Teaching and What Have You

Today is Saturday, but I was at work today, anyway, specifically in the other half of town at the children's center because they invited me to come over and make makizushi, which is the rolled kind of sushi, with kids from three of the schools I work at and a bunch of kindergarteners and whatnot. It was loads of fun and there was delicious sushi. We also learned about Girls' Day, which is coming up soon, I think, and played some games. We played Simon Says because one of the girls really liked playing it before, and we played Duck, Duck, Goose because it is easy to teach and little kids generally like running around in circles. So, all in all, a good day.

Another thing that happened a couple weeks ago, actually, was that I had a class with first and second graders because the second grade teacher was out sick. The first grade teacher hadn't gotten there yet, I think because she was carrying stuff and kids kept trying to hang off her, so I was the only "adult" there, which is actually not supposed to happen, but sometimes it does. Anyway, I got the kids to line up and start class, which always involves a little announcement type thing from a couple of the kids who are in charge that day (Japan is weird). So, anyway, we started and then the teacher arrived and she was amazed that I'd gotten the class started. I guess it is quite a feat, but not really when the kids want to play whatever game they think is in store.

That day we played a couple games, including twister, and I had to stay a bit after class was over with a few of the kids who wanted to keep playing. So, I got to my next class a couple minutes late, I guess, but that teacher also wasn't there yet, and I was carrying the twister games still, so all the kids kept telling me they wanted to play twister (this was a class of sixth graders). We had already had something else planned, but when the teacher got there and learned what they wanted to do, he just decided we should play twister instead, so we did that. Awesome.

At another school, I learned that talking about politics is not that easy in Japanese, but I also learned that even sixth graders think it is funny when you play and sing the Doraemon theme song. They're graduating to junior high soon, so sometimes the classes aren't so hard at this point.

I've also recently translated the three little pigs into Japanese, which worked out alright, if I can judge by how much they were paying attention. One school had a farewell assembly for their sixth graders, which was awesome, and I took part in a practice for another school's. Now some unrelated pictures.


New zero carb beer from Kirin!


This is a pudding thing I made from a mix and some milk which was pretty good, but had about the same consistency and texture as what Japanese people call purin, which is short for pudding, but really means custard thing that westerners hate because it is just barely solid. Like I said, it was alright.


That's 1000 ml of Asahi Super "Dry" next to 110 ml of Kirin Tanrei, just for comparison. These are both just normal cans, not resealable or anything, which seem to imply that either one is an acceptable serving size.


The green wrapper contains yomogi anpan, while the pink one contains sakura anpan, mugwort and cherry flavored sweet bean paste-filled bread, respectively. Incidentally, the colors associated with Girls' Day are white, for snow; green, for mugwort; and pink, for cherry blossoms. Neat.

Some Movies

I watched a couple more movies and figured that everyone would want to hear what I thought.

The Darjeeling Limited - I watche this after recently re-watching The Royal Tenenbaums. I think Wes Anderson keeps trying to make the same movie but changing the setting, and it keeps getting worse. Tenenbaums is not nearly as good as I remember it being, mostly just being aimlessly depressing, in addition to wasting Bill Murray, who is basically as awesome as a person can get. The Darjeeling limited basically does nothing new, but at least continues the Anderson tradition of having good music. Unfortunately, Murray has an even smaller part in this movie, barely appearing at all. Instead, we mostly get to see Owen Wilson work through a script that could most optimistically called heavy handed in his trademark irritating fashion. But in this movie, his stupid messed up nose actually fits the plot!

Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow - This movie isn't good, really, but it is at least sort of neat looking. It's fun pretty much throughout despite being pretty horribly miscast. Seriously, Jude Law?

Juno - Apparently people like this movie. I see why, but at the same time, I see that they are tasteless for liking it. This is one of those movies where I think you are supposed to want to be as cool and clever as the main character, but you don't actually like them, or really anyone else in the movie. Also the plot is a load of crap, but at least you can pick up a lot of stupid things to say to your friends like "honest to blog" and "wizard." Seriously a failure on so many levels that it will no doubt win an oscar.

新商品の日

As you may have noticed, I like Japanese food. In fact, you may say I love it. Then again, you may not, but I can't hear you, anyway, because I'm in Asia and you probably aren't. The weird thing about Japanese food, at least as someone who hasn't been eating it for all his life, is that you really want bread. It's weird because I eat almost no meat, but I don't want that constantly. I actually love eating fish and soup and weird crap like that for breakfast, but nothing tastes better than bread. Just bread. Which brings me to my point: tuesdays are sweet. Why? Because they are new stuff day (the title of this post) at the local convenience store.


That flat, segmented worm-looking thing is an awesome danish thing. I think I am addicted to them. Usually they have two kinds, cream and ogura, which is just an (sweet bean paste), but today they had a new kind, which is an AND green tea cream stuff. The beer in the glass didn't come from that beer can in front there. That's not a trick of perspective, just a tiny phone charm in the shape of a can of Yebise The Hop, which I've already mentioned on here. The beer itself is just normal Yebisu, which I usually don't buy because it is more than the other kinds and not outstanding, though I know some people who swear by it. I couldn't resist the little can. The completist in me wants the whole set of four mini cans, but the only one I could see was this one, which is probably for the best.

