Skip to main content

Stephanie- The Month of March & How to Count Rabbits

The Month of March & How to Count Rabbits

Wow, it's already April, which means March came and went so quickly! And since I haven't updated the blog as much as I should have to include all the things I've done this last month (partly because I've been working on this report and the things in it), here it is: my March report.
 
And for those of you who can't read Japanese, here's brief overview of what I've been doing recently:

This month I've attended lots of Hippo events (workshops, group sharing sessions, international learning classes at elementary schools, orientation camps for future exchange students, etc.) At one of the workshops I was one of the main speakers and gave a 15 minute presentation about my experience traveling internationally and working with 4-H and LEX, all in Japanese! My host mom helped me a lot to prepare and practice beforehand, which made me feel a lot more confident :)

The photo is from one of the international learning classes I attended with a group of 3rd and 4th graders. It was a change from how the classes usually go, where we as the coordinators give presentations about different cultures and lead games with the kids. This time the students prepared
presentations on their own Japanese culture and taught us about things like Japanese food, geography, games, and school. I think it was really great! They were really cute too and gave me all kinds of little origami presents.

We also had the second yearlong student midterm meeting at the office, and I have started meeting with some of the students who will go abroad this coming year as yearlong exchange students to give them a chance to practice English. The formal English interviews are pretty nerve wracking, so this is another chance to practice English in a relaxed environment. A lot of them are pretty shy, so I'm trying to come up with new games or other things we can do to get everyone talking and not feeling nervous.

My host family is really great and a lot of fun and we talk all the time about all kinds of things, so my Japanese has been improving a lot! My host sister Maron-chan is 11 but a lot of the time she acts like my big sister because she looks out for me and shows me the correct way to do things, like when to bow or how to say something more correctly in Japanese; she's really cute, and it's actually really helpful! The other day she taught me all about an important part of Japanese culture: the Japanese boy band Arashi! Maron-chan loves them and they are really popular right now. I can now proudly say I know all the band members' names and favorite colors. You never know when this might be an important thing to know...

My favorite new thing I've learned in Japanese is how to count rabbits. In the Japanese language, there are different endings for counting depending on what kind of object you are referring to. For example if you are counting thin, long objects, flat objects, mechanical devices, large animals, small animals, mirrors, hanging scrolls, words, umbrellas, or houses, they will all have a different ending that marks the number.  Normally for small animals, the ending -piki is used but rabbits happen to have a differend ending -ha, which is the ending used for birds or things with wings, because apparently rabbit's ears are so big and floppy they are considered to be just like wings!!!
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Stephanie-こんにちは！Konnichiwa! Hello!

こんにちは！Konnichiwa! Hello! My host sister Asuka and I in 小えど, Japan Hi everyone!  My name is Stephanie, but in Japan I've already been given the nickname  Su-chan　 す－ちゃん    (su from Stephanie since the Japanese pronunciation is su-teh-fah-nee, and -chan is added to the end of a name when you are speaking to a younger person or a friend), so you can call me Su-chan! I am one of the five Hippo interns working in the LEX headquarters office in Tokyo this year. In addition to me, from Wisconsin, the intern team is made up of Tino from Mexico, Sakun and Ken Ken from China, and Hiu-chan from Korea. It's great to have such an international group!    Before coming to Japan I attended the University of Wisconsin and graduated with a degree in fine art. During that time I also worked for Wisconsin 4-H International Programs, which is how I first learned about Hippo through the 4-H/Hippo summer and yearlong exchanges. Last summer I had the opportun...
Post a Comment
Read more

Daniel- Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas 「メリークリスマス」　(Daniel) A knock came at the door around eight in the evening, just as we were finishing eating dinner.  I yelled out, " IRANAI～～～ ", meaning "we don't need it", pretending that it was some late working door-to-door salesman. My host mom laughed and went to answer the door. She came back carrying a huge USPS box from America. Oops. Just kidding. I need that. I really need that. My parents in the US decided to surprise me for Christmas by mailing me a box of my favorite items from America. They somehow managed to pack a pair of pants, two jars almond butter, five boxes of gum, four giant chucks of  halva , and four packages of chocolate. I have no idea how my parents managed to shove all of that stuff into such a small box. But knowing my parents, there is always a way. Needless to say, I was ecstatic to receive my gift. Although my parents told me about the package beforehand, its physical presence was so overwhelming. I fe...
Post a Comment
Read more

Stephanie- Mi papa De Mexico en Japan

Mi papa de México en Japón! This last week was exciting because I got to see Javier, my host dad from Mexico again! He's one of the coordinators of LEX México so he came to Tokyo last week for work and vacation, and it was really nice to see him. Almost two years ago, I went to México as an LEX intern for 3 months, and stayed with Javier's family in Mexico City. It was a great experience, and one of the main reasons I decided to apply for the LEX internship in Japan. I did a lot of the same things as an intern in Mexico as I do here in the office like help check documents and work with the exchange groups, and of course had the opportunity to live and work in an environment where I was always surrounded by and communicating in Spanish. Though my experiences as an LEX intern in Mexico and Japan have been different in some aspects, one of the things that has always been the same is the people. All the LEX members I have met in both Mexico and Japan have corazones grandes ...
Post a Comment
Read more