A Teaching Experience

Hello,

Today I had quite an experience. I was welcomed into the home of a Japanese woman, who with her three friends (all in their 50's) is learning English. I have been wanting to teach some English since arriving here, but I just never got around to it. Last week I finally went to a meeting on base about finding students. I wrote down my info, and last night got a call from a lady who is moving and trying to find someone to teach her four Japanese students. I had the chance to go with her today to observe her teaching and meet the ladies.

I will write more later, but I wanted to share something I received last night through an e-mail. It really does make you think. And I thought Japanese was hard!!!!

Enjoy

You Think English is Easy???

1) The bandage was wound around the wound.

2) The farm was used to produce produce.

3) The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse.

4) We must polish the Polish furniture.

5) He could lead if he would get the lead out.

6) The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert.

7) Since there is no time like the present, he thought it was time to present the present.

8) A bass was painted on the head of the bass drum.

9) When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes.

10) I did not object to the object.

11) The insurance was invalid for the invalid.

12) There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row.

13) They were too close to the door to close it.

14) The buck does funny things when the does are present.

15) A seamstress and a sewer fell down into a sewer line.

16) To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.

17) The wind was too strong to wind the sail.

18) Upon seeing the tear in the painting I shed a tear.

19) I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.

20) How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?


Let's face it - English is a crazy language. There is no egg in eggplant, nor ham in hamburger; neither apple nor pine in pineapple. English muffins weren't invented in England or French fries in France. Sweetmeats are candies while sweetbreads, which aren't sweet, are meat. We take English for granted. But if we explore its paradoxes, we find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig.

And why is it that writers write but fingers don't fing, grocers don't groce and hammers don't ham? If the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn't the plural of booth, beeth? One goose, 2 geese. So one moose, 2 meese? One index, 2 indices? Doesn't it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend? If you have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all but one of them, what do you call it?

If teachers taught, why didn't preachers praught? If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat? Sometimes I think all the English speakers should be committed to an asylum for the verbally insane. In what language do people recite at a play and play at a recital? Ship by truck and send cargo by ship? Have noses that run and feet that smell?

How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites? You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language in which your house can burn up as it burns down, in which you fill in a form by filling it out and in which, an alarm goes off by going on.

English was invented by people, not computers, and it reflects the creativity of the human race, which, of course, is not a race at all That is why, when the stars are out, they are visible, but when the lights are out, they are invisible.

PS. - Why doesn't 'Buick' rhyme with 'quick?'


You lovers of the English language might enjoy this.

There is a two-letter word that perhaps has more meanings than any other two-letter word, and that is 'UP.'

It's easy to understand UP, meaning toward the sky or at the top of the list, but when we awaken in the morning, why do we wake UP? At a meeting, why does a topic come UP? Why do we speak UP and why are the officers UP for election and why is it UP to the secretary to write UP a report?

We call UP our friends. And we use it to brighten UP a room, polish UP the silver, we warm UP the leftovers and clean UP the kitchen. We lock UP the house and some guys fix UP the old car. At other times the little word has real special meaning. People stir UP trouble, line UP for tickets, work UP an appetite, and think UP excuses. To be dressed is one thing, but to be dressed UP is special.

And this UP is confusing: A drain must be opened UP because it is stopped UP. We open UP a store in the morning but we close it UP at night.

We seem to be pretty mixed UP about UP! To be knowledgeable about the proper uses of UP, look the word UP in the dictionary. In a desk-sized dictionary, it takes UP almost 1/4th of the page and can add UP to about thirty definitions. If you are UP to it, you might try building UP a list of the many ways UP is used. It will take UP a lot of your time, but if you don't give UP, you may wind UP with a hundred or more. When it threatens to rain, we say it is clouding UP. When the sun comes out we say it is clearing UP.

When it rains, it wets the earth and often messes things UP.

When it doesn't rain for awhile, things dry UP.

One could go on and on, but I'll wrap it UP, for now my time is UP, so............ it is time to shut UP!

What part of the pig???

Today I went to the market with a friend of mine while Brian took the boys to Godzilla Park. No kidding - there is a lifesize (bigger than life size) Godzilla statue at the park that the kids can climb on and in. Don't question me as to what his significance is to Japan. I haven't done my reading.

Anyway, Saikaya is a market and high end shopping center right outside the gate, within walking distance. My friend and I walked around a bit and looked in some of the stores before going downstairs where there is a huge market with fresh fish, meats, produce, prepared foods, desserts, bakeries, coffee shops, etc. I was looking for a pork tenderloin so I could make a recipe that I have been eyeing now for a few weeks. I was so proud with my little Japanese phrase book. I went up to the meat counter and pointed to the word that means pork. The lady came out from behind the counter and pointed to a picture of a pig. I think she was asking what part of the pig I wanted. Now, I knew I didn't want anything lower than the stomach, and I certainly didn't want the pig butt, so I pointed to the back or shoulder, hoping that would be safe. She showed me a wrapped piece of pork that looked like a tenderloin, so I nodded yes and she kindly wrapped up the pork tenderloin and put it in a bag with an ice pack and directed me to pay at the counter.

