child devil of tuna

How I Learned the Meaning of the Word IRUKA (the Hard Way)

I had my last kindergarten visit on Monday, and before I gave my tried and tested self-introduction, Q&A session, "How many foods does Grace have?" triple whammy of a lesson, I spent a couple of hours playing with a bunch of 4 and 5 year-olds that kept jabbering away in incomprehensible kiddie Japanese. One student asked me to draw her a rabbit, which opened the floodgates for additional commissions. Most of the requests were easy enough: bears, hamsters, birds, whales, crayfish (the class had a pet crayfish) blah blah blah. Then one little girl asked me to draw her an iruka. I had no idea what that word meant, so I asked other students to describe an iruka for me, in hopes of figuring out just what kind of animal I was dealing with.

"It lives in the ocean."
"It eats fish."
"It's pretty."

Uhhhhhh, still not sure. Finally, one boy put in his two cents. "It's a small whale!" So, without really thinking, I literally drew this girl a "small whale" and when I presented her with the drawing, she took one look and ran away crying. Was my drawing really that bad? I didn't think so; I thought it was a pretty nice-looking whale myself. The "small whale" boy ended up showing me a picture book of marine creatures and pointed to a particular drawing. "THIS is an iruka!"

So that's how I learned that iurka is Japanese for dolphin. Oops.

On non-dolphin note, I realized that my internet is getting cut tonight at midnight. It seemed like a good idea a month ago when I called the YahooBB people about canceling my account, but the thought of 25 days without my high-speed cable escape from boring evenings in Kuwana doesn't seem so swell anymore. I thought having no internet would force me to be more productive, but I know that I'll just find different ways of wasting time. But we'll see. The optimist in me is still hopeful. I will keep you posted on my experiement in productivity.

Currently Reading: Lost Japan - Alex Kerr
Currently Playing: Crackerman - Stone Temple Pilots

posted by Grace @ 6/30/2005 12:25:00 AM 0 comments

It has come to my attention that I have offended people and that other peoples' comments have also been offensive to some, and while this has most likely been unintentional, it has nonetheless become a great big mess.

Please, no one take offense at this entry! I'm not targeting anyone. I am making a broad, general statement and am pointing fingers and no one. I apologize for anyone who has felt unwelcome reading my blog lately.

I would like to lay down some rules for commenting:

1) Don't be hurtful or negative. Especially not towards people you've never met or have not seen in years and years. What might be funny to you may not be to someone else. Your sense of humor may not be universally well-received.

2) Be tactful. Try to imagine yourself on the receiving end and also remember that sarcasm doesn't really translate well over text. Don't assume that someone will correctly infer the intended tone of your comment.

3) Please don't correct me, or if you want to, make it a private comment. To be frank, I get really embarrassed when people point out my mistakes and I lash out because I get defensive. There's no need to announce my errors to the entire public.

Anyway, I've decided to take a break from blogging. As you've probably noticed, I've posted nothing of significance since my Vietnam photos and I don't anticipate any noteworthy upcoming events. Besides, anything I end up writing here will probably be a complaint about something or other anyway, and even I'm tired of listening to myself whine.

My life in a nutshell:

My job is the same. I expect that it will be until the very last day.

I have pre-grad-school jitters, but if you know me, you know I always do this and it's no big deal. I'll get over it.

I've been depressed and on edge lately and I don't really know why. But again, I'm sure you all knew that already.

I'm coming home Monday, July 25th. Mark your calendars.

See you all again, and hopefully, sometime sooner rather than later.

posted by Grace @ 6/16/2005 04:02:00 AM 0 comments

posted by Grace @ 6/10/2005 12:54:00 AM 0 comments

posted by Grace @ 6/06/2005 12:42:00 AM 0 comments

Some of the "bad" students at Yowa Jr. High School decided late last week that it would be really funny to try and thrash my poor, already-thrashed bicycle. It's fairly obvious which bike is mine, as it is the only red one. Anyway, at the end of the day last Friday, when I went to the bike parking lot, I found that three boys had knocked over my bike and was kicking it. They saw me and ran. Classic.

Anyway, my bike came out relatively unscathed, aside from the front basket which is no longer rectangular but now a slighly lopsided parallelogram. I don't mind, as the basket still functions and I can carry a bag of groceries in it.

What was really fortuitous was that my kickstand (which was broken from my car accident in October) has now been kicked back into working order by the Bad Boys of Yowa. I should thank them the next time I see them.

Currently Playing: Bicycle Race - Queen

posted by Grace @ 6/05/2005 05:49:00 PM 0 comments

In commemoration of my 200th post, I decided to (finally) add links. Also, I'd like to introduce to you, Jenni (not from the block, but from Mie-ken) and her new blog, Wolf's Clothing. Welcome to the wild world of blogging. There is no return.

I'm contemplating cutting off my internet in my last month in Japan, as I will have tons of stuff to do in preparation for going home and going to grad school. I realized last night, after having wasted about 2 hours cleaning out my Yahoo inbox of its 235 random emails, 1 more hour reading other peoples' blogs and visiting random unenlightening websites, and an additional hour shopping on eBay so that I can fill this void in my heart, that I have wasted a lot of my free weeknights and countless weekends doing nothing more than vegging in front of my computer. None of you update your websites enough to justify this. The only thing that's stopping me from actually cutting myself off is that all of my schools have recently started to use internet blocking programs/software/whatever to block the obvious porno and dating sites, but annoyingly, they're also set to block any site that has a bulletin-board-like interface. This means I wouldn't be able to post any blog entries or comment on any of yours and this has sadly been a huge concern for me. I even wrote this entry at school, but had to email it to myself so that I could post it when I got home. I won't have that luxury if I disconnect my YahooBB. I know, I'm lame, but there are worse things in life.

Currently Reading: Nothing. I have no more books to read at the moment.
Currently Playing: Nothing. I'm not allowed to listen to music at school.
Currently Feeling: Annoyed at internet situation and angry at the punk-ass student who said I had fat arms during class.

posted by Grace @ 6/03/2005 03:08:00 AM 0 comments