8/31/98 Monday – Late this afternoon, we went over to the Buchanans' house. Mr. Eddie taught us a lesson about "the pearl of great price" in Matthew. He translated into English from the Japanese written on the back of the pictures. That must have been hard! We sang a few hymns together.
After that, we ate supper. I had made chicken cornbread casserole. I forgot to add the sauce before the cornbread, so it was a little dry. For dessert, we ate both banana cream pie AND pumpkin pie. After Gerald and Grace went to bed, the rest of us played Pictionary. It was hilarious – girls against the boys, and we tied.
9/5/98 Saturday – This
afternoon, I attended a party for the Pikkoro girls and their mothers. The
party was held at Big Cabin, an Italian restaurant in town. We started the
meal with a toast: "Compai!" Then came different varieties of spaghetti, fried chicken
nuggets, French fries, and pizza.
While we were all eating, each person had to stand up and make a little speech about the operetta. I said (in Japanese) that it was difficult to play two very different roles, one right after the other.
9/10/98 Thursday – This was an ordinary, but busy day. I got up at 7:30am (early for me) to the sound of my new digital alarm clock, which registers the date and temperature. Then for breakfast, I add an egg and cheese to the leftover rice from last night. That was a tasty meal with bacon bits sprinkled on top.
Then for schoolwork: Geometry was an easy lesson about latitude and longitude. That was the last lesson in a long and difficult unit about circles. I got so fed up with Geometry that I gave up way back in May, and didn’t attempt it again until few weeks ago. Anyway, I’d better persevere and finish the last two units. Homeschooling has more ups than downs, but Geometry is definitely the downest of all downs.
I practiced the piano. I’m working on "Sakura," a four-page version. I’ve been practicing for a month or so with Mrs. Takenaka (who is also my piano tutor, besides my drama and voice teacher), and I have gotten only halfway through this piece. This arrangement of "Sakura" (meaning "Cherry Blossoms") is by far the hardest piece of music I have ever attempted.
The other piano pieces I am working on include: "He Is Born, the Divine Christ Child" (which I picked because it looked like the easiest one in my hymn-arrangement book) and "Minuet" by Beethoven.
By 10:30, I was at the church. Papa arrived to teach a Bible study in Ladies’ meeting. Mama was there to listen to him, and I was there because my parents were there.
I took some schoolwork along to study. I actually finished the Literature book, which means I’m all done with the subject of English for 10th grade. I’m on the last chapter of History, but still have three chapters left in Biology. The books for the new school year haven’t come yet, because we expected to be in Pennsylvania by October, when I could borrow books from West Chester Christian School.
However, we probably won’t go to America till next year, because my dad’s replacement – a retired missionary – got cancer and will need treatments before he can travel to Japan to fill in for my dad. So our year-long visit back to the States cannot happen yet.
After Ladies’ meeting, my family went out to eat at the Mexico Gallery, a restaurant with delicious food, fair prices, beautiful paintings, and classical music. Consequently, Mexico Gallery is our favorite place to eat out.
We did some errands and got back home by 2:30. I had enough time to prepare for Gerald’s reading lesson. I’m using the Ladybird series. The first books have simple sentences like: “Here is Peter. I like Peter.”
When Gerald left, I had a snack of apple slices with peanut butter, and then rushed off to Pikkoro Drama Club at the Satogaoka Community Hall. In Pikkoro, we are going to perform Jack and the Beanstalk one more time at an elementary school.
This evening, Mrs. Takenaka had two new songs for us to practice. One of them was "My Grandfather’s Clock," which I already knew better in Japanese than in English. She assigned each girl a phrase of the song to make up motions for. I had the part that goes, "Chicku-taku, Chiku-taku" [Tick-tock, tick-tock]. I stretched my arms wide and moved one arm like a clock’s hand moving in a circle.
