Carly's Year in China and Japan

A little of what I actually do everyday here...  Japanese language:

So, I have REALLY been missing my family lately, and the Convention of Cousins last weekend (along with the flurry of e-mails leading up to it and the post-mortem of facebook pictures and blog posts) made me miss my cousins in Virginia SO much.  All of my awesome Brown cousins got together for a day of Brunswick Stew eating (just like old times) with a new twist of bike-riding and running around the family farm.  My cousin Jake added a post to his blog about it: http://justafuntime.blogspot.com/ and, from what I understand, he was the one who put together the plan and orchestrated the activities.  I am not surprised, because you should see this guy at work planning our route around Busch Gardens.

The Brown cousins and significant others (aka the "Amoeba"):

Anyway, the Cousins were on my mind last week, so I wrote about our old game days for one of my grammar homework pieces.  Here it is:

私は二人兄弟ですが、従兄をいつも兄、姉、弟としてみなしていたので、従兄を含めて、実は私は六人兄弟だと思います。私が子供の時、毎週の週末のように、両親と一緒に父が育った農場に行って、そこに住んでいる従兄と遊んだりしていました。ゲームで競争している時、チームはいつも同じでした。　兄、次女の従兄、私は三人で「ブレーブス」で、他の三人は「ペパーミントパティーズ」と言われました。アメフトでも、かくれんぼ、鬼ごっこでも、皆の一番好きなキックボールでも、毎回勝ったのはブレーブスでした。 パティーズはいつもどうにか勝つのが狙いとみられていて、頑張ったのに、勝つことは今までも一回もなかったです。　毎週集まって、決めたチームを変えることを強いられそうでしたが、そのチームは私のとても若い頃から決めているままで続いてきたので、変更する不可能を感じて、毎回ゲーム始めるところで、結局チームを同じにしました。　六人で一緒に面白いゲームを考え出していて、ゲームで議論がよく起してきたので、ある日、コンピューターの周りに集まて、細かいルールブックを一緒に書きました。　例えば、そのルールブックによると、キックボールで、ボールを塀越しに飛ばしたら、蹴り出した選手は即時に「三振を奪った」ということになりました。その点について、背が高くて強い兄は「その規則に反対だから、そんなことはお構いなしである」と言って、あえてボールを塀越しに飛ばしてしまいました。一番年上の従兄は今三十歳で、皆は子供を産むようになっていながら、私たちはまだブレーブスまたはペパーミントパティーズを大声で応援しています。

And a very rough translation:

I grew up in a family of two kids, but since I always felt that my cousins were my extra brothers and sisters, it's probably more accurate to say that I grew up in a family of 6 siblings.  Almost every other weekend when I was little, I would go to the farm where my dad had grown up, and I'd get to play with my cousins who still lived there.  When we played games, the teams were always the same.  My brother, second oldest girl cousin, and I were the "Braves," and the other three cousins called themselves the "Peppermint Patties."  Football, hide-and-seek, tag, and (everyone's favorite) kickball: each time the Braves were the victors.  With each game, the Patties tried their hardest to get that elusive win, but they never had a single victory.  It seemed that every time we gathered together to start the games, a suggestion about changing the teams around would surface, but those teams had been in place since I was a little kid, and I think we all felt that it was somehow impossible to change them, so we always ended up leaving the teams as they were.  The six of us thought up some interesting games, and of course, the occasional dispute arose, so one day we got together around the computer and drew up a detailed rulebook.  For example, according to the rulebook, in kickball, if the ball went over the fence, the one who kicked it was automatically out.  My tall, burly brother used to declare that the rule was ridulous, and in protest he'd just kick the ball over the fence anyway. Today, the oldest cousin is going on thirty, and our cousin group has started to have children of our own, but to this day, we still harken back to the old cheers of the Patties and Braves.

Haha it sounds way better in Japanese, I promise.

xoxo to the Amoeba.

AND NOW FOR ANOTHER UPDATE:

The tree has been unveiled!!!  Bust out the Josh Groban!