On a semi-related note, any time I go to the convenience store, there is someone there reading the magazines. I think it is the main source of entertainment here.


These are the strawberry cream valentine's peeps my ma sent. Thanks again, ma. They are probably better than the vanilla ones, too!

大雪中

I spent yesterday afternoon pushing snow around a parking lot trying to make it easy for me and my neighbors to get out, so of course it snowed last night and all day today. The whole world seems to be buried under about two feet of snow, which I got to move around today, too. I actually just dug out other people's spots before it got too dark, so my car is still basically just a mound of snow, but I don't need it until two days from now, so maybe it will melt by then.


What goes better on a snowy night than a nice warm glass of sake. The milk carton looking thing is the sake, which I bought at the local liquor store. The guy there seems to like me, so he threw in a can (cup?) of plum wine just to be nice. Small towns have their advantages.


No more pictures right now. :-(

Snack Foods, etc.

It snowed all night last night, apparently, so when I got up this morning, I was surprised to see about a foot of snow on top of my car. that was sweet. I have a couple pictures, but they are on the phone for right now. Instead enjoy these:


Valentine's Peeps. Thanks, ma! I just got these last night. These are the vanilla flavored ones, and they certainly live up to that claim. When I opened the box, I was almost overwhelmed by the smell of vanilla. They are excellent. I've also a box of strawberry flavored ones, but I like my peeps relatively fresh, so I don't open up multiple boxes at once.


Choice Biscuit. According to the box, "The New Standard Biscuit." I'm not sure what they mean by that. They're just butter cookies, but I get a kick out of the use of the word "biscuit" to mean "cookie." I mean, come on, England.

Last night I was thinking how I get annoyed when people show off that they've memorized someone's method for solving Rubik's cubes. It doesn't even seem like it would be fun. Then I thought that perhaps the rotations on such a cube could form a group. They seem rather like permutations, is why. Here's a little detail if you're not familiar.

A group is a set, G, equipped with an operation, *, such that for any a, b, c in G, we have:

1) a * b is also in G [In this case, * is said to be a binary operation on G]
2) (a * b) * c = a * (b * c) [This should be familiar as the associative property]
3) There exists an element of G, e, called the identity element that e * a = a * e = a
4) There exists an element of G, a', called the inverse of a, such that a * a' = e

So, nothing extra special, and you can probably come up with a couple examples. I should hope so, anyway. Note that one seemingly common property was not included,

5) a * b = b * a [That is, the commutative property].

If 5) also holds, then G is said to be an Abelian group, named for one Henrik Abel, the only mathematician known to have a nude statue erected in his honor.

It may be a bit weird to think about these rotations as elements, but that is what we are doing. The operation (*) that we would be using here would be composition. So, imagine the Rubik's cube, in whatever configuration you want. Suppose we denote a rotation right (it doesn't actually matter which way) about the z-axis as z, and similarly one about the x-axis as x, and so on for y. Then we could see turning about the x-axis and then the y-axis as y(x(c)), with c being whatever our cubes initial "value" was. Or in group notation, x * y. Actually, we need to specify which part of the cube we are rotating, but let's just stick to this notation for the time being.

Ok, so, now we have a set of moves on a cube. Is it a group? Let's check

1) Is G closed? [Is * a binary operation?] Well, yeah, if you rotate part of the cube, and then rotate it again, do we still have a way of moving the cube? Yeah, pretty obviously. More technically, a function of this sort (really the only sort short of breaking the cube) composed with another of this sort is still a function of this sort. Neat, but hardly worth checking.

2) Is * associative? This is the one I'm not sure of, but I'm not very good at picturing Rubik's cubes in my head, and the only store where I think I can get one here was closed today. Too bad.

3) Is there an identity rotation? Yeah, just don't rotate it. Genius.

4) Is there an inverse for any rotation? Sure, just do it backwards, and you are set. In fact, let's look at little closer. What is the inverse of x? It's -x, if you will, rotating left, if x is rotating right. But what is rotating left if not rotating three times right? Or in group notation,

(x * x * x) * x = e.

That should be pretty obvious because turning the thing around four times is the same as not doing anything to it.

5) Is G abelian? Well, no. Here's what I mean, rotate once along the x-axis and then once along the y-axis. Now undo that (inverses!) and rotate again, but this time along the y-axis first, then the x-axis. Does the cube end up the same? No, so it's not abelian, if it is indeed a group. Shucks.

Why would it matter if this is a group? Well, groups let us do neat little things like solve equations, so maybe we could come up with a general solution to the Rubik's cube. For those more Turing-inspired, once you could figure a way to solve the Rubik's algebraically, you'd be just a hop, a skip, and a jump away from a computer program with the ability to take the "value" of the cube from you (this would be tedious to input, what with 54 squares) and spit out a set of directions for your individual cube. So, hey, how about that. If you come up with a proof or disproof of the associativity, let me know.

