Author: Heather Meadows

Asahi reports that a new trend, mothers taking their children abroad for months or more at a time in order to study English, has emerged in Japan, coinciding with the opening of English language classes in elementary schools.

Rie Hirakawa, a representative with Ryugakutoshokan, a study-abroad coordinating service based in Tokyo, said: “Parents who come to us (seeking advice on mother and child programs) have one common characteristic. They all experienced the economic bubble when they were students.”

Most of the mothers enjoyed overseas travel as college students, and maybe they even did a short study abroad stint, she said.

Another important factor in the equation is that Japanese fathers are becoming more low-maintenance and self-sustaining.

“This phenomenon we are seeing now, the increase of mother and child ryugaku, was unthinkable a decade ago,” Hirakawa said.

It sounds like a unique and effective way to give children a head start in English. I feel sorry for the husbands who have to stay home, though!

Augusta Chronicle: Library looks to innovate, improve service

Mr. Smith said a patron could place six to eight books on the machine at a time, insert a library card and have the books scanned and checked out. He said books would have a digital card inside for scanning. The price of the system, which he said would be the only one he knows of in the Augusta area, would exceed $200,000.

In the long run, though, he said, “it’s for staff-cost savings. We won’t have to have as many people at the circulation desk, and it’s a self-service concept.”

Mr. Smith said officials also are considering offering patrons a smart card.

“You can actually go up to the circulation desk and say, ‘Could you put $35 on my smart card?’ That will allow you to put the card in a copier to pay for copies, and it also will allow you to pay fines,” he said.

Mr. Smith said the card also might be used for patrons to pay for a cup of coffee at a coffee shop that will be inside the library building.

Mr. Smith said a final innovation being looked at with the new library is a means by which patrons could be notified when a book is due back. He said a patron could check out a book and be able to choose to have a reminder sent via e-mail.

I’m hoping if they do go the smart card route, they’ll put in some smart card machines, with which you can add money to your card yourself. That would go right along with the self-service concept.

Depending on where Sean and I end up moving next June, I may become a member of this library! (I’m still holding out hope for North Augusta. We’ll see.)

In honor of the anniversary of man’s first trip to Luna, Google presents the following. Zoom in all the way for a cheap laugh. (Via BoingBoing.)

In related news, Happy Birthday, AJ!

Snopes has an article up about the thing I was trying to forget. I received the email forward Snopes mentions. Really, I’m just linking it as an archive for myself. I wouldn’t suggest that anyone else read it, as it is sickening.

Somehow, seeing it on Snopes, seeing that it was in fact real, and seeing that the situation is completely and unalterably over has provided some closure for me. A cold comfort after what happened to that child, though.

Teaching group [in Britain] to consider banning word “fail”

The word “fail” should be banned from use in classrooms and replaced with the phrase “deferred success” to avoid demoralising pupils, a group of teachers has proposed.

Members of the Professional Association of Teachers (PAT) argue that telling pupils they have failed can put them off learning for life.

In a conversation with me, Hai adds,

(16:20:32): death should be referred to as “indefinitely deferred living”
(16:20:53): and that way, people can avoid dealing directly with their problems
(16:21:19): i propose the New School Method
(16:21:36): where all students are graded on a system of A-F
(16:21:40): but can only achieve Bs
(16:21:51): that way, they never get their hopes up by getting As
(16:22:06): and they never feel like they’re not keeping up by getting Cs, Ds, or Fs
(16:22:40): that way, once they reach the work force, they’ll feel empowered and happy
(16:22:51): and society will fail 5 years after they graduate

Sounds like a plan!

Check out this article on MSN. Good stuff.

Slashdot mentions this story at AnimeonDVD (reproduced in full below, as I can’t find a permalink):

As posted to our Region 1 forum this evening by David Williams of ADV Films: “As part of my explorations into on various online video options, I’ve placed a promotional video for Madlax online as a torrent. As this is a small part of a larger project I’m working on I’d be happy hear any comments, feedback, suggestions, etc. from the fans. If you have bittorrent and are interested in official downloads, use your client to download the promo at:

http://216.136.62.222/torrents/MadlaxPromo.avi.torrent

Currently there is just this promo video but I have much larger plans in mind. Let me know what you think and even what you might like to see in the future.”

If you try this, please provide some feedback for them here.

I’m interested to see how this turns out, but I don’t really feel like downloading a promo. Why not try it out on a full episode?

I never knew it, but there’s a camp here in Augusta called Camp Rainbow for children with cancer. The Augusta Chronicle has a story about it.

Camp for kids with cancer turns 20

“We want these children to feel like children, and we want them to feel special,” said Roger A. Vega, the chief of pediatric hematology/oncology at MCG. “We look at each child as a potential survivor.”

There is good reason for that. In the past few decades, five-year survival has increased nearly 40 percent, according to the National Cancer Institute. Even since the camp began in 1985, “there has been a significant improvement in survival,” Dr. Vega said, because more medications and better techniques became available.

