for January 2007
NOTE: The OBJECTIVE of this BLOG is to help my students with their study of English.
AND
For all of you, out there, around the world to;
SEE HOKKAIDO
2007 January 31 Wednesday.
What?
Is it already the last day of January? Where did the time go? Let's
see what did I do.,,,,,, Did I keep my New Year Resolutions?
Yes, for the most part. What didn't I do? I didn't go snowboarding
yet. I keep complaining about the relative lack of new snowfall this
year, but if I was really motivated to go snowboarding, I could drive to many
places and engage in some excellent free-riding. Maybe it's because
I am too fat and 50 years old to boot. One thing is for sure, I'm not
getting any younger. None of us are. This planet we call
EARTH, that we all live on, is not getting any
younger either, but it IS getting warmer. Significantly warmer. This
is very bad news for a lot of living organisms. Not just us human beings,
but also polar bears and a lot of other, more beautiful and more peaceful critters as
well. Speaking of Global Warming, the 10th Session of the
IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) is currently meeting in
Paris France from January 29 until February 1. What they have determined
so far, is anything but good news. Their major conclusion seems to be that
HUMAN BEINGS are causing global warming because of their various activities
which involve the heavy emissions of green house gases. No big surprise
there. However, a big surprise for me was to find out that they are
predicting a rise in the average global temperature of up to 6.4 degrees by the
year 2099. That kind of increase is huge, and is most surely a
cause for alarm. Could it be that THE APES are screwing up this
planet for everybody else? It kind of looks that way, doesn't it.
What can we as Homo Sapiens do about it? Well, for starters, if you
live near the beach, MOVE. Move to higher ground. Or better
yet, be surrounded by higher ground. Some place like the Kamikawa Basin 上川盆地.
It's exact location is a tightly held secret. Only a very few of the
6 billion people (human beings) on this planet are lucky enough to live there.
If you have the opportunity, move to there. Unfortunately for the
polar bear in the photo above, he or she does not live on dry land. They
live on solidified water, commonly referred to as Ice Bergs.
Nowadays, they look more like Ice Cubes. You can't fit a two
ton bear on a small slab of ice like that. It looks like Mr. White
is; up shit creek, and without a paddle. We could be too, in
the not too distant future. Unless,.... we
re-examine the question of; What is WATER? It is H2O.
It has twice as much hydrogen, as it does oxygen. PERFECT!
If you apply a spark of electricity to the units, you will get an EXPLOSION.
An explosion producing HEAT. Heat which can perform WORK. Work which
can cause MOTION. Motion which can lead us forward into a new CLEAN ENERGY
future. The only other by-product of HYDROGEN FUEL is H2O in liquid
form. Commonly known as WATER. WATER?!?
No! Not, more water.
MORE SNOW!!! So quotes the Polar Bear.
2007 January 30 Tuesday.
Tuesdays
with Mr. T. Again this week, he brought his tiny digital camera with a
fully charged battery, and showed me the second half of the 340 something photos
that he took during
his week-long trip around Turkey. I was especially interested
in seeing the photos he took of the various ruins of the Roman Empire.
The very good photo that you can see on the left was not taken by Mr. T., it was
taken by John Kalucki. You can visit his website at:
www.quovadimus.org
There are many more such excellent photos there for the viewing pleasure of all
of us.
I just love to look at photographs, because each photo tells a story. You
know that old saying, "A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words." I would
have to say that, I strongly agree with this proverb. Another really cool website for
photos is www.pbase.com
New photo galleries are uploaded by the users themselves, and on a continuous
basis. Wow! Talk about a window onto the world, the INTERNET is
it. There are some days when I spend hours upon hours looking through
the amazing amount of photo galleries at pbase. I consider it to be
very educational. I feel like an armchair traveler when I am looking at
photographs that other people have taken, from all around the world. It
would be even more interesting if there was an automatic slideshow with
background music and a narration. That too, is easily possible on
the internet, as you know well already. After listening to Mr. T. tell me
more about his adventures in Turkey and looking at his photos, I started to see
myself living in the Ancient Roman Empire, as a middle class citizen, watching
the games that were being played out in this amphitheatre some 2,500 or more
years ago. I let my imagination run wild. When I
woke up from my fantasy, I realized that this old stadium is much to small to
host the SUPER BOWL that will be taking place next Sunday. The
facilities have gotten much bigger, but human nature and our love of
entertainment hasn't changed at all, over the millenniums. Is evolution
for real?
2007 January 29 Monday.
My
first gig of the day started off at 13:00 with the 神楽公民館で英会話を楽しむ会.
Today, almost everyone showed up for the class which was good. However, I
found out that the total number of members in the group had dropped from 14 to 8
people. This is nothing to be alarmed about, it is simply a common wave
pattern of this type of community circle, that I am a part of. When
there were 14 or more members in the group, I voluntarily extended the class
time from 60 minutes to 90 minutes, with no demand for any extra pay. Now
that the number of members is back down to 8 people, 60 minutes may be enough
time for everyone to say what they want to say. However, I will leave the
class time at 90 minutes so that nobody will ever feel rushed during their
presentations. This particular class is very unstructured in the sense
that I do not actually teach a lesson, centered around a certain topic of
conversation, or a certain point of English grammar. The purpose of this
class is to allow the students themselves, to have complete freedom in talking
about whatever it is that they want to talk about. If they aren't sure
about a certain vocabulary item or a certain phrase or common expression, I will
answer their questions and guide them towards a more easily understandable way
of expressing themselves. For those students of English who want to attend
a lecture where the teacher does all of the talking, this is not the class for
you. I can certainly do it that way if necessary, but this class has been
going on for more than ten years, and some of the original members are still
with the group. I feel that we have reached a higher level of
communication throughout the years, and it would be a shame, NO, a waste,
to take it back down to the "false beginner level." There are many
other places that offer that kind of passive lesson style. This group is
unique in that every member actively prepares a topic of conversation on their
own before class, and then tell everyone about it and discuss it with the other
members of the group. I act mostly as a moderator, although I do make my
own presentations from time to time. This is the real deal, folks.
Actively using Spoken English as a TOOL for real communication. It
doesn't get any better than this. Sometimes the students don't have enough
time to actually prepare for the class beforehand, and they have to talk about
something, off of the top of their heads (impromptu). This is also a
valuable language skill, in and of itself. Not only that, if
any of the members of this Kagura Kominkan English Circle are
totally out of ideas about what to talk about on any given
day, you'all can always read this blog anytime you choose. It might
stimulate your thinking enough to come up with some type of, off-the-wall and
unexpected topic of discussion. No really, I am happy to listen to
anything ya'll wanna talk about,.... so,....
Please use this blog. I write it for
all of you. Even for the people who read it that I have never met.
This exact same message is clearly written in BIG RED
LETTERS at the top of this page. Please look
again, just to make sure for yourself. Yeah, it's THE REAL
DEAL. CLICK
HERE to LISTEN
2007 January 28 Sunday.
I
had a private lesson today starting at 10:00 in the morning. Again this
week, the young mother and her two daughters aged 3 and 6 came to my classroom
for an 80 minute private lesson. Today, I tried to teach them how to say
the days of the week, and also a set of 7 tongue twisters using those words.
Unfortunately, the younger sister couldn't concentrate for a long enough period
of time to learn even the first 7 words for the days of the week, but her elder
sister could. However, with the younger sister playing around in the
classroom, it distracted the elder sister from learning the 7 tongue twisters
using the days of the week. For example: Sunday was a sunny day.
etc. When the mother came back to the classroom about 90 minutes later, I
explained what I did today, and how the younger daughter may still be a bit too
young to gain much benefit from today's lesson. In order for the kids to
get maximum exposure to spoken English during the lesson time, I spoke only in
English for about 99% of the class time. I have literally hundreds
of lesson plans, but I always need to adjust and fine tune them for each and
every student that I have, so that they can get the biggest benefit from their
time spent in my classroom. I always do my best, and I expect the students
to do their best as well. Communication is a two way street.
