Calculating

The other day I was reading a book to the third graders in my class and the book had a lot of numbers in it. Like: "I have 2 brothers and 1 sister", "I have 9 brothers and 12 sisters." and finally the fish said "I have 1,928,538 brothers and 1,276,301 sisters." or something silly like that. The fun was to see if the kids could say the numbers. And one boy I noticed was "scribbling" on the table with his finger as he said the numbers and at the end of the book he said

"That means there are 3,xxx,xxx brothers and sisters in all."

WHAT?

It seems that Keita-kun goes to abacus class and he likes to compute numbers.

"What's with all the scribbling?"

"Oh, I have an imaginary abacus in my head and I was moving the imaginary beads to get the answer."

WHAT? I didn't understand that much more.

This last week Keita-kun brought his abacus and practice book so that he could show me how he uses the abacus. And he explained in detail how he computes but I'm afraid it was so complicated that I didn't understand that either.

"And how old are you?"

"I'm seven years old." (Good English!)

"And how long have you been doing abacus?"

"Since 4 or 5."

Keita-kun demonstrated his calculating prowess. Slap that abacus on the table, position the numbers directly under it, zip your finger across the beads, and at lightening speed start snapping them up and down.

"Wait a minute. What all can you do? You can add and subtract... How about multiply and divide?"

"Oh yes, I can do that too."

and Keita-kun flipped to the end of his practice book. And proceeded to show me how he does division problems. I was long lost on the process but the important thing is that Keita-kun definitely knew what he was doing.

"Wow! You're a genius!"

"Oh no. I didn't pass into the next level on my last test. I wasn't fast enough."

"How fast do you have to be? How fast can you do a problem?"

So number 50 is the division problem he did while I timed him. And Keita-kun solved it correctly in 22 seconds (checked the answer in the back of the book... I wouldn't have been able to give you the correct answer even with a calculator).

Sort of looks like a genius too, doesn't he? Can't wait to see what he grows up doing in life!

Smile

Applique finished on the mini-Round Robin. Now I get to decide how I want to quilt it... Machine would be easiest but it takes the most thinking... A filler here, a filler there. Decorative hearts or flowers or more Celtic swirls (could I even do that?) over many different blocks. But this is mini so time-wise whatever I do will get done quickly.

I came back from a walk with Choco and if truth be told, grabbed the front of my jacket with my teeth so that I could pull down the zipper with one hand. Aaaugh! A chunk of my front tooth chipped off! RATS! Okay. Call the dentist. Oh no! He's on vacation for three days. Call another dentist. Nope all appointments filled until Tuesday. Hmm. I could walk around looking like Huckleberry Finn I suppose... why be vain? I could pretend I have a cold or don't want to catch influenza and wear a mask like other Japanese. Or I could throw myself at some dentist's mercy and stand in his waiting room until he helped me.

I chose the latter route and smiling broadly (See my half a tooth? See how dorky I look? Don't you want to help me?) I randomly chose a dentist whose parking lot looked empty and said I wouldn't mind AT ALL waiting until the dentist could fix my tooth. (I had my Kindle.) And the unknown dentist very kindly saw me in less than half an hour.

I no longer have a dorky smile (though it is a bit crooked, isn't it?) and I only paid about $20 out of pocket.

Jewel Box finished!

Yeah! First completed quilt of 2010! I put the finishing stitches into the Jewel Box quilt yesterday morning. Certainly a different feel from some of the gorgeous Jewel Box quilts I've seen on other blogs (I LOVED Nancy's!) but this is cheery and nice for a child. Sort of an odd size for a baby quilt but better than nothing.

Last summer Mrs. Furui and I participated in quilt project for children in Italy (sponsored by Roberta) and we donated a couple quilts each. My scrap quilts were nothing to rave about, but Mrs. Furui's delicate quilts were pastel colors and soft and sweet. When we later saw the pictures from Roberta's blog of some of the quilts that were donated, Mrs. Furui's comment to me was.

"I realize that I should have used brighter colors and pop fabric for children..."

That is not true! Mrs. Furui's soft-colored quilts are always heirloom quilts and I'm sure God directed them to some sweet child that needed a little peace in his or her life. All quilts are beautiful. All quilts will fill a need.

When I see my happy Jewel Box quilt I think...

"Hmm. Maybe for a baby, a color coordinated, pastel quilt would have been more appropriate. The poor child is never going to be able to get to sleep with this in the crib!

