Where do you work?

Today has been an "at home" day. I've worked on a variety of computer-based tasks including magazine editing. Often people ask me if I go into an office as part of my editing job. The answer basically is no. The vast majority of the work is done in my dining-room office! Computers and the Internet are remarkable inventions.

This is the ground floor of our house. Unfortunately around the shortest day of the year the sun doesn't get above the houses that are only a few metres behind us. I'm thankful that, even though we're still in the midst of winter, the sun is now rising high enough in the sky to reach into my office.

To give a little perspective here's our dining room table.
The cloth-covered piece of furniture next to the computer
is ourelectric piano.

When I sit at the computer, this is what I can see to my left. This is
my kitchen which faces out onto the road out the front of our house.
This is the largest single area in our whole house. I love the
open feel and high ceilings. I never take high ceilings for granted in Japan,
after our first apartment, in which I could touch the ceiling
if I stretched (and I'm only 5'2"). That was hard to take.

You just never know what you're going to use

This week I've been putting together our monthly prayer/news letter. The way I do it, is more a mini magazine or newspaper style, rather than a long letter. There are different "articles" or "columns". (Why am I a little surprised that I've ended up a real magazine editor, I've been doing this style of news/prayer letter 11 times a year for more than 12 years now?) In any case, my husband writes a "column" every time called "Spotlight on CAJ". Yesterday he wrote this:

My grade 12 students are currently wrestling with thoughts about life after high school. They are looking forward with a mix of excitement and concern. They think it will be good to be out in the wide world, but they are not sure what that means. Just today, the discussion centred on how much more education do they need? I wonder the same myself. There are literally millions of people in the world who don’t have a high school education, let alone a tertiary one, and they are doing just fine. 

So how do we help our students figure out where to go from here? I believe that through helping students discover and develop their gifts, we also help them discern God’s leading. It seems logical that if they are good at maths, or English, or music, or sport, or art, then that indicates a starting point. Try applying to a university that will teach them more, or a ministry training course that will prepare them. If God wants them to use that gift, then He will open doors that way.

It may be that they have to start something to find out it does not work for them, but I believe that is part of God’s work as well.

Please pray that God would make His desires clear to our students. They all show potential to serve Him, whatever their gifts.

As I pondered what I'd write here today (while I worked out at Curves, no less), these words came to mind. I'm more than twice the age of the students David is talking about here, so I have the luxury of looking back and seeing how God has used various gifts and learnt-skills in my life.

Here's a list

• This week I used my Occupational Therapy (OT) skills to assess a student and give the parent's advice.
• My experience as a parent of my particular boys gave my OT advice more content and wisdom than I could have done as a single 22 year old.
• I learnt the piano from the age of 4 until I left school. That skill has enabled me to help people worship on numerous occasions over the years. It is also now helping me supervise my youngest son as he learns the piano.
• Later in life God gave me experience in writing and editing other people's writing. That's now transferred into a significant ministry as a managing editor of a magazine.
• My mum taught me how to cook. I learnt at her feet, from the days when all I could do was lick the bowl, she allowed me into the kitchen. Now, I'm feeding a small tribe of growing boys, and enjoying the challenge (for the most part).
• Mum also taught me how to sew (along with my home ec. teacher plus one other short course one summer). I'm no great seamstress, but can do some basics that helps when one's raising a family on a tightish budget.

Then I think of a list of things that learning some of the above taught me:

• Persevering at piano all those years taught me to stick at something. To work at it and you gradually see progress.
• Occupational Therapy gave me many skills that I can hardly articulate because I've internalised so many. The way I approach parenting and life in general is shaped, in part, by my OT training.
• My first job as an OT taught me a lot about taking initiative, balancing many vastly different priorities, and being able to be productive without having someone looking over my shoulder. All skills that I'm using to this day.