2007 January 27 Saturday.
I
didn't have any classes today, but I did have the opportunity to go and hear
some great Swing Jazz music live, and for free! As I did last year,
and also the year before that, I immensely enjoyed the good vibes and right-on
rhythms of the Sunrise Cherry Orchestra at the
Asahi Elementary School. The most interesting thing
about this Swing Jazz Orchestra, is that all of the 18 members are elementary
school students! Yes, you read that correctly. They are 4th,
5th, and 6th graders at 朝日小学校. What does this really mean?
Well, for starters, every year in March, some of the members of this band
graduate, and go on to junior high school. So, every year, the band
needs to add new members to take their places. This being the case,
some of the members performing on stage in today's concert, have been playing
their musical instruments for less than one year!!! How was the
sound of the music that they played??? Let me put it this way,
if you went to the concert with your eyes closed, you would think that a group
of adults, semi-professional musicians, was up there on stage making the music
happen. I swear to god, they really are that good. One
of the main reasons that they are so good, is because they have an excellent
teacher, guiding them along the way. A true NAVIGATOR. Please
allow me to introduce Shibata Akiko Sensei.
I have known Shibata Sensei, for about 10 years, because she used to come to my
classroom for English lessons. She is also a very accomplished piano
player herself and performs with various local music groups. Today's
performance by the SCO began at 15:00, and I
arrived at the school just in time to hear the opening number; IN THE MOOD.
Next they played; I Got Rhythm, Misty, Moonlight Serenade, Watermelon Man,
Autumn Leaves, and Take Five. After that, there was a Special
Guest Stage of professional local musicians known as the 本間幸治カルテット. The
members of which are: 本間幸治 Trumpet, 平間栄治 Piano, 平間哲治 Drums, 山田顕次 Bass, and
川端章男 Tenor Saxophone. They played the following 3 songs; Candy,
Milestones, and Blue Minor. It was excellent. I couldn't stop myself
from bobbing up and down, and tapping my hands and feet along with the music.
After that, there was a 15 minute intermission. When everybody came
back on stage, two more adult musicians joined the group to play a final set of
5 songs. The musicians were, 平間貴子 on Alto Saxophone, and 須藤裕昭 on Bass
Saxophone. It was an excellent day for me, just listening to
and enjoying the music of people who do what they do, because they have a
PASSION for it. It's not about money for these folks, it's about LOVE.
Love of music. Love of living. What was that LAW of the
COSMOS that I've heard before,...... Give First, Receive Later.
On a continuous basis. That's life. Day after day.
CLICK HERE to LISTEN
2007 January 26 Friday.
My
first gig of the day was to go over to the Dokan Nursing School 北海道立高等看護学院 for a
90 minute class with the 2nd year students. I haven't seen these kids
since last December so the first topic of the day was: "Did you have a nice
winter vacation? Where did you go and what did you do?"
Most of the kids went to the Coming of Age Day Ceremony 成人式 in their hometowns.
I asked them to show me a photo of themselves all dressed up in their beautiful
Kimonos. Some of the girls showed me their photos, others said they didn't
take any photos with their mobile phones, (yeah, right. I believe that
fairytale.) and another girl said that, she used a separate digital
camera, and that she didn't bring it with her today. Now that story, I
believe. I even asked them to send a copy of the photo to my email
address, but of course nobody did. I was half kidding anyway.
After that class was all wrapped up at about 10:30, I drove on over to 100万ボルト
on Highway 237 to get a new MOUSE for my PC. The one that I had
bought just one year ago, finally pooped out. Maybe I should spend a
little more money this time, and get something more useful. I found more
than I was expecting find with the
Microsoft Wireless Laser Mouse 5000 (Made in China). Not only is this
puppy wireless and not on a leash, but it also has a magnifying glass function
that brings even the smallest text up close BIG and easy to read. Where
has this mouse been all of my life? It is exactly what I have been
needing since I started wearing reading glasses about 2 years ago. What a
great idea! And so easy to use. The mouse unit itself requires 2 AA
batteries to operate, and the laser transceiver unit which you can see in the
bottom right of the photo, plugs right into a USB port and doesn't get in the
way at all. I will be cruising the World Wide Web with much more ease and
comfort from now on. I can really zoom in on any text that would
otherwise be too small for me to read. No more cutting and pasting stuff into
WORD and then enlarging the font. Thank god some designer somewhere
came up with this idea. You have been a big help, my friend.
By the way, who invented reading glasses I wonder,........
2007 January 25 Thursday.
Every
week on Thursday at 19:00, a certain high school girl comes to my classroom for
practice lessons using spoken English. She will be graduating from high
school this year in March, and will be continuing her education in Sapporo at
the Japan Business School
日本ビジネススクール. She will be enrolled in the
Business English Course and will graduate from there in about two years.
She first started coming to my classroom since about 2 years ago, and the first
time I met her, I was immediately impressed by her big friendly smile and very
positive attitude. Also, she is almost as tall as me (195 cm), has a very
good sense of fashion, and is a very good looking young lady with big beautiful,
"black" eyes. If she can get her level of practical 実用 English up to the
professional business standard, I know for a fact that she will be able to live
and work anywhere in the world that she chooses to do so. In a word,
she's got what it takes. All I can do for her
from now on, is to hope and pray that she makes the best decisions for her
future life, along the way. I know that she can do it if she really sets
her mind to it. I also hope that I will be able to meet her again from
time to time, and see how her level of spoken English is progressing. She
will be going to school and living in Sapporo, but her family home is here in
Asahikawa, not far from my classroom. Don't be a stranger! Drop by
my classroom and say "Howdy!", about once a year, or so.
Please? I wish you the best of luck and smooth sailing from
here on out, and into your bright future, of becoming anything that you want to
become. Free Hugs Anyone???
2007 January 24 Wednesday.
Oh,
by the way! I didn't have time to talk about it in Tuesday's blog, but
Mr. T. came to my classroom at about 15:00 yesterday. He had just returned
to Asahikawa from Turkey, about one week ago. He brought his digital
camera with him, which was chock-full-of photos from his 5 or 6 day tour in トルコ.
He took hundreds of photos and I very much enjoyed viewing most of them, until
the battery in his camera went dead. The backup battery he put into his
camera as the next replacement, died in less than one minute.
Bummer. He will recharge his batteries and
bring the camera back again next week on Tuesday. I can't wait to see the rest
of his photos. By the way, the photo on the upper left was not taken by
Mr. T. It was taken by somebody else. Please click on the
photo itself to visit the original website. I could clearly
see from the hundreds of photos taken by Mr. T., that Turkey truly is the
intersection between Europe and Asia. Or, said in another way, the
meeting place of the Occidental and the Oriental. The nation known as
Turkey, has Christian Churches, Islamic Mosques and just about everything else
in between. Interestingly enough, with so many different languages and
cultures existing in one place, side by side, there is no civil war raging in
the country at this time. How BAZAAR? NO!
How NATURAL. Another thing that Mr. T. talked about was how, so many of
the people who are involved in the tourist industry in Turkey, can speak
Japanese very well. No big surprise there. Japanese
tourists in general tend to spend a good deal of money when they travel, so if a
businessman wants to "cash in" on this opportunity, he/she needs to be able to
communicate with their potential customers. Mr. T. also talked about one
taxi driver in particular, who could, not only speak Japanese very well, but who
also talked at great length about Japanese history as compared to Turkish
history. That must have been a very interesting synopsis of historical
comparisons, to listen to. As I have mentioned in this blog before, Mr. T.
is a retired high school English teacher, and he can speak English much better
than most of the other Japanese people with whom I have had CONTACT, during
my 17 something years of living in Japan. However,
today, towards the end of our conversation time together, he spoke mostly in
Japanese when describing his true feelings, impressions and opinions about his
short visit to Turkey and THE CROSS CULTURAL ASPECTS of his travel as well.