Now that would be something nice to be involved with.

I put some definite Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince spoilers in posts the other day, and didn’t use spoiler warnings. Now, this is a journal, wherein I write about how I’m feeling. I (mostly) tried to be vague in the actual posts, but I went into some serious detail in the comments. At the time, I thought I was being fair, and didn’t really see a problem. It’s not like I was going around to other people’s websites and posting the biggest spoiler of all on an unrelated post where everyone would see it, like some asshole did on Websnark. (Don’t click that link if you don’t want to know!)

However, Simon’s latest post rather shockingly reminded me that this is a public thing I’m doing here, and that I should have shown more consideration for casual readers.

So, if I spoiled anything for anyone, I apologize. I’ve gone back and added spoiler warnings to my post titles, where appropriate.

Also on I-20, the outside lane on the eastbound bridge over River Watch Parkway will be closed part of today while crews repair a 4-foot hole in the bridge.

Vonda Everett, a spokeswoman for the DOT, said the hole was caused by wear and tear to the bridge.

Err. Did a four-foot chunk fall onto River Watch Parkway? Or what? (From the same article as the last post.)

This is too funny.

A 54-year-old Hephzibah man told deputies that a man posing as a police officer came to his home and asked to borrow $12,000 on Sunday, a Richmond County sheriff’s report states.

Richard Dwayne Close, of the 3500 block of Peach Orchard Road, said the man drove up in a 1990s Ford Crown Victoria, claimed to be a law enforcement officer and then asked for the loan at his front door.

Mr. Close refused to give him money, and the stranger drove off.

He is described as a 6-foot-tall, 220-pound black man in his mid-30s. He was bald and was wearing slacks and a peach polo shirt.

He wasn’t even wearing a stolen uniform or anything! And what kind of moron claims to be a police officer and then asks for $12,000? Yeah, like it’s standard procedure for cops to run around begging for huge loans…

A “13-year federal study” has concluded that the Savannah River Site was not a significant source of cancer-causing pollution during most of the years it was active as a nuclear power plant. This news has been heralded by C.M. Wood of the CDC. Arjun Makhijani, “an atomic engineer and a critic of federal nuclear sites”, is dubious, but he has not yet read the report.

This is good news for President Bush, as he is eager for the US to build more nuclear power plants. I’m still kind of wary of the whole idea, myself.

WEHT: S.C. Nuclear-Weapons Plant Didn’t Harm Residents: Report

Ah, the controversy (via Drudge):

“Don’t even ask me about the flip-flops,” her mother said when a reporter questioned her about the picture. “As somebody who is 52 years old, it mortified me. I don’t go out of the house without pantyhose on.”

Twenty- and thirtysomethings will pair flip-flops with everything from shorts to cocktail dresses, wearing them at work and at clubs, for a stroll down Main Street or even down the wedding aisle. For their moms, the shoes – best known for the flapping noise they make – are meant for places like the beach.

One of the hottest trends this summer, flip-flops are no longer a dime-store purchase, with some costing several hundred dollars. They come flat and with wedge heels. They have rhinestones and sequins and flowers.

In today’s laid-back society, is there a distinction between ratty old flip-flops and ones from Neiman Marcus? Can they be worn at the White House, perhaps the most formal setting in the United States?

“I don’t go out of the house without pantyhose on”?! Man, I’m glad I’m young.

I’m not sure I would wear flip-flops to the White House, but it would really depend on how they looked, wouldn’t it? Also, I would have to have had a pedicure or something, and wear toenail polish. I don’t know, given how dressy some of the flip-flops I tried on at Target looked, I have to say that I think sneakers are definitely less formal.

Now I want to buy more flip-flops…I only own one pair, some nice simple $3 purple ones, but I’ve been wearing them everywhere this summer.

July 19 28 is Eel Day in Japan! From About.com’s piece “Unagi: Japanese Eel Dishes“:

When unagi is grilled over charcoals, the fat from unagi drips and burns, causing smoke. The smoke adds a great flavor to unagi. The smell coming from an unagi restaurant tends to invite many customers.

Man, I get hungry just thinking about it. If I wasn’t broke, I’d go to Mikoto right now and get some unadon…

Here’s a picture of the unadon I ate at Tokyo Tower on March 14, 2003.

Mmm…

In the first dream (or it might have been the second, I’m not sure on the order), I was helping a mother get her children back from her abusive ex-husband. We basically had to sneak onto this farm, convince the kids to come with us, and drive out of there fast in order to avoid the guy. It was kind of scary because we could have been caught. There were something like seven children in all, though I only really got to know one boy and one girl. I don’t remember whose names were what, but apparently two of the children were named “Black” and “White”, and it was just before learning that that I realized the family was African-American, so I had to revise their appearances in my head.

Yes, I battle race issues even in sleep.

