tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-150299992024-03-07T00:53:56.346-08:00Sara HendricksSara Hendrickshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04944028775945627752noreply@blogger.comBlogger137125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15029999.post-77080900710766606042013-05-22T06:15:00.001-07:002013-05-22T06:15:10.932-07:00Breastfeeding in Japan<br />
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<b>I have been
reading lots of parenting blogs and forums lately. I happened to
stumble on one where a few non-Japanese people were wondering about
breastfeeding in public in Japan. They wanted to know if it was
legal, if people commonly did it, and if they could conveniently
travel around or live in Japan with a young, breastfed baby.</b></div>
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<b>I was very surprised
to read replies along the lines of:</b></div>
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<span style="color: white;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>Why...?</b></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: white;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">2007/3/24
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<span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Why would you breastfeed
publicly anywhere? Its not that is bad, because, you know, you
have to love him and take care of him, but its not... right.
If you wouldn't expose yourself without out a baby, you
shouldn't expose your self with one, it's not an excuse.
Breastfeeding should be practiced only at home, in privacy.
But that's what I think, its just my opinion, you don't have
to take my word for it.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: white;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>how
to breastfeed in public</b></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: white;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">2007/3/24
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<span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Breastfeeding
can be done in public, and is accepted by many people in
Japan. The baby can't possibly wait until (s)he gets home!</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">But as a courtesy to people
:) you can ask around for private rooms to breastfeed your
child. For example, department stores and airports almost
always have breastfeeding rooms. Shinkansen trains also have
breastfeeding rooms nowadays, but if not, the conductor can
surrender his room while you breastfeed.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: white;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>umm</b></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: white;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">2007/3/24
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<span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">i think you'll get
discusted looks ANYWHERE no offense, but it's just not
something you should do in public anywhere.</span></span><br />
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<a href="http://www.japan-guide.com/m/useful.html?34210+3+0"><span style="color: #666666;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">rate
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<span style="color: white;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>...</b></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: white;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">2007/3/24
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<span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">if your baby can't wait to
eat baby bottling your breat-milk would be best.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: white;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>it
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<span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Unlike some of the posters
here, most people are mature and sensible and will prefer that
you see to the needs of your baby. Babies need to be fed often
and you do not need to hide at home simply because you are
breastfeeding. If someone is offended, think of it as their
problem, and pity them for not understanding what the real
purpose of the breast is. Usually the same people who are
inclined to complain about breastfeeding in public are the
very same individuals who are likely to object to a baby's
crying.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">you're
right. i don't like babys crying in public, i dont like babys
that much. i think a mother should know it's rude not to keep
her child calm.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">oh i am evil *rolls eyes*</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: white;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>Breastfeeding</b></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">In my experience, it is
extremely rare to see mothers breastfeeding in public in
Japan, and when you do, it is often foreign women.<br />As many
places do seem to have baby-feeding rooms these days, I
suggest you do what the Japanese do and use these where
possible.</span></span><br />
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<a href="http://www.japan-guide.com/forum/quereadisplay.html?0+34210">http://www.japan-guide.com/forum/quereadisplay.html?0+34210</a>
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<b>I asked my Japanese friend
about laws specifically regarding breastfeeding in Japan, and she
said that she couldn't find any concrete info about laws. She said that the previous generation was much less squeamish about public breastfeeding. She mentioned seeing a photo of her aunt feeding her cousin without covering up and no one was bothered by it, so much so that she didn't even (obviously) cover up for the photo. </b></div>
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<b>My baby is now seven months old and she still breastfeeds. We decided to breastfeed her
because I have the ability to do so and the facts show that it is unequivocally the
healthiest choice for the baby. Besides that, it is convenient (when I'm out with the baby, there are no hassles about washing
bottles, carrying formula, finding warm water), eco-friendly, and free. Now that I
am working full-time, it has become a much bigger hassle, and it
would be a lot easier to switch to formula. I have to lug my
breast-pump to work and back with me every day on the crowded bus and
every time I get a spare moment I have to go lock myself in a room
and hook myself up to a pumping machine like a cow. I usually have
to pump two times to get enough for one feeding, because the pump is
not as effective as a baby at getting the milk out. In fact, if I
didn't know that it was the best choice for our baby, I definitely
would have given up pumping milk in the second week of work. I
really hate pumping. For someone to suggest so cavalierly that if I
want to go out with my baby on a Saturday afternoon, I should wake up
at 3:00 am to hook myself up to the pump (I can't just pump breast
milk during the day....my baby eats everything I make.) is a pretty
clear sign that they have never pumped. The other people who
suggest (so blasé, like they're the experts) that breastfeeding
should be done at home have obviously never been new parents. </b>
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<b><br /></b></div>
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<b>My husband and I
used to love going out on the weekends, going to parties, movies,
playing soccer in the park, and camping with groups of friends on the
beach. Guess what? We STILL love doing those things. Having a
baby is an intensely isolating experience. You're tired more often
than you ever were before. You're worried and stressed out more than
you ever thought possible. Going out becomes a logistical nightmare
of organizing the baby's nap time with the bus schedule and weather report, packing the baby's diaper bag, grabbing an umbrella (just in case), a blanket, a
baby carrier, and some people have strollers and car seats too. It's
hard enough getting out of the house, and I should have to add the
stress of pumping milk and putting it in a cooler and bringing that with too? Perhaps to avoid offending these people's delicate
sensibilities, I should simply stay home all the time? Perhaps baby
and I should never travel farther away from home than 20 minutes so
we can make it back home and eat? </b>
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<b><br /></b></div>
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<b> The idea that someone
would be offended by public breastfeeding is pretty ridiculous
anyways. The baby's mouth and head covers the nipple, and you can
see less of my breast than many ladies who are wearing even a slightly
low-cut top. </b>
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<b>As for Japan, this is my experience. My baby was born in October, but it
was December before I ever had to feed her in public. I didn't want
to leave the house very often with her before that, and when I did,
it was only short trips to the grocery store and back. (re:
isolating experience) In December, my husband and I had to travel
to a nearby town. I decided I was going to
feed the baby on the train. It was a much bigger hassle than I
thought it would be. The blanket wouldn't stay over my shoulder, the
baby kept wiggling and I couldn't see if she was comfortable or
eating right with the blanket in the way. However, we figured it
out and I have since fed her everywhere. There are often nursing
rooms in public buildings and department stores, so that is
convenient, and I sometimes use those. When there isn't one of
those, I usually use a blanket to cover myself up. The baby bag
gets so full with diapers, wipes, toys, bibs, spare change of
clothes, burp towels, and etc, that sometimes I forget to pack a
blanket. I wear nursing tank tops, so when I pull my shirt up, and
my tank top down, everything is still covered and you really can't
see anything. There's been plenty of times that people have come up
and wanted to see the baby or talk to me and didn't even realize that
she was eating until I told them. As it gets hotter out, I'm using
the blanket less and less. The baby doesn't really like it and
spends her time trying to pull it off rather than eat. It gets
pretty hot under there pretty quickly. </b>
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<b><br /></b></div>
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<b>I've gone out often
with my Japanese friends who also have infants and some of them only
use the nursing rooms, while others have no problem feeding their
baby anytime and anywhere. I have noticed women feeding their babies
in restaurants and parks, too. The nursing rooms often have a large room
with a couch for relaxing, and then smaller curtained off rooms for
nursing. I've sometimes gone in and all the curtained rooms are
full, so I feed the baby on the couch, but I've noticed women who
come in and will wait until a curtained off room is free until
nursing too.</b></div>
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<br />
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<b>As I have been
writing this blog entry, I've been thinking a lot about the
breastfeeding rooms. On the one hand, they are very convenient, and
when I'm out alone with the baby, it's nice to be able to dump all my
bags and things in the corner and relax on a comfortable couch to
feed Cora. On the other hand, I'm rarely out by myself, I'm usually
out with my husband or other friends. When I have a free afternoon
to go out, I don't want to spend 40 minutes away from my husband or
friends walking to the seventh floor of the nearby department store
to feed Cora. If I'm alone on the train, I don't want to lug my suitcase
through four rickety train cars to get to the breastfeeding room.
What I want to do is stay exactly where I am and feed my baby. More and more often, that's what I do. I
haven't noticed anyone giving me looks and no one has said anything
negative to me, but I can be pretty oblivious about that sort of
thing.....so.....take that with a grain of salt. </b></div>
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<b><br /></b></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b> Anyhow, that made me think, "What if the existence of these breastfeeding rooms are even more isolating than the absence of them?" Do women feel
pressured to go sit alone in them when they might otherwise stay in
the cafe chatting with friends? Do people judge moms for
breastfeeding in a restaurant and think, “There's a breastfeeding
room just a few blocks away. Why doesn't she leave her husband alone by himself and leave her hot meal and
go to the designated room to feed her baby?” I'm lucky that I have an
extremely supportive husband who always helps me out when I'm feeding
the baby (Or anytime). If it weren't for him assuring me that no one could see my
boob, and that no one cared anyway, I might still be schlepping my
things three blocks out of the way and missing out on lunchtime to
feed Cora in a breastfeeding room rather than discreetly in the
restaurant.</b> <b>In the end, I think the
breastfeeding rooms are nice, but as more time passes, I use them
less and less.</b></div>
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<br />
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<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b> Oh wait, actually, I
mean, in the end, Japan is one of the more baby-friendly countries
I've ever lived in and would be a great place to visit, especially if
you have a breastfeeding infant.</b></div>
Sara Hendrickshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04944028775945627752noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15029999.post-54237972262710402172013-05-16T17:10:00.001-07:002013-05-16T17:12:42.283-07:00Things I'll Miss About Being an ALT / Things I won't miss about Being an ALT<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>4 Things I’ll miss about being an Assistant Language Teacher (ALT) in Japan</b></span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">1-My Japanese is really terrible and I'm pretty shy, so I'm often too shy to strike up conversations with the other teachers at my schools. However, they have been super friendly and when I make a tentative effort, they ignore my terrible Japanese, try to figure out what I'm saying and get to know me. When I meet people outside of work, they often want to talk about differences between Japan and America. Anyone who's lived in Japan any amount of time has answered "What surprised you about Japan?" or "Why are you in Japan?" about a million times. Per year. However, when I talk with the other teachers at my schools, we can talk about the school lunch, hobbies, our kids, and just have normal conversations about things we have in common rather than things that make us different. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">2-Sports Day – This is a fun day where the students run relay races, go through obstacle courses and learn sports/dance routines to perform. They practice all week and it takes place on a Sunday so everyone's families can come watch and cheer. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222;">3-It's a great paying wage for the level of work required and stress level. My husband and I lived off of one paycheck and sent the other one home to pay off our student loans and we never wanted for anything. (Well, I wanted a pet giraffe--still waiting on that.) There's no work to take home, no extra work days, no overtime. In fact, most days, you have an hour or two free to read a book or study Japanese. Sometimes, like end-of-semester testing or the week long lead-up to Sports day, you can have whole days with no classes and nothing to do. I always kept myself busy reading books, studying Japanese, or writing my novel. </span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222;">4-The students can be a lot of fun. They say funny things, they're goofy, they're excited when you come to class, most of them like English and they're interested in learning about the world. That's the greatest thing about being an ALT. </span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: large;"><b>6 I Won’t miss about being an ALT!</b></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">1-Most of the teachers we work with have never been abroad and have no idea how to work with foreigners. Even after 10 years of having ALTs in the classroom, they don’t know how to work together to plan lessons, they can’t speak English with you, and they don't know how to use you to enrich the students' English education experience.</span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="color: #222222;">2-Most of the teachers will occasionally teach incorrect English vocabulary and often (usually) teach incorrect pronunciation. I’ve spent 20 minutes drawing diagrams on the board of how to correctly shape your mouth, demonstrating, having students repeat and finally getting the whole class to correctly pronounce English sounds, only to have the teacher say dismissively, “English is hard, so we just say it this way.” Then they write the word, </span><i style="color: #222222;">math</i><span style="color: #222222;"> on the board as </span><i style="color: #222222;">masu </i><span style="color: #222222;">and just have the students say it with Japanese pronunciation.</span></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">3-Peeing in winter....</span>There isn’t any central heating/cooling in the schools. The various rooms have heaters in them that you can turn on only during class times. This means that all the rooms are freezing in winter for the first 10 minutes of class. (They turn off the heaters in between classes and then open the windows.) It also means that in winter the bathrooms are freezing cold. There’s nothing worse than peeing in a freezing cold room on a freezing cold toilet with your bulky winter coat on.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">4-Students don’t seem to understand that English is a language. It’s no more mysterious or hilarious than that. They shout “HELLO!” at you ten times in a row in the hallway. They laugh when you ask their friend, “How are you?” They hear things like “Shut up!” or “Oh my God!” on their TV shows and shout them in class at the teacher. They laugh hilariously when you ask them to speak English like it's a big joke. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">5-School lunch- Often, your rice is cold and your milk is warm from sitting out for 30 minutes before you eat it. There are all sorts of foods that I think are gross. Raw cabbage with tiny inch-long dried fish. Soup with slimy seaweed. Liver with gross sauce on it. Fish with their stomachs full of eggs. Sometimes it can be good! Curry and rice. Tofu soup with veggies. Grilled fillet of fish. Yogurt with fruit…..but when it’s bad, it’s bad and all you can do is be hungry till 4:30. Most Japanese teachers will just eat all their lunch weather they like it or not. I didn't grow up for nothing though. If I don’t like it, I don’t eat it. I give everything the good old college try, but if it’s gross, I don’t eat it. This can be frustrating, especially when you’re pregnant. People loved trying to boss me around and get me to eat all the food on my plate like I was 7 years old. “Liver is good for the baby! You should eat it!” I don’t care how good it is for the baby, I’m not eating it! (They don’t take prenatal vitamins like we do in the states, so it is a bit more important for them to eat a balanced meal. I tried to eat as healthy as I could, but it was nice knowing that my vitamins could take up the slack if I didn't get enough folic acid one day.)</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">6-I was s</span>pread very thin over two schools. I was the only Assistant English Teacher for all three grades of two middle schools, meaning I had a total of 875 students. I didn't get to know any of my students, they didn't get to know me, and I wasn't able to tailor lessons to their exact needs or see any of their progress. The novelty of having a "foreigner" teacher was never able to wear away, so I was never there to be their English teacher, I was there to be a "foreigner."</span></div>
Sara Hendrickshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04944028775945627752noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15029999.post-69307935020492435732013-04-20T03:35:00.002-07:002013-04-20T03:36:18.901-07:00ChangesWritten November 15<sup>th</sup> 2012<br />
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This past year has shown so much
change. I’m typing this as I sit next to our new little baby.
She’s wrapped up in a blanket and sleeping with her hands behind
her head, just like her daddy likes to do. It’s cuter when the
baby does it because she doesn’t elbow me in the head in the middle
of the night. So, anyhow—changes—Jon and I had our first baby,
Coralyn Corrine in October. That’s enough change for any family,
but we’re getting ready for even more changes soon. Jon and I have
lived in Japan for over two years now, and the entire time I’ve
been here, I’ve wanted to teach at a University. Well, now that
dream is about to come true! After working at a day care for
2-year-olds, four different middle schools, teaching online courses,
night business classes, and countless private lessons, I’ve finally
gotten the job I really want. I’m going to teach English at
Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University. Here’s the University’s
website.</div>
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<span style="color: blue;"><u><a href="http://www.apu.ac.jp/home/?lang=english">http://www.apu.ac.jp/home/?lang=english</a></u></span></div>
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The journey to get this job was a long
one that started over a year ago. I’ve known about this
University for a while and I wanted to apply to work there last year.
However, I missed the application deadline like a dummy, so I didn’t
even get the chance to apply. At first, I was pretty bummed about
making such a ridiculous mistake, but then Jon and I decided to have
a baby, so I couldn’t be sad about anything. (Because I was so
excited about the baby.)</div>
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This year I applied to the job in
August—as soon as the job application details were
posted—painstakingly filling out the application in both Japanese
and English, copying the pdf files to a cd, printing out a photo of
myself (standard resume requirement in Japan) and mailing the big
application package nervously. I got an e-mail about a month later
that said they would like to have me come down to the University for
an interview….on November 3<sup>rd</sup>. Our baby was due Oct.
25<sup>th</sup>. That was cutting it pretty close. What if she went
late? What if I needed a c-section and wasn’t healed enough to
travel to an interview? What if I was too tired to make myself
presentable and leave the house when our baby was only a week old?
I decided to try to do it. I planned my mock lesson in the days
leading up to Cora’s birth and made some business cards on the
computer.
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The day came, and<a href="http://saraallsop.blogspot.jp/2012/10/laboring-in-japanbaby-wise.html"> Cora was born on Oct.23rd</a> with no complications except a few stitches. I spent
a few days in the hospital and went home. I spent the next two weeks
practicing my mock lesson and rehearsing some common job interview
questions. I readied my most professional outfit (I need to buy more
of those, by the way, I only have two.) and put some makeup over the
bags under my eyes and left the house at 9:00, leaving our baby for
the first time in my life. It was a bit strange taking the public
transportation, no one was standing up so my pregnant self could sit
down! I couldn’t automatically take the priority seats. I had to
actually stand and no one was staring at me! It was my first time
out in public without a huge pregnant belly.
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The trip to the University cost about
7,000 Yen round-trip, (about $90 USD) and took about 5 hours. The
commute was a little longer than it would be normally because it was
a Saturday and there were fewer trains running, but it was still a
long trip. I had initially toyed with the idea of commuting to this
job if I got it. I thought the commute would be 3 hours round-trip,
and cheaper….but after getting motion sick on the train, and
realistically budgeting for time and commuting costs, I realized that
it would be really impractical to try to commute.
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I arrived at the University very early,
I had wanted enough time to miss my bus and still make it, get lost
and still make it, wander around the campus and find the right
location and still make it on time….well, I didn’t miss my bus,
didn’t get lost, and found the interview location with two hours to
spare! I wandered around the campus. It was beautiful, located at
the top of a mountain, surrounded by trees with an amazing ocean
view. I was pretty nervous though, and couldn’t really relax.
Also, the book selection on my kindle was sparse because all the good
books have a three week waiting list from the library. Finally, my
breasts were killing me. It was the first time being away from my
baby, and I had fed her at 8:00 am. She eats every three hours, and
I wouldn’t get home till 5:00….so I had already missed one
feeding and would miss a second one before getting home. My breasts
were as hard as rocks. I felt like they would pop if I bumped into
something.
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So, after killing time and having a
snack, I got to the interview, filled out some paperwork and met the
interview board. There were six people interviewing me. I did my
mock lesson, which was slated to take 20 minutes. They stopped me
after 12 minutes. That really threw me off and made me doubt myself.
(Was it so terrible, they couldn’t sit through another minute?)
Then they asked me a bunch of questions. I felt like I answered
their questions really well, I remembered a lot about pedagogy,
methods of evaluation, authentic communication, English as a global
language, etc, etc, etc. But, I kept second guessing myself about
what I should have done differently in that mock lesson and why they
cut me off so soon.
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Anyhow, the interview ended and I
rushed home….nearly getting stung by a Japanese giant hornet on the
bus ride to the local train that I would take to catch the high speed
train and then one more bus ride to our house. (This particular
species of hornet is the size of my thumb and kills more people than
any other animal in Japan.) But I digress. I got home and fed Cora
as soon as I walked in the door.
</div>
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A few days later, I got an e-mail
asking if I would be willing to conduct a follow-up interview over
the phone. I said sure and planned for 3:00 in the afternoon on
a Tuesday. As the time approached, I started to get more nervous.
What would they ask me about? How was Cora going to behave during the
phone interview? Our house is tiny with flimsy Japanese doors. What
if she decided to scream during the interview? She had been fussy
and fidgety for an hour, and changing her diaper, burping, holding,
rocking, singing, pacifier, nothing seemed to calm her down or help
her sleep. I hadn’t told APU about my newborn baby. Japan is a
country still dominated by the “mom stays home with the baby”
mentality and I didn’t trust them to hire me knowing my baby would
be 5 months old when the job started. I had a flash of genius. I
would feed her during the interview time! Then she would be silent
for sure!
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3:00 o’clock rolled around and Cora
started eating happily and, more importantly, quietly. I got the
phone call and propped the phone up to my ear with my shoulder as the
interviewer and I exchanged some pleasantries about the weather and
then Cora let out the loudest toot. Then she did it again, even
louder, and then she filled her diaper. Then she spit up all over
herself. Then she peed….and as she had just completely filled her
diaper with the other thing, I felt liquid spreading over my hands
and arms. I was frozen in shock. I couldn’t touch anything because
my hands were covered in pee and poop. How was I going to explain
these noises? They had been completely audible over the phone.
Should I just burst out with, “That wasn’t me?” The
interviewer also remained silent.
