onacliffbythesea

Earlier today, I thought I would do a quick Nihongo study session by practicing my hiragana. Of course, I couldn’t do so without Miyu Sensei (my own private Japanese tutor) insisting that she teach me herself.

She even gave me appropriate stickers for my efforts. 🙃

Yesterday was Miyu’s first playdate in a long while. Her only other playdate was years ago with my coworker’s son on base. Aside from being a full-time working mom, I’m just really not that social. Either that or the few friends I had lived too far away. Work had burnt me out for so many years, but I’m trying to change on that front—for her sake. I guess it’s better late than never, huh?

Miyu met up with her best friend, Karina, from school. They’re in the same class and she simply adores Karina. Her mom speaks English (and is friendly to boot!) so that really gave me the confidence to actually go through with this playdate. I’m thankful that circumstances allowed for this to happen. Miyu was so happy. Last year at the height of the pandemic, I had bought this giant bubble set from Amazon in the hopes that she won’t be so bored at home, but ended up never using it until yesterday. It was a major hit! I’ll have to buy more of those sometime.

On a random note, I thought it was funny that as I was sitting on a bench chatting with Karina’s mom, I ended up getting a total of six mosquito bites—one on my arm and five on my butt cheek. Yikes. I guess wearing pants doesn’t matter much to mosquitoes?

I brought my zoom lens and added my 35mm just in case, and I’m so glad I did. When we first got to the park, I did a few test shots and realized the zoom lens wasn’t going to work in our setting because the girls just stayed in one general area and I found myself having a hard time backing up in time to take in shots (even with the 35mm). My battery died after one hour of use, which was disappointing. I’m seriously going to have to buy the battery grip soon.