i always feel that develoment on childrens growth is like pouring water in a glass.each child has a glass thats in different sizes,small,big,tall,short or sometimes has a crack?????oops well anyways that glass is not visible and u never know when that glass get full and spilling out of it. when i left the preschool for traveling around Asia and Oceania,
i gave a big speech on that, and that i am so glad that i could help and support children fill their glasd with tgeir wonderful skills and experiences.
sometimes it seems like the glass will never fill and u start wonderijg maybe this child is really different from the others and cant expect it to fill at all= compAring one indivisual to Nother is the last thing u wanna do when raising or teaching children because just like i mentioned because tgw size is different even if u compare it its not relevant,u really cant measure how less or more!!!!!!
The other day i felt one of my student 's glass of "english speaking " hafd filled and spilled suddenly.he started talking and we were having a conversation.it was amazing. it is hard to keep believing when there are only few of us to do so, but ut really is worth it T the moment like that u feel how great it is to be there with children when they actually show some improvement and progress. proud teachers:))))))
im not a mom yet so i could never lecture anybody-but i know for sure and am confident to say-do not compare ur child with anyone else even brothers sisters. just wait and watch,listen to theit voices- learn and grow together , u will feel so happy and proud!!it will take time until u feel sartisfied-but its ok!!
u will forget All of the worries and frustration when u discover something new!!!!
hi !! ive been on diet,well i should rathwr call it a project.a beauty project rather than just cutting down ob my calories ive been trying to have more positive aura and know who i am wjat kind of person i want to be.
its amazing what a break up can do to a girl,it can go bad for a while but whne time heals my heart little vy little u realize u huv just wasted sometime thnking too much.:(
so basically,in the middle of August i decided to go for the bif maraton coming up next year but it started as jyst a conversation between me and the massage person whrere ibusrd to go a lot.he told me every year he enjoys running in the marathon in forein countries and i was like why not me. so i got on the net and searxhed,and came across Honolulu marathon!!!! yah!
so i run every once in a while to get used to the athlletic lifestyle.so far so good,it feels great to run just look forward abd keep going is a great feeling actually. when running u run into anither runner or jogger or sog walkers and hello or its getting chilly isnt it those short comversation comes out naturally which i think is a good practice on being more positive.when peiple greet it makes u smile and people are more beautiful when they smile!!!!! s:)
so other than that i joined tge spa where i get a weekly massage sauna and the counseling on my food diet and healthbmaintenance! which has been great so far i have lost 4kg thats about 8lb. yes it was a bit expensive shopping but i xall it
investing to a beautifulself to be. :)
also,catxhing up with my familyband friends is nice, work,friends,family,rest,excercise!!!the balance is really the key!!!!
one more i want to introduce is that a DVD set clled Ines magic. she is a french lady who trains jp models to be Missbuniverse.this dvd set is a 8weeks program and it is amazing.im only at my second week butbi already see myself changing a bit. there are excercise guide,diet guide,and tips on buildingvself confidence. 24"regular" women aged 19-70 get advice and professional makeover and each discussion session and the viewera can do the same.the first weeka homework was to write down 50things u like abt urself!!!!50!!! wow thats too muxh.haha with diet,she talks about take muxh nuts luke add some nuts yo salad and also w brown beats white!!brown bread or rice is much better rhan white so when xhiosing the food we can pay little mire attention to that.
so bits of everything is very easy to keep track,itd not like i huv to do 50situps everyday or anything so im loving the program and lets see how it goes in another seven weeks!!!!
so everyone!!!have a positive aura,know what u luv to do, smile!!! and when u r tired,take a good rest and give urself compliments!!!
its amazing what a break up can do to a girl,it can go bad for a while but whne time heals my heart little vy little u realize u huv just wasted sometime thnking too much.:(
so basically,in the middle of August i decided to go for the bif maraton coming up next year but it started as jyst a conversation between me and the massage person whrere ibusrd to go a lot.he told me every year he enjoys running in the marathon in forein countries and i was like why not me. so i got on the net and searxhed,and came across Honolulu marathon!!!! yah!