</div>
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Then Cora broke the silence and started
crying. The person interviewing me said, “It sounds like you’ve
got your hands full there!” Little did he know exactly what was in
my hands. I answered, “Yes, that’s my baby, she’s three weeks
old.” He quickly congratulated me and said he just wanted to offer
me the job and was calling to make sure I was still interested in the
position! Yay! I got off the phone as soon as I could and dropped
the phone on the couch without touching it. I then immediately put
Cora’s clothes in the sink to soak and Cora in the bath to get
clean. Here are her thoughts on the situation.</div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxJLasXNihp1jJRHSOJQbTlfbcuo3O335BF7-lBfOTNspoEX9Y7BN1vVKusArnopBtf-CBk8n5RYixfhO3hWmt36J52o6dMIemuWOsYCGfQZkHeKM1TvHs58NGWGVuIibq9k8TWw/s1600/IMG_0612.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxJLasXNihp1jJRHSOJQbTlfbcuo3O335BF7-lBfOTNspoEX9Y7BN1vVKusArnopBtf-CBk8n5RYixfhO3hWmt36J52o6dMIemuWOsYCGfQZkHeKM1TvHs58NGWGVuIibq9k8TWw/s400/IMG_0612.JPG" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"Sorry I was naughty during your important interview mommy." </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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I’m excited to work at a University.
I like working with University age students, I like working in a
University environment, and I like planning and teaching English
classes. I think Beppu is a beautiful city, with beaches, hot
springs, over 100,000 people, and it’s surrounded by some beautiful
camping and hiking areas. However, I love living in Kitakyushu. We
have made some amazing friends here, and I will be so sad to say
goodbye to them. I know we’ll stay in touch, and we’re only
moving two hours away, but we won’t be able to get together on a
Tuesday to watch a movie, or meet at Momotarou for some chicken and a
beer for an hour. I'll miss you, friends!</div>
Sara Hendrickshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04944028775945627752noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15029999.post-43858618909709184412013-01-27T02:24:00.001-08:002013-01-27T02:24:39.617-08:00Cloth Diapers<br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14pt;">My husband and I decided to use cloth diapers with our baby.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14pt;">I don't know exactly what made me decide that it was a good idea, but I read about them somewhere and decided I wanted to do it.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14pt;">I read up on them and talked with Jon and we decided to do them for two reasons, neither more important than the other, price and environment.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14pt;">When I think about the number of disposable diapers sitting in landfills, that's pretty sad and I didn't want to contribute to it. (besides the effort that goes into making each diaper and shipping them to the store…it all adds up to a lot of materials and transportation.)</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14pt;">Also, diapers are expensive!</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14pt;">So, here's the breakdown on how it's been going.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14pt;">We used disposable diapers for most of Cora's first two months. We got lots of diapers as presents and we visited family and friends over Christmas so we didn't want to be borrowing people's washing machines to wash our dirty diapers in. (Also, that way we didn't need to buy any "newborn" size cloth diapers.) Cora is now over 3 months old, so I have about 6 weeks of experience using both types of diapers.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14pt;">First, the diapers. We bought the type of diapers that have a waterproof outside and a cotton or hemp insert. So, most of the time the insert is wet, but the waterproof outside is re-usable. We bought a few different brands to see which ones we liked the best. Most of the diapers we bought were the one size fits all type. Each diaper has a dozen snaps so that you can make them smaller or larger depending on your baby's size. We spent about $250 on all our diaper supplies. Ok, beside the price and environmental savings---look at how cute that baby is in her little diapers! Look at that!!!!! </span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlg3oSxMd6yVNfp4CZsx_ncnbjWsyLLfAvkhba_IV_hEjcKKiPO5404AzUEs4q_V5wYQf4izulLbABcQ3wUdAiV4XW0SDAcZkt7SryZMOxgVKH8BNc_gRaql8S-Wz4EBNk8GXtfQ/s1600/IMG_1234.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlg3oSxMd6yVNfp4CZsx_ncnbjWsyLLfAvkhba_IV_hEjcKKiPO5404AzUEs4q_V5wYQf4izulLbABcQ3wUdAiV4XW0SDAcZkt7SryZMOxgVKH8BNc_gRaql8S-Wz4EBNk8GXtfQ/s1600/IMG_1234.JPG" height="213" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14pt;">I really like being able to put a super soft white fluffy diaper against her skin rather than a disposable diaper. (I hadn’t anticipated caring about that particular aspect of diapering.)</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14pt;">Here's how an average day goes. She usually dirties 6-8 diapers per day, one of them poopy. We have a bin with a liner under the changing table that we throw the dirty inserts and/or diapers in. (So far, there is no smell.) We also use cloth wipes, so those go in the bin too. We usually wash them every other day, so it makes a pretty small load of laundry, only about 15 diapers and the wipes per load. I rinse off the two poopy diapers before putting everything in the washer. Then I hang the diapers to dry outside. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14pt;">Now that she's exclusively breastfed, her poos are pretty liquidy and they rinse away easily. I've heard that changes once they start eating solid foods. Once that happens, we'll start using liners in the diaper and when your baby poos you can just flush the poo and the liner down the toilet. We'll try to use the bathroom at the same time so we're not adding more energy and water costs.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14pt;">It really hasn't been too much of a hassle. Cora's nanny is happy to use the cloth diapers and just sends home the dirty inserts every day. (I’ve heard some daycares won’t use cloth diapers, so that will need to be a factor.) It takes about ten or twelve minutes every other day to rinse the poopy ones, wash them, hang them, and put them away. It's not gross and the liners are all still as white and clean as the day we bought them. The diapers seem to work great so far. We’ve had a few “blow outs” and most of them were with the disposable diapers, the cloth ones work just as well at keeping the mess contained. She hasn’t had a diaper rash yet, but she’s only 3 1/2 months old, so that’s not saying a lot. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14pt;">When we go out, we have a small waterproof bag that we keep the used inserts in. We bought a pack of disposable inserts months ago, and haven’t used them all up yet, but I don’t think we’ll buy them again. It’s just as easy to use the cloth inserts and bring them home as it is to use the disposable inserts and find a place we can throw them in the garbage. (I don’t want to leave dirty diapers at a friend’s house, for example.)</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14pt;">So, the time isn't too much of an issue, how about cost? </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14pt;">(Although we live in Japan, I've calculated in $ rather than \.)</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14pt;">I went to this awesome website that lets you input your energy costs, brand of diapers you use, estimated age of potty training your baby (I estimated 26 months, but who knows?) and all sorts of other information.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14pt;"><a href="http://www.groceryalerts.ca/cloth-vs-disposable-diaper-calculator/" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue;">http://www.groceryalerts.ca/<wbr></wbr>cloth-vs-disposable-diaper-<wbr></wbr>calculator/</span></a></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14pt;">It’s a great idea to go here and type in your own costs if you’re interested in cloth diapers. You can personalize everything to match your lifestyle and see if cloth diapers would be worth it. For example, I know that I wouldn’t want to buy the cheapest disposable diapers. So I factored in a moderately priced disposable diaper. I was also able to choose exactly the brand of cloth diaper we use, our electricity and water costs for laundering, and so forth.</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12pt;">Total Cost for Cloth Diapers in 26 months:</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12pt;"><br />$524.04</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12pt;">Total Cost for Disposable Diapers in 26 months:</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12pt;"><br />$1502.75</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14pt;">I think the price savings is considerable, especially considering that we’ll re-use the biggest expense (the diapers, inserts, diaper bin, etc.) again with the next baby and save about $250. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14pt;">The terribly ironic thing is that the thing I most want to do with the extra money is take a trip to Thailand and spend a week at an elephant reserve. Well, the jet fuel we’d use up flying there probably negates any environmental savings from the cloth diapers!</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14pt;">Anyhow, let me know if you have any questions about cloth diapers or tell me how your cloth diapering experience worked!</span></div>
Sara Hendrickshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04944028775945627752noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15029999.post-76086893411197059732012-10-29T04:21:00.001-07:002012-11-11T19:40:00.924-08:00Laboring in Japan—Baby –wiseThis is the final installment of what it’s like being a
pregnant foreigner in Japan. The story
begins <a href="http://saraallsop.blogspot.jp/2012/06/two-foreigners-having-foreigner-baby-in.html">here</a>. <br />
<br />
Jon and I waited for labor
to start from about week 38 onward. We
both knew it could come at any time, especially since our baby was getting so
big. There were tell-tale signs that things were progressing, including two
trips to the hospital with us thinking that things were starting, but baby was comfortable
in there and didn’t actually want to come out.
In the last week, I was getting Braxton hicks contractions every night,
and during our 39 week checkup, we set an induction date for Tues, Oct. 23<sup>rd</sup>. This
was two days before the due date.<br />
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The weekend before that, our city, Kokura had a big food
festival. Jon and I wandered about,
taking photos, enjoying the warm sunny weather, seeing a robot serve ice cream,
and eating. I wanted to get lots of
“last” photos of Jon and me as a family of only two before the big day. </div>
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<br />
Monday night we went out to eat giant cheeseburgers and
walked home in the rain. One last
night out, eating greasy food and taking a long walk in the cool weather before
we’d have to worry about keeping a little baby warm and in bed at night.</div>
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Tuesday morning we slept in a bit and went to the hospital
at 10:30. I had an initial exam with two
doctors, our personal doctor, Imai, who we had been meeting with the whole
time, and one older doctor that we saw a few times in periphery and didn’t know
very well. Dr. Imai explained that the plan
was for us to register, settle in our room, and she would give me three pills
that would start to soften my cervix and get my body ready for labor. We’d relax and I’d spend the night in the
hospital, but labor wouldn’t actually begin until the next day when I would get
an IV of pitocin to start contractions. At this point, the older doctor joked that
I’d probably just go into labor this afternoon without any help. We asked, “really?” Dr. Imai answered, “maybe….” doubtfully. However, this is the same lady that told us
for weeks the gender of our baby, prefaced with a “maybe.” When Jon asked what percent she was sure of the gender, she said, “maybe 100%.” So, maybe
her “maybes” don’t mean maybe.<br />
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Jon and I had packed lots of things to do, a pack of cards,
books, Japanese textbooks, and balloons to decorate the room. I expected to be in the hospital about a
week, between the extra day before labor and five days after, so Jon made the
room look festive. The nurses loved it. I was the only lady in the maternity ward, so
I had a private room, although the room farthest from the nurses station. I don’t know if I was alone because Japan’s
birth rate really is that low, or Oct. isn’t a popular time to have a baby, or
because most women have their babies in specialized birthing clinics or all
three, but even with so few patients, there were always about seven nurses working.
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I took my three pills, beginning at about noon, and soon
afterwards they hooked me up to a fetal monitor. </div>
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They kept asking me if I felt anything and I kept saying,
“No, I don’t feel anything.” Well,
apparently I was having contractions and they were getting slightly stronger
and closer together. After a while, if I
concentrated, I could feel some slight pressure that I had previously thought
was just the baby moving. This labor
thing was going to be easy! The
contractions got stronger and closer together and they hooked me up to the
monitor about once every 90 minutes. At
first it was fine, Jon and I played some card games and started a game of
scrabble, but after a while I really started dreading the monitor. It was uncomfortable to lay flat on my back
for so long, especially as the contractions had really started hurting. As soon as they would take the moniter off, I’d get
up and walk around, and though it didn’t lessen the contractions, it was much
more comfortable. Our doctor went home
at around four or five and said she would come back if my labor continued. <br />
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Jon kept asking me what my pain level was out of a 10. I had a hard time answering him because I
didn’t know what a 10 was, so I kept low-balling my numbers…..”I don’t know a
3?” 45 minutes later, as I gasped and
stopped talking for a particularly long contraction, I said, “4? Maybe?”
Jon got a little frustrated with me and told me, “Now’s not the time to
be tough! You have to be honest and tell
me if it hurts so we can tell the nurses!”
Little did we know my level of toughness…<br />
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A little while later,
I had an exam and I was dilated to 3 cm, so I walked from my room to the
laboring room. At this point (around 5:00) I started really
feeling a lot of pain. I had initially
insisted on having an epidural, but these past few months had been reading more
about them and had toyed around with the idea of going natural. <br />
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I mean, I am a pretty tough person. I’ve always been active and I’ve had my share
of bumps and bruises and falls from horses, kicks from horses, bites from
horses….a lot of horse induced pain, actually.
And what is pain, I mean, really?
It’s just in your head. It can’t <i>really</i> be that bad. My body would produce chemicals to help me deal
with it. Besides, I half-assed learning
some breathing and relaxation techniques and this past month I’d been massaging
and stretching out…. <br />
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----------------------------------------------------spoiler
alert---------------------------------------------</div>
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Labor is gross and here is where the descriptions get pretty
graphic. Please stop reading if you’re
not interested in the particulars.</div>
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…my perineum, so I was pretty prepared to push this baby out
like a champ. Well, as it turns out <i>I’M</i> the baby and a chump to boot. I don’t know what idiot impulse made me
think I was so tough and impervious to pain.
I’ve never broken a major bone, I’ve barely had any stitches, I cried
when I stubbed my toe just a few months ago, and I used to take medicine for
MENSTRUAL pain, for God ’s sake. I’m the
epitome of a soft, sheltered, modern woman.<br />
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From 5 till 7, I kneeled or laid on the bed in the labor
room. At some point during those hours,
my water broke, but I don’t have any recollection of that because I was pretty
busy throwing up, crying, and asking Jon when the doctor was going to get there
and give me the epidural. During that
time, I was out of my mind, and I only remember snippets here and there. Jon rubbed my back and told me how great I
was doing and that the doctors were on their way to the hospital and I’d get my
epidural soon. <br />
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At some point I moved (was moved? I don’t remember) to the
actual delivery bed and the doctor tried to get me to roll up in a ball on my
side so he could put the epidural in my spine.
Laying still on my side, rolled in a ball, dilated to 5 cm, I learned
what a 10 feels like. Now I know. <br />
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Jon distracted me by talking about our little T-Rex and how
we were going to be a family soon. He
tried to get me talking to distract me, but I was distracted by the doctor
explaining that he was going to inject a little local anesthesia before placing
the epidural in my spine. Are you
kidding me? Did he honestly think that I
cared one shit about a huge needle going directly into my spine at this
point? Did he think I could even feel anything besides the contractions? I cared more about the ten extra
seconds it was taking him to fuss around with the local anesthesia, than any
pain from getting that needle in. <br />
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After the epidural was in and a few minutes passed, the pain
started to subside and I immediately fell asleep. It takes a lot out of you to be in pain and
(so Jon tells me) scream and throw up for two hours. I woke up a while later to hear Jon out in
the hallway on the phone with our parents telling them that everything was
going fine and that I was resting and he’d call again when the baby came. Jon came back in and read to me from a baby
book for a while and we took some photos until around 10 when it was time to
push. </div>
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<br />
Dr. Imai arrived at this point and I was dilated to 10 cm. I thought it was pretty funny that the nurses
were all wearing scrubs, masks, and hats, but both doctors had strolled in
wearing their street clothes and simply put on gloves. At this point, Jon was holding my hand by my
side, there were about six nurses surrounding my bed and both doctors looking
inside me. The epidural had worn off and I was feeling a lot of pain again and
they told me to start pushing the baby out. They said it might be a little harder than
normal because the baby had twisted and wasn’t facing the optimal direction,
but that everything would still be fine and start pushing!</div>
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I don’t think I did a
very good job pushing the baby out. I
didn’t know which muscles to use to push right, I got discouraged because I
didn’t think I was being effective, I didn’t push in the right intervals, and I
didn’t push strong enough. I tried, but
it was really hard, the doctors kept telling me to push for longer intervals
and then rest for longer intervals to be more effective, but I kept pushing for
a short time and getting exhausted and resting, then trying to push again right
away. I tried to tune everyone out
except Jon and only listen to what he was telling me to do, especially because
the nurses were getting really annoying.
One kept shouting, “Last push!
Last push!” right in my ear, but she started shouting it after about 20
minutes and it would be 45 minutes before my actual last push, so that got old
fast. <br />
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At one point I looked down and I was just struck by what an
absurd spectacle this whole thing was.
The 6 nurses surrounding the bed, the two doctors in casual clothes, in
fact, I could see an open pack of cigarettes in the older doctor’s front pocket
right then. Imai was telling me, “As soon as possible, longer!” Jon was translating it to mean, “Push as long
as you can!!” What was going on? I
started getting confused again and I don’t remember very much more until I saw
the doctor pulling out a long tube with a suction cup on one end of it. I knew immediately what that was. Jon noticed that I saw it and told me not to worry
about anything except pushing, one last long push to get the baby out. I focused on Jon’s face and pushed and didn’t
stop until someone attacked me and knocked the wind out of me.<br />
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As I tried to get some breath back in me, I saw that Dr. Imai
had jumped on a stool and was doing sharp, deep, compressions on my
stomach. They were so strong to
completely make me lose my breath each time.
She was helping push the baby out from the top, two nurses were pulling
on each side of my vagina to open it up wider, the other doctor was pulling on
the baby’s head with the vacuum, and I was pushing as hard as I could and
finally T-Rex came out, after about an hour of pushing. I was scared at first because she didn’t cry
for about a minute, but everything was fine and they plopped her on my chest
after she let out a healthy scream.<br />
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I couldn’t believe it.
I just kept saying to Jon, “Jon!
Our baby. Our baby, our
baby. Oh, she’s our baby, baby.” I was so shocked by her. I can see now how tiny she is, but at the
time I just kept thinking how sturdy and big she was. Had she really been inside of me just a
minute ago? Had I really pushed her
outside of me? <br />
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The doctors took her away and cleaned her up and did a few
tests and Jon told me how good I did. I
had torn pretty badly, so they started stitching me up while Jon stayed with
the baby. Finally, I was sewn up and
Jon and I could have some time with our baby.
At this point some nurse started explaining to Jon the schedule for the
week, of baby’s shots, my checkups, classes on giving the baby a bath,
etc. If I could go back in time, this is
the one thing I would change (besides pushing baby out more effectively). I mean, our baby was an hour old and she
thought the most important thing for us to do was talk about the schedule for
three days later? We should have shooed
her away.<br />
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I had lost a lot of blood, and was still bleeding a lot, so
I stayed in the labor room that night to be closer to the nurse’s station. Jon stayed with me for a few more hours as we
called our parents and finally it was time for him to go home around 3:00 or
4:00. The next morning I was able to
walk down to my room and it was pretty rough.
I was barely able to make it to my bed before
fainting. The night before the nurses
had mentioned that it might not be healthy for me to feed our baby the next day
because of the amount of blood I lost, so I was nervous that that would still
be the case. However, after breakfast
and an hour more of rest, I was ready to walk down to the nursery and was able to feed our
baby girl. <br />
<br />
Jon arrived at the hospital soon after and we spent the whole day together as a family of three. </div>
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Sara Hendrickshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04944028775945627752noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15029999.post-64527673338816664622012-10-08T18:57:00.001-07:002012-10-29T04:22:59.658-07:00Baby Showers!<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">I can’t believe how lucky we are.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">I thought that since Jon and I lived in
Japan, we would miss out on the baby shower tradition.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">I mean, Japanese people don’t do baby
showers, and our families live about 6,000 miles away.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">However, we were lucky enough that we got TWO
baby showers!</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; line-height: 115%;"> Japan Baby Shower </span><br />
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<span style="line-height: 18px;">Last week, my friends threw me a surprise baby shower. It was a complete success, both surprise-wise and in being a wonderful party-wise. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 18px;">On the day in question, Jon had been acting a little funny. First of all, we were going to a friend's pasta party, and Jon wanted to go 2 hours early. Why? I don't know. Then, he got a text from our friend, Ikumi. That's fine, I was just surprised she didn't text me. Then, he wanted to fiddle with the camera for some reason and told me to walk ahead. Oh well.....</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 18px;">Hey. Why are my friends in there? Are they having a party? This isn't where the pasta party is supposed to be.....and why is everyone staring at me? </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 18px;">Balloons? Streamers? Diaper Cake?</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 18px;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;">I'm not very quick on the uptake. What? A party?!!!</span></div>
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There was a baby carriage shaped cake with figs inside.</div>
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Here we are with our giant diaper cake. The shower was over two weeks ago, and I still haven't taken apart the cake yet. I'll have to soon, so we can actually use the diapers, but it's too beautiful. It's been sitting in our living room looking pretty. </div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; text-align: left;">For this game, everyone has to try to draw a baby on their plate. I led the drawing by telling them which baby part to draw in which order. I made it very difficult.....</span></div>
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She's saying, "Your baby drawing isn't very good...." </div>
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After the shower, Jon and I walked home together. I was able to keep all the decorations, so I wore the balloons home like some sort of foreigner weirdo. As though I don't get enough stares being a super-pregnant white lady in Japan......</div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Skype Baby Shower</span></div>
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Jon's family decided to throw us a Skype baby shower. It was amazing! They sent us all the presents ahead of time, and even sent us the decorations so that we could decorate our house to match the decorations at their house. Here is our apartment, all set up for the shower. (Recognize the diaper cake?) </div>
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Here we are as the shower begins. It was 10 am for us, but 8 pm for our family in WI. We're having fruit, brownies, deviled eggs, and juice for snacks. An unusual, but very satisfying breakfast. </div>
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Jon is trying to guess the circumference of my belly. I think he has way over-estimated here. </div>
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The length he ended up choosing was much shorter....but still not very close!</div>
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We got this great baby bjorn as one of our presents, so Jon tried it on right away with what we hope will be baby's favorite stuffed animal. The little elephant was the first thing we ever bought for baby, months and months ago. I can't wait for Jon to carry this baby around. My back is killing me!</div>
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Overall, I can't believe how lucky I am to have friends and family that will go to such efforts to help us celebrate and prepare for our little baby! </div>
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Sara Hendrickshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04944028775945627752noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15029999.post-45919291324964797452012-10-06T03:47:00.000-07:002012-10-29T04:23:16.902-07:00Pregnancy Issues Weeks 33-37<br />
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<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">I’m currently at 37 weeks, and I feel huge. I can’t sleep very
well at night, I can’t eat very well, I can’t move around, and something
(elbow, foot, head) is always digging into my ribs, stomach, or
back. There’s literally no room left in there for 3 more weeks of
growth! It’s getting harder to walk,
too. Whenever I stand up after </span></span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="line-height: 18px;">I've</span></span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 115%;"> been sitting for a while, my hips
feel loose and I have to take a few wobbly steps before I can walk normally. I’m
starting to understand why some people drink castor oil and eat pineapple by
the bucket load to try to get the labor process started early. Not me though, I'm content to let baby stay in there as long as he/she wants though, because the longer she/he stays in there, the more paid maternity leave I get. (No matter when the baby arrives, I'll go back to work January 15th. However, if she/he stays till the due date of Oct. 25th, I won't have to take any unpaid leave. However many days early he/she comes is how many unpaid vacation days I'll have to take.) <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">I started maternity leave last week, and
I think it’s a good thing. I initially </span></span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="line-height: 18px;">didn't</span></span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 115%;"> want to take off a complete month before the due date, but that’s how
things are done here. In fact, leaving work 6 weeks
before the due date is the law, and I needed to get a note from my doctor just
so I could work an extra two weeks. I </span><span style="line-height: 18px;">didn't</span><span style="line-height: 115%;"> want to sit at home and be bored all day and I only get 70% of my wage
on maternity leave, so I figured, why not work a couple extra weeks? Well, although I feel fine physically, I think it’s best that I
left. My brain is super checked
out. I had to really push myself to keep caring about teaching English when all I wanted to do was read baby
blogs or make lists of things we still needed to prepare for the baby. Also, </span><span style="line-height: 18px;">I've</span><span style="line-height: 115%;"> been having pretty bad insomnia, sometimes I can’t sleep more than 3 or 4
hours a night for a few days in a row. That
was really hard while I was working, so I’m thankful that I can stay home now and I'm thankful that I live in a country
where the government will pay for 3 months of maternity leave. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">I’ve got lists and lists of things to do
to keep me busy while I stay home. At
the top of the list is study Japanese.