Takamatsu

Takamatsu, 高松, which means "tall pines," was our destination after Kobe. We got there via a ferry, which took about three hours. Takamatsu is the largest city and capitol of Kagawa prefecture, 香川県, meaning "fragrant river." Kagawa is one of four prefectures on Shikoku island, 四国, "four countries," the smallest of the four main islands of Japan. It's not exactly a popular tourist destination, but it seemed like a cool place to spend a day and why not take a ferry and save money over taking a train and not see it? Also, it is famous for Sanuki udon, which is basically just cheap and good Japanese style noodles. Delicious.


This little dude greets you in front of Takamatsu station. I think he is one of the oni (鬼) from the story of Momotaro, the peach boy. I'm not sure of that, but he seems very cheerful and unlikely to steal your goods.


We went to see Takamatsu castle, which I think used to be called something like Tamamo castle, but I am not sure. It's also supposedly in ruins, but it looks pretty nice. Here's a shot of the garden. It was winter, so things weren't in bloom, but it was still kind of nice. Sorry, no pictures of the castle. I wasn't the photographer.


Here's a neat manhole cover from Takamatsu. I'm not sure why it has that archer on it, but I forgot all the history stuff I learned from the castle, which it is probably related to.

That's pretty much it for Takamatsu. However, observe this:


Just bread, but worth buying just for the pun. Bread in Japanese is pan, パン, and panda is panda, パンダ, so combining the two with the copula da, you have "it's bread," パンダパンだ (panda pan da). I'm pretty sure that's what they were going for, but what is interesting is that a couple weeks ago I was teaching place names, and one of those places was a bakery. The bakery on the flash card had "panda bakery" written on it, but in roman letters, so the kids couldn't read it. I had to read it for them, and then say "panda pan da," which they thought was hilarious. Weird.

Speaking of teaching weird things, a little while ago I had to give a little speech for first and second graders about Valentine's day in America. I did this in English just so they could get used to hearing it, and then had to translate it so that they could know what was going on. One of the kid asked if in America we gave stuff like chocolate to our friends, so I explained that it was mostly one's other (actually the best translation is lover, probably), or aijin (愛人). It was funny because the kids didn't seem to get it and the teacher laughed and said that they didn't know that word yet, so I had to choose another one, koibito (恋人), which they then got. I just thought it was a funny example of how trying to talk to kids in another language can be crazy.

Today I got to read stories to the kids and then translate for them (generally by asking them what words that I think they could remember or pick out mean in Japanese and then actually sort of putting together a sentence). I got to do this three times in a row, which meant that I was actually alright at it by the end.

We read The Very Hungry Caterpillar, in Japanese, harapeko aomushi (ハラペコ　あおむし), which seems to be very popular here. I think that is due to the fact that there is a version with English and Japanese, which is what we read. Incidentally, kids seem to think the phrase mada mada onaka ha pekko peko is hilarious, and I have to admit it has a nice ring to it.

The other book we used was Richard Scarry's Animal Nursery Tales (I am fairly sure of this title and not going to look it up). The stories we did were Little Red Riding Hood (赤ずきんちゃん), The Three Little Pigs (３匹の子豚), and The Gingerbread Man (ショウガ入りパンマン), the last of which was definitely my favorite. I enjoy that shougairipanman is rather similar to anpanman, Japan's favorite bean-jam stuffed bread-headed hero. I brought my anpanman finger puppets for reading this story, which the fifth and sixth graders thought was excellent. Also, I just enjoy the fact that it is about a stupid cookie-man getting eaten because he is an idiot.

I hope you enjoyed this update.

More Junk

More food pictures are certainly called for.


Mikan (tangerine) flavored melon bread. What? Also, this exists, but wheat bread does not seem to.


That's some 焼酎, made with wheat instead of potatoes, as was recommended by the liquor store guy for the purposes of mixing with hot water, which is excellent. The snack was recommended by one of my cooler teachers. It's cucumber with miso (味噌), a bean paste with apparent cancer-preventing abilities. I eat miso every day in the form of miso soup. Delicious.


CHOCO BIIRU for Valentine's Day. Actually not beer or chocolate, but strawberry soda. Weird.


Good ol' peanut butter and jelly on wheat bread, courtesy of Ris, who is the best. You have no idea how good this is.

Asagohan

Now that is breakfast. Rice, natto, salad, pickled daikon, aji (jack mackerel) and miso soup. Delicious Sunday.

A Boy and His Dog

I watched A Boy and His Dog last night and it was awesome. It stars Don Johnson and a talking dog. I suppose the dog can't really talk, but gave a pretty good performance, anyway. It's a post-apocalyptic movie, so there is plenty of wandering through deserts, but it also has a weird town full of people wearing clown makeup. Just wait for it. Also, it is based on a book by Harlan Ellison.

Kobe

I went to the wrong hotel in Kobe, which added a ton of time and made it rather not fun. Anyway, here are some pictures.


Sake is a big thing in Kobe, so a lot of breweries are open for tours, but since it was holiday time, a lot of them were closed. We found this one, though.


Ris liked these street things, so she took some pictures of them. It's kind of neat that they are individualized to the city.


Ah, birds. While we were waiting to cross a street, a bird crapped on my head. Kobe pretty much sucked.