Weeping face from a bee
Recently in my Japanese class, about once a week, we’ve started learning Japanese idioms. One in particular came to my mind this afternoon “泣き面に蜂”, which directly translated comes out to something like Weeping face, bee (there’s a particle in there, “ni”, but I don’t grasp its meaning). Perhaps its “by a weeping face, there’s a bee.” None the less, translated in a more understandable way, it means “misfortunes seldom come alone”, or “when it rains, it pours.” Well, that was my lunch time today....
Read MoreIt comes in waves.
It almost always seems to come in waves. Sometimes I just miss my family. I think most of the time, I’m pretty content to be where I am, just where God has put us here in Okazaki. I suppose a lot of that comes down to being content… and sometimes my contentment is tried. This last week seems to be one of those weeks. One of those weeks when I just kind of miss America… the food (for some reason Taco bell sounded just amazing), or being able to make certain kinds of foods… but especially my family. Its hard to be so far away and not get to be a part of those daily...
Read MoreMore and more vocabulary
We finally started up class again on Friday. It was good – not too hard, mostly introductory stuff and picking our electives for the quarter. However… looking at my new vocabulary that I have to learn for this quarter is a bit daunting. There also seems to be more and more unfamiliar Kanji that I’m running into and needing to make the time to look up. I am so incredibly glad for my Japanese Dictionary app on my iphone – its a LIFE SAVER. I feel like I really don’t want to know what learning Japanese would be like without it. For the most part I’ve been...
Read MoreDid the earthquake kill my sewing machine?
About two months ago, William asked me to mend his jeans that had a few rips in them. I told him it would be no problem. Here I am fixing them just now. I actually haven’t used my sewing machine since before the earthquake last March. So when I pulled it out today, I was hoping it would work. I turned it on, and everything seemed to be alright, until I tried to sew. The tension in the thread was all off. I like to sew, but honestly, I know nothing about my sewing machine other than how to thread it. After nearly an hour of trying to mess with the tension and looking things up online,...
Read MoreA dumb moment.
I biked my way over to the home store today to buy a couple of cardboard boxes to send over to my sister Anna. After I went inside and found one of the two boxes I was looking for, I went to my bike to pack everything on. There just happened to be a nice old man who had parked his bike next to mine. I was in his way, so I said excuse me. He said, its okay. Then he started to make small talk. He asked me what I had bought. I showed him my cardboard box, and said that that was it. He proceeded to tell me that I could get them for free at the super market (I got the general gist really – I...
Read MoreJapanese
So Will and I went to the mall yesterday to look around and try to find a bookstore. Last month we went on a hiking trip with the Okazaki International Association (or something), and we ended up getting these two 1,000 yen (about $13) gift cards for buying books at a book store. I ended up buying a Japanese cookbook (no English this time). So here’s to taking the plunge! Gotta start sometime. This way I’m studying and coking at the same time. I figure it can’t go wrong. At least not too terribly. lol. In addition to that I’ve decided it’s about time I change...
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