Welcome to another edition of the Deskwarming Diaries! Today’s post includes language studies, travel plans, and a wholeeee lot of snow. Let’s jump in!
J’étudie le français.
Yup, I am so bored at work I’m picking up French again. It started with Duolingo, and now I’m practicing basic verb conjugations and vocab. Besides bringing back good memories of studying it in middle and high school, it’s also bringing back embarrassing memories of speaking Japanese in the middle of French class. Here we go.
One day in high school, my French teacher called on me to answer. Instead of answering her in French, I answered in Japanese, which I was also studying at the time. She looked at me with the most confused face I’ve ever seen. I rushed to correct myself, but only managed to respond in a confusing mix of French AND Japanese! I eventually just gave up and started laughing with everyone else, while the teacher, thankfully, moved on to someone else.
When I study at home, I often ask Hunter questions (he took French in high school and college). Sometimes he knows the answer, sometimes he doesn’t. Sometimes, when we discuss those questions, I muse out loud. And sometimes… I muse in Japanese. At those moments, Hunter looks at me like I’m crazy. “What are you doing??” he’ll ask. “Shouldn’t you be talking about these things in English, your first language?? Why are you using Japanese??” Honestly, I have no idea why I will suddenly switch to Japanese. My theory is that the language part of my brain is split into two — English, and everything else. When I try to think about French or Japanese, that accesses the ‘everything else’ part of my language abilities which means the Japanese is closer to my mind than the English. Confused? So am I.
April travels bring March battles
We are now halfway through March and two months through Hunter’s three-month tourist visa. Once his visa expires, he’ll have to leave the country. The nice thing is that he can simply return after a day has passed and get a new tourist visa until his work visa for his job comes through. We’re not one to waste an international trip, though, so we’re trying to plan a week-long trip in an Asian country! Planning a trip on short notice a month before your departure is stressful, but add Covid-19 to the mix and you have yourself a panic attack. Here’s what we’ve got so far:
When we were laying out options in January, we decided on Korea.
Obviously that’s not an option now.
We started looking at Vietnam, but they are no longer doing visas on arrival because of Covid, and I’m not sure about sending our passports to the embassy in Tokyo when Hunter is technically supposed to have his on him at all times.
So I looked up countries that US citizens do not need visas for and landed on either Taiwan or Singapore. However, Singapore recently announced mandatory 2-week quarantines for those arriving from Japan, soooo…. that’s not really an option either. Taiwan it is! It’s super close to Japan and that means less time in the air and more time on the ground doing stuff!
Worse-case scenario, Hunter’ll have to go back to the US. We’ve been trying to avoid that because it’s so far
I’ll let you know if Taiwan doesn’t work out either, but right now I am dreaming of coffin bread and pineapple cake <3
Wait, what season is it right now?
Seriously Japan, you’re giving me whiplash. Just this morning it was sunny and partly cloudy. Then, in the space of like 20 minutes, the sky clouded over and the snow began whipping over the mountains. I had to scrape three inches off my car when I left for lunch, and it’s still snowing! The weather needs to either commit to spring or give us more typical winter snowfall so Hunter and I can get some decent snowboarding in before ‘real’ spring.
That’s all for today!
