Most people in Japan with full time jobs have to do an annual health checkup, and my job is no exception. Reading the forms is problematic. In the worst case, the doctors usually know medical terminology in English, so I can ask them for help with the paperwork, but it would be better to be able to read the forms. Doctors here need to be able to read medical literature, which means even if they can't speak English well, their knowledge of medical terminology is generally sufficient ... although, for more obscure technical terms, perhaps I might not know the English.
The above pages are directions and a blank form for me to complete. Here is my translation. I think it's of rather decent quality (otherwise I would have revised or deleted it), but in medicine you don't want to screw things up, so please use your own judgment. Also, some of the Japanese words are vague, which makes for equally vague English translations. I think hospitals and dentists are some of the scariest places in foreign countries, because if you don't understand exactly what the question or explanation means, you won't really know how to answer or use it. Just guessing or being approximately on target isn't good enough. The good thing is, what I've found is that it's usually not so difficult for you to say what feels wrong with you. If the doctor is good, he or she can take that information and do something intelligent with it, which is half the reason you went to the doctor's office in the first place. The bad thing is that the doctor might or might not be good at explaining things in a comprehensible fashion, which can be stressful (for both you and them, but we aren't as worried about them). In some cases, I've had reasonable results with getting the explanation on paper and later asking school nurses and the internet for help.
This page is to be completed in pencil. To be precise, the form says either pencil or mechanical pencil is fine. These are seen as two different things in Japan, though I don't really understand why.
| 1 | 内服中 | Currently taking medicine |
| 2 | 定期検査中 | Regular testing |
| 3 | 食事療法中 | On a medical diet |
| 5 | 放置・中断 | Leaving as is |
| 6 | 治癒 | Recovered |
The above are answers for the below table. If you had or have any of the below conditions, circle the relevant number as described above. If you haven't had any of these conditions, put a circle in the □ 特になし box.
| 高血圧 | High blood pressure | 1 | 2 | 3 | 5 | 6 |
| 糖尿病 | Diabetes | 1 | 2 | 3 | 5 | 6 |
| 脂質異常症(高脂血症) | Lipid abnormality (hyperlipidaemia) | 1 | 2 | 3 | 5 | 6 |
| 心疾患 | Heart disease | 1 | 2 | 3 | 5 | 6 |
| 痛風(高尿酸血症) | Gout (hyperuricemia) | 1 | 2 | 3 | 5 | 6 |
| 胃十二指腸疾患 | Gastroduodenal ulcer | 1 | 2 | 3 | 5 | 6 |
| 血液疾患(貧血等) | Blood disease (anemia, etc.) | 1 | 2 | 3 | 5 | 6 |
| 胆石症 | Gallstones | 1 | 2 | 3 | 5 | 6 |
| 肝疾患 | Liver disease | 1 | 2 | 3 | 5 | 6 |
| 呼吸器疾患 | Respiratory illness | 1 | 2 | 3 | 5 | 6 |
| 腎疾患(結石等) | Kidney disease (kidney stones, etc.) | 1 | 2 | 3 | 5 | 6 |
| 腎不全(人工透析) | Renal failure (dialysis) | 1 | 2 | 3 | 5 | 6 |
| 肺結核 | Pulmonary tuberculosis | 1 | 2 | 3 | 5 | 6 |
| 婦人科 | Gynecology | 1 | 2 | 3 | 5 | 6 |
| 眼疾患(高眼圧等) | Eye disease (ocular tension, etc.) | 1 | 2 | 3 | 5 | 6 |
| 脳出血・脳梗塞 | Cerebral hemorrhage or stroke | 1 | 2 | 3 | 5 | 6 |
| その他 | Other | 1 | 2 | 3 | 5 | 6 |
There are several yes/no questions.
