Can you tell me where I found these leaves for sale? Bonus points if you can tell my why I might spend 250 yen (AU$2.50) on them.
07 November, 2013
06 November, 2013
Life in the Digital Age*
What is "the digital age" and when did it start?
That is the question that I first wanted to know before writing about this. This is an extract
from Wikipedia (Digital Revolution page):
Which makes me rather a late-comer to the digital age. I went to university in the early 1990s. The only reason I used a computer then was as a word processor. There were few computers in our residential college of something like 300 women. So I rarely used the computer, because it was stressful, scheduling-wise.
In my first job, starting 1995, I shared a computer with a colleague from another department. Again, we used the computer for writing reports, and recording work statistics. We had car-phones at work. My electrician dad had a 2-way radio for a long time so that my mum (who worked at the home office) could contact him about jobs while he was out.
The first computer I owned was my new husband's, when we married in 1997. At that time the only email access we had was at his work, so I'd type emails and save them to a disc that he took to work. The first time I saw the internet was in my new job that same year.
Sometime between then and 1999 we got dial-up internet access at home (a slow affair), and a computer that could manage it.
I didn't own a mobile phone until about 2006/7. In 2008 we bought our first iPod. When did we join Facebook? Was that also 2008? And the list goes on: our first digital camera, video camera, DVD player, iPhone, multiple lap-tops at home, etc.
My life now
Now I spend a lot of time on the internet. My job depends on it. I produce a quarterly magazine from my dining room. Email access is compulsory for missionaries. Almost all the communications without the mission are done via email or the internet.
Now we ponder such questions as, "What did we do before Google or YouTube or Skype?" and "How did we find someone in a crowded public space before we had mobiles?"
Just yesterday I wrote here about recruiting editing staff for Japan Harvest, using Facebook. In a Facebook-less world that would never have happened.
Despite having a mobile phone, I don't talk on the phone much anymore. I'd rather email, or text someone. (But I've never been confident with phones, now I'm even more out of practice.)
Pluses and minuses
The digital age has been a definite plus for those of us living overseas, we can keep in touch with those at home much more easily (and cheaply). But it does bring with it the temptation to not live fully where you are. To spend your time engaging in the virtual world of your home country, rather than immersing yourself in your surroundings.
It's brought convenience to our sons in being able to access the same documents at school and work, to be able to submit completed work digitally. But it has also brought many temptations for young ones with it. Temptations they aren't equipped to deal with: prioritising of time (in the face of the very addictive internet), the ease of access to unsuitable material, and the lack of privacy that can come with too much sharing of information.
One of the things I was really looking forward to in our camping trip up north was the absence of internet. I'm rather tied to it in my work. Just keeping up with email is quite a large daily job for me. It was refreshing to be away from it for the most part of a month, and it was hard to get back into it when we returned. But it did mean that I wasn't able to do my job, which was the point of a holiday. So yeah, I'm rather dependent on it now.
*This is in response to a writing prompt from here.
That is the question that I first wanted to know before writing about this. This is an extract
My entry into the digital age
1980[edit]
- Cell phone subscribers: 11.2 million [2]
- Internet users: All Internet users at this time were indexed in a phone book sized directory.
1990[edit]
- Cell phone subscribers: 12.4 million (0.25% of world population in 1990)[3]
- Internet users: 2.8 million (0.05% of world population in 1990)[4]
2002[edit]
- Cell phone subscribers: 1,174,000,000 (19% of world population in 2002)[4]
- Internet users: 631 million (11% of world population in 2002)[4]
2010[edit]
Which makes me rather a late-comer to the digital age. I went to university in the early 1990s. The only reason I used a computer then was as a word processor. There were few computers in our residential college of something like 300 women. So I rarely used the computer, because it was stressful, scheduling-wise.
In my first job, starting 1995, I shared a computer with a colleague from another department. Again, we used the computer for writing reports, and recording work statistics. We had car-phones at work. My electrician dad had a 2-way radio for a long time so that my mum (who worked at the home office) could contact him about jobs while he was out.
