Bikurishita!!

Wow 11 days and no posts!! Either nothing is going on on my life or...I don't know what! Maybe a combination of both. Just so you know, I am know a katakana master. I finally completed the transition tonight. All I had left was my r sounds and my y sounds but I really have been lazy for about a week. But I actually knew most of them already because I had been able to guess their sounds from reading katakana in the gym and whatnot. It really has opened up a whole new world for me in the gym-I can actually read some simple machine instructions and schedules. Here are some examples. See if you can translate them from katakana into normal english.

• kwi-ku stah-to
• sto-pu
• te-nee-sue ko-ru-toh
• she-toe (picture a weight machine instruction here)
• cheh-su-to
• sue-pee-do
• sha-wah
• roh-keh-ru

Ok those were all things from a weight gym context. You should probably be able to get most of them. If you're having trouble, then look at the sounds and then close your eyes and say it so that your eyes aren't tricking you.

Here are a few more that I'm getting from my kids book-they have nothing to do with the gym-I'll try to provide a little hint for each.

• keh-key (a sweet desert)
• meh-ro-N (a fruit)
• rah-ee-oh-N (an animal)
• new-doh-rue (another food)
• mee-rue-ku (a drink)
• nah-ee-fu (a tool maybe)
• heh-ru-meh-to (for a hockey player maybe)
• ah-ee-roh-N (keeps your shirts looking nice)

Ok that's all for not. Post your answers if you want. The winner gets my respect-don't cheat and look at other peoples' answers!!

Disneyland

Well that was a blast. My expectations weren't all that high but there was some really cool stuff-and apparently the Japanese Disneyland isn't nearly as good as the American one so goodness knows what the family back home has been missing! I thought Fumiko was crazy to have us on the 7:47 train to Chiba to get there for the 9:00am opening but it was a good thing she did because we were there all day and we still didn't get a chance to see everything. I thought $55 was kind of expensive for a ticket but it's not so expensive when you divide that cost by 12 hours. And it does bring back your childhood! Anyways here are a couple pics.

Look out Mickey-here I come!!

If things go well I should be visiting a Disneyland for the first time ever on Tuesday. Fumiko doesn't know how many times she's been before but she claims to be a Disneyland/DisneySea expert and has already bought the tickets and has an itinerary that begins at 7am on Tuesday morning-and I thought this was supposed to be fun. We'll see how it goes anyways. I'll be sure to bring the camera along so you can bask in the joy.

My roomie is leaving soon which is both sad and great. Sad because she's a great person but great because there will only be two of us in the house and it means we'll be able to turn that bottom room into a dining room. Our rent is going to go up a little but she got a heck of a good deal to live down on the first floor so it isn't going to be too bad of a hit. A house for two people for less than the price of what those (expletives deleted) charge at NOVA-fantastic!

Things are starting to warm up (as in WARM up) and I'm looking forward to the summer nights when we can go to the convenience store and buy a bag of fireworks and go down to the local park and set them off. It should be good times!

My katakana 'vocabulary' is growing at an exponential rate. Actually I've only memorized 20 but I've only sat down for 3 sessions so that isn't too bad. I demonstrated my initial progress to Fumiko which produced an uncontrollable bout of laughter because apparently although my characters look the same as anything else I've seen I have the stroke order of a monkey. She'd really be shocked if she knew that I have poor stroke order for english too! So anyways I bought a kids book which teaches the proper stroke order and I can give myself a sticker at the end of each session.

The best, the best, the best, the best...

No I'm not referring to myself-I just had to make a title because according to Emily if I don't it just looks like one big long essay. Anyways those were the lyrics I happened to be hearing coming from my earphones at the moment.
Yesterday was beautifully hot-apparently it was 31 degrees and it sure felt like it. I had to work though so I couldn't really enjoy it. Today on the other hand was my day off so of course it's raining just like it does on every day off I have. Last Saturday I got the day off to go strawberry picking and since it was actually my head teacher's day off and not mine it was beautifully sunny. I'll post a bit more about that later sometime and I'll add a few pics.

I bought a new bike yesterday-I found a nice one that comes with all the bells and whistles so I had to buy it. I'm a bit materialistic that way. Anyways I had been harassing the new teacher to buy my old bike for about a week now and he finally did yesterday. My old bike was basically a mountain/street bike and it was a great ride. This one's half way between a mountain bike and the old granny bikes you see around here. It's amazing how different the two bikes feel. If the old one was like driving a sports car then the new one is like driving a truck. Not a bad thing-just completely different.

Because it's raining today I've been inspired to start learning Japanese again-hardcore. We'll see how that goes-I'll keep you updated. I'm going to start with learning Katakana which should be the easiest thing to do and will provide the most immediate results. But first I have to go finish breakfast and then do a little shopping....

And so that this update isn't completely boring I'll post a couple of pictures of strawberry picking. There's not much of me in these pictures and there's a reason for that-it's pretty obvious who the photogenic one in the family is!


Yes that last picture is actually fish on a stick. Yes people were actually eating them as if they were popsicles. No I didn't try one. Don't be ridiculous.