So Mark (clever, handsome devil that he is) has managed to find this blog by googling some of the SIPs which were in a month’s worth of posts I sent him. So, hi, honey. I won’t go back and sanitize the silliness, drama, sadness, flippery, and so on, but now blog with perhaps a bit more discretion and a little less gushing.

I’ve been really phoning it in in terms of work of late, but that’s okay, I think, because it’s very phone-in-able, although I would say this week is rough given the parents coming in, and that entire report card mess, which involves all sorts of paperwork–it always astounding to me how people just don’t get this thing called mail merge.

That aside, it’s been a good week as far as the dating and so on are concerned (do you hear that, Mark?–Okay, I’ll stop the shout-outs, it’s annoying), but it’s odd to think how quickly the sharp snappiness in kendo can leave you with just a week off. Saturday was also extremely pleasant weather-wise (with eventual facebook photos to follow), but it’s sad how the Manhattan girls find ordinary people’s ordinary lives so damn “festive.”

So more and more in my old age I realize I should have been some species of a sociologist. Rob and I went snowboarding yesterday, and I finally understand why the Japanese are so damn good at kendo.

The representation in terms of New York City-ers was relatively low despite the perfect weather, coldly crisp and still lightly snowing with no wind to attack my delicate pores. What was interesting to watch throughout, however, was the ways in which the teaching of skiing and boarding was taught, the socialization throughout.

I started out in a group lesson, with three kids whose combined age just might have exceeded my own. My instructor couldn’t even shave, and the emphasis was on language (toes, heels) rather than on the real effects, and on communication, something I paid especial attention to since there didn’t seem to be all that many ELL’s hanging out on the slopes. The idea of a group lesson and the lack of reiho were notable, in that the goal was transmission and all learning was at a distance, done by speech.

The difference might have been the ways in which the local parents were training their little ski-kids with harnesses or cradled between their legs, steering their way, and yelling out things like, “Pizza slice” (in order to slow down, apparently), which of course as a culturally-sensitive/relevant/responsive teacher I find offensive to our Sicilian students, or even weaving down “Lover’s Lane” holding a little kid’s hand, exclaiming, “Isn’t this fun?” Of course, private tuition costs a lot more, and there was a mix of parents who were doing their own teaching and a stable of redcoated instructors who of course got preferential treatment in line.

From the point of view of teaching and Mountainous Education, however, I found it helpful to look at these contexts with fresh eyes, and thinking about the ways in which the “model” or philosophy of instruction is far different from the transmissionist ways in which we are still stuck in schooling. Further, I’m deeply jealous of the ways in which little kids can just take things up, in ways that they have a hard time describing or even articulating (as my instructor shows), with a confidence that adult learners like me lose in our self-questioning and doubting….

So as my annual trip “home” draws to a close, I find myself again anxious to return to New York and the more normal course of my life, as busy as that is going to be right when I hit the ground. It’s been more of the same, I could tell the same stories of sweat pants, pirated wireless, procrastination, overeating and underheating that I have been for years. Things never change, until two grandparents pass.

I’m looking forward to the future, though, vaguely contemplating an April trip to Venezuela and a July-August thing to Taipei/Taiwan, all mediated by plenty of kendo.

I feel like almost everything in my life has come together except a couple things I used to take for granted back in the day which now I don’t at all. It’s gotten better and worse and now I just continue on, plenty fine for the most part, alternating with silences that stretch indefinitely.

Still, it’s been nice to be clean from booze and tobacco, even though I’d much rather be eating less than what I’m doing now. Time to get back in shape–I need a new gym routine for sure!

So two things: first an Asianboi roundup (thanks to reviewing my blog from four+ years ago):

DoEun has gone dark, but I’ve gone matchmaker.
EnDee has finally arrived, but I’m not helping him enough.
HoEn has graduated, but still wants more.
PeeTrk has plenty of nice clothes, but still worries about everything.
RoCh has painted his room, but might miss tomorrow night.
xyFee has a new secretary, but is still on Guam

Thet has got me wrapped around his little finger but doesn’t know it.

The shocking thing is looking back how much was captured by this blog, and how much I’ve lost in the interim. For example: the two Sundays past:

Sunday last: got up early, went to practice, Sensei in fine form, getting up from Sensei I twist my back and am in excruciating pain. I use all my kiai and tanden power to make it through practice. Run to duane reade and buy patches. Rob is showing his apt and so I go to the GC to internet for a while. Join my classmates (two mothers and a layover) for drinks (3 guinnesses), before meeting up with GBF for the usual crappy but adequate sushi. Then off to Rob for drinks at the pub (2) before to USQ to write my kendojournal. Run into Andy before my drink of the night. Stagger home.

Sunday this: got up early, went to kendo, back burning but i make it, somehow. Contact GBF and Andy about Flushing, planning for the LIRRst, but make it, somehow, way too early, hanging out waiting around for Thet’s call, but knowing I don’t really need it. Meet up eventually and go to a subpar Thai place, followed by hitching a ride with GBF’s fugly ex to the mall. Purchase energy bars, antenna, router (not necessarily in that order). Come home to talk to fam, watch the Giants pull it out, heart it out with Andy. Then drink again and now here. Sundays can be pretty great.

So it’s been a singularly unproductive sort of day, beginning with an early rise into work and then a schlep with the kiddies (who have transmuted into mostly-uncommunicative but buffoonish Chinese boys who were poor math students in their unspecified native country) to the nomadic museum, a vaulting space of sepia. After that it was some Rob Chin aimlessness which lasted quite some time, before I ended up here, trying to take a nap, but somehow failing before kendo.