| 手術を受けたことがありますか。 | Have you ever had surgery? | □ いいえ No | □ はい Yes | |||||||
| 心臓ペースメーカーをお使いですか。 | Do you use a pacemaker? | □ いいえ No | □ はい Yes | |||||||
| 採血後に気分が悪くなったことがありますか。 | Have you ever felt bad after having blood drawn? | □ いいえ No | □ はい Yes | |||||||
| 今までに胃のバリウム検査によって体調不良や少しでも異変を感じたことはありますか。 | Have you ever felt bad or strange after taking a Barium stomach exam? | □ いいえ No | □ はい Yes | |||||||
| □ | 胸痛 | Chest pain | □ | 肩こり | Stiff shoulders | □ | 便秘 | Constipation | ||
| □ | 動悸 | Palpitation (e.g., heart) | □ | 腰痛 | Lower back or hip pain | □ | 下痢 | Diarrhea | ||
| □ | 息切れ | Shortness of breath | □ | 咳 | Cough | □ | むくみ | Swelling, edema | ||
| □ | 疲れやすい | Easily tired | □ | 痰 | Phlegm | □ | 口が渇く | Dry mouth | ||
| □ | 頭痛 | Headache | □ | 食欲不振 | Loss of appetite | □ | 手足がしびれる | Numb hands or feet | ||
| □ | めまい | Dizziness | □ | 腹痛 | Stomach ache | □ | いらいらする | Getting irritated | ||
| □ | 耳鳴り | Ringing in the ear | □ | 胃の具合が悪い | Stomach trouble | □ | その他 | Other | ||
| ※女性の方のみお答えください。 For women only. |
| 生理中ですか。 Are you currently menstruating? |
| □ はい Yes □ いいえ No |
| 妊娠、又は可能性がありますか。 Is there any chance you're pregnant? |
| □ はい Yes □ いいえ No |
Here are some questions regarding lifestyle and habits. Answer by writing a circle in the relevant box. For each question, choose only one answer.
| 1 | 血圧を下げる薬を服用していますか。 Are you taking medicine to lower your blood pressure? | □ はい Yes (薬品名 Medicine name) | □ いいえ No | |
| 2 | インスリン注射又は血糖を下げる薬を服用していますか。 Do you take shots or medicine to control your insulin or blood sugar? | □ はい Yes (薬品名 Medicine name) | □ いいえ No | |
| 3 | コレストロールを下げる薬を服用していますか。 Are you taking medicine to lower your cholesterol? | □ はい Yes (薬品名 Medicine name) | □ いいえ No | |
| 4 | 現在、たばこを習慣的に吸っていますか。 At present, do you have a smoking habit? | □ はい Yes | □ いいえ No | |
| 5 | 睡眠で休養が十分とれていますか。 Do you get enough sleep? | □ はい Yes | □ いいえ No | |
| 6 | 20歳の時の体重から10Kg以上増加していますか。 Have you gained more than 10 kg since you were 20 years old? | □ はい Yes | □ いいえ No | |
| 7 | この1年間で体重の増減が±3Kg以上ありましたか。 Has your weight changed by more than 3 kg this year? | □ はい Yes | □ いいえ No | |
| 8 | 1回30分以上の軽く汗をかく運動を周２回以上、1年以上実施していますか。 In the past year, have you exercised for 30 minutes or more 2 or more times a week? | □ はい Yes | □ いいえ No | |
| 9 | 日常生活において歩行又は同等の身体活動を1日1時間以上実施していますか。 Do you walk or do some other physical activity for at least an hour daily? | □ はい Yes | □ いいえ No | |
| 10 | ほば同じ年齢の同性と比較して歩く速度が速いですか。（普通の場合は いいえ に記入して下さい。） Do you walk faster than people your age? (If the same, select "No".) | □ はい Yes | □ いいえ No | |
| 11 | 就寝前の2時間以内に夕食をとることが週に3回以上ありますか。 Do you have dinner less than 2 hours before bed 3 or more times a week? | □ はい Yes | □ いいえ No | |
| 12 | 夕食後に間食（3食以外の夜食）をとることが週に3回以上ありますか。 Do you have food after dinner 3 or more times a week? | □ はい Yes | □ いいえ No | |
| 13 | 朝食を抜くことが週に3回以上ありますか。 Do you skip breakfast 3 or more times a week? | □ はい Yes | □ いいえ No | |
| 14 | 人と比較して食べる速度が速いですか。 Do you eat faster than others? | □ 速い Fast | □ 普通 Normal | □ 遅い Slow |
| 15 | お酒（清酒、焼酎、ビール、洋酒など）を飲む程度はどのくらいですか。 How often do you drink alcohol? | □ 毎日 Every day | □ 時々 Sometimes | □ ほとんど飲まない Rarely |
| 16 | 飲酒日の１日当たりの飲酒量はどのくらいですか。 How much alcohol (in drinks) do you consume in a day? | □ 1合未満 Less than 1 | □ 1~2合未満 1-2 drinks | |
| □ 2-3合未満 2-3 drinks | □ 合3以上 3 or more | |||
| 17 | 運動や食生活等の生活習慣を改善してみようと思いますか。 ①〜⑤の1つだけ選択して下さい。 Would you like to try to improve your exercise and eating habits? Choose only one of ①-⑤. | ① □ 改善するつもりはない I have no plans for changes. | ||
| ② □ 改善するつもりである(概ね6ヶ月以内) I plan to make changes in the next six months. | ||||
| ③ □ 近いうちに(概ね1ヶ月以内)改善するつもりであり、少しずつ始めている I plan to make changes little by little starting soon. | ||||