That's fine with me, because I can understand exactly what he is talking about.
However, I made it a point to answer him in English. After all, he
is a paying customer and I don't want him to feel that he is not getting his
money's worth when buying lesson tickets. Today's talk with Mr. T.,
convinced me, once again that, a person's native language, any person's native
language, will always be the first source, they choose, when trying to express
their inner-most feelings on any given subject. After all, I write this blog in English, because it gives me the best set of tools, that I need, to say
whatever it is, that I really want to say. It's only
natural. It's no big mystery.
2007 January 23 Tuesday.
Today,
I gave the final examination to my students at Asahikawa University.
Instead of being just a paper test, it was an interview test, one on one, face
to face, with each and every student, using page one of my original textbook
Questions and Answers. The instructions at the top of the page read as
follows; Ask a question, Listen to the answer, Write down what you hear.
All of the questions begin with one of the 6W1H interrogatives 疑問詞. What,
When, Where, Who, Why, Which and How. The page has a total of 30
questions, divided into 6 sections, of 5 questions each. The 6 sections
are labeled A,B,C,D,E and F. The students have used this same page
in class on two separate occasions. The most recent one being last week on
Tuesday. In order to add an element of suspense and make the exam a bit
more interesting, I had the A thru F letters written on six small cards, that I
placed face down on the table. I asked the student to pick one card,
and then I picked one card. This determined which 2 sets of 5 questions
each, we would be using during that student's man-to-man, exam. This
style of examination, also gives me and the student an opportunity to engage in
follow up questions if we so choose. For example, question 1 in
section A says; What is your first name? The ideal answer
would be; My first name is KinKaRo. Good enough, message
understood. If the student is really comfortable when speaking English,
they might chime in 相づち with something like; What is YOUR first name.
OR even better, HOW ABOUT YOU? Yes!!! That's the
real sign of true ability in communication, when using whatever language.
In this case, AMERICAN ENGLISH. It works with ANY language. It is a
very natural process called INTERACTION between two or more people.
Playing tennis, or even table tennis is the exact same type of situation.
Back and Forth. A continuous cycle. It has no
beginning and it has no end. It is CIRCULAR MOTION, it is cycles, it
is a SPIRAL when stretched out into the 3rd dimension of "TIME".
It's all that there really is.
electricity REALLY!
2007 January 22 Monday.
My
first gig of the day started off at 13:00 with the 神楽公民館英会話を楽しむ会.
Today, only 4 of the 12 or so members showed up. That's fine with me, and
also good for the people who did come today, because 90 minutes of free
conversation time,
between only 5 people, creates a very relaxed atmosphere, with plenty of time for
detours into other related subjects of discussion. It was a wonderful
class. For me, the most
interesting topic of today is related to the photo and newspaper article that
appeared in the January 21, Sunday Edition, of the
Hokkaido Newspaper. This exhibit was brought into today's classroom by
Mr. S. He is a retired teacher of 国語, the Japanese Language, a
required class for all of the students who are involved in the compulsory education system
義務教育 of Japan. The title below the photo in that newspaper
article reads "The Legend of Udastu can change the town." This photograph
was taken in Tokushima Prefecture 徳島県 Mima City 美馬市 at the Wakimachi 脇町 Junior
High School. This is a very nice school building, wouldn't you say
so? They call themselves the うだつが上がる学校.
When Mr. S. first said these words in today's class, I had absolutely no idea of
what he was talking about. I have never heard this expression before.
He went on to explain that the expression means "A school that is a big
success." I was still somewhat puzzled because I did not
understand the meaning of the word うだつ. Mr. S. went on to explain
further: During the Edo Period of Japanese history, most of
the buildings in any town or city were constructed mainly of wood. If one
building caught on fire, the fire could and would, easily spread to the
buildings next door and burn down a large area of the town. In order to
prevent this, tall うだつ were built along either side of the buildings. In
the photo above left, you can see the うだつ on either side of the two windows, on
the second floor. From his explanation, I took the word
うだつ（梲）to mean a
"firewall". (This English word is still in common use today on the
internet, to mean, protection of your computer network from viruses and/or
hackers). Even with this explanation, the phrase
うだつが上がる and うだつが上がれない literally
translated as meaning "the firewall goes up" or conversely "the firewall can't
go up", was not yet crystal clear to me. What does this have to do
with being a big success? Mr. S. went on to explain the following:
In the old days, during the Edo Period, the biggest buildings would naturally
have the biggest firewalls うだつ. Therefore, the firewalls became a symbol
of the success or non-success of any business that owned a building.
Ah Ha! (at that moment, i had an instantaneous
閃き ). Now, everything was falling into place. It all made
sense. A bigger building must have a bigger firewall, and therefore,
the firewall (tower) would be more obvious to the general public. Of
course, big buildings cost big money, and big money is seen as a sign of big
success among the current population of most human beings, on
this planet we call EARTH. Thank you
Mr. S., for your fascinating narration, of a most interesting history lesson,
about the very complex, Japanese Culture, and the Japanese Language.
For me it was an extremely interesting class time, and also, very enlightening.
Thank you, SIR!!! ありがとう！ S先生.
2007 January 21 Sunday.
Late
last night while sitting here with my extended brain at the edge of my
fingertips, I noticed that some major SNOW REMOVAL OPERATIONS 除雪作業 were
beginning to take place just outside of my windows. Even
though it was very late and I was more than half asleep, I was quick witted
enough to see the opportunity. The chance to take a lot of
very close up photos of the operation in progress, and make a small slideshow
out of it for later display on this website. So, I arose from my
chair, grabbed my big old digital camera with a full load of juice, and headed
out onto my snowy veranda. I took about 76 photos of the various equipment
from various angles, doing what they do. Removing snow. While
I was taking these photos and observing this crew of about 10 dump trucks, one
back hoe, one grader, and about 50 guys pulling all of the strings, it occurred
to me that the operators of this heavy equipment must be very good at their jobs
in order to, not destroy the little trees that you can see in photo, above left.
Not to mention the metal sign boards and any cars that may be foolishly parked
too close to the sidewalks at night. These guys are really good at
what they do. However, on occasion, someone screws up and severely dents
or heavily bends a metal traffic signboard or some such thing, and creates an
ugly mess. But for the most part, they do an excellent job. As
you can well imagine, all of this snow removal business costs a lot of money.
I have seen the exact figures for last year, but I can't remember them right off
of the top of my head. In a nutshell, it is BIG MONEY. How much
waste or corruption may be involved in this budget, I have no idea, but it
remains that this snow removal business is an absolute necessity for the City of
Asahikawa and most other areas of Hokkaido. For one, almost everything
that gets around in Hokkaido, be it people or products, gets around on the road
system. There is a lot of trucking on this island. Some of the
trucks that these guys drive are really cool. I will take some photos and
write more about that in another blog someday. But my point for today is,
that if the roads were left full of snow, nothing would move. Modern life
would be very inconvenient if not impossible. My hats are off to these
guys who keep the roads cleared of snow, and easy to drive. I think their
pay is pretty good as well.
2007 January 20 Saturday.
This
morning I had a 90 minute private lesson with the young mother and her 3 young
children starting at 9:00. We need to see more of this in Japan. Families
with lots of children, that is.