Then I remember. All quilts are beautiful and will surround the baby in love. All quilts will fill a need.

Moody

Yesterday morning I spent a lot of time trying to figure out what to do with the Mini Round Robin. And I followed BrendaLou's advice and broke the rules! The instructions were to put a 5 centimeter border around all... but since I wrote the rules for this MRR, I decided that if the quilt just measured the same as all the others in the end, I could put the "border" wherever I wanted. So I put a wider "border" (looks like blocks) on only two sides. So far so good.

Now, what to do with this border which is also boring. Think Celtic! Easier said than done because I couldn't find a corner pattern that I liked. So I made some graph paper (none of that around the house) and had a go at making a Celtic-like pattern. And enlarged it.

And tried it out on my design board with cording and finally made bias tape and ironed it onto the quilt border.

Hm~hm~~! What fun! I'm back to enjoying this quilt. I wish I could show it but while the recipient doesn't read English (she HATES English!), she does visit my blog. I'm now aching to finish the applique. Isn't that funny. A couple of days ago I was in a stew and didn't even want to see this thing! Quilters (this one) are so moody!

Another thing that put me in a great mood was a happy e-mail from a Japanese blog visitor who sent a picture of some mini-animals that she made. And she made "them" from the instructions on my blog! But I only showed how I made a little bear and she went SOOO much further and made a rabbit, a fox, an elephant and a dog! All her own patterns! Aren't they the cutest things? Thank you Kiyomi! I'm going to try to make the dog first!

Calligraphy lesson

I thought I'd show a picture I took at the kindergarten yesterday of the children's winter calligraphy homework. And relate some more memories.

In Japan, schools assign homework during the winter holidays and one of the traditional tasks of scholarship is writing a Japanese character in calligraphy for the New Year. Depending on the age of the student, the degree of difficulty changes and the teacher will usually select a character representing the New Year… "Hope", "Effort", "Friendship" etc. (Picture from the Internet)

In the Watanabe family history, every year the kids would come home with calligraphy homework during the winter break. They were to write ONE character on ONE sheet of paper and turn in what they thought was their best work to be posted in the classroom. Easy enough. Unfortunately (for Takumi and Leiya) Tetsu took charge of overseeing their calligraphy homework. Well, maybe he only oversaw it one year because after a major blow-up on my part I refused to EVER LET HIM COME NEAR MY CHILDREN'S CALLIGRAPHY HOMEWORK AGAIN!!! And yes, they were MY kids when I blew up at him. I felt that Tetsu didn't have the right to call them HIS kids!

I don't even remember what the character was but Takumi was probably in 1st grade. Something simple like "tree" or "house" or something. A couple days after New Year's day and before school started, Tetsu sat Takumi down at the low table in our Japanese room and with brush, ink, ink stone, water, newspaper, rice paper, paper weight etc. proceeded to teach Takumi how to write the character. Oh what fun. Daddy's going to spend a few minutes helping me with my homework. HA!

Tetsu's calligraphy is beautiful. There is no denying that. He meticulously controls the heavy pointed brush with precision making characters that look like works of art. (In fact, my mother has put some of his letters to her under glass. She can't read them but they look beautiful.) But you can guess that this means that he is a PERFECTIONIST when it comes to calligraphy.

"Sit up straight on your knees."

"Hold the brush this way."

"You aren't centered."

"Do it again."

And again, and again, and again. And again and again and again for all eternity. I'm sure that's what it felt like to Takumi. He only wanted to please Daddy and make a nice looking character. Over and over and over on countless pieces of newspaper, Takumi was instructed to do it again. And again. And again. As the hours wore on and the poor child became tired Tetsu became more and more irritable.

"You're slouching. You're not thinking. You're not trying."

Over and over and pretty soon the tears started to come.

"If you can't do it without tears then be a quitter. I expected you to be better than that."

So of course Takumi wasn't about to quit. And yes, I tried to smooth things over a couple of times too but the door got slammed in my face and Takumi was accused of being a Mommy's boy and wanting to go crying into my skirts. And I was told to leave the child to Tetsu and let father and son be.

