mission.japan

New routines

Friday, May 26, 2006

The situation has changed again, albeit only slightly, with the Sedlaceks now in America.

“Busy” is the most appropriate word to describe the last week, and the best reason for why I haven’t been able to write in the last week. Now that we’re reaching the end of May we are officially heading into the summer schedule, beginning with the rainy season sometime around now.

The Sedlaceks are no longer here, as they left on Monday for three and a half weeks vacation in the States. This leaves the Shipps and me in charge of practically everything with regards to the English classes (isn’t that a scary thought?), and me in charge of taking care of the Sedlaceks’ house while they’re gone. Along with the house there’s Shadow, the Sedlaceks’ dog, so taking care of him is definitely the biggest responsibility on the list. As a cat person, taking care of a dog isn’t something I particularly look forward to, but I think I can manage. The biggest problem so far is not having a lot of time to do things like take Shadow out for walks, because there’s hardly any time in the day when I don’t have something to do. But the Shipps have been able to stop by a couple of times to help me in that respect.

David and Kathy offered to let me live at their house for the next few weeks (since I need to be there several times a day anyway for Shadow) and even set up a room for me upstairs, but I haven’t really had time to “move in” yet. I’m still not sure if I’m going to move in at all, although being able to use the full kitchen is a big plus (double w00t for Alton Brown’s pizza recipe, which I tried out last night).

Aside from the new responsibilities there’s still all of the old ones, such as English classes, church activities, and all of the little details of living in a foreign country. This past Sunday I translated for Pastor Goto during the message portion of Praise Night—that was fun, but it was also a little tiring, mentally speaking. I imagine I’ll play the translator role as needed during Praise Night so David can concentrate on other things. Naturally, with David gone I’m the only available translator, except perhaps Yukiko.

Comments

David Schaab wrote on May 26:

Let see how many besides the family respond to w00t and Alton Brown!
Translation duties – sure hope you are better than when I try to do prayer is sign – at least with songs I can learn the song rather than attempt to catch up with the speaker!

Kristen wrote on May 26:

Yay for Alton Brown pizza!!!

You could always have Shadow pull you around on your skates. :-P

Derek Schaab wrote on May 27:

I was able to cheat a bit for translation by attending the first two services and taking notes on words I didn’t know. But there were still a few times when I couldn’t get the gist of what Pastor Goto was saying (his message was slightly different for each service), so there were a handful of awkwardish gaps.

I almost don’t want to say it, but I think Alton’s pizza is as good as mom’s. Like he said, it’s all in the crust. Still haven’t figured out the dough-tossing thing, though. It always ended up lopsided.