| ④ □ 既に改善に取り組んでいる(6ヶ月未満) I've made changes in the last six months. | ||||
| ⑤ □ 既に改善に取り組んでいる(6ヶ月以上) I've made changes more than six months ago. | ||||
| 18 | 生活習慣の改善について保健指導を受ける機会があれば、利用しますか。 Are you generally interested in a consultation regarding lifestyle changes? | □ はい Yes | □ いいえ No | |
This blog entry is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. For attribution of this work, link to this page and include my name, Douglas P Perkins.
For the JHS 9th grade school trip, we went to Sydney and Melbourne, Australia. The trip lasted seven days (June 7-13). The first and last day were only trips to and from the airport, which ought not count. Both long flights were overnight, and seven days means six nights, but two of these were on airplanes, which means the other four of which were in hotels. As such, though we spent seven days, it felt much more like a five day journey. Last year I went on the same trip — see here for more on that.
Day One
Day Two
Day Three
Day Four
Day Five
Day Six
Day 7
This blog entry is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. For attribution of this work, link to this page and include my name, Douglas P Perkins.
NASA has such great free photography.
Studying abroad is a great way to learn more about other countries, one's own country, and oneself. My school, like many schools, has optional 2-week and 4-week study abroad programs to Australia over summer vacation. (There is also a year-long study abroad option to many other countries, which I think is wonderful. I'm not involved in preparing for that, so I'm not writing about it here.) One thing that my coworkers and I do to help our students prepare is offer three one-hour English lessons. Our students do a homestay for most of their trip, and communicating with their host family and host school is a big challenge.
León, Nicaragua. By H Dragon.
Useless words
What words have you studied in a foreign language that, upon living in that country, you didn't ever use? I think back now to my Japanese textbook from college, and I'm pretty sure I've used every single word in it. This is good, because it means that everything you study matters. But on the other hand, how many of us have moved to a foreign country after extensively studying that country's language and realized, "Wow, I can understand so much. I was amazingly well prepared!" ...? No doubt there are people out there who learn a second language well enough to go abroad and feel comfortable, but for most of us, even if we'd studied twice as hard, we'd still be underprepared ... which seems discouraging at first glance, because suggests that language learning is a venture in pointlessness. But first glances can be misleading, and in this case they are. The better points to recognize are these: (1) that even if you're not good at English now, that's OK, because your classmates will encounter similar language challenges as you, and (2) language learning is a long, long, process. You can't master a language in a year or three, if ever. In Nicaragua back in 2005, an old man who I met on a bus from Rivas to Managua said to me, "We are always learning Spanish." Or perhaps he said it differently. "We are all always learning language." I don't remember. Anyway, he was a native Spanish speaker who also knew a smattering of English (sensible) and Japanese (why?). He also kept the guys on the bus from charging me too much for the bus ride. (Which is to say, I only got mildly overcharged.) That was an interesting vacation. There I was, traveling and hiking alone in Nicaragua, having only studied Spanish for a month ten years prior in junior high school. What I knew was very little, but it enough to get by, as usual in these types of situations.
