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Val's ramblings, 4-23 Val talks about French cookies, and the Postal Service in Japan

4-23 And Action! Bonjour, Val Desu! Ok too many languages at one time. You know being trilingual is so much more fun than being bilingual, and I'm sure being quad-lingual is so much more fun than being trilingual, and I am sure being quint-lingual would be so much more fun than quad... Ok I don't want to be rambling on about that. That's something that Steve can ramble about, I'm just going to talk about my daily life and so on. humm I made cookies today! You can not see them because they are over there. But I found the recipe off a blog, umm, a French blog. The recipe was in French and It was the first time I actually read a french recipe! I understood it completely thanks to my studies at LINGQ. I was able to understand and make cookies they look pretty yummy. They're actually humm pretty sweet and they're basically the same thing as a snicker doodle, which is, oh the name of the cookie. Yeah!

So that's what I was going to ramble on today was my French cookies. But I actually did it! I actually made it from a French recipe, that's the cool part, it was in French. So this is the first time I've done it in French. Now I've done many recipes in Japanese, thats no longer a problem for me, but first time for French! Yeah!

And, it is 3:00 in the afternoon on this very very windy day. I'm a little sleepy, I need my coffee. Now I hope you noticed two things... first of all I have a very cute coffee cup. I bought this at the 300 yen store that was at the building near the station, but alas the building... the store closed. hummm So sad! I was like the only one who went there and I always bought EVERYTHING there, it was crazy! I loved it! and everything I.... and all my room decorations are from that store. My flowers that are along the wall here and and back behind me and so many little tiny things I have... And now it's closed I'm so sad! And today, for my little Japanese cultural thing, I think I'll talk about the post office! Now, in America... America has a.. America's post office has a very bad reputation. Ummm First of all there is a lot of post office crime. Whereas people are stealing mail and so on and so fourth. Or at least that's what they say. I've never had it happen but I hear, yeah, some people steal the money inside birthday cards and stuff like that. I don't know if that's true but there was shootings, yeah, shootings by postal workers in America. Hence the term ‘going postal‘ It means, you go crazy and you start shooting people and you go postal, boom, boom, boom,boom. Umm, maybe it's because the job is just so so boring, that people just go crazy that they just want to change so they end up shooting people. I don't know if that's true or not. But, yeah we do have that term, ‘going postal.' Yeah, in America, the postal service does have this really bad reputation for being slow, unreliable. You know, in reality It's not, really. It's slow, yes, because America is a big country. But, unreliable? Well I've never really had much anything lost in the mail except one book. Cell phone's going off, I'm just going to sit there and ignore it and have some coffee! Umm Yeah, I had one book, the package was open and I went to the postmaster and got some things changed and well it wasn't that bad of a problem But the postal service in Japan is like CRAZY, They are so... It's so excellent I don't see what anybody would ever want to change it because its... like the Japanese politicians. Because it is probably the most reliable postal service in the world. I mean, I can tell the what time I'm going to be home so they can deliver my packages AT THIS time, for example between 2:00-4:00, and more often than not they come right around 2:00. They deliver my package, Or if I'm going to be home at night. They'll come, 9:00... up to 9:00 at night. It's a really really nice service. And then today, I had to umm, I had to send out my... my moving cards. I got them all done, yeah! So I had to send them out to some of my friends and I went to the post office. And I asked, “Ok, I need to buy some stamps,” and she said “Ok need a stamp need a stamp” and then, you know, she was so nice that.. she just took my postcards, and she put the stamps on the postcards for me. Now, in America if you buy stamps for postcards, there is no way that they would ever put the stamps on for you. They'd just give you the stamps and say go do it yourself and drop it in the postbox. You know... but here in Japan they'll take it, they'll put them on, and they'll probably put them on nice and strait because Japanese people are overly-precise. Gotta have everything perfect, everything as written down. Which, I guess is very good for the postal service, because the postal service does need this sort of precision. And I know that tomorrow, most of my friends will get them.

Umm, my friend who lives in Yamagata will probably get it in about two days... Ema will probably get it tomorrow. Maybe. Everybody in Tokyo yeah, should probably get it tomorrow. Mika-chan, probably two days, three days at the most. I don't know, I've often found that the postal service is one of the... these little magic jewels of greatness that they have in Japan. Like I tell my mom when she sends me packages, um, she just has to worry about when the package is in America. It takes forever to get out of America, because when it gets to Japan, its in the hands of a very reliable postal service. Now, that's just one little tiny thing I have found. A little cultural thing.. And it's 7 minutes now. I have got to type up the transcript. So, I will talk to you later.

bye bye au revoir ja ne

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4-23

 

And Action! Bonjour, Val Desu!  Ok too many languages at one time.  You know being trilingual is so much more fun than being bilingual, and I'm sure being quad-lingual is so much more fun than being trilingual, and I am sure being quint-lingual would be so much more fun than quad... Ok I  don't want to be rambling on about that.  That's something that Steve can ramble about,  I'm just going to talk about my daily life and so on.