And then I think of some of the things that I tried or enjoyed, but didn't go on with (for various reasons):

• athletics (or track, as Americans seem wont to say)
• maths and science
• history
• youth group/camp leadership
• English teaching
• acting in a musical
• choir

I'm sure that each of these endeavours taught me things too, even if it was, "This isn't really for you." 

Now what do I conclude? 

1. I'm grateful for all the things God has given me opportunity to try or learn during my life so far. 
2. You never know what you try that God will later use.
3. Even if you don't end up using whatever it is that you've tried, you'll can learn life lessons from that experience.

Answer to Photo Question #26

On Saturday I posted this photo and asked what you thought it was:

The award for the most creative answer goes to Ken:

From the shape and material it is obviously a pair of ex-military binoculars in a field case. You can use them at the wrestling when you sit right up the back doing something else, but still want to be able to comment later on close points of the encounter.

Several people got really close to the true answer, it is a cooking implement for camping. But specifically it is a Rice Cooker. Yes, a Japanese Rice Cooker! Check out this post to see photos of someone actually using one while camping. 

I think it is called a Hangou suisan (飯ごう 炊爨). The name in Japanese is very much related to the military (so there you go, Ken, you weren't so far off). It can also be used for cooking noodles, or anything, I imagine, that a saucepan could be used for. You can't see it in the photo, but there is an internal dish that sits just inside the rim. This is your "bowl" for eating. You remove it while cooking.

This is something we've been looking for, but haven't seen in the shops up till now, so I was surprised and very pleased when I found it last week. It cost me about $10. Unbelievably someone is selling a used one on ebay for US$45. The write-up on it there says: 

"Japanese camping cooker / pot is in a shape of a bean/eyemask, it is designed that way in order to give convection and cook rice thoroughly. 

The handle is designed that way because Japanese soldier used to hang it around waist."

We're getting prepared for the longest camping trip we've done yet. A tour around Hokkaido in June/July. The ability to cook rice while camping in such a compact piece of equipment as this is a great addition.

Discombobulated

I've having the hardest time concentrating on things today. With a little bit of thought, it is pretty obvious why:

• My home state is flooding again (this happened two years ago, and I remember feeling the same way back then). Thankfully all my family is fine.
• I'm still recovering from a busy and emotional Saturday (can't get that wrestling out of my head).
• Last Friday we put the latest magazine issue "to bed" (sent it to the printer). I'm so excited about how it looks! Changing gears to start working in the nitty gritty details of the next issue is hard, even though that is one of the several things waiting for me to do.
• I have an Occupational Therapy assessment to do this week. I don't do these very often, so every time I do, it takes more emotional energy than I'd like. I just can't get into a rhythm with them.

Add all of these together and I'm feeling pretty discombobulated (love that word, it sounds much better than, "unable to think clearly" or "thrown into confusion").

So please excuse me if I sign my emails "Donald" (as I did earlier today). I'm trying hard to not make any more devastating mistakes. Hopefully tomorrow, I'll have composed myself a little more.

P.S. on More Success in Wrestling

Still recovering from wrestling, I read a blog post by another mum also struggling with the exhaustion that comes from watching your kids compete in sports. Great post, but even better was this comment that came afterwards, I really relate, to this, even though we don't yet have a high school wrestler who has such long meets:

I just read your post after a very long day in a high school gym with a bunch of sweaty, stinky boys. My son was wrestling and that is not for the faint of heart. Every Saturday from mid Dec until 3rd week in Feb is spent at an all day tournament. They start at 8 am and go until 7 pm or later! We are exhausted at the end of the day. Wrestling is so INTENSE! In fact, our school t-shirts say “my son is killing me 6 minutes at a time.” That is so true. They wrestle with all their heart and effort for 6 minutes and I swear that I lose a few years every weekend. On a Saturday, my son may wrestle up to 5 times in the day and it’s crazy! But I wouldn’t miss a match for anything. He is amazing to watch and when the hard work pays off, what a great feeling.