Chores
When going on a homestay, our students might be asked to do chores. Or, better yet, they could volunteer to do chores. After all, helping out around the house is a good way to get to know the host family, since most likely the host family and exchange student would work together. A surprisingly large number of Japanese kids do little or no chores. In North Dakota, shoveling snow is a standard activity for children, but my old students in Akita said for them it was quite the opposite. In rural Akita, the most common snow shovelers are grandparents. In late afternoon, it's a hazard driving home from work because gram and gramps are probably standing in the middle of the road leaning on their snow shovels. Shoveling snow is tiring work, after all. Sure, the highway is a dangerous place to take a break, but fifty years ago it wasn't, because the tunnel connecting Jinego to Yuzawa wasn't built until the eighties, and the only people who used the road were local residents.
- Chores. A3 sheets with some likely chores written on them.
The wombat is not interested.
Lesson handouts
- Homestay English Lesson 1. This is a worksheet for use in our first lesson. In this lesson, we divided students into groups of 4 or 5. Then everyone did self-introductions in their groups where they said their name, grade, class, and an adjective that describes themselves. We brainstormed ideas for presents for the host family. Some good ideas were: unusual Kit-Kat flavors, furoshiki (a kind of bandana-like cloth), green tea, a picture book about Japanese food or culture and ornate erasers. We then talked about host family rules, which led into household chores. At the end, we asked students to think of some topics they'd like to learn and write them down. We have two more lessons before they go, so we wanted to hear their requests for next time.
- Homestay English Vocabulary. A compilation of material that we've used in ninth grade English lessons when preparing for the annual one week Australia trip Most of our students have already practiced these sentences in class, so we don't need to spend time talking about it much. The goal here is to give students a reminder of some highly useful phrases that they in fact already know. See also Planning for Australia.
Ideas
There are many different topics one could cover in these sessions. As the title suggests, homestay-relevant situations are important, but doing the same topic for three hours might be a drag. The other day, Adam, Danielle and I brainstormed a bunch of other possible topics.
- Language for meals
- Ordering food
- Role playing at a fast food restaurant
- Jokes
- Sarcasm
- Foreign money
- The exchange rate
- Gifts for one's host family
- Host family house rules
- Host family curfew
- Shopping
- Words for girls
- Directions
- Self-introductions
- A daily life in Japan picture book
- Student requests for subsequent days
This blog entry is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. For attribution of this work, link to this page and include my name, Douglas P Perkins.
Photograph by Mmckinley.
Over the years, I've tried to do my best to avoid getting locked into certain software or services. One of the big hurdles has been finding good replacements for Google. To me, Google provides three very useful services: email, contacts, and calendars. Other things like their file syncing can be done easily using either other cloud services or running your own software. As for hardware, I run Linux at home, Windows at school, and Android on my cell phone. I prefer to use Android software available by default with cyanogenmod, a free Android firmware source, or on F-Droid, a free Android app repository. The motivation for all of this is that Google and other web services change what they offer over time, have annoying advertising, and they often make decisions I dislike. If my data is stuck inside their servers, or if getting it out takes a long time, that makes me locked in, which is undesirable.
Photograph by Christos Vittoratos.
I have web hosting for my website on Dreamhost, and I do my email there. Dreamhost also does XMPP, of which Google Chat is one kind. When I stopped using GMail years ago, I set up email forwarding and promptly forgot about it. Gradually, my friends switched to my new email address. Good, good.
Calendars
There's an open calendar format called CalDAV, which requires a server and one or more clients. For my server, I've been using DAViCal. Alternately, OwnCloud includes a CalDAV server. As for clients, on my computers I use Thunderbird, and on my Android, I use aCal. To make the transition, I first exported my calendar from Google. To do so, navigate to https://www.google.com/calendar/, go to Settings / Calendars and click Export calendars. This starts the download of an ical file. Using Thunderbird I imported the ical file into my CalDAV calendar. Everything except for birthdays was included. Unfortunately, Google doesn't include birthdays in the calendar export, so I had to add that information to my new calendar manually. Getting the calendar servers and clients to work together is intimidating at first, but there's nothing very complicated going on, and after a little effort it came together. Great!
Photograph by Blake Patterson, edited by Ubcule.
