Wearing many hats

At CAJ we're known as the Australians who wear hats. Apparently most other Westerners in the world don't routinely wear hats to keep the sun off them? The sun is strong in Australia and our skin is fair, so hat wearing during the summer months is a compulsory thing (although I suspect the boys don't do a great job of this at school since it makes them "stick out").

While camping in July, we did a ropes course
with the boys — with our hats on!

But this post isn't about physical hats.

Yesterday afternoon I found myself switching "hats" at a speed that was challenging.

We were called into a meeting after school about one of our boys and his classroom behaviour that has been less than respectful. On the way to that I stopped by the library to return some books, especially some books that I'd been asked to review for them. (First hat: book reviewer.) In the library I saw a friend whom I'm talking with about helping out with the magazine I edit. (Second and third hats: friend and editor.)

The bell rang and I proceeded upstairs to meet the teacher with my husband. On my way I saw another teacher who asked me about a student in her class this year that I did an Occupational Therapy assessment on last year. (Fourth hat: Occupational Therapist.)

We sat down and had our little meeting. It's never nice to hear your children have behaved in ways that you don't condone, but we're on his case now! (Fifth hat: parent.)

After our discussion petered out, the teacher invited me to come and teach the kids a bit about writing one day. (Sixth hat: writer/teacher.)

Then, this teacher, who hasn't just taught two of my kids, she's also a friend of mine, offered again to help me find an Orthopaedic Surgeon to consult about my knee, which has been causing me some concerns (her husband is a specialist in a respected hospital in Tokyo). (Seventh hat: needy foreigner/friend.)

All of that in the space of an hour was quite something, even for me, who is used to switching hats.

So, what does being a missionary look like? It's really hard to say, don't you think?

Writing Badly

It's really hard to deliberately write badly when you've been practising writing well.

This I learnt yesterday as I tried to put some example sentences into my Writing 101 presentation. But with some searching in the writing books I have on hand I found some. I also found some doozies in my own unedited writing back in 2007 when I first started to take writing seriously.

Check these out. I'd also love it if you could provide me with more "bad examples" also!

Unclear writing 

“He noticed a large stain in the rug that was right in the center.”

In referring to two male friends, Ralph and Joe: “He is happy because he loves his wife.”

Long sentences 

“Kim, a student at Central College, won the lottery, and she is going to quit her job waitressing at Slab o’Beef, where she has been working for the past three years.”

“Location can be a problem for missionaries going on holidays, this depends on where someone is working, but if they are stressed because of cross-cultural issues, it is challenging if they can't escape it, just a little, when they go away for a break.” (from something I wrote last week!)

Flabby writing 

“The mission is in the process of doing a survey of their members.”

“What I didn’t initially realise was that I’d have to sleep in the same cot as my son!  Granted it was a largish cot and I am not a largish person, but still…neither of us was used to even being in the same room at night, let alone the same bed.” (Sometime I wrote some time ago.)

“Two or three times before in her life, she had fought winning battles against cancer, and each time the Lord had healed her.”

"Macbeth was very ambitious. This led him to wish to become king of Scotland. The witches told him that this wish of his would come true. The king of Scotland at this time was Duncan. Encouraged by his wife, Macbeth murdered Duncan He was thus enabled to succeed Duncan as king."

Avoid repetition 

“English does not tolerate repetition of words. Repeating words will just turn people off reading your writing. You will be surprised how much improvement you can bring to your work by avoiding repetition.”  (From

Indirect writing 

 “The fact that he had not succeeded.” 

“He showed satisfaction as he took possession of his well-earned reward.”

Multiple problems

A nice example from On Writing Well, by William Zinsser. This one has cliches, unclear phrases, and isn't written tightly.

Last February, Plainclothes Patrolman Frank Serpico knocked at the door of a suspected Brooklyn heroin pusher. When the door opened a crack, Serpico shouldered his way in only to be met by a .22-cal. pistol slug crashing into his face. Somehow he survived, although there are still buzzing fragments in his head, causing dizziness and permanent deafness in his left ear. Almost as painful is the suspicion that he may well have been set up for the shooting by other policemen. For Serpico, 35, has been waging a lonely, four-year war against the routine and endemic corruption that he and others claim is rife in the New York City police department. His efforts are now sending shock waves through the ranks of New York’s finest. . . . Though the impact of the commission’s upcoming report has yet to be felt, Serpico has little hope that . . . 

More examples

I'm still looking for examples for "Preachy writing" and "Unnecessarily complicated words and sentences." Any takers? My husband has promised me some examples from the latter category from his current reading for his Masters in Education.