That situation seemed to resolve itself satisfactorily, with the ex-husband turning out not to be an abuser after all, and the kids getting to be with both parents.

Then, somehow, I was Harry Potter, and I was trying to get my Quidditch team in order. We were practicing in Mom and Dad’s office. AJ was there, but I’m not sure which character he was supposed to be. Ben was Ron and he was really looking forward to trying out the Seeker position, which of course should have been mine. However, there was an extra player, so I said, “How about I sit out a few rounds? I can evaluate my team.” And somebody (it was either AJ or Ginny Weasley) looked over at me and smiled approvingly of my choice to give Ben his chance.

The brooms were awesome; I’d jumped on one and soared right up to the ceiling, looping around to watch the team. They didn’t look like the brooms in the movies, but had metal poles in kind of a square shape, resembling workout equipment. I knew, of course, that they shouldn’t actually work, and I kept wondering how it was possible. Draco Malfoy showed up and made fun of me for not realizing that the brooms worked by magnetism. I wasn’t quite buying this, but I let him have his say so he’d get out of our faces. I was eager to go outside and try the broom, to see how high I could get in the air. If I could get really high, I would know it wasn’t magnetism at all. (I think the only reason we weren’t practicing outside was because it was raining big-time.)

However, with me not playing Seeker, everything seemed to go nuts. The team wasn’t behaving at all. The Chasers, including Ginny and one of the girls (inexplicably Anglo-American again) from the first dream, were just lying around on the floor with AJ doing nothing. The Beaters were flying around goofing off. Ron/Ben kept asking me where the Golden Snitch was (it was, apparently, a pink bouncy ball lying inert on the floor). Come to think of it, I’m not exactly sure who was supposed to be Keeper.

When we finally started practice, it was AJ who doled out tactics; the only game-related thing I said, which was very stupid, was, “Want to try it with two Quaffles? JUST KIDDING!” (I’d meant to say Bludgers, but I couldn’t remember the name. As you know, when a team practices by itself they typically only use one of the two Bludgers. There is only one Quaffle.) Maybe AJ was supposed to be Cormac McLaggen…;P

I never did get a satisfactory broomstick ride.

I’m not really sure of the order of the dreams; this next one might have come before the Harry Potter one. In it, I was in my parents’ house, and Mom was packing stuff. “We’re going to Disney World!” she told me. I grabbed up about a zillion batteries and memory cards for my camera. As I hadn’t brought anything but my purse with me to my parents’ house (not sure why), I went around begging my brothers for backpacks or something I could carry my camera in. Ben loaned me a bag. I think I may have boasted about Disney World too much in front of them, but I didn’t realize at the time that they didn’t get to go.

Mom and I got into a pink airplane and flew to Orlando. I never really stopped to wonder where my mom had learned to fly, but I did feel as though something was amiss as she taxied to a stop on the runway.

When we got out of the plane, Mom said something about packing her nightgown, and I freaked out. “I didn’t know we were staying overnight!” I said, with combined delight and horror. I didn’t have any clothes other than the ones I was wearing. Mom assured me that it wasn’t a big deal, and we headed off towards Disney World.

We never really got to the park, I guess. I remember seeing these awesome multicolored landspeeders (that’s all I can think to call them, they didn’t have wheels) that carted people from the parking lot to the park. They were wedge-shaped and ran on skids with a cushion of air holding them off the ground. And I remember getting to one of the park entrances–it had no basis in reality, it was L’Arc de Triomphe. But I guess my brain decided to do something different at that point. Or that was when Sean’s alarm started going off. (When he finally got up to leave, I said, “I had the best dream…Mom took me to Disney World…”)

At some point, I dreamed about a replacement for the Space Shuttle. It was white and rocket-shaped, very reminiscent of vintage Warner Bros. Duck Dodgers stuff, and it gained orbit by bouncing like a pogo stick. Both ends were spring-loaded, though you couldn’t tell until it hit the ground. It bounced higher and higher, and started looping through the sky, leaving a trail of white smoke like a jet stream. I took as many pictures of it as I could, and I even took a movie, but I remember thinking that I needed to save some memory for Disney World pictures.

The spacecraft was designed to break apart and eject a man wearing some kind of space suit that allowed him to fly. I’m not sure if it was a jetpack or jet-propelled feet (maybe both). The suit was black and grey and looked really cool. I had the impression as I watched him flying in the sky that he was going to the moon. The question of why I could still see him didn’t occur to me (my eyes seemed to have fairly awesome zoom lenses).

Other than that, all I can remember is arriving somewhere with Mom, this time in Mom’s van, and the people who were already there started commenting that we fit right in because we were wearing black. It was somebody’s house, a mansion, and there were all kinds of cars parked out front in lines that followed the straight path away from the front door. I’m not sure what we were doing there, because it seemed to be a family get-together of some sort, and we weren’t related to the people involved.