Handmade Maru-Batsu Toy

Posted on January 5th, 2009 in Customary Drivel, Media, Video by Deas

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A science teacher who used to work at my base school, but who still works at a school that I visit regularly, was stoked when I did a reprisal of my Physics Lesson that I originated for Matsuyama Chuo High School’s English Day. I guess he also wanted to thank me for helping him with a research paper he’s trying to get published in an academic journal. (I translated the abstract for him last year.) So what does he do? He gives me this thing. It’s a CD that he’s drilled 4 holes in, 4 paper cubes strung together and anchored to the holes, and arranged in just the right way to make them change consistently between 2 set positions. Print a big maru (circle) on one position and a batsu (an X) on the other, and you get a neat little toy to use during quizzes in the classroom. I think I like it better than the little light-up one I bought that makes sounds!

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This was auto-posted. Deas is trying not to eat any Ebola-infested pork while learning to scuba dive in the Philippines right now. He’ll be back in January.
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Nametoko English Camp 2008


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You’ve seen the pictures from the Matsuyama Chuo HS Summer Camp, but now you can see the sights and hear the sounds from the 2008 Nametoko One World English Camp and the Junior High / Senior High School Camps. This year was another success. If everything works out, I’ll be at the upcoming 2009 Nametoko English Camps, too. If you’re interested in volunteering for it, you should contact me, and I’ll pass the word along to the appropriate folks. It’s a crazy 9 day long adventure. :-D Now - on to the pictures!

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This was auto-posted. Deas is trying not to die a horrible death while learning to scuba dive in the Philippines right now. He’ll be back in January.
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7 Per Annuam

Posted on December 31st, 2008 in Customary Drivel by Deas
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I have a weird name. It comes up a lot. I like it, personally. It fits me rather well. Anyway, I recently discovered some cool information about it. A timewaster site had a bunch of information that I’d not seen before. Forgive the odd formatting. You’ll get the gist anyway.

DEAS is the 18,096th most popular name in USA (… 18094.caudell , 18095.vernetta , 18096.deas , 18097.malkin , 18098.debbi …). One in every 351,102 Americans are named DEAS and the popularity of name DEAS is 2.85 people per million.

If we compare the popularity statistics of DEAS to USA’s population statistics, we can estimate that as of December.19.2008 01:30 there are 871 people named as DEAS in the United States and the number of DEAS’s are increasing by 7 people every year.

Courtesy of PokeMyName.com

This site reminds me of similar weird things that go around the Japanese net. Sites like Nounai-Meekaa and its English counterpart BrainScannr, etc. Fun. Probably totally useless, but fun. :-)

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This was auto-posted. Deas is trying not to be stung by jellyfish while learning to scuba dive in the Philippines right now. He’ll be back in January.
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Student Cards

Posted on December 29th, 2008 in Customary Drivel, Media, Video by Deas

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Awwww! Warms the heart.

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Matsuyama Chuo Summer Camp

I jokingly mentioned never having posted about my experience at the Matsuyama Chuo High School Summer Camp in a recent post. (I have, however, ceaselessly carry on about the physics class I taught there earlier in the summer at the English Day event. Being on TV does that to you, I guess.) Well, I decided that I should get it together and try to at least show you some quick pictures from it in the midst of the winter chill. Perhaps these pictures will help you warm up, just like a good mug full of hot cocoa - with tobasco and cinnamon, obviously. ;-) Love it.

Derry is freakin’ tall. Seriously. Ha ha. :-) Hope you enjoyed them! Questions in the comments section will be answered when I’m home!

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This was auto-posted. Deas is trying not to tangle his equipment while learning to scuba dive in the Philippines right now. He’ll be back in January.
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Santa Claus and Physics Revisited

Deasさんのこのエントリー、面白いなぁと思って、昨日、夕飯の時に我が家の子供たちにも話してみました。

子供たちが出した結論は…∴サンタさんは一人ではない。でした。
サンタ村のようなところに大勢のサンタさんが住んでいて、クリスマスの夜はみんなで一斉に配りに歩くんだそうです。(ちなみに「サンタ」と呼び捨てにすると、「サンタさんに失礼だろう!」と怒られました。(^^;)「ママがそんな失礼なことを言っていると怒ってこの家には来てくれないかもしれない」と心配もしているようでした。)

“1秒間に900軒以上配らなければいけない”のところで、私が、「もしかしたら、サンタさんは魔法みたいなものをつかって、一度に900軒分のプレゼントを煙突から入れることができるのかもしれない」と言ったら、上の息子(9歳)は「うーん…そうかもしれないけど、ぼくの考えでは、サンタさんはちゃんと一人ずつ、”一年間いい子だったね”って寝てる顔を見て、置いて行ってくれると思う」とまじめに悩みながら言ってました。(^^)

みんなでわいわいと、それぞれの自論を披露し合って、楽しい夕飯になりました。楽しい話題をありがとうございました。(^^)/

-English translation-

I thought your entry was interesting, so last night during dinner at our house, I brought it up in conversation with my children.

The children’s conclusion seemed to be that…Santa Claus is not one person.
They posited that many Santas live in a place like a Santa-village, and each Christmas night they all walk around to distribute presents at the same time. (By the way, when I just called him “Santa” [presumably without the "Claus" or "-san" suffix], they became angry, saying “isn’t that rude to Santa?” (^^;) It was as though they were worried that “If Mama says such rude things Santa will be angry and he might not visit our house!”)

When I explained that “in 1 second’s time, Santa must distribute presents to more than 900 houses” I said, “Maybe Santa is using some sort of magic to put 900 presents at one time into various chimneys.” My oldest son, who is 9 years old, said, “Yeah, that might be true, but I think that Santa visits each child one by one, looks upon their sleeping faces that convey that they have ‘been a good child for a whole year,’ carefully lays down the present, and goes.” He seemed serious and distressed as he said it. (^^)

It became a fun dinner, with everyone being lively and making their own arguments about it. Thanks very much for the fun topic. (^^)/

marukoさんのコメントDec 20th 2008 07:57

This warmed my heart. I submitted my translation of the Santa Claus: From An Engineer’s Perspective piece to Lang-8 for revision - see the entry on Lang-8 here. Not only did I get super-fast corrections, like usual, but I also go this comment. Made me smile. :-)

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This was auto-posted. Deas is trying not to get too comfortable with spandex while learning to scuba dive in the Philippines right now. He’ll be back in January.
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