Sorry I haven't written in such a long time, but we've been completely bogged down with everything. Some good, some bad.

The bad first. February was a terrible month. I couldn't wait for it to be over! First, on February first, Maria came down with pneumonia. She had to spend a week in the hospital. We did manage to find a decent hospital, the Kajikazawa Hospital. The doctors and nurses and so on were really clear, even with my still-poor Japanese. The place we went to before was the opposite, either they mumbled, spoke too fast, or didn't say anything. Anyhow, we took turns staying with her at the hospital while the other took care of Leo. After Maria came home, we had four days of relative quiet (although I worked every day to make up for my time off.) Then it was Leo's turn. He came down with a stomach virus and couldn't eat without it all coming back out, so he had to stay in the hospital, for a week. It was the same thing all over again. In fact, when we returned to the pediatrics ward, they said "welcome home." The rest of the month was spent trying to make up for all the work I missed to look after the kids. Takako and I also spent time sick ourselves, though hospitalization wasn't required.

Anyhow, I was glad to see February leave.

March brought with it a brighter tone, though not without major events. After eight years, I've decided to get a new job. Two, actually. That's right, I'm leaving Nova. It's a good time to go. The reasons for leaving finally out-weighed the reasons for staying. But I'll say more about that another time. Instead I'm really looking forward to my new jobs. I'll be doing two part time teaching gigs. One at Yamanashi Gakuin Elementary School, which is a private school owned by Yamanashi Gakuin University. I was surprised at how prgressive it is, and new. In fact, it's only four years old. They haven't even started fifth or sixth grades yet. I'll be teaching English with a Japanese teacher three days a week.

The other job is as an Oral Communication teacher at Koryo High School and its associated Junior High. It promises to be a lot of responsibility, as I have complete control over my class and cirriculum. No team teaching. It's more than I'd hoped for! I'm really excited about it. The only downfall is I only get one class a week with each group. But it has a lot of promise!

So, as I start my last week at Nova, I have a lot to look back on, but more to look forward to. Wish me luck!

Until next time!

We took the kids to the rink yesterday. We went with some friends of mine from work, and a few of their friends as well. We decided it would be a good time to take Maria for her first skate!
At first she was a little scared, but she would stand up with me holding her. She was wearing skates with two blades. I can't remember what they're called back home, but here they're known as "double-runner" skates. After the first couple of times, though, she got a little more scared, and for a long time she would only go if I was actually carrying her. The rink was really crowded as it was the last day of winter holidays, so we couldn't go very fast, and if I didn't have a very large size advantage, I wouldn't have tried. As it was, a couple of small, out-of-control kids bounced off us harmlessly.
Anyhow, after a bit of a rest, and taking Leo for a skate around, we tried again. Slowly she got a little more confidence. A big thing was seeing a lot of kids her size (if not neccessarily her age) skating, and skating well. When she saw that, I think she got the idea that she could do it too. Finally, at the end, she decided she wanted to do it on her own. She still wanted to hold my hands, but she was actually skating on her own! I think I was more happy than she was!
Anyhow, I'll get some pictures up after I get the full set from my friends.

Later

I've started using Picasa, a Google-based photo collection program. I really like the way it's set up. It's easy to use, and useful for making small adjustments to photos and pictures.
It also allows you to upload pictures to a Google account. As I've been using Gmail for a while, and prefer it to other free email services (like hotmail), I could easily set up a web album from my pictures. Go to http://picasaweb.google.com/ken.meredith to see my latest pictures. I don't know when (or if) I'll update my bebo pictures site when I can easily use picasa to do the same automatically.
I still like (and use) this page, but for photos, it's second best.
The holidays are almost done. It's been very nice for us all to have time off together. Takako really dislikes her new workplace. She recently moved to the operating room, and is having a rough time. It's been very stressful for her. The good side is she rarely works late or on weekends, and she gets a regular New Year's holiday.
Christmas was very nice, and I'll be uploading a video or two of the kids opening presents if I can.

Happy New Year!

Ken