The other song was about everybody’s friends singing together, or something silly like that. The tune is "Battle Hymn of the Republic," which must have had more different words written to it than any other tune! I’ll be singing the alto part of the chorus.
As soon as Pikkoro was over, Papa & Mama picked me up and drove me over to the church for prayer meeting, to which three church members showed up. We prayed until I was about ready to drop off.
We went home, had some chicken soup, and watched part of the operetta video which I got at Pikkoro this evening. That was the end of a LONG day.
9/13/98 Sunday – This day was the first day for our new afternoon Bible Survey Course in English. The class began at 4:00pm and ended at 5:00. Attendance included: Mama and myself, Kanako, Mari-san, and three ladies who come to Mama’s English classes.
We sang a number of hymns in English, and Papa talked about the main events of Genesis. I handed out the hymnbooks, as well as fill-in-the-blank outlines. Papa showed us the outline, with answers, on the overhead projector. However, because he used various colors, some of the words were difficult to see. Papa had to spell each word for the listeners. That got a little dull, but on the whole, it was a glad occasion for me, especially since Kanako came.
From 5:00 to 6:00, we also had a little game time for whoever cared to stay. Kanako and I played air hockey. Also, everyone played Jenga and Pick-Up Stix.
9/15/98 Tuesday – During the past week and beginning of this week, I’ve had quite a bit of free time, owing to the fact that I have only two school subjects to work on (albeit the two hardest subjects). I’ve spent a lot of spare time on three of my favorite activities: listening to stories on cassettes, reorganizing, and making crafts. Moreover, I’ve contrived to do these things simultaneously.
Most of the time, I prefer to cross-stitch, but recently, I got out crochet instruction books, yarn, hooks, and needles, and worked on making a little purse for Mama to keep her oldest and smallest Bible in. At the same time, I listened to old-time radio dramas, rerecording them to group the same shows on the same tapes.
9/21/98 Monday – This day was Mama’s birthday. In the morning, Papa and I went to a department store to find some presents for her. It’s a little hard to think of a good present.
"We know she doesn’t need any clothes," I said, as we stepped off the escalator. "Let’s go on up to the third floor. That’s where all the fun, crazy stuff is."
We wandered through a few little shops, but nothing struck us as a good item for Mama’s present.
"We could always get her some more pretty dishes," I grinned.
"She needs dishes like she needs clothes," Papa replied.
We finally spotted two sale bins and dug through socks and hair clips until we turned over some that looked like they would do as pretty presents for our marvelous Mama.
While we were all eating, each person had to stand up and make a little speech about the operetta. I said (in Japanese) that it was difficult to play two very different roles, one right after the other.
9/10/98 Thursday – This was an ordinary, but busy day. I got up at 7:30am (early for me) to the sound of my new digital alarm clock, which registers the date and temperature. Then for breakfast, I add an egg and cheese to the leftover rice from last night. That was a tasty meal with bacon bits sprinkled on top.
Then for schoolwork: Geometry was an easy lesson about latitude and longitude. That was the last lesson in a long and difficult unit about circles. I got so fed up with Geometry that I gave up way back in May, and didn’t attempt it again until few weeks ago. Anyway, I’d better persevere and finish the last two units. Homeschooling has more ups than downs, but Geometry is definitely the downest of all downs.
I practiced the piano. I’m working on "Sakura," a four-page version. I’ve been practicing for a month or so with Mrs. Takenaka (who is also my piano tutor, besides my drama and voice teacher), and I have gotten only halfway through this piece. This arrangement of "Sakura" (meaning "Cherry Blossoms") is by far the hardest piece of music I have ever attempted.
The other piano pieces I am working on include: "He Is Born, the Divine Christ Child" (which I picked because it looked like the easiest one in my hymn-arrangement book) and "Minuet" by Beethoven.
By 10:30, I was at the church. Papa arrived to teach a Bible study in Ladies’ meeting. Mama was there to listen to him, and I was there because my parents were there.