I was so excited to find this because last night we came home from a day out, and I went to make the recipe. However, when I opened up the wrapping to the pork, it smelled horrible. I won't tell you the word Brian used to describe the smell. Unfortunately we experience this with commissary items all the time.

The nice Japanese lady rang up my purchase and said "2000 yen". Wait a second! 2000 yen is about 20.00 us dollars. The same size pork tenderloin from the commissary had cost me $2.52. I couldn't really say no and walk away. It had already been packaged up for me. All I could think was it had better be one damn good piece of meat. Did I forget to mention that the tenderloin was only 3/4 lb.

I brought it home and made the recipe- Pork Tenderloin with Gorgonzola sauce. It was so yummy! The boys all loved it and ate a second helping. That certainly does not mean that I will get my meat at Saikaya on a regular basis. This is the same place that sells two oranges for eight dollars. I think you you are paying for the pretty packaging.

Sorry for the blog post about food, but I had to share. Stay posted. I will add some pics of our weekend when I get the chance. I need to get to bed. I have been up studying my Japanese. I am taking a class every Tuesday, and the instructor is tough. She'll yell at me if my homework isn't done.

Have a great week!

Caught by the Command

So most of you know how obsessed I am by decorating, organizing, rearranging, and doing projects around the house. Two weeks ago, we decided it was time to change Patrick's room and make it more of a seven year old boy's room instead of a little boy's room. Out with the space shuttles and in with the "extreme sports" theme. I did have a hard time with this as it only means that my little boy is growing up. I can remember the day I put together his little boy's room when he turned two. Space shuttles galore. That's all he talked about. Well, back then, I was convinced that my little guy would be an astronaut. Now, I am not so sure. We were looking through a Pottery Barn magazine and saw it. It was a room with a surfshort looking duvet cover and pictures on the walls of skateboarders, surfers, snowboarders, etc. So this is what Patrick decides he would like his room to be. No problem- I go online and do my thing.

Fast forward two weeks later when I get a call from Brian at the office. "Ame- I have eight boxes here from Pottery Barn" Now this is the problem. Our mail doesn't come to our house. I can't just open packages and get rid of all of the evidence (boxes and packing) before he gets home. No, they go straight to Brian's office to be sorted and stacked on his desk for all of his staff to see. So it is a running joke in the office to see how many packages LCDR Nowak can get in a day. What can I say- I have gotten pretty good at internet shopping. When there is no Pottery Barn in Japan, what is a girl to do?

Make a slideshow - it's easy!

New Post for a New Year! Happy 2008!

Okay- so if any of you really check back to read the Nowak blog, you've found yourself looking at the same old blog that I composed way before Christmas. Yes, sometimes we get into a rut, and just can't get out of it. We had a rough start to 2008. However, there has been no excuse for not writing. Since I wrote last, we've traveled to and from the states, Brian has flown to Guam and back, and we've flown to Sapporo and back for the annual snow and ice festival.

As I sit here trying to write a new blog entry, the boys are playing with their new Wii that they got for Christmas. Seriously, why didn't they make these things when I was a kid? Brian is going to the exchange to buy a saw- we need a home project so we decided we would lay a wood floor in our kitchen. I am constantly trying to come up with projects around the house to keep us busy. However, in a base house, it is very difficult to find many. Our home in Virginia always needed a project whenever Brian was home, so here we find it difficult on a cold winter day.

Speaking of cold winters- for those of you in the midwest, I hate to complain. I know we are not experiencing anything like you have been having over the last few weeks. Sapporo was cold, but still not as cold as the midwest. Yokosuka, Japan has a hard time functioning in the snow and ice. Last weekend, about an inch of wet snow fell over the base and surrounding areas, and it paralyzed everything. By 2:00 on Sunday afternoon, they had already closed school on Monday. Monday happened to be the day that we were scheduled to fly to Sapporo for our trip. We got on our tour bus at 8 am and headed to the Haneda airport. Unfortunately, the Yoko Yoko and the "B" (the two highways to the airport) were closed still. I am not sure why. By Monday, it was 40 degrees, and the sun was shining. We had to take the back roads- highway 16. What a mess. We went maybe 20 miles in 4 hours. Finally, we were let off at a train station and took 3 trains to the airport. We missed our 10:15 am flight and got rebooked to the 3:30 flight. We finally ended up in Sapporo by 5:15 that evening. We took every form of transportation to get there except by boat! We had a great time, even though the trip got cut short and we lost a whole half day.

I am sharing some of our favorite photos from the past month and a half. Some are from Chrismtas and some are from Sapporo. I am going to try my hardest to keep this blog going and post regularly. Maybe I am now out of the rut and back on track. Happy 2008 to you all.