so i run every once in a while to get used to the athlletic lifestyle.so far so good,it feels great to run just look forward abd keep going is a great feeling actually. when running u run into anither runner or jogger or sog walkers and hello or its getting chilly isnt it those short comversation comes out naturally which i think is a good practice on being more positive.when peiple greet it makes u smile and people are more beautiful when they smile!!!!! s:)
so other than that i joined tge spa where i get a weekly massage sauna and the counseling on my food diet and healthbmaintenance! which has been great so far i have lost 4kg thats about 8lb. yes it was a bit expensive shopping but i xall it
investing to a beautifulself to be. :)
also,catxhing up with my familyband friends is nice, work,friends,family,rest,excercise!!!the balance is really the key!!!!
one more i want to introduce is that a DVD set clled Ines magic. she is a french lady who trains jp models to be Missbuniverse.this dvd set is a 8weeks program and it is amazing.im only at my second week butbi already see myself changing a bit. there are excercise guide,diet guide,and tips on buildingvself confidence. 24"regular" women aged 19-70 get advice and professional makeover and each discussion session and the viewera can do the same.the first weeka homework was to write down 50things u like abt urself!!!!50!!! wow thats too muxh.haha with diet,she talks about take muxh nuts luke add some nuts yo salad and also w brown beats white!!brown bread or rice is much better rhan white so when xhiosing the food we can pay little mire attention to that.
so bits of everything is very easy to keep track,itd not like i huv to do 50situps everyday or anything so im loving the program and lets see how it goes in another seven weeks!!!!
so everyone!!!have a positive aura,know what u luv to do, smile!!! and when u r tired,take a good rest and give urself compliments!!!
Today was the first day to work for the sumer holiday NIHONGO class for mommy and child (can be daddy too, just today we had only mommies)participants nationalities varied, Japan, Korea, China,(could be Taiwan, they were speaking chinese India and others, Im not sure because we werent introducing our background.
Believe or not, it was my frist time working with children in NIHONGO, (japanese) because i had always working in International Enviroment=Speaking in English.
The teacher who was in charge asked me "Would you like to read them a Kamishibai?" Kamishibai is like a story, but each chapter is on a big card instead of a page in a book. so you have to flip one and put it on the back of the cards to show the next one... so hard to excplain, anyways, it was so sudden and i got all nervous and i said ... "well, ive never read a japanese kamishibai in front of children..." but the teacher's eyes were telling me "are you going to have a choice?" so i said "certainly, yes. i would love to!" and she said "good, you can practice once after making your nametag"
So i did that, and it was my time to read them. the title was おおきくなあれ "become bigger!" and fortunetely this story had very little words and repeating おおきくなあれ！おおきくなあれ！ there was a part where i encouraged the kids to say together, and they were so loud and shouted out the words with me. they were so so so cute and did an amazing job on listening!
we did some games and learned ようび and 数字 days, and numbers 1-31, to make a calender! it was an amazing little class we put together and i absolutely loved working today! its only in summe holiday and once a week, but im very looking forward to the next time and i wanna contributemyself as much as i can. i think this meeting can lead to another opportunities.
all the other veteran teachers are nice too, they are much older than me and i think if we got time i can ask them a lot about Japanese child care, and maybe exchange opinions about education, since im more americanized way to teach and interact with children (hugging, laughing together and pretty much having lots of fun WITH them) today's participants children were very used to me at the end of the session and they asked me "will you come tomorrow?" so it was a good day, and i learned a lot!!!
I might have an opportunity to give some kind of lesson or activity, so i have to come up with something, in, Japanese, ofcourse! excited!yay!
The Weather department has announced that yesterday was an official end of rainy season=summer is ON.
ahhhhhh, I like summer more than winter but its toooooooooo hot these days. This year end of the rainy season announcement was 10 days early, that means earlier summer, or maybe longer summer because of global warming? who knows.
but what I DO know is that the gardening i started about a month ago is really working. Growing too fast that i almost dont know what to do. when i looked up on the internet, it says i can expect the mini tomatos ready to be picked almost at the same time but my minitomatos are ready one by one.every three days i can pick one mini tomatos, which is like nothing... haha. i cant cook anything with only one mini tomatos. then i found out that i have to use a pole to support the stem about 130cm.... ok, i see. i just made a pole out of a chopstick and its about 20cm. lol so this afternoon i have to go to DAISO and buy some of my gardening stuffs...
