March 31, 2010 Incompetent Mothers

Since I am only eighteen, I suppose I have no right to comment on a person's child rearing efforts. In saying that, the following is merely my opinion. At the bottom of this post, I have listed an amazon search for "toilet training" products. Please be aware that if you click on this link and buy anything of the 79 or so results, I will be rewarded with some money from Amazon Associates, a wonderful plan thought up by Amazon / Blogger. I am a university student and need some money, so if you happen to have a young child at home or know someone who does, please help a girl out!

The last few days I have spent some time with a boy named Jiro (Japanese boy) who will turn 3, April 3. He is terribly cute and fairly well behaved considering he is a little boy still in grasp of the terrible twos. That saying, he still breast feeds and is not potty trained. While I don't think either of these things are terribly wrong at three (though three is really pushing it), it's how he acts. Maybe I am expecting too much of a little boy, but I think he should have some humility. He demands his mother give him milk. When he needs to use the bathroom and he is in public, he disappears and tries to hide from his mother. I asked him why he felt he needed to hide and he said he was hiding because he had to use the bathroom and that I had to go away for it to happen. I went and sat back down. Because only 50% of the time we could see him, he could possibly have be snatched by someone. That's not too impossible to imagine, right?

His father gets angry at him when he hides, but his mother just laughs and apologizes. I told her he might grow out of it, but I also think she's too forgiving. I don't know what she does at home with him, but it also does not seem like she's really interested in training him. She could have least have weaned him off breast milk by now, couldn't she? How embarrassed I would be if my three year old demanded milk in public. She giggles and asks him to wait a minute. I dunno, I guess there are worse parenting techniques, but i certainly can't find myself agreeing to this one!

Thanks for listening <3

Links to help potty train your child:
http://www.pampers.ca/en_CA/babies/toddler--potty-training some tips on potty training from other parents with video
http://www.babycenter.ca/toddler/pottytraining/ another great site with information and steps to potty training. No 3-day tricks here with Canadian and UK resources. I didn't see any American.



Search Amazon.com for toilet trainer some useful products to help your little angel on his/her way

Search Amazon.com Baby for toilet trainer  more products (or perhaps the same ones)

  

to help the little girl or boy you love (<3)

March 29, 2010 Cultural Insights of Japan (with bias)

When a person from the west (or anywhere outside of Japan) thinks of Japan, they are bound to think of Tokyo. Although a small country striving for uniformity, Japan still manages to have a wide range of differences, and so measuring Japan in your mind as merely Tokyo, with all its amazing technologies and fashions, would be like thinking of America and only picturing New York.

I live in Nagasaki, Japan. Four hundred years ago, Nagasaki was the heart of cultural and innovations in Japan. It was the Tokyo of today. Nagasaki, due in part to the atomic bombing, is no longer a liberal, cosmopolitan state. Though many people in Nagasaki dream of one day living in Tokyo, the people of Nagasaki (only about 450,000 people) cannot compare to my home town (4,004 people) when it comes to having big dreams. Japanese people often have this mindset that keeps them at home to carry on their family's work. Of course, I believe that the Japanese government prefers this as it keeps their "finely tuned" sociatal machine running functionably. There certainly seems to be a scant amount of different options for all-girl high school students when it comes to choosing a university. In the Province of Nagasaki (and not the city where I live) boys and girls are sent to Agricultural Schools, and they are given no chance to go to universities focused on anything else, unless their family somehow makes enough money to send them to a school in the city. Why? Because the Japanese Government realises that they need farmers to continue feeding their people. (Only 40% or so of the country's food intake is grown in Japan)

I understand that the need of society must sometimes overweigh the individuals, of course, or else how can a society be run effectively? In Japan, if given the choice, young people are going to choose to be professionals in Tokyo than farmers in backwater Nagasaki. So the government cannot allow these young people to have so many choices, because without farmers the state of Japan as the second best economy would not survive for very long. However, I also believe that people deserve chances. I am a North American born and bred, and so by looking at this issue from a North American point of view, I can also say that impeding the right or the future of the individual is wrong. I don't care about money. I don't care about who has the higher GDP. I do care about whether or not my brothers and sisters in this world are given the ability to follow through with their dreams. If the daughter of a farmer doesn't want to marry a farmer, but wants to teach Japanese history in an American university, or become an architect in Saudi Arabia, she should be able to! She should at least be given all the information and choose whether or not she believes she is skilled enough to follow those dreams!

