Wow, its been a while. As for everyone concerned for our safety, thank you! We are ok over here. Where we live in Japan is quite safe and stable. So no worries!

Updates! Things haven't changed much. Job is still the same, just been keeping busy with work, studying, and a baby. Takaho and I joke quite a bit about not remembering life before Leo. We had so much free time on our hands.

But anyways, forgot to load pics on my computer so you will have to been content with a pic of Leo from February. He doesn't need our help to walk anymore. So I'll try to get up a recent pic of the little guy soon. 

 

 

And is been a while since I've put something up! Waiting for the kid to pop out, while being able to do nothing but warm up the bath and give back rubs to my aching wife has been rough. The doc has told us a week ago that the kid can be born anytime. Last week she's entered the last 2 weeks until the due date of the 28th. Anxious? YES!

But starting today, her back has been feeling a different kind of hurt. As she put it. "It just feels different."
COME ON KID! POP OUT!

Paul sent me a pretty interesting link that can kind of help explain some of the feelings that I have over here with the language, and when it deals with my name. I highly suggest it if you are interested in Japan or think about moving. Truly think about this if you come!

Living with a foreign name in Japan

The very beginning starts like this.

»My surname is “Werneburg”, and the name just doesn’t work in Japanese. It originates in the forested heart of »Germany where its pronunciation is obvious even if it is by no means an everyday name. But Germany’s rolling hills »and rolling r’s are a long way from Japan, and it’s here that the import—like an invader species—causes some chaos.
»The first problem for foreigners like me is that the Japanese language has a range of sounds that is more limited »than in our European languages. Whereas English has some twenty vowels and twenty-four consonants, Japanese »has only five vowel sounds and nineteen consonant sounds. Further restricting the pronunciation in Japanese is the »use of a syllabary rather than an alphabet. These syllables combine a consonant and a vowel together, so that when »you want to use a consonant you have to follow it with a vowel sound that fits one of the available syllables. The ‘n’ »sound sometimes stands alone, but the rest must always incorporate a vowel.

But now we get into my name.
"Scherzer"

I started taking Japanese in my first senior year of University. As the "r" is nearly impossible to pronounce correctly without it sounding like an English "l", English names and objects end up becoming this in Japanese:

car - kaa
tower - Towaa
soccer - soccaa

That's right, I went from Scherzer to - Shaazaa .
But things got hard when I first got here. The boss chose the reading of our name by guessing, and asking other ALTs. Of course if you don't really know the pronunciation, its like shooting BBs at hummingbirds in the dark. So when I came in to Takayama, I was Sheazaa. Close, but I didn't like that. Then again I had no choice. It was official.
But I didn't care, for unofficial and official documents I used the spelling that reflected the pronunciation of the name the best.

Then it came to my clinic, and on my appointment card and official file at the clinic, (Sheazaa would have been fine. But for pete's sake can you not even read your own freakin language?!), I became Sheadaa. I went for a year and a half dealing with the Sheazaa deal putting up with it. Then Takaho finally told me to straight up fix it. It actually came in this form.
[Hurry and change your name. Because there is no way I'm going to marry a "Sheazaa"]

So I harassed people at city hall and got that fixed. Eventually I got my name changed at the clinic, it just didn't feel right to get medicine under a different name.

But there have been other times that there have been mispronunciations, and misspellings.
This isn't the best way to fix something in a culture that focuses on never talking back to your elders, but it worked for me after I got to know people.

Me- [Excuse me, could you change my name tag so it reads Shaazaa instead of Sheazaa?]
Yamada- [Um, oh I see. But it is close enough, its sounds about the same.] (AKA - to lazy to fix it)
Me- [But it isn't right.]
Yamada- [Ok, I'll try to get to it.]
Me- [Ok, thank you Mr. Yamaba. That is how you say your name right?]
Yamada- [No, its Yamada.]
Me- [Oh sorry. Yamaba is close enough, it sounds about the same.]

Using this I'll usually get it changed on the spot instead of 2-3 weeks down the road.

Next time I'll talk about the peeve I have about being called Mr. Daniel.

Habits are hard to start, and unintentional habits are even harder to break. Such as laziness.

But after taking the Japanese Language Proficiency Test on sunday...I have to keep up my study habits. I spent 7pm-9pm M-F and around 3-4 hours a day on the weekend in the local library for the last month trying to cram as much as I could into my brain. Before then I was trying to spend at least 1 hour or more a day studying. I really was not prepared for the level of Japanese on that test!

But it can be lonely. We get home at 5 have two hours to talk and catch up, then I'm off to the library to study for 2 hours and sometimes she is asleep on the sofa when I come back. But then I see her giant belly (No stretch marks! (@o@)) and realize that I need to work my butt off now for my son and her. So I've got the drive, and the desire, now it is just creating the habit.

Woof.