Other than that i have done some new cooking recently since ive been working in a hotel restaurant twice a week now, i have learnt some oven recipe and now i realize how easy and quick (well, the preparation is. baking is long) it is.
Every park day and outside play now at the preschool and the afterschool care I work is now official water activiy SO i get sooooooooooooo tired and warn out on the train going home. yah, Im like dead probably leaning over to one of the salaryman's shoulder... haha. sorry!
Although the temprature goes up to 35 and so almost everyday, the whole Japan is in a "save electricity" mood of course, because of the electiricity shortage which was caused by the nuclear power plant accident. "Today's electiricuty usage persentage" and "Tomorrow's excpected electiricity usage" are on YAHOO JAPAN top page so every user can check that out. At the beginning of March and just after , it was only the KANTO area goverment was putting the pressure on, but after June or so it became all oveJapan.
I pretty my KNEW this was going to happen, i mean all over Japan will suffer from electricity shortage, and to solve this every person, indivisual will know thwfact and need to just think aond consider about everyday life. just take a second to think, would even save electricity. useing the staris instead of elevator, fix salad or cold noodle for dinner instead of using the oven, or electronic kitchen devices, go to bed early, those are the things I addressed on my Youtube Video on March 12th (which is only one day after the earthquake happened, and even a lot BEFORE the nuclear power accident detail was announced on TV) then io received warm comments such as "im saving electricity" or "great video" at the same time i also received some mean comments like "ugly!!" which has nothing to do with the video content, so i deleted it, and disagreement on the "saving power". I wrote my replies to every single comment because I want to understand those people who disagree rather than just ignoring or denying. one of the people said that the "planned blackout" which jp goverment conducted earlier April is their "strategy" to brainstorm the national to be convinced that we need the nuclear power to survive rather than coming up with the other power source like water, solar, and so on. i think he has a point, but probably he got my point of the video, wrong.
All i was saying was the tips to save electricity, which can lead to economizing the electricity bills too, so its not just for this time. i have always tried to do that sometime to be eco friendly and wallet friendly :>> but anyways, as a survivor of HANSHIN earthquake, i dont want TOHOKU people to feel the pain by themselves, we can share the pain and corporate together. Of course i know that there will be a bad effect on many business, but so many people are paying attention to this activity and people will have good impression on those companies.
someone has to do something, so why dont all of us do little by little?
小さい子供って かわいい
でしょ。
Kids are... so cute. yah especially the little ones.
of course, everyone thinks so, right?
でもね、実は子供ってとっても意地悪だったり怖かったり残酷なの。
actually... kids can be very mean and cruel
例えば「いじめ」って、どの学校でも、保育園でも、学童でも、病院でも、習い事でも、ありえることで
どんな子供にもありえること。
For example "bullying" is something that can happen to anyone, anywhere. Schools, daycares, afterschool, childrens hospitals, any extra curricular activities.
「いじめられる奴が悪い」なんていう人がたまにいるけど、私はそれは絶対に許せないことなんだ。
Some say, "that kid is weired enough to be bullied" but i dont agree with it. However the kid is, noone should bully to an extreme level. at first, it might be just picking on and calling names but it will lead to kicking punching, hiding stuff, and making him to do things
that, caregivers must notice.
最初は悪口を言われたり笑われたり かもしれない。でもどんどんとエスカレートしていくと
何か悪いことをやらされたり暴力をふるわれたり、そんなことがあって周りの大人特に養育している人間が（保護者、先生）気づかないことは悲しいことだと思う。
子供って this is my words.....little kids have these following characteristics...
①思ったことを口にする。
They will say out loud what they think or how they feel without second thoughts.
②自分のことを見てほしい。他の人より自分が目立ちたい。
They want to get attention therefore they dont like other people gettting more attention than themselves.
③人のものをほしがる。
Kids want other people's stuff - easy to get jelous(toys, books, clothes, school supplies etc)
私が色々な場所で教育に携わってその現場現場で子供同士のかかわりとか見てきて、子供たちのいろんなタイプを見てきた時
Ive seen a lot of childrens fights and conflicts in different workplaces and i sorted the childrens type into three.
①いじめられやすい子（すぐ泣く、静かで特に何も言わない、遅い、とにかく目立つなど）
kids who are easily get picked on- cry so easily. so quiet and shy, stands out physically. looks different.
