Tuesday, February 24, 2009
So, I've discovered this thing called Twitter that basically gives people a status update. I'll try to post little blurbs often, and they'll show up on the right hand of this page. I'll still try to post regularly, but this will give me a chance to mention stuff without feeling like I need to put a whole lot of time into a full-fledged post.
Japan-US Relations
I don't know why I let the differences between Japan and America get to me, but I do. This past weekend, our cell phone service got shut off. When I signed the contract, I asked how I could pay my bill. They asked for my postal bank account number and told me that the bill would automatically come out of my account each month. What they failed to tell me was that automatic payments take two months to establish in Japan.
Up until three days ago, I hadn't received any kind of bill or notice of payment. Every time I checked my account statement, I wondered why the money hadn't yet come out. Three days ago, I got January's bill in the mail. The next day, my service was shut off. When I contacted the phone company today, they agreed to turn on my cell phone service and apologized for any confusion.
I asked about December's bill and wondered why it never came. The bills come pre-printed with the amount paid, so you can't pay two months' bills at a time. They told me that they sent December's bill two weeks ago, and that I had before the end of month to pay or they'd shut the phones off again. I went to the post office to pay January's bill, with the hope that I could pay December's as well. No such luck.
Here in Japan, you have to have a physical copy of a bill if you want to pay it. There is no online bill pay. There is no option to pay by phone with a debit or credit card. You can set up automatic payment from an account, but you have to fill out forms (without making any mistakes). When I asked the post office clerk to help me, we ended up on the phone again with the phone company, verifying exactly what they had already told me. They're resending the bill that never came so that I can have a physical copy to take into an office to pay.
I've always paid my bills early. If I pay them while I still have money, I don't have to worry about not being able to pay my bills later. It's so frustrating that I have to wait weeks or months just to give them money. It's archaic and it's arcane. It's archanic. I just want to pay my bill! The problem is, most people here don't ask questions. They just pay. They fill out the paperwork, wait in the lines, go through the motions, and never demand that things be made easier or more user-friendly. On one hand, I understand that I need to develop more patience for these sorts of things. On the other hand, I wonder why I should have to develop patience for something as trivial as paying a bill. Don't I have more important things to worry about?
When we set up the apartment in Matsuyama, the church helped pay for the rent. We said that we were willing to pay a certain amount, so they told us to transfer the money whenever we could. We now are able to make that transfer, but they won't let me! I called the Branch President, and he said not to worry about it until April. The problem is, the only way I won't stress about outstanding debts and bills is if they've been paid! Now, we'll have an untouchable chunk of money in our account for six weeks, giving us a false sense of financial security. Why can't I just pay it now? Where else in the world would a debtor not be allowed to pay his debts? Consider my mind boggled. So, I'll try to put it out of my mind. But I won't rest easy until our debts are settled.
Mia's getting big--she's out of the incubator now. It's great to see her in her bassinet, without all the tubes and everything. She's up to 4 pounds now, and she's really starting to fill out. I think she looks a lot like Kelsey did when she was born, except that she seems to have lighter hair and blue eyes. We'll be excited if they stay blue.
Yesterday, they told us that she could start breast feeding, but that we had to go out and buy some sterilizing wipes. If they had given us any sort of heads-up, we could have been prepared. Instead, Stef had to fit one more stop into her already packed schedule. Stuff like that could easily be avoided if people were just more willing to communicate with us.
We're anticipating her release from the hospital in three weeks or so. We still don't know where we're going to live. We think we're taking Kitt's place, but nobody's been able to confirm anything. I have yet to be contacted by my new contracting organization. It'd be nice to know where we're going to live so that we can prepare the place. We're even willing to pay the full month's rent, even if we only live there for a week or two in March. From what I gather, I probably won't get a call until the day before I'm supposed to be there. Because moving obviously doesn't take time.
Most Japanese people seem to be unwilling to engage in any sort of speculation. Doctor Nagai said that the Japanese way is to only say what has been confirmed, so as to not create false expectations. In other words, they could lose face if they speculated on something and it turned out to be slightly different. When we inquired about the start date of breast feeding, the doctors tiptoed around our question. Instead of saying something like, "Once she's at a stable weight--say, 1800 grams--and is able to be moved from the incubator to a bassinet, we'll try", they said, "Once she's healthy enough." We don't need exact figures--just estimates that we can use to set realistic expectations and prepare for the future. I'm not going to sue you if things turn out differently. It's okay if they're not sure where they'll place me yet--just tell me that.