I took some schoolwork along to study. I actually finished the Literature book, which means I’m all done with the subject of English for 10th grade. I’m on the last chapter of History, but still have three chapters left in Biology. The books for the new school year haven’t come yet, because we expected to be in Pennsylvania by October, when I could borrow books from West Chester Christian School.
However, we probably won’t go to America till next year, because my dad’s replacement – a retired missionary – got cancer and will need treatments before he can travel to Japan to fill in for my dad. So our year-long visit back to the States cannot happen yet.
After Ladies’ meeting, my family went out to eat at the Mexico Gallery, a restaurant with delicious food, fair prices, beautiful paintings, and classical music. Consequently, Mexico Gallery is our favorite place to eat out.
We did some errands and got back home by 2:30. I had enough time to prepare for Gerald’s reading lesson. I’m using the Ladybird series. The first books have simple sentences like: “Here is Peter. I like Peter.”
When Gerald left, I had a snack of apple slices with peanut butter, and then rushed off to Pikkoro Drama Club at the Satogaoka Community Hall. In Pikkoro, we are going to perform Jack and the Beanstalk one more time at an elementary school.
This evening, Mrs. Takenaka had two new songs for us to practice. One of them was "My Grandfather’s Clock," which I already knew better in Japanese than in English. She assigned each girl a phrase of the song to make up motions for. I had the part that goes, "Chicku-taku, Chiku-taku" [Tick-tock, tick-tock]. I stretched my arms wide and moved one arm like a clock’s hand moving in a circle.
The other song was about everybody’s friends singing together, or something silly like that. The tune is "Battle Hymn of the Republic," which must have had more different words written to it than any other tune! I’ll be singing the alto part of the chorus.
As soon as Pikkoro was over, Papa & Mama picked me up and drove me over to the church for prayer meeting, to which three church members showed up. We prayed until I was about ready to drop off.
We went home, had some chicken soup, and watched part of the operetta video which I got at Pikkoro this evening. That was the end of a LONG day.
9/13/98 Sunday – This day was the first day for our new afternoon Bible Survey Course in English. The class began at 4:00pm and ended at 5:00. Attendance included: Mama and myself, Kanako, Mari-san, and three ladies who come to Mama’s English classes.
We sang a number of hymns in English, and Papa talked about the main events of Genesis. I handed out the hymnbooks, as well as fill-in-the-blank outlines. Papa showed us the outline, with answers, on the overhead projector. However, because he used various colors, some of the words were difficult to see. Papa had to spell each word for the listeners. That got a little dull, but on the whole, it was a glad occasion for me, especially since Kanako came.
From 5:00 to 6:00, we also had a little game time for whoever cared to stay. Kanako and I played air hockey. Also, everyone played Jenga and Pick-Up Stix.
9/15/98 Tuesday – During the past week and beginning of this week, I’ve had quite a bit of free time, owing to the fact that I have only two school subjects to work on (albeit the two hardest subjects). I’ve spent a lot of spare time on three of my favorite activities: listening to stories on cassettes, reorganizing, and making crafts. Moreover, I’ve contrived to do these things simultaneously.
Most of the time, I prefer to cross-stitch, but recently, I got out crochet instruction books, yarn, hooks, and needles, and worked on making a little purse for Mama to keep her oldest and smallest Bible in. At the same time, I listened to old-time radio dramas, rerecording them to group the same shows on the same tapes.
9/21/98 Monday – This day was Mama’s birthday. In the morning, Papa and I went to a department store to find some presents for her. It’s a little hard to think of a good present.
"We know she doesn’t need any clothes," I said, as we stepped off the escalator. "Let’s go on up to the third floor. That’s where all the fun, crazy stuff is."
We wandered through a few little shops, but nothing struck us as a good item for Mama’s present.
"We could always get her some more pretty dishes," I grinned.
"She needs dishes like she needs clothes," Papa replied.