②いじめる子（気が強い。ＹＥＳ・ＮＯがはっきりしている。感受性が強い→すぐ嫉妬する、とにかく目立つ）
kids who always pick on someone- bossy, strong personality, very clear what they want, aggressive,easy to be jelous of others
③どっちでもない子 （それにかかわることも無視することもない。）
kids who are aware of what is going on, but they are not in it, so they are not going to get into it.
がいるなぁって考えた。 私は子供の頃 あきらかにタイプ① だった。
i was def. type1 child, i was being picked on by some of the strong charactors in school.
目立つこともないし、きわめてなにかが遅いわけでもない、逆にスポーツに関しては走るのとか鉄棒も得意だし、ＹＥＳＮＯも案外はっきりはしてた。 だけど、小学校低学年の時はこの平和な性格がタイプ②をいらいらさせていたのか
but actually my charactoristics never fit No.1 category- i always knew what i wanted, i wasnt quiet or shy, but i know i was very slow and immature. when people are playing with video games i was still interested in playing with dolls, i was the last one in class to know about the St. Nick fact, i believed a lot of things that kids didnt anymore, i wore a cartoon charactor clothes to school and my friends made fun of me a lot....and got very bad grade in math and science because i had NO IDEA what was going on. but i loved school. somehow. loved playing, loved the school lunch, and a teacher.
日本とその他の外国にルーツを持つハーフの子とかかわる中で感じることー
それは、彼らは常に「目立つ」存在で いじめられっこ、いじめるこ両方の予備軍だ笑
私の意見の中では「いじめ」自体はいいことではないから否定はできないけど、その経験自体は学校生活、社会生活をしていくなかできっと起こりえるもので そしてそれを通して学ぶことがたくさんあると思うし本人同士がぶつかりあって結果的にどうなるかっていう経験はとっても大切な経験だと思う。
I have taught or met a lot of kids that have different background- Japan and another country and especially when their physical appearance is obviously non-asian, they stand out and automatically become
possibilities of "bullies" or "victimes" .... 
互いに違いを認めることってとっても難しいことのように思う。
でも、②，３歳の幼児によってはその「違い」もあいまいで あまり他人と自分との何かの違いがはっきりしていない。
小学校に入る頃は一番「自分」というものがだんだんできあがってきてるからこそどのような「相手」と接するかがとっても大きな影響になってくる。
Understanding and accepting who is different seems kind of difficult to people, but for 2, 3 year old that "difference" is not so clear yet because they havent quiet figured out who "they" are. When they start their school it is about time that they established a basic things of themself like "what they like" or "what they are interested in" - so that is why friends have a great effect, what kind of friends they will make, and what they will talk about, what they will do?
私は、ようするに
「何か違う」子がいても、その「違い」に気づかない子供だった。自分が人よりできなかったり遅かったりしても
「自分はできない」って思ったことがなく、どちらかというと「何ができないといけなくて何ができたらＯＫなのか」という基準が
私には理解のできない世界だったのできっと少しのいじめでも気づかなかったんだろう。
afterall i was..... not aware of the "difference" or the "weiredness" of a "special" child in a class as everyone else would pick on.....or something. I was slower, and less capable of doing many things compared to my classmates, but i didnt understand why those things were to be done or what for, and if i dont know what for, it didnt make me sad or stupid not being able to do as everyone else. Because it wasnt important to me.
but i loved school. what a peaceful child.
平和な子供だ。
As I teach, i come across a situation where a kid picks on another kid.
It makes me wanna solve the problem for them right at that moment, but all i do is to have them talk to each other and also letting them know the expectations- such as be kind to others, and speak out how you feel.