Anyway, today the mother and her youngest child, the only boy, went off on a
shopping adventure, while I and the two girls got down to business learning
English, in a relaxed and enjoyable manner. As with last week, the
younger daughter lost interest in the lesson after only about 40 minutes and
went rampaging around the classroom while her elder sister took her private
lesson more seriously. Either way, both of the girls had an
enjoyable time, and they learned as much English as they could during our 90
minutes together. In order to give them the maximum benefit from our time
together, I spoke to them in English 99% of the time, even when they asked me
questions in Japanese, I would answer them in English. Somehow they can
intuitively understand my intentions in this way. I mean, think about it
for a minute. How do American kids learn to speak English? They do
so by listening to and imitating their parents and their playmates. They
have no understanding of spelling or grammar at that age, and they don't need it
then. When the mother and her youngest son came back to the
classroom at the end of the lesson time, the elder daughter told her mother
about how her younger sister had been goofing around during most of the lesson.
I said in English "Yes, that's right. Maybe next time your little brother
should take the lesson with your elder sister and you should go shopping with
mommy instead." When her mother repeated the same message in Japanese to
her youngest daughter, the little girl immediately shouted "No no no!"
This tactic works every time. The little girl enjoys coming here and she
doesn't want to be banned from my classroom. Maybe next week she will
settle down more and get with the program. After today's lesson was
finished at about 10:40 and I said goodbye to everyone, and looked out of the
window only to discover that the streets were once again wet and black.
Snowboarding? Naaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah! Let's experiment
around some more with creating Computer Graphics using FreeHand MX. So
that is what I did. The only problem with spending so much time doing
this, is that I don't get nearly enough physical exercise. I need more
balance in my life between the mental and physical activities. Let's see,
maybe tomorrow,........
2007 January 19 Friday.
My
blog of yesterday and www.charleshamel.com
got me to thinking about my own personal history of interaction with personal
computers. My first memories go back to the times when they were
selling Commodore 64s and the like in such places as K-Mart. At that time
I regarded them as merely a toy, something that wasn't very useful.
When I started as a freshman at Washington State University in the fall of 1980,
I was introduced to the computer room at the school because I took a course in
BASIC programming. To tell you the truth, I couldn't really figure out
what it was that I was supposed to be learning at that time, and I only got a
"C" from the instructor. Later on after graduation in 1984, I
bought one of those cheap knock-offs of the new and famous IBM PC, and started
using it for word processing, simple data bases, and crap programming using
BASIC. When I first came to live and work in Asahikawa in March of
1990, I had my first contact with APPLE COMPUTERs. Golly Jee!
The user interface sure is a lot easier to use that the C:> prompt of DOS
3.2 Where has this PC been all my life? Finally in
about 1996, I bought a SONY VAIO notebook PC that had WINDOWS 95 installed on it
and later upgraded to WINDOWS 98se. A few years later I bought
another SONY VAIO notebook PC that unfortunately had the ME operating system
pre-installed on it. Finally about two years ago I bought another
SONY VAIO notebook PC with a wide screen and WINDOWS XP installed on it.
Shortly thereafter, I bought the Macromedia STUDIO MX software package that I am
now spending considerable time, learning how to use in a better and more
efficient manner. As far as being "computer smart" or "internet
smart", I'm not. But I do have many certain objectives in my
capacity as a Teacher of English as a Foreign Language, TEFL/TESL that the
personal computer greatly helps me in accomplishing. For me, it is
merely a tool to obtain a certain objective. A very powerful tool indeed.
In fact, it has enabled me to make all of my own original English Language
Teaching materials, entirely by myself, and in a manner that is exactly as I
have envisioned them to become. And, it gets better as time goes on.
Are computers merely another form of the physical expression of endless
consciousness? It would appear to be so, but what appears to be
real, may only be an illusion. The Great Illusion.
Create Your Own Illusion. It will be custom made and just for you.
2007 January 18 Thursday.
Again
today no classes until 15:00 so I used my time to have more fun with FreeHand MX.
Let's see, what do I want to make today. I really have no idea so I
think I'll just play around with basic shapes and use some of the distortion
tools on them and see what happens. One of the things that happened
is what you can see on the left. It was so easy to make, it took me by
surprise. Here's how I did it. I used the auto shape tool to
make a perfect hexagon 六角形 and colored it light red. Then I turned on the
shape distortion tool, put the cursor mark in the center, held down the left
hand mouse key and pulled straight down. When I released the mouse key, I
had the flower-like shape that you can see above. Next, I made another
perfect hexagon shape of about the same size, colored it light blue, turned on
the shape distortion tool, placed the cursor in the center of the hexagon, held
down the left hand mouse key, and pushed straight up. The result is the
star-like shape that you can see above. Finally I made and put a small
yellow circle in the center of the pink flower and made a blue glowing
background to assemble everything together. Is this fun or what?
Using other basic shapes as starting points, I was able to create graphics that
looked like such things as, leaves, a cactus, bird wings, bird heads etc., etc.
It makes me scratch my head and wonder why I didn't start using this level of
software years ago. The inevitable answer is because I didn't know
about it at first, so I would never think about using something of which I knew
nothing about. Anyway, it is better late than never. As I
become more skilled at making computer generated illustrations, I will be making
cartoon-like characters that can be turned into simple animations and used in my
original eLearning applications for children's English. I've got a
lot of work ahead of me, so I think I'll stop writing this blog for today, and
get back to the fantasy world of making CG. Talk to ya later.
2007 January 17 Wednesday.
My
first class of the day started off at 15:00, so I had plenty of time during the
morning hours to get down and dirty with Macromedia FreeHand MX, and continue
learning more about the true power of this illustration software, for myself.
Macromedia Studio MX is the first truly professional grade software package that
I have ever purchased, and I did so only about 2 years ago. I bought the
Japanese Language version of it using the educational discount option which
saved me a lot of "money" up front. When I first
installed the software suite onto my PC, and tried to use it, I was completely
befuddled. The user interface was totally different from any of the
MicroSoft products that I had been using since about 1996, and even until
now. I considered it necessary to visit Amazon Dot Com and
purchase a library of books, written in English, that I could read and use as my
gateway initiation into the fascinating world of professional level software.
Finally, about two years later, I am starting to get into the grove and make
graphics that I have never been able to make before. I realize that I have
only just scratched the surface of the potential for using this software
package, but that only encourages me to learn more, about it.
eLEARN MORE. Imagine the
possibilities,...... Even when I am "sleeping", I can't seem
to unwind, I JUST LET IT Ride. Recently, I have
continuous "dreams" about trying different things using FreeHand, even when I am
"asleep". So, when I "wake up" the next day,
I sit down at my PC and try out the stuff I "dreamed" about during the previous
SLUMBER. Amazingly, most of it works as visualized.
Could it be that there is, in reality, no clear separation between our being
"awake" lives and our being "asleep" lives?
I will let you be the judge of that for yourself. But
in my case, all I can SEE
is, one bright continuum, with no beginning
AND no end in sight. Is this the end of the world, as
the HIVE MIND knows it?
Maybe. Is this the end of
ETERNAL CONCISENESS ?
NO phuckin' WAY.
2007 January 16 Tuesday.
My
first gig of the day was a 90 minute class at Asahikawa University starting at
10:40. Next week will be the final exam for the second semester.
That being the case, I sat down, face to face, with each and every student, and
used page one of my original textbook (learning material) entitled Q and A
(Questions and Answers). The written instructions at the top of
the page read as follows: Ask the Question. Listen to the
Answer. Write down what you Hear. Every question on this first
page begins with one of the 6W1H question words (interrogatives 疑問詞),
What, When, Where, Who, Why, Which and How. Even though the
questions on page one are very simple, they can be expanded upon and a free
talking exercise can be engaged in, to a certain extent. I consider this
to be a true way to evaluate the students' communicative skill in English at a
very basic level. However, the time that I must spend with each and
every student face to face on exam day will be anywhere from about 5 to 7
minutes. If all of the 35 or so students show up for the test, it could
take me more than 2 hours to interview everyone. This will be a problem
for the students who must have enough time to eat lunch before their next class
starts at about 13:00 or so. Fortunately for both the students and I,
professor Sugawa will be gracious enough to help us all out by taking half of
the students, while I take the other half. He volunteered to do this even
though he was not scheduled to come to the university on that day.