I’ve got lots of baby related vocabulary that I need to learn so I’m not
completely lost at the hospital. My
nurse and doctor can speak English, but I’ll be in the hospital for 5 days and
none of the rest of the workers in the maternity ward speak English. I also
need to study general Japanese because Jon and I signed up to take a Japanese
test in December. They only offer this
test twice a year, so the timing isn’t ideal (hopefully we won’t be too sleepy
from having a 6 week old when we go in to take our tests), but I think we’ll
both do ok. </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Other than study, I want to scrub all
the corners of the house, finish getting everything ready for baby, and enjoy
this last month of relaxing before baby arrives.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">At our last checkup, I was happy to see that
T-Rex’s growth is slowing down a bit. If
he/she had kept growing at the same rate, he/she would have been a 10 pound
baby! However, it looks like T-Rex will
be around 8 pounds, which is very doable.
Also, when I had a pelvic exam today, the doctor and nurse were pretty
shocked at just how far along I am. </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 18px;">Apparently, I’m already dilated 3 cm.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 18px;"> Also, it seems that </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">I have a nice wide open pelvis for having the baby.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">He/she should be able to walk right out. </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> I guess that's my European body shape coming to the rescue. Sometimes I see Japanese moms walking around and they have such teeny tiny hips, I can't believe a baby fit through them!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">Anyhow, this past month, </span></span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="line-height: 18px;">I've</span></span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 115%;"> already
gone into the hospital twice thinking that the baby was coming. Both times I knew I </span><span style="line-height: 18px;">wasn't</span><span style="line-height: 115%;"> in full-fledged
labor, but I thought it might be starting and because it was too early for baby
to come out, I went in the hospital to check it out and be safe. If baby WAS trying to make an early appearance,
they might be able to stop the labor if they catch it early. Both times, it turned out that I was fine, baby was fine, and nothing needed to be done. However, I’m really
grateful that we live in a country with such affordable health care. Both of those extra visits </span><span style="line-height: 18px;">weren't</span><span style="line-height: 115%;"> covered by
my maternity insurance, so they warned me I’d have to pay out-of-pocket for the visits. I had to pay about 25$ the first
time and $2 the second time. If Jon
and I lived in the states, we’d have to think much more carefully about going
in to the hospital and “better safe than sorry,” is a lot easier choice to make
when you know it will only cost you a few bucks to set your mind at ease that
the baby is healthy. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">While at the last check-up, they gave us
a list of things to bring to the hospital, and it was quite a list. I had imagined packing a backpack, but I
think I’ll need a full size suitcase! I
guess that’s what happens when you stay for five days instead of one or two as is standard in the states. One of
the things on the list that we won’t need to worry about is a little keepsake
box for the umbilical cord. In Japan,
they keep the dried up cord stump as a memento for the baby. I think they’d faint if I told them we plan
to throw it away when it falls off because it’s gross. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">But, man, there are so many things about
this whole labor thing that are just icky. It reminds me of the 30 Rock episode when
Tracy Jordan has a new baby and asks, “Why’s that baby all covered in goop?”
and the doctor answers, “Because everything about this is disgusting!” I’m excited to have our precious baby, and I'm amazed at the miracle of life, and I’m
excited to be a mom and see Jon be a dad, and I’m a little surprised at how
quickly we acclimated to talking about pretty icky things as we walk down the
street--but still.....having babies can be kinda gross. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
Sara Hendrickshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04944028775945627752noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15029999.post-59325096513088106882012-08-31T05:35:00.000-07:002012-10-29T04:23:42.074-07:00Weeks 31-33 Traveling while Pregnant<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Before we got pregnant, Jon and I had been planning a second anniversary trip this summer. I wanted to hike Mt. Fuji, and Jon wanted to hike around Yakushima-island of 6,000 year old trees. (We both would have gone to either one though, they both sound awesome.) At the beginning of my pregnancy, I thought we could still do it. I'm an active person and I've tried to stay that way throughout the pregnancy. About a month ago, I </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">conceded</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> defeat and we planned a much more relaxing and reasonable anniversary trip to Osaka. </span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Here are some vacation photos. We took the Hankyu ferry there and back, so here's a photo of me and baby as the sun sets. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 14px;">This is a shirt Jon made for me,</span><span style="line-height: 14px;"> that will become even more appropriate as Halloween approaches. It's very accurate, as T-Rex loves digging both feet into my ribs exactly as the shirt demonstrates. </span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimQ_xErOfB8xK4UL0xMz22r7DSvMM1IOF9r7Z1SxM59xjQGguvw172zqWNWNx4TaMwm6yAD1_xM-yFHRy-1hyphenhyphenly_ghiBeoWRcCth9T6LLsEUm0GvjynFrtGJYm4hjdVWKPtOa4eQ/s1600/mino+falls.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimQ_xErOfB8xK4UL0xMz22r7DSvMM1IOF9r7Z1SxM59xjQGguvw172zqWNWNx4TaMwm6yAD1_xM-yFHRy-1hyphenhyphenly_ghiBeoWRcCth9T6LLsEUm0GvjynFrtGJYm4hjdVWKPtOa4eQ/s400/mino+falls.jpg" width="297" /></span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Here we are at a beautiful waterfall just outside of Osaka. It was a pretty long walk, for a pregnant lady, but I got to soak my feet in the cold mountain water before we started back down, so I thought I was doing fine. When I got home and took my clothes off, I noticed that I had gotten a terrible rash all over my ankles, calves, and stomach from the heat and exercise. Also, my ankles no longer looked like ankles, but sausages instead. I rested that night with my feet up and cranked the air conditioner and the next morning I was back to normal. This cycle repeated itself for the rest of the trip. Wake up feeling fine, rash free, and with defined ankles, and go to bed exhausted, rashy and ankle-free. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I wasn't about to stay inside the hostel and miss out on any of our fun plans, like the zoo or Osaka castle though! So, we just walked slowly and went inside air conditioned gift shops more often than we normally would. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Finally, here we are on our way home from our trip, back on the ferry. We bought each other Japanese style outfits as presents, and I think we look pretty sharp. </span></div>
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Sara Hendrickshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04944028775945627752noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15029999.post-19186928539983471902012-08-16T19:48:00.000-07:002012-10-29T04:23:57.310-07:00Baby’s getting big!! Pregnant in Japan weeks 26-30<br />
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><span style="line-height: 14px;">We've</span><span style="line-height: 115%;"> gone in for a few checkups now.</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">We go in every two weeks, so it feels like
everything is moving faster and faster.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">
</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">The day before our 26 week checkup, I mentioned to Jon that it felt like
overnight T-Rex had gotten really heavy.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">
</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">And lo and behold, during our 26 week checkup the ultrasound technician
looked at T-Rex and said with big eyes, “Big Head!” Then, “Big body!”</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">Apparently T-Rex is pretty big for his/her
age.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">Four weeks big, according to the
Japanese scale.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">In fact, the ultrasound
machine computed a new estimated due date of Sept. 26</span><sup style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 115%;">th</sup><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">, rather than
Oct. 25</span><sup style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 115%;">th</sup><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">At 26 weeks, T-Rex weighed 1,100 grams. This is a little strange because I haven’t
gained all that much weight. I’ve only
gone from 71 Kilos to 74 kilos (a gain of about 6 ½ pounds). I would have thought for the fetus to get
big, I’d have to get big first. I feel
like I have been eating a lot more, but I guess T-Rex has been using all the
calories herself/himself! Once we got
home from the hospital, I did some research online and found that American
babies are generally a little bigger than Japanese babies. Although T-Rex is still measuring large, by
American standards, he/she is only two weeks big. According to American measurements, T-Rex
should be around 800 grams. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">We went in again at 28 weeks and I passed my glucose test
and a different technician measured T-Rex again and found that he/she is only
two weeks big. I guess it’s all an
estimate anyways. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I’m starting to really feel this pregnancy now. My belly is too big to ignore and everyone
that sees me knows I’m pregnant. I’ve
started spilling food on my belly when we’re out picnicking or shutting the
door on my belly when I’m trying to squeeze through a tight spot. I’m blazing
hot at all times and I still feel a little nauseous from time to time, I think
it’s made worse by the heat. My back has
started to hurt and it’s hard to get comfortable when I’m trying to sleep. I have even started waking up around 6 every morning
and taking a cool shower and going back to sleep. I’ve started letting Jon carry everything for
me and we walk a lot slower now. Jon
even asked me to stop riding my bike, though I feel perfectly balanced and fine.
(I said I would.) I’m a lot more content to relax at home with the fan blowing
on me as I watch the Olympics than I normally would be. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">We did go camping a few nights ago. (We wanted to be out of the city to watch the Perseid meteor shower.) Here's a picture of Jon and I and friends as we're headed to the beach. It was great swimming in the ocean and relaxing on the beach--not so great that night, sunburned, itchy jelly fish stings and mosquito bites, sand in the tent, blazing heat even at midnight, hard ground. I think I can safely say it was our last camping trip till next summer when T-Rex can come with us..outside of the womb. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">At the 30 week checkup, T-Rex measured 1,960 grams, about
4 pounds. Still about two weeks
big. Something that’s odd about that is
that the baby has gained about 800 grams in the past month and I’ve gained
about 700. I feel like I’m eating a lot
more than when I wasn’t pregnant, and I’m definitely getting less exercise, but
I guess that T-Rex really is using all those calories getting big. I’m sure if I lived in the US, I would have
gained a lot more, but the food I crave as a pregnant lady I can’t get
here. (Chef Boyardee raviolis and
spaghetti-Os and burritos and Ben and Jerry’s Phish Food, and Arby’s Roast
Beef, and ……..) That’s all beside the
fact that my husband is always encouraging me to eat healthy food for the baby
instead of an ice cream cone and pickles for lunch. Anyhow,
the doctor says my weight gain is fine and T-Rex is obviously growing just
fine, so I’m not too worried about it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
Sara Hendrickshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04944028775945627752noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15029999.post-72371971346377243872012-08-10T20:35:00.001-07:002012-10-29T04:24:17.584-07:00T-Rex's Nursery<br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 115%;">Japanese homes are known for being tiny.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 115%;">In fact, our first apartment in Japan had one
room with a “kitchen” (hot plate, sink, and a mini fridge) on one side, a short
skinny bed on the other side, a veranda and a bathroom.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 115%;">We fancied it up with a chair and hanging
rack for our clothes and still had enough room to do whatever we wanted, as
long as what we wanted to do was stand up straight or leave.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 115%;">Our current place is much more livable, we
have a kitchen (no quotation marks needed), a bathroom, a balcony, a small
living room and a bedroom.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 115%;">We love our
little apartment, it’s got a great location, it’s a great price, and the
neighborhood is quiet—so we don’t plan to move.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 115%;">
</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 115%;">But then we started thinking about where the baby will sleep.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 115%;">Hmmmmm…</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 115%;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 115%;">We decided to get a little baby basket to put by the
bed--nursery completed! But—what about
all of baby’s stuff? What about when
baby gets too big for the basket? We
still need a nursery. We decided to
take a third of the closet and make it into baby’s room. There’s a shelf at about waist height and we’ll
put the changing table and clothes storage on top of that. Once baby outgrows the basket, baby will
sleep on his/her own baby sleeping pad under the shelf. When I first suggested this idea to Jon, he
was horrified, “What? We can’t have baby
sleep in the closet!” But, there really
isn’t anywhere else, unless we’re willing to have baby sleep in the bathtub or
on the balcony. The nice thing is that
the closet has a sliding door that we can use while T-Rex is sleeping, it will
block any light that we use as we get ready for bed (presumably at a later time
than the baby), but it’s small enough that we will be able to hear T-Rex crying
or fussing through it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 115%;"><-- Before<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 115%;">I spent a lot of time surfing the internet to find ideas
for decorating our little closet nursery and Jon and I talked a lot about what
we wanted it to look like. In the end we were able
to decorate almost the entire closet corner with things we had around the house
or that we bought at the hyakuyen shop (100 Yen shop, just like our dollar
stores) for less than $US40. It was a
little tricky, because we want the room to be bright and colorful, but there
aren’t any outlets for lights near it and we can’t paint the walls. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhf6l4qSMYSTgm9ZQEWcGcC_R85SvtA12npiT9gSAesX4_HKJWN1od-QDgN04KPh7j2tu17gJ0pm9es8FnuV-VzqE2gtTG8aHdNVXEP44zBf6BFKTsuqgQN2JPb_6fAizP6L39fNw/s1600/photo+4.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="149" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhf6l4qSMYSTgm9ZQEWcGcC_R85SvtA12npiT9gSAesX4_HKJWN1od-QDgN04KPh7j2tu17gJ0pm9es8FnuV-VzqE2gtTG8aHdNVXEP44zBf6BFKTsuqgQN2JPb_6fAizP6L39fNw/s200/photo+4.JPG" width="200" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXrJgt1cZGIKATWCkZFUYjZnVHRQcoYUvCa44N9v8LhC3aMdh7pc7gxalK-_YmXpK0H8g3ayIaPsg8qoiCANdtBshtMxo-2zWpwYURRpB7JRihXN8scTNbgGXJ2hTBCQBim9_eRw/s1600/photo+2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="148" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXrJgt1cZGIKATWCkZFUYjZnVHRQcoYUvCa44N9v8LhC3aMdh7pc7gxalK-_YmXpK0H8g3ayIaPsg8qoiCANdtBshtMxo-2zWpwYURRpB7JRihXN8scTNbgGXJ2hTBCQBim9_eRw/s200/photo+2.JPG" width="200" /></a><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 115%;">We chose an outdoor, tree theme for the nursery. We started with blue fabric to pin on the
walls for the sky and bought brown, green, and yellow felt for creating a
tree. I started by cutting out the
shape of the tree and branches and about a million leaves.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_68ys8aIErH7yhDZDsF3eJLwNXpWErkUT1TsB2TCgT6WBiBGM992w2NKo3hn7NsH86IYc9TldbO4Ka52G-rfBnW3o0fGuXisbFRI2ELonB6A-gKsxM4oAJ8SEN5oT9FPkKvvxhA/s1600/photo+3.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_68ys8aIErH7yhDZDsF3eJLwNXpWErkUT1TsB2TCgT6WBiBGM992w2NKo3hn7NsH86IYc9TldbO4Ka52G-rfBnW3o0fGuXisbFRI2ELonB6A-gKsxM4oAJ8SEN5oT9FPkKvvxhA/s320/photo+3.JPG" width="238" /></a><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 14px;">While I was doing this, Jon was cutting up a sleeping pad we had lying around the house. In Japan, people sleep on the floor, and we used to sleep on a foam pad before I got pregnant and we decided to upgrade to a nice mattress. (Best choice we every made.) We tried to give it away, but everyone has these thin sleeping pads lying around their house, so it was just taking up space in the closet. Jon cut two squares out of it, which would lay on top of one another. He cut the center out of the top one, making a square donut shape—this will make a raised rim around where the baby lays when we change the diaper. Then he covered the whole thing in a waterproof picnic print tablecloth.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 14px;">Here I am sewing on the trunk and leaves using </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 14px;">embroidery thread.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 14px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 14px;">It took a really long time.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 14px;">Finally, we put it all together in the baby closet. We don’t have many baby clothes or anything yet, but what we have, we put in the shelves. We have an Easter outfit, some baby kimonos, and a T-Shirt with a T-Rex on it.</span> </div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 14px;">You can see from this angle that it leads into Jon’s side of closet.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 115%;">Finally, I found a really colorful and cute bed that we’ll
put right next to our bed. I like it
because it’s so bright. Once baby grows
out of it, he/she will get her own baby sleeping mat underneath the changing
corner. We’ll wait till baby is a few
months old before we even start worrying about getting that ready. </span></div>
Sara Hendrickshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04944028775945627752noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15029999.post-4911599800740817872012-07-29T09:00:00.002-07:002012-10-29T06:06:22.277-07:006 Awesome Olympic/Paralympic Events You’ve Never Bothered Watching<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">I love
the Olympics, and what with these summer games in London being the last Olympics
ever (tick-tock tick-tock Mayan calendar and December 21st 2012), I thought I’d share some of my
favorite under-appreciated events. Most viewers focus on the big ticket summer events-gymnastics, 100 meter dash, beach volleyball, Michael Phelps, etc.
But there are some real gems of sports hidden away that you've probably
never seen and maybe never even heard of. There are seriously exciting, and inspiring events that you'll be shocked don't get more coverage.