私は日常子供たちに保育教育に関わり、そういう状況にしょっちゅうでくわす。みんながみんな優しくてなんの競争もない世の中なら平和なのかもしれないけど、そういうわけにもいかず、相変わらず物静かで何も意見を言わなければおいていかれ、ときにはからかわれることもある。そういうとき先生としては「いますぐやめなさい」と注意をして物事をすべて解決させたいと思うがそれは子供たち同士の問題で先生は、何ができるかというとそこにいて、状況をしっかりと把握して、子供たち同士がしっかりと話せる機会を持たせることだと思う。 もちろん悪い言葉やひどい言葉を言う子に対してそれらの言葉や行動が人を傷つけるから、してはいけないことだとか、ずっとだまって何もいえない子に対しても、勇気を出して助けを求めるなり、相手に言い返すなり立ち去るなり、自分で困難に出会ったらどう問題解決すればいいか、など一緒に考えてあげたり、そういうことぐらいなんだと私は思う。
ケースによって 誰が悪いとか 誰がかわいそうとか
そんなことはその本人たちにしかわからない！だけど、もし、自分の子供たちの中でそんなことが起こってしまったら
それはやっぱり自分は彼らの人生にかなりかかわっている身としてできるだけ「対話」の中でguide していくことが自分のなかの目標です。
I want to teach all my kids problem solving, noone will solve the problem for them, if they face any difficulties in life there are ways to get through but they need courage, and need to be strong. i can never be strong for them, but can teach and guide them how to be a little stronger and break the shell, once they are less scared to make a change, i believe they can solve any problems in life and hopefully i can teach kids in daily lessons by talkin to them sesiously. even if they dont understand it right away, i will just keep talking to them until one day they will realize what i mean. At the end of the day, everyone should be happy and think," it was a good day today."
最後の最後に、１日今日もよかった！って笑顔でいたいよね
Just last week, we had a professional aroma massage teachers from "natural time"coming to our school to teach the "moms" how to give yourself a massage with aroma oil.
"Natural Time", Kobe. 
So now every night routine is to massage my face with this "Azu's one and only aroma massage oil".
I was watching the little kids in a nursery area but i could see their class through the window and i was so curious what they were doing for an hour class!! After the lesson the whole room smelled so good and comforting so I told the ladies so, and they were like
"Oh, here, if you like, you can have this oil. we had an extra."
woo hoo!! do u know what's in this oil??? It's a grapeseed oil with essential oil!! So what they said was i could mix three different flavors of my favorite from the varieties of choice with the explanation of what each one's effects. SO, i chose ROSEMARY, LAVENDER, and BERGAMOT.
Rosemary-refreshing ローズマリーはリフレッシュ
Lavender-Relaxing ラベンダーはリラックス
Bergamot-prevent from aging (skin, hair also) ベルガモットは髪の毛、肌の老化防止
There is an easy way to massage ur face!!! You can do this with or without ur oil but if you have oil, it's easier to do a massage because your skin gets oily and smoother!!! if u are sitting down, u can use the "gravity" and just lean ur weight over to ur finger. you can bend ur index finger like in the picture on the left, and place it（more like you can lean over to ur finger instead of you pushing ur face with ur finger) just under ur eye. u can use both hands.
You can wake up to a nice relaxing feeling with ur skin so smooth and even your hands feel nice!
重力の力を利用して、人差し指を曲げた状態で目の下に押し付けて顔をぐっと指のほうに体重をかけます☆
これが、すっごい最高で、朝になったら顔も肌もつるつるなのよ♪
I LOOOOOOOOOOVE massage, facial, body, foot, aroma, Thai, Taiwan, reflexology, and all kind. hehehe massage is almost the reason i travel too, so now im so glad that i found the opportunity to get to know "self massage" in Kobe!! hee hee!
旅先では必ずそこのマッサージに行くっていうくらいマッサージが大好きな自分にとって神戸でこんな身近にマッサージのことが知れてうれしいー☆ タイや台湾にいたときは毎日行っていたし、いつもいくリフレやボディーマッサージ、整体などとにかく癒しーが大好き♪ BABY MASSAGEにも興味あるし♪♪
It was such a nice day..... SO MUCH SNOW!!!!!!!!!
When i woke up I saw everything white.. and when we got to Nara... it was even whiter!!! It was absolutely beautiful!!
We had three goals for this day trip to Nara. 今回の旅のゴールは３つ。
1. Have lunch @ "Lucky Garden" in the woods.
森の中にあるラッキーガーデンでランチ
2. Take some awesome photos of landscapes.
超きれいな景色の写真を撮る
3. Meet people and find out whats interesting in Nara.
人々と出会って、おもしろい話を聞く
and we did that successfully, all three of them.
