The value of feedback/intervention & some anime, too...

I spoke in my last post of B's difficulty with a classroom aide's manner of behaviour modification with him & some of the other kids, which was causing him to tic whenever he saw her... I was so glad to have gotten to the bottom of one of his OCD/tic triggers, & with his permission, I spoke to B's consultant teacher, Cherie, about the problem the next morning. She was also glad to have the info, since it seemed to her a pretty easy problem to fix. I have no idea as to what exactly transpired, but when I picked B up from school the same day, B & the aide were thick as thieves, planning a prank on the other 3rd-4th grade teacher & class... Hooray! When I off-handedly asked B on the way home if things were ok with this aide again, he said they were. And to prove it, there was no sign of ticcing from him when we arrived at school this morning & met her on the way to his locker. They have since planned a date for the above-mentioned prank & are hoping for a bit of help from me as well (it involves bubble-wrap :). Stay tuned...

Earlier this week I picked-up the 2 available volumes of one of our favourite mangas, Hikaru no Go, on dvd. We have been watching our Miyazaki dvds with the japanese soundtrack (& english subtitles) since last fall, & then I discovered that most anime has the original japanese soundtrack included as well (sadly, this does not include the Pokemon dvds)... So far we have found we don't even like the english dubbed voices of any of our anime, so B & I are watching them all in japanese. I have found that my sense of the rhythms of the language hasgotten a lot better since watching in japanese, plus I'm picking up a lot of often-used phrases, much to the amusement of our teacher, Tomoko. She says I'll be able to speak to any teenager I meet in Japan :) (but nobody else will understand a word I say... hee hee). B & I have worked our way through the Fruits Basket dvds (which end loosely with volume 6 of the manga- although the manga is up to volume 14 in the english release & the story is still continuing in Japan...), with my prepping him for the fairly emotionally intense last 3 episodes ahead of time. I've found that I have to read most of the subtitles to B, too, because they are talking about some things that he just doesn't relate to yet... Since they ended the dvd series where they did, there had to be some major changes in order to tie-up loose ends, & B was not happy at all about them. To be honest, I wasn't either, although from my adult perspective I could understand why they did what they did. B was just plain mad, though, & it took some time for me to calm him down after watching the last disc. He kept saying "that's not what that character would do!", with his face stormy... B definitely relates with some of these characters, most of whom are cursed to transform into animals when hugged by someone of the opposite sex. I have wondered if he doesn't identify (on some level) his relative helplessness in the face of the OCD with the plight of these (mostly) kids who also are at the mercy of uncontrollable events. For all of the oddness of the storylines, Fruits Basket is also very sweet, sometimes hilariously funny & sometimes heartbreaking.

I thought that B might actually enjoy Hikaru no Go even more, since it's about kids that are closer to him in age, but when I read a review of the dvds that said that the english dub did some obnoxious things with the ghost character Sai's voice, playing him as a drag queen (which most certainly he is not...!) I was put-off buying them. Sai is a 1000-year-old ghost & the way he looks reflects (with one or two differences) the way men back in the Heian Era dressed combined with a bishounen element not uncommon in manga (in the picture above, Sai the ghost is on the laft, with some of the other main characters on the right). After realising that the anime discs have the japanese soundtracks on them, I decided to go ahead & get Hikaru, & we just watch it in Japanese. B does like it quite a lot... they make the Go games quite dramatic & interesting & the interactions between the kids are neat, too. B & I have been talking about how the way the kids relate is different than in the US- for example, how they call each other by different kinds of names depending on who's older or younger. B has an easier time following the english subtitles, too, so he doesn't need me to read them to him & he follows the story better. But as much as B enjoys Hikaru, he told me he likes Furuba (the Japanese nickname for Fruits Basket) better. Furuba is goofier, for sure... He has, however, taken-up playing Go again :) He has been setting-up games part-way through & then playing them to the end & playing at school, too. The Hikaru dvds have better explanations of the game than the manga, plus in-between segments teaching basic Go concepts, so B has a better visual idea of the game now. So, not only do we get more exposure to japanese conversation, but the Go board's out again. Since we still find that B needs some quiet down-time after school, preferably in front of the tube, the combo of japanese language practise & anime seems to be working well...