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For improving my English skills, I made this web log consisting of the following categories.
Diary(2005,2006) Diary2(2007,2008) Diary3(2009)
Blog visitor's profile News from blog visitors
Please read many articles and feel free to write down your comment in English.
If you have some interests, please e-mail me.
The recent ten articles are as follows:
May 22, 2011
I read an article that many hi-tech firms are reviving an old European tradition of taking alcohol breaks during work hours. What a wonderful ideal!
As a manager I don't agree with this but personally I think it is a good idea. Indeed drinking alcohol can help people become more creative. However, many employees are likely to drink too much and decrease productivity as I would. And some workers might get intoxicated and become a nuisance and a danger to themselves and others.
All in all, this tradition doesn’t easilly fit in with Japanese culture.
It’s a pity, but I must content myself with coffee breaks.
May 3, 2011
Although I haven’t taken exercise like a jogging for one and a half months after the huge earthquake and tsunamis on March 11, my body doesn’t any sign of rebound.
I started jogging last September for an annual medical check-up I would take in October. At that time, I had a few health problems like neutral fat level, waist size, and body fat percentage. Thanks to the jogging for few months, I could lost 9 kg of weight, decreased 8 % of body fat, and lowered neutral fat level to normal level.
Anyway, I had better started jogging again before I gain back the weight.
I understand that my English conversation skill is rather low compared to my reading and writing skill. I don’t know how I have to study English in order to make it better.
There are many opinions regarding to enriching it in the articles I’ve ever read on books or through Internet. I’ll write down a few examples of those opinions here.
First of all, if you can’t understand the speech partner’s words at all, the conversation won’t happen. So you should hear those words many times until recognizing it, because you can’t understand even the words which you can understand by reading.
Secondly, you can’t use the things you don’t remember. So you should memorize a lot of words and phrases.
Finally, you will be able to learn the pronunciation and intonation if you hear the English as a BGM for long time even though you can’t understand the meaning at first.
I believe these opinions, but also doubt them.
So far, I think it is important to make a conversation comfortably on everyday topics. Anyway, I want to take care not to be said by the conversation partner, “Has the cat got your tongue?”
April 30, 2011
Sunday, April 24, 2011
The spring months are generally from March to May in Japan. However, I haven’t noticed the coming of spring until now because of the recent coldness doesn’t seem like spring, and the terrible disaster by the quake and tsunamis, and the nuclear accident.
It’s so warm and sunny today. I hope the weather stays nice. The violet flowers are blooming at the tiny garden in front of my house.
By the way, I wonder what is the difference between ‘violet’ and ‘pansy’.
Sunday, October 31, 2010
I started jogging again to burn off calories at the first of last month. When I say resumption, it is not quite recent that I stopped jogging. I used to jog, marathon hard eleven years ago.
I ran totally 105 kilometers last month. Afterward I had an ache in my left knee. I wonder if it is because I ran so much. I didn’t have a jogging to rest for the first half of this month, but I ran totally 59 kilometers in the second half of this month.
I usually go for jogging to a park which is eight minute-running from my house. There is a round playground four hundred meters in circuit in the park.
I jog twelve laps in the morning on weekdays and twenty five laps on holidays.
I’m going to take part in a half-length marathon next January and a full-length marathon next March.
Monday, July 19, 2010
It is extremely hot every day since the rainy season ended last Saturday. My room’s air conditioner doesn’t work. I switch an electric fan in the back of my chair during using my pc in my room. I can get wind but can’t get cool air from the fan.
I hope it will be less hot than last summer.
Thursday, July 15, 2010
Let me introduce the lunch boxes of today and yesterday.
I eat such lunch every day at my office. This lunch costs 420 yen.
I pay half of the price out of my pocket. Therefore, I can eat the lunch at only 210 yen. Another half price is paid by my company.
These lunches are really delicious, but have a lot of calories. So I try not to eat meat and one third of rice.
Sunday, July 11, 2010
A potluck party was held at our Japanese language class last week. Several volunteers including me were in charge of this event.
Some students and volunteer teachers brought their own cooking foods to the party.
Many students of our class are Asian like Chinese, Vietnamese, Thai, Indonesian and Mongolian.
We person in charge prepared the stuff of Temaki Sushi. Temaki means hand-rolled. I explained how to make Temaki Sushi to students on behalf of the staff of the event.
All participants enjoyed BINGO game after eating food. Volunteer teachers donated a lot of gifts as prizes of the game.
I also prepared Asian music as BGM.
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
My immediate superior retired at the end of June. I worked under him for three years and three months. It was the good experience for me, for better or worse.
The good thing was that he had set clear policies and had shown strong leadership. I would like to take a cue from him on this point. However, there were a few bad things about him.
Though I don’t show the concrete examples for the bad things here in my blog, I would like to learn his bad behaviors as teaching materials by negative example.
Monday, June 07, 2010
Recently, I've had frequent opportunities to drink wine with people including coworkers and others. Many people say they like wine but they are not experienced wine drinkers even though they say they are, but mostly they are not.
My experience at wine school has helped me to distinguish wine drinkers from non wine drinkers.
Needless to say, wine tastes rather great when drunk with wine lovers.
Sunday, June 06, 2010
My wife had worked as a contract employee in a small company for more than 7 years.
However, her contract was terminated along with that of a close coworker last month.
The company seems to be in pretty bad shape because of the recession.
She can receive unemployment insurance from the public employment agency for eight months. But to do that, she must go to the agency once every two weeks and show she is looking for a job.
Actually, she doesn’t want to work for a while, probably a year.
So she has to pretend she has a desire to work.
Thursday, May 6, 2010
I took long holidays from April 29th until today. However, I only took one-day trip during that time. I went to the Hitachi Seaside Park (National Park) three hours drive from my house.
The park was very crowded and many people seemed to be there to see the lovely Nemophila flowers. A total of 4.5 million blooms was a spectacular sight. How intensely blue the flowers were! I heard Nemophila is also called “baby blue eyes” in English.
Have you ever seen this flower?
Saturday, March 27, 2010
I mentioned the wine school before, and it finished today. I drank lots of kinds of wine all over the world.
I gained much knowledge of wine from the course. I’ll review the things that I’ve learned in my way for a while.
If you see any important information about wine, please tell me by e-mail.
Sunday, March 21,2010
I teach Japanese as a volunteer teacher at Yokohama Kouhoku International Lounge for two hours on Sunday mornings.
http://homepage2.nifty.com/kohokulounge/e/
I have seven pupils who are from China, Korea, America, and Sri Lanka. They have various jobs such as office worker, restaurant assistant, homemaker, student, and so on. I teach beginner Japanese and sometimes by means of gestures. I often learn the language, culture, and customs of pupils thatI teach.
I think this volunteer is a small contribution to international understanding that even I can do, so I have kept on doing it. I feel it challenging when my pupils are pleased with the study materials that I make myself and also when I get a letter expressing gratitude from the students.
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