Well, I’m here to let you in on the best-kept Olympic secret: here are 6 Awesome Olympic Events you’ve Never Bothered Watching.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"><span style="text-align: left;">1 Modern Pentathlon</span><br style="text-align: left;" /><br style="text-align: left;" /><span style="text-align: left;">The idea for this event came from the story of a soldier during wartime, behind enemy lines, who is attempting to deliver a crucial message. His horse is shot at some point; he fights off the enemy with his sword and pistol, races towards his destination (btw, he swims a river) and delivers the message safely. So, the five events are, fencing, swimming, jumping (equestrian style), running and shooting. </span><br style="text-align: left;" /><img alt="" class="bbc_img" src="http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/44030000/jpg/_44030590_smoke_running_cropped.jpg" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;" /><span style="text-align: left;"> </span><br style="text-align: left;" /><span style="text-align: left;">Running is my personal strong suit.</span><br style="text-align: left;" /><br style="text-align: left;" /><br style="text-align: left;" /><span style="text-align: left;"> The sport has changed a lot over the years, changing from a five day, men-only event, to a one day, men and women event that uses laser pistols. Again, why don’t people watch this? </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"><span style="text-align: left;">Fun Fact: In the very first Modern Pentathlon, a little known guy, George S. Patton competed. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"><span style="text-align: left;">In the pentathlon, the athletes have to be highly trained in these five VERY different skills, most of which are very popular with viewers, especially running and swimming. Somehow, when you add them all together, suddenly no one cares anymore!</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"><br style="text-align: left;" /><span style="text-align: left;">The first event is fencing. The athletes get in a formation that allows them to all fight one other opponent at a time and then rotate to the next opponent quickly. They fight each other for one minute, and then rotate. They get points for stabbing the other person without getting stabbed in return. (Finally, a sport I can understand! Suck it, cricket.)</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"><br style="text-align: left;" /><span style="text-align: left;">Next, they swim. They swim 200 meters. They try to swim very quickly. Moving on. </span><br style="text-align: left;" /><br style="text-align: left;" /><span style="text-align: left;">They ride! You usually can’t bring your favorite pony to war, nor would you want to, right? It’s the same here. The Olympic organizers will provide unfamiliar horses and athletes draw lots to pick their horse. They then have only 20 minutes to get to know their horse.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br style="text-align: left;" /><img alt="" class="bbc_img" src="http://www.celebrific.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/01/daniel-ratcliff-naked-horse-play-1-30-07.jpg" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;" /><br style="text-align: left;" /><span style="text-align: left;">Yes. Exactly like that.</span><br style="text-align: left;" /><br /><br style="text-align: left;" /><span style="text-align: left;">Then they ride and jump over at least 12 obstacles, losing points for being too slow, knocking down fence rails, falling off, or the horse refusing to jump.</span><br style="text-align: left;" /><br style="text-align: left;" /><span style="text-align: left;">Finally, the climax of the competition! It’s the combined event of Running and Shooting. Competitors have to run 3000 meters (Almost 15 furlongs.....is that not a helpful conversion?) and shoot 15 targets. They have unlimited ammo during this event and can shoot as many times as they want…it helps that they're shooting lasers now. They shoot right away and then stop again at 1000 meters and 2000 meters to shoot 5 targets. They can continue running once they’ve hit all the targets or 70 seconds passes. The person with the most points from fencing, swimming, and riding gets to start first, and the person with the fewest points starts last. This means that the winner of the entire competition is the person who crosses the finish line first! </span><br style="text-align: left;" /><br style="text-align: left;" /><img alt="" class="bbc_img" src="http://www.visualphotos.com/photo/2x3238922/Runner_Winning_a_Race_42-17751708.jpg" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;" /><br style="text-align: left;" /><span style="text-align: left;">Is THAT how a race works?</span></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="line-height: 18px;">This is played during the less popular, but equally exciting Paralympics (August 29-Sept 9--watch them!). It's played on a basketball court and the players must have a disability which affects both their legs and arms. Wheelchair "contact" is allowed (meaning they ram each other's wheelchairs so hard that tipping over is common), and it's one of the very few Olympic/Paralympic sports where men and women compete together. </span><span class="apple-converted-space" style="line-height: 18px;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">"What? What?"</span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 18px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />Fun fact: <a href="http://quadrugby.com/murderball/faqs.html">In some countries, they call this genteel event Murderball. </a></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-size: large;">Handball is a mix of the best of soccer and
basketball. There are often 50 goals
scored per 60 minute game, (didn’t get THAT from soccer) and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Team_handball">handballplayers are allowed an unlimited number of "faults", which are considered good defense and disruptive to the attacking team's rhythm</a>. Another way to score a fault? <a href="http://www.london2012.com/handball/about/">“Playing too passively.”</a> </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-size: large;">Also, it seems to be one of the oldest sports, <a href="http://www.london2012.com/handball">even making an appearance in Homer’s Odyssey</a>, so you can feel smart as you watch it
and point that out to the people you call your friends.</span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-size: large;">This is a 3000 meter race with all sorts of
barriers that you have run over or through. Over the course of a full race, you'll jump over 28 "normal" barriers and 7 water jumps. A water jump means that you have to jump into and run through water, not simply hop over a puddle. A "normal" barrier is a 30-36 inch tall solid hurdle. </span></span><span style="background-color: white; font-size: large; line-height: 115%;">The barriers don't fall over like a hurdle would, in fact, you can step or jump on them if you want. Because of the seven water jumps, everyone is soaking wet once the race finishes! </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large; line-height: 18px;">This sport started with people racing from town to town, so of course they had to jump over things like stone fences, creeks, slow-moving sheep, and so forth. </span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-size: large;">I feel like it's less like an Olympic event and more like an obstacle course you'd set up for your 12 year old sister's birthday party and then secretly want to play on yourself. Is that just me?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 115%;">5 – Paralympic Judo</span><span class="apple-converted-space" style="line-height: 115%;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="background: white;">Judo is a sport for those viewers with short
attention spans. Each bout starts and ends within five minutes or
less (except when they go into a 3 minute overtime). These paralympic athletes have some level of visual impairment (there are
three levels, one of which means completely blind) or are deaf. The competitors begin the match with a grip on each other, so there's no time wasted as they circle and try to grab their opponents shirt.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="background: white;"><a href="http://www.london2012.com/paralympic-judo">The mats have different textures to help contestants keep track of where they are.</a>
It’s fast, exciting, and powerful. Also, I feel like I’m learning things
I can use as I walk home at midnight.....when there's no moon and all the street lights are
burned out.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="text-align: left;">6 – Paralympic football 5-a-side </span><br style="text-align: left;" /><img alt="" class="bbc_img" src="http://cdn.ltstatic.com/2011/September/WG605983_429long.jpg" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;" /><br style="text-align: left;" /><br style="text-align: left;" /><span style="text-align: left;">5-a-side is one of the events in the upcoming Paralympic Games and it's based on soccer. But wait! It’s WAY more exciting than that, although, god knows, it’s not hard to be more exciting than soccer. This is soccer played on a smaller field with all athletes being visually impaired. That’s right, no one can see each other, the ball, the goal or the boundaries. How can it possibly be more exciting than soccer?</span><br style="text-align: left;" /><br style="text-align: left;" /><span style="text-align: left;">Although<strike> </strike>and I cannot stress this enough—anything is more exciting than soccer. </span><br style="text-align: left;" /><br style="text-align: left;" /><img alt="" class="bbc_img" height="256" src="http://t3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQsRqNVfWNoZIstzS9eR49LIlA6abngSQpjbvZ-pUTiENkLa2rN" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;" width="320" /><br style="text-align: left;" /><span style="text-align: left;">Are...are they playing now?</span><br style="text-align: left;" /><br style="text-align: left;" /><a href="http://www.london2012.com/football-5-a-side">First of all, there aren’t any pauses when the ball goes out of bounds, because there are walls around the pitch, ergo, the ball doesn't go out of bounds. That means the action never stops! </a><br style="text-align: left;" /><span style="text-align: left;">The ball makes noise as it moves, so the players can hear where it is and there is a sighted person behind the goal who can shout directions to the players. Although, I suppose they COULD shout anything they wanted... Oops, I lied earlier, not everyone playing is blind, the goalies can see, which means that making a goal is slightly harder than it would be otherwise. </span><br style="text-align: left;" /><br style="text-align: left;" /><span style="text-align: left;">All the players wear blackout masks to ensure that no one gets an advantage by being slightly less visually impaired than their opponents. This makes the game fair. Although no one is doing anything about making the REST of life fair....</span><br style="text-align: left;" /><br style="text-align: left;" /><span style="text-align: left;">Once you get over the irony of watching people with visual impairments play a game they can’t see themselves, it’s a super exciting game. (Is that technically irony?)</span><br style="text-align: left;" /><br style="text-align: left;" /><img alt="" class="bbc_img" src="http://t2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSeMi20aIRoxkIHWyenuXlngi3mMd3lL1_o01S_4cnIj0TTP6wZ" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;" /><br style="text-align: left;" /><span style="text-align: left;">No one knows anymore.</span></span></span></div>
</span>Sara Hendrickshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04944028775945627752noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15029999.post-69433444784440074422012-07-09T04:13:00.000-07:002012-11-11T19:40:28.291-08:00Hiraodai Cave <span style="background-color: white;">The other day, Jon and I decided to visit Hiraodai Park. Actually, <b><u>I</u> </b>decided that we'd visit the park and I should probably say "demanded if I'm being totally honest. I wanted to get out of the city and do something </span><span style="background-color: white;">different</span><span style="background-color: white;">. Most weekends, we just relax around the house, which is fine, and something I normally encourage, especially since I've been pregnant, but something was pulling me towards this park. It was probably the fact that it would be the one day this month that was sunny. (Rainy season and all that.) I had seen on their website that they had caves you could explore and I was sold. Once I had put my foot down and insisted we go there, I started getting a little nervous. The only way to get there was to take 30 minute train ride and then a fairly expensive taxi ride. I read the website a little more clearly and found out that you can't explore all of the caves, some sections were blocked off, and the cave pictures on the website actually looked pretty lame. Jon initially wanted to sleep in on Sunday, but he gamely prepared coffee Saturday night so he'd be able to wake up and go on this trip with me. So after all that I was a little nervous that it would turn out to be an expensive dud of a trip. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;">However, we went on our way and took the train to the middle of nowhere. Luckily there was one taxi waiting at the station with the driver sleeping inside. The station attendant asked us if we were heading to Hiraodai and once we said we were, he asked another question that we didn't catch. ("Are you going to ________, too?") We smiled and got in the taxi as the attendant shouted something at the taxi driver and we were on our way! </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;">The taxi driver wasn't inclined to chatting and took us directly to Senbutsu Cave. (Thousand Buddhas Cave) Later we realized that this was the question the station attendant had asked us that we hadn't understood. Luckily we smiled and nodded because this was the best place he could have taken us as it was seriously awesome. Here we are standing outside the cave. It was a really warm day, but we could feel a cool breeze coming out from the cave. </span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgc4XfjgnIGcARBqxT5mgeTVhaRL9FvwzoecU76E2sg6TfwlLIqKj4RTZsglGeEN-RGZtxDHlXoTJ7Po0PQSZkjEJvEAVq_xAsssQBtem_7DSnXiBbuU8juA3q6SjKcRQk7emhVCA/s1600/100_3699.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgc4XfjgnIGcARBqxT5mgeTVhaRL9FvwzoecU76E2sg6TfwlLIqKj4RTZsglGeEN-RGZtxDHlXoTJ7Po0PQSZkjEJvEAVq_xAsssQBtem_7DSnXiBbuU8juA3q6SjKcRQk7emhVCA/s640/100_3699.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8sRhPTpVqaD7QXN769PyVwlnot7JxcH69eyq2GcnKbQHUqJhGXL4CO5-USFoMeqw_RyHn6SeLYFDHw6t7bpvbTY6J-ZKvTnowgoh2RmbKe8a7iJfkz4lji8szsRGeDMdVXhQzeg/s1600/100_3702.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8sRhPTpVqaD7QXN769PyVwlnot7JxcH69eyq2GcnKbQHUqJhGXL4CO5-USFoMeqw_RyHn6SeLYFDHw6t7bpvbTY6J-ZKvTnowgoh2RmbKe8a7iJfkz4lji8szsRGeDMdVXhQzeg/s400/100_3702.JPG" width="400" /></a><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;">Here are some tiny moss and plants that grow in the cave. </span><span style="background-color: white;">They only grow where there are lamps are lighting our way, </span><span style="background-color: white;">otherwise there aren't any noticeable plants or animals in the cave. </span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3NG5FB8SFUkn5nl9o4wxLI4CZYPBcVsU3GMq4T9JTv7Nk-mKpu6S8jvVXPanE9fNPNf63cRhMV4q0FhdpmrM_nSTtvw_rgPEuppJiTJf-O7Y7i5bDweTHhoA99AcZc_7Mcm7ONA/s1600/100_3705.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3NG5FB8SFUkn5nl9o4wxLI4CZYPBcVsU3GMq4T9JTv7Nk-mKpu6S8jvVXPanE9fNPNf63cRhMV4q0FhdpmrM_nSTtvw_rgPEuppJiTJf-O7Y7i5bDweTHhoA99AcZc_7Mcm7ONA/s400/100_3705.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
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The whole cave was cold and damp and there was water dripping on us the whole time. Besides the fact that the flash on my camera is broken, the dripping water also dissuaded me from taking many photos. I wish we would have brought our rain jackets.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTsiDimYw_eCtfGNRDElR3q1sY_pyA6z1omIsExU6LlUxlxjG6pV0U2B6h0oZ-Gxi-n0gAWEu6EDBxOsLSYnFxuvCTijV3UL1h20lMlduGiA564wAbHx3auuEKLX7-yISeCQmpMA/s1600/100_3714.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTsiDimYw_eCtfGNRDElR3q1sY_pyA6z1omIsExU6LlUxlxjG6pV0U2B6h0oZ-Gxi-n0gAWEu6EDBxOsLSYnFxuvCTijV3UL1h20lMlduGiA564wAbHx3auuEKLX7-yISeCQmpMA/s400/100_3714.JPG" width="300" /></a></div>
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Jon kept telling me to slow down and admire the rock formations. I wanted to charge ahead and just fly through, but I'm glad he made us stop and smell the stalactites.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj54Mtet54TvmVXw9mYDVoCEXEsvb6NCU5ymOy-u8I9M7-p3BkGClBekMxif9sRHwwzZeabVyvY1hhECeTMjIa1N-znCfNm_TaLFhyBXAs_iDNMFrZjodAuCBlSV31izW7FvsBUDg/s1600/100_3716.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="background-color: white; clear: right; display: inline !important; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj54Mtet54TvmVXw9mYDVoCEXEsvb6NCU5ymOy-u8I9M7-p3BkGClBekMxif9sRHwwzZeabVyvY1hhECeTMjIa1N-znCfNm_TaLFhyBXAs_iDNMFrZjodAuCBlSV31izW7FvsBUDg/s400/100_3716.JPG" width="300" /></a><br />
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About halfway through the cave we started wading through water. I'm glad we brought sandals. The water was freezing and occasionally we tried to climb up the walls to let our feet warm up a little bit. I felt like a real explorer. I've been in caves before, but never caves this extensive. Also, in other caves I've explored in, there are strict walkways and they ask you not to touch the walls or the stalactites. In this cave, nothing was off-limits.
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLYg_RJT1nZIv9_QxqrAyMJkU1JCPWAAQaNM366JgZ5FFd9t89ivUVn-x8M6_5INNxMzULAlmxx1T81ef4VfPQZAVgE5GDSKwQvVWDvF-noxFp6Cp_yPhqcD1l1oYSvHeGVL0ydg/s1600/100_3718.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLYg_RJT1nZIv9_QxqrAyMJkU1JCPWAAQaNM366JgZ5FFd9t89ivUVn-x8M6_5INNxMzULAlmxx1T81ef4VfPQZAVgE5GDSKwQvVWDvF-noxFp6Cp_yPhqcD1l1oYSvHeGVL0ydg/s400/100_3718.JPG" width="300" /></a></div>
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After the cave, we walked around and admired the karst landscape. It was a really beautiful and relaxing hike. Between the cave and the karst, it was the most exercise I've gotten in about 3 months, and I felt great. We decided to skip the taxi ride back to the train station and just walk down the mountain, but about halfway there a gruff old man stopped and offered us a ride in his van. <br />
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Sara Hendrickshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04944028775945627752noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15029999.post-87052615028866989152012-07-02T05:42:00.000-07:002012-11-11T19:41:00.475-08:00Pregnant in Japan--Baby day care and Hospital tours<br />
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<span style="background: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Pregnant
in Japan - weeks 23 - 25</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">There is an adorable
day care just down the block from our house that I've always assumed we'd send
out little baby to. I get two months off work after the baby is born and
then we have winter vacation before I need to go back to work, so we need someone
to take care of little 10 week old T-Rex from Mid January till the end of
February, when Jon and I complete our contracts. Depending on what we do
for jobs next year, we could either move and have to start work in April,
giving us a month off of work, or stay in Kitakyushu and find other work that
starts in April, or keep our current contracts which would have us start
working again in June. So we’ll have between one and three months off to
spend with our little dinosaur before I decide I can’t go back to work because
leaving him/her with someone else was too traumatizing for me or before we, you
know, go back to work. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">However, when we
stopped in the day care to talk about their services, they told us that they
won't accept babies till they are six months old. Hmmm... The next day we
went down to the city office to figure this day care thing out. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">I figured they would
give us a list of day cares that accepted young babies and we'd call and visit
them to find out about availability and then get on the waiting lists. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Day cares are both
public and private, but both (I believe) are subsidized by the government.
Going to the city office should have been our first step anyhow, as we
need to get on the official waiting list of the day cares we want to join and
then wait till one accepts us. Apparently there is a high demand and
limited supply, so, going 7 months before we would even need one is actually
not jumping the gun at all. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">We arrived at the city
office and started talking with the lady who signs people up for the day cares,
called Hoikuens for babies and Kindergartens for ages 2 through 5. (Can I
say one more time that I am so glad my husband can speak Japanese like nobody's
business? He did all the speaking and I wrote my name down and tried to
follow. Usually just when I thought I understood, "Ahh! She's
saying that they won't take kids over 4 or 5 years old!" Jon would
ask me, "Do you understand? They won't take more than 4 or 5 kids
total.")<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">We told the lady we
wanted someone to take our baby and she pulled out a list of Hoikuens in our
area and started outlining the rules for signing up. So, if baby is born
around Oct. 25th, then the baby can be accepted on Feb 1st...wait, wait, wait.
Jon explained that we both needed to be back to work by Jan. 15th.
She explained that they won't accept babies under three months old.
Jon explained that I only got 8 weeks of maternity leave and then we would
use up all our vacations days to get two more weeks of winter break, but after
that I had to go back to work (Jan. 15th). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The three of us sat in
silence and stared at each other for a while. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Jon started explaining
again about the maternity leave and how I had to go back and complete my
contract till Feb 28th....and then we didn't need the hoikuen any more.
Ahh! The lady’s face lit up! Success! She pulled out a secret
list of "Hoikuen Mammas," ladies who accept babies as young as 48
days old. I don't know why she was holding out on us, but as she only
pulled it out when Jon mentioned that we only needed one for 6 weeks, it must
have been related. There is only one in our nearby area, though there
were about 18 listed on the sheet, some as close as a 30 minute bus ride away,
others hours away. We started looking through the complicated map system
and trying to find out if these Hoikuens were near our home or at least our
jobs, which would make drop-off and pick-up easier. I won't go into
detail about how complicated and different the Japanese address system is,
suffice to say for now that it is nearly impossible to figure out without just
typing the address in Google maps and following the arrow to the
location. Then the lady stepped away to make some phone calls.
She came back a while later with a big smile! Success! The
Hoikuen closest to our house was full, but the one that was close to Jon's
school had one opening! I saw that she had crossed out about 10 other Hoikuens
on the list. Had she called them all and they were full? Were they
too far away and that's why she crossed them off? I don't know. I
didn’t care, we were in!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">So, she helped us fill
out a few forms to officially get on the waiting list at this Hoikuen, and she
even wrote the time we applied on the form. These things fill up so fast
that us filling out the form at 4:00 rather than 6:30 might mean the difference
between getting in or not. Then she gave us a list of forms and things to
do after T-Rex arrives, but before we can be accepted to the Hoikuen.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">This is what we've got
to do after T-Rex is born, but before we leave on Dec 20th to visit America
till Jan 13th. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Get the baby a
Japanese ID card.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Register the baby on
National Insurance.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Register the birth and
birth certificate at the City Office. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Have a one month
check-up <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Visit the day care
with the baby to introduce ourselves to the Hoikuen Mamma.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Get a copy of our
taxes and salary from our company to bring to the City Office (This will
determine how much we pay for the Hoikuen. It can range from $250 to $350
US per month. That sounds like a steal to me, but I don't know how much
day care is in the states.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">During this busy time
we've also got to...<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Get the baby a
passport.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Get the baby a social
security number.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Get an English version
of the Birth Certificate (must be notarized by a registered bilingual notary).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Register the birth
with the American Embassy <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">It appears that every
single one of these documents will be a nightmare of filling out dozens of
forms, paying bills for forms or notarization, and/or traveling 2 hours on the
bus to the nearby city, where the American Embassy is located. I'm
already stressing out about it! But, I need to remember that I will have
7 weeks of no work to get all these things done, so between Jon and me, I'm
sure it's possible. It has to be.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">We also went in for another check-up at the hospital this
past Saturday. </span><span style="background: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">(T-Rex
is doing great, and weighs ~650 grams.) </span><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">After
we finished, I asked about where I’ll actually have the baby and so we took a
tour of the maternity ward.</span><span style="background: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> I can see now why people would
spring for the Lady's Clinics. The hospital rooms where you stay with
your baby are pretty standard hospital fare—white, empty, clinical.
I thought they might spruce the rooms up a little bit on the maternity
floor, but they are as depressing and empty as in any other section. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">I don't regret our
plan to go the hospital route so that I can have the option of an epidural and for
us to save about $1,000 or more, but I'm glad that we took a tour so I can
prepare myself. For example, I've always heard that you don't want to go
to the hospital as soon as contractions start, because your own home is more
comfortable for the first several hours. I can see that's true now and
I'll be staying home much more comfortably than I might otherwise have. After
the baby arrives, Jon can't stay the night, he has to go home at 9:00 PM.