The first computer I owned was my new husband's, when we married in 1997. At that time the only email access we had was at his work, so I'd type emails and save them to a disc that he took to work. The first time I saw the internet was in my new job that same year.
Sometime between then and 1999 we got dial-up internet access at home (a slow affair), and a computer that could manage it.
I didn't own a mobile phone until about 2006/7. In 2008 we bought our first iPod. When did we join Facebook? Was that also 2008? And the list goes on: our first digital camera, video camera, DVD player, iPhone, multiple lap-tops at home, etc.
My life now
Now I spend a lot of time on the internet. My job depends on it. I produce a quarterly magazine from my dining room. Email access is compulsory for missionaries. Almost all the communications without the mission are done via email or the internet.
Now we ponder such questions as, "What did we do before Google or YouTube or Skype?" and "How did we find someone in a crowded public space before we had mobiles?"
Just yesterday I wrote here about recruiting editing staff for Japan Harvest, using Facebook. In a Facebook-less world that would never have happened.
Despite having a mobile phone, I don't talk on the phone much anymore. I'd rather email, or text someone. (But I've never been confident with phones, now I'm even more out of practice.)
Pluses and minuses
The digital age has been a definite plus for those of us living overseas, we can keep in touch with those at home much more easily (and cheaply). But it does bring with it the temptation to not live fully where you are. To spend your time engaging in the virtual world of your home country, rather than immersing yourself in your surroundings.
It's brought convenience to our sons in being able to access the same documents at school and work, to be able to submit completed work digitally. But it has also brought many temptations for young ones with it. Temptations they aren't equipped to deal with: prioritising of time (in the face of the very addictive internet), the ease of access to unsuitable material, and the lack of privacy that can come with too much sharing of information.
One of the things I was really looking forward to in our camping trip up north was the absence of internet. I'm rather tied to it in my work. Just keeping up with email is quite a large daily job for me. It was refreshing to be away from it for the most part of a month, and it was hard to get back into it when we returned. But it did mean that I wasn't able to do my job, which was the point of a holiday. So yeah, I'm rather dependent on it now.
*This is in response to a writing prompt from here.
05 November, 2013
Awesomely Answered Prayer!
I wrote this on Oct 28, two years ago on this blog:
The fourth exciting thing is an answer to prayer. Back a couple
of weeks ago while we (the editorial team of Japan Harvest) were rushing to put together the latest edition, God impressed upon me to pray for a new team member to join our team. This seemed an unusual thing at the time, these sorts of impressions don't happen to me very often. However I did, and, hey presto, on Sunday I had a somewhat random in-the-pews conversation with someone after church. It almost accidentally (of course, no accident, but it wasn't directed by me) turned to editing. To cut a long and detailed story short — we had a meeting yesterday and we have a new team member, at least for a trial run on the Spring Edition next year. I'm excited, I'm very excited. (See the whole post here.)
 |
| The designer who's just stepping down has done an awesome job on the magazine. I'm sad to see her leave as I depended on her for many things. Here's one spread in our latest magazine. Love the creativity, and the professional way that she approached her work (despite severe limitations on her available time to work on the magazine). Plus, she's become a good friend. Thankfully she's not moving away, but I'll miss the regular interaction we had about the magazine. |
Last Monday I wrote here about how our magazine designer (yes, the one I recruited above) had told me she needed to step down. I've been asking God daily for someone to quickly fill in this important role and wondering how much to advertise this need vs whether to just leave it in prayer and see what God does.
Well, in the end I felt very restless about the whole thing, and last Thursday and put this up on Facebook:
I'm praying daily for a new designer for Japan Harvest. Our designer has too much on her plate and needs to step down. Do you know anyone (particularly an English speaker in Japan) who has these skills?That night I received a message from a friend from our church here in Japan who has both the skills and the (expensive) program to do the job. After talking with him at church on Sunday, he's agreed to take on the role from next month.
