So. As I mentioned, we’re moving to Japan. If you’re puzzled or shocked by that, perhaps this will help clear it up: Greg is in the military. Aaaaaah. Yup, that’s why. We’re really, really excited. We’re supposed to go in February, which seems like ages away, although I know that it’s really a short time to prepare for and execute a transoceanic move. We have to sell our car. (Well, we don’t have to, but if we don’t we’ll be shelling out some $$$ to bring it up to code. So we’re going to sell it and buy another one over there.) We have to sell our house. We need to sell Greg’s motorcycle. (Same deal as the car.) Greg was actually in a low speed motorcycle/car crash a few days ago, so we no longer have to sell 2 bikes. (Greg is doing very well, his worst injury consists of 2 bones broken in his left hand. We have been very, very busy since then.)
We got the Rosetta Stone program to begin learning Japanese. It’s fun, it’s not that hard, and we hope to be intelligible by the time we have to be in the country. We’ve spoken to some people who used the same program and they said that it’s a good program but it didn’t give them the basic conversational Japanese they needed to get started. I can see that, but it gives such a good base of grammar and vocabulary that I’m going to keep using it. Traveler’s phrasebooks cover that other stuff.
I had a really interesting experience yesterday, though: Max’s speech therapist came over for our session. We had the following conversation:
Me: “Oh, and we got orders this week – we’re moving to Japan!”
Her: *gigantic gasp, shocked facial expression* *double take* “…You’re smiling?”
“Yeah, we’re really excited about it!”
“Wow. That’s so far away!”
“Yup. Yup, we’ve been reading everything we can get our hands on about it though, and talking to people. We even got this program and we’re starting to learn Japanese!”
“Japanese, that’s just a series of grunts, right?”
Pause. “What?”
“Yeah, Japanese, that’s just -” (lowering her voice) “grunting?”
“Um. Noooooo, I wouldn’t really call it grunting.”
“Oh.”
“I mean, it’s kind of percussive, I guess, because they’ve got the consonant – vowel – consonant – vowel sound pattern, but I don’t think you could call it grunting.”
“Oh. Well, I haven’t really had any experience with it.”
“Mmmhmmm…”
So that was interesting. She’s an educated person! But it turns out that she’s only been out of The Great State of Texas 3 times (once when she was 4 years old) and her world doesn’t extend much past its borders. (I made a comment about how long it takes to travel through Texas and she responded by saying, “Yeah, I’ve heard that once you get outside it goes really fast, like from state to state?” That one I could confirm for her. I have to wonder what she would think of, say, Iowa. Or Vermont!)
Crafty content coming up. We’ve just been insanely busy with other things.
I’m glad you’re excited about it-
What a fantastic opportunity for you! I hope you’ll be able to blog about all your adventures when you get there.
Oh how exciting. I always want to go to Japan. And you got opportunity to actually live there. Oh and buy all the Japanese craft books.
lol, wow… I can’t imagine only leaving your home state 3 times in your whole life!! But then I love to see new places & wish I could travel more! Japanese doesn’t sound anything like grunting… German is more akin to grunting 😉 lol…
Can you put your car in storage while you’re away? Won’t Uncle Sam help you with that? I’m pretty sure my little bro did that with his Honda.
Sadly, I am not surprised by your encounter with little Miss Grunter. This is why I hope to dear lord my son will leave me when he turns 18 and at least travel out of the state we are living in for a year or two or more!
Thrilled that you guys are excited about the move, it will be a wonderful experience! When I went to Germany I brought my jeep and motorcycle with me…perhaps diferent codes and such depending on where you move to. How long will be stationed over there..3 yrs? either way…fun!