That's fine, I'm sure I'll want to go to sleep early since I'll be waking
up every few hours to feed T-Rex. The rooms are empty and bleak, so I'll
add framed photos, knickknacks, and other decorations to the hospital bag to
make it homier. The nursery is the only place with baby beds, so mother
and baby can’t sleep in the same room. I
was disappointed about that, but I'll keep the baby with me while I'm
awake and let him/her sleep in the nursery and enjoy that the nurses will
change those first few days of dirty diapers. They say most women stay
for 5 days, sometimes 4, so I hope that everything goes well and I can leave
ASAP. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
Sara Hendrickshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04944028775945627752noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15029999.post-11993002331074433302012-06-20T05:35:00.003-07:002012-11-11T19:41:24.142-08:00Baby Names and Secret Sex....(of the baby)<br />
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;">We've decided to keep the gender of the baby a secret....not from ourselves, but from everyone else! (At our last checkup, the doctor wasn't even 100% sure about the sex, so we technically don't know yet either) Hopefully we'll be able to nail it down at the next checkup at 24 weeks. I've just started telling a little white lie to acquaintances that we're not finding out the gender, because it feels so weird to say, "Yes, I know the gender, but I'm not going to tell you!" Initially, I wanted it to be a surprise for us too, but it's so hard to pick out a name, that we wanted to know the gender to cut out half of the name disagreements. We've started narrowing the choices down....here's a sampling.</span></div>
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Coralyn/Coraline (I'm for <i>line</i>, Jon's for <i>lyn</i>)</div>
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Corrine</div>
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Fiona </div>
<div style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;">
Clark </div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;">
Grant </div>
<div style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;">
Graham</div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;">
Picking names is hard! </div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969);">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;">I had no idea picking a name would be this hard, I always wondered why there were so many baby name books and website. It's not just about making a list of names that sound pretty. We've got to contend with the fact that </span></div>
<div style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969);">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969);">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;">1-Jon has an ex with the same name I like....goodbye name! (I don't want to think about him ever having dated anyone before me....much less naming our baby after an ex!)</span></div>
<div style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969);">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969);">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;">2-I had a childhood enemy with the same name that Jon likes...another name down. </span></div>
<div style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969);">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969);">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;">3-Jon likes the name Rose, but I hate girl names that endow the named with gender specific traits, like Lily (delicate and beautiful) or Charity (charity). </span></div>
<div style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969);">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969);">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;">4- We're both atheists, so we don't want to name our child something from religion or the Bible, so names like Christian, Mathew, Michael, Mary, Ruth, Jesus, and so forth are off the list. </span></div>
<div style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969);">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969);">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;">5-We don't want too common of names, which pulls Sophia from the list, although I love the sound of it and the meaning (wisdom). </span></div>
<div style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969);">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969);">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;">6- This baby will spend some formative years living in Japan. Japanese people have a hard time saying the "L" and "R" sounds. Well, many of the names we like have those sounds, and some of them have both! (Clark and Coraline/Coralyn) We decided that in the end, we had to just ignore that aspect of choosing names, because we just couldn't bear knocking any more possible names off the list! Although, if we pick Coraline/Coralyn, it'd be pretty funny because I would call her Cora for short, and that's how Japanese people say Cola. It's even spelled the same in the Japanese alphabet. </span></div>
<div style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969);">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969);">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969);">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;">So the plan now, is to keep our minds open, and keep thinking of possible names. We;ll go to the hospital with a short list of possible names and once we have the baby we'll have 5 to 7 days in the hospital to try them out and see which one fits before we have to sign the birth certificate and head home. </span></div>
Sara Hendrickshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04944028775945627752noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15029999.post-21996990848253796562012-06-15T22:44:00.002-07:002012-11-11T19:42:17.317-08:00Weeks 15-22: Telling Work about T-Rex, Free Pregnancy Advice, and Baby's First Kick!<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We went in and told work about the pregnancy at week 19. Because I had started working at my school, it’s
illegal to fire me for being pregnant; although I was still nervous they might
be angry. However, everything went very
well. Everyone was very happy for us and
congratulated us, although there were some funny looks when we mentioned the
due date, October 25th. My work asked me
not to tell my schools yet because they will call the Board of Education first
and let them know what’s going on and explain that they will organize a
substitute for my three months of maternity leave. So I haven’t told anyone at my school yet,
though I have stopped dressing in ways that will hide my growing belly. My first two days of work, I wore all black,
vertical stripes, bright necklaces, anything to draw attention to my face, and
keep attention from my belly. I don’t
think I needed to worry so much. I
haven’t hidden my fat tummy for days and no one has looked at me funny or asked
me about it. I guess if I look at it
objectively, I can see how it just looks like I had a big lunch...sort of. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 115%;"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">I recently told a Japanese friend about my pregnancy and
when I noticed her surprise, I asked her, “But, didn’t you notice my growing stomach?” Her response was, “Well,
no! If I thought a fat tummy meant
someone was pregnant, then I would just have to assume all foreigners are
pregnant!” She was joking (mostly), but
I thought it was really funny and I’m pretty sure that’s what is going on at my
school. </span><span style="line-height: 115%;">So far I’ve only gained about 2 pounds, but I don’t know
how that happened because I feel like I have quite a bump.</span><span style="line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="line-height: 115%;">I can’t button my normal pants anymore, so I
either leave them unzipped with a belly band over them or wear the maternity
pants my mom sent me from the states.</span><span style="line-height: 115%;">
</span><span style="line-height: 115%;">Maternity shopping in Japan is ridiculous.</span><span style="line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="line-height: 115%;">As a general rule, I hate shopping.</span><span style="line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="line-height: 115%;">Add to the mix that clothes are three times
what they would cost in the states, that I don’t speak the language very well, the XL sizes are usually too small (I'm a M in the states) and it makes for a miserable shopping experience.</span><span style="line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="line-height: 115%;">The maternity clothes </span><span style="line-height: 14px;">I've</span><span style="line-height: 115%;"> found
at the various malls are usually these filmy, boxy, tops and then
short shorts.</span><span style="line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="line-height: 115%;">My mother-law said she’ll send me some
clothes and my mom, dad, and sister-in-law have already sent a box of all types
of summer maternity clothes that </span><span style="line-height: 14px;">I've</span><span style="line-height: 115%;"> been loving.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 115%;">How are Japanese people reacting to my pregnancy? Well, as I just wrote, it’s not yet obvious
whether I’m pregnant or chubby, so I can’t say how strangers or neighbors will
react just yet. As far as people who do
know, it’s a little frustrating. I’m
a very independent person. I don’t like
being told what to do. My husband and I
both joke sometimes that we both have oppositional defiance disorder. Being told that we absolutely must do
something a certain way is the best way to get us to do it differently. On top of that, Jon and I have both been very
careful about this pregnancy. We planned
to get pregnant, so I haven’t drunk any alcohol from the very start; I take my
vitamins and eat healthy fresh veggies, fruits, and whole grains. I stopped rock climbing at 10 weeks, and we
never miss a doctor appointment. We
researched all the fish that are high in mercury and I even stopped drinking
coffee. So, when someone tries to boss
me around and tell me how to act as a pregnant lady, I get really peeved. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 115%;">The first time this happened was when I was playing
around with some little three year old boys that I teach English to. I picked one of them up and immediately got
attacked by six parents shouting that I shouldn’t pick up anything
heavy...ever. For nine months I’m
supposed to just let my muscles atrophy, I guess. This has happened many times since then,
moving tables that hardly weigh more than 8 pounds, carrying groceries from the
store, etc. etc. etc. I’m sick to death
of assuring people that I can still ride my bike safely. I don’t need people telling me I need to hold
the hand rail when I go up and down stairs.
If there happens to be someone smoking within a 15 foot radius, I don’t
need anyone going over there and telling them they need to put it out because
I’m pregnant and I don’t need to leave and go home lest I breathe a whiff of diluted
smoke. And I especially don’t need the comments
asking why I'm coming back to work after my maternity leave is up. Don't I want to be a good mother and stay home with the baby?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 115%;">It’s hard in a different way for Jon too. Jon loves helping me. He would carry all the heavy things all the
time if I let him. However, I’ve always
insisted on carrying my fair share, whether we’re camping and hiking across the
<a href="http://saraallsop.blogspot.jp/2010/10/when-jon-and-i-traveled-to-china-to.html">Great Wall of China</a>, or carrying food home from the grocery store. Especially now that I’m pregnant, I want to
stay strong. I know that exercise is
good for me and the baby and I know that labor takes a lot of muscle power, so
I am trying to stay as active as I can.
However, people tend to look askance at Jon when they see me with a
heavy backpack, and I imagine it will only get worse once I obviously have a baby inside
me. So, Jon gets hit on two sides. He wants to help me, but I won’t let him, and
then he gets looks and comments from strangers insinuating that he isn’t a very
good husband, when in fact he's the best husband. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 115%;">Our friends and acquaintances have started to realize how
Jon and I do things and I’ve let them all know that I plan to ride my bike to
the hospital when it’s time to have T-Rex, so they have relaxed a little bit
about it—or at least stopped making comments about it. (I don’t actually plan to ride my bike to the
hospital in the midst of contractions.
We live close enough that we’ll either walk or take a taxi.) However, I imagine that as it gets more
obvious that I’m pregnant, we’ll start getting more comments from strangers or
nosy neighbors. I don’t know how
pervasive these sorts of things would be in the states, as I’ve never been
pregnant there. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The other day Jon got to feel T-Rex kicking through my
belly muscles and it was a really special experience. I'm glad that he is now able to feel the baby move, although now he has the same worries I have been having every day, "Wait, it's been almost five hours since we felt him/her move...is he/she ok?" The very next day I was
looking at my stomach and T-Rex gave a mighty kick, making my belly bulge out
about an inch. It was not special or
sweet and I didn’t rub my tummy or smile about our future soccer player. Instead, I sat down quickly because I almost
fainted. My first thought was not of the
precious bundle of life inside me, it was of the X-Files episode we had recently
watched where the alien rips its way out of the man’s torso. And then goes on a
killing spree. Having a growing baby inside you with weird. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
Sara Hendrickshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04944028775945627752noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15029999.post-74097341578959772532012-06-10T05:23:00.000-07:002012-11-11T19:43:05.625-08:00Pregnancy in Japan, weeks 12-15<br />
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</div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">April 15, 2012<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Now that I’m getting to the tail end of the
first trimester, some of my pregnancy symptoms are supposed to be waning. “Supposed to” being the operative word. Before moving on, you should know that my
husband and I are both staunchly atheist.
We both believe in logic, science, and thinking things through rather
than lucky charms. We don’t worry about
Friday the 13<sup>th</sup>, we don’t follow our astrological signs, we don’t
believe in karma or the Earth spirit, or ghosts, and we don’t worry about
jinxing things. Except….maybe I do
believe in jinxing things, even though I try not to. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I’ve been having real issues with my runny
nose lately. I thought maybe it was
adult onset hay fever—brought on by the beautiful cherry blossoms—or an
extended cold. I didn’t have a sore
throat (except after sleeping with my mouth open all night) or achy body, or
any of the other signs of a cold, and I kept thinking it would clear up soon. Well, I made the mistake of bragging to
someone how easy my pregnancy was. I had
light morning sickness for about three weeks, and never actually vomited, just
felt queasy till I ate something. I had
tender nipples for two months, and I was pretty tired for two months….end of
list. They were very manageable
symptoms. Almost immediately after
bragging about my easy pregnancy, my runny nose got worse. I was filling an entire garbage can at work
with my used tissues (still am, in fact).
I had to be careful in case it looked like someone wanted to come and
talk with me because in the 30 seconds it took us to resolve the issue, my nose
would drip down to my chin. Ewww.
Some quick google searching told me what I have, “</span><span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">rhinitis of pregnancy.”</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> It will only get worse
as the pregnancy progresses, and it won’t go away till two weeks after baby
comes out. I asked the doctor about it
at my last visit and got the response of, “sho ga nai.” (It can’t be helped.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">April 30<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I’ve been reading a lot of baby books
lately and lots of giving birth in Japan blogs and thinking about this whole
giving birth in Japan thing. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><a href="http://www.japanfamilyguide.com/index.php/having-a-baby/9-the-guide-to-having-a-baby-in-japan">http://www.japanfamilyguide.com/index.php/having-a-baby/9-the-guide-to-having-a-baby-in-japan</a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><a href="http://www.alientimes.org/Main/PregnancyAndGivingBirthInJapan">http://www.alientimes.org/Main/PregnancyAndGivingBirthInJapan</a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><a href="http://blue_moon.typepad.com/blue_lotus/2010/08/cultural-differences.html">http://blue_moon.typepad.com/blue_lotus/2010/08/cultural-differences.html</a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><a href="http://www.globalcompassion.com/japan-birth.htm">http://www.globalcompassion.com/japan-birth.htm</a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><a href="http://industriousants.wordpress.com/making-babies-abroad/">http://industriousants.wordpress.com/making-babies-abroad/</a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">What I’m realizing more and more is that everything will
probably be fine and I don’t need to worry about things. I was so worried about the differences
between Japan and America and trying to learn everything there is to know about
the way things are done in America so I can do it the exact same way here. I was reading differences between America and
Japan in everything from routine episiotomy to weight gain to hospital stay to
diet. Although I tried to look at
everything in a neutral viewpoint, of course I tended to side with American
viewpoints most of the time. It’s all I
know from parents, friends, books, etc.
I started to stress out that I wouldn’t be able to control everything
and that the nurses might insist on giving baby some sugar water in a bottle
when I want to exclusively breastfeed and I’ve read that the babies don’t latch
on as well if you introduce bottles before the breast! And I insist on having Jon sleep in my room
with me during the hospital stay! I want
my birth plan followed to a T! I want, I
need, I insist… and on and on and on. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Well, I took a deep breath and decided on my pregnancy
and newborn baby mantra—everything is going to be just fine. Chill out.
If the doctor wants to do a C-section…well, that’s why she/she is the
doctor. If the Japanese pregnancy books
says to gain only 15 to 26 pounds, while my “What to Expect When You’re
Expecting” book says gain 25 to 35 pounds, well, I’ll aim for 25 then and not
worry if I come in a little lighter or heavier. (At 14 weeks, I’ve lost 4 pounds simply from
trying to eat healthier foods and giving up alcohol.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">We went and visited a friend who just had her baby girl
in the hospital. This friend knew we
were expecting and I had gone to her with lots of pregnancy questions. When I asked her about epidurals, she was
pretty skeptical, worrying about danger to the baby. She planned to give birth without one at a
“Lady’s Clinic.” A Lady’s Clinic is the
small hospital devoted entirely to childbirth, like the first hospital we had
gone to, so her experience would be different than mine will be in an actual
hospital, and much more expensive. Most women in Japan, give birth in Lady's Clinics. Her clinic was like a ritzy
bed and breakfast with gilded furniture in her room and delicious homemade
meals served in a parlor with all the new mothers eating together while the
nurses take care of the newborns. She
stayed about a week and we visited five days after she had her baby. My friend looked really good, not too tired
or stressed out and her baby was adorable and mostly quiet. We talked about the birth a little bit and
that’s where it got scary. She had had
30 hours of labor and said that it was terrible and painful and exhausting. By the end she was begging for a c-section
but the nurses and doctors just told her to try hard and eventually the baby
came out. It sounded a little like she
might have taken that epidural if she could go back in time. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> It was really
reassuring to hold the baby because I’ve been having lots of bad dreams about
dropping T-Rex or bumping his/her head.
Sitting and holding the baby without anything going wrong was nice. One uncomfortable thing was that people kept
talking about how beautiful Jon and my baby will be. We have white skin, blond hair, blue eyes,
what could go wrong? This is a pretty
common thing in Japan, your white skin and light hair and light eyes make you
beautiful, no matter what you look like.
It makes me pretty uncomfortable, and I’ve blogged about it before. Anyhow, her baby was just beautiful and
perfect with soft black hair and cute little fingers and toes and a tiny little
button nose. As soon as we walked in, I
noticed dad finishing up with changing a diaper! This was the same guy who said changing
diapers was the wife’s duty, so I was relieved to see that he had obviously
been joking about that. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />Sara Hendrickshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04944028775945627752noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15029999.post-79683841331204988122012-06-10T05:09:00.001-07:002012-11-11T19:43:27.226-08:00Weeks 8-12 Forms and Registration of Birth in Japan<br />
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">March 30<sup>th</sup><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">We called our families in the states to
announce the big news. I initially
wanted to wait till 12 weeks to tell anyone anything, but Jon was so excited (ok,
me too), that we couldn’t wait. My mom
asked us if we had thought of any names yet.
Jokingly, I said “we’re thinking of “Door” if it’s a girl, and if it’s a
boy….” Then Jon said, “If it’s a boy, we’ll name him T-Rex!” So, we decided to use the name, T-Rex, till
baby comes out. At that point, we’ll
have about a week in the hospital to decide on a name. I’d like to have a few names picked out, but
not finalize anything till we’ve had a chance to look at baby and try out
calling him/her a few names. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">We went to the hospital and had our second
checkup. We got the official form to
register our birth at the Ward Office.
We’ll get an official “Mother and Child Handbook” when we register the
birth and we’ll get free coupons for the rest of our visits. When we showed up, we had to go through the
pain of filling out the forms all in Japanese.
We didn’t even fill out the whole thing.
After about 30 minutes the nurse came over and started asking us
questions and checking the boxes herself. This was a lot of help because 99% of
people (including us) learning Japanese can speak and understand a lot more
Japanese than can read and write it. The
very first question they asked us was, “Do you want a baby?” I thought this was an interesting question,
but not a very surprising one once I thought about it. About 40% of Japanese women have had at least
one abortion, and they aren’t looked down upon like they are in the
states. No abortion clinic bombings at least. </span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">We had a very preliminary exam, with only
an ultrasound of the fetus (in both 2D and 3D), because they wanted to save the
expensive tests for the next visit, when I would have a free coupon.</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">In all, the visit cost about 3,000 Yen, or
$45.</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">And, like I mentioned before, the
rest of the visits will be free with our coupons.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">April 4<sup>th</sup><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">We went to the Ward office today and
registered the pregnancy. We walked out
with a bunch of free trash bags and about 15 books. In Japan, the way you pay for trash pickup is
to pay for trash bags, then you have to put your trash in these specific
bags. The lady registering our birth
explained, “You’ll have a lot more garbage when you have a baby, so here you
are!” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 14px;"> </span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 14px;">Three of the books we got are the most important books we’ve ever gotten.</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 14px;"> </span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 14px;">The first one is the Mother and Child Handbook, where we and our doctor will record all the events of the pregnancy and birth.</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 14px;"> </span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 14px;">They stressed the importance of not losing this book, as it covers the child’s doctor records up through three years old.</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 14px;"> </span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 14px;">You can see here the 3</span><sup style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 14px;">rd</sup><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 14px;"> year check up form.</span>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 14px;">We also got two separate books which have the free coupons in them so that all our pre-natal checkups will be free and T-Rex’s first three years of checkups and vaccinations will be free too.</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 14px;"> </span>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">The rest of the books we got were info about
child-birth classes, pamphlets to keep on hand (or memorize) for what to do
when you child is choking or gets hurt, and other baby related info. I can’t read more than a few hundred Kanji
so I mostly looked at the pictures. I’d
like to brush up on baby Heimlich, but I’ll do that in English. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjAy9YZphFuFSK7dfqQPoZ1crKmA1gdu-GmHKRlMlpkNom0qYdc5KR6yuVKgRib6zGoN-CCj5VHUJnWRN0-Ek22iyrYfNEwAhuwEouPHkaA76nbtNg-nqh-kK99UGz4wBgJSOeVA/s1600/photo.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjAy9YZphFuFSK7dfqQPoZ1crKmA1gdu-GmHKRlMlpkNom0qYdc5KR6yuVKgRib6zGoN-CCj5VHUJnWRN0-Ek22iyrYfNEwAhuwEouPHkaA76nbtNg-nqh-kK99UGz4wBgJSOeVA/s400/photo.JPG" width="298" /></a></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 14px;">Going to see the ultrasound of the T-Rex’s little head and butt made me really realize what we’d done in making a baby together.</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 14px;"> </span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 14px;">I was so excited and emotional afterwards, and still feel that way when I look at the pictures.</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 14px;"> </span>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">However, going to the ward office to get
all these papers and fill out all these forms really drilled in my head how
much work a baby will be, especially one in Japan. Needing a passport, foreigner ID card,
getting a Japanese Birth certificate, filling out all these “record of live
birth” forms are just the beginning.
(We’ll need to do all that fairly quickly because we’re planning to
visit the States when T-Rex is only two months old.) It won’t just be playing and cooing at an
adorable baby, it will be paying for baby’s supplies, washing and cleaning
baby, staying up all night with baby, paying for baby’s day care, and endless,
endless Japanese forms for baby. It’s
exhausting just thinking about it. It
makes me want to move to Hawaii, where I speak the language, the weather is beautiful, and I’m a citizen. Maybe
in a few years……. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
Sara Hendrickshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04944028775945627752noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15029999.post-86553309246767737352012-06-10T04:50:00.000-07:002012-11-11T19:43:45.691-08:00Two Foreigners Having a Foreigner Baby in Japan<br />
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">March 15<sup>th</sup> 2012<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">These next few entries will focus on what
it’s like being pregnant and giving birth in Japan. My husband and I met, fell
in love, and got married in America, but moved immediately after the wedding to
be English teachers in Japan. It’s a good place to have a baby, with one of the
highest records of mother and infant health in the world. The health insurance system is set up to
provide affordable (almost free) prenatal, labor, and infant care. There
are numerous hospitals and since it is a national health care system, you can
choose from any number of hospitals for your care and delivery, although some
are cheaper than others. The government pays for maternity leave at 60%
of your normal wage for three months, one month before the birth and two months
after the birth.<br />
<!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><br />
<!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">So, it sounds like a cakewalk, right?
I imagine it probably is for a Japanese person. However, let me set
the stage for who my husband and I are. We’re Americans in our
late 20s who want to give birth in the Western Style, as much as possible.
This causes problems.<br />
<br />
First--The Language<br />
Though my husband is very good at
conversational Japanese, he hasn’t had a lot of time to study up on the
specific vocabulary that we’ll need at the hospital. (C-Sections and fetal heart rates don’t come
up so often in casual conversation) I have only been studying for over a
year, and so my abilities stop at making the appointment and writing my address
in kanji on the registration form. So, we’d like to find an English
speaking doctor. If we can’t, the city can provide interpreters that will
help us at the appointments, but I don’t really want a stranger in the room
with Jon and I as we find out the baby’s birth or as I take my clothes off for
a physical, or as I’m in labor. Although, I guess, the doctor and the
nurses will all be just as much of strangers, so maybe that won’t be a big
deal. I can’t imagine many interpreters would want to volunteer to be a
part of that though….<br />
<br />
Second-Teamwork<br />
Jon and I are a team, through and
through. That means we want to be together at all times. Some
Japanese hospitals don’t allow men (i.e. husbands) in the labor rooms because
there may be a bunch of women all naked from the waist down in the same room.