How awesome is that? You've gotta love Facebook when things like this happen (I also recruited our Associate Editor from my Facebook friend list). I didn't know that he had this hidden skill. But it seems as though he is God's very timely provision. An answer to our prayers.
Today I'm so thankful.
I'm also recommitted to praying for other big needs that we have coming up, for example:
- Someone to manage the magazine while we're on home assignment from June next year.
- A couple more associate editors to share the editing load.
- Some people to take over the lease on our house here for the year we're in Australia, so that we're able to come back to live in this convenient house.
- A house and car in Australia from July next year.
- A teacher/teachers to cover my husband's jobs while we're away.
If you like, you can join me in prayer!
04 November, 2013
Mixed feelings about parent-teacher interviews
We're coming to the end of this year's 2 1/2 days of parent-teacher "conferences" (we used to call them "interviews" when I was growing up). I just went back and read my post from last year's 2 1/2 days and not too much has changed.
Today I spent nearly three hours hearing from teachers (about a dozen of them) about my three boys. I come away with mixed feelings.
Great things
I heard lots of great things (all boys have well above average marks in almost everything) including, what was becoming a family-theme "he makes great connections between things". A school "in phrase" that means something like this:
"You're learning about how birds fly and you make the connection to how aeroplanes fly."
or
"You're reading a story in class set in ancient Romans and you discover they had a Senate. You make the connection between that and the Senate you've heard about in Australian politics."
It is the key to good conversations. For an example: Someone bemoans that they're having a bad hair day and you followup with a story about Japanese hairdressers. And the trail moves onto weddings and the hairstyles, ending up with challenges that you've faced in your marriage. That's an awesome conversation!
Not so great things
I also heard some not-so-great things, which is inevitable. But almost none of it was a surprise. It was interesting to have our first high school interviews. We discovered that while our high schooler had appeared to be coping very well with the change, there has been a little bit of disorganisation and last-minute assignment completion going on. That's not really surprising either.
Then the challenge is, what do you do with all this "newly" acquired information about how your kids could perform/behave better at school? I'm an invested observer, but not always with the power to "fix" the problems.
Challenges
The other challenging thing about having interviews at school is that my husband is also seeing parents. So, while we worked pretty hard to get clear time for him to be present at interviews with me, inevitably he was popping off here and there to see other parents. Thankfully I'm not a teacher too, or it could have gotten seriously messy. (Read here for parts 1 and 2 posts about other challenges/joys in being a staff wife.
One teacher we saw teaches all three of our boys, and is also a wrestling coach. Before we sat down we clarified which hat he was to wear while we talked to him!
I did get a bit of a jolt when the physical science teacher (a subject that combines physics and chemistry that all year 9 students do) asked about what sciences our son would like to do next year. Then realised that we wouldn't be around and we all wondered how this was going to work. It is a slippery subject that we've been trying to get our heads around: not just going to Australia and switching education systems, but coming back and how CAJ will deal with whatever subjects he's done in Australia. It is a bit of a mystery to us, even with the CAJ Head of Science in our house. I'll keep you posted!
So then, after a crazy morning of interviews, I've had a crazy afternoon of boys at home on a wet day. For some reason they've been "more boy" than usual. More noisy, more reckless, more disrespectful, more sudden, more . . . MORE. (And if you feel like I'm yelling, I am. It hasn't been that fun, and I'm pretty tolerant of boys most days.) I'm looking forward to my husband coming home tonight!
 |
| Our eldest son's maths classroom last year. |
Today I spent nearly three hours hearing from teachers (about a dozen of them) about my three boys. I come away with mixed feelings.
Great things
I heard lots of great things (all boys have well above average marks in almost everything) including, what was becoming a family-theme "he makes great connections between things". A school "in phrase" that means something like this:
"You're learning about how birds fly and you make the connection to how aeroplanes fly."
or
"You're reading a story in class set in ancient Romans and you discover they had a Senate. You make the connection between that and the Senate you've heard about in Australian politics."
