Aya has been bitten by the Pokemon bug. She plays it on her DS every chance she gets. Well of course I let her play from time to time, kids will be kids! 😉
She is quite taken with it, that she began sketching and drawing the characters as well. Surprisingly, it turns out that she has an uncanny ability to draw even the most complicated ones. A budding artist in the making? See and judge for yourself:
Finally, a chance to perform on stage! Actually, Aya started taking piano lessons (in a group) as early as four years old; unfortunately, when we went to the UK, there had been no opportunity to continue her lessons (it was ‘life interrupted,’ for ALL of us). So that was about a year of hiatus. After coming back to Japan, it still took several months before I finally decided that it was time for her to start honing those skills again. Precious time wasted, perhaps. But I’m happy to say that Aya’s skills have improved considerably since then. 
For a first-timer at a piano recital, Aya played beautifully, and not even a trace of nervousness! (In contrast to her mom, who was visibly fidgeting all the way until her number was called.) Needless to say, I’m a very proud parent!
Without further ado, here’s the video clip of her performance:
My sister gave me a copy of Suzanne Collins’ book, The Hunger Games. At first I was repulsed by the idea of teens hacking one another to death in an arena for the purpose of punishment and televised entertainment. But the way the novel was written, I couldn’t help devouring the novel (pun intended). I couldn’t put it down until I got to the very end. I haven’t read such a gripping novel for a long time, and it was a welcome treat. Never mind that it is a book for ‘young adults’,’ hahaha. I loved it! I think I even fell in love with Peeta.
I ended up reading all three books – The Hunger Games, Catching Fire, and Mockingjay – but I think that the latter two unfortunately failed to reach the same heights as the first book. For me, the impact made by the first book actually provided the impulse to read the next two books in the trilogy, but in the end it was pretty clear that all the fresh and original ideas went into the first one.
Sometimes it seems that people have simply forgotten or otherwise blatantly ignored simple rules of social etiquette. Just because there is now a convenient medium where bits and pieces of our silly and mundane lives can achieve newsworthy status, we think we can do away with the rules we normally follow in real-life settings.
I am talking about the blurring of the line between private and public, leading some people to expose their private lives for the sake of public popularity or whatever reason. To look cool. To prove something. To make themselves appear bigger, by using social networks as some sort of convex mirrors.