Thursday, January 20, 2011

lookin' back

Eiko says...

Teaching English today, me and my two students hit an interesting and very familiar topic in the text book were going through: Anorexia

The subject starts with a article written by a young woman suffering from anorexia nervosa. The article consists of her day to day life at a institution specifically designed to help anorexic patients like herself, her struggles, her fears, and her hopes.

Along with the article, there are around a dozen discussion points, two activities (where you put yourself in the parent's shoes of somebody suffering from the illness, and you describe how you feel, and what steps you will take to help your child etc.), a fact box, and so on and so forth. We talked and discussed this issue for an hour and a half, and many interesting points were covered, and many interesting conclusions were made.

The whole class was very deep and the students talked much more than they usually do. They seemed very much in deep thought when we finished the class, and seemed to be pondering the topic. Naturally so. It's a very complicated, intricate and thought provoking topic to be discussing for a language lesson.

I was left with the strong admiration for all the parents (esp. my own) with a child that has this mental disease, and who refuses to give up hope despite the circumstances. How Mom and Dad kept their sanity and weren't admitted to the mental hospital themselves is a mystery and a miracle all on their own! Whew!

Wednesday, January 12, 2011

i want this i want that

Eiko says...

The cold is finally catching up with Tokyo, and consequently, I've been doing a lot of late winter shopping. Conveniently for me and my shopping spree, there's a whole section of the station where I get off for work that's closing in a few days and the sales are AMAZING! There's a shoe store that has 60% off sales, and I'm planing on going crazy with that. What's tricky with sales though, is that you tend to lose track of the amount of money that you're really spending. Still,...prices for good shoes are generally anywhere from 5000 yen to 15000 yen, and when that price drops to 2000-4000 yen, it's time to set your frugality aside for just enough time to get yourself a decent deal. When you start doing this everyday, because you're surrounded by the winter sales, you will have a problem. Like me, for example. Because the station shops closing down aside, winter is coming to an end, and therefore prices all around are dropping like crazy!

Yikes!!

Double Yikes!!

P.S.
I went to a hair salon the other day, and got my hair cut. I like the new look very much and contemplated taking a picture and posting it here on the blog. BUT!! I realized that my face is still the same, and the subtle difference wasn't worth the trouble. I promise to post a picture if and when I shave my hair off. Which of course, I won't do... unless cancer hits me.

Wednesday, January 5, 2011

holidays at Nasu-picture taking


Eiko says...

wow, we are a big family, aren't we?



Saturday, January 1, 2011

gay boys...and they're notgay

Eiko says...

So gay.

O.M.G!

So, so gay!

They need therapy.
I may need therapy too, for liking them so much for this.

holidays at Nasu-gaming

Eiko says...

Every spare moment there was, all the siblings and the nephews and niece would run to their computers and i-touches to game. So, what are we going to do after lunch? Uh,...game? What about after dinner? Uh,...game? What about tomorrow? Uh,...game?
The first thing that comes to mind when board was the i-touch for the nephews and Kiyona. "Can I have i-touch? Pleeeeeease, Mommy, pleeeeeeeease?"






holidays at Nasu

Eiko says...

Happy 2011, world!!
It's a brand new year, and I think I started it off right. I went back home to my parents' place and had a bunch of fun catching up on life with Mom and Dad, the younger siblings, BORIS, the relatives and the bunch. Mom and Dad's tiny cottage was packed and bustling with happy holiday spirit.

Along with celebrating a brand new year, we also had a belated Christmas party over lot's of food and drinks. Boris and I happened to be the cooks for these occasions, and spent all day in the kitchen baking, cooking, frying, and decorating. I cooked Christmas dinner last year as well, but only for 8 people. This year, with all the relatives present, (minus 4 = Yoko, Seiko, Rich, and Ryden) we had 21 Matsuoka's at this gathering, and cooking for everybody was quite exhausting.

Both me and Boris refused to cook anything traditional, and being that it's not even 'Christmas', we strayed far from turkey, pasta and gravy. Egg nog and wine were the happy exceptions. No need to eliminate those. We made pizza (boris made an amazing crust), some wraps, fried chicken, tiramisu, a cake, egg-nog, and appetizers. Cooking with next to zero counter space,...I think we did a good job.

To compliment the Christmas celebration, it snowed all day on the 30th, and everything outside was white! Check out the awesome pictures that I got from
Tom! She was our faithful camera-woman while Sam was suffering from a stomach ache/fever. There are some pictures from Sam later tough.

I'll post more pictures of the New Year's Party, the snow, and the family pictures of us all.












P.S

The following posts will center around this family get-together with lot's of pictures! AND! Yuya drew this totally amazing picture! Check it out at our art blog!

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