In addition to Adult English conversation classes, I've started teaching internet classes once a week. After fixing my boss' computer a couple weeks ago, I'm now seen as the computer whiz on the island. I admit it's a bit tough to motivate myself to help him now, since I've learned that my effort led to him having a computer that's fast enough to load adult web sites. Last week, for the first lesson, two 60-70 year old men came. They were more excited to read haiku and see pictures of themselves on the town website than anything else. That's a lot easier on my conscience than the stuff my boss wanted to look at. I was pretty stressed about the class at first, but it turned out to be pretty relaxed.
Kelsey's struggling with the long distance fathering. It breaks my heart to hear that she cries for me while I'm away, or that she looks for me when she wakes up, only to remember where I am and announce to the world, "Daddy's working. Island." I miss all my girls terribly. But there's only a few more weeks of this. It'll all be over soon.
Kelsey's getting a lot better at speaking. All the cute "one" words (water = wa-one, pillow = pih-one, towel = tow-one) now sound pretty close to how they should. She still says some things in a cute/wrong way, like fishy tatters (instead of fishy crackers). When we would arrive at the store, Jusco, Kelsey used to shout, "Home!" After telling her that Jusco is not home, but a store, she would shake her head and say, "Not home." We told her the store was called Jusco, and she now calls it "Jus-Home." But for the most part, her English is getting really good. When Stef leaves to see Mia, Kelsey says, "Mommy's seeing Mia. Kelsey's playing nurse." When Stef gets back, she says, "Mommy saw Mia." That's pretty advanced stuff.
I mentioned earlier that Kelsey comes up with her own plans, like when we tell her that she has to hold someone's hand and she elects to hold "Kelsey's hand." The other day, in an attempt to get Kelsey ready to go to the hospital, Stef gave her two options: we could take the bikes or take the stroller. Kelsey replied, "No. Take the bus." Her responses blow me away sometimes.
Life is good. We have our sources of stress, but truthfully, we feel pretty blessed. We were interviewed by a camera crew from NHK, the public broadcasting station in Japan that's famous for news coverage. They came to the hospital to ask us some questions about Mia's birth and our hospital experience. It's set to air March 10th. I'll get a copy and post it on YouTube for everyone to see.
Up until three days ago, I hadn't received any kind of bill or notice of payment. Every time I checked my account statement, I wondered why the money hadn't yet come out. Three days ago, I got January's bill in the mail. The next day, my service was shut off. When I contacted the phone company today, they agreed to turn on my cell phone service and apologized for any confusion.
I asked about December's bill and wondered why it never came. The bills come pre-printed with the amount paid, so you can't pay two months' bills at a time. They told me that they sent December's bill two weeks ago, and that I had before the end of month to pay or they'd shut the phones off again. I went to the post office to pay January's bill, with the hope that I could pay December's as well. No such luck.
Here in Japan, you have to have a physical copy of a bill if you want to pay it. There is no online bill pay. There is no option to pay by phone with a debit or credit card. You can set up automatic payment from an account, but you have to fill out forms (without making any mistakes). When I asked the post office clerk to help me, we ended up on the phone again with the phone company, verifying exactly what they had already told me. They're resending the bill that never came so that I can have a physical copy to take into an office to pay.
I've always paid my bills early. If I pay them while I still have money, I don't have to worry about not being able to pay my bills later. It's so frustrating that I have to wait weeks or months just to give them money. It's archaic and it's arcane. It's archanic. I just want to pay my bill! The problem is, most people here don't ask questions. They just pay. They fill out the paperwork, wait in the lines, go through the motions, and never demand that things be made easier or more user-friendly. On one hand, I understand that I need to develop more patience for these sorts of things. On the other hand, I wonder why I should have to develop patience for something as trivial as paying a bill. Don't I have more important things to worry about?
When we set up the apartment in Matsuyama, the church helped pay for the rent. We said that we were willing to pay a certain amount, so they told us to transfer the money whenever we could. We now are able to make that transfer, but they won't let me! I called the Branch President, and he said not to worry about it until April. The problem is, the only way I won't stress about outstanding debts and bills is if they've been paid! Now, we'll have an untouchable chunk of money in our account for six weeks, giving us a false sense of financial security. Why can't I just pay it now? Where else in the world would a debtor not be allowed to pay his debts? Consider my mind boggled. So, I'll try to put it out of my mind. But I won't rest easy until our debts are settled.