More success in the wrestling

So yesterday. . . after leaving at 6.30, it only took about 40 minutes in good traffic to get to Yokota Airbase. Then we sat around till after 10a.m. before we saw any action. But once the action got going, it really did and we had little time to twiddle our thumbs (or cross-stitch, as it turns out).

A good portion of the time before the middle school wrestling meets includes wrangling between the coaches with the schedule of the day. The wrestlers weigh-in wearing their wrestling outfit, called a "singlet". Once all have done that they are listed out from lightest to heaviest and the coaches then decide who will wrestle who (or is that 'whom'?).

The basic principle is that wrestlers should go against others of approximately the same weight. In high school and beyond this is done by set weight brackets. This middle school competition between international schools, though, is more about giving the students wrestling experience, and hopefully some success. They grouped them into brackets of five and it became a round robin competition where each in the group wrestled everyone else once.

Our son went up against almost the same guys as last week. Each match is scored according to what kind of victory you won: eg by a pin, or by points (but it gets more complicated than that). It turned out that our son's last bout was the decider for first place in their bracket. And it was a corker of a bout!

Our son is the one in all blue. This was nearly a pin.

These two had wrestled each other on the preceding two Saturdays and had alternated in winning first place in this bracket. (I'll call him JK for simplicity.) JK was the only wrestler who'd beaten our son this year. However our son pinned him the week before, so you can imagine the tension was high.

It had been high all week, actually, as we knew the chances of them facing each other again was high. JK had also been wondering what he could do to defeat our son! I heard him and a team mate discussing our son while he wrestled someone else yesterday in an earlier bout. JK was definitely puzzled as to how he could beat our son.

The bout went almost the full three two-minute periods. Each scoring many points off the other, a good comparison would be a high scoring cricket match or soccer game—there was heaps of action (for those who know, 31 points were scored in the bout). However our son finished JK off in the end with a "technical fall" meaning our son's score was 6 points higher than his opponents during the last period.

Our son talking to two wrestlers from
his bracket, the guy in the grey shirt being
the wrestler who beat him last week.

Watching was exhausting and exhilarating. I came away feeling like I'd had a too many shots of coffee—my heart raced.

I'm amazed at his strength. He's not a big guy, but wow he's strong! And I'm amazed at his intuitive feel for the sport. He often seems to just know what to do at the right time. Yesterday he also was more assertive and faster to initiate action from the starting position, which has been a weak point in the past. It's exciting to see him win, but also to see him improving week by week.

And, as per last year, it's been exciting to see the other wrestlers in the CAJ team improve. Both of them are first-timers, yet we've seen significant improvement over the last three Saturdays. It was fun to cheer them to victories yesterday (my throat was a bit scratchy last night).

We also saw an interesting "extra-curricultar" development yesterday. There was more mixing between teams. At lunch time we were very interested to see our son talking to a couple of the other guys in his bracket, including JK. They moved on from talking to actually practising a few moves on the mats.

I was surprised, wondering if this was good, but in the end it was just fine. Interacting with these guys took a lot of the mystery out of his opponents. They came back to being other guys who didn't know everything there was to know, who also struggled to know how to best approach a difficult wrestling opponent (especially when they asked him for wrestling advice!). You can see that they respected each other. We've heard there is quite a camaraderie develops within wrestling circles, it was good to see it beginning even in middle school. I can't imagine that happening so easily between basketball or soccer team members.

Alas, the season is short. Next Saturday is the final middle school meet (the high schoolers have a longer season). We'll see what they manage to pull out of the bag next week. Actually, I can't wait to see them wrestle again.

Japan Photo Question #26

We had a huge day today. We left for wrestling at 6.30, got home at 4.30. Then had a couple of Australian families over for an Australia Day bring and share dinner. Fantastic day that I'm too exhausted to write about, so . . . here's a photo I took recently. A purchase I'm very proud of. Can you guess what this is?