Posts Tagged ‘Family News’

June 14th, 2008 Earthquake hits Japan, we’re OKAY

It’s 10am now, Sunday morning, and we’re watching on the news that a major earthquake has hit the Iwate region of Japan (clear on the other side of the country from us). We didn’t feel a thing and are perfectly fine. More later as I learn about it…

Update: 10:48am
I’ve just found an English news report about the earthquake. Here it is:

Strong earthquake hits Japan
1 hour ago

TOKYO (AFP) — A powerful earthquake measuring 7.0 on the Richter scale struck northern Japan Saturday, the meteorological agency said.

The earthquake hit in Iwate prefecture, some 500 kilometres (300 miles) north of Tokyo, and rattled buildings in the capital.

Television footage showed buildings also shaking in northern cities of Japan. Bullet trains were automatically shut down as a precaution.

The quake had a depth of 10 kilometres (six miles), the agency said.

There was no immediate word on potential damage or casualties, and the agency did not issue a tsunami warning.

A new earthquake warning system kicked in for the quake, with public broadcaster NHK flashing an alert moments before it struck.

Japan endures some 20 percent of the world’s powerful earthquakes. It has built an infrastructure intended to withstand tremors.

So that about tells the story so far. Here is a map of the Iwate area. You can see we are VERY FAR AWAY, so DON’T WORRY!

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to our RSS feed!

May 15th, 2008 Hey! What happened to April?

Wow, its been a long time since I posted anything in this blog! Perhaps you’ve been wondering what we’ve been up to this past month or so. Well, of course we’ve all been busy. Here’s a quick update on what happened with us during April 2008, from young to old:

Max
Max had a tough month health-wise, and by extension, so did we all. She seemed to always be in cold-mode, with a cough, runny nose, and sneezing that came and went like a rising and falling wave. At one point it got so bad that she had to be hospitalized for two nights! Turns out she caught a stomach virus thing that prevented her from being able to eat. She couldn’t even drink milk, so she was on an IV for a while. This helped her recover quickly, and we were so relieved when she came home. Of course Shinobu and I were exhausted (we took turns staying over night with her in her room). This led eventually to us catching colds as well! Bad Max!

Luke
Luke was the only one who didn’t really get sick. His big news was starting elementary school (school begins in the spring in Japan). I’m currently working on a video of that opening ceremony, so look for that soon. His (and our) schedule changed- he has to wake up at 6:30am and leave the house at 7:15am sharp. He walks the mile to school with other neighborhood kids (they don’t do school buses here). That means mama and papa have to wake up earlier, too. No more late-night TV. We all try to hit the sack around 10pm now. This has actually been a very good thing.

Oh, and some other cool Luke news: He participated in another swim meet, and won 1st prize in three events! Of course, he was the only kid in his age group to swim, but hey! A win is a win is a win. He got to stand on the podium, hear the music play, and receive a certificate. Basically, Shinobu is training him on a pace ahead of other kids. He’s doing stuff now (like the 100 meter individual medley) that boys usually don’t attempt for at least another year or two. We’re hoping he gets ahead of the game and can flourish in the coming years due to all the extra experience he’s gaining. I think he really loves these competitions because we always buy him a new Wii game afterwards! After that last meet, we went and got him the new Lego Star Wars game, and we’ve enjoyed playing it a lot together.

Shinobu
Besides dealing with Max and suffering through a cold, Shinobu’s life has really gone according to her basic routine. She is totally family centered, so she has stayed real busy getting Luke adjusted to elementary school. In addition, she has reorganized our private lesson schedules. We now have all of our young students come to our house. This saves us a drive to the community center, where we were renting a room a few nights each week. I REALLY like this new system. It has saved us time and energy, and we can offer our students a better service since we have computers, the Internet, and a lot of extra materials at our home. Shinobu has really taken to teaching English, and I wouldn’t be surprised if she does more of this in the future. She’s a natural teacher and does a great job. It’s really interesting to see her work- she teaches English like she taught aerobics, if that makes any sense! No, the kids are not doing jumping jacks and counting off! He he he… I mean she breaks things down into manageable, easy-to-understand bits, like she used to do when teaching a combination of dance moves. She really is awesome, and she knows it, too!

Papa
Me? Ha! I am so so so busy these days, as usual. April is a killer month, as I have to deal with getting a new school year underway. I set things up at work so that I don’t need to spend a lot of time and energy on lesson prep, but at the beginning, there is always extra stuff you need to do to get the big balls rolling. On top of that we had the Max situation at home, and a job opportunity suddenly appeared that really took over what little creative energy I had left. Yes, I have applied for a new job, for an associate professor position at Okayama University. They need an English teacher with e-learning experience, and since that is right up my street, I decided to go for it even though I don’t have a lot of publications. We shall see if it works out or not! By the end of the month everything came to a head, and that’s when I got really sick. I had a strep-throat kind of thing for a while, and I’m just now getting over it. Fortunately the weather has been great lately, and I have been riding my bike to work a lot. I’m feeling better, and hope to put more creative energy into this blog very soon.

Oh! One cool thing that happened in April was my participation in a Web 2.0 conference in the States via Skype. A professor at Penn State University gave a talk at an event about the changing nature of education in the 21st century, and during his presentation he chatted with me via Skype. I was able to talk about how I use Web 2.0 in my teaching. It was all very cool, and I ended up with a good experience. I really enjoy presenting and hope to do more of it this year.

So, that’s about it for now. I’ll be posting some video clips soon, so stay tuned for those. Take care, everyone!

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to our RSS feed!