Mia's getting big--she's out of the incubator now. It's great to see her in her bassinet, without all the tubes and everything. She's up to 4 pounds now, and she's really starting to fill out. I think she looks a lot like Kelsey did when she was born, except that she seems to have lighter hair and blue eyes. We'll be excited if they stay blue.
Yesterday, they told us that she could start breast feeding, but that we had to go out and buy some sterilizing wipes. If they had given us any sort of heads-up, we could have been prepared. Instead, Stef had to fit one more stop into her already packed schedule. Stuff like that could easily be avoided if people were just more willing to communicate with us.
We're anticipating her release from the hospital in three weeks or so. We still don't know where we're going to live. We think we're taking Kitt's place, but nobody's been able to confirm anything. I have yet to be contacted by my new contracting organization. It'd be nice to know where we're going to live so that we can prepare the place. We're even willing to pay the full month's rent, even if we only live there for a week or two in March. From what I gather, I probably won't get a call until the day before I'm supposed to be there. Because moving obviously doesn't take time.
Most Japanese people seem to be unwilling to engage in any sort of speculation. Doctor Nagai said that the Japanese way is to only say what has been confirmed, so as to not create false expectations. In other words, they could lose face if they speculated on something and it turned out to be slightly different. When we inquired about the start date of breast feeding, the doctors tiptoed around our question. Instead of saying something like, "Once she's at a stable weight--say, 1800 grams--and is able to be moved from the incubator to a bassinet, we'll try", they said, "Once she's healthy enough." We don't need exact figures--just estimates that we can use to set realistic expectations and prepare for the future. I'm not going to sue you if things turn out differently. It's okay if they're not sure where they'll place me yet--just tell me that.
In addition to Adult English conversation classes, I've started teaching internet classes once a week. After fixing my boss' computer a couple weeks ago, I'm now seen as the computer whiz on the island. I admit it's a bit tough to motivate myself to help him now, since I've learned that my effort led to him having a computer that's fast enough to load adult web sites. Last week, for the first lesson, two 60-70 year old men came. They were more excited to read haiku and see pictures of themselves on the town website than anything else. That's a lot easier on my conscience than the stuff my boss wanted to look at. I was pretty stressed about the class at first, but it turned out to be pretty relaxed.
Kelsey's struggling with the long distance fathering. It breaks my heart to hear that she cries for me while I'm away, or that she looks for me when she wakes up, only to remember where I am and announce to the world, "Daddy's working. Island." I miss all my girls terribly. But there's only a few more weeks of this. It'll all be over soon.
Kelsey's getting a lot better at speaking. All the cute "one" words (water = wa-one, pillow = pih-one, towel = tow-one) now sound pretty close to how they should. She still says some things in a cute/wrong way, like fishy tatters (instead of fishy crackers). When we would arrive at the store, Jusco, Kelsey used to shout, "Home!" After telling her that Jusco is not home, but a store, she would shake her head and say, "Not home." We told her the store was called Jusco, and she now calls it "Jus-Home." But for the most part, her English is getting really good. When Stef leaves to see Mia, Kelsey says, "Mommy's seeing Mia. Kelsey's playing nurse." When Stef gets back, she says, "Mommy saw Mia." That's pretty advanced stuff.
I mentioned earlier that Kelsey comes up with her own plans, like when we tell her that she has to hold someone's hand and she elects to hold "Kelsey's hand." The other day, in an attempt to get Kelsey ready to go to the hospital, Stef gave her two options: we could take the bikes or take the stroller. Kelsey replied, "No. Take the bus." Her responses blow me away sometimes.
Life is good. We have our sources of stress, but truthfully, we feel pretty blessed. We were interviewed by a camera crew from NHK, the public broadcasting station in Japan that's famous for news coverage. They came to the hospital to ask us some questions about Mia's birth and our hospital experience. It's set to air March 10th. I'll get a copy and post it on YouTube for everyone to see.
Sunday, February 22, 2009
New pics of Mia
Here are the most recent pics of Mia (and one of Kelsey playing with the nurse), taken yesterday.
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