This is the kind of can-do attitude that I really respect in people, if and when
I do encounter it. After today's practice test was all finished at
about 12:30, I drove back to my classroom to get ready for straight classes from
15:00 until 20:00. At about 14:30, Mr. T. called me and said that he
had just returned yesterday from his trip to Turkey, and that he was too tired
to come to my classroom today. I can fully understand that. What,
with all of the time spent waiting in lines at the airports, and the 12
something hours flight from East Asia to Eurasia, and then to mention the
differences in time zones, producing jet lag 時差ボケ, I know exactly how he feels.
I myself haven't been on an airplane for about 5 years or so, but in the past I
used to fly between Japan and the USA on a rather frequent basis. I was
what they call in the industry, a frequent flyer. Thank GOD, those days
are over for me.
2007 January 15 Monday.
My
first gig of the day started at 13:00 at the 神楽公民館で英会話を楽しむ会. I
haven't seen these very nice people since our Xmas Party at the Hotel Paco on
December 18 of last year. Today, only about half of the members
showed up, so everybody had plenty of time to talk about anything they wanted to
talk about, including me. Various people talked about various
things, but the most impressive presentation of the day was by Mrs. Y., a
relatively new member of our English Conversation Circle. During our
wonderful Xmas Party on December 18, she brought along her young daughter and
also her digital camera. She took many photos during the 2 and one half
hours that I was there, and possibly more later. What she did with
those photos, is what I would like to talk about in today's blog.
Today, she brought her notebook PC to the class, and showed us a very well made
photo slideshow type of presentation that she had copied onto a DVD-R.
I don't know what software she used to make the presentation, but it had many
interesting effects such as zoom-in, zoom-out, peeling pages from bottom left to
upper right, etc., as well as some other computer graphics thrown in for special
effects. Interestingly enough, the background music (BGM) that she
added to the show was that of
The Jackson Five singing their very old and well known song, "ABC "
Can you see the direct connection to the study of the English Language?
I can. Is there anybody out there reading this blog who has never
heard of
Michael Jackson? If you want to see what he used to look like as
a child click on the J5 link above. You will be amazed at the
difference. Anyway, after Mrs. Y. showed us the 3 or 4 minute video
presentation that she had so generously taken the time to make, she gave the DVD
to me as a gift. Thank you so much Mrs. Y!!! I am so happy
that all I can say is, わい わい !!! I want to put this video on
my website, but it is a whopping 100 something Megabytes so, I need to figure
out a way to reduce the file size to about about 1 or 2 Megabytes at the most.
This will be another special project for me in the near future. I have a
good general idea about how to do it, but I still don't know for sure if it will
work or not. If I am successful, I will post it on this website as
soon as possible. Stay tuned.
2007 January 14 Sunday.
Wow!
What an evening yesterday was. An evening to be remembered, but mostly
forgotten in a foggy haze of music and booze. Yeah, I know. I have a
tendency to go overboard when doing things that I really have a LIFE PASSION
for, but last night was one of the highest. Because the snow
conditions yesterday were not IDEAL for snowboarding, I had to decide on how to
spend the rest of my day. Recently, I have been spending a lot of time on
the internet both reading content and also producing content of my own, as well
as getting some unexpected comments about my blog, from people I have never met,
so,......... I decided to break the mold, and get out my six-string
electric and 4-string electric guitars and play along with a variety of CDs
while listening to my guitar playing through headphones. I love to
do this now and then. Much less now than then.
Compared to my younger years, I play the guitar and/or bass guitar very seldom.
But when the urge strikes me, I have to go with the flow. When I was
in high school between 1971 and 1975, and during the 5 years when I was in the
U.S. Coast Guard right after high school, I would spend anywhere from 2 to 8 hours a
day, every day, playing the six-string acoustic and or electric guitars.
Why? Because it is soooooooooooo much fun. If you have never played
a musical instrument before, I really can't describe the feeling to you.
It is the feeling of being in tune and on synch with every vibration in the
universe that matters to you AT THAT MOMENT. In Real Time. Happening
NOW. It is an incredible feeling. If you are lucky
enough to play in a band or even solo, and be in front of a live audience, an
audience that absorbs and then reflects your musical VIBRATIONS, the feelings
are magnified a hundred-fold, a thousand-fold, or by however many people are out
there listening and grooving to the same VIBES that you are producing. The
power is truly AWESOME. The Power of MUSIC. The language of the
universe. Could it possibly be the same MAGIC WAND that Mickey Mouse likes
to use in his animated cartoons? Could be. What else could it
be? Something that everyone understands, intuitively. Harmonious
sound vibrations. Understood universally, by everyone.
Regardless of language or culture. The message is in the music.
Any music. Anyway, when I woke up at about 11:00 this morning,
the powder snow was coming down big time, and I knew that this was my big chance
for the 初すべり. My mind was strong, but my body was weak.
Damn it, I can't burn the candle at both ends anymore, like I used to do.
From now on, I have to choose a priority for the next day, and stick to it.
Since the season of snow has begun again this year, I have spent less time
being outdoors getting some much needed exercise, and much more time indoors, sitting
in front of a PC or picking away at a stringed musical instrument.
In reality, I am not in good enough physical shape to take on the snowboard
adventure, at a
moment's notice. I need some stretching and warm up time to get ready for
the big ride. Even if it is only on a rather small hill, close to my
classroom. Phuck man,.... If I was only 15 years old again.
I could rip the world a new bung-hole and let it ride. Ride, let it
ride. Even on the evening tide, just let it ride (Lyrics by Gordon
Lightfoot).
CLICK HERE to LISTEN
2007 January 13 Saturday.
Say what? It has stopped snowing and the
main streets are wet and black again. Did I just wake up from a dream? I had a private lesson
starting at 10:00, with a young mother and her two daughters again this
week. Today, they brought along the youngest member of their family, a 1 year
3 months old boy. The mother, the three children and I, all sat down
at the same table and started our 80 minute lesson. We started with the
really easy stuff, and then progressed ever so gradually up to some slightly
more complicated stuff. As expected, the younger two children
started to lose interest after about one hour, so I abruptly announced "Game
Time!" That got the little one's attention back again and we played an
alphabet-based game for about 10 minutes. Then I turned my attention to
the eldest daughter, age 6, and started an elementary lesson in Phonics フォニックス
teaching her how to read and write about one dozen 3 letter words, listed in
alphabetical order. She was doing very well with her lesson while her
younger brother and younger sister where playing and then fighting and then
crying and then playing again. At the end of the lesson, the mother
asked me if she should leave the little boy at home next time, and I replied
that it was entirely up to her. I can manage the lesson either way.
Then she asked me if her younger daughter was still to young to take lessons at
my classroom, and I replied that I think she is not quite yet ready for a full
80 minute lesson, together with her sister. The younger sister can pay
attention to the lesson for about 50 minutes or so, but after that, she loses
interest and wants to do something else. Very typical of young children.
The elder sister, however, can go for the full 80 minutes, and even then she
says that she wants to do more. She has a very good attitude towards her
English studies. Even though the elder sister's two younger siblings
are very noisy at times, it doesn't bother me at all. I can work around
it. Create Order out of Chaos. It is a skill that can be learned by
anyone who is willing to take the time, and make the effort, to learn it.
I am NOT talking about the common situation where a small group of people create
the CHAOS themselves, and then offer the return to ORDER solution that they had
intended upon doing in the first place (Problem Reaction Solution), I am
talking about being able to bring peace and order to a situation that
spontaneously arises and turns into CHAOS as it progresses NATURALLY.