This is called "Sparta Education" in Japan. Rough, abusive, somewhat military education. Insults are thrown out. Psychological abuse rears its ugly head. And it is valued as a viable way of teaching; sports, especially. In the schools of course there are laws but Sparta Education is not uncommon in the training of children and students in their clubs and sports. And remember, Tetsu was immersed in this type of education himself when he was doing judo as a student. The idea is "The teacher is so passionate about his subject that he can't permit error and he so loves his pupils that he doesn't want them to settle for any less than the best." So the calligraphy lesson, in Tetsu's eyes was a lesson reeking in love. As a Japanese father to a Japanese son, one doesn't just give a hug and say "I love you." The sterner, the stricter the father is, the more the child knows that the father is doing it all in love. In theory…
(Takumi's 1st grade classroom at school)

It goes without saying that a finger was never laid on Takumi. There was no physical abuse… Between Tetsu and Takumi… But when I finally stepped in HOURS later…..

"You will not do this to MY child!" bang, I barged into the room.

"This is child abuse." I pushed Tetsu off balance.

"Takumi has no idea when this hellish situation is going to end… It goes on until YOU are satisfied and there is no satisfying you!" I punched Tetsu in the chest.

One of the hundreds of papers that Takumi had written was hurriedly stuffed into his book bag and I pronounced it good enough for the calligraphy homework. I think Tetsu was so surprised that he quietly put everything away and Takumi's calligraphy lesson was over.

Takumi and Leiya have always disliked Japanese calligraphy and they never asked Tetsu to help them again. And Tetsu remembers that day as the one where I committed a little husband abuse for the protection of my son…

"My wife is the scariest person in the world." -- Tetsu

I got permission from Tetsu to write this post.

Sofa cushion

It is still cold around here. But not snowy. Every year we get less and less snow which is nice since I don't like driving in the snow and Tetsu doesn't much like shoveling snow. I remember there was one year when the first day of school after winter break was cancelled and instead all the parents were asked to shovel the sidewalk from our neighborhood all the way to the school (about a normal 20 minute walk). So far this year no snow.

But the water in the gutters freeze. The bushes along side the river freeze. Even the usually damp soil from in the forest and rice fields freeze. And Tetsu complains that he is freezing.

Yesterday I went to the electronics store. Truth be told, I was looking for a cat kotatsu. A kotatsu is a low wooden table with a heating element under it and blankets over it to keep the lower half of your body warm. It is the traditional way Japanese stayed warm in the winter and it used to be heated with coal. Ever since I've lived in Japan kotatsus are electric and most homes use them. We don't just because they take up space.

BUT...! I heard that the stores sell small CAT kotatsus! Just small enough for a cat! And I heard that they are a little pricey (but cats love them so it's worth it, right?) And I realized with 6 cats I'd have to buy at least three (one cat can sleep inside the warmth, one cat can sleep on top). But no cat kotatsus to be found. It must be so cold that everyone with cats has bought them (or no one is as cat crazy as I am and so the stores don't even sell them...) (Cat kotatsu picture from the Internet).

While at the store I noticed an electric sofa cushion "for people who like to lounge around on the sofa". And they were less expensive than cat kotatsus. And Tetsu is the all time sofa lounger who is always complaining that he is freezing, right? Hmmm. Do I want this? How much is it? Hey, if I was willing to pay more for my cats' comfort then I should be able to afford this for my husband's, right? (Of course I feel sorry for my cats. My husband I think should just put on another sweater.) So I bought Tetsu an electric sofa cushion.

Tetsu was very happy and "lounged" all over the sofa late last night and said it really kept him warm.

And the cats like it too! Successful purchase.

Works in Progress

I'm not doing too much today. I counted up my Works-in-Progress.

I have the Bunny Hill BOM and though I'm ahead in that, I'm working on block number 4... I don't know why when there are other things to do. Oops, I guess I didn't show block number 3. March has St. Patrick's Day so the clovers. A little hard to explain to Japanese friends who don't know St. Patrick's Day.

Feathered Star... poor thing, again relegated to a corner.











Jewel Box which has been turned into a nest by Mi.

And this morning I was making a simple nine patch because a new friend wants me to help her get started on the simplest pattern possible so that she can make a baby quilt for her grandchild -to-be. She isn't willing to try machine piecing so I hand pieced this sample and went through in my head how to explain making a template, cutting fabric, matching seams, etc. All those things moderately advanced quilters take for granted. I guess I have enough experience that I can teach this. The question is can I pass my enthusiasm for patchwork on to someone else without overwhelming her...

Oh rats, I have that mini-Round Robin sitting on the table too. I loved some of the suggestions for that project.

Thank you BrendaLou! Fantastic advice!

"#1 Law of Quilting: All rules are made to be broken!"

Maybe I can relax and enjoy this a bit more...