Back in Canada, eh?

I have made it safely to Abbotsford.  It was a very long Wednesday, which included a nine hour plane ride.  I didn't sleep a wink on the plane, which is very unusual for me since I usually nod off at some point.  Some of it may be due to the fact I was flying mostly during the daytime, some may be due to the excitement of seeing people I haven't seen in ten months.  Either way, I didn't sleep until I went to bed at 7:00 p.m. Pacific Daylight Time.  Funny thing with this jet lag, is that you think you could sleep for days, but alas, three or four hours later, I'm wide awake again!  It's getting better.  
First days here were kind of drizzling and wet, but yesterday and today have been beautifully sunny and warm.  I was able to see Mount Baker!  Sometimes it can stay hidden for a while, behind the clouds. 

Mt. Baker taken from the deck outside the bedroom I'm staying in.  

I am staying at my brother and sister-in-law's place.  They live on a hill, which has a beautiful view of Sumas prairie as well as Sumas, Washington.  Can't beat this view on a sunny day!  

The one draw back of living on a hill, is when you're bicycling or going for a run, invariably you go down and you have to go up at some point before you come back.  The trick is finding that route that isn't too terribly strenuous to run or bicycle, or just decide to walk the steep hill.  

Sumas Prairie.  Farther mountains are in the US.

I have been able to meet up with some friends, been able to taste some specific foods, (I LOVE the Monty Mushroom burger at White Spot, poutine, Coffee Crisp) and go on some bicycle rides and enjoy the wonderful cow and pig smells a farming prairie can offer.  (I can smell the difference between the different animal manure.  Benefits of having grown up on a dairy farm.)  
I look forward to seeing some more folks when I worship at Gateway CRC this morning.  "This is the day the Lord has made.  Let us rejoice and be glad in it."

Just Couldn't Resist!

I know, I thought my next blog post would be written in British Columbia, but I just couldn't resist!  
So, today I thought I needed to get some things ready for me to fly out on Wednesday.  I wanted to get some items for my trip.  I bicycled to Rogers (ロヂアース) this morning and did some shopping.  Unfortunately I hadn't bought a basket for the back of my bicycle yet, so I took my backpack.  It was actually a pretty nice day to go for a bicycle ride.  It's only about 9 km from my place to Rogers, so not too terribly strenuous.  I spent a while walking through the store looking for different things and purchasing various items.  It was kind of fun, but I was also being wary of how much space I didn't have.  I decided to buy a little desk fan, since I didn't want to run the air conditioner when it was warm but not that warm.  It's a cute little fan.  Right now it's blowing on me as I write.  

Just precious!  

On my way home, I bicycled past a laundry mat. Laundry mats are small buildings with just a few washers and dryers.  I've never had to use one, the places I live in have washers and I usually hang my clothes to dry.  

The best part is that they have a special washer and dryer for sneakers!  Yup!  Go figure!  Just couldn't resist and took a picture!  

I stopped by Panas for some delicious Indian food and bicycled on my way home, just couldn't resist.  I have been wanting to get some Indian food before I flew back.  
I had also been thinking about buying that basket for the back of my bicycle, so on a whim, I  stopped at this little bicycle shop on the way home that had this little old man sitting there.  I used my hand signals and since it was a whim, hadn't prepared any vocabulary. Fortunately, we were able to communicate but he would rattle in Japanese, and I just kept saying, "はい", "hai."  As he spoke, I figured out that we were waiting for another person.  I figured it was probably a younger person that may be able to get the basket off of the shelf, which was probably about two meters up.  I was able to pick up a couple of things in our conversation like, where I was from, if I was living here, and I told him I was a teacher at the Christian Academy in Japan in Higashi Kurume.  After about five minutes this other man bicycles up with two bicycles, and he's the one we're waiting for, but he's not a whole lot younger and not much taller either!  They were both probably about 1m 30 cm.  So the "younger" man steps on a chair and can reach the bottom of the stack of baskets, takes them all down and pulls one off, attaches it to my bicycle and  ¥2500 later, I'm bicycling home.  I wish I would have thought to take their picture, but here's my bicycle with the basket. 

So, now you know, I just couldn't resist sharing about this great experience!

Summer School

So, I'm finished teaching at my first ever summer school.  It was fun because they were elementary students and they can get pretty excited about small things.  Each day I was with the students from noon until three in the afternoon.  The first forty minutes we ate lunch and played outside. 

Here we are in the cafeteria eating lunch.  It was bring your own lunch.  