Fuzzy Boundaries

I was in a small discussion group recently, composed of Support Workers. All missionaries, but none of us are "on the front line". One of the things that came up was a struggle with boundaries. I think it is something that is particularly a difficulty with "volunteer" work. Work that doesn't come with specific job descriptions. Work that often involves doing things that we aren't skilled in just because it needs to be done and there is no one else (and no money to pay someone else) to do it.

This is definitely something I struggle with. There are many things I could do. Many things I do that I could do more thoroughly. And sometimes it is hard to know when to stop, other times it is hard to keep going because no one says I have to.

Life isn't as well defined
as walking a tightrope!

Some things are easy to say no to. Other things I say yes to, but my heart isn't really 100% in them. Or I don't have the ability to do them as well as someone else, but because no one else has volunteered to do it, I have to do it anyway. I find this really difficult.

I think it is partly a personality issue for me. If I'm not passionate about something, I find it hard to do at all. The psychological assessment that we had to have as part of our application to become missionaries came up with this statement about me: "She could do almost anything that interested her. To maintain her interest, however, Wendy needs to both work closely with others and be somewhat autonomous."

I'm amazed at how accurate that is even now. (This is another topic, but I've recently done another Myers-Briggs, admittedly not under the supervision of a professional, and come up with a different personality type!) I do need autonomy as well as working with people, and I've got that with my editing and writing work. But I also need to be enthusiastic about something. Ambivalence and luke-warmness I don't enjoy.

But back to fuzzy boundaries. In my situation, I have a number of fairly well defined roles. On top of that I have a number of other less defined roles, like "mother" and "CAJ parent".

But even my role as a managing editor has a number of fuzzy bits around the edge. It is easy to focus on the urgent and leave the less urgent, but still important, on the sides. Especially if it is something I'm not good at or very enthusiastic about. For example, writing policies and procedures for the magazine and defining copyright issues for writers. There is no one looking over my shoulder demanding that I do these things, so they get left aside.

How about you? Do you find fuzzy boundaries are a problem in one or more areas of your life? How do you cope with them?

Today's groceries

As I hauled some groceries home today on my bike, it occurred to me that I had some things in my baskets that you may find interesting.

Bread usually comes in small loaf sizes, with thick slices. However, at this particular store you can buy these massive white loaves (that's a 15cm ruler sitting there) that are uncut. We slice them ourselves (well, actually David does, my left handed cutting usually ends up with some very uneven slices). This loaf usually costs 249 yen or AU$3.10. Today I bought it for 299 yen. We use them mostly for toast. We also make our own wholemeal bread (which doesn't toast so nicely) for sandwiches.

 You may have seen these plastic, jelly-filled cups (US=jello). We've bought them in Australia in Asian shops. Their fun for a cheap dessert for kids.

 Eggs come in plastic and only 10 per carton.

 The biggest plain yoghurt usually comes is in small tubs of 400ml. Some come with sugar in a little packet that you stir in. But with this budget yoghurt you have to supply your own sugar. Stirring stewed fruit or jam into it is a good ploy too.

Flavoured yoghurt comes in tiny tubs (70-80ml). We're blown away by the massive 1kg tubs in Australian shops.

 You may have seen these in Australia. These are nashi or Japanese pears. (What Australians call 'pears', Japanese call 'western pears'. The boys love nashi. The fruit isn't around for too long a season, so they are highly valued in our house. They are crunchy like apples, but have a more pear-like texture. The best thing is that they don't go brown after being cut, so they are perfect for lunch boxes.

And finally udon. Wheat-flour noodles that I love! See here for more info. My favourite version of these is tempura udon. When Japanese lightly fried vegetables and sea food is placed on top of the udon and its soup. You've got to eat the tempura quickly or it goes soggy. Yum! I really miss udon when we're in Australia. Thankfully Japanese takeaway are appearing everywhere over there and udon is a bit of a staple.

Additionally to all these, I bought tins of corn, frozen veggies, bananas, lettuce, jam, etc. Not too different to Australian shopping (except the size of the shop and the portions).

An almost normal Sunday

A couple of things about yesterday might make it distinct from a Sunday we might have in Australia.

For example, we rode to church. I've told you that before, though. Our church doesn't have a car park (US=parking lot). So it is either ride or walk.

On the way home we got caught in a short, heavy shower on the way home from church. I was riding too fast approaching a small t-intersection when I saw a delivery truck approaching from the right. I braked hard as I went round the corner and the bike lost traction and slid out from underneath me. Thankfully I was able to leap free of my bike and land on my feet. I'm also thankful that I didn't make contact with the truck! It was pretty stupid, though. I was already soaked, riding fast didn't make any difference except to make me liable to have an accident! And now my knee, that was already causing me some discomfort, is aching even more.