We finally spotted two sale bins and dug through socks and hair clips until we turned over some that looked like they would do as pretty presents for our marvelous Mama.
In the evening, we drove to the Buchanans' house. We had a great dinner of lasagna, homemade bread, and salad (which I surprised myself by not disliking). After Mama had opened her presents, we also ate birthday cake & ice cream.
The cake was angel food cake, which I had frosted with berry blue frosting. The writing on the cake was hard to read, being made from M&M’s. The colors were pastel, because the M&M’s came from an Easter package.
After dinner, Eddie & Wendy Buchanan, Andrew, Papa, Mama, and I played Balderdash. It’s a game where everybody makes up a definition to a real – but rare – English word. Then we try to guess which definition is the real one.
I had more points than anyone for a while, but I started running out of ideas for fake definitions. Miss Wendy won the game. She outdid us all on the word scorkle. Her definition was: "Romantic dance of flamingos." The real answer was: "To scorch with a hot iron," but nobody felt inclined to guess that. We were all laughing hard by the end of the game.
9/23/98 Wednesday – This morning, we had a time for clean-up at our church. First, I washed some windows downstairs with Manami-chan. After about an hour and a half, I switched to outside work. I was pulling grates of the gutter in front of the parking lot and collecting all the dirt, leaves, and gravel from the gutters with a shovel. I thought it was fun to push the wheelbarrow to dump out the gunk, but I was annoyed at finding an 8-inch earthworm in there. Gross!
I ate a bunch of little oatmeal cookies for a snack and washed it down with strawberry soda. Later on, I got busy popping screens out of windows and rinsing and scrubbing them outside.
We had time for showers and naps this afternoon, which was a good thing, since we went out to eat with friends for supper. The friends were Papa’s buddies, two doctors with their wives and five small children between them.
The restaurant served chanko-nabe. That sounded ominous to me, but I was willing to give it a shot. We all removed our shoes when we entered, because the floor was made of rice straw (easily damaged), and our meal was eaten at low tables, around which we knelt.
I was pleased to be able to order Sprite, rather than green tea. Dr. Sunose competently decided for us all what our meal would contain. I preferred that to anxious inquiries on my part as to what the names of the foods meant, and which type I was least likely to detest.
When our server brought out two huge platters of raw meat and vegetables, the two Japanese couples, armed with chopsticks, began cooking the feast in pans of bubbling brown broth in the center of our table.
Papa conversed with Dr. & Mrs. Chiba while Mama and I chatted with the Sunose family at the other end of the table. The kids (ages 2-6) slurped and munched, then played around the table. I was beginning to wonder at the fact that the meal contained no starchy food, when the server once again advanced to our table. This time it was noodles and pounded rice.
The oldest boy, sitting across from me, looked funny, twisting
the gooey pounded rice around his chopsticks. This whole evening was painless,
because we talked in English, and I didn’t feel obliged to eat anything I
didn’t like.
9/26/98 Saturday – This evening, Mama and I went with Mrs. Takenaka and her daughter Urara to a Japanese music concert. We got to the building and squeezed into the elevator with a bunch of other ladies. I could see over all of their heads. When we got to the fifth floor, the doors opened, and they started to get off, but a lady called them back, saying, “The concert is on the 6th floor!” She pushed the 6 button, but to our dismay, the numbers above the door lighted at 4, then 3, 2, and 1.
We finally got to the hall and listened to the soft twang of koto harps; the whiny, violinlike kokyu; and the breathy, large yellow recorder. Some of the songs were sung, and I tried to follow along with the words on my program. I soon got tired of that, because the singer often dwelt on one syllable for five notes, and it was slow going.
Towards the end of the second half of the concert, a blind lady came in with her guide and sat beside us at the back of the hall. One of the performers let her feel the silkiness of the kimono she wore, as well as twists of her fancy obi and the back curls and pearly sticks of her bun.