Some aren’t supportive of men coming along to appointments. This is
changing, but (from asking Japanese people) I hear that only 50 percent of
fathers are present at the birth. Don’t even get me started on the
reaction I got when I asked my pregnant friend’s husband if he’d ever changed a
diaper before. Well, I started, I’ll finish. He looked at me like I
had asked him if he had ever eaten dirt. Then he responded. “No,
and I never will. It’s her duty.”
And this was a nice guy! He
seemed to always fuss over his wife and was always rubbing her belly, but he
had no plans to ever, not in two years, change a diaper. <br />
<br />
Third-Pain Medication<br />
I want an epidural. They are safe
and easy. I see no reason to put myself through hours of intense and exhausting
pain when there is no need to. The Japanese idea is that the pain of
childbirth is a woman’s burden to bear and she isn’t a real mother without that
pain. I think that’s stupid, and I want an epidural. About ten percent of women
get epidurals in Japan (hearsay from friends), so we need to make sure the
hospital has that.<br />
<br />
Fourth- Work Situation<br />
We work for a dispatch company that
requires us to re-sign contracts every year. This means that after a
year, they can fire us by not renewing our contracts for no reason at all and
we have no recourse. This is a problem because I will be about 16 weeks along
when we sign the contracts, although I will have been working for the company
consistently for over a year. After the contract is signed, they can’t
fire me for being pregnant, but I’m 100% sure they wouldn’t renew my contract
if they found out. That would leave Jon and I in dire financial
straights, me unable to find a different job in the middle of the school year,
and super unhappy and bored for the months where I wouldn’t have a job. (I’m
writing this in the present tense, but will wait to publish it until later, so
there is nothing on the internet that my company can find.) I went to the
city office and spent quite a while talking to all the different insurance and
pregnancy registration offices with an interpreter finding out that there is no
law saying when I have to tell my employer I’m pregnant, that they can’t fire
me after I’ve signed the contract. When I register the birth, that is kept
secret and won’t be leaked to my company, etc. Whew. Now, just to keep
it off of Facebook.<br />
<br />
If I can take a little tangent here…
I imagine some people are thinking, “Don’t you think it’s wrong to force
the company to re-hire you just so you can take three months off work to have a
baby?<br />
Shouldn’t you support yourself for that?
It’s your choice to have a baby.” My answer is this, first of all, *****
you. Secondly, I will have worked for this company consistently for over
18 months by the time I want to take the 3 months maternity leave. It’s
not like I just barely got the job. Also, the government pays my
maternity leave, not the company. Next, if you want smart, motivated,
professional women to have babies (thus making MORE smart, motivated,
professional people—something I think is good for the world), then we all need
to chip in to help them. Questions like the one above are one of the
reasons Japan has such a low birthrate. Women have to choose between babies or
their job and they are starting to choose their job. <br />
<br />
OK, back on track. So, the above four
things are not impossible to find, but finding them all in one hospital might
be tricky. The first hospital we went to had an English speaking doctor
and was very nice.<br />
We had our first ultrasound with him.
However, it was a very small clinic, with only the one doctor.
These small, one doctor women’s clinics are pretty common in Japan, and
many normal sized hospitals don’t have a maternity ward. Because he was the
only doctor, he couldn’t offer epidurals. In the case of a complication, I’d
have to be transferred to a larger hospital. Also, his average price was about
US$1,000 over what the government subsidized for birth. Most hospitals
are right around the same price or a little lower. So, we decided to find a
different hospital. Our doctor cautioned
us that we wouldn’t be able to find a hospital that would give me any pain
killers for the labor because it just wasn’t done….<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">…A mere week later, with some help from a
wonderful friend, we have found our hospital. We chose it because it's
very close to our house, the price is very close to what the government
provides for labor, and it offers epidurals, although we have to pay the extra
US$300. Anyhow, it's got almost everything we want.....but what doesn't
it have? Yep, an English speaking doctor. We'll head in to our
first appointment there on March 28th. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
Sara Hendrickshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04944028775945627752noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15029999.post-9948817951126449742012-01-11T03:42:00.000-08:002012-11-11T19:44:34.558-08:00The Six hardest Languages for English Speakers<div style="text-align: left; text-indent: 48px;">
<span style="font-size: small; text-indent: 0.5in;">Learning any new language is difficult. However, some languages are MUCH MORE difficult than others, depending on your native language. A Spanish speaker will have an easier time speaking Italian than someone who speaks Hindi. A Klingon will have an easier time learning Kryptonian than learning Welsh. That’s (duh) because there are similarities in languages families and it’s easier to learn languages that are in the same family. So, if you (English Speaker) want to learn Spanish or German, that’s no big deal, the languages are pretty similar. However, if you’re up for a real challenge, there are languages completely unrelated to English that are fiendishly difficult for an English speaker to learn, for reasons you wouldn’t expect</span></div>
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<span style="text-indent: 0.5in;"> Hint—Pig Latin is not on the list</span></div>
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6<b><span style="line-height: 115%;"> Arabic <o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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Spoken by 280,000,000 people in 26 different countries, including Egypt, Libya, Jordan, Morocco, Iraq, Israel, Syria, and Somalia; Arabic is the fifth most spoken language in the world. If you want to see the pyramids, religious historical relics, or a war zone, this is a good language to know. </div>
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What makes Arabic simple:</div>
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It uses an alphabetic system.</div>
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There are lots of classes you can take and textbooks you can use.</div>
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What makes Arabic migraine-inducing-ly difficult:</div>
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<a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox/2005/06/im_trying_to_learn_arabic.html"> First, even though it uses an alphabet of only 28 letters, the letters have four different forms, depending on where they land in the sentence.</a></div>
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Ls, mst f th tm thy dnt ncld vwls n wrtng. Bcs fck y, thts wh.</div>
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Also, most of the time, they don't include vowels in writing. Because fuck you, that's why. </div>
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Secondly, the Modern Standard Arabic you’ll learn from textbooks, college courses, US Government Spy training, etc, is used only for writing and for watching the news. Each country or even area of a country has a different dialect. They SAY dialect, but they don’t mean cute pronunciation differences like the Weasley brothers have, they mean that these dialects can be completely un-intelligible to each other. The pronunciation, grammar and vocabulary of colloquial Arabic are all different from the Modern Standard Arabic you learned to read and write from your textbook. (What’s left to language after you change the pronunciation, grammar and vocabulary?)</div>
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<img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5696341115971413938" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgP636BXZfx90EEdIRMbH6iGstwKiHgLPOMNbkTbWzpDbLAxc3YKEeeUtWTppT7gffokXSiZBP_1Ew8xnjngcy4hkzKDsrJ05luro3cHnh3fFdLqsLfHI4Km-uo_N8rLxGhzynlmw/s320/flirting.jpg" style="color: #0000ee; cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 275px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; margin-top: 0px; text-align: center; text-decoration: underline; width: 183px;" /></div>
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<o:p></o:p><span style="font-size: small; text-align: center;"></span><span style="font-size: small; text-align: center;"> “BODY Language….”</span></div>
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So, first you have to figure out where you want to go/who you’re going to need to talk to. Figure out what dialect they speak and then spend 2,200 class hours (double that to include homework time) reaching “general proficiency.” <a href="http://www.blogger.com/(http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Wikibooks:Language_Learning_Difficulty_for_English_Speakers)">The Foreign Service Institute of the US Department of State </a><span style="font-size: small; text-indent: 0.5in;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/(http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Wikibooks:Language_Learning_Difficulty_for_English_Speakers)">has found that it takes 88 weeks of super intensive study (half that time spent in-country) for dedicated, high-aptitude language learners to become mostly proficient in Arabic. Conversely, they say it takes 23-24 weeks to reach that level in Italian or Norwegian and 30-36 weeks for Swahili. You could become competent in THREE other languages in the time it takes to reach the same level in Arabic.</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small; text-indent: 0.5in;">Remember how French and Spanish have gender for each noun? It was sometimes hard to remember that extra little info, wasn’t it? Guess what, Arabic has that too! Also, each noun and verb must be learned not two, but three separate ways- singular, dual, and plural. In English we normally just tack an -s on the end of a noun and maybe turn the -y to –i for plurals, but sometimes we have totally different words, “I” versus “we” or “mouse” versus “mice.”</span></div>
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It would be like every noun changing three different ways—<i>mouse, bimice</i> and <i>mice</i>. Or maybe <i>dualmice</i>…</div>
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If Arabic gets too tough and you want to switch to Dutch, just remember that ageless proverb: </div>
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الخاذل أخو القاتل <i>The deserter is the brother of the murderer.</i><o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>5 Xhosa </b></div>
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Xhosa is spoken in South Africa and Lesotho by about 8 million people, including Nelson Mandela. Xhosa is related to languages spoken all over Africa, so if you want to travel throughout Africa, learning a new language every 300 hundred miles, why not start here? There are <a href="http://www.xhosafundis.co.za/">classes </a>offered in South Africa if you care to move to Cape Town and you can get newspapers and magazines printed in Xhosa. </div>
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Xhosa is an “agglutinative” language which means that each word starts with a base and then you add prefixes or suffixes or infixes to add meaning. Do we do this in English too? Abso-fucking-lutely! (Well…abso-fucking-not-really would be more accurate.) Sure, we add prefixes, and we add suffixes, but, like the example above, the f-bomb is about the only in-fix we have. <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_l7ty_MH_Y">Xhosa also has four different tones and 18 different click sounds.</a> <span style="font-size: small; text-align: left;">In fact, the name of the language begins with a click sound that sounds kind of like the click we use when we want horses to go a little faster.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small; text-align: left;">Xhosa also has <a href="http://www.xhosadictionary.com/article-nounclasses.php">15 noun classes</a>. </span><span style="font-size: small; text-align: left;">This means that when you learn a new noun, you need to learn which of 15 categories it belongs to. Is it an abstract thought like </span><i style="font-size: small; text-align: left;">justice</i><span style="font-size: small; text-align: left;">? Then it fits in noun class 14. Is it a loan word from a different language like </span><i style="font-size: small; text-align: left;">computer</i><span style="font-size: small; text-align: left;">? Then it goes in noun class 9. Noun classes affect things like which pronoun you use with the noun, how you make it plural, how it works together with the verb and so forth. </span><span style="font-size: small; text-align: left;"> So after you learn each word, you have </span><span style="font-size: small; line-height: 115%; text-align: left;">to figure out which noun class it fits into and what other changes you have to make to the sentence based on that.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: georgia; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;"> </span><span style="font-family: georgia; line-height: 115%; text-align: left;">Finally, numbers can be hard. I’ll just leave you with a few</span><a href="http://www.xhosadictionary.com/article-numbers.php" style="font-family: georgia; line-height: 115%; text-align: left;"> examples.</a></div>
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66 amashumi amathandathu anathandathu amashumi amathandathu anesithandathu<o:p></o:p></div>
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24 amashumi amabini anane amashumi amabini anesine<o:p></o:p></div>
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56 amashumi amahlanu anathandathu amashumi amahlanu anesithandathu</div>
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<span style="font-size: small; line-height: 115%; text-align: left;"><b>4 Japanese</b></span></div>
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Japanese is spoken in Japan by about 125,000,000 people, including Ichiro and Pikachu. Its writing system is ridiculously hard. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_phonetic_alphabet">There are two different alphabets (adding up to 96 letters)</a>, in addition to the characters which make up the main base of writing. There will be lots more to say about the difficulty in learning to read characters further on, but first-</div>
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What makes it easy: It is pretty easy to pronounce, has very few irregular verbs (not like English: swim, swam, swum), and there are countless textbooks, learning CDs, and teachers to teach it. </div>
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How’s it hard?</div>
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The pronunciation has a key difference from English that we didn’t even know existed. Based on how long you say the vowel in a word, the meaning changes. <a href="http://www.learnjapanesefree.com/basic-japanese-sounds.html"><i>Beru</i> is building while <i>beeru</i> is beer and <i>obaasan</i> is grandmother and <i>obasan</i> is aunt</a>. Try picking those differences out when you’re in the middle of a conversation. </div>
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Turns out lots of languages are agglutinative, and Japanese is no exception. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agglutination#Examples_of_agglutinative_languages">They pack lots of meaning into a single word, expressing the idea, “if (subject) had been made to work…” <span class="apple-style-span"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">by saying</span></span>, “hatarakaseraretara...”</a></div>
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However, the thing that trips up most people is the honorific language. In Japan, being polite occupies about 90% of your waking hours. Verbs change completely depending on if you’re talking to a close friend or your boss. There are something like 6 levels of politeness, and the second trickiest part is knowing when to use which one. You can’t talk to your boss the same way she talks to you, because you’re at different status levels. Women and men have different ways of speaking (guess which gender speaks more politely?) Plus, you can hurt a close friend’s feelings by speaking too politely, therefore implying that you’re not actually all that close. They take this stuff so seriously that you can actually take a night course to learn the exact proper degree of bowing.</div>
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<img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5696346723591485506" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWPWiOhFtgoTAwnP6xGW4uIMNPMXqlAjka725xlvv-LuvLfZbiRMxOQxEvKzEuvzEJws_IbJSeHu95UCUcZJ3FrRSO4T4lriL9jTHcarXRRYBTnKBkRPzKOUBYy0WzZVAuP6ePkw/s320/bowing.jpg" style="color: #0000ee; cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 186px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; margin-top: 0px; text-align: center; text-decoration: underline; width: 271px;" /><br class="Apple-interchange-newline" /></div>
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“You’re fired.”</div>
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The words change a lot depending on which level of politeness you’re going to use. <a href="http://kimallen.sheepdogdesign.net/Japanese/polite.html">For example, the past tense of the verb <i>to read</i> changes from its most causal form, <i>yonda</i>, to its most formal form <i>oyomininarimashita</i>. Sometimes you have to use completely different words, like changing <i>ashita </i>(tomorrow) to </a><i><a href="http://kimallen.sheepdogdesign.net/Japanese/polite.html">myounichi (tomorrow, but nicer)</a>.</i> </div>
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<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;"> Besides the fine arts of paper folding and really weird porn, they have also mastered the art of both and indirect speech in Japan. You’ll never hear the word no. You’ll rarely hear people say what they honestly think. If you ask someone to come to your house for dinner with friends, they might say, “Oh, don’t you think it’s too much trouble to make dinner for so many people?” You’ll insist, “No! I like having people over!” They’ll mention, “Won’t it be hard to find your place?” “No, no, no,” you’ll say, “there’s a bus stop right in front of the apartment building.” They might have to work late that day… “Whenever you can come by, come!” you’ll say warmly. At this point, they trip and fall over… and you might finally realize that what they’re actually saying is, “Hey, dumbass, I’ve made it abundantly clear I’m not coming! Stop pushing it. Can’t you understand Japanese?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="line-height: 115%;"> <o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b>3 Navajo</b></div>
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Navajo is spoken in the southwest United States by about 170,000 people, including Keith Little: a decorated Code Talker who fought in the Marshall Islands, Sai Pan, and Iwo Jima. Read more about the code talkers at <a href="http://www.navajocodetalkers.org/">http://www.navajocodetalkers.org</a>.</div>
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<a href="http://www.indians-artifact.com/indians%20of%20north%20america/navajo-language.php"> Navajo has four tones: high, low, rising, and falling, and these can each be pronounced either normal or nasalized. </a> (Don’t get a cold when you’re trying to speak Navajo.) Navajo has a shit-ton of verbs, despises nouns, and doesn’t use adjectives at all. <span class="apple-style-span"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="apple-style-span"> Navajo is an endangered language. In fact, only three percent of Navajo speakers are monolingual. Lots of people care about it, so there are bilingual schools to preserve the language, and <a href="http://blog.rosettastone.com/2010/08/25/rising-to-the-challenge-producing-navajo/">Rosetta Stone recently completed a language program</a> so you can learn it at home. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="apple-style-span" style="font-size: small; line-height: 15.6pt;">The fun thing about Navajo is that verbs are all important and change all the time.<a href="http://blog.rosettastone.com/2010/08/25/rising-to-the-challenge-producing-navajo/"> You can’t just say, “sit,” you have to think ahead about WHAT is sitting. If people sit, it’s </a></span><a href="http://blog.rosettastone.com/2010/08/25/rising-to-the-challenge-producing-navajo/"><em style="font-size: small; line-height: 15.6pt;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;">sidá</span></em><em style="font-size: small; line-height: 15.6pt;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-style: normal;">, if something round or square is sitting, you use si’á</span></em><em style="font-size: small; line-height: 15.6pt;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-style: normal;">̨, and if something flat and flexible is sitting, you use </span></em><em style="font-size: small; line-height: 15.6pt;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-style: normal;">siłtsooz.</span></em></a><em style="font-size: small; line-height: 15.6pt;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;"> </span></em></div>
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<span class="apple-style-span"> Also, unlike Japanese that borrows words like computer (konpyuta) and beer (beeru), Navajo rarely does that. Navajo creates new words describing the term. A cell phone is called </span><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;">“the thing you stand up on the hill with” and an army tank is a “car that one sits up on that crawls around with a thing on it that makes big explosions” <i>(</i><em><span style="font-style: normal;">chidí naa’na’í bee’eldó</span></em></span><em><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-style: normal;">̨</span></em><em><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-style: normal;">ó</span></em><em><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-style: normal;">̨</span></em><em><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-style: normal;">htsoh bikáá’ dah naaznilígíí.</span></em><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;">) Also, since they rarely use nouns, instead of calling most anything one person sits on a chair, they describe by how it’s used, so it can be, <i>“</i><em><span style="font-style: normal;">bikáá’ dah ’asdáhí</span></em><span class="apple-converted-space"><i> </i></span><i>(“one sits up there on it”) or<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></i><em><span style="font-style: normal;">bikáá’ na’anishí</span></em><i>(“one works on it”),”</i></span></div>
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<b>2 Cantonese </b></div>
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Cantonses is spoken in Southern China, the city of Hong Kong and elsewhere by about 20 million people. </div>
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What makes it easy: Nothing. We’re pretty high on the difficulty list here. </div>
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Why it’s hard: The main problem that gets people who are learning Cantonese are the tones. <a href="http://cantonese.ca/tones.php">There are six tones: high, low-middle to high, middle, low-middle to low, low to low-middle, and low-middle.</a></div>
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So, when you learn a new word, you have to also learn <span style="line-height: 115%;">the tone, and you’ve got to hit it just right, because the middle and low-middle tones are close but crucially different. If you say something with the wrong tone, it’s a big deal. <a href="http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/essays/tones.htm">Maii (low to low-middle) means buy. Maii (low-middle) means sell.</a> <a href="http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/tonemistakes.htm">Also, tou (low to low-middle) ngo (low-middle) means <i>hungry</i> while tou (low to low-middle) ngo (high) means <i>diarrhea</i>.</a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;">Also, have you ever tried looking up a picture in a dictionary? Let’s say you’re reading a book and you come across a word you don’t recognize. Let’s say it’s this one. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="apple-style-span"><span lang="JA" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; line-height: 115%;">黐線</span></span></div>
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<span class="apple-style-span"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; line-height: 115%;">How exactly do you go about finding one of those characters in the dictionary? There’s no alphabet, so if you don’t already know the character, you don’t know how to pronounce it. Well, I’ll tell you how, but it’s a pain in the ass. First, you have to figure out the “key,” a little section of the character. There are 214 keys and every character will have at least one key in it. Then you have to figure out how many brush strokes it would take to write this key… if you’re writing it in calligraphy. Then count how many strokes for the whole character. Then you look in the key index in the dictionary for the key under the correct number of brush strokes, then go to the right page for that key, then search under the key according to the number of brush strokes for the whole character, then look through all the samples until you find the character you’re looking for. For a beginner, it can take over ten minutes to look up a single word and often times, they are actually unable to look up the word at all because as a beginner, you don’t know which part of the character is the “key” and you don’t know how many brush strokes it takes to write each key. Then you realize that most words are made of two characters and you might need to look up both of them separately and find the right combination. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<b>1 Tuyuca</b></div>
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Tuyuca is spoken in the Eastern Amazon and has less than a thousand speakers. It- obviously- doesn’t have a Rosetta Stone option, and there aren’t any textbooks for learning it. If you want to learn Tuyuca, you have to move to Columbia or Brazil and live on the shores of the river with the indigenous people who speak it. It’s a bit more difficult than practicing Spanish when ordering tacos at the van that drives right up to your house. What kind of language is it? It’s “<a href="http://www.digparty.com/wiki/Tuyuca_language"><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; line-height: 115%;">a</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; line-height: 115%;"> </span></span><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; line-height: 115%;"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">postpositional</span></span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; line-height: 115%;"> </span></span><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; line-height: 115%;"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">agglutinative</span></span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; line-height: 115%;"> </span></span><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; line-height: 115%;"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">SOV</span></span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; line-height: 115%;"> </span></span><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; line-height: 115%;">language with mandatory type II</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; line-height: 115%;"> </span></span><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; line-height: 115%;"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">evidentiality</span>.</span></span></a><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; line-height: 115%;">” Geuh…..</span></span> </div>
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<span style="font-size: small; line-height: 115%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.5in;">Because it’s agglutinative like Japanese, the one word </span><em style="font-size: small; line-height: 115%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-style: none; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-image: initial; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-style: none; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-style: none; border-right-width: 1pt; border-top-color: windowtext; border-top-style: none; border-top-width: 1pt; color: #333333; padding-bottom: 0in; padding-left: 0in; padding-right: 0in; padding-top: 0in;">hóabãsiriga</span></em><span class="apple-converted-space" style="font-size: small; line-height: 115%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="background: white; color: #333333;"> </span></span><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #333333; font-size: small; line-height: 115%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.5in;">means “I do not know how to write.” It also has two different words for “we.” One that means us and not you, and one that means us and you too. This could help clear up some confusion in English.</span></div>
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<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #333333; font-size: small; line-height: 115%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.5in;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTlav3ZooL9qhmvpBTaDE1S2KIa136YHT_UcOD8b8FjeghIpaGu4UTNWDAVIPcFF35DFtQLakziFbh1VohUx7pKGV1ryvuZAMBPAmsgy3_eR12p1ohsO35csZPBNyukJ3gN853Pg/s1600/group.jpg" style="font-size: 16px; line-height: normal; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px;"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5696348780178263570" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTlav3ZooL9qhmvpBTaDE1S2KIa136YHT_UcOD8b8FjeghIpaGu4UTNWDAVIPcFF35DFtQLakziFbh1VohUx7pKGV1ryvuZAMBPAmsgy3_eR12p1ohsO35csZPBNyukJ3gN853Pg/s320/group.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 183px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; margin-top: 0px; text-align: center; width: 275px;" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #333333; line-height: 115%;">“WE’RE going to the movies tonight.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #333333; line-height: 115%;">Finally, remember how Xhosa had 15 noun classes? <a href="http://www.economist.com/node/15108609?story_id=15108609">Well, Tuyuca has somewhere between 50 and 140. One of the more obscure noun classes is the class that means, “bark that does not cling closely to a tree.” This can also apply to baggy pants, or wet peeling plywood.</a> </span></div>
