Read While Standing

I'm sure you've seen it. A bookstore, people inside browsing, taking their time to read through a little bit of a book before deciding to buy it or not. Maybe some bookstores even stretch into a bit of mild luxury with some nice furnishings for their customers to take a break. But Japanese bookstores are different.

There's a term in Japanese, 立ち読み tachiyomi, meaning to read while standing. If you ever walk into a Japanese bookstore, you will invariably see people standing in front of a row of books, heads bent, perusing (especially in the magazine section) or even full-out reading books that they may or may not buy.

(tachiyomi)

I had my first interesting brush with tachiyomi the other day. I'm tutoring a former student of mine and I went looking for some good reference books for her vocabulary building. I picked up two books and wanted to compare words using the index, but I had a hard time trying to flip back and forth between the two, one in each hand. I happened to be standing near a desk with a chair (probably for clerk use), so I rolled the chair out. I hadn't even started to lower my body when a clerk came up and told me, "No sitting."

Now, to be honest, he simply might not have wanted me to sit in the chair since it looked like it might be for use by clerks. But my first thought was, "Oh yeah. No sitting in bookstores here." So I crouched next to the desk and flipped through a few pages, settling on one book over the other.

Tachiyomi can be a good thing, too. Say you just want to check out an article in a magazine that just came out (but you don't want to waste the paper or your cash), you can just stand and read. Say you just have 30 minutes to kill before you have to meet a friend, you can just stand and read. And I bet if you were even a cheapskate, you could find enough time to finish a novel.

Tutor. Me?

Just this Monday (May 17th), I started tutoring a former student of mine (currently a high schooler) for one hour, twice a week. It's going well!

I-chan (as I'll call her) is currently a second grade high school student (or a junior by US standards) and has dreams to use English in the future. While her ambitions might be currently future-career oriented, I also hope to instill in her the idea that English can be rewarding in and of itself. Not just as a tool for work, but also as a part of one's lifestyle.

We had our second lesson today and I'm amazed at how short one hour is. We start at 7:00 and before I know it, 8:00 has rolled around. Today, we went a bit long, but it was good. We focused on conversation today and she's doing really well. She's got the basics down, so I see our future lessons focusing on increasing vocabulary and listening comprehension (because there are so many ways to say just one thing, I think it's helpful to teach her multiple expressions). I'm also encouraging her to speak English to as many people as possible, to whoever will listen.

Her first goal is to pass the English Proficiency Test Level Pre-2 in October. I think it's plenty of time. I really want her to do her best. And I've discovered that through teaching her, my own volition to get better (and eventually master!) Japanese has been strengthened.

Brownies

I'm making brownies tonight, partly for the hell of it, partly for my neighbor's boy who turned 8 today. The last few times I made brownies (for a neighbor's daughter's graduation party and for our dojo girl's tournament win), the 8x8 inch pan was clean in under 5 minutes. So I must have done something right (or maybe I should give credit where credit is due).

Check back this evening for pictures (and 3D smell!) of the delicious baked goods.

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Rainy Season

It seems like the long stretch of rainy weather has arrived. Today started with a pretty heavy downpour all morning, with continued rain through this afternoon. The forecast (here) shows it going on all weekend, moving into cloudy/rainy weather next week.

This has motivated me to finally buy a dehumidifier (除湿機), since many of the clothes I own, if not taken well care of during this season (i.e. frequently worn, frequently washed) will begin to harbor mold. And once that happens, there's little that can be done to save the garment. The plus side of this is that it makes me hold on to less stuff. Over the past couple of months, I've been shrinking my wardrobe and getting rid of things I don't wear/use enough to make them worth keeping. All of which ties into a goal of mine to one day be able to live and travel lightly, but I'll save that for another post.