9/28/98 Monday – I have been spared having to dissect the worm and frog by myself. I’m not sure that doing the dissections with Paul Yoshida is a big improvement, but here goes! I don’t want to go into details about how my family ended up at the Yoshidas’ home on this particular morning, but we did.
Paul and I started off trying to fill in the answers in the workbooks while watching a video of a scientist dissecting an earthworm. The question: "What is the function of the pro-sto-mi-um?" stumped us. After scanning all the information about the prostomium, I sensibly proposed looking in the answer key. Paul considered that as cheating, and he hauled out a number of dictionaries and encyclopedias. He obviously hasn’t been homeschooled for as long as I have.
Meanwhile, in the kitchen, Mama’s hair was being renovated. An American lady was visiting the Yoshidas, and she is a hairdresser. She offered Mama a haircut and a perm. The permanent smelled worse than the pickled worm!
Before we got very far cutting the worm open, Paul complained that the scissors were too tight. Then followed a search for a decent screwdriver. . . . By the time it took us to identify the parts of the digestive and circulatory systems, we were ready for lunch.
We ate tempura and soba for lunch. The gray soba noodles had an uncanny resemblance to the dorsal blood vessel of our earthworm. Yuck!
9/26/98 Saturday – This evening, Mama and I went with Mrs. Takenaka and her daughter Urara to a Japanese music concert. We got to the building and squeezed into the elevator with a bunch of other ladies. I could see over all of their heads. When we got to the fifth floor, the doors opened, and they started to get off, but a lady called them back, saying, “The concert is on the 6th floor!” She pushed the 6 button, but to our dismay, the numbers above the door lighted at 4, then 3, 2, and 1.
We finally got to the hall and listened to the soft twang of koto harps; the whiny, violinlike kokyu; and the breathy, large yellow recorder. Some of the songs were sung, and I tried to follow along with the words on my program. I soon got tired of that, because the singer often dwelt on one syllable for five notes, and it was slow going.
Towards the end of the second half of the concert, a blind lady came in with her guide and sat beside us at the back of the hall. One of the performers let her feel the silkiness of the kimono she wore, as well as twists of her fancy obi and the back curls and pearly sticks of her bun.
9/28/98 Monday – I have been spared having to dissect the worm and frog by myself. I’m not sure that doing the dissections with Paul Yoshida is a big improvement, but here goes! I don’t want to go into details about how my family ended up at the Yoshidas’ home on this particular morning, but we did.
Paul and I started off trying to fill in the answers in the workbooks while watching a video of a scientist dissecting an earthworm. The question: "What is the function of the pro-sto-mi-um?" stumped us. After scanning all the information about the prostomium, I sensibly proposed looking in the answer key. Paul considered that as cheating, and he hauled out a number of dictionaries and encyclopedias. He obviously hasn’t been homeschooled for as long as I have.
Meanwhile, in the kitchen, Mama’s hair was being renovated. An American lady was visiting the Yoshidas, and she is a hairdresser. She offered Mama a haircut and a perm. The permanent smelled worse than the pickled worm!
Before we got very far cutting the worm open, Paul complained that the scissors were too tight. Then followed a search for a decent screwdriver. . . . By the time it took us to identify the parts of the digestive and circulatory systems, we were ready for lunch.
We ate tempura and soba for lunch. The gray soba noodles had an uncanny resemblance to the dorsal blood vessel of our earthworm. Yuck!
After lunch, Papa decided (at Mama’s prompting) that it was high time he stepped in and directed the dissections. After all, we’d been at it for over two hours and gotten precious little accomplished. Things went better with Papa in command. We pried open the frog’s mouth and noted its tongue, which was hinged at the front. We wiggled its toes and looked at the webbing. We analyzed the digestive tract. Then, with Paul probing away with tweezers and scissors, I suddenly wailed, “You’re breaking his heart!”
But I was just as ruthless with that unlucky croaker. One misplaced whack with the tweezers, and Paul, through his laughter, informed me, “You just smashed his brain!”
