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Credits: TheTalkingDad.com & FeedWind.comRecent Posts: M Thomas Apple
Old-fashioned letters: Wow, what a fossil
Since I don’t have access to a printer for a while (on a research stay in Montréal for a while), I decided to write a letter. You know, on paper. With lines. That stuff made from trees that you can still find everywhere although nobody under the age of 25 ever uses it any more. […]
Bonesteel and Wells: A tragedy in Troy
“Three little children who were playing on the sidewalk near 118th Street and Seventh Avenue Tuesday afternoon jokingly shouted to two women riding in a ten-year-old automobile, ‘Get a horse! Get a horse!’ “A few seconds later they were frantically scrambling from the path of the old machine as apparently out of control, it plunged […]
What’s in a name? That which we call…
One thing I have struggled with while uncovering my family’s complicated past is the lack of consistency in naming conventions before the digital age. In the Information Age, if you type in your name or ID with a single letter missing or out of place, your application gets rejected by whatever online program it is […]
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Category Archives: education
First Year Wall (Part 2) – The (not-so voluntary) parent-teacher conference
In mid-April, I went to a parent-teacher conference. Actually, it was more like an enforced PTA committee, which one parent per kid had to attend. As a group. We sat at our kids’ desks (tiny!) and introduced ourselves. This was … Continue reading
The First Year Wall (Part 1) – Gakudo and the Kid
Three weeks ago, our youngest daughter went to nursery school for the last time. The following Monday, she started gakudo (学童, short for 学童教育 gakudokyouiku, which is usually translated as “after school program”). Since both my wife and I work … Continue reading
End of an Era: Goodbye, Nursery School
And so it begins. The end of the start of the rest of my children’s childhood. By which I mean our youngest daughter graduated from nursery school / kindergarten. Thinking back, we’ve been coming to our local nursery school every … Continue reading
Farewell, Nursery. Hello, Kindergarten
After turning five in January, our youngest daughter finally made to the end of nursery school (“nen-cho,” 年長). Or so we thought. We had heard rumors in previous years that the system might change. It turns out that in this … Continue reading
Self-reliance starts young
Two weeks ago, my daughter graduated nursery school. Last week, my grandmother passed away (my daughter’s great-grandmother). Today, my daughter walked to elementary school for the first time. And the cycle continues… This is cherry blossom (sakura) season in Japan, … Continue reading
The end is the beginning
Our daughter is now leaving nursery school. From her birth to my wife’s maternity leave to my paternity leave, from building a new house to finishing a doctorate to switching jobs, from one daughter to another (who’s a completely different … Continue reading
“Dutch backpacks” in Japan
It’s the end of February, and our oldest daughter is nearing the end of her nursery school experience. What a ride it’s been. Now she and her classmates are learning the “goodbye, our nursery school,” song which they will sing … Continue reading
