Entries this day: A_fractal_called_life Work Yuuko

A fractal called life

9:13am JST Sunday 11 January 2004

I don't have enough time right now to finish this entire thought, but I have been repeating a thought in my mind: "pattern matching"

I keep noticing how many of my thought processes are just pattern matching. Seeing things that are similar and making assumptions about them based on similarities.

For example, making cookies. janette knows just when to pull them out of the oven by monitoring the cookies in the oven. No timer needed; just some pattern matching in her mind. Last time the cookies were good when I took them out when they were this shade of brown / fill-in-the-attribute that can be matched.

When I'm trying to read kanji, it's just pattern matching. That's how a kid was reading HAMPSTER as KANGAROO. First three letters look almost the same. Four points, then a triangle then a zig-zag. "Kangaroo!"

"Ah! let's look." And I showed him KANGAROO, which he discerned to more closely match his pattern of "kangaroo" in his mind.

"Hampster!"

"Hampster! Excellent!" high five.

Work

10:26pm JST Sunday 11 January 2004

At work I had Takako twice; she's my Aries bud at work. But we're not buds outside of work; just at work. She explained that she didn't have any chances to speak English during the break and has therefore forgotten a lot and I explained that I understood; I had done the same thing when my girlfriend came to Japan.

Told her to buck up buttercup and trust that she's doing well. But oh, but most importantly, she told me about her job and about some of the tribulations she has there; she works in a nursing home, which in itself is like wow I think. She told me a story about a patient who spent 2 hours asking her why he couldn't go home and an hour walking around his room looking for the door and she worked to pacify him and wow wow wow; that seems like really intense work. Far more difficult than teaching.

In the previous lesson (where she far exceeded the other student's abilities), we had made sentences like, "he is a doctor; he works in a hospital; his job is important." and stuff like that. At the end of the second lesson I was like, "your job is important."

She is the first student (I think) that after I've given a compliment, has said simply, "thank you." Aries bond.

- - - -

A kid (junior named Sara) could spell dog, cat, cow, lion, tiger, duck, frog, gorilla, and monkey, and maybe a couple others. Then I taught her how to spell chicken, cheetah, and elephant.

Then I drilled her by spelling animals and having her tell me what animal name I had spelled. She was money.

Oh, at the end of the lesson, I remembered that I thought it would be a good idea if she knew how to convert from Japanese hiragana to romanji and I started her off with A I U E O KA KI KU and the bell rang and she was like, "homework?" and I'm like fuck because we are not supposed to teach using Japanese, but I wasn't teaching using Japanese, just teaching her how to translate into romanji Japanese words/sounds but I'm like, "yeah, homework" but now I realize the next teacher that has her might not know how to properly transcribe つ　し　いろいろ or any of them really, so I hope it doesn't fuck her up. But she's a brilliant resilient kid; I know she'll be okay.

Yuuko

10:32pm JST Sunday 11 January 2004

Hung out with 裕子 after work today; we yammered a bit at Starbucks and then munched at Big Boy salad bar. Mostly we yammered in English.

Walking back toward the station to say byebye she told me that tomorrow is the day that 20 year olds celebrate coming of age (when they can smoke and drink yippee fuckin doo). Said that is snowed on her coming of age day.

"Snow ですか。"

"Snow です。"

Funnnnny.