9/30/98 Wednesday – I was with my best friend Mary Elisabeth Hudson (age 14-½) all day this day. Pleased as punch about it, too, despite my brush with death at her dining room table last night. But I’ll come back to that.
At about 11:00 this morning, Mary’s dad dropped us off and turned us loose at the Sakuragaoka train station. Mary & I were bold enough to attempt the train ride to and from Machida by ourselves. I had just come in by way of Machida with Mama yesterday, so I felt no cause to worry.
At one point in the train ride, our train halted and a lot of people got off. The train didn’t seem in any hurry to pull out of the station again. “All those people are probably waiting for the express train,” said Mary, staring out the window and across the platform. “We should get on that train, too. It’ll get there faster than this one.”
“Why don’t we just stay right here, ’cause we know this is the right train,” I replied cautiously.
“No, look! Here come the express. Let’s go!”
We ran across the platform to the other train, but we chickened out and ran back again. We stood in the train car we had almost deserted, and watched the express whisk away.
“Look. That train IS going toward Shinjuku,” I pointed out.
“Yeah, we should have been on it,” Mary said, sounded disappointed. Then she giggled. “These people are probably thinking, ‘Look at those stupid foreigners. They just ran across the platform, ran back, and hopped in again.’ ”
The objectives of the excursion were: to go shopping, roam the city, have fun, feel independent, and, well, just do one of those things that teenagers like to do. Yep, we accomplished all of our objectives by walking up & down, around & around, riding numerous escalators & elevators, viewing various items in the stores, and devouring a McDonald’s lunch, plus peanut-butter-filled M&M’s, and two scoops each of Baskin Robbins ice cream.
I hate to admit it, but after two or three hours of gallivanting, we were both rather bored and tired. So, we devoted the rest of our time (minus the ice cream break) to clothes hunting. Mr. Ron had handed Mary 3,000 yen (about $30), telling her, “See that shirt that Sharon Rose is wearing? Now that looks neat. Buy something like that – something you can wear to church.”
Most of the clothes we saw were either tasteless or too expensive. We finally grabbed two long-sleeved striped shirts for Mary and skedaddled on back to the train station.
On the way back, the train was splitting and going in different directions, so we had to get out and ask which train we were supposed to be on. At any rate, we got back safe & sound, and walked over to the church for prayer meeting.
I met for the first time two American girls who are sisters. They are in Japan for a couple of months. Mary complains, “I’m just getting to know them, and they’re going away again in December!” That sort of thing happens all the time at Mary’s church, where the members belong to the American military. At least she always has people to talk to in English, which is more than I can say for my own situation.
After the service and prayer time, we girls were chatting, when Mary made a sly remark about pizza. Of course, I had to retort, “I don’t ever want to eat pizza again!”
Mary said, with fun in her eyes, “Can I tell them?”
“Oh, OK. . . .” I agreed reluctantly.
“Last night,” Mary began, “we were having pizza, and her mom was talking about people smoking in school, and she said –”
“No,” I interrupted, “She was talking about smoking among the TEACHERS in the USA. So then I said, ‘In Japanese schools, the kids smoke instead, in the bathrooms.’ And then my mom said, ‘Do the girls really smoke in the restrooms at school?’ And I said, “It was a boy – he was standing in the doorway. He was standing in the DOORWAY,” I repeated, to alleviate the surprise on my audience’s faces. “And then my mom goes, “I thought for a minute you were in the boys’ bathroom.’ And Ronnie says, “If you gotta go, you gotta go.”
Mary took up the tale: “And she had just taken a big bite of pizza and a big gulp of water –”
“It went up my nose!”
“And her mom says to Ronnie, ‘Go to your room.’
“Which he DOES.”
“And she started choking on the pizza and mouthed the words, ‘I can’t breathe,’ and her mom goes and does the Heimlich maneuver, and then she started breathing again,” Mary finally concluded.
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