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<o:p> </o:p></div>
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As for pronunciation, it has two tones and the meaning of the word changes whether you say it nasalized or not… but you’ve already got tones and nasalization mastered from Navajo and Cantonese. </div>
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And last, but not least, remember the last time you had to write a paper and you had to painstakingly cite all your sources? <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evidentiality">Well, if you want to speak Tuyuca, you better get used to citing every thought you want to express.</a> Tuyuca has obligatory endings on its sentences that state HOW you know what you’re saying. You can’t just say, “That dude is a douchebag.” You’ve got to say-</div>
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“That dude is a douchebag” + any of the following 5 verb endings:</div>
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+ because I saw him kick that puppy (visual sensory).</div>
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+ because I can smell his Axe body spray from here (nonvisual sensory).</div>
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+ because his friends are douchebags (inferential).</div>
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+ because my friend told me (reportative).</div>
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+ because I have seen other douchebags who have also bleached the tips of their hair (assumed).</div>
Sara Hendrickshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04944028775945627752noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15029999.post-895423714707719102011-12-29T22:27:00.000-08:002012-11-11T19:44:59.813-08:00Atheist Conversion Story<div class="MsoNormal">
I sat down a while ago to write exactly how, why, and when I became an atheist. I have had people ask me about it before, and I thought I would write it all out and get my thoughts in order so that anyone who was curious could read about it. I started writing, and three hours and 1,500 words later, I wasn’t even a quarter of the way through. So, I scrapped that, and decided to write a condensed version.</div>
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What it comes down to is that I was raised in a very close-knit and very religious Mormon family. Many of my friends were my same religion, and I spent a lot of time at church. My family read the bible together, prayed together, and in high school I spent an average of 10 hours a week at church ( scripture study class, Sunday church, and Wednesday night youth activities). Church was a huge part of my life, and it was important to everyone important to me, and so I went along with it. I said what I was expected to say and I mostly did what I was expected to do. My family thought I believed it. For the most part I didn't question my “faith.” I’m a pretty easy going person, so I went along with what other people wanted, because I thought it didn’t much matter. This lasted through high school, through most of college (at a church school), and even afterwards for a short time. I didn't have a testimony of Jesus, but so what? I’ll go along with being Mormon, because it’s all I know.</div>
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At college, I started studying the bible for a required religion credit and finally started paying attention. I was supposed to believe WHAT??? I was supposed to look to the Bible for moral guidance? Murder, slavery, child brides, and polygamy all get condoned, and I’m supposed to believe this is the highest moral law? Suddenly, something actually was important to me. That something was figuring out what I DID or DIDN’T believe. Did I believe I should submit to my husband? Did I believe that homosexuality was a sin? Did I believe that my church was true? Did I even believe in god? I had a lot of incentive to believe. My whole family is very religious, and I wanted to make them happy. I was pretty miserable at this point in my life and I saw how content other people were in the church, and I wanted to be content like them. But still, after four years of study, thought, and unanswered prayers I realized that no, no church is true. There is no god.</div>
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It’s not that I think religion is “too hard,” and I didn’t want to put the work in. It’s not that I want to live a terribly sinful life. It’s not that I’m angry or sad. It’s that it’s NOT REAL. Once I realized that simple truth, I felt an actual weight lift off my shoulders. I no longer had to force my mind to believe ridiculous unscientific facts. I no longer had to harden my heart against equal rights for the LGBT community. I no longer had to feel unloved by a god who seemed indifferent to me. I had finally found the happiness I wanted so badly, and I found it through abandoning the religion that had been tying me down!</div>
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So, I guess it’s as simple as that. I’m an atheist because I tried really hard to believe in a god, and couldn’t. I tried praying, fasting, studying the scriptures and that only drove me farther away from religion. I stopped being depressed and angry when I stopped trying to force myself to believe in god. As an atheist I became more giving, open, confident, smarter, happier, and a better person. </div>
Sara Hendrickshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04944028775945627752noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15029999.post-47482227413945363992011-12-05T05:01:00.000-08:002012-11-11T19:45:19.586-08:00JLPT 4<div class="MsoNormal">
I just finished taking a big Japanese language test. It’s called the JLPT, and I took level 4. It’s a pretty expensive test. Between the test fee and the postage to mail in the test application, it cost about 7,000 Yen. That’s about 90 US dollars. I’m hoping to get a job teaching English at a Japanese University pretty soon, so being able to pass a Japanese test would look pretty good on my resume. Now, there are 5 levels, the 1<sup>st</sup> level proving that you are fluent, and the 5<sup>th</sup> level showing that you have probably studied two semesters worth at college. (As anyone who has studied a foreign language can attest to, two semesters doesn’t add up to very much language ability, much less when you have to spend half that time just learning to read...and not getting very far on that anyways.)</div>
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So, I took level 4 on December 4<sup>th </sup>2011. I began planning to take the test in May, 2011. In May, I went to the JLPT website and answered the sample questions they provide on the website for level 5 (<a href="http://www.jlpt.jp/e/samples/forlearners.html">http://www.jlpt.jp/e/samples/forlearners.html</a>). I passed with flying colors. I failed the level four questions spectacularly. However, the test wasn’t for another seven months. I study about twleve hours or more a week, so I figured I could level up in that amount of time. I study from the textbook series called Genki. I mostly focused on just working my way through that textbook. It’s a great textbook series that combines all four skills (speaking, listening, reading, writing), in order to create a well-rounded Japanese speaker. I figured that it would just as adequately prepare me for the test as anything else would. I felt that my listening skills were pretty good, as were my reading and writing skills, but that I needed more work on my grammar. (Specifically, particles, for any Japanese speakers out there)</div>
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About two months before the test, I started looking online and found some practice tests. I took them and aced the reading portion with flying colors. I did acceptable on the grammar section and got a...wait for it.... 0 on the listening section. Yes. ZERO.</div>
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See, the test doesn’t just hand you the answers. A sample question was something like, </div>
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Listen to the dialogue-</div>
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Girl: Why were you so late today?</div>
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Boy: I had problems on the bus.</div>
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Girl: What happened? Did you oversleep?</div>
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Boy: No, when I got off the bus, I realized I had left my wallet on my seat!</div>
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Girl: Oh! I thought you were going to say you forgot your wallet at home.</div>
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Boy: No, I didn’t forget my wallet at home.</div>
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Question: Why is he late?</div>
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A-He slept in and missed the bus.</div>
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B-He left his wallet at home.</div>
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C-He left his wallet on the seat of the bus. </div>
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For someone like me who can only pick out words here and there, this is a pretty tricky question! When I hear the choices, it’s hard to pick which one is best, because I heard the main parts of each sentence. So I picked B, because I heard about him leaving his wallet at home more than anything else. In the test making business, we call those types of questions “distractors,” and I should know better than to fall for them, but I did every time. That’s why I did worse than if I had just marked random answers.</div>
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So I immediately started focusing on my listening skills. I listened to Japanese on my phone as I biked to and from school, I watched Japanese TV at home and YouTube tutorials, and I started feeling more confident. I found a different listening sample test and scored 60% on it! (50% is a passing grade.) I continued studying, but I felt very confident that I would pass the test. From time to time Jon would give me five minute tutorials in Japanese grammar or reading as we were grocery shopping or waiting for the bus. For example, he taught me how to remember the difference between the very similar looking kanji for “to wait” <span lang="JA" style="font-family: "MS Mincho"; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">待</span>, “to hold”<span lang="JA" style="font-family: "MS Mincho"; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"> 持</span>, and “especially” <span lang="JA" style="font-family: "MS Mincho"; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">特</span>.<span lang="JA" style="font-family: "MS Mincho"; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"> </span></div>
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Now we’re up to the month before the test. I stop learning new things, and go back and review everything that I’ve studied up to this point. It’s a textbook and a half of review, and I’m glad I did it. There were plenty of vocabulary words I had forgotten and important grammar issues I had totally forgotten about. </div>
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The Friday before the test, I do one last online practice test, just a short one on grammar. I, again, get a big, fat, ZERO. Again, worse than if I had just marked all Bs. I then go to the list of kanji (Japanese characters)I need to know and realize that I don’t know lots and lots of them. I know about 250 from my textbook, and the test requires 280, so, since they only require 50% to pass, I figured I was in the clear. Well, my textbook did not teach me the same ones the Japanese test makers think I should know.</div>
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At this point I’m much less confident. I don’t know the right kanji, my grammar skills are non-existent, and I’m pretty sure I WON’T pass. I spend all day Saturday and Sunday morning skimming the new kanji so I can recognize them, and reviewing more grammar (particles!). </div>
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The test starts at 12:30 on Sunday, and by 12:15, almost everyone is in the room, ready to start. We have assigned seats, and we clear our desks of everything except our test voucher, a few pencils, an eraser, and a watch. The administrator walks up and down the row checking our faces to our test photo and handing out the question packet and answer sheet. At 12:45, we finally begin.</div>
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I am glad that I spent that last few days in review. Almost everything I reviewed is somewhere on that first portion of the test. There are 30 minutes and 35 questions, and the kanji part is relatively easy. I answer all the questions that I’m sure I know first, then count them. There are 18 questions that I’m almost positive I got right. That’s half. That’s passing! I finish the test, guessing on the rest of them, but making pretty good guesses, I think. I walk out of the room with a smile on my face. I notice that lots of people aren't smiling. In fact, I glance around once we've done, "pencils down!" and I notice that lots of people didn't have watches with them. They must not have known that the time was up, because plenty of people have questions with no hole at all filled in.</div>
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Jon was waiting for me outside of the building, as he went with me to the testing area to support me. He had walked to McDonald’s and gotten me a cheeseburger and a coffee to keep me from getting hungry or sleepy. He’s wonderful. One of the questions had been to correctly identify the kanji for “to wait,” so I chalk that up to him. </div>
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I felt really good going back in to take part two. It was a 60 minute reading portion. I’m a good reader, and my reading skills have transitioned pretty easily in my other language (Spanish). I got stellar scores on my practice reading tests. I love reading.</div>
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I still love reading…</div>
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.......in English.</div>
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Boy, this part of the test kicked my butt. It started with the classic Japanese test question, where they take a sentence, break it into four pieces, jumble it up, and you have to put it in order. I’m very bad at this. When I see my middle school students doing these types of questions in English, I struggle to help them figure it out….in my own language. So, I figured I would skip those, and go to the reading passages. Well, those took a long time. One reading question would focus on one paragraph of reading. So, in order to answer one reading question, I had to read a full paragraph of Japanese, then read the question and the multiple choices, another five sentences in Japanese. Just for one question. I read as quickly as I could, even skimming some reading sections, and I still had to guess on about 8 questions, just filling them in randomly. I did not leave with a smile.</div>
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There was another half hour break where Jon and I went for a relaxing walk and he talked me up, and then I went in to take the listening section. I don’t know, it’s all a blur by this point. Maybe I got 50%? There were only three multiple choices to choose from for about half the questions, so that really helped pull my random guessing score to 33% rather than 25%. </div>
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I had a hard time with this test because of its 50% pass rate. I’m used to the US, where 70% is usually the pass rate. When you walk out of a test, you know whether you knew most of the answers, so you know if you passed or not. But here, you could conceivable only know 35% of the answers, guess randomly on the remaining 65%, get 25% of those right, just from random guessing, and still pass the test! Knowing my track record of guessing, I’m not betting on that, but I still don’t know. </div>
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Also, I won’t find out if I passed till I get my results in the mail in Feb, two months after taking the completely scan-tron test. What, are they going to check them by hand? And then deliver them by carrier pigeon?</div>
Sara Hendrickshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04944028775945627752noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15029999.post-33750279108225057002011-10-02T04:59:00.000-07:002012-11-11T19:45:31.663-08:00Atheists in Foxholes<div>
I have been an atheist for about four or five years now, and I'm proud of it. I like telling people about it because it really is a part of who I am. Being an atheist has made me so much happier than I ever was when I was trying to force myself to believe in god. </div>
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I've heard a lot of family and friends say things to me like, "When you run into trouble, you'll run back to god," or "There are no atheists in foxholes!" (I've also have plenty of family and friends say that they're happy that I'm happy and let's make brownies.) <br />
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I visited the Freedom from Religion website, <a href="http://ffrf.org/">http://ffrf.org</a> and saw this article posted, <a href="http://ffrf.org/outreach/atheists-in-foxholes/">http://ffrf.org/outreach/atheists-in-foxholes/</a>.<br />
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I copied and pasted the poem below that was inscribed on the monument, written by Alice Shiver.</div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10px; line-height: 15px;"></span><br />
<div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 1.2em; font-style: inherit; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 40px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10px; line-height: 15px;"><em style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 12px; font-style: italic; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><b>Atheists in Foxholes</b><br /><br />Atheists in foxholes, some say they are myths,<br />Creations of the mind who just don’t exist.<br /><br />Yet, they answered the call to defend, with great pride.<br />With reason their watchword, they bled and they died.<br /><br />They took Saratoga from the British crown,<br />Secured America’s freedom at the Battle of Yorktown.<br /><br />From Sumter to Appomattox, fields flowed with their blood.<br />When the cannons grew silent, the flag proudly stood.<br /><br />From the Marne to the Argonne, in trenches and tanks,<br />They defeated the Germans -- the whole world gave thanks.<br /><br />They were bombed at Pearl Harbor, fought on to Berlin.<br />Many freethinking women served along with the men.<br /><br />Still war keeps erupting -- Iraq, Bosnia, and Kosovo.<br />Where is the peace that eludes people so?<br /><br />It is broken by tyrants who bear crosses and creeds,<br />That overshadow reason with hate and cruel deeds.<br /><br />So atheists prevail until your work is complete.<br />Mothers mourn, children cry, and bigots plan your defeat.<br /><br />By air, land, and sea, you answer freedom’s call.<br />Without god or faith, you seek liberty for all.</em></span></div>
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The thing that strikes me about atheists during wartime, is their bravery. See, religious soldiers believe that when they die, they go to a better place. They think that they and all their loved ones will be together again in eternity. They don't want to die, but it's not the worst thing, right?I mean, they believe heaven is awesome, don't they? </div>
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Atheists know that this life is the ONLY one we have. They know that when they die, it's finished, there's nothing else. They won't be able to see the fruits of their valor from a cloud on heaven. They know they aren't going to see any eternal rewards from their sacrifice. Their atheist loved ones will have to live with their death, knowing there is no hope of ever seeing them again. Don't you think that requires more bravery, more morality, more commitment, more honor from a person?</div>
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I don't mean to diminish anyone's sacrifice or devotion. Any brave, moral soldier gets my respect, regardless of religious affiliation/lack of affiliation. </div>
Sara Hendrickshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04944028775945627752noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15029999.post-69348943111675586072011-09-27T01:17:00.000-07:002012-11-11T19:46:04.563-08:00<div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span">Camping</span></div>
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A few days ago, I went camping with a few friends, including my husband, Jon. We went to the island of <span lang="JA" style="font-family: "MS Mincho"; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">大島</span>(Oshima). On the ferry to the island, I even saw two dolphins jump out of the water! The trip was off to a good start. We hiked over the top of about a dozen mountains to get to the opposite side of the mountain so we could see a windmill and lighthouse. Neither of them are things I particularly care about seeing, and both were surprisingly disappointing. However, the joy was in the journey, right, right? My bag carrying the tent, food, and so forth got pretty heavy around the fifth hour of tromping up and down mountains. The views were spectacular and it was great to be surrounded by trees and birds.</div>
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The sun started going down just as we noticed some cows rounding the side of a mountain. That explains the cow splats on the trail. I was wondering about that. </div>
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We walked a fair ways away from the cows to find a camp site and started gathering wood for a fire. By the time we got around the setting up our tent it was already almost dark. We pooled our food and had a delicious dinner of salad, sausage, and so forth. Just as Jon is putting the chicken wings on the grill…I hear a creepy noise coming from the darkness. I dismissed it as my imagination…until I heard it again, it was definitely an animal and it was definitely coming closer. I said, “Hey, someone shine a flashlight over there.” Someone obliged and lit up one black cow only ten feet away from me. It also lit up about seven other cows facing us. I thought, “Hey, they’re just cows, right?” I shouted at them and clapped my hands a bit to get them to go away. </div>
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The lead cow tossed its head, stamped its feet and as it was getting worked up, the light from the flashlight glinted off its nose ring. The surrounding lady cows stood calmly watching us. At that point, I stated edging towards the fence behind our campsite. It was a decorative fence, not made for keeping the cows out, but it was better than nothing. “I think we should go behind the fence guys. You don’t have to, but I’m going to.” I was going to let this bull trample my tent, eat the food, whatever he wanted. At that point, a much braver (and perhaps more experienced) friend shouted louder than I had, clapped his hands louder than I had, and called the bull’s bluff. The cows ran off into the night and I came back from behind the fence. The rest of the trip occurred without incident.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiixDo_nwJzQUgwgqNvEj67sHlA7wF6k5Z0_47cnJOokdkrAQear9GK3j0jzFN5AhIfyI49kQQLjJF3FQ7h0_i8Javm9iUqHelb7ZYsdKqxT2IfkO73rtNbK06Nh9Q9eMDO2oCRZQ/s1600/jon+looking+over+the+mountains.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"></a>Sara Hendrickshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04944028775945627752noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15029999.post-57585091777320355362011-09-27T01:03:00.000-07:002012-11-11T19:46:23.636-08:00Reading in English class<div class="MsoNormal">
A while ago I was watching an English teacher teach new words to some beginning English students. These students had a vocabulary of about 25 English words and had just mastered writing the alphabet a week earlier. Now, they were repeating after the teacher and looking at various phrases in the book, <i>Good morning, Nice to meet you</i>, and <i>Are you from America?</i> They were also studying additional individual words like, <i>Canada, I’m</i>, and <i>not</i>. </div>
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The students were looking at the phrases or words and repeating after the teacher as they attempted to learn to read these words. Three weeks later, most of them still couldn’t read (much less understand) the simple phrase, <i>I’m not from Canada</i>. Why? They had worked so hard! They had reviewed and repeated and completed about 18 workbook pages involving those very words! What could be wrong?</div>
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First, the students had no knowledge of phonics. They had learned to write the alphabet, say the ABCs, and they had learned one word which correlated to each letter, for example<i>, A/Ant, C/Car, or I/ Ink</i>. As far as I’ve seen, the teachers don’t even mention <i>th, ch, </i> and <i>sh</i>. </div>
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Second, the students were never (and have never to this date in any classroom I’ve observed) been asked to read something on their own. They ALWAYS listen to the teacher pronounce it before they are asked to “read” it. </div>
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Finally, they were exposed to very little actual English. An entire class period might revolve around learning only four new words. Another class period might involve only a minute grammar point. The language of the classroom is 95% Japanese. There were no stories, songs, picture books, etc. to expose the students to more English. </div>
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The problems with this style of learning are clear. The letter/word correlation is not all that helpful. In their first unit, they learn <i>A</i> makes the sound for <i>Ant</i>….then they learn that <i>A</i> makes a completely different sound for the words in <i>Are you from America</i>? The <i>I</i> in <i>Nice to meet you</i>, isn’t pronounced like the one in <i>Ink, </i>the <i>C </i>isn’t pronounced like the<i> C </i>in<i> Car</i>. Furthermore, the ABCs is a pretty outdated and detrimental way of teaching letter-sound correspondence. Although the letter <i>D</i> does make the <i>d </i>sound, the letter <i>Y</i> rarely makes a <i>Y (why)</i> sound. How can students be expected to figure out that <i>H</i> generally doesn’t make an <i>ech </i>sound, or that <i>Window</i> isn’t pronounced <i>double u-indo-double u?<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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Another problem is that students are never asked to actually read a new passage without first hearing it pronounced. Therefore, they never build the ability to actually read something on their own. Even students in their third year of studying English struggle to read familiar vocabulary rearranged into a new sentence. The students are never asked to, “sound it out,” a phrase most western adults remember from their elementary school days. In fact, the idea of trying to read a new word through guessing at each letter’s sound is completely foreign. Students never learn phonics rules like, <i>tion</i> is pronounced <i>shun</i>, that a <i>C</i> followed by <i>E</i> makes the <i>S</i> sound, and they never see lists of words, like <i>cat, mat, hat, pat,</i> to drill the <i>at</i> sound.</div>
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Now, some teachers (who teach English to native English speakers) nowadays are actually doing much less phonics in the classroom to teach students to read. They believe that there are too many exceptions to the rule when it comes to English language spelling. It’s true, for every rule you can teach about phonics, there are a dozen words that are exceptions to the rule. It’s very confusing. So these teachers instead expose the student to LOTS of written media and expect the students to just figure it out. The students are read massive amounts of books, they listen to books on tape, they practice reading new text aloud in groups, they are encouraged to try to write prodigiously, even if the spelling is wrong, etc etc etc. This method has some very promising results. However, you may have noticed that the English Language Learners I work with are not exposed to all that much English. They cover two pages a week in their text book and three or four pages in their workbook. A page opened at random in the middle of the first year textbook has 18 English words on it. The workbook is about the same. That is simply not enough exposure to English to help the students learn to read. </div>
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So WHY? Why are the teachers teaching it this way? Didn’t THEY have to learn to read? Don’t they know how ineffective this all is?</div>
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Then…then…then it all came together one day when I saw the students copying kanji (Japanese characters) in their notebooks for Japanese class. The English teachers here are teaching <b>English</b> reading the same way they learned <b>Japanese </b>reading. In Japanese they do have an alphabet, but starting in first grade they begin learning the characters that make up the bulk of written text. A Japanese high school graduate knows about 2,000 kanji. Each character has to have its pronunciation memorized. You can’t “sound out” a character as you can a word written with an alphabet. You have to learn the kanji through rote memorization. ..much like the teachers are teaching each new English word as something that needs to be learned through rote memorization. </div>
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They are limiting their students’ English potential by inferring that new English words are learned the same way a kanji is! Their students are left thinking that if they don’t recognize the word from sight, they don’t know it. Period. </div>
Sara Hendrickshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04944028775945627752noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15029999.post-61678133780760704662011-07-22T02:51:00.000-07:002012-11-11T19:46:46.236-08:006 reasons Why it Sucks to Live in Other Countries<div style="text-align: left;">