Contacts
There's an open contacts format called CardDAV, which is similar to CalDav (mentioned above), and similarly requires a server and one or more clients. I'm using OwnCloud for the server, though DAViCal would work equally well. DAViCal is very small, but it requires PostgreSQL. PostgreSQL is a big headache, and also available not on Dreamhost, so I went with OwnCloud. Also, OwnCloud has a web client interface.
Exporting contacts
Exporting and importing contacts is filled with difficulties. To begin with, Google doesn't want you to export contacts with pictures. When I tried exporting contacts from https://www.google.com/contacts/, or from any of the other Google web export services, I only got picture-less files. If that's all you want, great, but I spent a long time adding the pictures and want to keep them.
Android lets you export contacts. To do so, open Contacts, then go to Menu / Import/export / Export to storage. This produces a file called contacts.vcf. If you look at the file in a text editor, you can see the pictures themselves written out as incomprehensible text. At present, there is a bug (at least one) in exporting. Some addresses get cut off. Some Japanese names are encoded improperly. It doesn't work very well.
GO Contacts EX is a contacts app available from the Play Store. It can export contacts to vcf without the problems mentioned above. I don't particularly like using an app that's only available from the Play Store, but then again, using an app only available from Google's store as a stepping stone to leave Google's services is not unreasonable. This app doesn't export groups, but neither do any others I've tried.
Importing contacts
OwnCloud can import the data from contacts.vcf quite well. I also briefly tested Evolution, and it seemed work fine, too.
Viewing contacts
There are several stable CardDAV clients. In order to test imports, I installed several of these. Since they all work slightly differently, the only way I can understand what data has been imported properly is by checking what several different clients display.
OwnCloud has a built-in web client. I'm using OwnCloud as the server, so I also get the client. However, it doesn't show phonetic names. The OwnCloud/Contacts developers appear to work at a good pace, which is encouraging.
CardDavMATE is a free PHP CardDAV client. I tested version 0.10.1. At this time, it makes for a usable alternative to OwnCloud's web client. Some good points are that it (a) supports phonetic names and (b) doesn't store any data. It doesn't display address information. Development is very slow.
Evolution is a Linux email client that can handle CardDAV. It doesn't show phonetic names, and it appears to ignore multiple entries of the same type. For example, I have two ADR:HOME entries for some of contacts, but Evolution only displays one of these. It also doesn't displaying GPS addresses, which appear in contacts.vcf as ADR;X-GPS.
Thunderbird has no built-in CardDAV support. SOGo Connector is a CardDAV add-on. Version 10.0.6 is entirely broken. Version 17.0.5 is mostly functional. For importing, SOGo Connector doesn't do pictures. It lacks support for phonetic names.
CardDAV-Sync is a closed source Android app. It's free for install from the Market, but what's the gain? I'm trying to avoid being dependent on Google, after all! The author claims he'll open source the project at some point. An ideal Android sync app should be open source and available on F-Droid or some similar free repository.
Contacts is a no-go for now
Contacts support is lacking on the client side. For Linux, Thunderbird+SOGo Connector and Evolution are somewhat usable. The lack of phonetic name support is distinctly off-putting. OwnCloud's web client interface isn't quite there yet. But more importantly, I didn't find any open source Android sync client. For now, looks like I'll have to keep doing contacts through Google.
This blog entry is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. For attribution of this work, link to this page and include my name, Douglas P Perkins.
Photograph by Meisowave.
About eight times a year at my school, we have English Conversation Club, which is an after school event. Ninth, tenth, and eleventh graders can sign up, if they like, and we meet on Wednesdays four times in May-June and four times in October-November. The goal is to have fun and use a lot of English, but otherwise there are no specific rules for what we can or have to do. Here are some ideas from last and this year.
- Door decorations. I like to put some decorations on the door, seeing as we're using a spare classroom, and students might not know the location.
- Sign-in sheet. If numbers are large, print multiple copies of this. Keeping track of numbers and grades of attendees is good for future planning purposes, and it also comes in handy when deciding how much food, drink, or prizes to buy for future sessions. This year we have a lot of attendees, so we use two copies and place them near the door. This sheet is for our first session, and for the remaining sessions, we just update the session number and date. I also have a spreadsheet on my computer to record the names of everyone who signed up and whether or not they attend each session.
