nature vs. politics

This stamp collecting thing was ostensibly for my daughter and I to do something together, though her enthusiasm has faded over the weeks.

From the start, she was drawn to brightly colored stamps with pictures of nature: flowers, animals, and the like. And she had no interest whatsoever in stamps with political themes, like flags or portraits of politicians.

America seems to put out an endless array of politically-oriented stamps. Flags and flags and flags - and none of these have any interest for my daughter.

Hey, if you were six years old, which of the stamps in this picture would you choose?

日本語 hints:
ostensibly = 表面上
enthusiasm = 熱狂、強い興味 Note that this is a noun; the adjective is enthusiastic. (She was enthusiastic about stamp collecting)
political -- this is an adjective, be sure not to mix it with nouns like politics or politician
an endless array = a very large number of
"if you were....would" is a very useful expression

Georgia on my Mind

Currently, I get most of my stamps in a random fashion, a few here and a few there. I am not actively searching or organizing along one theme. Right now, I welcome all stamps. But as the collection grows, it will be time to focus and prune. I may move toward collecting sets.

This stamp is obviously from a set of stamps for the 50 states. I only have two of them so far, so I have my work cut out for me. Georgia is not really a state I would have preferred to start with. I have never been a big fan of the Southern states, though I can see why other people are.

日本語 hints:
in a random fashion = not planned, by chance

theme --- be careful about pronunciation - this should be one syllable (音節), not two. The vowel sound is a long "e" (it rhymes with "dream" and "steam") and the last sound is the consonant (子音) "m". So be careful about the typical Japanese katakana pronunciation, te-ma.

prune = usually a noun, a kind of food, 干しスモモ

have my work cut out for me = I have started a big job, I have a lot of work to do

have never been a big fan of = have never liked very much

Frog and dragonfly

Here is a pair of Japanese stamps that caught my eye, a frog and dragonfly. There may be more in the series, but I only have these two so far. The frog reminds me of some frogs I met near 生駒 on a small mountain. The dragonfly reminds me of the end of every summer, when there are suddenly dragonflies flying everywhere. I also remember the Nagoya Expo. I took part in a kendo demonstration there and I watched the dragonflies buzzing about a nearby pond before my match. I liked how they were almost completely still, then suddenly burst forward with speed - much like kendo, I thought. I tried to have that feeling during my match, but I lost to my friend and old nemesis from Canada. But many of the teachers watching said I scored a nice 面 men shot to open the match.

日本語 hints:
catch one's eye = get someone's attention
dragonfly = 蜻蛉 (should be clear from context, but..)
A reminds me of B = makes me think of something
Nagoya Expo = 名古屋万博
kendo = kendo
my old nemesis = 昔からの敵
面 = men (everyone in the world who practices kendo uses the Japanese words)

3 Australian birds

I got back into stamp collecting primarily as a way to do something together with my daughter. She was quite interested for a short while but her interest has been waning lately. Still, every time we get new stamps, she helps me sort them and chooses which ones she wants to keep for her collection (I get the leftovers).

She has always preferred brightly colored stamps with plants or animals on them. That means I have a lot of stamps with politicians and flags and monuments on them! Anyway, here are three birds from our Australia page. Australia seems to issue a large proportion of nature-related stamps like these.

One other thing - notice that the value is given as "20c" or "40c" - only the letter "c", not the cent mark I am used to, a lower case "c" with a vertical line running through it.

日本語hints:
get back into = become interested in again
interest has been waning = losing some interest, not as exciting as before
leftovers = 残り物, usually used for food but can be almost anything
vertical = 縦 (and horizontal = 横)