Lunch @ Lucky Garden was abosolutely amazing. It is a Sri Lankan restaurant- we ordered 2500yen lunch combo that comes with appetizer(shrimp, purple carrot!!!, and roasted pork) Sri Lanka Currry, yellow rice (awesome!) fruite salad, and Tea with cake.
( They have 1600yen course and 2500yen course. )
ラッキーガーデンのランチは１６００円と２５００円の２種類。私たちは２５００円のデザートつき♪
After we enjoyed our meal, the owner came and said to us "The kids are playing snow fight with another customers in the back, and there are sheep so please come and join us if you like."
ランチが終わると、ウラで行われていた雪合戦に参加★７，８歳の女の子に雪を投げられて、もちろんやり返しましたよ★羊たちは、「またか、人間は雪合戦でいちいち喜んでうるさいなぁ」っていう顔をしていた。おもしろかった。
So we come out.... and this girl about 7 r 8 yrs old... she suddenly throws snow @ us!!!!!!! so, we...... throw back !!!!! and the snow fighting began. we played for good 20 min or so, the owners, Sri Lankan chef, another customers...... and it was so funny the sheep were looking @ us like
"ahh, human. they just cant grow up. they get all excited for stupid snow fighting... again!"
みんな仲良しで年に１度スリランカにお客さんも一緒に旅行に行くほど！すごい素敵で日本に住んで７年のシェフともお話ができたし、なんとも素敵な一日でした♪
The landscape was GREAAAAT especially with beautiful snow, and had a good conversation with the Sri Lankan chef with the biggest smile who has lived in Japan for 7 yrs :) he said he misses his family very much but also enjoyes the life here in Nara. The restaurant even takes an anual trip to Sri Lanka with some of the customers!!! How awesome!
If you wanna eat here without waiting....please make a reservation.
★絶対予約した方がいいです★ 0743-77-7936
〒630-0237 奈良県生駒市鬼取町168
〒630-0237 奈良県生駒市鬼取町168
The other day, kids and i were talking about favorite food during snack time.
then i asked one girl " what is your favorite food?" and guess what she said.
"GRAINS!"
i said "Grains? like in cereals?"
she goes "Yah, or in bars, or in bread, ... i love grains." she is only 5 years old!!! She is a very well behaved bright little girl, i have so much fun talking to her everytime. I feel like... i teach her things in class and she even teachs me more in free time.
and a 7 year old boy came into our conversation and said "what is grains again?"
and I explained what it was and he said "ahhh! i know, its in granora bars." (its a name of a product.)
i always thought those were the food that kids hated but had to have because their parents made them to eat....
the boy said " i dont really like that."
i said "well you know, healthy food always taste HEALTHY.... unlike... UNHEALHY food always taste sooooooooo good.... like..... Macdonals....!!!"
And we all wanted to go to Macdonalds all afternoon.... because of me.... but i learned that i CAN raise a child to like healthy food by guiding them right.
アフタースクールでの会話。
5歳の女の子、食べ物で一番何が好き？っていう話をしていたら
「麦！」って答えたの。
5歳ってだいたいお菓子とか、ハンバーガーとか答えるんだよ！！笑
でもそんな体にいいもの答えるって思わなくって私はびっくりした★
7歳の男の子が会話に参加して「Grainsってなんだっけ？」って聞くから説明したら
「あー！あの、グラノーラバーに入ってるやつか。えー！あんなん好きなん？」って言ったから
私も心の中でも「私もそう思ったの」って言ってた。
だけどこの子どもたちとの会話で「食育によっては5歳の子が健康的な食べ物を好きになることも可能なんだ！」ってことを私は学んだ。
体に悪い食べ物ってでもおいしいんだよねー！マクドのチキンナゲットとかね！んー★
"spaghetti Napolitan"
Bacon, green pepper, Onion and "ketchup"
Back in old times, a chef @ Hotel New England in Yokohama invented this dish.
They used an English name "Spaghetti napolitan" because at that time in Napoli Italy, Tomato sauce was widely for pasta. Although the way of cooking and the ingridience differs from the real tomato sauce spaghetti from italy, it was made to Japanese people's favors especially at that time. So when certain food came to Japan they tried to copy it and introduce it as it is, but they had to adjust the taste because Japanese people's favor for taste is different from Westerners.