Picture from Sony Pictures Television, shared by SethAllen623.
Teacher Introduction Jeopardy
Jeopardy is a simple enough team game. Make some teams, preferably no more than eight (otherwise getting answers is too time consuming), write some categories and points on the board, and you're good to go. Some teachers prefer answers phrased in the form of a question, like in the original TV show, but that's perhaps unnecessarily confusing. This year our numbers are rather high — something like seventy-five students are enrolled — so rather than having teams raise their hands to answer and awards points to the first team that correctly does so, we'll ask each team to write their answer on a sheet of paper and check all answers at the same time. Some of the students know us, but some don't, so we decided to make categories based on our own interests. There are three teachers, so we each make five questions, half of which are about us, and the other half of which cover topics we find interesting. If time runs low, we'll stop the game early. If tension runs low, we'll either stop the game early or change the rules (e.g., double the points or switch to a first-to-answer system).
- B5 point value cards. Print out a set of these for each category and write the questions in pencil on the back. Before starting the game, put these on the chalk board.
Self Introductions
Small group self introductions are a standard. There are many variants, most of which involve everyone saying their name and one or two fun facts about themselves according to whatever rules are specified. For example, since we're doing music on the same day as introductions, we can ask students to say their favorite foreign singer. Once everyone has said their piece, each group can then write the most popular foreign singer from that group on the chalk board. Other reasonable topics might be: favorite coffee shop, least favorite subject, whether and why baths are better than showers, or anything at all that might cross your mind and about which people could reasonably be expected to have an opinion.
Photograph by waterborough.
Song Title Guessing Game
I've used this game a lot, but music is great, so I keep coming back to it. The idea is you take a dozen songs where the song title appears distinctly in the lyrics, print out the titles on A3 paper, put them on the board, and play the songs. When students hear the song title, they rush to grab the sheet off the board. It's a nice way to introduce students to new music or to new words (that are in the song titles). In one variant, students can grab the title as soon as the recognize it. If that gets too chaotic, make students wait until you pause the song and then allow them to grab the paper. The drawback to this game, if you want to call it a drawback, is that it's a listening activity. A good follow-up would be a speaking activity making use of relevant topics. For example, one could ask the class what foreign artists they know (The Beatles, Lady Gaga, Rihanna, etc.) and see how many students know each of them, possibly writing the results on the board.
Here's a song list we used this year. I generally prepare more songs than necessary and stop when time runs low or interest shows signs of waning. Here are the corresponding A3 song title sheets.
- Guns N Roses — Welcome to the Jungle
- Michael Jackson — Beat It
- Bob Dylan — Mr. Tambourine Man
- Jackson Five — ABC
- The Beatles — When I'm Sixty-Four
- Lauryn Hill — Can't Take My Eyes Off You
- AC-DC — Back In Black
- Beyonce — Halo
- Naughty By Nature — Feel Me Flow
- Elvis Presley — Can't Help Falling In Love
- Lovin' Spoonful — Summer In The City
- Lutricia McNeal — Ain't That Just The Way
Photograph by Jastrow.
Treasure Hunt
I call this a treasure hunt, but there's actually no hidden treasure, just hidden clues. Optionally, give stickers or candy to the team that finds all the clues first. Or, if you have a time limit, ask the students to come back by that time and see who found the most clues.
- Clues. Cut these out and put them in the appropriate locations. Of course, if you're using them at a school other than mine, you'll need to think of new ones.
Photograph by Bernard Ladenthin.
Taste testing
Everyone likes having drinks and snacks. It's even better if you're serving foreign stuff that students might never have tried. Blind drink taste testing is a nice activity that gives everyone a chance to try some new drinks. Suppose I have five different sodas. If I secretly pour each can or bottle into separate cups (that are labeled or different colors or somehow different from one another), I can show everyone the empty cans without revealing what drink they're about to try. Then everyone can pour a little bit of soda from the big cup into their own smaller cup, try it, and vote on which drink they think it is.
This blog entry is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. For attribution of this work, link to this page and include my name, Douglas P Perkins.