It is the key to good conversations. For an example: Someone bemoans that they're having a bad hair day and you followup with a story about Japanese hairdressers. And the trail moves onto weddings and the hairstyles, ending up with challenges that you've faced in your marriage. That's an awesome conversation!
Not so great things
I also heard some not-so-great things, which is inevitable. But almost none of it was a surprise. It was interesting to have our first high school interviews. We discovered that while our high schooler had appeared to be coping very well with the change, there has been a little bit of disorganisation and last-minute assignment completion going on. That's not really surprising either.
Then the challenge is, what do you do with all this "newly" acquired information about how your kids could perform/behave better at school? I'm an invested observer, but not always with the power to "fix" the problems.
Challenges
The other challenging thing about having interviews at school is that my husband is also seeing parents. So, while we worked pretty hard to get clear time for him to be present at interviews with me, inevitably he was popping off here and there to see other parents. Thankfully I'm not a teacher too, or it could have gotten seriously messy. (Read here for parts 1 and 2 posts about other challenges/joys in being a staff wife.
One teacher we saw teaches all three of our boys, and is also a wrestling coach. Before we sat down we clarified which hat he was to wear while we talked to him!
I did get a bit of a jolt when the physical science teacher (a subject that combines physics and chemistry that all year 9 students do) asked about what sciences our son would like to do next year. Then realised that we wouldn't be around and we all wondered how this was going to work. It is a slippery subject that we've been trying to get our heads around: not just going to Australia and switching education systems, but coming back and how CAJ will deal with whatever subjects he's done in Australia. It is a bit of a mystery to us, even with the CAJ Head of Science in our house. I'll keep you posted!
So then, after a crazy morning of interviews, I've had a crazy afternoon of boys at home on a wet day. For some reason they've been "more boy" than usual. More noisy, more reckless, more disrespectful, more sudden, more . . . MORE. (And if you feel like I'm yelling, I am. It hasn't been that fun, and I'm pretty tolerant of boys most days.) I'm looking forward to my husband coming home tonight!
03 November, 2013
Photo a Day
This month I'm having fun with this photo a day prompt. I'm posting them daily on Facebook, but thought a weekly summary here would be fun too because the photos do reflect something of my daily life.
November 1: fruit
 |
| Quintessential autumn in Japan. Kaki (persimmon). |
November 2: I did this today.
 |
| Read a book in the middle of the day, on my bed. (Saturday) |
November 3: P stands for ...
 |
| P is for peg. These Japanese pegs are so useful. This one is holding my cross-stitch pattern onto the stitching frame for easy reference. |
02 November, 2013
Awesome Weekend
 |
| Honey-Ginger Biscuits aka "Stamp" Biscuits here. |
 |
| My guys are currently playing a new board game they got at Thrift Shop. It claims "No Luck" is involved, so they're quite enthusiastic about it. |
We'll probably get another one next Saturday (shhhh, don't tell anyone), and then no more until mid December! Oh, we do have a family camping trip at the end of the month, I guess that kind-of counts.
These down-times are precious.
Yesterday afternoon the Wrestling Season started. Well, the team began official practices. Meets start in about a month. Apparently there was a large turn out of guys wanting to join the team, so there's quite a buzz going. Our son, of course, is very happy. He was sad when the season finished in February. One sadness was that the only place he got to wrestle with people the same weight as him was at meets (our middle school team was so small that there was no one else his size). Now, with all the new additions to the team, plus our son's growth, it looks like he'll have a lot of people his size to wrestle with on a daily basis!
Last night we also managed to have a date night. Our friend and colleague who stayed overnight, volunteered to look after the boys while we went out. We let them go to McDonalds and we went exploring the new local shopping centre (Aeon Mall). We found a nice Chinese restaurant (a bit more upmarket than the Australian country-town Chinese restaurant) for mains and Italian gelato for dessert. It was a lovely slow-paced evening just enjoying being together. The biggest difficult was trying to figure out how to eat crab legs covered in breading and chilli sauce, but un-shelled. And with only chopsticks as our tools. It wasn't a pretty sight, but it was tasty. In the future, though, I think shelled would be preferable.
