Then you’re supposed to eat a number of beans equal to your age in order to cement this good fortune.
From a western perspective, this is kind of strange, but the roots of this custom are quite interesting. There is also a lot of symbolic meaning behind it that makes a lot of sense when you look closely at it. According to “Japan from A to Z” by James and Michiko Vardaman, this festival originated in the imperial court of China on the last day of the year in order to prepare for a new year of good luck. When it came over to Japan, this custom became an expression of hopes for good weather and a plentiful harvest in rural, agrarian Japan. These days a lot of people observe it. You can find news on TV of people (especially kids) throwing beans, eating special sushi made with beans, or sumo wrestlers performing special ceremonies.
Last Saturday, I went to Max’s kindergarten for a parent-student event. Parents and their kids spent the morning doing an arts & crafts project, namely to make oni (demon) masks out of an old paper bag and some string. You can see from the pictures above that we had a nice time. These oni masks were then used during the Setsubun celebration today at the school.
Oni wa soto! Fuku wa uchi!
Here’s hoping you have a year filled with good fortune!
Today I finished teaching classes for the 2011-12 school year! My Intro to
Research & Presentation students have just finished their final
presentations. This school year is toast. It’s all done. Water under the
bridge. History. Been there done that. That’s all she wrote, Th-th-that’s
all folks!
Yataa!
I made it.
Now on to work-at-home mode until April. I have several big projects and
some other duties to complete, but it will be nice to be on my own
schedule. Interesting job…
A shaky day at work
I’m on the “shink” to Nagoya, where I’ll be teaching tomorrow at Chukyo University. Although I have two more Fridays there, my classes at Togaku end on Monday, January 16th. It has been a very busy week, mainly because I’ve had to wrap up classes, mark papers, and get my grades in. Basic end-of-term teacher stuff. Things are going well over all.
The only shake-up came today during the afternoon when I suddenly heard my cell-phone shrieking. It was that unmistakable earthquake warning sound. My co-worker Clair and I were in the TK office, but nothing was happening. Then slowly the building started to rumble and then sway a bit. We were on pins and needles for a few seconds, wondering if the shaking would build up or wind down. Fortunately it soon subsided, and life went back to normal. That’s life in the big city! Turns out the quake was a 5.7 and didn’t do any damage. I’m grateful for that! This kind of occurrence has become a part of life these days.
Favorite Family Photos: Kids in a net
This photo was taken in early summer of 2011 at a new park playground near Toyama Station. They have this cool super jungle-gym thing that has nets and rope ladders for kids to play on. Here Luke and Max share a fun moment inside one of the nets. I took them there during one of my “carpe diem” weekends during work periods when I’d be away from home all week. I tried my best to make the most of my time with the kids, so I’d often be taking them to parks and stuff to play.
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If something bad happened and you could only save a handful of your photo collection, which ones would choose? That’s the question guiding this series of blog posts I’m dubbing “Favorite Family Photos”. It’s a chance to look back at the past 10 years and revisit special moments in our family’s history. These are our best and most precious memories.
Favorite Family Photos: Kids riding bikes
Max learned to ride a bicycle during the summer of 2011. We got here this little bike with training wheels, and she rode it with enthusiasm. Here’s a shot of her riding on the street in front of our home with her older brother. I really like this photo because it captures the kids’ smiles very well. Luke’s hand on his little sister’s shoulder is also a beautiful thing for me, signifying his love and support for her. Sure they squabble a lot, but in the end they are really close, something which shines through in this photo. I like this one so much that I’ve been using it as the wallpaper for my laptop and iPad.
Note: Color effects done with Colorsplash on my iPad.
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If something bad happened and you could only save a handful of your photo collection, which ones would choose? That’s the question guiding this series of blog posts I’m dubbing “Favorite Family Photos”. It’s a chance to look back at the past 10 years and revisit special moments in our family’s history. These are our best and most precious memories.
Favorite Family Photos: Max under a cherry tree
Max’s grandfather took this one of her in the spring of 2011, as the cherry blossoms were blooming in our neighborhood. It came out really well and brings up one of the things I love best about our neighborhood- the plentiful presence of cherry trees. There are a bunch right in front of our house and hundreds more that line a bike path around the park in front of our home. They usually bloom in the first week of April. That is a really really beautiful time of the year.
Note: Color effects done with Colorsplash on my iPad.
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If something bad happened and you could only save a handful of your photo collection, which ones would choose? That’s the question guiding this series of blog posts I’m dubbing “Favorite Family Photos”. It’s a chance to look back at the past 10 years and revisit special moments in our family’s history. These are our best and most precious memories.