As a kid, I grew up wanting to explore the world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I wanted to fashion saddles for giraffes in Kenya, camp in the Amazon and chat in Mandarin with the locals over a bottle of Qingdao.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So, when the opportunity presented itself for me to teach English in Korea for a year, I jumped at the chance. A year later, I jumped at the chance to live in Ecuador, later China, and currently Japan.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m living the dream.</div>
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Sometimes the dream sucks—</div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Six Reasons Why it sucks to Live in Other Countries.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 18.0pt; line-height: 115%;">1 – You have no Privacy<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Now, throughout this article, I’m talking about living in the following specific countries—South Korea, Ecuador, Taiwan, China, and Japan, overwhelmingly Asian countries.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I hope to add live in more countries in South America (Peru) and at least one country in Africa (maybe Kenya).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So, for me, it sucks to live in other countries that are drastically different from my own, somewhere where I don’t speak the language, the culture is different, the standard food looks like something you’d only eat on a dare, and you probably don’t look like everyone else.</div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>So, first of all, other counties aren’t like America in their hiring practices.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They can and do ask for things like photos before they will hire you, ensuring that they only hire attractive people who fit their stereotype for the type of job they want.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You can probably guess which race they want to work at a hip-hop clothing store, regardless of qualifications. </div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>So, before you can get a job in most Asian countries, you have to send them a photo and a list of any health issues and tattoos, often you have send things like your height/weight ratio too. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A friend of mine in Korea pissed off his employers pretty badly by showing up and having the audacity to be ethnically Asian.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He had pulled one over on them by dying his hair blond and wearing glasses for the photo he sent in, and his John Smith style name made them think he was of European descent….which is what they wanted.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When he showed up, being completely qualified to teach English, they only begrudgingly kept him around, having already paid for his airfare and the other teacher having left for Australia already.</div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Now, once you get the job, you have to sign an agreement to act as a representative of the company at all times.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This can mean not getting hammered in public on a Friday night in case one of your English students’ parents sees you, or this can mean you have to pretend to be straight to everyone you work with.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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In addition to this agreement, you have to sign paperwork telling your company where you’re going on vacation, and where you can be reached at all times, even if you’re a 42 year old married professional with kids of your own.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sometimes they will even require you to fill out a form asking permission to leave the city! See, the company you work for is “responsible” for you while you’re in that country.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And since most apartments won’t rent to foreigners, your company often sets up your apartment, meaning that if they decide to fire you for making the company look bad….you have to immediately move out of your apartment.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Finally, you most likely look different than everyone else and talk different from everyone else.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This means that every time you have a casual conversation on the bus, everyone is listening to you, talking about you, judging you, and remembering what you do so they can tell their friends later.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It means people don’t feel shy about staring directly at you for an uncomfortable period of time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When you ask your co-worker how to say in Mandarin, “Stop staring at me,” she’ll respond, “Well, they’ve never seen a foreigner before, so if you’re uncomfortable, you should move away.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It means that people walk past you in silence and then once they’ve passed you, they shout “hello!” then laugh crazily and run away…this way they can tell their parents they met a foreigner!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A real live foreigner!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It means that all of your neighbors are counting how many days your laundry hangs outside and when your husband comes home from the bar, and how many choco pies you bought at seven in the morning, and “Do you think that odd foreign lady is pregnant?” but, “No, it’s just the choco pies.” <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It means that if you want to lay in the park and read a book, you can’t get through a page without someone coming up and asking to take a picture with you.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">2 - You become a little baby infant.<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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Remember the last time you walked up to your toddler nephew who doesn’t remember you from last Christmas and you picked him up and he screamed and pushed away?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And you smiled and tried to introduce yourself and get him to remember you?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But he just wanted to be left alone with his toys? So you dumped him down and scowled about what a little shit he was? You’re that nephew when you go abroad!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You walk down the street and an old woman runs up to you, grabs you by the shoulders and turns you so you’re facing her husband who is going to snap a photo of the two of you.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You reflexively jerk away and she smiles at you and grips you tighter while gesturing for her husband to take the photo already.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You turn away from the camera, shout “bu yao!” (I don’t want it!) in her face and stomp away furiously.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Your husband, who saw it all, tells you that the old lady was super pissed at YOU for walking away and ruining her picture. </div>
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The worst part is that in addition to everyone treating you like a baby, <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>unless you can fluently speak the language and read like a pro, you actually do turn into a baby.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I studied Spanish for three years in high school and a semester in college, and when I had a layover in Panama, I almost went to jail because I couldn’t answer the question, “Que contiene esta bolsa?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One stomach x-ray later, I was cleared to put my clothes back on and continue on my way to Quito.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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You need help for EVERYTHING.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And don’t kid yourself about how long it takes either.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The US Government (<a href="http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Wikibooks:Language_Learning_Difficulty_for_English_Speakers">http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Wikibooks:Language_Learning_Difficulty_for_English_Speakers</a>) says that to become competent, even if you only want to be halfway competent, you still need to spend between 600 to 2200 hours studying, like at school, in a class, in addition to homework and conversation practice, not just half-assing it with some language tapes on the plane. </div>
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This means you need help going to the bank, setting up a cell phone, filling out paperwork for your visa, everything.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It means that even if you have a Ph. D. in Understanding Very Complex Ideas back home, in Ecuador, when you go out to eat, you have to point at a dish at a nearby table and mime eating in order to not starve.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It means that every time you get mail, you have to keep every scrap and bring it to someone who can tell you that this piece is ok to throw away, but this piece is actually your residence tax and you’ll get deported if you don’t go to the convenience store to pay it. </div>
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Don’t worry though, you’ll soon start to pick up simple phrases.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As soon as a single “Konnichiwa,” “Ni hao,” or “Annyonghaseo,” comes out of your mouth, people fall over themselves in shock that you can speak their language!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They marvel that you said hello and praise you endlessly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They whisper excitedly over your ability to say ONE WORD and gasp when you pick up chopsticks and put food in your mouth.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They stare at you in awe as though every single two year old in Asia doesn’t already use chopsticks and compliment you wildly when the food goes in your mouth instead of down your shirt.</div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>See, not only do you actually behave like a child in some aspects, looking the wrong way when crossing the road, walking into the door because you don’t know the symbol for pull, but everyone sees you as so backward and simple-minded that they treat you like a child, taking your photo without permission, complimenting you on your 17 word vocabulary, and walking you to the bathroom instead of just pointing at the sign.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 18.0pt; line-height: 115%;">3 – It’s a Pain in the Ass<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Living abroad is a pain in the ass.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Besides finding and applying for the job, and costs of moving and getting rid of all your stuff, or storing your stuff, there are hidden pains just waiting to attack.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For example, there is no craig’s lists or thrift sales.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Back home when you want a couch, you know how to get one, </div>
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Well, congratulations, you just moved to Korea.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Where do you go for your things?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Either you go to the expensive furniture store and buy everything brand-new….when you won’t get your first paycheck for a month….and you don’t know how long you’ll stay since you’re welcoming dinner featured live baby octopuses.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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You can wait till another foreigner moves away and they might give you some of their pots or pans, bookshelves, TV etc, but rest assured, no one is moving until you’ve been there nine months already, so when they move, you find yourself with four book shelves and no books, and an extra bed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then, three months later, when you’ve decided to move back to America, you realize why they were so excited to give you their bulky furniture.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It costs, as they say, a rice paddy AND the ox to get rid of bulky furniture. </div>
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You get sick almost immediately and might very well stay that way for eight months.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At the top of my friend’s “Things I won’t miss about Ecuador” list was “pooping blood for three months.”</div>
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Moving on, it takes forever to get the simplest things done.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Because you don’t speak the language fluently, a simple trip to get a re-entry visa so you can go home for Christmas and be let back in the country after New Years takes hours, even after you went online and printed off an English translation of the form.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You find the grocery stores that carry peanut butter, tortillas, and pickles, and since I those things are spread out over three different stores, grocery shopping take a full weekend.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You can’t go to ATMs after six in Japan (because they close—no I don’t know why an ATM would close at six) and you can’t go to ATMs after seven in Ecuador (because you’ll immediately get mugged, and maybe stabbed), so these little things all add up to make it a much bigger pain in the ass to live abroad than at home where you know where to get the things you need. </div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 18.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 18.0pt; line-height: 115%;">4 - No friends<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>It can be really hard to make friends if you’ve moved abroad by yourself.</div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Back to that old issue, you don’t speak the language.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sure, more people are studying English in China right now than speak English in the whole world, that doesn’t mean they can speak it either.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>How’s your high school Spanish?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(Que contiene esta bolsa?)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I have found it pretty rare to find a local (outside of the tourism business) in Taiwan/Mexico/Japan/China/Korea/Ecuador/Greece, who can have a conversation in English.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And remember how it takes a year to become half-way competent?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You still can’t be casual friends with someone with that level of Japanese.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Once you’ve exhausted the topics in your first year textbook (The book is on the table…I’m 28 years old.) the conversation kind of stalls. </div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>So maybe you find a local who can speak a little English and wants to be your friend.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It goes really well, until you notice that she introduced you to her other friends as, “Look at the foreigner!”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And then all anyone wants to talk about is “What surprised you the most when you came to Japan?” and how pretty your blond hair is, and how they pay so much for English lessons, but now they can quit those and YOU can teach them!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Let’s take a picture together!</div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Also, other foreigners who have lived in the country forever, maybe they married a Taiwanese man or something, and speak both English and Mandarin fluently, and would be the best kind of friend to have…..they don’t want to be your friend.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Most people who live abroad do so for a year or two.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Would you go out of your way to make friends with someone who was going to move away in a year or two?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Someone who would always be asking for translation help? No, you’d make Taiwanese friends who were going to stick around and could go to the DMV on their own. </div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The pool of foreigner friends to choose from is shockingly small. When I lived in Korea, there were a total of seven foreigners living within a 30 mile radius. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So, even if the Scottish guy was a complete dick when the English lady teared up when England lost the penalty kick in the 2006 World Cup.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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<o:p> </o:p></div>
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<img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKLMf49QD9kzwl48St62MRiTEpl3PeMzvivJ_O4ZOfLnICz-nIIpJ20kiE7dLS_ZnI8Qjwq619Au3j0EGkBQNduMrk6DJ-Rj6AoJpJOxV8v9woMNI7eJUg6BNPrPvOgCr7W1itYA/s320/soccer.jpg" /></div>
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Apparently this matters</div>
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<o:p> </o:p></div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>…even if the South African guy gets kicked out of most bars for bothering cute young women as soon as he has a few beers, even if the American couple make you a little queasy with their open relationship.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Despite these things, you are all friends.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In that group of people, you’ll probably meet one or two people that you have a real connection with, but they’ll move back to Australia after six months and you’re stuck going out to see Harry Potter dubbed into Korean with the Scottish guy. </div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Finally, international travel is expensive.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So is taking time off of work.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So, obviously your relationships back home are going to suffer when you only see them for two weeks throughout the year.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You need to know that despite promises made in blood, no one will actually come and visit you.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>NOT ONE SINGLE PERSON. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Maybe if I had moved to an English-speaking/mosquito free/Beach resort in Amsterdam or a hotel offering free giraffe rides on the sunny coast of Canada, maybe more people would have followed through on their promise to come and visit.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In 5 years of living and traveling abroad, nary a friend has visited me, even with my offers of a free bed, free food, and pre-killed baby octopuses. </div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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<b><span class="Apple-style-span">5 – You Feel Bad</span></b></div>
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Maybe you’re going to move somewhere to make a difference in the world!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When I moved to Ecuador to volunteer with the United Nations,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was full of wide-eyed innocence about how I was going to change the world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I bought bags of apples and handed them out to the street kids, I gave my spare change to teens with babies begging on the corner.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I taught English to refugee families being relocated to Canada.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I volunteered with the Goddamn United Nations.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>However, life wasn’t always so sunny. Within a few weeks, I had learned that the more money I gave little kids clambering to shine my shoes, the less likely their parents were to send them to school.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>School COSTS money you see, and shining shoes all day brings MAKES money. </div>
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A gang of little boys under 15 years old attacked me, stole my bag of apples, yanked an apple out of a toddler’s hand, and pinched my ass on top of it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There is no greater humiliation than getting harassed by a little 15 year old shit-head who doesn’t even have the decency to run away, instead sauntering away with his group of 7 friends laughing at you while chomping on your apples you had bought for the refugees.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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So, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that my idealism slowly faded and one Friday I found myself stepping over a homeless old woman in my new high heeled sandals on my way to the bar with my friend and moaning about how the ATMs gave me 20s AGAIN! <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>See, in poverty-stricken Ecuador, no stores have change for such a big bill. We’d have to walk all the way across town to the rich people grocery store with security guards and go to three different registers to buy three different packs of Chiclets.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As soon as I realized who I had become, I re-devoted myself to my work with the United Nations but I did have relapses.</div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The other part of the feeling bad factor is learning that lots of people don’t like Americans.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>People outside of the Middle East, educated, handsome people that you thought you had a chance with really don’t like Americans.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sometimes that have good reason, as the US Government and its people have a history of sticking its nose where it doesn’t belong.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sometimes they don’t have a good reason, as the US Government and its people have a history of helping out other countries when they get into jams.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>However, once you start traveling, you find out that only 13% of Mexicans say nice things about America, only 34% of Japanese people feel good about Americans, and even in Australia, only 37% of people have a positive attitude towards Americans.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What did we ever do to you Australia?</div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I tell myself that it doesn’t matter, if they are going to judge me just based on what country I’m from instead of getting to know me, then they are the ones that are missing out. </div>
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<o:p> </o:p></div>
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<img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-gbILArYwHcN7dnCUX9gCFb8LED7S5rYxTWaQiTogm-USDJGef3KrrzLx7brZKp6LcXixWGS3toXmj4RvSX_rzTEj7q3KeJYXZPExpj5uFt3YkaeIRLJytdlAorZacPY6AWOXZw/s320/lonley.jpg" /></div>
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"I didn't even want to go to the stupid birthday party."</div>
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<b><span class="Apple-style-span">6 - Can’t get the things you’re used to</span></b></div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>No, I don’t just mean you can’t get Taco bell or recognizable pizza hut.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I also mean that you can’t find macaroni and cheese, or other foods you take for granted.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Apparently Root Beer and Ranch are only eaten in the USA, which I suspect is the real reason for illegal immigration.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You’ll find out once you travel a little bit that Mexican food is only made in Mexico.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You can’t get guacamole or tacos in Puerto Rico or Ecuador, unless you’re at a Mexican restaurant.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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<o:p> </o:p></div>
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<img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgffJl-utbsUhKdDULaUsnGrF9255FHRF1isUDq8xqvM4LF2SrmpWUPqGE4N0u8t6c5tA2Gl6xmYAtbX6_gLA2VqdVV0FkhVl51dAY6505FFV8uUZ1jyQfCxp2Yfrq_Pa6dxah6AQ/s320/central+and+south+america.JPG" /><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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NOT MEXICO</div>
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<o:p> </o:p></div>
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Did you know that everyone every where all the time eats rice?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Central and south America and all of Asia eat rice for every meal.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Something I never appreciated about the USA was our great variety in food choices.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When I ask, “What do you want tonight?” you can answer, “Mexican, Chinese, Italian, Indian, etc.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If we live in China and I ask you “What do you want tonight?” The answer better be Chinese, or you’re gonna be unhappy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Also, cross off every image of Chinese food you have in your head from Chinese buffets and Panda Forest.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>China doesn’t have fortune cookies, cream cheese wontons or chicken without bone fragments and beaks mixed in it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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<img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOCokmEoOKTzmiiO6v2PBbEsQCdRCztmFt-DugEMBSucb54sUZtzjmhteYuBho3hK3TppJCEby3h2JDi7zlZ9lTQepVDykOiw2OYhRvgI7OJPfzJ9PWSQMHFyvsrJq4IpcYhRNPg/s320/chinese+food+gross.jpg" /></div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>But besides food, what else can’t you get?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>How about a reasonable conversation with a person about blocked internet in China?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When you bring up how frustrating it is not to be able to post photos of the time you went camping on the Great Wall on Facebook, and the fact that you don’t know anyone’s e-mail address ever since you freely gave your soul to Facebook, they offer you a great solution!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Join Renren!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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<img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhriXnAplbQDyVkqciCrzozfu-k_ZajPCE8RHmGgTskHSlG_SHUAwQXIGhLRo_15wpHjnh62idKKMxJfN_Zzmd5zmuIKMwo3MCMyjCuqaZR__HbW_4yUQjYjkIk1qSEhEguiSV-Bw/s320/renren.bmp" /></div>
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Simple!</div>
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They’ll encourage you with a totally straight face! It’s the largest social network in the world!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s 100% in Chinese!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s a great way to keep in touch with your Chinese friends and the Chinese Government! As for your old friends in America, just invite every single one of them to make an account on renren (instructions in Chinese!), then send a friend invite (<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #666666; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"><b> </b>我们可以交朋友吗?</span><span class="Apple-style-span">), then you won’t have any problems, and you won’t be bothered by all that porn on the internet, which is the only thing the government blocks anyways.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>THE ONLY THING. </span></div>
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<o:p> </o:p></div>
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But besides China and their crazy internet censorship, lots of other great sites are blocked outside of the USA and Canada, sites like Pandora, Hulu, and Netflix.</div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Also, depending on which country you’re visiting, the following things are difficult/impossible to find.</div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Tampons</div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Deodorant<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(Prepare to have the following conversation with store clerks in Korea.)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>You: Where can I find deodorant?</div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Clerk:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What’s that?</div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>You:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s something you put on your armpits every morning.</div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Clerk: What?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Why do you need that? </div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>You: Everyone uses it, to keep you from sweating too much and smelling bad.</div>
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Clerk:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Do you mean that when people smell bad, they, they, just cover it up?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>American people are so gross that you use a product EVERYDAY knowing that you will smell so badly that you will need to cover it up? <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That’s disgusting.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Take a shower. </div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 3;"> </span>You:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Well, Canadians use it too…..</div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Birth Control Pill</div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Clothes dryer</div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Shoes for anyone with larger than average feet<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></div>
Sara Hendrickshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04944028775945627752noreply@blogger.com0