Minako has just called from Haneda. She is on another business trip. She'll be back tomorrow. YuYu and I are at home. He is studying and I am trying to do some correcting. I have noticed that MANY of the very nice, sweet, serious students in my OC class have NOT been updating their blogs with the corrections that I spent SO MUCH time writing up. ....???!!!!!!!!

I was so tired this evening that while YuYu was in his room studying I lay on the floor of my office and had a short nap. I feel much better now ... EXCEPT I am wondering why my wonderful OC students have NOT corrected their blogs?????????????????

I was really angry at YuYu the other day after his hockey practice. I said some terrible things to him during our drive back to Okayama from Kurashiki. He was very upset and felt really dejected and hurt. I should not have said what I did. I did not succeed in making him try harder; I made him feel that no matter what he does he can never do enough and will never amount to anything. Naturally when we got home Minako wanted to know what had happened and I ended up having a fight with her, too. What an awful night.

I need to make sure I don't take out my frustrations on my wife and son. I guess I should also learn how to talk with him constructively.

I went for an ice skating lesson today at the Kokusai rink in Okayama city today after my classes and I was surprised to be sharing the ice with the WORLD CHAMPION Daisuke Takahashi. Wow, he is the BEST figure skater in the world and it showed. I have never seen anyone practice so hard!

Today I really enjoyed looking at everyone's posters and listening to the explanations. I am very impressed by all the effort that went into the activity. Well done! Bravo! Thank you!

I just had a question from Akari concerning how to start a new post. I'm checking how right now.

Oh no!
It is almost 11:30 on a Monday night and YuYu is still doing his homework! I made the mistake of taking him to his hockey practice (which was in Kurashiki) when he still had school work to do. The rule is "You can go to hockey if you have finished your homework." When we were leaving today I asked him "Did you get everything done?"
He answered "Yes. I did my Ooshyu." Ooshyu is the name of his juku.
I followed up and asked "What about your school homework?"
He replied "I still have to do that but I can finish it when we get home."
Since we were driving I let it go saying "You know, your school work comes first." That was pretty stupid of me to say considering that I was driving him to hockey after he told me that he HAD NOT finished his school work (!)
We went to hockey and he, of course, had a good time. He was singing AC-DC songs in the car and it was really funny.
Once we arrived home, however, I found out that he was doing Ooshyu homework. Wait a moment... I thought Ooshyu was done????
In conclusion, it seems obvious that I am going to have to take a much more direct role in controlling his time for the near future.

I just had a telephone call with my son, YuYu. He called to ask me if it would be OK if some friends came over to the apartment and played Wii. They all love a game called "Dai Ran Tou." I have no idea how to translate that into English by the way. I said "OK" while hoping inwardly that the group of 13 year old boys do not burn down the apartment or destroy it. I am trusting him this time.

Sometimes I think my trust is misplaced, though. Recently YuYu has been upset because he does not understand the math lessons at his math juku. I suggested to him this morning that he ask his math teacher at school for help. I trusted that he would ask his teacher for help. During our telephone call today I asked YuYu if he had consulted with his math teacher for help.
YuYu answered "No because we did not have any classes today."

 What kind of stupid thing was this? I am annoyed because if there are no classes it would have been the perfect time to ask a teacher for help. Now the chance is gone. I have a vague suspicion that he didn't ask because he does not really care enough. It doesn't matter to him if he can understand the math or not. This is a big mistake on his part. I believe that if there is a problem then the person affected should try and take some action.