There is a huge difference between these two methods. When the
lesson was finally finished at about 11:30, we all said "Goodbye, see you next
week." and my teaching schedule was finished for today. I looked
outside of the window again, and noticed that the streets were still wet and
black and I decided that today was not the best day for my first snowboarding
adventure of this season. Maybe tomorrow??? We will have to wait and
see.
2007 January 12 Friday.
Lookin'
good, looking good. The prospects for snowboarding on Saturday or Sunday,
that is. What else is new,...... Hmmmmmm,.... Let's
see,...... Oh Yea! Now, I Remember. One of
the things that my partner NATSUKI does for me is to copy and paste this
blog onto another website. In this case, So-Net blog. You can see
her handy work by
clicking here. I have absolutely nothing to do with the updating
or maintenance of that website, so I seldom see the comments that people leave
there. I'm just the writer guy who does ALL of the hardcore writing.
Today she told me that some guy named HIROSUKE had left a rather lengthy message
in English and she sent me a link to it by email. I was happy to get
such a nice message, and it was written in very good English. You
can see it for yourself by
clicking here.
AND HERE. Thank you for your message Mr. Hirosuke.
Do you live in Hokkaido? I couldn't find the info on your
website. As you correctly surmised from reading my blog of January
10, I don't have enough TIME to respond to comments. I do read them all,
but with everything else that I am busy doing everyday, just writing this blog
takes me anywhere from 30 minutes to two hours or more. Then if I make the
partner podcast for it on Snow Radio, there goes another 30 minutes to one hour.
I am 50 years old my friend, I have many more things that I want to do before my
bio-vehicle expires at some future date. Cum on feel the noise,
Girls rock your boys!!! I said yea yea yea. Can you play the
electric guitar Mr. Hirosuke? It's a real cool trip, isn't it.
Hey, I've got a great idea, why don't you write any messages to me in your blog,
and I will read it. And if I have any meaningful comments about it, I will
write it here, in my blog. Will that work? Let's give it a
try. You know how to get in touch with me, and I know how to get in
touch with you. Deal? Deal!
By the way,... What is writing anyway???
2007 January 11 Thursday.
Miracle
of miracles, it is still snowing. Is it possible to keep this up, on
into the weekend when I will have some time to go snowboarding? Please!
Keep hope alive. While reading the news on the internet from various
sources, it became obvious to me that not just Hokkaido, but most other places,
say Europe, are also experiencing much warmer temperatures than average. In
fact, in some areas, bears are not able to hibernate 冬眠 they way they usually
do. This is bad news for outdoorsmen, because if they meet up with a big
hungry bear, the bear will not be in a good mood. I hope the big Brown
Bears ヒグマ of Hokkaido are all settled in for a long winter's nap. I
don't want to run into one during my Golden Week road trip this year. It is not just the bears that live on solid
ground 陸上 that are feeling the warmth. Polar Bears 北極熊 are also
discovering that the ice upon which they live is getting smaller and smaller.
This is not just a problem of finding a place to live, but also of finding their
main source of food,
the Arctic Seals, upon which they must feed. The way most polar bears hunt for
arctic seals, is to wait near a hole in the ice, and then grab a seal or two as
they surface from underwater to get air. With less ice to to have
breathing holes in it, the bears will be forced to go swimming to find their
meals. This of course is a much more time and energy consuming way of
getting their essential nutrition. As a result, there will be many failed
hunting missions, and the young cubs will suffer as well. Those are
the FACTS folks. But what are the causes? We often hear that global
warming 地球温暖化 or maybe El Ninyo is the culprit. But could there be another
explanation? I think maybe so. Scientists have know for a long
time that the earth's magnetic poles tend to shift from time to time. They
know this for sure because of core samples that they have taken from rocks, and
even ice. In the past this has happened about once every 50.000 years to
once every 1,000,000 years or so. The timing seems to be difficult to
predict. However, even nowadays, scientists are noticing a gradual shift
the the earth's magnetic field that is more rapid and more significant than in
previously recorded history. Could this be the REAL CAUSE of global
warming? It certainly is a real possibility. If you have
been reading my blog for a while, you will know that I believe that the entire
universe is essentially electro-magnetic in nature. From the smallest hydrogen
atom to the largest galaxy, we can observe the same exact SPIRAL SHAPEs and
CIRCULAR MOTIONs. Have you ever seen the Aurora Borealis?
I have seen it before when I lived in Kodiak Alaska. This amazing display of
lights and colors is caused by the Solar Wind, being trapped inside the earth's
atmosphere. The solar wind is, in reality, an electro-magnetic pulse or
wave that is ejected from the surface of the sun on a semi regular basis.
It truly is an
Electric Universe
filled with
Thunderbolts. For more details on this theory, please visit some
websites by clicking on the two blue links above.
Maybe this is a
POLE SHIFT.
What can we do about it? Duck and Cover, and Pray to god that we
will survive it. Please protect Hokkaido. It is
the dragon's head of East Asia. A very important place on the globe for
spiritual enlightenment. No kidding.
2007 January 10 Wednesday.
The
snow just keeps on coming down. Yes! More, more, more BIG POWDER
SNOW, please! Not only does Asahikawa get lots of snow during
December, January and February (almost) every year, but the quality of the snow
is light and fluffy, a big hit with skiers and snowboarders, alike. In
fact, many people come here from all over Japan and a few foreign countries as
well, just to bask in the warm winter sunshine, while gliding through the powder
heaven on the boards of their choice. Especially popular with
Australians is the Niseko ニセコ area of Hokkaido. Some of the Aussies have
even leased and/or purchased property there, and built ski resorts that cater
especially well, to their fellow countrymen. Right on, MATES!!!!
Have a GOOD DAY! Hokkaido
is a truly international island, with many unique features. Won't you too,
come and visit sometime? Speaking of visits to Hokkaido, I know a
family that now lives in Houston Texas, but they are planning to move to
Hokkaido, Higashikawa, during this year in about May, or so. Good
timing. You will start your life in Hokkaido during the warmest part
of the year. Warm and beautiful. I know you'll love it.
You will be coming not just for a short visit, but to live here on a mostly
permanent basis, it seems. How do I know this? It's a
bit of a long story, but The head of the family, called me by
international telephone, and left a message on my answering machine on 2006
August 16. He briefly explained his family's situation and asked me to
either call him collect, or send him an email. I sent him an email the
next day, and we have been in frequent communication ever since, that time.
Not just by email, but also via our websites as well. It's a great
way to fly. Anyway, .... Why did he call me?
He found this website on the internet while doing a search for information about
Hokkaido. My telephone number is shown on the bottom of the FrontPage
(top page) of this website, but my email address is not shown.
I designed it this way on purpose, so that I don't get a lot of trivial emails
from people I don't even know. That is also the reason there isn't
any way for people to post "comments" on my blog or anywhere else on this
website. I want serious inquiries only. I don't have
time for trivial gossip, or any other form of nonsensical chatter.
NOISE. We need much less of it. Come on up
to Country Living. Anyway, because this guy in
Texas took the time and trouble to call me directly by telephone, I figured that
he was serious about moving to Hokkaido and so I have been keeping in touch with
him ever
since that day in August of last year.
Since that time, he has started several websites. One of them is dedicated
to his family's move to Hokkaido and is called "Hokkaido Bound". You can
visit his website by
clicking here. The other website he has started is dedicated to
a more spiritual, exploration of life, in general, and you can visit this
website by clicking here.
By the way, for those of you out there who don't know much about Houston Texas,
let me just say a very few words about it here. Houston is the 4th
largest city in the USA, and it NEVER SNOWS in Houston. I
myself, have been to Houston only one time, and at that time I was only about 17
years old. The only clear memory of the city that I still retain
today is that it was the type of place, that I would never choose to live in.