 

humm

 

I made cookies today!  You can not see them because they are over there.  But I found the recipe off a blog, umm, a French blog.  The recipe was in French and It was the first time I actually read a french recipe! I understood it completely thanks to my studies at LINGQ.  I was able to understand and make cookies they look pretty yummy.  They're actually humm pretty sweet  and they're basically the same thing as a snicker doodle, which is, oh the name of the cookie.  Yeah!  So that's what I was going to ramble on today was my French cookies.  But I actually did it!  I actually made it from a French recipe, that's the cool part, it was in French.  So this is the first time I've done it in French.  Now I've done many recipes in Japanese, thats no longer a problem for me, but first time for French! Yeah! 

 

And, it is 3:00 in the afternoon on this very very windy day.  I'm a little sleepy, I need my coffee.    Now I hope you noticed two things... first of all I have a very cute coffee cup.  I bought this at the 300 yen store that was at the building near the station, but alas the building... the store closed. hummm  So sad! I was like the only one who went there and I always bought EVERYTHING there, it was crazy!  I loved it! and everything I.... and all my room decorations are from that store. My flowers that are along the wall here and and back behind me and so many little tiny things I have... And now it's closed I'm so sad!

 

And today, for my little Japanese cultural thing, I think I'll talk about the post office!  Now,  in America... America has a.. America's post office has a very bad reputation.  Ummm First of all there is a lot of post office crime. Whereas people are stealing mail and so on and so fourth.  Or at least that's what they say. I've never had it happen but I hear, yeah, some people steal the money inside birthday cards and stuff like that.  I don't know if that's true but there was shootings, yeah, shootings by postal workers in America.  Hence the term ‘going postal‘   It means, you go crazy and you start shooting people and you go postal, boom, boom, boom,boom.  Umm,  maybe it's because the job is just so so boring, that people just go crazy  that they just want to change so they end up shooting people. I don't know if that's true or not. But, yeah we do have that term, ‘going postal.' 

 

Yeah, in America, the postal service does have this really bad reputation for being slow, unreliable.  You know, in reality It's not, really.  It's slow, yes, because America is a big country.  But, unreliable?  Well I've never really had much anything  lost in the mail except one book.   Cell phone's going off,  I'm just going to sit there and ignore it and have some coffee!   Umm Yeah, I had one book, the package was open and I went to the postmaster and  got some things changed and well it wasn't that bad of a problem 

 

But the postal service in Japan is like CRAZY, They are so... It's so excellent I don't see what anybody would ever want to change it because its... like the Japanese politicians.  Because it is probably the most reliable postal service in the world.  I mean, I can tell the what time I'm going to be home so they can deliver my packages AT THIS time, for example between 2:00-4:00, and more often than not they come right around 2:00. They deliver my package,  Or if I'm going to be home at night. They'll come, 9:00... up to 9:00 at night.  It's a really really nice service.

 

And then today, I had to umm, I had to send out my... my moving cards.  I got them all done, yeah!  So I had to send them out to some of my friends and I went to the post office. And I asked, “Ok, I need to buy some stamps,” and she said “Ok need a stamp need a stamp” and then, you know, she was so nice that.. she just took my postcards, and she put the stamps on the postcards for me.  Now, in America  if you buy stamps for postcards, there is no way that they would ever put the stamps on for you.  They'd just give you the stamps and say go do it yourself and drop it in the postbox. You know... but here in Japan they'll take it, they'll put them on, and they'll probably put them on nice and strait because Japanese people are overly-precise.  Gotta have everything perfect, everything as written down.  Which, I guess is very good for the postal service, because the postal service does need this sort of precision.  And  I know that tomorrow, most of my friends will get them. 

Umm, my friend who lives in Yamagata will probably get it in about two days... Ema will probably get it tomorrow.  Maybe. Everybody in Tokyo yeah, should probably get it tomorrow. Mika-chan, probably two days, three days at the most.  I don't know, I've often found that the postal service is one of the... these little magic jewels of greatness that they have in Japan.  Like I tell my mom when she sends me packages, um, she just has to worry about when the package is in America.  It takes forever to get out of America, because when it gets to Japan, its in the hands of a very reliable postal service.  Now, that's just one little tiny thing I have found. A little cultural thing..  

 

And it's 7 minutes now.  I have got to type up the transcript.  So, I will talk to you later.

 

bye bye

 

au revoir

 

ja ne