The thirty or so students were divided into three groups, mostly arranged by their ages.  We did a rotation between Art, Computers and Activities.  After about forty-five minutes, the groups rotated, so the students who were in Art moved to the Computers, those in Computers moved to Activities, and those in Activities moved to Art.  I was in charge of the activities.  Here are my supplies I used.  

Hula Hoops, first aid kit, skipping ropes (or jump ropes), rubber ball, hakki sacks, sidewalk chalk, and emergency contacts info. 

Puzzles of all kinds.  

I had puzzles for indoor activities and the other supplies were for outdoor games.  It turned out that Monday and Tuesday were quite warm out, reaching up to 30C with about 80% humidity.  Wednesday it turned out to be cooler, but it was quite windy out.  We still played games outside.  Thursday was a rainy day and did puzzles and some indoor games like ricki-tikki bear and duck, duck, goose.  

Here one group is doing the puzzles.  I had an excellent helper, Zach, who is in Japan visiting his parents for the summer.  He attends Redeemer University/College in Ancaster, Ontario.

This group was working on the raccoon puzzle.  They are sure concentrating.  

Friday ended up raining, but we spent about fifteen minutes outside playing hopscotch and the rest of the time was spent playing games in the mini-gym.
There is another week for these students, but I will be flying back to British Columbia next week.  Zach will be taking over the class.  It was a fun week and I think the students enjoyed it as well.  By the way, some of these students attend English as an Additional Language classes in the morning until lunchtime.  
After having collected jigsaw puzzles for me to use, Rita, a friend from CAJ, gave me this cute little puzzle.  It's  300 pieces, 10 cm x 21.5 cm.  I did the whole thing on my cutting board.  

 Do you see the little blue tweezers beside the box?  That was included with the puzzle.  I used it the whole time.  It was easier than using my fingers.  

I separated the pieces into edges and non-edges and used one of my plates to store the non-edges while I worked on putting the edges together, but otherwise it was all on my cutting board. 

There's my finger to give you some perspective.  

Here is the puzzle completed.  Sorry for the glare.  

One other new experience was driving.  I had been a bit apprehensive driving, but I realized just recently that I was so used to the left side now (only on bicycle), that being on the right seemed a bit awkward.  So, I was offered the opportunity to drive and did so on the expressway as well as some country type roads.  The biggest adjustment was hitting the wipers instead of the signal lights.  Yup, the windows were wiped a couple of extra times.  :)  

The next post will be from British Columbia!  

Reflecting

Twelve years ago today, my dad was able to leave behind his cancerous body and not experience any more pain.
Washington Christian Academy gave me the rest of the 2000 - 2001 school year off, so that I could fly from Maryland to British Columbia and spend the last six weeks of my dad's earthly life with him.  I still remember when I walked into his hospital room after flying across the continent and saw him looking swollen from the steroids he was taking at the time.  Dad was in the hospital because he had congestive heart failure, probably having something to do with his lung cancer and his heart disease.  Within a week of being in BC, I signed on to be dad's primary care giver.  When I think back, that was a HUGE change for me.  I had never in my life ever thought about being a nurse or doing nurse type duties.  Those first couple of weeks were very stressful, learning how to change a bed with a person still in it, organizing dad's medication, figuring out what food he could eat, and organizing the home care nurses.  I remember being emotionally spent by the second week.  Fortunately, I have good brothers and they stepped in to relieve some of that stress.
What a precious time those six weeks were.  It wasn't always easy to see dad's health deteriorating, but I remember two weeks before dad died, he kept telling me, "I want to go home."  I hadn't clued in right away, thinking, well, dad you are home.  (He left the hospital and we set up his apartment with hospital bed etc.)  What I believe he really was saying was that he wanted to go to his heavenly home.  Dad was not always able to communicate clearly, sometimes speaking in Dutch and sometimes only speaking some of the words in a sentence, but to clearly hear him say he wanted to be with his Heavenly Father, was a comfort for those of us still left on this earth, although we knew we would miss him terribly.
I still think about how he loved to tease us kids.  When we played games, we would all gang up just so we could beat dad.  :)
Dad and mom immigrated from The Netherlands to Canada with three small children.  My youngest brother and I were not born yet, but have heard the stories over the years that life was not easy.  Making a living meant working hard.  There were difficult times, but there was always their faith in God that he would provide.
So, today I went with Brian and Bette VanderHaak up to Mashiko looking to purchase some pottery.  It was a couple hour drive which gave me time to reflect about dad.  The TODAY devotional was interesting.  Go ahead and read it, a link is up there on the right.  I would agree with Thea Leunk, "Everything will be all right."  "Shalom."