Please, give me a break! Give me the country roads of
Hokkaido, in any season, and I am a Happy Camper 大満足です. Yo!
Charles!!! I am very much looking forward to meeting you and
your family, right here with boots on the ground, in beautiful Hokkaido.
See ya'll soon!
CLICK HERE to LISTEN
2007 January 9 Tuesday.
Finally!!!
It IS snowing! (That depends on what the meaning of the word IS,
is,...) Now, it is really starting to feel like winter. Today
would be a good day to go snowboarding but unfortunately I can't because I have
straight classes from 15:00 until 20:00. Let's see, I have this same
schedule every weekday from now on until summer vacation, so night time
snowboarding is out, except on the weekends. I don't have any
morning classes until next week so I could possibly go in the morning from 10:00
until 12:00 or maybe even 13:00, but that is cutting it a bit close, considering
travel time and everything else that goes along with a snowboarding expedition.
I guess I will just have to go on Saturday or Sunday during the daytime or at
night. That seems to be my only real option this season. Even though
it is much colder at night, I prefer to go snowboarding under the lights because
there are less people on the ski slopes, and also because it is easier to see
the contours of the ski slope due to of the shadows that the artificial
illumination creates. Sometimes during the daytime, especially if it
is clear and sunny, the snow surface is so bright, that I can't see a mogul or a
depression in the snow surface, until I am right on top of it. I
have taken some nasty spills this way, in the past. I guess my next
real opportunity to glide along in powder heaven will be on Saturday afternoon
(I have a private lesson in the morning from 10:00 until 11:30), or sometime
during Sunday. This IS if, and only if, it KEEPS ON SNOWING BIG
POWDER SNOW. Please, don't let me down now, big snowman.
CLICK HERE to LISTEN
2007 January 8 Monday.
Today
is a National Holiday in Japan called Coming of Age Day 成人の日. It is
also the last day of my winter vacation, and none too soon. While I did
enjoy the free time and take advantage of it by doing various things, I couldn't
go snowboarding even once, because there was just not enough powder snow.
It hasn't snowed for weeks! Strange. Anyway, back to today's
events. In Japan, when a person becomes 20 years old, they are
considered to be an adult. Therefore, those young people who have turned
20 years old during the past year between this date last year and today, are
able to attend one of the Coming of Age Day Ceremonies 成人式 in their village,
town or city. The young ladies dress up in a beautiful formal kimono
振袖 and the young men wear either a traditional Haori Hakama 羽織 袴, or a
business suit. They may hear a speech from the mayor of the city and other
VIPs telling them that they are now expected to contribute to society in a
responsible manner etc. etc. After the ceremony is finished, many young
people will go to a bar or a restaurant and have a big party. One
of the things Ikuko and I did today was to drive over to the Kamikawa Shrine
上川神社 with all of our New Year's decorations so that we could burn them in
a ceremony called DonDo Yaki どんど焼き. This is kind of a shame because some
of the decorations were really pretty. As expected, it was very crowded at
the shrine and there were guardmen standing around to direct traffic.
After we finished that, we came back home and spent time reading various things
about various subjects. Tomorrow it's back to the regular work
schedule.
CLICK HERE to LISTEN
2007 January 7 Sunday.
As
I mentioned in yesterday's blog, the sky was cloudy and it was very cold in the
morning. Did it really SNOW? Well, sort of. There were
some big fluffy flakes falling from the sky by late afternoon, and then as it
got darker and darker, the wind began to howl, and the snow swirled around and
around, in a natural spiral motion. It was a bit frightening, but
the bark (of the dog) was worse than the bite (of the dog). Meaning,
the noise was worse than the result of all the noise. The resulting storm
left very little snow on the ground. I won't be going snowboarding
today. What to do,.... I know, stay indoors and
learn how to use Macromedia FreeHand MX much more skillfully.
Fortunately for me after doing an internet search for eLearning tutorials for
this software, I found a very good website. You can see it too by
clicking here. Not only was a good part of it FREE, but it was
also very well produced and presented. Thank you for making that, not just
for me, but for millions and millions, maybe more, people who will benefit from
your excellent instruction. Damn good job! I spent
about six straight hours watching and re-watching the introductory lessons on
how to use the basic TOOL SET in FreeHand MX. What an easy and
enjoyable way to learn. Right here at home. Via the World Wide
Web. Isn't it great? Yes, very great and very wide
spread. Is it a good thing, or a bad thing? As with EVERYTHING, it
is BOTH, at the SAME TIME. The easy way to visualize this concept is
to think of a DOUBLE EDGE sword (razor) that cuts both ways, and equally well in
both directions. BE CAREFUL how you use the TOOLS at your disposal.
Do you want to be sucked up into the sky, or sucked down into the vortex.
To the bottom of the sea. Either way is possible, and equally so.
Watch your step, and tread lightly. Your thoughts are in your hands,
and in your feet as well.
CLICK HERE to LISTEN
2007 January 6 Saturday.
A
very cold morning with cloudy skies. Could this be a sign from above that
today it will SNOW??? I had a private lesson starting just before
10:00 and lasting for about 95 minutes. It was with a young mother
and her two daughters, the younger 3 years old, the elder 6 years old.
Just before the lesson started, the mother asked me if we should separate the
siblings and give them individual lessons. I replied no. Let's have
everybody together around this table and make it a see-saw game, with the lesson
going from easy to more difficult, and then again back to easy and so on and so
forth. She agreed, and everybody had a wonderful time.
As the young mother mentioned to me last week when they all took their first
FREE TRIAL lesson, she wants her 3 children to be able to SPEAK (communicate) in
English naturally. I fully understand her desire, and I know well
how to train people in English Language Communication. I have been
doing it for many years. I told her that this training will require about
3 or 4 years of weekly lessons, to accomplish. PERSISTENCE is the
KEY. If you keep up a weekly schedule of regular English
lessons, you will become able to use the spoken language in a spontaneous way,
and as a result of that, continue learning more and more about it in a
completely natural way. It's not rocket science. It's
the completely natural flow of the cosmic vibrations, which permeate and
ANIMATE everything. And I do mean everything. Music
being to most obvious manifestation of what I am talking about here.
More on that later.
CLICK HERE to LISTEN
2007 January 5 Friday.
Sunny.
No Snow. The streets are bare and dry. The weather forecast
was a lie. Oh My! Tomorrow morning I have a private lesson at
10:00, here in my classroom so,...... I must transform myself in to MR.
CLEAN! Better known over here as the
DUSKIN MAN. I have my job cut out for me. I do this
SAME ROUTINE every year at this time. Almost everyone here in Japan does
as well. They call it 大掃除. I call it a pain in the arse.
And a few other body parts as well. In past years, I have completely
stripped down, mopped up, and re-waxed the floors. This year, I
don't have time. This year more than ever, I must encourage my
students to; "look up, towards the future". I know they will.
Even without the wax job this year, taking down and putting away the Xmas tree
and all of its related paraphernalia, plus a complete vacuum cleaner and mop
job, took me a good 12 hours on the project. Of course I did sit down and
take a rest from time to time and eat some food while watching various things on
Sky Perfect TV. After the place was all squared away, and in
ship-shape, I needed to take a shower. Maybe even a long hot bath.
The long hot bath sounded like the best option but when I took another look at
the bathroom in better light, I realized that I still had yet one more mission
for Mr. Clean. Clean the walls, tub and floor completely.
So, I did it in about 50 minutes time. Whew!
NOW,...... I am ready for that long hot bath. A cold
drink sounds nice too.
CLICK HERE to LISTEN
2007 January 4 Thursday.
Today
was yet again, another sunny day with daytime temperatures just above freezing
with wet streets, and then when the sun goes down, quickly becoming frozen
again. No new snowfall at all. PLEASE!
