In Search of Japanese Sesame Street

As a musician, it's only natural that that I'd gravitate towards jingles and songs to help me study Japanese. This had me wondering, "Is there something like Sesame Street in Japanese?" I didn't get far in my search. Once I found GenkiJapan.net last year, I called off my search. These earworms truly stick with you.I'm at the point that I launch into singing "10 Little Samurai" when trying to remember the counters for people and sound like an anime character when rattling off the colours in Japanese.

But don't take my word for it. Check out these free video study aids for yourself:

"10 Little Samurai"

"Colors" ("Colours")

There's plenty more video tutorials on Genki Japan.

A Time to Organize, A Time to Think

It's the beginning of a new year. My main goal for the Christmas Break was achieved - migrating all my blogs to Wordpress. Sure, there are things yet to tweak and widgets to add; but the hard job is done. My other main task - to attack all the loose paper I kept shuffling from one Bring Forward folder to the next. That too was achieved. My file organizers are significantly tidier.

I guess I shouldn't complain that I didn't get anything accomplished over the break. Between that and practicing madly for Christmas and New Year's church services, I deserved the imposed break that my cold gave me on Week 2.

This has me reflecting upon the ongoing struggle to stay on top of things. To just stay organized. Between loose papers, music books and emails - we have a lot of clutter in our lives - so much that it's easy to drown in it.

However, I continue to press forward at tidying up the back end of things. Strangely, it gives my brain time to wander and think about lesson or presentation ideas that have been floating just on the periphery of consciousness.

I've taken to using the countdown timer app on my phone. It has helped keep the daunting task of decluttering my mess somewhat bearable. 30 minutes to clean email, 30 minutes to tidy up my blogs, etc. Bite-sized chunks. That's the key to whittling this monster mess down.