School's Out for the Summer, well sort of....

Today was the last half day of school for the students.  It was a fun day!  We first had an assembly in the auditorium, where we sang some songs and had Mrs. Hall the present MS principal talk about our theme this year and introduced our them for next year, In Domino Fortus, Strong in the Lord, with the verse Ephesians 6: 10.  
Next we spent some time with our own Homeroom/Bible classes, wrapping up the year together.  It was a good time talking about what students learned in grade six.  Wouldn't you know it, the new buzz word is "sheesh-kebabs!"  Yup, that's what I say quite regularly.  Funny thing is, when I asked the students what it means, they have no idea!  :)  
The next hour and half was spent playing kickball and eating ice cream.  The highlight of that 90 minute session was the grade eight students playing the teachers.  Since there were so few teachers and so many students, each of the students had to hold on to a partner at all times, that includes when they play in the field and when they kick the ball.  It was pretty fun.  Good part was that the teachers won!  

Grade 8 boys playing the Grade 6 boys

Grade 8 girls playing the Grade 6 girls

 After the kickball games, we all went to our grade level classes.  Each of the homeroom teachers had prepared a certificate for each of the students.  We passed those out.  

Getting ready to receive their certificates

Sorry for the blurry picture...

We ended the day with three students being given a shikishi and a friend prayed for them.  The three students were leaving for either home service or their parent's job transferred them to another country.  The students also shared good memories of those students.  We ended our time with a prayer.  
My students gave me a box of cookies and this...

Isn't this neat?

It was a fun day.  Now, I'm brain dead, but still need to work on report cards and we have meetings tomorrow, Thursday and Friday.  Next week is Summer School!  So school really isn't out for the summer....

So, What's it like to...

What's it like to attend a grade 8 graduation at CAJ?  It's actually not that different than attending a grade 8 graduation anywhere else.  It was well planned out with music performed by the Middle School band and choir.  There were awards given to the students and small gifts given to the teachers who taught them at some point during the Middle School years. Sorry no pictures.  

What's it like to have a birthday overseas?  It was fine.  I have developed some good friends that remembered my birthday and made it a special day. Before my birthday I had already received a beautiful birthday gift!  Check it out!

On the actual day, Mieke Sasaki walked into the room singing, "Lang Zal Zij Leven" and gave me a gift that had windmills and shoes on it.  I also received a bag with balloons in it that said, "Happy Birthday Winnie!"

 It was sort of special already because it was Senior Comps day!  Senior Comps day is the day when the staff are divided into groups of three and they sit in a presentation given by a Senior, all the other students do not have regular classes, but are required to attend at least one comp presentation.  The senior has studied and researched their social issue and on this day give an oral presentation that the panel of three staff evaluate.  I was fortunate to only have two presentations to evaluate that day.  The first presentation was on sleep deprivation and energy drinks.  The second was on teen depression.  Both were interesting although one would think I would walk away depressed after that.  :)  Lunch was interesting.  We could have pizza and/or sushi.  I've started to eat raw tuna and it sure does taste good.  That is something I have not experienced before on my birthday.  The rest of the day was fairly low key, meeting with department heads so I can get a good grasp of the various programs at CAJ in preparation for principalship next year, and the what seems like, never-ending grading of papers, writing tests, grading projects etc.  
So what's it like to attend a grade 12 graduation at CAJ?  It actually isn't a whole lot different than attending a graduation at any other Christian High School.  The staff, which includes everyone, walks in to the gym (grad was in the gym since it can hold many more people) in the order of length of time working at CAJ.  Yup, I was #68!  Only three other folks behind me!  The graduates walk in after us.  The one difference is having to pronounce all the names from various languages!  Kudos to Mr. VanderHaak for doing a good job.  The one other difference is that the program was streamed live on the internet.  Sorry forgot to take pictures during the graduation.  If you are interested, you're welcome to view the video of the  CAJ Grade 12 Graduation Program.  
Here are some pictures of the program.

Cover of the program

Program order

List of graduates

What's it like to have one year of teaching at CAJ under my belt?  It is good!  I really have come to love living here in Japan.  I really enjoy working with my colleagues at CAJ.  I am looking forward to the challenges of being a MS principal, knowing that many are praying for a good transition.