We had our usual Sunday lunch of noodles: udon and ramen (a.k.a. "two minute noodles"), all eaten with chopsticks, but there the similarity with the way Japanese eat these noodles ends. The boys usually put cheese, tomato sauce (US=ketchup), corn, and ham on their noodles and we don't eat them with the soup that usually accompanies them in a restaurant. Don't tell any Japanese people, they might be very shocked! It is kind of like them putting seaweed on a Vegemite sandwich!

After lunch we all had SQUIRT time (this is a standard Sunday feature).

Later in the afternoon the boys started to get a bit too much: pillow fights, wrestling, etc., in our tiny lounge room. They obviously needed to get some energy out, so I booted them out onto the street! Instead of going down to the local park they chose to time each other running around our tiny block (about 18 houses). That did the job and by the time they came back in they'd calmed down a lot. I didn't send them into our backyard. For a couple of reasons:

1. Our backyard isn't much bigger than our lounge room. There is no way they could get all the energy out that they needed to, in our back yard.
2. It is mosquito infested. There must be someone nearby breeding mosquitoes, because out there, they bite you through clothing, I'm convinced they even like mosquito repellant cream. And then they sit on your clothes and come inside and torment us for the rest of the evening. The backyard is a bad place in summer! 

So what do you do on an ordinary Sunday? Do you have a standard meal that you eat? Do you/did you take your kids to the park? Or play a game in the backyard?

TOKYO-ITES SLEEP LESS

Here's an interesting story:

New York may be known as the city that never sleeps, but Tokyo business people get less time in the sack than their New York peers -- or those of Paris, Stockholm and Shanghai.

According to a survey of five cities, people in Tokyo sleep on weekdays an average of just under 6 hours.

People in Shanghai sleep the longest at 7 hours and 28 minutes.

Those in New York sleep 6 hours and 35 minutes.

“I think people in Tokyo may just be too busy,” said a spokeswoman for the survey.

In the mornings and evenings, trains are full of dozing commuters, heads bobbing. Some even manage to nap as they stand, clinging to overhead ring handles.

In Shanghai, people simply go to bed earlier. Everyone in the city gets up around the same time in the mornings, between 6:30 and7:00.

In Tokyo, after a long day, people seem to do things when they get home such as pursuing hobbies, surfing the Internet or playing computer games. They don't sleep until after midnight.

Not surprisingly, when asked what was most important in their lives, Japanese gave sleep top ranking.

By contrast, New Yorkers and Shanghai residents said time with their family came first.

Source: Yomiuri News 2010-8-12

But as for me, I'm going to bed . . . and it isn't even midnight!

Fill in the calendar

This is the time of year when I'm filling up my calendar.

After a blissful week of almost no fixed appointments/meetings, I've flipped the calendar to September and am getting brave enough to start filling in all those meetings and obligations that I have.

I've put some of the prayer meetings in. There are about seven school prayer meetings that I go to in a month (one for each grade of my kids, plus a weekly all-school one). Then there is a monthly OMF one on the other side of the city. Twice a year a bunch of missionary women from a variety of missions get together to pray too.

Then there are a number of over-nighters that both of us have scheduled. I've got an OMF Ladies Retreat later this month and only two nights later am going to a three-day coaching workshop. Later in October I have an overnight running the Writer's Workshop I mentioned yesterday. That's about it for 2012, though we do are planning to book some time away the week before Christmas.

I've also put some of the student-free and school days-off into the calendar. Parent-teacher interviews and various half-days. These are important to know about! I'm wondering if we could go camping one more weekend before winter? We have a long weekend coming up in October . . .

Unfortunately my wall calendar only goes up until the end of January, so 2013 will have to wait until Christmas time.

I'm probably old fashioned, but I like to have these things up on my wall calendar, as well as in my iPhone. The whole school uses iCal, a Mac calendar that is regularly updated. Middle and high school teachers even use it to put the day's homework! (Useful for checking up on our kids!) And it is very useful to have all that at my fingertips when I'm out and someone says, "Can I meet you on such and such a date?" But if I don't have everything on both, I can easily double book. I know it isn't the most time efficient, but it helps me to see things laid out as they are on the wall calendar.

In the southern hemisphere the Jan-Dec calendar makes sense because that lines up with our school year. Just wondering why north AmericansEuropeans don't use a July-June calendar? Maybe they do? The north American/European year seems to organised along those lines. The Dec/Jan divide seems to be just a bit of inconvenience. I know that many Japanese calendars are designed to be April-March.