Before my winter vacation is finished. I need some Big Powder Snow for my
snowboard. Where are you hiding it? I want a SNOWSTORM.
Super Size it, too, please. It is very odd for Asahikawa to have NO
Big Snow 大雪 at this time of the year. Who is responsible for this outrage?
Straight answers only please. No BS. No, seriously
for a moment here folks, this winter is really weird. At least here
inside the city itself. On the flip side, the good news is that the
sky at night is clear and beautiful. One can easily see the stars and
planets that are "in season" now. Most notably, SIRIUS to the
southeast is so bright that you would have to wear a welding mask not to see it.
The constellation of ORION is also clearly visible just above SIRIUS and to the
south-southeast. In the east, a full moon is smiling down upon us, while
Saturn is visible towards the horizon in the same general direction at
east-northeast. Also, if a person were so inclined, they could stay
outside for an hour or two and observe several shooting stars at this time of
the year. A very cold time of the year. I'm heading back
indoors. The only real question I have right now is,.......
WHERE IS ALL THE SNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOW????
2007 January 3 Wednesday.
Today
was another sunny and rather warm day with absolutely no new snowfall. In
fact, it hasn't snowed significantly for a couple of weeks or longer.
I won't be going snowboarding until we get another big dump of the white stuff,
because right now the ski slopes are nothing but solid ice. Very dangerous
even for expert skiers. I need to send out an original birthday card
by this evening, so I thought about what kind of design to make for this year.
I decided to use the snowman image that I had made on January 1, copy and
paste it about 6 times, and give each snowman a different colored hat.
Sound simple? It is. Or, at least it should have been.
Since I made the original image using Microsoft PhotoDraw 2000 version 2, I
decided to continue with the same software and make the other snowmen.
I was in for a big surprise. As I was copying and pasting the
snowman image in PhotoDraw, I would save the file again every time I made a
major change to it. Suddenly, I starting getting an error message
that said "Cannot Save File, Insufficient Memory" Say What???
The entire file size is only 2.4 Megabytes and my PC has 512 Megabytes of Random
Access Memory. How could this be? Since I had already finished
making the hats into 7 different colors, I did not want to start all over again
in Macromedia (Adobe) Freehand and redraw everything, but maybe I should have.
So, I tried to save the file as a JPEG and then open it up again in Fireworks.
Again I got the same error message "Not enough RAM to save the file".
Ai Yai Yai!!! Now I was getting close to my deadline for
mailing the birthday card and I could neither save it nor print in out.
What to do, what to do? I finally got around the problem by copying
and pasting each and every one of the 7 snowmen, plus the words of the message,
into Fireworks and saving each object as it's own individual png (bitmap) file.
Then, I reassembled all of the objects into one PostCard sized file in
Freehand. Finally, I was able to print out the postcard sized
birthday card, and get it into a mailbox. How many hours did all of
this take me??? I won't tell you because it is rather embarrassing,
but it took basically all day, along with doing a few other things on the side.
Mission Impossible? Almost but, it became Mission
Accomplished. I think I will be using Freehand and Fireworks from the
beginning of each and every new graphics project that I start from now on.
It is time to finally master those two software programs in order to get more
professional results in the future. Lesson learned.
2007 January 2 Tuesday.
Last
night, Ikuko and I stayed overnight at her mother and aunt's house. Also
present were Ikuko's older sister, her husband and their two sons. After
dinner was finished, we sat around watching the DVD "Death Note", a rather
bizarre animation about the God of Death and a man that can see and hear his
voice. I didn't really pay that much attention to it, because I was busy
using my old laptop PC to make some original drawings of a snowman. You
can see one of them on the left. The only graphics software I have
on my old PC is Microsoft PhotoDraw 2000 version 2.0. It is an easy
to use and reasonably good drawing and photo editing software that I have been
using for about 6 or 7 years. However it does have it's limitations, and
in fact, is no longer on the market. The image you can see on the
left was further edited using Macromedia (Adobe) Fireworks, for reasons that I
will explain in tomorrow's blog. However, the image below in
yesterday's blog was made entirely with PhotoDraw. At about 21:00,
the kids went to bed, and the rest of us sat around drinking wine and watching
some of of the silly variety shows that are on TV every year at this time.
We all talked about various things until about 3:30 in the morning.
It was a time for family matters to be discussed along with some other things as
well. We all fell asleep and then saw each other again this morning
at various times. Ikuko and I were the 3rd and 4th persons to get up at
about 8:00 after her mother and her aunt had already awoken and prepared a
Japanese style breakfast. Yummy. Ikuko had to go to work at
HOMAC this morning, but I had another day of winter vacation. I will get
back to teaching classes on January 9.
2007 January 1 Monday.
Well,
well, well, another New Year has dawned. Have you made any New
Year's Resolutions? I have. I make the same ones every
year, just about. Number one on the list; lose more weight.
Right now, I weight about 97 kilograms. Hey, don't laugh! Last year
at this time I weighted about 112 kilos. So, I have made some progress.
However, I need to lose another 20 or 25 kilos so that I can wear my LEVI
501 jeans again. They all have a 34 or 36 inch waist line, and have been
sitting in boxes, for about 8 years now, waiting for me to wear them
again. Maybe by summer vacation I can put them back on again.
Maybe. Another resolution, is to develop more eLearning applications
for this website. The only one you can use now is
Snow Radio. Yes, it is in reality, an eLearning application for
adults, disguised as an internet radio show. I will be making some
eLearning applications for children in the very near future. Another
resolution, I want to continue my study of the Korean and Chinese languages, as
well as retain familiarity with French, German and Thai. The latter
are three foreign languages that I have studied in the distant past, but have
never had a chance to use in my daily life, so I have forgotten most of what I
learned in years past. I often listen to foreign language CDs while
driving my van, or even while I am sitting in the hot tub. Sometimes when
I am taking a long walk, I will listen to them on my portable MD player.
It is the easy and natural way to learn a foreign language by ear.
Another resolution that I make every year is to write more and better textbooks
for my classroom, and I do so on a continuous basis. If you were to
compare the first textbooks I wrote more than 12 years ago, with the ones I am
writing and using today, you would immediately see a huge difference in the
amount, variety and quality of my original textbooks. It is an ongoing
learning process for me, and I enjoy writing them very much. All I have to
do is sit down and spend time writing them. Speaking of writing, I
intend to continue writing this blog every day as I have for almost 2 years now.
To my unexpected delight, I have discovered that many people in and around
Asahikawa City, are not only reading my blog, but they are in fact printing it
out at home, and putting the pages into a notebook binder, and using them as a
textbook for studying English!!! Great!!! Please do so.
Even though this written material is Copyrighted by me, I don't mind if people
print it out and use it for themselves. I mean, who would try to sell it
when anyone, anywhere in the world, can see it on the internet for free.
This is also why I made Snow Radio as my first eLearning application on the NET,
because I already knew that some people would be able to use it right away for
their study of the English language. Stay tuned folks, more radio
shows coming soon. Other than that, I will continue to do what
I do every day and get better at it. It is so nice to be
able to live here among the beautiful nature of Hokkaido with its very distinct
4 seasons going round and round, in a spiral motion,... making new
things and enjoying the friendly company of many people. Both young and
old. Like me, old in body but young at heart.
Grow up???? NEVER!!! Anyway, I wish all of you out
there, whether you live in Hokkaido or not, a very happy and prosperous new year
in 2007. And I hope you will continue to enjoy reading my blog and
listening to Snow Radio. Talk to ya again soon.
Bye for now. Norman D.
CLICK HERE to LISTEN
Welcome 教室の住所 営業時間 システム オリジナル教材兼学習レベル スノーマン先生 旭川
北海道 写真館 エッセイ 台本の英訳 和英翻訳 BLOG links
Copyright © Snowman Bei Kaiwa 1996-2007