Today it was a little negative, but Japan has some really good things going for her too!

May the Spirits of Earth bless.



Japanese Learning Resources
www.manythings.org/Japanese
http://www.japanesepod101.com/
http://www.funnelbrain.com/ search Kanji Flashcards (I have sets up)
http://www.chapters.ca/ excellent book store, try anything by Tuttle (of course, check it out on http://www.ebay.com/ and http://www.amazon.com/ for some amazing deals and to save paper!)
If you are interested in going to Japan, check out your nearest Rotary International (they are many big cities and small towns and offer exchanges for high school students) or contact your university. You can also do a native English speakers teaching job for a few years, without any teaching experience required.
For some tastes of Japanese music, here are two of my favourites: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vz2sq44fhhc and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRaAuItkvAY

Thank you ^^

March 25, 2010 Socialism

I will do the often done thing here and first quote from www.dictionary.com to find out what exactly what socialism is.

Dictionary.com says: "–noun

1.

a theory or system of social organization that advocates the vesting of the ownership and control of the means of production and distribution, of capital, land, etc., in the community as a whole.

2.

procedure or practice in accordance with this theory.

3.

(in Marxist theory) the stage following capitalism in the transition of a society to communism, characterized by the imperfect implementation of collectivist principles."

Now let's define a few of those terms as well for those of us not up-to-date on political science and sociology terms.

Vesting - "the granting to an eligible employee of the right to specified pension benefits, regardless of discontinued employment status, usually after a fixed period of employment. "

Collectivist - "–noun

the political principle of centralized social and economic control, esp. of all means of production. "

(If you need other terms explained, the dictionary.com link is available ^^ )

When a society becomes socialist, many things are instead done by the government than they are by the people. It is a long way away from communism, but it seems Americans can not escape their cold war prejudice.

Of course, if you tell an American that going to school for free is the same as getting free health care, and thus putting them in so-called socialism, when really they are just moving a little left from center, they would deny it. If President Obama decided to do away with America's dangerous Free-Trade agreement (which is currently endangering my home town and is trying to destroy our clean drinking water), this would be another step in the left direction, but President Obama is not a socialist and would not do this.

A civilized country is a country where people are taken care of when they get to stage in their life when they can no longer give the government money. This includes when they are sick. A civilized country is socialist enough to realize the benefits of giving their students free education. Not many Americans are willing to hand out thousands of dollars a year so that their child can go to some fancy private school, so why are Americans so willing to pay the insurance companies thousands of dollars for crap health care? The only way that private health care is better than public health care is because rich people are chosen over poor people when it comes to deciding who will get the organ transplant, but that in and of itself is wrong. Why should a rich person get a better treatment than a poor one?

Why are Americans insisting in staying a third-world developed country? (honestly, that should not even be possible!)

President Obama's Victory Speech: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xh2yPfD5F-4

March 25, 2010 Earth Hour

In 2 more days it will be time to turn off the lights! For those who are not sure what Earth Hour is, it's one hour a year where people from many countries and many lifestyles and beliefs get together and turn off the lights to fight global warming.

Here's the official video for Earth Hour 2010: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FclcMfzjwug

Here's an "official" video from Earth Hour, as a sort of humourous commercial: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6TML6NMgoRw&feature=channel

Here's a video I tried to make: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VR0QYBGYfqQ

Here's a picture I made: http://seannabirchwood.deviantart.com/art/Earth-Hour-158273955

Here's a poem I made: http://seannabirchwood.deviantart.com/art/Earth-Hour-2-158276837

I will write more soon ^^