I'm having a lovely weekend so far. How's yours going?
01 November, 2013
Breakfast at Our House
Did you ever wonder what missionaries have for breakfast? Maybe not, unless you've gone overseas and find you can't buy your favourite breakfast goods.
In Japan breakfasts usually include rice, fish, and vegetables. Many mums get up quite early to make breakfast for their husbands. As a result cereal is expensive and not easy to find. We get very shocked by the huge cereal aisles in Australian grocery stores. In Japan, you're lucky to get a cereal shelf.
Unless we're at a conference or on an aeroplane or ferry, we tend to have a fairly standard Australian breakfast. When we camp, we often have bacon and eggs, or pancakes, but six days out of seven at home we eat a combination of cereal, bread/toast, fruit, and yoghurt.
In winter the guys eat porridge (US= oats?), garnished with a combination of All Bran, corn flakes, dried fruit, and honey/sugar. Our youngest is off all cereal at the moment, I think, so he mostly has bread and yoghurt.
I have been making my own muesli (unbaked, not granola, which is baked) ever since I left university in the mid 90s. Although I've had to adapt the ingredients according to what we can readily buy (and afford).
We buy cereal from various places, depending on what's available and the price. Costco provides us with granola for "garnishing" and Kellogg's brown rice flakes, as well as large bags of craisins, raisins, prunes, and large jars of peanut butter. We buy rolled oats and cornflakes via FBC, a foreign import company.
It is a convenient and healthy breakfast, if not very Japanese!
Occasionally someone will send us some iconic Australian cereal—Weetbix, something our eldest son is looking forward to in Australia. I'm not a fan, though, I'd rather my muesli.
On Saturdays we often have something different made by David (as all our breakfasts are, unless he's away and I have to fill in). Pancakes, muffins, English muffins, etc. Yum!
I love having breakfast at home and as soon as I get up. I'm not a big fan of having to think about what I want to eat (as in, order at a restaurant), I just want to eat something that isn't too sweet or fatty.
What's your favourite breakfast? Are you an "always eat the same thing" type person, or, like our youngest son "like to change it around so you don't get bored" type person?
 |
| This is what our breakfast table looks like most days. |
Unless we're at a conference or on an aeroplane or ferry, we tend to have a fairly standard Australian breakfast. When we camp, we often have bacon and eggs, or pancakes, but six days out of seven at home we eat a combination of cereal, bread/toast, fruit, and yoghurt.
In winter the guys eat porridge (US= oats?), garnished with a combination of All Bran, corn flakes, dried fruit, and honey/sugar. Our youngest is off all cereal at the moment, I think, so he mostly has bread and yoghurt.
 |
| Porridge waiting for "decoration". |
 |
| My home-made muesli before I put chopped fruit, yoghurt and milk on top. |
We buy cereal from various places, depending on what's available and the price. Costco provides us with granola for "garnishing" and Kellogg's brown rice flakes, as well as large bags of craisins, raisins, prunes, and large jars of peanut butter. We buy rolled oats and cornflakes via FBC, a foreign import company.
It is a convenient and healthy breakfast, if not very Japanese!
Occasionally someone will send us some iconic Australian cereal—Weetbix, something our eldest son is looking forward to in Australia. I'm not a fan, though, I'd rather my muesli.
 |
| "My" end of the table. Bowl waiting on muesli. Decaf coffe waiting for milk, and David's once-a-day tea waiting to be drunk. |
I love having breakfast at home and as soon as I get up. I'm not a big fan of having to think about what I want to eat (as in, order at a restaurant), I just want to eat something that isn't too sweet or fatty.
What's your favourite breakfast? Are you an "always eat the same thing" type person, or, like our youngest son "like to change it around so you don't get bored" type person?
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